The New Recruit

Chapters

Chapter the Second: The Stallion on the Cloud
Chapter the Third: Tenacity
Chapter the Fourth: Facilities Tour
Chapter the Fifth: Settling In
Chapter the Sixth: Moving Up
Chapter the Eighth: First Day of Class
Chapter the Ninth: The First Hurdle
Chapter the Tenth: Lunch with the Boss
Chapter the Eleventh: Dormitory Troubles
Chapter the Twelfth: Dizzitron
Chapter the Thirteenth: Recess
Chapter the Fourteenth: Cloudbusting
Chapter the Fifteenth: Sitting Down to Dinner
Chapter the Sixteenth: Capture the Flag
Chapter the Seventeenth: Compensating
Chapter the Eighteenth: Lightning
Chapter the Nineteenth: The Visitor
Chapter the Twentieth: The Real Test
Chapter the Twenty-First: Hard Work
Chapter the Twenty-Second: Cloudburst
Chapter the Twenty-Fourth: The Press
Chapter the Twenty-Fifth: The Interview
Chapter the Twenty-Sixth: New Partner
Chapter the Twenty-Seventh: Injunction
Chapter the Twenty-Eighth: Royal Judgement
Chapter the Twenty-Ninth: Advanced
Chapter the Thirtieth: Performing Arts
Chapter the Thirty-First: Pre-show Nerves
Chapter the Thirty-Second: Ace's Premiere
Chapter the Thirty-Third: After the Show
Chapter the Thirty-Fourth: Adjustments
Chapter the Thirty-Fifth: Staff Meeting
Chapter the Thirty-Sixth: Trottingham
Chapter the Thirty-Seventh: The Safety Seminar
Chapter the Thirty-Eighth: Allowance
Chapter the Thirty-Ninth: Broken
Chapter the Fortieth: Unwell
Chapter the Forty-Second: Good to be Back
Chapter the Forty-Third: End of the Term
Chapter the Forty-Fourth: Stricken
Chapter the Forty-Fifth: Awakening
Chapter the Forty-Sixth: Investigating
Chapter the Forty-Seventh: Checking In
Chapter the Forty-Eighth: The Turn
Chapter the Forty-Ninth: The Editor
Chapter the Fiftieth: Culpable
Chapter the Fifty-First: The Deposition
Chapter the Fifty-Second: Return to Form
Chapter the Fifty-Third: Two Years Later
Chapter the First: Open Recruitment
Chapter the Seventh: Breaking News
Chapter the Twenty-Third: Cranking the Rumour Mill
Chapter the Forty-First: Return to the Academy

Chapter the Second: The Stallion on the Cloud

Spitfire had enjoyed her night, and deservedly so. After she woke up, she took a shower, put on her uniform, had breakfast, and made her way to her office to fill out paperwork. It was boring, but it was kind of relaxing, too. That she could just sit here and do paperwork meant that there wasn't anything important to deal with, but it also meant that there wasn't anything more fun to take part in.

She sighed as she started another rejection letter. She still hadn't decided on her final candidate, as the two at the top of the rejection list weren't very good. She had to pick either the one that showed up late and mouthed off to her about needing to make sure her daughter made it to dance class, or the one that had lapsed into a narrative of his own and committed to the bit so hard that he'd forgotten what he was actually doing. The idiot was at least trying, so if he failed, it would probably be due to a medical issue, but if he could improve his flight skills and improve his focus, he could be as good as Soarin. In the other hoof, the entitled prick would probably just drop out when things ended up tough, or perhaps refuse to show up for events, which would remove the academy's liability in her case.

There was a knock at her door. A familiar rapping that she knew without having to even look up. "Come in, Soarin."

"Good morning, captain," addressed Soarin as he came in and stood at attention. "I have news of a developing emergency, ma'am."

Spitfire glanced up. "If it truly is an emergency, what's with the calmness?"

"I trust the crew I left to handle it while I'm gone, but your presence is requested at the scene."

She tented her hooves and leaned back. "Requested? Not required?"

"He's asking for you by name, ma'am. If he jumps or falls, we are prepared to catch him and take him into custody, but we'd like to have him surrender, and stop pushing us away. We think you might be able to convince him to come into our custody, ma'am."

Spitfire sighed. "Alright, lead the way, lieutenant."

The source of the disturbance wasn't that far away, thankfully. It was right beneath them. There was already a large group of Wonderbolts and Wonderbolt cadets at the scene of the incident, as well as a few onlookers just watching.

"Let uth take you down to the ground," offered Fleetfoot. "I'm thure that whatever your buthineth ith with Thpitfire, you can dithcuth it on the thurfath."

"No! I need to talk to her in her office!"

Spitfire knew that voice, but couldn't place it right away. She'd talked to him before, probably even recently.

"Thir, be reathonable. Thpitfire ith a very buthy mare, and hath a lot of tathkth that the needth to perform today. We can thend her to meet you at almotht any dethtination you thee fit."

"My destination is her office! That's where I'm going to meet her!"

"We can arrange that, but you have to thtep down from that cloud and onto tholid ground, thir."

"No! I need to go up there and talk to her! Just let me go up there and talk to her, and then I'll comply!"

As Spitfire managed to work her way through the crowd, she spotted the stallion in question, clinging to a cloud as if his life depended on it. To be honest, it kind of did. He was, after all, an earth pony, and the only thing between him and the ground was that cloud, forty-someodd Wonderbolts, and over a kilometre of air.

"What an absolute dumbarse," snorted one of the cadets. "He's going to fall, and I'm going to laugh."

Spitfire turned her attention to the cadet. "What was that? Speak up, so that everypony can hear what you just said, cadet!"

As she glowered at him, he lost his nerve and could not answer for fear of being outed in front of everypony.

"Did you perhaps say something like "I'm going to go up to the field now, because I've just decided that I owe fifty laps?" Because if so, then you'd better go do so, shouldn't you?!"

With a hard swallow, a bucket of sweat, and a shaky salute, he croaked out the words "yes, ma'am," and flew off.

"I should go watch him," noted Soarin. "I'll make sure he does it."

"Clear out these civilians, first," commanded Spitfire. "This isn't a sideshow. Unless they're directly related to the subject, send them home. When you make it to the track, start at one. I will not tolerate such disregard for the citizens of my country."

"Yes, ma'am," saluted Soarin, moving to herd the onlookers away.

Spitfire moved in front of the stallion, bringing with her a cloud to sit on. "Good morning, Mr. Clubs." She glanced at her watch, then set it back down. "Or should I say, "Good afternoon?" It is twelve-oh-three as of the beginning of our conversation. How are we today?"

"V-very nervous, ma'am," he answered. "Y-you can call me A-Ace, ma'am."

"Would that make you feel more comfortable? If I called you Ace, would you feel more able to relax?"

"Y-yes, ma'am..."

"Very well, Ace. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

Ace looked around at the surrounding ponies. "I would... I would p-prefer if we s-s-spoke in your office, m-ma'am..."

"Is there some reason for that, Ace?"

"I'd like our c-c-conversation to be more... p-private..."

"I see. Well, you've made quite the spectacle, here. That we are unable to be having this conversation in my office is your own doing."

"To cause such a stir was not my intent, ma'am." He'd closed his eyes and spoken as quickly as he could to avoid stuttering.

Spitfire was silent for a moment, then looked down at the ground. He was quite a distance up, and with Soarin claiming that nopony except Spitfire could approach, the distance he had put between himself and the ground was quite impressive, especially considering the fact that he was an earth pony. The cloud he was on wasn't attached to anything, meaning he hadn't been given a pillar to climb, unless the Wonderbolts had knocked out all other connections, something she would not allow, as it would have needlessly endangered his life.

"How did you manage to make it up here?"

Chapter the Third: Tenacity

Spitfire fluttered back to her cloud, having just moved it for the final time. Most of the crowd has dispersed, with just three of the Wonderbolts sticking around. If Ace were to fall, they would catch him, and then they would carry him to safety. That is, Spitfire was keeping a close eye on him, Fleetfoot was watching from below to make sure she was first to grab him out of the air, and Wild Wind was toggling his attention between Ace and the surrounding area. Everypony else was gone.

"You handle that cloud very well," noted Spitfire. "Not as well as most pegasi, but better than any earth pony I've ever seen."

"Thank you, ma'am," answered Ace, having lost his stutter. Not having everypony staring at him and trying to demean him had been a big step forward in making him feel more confident.

"Where did you learn that technique?"

"At sea, ma'am. I spent a lot of time on merchant ships as a teen, whether it was helping my dad or just working for myself, ma'am."

The way he was propelling the cloud forward was similar to that of the oars on a rowboat, but different. Rather than lifting the "oars" up out of the denser medium and moving them forward, then back into the denser medium, as the air was more or less the same density above and below his little cloud, he would widen them to push forward, then flatten them to return to the front. It was a smart design, but wholly unnecessary for a pegasus, as they could use their wings to do so, and much faster, at that.

He finally made it up to the level of the academy building and, once it was safe, dismounted his cloud. There was some scattered applause from the ponies that had been waiting for his arrival, but he didn't bow. He knew from the outset that he wasn't the cause for their applause. They weren't celebrating him making it up here, but their captain's heroic rescue of a stupid earth pony that was stranded on a cloud. Every clap was a degree of condescension towards him, and he knew it.

Spitfire placed a hoof on Ace's shoulder, the first time somepony had touched him since he left the ground. Several others had tried to grab him, but nopony had. "How are you feeling?" she asked. "Injured in any way?"

Ace just shook his head. "I'm fine, ma'am."

"Good, good..." She turned to look at Soarin, who was just now coming back from watching the laps. "Lieutenant, take Mr. Ace of Clubs, here, into custody."

"Yes, ma'am," nodded Soarin, to the shocked murmurs of the crowd.

"Once he's in lockup, bring him some food and send for the nurse to make sure he doesn't have a rash from that cloud. I'll be in my office."

"Right away, ma'am."

As Spitfire started back toward the administrative building, she turned back to the crowd that was all staring at her. "Do I need to find extra training for all of you?"

She didn't even need to shout it at them. Merely mentioning that she could assign them extra training was enough to make them straighten up and fly right.

She returned to her office to find that her sandwich had gone soggy while it was waiting for her. Her hay fries were limp and unappetising, and her pickle spear was dry on the surface, and quite rubbery. This would have been fine an hour and a half ago, when it was delivered, but as it was, this was going to be a disappointing late lunch. She still ate it, of course. Just because she was called away from her desk was no reason to waste food. Still, it was vexing to think that Ace was probably eating better than she was right now.

As she disposed of the empty container, there was a knock at the door. "Come in, Soarin..."

Soarin walked in and shut the door. "Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"

"Granted. Have a seat, too."

Soarin walked forward and pulled up a chair. "I gave him a daffodil and daisy sandwich with some hay fries, and doc says he's fine."

"That could have been reported without speaking freely," noted Spitfire, leaning back in her chair. "You're here to ask if I think I'm doing the right thing..."

Soarin reluctantly nodded.

"Well, you're right to ask. I don't actually know, myself. Standard protocol, as you know, says we are to grab him out of the air and escort him to the ground safely, and not endanger his life at all. Now, I did my best to ensure the safety of his conditions, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't have just tackled him and dragged him to the ground, kicking and screaming, as the book says."

"I just want to know why you indulged him."

Spitfire shrugged. "He signed up for the Wonderbolts. He did pretty well, too."

"But he can't fly?"

"That's what I told him. If we can't have a conversation in my office about his performance, then he can't join. That's what I said. Or something along those lines, anyway. I don't recall the exact wording."

"Is that why he wanted to talk to you in your office?"

"Probably, yeah."

Soarin sighed. "We can't accept him into the academy. He can't pass the tests!"

"Thoe are two completely different statements," argued Spitfire, swivelling in her chair. "Look, I know as well as you do why we only accept pegasi as applicants. If he had wings, I'd have signed him right up, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. We'd be talking about the new recruit that showed up and is clearly ready to prove that he's good enough."

"But he's not," argued Soarin back. "If you put him on the dizzitron, how is he supposed to recover and land?"

Spitfire rubbed her hoof against her chin. "He would..." she turned back toward Soarin and smiled, tenting her hooves. "I know exactly what it is we're going to do with Mr. Clubs. Bring him here. That's an order, now, lieutenant."

Soarin saluted as he stood up. "Yes, ma'am."

He left and came back ten minutes later with Ace in tow. "You wanted to see me, ma'am?" asked Ace.

"I did," nodded Spitfire, setting down her pen and crossing the desk. She held out her hoof to him, and he took it. She immediately shook it, smirking at him. "You've impressed me with your resourcefulness. If you seriously still want to be a Wonderbolt, tell me now."

"I do, ma'am. More than anything."

"Then welcome to the academy. Classes start in a month, but because you decided to show up early, you're to be given extra time for training. Don't blow it, cadet."

Chapter the Fourth: Facilities Tour

Ace was in awe of everything as he was taken from building to building. Perhaps he was still in shock from his early acceptance, as most pegasi had the opportunity to let the excitement wear off in the comfort of their homes. When his eyes went wide at the sight of the cafeteria, Spitfire rolled hers.

"It's a cafeteria," she huffed. "It's not a big deal."

"But this is where the Wonderbolts eat!" he gushed breathlessly.

"And the cadets, yes," she nodded. "That includes you. You'll be eating your meals in here. With certain exceptions, food is to stay in the cafeteria. This place runs very clean. It also operates on as little waste as possible. If I catch you throwing away perfectly good food, there's going to be trouble. Am I understood?"

"Eat your zucchini, right," he nodded, his eyes taking everything in. "There are starving children that would like nothing more than to have my string beans, so I'd best be grateful."

Spitfire rolled her eyes. Technically, this wasn't her job, but since nopony whose job it was would think she was serious about letting him join, she had to do it herself. In truth, she was completely serious. If he were to join, then one of three things would happen. He would pass, indicating that there was enough flaw in their system that an earth pony could qualify as a Wonderbolt, he would fail, indicating why every applicant needed to be a pegasus, or he would drop out, meaning the academy would be noted as having done nothing wrong.

There was some concern that she had, in that his failure might open the academy up to a lawsuit, and a pretty big one. Failure on their part to provide for him a real position among the Wonderbolts based on his race was an actual problem. If she had rejected him because of his race, she'd be opened to the same lawsuit, but since he'd met her requirements, and spoke to her in her office, he had, on a technical level, met all of the requirements to join the academy, as ridiculous as his methodology was.

She was, however, taking some liability for his safety. There was, baked into the enrollment contract, a clause that applied to injured pegasi, with broken or damaged wings. She was not required to apply this ruling to him, as he has posited to her that he was in good health, but she would, anyway. She was going to give him every opportunity for success, even if that meant assigning ponies to catch him if he started falling.

Speaking of falling, "This is the training grounds. For anypony else, I would say that this is where you would practice your aerobatics."

Ace looked over the edge and gulped. "That's a long way down..."

"Two and a half kilometres," nodded Spitfire. "You tumble over the side of this platform without somepony to catch you, you would hit the ground in 22 seconds or so. We timed it. You would have that amount of time to call out to your teammate and hope that they hear you and catch up, then make peace with your creator of choice. Barring that, you'd best hope that it's really muddy and soft down there."

Ace stepped away from the edge, clearly frightened.

"So, yeah, make sure you maintain a good relationship with your flight partner. That, or just don't mess up."

He vehemently nodded. She hadn't meant to upset him so, but she needed to be sure that he understood the safety regulations. If he didn't understand that he was putting himself in some degree of danger, then his family would have a stronger case against the academy if he were to be injured or killed. Plus, she didn't want him to fall off the side and die. She wasn't pleased to have him up here, but she didn't wish him harm.

She escorted him to the next stop, "The gym. This is where you'll probably spend a lot of time, I'd wager. We have all kinds of machines for working on your flight muscles, as well as simple gear for the rest of your body. It takes a good cardio workout to ensure that you can keep flying for a long period of time. I imagine you know how to gallop when your wings grow sore, eh?"

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am..."

"Good. Come along."

She led him through the various classroom settings. They had all kinds of programs, all related to flight in some way. There was a language arts class, for example, that dealt with reading the material written in older flight manuals, as well as how to transcribe new manuals, there was science being taught about the air pressure and the math to calculate it, and even the history of the Wonderbolts. All of these could transfer over as college credits, and could thus be useful to him if he decided to transfer to something easier to reach. There was even a library.

"Finally, we come to the dormitories. You'll be sharing a room with up to five other ponies. I suggest you make friends with them, because they're going to be living with you for... Actually, not very long. Most of them are moving on soon, so you won't be around them very often. Still, they are your upperclassponies, and you are to give them the respect that they've earned. And when your actual dormmates arrive, I expect you to use your experience to set an example as to how to behave. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Spitfire kicked open the door. Five stallions, all pegasi, were horsing around and being obnoxious. She was not pleased to be greeted with a fart blown in her general direction. "Ahem!"

They looked up from their activities and all fell into line. "Ma'am!"

"This is Ace of Clubs. He's going to be taking the final bunk in this dorm. He's an early arrival from the next batch of cadets."

There was some chuckling from the other stallions, though they tried to keep a straight face.

"I'm not kidding. Give him a bed, set him up with sheets and a pillow, and give him time to settle in and study. He'll be sleeping here tonight, and tomorrow, there better be a place where he can move his stuff in." That shut them up. "As you were, cadets. Ace, come to my office at 0900. These other cadets will help you. Dismissed."

Chapter the Fifth: Settling In

Ace was feeling a bit nervous as the other cadets poked and prodded at him. Mostly emotionally, but sometimes physically, as well. Spitfire had told him to make friends, but they weren't making it easy.

"How do you manage to fly with no wings?"

"You'd better hope you don't fall off the side."

"Who'd you have to pay off in order to be accepted to the academy?"

"Seriously, what's your plan?"

The questions were all coming too fast, and they had him at a severe disadvantage. Not only did they all know each other, and all know the room, but they were making assumptions and just passing it off as fact. He'd had no time to prepare for all of their questions, he was still overwhelmed from the tour, and there was only one of him. He'd even tried retreating into his bunk, and they'd followed him in, blocking off any escape.

"Ease up on him, boys," came the voice of the one pony that wasn't crowding him. "If he hasn't answered any of your questions yet, it's because you're not letting him breathe. Back to your bunks."

Two of the four backed off, the other two just moving a bit closer. "So, how'd you do it?" the white one asked. "Had your daddy pay off the captain? Blackmail?"

"Seriously, how are you even here?" asked the red one. "You obviously don't belong here."

There was a loud thump behind them, and the largest pegasus of the group yanked the red one out of Ace's bunk. "Leave him be, I said!"

The white one glared at the big one, then turned and smirked at Ace before disembarking the bed.

"Don't take it personally," sighed the large one, sitting at the edge of the bed and reaching in. "Gentle Giant. You?"

"A-Ace of Clubs."

"Mind if I just call you Ace? You can call me Gent."

Ace nodded. "You can call me Ace..."

"So, listen up, Ace. We're all very interested in your background. I have to be up early tomorrow, so I was hoping to hit the hay early. You're not going to stand in the way of that, are you?"

Ace shook his head.

"So, here's what's going to happen. Bubble Up is going to take you to dinner in the cafeteria. The rest of the boys are staying here until you come back, and then they're going to go eat."

"Since when do you decide when we eat?!" barked the red one.

"Since you decided to act like animals. Now, hush." Gent turned back to Ace. "Once you return, you can talk quietly with Bub. Quietly. I will be going to bed. You can finish up and go to bed yourself after, and the other boys won't bother you for the rest of the night. Bub will relay that information to us during training. Tonight, you are to be quiet, though. Do I make myself clear?"

Ace nodded.

"Good. Go with Bub."

Ace didn't know which one was Bubble Up, but he had to assume it was the one that joined him at the door. He was small and blue, with yellow-green hair. He was one that had backed off. "Sorry about that," he said as soon as the door was closed. "I didn't mean to crowd you like we did."

"It's fine," sighed Ace. "I'm just a little nervous right now..."

"Yeah, most recruits don't show up a month early. We still have two weeks before we finish, and then there's administrative procedures and cleaning up our stuff and ceremonial proceedings. And hells, you're an earth pony! I'm having a conversation with an earth pony right now!"

"I mean, earth ponies are everywhere..."

"Not up here at the academy. Pegasi as far as the eye can see. Alicorns from time to time, and the occasional unicorn with a cloud walking spell. Never seen an earth pony this high up."

Ace nodded. "It's weird, I know. I'm weird. I wanted to be a Wonderbolt since I was a colt. Everypony kept telling me it was stupid to have such a dream. Maybe it is. Maybe I'm stupid. But I'm still going to try."

"That's either brave or stupid," agreed Bub. "Let me know if you find out which." They arrived in the cafeteria and Bub pulled out his ID badge, then stopped. "You don't have an ID yet, do you?"

Ace shook his head. "I've only been here for a few hours."

"It's fine. You'll pay me back." He proceeded to load up two trays with food; one for himself and one for Ace, scanning his ID at the end of the line to charge his account. "Your ID is attached to your uniform. Rather, it is most of the time. When you wash your uniform, you take the badge off. It's how you pay for food, how you enter the library, the classrooms, the showers, the laundry, et cetera. I didn't know where the laundry room was for the first two weeks, so I didn't wash my uniform, and Soarin came and yelled at me for not doing my laundry. Meanwhile, I'd been hoof-washing my uniform in the bathroom sink."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. Tomorrow, you need to go to administration and ask about that, so you can start grabbing your own meals."

They sat down and started eating. "Thanks again for doing this for me. I definitely needed the help."

"Hey, no worries, kid... So, uh... How'd you make it all the way up here?"

Ace looked up from his biscuit. "You didn't see? I felt like everypony was watching today."

Bub shook his head. "Nah. I knew something was going down, but I just kept working. I'm not prime Wonderbolt material. I'm a janitor. But I'm working on becoming part of the academy maintenance crew. Barring that, I'm sure my graduation from the academy will put me leagues ahead at the weather factory. How about you?"

Ace snorted. "You know, maintenance crew doesn't sound too bad. Personally, I'd like to be a cook here in the kitchens, if I can't be an actual Wonderbolt, but I don't think I'm ever going to stop trying."

"You didn't answer my question, though. How did you make it up here? Weather balloon?"

"Oh, yeah, right. Nothing so crude as that. I hopped a cloud and made it carry me up."

"How'd you do that? I thought earth ponies couldn't harness clouds?"

"I think it's more along the lines of "we can't reach them to practice." And, well, it was foggy this morning, so I gathered up a bunch of it until I could ride it and started climbing. Didn't stop until I was detained."

Chapter the Sixth: Moving Up

The rest of the night was uneventful. Bub asked Ace a lot of questions, and since it was one-on-one, Ace was plenty happy to answer. When they returned to their dorm, Gent was already asleep, so they went to bed as well. Ace woke up when Gent left at five thirty, and started readying himself for the day as best he could with no supplies. No soap meant no shower, no toothbrush meant no brushing his teeth, and no ID meant no breakfast. He couldn't even access the gym without his ID.

So, he opted to just work out on the floor for a bit. He was in pretty good shape, having spent a lot of time working in a warehouse. He wouldn't have to compete with any other cadets until they arrived, but that was no reason to slack off. He had broken down a wall that nopony ever had. He was an earth pony in the Wonderbolt Academy. That had never happened before. That meant he could keep going, as the way forward was clear now.

Bub woke up next, and took him to breakfast, where they ran into Spitfire. After lodging a complaint about Ace not having an ID, to which Spitfire had a valid reason (that it wasn't usually her job, and she'd forgotten as a result), that was scheduled in for their meeting in a few hours. Until such time, Bub would be escorting him around, and that was an order from the captain.

With that, they went to take a shower, and thankfully, Bub used a liquid soap, so there was no sharing a bar. Once they were clean, Bub showed Ace around a bit more, noting the laundry room to keep Ace from making the same mistake Bub had. There was also an unmentioned nurse station, massage room and sauna, as body wellness was tantamount to training.

About twenty minutes before their meeting was supposed to begin, Ace took a seat outside of Spitfire's office. Bub had to go do his daily training regimen, and left as Spitfire was approaching. Since they were both early, they opted to start early. They didn't have everything ready at the security office to make his ID yet, but they'd have it set up before lunch. That gave them a few hours.

"So, I didn't have you confirm your address at the tryouts," admitted Spitfire. "Honestly, I didn't expect you to make it this far, and you rightly proved me wrong. So now I have to ask for your address again, because I already disposed of the paperwork."

"Oh, I'll write it down. It's a little bit difficult to spell and hard to pronounce."

Spitfire gave him a clipboard and he scrawled it down, as well as filling out any other information relevant to the conversation, then gave it back. "Kizurgudluxgubi street?" she read.

"Not even close, but no one says it right the first time. And if I'd said it, you wouldn't have spelled it right. But that's where I live. Or did, until last night."

"You would probably do well to maintain your rent on the place, in case this doesn't work out."

"It's my dad's place, but sure."

"You and I are going to drop by today. Pick up what you need, pack it into a duffel bag, and then we come right back. There's one reason why I'm going with you."

"You don't want me falling off a cloud?"

"That's the one."

Ace nodded. "Let me know when you're ready."

"Right now."

"Oh, okay..."

Spitfire escorted him out to the courtyard where he'd arrived and stood at the edge. "Are you familiar with the Baro rescue position?"

With a nod, Ace sat back on his haunches and held his elbows aloft. Spitfire came up behind him and hooked her hooves around him in multiple places, and with a good, strong flap, took off.

Ace had experienced this feeling twice before. Most recently, he'd volunteered as a training dummy for a fire rescue demonstration and had to pretend that the building they were on top of was on fire. He had to be carried to the next building over. But long ago, he'd been pushed accidentally off a balcony and had nearly fallen to his death. It was a retired Wonderbolt that had saved him, and he'd wanted to be one ever since.

He'd never flown quite this fast, though. Having Spitfire carry him was an intense experience, as expected. He wasn't looking down at the patchwork of fields and orchards from a cloud, so there was nothing between him and the ground. She was holding him aloft by the elbows and knees, and he was given the opportunity to experience the worlds as only a pegasus could.

His trip down to the ground was a lot faster than his trip up, as was to be expected. Fifteen minutes, rather than two and a half hours plus the time when he was surrounded and could not move. Spitfire managed to drop him down to his hooves just outside of his house, to the applause of several local foals and their parents.

"This is the place?" she asked, whipping off her sunglasses.

"It most certainly is," answered Ace, making his way to the door. "I'll only need a few minutes. Come in and make yourself at home, if you like."

As he opened the door and walked in, she shrugged and followed him, noting that there was an older stallion in the house, with his left front leg in a sling. "You must be Ace's father."

"Aye. Nice of ya ta bring 'im back. I hope he weren't too hurt when ye rejected 'im."

"Oh, no, he was accepted and enrolled. We're just here to pick up his stuff."

"Wha, really? This ain't a gaff?"

Spitfire shook her head. "That son of yours is bound and determined to make it through. Whether he will or not remains to be seen, but I'm pulling for him, now. If he manages, he'll be a living legend. If not, he'll just be the most impressive earth pony to have ever applied."

"That's so, is it?"

"It is. We're just here to pick up the stuff he'll be needing for his time at the academy. I'm not sanctioning these trips very often, so I expect we'll be--"

"Ready," called Ace, coming out of the hallway with a bag strapped to his chest. He hadn't even taken five minutes. Not an academy record, but she'd been expecting an hour, at least.

"My boy," smiled his dad, standing up and giving him a hug. "The Wonderbolt."

"Cadet," corrected Spitfire. "He's still a long way yet from being a Wonderbolt..."

Chapter the Eighth: First Day of Class

As the new recruits filed in, Ace was happy to help them settle in, even if they weren't so happy to see him. Some had good reason, as they didn't want to be partnered with him as they felt he would weigh them down, others had not so good reason, having read the news article or made the assumption that he was little more than a publicity stunt. Spitfire hadn't been around until last night, having successfully settled the lawsuit in strong favour of the academy, the results of which were still being decided. That is to say, the news media company that had printed the story had been found guilty, but their punishment had yet to be decided. Spitfire would have to return for that, but for now, she had an academy to run.

Ace wasn't particularly fond of his new roommates. Bub and Gent had been nice, and the other three were at least bearable when they were around, but the new ones were insufferable. There was Golden Pomade, a manedresser from Canterlot, and Blitz Break, one of the best young flyers all grown up. They saw him as being beneath him. Snap Sprint and Dusk Wind were both flight school graduates that thought he'd bought his way in thanks to the article. The only one that seemed to not mind him was Peregrine, a mailpony that had made it through tryouts like he had. As a matter of fact, they'd been at the same place on the same night.

The morning that classes were to start, Ace woke up extremely early. He was too excited to sleep, having rolled over several times before giving up on falling back asleep. There were still six whole hours before first class, so he opted to do some exercising, just like his first day there, right in the dorm room. Only this time, he could go and shower immediately after on his own. So he did, and then had an early breakfast. He started off as the only one in the room, but Spitfire walked in just as he was finishing up.

"Morning, Ace. You're up a little early, aren't ya?"

Ace shook his head. "Couldn't sleep. Nervous, excited, terrified... I don't know how anypony could sleep like that."

"First day jitters," confirmed Spitfire. "Don't worry about it too much. End of today, you'll be so tired that you'll just fall into bed and be out like a light."

"Vote of confidence noted and accepted..."

Spitfire chuckled and shook her head. "Give it a few days, rookie. In the meantime, harness that energy and use it to make it through your first class. I'm going to pay very close attention to your process. You have been practicing, yes?"

"As much as I can, yeah."

"I expect you to impress me. All the same, you're going to be a wingpony. Not a lead. Change my mind if you don't like it."

Ace just smirked. "Ma'am, anypony you assign to my team will look good. I guarantee it."

"That's the supportive attitude I want to see in a wingpony. You'll do fine."

Finally, it was time to begin. Of the hundred students that had showed up, twenty-six were in Ace's group. They would practice first, then a group of twenty-four, then the other group of twenty-six, then the rest. There were some complaints from the other cadets that, because there were twenty-six students, there would be thirteen pairs, and whoever ended up paired with Ace was screwed because thirteen was the unlucky number.

Spitfire, after a quick uniform inspection, walked out in front of them and turned to face them, her assistants at the ready. "Alright, everypony. You've all been accepted into the Wonderbolt Academy. Do you know what that makes you?"

Ace knew this was a trick question. Bub had told him not to answer it, but judging by the hooves that went up into the air, there were plenty of ponies already set to respond to the query.

Before Spitfire could pick one, Golden Pomade just belted out "Wonderbolts in training!"

Spitfire took off her sunglasses. She was smiling at first, then that turned to a scowl right away. "Wrong, cadet! That makes you nothing! If you were good enough to be a Wonderbolt, we wouldn't need training, now would we?!"

Ace tried not to smile. He had to remember to thank Bub for the advice.

"Now, I'm going to offer you the skills required to become a Wonderbolt. If you don't blow it, you will learn at this academy what it takes to be a Wonderbolt, and if you're skilled enough to pass every test, then you may yet become one. I surmise that more than half of you will not succeed. Of those, about half will fail out, and the rest will give up. I see that some of you are already failures, and a lot of you are quitters. You want to be a Wonderbolt? Prove to me that you're not a failure, and not a quitter."

"Well, we know one failure already," chuckled one of the other cadets, one that Ace hadn't met personally yet. He didn't have to look to know that she was pointing and laughing at him.

"Poinsettia!" shouted Spitfire, storming over to her. Ace glanced sideways, but tried to keep himself at attention. The mare, bright red with soft pink hair, stood at attention, shaking in front of her. "Did I just hear you say that you and the giggle squad, here, are volunteering to go first?"

"N-no, ma'am."

Wrong answer.

"I see. I must have heard you wrong, because I thought you were volunteering to go first. I suppose what I actually heard was that you'd rather take a failing grade on your first day?! Is that what I heard you say?!"

"No, ma'am."

"Then just what was it you said, cadet Poinsettia?!"

"I was just pointing out that this earth pony can't pass the tests. He can't fly, so I said he'd fail the course, ma'am."

Spitfire narrowed her eyes at her. "I definitely heard you right that time. Yes, it is indeed possible for you to set the academy record for "fastest expulsion." Current record is set at day three. Do you want to try to be kicked out on day one, cadet?"

She lowered her head. "No, ma'am..."

"Then off you go. Run the course, take a failing grade for the first day, or pack up and go home. I will not tolerate such behaviour from my students, so choose wisely."

Chapter the Ninth: The First Hurdle

Ace watched closely as Poinsettia rounded the course. It had been reorganised since he'd asked Bub to walk him through it, so he needed to rethink his plan, at least slightly. After Poinsettia, some of the girls that had giggled at him were sent through, and then Spitfire started listing off names in alphabetical order. The fastest was Blitz Break, with a time of 43.6 seconds. Not an academy record, as that was held by Rainbow Dash at 12.3 seconds, but it was still fast, as nopony else had spent less than a minute.

Ace, however, was moved down the list, to last place. Not because of the mares making fun of him at the beginning, but because Spitfire believed that he would take the longest, which would possibly bar other students from being able to complete the course. She said that right to his face, too. But what she didn't say was that she thought he couldn't do it. In fact, when she escorted him to the edge, what she whispered to him was "Show me that tenacity, cadet."

She stood at the edge, ready to catch him if he fell, as this was a place where he could potentially fall to his death if nopony were watching. Of course, there were two others, regularly posted so as to catch a pegasus that injured their wing, but if Ace fell, there was no guarantee that he could stabilise himself. She was going to take the extra caution.

With a deep breath to steel himself, Ace took a few steps back, then bolted forward as fast as his hooves could take him, leaping from the edge of the starting platform onto the first obstacle. He was supposed to pass through eight rings in an S-bend. Everypony else had flown through them, but he physically could not, and had to leap between them. They were only about twenty centimetres wide, and quite round, but he managed to make it through to the last one with little issue.

Next would have been a slalom through horizontal beams, but instead, it was moving pillars. Rather than testing his ability to shift directions vertically, he was being tested on lateral spatial awareness, or rather, everypony else was. The goal of this obstacle was to reach the other end without being knocked out of the field of play, and Ace had a plan.

As he leapt onto the first pillar, though, his hoof slipped, and he started to plummet, just barely catching himself at the bottom of the pillar. His heart started to race, as for half a second, he truly believed that he was about to die. Apparently, so had Spitfire, as he could see her folding her wings back behind her. She was going to leap after him.

He climbed back up the pillar, which was no mean feat, considering that it was still moving. Once he reached the top, he aimed himself at where the next pillar was going to be and grabbed it, sliding down just a bit, but nothing so drastic as before. These were a little bit slippery, apparently.

After working his way across the pillars, the stationary horizontal beams were next. He landed on the first one to catch his breath, then leapt to the second, swinging underneath it, propelling him with enough force to land on the third. Then the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, and the eighth and ninth. The tenth was going to be a problem. He had to go under it, and then there was nothing to land on, as there was no eleventh beam. Well, not a stationary one, anyway.

He looked ahead. The rotary beams were next, and then the moving beams. Then a stationary pillar slalom, and then a second rotary beam in the opposite direction. He took a moment to breathe, then leapt for and swung from the tenth beam, flying toward the next obstacle.

He hit his knees, meaning he'd let go of the tenth beam too late, but that slowed him enough to grab on and come back around. He had to wait for the beam to return to a semi-flat position before he could leap to the next one, and after riding the third around, he'd managed to figure out the pace and speed through the next seven without issue.

He had to ride the last one around in a complete circle before he could leap to the moving beam, as he could not land on a target he could not reach. He had to jump when the current beam had him at the top, and the target beam was at the bottom. It was a hard landing and, had he landed poorly, he would have injured himself, but instead, it just hurt a bit. Soreness was not as bad as bruising, as he could work it out in the sauna at the end of the day, if it was even still a problem.

The moving beams were like the moving pillars, in that he just had to make it to the end. He could time his jumps fairly easily, and he was past them in no time at all, and the slalom of pillars was easy enough, considering that they weren't very slippery. He didn't even mess up his landing on the rotary beams this time, meaning he just had to leap down the beams as they came up, and he landed safely at the finishing platform.

"Three minutes, twenty-eight point zero seconds," noted Spitfire. "Not bad, cadet."

"Not bad?" argued another cadet. "Nopony else lasted longer than two minutes, and you said my performance was pitiful! You're not being fair!"

Spitfire turned to look at him, and with an evil smile, she conceded. "You know what, cadet? You're right. You can try again, and we'll make your new time your official score, and the time to beat. How's that sound?"

"Very fair, ma'am." He took his position and stretched his wings, but within seconds, they were strapped to his sides by a belt. "Hey!"

"You wanted fair," noted Spitfire. "You think his time was bad? Let's see you beat the course the same way he did, with no wings."

He and seven other cadets all tried it, and only one of them managed to make it to the beams. Every single one of them fell off, and would have plummeted to their deaths without the rescue teams standing by. Not one of them could beat the course with Ace's handicap. Rather, if they could, they weren't stepping forward.

Chapter the Tenth: Lunch with the Boss

The exact classes taken by everypony were different. There were, of course, minimum requirements to graduate to the next year, those being one history, two maths, two sciences, one language arts and one vocational training, but they were just classes. They were no more difficult to pass at the academy than they would be on the ground.

They did serve as a way for Ace to introduce himself to other ponies, though. He had met a fair few of his classmates, but not all of them, and since the groups they were in varied by class, there was no need for lead pony or wing pony roles. They weren't even assigned, yet.

The first couple of classes passed fairly quickly. There wasn't a lot of introduction to them, as this was all post-secondary, meaning it was assumed that the students had been through at least twelve years of schooling and knew the proper etiquette.

When lunch rolled around, Ace was feeling pretty good. It was a good first day, and after a few more classes, he would go into vocational training, which he was already doing before classes started. He just had to be a cook. He sat down at his usual spot, and a few students that were sitting nearby stood up and left, not wanting to associate with him. That was to be expected. Instead, he just listened to those around him while he ate.

There was a general consensus that having vocational training at the school was stupid; that it was the same as having a job, except that they weren't being paid to do it. They were, but not in the traditional way. They were gaining experience in the field that would transfer to real life at a 1:1 ratio. That is, working in the kitchens for four years would translate to four years of working in any other professional kitchen. Four years of janitorial work would translate to four years of janitorial experience. Then there was the fact that this class was only required for the first year, did not show up on tuition, and would transfer fiat currency to the student's account. That is, they could buy things from the academy store by just working it off, or decrease their tuition based on their grade. Plus, cooking food and sweeping floors made it so that there was food to eat and clean floors to walk on.

As Ace was going over this thought, two ponies sat across from him; Soarin and Spitfire. "Anypony sitting here?" asked Soarin.

Ace swallowed his mouthful of gazpacho. "Go ahead."

"I see you've made a lot of new friends," noted Spitfire. "I can barely hear myself over this empty table."

"Not for lack of trying," sighed Ace. "There were ponies here when I sat down. They moved. "

"I saw," nodded Soarin. "So, listen... The captain was telling me about your performance on the obstacle course. On a technical level, you failed."

That stopped Ace in his tracks. "What do you mean?"

Soaring reached under his wing and pulled out a small book that had seen a fair bit of wear and tear over the years. "So, this is a rule that we've had to employ a total of twice in the last three hundred years, and is pretty obscure. Because we usually only have pegasus students, it's pretty easy to see why this rule is in effect, but..." He slid the book across the table, pointing to a particular rule.

In the event that a student collides with every single obstacle on the course, their time will be invalidated. Wonderbolts are not meant to be clumsy.

Spitfire leaned forward. "Look, I know you're not actually clumsy. The deftness with which you passed the course in a way that nopony else could--"

"Not even the captain herself," interjected Soarin.

"...You displayed a skill that puts you high and above the required field."

Ace smiled. "Thank you, captain."

"However, consistency is important," she argued back. "I'm going to need to know that your success was more than just a fluke, so I'm going to need you to run the course twice more, just to be certain. In doing so, we'll add an extra obstacle. Don't touch that, and you pass without being susceptible to the technicality."

Ace took a deep breath. "So, I didn't pass?"

Spitfire shook her head. "Look, rookie, I don't make the rules. I have the ability to change them, as long as I have good reason, but I have to answer to my Lance-Commander. That's going to be a lot easier to do if I remove any reason that their argument may have. I'm willing to overlook your handicap and allow you to work your way through the academy, but he's not so easygoing. I'd like your race to be the only thing he can latch onto, because I can easily have that argument thrown out."

Ace nodded. "I'll do it."

Spitfire smiled. "Good. I'm counting on you, rookie."

"So, other than failing your first class on a technicality, how's the rest of your day going?" asked Soarin, leaning into his sandwich. "Going well?"

Ace shrugged. "Seems to be. I'm kind of tired, so I was considering going to bed right after finishing classes, but it sounds like I have to do some makeup work. So I guess I'll be a bit late."

"Ten minutes," shrugged Spitfire. "You went through it in less than five the first time, so twice should be less than ten, barring any issues."

"It'll be dark," argued Ace. "That'll make things tricky."

"We have lights," shot back Spitfire. "That'll make it easier. Plus, we'll have you wear a glowstick on your neck, so we can spot you if you start falling."

Ace was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Okay, then. I'll see you there."

"We certainly will," smirked Soarin. "Enjoy your lunch, Ace."

With that, the two of them picked up their trays and left, leaving him once again alone at the table. It was odd that they'd even sat down to eat with him in the first place, as Spitfire usually ate in her office, and Soarin usually skipped lunch in favour of a bigger dinner. Still, it was nice of them to keep him company, and it was nice of them to inform him of why he failed and give him another chance, rather than just let it sit. He couldn't know that he'd failed until his progress report came in, two weeks in. Not without them telling him.

Chapter the Eleventh: Dormitory Troubles

The rest of the day was pretty exhausting. Aside from having more boring classes that just made him want to fall asleep, Ace also had to work on making dinner for all of the students, and the cafeteria was now back to full capacity. In addition, he also had to help the new students on kitchen duty find their places, and they didn't want to listen to him, so every time he issued a command and they ignored him, he had to call the instructor over, who would tell the new student to do as Ace commanded, which they would do without question. It wasn't so much that they thought he was wrong, as much as it was they were lazy, he wasn't the boss, and they didn't respect him.

And after that, he had to go back out to the field to run the obstacle course again, twice. Soarin took note of a burn mark on Ace's leg from a student that wasn't paying attention and bumped him with a hot pan, but Ace insisted that it wouldn't be a problem, and he'd deal with it as soon as he could. Spitfire set up the new obstacle, a flag that Ace was just not allowed to touch, and he ran the course twice more. The third time was his official score, three minutes and twenty-six point four seconds. Soarin escorted him to the nurse station, Ace rubbed a bit of ointment on his burn, and then he was finally allowed to go back to his dorm.

But the day wasn't over yet.

"Just what are you playing at?" asked Blitz Break as he entered.

"I assure you, I'm not playing at anything," sighed Ace, slipping into his bunk.

"You're not, huh?" Blitz sneered. "Showing me up on the course, a special visit from the coach, prancing about the kitchen like you own the place... You're cheating the system."

"I promise you I'm not."

"Then explain yourself!"

"Look, I'm really tired. Can we do this later?"

The answer came in the form of Blitz pulling him out of bed and onto the floor. The point of collision was right on his burn, which sent a shockwave of pain through Ace's body. "Stand up and face me, coward!"

Ace knew this day would come. He'd hoped it would be a little bit later, but having it out of the way now meant he could stop dreading it. He rolled over and stood up, turning to look at Blitz. "You don't have to do this..."

"Backing down? Yeah, that's what I thought!"

"If it will settle you down, sure."

"Then tell me what your game is!"

Ace just shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you, Blitz..."

"That's "Mr. Break" to you!"

"My apologies," smirked Ace. "May I go to bed, now?"

"Not until you answer my question!" Blitz started advancing on Ace, pushing him back against the wall by bumping him with his chest. Ace was pretty sure he could bump back with more force, or even just stand still and not move, but Blitz wanted to feel big and strong, and he figured he could end this sooner if he just played along. "Well?"

"I've told you, I'm not playing at anything. I'm just here for the opportunity to be named a Wonderbolt."

"Aha! J'accuse! You're after my spot!"

"Your spot? Ha!" They both turned to look as Golden Pomade approached. "That spot on the Wonderbolts is mine! I paid for it fair and square!"

"It's mine!" shot Blitz back, shifting his focus to the new challenger. "I'm the best flyer in this class!"

"Best? Ha! I bet you can't even pirouette!"

"I can so! And I had the fastest time on the obstacle course! Name another new arrival that ran the course faster than I did! Oh, wait, you can't!"

Ace took this opportunity to slip back to his bed, nestling into his mattress and covering up with a fleece blanket. He was determined to sleep, and having his aggressor distracted was all kinds of helpful. Now if only they'd shut up, he could rest.

That didn't happen, though, as he hadn't been in bed for more than a minute before he heard the sound of a hoof colliding with flesh. Immediately, his eyes flew open and he leapt out of bed, bolting over to the two squabbling pegasi.

"That's enough!" he barked, pushing them off of each other with ease and holding them away from each other. "Both of you, calm down! Is this the behaviour of a Wonderbolt?"

"Stay out of this, lowborn!" shouted Pomade. "This doesn't concern your kind!"

"Yeah, butt out!"

The door opened again, and in walked Peregrine, rubbing his mane with a towel. Right behind him stood Fleetfoot, and she wasn't too proud of what she saw.

"You wanna tell me whath goin' on with your dormmateth?"

"I'd love to," he sighed. "Unfortunately, I have no idea..."

One by one they were taken out into the hall to explain in relative privacy what was going on. Ace was the last one questioned, and when he and Fleetfoot entered the room again, Peregrine was holding the two apart.

"Tho it theemth that you're all innothent," she noted. "You all tethtified that you were doing nothing wrong, and the other two were thcuffling. Here'th the problem I thee with that. I don't believe any of you. Tho, you're going to come out into the hall, and I'm going to watth you do puth-ups until I thtart to feel thleepy."

With a frustrated sigh, Ace walked out into the hall and started doing his workout. He was tired and sore, but Fleetfoot outranked him. The same was true of Peregrine; he had to come out and work, too, despite clearly being innocent. It was the other two that whined and complained about it.

After a few minutes, however, she called out to them. "Peregrine and Athe, you two can go to bed. I'm tired of watthing you, tho that countth. Blitth and Pomade, kick it up a notth."

Ace didn't need to be told twice. He went right back to bed.

"She actually does believe you," said Peregrine from across the room. "It's a solidarity thing. A whole "working together" mindset. My aunt does that all the time at home."

"Oh, yeah?" asked Ace. "Who's your aunt?"

"...Fleetfoot..."

Chapter the Twelfth: Dizzitron

A few days had passed, and Spitfire was due back in court tomorrow. Today was the final test before lead ponies and wing ponies were decided, and there was a ceremony at the end of class to announce that. But first, it was time for the final initial test; the dizzitron.

Ace was trailing. He was, by a fairly wide margin, the worst flier of the class. However, given his particular handicap, he was still doing a very impressive job. He'd come in dead last on the race, he'd had to retake the basic aerobatics for once again hitting every obstacle, but was commended for taking the course forward and backward at the same time, as there was no end platform to land on. But he was demonstrating to Spitfire that he wasn't a quitter, which was already a good sign, because even in the first week, two cadets had left.

Ace waited at the back of the line. Spitfire always put him at the end of the line, and he'd save some time if he just moved to the back and waited. In the meantime, Blitz scored highest again; nine seconds. The next highest was Poinsettia at eleven seconds, then Wind Lash at twelve. No one else went faster than fourteen seconds, and some even failed to recover.

"Ace, you're up next," commanded Spitfire. "Operator, set it to minimum."

"Actually, ma'am, I'd like the same standard level of dizziness as the other cadets."

Spitfire was still, but Ace could feel her eyes narrowing behind her sunglasses. "You sure about that, rookie?"

"Yes, ma'am."

In truth, he was worried that the low setting would not provide enough airtime for him to enact his plan. He needed to spend a lot of time aloft if he was going to land successfully. Even the standard speed felt a little low, as he'd need the extra height, even if he wasn't dizzy.

"Your choice," she shrugged, watching him climb up, rather than flying in like everypony else had.

Upon his release, he went flying into the air. With no wings to stabilise himself, he stuck out his hooves to determine his air speed, and when he'd slowed down enough, he did his best to look around. The air was thin and wispy up here, which he used to gather up some clouds as fast as his hooves could manage.

As he started to fall, he packed them tightly together, forming a thick sheet that was then compressed thin. More than halfway to the landing pad, he pulled his creation up over his head and twisted it to catch the wind.

His back hooves skidded to a stop on the runway, and his front hooves connected with the ground as the clouds dissipated.

"Twenty-eight seconds," Spitfire noted. "That's an academy record. Slowest successful landing from the dizzitron at standard intensity." She looked at him and scowled. "Unfortunately, minimum passing grade is twenty-five seconds. You fail!"

Ace saluted, a somber look on his face. He took a step back, but Soarin came running forward. He had been assigned rescue duty today, and he placed his hoof on Ace's shoulder and whispered something in his ear, then pointed to something in the rulebook.

"Ma'am?" called Ace, stepping forward once more. "I'd like to try again, but at maximum power!"

As Soarin pointed to the same rule for Spitfire, she nodded. "Normally, I'd rule against it, but with your record, and the lieutenant's recommendation, I'm going to allow it. But you better impress me, rookie!"

Ace nodded and climbed up. Most pegasi would need the extra time to stabilise and glide down, but Ace was not a pegasus. He'd be forced to take the extra airtime, which would increase his difficulty yet further. But he also had Soarin's recommendation. If it failed, he'd take the extra time to practice and hopefully try to force his grade up above failure. If it succeeded, he would have passed every initial test, mostly with low marks. Considering the fact that several other students were already sporting failed tests, it wasn't the end of the world, but he wanted to succeed, even if he couldn't be the best.

They spun him around until gravity reset itself and he flew into the air. On Soarin's word, he started gathering clouds right away, and fashioned a wing to slow his spin and speed. He was still out of control, but he'd managed to slow his ascent, and was already halfway done with his glider. It was a lot harder to control, but he managed to land.

"Thirty-one seconds," announced Spitfire. "That's a worse time, but at the maximum setting, your time to pass was thirty-five. Congrats, cadet. You didn't fail. You didn't do good, but you didn't fail."

Ace saluted her. He could not keep the smile off of his face. "Thank you, ma'am."

"You have a lot of room to improve," she commented. "Your performance has been ghastly. And yet, somehow, you managed to pull through."

Ace stepped back into line and waited for the results to be tabulated. Spitfire just had to put in their grades for the initial tests, add them all together, and then she would use those numbers to determine who the best fliers were, and who the worst ones were. The top four would be paired together as the hopefuls, the worst four would be paired together to show who needed the most improvement, and the rest would be paired up with their direct counter. That is, the fifth best would be paired with the fifth worst, to create a more balanced team. They would be the ones that put in the most effort.

It took both Soarin and Spitfire doing the math over and over to realise that there was no mistake in the numbers, but they kept reaching the same conclusion, so it had to be true.

"The four of you with the highest score are: Blitz Break, Dusk Wind, Poinsettia and Wind Lash. Step forward."

They did so.

Spitfire brought out the pins. "Blitz and Lash. You two will be a team, with Blitz leading and Lash supporting. Dusk and Poinsettia, you will be a team, with Dusk leading and Poinsettia supporting. Lead ponies, you'll be making the decisions. Do not leave your teammate behind. Wingponies, support your leaders. Make sure they have their backs covered so they can focus on moving forward. Step back."

They did so, seemingly not too happy with their match-ups.

"The four of you with the lowest score are: Slipstream, Wind Blade, Coal Smoke and Shade Star. Step forward."

They did so, but with much trepidation. Not just because they were being called out for being the worst performers in their class, but because they were the worst performers in their class.

"Before I announce match-ups, I have to know, because I'm very curious," sighed Spitfire. "How in Equestria do you plan to become Wonderbolts when you all scored lower on the entry exams than an earth pony? How is Ace better at flying than all of you?"

Chapter the Thirteenth: Recess

Spitfire had her front hooves behind her head and her back hooves kicked up on the seat of the chair opposite her. She looked to be relaxing. What a perfect time to prank her.

Rainbow Dash snuck up behind her and put her whistle between her lips, creeping ever closer. This would be a bit of a nasty shock at first, but she was sure they'd have a laugh about it later.

"Don't even think about it," growled Spitfire. "I can hear your hooves against the pavement. I'm in no mood today."

"I knew I should have hovered," snapped Rainbow, sweeping around the table. "So, what's up?"

"Just deep in thought," sighed Spitfire, leaning forward and kicking out the chair for Rainbow to sit. "I'm on my lunch break."

"So, why aren't you eating lunch?"

As if to answer that question, a waitress approached and placed two plates of food in front of Spitfire. "Would your guest like to order something, as well?"

Spitfire turned to Rainbow Dash. "If you order something, you're paying for it. I have to return to court in fifteen minutes."

"Whatever's hot and ready," answered Rainbow. "I have somewhere to be, too."

As the waitress nodded and walked off, Spitfire picked up her sandwich. "So, what brings you to Canterlot?" she asked, biting into it.

"Just running an errand for Twilight."

"Princess Twilight," corrected Spitfire through a mouthful of snapdragon.

"Yeah, she's still Twilight to me. Anyway, she sent me up here to pick up some paperwork since Spike's been called out to the changeling hive to help with... Well, I didn't pay attention to that part. Point is, he's gone, and Twilight needs this paperwork." She lifted her bag to show four colour-coded binders with papers in them. "What about you?"

"Court hearing," answered Spitfire, taking a drink to clear her mouth. "I'm sure you've read that libelous article from a few weeks back?"

"From that gossip rag?" snorted Rainbow. "The one that was printed next to the bighoof sighting? Yeah, that's something I would read... No, I didn't read it, but I heard about it from Pinkie. Something about you taking bribes to let an earth pony take your place as captain of the Wonderbolts?"

"That's the one."

"So, some fool actually believed it?"

"Hundreds, apparently. Not the least of which were dozens of new cadets at the academy. I sued on behalf of the Wonderbolts, the academy, and the student being accused in the article, and I've pretty much already won. We're awarding damages today."

"Didn't that article come out two weeks ago? Doesn't criminal litigation take a long time? How have you already won?"

"Simple. I proved my case, which was pretty easy, made some accusations of my own, which they were unable to refute, then I called for a directed verdict, on the grounds that I could prove my claims and they could not. It was, as the judge decided, pretty open-and-shut. We'd be done already if I didn't have an academy to run."

"I'm all for a speedy case," chuckled Rainbow as her food was placed in front of her; corn chowder. "Thanks. Can I have the bill, too? I'll just have this and go, thanks."

"Mine, too?" asked Spitfire. As the waitress nodded and walked back in, she turned to Rainbow. "I'd rather the case not be any longer than it needs to be. Hells, I'd rather no case at all."

"Yeah. And what a ridiculous story, too. Like you'd even let an earth pony into the academy in the first place, let alone make captain..."

Spitfire was silent as she stared Rainbow down.

"What?"

"We did let an earth pony into the academy. That's the only part of that article that was true."

Rainbow's jaw dropped.

"Yeah, I expected that reaction. I imagine you're pissed. An earth pony, being accepted into the same flight academy you very nearly walked out of? How embarrassing that your alma mater thinks that an earth pony can fly."

"He shouldn't be able to!" shouted Rainbow. "That's preposterous!"

Spitfire slammed her hoof on the table. "Keep your voice down! Some of us are trying to eat..."

Rainbow took a second to breathe. "An earth pony? Really?"

"Despite your shock, I should inform you that he's actually doing fairly well."

"Really?"

"Well, he's the sixth worst on the flight courses in his group, but... Just think about that for a moment. He flies better with no wings than five of his classmates. You wanna talk about embarrassing? Ponies with wings are being outclassed by that very same earth pony."

"Unbelievable."

"It's true."

"No, I don't believe you."

Spitfire's lips curled up at the ends. "You don't have to believe me."

"Good, because I don't."

"You don't have to believe me, because you can come see him for yourself."

"Yeah? Maybe I will."

Spitfire tapped her hoof on the table a few times, then reached into her own satchel. "I have, here, the grade reports. You're looking for Clubs, A. Tell me, what do you see?"

Rainbow found it and smirked. "Really low numbers. Like, "how can you possibly expect to make Wonderbolt like this" numbers. You're saying this guy's better than other students?"

"Now look at Blade, W. and Smoke, C. What do you notice about them?"

Rainbow traced them. "Lots of zeroes. Failure to completes, crashes... Wait a sec... This Clubs guy is an earth pony, right?"

"That's right."

"He took the dizzitron at maximum power?!"

Spitfire nodded. "I saw it myself. He actually went on twice, back to back. He failed the first time at the normal speed, as you can see from the scratched-out part, but then he tried again. On a higher difficulty. And he passed."

"Barely."

"But he passed." Spitfire used the last of her sandwich to mop up her baked beans and shoved it in her mouth. "His best isn't that great, but he's giving it. He's better than the quitters, though only time will tell if he's a loser."

"Wow," Rainbow breathed, pushing the gradebook across the table. "Just wow. I want to see this guy for myself."

Spitfire tucked the gradebook back into her satchel and stood up, dropping a few bits onto the bill as the waitress brought it out. "You should. Despite the fact that he is who he is, he's doing a great job. I hereby invite you to see for yourself just what he's capable of."

Chapter the Fourteenth: Cloudbusting

Spitfire stamped the last page and gathered up the stack of paperwork, slipping it into a manilla envelope. Today was boring, but she had to finish it up so she could send it out. She needed the pages returned to keep the food coming into the academy. She'd like nothing more than to go out and enjoy the chill in the air, spread her wings and go for a nice, long fly, but now she had to fill out the forms to requisition parts to replace the treadmill that had broken down, plus a new air pump for the whirlpool tub, and then there was a hose on the refrigeration unit that was starting to wear down... That was going to suck up her next two hours, at least. What she wouldn't give for a distraction right now...

And just like that, there was a knock on the door. As relieved as she was, and desperate for conversation, she had to compose herself and look stoic. "It's open!"

The door popped open and in walked one of her graduates.

"Rainbow Dash. How long's it been?"

"About two days. We had lunch, remember?"

"I do. Come, sit."

Rainbow walked up to the chair and spun it around, sitting backwards with her arms crossed over the back. "You busy?"

"Just some paperwork," sighed Spitfire. "I think I'm starting to fuse to the chair, I've been sitting here so long."

"Yeah," chuckled Rainbow. "I bet you're ready to go stretch your wings for a bit. Or even just your legs."

"Too true. But, I also have to finish this before the end of the day."

"Fifteen minutes," swore Rainbow. "I just want to see that student you're so proud of."

Spitfire snorted. "Ten minutes. And what luck for you, he's on cloudbusting duty today."

Rainbow looped in the air and bounded to the door. "Well? What are you still sitting there for? Let's go!"

Spitfire stood up, then started to hover. Her back legs were so stiff that walking was out of the question, so for the first minute at least, she had to fly until her blood was moving correctly once more.

The two flew out to where the recruits were busting clouds and took a look around. "What's this guy look like?"

"Well, he has no wings. You find the pony that has no wings, and that'll be the earth pony we're looking for."

"Har, har... seriously, where is he?"

Spitfire pointed. "Right there."

Ace was standing on a small cloud in the middle of his working area. His lead pony, Peregrine, was lobbing clouds at him from the edge, and he was busting them pretty effectively, while not breaking the one beneath him.

"He's real," scoffed Rainbow. "I don't believe it."

"He's right in front of your eyes. I'd recommend you start believing."

Rainbow just stared for a bit, then shook her head. "This is... This is good news, I think."

"You think?"

"Well... yeah."

"Walk me through your thought process."

"Well, I'm thinking of this filly back in Ponyville..."

Spitfire pursed her lips. "You're going to want to pick your next words very carefully..."

"She's a pegasus with stunted wings. It's a birth defect. She can't fly. I've taken on the role of an impromptu older sister, and I do my best to see her dreams come true. Only problem is, her dream is to fly with me. I don't know how--... She's going to find out. This is big news. This kind of information is going to come out. I mean, it already did, but it's going to come out again, just truthful this time. And there's going to be official stuff, and pictures of him, and media coverage, because him being here is such a stunt. No way she's not going to find out..."

"What's your point?"

Rainbow took a deep breath. "When she finds out... When, not if... I don't know if it's going to be an inspiration that even without wings, she can fly, though I have no idea how, or if the fact that there's an earth pony that learned how to fly before she did will crush her spirit into tiny shards of broken dreams."

"Probably the first one," assured Spitfire. "I'd put a hoof on your shoulder, but ponies are watching. Pretend to be tough."

Rainbow turned to look at her, seemingly upset by her words. "What makes you so sure?"

"Easy," answered Spitfire, looking off to the side. "You're going to be the one to tell her."

"And just how is that going to make any difference? It'll probably just make it worse!"

Spitfire sneered. "It'll be better because you're going to ensure that it's the first one. You're going to show her that an earth pony is training with the Wonderbolts. You're going to tell her that Ace of Clubs worked very hard, filled himself with determination, and despite the fact that reality spat in his face, he kept pushing until he met his goal... Kind of."

"Kind of?"

Spitfire sighed. "He wants to be a Wonderbolt. Of course he does. Earth ponies can't be Wonderbolts because they cannot make their way to the academy. He can't train with us, so he can't be a Wonderbolt. Well, he's training with us. Look."

Rainbow looked down, and he was being lifted from his cloud perch, giving it one final kick. He'd busted every cloud in his section, and his team was the fifth to finish, leaving seven more still working.

"If he is among the worst, then the fact that he just made the top half wouldn't make sense. He's clearly putting in the effort, thinking his way through his problems, and building solutions. He's giving it his all." She took a deep breath. "Tell ya what. I'll send him to Ponyville if he fails or drops out. Perhaps he can teach your filly friend a thing or two about flight. Perhaps you'll learn a little something, too..."

Rainbow Scoffed. "Seriously?"

"You laugh, but watching him perform has been enlightening. I've seen a lot of ponies fly, and never have I seen anything quite like him..."

A smirk crept across Rainbow's face.

"What?"

"You like him..."

Spitfire was not impressed. "I can still make you fly laps, you know."

"That won't stop your heart from fluttering," teased Rainbow.

"Let's see," snorted Spitfire, putting her whistle between her teeth. "A hundred laps?"

"I'll give ya two-fifty!" shouted Rainbow, flying off toward the flight course. Spitfire knew she was good for it, too.

Chapter the Fifteenth: Sitting Down to Dinner

Ace was used to eating alone by now. At lunch, ponies would move away from him and sometimes crowd other tables so as not to be associated with him. Occasionally, Soarin would pop in when he wasn't taking lunch in his office, and had commented that Ace had his own private table. At dinner, He would still be working in the kitchen, and would be allowed to eat once everypony else had. And then he'd wash the dishes.

Today, though, Peregrine popped in while he was eating at his "private" table. "Didn't want to eat with your friends?"

Ace glanced over his shoulder at the other kitchen students. They were laughing about something, and with the sneer from Blitz, he could only assume it was a joke at his expense. "My friends aren't here."

"Well, I'm here. Am I not good enough to be your friend?"

Ace held up his hoof. "Pardon me. My friends usually aren't here. I think you're the closest thing I have to a friend in this class, and even then, we're not that close. I'd consider us to be more along the lines of colleagues at this point. Good colleagues, but still just colleagues."

"What's it going to take for us to be friends, then?"

"A few more conversations like this, maybe a little bit of confidence, a few extracurricular activities..."

"Gross."

"Not like that!"

From the chuckle Peregrine let out, Ace could tell that he was joking. He let out a chuckle of his own and went right back to his food.

"I'd also say that you exude quite a bit of confidence. That you bothered to come all the way to the academy shows it. And you were pretty confident that your method of cloudbusting would work, and it did."

"I came up with a better method, too, but I'd need your help to see if it would even work in the first place."

"Sorry, but I don't experiment with other stallions."

"Don't be gross."

Peregrine laughed, and Ace smiled. Already, they were doing pretty well.

"Also, that's not what I meant by "confidence." I was using the other definition, where we confide in each other."

"Gross."

They shared another chuckle. Not as big this time, and Ace was hoping they would soon have more than one joke. They couldn't just laugh at the same thing forever.

"Anyway, I should probably mention the reason I came down here. I know you've been working in the kitchens, but I was able to just transfer my old job straight up. I deliver mail. And you received a package." He reached under his wing and pulled out a box wrapped in brown paper. "I'd have left it on your bed, but, uh..."

"Not exactly the safest place if I'm not there to watch it."

"Exactly."

Two days ago, Ace had come back to see his stuff scattered on the floor. He'd been given a hooflocker for personal storage, and since they were expected to act like adults, it wasn't immediately coupled with a lock. Somepony just went in there and rifled through his belongings. He didn't notice anything missing, and hadn't reported it, thinking it was just some jerk trying to mess with him. If it happened again, he'd report it and purchase a lock to keep it sealed, but for now, he was just going to watch and wait.

He took the package and read the label. It was from his dad. He removed the paper to find that it was a book; one he had read a dozen times. "History of the Wonderbolts, Volume Seven. This is, as of fifteen years ago, the latest in a series of books detailing all of the greatest events in Wonderbolts history."

"I gathered that from the title."

Ace shook his head. "This book notes the rise and fall of the Shadowbolts, the incorporation of the lightning design on the jumpsuits, and..." a grin spread slowly across his face, "it contains a quote from the head of the first-year class at the time of its publication."

He opened the book to page one hundred and forty-three, pointing to a short speech that had been recorded for the volume, turning the book so that Peregrine could read it aloud.

"I can think of nothing more noble than to aid my fellow citizens in their time of need. Anypony that joins the Wonderbolt Academy is swearing a sacred vow to do just that. Many of our alumni are currently guarding the princess, while others, actual Wonderbolts, are out helping the common citizen in a number of ways. I am proud to be considered a potential entrant into the Wonderbolts, and would be truly grateful if they would select me."

"Keep going," urged Ace. "A few lines down."

Peregrine read the next few lines in silence, but stopped when he read the next part. "It is unfortunate that we have no unicorns or earth ponies on the force. As much as my best friend, Neighsay, wishes to improve Equestria, he is unable to attend because he is a unicorn. He is going to have to find another way of keeping Equestria safe. Were he a pegasus, though, he'd make a great Wonderbolt."

"That, right there," smirked Ace. "I hold that in my heart. It's not his decisions that hold him back, but his birth. And that's no good. That speech? That made me believe it was possible for me to enter the school if only I could make it through the entrance exam."

"And here you are."

"Here I am."

There was a brief moment of silence as they just kind of sat there, thinking to themselves.

"I guess we're friends, now," smiled Ace, eating a forkful of his chilaquiles. "Or close enough, anyway."

Peregrine just nodded. "I guess so." He flipped to the next page, just kind of glancing ahead. "Whoa..."

"What?"

"The captain used to be hot."

He pointed to a picture of Spitfire when she'd just joined the academy. She smiled more back then, she was a bit more petite, and her mane was softer, smoother, and bigger. She was a lead pony, as indicated by her badge, and standing behind her with a wing pony badge was Silver Zoom. He didn't look too happy in the picture, but Spitfire did.

"Personally, I think she looks better now," replied Ace. "I'm glad she stuck to her beliefs from that speech, though. Without her, I wouldn't be here..."

Chapter the Sixteenth: Capture the Flag

The Wonderbolts Academy had a different version of Capture the Flag than what Ace was used to. This was acknowledged by Fleetfoot, who was in charge of this particular activity, before they even began.

"Your objective ith to collect ath many flagth ath you can. Thith ith not a thcuffle with your clathmateth, but clother to a thcavenger hunt. The team that collectth the motht flagth at the end winth. Only the five highetht teamth will path, tho take thith theriouthly."

There were other rules, of course. Teams had to stay together, once you captured a flag, you had to bring it back to the start before you could collect another, so if you spotted one on your way back, you had to rush to claim it before another team spotted it, you could not steal another team's previously collected flag, you could not interfere with another team's flag collection with the exception of collecting the flag before they did, et cetera. A lot of ponies had caused issues in the past that had been thought to be common sense, but when somepony causes a problem and claims that "there's no rule against it," new rules have to be drafted.

Ace was pretty nervous. Having the teams stay together would result in either Peregrine being unable to fly or having to carry him through this. Granted, he was usually nervous, as he couldn't fly and almost always needed assistance, but having to stay together was a new requirement. Cloudbusting, for example, could see them separate from each other, as long as they were working together. Peregrine just had to move the clouds, and Ace would bust them. Ace could not cover the obstacles below while Peregrine scanned the field from above if they had to stick to each other.

The whistle sounded, and Peregrine picked Ace up and started carrying him. Ace immediately started scanning for any crevices where a flag may be hiding, thinking that, while he could not fly, he could still see, and that meant he needed to spot something to pull his weight.

Peregrine, however, had different plans, dropping Ace onto a cloud and pushing that around. "Hold tight to that," he said. It'll be easier to move you around if I'm not carrying your full weight myself, and the tighter you hold it will lessen the wind resistance."

Ace nodded, pulling the cloud in as close as he could. Now, moving Ace around was as easy as moving the cloud, and that was something even Ace could do, albeit not as fast as Peregrine.

The flags were pretty easy to spot at first, and they managed to find and capture four in the first ten minutes. But in the next fifteen minutes, they only managed two more. Blitz and Lash were in the lead with eleven flags, and immediately following were Golden Pomade and Dervish Whirl, behind them at nine. Then Poinsettia and Dusk at eight, and Strawberry Wine and Spiral Flare at seven. Three teams were tied for fifth, and none of them wanted to find out what happened if they stayed tied. Peregrine had, after all, suggested that, knowing Fleetfoot, she'd consider them all a loss and make them train.

"You're going to fail, earth pony," taunted Blitz, flying up next to them. "You're going to fail, and you're going to deserve it. Spitfire's not going to bail you out today."

"That's very upsetting," commented Ace, not taking his eyes off the field.

"It's true," Blitz laughed. "You don't belong here."

"Not that part. The fact that you've been living with me for almost two weeks and you still haven't learned my name. I really hope that's because your mind has been focused on studying for that history exam you failed."

"You son of a--!"

As Blitz started to take a swing at Ace, he spotted a flag and rolled his cloud to the side, letting go as the cloud burst apart. The flag was right below him, in a narrow tunnel. Peregrine followed right behind him, and as they fell, Ace urged him, "Hold onto me and close your wings!"

Peregrine hadn't seen the flag yet, but he could see the entrance that Ace had aimed himself at. With a minor adjustment, the two entered the hole and Ace began running faster than his hooves could possibly carry him, eventually providing enough friction to slow for the curve. They were on clouds, so the impact wouldn't be deadly, but if he ripped through, he'd be sent to the ground at terminal velocity.

Nevertheless, he made the turn, and managed to carry Peregrine through the tunnel, running upside down, sideways, back, forth, however the tunnel led them. Near the other end, a flag was sitting, which he grabbed in his teeth.

A moment later, he burst from the other end, still carrying enough momentum to launch himself and Peregrine into the air. As soon as they were airborne again, Peregrine opened up his wings, and they were on their way back to the platform, landing with only a few seconds to spare.

Time was up, and Fleetfoot's whistle called everypony back. Fleetfoot counted up all of the flags, and jotted that down in her gradebook. "Thith hath been one of the better thethionth of Capthure the Flag that I've ever theen. Collectively, you've all grabbed more flagth than motht clatheth. However, there can be only five pathing gradeth.

"In fifth plathe, we have a three-way tie, with a thcore of thicth. In fourth, Peregrine and Athe at theven. Blitth, Lath, Thpin, Fairy, Danther and Loop, you're in fifth. You will all be counted ath pathing with a C."

"Fifth!?" Shouted Blitz. "We had the most!"

"True," Fleetfoot nodded. "However, you altho retheived a five-point penalty for taking a thwing at one of your clathmateth. And if you want to collect that pathing grade, you owe thirty lapth. Both you and your partner."

Looking very pissed at this turn of events, Blitz and Lash flew off toward the track to fly their laps.

"Pointhettia, Duthk, Thrawberry and Thpiral, you thcored thecond and third. You path with a B. Pomade and Dervith, you thcored the highetht without violating the ruleth. You path with an A."

She took a few steps back and turned to face them. "If you thcored an A or B, you're dithmithed. If you thcored a C, you owe me five lapth. If you failed, you owe me ten. Off you go..."

Chapter the Seventeenth: Compensating

"Come in, Soarin."

As he entered, Spitfire didn't look up from her work. That was a good sign. "Hey, Captain. Brought you lunch."

Spitfire glanced up, then went back to work. "That looks like more than lunch. That looks like lunch and paperwork."

"Consider the lunch a peace offering. I didn't want to be yelled at for bringing in more work."

"Unless you created the "more work," I won't be mad at you."

"No, but you'd still yell and shout, and I'm the only one here to yell at."

Spitfire chuckled. "Perhaps you're right. But I always apologise for being needlessly angry with you."

Soarin nodded, knowing that the captain would be fair and just in her decision. "So, good news or bad news first?"

Spitfire set down her quill and closed the folder she was filling out. "You know you're not supposed to go through my mail."

"I didn't. I read the return address and made assumptions."

"Fine. Good news."

Soarin withheld the mail and pushed forward the styrofoam box. "I brought you chipotle fries."

Spitfire looked down at the box. "That's it?"

"Well, the rest of it is bad news." Soarin waved the letter in front of her. "It's another court summons from Canterlot."

She snatched it and opened it. It was very thick, with a lot of paperwork inside.

"I thought you had this all sorted out?"

Spitfire was silent for a moment, scanning the first two pages. Then, she leaned back. "It was sorted out. This is paperwork allowing me to collect my winnings from the trial."

Soarin nodded slowly. "...Oh."

"Yeah, like I said, we finished. I was just waiting for the court to finish up the paperwork so they could send it to me."

"Good news, then?"

Spitfire nodded, then stopped. "Did I not tell you the outcome?"

"No."

"Well, the first award was to me. My integrity is very valuable, both to me, and because of my role in the protection of Equestria, to Equestria. Princess Luna even swore in her affidavit that if I were as dishonest as the paper claimed, that I should be removed from my position, before affirming that I had her trust. So, for damaging that view of myself, as well as the Wonderbolts in general, I was awarded thirty thousand bits. Most of that, I'm going to funnel into salaries, so expect a small bonus in the near future.

"The second amount is for Ace. Don't tell him; I want to be the one to tell him about it. He was awarded twenty thousand, which I've had diverted to his tuition. That can be further redirected as required, but he's not going to need to pay for pretty much anything while he's living and working here.

"Finally, to the school itself. One hundred and fifty thousand bits have been awarded to the facilities for insulting baselessly our fine institution. That money is to be spent assisting the students and faculty. Which is exactly what I plan to do."

Soarin nodded along. "Sounds like they were let off easy."

"There's more."

"Oh, okay..."

"In addition to their fines, the author of the article was fired. Not because of the hearing, but because the publishing company thought doing so would separate her actions from its own. Well, no, because the publishing company let the article go out into the world without verifying any of that information. To submit lies to a newspaper is slander, to print it is still libel. Whether the author works there anymore is irrelevant, as the editor-in-chief still allowed it to go to print, and then let it be distributed. That's still a crime.

"Because of that, the editor has to print a new story, refuting their prior claims. In addition, we're calling four other news sources to come for an actual interview. I will be participating, you would be called up to answer questions in a reasonable manner, and Ace will be invited to participate. If he chooses to participate, we will have to coach him through the basics."

"Nice. Anything else?"

Spitfire shook her head. "This was hardly a blow to them. The fact that it took no time at all to put this together is evidence of that. Hopefully, the Canterlot Tribune will think twice before printing lies again. At least for a little while."

"Still sounds like they were let off easy."

Spitfire popped open her container of fries, still releasing steam. They were covered in enough toppings and sauces to require a fork. Luckily, she kept a few in her desk.

"So, I have to ask, because I'm curious. What are your thoughts on Ace?"

Spitfire looked up from her fries. "Are you also going to infer that he and I have a physical relationship?"

Soarin was still for a moment, but Spitfire could see his lips puckering and curling.

"Permission granted."

Soarin burst out laughing. It took a few minutes to recover, but when he did, he clarified, "I had... no intention of making such a claim..."

Spitfire nodded. "Your outburst says as much... Rainbow Dash, do you remember her?"

"Yeah?"

"She thinks there's a romance forming."

"I mean, I wouldn't personally judge you for it..." he wiped a tear from hi eye. "Professionally, maybe, but I'm not going to make such a claim. I was just wanting to know how you felt about his progress."

Spitfire returned to her lunch. "I'm actually quite pleased to be wrong. Had I stuck to my original plan, to deny him entry, sure, things would be easier, but a lot more boring. Plus, he's at least handling everything well. Passing his classes, doing his job, even managing to mostly stay out of trouble."

"Mostly?"

Spitfire shook her head in a figure eight pattern. "Yes and no. He has been involved in some disciplinary action, but he's hardly been the primary cause. A week ago, for example. Fleetfoot punished everypony in that room for being in the fight. She said the fight was about Ace trying to steal a spot on the Wonderbolts, but she also thinks he was more trying to stop the others than actually fighting against them."

"And what do you think?"

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter what I think. I wasn't there. I trust that Fleetfoot saw what she thinks she saw, because nopony's come forward to say otherwise."

Soarin nodded. "So, you don't think about him romantically?"

Chapter the Eighteenth: Lightning

Cloudbusting was not the only form of weather control being taught at the academy. Most graduates , as well as all dropouts, would not be placed into the actual Wonderbolts, and a lot of pegasi that made it through the first two years were prime candidates for weather control. This had been the role of pegasi for thousands of years, so even though they could do other jobs, there was a sense of pride that came with it.

That said, even if Ace did take a job in weather, he wouldn't be the first earth pony to do so. Ever since the founding of Equestria, and even before that, there had been earth ponies dictating to the pegasi what weather was needed for the crops. Nowadays, the ground team would communicate with the sky team to determine what weather was needed and where, as well as prepping the area for whatever storm was coming to reduce damage to structures. Even the unicorns were in on it.

Today, they would be creating storms. Rain was a passing grade. Wind and lightning would be better, but not mandatory. The storm would be localised to a small area, three metres by three metres. Ace had studied the day before, and Soarin, their instructor for the day, gave them a quick demonstration. He could probably manage the rain on his own in the time provided, but he could not help with the wind. He'd have to rely on Peregrine for that. They could also do the lightning with relative ease if they had time.

Only three teams could go at a time, because Soarin couldn't keep an eye on all of them. Blitz and Lash, being the frontrunners, completed the task fairly quickly and were immediately replaced by the next team, as soon as their two-minute storm had run its course.

"We should plan out our moves ahead of time," whispered Peregrine. "Since we're going last, you know?"

Ace nodded. "I actually had something for this. In that history book I showed you, there's a strategy employed by Thunderstruck that currently holds the record. Rainbow Dash broke a lot of records, but not his, and he was working alone. His wingpony had just left the academy, you see. If we had the time to prepare, I'd say let's try that, but we don't."

"I was thinking we should employ the simple method you had for cloudbusting. Except, instead of busting the clouds, you pack them into the one you're standing on."

Ace turned and glanced at him, then returned his gaze to the action in the field. "Think it'll work?"

"Trust me, there's more than one way to make a rain cloud."

Ace had never made a raincloud before. That wasn't the standard way to do it, but Peregrine would have more experience than he did. Plus, he was the lead pony, so if there was a disagreement, it would be his call.

"I'll handle the wind. Once I stop feeding you clouds, you work on the lightning. I'm pretty sure they'll let us practice before putting us through this again at a later date. We can do better then, as long as we pass now."

"Good, good," noted Soarin as the team before them finished up. "Wind was lacking, but it was there, at least. I'll give you half a credit for that. Perry, Ace, be ready."

They moved up to the line, and as soon as the storm had subsided, Soarin blew his whistle, and off they flew. They had practiced landing, so Peregrine knew that when he dropped Ace atop the cloud, he'd land just fine, and he did. Good thing, too, as he didn't turn around to check. He just started launching clouds behind him wordlessly. It wasn't until he came to the edge of the field that he turned and looked at Ace, who was having a bit of trouble packing the clouds together.

Luckily, he just needed a little bit of extra time, so Peregrine slowed down a bit to make their actions more synchronous. Peregrine would throw the cloud, and just as Ace was ready to catch it, it would arrive, and he'd stuff it into the slowly darkening puff beneath him.

Ace could feel the density beneath his hooves going higher and higher, and his hooves were even beginning to feel wet. It was like handling a towel that had just been pulled out of the pool. It was even starting to drip.

"That's enough!" called Peregrine from a short distance back. "Start charging!"

Ace could feel Peregrine starting up the wind. It was definitely strong enough. As his lead pony commanded, he begin to rub the cloud, generating static that could be released as lightning once the rain was going. He could feel that, too. As the first arcs were forming, he had the raincloud in perfect form, and a good stomp would set it off. He reared back on his hind legs an--

In the very next moment, he was waking up with a pounding headache. The lights were on too bright, and he felt like he was about to vomit.

"YOU'RE UP!!" came Spitfire's voice. "HOW DO YOU FEEL?!"

"PLEASE STOP YELLING!!" whispered Ace.

Spitfire stomped over to his side, grabbing something loud off the table before covering his ears. Whatever it was, it burned as it touched him. "How's that? Better?"

"Better."

"Let's add sensitivity to sound to that chart, doc."

"And light," added Ace. "I'm guessing you don't think those lights are too bright?"

Spitfire came into view, placing her sunglasses on his face. "How's that?"

"Better. What happened?"

She pulled up a folding chair. "You're in the infirmary. You were struck by lightning."

Ace lowered his head to the pillow. "I guess I failed that test, huh?"

"No."

Ace looked up at her.

"You passed. The lightning came from another team's cloud. They charged it backwards, so when yours went off, it didn't close the circuit to the ground. Since they weren't connected to their cloud at the time, they didn't end up shocked, but you... You were right in the way."

Ace took a deep breath.

"Outlook for you is pretty good. Yours wasn't charged much more than normal. You were just over the safe levels, so you should just be in here for a few days. A week at the most. There's a hold on your classes until you recover, and you can talk to Soarin about making up your grades. In the meantime, rest well. I'll let the others know of your condition."

Chapter the Nineteenth: The Visitor

Over the next few days, Ace was pretty bored. Spitfire had reached out to the news crews that were supposed to visit the day after the lightning storm, letting them know that Ace would not be in attendance due to injuries, and that she'd still be willing to answer any questions at that time. The press conference came and went without a single reporter talking to Ace.

The one that talked to Ace the most, aside from the nursing student that thought herself a comedian, was Peregrine. And unfortunately, their talks had to be all business, because Peregrine still had to do all of his normal stuff and, while flying alone, score them both passing grades. Ace could only imagine how difficult it was to do that.

Soarin came by a few times, as did Spitfire. They even snuck in a pudding cup for him. They were primarily checking in on him to make sure everything was coming along, and to see if he was ready to move again. It was a reminder to Ace that life just kept going, whether he was there or not. On one hoof, that was a comforting thought; that the Wonderbolts were so resilient that they could stomach him not being around. On the other hoof, he didn't want to be left behind, so he spent some time working out to make sure he could go back to class as soon as he was out of the infirmary.

His muscles were fine. He could move around after a day of letting the soreness subside. He was a little bit stiff, but he could manage. What he couldn't manage was the light and sound sensitivity. They were diminishing, and the doctor even said he'd be cured within the week, but having to stay in the infirmary was very annoying.

On day four, just after being told by the doctor to go back to bed, somepony surprising came to see him. "Rainbow Dash?"

Rainbow saluted, though she really didn't have to. "Ace, right?"

Ace nodded.

"So, you're the earth pony who decided you wanted to join the Wonderbolts..."

He nodded again, more shyly this time.

"Don't look so glum, kid. I'm impressed, I'm just... I have mixed feelings." Noting that his demeanor hadn't changed, she pulled up a chair and sat down. "Look, I just want to talk to you. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. I ended up missing my interview with the press, so..."

Rainbow nodded. "I saw the notice. My condolences for your injury, but..."

"It happens," he shrugged. "I'm just glad I should be back to normal, soon."

"That's a good attitude to have," smiled Rainbow. "So, listen: I have a friend that's disabled. We're like sisters. She's always been a pegasus, and she's always wanted to fly, but she can't."

Ace just shrugged. "Why?"

Rainbow's browfurrowed. "Because she's disabled? I literally said that already."

Ace shook his head. "No, I mean, why does she want to fly?"

"Because she's a pegasus, and pegasi are supposed to fly?"

Ace nodded. "What you should tell her is that she doesn't have to fly; that pegasi are more than just a pair of wings. She should be looking for something else to do with her life. I'm sure she has a talent that can keep her on the ground."

"Really?" snorted Rainbow "And what's your excuse? I'm sure you had something you could do on the ground, too."

"Of course," nodded Ace. "I'm a regional Poker champion. Two-time winner of the North Equestrian Hold-em Tourney. I had a job in a warehouse, and I'm also a pretty decent cook."

"So, why should she stay on the ground while you're up here?"

"Because you said the reason she wants to fly is because society told her she has to. Make society change to accept her, don't make her change to accept society."

Rainbow held up her hoof. "Let's step back a bit. It's more than just that. That's the one that bothers her the most because of the reason you just gave. She doesn't like being unable to fly because society looks down on her, and she'd like for that to stop. That's the biggest reason, but it only accounts for, like, a third of what she wants, at most."

"Okay. What's the next reason?"

"She wants to spend more time with me."

Ace just shrugged. "You can do that on the ground."

"Yeah, but I like to fly."

"I like to walk. Doesn't mean I can't spend time with a pony with no legs."

"She wants to fly with me."

"Have her ride a cloud. Or carry her."

Rainbow grunted in frustration. "You're not understanding. I'm trying to ask you how to make her able to fly!"

Ace was silent for a moment, then threw his hooves up. "I don't know."

Rainbow was unimpressed, and did not move until the nurse came to find out what the shouting was all about.

"I don't understand your question," Ace sighed. "It sounds like you want me to help her fly."

"That's exactly what I want," clarified Rainbow. "I want her to be able to come to my cloud house without needing to be carried. I want her to see the place where I grew up. I want her to be able to sign up to join the Wonderbolts, even if she wants to do something else with her life. And I'd like her to be able to attend all of my races, not just what few are on the ground. I want her to be able to have the same opportunities that are afforded to every other pegasus, from which she's held back by a stupid birth defect..."

Rainbow was starting to crack. Ace could see it on her face, and hear it in her voice. He wanted to help her, but he just shook his head. "You know more than I do when it comes to flying. You know more than I do about your friend; her wants and her limitations. I wish I could help, but I can't fly, either."

Rainbow took a deep breath. "How did you come to the academy, then?"

"It was foggy in Whinnyapolis that morning. I scooped it all up and built a cloud." He shrugged. "I told you to have her hop a cloud, didn't I?"

Rainbow scowled. "That's not flying."

"Neither is being carried. Being a Wonderbolt may have nothing to do with flying. I just want to make the world better, and this is my first plan to do so. Maybe I'll fail, maybe I'll pass. Who can say? But I'm going to try, despite the limitations of my birth. She can, and should, do the same."

Chapter the Twentieth: The Real Test

After his week in the infirmary, all trials for the basics were done, and all students were graded for the first three weeks of their course. To nopony's great surprise, Blitz Break was at the top of the first-year class. Poinsettia was ranked twelfth, but that was because all of the classes were being ranked together. Ninety-five of the original hundred students were still here.

Ace was ranked at number seventy-nine. That was far better than he expected. It wasn't great, but he'd thought he'd score in the low eighties, at best. Peregrine's scores were probably the reason for his high ranking. Peregrine was ranked at number thirty-six. If you were starting in the top forty, the chances that you'd make it to the end of the year were fantastic, and if you were in the top ten at the end of year four, there was a good chance you'd be let into the Wonderbolts.

"Hey, buck up, Ace," smirked Blitz, smacking him hard on the shoulder as he pointed to his score. "Or should we call you "flunky" now? 'Cause you certainly didn't "Ace" your exams!" He laughed right in Ace's ear, which by now was healed enough to make it just an annoyance, rather than a painful experience. "Did you really expect to make it here at the academy? Earth ponies like you don't belong here."

Peregrine wrapped a wing around Ace's shoulder and pulled him away. "Don't worry about it too much," he said, glancing back as Blitz continued to laugh in the background. "He's just being a jerk."

"Oh, I wasn't worried," assured Ace. "I kew going in that this was going to be an uphill battle. I'm just sorry that I brought your score down so much."

Peregrine just waved his hoof. "Don't worry about it. Sometimes, your teammate is injured, and you have to put in the extra effort to come away with a lower score. I'm sure you'd do the same for me."

Ace just kind of shrugged. "I mean, I guess you're right, as I would need to try harder, and since we wouldn't be averaging scores, I'd come away lower regardless. And certainly, I wouldn't be trying to lower your score."

"So you wouldn't try to raise my score if I was out sick?"

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that there is a cutoff as to how effectively I could raise your score."

"True, true..."

"I mean, if I'm at rank seventy-nine, and you're at thirty-six, how can I possibly elevate your score?"

Peregrine scratched his neck. "That is a tough one..."

Ace sighed. "I wasn't originally thinking of how low you'd sunk. I only thought about that later, when you brought up the ranks again. And I wasn't worried about the scores that much."

"What were you worried about, then?"

Ace shook his head. "Nothing."

"You definitely looked worried..."

"Looked and were are two different things, my friend," smirked Ace. "I was thinking to myself about the individual scores that brought me to my ranking. And I know that there's a newbie trap coming."

Peregrine brought a hoof to his lips. "That's meant to be kept secret." He looked around, and was pretty sure nopony had heard Ace. "You're talking about the recess, right?"

Ace nodded. "I heard it from higher-level students."

After the first month, when the initial scores were posted, the students would be granted the next three weeks with no scheduled training. They were still expected to attend their classes, but there would be nopony dictating their flight training. They could slack off and rest for three weeks and suffer no consequences, as long as they attended and participated in their clerical classes.

There was recorded evidence of pegasi doing well in the first month, and then being kicked out in week seven because they were tested again in rapid succession and were not prepared. Anypony that had made it to the end of their first year would know, and could warn students they liked, about the trap.

Gentle Giant had been the one to warn Ace about it, and Peregrine had probably heard about it from Fleetfoot. Those three weeks of no structured classes came right after the initial scores were released for a good reason; The students would see where they needed to improve, and then were given time to work on doing so. If they chose to take the extra time to flop down on the couch and snack on chips, then they would likely fail.

"So, what are you thinking we do about it?"

"Well, I have a few ideas," answered Ace. "I've spent enough time with older students to know that the group obstacle course is a struggle, because the first time you go through it alone, and only need to know what's going to be where. In the group course, you have to keep track of where your partner is, too. So that's something we should come up with a plan for."

"I can already tell you that the dizzitron is going to be easier," noted Peregrine. "Me having wings and catching you is going to stabiliise everything just a little bit easier."

"Still, we should practise that," agreed Ace. "I want to be able to do that twice in a row. By the way, do you mind if we set the dizzitron to the highest setting? I think we can score higher if we push a little bit harder."

Peregrine looked a little bit nervous. He wasn't very good at the dizzitron on the normal setting. "I don't know if I can handle it..."

"That's what the practising is for," assured Ace. "It's ultimately your call, but I think you should at least try."

Peregrine nodded. "We'll try both. Whichever one we seem to score better in is the one we should display."

"Good. I also want to work on building a lightning storm."

Peregrine balked at that. "Are you sure? Because last time--"

"Last time was proven not my fault," said Ace. "Not yours, either. I was struck because the other team put theirs together backwards. I don't like to leave tasks half-done."

Peregrine took a breath. "I don't want you to end up in the infirmary again. Can we keep you off the cloud?"

"I could wear rubber boots and gloves."

"That'll make me feel a little bit better..."

"Or... You know how I was stating that the record for this task was set by Thunderstruck?"

"Yeah?"

"Let me show you what he did..."

Chapter the Twenty-First: Hard Work

The next few weeks were a blur. Ace wasn't sure what day was which half the time, because every day, he'd go with Peregrine to train and practise until they ran out of time, and then they'd go to the gym to work out. It didn't much matter what the other students were doing, though Bubble Up and Buccaneer, the white pegasus that had accused him of blackmail on his first night, had offered to help train them, and had smoothed out their form a bit, as well as talked them through a few of the more complicated parts of the feats.

The day before the term was to end, though, the fields were too full, and the gym was crowded. It had been ramping up slowly, and with tests tomorrow, everypony was working hard to cram in that last session. So instead, they opted to have massages during practise hours and relax in the whirlpool after class. Spitfire even joined them in the tub, noting that, were they not comfortable with it, they could leave. Peregrine did, but Ace stuck around. He was already aware of the rumours.

The next day, everypony was outside. Classes were cancelled, because the entire first-year class would be performing in front of each other for the first time, rather than the individual groups.

Teams were sent through each section in alphabetical order, organised by the lead pony's name. First, the obstacle course. Spitfire would note the time differences between the current run and an average of the originals. If they were better together, she would announce the time difference. If they were worse, she'd snap at them for not working together. And if they were really bad, she would humiliate them in front of the whole class. It had been seven weeks since they arrived, after all. If they were the same as when they arrived, that would be understandable, but disappointing. If they were worse by a wide margin, they were called "a disgrace to the uniform." They would still be able to stick around and attend classes, but if they didn't improve by the end of the next term, they would be sent home.

Ace was nervous when Peregrine was called up, but that was to be expected. He was going to perform in front of all of his classmates, just shy of a hundred, and Spitfire was going to judge him. This was a small scale version of what the Wonderbolts did all the time. Thousands of fans in the stands, every single one watching your every move, judging you silently and comparing you to your peers.

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind the second he jumped off the cloud. He jumped high, Peregrine went low, and they slalomed up and down through the horizontal beams with ease. Their motions were counter to each other, so when Ace was up, Peregrine was down, and then they switched.

As Ace flung himself straight up for the last beam, Peregrine grabbed him by the back hooves and carried him through the moving vertical beams. To show that Peregrine wasn't doing all of the work, his wings went flat, and Ace was in charge of steering through gravity. There was a moment where they almost clipped a pillar, but Peregrine gave a single flap to pull them out of the way.

Ace's technique on the rotating beams was the same, and Peregrine just flew opposite him. Then came the moving beams, both vertical and horizontal. These were pretty easy by now, as much as they'd practised with the more advanced students.

Last up were the rings. These were the rookie killers of this particular test. There were more than twenty this time, and they were arranged in such a way as to force the contestants to either go through them at different rates or be able to anticipate where their partner was going to be, because their paths were set to collide.

Peregrine had made the suggestion that Ace go first, and he would match him two rings back. This meant that, if one were to stand at the end of the rings, there would seem to be no Peregrine, because he was always right behind Ace, who was slightly larger, and slightly closer.

As they made it through, Ace took one last leap, spreading his front hooves so that Peregrine could catch him. This was where they almost fumbled, as Peregrine nearly dropped him, but managed to grab him before he fell too far. They landed safely on the finish platform with Ace landing first, and Peregrine coming up right in front of him.

"Well, well," nodded Spitfire. "One minute and six seconds. Peregrine, your last score was just over a minute thirty, and your partner was just shy of three and a half. From an average time of two minutes and twenty-nine seconds to less than half of that is quite the leap."

"Thank you, ma'am," nodded Peregrine. "It was his idea, though."

"Couldn't have done it without him," breathed Ace. "Ma'am."

Spitfire turned to the whole class. "I want you all to know that teamwork and dedication can drastically increase your odds. Their time is less than half of what it was before. If the rest of you can do that, we may yet make Wonderbolts out of you!"

There was some mild cheering, and some amount of scattered booing, but most of the students were just murmuring to themselves. It didn't sound positive to Ace, but he felt good, regardless. Not only was his new time better than his old, by a wide margin, he was better than a lot of the pegasi that had done this on their first day, and better than some of them even now. He was far from a loser, and he was going to stay that way for as long as he could.

Nevertheless, the whispers did hit his ears, and they were quite troublesome. Words like "cheater" and "rigged" were being thrown around. "He didn't practice yesterday; he went for a massage, instead." "I saw him in the hot tub alone with Spitfire last night." "He did bad on purpose the first time so he could look good now." "He's profiting while his partner does all of the work."

While he was proud of himself and glad to have been recognised for his efforts, their words still stung. He could handle it, for sure, but he wouldn't last forever...

Chapter the Twenty-Second: Cloudburst

Various other tasks were performed, each one taking about an hour to fully demonstrate. Each test was about a minute long, and with almost fifty teams, it was a long and tedious day, There was a half hour lunch break, where almost everypony complained about their backs, having been standing all day, but Ace and Peregrine had good reason not to complain; they were joined by Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

"You're lookin' a little thore, there, Athe," noted Fleetfoot. "Whath the matter?"

"He's being accused of cheating by the other students under their breath," answered Spitfire. "None of them has the guts to come out and say it to me, probably because they think I'm in on it. That, or they know what they're saying is wrong, so they won't come out and say it any more than they would announce that the sky is green with purple polka-dots. Sound about right?"

Ace nodded.

"You can speak up, kid. This isn't a formal injunction. This is lunch. Take a moment to rest."

He swallowed his food. "A lot of it stems from the fact that we didn't train yesterday. We took massages, and you were there when we took a moment in the hot tub. There's a lot of that rumour going around, too."

"You that in the tub with him?" chuckled Fleetfoot. "How dare you both take advantage of thomething that everypony ith allowed to uthe? It'th not like you were alone in there, right?"

There was a pause, eventually broken by Ace. "Well..."

"Nothing happened," answered Spitfire. "It was literally just a soak in a hot tub."

Ace nodded in agreement. That's really all it was. Sure, they were alone in the hot tub at the same time, smiling and chatting, and Spitfire even laughed at one point, but they weren't an item.

After lunch, everypony's performance took a small dip. They were all sluggish from being so stuffed, and sore from standing for so long, then sitting, then being made to stand again. Even Ace and Peregrine suffered from this. There was precedent that the students needed to be fed to have the energy to keep going, but without the extra time to let their food digest, their bodies were diverting energy away from their muscles to focus on their digestion.

Luckily, it was something that was easy enough to work with and not excessively dangerous. Going on the dizzitron immediately after lunch was a bad idea, but cloudbusting was easy enough. Ace and Perry scored a little bit better than they had the first time, but there were still rumours going around.

When it was time for the dizzitron, Peregrine very loudly and clearly asked for the machine to be set to maximum, and Spitfire approved. She knew his plan, Soarin knew his plan, and even some of the students knew what he was doing. No matter, though.

The group dizzitron was different from the solo version. Rather than releasing both participants at once, it would release the lead pony first, and then the wing pony would follow after. The lead pony was supposed to help his or her wing pony recover and land.

Except, that wasn't what happened, here. Peregrine was still not very good at recovering, and as Ace was released, he had to delay his gathering of a cloud to reshape into a glider for a few seconds. To everyone's shock and amazement, save for those few that had seen them practising, Ace rescued Peregrine from his spinout and brought them both back to the ground.

"That's not what I commanded you to do," was Spitfire's response. "Your lead pony was supposed to catch your wing pony." She paused, locking eyes with Ace, who had to keep from smiling. "However, I will also recognise that no pony is an island. When you're flying with a group, and one of you is spinning out, it's neither the lead pony, the wing pony, nor anypony in the formation's job to perform a rescue. You don't sit and wait for somepony else to help them recover. You help them recover. It doesn't matter whose job it is; you fly as a team, and you support one another. While you did not follow the instructions to the letter, you did maintain the spirit and purpose of the exercise. Even so, there's no penalty in the rulebook for the wingpony catching their lead pony. Your time is fifteen point seven seconds."

Ace once again had to listen to other ponies sneering at him for receiving preferential treatment. While Spitfire had not given most of them speeches, she was still making notes of the stand-outs. There was the cloudbusting team that had knocked one of the standby rescue teams off of their perch, there was the team that had kept colliding with each other on the obstacle course, and there was the team that had scored the academy record for cloud construction. There wasn't a lot of positive speech going around, and they'd prompted it twice. There was bound to be jealousy.

But they weren't done yet. The penultimate event of the day, just as it was starting to turn dark, was the lightning storm test. Ace and Peregrine were no longer worried, as they'd practiced all of the moves for this, and had found the method that would set them ahead of everypony else. It was the same as what Thunderstruck had done, with one exception. He had been working alone. They would be working together.

Ace dove off of the cloud headfirst on Spitfire's whistle, and Peregrine caught him by the knees. Thunderstruck had used his back legs to gather the clouds, but Ace could do it with his front hooves much easier.

Peregrine wasn't paying any attention to what Ace was doing. His attention was on where to fly next, and Ace would handle the rest. All he had to do was make sure he kept a tight grip on that earth pony.

Once the clouds were gathered, Ace let out a whistle, and Peregrine looped around in a circle, dropping Ace through a hole on the clouds that they'd bashed through at the beginning. He let Ace go right before passing, and Ace used the impact force of the clouds to compress them all together. Thunderstruck had needed to move in front of the cloud collision to force it to compact.

There was a brief moment of recovery as Ace rolled to the top of the cloud and started charging. Thunderstruck had to do this before starting the wind, but if Ace charged and Peregrine started the wind, they could do both at once. And as soon as the cloud was charged...

*BOOM!!*

Four bolts of lightning shot out of the bottom of the cloud in such rapid succession that they may as well have been simultaneous. And Ace was standing there on top, uninjured.

Chapter the Twenty-Fourth: The Press

The only responsibility Ace had over the next three days was to make breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole academy. On Tuesday, the second-year students were performing, which he watched to make sure his first acquaintances and training buddies were doing well. Gent wasn't there, which Ace would later find out was because of a funeral service he was attending. He'd be taking the tests on Friday, after his return.

On Wednesday, the third-year class would go, and Ace didn't have a reason to watch them. There was an inherent reason why he should, that being the fact that they had more experience, but the same was true of all classes, and to a much higher degree on the fourth-year students on Thursday. These ponies were experts, with Spitfire picking apart tiny details of their performance, which Ace was unable to notice. It really put into perspective for him how far he would need to go. But if he even made it to year four, he'd probably be used to it by then.

Friday was a true day of rest for everypony that wasn't part of the infrastructure. The cooks, cleaners, masseurs, mail carriers and so on had to keep working, but were given free reign to move around once that was done. Ace was glad he'd done all of his relaxation early, because the hot tub was over capacity, and several rules were being broken. Not to mention the various parties in the dorms.

He'd been kicked out of his dorm for the day by Blitz. Peregrine had gone home for the day, wanting to spend time with his family for the first time in two months. Ace locked his hooflocker, so he knew his stuff was safe, then walked about the school, just sort of passing the time.

Early in the afternoon, he ran into Soarin. "Can't decide what party you want to attend?" he asked, eating what looked to be a whole apple pie.

"I wasn't invited to any," answered Ace. "There's one going on in my room, but I was asked to leave. I'm just wandering."

"Have you thought of maybe just... showing up to one?"

Ace shook his head. "My classmates are... well, for the most part, they think I'm cheating."

"I noticed. In fact, there's somepony here to see you about that. Somepony from a credible news source."

Ace froze and looked up at Soarin with his jaw hanging open. "Why didn't you start with that?"

"I told them that most students would be partying, and Spitfire told her she would have to wait until the late tests were done. There's no rush."

Ace shook his head. "Where? Fixing this will give me something to do today."

Soarin waved his hoof. "We need to wait for the captain. Come on, let's go check the field."

When Spitfire was done, Strawberry Lane and Gentle Giant were exhausted, being one of four teams that had to do every test right after lunch. She'd had a few choice words for them, but had still passed them, and was now allowing them to attend their wild parties.

"Did you seriously drag him out of his party and have him bake you a whole pie?" she asked, scowling at Soarin.

"Don't be ridiculous," he snorted back. "I grabbed the pie first and then found him. You know me better than that..."

Spitfire turned to Ace, and he could see the hellfire burning behind her sunglasses. "I was sitting in the dining hall," he answered. "Soarin took the pie from the kitchen, ma'am."

"See?" smiled Soarin. "He even volunteered to come deal with this press issue."

Spitfire leaned back and folded her hooves. "And how did he know about it? Did he osmose that information out of thin air? Read your mind?"

"I told him," answered Soarin. "He decided to come and deal with it, rather than complain."

Spitfire rolled her eyes. "I was hoping to take a break, but I guess not."

Ace lowered his head. Now he felt guilty about wanting to do this right away. "If you need a break, we can do this later..."

"Nope. Here now, let's be done with this. Come on."

As she led the way back to her office, Soarin leaned over and whispered, "It's okay. She's not going to be mad tomorrow. She'll probably apologise at breakfast, too."

Ace swallowed hard. If she wasn't going to be mad tomorrow, that meant she was still going to be mad for the rest of the day.

As they walked through the administration building's front office, Spitfire pointed at a mare that was sitting and waiting. "You! My office, now!"

The mare seemed to not take her tone into account, calmly standing up and grabbing her bag. It seemed as though Ace was the only one hearing that Spitfire was actually mad.

They all walked in, and Spitfire barked at them all to "Sit." Soarin distributed chairs, even going so far as to put a hoof on Ace's shoulder.

Spitfire took a few deep breaths and a drink of water before her mood calmed. "This is Ace."

"Oh, I recognised him from the pictures," nodded the mare, extending her hoof.

"Ace, this is Headline Flair, one of the main investigative reporters of the Cloudsdale Mirror. She's one of the few journalists we don't tend to hide things from. She comes around from time to time to see if there's anything noteworthy going on here at the academy, and she was the one who typed up that article a few weeks back about your injury."

"Call me Flair."

"Ace," nodded Ace, shaking her hoof tentatively.

Spitfire leaned forward. "So, she's here because of the rumours going around. You know the ones."

"The same ones as last time," Flair noted. "I'd have let it lie, but for the fact that all of the reports are new, and for the pictures."

Spitfire's scowl tightened. "You are aware that you can't print those, right?"

"I can if I meet certain requirements, first," smirked Flair. "As of now, though, you're right. These are impermissible."

"Why?" asked Ace.

"Why what?"

"Why are they impermissible?"

Flair pulled out the letters she had received. "Because all of these envelopes are anonymous," she answered. "Not a single one filled out their name. They cannot be used because they can't be verified. The chain of custody goes backwards from me to my mail carrier and no further can it be traced. And since we cannot verify the information shown as being accurate, we legally have to treat these as doctored photos."

"Especially this one," noted Soarin, picking one up. It was especially steamy. "You can see the tape they used to make it..."

Chapter the Twenty-Fifth: The Interview

After a quick briefing of how the interview process would go, mostly consisting of Spitfire and Flair hashing out the terms of what would and would not be discussed, they were ready to begin. Soarin had finished his pie long ago, and had eaten the whole thing on his own. He'd offered Ace a few bites to calm his nerves, but Ace had respectfully declined.

"And if I tell you to strike that information, you strike it," commanded Spitfire as her last order.

"Done. Now, are we ready? Then let's begin. State your name for the record, please?"

"Ace of Clubs."

"Spell that for me?"

"A-C-E, O-F, C-L-U-B-S."

"And I already know Soarin and Spitfire. And your profession?"

"I'm a cook at the Wonderbolts Academy."

"Student," corrected Spitfire. "He's a student at the academy. He's a cook as a vocational training exercise."

"Student was what I was going for," clarified Flair. "That's what's important for this interview. Now, just as a side note, Do you mind if I snag a picture? I'd like to be able to print a picture with this article, and since I can't legally print any of the ones I have here, how about we prove that you are, indeed, an earth pony?"

Ace stood up and turned sideways, just long enough to show off his uniform and his lack of wings. He was clearly enrolled at the academy, and a quick fact-check would verify that. He was also clearly an earth pony, with no wings and no horn. Flair's camera clicked, and he sat back down.

"Excellent. Now, we have established what's odd about you being here enough already. Let's start by removing some of these rumours, hm? Let's find out which ones are true, and which ones are false."

"Okay..."

Flair opened the first letter and scanned through it. "Okay, so this first one is saucy. Ace, this past Monday evening, did you and Spitfire spend a moment alone in the hot tub?"

Ace swallowed and turned to Spitfire, who was waiting for his answer. "In what context?"

"No context. Did you or did you not sit down in the hot tub with her and nopony else."

"Well, yes, but--"

"No buts," instructed Spitfire. "Let her ask the questions."

Ace nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"When you were in there, did you or did you not say to her, "I'm here now, and that's all that matters?""

Ace shook his head. "I don't recall my exact words. I just said whatever felt right at the time, and I forgot about it shortly after saying it."

"He did," answered Spitfire. "It was in response to my apology for turning him away from the academy when we first met."

"That sounds right," nodded Ace. "I remember her apologising for that, though her exact words evade me at this time."

Flair nodded. "Spitfire, the next accusation is for you. Did you snuggle up to Ace's chest at any point during your bath?"

"I wrapped a hoof around his shoulder, if that counts," she answered. "Otherwise, no."

"I do have a picture of your hoof on his shoulder, yes. Here we are."

She pulled out a picture of Spitfire with her leg wrapped around Ace's shoulder. It looked like it could have been romantic, but it could also be platonic. In either case, it was genuine.

"So, you didn't snuggle. In the same sentence they quote you as saying "When you're about to finish, you need to really come down hard. I'd be left speechless; I can tell you that much." Is there any truth to that claim?"

Ace's face turned red. That sounded ridiculously dirty.

"I did use those exact words," nodded Spitfire. "We were talking about his performance, and how he could make a bigger boom with his lightning storm. If you had seen his performance, you'd know that his bolt was big."

"I believe I saw it," she answered. "This would have been right around seven-forty? Sounded like two at once?"

"Four," answered Spitfire. "Though I guess the sound may have blended together by the time it reached you."

Flair nodded. "The next claim is that you climbed up onto his lap and--"

"I'll stop you right there," interjected Spitfire. "That's not at all true."

Flair nodded and moved on. "Then it says that you invited him back to your bed. It doesn't say what words you used, just that you told him to join you in bed."

"No. I went to bed. He said he was going to bed, as well. I took a shower, alone, and then I went to bed, alone."

"I also showered, but I was joined by one other student," explained Ace. "I didn't ask his name, but he was dark red with light brown hair. I went to bed with my dorm mates, and while they can't confirm when I walked in, they can tell you that I was sleeping in my own bed the following morning."

Flair had been going through the various letters as they went, clearing off all of the claims as they were discussed. A lot of them were compounded, meaning a lot of them had been reported in the same or similar ways. Finally, she came to a new claim. "This one states that you've been sleeping together every night since you came here."

"We've never slept in the same bed," answered Ace. "I've been sleeping in my own dorm since I arrived, and she sleeps in... Actually, I don't even know where she sleeps."

"Staff housing," answers Spitfire. "Top floor of the administration building we're in right now."

Flair looked down at her notes. "You received a settlement recently in court, yes?"

Ace nodded. "I did."

"On the same day, did you, Spitfire, receive a hefty sum of unexplained income?"

"No. That sum was very much explained, and was from the same settlement. The defendant was to pay off three settlements. One to each of the offended parties. I was two of them, Ace was one, and I stepped forward as his representative. I believe you will find that the money is not unexplained anymore."

Flair nodded. "Any response to the claims of blackmail?"

Ace shook his head. "Not really. I'm not blackmailing the school or its staff; that's about all I can say to that."

Flair nodded and leaned back. "Now, these rumours are just going to rise back up again unless we replace them with something else. For the sake of being accurate, let's hear the story of how you were actually selected to be in this class, shall we? Let us replace this tired lie of cheating and treachery and give it an "underdog rising" sort of feel."

Chapter the Twenty-Sixth: New Partner

The weekend came and went with little fanfare for Ace. As Soarin had prophesised, Spitfire had come to him at breakfast on Saturday morning and apologised for yelling at him the day prior, but after that, she'd primarily stayed in her office until halfway through Sunday, where she did some flying of her own. Running the academy full-time was a great honour, but it left little time to stay in peak condition.

Soarin had actually been spending a fair bit of time with Ace, as well as some of the other instructors. Soarin had gone to every major party, as well as some of the small ones, to see if any of them would let Ace join in, and the general consensus was "Do we have to?" He even broke a few up, sending hosts and partygoers to the brig for having broken actual rules or damaging school property. This did lead to a fight once, leaving Soarin with a black eye, Ace with a split lip, and two drunk pegasi cuffed in the brig, but for the most part, they just said "no." So Ace joined a few of the staff members for drinks and board games. Not really his favourite thing to do, but at least he was allowed in.

On Monday, he was assigned his new partner for the next two months. Every Wonderbolt was expected to be able to work with every other Wonderbolt, so you couldn't just have the same partner throughout your entire four years as a student. Unless, of course, you always matched up with the same pony, but that meant that neither had changed places, or rather, they had moved together or apart by the same amount.

More importantly, because Ace had improved his grades so much, he was now in the top half of the class, if just barely. That meant that his role was no longer wing pony. He was a lead pony. He couldn't partner up with Peregrine if he wanted to, because they were both supposed to be leading now.

Ace met his new wing pony at breakfast. They were in the same group, but they'd never spoken directly to each other before. Ace was the first to extend his hoof. "I'm Ace."

"I'm eating. Go away."

"I'm supposed to be your new partner. I was hoping we could talk before class."

"No."

"Can I at least have your name to make sure I'm talking to the right pony?"

"No. Go away."

With a sigh, Ace went to his table, just as Soarin came in with the paper. "Good morning. Have you spoken to your new partner yet?"

"I believe so," answered Ace.

Soarin scowled. "That's not a usual answer..."

"I believe the stallion I spoke to is my partner, but we didn't really talk... Still a pariah, you know."

"Maybe this will help with that," answered Soarin, pushing the paper across the table. "Flair's story was published this morning."

Ace pulled it across the table. "I doubt it, but thanks. How's your eye, by the way?"

Soarin waved his hoof. "Don't even worry about me, rookie. I'll be fine."

Ace nodded. "Ponies are going to believe whatever they want. I can tell the truth over and over, but that doesn't mean they're going to believe me. Not even my partner."

Soarin shook his head. "He has to work with you. His grade, as well as yours, depends on it. Even so, your instructors aren't going to be idiots. I can tell who's working and who's not. Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Whisper Winds, Silverstream when he's around... If you're putting in the effort, and your partner is ignoring you, we'll see it. This isn't just about how well you perform. It's about how well you work with others, and we've seen that you can. Just... try to work with him, okay?"

"I will do what I can," promised Ace.

Their first task was an old one, with a simple twist. Cloudbusting was easy, and it was a great way to see if having new partners would change how it was done. There was a lot of trouble with the line-up to begin with, as all wing ponies were supposed to stand next to their lead ponies, and Ace's wingpony, Crop Duster, kept moving down the line to increase the distance. Every time Ace would move closer, he'd move away, until Spitfire threatened to expel him on the spot. Worst of all, he had to think about it before he finally agreed to stand still.

They were assigned their sections of sky and Ace turned to his partner. "So, first, we should go out to the center of the area. Are you fami--"

He made it no further, as Crop had already flown off to bust clouds on his own, using the most basic technique of just moving from one cloud to the next. Spitfire had heard the whole thing, as had Peregrine, who offered to let his time falter a bit to bring Ace out to a cloud, even though they were supposed to be competing. Ace thanked him, but refused the offer, hopping a cloud of his own to row out and supplement Crop's technique.

Ace didn't actually bust any clouds except for the last two. He came close a few times, but Crop intentionally broke from his path to remove any clouds from Ace's area. Again, Peregrine took a small hit to his score to send a cloud toward Ace so that he could claim that he busted at least one cloud, and then after he was done, he busted the cloud that he'd been riding around on.

At the end of the lesson, it was Peregrine and Crop Duster that were called to the front of the class. Crop was chastised for being uncooperative, for which he claimed that Ace didn't even bust any clouds, a statement that he didn't know was false because he hadn't been paying close attention.

Peregrine, on the other hoof, was given a commendation. While he hadn't performed particularly well with his new partner, Spitfire had taken into account his actions outside of the range of the task. "It is the sign of a good leader that, rather than worrying only about your own team, you've opted to assist a struggling competitor. Your grade has moved up two ranks because of that."

Chapter the Twenty-Seventh: Injunction

Spitfire sighed as she filled out the paperwork. Crop Duster had quit, and with nopony else to take his place without splitting up another team, Ace was struggling and starting to fall behind. She knew that Peregrine would work with him, but Peregrine already had a partner, and it would be unfair to damage his new partner's grade in order to help Ace, especially when Ace was still scoring higher. She could potentially just make Ace the lead for Peregrine's partner, but that would be punishing Peregrine, who had already put in a lot of work.

That's not to say that Ace was really working alone. Peregrine had been warned about assisting his competitors too much, and had reset his focus on completing his own tasks, but he still stepped in to help Ace whenever he could. To that effect, Ace was still managing, but he couldn't just always rely on Peregrine to help him out. The next round of Capture the Flag was fast approaching, and with no partner and Peregrine needing to actively fight against him, Ace was going to suffer.

The door opened, and Spitfire raised her head to bark at the entrant for not knocking, but before she could spit out a single word, she clamped her mouth shut, jumped to her hooves, and saluted. "Lance-Paladin Steelwing, sir. Princess Luna, ma'am. To what do I owe this visit?"

"Be seated," commanded Steelwing. He wasn't her boss. He was her boss's boss, and he did not look happy. Having a princess in attendance, too, made it seem like she was in big trouble. "State your name and rank."

"Lance-Captain Spitfire, sir."

"You're in charge of this facility, Captain?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll keep it brief, Captain. I'm here because of the rumours that started three months ago. Word has spread that there is an earth pony at this academy. Is this true?"

Spitfire swallowed. She had not released her salute, despite sitting down as commanded. "Yes, sir."

"I hear that he is enrolled as a student."

"Yes, sir."

"You are aware that flight training is a mandatory course at this academy, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are aware that earth ponies do not fly, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are aware that you, Lance-Captain Spitfire, are required to sign off on all students that are admitted to the academy?"

"Yes, sir."

He took a deep breath. This was it. This was going to strike her down. He'd set up all the pieces, and now he was going for the kill. "Why did you allow this to happen?"

There it was. She had allowed this to happen. Her only escape was to claim that she didn't know, but he'd already cut off that escape. Sure, she could say somepony else had filed the paperwork and make them take the blame, but aside from the fact that she was unwilling to make somepony else take the fall for her mistake, she had to sign off on it, meaning that either she had approved of this, fully aware of the facts as stated, or she had not been doing her job, which was even worse.

Her hoof shaking, she decided that her career had gone on for long enough. It was over now. It had been a good run, and she wished Ace the best of luck. "I allowed it to happen because I personally facilitated his enrollment, sir."

"Why, Lance-Captain?"

"I had a few reasons, sir."

"Well, I'd love to hear them, Captain."

She swallowed hard. "At first, I thought he would give up, sir. He would either give up or fail out, and would just show the rest of Equestria why we only accept pegasi."

"He has yet to give up, I take it?"

"That is correct, sir."

"And you haven't failed him because?"

"Because he's passing all of his classes, sir."

"And you expect him to keep passing?"

"I... I don't know, sir."

"You don't know. Well, I do. He can't. He can't do solo flights. He can't do synchronised flight. He can't recover from the dizzitron. He can't pass these classes."

Spitfire furrowed her brow. "With all due respect, sir, your assertion is incorrect."

Princess Luna, who had been silently standing at the back of the room, flicked her ears forward.

"You are telling me that he can fly?" barked Steelwing. "You are under the impression that this pony with no wings is capable of flight through his own power?"

"That is correct, sir."

Luna leaned forward. "That's quite intriguing. I trust that you have evidence to back your claim..."

Spitfire nodded. "I do, your highness." She walked briskly to the corner of her room where she kept her filing cabinets. Ace's grades from the first term were already put away, so while she could show him struggling without a partner, she could also show them proof of his success in the past. "I have here the records from his solo landing from the dizzitron." She opened the file to the proper page and laid it out on her desk for them both to see.

Before Steelwing could lean forward and look, Luna brought the entire file over in front of her with magic, scanning through not just his dizzitron records, but everything he'd done. She kept her face still throughout. When she finished, she returned it to the desk. "Impressive if true."

"Yes, ma'am," nodded Spitfire. "He's very good at flight, despite his race."

"Good at flight," scoffed Steelwing. "I'll believe it when I see it."

That was it. That sentence was her saving grace. A moment ago, Spitfire could have sworn that she was going to lose her job and her rank, but now... Now she had an opening. She could save her job, and she could keep her rank. She'd been cornered, but now there was an opening, straight through to the other side.

"Then come and see it, sir."

Steelwing looked up from the report, glaring at Spitfire through his eyebrows. "Do you dare to order me, Captain?"

"No, sir. I dare to invite you. I invite you and her grace, Princess Luna, to come and see the very student described in this report."

"He's on the field now?" asked Luna, standing up.

Spitfire looked at the clock. "No, he's in his history class right now. But I can pull him out and have him demonstrate his abilities for you. I am still the dean of this academy as of this moment, and I command the respect and admiration of my students and educators. If I walk into that room and tell him to come with me, he will."

Chapter the Twenty-Eighth: Royal Judgement

It took a bit longer for Spitfire to set up the demonstration than she had originally expected. Luckily, she had Soarin to help her through the last of it, so while it wasn't done when she went to collect Ace from his class, it would be done by the time they returned to the field.

"--ember to bring your homework back tomorrow. Class dismissed."

Just as she arrived, the whole class stood up to leave.

"Sit," commanded Spitfire, walking into the room. The students were confused, but did as they were told.

Their professor flew over and stood next to Spitfire. "What's going on?" he asked in a whisper. "Do we need to arm ourselves?"

Spitfire shook her head. "No. They're fine, I just need a few of them." She turned to the rest of the class, pointing to Ace, and two others. "You, you, and you, step forward."

The three of them came down to the front of the class. Ace saluted, but the other two just looked confused.

"Do any of your classmates from this class attend your next class?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," answered Ace, pointing to two students. One had come up with him, and the other was still seated.

Spitfire pointed to the one that was still seated and called her forward, giving her a slip of paper. "Give this notice of exemption to the professor in charge." She turned to the student Ace had not indicated. "What about you?"

"This is my last class of the day, ma'am. I'm to spend the rest of the day with a broom in my hooves."

"Good. You three, come with me. The rest of you are dismissed."

Ace and the other two followed Spitfire, as did a few others that were headed in that direction. Ace was pretty sure things would work out for him, or rather, he was ready to face whatever challenge was before him. Or, at the very least, he was ready to give it everything he had. He'd have to see what was being asked of him, first.

The other two weren't quite sure what was going on, and were trailing a bit behind. It'd been just over a week and a half since their wild party, and because of that, they had thought they were in the clear for sneaking drinks despite their age. To garner the specific attention of the captain, they knew something was up.

They made it out to the field, where she turned to them. "You three have been selected to take part in a dizzitron demonstration," she instructed, indicating the dizzitron that Soarin was moving out in front of them. "The school has excused you from your next class period to subject you to a more intensive testing environment. This is not optional, but if you pass this test, you will be granted a passing grade on your upcoming dizzitron test, and you can feel free to skip that class, perhaps even going so far as to make up the class you're missing right now."

Ace nodded and saluted. "We'll do our best, ma'am."

"Good. Follow Soarin's instructions, please."

As Soarin started to explain how the testing parameters were different from the normal tests, Spitfire flew behind a cloud wall that allowed Luna and Steelwing to see the field, and to not be seen by the students.

"What's with the other two?" asked Steelwing. "I see the earth pony, but I don't need to see the pegasi. Are they his friends?"

"Hardly," sighed Spitfire. "According to the reports, a lot of students don't like him. Some believe he's just a stunt, others believe he's unlucky, and a few think he's just going to hold them back. In fact, his most recent partner left him because, and I quote, "I'm not taking flight instructions from a flightless earth pony.""

"I wouldn't, either," snorted Steelwing. "I've been flying since I was a colt. He can't fly. I should know more than he does about how to fly."

"Certainly," nodded Spitfire. "I'd be dismissive, too. But what if he happened to be right? What if this earth pony can see things that slipped past you?"

"Enough," commanded Luna. "Let us see what he is capable of."

Steelwing looked out the viewport. "You still haven't told us why the other two are here."

"Context," answered Spitfire. "Compare him to his classmates. Watch his form."

First up was one of the pegasi. Spitfire had not selected them at random. They were in the same year as Ace, their first, and they were similarly ranked. Ace was still number forty-two, and this one was number thirty-nine. The other was forty-three.

As the first pegasus was launched, Steelwing counted the spins she'd done before even trying to recover, then how long it took her to slow down, then the amount of wobble she had on reentry. He was used to watching only the top of the class perform, and he was severely disappointed with the performance. "That was pitiful. Is this what it takes to pass your courses, now?"

Spitfire nodded. "For her level, yes. Now watch closely; Ace is next. Watch what he does."

Ace waved his hoof and moved his lips as he climbed in, and Soarin nodded. They couldn't hear what was said from this far back, but they weren't meant to hear it. It didn't really matter, anyway, as they'd see Soarin reset the machine to its maximum value, setting Ace on par with the challenges of a graduating student.

He was flung into the air, and Steelwing watched his technique. He was able to slow his spin right away, recover, and coast down to land with little effort. He still needed to nab some clouds, but his need to build had been reduced, as his build quality and speed were quite improved from when he'd first gone up. He was now using a smaller, faster, less dense glider. His time was improved to just over twenty seconds. While that was still not good enough to make the Wonderbolts, it was faster than the lowest scores of Steelwing's graduating class, and it was done without wings.

More than that, his form was spot-on. It wasn't just that he could do this without wings, it was the fact that he'd managed to do so without swinging wildly off course. He had the form and dexterity of an expert. Clearly, he knew a thing or two about flight, even though he wasn't a pegasus.

"Well, I'm convinced," chortled Luna. "Glad to know that my trust in you was well-founded. I was afraid I was going to have to rescind my statement."

Chapter the Twenty-Ninth: Advanced

Spitfire sat with her hooves tented in front of her. She didn't want to do what she was about to do, but orders were orders. At least Princess Luna had tried to help, but that on its own wouldn't stop what had been set in motion.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in."

The door opened, and Ace stepped through. "You wanted to see me, ma'am?"

"Yes," she lied. She didn't want to see him right now, nor did she want to talk to him. However, she needed to speak with him. "Please, have a seat."

"I spoke to my professor, and he said I could come back on Sunday to make up the class I missed."

"That may not be necessary," replied Spitfire. "Tell me, Ace. Do you wish to be a Wonderbolt?"

"More than anything, ma'am," he nodded.

"Do you recall earlier today when I asked for a demonstration of your ability on the dizzitron?"

Ace nodded. "Lieutenant Soarin said I passed. Did I do something wrong? I'll take the test again if I have to."

Spitfire shook her head. "No, you did fine. Better than what's normally expected, in fact. Your audience was quite pleased with your performance."

Ace reached up and scratched the back of his neck. "I didn't know anypony was watching me, ma'am..."

"Princess Luna, herself, watched you recover and land."

Ace swallowed hard. If he'd have known that Princess Luna was going to be watching him, he would have put on a cleaner uniform.

"Don't worry. She was pleased with your performance, as was Lance-Paladin Steelwing. As his title implies, he outranks me by two stages."

Ace was still trying to catch his breath. He wasn't nearly this nervous going up in the dizzitron.

"In fact, they were so pleased with your performance that they've opted to extend to you an opportunity. Starting Monday, you would be going on tour, performing aerobatics at the Wonderbolt exhibitions. You would be afforded a full uniform, a trailer to act as your mobile dressing room and living quarters, and all other benefits befitting a Wonderbolt. In return, you would need only perform your particular brand of feats in front of a crowd four times a week. This offer is not being extended to any of your classmates, just you, so don't think you can offer it to somepony you think is more deserving, because they're not eligible at this time."

Ace took a few deep breaths. This was a lot to take in, and Spitfire knew that. If she had a little bit less integrity, she'd have answered for him; no. She'd heard his reasons for wanting to be a Wonderbolt, and he'd never mentioned the fame or admiration as being important. He was there to rescue ponies in need, not be flaunted about like a side show.

"I'd be officially a Wonderbolt?" he asked. Clearly, the idea appealed to him. More than half of the students wouldn't have even waited this long to say yes. There was trepidation, and that meant that Spitfire still had some hope.

"You would be, yes. That means no more classes, no more tests, no more training. This is a skip ahead to the finish that most students are aiming for. Pretty much a guaranteed graduation."

Ace's brow furrowed. Another good sign. "So, I'd be skipping all of my classes?"

"That's correct. You would be moved ahead to graduation, the ceremony would be skipped, and you'd be placed into the Wonderbolts Reserves right away. We can't place you in the actual Wonderbolts because you'd be unable to go on rescue missions without training, but you'd still be eligible to perform in the shows."

She hoped that would be enough. Steelwing had practically ordered her to bump him up to this status, and she would have been required to, had Luna not made it Ace's decision. Spitfire wanted Ace to stay here at the academy, improve his technique, and maybe graduate on his own ability. Training could help him do amazing things, but only if he actually trained.

"I don't know..."

Spitfire couldn't help but smile at that.

"What would you do?"

She shook her head. "I can't answer that."

"I see. In that case, what do you think I should do?"

She scowled. "I'm under direct orders not to answer that question. I can neither theorise, opine, nor display any bias towards one option or the other. You have to choose."

"Oh. Sorry, ma'am..."

She wasn't allowed to sway his decision aside from just presenting the facts. She could make the offer sound unappealing, but only if the facts themselves were unappealing. She wasn't allowed to tell him that she thought he'd be better off staying here and learning more before going out into the world of sports entertainment.

"How long do I have to decide?"

"I need to know before tomorrow. If you say yes, we need to fly you out to Las Pegasus, sign the paperwork, and run you through your first act so that you can perform for a crowd on Monday morning."

"I don't suppose I'd be able to keep up with my studies, would I?"

Spitfire shook her head. "No such luck. I could provide you with a reading list and possibly a tutor, but you would be unable to attend normal classes and unable to attend normal practise sessions. You would be too far away from the academy to return daily, you would be too busy with your shows, and you would be practising a completely different skillset. You would be required, as well, to attend a safety seminar every six months, three and a half months from now. We'd be providing the course to you next weekend as a supplementary course."

"You can just... do that?"

"They're supplementary courses. Typically, they have to be done every six months, but when there's an accident that involves severe injury, the involved parties are given a supplementary course, and any Wonderbolts in the area are invited to attend as observers. The instructor will probably think that you've just caused an incident, but you'll be signed off to perform."

Ace leaned forward. "Do you think I can manage it?" he asked, then leaned back, shaking his head. "Nevermind. I'm sorry. If I did this, could I just make it a trial run? If I'm not good enough, because I don't feel good enough, could I return to the academy and focus on my studies again?"

Spitfire hadn't even considered that. Very few ponies in the history of the Wonderbolts had ever been granted graduating status and then opted to come back to the school for any purpose other than teaching or maintaining the school. Once they were Wonderbolts, they weren't going back to the academy to learn how to be Wonderbolts.

"You know what? I'll make it so. If you go, and you find that you want to return to the academy and resume your studies, I will allow it. However, you must demonstrate that you can pass all of the tests that would put you on par with your fellow classmates. That means that you need to keep improving while you're out there. If you fail, you fail, and you'd have to try again at the start of the next year."

With a strong nod, Ace extended his hoof over her desk. "Then I accept. Thank you for believing in me, ma'am."

Chapter the Thirtieth: Performing Arts

Spitfire was quick to file the paperwork, even having Luna sign off on the modifications Ace had made to the deal. The following morning, his belongings were packed up and loaded into the back of a small chariot. Soarin had volunteered to go with him, and the two would be sharing a trailer until Ace could have one of his own.

As he flew, Soarin looked back and saw Ace staring at his hooves. "Something wrong, newbie?" he called back.

Ace looked forward. "N-no. It's nothing. I'll be fine."

"You will," nodded Soarin, turning his head forward again. "You're going to be great. Trust me."

"Oh, I do," chuckled Ace nervously. "You think I'd have climbed into this thing if I didn't trust you?"

"No," shrugged Soarin. "On the other hoof, you won't tell me what's wrong, so do you really trust me, or are you just saying that to make it seem like you do?"

"I'm fine," waved Ace, "I'm fine, I'm just... a little bit peckish, that's all."

Soarin nodded. He knew otherwise, but he couldn't force it. Not yet, anyway. "We'll find you something to eat once we land."

Ace returned to looking at his hooves. He was trying to convince himself that he'd made the right decision; that this was what he wanted. He'd said it himself, that he wanted to be a Wonderbolt, and now he was one. He wasn't the youngest, the fastest, the strongest or the most resilient, nor was he the most talented. But he'd been selected by a Lance-Paladin to be included, anyway. And while he was listed as a Lance-Squire, meaning Soarin outranked him four times over, he was still being selected to perform as a Wonderbolt in uniform.

It wasn't long before they landed and started unloading Ace's things into Soarin's trailer. It was barely larger than his dorm room, made smaller by the fact that there needed to be room for a micro kitchen and dining table, as well as all of the trailer maintenance tools. The bathroom was practically just a toilet and shower, separated from the living area by a curtain. And to make matters worse, there was only one bed; a single.

"Oh, don't worry," assured Soarin, seeing the look on Ace's face. "The bench for the dining room folds out. I think they make the beds for these things small on purpose to prevent us from bringing mares back to our trailers, you know?"

Ace nodded. He had grown accustomed to sleeping in a single bed with other ponies being able to watch him, but this felt different.

"I'll show you after we eat," smiled Soarin. "What do you feel like having for lunch? I can have it delivered."

"I'm not really all that hungry right now..."

"No? You said you were peckish on the chariot."

"... I did, didn't I?"

Soarin stepped closer and put a hoof on Ace's shoulder. "Look, kid. It's perfectly natural to be nervous your first time. It's especially scary to be tested in front of a live audience mere days from now when you haven't studied. I know the feeling. If you're having your doubts about it, all you have to do is say so."

Ace lowered his head. Obviously, Soarin had hit pretty close to the truth.

"Seriously, though, I'm starving. Longmese? I'm thinking some Longmese."

Ace nodded absently. With his approval, Soarin stepped out, found an assistant, and placed his food order. It was less than a minute before he returned to find Ace sitting at the table with his head in his hooves. With a knowing sigh, Soarin sat down across from him. "Talk me through it."

Ace just shrugged. "I don't know if I made the right choice."

Soarin shook his head. "Who can say? You've made a choice, and either it will work out or it won't. I can say that, maybe four times in my life, I've seen somepony plucked from the academy and directly woven into the Wonderbolts. Well, five, now, but of those four, three of them are still in the lineup. The one that failed was sent back to the academy, and now works at the weather factory as a snowflake designer. It's rare, but it happens, and you're probably still going to be fine, even if you crash and burn."

"Do you think I made the right choice?" asked Ace. "Or are you not allowed to say, either?"

"No, I'm allowed to say. Captain Spitfire wasn't allowed to tell you her thoughts because it was supposed to be your decision. You're contractually obligated to be here for the next month and a half, and I'm under orders to make sure that you do, and that it goes smoothly, though I do have the authority and permission to place you under arrest if you don't do your job; remember that. As for my thoughts, I agree with Spitfire. You should not have come. But you're here now, so we may as well make it work."

Ace shrank down a bit more when Soarin mentioned that neither he nor Spitfire thought this was a good idea. His stomach was turning over again, and he began to panic.

Soarin reached across the table and took his hoof. "Look at me, Ace."

Ace glanced up, but his mind was reeling, and he looked back down at the table until Soarin pulled his chin up.

"Like it or not, you're stuck here until the end of the tour. Just as, like it or not, I'm stuck watching you until you either return to the school or are fully cemented in place as part of the Wonderbolts. I could make a big stink about it, whine and complain, question every choice I've ever made up to this point and cry like a big baby, or I can do everything in my power to make it work. You're a smart stallion, Ace. I think you made the wrong move in coming here, but you're going to make a lot of decisions in the future. And perhaps those decisions, you'll be allowed to think about. Six weeks. That's how long you have to think about whether or not you want to go back to the academy. I can't decide for you, but I think you should."

There was a knock at the door, and the pony Soarin had sent had returned with food. Soarin accepted it and set it out on the table.

"Unless you'd rather stay, of course..."

Chapter the Thirty-First: Pre-show Nerves

The weekend passed so quickly. Soarin had to rush through putting together a routine for Ace to perform for the show, they had to be able to run it through and practise it over and over until he could do it right, he had to be fitted for a uniform, he had to practise in the uniform to grow accustomed to the feel of flying in a full jumpsuit instead of the cadet outfit, there were four photoshoots he had to pose for, and all of that had to be finished within two days. It was little more than a blur, and when he woke up on Monday, Ace could not remember going to sleep. The fold out bed that doubled as a bench looked uncomfortable, and certainly felt uncomfortable when he lay down, but when it was time to go to bed, he hit the plastic mattress and was out.

Ace was given the shower first, while Soarin ate breakfast. It was meant to be a light breakfast, as while they needed the energy, they had to be flipping around in the air, spinning and looping and whipping this way and that. It wasn't good to fill one's stomach right before doing that. He'd be having a big lunch, though, and their meals would be regulated today and tomorrow. Ace stepped out of the shower and started his own breakfast while Soarin washed up. Ace was allowed to eat more, because he wouldn't be in the first two events of the day, and had an extra half hour to digest.

After their showers and breakfast, they put on their uniforms and made their way to the arena they'd be competing in. The Las Pegasus Skyview Dome was the fifth largest arena in Equestria, and fans were already camped out in front of the doors to be let in. Soarin and Ace were able to avoid them through the staff entrance, as were several other Wonderbolts. Lance-Commander Skylight, Lance-Sergeant Wind Spire, and Lance-Lieutenants Autumn Gust and Freefall were already there and mostly in uniform.

"What's this rookie doing here?" asked Wind Spire, approaching them. "This is a professional environment. You're supposed to have some experience under that belt before you start performing."

"Easy, Sergeant," calmed Skylight. "He's probably the stallion Steelwing sent. The better question is, why weren't you at the meeting?"

"He's been very busy," answered Soarin for him. "Ladies, this is Ace. He's going to be performing with us today."

Wind Spire snorted. "Have you done your wing-ups today, rookie?"

"Don't antagonise him," growled Soarin. "He may be a bit green, but he's not going to do better if you exhaust him before he even goes on."

"He should still limber up a bit," encouraged Autumn Gust.

"Yeah," agreed Freefall. "We should know the limitations of our new performer. Stretch those wings, Squire!"

Ace just lowered his head.

"Enough with the teasing," surged Soarin, stepping forward. "Let him be. You can chat with him after the show, but for now, we need to set up."

Before long, the stands were filled with ponies, and the prep rooms filled with technicians and VIPs. There was a large opening through which the Wonderbolts would exit the room and into the arena, and through it, Ace could see how many ponies were here already. Soarin had left him to have his mane touched up, because Soarin was in the first event, and needed to have his mane styled to consistently blow away from his face.

"Nervous?" asked Skylight.

Ace swallowed hard. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. You should be, because the tailor forgot to put wing slits in your uniform. You're going to have a lot of trouble spreading your wings."

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Once you have that fixed, try to relax. There are thousands of ponies here to watch you, and they didn't come here to watch you shake in your boots or wet yourself. They came to watch you perform amazing aerobatic feats. So what are you going to do?"

"A-amazing aerobatic f-feats, ma'am."

"Good. Now, go fix your uniform."

"Yes, ma'am."

Ace returned to his prep room and waited for a bit, then unzipped his wing holes. His outfit was the standard uniform, and instead of making a whole new one or stitching the wing holes closed, they'd just slapped two zippers on it hidden under a flap to look invisible at a glance.

He stepped out when it was time for the opening ceremony. Seven Wonderbolts were selected, himself not included, to perform the opening ceremony. Soarin was number three; the left center. He was fitted with a smoke trail to show his path, then they were sent out in formation, first to fly over the crowd, then to draw the Wonderbolts Logo, and then to break formation and fan out, each landing at designated locations. Ace was ineligible for selection, of course, because there was a minimum speed requirement, to make sure the logo could be created before the smoke over the crowd dissipated, and a maximum speed requirement to keep the smoke from running too thin. It was fairly complicated to put together, but it looked amazing, was a real crowd-pleaser, and was made a lot easier when there were thirty different ponies all working together to make sure it went right. This was where team cohesion was crucial.

That lasted about two minutes as six more Wonderbolts took the field and three stepped away. Ten of them would be racing out of the twenty that were here today. It was a pretty standard race; twenty-five laps around the track. Soarin would be competing, as would Freefall and Autumn Gust. Skylight would be officiating, and Wind Spire was coming back to the prep room.

"You're not competing in the race?" she asked. "Come on, rookie, that's the easiest event of the bunch! Just fly fast and turn left."

"I'm not the fastest flyer," chuckled Ace.

"That's because you didn't do your wing-ups. If you'd have practised instead of loafing about, you'd be ready to race."

Ace shook his head. "I lack the proper bone, muscle and feather formation for quick flight. I'm more designed for dexterity, maneuverability and accuracy."

"Sounds like an excuse to me," she snorted back at him. "Just remember: When you're wearing our uniform, when you're using the title of "Wonderbolt," you're representing what we are; the best of the best. There's no room in the Wonderbolts for quitters or losers."

Ace nodded. "I guess it's a good thing I'm not a quitter, then."

Chapter the Thirty-Second: Ace's Premiere

Soarin came in third place. Ace was privy now to the techniques involved, and knowing that this was a show for public approval and not a real event, He could see that he'd tilted his wings slightly to add a tiny amount of drag. The body of a Wonderbolt was a finely-tuned machine, and even small adjustments could have big effects. This time, the effect was an almost unnoticeable reduction in power that pulled Soarin from second place back to third so that Freefall, freshly promoted, could pass him and take second. Doing so would generate some hype for her and draw in the crowds to see a relative newcomer rising through the ranks, mostly for the story being portrayed.

As Skylight started announcing the results of the race, Ace was yanked back into a prep room, given a final once-over of his uniform, and was ordered to talk his way through his routine. It was a simple one, as Soarin had less than a day to put it together, and Ace had less than a day to practise. If the routine was too complicated, they'd never pull it off.

"Now, I know you've all been reading the news," came Skylight's voice echoing down the hall as Ace was shoved into position. "We've all seen the stories of the earth pony that's been accepted into the Wonderbolts Academy. Today, we have a real treat for you, because he's... here!"

Ace looked up at Skylight's face, and while she seemed to be smiling, her eyebrows betrayed her confusion. Even the falter in her voice denoted that she didn't know about this.

"For our next display, I am proud to introduce to you the first earth pony Wonderbolt, the Ace of Clubs!"

There was a small bit of fanfare that was slightly off-kilter, as if some of the trumpeters weren't sure whether or not this was a joke. There was some applause, a fair bit more laughter, and a few murmurs as Ace stepped out onto the field, but most of the crowd seemed silent. Ace waved, as if introducing himself, and he put on his best fake smile, but the laughter and bad introduction had him very worried.

Soarin and Skylight flew over to walk with him. "Keep a level head," instructed Soarin. "We may have botched the introduction, but your act is still solid. Focus on the act. Do well, and they'll cheer for you. They'll change their minds, I swear it."

"Why didn't you tell me we were pulling a stunt like this?" growled Skylight through gritted teeth masquerading as a smile. "You made me look like a fool out there!"

"I thought you knew, ma'am," whimpered Ace, just barely managing to keep his face locked.

"Leave him be, commander," shot Soarin back. "He needs to focus."

They took to the center of the field, where a modified dizzitron was waiting. This one was not only repainted to look nicer than the standard model, but it was slightly faster. Ace was no longer being tested on his speed of recovery. In fact, speed was only a factor for his launch and landing. He had to launch at great speed to carry his momentum, and he had to land slowly to land safely. It would also spin him less to give him better control.

He was launched into the air, as he'd practised with Soarin, and he exceeded the height of the roof. Had the dome been closed, he'd have hit the ceiling, but it was retracted for the show.

As soon as he began to fall back toward the ground, he activated his cloud generator. It was a small device attached to his hoof. The Wonderbolts had been using these for years to mark their trails for flight paths, and even earlier in the show, Soarin had used one set to smoke for the opening ceremony. Ace just had one that was put on backwards, meaning the clouds generated in front of him, rather than behind, and they were slightly more dense, meaning they could be used to create his sail more easily and with less incident.

Halfway to the ground, his cloud wing was ready, and he deployed it, coasting around in a wide loop to land on the dizzitron again. As soon as he did, Soarin would activate it and launch him once more. The second time, the cloud generated wasn't a wing, but a parachute, and the third time he went up, it was a ribbon attached to an aerial screw.

The fourth and final time Ace went up, he made his glider and used it to buzz the crowd, just once. He didn't have enough lift to buzz them twice as Soarin had originally planned, but he was close enough to show them that he didn't have wings, or at the very least, wasn't using them.

As he finished his loop, he returned to the center of the field, where his various cloud creations had been discarded. As he dropped from the glider, he used his cloudbusting knowledge to simply disperse them back into water vapor, causing them to dissipate into thin air. First the wings, then the parachute, then the screw, and as he landed on the ground once more, he turned and busted the glider before it landed on top of him.

That was his whole act. It had taken just over ten minutes. Ace had been focusing so strongly on his motions that he'd not been listening to the crowd, even slightly. Soarin was right, though. As soon as he opened his ears, he could hear them cheering. They liked the show. They liked his act. If he could pull in a better introduction and fanfare, as Skylight and the trumpeters were unlikely to be shocked by his race twice, maybe he could learn to like being a Wonderbolt.

"Fillies and gentlecolts, that was the Eight of Spades!" clapped Skylight, encouraging the crowd to keep cheering.

"Ace of Clubs," corrected Soarin.

"Ace of Clubs; excuse me. We're glad to hear that you liked what you saw, because Ace is going to be touring with us for the rest of the season!"

The crowd erupted into another round of applause, and even though Skylight held Ace's hoof up in victory and smiled broadly, he could tell that she was upset. She just wasn't showing it.

Chapter the Thirty-Third: After the Show

The show went on without Ace for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Throughout the event, Ace was in the back rooms, helping with setup and cleaning up. He couldn't join in most of the events because he hadn't practised, and those he could join in were already full on the roster.

Skylight had glanced his way a few times, especially when he was called onto the field to move equipment with the ground crew, but since Ace was always backstage and she was always on the field, there hadn't been an opportunity to make clear her disappointment in him.

Soarin had come backstage a few times, and had urged Ace to keep his head down, help the ground crew, not mess anything up, and he'd be right behind him when the time came. Ace had done so as much as he could, and nopony had so much as raised their voice at him other than to call his attention.

Finally, it was time for the curtain call, and Ace was brought back onto the field. This was the time that everypony that had been a part of the show was called onto the field for one more chance to greet the audience and accept their applause. There was a fairly significant swell when Ace came out, and that made him feel pretty great.

Once the curtain call was done, they all went backstage. There was a half-hour break period for the fans to unload from the stands, use the bathroom, buy merchandise, and do whatever they pleased within reason. The same thirty minutes would be afforded for the Wonderbolts to quickly shower, have lunch, put on a fresh uniform, and then return to the field to sign autographs. Ace had already showered and put on a fresh uniform, as Soarin had ordered him to stay out of the way. While the others were showering, Ace was helping to set up the tables for the autographs, as well as the tables for lunch. Having worked in the kitchens, he was well-versed in food preparation. As usual, he joined Soarin for lunch, and that was enough to keep Wind Spire at bay, and Skylight was waiting. Before the meet-and-greet was a bad time to confront Ace, because he needed to keep smiling for the fans.

Before they headed out to sign, Skylight held up her hoof. "Remember, everypony. We have a lot of pictures to sign, and it's already going to be an hour and a half, minimum. So no open-ended questions. "What's your name," "How do you spell that," and "Did you enjoy the show?" If they ask you something, keep your answers short and to the point, or the security team will cut you off. Save your long-winded speeches for press conferences or your autobiography."

Ace nodded. He knew that a lot of what she said was directed at him, because she was glaring at him as she said it. He was very willing to believe that she'd said it for his benefit, in case nopony else had, as opposed to the idea that she was mad at him for ruining her show and didn't want him to ruin her autograph signing.

They walked out onto the field to a smaller roar of applause from fans held away from the autograph table by a velvet rope. They took their seats and the fans were sent forward with their promotional material for signing. Ace was new, so he had a long line. A lot of ponies wanted to ask him questions, and Skylight had to assign an extra guard to his detail to keep things moving along.

Most of the ponies that had showed up had the photographs from one of Ace's photoshoots. He'd done two for the purposes of having something to sign for the fans, and two for the posters promoting the show. Almost everypony had one of these pictures, though some just had autograph books. One, however, had neither.

"Hey, can you sign this?" he asked, pushing forward a week-and-a-half old newspaper; the one that had been written by Flair. More importantly, Ace recognised the voice.

"Of course," he smiled, signing the paper, making sure not to obscure the article. Once he was done, he did something unorthodox, standing up and hugging the fan. "I'm glad you made it, dad."

"I've been keepin' up with your progress. I'm real proud a' you, Ace."

Security came to escort his dad off the field, and he went willingly after dropping an envelope, but Skylight still glared at Ace for holding up the line.

The rest of the signing was uneventful. Some of the ponies later in the line also presented him with the news article, and some with the even older first article that alleged that he was bribing or blackmailing his way in. There were a few that tried to make accusations of their own, for which the security team did need to step in, but most of them were genuine fans or ponies trying to collect all of the signatures to sell the collection. There were a lot of ponies here to see Ace, and because of that, everypony was sitting there for two and a half hours.

Finally, the fans were gone, and as the ground team came out to take away their table, they were done for the day. It was almost four in the afternoon, and they had the rest of the day off, as long as they were here by seven in the morning tomorrow, they could do whatever they wanted.

Skylight, however, had other plans, pulling Ace aside as soon as she was sure nopony would see them. "Just what are you playing at, Eight?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, ma'am."

"Don't play games with me. Earth ponies don't fly. And somehow, you've deceived all of these ponies into believing you can. So how are you doing it? A unicorn friend in the ground crew? A wire rig? What are you using to cheat these ponies out of their money?"

Ac didn't know how to answer that. He wasn't cheating anypony. He was primarily using clouds to keep himself aloft, but that was clearly visible to anypony that had watched his act.

Soarin stepped in, pulling her shoulder back. "Ease up on him, commander. He has every right to be here."

Skylight turned her head to scowl at him. "This doesn't concern you, lieutenant. Return to your trailer. That's an order from your commander."

"It certainly is," he nodded, tightening his grip. "But I have orders from Spitfire, Steelwing and Princess Luna to keep him out of trouble. Do you want to tell Princess Luna why her orders were countermanded, or should I?"

Chapter the Thirty-Fourth: Adjustments

Tuesday's show seemed to pass with less incident. Ace was given a better introduction from Skylight and the trumpeters, the fans asking for his autograph were faster and more easily managed, and most importantly, Skylight didn't seem to notice him at all. Sure, being on her good side was preferable, but if his options were to have her glaring at him half the day or to have her pay him no mind, he'd rather she just forgot he was there.

That is, she forgot about him until the end of the day, when she stopped him on his way out. "You'll be dining with me tonight," she demanded.

"He has to stay with me," replied Soarin. "We talked about this."

"We did," agreed Skylight. "You're to keep him out of danger and out of trouble. This is a dinner invitation, not an assassination attempt."

Soarin crossed his wings. "I'm still going to need to go with him."

"Still need a babysitter?" snorted Skylight. "He's in safe hooves. I'm not going to hurt your little friend, here, I just want to talk. And that's an order, lieutenant."

Soarin knew he couldn't refuse, but at the same time, he didn't want to leave Ace completely alone with her. He knew Ace would be physically unharmed, but if she was alone with him, she could make decisions for him that could not be countermanded. "I'll be joining you."

"Suit yourself," shrugged Skylight, walking off. "Come to my trailer at six."

Ace felt a bit uncomfortable as she walked off. "Was that really necessary?"

Soarin took a breath. "Maybe, maybe not. As far as the brass is concerned, I'm following my orders. Perhaps I'm being a little bit overzealous, but I'd rather take the disciplinary action of being insubordinate to having Spitfire breathing down my neck for not doing my job."

"And Princess Luna?"

"And Princess Luna. If I was directly responsible for an injury to you, I'd be out of the Wonderbolts before you could say "ouch.""

"I guess it's better than no protection at all," sighed Ace. "I'd rather you offer too much defense than not enough, I suppose. I'm just not sure this situation called for it."

"Maybe not," agreed Soarin. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid..."

After going back to Soarin's trailer for an hour and a half, most of which was spent with Ace reading his books from the academy so as not to fall too far behind in his classes and Soarin prepping the trailer to be moved, they put on clean uniforms and made their way across the lot for dinner. Ace knocked on the trailer door, and it opened to reveal Skylight, not wearing her uniform.

"You boys decided to dress up, did you?" she chuckled. "I suppose I should be glad you didn't wear your dress blues. Come on in."

Wearing the uniform was Soarin's idea. It was a safe option, given no dress code. If it was a formal event, the Wonderbolt uniform would meet the requirements, and if it was casual, then they wouldn't be too far overdressed. Having the uniform be clean was enough to show professionalism.

Her trailer was not much better than Soarin's. It didn't need to be; they were both meant to house one pony that wouldn't be there particularly often. It wasn't a home, but a bed that could, and would, be loaded up on a train tomorrow morning and unloaded in Trottingham in the afternoon. It wasn't meant to be a true home, just a place to call her own and sleep while touring.

"I had the runners bring in some stuff from the local grill," explained Skylight, indicating the table. It was filled with a decent spread of food, most of which was covered in grill marks, the rest of which was covered in foil. "Help yourselves."

"If I may, ma'am," interjected Ace, "What is the purpose of this visit?"

"To have dinner, and a conversation," answered Skylight. "I have the food, and have invited you to sit and eat. Do you think I would poison you? Here, in my trailer, with thirty other ponies knowing that I called you in here to eat?"

Soarin stepped forward and sat down at the table, and Ace followed suit. Skylight sat across from them and pulled out a very large folder.

"You two can go ahead and eat, I'm just going to talk for a bit."

Ace grabbed a potato and started dressing it up, while Soarin grabbed a cup full of baked beans.

"I've spoken directly with Steelwing about your situation, and it turns out there was a lot you weren't telling me. And a lot he wasn't telling me, either. You see, when I heard you were fresh from the academy, I assumed you had two years of training under your belt, and you were just skilled. It would make sense if you were being bumped up because you were good at a few stunts and were being sent out for your test run. We see hopefuls joining early every two or three years. That's an average, of course.

"So imagine my surprise when I first find out that not only are you an earth pony, but a first year, as well. You've not passed your flight sciences classes, you haven't gone through advanced weather training, you've not done any work with hail, snow or sleet, though it seems as though you were struck by lightning already... and worst of all, you have a DNC as your score for the safety training."

"That training is scheduled," replied Soarin. "The materials are in the trailer, he was going to read them tonight, and he's going to attend the seminar in San Palomino."

"I noticed. There's a signed order from Princess Luna herself waiving your ineligibility for the first week. And then there's this little gem, dated the day before yesterday. It seems that Lance-Captain Spitfire is helping to promote your work. Aside from just having her lieutenant follow you around, she's paid to have somepony else watch you, too."

She sent the page across the table, and it was an expense report signed by Spitfire, to be paid with her own personal funds, but recorded for invoice purposes. She had paid to have his dad brought to four different locations on the tour, the first of which had been yesterday. She'd set him up with transportation, a seat to watch the show, an autograph signing, and up to twenty-five bits worth of merch for each show. She was the reason his dad had come.

"In essence, I'm wanting to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. Nopony had informed me of what was happening, so I panicked. Consider this to be my welcoming you into the Wonderbolts, as well as my personal objection, which has already been overruled."

Chapter the Thirty-Fifth: Staff Meeting

It was an early wake-up call for Ace and Soarin, though they only needed to shower, as breakfast would be provided on the train. In addition to the call, their uniforms had been cleaned and hung, and were ready to go into their closet.

"So what can I expect at this staff meeting?" asked Ace through the shower curtain. "I don't want to be caught off-guard."

"Neither did they, but that's apparently what happened," chuckled Soarin. Last night's dinner still hung heavy in his mind and stomach, but not so heavy that there wasn't room for unlimited waffles. Waffles with honey butter and cinnamon apple jelly. And maybe a few pickled eggs, too, why not? "You'll be fine. It's just a meeting."

""Just a meeting" can turn into "Bad news, everyone" before you know it. The warehouse layoffs started in "just a meeting.""

Soarin shook his head. "If you end up kicked from the show, you just go back to the academy. I'll take you there, myself."

"It's not me that I'm worried about. Didn't my act replace somepony else?"

"Nope. We just made the show a little bit longer."

"Doesn't that mean it can be made a little bit shorter?"

"You're worrying too much."

"So were you, yesterday..."

Soarin nodded, though Ace couldn't see him. "Maybe a bit. Just... Tell you what: You sit next to me, I'll direct you through the whole thing. Deal?"

The handle squeaked as the water turned off. "Deal."

The waffles really did seem to be unending. Soarin was four stacks deep and counting when the meeting was called. He was given five minutes to finish that plate, and then they made their way into the conference car.

"And that's everypony," noted Wind Spire. "All yours, Commander."

Skylight stood up and clapped to draw attention to herself. "Now, I don't want to keep you any longer than I have to, so let's start a minute early, hm? First order of business is something that should have been clarified at the last staff meeting, but wasn't. When I mentioned that we'd have a new face joining us, I had yet to meet Ace of Clubs, and I didn't bother to pull his file. A little late to tell you all this news, but he's our newest Wonderbolt, brought in from his first year at the academy. Also, he's an earth pony. Please stand up, Ace."

As Ace stood up, he heard some worried murmuring. Not about him being an earth pony; everypony had figured that out by now and most of them had seen him perform. They were concerned about him being in his first year at the academy. After a quick wave, he sat back down.

"As he has not undergone the safety training, he's going to be ineligible to perform outside of his single stunt when we reach Trottingham. He will be taking the supplemental course in San Palomino, so if any of you want to join him, that'll be brought up in the next meeting, so think about that.

"Next order of business, total revenue from this stop was three hundred and forty-seven thousand, two hundred and eleven bits, and our expenses were one hundred and ninety-eight thousand, three hundred and fourteen bits. That's a net gain of one hundred and forty-eight thousand, eight hundred and ninety-seven bits. That's a step down from our usual net profit for Las Pegasus, but that's a higher revenue gain than we've seen from there, as well. We have some amount of hype, now, for Ace's act, which was also a big reason for our massive expense increase. Dizzitrons don't grow on trees, nor do they modify themselves.

"Next, I've ordered a new set of group photos. As Ace is to be joining us, I've set it up to have him featured. He'll be taking position right next to Freefall as our premium stock. Since he has been responsible for a slight gain in our revenue, we want him front and center. And since he's responsible for a massive loss, we want him to make it up to us. So we're going to really go after this "flying earth pony" thing to draw in as much attention and publicity as we can.

"Moving on, our next order of business is the radio show. We're going to need two volunteers to go to the radio station to announce the show times and dates, as well as hyping up the show. Wind Spire, I already know you're going to be one of them. Soarin?"

Soarin stood up. "I'm going to have to decline, ma'am. Ace needs more practise to refine his act. I'm hoping to make his final glide more consistent. Double the finale to what we originally intended. Barring that, I want to start walking him through some of our more coordinated stunts so that once he's gone through the safety training, he can join us out on the field more often."

Skylight nodded. "That's probably a good call. Autumn Gust, you're my next pick."

"Sure," she nodded.

"Good. Now, let's go over some revisions. For the baton pass, I think we want to swap places for Wind Spire and Breezy Boom. We saw some bad throws that resulted in the baton almost being dropped, so let's move the two of you around and see if we can troubleshoot the problem. We can fix it over the weekend once we know what's off about your technique. We're the Wonderbolts, we're not supposed to be dropping the baton."

Fourteen other revisions were proposed, all dealing with minor problems that most fans wouldn't notice. For one, Ace's angle of descent was brought up, as Skylight had the same complaint as Soarin about his airtime. It was suggested that he flatten his angle of approach by two degrees, after a heated debate over whether or not three degrees flatter would reduce his air speed too much and eliminate his momentum, or if just one degree would even be able to give him another loop without a significant increase in height. The race was adjusted so that Soarin would pull back his speed by about half a second per lap, and Freefall would loosen her grip to speed up the straightaways and increase braking on the corners. This would slow them both down a bit, by a factor of about ten seconds, but it would be a bit more flashy to make up for it. There were other adjustments, too, and once they were all discussed, Soarin went right back to the dining car for his eggs.

Chapter the Thirty-Sixth: Trottingham

After arriving, the Wonderbolts unloaded from the train in a specific order. It had been communicated to the press the order in which they would be exiting, and they just had to follow that order to make sure that the cameras caught a good look at them exiting the train. This was to drum up a little bit more hype as the lineup was made clear, a necessity as they had less prep time for the two shows they were doing here. That's why two of them had to go do the radio broadcast as soon as the photo op was done.

The trailers were set up in the lot before the Wonderbolts arrived, prompting the team to put on their outfits for training. As they did their practice runs, the radio was set to the local station, so as soon as the announcement was made, they could hear Wind Spire and Autumn Gust talk about the show, with special highlights on Ace and Freefall. Freefall for being promoted at the start of the season and moving up, and Ace for being promoted mid-season from the first year at the academy and being an earth pony.

Then came something Ace was not expecting, and it knocked Skylight and Soarin off-balance, too. The host had asked if there was any chance that they could meet and talk with Ace, and Autumn Gust had responded with "Yes." Wind Spire quickly rebutted the statement, saying that Ace was quite busy, and the chances of interviewing him was very unlikely, but there was a small chance, sure.

"Great. So now we need to prep you for an interview, too," grumbled Skylight. "As if we needed another thorn in our hooves..."

"We could have Gust do it," suggested Ace. "Her mess, she cleans it up?"

"No," answered Soarin, "It's going to end up my job. I'm supposed to do it, after all. I'll just scrap your speech for parts."

"Besides, she made the mess," agreed Skylight. "We're not going to trust her to clean it up."

"Do we even have to do the interview?" asked Ace. "Lance-Sergeant Wind Spire gave us an out. We could say I was just too busy."

Skylight shook her head. "We're the Wonderbolts. The difficult, we do right now. The impossible will take a little while. You're doing that interview. Between you, the sergeant and the lieutenant, you're going to cover up Gust's mistake from public view. We're going to pretend that this was planned from the start, and we're going to pretend that it's easy."

Two days later, after the show and the autograph signing, Ace didn't return to his trailer. They were leaving the next morning, and Soarin had stayed up with him half the night prepping him for the interview.

"Seven thirty-eight PM on Friday, for those of you just tuning in, we're joined now by two of the Wonderbolts, Ace of Clubs and Soarin. How are you two gentlecolts this evening?" asked one of the hosts, a stallion by the name of News Break. He was joined by his co-hostess, Windy Weather.

"We're feeling good," nodded Ace. He'd been told to keep most of his answers positive if he could, and if he didn't know, just be silent for a few seconds, and Soarin would take control.

"Happy to be here," added Soarin, affirming Ace's response.

"So the two of you just finished your second show here in Trottingham. How'd you like our fair city?" asked Windy.

"Well, it wasn't just the two of us up there," chuckled Ace. "Did you guys catch the show? Lance-Lieutenant Freefall had an amazing recovery from a nasty spinout, today. And that baton relay; just fantastic. And I wasn't involved in either, so, you know, credit goes to all of the other Wonderbolts, too. They worked hard, you know?"

"To answer your question, though," interjected Soarin, "We have enjoyed our time here in Trottingham. The Coriander Smokehouse and Grill was amazing, the ponies were friendly, and the streets were so clean and tidy. Everywhere you look, just beautiful scenery. Truly, we're glad to have been here."

"Excellent," nodded Break. "Now, Ace, I hear that you're still in your first year at the Wonderbolts Academy. Is there any truth to that?"

"Yeah, so... I'm not technically in the academy right now, on account of the fact that I'm on tour. If my tour ends for any reason, I am to return to the academy, but for the purposes of attendance, I'm on what is called "Academic hiatus." When I do return, I'm to be rigorously tested to ensure that I'm up to speed with my fellow students, and if I should fail, I'm to be brought back a year. Which, since I'm in my first year, that would be kicked out of the academy with option to re-enroll next year."

"Sounds tough," noted Windy. "It would be tough for any pegasus, but we're told, and we at the studio can see, that you're actually an earth pony. How do you make it to the academy, when it's up in the sky?"

"Well, it wasn't easy. I hopped a cloud that I made from local fog that took a little too long to clear out, and just rode it up to the school."

"We definitely don't recommend that, though," added Soarin.

"Yeah, what I did was dangerous," agreed Ace. "If I had fallen from that cloud after the first minute and before making it to the academy, I would have less than twenty seconds to make peace with death. Let's be clear; it's not the best way to go about attending the academy. I would strongly recommend that you never go up to a great height unless you have at least two ways down, as I do in my stunt."

"Two ways down?" inquired Break. "Surely one would be enough?"

"Normally, yes, but what if there's no way for me to grab a cloud? I don't have wings, so if my equipment breaks, I'm counting on my fellow Wonderbolts for a rescue. Here, let me put it this way: If you're up on your roof patching a hole to remove a leak, you have one way down; the ladder that you used to climb up. If a strong wind blows the ladder over, you're stuck. Because your windows were locked on the inside, because you thought you only needed one way down. If you unlock those windows, it doesn't matter if the ladder falls over, because you can go in through the window."

"That's an interesting analogy, but I see what you mean. So, what are some of the challenges of being an earth pony in the Wonderbolts?"

"Well, aside from no pony believing you at first and constantly being mistaken for a personal assistant, the hardest part is not being able to fly. It's about what you'd expect, honestly..."

Chapter the Thirty-Seventh: The Safety Seminar

Immediately after landing in the canyon city of San Palomino and having their pictures taken, Ace, Soarin, and four other Wonderbolts all filed into a conference room. Their teacher was a unicorn, which Ace thought a little bit odd, but not uncalled for. After all, he was an earth pony. If he could fly with the Wonderbolts, it stood to reason that a unicorn could teach them about general safety.

They all had to sign in, and as Ace did so, the teacher gave him a dirty look. He expected it, of course, as these supplemental classes were meant to take place after something went wrong, and Ace's signature was the only one he was required to collect. Soarin reminded him that almost every supplemental safety seminar took place right after an injury.

"Alright, if everypony could take their seats, let's begin. I wasn't given a report on the incident, so let's start at the beginning.

"Flight is a very complicated process. It may seem second nature to you, but there's a lot of small things that your brain just compensates for naturally. You can take off and land on instinct and muscle memory alone at this point, but there are some things that instinct can't account for."

He clicked his projector a few times, and showed then some of the most devastating air collisions of the last three decades. They were becoming less frequent, but the images would hit harder if the viewer remembered the events, and Ace certainly did remember a few of these. One, he'd even seen happen right in front of him. A hard shot at a Buckball game had resulted in both players being hospitalised. One with a bruised trachea, the other with a broken wing.

"Let's talk now about the greatest tool we have to prevent grievous injury: situational awareness. Little foals have tried showing off to their friends about how they can fly with their eyes closed, or backwards or blindfolded. It's a common theme that these injuries all started with the words "I can fly better than you." As Wonderbolts; as adults, you should already know the importance of watching where you're flying. Princess Twilight once recounted how her flight instructor was able to anticipate problems before they could happen because of her acute situational awareness. So many accidents are buttressed by the words "I didn't see you there." If you had seen them, you may have been able to avoid them.

"But let's assume that you did see them in time. Maneuverability should come naturally to a Wonderbolt, such as yourselves. Changing course and moving out of the way should come easy. But just because you saw somepony in the way and dodged out of their path does not mean you're out of danger. How many wagons swerved to avoid hitting somepony that stepped out onto the road only to end up overturned in a gutter? How many pulled aside to avoid a pedestrian and hit a wagon going to other way? How many stopped short and were rear-ended by another wagon that couldn't have seen the danger or stopped in time? Just keeping your focus on what's in front of you isn't enough. Peripheral vision is imperative."

He clicked the slides forward as he went. Crashed wagons were far more common, but this section ended with a Wonderbolt that had been performing solo stunts for a crowd, and had been thrown off by a duck flying across his path. To avoid the bird, he'd held his course down half a second too long, and his low fly had become a crash that broke his jaw. This was four years ago.

"Next, let's talk about your ground crew. The ponies that help you set everything up. They're going to be your best resource for avoiding mistakes. Why? Because it's their job to make sure that all of your equipment is working properly. They have to fix your equipment, they have to put all of the pieces back together when something breaks, and they're the ones setting up all of the safety harnesses and crash pads for new stunts. Treat them well, and they'll take good care of you.

"I'm talking of course about preparation and respect for your team. It's not just the pegasi in the sky that you need to worry about. The ponies on the ground, be they stylists, mechanics, repairponies, coordinators or medics are all there to make sure you fly smoothly, easily, and most important, safely. If one of the ground team says you have a damaged valve on your cloud generator, that's not an insult. If your mane stylist says you need goggles because your mane is too long, it's probably true. They're not trying to throw you off your game. They're concerned for your safety."

The next slide was an old one; a safety report from twenty-three years ago. Four different ground crew mechanics had inspected a dizzitron and noted that the stopper bolt was cracked and needed replacing. It was their job to replace the part, sure, but the parts had to be ordered, and the treasurer at the time was going for a record in their fiscal year, and had just kept pushing it down the line to save as much money as possible. When the stopper bolt broke, the dizzitron had kept spinning until it broke apart. Pieces had flown into the crowd , resulting in twelve hospitalisations and three fatalities. A new stopper bolt at the time would have set them back twenty-eight bits. The repair, medical and funeral expenses were just shy of ten thousand.

For the next forty minutes, the instructor talked about all sorts of things in reference to safety. Harnesses, integrity, discipline, teamwork and medical fitness exams, Ace was expecting to hear about. He wasn't expecting to be lectured on the dangers of anisakiasis or staphylococcal gastroenteritis, nor was he expecting a scabies lesson, but they happened. After all, the Wonderbolts weren't immune to disease, and constantly scratching a rash in front of a crowd and vomiting up nematodes was not a good look for them.

After the lectures, they were each given two packets, one of which they had to fill out then and there to verify that they had listened to and understood the lecture, and the other that could be brought back to their trailer and would cover all of the information again at their leisure. The test was incredibly easy, and Ace even noted a small flaw in one of the questions. It listed a good number of symptoms and asked what illness was being presented, and due to unclear wording, it looked more like norovirus than staphylococcus aureus, but norovirus wasn't an option. To be fair, the two presented in very similar ways. It was hard to tell them apart.

Chapter the Thirty-Eighth: Allowance

After the seminar, Ace had to wait for the paperwork to be processed for half an hour. He'd been so busy studying for the safety seminar that he hadn't even opened the letter his dad had dropped in front of him almost a week prior. He had a little bit of time, now, so he thought it a good idea to pop it open. Especially if he was going to come to see another show, as Spitfire had apparently planned.

Dearest son, Ace of Clubs,

When you were born, the doctors told me not to expect you to live past eight months. At age two, they told me you'd never be able to walk on your own. You might recall, as well, that your third-year teacher said you'd never amount to anything, and you'd spend your entire adult life flipping hayburgers. And as I write this, I've just been told that you've been accepted to join the Wonderbolts proper, before even finishing up your schooling. I've even been given tickets to see some of your shows from that nice mare that came to help you pack your things.

I remind you of these events because I want you to know how proud I am of your accomplishments. Every time you've been told that you can't do something; that you're not good enough, you kept kicking. One of your lungs isn't working right? You made it work until that second lung inflated. Joints too stiff? You worked them until they moved again. Can't memorise your multiplication tables and spit out the answers in a timely manner? You can still be the first in your class to do long division and move on to ~~tirginomet~~ ~~triggernomen~~ Well, I can't spell it, but you did it, and you know what I'm talking about.

You know better than I do what's best for you, so I'm not going to tell you to keep running down your dream. You already know your course, I know you're working hard, and we both know that you're going to keep trying over and over until you succeed. I know you're probably going to be busy over the holidays, and I'll forgive you for not showing up, but if you can, I'd like to see you outside of your shows.

The mare that gave me the tickets just informed me, Spitfire, she said her name was, that I'll be able to talk with you during the autograph signing. She suggested I give you this letter when I go to collect your autograph. If I don't make that work for some reason, I'll just entrust it to her for delivery, or something.

Oh, I saw both newspaper articles, too. I knew the first one was fake, and tried to tell everypony it was garbage, but a lot of them didn't believe me. I did hang in the living room the apology they put out, as well as the more recent article. I expect that, after your first show tomorrow, there are going to be other articles written about you, and I'll have to pick which ones I want to keep.

Anyway, I know you're busy. Maybe you don't have time to read letters from your old man. Maybe this will end up lost among a giant pile of letters from kids telling you you're their hero, and that's okay. I don't need you to read this letter. I just need you to know that I'm proud of you. I always have been, and knowing how you are, I probably always will be.

All of my love,
Your Dad

Ace wiped his face as Soarin entered the room. "Stressing out over the results?"

He shook his head. "Just reading a letter from my dad."

"A good one, I hope?"

Ace nodded, slipping it back in the envelope. "How long until we know the results?"

"Oh, I've seen the printout," informed Soarin. "You nailed it. You're allowed to perform again, for the first time. It'll be about three months before you have to take it again as part of the mandatory training. That is, unless you're involved in a nasty incident, of course. And because we're touring, and that ends up giving us a lot of local dining, you're probably not going to be booked for food poisoning. You'd probably just be excluded from the show until it clears up."

Ace nodded, taking a deep breath. "So, what's next?"

Soarin took Ace to the training grounds, where the others were already practising. After giving Skylight the paperwork saying Ace was allowed to perform with the team, Soarin started to introduce a new routine that called for six Wonderbolts. It was a simple one, but important. If they could pull it off and make it look good, it would be the new introduction to the show. Rather than cloud generators displaying the Wonderbolts logo, it would be lightning bolts. Ace was still going to do his regular act, but now he was going to be involved in the opening ceremony, too.

Soarin had come up with the idea while watching Ace's performance during his first final. This wouldn't involve any rain or wind, but the lightning was impressive, and that was enough for an opening act. As three of the Wonderbolts would cover the crowd in smoke, which they didn't need to practice, two more plus Ace would go out onto the field and create the anchor points. They had to work quickly to keep the crowd from being covered for too long, but then Ace would come in from the top. Soarin would grab him and lift him up, then drop him. Ace would then slam into the top of the cloud, which would send a bolt of lightning coursing out to the other anchors, which would be charged in such a way as to attract each other until the arcs balanced out.

Since it was just practice, they didn't actually do the trick, as much as just practice the first part over and over until they could do it in under a minute, taking notes from Soarin as they went. Ace even suggested an addendum after noticing that the clouds they were making were cluttering up the area. He suggested that, rather than generating a new cloud to ride down, he'd just bound between the clouds they'd created and bust them as he went, cleaning up the arena for the race that would follow.

Chapter the Thirty-Ninth: Broken

The next several shows went off without any problems. In Baltimare, Ace was made part of the relay team. Messing around with the cloud generator had taught him that he could build a slide for himself, and while coasting down, if he dispersed it with a trailing hoof, he could slow his descent enough to brake his fall without leaving much of a trail.

In New Hoofshire, he figured out that he could twist the end of the slide up without dispersing the cloud, and that would launch him with the same speed he'd had on his first flag hunt. As long as he had a starting height and a cloud generator, he could repeatedly launch himself up into the air to three-quarters his last peak.

Having Spitfire's expense report of his dad's tickets allowed Ace to know where he was at the shows. He was easy enough to spot at the Appeloosa Aerodrome, as the turnout wasn't huge, but before he ever went up, Ace had found and locked in his mind: section BA, row twelve, seat seventeen for New Yoke City, and section J2, row three, seat six for Salt Lick City. When he did his fly-by, he could see his dad right there, and he could hear him shouting "That's my boy!" if he listened closely.

Things were going great for Ace at the end of his first month. He had about a week left before he could decide to go back to the academy for more training, and while he had been studying, he didn't know if his lack of training could mark him as being up to the task. Soarin mentioned that he'd probably be fine, and just to make sure, he'd do everything in his power to give Ace a few days of rigourous, intensive training before he was to take the test.

As Ace was winding down from the second show in Buffalo, he took a moment to examine his journey. Five months ago, he was signing up to join a demonstration for the head of the Wonderbolts Academy, and she was telling him that he'd never make it at the academy, because he'd never make it to the academy. That act of defiance; of climbing on the cloud and making his way up had led to all of this. He'd have never imagined that Lance-Commander Skylight would be taking him out for frozen yogurt and a back massage out in the city. And yet, here he was, having enjoyed his yogurt and currently having his back rubbed by a masseur.

That relaxation was about to end, though. The door flew open and Soarin walked in, prompting the shamisen player to stop her tune.

"You better have a good reason for turning off my tunes, Lieutenant," growled Skylight, picking up her head just long enough to verify who it was.

"Apologies, commander, but this is too important. Captain Spitfire thought it was important enough to send a high-speed courier all the way across Equestria just to make sure this arrived before the end of the day."

"Too late," chuckled the commander. "It's after sunset. We can deal with it tomorrow."

"Just listen," sighed Soarin.

Baltimare mourns the loss of Sunny McCloud today, a filly who just wanted to be like her hero. After seeing the Wonderbolts show three weeks prior, she was incredibly excited to see the amazing flying earth pony, Ace of Clubs. Ace is known mostly for his acts of daring flights with no wings. According to her parents, Sunny was so inspired that she begged and pleaded for his autograph, and she told him that he was her hero.

Two years ago, Sunny was in an accident that saw her hit by a cart. Her left wing never recovered, and she's been flightless ever since. "Seeing that Ace fellow move through the sky must have given her hope," her father told this reporter. "For me, seeing [Ace's act] just set me on edge. Who would want to tell flightless foals that it's okay to catapult yourself into the air with no way of coming back down?"

"I've never said any such thing," argued Ace. "I've always insisted on having at least one redundancy in landing."

"Let me finish," insisted Soarin.

Yesterday after school, before her parents came home, Sunny stepped out onto the fourth-floor balcony of her apartment building, according to four witnesses. Clutching her stuffed Wonderbolt doll that was done up to look like Ace and wearing her costume, she climbed up into the railing and jumped into the air. By the time the paramedics arrived, there was nothing they could do. Sunny McCloud was no more.

This is not the first instance of this event, either. Dandy Dancer of Salt Lick City met a similar fate when he and his friends built a catapult in his treehouse. He broke his neck on a neighbor's fence one week before this article was written. Silent Spring in New Hoofshire cracked his skull open trying to grab a cloud from the top of a tall tree. And Zippy Cakes of San Palomino would have met the same fate had it not been for a passing mare that caught her out of the air.

Forty-seven other injuries have been reported involving earth ponies, unicorns and injured pegasi trying to "be like Ace." They all thought that they could be the next Ace of Clubs, and be that special kid that could fly without the use of their wings.

Soarin lowered the paper. "They're calling for your head, Ace. Figuratively, of course..."

Ace didn't know what to say. The very idea that he'd caused the death of three kids, and almost fifty injuries, was absolutely mortifying.

"Don't be ridiculous," snapped Skylight. "As he said, every time he's been on the radio, he's urged safety. All we have to do is have him give a speech about flight safety, make a big deal about it, and he's golden. Then he just has to look like these events really bother him. Look, he's already figured out the right facial expression."

Ace lowered his face into the rest. "What's going to happen next?"

Soarin sighed. "Skylight's right. We're going to have you give a speech. I've already arranged to have your part in the show cut down in response to this. Spitfire added in the news that she's been fielding a lot of the legal repercussions, working with media outlets, trying to mitigate the damages to our image as the Wonderbolts, and your image, specifically. At the end of the season, we'll have you record a public service announcement, and after that, we should be able to just keep going."

Chapter the Fortieth: Unwell

Ace was shaken up enough in his practice sessions that, after being hit in the face with the baton and falling off of his cloud, he was removed from the show entirely. That is, with two exceptions. He was still allowed to go on the radio shows, and Soarin had put together a speech for him that he would read through a teleprompter.

The speech wasn't anything special. It was the same stuff he'd been saying about safety, following your dreams and how it's okay to ask for help. All the while, he'd been saying that, but he hadn't been showing it.

After giving his speech twice in the Mareland Aerodrome, he bolted upright out of bed, awakening in a cold sweat from another nightmare. This was the eighth time in three days.

He turned to look at the clock. 1:22 AM. It was still the middle of the night. He had to be up in a few hours to load up his trailer onto the train to Canterlot. But if his poor performance here had been any indication, he wasn't going to take to the field. Flopping back down on the bed, part of him wished he was still bunking with Soarin, rather than having his own trailer. Right now, he could really use somepony to talk to. Somepony with the wisdom to help him recover from this spiral more devastating than the dizzitron could ever hope to create.

*Knock* *knock* *knock*

He sat back up. Who would be at his door at this hour? He could roll over and pretend to be asleep. Nopony would blame him, as he was supposed to be asleep right now, but the timing had him curious.

"Princess Luna?" As soon as he opened the door, he bowed, and doing so while standing on the stairs out of the trailer nearly made him collapse. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"No such pleasure," she commented. "We must speak with you. Stand up before you fall over."

Ace did as he was told and backed up a few steps to invite her in. "Please, excuse the mess. I've been a bit out of sorts, recently."

"We've noticed," replied Luna, moving to the table and bidding him to sit across from her. "You have been having the same nightmare over and over. When we saw it still plaguing your mind, we rushed over as soon as we could."

Ace lowered his head as he sat down. "I'm sorry, princess. I didn't mean to inconvenience you."

She waved it off. "We would like to know what it is you think is happening in your dreams."

Ace nodded. "I'm practising my stunts. Always on my own. I'm standing on a cloud with a generator strapped to both front legs. I'm working on trying to increase the jump height of my slide, and I hear this shrill cry. I look, and there's this foal falling from some great hight towards a spike trap. I rush over as fast as I can, but I'm never fast enough. I see the spikes go through them and then I wake up. It's a different foal every time, and it's always something new that they fall off of."

Luna simply nodded. That was an accurate series of events. He was clear on what was happening.

"It all started when I heard about that filly that jumped off of her balcony trying to emulate me. I wanted to save lives as a Wonderbolt. Joining the shows was supposed to help me gain perspective on how I was going to do that. Having kids injure themselves and die as a result of me joining up... That's the opposite of what I wanted." He buried his face in his hooves to hide the fact that he'd been brought to tears.

Luna took a deep breath. Not only did he have clarity on what was happening in his dreams, he knew why.

She reached across the table and took one of his hooves. "We know you only meant well. We know you wish the safety of these foals. We know that the reason you've been having these nightmares is due to your inability to save them. You know it's not your fault, right?"

"It is," he whimpered back. "If I hadn't gone out there..."

"Then they would never dare to dream," finished Luna. "You did not cause them to jump. Even if you inspired them to reach for new heights beyond their grasp, they made the decision to do so in a manner that was unsafe. Furthermore, you've opted to speak out to correct this problem."

"I can't correct it," he sobbed. "I can't bring them back."

"You also could never have reached them in time. You were already out of reach by the time they had the idea to attempt it."

Ace just shook his head. He was out of words.

"We have a solution for you," offered Luna. "We will enforce it if you wish. We cannot guarantee that it will end your nightmares, but we do believe it will help."

Ace nodded. "I'm willing to try anything. You know the domain of dreams better than I."

"We suggest that you return to the academy."

Ace looked up. His eyes were red and puffy. "You want me to stop touring?"

"You've already stopped touring. You are currently being dragged along on limp hooves. I want you to return to the academy."

"What could I do to stop the damages, there?"

"What are you doing to stop the damages, here?"

She had a good point. Ace couldn't do anything to help the fillies and colts that looked up to him if he was a nervous wreck. If he retreated to the academy, he would cease being a bad example for them, and the other Wonderbolts could continue preaching safety without him.

"They have rescue simulations in the third- and fourth-year classes," added Luna. "If you ask Lance-Captain Spitfire nicely, I'm sure she'd help you take them as extra classes."

Ace's eyes widened.

"You can't undo the damage that's been done. However, I think it would set your mind at ease, knowing you have a better chance of protecting them from further harm."

Swallowing hard, Ace nodded and wiped his face before bowing once more. "Thank you, your highness. I will return to the academy as soon as I am able."

Luna stood up. "You will return tomorrow morning. We shall escort you, personally. Go back to bed and try to rest well."

Chapter the Forty-Second: Good to be Back

With some quick coaching to Fleetfoot, Soarin helped show off most of Ace's tricks to Spitfire, along with a small crowd of other spectators that had all showed up. A few of them clapped, but most of them were silent. Peregrine even whistled, rushing up to him as Ace came in to land.

"Incredible slide, dude! Did you come up with that because of that tunnel section in our Capture the Flag test?"

Ace shrugged. "Same concept, just a different execution. But I must say, I probably wouldn't have figured out this if I hadn't tried that."

"Glad I could be there to help." His eyes glided across Ace's Wonderbolts uniform. "Looks like you're movin' up! I've been wondering where you've been. I was afraid you'd up and quit for the first week."

"He's been on tour," noted Spitfire, "much to my chagrin. Though he seems to have taken to it quite well."

"And a spiffy uniform, to boot!"

"You might want to keep a bit of a dithtanth, though," warned Fleetfoot, landing nearby. "Remember how your rep fell when you were firtht partnered with him? A thubthtantial thelection of thtudenth think he'th bad newth."

"Et tu, Fleetfoot?" questioned Spitfire.

Fleetfoot just laughed. "If I thought he wath going to tank my career, would I go up in the air with him to make hith thtuntth work?"

"He's not going to tank anypony's career," assured Soarin. "I've been working with him closely, and he's really good at what he does."

Ace lowered his head. "Thanks, but... I came back because I needed more training. I need... I need to be better."

"I'm jutht thaying, keep your head on a thwivel," warned Fleetfoot. "You're capable, Athe. But a lot of ponieth hate you. Tho be careful."

Spitfire sighed. "She's right, actually. While I'm glad you're back, I don't expect things will be easy for you. As she said, a lot of ponies don't like you. I'd suggest laying low for a bit."

"Don't worry," smiled Soarin, placing a hoof on Ace's shoulder. "We're going to focus on his training. He has to pass all of his tests, still."

"Oh, I'll partner with him," offered Peregrine.

Soarin shook his head. "You should already have a grade. Right?"

"Yeah, but--"

"Go enjoy your time off. I'll be his partner for now. Partner, trainer; same difference."

Soarin spent the rest of the morning training with Ace. Since Soarin had spent a lot of his first three years as a wingpony, only advancing to lead pony in his final year, he was quite accustomed to playing second fiddle. He would outline the parameters of the test, explain the normal method, and then he'd ask Ace if he wanted to do anything different. There was a little bit of time for practicing, and then they went to lunch. They went separately, as Soarin had to see Spitfire about the use of a cloud generator for the tests. Just as well; Ace felt like eating alone, anyway.

And yet, ponies sat down with him. None of them had food, which was odd, but it was already a different experience, as none of the other students liked to sit near him, especially in an otherwise empty cafeteria. "Do you need something?" asked Ace.

"We heard that the earth pony who wished to be a Wonderbolt was back at the academy," noted the small black one. "You know, it's dangerous for you up here..."

Ace nodded. It was to be threats, then. He owed Fleetfoot an apology; he should have been a bit more careful. "I'm sorry to have offended you, sir; that was not my intent."

"This academy is for ponies who wish to save lives, not end them. How do you sleep at night, knowing that innocent blood is on your hooves?"

"Not well," admitted Ace. "It's been quite upsetting, and I'd rather not think about it."

"I'm sure most of them would rather not think about it. But they have to. Every time they look in the mirror, they have to see their scars. Every time they try to grab something, they're reminded that their leg is broken. How does it feel to know that you've ruined their lives?"

Ace couldn't answer. He felt truly awful.

"You're a failure," he continued. "You've killed more ponies than you've saved. You should give up now and go home before you end up responsible for anypony else's death."

"Oh?" came Spitfire's voice from the door. Soarin was with her. "And how many lives have you saved, Eight Ball? I don't recall you revising your training schedule to keep watch. As I recall, you were implicated in drug trafficking. How many deaths are you responsible for, hm?"

Eight Ball snorted and stood up. "She won't be around to protect you forever, earth pony..."

As he and his crew trotted off, one stayed behind for a moment. He glared at Ace for several seconds before trotting away.

"Let me know if they start bothering you again," sighed Spitfire, sitting down. "You have proven that you have just as much right to be here as they do. You've even proven that you can make it as a Wonderbolt."

Ace swallowed. "I still feel responsible..."

"You're not. Trust me." Spitfire could see that her words weren't coming through. "Did I ever tell you what happened to my dad?"

Ace shook his head.

"He collapsed while I was a student at the academy. When I heard the news, I cursed myself for being here, rather than at home. I thought I'd killed him, because when he needed me the most, I was off at school, drinking and being the reason the hot tub has so many rules now. I was having the time of my life at the same time his lungs collapsed. How dare I be so carefree when the stallion that needed me most was dying of pneumonia? I believed I couldn't save anypony. And look at me now!"

Ace wiped his face. "What if I can't?"

"Then you'll have tried. Now, hurry up. You're allowed to use the cloud generator, just this once."

As she and Soarin walked off, Soarin whispered to her, "I didn't know that about your dad. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she whispered back. "My dad's probably tending to his flowers right now. Still kicking, living in Canterlot. I'm trying to connect with him to make him feel less alone."

Chapter the Forty-Third: End of the Term

Ace stood atop his cloud, his generators primed and ready to go. Soarin had set up two of the five tests, hoping to have at least those two and one more passed before the end of the day. They'd called Spitfire out to watch and judge him, as she'd insisted on it. If she couldn't make it, they'd just do it tomorrow, but there were only a few days remaining before the next term started, and the sooner they were ready, the sooner they could test, and the more likely it was that Ace could attend his extra classes.

"I'm here," announced Spitfire, flying up. "Let's do this."

Ace nodded. On Spitfire's whistle, he and Soarin jumped from their perch. Ace immediately started spraying his cloud path in front of him, weaving through the obstacle course in tandem with Soarin. There were three collision points on the rings this time; Ace went over Soarin the first time with a jump, under him the second time with a narrow slide, then jumped over him again. There was, of course, a string of clouds left behind, but that was part of the plan.

Through the beams, both mobile and static, they made their path using heavy banks at the top, the same with the pillars. To Spitfire's surprise, neither Ace nor his cloud trail touched a single obstacle. He even managed to go upside-down a few times, using his kinetic energy to enact a centripetal force to keep him in the air.

The rotary beams presented a bit of an issue, which was why Soarin had saved them for last. He'd also set them to go vertically, something that Ace wasn't supposed to face for two more months; avoiding obstacles straight up and down. With his hooves generating small clouds, Ace was able to push himself up through the beams in steps, floating upward like a jellyfish.

"And that's time," noted Spitfire. "A little slower than your first run, but there were some good techniques. Not sure why you opted to leave your trail behind; that's going to cost you a few points, but I'm glad we didn't need to set it up to keep you from avoiding obstacles. I don't think you touched a single one."

"I'll tell you why we left the trail behind," grinned Soarin. "Show her, Ace."

Ace saluted and made his way over to the platform on which he began and grabbed the cloud trail. Immediately, he went through the whole course again, not generating clouds, but busting the path behind him. When he reached the bottom, he jellyfished his way back up, then busted those clouds, too.

"That's better" nodded Spitfire. "Looks like you cleaned up your mess."

"And he busted enough clouds to be judged for that test, too," smirked Soarin. "Two tests for the setup of one."

"And I see you also prepped for the lightning storm."

"Yep. Might take a little longer than usual, but we expect the bonus points to make up for the loss."

"I expect so," hummed Spitfire. "Ready?"

"Yes, ma'am," nodded Ace, taking his position.

On her whistle, Ace and Soarin leapt onto the field, employing a pincer formation and smacking their clouds together. Soarin went off to work on the last cloud by himself as Ace charged the others, and when Soarin finished, he picked Ace up and dropped him at the top, displaying a slower version of Ace's opening act. Only, instead of being the Wonderbolts logo, it was Ace's cutie mark; a three-leaf clover. In addition, it had to rain, and Soarin had to activate the wind, but both of those were easy enough.

The field was dark enough when they finished that the electrical arcs lit up the area, illuminating Spitfire's eyebrows, which were raised. As soon as they stopped, however, it was a bit too dark to see. Unless they turned on a few lights, the rest of the tests would have to wait until tomorrow.

Ace and Soarin glided to where Spitfire was, awaiting the results. "That was certainly a good show," she admitted. "How many times did you practise that?"

"Twice," admitted Ace. "In all honesty, though, it's a modified version of something we've practised hundreds of times. Usually, not my cutie mark, but that's a simple change. The hard part was making it rain, and I still can't make wind."

Spitfire jotted that down. "We need to figure out how to make wind with you. By the end of your second year, you're going to need to do this alone, twice, so while we have time, I'd focus in on coming up with a plan."

Soarin planted his forehead in his hoof. "That's right... I forgot about that. We'll work on it, captain."

"Not you, lieutenant. You can make wind. I want Ace to do it."

"Nothing wrong with bringing in a teammate for group study," he argued. "Ace is a Wonderbolt, after all."

"I suppose," she sighed. "I'm really hoping you can come up with something on your own, though, Ace. If you can figure out hopping a cloud and surviving the dizzitron on your own, I'm sure you can manage the wind. You're a smart guy, Ace. If you work on it, I'm sure you'll manage."

"Yes, ma'am," he saluted.

"Now, clean this up. We're done for the night. I'll see you both tomorrow at seven, right here."

"Yes, ma'am," they both saluted.

As she flew back to the admin building, Soarin took a deep breath. "Well, you heard her. I can't figure it out for you." A grin crossed his lips. "I guess I'll just go to the library and see if I can compile a list of books on the subject. I can't think of a solution, but I can set up a path for you and point you in the right direction. You can clean this up on your own, right?"

Ace nodded. "Not a problem, sir."

"Good. I'm putting my trust in you, cadet. Don't disappoint me."

As Soarin flew off towards the library, Ace turned and looked at the field. He'd helped set it up, as part of his practise sessions and for the tests. He'd even helped put it together for his first season practise sessions and Wonderbolts training sequences. It was no trouble putting everything away before going to bed.

Chapter the Forty-Fourth: Stricken

Spitfire rolled out of bed and onto her hooves. She had four more days before she had to return to court, and she wasn't looking forward to that. The best thing she could do was enjoy her next few days of office work, ruffling the feathers of the recruits, and setting up Ace for future success.

As she showered, she thought about all of the things that still needed to be done. There was the dizzitron landing and endurance tests, but she had every confidence that Ace would pass, then she had to pull some strings to set him up for private tutoring, then return him to vocational training, and somewhere in the mix, she had to make sure that she told him that he couldn't wear his Wonderbolt uniform to classes; that he'd have to return to the cadet uniform. He could keep the jumpsuit and wear it to events as long as he remained in good standing with the Wonderbolts, but not to classes.

As she stepped out of the shower and put on her officer's jacket, her thoughts turned to breakfast. She walked out into the hallway to find that Soarin had just stepped out, as well. "Mornin' boss," he yawned. "Sleep well?"

She nodded. "Well enough, I suppose. You?"

Soarin shook his head. "Came in late, barely slept."

"How late? It shouldn't have taken that long to put everything away."

Soaring grimaced. "I didn't actually stick around to put stuff away."

Spitfire raised an eyebrow. "That was a direct order, lieutenant. Do I need to bring you up on disciplinary charges?"

"I'm sure Ace finished cleaning everything up," calmed Soarin. "He's a fairly responsible pony. Why wouldn't he clean it up?"

"You'd better hope he did," she warned. "Since you've been here longer than he has, you're going to receive three times the flak he does if that field isn't clean."

For a moment, Soarin turned away, thinking about his options. He could go out there and check, and if he was wrong, he'd have to skip breakfast and clean everything up so they could begin. He did feel a bit guilty about leaving Ace to do the whole thing himself.

But then he looked down at his shirt pocket where a folded up stack of two papers was nestled. He had the information from the library that would help Ace find the books he needed. One hundred and thirty-four books in the library specifically dealt with wind as a proponent of weather, and while most of them were how to maintain control in a windstorm, there were plenty about creating winds. He'd written down the names and call numbers of each, and was going to give them to Ace today. And since he'd outright told him that before leaving...

"I trust that Ace would not abandon the task he was assigned." He dug in his hooves. "I believe that he knows how important it is to make sure your orders are followed, and I expect that he'll have everything put away, be well-rested, and waiting for us when we arrive."

When they arrived, not only was half of the obstacle course still sitting out, but there was a big cloud right in the middle of the field, and Ace was nowhere to be found.

Spitfire turned to Soarin. "Are you ready to scrub toilets for a month, lieutenant?"

Soarin sighed. "I don't understand what happened. He's been a model student up until now. What changed?"

"You'd better hope he didn't fall," warned Spitfire. "With nopony to catch him, he could be down on the ground right now. You'd better hope that he's in his room, or else it's your head."

Soarin swallowed. He'd put so much faith in Ace that he'd forgotten that he needed somepony to catch him if he fell. He had his cloud generator, sure, but if it broke for whatever reason, Ace would have no means of slowing his descent.

"Clean up this mess," commanded Spitfire. "Now."

Soarin immediately set about returning the equipment to where it needed to go. Two young mares stopped by to help him bust apart the clout mass that had formed in the middle of the field. He couldn't ask them to help him, but he was free to allow them to help as he put away the rest of the equipment.

The scary thing was, Ace had started putting the equipment away, and he'd been doing it correctly the whole time. That wasn't proof, per se, but it suggested that Ace had every intention of following Spitfire's orders. That meant that something had happened to stop him from working on it. It was very unlikely that he just gave up, and the more Soarin thought about it, the more terrified he felt. He now understood exactly why Ace had been a nervous wreck for the last few days, as Soarin had never once considered that he may be responsible for somepony's death. Somepony that trusted him. Somepony that depended on him. Somepony he'd failed to protect.

After putting away the last of the equipment, he returned to find Spitfire staring at the mares that were trying, and failing, to take apart the cloud. They were just students, after all.

"Ace wasn't in his room," informed Spitfire. "In fact, his dormmates said he didn't come in last night."

Sheer terror washed over Soarin. His chest tightened up, and he dove off of the edge. He had to know for sure.

He was stopped by Spitfire, grabbing him by the tail. "You finish up here. I will go down and look for him."

As Soarin lowered his head, there was a shrill scream from above, where the mares were taking apart the cloud.

"What is it?" asked her partner, who was busting the cloud fragments being sent her way. "What happened?"

"There's something in there!" the other shouted, pointing to a hole.

"Well?" urged Spitfire, turning to Soarin. "It's your job."

Soarin flew up to the mares and started ripping away chunks of cloud in the hole they'd made, tossing them aside until he breached the core of the cloud. Ace was lying at the center, his Wonderbolt uniform torn open, one of his cloud generators dented and spewing out a steady trickle of mist, and covered in cuts and bruises, still bleeding from his nose and mouth, leaving a stain on the cloud beneath him. To cap it all off, he had a word etched onto his torso with a black marker: "WINGLESS."

Chapter the Forty-Fifth: Awakening

Ace opened his eyes, then immediately shut them again. It was far too bright, and his pupils stung as light flooded in. He took a few breaths and tried to remember what had happened last night.

The first thing that came to mind was his obstacle course. He remembered the first time through, then the second, then the lightning. After that, Soarin left him in charge of cleaning up while he went to the library, and he'd just made it about halfway when the ponies that had harassed him at lunch showed up to berate him again. Then... something, and then he was here. He must have gone to bed at some point, right?

He raised his righthoof to shield his eyes from the light, but the pain that shot through his leg was worse than what had gone through his eyes. He tried moving slowly, but no change. He tried his other hoof, and that helped. His left hoof didn't feel pain at the elbow, and was fine until he started to move his shoulder, but by then, even through his eyelids, he could see that the light was dimmer.

He tried to open his eyes again, and he realised that he wasn't in his room. He wasn't in the infirmary, either. He was in a hospital. An actual hospital, or perhaps a perfect facsimile of one, not the academy infirmary. That is, there wasn't a cloud in sight.

What was clearly visible was a pair of armed guards just on the other side of the door with their backs to him. They wore the uniform of the lunar guard, were each armed with a spear and axe, and were keeping their heads on a swivel.

Then a young mare walked up to them, and their spears crossed to block her entrance. She held up her badge, one of them read it, and lifted his spear, causing the other to follow suit.

"Oh, I see," she said as she walked in. "That would explain it."

Ace groaned and tried to sit up, but the sudden shock to his back sent pain coursing through his body as the mare ran up to hold him down.

"No, no! Don't move. Just lie still. That's what's going to be best for you. Here, let me just..." she pressed a few buttons on a machine next to his bed, and he felt a bit less pain as it started to drain away. "Better?"

"Y-yeah," Ace managed to choke out. He was unable to move his jaw, but anything he could say without unclenching his teeth was fair game. "Where am I?"

"You're in Canterlot Castle, in the royal infirmary. You've sustained a lot of damage. Do you remember what happened?"

Ace recounted as best he could his most recent memories. As he was going, he remembered a few more details, like how the equipment storage door wasn't locked when it was supposed to be locked, he remembered the name of Eight Ball, the stallion that had approached him, and he remembered blocking a blow with his cloud generator, though he couldn't remember who exactly had struck him. Golden Pomade had come to see him, as well as Blitz Break, Poinsettia and Gentle Giant. There were also a few he didn't recognise.

When he finished, the mare nodded. "Anything else?"

"That'sh it."

"Okay. I'll alert your doctor."

"You're not my doctor?"

"Oh, no, honey, I'm just a nurse. I came in to check on your elevated heart rate."

She left the room and walked off. As soon as she was out of the room, Ace started checking his joints to see what would move. His left wrist and elbow, his right shoulder, his neck, his nose, his ears, his lips, his tongue, his left knee and his right ankle were fine. His eyes had adjusted to the light, and the nurse had actually dimmed it for him at his request, so he was able to look around as much as he could move his head and eyes. He could see that his right back leg was elevated, he managed to find the call button if he needed a nurse, and there was an analog clock above the door that read 3:47.

He also noted a small sitting area in the corner of the room. A Wonderbolts jacket with a lieutenant's insignia on the shoulder and Soarin's name above the pocket was draped over the back of one of the chairs. He'd been here. Probably.

In point of fact, he was still here, as a few moments later, he could hear his voice approaching. "--cusing their attention on him. If we can have even a tenth of the doctors focusing on him now as we had fans at our smallest show, he'd be able to walk again in no time."

"That's not how it works, and you know it," answered Rainbow Dash. Ace would recognise her voice anywhere. "Unfortunately, he's stuck in there until he can recover, and if he's anything like me, that bedrest is going to be absolute agony."

"Unfortunately, he's a lot like you," sighed Soarin as they rounded the corner. Soarin reached for his badge, but it was on his jacket, which was still in the room. He could see it through the window.

Rainbow could also see through the window. "He's awake." Flashing her own badge, she walked on through, tossing Soarin's jacket out to him so that he could come in.

"How do you feel?" asked Soarin as he stepped into the room.

"I'm in pain," answered Ace.

"That looks about right," chuckled Rainbow, then realising that it might not be the right time for jokes. "Sorry."

Ace waved it off with his good wrist. "I take it I failed the dizzitron tesht?" he asked, turning to Soarin.

"You were afforded a temporary exemption," answered Soarin. "Don't worry about that right now. You're not on the hook for that until you're fully recovered. Right now, what we need to know is what happened. What went on between the time that I left for the library, and when I came back?"

"Shkipping over the boring partsh and unimportant thingsh, right?" chuckled Ace.

"Yeah," smiled Rainbow, glad to know that there was still a bit of levity to be brought out. "We only have four hours left of nighttime."

Chapter the Forty-Sixth: Investigating

Spitfire hadn't slept in two days. She'd been watching the interviews as everypony said where they had been and what they were doing at the time that Ace was attacked. That is, any time between when Soarin left and when they found him. It was a nine-hour period, and while all of them had alibis, not all of those were provable. Peregrine, for example, had been in Cloudsdale, and Fleetfoot had a record of that. Even so, Spitfire was pretty sure Peregrine was innocent. Others, like Silver Fleece, had been locked up most of the night for drunk and disorderly conduct. According to the guard she'd kissed, she tasted like rum half an hour before Spitfire left the boys, and had gone to a holding cell being released to the infirmary when she woke up to rehydrate. They could prove that they had nothing to do with it.

Unfortunately, most of them had either no alibis or bad alibis. Security could account for some of them being at some places at some times, but other students would say things like "I don't remember her being there," or "He might have arrived after I left," so it was difficult to distinguish where everypony was.

Classes were supposed to start yesterday, but everything was being compacted, and almost nopony was allowed to leave. A few students had tried to escape, and had been locked up for their trouble, but this was all starting to turn ridiculous. Somepony had to admit to something, and unless they did, she wasn't going anywhere. She was perfectly willing to keep everypony in a constant rotation until somepony confessed or pointed out the real culprit. Eventually, everypony would break, and if she would go down as the cruelest captain in the history of the Wonderbolts, then so be it. She would rather be known for her cruelty than be the captain that let her students commit hate crimes.

"Ma'am?"

She looked up. "Lieutenant. I told you to keep an eye on Ace."

Soarin stepped forward. "I have six guards watching him right now, plus Princess Luna. He can be in no safer hooves."

"And if he wakes up, who's going to be there?"

"Oh, he already did. I spoke with him."

"And?"

"He remembers what happened. Kind of. A few head wounds tend to make things fuzzy, but he remembers seeing these ponies." He pulled out of his pocket a list of names. "That's not the order. He doesn't remember the order. Though he's pretty sure Gentle Giant didn't beat him up."

Spitfire nodded. Gentle Giant had once protected Ace from harassment. She'd seen from across the room one of the third-year students prodding at Ace and running his mouth, and before she could make her way over to the scuffle, Gent had taken the student by the shoulder and brought him down to his knees. Not ideal, but she had no reason to suspect animosity from him.

She looked at the rest of the names on the list. "Everypony else here had a motive. A motive and no alibi. Except..."

Soarin leaned in. "What?"

"Golden Pomade has his father's protection. One of those rich kids with a big, fancy lawyer. We can't directly go after him without evidence. The rest of them, we can single out for suspicion, but the only reason we're allowed to go after him right now is because we're going after everypony." She sighed and rubbed her temples. "Why did he have to be there?"

"Does he have another alibi?"

"Three. Not the tightest. He was seen at nine o'clock, one-thirty, and six-forty-five. The third one, we know for sure. The first time, he walked into a party and broke a lamp. He denies having broken the lamp but admits to being there. The second time, he was having a loud argument with a mare. He claims he was having an argument with a stuck-up bitch, she claims he was a pompous arse. Then, a few hours later, he checks into the infirmary with a fat lip and a black eye. He claims she hit him, she claims she was in bed with another stallion, the other stallion claims he's never met her."

"Then they were probably in bed together," reasoned Soarin, "and the other stallion's covering his arse. They should both know that's against the rules, but she's admitting to it because her other option is battery. What about the others?"

"Eight Ball says he was in his room all night. We know he's lying about that, because eighteen students each said he was out and about. See, when you threaten them with drug testing, they'll suddenly admit to what they took, because while taking something means the stocks, taking something and lying about it triples the sentence. We're still looking for his stash, but we know he wasn't in his room. Plus, he has his thugs."

"Okay."

"Blitz Break and Poinsettia have both been warned and punished for bullying Ace. Lots of extra laps. I was also able to note their alibis. Poinsettia was around when Pomade broke the lamp, then called him a pompous arse, then went and slept with Coal Smoke."

"So she's..."

"No longer dating Golden Pomade? About to be removed for gross misconduct? Probably telling the truth about everything else that happened that night? All of the above?"

"Perhaps we should bring her back in?" suggested Soarin.

"Perhaps we should. Good work, lieutenant. Why don't you go hit the showers before you return to Canterlot and see if Ace remembers anything else?"

"Right away ma'am. And captain?"

"What is it, lieutenant?"

Soarin placed a hoof on her shoulder. "You should rest. He wants to see you, and he's not going to be impressed if you look this ragged."

Spitfire lowered her head, but did not try to shake off his hoof. "That's a shitty thing to say, Soarin."

"Well, you look a mess. Pull yourself together, captain. For his sake."

Spitfire raised her head and took a deep breath. "Tell him I'll swing by tomorrow on my way to court. I'll try to sleep tonight. Just... Don't tell him I'm this upset, would you?"

"A little too late, Captain."

"Out, before I revoke my shower order."

"Captain..."

As Soarin's hoofsteps retreated, Spitfire grabbed a hoofkerchief out of her pocket, using it to wipe her face before putting on her mirrored sunglasses. It was time to interrogate another student, and she couldn't do that if she was crying.

Chapter the Forty-Seventh: Checking In

As Spitfire landed in front of the castle, she checked in with the guards as a visitor, despite her rank, and jumped through all of the normal hoops that would allow her passage into the castle. It wasn't hard, and as she'd been doing this for twenty years, it took less than two minutes to pass through the entire security detail.

As she approached the infirmary, however, she hesitated, taking a moment to dip into the bathroom. She had to look in the mirror, first. She felt silly, checking her appearance in the mirror before going to see a stallion like a common tart, but she had a good reason. She didn't need to look beautiful, she just had to look stoic and strong. She had to look as though she was having little trouble upholding her personal and professional codes of honour. Not like a foal that had cried itself to sleep last night.

She wasn't wearing makeup, so she washed her face once more in cold water to ensure that any residue was gone, patted it dry with a towel, and took a deep breath. She could do this. She saw ponies injured all the time. Just because it wasn't an accident or negligence this time didn't change what she was going to see.

As soon as Spitfire walked through the door, on instinct, Ace tried to sit up straight and salute, but the sharp pain that shot through his body sent him right back down, along with the nurse that was in the middle of sponging his shoulder.

"At ease," Spitfire commanded, raising her hoof to urge him to stay down. She was unable to hide the crack in her voice. "How are you faring, Ace?"

"Not good, ma'am... Almost everything hurts."

Spitfire nodded. "That's to be expected, I suppose. Did you remember anything else from that night?"

Ace shook his head. "Bits and pieces, maybe. According to the doctor, I was hit in the back of the head first, and that scrambled a few things. Says I'm lucky to remember anything from that night at all. How about you? How are you doing?"

Spitfire swallowed. "Not great. I don't take kindly to violence against those under my command, nor do I take kindly to excessive violence perpetrated by those under my command. That both have happened at once is wholly unacceptable."

Ace lowered his head as much as he could without being able to sit up. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to touch a sore spot. How about classes? Those are going well, right?"

Spitfire shook her head. "Not a single class has started. Not a one will until we find out who was responsible for this."

"...Oh..."

"...Yeah. We've managed to rule out quite a few students so far, mostly due to who you remember being there. We managed to order some of that list you sent us, too. We know that Gentle Giant was there, and he left before Poinsettia and Pomade approached. They all separately confirmed that. As they were leaving, Eight Ball was approaching. We now have twenty-two ponies saying he left his room that night, and he still claims he didn't."

"He did," nodded Ace. "I remember seeing him."

"Poinsettia admits to having made fun of you with Golden Pomade, then having flipped on him in the middle of the night after he told everypony that she did something utterly deplorable to you. Something that one of Eight Ball's dumber thugs denied having seen when he arrived, despite otherwise holding that he never arrived. We actually have enough on Eight Ball to put him away for thirty years, but if we just call that good, then it's possible that the pony that actually attacked you would go free. I'd much rather have a confession."

Poinsettia had actually been more helpful when they started asking more directed questions. Open questions, such as "Where were you at what time" had done almost nothing, as the most significant event of her night was breaking up with her coltfriend after he started spreading lies about her and immediately replacing him with another stallion and lashing out at him by using his bed. She was almost ready to take the fall for that, if it meant taking Golden Pomade down with her. The interrogators had all been asked not to mention Ace at all unless he came up. The instant they asked her if she'd seen Ace, she had immediately gone off about her involvement with him, and while she was likely to spend a fair bit of time in the stockades, and would be made to wear a magical tracker, she probably wasn't going to be removed from the academy. But she'd really have to watch her behaviour from here on out.

"Anyway, I'm just here to check on you, make sure you're doing alright before I go to court. We're reconvening on your case, where you're alleged to have killed those kids."

"I still feel awful about that..."

"I know. It's still not your fault. Just like you being in here isn't solely Soarin's fault, but he still feels a hundred percent responsible."

Ace sighed, shaking his head. "So much is going wrong. I'd take all of the blame for everything if it would put an end to this."

Spitfire nodded. "I know. And that's why I'm not allowing you to do that. We need more ponies like you, Ace. Ponies willing to risk themselves to open the door for others. Ponies that hold the door open for little old ladies knowing that she might take the last bear claw and leave you with a chocolate croissant. Ponies that will lift their compatriots over a high ledge with no guarantee that they'll turn around and pull you up with them. It's unfortunate, but you're a rare breed."

"If it's going to make things easier, don't worry about me. I'll put in the extra work the minute I'm out of here."

Spitfire smiled broadly. "I know. And so you shall. But you're going to work as I command. Is that understood?"

Ace lifted his leg as if to salute, but the nurse stopped him. "Stay still, or I'll cuff you to the bed."

Ace nodded. "Yes, ma'am." He turned to the nurse. "And yes, ma'am..."

Chapter the Forty-Eighth: The Turn

Spitfire was once again sitting in her office, pouring over the paperwork. She had in front of her the signed statements of the various ponies that contradicted Eight Ball's claim. She had more than enough evidence to have him thrown in the dungeon for the rest of his life. She'd kept him from his clients long enough that some of them were going through withdrawal, and had come forward with evidence hoping to take a cut of the drugs they found, and as a result, she'd found his stashes. Three of them, at least. She'd also needed to install a rehab program in the infirmary. She was willing to give the junkie students another chance if they cleaned up their acts, especially since they were instrumental in ensnaring their dealer.

The problem was, now he had an alibi. While that was a good thing in some ways, as it narrowed down who had attacked Ace, it also meant that her initial thought was wrong. Out of everypony, she was sure it had been him, but with all of these ponies coming forward, more than fifty ponies had seen him that night, and he'd been around the entire night. He'd not been away from view for longer than forty-five seconds, so he can't have possibly beaten up Ace.

The door flew open as Soarin burst in. "Captain! I have news!"

Spitfire slammed her hooves down on her desk. "Damn it, Soarin! Knock first!"

Soarin rapped on her desk.

"What is it, lieutenant?"

Soarin reached under his wing and presented his newspaper. Spitfire unrolled it and had a look. The front page image was Ace as they had found him in the cloud. This was from two days ago.

TROUBLE IN THE SKIES
Unfortunate news out of the Wonderbolts today, as one of the students seems to have been beaten senseless, in what can only be described as a racially-charged hate crime. Ace of Clubs, formerly a performer for the Wonderbolts' air show, was returning to the academy to begin his next term of schooling, when he was beset by an assailant.

As of this moment, it is unclear who was responsible for the incident, for the culprit has yet to be caught. "Rest assured, we're doing everything we can," says Wonderbolts Captain Spitfire. "We'll find out who did this, and they will be punished accordingly."

Upon hearing that, this reporter did a bit of digging through the laws surrounding the matter, and with the help of the district attorney, have come to understand some of the charges and the punishments that would follow if convicted.

Firstly, it should be stated that everypony that joins the Wonderbolts Academy is considered to be, for legal purposes, active duty Wonderbolts in the Royal Air Forces. That is to say, attacking a student would carry with it the same weight as attacking a royal guard. Second, Ace was not just a student. At the time, he was just coming back from a tour, meaning he was officially selected for Wonderbolt service, and was granted the uniform and the full protection provided by that uniform. He even had a rank: Squire.

Assault on an officer of the law, such as would be the case, since he is a Wonderbolt, carries with it... CONT PG. 7

Spitfire dropped the paper on her desk. "I've already seen the article, Soarin. I was interviewed in it, albeit briefly. I would have helped further if I wasn't trying to figure out who was responsible for this."

"Captain, look at the picture. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"

Spitfire looked again at the image printed on the front page. Ace was lying on the cloud, bleeding all over it. The generator was still spewing vapour everywhere, his uniform was torn in the same way, he still had all of his wounds, and the word "WINGLESS" was still scrawled across his chest, where his wing would have fallen, had he a pair of wings.

"I don't see anything odd about the image. What's different between this picture and what I remember, lieutenant?"

"Oh. Well, nothing I suppose. Your memory is sharp as a tack, ma'am. It's likely that this is exactly what you saw when you came in to help carry him to the infirmary to stabilise him. It certainly looks the same to me."

"Lieutenant, if you're wasting my time, I swear to Celestia--"

"Right, sorry. So, you remember the event, right? You remember when we found him?"

"Clearly."

"What happened right after we found him?"

"I removed the generator and checked for a pulse. When I found one, I cut away a section of cloud so that he could be moved to the infirmary to be stabilised, and you cleared the way. What's your point, lieutenant?"

"My point is, he wasn't out of our sight until he was in the infirmary, where he was removed from the cloud."

"So?"

Soarin leaned forward and pointed to the photograph, specifically, to the bottom. "Photograph courtesy of one Stir Depot."

Spitfire scowled. "Lieutenant..."

"When did they take the picture? When did they have time to take the picture? If it was taken after we found him, why are neither of us in the frame?"

Spitfire looked down at the paper again. That was a really good point. The clouds were lighter, too, and there wasn't as much blood. Most importantly, the lines of the writing were crisp and crystal-clear. When they found him, the words were blurry, as the ink had settled. This was fresh ink.

"Stir Depot took this picture before we arrived," she concluded.

"Hours before we arrived," agreed Soarin. "Ma'am, I'd like permission to find out who this is, and I'd like to bring them in."

"Well? Off your arse, lieutenant! Go find them!"

Soarin saluted with a smile. "Ma'am."

He turned and left, leaving Spitfire to look over the picture further. The article was accurate, being written by Headline Flair, but he'd need to talk to the editor to find out who took the picture. Usually, freedom of the press would protect the photographer, especially since the story was true, but Soarin was a Wonderbolt; an officer of the law. If he had reason to believe that a crime had been committed, and he did, then he could bypass the anonymity, and have direct access to the pony that had taken the picture and just left Ace sitting there.

Chapter the Forty-Ninth: The Editor

The newspaper office was absolutely buzzing as reporters organised their information, interviewed ponies they'd called in, and a limitless cacophony of clicking typewriter keys and the dings of carriage returns. Soarin had to wonder how anypony managed to hear anything. He couldn't even hear the presses. He'd never been down here before, as he'd always had the journalists come to him. Today was another story.

A rather large pony suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder. He hadn't even heard him approaching. "You my two-thirty?" he asked with a very thick Manehattan accent.

"Are you the editor-in-chief?" asked Soarin.

The stallion gestured to his chest. "What do I look like, the queen of Griffinstone? Yeah, I'm the editor."

"Then I'm your two-thirty," answered Soarin. "Where do we need to go?"

"My office," he answered, pushing his way through the crowd, ducking and weaving expertly through the sea of ponies. Soarin had a bit of trouble keeping up, but made it to the office a few seconds after the editor. "Now then," he said as he closed the door, rendering the room completely silent. "What was it ya needed? And just for my own benefit, I'mma have breakfast while we talk."

Soarin looked up at the clock. It was two-thirty in the afternoon. It was time for a late lunch, and the editor seemed to only be halfway through his first biscuit, and his gravy was drying up.

"Come on, kid. Time is money, and I'm not inclined to wasting either."

"Right, sorry," waved Soarin. "I'm looking for a photographer. The one that took this picture." He pushed the paper forward.

The editor took one look at the photo, then tossed it back. "Sorry, kid. Can't help ya."

"You printed the photo. Surely you have a record of the photographer?"

"Sure. Stir Depot is a pen name. We use it whenever photos come from anonymous sources. Usually mail-ins from actual anonymous sources, and sometimes ponies that say they wish to remain anonymous."

"So you can't confirm the origins of this photograph?"

"Origins? No. Validity, yes. We had three of the ponies that found the body confirm that this is an accurate representation of what they found."

"I was one of them, yes," answered Soarin.

"See there? It's accurate."

"It's not, though." Soarin picked up the paper again and pushed it forward. "I looked at it closer, and this is not how we found him. This photograph was taken hours before we realised he was there. I was on the scene for almost twenty minutes, myself, before the body was found, and no one went to where he was to take a picture, and as soon as we found him, rather than taking snapshots, our first priority was moving him to the infirmary. Once we found him, there was no way for this picture to be taken, and judging by the damage, this photo was taken sometime between midnight and one AM."

The editor sighed and walked over to his file cabinet, taking out a large folder full of papers. "Monday, right?"

"We found him on Sunday morning."

"That may be when you found him. I need to know when it was printed."

"Oh. That's Monday, yeah."

The folder flopped down on the desk. "Here's the raw files. The original photograph should be in there."

Soarin flipped through the pages until he found the photo. They'd cropped out the time and date, but the picture was taken Saturday, eleven-fifty-eight and thirty-two seconds P.M. Also printed in the corner was the exact model of camera used. Paperclipped to the photo was a note:

There's a big story to be found at the Wonderbolts Academy. See attached proof.

"As you can see, they didn't give their name," said the editor through a mouthful of biscuit. "I can't tell you who took that photograph, but I was required to: A; inform the guard, which I did, and you can check that, B; send a reporter to check and see if the story was true, which you can confirm personally, and C; verify that the information given was correct before I could print the photo."

"Well, we know now that the photo was taken just before midnight," said Soarin. "We discovered him like this several hours later, so whoever took this picture , we know that they left him to die. Every student and teacher at the academy has a duty to assist a pony in danger, a higher burden of duty than is assigned to most citizens, which would be a duty to report any noted crimes or danger to a guard. That they left him sitting there for several hours, barely clinging to life as he bled out instead of running to tell somepony is criminal negligence." He stood up. "I'm going to need to take this photo and the attached note as evidence."

"I have no intention of standing in the way of your investigation, lieutenant," he smiled. "There is, however, one more thing."

"What?"

"I want first rights to the story."

Soarin looked him right in the eye. "Excuse me?"

"Look, you have your job; to protect the citizens of Equestria. You go remove from your ranks the rogue element that gave your boy, there, a thrashing and then took a picture to serve as a trophy of his or her kill. You go make Equestria a safer place to live. I have my job; to report to the public the various goings-on of the whole country. You want a bad guy to bust. I want a story of a bad guy bein' busted. It's in my best interest to protect my best interests. All I want from you is a story, before another paper scoops it out from under me. You let my reporter in, and all's good."

"You do know that withholding evidence is a crime, right?"

"Who's withholding? You have your evidence, I ain't stoppin' you from leavin'. I'm askin' you for a favour, in recognition of how we've been cooperatin' whit you on this."

Soarin took a deep breath. "I'll call for you when we've settled this. If there's a story to be had, you can have it. Rather, Headline Flair can have it."

"That's all I ask. Have a nice day, lieutenant, and please shut the door on your way out."

Chapter the Fiftieth: Culpable

Spitfire stepped out of the interrogation room. It was actually just an office with guards and a stenographer, as they'd only done two investigations of this scale before. Almost everypony that had done something like this had felt guilty enough to confess, and proud enough to not want to damage their good name. The first major investigation had lasted twelve hours, and had only lasted that long because the culprit had run off and tried to fix the problem. When you crash into a cake meant for Celestia, it's not suggested to immediately fly to a bakery and order a new one, but that was the response. The second lasted only two days. Somepony had gone missing, but then they came back. The paperwork regarding their leave had been misfiled.

But those were accidents. This was no accident. The fact that somepony, anypony, could do this sort of thing, hold up all classes, and still not feel guilty about what they'd done was disheartening. Spitfire was feeling less and less forgiving with each passing hour, and while she had maximum sentences that she could affix to each charge, there were a lot of charges to settle.

Just as she was about to call in the next one, Soarin stepped forward, an opaque plastic box on his back, and two guards escorting Blitz Break behind him.

"What's all of this?" asked Spitfire.

"I have a confession to make," answered Soarin.

There was a pause as Spitfire waited for his confession.

"I'm going to make him confess," answered Soarin again.

"Oh. I thought you were going to confess something."

Soarin smirked and chuckled. "Just making jokes while I can, captain..."

Spitfire stepped into the room to listen to the confession as Blitz was bound to the table. Soarin put the box down, and wiped his hoof across his face to show a more serious expression.

"Name and occupation."

"Blitz Break, I'm a Lance-Cadet at the Wonderbolts Academy."

"Do you recall the events of Suaturday night and Sunday morning?"

"Of course."

"Please go over those once more for the record."

"I was at a party. The one in the sauna. I was with a young mare, miss Raspberry Tart. She can confirm that I was with her all night long."

Spitfire had asked her several times. She'd been with Blitz, yes, but she'd also been with four other stallions that night, and couldn't remember where all of them were at each moment. At best, she could keep track of three. Blitz could have easily snuck away and come back. In fact, she remembered him leaving at one point, and coming back a few minutes later. He'd disappeared into the locker room, so she assumed that he'd gone to the connected toilets, but she hadn't watched him beyond the door.

"What about the time between twenty-three forty-five and zero-hundred hours?"

For a brief second, Blitz's eyes flashed wide, then returned to normal, though he began to sweat. It seemed as though Soarin had struck the nail right between the eyes.

"I was with her," Blitz breathed. "As far as I remember, anyway."

"You didn't take a moment to compose a letter to your sister?"

Spitfire thought that was an oddly specific question, but again, Blitz was having a tough reaction to it.

"Do you need me to ask the question again?" asked Soarin.

"No, no," chuckled Blitz. "Actually, I did write a quick note to my sister, but it was unrelated to the rest of the events of the night."

"Oh? What was it in relation to?"

"That information is between my sister and myself," asserted Blitz. "I don't think my family matters are relevant, here."

"True, true," noted Soarin. "Business matters, however, are. Where does your sister work?"

"I'd rather not say."

"That's okay, I have a copy of her employment history here," answered Soarin, opening the box and pulling out a small folder. "It's her fourth job, and she's a photographer for the Cloudsdale Mirror. Moving up from mail clerk. Very nice. This is public record, by the way."

"So she works for a newspaper," Blitz grumbled. "So what?"

"You had the note delivered to her place of work," noted Soarin. "That makes it a business record."

"It's a personal letter."

"Sent to a business. It's a business letter. That means the business keeps track of it. And your letter is a business record. Do you remember what it said?"

"No."

"That's okay, I have it here." Soarin pulled out a photocopy of the note and read it aloud. "There's a big story to be found at the Wonderbolts Academy. See attached proof."

"You can't prove that was me," argued Blitz. "It's not signed."

No sooner had he said it than he realised how stupid he would have to be to say such a fool thing. As he lowered his head into his hooves, Spitfire stepped forward. "How would you know whether or not it was signed?"

Blitz just shook his head. "Go ahead and pin the whole thing on me. I'm not going to be able to bounce back from this."

"Since we're telling the truth now," sighed Spitfire, sitting down next to Soarin, "Why'd you beat him up?"

"I didn't. He was like that when I found him. I just took the picture and wrote the note."

"And you just left him there."

"He was breathing normally, his pulse was fine, his blood pressure was... low, but not dangerously low. I knew he'd last for several hours, and I was going to come back and find him the next morning, but you guys beat me to it. I had an alarm set in my room, but I was asked to sleep somewhere else, and I needed the alibi. Like I said, I was with Raspberry Tart for the rest of the night."

"The W in Wingless, as well as the Ss match your note to your sister," noted Soarin. "Pretty sure you also wrote this on Ace's body."

Blitz nodded. "I did. Right after I tore his outfit open."

"Why?"

"Whoever did this hated him. I hated him, too. I've been the best young flier every year I've competed. I was top of my class in Junior Speedsters. I graduated early from flight camp. I'm the best aerobat in my class. I'm supposed to be the obvious choice for success. He's not even supposed to be here. It's absolutely debilitating to be told that an earth pony is better at flying than you are. Not that you would know..."

Spitfire sighed. It was good that they now knew who'd defaced Ace's uniform and drawn on him, but that was only half of it. They still needed to know who'd beaten him up, and why.

Chapter the Fifty-First: The Deposition

It was a few days later when Ace was allowed to move around again. He wasn't allowed to walk, but with two guards and a nurse, he was able to be wheeled around in a chair. It wasn't enough, but at this point, he was desperate to leave the bed, and although the chair wasn't better by much, it was better. He couldn't go wherever he wanted or move on his own, but at least he could leave the room.

To that end, he really didn't mind going to court. He hadn't taken to the Daring Do books the way Rainbow had intended. Sure, they were better than nothing, but he wasn't particularly interested in fantasy, any more than he could draw from them. He had noted the pattern on the floor during the sapphire statue, and thought himself clever for looking at it and realising that every animal was land-based except the eagle. And then it turned out that the trick was, they were all predators except rats, which wasn't even wholly true, as rats are known to eat insects, and in desperate situations, even other rats. Between the housecat, the lion, the jackal, the rat and the eagle, he'd have picked the eagle. Then again, he'd have grabbed a stick or a few more rocks and just pressed one of each until one refused to press. And if he were a temple designer, he might have picked the jackal, as that was the animal on the statuette. If the ponies that built the temple worshipped a two-headed jackal, he'd want to reinforce the idea that the jackal was a safe choice. No matter. It was a book series for children, and he just wasn't into it. He hadn't been back when he was a kid, and it held the same appeal now.

The door opened, and he found himself in a small room. Spitfire, Princess Celestia and seven other ponies were gathered around a conference table. He'd never met them before, but they scowled at him as he entered the room.

"Ah," noted the stout, balding earth pony sitting next to Spitfire. "I recognise you from your photos. We haven't met. Sallow Choir, Esq. I'm your representative in this matter."

"Nice to meet you," nodded Ace. "Glad to be here."

"Captain Spitfire has kept me abreast of your situation and your desires in this matter. If you have anything you want to say, gather my attention and whisper it to me, and I'll take care of the rest. The court doesn't do well with sudden outbursts. Besides, we're almost done, here."

As he spoke, he gave Ace his business card. Ace didn't know when he would need it, but if he did, at least he had it. It had an address, so if he needed a lawyer in the future, he could call on the law offices of A. T. Tourney, S. Crow and S. Choir, Esq.

He took a seat next to Spitfire as his lawyer and, presumably, the opposing lawyer argued with each other in somewhat hushed tones. Princess Celestia would interject from time to time, mostly to ask for clarification or to make judgements on objections.

"You know, you didn't have to actually come down here," whispered Spitfire to Ace. "In fact, I'd have preferred that you not attend."

"I'm not allowed to leave the castle until it's safe for me to do so," whispered Ace back. "I don't like being stuck in that room all day. It feels like I'm being punished. Like a jail cell."

Look, just because you're surrounded on all sides by stone and the only way in or out is blockaded by guards, and you're not allowed to le-- okay, yeah, feels very prison-y."

"I'd love to go stretch my legs, but they can't support my weight yet."

"And until we're sure about what happened, that's the way it has to be."

"And it is for that reason, your majesty, that I would like to move for a directed verdict," finished Mr. Choir, clasping his hooves over his stack of paperwork.

"Are there any objections to the motion for a directed verdict?" asked Celestia, turning to the other attorney, who was rifling through his notes.

"Ummm..." He scratched his head, then turned his ear to the mare that had tugged his arm and was now listening to her whispering. He sighed, almost sounding defeated. "My clients would like to raise an objection, on the grounds that this son of a bitch killed their daughter, and he deserves what happened to him."

Celestia just nodded. Saying "My client would like to inform the court," or "My client would like to object to this," was old Ponish for "I think this is a bad idea, but I need to say this to look like I'm not blowing this case on my client's behalf." It was a surefire way of telling the court that "The next words out of my mouth are going to be a lie at worst, and inadmissible at best."

"If that is all, your objection is overruled. As far as the directed verdict is concerned, I'm going to go ahead and pass my judgement. As I see it, Ace is not responsible for the wrongful death of Sunny McCloud. You have failed to provide any substantial evidence, and the court finds that he was not negligent in his health and safety warnings, as recorded evidence indicates. As such, I have little choice but to declare a verdict of "not guilty.""

The mare, with a scowl, stood up from her chair so fast that it was knocked backwards. The guards immediately moved to barricade her, to stop her from leaping across the table, but she just turned and walked out of the room, the other four following behind her.

Her attorney, however, stayed behind to pack up his things. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that, your majesty," he bowed, binding his files. "I'm sure they'll be okay."

Celestia just sighed. "If Luna hadn't involved herself so heavily in this case, I wouldn't have needed to preside over it."

"And there you have it," shrugged Spitfire. "Even Celestia herself thinks you're not responsible."

"Maybe a little bit," warned Celestia. "Don't go and let your head swell too much; I may turn on you at some point in the future, but for now, you're safe."

Ace's eyes went wide. He was afraid for his life for a moment, but Celestia's smirk couldn't help but creep across her face.

"Sorry. Bad joke. But I do mean that part about you being partially at fault. Less than five percent. And I have to have more than ninety percent certainty to secure a conviction. Don't make a habit of doing this."

Chapter the Fifty-Second: Return to Form

Two weeks later, the investigation was closed. Ace was brought back up to the school, and though he wasn't recovered enough to finish his end-of-term exams or participate in training yet, he was allowed to attend lectures and watch the other students perform.

Due to taking three weeks of an eight-week term off and away from practising, the students were given little choice but to pull double classes. They were all pissed off about that, except for Ace. He didn't have time to be pissed off, as aside from double classes, he also had extra tutoring courses in First Aid and Hoof-to-Hoof Combat. He hadn't requested the combat class, but Spitfire had insisted, wanting him to be able to defend himself if he needed to. He was finding it difficult to find time to sleep.

Blitz was gone. Thirteen years for criminal defacement, five years for making a false report to the Cloudsdale Mirror, seven more years for attempted negligent homicide, and more than twenty combined counts of obstruction of justice and perjury would keep him locked up for effectively the rest of his life, though he was allowed to apply for parole when he was seventy-eight. In any case, he would never be a Wonderbolt, and it was unlikely that he would ever be joining the weather factory when he was released. There was no sense in keeping his status as a student here.

Likewise, Eight Ball was gone. Drug trafficking was something Spitfire took pretty seriously, and with his clients all selling him out, Spitfire now had enough evidence to be rid of him. Ace had taken the news in stride, and had even made a joke about it; "As a gambler, myself, I should have known that we wouldn't be friends. Aces and Eights are a bad combo." She didn't know what that meant, but it didn't matter. He'd be in the dungeons for longer than his life expectancy.

Poinsettia, however, was still around. She'd broken some academy rules, but no laws. The same could be said of Golden Pomade. They would be receiving punishments of their own, and Spitfire would see to that, but they would be related exclusively to the academy, and they would not be barred from attending classes.

Other than that, everything was back to normal. Other students still treated Ace with disdain. There was some amount of holding back, as they pitied him for his injuries, and some amount of pushing, as he was seen as being the reason they were assigned double classes, but they seemed to cancel each other out. No matter, though. Ace was used to it.

He was eating lunch one day, alone, when he remembered what happened. Well, not remembered, but managed to piece it together. The cafeteria was filled with ponies, there were guards all over, Some Wonderbolts were here... He knew he was safe. And yet, there was privacy in the din, if he could keep his voice down.

Finishing his lunch, he changed tables, sitting across from the pony that had been glaring at him from across the room. "What do you want?" he growled as Ace sat down.

"I want to forgive you."

"I'm not apologising."

"I don't expect you to. You probably think Celestia and Luna were wrong."

"Excuse me?"

Ace leaned forward. "Your sister, right?"

He glared at Ace again. It was the same glare that he'd given when Eight Ball had threatened him on his first day back at the academy. It was the same glare his mother had given in the conference room when Celestia had given her ruling. "You have no right to talk about her."

"Easy, now," warned Ace. "This is a public place. Lots of ponies can see what's going on, and there are a lot of guards present." He took a deep breath. "I know it was you that beat me up."

The other stallion sighed. "When did you remember?"

"Oh, that memory never came back. But thanks for confirming it."

"So you're going to run to your marefriend, now? Tell Spitfire I was being mean and have me kicked out?"

Ace shook his head. "No. No, I'm going to sit on this information. Enough ponies have been hurt by this event, and if I say anything, it's just going to hurt the two of us further. You'll be charged with assault, I'll be branded as a coward and a tattletale... I'd be doing the right thing, turning you in, of course. Criminal actions deserve to be punished, but I think I'm done watching ponies be hurt on my behalf."

"You expect me to believe that you're just going to keep quiet about this?"

"No. I don't expect you to believe anything. That's on you. I'm telling you that I'm not going to say anything, as long as I have no reason to change my mind about it."

"So, it's blackmail, then?"

"Not quite. The way I see it, we have three options. Option one, we forget about the whole thing. We go our separate but parallel ways and never speak of this again. No one is hurt, no one takes a hit. Option two, you tell Spitfire yourself and take on the punishment for yourself. In doing so, I will be unable to hold it over you, giving you a prison sentence for assault and a discharge for bad conduct, but you take away any power you perceive me to hold over you. Or option three, you can hit me again, and I'll be less forgiving. I like option one. No more fighting, no more injuries, no more problems. I came here to ask which direction you wanted to go."

The stallion just stared at him, flicking his bread roll in his hoof.

"You don't have to tell me now. Take your time. In fact, you don't have to tell me at all. If you never want to see me again, I'm leaving the room now, and if you spot me in the future, you have the option of walking away at your leisure. Or you can hit me, or you can talk to Spitfire. We don't have to be friends, but I'd like to not be foes." Ace stood up and leaned over the table. "It's your decision to make, and I won't stand in the way of you making it."

As he walked away, Ace put it out of his mind. It was true that he was covering up an assault, but knowing what it was like to be blamed for putting the rest of the students in a position where they have to take twice as many classes as usual, he wouldn't dream of forcing that on somepony else. Besides, he was the victim. If he foisted it on somepony else, that would make him the aggressor, and it would just make somepony else the victim. And that wasn't what Ace wanted.

Chapter the Fifty-Third: Two Years Later

Ace waited patiently int the administrative lobby. He'd been here numerous times in the past few years, and was used to the procedure by now.

Two and a half years. He was a third-year student, not quite the top of his class, but definitely in the top five. It was at this point that all of the students ahead of him were being considered for acceptance into the Wonderbolts as Lance-Squires. They'd have to go through a few tours of duty before being allowed to perform at the stunt shows. Ace, having done the shows already, having taken a few breaks from terms to go out and perform, was not going to be a squire. He was already an initiate, having skipped over his first tour of duty entirely by accident.

He had been touring with the stunt show at the time. Soarin had joined him again, this time as his tutor, rather than his protector. They'd been at a party in Manehattan, and a slight bump on a balcony had sent the host's wife plummeting over the side. Ace had immediately gone over the edge of the balcony, joined quickly by a few of the other Wonderbolts in order of who was closest to the rail. Ace caught up with her first, slowing her descent just enough for the others to catch up and bring her back to the balcony. The very next day, the host, a very influential pony, had demanded that the Wonderbolt that saved his wife be promoted, and just like that, Ace was no longer a squire. But more importantly, he'd saved a life. That made all of the training worth it.

Two more ranks, one of which would come from time and service. Two more ranks, and he'd be allowed to actually perform at the shows, despite already having permission. All he had to do was spend some time as a Wonderbolt, performing Wonderbolt duties, and he'd make the next rank. After that, it was up to his superiors, most of whom had heard about him by now, and would be willing to give him the opportunity to progress from Lance-Initiate to Lance-Aspirant to Lancer, and then he'd be able to perform. He'd also be allowed to issue commands to squires at that point, but that was less important to him.

"Ace."

He looked up. Spitfire was standing in the doorway, beckoning him to follow her. He stood up, grabbed his paperwork, and followed her to her office.

"Have you given any thought to what I'd asked about?"

"Yes, ma'am. I appreciate the offer, but I'm going to decline. For now, at least. When I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and a lot more experienced, maybe, but for now, I think I'm a bit too green to teach. Give me a few more years, and I'll consider it further, but not right now."

Spitfire nodded. "Fair enough. I take it then, that you want to continue your courses here?" She opened the door to her office, waving for him to go in."

"I'm actually okay with being sent out to join the Wonderbolts, if they decide they want me in an official capacity. If not, I'm plenty happy taking on more coursework. They want the best, so if I don't qualify, then I need more work, and what better place to polish my skills than here?"

"Very well said," smiled Spitfire, sitting down at her desk and taking his paperwork. "Well, I'll go ahead and tell you right now, your name is on the list. It has been for awhile. The powers that lead the Wonderbolts have decided that you're a good fit for early duty. A month from now, you will no longer be a student, if that is what you wish. You'll be a Wonderbolt, with a rank of Lance-Squi-- Lance-Initiate. Sorry. I'm used to giving that speech to students who aren't already Wonderbolts."

They shared a small chuckle. They'd become close over the time they'd spent together at the academy, as very good friends. They weren't romantically entangled, in spite of the various rumours. They had probed at the idea, and found that there was a chance that they could be lovers, but with their current relationship of teacher/student, coupled with the gap between their ranks, plus the fact that Ace was one of the highest-ranked students in his class, and in fact, ranked higher than half of the fourth-year students, and was already in the Wonderbolts and having skipped his first tour of duty, there was too much evidence to support a claim of quid pro quo sexual harassment already, without needing them to actually share a bed.

"So you're leaving, then?"

"I believe so, yes."

Spitfire leaned back. "I remember when you first showed up. I was counting down the days until you quit. I had a pool going, you know? Whenever you left, we'd look at the numbers again, and divide up the pot among the winners."

"And how'd that work out for you?"

She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a plastic tub. It was full of bits, and a piece of paper rested at the top. "I owe Fleetfoot all of this. She bet the closest."

"And what did you bet?"

"Five days," she snorted. "You didn't even make it as far as your first class before I lost. Fleetfoot, we were so sure was making a bad bet and wasting her money. She thought you'd last a good two months."

"What about Soarin?"

"One week. You really proved us wrong."

Ace just chuckled. "I don't know if I'd have even put that much faith in me. The first time I saw the dizzitron, I thought, "This is what's going to make me look so useless that I'm going to be kicked out." I'd have never dreamed that it'd be my saving grace."

"Yeah. Seeing you on the dizzitron is what cemented in my mind that you were here to stay. And since Soarin and I had already lost our bets by then, we figured that we might as well see how far you could make it."

"Turns out, pretty far," nodded Ace.

Spitfire nodded in agreement, pushing some pages across the desk. "You made it far enough to end up in the Wonderbolts. You've impressed me beyond what I thought possible. And when, not if, you make Lance-Sergeant, I want to take you to dinner."

Ace glanced up from the paperwork and smirked. "It's a date."

Chapter the First: Open Recruitment

Spitfire blew her whistle, bidding everypony to line up. Today was the last day of open enrollment to the Wonderbolt's academy, and she had made up her mind. Ten of these forty-eight ponies would be accepted into the academy as cadets, and the rest would be sent home.

The Wonderbolts took their recruits from all over. The top five contestants in the Best Young Flyer competition were offered a position if they graduated (a technicality that had held Rainbow Dash back because she dropped out after failing her history exam twice), they kept an eye on a lot of the flight school standouts, and then there were events like these where anypony could show up, as long as they had a proper education.

To be fair, everypony here would be sent home. She was to confirm their names and mailing addresses today, and then send them home. To the ten that had earned their spot, she would send letters of acceptance. To the rest, letters of consolation and the invitation to try again next year. With the rejection letters, she would also send regimens for training, that they might practice and do better next year.

She took her place in front of them and grabbed a clipboard from her aide. "Feather Bluster, step forward!"

A young pegasus mare moved up to Spitfire and saluted... with the wrong hoof.

"Please confirm that this is your mailing address."

"Yes, ma'am. That is correct, ma'am."

"Excellent. Dismissed."

As Feather Bluster flew away, Spitfire wrote down a few quick notes in the associated section. Lacks focus, but otherwise fine. She was going to be accepted into the training program. Whether she would last was another story, but that would depend entirely on whether she could learn the difference between right and left. "Lead Hoof, step forward!"

A middle-aged pegasus stallion walked up and just kind of waved. "Hey."

"Please confirm that this is your mailing address."

"Yuh-huh."

"Excellent. Dismissed."

"So, did I make it in?"

Spitfire glanced at him through her eyebrows. "Your application will be reviewed with your performance, and a letter will be mailed to this address with notice as to whether or not you have been accepted at that time."

"So I'm in. Awesome."

As he walked off in celebration, Spitfire went to her notes. Very lazy. Did not complete a single task. Prideful with no evidentiary support to back that up. He was going to be rejected. There was no way Spitfire was going to let somepony like that besmirch the good name of the Wonderbolts or their academy. "East Wind, step forward!"

The submissions continued on in that manner until they came to the thirty-sixth applicant. He'd shown promise in most of the tasks, but had been lacking on any tests involving flight. In fact, he usually made his teammates look good, as well. He was physically fit, played well with others, and was a prime candidate for the Wonderbolts Academy. Except, there was a problem with him that she didn't want to address in front of the twelve remaining applicants.

"Actually, Mr. Ace of Clubs, please step back. We'll handle your case last. I want a word with you."

He saluted, properly. "Yes, ma'am." He stepped back into line, trodding on a whoopie cushion that somepony else had placed behind him. The applicants began to crack up at the implication until Spitfire glared at them.

"Since you have time to giggle like schoolfillies, I would say that you have time to run three laps."

Four of the remaining thirteen, including Ace of Clubs, turned and ran back to the track to pay forth their laps.

"Now!" barked Spitfire, indicating that she was serious.

Eight of the remaining nine reluctantly turned and trotted off to run their laps, while the last one just turned and flew off. He would not be accepted into the academy. He couldn't even be sent a notice of acceptance, as his mailing address had not been confirmed. What a shame, too, as he was one of the ten that had been selected. Now she'd have to add somepony else.

Once all three laps were completed, more or less, everypony returned to the line. The one that had only run two laps was not being accepted for not being able to follow instructions, and the one that had walked the laps when she was told to run was not being accepted for not being able to follow instructions and for wasting time. She might not have had anywhere she needed to be, but Spitfire was taking the rest of the day off after this, and she'd like to be done with it already.

She made short work of everypony else, until only Ace remained. "Ace of Clubs, step forward." Rather than barking it at him, she just spoke it. He was the last one remaining, and he had been compliant with her rules and regulations. Even now, he was saluting her as if he was already in the academy and addressing an officer.

"At ease, kid," she sighed. "You do realise what this program is meant to look for, right?"

"You're looking for ponies to join the Wonderbolts Academy, ma'am."

"That's correct. Do you think you'll fit in at the academy, Mr. Clubs?"

"I believe that I'm very flexible, ma'am. I'm sure I can find agreeable ponies at your academy."

Spitfire shook her head. "This has nothing to do with your ability to make friends, Mr. Clubs."

"You can call me Ace, if you wish, ma'am."

"Ace... Do you know what the Wonderbolts are most well known for?"

"Ma'am, the Wonderbolts are best known for protecting Equestria and its citizens. In addition, they are known for protecting Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and now, Princess Twilight. The Wonderbolts are a prestigious group of public servants that anypony would be proud to join, myself included. Ma'am."

"And what else?"

"They are also known for their shows, ma'am."

"Yes. And what kind of stunts are performed at those shows?"

Ace paused for several seconds, looking very uncomfortable. "...Aerobatics, ma'am."

"That's right," nodded Spitfire. "Look, I love that you did your best, I appreciate that you want to serve Equestria, and you honestly impressed me with your display of skill. If you could fly, I'd have you at the top of my list for viable candidates. However, since you're an earth pony..."

Ace lowered his head, looking ashamed. "I can't control what I was born as, ma'am..."

"I know," nodded Spitfire. "What choices you have made are good choices, and I'm sure the royal guards would be happy to take you in. Hells, I'd be happy to take you in, myself, if you were capable of reaching the academy. However, since you're not able to come to my office on your own power, I'm sad to say that I must reject your application. I'm sorry."

Chapter the Seventh: Breaking News

Ace spent the next three weeks at the academy without incident. Over that time, he'd made himself known to all other ponies at the facility. After all, the fact that there was a student that wasn't a pegasus was exciting news, and everypony wanted to see him. He was still a little bit shy, but as more and more cadets were coming around to his cause, he was becoming more and more comfortable around them. He was still a spectacle, but it wasn't long before he was a spectacle that was also a student.

He had been assigned a role in the kitchens, as requested, and had met the two unicorns that regularly showed up. They didn't step out onto the clouds like he did, just unloading their stock from the safety of their wagon, which was still pulled by pegasi. As Ace had a history in warehouses, he was quite helpful in unloading the stock and carrying it to where it needed to go, mostly to the pantry, fridge and freezer.

As he was having breakfast, about a week before the classes began, Soarin walked up to him and dropped a folded-up newspaper in front of him before sitting down across the table. "You made the front page," he said, sipping his coffee. "Bad press, but you're there."

Ace swallowed the bite of egg and sausage sandwich and set the rest of it down, wiping his hooves and mouth with a napkin. "May I?"

Soarin nodded.

Ace grabbed the paper and unfolded it. Sure enough, he was on the front page.

The Wonderbolts have always been known for their tricks. Loop-the-loops, barrel rolls, flatspins... but now it seems they've pulled the dirtiest trick of them all: fraud.

Our sources indicate that a certain earth pony, one Ace of Clubs (pictured above with mustard dripping down his lip) has been accepted into the Wonderbolts Academy as a student. Mr. Clubs has declined an interview with this publication.

When asked for her reason, Captain Spitfire had this to say: "He understands the risks involved and was willing to risk his life to come [to the Academy]. He's welcome to leave if he wishes, but I'm pretty sure he wants to stay. Besides, I feel sorry for the little guy." No further comments were given.

It is the opinion of this journalist that it is unfair to lead on a handicapped student such as Mr. Clubs and let him believe that he can actually pass any of the courses in the academy. Captain Spitfire has fraudulently allowed him to believe that he can...(cont. pg 7)

"So the media's printing lies again," shrugged Ace. "We can sue for libel, can't we?"

"Oh, Spitfire's already doing that. She left for Canterlot ten minutes ago. She just asked me to come ask you why you refused to talk to the reporter."

"I didn't know I had. Nopony's introduced themselves to me as a reporter, and this article doesn't list the author, so I can't tell you whether or not I talked to them at all. But I've talked to a lot of ponies over the past three weeks, too, so I can't remember all of the details of everypony I've met."

"Yeah, we thought that was suspicious..." He tapped the table twice with his hoof. "You can keep the paper. Or throw it out, if you like. I just needed to know what you said to them, and what they said to you. Knowing it was nothing, I can--"

"Wait... I just remembered, one of the ponies I met did have a notepad, and asked if I could go with her. I told her I was busy, and that I'd talk to her later, but she never showed up again. Could that have been her?"

Soarin shrugged. "Doesn't matter. If she didn't disclose that she was a reporter, then she has no case. I'm off to give my report. Just keep in mind that that article is now public, even if it is false. You might want to take caution because of it. Just because it's a lie doesn't mean it can't hurt you. Enjoy your breakfast."

Ace swallowed hard. He couldn't possibly enjoy his breakfast now. He was too upset. Still, he ate the rest of it and made his way to the gym. An hour on the treadmill helped him feel a lot better, and that was before he even started lifting weights. Exercise tended to have that effect. He'd had time to think on what he was going to do if anypony confronted him about the article, and his response couldn't have been simpler: He was going to tell the truth. He didn't remember ever talking to a reporter, there was no mention of an interview, and Spitfire told him that she had every confidence that he'd succeed.

After weight training, he took a shower, and Bub walked in shortly after. "Mornin' Ace," he smiled as he entered the next shower stall. "Doin' okay in that big, empty room by yourself?"

Ace nodded. Gent, Bub, and the other three were all moving on to their second term of courses, with bigger dorms to match. Twenty pegasi had failed to pass their exams out of the hundred that had been enrolled, and nineteen more had dropped out. Sixty-one students was pretty high for a second-year class, and a hundred more were on their way to replace the eighteen that had just graduated to Wonderbolts Reserves.

"So, I don't know if you've seen this morning's Canterlot Tribune, but--"

"I have," confirmed Ace. "That article about me is a lie."

"I figured as much. I just wanted to let you know."

"Thanks, Bub. Soarin already let me know, though, so we're good."

"Good. You nervous?"

"Nah. I'll manage. Like I said, it's all lies."

"I meant your classes. They start in a week. Are you ready to take them?"

"Yeah. I've been studying."

"Studying's all well and good. But how are you going to pass your practical courses? What are you planning to do when on that first day, you have to pass the obstacle course?"

Ace just sighed. He didn't know how yet, but he was going to pass that obstacle course. If he had to try a hundred times, he was going to make it through. "I'll think of something..."

Chapter the Twenty-Third: Cranking the Rumour Mill

Ace had the biggest smile on his face as he was carried back to the platform. He knew that what they'd done was impressive, and as soon as Spitfire picked her jaw up off of the floor, she waved him over.

"You've been studying, haven't you?"

Ace nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"You are aware of how dangerous that stunt is, yes?"

"Yes, ma'am. But we practised slower until we were sure we knew what we were doing, ma'am."

"It shows," she chuckled. "Not only did you manage to correctly charge your lightning storm, you managed to do it in record time. I never thought I'd be saying this to an earth pony, but, congratulations, you've set an academy record. And you, too, Peregrine."

Peregrine couldn't hold back his smile anymore. Trusting Ace had paid off for him. He saluted Spitfire without a word.

"Matter of fact, you almost broke two. Keep practising, and you'll manage."

Ace rolled his head to the side. "Ma'am?"

Spitfire nodded. "You now hold the academy record for the fastest thundercloud creation and activation. And also, the second largest lightning strike. Rest assured, you're receiving a passing grade."

"Thank you, ma'am," nodded Ace.

"Return to your place in line, cadet."

Even with this, Ace could still hear the dissent from the other students. There was no possible way that they could claim that they were better than him, and yet they were still murmuring under their breath. Sure, there were a few that were just outright silent, but he definitely caught more than a few scowling at him for daring to show them up.

There was one last test, one which Ace didn't do particularly well on. A mannequin was dropped from above, and they had to catch it out of the air, to simulate saving a fall or jump victim. Ace, having no midair control, was too early, was unable to slow down, and smacked the mannequin's skull against the landing pad with enough force to break it. Not a successful rescue, and the only task he failed through the whole day. But once that was done, it was time for dinner.

This time, Spitfire didn't sit with them. She, Fleetfoot and Soarin were sitting alone, using a calculator to set up everypony's scores, and then rerank them for the new term based on the numbers at the end of this term.

After dinner, they all gathered for the announcements. Several ranks had changed, as neither Ace nor Peregrine were in the same spot. Peregrine, who had been the thirty-sixth most impressive student, was now number twenty-three. Ace, likewise, had seen a sharp increase; the most drastic change of all. He had risen from rank seventy-nine to rank forty-two. While still outside of the golden range, he was still doing incredibly well.

After the ceremony, A lot of ponies went back to their dorms. Peregrine was exhausted, and went straight to bed. Ace, on the other hoof, knew that he had a week with no classes coming up, aside from his kitchen duties. There would be time to rest, and right now, he needed to relax.

Spitfire had the same idea, as she was already sitting in the hot tub when he arrived. She looked up as he walked in. "I don't think I ever apologised to you," she mentioned as he slipped down into the water. "I'm sorry that I dismissed you when we first met."

Ace waved his hoof. "Everypony would have."

"I shouldn't have."

"Don't even worry about it. I'm here now, and that's all that matters."

Spitfire nodded. "I'm glad you're here."

They took a moment to lean back and just enjoy the hot water swirling around them.

"I don't envy you your position tomorrow," admitted Ace.

"How so?"

"After seeing the way I handled that storm, you have to watch three more classes do it the regular way."

Spitfire shook her head. "It'll be the same as every other year. You think I didn't have to watch all of your classmates do it the normal way? With you, it was exciting, but I don't expect that of the other students."

Ace pushed his hoof back over his ear, blushing a bit. "I don't know how I'm going to improve over what we've done..."

"I can think of one way," she smirked. "When you're about to finish, you need to really come down hard. I'd be left speechless; I can tell you that much."

They sat and relaxed a bit longer, mostly in silence, but otherwise chatting about nothing of consequence, until Spitfire groaned and leaned forward. "You know, ponies tend to gossip."

"Oh, I know."

"I'm just bringing it up because they're talking about us again."

"I heard them. It's just jealousy."

"It's more than jealousy." She leaned over his shoulder and shouted towards the door, "You'd be a lot more stealthy if you turned the flash off!!"

Ace spun around to see a camera being yanked from the door as hoofbeats echoed away. "Great. Front page news again."

"I wouldn't count on that," chuckled Spitfire. "After the last lawsuit, any press coverage is going to be minimal. Trust me, they're going to send somepony out to ask questions if those pictures even make it to the press. The reporters are going to be very careful what they say, because such accusations are going to be quite damaging for their reputation if they're not careful."

Ace shrank down. "I don't want to be a media circus act. I wouldn't mind them reporting on my grades, but I don't like being called a cheater."

"Don't you worry," smiled Spitfire, reaching over and wrapping a hoof around his shoulder. "I've been dealing with the press for a long, long time. All we have to do is refute any claims that are false, and take them to court if they're presenting them as fact."

Ace sighed, but nodded. "I think it's about time I went to bed..."

Spitfire nodded. "I think I'll head there, too." After patting his shoulder twice, she climbed up out of the water and started walking towards the locker rooms.

Ace stood up after and followed her, though their paths diverged when they reached the showers. The gym equipment, massage rooms, hot tub, cold tub and pool may have been unisex, but the showers and locker rooms were divided between genders.

When Ace returned to his room, everypony else was already asleep, so he crawled quietly into bed and fell into a restless sleep.

Chapter the Forty-First: Return to the Academy

After waking again from the same nightmare, Ace took a quick shower and put on his best Wonderbolt uniform. He then quickly packed up his belongings. Even if Luna hadn't showed up to take him back to the academy, he was planning on returning in three days' time. That's when his contract was up, after all.

As he stepped out of his trailer, he spotted Princess Luna, sitting at a picnic table and talking to Soarin and Skylight. He trotted over and bowed. "Your highness."

"You're awake," noted Luna. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, your highness."

"I'll be going with you," informed Soarin. "My orders were to stay by your side until you didn't need me anymore, or until you returned to the academy. Since one of those is happening, my orders are to return to Spitfire's command."

"Your trailer will be moved to storage," added Skylight. "I must say, I think you're overreacting. This isn't your fault, and you know it. You're a good flyer, Ace. As much as I thought you were pulling a fast one when you first arrived, working with you has shown me good things. I hope you recover fast from whatever stupidity has fogged up your mind, as I'd like you to come back and fly with us again."

Ace saluted her. "Thank you, ma'am."

Soarin sighed. "We'd best be off, then. Let's not waste any more of Princess Luna's time."

The ride back to the academy was mostly silent, like the ride out from the academy had been. The reasons were the same at the core, though not superficially so. There was a better reason, too, as Ace was eating breakfast for the first part of the ride. As much as Soarin and Luna would have liked an endless stack of waffles, time was of the essence, and taking the train to Canterlot would put them further away from the academy. It was faster just to fly.

Moreover, Ace didn't want to talk. He was upset. Reasonably so, as he was being accused of being responsible for several deaths by multiple news outlets. Soarin, Skylight, and even Princess Luna had all told him that he wasn't at fault, but he certainly felt like he was. Spitfire was probably in agreement with them, too. However, just knowing something was not the same as believing it.

They landed at the academy with little fanfare. There was some, as a few officers and students were out in front of the building. The officers saluted and the students bowed as Luna stepped off of the chariot.

"We shall inform your captain of our arrival," said Luna, taking a few steps toward the administration building. "Lieutenant, please have Ace's belongings escorted to his quarters."

"I will see to it personally, ma'am," he saluted, hoisting Ace's hooflocker onto his back.

Ace followed Luna into Spitfire's office, where they sat and waited for her to show up. The secretary had already called for her to come to her office, and Luna, being the princess, was one of the few ponies that had the authority to let herself in.

"Apologies for the wait, your highness," panted Spitfire as she burst through the door. "What can I do for you?"

"We shan't be staying long," smiled Luna. "We have come to deliver your student. Additionally, we believe he has a request to make of you."

Spitfire turned her attention to Ace. "What kind of request?"

Ace took a deep breath. "I know I'm just a first-year student and a Lance-Squire, ma'am. I know that doesn't qualify me for this, but I'd like to request taking extra classes in the subjects of rescue and field medicine, ma'am." For good measure, he saluted, as he wasn't quite comfortable asking like this.

Spitfire rubbed her chin. "That's... an odd request... May I ask why?"

"I'm responsible for the deaths of three foals, ma'am. I don't want to be responsible for any more."

Spitfire shook her head. "You're not responsible for their deaths. Less than five percent responsible, if anything. All you did was prove that it was possible for earth ponies such as yourself to fly. As well, you've made plenty of PSAs about how dangerous it is. I've spent the last four days in the Canterlot Royal Courts arguing exactly that. Unless you can prove that you pushed that filly off the balcony from halfway across the country in front of fourteen thousand ponies, I don't want to hear anything about this being your fault. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-yes, ma'am..."

"That said, I will try to work in a rescue course, and a bit of pre-med for you. Requesting those classes early is probably going to help your case."

"It could also hinder his case," noted Luna. "While it's good to show that he's trying to do good in Equestria by doing good in his studies, it could also be seen as an admission of guilt that he's trying to fix his mistakes."

Spitfire nodded. "True, very true..."

"However, it is our belief that this will be a benefit for Ace. We only bring up the possible detrimental effects as a warning; to keep you alert and ready to respond."

Spitfire nodded. "Then it's settled." She grabbed a notepad and scrawled something down. "Starting Monday, you're taking a supplementary course in search and rescue. That is, assuming you can pass this term."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in, Soarin," called Spitfire, smiling as the Lieutenant entered the room. "Glad to see you did your job well."

Luna stood up and turned toward the door. "We shall be on our way. Learn to rest well, young Ace of Clubs. We do not wish to be forced to return."

As she exited, Spitfire returned her attention to Ace. "You'll be sleeping in the same room you were sleeping in before you left. Three of your classmates have left, and everypony else will have passed. Retests were yesterday, so you'll need a special examination outside of the normal testing parameters."

"That'll be my first assignment back," nodded Soarin. "I have no further standing orders, and I'm almost ready to teach."

Spitfire shook her head. "No, lieutenant. I've been sitting in a chair for too long. I will administer the test. Your first assignment is to train him for said test. Before that, though, I'd like to see his act."

"Ma'am?"

"Everypony and their mothers are talking about how Ace's acts are inspiring young ponies to perform inherently dangerous stunts. As much as I'd personally like to see what one of my most interesting students has been working on over the past month, the fact that I'm representing you legally means I should watch your act to better determine how inherently dangerous it is."