It would come to no surprise to anypony that the Grand Galloping Gala would end in disaster. It seems that this particular event was somehow cursed with bad luck; last year a bunch of mares ruined the Gala trying to achieve their dreams and after a nice show tune, they all went overboard and wrecked everything. This year was perhaps a little worse.
Felicity Peridot didn't enjoy events like this; she couldn't get in the mood to dance and sing when she was already nervous. You see, it was her first date with Klondike, after six months the big lug actually asked her out. But, as usual, J.J. decided to ruin her date by asking her to cover it.
Thank Celestia for Aberrant Flair, her photographer and residential genius Minotaur. He had promised to cover the event so that she could enjoy her date with Klon. That hadn't stopped her from shaking in her rather expensive shoes.
Felicity tugged at her dress for the billionth time tonight; it was uncomfortable and rode up on her flank. She wasn't used to wearing fancy things like this; the only outfit she would happily wear was kept compressed in her necklace and was a lot more form-fitting than this.
This dress was frilly and poofy to absurd lengths; it was a dark red, to match her coat, and had intricate star designs at the fringe. Her shoes may as well have been made of glass with how uncomfortable they felt. Her lime-green mane was curled and done to perfection by Ponyville's expert manedresser. She wore star earrings and looked, as Daring Do put it, 'like a doll!'
Felicity rolled her eyes; it was hard to believe that she could look anything resembling a doll. Her hooves were sweaty, her mane felt like it was coming apart, the dress as too tight at the waist, and she felt like she couldn't breathe.
Mostly because Klondike was right next to her, like right next to her.
He looked like a prince compared to her homely looks.
His chocolate brown mane was combed elegantly; he wore a tuxedo which made him look suave and cool, and a bright blue bowtie which, on him, looked amazing. His eyes twinkled when he talked and...
Wait, what did he say?
"I-I'm sorry, what?" Felicity felt like an idiot.
"I said, 'Do you want a drink'?" he repeated with a smile.
"Oh, yes, yes I would like something to drink." She felt like she would need plenty of drinks to get through this night.
A waiter approached and Klon took a drink and handed it to her. She downed it fast; ack, spicy apple cider.
She looked around for Princess Celestia; she wanted to see her but at the same time feared the idea of her being here. Celestia was an amazing mare, don't misunderstand, but Felicity also knew what she was like. You see, being one of Celestia's students when she was a filly, she has been victim to Celestia's teasing for years.
When Felicity got her first boyfriend, Celestia never let her live it down and incessantly messed with Felicity. She was like an overbearing and embarrassing older sister. She would probably retell stories about Felicity's goof-ups as a filly to Klon if she showed up, ugh, that would be a nightmare!
But, thankfully, Celestia wasn't around, which was a shame since this party was great! The ballroom was amazing; there were ceiling to floor glass stained windows that depicted great ponies throughout the ages like Starswirl the Bearded, Lightning Blitz The Brave, Arion The Swift and, embarrassingly enough, The Mysterious Mare Do Well along with Daring Do.
The last one was only recently added a month after the huge mess with the changeling princess Danus, and the turquoise serpent. Celestia honored the heroes with a few medals, a statue in the Canterlot garden, and this glass stained window commemorating their victory.
The attention from Celestia gave Mare Do Well a lot of good publicity; well, I suppose if the princess supports you, you're bound to get benefits out of it. Mare Do Well was no longer seen as a vigilante and she has even been given the support of the police of Manehattan. And, since Mare Do Well was no longer seen as a bad guy, J.J. has given up on exposing her; therefore Felicity has a lot of freedom on what she wants to cover in The Daily Bridle.
And, after a while, she's been given a promotion! She now has her own office, her own column and even a hefty raise. So far, life has been good for Felicity, crime is down in Manehattan, save a few weirdo ponies here and there, but everything has been going swimmingly!
Felicity literally couldn't complain about anything at this point, she's on a date with Klondike at the biggest party of the year (which the princess happily gave invitations to) all she really needed to worry about was looking like an idiot in front of him.
"This music is, uh, great!" Felicity remarked.
"They stopped playing," Klon said, "But, yeah, they were good."
Ponyfeathers!
Felicity looked at the musicians and frowned, it was as he said, they had just stopped playing. One of them looked back at her and Felicity shot a "why-did-you-stop-playing-now-the-moment-is-awkward!" look.
She cleared her throat, "Y-yeah, I knew that but I meant in a philosophical way you know? Some ponies theorize that music is the soul of reality and that ponies everywhere are able to produce a unique musical signature that only sensitive ponies are able to pick up but normal ponies everywhere are able to see as personality quirks, therefore I was speaking about the music produced by everypony here and-"
Klondike put a hoof to her mouth, "Fleece, calm down and take a deep breath."
He released his hoof and Felicity took two deep breaths.
"Good," he smiled, "Now, let's just enjoy this party okay?"
Felicity nodded dumbly; she always acted dumb around him and it was infuriating. But he always knew how to calm her down and how to cheer her up, he knew how she ticked and she barely knew anything about him.
It was like he was an enigma, a puzzle that she couldn't solve because half the pieces were missing. It was ironic that Felicity of all ponies couldn't deduce her way into Klon's heart, but then again, even if she doesn't know much about him, he doesn't know the entire truth about her.
Another waiter came by and Felicity gratefully took a hors d'oeuvre and munched it, she needed to fill her stomach or something, despite Klon's efforts she wasn't calming down.
"Ah, Ms. Peridot, so good to see you." Without warning, Felicity spat out her hors d'oeuvre onto the face of that poor waiter and looked upon the mare who addressed her.
She cursed herself for not noticing her presence, but then again Princess Celestia could be very sneaky if she wanted to be, and, judging by the look on her face, she appeared quite happy with who Felicity is with.
Klon, and a bunch of other ponies nearby bowed quickly which made Celestia uncomfortable but she gave them her best smile.
"C-Celestia!" Felicity stuttered, earning a few hard looks from the other ponies at her familiarity toward the princess, "I-I thought you had retired for the night!"
Celestia looked at Felicity and smiled in a way a prankster would right before revealing her grand trick, "I had, but I came back after remembering that you, my dearest student, would be attending. I didn't want to be rude, so, I came by to say 'hello'. Hello Fleece."
"You were one of her students?" Klon asked, astonished, Felicity hadn't shared that piece of information for good reason, "I didn't know that. Fleece, that's amazing!"
Felicity blushed, she couldn't tell why she was blushing either, was it because Klon complimented her or was it because Celestia being here was more embarrassing than her mom being here?
"O-oh, must have slipped my mind." Felicity needed to calm down, she needed to get a handle on the situation.
"Now, now Fleece," Celestia giggled, "You shouldn't be so rude to your boyfriend-" Felicity turned red hot, "-and to me. Why wouldn't you tell this gentlecolt all about your dear mentor?"
Managing to get control over her emotions, and the fact that Klon hadn't denied the whole boyfriend thing, Felicity shot her patented "I-will-get-you-after-this" look at Celesita. But Celestia just relished Felicity's reactions.
"It's fine Princess," Klon said, "I'm sure it honestly slipped her mind."
Celestia looked at Felicity and raised an eyebrow, "Perhaps, my little student here does have an addled memory. For instance, this one time, when she was a filly, she had overslept and rushed to arrive to class and managed to make it in time… wearing only her pajamas."
Klondike laughed, but it was a restrained laugh, like he didn't want to embarrass Felicity but it was far too late for that.
"There was also this one time during gymnastics-" oh ponyfeathers, Felicity thought, not that story!
Quickly slipping away from the two, Felicity snuck over to the stage and looked at the cello player and did her best taxi whistle. Thankfully, the cello player saw her and Felicity raised an eyebrow and made a circle shape with her hooves, a secret signal that only they knew that would get things going.
The cellist raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Felicity nearly facehoofed. She then made a gesture with her hooves of playing a cello. Finally, she got it and motioned for the band to start playing. Oh thank goodness, she'll have to hug Octavia later.
Felicity snuck back to Celestia and Klon just in time to hear her say, "-So, there she was, soaking wet, the rubber chicken wrapped around her neck and I still had half a pie left-"
"Oh my, look, the music is back up!" Felicity interrupted, stepping between them, "Klon promised me a dance, you understand don't you princess Celestia?"
Celestia grinned but didn't say anything and just trotted away, the crowd before her parted like she were some sort of princess and not a weirdo older sister who pried into her relationship. Now then, where was she-
Wait, what did she just do?
Realization hit her like a truck as she focused on Klon who smiled and held her hooves ready to dance. Her coat turned redder than physically possible as she realized what she- no, what Celestia did. She planned the entire thing to get Felicity to muster up the courage to dance with Klondike?
Looking around, she tried to spot the princess but she was long gone.
"You okay?" Klon asked.
She wanted to say "Yes, perfectly fine," but it came out like, "Uh duh."
He laughed, "All right then, shall we dance?"
Felicity was drowning in this moment. Liquid happiness poured into her bloodstream and made her feel bubbly yet freezing at the same time, a mosh pit of butterflies decided to organize themselves into rioting against her stomach, she felt lightheaded and could barely hear anything. This was the happiest day of her life-
"AHHHHHH!!"
A blood-curdling scream tore through the quiet ambiance as an explosion shattered Felicity's world. From the main entrance a strange creature stood with a wicked grin on his face.
"The party has been cancelled on account of inclement weather!"
It was a huge, eight foot tall machine that stood bipedal with strange things where its hooves should be. No; they were hands like on monkeys except they had opposable thumbs. Where the head should have been was a huge dome and within it was a pony grinning madly. The machine must have controlled temperature or something because it was suddenly freezing, at its feet the ground became solid ice.
Ponies everywhere began to scream and scattered, but Felicity just felt really ticked off.
"Fleece, run!" Klon cried.
She stopped herself from rolling her eyes and managed to say, "I'll meet you outside, get out of here!"
Klon didn't want to leave Felicity alone, that much was obvious from the look in his eyes, but the pony super-villain made it difficult to argue. Raising his hands, he aimed for Felicity and a heartbeat later a huge blue mist shot out and directed itself toward her.
Thinking quick, Felicity pushed Klon out of the way and, using the momentum of that push, rolled backward. The mist connected with the ground and froze it instantly.
Great, he can freeze things.
"Klon! Get out! I'll be fine!" Felicity yelled.
He looked torn but ran out of here like she ordered. Felicity stood and faced the villain.
"So, what do they call you?" she asked, still peeved at him for ruining her date.
"Freezer Burn," he answered, his voice sounded like he was speaking inside a fishbowl which he kind of was, "And who are you little mare?"
"Irrelevant."
Freezer Burn shot out another ray of ice at Felicity but Flair stepped in front of her, holding a table. It froze the table, protecting them momentarily; Flair looked at Felicity with annoyance, "Why aren't you changed yet? This table is getting really cold!"
"I got it, just distract him for me."
"Distract?"
"Yes."
"Oh, ponyfeathers..."
He threw the table at Freezer Burn and, as expected, he destroyed the table; but Flair was very light on his hooves. Ending up right in front of Freezer Burn, Flair slammed his shoulder against his dome, hoping to crack it, but it didn't do anything but stun him.
Jumping over Flair's body, Mare Do Well, in full costume, drop kicked Freezer Burn's dome. The kick didn't do much but irritate him, so she jumped back and zip-lined up to the ceiling.
Flair, having helped with Felicity's entrance, hid in the shadows and took pictures of the epic battle.
"Ha! Mare Do Well!" Freezer Burn cried, "What are you doing so far away from Manehattan? What's wrong? They don't like you anymore?"
"Dude, shut up," Felicity snapped, “You just ruined my date with a really cute colt. Do you know how long it took for me to put on that dress? Hours! So, I’ll give you one chance: surrender, and there won’t be a fight, or… well, you don’t want to know the second option…”
On any normal day, Mare Do Well wouldn’t be this talkative. She was stoic, aloof and tough, holding the image of a dark strong and silent heroine rather than a chatter mouth. But, this was personal, her complaints may have been whiny but it really did take hours to put on that dress.
Freezer Burn froze the air in front of him, creating a huge iceball. Grappling it, he threw it at Felicity who dodged and attached herself to another part of the ceiling. Now hanging upside down, despite her hat staying perfectly on her head, Felicity grinned under her mask, "I was hoping you'd pick that option."
She pressed a button on her belt and the bomb she planted on Freezer Burn's dome exploded, shattering and destroying his protective glass bubble.
In a blind fury, Freezer Burn shot out more ice but Felicity dodged and weaved past the beams before somersaulting and landing in front of him. He slapped his wrists together and aimed his hands downward at Felicity.
Pressing a button on her belt, two wires came out, shooting and attaching themselves on his hands; she pulled on the wire and caused his hands to be tugged at the ground so that his arms now formed an "X".
The ice shot out and froze his feet. Felicity leapt high in the air and neatly, and swiftly, drop-kicked Freezer Burn from inside the dome.
The Canterlot Royal Guard took charge in arresting Freezer Burn, real name Frosty, and taking his exo-skeleton to the Canterlot University for research and reverse engineering. Felicity would do that just fine in her hide-out; she had already taken a full body scan of the suit, so it probably won't take long to figure it out.
The Captain of the Royal Guard, White Knight, finished up the crime scene.
"You know," he said to nopony in particular, "There's no need to hide. You're no longer wanted, remember?"
Felicity stepped out of the shadows, "Sorry, force of habit."
Her voice was slightly altered to sound a bit deeper, it was still feminine, but it was a tougher voice, nothing like her high-pitched, girly voice.
"This is the fourth one this week alone," White Knight remarked, "These new super-villains show up in their weird outfits and fancy machinery. It is unsettling, to be honest."
"They're getting creative, but are still dim." None of the super-villains she's faced has been difficult, they were all just really dumb ponies in really nice outfits, "But they aren't important. Have you any news on Firebrand?"
Firebrand was the representative for the Sun Dragon family; he was the eldest and toughest dragon of that family; he was mean, ruthless and snored a lot when he slept. There were rising tensions between the dragons and the diamond dogs about fair share of loot. The dragons essentially wanted more territory so that they could find and hoard more jewels, but the territory they want happens to be in the diamond dog caves.
Naturally, the diamond dogs were more than annoyed at the dragons insisting on pushing in on their turf. Princess Celestia was trying to mediate the situation, since all of this is still in the jurisdiction of Equestria, but Firebrand wasn't listening.
This conflict may escalate into all-out war.
"No, but there will be a meeting on the summer solstice to discuss it. Hopefully, things won't turn sour." White Knight turned to look at the ice created by Freezer Burn, "But, uh, what do you think about this Freezer Burn character? Why do you think he-"
He turned to see Mare Do Well gone.
"She needs to stop that..."
The metropolis, Cloudsdale, was an impressive sight. It was near the small town Ponyville and was up literally in the clouds. The city, although looks smaller on the outside, was massive within. Despite Celestia's rule over Equestria, her jurisdiction is often overlooked within Cloudsdale as it remains a quasi-independent city-state. There was a mayor, elected yearly, and there was a small central government.
This independence from the monarchy was due to the struggling relations between the pegasi race and Celestia back when Cloudsdale was formed. The founder, Cloud Dale, didn't want the pegasi to be reliant on Princess Celestia, and wanted to branch off to form his own country.
Thankfully, however, Celestia managed to calm him down and produced a compromise. She would assist with the creation of a cloud based city, the first of its kind, and would promise that she would not interfere with what goes on in Cloudsdale, so long as they don't interfere with business in all of Equestria.
Since then, the rules have been bent slightly where her jurisdiction in Cloudsdale is more relaxed, but the relationship between Equestria and Cloudsdale is still the same as it was from when the city was formed.
Cloudsdale had grown as a city and became a great place for pegasi. They are one of the major weather manufacturers in all of Equestria and the biggest sports center as well. The best fliers in all of Equestria generally come from Cloudsdale, and they all start in Junior Speedsters School of Fliers.
One of them in particular happens to be a very talented flier, if not a little lazy.
The alarm clock rang with its screeching frequency and obnoxious cadence. It went by nearly unnoticed however as it rang for minutes, unabated by pony interference until, finally, the door opened. A tall pegasus with a dark coat, curly, yet messy, blue mane, a thick mustache and a black thundercloud for a cutie mark, stood at the door, unimpressed at his daughter's exceptional talent in sleeping through the alarm.
Trotting calmly over the mess strewn over the floor, he approached the bed with its single inhabitant; Cloud Chaser.
He reached over the bed to silence the alarm clock, and tapped the lump underneath the covers. An exhausted groan and complaint came from the pony wrapped up in her covers.
He rolled his eyes. "Cloud Chaser, I've got chocolate-chip muffins!"
Instantly, Cloud Chaser sat up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. "I'll take twenty!"
Cloud Chaser was a young filly, a little small for pegasus her age, but she had a rough and tumble personality to match her looks. Her mane was light blue and straight though it was choppy and looked like it was cut by scissors or a rogue lawnmower; her tail was shorter than average. Her white coat gleamed in the light and that excited look in her eyes made her look like a foal.
She looked at her dad and around the room, the realization that there would be no muffins hit her and a huge frown creased her features.
She tried to get back into bed, but her dad pulled the covers back and she tumbled to the ground; her butt in the air, showing off her cloud-in-motion cutie mark, as she fights her tenacious bed sheets.
"C.C.," he said. "You've got to get up, you have a race today."
Trying to untangle herself from the covers, Cloud just groaned. "Ugh, but dad! I don't want to go! The other pegasi are so slow!"
Her overconfidence was her greatest downfall. Cloud Chaser was an immensely talented flier, top of her class but she has a big ego and tends to look down on other pegasi because they aren't as fast, or as talented, as her. She generally refuses races these days because of the lack of competition, though her father, Thunder Cloud, wanted her to keep going with this possible career.
As a filly, Cloud Chaser had aspired greatly to be like her mom, a Wonderbolt, Equestria's greatest band of fliers. She trained so hard as a flier and got through on talent and ability, she has high hopes and a lot of pegasi are looking to draft her on teams.
But, that changed quickly after her mom…
"Come on, you were always talking about being the best flier in all of Equestria," he coaxed. "How are you going to be the best if you can't even beat your old man down the stairs?"
Cloud looked at him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. Thunder Cloud wasn't a very fast flier, he wouldn't beat Cloud in a long-distance race, but he was still talented, that's how he landed his wife, Cirrus Tempest, in the first place.
They have raced before, Cloud has never been able to beat her dad, and every chance she got she challenged him to a race. In fact, the only thing she liked more than chocolate-chip muffins was a good challenge.
"Oh yeah?" she got up, her wings fluttering, anxious to fly. "We'll see about that!"
Quick as thought, she took off and flew out of the door and down the stairs. Thunder Cloud was right behind her, however. Her first costly mistake, her start-up didn't offer enough momentum, she's certainly fast but undisciplined.
The staircase was incredibly narrow, and wouldn't offer enough room for the two pegasi. Cloud took that advantage and tried to push Thunder into the wall. Quickly, he maneuvered upward and flew overhead. Cloud nearly slammed herself into the wall but recovered just in time to see her dad gain the lead. He dove downward and began flying in front of her; she tried to catch up accelerating to her top speed
Unfortunately, the staircase wasn't long enough. At the last moment, Thunder curved left and into the kitchen while Cloud crashed into the ground, flipping head over hooves and slammed into the ceiling before crumbling to the ground.
Thunder stood by the kitchen, the undisputed winner, while Cloud nursed her headache.
"See? If you can't beat an old pegasus like me, you probably have no chance with the Wonderbolts," he joked.
Cloud stood up. "Please, once the Wonderbolts see me race, they'll be begging for me to join!"
He shrugged. "And how do you expect them to see you, if you never race?"
"Fine!" she screeched. "I'll just go, beat them all, and be back in time for lunch!"
Before she could go flying out of the house, however, Thunder stopped her by pinning her tail with his hoof.
"First, however, comes breakfast."
As they ate a delicious breakfast, Thunder had quietly reconsidered his options to move. He was part of the Pegasus Defense Squad and was a highly decorated police officer during his time spent there. Though he loved his job and Cloudsdale, he was recently offered a new position in Manehattan as police commissioner.
Manehattan was a nice place, he had lived there before, but he didn't know if Cloud wanted to move there. When he told her, she responded with idle indifference. He asked about her friends and if she would miss them, but she curtly responded with, "Friends? What friends?"
He sighed. Thunder knew about her reputation in school, as the top flier in her class, she often had a lot of… harsh critics that didn't like her style. She was a loner, didn't enjoy associating with anyone slower than her. He knew that with her personality, she would get into fights, those bruises from "practice" didn't convince him at all.
What would you have done Temp? He wondered, she was better with this than he was.
"Yo, dad, hello~" she called, snapping him out of his thoughts. "I said I'm done. Can we go now?"
He blinked, and looked at her plate, it was spotless. She did make everything into a race, after all.
"Yeah, let's go."
Thunder left his breakfast nearly untouched; he would grab something to eat along the way.
They flew over the city together, careful not to go to high and interrupt the workers reconstruction the city hall. Over the town square, everything looked amazing and nearly immaculate as the buildings that shined with a strange marble quality loomed over everything. Pegasi trotted around the square, conversing and just generally having a good time enjoying the beautiful weather.
Cloud Chaser recounted her days of school as they flew.
"You should've seen it, Zig-Zag tripped over himself and crashed right into the yellow paint! Ahaha! He couldn't get that off for the entire day, we called him Trippy The Flying Chicken!"
"Now Cloud," Thunder said, in his best father voice. "You shouldn't be making fun of anypony like that."
Cloud pouted. "But dad, it was funny!"
"That doesn't matter. You wouldn't want somepony making fun of you like that?"
She scoffed, turning away. "I'm faster than anypony my age anyways. It's not like they have a lot of material on me."
"And that's another thing. It is okay to be a confident flier, but it is important to stay humble."
Cloud looked at him with a strange expression, like he suddenly morphed into a changeling. "What do you mean humble? It is true that I'm the fastest flier west of Canterlot. You always told me to stay true to myself, and this is me!"
She flew in front of him, body extended out to show her entire self. It made Thunder's heart ache, she looked exactly like Tempest.
"The best flier in a hundred years!"
"Not exactly the most humble of fliers. You can't go around thinking you're the best, however, because there is always somepony better than you."
Thunder flew past her and continued down to the Cloudsdale Stadium. Cloud rolled her eyes, she knew for a fact that there wouldn't be a flier than could match her. All of the best fliers came from Cloudsdale, and she had beaten nearly all of them.
Cloudsdale stadium was originally built upon the city's founding. It was intended for Iron Pony competitions, but, due to the lack of variety amongst the competitors it was later converted into a general sports stadium. All of Cloudsdale's major races take place here, and this one is a doozy.
It isn't exactly the Pony 500, but this race determines which pegasus will be drafted by the Wonderbolts and move on to their special training camp in Fillydelphia.
All pegasi, young and old, would participate in this race after a grueling preliminary that weed out thousands of potentials. As mentioned, Cloud is the fastest pegasus to date but not the most stylish. She only barely got through the preliminary due to how she broke the personal best in one of the races.
The stadium fills three hundred thousand pegasi and today shows no exception in seating. By the time they had arrived, the preparations for this race was nearly complete. Coming in through the entrance, Thunder had to weave through thick crowds to see Pin Point, the pegasus who managed to get Cloud into this race.
"Sorry we're late!" Thunder called through the deafening cheers from the audience.
"Late?!" he screeched. "You guys nearly gave me a cornea!"
"I don't think you know what that is..." muttered Cloud.
"And you!" he pointed an angry hoof at Cloud. "Do you know how much I would've lost if you hadn't showed up! You are so lucky you're fast! Now then, go, go, get ready, it's starting soon!"
Thunder got a nice little VIP booth that overlooked the entire racetrack. It would only be three laps, but they are the fastest laps in all of Equestria. There are hundreds upon thousands of cameras fixed at the racers, to make sure they catch every moment. Back in the old days, before all of this technology, figuring out who won the race often ended in very… violent disputes.
The racers lined up on the cloudy start line; twenty in total. Cloud Chaser lined up at the very last one, it was very amusing watching her stand right next to twenty older pegasi; she looked like an ant next to an elephant.
"And here we have Cloud Chaser," one of the commentators said. "The youngest pegasus racing today, and I gotta tell you Big Brown, you gotta see her race to believe it!"
"I agree Eclipse," chimed Brown. "You wouldn't think that this little filly would have it in her to compete next to semi- and professional racers. But she certainly has something the other racers don't: tenacity."
On the televisions, and the jumbo screens, the screens switched from the racetrack to an old picture of a Wonderbolt. It was one of a mare, with fiery red hair, bright purple eyes, and a wide grin on her face.
"It also doesn't hurt that her mother was Cirrus 'Lightning Bolt' Tempest, a famous Wonderbolt and extraordinarily talented flier, one Cloudsdale hasn't seen in years."
Thunder winced at the picture of Tempest, it was odd seeing a young picture of her and it hurt the fact that he saw her again in these circumstances. He noticed that Cloud wasn't paying any attention to the screens, preferring to focus on the race at hoof, which was one of the good aspects of her personality; her concentration was laser-like if she got into it.
To Cloud this was a simple flyby around the playground. It was always a game to her, never anything serious or dramatic. There was never a need to overly complicate things; all she needed to do was to focus and to put her mind elsewhere.
"Make it into a game!" her mom once said. "Life isn't very fun if you make everything so serious and boring. If you make anything into little games, it would be easier and fun!"
Her mom could make anything better. Her smile, the way she hugged Cloud, it was nostalgic and made her chest ache. She just wanted to see her one more time to…
BANG!
Snapping out of her daydream, Cloud realized that the race had commenced! Losing two seconds already, Cloud was at an incredible disadvantage; snapping into action, Cloud took off.
The wind in her mane, the exhilarating rush that her body experienced was intoxicating. Any pegasus would fall in love with this sensation, the speed and hype was enough to get anypony drunk on their own ability.
"Concentrate," her mother said. "If you get caught up in your own feelings, you'll be tumbling head over wings."
Cloud calmed herself quickly, she needed to focus on her technique, her flawless turns. The first turn was coming up quickly and usually she would have to slow down to corner the turn perfectly, but, in this case, she needed to wing it; no pun intended.
She accelerated into the turn, coming up behind the 19th placed racer, turned her entire body to its side, and flapped her wings as hard as she physically could. This maneuver, if done correctly, would get her to side-step the corner instead of flying all the way around it. She managed the turn, narrowly avoiding crashing into the other pegasus, and at the same time moved up from 20th place to 10th.
It would be a straight shot to the second turn and she used her little maneuver again to ace it, jumping from 10th to 4th. Great, now she has a chance. She could hear the crowd cheer over the wind and her wings, it made her a little happy but she shoved those feelings aside; there will be time for celebration later.
Cloud accelerated to her top speed. Her lightweight body that was toned from years of training and her wing power is what pushed her position from 4th to 1st in only a few seconds. The crowd roared excitingly as she took the lead, and made her grin, why not give these ponies a show?
She let her hooves touch the clouds and, while maintaining her speed, she began to trot while flying.
"The Super Sonic Strut?" Eclipse mused. "Cloud isn't going to win any style points in a speed race."
"That's right, if she doesn't straighten up, she'll easily lose first place."
But, despite how dangerous this is both to her body and to the race, she continued showboating. It was both to please the crowd and to show just who the best flier in this race really was. She turned to look at the racers who didn't seem pleased at her cockiness.
The second turn came up faster than expected and she was barely able to adjust her stance. Nearly tripping over her hooves, Cloud stumbled over the corner and managed the turn… but lost first place as a result.
She was knocked all the way back to third place, the crowd collectively groaned at how easily she lost the lead. Cloud grimaced, she wouldn't lose to these washed up pegasi.
As easily as before, she caught up to those ponies and left them in the dust. Easily distancing herself from everypony, Cloud had an insultingly large lead. She flew so fast that she was partially deaf at that point, unable to hear everything around her.
Two laps later, Cloud had won; as expected.
In the winners' circle, Cloud was given her medal and trophy while being interviewed.
"The youngest pegasus to win this race," Eclipse remarked. "Tell me, how does that feel?"
She grinned proudly but much too arrogantly. "Frankly, not much. These types of accolades don't mean much to a pegasus of my caliber, anypony could achieve them if they had a fourth of my talent. I only got down to this race to see if there was anypony here that could compete with me."
She looked down at the line of racers who glared daggers at her, and, with a scoff, she said, "Sadly, there isn't anypony here. But who knows, maybe I'll find somepony down in Manehattan!"
Seething, the pegasi tried to make a nasty remark but over the symphony of camera shutters and reporters shouting questions, it was inevitably drowned out. Cloud said nothing more and strutted off the podium and toward the exit, where she met up with her dad.
"A bit much, don't you think?" he asked.
"If getting beat by a filly gets them this mad, maybe they'll come back with some actual talent."
