Celestia sped towards the streak of colors. She couldn't help but grin wildly, she hadn't really stretched her wings in centuries. Her advisers insisted she be carted everywhere, apparently the people felt their Princess should be pampered. She snorted in derision, she could out fly any of the pegasi on her staff. Only one alive had given her pause recently, the mare she was chasing now.
She had truly admired this mare's ability, the Sonic Rainboom was legendary for a reason. Pegasi had strived for it for centuries, little realizing the origin of the legend had not been a pegasus at all. Celestia did not wish to spoil anypony's dreams, it took her powerful wings and magic to do it. Or it had, until the Element of loyalty looked down to see a friend in danger. That single act had outclassed every other competitor in the Best Young Flyers competition, even allowing for her earlier flubs crashing into cloud columns and nearly destroying Celestia's own viewing box with that spinning cloud. Celestia could have gone after Rarity herself that day, and in fact had sent the Wonderbolts to help initially, but when she'd seen the signs of the cone forming at Rainbow's muzzle her attention had been rapt. Could she do it? Could an ordinary pegasus break the barrier?
She tried to remember... had Tornado been this fast? She couldn't recall if she was or not. She held a hope in her heart, a bit selfish really, but it had been so long since she'd really had a challenge. Celestia had not raced in eons, but her muscles did what they had always done when she prepared for a race. She flexed her great wings, then she examined the cyan mare streaking across the sky exclaiming in delight. A fine pegasi, yes; a wonderful friend, no question; courageous, without a doubt. But could she race? Really race? Please, Celestia thought. It has been so long since I have been tested, let this mare test me. Let her be a glorious racer. Let her be both quick and fast, smart and agile. Give her a matchless mind for tactics, stunts the equal of mine. Please, please, it’s been so long: let her be a master!
Rainbow Dash looked back, she could make out a pursuer... Pinkie Pie? No, Pinkie had quickly grown bored with racing, she had a party to plan. "Hey, whoever you are, if you think you can keep up with me you've got another thing coming!"
Celestia had to smile. No one had directly challenged her in so long and it was thrilling! She let the cyan mare maintain her lead, let her build up courage, dodging gracefully between the clouds, letting her wings alone maintain the distance. Then her horn glowed and she was behind the nearest cloud, the cyan mare had not expected it and was slow reacting. Celestia flashed immediately out from the cloud, spiraling in a barrel roll around Dash, and the mare slowed, faltered, got her equilibrium, continued moving away.
Dash looked back. "Celestia? Oh this is gonna be good! Okay princess, you want a race you got it!"
Celestia was impressed with the quickness of the return. Most mares the size of Rainbow Dash would have gone down in a nosedive or, at the least, been severely impaired by the wake of her air currents. The mare did neither; she simply adjusted, gave a mighty beat to accelerate through the wake, and continued flying.
They were moving parallel to a giant cloud-bank now, and the fluffy clouds pegasi would normally gather for larger storms were behind them, mostly. The mare was slowly being led toward a group of large storm clouds, for Celestia was anxious to see how well she moved when quarters were close, when you could not maneuver with total freedom. She continued to lead, and then the clouds were surrounding them. Celestia suddenly threw her body against a nearby cloud, rebounded off it with stunning force, lunging with incredible speed.
She had hurt the mare's pride, tickling her with her wing, along the left side. A touch was all. But it was humiliating. Immediately the mare increased her speed, getting her position away from the storm system, getting out into the open air. Celestia raced on, not bothering to try to check the other mare's flight; there would always be time for that later.
Then Rainbow pulled off a set of stunning tricks, they came with no warning and the speed and intensity were terrifying. Her wings flashed in the light again and again, Celesta was only too delighted to watch.
She was not entirely familiar with the style of the stunts. She could hear the mare chanting their names as she performed them.
Rainbow Dash sped about, showing off for the princess that had just outperformed every show the Wonderbolts had ever done. "Here's the "Super Speed Strut"!" she said, moving at a speed only another Alicorn could match, much less follow visually, and casually strutting her legs as she did so.
"The Fantastic Filly Flash!" Here she rose high into the air and dove into a nose-dive, She recovered and her sudden acceleration created a flash in her wake.
"Here's one I just thought of! I call it the "Sonic Tornado Boom", okay the name needs work but just watch!"
She began by flying at a dizzying speed in a circular motion, creating a raging tornado from the surrounding clouds. Somehow the tornado had rainbows flowing throughout it. It made for a beautiful, if somewhat terrifying, sight. Dash rose high into the air and dove into the center at a previously unheard of speed. At the center of the raging tornado she broke the sound barrier with such force it seemed to rip the air itself. Celestia could smell ozone and see clouds bursting out of the formation in an explosion of sound and color.
She then spotted a cyan mare falling to the ground.
She sped to her and caught her gently. "Gotcha!" She whispered. "Come, my little pony, we have a party to attend."
-------------------------------------------------
Author's note:
Large portions of this chapter are an adaption to the sword fight in the novel The Princess Bride: a 1973 fantasy novel written by William Goldman. No plagiarism is intended, I simply think that scene is made of pure awesome and I wanted to write something racing and stunt related similar to it.
"Gotchya~!" :D Oh God, Trollestia.
I just finished the previous chapter and you post this, I mean it's not like I've got anything better to do like sleep or something
246086 ponies are better than sleep.
NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
246104 I know right? that's why I wasn't being sarcastic. I mean, who needs sleep? *falls asleep on keyboard*
246143 WIMP
I dont know where you are but its 1:30 and i get up at 5:30 for school
leep is for the weak and for those that dont want to fail
Wait, so why was Dash falling again?
246214 you got me beat at the wakeup time, but now it's 2:37
246219 she just flew faster than she ever had into a tornado causing a huge explosion, all the air in the immediate vicinity turned to ozone vapor. She overdid it a bit. Dash would have recovered quickly but Celestia took the oppurtunity to end their little chase before she did something truly stupid.
246230 Ah. Thanks for clearing that up. Was wondering if she had hurt herself.
246214 246227 PLEASE! You think that's impressive? It's 2:55 here where I am now, and while I intend to go to bed after I post this comment, I've been known to stay up until after 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 4:45 A.M. ON A REGULAR BASIS RECENTLY, and I have to get up at 7/7:30ish. I think I win. (...And have MAJOR fanfiction reading addiction problems.) Did I mention ?
246238 even if she had, and then fell, she would have recovered. Fluttershy fell from far higher with no real damage to anything but the ground.
246293 I thought that was Flutters using her magic to survive that impact.
246306 nope, straight up earthpony resistance and strength. anytime they've used magic in any way their aura surrounds the target.
"you're a fantastic flyer."
"I ought to be, after 2000 years."
246590 precisely!
246272 No, I win. I have to get up at seven for school. I go to bed at ten in the evening.... Three days later
Very nice... But no Buccaneer Blaze?
246997 Dash didn't want to be 100% old school, she decided to try to make the rainboom 20% cooler.
247148
Well at least she didn't do 100 Sonic Rainbooms in a row and have her wings fall off because she forgot to apply the duct tape.
247171 you truly give me terrible but hilarious ideas. You need to write yourself my friend.
247194
Oh no. No credit here for THAT one. That's all Blueshift's doing in The Mane Cast-Offs
246328 So at that moment, Fluttershy was less a pony and more an obscenely cute pile-driver. Awesome.
247251 you have the right of it, then she walked off to the spa.
fim.413chan.net/fic/src/130869119508-Fluttershy.jpg
LIKE A BAWSS
Now that I think about it, alicorn Fluttershy piledriving into the ground then trotting out of the resulting crater to the Spa needs to be a gif or flash. LIKE A BAWSS caption optional.
245800. Nope, she loves to troll. Hence the name Trollestia.
246818 ...I stand corrected. Give this Brony the Medal of Sleep Deprivation! You know, or a cupcake. Or even muffin. That is, I mean, if you want to.
I just noticed this, but Sad Pinkie followed by Crazy Pinkie looks a bit like a broken heart.
247993 You're right
"She had hurt the mares pride" - APOSTROPHE?!
246272
Sometimes I go to sleep at 5:30 AM. I wake up at 6:30 AM to go to school
248606 thanks ILP, you keep me honest, although I am happy to see you spotting fewer errors.
That would be so AWESOME to see. I want to try to draw a Sonic Tornado Boom now, but I probably won't do it justice. XD Rainbow doesn't quite understand the extent of her power vs. the durability of her body, does she?
248606 I may stand corrected again, I hereby present you with this Medal as well:--------. Or would you like one of the baked goods?
------
( O )
Also. How do you function on 1 hour of sleep?! I know that if it were me, I wouldn't be able to wake up on time in the first place, much less be able to really do anything.
Anyway, I'm going to try the crazy idea of going to sleep BEFORE it gets increadably late. Good night!
249385
249699
>Fell asleep in the shower while standing
I usually go to bed anywhere from 12 AM to 3 AM, but sometimes I stay up too late when I lose track of the time
(4-6 hours of sleep is enough for me)
249972 My friends all talk about how one time, I stayed up for 6 straight days, and each day I did intense physical exercise. If you would call swimming a mile, tubing for about 4 hours, and riding bikes (EVERY DAY) intense physical activity
YES!!!!!!!!!!!! THE PRINCESS BRIDE ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahem, I apologize about my excitement
I did love this chapter.
"Highway to the Dangerzone" was, incidentally, an utterly perfect accompaniment to the scene following the link. Well done!
SPOILER ALERT!!!
-I see by the title that Celestia will have a non-trivial time of it... perhaps best to try to place herself at a sufficient altitude to locate her next path as she circles the planet(?) again.
Only one alive had given her pause recently, the mare she was chasing now.
-I assume she means BEFORE Dash ascended?
Or it had, until the Element of loyalty looked down to see a friend in danger.
-I take it she never really believed about Dash's FIRST Rainboom? Even if she wasn't sure WHO did it, she should have known it happened from the reports.
let this mare test me. Let her be a glorious racer. Let her be both quick and fast, smart and agile. Give her a matchless mind for tactics, stunts the equal of mine
-This based on the Spaniard's hopes in "The Princess Bride"? It sounds familiar somehow... I take it that Luna isn't in Celestia's league as a flier?
let her be a master!
-Yep, definite "Princess Bride" vibe... also the bit about tricks and tactics explains how you might spend a full chapter on this.
She then spotted a cyan mare falling to the ground.
-Ok, that was over sooner than I thought... guess Dash found her new limit (which she will be pushing tomorrow or so... maybe three days if Celestia has to actually think about where she can safely practice.
She sped to her and caught her gently.
-Ah yes... can't have her putting another dent in the ground... or was she going fast enough to actually get hurt, rather than merely terminal velocity?
Large portions of this chapter are an adaption to the sword fight in the novel The Princess Bride: a 1973 fantasy novel written by William Goldman.
-Ah... called it. I think it was far enough removed to qualify under "Parody", and besides which that Goldman would be flattered if he had any sense. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.
Rainbow Dash burned out... Even an Alicorn isn't invulnerable to exhaustion. but still, AWESOME!!!
next chapter...
246053
how wrong would you be- its MOLESTia
One little thing -
"She'd had truly admired this mare's ability"
960768 Oh my, expect quite a bit of that sadly, First fic, no editor... Thankfully close to 1000 people have decided the minor errors are forgivable for the story. fixed though
I'm going to read The Princess bride again now.
347314 No kidding... as a matter of fact I have now added that PMV to a list inspired by "Loyalty" by AcousticBrony and MandoPony, as well as by the first PMV I ever saw of "This Means War" by the group 30 Seconds to Mars. Some magnificent art on that one... *sigh* Sadly, however, I had to swap it out for another version less visually awesome, as the person maintaining the first one closed their YouTube account a while later. Ah, for what could have been...!
Good job the Princess Bride reference. As a fellow fan, I must congratulate you on finding a way to tie that in.
media0.giphy.com/media/dTeGMjiEuOli/200_s.gif
I LUV THE PRINCESS BRIDE:D