Captain of the Wonderbolts
Fall had once again come to Sweet Apple Acres, despite the amount of pull one of its chief residents had with the local weather teams. Seems even a Captaincy with the Wonderbolts couldn't keep summer around, no matter how hard Rainbow Dash tried. Which meant that the big apple harvesting season was upon the Apple clan. Year-round apple harvesting wasn't strange at all to an earth pony farming family, but Fall still brought the most apples, and naturally the most work, by far.
This unfortunately meant that Rainbow Dash could no longer sleep late with her wife wrapped in her wings. She rather liked that about summer, when there was just enough slack in their work schedule for her to return to her old sleeping habits... and sneak in a cuddle with Applejack, naturally. But living on a farm meant chores, and chores meant less sleep than she'd prefer.
And Dash would prefer a lot of sleep, if she got her way.
However, this particular Fall was just a bit different from past ones. While Applejack and Big Macintosh would handle most of the harvesting and Sugar Belle and her and Mac's son, Sugar Mac, would handle the household work as usual, Rainbow Dash would be joining none of them.
For one thing, she was with foal now. And according to sacred Apple Family Traditions -- passed down by the late Granny Smith Apple herself -- that meant you got the lighter duties. Hauling around another pony was hard enough, after all.
But Dash was only a few weeks along, and she had other duties to attend to today. So, as of the crack of dawn, she was up and getting ready. Once she forced herself up from her bed...
Okay, so Applejack kicked her out of bed. Same difference, in the Wonderbolt's eyes.
But, once she was up, Dash was up. She took off through her bedroom window on the farm, and performed a perfect loop up into the sky, where she punched through a low-lying cloud. Rainbow whirled and twisted in there for a good minute or two, before bursting out the other side, clean as a whistle.
"A cold pegasus shower is the best way to start the day," she chuckled, fondly recalling her old Captain Spitfire's words on Team Hygiene. "And now... breakfast!"
Slipping back into the house by flying through a living-room window, left open by her little nephew for just this thing, Dash made ready to devour her whole weight in waffles. She was eating for two, these days, and she'd need the carbs for when she got to the Wonderbolt HQ later.
The one trouble with breakfast these days was, of course, the latest addition to the Apple Family.
“Yer clearing out the South fields today,” Applejack didn’t bother looking up from her eggs as she spoke. There wasn’t any point to it, since everypony knew who she was talking to.
“Yes, ma’am,” Frosted Apple said, not looking up from her own plate of waffles and apple syrup. The crème-colored mare with hair like wildfire stamped under a black Stetson had… well, there wasn’t an easy way to say it. Up until a week ago, she’d been dead. Dead, and enslaved to the dark whim of the Dread Ram himself, Grogar the Bell Lord of Tambelon.
What led Grogar to reviving Frosted as a revenant, a sort of free-willed zombie? And what made the mad dark lord release her from his service to return to her family many, many decades after her untimely, and still as-of-yet undisclosed demise? Who knew?
Well, certainly not Rainbow Dash, especially not without a keg of cider to hoof. Suffice it to say, it involved Anarchy, Cozy Glow, a school field trip, and perhaps one of the worst cases of what Rainbow Dash called “Combat Therapy” in Equestrian history.
Applejack… didn’t take kindly to sins against nature. Especially ones that got themselves kicked from the clan by their own cousin, Applejack’s Granny. One did not simply get kicked from the Apples unless one earned it, and nopony had ever brought up the prodigal mare since her banishment.
“Hm.” Applejack took a bite of her egg, also not looking up at a disapproving Rainbow Dash. “An’ the chickens need tendin’ to.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Frosted replied, cool and crisp.
Dash sighed, and then shoveled another whole waffle into her mouth. The second of ten. A pregnant mare had to eat more, apparently. She had no problem with that, honestly.
But right now, it meant sitting in between two mares trying to out-dang-stubborn-mule each other. Two mares from the Apple family. A family where banging your head against a brick wall wasn’t just tradition, it was a competitive sport.
Every day with these two…
Applejack’s eye twitched. “An’ the barn needs organizing today…”
“Ya’ll want that alphabetical?” The slightest of snarks carried across the table in Frosted’s voice.
Dash knew what was coming next, and she’d been preparing for it. Applejack would accuse Frosted of being lazy, or not pulling her weight. Frosted would call Applejack an iron-shod tyrant. There’d be a few minutes of screaming, mostly about nothing. Then, somepony would mention Granny, it’d get super awkward, and both mares would take off to do their chores in sullen silence.
It was like clockwork.
But Dash had a plan. A way out of this awkward, awkward family predicament that she had technically caused by brow-beating Applejack into remembering her family values by taking in the wayward and homesick undead nightmare.
She finished her waffles in a single, almighty gulp, stood up from the table…
And got the hay out of there.
“ByeApplejackIloveyoudon’tkillFrostedseeya!!!!”
Frosted and Applejack, in perfect unison, held onto their hats as a shockwave whipped through the kitchen and took a few layers of paint off the door as Rainbow Dash tore out of there like Tartarus itself was on her heels.
Both mares watched the rainbow contrail arc out and over a startled Big Mac before it receded into the distance somewhere over the horizon.
“What in tarnation got into her?” Applejack stared after her wife’s departure in utter confusion.
“Dunno.” Frosted shrugged. “Might’ve been yer iron shoes…”
As much as she loved life on the farm, sometimes Rainbow Dash had to admit that her true home, the place where her heart would always lie, was the wide-open ocean of sky just above her head. Wind and water vapor flitted past her as she soared higher and higher, and the rush of the sound barrier straining to hold her back rippled pleasantly in her ears.
This, this right here, was life. Dash whipped around a low-flying cloudbank that was tilting off-course, and deftly redirected it back towards Ponyville. She even left a little curly swoosh on its leading edge as she went past.
“Still got it!” she cried, popping a lone cumulus with a casual swish of her tail.
But, as much fun as she was having busting lost clouds and fixing up the local weatherponies’ mistakes, Rainbow remembered that she had an actual job to get to.
“Eugh, and a really rotten duty I gotta take care of,” she grumbled, knowing that she had to take care of the matter of… of…
Come on, Rainbow Dash! she shouted, in her own mind, You’ve beaten impossible odds, armies of monsters, and managed to eat one of Cajun Apple’s Jalapenos without crying! But you can’t just say the words Mater… Mat…
“Huh…” Dash pursed her lips, in awe at her own shortcoming, “I actually can’t say it.”
While she contemplated that, a more than welcome sight suddenly faded out of the distance. Drifting silently through the Equestrian sky, Cloudsdale loomed like a glorious mountain of white cotton candy in the air. Rainbows and waterfalls cascaded from its edges, while factory stacks and pillared balconies sent clouds and pegasi up into the stratosphere in equal measure.
It was… beautiful. Rainbow never used the term, for obvious reasons... like that it was a lame mushy word that strong, cool ponies didn't use. But no matter how one little farm and an ornery cowmare from Ponyville had knocked it down a notch or two on her ‘most beautiful sight in the world’ list, Cloudsdale would always hold a special place in Dash's heart.
But that wasn’t where she was heading today. No, today she was heading to a large bank of clouds currently anchored off the cloud city’s port side. A bank of clouds that proudly waved the Wonderbolts’ flag.
She came in low over the training ‘grounds’, planning to buzz a few of the lookouts who were supposed to be quality-checking the weather as it came out of the factories. Dash knew, from very personal experience, that they were usually just playing cards and shooting the shod. Celestia knew, she’d done the same back when she had to work that shift!
But, as the Wonderbolts’ Captain, she had to lay down the law.
No slouching or slacking… at least where the Captain can see you, heh heh…
She gave herself an extra burst of speed as she came up and over the lookouts, creating a minor shockwave as she zipped past. The cone of wind in her wake bowled over the four ponies who were supposed to be doing their jobs, and scattered their cards, colored chips, and breakfast sandwiches in every direction.
“Aw, come on, Dash!” she could hear Fleetfoot’s voice cry out behind her. Dash chuckled to herself, and then banked towards her office. She’d send Fleets a nice bottle of cider later, to make up for that.
But she had plenty of paperwork to get to in the meantime…
“Morning, Captain!” a voice called out from her three-o’clock high.
Tilting her head to the right, Dash took in the sight of a sea-green mare lining up in wingpony formation at her side. Said pegasus’ trailing rust-red and yellow-striped mane and tail poked out of a reservist uniform that might have been the one Dash herself had used some twenty years before, and was definitely at least a size too big for the poor mare.
“Reservist,” Captain Dash nodded respectfully, still surprised at how blindingly fast the kid was, to keep up with her. Even the extra drag from the loose uniform wasn’t holding her back much, “Anypony on the team get sick without permission?”
Rusty Bolt giggled, and shook her head. “Nope! Not that I know of! Uh, Captain!” She added with a sharpish salute.
One more circling pass, and Rainbow Dash dropped down to the pavement right outside her office. She landed at a trotting pace, but slowed down instantly with a flare of her wings. The whole maneuver maybe wasn’t as exciting as a pinpoint landing, but Dash didn’t want to be too awesome too early in the day.
The Reservist wasn’t so lucky. She pulled up just like Dash had done… but even with the added drag from the flight suit, the zippy flyer hadn’t burned off enough speed. She skid across the ground with an agonizing squeal as her hooves gouged the magically-airborne gravel, and swerved directly into the bank of mailboxes just beside the main office door.
Dash winced at the sound of crumpling wood and metal. She carefully opened one eye… and then sighed in relief when it was clear she wouldn’t have to pour Rusty into a bucket to get her out of there.
The crashed mare was under a monstrous pile of official mail and busted wooden poles, groaning in such a way that any Wonderbolt would find distressingly familiar. The way Rusty sounded now, it reminded Dash all too well of a certain trash can...
“You were really born to be a Wonderbolt, kid,” Dash said, though under her breath, “Just like your mom…”
Rusty shook her head, and seemed to clear it of all the tweety birds and spinning stars. She took one look at the pile of correspondence she was laying in, and gasped.
“Lemme get that!” Rusty cried and, with a manic panic Rainbow would expect from Twilight Sparkle, she started flapping her wings in a desperate attempt to conjure up some sort of letter-tornado.
And… darnit, if she wasn’t almost going to do just that. Rusty was fast, but she also seemed to have an incredible level of control over her pegasus magic, whipping the wind around her into just the right shapes, like she had a couple of giant, invisible shovels at the ready. The letters and papers flowed where she wanted, like a musical conductor commanding an orchestra.
It was very impressive.
“At ease, Rusty,” Dash hid her smile well behind a honed, professional mask, “Now, what are you doing here? Like I said, there aren’t any cancellations today. Nopony’s sick?”
Rusty paused, most of the letters and packages already balled up on her back in a swirl of controlled air. She glanced back and forth, between Rainbow and the rest of the mail scattered around her hooves. She looked nervous as nothing else Dash could remember, like watching Rarity... uh, being Rarity, actually. Especially when something wasn't just so.
When the nervous filly started reaching for another letter with a hoof, Dash realized she needed to put her own hoof down, and remind Rusty how things worked around here.
Dash grunted, and said in her best Captain Dash voice, “Did I stutter, Reservist?”
“No, Ma’am!” Rusty snapped to a sharp salute, sending every letter and package crashing back down to the ground around her, “I just wanted to volunteer my time! Help you out with paperwork, or get in some practice at the courses! Ma’am!”
“You’re here,” Dash clucked her tongue, “to volunteer for… paperwork?”
A bead of sweat dripped down between Rusty’s brilliant pink eyes; eyes that always reminded Dash of somepony, but she could never pin down who, exactly. Considering even Rusty’s mom didn’t know…
Of course, Rainbow had known Rusty for only a few months, really. But, she already had a good sense of the kid. And the way she stood there told Dash as much as if she’d said it out loud.
“Home life getting the best of you?” she asked, with just a touch more softness than she normally would.
Rusty sighed, and lowered her head, “Yeah…”
“Wanna talk about it?”
The Reservist mulled it over a moment. Then, she shook her head.
“Nah, Captain. I just… need some space. You know my mom…”
“Oh, yeah,” Dash smiled, “I know. Probably wants to know the half-second you make a full ‘Bolt?”
Rusty nodded, slowly. “A full second and she’d probably hold it against me…”
Dash wished she’d thought to wear more than her jacket today. The sunglasses were a great way to hide even a hint of a smile. Instead, she had to hold onto her ‘captain’s mask’, and let Rusty sweat a little under her impassive gaze.
Finally, she relented.
“Alright, kid,” she said, nodding towards the pile of letters, “Get that stuff inside and sorted for me. You’re my Unofficial Secretary for the day.”
Dash really wasn’t expecting to have her lungs crushed just then, but in hindsight, she probably should have. Rusty’s hugs were just as overpowering as Scootaloo’s when that oversized filly got excited.
“Oh! Thank you, Rainbow Dash! Thank you! Thank…” The filly in the loose flight suit scrambled back a few steps, her whole face a burning bright red.
“… uh, oh… um… Thank you, Ma’am!”
Probably powered by raw, unfiltered embarrassment, Rusty Bolt was suddenly firing on all cylinders, somehow managing to pick up the entirety of the fallen mail with a few deft flaps of her wings, and directing the entire mass through the front doors at a speed Dash assumed only lead balloons could achieve.
“Right,” she laughed to herself, “At least she’s living up to her mom’s speed. I wonder…”
She didn’t have much of a chance to wonder. For, right at that moment, a bolt of lightning and thunder ripped through the air, and Dash was suddenly leaping up with a black scorch-mark on her flank.
Rainbow Dash howled in pain, and a little in fright, as she bounced up high, and came tumbling back down.
“Owowowowowow!” she cried, as she dove for the nearest patch of open cloud. Quicker than the flash of lightning itself, she used her pegasus magic to rip out a whole chunk of cloud, and squeezed a stream of cold water out of it, right onto the burning spot on her coat. The frigid cold was just what she needed.
Yet, as she panted, and sighed in relief, the Wonderbolt’s ears burned with the mad giggling of whichever dead-pony had decided to drop a lightning bolt on their Captain.
“When I get my hooves on you…” she snarled and huffed as she pulled herself back to the walking surface of the base camp.
But, as soon as her hackles had risen, they immediately fell flat. Rolling on the ground in a fit of laughter, just under a spent storm cloud, was her old boss, Spitfire.
Soarin, Dash’s right-hoof on the team, and Spitfire’s husband, stood just a little bit away, shamefaced at the prank, but also madly trying to hide his own smirk.
“Ha ha!” Spitfire wiped away at her tears, “Gotcha good there, Crash!”
“Spitfire,” Rainbow Dash said, in a deathly calm, as she stomped her way over, “What. Was. That?”
The orange-maned mare, still fit and bushy-tailed as she ever had been before retirement and children, laughed, and said, “Payback!”
“Payback!?”
Soarin muttered, quietly, “I told you this wasn’t a good idea…”
“Cloudsdale got banged up real good last week during that whole…” Spitfire waved her hoof around dramatically, “Chaos magic thing over in Canterlot. The Cloud Factory still hasn’t recovered!”
Spitfire’s teeth, briefly, started grinding together as the past week came back to her. The sight was enough to make Dash forget about the pain in her flank.
“The whole city got tossed around by some unknown Chaos creature, and I got yelled at by politicians, Dash!” Spitfire snarled, and advanced on her successor, “Politicians!”
“Well, I didn’t have anything to do with that!” Rainbow defended herself with an indignant stamp of her hooves, “That was Fluttershy’s kid! I was barely involved.”
“Aha! So, you were involved!”
“And you decided to get back at me with a lightning bolt?” Dash shook her head, “You can’t do that anymore, Cap!”
Spitfire scowled, playfully. “Oh? And why not?”
“I’m pregnant!” Dash whisper-shouted as loudly as she dared.
Spitfire and Soarin’s jaws dropped in perfect sync. It was actually kind of cool to see, and went a long way towards mollifying Dash’s mood.
“You’re…?” said Soarin.
“Pregnant?” Spitfire blinked.
“CAPTAIN!!!”
All three pegasi looked up just as a flash of red and yellow slammed into the aerial pavement in between them, kicking up a wave of debris, and probably causing a small shower out the bottom of the field, if Dash guessed the impact velocity rightly.
Rusty Bolt, however, was up within seconds, eyes flashing with dire consequences.
“Just who do you think you are!?” she roared.
Rainbow was stunned. That was probably how Rusty got so far out ahead of her, up close, and within nose-to-nose contact with a rather perplexed Spitfire.
“Captain Dash,” Rusty snorted, literal steam venting from her nostrils, “is the bravest, most amazing Captain – No! – the most amazing Wonderbolt who ever lived!”
“Whoa! Sport!” Dash finally found the clouds under her hooves, and charged forward, “Calm down!”
Rusty, clearly, didn’t see her Captain. All she could see was red.
“And if you think I’m about to let you lift a hoof against her…!”
“RESERVIST BOLT!”
Rusty’s whole body flinched, and held. Even her hackles froze. But her hesitation only lasted a second. She quickly snapped back to attention, a little bead of sweat beginning to form on her temple as she started replaying the last few seconds in her head.
“C-captain?” she asked, only now noticing the burning glare coming at her from two mares.
“Yes?” Dash and Spitfire answered as one.
Rusty swallowed something heavy in her throat.
“Reservist,” Rainbow said, nodding to the other mare, “Allow me to introduce my prede… um, prodecess… my old Captain, and friend, Spitfire.”
Spitfire took her cue, and walked up to the young Wonderbolt-prospective. Slowly as well, like a monster in one of those newfangled horror motion-pictures. She pressed her nose up as close to the younger mare as she could, forcing the recruit to lean back, ever so slightly.
The sweat beads were becoming rivulets tracing dark lines through Rusty’s fur.
“So…” Spitfire glared daggers into her eyes, “What would you have done?”
Rusty winced.
“Um…”
“If I hadn’t backed off from your Captain,” she repeated, “What. Would. You. Have done?”
The poor mare tried shifting her eyes over to Rainbow Dash’s, only to find a pair of furious orange orbs staring back.
“Don’t look at her!” Spitfire snarled, “Look at me! Now answer the question before I get really mad!”
“Uh!” Rusty snapped back to attention, her mouth opening and closing rapidly as she tried to come up with something to say, “I, uh, that…”
Dash rolled her eyes at the display. Some drill-instructor routine was good for training the younger fliers, but she knew from watching Rusty come up through the courses that she wasn’t that kind of mare.
“Come on, Spit,” she whispered, “You’re gonna make her pee…”
The former Captain’s ear twitched, but she gave no other sign of having heard Dash’s remark.
“I’ve heard enough!” she shouted Rusty’s babbling excuses back into silence, “Now… gimme fifty laps on the Gold Track!”
Rusty was already hovering as she replied, “Yes Ma’am! On it!” and was off before the sound barrier even knew what hit it. All that remained was a red-yellow trail burning across the sky.
Soarin hummed to himself as the three Wonderbolts watched her tear off.
“She probably would do a Rainboom if you took it up a notch, Spit.”
“Heh, yeah. I know,” Spitfire smiled, self-satisfaction evidently radiating off her.
Soarin didn’t blink. “That wasn’t a compliment.”
“So? Who’s the new kid?” she said, turning back towards Rainbow, ignoring her husband. He just rolled his eyes and smiled, long having grown fond of his wife's teasing.
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t yell at my ‘Bolts,” Rainbow snapped, though not without just a hint of a smile threatening the edge of her face, “If you want to yell and scream at them, I said I could make you a flight instructor here.”
“And get stuck doing the worst part of my old job? Nah! Drill Instructor, though. Now that was a great gig!” Spitfire guffawed, “But, seriously… who is she? I thought only Scootaloo could get that protective of you…?”
Dash cocked her head to the side, and gave her old boss a curious frown.
“Uh, Spits?” she asked, “It’s Rusty Bolt.”
“Yeah?” Spitfire shrugged, “And?”
Rainbow tossed Soarin an unamused look, “Seriously? What do you two talk about at home?”
“I don’t bring work home with me,” he said, defensively, “We agreed on that for both our sakes’.”
Spitfire rolled her eyes, and sighed, “Am I missing something?”
“Captain,” Rainbow smiled, and gave Spitfire a knowing look, “She’s Lightning Dust’s kid.”
Spitfire’s eyes snapped wide open, and then shut instantly. Her whole face took a moment to grimace like she’d been punched in the mouth, before it locked into an angry scowl.
Her head swiveled around with a soft neck-pop, and her eyes bore down on Soarin.
“I told you, no work at home!” she snarled, “I didn’t say, no gossip!”
“And I’d like to wake up to a fresh apple pie every morning,” he gave her an indifferent shrug, but followed it with a quick wink, “Seems neither of us get what we want.”
“Hrmph,” Spitfire grumbled, and stamped one hoof, “Lightning Dust? And her kid’s a fan of yours?”
Dash started polishing a hoof on her chest, and pretended to admire her reflection in it.
“I do have that effect on ponies.”
Spitfire started rubbing her temples with her wingtips, and growled, “Oof. Who’s the father?”
Dash shrugged, “Dunno. Even Lightning has no idea.”
“Makes sense,” Spitfire shook her head, and began walking towards the admin building, “No stallion could survive being in the same room as Lightning Dust and her ego at the same time.”
Soarin and Rainbow Dash followed in Spitfire’s wake, each making eye contact, and silently assuring each other that they were both aware how Spitfire was leading them to Dash’s office.
“Still…” Spitfire tossed an inquisitive look to the open sky above, “Wonder who it was…”
“Ah… AH-CHOO!”
The moderately concerned Derpy Hooves glanced over to her stylist. The tall, lanky pegasus, having gone to get his scissors, had quite nearly shaken himself to pieces with the mother-of-all sneezes. A whole patch of hair lying on the ground around one of the other stylist chairs had been swept clear by the blast, and there were more than a few angry glares around the salon heading his way.
Derpy liked him, though. She’d known Fluttershy’s brother since they were in school, and he always did her mane just the way she liked it.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, Derpy-doo!” he called back, before returning with his tools, “They say that when you sneeze, it’s because a hot-momma is talking about you!”
“Oh!” Derpy giggled and waved him down with one hoof, “Zephyr Breeze! You’re such a character!”.
“So,” Spitfire said, casually, as she took one of the guest seats in what was once her office, “Who’s the lucky stallion?”
The office wasn’t quite the same as when Spitfire last sat behind the desk. In fact, the desk itself had been redecorated with a rainbow motif, which was something she wasn’t surprised by, having been in once or twice before. Still, it was a bit jarring to see so many of the poster and picture spots hanging on the wall… and to find that she only recognized about half of them.
At least, that’s what Rainbow figured, catching her old boss’s curious glances around the place.
“Told ya,” she answered, taking her own seat as Soarin waited patiently out of deference, “Applejack.”
Spitfire narrowed her eyes somewhat at the response, and simply grunted noncommittally.
“Actually, I’m glad you’re here, Spits,” Dash smiled, and started hoofing through one of her drawers, “I was gonna ask you some things about the process.”
“Which process?”
Dash sank a little deeper into her desk drawer, papers, paperclips, and more than a few photographs and candy bar wrappers pouring out as she delved further.
“Uh, you know,” she said. Without elaboration.
Spitfire glanced over to Soarin. Her husband leaned in, and whispered, “I don’t think she can say it, yet.”
“What? Maternity Leave?”
The desk rattled with a sudden bang from underneath. Dash slowly raised herself out of the drawer, one hoof patting down a rapidly rising bump on her noggin, the other setting down a bright notepad and ink-pen, one of those fantastic little inventions sent over from the human world over the years.
The Wonderbolt Captain smiled, faintly, “Uh… yeah, that.”
Spitfire snorted, and said, “Dash, it’s not like it’s a bad word.”
“Well… it’s not an awesome one, either,” Rainbow pouted a little bit.
Spitfire’s ear twitched, and a long look came into her eye. She turned to her husband, and said, “Yo, Soarin? Could you get us something from the locker-fridge? I got some mare-stuff to talk about with Dash.”
“Oh, sure,” Soarin rolled his eyes as he stood up, “I’ll get it. It’s not like I’m the team’s Co-Captain, or anything. Nothing about Dash’s maternity leave that’d require me to sit in…”
“Thanks, babe!” Spitfire reached over and brushed his side, gently, with her wingtip, “I knew you’d understand.”
Soarin fixed her with a look… but it soon melted away, leaving only his lovable, goofball smile. The blue pegasus leaned over, and gave Spitfire a peck on her forehead.
“Be back soon, hun,” he said, and took off at a trot to find some beverages, leaving behind him a red-faced, and positively melting mare.
Dash was almost shocked to see her former boss, the hardest mare who ever flew, reduced to a lovesick filly.
She wasn’t disappointed, or anything. If nothing else, this had to last her a little while.
“Well, well,” she smiled, and leaned back in her chair, “Looks like somepony’s in loooove…”
“S-shut up,” Spitfire blushed all the harder, “You had some questions for me? Get ‘em out now!”
Dash grinned, and chuckled, “You know, I always wondered what an affectionate Captain Spitfire would…”
A bright yellow hoof planted itself firmly in Dash’s muzzle, and a pair of glowering orange eyes flashed at her.
“Finish that sentence, Crash… and you’ll wish you could drink through the straw you get with a full-body-wing-and-hoof-cast.”
Spitfire’s tone came out low, cold, and menacing. Any drill sergeant worth their spit would have run screaming from that tone of voice, and Dash knew precisely how much she didn’t want to be on Spitfire’s bad side. Ever.
“R-right…” she coughed, and pushed the hoof from her face, “I, uh… yeah, questions. Let’s get to those.”
Dash got some of the easy questions out of the way first. Who had the paperwork she needed? Where would she need to take it? When did it need to be done? Was that in triplicate? Did she need her spouse to sign anything?
Standard stuff, really. And Spitfire had an answer for every one of them.
“Did it… hurt?”
And some of them were doozies.
“Yeah, Crash,” Spitfire rolled her eyes at that one, “And not just… at the time, you know?”
Dash grimaced, but faithfully kept at jotting down what she heard.
“Your ankles swell up,” Spitfire began to list, “Your belly starts pushing into your other organs… so get ready to need to use the bathroom a lot. And then you might get False Contractions…”
Spitfire almost laughed, hearing a little groan from across the table. Almost. Deciding not to make too much fun of her old friend, she decided to switch to a lighter tone.
“Oh, better hope your kid’s not a Thunderer,” she added, “Wildfire was a Rainer, but being a little damp never bothered me.”
Rainbow Dash paused in her writing, and looked up at Spitfire, confusion plain as day on her face.
Spitfire sighed, “You ditched Health Class to go flying back in school, didn’t you?”
She spotted a slight ruffle of feathers at Rainbow’s side, and laughed, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Hey! You don’t get to be the best by not flying!”
Spitfire hardly tried to keep her smirking under control.
“So… you really don’t know about Prenatal Magic?”
Dash’s face scrunched up, and her eyes narrowed.
“Uh… Me and AJ didn’t do a prenup…”
Spitfire scowled, and struck the tabletop with one hoof, “Pre-NATAL, Dash! As in, before-the-birth? Firefly’s Feathers, why did I make such a dumb horse my successor!?”
Dash smiled, and leaned back in her chair, “Because I’m awesome?”
There was a long, tense silence as Spitfire massaged a growing headache away. She glanced up towards Dash after a few moments of this, and sighed through her nose.
“Alright,” she said, slowly, “You know how all ponies got magic, right?”
As Rainbow Dash nodded, eagerly, Spitfire continued, “Right, so… unicorns can cast spells, pegasi control the weather, earth ponies grow stuff… and they kick hard, I guess… and alicorns are cheating…”
“Uh, Spits?” Dash frowned, “What’s this got to do with…?”
“I’m getting there!” the former Wonderbolt shook her head, exasperated, “I swear I taught you patience before I left, right? Anyway. That magic’s inside every pony, even while they’re growing inside you.
“And that means, sometimes,” she waved her wings about, as if she could demonstrate what she was saying, “their magic goes a little… loopy when they’re still growing.”
“How do you know all this?” Dash leaned forward, eyes widening as a few rather unpleasant ideas began to form in her head. Ideas that involved magic explosions going off inside her belly.
Spitfire shrugged, “Soarin’s got an earth pony grandpa, and I’ve got a unicorn… somewhere in the old family tree. So, we had to do a bunch of research on this stuff. Point is, pegasus babies can sometimes change the weather around them.”
“What?” Dash’s wings involuntarily flapped as she sat up straight in her chair, scattering the loose papers all around her desk, “How…? How can a baby control the freakin’ weather!?”
“It’s not like you could run a weather team with enough pregnant mares, Crash,” Spitfire sighed, though with a light smirk brushing her lips, “But… like I said. Wildfire would cause little clouds and precipitation to pop up around me sometimes. Usually, whenever she decided I needed to eat more. Or whenever I tried to sleep.”
Her face turned, ironically, stormy.
“That kid ruined a lot of blankets and sheets before she even showed up…”
Spitfire blinked, surprised at where her mind had gone a moment ago, and looked back towards her friend. Dash looked decidedly less put-together than she’d been when the questions had started.
“Oh, uh…” Spitfire tried to recover, “But, like, you might not even have to worry about that. If Applejack is the… father? Other mother…? Whatever. You sound like you’ve got a good chance of having an ea—”
A blue hoof clamped down on her muzzle, and wild, pink eyes stared back into hers.
“Don’t…” Dash whispered, “Don’t jinx it!”
Despite the hoof, Spitfire’s jaw slackened, and nearly hit the table.
Seeing the look in her eyes, Rainbow Dash recoiled, ears flattening and forehooves pulling into her chest.
“I…” she worked her mouth, but little came from it, “I don’t… I mean…”
Spitfire slowly stood up from her chair, and quickly brought herself around the desk to Dash’s side. The blue pegasus didn’t even seem to notice her until a yellow wing had draped itself over her shoulders.
“I didn’t mean…” Dash sighed, and leaned into the hug.
“It’s cool, Dash,” Spitfire’s brow knitted as she held her friend, a genuine sense of concern starting to take hold, “It’s cool…”
As the Wonderbolt Captain closed her eyes and tried to regain a little more control of her breathing, there was the slightest, barest crack as a hoof grazed the office door handle from the outside.
Rainbow didn’t notice. Spitfire, however, did. And the glare she leveled at the sliver-of-an-opening at the door’s edge could have killed a manticore at ten paces.
Soarin, upon catching his wife’s eyes… decided to go check on Rusty, or perhaps join the young flyer in some drills. Right after he dumped the cold drinks he'd been carrying onto a nearby trophy table.
He wasn’t thirsty anyway.
“I’d love them, no matter what sort of pony they end up being, ya know?” Rainbow Dash finally gathered her voice, and could speak without suddenly shutting down.
Spitfire hadn’t moved from her side, still offering her wing like a blanket over her friend’s shoulders.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she chuckled dryly, “I’m a mother too. I’ve been there.”
Dash nodded, but kept her eyes downcast.
“It’s just…” she bit her lip, struggling to get whatever it was off her chest, “… I’m a pegasus. My mom and dad are pegasi. Going back as far as we can tell… all pegasi.”
Her wings ruffled and flitted at her side. She licked her lips, and said, “Flying’s in my blood. But… what if I can’t share that with Zap?”
Rainbow Dash stood up from her chair, shaking off Spitfire’s wing, though gingerly. She strode out into the middle of the room, and began to pace across the office floor.
“And… flying’s more than that to me, you know?”
“Dash,” Spitfire smiled, as she watched her friend wear a trench through the rug, remembering just how it had felt when she was there too, “There isn’t a Wonderbolt alive… or dead, I guess… who wouldn’t know how that feels.”
Dash paused, and shot Spitfire a grateful grin. Then she went back to pacing.
“Flying fast enough to do the Rainboom was what made me special, and what gave me my best friends,” she said, recalling how her life had always been destined for Awesomeness. “It’s not just some legacy, or a tradition. It’s literally who I am! How can I share that with my own kid if they can’t fly too? It’d be like Twilight not teaching her kids how to read!”
Spitfire kept her peace for a pensive moment. She’d learned, watching Dash grow into a proper Wonderbolt, that the mare had her own way of working up to something. She’d play nice with the other ‘Bolts, of course, but trying to tell Rainbow how to do a trick was harder than getting her to hit the spa.
Best to let her figure out what was wrong on her own.
“Rainbow, you said once…” she started, slowly, coaxingly, “When I took that nasty fall back around ’21? You told me that ‘Flying is Life. But only part of it’. You remember?”
Dash frowned in thought.
“I remember that cow coming out of nowhere. And you almost knocking Londongola Bridge over,” a curious smirk wormed its way over her muzzle, “And I remember Soarin taking care of you…”
“We’re talking about you, Crash!”
“Right, right… sorry,” she laughed. But, after another moment, the laughter left her. “So? Yeah, I remember that speech. I remember thinking you might never fly again.”
Spitfire nodded, “And you were right. About the life thing. Regardless of me recovering, you were right about that.”
“Spits,” Rainbow shook her head, “It’s different. This is what I love!”
Spitfire quirked her head to the side, a twitch of annoyance catching her eye, “And I didn’t?”
Dash backtracked, “W-well… I guess you did. But, like, you ended up loving something else, eventually!”
“Yeah!” Spitfire almost shouted, “And what’s wrong with that!?”
“Nothing!” Dash threw up her wings in a defensive stance, purely on reflex, “But…”
“But, what?”
Something shifted, in the way Dash stood. Spitfire could tell. She’d seen Dash train and perform for years. She knew her limits almost as well as Dash did, be it in flying, running, or weight training. And she knew when the spectrum-headed mare was pushing back, hard, against a nasty weight threatening to pull her down.
Rainbow Dash sighed, and let the figurative dumbbell drop.
“Spits… what if I love Zap more than flying?”
The office was silent. Even the dull hum of the electronics in the other room seemed muted. The typical roar of Wonderbolts trying to beat the Sound Barrier at its own game could have been nothing more than a figment of imagination, a literal flight of fancy.
Spitfire shook her head, just to make sure her ears were clear.
“You’re worried,” she blinked away her stunned expression, “that you might… love your child?”
Dash looked down, and away. She braced herself for the inevitable tongue lashing.
“Yeah, that’s about how I thought you’d react…”
Spitfire said nothing.
Probably building up towards a good, boiling fury, Dash thought.
The older mare spoke.
“I actually get that.”
“I can’t help how… I… feel…?” Rainbow Dash took a few seconds to replay what Spitfire had said. It didn’t sound like a reprimand. There wasn’t any shouting, and Spits hadn’t thrown anything. Yet.
Dash looked up, and found a decidedly calm Spitfire staring back at her.
“What?” she asked, eyes widening.
“I went through the same thing with Wildfire,” Spitfire nodded, slowly, and began walking around the desk towards Rainbow, “I kept thinking… what am I doing? I worked so hard to become Captain, to achieve my dream, so why am I passing the job onto some scrub who couldn’t tell the difference between cotton and a cloud?”
“Hey!” Rainbow cried, a scowl flashing across her features, “I was that scrub! And I could totally tell the difference!!!”
Spitfire just laughed, and threw her wing over Rainbow’s shoulders again.
“Point is,” she leaned in close, “I was always planning on coming back. Until I wasn’t. When I saw my little… my girl for the first time… I guess I just got a new dream, you know?”
“Yeah, well… that’s the problem,” Dash sighed. Spitfire could tell she was struggling to let go of something, the way her muzzle scrunched up, and her eyes darted away from their near-sisterly hug.
But she gave her space. She let Dash prove herself every bit the Wonderbolt Captain she’d seen years before, when Spitfire had left her the job for good.
“I love my life, Spits,” Rainbow said, quietly, ashamed of what she was feeling, “I love being a Wonderbolt. I love being the Captain. I love flying, and adventuring, and stunts, and messing with the recruits…
“That’s been my dream since I was a filly,” she clenched her eyes, tight, against the tears that were coming, “And if… when I give that up, what will I be? Who will I be?”
Spitfire bit down on her lip. She said nothing.
Dash sighed, “I guess I’m scared, Spits. That I’ll be a different pony when Zap happens. That I’ll be like you… and not come back. Who’s Rainbow Dash if she’s not a Wonderbolt?”
And then, in the midst of an encroaching blanket of melancholia, Rainbow Dash was suddenly surprised by the very last thing she ever expected. More so than a calm Spitfire, or even a talkative Big Mac.
She felt Spitfire nuzzle her.
“S-Spitfire?” she stammered, “What…?”
“Tell me, Crash,” Spitfire stepped back, and gave her successor a stern look, “Is there a single pony… anypony in that pack of roustabouts and lazybones you call a Wonderbolt team that you’d willingly make Captain after you?”
Dash, still reeling from the sheer, unadulterated affection Spitfire was showing, took a moment to answer.
“Uh… well, Soarin’s my Second, so…”
“And he can’t decide what to order off a menu,” Spitfire cut in, “I married the guy, and I know he isn’t Captain material. He can hold down the place while you’re gone, but he definitely doesn’t want the job full-time.”
“Oh… uh,” Rainbow Dash fumbled a second, then said, “Well, Fleetfoot’s got seniority after that…”
Spitfire responded instantly, deadpan. “Fleetfoot? Really? That pony’s allergic to paperwork.”
“Right, sorry,” Rainbow smiled, remembering The Postcard Incident, and the resulting firestorm that almost brought Cloudsdale down into the ocean, “Don’t know what I was thinking… I guess I’m the oldest after them…”
She started scratching the back of her neck, and glanced about the office, as if that would help spur her thoughts.
“Rusty’s a little young for the job…”
“My point is, Dash,” Spitfire rolled her eyes, “that there’s no way you’d stop being Captain like I did.”
“How do you know that?” Rainbow raised a curious eyebrow.
Spitfire reached up one forehoof, and gently booped Dash on the nose.
“Because I already knew a set of capable hooves to leave it to,” she said, in a voice that had lost all of its gruff, tough exterior, if only for a moment, “And until you can honestly say you’d leave this team to somepony else…? You ain’t going nowhere.”
Rainbow Dash stared, wide-eyed, at her old mentor and friend. She quickly looked away, and tried to wipe at her eyes and nose as subtly and surreptitiously as she could. Couldn’t let Spitfire see her like that.
“T-thanks,” she managed without choking up, “I don’t know why, but… I needed to hear that. And thanks for not, you know, yelling at me or nothing.”
Spitfire just laughed, and said, “Eh. You’re hormonal right now. I figured you just needed a safe venting space.”
Dash scrunched up her nose.
“Spits?” she asked, glancing away as she did so, “Not that I don’t know what that means, but…”
The sigh that escaped Spitfire’s lips was practically drenched in exasperation.
“Crash, you’re making me real worried about the Equestrian Education System, you know that?”
The two shared a laugh, then. Dash wasn’t incredibly happy about being the brunt of another jab, but at the moment, she couldn’t be happier to have Spitfire there with her.
But their laughter was cut short. A low rumble slowly worked its way up through the cloud that Dash’s office was built on, rattling the trophies and the posters on the walls. As the two mares glanced around, looking for an obvious source of the brief disturbance, the quake died away.
It had only lasted a few seconds.
“What was that?” Dash wondered aloud, not noticing the way Spitfire’s eyes were widening and her pupils were shrinking.
Spitfire raised a tentative hoof to speak…
… Only to be drowned out by a furious hammering at the front door. Dash took off at a leisurely trot, still wondering after the strange rumble.
Why did it feel so… familiar?
Opening the door, she saw immediately that the disturbance was Rusty. The Reservist was somehow different, Dash noted. Her eyes were massive, and glittering like diamonds in the night sky, and her mane was a frazzled mess. It looked like she'd bitten down on some lightning still cooking back in Cloudsdale.
Her mane actually almost seemed to be… glowing?
“Uh… Rusty?” Rainbow Dash cocked her head to one side, “What’s going on? You trying to knock my door down?”
The rictus grin on the young flyer’s face was as unsettling as it was wide and beaming. If Dash didn’t know any better, she would have sworn the kid’s teeth were chattering.
“You didn’t eat a lightning bolt to the face again, did ya…?”
“CAPTAIN RAINBOW DASH!” she hollered far too loud for being so close, forcing Dash to flatten her ears back at the deafening shout, her wings clamping down on her sides, insulating her belly against the sonic assault, “I… I had to be the first one to say CONGRATULATIONS!!!”
Before Rainbow could make any sense of that loud statement, she spied Soarin sagging down to the field just a few yards behind Rusty.
“I’m sorry… Cap…” he wheezed, seemingly exhausted, “…she sussed it out of me…”
“Oh…” Dash pursed her lips, and frowned, “Um. Great.” She almost had to hold a hoof up to block the sunlight bouncing off Rusty’s ridiculous grin.
The peppy pegasus could barely contain herself, practically prancing in place, “Oh, it is!!!”
“Reservist?” Rainbow frowned, “While I appreciate the congrats… maybe take it down a notch?”
“B-but,” Rusty’s eyes welled up, “But the most Awesome Wonderbolt ever is… is about to have a foal!!! How can I not be super-duper-excited!?”
Rainbow opened her mouth, a readied speech on ‘proper time and places’ for celebrating on her tongue, and maybe a passing mention of appropriate decorum for prospective Wonderbolts… when the words died in her mouth.
She, as well as everypony else on the track that morning, stood still. They were all struck dumb, as the most astonishing thing came roaring past.
It was a Sonic Rainboom.
A red and yellow Rainboom.
Dash had never seen a Rainboom from the other side before.
“Well,” Spitfire said as she walked up behind her successor. She carefully closed Rainbow’s hanging jaw with her wing, and said, “Guess another bit of advice for you would be to close your office windows whenever Rusty’s flying the track. Saved me a lot of repair bills every time you did one of those.”
“What does that mean?” Rusty tilted her head, quizzically. Then, she looked up to watch the arc of light-shattering sound sail by overhead.
“Huh…” she said, “What’s that?”
Rainbow Dash flew home alone that day. Sometimes she’d fly alongside one of her recruits, or any team member she still needed a few minutes with by the time she had to get going. She didn’t want to miss dinnertime at Sweet Apple Acres, and occasionally she could coax a race out of her fellow Wonderbolts on the way.
Today, she preferred to be alone with her thoughts.
Thoughts that trended towards a worrying conclusion.
“Captain Rusty Bolt…”
Author's Note
Looks as though Dash has some hard thinking to do...
Special Thanks to Toriandthehorse, Stinium Ruide, and Comma Typer for help with prereading and editing!
This was supposed to be an anthology... but then I realized that it would definitely help my work flow to just post individual mini-stories as their own thing. Less time trying to wrangle a narrative out of the ideas, and more time focusing on writing them out for all ya'lls.
Comment below!
