Miami Dash

Chapters

Altitude Sickness
Black Swan
White Lies

Altitude Sickness

NOTE: The text is best enjoyed in the Century Gothic font.

[LEGAL DISCLAIMER]
This story is a derivative work of two intellectual properties owned by Hasbro Incorporated and NBCUniversal. It was produced with absolutely no intent of monetary gain whatsoever; instead solely for entertainment purposes and in tribute to the original franchises. It is protected under the United States Copyright Act of 1976 (Section 107: "Fair Use"), owing to its dual non-commercial and parodying nature.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

~For Ava~

MIAMI DASH

Introduction: Altitude Sickness

6:16 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST)
Saturday, January 7th, 2012
Miami International Airport, Florida, U.S.A.
Boarding Gate D30

The passenger jet was silhouetted in the darkness that preceded the dawn.

Sweeping rapidly into the air with a stealth that belied its massive size, the blinking anti-collision lights and engine wake were the only giveaways of its departure. A gentle rumbling of the windows that followed, amidst an encompassing torrent of raucous activity, is what garnered the attention of an exceptionally exhausted pegasus mare.

With a chin lifted high from her long neck, a pair of magenta irises peeked from the shade created by the brim of a straw hat that'd been perched downward, lazily tracking the flashing red dots until out of view. The mare then tilted her head, irises swirling like a pair of egg yolks in the white, over to the check-in counter by the gate. The unformed airline agents were preoccupied with a queue of passengers, but the informational display stated that boarding wouldn't begin for another 15 minutes.

Her eyes normally imparted an insatiable adventurous spirit. At the moment, however, they were dulled by a lack of sleep, the eyelids shuddering and ready to cave in like an unsteady roof. Seeking another distraction, she looked out onto the tarmac once again. A caravan of luggage boxcars motored its way to the right before disappearing behind the inert silver and triple-striped Boeing 737 facing her, its brightened cockpit revealed the pilots getting settled in and toggling various switches around them.

Surging with renewed frustration, the pegasus rolled out of her reclined pose on the bench, stretched her wings and both sets of legs, joints popping with a displacement of trapped air. She then proceeded to simultaneously roll her head in a single revolution and yawn open-mouthed. Even with her eyes clenched shut, she could feel the stares other ponies were giving her conspicuous actions. As a lifelong tomboy, she wasn't very mindful of proper feminine mannerisms, and this current bout of insomnia simply exacerbated that attitude.

"Um, excuse me," a young stranger's voice intruded.

Ears perking upward in alarm, the biting chill of the air conditioning slowly registered in the mare's semi-conscious mind; the hat had fallen off and she'd just been made. Gradually opening her burning eyes at the bottom of her head's rotation, the straw fedora was indeed lying askew on the blue-carpeted floor to her left. A foal's pair of fore-hooves stood beside it. Fighting both gravity and dread, she looked up into the timid face of an earth pony filly. The two assessed each other during a seconds-long pause.

"Are you, Rainbow Dash?" she asked most uncertainly, pausing before blurting out the name.

The tomboy pursed her lips, drawing breath through her teeth with a faint hiss. She considered lying outright, but it might lead to a PR nightmare. Perceiving a formidable intelligence behind those eyes, she gave up the ghost.

"Yup, that's me, kid," Rainbow Dash answered, sighing into a smile.

The full-grown pegasus' body was covered in a cyan blue pelt that traced along contours of lean, rigid muscle. She was wearing a white, sleeveless linen dress from the reputed La Casa De Las Guayaberas, south of MIA. Its length draped over her thighs and concealed the imprinted cutie mark; a bulky raincloud expelling a zigzagging bolt of tricolored lightning. The tail hair had a jagged quality and splayed with six vibrant watercolors, loyal to her mane, but with three of the darker colors pouring down past her ears. Her magenta eyes seemed much more alive uncovered, but a cloudy film persisted in them.

"Hi, I-I'm Honor Roll!" the filly said, stuttering in excitement.

The earth pony filly was pelted in chalkboard gray. Her frizzy balsa mane and tail gave her the appearance of having recently climbed out of bed. She looked up at the pegasus with blue marble eyes that glittered in the overhead lighting, captivating her so as to forget to look at her cutie mark.

"I came over to help pick up your hat, but t-this is my first time meeting somepony famous at the airport, or ever really!"

"No kidding? Because meeting my fans is ALWAYS awesome."

"I'm a member of the brony club at school. W-would it be okay if we took a picture together?"

"Sure, let's do it!" Rainbow winked playfully.

Beaming, Honor Roll turned and frantically waved a fore-hoof at her unicorn father. He trotted over to them, raising a cell phone camera in his sparkling magic aura. Fluttering her eyelids and patting her cheeks in the interim, the tomboy put her game face on. Challenging the lens with that unmistakable fiendish grin, she lifted her left fore-leg and bent it sideways to meet Honor's halfway. An audible *click* from the phone's speakers signaled that the deed was done.

"Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" the earth pony cried after sampling the image and giving the pegasus a rib-squeezing hug.

"No biggie," Rainbow wheezed before they broke apart. "That'll make one hay of a show-and-tell, meeting your one-and-only 'best pony'.

"Totally!" Honor gushed. "I'm saving that when I meet Twilight Sparkle!"

*CRASH*

The sound of breaking tableware, dropped by a clumsy server, came from the Irish restaurant closest to the gate, perversely synchronized with Rainbow's widening stare and fading smile. The filly was busy cherishing the picture to have noticed anything. Honor Roll's father gave the slighted pegasus an apologetic look before ushering his daughter back to their seats. Impromptu photo ops were an occupational hazard for performers like her, and sadly enough this wasn’t Rainbow’s first time being smacked with the revelation of a certain purple unicorn outclassing her.

‘Damn it, Twilight,’ she thought. ‘Why do you have to be so well-rounded and popular?’

Shaking her head and chuckling pathetically, the tomboy about-faced and returned to her bench, taking a moment to grab the lonely Goorin Bros. straw hat in her teeth. Leaning back on the cushioned metal frame, she passed the hat to her fore-hooves and roughly jammed it on top of her head again. Kicking her hind legs over her new suitcase, she futilely tried once more to get some rest.

Rainbow Dash is lead singer of her own band, Hey Ocean!, and one of the main cast members on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. A fantasy comedy show that launched over a year ago, its notoriety was swelling rapidly in popular culture by attaining an unforeseen fan-base of male viewers that ran the gamut of age groups and occupations. The Internet is the nexus for these so-called "bronies", where artwork, animations, music, stories, and much more continues to pour in like a fire hose. Hasbro's merchandising efforts were slowly being tailored to this new batch of consumers while devoted conventions were sprouting up all across America and Europe.

In fact, it was due to attending one such convention (BronyCon Winter 2012 in New York City) where Rainbow and four other costars met a strikingly well-dressed somepony. With a rather anxious disposition, he gave them personalized gift bags as he collected their autographs. The bags were printed with the names of three of his hometown's major landmarks and locales: South Beach, Bayside, and Vizcaya. The greatest surprise of all was that inside were travel gift cards loaded with the exact fare needed to fly there from Los Angeles. After one last smile and hoofshake, he'd turned away and disappeared into the crowd of bronies, remaining a nameless riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

'In case you've never been to the Magic City, consider this an invitation,' the stallion had said.

Upon returning home and conferring with their keeper and ex-producer, Fyre-Flye, it was decided that they'd accept his offer and leave for South Florida on January 3rd. They'd rendezvous with their colleagues at LAX airport later today and make their next flight to Vancouver to film the next episode of Friendship is Magic.

The instant they'd stepped outside to hail a taxi, witnessing a glorious sunrise and feeling the warm humid air's embrace, Rainbow Dash was in love with Miami. During the ride to their Ocean Drive hotel, the pegasus kept sticking her head out the window, basking in this newfound paradise. The beach was gorgeous; the food delectable; the nightlife electrifying. They visited the places their benefactor had recommended, and found other hidden gems along the way.

Los Angeles was an awesome town for many shared reasons, but down here were the added benefits of lighter traffic and cleaner air. Hurricanes seemed liked a fair trade for earthquakes, considering the former haven’t made landfall since 2005, but it'd be a shame if unchecked global climate change submerges Miami within the next century, as scientists now predict.

Still, as the final hours of their trip approached, Rainbow felt that she hadn't yet seen all there was to see or obtained the souvenirs she wanted. She waited until sunset to take to the sky and experience the city as it was meant to be; what her Probation Officer didn't know wouldn't hurt him anyway.

The daredevil’s aerial tour remained undetected but had also taken the entire night. Touching down by the hotel's entrance at 3 AM, drowsy, dead broke, and saddlebags bloated with trinkets, she'd spent another hour trying to pack her bag with the new acquisitions. The racket it created awoke her colleagues, who decided to pitch in and buy her a new one at the airport.

This was the gleaming ZERO Halliburton suitcase that Rainbow Dash was absently bouncing a hind-hoof over. It’d caught her eye as soon as she walked inside the airport store, promising all but the moon that she’d pay her friends back. The on-screen ‘Element of Loyalty’ indeed felt she was in their debt, but also hesitant to confess that she hadn't eaten anything in over twelve hours either. She'd gone as far as twenty before, so it wasn't a big deal. Her costars had done more than enough for her already.

A quartet of familiar gossiping voices became discernable, advancing from behind. The blue pegasus’ mouth curled into a smirk, but otherwise didn’t stir. Ponies tended to let secrets slip when they thought you were out of the room or asleep; things they’d never say to your face. Confronting them later based on what you learned and seeing their embarrassed looks was always a great laugh. Like that one time Applejack kept yapping on and on about that generous Miami brony and-

The voices abruptly stopped, melding back into the concourse ambiance. Rainbow was beginning to ponder what’d happened when her hat was suddenly yanked off. Eyes widening fearfully and in the harsh light, the pink earth pony culprit puffed up her chest and roared a morning greeting, their faces mere inches apart.

“COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!!”

Traces of a recent breakfast pervaded in the prankster’s blast. Following that strange observation, the tomboy unfolded her ears, wiped her face of spittle and glared angrily at her broadly-grinning costar.

“Pinkie Pie,” she grumbled. “I didn’t ask for a wake-up call.”

“No, Applejack did,” Pinkie Pie said, pointing a fore-hoof at an orange earth pony trotting up to them, looking irritatingly smug.

The hyperactive mare leaning over Rainbow had a bright pink pelt. Balancing a voracious sweet tooth with a nuclear metabolism, a mild layer of fat buffered her underbelly and thighs. The thighs in particular tended to jiggle whenever she laughed, animating her cutie mark of three stringed balloons. Her mane and tail hair possessed gravity-defying buoyancy, ending in heart-snagging hooks. Blue eyes of infantile purity looked past the tomboy’s, establishing a pseudo-spiritual connection.

On the pegasus’ left was an honest workhorse; powerful muscles rippled across her orange-pelted surface. White freckles dotted her cheeks beneath glistening shamrock eyes. A spiny, hay-colored mane poked out from underneath a dusty brown Stetson cowboy hat. The other end, as with her tail hair, was tied into a bun with a red ribbon. Her cutie mark was a trio of red delicious apples, stems and leaves poking out from the top.

Seizing her hat back from Pinkie, Rainbow Dash turned her fierce, baggy-eyed stare at the smiling cowgirl.

“Oh, so you’re the wisepony,” she said.

“Just making sure we don’t have any pegasi on the wall as we talk,” Applejack said.

Bitterness leached deeply from her face and words that even the tomboy could sense. Out of the five cast members who met that mysterious brony, it was Applejack who’d been smitten by his kindness. RD was grateful for opening Miami to her, but had overheard that a small part of AJ was hoping to see him again. The pegasus teased her pretty hard about it, and when the meeting never happened, the earth pony’s heartache worsened. She spent the last day under the shade of a palm tree on the beach, looking blankly into the Atlantic. Cradling a conch shell souvenir she’d bought for herself, she kept holding it up to her ear like a telephone receiver, tears searing down her freckled cheeks.

Pinkie silently climbed down from the bench, unpinning Rainbow, who immediately got to her feet and rubbed a fore-hoof in condolence against Applejack’s shoulder, her pained smile long gone.

“I’m sorry,” Rainbow whispered, her eyes bouncing between AJ’s and the floor. “I didn’t know it was that important to you.”

The Stetson-crowned mare snorted and moved over, letting the blue limb hang in midair.

“How could you?” she snapped. “You’re always thinking about yourself. Alaska didn’t teach you a damn thing.”

Exactly one year ago at LAX, Rainbow Dash made the Friendship is Magic cast arrive too late for their weekly Canada flight. The tomboy lost her temper with Applejack, gravely injuring her and then attempted to fly to Vancouver by following the Pacific coastline. Along the way, she disrupted airport traffic, a spy satellite launch, and incurred the aerial wrath of the American and Canadian armed forces before crashing into the Alaskan wilderness. The incident, dubbed by the media as Rainbow Snow, resulted in a macrocosm of legal and production complications; the aspect most visible to the fans was a three-week delay between episodes 12 & 13. RD was essentially given a slap on the wrist with a year-long supervised probation against unsanctioned flying within the United States. It would finally end today, so as long as she kept her nose clean.

The orange earth pony lifted a foreleg, pushing her mane aside to reveal a fading arched bruise. Rainbow had kicked her with both legs, but the other impression had already dissipated. Aghast at being rebuffed then reminded of a torturous mistake, she stomped right up to those cold eyes, wings spread high above her head, her teeth bared.

“The ONLY reason I survived was because I needed to apologize, she hissed. “And I DID when they brought me back for the trial!”

“You survived because you didn’t want to die,” the cowgirl replied. “What came after was just to soothe your guilty conscience.”

“But you accepted it! I said I was sorry and YOU ACCEPTED IT!”

“It’s not about the ‘sorry’, but the real improvements you make after screwing up.”

“Oh yeah?! Like how you screwed up trying to meet up with some lame brony?! I wonder how you’ll impro-“

*SLAP*

The hoof charged in from her right peripheral. The combined strength and inertia of the blow sent Rainbow Dash rolling onto the floor and under her seat. A flailing hind leg also knocked the ZH suitcase into the bench, earning a wide post-collision dent on one side.

“Oh no, Dashie!” Pinkie Pie cried, leaning in and offering a foreleg to help her friend up.

Head thumping and star-like pinpricks dancing in her eyes, she crawled out on her own and stilted back upright. Applejack’s flaring and tear-lined face came into focus, her left fore-hoof held in front of her, trembling in place.

Two parallel trains of thought departed the station, attaining top speed and jostling for prevalence. The first was pure, vicious instinct; to retaliate and inflict as much physical pain she was feeling, and more. The second was driven by reason; Applejack was stronger; a fight might get them arrested or fired; Mrs. Flye would be devastated; you’ll end up proving her point-

Instinct turned a corner and jumped off the rails, uncoupling and tumbling into a ravine. Reason decelerated and made the turn safely. More than any topical insult or strike, letting Applejack win a battle of logic was the worst possible outcome. She wasn’t going to let her have the satisfaction.

Pressing a fore-hoof against the burning cheek, she gave the doting prankster at her side a look that quite plainly said: ‘back off’, to which Pinkie sadly did. Facing Applejack once again, she gave a lopsided and agonizing dark smirk.

“I guess this makes us even,” she said through partially open lips.

Her costar’s stony expression yielded no acknowledgement, so the tomboy turned and walked away. She only now discovered the crowd of onlookers that surrounded the three ponies; it must’ve been building during their argument. A yellow pegasus sitting in the front row as it were, with a plastic-bagged bundle in front of her, snapped out of her petrification when their eyes met.

“R-Rainbow Dash!” she said, picking up the bag and galloping up to her.

“Hey, Fluttershy,” she said, taking a seat.

The daredevil’s polar opposite wore a springtime yellow pelt over a petite and delicate-looking frame. Partially hidden by a curled column of pink mane was the kindest face anypony could ever meet. Watery teal eyes shimmered like portals into the Caribbean, the top eyebrows arched over like black sandbars. Beyond the feathery wings, three butterflies was her cutie mark present on both thighs. The bottom half of her pink tail swept the floor in her passing.

The timid pegasus lowered the bundle to the floor again and craned her head to get a better look at the injury.

“What happened?” Fluttershy implored. “Why did Applejack hit you?”

“I must’ve crossed a red line somewhere, so she drew a new one, on my face, heh-eh, ow.”

“Princess Celestia is talking with the police to calm them down. You two gave everypony such a fright.”

“I don’t think either of us expected to get that hot.”

Rainbow looked down at the bag between them.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Breakfast,” Fluttershy said with a pleased smile. “It’s from La Carreta, where the four of us ate when you offered to stay and watch our bags.”

The tomboy snickered at her costar’s butchered pronunciation before spreading the bag handles apart.

“Mmm, smells great,” she judged after ducking her nose inside. “Thanks, Fluttershy.”

“Oh, don’t thank me, it was Applejack-“

In her characteristic haste to pass on credit to whom it’s due, she realized it too late to stop herself. Sure enough, the blue pegasus’ movements froze, just as she was about to open the warm foam box. All of the gratitude drained from her face and contorted unpleasantly.

“Is that so?” Rainbow Dash mumbled coarsely.

Dropping the box inside the bag and rising up on all four legs, she grabbed it with her mouth by the handles and walked over to a nearby open-top garbage can.

“Rainbow, no!” Fluttershy pleaded.

‘If you think I’m going to eat out of the hoof that slapped me,’ she thought, leering at a dumbstruck Applejack who ran over at the yellow pegasus’ bidding.

Ignoring the growling objections of her stomach, she extracted the box, pried it open, and poured its contents into the garbage before throwing the box in last. If she wouldn’t hit back, then at least she’d hit her purse.

“Wasting food are we, Rainbow Dash?” a thunderous female accused.

With a flinch, the brash pegasus turned right to face a tall white alicorn; a winged unicorn of royal status. Her beautiful face, usually alight with benevolence now peered critically at her.

“N-no, Princess Celestia,” she lied nervously. “I’m just not hungry right now.”

From the bottom of her gold slipper-wreathed hooves, to the tip of her majestic horn, this alicorn was twice the height of any normal pony. Her pelt was magnolia white caressing slender legs, head, neck and torso. A ceremonial breastplate and crown complimented each other, with twisting etched patterns and a violet gemstone at their heart. Her mane and tail resembled the Aurora Borealis of the North Pole, but even a cosmic phenomenon could not replicate their spectrum of twinkling, mesmerizing colors. Large amethyst eyes previewed a repository of knowledge spanning millennia. The alicorn’s magnificent wings, at their fullest extent, reached a height above her ears. Her cutie mark captured a portrait of a blazing sun, hooked waves of fire bloomed from the center.

“Not hungry?” Princess Celestia repeated. “But it was Applejack who insisted on buying you that breakfast. She is most concerned for your wellbeing after your-”

The alicorn cleared her throat, indicating with her eyes at the uniformed Miami-Dade Police officer ponies that stood on either side of her.

“Midnight tour,” she finished.

Sighing internally at the name she loathed more than anything right now, Rainbow had to thank her for being discreet.

“I’ll be fine. No need to go worrying poor Mrs. Flye.”

“And what about that bruise? She and you are going to be seated right next to each other.”

“Ma’am,” the MDPD officer to Celestia’s right chimed in. “If the young lady so desires, the gate agents can help her change seats with anypony outside of first class.”

“That’s a great idea,” Rainbow nodded. “I will.”

“Alright then,” the princess of the sun relented. “It looks like they’re finally ready to begin boarding, so you’d better hurry.”

…

“Fillies and gentle-colts, thank you so much for your patience. We are now ready to begin the boarding process for American Airlines flight two-nine-nine with direct service to Los Angeles. This flight will be completely full-”

“Ugh, these flights are always full to the gills,” Rainbow Dash complained. “Go out and buy bigger planes, or sell fewer tickets.”

“Ooh, check out that one!” Pinkie Pie said, eagerly tapping a hoof out the window. “I bet there’s lots of room to stretch out!”

Within the last 15 minutes, the sun began its ascent from the eastern horizon. The night had given way to a shade of sleepy blue. Patches of fog hovered over portions of the city beyond the airfield. Touching down westbound in a smokescreen of burnt rubber was none other than an Airbus A380.

“Gaw-LEE, Pinkie,” Applejack exclaimed. “That’s no plane! It’s a whale that’s sprouted wings!”

“Lolita might give you a run for your money,” Fluttershy reminisced, watching the world’s largest plane disappear behind a jetway bridge.

“As for me, I’ll just be running away.”

“RAWR!” the prankster snarled, swooping in and pressing her teeth against the side of Fluttershy’s neck. “CHOMP!”

Shrieking in terror, she recoiled out of the dental vice and threw her back against the window, hyperventilating.

“For the last time, Killer Whales don’t eat ponies,” the cowgirl said. “Sure, they can be dangerous, but Rainbow-“

An awkward pause and sideways glance followed, but the tomboy wasn’t listening. Instead she watched the shuffling stream of first class passengers, her sentiments a mixture of disdain and envy. Princess Celestia was among them, giving her a compassionate smile before embarking down the jetway. The alicorn was too big to fit in a coach seat, so she paid out of pocket for an upgrade, a minor detail that must’ve eluded their sponsor’s foresight.

Rainbow Dash purged the cynicism her insomnia provoked. On the whole, her first trip to Miami had been spectacular, and she very much looked forward to seeing the Magic City again someday.

‘Thanks, dude. Who, or wherever you are, you’re awesome,’ she commended internally.

‘Come see us again at another con. I’m sure AJ would like that.’

“-at this time, we’re now inviting all passengers with Priority Access and seating assignments within Group One. You’re now welcome to board.”

“Um, Rainbow, that’s us,” Fluttershy said, placing a fore-hoof on her shoulder.

The blue pegasus looked left at her yellow counterpart. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were already merging into the line, the former giving them a stern beckon. Raising her lips into the most genteel smile her swollen cheek would allow, she replied.

“Nice hickey you’ve got there. I won’t tell that Pinkie gave it to you.”

Blushing redder than a tomato, she kept staring at the floor as she followed.

Rainbow’s dented suitcase was surrendered at the gate for loading into the cargo hold; the reason being that earlier passengers had taken up most of the overhead bin space in the main cabin. She tried to resist, but the Miami-Dade Police officers overseeing her probation dissuaded her. Brooding and vengeful, she pushed and shoved her way down the aisle, using her outfit to stay undercover. Taking the outermost seat in an emergency exit lane next to smelly strangers, she tipped the hat over her eyes and determinedly slept through the safety briefing, something she’d heard over a million times. The tomboy reserved the complacent belief that the odds of something catastrophic happening were astronomical.

Before long, the Boeing 737 was towed away from the gate, its turbine engines ignited, and barreling down the runway. The drowning whirlwind of sound, the compressing g-forces, and the gradual incline of takeoff were the only things that Rainbow enjoyed about flying inside a plane. Smiling at having been awoken by these pleasurable sensations, she reclined her chair to the maximum angle. The captain’s declared flight time to Los Angeles was 40 minutes longer than it took to get to Miami. The daredevil surmised that it probably had something to with the atmosphere and Earth’s natural rotation; a theory she’d pose to Twilight Sparkle later. She went back to sleep.

…

Rainbow Dash woke up, greeted rudely by her aching head and stomach. Looking out the nearest window, all she could see was an brown desert landscape. Grids of small towns were linked by twigs of highway; vehicles were traveling along in both directions like glittering insects.

She withdrew an iPhone from one of her Cuban dress pockets. Its face was cracked in one corner and the aftermarket plastic case was peeling away bit by bit. Pushing the power button on top, the time was listed as 9:47 AM Eastern.

‘Great, another two-plus hours to go.’ she contemplated silently while yawning aloud.

Smacking her sticky lips, the running desert below made her realize how thirsty she was. Fasting was one thing, but she was always dutiful with her fluid intake. Turning onto her side, the narrow service cart and flight attendants were nowhere to be seen down the aisle.

‘Eh, they’ll be back.’

Rainbow peeked out the window again, sunlight beating down on the harsh landscape below. Memories of filming one episode came flooding back to her.

The Ponyvillle and Canterlot sets were constructed 1100 miles north of Downtown Vancouver, in the Meszah Peak mountain valley entrenched between BC highway 37 and the Alaskan capital of Juneau. Fyre-Flye’s original proposal was to shoot Over a Barrel in the American Southwest, but was overruled by budget constraints. Empty shells of Appleloosa could still be seen in the Okanagan Desert; 250 miles inland from DHX Media.

Personally, Rainbow was glad they didn’t come out to the real thing. Okanagan was shrub steppe and not an actual desert, but last March out there had been plenty hot enough for her. She began feel to feel the heat right now just thinking about it. She shook her head and settled back in her seat.

(Play this background music before continuing on to the end.)

But the feeling didn’t go away. It was a writing numbing sensation spreading out from her flank in all directions; her prone hind legs; upper torso and fore-legs. Swarming up through her neck, her head suddenly felt heavy. It limply pitched forward into the seat in front of her. The tomboy was panting hoarsely, desperate to get more air into her system.

‘W-what’s…happening to me?’ her inner voice ambled.

Applejack’s slap wasn’t hurting anymore; the cheek had gone clammy and senseless. Saliva dripping from her exposed, limp tongue, she willed the rest of her body to tilt back and lift her head.

Angularly facing the instrument panel above her, the pegasus’ vision was blotched with patches of black-and-white that pulsated faster with each fearful heartbeat. She jabbed an uncoordinated fore-hoof at the panel, trying to summon for the flight attendant, but couldn’t find the right button.

‘Up. Get up. Go find help.’

Rainbow tore herself from the upholstery, her legs tingling and stiff. Still unable to see clearly, she felt her way down the cabin towards the galley, seemingly miles away at the end. She clopped along unsteadily, scraping against fellow aisle seat passengers.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!”

“What’s your problem?”

“Are you drunk or something, lady?”

“S-sorry, sorry,” slurred the disoriented tomboy.

Drawn in by the commotion, Applejack lowered her book onto the hinged serving tray and looked through reading glasses to see Rainbow Dash. Her scornful eyes immediately stretched wide, understanding that something was very wrong with her gait, paled face, and rolling eyes.

“Rainbow, you okay, partner?!” she called out, only getting her neighbor, Pinkie Pie’s attention from her new favorite iPad game, Candy Crush Saga.

“Dashie!” the prankster gasped.

The pegasus staggered on, still muttering apologies. The two earth ponies spun around to see if Fluttershy could get through to her, but the timid pegasus’ attempts were shrugged off. Trapped against the cabin wall by Pinkie and another passenger, AJ eschewed the flight crew for some real help.

“CELESTIA!!!”

The regal alicorn swept out of her seat and magically opened the curtain partitioning first class from everypony else. Standing valiantly in the threshold, she followed her costars’ gestures and locked onto the stricken blue pegasus. Lowering her head to avoid piercing the ceiling, she bolted down the lane, everypony’s eyes following her.

It was a rebellion at the cellular level, Rainbow wildly concluded. After years of neglect, the sleepless tour around Miami combined with her stubborn fasting and the unyielding cabin pressure was the final straw; her body was rebelling against her mind. She’d felt similar light-headedness from strenuous exercise before. A self-diagnosis of acute hypoglycemia aligned with her symptoms, though never before were they this severe. The tomboy needed sugar in her bloodstream, and fast.

A unicorn flight attendant stepped out and walked upstream to give somepony a glass of water. Before she could, Rainbow grabbed her shoulders with both fore-hooves, hind legs quaking as they took on uneven weight. She lifted her head to reveal a weighed expression with bloodshot eyes and gaping mouth.

“C-can I help you ma’am?” she said worriedly.

“Yes,” Rainbow Dash hissed thickly. “M-may I please have a cup of O-orange juice-”

The hind legs buckled, the blue pegasus’ upper body falling backwards into Princess Celestia’s kneeling fore-hooves. The water dropped by the flight attendant splashed against both of them.

“Get this pegasus some food, now!” the alicorn commanded to the stunned unicorn, who nodded and scrambled back into the galley.

Easing the prone body to the floor, Celestia recalled the basics of her CPR training, tilting the chin upwards for unrestricted airflow and confirming a steady heartbeat by pressing her ear against the chest. She patted a fore-hoof at Rainbow’s uninjured cheek.

“Rainbow Dash,” she said. “Rainbow Dash, please wake up.”

The tomboy’s moist face remained calm, serene.

‘Oh, God,’ she fretted within. ‘Don’t let this be a coma; you’re too strong for that.’

“Wake up, w-wake up!”

Her anguished tone wrenched the heartstrings of her captive audience. A now crying Princess Celestia lowered her head and kissed Rainbow Dash on the forehead, her mane enveloping them like a sparkling funeral shroud.

*TO BE CONTINUED*

Author's Note

MIAMI DASH is the story I've dreamed of writing for years, so I thought I'd flex my drama muscles with this introduction. Yes, the legacy of Operation: Orange Bow still continues to influence my MLP writings. When I fell ill like Rainbow Dash did, that exact theme started playing in my head.

Weeks after completing Teamwork iS Awesome, I went to Colorado for the first time. The thinner oxygen hit me like a ton of bricks. And just like that, I was inspired to use it as the intro title to my next story. I can't make this stuff up. *laughs*

Black Swan

~For Margarita~

MIAMI DASH

Prologue Part 1: Black Swan

GULF OF MEXICO
DECEMBER 1987

A yawning maw lined with sleek daggers, the elongated fore ones prodding its gums impatiently. Blind eyes jerked in their sockets, yellow pupils encased in blue orbs. Spiny red-colored flesh was stretched tight over its sloping face, ridged in sharp angles of protruding bone. Sparsely-webbed fins along its tapered body helped stabilize the Fangtooth as it drifted along the murky seafloor.

(Photo credit: Google)

The alien-like creature was one of nature’s curious designs in the titanic pressure and eternal blackness thousands of meters down. In this unforgiving environment, most were scavengers of ‘marine snow’, the remains of dead lifeforms from the upper layers of the water. Featuring bioluminescence, transparent carapaces, and other evolutionary adaptations, deep-sea life persisted through a perilous balance of sensing and being sensed.

The soil started to quake, brown granules rising to create a shroud, a fair amount entering the Fangtooth’s mouth. While flapping its gills to expel the foreign matter, a sequence of powerful waves swept forth and overwhelmed the predator. Minimizing its profile by tucking in its fins, the invisible storm ended as suddenly as it came. Recovering from the disturbance, the fish swam inquisitively towards the source, thinking that a large carcass had touched down like a gift from the heavens. Perhaps it would not go hungry again this day.

But feasting on the live prey that crossed its path would be just as satisfying.

(Photo credit: MBARI)

Emerging from the dark water on a perpendicular route was a silver grenadier, also known as a ‘Rattail fish’. Its body had a teardrop shape, with much of the fin-power concentrated in its whip-like end. While not totally blind like the predator, its eyesight was myopic to the point that it could only see inches away.

The Rattail immediately veered left. The tail swiped roughly against the Fangtooth’s lower jaw, the stimulation triggering a chemical signal in its brain to give chase. Wiggling its stubby self feverishly, the hunter gained on the prey that darted into the abyss, mouth widening in anticipation.

A massive obstruction was predicted by tracing the curvature of its quarry’s wake. As the Fangtooth adjusted course, the ocean floor began to tremble once again. The towering anomaly was at the epicenter, fissures webbing out from it in all directions, releasing bubbling emissions of methane gas. A metallic screeching and crunching of rock reverberated through the structure, manifesting into the violent sound waves that were felt earlier. Hunger trumped by fear, the Fangtooth turned and scurried away from this apocalyptic scene.

As the deepwater oil drilling pipe ground to a halt, the Rattail emerged unfazed from the other side of the blowout preventer at its base. In the months since its appearance, this fish was among various species that had gotten accustomed, even dependent on the construct, whether for anchoring or protection from enemies. The pipe represented one of a dozen scattered rigs probing the “Mississippi Fan” plot of the Gulf for a promising yield of hydrocarbons. The Loop Current, which arched the Yucatan Peninsula, swung the pipes in its passage.

Rising from the sunless depths onto a continental shelf, schools of Northern Red Snapper were combing the sediment for oysters. Puffs of sand indicated the successful ones. Using their eponymous strong jaws, they whipped the shell against rock. Upon swallowing the exposed mollusk, they spat pearly remains that sprinkled to the bottom.

Assured of safety in numbers, the snappers acknowledged a racing hollow noise too late to avoid becoming another link in the food chain.

Coiled steel cables swooped into view from above, and then a gaping mesh net enclosed the fish. Scattering, they pushed futilely against the nylon curtain, a few lucky enough to slip through the opening as flat metal weights smoothly drew it shut. With a mechanized pull, the cables and net proceeded diagonally to the surface. The last stubborn snappers fell away and smacked into their brethren lying below in the trap. Minutes into their unwilling journey, the helpless fish emerged off the stern of a derelict medium trawler.

Dark frothing waves lapped the rusted hull. The ship rocked ceaselessly in the freezing winds blowing from the east, twanging mast lines and rattling looser equipment. The electric motor spinning the drum was shut off as the bulging net dangled between the arms of the trawl gantry, seawater dripping over the pole waving the flag of Belize and the deteriorating vessel’s name and port of construction.

El Patito Feo
Puerto Barrios

Perched on a walkway behind the wheelhouse, an earth pony sailor in a plastic raincoat shined a spotlight on the underwhelming catch. Twinkles danced across the bulk as scales refracted the beam.

“Right then, let’s get these bastards on ice!” he shouted in a crisp British accent before hitting the “Play” button on a remote control.

The opening notes of Europe’s Rock the Night blared from loudspeakers overhead. Rallying cries in English and Spanish by fellow crew members drowned in the music’s volume. Storming the main deck and manning their stations, one pegasus flew up to the gantry controls and pulled back on a lever. The arched structure swung away from the stern and locked into its default position, the net suspended over a large square hatch.

Working together, the fisher-ponies opened the hatch, and the flopping snappers were lowered into the pit, guided by hooked staffs. Two more with shovels leapt in afterwards to help empty the net and preserve the catch. Even from the walkway, El Patito Feo’s first mate couldn’t resist wrinkling his muzzle, imagining the stench of all that fish in the confined space. Truth be told, he hated seafood. At least his mariner skills were still valued, and there could’ve been worse jobs – or no job – to take.

“What the hell is going on?!” a gruff voice barked from behind.

The startled earth pony dropped the remote, clattering some distance away against the grated metal. With the song still playing, he turned to face the ship’s apoplectic pegasus captain, Prime Meridian.

“Sir!” saluted First Mate Showboat, angling a raised foreleg. “We’re just putting away the latest batch.”

“You casted nets again?” Captain Meridian said, his voice rising well above the background music. “When, and on whose authority?”

“Half an hour ago, and the order came from the bridge.”

“From WHO, because we both know it wasn’t me!”

“W-well, sir, it-it was the front-man, the Columbian.”

Prime’s inner powder keg exploded. He shot his fore-hooves into Showboat’s torso and charged forward, shoving him against the railing. The spotlight was knocked astray, getting the attention of their colleagues on the main deck.

“MY ORDER WAS ‘NOT ANOTHER FISH’ UNTIL WE KNOW OUR EXACT POSITION! I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT THE MONEY WANTS! IF WE GET PINCHED, IT’S ON BOTH OF YOUR ARSES!!!”

“I-I’m sorry, sir,” the first mate uttered timidly, staring into those brutal, war-weary eyes of his superior. A constant high-pitched ring filled his ears, rendering his favorite song inaudible.

Eventually the captain relented, letting Showboat sit forward on his haunches.

“When everypony’s done, I want them downstairs in the main quarters; Captain’s briefing in one hour or sooner when I get our location.”

“Aye-aye sir,” Showboat acknowledged, looking down.

Captain Meridian whirled left and trotted to the door of the wheelhouse. He opened it, stepped inside and lightly kicked it shut with a hind leg. His second mate, at the ship’s helm, turned his head and nodded to him before resuming his focus on the churning moonlit seascape. The instrument consoles and workstations were adorned with glowing strings of Christmas lights. A Frosty the Snowman bobble figurine danced to the sea’s turbulent rhythm next to a framed photograph of Prime with his family.

The pegasus’ eyes skirted over to the loudspeaker system, where a cassette player was connected to the auxiliary port. Yanking it with both fore-hooves, Rock the Night ceased playing outside at once.

‘The prat,’ the captain derided Showboat, tossing the player aside.

His first mate had come on board from a now defunct pleasure cruise firm. Six years had passed since gaining independence from the United Kingdom, and yet Belizean tourism and other economic sectors were still hobbling along. Showboat knew his knots from his knots, but seemed unable to relinquish his flair for theatrics and appeasement. His own years in the Royal British Navy had taught him one thing: The more experienced the sailor, the more dangerous the ocean becomes. The current, not the customer, is always right.

El Patito Feo was contracted by a Nicaraguan seafood company that supposedly catered to affluent clientele in Central and South America; the job’s conditions certainly hallmarked the eccentric whims of the rich. With a freelance crew of locals, she was to sail into the Gulf of Mexico and catch any number of fish native to those waters. Northern Red Snapper were the most prized, but Captain Meridian was basically told to gather as much as EPF could hold and deliver them in Belize City by Sunday morning.

Right away the endeavor’s most glaring impediment was the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Convention of 1970. Nine years later, the United States and Mexico had signed a treaty delineating each country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which granted them control over their half of the Gulf’s wildlife and mineral resources. If Americans attempted to harvest or drill in Mexico’s waters or vice versa, the affronted nation is empowered by the UN convention to defend their territory.

(Photo credit: Google)

However, nearly every law has a loophole to exploit. The Nicaraguan contractor informed them of the Western and Eastern Doughnut Holes in the sea, where the claims of both parties overlapped. Surmising that it would take decades to legislatively resolve the issue, the company wanted to supply Gulf delicacies at a drastically lower cost. Its liability was reduced by outsourcing to independent fisher-ponies, but they made the job worth Meridian’s while by paying half of their fee up front, the rest contingent on a successful delivery. Food, fuel and other operational costs would be covered at designated ports.

The ship set sail from Belize City on Wednesday, December 2nd with a crew of 14 on separate 12-hour shifts. But somepony else had joined them as a last-minute request. The Columbian front-man introduced himself as the son of the company’s CEO and wanted to learn fishing as a trade. The prospect struck the captain as unusual, but the young stallion was polite and initially displayed a great deal of enthusiasm, so he indulged him.

El Patito Feo’s living quarters, akin to the vessel’s general neglect, were inadequate for any duration. The itinerary of their journey included stops in Cancun, Mexico, and Arroyos De Mantua on Cuba’s western edge. It felt as though they were on a paid vacation. It was all too good to be true.

It proved as such after reaching the Eastern Doughnut Hole six hours ago. Their passive sonar and radio equipment started to malfunction, but they reached their target nonetheless by using the method of dead reckoning; charting the distance travelled by their velocity and degree of course.

To further complicate matters, the Columbian, apparently now bored with fishing, started to micromanage the job, boasting loudly to cancel the other half of the money if Captain Meridian continued overruling him. His subordinates, in desperate need of their fee, sympathized with the front-man, as Showboat recently did.

Even his second mate had followed his demand to circle within the doughnut hole to catch more fish, all without consulting the captain or recording their progress for hours.

‘Thanks to his meddling, we’re lost with an illegal catch. If either side finds us out here, I’m hanging him out to dry.’

That’s when his attention turned to the remote figure ensconced in the leftmost corner of the bridge. After a deliberate pause, the stallion blinked his eyes once and smoothly lifted his head to stare back at Prime Meridian.

Seated upright with his forelegs crossed discontentedly, the Columbian front-man’s pelt was peridot, and his brown mane and tail were sharply trimmed. He wore a dark, single-breasted business suit with a blue shirt and tie. The formal garb would’ve lent a comical impression of how out of touch he was, but there was no trace of humor at all in those tan eyes that pierced the dimly-lit space.

‘Mangle Pájaro, or “Mangrove Bird”, he says his name is. If he lied about becoming a fisher-pony, then I don’t trust anything else about him. He won’t even come clean about those scars.’

From the slanted line of the shirt collar, a crescent-shaped cut on his neck arced towards his lower jaw. The Columbian’s right ear was gashed at its topmost point. Many more past injuries were visible on his legs and torso days earlier as he was working the main deck, wearing clothes shared with him by the crew. His mannerisms and grooming standards didn’t strike Meridian as somepony with an executive background. There was something distinctly militaristic about him. He’d recognize it anywhere; the institutionalized courtesy, and impeccable sense of dress.

“Mr. Bird,” Captain Meridian said in English. “I understand that you would feel some entitlement to dictate me and my vessel, but your inexperience has placed us all in jeopardy.”

Mangrove Bird did not reply, so Prime continued his demerit.

“If we meet the order’s deadline by Sunday, I will be filing a complaint about your behavior. If it cuts into my Christmas bonus, then so be it. Dishonesty and instigating mutiny have no place on my ship. Do I make myself clear?”

The question was rhetorical, but his point was made. Mangrove stared after the captain as he trotted away to a cluttered workstation. It wasn’t a hateful look, but leaning more towards a touch piteous. Everything was nearly in place. It had all been a routine performance, from his beginning to their end.

“Feliz Navidad hecho,” he whispered to himself.

Captain Meridian looked at the clock mounted on the wall. It was calibrated to the home port, but its hands were frozen in place. Mentally logging yet another piece of inexplicably faulty equipment, he looked at his watch. It was 10:54 PM in Belize City. The pegasus removed his Navy jacket and opened his wings. Slipping a lanyard with a tape recorder around his neck, he then reached for and extracted a marine sextant from its carrying case.

The sonar was out commission, and the radio was too weak to pick up locator beacons. His only remaining option was to try celestial navigation to determine their position. The sextant is a sophisticated brass tool that uses special mirrors to judge the degrees between the ocean horizon and objects like the sun, moon and stars. His mathematics skills were pretty rusty, but he’d consult a guidebook after taking his measurements to reduce the error margin.

“Maintain current heading and speed,” he said to the second mate at the wheel. “I’m going outside for a better vantage point.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the third officer in command nodded.

Stepping through the door into the windy evening again, Captain Meridian flapped his wings with just enough force to carry him on top of the wheelhouse. His hind legs dangled over the bridge’s front windows as he sat down, bracing his thighs against lighting fixtures but allowing his back to swing freely to compensate for the ship’s movement on the water.

To his left, a storm was underway, bolts of lightning firing repeatedly throughout the burgeoning mass of gray clouds, but it was far away enough not to generate any thunderclaps. The sight was rather unsettling.

Concentrating on the task at hoof, Prime held the sextant scope up to his right eye, closing the left one. The watery edge of the world appeared on the horizon mirror in one half of his view. Pulling away from the scope briefly to get a lead on the full moon, he pulled a trigger to release the index arm, easing it forward until the glowing sphere was parallel to the ocean. Noting the degree number on the tool’s arc, he made adjustments to the micrometer and index dials before redoing the same moon-to-water test.

“Moon; 37.4 degrees at 0458 hours Greenwich,” Meridian said to the tape recorder before pressing the “Stop” button.

Next he needed a second formation to calculate the distance between it and the moon in relation to himself on the Earth’s surface. Polaris, the North Star was reliable, but some low-hanging cloud cover was obscuring it from view.

“Let’s hope I can still do this,” the old pegasus said as he stood up and achieved his full wingspan.

Panting heavily from exhaustion, Captain Meridian kneeled into the plush cloud, the sextant laid askew. El Patito Feo was slowly gliding ahead below him. Rock music echoed faintly, meaning that Showboat was messing around with the loudspeakers again. Scoffing in irritation, he picked up the sextant and spun around on his haunches, searching for Polaris.

When he found it, he commenced the same methodical experiment as before; leveling out the horizon on one side of the scope and aligning the shining star on the other. Again he documented his findings on the recorder, compensating for time expenditure and higher altitude. The final step before the number-crunching was taking the degrees between the moon and star. When that was done, he leapt from the cloud and glided leisurely towards his ship.

Back on the bridge, the captain was pouring over scribbled equations on loose-leaf paper, reserving the calculator for the more complicated ones. Using an astronomy reference book, the positions of the moon and North Star at the times he found them correlated into points of latitude and longitude. A sea chart of the entire Gulf of Mexico was splayed in the center of the chaos.

(Photo credit: NOAA)

With 10 minutes to spare on briefing the crew, Captain Meridian had the answer on where El Patito Feo was, and in more ways than one, it was far from reassuring.

‘Oh no,’ he groaned to himself.

As if on cue, a loud foghorn blasted across the sea towards them.

…

‘Welcome to Florida; the real “Cape Disappointment”.’

The deriding notion crossed the mind of Commander Cascades as he stood silently, assessing the dilapidated trawler through a pair of night vision binoculars. In an abrupt sequence familiar to the other bridge officers, the unicorn lowered the hoof-held scopes and magically seized a plastic bottle of water, twisting off the cap and chugging half of it. Exhaling and wiping his lips with his tongue, he set it next to this evening’s collection of finished servings. The region’s subtropical climate made him drink like a fish. The enlisted ponies joked that if they sprung a leak, just pass the new CO a bucket.

The Washington State native was reassigned to the Key West station as a condition of his promotion. Cascades was in command of the USCGC Duran (WMEC-914), the Coast Guard’s newest Famous-class cutter. However prestigious, the job wasn’t quite what he’d hoped for. Having built a lauded record of perilous maritime rescues, patrolling America’s half of the Gulf’s bounty settled quickly in the doldrums.

Cascades’ first hint of action in months arrived less than 12 hours ago. Westbound and 160 knots south of New Orleans, orders came directly from District 7 headquarters for the Duran to drop anchor off Fort Meyers station. The ship was barely into its 8-week rotation from Florida to Texas and didn’t need extra bodies or provisions. Nevertheless, he accepted both at the station. The two dozen reinforcements were from Law Enforcement Detachment #56, one of many specially-trained guardsmen teams deployed nationwide and overseas.

The cutter was held until sundown when LEDET 56’s leader at last informed the commander of their directive: Investigate an anonymous tip on illegal fishing.

Now, with El Patito Feo beheld in the unflattering green tint of night vision, bewilderment and questions continued to mound in the officer’s head. Frankly, it was embarrassing that District 7 thought it sensible to use elite resources on a boatful of wayward peasants. Duran’s formidable presence and firepower alone would’ve pacified them into surrender. If tonight’s operation was going to forge a precedent where they’d send Cascades in blind, then he gladly accept a return to search & rescue,

Determined to get the truth out of somepony once this was over, he finished the half-empty water bottle and replaced it on the table before trotting briskly on the multi-band radio. He cleared his throat and summoned the tethered microphone in a sparkling haze.

“Captain, this is the commander of the Coast Guard Cutter Duran. We have your position being inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. Identify yourself and your port of origin immediately, over,” he said.

A torrent of static from the receiver followed. Then the noise was interceded with gaps of a replying transmission.

“…Captain Merid…l Patito Feo…Belize Ci…ver,” said an older stallion’s voice.

“Say again, Captain. Your signal quality is poor and I read you 1-by-1, over.”

“Repeat, this is Cap…Meridian of the trawl…tito Feo out of Belize City, over.”

Commander Cascades spent a few moments rereading the calls, nodding confidently before speaking into the mike again.

“Roger that. Captain Meridian, can you increase power for a clearer output, over?”

“Negative...adio is malfunct…sonar is…own too, over.”

“We copy, your radio and sonar systems are malfunctioning. Do you have a signal lamp onboard, or a flashlight to improvise Morse code, over?”

As the unicorn CO monitored the hissing radio, he passed his binoculars over to a lieutenant subordinate to observe the trawler’s wheelhouse.

“They’re responding,” she announced. “Y, E, S; yes in Morse.”

“Solid copy, Captain, thank you. Because your vessel is within American economic territory, we have to conduct an appraisal on any catches you’ve made. Shut down your engines and we’ll send a team over momentarily. Do you acknowledge?”

Cascades looked over the console at the distant trawler. After a lengthy pause, the signal light emitted a series of dashes and dots that was interpreted by the female lieutenant as a second ‘Yes’. He turned away from the radio and started giving instructions throughout the bridge.

“Get underway and match their heading; bring us right up against their portside. Notify Fort Meyers and the LEDET team that we’ve made contact and are preparing to board.”

…

Minutes later, the Duran and El Patito Feo were rocking parallel in the waves with a standoff distance of 300 feet. Spotlights and mounted machine guns were trained on the miserable trawler. Motorized dinghies carrying six heavily-armed guardsmen apiece buzzed across. The ponies moored them to the stern and climbed aboard the main deck.

Pime Meridian had been waiting for them, sitting upright with his forehooves held firmly over his head. LEDET 56’s earth pony leader, Unleaded, swung his AR-15 assault rifle behind him as he approached the old sea-pony and shook him firmly by the hoof.

“Hello, Captain,” he said with a brief smile “I understand that you’ve been having sonar problems. Is that why you ended up all the way out here?”

“Yes, it’s partly to blame actually,” Meridian said, relaxing his posture. “Communication and navigation have been dodgy since leaving Cuba. On top of that, our ‘intern’ kept having a go at the wheel.”

“I see. Where is the rest of the crew?”

“In the main quarters, through that door,” the pegasus said with a nudge of his head. “They were waiting for a briefing.”

“Can you ask them to come out here too?”

“Certainly. I will announce your presence on the intercom.”

One by one, the crew of El Patito Feo marched onto the main deck. They were made to sit down in rows on either side of the ship and presented their identification and mariner licenses. Unleaded and Prime Meridian climbed a stairway to the wheelhouse walkway and entered the bridge. There, the captain procured his own documentation, including the order contract from the Nicaraguan company.

“Well, the doughnut holes are viable to take fish from the Gulf. Not much to catch out there except oil spills,” the LEDET leader admitted.

“That’s what I told the contractor, and they didn’t care,” the captain shrugged. “Apparently their customers only want the pleasure of thumbing their noses at regulations. And with the price they were offering, I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”

“And tell me about this ‘intern’ you mentioned earlier.”

“Ah, ‘Mangrove Bird’, what an absolutely delight it’s been having him aboard,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Is he any one of the ponies sitting outside right now?”

“Unfortunately, no. When your ship sounded the horn, he seemed to have panicked and went below deck. My men never saw him by the quarters, so my guess is he’s probably in the engine room.”

“We’ll have to find him. There are a few questions we need him to answer.”

“Be my guest.”

Nodding appreciatively, Unleaded escorted Captain Meridian off the bridge and watched from above as he rejoined his crew. He keyed the tactical radio clipped to his vest and spoke into it.

“Team, be advised, there is one more pony unaccounted for. Subject is described as having familial ties to the shell corporation that hired this ship.”

To the untrained eye, the invoice Captain Meridian offered seemed to represent a legitimate enterprise. Checks made by Commander Cascades on the Duran though concluded that the company existed only through paper and a Nicaraguan P.O. box. As with most fronts, its purpose was to conceal illicit operations. Getting the dirt from the “intern” would be critical in enlisting INTERPOL’s help on the lead,

“I want you four to get started in the hold and find what we came here for. Six will clear all living areas for the subject before proceeding to the engine room. Remember: we want him alive. The last two, including myself, will handle the crew on deck.”

After the crackling affirmations of his teammates, LEDET 56 split into groups; one pried open the cargo hatch while the second trotted in a single-file line to the door leading inside with weapons drawn.

…

The operatives slid down a thick braided rope into the cargo hold and immediately started shivering. It was pitch black, packed with ankle-high ice, and effusive with the smell of fish.

“Ugh, it’s like being in a giant fridge with the door closed,” one of them said with a retch.

The ponies slapped on their headlights, the beams dancing about as they oriented themselves to their new surroundings. Hundreds of dead fish eyes were staring at them from every corner; red snappers; amberjacks; groupers; and yellowfin tuna were some of the easily recognizable species.

“These guys were trying to clean out the whole Gulf,” muttered another voice.

A pair of shovels were spotted leaning against a wall and a unicorn pair willed them over at once. The tools automatically began to dig, tossing ice and fish carcasses to the far side of the hold. As the team had been expecting, a dull thud was heard when they struck something hidden underneath.

“Jackpot,” somepony exclaimed, grinning through the dark.

…

In contrast, the second team’s search was unhurried. Placing alternating fore-hooves over one shoulder of the pony ahead and steadying their automatic rifles on the other, the chain of six cleared the galley; the main quarters for meals and assemblies; the captain’s accommodations; and the crew bunkrooms. Narrow wooden hallways with a faded crème-colored finish creaked as their bulk pushed against them. The orange carpeting was filthy and occasionally scrunched into tripping points.

Coming to a fork that went left and right, the six divided into two-of-three. The starboard passage ended in a staircase leading to the engine room. After clearing the final cabins adjacent to it, they would regroup and proceed down there together. Finishing their search and returning to the fork, the last operative fell behind when the slightest noise of a door closing piqued his interest.

‘What was that?’ he asked to himself.

The lone pegasus entered the cabin he thought it had been the source. The door to the head was closed. The guardsman twisted the knob and pulled it open. The cramped space housed a toilet, sink and a mirror facing him.

A brown and green earth pony with blazing tan eyes was standing right behind his reflection.

Before he could even scream, Mangrove Bird shot a foreleg around his neck and clenched the windpipe shut. Lifting both himself and his victim onto their hind legs to prevent bucking, he embraced and rode out the terrified flailing with a dream-like serenity on his face.

With a final muted whine, the pegasus’ forelegs and wings fell to his sides, and Mangrove gently lowered the body to the ground, ears probing for any hint of movement in the hallway. Certain that he was alone; he looked down at the suffocated guardsman. In a bizarre gesture of respect, he reached down and closed the eyelids.

‘Tu eres un soldato, como yo era antes. Voy a sangrar with usted,’ Mangrove murmered his eulogy as he withdrew a folded knife and a black velvet pouch out of separate pockets.

Lifting the right foreleg that perpetrated the sin, he bared his teeth and clasped them around the sleeves of the business suit and dress shirt beneath. Buttons popped free and layers of shredded silk dangled below the exposed leg. Taking the knife in his dental grip next, he ran it across a patch of pelt that was free of scars, wincing slightly. Blood was running down the limb. Bird scooped it into the black pouch.

His atonement fulfilled, he opened the cabin door and dragged the body towards the engine room staircase. It was time to finish the job and return home.

…

The cellophane wrapped around the bundle was opaque due to condensed moisture. An LEDET 56 operative dragged it out of the fish-tainted ice, revealing the outlines of at least three more. The bundle was massive, weighing at least 40 lbs.

“Somepony pass me a knife and field test,” the one holding the package said.

Two of his collagues did so, while the third stood from behind, providing a steady source of light. Guided by magic, the knife jerkily cut a triangular shape, pausing every now and then to peel back the upper layers of the material. A white powdery substance was discovered inside. A glass vial with ampoules of acidic reagents wafted in and collected a sample from the bundle. With a firm shake, the ampoules were breached and three compounds began to interact. Within seconds, the mixture turned sky blue.

Still watching over El Patito Feo’s crew, Unleaded heard the exciting news from his agents in the hold.

“Chief, we got a positive hit for cocaine! Looks like there’s plenty more bundles in the ice! Are we breaking cover yet?”

“No, we’re too far out,” the supervisory special agent said. “Get pictures of the fish to the commander. That’ll give him probable cause to escort the boat into U.S. jurisdiction. The DEA will take over after that.”

The anonymous phone call was received by his agency, not the Coast Guard. It had implicated El Patito Feo in a drug smuggling plot. The dope was loaded in Mexico and fishing was its cover. A speedboat from the mainland would meet them at the Eastern Doughnut Hole and take possession of the cocaine. Using the guises of LEDET 56 and enforcing the EEZ, Unleaded and four other special agents boarded the trawler to find the promised load.

‘The sonar going down was our lucky break. The gophers probably never showed up,’ he surmised.

*SLAM*

“HEY YOU, STOP!”

A door crashing open, clopping hooves, and a command shouted from the one of the real guardsmen prompted Unleaded into action. Running along the walkway, he caught glimpses of a shadowy figure through holes in the grated surface.

“RUNNER, RUNNER ON STARBOARD!!!”

One of the Duran’s spotlights swept across the bridge as the DEA agent barged in, literally blindsiding him. Closing his eyes and shaking his head with a grunt, he dashed towards the console, throwing his fore-hooves over the main console and leaning over it for a better view.

The illuminated pony on the ship’s bow was wearing a black wetsuit, a compressed oxygen tank, and flippers on all four hooves. Brown mane and jungle green pelt covering his head were discernable as he leapt gracefully from the pulpit into the sea.

“HE’S GONE UNDER!” cried the LEDET 56 team member, gasping for breath.

“There’s nowhere for him to go,” Commander Cascades said as he watched the drama from the cutter’s bridge.

“Get a dive team ready. Alive or not, he coming with us.”

“Aye-aye sir,” a lieutenant said, grabbing the radio microphone.

When the junior officer pressed the button to transmit, the device suddenly unleashed a hurricane of static, making everypony squint in discomfort.

“Good God, what was that?” Cascades said, trotting over to the console.

After keying the mike himself and tuning to different frequencies, the same unassailable wall of electronic noise came from the receiver.

“It’s useless. Tell Unleaded to give the other boat’s radio a try.”

…

Four guardsmen were still the searching the engine room. The fifth was posted at the stairwell when the fleeing Mangrove Bird crossed his sight and gave pursuit. It was a dank and polluted environment. Barrels of gasoline were lined against the walls holding the sea at bay. Puddles of oil and muck seeped from the inert machinery.

“I see something,” one of the team members whispered. “There, behind the crates. They look like hooves.”

Twin streaks of grime on the floor traced over to the prone hind legs. Suspecting they belonged to the “intern”, the quartet closed formation and edged towards the boxes. Their AR-15s dropped in horror when they discovered the body of one of their own.

“P-pony down, pony down in the engine room!” a second one said on his tactical radio, but the transmission wasn’t acknowledged.

“Can you hear me?! We’ve got somepony KIA in the engine room!” a third yelled into his mike in frustration.

The dead guardsman’s corpse bared no apparent sign of a struggle. Except for his legs, he was free of the engine room’s contamination. The attack must’ve happened elsewhere and was carried down later.

The breast pocket flap bearing his nametag was ajar. One of the guardsmen lifted it and extracted a black velvet pouch. Uncomprehendingly, he dropped it on the floor and pulled it open.

“Diamonds, rough diamonds,” he said, examining the uneven shimmering rocks. “There’s got to be at least 100 carats here.”

“What’s that red stuff they’re covered in? Is that blood?”

The guardsmen looked back at their fallen brother, but he wasn’t bleeding.

“That’s some messed-up, serial killer shit right there,” another voice blurted disgustedly.

Wires running underneath one of the crates garnered their attention. Raising the upended container yielded a dull green rectangular block with multiple antennas planted on top.

“What is it?” somepony asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t understand the wording.”

“It’s Cyrillic,” one of the guardsmen volunteered. "I’ve been studying Russian. You’re looking at a radio jammer, capable of full-spectrum interruption.”

“Can you shut it down?”

“I’m a linguist, not an electrician.”

“Fine, smartass,” the leader sighed. “I’ll cut the cables myself.”

“Ss-sir, you might not want to do that,” a petrified team member said, pointing at a lone wire trailing away from the body.

It continued behind the closest barrel of fuel.

Face paling and stomach roiling, the guardsman trotted over and shifted the barrel. The shrieking resistance of metal on metal was nothing compared to the mortal dread as his worst fears were confirmed.

“Aw, son of a bitch,” his curse trailed off in a rising pitch.

DEA Supervisor Unleaded was informed of Duran’s radio troubles and made a beeline for EPF’s console. The microphone in his hoof, wailing cries of the damned erupted from somewhere in the lower decks, one of them fast approaching from the rear staircase.

“IT’S A TRAP!!! TRAAAPPP!!! GET THE HELL OFF THIS SHIP!!!”

The warning came too late. Unleaded’s fore-hoof pressed the transmit button, completing the circuit running through the jammer to the blocks of C-4 plastic explosive strapped to the flammable barrels.

El Patito Feo’s hull was wrenched apart in a massive explosion, splintering the overlapping decks. The gantry was bisected in the dual blast waves, one crossing the short distance to the Duran in milliseconds. Viewports shattered inward, the cutter heaving almost to the point of capsizing, its vibrant livery scorched and peeling. The red-orange inferno blossomed from the sinking trawler’s remains. It looked like a swan from Hell, unfurling its wings and arching its head towards the full moon.

A hundred nautical miles northwest of the tragedy, two oil worker ponies stood watching from the helicopter pad of an offshore rig, their previous conversation forgotten.

“I think we better call somebody," one of them said at last.

*TO BE CONTINUED*

Author's Note

I want to apologize to the followers for the hiatus. I got started on Black Swan right after the introduction, but it’s been a VERY busy three months for me. An ungodly amount of research went into this chapter, but I was determined to do it as my literary hero, Dr. Michael Crichton, would have. It also holds a great deal of personal elements and experiences that I believe helped make it even more dramatic.

El Patito Feo, or The Ugly Duckling in English, was always my favorite bedtime story. My father read it to me all the time. I think the moral still holds a great of weight in my life. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

The scenario of a booby-trapped drug load is one I’ve been dying to use for a long time in my writing. I never would’ve thought it’d be depicted by ponies, but life is unexpected and fun like that.

Mangrove Bird’s calling card of blood diamonds was inspired by a betrayal suffered back in April. Although I was admittedly less than honest with this person before, I was ready to be forthcoming and devoted to work with her again. Then she goes and cuts me out, reneging on the approval she gave beforehand. The blood diamond is the analogy I used to describe my final gift to her; a gorgeous treasure that concealed the human agony which bore it from the earth.

And finally, my family recently experienced a significant loss. Duran, which is French for “enduring”, is the name I chose for the Coast Guard Cutter to memorialize her passing.

Thank you very much for reading MIAMIDASH. The second half of the prologue should be completed soon.

~James Anon (FestOfAmerican)

White Lies

~For Lauren~
(Happy Birthday, Ms. Faust)

MIAMIDASH
Prologue Part 2: White Lies

NEW YORK
FOUR WEEKS EARLIER

If the best education came from the streets, then taxis were university departments on four wheels. Sociology; economics; political science; all these and more were endless discourse for citizenry’s most unexpected scholars. Cab drivers knew every one of a city’s million stories as they knew its shortcuts. In the abstract, their monopoly over wisdom rendered them New York’s true masters.

“38 years! I’m telling you that in my 38 years, I’ve never seen an autumn snowfall this early!” Georgie exclaimed in that deep rasp that captured the city’s beating heart.

The yellow 1960’s Checker Marathon turned left on East 58th Street, crossed a bustling intersection with 59th, and followed the curving on-ramp for the Queensboro Bridge. It trailed sparse traffic into the arched passage.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Suppressing a cough with a handkerchief, the wizened griffon continued his Ivy League-worthy lecture on the weather. He jabbed a clawed foreleg through air to emphasize certain points. A blast of cold air from behind made him pause, both for thought and to ruffle his shoulder feathers. Looking at the rear-view mirror, it was apparent that his earth pony passenger had rolled down a window.

“Hey lady, that wind chill’s got to be in the 20’s. Don’t it bother you?”

“I can’t get enough of it,” she confessed in a southern twang as she leaned her head out of the frame.

Wintertime always made her feel nostalgic. Visions of lower Manhattan, the East River, and Roosevelt Island were flashing by in a giant kaleidoscope created from the bridge. The tires hissed against a roadway slick with salted water. The crisp air whipped about her orange pelt and blond mane. There was something undeniably magical about visiting home in the year’s final season.

‘I’ve been away for too long,’ she thought with a smile.

A wailing siren dashed her tranquility. The griffon heard it too and quickly jutted the Checker into an adjacent lane. Moments later, two Dodge Diplomat police sedans with spinning lights roared past. They disappeared when the vehicles ahead resumed their original positions. their haunting shrieks eventually fading as well.

‘Stay safe officers.’

“Damn, there goes my coffee!” Georgie said.

He dropped the handkerchief over the moist carpeting and stamped on it with a lion foot.

“Crime is way out of control! That bozo mayor’s so full of it! I'll be damned if his name goes on anything else than a sewage plant, you know what I’m saying?”

Expecting concurrence or even amusement, the cabbie was stunned to find the mare’s shamrock eyes looking stern through the mirror. Their once inviting dazzle was gone, hardened now into a matte jade. Words had failed him. Instead he diverted his focus back on the road and tugged on his skull cap, and the receding feathers that quivered underneath.

Exhaling sharply, Applejack grabbed the window handle in both fore-hooves and rotated it until the glass was firmly in place. She picked up her Stetson hat and flipped it over; a pocket was secreted on the inner brim. From it, she withdrew and studied her “VOID” stamped ID card from the New York City Police Department. After many years of sacrifice, she wasn’t interested in hearing any outsider’s perspective on her old colleagues.

‘They’re trying their best. Big Mac and I gave everything we had.’

Three years ago, Applejack was an Armed Robbery detective in the Bronx. She was inspired to follow in the hoof-steps of her older brother, Big Macintosh, of the Vice division. The brother and sister rubbed shoulders professionally on occasion; competing in everything from casework to marksmanship. They were greatly hailed for their devoted service. Then one evening in September 1984, the earth pony siblings were ensnared in an undercover operation that would change the course of their lives forever.

The primary suspect eluded them during the incident, and bureaucratic inaction proceeded the fallout. AJ, bitterly determined to see the score settled, fabricated the clearance to continue the investigation in Florida. However, the deception proved futile when the target slipped through her grasp yet again. Facing reprisal in New York for her vigilantism, the detective was persuaded to transfer into Metro-Dade Police. As a Sergeant in the Organized Crime Bureau, she ultimately fulfilled her quest for justice; at the pull of a trigger than the fall of a gavel.

Today is the last day of her 1-week leave from the job. Having spent the previous night with an old flame, Applejack saved the most important stop for last; to visit Big Mac and apologize for letting her sworn duty become a vendetta. She hadn’t seen him since the operation that drove them apart. Among her excuses, the younger sibling lacked Big Mac's ability to self-reflect, or confront the most unyielding truth of all.

The off-duty detective looked up from the remnant of a past life and saw that Georgie was merging from State Route 25 onto Queens Boulevard. She put the ID card away and fitted the Stetson atop of her head. When the Marathon came to a stop, she opened the right passenger door climbed out hind legs first onto the sidewalk.

…

“Keep the change, friend,” Applejack said when her teeth were relieved of their $20 bills. “That ought to make up for the spilled coffee.”

“Wha-? Nah, that wasn’t your fault, miss,” Georgie said, taken aback.

The griffon held out the remaining balance through the window, but the earth pony gently closed his scaly fingers around it.

“I insist,” she smiled reassuringly. “I just want to know if you’ve got any other fares waiting.”

“Are you kidding? This is what’s known as a dry spell; too cold for the fall crowds, and too early for Thanksgiving. You were my first fare today, and I’m starving, literally!”

“Well I know a little place nearby called ‘Sidetracks’ that makes a great chicken soup. Go on and have a lunch break. Be back here in, say, half an hour, and I could use another ride to Kennedy airport.”

“Okay, you got it!” Georgie nodded, the corners of his beak tilting upwards.

The idling taxi shifted back into “Drive” and pulled away from the icy curb. Applejack watched it perform a U-turn and head for the restaurant per her direction. She raised a foreleg and glanced at her watch. Taking a visible deep breath to steady her nerves, she turned on the spot and trotted through the stone-layered turret gateway of the New Cavalry Cemetery.

…

The morning’s gloomy overcast had been evaporated by the sun. Disparate coverage persisted against a warm blue sky. Birds were chirping a peaceful melody from their roosts of barren tree branches. Snow crunched loudly under-hoof as the earth pony made her gradual ascent up the hill to Section 18. Her eyes and mouth widened in sync upon reaching the top and beholding a truly breathtaking scene.

(Photo credit: Bridge and Tunnel Club)

In the backdrop roughly 30 miles away, the spires of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings were the prominent hallmarks of the expansive Midtown skyline. Chiming buoy bells, honking car horns, and rumbling machinery of the distant living city stood in stark contrast to the dormant valley that unfurled itself before Applejack. There were headstones of varying compositions and religious denominations, as far as the detective could see.

Swallowing dryly, she sat on her haunches and pulled out an annotated copy of the cemetery map. Beneath the darkening brim of her Stetson, she memorized the path to her brother’s grave. Minutes later with weighty steps, the earth pony entered the valley. The grave markers faced away from her, casting long shadows over Section 18’s eternal occupants. Looking around for a familiar name, tiny American flags, bouquets of flowers, and other personal effects had adorned some of them. One particular tombstone drew Applejack’s attention; it was inscribed with "R.I.P. – The Living" and had a pair of stereo headphones leaning on its base. She wondered if that was somepony’s idea of a last laugh.

(Photo credit: The New Yorker)

At last she’d found it, and the mare hurried forward. Without checking her watch, she counted less than 10 minutes left to pay her respects, but was determined to make them count. Her tired panting chilled quickly in the ambient cold and drifted past her eyes, obfuscating the modest stone carving that jutted from the rising curve in the earth. The detective reached a foreleg up and removed her Stetson, clutching it against her chest as she swept away snow from the headstone’s base with the other.

HERE LIES
BIG MACINTOSH
1983 – 1984
A NOBLE SON AND CARING BROTHER
“FIDELIS AD MORTEM”

Years of suppressed emotions returned from the inscription. Uncaring if anypony saw her, Applejack draped herself over the lonely memorial, resting her chin on top of it. Tears ran from her eyes and onto the iced rock.

“I’m sorry, Big Mac. I am so, so sorry,” she offered repeatedly, clutching the stone tightly in her forelegs.

Detective Macintosh’s fatal assignment was to make a narcotics purchase face-to-face with one of New York’s biggest drug lords. Months of patient cultivation had precluded the meeting. However, Applejack had discovered it was a setup and raced to the deal location. Tragically, she arrived only to witness her brother and an informant being gunned down on the drug lord’s orders. As his limousine pulled away, AJ cradled Big Mac's body and screamed as if to let the whole city know this egregious injustice.

Even after hunting him down in the Bahamas months later, the drug lord’s descendants continued to torment the detective in excruciating ways beyond reckoning. It was earlier this year, on the small island of St. Gerard, that the blood feud was settled once and for all. Applejack settled with the choices she made, and their consequences. The only lingering question was what would her brother have thought about such a grotesque cycle of death and vengeance, had he lived to see it.

His scornful look and tone had been imposing on her dreams for weeks. Concerned that Applejack’s job performance was degrading, her partner in Miami Vice suggested a short vacation for both of them, a proposal that was approved by their lieutenant. These forces conspired to bring the earth pony mare to a snow-covered field in Queens, to embrace the tombstone of the only family she'd ever really known.

“All I want now is peace; to do my job again for the right reasons,” she said, holding further tears at bay. “I know that’s what you’d want for me too.”

Perhaps that second declaration was true. Big Macintosh never held grievances against anypony, least of all his own sister. Then again, it could be a lie told in self-condolence, because he had found a peace so fulfilling and wouldn’t bother contradict her.

Applejack released the stone carving and reached her mouth into a saddlebag, extracting a wrapped bunch of hellebores she’d purchased in Manhattan. She tenderly lowered them over Bic Mac’s final resting place, the 5-petaled flowers vibrant in the daylight. Bowing respectively one last time, she stood up and put the Stetson back on.

“Sleep well, big brother."

With a parting half-smile at the remote slab, she turned and jogged to the hoof-path that would lead her back to the Queens Boulevard entrance and the waiting taxi. There was just enough to time to catch the flight back to Miami.

…

REBEL RIDGE PARK
LATER THAT DAY

The afternoon Georgia sun hovered in the swaying grasp of the westward oak trees. Great swaths of the landscape were painted in a golden orange hue. The same breeze shifting the trees also fluttered the blades of grass that covered the field. In their aromatic midst, a well-worn football bearing the initials "UF" sat upright on a tri-legged stand.

“Ready, set, HUT!” a filly’s voice shouted.

A small orange pegasus galloped from one end of the field. Her spiky violet mane and tail bobbed in the wind, but otherwise blended with the sunset. Round plum eyes locked onto the football straight ahead, putting a bit more oomph in her charge. At the moment of truth, she reared onto her hind legs and jointly swung her fore ones, the brown, white-laced pod sailing into the air. Without pausing to admire her kick, the pegasus was running again, passing one 10-yard line after another.

“Ready or not, here I come!”

“Don’t worry, I am!” a coarse female voice taunted from offense.

Crossing the median yard line, the opposing team came into the filly’s view. The adult pegasus mare’s blue pelt and spectrum-striped hair gave her a camouflage value of nil. The killer look in her pink eyes told you that she didn’t need it anyway. The football was securely in the grip of her right wing, protruding though a teal jersey dating back to the late 60’s. Stitched across the back in blocky white lettering was the following:

DASH
88

Scootaloo decided to try a fake-out maneuver, tagging her opponent at the last minute. She aligned herself parallel to Rainbow Dash, who suddenly veered into a collision course. When the pegasus filly tried to move away, she kept entering her line of sight. Flinching in the mere feet left between them, Scootaloo hit the dirt while the prankster leapt abundantly over her and continued unfettered to the 0-yard line.

“Aw yeah, another touchdown for the Gators!” she said, dropping the ball in the end-zone and trotting triumphantly in circles.

The girl arose from literally bitter defeat; spitting out grass slivers and soil that was caked against her lower jaw. She then turned and bounded up to Rainbow.

“No fair, Mom!” Scootaloo protested. “You were supposed to let me trick you!”

“Sorry, kiddo, it slipped my mind in the heat of the game.”

“That’s your excuse for everything!”

“Well then, I guess it must be true.”

She winked at her daughter, who was still wearing an unamused scowl. Dash had to think of a way to make it up to her. Looking over at the nearby goalpost gave her an idea.

“Alright, you can have a safety kick. Get the ball inside that post and Georgia wins.”

Scootaloo considered the structure with some apprehension.

“Do you think I can?”

“Of course, that foreleg kick of yours is a bruiser!” she said, lifting her wing and revealing inflammation through the pelt.

…

Rainbow Dash held the football steady in her forelegs. Scootaloo was running towards her again, her composure focused. The double kick was so strong that her mother shook her stinging hooves when relieved of the ball. The pair watched as it flew through the poles and into the adjacent parking lot. The bleating of a car alarm signaled a definite touchdown, if not some inadvertent property damage.

“I did it! Woo-hoo!” she said, flittering her tiny wings like a hummingbird to hover inches above the ground.

“Hay yeah you did!” Rainbow said, beaming.

She hoisted the tiny pegasus and took off on a celebratory flight around the park. The prospect of the football hitting the Testarossa, and the lieutenant chewing her out, didn’t weigh heavily on her at the moment.

While playing for her alma mater, Rainbow Dash had a promising future in the NFL until a leg injury sidelined her. By the time she recuperated, both the Gators and the larger world had moved on. Concerning the latter, she was drafted to serve in the Army during the Vietnam War, in two separate tours leading up to the war’s ignoble conclusion.

Influences during the war and prior led her to joining the Metro-Dade Police Department. She rose quickly from uniformed patrol to Detective-Sergeant in the Organized Crime Bureau’s Vice Division. It happened to be no coincidence that soon after losing her partner in a car bombing, she crossed paths with the renegade Applejack of the NYPD; the drug lord she had stalked south was the same man responsible for the bombing. When all was said and done in their first assignment together, Rainbow Dash convinced Applejack to bring her law enforcement credentials south to Dade County.

Since then, the "Miami Vice" dream team had shattered many criminal organizations, their wit and might tested by international adversaries descendeding upon their city. These victories were not without personal defeats. In Dash’s case, it was an estranged spouse and daughter living in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The traumatic outcome in a recent case prompted her to rebuild ties, in spite of her dangerous career choice.

‘This game, the moments we’re sharing right now, should’ve been a lot sooner,’ Rainbow Dash reproached herself in mid-air.

…

In a quaint suburban block close to Rebel Ridge, Scootaloo nimbly hopped the uphill steps to her father’s house. Making it to the front porch first, she turned and beckoned with a foreleg to the lagging detective.

“Hurry up, Mom!” she said.

“Whoa, easy Scoots, I don’t see a fire,” the blue pegasus jested.

Her leisurely apparel and stride would suggest that she was going at her own pace, but in reality the football game had drained her physically; an unwelcome reminder that time caught up with everypony. In addition, knocking on that door meant the end of her leave, not counting the exorbitant drive home. Having robbed as much time as she could, Rainbow Dash eventually rapped a hoof on the ornate wooden panel.

The door opened, and posted in the frame was a pegasus stallion. His pelt was a shade of blue brighter than Rainbow’s. His mane and tail resembled flames of sapphire. Luminous green eyes pierced the sunset draping across his face.

“Daddy!”

Scootaloo greeted ecstatically with a hug, the stallion kneeling down to return the embrace.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said in a melodic surfer accent. “Did you and Mommy have a good time at the park?”

“Yeah, it was the best! I made the winning point!”

“You did? I’m so proud of you. Dinner’s almost ready, so come on in and wash up.”

“Okay!”

The pegasus filly landed on her forelegs with a clap and scurried through the open space in the doorway. The father rose to full height and considered his ex-wife as she leaned casually on the porch fence. The antiquated teal jersey was swapped for his standard department-issue; a loose-fitting white silk sport coat, pants, and a beige undershirt. A pair of Ray Ban sunglasses were perched on her snout. The hind hooves were nestled in loafers made of soft leather, foregoing socks. A gold Rolex watch slid back on one foreleg as she raised an open lighter to the cigarette dangling from her mouth.

“Hey, Soarin,” Rainbow Dash said with a hiss of smoke through her clenched teeth.

“Hey, Sunny,” he replied cordially.

Being privy to the alias was to glimpse into a vastly different world, one of unbridled decadence. For its inhabitants, money and notoriety were the ends to justify all means; betray or be betrayed; kill or be killed. Not unlike the great games of conquest played centuries ago, these new empires span continents and clash with one another to satiate the demand for illicit commodities. Only those of unscrupulous ambition could hope to attain longevity. For the part of “Sunny Burns”, and others daring enough to infiltrate this world, to survive untainted was more arduous than the bust.

In retrospect, Soarin had been naïve when he blissfully decided to share a life and daughter with Dash. The stresses induced by a law enforcement career were compounded on the officer’s loved ones. Going undercover as a freelance drug distributor, the detective would live away from them for months on end. Her successes within the department forged "Sunny" as an inseparable part of her identity. Even as he came to acknowledge that, it’d filled him with dread that Rainbow’s other life would endanger them as well.

When that fateful evening arrived, the assassin had been waiting for them indoors, riddling the abode with sub-machine gunfire. A divorce inevitably followed, as did Soarin gaining custody of Scootaloo and moving north to Marietta. A quiet three years later, Rainbow Dash reached out to them, stricken with anguish. The pledge made to reconnect with their daughter was too sincere for the remarried stallion to deny. The spectrum-maned pegasus arrived at the front door last Friday, exhausted from the nearly 700-mile road trip, but rejuvenated instantly by Scootaloo’s embrace. She spent every day of the week together as her mother promised.

“She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her,” Soarin attested. “You two really have a special connection.”

“It’s not that complicated,” Sunny said, balancing the cigarette on an extended fore-hoof. “I simply take her along on the things that I like.”

“Does that include your road rocket?”

His ex-wife coughed, and he knew well enough it wasn’t from taking a drag.

“Don’t lie to me, Sunny.”

“Okay, okay, a little ‘Driver’s Ed’ seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“She’s still in grade school,” he said, shaking his head. “And probably can’t see over the steering wheel.”

“We solved that with enough textbooks,” the mare explained playfully.

“Now I don’t need to guess what you were doing for her study hour. So what happened?”

“Nothing; we went around the block a couple times. The local PD pulled us over though. Scoots told me to keep quiet and let her handle it.”

“Rainbow!” the stallion shouted.

“I’m joking, come on!” she said, holding up both forelegs in a defensive gesture. “I showed him my badge and we had a good laugh over it. He said he lets his kid use the siren.”

“Unbelievable.”

“It’s called ‘having fun’, Soarin. We cops need to have some too.”

The ex-husband looked away and sighed. Dash shrugged and took another puff from her cigarette, tapping the bottom of it with a fore-hoof and watching the gray curls of ash drift away in the evening breeze. Twin snakes of smoke blasted from her nostrils upon exhaling. She dropped the cigarette into the free hoof and rolled it slightly in the keratin sole.

“How’s Spitfire?” Sunny asked in a low voice. “Is she treating you guys okay?”

“Fine; out working as usual,” Soarin replied. “Scootaloo’s taking to her little by little, but it’s a long-distance relationship. She’s pushing hard for a transfer to a local post.”

Rainbow Dash had met Soarin’s new wife; the day she arrived, Chief Petty Officer Spitfire was ordered back to NAF El Centro in California for another training session with the Blue Angels. The two had met through a shared background in naval aviation, but Soarin was medically discharged. Rather brusque in her first impression, Spitfire proved to be engaged in her stepdaughter’s well-being, hoping for reassignment to Atlanta recruitment by March.

“That’s good. Both of you could use somepony with a little more stability,” Dash said encouragingly.

“She’s got a lot of respect for you, Sunny. The Blue Angels have been her entire career. She can’t imagine doing anything outside of the Navy, and certainly not what you do.”

The unfinished cigarette tumbled out of the hoof and onto the porch. The pegasus mare turned to face the stallion in the doorway. He was staring right back, dissuading any doubt from the abrupt confession.

“It’s true, Spitfire thought you were some ‘hot shot ex-jock’,” Soarin continued. “But then I told her what you saw in Vietnam, and what you see in Miami. It really scared the hell out of her.”

‘Hot shot ex-jock, huh? Not bad, I’ll take it,’ the detective noted as she kicked the burning paper tube down the steps.

The sun was long gone over the horizon. The overhanging purple clouds were darkening rapidly and the crickets were beginning their nighttime chorus. Rainbow Dash removed her sunglasses and hanged them from the front of her undershirt. If she delayed her departure further, the chances were she might not make it back to work on time.

“Thanks, Soarin, for everything you did to make my leave worthwhile,” she said, trotting up to him and offering a hoof-shake.

“Won’t you stay over for dinner?” he said, ignoring Rainbow’s attempt at farewell. “We have plenty to go around.”

“Sorry, but to reach the state line by dawn, I need to cover a lot of distance before finding a motel.”

“Oaky. Then let Scootaloo say goodbye to her mother,” the blue-on-blue pegasus said calling for the filly over his shoulder.

…

The young girl dispensed her tomboy persona and wept, her fore-hooves clinging fiercely to the sport coat. Rainbow Dash hugged her in return, running a foreleg across the top of her mane in consolation.

“I love you, Mom. I love you so much,” she sniffled, burying her face into the undershirt and letting loose more tears.

“I know, Scoots. I love you too, and I always will,” Sunny affirmed, ducking and embracing her daughter with her neck.

“You’ll come back to see Daddy and me soon, right?”

The mare raised angled eyes at her ex-husband, and the expression he gave was ambiguous; “We’ll see”, was her interpretation. Children only know absolutes: “Yes” or “No”. Dash meant to come back and see her, that much truth she could deliver. Being more specific was to lie.

‘I can live that. One more to the pile of lies I’ve told others and myself.’

“Sure, kiddo. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

…

Sunny Dash climbed the hill’s last rocky step onto the curb. She turned, waving to her daughter and ex-husband one last time. Next she jogged the declining roadway to the only car capable of supplementing his high-rolling cover.

It had a flat white rectangular shape with a low-lying grille and headlights. Across its doors were etched with drag-reducing vents. The windows, roof casing, and side-view mirror were trimmed to an epitome of aerodynamic performance. A chrome standing horse set between the stoplights was the trademark of Ferrari.

(Photo credit: Google)

Detective Dash opened the driver’s side door and climbed into the Testarossa. She turned the key in the ignition and was greeted immediately by a monstrous roar of the 12 cylinder engine.

‘Let’s see if she goes any faster on a southern path,’ Sunny proposed with a grin.

Stomping the pedal to the metal, the tires squealed, expelling a smokescreen of charred rubber before the momentum of their spin pushed the super car forth on the winding shadowy road.

(Use your ears to follow along one still at a time for a truly cinematic experience.)

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Author's Note

With the prologue mystery established, and our main characters introduced, MIAMIDASH can finally begin. I hope you found it enticing so far to continue following this story. I'll try my best not to disappoint the fans of either franchises.

Before commenting on the interrelationships and fates of certain characters, remember from the introduction that all subsequent events are taking place in Rainbow Dash's "head-canon", so to speak. Ideas and perceptions she had awake are running wild in her subconscious, as they normally would in our own dreams.

That's it for now. See you in Chapter 1,
James Anon (FestOfAmerican)