It was very loud in Cloudsdale’s colosseum where young stallion with orange coat and spiky red haired stood on the podium located in the middle of huge amphitheater. Countless cheers were heard all directed towards newest sky champion, winner of this year’s Cloudsdale’s Sky Olympics Games most prestigious event that any pegasus, young or old, stalion or mare could have won. Everypony was amazed by this year’s champion who completely dominated each and every competition, starting with slalom between storm clouds and ending with great race in which contestants had to fly to Equestria’s great capital Canterlot and then back to Cloudsdale. Pride was beaming from young stallion when Princess Celestia and Luna approached him in order to reward him with gold medal. It looked glorious, made of pure gold shining in the light provided from Celestia’s sun, with engraved Pegasus form and a writing which said: “Equestria’s most skillful flyer”. Orange coated hero stood there few inches from medal, Princess Celestia leaned her head in order to put in on his neck when he suddenly heard a voice from a crowd calling his name.

“Icarus!”

He ignored it first, focusing entirely on his reward

“Icarus!”

Voice became louder but he still pretended not to hear anything

“ICARUS FOR BUCK’S SAKE WAKE UP”

It was then that Icarus felt his head hit against a floor, wandering who had guts to wake him from such amazing dream, he slowly lift up his head then rest of his body and stood on all hoofs on floor in his little bedroom.

“Icarus, we know that you’re in there, either you will come here or we will go inside”

Voices came from outside the house, Icarus looked out from the window and saw 2 stallions, one with green coat and long blue mane he was a rather lager earth pony, second one had entirely black coat with curled red mane, he was a pegasus.

He didn’t know either of them so decided to politely ask about their identities

“Who the hell do you think you are to wake me up so early in the bucking morning?”

Well, maybe not completely polite.

Earth pony spoke

“We come with message from mr. Buffalo, today’s the day to pay your longs kid.”

‘Shit, I completely forgot about that’ Icarus thought to himself

“Well let’s theoretically say that I don’t have his bits at the moment, what happens then?”

“Then there are two options, either we will beat you till you will start to spit bits, or we can take you to mr. Buffalo”

“After considering pros and cons of both options I think I will choose the latter one.”

After saying this they gave him few minutes to prepare himself for leaving. Icarus took a morning shower, not sure if u can call it a MORNING shower when it’s almost an afternoon. After cleaning himself up he took a slice of bread from his fridge and left his small apartment with 2 thugs.

Three of them then made a long way through big city of Manehattan. Although Icarus always preferred to live in smaller towns, even villages, he couldn’t appreciate how amazing the city looked. Everywhere u looked there was a shop with amazing neon banner or other kind of flashing decoration. Yes it was definitely good looking in the daytime and almost breathtaking at night, especially from the sky.

After walking through city for almost 40 minutes, Icarus started to feel bored and tired, but what would you expect from someone who’s favourite hobby was napping, just next to eating. Unlike most pegasi Icarus wasn’t the big fan of racing, actually he liked it but totally disliked training. As lazy as he was, winning a Sky Olympic Games was still one of his dream, but just one of them.

Finally after a long silent walk, they arrived at their destination, huge white villa of mr. Buffalo. Even though Icarus was there before it still made him impressed with how huge and luxurious it was. In front of villa spread huge garden with many different flowers and plants all well kept by gardener. In the middle of it stood a fountain with Princess Celestia standing on all fours with her head held high and water spreading from her horn. In the front it had many windows and single pair of doors right between two statues of dragons with torches in their mouths. But truly amazing and worth the praise was the inside of huge wealthy house, walls were filled with expensive looking paintings, on left and right side stood 2 lanes of columns and in front of main door raised long stairs which led to the upper floor and this was only a room that played a role of vestibule. What irritated Icarus was the fact that just like outside, whole villa was painted white. Although it didn’t really looked bad he just preferred more living colors, and honestly he would probably paint walls in rainbows, he really loved looking at those, actually watching rainbows was his 3rd favourite thing right after eating and napping.

“Sooo where now?”

Icarus asked two stallions who forced him to come here, and even though he tried to break the silence with some, more or less offensive jokes on the way here they would stay silent all the time.

“We are going to take you to boss’s office and better for you if u won’t steal anything on the way there”

“Now that’s rude, I am lazy but I am definitely not a thief”

Icarus quickly listed his comeback lines waiting for the reply he didn’t get. Little irritated by this he followed to stallions upstairs and into the long hall, they stopped at last doors and knocked twice.

“Boss we brought him here”

After 10 seconds of silence low voice responded from inside the room.

“Let him in.”

“Get inside or we will help you with it”

“That’s exactly what your mothers said last night” After realizing what he just said, Icarus quickly opened door and slummed them right into 2 angry faces.

Bufallo’s office wasn’t anything special, it was a rather small room compared to rest of his villa, it had few bookshelves a small table with aquarium in which Icarus spotted small gold fish and in the center of room stood huge desk at which currently sat owner of this gorgeous house.

“I am glad to see you here dear Icarus” Buffalo said in extremely low voice

Icarus saw in his life many earth ponies but this one was one of the biggest if not the biggest earth pony he saw in his entire, rather short, life.

Buffalo looked extremely intimidating, he was much higher than Icarus with his massive muscles clearly stretching his tight tuxedo, but most fearsome was his face with huge scar on his forehead which was clearly visible on his black coat, and his silver mane which covered one of his eyes.

“It’s always nice to meet old friends” Icarus said perfectly hiding fear in his voice

“Icarus, we both know that u don’t have any friends, if u had them u already betrayed them in order to survive”

Icarus wanted to say something in defense but he knew he was right

“But that’s exactly what I like about you, that’s also the reason I ordered my pawns to bring you here instead of beating you to a pulp”

“Thanks, I guess?”

After few seconds of silence Icarus decided to speak again.

“Sooo, I currently don’t have much bits at hand as you probably already know but you know, maybe there’s a job I can do for you to pay for my debts?”

“I am truly glad u mentioned that, yes indeed there is something you can do for me” After he said that he opened one of closets in his desk and took out  a flyer and handed it to Icarus.

After studying it carefully Icarus understood what was Buffalo’s plan

Before he was able to say anything Buffalo stood up on his hooves, now even more intimidating and said

“The deal is quite simple, this is a charity race organized by princesses themselves, because of that there will be many skilled racers, there are even rumors that some of low ranks wonderbolts will take part in this.”

Icarus was dumbfounded for a moment, why in the world would someone like Bufallo want to win a charity race? From what he knew about him he was heartless bastard who only cared about his own business, he decided to simply listen to rest of the story.

“You are probably wondering what interest may I have in a charity race”

‘Damn he’s good’ Thought Icarus

“Well here's a catch, few other powerful businessmen decided to play a little game taking advantage of the opportunity. We agreed to make a bet, each of us have hired a pegasus that will partake in the race, the winner takes it all, do you understand what I want you to do now?”

Icarus finally understanding his intentions simply nodded

“Good now then do you have any questions?”

“Actually yes quite a few, first you said something about wonderbolts taking part in it, is it true? And if it is when which wonderbolts are participating?”

“Like I said before, these are only rumors and if they are true, than 3 newest members of wonderbolts will take part in the competition.”

“All right then if they are only freshman then there’s nothing to fear, see you at the race”

Now it was Buffalo’s time to be dumbfounded, he knew of orange stallion lazy personality and just wanted to have some fun scaring him and seeing him beg for some other job, he even made up these rumors about wonderbolts.

“You are quite confident my litlle orange flying friend, why is that?”

“Nothing much really, I just want to make sure though, do you promise that if I’ll take first place u will forget about all of my debts?”

After a brief moment of silence mafia boss spoke with his low voice yet again

“Of course, unlike some pegasus with red mane I always keep my promises”

“Glad to hear that, see you later then”

Leaving the boss this a little surprised by Icarus attitude, young stallion left his office and quickly run away from his villa, before his 2 subordinates would like to have a word with him about their mothers.

While on his way home Icarus thought about anything but race, his mind was mostly settled on things like

‘Should I take a nap? Or maybe eat something, wait I know, I’ll eat something then I’ll have a nap. BRILIANT’

He did as he said, days were passing and after 6 days from his visit in Buffalo’s villa everypony was warming up for charity race that would take a place in Manehattan air zone. Everypony, expect one orange stallion with red mane.

Buffalo was thinking about the way Icarus reacted to his deal. In the beginning he only wanted to have some fun watching orange pegasus loose, forever becoming his pawn, but now he actually started to think he might win, Icarus reaction shocked him to the point where he decided to instead of betting 100 bits, he will place 1000 bits on his contestant. However the time for race draw near and he could see all participants warming up and preparing, all except the one he betted 1000 bits on. Icarus was nowhere to be seen, but what made him worry the most is the fact that rumor he made up came to be true as some of other bosses actually hired newly appointed wonderbolts members. He was close to exploding in anger when his ears caught a weak sound of yawning and he perfectly knew there was only one pony who could be yawning in such place, in such time.

“For all Luna’s stars in the sky where the buck have you been?!”

He shouted with his powerful voice almost making Icarus fall over.

“All other participants are already warming up, while you look like you just got out of the bucking bed!” He continued shouting with same power

“You are damn right I just got out of bed, seriously who the hell thought to organize a race so early in the morning?”

“IT’S BUCKING TWELVE O’CLOCK!” He shouted his voice this time so powerful it was almost like princess Luna royal caps lock voice making nearly ponies jump in fear and mother’s covering their foals ears.

“Hey don’t worry I promised I would win so I will win”

Buffalo frowned at that statement and soon after that Icarus corrected himself

“Well fine I usually don’t keep my promises but I will keep this one ok? My own life depends on it”

Buffalo was slightly calmed by this statement, he knew him for long enough to know that he will do anything to live his lazy and peaceful life, even if it takes betraying his friends.

“All right then, take your rump to the starting line cause the race will start in few minutes”

Icarus nodded and left, Buffalo proceeded then to walk to his other partners in this particular game, as he came close all faced him and greeted him, after that he joined the conversation.

“Sho thell me mr. Bfhuallo” Said the elderly unicorn with white coat and grey mane, its color was probably due to old age, he was wearing a white tuxedo matching his coat.

“This pharticipant of yhours ishn’t lhooking qhuite fhast now does he?”

After few laughs from rest of them Buffalo frowned but decided to stay quiet, he himself didn’t believe that Icarus actually have chance at winning, not only was he lazy, but he didn’t even care to came here before to warm up showing on last minute. The worst fact being the wonderbolts, who even as newbies in wonderbolts ranks, still had to be better than normal pegasi. But he already placed the bet so he couldn’t do anything but just hopelessly watch the race.

After few minutes of conversation on different topics everyone silenced as royal adviser representing Princes Celestia herself raised his megaphone with magic and started his speech.

“Greetings mares and gentlecolts, today we are here to watch those brave pegasi race through air, for today’s race Manehattan weather patrol prepared many clouds in form of obstacles for our participants in order to make things more interesting, this race will be test for both agility and speed. I will now explain the rules, everypony will fly alone, after all participants finishing the one who will finish race with best time will be the winner”

‘That’s interesting form of race I would say’ Thought Icarus

“Race will be executed this way because we want to minimalize possible injuries from our participants, after all it’s a charity race”

‘I guess that makes sense, wait that will mean that this whole race will take much longer cause we won’t fly all at once, which means I will have less time for napping’ After a brief pause Icarus continued his course of thought ‘Wait a moment, today new Daring Do book will be released, Celestia damn it, they will probably be sold by the end of the day, please tell me I am one of first participants’

Fate is a funny thing, they say that u will act good then good things will happen to you and vice versa, it would seem that this particular saying was right

“Now you will fly in order of numbers you were given after registering, we will of course start with 1 we have 57 participants, so last one flying shall be the one with number 57”

Icarus looked on his flank to see a number that made him startle other participants:

“57”

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

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