Your Incriminating Possessions

Why wait for something to happen, when you can make it happen!?

-Rainbow Dash

The glass stood alone and resolute on the countertop, its murky brown contents still swirling slowly. Suddenly, the assault commenced. Two hooves gripped it by the sides and lifted it into the air, upending the contents into the pony below.

Eyes squeezed shut, Dash tried to avoid tasting the protein shake as she chugged it down. Like every time before, the fake chocolate taste started to permeate the corners of her mouth and the top of her throat. Just before her gag reflex kicked in, the glass ran empty and she slammed it down on the card table she’d been using as a dinner table, coffee table, and counter. After taking a few moments to lick the offending beverage off her teeth, Dash belched loud enough to get a bit of echo off the walls. At least the burp didn’t taste any worse than the shake.

Settling down on the couch, Dash picked her new smartphone. She’d spent hours playing with this thing over the last few days when she wasn’t in practice, and had to wonder what it couldn’t do. Most everypony on the team had one, and she had followed suit once her land line had been clogged up from too many fan calls. With this fancy little device she could call anypony, keep a calendar, and even listen to music. Seemed that unicorn magic could make just about anything. On the screen sat a little blinking box which indicated:

Call received from: Spitfire

Duration: 0:17

The call had gone something like this:

“Hey Dash?”

“Yeah?”

“Shadow will be here tomorrow.”

“Ok, thank you.”

“Bye.”

“Goodbye.”

The message was both given and received in apparent nonchalance, but Dash had been preparing to hear those words for the last three weeks. Now she sat with her eyes bright and grin wide.

Ever since Shadow left, Dash had been training harder than anypony else on the team. That meant hundreds of wing pushups a day, long distance flights, and even those horrible hind-leg squats, all on her own time and outside of practice. It also meant eating gobs and gobs of food and drinking those disgusting protein shakes.

The immediate payoff hadn't been anything other than being sore and exhausted. Each day after her own training she would come home, eat as much as she could, and then pass out on her bed. The routine stayed the same for the first twelve days without any noticeable improvement. She'd show up for the group practice and be more tired than anypony else, and perform worse. By the third week though, Dash found herself day by day slowly gaining on her reps and splits from before the new workout. Soon she’d be faster than most of the ‘bolts!

She imagined it would have made a really good movie montage, and for a few moments she was enthralled with the idea. Visions of a movie portraying her rise to fame and eventually becoming team captain danced before her eyes until her phone chimed for ten PM. Dash shook her head to clear the pleasant daydream and realized she'd need her rest for the big day tomorrow. Soarin' would be cross with her if he found out she was neglecting herself.

Dawn came crisp and cool, and with it came fresh determination. That determination took the form of sixteen pegasi in yellow and blue uniforms splayed about the clouds. There they pulled stiff muscles loose and warmed up the muscles that were cold. A fierce sense of purpose radiated from their forms, the silent bravery of the warrior before a glorious battle. Before their eyes, the enemy crested the walls of their training field.

Groans and apprehensive muttering accompanied the destruction of their regal facade as they got to their hooves. Everpony was ready though, especially Dash. She knew that all of her hard work was about to pay off. It was time to redeem her previous defeat, and be rewarded for each drop of sweat spent in the past. Most importantly though, she could apologize and make things right...before kicking his rump.

The day's workout was so similar to the first time Shadow came that Dash started to have a flashback. That flashback didn't mesh with what she was seeing now. In one frame of mind she was gasping for air and fighting with pained forelegs. In the other she was pushing through the pain. The latter won out, and as Shadow finished his count Dash pushed back up to standing, a triumphant grin on her face.

“Down! Wing pushups!” screamed Shadow, and the day wore on.

They did those wing pushups, then sprint flights, distance flights, hovers, spiral loops, and even some pull-ups. Dash felt that she was doing better, but it was difficult to tell. The workout was hard. With Shadow there to push everypony to keep going when they wanted to stop, Dash found the workout to be far more tiring than her own.

When noon eventually rolled around, Shadow called for his standard end-of-workout exercise. Dash was gasping and covered in sweat, but wiped the beads of liquid out of the pelt over her eyes, curious how this one would go. It was time to prove to herself that all pain had been worth it.

“Drop! As many pushups as you can do! Follow it with as many wing pushups as you can do!”

Knowing that they were at the cusp of freedom, the 'bolts dropped onto the clouds and started pushing. Remembering what happened last time, Dash let nothing rule her except for a strong desire to keep going until her muscles gave up on her.

Seconds turned into minutes, and Dash watched her teammates give up. Skyline Spirit and Endless Skies were the first two to drop out, quickly followed by Twitchy Hooves, who shot over to her bag as soon as she was done. After about a minute only Spitfire, Double Dare, Shadow Wing, and Rainbow Dash were left.

Those members of the team that had already stopped were cheering mostly for their captain and for Double Dare, but Dash could hear one or two cheering for her. Current employment aside, her old daydreams were coming true. The Wonderbolts were cheering for her! Conviction welled up inside and she pressed down again only to feel her wings clench up.

Determination and motivation could not always make one more rep happen, and this time her wings gave out. She slumped down into the clouds, tired but proud. Sweat rolled off her face and fell into the cool, springy field. A few moments passed before Spitfire and Double Dare did the same. Eventually, Shadow flopped down too, and called an end to practice. Pegasi rushed off to grab their gear and before Shadow could leave too, Dash seized her opportunity.

“Hey, Coach!”

Shadow put his water bottle back into his saddlebags and looked up to face Dash, his face slicked in sweat and expression blank.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Dash?”

“Well I...” hesitated Dash for a fleeting moment before her resolve returned. “I wanted to apologize for punching you the last time you were here.”

At her words, he let out a short snort and the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. Dash took at as a good sign and smiled back. Hope erased just the tiniest bit of the ache in her muscles.

“That's quite alright, but thank you for the thought. Was that all?”

“Not quite. Could we try that race again?”

“I don't see any reason why not.”

He set his saddlebags back down, and without further discussion they took to the skies.

Poured out in all its glory below, Cloudsdale slowly spun through the atmosphere. The largest clouds held the town hall and weather factory, and while they were the buildings that always made the tourist photos, the small gap of open air around the town center was surrounded by many islands of clouds. A housing development here, restaurants there, everything one could find on the ground but soaring now in the clouds grew in large broken rings around the center. Here and there large gaps punctuated the developments, giving a view all the way to the ground nearly two miles below.

Two miles. Far enough up that the trees blurred together, and the air stole the warmth right through Dash’s pelt.

“Ready?” asked Shadow.

Dash licked her lips. “You bet.”

With a strong thrust from her hindlegs, Dash threw herself into the air and reached out to embrace the fall. The whole world seemed to be stretched out below, but Dash only had eyes for the small rectangular patch of white with striped lines.

The dozen seconds it took Dash to find herself pressing against the cone of compressed air passed in a heartbeat, and with a fierce joy she tore it asunder. Past the sound barrier she wasn't able to hear anything from behind, so when the flash of deep blue light followed the only noise she heard was the rush of the wind in her ears.

Chancing a glance back, Dash saw Shadow at the center of a dark navy disk, several hundred lengths back and gaining. Turning back ahead proved the field was much larger and growing rapidly near. Near enough that the pair of pegasi impacted the clouds but a few moments later.

In the adrenaline-induced clarity, Dash saw the field fill in her view at the same time as Shadow entered her peripheral vision. A mere twenty lengths above the field, he drew even with her, legs pinned together and eyes locked onto the rapidly approaching end. The impact into the cloud layer came so swiftly that Dash was at a loss as to who won. Every good sprinter always pushed through the finish.

Slowing down was a matter of shedding all form and letting drag take over enough of the speed that it was possible to start flying against gravity’s pull. Several hundred lengths passed before Dash slowed to a hover, the sound around her seeming to rain down as it caught back up. Shadow was having a much harder time slowing down, and finally came to a halt a few hundred lengths closer to the ground. After making the climb to the practice field, Dash couldn't wait any longer to know.

“So who won?” she gasped between breaths as Shadow alighted next to her, panting just as hard.

“I am unable to say for certain, but I think it was a draw.”

Draw. The word echoed in Dash's mind unforgivingly, followed by a cascade of emotions. After all that hard work, weeks of exhaustion and agony, she could only tie him at her own game. Anger and sadness rose in her chest and throat, and she gritted her teeth to try to hold back the rising gorge and welling tears. Her vision went blurry, but her visage was set like flint.

“I don't think these races have been entirely fair of me, Ms. Dash.”

Dash blinked the tears from her eyes to see Shadow looking the other way.

“How...how so?” She choked out.

“You have far more natural talent than I do. In fact, every pony on your team does. And from what I hear, you've trained very hard in the last few weeks, correct?”

Shadow turned back around to face Dash as she nodded.

“Well then, if you promise me to keep training hard, I'll show you what you can improve on.”

“I promise!” returned Dash, the thought of a new challenge chasing out any sorrow.

“Alright then. I've been watching you fly, and you do all of your stunts and tricks on a brute force basis. This makes you very strong, but you're not using the finesse you should. There are a lot of little things, but for now, we'll just cover the most important. Can you tell me what you do with your forelegs when you go into a dive? For anytime you're flying for that matter.”

Dash thought for a second and replied with the most well thought answer she had.

“Uhm...”

“Exactly. You are just holding them out in front of you, creating a great deal of drag when you could be using them to divert the airflow. The next time you dive, try holding your forelegs like this.”

Hovering in the air to demonstrate, Shadow held his forelegs close together, and then rotated them both, holding the front edges of his hooves against one another such that they made a wedge. Dash noted his posture with surprise, wondering how she hadn't thought of it before. At the same time, he rotated his hindlegs to create a similar wedge on the other side. It looked awkward...but if winning was worth the pain, it surely was worth looking a little different.

“So how about we try that race one more time, and you can try this form?” asked Shadow.

“You are so on!” exclaimed Dash, every fiber of her being ready to win.

“Go!” shouted Shadow over the wind.

Without need to hear anything else, Dash dove off the cloud, and once again plunged to face the practice field. Against her muscle memory and the rushing air she shoved her front hooves together. Almost instantly the turbulence lessened as the airflow cut to go around her. It was so easy that Dash felt like she was falling instead of diving. Rotating her hindlegs was more difficult, but only the adrenaline made it feel slow. As soon as she locked her hooves together, the air yielded to her -- begging for her to dive faster.

Without warning she found herself up against the sound barrier, the cone of air appearing so suddenly that she cried out. Dash desperately tried to beat her wings faster, experience telling her that she needed the extra push to break through instead of being flung off into the blue.

Before she could flap her wings again, her forehooves sliced cleanly through the barrier and she kept speeding up on the other side. All around her the rainboom flared brightly, but she was lost in the excitement of the flight. Faster she went, swifter than she had ever flown before. Soon her forelegs began to burn from diverting the air, and Dash understood why she had to do so many pushups.

The end of the race came all too quickly, as the practice field rushed up to meet her. There was no way Dash could have stopped for that, nor did she particularly want to slow down. After piercing through the cloud layer she turned into a wide arc, breaking free when her eyes were fixed on the underside of the practice field. Poking her head through the clouds, she was just in time to see Shadow hurtling past. It was a clumsy, brutal descent and recovery; he took quite a while to slow down.

While waiting for Shadow to return, Dash took the time to reflect on how she was feeling. Her forelegs were more tired than usual, but her wings felt good, and she was barely out of breath. In short, she felt better than she usually did after pulling a rainboom. Looking up, she gazed at the mix of rainbow and deep blue fading from the sky. That’s just…ugly.

At that moment, Shadow's forehooves popped through the clouds, and with a grunt he pulled himself through. After catching his breath, he looked up and smiled ruefully.

“I knew you would beat me. And you're only going to get faster with more practice. That's all for today, but I promise I'll be teaching you more tomorrow, and after each practice to come.”

“That. Was. Amazing!” cheered Dash. “I've never gone that fast, and it's never been so easy!”

Shadow raised an eyebrow before continuing.

“Then please forgive me for my previous opinion of you. If you can endure the pain of performing two sonic rainbooms in one day, you may very well be both the toughest and the fastest pegasus I've ever met.” He looked at her thoughtfully, as trying to glean something he'd missed before.

“Pain? Wait, it hurts when you do your rain- I mean sonic boom?” asked Dash.

He gave the smallest of nods in return.

“I can only guess it would be that way for anypony except for you. Too much friction at that speed and too harsh of a sprint. Must be part of your special talent.”

The adrenaline high from going so fast still hadn't worn off, and it was only magnified by the pride from her victory. As much as losing to him before irked Dash, she respected anypony who was a good competitor, and the knowledge that he had suffered to teach her how to fly faster left her with the warm glow of camaraderie.

Never being one to use fancy words or to get excessively mushy, Dash settled for a good old hoofshake. She strode right up to him and held her right foreleg out. His hoof met hers for a brief but firm shake before the coach departed into the blue.

After Shadow faded into the distance, Dash grabbed her bags and headed to the locker room. Anything else in life could wait until after she’d had a shower.

The next day’s workout was just similar enough to tread on some of the sore muscles from the day before. Even though the focus had shifted, wings were still wings and legs were still legs, so it was impossible to isolate the muscles entirely. The calisthenics were tough, but Dash pushed through them eagerly to get to the flight exercises.

Once Shadow called for suicides, Dash was ready to try out her new form. As tricky as it was to switch postures mid-flight, the payoff in speed was incredible. At the end of the first set she was a solid two seconds ahead of anypony else. She had the better part of a minute to rest before Shadow yelled at them to go again.

The next suicide was laughably easy after having so much time to get air back into her body. Given the change, Dash took this one even faster, until she heard beeping. Looking around in the middle of the longest stretch of the set, she saw Shadow stopped and hovering. He was hurriedly tapping at this watch, eyes wide and lips pressed together.

“Water break!” He yelled over his shoulder before streaking off to the edge of the field nosing into his bags. Most of the ‘bolts finished the exercise, though a few slowed in their confusion.

While the 'bolts took their break, Dash hesitated to tear open her water bottle, instead gazing out at the team. Shadow was talking rapidly into a skyphone that he'd pulled out of his bags. The small gold and black box was about the same size and shape as Dash's phone, but it had an antenna coming off of the top. Oh, and it was really expensive. Unlike Dash's phone, which would only work within a few miles of a arcane signal amplifier, a sky phone would work anywhere.

While Shadow was busy, Twitchy Hooves was on her laptop during water break. Twitchy Hooves, or 'Twitch' as she went by, was probably Spitfire's best friend, and was a hobbyist computer tech. That being said, it didn't get her any special favors with the team captain during practice. Practice time was sacred to Spitfire, and so anypony, including Twitch, caught doing other stuff was in trouble.

After a few moments Shadow shut his phone, slid it back into his bags, and threw them on. He bounded over to where Spitfire was sipping out of a water bottle and coughed out an excuse.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Spitfire, but I need to leave. Please take over the practice for me.”

“What? Why are you leaving?” Spitfire wiped the seat out of her eyes, blinking in confusion.

“I've had an emergency come up.”

Without further words he leapt into the sky and winged his way off the field. Spitfire watched him go, some curious blend of confusion and exasperation marring her visage.

Suddenly, the curiosity from the day before hit Dash. She dropped her water bottle on the cloud turf and took off after Shadow. Knowing that she'd really get it for skipping practice, Dash turned her head back and mouthed 'I'm sorry' to Spitfire, who oddly enough returned a shrug and a smile.

Confident she wasn't going to be in trouble, Dash put on speed. With her new flying form, the trouble wasn't catching up with Shadow, but rather staying far enough back and subtle enough to go unnoticed. It was one of the few times she wasn't happy to have such bright coloration.

A few blocks from the field, Shadow turned sharply into a back alley. Dash looked around for any bystanders, but Shadow had picked a spot where nopony was strolling or flapping along. After waiting a few moments, Dash landed and poked her head around the corner.

Back alleys in most earth pony and unicorn cities were dark from accumulated filth, which might lead them to think that such places in pegasus cities would be the same white cloud as the rest of town. However magical a city in the clouds might seem, it had its dark places too. Citizens of Cloudsdale liked to have cloud homes of even white. The poorer sections of town were not made up of just white clouds, so the tenants would commonly move the darker parts of the walls to the back in order to make the front yard and porch look nicer. That usually left the walls of the alleyways to be made of dark thunderstorm clouds.

This alley was no different, and it was very easy for Dash to pick out the pale green of Shadow's hindleg poking up into the air out of the cloud. In the blink of an eye, the last of it disappeared as the pegasus it belonged to finished burrowing into the cloud.

Like a kitten sneaking after the tail of a larger cat, Dash to tip-hoof her way into the alley to the spot where Shadow disappeared. She moved as quietly as possible, trying to muffle each hoof fall and breath. Over the sound of her pounding heart, a faint rustling noise could be heard. Dash slowly dug into the cloud softly and slowly, pulling back globs of dark nimbus and setting them aside gently so they wouldn’t rumble. This quickly turned into full-on burrowing as her quarry proved to be deeper than she could reach from the alley floor.

After going about a dozen hooves down, the tip of her snout broke into a bubble in the cloud. She hurriedly drew it back and rotated her head such that she could see into the open air without revealing more of her body.

The bubble went several lengths in every direction, and dark like the namesake of stormcloud. Sitting in the middle was Shadow, who was donning some kind of dark-colored full body suit.

Dash watched as he finished shrugging it on, inhaling lightly even as her lungs cried for air. Once he did, the few loose parts shrunk to fit his form, and the color changed to match the clouds he was sitting on, leaving him hard to see in the low light aside from his head.

Reaching into his saddlebags, Shadow pulled out four very dark-coated shoes and began affixing them to his hooves. With a start Dash realized they were not just any kind of horseshoes. They were guard’s horseshoes. Her suspicions were confirmed when Shadow finishing slipping the first one on with an audible *ka-SHINK*.

Unlike regular horseshoes, guard’s shoes had a small metal hook toward the front center, attached to a pin that would embed up into the soft part of the hoof. Normally the hook would sit flush with the bottom of the horseshoe, but should the pony wearing it flex a particular muscle in his lower leg, the hook would pop out. They were painful to wear, tricky to use, and almost exclusively worn by the Royal Guard. And criminals.

Dash hadn’t paid much attention in history class, but she knew the griffons had invented the first guns a few decades ago. Since then, ponies had quickly adopted the technology and improved on it vastly, though someone in the government had decided it would be a good idea to keep the triggers inaccessible to anyone without claws, and guard’s shoes had been invented as an adapter intended only for military use. Then came the futile part -- trying to prevent every thug in the country from getting a few.

It had been a pretty pointless battle, and now they were the kind of black market tool that could be bought alongside drugs if one knew where to ask. Rumor had it that a few gun models were coming out for pony use without any extra hardware. Not that the fucking unicorns ever had a problem to begin with.

Ka-SHINK!

With a loud wince Shadow popped the last shoe on. After a second they too faded, matching his body suit. Reaching back into his bags, he pulled out helmet unlike any Dash had seen before. It fit completely over his head, and went all the way down to the collar of his suit. She couldn't tell what it was made out of in the poor light, but could hear soft radio chatter coming from it.

“Yes, yes, I’m on my way. E-T-A twenty moons.”

Whatever Shadow said after that was lost, as a visor slid down over his face, sealing him into the suit. After slipping on his saddlebags, the whole ensemble blended further until he was practically invisible. What gave him away was the rapidly widening hole in the bottom of the clouds where he was making an exit. A rush of air blew into the cloud bubble as Shadow departed, still apparently unaware of the pony watching.

When Dash felt that she'd waited a safe time, she shoved her way back up into the alley and took off racing toward the practice field. Oh my Celestia. Spitfire is not going to believe this.

Author's Note

Re-edited 3/7/16

Third one down, and now the fun begins!

Thanks again to Dizziestbeef, for pointing out my stupidity to me by editing.

And an epic bro-hoof
////)
to anybody else at the Bataan Death March. Hooah.