Fallin' Hard

Chapter ONE

"Everywhere we go-oh!"

"EVERYWHERE WE GO-OH!"

"Ponies wanna know-oh!"

"PONIES WANNA KNOW-OH!"

"Whoooo we a-are!"

"WHOOOO WE A-ARE!"

"Soooooo we tell them!"

"SOOOOOO WE TELL THEM!"

"We are the Wonderbolts!"

"WE ARE THE WONDERBOLTS!"

"The high-flying Wonderbolts!"

"THE HIGH-FLYING WONDERBOLTS!"

Soarin' chanted along with the other Wonderbolts, his skin cooking under his new tracksuit as he jogged near the end of the pack. When Rapidfire gave him the suit earlier this morning, the teenybopper-like squee that flew from his lips would have been right at home in the front row of a Sapphire Shores concert. Not his most dignified moment, to be sure, but at least the team leader hadn't been present for that outburst. Phew. The last thing he needed was Spitfire thinking he was just another groupie looking to rub shoulders with the stars.

"Pick up the pace, cadet," Spitfire shouted from overhead, wings beating as she hovered above the jogging pack. "And quit daydreaming on my track. This is a workout, not a stroll down memory lane."

In the three months he had been training with the Bolts, Soarin' never once saw Spitfire jog along the track during a morning endurance exercise. And not because she thought herself above her teammates, but because she rose earlier than the others and did her jogging at first light. Though she believed in leading by example, she refused to do so at the cost of her authoritarian veneer.

"A good general must wear many helms", her old drill instructor had taught her, during her days as a grunt in Celestia's Royal Guard. "And for any unit to work, the subordinates must feel that their leader simultaneously walks among and above them."

Soarin' knew nothing of leadership himself, but the other cadets often gossiped about Spitfire's Guard training. They claimed the brass had been deliberately grooming her to seat a high office, before the romance of the wild blue called her elsewhere. Others swore she was a deserter with enough friends at Canterlot Castle to keep her out of prison, but Soarin' didn't believe any of that nonsense.

"Yeah, Fallin', pick it up!" laughed Fleetfoot as she darted by to lap him. "I've seen corpses move faster than you!"

Soarin' did, however, believe all the nasty gossip about Fleetfoot. According to the rumor-mill, she had grown up a poor foster filly on the streets of Manehattan, and had been arrested a dozen or so times before joining the Bolts. For a mare fast enough to be a Wonderbolt, she had been awfully good at getting herself caught.

The rookie grit his teeth and chased after her, his blood popping and hissing with fury. Fleetfoot was the worst thing about the Wonderbolts. She awarded him the nickname "Fallin'" after an especially mortifying mishap on the Dizzytron, and had been heckling him non-stop ever since.

"Cut the crap you two!" shouted Spitfire as both Soarin' and Fleetfoot broke into a full gallop. "Quit wasting energy down there! It's not a race!"

Oh, but it was. It had been since day one with these two.

Soarin' weaved between established Wonderbolts and fellow prospects alike, his eyes narrowing with focus as he gained on Fleetfoot. He concentrated on her lissome form, envious of the speed and muscle coordination that comprised her fluid stride. With the top half of her track suit missing, sunlight shimmered on the hairs of her river-blue coat, her white-water mane and tail. For a pegasus, the blue that colored her coat bore little resemblance to the sky. At rest her fur made Soarin' think of a placid lake or a serene pond, but in motion she was a current, a violent surge of water racing down a raging rapid.

"Flying ponyfeathers, now that's just adorable," said Fleetfoot, tossing a glance and a smirk over her shoulder. "Little Fallin' here thinks he can outrun the fastest sprinter on the Bolts. That's hilarious. Hey, Rapidfire, isn't that hilarious."

"I'm busting a gut," said Rapidfire from a few paces behind, his flat tone suggesting that no such guts were indeed busting. He didn't look like much of a flier, his build too thick and rotund, almost buffalo-like, but Soarin' had seen him keep pace with Spitfire during cloudbusting exercises.

Both Soarin' and Fleetfoot, the rookie and the veteran, advanced far ahead of the pack. When he finally caught her, she cocked her head and said, "First to lap Rapid wins! And since I'm in a generous mood, I think I'll give you a head start. Does five seconds sound fair?"

Soarin' was at a loss. He had no breath for speaking at this speed, and wondered how Fleetfoot could manage it with such ease.

"You're right," she said when Soarin' failed to answer. "Better make it an even ten." The rookie ran ahead as Fleetfoot laughed and skidded to a sudden stop. He disliked her laugh. It was too high and too mean, the cocky jerk.

Spitfire's sunbeam glare seared the back of his head, singeing individual hairs. Soarin' knew he was making an ass of himself -- again -- but his nerves ran run away with him just the same. Literally.

He'd never been a good loser, not since flight school and years of being picked last for sports. Unlike Fleetfoot and Rapidfire and the others, the young Wonderbolt prospect was no talented athlete, no genetic lotto winner or recipient of any natural gifts. He was skilled. Trained. He wasn't born a high caliber athlete; he'd worked hard for this.

The rookie lowered his head, putting his nose to that all too familiar grindstone, and plunged down the track. Sweat beaded on his face; sweat rolled down his neck and shoulders; sweat pooled under his leg-pits, staining his tracksuit with dark circles.

He was at top speed when the clamor of charging hooves sounded from behind. The pack came into view again, and so did a steadily jogging Rapidfire: Soarin's finish line. But now his adversary was coming into view as well, slow but steady, a silver-blue silhouette at the edge of his peripheral vision.

Ponyfeathers, she was fast. And in the one or two seconds it took the veteran Bolt to surge past the rookie, overtake Rapidfire and claim an easy victory, Soarin' felt lost and betrayed. Every coach he'd ever had until joining the Wonderbolt Academy had fed him the same lie: that when it came down to the wire, the pony that wanted it more would always win.

But that wasn't true. In that moment Soarin' had wanted to win this stupid, pointless race more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. But Fleetfoot was faster, better, would always be better, and no amount of wanting anything would ever change that.

He skidded to a brusque stop after lapping Rapidfire, exhausted, but not so tired that he couldn't rip off his track jacket and fling it into the dust. Huffing and puffing, he wiped a waterfall of sweat from his brow and stared down at nothing in particular. He stood still for a long while, then kicked his jacket aside, a terse "Ponyfeathers!" escaping his throat.

"Not bad, Fallin'," said Fleetfoot, panting less than a foot from him. "You gave me a little scare back there. Emphasis on little."

"Enough with the Fallin' crap already," he snapped. "It's not funny any more."

"Yeah, you're right; it is a lame nickname. I think I prefer Fallin' Short." She gave him a teasing shove.

"I said quit it!" He tried to shove her back, but Spitfire dropped between them, wings flared like two bright yellow yield signs. She ripped off her sunglasses and fixed Fleetfoot with a glare. Her eyes were miniature frozen suns lodged in an angry scowl, bright but icy cold.

"You all done making an ass of yourself?" she said.

"Nah," said Fleetfoot, her composure as cool as Spitfire's glare. "I think I got a few more minutes in me. I'll let you know when I'm all done though." Her grin was slight but unwavering.

"You just earned yourself another fifty laps."

"Ah, lighten up. I was only busting the new guy's balls."

"And now you're up to a hundred. But by all means, keep running your mouth, smart ass."

"Please. I could do one-fifty in my sleep."

"Then I'm sure you can handle two hundred, since you're so fresh and wide-awake after that invigorating little sprint."

Fleetfoot was still catching her breath. She didn't look terribly 'fresh' or 'wide-awake' to Soarin'.

"Two hundred it is, boss," said Fleetfoot with a mock salute. She purposely bumped Spitfire's shoulder as she swaggered by, but kept going like nothing had happened. Soarin' might have been new to the Wonderbolts and their power dynamics, but he knew a challenge when he saw one.

Spitfire answered the challenge. She spun around and grabbed Fleetfoot by the shoulder, halting her. "Cool it." Her voice was stern. "Enough with the pissing contest, alright. Just cool it."

"I'm cool, boss," and she was, or at least she played the part well enough. "Cooler than a mountain stream..." Her wings flared to catch a near-nonexistent swell of air, and Soarin' didn't once see her flap as she drifted further down the track. Amazing. He wished he could pull a stunt like that.

"And you," said the team captain, whirling on Soarin'. "You're with me. You and I need to talk."

But they didn't talk, at least not at first, just flitted off toward the sky where Spitfire brooded in silence. The quiet was agonizing, and waiting for the team captain to dole out his punishment was worse.

While Fleetfoot had taken great pains to clearly define their relationship -- she the tormentor and he the endlessly tormented -- his bond with Spitfire was still, for lack of a more clever phrase, up in the air. For the first few weeks she had been everything he'd expected her to be: stern, short with the new cadets, always barking orders and throwing her wait around. But she'd softened after those first hellish weeks, and Soarin' sometimes caught her tossing him interested glances during his more vigorous workouts.

But then, she did that to all the new recruits, and not just the stallions either. He wasn't sure what to make of that.

They were drifting high above the academy when Soarin' plucked up the courage to ask, "So... am I in trouble?"

"I haven't decided yet," she answered. "But don't worry. If you are, your punishment won't be as severe as Fleetfoot's. I expect that kind of horsing around from the cadets, but she's been with us for awhile. She should no better."

"Right..." said Soarin', unsure if Spitfire was even talking to him. "What's the deal with Fleetfoot anyway? No offense, but she's kind of a jerk."

"Don't let her get to you. Tormenting the newbies is just her way of saying hello. It means she likes you."

"Funny way of showing it."

"She'll grow on you. Fleet's still fairly new to the team herself, and isn't quite past the 'something to prove' stage of our relationship yet."

Soarin' remembered how she had shoved by Spitfire. He had yet to see anything half as bold from any of the others. "Maybe she does," he said. "She doesn't seem all that special."

"Actually... she kinda is." Spitfire found a cloud to land on and beckoned Soarin' to join her. The cloud was only about as big as a loveseat, and he could feel her body heat warming his skin. They were so close. He tried not to tremble or vomit or do anything to earn himself another embarrassing nickname.

"I'm proud to admit that Fleetfoot is the team's most talented athlete. What she did just now -- giving you that head start and still smoking you by a good five or six seconds -- I could never pull a stunt like that, even on my best day."

"Really?" Soarin' was astonished. "But you're Spitfire! The Wonderbolt!"

"And don't you ever forget it, Fallin'." On her lips the taunt didn't sound like the insult Fleetfoot had intended it to be, but a petname, the sort a mare gives to her lover. "I do alright, but Fleet is special. She makes me look like an amateur every year at the derby, and that crack about her jogging a hundred and fifty laps in her sleep wasn't all hot air. Take a look for yourself, you'll see."

Spitfire cast a proud gaze down at the jogging track, and Soarin' followed her eyeline, his own stare falling on Fleetfoot. She'd removed the rest of her tracksuit in a futile effort to cool off. Her pace had slowed from a canter to a near trudge, and she was all alone now; the others had finished their workout and hit the showers.

But as haggard as she looked, Fleetfoot kept flowing onward, a trickle of a stream sluicing along parched earth. Soarin' marveled at her stamina. He'd been doing a lot of that for the past nine months here at the academy: marveling.

"Whoa," he said. "How does she do it?"

"One step at a time, I imagine. No different from you or me." Spitfire turned her head and arrested Soarin' with those blistering sun-fire eyes. He couldn't look directly at her; she was burning too brightly.

"Nah, she's way different from me." He hid his shame behind a wistful smile. "I'd have dropped half-dead after the first hundred laps. I don't have talent like that. Never have."

"Shut up." Spitfire laughed and gave his shoulder a playful punch. It stung more than he expected it to. "Mr. 'Best Young Flier three years running' over here. Don't even try feeding me that I-got-no-talent crap."

"I mean it," he countered sharply, though his mood had brightened a bit. "I had to bust my ass for those three wins. Back in high school I always got picked last for sports."

Spitfire raised an eyebrow. "No kidding? I would have pegged you for captain of the football team. A real Letterman-Jacket-wearing douche bag."

"Not even close. Try head of the chess-and-games club. Glasses, braces and all."

"You wear glasses?"

"Contacts now. And I had a retainer until my sophomore year in college."

Spitfire giggled, the sound uncharacteristically cute. "Now you're just fishing for compliments."

"Am I getting any bites?" He grinned at her, and she grinned back, her cheeks flushing. So bright. So lovely.

"I hate the way you look at me," she said after a brief silence. "And not just me, but Fleetfoot and Rapidfire too. You look up at us like we're standing on some unreachable mountaintop."

"Well yeah," said Soarin'. "The Bolts are my heroes. I'm lucky to even be sharing the same air space as you guys."

"Stop that." Spitfire looked down at her hooves and shook her head, seeming suddenly upset. "I'm not your hero, okay. I'm just a pony, not some fanboy's wet dream."

"I didn't say anything like --"

"And you weren't chosen by luck," she interrupted. "You're here because the team wants you here, even Fleetfoot. We all put it to a vote, and when your name came up, hers was the first nod of approval. Rapidfire wanted to cut you three months ago, and I was still undecided. Fleet tipped the scale. If not for her, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

Soarin' looked down at the track, and at Fleetfoot. She was still running. "Really?" His eyes dilated wide. He was marveling again.

"If you don't wipe that stupid look off your face, I'm gonna do it for you." Spitfire stood up, eyes flashing with the same authority she'd displayed down on the track. "On your hooves, cadet. If you want to be a Wonderbolt you'd better start acting the part."

Soarin' bolted upright. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am."

“Flying ponyfeathers." She looked him up and down, shaking her head in disapproval. "We gotta loosen you up some, get you comfortable with seeing yourself as our equal." She glanced down at Fleetfoot. "On me, Fallin'. And keep your mouth shut."

Soarin' watched Spitfire's blazing banner of a tail flag as he followed her down to the track. He was downwind of the captain, and a breeze carried her natural scent to his nose, a sweet mixture of sweat and summer romance.

"That's enough for one morning, Fleetfoot," said Spitfire, hovering above her fellow Bolt as she jogged.

"The Tartarus it is. I still have thirty laps to go."

Spitfire dropped in her path, halting her. "I said stop. I'm planning to break in the newbie here, and I want you there to oversee the session."

"The usual?"

"The usual."

Fleetfoot's eyes flicked to Soarin, then back to Spitfire, then back to Soarin' again. "Yeah, okay," she grumbled reluctantly, though her eyes relayed a different message entirely. Soarin' was no expert at reading ponies, but he knew excitement well enough when he saw it.