It is a well-known fact that the best flyers are the Wonderbolts. It is also another well-known fact that they are among the ponies that draw some of the most attention and have the most fans (especially when a Wonderbolt is female), aside from the Princesses themselves. This is a fact that this story will show and have one particular pony capitalize on. Now our story begins in the office of that pony, AKA Soarin Skies the Second-in-Command of the team. You see, for the last few weeks the team had been having competition with and having to draw fans away from a recently formed rival team: The Shadowbolts, who'd been formed by a certain Princess of the Night as the end result of a possibly drunken bet with her sister.
It hadn't been going well, and Soarin understood perfectly well why actually. The Shadowbolts were new, and they'd been formed by one of the Royal Sisters to boot. That didn't mean he had to like it though. He needed an idea to get the eyes back on the Wonderbolts and he needed that idea quickly and done efficiently.
Soarin mused through the ideas in his head and tossed them in either a mental trash can if said idea was crap or put it aside on a mental desk (Strangely resembling his very own...) if the idea could hold water so to speak. Currently, he was going over the possibility of having a free concert thrown just right before their next show. Now that he thought of it, he had a friend of a friend who knew Vinyl Scratch AKA Dj-Pon-3. THAT would sure bring them in by the dozens.
Soarin then tossed that idea aside into his mental trash can. Bring in the crowds it may, but the idea still didn't show how awesome as Rainbow Dash might put it the Wonderbolts were. He needed to show off at least one of the reasons they were so well loved. And then he remembered a conversation he'd happened to just overhear a week before...
One week earlier...
Soarin was at a local bar in Cloudsdale, the home base of the team and was having a drink when he happened to overhear THIS conversation...
"Man oh man, those female 'Bolts..." One stallion said to his friend at a table across from where Soarin was sitting at the bar's counter. Apon hearing his team brought up, at least that's whom he assumed this stallion was talking about, and not those Shadowbolts, Soarin's ears perked up in interest and completely lost interest in his drink and continued listening in to the conversation unfolding nearby.
"I know what you mean, man, How'd I would just love to bed one of them for one night or even get kissed. That... That would be a dream come true for me." The second stallion agreed with a nod of his head and his friend could only laugh.
"Yeah, but you're so butt-ugly none of them would even look twice at you." The first retorted, and this was actually true. The second stallion really was not an attractive sort, although this does not pertain to our story so we won't elaborate any farther on that. The point is, this particular conversation stayed in the back of Soarin's mind until now...
Now...
Soarin quickly had a crazy idea come to his mind, possibly hormone driven as well as even HE had to admit that the female members were reasonably attractive. A calendar! Yes, that would surely drum up a lot of attention back towards him and the rest of the Wonderbolts. Problem was, how would his Captain take the idea? Well...
"You want us to pose for what!?!" Spitfire roared once she had heard her friend's request. She was furious, this was outright exploitation! She'd bet asking any other of her team's female members this and they would have their thoughts run along the exact same lines.
Soarin was quick to point something out that could possibly save his skin.
"It's not just the females who'll pose, the males can do so as well. It's a twelve-month calendar, after all." Soarin was quick to reply. Spitfire rubbed her temples with a hoof and let out a resigned sigh. She had to admit her friend had a point here. Support for the team would definitely fly up with this, and they could stick to the Shadowbolts in the process.
"Okay, but let it be known I shall be doing this under protest," Spitfire grumbled to herself.
Photo Finish's Studio: Canterlot
And so it began, with no female Bolt being happy about it but they went along with the idea anyways as they too wanted to "Stick it" to the Shadowbolts.
"Okay, just try and look a bit more flirty alright dearie?" The famous photography pony Photo Finish asked the Wonderbolt Captain as she posed in front of her lenses.
But no matter how many photos were taken, it was obvious that any flirty expression Spitfire tried to give to the camera was a forced one. So eventually both Photo and Soarin gave up and switched her out with another member of the team, Flame who looked so much like her that they figured hoping nopony would be able to tell the difference.
Then they took photos of the other team members one by one. First, they took a pic of Bulk Biceps weight lifting all of his muscles on display. Though none of the female Bolts would admit it, they were drooling. Other team members got their shots taken, another of note being Surprise who just posed blowing up balloons showing her love of parties. Soarin wiped a bit of sweat from his brow, this one was so silly and strange that it detracted from the sexiness of the photo leaving one less reason for Spitfire to want his guts for garters.
Then along came Fleetfoot. This was where the trouble began.
As she rolled over to expose her belly, Fleetfoot gained a flirty smirk which made everypony in the room quite nervous and for good reason shown when the Wonderbolt Third-In-Command then unzipped her suit almost all the way and just as she was about to finish the job there came a shout stopping her from doing so.
"NO! Oh, for Celestia's sake we don't need it to be THAT sexy!" Photo Finish snapped at her as the other Wonderbolts (Most of the males really) watched with huge red blushes on their muzzles accompanied by sweating as Misty Fly facehoofed and Spitfire growled to herself. Why was she not surprised? Fleetfoot had always been the boldest of them, after all.
"Oh come on, why wouldn't the stallions not want to see ALL of my bad-ass body?" Fleetfoot shot back as she gained an annoyed look on her face, but was secretly pleased with how much the others were blushing. That was what she wanted and was going for after all.
"It's SUPPOSED to be tantalizing and teasing, not outright... outright, well, you know!" Photo shouted back, unable to come up with the proper word due to her embarrassment.
"Pornography?" Soarin asked in a nervous manner, and Spitfire and Misty Fly gave him dirty looks not helping improve his confidence at all. In fact, Soarin tried only the ever harder to make himself as small as possible. Needless to say, it wasn't working and it made a rather laughable sight.
"But I thought that's what this already was..." Spitfire growled at him. Somehow, even with her sunglasses on she managed a very frightening look indeed.
"N-No, it's just a way to drum up support like I keep telling you all!" Soarin stammered out nervously with his front forelegs held up in a surrendering motion, incredibly frightened of his Captain and friend. "...Well, former friend if things kept up the way they were going so far." Soarin mused to himself.
"Drum up support my freaking flank, you just want to go ahead and show us off like we're mares of the night!" Misty Fly huffed before she walked out of the room with her head held high.
"But we haven't even gotten to your picture yet, so don't go wimping out on us now!" Fleetfoot yelled after her. The only response she earned from that remark was Misty's wing being flipped upwards in one very rude gesture. Soarin groaned and banged his head against the wall, he was so dead after this whole thing was over, he just knew it. The only thing was, he didn't know which female Bolt would kill him first.
It wasn't long before the calendar went on sale in every town from Canterlot to Ponyville, and it was selling like hotcakes. Pretty much everypony who was even the slightest fan of the Wonderbolts had heard of it, from the Canterlot high-class to even the simple drunks who just watched the shows played live on TVs in their favorite watering holes.
It even made it's way to one Rainbow Dash, who had this to say.
"They made a calendar, and I'm not in it!?!"
Meanwhile, on Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack caught her brother looking over this calendar in the barn when he was supposed to be out plowing the fields. With fury, she took it away from him.
"Look at ya, ma would be ashamed of ya for reading this here filth!" She exclaimed, and as Big Mac tried to sputter out a reply, Applejack suddenly saw the next page and a big blush came to her face as she hid her face with her hat and whispered "Oh mah..."
Wonderbolts Flight Camp
Meanwhile, while the calendar took Equestria by storm, Spitfire was in the middle of training some new cadets. She had singled out one, Cloud Kicker and approached her with her normal intimidation strategy.
"So, Cloud Kicker is it? You think you've got what it takes to be a Wonderbolt?" Spitfire growled out. All was going well until Cloud Kicker's reply threw her completely off guard.
"Yes ma'am, Spitflirt ma'am!" She said seductively and Spitfire growled as she got in real close to Cloud Kicker's face. Inwardly Spitfire was stunned, she'd received a new nickname, worst then the last, and she hadn't even been that damned calendar! There had been only a stand-in for Celestia's sake!
"What was that you called me, cadet?" Spitfire snarled and Cloud Kicker quickly backtracked.
"N-Nothing ma'am, you must have misheard." She stammered out and Spitfire muttered "Yeah, must have..." as she walked off and allowed the new cadets to take five.
Spitfire grumbled to herself as she walked around the training site into the barracks. This was the last straw, Soarin was so going to get it next time she saw him. And it wasn't long before she did, as she then bumped right into him.
"Something the matter?" Soarin asked as he noted the expression on his friend's face. Once he'd been told everything, Spitfire was shocked and enraged to see him snigger.
"Something funny?" She growled and Soarin replied "Well, this is good isn't it? It means the team's getting more attention and besides, I know you've always wanted a stallionfriend... Or marefriend if you swing that way."
This didn't help his case and made Spitfire only glare at him harder.
"Yeah, except I don't want this kind of attention, being looked at and idolized like this! All because of that blasted calendar..." Spitfire whispered to herself.
Soarin was now very confused. As I've said before, being a Wonderbolt meant you got a lot of positive attention, and now Spitfire was saying she hated that whole shoot and resulting calendar because that's exactly what she was getting, now more than ever even!
"I... I don't get it. You're a Wonderbolt, so receiving attention is part of the job! Tartarus, when you're up there flying with us you receive loads and loads of it, ponies cheering you on like you're Princess Celestia herself!" Soarin said, stunned beyond measure.
At this point, Spitfire was trying to look at anywhere but her best friend and Second-In-Command. Even if it was at the floors or ceiling, Soarin was not in her line of sight. If the Wonderbolt didn't know better, Soarin would have said his boss seemed almost embarrassed. But that couldn't be, Spitfire was never like that, not unless you brought up her call sign and even then that just brought up anger. But now Soarin had a new thought come to his mind. Was it possible that all that anger and snappishness she showed with the call sign and now this was just to hide how embarrassed Spitfire truly was?
When she at last realized her friend had caught on, Spitfire confessed.
"Yeah, I admit it. I'm embarrassed to let myself be shown off in public. It's one thing when I'm up there flying with you guys as everypony's attention is on all of us, but when it's just on me...?" Spitfire trailed off, and Soarin put a hoof on her shoulder in support as he mused "By Celestia, I never knew..."
"Hey, listen. You should have spoken up earlier. If I had known, I would have called this whole thing off, or just left you out of the shoot entirely. We're friends, we shouldn't be keeping these secrets from one another." Soarin replied with a kindly smile, and Spitfire smiled back at him and even laughed.
"Nah, leaving me out of a shoot that shows us off? If you had, ponies would have complained and been frankly rather pissed off and I don't think any of us want THAT!" She joked at the irony, and Soarin cracked another smile as he then replied: "Besides, you have to admit that new nickname of yours is pretty funny in a way."
Spitfire herself managed another smile before she laughed and said "Yeah, I guess it was..." before she continued and exposed yet another secret.
"But you're right, we shouldn't keep secrets from one another, and that starts now. Oh, for the record, remember when you found all your pie eaten last week? That was me." Spitfire replied looking unashamed of herself, and even though he finally knew who had stolen his precious food, Soarin just couldn't find it in himself to be mad at her. The old Spitfire was back, and that was all that mattered to him right now...
THE END
Author's Note
Okay, once again I've come back with another Wonderbolts themed tale and written mostly one a tablet to boot!
I seem to be doing a lot of these lately, what with the three part story arc in my Transformers crossover, the Transformers crossover one shot before that and the story focusing on the aftermath of "Newbie Dash"...
Agh, anyways for this the original idea for the reasoning behind the calendar was for Soarin to help get some financial support for the Bolts when they run into money troubles, but my good friend Manaphy pointed out to me that just drumming up support made a heck of a lot more sense as it's something a lot of real world groups do and I agreed with him. I tried to keep this story as "Teen" as I could, but with Fleetfoot's little scene during the photo shoot if anyone thinks it needs to be bumped up in rating just tell me, or tell me how to edit it to keep it "Teen" as I try not to write any mature pony themed stories as a personal rule to myself even if I am of legal age.
Finally, on Spitfire's characterization. If anyone thinks she seems OOC, be grateful as my original draft for the story made her come off as just a outright bitch for no good reason other then having her body shown off as pornography, and so I just introduced the embarrassment to be seen as a idol angle which also made me able to show off her friendship (Which like I said in the story's description, could be taken as something more.) with Soarin a bit more and give a little bit of a moral as well.
