"Life," Spitfire philosophically said as she carefully took her place on the central bench behind the judges' table, staring out towards the cloud-padded huge open pasture which was about to host the first Wonderbolts open tryout session of the year, "is like a hurricane. And so are applicant judging sessions."
Rainbow, who'd been just about to claim the bench on the captain's right, paused.
"Huh?" Rainbow eloquently decided.
"You asked me for some advice on how these things work from our side," Spitfire reminded her. "Because you've only been out there in front of the table up until now, it's your first time being a judge for new applicants, and I think you're just a little nervous." A quick nod towards the pasture, then a glance at the sky above it, where the five mandatory in-flight monitors were getting into position -- and then, before Rainbow could finish opening her mouth, "And I don't have twenty minutes to waste on listening to you deny it. So that's the first rule. It's a hurricane. Because we post the tryout tour schedule years in advance, letting everypony know when we're coming to their town so they can start practicing. That gets the winds going, because with that much time to work on things, a lot of ponies decide that they'll be good enough by the time we blow in. Most of them are wrong. And then you get the ones who just want to show up and say they auditioned for us once, like it's some kind of badge of honor to have somepony famous reject them to their snouts. So for the most part, when you're on this side, you're getting pummeled by incompetence. You see the same mistakes you've seen a thousand times before and if you last long enough, you'll see them from a thousand more ponies. The sheer level of dumb out there is going to turn into a storm of stupidity, it'll take hours to completely blow through and you'll spend most of the time wondering if your sanity can survive it."
Rainbow's still-elevating right foreleg froze. She took a long look at what had been about to be her bench.
High Winds, who'd already claimed her post as the third and final judge, snickered. "Having second thoughts, rookie?"
"No!" Which triggered a scramble at a speed which would only be seen as indecent haste by somepony with a completely prejudiced and totally neutral viewpoint, and the prismatic tail draped itself across the wood. "So it's gonna be a whole bunch of dumb. All day."
"No," Spitfire carefully countered. "Because hurricanes have centers. It's mostly getting pummeled by stupid, with occasional breaks for hoping the monitors can get to the worst ones before they kill themselves. But sometimes, it all goes calm. A candidate will get in the air, you'll be so tired of all the idiocy that you're just waiting to see how this goes wrong -- and then they'll fly. They fly, and the whole world slows down to let you get a better look. By the time they're halfway through their routine, you're assigning them a bunk spot and when they land, you're mentally composing the admission letter. Everything turns quiet and peaceful and eerie -- but in a beautiful way, Rainbow. A way you won't really understand until you've been through it. But the whole time you're looking at that next potential Wonderbolt -- well, unless they're last in line for the day, you're waiting for the storm to start again. So that's the first thing. It's a hurricane. Ride it out and look for the calm. Got me?"
"Yeah," Rainbow decided. "Anything else?"
It brought a nod. "They all get a fair chance. Until you see what they can do, you treat them all the same way. Everypony and everyone." She quickly glanced at the stacks of application forms which had been delivered to the table a few minutes before the judges had arrived. "And I mean everyone, Rainbow. Because we're going to see pegasi all day -- but we could see griffons. There's been griffons on the team over the centuries, self-levitating unicorns who could work up some speed -- close your mouth, Rainbow: I know you have them all memorized and I don't need to hear the list right now. But that's the point. We may not have any right now, but we're always ready. There are routines which have been sitting on the shelf for nineteen years because the right kind of wings wasn't in the center of the formation, stunts boxed away for another eleven without a corona to make them completely work. I want to be the Wonderbolts captain who brings that back and it's not under my control, because I don't say who shows up or what they can do. But every pegasus, griffon, or unicorn who shows up gets their chance to prove themselves in front of us. No matter who's standing in front of this table, you're going to be fair. Judge them on what they do. Not how they look or which species they are. I'll take an earth pony if that earth pony found a way to get in the air and keep up with us. Don't call anyone an idiot unless their flying is stupid. That's a rule. You're a judge now -- and judges are fair."
"So even if somepony's the biggest moron in Equestria," Rainbow groaned, "I can't say so?"
"Not unless their flying reflects it," Spitfire confirmed.
"But if somepony's really stupid --"
High Winds' moderately theatrical cough broke in. "--we still took you." And grinned. "Ready for the first?"
Rainbow, caught in the middle of searching for something insulting enough to kick back, found her verbal flight of fury temporarily grounded. "...yeah. So I just take my copy of the first application now?"
"No," Spitfire said. "Wonderbolts tradition: first candidate's always a surprise. We'll review the packet after they're in front of us. Not before. It's one of the reasons why the front of the line has the curtain blocking it off until the session starts."
"Lot of chatter over there," High Winds noted. "I can't make out what they're saying, but there's a lot of buzz, Captain. Usually the tryouts get scared into silence when they're this close to proving it. Something's got them talking."
"Maybe we've got a known idiot," Spitfire contemplated. "Of the flying variety. The town's local seagull's at the front of the line, and everypony's waiting to see what's going to go wrong." She glanced up at the monitors. "But we're ready for that. Windy, ready for some Category Five ego storms?"
"She's sitting on your right," High Winds said. "So yes."
Rainbow forced her huff down into her body, where it mostly manifested as a shiver of feathers and single annoyed snort. Spitfire grinned. "Rainbow, can you deal with a little dumb today without being too harsh or even a little insulting?"
"...yeah," Rainbow eventually lied.
Spitfire looked at her. It seemed to go on for just a little too long.
"Okay," the captain eventually said, turned towards the curtain, and raised her voice. "Number One! Applicant Number One, step forward!"
Rainbow turned to look, and so her first impression was that the curtain was bulging outwards at a surprising height. Most pegasi making their way into the takeoff area would trot, saving every bit of wingpower for their actual routine. (That, and a large number would be too nervous -- and nauseous -- to risk the air until the absolute last minute.) So to have somepony fly in, even moving a little off the ground, struck her as a sign of surprising confidence.
Her second thought was that the curtain was also bulging into a rather unusual shape, and several hurried follow-ups tried to figure out exactly what was creating that configuration. Maybe it was a tandem act. One whose members had already become tangled up with each other.
The curtain parted. The rest of her thoughts mostly wound up crashing into the ground, with two ramming her face in such a way as to leave her eyelids jammed open.
"Hiya!" came the gregarious voice. It was a very friendly tone, the sort of instinctive camaraderie which generally came with a two-drink minimum. "Thanks for having me! I really appreciate just getting the chance, you know? So, I'm just gonna need a minute here, okay? I'm sorry for holding things up so early, but when you think about it, it's a good thing that if I'm holding things up, I'm going first, right? I'm just gonna go over there, and then I'll be right back with my --"
And Spitfire, who always tried to be fair, who saved the harshness for when it was truly needed, who truly felt herself to be ready for any applicant -- slipped.
"-- what are you?"
Applicant #1 stopped. Blushed.
"Um... Gee, that's something I've been asked a lot lately..."
"...he's a duck," Rainbow softly said. Followed by, with a little more volume, "You're a duck."
The applicant scraped the boot-covered splay of his right webbed foot across the soil.
"Yeah."
He had to be a duck. Admittedly, he was a rather rare specimen of duck. Rainbow had seldom seen white-feathered ones: it was a hue more often reserved for swans. And with those ducks who did have the matching color, that shade would usually be found all over their bodies. This one had a shock of red feathers on his head, rising up from the front brim of the skull-covering cross between cap and helmet, a wild escape of plumage which refused to be completely bound. But he had to be a duck. The shape of the bill wasn't right for anything else and so duck he was. Plus he'd just admitted it, which helped.
It didn't change the fact that he was a duck built along the exact lines of a minotaur. Body shape. Body size. Posture. The massive swell of the torso which suggested tremendous strength lurking under the jacket. Oh, and he was wearing a jacket. Along with pants, boots, a belt, that cap which had goggles perched just behind the brim, and Rainbow had just noticed the scarf. It was the jauntiest scarf she'd ever seen. Every wind-aided shift of the free end suggested it just might try to take flight without him. She wanted one.
"A duck," Spitfire repeated, mostly for temporary lack of anything else to say.
This time, both webbed feet shuffled.
"Yeah," the applicant repeated. "So if it's okay, I'm just going to go over there and get my --"
"A walking. Talking. Duck."
The applicant was starting to look a little awkward.
"Yeah..." he tried again.
High Winds decided to settle the situation.
"Ducks don't talk," she said. "And they're not that big." (Everypony decided that hadn't helped.) "So how can you be a duck?"
The big arms moved behind the duck's back. He stared at the ground for a few seconds.
"They don't talk around here," he finally said, bringing his eyes up again.
"You're not from around here," Spitfire helplessly confirmed. He nodded. "How did you get here? We didn't hear about any new species being discovered..."
The duck smiled, brought his arms forward and spread them.
"You know," he gregariously said, "I've been here for a little while now. Couple of -- moons? That's how you say it? And I've kinda noticed how a lot of you are named. I like it! It's one of the coolest things I've ever heard! Back home, we've got a few people who kind of work along the same lines, but it's not like it's pretty much everyone. So when we hear a name, we don't always ping to it, you know? Like..." He brought his arms in, hands at pectoral level, fully rotated and displaced feathered palms. "Let's say you know someone who liked to invent stuff, he told you he had something new he wanted to show you, and his name was Perfect Creations. You'd go right over and check it out, right?"
"Sure," Rainbow immediately decided. Inventions could be cool.
"And if that guy's name was Gearloose?"
It took exactly five seconds of thought, with four of those used to work past the slow-crashing horror. "...I would fly for my life."
The duck grinned. At least, Rainbow thought it was a grin: she was still having some trouble figuring out how expressions worked with that oddly-flexible bill. "See? You guys know to do that before anything happens! I had to learn it the hard way."
Spitfire attempted to deal with reality.
"All right," she said. "You're a duck. We've established that. You are also an applicant. So -- Number One, please proceed to the takeoff area and begin your routine."
The awkward web-footed shuffle reasserted.
"I need to go get something. Over there, around the bend, where you can't see it. I brought it out here last night."
"Because?" High Winds helplessly asked.
A single awkward statement of fact. "I can't fly. Not without it."
Rainbow was staring at him again.
"You're a duck," she pointed out, just in case he'd briefly forgotten. "How can a duck not fly?"
He spread his arms, flexed fingers. "You're a pony," he said. "How can a pony fly?"
"I've got wings."
"I don't," the duck regretfully said, and displayed his arms again.
"...not even under the jacket?"
He shook his head, and Rainbow stared at him with open pity.
"Arms for wings," she said. "That's a pretty rotten trade."
The friendly eyes briefly held a mournful look, one which was present just long enough to register -- and then vanished. "Hey, arms have their good side! And hands! Without hands, I couldn't -- I'll show you, okay? I've just gotta go over there for a minute, get my stuff, and then I'll proceed to the takeoff area and begin my routine. Because I can fly. I just -- do it a little differently, that's all! But I'm a great flier! Where I come from, I'm the best." There was no bravado in the words: it had been a simple statement of fact -- one which then led into a surge of excitement. "I can do just about anything in the air, guys! So when I got here, and I figured out that I was -- sort of gonna be stuck for a while, I started asking around about what I could do. A bunch of ponies in the palace told me about you guys. The best fliers on the planet. That's where I belong, because that's what I do! And when you see my big finish -- just wait! I'll be right back!"
The duck ran across the pasture, through the clouds, towards the side path nopony had thought to examine while setting up the site. He had a surprisingly good turn of speed, and it didn't take long for him to get out of the judges' sight.
Time passed.
"A duck," Spitfire repeated -- then shook head and wings in a single feather-blurring motion of disbelief being temporarily shed. "All right. We're going to treat him fairly. Just because I don't have any stored routines which involve a duck doesn't mean he isn't worthy of joining the team. We'll see what he can do once he's in the air."
"But he can't fly," High Wings protested. "He said so. Arms instead of wings. Or -- arms instead of forelegs?"
"Ducks don't have forelegs," Spitfire pointed out.
"I know," High Wings helplessly said. "It's just his size. I keep thinking of him like seeing your first minotaur right after spotting some cattle. That's the biggest duck I've ever seen. And he's a duck who can't fly, but he's going to fly anyway..."
"At my third audition session," Spitfire told them, "we had a minotaur with a hang glider. She did some beautiful swoops. She just couldn't move fast enough or gain sufficient altitude on demand to be part of the unit. He's getting something. Give him his chance."
"Your third audition session?" Rainbow double-checked. Spitfire nodded. "I beat you. It's only my first one and I got a duck."
Yellow feathers awkwardly shifted.
"It was my third as an applicant."
"...really?"
"Yes," the captain defensively said.
"You needed three tries before you got into the Academy?"
"No. Seven -- what's that sound?"
Ears rotated.
"Wheels," High Winds decided. "Wheels squeaking. And that's steam coming up from behind the trees. What in Equestria is he --"
The thing emerged, being pushed by the duck, whose muscles were visibly bulging against the jacket. There didn't seem to be any real strain on his face.
"Almost ready!" he called out. "Boiler's already running! Just getting into position!"
The pegasi stared.
"...what is that?" Spitfire finally asked.
"A Curtiss JN-4!" the duck called back. "Modified! It's all I could make with the equipment and time I had to work with before the tryout!"
"A Curtiss --" Rainbow tried.
"A Jenny!" the duck shouted, raising his voice to get past the increasing noise from the boiler. "Best I could do! And I needed to make some changes! You guys don't have gas, but you've got those great boilers for the trains, so she's steam-powered, and that meant adjusting for water weight! But the wings and tail are right! I'm gonna get her started! Let's see if she can fly!"
Nopony had blinked for the last half-minute.
"You -- you don't know?" Rainbow choked out. "You didn't test it?"
"Couldn't do the routine until I got here! Not with the big finish! Hang on...!"
He grinned again, pulled the goggles down over his eyes, and then hopped into the thing.
"Steam-powered," Spitfire tried. "It's a machine? It's not even magic?"
"Maybe he can't do magic," High Winds proposed.
"He's alive and he can think. He's got magic," Spitfire declared. "But not flying magic. Maybe not much thought either, since he didn't run any tests. A machine for flying? Balloons don't go fast enough and pedal screws have more control, but they're even slower. That thing is... I think I can see why the back end was made to shift, but those side protrusions are just about fixed. Maybe if it was a lot lighter and the sides were adjusted, he could glide for about ten seconds, but he's starting on the ground. Plus the screw and fan blade are on the front..." She thought it over. "It can't fly."
The other two mares nodded. It couldn't fly.
The boiler was starting to get really loud. Steam moved through the low-lying clouds, creating a partial disruption: two monitors swooped down to fix it.
"It'll never fly," Spitfire decided.
More nodding. It would never fly.
The fan blade began to turn. Wheels shifted, started to rotate.
"It moves, though," High Winds said. "I guess that's something."
"It's steam power," Spitfire tersely answered. "Trains use steam. Trains move. On the ground."
Rainbow was peering through the clouds, trying to focus a little more closely.
"Parts of the sides move," she said. "I think I can see the hinges. It's like... he tried to make a wing where only a few of the feathers would shift. But that wouldn't work, because he can't catch enough air. He can't just jump and flap, not with wheels and stiff sides and whatever that fan blade is supposed to do. He'd need to be --"
-- he'd need to be going fast.
Instead of creating his own wind with wings and using it, he'd need to go so fast that just going forward created wind moving against him. And if that wind went under the sides and he found a way to tilt that front end up...
Rainbow blinked.
"Captain," she urgently said, "he's going to the far end of the pasture. You can see it. He's trying to get some galloping room. I think -- I think he's going for speed. Speed into lift into --"
"-- it can't fly," Spitfire shot back. "It can't."
The Jenny slowly, majestically turned, its back just barely staying within the far end of the clearing. The fan blade spun faster.
"Windy, signal the monitors to be ready for a low altitude rescue maneuver," the captain sighed. "We're going to be picking the pieces of that thing out of the border trees, and I'd rather not have to pick up pieces of him along with it --"
The machine started to move forward. Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Faster still.
Faster than that.
It blurred past the judges' table. The flaps tilted --
"Celestia's heated hooves!" Rainbow screamed, and it was a scream of exaltation. "He can fly!"
They were all staring now, listening to the shouts from the monitors, the cries of amazement from the distant applicants waiting their turn in line, watching a contrail of steam shoot across the sky.
"He's a minotaur," High Winds dazedly said. "He's a minotaur under the world's greatest illusion spell. That's how a minotaur would do it. How is that thing even working?"
"Speed into lift," Spitfire whispered. "Like Rainbow said -- that was a loop. He's looping. It's taking up more air than we would, but he's looping." Hot orange eyes were starting to grow brighter. "Can't use him in any standard formation. He needs too much space. Got to find out what the limitations on that thing are and work out a whole new routine around him. Maybe have ponies standing on the -- wings? Should we call them wings? Does anypony know what we call that?"
Rainbow laughed with delight. "We call it a Jenny!" she crowed with the happiness of a pony whose greatest dream was to one day have all her friends truly learn the joys of flight, finally seeing the potential for realization soar above her without any worries about lack of heat resistance or show-up glow of Sun colored by butterfly shapes. "He's doing a horizontal spin! Look at the control on that spiral! So that's why he put that strap around him before he started up: just so he can stay in there! Do you think he can make one that takes passengers? Operates by hooves? Oh, wow!"
"Passengers," High Winds repeated.
The Jenny began to climb.
"If he can take passengers," Windy said, not particularly caring if anypony was listening, "he could carry cargo. Trains do the bulk shipments, but whenever somepony needs speed, they hire pegasi for courier duty."
Higher and higher, steam billowing out behind it.
"Most of my family are couriers," the white pegasus worriedly continued. "That Jenny could end couriers..."
The sputtering sound hit their ears a split-second before the steam stopped.
The front pitched forward. The fan blade stopped rotating. And the next thing they heard, even before the familiar whistling sound of something making an uncontrolled plummet through atmosphere, was ponies starting to scream.
The monitors rushed forward. It was why they were there in the first place: not just to provide the judges with extra, airborne observations of the applicants, but to rescue anypony who tried to do a little too much. But the Jenny had taken up too much room in the sky, they'd had to stay further back than they would have for a pony applicant, and the extra space needed to be made up. The Jenny had a head start on its descent, the monitors couldn't catch up, it was plummeting and all three Wonderbolts were starting their own takeoffs from their benches even when they knew it wouldn't be enough, the clouds which had been so carefully set up to cushion the impact of a falling pegasus would be mere vapor to a machine --
-- it crashed.
Pieces spun away. Little divot were put into the pasture, all centered around one considerably larger crater. Smoke replaced the steam.
Spitfire and Rainbow hovered, faces frozen in mutual horror.
"Oh, thank Luna," Windy sighed.
Those frozen faces stared at her.
"The couriers!" the pegasus sometimes known as Hoof-In-Mouth yelped. "I was thinking about the couriers! We have to get him out of --"
"-- there's no one left to rescue," Spitfire whispered. "Not after that. Sun and Moon... we... we have to see if there's enough left to bury. Send the other applicants home. We're not seeing anypony else today. We... oh, why --"
-- and the white-feathered hand gripped the edge of the crater.
Another one came up besides it. They pushed.
"App..." The now-standing duck took a slightly smokey breath. "Applicant Number One emerges, singed but triumphant!"
A shaky webbed foot moved forward, and he promptly tripped in the nearest divot.
After a moment, a large arm gestured from horizontal to vertical, with a single finger pointing at the sky.
"Singed, but triumphant!"
He got up. Another step. Tripped again.
"Singed..."
All three mares touched down in front of the prone form. He moved his dirt-spotted goggles back to get a better look.
"You've got really pretty colors, you know that?" he gregariously mentioned. "I love the pastels."
Spitfire stared at him.
"Medical tent," she declared. "Now."
"Nah, I'm fine!" the duck told them. "So how did you like my big finish? I wanted to keep it a surprise, and I didn't even know I was going to get that kind of crater." Thoughtfully, or at least with the level of thoughtfulness which could only be found around the third drink, "I think it's the extra weight from the water. Maybe I need to carry more next time. Smoke and steam shooting up on impact. It'll be spectacular!" Hopefully, "So everypony told me you usually don't tell applicants on the spot and I'd just have to wait for a letter, but I really don't have a place to get mail right now, so -- I've gotta know. Did I pass?"
Spitfire took a very slow, extremely deep breath.
"Big finish," she tried.
"Yeah!" the duck grinned -- then, worriedly, "Did you need more debris? I can do more debris."
"You. Crashed. On. Purpose?"
He blinked.
"I always crash," the duck matter-of-factly admitted.
Rainbow's forelegs bent, all the better to let her stare directly into the friendly dark eyes.
"You always crash?"
"Yeah," the duck told her. "Every time. Well --" with an audible note of disappointment mixed into open embarrassment "-- almost. There was this one time I was trying to crash and I pulled off a perfect landing. By accident. I swear. So I don't quite have a perfect record. I was honest about that on my application. But if it has wings? I can crash it!"
Spitfire was staring at him again.
"I have wings," she told the duck, flaring them out for emphasis. "Could you crash me?"
He visibly thought about it.
"I'm a little heavy for you," he admitted. "But if I was on your back, we were both in the air, and I pushed that one pinion a little --"
"-- your idea of a big finish," Spitfire cut him off, "is to crash. On purpose. Because you always crash. We thought you were dead! You think a big finish is to crash and nearly die?"
"NO!" And it was the first time they'd heard him shout.
He regained his footing with a single hard push and bound, stared down at them all from minotaur height.
"You know air shows! You do air shows! You push yourselves, all of you, because that's what an air show is: going to the limit! Back where I'm from, half the crowd shows up for the risky stuff -- but they come to see if it won't work! To see if anyone crashes! So I figured, I come in, I fly in a way nopony's ever seen, and then I crash for them! I walk away and we do it again next show! After I build another Jenny. Plus I know lots of other blueprints, and if I can just find a better workshop --"
Spitfire took off, hovered at his eye level. "You're going to kill yourself for a show!"
"NO! I always crash! I never get hurt!"
The captain blinked. Twice.
"I've crashed hundreds of times," the duck said, a little more slowly. "I know how to crash better than anyone. I don't get hurt. Disoriented, maybe. Singed, a lot of the time. Gears falling on my head, only when it's funny. But I don't get hurt. Not from the crash. Not ever. I swear."
"That's impossible," Spitfire flatly declared. "Anypony crashes enough times, they're going to get hurt or worse. The only way you'd still be alive if you crashed that many times would be if you were protected by some sort of --"
She stopped, and the unspoken word hit every pony there.
"...that's your magic," Rainbow whispered, and the tone was almost reverent. "You can't fly on your own, so your magic is for not being hurt when it goes wrong... oh, what I'd give to have that kind of magic --" and the words sped up as their volume increased "-- while still being able to fly. On my own. Not that I crash that much. No matter what anypony tells you -- Windy, shut up...!"
Spitfire quietly hovered in place. The other two mares gazed up. The duck just looked -- confused.
"...maybe?" he finally said. "We've got magic, back home. I know a couple of people who can do it. But I can't. I can't do spells or stuff. Never learned how, and a lot of people would have laughed if I'd even asked if I could try. But..." A huge shrug. "...maybe?"
He spread his arms again, waited. Spitfire sighed.
"Normally," she told him, "you would be right: I generally don't tell applicants if they're going to be admitted to the Academy immediately after the tryout. But in your case, Number One, I need to tell you that you're also right about one other thing. Some ponies do come to our shows hoping that something will go wrong. I recognize that -- and I'm not about to deliberately indulge them. Your talents are unique. Your creations, possibly even more so. But until you can refine them to the point where you can reliably touch down without an explosion, when it comes to being a student and potential future member of the squad, you are not suitable to our needs."
The friendly eyes slowly closed.
"Gotcha," he said, and the short-seeming legs began to shuffle away. "Thank --" a swallow, cut off by the sob. "-- thank you for seeing me..."
He got three body lengths before Spitfire spoke again.
"You've never been hurt in a crash," she said. "And there's every chance that's your magic. Your talent."
He shrugged, continued the slow walk.
"You're not suitable as a student," Spitfire went on.
Windy and Rainbow looked away from his pain.
"However..." the captain said.
She smiled.
"All right," Spitfire said, settling down on the bench in the Academy's head office. "And now that I'm back from the tryout tour -- let me have it."
Soarin took a breath.
"Well -- in the two weeks since you hired him as an instructor, injuries from crashes are down by sixty-eight percent. The remainder are just minor bruises and scrapes."
Spitfire smiled. "I thought it might be something he'd be able to teach. The students will never have it at his level of refinement, not for a talent, but even just having him get across the basics -- he's going to be a lifesaver, Soarin. A true lifesaver. Maybe we should be loaning him out to some of the junior flight camps -- why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because..." The stallion swallowed. "...injuries from crashes are down by sixty-eight percent."
"You said that already."
"The actual crashes are -- up."
"Up," Spitfire repeated.
"Up," Soarin reluctantly confirmed.
"By how much?"
"...three hundred and ninety percent."
Spitfire closed her eyes. Feathers rustled.
"He's a really good teacher," Soarin helplessly said.
"Right," Spitfire eventually said. "Let me try adjusting the curriculum." Her right forehoof lashed into the nearest sound-projecting device, even as a now-hovering Soarin desperately pressed his forehooves against his flattened ears.
"Launchpad McQuack, my office. Now."
