The Pegasus of Fire

As Ponyville came closer, the more I rushed. I was so focused on getting there as quick as I could that I didn't notice a shouting, cyan, rainbow maned pegasus hurtling down at me, once she collided with me, I was sent hurtling down at the stone streets. Getting up to my hooves, I shook the dust off my head and glared at her, only to have my eyes meet Rainbow Dash's mischievous smile.

I glared at her her cerise eyes, which happened to be full of life. It was pretty much impossible to not see the lighting in her eyes.

"Sorry," she laughed,"New trick, didn't work out. Thanks for cushioning the fall!" she began laughing harder, going as far as to tumble over.

"Yeah, your welcome," I told her, sarcastically.

"No, wait," she stopped me,"Since you came to Ponyville nearly a year ago, I practiced tricks during the morning and after sunset, just thought I would tell you. Cause I make up the nuttiest tricks ever. But it never gets boring to see your face that way!"

My response was a mixture of aggravation and pure anger,"AND YOU DIDN'T BOTHER TO TELL ME, AFTER ALL THIS TIME?!?!

Pulling the pegasus off my body, I proceeded to engage in a slow trot down the street. After about five minutes, the Sugarcube Corner was near. My body got stiffer and stiffer, until it reached the point it would explode any second. I walked around it as far as possible to avoid being spotted by Pinkie Pie. But then, I spotted her prancing happily towards the window. I needed cover, fast.

Diving behind a nearby bush, I stuck my head out, and peered at her. She had reached the window. Opening her cerulean eyes, she scanned the area, and unfortunately they seemed to stop right in my direction.

Dammit.

She busted the window open and shouted,"Hey! Streakflare!"

But it was too late, I had already began flying off.

I tore through clouds, ignoring the ticklish feeling of passing through them. After a few more seconds of flying, I stopped behind Twilights library. Peering out of my cover, I didn't see a bouncing, pink, earth pony headed my way, so I breathed a quick sigh of relief.

My lungs were half emptied. I don't believe I mentioned that I hate the feeling of being out of breath, I don't know, my best guess is that being out of breath made me feel helpless.

I enjoyed the relief but I was interrupted soon after.

"Hey Streakflare!" shouted an enthusiastic, excited, and horribly familiar voice.

Bolting off again, I sped off in excess of 600 miles per hour. The resistance was pretty much trying to tear my skin off.

I flew so fast that the wind that my wings generated literally ripped some of the flowers off their roots. I would've measured

about 14.5 wingpower.

Fluttershy's cottage came into view, and so I nose-dived at the entrance. Smashing through the front door, and opening it dangerously close to Fluttershy's face. The amount of force produced enough wind to blow her mane back and shut her eyes.

"Help!" I shouted."Pinkie's after me! you gotta cover me!"

She was too shocked to respond, the most she could muster after half a minute was a slow nod. I kicked the door shut, rattling the entire building so hard, I would've sworn that the structure would collapse.

After a few minutes of catching my breath, I walked up the stairs, only to be face to face with the one pony I didn't want to see.

"Okay," I muttered."You win, what do you want with me?" I braced my self for eternal annoyance.

I was answered as a jet of water soaked my face. Once most of the water cleared, I saw Pinkie laughing hysterically, holding a empty bucket of water. After a few seconds, I couldn't take it anymore, I burst out laughing. I haven't laughed since Pinkie threw me a huge blowout welcome party.

I gave her a high five and trotted away to the window, flying off into the night sky. Maybe Pinkie could make a nice friend.

I smiled at the very thought.

I waited for a few hours before I went to my next stop.

My next stop was Rainbow Dash's cloud house.

I let the friction brush against me, allowing the lovely feeling of cool air and freedom overtake my fears. Once I had landed on the entrance, I peered inside. Rainbow Dash wasn't home yet. And just when I was going to invite her to go admire the moonlight on the clouds. Shrugging, I flew off, my body cut through the air like a knife through water. The friction in the air was also tense, and I found my mouth's sides being pulled back by the speed. I was determined to go to the one place that I had in mind next, Twilight's library.

In front of me was the library itself. Although it really just was a tree hollowed out and protected by a magical lightning rod, it was more than it looked. Inside seemed bigger than the outside even. The balcony wasn't occupied, the windows weren't open, and so, looking inside, I saw that Twilight wasn't anywhere in sight. Although there was the chance of her being upstairs, it seemed deserted, except for a sleeping Spike.

The door was unlocked, strangely. Taking a step inside, I saw nopony, nothing, except for furniture. The only things sentient were me, Spike, and Owloysius. It was quiet, too quiet.

Owloysius's head turn 180 degrees to face me, then his body.

"Uh," I said with plenty of anxiety,"You're Owloysius, right?"

"Who?"

I sighed and slapped my face, this was gonna be harder than I thought.

"Where's Twilight?"

"Who."

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

"Who."

"Agh!"

"Who."

"Oh great," I muttered."You're barely gonna help."

"Who."

I watched Spike's chest rise up and down slowly, indicating deep sleep. His green eyes didn't stir at all. Shortly after that, he sighed contently. I'd hate to interrupt his sleep. I hated the feeling of guilt, even though I was kind of good at dealing with it. But

I decided that I needed to, if not, then this night wouldn't be successful. And believe me, I'm not known for being patient.

A moment later, I quickly and forcefully wrenched the blanket off Spike's content body, instantly waking him up.

"Wuh, wuh!" he shouted, I could tell that his vision was blurred and still in the slow process of clearing up.

As he looked up to face me, he shouted,"You're not Twilight!"

"Sorry for interrupting your sleep, but, it is I who want to to know where Twilight went," I replied.

"I-I don't know!"

My eyes narrowed,"Are you sure?"

"Seriously, I don't know!"

I tried moving on to bribing, but he still didn't have an answer, and so, I finally decided to give up on my best lead. Trotting away without another word.

Going outside, I asked my next lead, the first one I saw, Pinkie Pie. She was in sight five minutes later.

"Hey Pinkie Pie," I greeted her.

"Oh hey Streakflare!" she greeted me back.

Turning the subject, I asked her the question,"Have you seen Twilight?"

Luckily she did have a reply,"Oh, she's right over there!"

Looking where she was pointing at, Twilight was at the entrance of her library.

"Oh..." I said, looking down. I slapped my own face a second later. And I did it hard.

I trotted to where Twilight was, she had opened the door and was just about to slam it shut when she saw me.

"Uh..." She said straightly, then asked,"Are you Scorchflare?"

"Streakflare."

"Okay," she told me,"But I really need to go back and, you know, catch up on some studies!" She slammed  the door shut.

That was one success, one failure, and four more to go. It was much better than I ever got. This is huge, if I weren't so "busy" then I would have been friends with Pinkie from the start.

In the distance, I could've sworn I heard Pinkie ask Twilight where I was, and get replied with,"Isn't she right over there?" But I passed it off as my imagination.

I stretched my wings. They ached a bit from rapidly flapping to propelling me forward from the last half an hour. The joints were the most sour part of my wings. But I could still fly. Ignoring the sting of my wings, I took off to revisit Rainbow Dash's cloud house.

To minimize the amount of flaps and pain, I spread my wings to their full wingspan, roughly three feet and a half. Gliding through the night sky, despite the fact I had a red body, I doubted much of the ponies below noticed me gliding across their heads.

Speaking of attention, I've been working on a new move, where I would coat my body in flames and do something. I thought of calling it Blitz Crash. It definitely would grab plenty of attention. Yet, my fears of being viewed as a show-off kept me.

Enjoying the coolness on my skin, I nearly forgot to stop by the time reached my destination. Landing on the front porch, I knocked on the door.

The door opened to reveal a irritated, aggravated, exasperated Rainbow Dash. (Even though those words pretty much mean the same thing)

"What do you want, Streakflare?!" she more yelled at me than asked me.

"Hey, Rainbow Dash,"I replied in the opposite tone to hers,"You wanna bring out some punch so we could lie on the clouds and watch the moon all night?"

Dammit, I said it too soon again. What is wrong with me?!

Rainbow scratched her head, the offer obviously tempted her. Unfortunately, her response was,"No, it's midnight, don't you realize that?!"

I looked down,"Oh..."

Disappointed, I flew off. I made no care to not strain my wings, I got too much hope. And now that it was declined, the disappointment was greater than ever. I felt the craving for friends and adventure stronger than ever, I was barely able to hold without going mad. I flew away as quick as I could so I could rest. I decided to perch onto a steep, rocky cliff with a grand view of Ponyville. I could see all the buildings, the white houses, reinforced with pink wood. The straw thatched roofs. I could see all of the stone streets, the closed stalls. The sleepy, idle, town. It was definitely a grand view, but it made me feel incredibly unimportant. I only had three more tries for this night. I only had succeeded with Pinkie, really. But after all, she's probably the friendliest, most hyper, and easy to socialize with of all of the ponies in Equestria. I mean, SHE wants to be friends with everypony.

What am I saying?! She IS all of the above, not probably.

I landed and looked at my bed for the night, a cloud. It wasn't a proper one, I didn't even have a proper home, I just slept on the clouds.

Lying down on it, I breathed a little sigh of comfort. Before I knew it, I was asleep...

My vision was blurry, unclear, and shaky. As it slowly cleared up, I saw that I wasn't on a cloud anymore. I was inside a cave. With a Ursa Major. Its purple body, it's chest rose up, and down, slowly. It was asleep

I covered my mouth with my hooves to cover up my scream. The Major was even larger than I envisioned. It would tear up Ponyville with unbelievable ease. Looking closer, it was in deep sleep, lucky me.

I thanked that being a pegasus meant a lighter body and slowly began to sneak away.

My body tensed at every step, the feeling was so horrible, that I was sure that my body would explode into a million pieces any second. The feeling was so horrible, I was certain I would never be able to hear a roar or something without jumping, EVER.

The Ursa began to stir. Making me freeze in my tracks, maybe I was making too much noise.

It began to stir more, flipping over every second. It wasn't long before it got up and spotted me.

"Heh, heh, heh," I said, anxious to get out of here.

Without hesitation, I bolted away, faster than I ever did, in fact, I could have dislocated my rear leg joints. Going away at speeds so quick, that practically nothing could be seen. Nothing but a blue and white blur. Despite this, I somehow knew the way to go.

Finally stopping to see where I had gone, I realized that I had gone all the way to Canterlot. Hovering above it's spires. Then, I felt a sharp pain at my spine and consciousness seemed to slip away from me...

I woke up, panting hard. I could hear my heart's adrenaline rush, the it thumped so hard, I was sure that there was the remote chance of it bursting out of my chest. It was ten minutes before my heart rate was normal again.

"It was only a dream," I thought to myself repeatedly. But it felt, so, real.

What could have been the point of the dream? I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Maybe it was pointless after all.

I never dreamed much, and when I did, I normally had random ones of me, doing a random or just plain idiotic thing, my brain seems to work that way. And then, stupid reality interrupts. Hey, my real life is already a bust. I know I dream of stupid stuff.

That's why I normally liked sleeping, I could escape reality. Just the thought of that made me want to sigh with content. Shaking my head and snapping out of it, I began flapping my wings.

However, my brain was so full of trash that I almost forgot to flap my wings, sending me into a wild frenzy of panic. Kicking around, I managed to just gain control as I got uncomfortably close to the ground.

I breathed a quick sigh of relief. I began a slow glide at low altitude, my wings were stiff from being cramped all night and I needed a nice stretch for them.

I reared backwards for the launch. I took off, like an arrow flying from an overstretched bow. Slicing through the air, I felt myself going forward at speeds that would've drained any normal pegasus in mere seconds. But not me, I've trained harder than most pegasi, resulting in me being able to hold seven hundred miles per hour for five minutes. Propelling myself past several clouds, and pretty much doing all the work for the weather ponies, I continued to fly.

Lowering altitude, flying only four metres above the streets, I managed to ignore the angry screams and went forward quicker instead. Somehow, I took my determination and converted it to fuel me on, and I had enormous amounts of that.

Suddenly, I felt a mach cone building around my body. It only lasted for half a second but, now, I was the other only pegasus to break the sound barrier, and everypony in Ponyville was present to witness it. I could even see Rainbow Dash looking out one of her house's windows. But I wasn't able to initiate Rainboom. Except I never intended it. Oh I hate it now, I was sure that I would be forever deemed a show-off. But it never came. Relief surged through my body.

That didn't matter. Then all my determination slipped away as I dropped to the nearest pile of grass and caught my breath.

I knew that I probably wasn't gonna be able to do it again, because my determination was probably even stronger than Rainbow Dash's determination to join the Wonderbolts. But, that power seemed to slip from me now, and it probably wouldn't happen again.

In a way, I knew what I did was selfish. But again, I knew I never intended it. I knew the truth was a morning stretch turning into flying at mach one. In a way, it was pointless. Literally pointless

"So much for modesty," I thought.

I tried taking off again, but, my fatigue was worse than I ever expected. My wings literally felt like they were burning, inside out. The pain was irrecoverable, I don't think I felt anything worse in my life, and I was sure that I would be grounded for a few hours, at ;east. It was obvious that I didn't break a bone or something but, of course, it felt like my wings, would just fall off. And I had the nagging feeling that I wasn't gonna like being grounded.

Walking down the streets, the chatter and things were normal again, it was as if nothing had happened, if you exclude a few fruits and vegetables on the ground. And just about all of them were in at least two pieces. My hyperactive mind made me think of how their family would feel, but I knocked the thought out by thinking that it wasn't an intelligent life form anyways.

I sat down, on the soft grass. The warm sunshine began bathing my body. I frowned, I always preferred the breathtaking feeling of cool air to warm sunshine. I, just didn't like to be hot. It feels horrible after a while. If it weren't for the fact that the Sun is vital for life, I don't think I would tolerate it at all even. There was this time where I enjoyed sunshine, but in short bursts. Now, I don't like it one way or another.

I could have sworn, just then, that the temperature suddenly rose.

Not to mention my mind is always full of trash, resulting in the most random things in the world coming to my head. But most of the time when I work for money, my thoughts are consumed by how things would've went if my life went in the opposite direction. But when something random pops up, my brain goes into an uncontrollable frenzy. I can't shut my brain up no matter what. The only cure is a distraction popping up. And whenever I think of this, my brain always overloads with junk. But the strange thing is that I love it most of the time.

I tried distracting myself by looking at the water cascading down a nearby waterfall. I ended up yelling in frustration when it didn't work. Now I was thinking uncontrollably about TWO things.

I trotted away, shaking my head.

I knew I had no room in my head for such nonsense, I had to continue my quest. For friendship.

I allowed myself to breath in the crisp, fresh, morning air. Trotting forward, I headed in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres...

The red barn lay ahead of me, somehow, the area that always caught my eye first, was the bell. I don't know, shiny things just do that to me. But the enormous acres of apples trees never failed to impress me.

My eyes rolled to rest on Applejack. The orange mare was kicking an apple tree. All of the apples fell down as if an earthquake or something happened. My awkward brain suddenly got me thinking of how it would be like to be an apple tree. I  didn't know if they could feel of not, but either way, I felt lucky to be a pony. I slapped myself to snap myself out of it.

She heaved two of the baskets to her sides, and leisurely strolled to a large cart, supposedly for gathering apples. I didn't see why the cart needed more apples, it was so full of stuff that it looked like the top stack would collapse any second. And it somehow didn't. I mean, it was overloaded by two whole metres! It was even more miraculous when none fell off when she pushed it away like it was no big deal.

My eyeballs practically burst out when she kicked the cart into the barn, and not a single apple was to be found on the ground. Next, she kicked the door shut, rattling the door frame. She then proceeded to continue to buck apples, filling another cartload. The process repeated for half a hour, and she only bucked a half of the orchard. It was beyond obvious that she was much too busy. Anyways, why would she spend a hour or two with somepony she barely knew in the first place?

"Well, damn," I thought.

And there went Applejack from my list.

I was trotting down the street, my wings still burned. But it was a numb pain, not sharp, luckily. They still throbbed, as if four earth ponies had just stacked on them, two for each. I soon noticed that the sun was getting hotter, and the air was getting humid. My body was getting sticky and sweaty. It felt like it was being fried, and I didn't like the idea of being fried pegasus. The feeling was getting unbearable, I just hoped this wouldn't become a drought.

Then, the temperature suddenly dropped, as if the world was taken, and stuck in a huge pile of snow. I mean, it was BEYOND freezing. I gave in to the temptation to ignite myself and flew away, my body alight.

"Strange," I thought," The weather ponies didn't schedule a blizzard."

I mean, it was absurd. It could have been a gang of naughty, teenage pegasi. But again, it was unlikely, I mean, who would do that? How could the temperature change so quickly? This thing is getting really fishy.

I bolted ahead, leaving a huge, flaming trail behind me. The temperature was getting lower, and the snow was getting even heavier. By now, I was just above the mountains, and the snow was able to creep through the fire even! With absolutely no concerns about energy consumption, I made the flame hotter. Now, it was a searing, scorching, bright, white flame. I could barely see ahead of me.

Then, the temperature spiked up again. Now, it was extremely uncomfortable being coated in a white flame. I shut off my fire.

My body was pretty much coated with soot. My body only fried further in the sunlight. I may be immune to heat, but I wasn't immune to the uncomfortable heat of the sun. My immunity only protected me from being burnt. I don't get that so-called red hot feeling when I touch something really hot, it just feels warm. But that wasn't enough for me to not suffer in the rapidly intensifying heat.

I started to head downwards, to the nearest cover I could find. This whole thing was beyond awkward. Everything couldn't have happened coincidentally, the changes in weather were far too sudden.

Flying down under a cloud, I breathed a quick sigh of relief. The cool feeling of shade was most welcome for me in temperatures like this. For an extra boost, I jumped on top of it, and bolted under it, allowing the cool water rain on my body, cooling its temperature considerably. My burnt black body's colour slowly restored to its usual, natural red colour. I pushed another cloud under my cover, and then used it as a bed.

Grabbing a piece of fluff from the cloud, I stuffed it into my mouth, it tasted like nothing, but they were what I ate if I didn't have any money remaining. Not to mention the fluff was full of water. I chewed the fluffy morsel, sucking its soft texture. The wind was blowing my mane back, but the breeze was humid, reducing the comfort greatly. Whenever I got too hot, I'd merely

send down another short burst of rain down. I lay there for, I don't know, half a hour?

The temperature changed again.

"Okay," I thought," That's it!"

I was gonna go on to adventure.

Without friends.

But first, I needed preparations.