[Blank]

[Concept by Trunsako]

[Written by Alyosha Cartwright]

Another perfect summer afternoon was well underway; the dozens of colts and fillies participating in Cloudsdale’s annual summer flight camp were out practicing their moves. All pegasus ponies eventually learned to fly just as naturally as earth ponies and unicorns learned to walk, but those inclined to learn the finer points of flying, as well as impressive aerial acrobatics, attended flight camp to study under some of the most talented and experienced flyers in Equestria – apart from the Wonderbolts, of course.

A proud and confident filly with a rainbow-colored mane and a sizeable chip on her shoulder parted the clouds with an outstretched hoof as her wings powered her forward at lightning speeds. The fast, cool air flowed easily around her face and through her mane as she flew, the pure adrenaline rush of high-speed flying flooding through her once again. Rainbow Dash loved flying more than anything else in the world. There was nothing else in existence that could compare to the sensation of defying gravity itself with the powerful, rhythmic strokes of her wings.

Rainbow Dash looked down at the practice area beneath her, where the older pegasi had set up a simple obstacle course made of large, circular cloud rings.  Two brown colts blasted through the course at full speed, flying tightly together as they climbed and dove and weaved through the rings. They were some of the best fliers at camp; surely they paled in comparison to Rainbow, but they were certainly confident in their abilities.

Further back on the course, Rainbow spotted a yellow filly struggling to even take off from the high roof of one of the hangars. She was tall and lanky, pale yellow with a pink mane that hid half her face, and she constantly stared at the ground. The poor thing was barely able to get off the clouds, and yet here she was attempting to pass through one of flight camp’s most challenging cloud ring obstacle courses.

Rainbow Dash banked gently to the right and looked down on the scene to watch. She could see the yellow filly staring upwards at the ring just above her, clearly intimidated by it though she wanted desperately to fly through. She rapidly fluttered her undersized wings, then jumped skyward. Her weight brought her back down almost immediately. She landed back on the hangar roof a few feet from where she started, visibly disappointed by her failure.

Not yet willing to give up, the yellow filly gritted her teeth and tried again, fluttering her wings wildly and then throwing herself into the air. This time she managed to stay aloft, shakily climbing higher until she was even with the cloud ring. Overjoyed, she tried to fly forwards, but her front hooves snagged on the bottom edge of the ring and she tumbled awkwardly through. Her long yellow limbs flailed crazily as she somersaulted and crashed back down into the sloped roof of the hangar.

Rainbow Dash watched her rocket down the side of the hangar, her eyes wide open with surprise. She gasped in panic but was unable to do anything to counter her rapid slide. The wind rushed through her mane and she braced for impact as she saw what was coming up at the end of the roof.

The filly shot right off the end, crashed into a flag, tore it from its pole, and fell downward once more. The orange fabric tangled around her and ensnared her legs, and she landed in a jumbled heap on a nearby cloud with the flag draped over her head. Rainbow Dash smiled at the comic event, and banked in hard to go help her back on her feet. The two obnoxious colts she had seen flying minutes ago beat her there, and were already making rude jokes at the filly’s expense when Rainbow Dash arrived.

“Nice going, Klutzershy!” sneered the first, the dark brown colt Rainbow recognized as Dumb-bell. “They oughtta ground you permanently!”

Hoops, his lighter-colored companion, chuckled at the comment and added, “My baby brother can fly better than you!”

Both the colts stood laughing cruelly at their mean jokes, while the yellow filly cowered in their shadow, utterly humiliated by the whole encounter. She was on the verge of tears, but the bullies weren’t going to back down from a good laugh.

Rainbow Dash could not let such injustice stand. She banked in hard, swooping down over the scene and planting her hooves firmly on the cloud beside the battered filly. She extended her small but strong wings, leaned forward to look as intimidating as her small frame would allow, and put on her meanest scowl.

“Leave her alone!” she commanded in her squeaky filly voice.

Hoops was unimpressed by the display. “Oooh, what’re you gonna do, Rainbow Crash?” he challenged.

“Keep makin’ fun of her and find out!” Rainbow shouted, though she didn’t fully know what she was going to do next. She hadn’t thought that far ahead—an innocent filly was being picked on just because she wasn’t a strong flyer, and that wasn’t something Rainbow Dash could let stand. She had to jump in to defend those unable or too shy to defend themselves.

“You think you’re such a big shot?” Dumb-bell started, advancing aggressively toward her. “Why don’t you prove it?”

“Whaddya have in mind?”

—

The challenge turned out to be a race – if Rainbow Dash won, then Fluttershy’s honor would be spared the torment of the two older colts. If she lost, then she herself would be a proven failure in front of the entire camp.

Rainbow and the colts stood at the starting line, with Fluttershy herself holding the checkered flag in front of them. To either side stood the stands filled with other participants in summer flight camp. Rainbow took a deep breath and stood firmly on the line, waiting for Fluttershy to drop the flag and begin the race being held in her honor.

“You’re going down!” Hoops taunted, trying to shake his competitor’s resolve.

“In history, maybe!” Rainbow retorted, squinting and bracing for the start of the race. “See you boys at the finish line.” She was confident she could win against them; she knew she was the best flyer at camp and on track to be the best in all of Cloudsdale, maybe even the best in Equestria.

Fluttershy gingerly gripped the flag in her teeth, studying the focused, determined expressions on the faces of the racers. Still unable to believe the rainbow-maned filly had come to her defense, she hoisted the flag up high, ready to start the race.

Rainbow licked her lips, squinted her eyes, and tensed all the muscles in her legs. Her wings snapped erect, ready to blast her forward into the warm summer air the second that flag dropped. She focused on the checkered fabric, shutting out everything else. There was no flight camp. It was her, the colts, and the open sky.

Fluttershy dropped the flag.

Twelve eager hooves kicked hard off the cloud all at once, and three pairs of wings viciously beat the air. The three young racers blasted away from the line in a multicolored blur. Rainbow’s hoof bumped Fluttershy on the way past, but she didn’t have time to look back. She didn’t see Fluttershy get knocked off balance by the blow and fall off the starting cloud towards the ground far below. The race consumed her mind to the exclusion of everything else in the universe, and there was now nothing as important as beating these two colts and proving she was the best flyer at camp.

Air rushed through her mane and stung her eyes as she blasted through the first marker ring, the furious flapping of her wings pushing her just ahead of the others. They strained to catch up, but Rainbow pushed harder against her own body’s limits and sped up. She soared through the second marker, feeling the whoosh of air strike her ears as she did so.

The race came to a corner, and Rainbow banked hard into it. She fought against her own forward momentum, wrestling herself into a new direction to pass the next marker. Hoops followed close behind, but Dumb-bell turned too shallow and slipped off the back end of the turn. Rainbow heard him cry out and crash hard into a cloud column, taking him out of the race for good.

Adrenaline pumped through Rainbow’s veins as she pushed herself ever harder to keep ahead of Hoops. The next bit of the route was straight as an arrow, the perfect place for her superior straight-line speed to build up a sizeable lead on her competitor. The wind buffeted her mane against her back, and she had to squint her eyes hard in order to see. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt before; she’d never flown so fast before, and the feelings of complete freedom and excitement were completely new.

Dash navigated the next series of marker rings, the speed with which she flew causing a slight rainbow trail to linger in the air behind her. A wide smile crossed her face as she basked in the glory of totally unshackled speed and adrenaline. This was how to fly.

A flash of brown crossed her vision just a fraction of a second before Hoops smashed into her, knocking her far off the racing line and regaining the lead.

“Later, Rainbow Crash!” he taunted, snapping off a mocking salute before diving down into the next leg of the race.

“Hey!” Rainbow exclaimed, though she was more angry at herself – she’d allowed herself to get caught up in the excitement of the event when there was a race to win. Now Hoops was ahead by half a mile, and she had precious little time left before he reached the finish line. She banked after him, dug deep down to the very core of her being and found the energy to push even harder. She howled down at the earth, pushing a hoof forward as she sped up faster than she’d ever flown before.

Hoops knew he had effectively achieved a victory. There was no way that foal Rainbow Crash could beat him now. He allowed himself a rest, slowing down his pace a little as the finish line drew closer. Then he was proved wrong – Rainbow rocketed past him, leaving a strong wake in the air behind her. Hoops got caught up in it, the disturbance throwing off his flight pattern. He careened off the racing line and vanished.

Rainbow kept pushing herself even harder, for the need for speed had taken over. She pushed her wings stronger and faster, until her face felt like it was about to be torn off by the wind. Her eyes were watering profusely, and she could hardly see, but she knew there was no going back now. She was approaching the sound barrier, and still she wanted more speed. She ordered her wings to push even faster, until the wake behind her grew longer and sharper as she forced her way through the air.

The ground was coming up fast, but Rainbow intended on waiting until the very last possible moment before even thinking of pulling out of the dive. Lightning crackled through the cone of air surrounding her, and she could swear she saw the colors of her own mane reflected before her eyes. Finally she neared the ground, pulling instantly out of her dive at the precise moment when her wings pushed hard enough to break the sound barrier.

A deafening BANG exploded across the sky, accompanied by a dazzling rainbow-colored shockwave that spread all the way to the far corners of Equestria. Rainbow Dash emerged from the center of the blast, surging upwards thousands of feet into the sky before she dared look behind her. Then she saw what she had done – she had caused a sonic rainboom! Her incredible flying speed had mixed a deafeningly loud sonic boom with a dazzlingly colorful rainbow, a phenomenon previously limited to legends. She’d made the impossible happen as if it hadn’t even been a challenge.

Broad colorful bars extended behind her as she flew upwards, leaving a sparkling rainbow trail as she soared over the floating city of Cloudsdale for everypony to see. She heard cheers erupting from below, and smiled smugly to herself with the knowledge that she was the best flyer in summer flight camp, and could, perhaps, eventually surpass the greatest in Equestria. She glanced at her flank, and saw that the event had also bestowed her cutie mark upon her – it was a thundercloud striking down with a rainbow-colored lightning bolt. Rainbow reveled in her realization that she truly was the best after all, knowing that no pony in Cloudsdale could challenge her and win. It was the greatest day of her young life, her crowning moment of glory.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2 Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 14 Minutes