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                 The Mystery in Cloudsale                  
                     -by mangle234830-                     
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                         Chapter 1                         
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Chapter 1
The Story of Rainbow Dash and Quicksilver
Quicksilver was the type of Pegasus who did not like to lose. In fact, he hated to lose. So when he was the runner-up to Rainbow Dash in the Young Flyers Competition, he was furious. “I will find the next competition to compete in, and win it!” he said to himself, “And if Rainbow Dash is in it, I will make SURE she knows how it feels to be in the shadow of a TRUE winner! But first thing first, I have to train a lot to beat someone like her.”
So Quicksilver flew off at a speed that would have swept anypony off their hooves and went to the custom-built training area behind his house in Cloudsdale. It was impressive, it had a slalom course with at least forty or fifty clouds in an oval in the middle of the course. Above that was a ring course of a similar layout and length. “I haven’t used this place for at least a couple of months” he thought. “So I better inspect for damage.” A storm had recently been through the area and Quicksilver’s neighborhood had had the worst of it. So it was not that shocking that a couple of rings and clouds had some significant damage. What WAS shocking was a lightning bolt missing Quicksilver by a couple of feet. “WHAT was that?!” he cried in alarm. A few seconds later, his answer came in loud laughter.
“Hahahah!” a voice exclaimed.
Quicksilver cringed. He knew who was laughing at him.
“Very funny, Rainbow Dash!” he said, sarcastically.
A cyan Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane showed her head around the other side of a stray storm cloud. Her face showed she was trying to stifle another fit of laughter.
“You could have KILLED me!!” Quicksilver yelled, very angry and VERY annoyed at the prankster.
“Yeah right!” Rainbow Dash replied in her normal, raspy voice. She was leaning against one of the rings in the course. Quicksilver had a small smirk on his face.
“What are you smirking at?” Rainbow Dash asked.
A split second later, she got her answer. The ring was one of the damaged rings. It disappeared in a puff of clouds, causing Rainbow to lose her balance and fall out of the sky. She landed with a crash on Quicksilver’s backyard porch.
“That.” Quicksilver said with a chuckle.
That was enough to get on Rainbow Dash’s nerves and annoy her a bit.
“You should really examine this course. It isn’t safe.” She said in an annoyed voice.
“I was in the process of doing that when you nearly ELECTROCUTED me!” Quicksilver shouted. “But since you are here I have a question for you.”
“What?” Rainbow Dash asked, still slightly embarrassed at the whole “falling-out-of-the-sky” incident.
“What is the next competition in Cloudsdale?” the dark blue Pegasus asked.
“The Annual Tournament of Pegasi.” The cyan Pegasus answered.
“Are you entering?”
“Of course I am!”
“Then I have a challenge for the two of us.”
“What kind of challenge?”
“A challenge to see who the better Pegasus is.”
“What are the rules of this challenge?”
Quicksilver thought about this for a few seconds, then replied, “Whoever wins the tournament is the best.”
Rainbow Dash had a look of shock and disbelief on her face. “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!!” she shrieked. “I haven’t even been in the top ten, let alone WIN!”
“What’s the matter, Rainbow, scared I’ll beat you?” Quicksilver said in a voice a schoolpony uses to tease the others.
Rainbow’s face went from shock disbelief to pure anger. “YOU’RE ON!”
The two shook hooves and Rainbow flew off, leaving a rainbow-colored streak behind her.
“She is going DOWN!” Quicksilver thought. He then went into his house and got on his computer and looked up the tournament roster. He was worried but he was no coward. He would finally get his revenge on his rival. But as he looked at the ponies who were entered in the competition, things just got a whole lot harder. Near the top of the list were three names. Correction: three very famous names. The names were well-known around Equestria. The names were of three very skilled, very agile, and very, very fast Pegasi. The names were Spitfire, Soarin, and Misty Fly. The three best Wonderbolts in the whole group. They represented Cloudsdale in the Equestria Games. Quicksilver just realized WHY Rainbow Dash had always lost. The three had four wins each in the competition, and Misty Fly had won her four in a row, and each had more podium finishes then an average Pegasus would have in at least one-and-a-half lifetimes, and Misty Fly had more than Spitfire and Soarin combined! Quicksilver was more than impressed at her number of medals, he was shocked and stunned. HOW do you win that many medals?! Especially more than your teammates combined?! He read the rest of the list of entries. The rest of the competitors were ponies that had won other competitions, but never even got a score even remotely close to Misty Fly’s. Quicksilver shut down his computer and went to go enter the tournament. Clearly, she was one Quicksilver had to beat. But how? He had absolutely no idea.
When he got there and signed up, he looked around a bit. The ponies were working hard to get the place ready for the event. He was about to leave when storm of ponies nearly trampled him. He looked around and saw what all the commotion was about. Misty Fly had arrived. He looked around some more. Spitfire and Soarin were nowhere to be seen. “That’s odd,” he thought. “Where are her teammates?” He was about to go ask her when a raspy and all too familiar voice stopped him.
“If you’re going to ask where Soarin and Spitfire are, don’t bother.”
Quicksilver turned around to see his rival looking at him. He was about to ask why, but Rainbow answered the question before it was uttered.
“They dropped out when Misty Fly registered.” She said, with a hint of genuine pity in her voice.
“I don’t blame them, really.” She continued. “She is the better of the trio.”
Quicksilver said something that shocked Rainbow Dash. “Forget the challenge, let’s see what’s keeping them away from the tournament.”
Rainbow Dash looked at Quicksilver, perplexed. Then a look of concern took its place. She then nodded in agreement, and the two of them took to the skies in the direction of the Wonderbolts Headquarters.
The Wonderbolts HQ was a medium sized, two-story building with the colors of the Wonderbolts on the walls. The duo trotted to the door. Quicksilver was about to knock when he noticed a sign on it with red letters saying “Closed”.
“Guess we should come back later,” he said.
Rainbow nodded, and they were about to fly off when a Pegasus in a Wonderbolts uniform opened the door. All you could see was a fire-red mane and a same colored tail.
“I’m Blaze. Come on in.”
Quicksilver and Rainbow Dash exchanged looks then followed Blaze inside. The inside walls bore the same colors as the outside. The three Pegasi trotted towards the back of the building. In the back room, two more Pegasi in the same uniform were sitting on the floor, listening to a radio broadcast of the events at the stadium where the tournament was to be held.
“Soarin, Spitfire, I think these two want to talk to you,” Blaze said.
Spitfire looked at the trio and recognized Rainbow Dash and Quicksilver almost right away.
“Oh, you two are the ponies who placed in the top two of the Young Fliers Competition. Rainbow Dash and…?”
“Quicksilver,” Quicksilver finished, a bit annoyed that she had, once again, been in Rainbow Dash’s shadow.
“Right,” she replied, “So, what brings you two here?”
“We wanted to know why you and Soarin aren’t competing in the tournament this year,” Quicksilver answered.
As soon as Spitfire heard the response, a depressed look shown on her face. She then let out a sigh.
“The reason we aren’t in the tournament this year is because of Misty Fly,” she said. “She is just too good.”
Quicksilver was stunned at the answer. He motioned to Rainbow that they shouldn’t ask any more questions.
“Thanks we’ll be going now,” he said. As they left, the two had a look of worry and suspicion about the Wonderbolts and Misty Fly. Rainbow said that she was going to drop out because she didn’t want to be in a possibly rigged competition. Quicksilver nodded in agreement. The two decided to spectate the contest and see if they could spot anything out of the ordinary.
The two flew to Rainbow’s mansion and planned the investigation.
“So what’s the plan,” Rainbow asked as she got some cookies that Pinkie Pie had given her.
Quicksilver answered, “We watch the events and see if anything suspicious. If we do, we dig deeper.”
“And what if we don’t?” Rainbow asked.
“Then we take matters into our own hooves! We ask the other competitors if Misty blackmailed them or anypony else. And if they say yes, we gather evidence and present it to the judges of the event.”
“And what if they don’t take our word for it?”
“Then Misty Fly wins and we fail.”
“Then let’s get out there and stop her plans!”
Quicksilver and Rainbow Dash purchased tickets to the tournament and agreed to meet up at the stadium at 9 A.M., an hour before the competition started. What would happen at the Annual Tournament of Pegasi that year was one nopony will ever soon forget.