Chapter 14: 20% Cooler

Friday, July 9, 1948
Wonderbolts Locker Room

Rainbow Dash and the other members of the Wonderbolts walked into their locker room after a long and arduous day of work preparing for the upcoming fall tour. Rainbow Dash in particular had been struggling with a particularly difficult maneuver that called for her to perform a corkscrew while performing her legendary “Sonic Rainboom.” She felt more than a little bruised from her repeated high-speed crashes into the banks of (relatively solid) clouds.

Nonetheless, she was glad to be finished with the week of training. As much as Dashie enjoyed flying for the Wonderbolts, she needed her rest and relaxation. Taking her uniform off, she made her way over to the mare’s showers in order to wash off the sweat and grime from her body.

Stepping under the running shower head, she silently enjoyed the pleasure that came from the relaxing cool water. “Ahhhhh,” she moaned to herself. There was nothing like a cool shower after a hard day of work, except for perhaps some cider.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the instantly recognizable yellow and orange pegasus and leader of the Wonderbolts, Spitfire.

“Good work out there, Dash,” said Spitfire.

“Thanks,” said Rainbow Dash. “You weren’t too bad yourself out there.”

“You know that you're spot on this flying team is secure. You don’t have to resort to syncopathy to impress me,” teased the veteran flyer, before fluttering her wings, flinging water onto Dash in the process.

“Every bit helps,” said Rainbow Dash jokingly.

“Me and my boyfriend were planning on going out later this evening,” said Spitfire, changing the subject. I know an earth pony from the local area who I think would be perfect for you. If you want we could make it a double date.”

“I appreciate the offer,” said Rainbow Dash. “However, I’ve already got my eyes set on a stallion back in Ponyville.”

“OOOOh! Dashie has a crush!” said Spitfire teasingly, making sure of course that she said it loud enough for the rest of the mares in the showering room to hear.

“Tell us more about this handsome stallion,” said Fleetfoot.

Soon, Dashie was being pestered by just under half a dozen mares, desperate for the tiniest bit of gossip.

“Look it’s really none of your business,” said Dashie, trying to extract herself from the awkward situation. She felt awkward lying to her teammates about her crush. It wasn’t so much that she was deceiving them about the fact that she had a romantic interest. Rather, she had been misleading about the gender of her crush.

Sensing that her friend Dashie was feeling unfortable under the pressure of her pestering female teammates, Spitfire intervened.
“I think that’s enough girls. You wouldn’t want anypony else nagging you about your love life now would you,” said Dash’s mentor.
Not wanting to cross their captain, the rest of the pegasi disengaged themselves from Rainbow Dash. Dashie turned to Spitfire and silently mouthed a “thank you.”
Turning to the rack of clean towels on the wall, Rainbow proceeded to grab a towel and began drying herself off. Leaving her superior to complete her showering alone, Rainbow Dash made her way back to her locker. Dialing the correct combination with her mouth, she popped open the locker.
Staring back at her from within the locker were two faces on two distinct pictures. On the right was a cut-out picture of Fluttershy taken from their high school yearbook. Circling the face of the yellow pegasus was a heart drawn with lipstick. Rainbow Dash gazed at the beauty of her crush. Ever since they had been in highschool, she had experienced a profound attraction towards Fluttershy.
Well aware of the social stigma that would fall upon her if she let her attraction become known to others, Rainbow Dash had kept her crush on Fluttershy a closely guarded secret. She just wished that someday it would be safe to let Flutters know how she had felt for over a decade.
On the left was a picture of her and Scootaloo from several years before. The two of them had grown so close recently. Taking Scootaloo was one of the most selfless acts that Rainbow Dash had ever done in her life. She hadn’t regretted it. Her friendship with Scootaloo had made her realize how blessed she was. Rainbow’s mother had passed away from cancer when she was ten, her father had raised her through her teenage years, passing away only two years ago from a stroke. However, she had only recently realized how fortunate she was to have gotten to know her parents. Scootaloo had never gotten that opportunity, her single mother putting her up for adoption upon birth.
Rainbow Dash had come to be the little orange pegasus’ role model. The little filly had been making some progress in recent years in her attempts to fly. However, she was only able to make if off the ground for a few seconds at a time, no matter how much energy and effort she put in. Rainbow Dash had always try to reaffirm her sense of self-worth by telling her how much she and her friends loved her and how Rainbow was confident that she would eventually gain her ability to fly. Nonetheless, Rainbow could see that such reassurances had fallen upon deaf ears in recent months, a despicable cynicism taking root in the heart of the flightless pegasus.
On more than one occasion, she had witnessed Scootaloo get teased and harassed by her peers. Once, when a bully had taken it upon himself to use his horns magic to forcibly grab Scootaloo’s wing and tease her for being an “unwanted orphan.” Rainbow Dash had intervened by bucking him square in the flank. After she told the police her version of events, they had told her that this wasn’t the first time that the bucked unicorn in question had been in trouble with the law. In fact that secretly congratulated for “putting the runt in his place.”
Everynight before going to bed she said a special prayer to the gods of the Equestrian pantheon to finally bless her little friend with the gift of flight. It crushed her to see Scootaloo’s dreams crushed by her disability.
While Rainbow Dash couldn’t do anything about Scootaloo’s flightlessness, she could do something about her orphaned status. On Sunday, she planned to finally adopt Scootaloo as her daughter. For the past couple of years Rainbow Dash had grappled with whether or not she would, or for that matter even could, make a good parent to a child, especially one that has been through such a rough life like Scootaloo had. However, she had eventually come to realize that she needed to be the change she sought in the world.
Thus, for the past couple of months she had gone about going through all of the necessary legal and bureaucratic hurdles necessary to adopt Scootaloo. During the course of the proceedings, she had made sure to keep Scootaloo uninformed about the proceedings. T he reason for this was two fold. First, she wanted to make the adoption a surprise for the filly. Furthermore, she also wanted to avoid falsely raising the hopes of Scootaloo should the adoption process not succeed.
However, her dream had finally come true. Earlier today, she had received a phone call from the Ponyville orphanage, informing her that Scootaloo was officially her daughter. All she had to do was come and pick up her daughter.
Rainbow Dash was officially a mother.