Rain Blur

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie waited for Rarity to show up. I wasn't much like her to be late, that lesson was learned in Manehattan long ago. Rarity being late wasn't exactly abnormal; she had just prevented it from happening so often.

Maybe that magic stuff is harder than I thought.

She pondered a few thoughts for a moment. It made sense the more Dash thought about it, she realized that some spells aren't always the easiest to learn. Twilight studied day and night when she was a filly to master her spells, and she is basically the embodiment of magic. Rainbow always thought it would be easy. Think about what you want to happen, then *poof* it's done.

Well if it is harder, then it will probably be longer to...

Pinkie was still bouncing around the street. To her, she was happily greeting ponies. In reality, she was terrifying them by seemingly materializing out of nowhere. It was amusing to watch, but Dash would rather not be in that predicament herself.

It was about 4:15 p.m. They didn't have time to pick of Vinyl. This was taking forever. The pegasus stared down the street, expecting the white unicorn to appear walking down it. The events unfolding around her were ignored after she realized that Rarity was having trouble with the spell. She might not be able to preform it after all. The mare did really know if she could or couldn't. After all, magic isn't exactly her forte.

Rainbow thought about just going to the castle and wait, but Rarity could have taken the longer route that went past her boutique, then Dash would pass her. Then Rarity would be at Sugar Cube Corner wondering where they are and go back to the castle, while she and Pinkie undoubtedly thought the same thing and went back to Sugar Cube Corner, and repeating it over and over again. Nopony had time for that.

Everything was going slowly, so very slow that Pinkie had time to get a seal from Celestia knows where, to bounce a beach ball on its head. The pink pony wasn't in sight though. After Rainbow scanned the crowd and buildings around them she was spotted pulling herself out of a window. She then proceeded to to reach into hammerspace behind her and take a red and white accordion out.

What have I gotten myself into?

The atmosphere of this was joyous. Citizens of Ponyville were enjoying the last of their day with Pinkie's little performance. Instead of watching the spectacle before her, she noticed that behind a bush, there was some shuffling and somepony was getting scolded. Dash trotted over curiously, whoever it was behind the bush wasn't doing a very good job of being secretive.

The mare walked to the front and stood in front of it. The movement had ceased within the bush. All her suspensions were now raised. She peered into and found the ever-so-destructive CMC, but they were missing one. They were both nervous about something, but it wasn't any of her business.

"Uh, hey Rainbow Dash." Scootaloo timidly replied.

"Hey squirt. Where's Applebloom?" Rainbow glanced around the bush and at the tree nearby, but Applebloom wasn't anywhere to be found.

"Were going to get her now! She is over by the crystal castle!" Sweetiebelle squeaked. She was looking at Rainbow Dash. Her eyes were shining green pools that showed cheerfulness and excitement. Scootaloo seemed more impatient than excited.

"Well I won't get in your way. See ya later squirt."

"Bye." Scootaloo replied. They were both relieved that she didn't pry into their crusading ideas. They were secret after all.

The cyan mare chose to practice a few stunts while she waited. If she was going to wait for hours, she might as well do something productive during it. She couldn't help but glance down at what her pink friend was doing. Pinkie was juggling an apple, a banana, and a young colt that she believed was named Button Mash. Many ponies watched her skillfully toss each of the items... and pony, into the air and continue the process as they came back down again.

"Enough of... that. Time to practice."

Rainbow flew up to the nearest cloud and practiced how to make decoy images of herself. They come in handy when you want to confuse the wits out of ponies trying do something they are not supposed to. She has been called out several times to make quick cloud version of Fluttershy when she was too scared to face something. Personally, she thought that was pointless. Flutters would still end up doing it herself anyway when she realize a cloud really couldn't do anything, and that it was obviously not her since the cloud was white.

Rainbow Dash perfected the first one, but fumbled on the second. She sat for a few moments looking at the white copy of herself to the disfigured one. they just floated there aimlessly while she was enraptured by them. Then the mare remembered what she was doing in the first place. With a swift kick, both clouds disappeared into oblivion. The cloud shaping could wait now. She was currently trying to complete a trick the popped into her thoughts while sleeping in a tree. She would get above the highest cloud layer, then jackknife toward the ground. At the last second before hitting the earthy soil, she would flare her wings out parallel to it and with a powerful flap, she would rocket right over the ground. If she used it in one of her performances, she would be roughly a foot or two over the ponies heads. Since going that fast her rainbow contrail would be visible, it would make a right angle.

Time to give it a shot.

She flew up a few thousand feet. Ascending really wasn't her favorite part of flying. She would rather descend. Ascending always took more out of her than she would admit.

She climbed up to where she thought would be enough space for her to get down at a reasonable speed without wearing herself out in one run. Dash hovered for a moment. Everything was so tiny from this height. She felt like she was in that miniatures museum with Flutters again.

There was a twinge of nervousness within her. At this height, if she failed to make herself parallel to the ground, it would surly be her death. All the other times she always did it too early. The fear of hitting the ground at such high speeds compelled her to flair her wings before she wanted to. It wasn't going to happen this time. She was over a field which was barren besides a few hay bales. If she did hit anything, it wouldn't be as bad a hitting a road or any farm equipment.

Rainbow took a few deep breaths and sped off toward the ground. The wind made her vision bleary. She was going just shy of the rainboom speed. The ground was nearing fast. Her consciousness screamed at her to pull up, but Dash had to do this. She had been planning this for months and now was the time to get it right. She raced down, ignoring her consciousness's plea to abandon this attempt at the stunt.

She was at 100 feet.

50 feet.

15 feet

She flared he wings out at 5.....

And pulled it off 3 feet above the ground.

She lost a considerable amount of speed, but the rainbow streak behind her was still there. On the inside, she was ecstatic, even if the wind prevented any facial expression from taking form. She turned her head to let her eyes rest on the stunt she just accomplished. It was amazing. A right angle made of rainbows. Dash was positive that nopony had seen this before. Nothing could ruin this experience for her.

And then she hit a fence post.

It immediately flung her head over hooves. The force of the impact broke the post in half and it plunged halfway into a  hay bale. However, she wasn't that lucky. Rainbow flipped midair and then faceplanted into the ground. Her head was stuck in the dirt. After she had enough trying to hold her breath to let her aching limbs rest, she scrambled to her hooves and tried to yank her head out of the dirt. She managed to do so and toppled a bucket that fell off the hay bale in front of her. It lodged itself over her head. When she managed to pry it off her, she had a raging headache. It was then that an ear-spliting yell echoed around the field.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS CLOUD WALKERS, YAY!!!"

"You have got to be kidding me."