Fleetfoot: "Any progress?"
Soarin: "Nope. Still crying."
Spitfire: "WAAAAAAA!"
Fleetfoot: "Dammit, you know she's the world's saddest drunk! Why did you let her get this hammered?"
Soarin: "Because she can fire me if I tell her she's had enough?"
Fleetfoot: "Point."
Spitfire: "WHY?! AREN'T WE GOOD ENOUGH?! AREN'T WE FAST ENOUGH?! WHAT DID WE DO WRONG?!"
Soarin: "This is even worse than when she heard the Equestria Games were going to be held in the Crystal Empire instead of Cloudsdale."
Fleetfoot: "Boss, don't you think you're overreacting? Sure, it's technically a budget cut, but it's, like, the world's tiniest budget cut. We won't even notice it's there."
Spitfire: "The Wonderbolts aren't supposed to get budget cuts! We didn't get one under my predecessor! Or his predecessor! Or her predecessor! This is the first budget cut we've had in two hundred years!"
Soarin: "Funny how inflation works when you have plentiful gem mines."
Spitfire: "Clearly, my terrible leadership has disgraced the team! And the worst part is, we deserve it!"
Fleetfoot: "...How do you figure?"
Spitfire: "We're supposed to be the bucking Wonderbolts! The elite! And we've been totally useless these past few years! Equestria's had to deal with Night Mare Moon, the Ebon Dragon, the Unseelie, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, King Sombra, and more! And where were we the whole time? Nowhere useful, that's where!"
Spitfire: "Well, enough of this manure! We're going to regain Equestria's trust! We're gonna prove we're still relevant! We're gonna place first in every single event at the Equestria Games, wow everyone, and remind them all why the name 'Wonderbolt' used to inspire a sense of wonder!"
Soarin: "Hoo boy."
RAINBOW FALLS
Rainbow Dash: "All right, maggots, listen up!"
Steroid Pony: "What? Why would you call us that?" *cries*
Fluttershy: "Um, it's just a running gag."
Steroid Pony: "Oh. Proceed, then." *resumes kissing his muscles*
Fluttershy: "..."
Steroid Pony: "What? Kissing muscles is like talking to plants. It helps them grow!"
Rainbow Dash: "Ahem. As I was trying to exposit for the audience: The Equestria Games are coming, and it is our duty to my career - er, to Ponyville - to earn it honor and prestige! Now, unfortunately, the rules say that a pony can only participate in a single event, because something something wanting to display the strengths of each city as a whole, something something we're boring squares who don't want a single super-athlete to dominate every event."
Rainbow Dash: "So, I've tried to assign to each event ponies that could win it… which leaves only us three for the relay race. Qualifiers start in a few days, and we need to give one of the top four performances to qualify for the real event!"
Fluttershy: "Well, I don't want to let anypony down, so I really hope we win!"
Rainbow Dash: "Now, I realize it's going to be difficult for you to perform in front of a crowd of- Wait, what?"
Fluttershy: "Oh, yes! Rarity knows I have stage fright. That's why she gave me a feather that she says Twilight cast a spell on. She said it would make me invisible during the event!"
Rainbow Dash: "A magic feather- OK, yes, sure, that sounds absolutely true. Glad we got that out of the way."
Steroid Pony: "And in pursuit of our somewhat juvenile yet nonetheless stirring and emotionally fulfilling quest for municipal excellence, I give yea a hearty declaration of Y-"
Pinkie Pie: "GIMME A P! A P FOR PONYVILLE!"
Fluttershy: "...Maybe Rarity can give me a magic feather that'll make me deaf, too."
Rainbow Dash: "Right. Meet our cheerleader…"
Applejack: "...an' yer chef. Hope y'all appreciate 'em apple treats, 'cause it's tha most protein-filled apples can get!"
Rainbow Dash: "Which isn't all that much, but we'll take it."
Pinkie Pie: "A P FOR PROTEIN!"
Rainbow Dash: "Now, show me what you got!"
Fluttershy and Steroid Pony: *got nothing*
Pinkie Pie: "P IS FOR PATHETIC!"
Applejack: "What is it with ya today?"
Pinkie Pie: "I'm the pink prancing patissier pony Pinkie Pie! The letter 'P' means a lot to me!"
Rainbow Dash: "So… thanks for accompanying me to the qualifiers!"
Twilight: "Oh, it's no problem. I mean, it's not like I have any sort of job that would keep me otherwise engaged, except for librarian. Not that I am in any way bothered by my conspicuous lack of responsibilities nowadays."
Twilight: "And heck, even as Ponyville librarian, well… that makes me a government employee, and all of us are getting a couple extra days of unpaid vacation this year. Budget cuts across the board to finance the reconstruction of the Crystal Empire, you understand."
Twilight: "Anyway! Nice of you to, ah, join the team that most needed you?"
Rainbow Dash: "Nice, schmice. With my speed, we'll win no matter how slow the rest of the team is!"
Twilight: "Abouuuut that. Wasn't Steroid Pony at the Wonderbolt Academy? Isn't he supposed to be one of the best flyers in Ponyville, despite his wing atrophy?"
Rainbow Dash: "Yyyyeah, turns out that while the Wonderbolt Academy is more understanding, the regulations for the Equestria Games forbid the use of steroids. Even medicinal ones."
Twilight: "Ah, gotcha."
Pinkie Pie: "Atrophied wings or not, you're going to get the best cheers ever from us!"
Rarity: "As well as some carefully-designed uniforms, courtesy of yours truly."
Twilight: "Really? Sport uniforms wouldn't have sounded up your alley if I had to guess."
Rarity: "Oh, I designed them to look very frou-frou-ish and unsport-like."
Twilight: "...Whhhhhhy?"
Rarity: "Do you know how poisonous creatures wear bright colors, broadcasting to the world that they are so dangerous that do not need camouflage?"
Twilight: "Oh."
At the site:
"Oh my gosh it's Rainbow Dash!"
"I heard she lives in Ponyville! Willingly!"
"I heard she was there when some dragon killed King Sombra!"
"I heard she doesn't dye her mane! It's naturally that color!"
"I heard she actually knows Mare Do-Well!"
Rainbow Dash: "..."
"I heard she's a kickass flyer!"
Rainbow Dash: "Bucking finally."
Speaking of good flyers:
Wonderbolts: *drop the mic when they arrive!*
Soarin: "Hey Dash. Good to know we'll have some honest-to-Celestia competition here."
Spitfire: "Hey Dash. Saaaaay… You performed exceptionally well at the Academy, you can do a sonic rainboom, you've saved Equestria multiple times, and you're a celebrity in general, no?"
Rainbow Dash: "Er, yes? Why?"
Spitfire: "No reason, no reason."
Spitfire, whispering to her teammates: "I need to see if I can expedite her acceptance into the team. She's just what we need!"
Later:
Rainbow Dash: "Celestiadammit, Applejack, you're supposed to be our restaurateur, not anti-air artillery!"
Applejack: "Sorry about that. Looked like a good idea when tha Wonderbolts were usin' it ta save time."
Rainbow Dash: "And you flung food at a pegasus mid-flight without warning because...?
Appeljack: "Seed's sake, Dash, I thought maybe it was a pegasus athlete thing an' ya all were expectin' it!"
Rainbow Dash: "...It hurts me to say it, but maybe you shouldn't expect us to be like the Wonderbolts."
Fluttershy and Steroid Pony: *Are not like the Wonderbolts.*
Fluttershy and Steroid Pony: *At all.*
Twilight: "Rainbow Dash? You appear significantly less excited than when we first got here."
Rainbow Dash: "Well… It's occurring to me that, if my teammates take more time between the two of them to get to me than the time it takes for every other team to finish the relay, then it doesn't matter how fast I am - we'll finish in last place."
Rainbow Dash: "I can live with not being first. I'll cry myself to sleep for a month and spend weeks in therapy, but I'll live."
Rainbow Dash: "But being so bad we don't even qualify to compete? That's… That's worse."
Rainbow Dash: "All right, you two. The Wonderbolts are me-grade awesome, so I hope that by watching them, you might learn something."
Rainbow Dash: "Please learn something!" [/actual dialogue]
Fleetfoot: "C'mon, Soarin! You can do better than that!"
Spitfire: "Dammit. Cheerleader fetish distracting him again? He wasn't this bad last year!"
Fleetfoot: "He had a fillyfriend last year. Blue balls will drive ponies nuts."
Cheerleaders: *are distractingly sexy*
Soarin: *is sexily distracted*
Soarin: *is sexily distracted while performing dangerous aerobatics*
Soarin: *is going down in flames!*
Fleetfoot: "Er, is he actually about to crash, in which case we should save him…"
Spitfire: "...or just trying to impress the cheerleaders by 'almost' having an accident, like that time in Los Pegasus, in which case we should let him do his thing?"
Rainbow Dash: "I AM THE RAINBOW RESCUE BEAM!"
The Care Bears: "You're lucky we're too nice to sue for copyright infringement."
Soarin: "Thanks for saving my life. Again."
Soarin's wing: *was turned into modern art*
Soarin: "...Medic." *exeunt, pursued by the specter of a sports career dashed by injury*
Spitfire: "..."
Fleetfoot: "..."
Rainbow Dash: "Yikes. Losing a teammate at a time like this? Now that sucks."
Spitfire: *When misfortune…*
Fleetfoot: *...becomes opportunity!*
Spitfire: "Say, Miss My-Dream-Is-To-Be-A-Wonderbolt, who was born in Cloudsdale and thus could join us on a technicality... How would you feel about joining our team?"
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Fleetfoot: "For practice until Soarin gets better, of course. The first hit is free!"
Rainbow Dash: "I can resist anything but temptation!"
*Rainbow Dash trains with Wonderbolts*
*Flying Higher plays*
*Rainbow Dash trains with Ponyville team*
*Yakety Sax plays*
Rainbow Dash: *is exhausted*
Twilight: "I take it that two-teaming is exhausting, isn't it?"
Rainbow Dash: "Hell and damnation! You know?"
Twilight: "I'm not an idiot, just frequently surrounded by them. And unlike the others, I'm not currently too busy to pay attention."
Rainbow Dash: "OK. OK. It's… It's not a big deal. I've had more time to look at the performances of the other teams, and by calculations, I can still get to squeeze by the qualifications."
Twilight: "OK, yes, but it still seems to me that the Ponyville team is the one that actually needs your help practicing."
Rainbow Dash: "...Have I mentioned that I hate losing? I can't take a whole week of this! I need a couple hours in the day where I feel like a winner! And I'll still fly for Ponyville during the actual qualifiers!"
Spitfire: "Yo, Rainbow Dash! We need you to not fly for Ponyville during the actual qualifiers!"
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Fleetfoot: "Basically, Soarin won't recover in time for the qualifiers, so we'd like to have you on the team."
Spitfire: "Please do not see this as an attempt to accelerate your recruitment while ensuring the Wonderbolts get a perfect record at the games."
Fleetfoot: "Right, that would be silly."
Spitfire and Fleetfoot: *exeunt, pursued by specter of Shadowbolts*
Rainbow Dash: "..."
Rainbow Dash: "The buck just happened?"
Twilight: "You got offered a choice between performing poorly at an athletic event, or letting all your Ponyville friends down."
Rainbow Dash: "But, but, but… But I'm letting ponies down ANYWAY! If I stick with my friends, then Cloudsdale suffers a defeat that's utterly humiliating for the home of the Wonderbolts! If I help the Wonderbolts, then everyone in my new home of Ponyville has worked for nothing!"
Rainbow Dash: "Loyalty conflict! DOES NOT COMPUTE!"
Rainbow Dash: "Quick, What Would God-Queen Celestia DO?!"
Rainbow Dash: "...No, too ambitious. What would you do?"
Twilight: "Yeah no. Don't try to outsource your conscience to me, Dash. Your choice, your responsibility."
The next day:
Rainbow Dash, in a wheelchair: "Oh, woe is me!" [/actual dialogue]
Fluttershy: "Goodness, what happened?"
Rainbow Dash: "Um… I slipped on an anvil, and then a banana peel fell on my head. It was terrible!"
Spitfire: "..."
Fleetfoot: "..."
Rarity: "..."
Applejack: "..."
Twilight: "..."
Applejack, whispering: "Should we call 'er out on bein' tha worst liar in tha world?"
Rarity, whispering: "Do you want to have this awkward conversation? Just frown and nod."
At the hospital:
Twilight: "So, the doc couldn't tell what was wrong about you (because he was too embarrassed to talk)."
Rainbow Dash: "Everything! I feel my veins cutting my bones into thin slices!"
Applejack, whispering: "Ah canna take that actin' anymore. It's too embarrassin' ta watch!"
Rarity, whispering: "Mercifully, the exit door is nearby."
Fluttershy: "Um, Dashie? We're SO sorry you got hurt, but we wanted to tell you not to worry about us! We got a replacement!"
Derpy Hooves: "Yay! I got picked last! Usually I don't get picked at all!"
Rainbow Dash: *looks at Derpy*
Rainbow Dash: *has visions of fire and destruction as the Equestria Games end apocalyptically*
Rainbow Dash: "I've made a huge mistake."
Other Ponies: *eventually leave*
Twilight: "..."
Twilight: "You know, this? This whole thing? That's not choosing to let neither side down. That's choosing to let them both down, and be less great than you can be, to hide from a hard choice."
Twilight: "And I know for a fact that you can be braver than this." *departs*
Rainbow Dash: *is alone, bereft of companionship, an island of-*
Soarin: "Hey, roommie."
Rainbow Dash: "Soarin! Um, how's the wing?"
Soarin: "Fine, honestly. The doctors said that beyond some bruising, it'd be fine after two days of rest."
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Soarin: "Gotta say, I'm impressed with your friends. Middle of a super-busy period where every minute of training counts, and they still take the time to visit you? I envy that."
Rainbow Dash: "Wait, nopony visited you?"
Soarin: "Well, the team's desperate to do perfectly. We've been under lots of pressure lately. So I only got one visit from Spitfire, who said they were trying to replace me with someone photogenic enough to reignite interest in the team."
Rainbow Dash: "...Which would be me."
Rainbow Dash: "So… I'm screwing over Ponyville because of conflicting loyalties and personal desires, Spitfire and Fleetfoot are screwing over a teammate out of loyalty to the team itself as opposed to its members, and Cloudsdale's getting screwed in general."
Rainbow Dash: "When did loyalty get so complicated?!"
Rainbow Dash: *tastes the rainbow*
Rainbow Dash: *epiphany*
Rainbow Dash: "Wait. It's not complicated at all."
Twilight: "No offense, but… I don't think your odds of passing the qualifiers are very high at this point."
Pinkie Pie: "Just great! What am I going to do with this mountain of pom-poms now?!"
Applejack: "What were ya gonna do with 'em in tha first place?" [/actual legitimate question]
Rainbow Dash: *up and at 'em, flanked by Soarin!*
Spitfire: "Um… does that mean you're," *performs best approximation of finger quotes hooves will allow* "feeling better now?"
Rainbow Dash: "Was never hurt in the first place?"
Spitfire: "And you admit it? Thank Celestia."
Rainbow Dash: "You knew I was bluffing?!"
Twilight: "EVERYONE knew you were bluffing!"
Fluttershy: "Um."
Twilight: "Oh, sorry. EVERYONE WITH A THREE-DIGIT IQ knew you were bluffing!"
Fluttershy: "Right."
Rainbow Dash: "OK, fine. I just didn't want to make a hard decision about which team to fly with."
Fluttershy: "Oh, Rainbow Dash. We're sorry if we made you feel bad about choosing between an important career move toward your lifelong dream and helping us with a sporting event that we'll have forgotten about a week after it ends. We're not going to be mad at you about flying for Cloudsdale. We're your friends, we're not gonna ask that you put us ahead of everything that matters to you."
Derpy: "Yeah, I mean, if that was the moral, it would be downright reta-"
Twilight: "Don't use ableist language, Derpy."
Derpy: "Whoops, sorry."
Rainbow Dash: "Thank you, Fluttershy. And yeah, when you stop to really think about it, the answer's obvious."
Spitfire: "Glad that's resolv-"
Rainbow Dash: "Obviously, I choose to fly with the Ponyville team."
Spitfire: "Pony what."
Rainbow Dash: "Not because Ponyville desperately needs the win or anything. It's about loyalty!"
Spitfire: "Um, hang on. You've lived most of your life in Cloudsdale. What about loyalty to your hometown?"
Rainbow Dash: "OK, see, here's the thing: Loyalty's a word that gets thrown around a lot. You should be loyal to your family, you should be loyal to your friends, you should be loyal to your country, you should be loyal to God-Queen Celestia, and so freaking on."
Rainbow Dash: "And people just assume that being loyal means being good, but no! If loyalty to you just means that you choose a group or a person, and then stick by them no matter what, that's… heck, that's almost morally neutral! Most of the Unseelie are completely loyal to Queen Chrysalis, and that was a bad thing, because she's a freaking monster! People with terrible families and horrible friends can still be loyal to them, even when they really shouldn't be!"
Rainbow Dash: "You wanna know what real loyalty is about? The sort that can activate rainbow deathrays? It's not about letting a group or a person call dibs on you for the rest of the life."
Rainbow Dash: "It's about being reliable. It's about the people around you knowing that they can count on you in a pinch. Because we all end up in a pinch every now and then, and then we need help, and we need to know that when that happens, that help will come! It's not about dibs, it's about doing right by people!"
Rainbow Dash: "And sometimes, doing what people ask you to do isn't doing right by them! Sometimes, your family, or your friends, or your country ask you do something wrong. And then, the loyal thing to do is to set them right, not enable their bullshit! ...God-Queen Celestia will always be right, though, but that should go without saying."
Rainbow Dash: "So, when you feel loyalties to competing things? Tough. You just need to decide which one is right, which one is more important!"
Spitfire: "Which, in this case, means…"
Rainbow Dash: "It means that the Ponyville team put a lot of heart into this, and that if I drop them, it's like saying their effort wasn't important! It means that you, meanwhile, got soooo hung up on doing right by your team, that you forgot to do right by the actual members of your team!"
Soarin: "I am a tad miffed about that."
Rainbow Dash: "I want to be a Wonderbolt because they're supposed to be AWESOME, but right now? Right now, you're doing all the wrong things, and I don't care if it was for the right reasons - it is NOT AWESOME. So, by my loyalty to my friends, AND my loyalty to Cloudsdale, I do declare: No way, Jose!"
Spitfire: "You…"
Spitfire: "...make a valid point, actually."
Rainbow Dash: "...Really? I was kind of giving a long-winded explanation of things I thought you needed to know."
Twilight: "It's called lecturing, Dash."
Rainbow Dash: "...Now I feel dirty."
Spitfire: "In all seriousness, Dash: I've said before that you were exactly what we needed. I'm starting to think… that I was right, but not quite in the way I thought."
Spitfire: "...Sorry about the optimizing bullshit, Soarin."
Soarin: "I'll live. Now what are you slowpokes waiting for?! There's training to get back to!"
Steroid Pony: "And to that call for action, moving us past our recent moral conflict and toward the emotionally-satisfying resolution, I can give no answer but a loud, hearty YEAH!"
Griphon Team, nearby: "Ponies. Freaking drama queens."
Some qualifiers with unsurprising results later:
Rainbow Dash: "I am unsurprised yet incredibly happy we (barely) qualified!"
Spitfire: "Speaking of quality…" *gives Rainbow Dash her Wonderbolt pin*
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Spitfire: "I can get another one, but I want you to have this one. You know why?"
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Spitfire: "Because the other day, you were more of a Wonderbolt than I was. You were loyal to the Wonderbolt ideals, when I was thinking of their perception."
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Spitfire: "So, I want you to keep this… at least until the day you become a Wonderbolt officially, and get your own pin."
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Spitfire: "Uh, Rainbow Dash? Are you OK?"
Rainbow Dash: "Pony what."
Fluttershy: "She'll be OK. Just give her a few minutes to reboot from that joy overload."
Rainbow Dash, on the journal: "I love winning. And I love being the Exalt of Loyalty. But it has to have meaning."
Rainbow Dash: "Winning while being a crappy pony? Loyalty as mindlessly following someone? That'd be freaking meaningless."
Rainbow Dash: "I'm loyal - meaning that, when the ponies who know me really need my help, they'll get the help they need."
But then, as cosmic forces align…
Wonderbolt Pin: *glows with rainbow light!*