Chapter 8: A Long Way Down Part 1

“Hey Dash,” Legacy called out to Rainbow Dash, “Ready to go?”

“Yep,” Rainbow answered, “Let’s go.”

Rainbow and Legacy walked into the gym and were surprised to find almost nobody there. Of course she saw Helmer, Applejack, and Thunderlane and of course squad two, but no one else.

“Jeez,” Lightning Streak complained, “I thought everyone would be here by now.”

“Brother, you have no room to complain,” Fire Streak stated, “It isn’t like you’re ever early.”

“Or on time,” Surprise added bouncing up and down.

“Right,” Lightning Streak rolled his eyes, “But seriously, these kids need to hurry the fuck up.”

“Oh, be quiet, brother,” Fire Streak ordered, “Your whining isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

At that moment Misty Fly walked out of the office with a piece of paper and an apple and immediately everyone in squad three shut up. Misty looked at all of them before handing the paper to Fire. Then she turned to Surprise and pointed her apple towards Lightning Streak. Surprise nodded and Misty walked over the Lightning and stared at him intensely before stuffing the apple in his mouth. Lightning started throwing sign language at Misty, but she only raised an eyebrow at him and turned to Fire Streak as he made a few signs. Misty Fly smiled at him and walked back into the office.

“Siblings,” Legacy smiled and shook his head.

“What do you mean?” Rainbow asked him.

“Lightning Streak was blaming Fire Streak, but Fire Streak told the truth,” Legacy turned back to Rainbow, “It’s like when siblings are fighting and one blames the other, but the other tells the truth. Then again it does kinda make sense since their twins.”

“Wait, you know sign language?” Rainbow wasn’t surprised, because so far it was almost like there was nothing he wasn’t good at.

“Mmhm,” Legacy nodded, “It’s one of my few skills. As my grandfather got older he went deaf so along with my studies I learned everything about sign language to communicate with him.”

“Aww, that’s so adorable,” Rainbow mocked him.

“Oh, be quiet,” Legacy playfully nudged her in the side.

“That’s the kid who's trying to steal my girl,” Lightning whispered to Fire and Surprise.

“She has no interest in you whatsoever, brother,” Fire raised an eyebrow at him.

“I think that they’d make a cute couple,” Surprise paused in thought, “Soarin would probably want to murder him though.”

“So, you’re letting Soarin do his little man thing, but can’t let me seduce a girl,” Lightning crossed his arms.

“Commander Soarin isn’t trying to seduce anybody, brother,” Fire stated, “True love is different than whatever you plan to do with the life you have left.”

“‘Cause if you try to do some of your ‘seducing’ to Dashie, I don’t know if you’d live to tell the tale of how she ‘still wants you.’” Surprise giggled.

“She does have a good point,” Fire Streak agreed.

“Let’s just get this day over with,” Lightning complained. “First Spitfire and her little crap ass mood and now you and your normal shitty captain mood. I don’t know how much more of the shit I can take.”

Misty Fly walked over to Fire Streak and said: ‘Let’s get started.’

Fire Streak nodded and turned towards everybody.

“Hello everyone,” Fire Streak addressed the class, “I am Fire Streak the captain of squad three and this is my squad,” Misty Fly stepped forward after Surprise ushered her on notifying her of what was going on, “Misty Fly the first commander,” Lightning Streak stepped forward, “Lightning Streak the second commander,” Surprise bounced forward and smiled widely at everyone especially Rainbow Dash, “And Surprise the third commander.” Rainbow could see that everyone on squad three was being professional towards her, well besides Surprise, but she was always like that, “Today we are going to be giving you a taste of what you will be doing today. We are going to be doing running and parkour.” Rainbow Dash smiled, those were two things that she was extremely good at. “For those of you who don’t know what parkour is…”

“It’s a bunch of professional people doing insane shit,” Lightning Streak deadpanned, still salty over the whole Rainbow thing.

“You do know that us Wonderbolts use to do parkour all the time, right?” Surprise asked, “I'm sure you could just ask Silver or something or even Misty.”

“I know,” Lightning argued, “We are professional and do insane shit, besi-“ Misty had inched closer to Lightning and put her arm around his neck and her hand over his mouth before signaling Fire to continue. Rainbow had to bite her tongue to stop herself from the brink of laughter.

“Thank you Misty Fly,” Fire Streak thanked Misty even knowing it would fall deaf upon ears, they had an image to keep up. “As I was saying, parkour is the activity or sport of moving rapidly through an area, typically in an urban environment, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing. I assure you that we will not make you do anything dangerous and that this evening you will be judged on your skills alone.” Fire explained, “Today you will be working in two different groups. Lightning Streak and Surprise for the race in parkour and Misty Fly and myself in the speed department.” Fire Streak tapped Misty and pointed towards the door. Misty Fly nodded and walked out in front of the recruits. “Names that start with A through M please line up in front of Surprise and names that start with N through Z please line up by Misty Fly.”

Rainbow Dash along with Thunderlane walked over to Misty Fly’s line while she watched Applejack, Legacy, and Helmer walk over to Surprise’s line. In the back of her mind she was wondering if Helmer was stronger than Applejack without her powers. Helmer kind of reminded her of Haze. A secret with knowledge, an enigma to those around him. She knew that maybe after she got to know him she would regret making that comparison, but at first glance he did. He was intimidating and kind of felt uncomfortable to be around, mostly because of his size and glare.

Rainbow followed Misty Fly outside, but not before she caught a snippet of Lightning Streak gawking over Helmer.

“Dude your like, even scarier up close.”

“I hope you speed can match up to your death glare,” Surprise agreed, “Quick and everlasting.”

“Okay,” Fire looked around at all of them before looking at the track, “We are going to do a 100 meter dash to judge your speed, so if you could line up about ten feet behind the solid white line that would be great.” Everyone lined up and Fire continued, “Misty Fly is going to be checking your time and I’m going to be watching your form.” He looked at the first person in line, “Are you ready?” The boy nodded, “Then…” He looked at Misty and she nodded, “GO!” Misty clicked the stopwatch as he took off. Fire watched him carefully and jotted down a few notes on his clipboard. As he crossed the other line Misty Fly stopped the stopwatch and Fire Streak wrote down his time. “Not bad… NEXT!”

This was the order for the next few people before Rainbow Dash’s turn. When Fire Streak called her name she confidently walked forward and got into her starting position.

“Are you ready?” He asked her, she nodded and focused on the track. It was a straight line so it wasn’t difficult she just had to quickly build up momentum. “GO!”

She shot of at the mark with perfect form and picked up speed quickly. She completed her run so quickly that Misty almost missed her mark for turning of the stopwatch.

“Impressive Miss Dash, way to go,” Fire nodded at her respectfully and Rainbow nodded back to him. Misty Fly winked at her before looking back at Fire with a serious expression.

There was nothing else that really happened in the next few minutes besides that one kid who fell on their face who Misty took to the nurse. Also those three times that Lightning Streak ran outside to whisper something to his brother that made Fire roll his eyes. Or when Surprise accidentally threw her clipboard at Fire Streak because she was showing her group how fast they should run in a race, even though nobody knew how the clipboard got outside in the first place, but it was Surprise so no one questioned it. Actually Rainbow Dash knew better than to question any of it because she knew about comedy squad three. Eventually it was time for her group to switch with Lightning’s group. As they all walked back inside Legacy gave her a thumbs up and a smile which she of course returned in full.

As she walked in she noticed that the gym had been transformed into a parkour course. She looked around along with everyone else to admire the track. They were being honest when they said that they were doing simple things right now. It was nothing like Rainbow was used to. Much simpler than the natural tracks she always took over buildings and such. The good thing about it begin simple is that she could be more focused on impressing them instead of finishing alive.

“Okay kiddies,” Surprise addressed them and Rainbow’s attention snapped away from the track and to Surprise. “You’re gonna be going through this track two at a time at whatever speed. Technically this is a race and later it will be a race even though as Fire said you will be getting judged on your skills alone.” She paused and looked at Lightning Streak who was just standing there looking like he was about to fall asleep. “Let's start with…”

After that class Rainbow had to admit that she was excited to go to the Wonderbolt tryouts and race. She could practically hear Swift whispering to her, ‘I told you so,’ in her ear while he watched Rollo run. There were some things that she still had on her tryout bucket list, such as: TALK TO HELMER. He was an enigma to her and she wanted to know more. Besides, she wanted to make sure that she never compared him to Haze ever again.

She was about to head home, but first she had a prior appointment that she intended to keep. She walked along the path she did earlier during lunch, sticking closer to wall as she did. She walked into the woods and looked around looking for the cave door. She hadn’t noticed earlier, but the door had all of the elements around it with Twilight’s in the middle. Rainbow reached up and put her hand on the Element of Loyalty like Twilight had done to her own element before to open the door. Sure enough her tactic worked the door shined with a brilliant blue light filled the cracks before opening.

“Rainbow darling,” Rarity smiled as she entered. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Dashie…” Rainbow turned her attention to Fluttershy, “We need to talk…”

A few hours later Rainbow entered the compound in a blue tracksuit with black athletic leggings with blue strips on the side. She had been completely silent since her talk with Fluttershy. She entered room #10 and sat on her bed with a dejected look on her face.

“Is something wrong?” She turned and saw Legacy sitting on her bed beside her with a look of pure worry on his face.

“No, just worried is all,” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Is that all?” Legacy asked, she nodded, “Well I guess you’d like to know that you are not alone.

“Thanks Legacy,” She smiled at him and he walked back over to his bed and sat down.

“This is really happening, huh?” Legacy said softly.

“I guess it is,” Rainbow had a look of determination on her face, “We only have one more shot at this after tomorrow since Friday’s decision day.”

“You’re right,” Legacy smiled and chuckled, “Wow, time sure flies when you’re having fun doesn’t it?”

“If this is fun for you then yeah it sure does,” Rainbow jumped when she heard the door click.

Miracle poked her head in, “We’re not interrupting anything, are we?

“No,” Legacy chuckled, “This is your room too. You do know that, don’t you?”

“Well duh, but I’m not one to barge in on conversations,” Miracle huffed and walked over to her bunk with Rainbow Dash.

Swift followed her inside and sat on his own bed, “It’s almost the end of the journey, huh?”

Miracle giggled, “You’re making it sound so negative.” Miracle stopped laughing for a minute, “I didn’t want to bring it up, but what’s the deal with Soarin?”

“I-I well…” Rainbow stuttered.

“Are you in lurve?” Rainbow jumped and almost hit her head on Miracles bed as she saw a face in her face.

“What in the-“ Rainbow calmed down.

“Hello, nice to meet you I’m the genie in the lamp, been following you around recently you’re my new victim of kill. It something that rapid rabbits with rabies do. Names Cyclone, but you can name me idiot, sycho… trust me I’ve heard them all. I like whipped cheese!” He randomly exclaimed.

“Um, ok…” It seemed Rainbow couldn’t get away from awkwardness right now.

She suddenly felt two arms grab her around the waist. “Don’t worry, Babe, I’ll save you from this creep!”

All of a sudden, she was yanked backwards hard and into the air, the breath being forced from her lungs. Her natural reaction was to extend her wings, but whoever was grabbing her prevented her from doing that.

She landed on something surprisingly soft. It didn’t take her long to realise that she landed in the bed opposite to Legacy. She looked to her left to see an tan skinned boy, with brown hair that covered his eyes slightly. It looked like something you’d expect from a problematic rebellious high school teenager, but not from a fully grown man. Dash had to blink to confirm that she wasn’t imagining his size. He was huge, as Soarin and not nearly as big as Helmer, but huge!

“Welp, looks like Gale saves the day again!” He announced, then looked down at Dash, glancing back and forth down to the bed, then up at her. “Well, looks like you ended up in my bed. You’re one lucky girl…whaddya say we give our roomies here a show, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows and his mouth slowly formed a grin.

“Yeah, how ‘bout no,” Rainbow Dash replied bluntly as she deliberately pushed off him to get herself out of his bed. ‘Great, my knight in shining armour…’ she thought sarcastically.

“You got it babe! It takes two to tango,” He said and winked at her, but she wasn’t looking anyway.

“Is it bad that I didn’t notice him before?” Legacy leaned over and asked Miracle.

“I think he just walked in and I didn’t notice him either.” Miracle whispered back.

“Oh, good,” Legacy pulled out his phone and shook his head. He looked at everyone before getting up and walking to the corner of the room. “Um, I need to step away for a moment if that’s ok.”

Rainbow walked over to Helmer and waved.

“Hey, you’ve got some pretty cool moves,” Rainbow complemented.

“Thank you Rainbow Dash,” He nodded to her respectfully. “Your ability to copy moves only by observing is unique. I have never seen anyone with such an ability.”

“Oh, thanks,” Rainbow smiled, “So you’re from the Griffon Kingdom, huh?”

“Yes I am,” He answered straight to the point.

“That’s cool,” Rainbow’s eyes darted around uncomfortably, “I was born in Cloudsdale, but then I moved to Siberia, then to Ponyville, and here I am know.” She smiled, “So, why the Wonderbolts? Don’t you griffons have some kind of team of your own?”

“Yes we do,” He nodded grimly, “And they just so happen to be rivals of the Wonderbolts.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a picture.

“Wow,” Rainbow stared at the picture.

“Unlike the Wonderbolts they are strictly a military force with no sideshow cover up,” He raised an eyebrow at Rainbow, “It is well known in the Griffon Kingdom of what the Wonderbolts are truly for.”

“Speaking of the griffons,” Rainbow said as Helmer put the picture down, “The murder of their king a few years back was really bad, wasn’t it?”

“It certainly was,” Helmer looked her right in the eyes, “It affected the whole kingdom especially his wife and son.”

“What about you?” She asked him.

“It affected me just as much as it affected his wife,” He looked down at the picture and then back up at Rainbow, “But that being said it does affect you when it was the murder of your own father.”

Rainbow blinked several times, “What?!”

“The king… was my father Rainbow Dash,” Helmer answered honestly.

Rainbow didn’t have time to respond because she heard a voice over the intercom.

‘Cadets, please report to the track in five minutes.’

Rainbow recognized Spitfire’s voice and complied with her orders.

“Uh, I’m gonna get the rest of those facts later if that’s okay with you,” Rainbow turned back to Helmer who just nodded in response.

Legacy had just hung up his phone and he and Rainbow made brief eye contact before he lowered his head in disappointment and walked out of the room. Everyone noticed his missing smile and the look in his eyes.

Rainbow walked out to the track and looked for Fleetfoot as did the rest of the people in the compound. She spotted Thunderlane and flagged him down.

“Where is Fleetfoot?” He asked her.

“Don’t look at me like I’m suppose to know the answer,” Rainbow complained.

“Well when it comes to the Wonderbolts you usually do.” He answered smartly.

It’s hard to look at him and not look at him. Rainbow glared at Thunderlane and as soon as she turned around there was Fleetfoot.

“Hello kiddies,” She beamed at the crowd and then cleared her throat, “And adults who are older than me. Today you’re with me and before you get super scared because you don’t trust me, Soarin and Spitfire will be there. Is that much cleared up?” She looked round and went back to her ‘professional’ state. “Ok, our activity today is a skills race around the track. As you can see this is no ordinary track, it is modeled after the city heights of Paris!” She looked over the track at the buildings, “Just not quite as tall. Our builders are great and all, but even they can’t put a whole city together in a day.” Fleetfoot turned to Spitfire who had just walked up behind her and playfully bowed as Spitfire took the lead and Fleetfoot ran over and joined Soarin at the starting line of the track.

“As you may know this is the third chance you will get to show us your skills and for us to see who stays and who goes,” She looked over the crowd, “And unfortunately for some of you it didn’t even take this long to decide if you leave. To start off Fleetfoot’s test she and Soarin are going to be giving a demonstration, but before that I am going to explain what you are going to be doing. This is a five hour endurance race. That means that each of the teams of 8 that are assigned by your room number. You will each run an average of about thirty-seven minutes each. This is parkour so that means use everything to your disposal.” She turned her back to them and met Soarin’s eye who then nodded and nudged Fleetfoot. “Now to the demonstration…”

Fleetfoot and Soarin took off running and Fleetfoot of course took the lead. She came up to the first turn and grabbed on a bar above her turned and propelled herself through the corner not to loose any time. Soarin on the other hand took the high route and followed the building line until it ended and jumped, landing in front of Fleetfoot. That didn’t last long though because she pulled up and took the next shortcut through an alley and came out first. After they finished their demonstration and Fleetfoot bragged about winning in Soarin’s face, who just brushed it off. Not like he thought he would win in the first place.

“So you guys, we have a new system now,” Fleetfoot turned to address the crowd once again, “We have all of the teams set up in a tent in ‘the pit’ and in each tent there is an iPad that tracks your runner because they will be wearing this,” She pulled out an earpiece, “This is a tracker and an earpiece. There will also be an headset so that you can communicate with your teammates while they’re running. Now to the rules; you can only have one runner out at a time so if you have a runner still in the pit while the other one begins their run then you will be penalized, rule #2 no physical contact and that includes pushing and shoving, final rule accidents happen in this sport more often than others so be careful.” Fleetfoot glanced at Spitfire who shook her head, “And that’s all I have so head to your tents and we’ll give about 15 minutes to plan.” The cadets still stood there standing and staring at her, “Well what are you doing?! CHOP CHOP! 14 minutes and 45 seconds.”

Rainbow found the tent labeled #10 and walked in to find Swift already sitting in front of the iPad and syncing the trackers.

“Wow, you’re just a professional at this stuff aren’t you?” Rainbow asked teasingly.

“Well,” He started and Rainbow immediately regretted asking him because now she knew he was going to go off on a tangent, “I guess this is just the stuff I’m used to, I mean I was typically the one running and not the one behind the computer, but I still know how to use it.”

“Whew, that wasn’t that long,” Rainbow whispered to herself.

“What did you say?” Swift raised an eyebrow at her.

“Um,” Rainbow stuttered and Legacy walked in, “Ah, saved by the bell, or Legacy, I guess.”

Legacy chuckled to himself, “I guess I interrupted something.”

“Lucky you did, because she was about to get pulverized,” Swift nodded his head to Dash making him laugh again.

“You do that often, huh?” Legacy teased.

“Yeah, Yeah, Mr. Perfect White Knight,” Rainbow pouted and crossed her arms.

White knight, huh? Legacy thought.

“We’ll see about that perfect thing if I beat you,” Legacy smiled.

“Mr. Almost Perfect doesn’t have a good ring to it, so you’ll just have to deal with it,” Rainbow stuck her tongue out at him and then she giggled.

“What?” Legacy tilted his head.

“You just reminded me of someone I know,” She caught her breath.

Miracle walked into the tent with Helmer, Rollo, and Gale trailing behind.

“It is a zoo out there,” She commented before sitting on the floor beside Dash, “Sorry we’re late, so what’s the game plan?”

“Well, I hope you didn’t expect me to do this all by myself,” Swift lifted up a pencil and smiled, “We still need to work out our running order.”

“Ok,” She got up and walked over, “I personally think instead of setting a time for one another, like captain Spitfire mentioned, it would be better to see how long we could keep up our speed before we get tired.”

“I think that’s a great idea!” Swift exclaimed. “Here let’s see who should go first…”

Rainbow chuckled to herself, They sure do make a good team, she though. Suddenly she noticed that someone was missing.

“Hey,” Everyone looked her way and Miracle and Swift stopped talking, “Does anyone know where Cyclone might be?”

They all looked at each other confused and shrugged at her. Rollo, who was leaning back on the post, was the only one who answered.

“I don't know about you all, but due to his display earlier, I don’t think he’ll be popping up at anytime when we need him.”

“You know me so well!” Cyclone popped up right in front of his face and Rollo immediately freaked out.

“I don’t even know you!” Rollo said before calming down and turning around to face a different direction, “Besides you’re probably one of those people who you think you’ve figured out, but then suddenly they change whoever they are. Honestly, my assumption was just realistic and obvious.”

Swift had a blank look on his face, “Please don’t egg him on.” He pleaded, but then Miracle pulled his arm and handed him the pencil.

“Oh relax,” She giggled, “They look to be having a great time.”

“You’re the one who’s assumptions are incorrect,” Rollo stated flatly, well, before Cyclone sat on his shoulders and whispered something in his ear which seemed to confuse him a great deal.

“Besides when the cat’s away the mice will play,” She shrugged shoulders and leaned closer and whispered to him, “Besides he seems to b doing us a favor by keeping him busy.” She stood back up straight, “And we still have that running order to work on.”

Rainbow laughed, this was her band of idiots and she would have to work with it. She walked over to Helmer and sat by him.

“So, you’re a prince then?” Rainbow asked sort of out of the blue, but he didn’t seem affected by it.

“Royal bloodline means nothing now,” He answered stoically, “Besides I was exiled anyway for being a possible candidate for the murderer of my father.”

“What?!” Rainbow exclaimed. “They assumed you would murder your own father?! That's just not right!”

“Maybe to you in your kingdom, but in my kingdom being the royal family almost meant nothing,” Helmer’s face did a pretty good job hiding it, but Rainbow could see the grief that was so well hidden, “They thought that they had a right to assume all I wanted was the thrown.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rainbow apologized.

“I don’t understand your sympathy,” He finally looked up at her.

“Huh, what do you mean, ‘you don’t understand’?” Rainbow asked becoming more and more confused herself.

“You could put it that in my culture we aren’t so good with words or feelings and it seems better to just leave your emotions alone,” He explained.

“Aw, I sympathize with you buddy. How about a hug to get those emotions out of you like a gale storm?” Gale opened his arms and came a bit closer.

Rainbow tried to imagine such an image and she had to admit it wasn’t a very family friendly one at that, Yeah, that would probably never happen, she thought.

“I would even want to touch you with a ten foot metal pole, what makes your think that I’d want to hug you?” Helmer deadpanned.

“That was a blow right to the manhood,” Gale crossed his arms and jerked his head away dramatically, “You were right, you griffons really don’t understand emotions.”

“But he’s right though, isn’t he?” Legacy’s voice joined the conversation. He wasn’t facing them, but he seemed to be in deep thought. “Even in our culture we seem to also have those people who don’t want to or ven don’t know how to communicate. Some people just don’t understand how powerful words can be. Those people either throw spiteful words around or keep it all inside, but no matter how good we are at using our words we’re still a bit of both.” He turned around to face them and wore a very large smile on his face. “Don’t you agree?”

‘This is your 5 minute warning’ Fleetfoot voice sounded throughout the pit through the intercom.

Legacy’s smile remained, “well that seems to be our time. Let’s go see if they've worked out our running order yet.”

They four of them walked over to the small table where Miracle and Swift sat with their heads on the table.

“Are you two ok?” Rainbow asked.

“We figured out that it’s impossible to figure out our running order before we’ve actually seen each other run,” Miracle explained.

“So it made us hypocrites when we decided that Miracle should go first.” Swift joined in.

“Since he has much more experience with this part than the rest of of us do, and seemed much more willing than Rollo, it has been decided that Swift will call the shots!” Miracle seemed proud of herself and it was hard for Rainbow to deny that she was proud of them to.

“Well it seems like you two have it all worked out to me,” Legacy gave them a thumbs up.

“Did better than I could’ve!” Gale chuckled.

“Considering you, the standards wouldn’t have been very high anyway,” Helmer exclaimed flatly.

Gale pointed a finger at him, “Denied!” Then smiled very wide, “That’s it, that’s my goal. By the end of my time here I’m going to make you love me!”

Rainbow and Legacy shared a flat look of disturbance.

“Woe is me,” Helmer said a bit sarcastically, but mostly using his flat tone. “I sure wish the scientists who sculpted human minds into the brains of robots had given me the ability to understand this human emotion-love.”

“Denied again!” Gale exclaimed.

Rollo walked over looking dejected and as it seems he had every right to. Cyclone was still on his shoulders with a face that looked like he was having a blast. “Of course only you would be dumb enough to believe that.”

Gale sighed, “Not you too! With two this will be an impossible task!”

Rainbow laughed, Yep this is my band of idiots.

Author's Note

Hello everyone, it sure has been a while. I have been working on a few new projects and soon I am going to start a prequel series about our favorite characters. Everyone in this story is the main charector of their own story and they cam into Rainbow’s life with their own history. Two of my story’s so far is The Chronicles of the Past: Last Legacy and The Chronicles of the Past: The Real story.

Hope you liked the chapter.