Never Let Me Down Again Ch.1

Never Let Me Down Again
Written by Closer-To-The-Sun (Joseph Noblit)
Chapter 1: Nothing But The Sky

The daylight was waning in the Ponyville sky. While most of the pegasus ponies that worked the clouds in the sky would stop working around lunchtime, one light blue pony with a rainbow mane would keep working her tail off. The multi-colored sky was finally cloud-free, Rainbow Dash finally landed on the ground and gazed up at her work.

"Awesome work, if I do say so myself," Rainbow Dash said to herself, panting a bit heavily from kicking the clouds across the atmosphere, "Man, I could use something to cool down me down after that. I think Sugarcube Corner is still open."

As she walked over to Sugarcube Corner, Rainbow Dash saw that while the lights were on inside, it seemed very vacant. Going up to the door, she slowly opened it. She was right about the lights being on, but the main room was decorated with streamers, balloons and even a cake on the table. Rainbow saw a large puff of pink hair hiding behind a table. Before Rainbow's mind could piece together what was going on, that large amount of pink bounced to life and called out with a chorus of other voices shouting, "Surprise!"

"Wha? Who? Whe-huh?!" Rainbow Dash's head was turning in all directions to see all of her friends pop out, "What's going on?"

The pink pony bounced up to Rainbow Dash, "It's a party, you silly filly!"

"I figured that much out, Pinkie Pie, but why is there a party?"

"Well, you have been working so super-duper hard for all of us lately that we just had to throw you a thank you party!" Pinkie giggled as she hopped around Rainbow Dash who just watched the party pony skip around her happily.

"You really have been world of help to us all, Rainbow Dash, so we felt it was the least we could do." Twilight Sparkle said in a very thankful tone as she trotted up to the pegasus pony.

"And we absolutely had to do something for you to show our gratitude for you, darling!" Rarity also appeared, sipping punch from a cup she was holding up with her magic.

Rainbow Dash's eyes lit up and hugged Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Twilight, "Oh thank you girls so much!"

Applejack trotted up to the light blue pegasus pony who was hugging her friends, "An' that ain't the best part, Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy here has a special gift for ya."

The yellow pegasus slowly walked up to her pegasus friend with a piece of folded paper in her mouth. Rainbow Dash finally let go of her friends to grab the paper. As she read the paper, the expression on her face went from a small smile to her mouth hanging open in shock and disbelief.

"I get to have personal training from Soarin' of the Wonderbolts?" her voice squeaked more than usual as she exclaimed happily. "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygo-"

Rainbow Dash's joyful exclaiming was interrupted by Applejack who shoved a piece of cake into Dash's mouth, "Calm yourself there, Rainbow. Ah had a hunch you'd act like that."

Rainbow Dash looked like she was going to say something, but with her mouth being full of cake, she could only mumble incoherently.

"Anyway Dash, you'll be meeting up with Soarin tomorrow." Twilight was changing the topic so Dash and Applejack wouldn't be at each other's throats.

"Buat, whaa iff I totalee mesh aup?" Rainbow Dash tried to say with the cake in her mouth, which had bits of cake and frosting flying at Twilight and Rarity, causing the latter to leave in a huff to find a towel to clean herself off from the firing of Rainbow Dash's speaking.

"Just relax, Dashie! We're having a party for you and tomorrow morning, you'll be flying with the Wonderbolts! Whoosh!" Pinkie pated Rainbow Dash on the back before acting like she had wings, bouncing all over the room.

"Well," Dash finally swallowed the rest of the cake that was in her mouth, "I guess you guys are right. Thanks again everyone."

"Oh, it's the least we could do for you, Rainbow Dash. You really are quite awesome. Woo hoo!" Fluttershy spoke and cheered softly to her pegasus friend.

The rest of the night was spent with the six mares partying and having fun in honor of Rainbow Dash's hard work and loyalty to her friends.

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The next day, Rainbow Dash was waiting outside of her house in Cloudsdale, excitedly waiting for Soarin to meet up with her. She had the biggest grin on her face, which had been there from the moment she woke up. Never before had she been so excited, in fact she had trouble sleeping the night before. She didn't even take off the new goggles that Twilight had given her the night before for the occasion. Now that the time was drawing close, her fearfulness of messing up in front of the Wonderbolt was replaced with joy and happiness.

"This is going to be so awesome! I mean, it's Soarin of the Wonderbolts! One of my heroes! He's going to help me with my flying! He's going to personally teach me! And if I'm good enough, he might just ask me to join the Wonderbo-" Rainbow Dash cut herself off and shouted a joyful squeal at the top of her lungs. She got a few odd looks from a few pegasus ponies that were flying by, including a gray pegasus who seemed to be giving an odd look to both her and the sun. But Rainbow didn't care; soon she'll be soaring with Soarin.

A short time later, a light blue colt was flying toward her at a leisurely pace, his cobalt mane and tail moving wildly in the air. His usual Wonderbolt uniform was on him, to be expected when he was out in public. He spotted the familiar rainbow mane on Dash, and flew in to land next to her. Taking his goggles off from his eyes and to hang around his neck, Soarin gave a warm smile to Rainbow Dash, causing her heart to skip a beat.

"Ah, Rainbow Dash, haven't seen you in quite some time. How have ya been?" Soarin asked to his fellow pegasus.

"S-Soarin! Oh my gosh, thank you so much for this!" Rainbow Dash was obviously excited that she almost forgot to answer his question, "Oh, sorry, I'm doing pretty awesome now."

Soarin laughed lightly and smiled, "Don't worry about it, Dash. When I was told that I could do some one-on-one with ya, I knew I just had to jump at the chance to teach ya. You are a really talented flyer."

Rainbow Dash's mind went a million miles a second, 'Gah! He remembers me, and he wanted to teach me personally! And he told me that I'm a good flyer, and to top it off, he called me Dash! This is the greatest day ever!'

Finally snapping back to reality, Rainbow Dash tried to keep her cool, "Ha, well, thanks so much for doing this," her voice squeaked a bit higher than normal, "heh, sorry, guess I'm just excited and all."

Soarin smiled and gave Dash a reassuring pat with his hoof on her back, "It's completely cool. We all get pre-show butterflies every so often. Anyway, shall we get started with a warm up flight?"

Rainbow Dash's face went from that of a fanfilly to one of a warrior ready to take on the world as she was putting her goggles over eyes and readying her body for take-off, "Ready when you are, Soarin!"

"Ha ha! Now that's the Dash I know!" Soarin adjusted his goggles and moved his body into take-off position as well, "Alright, let's go for a nice flight from here to….lets say the clouds above the Evergreen Forest? Nothing fancy now, just so I can observe your patterns and what not."

"You got it!" Rainbow hopped down from the cloud and started to glide and at what felt like a normal flying speed for her. She didn't turn her head, but she could feel Soarin behind her, watching her every move. 'Come on, Dash, this is it. You have a Wonderbolt's full attention. They are here to watch you do your best. Just do a simple flight, nothing fancy, to the clouds. Relax.'

As Dash was trying to calm herself down in her mind, Soarin was right behind her, examining her form carefully with a stone serious look upon his face. From the speed she was going, to the time it took for Rainbow Dash's wings to beat once, and even to her breathing, it was being recorded into Soarin's head. As he saw Dash land with grace on a cloud, he gave an approving smile and nod as he came in for a landing.

"Very nicely done. You have a natural rhythm with your flight from your wing movements down to your breathing. You certainly are a natural," Soarin praised her work.

Rainbow's face turned a slight pink at his words, "Pfft, that was nothing," she brushed it aside, though she was honored to receive praise from the colt, "So what's next?"

For the rest of the day, Rainbow Dash and Soarin went over the mechanics of flight from the simple to the complex. A number of times, Soarin would demonstrate the feat he would request of Dash, in which she would stare at the colt's flying abilities in amazement. Around noon, the two took a break for lunch, which were two apple pies from Sweet Apple Acres, donated by Applejack as her way of saying thank you to the both of them. Afterwards, Rainbow Dash and Soarin spent the remaining daylight working on turning sharply at high speeds, something they both could admit that they had issues with. Before they knew it, the Equestrian sky turned from the azure blue to a light indigo.

"Wow, is it really that late?" Soarin asked as the two rested on a cloud, ponywatching the ponies down in Ponyville.

"Aww, today's already over? But I had such a great time hanging out wit- I mean, I had such a great time learning from you!" Rainbow Dash reworded her sentence, trying to act innocent.

Soarin laughed as he got on all four hooves, "It's cool, Dash. I enjoyed hanging out with you too. Does kind of stink that today's ending already, you really are a pretty awesome mare."

The blue colt's words caused the mare's heart to fly higher than she has flown before.

"Ya know, I don't have much going on tomorrow afternoon. We can keep working on those sharp turns. I think you are getting the hang of them better than I am," Soarin asked casually, "So what do ya sa-"

"YES!" Rainbow Dash blurted out before she covered her mouth with her hooves, "I mean, I'm cool with that if you are."

Soarin laughed and smiled at Dash warmly, something that she was beginning to like more and more, "Alright then, meet ya at your place around one then?"

"Sounds awesome, Soarin!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed with a big smile on her face.

Soarin nodded and began to hover with his wings, "Great, I'll see ya then, Dashie!" And with that, Soarin flew off toward the direction of Canterlot.

As soon as Rainbow Dash knew he was far enough, she shouted with joy, "Yes! This is so awesome! Soarin and I are great friends now! And he's going to be seeing me tomorrow to keep helping me out! This is so unbelievably awesome!"

After a few more minutes of Rainbow Dash acting like a fanfilly, she began to fly back to her home in Cloudsdale. As she was flying back, thinking about the awesome day she just had with Soarin, she started to feel something. It was in the pit of her stomach. Was it her stomach? She couldn't tell where the feeling was coming from. It seemed really odd to her, and yet it seemed familiar. She couldn't shake the feeling at all, so she began to fly faster home, but it persisted. Dash sped up, and it still remained. She kept speeding up until she thought of something it might be, causing her to stop mid-flight.

It was love.

When this realization hit her, Dash turned around and raced back to Ponyville at a breakneck speed as the sky grew darker and as Luna's moon and stars began to shine.

"Oh Celestia….I need to talk to somepony about this, and now."