Chapter 25 – The Second Round

She once again stood there with worry, nerves, and confidence all at once. Rainbow Dash had come in second place last time, and now she could taste the race ahead. Breeze once again walked up to her from the side of the garage, "You ok?" he asked.

"I'll never get used to this nervous energy." she admitted, only to get nuzzled by him.

"I know." he said as he moved his head back, and was quickly embraced by one of Rainbow's wings.

"I'm glad you're with me though." she said and rubbed her head to his cheek. Then the garage door began to open, and she left her wing around him, "Looks like it's time to get racing." she said and looked to him the confidence on her face radiated to him, and he grinned in return.

"I'll always watch your back." he said, and she chuckled a bit.

"Thanks for that." she said and flapped her wings to lift up, entering the Rainbow Trail while he vanished in a ring of dust, reappearing in a handstand before diving into the gunner seat. Once again, the Rainbow Trail roared to life and exited the garage.

Twilight walked into the command room, the pad in front of her as she focused on the organization of the digital files, "Ok." she said and turned to Pilit, "Good news I think I'm about 15 percent done." Then looked up to view the screen everypony was looking at, "Oh right, the race is today." she said.

"I'm a bit nervous." Pilit admitted.

"What are you nervous about?" Pinkie Pie asked.

"The competition in this race is going to be a lot tougher than the qualifiers." the little Treeopon admitted.

"Oh dahling, thinner competition usually means a better chance, right?" Rarity asked.

"Not really." Applejack stated, she was now cleaned up, her uniform stain-free and her favorite hat firmly on her head.

"The competition here is going to have less to focus on now." Twilight explained, "And Boar, his cheating is going to be more strategic now. If he's done this for so long then he understands how not to get caught."

"And that big scary ship." Fluttershy said, "It's going to target Rainbow Dash the whole way I bet."

"Syls too." Spike said, "She and Rainbow Dash both came in ahead of them."

"Unless they wanted our yard, Spike." Writch said.

"Huh?" he asked.

"They may have already known about the B336." the female Treeopon said, "And the fact that they pre-built tech for their racer last cycle, I'm willing to bet they've had this whole thing planned from the beginning."

"But all the B336's we found were destroyed." Spike said.

"That may be true." Tusks grunted as he focused, "But we still haven't searched the {snort} whole ship. Also, we have the files from {snort} the ship itself, they definitely wanted this yard, {snort} and I'm betting they're the reason it toppled."

"They toppled the ship by doing {snort} what?" Twiggs asked.

"I'm sure they tunneled into their yard to {snort} destabilize the ship. But since they didn't cross into our {snort} yard to do it, they can't be held responsible for {snort} it." Tusks said.

"That ain't right." Applejack said, "I coulda bit the big apple in the sky because of them."

Tusks snorted out a laugh, "I'm gonna have to remember that {snort} one!"

"So, we just have to make sure to beat them, right?" they all heard Rainbow Dash ask from the coms.

"Sounds about right." Pilit replied, "The tracks after this one, are all picked randomly by the medallions."

"Like pickin from a hat?" Applejack asked.

Tusks simply pointed at her, a not so sure grin on his face. "Just say yes." Twilight told him and turned to the screen.

"You hear that Shorty?" Rainbow Dash asked.

A screen appeared on the Rainbow Trail's HUD, a red cockpit with a short and angry Dryskian girl appeared, "WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT SKITTLE HEAD?" Syls asked.

Another screen appeared next to Syls', Tris the taller of the two Dryskians was in this chair, "Do you have to do that every time?" she asked.

"It's just us out here." Rainbow explained, "There's no pony else who knows about this, and we have to keep those jerks from finishing in first place."

"You can count on me!" Syls said a grin on her face that shouted confidence.

"Me too!" Tris said, her grin shining like a light in the darkness.

Then they could all hear the sound, the moan as the wind stopped entirely before the ring emerged from the ground. Rainbow Dash finally got a good look at the track, chasm edges that lined out perfectly, deep gouges in the land carved in a rough track that looked only wide enough for a few racers at a time. "Gonna have to play this right." she said to herself, and then watched and listened as the bone-like energy spikes emerged to create the gates, and then she heard it, the call of the race. And she like everyone else, hit the throttle hard. The lot of them boosted out, and the size of the Rainbow Trail allowed her to get out front quickly, with two more following closely behind her. The Silver Blitz and another ship she didn't totally recognize, it was definitely Meltackian in design, but it looked like it had the crest of a samurai helmet on the top of it that pulled back as if it were trying to become a second pair of wings. The wings themselves were curved, like blades that moved in and out at its sides. The large Sunik ship came through the first gate in fourth, and Rainbow Dash could almost see the anger on the face of the much larger lizard man.

"Nice start R.D." Tusks shouted to her.

"Told you I learn this stuff fast." she said and jolted when something hit her shield. The samurai ship had begun firing on them.

"I got this!" Breeze said and aimed his guns to start deflecting the shots. It only took a few seconds before the ship spun in a circle, using the guns as a focal point of the spin, and several more shots got through, "What the?" Breeze asked.

"What happened?" Blade asked.

"This guy used his guns as a rotation point, I didn't see a move like that coming. I think this guy might be better than we anticipated." his younger brother admitted.

"Oh, for Celestia's sake…" Blade said, and turned to Writch, "I think we may have missed our mark on freeing up my brother's guns."

Writch just simply growled at herself.

"Don't worry, I'll handle this!" Breeze said, and again began deflecting shots, and when the pilot did the same move again, he pushed his speed to the limit, moving his front hooves at a rate almost impossible to see as the shots hit all of their marks. He could almost see the surprise on the pilot's face. However, he was now panting from the effort.

"How'd you do that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I used my Air Flash in very tight movements." he said, "But the control it takes is incredibly difficult. I'm actually surprised that the machinery could keep up."

"Hey, I built those controls you know." Blade said, and then gave his best smile, "I'm pretty sure I remembered everything."

"Thanks, bro." he said and smiled through the sweat, "Tris?" he asked.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Can you take over for a hot minute?" he asked.

"You ok?" she asked in worry.

"Just a bit tired, that move takes a bit out of me." he admitted.

"You got it, time for round two!" she said and waited until Syls fell behind a bit to start firing on the samurai ship.