Broken
Rainbow Dash sat quietly staring into her locker, the only sound her own breathing and the slight rustle of metal against fabric every time her new prosthetic brushed against her saddle bags. She had known this moment would be harder than saying goodbye; after all, it's easy to pretend to smile and laugh when you’re surrounded by friends. Yet even now, as she choked back a sob, desperately trying to keep herself together long enough to complete the daunting task that lay before her, she hadn't thought it would be this hard.
She sighed softly before closing her eyes, steeling herself one last time as she got up and slowly walked the few feet to the small metal door in front of her. She popped it open, pausing just a moment to gaze at the poster taped inside the door. “Wonderbolts!” it exclaimed proudly, and for the first time in days she found herself smiling, if only for a moment. She had done it; she'd made the team after years of dedication, training and hard work had paid off and seen her achieve her lifelong dream.
“Then he took everything from me.” The words rose from the back of her throat like bile, and her wistful smile turned to a grimace. The feeling of melancholy hanging over her was suddenly overwhelmed by rage as she smashed her hoof into the locker door; then, she tore the poster down and prepared to shred it to pieces.
...
She couldn't do it. She sobbed again, nearly collapsing in tears as her anger fell away again. It was replaced by the weight of a near-crushing despair she had been fighting off ever since she woke up, two weeks ago. She breathed heavily, choking back another pair of sobs as she struggled to regain control of her emotions. Slowly she wiped the dampness from her eyes, shuddered softly and let out a barely-audible sigh before she carefully rolled the poster up and placed it in her saddle bags.
She was thankful she had waited for the others to all go home first. She didn't think she could stand them seeing her like this. Not after the brave face she'd put on at the awards ceremony. She was a hero, after all.
Carefully, she began packing up the rest of her belongings—all the little trinkets, gifts and baubles she'd acquired as a member of the team over the last several years. A photo of her with the team; a newspaper clipping of an article about her first show; her team jacket long since autographed by the rest of her teammates; the medals she had been awarded earlier on; and a few other odds and ends. All in all it was a surprisingly light load, and by the time her saddlebags were full, only one thing remained in her locker.
Her uniform.
She hesitated a moment, gazing at the reflection of her new metallic limb. She tried to remember if it had hurt, but everything was blurry after the fall. That scar is pretty wicked. You know, it would actually look pretty cool if it didn't mean I might never be able to fly the same again. She chuckled dryly, an empty sound. Something to fill the silence that had now grown uncomfortable. A hollow attempt to chase off the shadows threatening to fill her mind as she folded her uniform and placed it gently over her shoulders, before closing her locker for the last time.
Like closing a door on the brightest chapter of her life.
“One last thing to do before I go,” she said quietly to herself, shuddering again and blinking more moisture from her eyes. She turned around, trotting quickly out of the locker room.
Best to get this over with quickly... like a band-aid, she thought as she made her way down the corridors. Spitfire’s office was her destination, where she was going to turn in her uniform and officially resign from the Wonderbolts.
As hard as this was going to be, Rainbow Dash was glad that Spitfire had decided not to honourably discharge her after the incident. Glad that she would be granted the dignity of retiring of her own accord… even if it was killing her inside to do so.
“Calm down, Dash,” she said aloud to herself, attempting to settle her nerves and schooling her face as she made her way to Spitfire’s office. “After all... there will be plenty of time to break down once you get home. But not here. Not till you're done, and especially not in front of Spitfire.”
She reached a hoof up and knocked on the door.
“Enter,” ordered the raspy voice on the other side.
Standing as straight as she could, momentarily forgetting her pain and anger, Rainbow easily fell into the role of soldier and subordinate and stepped through the door. Spitfire was, as usual, sitting behind her desk, her own wing still wrapped in a cast as she pushed the paperwork she was working on to the side and turned her attention to Dash.
“Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire said, nodding to the mare.
“Spitfire,” Rainbow responded automatically.
“Can't say I haven't been expecting you.”
The fiery yellow pegasus paused for a second, her eyes tracing the length of Dash's new wing before settling on the uniform on Dash's back. “I imagine I know why you're here, but I'll let you say it,” she said sympathetically, her expression unreadable. “Take your time.”
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and swallowed audibly, taking a couple of deep breaths before adopting her most serious expression. Carefully, she took her uniform off of her back and placed it on her commanding officer’s desk before speaking in the most official tone she could muster.
“Captain Spitfire, ma'am. I have come to tell you that with the utmost regret I have no choice but to officially tender my resignation from the Wonderbolts due to grievous injuries sustained in the line of duty.” There—she had said it. She'd practised that line a thousand times until it sounded the way she felt it should. All she needed was Spitfire’s response and she could head back home.
Her answer didn't come as quickly as she had expected, though. As Dash waited, she saw a look on her captain’s face she had only seen a few times before: indecision, as though she were struggling with how to word her response before settling on the absolute last thing Rainbow Dash expected to hear.
“No.”
“W-What?” Dash replied, dumbstruck.
“I said no, Rainbow Dash. As captain of this team, it is my duty to inform you that the Wonderbolts cannot and will not be accepting your resignation at this time,” Spitfire replied firmly.
“B-But... why not?” Dash struggled as her stoic professional mask began to slip and her eyes started to water again. This was just supposed to be a formality, One final farewell on her own terms. Why was Spitfire making this so hard?
“Because, Dash... you—” Spitfire began before Dash cut her off, her frustrations over the last weeks finally spilling out before Spitfire could finish her response.
“You know what the doctors said, Spitfire.” Rainbow started. “You heard them... SIXTY PERCENT, they said. If I'm BUCKING LUCKY,” She was shouting now; she didn't know when she had started, but it made it easier to ignore the fact she was crying, too. “After years of rehab, I might get back almost sixty bucking percent of my ability to fly!” She panted, white hot rage and tears of anguish blinding her.
“I'm DONE. Washed up, because that bastard took EVERYTHING FROM ME. My dreams, my hopes, my talent. He took the SKY FROM ME, Spitfire. Maybe I'll fly again but it'll never be the same. I'm supposed to be the fastest flyer in Equestria, the only pony in the CELESTIA-DAMNED WORLD WHO CAN DO A SONIC RAINBOOM. THE ‘BOLTS ARE THE BEST OF THE BEST AND AT SIXTY BUCKING PERCENT I'LL NEVER EVEN BE ABLE TO DO WEATHER WORK AGAIN, I'll never...” She sobbed heavily, her face soaked with tears. “I'll never...” She collapsed on the ground as the anger faded. Leaving only her sorrow behind. She breathed heavily as her tears streamed down her face.
“Why couldn't you just let me leave with my dignity intact, Spitfire?” she whimpered. “We both know I'll never be good enough again. I just wanted to be able to walk away with my head held high, so maybe I could spend my life with my friends remembering my last days on the team fondly. You guys are my family now, you mean everything to me and I... I didn't want you to see me like this.”
Slowly and calmly, Spitfire walked around her desk and knelt down in front of Rainbow Dash, sighing sadly as she lifted Rainbow's chin. “I never thought I would live to see the day that the Rainbow Dash was ready to just give up on her dreams.
“You were always the best of us, Dash,” she went on. “Even at your worst, you were showing me things about myself and this team I had forgotten, and the only time you ever quit on me, it was because I had failed you. I wasn't good enough.”
Spitfire sighed heavily, her own eyes damp. “Especially when things truly mattered, Dash, You never quit, never gave up, not even... you know, after you went down, Dash. I thought, 'That's it, this is where the Wonderbolts end; we're just buying time with our lives now for the princesses to rally their forces.' We'd been fighting for hours. We were tired, sore, on our last legs, and nopony could even hit him, but you? You were possessed, fierce and unstoppable. You fought harder, faster, better and longer than anyone else out there that day. You were the one thing inspiring us to keep going. When he tore off your wing, we lost hope.” She shuddered, fighting back sobs now.
“There was so much blood... I thought you'd died. We all did. We went down like flies after that. Soarin will never be able to walk right again; he'll always struggle with his landings. Misty broke almost every bone in her body when she hit the ground. And Fleetfoot? Well, last time I visited her, the doctors said the swelling has finally gone down so it looks like she may just pull out of her coma after all.”
Rainbow Dash had gone silent now as Spitfire’s hoof pulled away from her face. Seeing the captain like this was sobering, and her own sobs had receded; she was taken by the need to commit every word to memory, regardless of the captain’s point.
“I was the last mare standing, and when I went down, I just... accepted my fate. All I had was a broken wing, Dash, and I didn't even try to move when he stormed over to strike the killing blow. And then suddenly you come charging out of nowhere, looking like a demon soaked in your own blood—howling like a beast for him to leave your friends alone. You were the stuff of nightmares; you should have been dead and instead you stabbed him with your own wingbone.” She let out a halfhearted chuckle at that one, her tears flowing freely by this point.
“You were so terrifying he froze. First blow we landed and you dropped him with a spear made from your own amputated wing. I remember, afterwards, you just gave me that cocky shit-eating grin of yours and said, 'Heh, bastard wasn't so tough after all, was he?' before you collapsed. I thought you'd died... again.” She smiled through her tears at Rainbow Dash as the cerulean mare worked her jaw, searching for words to respond.
“I really said that? I-I don't remember anything after seeing you on the ground.”
“You lost a lot of blood; the fact you were standing was a miracle.” At this, Spitfire reached a hoof out, to help lift the other pegasus to her hooves before wiping her own eyes dry. “My point is, Dash... I can't let you leave the 'Bolts because we all owe our lives to you. You were too stubborn and too damn loyal to stay down while we were in danger. Because even when we had given up, even when you should have been dead, you didn't quit on us—you didn't give up on us. After that, I refuse to let the 'Bolts give up on you.”
Gingerly, almost with a sense of reverence, she grabbed the discarded uniform off of her desk and moved to hand it back to the broken pegasus.
“As far as I and the others are concerned, this uniform and that locker will be yours until the day you're ready to retire properly. So when—not if—you prove the stupid doctor wrong and get yourself back to one hundred percent, they'll be waiting for you. Even if it takes forever. 'Cuz the Rainbow Dash I know would never quit. Not until she died... and even then she'd keep on fighting,” she finally finished, giving Dash a hopeful stare and what she hoped was a playful smirk.
Rainbow Dash sat for several long minutes, pensively processing all of Spitfire's words as she studied the object in the fiery yellow mare’s hooves. Was Spitfire right? Did she really have a chance of coming back? But the doctor said—
No. The word firmly shattered her own thoughts with the same conviction Spitfire had used earlier. Screw what the doctor said. Spitfire’s right; I'm Rainbow Dash. I've spent my whole life breaking records and proving ponies wrong about me. Besides, I have my friends: Twilight, AJ, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and the team too. Slowly, she smiled. A real smile. That same cocky, self-confident grin she always wore. I spent my whole life earning this uniform. With my friends’ help, I know I can do it again.
She looked Spitfire in the eyes. “Alright,” Rainbow said quietly, taking her uniform from Spitfire’s outstretched hooves. “If the ‘Bolts need me that badly, I'll stick around a while longer. Might be a while before I'm flight-ready again, though. Think you guys can handle it without me for a bit?”
“I think we can manage.” Spitfire chuckled, exhaling as she moved to sit back behind her desk. “And remember—you may be on indefinite leave, but you're still part of the team. Stop by and say hi every now and then.”
“Of course, ma'am,” Dash responded. She fell back into her soldier routine as she waited patiently next to the door, still wearing her trademark grin as Spitfire got back to the paperwork she'd been trying to finish.
A moment passed in silence as Spitfire looked at the papers. Then she paused, looking up at Dash “Was there something else?”
“No, ma'am.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“Well, ma'am, if you remember, I decided not to resign today.”
“And what exactly does that have to do with... oh, right. Dismissed, soldier,” she said in the most official tone she could muster. She tried but failed to suppress a chuckle at the other pegasus’ antics.
Dash, meanwhile, replied with a clipped, “Yes, ma'am,” and turned to leave the room, pausing just before closing the door. “And Spitfire?”
“Yes, Rainbow Dash?”
“Thanks... for stopping me from making the biggest mistake of my life,” she said softly, smiling sincerely over her shoulder at the older mare.
“No, Dash, thank you,” Spitfire replied sincerely just before Rainbow Dash closed the door.
Making her way out of the building, Rainbow quickly headed towards the edge of the city where she had parked the balloon Twilight had loaned her. She was in a hurry to get home and get some sleep. After all, her physio-therapy started first thing in the morning and she had a lot of doctors to start proving wrong.
