/x/x/x/
I never expected to be where I am right now.
Growing up, I was always my father’s son. We both share the same distinctive hair color and an intense love for sports. My fondest memories were always of playing catch with him in the front yard, or getting excited about buckball matches on tv.
I’m shaped more like my mom, though, and I have her eyes. That's not a problem, not really. I don't mind it much. Kids at school always made fun of me for being effeminate but honestly it never bothered me much. Mares can be just as cool as stallions, just look at Stormy Flare in the Wonderbolts.
Anyway my mom is cool regardless. She's always been supportive of me through everything, and I love her. Sure that's sappy but I couldn't care less. It's not uncool to love your mom. Stormy Flare’s kid loves her mom and she's an insanely fast flier.
And speaking of fast flying, having a slimmer and more aerodynamic figure makes me a lot faster than many of the fillies and colts in my grade, except for one in particular... she gets first place every year at the best young flyer competitions. She deserves it though, she's amazingly talented.
As for me, I’m not quite professional grade yet. Mares just have less drag on their bodies than stallions like me. Or at least, biologically. It's an unspoken fact among pegasi, which is why there's so many more pegasus mares in the Equestrian Air Force and the Wonderbolts.
I myself would totally join them one day, but that just seems so far away. I'm nobody, really. My parents are always supportive, but lately it’s seemed like I don't exactly have a future beyond the weather factory. Nothing against the factory, but it's just so... plain.
With a name like Crash Blitzkrieg, you'd think I could amount to more than that. But unfortunately it doesn't seem like fate is so kind to me. It's an identity I wish I could throw away, but I can't. It's a part of me, however much I wish it wasn't.
You see...
“Crash, it's time for supper!”
Mom’s voice sailed through the walls. Not really an impressive feat since we live in a cloud house in suburban Cloudsdale. I winced at the name, but I never turn down food.
I cleared my throat a bit, trying to make my voice sound less... bad.
“Coming, mom!”
I hate my voice. Honestly it's just so scratchy and tenor. Hating parts of me isn't really new territory though, but my voice is the only real tangible bit of me that I have much control over. That and flying.
I stepped through my door and out into the hallway before heading my way downstairs. Before I get there my dad came in the front door, his trench coat and fedora making him look straight out of one of those black and white movies he always watches.
“Hey there champ,” he greeted, ruffling my mane. “Tuesday night, you know what that means?”
“BUCKBAAAAAALLLLLL!!!” we both shouted simultaneously.
“Oh, boys...” mom teased from the other room as dad headed over to her.
I made myself busy looking the other way while they kissed. As much as mom hates sports is how much I hate seeing grown ponies kiss, especially my parents. But then again that's probably true for most other colts my age.
My stomach tingled a little bit, but pressing in on it with my hoof made that go away. Weird.
“So how was school today, kiddo?”
I made my way to my seat at the table before shrugging and sighing. Mom bit her lip, already having heard me complaining earlier today. Might as well not try to sugarcoat it.
“Other than Hoops and Dumbbell bullying the girls again, and then getting yelled at by the principal for telling them off, it went fine.”
Mom set the pink slip on the table. “You'll have to sign this tonight,” she told him. “Both parents signatures.”
Dad snorted. “Those damn- darn spoiled brats...” he signed it with his work pen in his wings, covering nearly half of the page on purpose. “I'm glad you're one of the good colts who doesn't treat fillies bad.”
There goes my stomach again... hope I'm not getting sick. Oh well, whatever. It's no big deal. Fluffer and Rain and Dulce or whatever their names are, they don't deserve the crap those two flankholes put them through. I voiced my sentiment.
“You're gotdamn right.” He blinked after mom gently nudged him with a wing. “Uh, goshdang.”
I barely stifled a giggle at that.
“Well our little champion probably deserves a treat for his chivalry, wouldn't you say?” Mom asked with a sly eyebrow wriggle as she slid out a full plate of our favorite and most carbtastic meal.
Again with my stomach? Man, I must be hungry.
“Thanks, mom,” I said, taking a slice of potato pasta goodness. “You're the best!”
She snorted laughing as she took her own seat, nuzzling dad’s wing that reached out to brush against her. “Anything for you, Blitzy,” she said. “Anything for you.”
That was one of my favorite nights that I can remember. Before things started getting really bad, there were good moments I could always reach back to even during my darkest times. Of which there were a lot.
The good news is I found out why my stomach always felt weird. The bad news is that what it meant would change everything if my parents ever found out about it. That's why I never told them about it for as long as I did.
But unfortunately, a day came where I knew I had to.
One night while walking home from school, I came across a small hole in the street. That was totally normal, road crews don't usually patch up the holes until they get really big, but it still gave me an idea.
It wasn't a good idea. It was most definitely one of the worst ideas that I'd ever had in my life. It was the kind of idea that once you have it, it's not really something that goes away easily without help.
I wanted to jump.
Yeah yeah, dramatic, but it was one of the worst days at school ever. The bullies turned all of their aggressions onto me after I stuck up for the girls one too many times, saying I was just like a filly. I wouldn't have minded all that if my response wasn't immediately reprimanded by the principal. Again.
Then right after he left, they immediately brought it back up again. Only they also started saying a lot of really hurtful things that given my secret were, well... really hard to hear. I may or may not have started a fight that I couldn't finish. And then because I was the one who started it, I was the one who was given another pink slip. And it was raining.
I knew that mom and dad would be ashamed of me for using my hooves instead of my words. I couldn't ever let them be disappointed in me because they were the only ones who ever really understood me.
I had put a hoof over the hole and started to clench my wings when I heard a voice.
“...um...watch out...”
I suddenly jerked back to having four hooves on solid cloud and glanced around me. I had instinctively wiped away the tear that had showed up despite the fact that it couldn't be seen through the weather. My eyes zeroed in on one of the girls from school.
“Oh, uh, hi... Fluffershy.”
“...it’s Fluttershy...”
Naturally I didn't hear her because she was so quiet but she slowly strode forward anyway, her mane soaking wet.
“There's a hole there,” I think she said, pointing. She was speaking into her thick pink mane so I had to guess.
“Is there?” I asked, trying my best to lie. I pointedly searched the ground around it before I found what was nearly my demise. “Oh. So there is!”
I never claimed to be an actor, okay?
“Well, thank you for pointing that out.” I gave an awkward smile as she had her eyes glued to the clouds below us. Distant thunder rang through the air and it seemed like she was trembling. “You okay?”
She didn't respond immediately, and looked up at me before quickly darting her vision away twice before finally speaking, at a volume I could hear. “Are you?”
“Me?” I asked. That's a weird thing to say... “Sure I’m okay. You pointed out the hole, after all.”
Suddenly she started crying. Wow, I knew she was fragile but I literally have no idea what I-
“Please don't jump.”
...oh.
That made sense.
“Whaddaya mean?” I asked, trying to pass it off as a joke. “I wasn't doing that on purpose or anything, I just... didn't see it.” I'm also a terrible liar.
The filly trotted up to me and hugged me, quietly sobbing into my chest. “I think about doing it every day...” she muttered. “And your kindness is all that keeps me from doing it every time.”
Oh boy.
Instinctively I wrapped my hooves and wet wings around her. I never realized that the hurtful words of those jerks affected more than just me. The fact that it's hurting this sweet filly, this girl who just saved my own life, was almost too much to bear. But for her sake I did.
“It would suck if you did that,” I said. Smooth, I know. It was only then that I remembered...
‘Fluttershy can't hardly fly, she can only fall down, to the ground, splat splat splat, Klutzershy will end up flat!'
'Rain, rain, go away, don't come back another day, stay in a cloud until you drown and don't get up in the morning!'
'Derpy, Derpy, she's so dumb, she's so dumb she has no fun, hey Derpy! You dummy!'
I ground my teeth. If I jumped and died, nopony would be around to protect these girls from those idiots. That was an important day in my life, the day I decided to devote my life to protecting the ones who needed it, the day I decided to pursue a military career no matter how hard it would be, no matter how much pain and suffering it caused me, because it would be worth it.
The only problem was, if I was protecting myself from the dark thoughts that ran through my head every day, I wouldn't have time for everyone else. So I set my jaw. I would tell my parents tonight. If I was going to disappoint them and have them cut me off from their lives for being a freak, I might as well go the whole nine yards, right?
I walked her home after that, keeping one wing around her neck and mane. I didn't care that it was a thing that fillies and colts did when they were dating, since we weren't dating. We were just friends. Right? Can a friendship form that fast?
A hypothetical question, of course. After that day we were most definitely friends. Or at least we would say hi to each other. Her friend Rain was there but I had the strangest feeling that she doesn't like me. Rain and Dulce were close too.
But that doesn't matter. What matters is what happened that night. But before I talk about that night, I should explain what my problem even is.
It's actually kind of hard to explain. I didn't even really fully understand it myself at the time but now I kinda know enough to give a basic outline of it.
I was a filly inside of a colt’s body.
I was never really comfortable with other ponies referring to me as a colt. I never really knew why, I just knew that sometimes my stomach would feel really weird for no reason whatsoever. I also didn't really like being called by my name.
It was a cool name for a colt and all, and if I ever have kids myself that's the first name on the list, but it was just so... wrong sounding. I was always able to shrug it off and attribute it to something else like my inability to use the name for a cool job, but even that lead to other issues.
Like the air drag thing. That was always the reason I said I hated being a colt and having the body to match. Truth be told there were a lot of reasons for that, but aerodynamics was the safest thing for my mind to talk about because once I learned the truth, that I'm actually a filly... that's when the bad thoughts started.
At first they were just weird flashes of darkness. Brief snapshots of rage and aggression and fury. They always went away as soon as they came up, and were largely forgotten. But then they started getting worse.
It started having a voice and being longer and coming to me in my dreams. I always had nightmares where I was trapped somewhere, or in a cage, or pinned down and a monster was about to eat me. It always taunted me no matter what the situation was, and I always woke up in a cold sweat.
After that it just... evolved.
It got to the point that the monster wasn't a hydra or Nightmare Moon or the dragon lord. It was me. Except not me. It was a warped and twisted version of me with sharp crooked teeth and glowing red eyes and crimson slash marks everywhere.
Eventually the nightmares stopped bothering me anymore. They were at worst an inconvenience. I figured the spirit of Nightmare Moon had come to haunt me, and I figured that was okay because it meant she wasn't haunting Fluttershy or anypony else. It was still scary though, but I wouldn't admit that at the time.
That is, until it started happening when I was awake too. Suddenly before I realized it was even happening, the nightmares started to be daydreams. It felt like my insides were being squeezed by a giant vice and I wasn't able to release the pressure, except that feeling would be constant.
My thoughts weren't on my side either. Weak. Ugly. Pathetic. Disgusting. Deformed. Stupid. Always running through my head. I could ignore it by flying but even then I felt the drag and though it was the same feeling as wind going past my ears or legs or any other part of my body, it was just so terrible and dysphoria inducing that one day even flying did nothing for me anymore.
The only thing that truly cleared my mind was competition. Racing, sports... fighting. I was always itching to get in a fight with the bullies. Problem is, I can't face two bigger stronger and bulkier colts at once. So when I finally did, when I saw red and was still unable to vent my anger... that's when I thought about jumping. If I couldn't take it out on them I'd take it out on myself, I had thought in the moment.
I'm glad I didn't though.
I walked in the door and mom was instantly all over me and worried, obsessing over the bruises on my face, chest, and wings. I admitted that I threw the first hit, but fortunately she understood it was for honor rather than just an out of nowhere assault. She still reprimanded me for violence and said no dessert for a week. No big deal, she had gotten into pie making at the time and I hate pies.
The peroxide stung, as did the medicine she gave me to make the swelling go down and to fix the couple of cracked teeth. Mom knew a zebra who owed her a couple of favors. As much as it hurt, the pain was way less than the actual wounds themselves.
Mom asked me if I needed or wanted anything else to help with the pain. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity because I knew I probably wouldn't have another any time soon, so I asked her to hold me and stroke my mane and sing to me.
... Shut up, I was just a kid.
She did so, and was more than happy to because it had been years since she had gotten to do that. She laid back on the couch, and I rested my head on her chest, feeling all the vibrations of her vocal cords through her soft fur. It was nice, but it was made bittersweet by knowing it would be the last.
“I'll mend your heart with threads of mine,
I'm not a nurse but we’ll be just fine,
The beats synchronize to force down the wall,
On the other side lies my final plane’s call,
Hold on, I’ll be there soon,
Just hold on, I’ll be there soon,
Hold on, I’ll be there soon,
Just hold on... I'll be there soon...”
We were like that for a few hours, through the storm, and I woke up when dad came home. He took one look at my face and was at our side in an instant. All it took was for him to search mom’s eyes to get the whole story on what happened. He wrapped a wing around the both of us, and that moment is one that I carried with me every day, and will do so until I die.
“Mom... dad...”
This was it. There would be no better time than now than to tell them my secret. Here, surrounded by warmth and love, would be the best time because there was the most chance that maybe they would see that it didn't matter whether I was their son or their daughter because I was their kid.
“What is it, champ?” Dad asked, voice quivering only the slightest.
I pulled myself off of mom, and she righted herself, bringing her hooves to the floor. The two sat down and tilted their heads to the side, expectantly. I had to breathe deeply a bit before I had the courage to tell them what would inevitably destroy our relationship.
But I had to. I couldn't take living the lie, the hell that had become my life. Feeling the feelings that I couldn't voice, dreaming the dreams I couldn't think about, thinking the thoughts I couldn't talk about. Wanting to jump out of Cloudsdale because everything was just so wrong with me.
“You can tell us anything, dear,” Mom said.
I sighed one last time.
“Something's wrong with me.”
She wrapped a wing around me, but I gently pushed it off. She looked hurt for only half a second before she realized I just needed a little bit of space right then.
“I don't know how to explain it, or how to talk about it, but... I've been having nightmares. Not just when I sleep, but when I'm awake too.” I glanced up to gauge their reactions. Just slight worried frowns. I continued.
“Nightmares that I'm trapped in places I can't escape. And there's always a monster there who wants to kill me. Sometimes the monster is me...” I swallowed before admitting, “...and sometimes the monster is one of you.”
Mom put a hoof to her mouth as dad wrapped a wing around her. They still stayed silent, waiting for me to finish.
“I have dark thoughts about it. The voice of the monster, it's always the same, because it's the voice in my head. The one that tells me I'm not good enough, not fast enough, not important enough to do anything or be anypony. The one that tells me... to hurt myself.”
My voice broke at that last bit, and I started to cry. Not finished, I wiped my eyes and tried to get control of myself. Barely.
“I almost did, today. I almost jumped through a hole in the road. And the worst part is, that I think I know why.” I took a deep shuddering breath, followed by another, before I looked at their loving eyes one more time. Fittingly, thunder boomed.
Flashes of memories sifted through my head, all the images of everything my parents have ever done for me, gave me the courage I needed to say...
“I'm not like how you want me to be. I'm not your perfect son. I start fights and I protect fillies and I don't really fly anymore because...”
This is it.
“Because I don't wanna be a colt.”
Wait just one more second, body.
“I wanna be on the outside what I am on the inside. And what that is... is a filly.”
The secret was out, and I lost control
“I'm... sorry...” I choked out before I hid my head in my hooves and buried my face in the couch. I didn't want to see the pain and loss and shock on their faces. I couldn't. There was no way I could watch them and see what I just did to them.
Cowardly. Selfish. Weak. Useless. Jerk. Letdown. Freak.
Failure.
They were quiet and still as I cried. They must have been glaring at me, hurt and betrayed. Furious. Surely somepony as screwed up as me, supplanted in a body that wasn't mine, wasn't deserving of the love they'd showed me for years. They wasted all this time on me, a son who just rejected the title.
I was a fool.
But... not for the reason I thought I was. No, I was just not thinking clearly because of what I later had realized was cripplingly severe anxiety brought on by hiding my secrets for so long. The dysphoria, the nightmares, the voice, everything. It had me in a state of mind that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
“Son...” Dad said, voice more serious than I had ever heard it. He said it with such a sludgy conviction that I was sure that if it had a physical form it would have been a sledgehammer pressing in on my back between my wings.
“Son, look at me.”
I slowly turned my head expecting to see pure unbridled wrath, but what I saw instead was a completely different nightmare. For the first time in my entire life, my dad was... crying.
“...daddy?”
He stepped forward and pulled me into his legs, almost crushing me against his chest, as he too started to sob. Mom came behind me, kissing my ears and rubbing my wings.
“Crash.” He bent down to kiss my forehead and locked eyes with me. “I love you. So fucking much. You are my child, my kin, my offspring, the fruit of my loins, and I love you more than you could ever possibly imagine. I love my son, but if he never existed, then I love my daughter. I don't care who you are, what your name is, what gender you are, what color your hair or coat is, what your cutie mark is, what your career choice ends up being, who your friends are, or whether you're a pegasus or a unicorn or a dragon. I love you for you. Don't you dare ever, EVER forget that.”
“Baby,” Mom said, continuing off of him. “I have loved you ever since I first knew i was pregnant. I loved you when you were just an egg in my belly. I felt you grow for an entire year. I loved you before we knew you were a colt, before we decided on a name for you, before you even kicked me the first time. I loved you through the drugs they pumped me with when I gave birth to you. I loved you through the days you chomped on my teats, through the meals you threw up on me, through the nights you kept me up because you needed me to hold you until the dawn came, through the days you made a mess of the entire house and I had to clean up after you every single day. I have loved you every single day that you have blessed my life with your presence, and I will love you every single day until I die, and I will love you every single day after that until the end of eternity.”
I never once stopped crying, but it was no longer from sadness, but from joy, relief, and acceptance. I nuzzled closer to my father, safer in his forelegs than I ever had been before.
“If you say you're a filly,” he said, putting his hoof through my mane. “Then from here on out, that's what you are to me. Whether this is just a phase or if it’s forever, whether you change your name or not, whether you chop anything off or not,” he paused as I giggled, and I felt mom slap the back of his head with her wing. “No matter what you decide to do or say or go by, I will always love and support you through everything you ever do. Just... don't kill anypony please.”
“Do you want us to call you anything different, sweetie?” Mom asked.
“Uh...” I honestly had not expected to even make it that far. “I don't know.”
“Well, please just let us know, okay dear?”
I nodded.
“You know you can trust us with anything, right?”
I nodded again.
“I know, I just...” I wiped my eyes as dad let go of me so I could hug her. “I just was so scared of all the bad feelings and nightmares in my head that I was worried that... that you couldn't love a freak like me.”
“You are not a freak, my love...” she started stroking my back with her wing. “There are so many other ponies like you that you wouldn't believe. I have it on good authority that one of your classmates is just like you.”
“Really!?” I exclaimed.
She nodded. “I can't tell you who it is, but I can definitely tell you that she’s a Wonderbolt’s child. And there's also a musician who I like who's the same way, and so is the child of one of my peers in Canterlot, and a few dance performers here in town.”
I continued to weep as I buried my face in her chest fur.
“I thought I was alone...”
“Even if you were the only one,” Dad said as he opened the window now that the storm has safely passed. “You wouldn't be alone. You have us. Oh, would you look at that, we actually have a natural rainbow out!”
Mom and I went to the window next to him. I looked up at the beam of multicolored light as dad rubbed his wing on my mane, ruffling the hair.
“It's beautiful...” Mom glanced at our manes. “You really are lucky,” she said, poking at her own light red coif. “I've always envied the color on you two.”
“I don't know, Windy,” Dad said, moving his wing to her hair. “You know that I always say you're the prettiest mare in Equestria.”
“Gross.”
“Oh, Bow...” Mom started blushing. Double gross. “You are pretty dashing yourself.” Triple gross.
“Dashing, huh?” He said. “I guess now as the only man in the house I might as well be, eh?” He asked, ruffling my mane again.
“Daaad,” I protested, brushing his wing away.
I never really minded masculine adjectives when it came to describing my appearance. Dashing, handsome, charming, whatever. Even as a mare I know I'm not super girly. But then again you don’t need to be super girly to be a mare. Fluttershy’s friend Raindrops can attest to that. Derpy, as Dulce likes to go by to only her closest friends, is the same way.
You know, their hairstyles are pretty cool. Which gave me an idea...
“Hey Mom?” I asked.
“What is it, sweetie?’
“Can I grow my mane out?”
She grinned. “Absolutely.”
That was my last day as Crash Blitzkrieg.
That day, looking out at the sky, and having a nice long talk with my parents about what words and terms and phrases I was uncomfortable with while mom styled my mane into as feminine a style as she could get it with as short as it was, I did finally make a sure decision on a name.
“So what is it?” Dad asked when I said such.
I grinned and said...
/x/x/x/
“Leave her alone!”
A few months had passed and I was fully through my transition's first phase.
My mane was longer, my name was legally changed, and I was on these pills that would delay my puberty until I was old enough to start magic sessions that would grow me into a mare. I had a minor surgery that made me able to fly a little faster than normal but meant I couldn't have kids when I grow up. It's cool though, I was gonna adopt anyway.
Telling everyone at school was fairly easy, except that several bullies still called me my old name, or some fusion of my old one and my new one. Luckily I had other friends to back me up.
Fluttershy was the most supportive of me. She was always at my side, or at least right behind me. Derpy let me into her circle of trust too. It was around then that she started developing her disorder but I still helped her with flying. Thunderlane was also my friend, as well as the twins and the big guy. At the time Raindrops had abandoned Fluttershy because she supported me, but Rain eventually came around when she got older and wiser.
My life was finally on the right track.
And then I did the sonic rainboom, no big deal.
/x/x/x/
“And, well, you all know the rest of the story,” I said before shoving the last slice of pizza in my mouth. “You guysh can just ushe what I wrote in my autobiography for the resht.”
“Ah, yes, Ms. Dash,” my main interviewer said, scribbling a few last notes in his sketchpad. “Archives of your multiple rainbooms and Wonderbolts career are, of course, all over Cloudsdale.” He flipped his pad closed and pocketed his pen.
“Yeah,” I swallowed and leaned back in the booth.”I am pretty awesome.”
“You know,” his partner said, sifting through his wallet. “Hearing that story just makes me realize how much of an ass we were to you back in the day.”
I shrugged. “It's whatever, D-Bell. It's in the past. You guys are a lot cooler now.”
He smiled as he took his partner’s hoof. “That's really good to hear.”
They kissed for a moment and I made an audible gagging noise. They know I'm kidding though, and joined in the laughter.
“Anyway, Hoops,” I said, draining my glass. “How's the story looking?”
“Pretty meaty,” he said, before turning to our guest. “Our editors will clear some things up with your team to make sure everything’s okay on your end.”
“That's cool,” she said. “Crash here’s the only one who’s got anything to lose, really. Oh yeah,” she turned to me. “You sure you're still chill with the nickname?”
I grinned. “Well, Spitfire, as long as you don't start calling me Blitzkrieg, it’ll be just fine.”
/x/x/x/
Author's Note
I woke up at 2am with a plot bunny and plowed through it. No planning, just going. I had the idea of Rainbow being trans and her deadname being Crash for the sake of drama involving her childhood bullies and the Wonderbolts. Also because a fic with the same premise hasn't been updated in forever and I love the concept. Also I needed to write something so I could crack my knuckles and start The Dragonbourne Identity so that I can continue TFW You Find Your Crush's Nudes since they take place in the same chronology. This is another palate cleanser and not really going to be a main focus unless it explodes.
I tried to go for a parody on super angsty Hello My Name Is Ebony Dark'Ness Dementia Raven Way stereotypes in a subverted inversion of tropes. Short version, I ironically did unironic angst.
Anyway yeah I love Rainbow's parents and I don't exactly have a lot of positive interactions with family in my other fics. Twilight's are physically distant, Applejack's are dead, Fluttershy's are doormats, Pinkie's are emotionally distant, Rarity's are homophobic garbage,Spike's are cultists, Sunset's think she's dead, and Starlight hates her dad. I wanted to write a happy family scene for at least one of the characters.
I didn't add the suicide / self harm tag because suicide was merely alluded to once but I can add it if it's necessary. The scene mainly existed to have a dramatic reason for Fluttershy to be introduced and to split off into the Fluttershy Arc of my Fireflies / Butterfly Effect AU. Yes I know that I'm a pretentious piece of garbage, fight me.
I don't know how to feel about the vocabulary in places because it seems out of character to me for Rainbow to speak like she did in places, BUT I plan to attribute that to her being much more well-read in the future as a teacher and an Element and a friend of Twilight. She's not dumb.
I love Glaze. That is all.
I don't have much more to say about this fic other than I hope that at least somebody enjoys it. Anyway, I'll be getting on the Dragonbourne Identity and hope that I can extract pieces of story from the movie's script now. Please let me know what you liked or what you hated; I write to improve my skills and style before I tackle my original stories, after all.
