Skyfire

It was an average sunny day in Ponyville. Everyone was out and about running errands. I was up on a cloud, just getting ready to take my usual afternoon nap. I laid down and gave into the warm darkness of sleep. It was not long before I was aroused by a voice calling to me from below.

“Rainbow Dash! Hey, Rainbow Dash! I know you’re up there!” An orange pegasus filly with a magenta mane and tail, I swear she dyed them to be the same color of my eyes, stared up at me intently.

I sighed audibly before answering, “Yeah. I’m here. What do you want, Squirt?” I looked down at her again and saw her holding back a chuckle. She almost always laughed when I called her that. When she was done, she looked back up at me.

“I got tickets to the Wonderbolts Airshow later! Want to come?” She asked, looking directly at me with her huge purple eyes.

“Sure, Squirt. Why not? We’ll go together, alright?” I replied and, not waiting for her to answer, continued, “Alright, Squirt. Go get ready and find me at least 10 seconds before the show. See ya, Scootaloo!” As she ran off to get ready, I fell back into the serene reverie of sleep.

•               •               •

“Rainbow Dash! Get up! We’re gonna be late!” Scootaloo called up to me, waking me from a rather amusing dream that included Derpy jumping off a cliff and briefly forgetting how to use her wings.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m working on it. How long before the show?” I asked as I stood and stretched my wings.

“30 seconds.” Scootaloo replied. I could tell she looked worried.

“Well then, hop on.” I flew down to the ground and crouched low enough next to her that she could climb onto my back.

“Wait. You want me to climb on your back? You want to fly with me?” Scootaloo’s mouth was almost touching the ground.

“Uh, yeah. That’s why I kinda told you to get on my back.” I said sarcastically, then, as an afterthought, “You don’t want to be late, do you?”

“N-no, I don’t. I-It’s j-just that I’ve n-never flown before!” She stuttered as she climbed clumsily onto my back.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll get you there in one piece.” I replied jokingly. She said nothing else as I took off into the air and headed towards Cloudsdale and the Wonderbolts Stadium.

•               •               •

We arrived at the Wonderbolts Stadium 10 seconds early. I quickly found us seats near the front and flew over. I lightly dropped Scootaloo into her seat and sat in my own. Scootaloo was breathless from the flight.

“You alright, Squirt?” I asked her, remembering how exhilarating my first time flying was.

“Y-yeah. I’ll b-be fine.” Scootaloo replied, still shaking. I stifled a laugh. ‘Yeah, that’s adrenaline for ya!’ I laughed to myself.

Our attention was stolen as the Wonderbolts began their routine. They lined up on the aerial runway that they had specially built for this singular purpose. They stood there for somewhere close to five seconds before they flashed into the sky. I watched them wide-eyed as they performed their well-known signature moves. I looked over at Scootaloo and laughed as I saw her trying to stop her jaw from falling open to no avail.

I looked back into the sky as the Wonderbolts’ started performing some of their vaguer maneuvers. Then they shot into the sky and gathered into a huddle. ‘What are they doing?’ I wondered to myself as they slowly maneuvered themselves into specific positions in the sky. ‘This is new.’ My thought process continued. I paid my thoughts no attention though, for the airborne ponies above me had started moving.

They all dove towards the center of the stadium with Spitfire, their captain, in the center and going straight down. Soarin was right in front of us and Fleetfoot was on the opposite side of the stadium. Blaze, Fire Streak, and High Winds were in between them on the right. Lightning Streak (Fire Streak’s twin brother), Misty Fly, and Silver Lining were in between Soarin and Fleetfoot on the left side. Rapidfire, Spitfire’s brother, was shooting up from below. Surprise was coming in from the corner to my right and above my head.

Wave Chill, Manerick and Whiplash were in the other three corners. Manerick and Whiplash were new Wonderbolts who had previously been Royal Guards. Why they quit and decided to join the Wonderbolts beats me. I could tell this was going to be awesome. Oh, I forgot to mention, there were four other Wonderbolts who must have been brand-new because I didn’t know who they were.

So anyway, they all dove towards the center at the same time. It was about the time that they were halfway there that I got a bad feeling in my gut. When I get a bad feeling in my gut, it’s either serious indigestion or my instincts warning me that something bad was about to happen. I almost jumped out of my seat when I got the gut-feeling but was luckily able to hold myself back.

I saw all of the Wonderbolts turn at the last moment and they all lightly bumped up against each other with their back hooves, using the others as their own springboard. They all flew away from each other in a brilliant explosion of fireworks and sped upwards toward the clouds except for three. I recalled more closely what I saw. ‘Spitfire did what she needed to do, but so did Soarin. One of them had to of messed up somewhe... oh.’ I thought as the realization dawned on me. ‘When Soarin came in, his body was off by a few inches. When Fleetfoot launched off him, he was thrown off balance and barreled into Spitfire.’ I only just realized it because of the fireworks. They had obscured my vision.

I flew straight up before turning around and doing a backflip to head downwards instead. I could see Spitfire’s falling form below. Soarin was following to my left and Rapidfire was to my right. ‘Why isn’t she flying back up? Oh, she’s falling backwards.’ I thought as I sped towards her. The ground was coming up fast and Pegasi can’t fly if they’re on their backs. That’s why only the fastest and most powerful Pegasi, including me, can barrel roll.

I flew as fast as I could, leaving Rapidfire and Soarin way behind. I could feel the wall of resistance building up quickly, but luckily it was building itself faster than the ground could approach. I felt the somewhat-familiar funnel of air forming around me. ‘This is it, my one chance to save Spitfire and prove myself to the Wonderbolts!’ I thought as I flew harder.

Then the funnel shattered with a massive explosion. I felt myself shoot forward like a pony cannon ball. I was going at least twice my maximum speed. I shot underneath Spitfire just before she hit the ground and caught her on my back. I flew as fast as I could back up to the stadium and the other Wonderbolts. When we finally slowed down enough for Spitfire to get off, I reluctantly let her. As soon as she got off, I stopped completely and put my hoof on her shoulder.

“You alright, Spitfire?” I asked, concerned. I figured I had a little time before Rapidfire and Soarin caught up to us.

“Yes, I’m fine. Thanks to you, Rainbow Dash.” She replied with a quick smile. I could feel myself almost bursting with an urge that I can’t explain. I suppressed it, though, and stayed calm. All I did was smile.

“Alright. Just making sure.” I started flying towards my seat but was stopped by Spitfire’s voice.

“Wait. I want to talk to you after the show, so here.” She handed me a card that had the words ‘WONDERBOLTS GUEST PASS’ written on it. I smiled so widely I could have sworn that I was grinning literally from ear to ear. “Meet me in my living quarters immediately after our grand finale.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I replied with a quick salute. I continued my slow ascent towards the stadium. I was stopped by her voice once again.

“Wait.” She smiled like she found something particularly funny. “Don’t call me ma’am, you can call me ‘Fire’, that good with you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I mean... Fire!” I replied with another salute. She couldn’t hold her laughter any longer. She burst out laughing so hard that she made me laugh. On top of that, we had to lie on a cloud for a bit to stop ourselves from recreating the previous event. During our conversation, Soarin and Rapidfire had managed to catch up to us when we were rolling around on the clouds laughing our tails off.

“What did we miss?” They both asked in unison. That just made me and Spitfire laugh even harder. Eventually, we did stop laughing. Spitfire, Soarin, Rapidfire, and I all flew up together. We were greeted by a chorus of cheers and applause. I had my breath taken away by it all. I flew back up to my seat next to Scootaloo.

“Wow! That was awesome, Rainbow Dash!” She said excitedly.

“Yeah, it was wasn’t it, Squirt?” I responded hoping to get her to laugh a little. I was actually starting to feel a little embarrassed. I know what you’re thinking. Rainbow Dash? Embarrassed? No way! But it’s true. I used to like being the center of attention, still do when it suits my interests, but I was really uncomfortable with the amount of ponies looking at me, awestruck. I was just trying to shift the attention off of me. Granted, I think now that it was a little mean to place it on Scootaloo, but it worked.

The Wonderbolts had a pretty dull show after that. They kept doing simple stuff and tricks that couldn’t get moved. They did get progressively more dangerous though. Finally, they did a huge series of different tricks as their grand finale. It was more spectacular than what happened earlier. They did the same trick that they messed up the first time again at the end and pulled it off without a hitch. I finally got to find out what happens after they fly into the clouds.

Rapidfire was the last one to fly in. As soon as they were all there, the clouds started spinning into a huge vortex. It grew longer and longer until it reached out through the bottom of the stadium. Then they began launching themselves out and hurtling downwards, one at a time. The vortex never even came close to breaking apart, that’s how good they are. By the end, it was just Spitfire holding it all together. She started twirling the clouds into a funnel around herself. She then destroyed all of the clouds simultaneously and used the resulting pressure wave to shoot straight up into the sky.

She was going so fast that I couldn’t see her in the end. When I saw her again, she was just a speck against the sun. Then she shot downwards. She went down so fast and caused so much friction with the air that she was followed down by a slowly rotating cone of fire. She shot past us and was followed by not only the fire, but now a super-heated airwave as well. Everyone in the stadium cheered a lot louder than before.

After she slowed down, all the Wonderbolts flew off to either their respective living quarters or the cafeteria. I couldn’t tell which, but I was pretty sure that all Wonderbolts are either hungry or tired after a show, sometimes both. As I stood up to leave, I remembered about Spitfire and Scootaloo. Scootaloo needed me to take her home and Spitfire wanted to talk to me in private for some reason.

I saw Soarin and Rapidfire approaching me. “Scootaloo, I’ll fly you home. Just give me a second.” I watched as she nodded to say she understood before turning back to Rapidfire and Soarin.

“Spitfire would like to see you, I assume you have a guest pass?” Rapidfire began, watching me nod. As I opened my mouth to say something, he cut me off. “And before you say anything, I would like to say that you can just call me ‘Rapid’ if you want.”

“Thank you, Rapid. Just give me a sec, alright? I gotta get this kid home.” I replied, motioning with one hoof towards the anxious young filly behind me. He nodded in understanding.

I trotted over to Scootaloo and crouched down so that she could get on. “Come on, Squirt. Let’s get you home.”