Uniting a Nation

Rainbow Dash still felt pleasantly bloated as she woke from her nap. She stretched, poked a bit at her slightly bulging belly, and feeling nothing solid left inside, took a look around.

Someone had towed her cloud out of the stadium, but she was still in a pretty good place to watch the races. The race going on at the nearest track wasn’t very interesting, though – there were three clear winners, with a bunch of scrubs fighting it out to not be in the bottom half.

“Ha! I thought you’d never wake up!” said a pony behind her, grinning as Rainbow spun to face her. “You’d better hurry, sleepyhead. It’s almost quitting time, and you’ve still got a black star there.”

“Um, thanks, whoever you are… wait, I know you. You’re that crazy pegasus from the Wonderbolts camp.” Rainbow Dash said, narrowing her eyes. “Are you spying on me?”

“Wow. That’s just a kick in the ego,” the pony said. “Lightning Dust. Lightning. Dust. We were only teammates for like a week, I guess that’s not enough time for you to remember my name?”

“Maybe I was trying to forget, so I didn’t have to punch you in the face for nearly killing my friends,” Rainbow Dash said, standing and flaring her wings.

“How are they doing, by the way?” Lightning Dust asked.

“How do you think?” Rainbow Dash snapped.

Lightning Dust tilted her head. “I’d expect that they’re eating tons of ponies, ‘cause they’re famous and have fans to volunteer?”

Rainbow Dash groaned and sat back on the cloud. “Ugh, no. We’ve got this stupid rainbow power that means we bleed energy into the void faster than anypony else, so we were all supposed to get eaten first thing. But it’s not as bad as the princesses, so I’m not dooming the world or anything because I snuck over to Cloudsdale to check out the games.”

“Ha! Little miss spit-polish, breaking the rules.” At Rainbow’s glare, she smirked. “Calm down, I’m glad you’re here. None of these scrubs are anything like a challenge. Yesterday there were the Wonderbolts at least, but they’re sitting out today for some stupid reason.”

Rainbow checked out Lightning Dust’s badge – all gold stars. “Guess I missed my chance to race you. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Just because I don’t need another star doesn’t mean I’m not up for another race! Not as long as I get to leave you in my dust. I still haven’t gotten you back for getting me kicked out of the Wonderbolts.”

Rainbow gave a few flaps, and hovered off the ground. She was still feeling a bit bloated and slow from eating the twins – not enough to make her lose against the sort of competition she’d been getting so far, but Lightning Dust was another story. “I’m kind of at a disadvantage here,” she said, poking her stomach again and letting out a loud burp.

“Yeah yeah, you ate a pony. How about I eat somepony before the race, to make it fair?”

“I guess that would work,” Rainbow Dash said. “One freshly eaten pony’s about like two mostly-digested ones.”

“Great! I’ll go find somepony to eat, and you get us signed up for the race.” She flew down towards the stadium, and called over her shoulder, “Hurry up, slowpoke!”

“I’m coming! Hold your horses!” Rainbow Dash said, leaping off the cloud and swooping down after her one-time rival.

===

Signing them both up for the race went quickly, and Rainbow circled around to find Lightning Dust surrounded by a swarm of excited mares and stallions.

“Eat me! Eat me, Dust!”

“Choose me! I’m the tastiest!”

“Nooo, I’m your biggest fan!” said one ridiculously muscular pegasus. “Literally!”

Rainbow Dash landed next to her, in the middle of the crowd. “You’ve got fans?”

“What, you think I gave up stunt flying just because the Wonderbolts were too lame to handle me?” Lightning Dust said, smirking. “This is for a handicap, so you pick somepony.”

“Rainbow! Rainbow Dash! Eat me, Rainbow!” screamed one of the mares.

“You sure you want to let me pick? What if I picked that crazy huge one?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Lightning Dust snorted. “Then I’d know you were scared to lose. And you should be!”

Rainbow Dash laughed, and hovered up a few feet, scanning the crowd. “It’s a shame Scoots isn’t here.”

“Who?” Lightning Dust asked.

“Eh, there’s this filly that keeps following me around, begging me to eat her,” Rainbow Dash said. “She might balance out giving you a really big meal.”

“Oh Celestia,” Lightning Dust said. “Following you around? I’m surprised you haven’t eaten her already just to shut her up.”

“Nah, she’s awesome,” Rainbow Dash said. “Too awesome to just give up like that. I wanted to see how far she could get. But she’s not here, so…” Rainbow Dash spun around and pointed to a blue and pink pegasus wearing a shirt with a lightning bolt on it. She looked pretty excited about getting eaten, and still had two black stars, so she probably wasn’t going to make it anyway. “You,” Rainbow Dash said, pointing.

“Woo!” she said, flipping into the air and doing a little loop-the-loop. “I’m going to get eaten by Rainbow Dash!”

“What? No—“

“Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh I can’t believe it!” she said, swooping down and giving Rainbow Dash a big hug. “I thought I was just going to go into the soup, but this is way better! I love you Rainbow Dash!”

Lightning Dust snickered. “So… I guess I’ll eat the big guy, then?”

“Whatever,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, wriggling in her meal’s vice-like grip.

===

Despite the way their last partnership had ended, Rainbow still found it easy to work with Lightning Dust. They barely needed a word to stay in sync as they tore off a section of cloud, and flew it up into the air to serve as an impromptu stage, since it was pretty obvious that the crowd was going to want to watch them eat.

The chosen victims flew up to meet them. The mare bounced up and down on the cloud excitedly. “I’m Spring Step!” she said. “It’s so great to actually meet you! I watched you race the Wonderbolts in Rainbow Falls – you made Spitfire look like a snail!”

Rainbow chuckled nervously. “Yeah, she’s getting a little old,” she said, rubbing at the base of her own neck. “And she’s more of a precision flyer anyway.”

“And what’s your name, big guy?” Lightning Dust asked.

The giant pegasus landed on the cloud, and grunted, “Crate.”

“You as solid as you look?”

He nodded, and held out a hoof. Lightning Dust licked it, staring into his eyes and seeing no reaction. She squirmed her tongue around the bottom of the hoof, trying to tickle his frog, but he just sat there silently, like a lump of stone.

“Well, this is going to be fun,” Lightning Dust said, then stretched her mouth around the offered hoof, trying to swallow as quickly as she could just to get it over with. Even his hooves were big enough that that still wasn’t very fast.

On the other side of the cloud, Rainbow Dash was darting back and forth trying to catch Spring Step, who kept bouncing from hoof to hoof and spinning around in place. “Eat me! Eat me! Hind hooves first, so I can watch! Or would it be a better view of your insides if you ate me face-first? Oh, I can’t decide!”

Rainbow Dash grabbed her forelegs, and held her still, surprising her enough to momentarily stop her babbling. “This way’s easier on the wings,” she said.

Spring Step nodded quietly. Then started vibrating, and letting out a shrill ‘squee’. Rainbow Dash smirked, leaned forwards, and licked her nose, cutting the squealing off with a sharp squeak. Then she opened her mouth and slid her lips over Spring Step’s muzzle, clutching her forelegs to her chest. Spring Step moaned and went limp, putty in Rainbow’s hooves.

Lightning Dust snarled, her neck stretched out obscenely just from Crate’s hooves, and tried to figure out how she was going to get his head and chest in there with them. The massive slab of meat in front of her was like a mountain cliff, with no easy way to scale it. Crate lowered his head, and prodded at her lips with his muzzle, but while it was soft and bristly, her eyes were only even with his nostrils… but she wasn’t going to let this defeat her. She was Lighting Dust. She could eat anypony!

Her wings pulsed and buzzed as she shoved herself forwards, and sure enough, he was a rock, solidly providing a firm anchor for her to press herself against, until her head and muzzle stretched out to slip her lips around his nose, and steadily press it inside her. Her vision went blurry as her face and eyes distorted impossibly around a head as large as her barrel, and then a barrel that felt as large as her wingspan. Just a little more… if she could just get past his chest, she was home free.

Rainbow Dash stroked Spring Step tenderly, smoothing her out as she slid into Rainbow’s throat, making sure her legs and wings folded neatly against her sides. The relaxed little pegasus gave a soft moan as Rainbow Dash’s hooves slid along her feathery wings, and squirmed a little to try to work her own way deeper in. Rainbow Dash swallowed around Spring Step’s head, and felt the solid lump of her skull descend towards her stomach, dragging the rest in after it, fur and feathers tickling her lips and leaving a dry, clean taste on her tongue.

Lightning Dust twitched and swallowed, her wings buzzing but doing little, since they were sticking out in the wrong directions with her chest and shoulders bloated around the heavy lump stuck inside her. She was barely aware of the rest of the world – everything was focused on swallowing Crate. She knew that she’d gotten past the widest part, but he was still just so big that her mouth felt just as stretched as it ever had, and she could only tell that she was still making progress because more and more of her organs were being pressed aside and squished to make room for his muzzle and neck as they slid into her massively distended stomach.

Then something tickled her nose and she tried to sneeze, twitching and convulsing around him as her lungs spasmed, but there was no room for any air to squeeze its way up past his chest. She ‘sneezed’ again, before realizing that what was tickling her was the feathers of his wings, and that she needed to somehow stretch her mouth even wider to get them inside…

Rainbow’s tongue caressed the mare that slid inside her, licking along her belly, and then down her thighs, as Spring Step curled up inside her, drawing her hooves and tail steadily into Rainbow Dash’s lips. One more firm swallow, and the whole pony was inside her, slipping down her throat and resting easily in her stomach. Rainbow Dash let out a sigh, and stroked her belly, feeling Spring Step wiggle around inside her to nuzzle back at her hooves, through her stomach wall.

She glanced over at Lightning Dust, who was about half done. “You need some help?”

Lightning didn’t respond, not even with a twitch or a wave since talking was obviously out of the question, but Rainbow Dash could tell that she was still somehow making progress on the big lump.

“Yeah, nopony has time for this,” Rainbow Dash said, pressing her hooves against Crate’s butt and helping to shove him into Lightning Dust’s mouth. “In you go, big guy.”

===

They’d attracted enough attention that the ponies running the races had a proctor watching and waiting for the two of them to finish, so Crate was barely down Lightning Dust’s throat before they were summoned to the starting line.

“You sure you want to go through with this?” Rainbow Dash asked. Spring Step was still moving around inside her, but Flitter and Cloudchaser were basically gone, and she’d flown around carrying three ponies plenty of times anyway.

Lightning Dust, on the other hoof… Crate had been quite a bit larger than her, so her whole body was stretched thin around him, with her wings, legs, and head sticking out in more or less the right positions, but looking comically undersized. Still, she’d managed to get airborne, so it couldn’t possibly be as awkward as it looked. “You think I’m gonna chicken out?” she said, with a cocky grin. “You’ll be eating my dust, wingmare!”

“Maybe after I lap you,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Tough talk for a second-rate weather-pony!” Lightning Dust pawed at the cloud beneath them, obviously trying to crouch in preparation for a fast takeoff, although her legs kept wanting to slip out to the sides and leave her belly-down in the fluff. “Let’s make it interesting.”

“What did you have in mind?” Rainbow asked.

“Just the standard side bet,” Lightning Dust said. “Whichever of us wins gets to eat the other.”

“I don’t know,” Rainbow Dash said.

“What, you chicken?”

“I’m just scared that I’ll choke to death on all your cockiness,” Rainbow Dash said. “But I guess even a reckless nutcase deserves a last request. So fine, it’s a bet. When you lose, I’ll eat you.”

“Dream on,” Lightning Dust said, as the referee raised the starting flag.
“Three! Two! One! Go!” He dropped the flag, and the ponies were off!

This was one of the high-level finalist races, with everyone in it having won multiple races and just needing one more star to be home free. The racers launched from the starting line like arrows from a bow, leaving trails of all colors behind them. Rainbow Dash, for once, was in the pack – near the front of it, but not way out in the lead like she expected from her previous races. Still, there was a little voice inside her that told her she was going to do just fine.

It was Spring Step, giving a little cheer.

R! A! I! N!
Who’s the pony who’s going to win?
B! O! W!
Rainbow Dash, that’s who!

There was rude laughter to either side, and she glanced to see two ponies she’d hoped to leave well in her past – the two childhood bullies she’d always been competing with in flight school, Hoops and Score. They were pacing her, to either side. “You know, Rainbow Crash, that works a lot better if you leave the cheering section on the sidelines.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow said. “But then I wouldn’t be able to hear the cheer over you two whining when I make you eat my rainbow trail.”

They gave another laugh, but with a little more effort Rainbow Dash pulled ahead, swerving left and right in front of them to let her wake slap them in the face as they tried to follow. She gave a victorious laugh, and looked back over her shoulder to see the looks on their faces… only for her eyes to go wide as she saw what was coming up behind them.

The cheering crowd hushed, replaced by screams of panic and the sounds of pegasi slamming at full-speed into solid clouds, as Lightning Dust burst through the center of the pack like a wrecking ball, the other racers bouncing off the massive weight of the pony she’d swallowed and spinning out to either side. “I’m coming for you, Rainbow!” she screamed.

“Ahhh! Rainbow! Save us!” cried Score, he and his friend struggling to catch up with her as they raced around a turn. Rainbow Dash felt a glimmer of hope as their monstrous pursuer barely managed to start the turn before slamming into the side – which was dashed as she managed to land against the wall cleanly, plant her hooves, and bound away from the springy material without losing any of her momentum.

“Sorry, guys, but only one pony’s winning this race,” Rainbow Dash said, swerving to cut off Hoops as he tried to pass. He was too panicked to slow down in time, and she felt his nose slam into her rear end, under her tail. “Hey!” Her legs lashed out instinctively, planting hooves in his shoulders and sending him hurtling back.

Hoops screamed, legs and wings spread wide as he flew back, spinning, to splat against Lightning Dust’s face. It didn’t do much to kill her momentum, but with him pinned there she was blinded, and the next turn found her slamming her hapless passenger all the way through the wall of the track and into the clouds supporting the stands.

But in seconds, she’d pulled herself out of the wall and was back in the race, gradually building up speed again.

“Celestia’s tits, we’re going to die!” Score whimpered, still right on Rainbow’s tail but making sure to stay out of reach of her hooves. Even with a pony inside her, cheering her on, he wasn’t anywhere near the racer she was, and he wasn’t about to risk trying to pass, even if the adrenaline running through his body told him that he could totally outpace her.

“For pony’s sake, Score, stay out of my way,” Rainbow Dash said, screaming around the track at full speed, even though she knew it was a terrible idea to start sprinting so early. It wasn’t like there were any other racers left to take advantage if she ran out of steam – just Score, who was flying full out just like she was, and Lightning Dust, who’d somehow transformed into an unstoppable juggernaut of death.

Who was somehow getting closer with every turn.

There was only one way she was going to make it through. Score was, predictably, staying right in her slipstream, so Rainbow focused on Lightning Dust, waiting until she was just rebounding off another cloud wall to suddenly spread her wings to the side, spinning around and air-braking hard. The poor colt landed in Rainbow’s grip, eyes wide and terrified, and with all four hooves she flung him right at her rival’s face, using the rebound to regain her speed.

There was a fading high-pitched scream behind her as Score cried like a little girl, and then the bone-crunching impact as he slammed into Lightning Dust’s face. She managed to avoid taking a nose-dive into a wall this time, but still lost a lot of time and momentum scraping him off – and there were only a few laps left.

Rainbow grinned. She could do this.

She just had to not slow down. To ignore her aching wings, and the sprain she’d gotten in her foreleg when she’d shoved Score, which was making it hurt to hold the proper position for perfect lamellar airflow. Just three more laps. Two more laps. One… more… lap…

She risked a glance over her shoulder, and squeaked as she saw Lightning Dust barely a pony’s length behind her, coming up fast. She reached for her inner reserves of speed, but she’d been flying flat-out for too long and there was almost nothing left. Lightning Dust was still gaining, and she could almost feel her breath brushing over her tail.

So she spun around to face her pursuer, and not a moment too late! Lightning Dust slammed into her chest, and they grabbed onto each other, struggling and biting and kicking and flailing their wings around, losing altitude gradually until they were bouncing along the cloud-floor that had been placed beneath the track for safety.

But every time they bounced, either Rainbow Dash was on top, so light that Lightning Dust barely noticed she was there, or Lightning Dust and Crate were on top, crushing Rainbow into the cloud with what would have been bone-crunching force if the ground hadn’t been so soft and fluffy. A few rounds of that, and Rainbow Dash found herself splayed out on the ground, senseless, as Lightning Dust rolled the last few feet towards the finish line.

“No – no!” she cried, leaping to the air and throwing herself after her rival. But she was just a second too late, her nose even with Lightning Dust’s wings as they passed the checkered flag.

No, wait – that wasn’t a checkered flag the ref was holding. It was a red flag. And he was waving it wildly and blowing his whistle as he flew over towards them.

“Foul!” he shouted, right in their faces. “I’ve never seen such a blatant foul in my entire life! Both of you are disqualified for cheating!”

He put five black stars on each of their badges, although it hardly mattered since it had been the last race of the day anyway.

Rainbow Dash was too tired to groan, but Spring Step did it for her. “What were you doing out there?” she moaned. “I think I broke my everything.”

===

It took Scootaloo a long time to get to the racetrack. There was a reasonable network of wing-optional pathways between the Stare Down arena and the other foals’ games, but they petered out when she tried to make her way over towards the adult events. She ended up backtracking all the way to the sign-up desk, where one very bored pony was manning the otherwise empty desk and waiting for the clock to finally strike six and officially end the day.

It didn’t take much convincing to get her to fly Scootaloo over to watch the races. She left a note telling anypony who showed up just before closing time to come back the next day when they’d actually have time to compete.

When they got there, everypony in the crowd was on their hooves or on the wing, cheering on the racers – it was the last race of the day, and it was a good one. The ponies competing were the best of the best, and fairly evenly matched. Most of them could have knocked off their third win earlier, but the winner of this race got the grand prize in the racing division – one of the Wonderbolts as their personal meal.

“But if these are the finalists, where’s Rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo asked.

“Ugh, who cares,” said a stallion standing next to her. He had two black stars left on his badge, which meant he was destined for the rainbow vat, along with most of the crowd at this point. “This is the makeup race after her and her friend fouled the first race to Tartarus and back.”

“You got to admit, it was a good show,” said a mare hovering overhead. “The way she kicked that colt in the face? It was awesome!”

“What?” Scootaloo said. “There’s no way Rainbow Dash would cheat like that! It must have been an accident or something.”

“Maybe the first time,” said the mare, “but the second time was pretty obvious. And then once they’d taken everypony else out between the two of them, she and her friend started fighting, right there on the track. I’m surprised either of them made it over the line.”

Scootaloo shook her head violently. “You’re lying! Or… wrong! I’m going to find her and ask her what really happened!”

Some of the ponies had seen Rainbow slink off in disgrace after being disqualified, and were able to point her in the right direction. Scootaloo made her way through the cheering crowd to a secluded ledge behind the stadium, overlooking the wide-open fields of Central Equestria. They were on the ragged edge of Cloudsdale, and the sun over Canterlot was shadowed by the bulk of the city. This was where the fluffy but structurally sound cloud-crete gradually gave way into regular cumulus, with hills and valleys of cloudstuff and the occasional 3000-foot drop to the ground where it had entirely worn through.

Without wings to give her an overhead perspective, Scootaloo could have wandered lost for hours if she hadn’t heard Rainbow’s voice. She sounded like she was in pain.

“Gah! Ahhhh! Ah hah hah hah hah – Lightning Dust, stop it! Stooop!”

Scootaloo burst over the crest of a cloud-hill, and saw a massively bloated cyan and orange pegasus lying on her side, her back to Scootaloo, while in front of her Rainbow Dash’s legs and tail were just visible behind her bulk.

“Hey!” Scootaloo shouted, running up to her. “What are you doing to Rainbow Dash!”

When she arrived, it was all too obvious – Rainbow’s legs and tail weren’t sticking out from behind the other pegasus, they were sticking out from between her lips, all that was left of her outside the other pony’s throat as she squirmed, her tail flipping back and forth and her legs kicking and twitching as she moaned and laughed at whatever this ‘Lightning Dust’ was doing to her inside her mouth.

“Are you… tickling her?” Scootaloo asked.

Lightning Dust froze.

“Um… yeah,” came Rainbow Dash’s voice from her throat. “Let’s go with that. Is that you, Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo clamped her teeth on Rainbow’s tail, and tried to pull her back out of the other pony’s mouth. But it was like tugging on a tree-branch – there was a little give, but it sprung back as soon as she let go. She wasn’t really making any progress. “No! No no no! You don’t get to eat Rainbow Dash! She promised me. She promised!”

“Oooh, ponyfeathers!” Rainbow Dash said. “I promised I’d eat you, right.”

“You forgot,” Scootaloo said. “You ran off and left me and totally forgot all about me. Again!”

Lightning Dust rolled her eyes, and gave a swallow, pulling Rainbow Dash a little deeper inside.

“Yeah, my bad,” Rainbow Dash said, squirming around a bit inside Lightning’s throat and stomach. “So how did it go? Did you get your stars?”

“Like you even care,” Scootaloo said, folding her forelegs and frowning.

“Mmm mmmph,” Lightning Dust said, her mouth still full.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Rainbow asked.

“Mmmph.”

“One mumble for yes, two for no.”

“Mmmph.”

“Woo! Way to go, squirt! You’re totally going to win this thing, aren’t you?”

“Why should I bother?” Scootaloo said, flopping to her belly on the clouds. She looked up helplessly, to watch the last of Rainbow’s colorful tail vanish between Lightning Dust’s lips, followed quickly by her hooves. One more swallow, and she was gone, forever.

Lightning Dust groaned, and tried to curl up on her side, but couldn’t make her torso bend, not with all the ponies squeezed inside it.

“And you!” Scootaloo said, glowering at Lightning Dust. “How could you?”

“Heh,” Lightning dust said. “Heh heh heh. Had to show I was better than her. She got me kicked out of the Wonderbolts! There was no way I was going out without proving I could take her.”

“And you did, I guess,” Rainbow Dash said. “Although you got us both killed doing it.”

“Whatever,” Lightning Dust said. “I won, so now I can die happy. How’s it feel, being my last meal?”

“Kinda squishy,” Rainbow Dash said, wiggling around a bit. “I think Crate’s about ready to fall apart. He’s oozing around me, like some sort of meat jelly – ugh, I’m never going to get this out of my feathers.”

Lightning Dust grimaced. “You can stop describing it now, thanks.”

“You know, I think there might be room in here for one more,” Rainbow Dash said. “How about it, Scoots? I’m not sure I can actually eat you while I’m in here, but we could spend some time together, at least?”

There was no reply.

“Scootaloo?”

“She ran off,” Lightning Dust said. “And a good thing too, because there is no way I’m trying to squeeze anything else down my throat.”