Going out with a boomby ShaslanChaptersPrologueThe first dayThe second dayThe third dayThe last dayThe endPrologueRainbow Dash stood at the edge of the cloud, the tips of her hooves poking into empty air. The sun had just risen, and the morning air was damp. But the clouds were small and sparse, and the light was good, the air clear. Conditions were as close to perfect as they could be. She peered out again, over the fluffy white tip of the cloud she stood on and into the depths below. The ground was barely visible. Just a hazy suggestion at the edge of her vision. Rainbow knew that her eyesight wasn’t eagle-sharp anymore, but even she could usually see more than a distant blur. The air was thin enough to confirm it; she had made it out of the troposphere, the limit of an ordinary pegasus’ endurance, and into the stratosphere. It was higher than even she had ever been more than a hoof-full of times, but Celestia knew she needed the extra height for what she wanted to achieve today. It had taken three days to make the journey up here, much to her chagrin. She could have made it this high in an afternoon, once, but her wings weren’t what they had been, and she’d had to stop for a rest on nearly every cloud she’d passed. But she had made it, thank the Princesses. In the higher regions, where the clouds were sparser, there had been a few close calls — a wing cramp, a little seizure of the muscles, aching bones — all normal for old age, but nearly enough to kill a pony with this far to fall. Rainbow shook herself. No, it was not a good time to be thinking that way. Of course she had made it. She was Rainbow freaking Dash, longest-serving Flight Captain of the Wonderbolts, holder of six all-time Equestrian Flight Records. She could fly anywhere. Maybe not quite at the speed she used to be able to, but Celestia dang it, she still got the job done. She raised a hoof to brush gently over those six medals, all pinned securely to the lapels of her leather flight jacket. She numbered them, left to right, as her hoof moved across them. Longest vertical dive from greatest height, fastest one-mile flight, fastest two-mile flight, fastest non-stop flight from Canterlot to Appleoosa, strongest wing power from a lone pony — boy, that had been a day, when she’d broken the twenty-five wing power barrier. They had to make bigger scales on the measuring devices now. She called that extra little segment ‘the Rainbow zone’. Nopony else called it that, of course. But she did. And AJ always had too, bless her. Finally, her hoof came to rest on the sixth medal. Creation of the sonic rainboom. Her cutie mark, her unique ability, her greatest achievement. Rainbow remembered keenly the building of that incredible cosmic power, that beautiful explosion of raw light, and her wings quivered at the memory. It had been so long. The first dayRainbow launched herself into the air, snapping her wings down with an audible crack and a stab of pain. She gritted her teeth and repeated the motion, again and again, praying she was flapping fast enough. The pain was threatening to overwhelm her — its heat filled her head, every nerve in her poor wings on fire. Tears pooled in her eyes and she jerked her head impatiently to flick them away. Again, and again — and at last, she was gaining some altitude! She forced all that pain down, folding it into a smaller and smaller bubble until it was compressed enough that she could think clearly again. She kept her mind focused on the task at hand; keep those wings flapping, no matter how stiff they are. She was well above the level of the treetops now. Rainbow flinched as the bones in her right shoulder audibly ground against one another. She tried to reassure herself that the hardest part was done now. The Wonderbolts Academy, its dark stone nearly purple in the hazy pre-dawn light, was receding beneath her. Nopony had seen her go. She looked up. A few wooly little clouds scudded overhead, and in the distance, an enormous grey shape loomed. Rainbow set her jaw. That one was the target. If she could reach something that size, she would be completely hidden. Another spike of pain down her back made her wings falter for a moment, but she caught herself. If she could reach a cloud that height, she could always walk the first fifty thousand feet. Glancing down once more, she saw the airstrip fall away. She was beyond the final cliff that marked the edge of the Academy grounds. Once, when she still flew regularly between the Academy and the farm, she would have cut downwards at this point. The Academy was at such a high point that it was basically one long glide from here to Ponyville. But nowadays even such a simple flight as that, one a pegasus foal could have done in their sleep, was against the orders of her physiotherapist. “Wing rest,” Rainbow muttered, shoving her wings down once more and trying not to hear the snap of her brittle feathers. “Buck wing rest.” Rainbow had been at Sweet Apple Acres just last week to visit Sugar Belle and Apple Tart. She had gone by train, of course, and had hated every minute of that ridiculously long, winding track. When you were ground-bound you had no choice but to laboriously chug your way up or around every single dang hill. Apple Tart was a stallion in his prime now, almost as tall as his dad had been. Pippin, the baby of the family, was off at college in Manehattan taking her masters degree in agriculture. Rainbow could remember holding Pippin just a few days after she was born. Funny to think that the same little pink bundle, all screams and hiccups and teething trouble, was a full-grown pony now. The wind dragged at Rainbow’s wings and she hissed in anger. “Keep flapping, damn it.” Her brain had a tendency to wander these days. Any little detail and she’d be off down memory lane faster than a runaway cart. It could be embarrassing, to realise you’d paused in the middle of a lecture on aerodynamics in order to spend ten minutes reliving something that happened forty years ago. Rainbow usually felt furious after forgetting herself like this, but today she felt like she needed to sink herself into her memories. Flying fricking hurt. She tried to recapture the memory she had been thinking of. Sweet Apple Acres. Sugar Belle had been almost pathetically thrilled to see Rainbow when she’d arrived. Sugar Belle had been wheelchair-bound for a few years now, and Apple Tart didn’t always have time to wheel her out into whichever orchard he was working in. “Tartie does his best, bless him,” Sugar Belle had confided in her as they had sat sipping tea on the porch. It was an activity Rainbow wouldn’t have been caught dead doing even ten years ago, but age snuck up on everypony eventually. Even her. And sometimes all her old arthritic limbs were good for these days was sipping tea on a porch. “But it’s just not the same,” Sugar Belle continued. “And every time I look at Tartie — and Pippin when she’s here — all I can see is their daddy.” Rainbow sighed into her tea. “I know. It's not the same.” Sometimes when she was alone she’d find herself calling out to AJ, wanting her to come here and look at something. And the house would be silent, and suddenly a little colder. No, it wasn’t the same at all. Rainbow’s left wing faltered and for a moment wouldn’t obey the commands she was screaming at it. For a second she was spinning, starting to fall, and she tried desperately to repack all those aches into the corner they had burst out from. Come on, come on — for Celestia’s sake! At last, she managed to wrench it out straight again. The slap of the air against it nearly pulled the damn thing from its socket, but at least she was stable again. The hulking grey cloud was much closer now. Cumulonimbus, unless she was much mistaken. Only a little further to go. Rainbow began to flap once more, clawing her way up, wingbeat by wingbeat, towards that giant grey target. Think about Zap. That usually helped during flare-ups. Zap Apple, her own little baby boy, was working in Appleoosa now, as a weather pony in Equestria’s only tornado division. He was as strong a flier as she’d ever seen, and AJ used to say he could buck harder than any earth pony she knew. Zap had surprised them; he had rejected both Wonderbolts training and a career on the farm, and had forged his own way. Heh. Yeah, that was Zap Apple alright. He’d liked his own way right from the beginning. Rainbow remembered that when he first got onto solids they had tried to feed him all kinds of different puree and he’d turned his nose up at every one. It had driven them both absolutely spare, and Rainbow had to have flown to half the specialist baby food shops in Equestria by the time they found something he’d eat. Before that she wouldn’t even have known that there were specialist baby food shops. But mango puree had finally done the trick, and from then on that was all he’d eat for months. The mango orchard at Sweet Apple Acres, planted there for over thirty years now, was Zap Apple’s stamp on the place. The ashy-grey cloud was close now, almost close enough to touch. It was gravid with water, every fold and bulge hanging heavy in the sky, ready to let its burden fall at the slightest change in the air pressure. Rainbow screwed her eyes shut and pumped her wings as hard as she could. Just count, Rainbow Crash, just count your wingbeats. Spitfire’s voice was almost audible, it was so clear in her mind. Rainbow did her best to obey — one-two-three — gah, the throbbing in her shoulders! — nine-ten-eleven — the pain was building to a crescendo, and Rainbow knew that once that wave broke, her wings would be little more than frozen lumps clawed rigid against her back. Sixteen-seventeen-eighteen — just count your wingbeats — the hurt was unfolding its bloody-red tendrils across her mind, and Rainbow was no longer sure if she was even flapping, she couldn’t feel anything but those thousand stinging pinpricks driving deep into her muscles. She must be falling now, she knew, but she kept counting — twenty-four, twenty-five — But then her muzzle collided with something soft, and her hooves were wet, and Rainbow opened her eyes and sobbed with relief to see that she was sprawled on the outermost edge of that wonderfully fat grey cloud. She let herself lie there for a while, dragging in one shaky breath after another as she waited for the pain to recede once more. Eventually it drew back — not a lot, but just enough for Rainbow to get her legs beneath her and haul herself back to her hooves. She looked ruefully at her wings; just as she had expected, they hung useless at her sides, every feather arched into a different agonising position and locked there. It would take her a few hours to recover from that, but Rainbow knew she didn’t have time to waste. She was a pony on a mission. She sighed and narrowed her eyes, squared her shoulders, and began to climb. The second dayRainbow heaved herself onwards, just one hoof at a time. She hurt everywhere. Usually her legs weren’t too bad, aside from the one hind leg she had fractured in a crash once. The pain was usually decent enough — or cruel enough, depending on how she viewed it — to confine itself to her wings. But today it was spreading all over. She had been walking for hours, dragging herself laboriously over each hump of cloud as she crawled up its vast surface. The impact of her hooves was slight, but it had been enough to shake the rain loose out of the cloud, which had unleashed its considerable burden on whatever town had been unfortunate enough to be underneath it. Rainbow had been glad.The rain had meant more cover from the ground. Nopony would be able to see the small blue shape inching its way skywards, and that was just the way she wanted it. She thought she might have stopped to sleep for a few hours, but she wasn’t sure. She kept slipping in and out of the present. It was too good a way to detract from the pain for her to bother resisting. She had been deliberately trying to prompt herself to think about the glory days, when the Element of Loyalty had made its home on her breast and shaped itself after her cutie mark. When she and her five friends had worked together to save Equestria, time after time, and nothing had been able to stand against them. Ah, her friends. What would they all be doing right now? For the first time, Rainbow’s steady pace faltered. Rarity would probably just be going to bed, after having been up all night working on a new piece or attending some ball or other. Fluttershy would be getting up to sweep out her animal pens. Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich would be unshuttering the doors of Parties ‘R’ We, their joke shop and party emporium. And poor old Twilight would be attending some endless meeting on grain prices or something equally dull. Rainbow didn’t know how even Twilight, with her love of lists and filing and all things boring, could make it through all those royal duties. They would have driven her bananas years ago. Rainbow sighed out a long breath. She had never really lied to any of them before. Or at least, not for a long time. Applejack had looked most disapprovingly on any white lies, and Rainbow had stopped being anything but transparent many years ago. She’d told her colleagues at the Academy that she was visiting Sweet Apple Acres, and she’d told Sugar Belle she was visiting Twilight in Canterlot. She’d told Twilight she was visiting Rarity, and she had told Rarity she was going to be working at the Academy all weekend. Hopefully it would take them all a few days to figure out the web of — not lies, per se, that felt like too strong a word — the web of mistruths. She hadn’t said anything at all to Pinkie Pie, for fear of activating some sort of Pinkie-sense that would thwart her grand plan. And Fluttershy was safe enough to be left out of it, of course; when she’d gotten sick, almost twenty years ago now, Discord had removed her, animal sanctuary, cottage and all, to the chaos dimension where his magic would be strong enough to sustain her indefinitely. They wrote letters, of course, but they only saw her once a year now, at a little party Twilight threw at the Crystal Castle, with catering by Pinkie and Lil Cheese. Regardless, Rainbow had never liked lying to Fluttershy. She didn’t deserve it, somehow. Not that anypony else did, either — it was just that Fluttershy deserved it even less. She would miss Twilight’s next annual party. She winced at the thought of that. Twilight always threw it just after the Summer Sun Celebration. The Wonderbolts Academy and the School of Friendship both had their summer holidays around that time, so Rainbow usually had a few uninterrupted weeks to spend in Ponyville, staying with her family at the farm, and visiting Pinkie and Scootaloo whenever she could. Rainbow breathed out again and began to walk once more. She had taken a looping path that circled around the gigantic cloud like a mountain track. The cloud was as responsive to her shaping as they all were, and over the course of her long night’s walk, it had taken on a taller and slenderer shape. Hopefully nothing unusual enough to excite the attention of any local weather patrols, though. Rainbow glanced down. The ground was miles beneath her now. She had made good progress, but she would have to stop to rest soon. Her hooves were growing even more shaky than usual, and the last thing she wanted was to fall off this thing and have to fly her way back up. She thought once more of Scootaloo and chuffed air through her nostrils. Her friends would be heartbroken, and furious with her, but Rainbow felt confident that given time, they would come to understand. At least in a way. Even Zap Apple would probably get it. He knew she wasn’t happy. But Scoots…she was a different story. It had been Scootaloo who had first come to rouse Rainbow from her darkened room, in those first black few days after Applejack left. She had thrown back the curtains, kicked the debris of food wrappers and cider bottles down the stairs, and dragged Rainbow Dash from her stained and soiled lair. Rainbow had protested, but Scootaloo had been implacable. She had forced Rainbow to get up, get dressed, to clean her house, and go to work. She had come back, every morning, to do the same thing. Every day for four months. Rainbow had never said thank you, and Scootaloo had never seemed to expect it. She had just got on and done it. “You’d do the same for me,” was all she’d ever said on the subject, after Rainbow, in a rare flash of anger, had demanded why Scootaloo wouldn’t just let her be. Rainbow wasn’t altogether sure she would. Sure, maybe twenty or thirty years ago. But she was no longer the mare she had once been. Nor was Scootaloo. Rainbow’s ‘little buddy’ had grown into a strong, powerful mare, a serious athlete with enough scooter-related titles and records of her own to rival even Rainbow’s collection. Rainbow loved Scootaloo, admired her hugely, but Scootaloo just wasn’t like other ponies. She was tougher than anypony Rainbow had ever met. More than physical ability, the thing that Scootaloo was truly strong in was willpower. Scootaloo never gave up, she never even considered it. Time and again, Rainbow had seen Scootaloo’s dearest dreams be dashed to pieces on the rocks, and every time, Scootaloo had weathered the storm. When her parents abandoned her for the umpteenth time, when her wings failed, year after year, to develop past their stunted state, Rainbow had expected Scootaloo to collapse, but the disappointment just seemed to harden Scootaloo’s resolve even more. She used it to stoke herself up and drive her on. And Rainbow…she just didn’t have that fire in her anymore, if indeed she ever had. Scoots had somehow managed to hang on to that childlike, rosy view of Rainbow Dash the heroic areonaut, but Rainbow knew better. She wasn’t what Scootaloo thought she was; heck, she wasn’t half the mare Scootaloo herself was. An ache in Rainbow’s bad leg brought her back to the present once more. Funny how the mind wandered nowadays. Reluctantly, she hooked her forelegs over the next hump of cloud and hauled herself up. The third dayRainbow stood atop the enormous pillar of cloud that she had carved with her passage. She looked down at the remnants of the path she had made; more fragments of vapour broke away even as she watched. She had come as far as this cloud could take her. Little cirrus clouds hurried past her perch. The ground was little more than a haze below the trembling, endless air. The wind was rising. It was time to take wing again. Rainbow hesitantly spread her feathers. A little shaky, but when were they not? At least they had relaxed from yesterday’s rigid postures. The damp air had not been good for her aches and pains, but the hours spent on hoof had let her wings recover. Rainbow readied herself and fluttered her wings a few times. The movement made her wince, but she narrowed her eyes and pushed through it. Once she was confident her muscles were as stretched out as they were going to be, she did her closest approximation of a gallop — a shuddering canter, if she was being honest — and hurled herself into the ether. She beat her wings a few times, to level off. To her relief, she found a thermal almost immediately, and was able to rest there. Keeping her wings level was easy enough, and while it hurt, it was a whole lot less pain than constant motion. She spent a few easy hours sliding from one thermal to the next, basking as she went in recollections of summer afternoons spent lazing on the porch of the little cottage in the apple orchard, the one that Applejack had built for her just after they got hitched. It was so easy to relax into her memories and let the present slip away. She thought of Granny Smith, rocking in her chair under the shady leaves of the apple trees in that last autumn before the winter snows took her. Granny had spent a long time staring into emptiness, in those last few weeks. Applejack had been so worried for her. But now that Rainbow was in the same boat, she found that she saw the appeal. It was so much more pleasant, to live in the past, where you could be as young and fast as you were at your peak. When everypony you loved was around you and you could hold them close. But eventually the wind picked up, and as the sun slid towards the horizon Rainbow’s friendly thermals slipped away from her too. Suddenly, she was all alone in empty sky, unsupported, and she was having to beat hard just to stay aloft, let alone gain any more height. She began to look around her for a cloud. She was bone-tired, and it was probably wisest to rest before she became too fatigued to keep flapping. Rainbow flew in a tight circle, fighting the wind all the way, and squinted her Celestia-damned weak eyes in every direction she could. But the only clouds she could see were leagues below her. The air up here was cold and clear. She was alone with only the wind for company, and this wind seemed cruel and capricious, more interested in finding a way to throw her down than let her glide on its back. The light dimmed further and the wind grew stronger. Rainbow was tossed to and fro, and though she was fighting it, she could feel herself weakening. She ground her teeth together and pressed her front hooves against the lapels of her jacket. The medals were still there, freezing to the touch and slick with condensation. Rainbow took heart from their cold surfaces. She was a champion, and here was the proof. She wasn’t going to give up now. She numbered her victories, one by one. One for each agonising wingbeat. One. Longest vertical dive — snap those wings down — from greatest height. She’d beat that record before the day was out, if she had her way. Shame the record-keeping ponies with the tape measures and the stopwatches weren’t here to make it official. Two. Fastest one-mile flight, Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres in two minutes flat. A fierce grin split her muzzle as she remembered how loudly Applejack had cheered for her when she crossed that finish line. Three. Fastest two-mile flight, Ponyville to Cloudsdale, six minutes and fourteen seconds. The wings that had carried her with such speed would not fail here. Four. Fastest non-stop flight from Canterlot to Appleoosa. Five. Strongest wing power from a lone pony. And lastly — she panted as she slammed her hoof against it — creation of the sonic rainboom. No other pony had ever been able to replicate it. Her greatest work. Only she could do it. Zap Apple — yes, think of him — there was a time, one summer, when Zap Apple was about twelve and had wanted to do everything his Mum was doing, when he had come to flight training with her every day. And he had — Rainbow was hurled to the right by a sudden torrent of wind and had to throw herself back against it. Her wings felt like they were about to be ripped off her body. She gasped and kept trying to flap upwards. She tried to gather once more the tattered threads of that golden week with Zaps. Better than painkillers, better than drugs. Her memories could push the pain away like nothing else could. He had been able to keep up with the twenty-year-old Wonderbolt recruits she had been training, had even outperformed some of them. And then one afternoon in the middle of a normal routine he had gone into a steep dive, and his red-rainbow mane had whipped behind him, his hooves had stretched out in front, and some sort of red barrier had started to grow there, some sort of pressure beginning to build. Rainbow’s mouth had fallen open and she had hardly dared breathe as she watched him. She could have sworn she saw a hint of rainbow shimmering behind him. But then Zap had seen how close the ground was getting — he was still just a colt, bless him — and had levelled out of his dive sharpish, and the pressure had vanished. Rainbow had never seen its like since. Rainbow pushed herself upwards once more. The wind plastered her mane flat against her skull, and she snarled into it and pulled her flight goggles down over her eyes for the first time on this endlessly long journey. She looked desperately around herself, but the air hung empty and dark around her. Her invisible enemy pummelled her from every side, and it was all she could do to keep dragging her aching, screaming wings through that deadly repetitive motion. Up, down, up, down. Just keep it moving, Rainbow Dash. The sun was setting in earnest now. Golden-orange rays of light flared and flamed as it set. Rainbow knew that in Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle must be watching the same sunset, wearing the crown containing the Princesses’ magic. She hissed once more at the thought of her friend. Rainbow Dash was not going to go down in some pathetic windstorm and die like a fly, smushed on the earth. Rainbow was going to push through, strong as Applejack, determined as Scootaloo, she was going to make it out the other side. Holding the image of her smiling family in her mind’s eye, Rainbow swung her head wearily from side to side, searching for somewhere to rest. With the goggles, the wind couldn’t tear directly at her eyes anymore, and her vision was as clear as it could be in the dimming light. Finally, a glint of amber light thrown out by the last rays of the sun hit something. Rainbow peered up at it, and then sucked in a breath. Yes! A cloud, a little underground wisp of a thing, but a cloud nonetheless. “Thank you, Twilight!” Rainbow gasped, and pumped her wings harder than ever. The cloud was leagues above her yet, but at least it was something to aim for. It was bone-shaking work, and her Celestia-damned wings were sending shooting balls of pain rattling down her spine, but the wind was lessening at last. Wingbeat by precious wingbeat, Rainbow clawed her way towards that scrap of cloud. She flew higher and higher, every stroke an effort that cost her dearly. Her wings were cracking and aching, and she felt like she was nearing the end of her strength. Rainbow fumbled in the soft, wooly interior of her jacket for the hidden pocket where her grain-bars were, and gratefully crammed one into her mouth. The crumbs that fell through her hooves tumbled into oblivion below. The food gave her fresh energy, and at last, it seemed like the wind was beginning to drop. The air was thin up here in the higher echelons. Rainbow’s pace was slow, but she kept her gaze fixed firmly on that little cloud above her. It was enough to be out of the gale; she could have wept with relief. Dawn was breaking before she finally made it into the upper realms of the sky, where the air was so calm and clear you could have cut it with a knife. The sky up here was a deeper blue, and the fading stars, as they made way for the sunrise, looked closer than they ever had before. At length the air grew too oxygen-starved to breathe in more than shallow pants, and Rainbow knew her journey was at an end. She coasted for a while, no longer attempting to climb.That tiny cloud that she had been fighting towards all night was still in view. Rainbow tried to force fresh energy into her limbs and raced for the distant white shape. At long last, the wispy little thing was within reach. It was cobwebby and seemed like it might disintegrate if you hit it wrong, but Rainbow was past caring. She flopped onto it, and thank the stars, it held her weight. Wheezing with pleasure and exhaustion, she let her eyes slip shut. By the Princesses, she didn’t think she could ever remember being this tired. This cloud might drift to pieces in the night, but she needed to rest before she could do anything else. She’d deal with any further problems if and when they arose. As Applejack would say, no sense putting the cart before the horse. She reached for another grain-bar. As the precious, honey-laden crumbs of it melted on her tongue, she let her mind wander back to her son again. A week or so after Zap Apple’s almost-rainboom, she had showed the recruits a simple tornado-making drill, and Zap had gotten his cutie mark. While she was thrilled, of course — what mother wouldn’t be? — she had tried and tried to get him to dive again. But all he wanted to do was study wind creation or practice his tight turns, and she had been forced to let it go. Then the summer holidays had ended, Zap had turned thirteen, and that had been the death knell. What self-respecting teenager wants to hang out at his Mum’s workplace? Rainbow rolled onto her side, throwing her wings up and out behind her rather than furling them. If she slept with them folded, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to spread them again come the morning. No, Rainbow Dash was the only one who had ever managed a sonic rainboom. She was seventy-nine years old now, and she had been sixty-three the last time she had tried to do one. The attempt had dislocated her right wing, the Veteran Wonderbolts Display had ended in failure, and AJ had forbidden her from ever trying it again. “It’s too dang dangerous, Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow muttered, her voice deepening in an attempt at Applejack’s husky tone. “Ah will not let you risk life and limb for showin’ off! You’re too dang old!” It was a habit she’d slipped into over the last few years. It was easy to talk to yourself, as it turned out. Easier than living alone in those big, echoing rooms. It was lonely in her quarters at Wonderbolts HQ, and it was even lonelier in the little cottage at Sweet Apple Acres. On the whole, Rainbow thought she rather preferred this pathetic little cloud. At least she could rest without having to think about who should have been here beside her. For so many years, Rainbow had been so used to waking up in the sturdy wooden bed from AJ’s old room at the farmhouse, Applejack herself at her side, Zap Apple clattering around in the kitchen below them, the door swinging open to reveal Apple Tart and little baby Pippin bursting in, their parents close behind, ready for the Apple family breakfast. But Zap and Tartie had gone off to college, and only Tartie had come back. Then Big Mac stopped showing up to breakfast, even little Pippin had moved away, and then worst of all, Rainbow had to start waking up in AJ’s bed all by herself. The cottage began to hurt to be in — Applejack and Zap seemed to have left holes behind them that Rainbow couldn’t get away from. She saw them everywhere she looked. So eventually, she had moved into her Wonderbolts Academy apartment permanently. She told Sugar Belle it was because she would be closer to her lecture theatre, and that travelling all the time was too hard on her joints. They had both known it was a lie. The last dayThe sky was blue and beautiful, brighter than even Rainbow’s coat had been, before it faded. Rainbow looked again at the drop before her. She thought about her friends. None of them would be happy she was doing this. Fluttershy would have tried to talk her out of it, or failing that, cried until Rainbow complied. Pinkie and Rarity would just have tried to restrain her until the urge passed. Twilight would probably have sent out the whole Royal Guard if she had gotten wind of Rainbow’s plans. No, nopony would want to hear that this was her plan. Applejack least of all. She’d probably have dragged Rainbow Dash away from this edge by main force, if she were here. Rainbow waited a moment for the feel of teeth on her tail or the lash of a sharp voice and some apple-related curses. None came, and she sighed out a breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding. There was nopony here to stop her but her. And she didn’t want to stop. Or rather — she did want to stop, that was the whole crux of the issue. She was so damn tired of shuffling from her apartment to her lecture hall, ground-bound and hardly able to fly. She had been on wing-rest for half a damn year, on the orders of her doctor. She had told Rainbow that if she wanted to save the use of her wings she would rest up and let them have some time to heal, but Rainbow could see that for what it was; a big old pack of lies. What was she saving the use of her wings for? Arthritis doesn’t get better with rest. All ‘resting’ was doing was making her wing muscles waste even further away. Rainbow spent every afternoon out on the landing strip, watching the recruits practice and yelling advice at the top of her lungs. At least inside the walls of the Academy ponies still respected her and listened when she spoke. If she had been put aside and written off there, she really would have lost it. But outside that protective enclave where everypony knew that the word of Professor Dash was law, ponies didn’t recognise her. More generations than she cared to count had been born and grown to adulthood since she had been the Bearer of the Element of Loyalty, and the whole world had known her name. The only one ponies remembered anymore was Princess Twilight, or, if you were in Manehattan’s fashion district, Rarity too. Rainbow ground her teeth. Wasn’t fair, dang it. But ponies liked royalty. They always had, always would. And it had simply been too long since the colts and fillies of Equestria had seen a sonic rainboom flower across the sky. But all that was going to change today. Rainbow had given the flight up here her all. Her wings were clawed into strange positions and the arthritis was having its biggest flare-up in living memory, but she wasn’t going to let anything stop her now. Rainbow Dash was going to go out with a boom, a sonic rainboom, and everypony would know her name. She was more than just a stained glass window in Twilight’s throne room — she wasn’t history just yet. And after today, after this, there would be no more empty, echoing rooms, with Applejack’s smiling face looking at her only from photographs. There would be no more smooth pillow beside her, undented by that sweet yellow-maned head for years and years. There would be no more aching, heart-wrenching trips to that little stone beneath the intertwined pear and apple trees, that every time left Rainbow Dash sobbing until she thought she would drown. There would be no more looking into Zap Apple’s green eyes and seeing the ghost of another pair of emerald eyes overlaying them. There would be no more arthritis or scrubbing along on the ground, in the dirt, like a bug. Rainbow was going to fly, and she was never going to stop. She looked down again at that blue-and-green blur beneath her, and the smudges that were Equestria, Ponyville, Cloudsdale, the places she and Applejack had known and loved, and she smiled. She spread her wings, wincing despite her resolve at the cracks and shooting darts of pain that the movement cost her. She had her pain meds in her pocket and she wondered for a moment about taking some, but rejected the notion quickly. She needed her wits about her if she was going to pull this off. And she was Rainbow Dash. Rainbow fricking, hard-hitting, cloud-kicking, mother-bucking Dash! She didn’t need any meds to do this. She was born to do this! She flared her wings as wide as she could, took in a breath that filled her lungs to bursting, and touched the sonic rainboom medal one last time. Then she patted the pocket that held the little photo of Applejack on their wedding day, radiant in white — and her usual brown hat, of course — and then flipped her flight goggles down over her eyes. Time to fricking go. Rainbow Dash bunched her haunches under her, wiggled her rump to get a good starting position, tensed herself — and launched. The force of her jump threw her forward, several pony-lengths clear of the cloud, and she felt a fierce grin spread across herself as the rush of air hit her face and gravity claimed her. She flapped once, twice, working to get the angle right, and then clipped her wings in close to her sides. She’d never dived from this high before, but then again, she’d never tried for a rainboom this size before. The air screamed, almost deafening her. Already, the angle of her dive was steep enough to flatten her mane against her neck. She thrust her hooves out in front of her, snatching in what breaths she could. She could feel it, really feel it — that old power, the tingling that began in her hooves and would slowly spread through her whole body, building and building until she could break the sound barrier, and with one great smash unleash her rainbows into the world. Tears were springing to her eyes already and the ground was yawning closer and closer with every heartbeat. Funny — it took so long to come up, but coming down was so quick. She could see mountains; that would be Canterlot. This would disrupt Twilight’s morning meetings. And Appleoosa was in that direction — she hoped Zap Apple was eating lunch outside today. Pinkie Pie would surely see, she always knew when special things were going to happen. Rarity was anypony’s guess. The power was crawling up her legs now, and her cheeks were pulled back by the force of the wind. Rainbow bared her teeth in a furious, death-defying grin. The ground was closer than ever now — she could see individual settlements. If she wanted to pull up from a fall this fast it had better be soon. But the tingling had reached her wings now, and she could feel the buzz that was a rainboom building in the air around her. It was almost time. There was no way she was backing down now. Rainbow heard a voice screaming, wild with exhilaration over the wind, and it took her a few moments to realise it was her. Her voice was so croaky these days it was a shock to hear a pure note coming from her own mouth. The power roared to a crescendo and Rainbow beamed as she heard that final crack as she broke the very sky itself and saw her colours streaming out of her, to wash over the whole of Equestria and bathe everypony she loved — and everypony else besides — in its beautiful light. The end“Holy horseapples, look!” Thunderhead’s excited shriek reclaimed Scootaloo’s attention from the papers she was grading. Thunderhead was out of his desk, test abandoned, face pressed tight against the window of the classroom. The other students were starting to shift as well, and those closest to the windows were scrambling over to see what Thunderhead was looking at. Scootaloo knew she had to move fast. Thunderhead was a chronic disruptor — much like Scootaloo had been at his age, Sweetie Belle liked to point out — and if she didn’t get this under control fast the whole class would forget what they were doing and she’d have to make them start the test from scratch. “Thunderhead, sit down!” Scootaloo tried to make her voice sound stern. She usually tried for a chill approach with the students, but Celestia knew she needed to sound authoritative right now. “Miss Scootaloo, you have to see this!” Thunderhead insisted. More and more of the students were hurrying over to the windows now. Scootaloo sighed, and stood up from her seat, giving her wings a threatening buzz as she went. At least, she hoped it was coming off as threatening. She walked over to Thunderhead, fully prepared to drag him away if she had to. “I don’t think Headmare Starlight will be pleased to hear what you’re—” Her words cut off mid-flow as she caught sight of what Thunderhead was looking at. Outside the window, the school grounds were awash with light of every hue. When she looked up at the sky, she gasped and her eyes filled with tears. A tidal wave of rainbow power was washing over Ponyville, the curve of it so vast she couldn’t even begin to guess at where the epicentre would be. The heavens were alight with radiant power, so raw Scootaloo could feel the electricity from here. She hadn’t seen one of these in decades. A sonic rainboom. “What is it, Miss?” Thunderhead demanded, tugging at her foreleg. Tears filled Scootaloo’s eyes, and one spilled down her cheek. “Miss Scootaloo?” Thunderhead’s tone changed to one of concern. Scootaloo smiled through her tears, crying freely now. She knew exactly what this meant. “It’s magic, Thunderhead. It’s — it’s Rainbow Dash.”
PrologueRainbow Dash stood at the edge of the cloud, the tips of her hooves poking into empty air. The sun had just risen, and the morning air was damp. But the clouds were small and sparse, and the light was good, the air clear. Conditions were as close to perfect as they could be. She peered out again, over the fluffy white tip of the cloud she stood on and into the depths below. The ground was barely visible. Just a hazy suggestion at the edge of her vision. Rainbow knew that her eyesight wasn’t eagle-sharp anymore, but even she could usually see more than a distant blur. The air was thin enough to confirm it; she had made it out of the troposphere, the limit of an ordinary pegasus’ endurance, and into the stratosphere. It was higher than even she had ever been more than a hoof-full of times, but Celestia knew she needed the extra height for what she wanted to achieve today. It had taken three days to make the journey up here, much to her chagrin. She could have made it this high in an afternoon, once, but her wings weren’t what they had been, and she’d had to stop for a rest on nearly every cloud she’d passed. But she had made it, thank the Princesses. In the higher regions, where the clouds were sparser, there had been a few close calls — a wing cramp, a little seizure of the muscles, aching bones — all normal for old age, but nearly enough to kill a pony with this far to fall. Rainbow shook herself. No, it was not a good time to be thinking that way. Of course she had made it. She was Rainbow freaking Dash, longest-serving Flight Captain of the Wonderbolts, holder of six all-time Equestrian Flight Records. She could fly anywhere. Maybe not quite at the speed she used to be able to, but Celestia dang it, she still got the job done. She raised a hoof to brush gently over those six medals, all pinned securely to the lapels of her leather flight jacket. She numbered them, left to right, as her hoof moved across them. Longest vertical dive from greatest height, fastest one-mile flight, fastest two-mile flight, fastest non-stop flight from Canterlot to Appleoosa, strongest wing power from a lone pony — boy, that had been a day, when she’d broken the twenty-five wing power barrier. They had to make bigger scales on the measuring devices now. She called that extra little segment ‘the Rainbow zone’. Nopony else called it that, of course. But she did. And AJ always had too, bless her. Finally, her hoof came to rest on the sixth medal. Creation of the sonic rainboom. Her cutie mark, her unique ability, her greatest achievement. Rainbow remembered keenly the building of that incredible cosmic power, that beautiful explosion of raw light, and her wings quivered at the memory. It had been so long.
The first dayRainbow launched herself into the air, snapping her wings down with an audible crack and a stab of pain. She gritted her teeth and repeated the motion, again and again, praying she was flapping fast enough. The pain was threatening to overwhelm her — its heat filled her head, every nerve in her poor wings on fire. Tears pooled in her eyes and she jerked her head impatiently to flick them away. Again, and again — and at last, she was gaining some altitude! She forced all that pain down, folding it into a smaller and smaller bubble until it was compressed enough that she could think clearly again. She kept her mind focused on the task at hand; keep those wings flapping, no matter how stiff they are. She was well above the level of the treetops now. Rainbow flinched as the bones in her right shoulder audibly ground against one another. She tried to reassure herself that the hardest part was done now. The Wonderbolts Academy, its dark stone nearly purple in the hazy pre-dawn light, was receding beneath her. Nopony had seen her go. She looked up. A few wooly little clouds scudded overhead, and in the distance, an enormous grey shape loomed. Rainbow set her jaw. That one was the target. If she could reach something that size, she would be completely hidden. Another spike of pain down her back made her wings falter for a moment, but she caught herself. If she could reach a cloud that height, she could always walk the first fifty thousand feet. Glancing down once more, she saw the airstrip fall away. She was beyond the final cliff that marked the edge of the Academy grounds. Once, when she still flew regularly between the Academy and the farm, she would have cut downwards at this point. The Academy was at such a high point that it was basically one long glide from here to Ponyville. But nowadays even such a simple flight as that, one a pegasus foal could have done in their sleep, was against the orders of her physiotherapist. “Wing rest,” Rainbow muttered, shoving her wings down once more and trying not to hear the snap of her brittle feathers. “Buck wing rest.” Rainbow had been at Sweet Apple Acres just last week to visit Sugar Belle and Apple Tart. She had gone by train, of course, and had hated every minute of that ridiculously long, winding track. When you were ground-bound you had no choice but to laboriously chug your way up or around every single dang hill. Apple Tart was a stallion in his prime now, almost as tall as his dad had been. Pippin, the baby of the family, was off at college in Manehattan taking her masters degree in agriculture. Rainbow could remember holding Pippin just a few days after she was born. Funny to think that the same little pink bundle, all screams and hiccups and teething trouble, was a full-grown pony now. The wind dragged at Rainbow’s wings and she hissed in anger. “Keep flapping, damn it.” Her brain had a tendency to wander these days. Any little detail and she’d be off down memory lane faster than a runaway cart. It could be embarrassing, to realise you’d paused in the middle of a lecture on aerodynamics in order to spend ten minutes reliving something that happened forty years ago. Rainbow usually felt furious after forgetting herself like this, but today she felt like she needed to sink herself into her memories. Flying fricking hurt. She tried to recapture the memory she had been thinking of. Sweet Apple Acres. Sugar Belle had been almost pathetically thrilled to see Rainbow when she’d arrived. Sugar Belle had been wheelchair-bound for a few years now, and Apple Tart didn’t always have time to wheel her out into whichever orchard he was working in. “Tartie does his best, bless him,” Sugar Belle had confided in her as they had sat sipping tea on the porch. It was an activity Rainbow wouldn’t have been caught dead doing even ten years ago, but age snuck up on everypony eventually. Even her. And sometimes all her old arthritic limbs were good for these days was sipping tea on a porch. “But it’s just not the same,” Sugar Belle continued. “And every time I look at Tartie — and Pippin when she’s here — all I can see is their daddy.” Rainbow sighed into her tea. “I know. It's not the same.” Sometimes when she was alone she’d find herself calling out to AJ, wanting her to come here and look at something. And the house would be silent, and suddenly a little colder. No, it wasn’t the same at all. Rainbow’s left wing faltered and for a moment wouldn’t obey the commands she was screaming at it. For a second she was spinning, starting to fall, and she tried desperately to repack all those aches into the corner they had burst out from. Come on, come on — for Celestia’s sake! At last, she managed to wrench it out straight again. The slap of the air against it nearly pulled the damn thing from its socket, but at least she was stable again. The hulking grey cloud was much closer now. Cumulonimbus, unless she was much mistaken. Only a little further to go. Rainbow began to flap once more, clawing her way up, wingbeat by wingbeat, towards that giant grey target. Think about Zap. That usually helped during flare-ups. Zap Apple, her own little baby boy, was working in Appleoosa now, as a weather pony in Equestria’s only tornado division. He was as strong a flier as she’d ever seen, and AJ used to say he could buck harder than any earth pony she knew. Zap had surprised them; he had rejected both Wonderbolts training and a career on the farm, and had forged his own way. Heh. Yeah, that was Zap Apple alright. He’d liked his own way right from the beginning. Rainbow remembered that when he first got onto solids they had tried to feed him all kinds of different puree and he’d turned his nose up at every one. It had driven them both absolutely spare, and Rainbow had to have flown to half the specialist baby food shops in Equestria by the time they found something he’d eat. Before that she wouldn’t even have known that there were specialist baby food shops. But mango puree had finally done the trick, and from then on that was all he’d eat for months. The mango orchard at Sweet Apple Acres, planted there for over thirty years now, was Zap Apple’s stamp on the place. The ashy-grey cloud was close now, almost close enough to touch. It was gravid with water, every fold and bulge hanging heavy in the sky, ready to let its burden fall at the slightest change in the air pressure. Rainbow screwed her eyes shut and pumped her wings as hard as she could. Just count, Rainbow Crash, just count your wingbeats. Spitfire’s voice was almost audible, it was so clear in her mind. Rainbow did her best to obey — one-two-three — gah, the throbbing in her shoulders! — nine-ten-eleven — the pain was building to a crescendo, and Rainbow knew that once that wave broke, her wings would be little more than frozen lumps clawed rigid against her back. Sixteen-seventeen-eighteen — just count your wingbeats — the hurt was unfolding its bloody-red tendrils across her mind, and Rainbow was no longer sure if she was even flapping, she couldn’t feel anything but those thousand stinging pinpricks driving deep into her muscles. She must be falling now, she knew, but she kept counting — twenty-four, twenty-five — But then her muzzle collided with something soft, and her hooves were wet, and Rainbow opened her eyes and sobbed with relief to see that she was sprawled on the outermost edge of that wonderfully fat grey cloud. She let herself lie there for a while, dragging in one shaky breath after another as she waited for the pain to recede once more. Eventually it drew back — not a lot, but just enough for Rainbow to get her legs beneath her and haul herself back to her hooves. She looked ruefully at her wings; just as she had expected, they hung useless at her sides, every feather arched into a different agonising position and locked there. It would take her a few hours to recover from that, but Rainbow knew she didn’t have time to waste. She was a pony on a mission. She sighed and narrowed her eyes, squared her shoulders, and began to climb.
The second dayRainbow heaved herself onwards, just one hoof at a time. She hurt everywhere. Usually her legs weren’t too bad, aside from the one hind leg she had fractured in a crash once. The pain was usually decent enough — or cruel enough, depending on how she viewed it — to confine itself to her wings. But today it was spreading all over. She had been walking for hours, dragging herself laboriously over each hump of cloud as she crawled up its vast surface. The impact of her hooves was slight, but it had been enough to shake the rain loose out of the cloud, which had unleashed its considerable burden on whatever town had been unfortunate enough to be underneath it. Rainbow had been glad.The rain had meant more cover from the ground. Nopony would be able to see the small blue shape inching its way skywards, and that was just the way she wanted it. She thought she might have stopped to sleep for a few hours, but she wasn’t sure. She kept slipping in and out of the present. It was too good a way to detract from the pain for her to bother resisting. She had been deliberately trying to prompt herself to think about the glory days, when the Element of Loyalty had made its home on her breast and shaped itself after her cutie mark. When she and her five friends had worked together to save Equestria, time after time, and nothing had been able to stand against them. Ah, her friends. What would they all be doing right now? For the first time, Rainbow’s steady pace faltered. Rarity would probably just be going to bed, after having been up all night working on a new piece or attending some ball or other. Fluttershy would be getting up to sweep out her animal pens. Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich would be unshuttering the doors of Parties ‘R’ We, their joke shop and party emporium. And poor old Twilight would be attending some endless meeting on grain prices or something equally dull. Rainbow didn’t know how even Twilight, with her love of lists and filing and all things boring, could make it through all those royal duties. They would have driven her bananas years ago. Rainbow sighed out a long breath. She had never really lied to any of them before. Or at least, not for a long time. Applejack had looked most disapprovingly on any white lies, and Rainbow had stopped being anything but transparent many years ago. She’d told her colleagues at the Academy that she was visiting Sweet Apple Acres, and she’d told Sugar Belle she was visiting Twilight in Canterlot. She’d told Twilight she was visiting Rarity, and she had told Rarity she was going to be working at the Academy all weekend. Hopefully it would take them all a few days to figure out the web of — not lies, per se, that felt like too strong a word — the web of mistruths. She hadn’t said anything at all to Pinkie Pie, for fear of activating some sort of Pinkie-sense that would thwart her grand plan. And Fluttershy was safe enough to be left out of it, of course; when she’d gotten sick, almost twenty years ago now, Discord had removed her, animal sanctuary, cottage and all, to the chaos dimension where his magic would be strong enough to sustain her indefinitely. They wrote letters, of course, but they only saw her once a year now, at a little party Twilight threw at the Crystal Castle, with catering by Pinkie and Lil Cheese. Regardless, Rainbow had never liked lying to Fluttershy. She didn’t deserve it, somehow. Not that anypony else did, either — it was just that Fluttershy deserved it even less. She would miss Twilight’s next annual party. She winced at the thought of that. Twilight always threw it just after the Summer Sun Celebration. The Wonderbolts Academy and the School of Friendship both had their summer holidays around that time, so Rainbow usually had a few uninterrupted weeks to spend in Ponyville, staying with her family at the farm, and visiting Pinkie and Scootaloo whenever she could. Rainbow breathed out again and began to walk once more. She had taken a looping path that circled around the gigantic cloud like a mountain track. The cloud was as responsive to her shaping as they all were, and over the course of her long night’s walk, it had taken on a taller and slenderer shape. Hopefully nothing unusual enough to excite the attention of any local weather patrols, though. Rainbow glanced down. The ground was miles beneath her now. She had made good progress, but she would have to stop to rest soon. Her hooves were growing even more shaky than usual, and the last thing she wanted was to fall off this thing and have to fly her way back up. She thought once more of Scootaloo and chuffed air through her nostrils. Her friends would be heartbroken, and furious with her, but Rainbow felt confident that given time, they would come to understand. At least in a way. Even Zap Apple would probably get it. He knew she wasn’t happy. But Scoots…she was a different story. It had been Scootaloo who had first come to rouse Rainbow from her darkened room, in those first black few days after Applejack left. She had thrown back the curtains, kicked the debris of food wrappers and cider bottles down the stairs, and dragged Rainbow Dash from her stained and soiled lair. Rainbow had protested, but Scootaloo had been implacable. She had forced Rainbow to get up, get dressed, to clean her house, and go to work. She had come back, every morning, to do the same thing. Every day for four months. Rainbow had never said thank you, and Scootaloo had never seemed to expect it. She had just got on and done it. “You’d do the same for me,” was all she’d ever said on the subject, after Rainbow, in a rare flash of anger, had demanded why Scootaloo wouldn’t just let her be. Rainbow wasn’t altogether sure she would. Sure, maybe twenty or thirty years ago. But she was no longer the mare she had once been. Nor was Scootaloo. Rainbow’s ‘little buddy’ had grown into a strong, powerful mare, a serious athlete with enough scooter-related titles and records of her own to rival even Rainbow’s collection. Rainbow loved Scootaloo, admired her hugely, but Scootaloo just wasn’t like other ponies. She was tougher than anypony Rainbow had ever met. More than physical ability, the thing that Scootaloo was truly strong in was willpower. Scootaloo never gave up, she never even considered it. Time and again, Rainbow had seen Scootaloo’s dearest dreams be dashed to pieces on the rocks, and every time, Scootaloo had weathered the storm. When her parents abandoned her for the umpteenth time, when her wings failed, year after year, to develop past their stunted state, Rainbow had expected Scootaloo to collapse, but the disappointment just seemed to harden Scootaloo’s resolve even more. She used it to stoke herself up and drive her on. And Rainbow…she just didn’t have that fire in her anymore, if indeed she ever had. Scoots had somehow managed to hang on to that childlike, rosy view of Rainbow Dash the heroic areonaut, but Rainbow knew better. She wasn’t what Scootaloo thought she was; heck, she wasn’t half the mare Scootaloo herself was. An ache in Rainbow’s bad leg brought her back to the present once more. Funny how the mind wandered nowadays. Reluctantly, she hooked her forelegs over the next hump of cloud and hauled herself up.
The third dayRainbow stood atop the enormous pillar of cloud that she had carved with her passage. She looked down at the remnants of the path she had made; more fragments of vapour broke away even as she watched. She had come as far as this cloud could take her. Little cirrus clouds hurried past her perch. The ground was little more than a haze below the trembling, endless air. The wind was rising. It was time to take wing again. Rainbow hesitantly spread her feathers. A little shaky, but when were they not? At least they had relaxed from yesterday’s rigid postures. The damp air had not been good for her aches and pains, but the hours spent on hoof had let her wings recover. Rainbow readied herself and fluttered her wings a few times. The movement made her wince, but she narrowed her eyes and pushed through it. Once she was confident her muscles were as stretched out as they were going to be, she did her closest approximation of a gallop — a shuddering canter, if she was being honest — and hurled herself into the ether. She beat her wings a few times, to level off. To her relief, she found a thermal almost immediately, and was able to rest there. Keeping her wings level was easy enough, and while it hurt, it was a whole lot less pain than constant motion. She spent a few easy hours sliding from one thermal to the next, basking as she went in recollections of summer afternoons spent lazing on the porch of the little cottage in the apple orchard, the one that Applejack had built for her just after they got hitched. It was so easy to relax into her memories and let the present slip away. She thought of Granny Smith, rocking in her chair under the shady leaves of the apple trees in that last autumn before the winter snows took her. Granny had spent a long time staring into emptiness, in those last few weeks. Applejack had been so worried for her. But now that Rainbow was in the same boat, she found that she saw the appeal. It was so much more pleasant, to live in the past, where you could be as young and fast as you were at your peak. When everypony you loved was around you and you could hold them close. But eventually the wind picked up, and as the sun slid towards the horizon Rainbow’s friendly thermals slipped away from her too. Suddenly, she was all alone in empty sky, unsupported, and she was having to beat hard just to stay aloft, let alone gain any more height. She began to look around her for a cloud. She was bone-tired, and it was probably wisest to rest before she became too fatigued to keep flapping. Rainbow flew in a tight circle, fighting the wind all the way, and squinted her Celestia-damned weak eyes in every direction she could. But the only clouds she could see were leagues below her. The air up here was cold and clear. She was alone with only the wind for company, and this wind seemed cruel and capricious, more interested in finding a way to throw her down than let her glide on its back. The light dimmed further and the wind grew stronger. Rainbow was tossed to and fro, and though she was fighting it, she could feel herself weakening. She ground her teeth together and pressed her front hooves against the lapels of her jacket. The medals were still there, freezing to the touch and slick with condensation. Rainbow took heart from their cold surfaces. She was a champion, and here was the proof. She wasn’t going to give up now. She numbered her victories, one by one. One for each agonising wingbeat. One. Longest vertical dive — snap those wings down — from greatest height. She’d beat that record before the day was out, if she had her way. Shame the record-keeping ponies with the tape measures and the stopwatches weren’t here to make it official. Two. Fastest one-mile flight, Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres in two minutes flat. A fierce grin split her muzzle as she remembered how loudly Applejack had cheered for her when she crossed that finish line. Three. Fastest two-mile flight, Ponyville to Cloudsdale, six minutes and fourteen seconds. The wings that had carried her with such speed would not fail here. Four. Fastest non-stop flight from Canterlot to Appleoosa. Five. Strongest wing power from a lone pony. And lastly — she panted as she slammed her hoof against it — creation of the sonic rainboom. No other pony had ever been able to replicate it. Her greatest work. Only she could do it. Zap Apple — yes, think of him — there was a time, one summer, when Zap Apple was about twelve and had wanted to do everything his Mum was doing, when he had come to flight training with her every day. And he had — Rainbow was hurled to the right by a sudden torrent of wind and had to throw herself back against it. Her wings felt like they were about to be ripped off her body. She gasped and kept trying to flap upwards. She tried to gather once more the tattered threads of that golden week with Zaps. Better than painkillers, better than drugs. Her memories could push the pain away like nothing else could. He had been able to keep up with the twenty-year-old Wonderbolt recruits she had been training, had even outperformed some of them. And then one afternoon in the middle of a normal routine he had gone into a steep dive, and his red-rainbow mane had whipped behind him, his hooves had stretched out in front, and some sort of red barrier had started to grow there, some sort of pressure beginning to build. Rainbow’s mouth had fallen open and she had hardly dared breathe as she watched him. She could have sworn she saw a hint of rainbow shimmering behind him. But then Zap had seen how close the ground was getting — he was still just a colt, bless him — and had levelled out of his dive sharpish, and the pressure had vanished. Rainbow had never seen its like since. Rainbow pushed herself upwards once more. The wind plastered her mane flat against her skull, and she snarled into it and pulled her flight goggles down over her eyes for the first time on this endlessly long journey. She looked desperately around herself, but the air hung empty and dark around her. Her invisible enemy pummelled her from every side, and it was all she could do to keep dragging her aching, screaming wings through that deadly repetitive motion. Up, down, up, down. Just keep it moving, Rainbow Dash. The sun was setting in earnest now. Golden-orange rays of light flared and flamed as it set. Rainbow knew that in Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle must be watching the same sunset, wearing the crown containing the Princesses’ magic. She hissed once more at the thought of her friend. Rainbow Dash was not going to go down in some pathetic windstorm and die like a fly, smushed on the earth. Rainbow was going to push through, strong as Applejack, determined as Scootaloo, she was going to make it out the other side. Holding the image of her smiling family in her mind’s eye, Rainbow swung her head wearily from side to side, searching for somewhere to rest. With the goggles, the wind couldn’t tear directly at her eyes anymore, and her vision was as clear as it could be in the dimming light. Finally, a glint of amber light thrown out by the last rays of the sun hit something. Rainbow peered up at it, and then sucked in a breath. Yes! A cloud, a little underground wisp of a thing, but a cloud nonetheless. “Thank you, Twilight!” Rainbow gasped, and pumped her wings harder than ever. The cloud was leagues above her yet, but at least it was something to aim for. It was bone-shaking work, and her Celestia-damned wings were sending shooting balls of pain rattling down her spine, but the wind was lessening at last. Wingbeat by precious wingbeat, Rainbow clawed her way towards that scrap of cloud. She flew higher and higher, every stroke an effort that cost her dearly. Her wings were cracking and aching, and she felt like she was nearing the end of her strength. Rainbow fumbled in the soft, wooly interior of her jacket for the hidden pocket where her grain-bars were, and gratefully crammed one into her mouth. The crumbs that fell through her hooves tumbled into oblivion below. The food gave her fresh energy, and at last, it seemed like the wind was beginning to drop. The air was thin up here in the higher echelons. Rainbow’s pace was slow, but she kept her gaze fixed firmly on that little cloud above her. It was enough to be out of the gale; she could have wept with relief. Dawn was breaking before she finally made it into the upper realms of the sky, where the air was so calm and clear you could have cut it with a knife. The sky up here was a deeper blue, and the fading stars, as they made way for the sunrise, looked closer than they ever had before. At length the air grew too oxygen-starved to breathe in more than shallow pants, and Rainbow knew her journey was at an end. She coasted for a while, no longer attempting to climb.That tiny cloud that she had been fighting towards all night was still in view. Rainbow tried to force fresh energy into her limbs and raced for the distant white shape. At long last, the wispy little thing was within reach. It was cobwebby and seemed like it might disintegrate if you hit it wrong, but Rainbow was past caring. She flopped onto it, and thank the stars, it held her weight. Wheezing with pleasure and exhaustion, she let her eyes slip shut. By the Princesses, she didn’t think she could ever remember being this tired. This cloud might drift to pieces in the night, but she needed to rest before she could do anything else. She’d deal with any further problems if and when they arose. As Applejack would say, no sense putting the cart before the horse. She reached for another grain-bar. As the precious, honey-laden crumbs of it melted on her tongue, she let her mind wander back to her son again. A week or so after Zap Apple’s almost-rainboom, she had showed the recruits a simple tornado-making drill, and Zap had gotten his cutie mark. While she was thrilled, of course — what mother wouldn’t be? — she had tried and tried to get him to dive again. But all he wanted to do was study wind creation or practice his tight turns, and she had been forced to let it go. Then the summer holidays had ended, Zap had turned thirteen, and that had been the death knell. What self-respecting teenager wants to hang out at his Mum’s workplace? Rainbow rolled onto her side, throwing her wings up and out behind her rather than furling them. If she slept with them folded, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to spread them again come the morning. No, Rainbow Dash was the only one who had ever managed a sonic rainboom. She was seventy-nine years old now, and she had been sixty-three the last time she had tried to do one. The attempt had dislocated her right wing, the Veteran Wonderbolts Display had ended in failure, and AJ had forbidden her from ever trying it again. “It’s too dang dangerous, Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow muttered, her voice deepening in an attempt at Applejack’s husky tone. “Ah will not let you risk life and limb for showin’ off! You’re too dang old!” It was a habit she’d slipped into over the last few years. It was easy to talk to yourself, as it turned out. Easier than living alone in those big, echoing rooms. It was lonely in her quarters at Wonderbolts HQ, and it was even lonelier in the little cottage at Sweet Apple Acres. On the whole, Rainbow thought she rather preferred this pathetic little cloud. At least she could rest without having to think about who should have been here beside her. For so many years, Rainbow had been so used to waking up in the sturdy wooden bed from AJ’s old room at the farmhouse, Applejack herself at her side, Zap Apple clattering around in the kitchen below them, the door swinging open to reveal Apple Tart and little baby Pippin bursting in, their parents close behind, ready for the Apple family breakfast. But Zap and Tartie had gone off to college, and only Tartie had come back. Then Big Mac stopped showing up to breakfast, even little Pippin had moved away, and then worst of all, Rainbow had to start waking up in AJ’s bed all by herself. The cottage began to hurt to be in — Applejack and Zap seemed to have left holes behind them that Rainbow couldn’t get away from. She saw them everywhere she looked. So eventually, she had moved into her Wonderbolts Academy apartment permanently. She told Sugar Belle it was because she would be closer to her lecture theatre, and that travelling all the time was too hard on her joints. They had both known it was a lie.
The last dayThe sky was blue and beautiful, brighter than even Rainbow’s coat had been, before it faded. Rainbow looked again at the drop before her. She thought about her friends. None of them would be happy she was doing this. Fluttershy would have tried to talk her out of it, or failing that, cried until Rainbow complied. Pinkie and Rarity would just have tried to restrain her until the urge passed. Twilight would probably have sent out the whole Royal Guard if she had gotten wind of Rainbow’s plans. No, nopony would want to hear that this was her plan. Applejack least of all. She’d probably have dragged Rainbow Dash away from this edge by main force, if she were here. Rainbow waited a moment for the feel of teeth on her tail or the lash of a sharp voice and some apple-related curses. None came, and she sighed out a breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding. There was nopony here to stop her but her. And she didn’t want to stop. Or rather — she did want to stop, that was the whole crux of the issue. She was so damn tired of shuffling from her apartment to her lecture hall, ground-bound and hardly able to fly. She had been on wing-rest for half a damn year, on the orders of her doctor. She had told Rainbow that if she wanted to save the use of her wings she would rest up and let them have some time to heal, but Rainbow could see that for what it was; a big old pack of lies. What was she saving the use of her wings for? Arthritis doesn’t get better with rest. All ‘resting’ was doing was making her wing muscles waste even further away. Rainbow spent every afternoon out on the landing strip, watching the recruits practice and yelling advice at the top of her lungs. At least inside the walls of the Academy ponies still respected her and listened when she spoke. If she had been put aside and written off there, she really would have lost it. But outside that protective enclave where everypony knew that the word of Professor Dash was law, ponies didn’t recognise her. More generations than she cared to count had been born and grown to adulthood since she had been the Bearer of the Element of Loyalty, and the whole world had known her name. The only one ponies remembered anymore was Princess Twilight, or, if you were in Manehattan’s fashion district, Rarity too. Rainbow ground her teeth. Wasn’t fair, dang it. But ponies liked royalty. They always had, always would. And it had simply been too long since the colts and fillies of Equestria had seen a sonic rainboom flower across the sky. But all that was going to change today. Rainbow had given the flight up here her all. Her wings were clawed into strange positions and the arthritis was having its biggest flare-up in living memory, but she wasn’t going to let anything stop her now. Rainbow Dash was going to go out with a boom, a sonic rainboom, and everypony would know her name. She was more than just a stained glass window in Twilight’s throne room — she wasn’t history just yet. And after today, after this, there would be no more empty, echoing rooms, with Applejack’s smiling face looking at her only from photographs. There would be no more smooth pillow beside her, undented by that sweet yellow-maned head for years and years. There would be no more aching, heart-wrenching trips to that little stone beneath the intertwined pear and apple trees, that every time left Rainbow Dash sobbing until she thought she would drown. There would be no more looking into Zap Apple’s green eyes and seeing the ghost of another pair of emerald eyes overlaying them. There would be no more arthritis or scrubbing along on the ground, in the dirt, like a bug. Rainbow was going to fly, and she was never going to stop. She looked down again at that blue-and-green blur beneath her, and the smudges that were Equestria, Ponyville, Cloudsdale, the places she and Applejack had known and loved, and she smiled. She spread her wings, wincing despite her resolve at the cracks and shooting darts of pain that the movement cost her. She had her pain meds in her pocket and she wondered for a moment about taking some, but rejected the notion quickly. She needed her wits about her if she was going to pull this off. And she was Rainbow Dash. Rainbow fricking, hard-hitting, cloud-kicking, mother-bucking Dash! She didn’t need any meds to do this. She was born to do this! She flared her wings as wide as she could, took in a breath that filled her lungs to bursting, and touched the sonic rainboom medal one last time. Then she patted the pocket that held the little photo of Applejack on their wedding day, radiant in white — and her usual brown hat, of course — and then flipped her flight goggles down over her eyes. Time to fricking go. Rainbow Dash bunched her haunches under her, wiggled her rump to get a good starting position, tensed herself — and launched. The force of her jump threw her forward, several pony-lengths clear of the cloud, and she felt a fierce grin spread across herself as the rush of air hit her face and gravity claimed her. She flapped once, twice, working to get the angle right, and then clipped her wings in close to her sides. She’d never dived from this high before, but then again, she’d never tried for a rainboom this size before. The air screamed, almost deafening her. Already, the angle of her dive was steep enough to flatten her mane against her neck. She thrust her hooves out in front of her, snatching in what breaths she could. She could feel it, really feel it — that old power, the tingling that began in her hooves and would slowly spread through her whole body, building and building until she could break the sound barrier, and with one great smash unleash her rainbows into the world. Tears were springing to her eyes already and the ground was yawning closer and closer with every heartbeat. Funny — it took so long to come up, but coming down was so quick. She could see mountains; that would be Canterlot. This would disrupt Twilight’s morning meetings. And Appleoosa was in that direction — she hoped Zap Apple was eating lunch outside today. Pinkie Pie would surely see, she always knew when special things were going to happen. Rarity was anypony’s guess. The power was crawling up her legs now, and her cheeks were pulled back by the force of the wind. Rainbow bared her teeth in a furious, death-defying grin. The ground was closer than ever now — she could see individual settlements. If she wanted to pull up from a fall this fast it had better be soon. But the tingling had reached her wings now, and she could feel the buzz that was a rainboom building in the air around her. It was almost time. There was no way she was backing down now. Rainbow heard a voice screaming, wild with exhilaration over the wind, and it took her a few moments to realise it was her. Her voice was so croaky these days it was a shock to hear a pure note coming from her own mouth. The power roared to a crescendo and Rainbow beamed as she heard that final crack as she broke the very sky itself and saw her colours streaming out of her, to wash over the whole of Equestria and bathe everypony she loved — and everypony else besides — in its beautiful light.
The end“Holy horseapples, look!” Thunderhead’s excited shriek reclaimed Scootaloo’s attention from the papers she was grading. Thunderhead was out of his desk, test abandoned, face pressed tight against the window of the classroom. The other students were starting to shift as well, and those closest to the windows were scrambling over to see what Thunderhead was looking at. Scootaloo knew she had to move fast. Thunderhead was a chronic disruptor — much like Scootaloo had been at his age, Sweetie Belle liked to point out — and if she didn’t get this under control fast the whole class would forget what they were doing and she’d have to make them start the test from scratch. “Thunderhead, sit down!” Scootaloo tried to make her voice sound stern. She usually tried for a chill approach with the students, but Celestia knew she needed to sound authoritative right now. “Miss Scootaloo, you have to see this!” Thunderhead insisted. More and more of the students were hurrying over to the windows now. Scootaloo sighed, and stood up from her seat, giving her wings a threatening buzz as she went. At least, she hoped it was coming off as threatening. She walked over to Thunderhead, fully prepared to drag him away if she had to. “I don’t think Headmare Starlight will be pleased to hear what you’re—” Her words cut off mid-flow as she caught sight of what Thunderhead was looking at. Outside the window, the school grounds were awash with light of every hue. When she looked up at the sky, she gasped and her eyes filled with tears. A tidal wave of rainbow power was washing over Ponyville, the curve of it so vast she couldn’t even begin to guess at where the epicentre would be. The heavens were alight with radiant power, so raw Scootaloo could feel the electricity from here. She hadn’t seen one of these in decades. A sonic rainboom. “What is it, Miss?” Thunderhead demanded, tugging at her foreleg. Tears filled Scootaloo’s eyes, and one spilled down her cheek. “Miss Scootaloo?” Thunderhead’s tone changed to one of concern. Scootaloo smiled through her tears, crying freely now. She knew exactly what this meant. “It’s magic, Thunderhead. It’s — it’s Rainbow Dash.”
