The New Recruit

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.