Rainbow Dash soared through the skies above her flight school. She didn't know it yet, but it would be almost an entire month before she would pull off the Sonic Rainboom in a race, an amazing feat for a young filly such as herself.
Dash was in the middle of a training exercise and didn't seem to care that she was being watched by her entire class as she effortlessly flew around and above obstacles. Clouds arranged in a line? She flew above. Clouds scattered around in the air? Dash flew around each of them.
Her personal favorite obstacle, the cloud ring, was coming up. She added a little twirl as she zoomed through it.
"Rainbow Dash! Hurry up!" The instructor yelled up at her.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" Rainbow Dash called back. She noticed three colts snickering behind the instructor, and recognized them as three bullies who constantly called her "Rainbow Crash".
Dash folded her wings in, and free-fell to the cloud the rest of her class was on before extending them at the last moment.
"Well, you got past the obstacles alright, but you were a bit slow…" Dash vaguely heard her instructor talking behind her. She didn't care to listen, and walked over to her griffon friend instead.
"Hey, G!" Dash greeted Gilda the Griffon. "How'd I do?"
Gilda lazily stretched out her wings. "Pretty poorly compared to my time," Gilda answered, "You were kind of slow."
"Well, I'm just not in a hurry to get anywhere," Rainbow Dash responded defensively, "I'll get to places when I want to get there."
"Alright, next up is… Fluttershy!" The instructor called out. Dash kind of knew Fluttershy. They had talked a few times, but Fluttershy always seemed nervous around Dash. At first, Rainbow Dash thought Fluttershy was afraid of her for some reason, but realized that Fluttershy acted that way around everypony.
Fluttershy gave out a tiny squeak as her name was called, and timidly made her way forward.
"Ready...and… GO!" The instructor yelled as he started his stopwatch.
Fluttershy spread out her wings, and gave a pathetic little leap up into the sky before she came crashing down. Gilda laughed, along with most of the class. Rainbow Dash forced a little giggle, but didn't really think it was funny.
"I bet she'll have worse time than you!" Gilda whispered to Rainbow Dash.
"Ha! Are you kidding?" Rainbow Dash whispered back. Fluttershy tried another leap, but met with the same result. "Fluttershy can hardly fly!"
Gilda laughed. "Hey, that rhymes!"
Rainbow Dash watched Fluttershy take a deep breath, and then leap up again. She flapped her wings, and stayed up in the air for a moment. Fluttershy looked hopeful, but suddenly she was falling and hit the cloud.
"Hah! Fluttershy, Fluttershy! Fluttershy can hardly fly!" Gilda called over the laughter of her classmates at Fluttershy's latest failed attempt. Her classmates began laughing harder at that, and some of them started chanting.
"Fluttershy! Fluttershy! Fluttershy can hardly fly!"
Fluttershy looked completely terrified and humiliated. Rainbow Dash was speechless. Gilda turned to her with a huge grin.
"Look! We started a chant!" She laughed.
"Wha- what?" Rainbow Dash was stunned. She looked toward Fluttershy, and watched as the yellow filly burst into tears and started running away. "What do you mean we-"
"Fluttershy can hardly fly!" A filly called after Fluttershy as she hurried away. The instructor looked more surprised than Rainbow Dash, and hurried after Fluttershy, leaving his stopwatch behind on the cloud.
"Well, I guess this exercise is over!" Gilda said as she rose into the air with her wings. "I'm leaving, Dash. Meet you in the dorm!"
Gilda zoomed away, and the rest of Dash's class began to leave as well. Most were laughing, and a few were repeating the chant they had just learned.
Rainbow Dash was left alone sitting on the cloud.
"What did I just do…" she thought to herself, recalling Fluttershy's reaction as her classmates began that horrible chant.
Rainbow Dash was flying toward her dormitory an hour after the catastrophe at the obstacle course. Dash wasn't in a hurry. Instead, she was lost in her own thoughts.
The last thing I want to hear is-
"Fluttershy, Fluttershy! Fluttershy can hardly fly!"
Startled at the sudden outburst of the chant she accidently started, Rainbow Dash looked down at the cloud below her. Two fillies were walking up to another filly that Dash recognized as Fluttershy. Without thinking about it, Dash was suddenly soaring downwards faster than she had ever flown before.
"Fluttershy can hardly-"
"Hey!" Dash interrupted the filly as she landed between the two unknown ponies and Fluttershy. "Get lost!"
The two looked surprised, but quickly hurried away. Rainbow Dash watched them leave.
"Rainbow Dash?" Dash heard a voice behind her. "Um… thank you… um… for what you just-"
"Stop," Dash told Fluttershy, "We're not friends… and I don't want your gratitude."
Rainbow Dash heard Fluttershy's surprised gasp behind her, and then heard Fluttershy slowly walk away. Dash tried not to look back at her.
Rainbow Dash did look back to Fluttershy, who was trying to fly off the cloud. She gave another pathetic leap and met with the same result as in class. Dash watched as Fluttershy sat on the cloud with her head down.
"No no no," Rainbow Dash chided while moving over to Fluttershy. "You have to flap your wings while you're going up. Here, watch… like this."
Rainbow Dash showed Fluttershy a few times and then told her to try it. After four failed attempts, Fluttershy actually got it.
"I did it!" She exclaimed excitedly. "I'm flying!"
Rainbow Dash couldn't help grinning at how excited Fluttershy seemed. It was as if she had never flown before…
"Come on, Fluttershy," Rainbow Dash said, "Let's get to the dorms."
It was only a few weeks before Rainbow Dash would protect Fluttershy against the three bullies and end up in a race.