A line of fresh cadets stood in a poorly-organized line on the Wonderbolt Academy grounds. All of them had already been there nearly five minutes, since just after the sun had risen, but they still hadn’t seen any sign of an actual uniformed Wonderbolt, whom they would likely assume to be their instructor for the week.

“Aaat attention!” all of them heard an awkward-sounding voice shout suddenly from nearby. Lo and behold, it belonged to Soarin, who was just trotting up in front of them. He took a second to wipe away some food that was still on his face right as he stopped in front of them all, and then focused on the haphazard row of young pegasi. The surprise at hearing a voice finally yell out from behind them had sprung them to attention, but they still held their poor form.

“Aahh—alright! Today we’re gonna start you all off with some pretty eas—I mean basic exercises, and we’re gonna crank up the intensity as we go and see how you do. The first day here is mostly about testing you to see what you can take,” Soarin tried his absolute best drilling the cadets in front of him, even though it came out as nothing like it, and he knew it. “So? Does everypony get it?” He had to ask a few seconds afterward, just to prompt a reaction from the semi-hapless recruits.

“Yes Sir,” – “Yes Sir!” – “Y-yes ! . . . Sir!” They all said apart, not one by one, but horribly spread out enough.

“Uh, alright, then everypony go on and head out to the flight course!” Soarin ordered them after they had all responded.

The group all looked around at each other in apparent confusion, and then all around in general, until Soarin suddenly was hit the realization that he’d failed to indicate an actual direction to where they were going. Quickly he threw out a hoof towards the aerial rings where he intended them to gather, and internally cringed with embarrassment as he just awkwardly waited for them all to notice over the next few seconds.

“Hey! Ahuh—get moving! What do you think we have all day?” he attempted to chastise the group for their initial slow movement, though it came about as well-put as his regular drilling. They did quickly pick up their pace in response, but following behind them, Soarin had turned what little disciplinary side he had back in on himself.

Seriously? “What do you think we have all day?” You’re supposed the one telling THEM, not asking them.

Soarin sighed as he though on.

Come on, Stupid Soarin; Spitfire would’ve had them all in line by now. Pfth! Oh yeah, she’d of had them well in line in the first five seconds.

Five seconds was certainly not how long it took Soarin to get the cadets properly regimented. In fact it wasn’t even until the afternoon that he even had them what might have been acceptable as half way. They got yes sir and no sir down just fine, they’d long since ceased hesitating to move when directed, and none of them were really struggling with the aerial exercises and relay team-building practices, but there was still a lot lacking: they still talked and whispered amongst each other so long as they weren’t the particular section of the group he was addressing directly at the moment, and they were nowhere near being anything of a cohesive unit in the sky. They even still had difficulties functioning well in just pairs!

“Ah-uhHEY! Whatta you think you’re doing?” Soarin suddenly had to shout at one of the cadets as he saw the stallion clearly using the wind from his flight drag to blow a large portion of the countless clouds set up for them to buck just out of view behind a large cumulus. Even though he’d never drilled any cadets before, it was still obvious enough to Soarin that this one was trying to get around having to do as much work as possible. He knew for sure there was no way Spitfire would have that, so he wasn’t about to either.

“Hey! I said get back here!” Soarin yelled out again, flinching inside at just how dorky and un-intimidating his voice really sounded.

The young cadet stallion turned about in mid-air as some others flew by behind him. He held a confused look, or so he made his face appear, trying to look as if he’d either just heard or barely heard Soarin. “Huh? Yes Sir?” the younger stallion addressed Soarin, coming down and landing into a trot.

“And what exactly was that?” Soarin attempted . . . if that was even an appropriate word, to interrogate the cadet, throwing a hoof up to indicate the large cloud the cadet had hidden most of his assignment behind.

The cadet turned sharply and looked up at the larger cumulus hanging relatively in place. “Uum . . .” he began, intentionally drifting his voice off as he pretended, via actually doing so, to study the cloud intensely. “A cumulus, Sir,” he told Soarin, “type . . . uh, 2-B, Sir.” He was right in his cloud typology, though obviously Soarin didn’t care.

“Ah—oh no, I think you and I both know what I mean!” Soarin tried again, but still with none of the effect whatsoever that he knew Spitfire would have produced. “I SAW you hide those cloud-smashing exercises behind that cloud!”

In a blindside to Soarin, the cadet suddenly snapped after rolling his eyes through Soarin’s words. “Ugh, come on! Seriously, this is all just a waste of time. What’s the point of making us all do so much mindless stuff like this instead actually training us to do stunts aerial maneuvers?”

“The point is to get you used to falling in-line,” the most familiar, and at that moment relieving voice Soarin knew suddenly responded to what the cadet had asked. Soarin flung his head over his shoulder relieved, but still surprised to actually see Spitfire approaching the two of them. “The point of all this is to get you into the routine of putting in HARD WORK and DEDICATION, pouring your maximum effort into things. You’re not being trained to do anything, you’re in an academy; you are NOT in ANY way part of the actual Wonderbolts. This whole set up acts as first-pass test for us to see who’s really willing to put all of themselves into everything they do and who’s not.” Spitfire stopped for only brief instant after letting the cadet know full well what the purpose of everything at the academy was. She stopped, but only long enough to make a single decision.

“So get out,” her words were so toneless and blunt that they practically just slid right off of the cadet without effect, though apparently they crawled back and found their way inside of his ears as he did eventually regain his speech after a moment of just standing dumbfounded.

“W-wha—wait, what?” the cadet asked back in quickening alarm.

“You heard me; I said get out,” Spitfire repeated herself just as coldly as the first time.

The cadet was frozen in place again, but for half the length of time before he suddenly started panicking. “What? No! You can’t just do that!”

“Hm, I’m the captain of the Wonderbolts, and this is a below-entry-level academy for attempting to be considered for the CHANCE to actually join the Wonderbolts: you’re not exactly in any position to dispute me,” Spitfire responded without once breaking eye contact.

***

“Agh, I’m really sorry for messing all this up so badly today . . .” Soarin told Spitfire after she’d dismissed the cadets at the end of the afternoon. He didn’t hang his head completely, though it still sunk down half way. At least, until he felt a hoof placed on him. It was Spitfire’s of course; they were alone on the flat top of the academy’s island, so it wouldn’t have been anypony else.

“Soarin . . .” Spitfire held her mouth open to say more for a few seconds, but she just ended up releasing a sigh instead. She shut her eyes for a second as she took her hoof back off of him. “You’re too nice for this,” she said, actually catching him completely off-guard, “don’t look down on yourself for this, I shouldn’t have let you fill in the position for me.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean too nice? It’s just that . . . I can’t really yell and scream and all that kinda stuff without it soundin . . . agh, you know,” Soarin responded, reaching a hoof around behind his head.

“Yeah,” she answered him with a sympathetic smile, “that’s exactly what I mean. It doesn’t have anything to do with how dorky your voice sounds. You know exactly what listening to Fleetfoot’s lisp is like, but she’s still intimidating to cadets. You don’t come off like whenever you try because you’ve never really been like that anyways.” She stopped for a second but just saw that he still looked confused by some little bit, so she went ahead with explaining herself. “You never yell. Actually, I’m pretty sure you getting prickly that one time Fleetfoot called you Pie Brain back when we were at the academy ourselves was the maddest I’ve ever seen you, and I couldn’t even call that all that much more than grumpy. Most of the time you’re just always happy, or at least you’ve sounded like it for the past fifteen years. I mean, you’re not always smiling, you do kind of tend to look confused about stuff almost as often,” she paused just to enjoy his brief, unamused facial reaction to that particular comment, but she quickly kept going, “but . . . you’re just not an intimidating kind of pony.”

Soarin was left both feeling and looking embarrassed by the ending conclusion, despite that obviously not being his best friend’s intention. He sighed, “h’yeah . . . I guess I kinda really should know that much more than anypony, but . . .”

Something rare, extremely rare for her: a glimmer a worry crossed over Spitfire’s eyes, after her best friend failed to speak any farther and just looked down and away in a slumped silence. Her face dropped out of the smile she’d had and changed into expressing her rising concern. Right as she went to raise a hoof to him again, though, Soarin spoke.

“I know you told me I’m amazing up there in the sky back when we were here at the academy, but we all are, or else we wouldn’t even be in the Wonderbolts. We’re all the same in that. But then, you can take charge easily, Fleetfoot can drill just as good as you when you’re too busy, Rapidfire’s the most charismatic stallion anypony’s ever seen and’s practically our poster face, everypony loves Surprise, Misty Fly and Fire Streak both have medical training . . . so what’s my thing? There’s nothing REALLY special about me; I fly good like everypony else, but sides that all anypony knows me for is just . . . eating a bunch of pies.” Soarin looked utterly miserable by the time he’d finished, to the point of Spitfire not having any immediate reaction to everything he’d just said.

It took her a moment to really think, and in reality, to feel the self-downing Soarin had just let out. She knew. She knew what he was, what his thing was, at least that she knew him for, but she didn’t know entirely how to make it sound right for the way he was feeling right now. So before she even said anything back to him, she stepped forward and hugged him. The fact of just how long it had been since the last time, not to exclude also the fact that she had to physically lift his head up for him so she even could hug him in the first place, left Soarin more surprised right then than anything.

“You’re a friend, Soarin . . . you’re my friend, my real friend . . . and more than I really deserved a lot of the time, with some of the ways I’ve been like. Best friends are always there when you need them, but you’ve just always been there period,” she paused her speech for a second realizing how much more true what she was saying was than she could even make it sound. She pressed the side of her neck against his while she still held on hugging him. “You’re better than a best friend. You’ve always been, right from the start. I’m sorry if I’ve really never let you know that much.” Spitfire let go of him as she let out her last sentence, revealing Soarin to have eyes enlarged and mouth a portion open in a visible mixture of shock and taking in.

“I know . . . we’ve been together since the beginning, but . . . am I really THAT much? Any friend’s a friend,” Soarin asked and said quietly, almost calmly trying to protest.

It was practically reflexive: the smile the came to Spitfire’s face during her response to him. “Soarin,” she said at first, shaking her head with the warm smile that had come over it, “no, you’re way above and beyond that. You’ve always been there, ALWAYS . . . pie or no pie involved.” For once, that jab actually did create a smile on Soarin’s face, though Spitfire just went on. “You’re always the one trying to cheer me up, AND the one looking over to make sure I’m still going. I would’ve crashed and burned so hard all those times I was pushing myself if you hadn’t been around. And then that’s just it: you’re not there when I ask or anywhere near it . . . you’re always just already there anyways.”

Soarin just stared back for a moment, everything draining its way in until he looked down thinking over it all. That was interrupted though, when he suddenly felt Spitfire’s cheek brush and press against his.

That shot him red, with no initial assumption of how to interpret it.

“Soarin . . .” she said through a sigh, and he could feel her shaking her head by just the tiniest bit. The way she said his name let him know enough that his downing himself was starting to get to her; he’d heard it before. So . . . he stopped, for her sake, and out of the trust between them he believed everything she’d said. He leaned against her cheek with his own, just as she’d been doing. She really was right . . . even from the beginning, neither one of them would have gone anywhere if it weren’t for the other.

“. . . thanks Spitty . . .”

“Here,” she began a suggestion after she quickly pulled away, “I’ll take over the academy drilling. How about you go do all the paperwork that was keeping me from doing it?” she proposed the idea, to his head-retracting surprise.

Soarin began to sound just a bit iffy about the idea, “Ahhh-are you sure that’s a good idea—”

“You know how to forge my signature,” she cut him off, throwing on a friendly grin as well as she did. Soarin’s eyes darted to the side once while his face reddened a little bit, but he managed to return everything to normal. “You still do, right?” Spitfire asked, just to be sure.

Soarin’s face had returned to its normal sky-blue, though he still had an embarrassed smile as he responded to his friend, “Uhh, yeah, ahh-I could probably still pull it off.”

Spitfire’s smile grew at Soarin’s answer, and for a moment she just let him soak in it . . . he really needed to, she felt. She waited for him as long as it took for him to come to a true smile of his own, and even after he had she still held hers at him for a half-moment after before she began to step past.

“You know my door code,” she said as she began to pass him.

Soarin stood still for the first second she passed by, but even as he lifted a hoof to step away himself, he felt her brush against his side one more time

Author's Note

Finally, here's something at least.
I'm really, horribly sorry to everyone that I couldn't get something up sooner. I won't go into how much classtime, course work, lab time and lab work I have this semester like I did last.

It's 3:31 AM right now (Alaska Time)_(yes, for those who didn't already know, I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and accordingly attend the University of Alaska), and I stayed up to finish this and upload it, and I also finished editing half of another chapter of Hurricane Paradigm which I should have no problem getting up by tomorrow. Then I have the weekend free to hopefully resume writing chapter 5 of Drug Dust.

AND I'm really, really sorry to those few ( 2, I think) of you who consistently comment on things and try to talk to me. I absolutely promise the next communication attempt you make with me, I WILL respond.

Nothing else I really can think of to even put in here given what hour it is. I'll pray you all have been enduring only good events the past few months, then I'm passing out till noon.