Spitfire lands next to the trainees, making half of the jump. "ATTENTION, FALL IN LINE. Some of you may think being a Wonderbolt is all fun and games. well your WRONG. Being a wonderbolt takes constant training to keep us in shape and to make sure there are no accidents while flying, such as collisions. While most pony's think were laid back awesome show pony's, they are also WRONG. As a Wonderbolt you will be the idle of thousands of filly's and colt's all around Equestria. It is our duty to keep an air of professionalism around us at all times. IS THAT CLEAR."
She is answered with a shout of "YES SIR".
"Congratulations, you have managed to not get kicked out in the first five minutes. Now before we begin I ........"
Three hours later Spitfire is surrounded by a pile of pegasi struggling to get up after a spin on the dizzytron machine. She glances oer at the only two ponies still standing, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust. Both had managed to recover from a spin and land in under seven seconds.
'Hmmmm, those two would be unstoppable together. I'll have to rearange all the teams but I think I'm going to put those two together. And with Lightning Dust leading them, hopefully she can push Dash to try harder then she already is.'
"Attention, Tomorrow we will continue training. Only this time you will all be in pairs, with one lead pony and one wing pony. I will put up a list of the pairs tomorrow morning. Until then rest up and get something to eat. It's going to be a long day tomorrow."
Spitfire takes to the air, heading for home. While flying away she can't help but look back at the mare that had been on her mind the entire day. She had managed to get through the day without to much trouble, but she couldn't stop thinking about her.
'I'm going to have to talk to her before this gets out of hand. I can't let these thoughts distract me from my work. I know! I can invite her into my office tomorrow and talk to her about.... something. I can't just tell her of my feelings for her, I'll just push her away. No, I'll have to steer the conversation, I'll ask her what she thinks about being a wonderbolt. Yea, that'll get her to open up to me.'
Lost in thought, she nearly collides with her front door before she realizes she's home. She quickly walks inside and closes the door behind her. She slips out of her cloth's and heads to the bathroom to clean up before heading out to the mess hall to grab some dinner.
After showering for the second time that day she heads off to eat. Arriving at the mess hall, she spots Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust at a table in a corner. Walking up to them she sits next to Lightning Dust.
"Hey girls, excellent flying out there today, but tomorrow is going to make today look like a walk in the park .I expect you to bring your A-game."
Lightning Dust just stares at her hero. Rainbow Dash chuckles at her friend. "Don't worry, well be ready for whatever you can throw at us."
Spitfire nods and gives Lightning Dust a smile before getting up and heading for the kitchen. She finishes her meal in solitude before heading home. Eventually she finds herself laying in her bed staring up at the ceiling.
'Great, another sleepless night. This is the last thing I need right now. UUUUUGH, I'm never going to get any sleep, I can't stop thinking about her. That's it, I've had enough of this.'
She jumps up and walks over to her desk. Picking up a quill, she begins to write a letter to her secretary. She takes one last look at it before dropping it into an enchanted slot that teleported it into the inbox on her secretaries desk. She lays back down and eventualy falls asleep. Her last thought before drifting off to unconsciousness was the name of her crush.
'Rainbow Dash......'
Spitfire walks into her office past the receptionist. Opening her door she notices Rainbow Dash standing in front of her desk. She shuts the door behind her while she walks around her desk and sits, staring into Rainbow's eyes.
"Do you know why i called you in here?" Rainbow shakes her head. "I called you in here because there is something important that must be said. I have been fighting feelings for you for awhile now but I can no longer hold them at bay. I love you."
Spitfire flinches as she says it, waiting for Rainbow's response. Rainbow stares at the wall behind Spitfire for half a minute before finally looking her in the eyes. What she says strikes deep into Spitfires heart. Rainbow Dash turns and leaves, slamming the door behind her leaving Spitfire shaking with sobs, tears staining the wooden desk. Spitfire crys harder as an emotion she hasn't felt in years boils up.......fear. She watches through her window as Rainbow Dash takes flight fading into the distance, her last words bouncing around in Spitfires head.
'Fillyfooler.......'
Spitfire slowly opens her eyes, scanning the room around her. The sun is poking through her window forcing her to close her eyes again. Rolling over, she reaches the edge of her bed and rolls onto her hooves. She opens her eyes once again, this time out of the suns glare, and heads for the bathroom. Upon reaching the sink she looks up and stares into her reflection. Her mane is flat against her head, her eyes are bloodshot, and her wings needed a lot of attention. Sighing, she jumps into the shower for a quick wash. Afterwords she grabs her mane brush and tackles her bed head, followed quickly by a quick preening of her wings. She looks at her reflection again, this time satisfied, then walks over to her closet to find a clean set of her coach outfit. After about five minutes of struggling she manages to pull her jacket on the right way, placing her hat and glasses in there rightful places on her head. "Here we go...."
Half an hour later Spitfires sitting at her desk signing autographs when there is a knock at her door. "Enter."
Rainbow Dash walks in and salutes Spitfire. "You asked to see me sir?"
Spitfire giver the pegasi at the door a stern look. "Leave us, make sure no pony disturbs us." They nod in unison and close the door behind them. Spitfire turns her attention to Rainbow. "At ease. I called you here to discuss the teams. I have decided to place you and Lightning Dust on the same team. I did this because I believe you will be unstoppable together, and because sticking either of you with another pony will only slow you down or push the other past their limits."
Rainbow Dash breaks into a huge smile. "Thanks sir, we wont disappoint you sir."
"Good. I have decided to make you wing pony."
Rainbow's smile vanishes immediatly, her eyes wide with shock. "Bu... what about my time on the dizzytron, I had the best time there. I was half a second faster then Lightning Dust."
Spitfire holds a hoof up to silence Rainbow. "I have already seen your incredible skill and speed. However, the Wonderbolts are a Team, and i have yet to see you work with others. Sure you and your friends work as a team often, but they are not a flying team. I need to know that, in your element, you can obey orders without a moments hesitation. I need to know that you are comfortable with someone bossing you around. But most of all, I need to know that you won't leave anybody behind, that you will restrain yourself. That is why Lightning Dust is lead pony."
Rainbow throws the idea around her head for a few moments before nodding. "I won't let you down sir, I'll show you that i can be relied on."
Spitfire smiles. "Good, because I would hate to see you fail because you don't work well with others. I like you Rainbow Dash, and I don't want to have to sign your fail papers. Your a great flyer and it would be tragic if we let you slip through our fingers, plus your a nice pony to be around." SpitfIre immediatly blushes after saying that, but luckily her sunglasses hid most of it.
Rainbow looks slightly confused at the last comment. "You think I'm nice to be around? Thanks, I guess. Your pretty cool to hang with too."
Spitfire senses an awkward silence approaching. "That is all, dismissed."
Rainbow Dash salutes and walks out the door, leaving Spitfire to facehood in private. 'Why did you say that you stupid filly. Now shes going to think your hitting on her.' She stops at that. 'Was I hitting on her?' She replays the encounter in her head. 'Dear Celestia, I was hitting on her. And she said I was cool. Great, now i sound like some filly with a crush, which probably isn't far from the truth.' Spitfire gets up and heads for the door. 'Time for training.'
Five hours later Spitfire finds herself back behind her desk. She had left the rookies with the job of clearing the sky of clouds. With nothing to do but finish signing photos, her mind wanders back to the conversation with Rainbow Dash. 'She seems to be taking orders well today. There were a few incident's but nothing to serious. If she keeps this up she'll be a wonderbolt in ten seconds flat. Hmmmm, why do i have the feeling that i just stole some pony's catch phrase?' She dwells on that thought for a moment before turning her thoughts back to Rainbow Dash. 'She seemed distracted today, like she was thinking about something. I wonder if our chat earlier had anything to do with that.' As is on cue, Rainbow Dash walks through the door of her office.
Spitfire notices the anger on her face. "This had better be good, your supposed to be clearing the skys."
Raimbow walks up to the desk. "We've finished with that. Lightning Dust decided to make a tornado to bust the rest of the clouds."
Spitfire looks at the clock on the wall. "Well, although that is a bit much for just busting clouds, I have to say it was inventive and very effective."
Rainbow Dash looks like she's ready to reach across the desk and smack her. "Inventive? She nearly killed my friends. Not to mention sending the other teams into spin outs earlier and dangerous flying that resulted in me bruising my wing. If this is how you treat pony's that place themselves before the safety of others, then i'm not sure I want to be a Wonderbolt." With that she tears her badge off, throwing it on the desk, and slams the door behind her.
Spitfire thought she heard a sniff from the other side of the door, but any further sounds fell on deaf ears. Spitfire was in shock. 'She quit. She just left the Wonderbolts. She just left me...' Spitfire jumps up. 'NO, I will not let her throw this away. I will not let her leave, not before she knows.' She runs for the door, shedding her jacket and hat, shehad left her sunglasses on the desk. Flying out the door she spots Rainbow Dash at the edge of the training camp. Flapping for speed Spitfire reaches her just before she straps her saddlebags on. She tackles the rainbow maned mare off the edge of the cloud.
Rainbow's eyes go wide in shock as Spitfire wraps her forelegs around her. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"
Spitfire smiles. "This...." She closes her eyes and kisses her crush. Rainbow Dash is to stunned to open her wings. Somewhere in the back of her hear something is screaming at her to stop the fall, but she can't tear her gaze away from flame maned mare currently making out with her. Eventually she closes her eyes and returns the kiss, giving up every care in the world. She wraps her legs around the yellow mare, deepening the kiss.
Spitfire smiles inside when she feels the legs around her tighten. Opening her eyes, she sees just how close to the ground they were and opens her wings, flapping enough to slow their decent as they neared a cloud. Landing, she finally breaks the kiss, nuzzling the cyan mare. "I love you Rainbow." She looks into the mares eyes, waiting for a response. She seems to be toying with the idea. Finally she answers.
"I really like you, but I don't know if it's love."
Spitfire nods, crestfallen. Shes taken aback at the next words.
"But, I'm not afraid to find out."
Spitfire smiles and nuzzles the mare. "That's ok. We will discover that together." They sit next to each other and stare off into the distance, both perfectly content to just sit there with each other, not a worry in the world...
Author's Note
This chapter was written in the same amount of time it took to write the previous two, which is partially due to the fact that it is midnight and my arm is killing me. I really hope you enjoyed this ship. I sure did. The above picture was my inspiration and original cover art, but to try to preserve the "secret" I opted for the current art and decided to add this at the end.
Spitfire awakes to hear birds chirping in the warm spring morning. The sun is up, the skys are clear, and the air is fresh. Nopony could be sad on this day, right? RIGHT?! Spitfire groans and pulls her cloud pillow over her head, trying to shut the outside world out.
'Why can't she talk to me without going catatonic. I just wish she would forget I'm a wonderbolt and talk to me like a friend.'
Spitfire squeezes the cloud pillow, wringing it dry of all her tears it had soaked up during the night. After a few more minutes of self pity she finally decides to get up and face the day. She walks over to her closet and don's her coaching outfit. Walking over to the mirror she notices how much of a mess she was. Deciding to clean up before leaving, she removes her coaching outfit and walks into the bathroom to shower.
After a quick shower and mane brushing she don's her cloaths once again and leaps through her window, heading for the training camp. The entire way there she couldn't stop thinking about the mare of her dreams. She had finally gotten permission from the princess to send her an invintation to the Wonderblots training camp.
'Maybe i can get her to stay calm around me long enough to talk to her. She's a wonderful flyer and can do some amazing tricks, shes just to starstruck around me. It makes it incredable hard to get to know her, her strengths, weaknesses, what she likes in a marefr... NO, bad Spitfire. UUUGH, WHY do crushes have to be so strong. It's going to be almost impossible to think straight around her today.'
As Spitfire approaches the training camp she notices the trainees already standing around. She knew she was late but she didn't think she was THAT late.
'Well, lets get this over with'
She takes a huge breath and dives for the camp....
