Speed. Soarin had lived a large part of his life for speed; and only four or five times before had he had wanted it more than he did today. Today of all days it was important to impress the Team Captain Rainbow Dash. He zigzagged through an obstacle course, holding a cloud ball in his hooves, as he sprinted towards the finish line; just a few more seconds and- WHACK! Soaring went spinning off course as Fire Streak slammed into him from the side.

“You’re out Soarin.” Called Rainbow Dash from above him.

“It’s not my fault.” He protested, “Fleet Foot came out of my blind spot.”

“That's not a blind spot Soarin! THAT’S WEST!”

Soarin couldn’t think of anything smart to say, and after six months with Dash as the team captain he was starting to realize that at times like this, it was better not to say anything. Fortunately before he had to do any more thinking; the bell rang signaling training was over. Soarin took off in the direction of the showers but he didn’t get very far before Rainbow Dash stopped him; “Do another hundred laps of the course.” She ordered. Soarin paused and thought for a moment with a wide grin on his face; he knew what was happening.

From the first day Rainbow Dash had been in the Wonderbolts, Soarin had known that she had a HUGE crush on him. At first he had thought it was going to be as easy as pie to get her to pay out, but then she started playing this confusing game of hard-to-get that the two of them had been dancing around ever since, each waiting for the other to make the first move. He’d watched in interest as she planted those rumors she was rocking out with Spitfire to make him jealous, and as the bottled up emotions for him grew visibly as the months flew by.

He always knew it was only a matter of time before she made her move but hadn’t been sure what her play was going to be until last month when she arranged that whole escapade in the Everfree Forest. Setting up all those hologram monsters and hiring that hot actress mare to pretend she was hurt had all seemed a bit extreme, (Soarin had gone along with it and pretended he was scared), and Soarin had never known that Dash was such a great actress, but he got what it all meant.

It was all about him.

Dash had set it all up so she could fake her resignation; thinking that when she did, he would come after her, and then take her for the ride of her life. He almost had, but still wasn’t going to be the one to move, even though it was obvious how crazy she was about him. He had waited, like an expert hunter, and just as he expected, she could only keep herself away from him for a few weeks before coming back.

Now, obviously, she said she was just staying for a week to get her stuff packed up and resign officially, but he saw right through that. All week she’d been teasing him and pretending she wasn’t interested in him, and likewise, he pretended he wasn’t interested in her. Today was her last chance to get him without making another fake resignation attempt and he knew this was going to be the day. She just told him to do a hundred extra laps, meaning she wanted to keep him out of his room for an extra hour or so; so when he did get to his room she’d be there waiting for him with socks; and pie! Lots and lots of pie!

…But why did she want him to do a hundred laps first? Did she want him to begin out tired? Maybe she just hadn’t thought of that, (after all, Soarin couldn’t expect everyone to be as smart as he was). Soarin thought for a few moments on how he could get Dash pie without doing the hundred laps. OK fine; he’d do something to be the initiator; otherwise she might lose her nerve and not think he was interested in her at all. Soaring floated all dreamy like up to Dash; “You know I could do a hundred laps or-”

“Two hundred laps.”

So that was the way it was; still playing hard to get. If he did eighty laps, she’d think he was really fast and get even more excited. Soarin set off to do his eighty laps, giving Dash a flirtatious wave with his flank.

That pie had better be worth it.

Rainbow Dash watched Soarin fly away from him, averting her eyes in time to miss his usual bouncing his rump he always did that made him look constipated, and then realized what had just happened.

She’d finished!

This had been her last day as a Wonderbolt, after today they were Spitfire’s problem again and, looking back, this last week really hadn’t been that bad. After she knew that she wasn’t going to be shackled to the Wonderbolts for the rest of her life, they almost seemed comical and her annoyance had been more from habit then real irritation. She was glad she’d decided to come back to wrap things up properly; and do one final show, knowing that it would be her last.

Back in her rooms; Dash wove her way through a labyrinth of packed boxes. A few dozen of them were labeled to be delivered to her cloud house in Ponyville which she still owned; with most of the rest listed for various charity actuations, except for a few items which she figured would appreciate in value fast enough it was worth putting into storage for a few years, (Twilight’s idea).

Rainbow unsuited; placing the uniform in the bottom of a box destined for auction; took an empty box and began rummaging through the remaining unpacked tidbits to determine their fates. A small statue of herself, holding a lightning bolt like a spear; sell. A rainbow colored scarf that one of her fans had made for her; keep. A stack of vinyl records with Wonderbolt theme music on them; sell. A huge box of fireworks… save them for Scootaloo’s birthday next month. The picture of her defeating Spitfire to become captain of the Wonderbolts; sell. A stack of choose-your-own-adventure novels… sell; she didn’t need the fantasies anymore.

Piling things into one box or another, she eventually made her way into her bedroom, where she stopped at a pile of small plush toys that rested on one side of the bed. Thirty one little Wonderbolt plush toys, one for each team member past to present, she had collected when she was a filly and had slept with ever since. Even after she came to loathe the Wonderbolts she still slept with their effigies, hugging them tightly every night, around their throats, imagining the blue masks weren’t masks, and were getting gradually darker shades of blue as she strangled the life out of them. Rainbow shook the outdated fantasy out of her head and dumped them in the auction box. Pretty soon; she expected to have something much nicer to cuddle up to at night time.

When Rainbow had finished sealing the fates of her possessions, she decided to say one last goodbye to Spitfire and wasn’t surprised to see her waiting for her outside her doorway. “You’re really leaving then?” asked Spitfire after looking past her at the stacks of sealed boxes.

“Yup.”

“Still not saying where you’re going?”

“Nope.”

“Alright then,” smiled Spitfire weakly, “Take care Rainbow Dash.”

“You don’t seem as happy as I thought you might be, seeing as how I’m giving you control of the team back.”

Spitfire shrugged, “Sometimes it’s nice not to have everything resting on you.”

“You going to be OK?”

“I’ll be fine, I dealt with them for four years before you came along, I can deal with them again; but I was thinking of bringing in some help.”

“Oh, yea?”

“Two unicorn stallions who call themselves the Flim Flam brothers; when they heard you were retiring they offered to help out with management of the team for a percentage of the profits. Have you ever heard of them?”

“Actually I’ve met them, I think they’re-”

“Oh by the way; if you’re planning to disappear, and aren’t coming back, would it be alright with you if we tell everypony that you eloped with a half dragon Saddle Arabian Princess, who then ate you in a fit of passion? The Flim Flam brothers think it would make a huge spike in our merchandising sales and they know some gypsies who would be willing to pretend to summon your spirit between performances at our shows.”

“…No.”

“Hear me out;” pleaded Spitfire, “They also have this idea for a movie. They’re still working out the details of the plot but so far it’s that the half dragon princess only ate about half of you, and out of remorse, she keeps the rest of you frozen on ice. Then, two hundred years in the future, she replaces the parts she ate with machines, revives you as a cyborg and then the two of you go to the North Pole save the world from an alicorn necromancer and his army of undead minions. They reckon the movie could clear fifty million bits with the right advertizing, and there’d be a cut for you if you ever came to collect it… you’d have to come in disguise though.”

“Just say that I sold my stuff, ran away, and that I’m not leaving any way for anyone to contact me.”

Spitfire’s shoulders slumped a bit, “...Alright." she sighed, "Sorry for interrupting you, what were you saying about the Flim Flam brothers?”

“I think they’d be perfect for the job.” smiled Rainbow.

Dash made several slow steady laps around Canterlot; visited her favorite buffet and then, after several minutes of internal debate, decided to stop by at Rarity’s before heading to Ponyville. Opting to forego the fiasco of trying to climb up through the workshops again, Rainbow landed on the balcony, pushed her way through the double open doors, and stepped over Opal to see Rarity’s back as she worked furiously on several mannequins who stood in silent subjection to Rarity’s markers, threads and needles.

Rainbow watched in unnoticed silence; ignoring Opal as she rubbed against her legs as Rarity talked endlessly to herself as she stabbed needle after needle into her mannequin victims; “Ruby, we need Ruby slippers to go with the emerald and pearl necklaces, but if we do that then we’ll have to change the dress color from black to white, and you know how I feel about white these days, it’s just so dull. What about aqua? I love aqua! But then I’d have to make this dress a short-medium-short and it was meant to be medium-short-short. Oh whatever will we do? I know! We can take the lace from the neck braids and-no no; that wouldn’t work. What about-”

“Rarity?”

Rarity dropped her needles and thread, catching them a moment later to stab them into her mannequins as she turned; “Rainbow Dash! You’re back!”

“Were you just talking to yourself?”

“What? Oh no-no. I was talking to Opal, she’s helping me design some new dresses.” Rarity pointed to Opal, sitting on a bean bag licking herself, without showing the slightest interest in the dress Rarity was making. Rainbow Dash suddenly felt a lot less comfortable with whatever was rubbing against her legs, she looked down and saw a yellow cat weaving between her legs and behind that one was the white cat she had stepped over to get in here.

“Umm… you got two new cats.”

“Four new cats;” Corrected Rarity beaming, “I finally found out why Opal has always acted so crabby, she was lonely, so I got her Ruby to keep her company. They were happy together for about a week, but then I realized how horribly inconsiderate I was being. I don’t limit myself to only one male and so why should she? I got her Turquoise but realized my mistake almost instantly; if Opal and Turquoise were together, Ruby would see them and get jealous, so I got him Topaz so he could spend time with her when Opal and Ruby were together. Then I realized what a horrible betrayal I had done to my dear little Opal, practically inviting Ruby to be unfaithful to her, so I got rid of that perfidious Ruby and replaced him with two new toms, naming them Sapphire and Frazzles!”

“…That makes sense.” Not.

“Of course it does dear, what else would you expect? Now you simply have to feel Frazzle’s coat, it is the softest of any cat ever. Oh Frazzles!” Rarity looked around with a dark smile on her face for several moments then spotted a sand colored cat sitting on the back of a nearby couch. When Frazzles saw she was after him, he tried to run, but Rarity was too quick, galloping over, lifting him up in her telekinesis and bringing him over to Rainbow Dash, despite his protests. “Pet him Dash, feel how soft he is.”

Rainbow reached forth and stroked him twice. “Nice.”

“Oh, that wasn’t enough Rainbow Dash! You need to really feel him.” Rarity lifted Frazzles in her telekinesis and began rubbing him up and down Rainbow’s neck and wing.

“Very nice.” Complimented Rainbow slowly, more than a little uncomfortable with the weirdness of the situation.

“But how can you say that when you haven’t felt any of the others!?” Protested Rarity vehemently, “We define our quality by comparing ourselves to others, and cat’s must be no different!” Rarity immediately grabbed the cats Rainbow assumed to be Turquoise and Sapphire and began rubbing one of them on her neck and wing opposite to Frazzles, and the other she rubbed up and down her belly, tickling her mercilessly, as the three cats meowed incessantly. “See how Sapphire’s coat is grainy and stringy, while Turquoises fur sticks together like it hasn’t been washed? NOW feel Frazzles perfect hide. Fit for a princess!”

They each felt equally disturbing. “Actually Rarity I was hoping to talk to you about something.”

Rarity dropped the cats, who ran back to their original positions, “Oh yes; you simply must forgive me for getting so caught up with my cats, no matter how delightful they are. I’m sure that by now you’ve heard the vicious rumors circulating Canterlot that you’re resigning. Can you imagine!? Now, I assume Spitfire is behind this attempted coup since she has the most to gain from you gone, but if we work together, I’m sure that we can show that little fem-fatal for the liar that she is and-”

“Rarity, they’re not rumors, it’s true.”

Rarity looked shocked, “What? Whatever do you mean?”

“I’m quitting the Wonderbolts. All the paperwork has been signed, and this was my last day. I’m leaving.”

“But… you’ve wanted to be a Wonderbolt for as long as I’ve known you; and-”

“And now I want to do something else.”

“Really Rainbow Dash I must protest, think this over before making such a rash decision… I’ve only just finished making your new range of uniforms, they’re perfect!”

Rainbow sighed and spent the next fifteen minutes looking over the new uniforms; to be honest, they looked a lot like the current ones, with a few changes that made them look like last year’s uniforms and with a few extra lightning bolts sewn on. Really, some of the pictures of future Wonderbolt uniforms Rainbow had seen in the fan fiction comic books looked way cooler. “Send them to Spitfire;” said Rainbow after spending the minimum amount of time necessary to avoid hurting Rarity’s feelings, “She’s got your payment ready and I’m sure she’d be more than willing to commission you for next year’s uniforms.”

“But… you’re quitting the team of your dreams?”

“Actually; I was thinking of joining a new team soon, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Rarity looked on in interest, “You always said that you could make an outfit for anything, right.

“Oh, of course! Anything you can name I can make.”

“Yea well when I took my last holiday I was doing a private show on this country resort near a thicket, and… well I crashed into one of the trees.”

“Oh how terrible! That must have ruined the whole show.”

“Well I could have saved it, except when I crashed my uniform was torn, and I got a bunch of sap all over the uniform and it stuck out as clear as day, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, I got a bunch of thorns stuck into me when I crashed and they really hurt.”

“Oh dear; Rainbow Dash I understand that after such a terrible fiasco you might be afraid to perform again, but if you retire now then it will appear that you’re simply running away.”

“Did I say this was my last holiday, I’m sorry I meant it was on my first holiday after I joined, old news now. Anyway, after that I got to thinking about what if I had a uniform that was a bit more durable you know? Something that if I crashed head on into a thorn tree, it wouldn’t hurt and I could keep going on with the performance.”

“You mean have some extra padding in the front?”

“More like all around, you know in case I slam into a tree on the side or if I try out my idea of flying backwards and I hit something?”

“…You can fly backwards?”

“Well sort of; I’ve been hoping to try and teach myself how to fly backwards and sideways through a giant obstacle course, really fast, so I’d need a lot of protective coverings like, all around.”

Rarity pursed her lips and thought; “Well, I could go heavy on extra thick cotton pads… but it would make you look fat… or pregnant! Can you imagine the scandal!? I really can’t recommend it.”

“Maybe you could use something a bit tougher then cotton then?”

“Tougher? You mean like flannel?”

“I was thinking maybe some sort of metal; something really hard but without much weight. Titanium maybe?”

“Metal!?” Gasped Rarity in horror, “I couldn’t, I mean I don’t,” she thought, “Maybe I could squeeze a forge in on the second floor, but then it would be giving off soot and smoke all day long and, with such a low roof, it would get all over the dresses as they were being made and ruin them.”

“…You could outsource the metal plates and make them somewhere other than your tower.”

Rarity’s face lit up, “Oh yes you’re right, I could; silly me. So, we need a metal dress… I think I could paint it in such a way that it still looked elegant; with the right amount of polish and pinks and blues and golds I could-”

“I was hoping for something that if I crashed into a tree and got covered in sap and mud, anyone watching me would hardly notice, so I was thinking more like black with dark greens and browns…”

Rarity looked even more confused, “You want to wear dark colors; in this season? Why have you even looked at the latest magazines? Dark is out, out of the question.”

“Maybe I could start a new trend?”

“Well… yes I suppose you could, but if you’re insistent on going for ‘dark’ and ‘metal’ it might be salvaged with the proper design.”

“I was thinking alternating the colors in a design something like a tiger or a leopard. Leopards are cool.”

Rarity’s eyes widened in abject horror, “Y-you want to wear a dress with spots? To go with your striped mane!? Rainbow darling you’re not even making sense! Are you feeling OK, because you sound like you’re losing your mind!”

“OK, tiger then.” backtracked Rainbow.

“…Maybe. I could make you a cape that would reflect the tiger pattern and with some streamers to fly behind you it I might be able to make it work.”

Rainbow dash shook her head again; “Those things would get caught whenever I crashed, plus they wouldn’t be aerodynamic and I really want to be able to still do my sonicrainboom. I need something that’s lightweight, covers my whole body, is extremely resilient, made of dark colors in the design of a tiger and is aerodynamic. Can you make it?”

Rarity stopped and thought for a long minute, looking from one of her mannequins to another with varying degrees of displeasure. “No.” she said at last; “I can’t even envision the sort of dress you’re asking for, but I’m sure it would look horrible. I-I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“It’s alright Rarity; just… take care of yourself OK? Maybe take it easy on the cats.”

“Oh but Rainbow Dash; clearly you don’t understand the fine loyalty of cats. They’re ten times better companions then those stallions that I use to date. They don’t pee all over the carpets, they don’t shed on the furniture, they never disagree with me; why, when I add the next nine floors to my tower, four of them are going to be for my new best friends here.”

“…Goodbye Rarity.” Rainbow flew a few feet into the air, hovered for a moment; gave Rarity a brief pat on the back and then flew out the window. Rainbow Dash only saw Rarity a few times after this, and perhaps it was for the best. Over the coming months the conditions on the second and third floors continued to deteriorate, visits from the Canterlot stallions became less frequent, and Rarity's collection of cats multiplied as her sanity collapsed.

Soon five cats became fifty, and fifty became five hundred. Construction began on a thirteen story expansion to Rarity's tower, funded by her booming fashion empire which prospered until the winds of Canterlot desires shifted in the direction of a new, up and coming prodigy, bringing an abrupt end to the once seemingly endless supply of revenue from Rarity's trade. As her sales plummeted, Rarity fumed with what she saw as betrayal by what had been her loyal consumers and came to despise pony company altogether, preferring the companionship of her cats instead, who continued to increase as her wealth diminished. One year after the mysterious disappearance of Wonderbolt legend Rainbow Dash; Rarity's business closed with an all store sale. Using the last of her money, Rarity drained the mud baths from her subterranean spas, and filled them with a rumored one hundred year supply of cat food, for one hundred cats, and then sealed the doors shut from the inside.

The looming, half finished, tower earned the name ‘the corpse’ from the residents of Canterlot, firstly as a metaphor for the state of Rarity’s business, secondly because the decaying scaffolding made it look like one, and thirdly because it smelled like one. Then, three years after the tower was sealed, scores of cats began a mass exodus of the tower, many with sewing needles stuck into their fur. To the relief of the citizens of Canterlot, the doors of the tower were blasted open, and a team was sent inside to investigate. The team passed through eight floors, made barely accessible by layer upon layer of cat droppings, until they reached the ninth floor to discover a scandal that shook the fashion and social world of Canterlot for years to come. Rarity had begun working again, and was planning to re-kick-start her business with a new range of coats… fur coats.

After a vicious struggle, Rarity was restrained and taken to a mental asylum where she lived out the rest of her days. Her first spring at the asylum she crafted a wedding dress from several rolls of toilet paper and married a tree which she named, ‘Prince Handsome-Rich-Charming-Smart-Strong-Famous'. By her own account it was because he gave her flowers and was a very good listener, by the accounts of her nurses, it was because the tree was the only living thing in the asylum which she could catch long enough to conduct a wedding ceremony. She was visited, in gradually declining frequently, by those who had known her in Ponyville, none more often or more loyally than Sweetie Bell whose songs never failed to calm Rarity, sometimes even enough for her to recognize her younger sister.

The flight to Ponyville was peacefully uneventful, and Rainbow covered the distance in a fraction of the time the train ride would have taken. She did a pass over Sweet Apple Acres; peeking through the window of Applejack’s bedroom she saw AJ asleep and Fluttershy dozing on the couch and decided not to wake them, but was glad to see Caramel helping Big Macintosh in the orchard. She stopped by at Twilight’s for a few minutes, planning to just say hi and up some notes on the cloud walking spell, and ended up spending the next twenty minutes hearing another one of Twilight’s apologetic rants, and collecting a fourth letter of apology which she had written to Storm. Rainbow managed to slip out the window when Twilight wasn’t looking, hoping she wouldn’t be too late for her next appointment.

Rainbow landed on the roof of Sugar Cube Corner at one minute to four, but her contact wasn’t there. She waited impatiently for about half an hour, then took off, doing slow watchful laps around Ponyville until she spotted Scootaloo, with the other Cutie Mark Crusaders by the river trying to fashion together some kind of boat out of some loose timber, an old wheelbarrow, a surfboard and… something pink.

Dash hovered behind a tree and then, when the crusader’s backs were turned, ran into a nearby clump of bushes. She waited for the right moment and then pounced, sweeping up Scootaloo in one hoof and tickling her from behind.

“Rainbow Dash!” managed the orange filly between gasps, “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing; I was waiting for you at Sugar Cube Corner.”

“You were?”

“You got the letter I sent you… right?”

The look on Scootaloo’s face showed she had no idea what she was talking about; but from the look on Sweetie Bell’s face, Dash would have thought she’d accidentally just killed somepony; “I’m sorry” she begged, “I got your mail this morning and I was going to give it to you at school, but you were late and I forgo… please don’t be angry.”

“Settle down Sweetie Bell,” cautioned Rainbow, “It’s OK.”

Sweetie Bell cringed, “But I kept Scootaloo’s mail! I might as well have stolen it, I’m sorry.”

“Relax Sweetie Bell” offered Scootaloo, “If anything it’s that dumb mail mare’s fault.”

“What?” Dash asked.

“Derpy, the retarded mail mare;” clarified Scootaloo, “I don’t even see how she keeps her job, half the time she’s late, and the other half she gets the mail mixed up like she did with giving my mail to Sweetie Bell.”

Rainbow glared at Scootaloo disapprovingly; “Don’t ever let me hear you talk about Derpy that way again.”

“But… she is a retard. No one really likes her and her daughter is crazy; she keeps on interrupting Mrs. Cheerilee whenever she tries to teach history, yelling out that virtually everything in our history book is wrong.”

“I said; don’t ever talk about her that way again!”

Scootaloo looked at her confused; “But… you use to make fun of her all the time.”

That was… true. Horse Apples; why did that have to be true? Dash stood there, reminded of everything she had ever said about Derpy, her discoordination, her unpopularity; the things she had said about Derpy behind her back… and to her face. She tried to think about even one kind thing she had ever said to Derpy, but there wasn’t anything. The last time she had met her came out in crystal clarity, venting the frustration she had been feeling for the Wonderbolts on Derpy.

“Rainbow Dash?” Dash looked down to see Scootaloo nudging her, looking worried, “You OK?”

“Umm… yea, sure.” Dash shook her head, trying to get rid of the guilt that was clawing at her; “Let’s say I take you to Sugar Cube Corner next week, alright?”

Scootaloo exclaimed some sort of happy affirmative, that Rainbow Dash didn’t hear. She wanted to stay and yell at her for making fun of Derpy, but what Scootaloo was right; what she had just said was paltry compared to some of the things Dash had said over the years. Dash was aware of her hoof ruffling Scootaloo’s mane and then the air under her wings as she began circling into the air. She hadn’t told her wings to fly, but she knew what they were doing, against her own will, they were taking her to find Derpy.

Of all the things Scootaloo had said, none of them were false; Derpy was clumsy and retarded, but she only got that way sacrificing herself to try and help others. Now she probably was the lamest mare in Equestria, but she deserved respect for all the things she had done in the past; even if she couldn’t remember them. Dash knew it was against the rules; now that she knew about Derpy’s past, she was forbidden from talking to her, as any slip of the tongue could bring back memories that could kill her, but Dash’s wings were giving her no choice, she couldn’t let the tirade at the Wonderbolt training court be the last thing she ever said to Derpy. Next Chapter: Extended Ending - Derpy Estimated time remaining: 12 Minutes