“Fillies and Gentlecolts, stomp your hooves for the WONDERBOLTS!”
Rainbow Dash looked in awe at the spectacle that played out in the sky. Pegasi performing stunts that the common pony would think impossible, drawing gasps and cheers from the crowd. Of course, Dash knew they were possible, having done them herself until they were second nature.
After a particularly harrowing stunt in which they stopped flapping their wings and dropped out of the sky, only to pull up at the last minute, they landed and took a bow to the thunderous applause.
“Thank you all for coming to the Wonderbolts Tryouts,” Spitfire announced, shouting over the crowd. “Today we have a special performance by the amazing Rainbow Dash, who is a personal friend of mine. Now prepare to witness the amazing Sonic Rainboom!”
The crowd cheered even louder as Dash looked around in confusion. No way Spitfire just said that. The ponies around her began pushing her to the front of the crowd and eventually to the cloud stage, chanting her name all the while.
It was then Dash realized how comfortable she was in front of a large audience. Not one to disappoint, she tore off into the blue, leaving a rainbow wake. She climbed to the atmosphere, quickly determining the speed and angle to pull this off.
The biggest Rainboom ever!
Satisfied with the conditions, Dash turned and blasted towards the ground. Her feathers crackled with the electricity of the invisible magical fields she was tearing through, eventually building to the wall of air bending around her form.
Almost there...
A white blur came from nowhere, colliding with Dash and sending her spiraling out of control towards the ground. No matter how hard she tried, her wings would not respond as she tumbled to oblivion. She closed her eyes, forcing her wings to move but the fear gripped her. The more she writhed and twisted in the air, the less ground she could gain to get control.
Her eyes popped back open when she realized she had been caught. She looked up to see a white pegasus smiling down at her.
“Who are you?”
Her savior did not respond as she drifted to the cloud stage below, landing gently before letting Dash go. The crowd cheered for this new pony, having forgotten Dash almost as quickly they had remembered her.
“I could’ve saved myself, ya know,” Dash fumed, turning her back and not even saying thank you.
“You okay, Dashie?” The pegasus asked.
Dash spun back around, a look of horror in her eyes. “What did you call me?”
Rainbow Dash groaned and rolled over, smacking her tongue a few times for good measure. She hoped that would give whoever was bothering her the hint that she didn't want to be disturbed. Her dream had taken an interesting turn, and she was about to lay a beatdown on the rival pegasus that had come out of nowhere.
It was well known to most ponies that Rainbow slept like a rock. That mistake left her vulnerable to what happened next.
“How can you sleep like a rock? Wouldn’t you fall through the cloud?”
Dash grumbled a few obscenities at the pegasus bouncing before her.
“Dashie! Dashie! Dashie! Dashie!”
Dash jolted awake from the violent shaking. Her sleep addled brain immediately assumed an earthquake had struck Ponyville, despite the fact that she was in the sky and would feel no such vibrations. She spread her wings and took a flying leap from the cloud, speeding away from the danger. She was already halfway to Sugarcube Corner before she turned around, scowling at the offender who dared to scare her in such a manner.
Pinkie Pie, she groaned. Ooooof course.
Unfortunately, it had become commonplace to see Pinkie in places she didn't belong. It had been even more unsettling when Dash began accepting such practices as fact, and no longer let the absurdness phase her. Despite how amusing and adorable she thought it was, Dash didn’t want to play right now, and cut right to the chase. She hovered in the air lazily and folded her arms, scowling at Pinkie.
“What?!”
“What’cha dooooin’?” Pinkie batted her eyelashes while an innocent smile spread across her face.
For a brief moment, Dash was at a loss for words. She shook her head to regain focus, hoping the blush on her cyan cheeks wasn’t too noticeable.
“I was sleeping. What’s up?” She finally landed with a flourish of her prismatic tail, audibly cracking her back a few times while flexing her stiff wings.
“I was wondering if we could go flying?” Pinkie pawed at the cloud, not making eye contact.
Is she blushing? Seeing the normally sociable Pinkie hesitate to ask anything made Dash shiver. Why would she be afraid to ask me anything?
“Flying? You got your machine, right?” Dash cocked a brow.
“Well, I kind of wanted to ride on your back.” Pinkie’s blush deepened to the point her pink cheeks were almost as red as a certain pony’s apples.
Dash smiled for what felt like the first time in an eternity. “Okay, I can do that.” She gave her head a confident toss. “Where do you want to go?”
Pinkie glanced up, eyes glimmering with hope. “To the moon!”
Dash stumbled and caught herself. “The moon?! But... I can’t fly up there! My wings would freeze before we even got halfway! Not to mention we couldn't breathe in space! Even I know that!”
Of course, knowing Pinkie, we’d have fishbowls on our heads.
“Twilight said she wanted to study the moon some more, and I told her since I used to be a on a rock farm that I could find a good moon rock for her! But we have to go to the moon first!” Pinkie bounced in place, completely ignoring Dash's protests.
Dash watched the bouncing pony, trying to fight off the inevitable feeling of disappointment in her stomach. If anypony didn’t deserve to be sad, it was Pinkie. After a few moments of thinking, Dash’s ear twitched with an idea.
“Why the hay not?” She shrugged. “Let’s go to the moon!”
“YAY!”
Before Dash could say anything else, Pinkie dove onto her back. Dash could feel her knees buckle under the weight as she struggled to remain upright.
“Lay off the sweets for a while,” Dash grunted. “Okay?”
“Sorry, Dashie.” Pinkie giggled, shifting around into a sitting position. Feeling her coat rub against her own made Dash feel tingly. “Ready for takeoff!”
Dash flared her wings and crouched. “Start the countdown!”
Pinkie did so while Dash licked her lips. This was going to be fun.
“ONE HUNDRED!”
“Uh... Pinkie...”
“NINETY-NINE!”
“Too far back,” Dash snickered.
“Oops! Sorry!” Pinkie blushed. “TEN!”
Dash shook her head, trying to wake up. “Need coffee...”
“NINE!”
“Wind out of the north.” Dash squinted at the sun. “Weather clear.” She looked down at the ground. “Runway clear.”
Pinkie noticed the drowsiness in Dash’s voice. “Don’t forget to flap your wings!”
“Yeah... I...” Dash blinked. “Huh?”
“EIGHT!”
Dash flexed her wings, rotating them as far as they could go in either direction before examining them. “Hey... um... there’s a couple feathers out of place.”
Pinkie nodded and began reordering the feathers, oblivious to Dash’s sudden gasp and trembling legs. “There ya go! SEIBEN!”
“What?” Dash jerked her head and met Pinkie’s innocent gaze. She shook her head and looked back at the ground. “I just don’t get you.”
“Шесть”
Dash rolled her eyes, bending her knees to prep for launch. She licked her lips, cracked her neck, and spread her wings.
“FIV—AYE AYE AYE!”
Dash was off like a shot sending Pinkie’s laughter echoing through the trees. Her weight slowed Dash down only a little. That just meant they had longer to enjoy their time together. Pinkie watched in awe as they broke through clouds and sped past birds. If she were brave enough to look down, she’d see the curve of the earth below. Ponyville a tiny dot lost among the other kingdoms of Equestria. Maybe they could visit those someday?
Dash struggled to keep balance. Pinkie’s shifting around and constant pointing while exclaiming “Oh! Look!” wasn’t helping matters as the air began to take on a bitter chill. Pinkie jerked sideways and pointed at another meaningless object only she could see, causing her hind leg to pin Dash’s wing. Before she knew it, they were spiraling out of control.
Dash’s internal alarms sounded as she prepared for evasive maneuvers. Fortunately for her, situations like this was one of the first things the Wonderbolts prepared for, since they’ve been known to take on riders for charity events.
Pinkie’s hooves wrapped around Dash’s neck as she fought to hang on, completely unaware she was the reason for what was happening to them. Dash wished for that kind of obliviousness, jerking her head around and choking out, “PINKIE! GET OFF MY WING!”
Pinkie blinked, taking an odd fascination in the ground spiraling towards them for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, she moved her leg. Dash’s wing popped free and she managed to regain stability, taking off back towards the atmosphere.
“Sorry, Dashie...” Pinkie croaked. She sounded more upset than she should have been.
“It’s cool,” Dash sighed. “I’m not mad.”
“Thank you.”
For what?
Pinkie’s grip eased as she watched the blue sky give way to blackness filled with stars. The air grew cold and empty the higher they climbed, and Pinkie snuggled closer to Dash to get warm. She felt Dash tremble slightly from the contact. “You cold?”
“Yeah... cold...” Dash nodded.
Pinkie stared for a moment before cuddling back up. The moon came into view and Dash banked hard to the left, bleeding off speed. A pony as awesome as her didn’t have to worry about the vacuum of space slowing her down. Dash touched down on the rocky surface, lowering herself to let Pinkie off. The barren expanse before them seemed to stretch to infinity. Dash found the lack of the familiar sound of wind a bit unsettling. She glanced over to Pinkie, noticing her blue eyes shimmering with sadness.
“Princess Luna must have been lonely up here,” Pinkie whispered. Dash knew all to well of Pinkie’s familiarity with the sadness of being alone. She could only nod in agreement, at a loss for words at the sudden profound nature of her friend.
Pinkie shifted gears, a giant smile spreading across her face as she already bounced off in a random direction, letting the gravity launch her into the sky while giggling like a maniac. Normally such sudden mood swings would disturb Dash deeply, but since she was already wondering how awesome her tricks would be in reduced gravity, figured she could let it slide this once.
“Pinkie, you’re going to hurt yourself doing that.” Dash rolled her eyes and took off after her, following the bouncing pink blur across the dusty surface. She watched in amazement when Pinkie got some serious air, flipping and cartwheeling like she was a natural born flyer. Brief images of the white pegasus in her dreams flashed through her mind, and Dash felt ill.
The show abruptly ended with Pinkie plummeting into a deep crater, landing with a loud thump. It took Dash a moment to realize that there was no air in the literal sense, so she stopped flapping her wings and bounced as high as she could to close the distance. She landed at the edge of the crater, hooves scrabbling at the lip of the opening before she fell and landed on her stomach next to Pinkie.
“I think I found where Luna lived!” Pinkie exclaimed, ignoring the groaning pegasus on the ground.
Dash could only grumble as she stood and dusted herself off, making sure she didn’t sprain anything. She took in the somber surroundings basked in the shadows of the crater walls. The spartan surroundings were tinged in deep blues and blacks, and Dash could feel her wings flaring slightly at the perceived threats in the darkest corners. Celestia’s sun never shone here, and the poetic irony wasn’t lost on the two.
The pair stood in an awkward mournful silence before Dash broke the unbearable tension by pointing a hoof. “What’s this?”
Pinkie looked at the small pile of rocks, out of place among the decor.
“Luna probably made her a friend,” Pinkie sighed sadly. Dash blinked as she stared at the pile, fighting off the memory of how Pinkie would know such a thing. Silence reigned again before it was Pinkie’s turn to break the somber mood by shifting gears again.
“Last one to the top is a party pooper!” Pinkie shouted, back to her old self.
With a practiced leap, she crested the surface of the crater and took off somewhere else. Dash chuckled and went after her. It was strange not having any air under her wings, so she took to bouncing like Pinkie. It almost felt like flying, but took more energy than she would have thought. Despite that, she found herself doing backflips and corkscrews with each bounce, gaining an appreciation for how fun it was.
The fact it took more energy gave her a sense of accomplishment. Maybe Twilight was onto something about trying new things after all. Dash closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of bouncing into the sky. She briefly considered attempting some stunts involving a trampoline when her euphoria was cut short.
She slammed into something hard, a loud crack filling her ears as Dash hoped it wasn’t any bones. She had tripped and landed across something cold and metallic. When she opened her eyes, she saw a strange vehicle.
“What the hay?”
Pinkie heard the noise and came back to investigate. “Oh, what’cha got there Dashie?” She eyeballed the device with a practiced scrutiny, pushing all the buttons she could find. She grabbed a wheel inside and began twisting it, making the old wheels in the front creak back and forth.
“I don’t know, but it hurt.” Dash rubbed her head. She glanced at the side and saw a strange flag painted on the door. “Wonder who it belongs to?”
“Hey, Dashie! This flag has the same colors as you! Red, yellow and blue!”
Dash chuckled and pulled herself off the machine, examining it closer. The yellow was actually white, worn and faded with age. She decided not to correct her friend, as the thought of a country that worshiped her enough to put her on a flag was kind of awesome. The stars were a nice touch, but more of a Twilight thing.
“Aren’t we up here to find rocks? Twilight probably thinks we got lost in the forest or something.”
“Oh, I know!” Pinkie bounced off back towards the previous crater they ventured to and returned with Luna’s rock friend riding on her back. “These rocks would be good! And he looked so lonely up here!”
Dash froze at the sight of the rock friend, swallowing back those terrifying memories once again. Pinkie’s analytical eyes making her feel microscopic. With a practiced shrug, she rolled her eyes, her gaze landing on a nice sized rock nearby.
“What about this one?”
Pinkie bounced over and gave it a few taps, looking for whatever it was rock farmers looked for, Dash assumed. She couldn’t help but smile at the look of concentration on Pinkie’s face as her tongue poked from her lips.
A few hollow knocks and a couple of pushes with her snout later, Pinkie sprang up. “Sounds good! You carry it!”
“But it looks heavy!” Dash moaned.
“Twilight said everything weighs less on the moon!” Pinkie countered.
“Fine...” Dash hovered over and landed next to Pinkie. “Hop on.”
Pinkie clambered onto Dash’s back and placed the rock friend between her legs, making Dash jolt at the cold feeling of the pile of rocks on her spine. After everything was in order, Dash lifted herself up and grabbed the large rock in her hooves. With a mighty pull, she was finally airborne with her new cargo.
The trip back to earth didn’t seem as long as the trip to the moon, and Pinkie was sad to see it go. Maybe they could go back someday. She continued to stare at the moon until it disappeared from sight, and blue sky slowly returned.
“Twilight is going to be happy we found her some moon rocks.”
“She could’ve just asked Luna,” Dash scoffed. The weight of the rock she was holding slowly increased as she got closer to the earth, making her struggle to keep a grip on it. .
“But this makes them more special!” Pinkie replied.
Dash nodded in agreement and pulled up, dropping the rock onto the ground before landing herself.
Twilight’s library was closed for the day, but that didn’t stop Dash from knocking on the door. She wasn’t about to let this hard work go for nothing.
Spike answered, rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on? What’s up?” He yawned, his face disappearing behind a gaping maw of teeth.
“We went to the moon!” Pinkie exclaimed, standing on her hind hooves and pointing to the sky. Of course being daylight meant that the moon wasn’t there to illustrate her point.
“Wow! Really? What’s it like up there? Are there really monsters?” Spike grabbed his tail and hid behind it, his green eyes wide with terror and wonder. “You didn’t bring Nightmare Moon back, did you?”
“Spike, what’s all the noise?” Twilight yawned as came downstairs. She walked up to the gathering by her front door, rubbing her eyes. Once she saw the Ponyville Pranking Patrol, she knew something wasn’t right. “What did you two do this time?”
“They went to the moon!” Spike replied, tossing his hands in the air for effect. “Can we go, Twilight?”
“You... went to the moon?” Twilight cocked a brow. The possibility of those two being sent to the moon for doing something stupid was always a remote one, but she knew it wasn’t possible to go on their own. Unless they came to her to ask for help or found some insane way to modify Pinkie’s party cannon to launch them into space.
Pinkie and Dash nodded, both wearing serious expressions.
“Well, I don’t suppose you brought proof?” Twilight fell back on her haunches and folded her arms.
Dash pointed outside and Twilight stepped out to look at the evidence. Her mouth hung open at the sight for a brief moment before she regained composure. She turned to the duo and sighed.
“A pile of rocks in a party hat and a sleeping tortoise are not moon rocks.” She turned back to the scene and noticed a nearby tree with a large indent in the side. “What happened to... nevermind, I don’t want to know.” With a huff Twilight walked back inside the library, grabbed Spike in her magic, and slammed the door.
“Twilight just has no imagination...” Pinkie frowned.
