Moments after stygian is pulled from the pony of shadows, and the pony is pushed back into limbo.
Underneath a bridge somewhere in Equestria, lay an orphan colt dozing, covered by discarded newspapers and cardboard. He had a brilliant white coat with teal stripes, that had been dampened by constant exposure to dust and grime. His horn matched his coat, once white, but now a dull gray. The ghost of a smile adorned his face.
The shadow pony awoke surrounded by whiteness. It looked around his impossibly large confines. All was white, as far as the eye could see. It felt small, only a fraction of its former self. This doesn’t feel like limbo. “Who are you?” a small yet curios voice behind it asked. The whirling mass of shade spun around to look at the intruder. A small white colt eyed it with a mixture of fear and curiosity. He had a Cyan mane, tail and muzzle, which clashed heavily with his ruby red eyes.
The shadow adjusted its form to mimic the young unicorn facing it. Its sudden transformation caused the skittish foal to jump back a foot or two. “Fear not, young one, it is not my intention to cause you harm,” the Shadow pony said, its voice oozing sincerity. His words calmed the foal down, and he approached it once more. “This is clearly not limbo. Tell me, little pony, do you know where we are?” it asked.
“Yeppers,” the colt responded, with disingenuous lightheartedness.
The shadow shot an expectant look at its meek companion.
“I-I’m pretty sure this is my mind,” the colt stammered, still eyeing the pony of shadows warily.
“Why is it so empty?”
“I didn’t know it had to be full of anything, I haven’t been poking around other people’s brains,” the colt accused, masking his uncertainty under a facade of assertiveness.
“Where are all your memories?” the shadow pony continued, keeping its voice calm, allowing a touch of confusion into its tone to appease the small one. If it had noticed the foal’s feeble attempt at deception, it gave no indication of knowing or caring.
“I don’t remember,” giggled the colt. “But seeing as how I live my life on a day to day basis, I probably don’t need to commit much to memory.” His surprise guest seemed just as confused by its predicament as he was, and that calmed him –at least enough for him to try cracking a bad joke. The shadow pony didn’t so much as smile at the terrible pun, looking instead at the colt with subtle intrigue.
“Have you genuinely no hopes, dreams or aspirations?”
“Don’t you think I’m a little young to be worrying about that kind of stuff?” the colt deflected, eyes narrowing.
Then the shadow pony realized exactly what was happening. The laugh began deep in its belly, and rumbled forth as a deep malevolent chortle.
“You’ve developed quite the coping mechanism, haven’t you, you pitiful pony. You’ve stopped wanting anything. If you expect nothing from the world around you, you can never be disappointed or hurt. You’ve practically simulated limbo, except less chaotic, in your own mind. Must be incredibly boring, right?”
The colt didn’t grace his question with a response, choosing instead to focus on a particularly interesting part of the reflective white floor.
“ANSWER ME!” the shadow pony bellowed, rising up on its hind legs. Its sudden outburst sent the foal into a hasty retreat, causing him to trip over himself in a frantic attempt to avoid a strike that never came.
“How does it feel? Knowing that if you continue to live like this, you’ll die having amounted to nothing, and if you change your ways you’ll get hurt again and again?” the shadow growled.
The colt wouldn’t even look at it.
“I can help you, you know,” it said, as soothingly as it could manage, its voice practically dripping charisma.
The pair of red eyes focused on it again.
“I’ve forgot more about this world than you will ever know, if I shared my knowledge with you, you might find some purpose in it,” it offered, extending a hoof. “All I ask is that I can remain sheltered in your head for a bit.”
The colt eyed it suspiciously before meeting the shadow’s hoof with his own. “Deal,” he sighed.
Millions of magical screens appeared around the room floating slowly downward and sinking through the floor, sending out ripples as they passed through it. Thousands of images flickered in behind the colts eyes as he began to understand. Images of Discord, Twilight and her friends, the Pillars, and limbo where interspersed in a flow of information that lasted a small eternity. Then, finally, the two were alone in the white room once more. The colt’s expression had changed. He stared at the shadow who was laughing maniacally. Its laughter was cut short as he began to sink through the floor.
“What’s this? What are you doing?” screamed the shadow pony in outrage.
“You should have been more selective when you showed me your mind, the deal’s off, I’m kicking you out.”
“YOU CAN’T DO THIS, WE HAD A DEAL,” it raged.
“Yes I can,” the colt replied calmly. “This is my mind.”
“Plus you’re only a shadow of what you once were,” he added, chuckling at his own pun.
The room was empty again, whiteness stretching out to infinity in all directions.
He gazed down at his reflection on the floor, and what he saw shocked him. His eyes had been transformed. His pupils had narrowed and elongated into slits, and his irises swollen. His eyes looked like those of a great snake. Then his reflection addressed him. “Don’t think you can get rid of me that easily,” it taunted.
“Apparently, I can’t,” he responded, a look of mild annoyance. Then, he was gone.
When the colt awoke he quickly shuffled over to the steam adjuring his makeshift bed, signing in relief as he saw his reflection, eyes unaltered. All of a sudden, weightlessness overtook him. A ball of light lifted him off the ground, gently smothering him in a warm embrace. After a few seconds the warmth faded and he was returned to terra. It was only when he made his way out from under his shelter did a ray of light illuminate the addition to his flank. There was a mark that hadn’t existed there before. A black orb marred the dull, messy, grimy white fur on his flank.
“Seriously!” he screamed. “I got a DOT?” He had waited his whole life to be special. He had hoped that finally getting his cutie mark would give him a direction. But instead of something like a zipline or a lightning bolt he got this. I mean what does this even mean? My special talent is to get my mind invaded by an evil pony? He forcefully exhaled, and, with a mixture of rage and desperation, kicked a nearby pebble as hard as he could. The unruly rock bounced off the underside of the bridge and impacted the colt’s nose with a dull smack. “ARGHHHHH” he screamed, and sent the rock sailing into the stream next to him.
Author's Note
this is probably the most serious chapter of the fic. All upbeat from here.
“I spend practically all my free time training there. I mean, if there was a friendship problem I probably would have noticed it by now,” Rainbow Dash said, flapping her wings lazily. “Maybe the map’s just broken?”
The pinkish-purple unicorn floating next to her gave an exasperated sigh. “The map isn’t broken Rainbow.”
“Well then it’s totally underestimated my awesomeness,” Rainbow Dash complained, performing a slow barrel roll as a demonstration.
Her display evoked a small giggle from Starlight Glimmer.
“I’m being serious,” pouted Rainbow Dash, a look of mild annoyance flashing across her face.
“Then I’m sure we’ll figure this out in no time,” Starlight retorted with a grin, the runway of the Wonderbolt HQ coming into view below them.
A silvery glint caught Rainbow Dash’s eye. As she looked up to identify its source, a white pegasus with a brilliant blue mane and tail, rocketed past the pair of ponies, leaving behind a wave hot ozone-scented air. Above her, Dash heard the roar of hundreds of fans followed by a trifecta of loud booms.
Rainbow Dash turned to her companion.“You’re right Starlight, that was pretty quick,” she said and keeled over laughing at Starlight’s slack-jawed expression.
The sonic booms had also caught the attention of the few Wonderbolts who had decided to spend their days off at the HQ. They formed a semicircle around the culprit, but none of them strayed particularly close to the dazed pegasus. Rainbow shot out ahead of starlight, and when she reached the ground she saw the reason for her peers’ wariness. Before her sprawled a white pegasus with cyan stripes all over his body, and—were those metal wings?
It was her turn to stare, slack-jawed; each feather had been meticulously crafted into a six inch, leaf-shaped, blade, and from underneath each of them radiated a warm white glow. It took her a moment to realize the pegasus in front of her was not, in fact, a pegasus. He looked to be older than Scootaloo, but younger than her and her friends. His mane and tail were a bright teal, disrupted by streaks of white hair, and through that mane poked what had once been a horn. The blunted protrusion from his forehead was sickening to look at, yet also captivating. The top three-quarters of his horn had been removed with surgical precision, the top of the flat bone-like structure poking out through his messy hair.
He rose slowly, taking note of his surroundings, and fixing each pony with his unsettling, ruby-esque eyes. Suddenly he sprang up, his wings briefly suspending him in the air.
“IT WORKED!” he hollered, hopping around in circles now, “it worked it worked it worked.”
Giddy with excitement, he launched himself into the air. He attempted a loop, but life clearly had other plans for him. As he approached the apex of his roll, white sparks flew across his wings, and plumes of smoke erupted from under his feathers. He hung there for a moment, comically, his eyes dilated, retina the size of peas, suspended by nothing more than his will to fly. “Oh f–” was all that escaped his lips before the weight of his oversized wings dragged him towards the ground.
Starlight was the first to approach the crumpled ball of pony.
“Umm… Are you alright?” She asked, a concerned look on her face. For the first time, he seems to really take in his surroundings, and the faces gazing at him.
“Oh I’m quite alright, thank you,” he said, struggling to rise. The ponies watched him struggle for a few seconds before giving up settling for an uncomfortable sitting position, with his wings draped against the grass.
“What’s your name?” Rainbow Dash’s raspy voice cut in.
“I’m… Uhhhhh…” he looked around frantically “Stripes! My name’s Stripes,” he responded, giving her a toothy grin. Returning to his wing inspection he attempted to pull himself free of his wings and was unanimously reminded of their weight. “Actually, I could use a bit of a helping hoof with this,” he said, gesturing at the wing contraption anchoring him to the ground.
“Oh yeah,” Starlight grinned sheepishly and her horn ignited with bright blue magic. His wings were heavy, but with a bit of effort, she had managed to spread them out to their full twelve-foot wingspan freeing him from their embrace. Once she set the outstretched wings on the ground in front of him, Stripes began finagling with a panel on his back where his wings attached to his body, and after a few annoyed grunts and a happy “got it”, the wings sprung open each feather perpendicular to the plane of his body. Out fell an assortment of small donut shaped rings, most were smoking and giving off a pungent smell of burnt grass, while some retained a faint milky glow.
“What are those?” a curious Starlight inquired.
“My horn, also engines,” Stripes responded, upbeat. That was a sickening prospect. He touched each one to the stump of his horn, and a spark began to race around the torus faster, and faster until the hoops were glowing a brilliant white. Then, he would let it go and it would return to the wing, assimilated by the metal feathers.
“Can you still use your horn?” Starlight asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, pausing to look up at her. “I can theoretically cast any spell any other unicorn could, it’s just much harder for me, and the results are verified at best. But, when I really need it, it comes through for me,” he continued.
He repeated the process about twenty times, after the last, the wings snapped shut with a dull thunk, the warm glow returning to them. Suddenly, Stripes was able to lift his wings. He gently shook out the shiny feathers and faced the ponies around him. When he saw the mixture of confusion and shock on their faces, he burst. “You guys have got to see your faces right now” he cackled.
Spitfire broke the silence, her voice venomous, “How the hey you crash landed at Wonderbolt HQ, and what you just came soaring in on?”
Stripes shivered in fear and shrunk slightly, and his smile faded
“I-I’m sorry ma'am. It was my first time flying, and I-I tried going supersonic, and I lost control of my wings” he stammered, head hung.
Then, with a hint of pride, he presented the pair of massive wings to the group, and continued “These are my life’s work, synthetic wings”.
He could no longer contain his excitement “I’ve been working on these for years, and they’re finally done. They work just as well as the real thing. Here let me show you!” His massive wings unfurled revealing his lower half, and on his flank, the picture of...
"Uh," Starlight squinted. "Is that... You're good at pool?"
"It's not an 8-ball. It's a singularity."
"So you're not good at pool?"
"No."
Dash nodded. "So you suck at pool."
"No. Yes. I've never played, but–"
"I've never met a pony whose special talent was to be bad at something."
"It has nothing to do with pool! It's a singularity!"
"Yeah. 'Cause you suck."
The dejected pega– unicorn, furled his wings blushing and, self consciously, covered the black dot on his flank.
“I think I figured out the friendship problem,” Rainbow Dash chuckled.
Spitfire had returned her attention to the intruder “You might be the dumbest pony ever to fly through our airspace, and you’re not even a pegasus!” she scolded in her typical drill sergeant’s voice. Stripes thought it would be impossible to for him to shrink any further away from her, but his body once again defied all expectations.
“What she’s trying to say is, if you had flown like that in a densely populated area like, Canterlot or Cloudsdale, you could have seriously injured yourself or somepony else” Starlight interjected.
The realization practically smacked him across his face. He gazed at the ground, a small “oh” escaping his lips. “I never meant to hurt anypony,” he said, ashamed.
“I figured out why we’re here,” Starlight said, proudly. The rest of the group looked at her, confused. “Clearly Stripes here is not a very strong flyer, and his magical talent isn’t that great either,” Stripes blushed. “I’m pretty good at magic, and Rainbow Dash is one of the best flyers in Equestria.” she continued.
“You mean the best flyer in Equestria,” Rainbow Dash corrected. Earning a disapproving eyebrow raise from Spitfire.
“We’re here to teach him to control his wings and horn” Starlight Glimmer explained. “We’re sorry, Spitfire, but it looks like we will have to borrow your facilities for a day or two”
“Do whatever you want, as long as he’s out of here by the time the rest of the unit gets off leave”
“He can use me and Thunderlane’s room while he’s here” Soarin offered.
“Alright! Show me the way”
“Sure, follow me” Soarin began trotting towards the dorms.
“Wait for Stripes your not a pegasus you can’t–”
He turned his head towards her “wha–”
His forehoof passed through the first cloud that it landed on. As if in slow motion, the young stallion tipped over, and vanished into the clouds.
When Starlight Glimmer retrieved him he was curled up into a ball, wings flared, his pupils had gone small again. Rainbow Dash took one look at him, and fell to the floor, laughter wracking her body. Fleetfoot soon joined her, even Starlight couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight. Soarin and Spitfire tried and failed to contain their giggles. Once Stripes realized he wasn’t falling anymore, he straightened out. “Thanks for saving my life.”
“No problem, I also cast a spell that lets you walk on clouds when I picked you up, so that shouldn't happen again.”
He tentatively poked the cloud that he had just fallen through, and when he didn’t pass through it he began to walk, then run, and jump, and bounce. Starlight turned away from Stripes, who was gazing down in wonder as he trampolined on a cloud. “Do you guys happen to have a classroom?” she asked Spitfire.
“Yeah” spitfire motioned towards a small building tucked away behind the practice area, away from the dorms.
“Alright we can start there”
The classroom was much warmer than the surrounding air, the nipping effects of high altitude far reduced by the thick cloud walls. Starlight glimmer sat at the head of the classroom while Stripes had taken a seat in the front row. “Now then, let's start with something simple.”
“Ok,” said the perky-eared stallion with more than a hint of excitement. This had been what he had wanted. He could finally show everypony else what a life’s work of research, and stealing knowledge from an evil alicorn, had led him to.
What followed was a two-hour-long exercise in humility, as Stripes failed miserably at even the simplest spells. The two of them had started with barrier spells because they could “help you with supersonic flight.”
After ten failed barriers, Starlight decided to try something less complex. The pair regressed through elementary magic. By the end of their lesson, all Stripes managed was to liquify an eraser instead of lifting it. Stripes was doing a bad job of concealing his frustration, but Starlight gave him a little credit for trying.
“Alright,” Starlight sighed. “Let's give this one more shot.”
He grumbled in agreement.
Starlight laid the last intact piece of chalk on a nearby table, “remember that focus is key here, imagine where you want the chalk to go, what it’s going to look like moving through the air.”
“I know,” Stripes focused hard, channeling his last shreds of confidence into lifting the tiny chalk taunting him with its inertia.
Before long, the chalk was surrounded by a faint white aura. The chalk started to wiggle, shaking with all the triumph Stripes felt in that moment. Starlight could empathize, magic always seemed very well… magical at first.
His stupidly excited grin made Starlight wish she didn’t see the crack forming along the white rod. ‘Turns out that the sound of a pony snapping is very similar to that of breaking chalk.
His eye twitched a few times before he let out a frustrated scream “Horsefeathers!”
It took him a while to calm down. He knew he was being foalish, and that he should really just let it go. When he’d severed his horn he knew magic wouldn’t be as easy for him anymore, but he’d gone through with it anyway.
“Need any help?” a familiar voice asked.
The charisma that oozed from its owner made Stripes stomach churn.
“Quit bugging me and go back to your cage,” said Stripes, rising from the cloud he’d been lounging on. Clouds were surprisingly comfortable, and looking down at the land kilometers below had become a new favorite pastime.
He trotted back towards the training area, keeping Rainbow waiting didn’t seem like a good idea.
“Finished your tantrum yet?” Rainbow teased, the hint of concern barely audible. She more than anypony else knew the annoyance that came with repeated failure, her nickname, crash, was somewhat of a testament to that. Stripes may not have noticed, but Rainbow was concerned for his well being.
“Yeah, Yeah,” Stripes blushed, brushing an imaginary itch behind his ear.
“Well then, what’re you waiting for? Give me twenty laps, now!” And so began Stripes’ second exercise in humility.
Flying was much harder than pegasi made it out to be, especially at low speed. Air currents that his wings sliced through at higher speeds now swirled at his wingtips threatening to send him into a flat spin at any moment. The dull roar of the compression engines didn’t do much to distract him from his course, and he found himself having to constantly correct his line. But here, at least, he was showing some progress. Or so he thought.
After their warm-up, Rainbow had wanted to use their time teaching basic maneuvers, but countless crashes and spinouts through a wrench in her plan. The fact of the matter was, Stripes lacked the instincts that most pegasi were born with. His three-dimensional awareness was lacking at best, he was easily disoriented, and he didn’t have any concept whatsoever of his wingspan.
Rainbow went at him like spitfire had with her, sending him through the same set of loops over and over until he got it. Except, he didn’t get any better, and as the sun neared the horizon, Rainbow was given a pristine view of the dejected and bruised unicorn walking towards the barracks.
“Hey, at least you learned how to land without hurting yourself,” she tried.
“Yeah.”
Stripes lay on his back, with wings splayed over the sheets of Thunderlane’s bed, mesmerized by the navy blue ceiling. Soarin, on the other hand, eyed him curiously from the adjacent bed.
“Sooooo.” Soarin attempted to dispel the awkward silence. “How was your day, other than –heh– crashing into a runway?”
Stripes shifted slightly, turning his head so that he could focus his bright red eyes on his roommate/warden. He tried his best to plaster a grin on his face, but, judging by Soarin’s expression, it just made him look weird.
He sighed, and quit the facade. “Not great to be honest.”
“Yeah, I saw you trying those rings.”
Stripes blushed, his white fur and blue stripes turning his muzzle into splotched red and purple mess. “Oh, you saw that disaster huh?”
“I mean it’s not surprising, those rings were made for pegasi not for ponies with wings”
“Elaborate?”
“Pegasi fly with a combination of pegasus magic and lift from our wings, while you rely entirely on lift from your wings, right?”
“Yep.”
Soarin sat up and put on his best teacher voice. “Your lack of pegasus magic, the comparatively massive wingspan required to get you off the ground, and your lack of a hollow, compressible skeleton means you’re going to be a whole lot less maneuverable than us, especially at low speeds.”
“Also, you have the spacial awareness of a muppet,” he added.
“Thanks, for the encouragement.” Stripes replied, sarcastically.
“I’m serious,” Soarin’s voice hardened. “You don’t have the instinct most pegasi are born with, somepony’s going to have to teach you.”
“And you’re going to be that special somepony?” teased Stripes, with a touch more malice than he’d intended.
“Even with all my skill, you’re far beyond my help” retorted Soarin.
Stripes laughed at that, and soon enough Soarin joined him.
Stripes decided he liked talking to Soarin, the stallion was everything he’d looked up to in a Wonderbolt. He was nice and funny, and quick-witted.
The two had been exchanging insults and stories well into the evening when Soarin started asking Stripes about his cutie mark.
“How’d you get it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“What’s it mean?”
That was a more complex question. His cutie mark was a mathematical singularity, a term describing recurring patterns and how they change ad infinitum. Like how a ball has no penultimate bounce, but it does eventually come to rest. Stripes settled for a simplified version.
“My special talent is taking things too far.”
“Well, that explains the wings I guess.”
“I guess” Stripes echoed.
Meanwhile, in mare’s side of the barracks, Starlight was pacing around their shared room.
“I don’t get it Rainbow, he says he knows the spells, but when he actually tries, he fails every time.”
“You’re just not pushing him hard enough,” said Rainbow matter-of-factly. “Everypony knows that the only way to get better at something is to work at it. Plus, you should consider yourself lucky you don’t have to teach him to fly.” bemoaned the light blue pegasus. “He doesn’t know the first thing about flying”
Starlight pondered their conundrum for a moment, then came up with a plan. Tomorrow, let’s try this.
The sun had barely crested the horizon when Stripes awoke. The room was dim and empty. Stripes rolled out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. He spent five minutes splashing in a cold shower and wishing for a toothbrush.
The still wet pony walked out of the barracks and saw Soarin and rainbow chasing each other around the obstacle course. He had skipped breakfast as per Soarin’s recommendation; apparently, stunt flying on a full stomach can have some nasty consequences.
What greeted him was a stunning display of aerial ability. Soarin, Rainbow, and Spitfire were executing a dance of precision flying, spinning around one another in dangerously tight loops, and whizzing through the obstacle course that had roughed him up yesterday at blistering speeds.
Spitfire was the first to notice him. She led the trio down to the runway, stopping them in front of the thoroughly amazed pony.
“Well, you’re up now Crash,” Spitfire said, her gravely voice snapping Rainbow’s focus away from a loose piece of runway-asphalt. Then, turning to Soarin, “You up for some breakfast Clipper?”
“Count me in!” her fellow pegasus replied.
“You know, I could use a bite as well, common Stripes,” Rainbow said, motioning to follow the pair of pegasi lazily flapping towards the dining commons.
“Isn’t it bad to eat before flying?” Stripes inquired, his normally smooth voice turned raspy by the cold morning air. As he changed his gate slightly to keep up with the Rainbow Pony. Starlight’s spell on him was still active, a testament to her magical abilities.
“Well, since I’m going to be teaching you magic and not flying, I think you should be fine,” she replied. Stripes jaw went slack for the second time this morning, as he gave her a thoroughly dumbfounded look.
“You’re a pegasus.”
“Are you sure your special talent isn’t stating the obvious?”
“If you’re a pegasus, how are you going to teach me magic?”
“Like this,” Rainbow said, before hurling the hoof-sized piece of tarmac. that she’d been toying with earlier directly at his head.
The barrier came up instantly. A flash of light leaving behind a wedge of opaque white magic, on which the projectile shattered, pebbles scattering upwards off the gentle slope of the barrier.
“You almost killed me!” Stripes cried, fear, rage, and indignation mixing themselves in his voice.
“Stop being such a filly about it, you would have been seriously injured at worst.” Rainbow chuckled.
“That doesn’t make it better!”
“Well I guess we’ll never know, you know since you deflected the rock”
Stripes’ mouth widened into an ‘O’, and suddenly, all the rage and indignation vanished, as processed exactly what had just happened. “I can use magic!” his shout causing the two unicorns in front of them to turn their heads, eyebrows raised.
“No duh, you’re a unicorn, of course, you can use magic”
“Well yesterday I couldn’t”
“I think you got the wrong cutie mark. Since you’ve gotten here, all you’ve done is state the obvious, and I haven’t seen you play pool once.” she giggled, ignoring the angry hug from her companion.
“I–... My cutie mark has nothing to do with–” he stuttered. Fine, two could play this game.
“Well maybe you got the wrong cutie mark too,” he chided, “I could see you with a book or scroll”
Rainbow whipped around to face him, “are you calling me an egghead?”
“No, no, not at all, my experiences from this morning merely lead me to believe that you might be a better teacher than you are a flyer” Stripes responded in his most scientific tone, as he fixed a pair of imaginary glasses on his muzzle.
If his barrier had had half the fortitude of his ego, he might have been able to stop Rainbow Dash. Alas, stopping a rock, and stopping an angry Rainbow pegasus were two very separate ordeals. Rainbows for hoof demonstrated, shattering his barrier like cheap glass, and sending him sprawling across the bed of clouds. He looked so bewildered that she could almost see the stars he was seeing.
He raised a single hoof and said, dizzily, “I would like to rescind my previous statement, you’re a horrible teacher”
She chuckled and extended a hoof. “C'mon, let's grab some grub–” He caught her hoof with his own, and, with some effort, pulled himself up. She grunted under his weight, steadying the still dizzy Stripes. “–and some ice.”
“You pack a mean right hoof you know” he grunted, rubbing a growing bulge on his forehead.
Another short laugh escaped her as she escorted him back to the dining commons.
The three and a half pegasi sat together in the dining hall each snacking on a bowl of oats. Spitfire lecturing them on their routine.
“Clipper, you need to work on your wingtip turn, and Crash, you break formation at the end of maneuvers.”
“I didn’t notice. Also, Crash? Really?” Stripes chimed in, earning a glare from Rainbow.
“What, you’re a great flyer, it doesn’t suit you.”
“I know that.” Rainbow bragged.
“I mean if it were something along the lines of ‘overly-aggressive’, but, I get it, that has too many syllables.”
Soarin snorted, and Spitfire released a giggle, before blushing and covering her mouth. Well, that was an unexpectedly cute noise for the captain of the Wonderbolts. Fleetfoot had taken that exact moment to trot into the dining room.
“‘Morning capt’n.” she said before walking joining them with her own bowl of oats.
“‘Morning Flathoof, hows the pulled wing?” Spitfire replied.
“Pretty good, should be back to training next week,” Fleetfoot said, before whispering something into Spitfire’s ear, causing her blush to return and earning Fleetfoot a light punch on the withers.
Their exchange was interrupted when Stripes’ napkin caught on fire. While the two pegasi had been talking Rainbow had busied herself with exacting revenge on her tormenter. Flinging a globule of oatmeal onto the offending snout. Stripes had tried to wipe it away with a napkin, but as his magic enveloped it, his horn betrayed him, reducing the paper to ash.
“Buck it.” Stripes sighed and jammed his whole muzzle into his bowl. He looked up momentarily making eye contact with each of the four Wonderbolts in turn, his blush deepening as his eyes wandered between them, settling at last on his glass of water.
“I think I may have just lost my appetite.” Soarin teased.
Spitfire came to his rescue. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only pony who can’t say that in this situation, considering how you eat pie.
Now Soarin’s face was turning pink too.
The rest of the morning went by in a flash, they finished breakfast, Spitfire and Fleetfoot formally introduced themselves, and Rainbow Dash drilled him mercilessly on shield magic. The training with Rainbow was… exhilarating. He spent most of the morning trying to block various projectiles she sent his way. He could block most things, but whenever his shield so much as cracked, or he moved out of the way to dodge something unreasonable, like a fridge. She’d say “Again.” and they would start over. The training was a tough as it was effective, and by the end of it Stripes’ chest was heaving, and he was drenched in sweat.
After a short shower, and lunch with Spitfire and Fleetfoot, he was greeted by Starlight.
“Well since Rainbow taught me magic this morning, I’m guessing you’re gonna teach me flying?” Stripes asked as they walked towards the runway.
“In a way,” replied Starlight. “See, you weren’t born with the instinct that most pegasi possess, so I’m going to need to come up with ways to help you learn them.”
Much like with Rainbow, a lot of what they did was repetition, but unlike their morning, he was actually learning new skills. With magic, he already knew the theory behind most spells, putting it into practice was always the hard part. Here, however, while listening to Starlight’s lectures about situational awareness, and planning out vectors, he was learning something new. It wasn’t something that could be explained by a pegasus, because pegasi never needed to explain it. They could just open their wings and fly.
And so, they worked. Rainbow Dash would drop in occasionally to give him some more complex pointers, like how to come out of a role or turn without losing his lunch.
As the afternoon drew to a close, Rainbow joined them once more.
“So what now?” Stripes asked.
“A final exam of sorts” Starlight responded.
“Yeah, show us what you learned,” Rainbow added.
A grin spread across Stripes’ face as a low hum began in his wings, in its opening along their length. White light leaked out from under his feathers, and he cocked the wings against his back.
Rainbow gave him a nod, and the wings snapped forward into an extended position, their movement causing the outlets under the feathers to belch small teardrop-shaped plumes of flame.
The first thing that Rainbow noted was the climb rate, it easily outclassed most pegasi, rivaling her peers in sheer speed of ascent.He flew straight up until he was a speck against the clear blue sky. Then, he began a slow roll, hanging motionless in the sky for a moment before tumbling back towards the runway.
His horn lit up and his body was surrounded by his wedge-shaped shield. As he approached the sound barrier, he felt the magical draw from his wings decrease, and tiny conical spikes pushed their way forward out of the inlets. He saw drag lines appear across the length of his wings, then the thunderous roar of the wings could no longer be heard, he’d done it. By the time he could make out the two ponies on the ground, he was pushing mach two. He began to pull up, aiming for the obstacle course from yesterday.
At first, it seemed as though he might come up short, but the feathers on his wings adjusted their position, vectoring his exhaust downwards whilst simultaneously pushing him upwards.
There was one final problem, his wingspan, he couldn’t physically fit through the ring he’d chosen. Moments before impact, he folded his wings against his body, rocketing through the ring. His wings snapped back out, each vectoring in an opposite direction, sending him into a quick aileron roll before he circled around the runway bleeding off speed.
His landing could have been smoother, but it wasn’t entirely bad. Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Soarin had joined Rainbow and Starlight next to the runway.
“How’d I do?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve seen better, but you aren’t the worst flyer to fly in here anymore,” Spitfire said.
“I thiiiink we’re done here,” Rainbow grinned.
“Yeah, are you ready to go?” Starlight asked.
“Actually, if it’s ok with you guys, could I hang out here for a bit, I don’t really have anywhere to go and my flying could really use some work.”
Fleetfoot chuckled again, earning a withering glare from Spitfire.
“I don’t mind.” Soarin chimed in.
“Fine, you can stay, if you work,” Spitfire said. “You’ll be cleaning the locker rooms, running the snack bar, and working on your flying in all your spare time.”
“Beats sleeping under a bridge or in a rundown shack out in the middle of nowhere.” Stripes said, beaming.
“Then it’s settled, Stripes is staying.”
“Welcome back Starlight, how was the friendship lesson?” Twilight enquired.
“It was strange, but it felt the nice to help somepony else.”
“Strange? How so?”
“We met the weirdest pony.”
Author's Note
There's a lot I wanted to explain in this chapter. like how Stripes can use magic with a broken horn, maybe I'll find a place for it or maybe not, if not I could write something explaining it. Romance is probably going to kick off next chapter, but it may be delayed due to exams. I want to keep this story at the teen rating, but if you guys want I can write clop in a separate story that could be shoehorned in. If you guys want either of those things just let me know, it'd be fun to do maybe. Thanks to B_25 and Barack Obama for the writing help.
