[ September 3rd, 2009 // both: age 15 ]

Groaning in annoyance, Rainbow Dash sat on her haunches impatiently as her mother, Windy Whistles, forcefully yanked a comb through her daughter's untameable mane. Rainbow shuffled around on the bathroom tiles agitatedly, a fresh jolt of pain lashing at her poor scalp with each pass of the comb.

"Owwww, Mom, that hurts!" Rainbow moaned, huffing and puffing as she irritatedly waited for the harrowing ordeal to finally come to an end.

"Well, maybe if you stopped fidgeting so much, it'd hurt less!" Windy Whistles snapped back, with the tough comb still wedged sturdily between her teeth. "Sweet Celestia, when did your mane get this long?!"

"I wish you'd just chop it all off; it'd save both of us the trouble," muttered Rainbow under her heavy breaths.

"Trust me Dashie, if you did that, you'd regret it in a heartbeat," stated Windy, giving one last yank at Dash's multicoloured tresses before securing it into a high flowing ponytail, leaving her fringe out at the front. "Done."

When she realised that her torture was finally no more, Rainbow's heart skipped a million beats as she scampered down the flight of stairs leading to the front door.

"Dad, dad!" she exclaimed, bouncing around erratically with excitement. "C'mon, I'm gonna be late!"

Bow Hothoof hovered out of the family's spacious living room, his 15-year-old daughter's saddle-bag lodged in his muzzle, "Are you forgetting something, princess?" He softly tossed the bag over to Rainbow, who sheepishly giggled before mounting the saddle-pack on her back.

"Heheh, thanks Dad," she said. "Anyway, can we get going?! I don't wanna be late for my first day of Flight School!".

"Okay, okay, come on then," grinned Bow, nudging open the front door. "Bye, honey!"

"Bye, Mom!" called out Rainbow Dash.

"See you two later!" hollered Windy from the bathroom upstairs.

The father-daughter duo took flight into the crisp morning air, sharing various jokes and giggling to each other until they eventually reached the official Wonderbolt Flight Academy; a specialised school where young mares and stallions from ages 15-18 can train to become a Wonderbolt while also learning the basic lesson such as Literacy, Mathematics, Science and Equestrian History. However, not everypony who attends the flight school is guaranteed a spot on the elite flight team, so Rainbow Dash was determined to work as hard as she had ever worked before to be selected as one of 'the best of the best'.

As Rainbow Dash and her father entered the immense building, they were promptly greeted by the receptionist pony at the front desk. As soon as she realised the two were waiting for her service, she immediately propped her glasses up her muzzle and plastered a cheesy grin across her face.

"Good morning, and welcome to the Wonderbolts Flight Academy! My name is Super Stream, how may I help you this beautiful Monday morning?" inquired Super Stream, the unusual amount of fake cheeriness in her voice enough to make both Rainbow Dash and Bow Hothoof cringe.

"Good morning, I'm here for the full tour of the Academy for the newly enrolled students," explained Bow, resting the upper half of his body on the marble desk.

"Of course! If you could just tell me the name and date of birth of your daughter over there?"

"Rainbow Jennifer Dash, 1st February '94."

"Hmmm..." Super Stream's tongue crept out of her mouth out of habit as she closely scanned the enormous book of enrollments, before her face lit up with an 'Aha!' expression, "Yep, here we are! Right through these doors, sir!"

With the press of a button hidden beneath the marble desk, a pristine set of glass doors slid open, beckoning Bow and his over-excited daughter to enter, which they obviously did. Rainbow's eyes could barely keep up with the extravagant sight before her.

The academy was like nothing awe-struck Rainbow had ever seen before in her entire life. It was populated entirely by various pegasi, ranging from the required age of 15-18 years old, all with a unique and different style to them. Some with short manes, some with long, flowing manes and even some with no manes at all. Some ponies had coats of colours that Rainbow didn't even know existed. To the right of her was an extensive flight of stairs, which above it was a sign reading:

~ Wonderbolts Flight Academy, for the gifted and talented pegasi of Celestia's Equestria ~

-2 : Storage
-1 : Indoor Practicing Grounds, Showers, Changing Rooms
0 : Front Reception, Medical Office, (Outdoors: Outdoor Practicing Grounds)
1 : Cafeteria, Dormitories
2 : Classrooms, Library
3 : Headmaster Wing's Office, Teachers' Lounge

* lavatories on every floor *

Rainbow scrunched her muzzle profusely, she had no idea what a lavatory was, but she was sure as hell she'd soon find out. Still taking in their alluring surroundings, they trotted into the library, which had a hand-made banner above it with the words 'Full Academy Tour This Way!' painted in bold, red block-capital letters. Inside the library, were many other pegasi, the same age as Rainbow Dash, scattered around sitting with their parents. She could only assume that they were going to be some of the ponies she would be spending the next three or so years with.

"Ahem, attention please, everypony!" a brightly coloured, purple maned pegasus suddenly hovered into everypony's view, wearing thick-rimmed geek glasses and a shirt collar-and-tie combo. "Mares and gentlecolts, welcome to the Wonderbolts Flight Academy! My name is Daisy Meadows, and I am going to be your tour guide for today. I hope everypony is ready, because this academy is jam-packed with facilities, making it very easy to get lost, so you all better be listening to what I'm saying!"

"First of all, we're going to do a 'get to know each other' exercise, so if the parents can go to that," she gestured to a table riddled with tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes, "table over there, that would be amazing, thank you!"

As the group of parents huddled away to the refreshment table, Daisy Meadows cheerfully led the young mares and stallions to a carpeted area and ushered them to all take a seat in a circle, preferably next to somepony they didn't already know prior to this day. Scanning the collection of about 20 to 30 ponies for the coolest-looking one, Rainbow eventually settled on plopping herself beside a mare with a pink coat and short electric blue hair. Rainbow took a sudden liking to that particular mane-cut, wishing her own hair could be as awesome as that.

"Nice mane," said Rainbow, shuffling on the carpet to make herself comfortable.

"Thanks, I like yours as well. I've never seen anypony with a rainbow mane before!" grinned the pegasus.

Impatiently, Daisy Meadows blew into the metallic whistle dangling from her neck, causing the young ponies to wince in pain and stuff their hooves in their ears. "Now, that got your attention, didn't it! Make sure you always give every teacher or instructor your full attention at all times; otherwise, they'll do the same thing I just did, but with 20 times more force and volume. Anyways, on with the activity...you!" she pointed head-on at a colt with an almost black coat and silvery streaked mane, "Why don't you start us off! What's your name, young stallion?"

"The name's Thunderlane," purred Thunderlane, urging a few suggestive giggles from a couple of the other mares.

"Anything you'd like to tell us about yourself, Thunderlane?" asked Daisy, more enthusiastic than the actual students.

"I'm super cool, awesome and a total ladies man!" he attempted to wink seductively, but it ended up looking like he had something stuck in his eye and was trying to get it out. Clearly unimpressed, Rainbow rolled her eyes in unison with the mare sitting beside her, which caused them to giggle at the fact that they had the same train of thought.

"What an idiot, he's so full of himself!" guffawed Rainbow quietly and her companion nodded in agreement.

"What about you, dear?" Daisy was now pointing directly at the electric-blue mane mare beside Rainbow, who chuckled sheepishly.

"Oh, I'm Firefly. Las Pegasus born and raised, just moved here to Cloudsdale after I got accepted to the academy," explained Firefly, her Las Pegagus accent beginning to reveal itself as she spoke.

Next to introduce themselves was Rainbow Dash, who boasted about her father being a retired Wonderbolt leader, then Spitfire, Wave Chill, Fleetfoot, Blaze, Fire Streak and a whole bunch of other ponies that were so lacklustre in terms of personality that Rainbow Dash had practically fallen asleep during the last part of the introductions. When she came back to her senses, there was still one pony left to introduce himself.

He dramatically rose from his haunches, immediately catching Dash's attention, before introducing himself, "Hey everypony, I'm Soarin Skies, but just call me Soarin. My mom is the famous business executive of Sike sports supplies and she also owns the chain cafe Cloudy's Cloud Cakes...but much to her dismay, my favourite food is pie!"

"Ooooh!" Firefly nudged her new-found friend in the shoulder. "Famous parents, probably rich and cute, score!"

"Ehhh, I'm not into the whole dating thing," muttered Rainbow, blowing her floppy fringe from her eyes. "Plus, I bet he's probably really stuck up or a total tryhard like that Thunderlane guy."

"Well, each to their own, I guess..." Firefly mumbled, her eyes still drawn to Soarin Skies, who was hitting it off with the rest of the mares in the group. "I'm gonna go shoot my shot before one of those mares gets to him!"

And with that, Rainbow Dash watched downheartedly as her friend scampered off to the boastful colt. Although Rainbow was hooves-down one of the most confident, assertive ponies to probably exist, when it came to flirting or anything to do with a relationship, her mind went completely blank. As she grew older, she watched as her friends got into a relationship after relationship, and she was always the single one. She always just played it off as 'not being interested' when in reality she had absolutely no idea how to flirt. Sure, she's had a fair share of crushes herself, and even when the feelings were mutual, she couldn't bring herself to take it that one big step further.

The longer Rainbow watched Soarin, the more attractive he began to seem; much cuter than any of the other stallions she had ever met in her life, no wonder there were so many mares drooling all over him. With his adorably slightly curly, navy blue mane, pale blue coat, emerald green eyes and a cocky grin, what wasn't there to love about him? All Rainbow needed to know now was his personality...if he was assertive, confident and smart-mouthed like her, that would be the icing on the cake...well, in this instance, pie.

With the group of thirsty mares slobbering all over him, Soarin chuckled nervously and shuffled around in the little breathing space he had left in an attempt to escape his uncomfortable ordeal. His eyes were still locked on the rainbow-haired mare plopped on her haunches a couple metres from him. Rainbow Dash, that was her name. Confused, Soarin watched closely as she mumbled something to herself, and it wasn't until a couple extensive minutes later that the two realised that they had been staring at each other the entire time. Embarrassed, Rainbow suddenly lashed her head away, attempting but miserably failing to conceal her heated, crimson flushed cheeks. Soarin chuckled to himself, a blush also creeping onto his face.

'Damn' he thought to himself, still staring as a cocky grin made its way onto his muzzle. 'She's cute."