"Is that all you got?" The Rainbow coloured Pegasi said as she dashed past me. I licked my lips and pushed forwards, the air whipping through my mane. This was definitely a new record for me, I had never flown this fast I was sure of it! I started to gain on the rainbow pony, becoming faster and faster. I passed her with a smug on my face, right in time to cross the finish line and claim victory!
"I can't believe I did it! I actually beat her!" The young filly Rainbow Dash panted as she moved towards me,
"Damn Jacki, you're pretty BEEP" I looked at her questionably
"What did you say?" she didn't respond with words, but instead she just shouted "BEEP BEEP BEEP," and that's when I realized I was dreaming.
I slowly and drearily opened my eyes, leaving all of the images of my fillyhood in my dreams. BEEP BEEP BEEP! I smacked the alarm clock with my right hoof and it finally shut up. I lifted my head up and turned to look at the time
"Oh my god! Its 9:30! Damnit, I'm going to be late!" I pulled the covers off of me, jumped out of bed and ran to the mirror, I looked horrible, but I had no choice but to deal with that fact.
Today was the biggest day of my life, I wasn't about to blow it by sleeping in, I couldn't miss this opportunity, I had to be there, even if I was going to be late...
This is slightly typical of me, almost every time in my life that I need to be somewhere at a strict time, I'm always late.
My name is Jacki Jolts. I am a cyan blue coloured Pegasi, who's special talent is to fly, sound familiar? Yeah, Rainbow Dash. Me and her were best friends as fillies, the only difference between us is that I have a red and blue maine, when she has all the colours of the rainbow, but I mean even our god damn cutie marks are alike, hers is a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt coming out of it, when mine is a pulsating yellow lightning bolt, and not to even mention we have the same eye colour... We stopped being best friends around academy years, when we realized that only one of us could become the best flyer. Only one of us could become a Wonder Bolt.
A week ago it was announced that Spitfire was retiring from the Wonder Bolts, and that Soarin would be taking over in her place as head of the team, but they would still be one mare short, meaning that auditions are being held.
I bolted out of the front door almost as fast as I could, making sure not to exhaust myself for the auditions. I calculated the distance, I figured it would take about 6 minutes to fly there at this speed, meaning I would be about 10 minutes late, this was bad. I picked up the pace a little bit.
I knew there was no competition really, besides Rainbow Dash. I am a fantastic flyer, and I have yet to meet anypony else who can combat me in a race, last time I came in any place but first was against Rainbow, and even then I destroyed every other racer.
I could see some banners in the distance, and could hardly make out the words "Wonder Bolts" on them. The auditions were in the Cloudsdale coliseum, same place where the young flyer competition was held. I was supposed to be in it, but unfortunately I had a broken bone in my wing, meaning I was unable to fly, but I was still in the audience, and yes, I saw the sonic rainboom, which was really my only fear for the upcoming auditions. Word on the cloud is that she can actually do that whenever she wants now, apparently she destroyed a barn on Sweet Apple Acres by performing a sonic rainboom into it, at least that's what I heard. If she can pull off that move, I don't have a chance, especially after she won the young flyer competition.
I finally arrived at the gates to the coliseum, where I was stopped by two royal guards. 'Royal guards? Does that mean Princess Celestia will be watching!?' I thought, slightly afraid now, but I was comforted by a smile from the right guard as I approached, it was my brother, Strong Wing.
"Typical of you sis, always late," he said to me,
"Heh, yeah, sorry about that, might have slept in a little bit," I looked to the other guard, "Hey John, how are you today?"
"Oh, you know, same old same old, protecting the princess, the usual." he responded.
I smiled and looked back to my brother, "So why are you guys here?"
"Well why else, the princess decided to come watch the auditions, and is playing a large part in choosing the next Wonder Bolt,"
I sighed, exactly what I feared.
My brother could tell I was feeling bad about not being on time, "Oh, and don't worry too much about being late," he said, "Last I heard them announce was contestant 13, so you should be fine, providing your any number higher than that, now go and show them how the flying is really done!"
I smiled at him, "Thanks bro, See you later John!"
John smiled at me and nodded. Both him and my brother stiffened up into standard guarding pose and stepped out of the way for me to pass through. When I walked by my brother winked at me, I winked back and went in with boasted confidence.
I entered the stadium and surveyed the area. Last time I was here was the young flyers competition, so all of it looked pretty familiar. All along the side of the stadium were areas that the Pegasi could sit at to view competitions or events of some sort. The stadiums was locked to everyone but competitors, so the stands were empty, all but one. Princess Celestia sat in a high seat centered to all other stands, she seemed to be quite intrigued by the purple pony who was currently performing, doing a bunch of backflips and tricks. 'Impressive, but I can do better,' I thought. I flew silently behind all the stands to the waiting room near the back of the stadium.
Finally arriving at the entrance, I could hear loud chatter coming from the inside. I looked back towards the princess, and I noticed her watching me. Startled, I jumped out of view and into the room.
The place was humongous, with large white pillars, made to make it look like the structure was being held up by them, but I knew they were just for decoration. There were stands all along the walls, each with their own cloud seats for a comfortable place to rest while you wait. For the most part they were all filled up, but I noticed one with a grey coloured Pegasi in it all by her self, leaving plenty of room for other ponies. I decided I didn't want to sit on the floor for a couple of hours, so I flew up and had a seat.
The grey Pegasi paid me no attention as I sat down, she seemed too consumed in looking around the room at all of the ponies. I noticed the number on her flank, it read 57, at this point I realized I didn't have a number.
"Hay! You Jacki Jolts?" said a raspy voiced Pegasi as she approached the booth, I assumed she was the back stage manager.
"Uhm, yeah that's me." she pulled out a piece of paper and wrote something on it, then she flew over and slapped it on my flank, startling me.
"Hey! What the-" she pointed to the piece of paper that was now on my back, it read number 73, "Oh, ok, sorry."
The pony then walked away in another direction, and I sat back down on the cloud.
"Whew! I made it." I said, not entirely realizing I said it out loud.
"Hai!" I jumped up in the air, and looked to the source of the voice, it was the blonde haired gray Pegasi that was sitting next to me. She looked intently at me waiting for me to speak, a large smile on her face, one that I could actually recognize, "Hey, I know you... You're..."
"Derpy Hooves! Yep that's me!" she interrupted.
"Yeah, from flight school academy, how have you been?"
I remembered Derpy, quite well, she was my flight partner for an entire year in the academy, I didn't like it too much, her skills don't nearly match mine, but she is still a fun mare to be around. She is a simpleton pony, with a grey coloured coat, a blonde mane, yellow eyes, and bubbles for a cutie mark. I never understood what the cutie mark stood for.
"So you DO wanna be a wonder bolt!" she said smiling, I now remembered that I had told her about my dreams, I guess she remembered.
"Been wanting it my whole li-" I was interrupted.
"Jacki Jolts... I was afraid you wouldn't show up!" the rainbow coloured pony flew calmly over and set down in front of me.
"Rainbow Dash!" Derpy spouted happily.
Now, let me make something perfectly clear. Rainbow Dash and I aren't necessarily enemies, in fact more friends then I think we let on to be, we still even hang out occasionally and fly together just for fun, but when two want what only one can have, you don't exactly become best friends.
"Heh, hey Rainbow, sorry I'm late." I looked at her flank... No, not like that. The number on the sticker read 72. 'Naturally,' I thought, 'Of course she has the number just below mine.'
Derpy looked really happy to see Rainbow, they had been occasionally bucking clouds together over the years, but I think after the whole town hall event, they don't do it anymore. Derpy sticks to delivering mail, and Rainbow sticks to cloud duty.
"Yeah, what took you so long Jacki? I thought I wouldn't have any competition, you didn't break your wing again, did you?"
I put my back up, "No, I just slept in, my alarm went off late."
She looked at me and smiled comfortably, the only reason I still liked Rainbow as a friend is because we supported each other, even though only one of could succeed in the way we wanted. Derpy sat impatiently waiting for her chance to talk.
"Heh, hey listen," Rainbow said, "I honestly just got here too... About five minutes ago."
Her saying this made me feel much better, knowing that probably the best flyer here was also late.
"So... Number 72 and 73... Always have to be alike, don't we?" I said,
"Yeah, getting a bit ridiculous, don't you think?" She responded,
Derpy blurted in, "Hey Rainbow, how you been, I'm good, are you good?"
Rainbow smiled, "Hey Derpy, I haven't seen you since cloud bucking at town hall..."
The blonde mare looked down in shame, clearly remembering what she had done wrong.
"I'm sorry Rainbow," Derpy started, "I was meaning to tell you, but every time I saw you, you seemed to busy going somewhere quickly..."
Rainbow shuffled nervously, while I sat there, confused about the conversation.
"I saw you yelling, but I thought you were commending me for doing a good job, and I was so happy that I didn't see where I was going... I just don't know what went wrong."
Rainbow Dash smiled at the pouting Pegasi, "Heh, it's okay, I don't blame you, one way or another the girls and I made enough money to fix it up." Derpy smiled and looked at me, seemingly dropping the subject,
"So Jacki are you and Rainbow both going to become Wonder Bolts!? I hope I become a Wonder Bolt!"
Dash and I looked at each other and smiled, Derpy wasn't a bad flyer, I just don't think she could ever be a Wonder Bolt.
I looked comfortingly at Derpy, "No, unfortunately only one of us will make the team."
"Yeah, so it will be a pretty fierce competition between us." Rainbow added.
"Well, I hope I have a good chance..." Derpy said.
"Well, you never know what might-" I stopped mid sentence, there was a large roar coming from the outside, and I could immediately tell it wasn't friendly. The room fell silent in terror.
At that moment, the purple Pegasi who I saw performing stumbled into the room, her mane was ruffled up, blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, and half of her tail was ripped off.
She gathered all of her strength and while panting she yelled "EVERYPONY, RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"
The room looked confused and terrified at the same time, then came a second roar from the outside. All the faces turned to horror.
All three of us looked at each other with the same expression of terror. There came a third loud Roar that I felt shake the entire cloud the stadium was standing on.
"Um, Guys," Derpy said, "What in Celestias name was that?"
