Cloud Waltz is a well-managed fellow. Paying job, good education, but he took that further, more on that in a moment. He's stock grey, has a pair of large wings, larger than usual, and his mane is the same color as charcoal. His mark is that of aheavily detailed wing of which, after careful study of that very mark, each feather looks like a cloud, and each follicle of each feather, a detailed lightning strike. He is one of three known ponies who have such extensively detailed cutie marks. He does not know the other two.
Waltz's education was, as said, a good one. What with all the advancements in magic, technology, and magical technology, it got him inspired into furthering his education. Straight into the deepest recesses of science and technology. Being born without a horn limited him quite a bit, but he igured his ways around learning magic. After all, pegasi use their wings for magic. Little known fact. Mostly because not much can be done with pegasus magic.
Waltz was the very first to disprove that, and took to proving it via a demonstration. Very, very many hours of preparation were poured into an event that put him in the history books. At a oung age, too. A very young stallion, jsut about to reach adulthood. and he'd come up with a breakthrough all on his own.
Waltz gave a small athletic demonstration as an opener, takign off at a literal break neck pace, as almost all pegasi can do, going from stationary to bolting across the crowd like a speeding bullet with no time frame. He pulled some loops, twists and turns, even pulled a full slingshot wingsprint. Went from goign forward to backward without turning or stopping. He literaly jsut reversed direction. All of this was applauded, and he landed back on stage where his demonstrative object were resting.
After having taken a moment to catch his breath and get a nice chug of water, he approached a box. What it had within it was unknown to anyone but him. He pulled out a harness. At first, it was just a jumbled mess of pivots and braces. Clumped up and hard to work with, he simply set the jumble on stage. then he flapped his wings once, and locked them at full stretch. the harness gave an immediate response, and locked itself in palce as well. Two ponies helped him put the harness on, and he closed his wings to his side, approaching the podium once more.
He demonstrated magic. As any unicorn could use, as all pegasi and earth ponies envied. He had the same ability as the magic using race itself. He earned a one point seven billion bit fund for this project as reward for this breakthrough. A large company bought his invention.
Thats when he met a stand still. Every one to make it from rags to riches has a goal to do more. Or at elast he'd hoped. Rich people still rake in money greedily. I guess the love for the rich life could be incentive. To Waltz, it wasn't. He didn't need anymore money, he was set for life. Living in a solid cloud marble house, built by master architects, perched atop a sky island. Land raised by super magic charged clouds to keep it afloat. And that were jsut from his pocket change.
Waltz began searching. What could he do? A hobby, somethign that would take hours upon hours of his now ultimately free time. Sonic Wing Racing. Came to him like a sledge to the temple. Only, he actually did get hit. By another epgasus rushing to see the SWR races themselves. He joined for a sneak peak and became enthralled, funded a project of his own to enter these races.
Weeks passed and the next race came up. He signed the waver, entered his unseen suit for the process, and entered the stadium.....
About fifty thousand, maybe more over one hundred thousand ponies were seated in the stadium itself, and the chatter was ever present, unignorable, yet never too loud to make you need to raise your voice. Wonderful. Waltz were on the line of other SWR racers as they climbed into their suits, but Waltz's own suit hadn't rrived yet. As if answering a prayer, it arrived right after he thought that. Two ponies carted the box out to him, and he unlocked it via the code he'd used to previously seal it away, and the box collapsed, revealign the sleek, pure white collection of metal and fuel. Earned the eye of several other racers. He tapped the release, and the suit unfolded, holding itself steady in place, and he crawled in. It quickyl clamped over his body, then he kicked his back leg, activating the suit. Literally, he looked the same. Save for his wings bound beneath. Two large, hard point wings were mounted to each side, and two powerful turbines were attached underneath each. Standard aerodynamic design. The remainder of him were just covered in rounded white plating and joints of dark grey. His vizor were a solid black.
"Checking checking, live feed should be active, please confirm, over.", he called out.
"Loud and clear number eight, over.", the tower responded through his com set.
The ring ahead, a mixture of three pegasi, mechanics, and tethers between each, were brought into place. the three pegasi were strong, holding up so much weight, Waltz knew it, and in seconds, they were readying. Flying in a circle perfectly vertical. In a few seconds, rockets went off, both attached to them and the metal ring itself. It spun faster and more wildly. Each pegasus tethered became a hardpoint in the ring itself and golden lightning arced from each of them, tearing a rift in the fabric of reality. Dead center of the ring. But ti wasn't open yet.
"Before we begin, I still need to point out that these twenty pegasi are about to enter another dimension altogether. This dimension is purely sky and clouds with no existing ground. We call this the aether. Adn they're going to race in it. On my mark, each of you are goign to take off into the given portal and will take flight to the exit portal which is exactly one thousand kilometers away. This fligth will be long, and you have been warned that you will need sufficient fuel. On your marks. Get set."
The long pause. Waltz remembered this and kicked his engines to life, turning the wings upright rather than forward. He lfited off the ground weightlessly, and waited.
"Three. Two. One. Launch!"
There is no explosive strike forward, like traditional pegasus races, but everyone definitely took off. Slow throttle, just to get into the portal,a dn one after another, including Waltz, they entered the Aether. Waltz punched it.
By design, his suit is supposed to give ahigh speed at the cost of acceleration. After a few moments of slow acceleration, his suit's engines woudl kick into high gear and that slow acceleration heightens a smidge, but his amximum speed could easily top every other contender here. However, speed is nothing when passing through a field of cloud marble debris.
As warned, the stadium itself, host and creator of the SWR races is not responsible for anythign that happens beyond the horizon. They do not put any debris found within the Aether, nor do they know where it comes from. Having th eonly working portal to the aether, they prevent anyone from exploring further. While sucha setback, it keeps a certain air of caution about everyone. As such, Waltz input a complete set of maneuvering thrusters and secondary and tertiary, even quaternary wingsets to improve maneuverability. Even as he approached the broken pillars and pantheon itself, he were dodging large chunks of marble left and right much faster than the other racers.
It just so happened that Waltz got a bit too close to another racer. A rbute, he coudl be called. Bulky suit, heavy thrusters, large, built body. This stallion wasn't about to put it past him to throw someone aside for a win. And he did. Turned on his side and kicked Waltz right into the path of a large pillar, easily five times bigger than he was.
Thanks to magic and technology both working together perfectly, cameras can be sent in to record everything without the nedd of a pegasus to hold them. Magic drones at far distances with high zoom lenses to keep up. One just so happened to catch the event. The two passed clsoe by and behind a large chunk of flooring, and next, Waltz were spinning otu of control, veerign far off. Plowed through one massive pillar without stopping, left two explosions on the other side, which could easily be his engines themselves, then lowed through three more chunks of free floating debris, heading down. The first known incident beyond the horizon. All other racers continued forward, not a single one flew after him. The moment his smoking remains pierced the clouds below, he was out of sight and no where tob e seen. Hope was given up for him.
One such racer, actually, the last one to be exact, came to a full halt and followed that arch of smoke exactly, down into the clouds.
"I'm goign after him!", she called out. But, no body was recovered. She was out of sight for a full fifteen minutes before she returned, and it were just a leisure fligth out of the clouds. She had nothign with her, and didn't give a care to catchup. But she gunned it to the exit portal.
"One soul was lost to the aether today.", the announcer began as the last racer came through. The same mare that went for him. "We had one racer try to save him, but I'll be honest, he may not have made it into the cloud itself. He impacted several larger pieces of debris, his suit looked as if it had exploded multiple times. This racer was known as Cloud Waltz, the very profit who borught the ability to use magic to the pegasus race. I regret to say that this is now his grave."
The losing racer, disqualified from the next race, was questioned. She gave the only answer she could. Regret that she could not catch him. Regret that she could not find him. And to think she were going to implement a cloud-safe sight upgrade for her visor the next day. What insulting luck.
