Author's Notes:

Hey everyone! Sorry I couldn't meet the deadline like I promised. Don't worry I didn't forget you guys so here's the next chapter! Next time I'll endeavor to do better at keeping with my deadline. It took me so long to write this I feel bad that it did take so long , but never fear for my unofficial editor did a fabulous job on helping me with a few issue on the chapter.

Enjoy!

It was just before high noon in Manehatten. Everypony was out and about doing their daily tasks getting ready for the upcoming week. The clothing stores were in full swing. Theaters opened up for their weekend performances. Pette's Pie Bar was full of costumers. Ponies shopping, school supplies, suits pressed and firmed, and a repair crew for the Ivory Tower Apartments.

This afternoon Trixie was in a foul mood as she walked alongside the second most famous Wonderbolt in Equestria. As they walked Trixie rubbed her cheek where the weight made full contact with her. Soarin noticed this and gave a soft chuckle. "What's so funny chuckles?" Trixie asked sarcastically.

Soarin looked a Trixie still walking. "Well I've never seen anypony get the drop on Fleetfoot like that before."

Trixie frowned at this. "Aren't you two friends and on the same team for the Wonderbolts or something?" Trixie asked. Now, Trixie knew the Wonderbolts members and what they were as far as entertainment, but that was the extent of her knowledge of them. That's not including the personal time she had with the members either.

Soarin looked back at her turning a corner. "We are friends, and yes we're on the same team." he simply stated continuing down the street. Trixie felt uncomfortable. Ponies stared at her from every direction. Some even insulted her as she past by them saying things like, 'fraud' or 'untalented unicorn'. The jabs hurt her and made her angry. How had it come to this? Ponies already know of Trixie's exploits in Ponyville. Perhaps getting back on my hooves won't be as easy as Trixie thought. she thought.

Not realizing she'd fallen behind she continued at a slower pace falling into a crowd of ponies. She felt the glares, heard every insult, as ponies walked into her shoving her to the side. She felt claustrophobic. In an endless sea of ponies she felt overwhelmed, as if the weight of everyponies feelings towards her weighed on her shoulders dragging her down.

Soarin noticed Trixie was lagging behind as a single pony walked into her, no more like shoved her to the side causing her to fall onto the floor. A few ponies walked past her not helping her up. He noticed them pointing at her and some were laughing at her. This simply would not stand. He promptly marched over helping Trixie up receiving gasps from nearby ponies. He looked at the ponies around them, and then he walked holding Trixie's hoof. "You OK there?" he asked kindly. Trixie didn't look at him keeping her head down. Soarin wasn't done though. He kept hold of Trixie so she didn't fall behind, but also to make sure nopony messed with her.

Neither spoke until coming to a familiar playground, Trixie looked over realizing it was the same playground she and Spitfire were at the night before. Soarin seemed to notice as he came to a stop releasing her. She walked over to the swing noticing two were swaying slightly back and forth. Sitting on one, she slowly started to swing on it. Soarin got on the one next to her, ironically the same as Spitfire. He sat watching Trixie swing for sometime before deciding to speak. "So, kiddo, what's on your mind?"

Trixie stopped her swing and looked at him with a frustrated look. "What do you think?" she snapped. "Everywhere Trixie goes disaster follows or she messes up everything! What do you think is on my mind?!"

"Whoa easy there I meant nothing of it." he hastily said raising his hooves in defense. "I was just hoping you'd tell me what's wrong. Clearly you don't want to so I'll leave it be." He said continuing to swing.

After w minute Trixie continued to as well. Soarin looked at her stopping again. "Hey, look. I heard a good portion of what happened back home. Please go easy on Fleetfoot. She's had it hard."

Trixie scoffed at the idea of a Wonderbolt having anything hard, except the stallions she walked by maybe the press. "Well, forgive Trixie if she doesn't believe that." she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Soarin snickered at this. "You'd be surprised? Care to hear my story?" he looked at Trixie hoping she'd hear him out since she didn't know him, maybe she'd listen. For a moment Trixie looked as if she was going to tell him off, but stopped herself. She then got comfy as she could on the swing looking at the ground.

"Fine, Trixie will hear what you have to say." she then quickly pointed at Soarin. "But it won't change Trixie's opinion on Fleetfoot." she add hastily.

"OK, first I'd like to start by saying what I tell you is strictly between us. No telling anypony about it OK?" he asked her in a serious tone.

Trixie looked slightly offended. "Trixie would never tell something with the intention of doing harm. She'll keep it as one of her deepest secrets." she said confidently.

Satisfied with her response Soarin continued. "OK, I believe you. Now, the first thing you need to know is that Fleetfoot holds Spitfire at the highest level of... um..." he struggled to find a good word to describe this. "Sorry, I'm not being very articulate today. Basically she sees Spitfire as a icon, and sets her standards off of Spitfire. It's the highest level of respect kind of thing. Does that make sense?" he asked.

Trixie tilted her head slightly getting the general idea. "Trixie understands, she's a childhood hero of sorts?"

Suddenly Soarin pointed at her tapping his nose. Well Trixie got that one right at home. she thought. "But what does this have to do with how she was treating Trixie?"

"I'll explain that in a minute. So you know all pegasi go to flight school right? Learn the basics to flying, clouds, weather, all that stuff?" Trixie nodded knowing well what flight school was for pegasi. "Good that makes things easier. Back in those days Spitfire was actually an athletic prodigy, that and combined with her masculine figure she was often bullied for being tomboyish, some even called her a dyke. Needless to say she didn't like that."

Trixie had no idea that the great Spitfire was once bullied for what now makes her so great.

"So as time went on, she became more distant and often took her anger out on other ponies. Myself included." he gestured towards himself. "She was the butt of everyone's jokes. Eventually she had enough. It got so bad, that she would often get physical with the other flight students. Bullying them into submission. But one pony stood out to her, a pony who was often bullied more than she was. That pony was Fleetfoot." he pulled out a picture of Spitfire Fleetfoot and himself all huddled together smiling happily. "Once they met they were instant friends and practically became attached to the hip. As close as two friends could be." Trixie levitated the photo to her seeing a younger Spitfire and Fleetfoot. Spitfire wore a leather flight jacket with a fur collar and her signature glasses while Fleetfoot was wearing a turtleneck sweater and a silly looking fedora and Soarin was wearing a collared tie.

"We all met one day and the three of us have been friend since." he stated proudly. Trixie nodded. "It must be nice to have friends you can relate to." she said levitating the picture back to him.

"It really is Trixie. You know, I feel it's one of the best things in the world to have a friend."

"So what happened to make Spitfire and Fleetfoot so, you know?" she asked eager for Soarin to get to the point.

" Alright." he said placing the picture back in his pocket. "It actually was something that started before we all met. There was one pony that could have been considered Spitfires rival. She was a cruel pony, even amount her closest friends. Her name was Vector."

Trixie sat in the swing unmoving waiting to hear more about this mysterious pony Vector.

"You see Trixie, Vector was a bully. She saw Spitfire as competition. So she did everything in her power to break her. Spitfire's parents were powerful figures, still are in fact, and that was a big factor in what happened between the two. I'll get to that later. So one day Vector took her frustration out on Fleetfoot after we all met and had become friends." He looked at a group of foals who made their way to a metal wheel with bars in it and began spinning on it. The cried in joy as they spun faster and faster until they all tumbled out laughing and giggling. He chuckled at the sight so did Trixie.

"So what happened?" she asked him.

"Well, Spitfire was so angry about how Vector treated, Fleet, the two fought and Spitfire broke one of her hind legs."

Trixie gasped holding her hooves to her mouth. "That's awful!"

Soarin looked down not wanting to see Trixie's reaction. "That's actually not the worst of it. You see afterwards, about two months later, was far worse. Vector had to leave school to recover and learn to walk again. It was remarkable how quickly she recovered. Two months is unheard of! But she managed to do it! I'll give Vector one thing, she did know how to impress and persevere. She never let anything slow her down. She never got over the fact Spitfire humiliated her, so when she came back she challenged her to another fight."

"Trixie doesn't understand. If breaking her leg wasn't why she left permanently then what was it?"

"Did I say it was permanent?" Soaring asked thinking back he was sure he didn't, but it didn't change the fact Trixie was right. "Well regardless you're right it wasn't her leg. It was something much worse. It wasn't what she did that caused Vector to leave, but I'll get to that in a minute." He stood up stretching his body before continuing, while Trixie listened intently. "By now you know Spitfire has a short temper, you've seen it. Back then she was far worse. When Vector came back and started to bully only her she really lost it one day."

Trixie listened and began to wonder what Spitfire could have done and why did this relate to Fleetfoot?

"When Vector came back to challenge Spitfire it got ugly. Vector challenged her to a one on one fight with no witnesses. I snuck out of class to watch them after overhearing them in passing. I got to the location just as the fight started. I can't recall many details aside from Vector barely put up a fight, her leg was still bad and she couldn't keep up with Spitfire. She called her names, threatened her, blamed her for breaking her leg, and how ponies made fun of her limp, then she hit Spitfire right where it hurt. She said that if she weren't a decent pony she would have done what Spitfire did to her to me and Fleetfoot. That set her off the deep end." he looked up at the sky. It was sunny with not a cloud in the sky, warm and bright with all the ponies frolicking about. "I remember it was raining heavily that day. I remember seeing Spitfire go into a blind rage knocking Vector to the floor. She stood over her for a while, and at the time I didn't know why. After a minute she took a massive rock and lifted it and began to assault Vector with it."

Trixie held her hooves over her mouth hew eyes were wide from shock. Surely Spitfire would never do such a thing. Spitfire, Captain of the Wonderbolts and one of the most respected ponies alive to date that wasn't one of the Princesses.

"Spitfire crushed her wing with it. At the time I was more afraid she was going to... well you know. I thought she was going to..." He paused thinking of how to say what he was thinking.

"You mean you thought she'd kill her don't you? You thought she was going to kill Vector?" she asked simply looking at him with a saddened expression.

"Yeah, that's what I thought so I didn't waste time to help Vector. I held Spitfire back calling for help. Once help arrived I told the staff what happened, and they took Spitfire away. I stayed to help Vector she even thanked me for saving her life. I have to admit I wasn't expecting her to thank me for it, but she seemed genuine in her statement. I even offered to be her friend."

"What did she say?"

"She said she'd think about it. She said that she'd let me know when I came to visit her at the hospital, but I never got the chance. I heard from Spitfire that she'd left town with her parents afterwards and no one has seen them since."

Trixie was in awe she never thought Spitfire had such a cruel streak in her, but what this had to do with Fleetfoot she still didn't know. That being said, she decided the best policy is blunt honesty. "I see, sorry Soarin but what does this have to do with Fleetfoot's behavior towards Trixie?" she asked impatiently.

"The fact is that despite everything that happened Fleetfoot has this delusion that Spitfire is perfect in every way possible and does everything to protect that image and her. She acts the way she does because she feels threatened by you, and fears you'll hurt or lead Spitfire astray. That fear of losing Spitfire is what drives her to be the way she is."

Trixie tilted her head looking at him. "How do you know that?"

"She told me last night. She came over after you three decided to talk in the morning so she stayed at my place."

Trixie looked at the children playing around the park as they frolicked about in a game of tag. One of the earth pony colts fell and hurt him arm. His big sister, a unicorn mare, came over and rocked him in her arms as she used her magic to bring a first aid kit from her bag and bandaged his arm. "It must be nice." She said watching as the colt hugged his sister and went back to playing after kissing her on the cheek. She smiled as she waved to him as he ran after his friends resuming their game of tag.

"What's nice?" he asked circling around her. He looked over to the mare as she sat down watching the children play.

"To have somepony there to watch you. To push you forward and encourage you to do your best no matter what." Trixie said.

"I know what you mean. Honestly I understand what that's like to feel the way you do, and that's what makes Fleetfoot hate you so much." As he finished he noticed Trixie was glaring at him. "No offense I don't hate you. You seem to be a nice mare and I feel you're just a victim of circumstances." he added quickly waving his hooves in front f him.

Trixie rolled her eyes in response looking back at the children.

"So what you're saying is Spitfire is not only Fleetfoot's role model, but also her inspiration?" she asked.

Soarin rubbed his neck trying to think of a way to answer. "It's complicated for even me to understand I won't lie. Those two are very hard to understand. But basically what you need to know is that Fleetfoot cares for Spitfire and loves her like an older sister. She simply doesn't want to lose her ever. It scares her to think of losing Spitfire more than anything. That's why she tries to protect her from characters with shady or questionable backgrounds, such as yourself. No offense." he said looking at Trixie who seemed offended by the statement.

"Gee, thanks Soarin that makes Trixie feel so much better." she said sarcastically. She then smiled after he began to fidget thinking he'd really offended her with what he said. "Trixie is just kidding about that. She knows you meant no offense." she said smacking him in the shoulder. "Trixie doesn't want to make you feel bad."

He smiled back rubbing his shoulder tenderly. "Don't worry. Fleetfoot will open up to you. It just takes time... and a lot of talking, compromising, and a few headbutts maybe." he paused as Trixie's smile faltered.

"That sounds awful." she stated flatly.

After a moment they shared a laugh and once they'd stopped Trixie went back to watching the children play. "Thank you for talking to me. It makes me feel better knowing you care like Spitfire does."

Trixie and Soarin sat and watched the children play for a while. Since then they'd abandoned their game of tag, now they were playing four square. The young colt was hitting the ball back to his friends when the ball bounced past them and hit the back of a female griffons head. She turned to see the ball and the ponies looked at her. They walked over to her with the colt leading them. "Uh miss?" he asked timidly.

The griffon turned to look at him taking hold of his ball with her yellow talons. "What do you dweebs want?" she asked in a snarky tone.

"Uh, can I please have my ball back Miss? I'm really sorry we hit you in the head." he gathered his courage. "You see we were playing and I hit the ball to hard. I'm really sorry I hit you Miss." he lowered his head still looking at her.

She looked at the ball grinning. "OK, kid you can have your ball back."

The children looked happy that they'd get the ball back smiling happily, but turned to tears when she gripped the ball so hard she popped it and threw it back at the colt hitting him in the face. She then proceeded to laugh as the colt cried at the sight of his ball holding it in his hooves as his friends surrounded him.

One filly stood up to her and kicked her in the leg. "You are a big poopy head you big meanie!" as the young filly continued her assault on the laughing griffon.

The griffon lifted the filly and tossed her aside. "Man what an annoying dweeb you are!" she screeched scaring the other children away to their parents. The colt simply shook in fear as the griffon towered over him still clutching the remains of his ball. He looked up at her with pleading eyes.

"Please Miss, why are you being sniff... so m-mean?" he asked pathetically.

She then looked down at him mockingly. "Aww, what's wrong little boy you gonna cry?" she laughed at him.

By now several ponies had gathered and were watching the sister to the colt ran over and stood over him shoving the female griffon away. "Leave my little bro alone you feather brained jerk!"

Trixie got up along with Soarin and approached the griffon who looked ready to fight the mare. "Stand down griffon or face the might of The Great and Powerful Trixie!" she called out getting the attention of everyone around. Soarin was watching taking note to what the griffon was doing in case she attacked.

Seeing she was out number the griffon decided to cut her loses with this situation and leave."Eh whatever this place was lame anyway." The griffon said before flying away.

Once the griffon was gone Trixie and Soarin ran over to the mare and crying colt. The mare was holding her brother stroking his mare while the filly was trying to calm him down. She was patting him on the back looking up at the mare who was humming to him as her cried into her shoulder. Trixie leaned down looking at the mare and colt.

"Are you two alright? She didn't hurt you did she?" Trixie asked concerned.

"No, he's fine. That horrible griffon should be thrown into a cell for picking on a child!" she yelled tightening her hold over the colt. She then looked at Trixie. "Thank you for helping us miss. I didn't want to fight that beast not with my brother here. I was afraid she was going to hurt him." she said as tears fell from her eyes. She nuzzled the colt. He looked up to her rubbing his nose against hers affectionately.

After they finished their affections the colt looked at Trixie. "Thank you miss for helping my sister." he said leaving the safety of his sister to hug Trixie. Trixie was overwhelmed with joy as she hugged to colt back. After a minute they began to talk and about twenty minutes later it was time for them to depart. The colt went back to his sister and friend and the three walked off heading home presumably.

Trixie watched as they headed off waving to them as they went around a corner. Soarin walked next to her nudging her. "Hey that was great the way you handled that situation there Trixie." he said with a big grin.

She the nudged him back nearly knocking him over.

"Oh, you be quiet!" she ordered, but the truth was she felt really good about herself. Helping others wasn't something she normally did, but it felt nice and the praise from the colt and his sister filled Trixie's heart with satisfaction.

"You know Trixie," Soarin said standing next to her. "You're not as bad as Fleetfoot and others make you out to be. I'm glad Spitfire got to know you and I'm lad to have gotten to know you as well." he said patting her on the back.

This brought Trixie to smile at him. "Thanks. Maybe things aren't so bad after all. Do you think I can really change Fleetfoot's mind about me?" she asked thinking back to her conversation with Soarin. "Trixie feels that no matter what she says that mare will never giver her a chance."

Soarin placed a wing over her shoulder. "If what I saw now was any indicator you'll get through to her. You're not a bad pony like she thinks you are. I've seen enough proof to say so. Just give her time and she'll come around. I promise." he said beginning to walk again.

As they began to walk their stomachs growled. The two ponies blushed. Taking his wing back Soarin took the lead once again heading down a familiar street Trixie knew. "Hey let's go eat." Trixie nodded in agreement, since she hadn't eaten since the morning. "Trixie is hungry let's forget the doctor or whatever and grab a bite. Trixie is starving after saving that mare and colt from a vicious griffon." she said jokingly. Soarin hopped happily taking flight as Trixie followed.

"I know just the place!" he said leading Trixie towards a familiar establishment known as Pette's Pie Bar. Perhaps today is going to be a better day than Trixie thought. she thought as they entered the establishment taking their seats at a booth. Just as they were getting ready to order two ponies stood next to their table startling Trixie and Soarin.

"Do you mind if we join you?" a mare asked sitting next to Soarin.