The next morning, Thunderbolt awoke on the little room's mattress; Rainbow sprawled across him, snoring softly. He resisted the urge to move or do anything at all and simply lie there, watching her sleep. He watched carefully how her prismatic mane shifted when she snored, how her tail twitched occasionally, how her hind legs would shift. He was so hypnotized by the sky blue pegasus that he failed to notice that she'd woken up. "I knew you liked my mane, but I didn't know you liked it that much," said Rainbow, her eyes half-open sleepily as she looked up. Thunderbolt remembered that he'd had one of his forehooves in her mane the whole time. "Oh, sorry," he said, attempting to move his hoof without disturbing Rainbow too much. Rainbow reached up and pressed his hoof back down. "I didn't tell you to stop," she said.

After they finally got out of bed and had a nice, leisurely breakfast, it was time to train some more. "This time," said Rainbow, "We'll be doing some agility training! We're flying through Ghastly Gorge." Thunderbolt, scared at even the thought of the place, gulped. "Oh, come on," said Rainbow, "You said you wanna be as awesome as me. Well, I can do it. So you're gonna do it with me! Don't worry, scaredy pony, I'll be there with you. Now let's get going!" "O… Okay, 'Bow, I'll try," said Thunderbolt, taking off and flying with Rainbow Dash over to Ghastly Gorge.

When they arrived at the entrance to the gorge, Rainbow readied her wings, looked over and asked, "You ready, Thunder?" Thunderbolt got ready to take off and said, "Ready." He'd decided that, if Rainbow could do it, he could do it too. They took off; Rainbow did a few aileron rolls. "Whoa," said Thunderbolt. "It's not that hard," said Rainbow, "Here, try it with me. Glide, and then lean real far in the direction you wanna roll. "Whoa…Whoa…Ah! Oh, okay!" exclaimed Thunderbolt, doing a few himself. "You got it! You've got it, Thunder!" exclaimed Rainbow, impressed, "Kay, now try this!" She did several consecutive barrel rolls. He looked at her motions and copied, but only managed a single one. "Still pretty good," said Rainbow, "Now you're gonna have to apply that! Here are the bramble bushes!" Rainbow dashed into the wall of spikes, navigating with extreme precision and quickness through them. She came out the other side, pulled a few spikes out of her forelock, and waited for Thunderbolt.

Meanwhile, Thunderbolt was applying his newly-learned flying skills and newly-acquired strength from yesterday's workout and the day before's journey across Equestria. "This is actually not that hard," he said to himself, immediately ducking an overhead thorn branch. Then he emerged from the thorn patch, only to find Rainbow already there. She mock-yawned and said, "Oh, hi, Thunder. Was wondering when you'd show up. Anyways, let's keep at it!" Thunderbolt smiled for some reason, then nodded to Rainbow and continued flying. "Next obstacle," said Rainbow, "are the quarry eels. You know about those, right?" Thunderbolt nodded, though he was quite worried he kept it to himself. "You're gonna need some of those new moves soon," said Rainbow as if it was nothing, "Cause this is also a rockslide-prone area!" Then she dashed off, dodging the quarry eels as they lunged out, glaring their angry glares at her. Thunder stared at her, admiring her beauty and grace in the air. The sky blue pegasus performed perfect loops, zigzags, rolls of several different sorts and tons of other things before stopping around halfway through and screaming, "You coming?!" while dodging another quarry eel. "Uh, yeah!" Thunderbolt screamed back to her, flying ahead and doing his best to dodge the eels.

Thunderbolt copied Rainbow Dash's exact motions and soon he was nearly halfway. But just as one eel crashed its huge head into the other side of the rather thin section of the gorge, there was a rockslide. Suddenly, his coach's movements no longer being the perfect route, Thunderbolt relied purely on instinct. He stayed in one place, dodging the rocks this way and that. But it didn't seem to stop, and the rocks were getting bigger. Thunderbolt bit his lip and looked left and right. But just at that moment…

A large boulder fell right on top of him. It shoved the pegasus about a hundred feet down, but there was still a bunch of room left below him. He tried to shove it off, to fly out from under it, but it just wasn't possible. Thunderbolt squinted and shoved upwards with all his wing strength. He felt like giving out, giving up, letting go. But he kept pushing. Then he heard another pair of flapping wings among the crashing of rocks. He opened one eye, just barely, enough to see Rainbow, flying over to help him. Then he remembered something…

~The day before, toward the tail-end of their workout…

"I'm… gonna DIE!" exclaimed Thunderbolt, dragging himself up for another set. "No you're not," said Rainbow with a sigh as she turned around. She, too, was sweaty, but she wasn't quite as impacted. Actually, she was nowhere near as tired. Thunderbolt collapsed in a heap, leaning against the wall, after several failed attempts to get up. Rainbow looked at him and she saw his condition, then she walked over to him and offered him a hoof. "Okay," she said, "But when you die, remember my name for me?"

~Present time…

Thunderbolt squinted, and then he opened both eyes. He had no open hooves to wipe the immense amounts of sweat off with, but he kept going. He heard that voice, her voice, echoing through his head. "Remember my name for me…" "Okay," Thunderbolt thought aloud, "I'll… remember you." Then he remembered the lines of a poem, he couldn't remember the name of it, it said something like this.

"Although it's easy to find something to die for,

there is love and life and hate and war,

for you I have one question more:

Do you have anything worth living for?"

"Yes," muttered Thunderbolt, "I have her." "Thunder!" exclaimed Rainbow, trying to find him, still searching, "Where are you?!" He grunted from underneath the boulder, he felt unable to say anything. He just repeated her name, over and over again, in his mind. "Rainbow Dash, Rainbow… Dash… Rainbow Dash…" He continued thinking until he started muttering it, softly, aloud, as he kept pushing upward as the boulder tried to push him down. Surely she couldn't see him under this huge stone… So he had to say something. Something audible, even through a rockslide. He squinted harder, gritting his teeth as he said her name, over and over, through his teeth. The last line of the poem rung in his mind…

"Do you have anything worth living for?"

"RAINBOW DASH!" he exclaimed at the top of his lungs, one final burst from his wings heaving the boulder at least twenty feet upward. She heard this, loud and clear, through the rockslide. Rainbow flew down to him and helped get the huge stone off his hooves, literally. They tossed it down into the gorge and flew straight upwards, escaping the rockslide. They landed at the edge of the gorge, where Thunderbolt immediately collapsed.