Prologue: Skyboarding to Snowboarding
Rockies Mountain Range
8,000m above Whitehorn Mountain
Canada
Thousands of meters above the ground and sea level, a lone Mi-8 helicopter chops through the freezing cold air above the Rocky Mountains. The entire world was painted in white and black and the air was cold at this altitude. But this Mi-8 was able to provide it's passengers with pressurized air for whoever sat in the back.
This Mi-8 was also very special, it was coloured completely in a bright blue paintjob, with the nose a nice amber. The helo also had no markings whatsoever, but twirled through the sky as if the pilot didn't care. Speaking of the pilot, at the controls of this bird was a bright blue griffon male by the name of Gallus. But he preferred to be called Bluebird when in the air.
And in the hold of his helicopter, was 9 of the best snowboarders in Equestria. All of them best friends, former rivals and even some famous names. Crowded into the back, was the newest and freshest snowboarding team in the world. They called themselves Equestria Extreme Snowboarding, or Team EXS for short. And they were all ready for some extreme training.
They knew how to snowboard and knew some basic tricks, but if they were going to be able to do what they had planned for and pull off some massive tricks, they needed to learn that. Thankfully, there was nothing a little skyboarding wouldn't fix. But to call this group of 9 ponies a team was to be an fatal mistake at this moment.
For there was tension so thick in this helicopter... one could cut it with an ice axe. The main cause of this was definitely the rift between Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust. Yes, both of the fastest pegasi in Equestria were on this team. But then again, after a certain incident involving a tornado at the Wonderbolts Academy, these two had some bad blood between them.
"Somepony tell why this danger-loving and forethought-lacking fool of a pegasus is in this chopper with me?" Dash coldly said, eyeing up her former wingpony with a death stare. Dust shot back with her own stare.
"Did you see the title of this group? It has extreme in it. And extreme is my forte, not yours. I'm just as amazed as you are that you're here. I thought that you would be too chicken to even think about doing this," She retorted, not helping the situation at all.
Spitfire didn't take kindly to that at all and fired back at her former recruit. "Listen, the Wonderbolts have standards. It's what makes us professional. And I was not going to have that violated by a trouble-making dumbass named Lightning Dust,"
This really set off the fire, as Dash pointed and laughed at her rival. "Look, Captain Useless, I respect your authority, but I will fucking stab you if you make another comment like that!" Dust snapped back. This really got Spitfire riled up, as she stood up to challenge her former cadet. Applejack also got up to restrain the pegasus from beating seven tons of shit out of Dust.
"Geez, you three bicker more than old married couple!" A white unicorn mare with a green and blue mane and tail, emerald green eyes gazing upon the three bickering pegasi with amusement. "I thought we were all supposed to get along, not try to strangle each other to death!"
"Stay out of this, Neon!" Dash snapped at her.
Neon just laughed at this. Man, she always enjoyed a little bit of tension. As long as it wasn't too much.
"Will you four knock it off!!" A red pegasus with a prismatic orange and blue mane and tail and bright orange eyes spoke up, getting all of their attentions. "I'd rather not have you three embarrass yourselves on a live feed being watched by thousands of eager fans. It would look bad for our press image."
Rainbow took a moment to ignore her bitterness towards Lightning and glared at the crimson pegasus instead.
"Viral, I've got bigger problems than that and you should know that. She's a liability. If she doesn't get us killed, she's gonna get herself killed. You don't want that, trust me," Dash tried to reason.
But Viral was unwilling to back down and instead played her trump card. "I brought her on because she's just reckless enough to be useful. If you have a problem with that, then I can find some other pony with your skillset and I’m telling you now Dash, there are a lot of pegasi that would love to have this opportunity. Or are you willing to put that aside for the sake of a little fame and fun?"
"Did somepony say fun?" Pinkie peeked out from the co-pilot seat to get ready for the drop, a massive smile plastered on her face.
Dash groaned at Pinkie. "Ngh, sometimes I worry about you Viral. I do like you, don't get me wrong. But being her daughter makes you a bit blind to her problems."
"Oh, bite me!" Dust snapped at her, before a glare from Viral shut her up.
"Dash, every pony here was picked for a specific reason. If you can set aside grudges for some time, I'll make sure she's under control. Besides, we do have some safety measures in place to make sure we don't suffer too much," Viral stated, easing their tensions a bit.
"Viral is right," A black and red unreformed changeling agreed, placing down the board wax he was coating his board with, "All of you are the only ones brave enough, crazy enough and daring enough to conquer these mountains. But the only way we are going to do this is if we do this as a team, so there is no use continually locking horns with one another,"
"Ah reckon Akula has a point Rainbow." Applejack stated, agreeing with the changeling’s words.
"Ugh, fine. But if I'm gonna tolerate her I want to at least have a good time. That is what this is all about yeah?" Dash finally gave in. Dust and Spitfire also backed down and got even more calm.
"Oh no worries Sheila, good times will be had." Neon confirmed, easing Rainbow’s worries.
"Some more than others." A red pegasus stallion with a brown mane and matching eyes spoke up, winking at Viral. Dean had been eyeing the conversation, waiting for the pegasi’s bickering to die off before he made his move.
"See Rainbow, we all have... ponies we would rather avoid." Viral stated, finally acknowledging that she had accepted a stallion that she would rather not be in close proximity with for reason involving his lips and other areas.
"Well I'm kind of glad Dean is here." Rainbow added, having been friends with the British pony for some time.
"As am I, he's pretty chill." Lightning continued, having hung out with Dean when they raced together.
"I'll admit, he is a pretty well cultured stallion." Spitfire noted, having been a recipient of the stallions' well displayed mannerisms and also having been where he lived.
Viral banged her head against her board. "Please Luna no." She whispered to herself, just wanting him to stop trying to kiss her.
This little moment was then interrupted by Gallus. "Alright, team. We are approaching the drop zone. Let's get some flying hours in. Ramp is coming down in 5."
Akula stood up, board firmly gripped in his red changeling magic. "Alright, let's get this over and done with. Stunt some tricks and be back at base in time for hot chocolate."
"I'll make it!" Pinkie shouted, grabbing her board.
Neon and Viral grabbed theirs as well, both wanting to get to work as quickly as possible for far different reasons. Dean also got his together and tried to get close to Viral, to which Viral shifted around the white unicorn. Neon casted a smirk towards her friend, and swung her head around to kiss her fellow Brit. Dean's heart swooned and he giggled sheepishly, a blush appearing on his fur.
“Little nervous there V?” She asked knowingly.
“You love messing with others, Neon, but you’re one hell of a rider.” Viral replied.
“It’s why I’m here.” Neon smiled knowingly.
Applejack finally got away from Rainbow to make sure she had everything together. Rainbow met Lightning’s gaze, to which Lightning simply rolled her eyes.
Dust took this moment to speak with her rival. “You know what Dash, I don’t know about you but I got over what happened at the academy long ago. I’ve got my own life to live, and…” she nodded her head in the direction of Viral. “...a foal that did a lot of good for me. Believe me I wanted to kick you and Miss Sunglasses out of a moving truck back then…”
Spitfire took said sunglasses and adjusted them above her glaring eyes, Lightning barely acknowledged the death stare.
“But I’m done letting the past bother me…” She grabbed her board and began to move over to the others.
Rainbow’s expression softened a little, but she didn’t say much as she moved over to her closest friends on the ride in Applejack and Pinkie. Spitfire also finally got ready as they reached their drop altitude.
All of the ponies gathered around the rear ramp, boards in hooves and snowboarding goggles over their eyes (except for Spitfire), feeling the helo come to a halt in the air. They also turned on their bluetooth ear pieces, so they could keep in communication with one another and Bluebird while speeding down the mountains they were racing on.
"Alright, here we are! Ramp is coming down!"
The griffon lowered the rear ramp, exposing the elements to the group. And the high speed winds stung against Akula's exposed skin and was almost deafening. But thanks to the ear pieces, they were still able to hear one another.
"It's go time!" Viral cried out, as Akula sprinted towards the open ramp. All of the others followed them, jumping out and into the air above. The wind rushed against their exposed fur and wings as they grabbed their boards and connected them to their back hooves with the special magnets on the boards.
Diving through the air, all of the ponies began to work on some tricks, while under the watchful gaze of Bluebird. They all started with the basic grabs and tweaks. Slowly learning their way around board tricks was a bit of fun for all of them, especially learning more advanced grabs with separate hooves on separate sides of the board.
But only after they learnt all that, their hooves started to glow with blue light. When they started pulling the tricks again, they looked different. They looked, well... Tricky. But by the goddesses, did they look awesome! So, they learnt all of the new 'Uber Tricks', as they called them.
And they were having quite some fun with this. But it only got better from there. All of a sudden, their hooves began to glow in a golden light and a very familiar song began to blare into their ears. Now, all their tricks were even more epic! The boards were as far away from their bodies as they could get during the tricks and all of them were absolutely complex and absolute eye candy to those watching. These would be their 'Super Uber' tricks. But also, they needed something to make sure their runs stood out. They needed a trick unique to them. They needed a 'Signature Uber'.
So, they did just that. Started making their own trick for just themselves. And many of them were out of this world. But of all the tricks, Pinkie had the most unique one. Viral was soon to figure this out when she saw Pinkie fly past her without her board anywhere near her.
"Ummmmm... Pinkie? Where is your board?" Viral questioned the pink pony, stopping herself from crying out.
"My board?" Pinkie questioned, reaching a hoof into her mane. She fiddled about with it, before pulling her board out of her mane. "It's right here, you silly!" She giggled, as she pulled on the straps and opened up her wingsuit.
It was at that point Viral remember why she did that. When they had felt that they had done enough skyboarding, they would either spread their wings (if they were a pegasus) or deploy their wingsuit (if they didn't have wings of their own). Pinkie was the first to finish, Akula following suit right behind her. Then, one by one, all of the team then had enough and began to fly.
"Alright, time for some snowboarding!" Akula told the others, "Follow me!" He then dived down towards the mountain, the team following suit and Gallus keeping a close watch from his heli. Soon enough, they got close to the start of the training route, clearly marked by two yellow flares.
"Board, meet snow!" Akula cried out, as he tucked away his wingsuit and landed on powdery snow. All of the others followed soon after and snowboard training was well underway. Finally, all of the ponies were now carving down the mountain, learning how to grind on some bright red rails, how to keep combos alive with nose and tail presses while on the ground and how to even somehow use some form of magic to boost while on the ground or even on a rail.
But even better, all of the ponies got to experience the blue and golden glows and pulled off some amazing moves. For the adrenaline-loving Dash, Dust and Spitfire, this was absolutely fantastic! The speed, the tricks, the danger. It was like nothing they had ever felt before!
Soon, Akula reached the bottom of the run and skidded to a stop. Of course, he was the first to reach the bottom. He was the one with the most snowboarding experience. He knew this route very well. Close behind was Dash and then Dust. Soon, everyone was at the bottom of the run and now all fully pumped up.
Dash walked up to the changeling and patted him on the back with vigor. "Wow, you weren't joking. That was unreal, magical even. I just... felt cooler when that glow took over. It was just like you said," She told the changeling and she wasn't lying. That simple ride down the mountain made her feel so good.
"Hehehe, I just knew you love this," Akula stated with a giggle.
Dust approached the two. "I hate to say this, but I have to agree with Rainbow Crash here. That was awesome! Those bands of light... made me feel so damn cool and extreme!"
"Not to mention the song that kicked in when we went gold," Dean mentioned, as he picked up his board.
This prompted Pinkie to start singing the song out loud, jumping about and popping up in places that she shouldn't before Viral eventually stopped her with a hoof to the mouth. "I thought I was supposed to be the musical one here," She joked, sending Pinkie into a laughing and snorting fit.
"Alright, get your flanks onboard before I leave you here," Gallus interrupted, having landed his Mi-8 to pick up the team and take them back to base camp. Akula lead the group back on board and the griffon proceeded to take off, hoping to make it back to camp in time for some of Pinkie's special hot cocoa.
