Glorified

Chapters

1 - In the eyes of a child
10 - Invitations and Exclamations
2 - Flying for Fun
3 - Terms of Service
4 - The One About a Cafe
5 - Business Mare
6 - Thunderaid: Like Glory in a Bottle
7 - The Odd Ones
8 - Secret Sombra
9 - Surprises
11 - Back on the Job
12 - In All but Name
13 - Family Matters
14 - Old Ties, New Ties
15 - What I Like About You
16 - Lance Inspection
17 - A Fantasy I Entertain

1 - In the eyes of a child

Prism

It was the first time we’d been back to Grandpa Hang Glider’s house since the big move. Of course, ‘we’ was just me and Dad. Mom wouldn’t go anywhere without Haze, and he couldn’t be in the sky with the rest of us. Sometimes, I wondered what it would be like if Haze could fly. But, then he really wouldn’t be Haze anymore.

Haze is Haze, I’m me, Dad’s Dad, Mom’s Mom. Just like that. Simple, the way it should be. I wonder if Grandpa got any blocks since the last time I was here? Ugh, I’m gonna be so bored.

The sky from above Ponyville was different every time I was in it. It was like all the clouds would get pushed up just a little more every day. Blue as blue could be, never too crowded, all the layers in the air sitting easy on top of each other like big blankets of butter. Cut with feathers, they were smooth and easy to glide through. Wind could get annoying, but a little twitch and a tiny turn, and that too would melt to butter.

Flying was fun, but more than that, I liked looking at the city. The big buildings were my favorite. The one with all the round edges and the gold letters and the big windows always looked like it was on fire late in the day. Then there was the tree castle, which was kinda cheating since it was just magic, but it was shiny and colorful too. Auntie Applejack always likes to talk about how ugly it is, but it wasn’t as bad as some of the other buildings in Ponyville.

For instance, they were in the middle of building something that looked like a gigantic pee-pee. It was round and had these two big domes on top of smaller parts of the building, and it already stretched up and up and up into the sky. It’s hard to not laugh at it. Then I did laugh at it.

“Prism, buddy, fly straight,” Dad said.

I flipped back over and beat my wings to catch up. “Yes, sir.”

He raised a brow at me. “Are you excited to see Grandpa Hang?”

“Does Grandpa have blocks?”

Dad put a hoof to his dark blue beard. “Uh, maybe?”

“Then, maybe!” I flew ahead and watched as the outskirts of Ponyville faded from white, gray and black to green and brown. The city just sorta melted into the forest slowly, then quickly. Green treetops and white and black spotted trees, little dirt roads with hoof paths where the paved roads hadn’t gotten yet. Could a road be built to Cloudsdale? Maybe Haze could come to Grandpa’s house if it could be.

Dad caught up. “Why maybe? Do… do you not like Grandpa Hang, Prism?”

Do I like Grandpa Hang? He was an old pegasus who could fly really well. If Dad was the kinda pegasus who could fly forever or sometimes even in his sleep, Grandpa Hang was more the kind who could fly in any weather no matter how bad it was. But when he wasn’t flying, it was like he never wanted to do anything. He’d rather ride an easy wind than actually push himself to do something fun. He used to play with me more. “Well, I don’t not-like Grandpa Hang. Grandpa Bow is more fun though. He’s always got blocks!”

“I guess I need to get Dad to invest in blocks…” Dad mumbled. “Hey, I know we’ve talked about this, but don’t tell him that, alright?”

What was the word Mom would always yell at me? “Fray-zing?”

Dad made a bunch of funny faces like he didn’t know how to make words. “Yeah, ‘phrasing.’ Keep it to yourself.”

“Kay!” The sun was at that sort of low point where the sky was really blue, but not all the way blue. Lunchtime was a little while away. I want to build that tower again. “Hey, Dad, are we gonna be there for long?”

He scratched his cheek. “I mean, we’ll have lunch, but I don’t…” He lowered his brows at me, but not like he was mad. “Are you sure you don’t ‘not like’ Grandpa Hang?”

“Yeah.” I was pretty sure.

“Alright then. I guess we won’t stay too long. Is there something you wanna do, buddy?”

“I wanna build the tower!” I could see it in front of me. “I wanna try and get all the windows right, and maybe cut the letters out of paper and stick them on somehow. I don’t wanna mess up the blocks, but if I could push the tower back just a little so I can set them there… ooh! Dad, do we have gold paint?”

Dad tilted his head. “Probably not.” He did a thing with his lips like he wasn’t sure about something. “Tell ya what, be good for me while we’re at Grandpa Hang’s house, and we can go to the art store on the way home.”

“Yes!” I wanted to spin, so I thought about the kind of spins Dad and Mom used to do in their Wonderbolt routines. The really twisty one where they go around and around, then fall and swoop back up. That was Mom’s best trick, especially when she had the rainbow gas to match her tail. What does she do?

I made a big push with my wings and used one to push harder to start the turn. The sun on my left, Ponyville on my left, the sun, Ponyville, the sun, Ponyville. Spread my wings out so the sky is totally blue and above me, then fall, head first. Just when it feels like I’m about to go too fast, I turn my wings and bank up. Just like Mom!

My head was a little dizzy, but I heard Dad clapping a little behind me. “Hey, that was pretty good! Did you practice that, buddy?”

“No, I just thought it would be fun to try. It was!”

He stopped smiling. “Oh, geez.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

He caught up and flew in tandem with me. “No, no, it was great, really! But, uh, if you do any more Wonderbolt tricks, and ponies see you, tell them you practiced it, alright?”

As if she were right there with us, I heard Auntie Applejack. “Now listen here, boys, Ah’d better not catch ya lyin’ ta me again. Lies’ll get ya in more trouble than it’s worth. Ponies’ll be madder if ya lie ta them than if ya tell the truth.”

“But Auntie Applejack said—”

“I know what Applejack says, but this is important. You’ll understand when you’re older, but, please tell ponies you practice flying, okay?”

This didn’t feel good. But it’s Dad, so… “Okay.”

He let out a deep breath. “Cool. We’ve still got a while to go before we get to Grandpa Hang’s house. You wanna race?”

“Ooh! Ooh! I’m gonna beat you this time!”

His lips curled. “Oh, are you? Go on, I’ll give you a head start.”

“I’m gonna beat a Wonderbolt!” With everything I had, I shot off. The ground raced by and the sky became stickier and stickier the further away we got from Ponyville. There was a big lake under Cloudsdale, and there was always an icky wet feeling above it. Going higher made it harder to breathe, but it was better as long as I could beat Dad. I could feel smoother parts, and there was a tailwind if I moved a little to the right.

Looking back, I didn’t see Dad anywhere. I can win! Harder and harder, higher and higher! The sky was silkier the higher I flew. I could see Cloudsdale now, and still no sign of Dad. Where is Grandpa Hang’s house again? Cloudsdale was such a big place too. Oh, I wanna win, but I don’t know where Dad went!

There was a big park with a rainbow fall at the edge of Cloudsdale, right next to a sign that said ‘Welcome to Cloudsdale, Equestria’s biggest sky city.’ When I passed the sign, I turned around. Oh, come on, where did he go? “Dad!?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

My heart felt like a popped balloon. “Oh.” But then I was mad. “Hey! Where did you go? I didn’t see you anywhere!”

He was breathing a little hard and his cheeks were kinda red. “I was above you the whole time.”

I looked up into the even darker sky. It was so much bluer in Cloudsdale that it was kinda purply if you looked all the way up. Sure, it was easier to fly here, but it was hard to breathe too. “Above me? All the way up there?”

He nodded. “Here’s your first tip if you ever want to be a racer some day: It’s easier to go down than up. Get as high as you can, then push and fall. That’s how Mom does her special trick.”

I’d seen it once on TV. There was some kind of celebration and Mom was a lot younger, and she broke the sky into colors by the castle. Auntie Twilight got a crown or something, but Mom made this huge explosion thing. She was going so fast, too. “Is that how she does it? By falling?”

Dad’s eyes widened. “Uh, yeah, but don’t go trying something like that, you could hurt yourself really bad. Your Mom tore her wing doing that once. She couldn’t fly for almost a year.”

A whole year? “But that’s so long! She couldn’t fly at all?”

“No flying at all.”

“That’s awful!” I hugged my wings. “I don’t wanna tear my wings.”

Dad patted my mane. “Well, don’t go crazy when you fly, and you should be fine.” He looked at a watch he was wearing. “Let’s go, Dad and Sweet Wing are waiting for us.”

“Okay.” We started walking on the fluffy streets of Cloudsdale when something felt weird to me. I call Mom 'Mom'. I call Dad 'Dad'. Dad calls Grandpa Hang ‘Dad’ sometimes too. “Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Why don’t you call Grandma Sweet Wing ‘Mom’ or ‘Grandma?’”

Dad’s feathers rose like a cat’s fur when you scare it. “B-because that’s her name, Prism!”

“Oh. Okay.” I wonder why he reacted like that? Weird. I guess Dad is just weird.

“Y-ya know, I bet Grandpa Hang made your favorite food today.”

“Mac and cheese!?”

“Yes! I’m sure of it! It’s probably ready now, we should gallop to his house!”

Now that would make the trip worth it! Mom and Dad always make me eat those icky little tree things! Dad didn’t wait for me, so I chased after him. Mac and cheese, mac and cheese!

Grandpa Hang’s house was in the middle of a bunch of rows of little cloud houses a little ways away from the center of the city on the south side. There was a pool in the back, a pointy fence around the front, some chairs and a fire pit in the yard, and a big bench swing on the porch.

The house itself was about the same as every other house around here: a single floor, two windows on the front and back, a chimney on the east side, molding all around the roof, and a gabled peak. It was comfy, but they all looked the same for the most part. It was boring. Grandpa Bow and Grandma Windy’s house was a lot more interesting since it had two floors and more windows, but it was on the other side of the city. Even if I made it look really close to the same, I could build this house with my blocks in a few minutes.

Some people dyed their houses too, but Grandpa Hang’s house was just as plain white as most of them around here. Basic cloud with no extra details whatsoever. Boring, boring, boring! “I really hope that mac and cheese is ready…”

“Yeah, me too, buddy,” Dad sighed. He knocked on the front door.

It opened to an older white pegasus mare with a dark blue mane and tail and green eyes like mine and Dad’s. She wore a headband to keep her mane all behind her ears, where it came down and curled up toward her cheeks.

“Hey! Come on in, guys!” she said, stepping out of the door for us.

I trotted in, sniffing the air for that salty, cheesy smell that I was told would be nearby.

“I hear little hooves!” a deep, smooth old voice said. “Are they hungry?”

How weird. “Dad, do hooves eat? I’ve never fed my hooves…”

“Prism, buddy, hooves are part of you, you eat. He’s asking if you’re hungry.”

“Oooh. I’m hungry Grandpa!” What a weird way to ask me a question. Maybe Grandpa is weird too.

Grandpa Hang came out of the kitchen wearing a blue apron. He was an old yellow pegasus stallion with a dark brown mane and tail. Grandma Sweet Wing had pretty small wings compared to the rest of us, but Grandpa Hang had huge wings that were even bigger than Dad’s. He kept his face shaved, unlike Dad, and he had a lot of lines on his face too.

“Well,” Grandpa began, “I got a tip that somepony here likes mac and cheese. Is it you?”

“Yes, yes! It’s me!”

“Then go wash your hooves and get to the table.”

“Woo!” I hopped and spun in the air toward the bathroom. Gliding down, I washed my hooves, then hovered back to the living room.

“Hey, Prism, buddy,” Grandpa said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t be flying in the house. We’ve got things you could knock over like that.”

I do hate it when Haze knocks over my towers. I always get so close and then the little brat comes and knocks it over! “Yeah, okay, Grandpa.”

He patted my mane. “That’s a good colt.”

Grandpa’s house was mostly white as it was pretty much all cloud save a few things that were made up here. Little toys or ‘decorations’ that I’m not allowed to play with on shelves, a bouncy couch that shouldn’t be bounced on, a TV that looks old even though TVs are kinda new, lights in glass cases, windows that sit on the clouds like everything else up here. It was about as boring as every other house. No colors, no wood, no metal, just clouds and glass.

We sat at the table, held hooves, Dad said a prayer, and then we got to eat. They’d made a lot of food, but all I cared about was the big bowl of mac and cheese. Grandma Sweet Wing gave me a lot, so I went at it.

“Got a… little flier there, huh, Soarin?” Grandpa said.

Dad had been eating a salad but just about dropped his fork. “He’s… just a kid, Dad. He does things because they’re fun.”

In between spoons full of macaroni, I looked up to see Grandpa’s face. He had a sort of… mean look. It felt mean, anyways. Grandpa never looks mean, and I don’t think mean ponies look like Grandpa either, but the way he was looking at Dad seemed mean.

“You did things because they were fun when you were a kid too, remember?”

Dad rolled his eyes. He does that when Mom does something weird, too, but this wasn’t in, like, a funny way. “So I did. What about it?”

Everypony had stopped eating. I was about done, so I thought I should too.

Grandpa put his hooves together over his food. “What’s your plan exactly, son?”

“I did not come here to do this today.”

Grandma Sweet Wing shook Grandpa’s shoulder. “Hang Glider.”

Grandpa drifted over to her, but never took his eyes off of Dad. “Stay out of it. This is between me and my son, Sweet.”

Grandma sighed, then turned to me. “Prism, sweetie, are you done eating?”

There was a lot more mac and cheese I could eat still on the table, but it was too weird now to start again. “Yeah…”

“Well,” she said, getting up, “we heard from your other grandparents that you liked blocks, and we got a set. Would you like to play with them in the other room?”

“Yes!” I jumped out of my seat, but then Grandpa looked at me really nasty, so I sank back down to the ground. “I-I would.”

She came beside me and put her wing around me. “Good, let’s go play then.”

Grandma was pushing me out of the room more than anything. I trotted along because I kinda had to, but I looked back at Dad and Grandpa one last time. They both had mean faces on. Nopony was smiling.

After we got to the guest room where I’d slept once before, she took out a big bin full of blocks of all kinds of colors, shapes and sizes. I'd never seen these kinds before, but there were a lot of triangles instead of squares like I’m used to.

“What do you want to build Prism?” Grandma asked. Grandma was always nice, but even last time we were here, it was me and her playing outside. Dad and Grandpa stayed inside then too…

Still, I had blocks now, and a tower to build. “There’s a tower in Ponyville that has gold letters on it. Do you know it?”

Grandma thought for a minute. “It wouldn’t be the Goldmane Hotel, would it?”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s build that!”

“Well, alright. Can you show me how?”

When we’d gotten it mostly assembled, Dad came into the room. “Alright, buddy, let’s head on back home.”

It’d been awfully quiet while we were building the tower, but I was pretty focused on it and I think Grandma had to clap to get my attention a few times. “Oh, okay. Did you talk to Grandpa?”

Dad frowned. “Yeah. Just… don’t fly around this house, alright?” Then, he noticed the tower we’d built. He came by and sat down with us. “Wow. Is this the Goldmane Hotel?”

“Oh, yeah!” I sat back down to explain it to him. “We don’t have these sorta triangle kinda blocks back in Ponyville, but I can make a lot of shapes with them! If you put them a little off each other, you can make it look kinda like they curve.”

Dad inspected the tower from a few different angles before standing back up. “That’s pretty cool. Guess we’ll have to look into blocks like this on the way home.”

Grandma stood up too. “Mrs. Windy told me about them. I figured we ought to have some since he likes them so much.”

He really looked like he didn’t want to smile at Grandma at all. Dad’s always kinda weird around Grandma. “Thanks, Sweet Wing.”

“I’m sorry, Soarin.”

Dad shook his head, then put a wing over me. “Don’t worry about it. You should come to us next time. He only gets like this when it’s just me and Prism.”

“I’ll talk to him about it. Please don’t be a stranger.”

This time, Grandma was making a face like when Mom really wants something from Dad. Only, hers was kinda sad, and Mom’s is always weirder.

“We’ll see.” He pushed me up to standing. “Come on, say goodbye to everypony.”

He took us through the door and back into the living room where Grandpa was waiting. He didn’t seem mean anymore, just sleepy. Grandpa smiled at me, at least. “Hey, buddy. Did you have fun?”

“Yeah! Your blocks are really neat, Grandpa!”

He took me into a hug, and I hugged him, but he still felt… sleepy. Like he wasn’t really all that happy. “That’s great, buddy. I’ll help you build something next time.”

“We’ll see,” Dad said again. He definitely wasn’t smiling. They never got loud like Mom and Dad sometimes do, but they looked like they were hitting each other, just without the hooves.

“Sure, Son. Tell Rainbow and Haze we said hi.”

“Will do. Bye, Dad.”

He started pushing me to the door, but I hadn’t said bye yet. “Bye Grandpa, bye Grandma!”

Grandpa put one of his big wings over Grandma and they both waved. They both smiled without smiling too. “See ya later, buddy.”

Then, we were out the door.

10 - Invitations and Exclamations

We were not far from getting me killed when Miss Pinkie called to know if we were on our way back yet. The wedding night is going to be something else if that was just a preview. Reluctantly, we made our way back, I played the best surprised character I could, and accepted Mister Cheese’s blessing along with every plan Miss Pinkie had made. Since it is traditionally the mare’s family that pays for the ceremony, Miss Pinke had plans to arrange everything. We were going to be married in Ponyville Castle with Princess Twilight officiating and all our friends and family are going to be there. Or Miss Pinkie might roll some heads. The first wedding of her children was going to be a party to never forget and it was going to be an all-day event.

Dad was happy for me, Mom was a mess, and my little brother was like, ‘yeah, I knew this was how it was going to go.’ Chesette’s family wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about it. On the one hoof, it was the most begrudging acceptance Mister Cheese could possibly give, and Miss Pinkie was trying to give me names for her grandkids. I don’t know why they all started with D, but she also said there would be a room for us at the castle that night with ‘everything we’d need’ which is not something you hear every day. Her older sister looked a little lost, Cotton was a little disturbed, and Cheese junior was our friend and also knew this had been coming for a while. It was overall a positive reaction, and a decent party since that’s kinda what Miss Pinkie does.

The next day, we started looking into apartments or places we could move into and it occurred to me that maybe we should just get a house. It’s not as if I don’t have the money for this, and even if we have to move later due to the number of ponies increasing, it’d still be a few years before then.

But then, the warning came.

“You know if you sink a bunch of money into getting a house, you’re gonna have to afford maintenance and everything that comes with it, right? That means your career is sorta locked in, buddy.”

It was the thing I’d avoided thinking about all weekend. One week has passed. To do what I really want, to make a life with her, I have to keep this up. It can’t be a ‘try it and leave if I don’t like it’ kind of thing anymore. This is the kind of money I’ll need to feed us and a bunch of kids down the line, and I’m not inheriting an orchard, a clothing company or a bakery to do it with. It’ll be up to me.

To make morning practice, I flew back to Cloudsdale Sunday night. Along with a talk I need to have with Spitfire, I also had a couple of invitations to deliver to my other three grandparents.

Grandpa Bow and Grandma Windy were ecstatic to hear the news and wished me all the best. I had another invitation to deliver, but later in the week we’ll have dinner together and talk about it. While it’s not too much to me, a three-hour flight is a lot for ponies over three times my age, so they only visit us a few times a year and mostly by air balloon. Grandma Downy actually knows Cheesette better than they do, so there’s a lot to say. It should be a fun evening.

What I was unsure about, however, was this next invitation. There was a day Dad and I came to visit Grandpa Hang Glider and Sweet Wing, and I think he and Dad got into a fight. I’d been playing with blocks so I didn’t hear any of the conversation, but we never went back to Grandpa’s house after that. He only came to see me perform from time to time, and they’d come over for Hearth’s Warming every other year.

Approaching the door to that old white house made of cloud and without so much as a decoration, it stood out in the cookie-cutter neighborhood for how… unremarkable it was. This was exactly how I remembered it, and were it not for the lights on inside, I wouldn’t be sure anypony even lived here. All the same, I took a breath, walked up, and knocked on the door.

After a few seconds, I heard hoofsteps inside and the door opened to Sweet Wing. It genuinely strikes me every time I see her just how much she resembles Grandma Downy. Same colors, same statures, and if Grandma Downy hadn’t been smoking most of her life, she’d probably still be as pretty as Sweet Wing, even in her old age.

“Oh, Prism! Long time no see! What are you doing here, sweetie?”

I held up the invitation Miss Pinkie had made. “I’m here to deliver an invitation. Is Grandpa Hang home?”

She turned back into the house. “Hang Glider, Prism is here.”

“He is?” Grandpa came out of the kitchen and stared at me like he didn’t recognize me. I guess it has been about a year and a half since I saw him. “Well, don’t just stand there, come in, buddy. We were just about to have dinner. Have you eaten yet?”

I was just gonna be lazy and get some fast food before I went back to the barracks, but this was okay too. “I haven’t.”

“Then this’ll be good for a young stallion like yourself.” I followed Sweet Wing into the kitchen and watched as Grandpa took a fish filet out of the fridge and set it with a pair he was preparing. He had oil in a cast iron skillet, egg wash and bread crumbs on the counter with steamed vegetables already on the table. “I caught a couple catfish this morning and wasn’t sure what I was going to do with all the meat. You’ll be a big help.”

“Oh, sure, Grandpa. I’m always down for food.”

Sweet Wing sat at the table with me. “So what was this about an invitation?”

I gave the envelope to her. “I’m getting married on the sixth.”

“You wha—ah, damn it!” The fish he’d been carefully putting into hot oil dropped. It splashed all over his hoof and he ran for a towel to wipe it off.

“Hang, are you alright?” Sweet Wing asked, wings out ready to jump.

He shook his hoof, wiped it one more time, then threw the towel back on the counter. “I’m fine, it’s just oil.” He took a breath, checked on the fish once, then turned his full attention on me. “Married?”

“Yeah. I think you met my marefriend Cheesette once, didn’t you?”

Grandpa looked to Sweet Wing. “Did we?”

And she thought, interestingly tilting the opposite way that Grandma Downy usually does. “At a Hearth's Warming party maybe? Prism, do you have a picture?”

“Our prom photo from last year is on the invitation.”

She opened it up to see the very pink, heart- and balloon-covered, rainbow-striped invitation miss Pinkie had made up. Our picture was in the center, with her in that tight little blue dress and me in a suit and my yellow tie. Another night in which Mister Cheese would’ve actually crucified me if we’d been caught. A good picture and a fond memory.

“Oh, yes, I remember her,” Sweet Wing announced. “Goodness, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Three years now?”

“Yes, we’ve been together since my sophomore year of High School.”

Grandpa took the first filet out and put in another one, much more carefully this time. After that, he came to look at the picture. “Ah, right, the pie mare.” He rubbed his face, clean-shaven as always under the now totally gray mane. “Three years, huh? Awful young to be getting married, buddy.”

“Uh, what makes you say that?”

He turned back to flip the fish. “Just that you’re very young is all. You’ve got a lot of life to live, married to this mare.”

I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “I mean, that’s the plan. It’s still a little crazy for me to think about since I’ve been waiting for this for so long, but like, I figure we’ll have a kid by next year.”

Grandpa nearly made the same mistake he did the first time with the third filet. He paused, then slowly lowered the fish into the oil, then turned back on me. “A kid? Prism, buddy, you’re eighteen! Fine, get married, you’ve been with this mare for long enough, but at eighteen? There’s a world out there to see, places to go, things to learn! If you knock her up right off the bat, then that’s it! You’re stuck in one place for twenty years or more given the way your generation is.”

I put my hooves together. “Look, Grandpa, if I weren’t entirely certain that her dad would actually murder me for it, I’d probably already have a kid by now. There’s gonna be a kid, or maybe a lot of them in the future.”

He stared at me for a long time. “You’re dead set on that, huh?”

“I have been trying to get her dad’s approval for, like, a year now. We’re graduated, I have a job, I’ve met the conditions. This is my dream.”

He puffed out his muzzle. “Alright, buddy, that’s fair. If… that’s what you really want, then I hope you have the time of your life.” He pulled the last filet out of the skillet, plated them, and brought them to the table for us. “Sweet, let me see that.”

“Sure, Hang.” She passed him the card and he read all the details.

His eyebrows raised. “Ponyville Castle, eh? Your… mother knows the princess, doesn’t she?”

I nodded. “She does, but Miss Pinkie arranged all this. They were both Princess Twilight’s friends back in the day. There'll be a lot of families there, not just ours.” And then I thought about one particular guest. “Uh, Grandma Downy is gonna be there too, by the way.”

Sweet Wing immediately became uncomfortable and began nervously doling out broccoli.

Grandpa’s frown was instant and hard. “Where’d you dig her up from?”

The words are ‘not over it.’ “She’s been living in Ponyville for the last forty or so years, I think. Dad had been going to see her on Mother’s Day every year since he found her, and a few years ago, he patched things up with her. We see her pretty frequently, actually.”

Grandpa licked his lips, set the invitation down, and held his hooves out. “Let’s say grace and eat. Fish’ll get cold.”

And that topic was quickly dropped. A little bit after digging into the food, Sweet Wing asked, “So, Prism, what is it you’re doing for work? Are you with a construction company or something now?”

Ah, another landmine. “Ah, you know, I, uh… I work for Thunderaid.” Which is the truth.

Grandpa stared holes into me. “You? With Thunderaid? Did you become a corporate salesman in the past year or something? Soarin has never mentioned your grades being stellar.”

“Well, it was a surprise to me too. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when an email about the job just showed up one day.”

“Oh!” Sweet Wing had figured it out, but then covered her mouth. “That’s… very lucky then! I think it’s great that you've got a career right out of High School, Prism.”

This was a way out, so I took it. “Thanks, I make pretty good money now. Grandpa, this fish is really good, what did you say it was?”

He stuck a fork in his and pulled a bit of the meat out. “It’s catfish. They’re rather abundant down in Abyssal Lake.” He chewed on it for a while. “While I understand that you’ve come to deliver wedding invitations, what are you doing in Cloudsdale this late on a Sunday? Don’t you have work in the morning?”

“I work here.” Oh, dumb, why did you say that?

Grandpa put his hooves together and leaned over. “Prism, do you happen to work for Thunderaid as a Wonderbolt?”

I sighed. “Yes.”

Grandpa leaned back in his chair and ran a hoof through his mane. “Ah, they got another one! That punk told me he wasn’t going to do this to you. I was sure after you got your talent you’d find something to do with that, but no, they got you too.” Then he paused, holding a hoof out. “Wait a minute, didn’t Soarin tell me you got a D in meteorology? How in the world did you pass the exam?”

Well, so much for that. I really am a crap liar. “So, this is kind of a long story.”

And over dinner, I told them that very long story. From Effie’s call to the sponsorship deal to my talk with Spitfire to my first week in the 'Bolts. I have never known grandpa all that well, but he seemed very invested in this, like he was confirming something at every point in the story. When I was finished, he threw his fork on his plate.

“What do ya know it, things really don’t change do they?” He shook his head mournfully. “You ought to flip ‘em the bird and walk away, buddy. Things aren’t about to get better if they’re putting you up on a pedestal like that.”

“Hang Glider!” Sweet Wing shouted.

He scowled at her. “What? That’s prime advice!”

“His situation and yours are two different things, Hang. You don’t know if things will go badly!” She turned to me and put a reassuring hoof on my shoulder. “Soarin was an excellent Wonderbolt, and I’m sure you can turn things around, don’t listen to Hang.”

“Okay, like, thanks, but what are you talking about? Grandpa, weren't you a Wonderbolt too?”

Like I’d shot him, he grabbed at his chest. “Gah! No, I wasn’t. You have work tomorrow, don’t you? You ought to go wherever you’re staying at and sleep. Thanks for the invitation, we’ll see you in two weeks.”

He got up from the table, and so did Sweet Wing. “Hang Glider, don’t you dare run away from this again!”

Grandpa turned back to her, grinding his teeth. “Run away!? I didn’t run away from anything! I did my time, that’s all buried history, and it needs to stay that way!”

Sweet Wing looked genuinely angry, and I never knew she was capable of it. “I swear to the Goddess this is the last time, Hang! I watched you fight with Soarin for forty years about this, and I’m not about to sit by and let you do it again to your grandson!”

He froze, real terror on his face. “What are you saying, Sweet Wing?”

She lowered her muzzle. “You know what I’m saying, Hang.”

I did not know what she was saying on the other hoof, and didn’t know what this fight was about or why they were having it. What I did know is that I should probably try to defuse this situation. “Uh, I mean, I work in Cloudsdale now, so I’ll be here all week. I can come back.”

As if I’d some to his rescue, Grandpa marched over and gave me a big hug. “That’s a wonderful idea, Prism buddy. You come back… whenever you feel like it this week, and we can… we can…”

Sweet Wing let out a breath, and with it, her anger. “Please forgive your grandfather, Prism. I’ll set up a time later. Could you send me your schedule?” She went to the living room and picked up her phone. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure I have your number.”

I took my phone from around my neck and opened up my contacts. “Sure. If you press this icon, I can just…” I tapped the two devices together, and my information showed up on her screen. “There.”

She blinked at it. “Wow! I didn’t know it could do that.”

“I’ve been around these things all my life so I’m not bad at using them.” I looked over at Grandpa who’d taken on a thousand-yard stare at the floor. “Is he gonna be alright? We really don’t—”

“He will be fine. This needs to happen, it’s been too long. I’ll tell your father when I figure out when we’re going to do this.” She rubbed at her chin. “Honestly, I’d even invite Downy if she could be here. They only met in the first place because of it.”

Oh, that’s… this is serious, huh? “Really?”

“I don’t want that old rat in my house! You keep her away from me!”

Sweet Wing stamped a hoof. “Hang Glider, it has been nearly forty years! If Soarin has made peace with her, then you need to get over yourself too!”

He stamped his hoof right back. “I will do no such thing! She’s the one who ran out on us, she’s the one who attacked her own son! She doesn’t deserve my forgiveness!”

She marched right up to him and stared him down in spite of the height difference. “I am sick and tired of this! Downy and the Wonderbolts have been haunting you ever since you were in your twenties! I’ve been here waiting for you all this time and you still haven’t shaken off these old ghosts! I gave up everything for you and it’s about time you paid me back!”

Grandpa’s eye twitched and I wanted nothing more than to leave. This was getting real, fast. “And what is it I haven’t paid you back for? Did I miss the part where love is supposed to be a transaction or something? My home, my money, my work! I’ve given you the life you have, what do you think I owe you!?”

It happened in the blink of an eye. The sound, the hoof print, the reaction. She was stunned to have done it, and he was stunned to have been hit.

She looked at her hoof, unable to believe she’d actually done what she just did. “I… am going to visit my sister this week.”

Sweet Wing moved toward their bedroom and Grandpa ran after her. “Wait, Sweet Wing, I’m sorry!”

He managed to get a hoof on her back and she turned on him like a cat. “Don’t touch me!”

That was even worse than the slap. Grandpa fell to his haunches. Sweet Wing slammed the bedroom door behind her. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, she came back out with a purse and a small bag. She looked disdainfully at Grandpa then headed for the door. She gave me one last look before leaving. “I’m sorry you had to see this, Prism. I’ll be in touch.”

When the front door shut, I was left alone with Grandpa. I really, really wanted to just bolt out of there and pretend like I’d not seen anything, but I definitely couldn’t leave him like this. I’d never seen anypony fight like this before. This was something that only happened in movies, this was gossip that somepony told somepony else. I should not have seen this. But I had to do something.

“G-Grandpa?”

His ears twitched. He looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was here. He felt his cheek, still throbbing from where the hoof had hit it. “I’m… I’m sorry, Soarin—” He shook his head. “Prism.” He grabbed his head, trying to steady it.

The dishes and leftovers were still on the table. “Do you… want me to clean up the kitchen?”

He stood up, letting his head droop, dragging his hooves to the kitchen. “No, no, this is… this is my job. You go on wherever you need to be, I… I need to be alone right now.”

I felt bad about it, but this was the exact opportunity I’d been looking for since the fight started. “O-okay, Grandpa. I’ll… see you later.”

He didn’t even look up at me. He simply pulled out some plastic wrap and started covering things.

I think I’ve majorly screwed up here somehow and I’m not sure how it happened, but I was told to go, so I went. I closed the front door without hearing another word. I wasn’t sure what to do or who to tell about this, so in the end, I didn’t tell anyone. I flew back to my room in the barracks, brushed my teeth, and went to bed.

2 - Flying for Fun

“Hey, Prism! You in there?”

Cheesette, my marefriend, was tapping on my head.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, but as I sat up from her lap and looked around, I felt like I’d been asleep for a long time. “Guess not. Sorry I passed out on ya.”

She put a foreleg around me and leaned against me. “Well, I don’t mind. You’ve been real busy lately. You don’t look like you’ve been sleeping right, so I thought I’d let you nap.”

“Thanks sugar pie!” I kissed her head then realized I didn’t know what day or time it was. “Oh, Goddess, what was I doing? Cheesette, you don’t have my phone, do you?”

She raised her pink brows like she was startled. “Oh! Right, somepony called while you were asleep. I didn’t wanna wake you, so…” She took my phone from behind her and passed it to me.

Today was Friday, April 25th, 2028, at 6 pm. I’ll graduate high school tomorrow, and then comes my Wonderbolts Exam. Who did I miss a call from? An unknown number? Alright, stop. Surroundings first.

This was Cheesette’s room. Confection stickers everywhere, mostly pies, pink painted walls decorated with yellow ‘frosting’ lines, a fluffy bed with bright pink sheets, a yellow bean bag chair in the middle of the floor (which we were on top of), a big TV with that farming game she likes to play on it, and a desk and a computer in front of the window next to her streaming setup.

That means I’m at the Pie’s house, and it’s still Friday. There shouldn’t be anything to worry about, but I should probably return the call since it might be related to my exam. It was never the performance part that we were worried about… “Do you mind if I make a call?”

She made a quick glance my way, then went back to her game. “Well, I’d really like it if you got back to playing with me since we’ve got stuff to do for the farm, but you can take your call.”

“Thanks.” I’ll have to make it up to her later. We haven’t had much time to hang out with the crap storm that was my exam prep this month. All I’ve done since we got back from school is sleep on her.

I redialed the number, and after two rings, it picked up. “Hello?” The voice was female and immature but not a kid’s voice. A teenager who was a bit more raspy than most and with a deeper tone than most mares. She sounded kinda like Mom, actually.

“Hi, this is Prism Dash, I got a call from this number earlier?”

“Oh, yes!” She cleared her throat on the other end. “I’m Effie Lightning, but you can call me Effie. I saw that you were on the rookie Wonderbolt’s roster too, so I wanted to get to know you.”

Hmm. Three problems with that. One: I haven’t been told I passed my exam yet; I still haven’t taken the performance test. Two: who is this girl, and how does she have access to the rookie roster before the tests are all complete? Three, and the biggest problem of all: why does she want to get to know me?

I cleared my throat to get Cheesette’s attention. “Hey, that’s great! Will you give me a minute?”

She caught my eye and put her controller down. “What’s up?”

Effie replied, “Sure, Prism. Um, you don’t mind me calling you that, do you? I mean, we’ll both be on the same team here in a bit, so it makes sense for me to call you by your name, right?”

Wow! Not okay! “Yeah, one moment, please.” I muted the mic and put the phone down. “I think a crazy stalker mare got my phone number somehow.”

Cheesette’s eyes went wide. “Oh, wow, that’s not okay! Do we need to go see Mister Fin?”

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea. “Maybe, but I don’t wanna get the cops involved until I know this is really some kinda stalker. I want you to text Mom and Dad and ask them if they know an ‘Effie Lightning.’”

Cheesette rolled off the beanbag and took her phone from her desk. “Understood.”

Unmuting the mic, I said, “Hey, Effie, thanks for waiting. So, who else is on the roster right now? I haven’t heard much about it yet.”

A page flipped on the other end. “Just a hoofful of other advance candidates. Cloudsdale branch is getting a bunch of pegasi from all over. I kinda feel bad for the regular guys who still have to take the performance test. There are only like five slots left to fill.”

Alright, that does sound realistic. Dad had been a part of the selection process while he was still with the team about sixteen years ago. Ponies who had a record of first place in races or high profile stunts at high school and college events can get in ahead of the normal selection, provided they pass the written test. My dumb ass, following my Mom’s dumb ass, was struggling to pass high school, let alone a college level test that covers advanced biology and physics. The least realistic thing about this is that I passed the test at all.

Have I met this mare? I’m so bad with names, I could’ve just forgotten her. “That sounds rough for them, I guess. Did they post the written exam results anywhere?”

“Uh—Yeah… They got posted a few minutes ago on the website.”

I put my hoof over the mic and turned back to Cheesette. “Anything? Also, check the Bolt’s site to see if the results are up.”

“On it. Also, Mister Soarin says he doesn’t know, Miss Dash is still typing.”

Strange. Mom usually answers first.

Cheesette reared her head back. “Huh, what do ya know? The scores were posted, like, a minute ago.”

Good Goddess, did she just post the scores? Man, if I knew anybody else who had taken the exam already, I’d call to confirm, but all my friends are still juniors or ineligible. This is weird. I unmuted the phone again. “Cool, I’ll look at them when I get a chance. Are you calling all the ponies who passed the exam?”

There was a delay in her response. “Yes… I wanted to make sure all the short list guys know what to expect.”

“So, what should I expect?”

This one, she was ready for. “Well, first, we’ll have an entrance ceremony on Monday, May 15th. Everypony will be assigned their team and trainer. We’ll be working with Mom, given the names we’re attached to. The test scores are mostly a formality to make sure new recruits don’t break themselves doing our stunts. Everybody in our group is gonna be the best of the best, so we’ll likely get right onto routines. The rookie show is scheduled for the 29th, so we’ll be hitting the ground running. We normally get one to two weeks to learn a routine, and those who can’t do it are benched pretty fast, but you shouldn’t have any trouble with your record.”

Her mom, huh? Guess that means she’s the daughter of a trainer, but who?

Cheesette wagged her hoof at me. “Hey, Miss Dash says she needs to talk to you, like, now.”

I nodded to Cheesette and put the phone back to my ear. “Alright, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. I’ve got another call to get to, so I’ll talk to you later, I guess.”

“Ah! Uh, wait a minute! I, uh…” A little bit of panic and moving things around on Effie’s end over the line. “W-we should go over the rookie routine sometime! A-are you free this weekend, or next week?”

Wait a minute. What is this? That doesn’t sound like she just wants to practice. “Let me get back to you on that. Anyways, I’ve got to take this other call. Bye.”

“Call me again!”

Click. I stared, confused, at the phone. “Cheesie-pie?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“I think I have a crazy fan.”

She frowned, getting off her gamer chair and joining me on the bean bag again. “That’s… I don’t think I like that.”

I put a wing around her and pulled her close. “Yeah, no, me neither. How do you think this happened?”

She backed off and stared at me like I was an idiot. “What do you mean, ‘how’? Have you ever lost a competition?”

“No.” But, then again, I’ve never really been challenged in a competition either.

“And how long have you been racing?”

“Since 2020, you know that.”

She put a foreleg around my neck and looked deep into my eyes. “Prism, baby, it might be weird to hear this from me, but you’re kind of impressive.”

And so it was. Cheesette and I had known each other since childhood, and in the last three years, we’d been inseparable. I’ve tried to propose a few times now, but neither of us were out of high school so she kept telling me to wait. Still, it made me blush. “I… I mean.”

She kissed my cheek. “Good Goddess, I hate how cute you are.” She brushed her curly pale pink mane aside. “I mean, you’ve been racing for eight years and don’t have a loss to your name? Nopony else can say that. Objectively speaking here, you’re kind of a stud. And, maybe I’ve learned how to be scary to other mares.”

I pressed my cheek to hers. “Oh yeah? Tell me more.”

Chesette pushed me off. “You goober. Look, all I’m saying is, if the other mares in the school didn’t know the kind of abject violence I’m capable of, they’d be all over you. You’re mine, though, and they know that. This Effie chick,” she said with a kind of hate that was rare for her, “just doesn’t know me yet, and has probably seen you perform. It’s not like I can be up in the skies with you when you go to Cloudsdale and Las Pegasus.”

The worst competitions were always the ones she couldn’t attend. The only time I ever got close to second during one was when she wasn’t there to cheer me on shortly after we ‘officially’ started dating early in my sophomore year. Come to think of it, that was about the time she got into MMA.

“Speaking of,” she added, “what are you gonna do about that if you get drafted by the Cloudsdale branch?”

I slapped a hoof to my forehead. “Oh, crap, that’s what she said! ‘A lot of pegasi from all over got drafted to Cloudsdale…’”

“Let me rephrase that: what are you going to do because you got drafted by the Cloudsdale branch?”

The headache was coming and I did not want it. Chessette was soft and warm, and thinking was hard. “Man, I don’t know! I didn’t even apply for the Cloudsdale branch. I thought that since Ponvyille has its own branch now that I wouldn’t have to worry about it! Now I’m gonna have to move or spend hours every day flying back and forth. I don’t wanna go anywhere!”

She patted my head and pressed me to her. “Aww, baby.” We sat there together like that for a while. Eventually, she picked up her controller, passed me mine, and we farmed. With the real world swept aside, I could work the ground with my hooves, plant and grow vegetables, tend to the animals, and Cheesette could live her ancestral life mining rocks on a rock farm. We collected ore, sold crops, made food, and enjoyed each other in the game silently.

“It’s awfully quiet in here,” Mister Cheese said, knocking on the door. “You wouldn’t be doing anything with long-term consequences, would you?”

Chessette rolled her eyes, but then smiled deviously. “Oh, yes, Daddy, and he’s soooo good!” she moaned.

My upper body stiffened, and my lower body stiffened, and I crossed my hind legs and said, “No, no! It’s a joke! She’s making a bad joke!”

Opening the door with a smile on his face, Mister Cheese casually threw a hammer to the floor. “Oh, you. Anyways, dinner is ready, kids! Mom made baked potato croquettes.”

The head of the steel hammer glinted in the lights of Chesette’s room. I swallowed. “That sounds great!”

“You bet it does. Come on, let’s eat!”

As he walked away in one of his many yellow collared shirts, my heart climbed back down my throat. This must be what mares feel like when we’re at school together.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Chesette apologized. “I didn’t think Daddy would… take it so far.”

“Yeah, no.” My mouth was so dry. “That’s a new one. I’ve never been so scared and aroused in my life.”

She bit my ear and my wings flared out. “I’ll make it up to you later,” she whispered. Standing up, she headed for the door, picking up the hammer on her way. “Let’s go.”

It would be worth it. But he’d kill you! But it would be worth it. But you could die! But it would be worth it.

With my heart resolved and my fear mastered, I followed my mare.

Would.

“Dude,” Mom said, disappointed.

I’d just made it home, it was before nine like has been always asked of me, and it was my day off. We had a schedule for these things, so what was she mad about? I stared at the middle-aged rainbow mare in wonder. “Yeah?”

“I told you to call me!”

I took a quick breath. “Ooooh, right…”

Mom scratched at her mane. “Geez. Ponies would accuse you of being mine even if you weren’t. Go to the office, we gotta talk.”

Was… was that an insult? A self-own? What does that say about us? Whatever. “Okay, sure.”

Our house was an average-sized two-story home with exposed varnished wooden beams at every corner and painted with periwinkle for the exterior and white accents on the molding. A balcony with a wrought iron railing, each bar twisted into a cage design in the center, and a peaked roof. We had a red brick chimney going up the side of the house, and each windowsill had flowers planted in them to match the house with the season.

The inside was painted in cream so that Dad and I didn’t blend into the walls, and we had blue velvet furniture with glass tables and red granite countertops. The living room had a big TV, console, and sound system for our movie marathons, and disc cases filled the shelves with the various films we’d all watch together, though about half of it was anime, and half of that was my Roboknights collection.

On the bottom floor was the kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and guest room. Each room was designed with its purpose in mind, and they were all color-coded. Bathrooms are shades of blue, the kitchen is red, the laundry room is yellow, and the guest room is green.

On the second floor are all the bedrooms. Mom and Dad’s room was the closest room to the staircase and was painted a sky blue that Mom and Haze would disappear in if their manes were covered. My room was next, and I had it painted like the inside of the hangar of my favorite spaceship from Roboknights. It took me literal months to get every detail right, but when you walk in, it looks like the space is about twice as big as it really is. Of course, my desk, bed and shelves filled with Roboknights and other models and painting and sculpting tools kinda destroy the effect.

Haze’s room is next to mine and is a dark red since he’s angsty like that. He’s got all the same stuff any colt his age would have in there, except his Roboknight models are unsanded, unpainted, and just thrown up in any which way with no attention to detail at all! But they're not mine and I got in trouble last time I tried to fix one, so I don’t go in there when I don’t have to.

At the end of this hall was an extra room. Originally, Mom and Dad had wanted another kid, but thanks to all the issues Mom had conceiving Haze, they decided against that. Instead, they turned it into a study that really just collected crap before I complained enough to be allowed to fix it. Now, it’s a yellow-orange painted room with warm light lamps, books in shelves, our files, Mom and Dad’s computers, and this cool old phonograph I got from Grandma Downy Snow’s house. The record collection is small and the audio quality isn’t great, but it works, which is the neat part. There was a chair for the desk, a recliner next to the phonograph, and extra folding chairs in the event we needed to have a family meeting.

Mom took the desk chair. “You’re gonna wanna set one of the chairs up for this.”

The recliner was kind of in the corner, so that made sense enough. “Uh, okay.”

She looked through the file shelves until she found a Wonderbolts year book. This one was dated 2008. Equestria really was just beginning to manufacture modern technology back then, so it was probably one of the first totally machine-made books in the world.

She flipped open to the Cloudsdale branch’s page and pointed at a young mare. She had a yellow coat with a combed back two-tone orange mane and bright orange eyes. Based on her uniform in the picture, she was the team captain for this year. Scanning the rest of the page, a very young Mom and Dad could also be found.

“So, buddy, do you remember Captain Spitfire?”

She seemed vaguely familiar. “Maybe? Was she at one of my races or something?”

Mom frowned. “She was probably at a lot of your races. She’s still active as an instructor with the Cloudsdale branch, and she often serves as a judge for performances held there. She was my captain from '04 to '08 before I tore my wing and your Dad knocked me up and took her job.”

See, if I said something like that, I’d get yelled at. “Mom, phrasing.”

She covered her face with her hooves. “Oh, Goddess, I didn’t mean to say it like that! You became a thing! I got pregnant! Married? Yeah, that.”

Do I say things like that too? Is that why? “Yeah, that. So, what about her?”

She took a breath. “Well, the Captain was my senior all my life, and she sorta helped champion me back into the Wonderbolts after I blew my first shot with the junior corps. She thought we’d fly together for a long time, and then the tear happened. What was supposed to be ten years of performing together ended up in me settling down after four.”

Considering who Mom is, that’s kinda wild. “Wow. You don’t really seem like the type.”

She clapped her hooves. “Bro, that was your fault. If you weren’t so stinkin’ cute!” Mom sighed. “Well, we were all surprised that I liked mothering better than racing or performing, and since I’d torn my wing, I’d already hit my peak. I’d never be as good again, so my career was over. Of course, I was young and in my early twenties at the time. Captain Spitfire was… not so young.”

Huh. Where’s she going with this? “How old was she?”

“She was twenty-six when I joined her squad, and thirty when I retired.” Mom brushed her rainbow mane to the side. “So, getting up there in age seeing how bad I’d messed up my wing and how much fun I was having with you, she thought maybe it was finally time to hang up the old wings and give romance a shot.”

I didn’t like where she was going with this. “This doesn’t happen to be related to that call I got, does it?”

Mom rubbed her hooves together, trying to find the words. “So… Spitfire never got married, but she did have a kid.”

“A kid named Effie Lightning.”

“Right.” Mom took her phone from her lap and showed me a picture of a young pegasus mare about my age who had a violet coat with bright yellow eyes and a two-tone orange and yellow mane that was sort of spiky and pulled into a ponytail. “That’s her.”

She can’t be older than sixteen. “How is she part of the rookie group? I thought you had to be eighteen to join the Bolts?”

Mom sucked air in through her teeth. “So. Captain Spitfire is kind of a big deal in the Bolts. She’s got third or fourth on, like, every record the bolts keep.”

“Every record? Like top score for each named trick, track time, and flight time? Don’t most ponies specialize in one of the three?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a few firsts in track and flight times, and your dad could still probably get top marks for most tricks and some of the endurance races, but Spitfire did everything well. She earned her captain title, there wasn’t much she couldn’t do, but…”

“She was never the best at anything.”

“Mm-hmm.” Mom stared at the picture of her old friend sadly. “She was a good captain and promoted everypony she could without losing her edge, but she’d always end up raising the next guy to beat her own records. She’s the best trainer the Bolts have ever had, but that’s not what earns you sponsorships or accolades. Ponyville Academy still uses your Dad and me to promote its flight program, and we help some of the better seniors out navigating sponsorships and with the Bolts exam which also brings in extra money. For school teachers, we’re rich. For former Wonderbolts, though, we’re about the middle of the road. Compared to the kind of money that flows around the tracks these days, you could end up making more bits in a year than your Dad and I combined over the course of our careers.”

It still didn’t really compute to me how much money I actually had to my name. I’d won everything I ever entered, and some of those competitions had cash prizes. I could go to a fancy college in Manehattan and pay for it out of pocket, let alone scholarships for flight programs, but passing the Bolts exam eliminated the need for that at all. Technically, I was already part of the pro circuit, but for an old generation Bolt who was never the best at anything…

“Did Spitfire ever get sponsored?”

“That’s… part of the story too, actually.”

Now, I really don’t like where this is going. “What happened?”

She pulled up another picture, this time a recent picture of an old violet unicorn stallion wearing a fancy suit with his yellow mane slicked back and glistening yellow eyes under small glasses. “This is Struck Gold, Effie’s father. He owns the Struck Company, which produces Thunderaid.”

“Oh.” That’s a big name with a lot of cash attached to it. There’s not a sporting event out there without Thunderaid in every vending machine, concession stand, and soda fountain.

“Yeah. Spitfire was sponsored by Thunderaid. They were her only sponsor, but it kept her in the black no matter how she performed… so long as she remained captain of the Cloudsdale Wonderbolts.”

“This doesn’t get gross, does it?”

Mom shook her head. “Not really, but it does get kinda weird. Basically, when Spitfire announced that she was stepping down, Thunderaid tried to make that not happen. She was practically at every event, her face moved a lot of product, and if she ever got on the podium, they’d make each other a lot of money through brand recognition alone. She met Struck, and then she kinda vanished for a few years. I was never told the details, but she came back to the Wonderbolts a few years later with Effie in tow and never said a word about what happened while she was gone.”

I frowned. “How do you know she’s his daughter, then?”

“I mean, there’s no hard evidence, but everypony has eyes, ya know? She looks more like him than Spitfire. And, strangely enough, Spitfire still appears with Thunderaid Logos on her uniforms. Something happened, and something is still going on, but the details are super murky.”

“Okay, that explains the how. What about the why? Like, why did some random mare I’d never met call me and try to make a plan to meet up with me?”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “A meet-up? That’s going too far, even for a super fan like her…”

What an icky pair of words. “Super fan?”

Clapping her hooves together, Mom leaned over the table. “So, mister superstar, did you know that you have a flawless record?”

I rolled my eyes. “I mean, yeah, I was there.”

“Right.” She took a list of all my entries from the files. “No second-place trophies, perfect scores at every performance, holder of nearly every junior flier record there is. I might even feel better about it if you had a bit of my ego, but you’re kind of on track to be the best there ever was.”

Ah, this again. That memory from earlier flashed in my mind. Dad’s words. “I just do this for fun though.”

Mom made a silent prayer. “I know, buddy, but I’m your Mom, of course I know that. Ponies who don’t know you just see the superstar flier. Downy Snow loved seeing pegasus fly so much that she chased one down and ended up giving birth to your Dad. Ponies love to watch you, and you always win. You’re a performer, an entertainer, and the best of your generation. Worst of all, you never gloat about it. You could honestly stand to be a bit more of an ass about your record, you’d at least seem more real.”

I hate it when ponies do this. “But I don’t care about my record…”

“I know. But not everypony is you, and a lot of ponies who aren’t you do care about your record—Namely, Captain Spitfire and Effie Lightning.”

I let out a breath, ready to be done with this conversation. Ah, I want to go back to the Pie’s and snuggle with Chessette. “And what about them, exactly?”

“Well, Spitfire, for one, thinks you’re like the second coming of Commander Hurricane.”

That felt icky too. “What? I’m not some legendary ancient pegasus. I just like to fly and build things.”

Mom rested her cheek on her hoof. “Uh-huh. She wants to make you into a Wonderbolt Captain. And as for Effie… well, she wants to meet you. Real bad. Like, concerningly bad. Like, me-when-I-was-a-teenager-trying-to-meet-A.K.-Yearling kinda bad.”

Goddess among us, how horrifying. “But!”

“No buts! You gotta realize this sooner or later, dude. You’re famous, and getting into the Bolts right out of high school is only going to spread that fame even further.”

I laid my head on the desk. “Ugh, this is not cool.”

Mom shrugged. “That’s what you get for ‘flying for fun’ after all this time. Still, Effie is gonna be a thorn in your side and you need to be ready for that.”

“How is she even on the team again?”

“She isn’t, actually. What she is, however, is an exception to the rules and she’s going to serve as her mom’s assistant until she graduates high school. Spitfire has a lot of sway and can bend things in the Bolts like that.”

I rubbed at my temples. “Come on, I passed the test! I thought the nightmare was over already!”

“About that…” I looked up and Mom had pulled up the exam scores from the website. “You got the minimum passing score.”

“Isn’t that what you got?”

She ground her teeth. Her being a school teacher now is probably the funniest twist of fate there ever was. “That’s true. But I didn’t think you were gonna pass at all. You never passed a practice test. You consistently got around the fifties when we did them. You need a seventy minimum, and somehow, magically, even though we’d run out of time, you pulled twenty points out of thin air.”

I swallowed. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” She put the phone away and leaned back in the desk chair. “I’m going to pull some strings and get this looked into quietly, but I think we both know how suspect this is. Not only do you pass when there really isn’t data to support that, but Spitfire wants you on her team in particular, and Effie is your biggest fan. You need to be careful about what you say. Ya know. Phrasing.”

“Aaah! Why me?”

She patted my shoulder. “Sorry, kiddo. You lived up to the hype.”

“This sucks!” I covered my head. “What do I do?”

“Suck it up for now. We’ll figure something out. But like, don’t go and be mean to Effie. If you want to be a Wonderbolt, you’re gonna have to play nice.”

The glint of that hammer flashed in my mind. “Oh, Goddess, I hope she’s not into me. Otherwise, Cheesette might kill her.”

“Hey, you—” Mom paused mid-sentence. She thought about it. “Don’t meet Effie anywhere Cheesette could reach her.”

I looked up into Mom’s magenta eyes. “Why would you say that? I don’t need relationship drama on top of all this!”

“Honestly, I don’t know if Cheesette would be more or less likely to commit a murder if you were married to her. What did your little brother call her the other day?”

“Cheesette isn’t a yandere!”

Mom crossed her forelegs. “Yeah, that’s the one. Sandwich is the same way.”

I shivered. Cheesette has made her own advances on me before, but the fear of her father is what keeps me from doing anything. He always plays it off as a joke, but I don’t ever think he’s joking. “Well, maybe.”

Getting out of her chair, Mom came around and hugged me. “Bah, you’ll be alright. Just be cool and you should be golden. Honestly, I’ve never been worried about how you behave. I trust you, buddy. You can do this.”

I sighed. “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

“Love you too, Prism.”

3 - Terms of Service

Against my better judgment, I saved Effie’s number. Over the course of the week, she tried to call me no less than four times. At one point, Cheesette stole my phone to answer and told her it was a wrong number. When that didn’t deter her and I asked Cheesette to not do that again since this was kind of a big deal, she settled for renaming her ‘F-bomb’ in my contacts.

Mom was not kidding about the super fan thing.

The next day, an email went to all the examinees to apologize for posting the test results early. The system suffered a ‘security breach’ and they have since upgraded all the servers. Princess Twilight would later get back to us saying that none of it was true and Effie just snuck into her mother’s account. As far as my test being bumped was concerned, they couldn’t find any proof that my numbers were specifically manipulated, but there were several questions removed from the test this year. She figures that, if Spitfire really wanted me in, then she could just go through my test, determine certain questions were ‘bad’ and remove them from the exam after the fact for the entire examinee pool. There was enough precedent for it that no one could really argue against it. I just happened to ‘get lucky’ this time.

At the end of the next week, I got an email celebrating my acceptance into the Cloudsdale branch of the Wonderbolts, which, again, I didn’t apply for. Upon accepting the position of Rookie Wonderbolt, I’d be given housing in the onsite barracks if need be, and I was to meet the Trainer and my new team two weeks from then on May 15th.

The salary itself was more than enough to live on, but, suspiciously, I also got an email from Struck Company about a Thunderaid sponsorship. I pretty much bolted straight to Mom and Dad because the number listed there didn’t make any sense for a rookie in their first year. Nopony should be giving a rookie of all ponies five million bits before he’s even debuted on the pro circuit. Having a big name like this on my back didn’t make any sense either. None of this should be happening.

Only, it was all legit. I was in it deep and I wasn’t getting out any time soon. I figured I ought to get ahead of this—well, Miss Rarity said I should try to get ahead of this since she knows all the lawyers—and I set up a meeting with Captain Spitfire. I was not comfortable going it alone, though, so Dad went with me.

It had been a long time since I’d gone flying to Cloudsdale with Dad like this. It was blue and clear over Ponyville, and we had a tailwind on a cool, late spring day.

“Like, it is weird, isn’t it?” I asked.

Dad was still Dad, but it had been a long time since he was in his prime. Not only had I grown up, but he was slowing down. We hadn’t been going too long, but he was already gliding. “Yeah,” he panted, “it’s a little weird, but the Wonderbolts aren’t the only sporting organization Thunderaid and Struck Company supports. They have their logo on everything and everyone who will take them. Hoofball rookies tend to get crazy expensive contracts too, and Thunderaid is just one of Struck’s products. They’ve got that soda brand, they make snack foods, hell, even the oatmeal you like is under Struck’s umbrella. Half the things you find in a stadium are Struck Company products.”

“I still don’t like it. I don’t even know these people, why would they pull strings for me?”

Dad frowned. “I know you hate to be reminded of this, but you’re kinda the young flier right now. Trophies at the house, trophies at the school, competitions across the country. Your name is out there, and you’re a big deal in these circles.”

“Ugh, why does it feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know about this?”

Dad put a hoof on my shoulder. “Buddy, I think you and I both know that you have a tendency to be oblivious to the rest of the world.”

Guilty. “I mean, I can only focus on so many things.”

“And if it’s not a model, flying, or your girlfriend, you usually don’t.”

The girlfriend thing was more recent than the others, but it’s always caused me problems at school. “Well, I watch TV shows and MeTube videos.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “You’re also male and a teenager, what about it?”

Doesn’t exactly help my case here. “Nothing, I guess.”

“I get it, buddy, I really do.” He flapped his wings a few times to meet my eyes. “But this is kinda the… nastier side of the Wonderbolts. Sponsorships and internal politics are a part of any big organization. Your mom and I work for the school, but we’re also sponsored by the city and the district. We have relationships and contracts to navigate through each of them, and making people like us and playing nice is part of the job.

“Sure, we help promote local events and races, and sometimes we work with the Ponyville Wonderbolts when we can, but, like, they’re bottom tier as far as the Wonderbolts go, and Cloudsdale has first pick. You’re not the top candidate with scores like yours, but your crazy record is famous. You were always gonna get Cloudsdale, Canterlot, or Las Pegasus and, we’re just lucky you ended up this close.”

“You knew I wasn’t gonna get Ponyville?”

Dad clicked his tongue. “Well, I honestly didn’t think you were gonna get in this year at all with your grades. Speaking of, regardless of you passing, we still need to keep working on your meteorology. The weather will mess you up if you’re not careful, and you have to be familiar with all that. It doesn’t matter if you can feel a storm coming if it forms right as you fly through it.”

Despite being a pegasus, meteorology was my worst science. Pressure, humidity, wind speed, cloud types, storm formation, forecasting, I was terrible at all of it. Flying was just something I felt. I’m really good at it because I can sort of feel everything, but I also get lost and have flown straight through thunderstorms and blizzards because I have a hard time remembering which clouds are safe to pass through and which ones I need to avoid. On the one hoof, flying straight through a dangerous cloud has gotten me record-breaking times, but on the other hoof, it’s not like I do that on purpose.

“Yeah… Are you gonna help me with that, or…?”

Dad scratched his beard. “I mean, your mom was the weather pony and science has advanced a lot since I last took the test. There’s more to learn about it these days.” He let out a breath. “Dad would be the pony to ask, but…”

Grandpa Hang Glider? “But what?”

Dad was silent for a while, staring off into the blue sky. We had a few minutes before we’d get to Cloudsdale. “Dad is… against the Wonderbolts, generally.”

“What? Why?”

Dad rolled his tongue around his mouth. Our tailwind caught the edge of the lake under Cloudsdale and started blowing upward. I don’t remember any of the terms for this, but I think that meant Cloudsdale was due for a storm soon. “Well, he was one, for a very short time.”

The old stallion did have impressive wings. “I could see it. But like, why does he hate them now?”

“I don’t know.” Dad shrugged. “But it’s been like this all my life, and it’s something he and Mom fought over a lot before the divorce. After I grew up, I fought with him a lot about the Bolts too. He was a weather pony for something like thirty years though, so he knows his stuff. I just don’t know how receptive he’d be if you told him you joined the Bolts. He only ever came to my performances because Sweet Wing would fight for me.”

Maybe I should go see Grandpa. “Would you—?"

“No.” Dad stared dead through me, then turned his head back toward Cloudsdale. “You can see your grandpa by yourself.”

Right. “Yeah… I’ll do that then.”

We were silent the rest of the way to the Wonderbolts Academy in Cloudsdale. The huge sky city sat above Abyssal Lake, the deepest freshwater lake in Equestria. The history goes that pegasi were chased here back in the days before Equestria by the unicorns. They couldn’t defend themselves well against magic, so they hid where magic couldn’t reach them. It was untenable, however, because you can’t grow food in the clouds. Eventually, one Commander Hurricane, a highly skilled flier and archer, the original ‘Wonderbolt’ managed to drive off the unicorns using hit-and-run tactics. Land around Abyssal Lake was fortified, and the pegasi had a source of freshwater and basic food to eat. By restricting access to the lake, they made deals with the earth ponies and unicorns for food, goods, and help in managing the weather.

After the princesses came to power, however, the old pegasus dynasties fell to ruin and the city was left more or less as a pegasus segregation hideaway. It’s one of the last cities where only one pony race lives, but it’s easier to visit than ever before thanks to a spell band Princess Twilight invented sixteen years ago.

Now, Cloudsdale is a big tourist spot, and unlike Las Pegasus which specced into gambling and amusement parks, Cloudsdale is a sports megacity with Wonderbolt races and shows at its center. Literally. It was laid out like a dart board with residential districts all along the edges, a ring road closer toward the middle, and the center of the city which was mainly hotels, resorts, and Wonderbolt complexes.

Wonderbolt Stadium, where performances were held, was an enclosed space where ponies could enjoy watching indoor show routines. Song and dance mixed with aerobatics was the oldest kind of Wonderbolt shows there were, dating all the way back to the pegasus dynasties of the old world. It’s a little like ballet with wings, except it doesn’t follow much of a formula. Last year, they had some kind of EDM light show thing where all the bolt’s uniforms were covered in fluorescent strips and they performed completely under black lights.

The Wonderbolt racetrack was more of a city-wide thing, but shorter, more technical races were kept to the Bolt's rally track. These were all about speed… within limits. Thanks to a certain pony going supersonic right under the city approximately sixteen years ago, causing a blackout that killed two ponies, racers are no longer allowed to dive anywhere within a mile of the city, and nets are spread under every inch of the city just in case some unlucky or stupid non-pegasus happens to fall through the clouds. There were a number of track configurations that mostly went through parts of and around the city, but when it came to the junior and amateur races, they were typically restricted to the rally track. The Wonderbolt Race track was also famous for the number of injuries and deaths it’s caused over the decades. It was during a distance race held here that Mom tore her wing.

Finally, in the center of the city was the Cloudsdale Speedway. This was a 1.5 mile oval track where the competitors would race to complete laps as quickly as possible. Rainbow Dash, a.k.a. Mom, currently holds the fastest time on the 500 course, completing 500 laps in under four hours. Soarin, a.k.a. Dad, holds the record for most laps completed at something absurd like 1200. For reference, the last pony to attempt Dad’s record, a pegasus by the name of Lightning Dust, only managed 900 laps. Only Dad has ever broken Dad’s record, and nopony has come close in a long time. Dude was here flying in circles for twelve hours straight. He only stopped because he passed out.

Just east of the speedway and centered between the three main facilities was the Wonderbolt Academy. It housed the barracks, major training facilities, and offices of the Cloudsdale Branch. Originally, this was also the main branch of the Wonderbolts, but thanks to explosive growth in the last thirty years, a much bigger facility was built near Canterlot that uses the mountain city’s natural height to help train young fliers more safely. Cloudsdale, however, is where the best of the best go, and, unfortunately, that meant me.

For as many fond memories as I have of coming here as a spectator, and even as a competitor for my later junior events, I wasn’t excited about this meeting. I’ve never been one to lead a team, I usually just memorize routines and play my part, and when it comes to racing, I just go where I need to as quick as I can. It’s all fun and there’s no real weight on my shoulders like this. I hadn’t even started the job yet, and I already felt like there was a lot to live up to.

We landed at the front of the building with all its columns and ornamentation, featuring little lightning bolts, cloud designs and old pegasus historical battles carved into the staircase and walls. Normally, I loved to look at this place because little was better than detailed engraving like that, but now I felt like the unicorns and earth ponies being skewered by arrows in the early history sections.

“Well, come on,” Dad said, heading in.

Sighing, I followed behind. Down in Ponyville, in a very spacious outer ring district, one could find replicas of everything in this hall in the Ponyville Branch Wonderbolts HQ. It was big and new and had all that modern interior design, but it paled in comparison to the ancient cloud-built, hoof-made Cloudsdale headquarters. Trophies lined cases all along the walls, records written in the old pegasus language and translated into modern Equestrian sat beneath the very earliest Wonderbolts awards ever made, all preserved in near perfect condition throughout the ages.

We walked down polished blue halls passing display after display while the decades rolled by. Seasonal competitions to yearly competitions, trophies made of rarer and rarer materials as wealth grew and events became more grand, then back to tradition during the Cloudsdale restoration era of the 1000s. On and on the hall went until we hit about the 1600s, which is where the offices began. We turned left into a smaller hall under a plaque that said ‘Recruiting.’

“Captain? You around?” Dad called.

“Captain?” a rough, older mare’s voice responded. “Nopony calls me Captain anymore.”

We turned into a room at the end of the hall where the voice had come from. On the left was a case full of medals and trophies. They were very few gold, a couple silver, and mostly bronze. On the right was a couch and another door to a bathroom. At the back was a huge wooden desk sitting in front of a very well lit window with an older mare on a laptop minding it. She was staring at Dad as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Goddess, you got old, Soarin.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “I just don’t shave anymore. Not part of my contracts these days.”

She grunted, getting out of her office chair to greet us. “You looked better without it.” She locked on me next as a curl formed in her lips. “Well, well, if it isn’t the record breaker! Flew all the way here from Ponyville and it doesn’t look like you broke a sweat.”

I swallowed. “Uh, yes, ma’am. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

She scowled. “Nice to… Kid, I’ve put awards around your neck. Do you seriously not remember me?”

Between the picture Mom showed me the other day and now, a lot had changed for the old mare. Wrinkles and crow's feet marked her face. Her eyes were dimmer, and her mane had been pulled into a small bun while looking sort of thin with silver streaks in it. She looked and sounded like she smoked almost as much as Grandma Downy, with maybe a healthier lifestyle otherwise. Her wings were her best quality in that they were well maintained, but that bright shine that pegasi in good shape get just wasn’t there. If the picture from '08 was Spitfire near her prime, this was Spitfire on her way to retirement.

My eyes fell to the floor. “W-well, I’m really not good with keeping track of ponies.”

The old mare sighed. “Carry ‘em around as foals and they forget you in a week. Kids, man.”

“Oh, come on, Captain,” Dad interjected, “It’s been years, give him a break.”

She made her way back to her desk and crashed into her chair. “I guess it has. Grab a seat boys, tell me why you’re here.”

There were two brown vinyl chairs set out for guests in front of the desk. Dad took the right, I took the left. A whole lot of those trophies were bronze, but the variety was wild. Longest Dive, Highest Altitude, Best Showman, Cloudsdale 500, Cloudsdale Grand Tour. She’d placed in everything.

“So, Prism got a concerning email the other day,” Dad said.

The Spitfire’s ears perked up. “Oh yeah? From who?”

“Thunderaid. They want to give him an awful lot of bits just to have their logo on his uniform.”

She smiled, clapping her hooves. “Well, that’s great! What an opportunity for a rookie, kid, you should be glad.” Spitfire reached over the desk to offer me a hoof, but Dad blocked. She leaned back, shooting her orange eyes at him. “Is there something wrong, Soarin?”

“We’re just concerned, is all. Prism has an excellent record, but his test scores leave a lot to be desired. It’d be one thing if he had some experience, but that’s a lot of money for a kid right out of high school.”

The air in Spitfire’s office had become thick, and not due to any kind of atmospheric pressure. She put her hooves together on her desk, assuming a very commanding posture. “So it is. He’s a winner, isn’t he? Doesn’t it make sense to… bet on a winning pony?”

Dad stared at his former captain intently. “Sure, but junior leagues are a whole lot different than the pros. He’s good, but he’s not hitting anything like Dash’s times yet, and he’s never done pro-level events.”

Spitfire narrowed her eyes. “You call an hour and fifteen minute run on the Canterlot 200 ‘anything like’ Rainbow’s times? If that was a 500, he’d have beaten or matched her record!”

Oh, Goddess, a 500 race? I was so dizzy and pukey after the 175 mark that I don’t remember anything but losing my lunch from the rest of the 200. Mom was going that fast for four hours?

“He also blew chunks and passed out after the podium. Eighteen is a whole lot younger than twenty-three with three years pro racing experience. He’s not gonna be Dash in her prime the moment he joins the team.”

Spitfire rested her cheek on her hoof. “So he isn’t. That’s what I’m here for. Head Instructor Spitfire—every trophy at the end of that hall belongs to somepony who worked with me.”

Dad crossed his forelegs. “Yeah, but I bet they didn’t get multimillion bit sponsorships from your long-time partner on their first day of the job.”

The air in the room could’ve been molded into shape, it was so thick.

“What is this about, Soarin?” She said, harshly.

“That’s what I wanna know, Captain.” Dad shot back. The word 'captain' seemed to disarm her a bit. “I’m trying to look out for my son here because I don’t think he’s ready for this.”

Frowning at him, she turned away, reached into her desk, and took out an ashtray. “Either of you smoke?” she asked.

“No.”

Sighing, she brought out a cigar and lit it with a match. Once it was bright and orange at the tip and the smoke was flying up and through the cloud ceiling, she set it down. “That’s unfortunate, but you were always the straight-arrow type, Soarin.” Finally, she turned her eyes on me. “What kind are you, exactly?”

What does she want me to say? What should I be saying here? “I mean… I just like to fly.”

She grabbed at her chest. “Oh, it just kills me when ponies say that! You just like to fly better and faster than everypony else. You just win everything and anything you enter like it’s nothing to you. You just have the most amazing junior record anypony’s ever seen. Do you even wanna be a Wonderbolt, kid?”

I didn’t just study for ages for nothing. “I mean, well, yeah. Both my parents were and I really do like flying and to push myself when I do, so I… sorta figured I’d just be one one day.”

“Goddess, your attitude sucks!” Spitfire grabbed her cigar and took a huge drag on it. She stood up and looked out her window, puffing away at her stick. “Do you know how many ponies apply for the Wonderbolts every year?”

I’m pretty sure that’s, like, a test question, isn’t it? “Look, I’m not really a numbers guy.”

“Yeah, I know.” She turned around to face me. “Let me break it down for you, Skittles Junior.” She raised her wing and stuck out her primary feathers. “There are about a million pegasi in Cloudsdale. There are five high schools and two colleges here, Cloudsdale University, and Cloudsdale Community College. Every one of these institutions has a flight team and participates in interscholastic competitions. These are pegasi born in the sky who die in the sky, spending their whole lives flying. There are about 600 kids per class at each high school and each flight team has no less than forty members. Every flight team is highly competitive. Only the best make it even in high school here. I want you to guess how many of our Cloudsdale pegasi managed to make it into this branch this year. Just guess.”

A Wonderbolts team usually only consists of about ten to twenty ponies, and there are three teams per branch. The only team that accepts new recruits is C team since it’s mostly the ‘rookie’ team. The other day, Effie said that there were only five slots left to fill, so that means, including me, she’s already picked… uh, ten to fifteen ponies? But I’m, like, an exception or something, right? Shouldn’t that mean that the rest of them are probably from here? But then again, there’s Las Pegasus, and Canterlot is a high-profile team, too… “Five?”

“Two,” she stated. “Exactly two pegasi are eligible, and only one of them is shortlisted like you are. This is not a place that ponies ‘just sorta’ end up. This is a place where kids throw their lives away training to reach. Countless hours, years of their youth spent working just to get to the chance of being a Wonderbolt, and you and your ‘I just kinda have fun’ attitude are being asked to join. Thunderaid is practically begging you to be one of us, and you… don’t even really want it.”

She took another long drag on her cigar. She let out a stream of smoke like dragon fire, wafting up through the clouds like a lit chimney. “I want you on the team, Skittles two. And if you ever want a career as a Wonderbolt, you’ll tell Thunderaid that you’d be happy to work with them, and you’ll be back here on May 15th to accept your uniform. You’re not gonna ask any more questions.” She turned to Dad. “And no more feds are gonna show up here asking about my exams. If one of those things doesn’t happen, you will never be a Wonderbolt, and I will devote the rest of my life to making sure it stays that way.”

Spitfire plopped in her seat and threw her hindlegs on top of her desk. “Are we clear, boys?”

Never? I’d… I’d never get the chance to be like Mom and Dad?

Dad stood, his face stony. “Yes, Captain.”

She smirked. “Good. See ya Monday.”

Dad patted my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

When we arrived at the house, Mom and Haze were watching some play on the TV. They both had scripts in their hooves, so Haze was likely practicing lines for drama club tryouts. I can’t say if I’d be better or worse off if I had a talent for acting like he does.

“O beware, my lord, of jealo—Hey, you’re back!” Mom broke character to greet us at the door. She stopped halfway, though. “She uh… give ya terms?”

“Yeah…”

“Aww, baby.” Mom came and hugged me.

Dad let out a grunt of frustration. “Yeah, she might as well have admitted that she rigged the test to get him in too. And not only that, she knows about Twilight’s investigation!”

Mom ran her hoof through my mane as she walked us to the couch. “So much for quietly looking into this. Damn it, Captain. What’d she say?”

Dad collapsed into the recliner. “Well, she played it cool up until I pressed her about the sponsorship. Relations broke down from there and ended with the ultimatum that It’d be now or never.”

Mom scratched at her mane. “She would do that, wouldn’t she? What is today?”

“The 7th,” my little brother answered. “Tryouts are on the 21st, by the way.”

Mom patted his head. “I know, buddy, but your high school drama club is a little less important than your brother’s entire future. Besides, you’ll get in no questions asked.”

Haze rolled his eyes. “So you say.”

“Yeah, I do!” She threw her hoof around his neck and pressed us both to her chest. “Look, it’s gonna be easy for you to get down on things later on in life. Serious or not, you’ve gotta roll with the punches. Can’t just tell the wind to stop, ya know. Relax a little. The world isn’t gonna end tomorrow.”

Dad chuckled. “Man, how the tables turn.”

“Huh?” Mom grunted.

“I would assume,” Haze began, “something about whatever Mom said is ironic.”

Dad nodded. “Rainbow ‘every little thing is the end of the word’ Dash is just being awfully wise today.”

She let go of us and crossed her forelegs. “Yeah, yeah, yuk it up, mister. I have my moments.”

I threw my hooves up. “What about my moment though!? Am I just screwed here or what? I don’t really wanna be a Wonderbolt if it means having Spitfire hanging around my neck like a… ya know, that rock.”

“Millstone,” Haze answered. “I have to wonder just how much she removed for you to actually pass that test.”

I sighed. “A lot, probably.”

Mom shook me. “Hey! Don’t get down on yourself, what did I just say?”

“I can’t roll with anything when she comes at me like a freight train!”

Dad stroked his beard. “Well, that’s the Captain for you. She’s always been an all-or-nothing kinda mare.” Then he hummed to himself. “What did that Thunderaid contract say about a term? Wonderbolts renew yearly, so there should be a condition that you remain a Wonderbolt to get the full amount, right?”

Mom reached over me and grabbed her phone off the end table. “Uh, Rarity wrote a sheet of notes for me, lemme just…” She swiped left and right tapping things until she reached a page of plain text. “‘Full amount to be paid in monthly lump sums upon:

three years of service,
the applicant makes Wonderbolt team captain,
the applicant places no lower than third in any competition,
the applicant enters every spectator event,
the applicant appears at requested Thunderaid promotional campaigns,
and the applicant retains appropriate conduct while associated with Thunderaid and Struck Company.

“If the applicant incurs damages to the Thunderaid brand, the contract is void and the applicant will be held responsible. Thunderaid retains the right to terminate the contract at its discretion.’”

Haze rubbed his chin. “Given your record, all you have to do is not screw up and you’ve got about… 136K a month outside of your Bolts salary? Geez, you’d be set for life and then some.”

Dad shook his head. “What an absurd thing to give a teenager. Enough bits to buy a new house every month and you expect him to not screw up over three years? Maybe they just have that in there to ensure they get their bits back when you do make a mess at some point.”

I frowned. “Make a mess? What could I do? Even if I had all that money I wouldn’t know what to do with it… well, other than buy every kit I ever wanted. Don’t you think I’d lose a race or something before then?”

And here I got stares from everybody. “Buddy, I know I was making a fuss in front of Spitfire, but…”

“I mean,” Mom began, “there’s still rookie level events for you to clear before you’re actually allowed to get into the big ones like the CD500. Your dad and I both captained C-team before we were moved up too. All you’ve gotta do is have some skill and make ponies like you to earn Captain anyways.”

“Hmm,” Haze mumbled, “It would have to be a serious mismatch for somepony to actually dislike Prism…” He turned to me from beside Mom. “What, do you think you’d lose?”

I’m not usually one to look behind me during an event, but it usually takes a few seconds before anypony catches up after I finish. It’s never been less than three, either. “Well, I don’t think so, but the chance is there, isn’t it?”

“Nah, you’d win,” Mom said without hesitation. “I mean, Spitfire aside, this is a pretty good gig you’ve got on your hooves.”

Dad frowned. “No, you really can’t put her aside because she’ll be on his ass 24/7. Be it at the training grounds or at whatever Thunderaid events he’ll get pulled into, she’s gonna be there. Hell, she’ll have even less to do than when we were in her squad because she’s not a captain anymore. Three years is a long time to be under her hoof.”

And so the millstone hangs. The living room went quiet and the air got just a little bit heavier. I’m tired of this conversation. “Can we be done for today?”

My parents shared a concerned look before Mom rubbed my mane. “Sure, buddy.”

“But you can’t put this off forever,” Dad warned. “Really, you need to make this decision by Wednesday so we have time to meet with the Thunderaid guys…”

I got up from the couch. “Okay, sure, but for now, I’m gonna go build something and forget about all this for a while.”

Mom nodded. “Alright, you go build your model. Just… don’t take too long, okay? That can have… serious consequences.”

The heavy air hung heavier. A certain pony who took too long to make a decision, the one responsible for the blackout and the reason nets are installed all under Cloudsdale, knew all too well how serious the consequences could be. Not feeling any better about this, I turned and trotted up the stairs. I wasn’t in a mood to be using my wings right about now.

4 - The One About a Cafe

The next morning, I met up with my friends at Cheesy-Pie Café, aka ‘the bakery.’ Well, the ones who were free and still in Ponyville, anyways. Cotton, Cheesette’s older brother, ended up going to college in Las Pegasus and still had to work until the end of the month. He’s the opposite of Haze in that he’s the only pegasus in an entirely earth pony family. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, but he’s always ‘fun’ to be around. I wouldn’t exactly call him a good guy though.

Triple Ace, also known as Ace, was my fellow (former?) classmate, a pegasus with a talent for shooting. It’s not really a question of what though, dude can hit anything with anything. It's kinda scary. I always thought my mom was lax with me, but Miss Scootaloo started taking Ace to the shooting range from age eight and on. I’ve been a few times and my accuracy is average, but I can’t hit anything without both hooves on the gun.

Liberty Apple, his girlfriend and also our (former) classmate, was an earth pony with her own talent for shooting, albeit in a different class. She has absurd eyesight, better than even griffons, and can see from very, very long distances without assistance from something like binoculars or a telescope. Her specialty is long range, and unlike the rest of us, she’s also academically gifted.

Finally, Pearl Belle, Miss Rarity’s daughter, was the last of our friend group and former classmates. I say ‘our’ friend group, but she’s sort of part of everybody’s friend group. Her talent isn’t very explicit with her cutiemark being her namesake, but she seems to just get along with everyone no matter who. She does have this annoying habit of making everything about herself though.

The four of us sat at a rounded corner booth at the back of the café across from the counter. Seats were either pink or brown vinyl over stools or booths connected to metal tubes painted in matte white with pastel sprinkles painted on them. Everything was situated on a black and white checkered tile floor that was polished neatly and reflected the tan waffle cone like ceiling tiles that looked almost engraved up above. The windows had been drawn on, advertising new desserts, coffees, and sandwiches that the café offered. It was a bakery and one could get cakes and all that here too, but they did a little of everything.

“So I’ve got…” Cheesette checked the order before passing things out, “One chiffon frappe with the strawberry cheesecake—”

“That’s me!” Pearl raised her hoof.

“I know it’s you. Take your stuff,” Cheesette replied indignantly. “A black coffee with a hay and cheese croissant—”

“Eeyup,” Liberty confirmed.

“Two chocolate éclairs with the strawberry cream filling—”

Ace rubbed his hooves together in anticipation.

“And the Cheesy Pie special for my special cheesy-pie!” She gave everyone their food, set her own plate next to me, then took off her apron and sat down with us. “Mom, I’m taking my break!”

Half-covered in flour, Miss Pinkie popped her head out from behind the counter. “Okay, Cheesy. Cheese! Mind the counter!”

She disappeared and the masculine interpretation of Cheesette came out from the back and took her place, before coming to stand by the rest of us while no one was in line or waiting on anything. With their colors, curly pink manes with yellow coats and blue eyes, they were clearly twins. With his facial hair and muscular body versus her curvy softness, they couldn’t have been any more different. He pulled a chair next to our booth. “Slow day today, considering school’s out now.”

“I’ll say.” Cheesette concurred. “I’m not sure I really need to take my break with this kinda traffic.”

Pearl sighed, sipping at her frappe. The cream was almost as white as her coat, but the color of the drink looked more like her mother’s violet mane than her own denim blue. “Must be nice, being able to work for your mother.”

“What, y’all get in a fight again?” Liberty asked.

Pearl crossed her forelegs and leaned back in the booth seat. “I wouldn’t call it a fight per se, it’s nothing like it could’ve been.”

“But an argument nonetheless,” Ace added.

“Well, yes. Do your parents really ‘get’ streaming, Cheesette?”

She swallowed her pie. “I think Dad gets it, but Mom is always a little slow to adapt. Sometimes, she comes and asks me about the MeTube deposits into my account, and I have to remind her that I get paid for it. My follower count shot up a few months ago, so she gets scared seeing a whole bunch of money just come out of nowhere.”

Cheese rubbed at his forehead. “Why are you still working here again?”

She glared at her brother. “Because, even if I wasn’t getting the money, working gives me things to talk about when I stream. I’m not some endless well of creativity, I’ve gotta have something outside of me to talk about.”

Ace finished sucking down the last of one of his éclairs. The pink cream of the doughnut on his lips stood out against his dark brown coat and bright orange mane. “Working like us common folk to try and understand our plight. A true pony’s hero.”

“Envy makes you stupid, Ace,” Chesette shot.

He rolled his magenta eyes. “I got plenty of stupid as it is, I don’t want your job.” Ace turned to Pearl. “So, is that what you’re fighting about this time? Steaming?”

She shook her blue ringlets. “Oh, heavens, no. Mother bought me everything I needed to get set up, I wouldn't be doing it at all if she hadn’t encouraged me in the first place. There are two problems really. First, she wants me to advertise all her new lines.”

Liberty frowned. For being our age, she had a lot of thinking lines on her bright orange coat under that curly red mane. “Don’t’cha already do that? It’s not like ya buy clothes like the rest of us.”

“Yes and no. She wants this to be official with all the branding and a real ad to be made and played on my streams. I do wear her clothes—Why wouldn’t I? They’re Mother’s clothes—but that’s just how I live my life. I don’t have to be polite about it or say all the buzz words or campaign for her or anything like that. I wear them because I like them, and that’s all there is to it. Nopony wants me tiptoeing around what are essentially my normal outfits.”

“So,” I said after having finished my melty cheese pie, “it’s not that you don’t want to, it’s just that it’s not what you’re used to, and you’d have to adjust for basically nothing, right?”

She nodded her curly blue mane. “That, absolutely.”

Ace narrowed his eyes at me. “Awful thoughtful for our Prism. You still stuck on the whole Wonderbolt thing?”

I pushed his shoulder. “Dude, I didn’t bring it up, you shouldn’t either.” I deflected back to Pearl. “So that’s one, what’s the other problem?”

Pearl rolled her eyes. “Oh, she wants me to go to college in Manehattan.”

We all blinked. “That’s kinda more important than the sponsor thing, isn’t it?”

She huffed. “I have no intention of going, so I can’t see why it would be.” She lit her horn and dipped her fork into her cake.

Chesette, having finished her pie now, pointed a hoof at her. “So, like usual, the thing you pretend is the problem isn’t, and the real thing you’re fighting over gets one line and no second glance.”

Pearl ate her cake, savoring the flavor. “It doesn’t deserve a second glance. It’s a pit for burning money. Whether I stream or I model, going to college is simply a waste of my youth while I have it.”

“The worst thing ya ever learned at my aunt’s orchard is how damn stubborn ya are, Ah tell ya what,” Liberty commented. She turned to Ace. “How’d this fight go with yer Ma, Ace?”

He raised his hooves. “Hey, don’t point feathers at me! I don’t have, like, a career picked out already. To be totally honest, I have no idea what I want to do with myself now that school’s out, but like, that’s also why she’s making me go because I really don’t know what else to do.”

Cheese lowered his pink brows. “Do we not all have cutiemarks? I thought that was kind of the point of these things, to point us in the right direction.”

“And what,” Pearl motioned to Cheese, “does a canary on a perch imply that you should be using your talent for which can also serve as a living and a career that can feed you and possibly a family down the line, Mister Pie?”

Cheese groaned. “Ugh, don’t call me that! That’s Grandpa’s name. And besides, I could work at an aviary, or a pet store, or even in animal rescue like Miss Fluttershy. I’m good with birds, so that’s where I tend to look. I work here because I actually want to go to college and my chosen field does require a degree and further study. I mean, I’m really just going so I can get into vet school, but you know.” A customer walked in through the door. “And I’m also still on the clock, so I’m gonna have to dip.” He turned around. “Welcome to Cheesy Pie Café, what can I get you?”

Back at our table, the drinks and plates were all nearly empty. “My brother is kinda right though,” Cheesette added.

“Yeah, but, like,” Ace began, “my talent isn’t exactly something that ponies need all that often. At best, I could use it to perform trick shots or something, and at worst I could enlist, but it’s not like ponies really need a good shot around here. I could try for competitive shooting, but that’s only going to get me so far. Even if I was the best in the world, it’s not gonna make me money unless I can perform with it, and I’m really not much of a performer in the first place.”

Pearl slapped a hoof on the table. “And I’m no better off than you! At least in that department. What even is a ‘pearl bell’? Pearls are never used for anything but accents! My musical talent is no more than average, and if you ask me, I’m only good at dealing with all kinds of ponies because I had to for most of my life. It’s not like that’s someone I wanted to be, now and forever.” She pulled her hoof back and crossed her forelegs, letting out a sigh as she did. “However, unlike you, I’ve already got a career path. I can stream until I become irrelevant, and I can switch to modeling since I’ve already got name brand recognition. Why, I could even do both at the same time! I have my own means, I don’t need a degree!”

Liberty nodded. “And so the real argument comes out.” She leaned back and crossed her hind legs, running her blue-green eyes over all of us. “Here’s a question ta y’all anti-college kids: what do ya do when yer first plan don’t work out?”

Cheesette frowned. “What do you mean if it doesn’t work out? I’m kinda already established. And it’s not like I can’t go later if I want to change careers all the sudden.”

“Sure ya are,” Liberty assented, “but what happens if you’re five years down the road and somethin’ comes up and ya lose it all? Say the platform ya work on dies or ya have ta move somewhere else and ya have ta rebuild or start from scratch. What do ya fall back on?”

She lowered her brows and wrapped her hooves around my neck. “My husband?”

Ah, my little cheese. “So do we go to the chapel now, or…”

She put her head to my cheek. “We can talk about setting dates, but you’ve gotta get your Wonderbolt thing all settled before any of that.”

I groaned. She’d basically just said we could finally get married and still this Wonderbolt thing hangs over my head. “Maybe I should just refuse. This has all been nothing but a headache.”

“But you love to fly!” Cheesette practically shouted. “Why would you give all that up just because it’s a little annoying now?”

“That’s also related ta the point Ah was makin’.” Liberty cleared her throat. “We were all born around '09, right? Every one of us is about eighteen, and the trainin’ wheels are comin’ off. Pearl, Cheesette, is there any reason at all that ya couldn’t stream and get a degree at the same time?”

“It’s a waste of my time and money?” Pearl answered. “Didn’t I already say that?”

Cheesette thought a little harder though. “I mean, I work here, but I guess that’s not really something I have to be doing.”

Liberty sat up and pressed her hooves together on the table. “So, really, there’s nothin’ stoppin’ ya. Ya can’t bet on these websites bein’ around forever, and ya never know when the next new thing is gonna come by and push y’all off ta the side. Makin’ connections and meetin’ ponies at college is a good way ta open doors fer yerself.

“In yer case—” she turned to Pearl “—it’d make yer mother happy and ya could take business, marketin’, or accountin’ classes ta figure out how best ta use that money, make yerself not so dependent on Mommy’s purse.”

Pearl’s eye twitched. “Who in the world said I was dependent on—”

Ignoring her, Liberty then turned to Cheesette and me. “And in yer case, maybe you’ll find somethin’ else ya wanna do. It ain’t like it’s gonna cost ya much ta go ta the community college here, even if ya do let Prism churn yer butter here in a year or so.”

Cheesette’s face flushed. Mine probably did the same. Images and sound effects flooded my mind. I had to cross my hind legs. “P-please don’t use a metaphor like that.”

She cleared her throat. “Y-yeah, what he said. S-still, I’m not really against becoming a mom and streaming on the side or whatever. It’s not like I do IRL stuff like Pearl does. Nopony knows what I look like.”

I grabbed her hoof. “Y-you’d be a mom?”

She put her cheek in her free hoof. “Well, only if it’s yours.” Then she looked at my lap and turned the other direction. “But not right at this moment. We’re in public, babe.”

I let go of the hoof, covered myself and hunched over. Too much excitement in the middle of the day at a café. “R-right…”

Pearl gave us a bleak stare. “The cheesecake here is too sweet. I think I need to go puke.”

“What was that about churnin’ butter, sugarcube?” Ace threw a wing around Liberty with a smile and a wink.

She pushed him off. “Y’all ain’t gettin’ nothin’ if ya don’t pass yer entrance exam.”

His ears shot up. “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”

“With your scores? Doubt it.”

Pearl rolled her eyes. “Ugh, colts.”

Liberty glared at Pearl. “When was the last time ya saw my cousins?”

Her pupils shrank. “Y-your cousins? Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?”

“Ya know exactly who Ah mean.”

“I couldn’t possibly! There’s what, twelve of you just between the three families in Ponyville?”

“Just because Malus ain’t Ma’s son don’t mean he ain’t my brother.”

“My apologies for forgetting one of the two sets of identical twins in your family.”

Liberty tilted her head. “Oh, no, because ya’d never forget the other ones.”

“Of course not! Stout and Cider are—”

Liberty smiled deviously and leaned in. “Well? They’re what, sugarcube? Why don’t ya tell me what they are.”

And now she’d really dug herself a hole to fall in. Eyes firmly on the table, Pearl said, “Perfectly fine young stallions.”

Liberty turned to Ace. “Can ya believe it? Them? Perfectly fine young stallions?”

The other pegasus shook his head. “It’d be easier to believe if one wasn’t making homemade hard cider at the ripe old age of nineteen, and the other hadn’t applied for the position of bartender at one of the District 7 bars recently.”

Pearl narrowed her eyes. “A bar!? Which bar!?”

Cheesette rubbed her hooves together. “So you’ve settled on Stout, huh?”

“Gah!” Pearl covered her face, even redder now than Cheesette and I.

Liberty leaned on the table. “You’re so easy it should be a crime, sugarcube. Goddess help ya.”

“Ya know,” I began, “you really should just tell your mom the real reason why you don’t want to leave Ponyville. She’d probably understand. She’s been helping me with this whole sponsor thing all this month.”

“I could never!” Pearl slapped her hooves to her cheeks. “Oh, Goddess among us, do you know the kind of fit she’d throw if she knew the truth? ‘You can’t throw your career away for a boy! Think of all the things you have to give up to be somepony’s mother! It’s perfectly fine for you to get married after you realize your dreams.’ She’d never let me hear the end of it!”

Liberty and I shared a glance. “Does… does that sound like Miss Rarity to you, Liberty?”

“Uh, no…” She turned to Pearl. “Have ya ever talked ta yer ma about this?”

Pearl rolled her eyes. “Of course not! Anything she ever hears ends up in everyone else’s ears, you know that! Mother is a gossip-spreading machine! If I told her, then they would find out and-and-Ah!” She covered her head. “No, no, no! I won’t do it, you can’t make me!”

Cheese came back to the table with our bills. “Honestly, you might as well talk to Mom or Miss Applejack at that point. I mean, they’d find out if you told your mom, but she probably wouldn’t find out if you talked to them about it.

“Yeah,” Miss Pinkie said, having joined our table at some point, “you can talk to me about whatever it is. Rarity is always the last pony we tell about anything for a reason.”

Cheese nearly jumped out of his skin. “Geez, Mom!”

“That’s right, Cheese, I am your mom!”

He rubbed at his temple. “I’m going to take my break.”

“Okay, Sugarpie.” She looked to her daughter. “You’re up if anypony comes in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So,” Miss Pinkie began, “what were we discussing that we should keep from Rarity?”

Pearl staggered. “Prism doesn’t want to join the Wonderbolts!”

Miss Pinkie and I were taken aback. “Bro!”

“You don’t wanna be a Wonderbolt, Prism?”

Now I was in the hot seat. “Uh… well, I do, but…”

She scooted her chair closer to Cheesette, then leaned back, crossing her hindlegs while holding a plate with a piece of chocolate cake on it. “Look, Prism, Sugarpie, let me see if I’ve got the gist of your problem in my head straight.” She took a bite, chewed for a bit, swallowed, then set the cake down on our table. “You passed a test you really shouldn’t have, you’re on the line with a whole lot of money you really shouldn’t have, and your dreams are being held hostage by an old Wonderbolt who wants to turn you into somebody else, right?”

I frowned. “Did you get all that from Mom or Miss Rarity?”

“Who said I only had two sources?”

“Right.”

Miss Pinkie cleared her throat. “Dreams are like souffles. When you’re young, you can have a lot of them, and having even one come out right is more than most ponies expect. However, when you grow up, you might discover dreams you didn’t even know you had, dreams that are a lot more attainable. Sometimes, you realize your dreams have come true long after the fact. Life can be kinda funny like that.

“However, dreams can also disappear in a flash. Ponies don’t last forever, and neither will you. If you want to keep that souffle standing, you’ve got to take it out of the oven at just the right moment. Too slow and it burns, too fast and it falls. It also helps to be realistic. Not everypony can make that perfect souffle, so what you should do right now is attempt to lower the stakes hanging on this line, and then bite the hook before it reels back up. Whether your souffle stands or falls, you don’t have to bake forever.”

Cheesette totally understood that and I didn’t really get as much of it as I should after spending over a decade around this mare. I looked to her for help.

“I gotcha, babe,” Cheesette said. “You’ve got an opportunity that you really can’t pass up here, but rather than just take it at face value, you should try to negotiate the contract down and stick it out for a while. You’ve always wanted to be a Wonderbolt, so why not give it a year and see how it goes?”

Miss Pinkie raised a brow. “Is that not what I said?”

“Mom, you talk like Grandpa does sometimes.”

“I don’t speak in rock metaphors, come on.” She ate the last of her cake and Cheesette sighed.

“No, Mom, you speak in baking—”

A timer dinged in the back and Miss Pinkie sprang up. “Well, I have to go take the cake bases out. I hope that helps!” She hugged us both and disappeared as fast as she had appeared.

“Baking metaphors.”

To be completely honest, that sounds like really good advice. I’ll take it and try to get in touch with Miss Rarity after talking to my parents later. But first, “Dude!”

“I’m sorry, I panicked!” Pearl covered her face.

“That was not cool! You threw me under the bus!”

“I know! I didn’t mean to, honestly.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “I’m gonna tell your mom.”

She clasped her hooves together. “Prism, please, you don’t have to do this.”

“I think I do.” I picked up Cheesette and flew us over to the counter.

After setting her down, she ran around to the other side to ring me up. “You really shouldn’t pick me up and fly off like that so suddenly, you know.”

“Prism, darling, you’re not really going to talk to Mother, are you?” Pearl called as the rest of the group began exiting the pink booth in the corner of the café.

Cheesette pulled up what I owed and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “You’ll melt my butter like that.”

A shiver ran down my spine. As long as this Wonderbolt thing gets solved, then I can have what I really want. “Then we should set some dates because I’m gonna do a lot more than melt it.”

“Bad!” She kissed me long and hard, then pulled away. “That’ll be $6.50, Mister Wonderbolt.”

I frowned. “Come on, you’re making me get yours too?”

She didn’t even flinch. “And just how much are they giving you for that contract again?”

“Just because I have it doesn’t mean I want to spend it.” I took my phone from around my neck and pulled up the pay app. “You owe me for this.”

She scanned the QR code and charged my account. “So, were you thinking next year? Or maybe even further out than that?”

I grabbed her hoof. “What’s wrong with tomorrow?”

“Complaining about paying for my lunch and then he has the audacity to ask for my butter the next day? There will be no cheesy pie for you before you get this all settled, and that’s final.”

Ace, Liberty and Pearl just stared at us in amazement. The young stallion shook his head. “Dude, guys, I can’t deal with all the food metaphors anymore, can I just pay my tab and go without all the flirting?”

We smiled at each other, kissed one last time, and then I headed for the door. “See you tomorrow!”

“Go get ‘em, Babe!”

5 - Business Mare

Upon leaving the café, I took to the air, rising high up to the skies of Ponyville. This city, which was once just a small village when my parents were kids, was composed of one hundred and thirty-one square mile districts arranged in a grid that spiraled out from the center. At its heart was Princess Twilight’s castle, a magic blue-violet crystal tree that got just a little bit bigger every year. It, the gardens and plazas around it, and Ponyville’s college and private academy were all that made up District 1. South of that was Sweet Apple Acres, which took up all of District 2 and a little bit of Districts 3, 12, 11, 10, and 9. Aside from 2, the inner ring districts, 3 through 9, were all big commercial areas with some of the world’s largest and most intricate buildings.

Goldmane Hotel in particular was the tallest building in Ponyville for most of my life, and I still think it’s the nicest looking one we have. The new one that beats it out for height in District 7 has a huge hole in the upper floors to accommodate the wind trying to knock it over. Because it’s big and black and the windows aren’t super reflective, I always thought it looked like the evil king’s tower from the one book with all the dumb names I can barely read. I’m not a fan, but it makes a good perch for pegasi, and I could look down at the Goldmane Hotel without having to strain myself.

Normally, I’d come up here to sketch out a design for something when I wanted to get away from the rest of the world. A new kit, a building I’d like to see made, an idea for a house or a museum or a library or something. Made with blocks or popsicle sticks or clay or a combination of the three, anything was fair game. Today, however, I needed to make some calls. Miss Pinkie was right. So long as I could lower the term of the contract, I could give up a year to set Cheesette and me up for life. We could be together without having to worry about money for a long time, even if I don’t keep on as a Wonderbolt for longer than I have to.

Only, do I even not want to be a Wonderbolt?

I sat up on the evil tower—er, Spotlight Tower—for a few hours thinking. The noonday sky turned from bright blue to yellow gold as the shadows around Ponyville’s largest buildings turned with the sun. Little soft wispy clouds drifted above and below me across the air. It made me think about butter, which had me thinking about other things, and I decided it was time to head home and get this figured out.

Talking to Mom led to talking to Miss Rarity, which led to us meeting her and Pearl for dinner that night. It was unusual for her to be home since Miss Rarity is typically in other parts of the country from Tuesday to Friday. She has stores all over Equestria, and Pearl isn’t the only ‘influencer’ who advertises her clothes. For anything that falls under business management, she’s usually the pony to go to.

They lived in a fairly old house that still retained a very modern look; lots of squares in polished white granite walls stacked slightly off center to make for a staircase look that was all housed in matte black metal castings. Two floors, a rocky garden with self-sustaining trees growing along the drive and walk ways, and round white garden lights between them. The easiest tell that Miss Rarity is home would be her black sports car she drives everywhere when in Ponyville. I believe she has one of these things at all of her offices, and whoever let her have a driving license should be fired. I don’t think she in particular was responsible for Mom’s fear of cars, but I would believe it if that’s what she told me.

The four of us made our way to the door and rang the bell.

Pearl opened it, now in an entire outfit as opposed to earlier at the café. She was dressed in a black vinyl skirt, leggings that faded from black to white while leaving a hole on her flanks to show off her cutiemarks, black suspenders that went over her shoulders and met in a V on her back, and a short top that was only on her body because her limbs were in the way. She had a gold necklace on with her Mom’s business logo, which told me she’d been streaming not long ago.

“Hey, kiddo, that looks nice. Is this new?” Mom asked, examining the ensemble.

Pearl shrugged. “Uh, probably. I caved and made a deal with the devil today, so I’m really not sure what this is.”

“The devil!?” Miss Rarity shouted from further inside.

Mom cackled. “Ha! How do you like it, huh?”

Haze sighed. “Mom, I said I was sorry ages ago.”

She patted my brother’s head. “And I’ll never forget it.” She stepped inside the big white open space and the rest of us followed.

The modernity was even more present here with bar lights hidden under everything and illuminating the walls, but keeping a nice warm atmosphere in the very ‘Blockcraft’ rectangle theme the house had going on. Black vinyl couches, a fluffy violet rug, a huge TV recessed into the wall, a small indoor tree here and there, a black staircase with no exterior railing to give it the appearance of jutting straight out of the wall, a fireplace with little fountains gurgling softly over a moat in the stones.

It was well kept and well arranged and something I really enjoyed sketching over the years. Very much the home of a rich mare, and probably a very dangerous place to raise Pearl over the years. As much as I liked this, I’d never build something like this to raise kids in.

The mare herself had just finished setting food out around a big black square table with white and blue plates, golden ‘silverware’ and engraved glass goblets, all straight as a razor and aligned like it was stuck to a grid. “What about our deal was me being a devil, hmm? I believe those terms were fair, and you can’t escape me, so I didn’t even put any clauses in like I would with other influencers!”

The older unicorn shared a short and wide body type with Pearl and, while I wouldn’t call her fat, she was definitely overweight. She tended to wear suits wherever she went, but today it was just a pink apron that may have been stolen from or created for Cheesy Pie Café. It had all the branding and embroidery on it, so it had to be an extra or a leftover.

“Ya know, the phrase ‘you can’t escape me’ doesn’t make it sound like a clean deal,” Haze argued.

Pearl turned her head indignantly. “That’s because it wasn’t. There was a clause in the contract alright, it just wasn’t written down.”

It was clear to me now. “Ah, so you are going to college this fall, huh?”

Pearl rolled her blue eyes. “Yeah, just here and not in Manehattan.”

Identically, Miss Rarity huffed. “You wouldn’t believe the concessions I had to make just to get her to go, and she won’t even tell me why she doesn’t want to leave here! It’s so utterly backwards! Here I am paying her to expand her skills with a bachelor’s degree, and for what? Really, I’d like to know.”

I smiled and caught Pearl’s eye. Hers went wide. “I swear to the Goddess, Prism!”

Miss Rarity glared at her daughter. “Don’t say that.” Then she turned on me. “But you know something, don’t you? You wanted to discuss your new sponsor contract tonight didn’t you? I didn’t plan to charge you, but now I have a fee…”

“Well—”

Dad cut me off. “You can do that after we eat.”

Pearl went to defend the table. “He’d better not! I already apologized, why are you doing this to me?”

I had no particular sympathy for Pearl. “As Miss Applejack says, ponies get what they deserve, don’t they?”

Dad hit me across the back of my head. “Enough.”

“Ow!” I groaned, but then went to take my place at the table, ignoring Pearl.

She was coated in Miss Rarity’s blue magic, placed on her seat, then joined by her mother. “Mom, please.”

With a mirror to her, Miss Rarity rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t you ‘Mom, please,’ me. I will get the truth, whether it comes from you or not.” Turning her magic to the pitcher full of sweet tea and ice, she filled glasses, then waved a hoof to the rest of my family. “Please, have a seat, everypony.”

Once they were seated, we all said grace and dug into the food. A huge bowl of linguine and clams sat in the center of the table, accompanied by a Caesar salad, toasted slices of a baguette, a bottle of vinaigrette and olive oil, a block of parmesan and a grater, and a mysterious silver disposable pan that was covered. If I knew Miss Rarity, there was some fancy foreign desert in there, and it was absolutely one of my favorites.

Everyone took however much of whatever they wanted, leaving Pearl with a big pile of salad, no bread, and a small helping of pasta, the complete inverse of her mother’s plate. For the rest of us, there was no restraint anywhere and as we were all big eaters, our plates were piled high and then polished clean. Haze and I went so far as to do it twice.

When the regular food had mostly disappeared and Pearl’s leftovers for the week had been decided, the pan was unveiled to be exactly what I’d hoped it was: that coffee cake with the name I can’t pronounce.

Pearl looked upon the confection with desire and disdain. “Come on, Mom, I have to watch my figure!”

Ignoring her, Miss Rarity passed a piece out for everypony. “Watch it all you want, it will go by the time you’re my age. You won’t be young and skinny forever, and between me, your aunt and your grandmother, you’ll end up a big marshmallow like the rest of us whether you’re healthy or not.”

I frowned. “Didn’t you have cake and a sugary drink at the bakery earlier?”

Miss Rarity gave her daughter the most treacherous side-eye. “Oh, so you did, did you?”

“Ugh, go to Cloudsdale already!” This protest only lasted until the fork full of cream cake ended in her mouth.

Dad had a piece of cake at one point, but it was gone now, with the only evidence of it ever existing being the cream on his mustache. “Speaking of, did you talk to your guy about that?”

Miss Rarity removed her fork from her lips and set it down, totally clean. “That I did. The TLDR is that we’ll have to arrange a meeting with Thunderaid very quickly, but it should be doable. They might be a little wary since you’re trying to lower the terms fairly significantly, but you agreeing to a cheaper deal for them isn’t exactly something they’ll want to turn down. In the long run, provided things go well, you’ll look better to them as a sponsee. I can have it set up whenever you need, but we really should get this done as quickly as possible.”

Mom frowned at her friend. “Did… did you just use ‘TLDR’ in a sentence, like a real word?”

“You know that means ‘too long, didn’t read,’ right?” Haze asked.

Miss Rarity was stunned. “What? Is that not what the kids say these days? I see it all the time when I look through opinion forums.”

“Mom, nopony actually says that, it’s a text thing.”

The older unicorn crossed her forelegs. “Well, I think it works perfectly fine as a replacement for ‘the short version’ or the like. It’s shorter and you all understood what I meant.”

Haze rubbed his temples. “It’s that kind of thinking that corrupts the language with insane words like ‘gyatt’ and ‘zamn’ that my peers use. Please don’t do that, for the sake of my wonderful Equestrian, truly.”

She was a little shocked by Haze’s heartfelt appeal there. “Don’t do that to me! Now I feel as if I’ve done something wrong…”

“Because you did, Mom. Don’t use slang, it isn’t for you.”

Miss Rarity set a hoof forcefully on the table. “But I must, Pearl, I can’t lose touch! I’ve already become a corporate suit in spite of everything I said to myself at your age, I will not become the villain!” She felt her forehead. “Oh, Goddess, I’ve grown so old.”

Mom cringed. “Oh, Goddess, stop, stop! You, of all ponies, are not allowed to be saying s—crap like that!”

Dad smirked. “What were we celebrating with our old team a few months ago? Just how many decades has your CD500 record been standing?”

Mom covered her ears. “No, no, no! Don’t say it! That party sucked anyways! I can still fly with the best of the girls, I am not old!”

From a cabinet in the kitchen, Miss Rarity brought out a big dark bottle of wine with her magic. “Oh, Rainbow, darling, valiant warrior fighting a battle you simply cannot win, how I envy your delusions. I’ve given up the fight, you see, so I drink to drown my sorrows. Woe, what pitiful mares we’ve become.” She went on and refilled Mom’s and her own glass with alcohol. “To old mares.”

“I will not! You drink it! You’re older than me anyways!”

Dad raised a brow. “By what, a few months?”

“You have cream on your face, punk!” Then Mom went in for a tongue kiss with Dad. I didn’t watch to the end, but I did watch Miss Rarity’s bitter smile burn them with envy. Mom gasped after pulling her face off of Dad’s. “See!?” she panted, wiping her mouth. “I can still do that, I’m not old!”

The unicorn swirled her wine. “All that shows me is a Mare who’s been happily married… for about twenty years.”

And finally, Mom doubled over, carefully putting her hooves on the wine glass. “No…”

“Indeed.” So she drank. “So, are you free tomorrow afternoon? We can meet them at my office building in District 7.”

“I’m not old, no…” Mom moaned.

Dad patted her back. “We should be free after one. Still got practice to run before the summer circuit starts for the incoming freshmen and all the still attending classes.”

“And you, Prism?” Miss Rarity asked.

“Oh, yeah, I’m totally free tomorrow.”

“I’ll set it for three then.”

Mom’s wine had disappeared and her cheeks had reddened. “I’m not old…”

“She’s really broken up about that, huh?” Haze noted.

Dad nodded. “Torn wing, twice pregnant, and kid who’s finally old enough to be a Wonderbolt? Poor Dash never imagined she’d make it this far at your ages, and now that she’s here, it’s finally hitting her. How the mighty have fallen.” He sighed, then his ears shot up as he remembered something. “Provided this takes too long, are you good to dive yourself wherever you need to go tomorrow, Haze?”

Mom rolled in her seat, burying her face in Dad’s chest. “No, no, no! He’s just a baby, no…”

Haven’t heard that in a while. Oh, poor Mom.

Haze stared at her blankly, then at Dad. “Yeah, it’s cool.”

Miss Rarity poured herself another glass. “Well, I appreciate you keeping us company, but it seems as if Rainbow hasn’t increased her tolerance to alcohol over the years. You should probably get her home before she starts crying.”

“She’s always been a weepy drunk.” Dad got out of his chair and draped Mom over his back. “Welp, come on boys, let’s go home.”

Pearl silently let out a breath as we got up from the table and headed for the door. I wasn’t about to let her throwing me under the bus earlier go, though.

“See you tomorrow,” Miss Rarity said brightly.

Dad and Haze waved goodbye, and I trailed behind to make sure I was last at the door. “Yep, see you tomorrow!” My lips curled and I stared directly at Pearl. She froze in place. “Good luck trying to find out that Pearl doesn’t want to leave Ponyville for Stout’s sake.”

“Prism, you motherf—”

I slammed the door.

The meeting with the Thunderaid guys was surprisingly chill. They said they’d be happy to give me more if I could commit to a longer term, but between trying to speak their legalese and all the nonsense between the lines, it was more of a conversation between them, Miss Rarity, her lawyer guy, and my parents who were both surprisingly fluent in the language. Maybe I’ll be too if I keep this up for as long as they have. Four years for one, and a whole decade for the other.

When all was said and done, I was given a really cool aviator coat covered in Thunderaid logos, my own name, I guess the number I’d be assigned which was 1, and the one thing that concerned all of us: Spitfire’s cutiemark as a patch right under the Equestrian flag and beside my cutiemark. The contract had somewhere in it that all my sponsored gear was supposed to have her mark on it, and I really didn’t like that at all.

When I first met my real grandmother on Dad’s side, Downy Snow, she didn’t know who I was and made a rude comment about Dad being a pedophile since he had me with him. I would later go on to find out some terrible stuff about a Manehattan popstar who ruined his image when my parents were kids because of, ya know, that stuff. What came out is that there was a trend where music industry tycoons, who were never known for being great people, would find young talent with pretty faces and be sent to live with industry veterans who would then ‘groom’ them into modern popstars. In the exact same way that the Manehattan popstar did.

Branding the ‘new talent’ with their cutiemarks was one of the tactics they used so other industry vets and powerful people know who belonged to who. It’s a very fresh topic in some people’s minds because yet another industry tycoon was arrested in a huge sting operation by the feds not too long ago. Needless to say, I really didn’t want her mark on my stuff.

Still, both my parents knew Spitfire and neither believed she’d do anything like that to me, so we went ahead with it anyways. I’d get my first payment on the fifteenth of June and on the same day for the next eleven months until I’d screwed up or the total sum of one million bits had been paid.

It was less than I would’ve made in the original arrangement, and I’d still have to work for a few years even with all this money, but provided I played my cards right, Cheesette and I could retire by the time we’re my parents' age. And who knows? It might not even be that bad.

6 - Thunderaid: Like Glory in a Bottle

The day had arrived. The morning of May 15th, 2028 was bright and clear, and it looked like this was the beginning of summer because it was a cool 75 Fahrenheit up in the sky this morning. Mom, Dad and I had stayed overnight at Mom’s parent’s house, and the five of us went to Cloudsdale Stadium where all the new rookies would be awarded their uniforms. This was also the first time my sponsor deal would come into play because I had to wear my jacket for the event. Luckily, it was well ventilated, but it was warm, and as stated previously, not cold outside.

Once we were at the stadium, my grandparents went to grab seats with all the other families who’d come out to watch, and Mom and Dad walked me to the locker rooms. I might’ve gotten lost in this maze of a building, but they already knew where everything was. ‘Cloud Brick’ was about the most solid thing one could make from clouds as it was highly compressed thunderhead shaped in an ice mold and moved around with pegasus magic. The whole 500 was made out of the stuff, some of it being as old as Equestria itself.

There were about ten other ponies waiting nervously in the locker room when the three of us walked in. Naturally, there were a lot of shocked faces followed by, ‘Are you the Rainbow Dash?’ and Mom having her ego boosted for a good ten minutes. Once they were done with her, a few of them then asked Dad for autographs because he’s still got a few really impressive records with his 1200 at the track being the most famous of them. Untouchable Always Soarin and Sonic Rain-Boom Dash.

Once they’d had their fill, my parents departed to the stands and I was left alone with the wolves. A few of these faces were vaguely familiar. I’m sure I’d beaten most or even all of them at competitions. The vibe I got was not a very warm one, so I just said ‘hi’ and found a corner to hide in while I waited.

Conversation drifted from the two legendary Wonderbolts who were just here to the ones that would be out on the field giving us our uniforms. To avoid the glares, I didn’t really participate in much of it. A-team was the most televised of the Wonderbolts groups around the country, and if it wasn’t that or my own performances, I never really paid much attention to my peers.

After a while, about five minutes before 9AM, a stallion walked in wearing a jacket that looked just like mine, Spitfire patch and all. “Hey, good morning, rookies.”

He was a dark brown, almost black coated stallion with very strong looking, large, sharp feathered wings. He had narrow, a little sunken gold eyes, and a bright red mane and tail that were both cut very short. His Thunderaid jacket read “Raptor” and his number was 22. The biggest difference between his and mine was the big gold Captain’s wings pin affixed to his chest.

“Good morning, Captain.” We all stood and saluted.

He scanned over the group, lingering over one stallion and one mare with recognition in his eyes, then stopped dead on me. It was a long, uncomfortable lock, squirming against those almost predatory eyes. Breaking away, he addressed the group. “Today is going to be most of your debuts into the eyes of the media, and if you want to make it in this industry, you’ve got to look perfect when the cameras are on you. Consider your posture, respond quickly and accurately, and do not look straight into the camera. For those that don't have them, you’ll be given your uniforms, numbers, and the opportunity to sign this year’s rookie plaque. Stay in your box when you do that.” He pointed at me. “You follow behind me, the rest of you line up behind him.”

And so we did line up, and already, I was beginning to get a read on the vibe here. Not even remotely hidden special treatment from the get-go. In school, my parents were the coaches, so I was pretty much ignored in favor of helping the rest of my team. For that matter, I was a part-time instructor-assistant more often than not. They are gonna be laser focused on me and—oh, Goddess—what have I gotten myself into?

“Let’s go, rookies!” Raptor shouted.

In line and standing straight, we followed our captain out of the locker rooms and into the stadium proper. Today was a newbie event, but that didn’t mean the stadium was empty or anything. Families, friends of families, TV crews, instructors, support staff, investors: no Wonderbolt event goes unwatched.

The stage was a new cloud recently shaped and polished down to a mirror-like surface. They must’ve gone to some serious altitude to get a cloud this icy down here. We flew up to it one by one, standing where Raptor directed us to in front of all the cameras.

“Oh, hey, that’s him!” one of the newsponies said. They moved the camera so that it wasn’t pointed at all of us but focused solely on me. A stallion wearing a news badge waved at me. “Hey, Prism, give us a smile!”

Oh, he just… knows my name, I guess. But it’s fine. Just… smile and wave. I did my best to smile in a not creepy way, and the guy seemed to be really into it.

“Man, this kid is great. Keep the camera on him.”

Is it worse when you’re secretly being watched? This isn’t the first time I’ve been on TV, but it is the first time I haven’t been racing at the same time. These eyes and those eyes and all the eyes of the kids who were just like me a year ago, staring at me from all over.

Music blared from speakers all around the stadium. The Wonderbolt’s anthem played in bright brass tones, and a group of bolts performed a flyover with colored cloud generators on their backs. It was the most basic Wonderbolt maneuver and all you really had to do was keep pace with your team. It was doing sky drawings with those that made it complicated.

Speaking of, after draping the sky in Equestrian colors, they then crossed and crisscrossed each other, turning the flat lines into the words, ‘welcome new recruits,’ in big bold letters for everypony to see.

‘Coloring’ was one of my favorite tricks to see live since there was just so much planning that went into these performances. Flying close and tight, timing the cloud drop with the position, making sure things are aligned in 3D space, angled just right so the audience can see. Dad was really good at these.

The bolts performing the trick then cut their clouds and flew down one by one to the stage, landing in front of us and bowing for the audience. The relatively small crowd cheered, cameras flashed, and masks came off. Every single one of these ponies were A-team Bolts, most of them with their names in the records. Of course, to do what Mom and Dad did, you have to be more than just an A-team Bolt, and since I didn’t know the names of any of these ponies, they were either in the lower ranks or under 10th on any of the major records.

The active Bolts turned and moved to the end of the stage, and to my horror, another pony flew out from the tunnels under the stadium. She landed in front of me, waved to the crowd and the cameras, and was given a microphone by one of the general staff.

“Good afternoon, mares and gentlecolts,” the instructor said in a booming, raspy voice. “Today is the 383rd annual Wonderbolt Inauguration Ceremony! Thousands of fliers from everywhere in Equestria compete for the chance to stand on this ancient stage, and only these eleven ponies have made it! Give ‘em a hoof, everypony!”

Spitfire turned, smirked at me, then signaled for us to take a bow. Clapping and flashing sparked all over the stadium, filling the air with sound. She turned back to address the crowd, making sure to give the camera a smile in between movements. Everything she did had this practiced smoothness that could only come from an old hoof.

“These young stallions and mares have finally made it, but entrance is just the first hurdle!” She turned to face us, making eye contact with everypony one at a time. “From here on out, everyone will be watching your every move, cadets! Your performance will be evaluated by your superiors of course, but there’s also them to worry about!” She threw a wing out to the crowd, and the crowd responded with a cheer. “Will you steal their hearts, or will you fade into obscurity? Rise through our ranks and earn the world’s applause!”

Ponies dressed in their Wonderbolts uniform stepped up to the stage one by one to stand in front of each of us, save me. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but considering I already have an official jacket with a number on it, maybe I won’t get my uniform right now. At least, I hope it’s that simple.

Spitfire made her way down the row to the last pony in line, a blue mare with a dark green mane and violet eyes. “Second-time challenger, Monsoon! You’ve made it into the club! What can you tell the audience?”

She looked a little startled, not sure what to do once the mic was in her face. “I-I’m thrilled to be here! I hope to do my best with everyone on the team!”

Spitfire took the mic back. “Good answer! I look forward to seeing you on the track, Number 99.”

Another pony gave the new girl her uniform and Spitfire moved on. The next guy in line was a long, thin stallion with that wispy sort of refined face you see in rich guys. He was light gray with a white mane and eyes so pale blue that he almost looked blind. “Not our youngest candidate, but a first-time success, Aquilon! Why are you here?”

He flipped his mane like some kinda pretty boy. “As part of the Polaris family, it is my duty to be here. I was born to be a Wonderbolt, Ma’am.”

Is… is that a thing? What is a Polaris family? I don’t normally dislike people on sight, but this guy is already not my kinda guy.

“Hope you’ve got the wings to back up your words, Number 86.” Captain didn’t seem to like him much off the bat either. She moved on to the next pony in line, a very green stallion with green-blue eyes. “Finally made the cut, huh, three-timer? How do you feel, Mister Sirocco?”

“I’m pretty stoked, TBH. I worked a lot, and I always have a lot of fun doing this stuff, so it’s great to finally make it, ya know?”

He reminded me of Dad, but like, even more laid back. Too laid back. He had to pass a drug test to get in, but it only takes about 90 days for that stuff to get out of your system… Haze would throw a fit at him actually saying ‘TBH’ out loud like a real word.

“Good to know. It won’t all be fun and games though. You’re not here just to work with the team, you’re competitors too! Welcome aboard, Number 29.”

Next up was an angry gray mare with a dark blue-green mane and those scary sorta yellow eyes Raptor has. “Tropical Storm, you’re the second-youngest candidate of the new rookies! How did you beat out the competition?”

She stepped up to the mic, put a wing on it and looked out to the cameras. “Because I’m better than the competition. There is no competition. Especially not with the rest of these losers on the stage, Ma’am.”

I couldn’t tell if she meant the captain was also a loser, and if so, where she found the balls to say that to Spitfire’s face…

The captain took the mic back, harshly. “Well, well, well, a little fire brand, aren’t ya? You’ve got a lot to prove, second place. Hope you can back up that mouth, Number 42.”

The yellow eyes glared my way for a second, then right back at the captain before she moved on. I get the feeling that they’re talking about something I don’t remember. I’m not excited about our first team meeting after this is over.

“And next up is—”

“I’m Trade Wind, your new Number 77 Wonderbolt! Follow my socials @TWWB and be sure to subscribe to my channels before training kicks off to see the real behind the scenes as I rise through the ranks to be number 1!”

Before Spitfire could even introduce her, uh, Trade Wind stole the mic, darted to the front of the stage and stole the eye of every camera in the stadium. Between her pink coat, orange mane and bright green eyes, aside from me, she was the most brightly colored pony here. Her personality seemed to reflect that.

Spitfire angrily took the mic away and dragged her back to the line. “Anypony steals my mic again and you’re benched for a month!” Her feathers were certainly ruffled. “Better break records, 77!”

“Remember, Trade Wind @TWWB!” she managed to shout into the mic before Spitfire walked away. She acted almost like a mix of Mom and Pearl. She seemed like she really wanted to be the center of attention.

Spitfire moved onto the next pony who was a familiar looking stallion as far as I could tell. The short blond mane, the bright red coat, the true blue eyes. He smiled in a way like he was imitating the rest of us as best he could, like it wasn’t natural to him. I think he reminded me more of a character than a person I knew. “Welcome to the team Nightingale. Are your folks here today?”

He tilted his head to the side in what seemed to be him trying to be cool. “Well, not every former Wonderbolt is free all the time. My parents should be on an island in the south right about now. Hope you’re watching, Mom and Dad, because I’m going to be a star from today on!”

I frowned, and so did Spitfire. “They’re… you’re joining the Cloudsdale Wonderbolts and they’re… on vacation?”

He put on a smug face and looked away, trying to get his good side to the cameras. “Well, when you plan an anniversary trip, you can’t just cancel because something comes up.”

Oh. Oh, that’s… that’s kinda. Man, that feels bad.

Stunned herself, Spitfire sadly patted his shoulder. “Well, you keep up that positive attitude, Number 63.”

Generally, Wonderbolts are not super huge stallions. Big is not very conducive to being fast on a pony framework. Even with her extra magic and eternal youth, there’s a good chance that Princess Twilight wouldn't be able to outpace Mom or Dad in a race, and she’s not super huge like the other princesses are. Big pegasi usually have health problems too, so there’s a lot against them becoming Wonderbolts. The next guy, however, seemed to be an exception.

He was tall, square, fairly bulky, and had gigantic wings. His coat was a pure white, his mane was a stark black, and his eyes were a bright red. He wore his mane pulled tightly into a short ponytail, and his tail was just as straight and shiny. This guy reminded me of Malus from Sweet Apple Acres. Sorta scary in the face and big.

The Captain had to look up at him, she was almost a head shorter. “Most ponies would have dropped out after their third failure to join, but as our oldest and most attempted candidate, what made you keep on keeping on, Ryusei?”

He bowed to the captain. “It is a great honor to finally be recognized by the Wonderbolts. My family has always instilled in my siblings and me the value of effort. With diligence and patience, even a hoof can destroy a boulder. Now that the boulder of the ‘Wonderbolts Exam’ has been crushed, ‘to become the top flier in Cloudsdale’ is next.”

The Captain nodded back, not sure what to make of him. “Well, good work. Keep on keeping on, Number 34.” She moved on to the next guy, and this guy, I felt like I could get along with. “Mister Typhoon, you finally made the times to get in, how do you feel?”

He was a navy stallion with a two tone green and white mane with warm blue eyes. “Well, I just felt like I could do it this time, and here we are. I hope I can make a show to leave ponies happy. I’ll keep doing my best in the races and all that, but I’m really more of a showman, ya know? Happy to be working with you, Ma’am.”

His demeanor was just ‘relaxed,’ a stark contrast to the very intense stallion beside him. Spitfire nodded. “You’d better do more than perform, Number 64. Being good at one thing isn’t enough to be a Cloudsdale Wonderbolt for very long.”

Typhoon saluted, and the captain moved on. The next stallion in line had a purple-gray coat, a really shiny green-blue mane, and bright orange eyes. I kinda expected to find a beak at the end of his muzzle. He looked more like a bird than a pony, and some of his mane and feathers were out of place.

“Mister Pigeonhole, what brings you to the Wonderbolts?” She put the mic in his face and he stared at it like a foreign object.

He looked to her, then the crowd, then back at the mic. “Oh! Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“The money, mostly. I can fly pretty fast, but I’ve not been able to hold many jobs for very long. I’m getting paid for this right?”

It was as if he’d managed to push every single one of Spitfire’s buttons at once. She’d been overloaded and couldn’t figure out the appropriate level of anger to respond with. “How in the world did you end up here?” came out like she didn’t really mean it to.

Pigeonhole answered the question anyways. “Oh, I just happened to see a flyer for tryouts on the way home from the job center a while ago. I thought I’d just come for the free food, but I kept passing things and now I’m here I guess.”

Spitfire’s eye twitched. “We’ll talk later, Number 57.” Finally, she moved onto the mare standing next to me. Another Wonderbolt with a white coat and blue eyes and a blonde mane. Her palette could’ve been sampled from the rest of the newbies, not that I've got much room to talk, as yet another white Wonderbolt. You’d think, with the way things are advertised, there’d be more than one red Wonderbolt here. Guess that just doesn’t line up in reality.

“Now you, Miss Edelweiss, were one of our few first-try passers! How did you manage that?”

She flexed a wing to show the crowd. “While I don’t have the size to match up with some of the others here, I’m very flexible and learned how to use more of my body than just my wings to fly. Efficiency and planning have gotten me through life, and making it here was just another matter of scheduling and executing the plans I made. I look forward to working with you all!”

The captain chuckled. “Oh, you ought to have a good time here with a personality like that. Welcome to the team, Number 15.” Next, she stepped up to the front of the stage, cuing the cameras to herself. “Now that we have all the new members introduced, It’s time to take a look at our star candidate!”

Oh no.

“This kid has been at the top of his class for his entire life!”

Why would you do this to me?

“First place after first place, perfect score after perfect score, there was nothing we could throw at him that he didn’t just breeze through!”

My exam score would like a word.

“Mares and gentlecolts, please give it up for your new number 1, a five-time beginner flier champion, a three-time intermediate flier champion, a four-time advanced flier champion, the youngest Wonderbolt to ever grace Cloudsdale’s skies, Prism Dash!”

The cameras turned on me, Spitfire cued me to step forward, and I did my best to smile and wave. Mostly, I tried to keep my focus away from the other ponies on the stage. I could feel the stares burning holes in the back of my head, some a whole lot hotter than others. Spitfire couldn’t have glazed me harder without putting her hooves between my legs. Why in the world would anypony care about the elementary and middle school contests? Some of those kids don’t even fly anymore! Most of us didn’t even have cutiemarks back then…

She came over, threw a wing around me, and brought me to the center of the stage, and then had Raptor join us. “Prism here isn’t just joining the Cloudsdale Wonderbolts either! He’ll be joining my protégé Raptor and me on the Thunderaid team as our next rising star! Keep a lookout for what’s to come as our wonderful partner brings the cool, refreshing taste of lightning in your mouth to jumpstart these newbie’s careers!”

A staffer brought us each a bottle of blue Thunderaid, and following their lead, I cracked the bottle and took a sip. Blue isn't the worst flavor, but it was definitely not my favorite.

“How does it taste to be a Wonderbolt, Prism?” The captain asked.

I swallowed. This is an ad read, right? I’ve seen enough MeTube videos to know how to do this part. “Like glory in a bottle.”

Spitfire smiled wide. “Like glory in a bottle! Thank you to Thunderaid, our sponsors, and all you folks who tuned in this time! Be back here next month to find out of anypony can come close to the undefeated scion of rainbows, Number 1, Prism Dash!”

The crowd cheered, everypony on stage took a bow, and then the cameras went off.

7 - The Odd Ones

Shortly after the event ended, we were gathered and herded away from the stadium to be assigned our dorms within the barracks. The obvious discrimination continued when I was awarded a nicer room to myself in the newer side of the building, and everyone else was paired and sent off to the early ‘historic’ parts of the barracks. Old, hard cloud that had been there for centuries made up the walls of this place and you could feel it in the decrepit state of some of the facilities. The stallion’s showers were actually the worst thing I’ve ever seen in a sky city, and I’m lucky to not be a part of this. ‘Apart’ was the word though because ‘they’ had already formed a group and I was with the Captain, Raptor, and that color picker pony who I really shouldn’t be calling that.

Once everypony was settled, we were then gathered for our first training session out in the private tracks. Mostly, this was a runway and floating cloud rings set up to be half the length of the Cloudsdale 500. These were for speed training, which meant we were probably about to take initial times based on how Dad ran the high school team.

Everypony in uniform and in line by number order, Spitfire and Raptor stood in front of us by the runway.

“Alright, newbies, you have your numbers and the media outlets have your names, so now training begins.”

“They have his name, anyways…” somepony mumbled.

The captain ignored that. “Some of you have been part of the amateur circuits, and a surprising lot of you have only seen the high school circuits. Our first step is to gauge how fast and far you can fly.” She looked above us. “Effie! Do you have everything?”

When it rains, it pours. The name sent a chill down my spine. I turned my head to see a violet pegasus mare with a yellow-orange mane like lightning. She was carrying a brown box with a laptop on top and, surprisingly, not doing so very well. You would think, being the captain’s daughter, she would be a pretty good flier.

“Yes, ma’am! I—”

I saw it before it happened. She was losing her grip on the box and everything she was carrying was about to fall into the lake miles below. Without thinking, I launched, darting across the launch pad just beneath Effie, turning, and catching the big box before it plummeted. It was not light, but I had it secure enough to flip back to right side up and bring it to the runway. By the time I’d landed, Effie made it to the runway.

“Ohmygoshi’msosorry!”

I’m not sure how she managed to cram so many words into a single instant. Her mother smacked her in the back of the head. “Klutz! Do you know how expensive it is to have everything in that box cloud proofed?”

“I’m sorry! There aren’t any handles!”

The captain poked a hoof into Effie’s chest. “Then get a box with handles, it’s your job to deal with this crap! You almost lost like ten grand worth of equipment! You got ten grand to replace it!?”

“N-no, Ma’am…”

Man, this feels bad. “Uh, I mean, I caught it, so it’s fine, right?”

The captain turned her ire on me, but then tilted her head into a smile. “You sure did, number 1.” She put a hoof around my neck and motioned to all the other rookies. “What’s your excuse, newbies?”

Ah, here we go again.

“Raptor!”

“Yes, ma’am!” the C-team captain saluted.

“Did you happen to time how fast Prism here launched?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“In your best estimate—” she turned to Raptor “—just how fast do you think he went to catch this?”

The red-maned stallion frowned. He was silent for a moment before coming up with, “About sixty miles per hour in six seconds, Ma’am.”

She turned back to the rest of the group. “Six for sixty, newbies.” The captain let me go, then took a stroll in front of all the other members. “I see the stares, and I know you can tell we’re giving him special treatment here, but if you’ve never raced against him, if you’ve never seen him fly in person, now you know why. If you want special treatment beyond being a C-team Wonderbolt, make his times and we’ll talk. Until then, you’re all C-team Wonderbolts.”

Then she sent her challenging eyes at Raptor. “That includes you, by the by.”

He tried his best not to show it, but his jaw tightened and his lips slammed against each other. “Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied with that, Spitfire returned to the front of the group and motioned me to go back to my place in line. “Effie, give out the trackers.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Setting the laptop aside, she dug into the box and took out what looked like very large wristwatches on elastic bands. She came to me first. “Please put this around your neck.”

I took hold of the device. The band was stretchy and the device itself was oblong and sort of octagonal with concave curvy sides for every other side of it. It had two buttons on the face next to a square screen in the middle.

“Thanks for saving me,” Effie whispered before moving on.

Another shiver, the ghost of Cheesette in strangling range. If watching anime with Fallacy over the years has taught me anything, that was not an innocent 'thank you.' Another headache to build on my compounding migraine.

“Courtesy of Princess Twilight, these are ‘projector monitoring devices,’ but we’ve come to call them PMDs. Pressing the button will activate the PMD which then tunes itself to your internal magical frequency. It gives us real time data on your body and your state of motion. Altitude, speed, heart rate, blood pressure, BMI—you name it, the PMD records it.

“As mentioned earlier, they are very expensive and difficult to replace, so don’t take it off unless you absolutely have to while you’re on the clock. When you are off the clock, leave it in my office to be picked up later if you take it off. It’s heat and cold-resistant within reason, and entirely waterproof, so most liquids will slide right off it. Again, unless you really need to, don’t take it off.

“I and any other Wonderbolt trainer, captain, or staffer can get the data off it, and it is constantly connected to our cloud computing system, so don’t try to falsify your data. We’ll know if you do.” She scanned across the team, slowing down over a couple of the guys. “Now, since most of you are gonna be gunning for him anyways, we’ll start this session by getting Prism’s two-lap time. This is the speed portion of initial training, so go as fast as you can. You get three attempts.”

And more singling out. I have to sleep here! I could already tell that the big guy, the angry mare, and the guy I didn’t like have been giving me the most intense angry stares of the group, but it was like most of these ponies were snapping at my heels. We’ve only just started! Why is it like this? Whatever. I’m just gonna fly and clear my head and not worry about any of that.

“Go stand by Effie,” the Captain commanded. “She’ll count you off.”

“Yes, Captain.” I moved to my place, set my hooves in the starting blocks, and brought my wings forward.

“Okay buddy, imagine yourself like a spring. How it gets tighter and tighter the more you push it down, ya know? You want your wings like that before you launch. Don’t just push down either. More than that, you want to go forward. Your wings are shaped to make you go up, so all you have to do is push straight ahead. A bolt from the blue, just like me, okay?”

Mom could go so fast that she breaks the sky. I was three years old the first time I ever saw it, but I‘d never forget it. It’s up in the air if she could still do it now, and she’s gotten slower and slower with each year that passes. One of these days, I’ll do it too. Just, in a safe place and not by accident.

“Three.”

Every individual muscle in my wings tightened.

“Two.”

Legs lowered, curling and curling and curling, just like a spring.

“One, launch!”

The combined force of my legs and my wings shot me forward and up. I hit the first ring as the training ground flew by and began my bank. Another push, more speed, turning at the first curve. The sunset world turned around me as my eyes adjusted to the speed. The strange slowness combined with the extra range I could suddenly see made it feel like I was beyond the vast blue that extended in every direction. Ring after ring, I finally reached the straightaway and flapped and ran.

“It’s easier to go down than up. Get as high as you can, then push and fall. Even if it’s just a little bit, that makes the difference between winning and losing.”

Mom’s power and Dad's efficiency. Gravity and power, my whole body working with and against the forces around me to fly faster. The next turn comes and I tilt my feathers one by one to change my angle. Strain hits my shoulders, the swing threatens to tear my wings off. Too against the wind, relax and flex. The turn becomes easier, and flattens into the second straight. I’m going too fast to straighten out completely before the next turn, so I twist and lean in, flying sideways to get more speed. Faster, faster, faster, the third straight is over before I realize it. My body is pulling apart, but that just makes me want to go even faster. I hit the end of the last straight and the Captain sounds her whistle. I pull up and out, then stall to cut my speed.

The laps felt great. It was just me and the sky up here, and in spite of the summer heat, it was wonderful. For the fun of it, I fell into a backwards dive and spun until I came right to the ground. I threw my wings out, swooped and flipped once for good measure before gently touching down.

Of course, then I looked up and remembered where I was. Instead of Dad coming over to congratulate me on my time which I just assume was pretty good based on how it felt, it was Spitfire and Effie. “Talk about a hell of a lap!” the Captain exclaimed. “You wanna guess how fast you did that?”

Based on the looks of my peers, it was likely a lot faster than most of them had ever flown. It was only three quarters of a mile, and I can actually fly faster in curves than straights. A good guess would tell me I did both laps in under a minute, which would be… even faster than my exam time. “Uh, two minutes?”

“Not even close!” Spitfire pressed her hoof to my neck and a screen made of magic light flew out in front of me. For all that exercise, my heart rate wasn’t even at 170, and I’d only just broken a sweat. Everything was pretty normal… then I noticed the lap time. For the short distances, even a second faster is a lot. Most races are decided by seconds in the higher ends of competition, and I’d just broken my best record by a whole ten seconds. Mom was faster in her prime… but not by much. “Fifty four seconds. You’re faster than most of B-team with a score like that! Look, you even broke 100 miles per hour in that second lap. Provided you’ve got the endurance to match, you’ll beat Dash and Soarin’s records by the time you’re either of their ages.”

I frowned. “I don’t even wanna try for Dad’s records. Twelve hundred laps at the 500… no, thanks.”

Spitfire patted my back. “Well, we’ll see if you’ve got that in you later. What’s the scoreboard look like, Effie?”

She literally grabbed the magic screen from my PMD and dragged it into her computer. The laptop then put out an even larger display with everyone’s names and columns for time and speed. “Fastest lap at 21 seconds, top speed of 104, average speed of 100, completed at 54 seconds. That’s a hard time to beat…”

“Well, you heard her, newbies! Who wants first shot at the king’s crown?”

All the sudden everyone seemed shy. Even Raptor. Still, there was the one guy who didn’t exactly feel like he ended up here on purpose, and like me, he wasn’t exactly with the group. “I can give it a shot,” he said. I’m gonna have to learn their names at some point.

The captain’s face dropped. “Oh, right. Yeah, sure, Number 57, you go for it.”

Right. This is the guy who looks like a bird, but like, in a more literal way than pegasi usually do.

“I just need to go around this as fast as I can, right?” he asked, like he’d never done this before. Geez, maybe he did end up here by accident.

Spitfire looked like she wanted to strangle him. “Uh, yeah? Did you not do this in the exam phase?”

The purple-gray stallion set up on the starting blocks. “Oh, I did, I just want to make sure I have clear instructions. I can get paid more if I go faster than him, right?”

There was a competitive edge in this guy's voice. The confidence was pretty astounding when I’d clearly knocked the wind out of the more intense guys' sails. The Captain felt it too. “Well, I mean, there are three major areas as far as Wonderbolt performance goes, but if you can beat his times, you’re probably qualified to move up to B-team at least.”

“And B-team includes,” Effie began, “a flat pay raise, an increase in benefits, moving to the B-team barracks which is nicer than the C-team is, and of course you’re much more likely to be sponsored in B-team.”

“That’s all I needed to hear! Count me off!”

He was enthusiastic at least. He set up to launch, and his form was really good too. This guy might actually do it.

“Three, two, one, launch!”

The stallion shot off at a really good pace. He hit the curve though, and he wasn’t controlling his flight path very well. After clipping the edge of every single ring on the curve, he made it back to the straight and sped up a lot… only to totally lose the track at the curve. It was kinda like he didn’t know how to turn himself to take a curve and made up for it with brute force on the straights. This continued until he completed the track, racking up time penalties for each ring he clipped… which was pretty much all of them.

He landed sharply, and I could feel it in my knees when he did because it was more of a crash than a stop. Breathing hard and sweating pretty good, he approached Effie. “How’d I do?”

“Well…” Effie began.

Spitfire marched up to him and pressed the top button on his PMD. “Do you know how to bank a turn? Because I’ve seen frisbees with better aim than you.”

We all looked at his stats, and honestly, they were pretty impressive, in spite of the lack of control. “Oh, man, I didn’t even get to go as fast as him. I could go faster if we had a straighter track.”

The captain shook her head. “Nuh-uh, you gotta get a handle on turning before you can do any kind of top speed exercises. How did you manage to pass the acrobatics test?”

The orange-eyed stallion furrowed his brow. “How long ago did we do that, again?”

“It should’ve been back in early May,” Effie said.

“Nah, I’ve slept since then.”

Spitfire slapped her forehead. “Goddess among us.” She sighed, then turned to the others in line. “If any of you get a lower time than him, just go home and don’t come back.”

That would be pretty hard to do though. With all the penalties he racked up, his time came out to fifteen minutes, even though he completed the circuit in about one and a half.

“Haven’t even made it to the technical section yet, and already we have a candidate for control training. Goddess. Get back in line, and one of you others come up here and do this”

The color picker mare raised her hoof. “I’ll go, Spitfire Ma’am!”

“Number 15, great!”

Effie got back in position and waved the mare over. “Over here, Miss Edelweiss.”

From launch to finish, it took her about a minute, which is respectable for this course. Her top speed only hit eighty though which I felt was sort of low for a mare on the Wonderbolts. Interestingly, she hit her highest speeds in the curves as opposed to the straights, which told me she was more of a technical flier. She had a way of moving and bending her body in flight that was strange to me. Not sure where she learned to fly, but unlike most pegasi, she did so with her whole body. I’d imagine she’d be slower on the actual CD 500 track which was less compact than this one.

With a top, middle and bottom established, the rest of the group was more willing to come along and each took their turn. As I’m terrible with names, I marked them by the numbers on their flanks. Under me was the mean mare, 42; the red stallion, 63; Trade Wind, the mare who promoted herself, 77; and then the rest. Not that I didn’t watch them or anything, but they just all seem a whole lot more average in this category than the top three. The mean mare was close. A top speed of 100 and a 58-second time. The red stallion was behind her with a half-second slower time and a higher top speed of 101. Trade Wind was exactly two seconds behind the mean mare at a minute even. These guys were all really fast and could maybe keep up with me at some point, but they all lacked some of the things that Mom and Dad have taught me over the years. The red stallion does weird stuff with his feathers in turns, the mean mare uses brute force to compensate for her smaller body and honestly I’m a little worried about her hurting herself, and Trade Wind… I felt like could be a lot better than she was. Talent-wise, she and Pigeonhole seemed to be the ones to watch. He’d be nearly as fast as me if he could control any of the speed he gets.

When everyone had finished their laps, Spitfire used her own PMD to display the scoreboard for all of us to see. “And would ya look at that? Nopony can touch the king. Second place is four whole seconds behind on this little track. A few months' training here and at least a few of you could enter the top cut for the half-track’s overall time.”

She scanned over everypony, then turned her eyes on Raptor. “Go show them what the captain’s time looks like. You can beat his time, can’t you?”

The brown stallion’s eye twitched. “Yes, ma’am.”

I happened to catch a glance from him on his way to the starting blocks, and if looks could kill… He set up and Effie counted him off.

Unlike me, Raptor spread the full length of his wings upwards and slammed them down against his sides. He shot into the air and started to flap like a madman, gaining speed with every powerful push. With large wings like his, he could get more power out of each stroke than me, but it would take a bigger toll on his body the more he did it. It was clear that he knew what he was doing, but his talent was not for speed. He dipped, dove and swooped as much as he could during the straights, picking up speed each time, but losing a lot when he had to slow down to bank in each turn. He, like the red stallion, did some funky stuff with his feathers in the turn, which made it harder for him to keep the pace up. Still, he had raw power on me for sure.

When he finished and landed, breathing like he’d just worked his hardest in the shortest amount of time, he gasped for air. “W-what’s the time?”

We looked to Spitfire’s scoreboard and Raptor’s number was added. I was a little relieved that he’d beaten me. He’s the captain after all, and he’s Spitfire’s student. He should be faster than me. But with the way Spitfire smiled at him, I wasn’t so sure about that.

“Fifty seconds. Top speed of 108. That’s your best time on this track, Raptor.”

“Shit!” Raptor punched the cloud, his hind legs sliding out from under him. After a couple of deep breaths, he got up and approached the captain. “Let me do it again, I can make a better time than that!”

The Captain tilted her head. “Oh, really? Should I let Prism give it another go too?”

Raptor’s eyes widened and his mouth shut. “Never mind.”

“Thought so.” She turned back to us. “Next, we’ll be testing endurance. Everypony get some water and then take three laps around Cloudsdale. Anypony who beats Prism gets a free dinner courtesy of Wonderbolts Super Fan Kitchen. If Raptor doesn’t beat him, he doesn’t get dinner, and if Prism beats Raptor, he gets the dinner. Oh, and no foul play; we’ll know if you do.”

She dragged her PMD screen back to where she could see it and turned it to a timer screen. “It’s currently three PM. If you’re not back before six… good luck finding food.”

Pigeonhole’s eyes widened. “G-good luck? Food, board, and pay was included in the job description!”

Effie stood, and the timer started counting down. I took to the air knowing all too well that the game was already on but managed to catch the last of what she said. “At the discretion of your trainer. It’s part of the clause on page 45.”

“Wh-what does that mean?” Pigeonhole asked.

“Better fly quick. The timer’s already counting down.”

Raptor had worked hard on the time trial, and it showed. As a matter of fact, it showed on everypony… but me who had more or less made a time for fun. True, it was one of my fastest times, but I was the measuring stick and not aiming for anything to beat. If I went as hard as Raptor did, there’s a good chance I could beat the time he set. Especially because, during the Cloudsdale race, I could’ve passed him more than once.

It felt… bad to be here. Spitfire more or less has control over the lives of everypony who signed the contract to be a Wonderbolt now, and though I’m not worried about anypony passing me, I am worried about Raptor not eating. Food is something you share with your friends and your family. It’s not a means to an end, it’s a time to be with the ponies you care about. I really don’t want anypony to hate me any more than they already do, and if I pass Raptor, he’s gonna hurt himself trying to catch up, and given his performance at the half-track… he’s not gonna eat tonight. In the end, I decided to not pass him and just stick behind him. This was supposed to be endurance training, but three laps around Cloudsdale isn’t near the distance between here and Ponyville, and I could make that in three hours.

When I landed about five seconds after Raptor because I’d tried to keep pace with him the whole route, Spitfire patted Raptor on the back and told him to go shower off, but then took me aside, leaving Effie to watch for the rest of the team.

Safely away from ears in her office, she looked at me with a spiteful frown. “What is it you think you’re doing, kid?”

I didn’t know what to say. “Sitting in your office?”

A vein bubbled on her forehead. “No shit, Sherlock. Why didn’t you pass Raptor?”

My body betrayed me before I could even make the lie. “Well, he was going faster than me…”

She stomped right up to my face. “The hell he was! Were you not listening when I said we’re tracking your vitals!? You were matching him beat for beat and you hadn’t reached a hard exercise heart rate the whole time! Why in the world were you going easy on him?”

“Didn’t you say he wouldn’t get food if he didn’t beat me?”

Her eye twitched. “This is exactly the kinda shit I was talking about when you brought Soarin to defend you back in May.” She moved around her desk and took a seat. “I hate kids like you, ya know that?” She dug around in her desk and pulled out a whole cigar and an ashtray. The Captain has always sounded like she smokes a lot, but it still surprised me that a former Wonderbolt of her caliber could do that to her lungs.

Man, what does she even want from me? It’s not like I asked to be a Wonderbolt for this city in the first place. “If you don’t like me, why did you hire me? There are other branches, and I shouldn’t have passed the exam in the first place!”

She blew smoke at me and set her cigar down. “Skittles, if you saw a thousand bits just lying around in a bag on the ground in the middle of nowhere, would you just walk away from it?”

That’s a lot of plastic and paint worth of bits for my collection. Still, a thousand bits is actually super heavy. “I mean, maybe, I might not be able to lift a thousand bits.”

She rubbed at her forehead. “Ya know what? Fine, a hundred bits. That’s possible, right?”

“Yeah, I could do that, but what if that belongs to somepony?”

“Holy shit.” She huffed and puffed on her cigar for a solid minute before she set it down again. “I can’t even talk to you. How are you this stupid? No, don’t answer that, I should know better considering what I had to do to get you here. Let me put this in plain terms for you, Skittles: You’re here to break the current state of the Wonderbolts.”

While I’ve never been called smart, those words don’t mean much without an explanation. “Which means…?”

“To change the way things currently are. Do you know the last time the CD500 had its speed record broken?”

I did, actually. “About twenty years ago, right? Mom was complaining about that.”

Spitfire nodded. “So even Dash is upset her record hasn’t been broken yet…”

“Well, that’s not—”

“Twenty years. Two whole decades worth of Wonderbolts have come and gone since then, and nopony has even gotten close to Dash’s four-hour time. It’s pathetic. All this technology, all these advancements in what we know and how we can train ponies, and no one has even begun to take advantage of it yet! Her record should’ve been broken ten years ago, we had the talent here! It just wasn’t cultivated enough to cross the finish line.”

Mom was complaining about being old, not her record. Honestly, she might be sad even if I break that record. She kinda uses it to promote herself these days.

Spitfire trained her eyes on me. “You watched them all fly, what’d you think?”

So I’ve gone from being too stupid to talk to smart enough to get an opinion from? Well, this is an improvement at least, even if it is built on a misunderstanding. “I thought they flew pretty well, even if there were some mistakes in there.”

She nodded slowly. “Alright, tell me about the mistakes then. Who was making them, and what were the mistakes, exactly?”

“Well, the pigeon guy was the most guilty of this, but a lot of the guys don’t bank properly. Almost all of them, really.”

The captain took a pen and paper from her desk and wrote that down. “Who was banking properly, in your opinion?”

“The mean mare and Trade Wind, but the mean mare was working a lot harder than Trade Wind.”

Spitfire raised a brow and took more notes. “Makes sense. 42’s been trying to catch your tail all her life. But 77, really? That… internet personality?”

42? The mean mare? I guess I have raced against her before. I nodded to Spitfire’s question. “I mean, between her and the bird guy, I’d say they have the most potential.”

She rubbed at her forehead. “57? The guy who can’t turn to save his life? Him?”

“Turning aside, he’s really fast down the line and he’s got great form too. He’d probably beat Raptor if he could turn as fast as he can fly straight.”

Her lips curled into a smirk. She puffed her cigar. “Well, that’s interesting. Speaking of, you didn’t mention him yet. What do you make of him?”

A few years ago, I remember sitting on the couch with Dad watching a race on TV. It was an amateur circuit race and there was one guy who was clearly winning, but working too hard for it. He was doing everything in his power to stay ahead of second place, and that’s when it happened. He pushed too hard and tore his wing. Fell out of the sky into the safety nets and would go on to retire the next year after several failed attempts to get back on the leaderboard. He never flew professionally, and the guy who came in second became a Wonderbolt.

Raptor is a lot like that first guy.

“He’ll hurt himself if he keeps going the way he is, but that’s the same for a few of them, the big guy and the mean mare and that uppity stallion.” I felt my wing shoulder. I’ve seen videos of the race where Mom did it too. All too often, ponies are too driven to win and forget the fun of flying for the sake of the competition. Like Dad always said, second place has a higher chance of getting first than first does.

Spitfire nodded and took more notes. “And what about the opposite? Who could work harder?”

Thinking back to the time trials and the race he’d finished, there were at least three stallions who were definitely coasting. “The, uh… the RGB guys. Red, green and blue.”

“63, 29, and 64? What makes you say that?”

Very different things for each of them, actually. “Well, the red guy with the neglectful parents has more to give but didn’t during either exercise. He’s pretty good already, but I think he could be better if he tried more. The green guy who reminds me of Dad did everything he could to not work hard and gain speed. Always found favorable winds to ride during the city race and even once during the time trial. The blue guy likes to attract attention to himself and makes a show of flying more than he tries to go fast. I think he said he wasn’t fast this morning, but he could be if he put more into efficiency.”

The captain took her notes and after looking them over, she tilted her head at me. “The only ones you didn’t mention were Edelweiss and Monsoon, 15 and 99, the other two mares. Anything?”

The first mare and the last mare. Funnily enough, nothing about them stood out in particular. “Uh, well, I guess the white mare has really good fine control, but she doesn’t seem like she’s all that fast. She could probably try harder, but I don’t think she was coasting like the guys were. The blue mare though… well, I don’t know really, she just didn’t catch my eye. If our team had, like, an exact middle, I think it’d be her.”

She wrote all that down, and then set the clipboard aside. “Alright, that’s good info. I guess you really are Soarin’s kid. You’ve got the eyes of a trainer on top of your mother’s talent. You are something else, Skittles.” She sucked down the last of her cigar, then buried it in her ashtray. “Here’s a hypothetical scenario for you: you’re C-team Captain, and while you’re set to move up next year, your teammates here are under threat of having their contracts terminated if they don’t perform better. What do you do?”

Hold on, Dad made me do this last year. I’m fine, but I have to help because the team isn’t up to par. He knows that they can do better, but he didn’t have the time to help everypony individually. I ended up going around to all the other guys with Fallacy and we talked about stuff—what they wanted to do, what their plans after high school were, whether they wanted to keep flying or not. While a few were just on the team because it was a way to pass the time, the rest just wanted different things. It was more Fallacy than me, but we’d convinced most of them that it would look good on their records, or it would be more fun if we won as much as we could while we still had the time. While I, individually, have never lost an event, as a team, we placed really high in the national rankings last year, even going so far as to get first in the performance section, which we’d basically never been close to in previous years.

“I think the best way to do that is to sit down with everypony individually and find out how to motivate them. Like, I can’t make them do better; they have to want to do it, right? If we’re gonna win any team events, we have to, ya know, be a team, right?”

Spitfire let her face sink into her hooves. “I didn’t know it was possible for anypony other than Dash to make me this frustrated, but I swear to the Goddess, your very existence is a source of agony.”

“Oh. Is that not right?”

She took a deep breath. “No, Skittles, you’re perfectly correct. I’m sure that’s what your dad taught you. He was my best junior and took over when I left. It’s your obliviousness that causes me pain.” She put her hooves together and sat up. “That thing you just said? We’re gonna put it into practice.”

Gonna have to look that word up later, I literally don’t know what it means. “Alright. What do we do?”

“Oh, we will not be doing anything. I’m gonna send a couple ponies to work with you and Effie a few days at a time. Too many ponies to train individually myself, but you are your dad’s kid since you already know what you’re doing and how to train other ponies.”

My skin crawled and the vengeful specter of Cheesette was weighing on my back. “W-with Effie? Why is that?”

“Dude, have you not seen the looks some of these ponies give you? They hate your guts. You’ve gotta have somepony around to keep you from getting killed.”

“Ah…” Yeah, no, that’s like… a valid reason.

She picked up her clipboard. “Given this and your performance, it’s clear to me that you’d be a better captain than Raptor, but I’d rather move you up to B-team next year where we’ve actually got talent closer to your level. But my finagling with the test has apparently backfired on me and left me with some edge-case newbies that probably shouldn’t be here. Since you’re so nice, help them keep their jobs.”

Man, she’s comfortable enough to just admit that now? Ugh, being captain is a lot of work though. I guess, this is my job now though, so like… yeah, alright. It’s only a year, I can do this. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

“It is what I want!” She stood and held a hoof out. “Looking forward to what you make of this little team of yours, C-team captain in all but name.”

Good Goddess, it’s only been a day. This is going to be a long year. “Yeah…”

I shook the hoof, but then she brought me in close. “Do be good to Effie, alright? She likes you a lot. I’m not really against being a grandma either.” She patted my shoulder, winked, and let me go.

I did my best not to gag. “Uh, don’t think that would fly with my fiancé…”

Spitfire shrugged. “Figures. Eighteen and already taken. You’d probably be a lot older if Soarin had his way at the start, though. Like father, like son.”

Then, a knock came at the door. “Spitfire, Ma’am? Are you around?”

“And there’s my next appointment. You’re dismissed.”

8 - Secret Sombra

In spite of what we discussed, the rest of the week was mostly tests and learning a new routine for our first show at the end of the month. While they would often coast during the racing parts of training, the RGB guys really brought their A-game when it came to the performances. Green was good of course, but Red and Blue were on another level, even better than I was. They had the routine down almost immediately and really had the star power to draw attention while on stage, but… they both wanted the lead part and there was fighting. First it was verbal, and then hooves were thrown. Green ended up taking the lead role, and the other two were relegated to ‘time out’ until they could behave themselves on stage together.

In training, we had our first injury courtesy of the mean mare who’d strained her wing shoulder, the first sign that a tear is going to happen. With that, she was grounded for a week, and anyone else who was caught doing extra training would also be grounded. Two days later, the big guy was also grounded. He pleaded the case that strength training is not the same as flight training, to which Captain Spitfire responded, “What part of ‘no outside training’ did you not understand!?”

Since our only real assignment on Friday was to watch the B-team performance and the A-team short distance race being held that day, in the evening, Spitfire wanted everypony to get together for team building. While I’d gathered about who all didn’t like me in particular, I’d also gathered that most of these ponies didn’t like each other. A lot of them are the hyper-competitive Mom-type pony, which makes sense for a Wonderbolt, but also makes for explosive personalities attempting to work together.

At about 6 in the evening, we gathered in the common room of the C-team barracks. The TV area had been cleared and a big table with a deck of cards and a game board had been set out. There were snacks and drinks by the communal kitchen at the back of the room, and the Captain, Effie, the color picker ma—er, Edelweiss and Raptor were all waiting for us.

“Alright, everypony,” Spitfire said, “take a seat. We’re going to play a fun little game tonight.”

As there were just enough seats for everyone, I tried to get one as far from Effie and Spitfire as possible, but everypony filled in spots so fast that I only just managed to end up on the other side of the table. Instead of getting away, I ended up directly across from Effie. She smiled and waved at me, and I just meekly, flaccidly waved back.

“I know I said 'we,' but I won’t actually be playing,” Spitfire announced. “Anypony know this game?”

The cards and pieces were all branded ‘Secret Sombra’ and given who that was, it made me wonder if Uncle Discord knew this game…

“Oh, I do,” the bird guy said. “This is that game where you lie to the other players to try and get a dictator elected, right?”

“That’s right,” Spitfire said. “Have you played before, 57?”

“No, but I’ve delivered it before at my last job. I read the box and it sounded interesting, but uh, ya know. Gotta have ponies to play with.”

Well, that makes me feel bad.

“Um,” the blue mare began, “should we be playing this? We already had a fight this week once, and this game can get pretty intense…”

Spitfire glared at the red and blue stallions. “Oh, that’s exactly why we’re playing this. While individual records bring in individual sponsorships, our performances are what fund the Wonderbolts. Some ponies will come to see a race, but a lot of ponies will come to see a show. More butts in seats, more eyes on ads, more videos to record and post online. While the Wonderbolts originally served as a fighting force, we’re now a business. So if you want to keep your prestige, your fancy training tech, and your food and board, you’re gonna work together. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the table reluctantly replied.

“Good.” She passed out envelopes to the players. “Look at your card, but don’t reveal it to anyone. It will either say you’re a Loyalist, an Imperialist, or Sombra. The goal of the game is to enact a certain number of policies, or have Sombra become the Prime Minister after four Imperialist policies have been enacted. Sombra is also an Imperialist, but he doesn’t know who else is on his team. If you’re an Imperialist, you win the game by making Sombra the PM or enacting five imperialist policies. If you’re a Loyalist, you win by enacting five loyalist policies or killing Sombra.”

The big stallion raised his hoof.

Spitfire rubbed at her forehead, “Look, 34, you’re an adult and I’m not a teacher, just ask if you have a question.”

Embarrassed, he put his hoof down. “How do we enact these policies? Do we debate on their merit, or, what system is this based upon? Equestria does not exactly have a way to usurp the princess.”

“Oh, the policy cards are just cards that say they’re Loyalist or Imperialist. It’s loosely based on Equestria’s system of government. First, this little placard denotes the Princess. The Princess then chooses somepony to be PM, and everypony votes on that. There should be a ‘Yeigh’ and ‘Neigh’ card in your envelope. You hold that up to vote. From there, the Princess draws three cards from the policy deck, and passes two to the PM. The PM then selects one and places it on the board.”

“So, like,” the green stallion asked, “if somepony puts an Imperialist card down, doesn’t that kinda out them immediately?”

“Good observation, 29. The trick is that there are only six Loyalist policy cards, and eleven Imperialist cards. At some point, you may simply draw three imperialist cards and you’re stuck, but nopony ever said you had to be honest about anything you do in the game. It’s more about convincing your fellow players that you’re not the bad guy and putting your policies in place on the sly.”

“Ooh, this sounds fun!” Trade Wind exclaimed. “Trainer Spitfire, would you mind if I streamed this?”

She thought about that. “You can record it and send me the footage, then we can talk about whether it goes online or not.”

Not sure I like the thought of this being online. I’ve played social games like this where winning requires lying depending on your side, and I am not very good at it. Weirdly, it’s always the mares who are the best liars when we play games like this. Cheesette is a monster in that alien imposter game.

“Will do!” And before anypony could do anything else, Trade Wind had set up tripods and two different cameras on either side of the table. This is the first thing Spitfire has ever said yes to, so clearly she’s excited, but I’m surprised she had all that stuff just on her.

“Oh, we’re on camera, are we?” the red stallion said, messing with his mane. “I suppose I can break out the acting skills. How do we find these dirty imperialists anyways?”

“There are eight Loyalists, four Imperialists, and one Sombra,” Spitfire continued. “The imperialists will know who each other and Sombra is, but Sombra will not know the imperialists. You obtain powers as more Imperialist policies are played. The powers are on the board, but they go as such: at one and two, the Princess gets to check a player’s identity card. What she does with that information is up to her. At three, the Princess gets to choose the next Princess, disrupting order. At four and five, the Princess gets to kill a player. If the killed player happens to be Sombra, the Loyalists win. If Sombra gets elected PM at this point, the Imperialists win. And of course, the Imperialists win if six Imperialist policies are enacted.”

Raptor frowned. “Is this not sort of stacked against the Loyalists?”

The Captain turned to him. “Just like in the real world, corruption wins through lies and deceit, and it’s a whole lot easier to lie than you think. You have to fight for your freedom, because if the Princess won’t protect it, then it’s up to you, and that’s how we get into civil wars. Now then, as long as there are no more questions, we can start the game.”

Nopony spoke up and though I wasn’t entirely clear on how it all worked, I figured I might as well play to see what happens.

Spitfire shuffled the policy deck, then passed the Princess placard to Raptor. “We’ll be passing the placard counterclockwise. Everypony please take your votes out of your envelope, and check your ID card.”

I checked inside mine, and luckily, I was a Loyalist. Hopefully that keeps me from having to do much.

“Now, everypony, close your eyes. Imperialists other than Sombra, open your eyes and confirm who your members are.”

I heard the slightest shuffling from all around.

“If you are Sombra, keep your eyes closed, but raise a hoof.”

Absolute silence.

“Everypony may now open their eyes. Raptor, please choose a PM.”

And now the ball was in his court. He looked at everypony, then the placard in his hoof, then turned to Edelweiss who was sitting next to him. “You can be PM, Edie.”

The red stallion immediately objected. “Come now, on what basis should we elect her? Is there any reason to trust that she isn’t an Imperialist?”

Raptor rubbed at his forehead. “Nightingale, we just started. Nopony knows anything, if you’re an Imperialist, you’re already suspicious going off like that.”

“Oh.”

“Any more objections before we call a vote?” Raptor asked?

There were none, so the vote went. Nightingale still voted neigh, but he was alone.

“Why did you vote neigh, Nightingale?” Edelweiss asked, already tired.

He crossed his forelegs. “I don’t know who’s who. It’s safer to always vote no than vote yes just to confirm a suspicion, isn’t it?”

“Am I losing my mind, or does that make some level of twisted sense?” Edelweiss asked.

“Twisted is right,” the blue stallion said. “How mistrustful do you have to be to vote no on everything? This is politics, right? You need a little give and take to get anything done.”

Nightingale huffed. “Better mistrustful than sorry.”

Raptor shook his head. “Goddess, this is going to be a headache.” He drew his three cards from the deck, put one in the discard pile, and passed the rest to Edelweiss.

Edelweiss looked at her cards, then raised a brow. “Oh, Raptor, there doesn’t seem to be a Loyalist policy here.”

His head shot back. “There isn’t? Hold on, I definitely…”

“Nope, two Imperialist cards, right from the start. I mean, there are more Imperialist cards in the deck, but come on, right from the start? The chances of that have to be astronomically—”

“About twenty-five percent,” the blue mare finished.

Edelweiss blinked. “Oh, what, really?”

“Yep,” the blue mare, who happened to be sitting next to me, continued, “At this stage in the game it should be about twenty-five percent to get three Imperialist cards on the first draw, given what we’re working with.”

Raptor raised a brow at her. “Remind me to take you with me next time I visit the casino.”

The blue mare shook her head. “Sorry, I’m not allowed in most of those.”

He raised his other brow at that. “Learn something new every day. Uh, since an Imperialist policy was played, I get to check anypony’s ID, right?”

The captain nodded. “That’s correct.”

His lip curled and he narrowed in on me. “Prism, why don’t you show me your card?”

“Uh, okay. Here, I guess.” I didn’t have anything to hide, so I didn’t see a reason why not.

He looked in the envelope, checked the card, frowned and passed it back. “Found our first Imperialist.”

I frowned, double-checked the card, then set it back down. “Uh, do you need to get your eyes checked? That’s clearly not what my card says.”

He didn’t even look at me. “I figured you couldn’t be trusted and here we are. Well, you all can believe whoever you want, but I’m telling you he’s an Imperialist.”

“And you’re lying through your teeth! Here, look—”

Spitfire held a wing up. “In case you forgot, you cannot show your card to anypony outside the Princess’s request. Put the card down, Prism.”

I sat back down and threw my envelope on the table. “I see how it is. You’re the Imperialist!”

He smiled smugly at me. “Sounds like something an Imperialist would say, but you can keep arguing your case. It’s Edie’s turn to be Princess.” He passed the placard over, and she frowned at it.

“So Raptor is definitely an Imperialist. I almost want to try and get a fascist policy in place just to make sure he’s not Sombra…”

“I’m confused,” Trade Wind began, “does that mean Raptor has been lying the whole time and he’s the imperialist, or Edelweiss and Prism are both imperialists and they’re the ones lying?”

The big stallion crossed his hooves. “It is already difficult to make out the truth and yet you would actively ask for another fascist policy in an effort to uncover the truth? Does that make us any better than them if we would abuse the levers of power to get what we want?”

“Omelets don’t get made if you don’t crack eggs, blockhead,” the mean mare said.

The big guy’s eye twitched. “And what about my head resembles a block!? Who are you to comment on my head shape, little mare?”

“The fact that it’s filled with wood, you big idiot! The government is always big and slow and useless and filled with junk, so we ought to break the rules just to make something happen for a change!”

Pigeonhole brought a hoof to his chin. “Is that not what they call the ‘slippery slope?’ I think I’ve heard this on TV before.”

“I’ve heard that too,” I said, “but Raptor is lying about me, so I’m willing to go along with it.”

Raptor shook his head. “That’s how it starts, ya see? One Imperialist working with another to break the conventions of our dearly held foundations just to take more power for themselves. This is how we lose our republic, ponies.”

The green stallion looked like his brain was about to fry. “Imma be honest with y’all, I am not following this at all. Can we just take a vote or whatever? I’ll vote yes for anything just to make this end.”

“Alright, how about making Prism PM?” Edelweiss asked. “Anypony want to commit votes?”

“Ugh, him? Hell no!” The mean mare said.

“On this point, I can agree with you. No.” The big guy said.

Yeah, figured as much.

“I don’t see why not,” Pigeonhole said.

“I mean, I said I’d vote yes,” Green said.

“Nah, I’m not voting for an imperialist,” Raptor said.

“Neither will I,” Nightingale added.

“Fuck you—” the blue stallion pointed at the red one “—I’ll vote for him.”

“I’ll vote for him too!” the blue mare said. “He gave his card up without hesitating Nopony would get mad like that if they were really lying.”

“Ooh, the vote seems split!” Trade Wind exclaimed. “Let’s put it up to see how it goes!”

Everypony held up their cards, and surprisingly, it was seven for six against, with Trade Wind being the tiebreaker.

Edelweiss passed me the placard, drew three cards, then gave me two. “You can play either of these. If you pick one, we’re closer to winning, if you pick the other I can prove Raptor is an Imperialist and clear your name. Your choice.”

Looking at the cards, there was one Imperialist and one Loyalist. As much as I’d like to know he’s a bad guy for sure, I’d rather just get closer to winning. I played the Loyalist policy. “There. Edelweiss was telling the truth, and I’m not an Imperialist.”

“I suppose I can believe that,” said the pale, uppity stallion who took the Princess placard next, “but there is much doubt being thrown about and I’m not too concerned about the truth.”

The big guy reared back. “Not concerned about the truth? In what else is there value?”

The uppity stallion tilted his head to the side dismissively. “Money, fame, power. This is a game about power, not truth, and the goal is to win. If you’re so all about truth, you be PM and give me a Loyalist policy. Any objections?”

“I don’t like him!” the mean mare objected.

“Any objections of merit?” The uppity stallion asked.

Raptor shook his head. “Not in particular.”

Most ponies agreed to that and the game moved on. The big guy played a Loyalist policy. “There. Three more and we will have defeated this Imperialist rot within our system.”

The Princess placard moved on to Trade Wind. “Well, now that I’ve got the choice, why don’t we invite our easy-going friend to be PM! How about Siccoro?”

The green stallion’s ears stood up. “Oh, what, me?”

“Yes, you, silly!” She slid the placard across the table in front of him. “How about it, guys? We’ll make it through this game yet!”

Again, there were no real objections, and after a vote of ten to three, Nightingale, the mean mare and the uppity stallion being the neighs, Siccoro got the PM placard.

Trade Wind drew her cards, frowned, and showed them to the camera. “Ooh, this isn’t good. Monsoon, what are the odds of me drawing only three Imperialist policies?”

The blue mare thought about it for a literal second. “About forty-two percent discounting certain variables.”

“Well, there you have it. This is all I’ve got, so we’ve got to play something.” She passed two cards to Siccoro, he shrugged at them, then played an Imperialist policy.

“Now,” Raptor began, “she could’ve been lying. Are we sure she didn’t just toss a Loyalist policy and force Siccoro here to play that?”

“What,” Edie responded, “and you’re saying he didn’t just play the Imperialist card she gave him instead?”

“I’m just saying that he’s not that kinda guy. You just want the game to end, don’t you bud?”

The green stallion rubbed at his temple. “Yeah, this is exhausting.”

Raptor nodded. “So, if he had the chance, he would’ve played the loyalist policy. It’s that simple.”

“Hmm,” Trade Wind started, “I’m having my doubts about you Raptor, so why don’t you let me check your ID? Since I’m the Princess and all.”

He slid his envelope over to her. “Be. My. Guest.”

She looked at it, put it away, and slid it back. “Well, aren’t you just an agent of chaos? Not even an Imperialist and he’s throwing shade all over.”

“No way!” I blurted.

Raptor smiled. “There you go. Not an Imperialist, like yourself.”

I could feel a vein bubbling on my forehead. “Why would you lie about me? We’re on the same team!”

He shook his hoof at me. “I don’t think we are.”

What an asshole. Maybe I should’ve beaten him last time…

“Anyways, I’ll pass this to Stormy—”

“Do not call me Stormy!” the mean mare shot. “My name is Tropical Storm and you will use it!”

Trade Wind ignored her. “And Stormy can be princess next!”

Tropical Storm took the placard and threatened Trade Wind with it. “Call me that again, and I’ll shove this so far up your ass you find out what ‘all the way through’ means.”

Far louder than it had any right to be, Spitfire blew her whistle. “Foul! No threats, take your nicknames and suffer or leave the team, Stormy!”

The dark mare’s eyes twitched. “Do not—!”

Spitfire pointed a hoof at her. “Who do you think you’re arguing with, Stormy? Do you want to be a Wonderbolt or not? Because if you disobey me, I’ll make sure you never work in this field again! Am I understood, Stormy?”

You could feel the hate emanating from her seat, but she didn’t dare talk back. I felt for her though; that same threat was issued to me. I wonder if she’s one of the ‘edge cases’ Spitfire was talking about earlier this week.

“Fine. Here, you take this shit.” She slid the PM placard to Monsoon. “Fuck your objections, we vote now.” Surprisingly, the vote passed with only one no, that being Nightingale, who hadn’t voted yes once this game. “Extra fuck you because I’m making Monsoon princess next round too.”

Monsoon coughed into her hoof. “She, uh, only gave me Imperialist policies. The chances of which are still fairly high, but there should still be three loyalist cards in the deck… provided they haven’t been discarded.”

“You know what?” Stormy announced. “I want to change parties! Fuck these Loyalists, they all suck! May chaos take the world!”

Effie tilted her head. “Isn’t that a quote from Elder Circlet?”

“No! F—”

Spitfire glared death at Stormy, and she didn’t dare say more.

Trade Wind clapped her hooves. “It so is! That’s what you hear when you meet the samurai stallion at the top of the mountain after doing his quest! It’s kinda hard to proc too, I had to ask my chat for directions… I didn’t know you liked video games, Stormy!”

“I don’t! Shut up!”

Monsoon coughed into her hoof. “So, uh, I guess I’ll just play this and pick the next PM…”

“Wait a minute!” Nightingale exclaimed. “Does that mean I don’t get to be princess next?”

Raptor shook his head. “No, this is a special election, it goes back to normal turn order after this round.”

The red stallion crossed his forelegs. “It had better! I want to be Princess.”

“I’m sure you do, buddy,” Raptor said with a smirk. “Anyways, who’s your PM, Monsoon?”

She scanned the table and settled on the mare across from me, Effie. “How about Effie?”

The violet mare looked a little startled by the invitation. “Oh, me? I’m not really good at games like this…”

“Well, nopony is good at everything on their first try. Any objections?”

For one reason or another—mostly that her mother, the head trainer, was sitting right there—nopony voted neigh. “Alright, you get to be PM. The chances, in theory, are very low for me to only draw Imperialist policies, so we should be fine to move on…”

She drew cards, kept a neutral face, then slid them to Effie. Effie frowned at the cards, then played yet another Imperialist policy.

“Uh… is… was that it?” Effie asked.

“Yes, which means that there’s probably only one Loyalist policy in the deck, and two were discarded…” Monsoon scanned the table, checking the eyes of everypony.

Smiling, Spitfire tilted her head at Monsoon. “Well, that’s four. Now you’ve got to kill a player.”

The realization hit her like a brick. “Oh…”

“Well,” Edelweiss began, “I think Raptor is obviously the most suspicious pony here.”

He raised a brow at her. “Oh, is that right? Even after Trade Wind checked my card and told you I was a Loyalist?”

She turned to Trade Wind. “That’s right, you did lie to everypony’s faces. Why did you do that? You’re one of them too, aren’t you?”

Trade Wind covered her mouth. “I lied? That can’t be right! I saw his card and everything! Are you trying to cast doubt on me?”

“By my count,” Pigeonhole began, “you’ve been the most vocal this game, Miss, uh…”

“Edelweiss.”

“Right. I can’t say who is lying more, but I don’t think either of you have been telling the truth between you and Raptor anyways.”

The white mare threw her hooves up. “Look, I have been honest this whole game, and I still think Raptor, and Trade Wind too, have been lying. Prism played the Loyalist policy, so why would you think I’m an imperialist if I gave it to him?”

“That’s true…” Monsoon mumbled.

“You could just kill Stormy,” Raptor offered. “She’s not even playing the game right.”

“Damn right I’m not! I don’t even wanna play this stupid game.”

Monsoon sighed. “I guess that’s fair. Do you really not want to play anymore, Tropical Storm?”

“I…!” she paused, confused. “No,” she said slowly and at a much lower volume.

The blue mare nodded. “Okay. Then I’ll kill Tropical Storm.”

“Well, that’s one problem child out of the way,” Spitfire said. “Since this was a special election, the next pony to get the placard is Nightingale, who wanted to be Princess so badly.”

“Yes!” He was so happy to have the placard, it was a little weird.

“Alright, Princess,” Raptor began, “who’s your PM this round?”

He looked around, starting with Effie. “You’re on a term limit, no, nopony would elect scum, you’re on a term limit, absolutely not, absolutely not, hmm… no, dead, you freak me out, and… you’ll do. Aquilon will be my PM.”

The uppity stallion raised a brow at the red one. “I would ask, but I really don’t want to know why you’d choose me. Very well. Shall we vote?”

For the very first time, there were enough neighs to outweigh the yeighs. “Wha-why wouldn’t you vote yes?! I was going to be princess!”

Raptor shrugged. “Honestly, I thought it would be more fun to deny you because you wanted it. Awfully suspicious to be wanting to be Princess, after all.”

Most ponies agreed to that, even Aquilion, who also voted neigh.

“You’re all ingrates! See how I treat you now that you’ve betrayed me!”

Edelweiss tubbed at her temples. “You literally ran down a list of everypony and said you didn’t like a majority of them, what did you expect?”

“I expected you to see my greatness, you ungrateful deplorables!”

Trade Wind held a hoof in front of her face. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that’s not a very good way to make yourself popular. Most ponies try to be nice to win favor.”

As if this was a real revelation to him, Nightingale fell into deep thought. “It can’t be…”

“Anyways…” Ryusei took the Princess placard from him. “I declare that Miss Trade Wind shall be my prime minister. Are there any objections?”

“Nah, I’m cool with it,” Raptor said.

Edelweiss shook her head. “Nope, he’s been lying, she’s either an Imperialist or Sombra, and if Sombra gets elected at this point, we lose.”

“I suppose I could vote yes if it raises my approval rating…” Nightingale said.

“Look,” the blue stallion began, pointing at Nightingale, “I don’t care who gets elected what, but can we all agree that this guy is just the worst?”

Raptor held up his yeigh card. “I can vote for that.”

“Same,” Siccoro added.

The majority of the table agreed and voted yeigh on Nightingale being the worst, with Effie abstaining and Monsoon voting neigh.

Nightingale covered his head with his hooves. “How could this happen? Am I not a Wonderbolt now? They told me this would bring me fame!”

“Since you’ve all voted to be petty,” Monsoon said with an edge to her voice, “can we do the vote on Ryusei and Trade Wind and get this over with?”

While I agreed that Nightingale is the worst, that made me feel bad too. My parents are the opposite of neglectful, but maybe I’d be like that too if they were.

“Sure,” Raptor said. “Let’s vote.”

The vote passed and Trade Wind showed the camera her Prime Minister placard. “Well, it’s been fun, but I’m about to stack the court, fill the government with my people, and remove the princess, because you’ve just elected Sombra!”

“So I was right!” Edelweiss shouted. She turned on Raptor. “Come on, show me that Imperialist card, you traitor!”

She snatched it from him, but he didn’t bother arguing. He just leaned back in his chair and smiled. Of course, Raptor was an Imperialist.

I hit the table. “I knew it!”

“Well, whether either of you knew or not, you didn’t win the game, so…”

Ryusei took his own Imperialist card out of his envelope and bowed his head. “I must also confess that I, too, was an Imperialist. I apologize to you, my teammates, for my deceit.”

Monsoon frowned. “You were? Then that means Trade Wind and Raptor discarded loyalist policies! Who else was an imperialist here.”

“Well, I was,” Effie said, “but that didn’t end up mattering.”

Siccoro raised his hoof. “Me, sorry.”

The blue mare looked so utterly betrayed. “B-but I believed in you!”

“I mean, acting is, like, my hobby. I was a theater kid before ponies started telling me I was good enough to be a Wonderbolt. I played Twin Cross in that one play where the guy is tricked into killing his wife and then himself. The Tragedy of Reversi if you know it.”

Wait a minute, isn’t that the play that Haze was trying to get a part in? “I think my little brother is going to be doing that play for my old high school once the semester starts.”

“Woah, no way! You have a little brother? What role is he? That play is kinda about racism, ya know.”

“The army general?”

Siccoro frowned. “Oh. That role is usually reserved for an earth pony though.”

“I mean, he is, so it’s cool.”

That seemed to surprise just about everypony except for Spitfire who knew.

The uppity stallion, Aquilon, narrowed his eyes at me. “You… are not a purebred?”

Man, that’s a thing to ask somepony. “I mean, technically, yes, but my dad is mixed since my grandma on his side is an earth pony. Uh, does that matter though?”

He gave me one last dirty look, then turned his attention elsewhere. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Wow, that got uncomfortable real quick!” Spitfire announced. “Let’s play another round, huh?”

The table groaned, but nopony argued. The first game had only taken about an hour, but we were on the clock until Spitfire said so. And so, the game played on.

9 - Surprises

Saturday came, and finally, I was free to do whatever I wanted for a few days. It had been a long week of taking orders, getting tested, and trying to navigate these new skies, but, at last, I could go home and spend time with my marefriend.

It was a little painful, but with this, I’ve finally fulfilled Mister Cheese’s conditions. I got paid by Thunderaid for the opening ceremony on Friday, and now I have more money than I know what to do with. Before I decide on what new kits I want to buy, I really want to follow through on that thing she said earlier in the month. It’s time to set a date.

I was nearing Ponyville in the sunny afternoon when I called her.

She picked up immediately. “Hey babe, what’s up?”

“I’m about back in Ponyville. Wanna go somewhere?”

“Hmm~” she sang. “And where does Mister Wonderbolt want to take lil’ ol' me?”

Oh, that’s awkward. Mom calls Dad that sometimes, and they’re both usually wiped the next morning. “Uh, anywhere you wanna go. I can cover pretty much anything right now.”

I heard her roll over on the other end. “Anywhere, huh? How about the mall? It’s been a while since we built something together.”

“You wanna go to Hobby Max?”

“Yeah. What was that Roboknights show you were complaining about? The Sorceress from Venus or whatever? I thought I saw one of those robots in the window the other day.”

“For real? I really didn’t like the show, but every kit from that series is some of the best model kits Roboknights has ever produced. I’d been ordering them online before now.” I was over the city now, just above District 110. Houses and fields and factories and tractors dotted the landscape as it became more and more urban the closer toward the city center I got.

“Yeah, I saw the one with the broomstick gun. That one was your favorite, riiight?”

I could feel the vein bulging on my forehead. “Yes, the magic random Roboknight they had stored somewhere that nopony knew about except for some random uninvolved guy who came out of nowhere when there was a perfectly good Roboknight sitting in storage that had been hinted at over and over again earlier in the show!”

I knew she was smiling on the other end. “Yeah, that one. Wanna go build it?”

“I’d love to!”

“Then come sweep me off my hooves and take me there, Mister Wonderbolt.”

“I will be there in five minutes!”

“See you soon~”

“I love you!”

After arriving at her window, and making out for as long as we could get away with it, we went downstairs, talked to Miss Pinkie for a bit, and then took Cheesette’s car to the mall. It was just a little two-door hatchback, but Mister Cheese had tuned it up to make it pretty fast. The tires get changed out on this every month because of all the racing he does with it, but Cheesette drives it when she needs to. It is ‘technically’ her car. She’s also a pretty good driver at that.

Neon Dream is the largest mall in Ponyville, taking up a good chunk of District 7, but also containing some of the most luxurious shops and high end brands the city had to offer. But that was mostly relegated to the ‘fancy’ fourth floor that was always the least populated part of the mall. Our destination was the third floor which had mostly bars and hobby stores, from card games to board games, playing rooms, figurines, toys, video games, and finally, model kits. Hobby Max dipped its hooves into a few things, but miniatures, paints, models, and places to play games with said miniatures is what filled it.

It was owned by an earth pony stallion who was more or less a friend of the family, Injection Mold. He paused a discussion with another customer about miniatures when he saw us. “Hey! If it isn’t the new Cloudsdale Wonderbolt! What are you doing here?”

“I came back to see my marefriend, and she said you’ve got some new stuff in.”

The bespectacled stallion nodded. “Oh, so that’s why you were here earlier, huh?”

“Maybe,” she said, rubbing her flank against mine.

We are gonna have so, so many kids one day. I coughed into my hoof. “So, what do you have right now?”

Injection Mold went beneath the counter and pulled up a bunch of mono-colored boxes.

“No way!”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. I ordered, like, as much as I could of everything from the last few drops, and my usuals are pretty happy about it.”

They were all Premium Roboknights kits, a series of models that only get a limited per order run because the Roboknights company hates money or something. These were more obscure and niche models from things not so prominent as the anime series. Kits from manga and novels and games could be found in the premium catalog, and they were always some of the coolest designs and the most unique kits. The best part was that Injection mold wasn’t going to upcharge me too hard for anything. It all seemed only a couple bits on top of the original price.

“I’m gonna need a minute,” I said, opening my phone and looking at my bank account. Again, I was startled by just how much money was sitting in there. Even if I bought everything in the store, I’d still have enough to live on for a year left over. That said, where would I put it all? It’s not like I can take this stuff to the barracks with me, and I’d have to get it all cloud-proofed even if I did… Okay, no, gotta be real. Pick one to build with Cheesette and maybe one or two more to build tomorrow or on another day off.

“Uh, Cheesy, babe, which one do you want?”

She has sat down to watch Roboknights with me, and she does like the series, but she’s not anywhere near as deep into the model kits as I am. She likes the characters more than the models, and strangely, just like Mom, she likes Seed and Wing the most. Guess it’s a mare thing.

She looked through all the kits until she stopped on a full-color box. “This one’s kinda neat. It’s like the original Roboknight if it were a race car.”

“That’s the F90,” Injection Mold stated. “It’s got a manga series and is part of a project they’re doing to make every mission pack from A to Z available for it. As far as customs go, this is one of the best kits you could possibly get because there are just so many accessories for it. They haven’t released everything yet, but I have a few of the mission packs for it here as well.”

While she might’ve been playing along before, the word ‘accessories’ made Cheesette’s eyes sparkle. “Is that right? Can I see them too?”

Well, if it’s just F90s and mission packs, I could probably just get everything…

“Yeah, they’re these smaller boxes over here in this stack. The black one is a set of ‘hangars’ so you can display all the pieces of your mission packs and your F90 when you’re done with it.”

“Hold on, that’s like, actually cool.” She inspected the packs, going through the letters or combined letters as it were. Some packs were just too big to contain, like the W pack, but most of them came with two different packs, like the E and S types. “Prism, babe, I’m torn. I like the one with the armor, but I also like the one with the cannons.”

“Well, do you have two F90’s?” I asked.

Injection Mold nodded. “I’ve got several of the regular ones and two of the Unit 2 purple ones. I’m selling them as a pair with the packs for a discount if you want.”

“In that case, give me one of each F90 and all the packs.”

He reared his head back. “Oh, geez. That’s a lot of my stock, dude.” He scratched at his neck. “I’ll sell you the stuff, but do you have the cash for all this?”

I threw my foreleg around Cheesette’s neck. “Did you know that I got drafted into the Cloudsdale Wonderbolts with a sponsorship from Thunderaid?”

He blinked. “Oh, crap, you’re loaded now, aren’t’cha?”

“I’ve got some spending money now, yeah.”

He shrugged. “Alright, man, that’s two F90’s and eight mission packs. It’ll come out to about 372 bits.”

For a minute there, I thought I was about to have a heart attack, but then I looked back at my account balance and realized that it was three zeros larger than the number I was just charged. “Yeah, sure.”

After bagging it all up, we set up on one of the tables in the back. Cheesette likes the more heroic tricolor of the original since her own colors are usually pink, yellow, blue and white, so I took the purple Unit 2.

From there, we started unwrapping sheets and using the nippers Injection Mold let us borrow to get into the kit. Because I am not a sane pony and have built hundreds of these things, I usually just clip out everything in a runner, leave it in a pile, and then work on the model after all the pieces are free. Cheesette was being more sensible and clipped out a piece as the instructions called for it.

“So, it’s been a week and I haven’t heard much, babe. How’s the new job?” she asked.

“Hmm.” I clipped out a piece neatly, inspected it for any extra nubs, and moved on. “It’s a little stressful, I guess. My team is kinda filled with weirdos.”

She chuckled. “Well, you’re on it, babe, of course it is.”

“Okay, look, I know I brought that on myself, but you don’t understand. They’re all super weird. Did you see the broadcast?”

“I watched it on MeTube after I got off work.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, those are all them. And Raptor, the team captain.”

Cheesette raised one of her pink brows. “Oh? That’s not a very ‘Prism’ tone. What happened?”

“So, there’s the instructor, Captain Spitfire.”

“I think I’ve heard that name before. She’s, like, an old Wonderbolt right? From your parent’s generation?”

I nodded, moving on to my next runner. “She is, and she runs everypony really hard, including the team captain, but, like, she has this thing about me where she does everything in her power to give me special treatment.”

Cheesette tapped her lips with her nippers. “But, you’re the best, aren’t you? Barring that whole test thing.”

“I mean, yeah, but like, she’s using me as the bar. None of them can pass me either, so she’s, like, setting everypony up for failure when she does that. She hasn’t done it since the first day, but ya know, first impressions.”

“Would you not have known all these ponies before getting in? Like, didn’t you take the tests with them, or race against them in the past?”

Come to think of it, probably. “Maybe… but you know how I am. I was focused on the thing in front of me.”

“And I do like to see you focused, but now would probably be a good time to take the blinders off, huh?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, what about her using you as a bar? Isn’t it a good thing that the instructor favors you?”

I clipped another piece out of my runner and added it to my growing color-coded piles. “Sure, but like, she’s using it to taunt them. ‘Look at how much better he is, look at how little work he’s putting in compared to you, doesn’t that make you want to beat him even more?’ She keeps saying crap like that, and I’m pretty sure half the team and the team captain hates me.”

She snapped a couple pieces together to make the Roboknight’s head. She inspected it from either side, smiled at it, then turned the page in her instruction manual. “That’s pretty rough. Are you really not trying your hardest though?”

I sighed. “Well, she threatened the team captain with not eating if he didn’t beat me, so I’m kind of afraid she’ll punish them if I do.”

Cheesette then set her runner down. “Goddess. That’s kinda messed up, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said!”

“You complained to her about it?” she asked, a little shocked.

“I didn’t intend to, but after that first day, she took me aside and sort of dragged it out of me. She basically wants to move me up to B-team as soon as I can, but because of the stuff with the test, there are maybe more ponies than me that shouldn’t have made the team.”

“I think we call that karma!” Cheesette laughed.

“Yeah, well, maybe it is, but now she’s going to use me as a trainer too.”

“Hmm. That's nothing new for you either though, right? Didn’t you used to do that all the time with the high school team?”

“I did, but like, nopony on the high school team openly hated me. She’s assigning me… a staff member to keep ponies in check. A couple guys got into a hoof fight over stage positions for the show we’re doing next weekend. We’ve only got twelve ponies on the team, so we really can’t afford to have guys out.”

“Yikes.” She finished sliding armor over a neck joint and connected it to the head. “Did you learn anything about your team yet? Other than who hates you, I guess.”

“Well, actually, the Captain made us sit down and play Secret Sombra together, so I got to know a lot of them a lot better. I learned their names, for one.”

“Wow, you actually learned the names of other ponies? Wonders will never cease.”

I poked her muzzle. “Come on, I’m not that bad.”

She grabbed my hoof, licked it, and sent it back to me. “What is the name of the ship captain in Roboknights: Seed?”

I set my runner down and put my hooves on my face. You would think, after seeing all hundred episodes of Seed, of which she appears in about sixty percent of, I would know, but she doesn’t pilot a robot, so she’s not in a manual, and Haze is the manga reader, so… “I don’t know.”

“You’ve seen this show with most of your family, Fallacy, and Me, and you don’t know the name of one of the prominent characters. I think that speaks for itself, Sugarpie.”

“Yeah, yeah, it does.”

She pressed a couple pieces together, forming part of the barrel. “Well, tell me about your team then.”

I moved on to my next runner and started clipping all the connections from one side. “Well, there’s the green stallion, Siccoro, whose number I think is 29. He’s pretty chill. Nice guy who doesn’t try to get in anybody’s business and friendly with everypony.”

She chuckled. “Sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, he reminds me of Dad a lot. Similar flying style too. But he’s a little too chill. Other than being distressed during the game, he kinda seems like he’s not paying attention all the time. Tends to coast as much as he can, don’t think he pushes himself much.”

Cheesette raised a brow at me. “Prism, babe, do you think your trainer has a point?”

I rubbed at my forehead. “Well…”

“Uh-huh.” She finished the barrel and moved on to the shoulders. “What about that one mare, the streamer? I followed one of her accounts and she said she’s gonna start streaming some of the practices for your team soon.”

Huh. Guess she did make a deal with Spitfire. “Uh, she’s alright. I think she’s got a lot of talent. As a flier, anyways. I feel like she tries to make things entertaining more than, like, doing her best or trying to make friends or improve the team. There are a lot of big egos in the room and she still manages to draw attention when she wants it.”

Cheesette nodded. “That’s… interesting. Some ponies really do live for content. I’m a V-tuber, so the IRL stuff is beyond me. She streams games sometimes though, so I’ll check her out later and let you know.”

“She did mention that. Elder Circlet. Another mare quoted it and she picked up on that.”

“Another mare? I thought you said you learned their names.”

I groaned. “The really angry one. Tropical Storm. Did you ever hear the story of ‘Rainbow Crash’?”

She put her runner down and thought. “That was your mom’s nickname after she joined the team, right? Because she screwed up a bunch of stuff early on?”

“Yeah, that. Well, Trade Wind called her ‘Stormy’ and she totally blew up. Spitfire then kinda beat her down and told her to accept the nickname or leave, and then everypony started calling her Stormy, save one. Honestly, she curses almost as much as Amity does or even Malus. She’s really rude and about herself, and maybe a little desperate to prove something I guess? She got grounded for doing extra practice and straining her wing.”

“Sounds like a hoofful. Kinda reminds me of your mom though.”

Yikes, that was not a connection I wanted to make. Oh, jeez, she is like Mom. “But like, the anger is on another level. It’s not that she gets angry whenever somepony does something, she’s just angry all the time and completely explodes when anypony does anything. It’s a little scary.”

“She sounds like that bully from that superhero anime! I bet she just needs a friend. You should be nice to her and maybe she’ll come around. You said 'save one,' didn’t you? Who didn’t call her Stormy?”

I put the head of my own F90 together after picking the pieces out of my piles. “Oh, that was Monsoon, the blue mare. She’s nice.”

Chesette raised a brow. “She’s… nice? Would you like to elaborate?”

I scratched at my ‘clown beard,’ as Grandpa Bow calls it. It’s coming in and it’s bothering me. I‘ll have to shave soon. “I mean, she’s nice. She seems like a nice mare who’s nice to everypony and wants everypony to get along. She doesn’t rock the boat, and she’s not particularly spectacular in any department.”

“Oof.” She put a hoof on mine. “That’s a little harsh, huh, babe?”

In revenge, I grabbed her hoof and licked it. She retracted it quickly, and I smiled. I’d gotten her. Until she lowered her brows and sucked on it.

I looked away. “So maybe it is, but like, what else am I supposed to say? In a room full of strong personalities and fliers, she’s not either. It is kinda harsh, but if anypony drops out or stays in C-team forever, it’s her.”

She took her hoof out of her mouth and held her chin. “Wow, that’s, uh… geez, Prism, I didn’t know you had that in you.”

“Look, I was traumatized by Auntie Applejack when I was little, so I try to be honest.” I was only like, seven at the time, and I’d taken an apple from one of the trees not thinking anything of it, and she put on a whole stage production about what that apple meant to the farm and who it could’ve gone to and where it should’ve made it and how somepony was going to go hungry now that I’d taken something that wasn’t mine, and she grilled me over the fire to admit that I’d taken it, and that day has lived in my head ever since.

Cheesette sighed. “If only Cotton had been too.” Then she shook that thought away. “So I guess she’s one of the ‘outliers,’ yeah?”

I nodded. “Probably. Your flight skill has to be at a certain level, but ponies with high test scores also get priority treatment. If, because of the removed questions, she ended up with a perfect score or something, that would land her a spot on the team. She seems smart. Unlike… a few of our guys.”

She pursed her lips. “Ooh, do spill the tea.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. “Do you remember the red guy from the opening ceremony?”

“The pretty boy with the uncaring parents?”

My head shot up. “Pretty boy!?”

She grabbed my hoof. “Babe, please. You’re a pretty boy too. My pretty boy to be exact, but there are more of your kind.”

Ugh. I don’t like that one bit. “Is that what you like?”

“He is a conventionally attractive stallion, and I am a straight mare! What do you want from me?”

I grabbed her hooves. “Everything. Your love, your time, your body. All of you, forever.”

Her face reddened and she grabbed my hooves back. “W-well, you can have it, just…” She took a deep breath. “Look, if you keep talking like that, my Dad is gonna kill you.”

“He doesn’t have to!” I grabbed my phone and showed her my bank account. “I have a job, we’ve both graduated, and with this, I could get us a place of our own! You said we could talk about setting dates a few weeks ago right? Let’s do it. For real.”

Cheesette covered her mouth, looking at the screen. “And here I was prepared to move into a one-room apartment in a crappy district by the end of the month…”

My ears shot up. “End of the month? Like, for real? Today is May 21st.”

“Ugh, you got me all worked up!” She scratched at her fluffy pink mane. “It was supposed to be a surprise for the end of our date, Prism.”

Can’t say I’m sorry about it now. Pretty sure Spitfire would think I’m going supersonic with the way my heart’s beating. “So I spoiled the surprise, tell me what it is now?”

She poked my muzzle. “I knew you wouldn’t be sorry about it! Alright, look, you remember my birthday, right?”

“June 2nd, yeah.” I’d been planning on taking her out that night to a fancy restaurant she’d been talking about here in District 7. Guess my plans have changed now.

“Well, I told Dad that what I wanted for my birthday… was you.”

“Aww, Cheesypie!”

“Shut up!” She crossed her forelegs. “I’m a little confused, and there’s a lot I would do to you right now, and basically all of it would end with you getting beaten to death by my dad.”

I swallowed and smiled. “Tell me more about that.”

She glared at me. “You…” Cheesette cleared her throat, her face nearly as red as a peach. “The date has been set. June 6th.”

My ears shot up. “Three weeks? In… in three weeks?”

She stilled her breathing. “Yes. I’m still a little amazed he finally agreed, but he did, and Mom has been running every which way to get it all set up since we talked about it on Monday… after watching the broadcast.”

I put my pieces down and let that sink in. Mister Cheese gave the okay. It’s… finally happening. After a whole year of talking about it and narrowly avoiding death a few times, it’s gonna be real.

“Dude…”

“Yeah.” The color stayed in her cheeks, and she quietly went back to working on her kit. One foreleg done, she moved onto the next one.

I watched her little hooves maneuver her nippers around another piece, slowly building the little Roboknight. A little pony. Wait, wait, wait. A Wonderbolt this week, a husband in three weeks, and in a year…

“Am… are we gonna be parents next year?” The thought just fell out of my mouth and right into Cheesette’s lap.

She dropped the pieces. She swallowed, staring at her little robot, probably seeing the same thing I was. Us, building little ponies together. “U-us? P-parents?”

“I mean, I’d always thought that one day we would be, and there’d be a lot of them, but like, we’ll be married in three weeks, right?”

She picked up her partly built F90 and stared at it intently. “A mom at nineteen…” She set it back down and started working on the other foreleg. “I’m gonna have to think about that one, babe.”

I put the neck of my F90 together. “Uh, no, yeah, I getcha. Like, it’s all been, like, half a joke up til now, right? But in a couple weeks, that’s not the case anymore.”

She finished putting the other foreleg together and added it to her model, sitting it up. “Well, if it happens, then we’ll figure it out, right? It’s like Auntie Applejack says: ‘babies are born with loaves of bread.'’”

I put the barrel of my F90 together and stared at it. Married next month, kids in a year, and this is only happening because I’m a Wonderbolt now. I’ll have to keep this up. How much money do I need to support her? A family? I’ll make a lot in a year, but will that be enough to keep me until I get a job closer to home, or should I just… rise through the ranks to make sure they have a comfortable life? Maybe I should talk to Dad about this. I feel like my life has already changed a lot, but as it turns out, it’s going to change a lot more real quick.

I looked at my fiancé. After catching her eyes, I went back to my model. “Real question: how many?”

Her lips curled. “If it weren't for Cheese and me doing the damage we did to Mom when we came out, I’d probably have more siblings. The real question, Prism, is how long do you think you can last?”

“You know, I have the high school flier endurance record, and my Dad has the Wonderbolt record. Do you really think you can outlast me?”

She started on her next runner, working on the hips. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m an earth pony, Prism. I’m stronger than you are. Your pegasus endurance might be fine and all that, but can you handle the force of what I’m gonna do to you?”

“Uh, guys.” Injection Mold coughed.

A family was walking into the store and the kids were looking at all the things inside.

We… we were in public. And said a lot of that out loud. Injection Mold probably heard everything. Red as a beet, I coughed into my hoof. “Uh, sorry.”

“Yeah. Keep it school appropriate, thanks.” Then he turned to the family. “Welcome to Hobby Max!”

Cheesette coughed too. “The sixth cannot come fast enough. Umm, so, what about the rest of your team again? You told me about… Siccoro, Trade Wind, Tropical Storm, Monsoon, and you were telling me about the pretty boy?”

Crossing my hind legs for better security, I returned my focus to building my model. “Since we’re not alone in a place where we can pretend to be rabbits, that guy, Nightingale, is the worst. He’s a showboat, show-off, stage hog, arrogant and worst of all, like, totally unaware.”

“Prism, babe, I love you, but you don’t have the right to call other ponies ‘unaware.’ 'Oblivious' ought to be your middle name.”

There’s that word again. “Okay, so maybe I don’t, but he’s actually worse. He overshares, thinks he’s the best, and on the stage he is really good so it’s not, like, all talk, but he has no concept for other ponies' feelings! Like, he wanted to be Princess in our game so badly, and then he went around the group calling people names until he finally picked somepony ‘worthy’ of him and then expected us to vote for him!”

Chesette put a rear hoof together. “What is he, an out-of-touch politician?”

I shrugged, putting the same piece together for my F90. “I guess, it’d probably make sense if his parents were at least. That’d explain why they don’t seem to be there for him. He’s one part infuriating and another part just… sad.”

“Gonna be mean and say that sounds like Pearl.”

I smothered a giggle. “Oh, come on, Pearl is at least a little aware, and Miss Rarity really does care about her at least.” But the more I thought about it, the more I saw similar traits. “But maybe she is kinda starved for affection and gets it from wherever she can. Did, uh… did she ever get that thing sorted out?”

Cheesette slashed across her throat. “Complicated. Can’t talk about that in public.”

“Right.”

“Yeah, it’s not been fun there. Uh, who was ‘worthy’ of this guy?”

I put the first hind leg together. “Oh, man, I had the weirdest exchange with this guy. I told Siccoro about my brother because apparently he was in the play Haze is doing at the beginning of the school year, and you know what he asked me?”

“What?”

“If I was a purebred!”

She sucked in air. “Wow. That’s… a question to ask somepony.”

“Right!?” I rubbed at my forehead. It still bothers me. “I don’t like to assume things about ponies, but like, that’s kinda messed up, isn’t it? Maybe he’s from Cloudsdale and he said something about his family name at the introduction ceremony, this Aquilon guy, but like… Goddess. I thought Grandma Downy’s family was supposed to be an outlier.”

“Maybe he’s an outlier too, huh? There are all kinds of people in the world after all. Is he at least a good flier?”

“I think so, but he’s like Tropical Storm in that he’s liable to hurt himself. He tries too hard. Doesn’t take advantage of his long, slender wings and tries to put too much power into everything. Tries to fly like a pony he isn’t, which is a problem for a lot of these guys.”

“Oh, Prism, please, tell me more about how long and slender he is.”

Bad word choice. “I would rather not.”

She cackled. “Okay, so that was the skinny guy. Who else is hurting themselves?”

I tapped my lips with the last hindleg I’d just completed. “Uh, the team captain, Raptor, and the big guy, Ryusei.”

“The captain?”

“Ugh, yeah, Raptor.”

“Don’t like him either?”

“No.” Where to even begin? “He hates me. He’s supposed to be the captain and he’s been a Wonderbolt for a few years and he’s like, more than five years older than me and Spitfire outright said I fly better than him. He does his best to stay ahead of me, but If I really wanted to…” I shook my head. “It’s not like I had anything against this guy, but when we played the game yesterday, he did everything in his power to pick on me.”

Cheesette clipped her nippers very hard, sending a piece out of her runner flying down the table. “He did what?”

I put a hoof on hers. “Relax, it’s not a big deal.”

She smiled at me sweetly. “My grandparents own a rock farm, Prism. They would never find the body.”

“Okay, like, no, actually cool it.”

She set the nippers down and let out a breath. “Fine.” Then she sighed. “Oh, Goddess, I’m just like my dad.”

“I know, Cheesy Pie.” I went back to my model after she’d breathed for a bit. “We don’t like each other, which is fine, it’s whatever, but a lot of the team doesn’t like me, and he kinda… brings out the worst in everypony.

“Tell me how many and who needs a hole dug, baby.”

I think it was the way she was smiling while there was the sense of sincere hatred hiding behind it that made me think of her father, and my body was very confused about it. Either way, I recrossed my legs. “You don’t need to do anything. Uh, like, Ruysei, the other guy, I don’t think he likes me, but he’s a very honest, straightforward guy. Kind of a narc and actually huge for a pegasus, and he’s a decent flier. He’s not one of the ones I’d call talented though. Works hard with what he’s got I guess.”

The malice evaporated from the smile and she picked up her pieces again. “Well, nopony is picking on my husband where I can reach them, so I guess it’s fine. But they all have to land someday…”

“Babe, please.” It was beginning to scare me.

Finally, she deflated. “Alright, alright. No more jokes.”

“Those were jokes?”

“For the sake of anyone who heard me, yes.” She added the last leg to her F90 and stood it up next to mine. “Aww, they’re like twins.”

I brought a hoof to my face. “Oh, Goddess, I forgot that was a possibility.”

She shrugged then started looking through the mission pack boxes. “I mean, Mom is a twin, and I’m a twin. So long as they don’t tear me like we tore her, we could have a bunch of twins like Auntie Applejack.”

Four pregnancies and six kids. And she had Whiskey when she was twenty? “Man. That's a lot to think about.”

“That’s why I’m building a mission pack instead of thinking about it. What do you think? J and Q or E and S?”

I wanted to build the W pack, so I wasn’t sure. It’d be more like reality if she did the J type. The Full Metal Jacket F90 and the Wing F90, us. “How about the J type?” I said, taking the W pack from the pile.

“I do like this blue armor… alright.” Then she saw what I’d unboxed. “I really shouldn’t be surprised you’re doing the Wing pack.”

“It’s got laser wings! You know me.”

“I sure do.” She tilted her head. “So, that’s most of the ponies there’s… the white mare, the blue stallion, and the… um, pigeon-looking guy left, right?”

I nodded and got to work on the mission pack. It was just accessories, but like a full suit of extra armor for the kit, so there was a decent amount of plastic here to work with. “I like the white mare, her name is Edelweiss, and she doesn’t hate me. She does seem to be really close with Raptor though, not sure what’s going on there. As a flier she’s good, but very small. Her problem is gonna be physical limitations. Mom was so fast because her body is practically made for flight—she’s small and light, but her wings are an above-average length, sharp, and strong.” I extended my own wing and pointed my feathers together, one of the things the other guys don’t do in flight. “Because we can do this with our feathers individually, it makes keeping speed and diving a lot easier for us. Edelweiss on the other hoof has relatively small wings that match her body more than Mom’s, and she sort of contorts herself to get the best aerodynamic position she can in flight. It’s kinda impressive that she made it this far in the first place.”

Cheesette had started to put a few pieces together for the extra layer of armor. “I can’t really say I understand, but your mom is kinda special and this other mare isn’t so much that. But she’s nice at least, right?”

“Right.” I finished clipping out my pieces and started making the armor. “Uh, the blue stallion I don’t know too well, but he seems cool. A lot more combative and explosive than Siccoro since he got into an actual hoof fight with Nightingale earlier in the week, but I think Nightingale is a special case for him since they are very similarly talented. They both want to be the lead, they’re both lazy on the tracks, and they can both perform better than I can.”

She looked up from her work. “What, really?”

“Really. Routines were never my favorite thing, but I’ve always been pretty good at copying moves. These guys are, like, better at it though. They can both improvise to make things flashier too which I’ve never even thought about. It’s pretty cool to see.”

“I’ll have to catch the show if you guys ever perform down on the ground.”

“I don’t have it memorized yet myself, but I’ll send you the schedule later.” Then I narrowed my eyes at her. “And nopony is going to get hurt leaving the show, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Wonderbolt stunts are dangerous! You can’t guarantee everypony leaves unscathed!”

“Bludgeoning is not part of the show!”

She waved me away and went back to dressing her F90. “Oh, put the fun in camps, why don’t you?”

“Dude.”

“Yeah, yeah. What about the bird guy?

I finished dressing mine, then posed it with the wings out. I really liked this, but I definitely want it to be more uniform. I’ll probably paint it all later and give it a cool color scheme that matches. May have to take an extra F90 home just for that.

“Pigeonhole is, like, unreal. Dude is so fast and so bad at flying at the same time that I can’t tell if he’s a natural or a UFO or something.”

She finished cutting out her last piece. “Huh?”

Since I had the wings on, I posed my F90 and held it up. “So like, you know when I do turns and flips and things, I try to be really smooth about it?” I had the model imitate my movements.

“Yeah…”

“He, like, doesn’t know how to turn at all.” I moved the F90 forward, stopped it, turned it, and moved it forward again until I’d completed an octagon. “Dude’s gotta turn like an NPC or something. He has to totally reset to change directions, and it’s really weird.”

She put all the armor on her F90 and posed it. “That is really strange. Like, he’s no genius, but even Ace can fly smoothly.”

I lowered my brows. “Man, he isn’t even here and Ace is catching strays. Dude doesn’t deserve that.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.” She flipped the shoulder and foreleg cannons out and set it in a galloping pose, pursing her lips. “I really like this.”

“It looks good, babe.” I gave mine its rifle and set it next to hers. They were the land and air combat types, working together.

“I sort of want to mix and match them. I’ll have to build more of these later. Kinda wish the colors matched though.”

I nodded in approval. “Yes, we can definitely do that when you settle on something. Blue is nice and all, but heavy metal armor deserves a metallic finish and some battle scars.”

She frowned. “I don’t know about that, but we can look at it together later. Is that pigeon guy nice to you at least?”

“Hmm. I mean, he’s nice, but he’s also one to say too much. He’s kinda in the 'Bolts for the money, which is pretty good compared to most jobs, and I think he has talent and all that, but he needs a lot of work. He’s like one of those really old kits before they really got the formula for these things down. Details are baked in and unclear, needs a lot of paint just to fix colors, could probably use some mods to make a better model. He’s alright though 'cause at least he’s got the talent to make up for his performance now. Not sure everyone can get much better than they are.”

Cheesette took a picture of our F90’s posed together, then got a text. “Hey, Mom is ready with your surprise party back at the house. Be surprised when they give you the okay. You know how she hates it when ponies spoil surprises.”

I sighed. “I don’t know why I thought we were going back to my place after this. I really should’ve expected a party of some kind now that I think about it.” She mentioned Cotton earlier, is he home? “Who all is gonna be there?”

“Your family, my family. Not sure about anypony else.”

“Let me rephrase that: is your older brother going to be there?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

I sighed. “Cool.”

“Not really.” She folded her F90 up and put it and all the extra pieces and empty runners back in their boxes. “Wanna go hide somewhere and make out for a while before we have to go back?”

“Absolutely.”

11 - Back on the Job

I got my schedule for the week this morning and it looked like I’d be practicing till late evening until Friday. I sent it to Sweet Wing and she thanked me but didn’t say anything else. The sound of hoof to flesh was still ringing in my ears through the night, and that image hadn’t left my head either. I asked Cheesette if she’d be up late so I could call her. I have to talk about this to somepony, and if it’s gonna be anypony, it has to be her.

“Skittles!” Captain Spitfire called.

I shot to attention. “Yes, Captain?”

She raised a brow at me. “You good, kid?”

It was early. I hadn’t slept much last night and had been hanging out in the common room watching old practice sessions. Cameras weren’t a thing when Grandpa might’ve been a Wonderbolt, so I’d settled for watching some of Dad’s later sessions. The video quality was crap because of the early cameras they were using at the time, but it was good to see him instructing ponies his own age. He’s a little harsher and more commanding than when he trains the high school team.

I didn’t want to tell just anypony, but I spilled to Captain anyways. “My Grandparents got into a fight last night.”

She frowned, then checked her wristwatch. “We’ve got about a half hour before training starts. You wanna talk about it in my office?”

“Yes.”

I followed the captain back to the main building where she offered me a coffee and had me take a seat on her couch as opposed to in front of her desk. “I was gonna come get you this morning to talk about practice anyways, but uh, tell me about your folks.”

If anypony is gonna know, she might. “You don’t happen to know if there was ever a Wonderbolt by the name ‘Hang Glider,’ do you?”

Spitfire sipped at her coffee. “Can’t say I do. Do you know what generation he was? I might be able to find out.”

I shook my head. “It would’ve been fifty or so years ago. I don’t know what happened or why, but he found out that I’d joined when I went to tell him about my wedding last night—”

She almost spat her coffee out. “Y-your wedding?”

Whoops. “Yeah, I’m getting married in June. Uh, anyways—”

“No, stop.” She rubbed at her temple. “Is she a pegasus at least? Does she live here?”

Figured I wouldn’t get away with it. “No, she’s an earth pony from Ponyville.”

Spitfire groaned. “Ah, Kid, that’s… that’s not a good idea.”

I let out a breath. “Why?”

She took a deeper drink of her coffee, then set it down and crossed her hindlegs. “First off, interracial marriages can often lead to defects in kids. I remember Dash had this little friend she took care of sometimes—a heavy pegasus, solid bones, couldn’t fly, has a low life expectancy. Kid did everything she could to learn how to fly and she had her dreams crushed.”

“Oh, Miss Scootaloo? Her son is one of my best friends.”

Spitfire blinked. “She had a kid?”

“I mean, she has two, but Kickflip is Haze's age, Triple Ace is my age.”

“Huh.” Spitfire was lost in thought for a minute, but then came back. “Okay, so there’s the risk of defects, but there’s also the long-distance element. You can’t just fly back to Ponyville every night to see her, and if you have kids, you’re not gonna see them for most of the week either. You'll be living like a divorced couple, and that’s only if your kid happens to be a pegasus, and given genetics, that’s unlikely.”

I didn’t really think about that, but most weeks, I should be able to at least be home all day for a day. It’s not like I spent every hour with Cheesette in high school. “The kids can be whatever they come out like, that doesn’t matter to me, just that they’re ours. Besides, I’ll get at least a day every week to be with her. She has a phone, I’m gonna call her tonight. She’s not that far away.”

Spitfire shook her head. “Not… having her dad in her life does bad things to a kid’s psyche, Prism.” She rubbed at her forehead. “Look, sure get married, have fun, it sounds like you love this mare which is all well and good, but like, have the kids after you’ve reached the top of the Wonderbolts and retire. You can make all the money in the world here, set yourself up for life if you stick with me, but you won’t have time to be a husband or a father while you’re here, kid.”

Wait a minute here, is she, like, giving me real advice? After all the strong-arming she did to get me here in the first place, she’s trying to convince me like a normal person? What the hell? “Not to be rude or anything, Captain, but this isn’t what I wanted to get off my chest here. It’s a miracle I haven’t already gotten her pregnant. It's gonna happen one way or another and nothing anypony says is about to change my mind.”

The captain sighed. “Alright, sure, kid, I’m not your dad.” She downed the rest of her coffee. “I’m just… speaking from experience. I’ve seen careers end and sad stories play out from Bolts getting hitched, and I know one that starts like this and doesn’t have a happy ending.” She shook her head, then checked her watch. “What was this about a Hang Glider?”

“That’s Grandpa’s name. Dad’s Dad. I’ve been told more than once that he has a thing against the Wonderbolts and after telling them that I’d made the team… sort of by accident, he and his wife got into a fight about it.”

Spitfire tilted her head. “‘His wife?’ not your grandma?”

I shook my head. “No, she’s also an earth pony.”

“Ah, right, you said that during the game last week. I did give Aquilon a warning about that, but uh, we’ll see what he does. Only a few of C-team actually come from pegasus families and that Siccoro guy doesn’t have pegasus parents at all.”

He flies pretty well for somepony without pegasus parents. “That’s impressive.”

“You’re telling me. So, what happened?”

“Well, the fighting started, simmered for a bit, and heated up again when my actual Grandma got brought up. Grandpa said something really mean, Sweet Wing slapped him, and then left the house.”

Spitfire whistled. “Ho-lee shit.” In a strange, tender gesture, she put a wing around me. “Sorry, kid. That’s not fun to see.”

“It wasn’t. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since yesterday. Grandpa was just… broken. He called me Dad’s name by accident and then just… asked me to leave.”

Spitfire ran a hoof through her mane. “Dude was having war flashbacks. I uh… I know what that feels like. It’s not fun.” She picked up her mug, found it empty, then set it back down. “Tell you what. Training, working your heart out, is a good way to clear your head. When you’re confused, when you can’t think of a way forward, when you just need to get away, you’ve got the gift that lets you fly. You might not figure anything out, but you’ll at least feel better. There’s some chemical bullshit in your brain that explains it, but we didn’t need science to tell us what we knew before we had it.”

She took her wing back, stood, and picked up her mug. “I’m gonna have Monsoon and Pigeonhole tag along with you and Effie today. Teach them how to bank and see if you can’t draw some more power out of Monsoon. She ended up with a perfect score on her exams, so maybe just watching you will improve her. I don’t really know what to do with him without retraining him from the ground up, so if you think of something, by all means go for it. Show them why you’re the best.”

I guess, under the hard exterior of the captain, there really is a ‘Mama Spitfire’ in there, and from the sound of it, whatever happened with her and Effie didn’t have a fun ending either. I guess I really ought to sit down and think some things through. But, that can wait. I have a job to do, and I’ll have a family to support soon enough.

I stood and saluted. “Yes, Captain.” Oh! Right, I had something I wanted to say to her too. “And, I’ve decided I’ll take you up on that B-team thing. Because I’m getting married and I’ll probably have kids in the not too distant future, I wanna have the money to take care of them, and I know I can get it if I stay here.”

That probably made her day. She threw a hoof around my neck and led me out of her office. “Now that is the attitude I wanna see from you. As long as you’ve got a fire in you, we’ll make you a star yet, kid—no. Prism.”

I went with Spitfire and Raptor to the front of the training ground where the rest of C-team and Effie were waiting. She had me stand to her left side, and we were all wearing our uniforms and Thunderaid Jackets. A couple staff ponies and Effie had cameras with them.

I wonder if this is gonna be streamed…

“Allllll-right, newbies!” the Captain announced. “After gathering data all last week, I’ve determined that a lot of you kinda suck!” There was grumbling, but no distinct voices from the rest of the team. “To correct this, we’re splitting up into groups from now to Thursday. I’m not worried about the routine, so we’ll have Friday to practice before the show on Saturday at the arena. Until then, we’ll be going over each of your individual weaknesses and working on those in particular. Any questions?”

Aquilon stepped forward. “I have one, Ma’am.”

She nodded. “Shoot, Icy.”

He gave her a look like he didn’t understand what she called him, but went on anyways. “Why is he not back here with the rest of us, exactly?”

There was no question as to who ‘he’ was. Spitfire smiled and stuck her front leg out. “If you haven’t noticed, he has a Thunderaid jacket, like Raptor and I, and the rest of you don’t. We move product when our faces are on the screen. Thunderaid sales in Cloudsdale received a 5% increase after Monday’s broadcast, and it’d definitely not because Raptor and I were up there like usual.

“Monsoon, Pigeonhole!” She pointed to each of them.

They both saluted. “Yes, ma’am!”

“You’ll be working with Prism and Effie today. The rest of you will get your turn, and if you want to keep your jobs, you’ll play nice. You are to treat Prism as Vice Captain from now on, and you’ll take advice and orders he gives. Is that understood, everyone?”

Again there were grumblings, but after she glared at about half the team, they all saluted. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Good.” She looked at her clipboard. “Nightingale, Siccoro, Typhoon, Trade Wind, you’re with me today. The rest of you are with Raptor. Effie and our staff ponies will be capturing footage of today’s training session so that we can all review it later. That said, be careful what you say, and smile for the cameras.”

Some more enthusiastically than others, “Yes, ma’am!”

“Alright, you four with me, we’re using the 500 today! Let’s go!”

The Captain launched with impressive speed for a mare who's almost fifty. The guys sighed and flew off, while Trade Wind deliberately did a barrel roll for the camera with a wink and a smile as she flew off. She really showed off her feathers and wagged her tail for it too, which had me suddenly realize just how attractive she was. One more thing to not share with Cheesette.

“Prism!” Raptor called.

“Yeah?”

“Where you gonna be?”

Well, Pigeonhole needs to be taught how to turn, and I’m not entirely sure what to do with Monsoon, so the best place to do that would be… “The rally track, if that’s alright.”

He frowned. “Alright.” He walked away and addressed his group. “We’re using the half-track. Start with a warm-up, thirty laps around the half-track, two at a time.”

“So, um, Prism, what are we going to be doing today?” Monsoon asked.

I turned to see her, Pigeonhole and Effie all waiting for my instructions. With Effie here, it almost feels like I never left high school and I’m helping Dad with class again. I checked my own clipboard—Monsoon’s low to average times, and Pigeonhole’s horribly skewed stats. What are we going to be doing today?

“Well, let’s start by heading to the rally track. Follow me, please.” Thinking it’d probably be good for them and the camera, I made sure I was in perfect launch form before I took off. Effie picked up off the ground slowly and shakily, keeping the camera on me while the other two had decent launches and a little extra flying to reach my height. Once we were all here, we glided over to the rally track on the other side of central Cloudsdale.

We made decent time, and Pigeonhole could actually keep up with my average speed since we flew in a straight line, but Monsoon was several seconds behind, and we’d practically left Effie behind. She was still following us though, so I took my teammates down into the Rally track. Like the 500, this was an oval track, but it wasn’t nearly as long, and there was no baked-in route. Here, individual target rings floated in the center of the track, and they could be moved and linked as necessary. There were also tether poles, long clouds that racers needed to grab and hang sharp turns around during certain rally races. This is where I was going to have Pigeonhole today. As for Monsoon, I recalled the last rally race I did in High School and went about setting that circuit here. I’ll do it as quickly as I can to set a bar for her and see how fast I can get her to go.

“S-sorry!” Effie panted as she landed with the camera. “You guys are fast!” She brought the camera to my face and asked. “So, Mister Prism, what will you be having your team do today?”

I turned to address them. “Well, after watching you guys fly last week, I know that Pigeonhole needs help with his technique—”

“Yeah, that’s fair. My grandma taught me how to fly and she has real bad eyesight these days. I think I might have weird habits.”

Understatement of the century. “—and, to be totally honest, I’m not sure what to do with you, Monsoon.”

She frowned. “You… you’re not?”

I shook my head. “Nope. So, to that end, I’m gonna set up a track I raced, run it, and have you try to match my time. Every time you beat my time, I’ll set a faster one until we hit your limit.”

Her lips tightened. “Hit my limit?”

How do I put this delicately? Can I? Spitfire sure wouldn’t… “Uh, yeah. I’ve got a bunch of national high school records for rallies in my name and nopony has ever beaten my times. If you can, great there’s nothing for me to teach. And if not, we’ll figure it out.”

“I see.”

She definitely didn’t like that and I really hope she doesn’t come to hate me for it. She doesn’t seem like the type to have a huge, easily bruised ego though.

“Am I gonna be running this track too?” Pigeonhole asked.

I scratched at my mane. “Honestly, dude, I don’t think you could. Like, be real with me, did anypony ever teach you how to turn?”

He thought about that for a moment. “I don’t think so. Grandma always wanted to be fast, so we raced in straight lines a lot. Her eyes were never good enough to do tight stuff, so I never really did any of that either. My delivery jobs were mostly long distance anyways, so turning has never been something I needed much.”

Okay, that makes some sense. “Well, I think you can be really good, but we’ve gotta fix this turning thing. So, I’m gonna have you put on a harness, tie a rope to the top of the tether pole, and have you fly in circles. If you can start to turn normally, I guess you can try the track, but I really don’t want you destroying the rings.”

“Oh.” He looked at the tether pole, uncertain. “Uh, yes, sir, I guess.”

“Cool. Effie, will you go with him to get the tether and harness from storage?”

She saluted. “Yes, sir, Mister Prism!”

They went off together, and I turned to Monsoon. “Help me set up this track.” I turned my clipboard page over and drew the set-up I had in mind, leaving a wide space around the tether pole for Pigeonhole.

After a few minutes of set up, Effie and Pigeonhole returned with him on the harness, already attached to the rope. It had two very strong carabiners on swivels so it wouldn’t get tangled up in use. These ropes were typically used for sports like rock climbing so they could take about a ton of tension, but they weren’t unbreakable.

“Alright, Prism, sir, what do I do now?” Pigeonhole called.

“Clip yourself to the top of the pole and start flying. You want to keep slack in the rope as you make circles around the pole. Every time you make five, change directions and go the other way.”

He sighed. “Man, this is gonna be hard.”

I sure hope not.

“Prism, I’m done over here!” Monsoon called. I moved to the starting ring, and she and Effie followed.

This track wasn’t super complicated, but there were four tight turns and the one around the tether pole would be the exact same exercise Pigeonhole is doing but at speed and without a tether. This will be a test of her control even if she isn’t trying to beat me. Hmm, actually…

“Okay, I’ve changed my mind.”

“About what?” she asked.

“The order. You do this as fast as you can first. I want to see what time you can make without worrying about beating anypony.”

She frowned. “And you’re absolutely sure you can beat me?”

With the way she’d been flying last week? “I mean, do your best, we’ll find out.”

She let out a chuckle. “I guess we will. Alright, Vice Captain.”

“Effie, count her off please.”

“Yes, sir!” The violet teenager took to the air, keeping the camera on Monsoon with a whistle in her hoof.

Monsoon for her part got in launch form. What I immediately noticed was that she keeps her rear hooves together as opposed to spreading them out to get the most out of both hooves.

“Hey, spread your rear hooves a bit,” I said.

“Huh?”

I got into launch form myself. “Like this, your dominant side forward.”

She copied my pose, and with that at least, she should get a bit better start time.

“Are you ready?” Effie called.

“Yeah!” Monsoon replied.

“Three, two, one, go!” Effie blew her whistle and Monsoon launched.

She immediately ran into a problem at the first turn. The track was tight and curvy and if you can’t manipulate your wings to swoop almost at a 90-degree angle, you’ll lose speed in every turn. Rather than gliding to get into position for the turn, she went straight into it and tried to correct course too late. She went out of the track bounds, but not so far that it would disqualify her. She seemed angry, but went to the next ring.

From the hard right turn came a short straight into a hard left turn. It’s even harder to keep speed in this turn because you don’t have the boost from your initial launch. She needed to put power down right after the first turn, but because she had to correct, she did it too late and once again went off the track into the next straight.

Two penalties already, but she kept on and made her way down the first straight. It breaks into a long curve that then comes around into another short straight, leading to two more sharp turns. History repeated itself and she took two more penalties before getting into the turn around.

The final straight was into the tether pole. In high school races, there are ropes that spin around so that ponies can grab on if they need the extra help making the U-turn. In the pros, however, those are not there and you’re expected to make a high speed U turn. I know better than to try going into one of these at full speed so I always glide into them so I can put power back on as soon as I’m halfway through it.

Monsoon was not me though, and she went as fast as she could, lost control, and spun out. The tether is only the halfway point as she’s supposed to take the track in reverse from start to finish. I debated going to help her after she crashed into clouds, but angry with herself, she got right back up and started to run the reverse.

Normally, for something like that, you’re disqualified, but this is just practice. I used to spin out on the U turns too, but that was back in elementary school. Between Mom and Dad, I was never without somepony to tell me what I was doing wrong and how to fix it. I also learned pretty quick because Mom is relentless. I probably spent a week just doing U turns in quick succession just so that I’d never spin out again. To her credit, I still haven’t.

Monsoon had learned from some of her mistakes and managed to take the left turns properly, but still get them on the right turns. When she finally made it to the start and Effie blew her whistle again, Monsoon was fuming. Insulting her or pointing out her mistakes was not likely to make her improve, so the right thing to say—what Dad would say here is—“Was that your best?”

She turned on me like a whip. “No! Let me run it again!”

I didn’t like this tone. It sounded like desperation which is how ponies hurt themselves. “Okay, but tell me what went wrong first.”

She looked at the first big ring past the starting point. “Well, that turn is a lot sharper than I thought it was. They all are, really. I need to get in position before I even get close to it, but…” And then she thought deeply.

While she was lost in her head, I set my clipboard down and got to the starting point.

“Wait! I wanna run this again, I know I can do better!”

I nodded. “I know you can do better too, but rather than rush at it like you’ve got something to prove, watch me first and cool your head a little. Like my dad always says, ‘Second place comes in first more often than first does.’ You’ll tear a muscle if you rush at this, and that’s not going to keep you in the Wonderbolts for very long. Fly up with Effie and try to copy the moves I make with just your body.”

She chewed on her lip before saying, “Yes, Sir…”

“Effie! Count me off!”

And so she did. While it isn’t quite fair to throw a new rally track at her and expect her to do it perfectly, I’ve also only flown this once. Rally tracks aren’t meant to be learned and mastered, they’re meant to test your ability to perform specific maneuvers like sharp curves and U-turns at speed.

Following all the rules I’ve been taught all my life, I sped through the track about twice as quickly as Monsoon did it, discounting the penalties. I banked hard at my turns, put power in early then coasted to not lose control going into them, and at the U-turn, I did it just how Mom taught me. Flying is done in 3D. It’s not just that you can turn your wings and your body, you can also change your elevation amidst the turn.

“U-turns are just quick rolls. Go low, circle up and twist out. Learn this and you’ll never miss another one. This move is called an immelmann.”

For me, I took this track at a relatively easy pace. I could go faster, but hurting myself in training isn’t really the goal. After finishing, I flew up and joined Monsoon and Effie, taking note of the very slow but steady progress Pigeonhole was making on his turns. With the tether forcing him to keep within a certain distance, he was actually beginning to bank naturally.

“Prism, Prism!” Effie called, putting the camera in my face. “How did you make that U-turn? It almost looked like you did a backflip in the middle of it!”

A backflip? Don’t you know the technical term? “Uh, I kinda did. An immelmann mixed with banking mid-flight is almost like drifting a car in the air. The goal is to put as little pressure on your wings as possible while also making a very tight, sharp turn. Catch the air on your broadside, fold up and into it, then straighten out once your hooves are at a 45-degree angle from the ground.” I turned to Monsoon. “What do ya think?”

She was still looking at the track with wide eyes. “I… am beginning to think you’re as impressive as Spitfire says. I wouldn’t even begin to know how you made the U-turn, even with your explanation.”

I smiled. “Well, I know how to teach it, so let’s do that then.”

“Really?” She had sparkles in her eyes. I used to be on the other side of this interaction. Seeing something during a race or at a show, or even watching Mom and Dad screw around in the sky.

“Yeah, lemme show you.”

12 - In All but Name

When Mom taught me this maneuver, she did it by making a track out of clouds. Rather than fly it first, I ran it. As I got more used to the momentum, she’d have me keep my wings out, and then, she’d start destroying the track. Less and less ground to run, then eventually, I was flying during the whole turn. When the track wasn’t there, I’d still imitate and roll into spreading my wings to keep speed.

After a few hours of that, Monsoon managed to learn the U-turn.

It was about eleven in the afternoon when she’d gotten it fairly consistently and Pigeonhole was turning okay. He’d need a lot more time with the pole, but he was slowly improving.

“Alright, you guys, let’s go get some lunch.”

Pigeonhole nearly collapsed and hit himself against the pole. “Aah! Finally!”

“Prism, can I run the course again first? I can definitely get the U-turn now!”

As nice as it was to see her smiling and excited about this, there was still work for her to do before she could actually make the track. She might finish it, but she’ll take penalties without practicing sharp turning on its own. “Let’s eat first. We’ve been at this for hours.”

Pigeonhole unhooked himself from the tether and joined us at the other pole. “Yes! Food first! I haven’t worked this hard since I was a newbie with PegEx.”

“PegEx?” Monsoon questioned. “The Pegasus delivery company based in Las Pegasus?”

He nodded. “Yeah. That was my job before I got fired.”

I frowned. “Oh. What did they fire you for?”

He sighed. “Oh, you know. Only so many times they’ll let you deliver something to the wrong place, whether it's my fault or not. Couriers are a dime a dozen in Las Pegasus, and since I wasn’t part of any teams for larger deliveries, cutting me for a printing error wasn't about to hurt them one bit.”

Yikes. “Pretty big upgrade to go from courier to Wonderbolt, huh?”

He smiled and nodded. “Oh, yeah. Our first paycheck we’ll get this Friday is gonna be as much as three months working for PegEx.”

“Three months!” Monsoon shot. “Were you getting paid like crap, or are we making, like, a lot of money here? I thought all the money Wonderbolts made was based off sponsorships…”

I shrugged. “I’ve never had, like, another job, so I wouldn’t know. My family is pretty well off though since both my parents still get sponsor deals from this.”

Then Pigeonhole hugged himself. “Oh, but a sponsorship would be even more! I’d never have to work again if I landed one of those!”

“I mean, you would,” I began. “They don’t just give you a big bag of cash for nothing; you've still got to promote the product. As a Wonderbolt, that means entering as many races as you’re contracted for, and if you don’t place high, the sponsor is likely to drop you.”

He leaned down and eyed my jacket, then turned to Effie who had joined us and was still filming. “Well, flying in a race isn’t really too much work…”

“That’s only if you can get turning down, Mister Pigeonhole,” Effie said.

“He’s doing better at least,” I argued.

“Am I? I felt like it was taking a lot of time to make the rotations, and my wings started doing this weird twisting thing when I managed to get a little speed.”

I rubbed at my forehead. “Yeah, they’re supposed to do that. It’s called 'banking,' Pigeonhole.”

He lowered his brows. “Banking? Like, moving money in a bank?”

“No, it has more than one meaning. A bank is like a slope or a hill, and when you bank, it means you're tilting your wings.” Goddess among us, I cannot believe I am explaining what a word means.

“Today I learned. By the way, what were you guys doing over there? It looked kinda fun.”

“That’s because it was!” Monsoon announced. “I can’t believe nopony has ever taught me that before! Where did you learn to do that, Prism?”

“My Mom taught me like that back when I was little. Eight or nine years ago maybe.”

Then her face fell. “Eight or… how old are you again?”

“Eighteen.”

She covered her face. “Oh… that’s great…”

I coughed into my hoof. “Uh, Lunch, everypony?”

“Yeah!” Pigeonhole cheered.

“Yeah…” Monsoon moaned.

With Effie in tow, we flew over to the cafetera in between the three team’s barracks. While all the barracks had a common room kitchen, the cafeteria was there to ensure the Wonderbolts were getting proper meals. Mom has never been somepony who cooks well, and she had to feed herself between working for the Ponyville weather team back in the day and joining the Wonderbolts. She subsisted on junk food and sweets. Anything that was prepackaged and cheap would get her through the day. She’s also not an outlier in that regard when it comes to Wonderbolts. If they didn’t feed us, we’d eat badly.

There were a few different choices on today’s menu, with the Umanese curry catching my eye. Didn’t think this stuff was supposed to be all that healthy, but apparently it had a bunch of veggies and brown rice all with the soup. They even had a spicy version which I went for immediately.

Effie got what I got, Pigeonhole got a carrot dog combo, and Monsoon decided on soup and salad. There weren’t too many ponies here today as A-team was away for a race in Canterlot, and B-team had today off after their performance last Saturday. Everypony else was staff who worked at the facilities. Weirdly, none of the rest of C-team was here. Wonder if they already came? We sat at a table toward the front next to a big TV covering amateur races in Horseshoe Bay this week.

“So, Mister Prism, what did you do this weekend?” Effie asked.

I shrugged. “I went home, spent some time with the family. What about you?”

Effie groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ugh, I spent all weekend editing footage of our Secret Sombra games. Mom wants to work with Trade Wind on making videos for us to post every week or so on the Cloudsdale Bolts MeTube page.”

Monsoon tilted her head. “Editing footage? What does that mean? I’m not much of a computer girl. I can barely work my phone as it is.”

Imagine being tech illiterate in this day and age.

“It just means cutting out bad parts and making smooth transitions from scene to scene. Most videos you watch are probably edited by somepony like me.” Effie was nowhere near as interested in talking to Monsoon as she was to me.

Pigeonhole swallowed a mouth full of fries. “What makes a bad part, exactly?”

Effie rolled a carrot around in her curry. “All of the cursing you guys did for one. Audio needs to be clean and ‘age appropriate,’ and the team needs to look good without making it boring. This is another tool to generate revenue for the Bolts and I think it’s a really good idea. I just… didn’t imagine that’s what I’d spend my weekend doing.”

Monsoon patted her shoulder. “Well, I’ll watch your video.” She crossed her forelegs. “I honestly need to see Raptor play again. I can’t tell if he’s a good or bad liar, but I was confused about it all night. It’s hard to do the math when you don’t have all the variables.”

After devouring half of his carrot dog, Pigeonhole said, “Is that, like, your talent or something? I don’t know anypony who does that kinda math without a calculator.”

She raised her little muzzle, thinking about it. “You could say that. My talent is about physical equations. My cutiemark is the eye of the storm, and I interpret it as clarity in extreme situations. I can sort of ‘see’ angles and measurements when I look at things and while I’m flying. Math and physics came really easy to me, and I’m always excited to learn and try out theories about how to move and fly myself, but…” She dragged her spoon around what was left of her soup, using it to write some kinda math problem on her bowl. “My talent is more about the immaterial, not the material itself. I can see what I should do, I know the movements I should make, but I can’t always do it. If the test hadn’t been so easy, I don’t know that my flying would’ve gotten me into the Wonderbolts this time either.”

I died a little inside hearing that. She thought it was easy. I shivered, thinking about it all. “I wish I had an easy time with the test. I can’t say how many times I took the practice test and never passed it. I’m only here because I got really lucky.”

Her ears perked up. “You… didn’t ace the test?”

I let my head sink into my hooves. “Goddess, no. That test lives in my nightmares, it was the only thing I did in April.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “It’s not a very nice thing to say but that does make me feel a bit better. You being so young and here on your first try is a little frustrating when I graduated college early just to get time to practice for the performance exam.

My eyes could’ve popped out of my head. “You… you graduated college early!?”

And now she was smiling again. “Well, I am pretty good at academics, and my dad is a professor.”

Pigeonhole huffed. “College is for ponies with money to blow. The rest of us have to work.” Then he turned his inquisitive eyes on me. “I’m also surprised you struggled with the test. I figure just working and flying all the time would be enough to get you to pass. I didn’t get a perfect score or anything, but I did pretty well on it.”

“Well—” Effie coughed into her hoof. “This year’s test was easier than last year’s test. There were only so many applicants up to Mom’s standards so things had to be… adjusted.”

That was a topic I wanted to avoid. “So, Monsoon, why did you want to be a Wonderbolt?”

She gave Effie some hard side eye before answering the question. “Hmm. I guess I just… love to watch ponies fly. My dad is an earth pony who loves pegasus stuff, but cloudwalk bands only last so long, so he couldn’t stay up here forever. We still went to every Wonderbolt performance we feasibly could, and he would show me the arcs ponies would fly and the forces acting on them as they did. After a while, I could see them too, and I started trying to practice flying like them myself. I didn’t have immediate success, but I practiced a lot and I was the captain of my high school team. The higher the level got, the more fun I had doing it, so I just like being here.”

I could see that. Between calling me impressive and getting that sparkle in her eyes during practice, she really shows her enjoyment. “It’s definitely more fun when you like it so much. I worry about some ponies not doing that.”

Monsoon nodded. “Yeah. With what I’ve heard about you, I figured you’d be kinda intense too, but that’s not really the case, huh?”

“What have you heard about him?” Pigeonhole asked. “I’m not the brightest guy around, but I know I’m kind of an outsider here. Nopony talks to me.”

“Well, there’s the mare locker room gossip between the three of us which is confidential, and the rest of it is mostly about his record. He’s placed first in everything he’s ever entered.” She coughed into her hoof. “You might’ve realized this, but Tropical Storm kinda hates you because she’s been racing against you all through school and never beat you once. I’m older than you guys, but I doubt she’s the only one who feels like that.”

I sighed. “Yeah, no, that checks out. Based on our Secret Sombra games, I could probably pick ponies out of a line-up.”

Pigeonhole frowned. “Why would ponies hate you for beating them? Doesn’t that just mean you’re more skilled than them in this particular area? What about that has to do with you getting along?”

That struck a nerve in Effie. “Have you never seen anypony who can do everything you wanted to and not felt any kind of… jealousy or even envy?”

Pigeonhole looked down at her like those were new words for him. “I mean, no, not really.”

Her eye twitched. “How!? Seeing someone else with talents you’ve always wanted that you just don’t have has never made you angry or resentful before?”

The bird-like stallion scratched at his cheek. “There’s not much I can’t do if I actually try for it. Like, sure I wish I had all the money in the world to do whatever I wanted to, but it’s not like there’s zero chance of me getting there if I work for it. I’m a Wonderbolt now, aren’t I?”

Effie stood up, hooves on the table. “Not everypony gets to be a Wonderbolt no matter how hard they try!”

She’d yelled in the mostly empty cafeteria, and where there was once some background noise, there was now none.

Pigeonhole didn’t know how to respond to that. “Uh…”

Effie took her tray of half-eaten curry and started toward the trash cans. “I’ll be waiting for you back at the rally track. I’m not hungry anymore.” And with a sour look on her face, she discarded her leftovers and set the tray and plates on the collection table. The door swung as Effie took to the air.

We were mostly done with our food by this point, but I figured Effie needed space. “So, do you guys have any hobbies?”

Pigeonhole shook his head. “I don’t make any money if I don’t work, so I just tried to work as much as I could before now. I spent this weekend looking for a part-time position just to have something to do.”

I blinked. So much of my life revolves around my hobbies that that just doesn’t compute. “Like… no hobbies at all? There’s nothing you like to do in your free time? What about your talent?”

He looked at me the same way. “My cutiemark is a pigeon stuck in a dart board beak first. I tried darts once, but I hit somepony and they had to go to the hospital after that. My best quality was that I could go far, really fast, and outside of that… I don’t have much else. I guess I go see my grandmother in Ponyville when I get the chance, but other than that, I try to work.”

Monsoon leaned in. “You don’t cook or read or watch TV or play games or anything? Why do you work?”

Pigeonhole rubbed his chin. “Well, I cook, but that’s only when I have to. I read sometimes, but I just get tired when I do that. A TV is an extra expense that uses electricity so I’ve never felt the need to own one, games and the like are kinda the same. My grandmother’s health has never been great since she used to be a delivery pony herself while trying to support my mom alone. My parents were never super wealthy and I wouldn’t call them well off, so I work to support them and my Grandmother. I don’t want them, or myself, to have to live like we did when I was a kid.”

Wow. It sounds like he has had a lot harder time growing up than either Monsoon or I did.

“That’s… very noble of you, Pigeonhole,” Monsoon said.

He smiled. “Thanks!”

Oh, man, what do I say now? I think I have a sense of who these ponies are now, but I really don’t know how I would become friends with him. Oh, wait! “What about flying? Do you enjoy it?”

He nodded. “Well, yeah, I don’t think I could do so much of it if I didn’t.”

“What about doing aerial stunts? You said Monsoon practicing the U-turn looked fun earlier.”

He nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah, I love that stuff. Grandma used to take me to Wonderbolt performances up here. I loved to watch them do that color streak thing where they’d make pictures in the sky, but I could only ever make chess boards and weaves when I tried it. I’d love to be able to do more, but neither of my parents are pegasi and like I said, my grandmother can’t see very well, so she has a hard time doing spins and curvy things.”

This I can work with. “Alright, well, I’m really good at that stuff. Is there anything you wanted to learn how to draw in the sky?”

“Hmm. I’d love to be able to write my Grandma’s name out for her. Or maybe a message, like, ‘I’m a Wonderbolt now, Grandma!’ Something like that. If her eyes didn’t start getting bad when she was a kid, she might’ve been a Wonderbolt too.”

Alright, I’ve got my plans for the rest of the day. “Okay. You’ve been working on the tether pole for a while, so I’ll get you set up with gas and we’ll try drawing letters.” I turned to Monsoon. “You can join us because this requires hard turns as well. Once you can write in sans-serif Equestrian, you should be able to do the rally course.”

She reared her head back. “Sans-serif? Not cursive? I thought most Wonderbolt writing was done in cursive.”

“It is, but that’s because it’s much easier to fly a path than time opening and closing in the sky without ruining your letters. The best of us can write with regular letters which makes it easier for ponies to read. C- and B-team might stick to cursive, but A team writes in sans-serif. I think Mom can actually do things in serif fonts for that matter.”

Pigeonhole tilted his head at me. “Your… mom? Was she a Wonderbolt?”

I nodded, a little surprised he didn’t know that. “Uh, yeah. Both my parents were. My Dad was A-team captain here for a few years.”

He blew a raspberry. “No wonder you’re so good at this stuff.”

Monsoon slapped her cheek. “You’d think seeing them in the locker room last Monday would’ve tipped me off sooner. Your mom, the Rainbow Dash, taught you how to U-turn the same way you taught me earlier?”

“Yeah.” I pulled on my mane. “This isn't exactly common, ya know.”

She rubbed her eyes. “I must be blind.”

I feel that. “Don’t worry about it. We’re all done, right? Let’s get back to the rally track.”

“Yes, Sir,” and they saluted.

Weirdly, Pigeonhole ended up writing in capital letters somewhat easily. The way he comes to hard stops so quickly actually helped him here, but only for letters made of straight lines. He couldn’t make so much as a B without it looking like an old earth pony rune. Next time I work with him, I’ll be getting him to link that ability to stop with turning and he ought to be somepony special by the time he masters it.

Monsoon could write in cursive well enough, but coming to hard stops was difficult for her. However, she just needed time and practice. She tries to take things as a whole instead of doing them one step at a time, which is why her overall skills are good, but her fundamentals are lacking. Between the two of them, he could do the straight letters and she could do the curved letters, so they actually worked well together as a unit. We had his grandmother’s name ‘Derpy’ spelled out by the end of the day, and he’d even managed to write the ‘D’ himself without it looking like a triangle.

It was getting late however, and Spitfire called us back to end practice. Effie hadn’t said a word since we came back, but other than her, I thought we had a pretty good time working together. Spitfire’s group looked like they’d been beaten to death, and nopony was smiling in Raptor’s group. All of them were just silent and downcast.

The Captain later told me that her group was going to need more beatings before they got it into their heads that they were Wonderbolts, and Raptor’s hard worker group is trying to find ways to speed up. Because I have the ‘problem children’ she wants me to keep working with them for the week. I told her about the progress we were making, but she said she’d look at the video later. We’ll all group up on Friday to work on the routine for the morning, but then we’ll have some time to rest before the performance on Saturday at the arena.

I talked to Cheesette about what happened yesterday that night, and while she comforted me as well as she could, she didn’t really know what to say. Her grandparents are devout Goddess worshipers who stick hard to tradition, and her parents had never fought in front of her before. Like me, she didn’t realize the scene I saw actually happens in life. She did tell me that Pearl and Stout are having a fight and that’s not fun to hear about, but it’s nowhere near as bad as what my grandparents sound like.

The next day, after practice, I got a call from Dad. Sweet Wing told him what happened and said she was going to have Grandpa spill on Friday night. She wants him to bring Grandma up here, but he doesn’t think that’s a good idea. After consulting with her about it, Grandma would rather ‘let sleeping dogs lie,’ in her own words. Sweet Wing is still pushing for this to happen though, so on Friday night, I found myself headed for Grandpa’s house once again.

13 - Family Matters

The routine was totally locked down by our above-average performers, and the week of practice had Pigeonhole doing basic turns and Monsoon leveling up as a whole. They weren’t the best at their routines, but they were better at it than the hard worker group who hadn’t focused on anything technical this week at all.

Dad met me at the barracks just after we were released from practice. “Hey, buddy. How was your day?”

I was still in my uniform and in need of a shower, but it’d been alright. “The Captain has been having me train a couple of ponies on the team this week and they’ve improved a lot.”

He smiled a bit, rubbing his chin. “Good, good. Guess she realized you have a lot of experience training already, huh?”

“Yeah. She’s… not so bad.”

His brows lowered. “Oh? What happened?”

The others were starting to land nearby, so I started into the barracks. “We talked about Grandpa and Sweet Wing.”

His face soured. “Oh.” Didn’t seem to like that. “What did you say?”

I shrugged as we walked to my room. “Just what happened. This was the Monday right after I got back. I needed to say something to somepony, and she offered to listen.”

Dad scratched at his forehead. “Guess I can’t really fault you for it.” He took a seat on my bed and crossed his forelegs thinking. “Are you having a better time here now?”

Am I? It’s not as much of a chore as it was last week. Monsoon and Pigeonhole are nice, too. But then again, we’re supposed to rotate next week. “Probably. Working with my two guys is a lot easier than the whole team since about half of them have it out for me. There are at least a couple ponies here who I beat all through school and they hate me.”

Dad closed his eyes, trying to remember. “Yeah, I knew I recognized a couple of them. The dark mare and the pale thin stallion. They fought over second and third in the bigger high school competitions, but they were never close on performances. Speaking of, your first show is tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s that going?”

Typhoon and Nightingale almost got into a fight again today. Spitfire is actually going to fire them next time they do. “Like, we know the routine, but our two best guys hate each other and they’re both divas.”

Dad chuckled. “Sounds like Dash and that Lightning Dust mare. Spitfire threatened to throw them both out and Lightning Dust ended up moving to Las Pegasus when her contract was up for renewal. Wouldn’t be surprised if one of your guys isn’t here next year.”

“I know who I’d vote off the island, but that’s not really up to me, I guess.”

“It could be if you complained about it.”

“No…” I finished getting the suit off and hopped into my shower. “I don’t really wanna rock the boat, and as much of an ass as he is, he’s really good at this. Performances are probably my weakest area, and I think he just kinda blows me out of the water here.”

“That’s pretty high praise from you. What makes you think you’re not a great performer, buddy?”

I don’t really think I’m even that bad at it. Those guys are just something else. “I don’t know. They’re just, like, really talented. I haven’t talked to them much, but I think they have something I don’t. They can really draw you in, ya know? Cheesette called one of them a pretty boy!”

Dad laughed out loud. “Goddess, you are your mother’s son.”

It still bothers me. It’s not like I can’t tell dude is attractive, but he’s such an ass though.

“I mean, looks-wise, the Wonderbolts are very fit and well maintained. On stage, on TV, on the internet. Ability can take you far, but it would be a lie to say that’s the only consideration that goes into picking ponies. Your mom would kill me if she heard this, but you’ve seen that Trade Wind mare, right?”

Not as much as I’d like to. “Dad, I need all my blood in the right places to perform.”

“Ha!”

“Besides, Cheesette would kill her and then me. Can’t be thinking things like that, she’ll know.”

“Fair, fair.”

Finally clean, I hopped out and shook myself dry before wiping down with a towel. Of our three mares, Trade Wind is the hot one, Monsoon is the cute one, and Tropical Storm is the angry one. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Trade Wind with a Thunderaid sponsorship with the way she’s been campaigning about streaming and filming all our stuff. She could probably drop the Wonderbolts entirely and just go directly to Struck Company, but she definitely likes to be in the spotlight. Another diva.

I stepped out of my bathroom and Dad stood up. “Dad, how do you manage so many ponies with such big egos? I haven’t really had to deal with the guys that hate me yet, but eventually, it’s gonna be their turn…”

He opened the door and I followed him out of my room. “I know it’s not really in your nature, but you’ve gotta assert your authority in those situations. If the Captain has you training ponies by yourself, she made you, like, vice captain or something right?”

I’d kinda forgotten about that. “She did.”

We headed out of the hallway. “Then that means you are above your peers and you have to help lead the team. Be a stallion, speak directly. You don’t have to be mean about it or anything, but you’ve got to rise to challenges and make sure ponies know their place, and if they don’t like it, they can take it up with Captain Spitfire, which in and of itself may be enough to keep ponies in line.”

“I sure hope so.”

Dad patted my shoulder. “You’ll figure it out.” We made it out of the barracks and now it was time to go to Grandpa’s house. He grimaced. “This, on the other hoof…” He shivered.

“Yeah…”

“Let’s get it over with.”

We took off at a leisurely pace, neither of us really wanting to do what needed to be done next. The sky city was busy today with pegasi getting off work going this way and that, everypony flocking to the bar districts or heading home. The evening sky was filled with colorful ponies, no two the same with everypony’s flight skill being average or lower. As much as he likes to say it was working all the time that made him this way, Pigeonhole definitely flies better than a majority of ponies, even if it is limited to straight lines. Thousands of ponies, hundreds of highschools, a hoofful of Wonderbolts…

Spitfire never did find anypony with Grandpa’s name on the roster, and there were only drawings and paintings of ponies who would’ve been from his era. Was he really ever a Wonderbolt? And if he was, why can’t we find his name on the roster? I’ve always thought he flew well enough to be one.

As we approached, I could see the lights on inside the house, and weirdly, an old mare standing outside. At first I thought it was Sweet Wing, but as we got closer, I realized it was Grandma Downy.

“Mom?” Dad called.

Her ears shot up, and she found us in the sky. She had her purse and a cloudwalk band on her neck. How did she get up here? “Hey, kiddo.”

“What are you doing here? I thought you said you weren’t going to come.”

My old grandma put a hoof on her cheek. “Well, I wasn’t, initially, but Sweet Wing went out of her way to visit me yesterday. We talked. I figured it’d be for the best if I did come after all.” She came and put a hoof around me. “Don’t want to make a fuss at your wedding next weekend, and if you’re gonna be here being a Wonderbolt and all, you ought to see your grandfather while you still have him.”

Dad rubbed his beard. “Sweet Wing went to see you?”

Grandma rolled her eyes. “I know, I was shocked too. Always thought she hated me for stealing him away from her the first time and then running out on him afterward. That doesn’t seem to be the case, though.” There was more than words in the way her eyes sank to the clouds. She patted it with her hoof, confirming that she didn’t sink through it. “Technology sure is amazing, isn’t it? Never thought I’d get the chance to come up here.”

“How are you getting home? It’s kinda late, and the balloons stop running after eight.”

“Oh, I’m not going home tonight. Prism has his first show at the arena tomorrow, right? I figured I might as well see it since I’m here.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it starts at noon.”

“Good. Two pegasi, one arrow!” She laughed, Dad laughed uncomfortably, and I silently contemplated how morbid that old earth pony saying is. Old habits die hard.

The door to Grandpa’s house opened and Sweet Wing came out. It was even more striking to see them side by side. They could’ve been sisters. “Thank you all for coming.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Grandma said. “Where is the old buzzard anyways?”

Sweet Wing frowned, looking irritatedly at the house. “Hiding away in his room. I’ve done what I could, but I can’t guarantee he’ll say anything tonight.”

Grandma rolled her eyes again. “Oh, this nonsense again.” She marched into the house and yelled, “Hang Glider, you old coward, what are you hiding away for? Can’t face an old mare half your size?”

“What are you doing in my house!?” The response was immediate. ”How did you even get up here? Moles don’t have wings!”

We all shared a look and followed her inside. She’d already located him standing in front of his door with a mean smile on her face. I didn’t really think about this, but I probably should’ve known this is how it was going to go.

“Magic has come a long way since you and I were kids! I’ll be here forever if you don’t get out of there and come talk to our son!”

Rushed rustling behind the door before it flung open. Grandpa looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days. His old stallion wrinkles were deeper, his feathers were out of place, his mane was going every which way and only vaguely in his normal superhero quaff, and the gray of it had gotten a lot whiter since I last saw him. He stared at Grandma in disbelief as she smiled with pure malice right back at him.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Hang?”

Grandpa looked like he could’ve collapsed. “You’re… you’re really…” He reached out for her, and she met his hoof.

“That’s right. Here in the flesh. Disgrace of the Snows, Downy.”

And then he did collapse, his hind legs sliding out from under him and his wings splaying out. Sweet Wing flew to him. “Hang!? Hang Glider, are you alright?”

He latched onto her like she was the only solid thing in the world. “How could I be? I’m seeing a ghost, Sweet.” He looked at Dad, and then at me, with this vacant, lost look in his eyes.

Grandma sat down in front of him. “Well, I ain’t dead yet, so don’t go calling me a ghost.”

“But I looked everywhere for you!” Grandpa blurted. “I spent months flying to every city I could think of trying to get you to come home but I… I… I ran out of cities…”

She frowned, turning away. “I didn’t go to a city, Hang. I got lost to make sure you moved back up here. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to see Soarin fly.”

The old stallion slowly looked up at her like he’d never seen her before. “You… you left for that? You tore our lives in half just to… just to force him into being a Wonderbolt?”

Dad stepped in. “Nopony forced me into doing anything, Dad. It was my choice to become a Wonderbolt.”

“But that was it, wasn’t it!? All of you with your obsession of that abusive flying cult! What’s it worth? Why throw your lives away for some indifferent meat grinder of an organization?”

Sweet Wing came around to face him. “Why is it you think the Wonderbolts are like that? I watched you enter the academy, I watched you accept your position, and one day you just disappeared! What happened, Hang?”

“I know I’ve only been one for two weeks now, but Grandpa, it really isn’t like that.”

He looked at all of us like he didn’t know us. “None of you, none of you understand!”

Grandma stood up to face him. “That’s right, Hang. We don’t. If you want us to understand, you have to explain it.” She turned to look at Dad. “And I don’t know if you know this, but that boy right there has never given up on getting answers out of anypony. So if you want me, or any of this to go away, you have to tell us. And if you don’t, we’ll be back again and again and again. We’ll haunt you worse than any nightmare you’ve ever had.”

“You’re nothing but a vengeful spirit as it is! Begone, all of you! This is my house, you don’t have the right to interrogate me!” There was a hint of crazy in Grandpa now and I was getting flashbacks to when we broke Mom a few years back with Haze.

“Hang Glider, if I leave now, I will not come back,” Sweet Wing announced.

He was on his knees in a second. “Oh, Sweet, please, don’t go! Not you, never you! I need you here, with me! Isn’t that what we promised?”

“This is not the kind of sickness I promised to stand by you for.”

“C-come now, Sweet, what about this is sick? Why should I tell them anything, what do they have to do with you?”

She broke with him, absolutely furious now. “Did I not spend ten years raising Soarin with you? Was I not there for his wedding? Did I not see both his children shortly after they were born? Have I not been there for a majority of their lives? Explain to me exactly why I have nothing to do with them, Hang!”

He crawled after her. “Sweet Wing, darling, please, you know that’s not what I meant!”

“Oh, no, Hang.” Grandma stepped in. “It may not be what you meant, but it is what you believe. You, like your son, put her in a separate box, as if she’s unrelated to anything concerning your pasts.”

Dad cringed. Grandpa’s face fell. Sweet Wing bit her lip, turning down.

Grandma found a seat on the couch in front of the TV. “Let me tell you something, Hang; this stubbornness of yours is what drove me away in the first place.”

“Stubbornness!? You’re one to talk! You never budged on anything!”

She shrugged. “You’re right. I didn’t budge, ever. But I didn’t ask much of you either. All I wanted out of you was to be Soarin’s father and teach him how to fly, but back when we were together, and even after I left, it doesn’t seem to me like you ever filled either of those roles.”

A vein bubbled on Grandpa’s forehead. “Never his father!? I was the one who kept him! I fed him, put him through school, never forced him to be anything! I was always there for my son no matter what he did! What about that discounts me from being his father!? Who are you to say anything about being a parent to anypony!?”

Totally unphased, Grandma tilted her head. “You know what words are missing from all that, Hang?”

The old stallion was practically a whole new shade of red now. “What!?”

“‘Want.’ You were there, but unlike a real father, you didn’t cheer him on, you didn’t support him, you never asked about him. From what I hear, when Soarin did tell you what he wanted to be, you kept your hooves off entirely. You treated him like a stranger you had to keep. The same way you treated me. The same way you’ve been treating Sweet Wing.”

He could’ve been hit with a brick and been less stunned. Looking at all of us, Grandpa stammered, “Th-that’s not true! Wh-why would I still be here, even entertaining this charade that I didn’t care about you all?” Nopony met his eyes. Grandpa sank. “That’s not… that’s not what you believe, is it? Sweet, Soarin?”

Without even looking at each other, Dad and Sweet Wing said, “There are times I wondered…” They caught each other’s eyes and looked away, ashamed.

Grandma threw a hoof out. “Well, would ya look at that! The ponies closest to you are unsure whether you ever cared about them. Lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice, Hang. If you’re capable of love somewhere in that old buzzard heart of yours, you’re piss poor at showing it.”

Grandpa slammed a hoof into the floor. “Then what was I supposed to do!? Smother everypony? Berate you all at every turn out of concern!? Note every mistake, command your respect, put you in a place below me and drag you along whether you wanted to come or not!? What about that is love? What kind of father does that to his family?”

In spite of how bad everypony else was feeling, Grandma looked like she was enjoying this. “Oh, now that’s interesting. Is that what love looks like to you, Hang? Who’d you learn that from?”

With the deepest bitter frown on his face, Grandpa again looked at everypony else. At Dad, the frown remained hard. At Sweet Wing, it softened a bit. At me, it fell away and turned toward the kitchen. “I need a drink.”

Grandma got up and followed him. “That sounds lovely. Don’t they have some fancy wine made with rainbows around here? I’ll take some of that, Hang.”

“I don’t remember you liking spicy flavors very much.”

“I’m on vacation, might as well try the local specialties.”

Grandpa groaned and went digging in his cupboards.

Smiling, Grandma waved us to the table. While I wasn’t completely sure, I think Grandma just hit the root of Grandpa’s problem, and now that it’s out there, he has no choice but to talk about it. Dad is the kind of person to say ‘there are things we don’t say’ and so are all the other adults in the room. Grandma, however, is the kind of person who will say anything, no matter how ugly it is. Without that, I bet this would've been resolved in a very different way. Sweet Wing probably knew that, too, which is why she wanted Grandma here—like the carpenter she is, a hammer in search of a nail. Whether it’s a nail or a baby, she strikes.

Rainbows are a liquid infused with pegasus magic over years of moving through the water cycle until finally, they begin to glow. They can be made artificially by pouring fresh water through specifically made clouds and then scattered in the sky to form a rainbow wherever the scatterer desires. It takes decades of processing to actually make the kind of rainbow that forms naturally in the sky, and here in Cloudsdale, rainbows are used in performances, festivals, and on special occasions such as birthdays and national holidays.

Aged pegasus magic works a lot like alcohol when it hits the bloodstream, acting like a magic crystal that unicorns can make to serve as batteries for things. It basically gets you high and is considered illegal during competitions. When mixed with actual alcohol, the effect is doubled. It’s a controlled substance as far as the government is concerned and only allowed to be drunk indoors.

Grandma was a big fan. “Goddess among us, this burns something strong! Why’ve I never had this stuff before?”

“Because it’s illegal in most places,” Grandpa noted, holding his little shot glass full of glowing rainbow drink. “Lot’s of pegasi here are alcoholics. Rainbow wine is hard to get a hold of on top of being expensive to make. You shouldn’t drink much if it isn’t diluted.”

Grandma slid her shot glass toward him. “Well, I’m an alcoholic too, give me another one.”

“Well, yours is a funeral I’d be happy to attend. Have as much as you like.” And he poured her another shot. He looked lazily at the rest of us, clearly feeling the wine. “You want any of this?”

Dad rubbed at his forehead. “Yeah, sure Dad.”

“I’ll take one, Hang,” Sweet Wing said.

Grandpa poured two full shots for them and a half shot for me. “Uh, Grandpa—”

He poured himself a second shot. “No, no, this is your culture. Just try it, it’s just a sip. You’re getting married in a week or two right? Congratulations. To the new Wonderbolt.”

He held up his shot and Grandma clinked his glass and they both drank. Slowly, the rest of us followed suit. It was like sweet hot sauce. It almost numbed your tongue a bit as it went down, and it burned everything it touched. Like grapes and peppers mashed together in a thick smooth liquid that coated your whole mouth. Even as it went down, I could feel it igniting my stomach.

I hacked and coughed and Grandma patted my back. “That your first shot, kiddo?”

Surprisingly, the burning subsided quickly. “Y-yeah.” I coughed again. “I… feel kinda funny?” There was little tingle everywhere the alcohol had touched, and my head was buzzing a bit, like an electric current was running through me.

“Some of us get addicted to ‘feeling funny,’ Prism,” Grandpa said, getting up to put the bottle away. “‘Feeling funny’ helps us deal with bad things. Makes it easier to talk. Loosens the jaw.” He put his hooves on the table. “I have… a confession to make.”

Sweet Wing put a hoof on his shoulder. “A confession, Hang? About what?”

He put his hoof on hers and kissed it tenderly. Nopony, especially not Sweet Wing, was prepared for that, but he ignored the reactions. “Hang Glider is not my only name.”

Dad blinked. “Not where I thought this was going. You’re not about to tell me you have a secret second family or something, are you?”

Grandpa shook his head. “Oh, no, I’m from the secret second family, Soarin.”

Dad stared at him for a moment, then looked at the shot glass, disappointed that it was empty. “That’s a new one.”

“No, Soarin, it’s an old one. Where to even begin…?”

“How about at the beginning, Hang?” Grandma said.

He shook his head. “Sure, why not. Destiny is a rather cruel thing. Legacy too, for that matter. Your family has a rather long history, boys. I figured I’d take this to my grave, but did you know that every one of your forefathers have been Wonderbolts?”

“Huh?”

Grandpa nodded. “My father, his father, every father before him. Hang Glider is the name my mother gave me, but my father? His name was Gladius Hurricane.”

Dad and Grandma’s eyes could’ve popped out of their heads. Dad looked to be in great pain, too. “Dad, can you bring the bottle back?”

“You can get it, I’ll kill myself on it if it stays on the table.”

Grandma cackled. “And here, my parents were furious because you were a pegasus! They might’ve tried to crucify you if they knew about that, ha ha!”

“They wouldn’t be the only ones, nopony was a fan of him. Except for me, I suppose.”

“Wait.” I raised a hoof. “Who is that?”

Dad groaned. “First off, he was a Wonderbolt from a few generations ago. Notorious for trying to make sure everypony was up to his standards. He was easily the best of his generation, and hated by just about everypony. Because he ended up in a leadership position, the whole organization had to be reformed. Secondly, and I’m really hoping this is some kind of cruel joke, he was the last known descendant of Commander Hurricane. You know, the ancient hero of Cloudsdale.” Dad filled himself another shot, drank it, shivered, and then put the bottle away, leaving the shot glass on the counter. “Gotta get home today. Gonna be difficult.”

“Flying drunk gets ponies killed, Soarin. You’ve got a room here,” Grandpa offered.

Dad sat down, not sure what to make of that. “Alright, Dad…”

“If he was so good, why did ponies hate him?” I asked.

Grandpa laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, you could say that Gladius was a terrible stallion and not be close enough to the truth. He was a tyrant. Ruthless. Ran the Wonderbolts like his own personal army doing whatever it was he wanted them to. Rules had to be put in place, and the government eventually had to step in and strip him of his titles, leaving him in disgrace. In his last middle feather to the city that’d scorned him, he deliberately went supersonic next to the city, and ended up breaking his wing as he careened down into abyssal lake. His body never surfaced, and no pony cared to look for it either.”

Goddess. “That’s awful!”

Grandpa chuckled into his shot glass, just as red as he’d been when he was angry. “Bah, he had it coming. It wasn’t near as important then but he still destroyed the city’s power grid. No lights at night for a month after that. We recovered from that one about a decade or so ago a whole lot faster.”

“Hang, how did you find out about this?” Sweet Wing asked.

The old stallion leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling light. “I’d always known. Mom told me who he was. She’d been a hostess at a bar that was popular with the Wonderbolts at the time. It had one of the first radios and the first record players the sky city had ever seen. She was as down bad as any young girl was for the hotshot Wonderbolt captain and she got exactly what she wanted from him: me.”

“She wanted you, Grandpa?”

“Yep.” He put a hoof under his chin. “In the old days, being a Wonderbolt was your ticket to celebrity around here. Fame, wealth, mares. They were the glory of Cloudsdale, what the Princess asked to see when she’d visit or even request them to go to her. Our races were what all the news talked about, our performances were the main attraction of the city. The mascots, the idols, the heroes of Cloudsdale, and only so many ponies had the ability to get in. One’s family also benefited greatly from having a Wonderbolt for a son, as it was near unheard of for mares to be let in back then, and I was the son of not only an accomplished Wonderbolt, but part of the Hurricane line. It was my destiny to be a Wonderbolt, you see.”

“What was her name?” Dad asked.

“Cherry Knot,” Grandpa said, letting his eyes fall to the table. “She was just any old whore though. Brought a different stallion home every month. Eventually lost track of the number of them I saw come through our little apartment. We never wanted for money, but when she wasn’t ‘working,’ we were flying. Night and day, improve my times, chase every goal, win every race. I’d hide from her when I was little while I could. She would always find me, beat me, and threaten me with more beatings if I didn’t go back outside and practice. I was happy to go to school just to get away from her.”

Grandpa slapped his flank. “But even that wouldn’t last. I had a talent for catching wind currents. Just like everyone before, and even the two after me, I’d been born to be a Wonderbolt. Because things were different back then, once I’d finished the 8th grade, she took me to meet my father. Gladius was less than receptive to some old redlight mare he’d shtupped a decade and a half ago telling him he had a responsibility to make me a Wonderbolt. Of course, it was around this time that he was losing favor in the Bolts and he’d figured that he could use some fresh blood to get his name back in higher regard.

“If my mother was a slave driver, my father was a slave master. I was, quite literally, whipped for failures. He had total control and nopony had the power to do anything against him as the head trainer at the time, so he did whatever he wanted to make us improve. It sure did work, I suppose. Speed was never my best quality, but my ability to maneuver and find the fastest way away from him actually earned me some respect.”

He turned to Sweet Wing, a disinterested look on his face. “You wanna know why I entered the academy, Sweet?”

Her pity and her patience were fighting for a place on her face. One was at a new high and the other was worn very thin. “That’s why we’re here, aren’t we, Hang?”

Grandpa rolled his eyes away from her. “It was so I could get away from them. Mother left me alone, while Father had the real Wonderbolts to work with. For a single moment, I was free of them both. But what was the academy but the same ponies who’d trained with Gladius trying to reach his standards? There was no end to the punishment, no end to the suffering. At least, it was easier in the academy than under Gladius because I wasn’t alone with any of the trainers. I did well enough that I was fed consistently. More ponies dropped out than passed the final exam. I just didn’t have the luxury of anywhere else to go.”

“Hang, why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Sweet Wing asked.

He stared a hole through her. “Would you have believed me before the reforms were passed?”

She fell away from it and sighed. “Probably not.”

“Uh, what were the reforms?” I asked.

Dad stroked his chin. “About sixty some odd years ago, the Wonderbolts came under Cloudsdale city’s oversight, and eventually under the Equestrian government’s oversight. They’d been operating on their own as a sort of city-wide tourist attraction and military training center for pegasi, but as time went on, the abuse trainees suffered started to taint the Bolts' reputation. The Princess wanted the rumors looked into and Cloudsdale didn’t want her oversight here. The city doesn’t take up land and it provided weather control, so it hardly paid any kind of taxes to the crown. If she came in and asserted her authority, the economy here would tank, as it eventually did.

“Before that eventuality came down, Cloudsdale tried to do it on its own and take power away from the Bolts by passing laws. This had worked until Gladius was completely pushed out and retaliated with his sonic boom. Then the crown stepped in. Cloudsdale got power, oversight, and taxes, sending the economy into a tailspin for about a decade. The city didn’t recover until the Wonderbolts became more like a roaming troupe and began holding performances in other cities. The proceeds helped fund the city, bring in new residents and Wonderbolt hopefuls”

Grandpa narrowed his eyes at Dad. “Why do you know all that?”

“Didn’t I tell you that I teach history now?”

“Maybe you did…” The old stallion rubbed his chin. “Well, that’s the overview of it I suppose. At the time, trials were held and old Wonderbolts were either put away for their abuses, some of which were particularly foul, and others managed to get away with their misdeeds because somepony needed to teach a new group how to bring up new Wonderbolts. The city couldn’t afford to lose its main draw, so Gladius got away with most of it. I’m sure I’ve got a dozen or so half siblings somewhere in this city, and it’s a wonder how many of their mothers were told they could be Wonderbolts if they did what Gladius wanted.”

I gagged. “Gross.”

“That was Gladius for ya.” He turned to Dad. “I can’t say I was ever happy that you joined the Wonderbolts, but you made me proud when you broke the last record he had standing.”

“Oh… well, thanks Dad.” Dad smiled a bit, but then lifted his head. “Wait, which one was that?”

Grandpa spun his hoof in a circle a dozen times. “Your 500 record. Gladius used to have the all-time high of 1100 laps on that thing. I was sure somepony had threatened you into it or something, but I was even more happy that his name would be gone forever after that.”

Dad clapped his hooves. “Oh, that. No, that was a bet with Dash.” He smiled and put a hoof on my shoulder. “That’s how you were born!”

I cringed. “Why would you tell me that?”

Grandma cackled. “Anything for that rainbow tail, huh? A menace, that’s what you are.”

I feel violated.

“Hang,” Grandma continued, “if you were there for the worst of them and then the reforms, what landed you in Trottingham?”

Grandpa sighed and rested his cheek on his hoof. “Ponies knew whose son I was. If I’d gotten his orange mane, I’d look as much like him as you do Sweet Wing. I got kicked out.”

She couldn’t believe it. “You? Kicked out? What for?”

He shrugged. “The official statement was that I’d only gotten in in the first place because of my relation to Gladius. I was more than happy to go, mind you.” Then he leaned over wearily and held his head with his hoof. “Of course, I eventually had to tell my mother what happened and she kicked me out too. ‘What was even the point of you if you aren’t a Wonderbolt?’ she said. I… don’t know why I thought she’d take me back. I guess I just expected her to. That’s what family is supposed to do, isn’t it? She was always an awful, selfish, old whore, but she was my mother, wasn’t she? I suppose she wasn’t.”

Grandma covered her mouth. “Goddess, Hang.”

He chuckled. “She hadn’t been in my life much either.” His eyes drifted up to the past. “While I was looking for a place to sleep that night, I found a poster with an ad for weather ponies. Anypony with decent wings and a decent understanding of the weather was welcome. Advance pay for those willing to move. There were a couple cities on the ad and I rolled a die. Didn’t matter where I went, just that I could get away from… here.”

Grandpa looked between the two mares. “I’d been in Trottingham for a few weeks when I first met Downy. I thought Sweet Wing had followed me somehow. I was floored to see her, but I quickly found out that you two are about opposites in personality for as similar as you looked.”

Grandma chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Sweet Wing rubbed her forehead. “You’re telling me.”

I raised my hoof. “I have a question.”

Grandpa lowered his brows at me but then pointed a hoof. “Shoot, buddy.”

I motioned to him and Sweet Wing. “How did you two meet? I feel like this is kinda important, but she’s been mentioned off-hoof like a building that’s always in the background that everypony knows.”

Sweet Wing covered her face. “That’s a painfully blunt observation, Prism.”

Dad put a hoof on my shoulder. “It’s been a while, but buddy, phrasing.”

Goddess, even I treat my own step-grandma like a background character. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, it’s always been like this,” she said, clearly not fine with it. The old mare was practically on the verge of tears.

Grandpa put a wing around her. “It’s not fine. I’m sorry, I do this to you too.” Sighing and holding his wife, Grandpa drifted back. “We went to school together. Was one of the few times I was free from my mother, that I had the chance to be a normal child for a while. High school wasn’t mandatory back then, so I knew I didn’t have long, but I tried to be friends with the ponies I met there. But, unlike a majority of them, I wasn’t a normal kid. I didn’t know how to interact with ponies at all. I could fly and I could race, but I didn’t know anything else.

“Sweet Wing was nice to everypony. A meek, pretty little thing, but not somepony to stand out. Outshined and left behind by brighter personalities and talents around her. Every pony would forget she was there, and since I was never invited to anything, we were always left alone together. She treated me with respect and wanted to be my friend. She was somepony who would give me the time of day at all, so I attached myself to her.

“I wasn’t a very talkative kid so she would talk and I would listen. Her life felt like a fantasy to me, something so… utterly foreign to my own upbringing that I felt like I might taint it somehow if I was ever too involved with it. I kept information to strict reports and just said what was going on. I’m sure there were cracks in my facade, but I didn’t want to ruin the appearance of being ‘normal’ around her.”

Sweet Wing then cozied up to him. “I always wanted to know what was going on with him, but one day I found bruises on him and he clammed up after that. I couldn’t imagine what it was like and I wanted to help him somehow, but I didn’t know anything. Outside the few in the Wonderbolts, the inner workings of the group were totally unknown to the public, much less to kids who might one day be aiming for them. On top of being a mare, I wasn’t much of a strong flier either, so I couldn’t chase after him. I decided to go into nursing in the first place because I wanted to help him, but in the end… he never did open up to me. I thought it was a good thing that he was going into the academy, I thought it was a good thing he was going to be a Wonderbolt, and then, all the sudden, I couldn’t find him anywhere.”

Grandpa took his wing back and leaned over the table. “I didn’t want to drag her away from her family and everything she had here. An older and younger sister, one of which still lives around Cloudsdale and has her own family. Friends that were just as normal as she was, not plagued with my problems.” He shook his head. “Wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to be telling ponies I was leaving.”

Grandma rubbed her chin. “That sure does explain why you were so clingy. Since you’re being so honest today, what did you see in me, Hang? I might’ve been an airheaded little teenager back then, but I can’t say my personality has changed much.”

He motioned to the two mirror-like old mares. “Well, clearly, there’s a trend here.” Then he stared Grandma down for a long moment before letting his eyes fall back to the table. “But, the terrible truth is that you reminded me of my mother.”

She slapped her knee. “Ha! That’s what I thought. Mare must’ve been just as horrible as you tell it for that to be true. Ha ha!”

“Downy, please.” Sweet Wing reached out. “You’re not that bad.”

Surprised, Grandpa turned to her. “What? Did you meet her?”

Sweet Wing put her hooves together on the table. “I couldn’t chase you, but I knew how to gather information. I found you on the hospital’s medical records. She’d been listed as your next of kin, and I went to see her.” Her eyes went wide and she let out a breath. “It wasn’t a very pleasant meeting.”

“No,” Grandpa went on. “It’s hard to imagine anypony could be as bad as Cherry Knot was. No matter how demanding or angry Downy would get with me, there was never any violence and we… usually worked things out.”

Dad rubbed his temples in pain. “Goddess, it’s not any better hearing it from the other side.”

Didn’t Grandma say that Sweet Wing came to see them at one point after Dad was born? How did that happen if he never told anypony? “So, wait, how did you ever meet Sweet Wing again?”

“Hold on, let me guess.” Grandma put a hoof up. “I went to see my parents after we found out about Soarin the first time, and they said they would be fine with me returning so long as he was the right race. When that didn’t happen, neither of us knew anything about having pegasi kids and I needed information. Only so many ponies on the weather team were married, let alone had kids, so I asked him to go see his mother, not knowing any of this. It was then, wasn’t it?”

Sweet Wing nodded. “I was on my lunch break when I saw him fly past the hospital. I chased him down and asked him what had happened and where he’d gone and then he… in his very dry way, told me. I’d helped deliver a number of foals at that point so I knew a lot on the subject and told him what I could, but I was… I want to say 'devastated,' but that doesn’t feel like a strong enough word…”

Grandma shook her head. “No, it’s two words you want. 'Heart broken.'” She turned to Grandpa. “And here I thought you’d actually gotten your mother’s advice.”

Grandpa chuckled. “Oh, no, she only entertained me long enough to hear what had happened, then she shoved me right back out as soon as she knew. Can’t imagine she would’ve had much advice to give in the first place based on my upbringing.”

“Figures,” Grandma spat. She pointed a hoof at me. “Hope you realize how good you’ve got it, kiddo. The steps that got you here weren’t exactly pictures out of a story book.”

I raised my hooves in defense. “Yeah, I definitely know that.” I hugged Dad. “I had a great childhood and I’m very thankful for that.”

“Good.” Then, she turned on Sweet Wing. “It took you eight years to work up the courage to come see him again after that?”

The old pegasus mare held her head. “What was I supposed to do? I had a career and friends, and I couldn’t just disappear to chase after him, especially after he’d told me he’d gotten married and was having a kid!”

Dad lowered his muzzle. “But you eventually did. Why?”

It was a lot more of a pointed question, but I would bet he meant it. Thinking about what Grandma told us a few years back, meeting Sweet Wing was what finally made her cut ties with Grandpa, tearing Dad’s world in half.

Ashamed, her face fell. “Oh, you know why, don’t you? I couldn’t let go. I was worried all the time and I could never get him off my mind. I never met anypony else. I felt like I needed to see him again just to… to put those feelings away, forever.”

Mixed feelings fought for a place on Dad’s face. He didn’t seem satisfied with that but didn’t ask any more questions either.

Grandma clapped her hooves. “Well, I think that about answers any lingering questions anypony may have. Hang was traumatized as a kid because of the Wonderbolts and I suppose he has every right to be. Not that he should be pushing those fears onto either of you.” Then she offered Dad a hoof. “Chin up a bit, kiddo. At least Sweet Wing loves your father.” Staring at Grandpa for a while, she rubbed her chin. “Maybe in the heat of the moment when I was young, but I doubt we would’ve lasted this long together.”

Spite painted on his face, Grandpa got up. “You didn’t see fit to give it a chance, so I suppose we wouldn’t have. Not that it matters now. I’m going to order a pizza. Anypony want some?”

Grandma gave him a toothy smile. “Sure, Hang. The boys and I would love to have a pizza with you.”

The story was in the air now, but so was a thick veil of tension. I was still feeling the tingle of that rainbow shot, but that didn’t make the simmering hostility between Dad and the elders in the room any easier to bear. Dinner was fairly quiet with Grandma doing all the talking, at least trying to liven up the room. In the end, she never did. After helping her into a late sky taxi and making sure she got to her hotel, I flew back to the barracks. If nothing else, at least I can be sure they won’t be fighting at my wedding.

14 - Old Ties, New Ties

I felt dehydrated with a headache in the morning, but after a shower and about a gallon of water, I was back to normal. The show at noon went pretty much exactly as planned, even though Pigeonhole had to correct course a couple times during the performance. This one was mostly basic aerobatics, a few Wonderbolt synchronous spins, and a ‘low’-altitude color drag at the end, spelling out ‘C Team 2028.’

All things considered, it could’ve gone much worse, and though they weren’t happy about not being the lead, Nightingale and Typhoon made it through without an argument. Siccoro has a good amount of star power in his own right, but for Goddess knows why, I got spotlighted once during a group maneuver. It was annoying, but I improvised into one of Dad’s tricks since he was in the audience and that got a cheer from the crowd.

Other than that, all things went according to plan. All my family, save Haze, had shown up for this one. I met them outside the arena after we were released. “Hey!” I called.

Mom jumped and practically tackled me to the ground. “Ah, my baby did his first show as a Wonderbolt! I’m so proud of you, buddy!”

I managed to stabilize before we hit the ground with Mom rubbing her face against me while Dad helped catch us. “Geez, Dash, relax.” He patted my shoulder though, a smile on his face too. “You did good though. I’m proud of you too, buddy.”

“How can I relax!” Mom popped off me, pointing herself at Dad. “He did the thing! He’s in, for real! It’s all real now!” She rubbed her forehead in disbelief. “I said this would happen months after he came out of me, and now… oh, Goddess, it’s been almost twenty years.” She teared up. “He’s a Wonderbolt!”

And then Dad caught Mom to hold her while she cried. “Yep. He sure is.”

Grandpa Bow and Grandma Windy came up next. “Look at you, champ!” the old stallion said. “Another rainbow mane in the Bolts already! I’d say I could hardly believe it, but given who your parents are, I can’t say I expected anything else. Well done.”

“Rainbow, please, you’re embarrassing your son,” Grandma said.

“I’m not crying, you’re crying!” Mom said, still crying.

Grandma Windy rolled her eyes, then came over and hugged me. “Whether or not anypony expected anything, don’t forget that you are the one who made it here. It’s nopony else’s work but yours that earned you this spot. I’m proud of you, Prism.”

Grandma Downy, Grandpa Hang, and Sweet Wing all approached next. Grandma Downy said, “Kiddo, that was great! That was one of Soarin's tricks you did when they spotlighted you, wasn’t it? You told me what you called it before, but…”

“Oscillating screw turn, Mom,” Dad said. “It’s just a screw turn with a vertical elliptical added to it. I don’t think I ever taught him that in particular, though.”

I shook my head. “No, but I was watching some of the early practice recordings the other day. You used to do it a lot.”

Grandma Downy nodded. “He sure did. He always loved to copy the screw turns they’d do in the Trottingham shows even when he was a little thing.”

“You…” Grandpa Hang began. “You had… a great performance, Prism. You really are a talent.” He rubbed at his chin, not sure what to say. “Did you know they were going to spotlight you? There were a few things in the performance that felt a little odd, but that seemed wholly out of line with the rest of the show.”

Oh boy, another land mine. “It… was a late addition. My sponsor wanted this added in so Captain Spitfire made it happen.”

Grandpa nodded. “I see, I see. You made good use of it, I suppose.”

Sweet Wing clapped her hooves. “I thought you were wonderful, Prism! Soarin’s first performance here was a lot like yours way back when.” She held her cheeks, grinning at the thought. “Ah, no matter how much time passes, I never get tired of seeing these. Your team has a lot of talented performers. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many stars on one team.”

Stars, that’s a word for them. “Yeah, well, we didn’t really even practice much for this performance anyways. Captain Spitfire was sure we would be ready and we only spent a couple days on it. The next one ought to be a lot more… involved.”

And by 'involved,' I meant that we’d be recreating a historical battle having Raptor and I lead the two groups while we did tandem maneuvers. Tandem maneuvers I would have to do… with Raptor. Not looking forward to it.

Grandma Downy sighed. “Oh, that’s too bad. I would’ve liked to see it, but these things are just so dang expensive.” She pulled at the cloudwalk band on her neck. “Got to return it to the rental company when I get back to Ponyville. Does the C-team ever perform outside of Cloudsdale?”

A familiar, loud, raspy voice answered from above us. “No, they only take races in other places. A-team rarely performs at home and B-team has about an even split.”

Mom hopped up in the air to hug her old friend. “Captain! What are you doing here?”

Spitfire hugged her back. “I saw you guys in the audience. Thought I ought to come say hi. It’s been a while, huh?” She and Mom sank to the floor together. “Is this the whole family? I thought you said you had a brother, Prism.”

Mom practically had a panic attack. “Uh, he’s at home back in Ponyville. He’s… afraid of heights, ya know. Haze… doesn’t need to be up here.”

Dad coughed. “Yeah, that. You’ve met my parents, right, Spitfire?”

The yellow mare stared at the yellow stallion for a long time, then looked at both Grandma and Sweet Wing, one after the other and back again. “I… don’t think so.”

Dad scratched at his mane, irritated. “This is my mother, Downy Snow.”

The old earth pony smiled. “Hey, nice to meet ya.”

“Likewise.”

“And this is my Dad and Stepmom, Hang Glider and Sweet Wing.”

Spitfire blinked. “Oh! You’re… nice to meet you.”

Grandpa and Sweet Wing shook her hoof in turn. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was confused by Grandma Downy and Sweet Wing standing next to each other, but Grandpa Hang had all her attention. He nodded. “Nice to meet you too.” There was a short pause. “Thanks for taking care of my son over the years.”

I’d never seen Spitfire so stunned in front of anypony. It’s like she was seeing a ghost. Eventually, she did tear herself away to talk to Sweet Wing. “You work at Cloudsdale General Hospital, don’t you?”

“Ah, yes, I do. I remember seeing you in performances with Soarin, but have we met outside of that?”

Spitfire looked like she had a lot she wanted to say, but didn’t. “Probably. I’ve been in and out of there a lot over the years.”

“You have?” Mom asked.

As if she’d forgotten she was there, Spitfire jumped at Mom’s question. “What? Oh, yeah. Mom’s got some…” she shook her head. “Uh, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She turned to me and gave me a quick pat on the back. “You did good today. Next one isn’t for a month, but we’ve got a 300 race coming up in a couple weeks. Have your fun, but I expect you to win when we get back to work, got it?”

I saluted. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good.” She waved to everypony. “It was nice seeing you all! Hope to see you again at our future events.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be there,” Mom said. “See ya later, Captain!”

Spitfire tried to smile but couldn’t seem to make it happen. “Yeah. See ya, Dash.” Then she took off.

Grandpa Bow put a wing around me. “So she’s your Captain too now, huh, champ? Spitfire’s been in the business for a long time, hasn’t she?”

“She’s not actually a ‘captain’ anymore,” I explained, “it’s just that I’ve only ever really known her as ‘Captain’ Spitfire. She’s the head instructor.”

The old rainbow stallion nodded. “Right, right. She seems to think a lot of you if she expects you to win your next race. Must be nice to have a trainer that believes in you, huh?”

Well. “You could say that, Grandpa.”

Grandma Windy joined the wing hug. “As long as you’re happy, we’re happy, Prism. How about we go have that dinner we talked about the other day? We can celebrate your first performance and your upcoming wedding all at once!”

My eyes shot open and I looked around to make sure none of the team heard that. For their safety, they definitely don’t need to know about it. I didn’t see anypony I knew in the crowd leaving the arena, so I let out a breath of relief.

“Sure, Grandma. You guys go ahead, I’m gonna go shower and I’ll meet you at the restaurant in a bit.”

Our lunch at a fancy place in downtown Cloudsdale went fairly well, and Grandma Downy seemed to get along real well with Grandma Windy and Grandpa Bow. Those three talked while the rest of us listened. Mom would chime in every now and again to talk about me or Haze or how things used to be in the Bolts, but the rest of us stayed quiet. It wasn’t as if yesterday magically hadn’t happened, and Dad was having a hard time looking at Grandpa Hang or Sweet Wing.

When we split up, I went home with Mom, Dad and Grandma Downy since I was off tomorrow. It’d been a long week and I was ready to be in the forelegs of my wife-to-be for a few hours. After dropping Grandma off, when we got home, Chesette’s car was already in the driveway, right next to the second ‘family’ car, which was really just Dad’s excuse to get one for Haze.

“We’re back!” Mom announced, kicking the door open.

“Hey, Mom,” Haze said.

“Hey, Mom,” Cheesette said. They were at the dining room table playing the King of Games trading card game, also known as KOG TCG.

A shiver ran through Mom from her head to her tail like in a cartoon. “Ugh, Cheesette, please.”

Dad and I pushed through from behind her and I joined them at the table.

“What? It’s true in like a week now, right?” Then Cheesette turned to me. “Hey, babe, I saw the performance!” And she kissed my cheek.

Mom sat, rubbing her temples. “He’s a Wonderbolt, he’s getting married! What happened? Weren’t your dad and I tossing you around on the floor like a little while ago?”

“Dash, your ‘little while ago’ was like fifteen years ago. Legally speaking, he’s an adult now. Also, shut the door please? AC isn’t cheap down here.”

Mom put a hoof on the door and slid with it as it shut, falling to the floor. “I feel like I’ve been in a coma or something. You used to be so little! You all used to be so little! Where did the time go?”

“Uh, if memory serves me correctly,” Haze answered, “about twelve years were devoted to fretting over me, and the rest was only about half devoted to fretting over me. Does that sound right to everypony?”

“Yep.” We all agreed. I’d never say Mom neglected me or anything, but up until Grandma Downy became a big part of our lives, she was pretty much glued to Haze.

But the scene earlier was priceless. “You should’ve seen how she froze when Captain Spitfire asked if you’d come to see me perform today.”

My little brother put his chin on his hoof and stared at Mom. “I was perfectly willing to go…”

Mom shot up and raced to the table. “No! No, no, no! Not in a million years! Never again!” She’d just about wrapped herself around him. “I let you drive, I let you go wherever you want in Ponyville, but Cloudsdale is off the table! I don’t care if the cloudwalk bands work or if there are nets or any of that! Once is enough! Never again!”

Haze untangled her from himself. “It’s fine, Mom. Your feelings are allowed to be more important than facts for about…” He looked at his phone. “One year, seven months and twelve days.”

She was offended. “Wha—! You’re just gonna up and abandon me the minute you turn eighteen, too?”

I threw my hooves up. “Who said I was abandoning you?”

Cheesette wrapped her forelegs around my shoulders. “Me, I did. You’re mine now. She can have you, but only when I say so, ya dig?”

Haze cackled. “Damn, she just came out and said it!”

Mom fell to her knees, laying her face on the table. “See? You’re leaving me! Nopony said you could do that!”

Dad came around and wrapped himself around her. “Dash, Dash, Dash. They were bound to get taken away the minute they were born. I mean, come on, they look like me. How could the mares resist?”

“You’re lucky I like your stupid face,” Mom grumbled.

“I like your stupid face too.” And Cheesette stuck her tongue in my mouth, and my whole family was right there, and my body was very confused.

Mom covered her face. “It’s over, it’s so over!”

Dad put a hoof on the table. “Like, I’m the father of the son, I more or less support this, but you shouldn’t be doing that in front of your dad. Probably wouldn’t fly so well.”

She pulled off, licking her lips and then pressing her cheek to mine. “He can fight me for all I care! Ah, one more week and he’ll never bother me about you again! You’re not gonna be able to fly straight for a while.”

Haze cringed. “Dude. Keep it to yourselves.”

Mom sure had a point. The reality of it all is setting in and no amount of years getting off to videos on the internet was going to prepare me for what happens next week. “Y-yeah.”

Cheesette rolled her eyes and picked her cards back up. “Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport. It’s about you today, but it's about me next week!” She put a card down and then picked up her deck. “Anyways, I play Snake-eyes Ash.”

“Ash Blossom effect!” Haze responded.

She put the deck down, then put another card on the field from her hoof. “Called by the grave.”

“Psy-Framegear Delta!”

“Ash Blossom.”

Haze dropped his cards and covered his head. “It’s so over.”

Chessette nodded. “You wanna enter the scoop phase, buddy?”

My little brother sighed, picking up his cards and putting them back on his deck. “I really thought I had you this time.”

She shrugged. “What can I say? You can prepare all you want, but if you don’t get a little lucky, a psy-frame tech isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

I blinked. “I don’t understand this game anymore.”

Cheesette patted my head. “It’s okay, it’s… way more complicated than it used to be. I’ve been playing KOG online on stream lately, and it’s been doing really well.”

“It’s that streamer money,” Haze declared. “I couldn’t afford anything like your deck. I’m playing with tier 2 rogue garbage by comparison.”

Cheesette chuckled. “Sounds like you need a job, dude.” Then she clapped her hooves. “Speaking of jobs, we need to go see Miss Rarity!”

“We do?” I asked.

“We do! I got a suit picked out for you, but we need to make sure it fits.”

Dad frowned. “He already has a suit, doesn’t he?”

Cheesette shook her puffy pink mane. “Not for my wedding he doesn’t!”

“Oh.” Dad rubbed at his neck anxiously. “Uh, do I need to—?”

“Nah, she owes Mom big time, so this one is on the house.”

He sighed in relief. “Whew. We’re friends and all, but even with the discount, the last suit I had to buy from Rarity was… not cheap.”

Cheesette rolled her eyes. “Well, neither is catering a last-minute event for about thirty very rich ponies. I get a dress, he gets a suit, and accounts are squared.”

Mom pulled her head off the table. “Oh, yeah, I remember that. Pinkie complained about it for like a week afterward. Everypony in this town seems to get their knees dirty for Diamond Dust.”

Before she could even make the joke, I put my hooves over Cheesette’s mouth. “I’m here, so should we go now?” And I let her go to respond:

“Yes!”

Dad got up and moved to the couch. “Alright, have fun, guys. Are you coming back here, or… what’s the plan?”

Mom pointed a hoof in Cheesette’s face. “And no funny business! Cheese and Pinkie were insufferable back when they were getting married, and it’s a wonder that she wasn’t pregnant before the fact.”

Cheesette smiled darkly. “Oh, but funny is my business, Mom. We’re gonna cover this house in grandfoals. How about that?”

Something about bricks. Mom could’ve fallen to the floor. “G-g-g-grandfoals!? I-I… no! No, no, no! I’m only in my forties, how…? But…? No, no! It can’t be!”

“Babe, you’re gonna kill her, give her a rest,” I said.

Her eyes had gone wide, and she was blushing and panting. “There will be no rest! Unprotected, X-rated, everywhere, all the tim-mmmm—”

She was too hyped up to be stopped now, so I just covered her mouth and threw her over my shoulders. Cheesette was a… full-figured mare, and being an earth pony, she was the heaviest of the pony races. I wouldn’t call her light, and she certainly weighs more than me. Still, I could manage carrying her well enough. “Yeah, we’ll probably come back for dinner, Dad.”

He turned on the TV to the sports channel. “Yeah, buddy, just let me know.” Then he thought for a minute. “And, not that I care, but it would be better for you mentally if you waited until after the ceremony. We’re ritualistic creatures, so ceremonies mean something to us. I wouldn’t stop you or anything, but you shouldn’t deprive each other of the first night of your lives together.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shakily, Mom made her way to the couch, curling up next to Dad. “Me…? A… a… a grandmother?”

“Yep,” Dad said. “Crazy how that happens, huh?”

“Grandfoals? But… but it just can’t be!”

“Given the way she talks on stream,” Haze began, “I’m honestly surprised you don’t already have them.”

“But that can’t be!”

The original building that was Carousel Boutique, the very first one anyways, was a small, totally round two-story building that looked a lot like a two-tiered cake. These days, it served mostly as a relic of the old Ponyville, and when Miss Rarity wanted to get away to work on things, she would disappear up to the top floor here.

The interior was mostly filled with storage containers and this place acted more like a warehouse for the much larger Rarity’s Boutique stores found within Neon Dreams and at the base of her office building within District 4. Forgotten, but not by everypony—there were a hoofful of clients Miss Rarity would take and serve here, specifically in her upstairs workroom.

As the story goes, when she’d just moved out of her parents' house and had this building made with a loan she took from one of the oldest real estate tycoons in the city, one Filthy Rich, she actually lived up here. She eventually paid the loan back and made enough to buy herself a small house, but the bed she originally had in this place was still here in the event she ever burned herself out working on something.

It was on this bed that Cheesette and I sat as we watched Miss Rarity put the finishing touches on my new suit.

“So… what about your dress?” I asked.

She looked around the old workshop. Other than a hoofful of mannequins wearing half-finished ensembles, boxes and shelves full of fabric and thread, and the old mare with her sewing machine, there was nothing else in here. “Well, it was here.”

“Ah!” Miss Rarity scoffed. “You can’t just show him your dress! He’s not supposed to see it until you’re in it on the altar!”

She frowned. “Is… is that right?”

“Of course, it is!” Miss Rarity pressed a button, then draped a very shiny cerulean blue vest over a mannequin. “There’s a procedure to follow here! It's a tradition, and a good one at that!”

Cheesette giggled behind her hoof. “Interesting thing for you to say…”

Miss Rarity rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, poke your fun! I was a teenager once, I know all too well what I did and how I was." She leaned against the mannequin for support. “You’re still teenagers and already this. Ah! What a cruel world it is. Happily married parents and whole families and already their children are pairing off. Prism, was being a genetic miracle not enough for you?”

“Apparently not.”

She sighed, gathering all the pieces of the suit. “Ah, and brash confidence. If only I’d been twenty years younger.”

Cheesette’s hoof started to rise and I could feel her dark aura spilling out.

I grabbed said hoof and pulled it back down. “Well, it’s too late anyways. I’m taken.”

“Right you are. Now, come here and try this on. Rainbow sent me your measurements, but I only trust her so far with these sorts of things.”

“I mean, Mom is good with math.”

Miss Rarity huffed as she passed me a black button up. “Oh, she is now, but that was not always the case. I can’t tell you what a mess it was the first time I tried to make a dress for her with her specifications. The whole thing was awful, an entire bolt of fabric in the trash, totally unsalvageable. Imagine, your mother twenty years ago trying to tell me she had a figure like Applejack. I even accounted for the lie and it was still horribly baggy!”

I got the shirt on and it fit nicely, so that was a good sign. It was very soft and felt good against my coat. Easy to get my wings through and not too stiff either, but it kept its shape. “Mom was never known for her honesty.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

The pants were navy, and though they looked like regular dress pants, they were also sort of stretchy and easy to move in. If I had to work or something, I could probably do it in these. The shiny vest was next and it had slots and buttons on the back for my wings. It felt ‘silky’ which probably meant it was made of silk. I kinda liked how shiny it was. It was about the same color as our Wonderbolt’s uniform. She had me put on a pure white tie in a windsor knot, and then the navy blazer. The buttons on it were in the shape of my rainbow-block fortified tower cutiemark.

“Well? How is it?” Miss Rarity asked.

Looking myself over, I had to say, this was a lot better than my black suit. That was a normal one that I wore with a white button up like everypony else, but because my coat is near white, I always felt like it clashed with me a lot. The black shirt with the navy suit looked better against my coat, and the shiny cyan vest and white tie really went together well with my mane. I’d never worn a vest before either, but I think I really like this one.

“It feels good.” I turned to Cheesette. “Does it look good?”

She had her hooves over her face and she was pulling on her lower lip. “I hope the castle has a good mop…”

“Wow! I didn’t need to hear that!” Miss Rarity circled around me. “Spread your wings for me, darling.”

I did as I was told, and she checked both sides, top and bottom. “I suppose that does it, then.” She stared at the suit, shaking her head. “Married at eighteen in this day and age. And a Wonderbolt to boot. You really are something special, Prism dear.”

I don’t know why, but that made me feel good. She really helped us out navigating all that mess at the beginning of this and I’d always thought she was impressive for managing everything she does. It’s not like when somepony tells me that because I’m a Wonderbolt or I fly well. This was for something more important than any of that.

“Thanks, Miss Rarity.”

She smiled and patted my shoulder. “It’s my pleasure. Now, take that off and go take care of your mare.” She used her magic to bring her tablet to herself. “And wrap it up! The world only needs so many pearls and whiskies.”

Ooh, awkward.

Even more awkward, a couple little plastic packets flew into Cheesette’s lap. “You might as well make use of these. I certainly don’t need them anymore. Now then, hop to it, I’m not quite done with this yet.”

Feeling my cheeks, I quickly disrobed and returned the suit. After thanking her, we both awkwardly made our way to Cheesette’s car. She put the key in and turned the engine but didn’t go anywhere. She stared blankly out the window with her hooves on the wheel. The packets had found their way into the bottom of the cupholder.

It was still early, only about four in the afternoon. Dinner would be around six, and we had time to kill. I could feel my pulse everywhere. The blowing AC and the rumbling engine of the finely tuned car were nothing to the beating of my own heart.

She would do it if I asked. If I said the word, we could even do it here. There would be no consequences. We were getting married in a week anyways. What would it hurt if we did it now? But this is exactly what Dad was talking about before we left the house. What did he mean by ‘the first night of our lives together’? We’ve had lots of nights together. We never went all the way, but we’ve done other things before. What would happen if we didn’t wait? How would it be if we just… did it now?

I swallowed. “Do you—”

She put her hoof on mine. “Yes.” And she looked me deep in the eyes, down and through, beyond to my most inner parts. “But we should wait.”

Her eyes fell and drifted to the wheel. “We’re forever. We’ve got plenty of time. We’re not gonna make a pearl or a whiskey. Our kids are gonna grow up in a full house with lots of love and nothing to worry about. No struggle to restart a dying orchard, no empty home just for them. I’ll be there, and you’ll be there, and we won’t have to lie to them about anything. And I don’t want to lie to them about my first time for real, either.”

For once, rather than excite me, her touch had a cooling effect. Warm with love, not burning with lust. The last throbbing embers left with a breath. “Yeah.” I deflated into the seat, taking in all the cool AC. “I don’t want to lie to anyone about anything either. With as fucked as Grandpa’s family is, the last thing I want to do is set up a rock to trip over later.”

“Oh?” She put the car in reverse. “Why don’t you tell me about that while we go for a drive? It’s been a while since we just went for a loop around the city. This’ll be… the last time we get to do it before we share names.”

“Alright.”

15 - What I Like About You

Ponyville was a very, very large city. If you were to put a dome around it, the highest height would be close to the same level a sky city normally sits at, and you wouldn’t be able to see the edge of the dome until you were close to the outer rings. A massive, horizon bending place that seems to go on forever. However, the Princess had a decent amount of foresight when it came to building it, so each ring has a road that goes all the way around its outer edge. This far out the speed limit sits at the maximum of eighty five miles per hour, and it will still take you a couple hours to circumnavigate the whole thing by car.

To the west, you could see the grasslands and woods give way to the deserts further out. Train tracks extended beneath the highway on and out further, old systems and newer high speed lines with roads following along them. Rural empty space, nothing to worry about but snakes and scorpions. It was a nice view and one I never got tired of. Ponyville is a big place. It’s easy to forget the much larger world outside of it.

As the day drooped and evening overtook the sky, we made it to the eastern side of the loop, speeding along with the few cars around us. Here, you could see The Dragonspine Range and even the vague shape of Canterlot Castle. The mountain capital had become almost like a vertical version of Ponyville with big buildings shooting up like spikes on the mountain side all around the castle. Nothing was to ever be taller than the castle, however, so that has remained at the peak to this day. Even the buildings in Ponyville revere the Castle’s status.

It was heavily forested this way: White Tail to the north, Everfree to the east, and Froggy Bottom bog to the south-east. These were places I was told not to go to as a child. Magic ran wild in the Everfree, the bog is dark and can suck you in. It’s become a problem recently since the outer districts have taken up space that once was the forest and the bog. Ponies don’t like moving out into them because it’s ‘creepy’ out there. Princess Twilight threw a fit at the last family gathering about how the unnatural magic of the two places was throwing her city building out of whack. If nopony really wanted the prices she was practically taking at a loss to get them out there, she’d have to build further west, taking her castle out of the exact center of the city. It was a reminder that even ponies like her have their quirks.

The wedding next week will be the first time I’ve seen her since then too. I guess this will be like one of those big family gatherings, just with even more ponies. The families of all my friends, all of my family, the families of all the ponies who’d been in my life from birth to now. The apples alone ought to be a third of the audience. Given the timing of everything, I should probably ask Spitfire for Monday off. Between what Cheesette and I are gonna do and any more rainbow wine than I had the other day, I’m gonna be miserable when I get up in the morning, provided I get up early enough for that in the first place.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how little I actually know about my own wedding. “Babe.”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s gonna be my best man?”

She tapped on the wheel to the rhythm of the music we’d been playing. “Well, your groomsmen are Ace, Cheese, Fallacy, and your brother, so any of them I guess. Who do you want it to be?”

It’d have to be my best friend. “Fal would be my first pick.”

“I’m honored!” he said, appearing in the back seat of the car. My half-pony friend gave me a hug. “Though I can’t say I know what I’ll be expected to do. You guys are younger than I am, already getting married. I figured Mister Cheese would’ve killed you before you made it this far.”

Cheesette looked back at him with a stink eye, but quickly returned her attention to the road. “I really should have expected this.”

He scoffed. “Oh, don’t do that, then I’ll have to get more creative the next time I’m mentioned. These pop-ins take a lot of work, you know?”

She let out a breath. “Right. Well, basically, you should arrange a party for him the night before, and by you, I mean you should ask Mom to do that because I’m sure she already has. You and the guys will go out and have a good time before the wedding in the afternoon. We’ll have the after party after that, and then I’ll be pregnant the next morning.”

Fallacy’s eyes popped out of his skull for a minute. “Oh, geez, you’re not being shy about that anymore.”

“Nope. I’ve been waiting two years for this night to come and when it comes, I’m gonna have it.” She slapped her pillowy thighs. “Right there.”

The feelings from earlier began to burn again.

Fallacy picked up the packets in the cupholder. “Goodness me, did I interrupt something here?”

I grabbed the condoms and threw them back. “No, Miss Rarity gave us these.”

“I wasn’t gonna use them either way anyways,” Cheesette announced.

Fallacy shrank down and sat on the console between us. “Right, I forget that you’re also known as ‘Hoodrat’ on the internet. Are you still playing that Snake-eyes deck, or have you moved on to another game?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I’ll stick with KOG for a while. Gonna have a tournament on Thursday, you should join.”

A deck of KOG cards appeared above Fallacy and began floating up and around him in a circle. “Oh, perhaps. Haze has yet to convince me that Snake-eyes can be beaten. I was told his duels with you this morning were less than successful. The game doesn’t seem like it’s in a very healthy state when half the same cards appear in every deck.”

“It probably isn’t, but I still enjoy it. It’s over fast and I can play with a lot of my viewers in a short time.”

I felt like I’d become the third wheel. “Okay, cool, but like, the wedding?”

“Oh, right.” Cheesette took the car out of gear and began slowing down to get on the off-ramp back into Ponyville. “So there’s your bachelor party with you and the other bachelors, and Mom is gonna give Fallacy my pendant so that he has it to give to you when they tell us to present them to each other.”

I’ve actually tried to propose about three times and I got her a different pendant each time. She accepted them all; it’s her dad who’s been in the way all this time. “Which one are you using?”

She smiled and pursed her lips at me. “It’s a secret. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to help out, so they made new ones for us using gems from the rock farm. I’m more excited to see what you think of yours.”

Her grandparents? “I don’t think I’ve ever met your grandparents.”

She clicked her tongue. “Nah, they don’t get many chances to leave the farm and my aunt is really particular about the ponies people bring to the farm. I’m sure you’ll get invited to come after this, but uh… ya know, my family is full of weirdos.”

I smiled and put my hoof on her cheek. “You’re my favorite weirdo.”

Blushing, she took the hoof. “Thanks, Sweetie Pie.”

Fallacy snapped his cards away. “This is clearly a date and I should go. Prism, please text me about what you’d like to do or… I suppose if you have free time after work, I can come to Cloudsdale or something. “

Cheesette put both her hooves back on the wheel. “Oh, you also need to make a toast to the groom during dinner. Think about that, and please write something heartfelt and not too embarrassing. Make it fun, but not too insulting.”

He snapped his phone to his miniature hooves and used magic white gloves to write down a note. “Fun but not too insulting, got it.”

The phone and the gloves disappeared in pink clouds and Fallacy grew enough to grab both of our hooves. “Well then, if I don’t see you again before the 5th, I wish you both a happily ever after.” He tied a magical red knot between our hooves, then let it fade away. “And Cheesette?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t break him. He has to go back to work at some point.”

She took her hoof back. “No promises.”

Fallacy licked his lips. “Welp. Good luck, Prism. I’m very happy for you both.”

“Thanks, man.”

Fallacy took a bow, and went back to whence he came, wherever that might have been.

Cheesette eyed me. “Did you know he was gonna do that?”

“I mean, yeah. It’s like part of their natures. Him and his dad, I mean. If you say, or even think about their names, they’ll know. It was really nice when I wanted to watch a new anime or something back in middle school because I’d just have to ask the air and he’d be there. I’ve known him a lot longer than I’ve known you, ya know.”

She frowned, bemused. “What, really? Haven’t we been around each other since we were born though?”

“We might’ve been, but we weren’t, like, friends until high school. Uncle Discord is one of Dad’s friends, and Aunt Shy has been Mom’s friend since they were kids. Mom taught Amity how to fly. I was over there a lot as a kid, and there’s that huge Ponyville park by my house. Back when we were really young, Fallacy would sometimes literally stick himself to me so Uncle Discord would have to come separate us to make him go home. We’ve been through a lot together.”

“Didn’t your mom teach Cotton how to fly too?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, but it’s not like your parents could’ve done it, and besides, Haze is the one who’s friends with him. I don’t think I even talked to Cheese much before we were in high school.”

“Hmm.” She pulled her mouth to the side, tilting her head. “I’m almost kinda jealous. I don’t really have a friendship like that.”

I put my hoof on her shoulder. “You have me, don’t you?”

She shrugged it off. “I do, but like, I don’t have friends like you and my parents do. Up until high school, I don’t think I spent much time with anypony other than my family. Cheese and I were always a pair wherever we went. Ponies had to be friends with both of us to be our friends when we were little and… well, we’re a lot more like Dad than we are Mom, and you know how Dad is.”

I had a vague idea of who her father was, but not a very good one. Dad knows Mister Cheese a lot better than I do. “Other than him not so subtly threatening to trade your virginity for my life, I really don’t know what he’s like. He’s funny and friendly I guess, but he’s never, like, personal with anypony.”

She pulled to a stop at an intersection. “And that’s a pretty good summary of it. Dad is perfectly happy to make jokes and talk about things that don’t matter too much, but rarely does he ever talk about his own feelings with anypony. Including us.”

Cheesette is really open with me, but does she express herself much when we’re in groups? Hoodrat isn’t exactly shy about anything. Sometimes even when she should be. “Are you saying that you guys are like that too?”

The light turned green. “Yeah, kinda. I blow things off and I’m not all that serious about anything other than you.”

“What about your pies? Aren’t you serious about baking?” It was her cutiemark after all.

She threw a hoof out. “Pies. Sure, it’s my talent and all that, I’ve never seen a pie I couldn’t bake, but like… I don’t want to devote my life to making pies, ya know? I like streaming, I like being with you, I think I’d like taking care of kids during the day, but the pies would just be… something to feed everypony with. And I’m sure I wouldn’t just make pies. It almost feels like my talent is, like, a non-factor in my life.”

I leaned back in the chair. “I mean, I’d know how that feels more than anypony, right? We aren’t finally getting married because I got a job working in architecture for some big-name construction company.”

She let her head fall to the side. “Yeah, but you’re still at least passionate about building things. It’s not just buildings either. It’s the model kits and blocks and toothpicks. Anything you can put your hooves on you have enough creativity to make something out of. You like to do it, you’re passionate about your work, it brings you joy and seeing you happy makes me happy. I guess I just… I wish I had that same kind of love for a hobby or something. You attract ponies and I really don’t.”

I leaned over and put my wing around her. “Babe, what’s this about? You attracted me didn’t you? You don’t have anything to get down on yourself for.”

She leaned over and kissed my cheek, then sat up to focus on driving. We were getting close to home. “Sometimes I wonder how I managed that.” She felt her stomach and pulled at it. “I’m not exactly a skinny fit mare or anything. And you’re… like a statue somepony carved out.”

“So what? Do I have to like someone because they’re, like, genetically ‘right’ for me? Are we supposed to color-coordinate our coats and manes? Can I not be with you because we aren’t the same race? Come on, you know better than that.”

Rather than turn into my neighborhood, Cheesette pulled into the park parking lot. She stopped the car and turned her full attention to me. “Be honest with me, alright?”

I unbuckled my seatbelt and scooted over, closing in on her. I couldn’t stop her from feeling whatever it was, but I could at least surround her to keep her from feeling anything else. “I’m always honest with you. What’s up?”

Cheesette blushed, looking ashamed at her lap, playing with my hoof. “If you could… if you could build somepony to be your perfect mare, what would she be like? And don’t give me any cheap bullshit either. I want the real deal.”

She’s really feeling self-conscious, huh? I slid further into the driver’s seat, scooting her into my lap and totally covering her with my wings. “So, when you say ‘real deal,’ what are we talking about exactly? Is this, like, fetish stuff? The mares I find the most attractive that turn on my lower brain? Or is this about a mare I’d actually want to spend my life with? Because the intersection of those two things is very narrow.”

She fell against my chest, still playing with my hoof. “All three. The body, the mind and the soul. What does she look like?”

I sucked in air through my teeth. “This is kinda awkward to say out loud. Are you sure you want this?”

Cheesette turned a sour face at me. “Yes! This is literally what I’m asking for!”

I patted her mane down. “Alright, alright.” I rubbed at my chin, feeling my clown beard stubble mixed with my coat. “I like mares with weight.”

“Weight?”

“Hefty mares, mares on the heavy side! Like, there’s a line to be drawn of course, but you know like… big butts, soft skin, fat teats. The kinda mare with enough for me to bury my face into, ya know? She’s gotta have a pretty face too, though it doesn’t really do it for me if she’s got the shape and not the smile.”

She held her chin. “I don’t know if I should be happy or offended. Like who? Is there a real pony you know like this or is it just, like, porn?”

I looked her directly in the eyes. “If I say names, will you promise to behave?”

Cheesette turned away. “So it’s somepony I know…”

“I’m not gonna say if you don’t promise.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine! I promise to behave.”

“So, when I was about eleven, I went on a trip to a beach in Applewood.”

“That’s not a name, babe.”

“And on that trip, we had bathing suits.”

“You keep tip-toeing there, buddy.”

“The pony who happened to give us those bathing suits was also there, in one of those bathing suits.”

She covered her eyes, shaking her head. “Bro.”

“It was the first time I’d ever popped a boner.”

“With the way you’re poking me, I’d bet another you would’ve accepted her offer earlier.”

“I—” I put a hoof over my heart, “—am a stallion with particular tastes. If I didn’t know her or anyone related to her, I probably would.”

“I can’t believe you’re into fat chicks!”

“She’s not fat!”

Cheesette scoffed. “Yeah, and I’m a supermodel.”

I pressed my cheek to hers. “You’re my supermodel!”

She groaned, then giggled. “I said no bullshit, remember? You’re not allowed to make me laugh.”

I wrapped my forelegs around her. “Too bad. Making you laugh is on the top of my priority list.”

She pressed her lips to mine and we kissed for a long moment. “Yeah, right behind getting me fat and heavy, huh?”

“No, I want you happy first. That’s a close second though. Next week, it can be on top.”

She smiled deviously. “I absolutely will be.” She turned toward the window, watching the sun set over Ponyville park. The light was golden at this hour, making all the bright green of the leaves and the grass feel warm and inviting. “So Miss Rarity gets you all hot and bothered, but she’s not somepony you’d want to be with?”

I gagged. “Ugh, dude, have you met Pearl? I could only stand her so much when we were kids, and I think I get more joy out of embarrassing her than I do hanging out with her. She’s prissy, high maintenance, hardly ever honest, least of all when it’s important, and she’s such a… normie. Sure, Pearl’s mom has got it goin’ on, but that’s a ‘nut and go,’ not a ‘protect and care.’”

Cheesette smirked and smothered a laugh. “Sounds like—no, no, I can’t!”

My smile died. “Sounds like…?”

She couldn’t contain it. “Your mom!”

Right in the heart. True pain, the worst pain I could ever feel. Pearl acts like Mom. “Why would you say that?”

Full on cackling, she managed to say, “You asked!”

I massaged the throbbing in my head. What an unpleasant revelation. “I really shouldn’t have.”

“Yep! Ah, what a… conflicting answer.” She shook her mane, trying to put all the pieces together. “Is it… is it because I’m ‘not fat,’ as you put it, that you asked me out in the first place?”

“What? Come on. I’ll accept that Miss Rarity is above a healthy weight, but you are absolutely not!”

She grabbed my hoof and made me rub her belly. “Oh, yeah, ‘right on the line’ is a healthy—” Then she looked down. “Goddess, dude.”

I looked away. “Did we not just discuss what that does for me?”

She licked her lips. “Nope, you’re right. I, uh… I just didn’t expect such an immediate response.”

“And now you know.”

“And now I know.” She coughed into her hoof. “So, what about somepony you’d want to be with? What is she like?”

This was actually a lot harder of a question to answer. If I wasn’t already with a mare I want to spend my life with, who would I be looking for? It would be easier to say what I wouldn’t want. “Since you don’t want me to just tell you what I like about you, I’ll say what I wouldn’t want in somepony. Is that fair?”

Chuckling, she said, “Starting by crossing your mother and Pearl off the list, huh?”

“Absolutely! Mom at least has her moments, but Pearl is just everything I don’t like about mares. A girly-girl obsessed with trends and fashion and gossip, totally stuck in the moment and only ever real when she’s forced to be. She’s ankle deep, ya know?”

Cheesette held a hoof up. “Alright, alright, I can accept the other stuff, but shallow is a step too far. She’s… dishonest with everypony. Including herself. But not shallow. She really cares a lot more than she lets on, and she would do anything for us.”

I’m not sure I believe that, but Cheesette is definitely closer to Pearl than I am. “Okay, I recant.”

She frowned at me. “Recant? Are the Wonderbolts teaching you Equestrian now?”

“Oh, no, it’s in the play Haze gonna be in later, Mom explained it to me the other day.”

“Right.”

I started over. “So, like, the bad mare traits, like being high strung and demanding, I find really grating, and Pearl has a lot of them, and Miss Rarity and Mom also have a lot of them. The good mare traits, like taking care of ponies and being sweet and friendly are things I really like in mares.”

She blew air out her muzzle. “Well, that sounds like just any nice fat mare would do it for you.”

I put on a serious face. “You’re not fat, really. Don’t put yourself down, I mean it.”

“Alright, alright.” She dropped the smirk and pressed herself to my chest. “It bothers me though. I’ve… never liked that about myself. Being overweight like this.”

“And you don’t have to! If you want to lose weight, then I’ll help you do it. I love more of you than just how you look.”

“Aww, baby.”

I leaned in and whispered. “Besides, I can make it so you’re temporarily fat every couple years.”

She drew a circle on my chest, a bashful face on. “You’re sending mixed messages, Sugarpie. You like a large sweet tea, and you’re telling me a medium is fine?”

In my opinion, she is a medium. “Size is just one thing, and if life were just sweet, everything would be boring. I like it spicy. She has to be able to fight back and play with me, ya know?”

“Oh? Does Pearl not fight with you?”

“Not in a fun way like we do. It’s play fighting, not real fighting. Like chemistry, a reaction between elements. Pearl is just a cocktail waiting to explode, but we have a good mix, and it’s never, like, real anger.” I scratched at my temple. This is hard to explain. “Like the way my parents are with each other. I want that for me. There for each other all the time, somepony always waiting for somepony else when they get home, taking care of things for each other, smiling and laughing when they’re together. Sweet tea isn’t as exciting as a carbonated soda.”

“Hmm. Caffeinated and bubbly with a little kick? I can get behind that.”

“Good, because you are that.”

She sat up to look me in the eyes. “But that can’t be all, can it? She’s a lot thinner than I am, but Liberty ticks most of those boxes, doesn’t she?”

What is a not terrible way to phrase this? “Liberty… is my friend. Maybe there’s a world where she ended up with me instead of Ace, but I would’ve had to have gotten to her a lot sooner than Ace did, and they got their cutie marks together. Those two were made for each other and I can’t really imagine them being apart. The real problem, though, is that while Liberty is cool, she’s not really into the same stuff as I am.”

“Like what?” Cheesette asked.

“Like, everything really. She’s not super into games, it’s hard to get her to watch anime with us, and I don’t think she cares that Ace is a pegasus at all, and flying is what I’m being paid to do now. I’m sure I could find things to do with her if I tried, but it’s a lot easier when somepony is at least somewhat invested in the things I like because what else would we do together? What do we talk about, how do we become friends if we don’t have any interests in common? I don’t want to be somepony who just meets people to get laid and move on. I want a real relationship that lasts forever and there needs to be some hobbies in common for that to happen.”

I grabbed her hooves. “Do you remember what you were doing the first time I came to talk to you?”

She looked down. “I was alone in the cafeteria. Cheese had gotten sick in one of the rare times we both didn’t get sick. I was reading—”

“Bizarre Adventures Part 4!”

“Y-yeah.”

“That’s my favorite part of the series. I hardly saw anypony touch the manga section of the school’s library, let alone anypony reading Bizarre Adventures. It was always just me and Fal because nopony else would give the ‘weird foreign comics’ a chance. You reading that told me you were somepony special, somepony I could be friends with. And I was right! We had even more in common than I thought. Before I even knew what I wanted in a mare, you were already in front of me.”

She swallowed. “But… couldn’t anypony who—”

“No.” I put my hoof to her heart. “It was you. You were there. You’re the one I chose.”

She stared deep into me as her cheeks reddened and tears welled up. “Prism!” Holding me tight, she cried into my neck. “I-I’d been so worried that, with you being away and working with those mares that you… that you might leave me for somepony prettier, like that Trade Wind mare.”

“I won’t deny it, she’s attractive… but she’s not you. And I’ve already made my choice.”

“And you’ll still love me even if I lose weight, or you make friends with other mares?”

“What did you say earlier? X-rated, unprotected, everywhere, all the time? I couldn’t imagine anypony else with the confidence to say that to Mom’s face.”

Laughing and hiccuping, she pulled herself off of me. “Yeah, I was a little…” She ran a hoof down my thigh. My ears shot up straight. “Excited.”

I swallowed. “Uh, didn’t you say we’d wait?”

“Oh, we’ll wait.” And then she slid off my lap and down into the floor. “But I have to mark my territory. Nopony else can have it if I licked it first.”

16 - Lance Inspection

We stayed at the park until dusk so I could recover. It took a lot longer than expected, but once I was capable of movement again, we returned to my house. After having a late dinner, we parted, and I had some thinking to do.

While I wouldn’t say no to what happened, It wasn’t something I wanted done in a public park parking lot. Also, not sure I could live up to ‘everywhere all the time’ if that was just the beginning. We're gonna need a place to be where we can be alone together, and that is going to require finding one.

I asked Mom and Dad about it, and they said they’d ask the Ponyville real estate mogul herself, Princess Twilight, about getting me a place. Because it’s the Princess, they said I’ll probably have a house or something ready to move into next weekend. Of course, I really don’t know what exactly I want in a house, much less what Cheesette wants, so that was the next day’s discussion.

Cheesette still works part-time at the café, so it would need to be relatively close to the café in District 18. Mom’s fear of the airports and stories of tragedies involving pegasi and giant planes have me spooked enough that I don’t want to be closer to those, and Grandma Downy still lives in District 39, next to the airport in the district north of Cheesy Pie Café, and I don’t want to live near that either. The best choices would either be in District 4 or 5, but living in the inner ring would be so incredibly expensive that my Wonderbolt salary might not cut it.

We went through the pros and cons of most of the nearby Districts around the second ring of Ponyville and eventually came to the conclusion that District 21, which was due east of her parents and north-east of mine would be the best spot. We could have a decently sized house, our own space with a low chance of running into our parents without deliberately doing so, and maybe one or two rooms to start with. The family is likely to be very big, but just in case something happens, I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

Once that was done and we had lunch, it was time for me to be getting back to Cloudsdale. After a flight that felt much longer than it should’ve been, I got back to Cloudsdale, grabbed some fast food, ate and passed out. She’d sucked a piece of my soul out on Saturday because that evening was all I could think about. The weekend couldn’t come soon enough.

Of course, when morning came, I got a knock on the door and had to find a way to deal with my ‘problem.’ Since I wasn’t required to be up at six on the dot, I left my blanket on and got the door that way.

“Yes?” I asked as I opened the door.

The captain raised a brow at me but didn’t bother asking. “Get ready for the day, I need to talk to you.”

I’m pretty sure she knew what was happening here, and the embarrassment was crushing. “Uh, yes, Ma’am.”

“My office in ten minutes.”

“Yes, captain!” I saluted.

The blanket fell off.

She looked to the side. She acknowledged nothing and walked away.

I died a little against the closed door.

After calming down with a quick, cold shower, I suited up and made my way to the Captain’s office. She was at her desk this morning and offered me a chair. I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eyes. For her part, she just picked up a tablet and looked at that.

“This week, I want you to work with our lazy boys and Trade Wind.”

I tried not to show my disdain. “All four of them at the same time?”

She glanced up at me quickly. “This isn’t a lance inspection, Prism.”

I died a lot more inside.

“You clearly know how to train ponies, and I want speed drawn out of them like you did for Monsoon. She went from not clearing your rally course to clearing several in a week. I’ll be taking her and Pigeonhole to do some more tests this week, mostly to get that featherbrain turning right in time for the race on the 19th, but I want to see similar improvements in them.”

After recovering from the image of Trade Wind on a couch with the four of us behind her, I said, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to have them all together like this?”

Spitfire rolled her eyes. “The divas will learn to swim or sink. You’ll have Effie with you too if things get too out of hoof. She’ll be filming and they both know that if they’re caught fighting again they’ll both get fired.”

Mediation is not my strong suit. “Alright, sure. It’s just up to me how that happens, right?”

“Right. They haven’t been responding well to my usual tactics and though I could do without Nightingale and Typhoon, Trade Wind has a level of entertainer-producer talent that I haven’t seen on the Bolts before, and I’d like to keep her here. Siccoro is above average in performance too and his temperament is well suited for team work, but he’ll drop fast if he can’t keep up in the races.”

Can’t keep up? “Are you worried that he just doesn’t have the ability to be competitive?”

She bit her hoof and narrowed her eyes at her tablet. “Yes and no… I think the ability is there, but I just don’t think he or I know how to bring it out in him. A common trend in Wonderbolts is that amazing fliers come from amazing fliers, a prime example being yourself. Amazing fliers without amazing fliers to learn from are incredibly rare, but Siccoro is one of them. Kid didn’t need to be spotlighted to draw the whole crowd’s attention when he wanted it at the show the other day. He’s got the star power, just not the… experience, I suppose, of racing that he should have. It’s more of a ‘he doesn't know how’ than a ‘he can’t,’ ya know?”

“How did he get in if he doesn’t know how to race?”

Spitfire set her tablet down. “High test score, high performance score. His times were enough to pass, and everything else pushed him over the line. I don’t think I’d even call him an edge case, just somepony who would’ve made it regardless. The knuckleheads actually fly faster than him, but Nightingale is as dumb as a rock and only managed to get in on being the best performer out of the newbies period. If he wasn’t such a pain in the ass…”

She pressed on her brows. “Typhoon, I don’t have problems with other than that he’s lazy. Trade Wind is also lazy, but she’s a wizard with editing software. I’d have her as general staff, but it’d be such a waste to not have her on camera.” Then she clapped her hooves. “Oh, and I know you’re itching to continue your bloodline and all that, but it’s not gonna be a problem if I have you and Trade Wind be the face of our calendar this year, is it?”

Way to knock the wind out of my sails. “Can you let me talk to her about it before anything happens? Like, my Mom called my fiancé a yandere the other day, and now that it’s been said to my face, I’m kinda realizing how true that is.”

The captain blinked. “A yan-de-what?”

“Low self-esteem, very easily jealous, violently vindictive—especially toward mares.”

“The mare you’re… marrying this weekend?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Spitfire blinked and took a breath. “Oh-kay. Yeah, you talk to her, but make sure she knows that the money that will put your kids through school is coming from our sponsor who wants you and Trade Wind on that calendar.”

“Translated into plain language, that means this is already a done deal and she’s just gonna have to go along with it, right?”

Spitfire nodded grimly. “Correct.”

I covered my eyes with my hooves and took a deep breath. “Okay. How weird is this gonna get?”

“Don’t make me explain what the calendar is to you. You’re a teenage male, I’m sure you know.”

Oh, I know, alright. I saw Mom in one once and never again looked at another. “That’s… what I thought. I’ll do what I can, but I would advise Trade Wind to not go near central Ponyville when that calendar goes out.”

Spitfire threw her hooves up. “And that’s your mare? Forever, the one and only, the love of your life?”

“Yes, it’s kinda hot! And for my life and career to be long, this kind of thing needs to not happen! What are they gonna have us do?”

Spitfire put her elbow on the table and stared at me blankly. “You’ve seen a calendar, haven’t you?”

I’ve done more than ‘seen’ a calendar. Wet, oiled up, in bathing suits, in uniform, in sexy poses. “I have.”

“Then I don’t need to tell you anything more. Every team from every branch does one, and you and her move product. That’s all there is to it.”

Pain, true pain. “Was Dad in a calendar?”

“Dash was in one too.”

It seems I’ve died yet again. “Yep, that checks out.”

“Look, I was in a calendar too when I was young. We all do our time with the calendar, and the bonus you get for it can be significant.” She looked at her tablet again. “Anyways, time’s up. I know you can do it, so show me results.”

I sighed. “Yes, Captain.”

Monsoon and Pigeonhole had problems with technique. Monsoon has the drive to improve on her own, so once she does get all the technique down, she’ll be fine. Pigeonhole is a workaholic, so if it’s assigned to him to ‘learn’ something, he’ll just do it. In all honesty, they were probably the easiest ponies for me to work with at the start.

The group in front of me, however, I really doubt.

“Why does she keep pairing me up with you groupies?” Nightingale complained.

“Because your dumb ass doesn’t know how to shut up!” Effie shot back.

The red stallion glared at Effie and we both glared back at him. Conventionally attractive was correct, but that didn’t make me like him any more.

He kept his dignified hoof up to his chest. “Well, I—”

“No, stop, shut up, actually.” This was going to be a long morning. I turned to Effie. “Do you know if we have any altitude-training masks?”

“You think you can muzzle me!?” he shot.

I stomped up to him. “I’m the vice captain! You follow my orders, or you leave!” I threw a hoof out to the open sky around the rally track. “The air is open! Go anywhere but here!”

Veins stood out on the red stallion's neck. He was close, so close to being gone forever, but by some miracle I suppose, he let his face drop.

I felt like I was losing my chance to be rid of this guy, so I leaned in and asked, “Are we clear, Nightingale?”

To my dismay, he said, “Yes, vice captain,” quietly.

This close, this close and he actually somehow managed to follow orders. Damn it.

Trade Wind giggled. “Wow, Prism, I didn’t know you had that in you!”

I looked at her face, then her chest, then her flanks. No wonder Cheesette felt threatened by you. “Yeah, sure. I don’t like doing it, so please don’t make me yell, guys.”

Typhoon chuckled. “No worries, dude, I’m here to be compliant.”

I didn’t like him reveling in me yelling at Nightingale, either. “Cool, don’t be a kiss ass.”

And smiles traded from blue to red stallion.

Siccoro stepped up. “This is actually gonna go nowhere if we don’t just start. What are we doing today, VC?”

He’s my favorite. I’d set back up the first rally track I used for Monsoon. “Did any of you see me working with Monsoon and Pigeonhole last week?”

The green stallion tilted his head. “We might’ve flown by while the Instructor was threatening to literally whip us if we didn’t fly faster. What’s all this stuff set up here?”

My mind was genuinely blown. “Have you… never been on a rally track?”

He shook his head. “No, sir.”

Trade Wind popped her pretty face next to him. “That’s impressive! Wasn’t the rally track part of the exam? I know I had to run one to join the team back in April.”

Slowly, he shook again. “No, I never did that. I did a regular race and won that, killed a routine, and I thought the exam was pretty easy all things considered. They didn’t call me again until I’d made the team.”

I looked to Effie for help. “Is that normal?”

The violet mare affirmed. “Yes. If you score high enough in any three categories, you get a spot on the team. This group is relatively small for what we usually get on C-team, but the instructors can pick and choose what they have you do depending on your performance. If they didn’t see a need for you to go on the rally track, that means you did well enough on everything else.”

“You know,” Trade Wind began, “rallies have fallen out of favor in the ratings for Wonderbolt events in the last ten years anyways. We have less of them as a general rule now. They’re usually over so fast that it’s hard for ponies to get invested. Longer events keep ponies more engaged, and turnover is always best in anything that lasts more than two hours. The longest rally is only ever an hour and a half, and that’s when it’s a big college event.”

That makes sense, I suppose. Rallies are quick, and I could run most tracks in under two minutes when I was really gunning for it. You’d have to have at least twenty ponies to make a rally go longer than an hour, and that’s a little less than two average Wonderbolt teams. Guess that's why they switched to whole city track rallies a little after I was born.

Wait a minute, did he just say he won his race? “You placed first in your race, Siccoro?”

He nodded his leafy head. “Yeah. The Las Pegasus track was set up like a rollercoaster when my group ran it. A lot of ponies struggled with the loop-de-loop section and I used to do that for fun back home.”

A loop-de-loop? Those are really terrible on your body. Going too fast into an upward swoop can make ponies blackout. The Las Pegasus instructor must be a little out there to make amateurs do that. I try to spin through loops rather than go straight into them. I wanna see him do it now.

I clapped my hooves. “So, Spitfire is complaining about your speed, all of you.”

Typhoon groaned. “Dude, please don’t make me fly laps.”

“I mean, I’m kinda gonna have you do laps, but I’m not gonna just make you fly in a circle as fast as you can.”

Trade Wind covered her muzzle. “I’m not against flying in circles, but I don’t know about doing that as fast as I can. We flew so many laps last week, and it never felt good to just be doing that. Races are usually a little more complex than just laps, right? I want something a little more exciting to do my best in.”

I really hate that she said that because I totally agree with her, but I still try to do my best in the hundred series. “Like, I get that, but we’re doing a 300 on the 19th. You’re gonna have to fly a lot of laps, quickly, if you want to catch any eyes.”

Finally breaking his silence, Nightingale said, “Catch eyes by flying in circles? It simply cannot be done! What is even remotely appealing about seeing a group of pegasi suffering like ants in a death spiral for three hours?”

I shrugged. “Position changes, upsets, crashes. Hundred series are a little hard to watch, but you can’t take your eyes away when you see a car crash on TV right? It’s about seeing who can last the longest and finish the set first. My mom still gets deals from her main sponsor because nopony has beaten her 500 record twenty years after she set it.”

I saw bit signs fill Trade Wind’s eyes. “For twenty years!? But your mom is Rainbow Dash, isn’t she? She stopped racing all the way back in 2008 after her big fall! How is she still getting sponsor deals? I thought getting married was the death of a Wonderbolt mare…”

“It’s not getting married,” Effie announced. “It’s getting pregnant. Mares never fly the same after they’ve had a kid. Even worse for mares who have mixed kids.”

Which was absolutely true, especially so in Mom’s case. Haze wasn’t exactly the biggest kid, but Mom’s back was bent while she carried him to term and her flying has definitely suffered for it.

“Mom still has, like, perfect form and all that, though. It was more tearing her wing that messed her up than it was my little brother, but she does fly a lot more crooked now than she used to. She still gets sponsorships from that marshmallow company, and she promotes them at races Ponyville Academy attends. The girl’s team didn’t have a record like mine, but they were still the number one high school team in the country for a few years straight. She’s a really good coach.”

“Dude!” Siccoro exclaimed. “Your mom is the mare on the rainbow marshmallow bag? I love those!”

News to me that anypony likes the fruity marshmallow flavors. “Yeah. I think the last package had the whole girl’s team on it with her since they’d won the national event.”

Trade Wind pursed her lips, rubbing her hooves together. “So I can have kids and still be marketable…”

Effie pointed a hoof in her face. “Don’t go throwing away your career! You could be a Wonderbolt for a decade first!”

The pretty mare smiled at the younger one. “If I find a stallion worth keeping, that’s probably it for me. Don’t count on me being here for a decade.”

Nightingale couldn’t believe his ears. “You would just… toss away your chance at fame and stardom for something as common as… as a child?”

Trade Wind snorted. “As if my kid would be anything close to common. I’m here because this was my quickest route to fame. It’s not the only one.”

Effie looked like she was about to blow a gasket, so I moved the conversation. “Anyways, you can make money, you can get sponsors, but you need to be fast on the less complex tracks too. Help me move some of the rings around. I want to see you all run this and I really want to see you guys to a loop-de-loop since Siccoro brought that up.”

The green stallion smiled. “Oh, for real? Those are my favorites, let’s go!”

I held a hoof up. “Right, but this is about speed, remember? Do the loop at the midpoint of the track as fast as you can.”

His brows fell. “Huh. That’s gonna be kinda rough.”

“Yes, but more fun than flying in circles all day, right?”

I got murmurs of agreement from the group, and we set out to change the track a bit. The u-turn that gave Monsoon so much trouble was replaced by a loop de loop that started low, made one and a half revolutions, and came out high.

Immediately after we started, I saw where we were having problems. Trade Wind is fast but too flashy. She makes an extra effort to show off her ‘assets’ when she flies, which screws with the lines she takes in a race. Not sure if she knows the line is there to take though because it seems like she flies mostly on instinct. She clearly got close to blacking out doing her loop because her turn out of it was jerky and unsteady.

Nightingale was even worse about trying to show off, but he isn’t as fast as Trade Wind either. Didn’t make the loop at speed and went off course on the upper end of the loop. He tried to back track, but it made him dizzy and he couldn’t do it. Had to sit him out and get him some water.

Typhoon suffered less from trying to show off in an effort to just beat Nightingale’s time, but he also failed the loop. His flying style is way more still and doesn’t bend to wind currents at all, but the actual g-force gets to him fairly easily. He seems to get more sick at high speed than the others.

Siccoro suffered at the regular turns, but executed a perfect loop. His time was bad, but he finished the track which is more than I can say for the other guys. Once Typhoon and Nightingale had recovered, I gathered everypony at the start.

“So, we’ve got some problems to address.”

Typhoon burped. “Uh, y-yeah, figured that out fine myself, thanks.”

Him first then. “Did you eat breakfast this morning?”

He nodded.

“What did you have?”

“Waffles with syrup, a banana, an orange, and a glass of milk.”

That’s an easy fix. “Don’t drink milk, don’t pound sugar. That’s what’s making you sick.”

His muzzle crinkled. “What? Nah, dude, I always get sick when I race too hard. I’m actually gonna puke if I have to do that loopy shit again.”

“This has got to be a dietary issue. The only ponies I ever knew to get sick while racing ate like shit all the time.”

He scratched at his cheek, not keeping eye contact with me. “I don’t eat too badly.”

I shook my head. “Nah, I’m picking your lunch today. We’re gonna look at your cholesterol levels and stuff later.”

“Damn it.”

Next, I motioned to Trade Wind and Nightingale. “You’ve got to master the move before you can try to show off.”

The pink mare had no excuse. “Yeah, that’s on me. I’ll do it better next time.”

“No, we’re gonna have to change the track.”

“Aww, for real?” Siccoro complained. “I like this a lot.”

“Sure, but you’re not making sharp turns. If we end up doing a city rally later, you’re not gonna do well like this.”

He hung his head. “Fair.”

“Ugh, more of this torture,” Nightingale lamented. “You’ll get rid of that accursed loop won’t you? I couldn’t even show my flare on it.”

I looked down at the stallion splayed on his back. “I’m only turning it sideways. And you should be showing your ‘flare’ on anything—you didn’t even finish the track. Not going to catch anything but a fat L if you can’t complete the course.”

“If you’re so perfect, then you do it! What kind of rally track has a loop-de-loop anyways?”

I gave Effie my tablet. “I’m gonna do it, and you’re gonna watch. We’re gonna go over all this footage after lunch and you’re gonna tell me what’s different between our performances, alright?”

“Fine,” Nightingale grumbled.

I just can’t understand why this guy gets under my skin so badly. Whatever. I set up at the beginning of the track and launched. Their times all sucked so I didn’t even bother having Effie count me down. Three sharp corners, a straight into the loop-de-loop, and back out. It was really not that complex all things considered, but the corners were still tough and required forethought, and the loop screws with your ability to think. Coming off the loop, the corners are doubly difficult, but I still managed them easily. When all was said and done, I’d probably done it in half the time Trade Wind did.

“And that,” I said, trying to catch my breath, “is how you do it.”

Staring at me in wonder, Trade Wind poked my shoulder. “Geez, you are real. The start was one thing, but then doing the turns just as well after the loop too…”

Nightingale fell back to the cloud floor. “I hate this track.”

“Good for you.” Typhoon held his head. “Like, I get that you’re special and all that, Prism, but I just can’t do what you did. I can do complex and slow, difficult and fast is just not my style, man.”

“Honestly?” Siccoro began. “I just want to know how you snapped into position for those turns. It looked kinda like you were one of those little electric slot cars on the rail tracks.”

That’s the right analogy, but does he really not know about lines? “Hmm. When you look at a track like this, can you see the path you should take?”

He tilted his head at me like I was speaking another language. “What? I mean, you just go through the rings, right?”

“Not just that. There’s a particular path through the rings you want to take.” I went to point it out, but if he doesn’t already see the line, he’s not gonna get it. “Let’s adjust the loop first, and then I’ll run it again for you guys with a little colored cloud generator. Then you can literally see the line I took after I’m done. Effie—”

“Already on it!”

I motioned for them to stand. “Alright, then, let’s get back to work.”

“Yes, sir!” from the enthusiastic half and, “Yeah, yeah” from the unenthusiastic half.

All we did was turn the loop on its side, starting low and coming out high. It would still be hard, but we wouldn’t be fighting gravity so much. As promised, after Effie came back and we were done with the track, I put on a cloud generator with neon paint in it and ran the course. The side loop was significantly easier, but it did make me wonder if we’d have to do U-turn training for them too. This move was much wider and forces you to perform a much more natural version of the U-turn maneuver I use so I hoped it wouldn’t be too difficult.

When I finished, I turned off the generator and swapped the colors out. “Do you see my line now?”

The green stallion stroked his chin. “It’d be a little hard to miss, yeah. You kinda get close to scraping the rings before the start of the turn, then bank really hard in it to end up back in the center, yeah?”

“Yep. You’ve gotta prepare for the incoming turn and know how to move your body before, during and after you do it. It comes more with practice, so put this on and see if you can’t follow my line.”

“As fast as I can or should I just try to match the line?”

It has never occurred to me to actually try and match somepony else’s line. Maybe copy the way Mom and Dad ran tracks, but never, like, exactly. “Uh, our bodies are different. My line works for me, but it might not work for you. Do it as fast as you can while following my line. If you feel like there are parts you need to move differently in, then correct them on your next turn.”

He nodded. “Good deal.”

“Get to it then.” I gave him a slap on the shoulder, and he moved to the starting line. Turning to the others, I asked, “You guys good to do this?”

Typhoon shook his head. “I’ll try, man, but I just don’t see how I could match that.”

“You don’t have to match it, you just need to be faster than the guy behind you.”

He glared at Nightingale, then turned back to me. “Alright, I can get behind that.”

“And, like, when you say ‘can’t,’ what do you mean? Is there a maneuver or a part of the course that you don’t understand or what?”

He stared at me with his blue eyes, trying to find it. “It’s something about the way your wings turn. I don’t get what’s happening or why it's so different, but when you move, it’s like the air bends for you. When I try to do it, it always feels like I’m fighting the air to get up to speed. I can control it well when I’m going slow, but everything moves too fast otherwise.”

Ah. I know exactly what he’s doing wrong, but putting it into words is gonna be hard. “Okay, I get you, I understand what’s happening here.”

“Then, what do I do about it?”

I rubbed at my temple, looking for the answer. “So, like… control is good for little moves and slow moves. You don’t have time to think about control when you go fast, so you shouldn’t try to control anything when you go fast.”

Then he threw a hoof out. “Dude, you just made like six hairpin turns at eighty miles per hour! How in the hell is that not controlled!?”

Damn it, that wasn’t right. “Uh. It is controlled, but like, not in the same way. You’re… it’s not right when you… you can’t…”

“Wait, I think I got it,” Trade Wind announced. “When you fly, you can really feel the air moving across each feather, right?”

Typhoon nodded. “Yeah, that’s how I do my tricks in performances.”

“Yeah, so, to fly fast, you have to ignore that feeling and focus specifically on your primary feathers. You can’t be in total control in a race because it takes too long to think through every action. Feel the move out rather than think it through.”

“Yes, that!” I exclaimed. “Do that. Instinct, fly on instinct.”

Typhoon thought deeply. “Instinct? But, like, careful control is what got me here. How do I not think about it?”

Trade Wind shrugged. “Think about something else? Like he said, beat the guy behind you, or even the guy in front of you.”

Irritated, he scratched his mane. “Alright, sure, I’ll give it a shot. Is Siccoro done yet?”

We looked up and he’d just completed the swirl. He was at a better pace and the trail he left didn’t go outside the rings or have any jagged points. It was nowhere near mine, and I could see just where he wasn’t able to push it fast enough to reach my line.

I turned back to them. “Give it a few seconds.” Nightingale seemed vaguely interested in the conversation but didn’t want to look that way. “What about you? Any questions before we do this again?”

The red stallion rolled over. “I am perfectly fine. There shouldn’t be any problems if I don’t have to go upside down.”

That’s kind of a problem. “Okay, why is that? You have to spin to do U-turns, and I’m gonna have you guys do that next.”

“What, do you not get headaches when you go upside down for too long?”

I looked to the other two. “Uh, no?”

They both shook their heads as well. Nightingale was now very confused. “You’re telling me you didn’t start losing vision doing the loop?”

I waved that away. “No, that’s normal. It shouldn’t give you, like, a lasting headache though.”

“It shouldn’t?” He said, more to himself than me.

This sounds like another dietary problem to me. “We should look at your health stuff too. You shouldn’t be going fast enough to have real problems on a little track like this.”

Nightingale nodded quietly, thinking.

“Okay, I’m back!” Siccoro called.

He’d finished running the course and Effie had returned the camera our way. “You shaved about ten seconds off your last time.”

“Hey, that’s good!” I announced. I took a look at the line, and it was a whole lot smoother all throughout. “This is much better. Does it help now that you can see where you were?”

He looked over the new line added to the track and thought about it. “Yeah, I think so. I feel like I could’ve done better where the line flattens out, but I got real close to matching yours on the loop. I think I picked up the pace then, but toward the end, it was really pulling hard on my wings.”

I clicked my tongue. “Not gonna have a long career if you tear something. Next time, do the reverse—pick up the pace everywhere else, but keep it consistent for the swirl.”

“Got it.”

“For now, take a rest. Who wants next?” I got the cloud generator from him and held it up for the others.

Trade Wind snatched it from me. “I’ll go! Anything you wanna tell me before I start?”

“Doing it fast is gonna make you more money than doing it flashy.”

She lowered her eyes. “Understood…”

Times had improved generally, but Nightingale’s headache got worse and worse the more he ran the course. After he nearly spun out of the loop on his fourth run, I decided it was time for an early lunch.

Because they seem to be polar opposites on everything, Typhoon was suffering from high cholesterol from an overly fatty, overly sugary diet, and Nightingale had an iron deficiency, and it was so bad that he was dealing with low blood pressure today. I gave that information to the kitchen staff and they prepared special meals for the two of them, and regular meals for the rest of us.

This time, there was about nopony else here, staff or otherwise. The cafeteria had only just opened as it was about eleven-ten. A Thunderaid commercial was running on the TV, and that stupid clip of me saying that stupid line at the opening ceremony was being used to promote it. After we all got our food, I led us to a table away from the TV. The less I have to see my own face on it, the better.

“What even is this?” Nightingale complained.

For all I could tell, it was mapo tofu, but I really doubt non-weebs even knew what that was. “Pretty sure that’s a spicy eastern dish. I’m sure it’s high in iron and sugar, which you need, so eat it.”

He stuck his tongue out. “Spicy!? I’m not made for spicy!”

Typhoon rolled his eyes. “Pussy.” Looking at his own plate with a salad and steamed vegetables, he grimaced. “At least yours probably tastes good.”

“Yours probably tastes good too!” Trade Wind announced. She’d gotten a salad and fried veggies. Higher in salt and fat, but she was in perfect health and didn’t need to cut back on anything.

Typhoon huffed. “You say that…” his eyes drifted toward Siccoro and Effie’s trays. They’d both gotten the pizza combo, also with a salad. “That’s what I want. Why can’t I have that?”

“Because, if you did,” Effie began, “you’d just eat the pizza and skip the salad. That’s how your cholesterol got like this in the first place.”

She sure is happy to assert herself with this group. She was a lot more quiet last week.

“Man,” Typhoon moaned, leaning back in his seat away from the food.

“Might as well say your prayers and pack it away,” I said, picking up my burger.

He threw a hoof toward me. “Bro, you aren’t eating this crap either!”

“Because I have that at least once a week, sometimes even more! My parents were Wonderbolts, and this is what they ate here and what they would make at home.” Not that I would ever accuse Dad of being a bad cook, but the veggie set was never the most delicious thing we ate at the house. He always called it 'the meal of necessary evil.’ It was nobody’s favorite and nobody complained about it more than Mom, but we always had it once a week to combat the crap Mom would make. We go through a lot of frying oil in a year.

The blue stallion sighed and picked up his fork, stabbing lettuce and cucumber slices. “Must be nice to have pros for parents.”

Effie rolled her eyes. “It’s not as nice as you think it is.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that, short stack?”

Her eye twitched. “Short stack!?”

“Geez, relax, it’s a joke.”

“Ugh, this is why Mom doesn’t like you.”

Typhoon’s eyes widened and he loaded up his fork again. “Wow, okay, sure. Sorry I asked.”

“In my own experience,” Trade Wind began, picking up the thread, “my dad was not home a whole lot. Bolts typically work from six to six, and we’re kinda manual labor, so he was always ran really hard. He’d get home on weekdays and be too tired to do anything but sit on the couch in front of our TV, and on the weekends, he usually had shows and stuff. My mom was the one who taught me how to fly. I didn’t start getting help from Dad until after he’d retired when I was about twelve or so. I basically didn’t know him before then, ya know?”

I didn’t know her dad was a Wonderbolt too. “I guess, neither of my parents were Wonderbolts while I was growing up, so I never lived long with an active Bolt. What team was your dad on, Trade Wind?”

“Vanhoover B-team. He made B-team captain, but always got passed over by more flashy Bolts when it came to promotion to A-team. He retired with decent times, but he was never the star of the show or anything.”

“Not every Wonderbolt is destined to shine, I suppose.” Nightingale announced, forcing his way into the conversation. “My father was Canterlot’s A-team captain for five years after my mother retired from being A-team Captain before I was born.”

I just learned all I ever needed to know about Nightingale. His parents were Undercurrent and Morning Mist, the infamous couple from the Canterlot Wonderbolts. If Grandpa’s stories about Gladius and Cherry Knot were bad, Nightingale’s parents were them but if they’d both had skills like Gladius. Self-absorbed, above everyone around them, high-born, and worst of all, talented.

“That’s, uh… impressive, Nightingale,” Trade Wind said, also knowing what I knew.

He sighed dreamily, leaning over his food. “They really were, weren’t they? I always wanted to be like them, but they were always so busy. I suppose I picked up enough since I’m here now.” He looked down disdainfully at his tofu and picked up his spoon. “Eating… this.”

Sighing again, Typhoon stabbed his fork into his green plate and chomped down on his leaves. He tilted his head, raised an ear, chewed faster and took another bite. “This ain’t bad.”

“Well, duh,” Effie announced. “You get paid to fly, they get paid to cook. Just like how not just anypony can be a Wonderbolt, not just anypony can be a chef for the Wonderbolts. Did you ever eat vegetables before this or what? Salad is never that bad.”

He rolled his eyes. “I mean, yeah, but there was better food. My parents both work and my dad’s a techie, so he makes pretty good money. Mom doesn’t care to cook all that often so we ate out a lot. It was just me and my little brother, and he’s a techie like Dad so they tend to stay cooped up on their computers and get food to reheat whenever they have to. I’d go on food runs for everypony all the time, so being hungry and ready to get home is what drove me to get better at flying. Couldn’t find a tech job like my dad and my brother, so I turned to this instead. Didn’t think my eating habits would be a problem.”

That sounds familiar. “You did deliveries to get better? Where did you live?”

“Manehattan. Gotta know the best places to get food, and those are usually tucked away in little narrow alleys. Other ponies, buildings, cars, poles and wires to dodge every which way. Couldn’t go fast, but I still had to maneuver a lot. Eventually it turned into a game for me. How fast could I go without making anything spill or slosh around on the way home? I got a phone and headphones in high school, and I started dancing during my food runs too. Then I saw the Wonderbolts do a show back home and I thought, ‘ya know, I could do that too.’”

“Is your family all one race, or…?”

He shook his head. “Mom’s a pegasus, the rest are unicorns.”

Effie looked sadly at her pizza slice. “Unicorns in tech. Typical.”

Typhoon frowned at her. “What? Is that wrong or something?”

“I said it was typical! Do your ears work?”

Trade Wind patted her shoulder. “Well, Effie, 'typical' isn’t normally used to describe something nice. Why would you say ‘typical’ with that tone? Is there someone you know who also works in tech?”

Confusion washed over the supporter. “My… tone?” Then she processed the question. “Uh, no! It’s just… a lot of unicorns work in tech. Every super rich pony seems to be a unicorn in tech. Ya know. Typical.”

Siccoro chuckled. “Wish my dad worked in tech. Then maybe we’d have been super rich too.”

“Oh, is your dad a unicorn too?” Typhoon asked.

“Yep. Mom’s an earth pony, one of my little sisters is a unicorn, the other one is an earth pony. My three little brothers are all the races too. We’re a big family of mutts.”

All three races, huh? He’s gotta have a crazy family tree. “Who taught you how to fly?”

He stabbed a bunch of leaves onto his fork. “One grandparent on each side is a pegasus, and we lived near both of them back in Pinto which is about an hour northwest of Las Pegasus.”

Trade Wind made a big nod. “Ooh, so you’re a country boy, huh?”

He scratched his head. “Yeah, kinda. It’s a ‘big little city,’ so we’ve got some stuff, but it’s easier to take a drive to Las Pegasus when you really wanna do things. Good-sized house with a decent amount of land for the eight of us. We were the family all the other families gathered to during reunions and the like. An uncle of mine owns a huge farm between Pinto and San Palomino, so we’d help out there a lot too.”

“Farm work, huh?” Trade Wind mused. “You don’t see too many pegasi doing that. What did you do?”

“Oh, I helped with crop dusting. And once with a fire.”

I blinked. “What is crop dusting?”

The green stallion rubbed at his darker green beard. “Uh, you know, where you get pesticide or seeds and you drop it over fields. It’s kinda like the cloud generators we use to draw patterns, but, like, over the ground. Makes planting and maintaining fields really easy. My grandma, Uncle’s mom, used to do it for the farm back when my grandpa was running it, but they’re retired now. She taught me and my little brother how. It’s good practice for spinning and flying upside down, and it needed to be done every couple months, so I did it a lot.”

“They let a… a farmer into the Wonderbolts?” Nightingale said, in disbelief.

“I mean, I was surprised too. I didn’t think I was all that fast or special either, but working on the farm kinda taught me everything I needed to know. Weather conditions, basic maneuvers, what to watch out for. I did tricks on my runs for fun too, and some days I would need to cover every single field and that took hours.”

“That’s really cool,” I commented. “But it definitely sounds like you worked on something completely different than the acres back home.”

He was taken aback. “You worked on a farm?”

I rolled my neck around. “I mean, kinda. Not often. My mom’s friend owns the big apple orchard in Ponyville. I’ve helped out a few times, but they don’t really have ‘pegasus’ jobs there, and it’s really, really hard to keep up with the earth ponies, including my little brother who works there part-time these days.”

Trade Wind lowered her brows. “Your mom’s friend… owns Sweet Apple Acres?”

Now I was taken aback. “Oh, you know it?”

“Of course I know it! They’ve got a high-end liqueur line and that seasonal apple cider that shows up in September and disappears by November. I’m still trying to wrap my head around just how they managed to make such a big name for themselves with just an apple orchard…”

Well, the real answer is ‘in the right place at the right time.’ “Miss Applejack has been through a lot, but she’s more like ‘my friend’s mom’ than a business mare to me.” She’d probably flip if I told her I knew Miss Rarity too.

Trade Wind shivered. “A friend's mom? She has kids?”

I nodded. “Yeah, there are six of them. All earth ponies though.”

The pink mare lowered her brows in deep concentration. “Six? Some mares really do have it all…”

Frustrated, Effie asked, “What’s so great about having a bunch of foals? Aren’t they just, like, a drain on you?”

“Whaaat? Come on, have you never held a cute little foal? Played with a cute little foal? They’re little and sweet and adorable! What’s not to like about foals?”

Effie chased a cherry tomato around with her fork. “The eleven months of pain to get one, the cleaning, the crying, the screaming. I don’t want any little snot-nosed monsters running around me all the time.”

I blinked. “Wow. Harsh.”

“It is not! It’s true… isn’t it?”

Siccoro shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, man, that’s a little overexaggerated, don’t you think? Like, I’m the oldest in my family, so I’ve had a bunch of snot-nosed brats running around me all the time, but they’re fun to have around more often than not. My youngest brother, the other pegasus in my family, was born ten years after me, but I have a better relationship with him than I do any of my other siblings. He’s my little buddy.”

Nightingale waved his hoof dismissively. “Please, that’s simply because you’re the same race. Brats are only good for compliments and admiration. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with one all hours of the day.”

Typhoon rolled his eyes. “I’m sure your parents couldn’t imagine it either.” Nightingale looked confused, but he continued on. “Like, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be upset to make the brats ya know, but like… actually raising one feels like a lot of stress. I’d want to have my life totally in order and not want to be away from them all the time. I don’t think I could be doing this and be a dad at the same time.”

I know Spitfire said this to me last week, but like, that’s a really solid point.

Trade Wind shook her head. “Oh, it wasn’t all bad when I was little. It was really special when Dad would come home and actually be there to spend time with, and it was amazing to see him perform. I was always really proud to see him fly and be on posters around town for the next show they’d do. He was never the best racer or anything, but I still got to brag to all my friends that my dad was a Wonderbolt.”

Maybe it won’t be too bad.

Effie pointed a hoof at Trade Wind. “But you’d still drop out the minute you start having kids, right?”

She looked at her like that was the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean, yeah. Being pregnant would mess with your body, and it’s just irresponsible otherwise. You can’t leave a little foal alone, and they have to nurse for a few months before you can really ever get any space from them. Not that I really see why you’d want to.”

“To get back to your career!” Effie exclaimed. “I just don’t get it. Why throw it all away just for a kid? You could have everything you ever wanted being a Wonderbolt!”

It was beginning to look as if Trade Wind’s patience was wearing thin. “Well, I want kids, so clearly I can’t have everything as a Wonderbolt. You’re a mare, Effie, I don’t understand how this is such a foreign concept to you.”

The violet pegasus’s eyes fell to her plate and she kept her mouth shut. A hush had fallen over the table and ponies ate their food quietly. When we were all finished, I stood and picked up my tray. “Alright, let’s get back to work, guys.”

“Yes, Sir,” the group responded.

17 - A Fantasy I Entertain

The week went by with things pretty much remaining the same, with slight improvements as the days passed. Them eating better and focusing more on very specific little things with each member showed marginal improvements, but when we actually tried to run a mock 300 as a whole on Friday, not everypony finished it, and even I was gasping for air by the time I made my last lap. It was more about surviving than actually winning the race, even though I ended up finishing first anyways.

It was me, Raptor, Trade Wind, Pigeonhole, Monsoon, and Ryusei that managed to finish the 300. The rest either passed out or puked after 250, and the times were abysmal for just about everyone but me. Mine and Raptor’s times were competitive, but not winning times, which, as far as Captain Spitfire is concerned, is unacceptable. Next week was going to be very intense endurance training for all of us, and it was not going to be fun.

I talked to Fallacy on Wednesday about what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be there: all my friends that graduated before me who I haven’t seen in a while, and my regular friend group, along with my little brother and whoever he wanted to bring. In theory that meant I’d have to deal with Cotton, but I felt like it would be better to just spend some time with the guy anyways since we'll be brothers-in-law by the end of the week.

None of us are actually old enough to legally be drinking so that was kind of out the window. Going to the mall would be aimless, and we’d probably split up at some point. About half of us play card games, and I’m part of the half that doesn’t. When it came down to it, there wasn’t a whole lot we could all enjoy together until Fallacy thought of something and said he’d get back to me later.

Since I was utterly drained Friday night, I ended up staying in my room at the barracks and planned to fly back to Ponyville early in the morning. Knowing all too well what was waiting for me Sunday night, I’d gotten the okay to take the day off on Monday.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that conversation we had at lunch on Monday. With the marriage and how we usually are around each other, foals are inevitable. Significantly more than Trade Wind, Cheesette wants foals, to be a mom, all that. That’s her childhood dream. I want to be there for them and support them, but it’s slowly dawned on me just how much this kind of thing costs.

I already make more money than I could’ve imagined, and ponies like Siccoro grew up with less in bigger families, so there’s got to be a way to do this with a little, but I don’t really understand how any of it works. She’s better with the math and the money so maybe Cheesette can handle that, but would it be fair for me to just… provide the money and nothing else?

I don’t want to end up like Grandpa Hang, that much is sure. I think he did just provide the money, and that’s why he got into fights with Dad and Sweet Wing. Like Cheesette was saying Saturday, technically, anypony could just provide money. Being there, actually teaching and raising the kids is what really makes a dad, but would I end up like Trade Wind’s father and give up ten years or more of their lives just to set us up? Is that fair to them?

I wanted to discuss this with Dad, but didn’t end up getting a chance. As soon as Saturday morning arrived, it was party time.

I revived from the dead to find Fallacy sitting at my desk with a laptop… in my barracks room.

“Hey, buddy!”

I thought about laying back down as this was about as normal as Mom yelling at me to get up in the mornings, but figured that him being here meant it was already go-time. At least I wouldn’t have to fly all the way home.

“Hey, Fal. What time is it?”

He clapped his hooves and a floating digital display appeared in front of me reading ‘7:00AM, Bachelor Party day.’

“Right.” I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and got out of bed. “Can I take a shower or…?”

“You can bathe.” He said it with a smile, but if I know my Fallacy, he’s deliberately withholding information from me.

“What am I in for?”

“You’ll find out!”

I really don’t like not knowing what we’re going to do. There was once a sleepover where Fal decided that it would be more fun if we were ‘in’ the anime we were watching. This of course transported us into a town full of crazy people that get worked up into insanity from paranoia and then they start killing each other. I was quite literally beaten to death while we were ‘participating’ in the show and woke up with magic overload sickness on his family’s couch while Uncle Discord slapped him around for being irresponsible with his magic.

“Okay, man.”

He went back to his computer, and I took a quick shower, more to wake up than to be clean. Teeth brushed, mane combed and eyes open, I stepped back into my room and said, “I’m ready.”

“Then let the bachelor party begin!” He clapped and all at once, we were inside a wooden building somewhere. It was almost like a log cabin you’d see on a ski tour advertisement. Velvet curtains covered the windows letting zero light in, the faint smell of tobacco floated in the air, there were a couple plush chairs and a big couch set up in front of a rug and a projector screen, and there was a bar in the back with alcohols of all kinds, but most notably, Sweet Apple Acres Apple Liqueur.

“Dude, where are we?”

From behind a door by the bar, Stout walked out in his bartender suit. “Just Pa and Whiskey’s little hideaway barn.”

I hadn’t seen him in a while, so I caught up with him and gave him a hug. “Hey, dude, how’s it been?”

He let out a breath. “Let’s keep this about y’all, alright? My life’s been a mess lately.”

I straightened my lips. “Pearl?”

He rubbed at his forehead. “It’s more than her, but yeah.”

“Say no more.”

“Thanks, bud. How’s yer life been?”

For about the next half hour, I told Stout about everything that has been going on. He says his life has been a mess, and with Pearl involved, it probably is, but I’ve had my own share of it lately too.

Nodding along, my old friend said, “Yep, sounds like that sucks a lot, bud. At least you’re about ta have a good weekend.”

I leaned in and whispered, “Do you have any idea what he planned for today?”

Stout smiled. “Ah sure do.”

“Damn it.”

Fallacy’s foreleg appeared around my shoulder. “Relax, enjoy the moment! The surprise absolutely cannot be ruined, you know.”

Stout checked his watch. “Speaking of, my brother should be here any minute now…”

Heavy hooves came from outside and Cider walked in with a huge cooler rolling behind him. “You packed a lotta crap in here.”

Fallacy got up from the couch and took the cooler from him. “It is all necessary. You’ll never forget today, Prism. Father is helping me with this one. You aren’t even remotely prepared for what we’re doing once everyone’s here.”

I’m pretty sure I should be worried, but since Uncle Discord is at least going to be here to supervise, it should be fine. “If you say so, Fal.”

“Bah, don’t be such a worry wart, bud,” Cider said, patting my back. “How’ve ya been? Been a while since ya were on the orchard.”

“It’s been alright. Ups and downs. I just gave Stout the long version, but if we’re expecting a lot more ponies, I think I’ll wait before I give the story again.”

The twins looked at each other, then Fal. “Who else is coming?” they asked in unison.

He made a magic glove raise its fingers. “One pegasus, another earth pony, my father, and a special guest.”

I lowered my brows at the hybrid. “Special guest?” I could guess that he meant Haze and Cotton, but who on earth could be a special guest? Unless it’s one of our dads, I couldn’t think of anypony else we’d really invite to a party like this.

Fallacy smiled a toothy grin.

I turned to Stout, but he shook his head. “You guys don’t know either?”

Cider also shook his head. “No, sir. Stout at least knows somethin’, Ah don’t know shit.”

The clean-shaven twin tilted his head. “Well, Ah thought Ah knew somethin’. Is this somethin’ that came up after you told me about today?”

Slowly, Fallacy nodded. “It is. Father actually invited her. I was only informed about it yesterday, but I do believe it will be great fun all the same.”

Now I was even more confused. “What kind of mare would Uncle Discord invite to a bachelor party? Does that not kinda ruin the point?”

“You’re about to get married and you’re complaining about having a girl at the party?”

I pressed my hooves together. “Dude, you know Cheesette. Lives are at stake if this is, like, some kinda hoe.”

Fallacy covered his mouth to smother a giggle. “She would be very upset if she knew you said that. But not to worry, this special guest is… not somepony so lowly as a whore." Then he shivered. “Besides, I do know Cheesette and if I were even mentioned as an enabler of some tomfoolery, I too would be slain.”

Stout raised his brows, then set out a series of shot glasses. “I like how we’re casually talkin’ about how your girl would literally kill us if we in some way abetted in you cheating on her.”

Cotton opened the cabin door and flew in. “I heard killing and cheating, are we talking about my family?”

Fallacy popped from one place to another like a balloon and wrapped his forelegs around the white stallion’s neck. “Cotton, you’re here!”

“I am here!” He hugged Fallacy back, then quickly separated himself. “Haze was just behind me…” He checked outside the cabin, but then came back quickly. “I don’t know if I lost him or if he stopped to talk to somepony.”

Cider waved him away. “Haze knows his way around the orchard, he ought ta know where we are.”

Then Cotton shook his springy pink mane. “It’s still crazy to me that he started driving and working here since I moved to Las Pegasus. I feel like he’s twice as big since I moved.”

I chuckled. “You sound more like his big brother and I ever do.”

Locking eyes on me, Cotton approached and held a hoof out. “Well, he’s my little buddy, ya see. How’s it going… brother?”

The word was like an assault. I blinked the blow away. “Oh, man, that’s… that’s gonna take some getting used to.”

I took the hoof, and he brought me in for a hug. “No time like the present, huh?”

“Guess not.” I reciprocated, and he pretty much threw me off afterward. “Haze hasn’t made it, but it’s just him we’re waiting on, right? What are we doing, Fal?”

The hybrid frowned. “I can’t spoil the surprise, but Father will be the one doing most of the heavy lifting anyway, so I won’t be able to do anything until he and our special guest get here later. For the moment, I have attached a game console to the projector and I have a kart racing game, or that party fighting game that everyone seems to like. Miss Applejack said she would provide breakfast which should be at about nine, and Father said he would be here no later than ten.”

Cotton lowered his brows. “Can we play the racing game with the six of us on one device? I know the fighting game will work, but I’m not very practiced at that, and I don’t want Haze beating me.”

Fallacy frowned. “No, I’d have to use magic to get us to more than four, and Father said it would be best if I conserved myself for the event later. If either of the twins or your siblings would be willing to lend us their Kirifuda consoles it could work, but we’d also need duplicates of the games.”

The twins put their heads together, literally. “Ah think Draft and Craft both have one of those things,” began the shaggy one

“But they’re awful possessive and off the clock today,” the clean one finished.

Cotton sighed. “I’m not above stealing electronics from children, but that seems like too much of a hassle.”

The twins looked to each other, then to Cotton. “I don’t know. That’d be a challenge, even fer y’all,” Stout said.

“Craft is crafty, she’d probably outsmart ya. Draft would cry ta Ma, and she’d kill ya,” Cider said.

“Hot,” Cotton declared, to the disgust of the brothers. He hopped and flitted down to the couch in front of the projector. “As exciting as being beaten up by your mom sounds, if I don’t look pretty for pictures tomorrow, my mom will also beat me up, and I think both of my parents would take turns killing me in the event I ruined Cheesy’s big party.”

Fallacy balanced on his tail and played with his lip. “And here I thought my family was crazy.”

I waited for Uncle Discord to rebuke that. We all did. But after a few seconds, the rebuke never came. “I can’t believe he didn’t respond to that.”

Fallacy checked his phone. “Oh, no, he did, but he says he’s still busy with preparations.”

Then Haze trotted in through the door, carrying a tray of drink pitchers with him. “The boss said to bring these with me.”

Cider nodded. “Alright, that makes sense. If Ma’d been done with ‘em, she would’ve made me do it.” He pointed a hoof at Cotton. “Speaking of, yer lucky Ah don’t kick yer ass, punk. Don’t care what you’re inta, don’t be talkin about Ma like that.”

Haze sullenly took the pitchers to the bar and set them up next to some plastic disposable cups. “You… you guys have no idea.”

Wings and ears standing on end, Cotton whipped around the couch to cower before my little brother. “H-Haze, buddy, please. Mutually assured destruction, you remember?”

My brother gave him the most deadpan look. “Dude, you've got nothing on me. Besides, I’m not gonna do that to you.”

The other white pegasus sighed and sank back into the couch. “I could find something, probably.”

Haze moved around the couch and sat next to him. “Nah, Dad caught me wackin’ it once. There’s, like, no level I can sink to anymore. But I can drag you down plenty.”

“Haze, that’s awful,” I said, chuckling and coming to sit down next to him.

The dead look in his eyes said it all. “It was awful. Dad told me if he caught me doing it again, he’d put Mom’s Wonderbolt calendar up in my room. I am much more careful about it now.”

I threw up a little in my mouth. There is only one reason Dad still has Mom’s calendar. It’s gotta be over two decades old and it’s probably… musty… “Ick.”

Fallacy floated over the three of us on the back of the couch. “Goddess among us, how horrifying! I didn’t know Mister Soarin was capable of such cruelty.”

I covered my face. “They’re making me do a calendar in August. I’m actually gonna blow my brains out.”

It took a minute for my friends to process that. Stout was the first to make a sound, a terrible sound at that. Giggling, he said, “D-does that mean Ah can… Ah can buy a sexy Prism calendar come September?”

It was like being stabbed in the back. “Please don’t.”

He came around and squeezed himself next to me. “Oh, but Ah’ve gotta support my buddy, don’t Ah? Ah’ll hang it up at the bar and tell the winged folk ta go see yer shows!”

“Ahhh, why in the name of the Goddess would you say that?”

“‘Cause yer pain brings me joy, buddy. Ah thought we’d been friends long enough ta establish this.”

“Fal, your guest list sucks!”

He shrugged. “Sorry, they came with the room.”

“Can we play a game now or what? This conversation needs to end!”

“As much as Ah would love ta discuss all the fun places we could put up a—” Cider smothered a laugh “—sexy Prism calendar, Ah’d also like ta play somethin’. Wind down before Fallacy puts us through whatever twisted game he’s come up with.” He filled the last of the space on the couch next to Cotton.

With a clap of his hooves, Fallacy made controllers appear in everypony’s laps. The lights dimmed, the curtains were drawn, the projector turned on, and the game screen appeared on the wall in front of us. “I believe you’re right. Oh, and quick question for everypony: nopony here gets motion sick in any way, do they?”

We all shook our heads slowly before Cider asked, “Ah don’t think so, and Ah hesitate ta ask, but why?”

“Well, you’ll figure it out. Anyways, let’s play.”

Fal remained unresponsive during the games, so eventually, we stopped asking. Haze was better than the rest of us at this and it took most of our combined power to defeat him. We did some team battles which also came down to who was fighting with Haze, and after half an hour of that, we were all about tired of getting beaten by my little brother who was also getting tired of beating us.

‘The boss’ arrived with a hotel suite of breakfast for us: cheese egg and jalapeño burritos, a pan of hay-bacon, hot sauce and pico de gallo, apple fritters, and maple syrup. She gave me her quick congratulations, but needed to get back to work. My little party was only the beginning of all the cooking she’d be doing this week as Miss Pinkie had commandeered the cafeteria kitchen. There would be cakes, confections, meals and pies galore tomorrow, and she’d started on it all much earlier in the week.

During breakfast, I relayed the story to the rest of the group. I couldn’t really gauge Cotton well, but the others were somewhat sympathetic. Stout told me to wipe my tears with my bits. As much as I was feeling that at the moment, it didn’t make me feel much better. The hard trials are still ahead, and I’m wondering if the money is actually going to make it all worth the mental toll it’s already taking. The anticipation is almost worse than the moment.

“How’s life been out in Las Pegasus, Cotton?” Stout asked. “I haven’t heard much since ya moved.”

The other white pegasus rubbed his hooves together. “It has been challenging, but not… fruitless.”

“Oh?” Fallacy swam closer. “And what misdeeds have earned you ill-gotten gains now?”

“You all know that I work as a dealer at a casino right now, right?”

Haze rolled his eyes. “When you’re not at school working on that ‘math’ degree, right?”

Cotton tapped his lips. “I’m actually an accounting major, that’s been kinda fun. Equestrian tax law is a shitshow if you know how to read it. Accounting is mostly learning that and the math to go with it. When I’m accredited, you guys should hire me. I’m already getting Mom and Dad’s taxes ready for next year, and they aren’t gonna know what to do with themselves once I squeeze the government for all it’s worth.”

I covered my mouth. “What? Using your evil powers for good? Who are you?”

He slapped his thigh with a big smile. “Good? No, no, I’m simply New Management. Now, the casino, on the other hoof, is something like a vice grip made of blackmail. Everypony knows everypony is cheating and the only reason anypony gets away with anything is because they pay the local government a hefty ‘look away’ fee. To get in on this cheating myself, I’ve developed a system with a few of my accounting buddies from class.”

“Accountin’ buddies?” Cider shot. “‘New Management’ seems ta be a hell of a lot better at makin’ friends than our Cotton ever was.”

The pegasus held a hoof up. “‘Friends’ is a strong word. Business acquaintances at best.”

“Right, right. Ah forget, we’re tier-two friends, Prism’s a tier-three friend, and Haze is the only one ya consider a real friend. Took us all a year of hangin’ out together fer Prism ta even earn that category.”

Cotton robbed his chin. “You would all get the f-word from me, but… well, yes, I do believe that sums it up.” He stared at me and considered me with his cold blue eyes. Nodding to confirm something, he went on. “Prism can be a tier-two friend now for marrying my sister. I would tell you to take good care of her, but I know all too well that you must survive her more than anything. It was I who called her ‘hoodrat’ in the first place, since she likes a certain kind of… cheese.”

That would be horrifying to hear… if I hadn’t already learned. I took a sharp breath. “I… definitely know better than you do.”

His pink brows shot up. “Son of a bitch, you already did it, didn’t you!? How are you still alive? I figured Dad would’ve sniffed you out by now.”

They all stared at me. I taped my hoof tips together. “We didn’t go… all the way.”

Cotton nodded slowly. “Mmhmm, I see, I see… That would explain all her ‘good juice’ comments from this week’s streams.”

Haze covered his face. “Bruh.”

A big smile on his face, Cider elbowed me. “Oh yeah? How was it?”

I looked up, thinking about Saturday evening. “I don’t have the words to tell you—but, like the best flier’s high I’ve ever gotten, the one I’ve been chasing since I entered high school, nothing will ever be as good until I get it again. But this wasn’t… it wasn’t even the final stage.”

Awe spread through most of the group save Stout. Without saying anything, he just seemed to understand what I meant. Life must’ve changed a lot for him after he moved out of the orchard.

My little brother sighed. “Man, I want a girlfriend.”

Fallacy patted his shoulder from the other side of the bar. “Well, you ought to find one while you’re still in high school. It’s… much more difficult to meet ponies outside of it.”

“Is that right?” Cotton asked. “I haven’t heard much either. What have you three been up to?”

Fallacy leaned against the bar and put a hoof on his cheek. “I’ve been looking at schools and jobs, but when a majority of ponies meet me they kind of freak out and don’t know what to do. Father has taught me to mask my appearance and I have a more ‘normal’ form I can take when applying, but it’s difficult to work like that without the centuries of practice doing it father has. I’m not a changeling after all, I can’t just do that whenever. I don’t have Father’s eons of practice with this unwieldy magic of ours either. I would do streaming, but I’m also a male, which is the biggest debuff, and I’m not particularly charismatic either. Mother is allowing me to take a few years to practice living masked but that just sounds awful to me.”

Cotton raised a feather “First, I want to see ‘normal’ Fallacy.”

Usually, Fallacy is like a more uniform version of his father with more pony parts and less… others. His coat is gray on his torso and turns into a butter cream yellow when it hits his front shoulders, going all the way down to his forelegs. His body is mostly pony with some of that snake-like anatomy his siblings have that makes his torso longer than most ponies. His hind legs are pale red and scaled, being more like a dragon’s, and his tail was the same way. His mane is black and cut to a medium length, splitting to either side of his face around his ‘horn’ which is a lot more like a single antler. His teeth are somewhere between pony and ‘carnivore’ as he has fangs. He’s the luckier of his siblings as all his teeth actually fit in his mouth.

After clapping his hooves however, he shrank a bit and just looked like his mother as a unicorn, with his father’s face in the genetic sort of way and not literally. You could see he’d modeled himself after the historical figure Dark Canter since that is literally who his father was at one point. Of course, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one of this group other than him who actually knew that.

“I feel like I would still know this was you even if you just sprang it on me randomly one day.”

Fallacy put a hoof around me. “Thanks, buddy.”

Stout grabbed his face and looked him over. “You could probably get away with streaming like this. Ah think the mares would go fer it.”

Irritated, Fallacy threw his hoof off and let go of the transformation. “But that isn’t me!” Back to normal, he crossed his forelegs. “I was born like this. I don’t want to pretend to be someone else for someone else’s sake.”

“Any reason ya haven’t seen the Princess about this yet?” Cider asked.

Fallacy sighed. “That is… my last resort. I’d like to earn something myself. I’ve given myself a time limit of until the end of next year. If I can’t find something by then, I’ll give into nepotism. It feels bad, but it would be worse to feel useless. I have my own merits. I don’t need my parents to make other ponies see that.”

“Other ponies would be jealous of what you have.” Cotton remarked.

“Other ponies are losers! Envy is for the worthless. I make my own destiny, and so does everyone else.”

“As a recipient of said nepotism,” Cider began, “Maybe ya ought ta consider bein' born in the place and around the ponies ya were as part of ‘yer merits,’ huh? Sure, Ah could go off and work somewhere else usin’ my brewin talent like Stout did, but I’m perfectly fine right here at home doin’ it too. Fer that matter, my family’s talents are usually fer orchards and orchard-related things. We’ve always been here, we’ve always done this stuff, and that’s its own way, ya know? Just because the path was laid out by the last pony ta walk it doesn’t mean it ain’t yer path too.”

Stout eyed his twin. “You’ve been spendin’ too much time with Ma.”

Cider nodded slowly. “Ah spend a lot of time with Ma. This exact line of thought may have come up in conversation before.”

“About when Ah moved?”

“About when ya moved.”

Haze raised a hoof. “Well, it’s not as if you’re just wasting time, right? Learning how to do interviews and how ponies react to you is a thing too.”

Fallacy turned to stone.

Cider poked the rock. “Ya… ya are doin’ more than just playing games with everypony all day, right?”

The stone hybrid turned at the neck, looking away.

Cotton took a breath. “So, what have you been up to, mister underage brewer?”

“Gettin’ drunk off my ass, that’s what. Gotta taste everythin’ Ah make, and ta be honest? Ah don’t really like drinkin’.”

“You don’t?” Stout asked, more surprised than anyone.

“Ah don’t. Hangovers suck. Ah got work ta do in the mornings. Barrels ta clean, bottles ta fill, cider and liquor ta deliver. Gotta meet ponies and talk about regular deliveries, work out deals, make offers, keep an eye on the market, see what other ponies are buyin’ and sellin'. We’ve got a ‘name brand’ here, but that don’t mean we don’t have ta play the game. Product still has ta be good. Hard ta believe Ma and Uncle Mac used ta do all this shit on their own. Ah figured out why we grow cumin and tumeric, by the way.”

“You did?”

Cider nodded. “Ground and powdered, if ya take it before ya drink, it absorbs some of the alcohol, makes the next mornin’ easier. Ah’m on a steady diet of the shit now.”

Stout narrowed his eyes. “She’s crafty, ain’t she? Lied about havin’ a strong stomach and there’s been a trick ta it the whole time…”

Cider shrugged. “Ma? Nah, Ah think she’s got both. We just got Pa’s genes.”

“Busy every day, huh?” Cotton said.

“Busy every day. Ah probably work more than’s legal, but Ah like it. Since Ah live here, it’s hard ta not think about things all the time and go experiment if Ah get an idea. This is what Ah’m supposed ta do, and it sure feels like it.”

“How are ya gonna meet somepony like that?” Cotton asked. “Are you just going to be, like, a spirits monk or something?”

Cider chuckled. “A spirits monk. Nah, after Ah’m legal, Ma wants me ta go out and apprentice at other breweries. Ah technically shouldn’t be workin’ the way Ah am, but since this is private property that my family owns, Ah get ta work here. Ah’d probably be doin’ some miserable retail job or goin’ ta college fer fuck all otherwise.”

“Oh? Like what kind of breweries? Are they different? I really don’t know much about this subject.”

“Everypony has their own way ta do things, and she wants me ta go see how it’s done. Ma wants ta expand this side of the business and havin’ me shop around fer techniques ta bring back home serves her and the farm and gives me more experiences ta see the wider world. Not sure what she has planned though. Could be tours of a few places or she could literally ship me off somewhere ta work fer a year.”

“You’re really letting your mother take the wheel, huh?” Fallacy, who had unpetrified, commented.

Cider threw a hoof out. “Ah don’t see why not. Ain’t like Ah’m still suckin’ on her teats like Draft is. She’s got an idea fer a path fer me, and Ah can’t see a reason not ta take it. If she didn’t already have it in mind, Ah’d probably figure out a way ta do it myself. Ah’m workin’ now ta save up money, and Ah’m gonna go see the world in a couple years. Sounds pretty normal ta me.”

Cotton smothered a smile, but the twins still gave him a look that could kill.

“So, how about it, Stout?” I asked. “Lots of drama with the new job?”

Stout licked his teeth. “That’s a good word fer it, sure.” He scratched his mane. “Ah’ve learned a lot. Bout myself, other ponies. Haven’t figured much out yet, but there’s been a few… experiences here and there.”

Cotton raised a brow. “Like what?”

“Ya haven’t heard much. Ah ain’t tellin’ much.”

Cotton held his hooves up. “Oh, alright then, keep your secrets. We’re only your twin brother and closest friends.”

Stout snorted. “Says the tier-two friend.”

The other pegasus zoomed in on that. “My, my, are these deep life-changing secrets? Those are the only ones withheld from tier-two friends.”

Pained, Stout didn’t look like he knew how to answer that. He’d probably said too much already.

Cider put a hoof on his shoulder. “Ya good, buddy?”

Stout brushed him away. “This ain’t the time or the place.” He turned to Fallacy. “Where’s yer Pa? It’s about ten ain’t it?”

“Yes, it certainly is, isn’t it?”

The disembodied voice of Uncle Discord resounded in the cabin. Dark clouds formed and swirled around the ceiling of the cabin as the lights dimmed and flickered. Spotlights appeared on the projector screen against the wall and a crack made of strange pink light broke into the world. With a loud boom and a cover of smoke, the elder draconequus stepped into the cabin.

Fallacy clapped his hooves in delight. “Father!”

Uncle Discord ran his lion’s paw through Fallacy’s mane. “Yes, yes, I have arrived.” Then, irritated, he crossed his forelegs. “However, our guest commander is not quite finished with her business, so we will be waiting for a few more moments. Of all the times for her to be unpunctual…”

My ear twitched. “Commander? What are we doing, Uncle Discord?”

The ancient stallion smiled something evil. He snapped his claw, and appeared behind the bar in the uniform of the bad guys from the original Roboknights series. A gold filigree emblem across his chest, gold capped shoulders, a red collar and cuffs with more gold filigree, a black jumpsuit, and gray boots.

I gasped. “No way!”

He nodded slowly. “Oh, yes. Fallacy came to me with a request for something grand, and I rather liked the idea. However, war has changed quite a bit since I was last involved with it, and the same can be said for our late guest as well. In the future, I believe it will change quite drastically again. So, with the help of Fallacy’s imagination and my magic, we’ll enter an idea of the future in which you, our dear groom to be, get to live out one of your most treasured fantasies.”

I couldn’t clench my hooves any harder. “We’re gonna ride Roboknights!?”

A bright flash of golden light filled the cabin. “Alright, alright, I am here, would you please stop the ringing?”

The mare behind us was one I’d only ever seen a few times in my life, and a lot of those had been on TV. Equestria has a system of government surrounding three pillars: a council of representatives who make laws based on their population, a council of representatives who approve those laws based on their locality, and a series of courts who assess that law based on cases which set or revoke laws. The highest authority in the land is that of the Princesses’s Court, over which only four mares may preside, and even within them, there is a hierarchy. The one true matriarch of Equestria, Princess Celestia, had arrived in the cabin.

Uncle Discord snapped. “So it is done.”

The enormous alicorn frowned at him, then observed our gaping faces, leaned down and smiled. “Good morning, my little ponies.”

Stout was the first to snap out of the trance. “Uh, good morning, Your Majesty! How can we serve you today?” He’d suddenly lost his accent…

She straightened back up and eyed Uncle Discord suspiciously. “That depends on what—” she looked at his outfit “—the old aristocrat has planned for today. I was simply told that I ‘must come’ to assist with a young Wonderbolt’s wedding.” She singled me out and put a big slender hoof on my shoulder. “Congratulations, by the by.”

“Thanks!” I didn’t particularly know what else to say. Princess Twilight is sort of a regular fixture in my life. She’s always at the castle and we see her at least twice a year. I met Princess Cadence once when she and her husband, Twilight’s older brother, came to visit for Hearth’s Warming one year. They have a daughter who’s a pegasus about Whiskey’s age, but I never really talked to her since we were at the ‘disassociate from girls’ age of colthood. The other two Princesses on the other hoof, I’ve never met.

The age of celebrity has long ended and ponies like Grandma Downy’s favorite pop star who turned out to be a pedophile, Thriller, just don’t exist anymore. Equestria’s Matriarch, however, still has that kind of fame. I can’t say I’d ever been starstruck before, but this was definitely it. There was something magical about her in a way that only Uncle Discord ever shows off, and he does it just to screw with ponies. Everything about her was kinda ‘glowy’ and warm like a summer sunrise. Her mane was like hair in the way it was shaped and how it shined in the light, but it was also like a gas that drifted like smoke in a wind that clearly wasn’t there. She had a literal, visible shounen anime kind of aura that faintly glowed off her whole body that doesn’t seem to be there in pictures. I’ve always thought she and her younger sister were just extremely photogenic, which might be true, but it’s kinda easy to be when the lighting on you is always perfect.

She took a seat on the arm of the couch and crossed her forelegs. “What exactly have I signed up for, Discord?”

He crossed his forelegs and began walking around the bar. “Have you ever heard of an Umanese property by the name of Roboknights?”

She lowered her brows. “The giant war robot series, no? There’s a one-to-one scale model of one in a few places in Uma. The ambassador took me to see it last I was there a few years ago.”

Discord smiled wide, then clapped his forelegs. In a puff of smoke, he, the Princess, and Fallacy had all become ‘normal’ ponies. For himself, he’d kept the uniform, but had resized it to match his new unicorn form in which he was a dark gray stallion with green eyes and a stark black mane slicked back on his head.

It occurred to me at this moment that he had taken his original form, and he’d invited… Princess Celestia… to play a war game. From what little I remember of history, before the Princesses came to power, Dark Canter was involved in a war with soldiers against… somepony, and then fought against the Princesses after his first resurrection as Discord, and again the second time when he was caught and finally subdued by our moms. I thought bringing up Dark Canter around Princess Celestia was something he wanted to avoid, not instigate.

The pony that had been Princess Celestia, a tan pegasus with a blond mane that had a blue streak and a braid to one side, looked at the dark stallion with a deep-rooted hatred. Fallacy had caught her eye however. She looked at him, fell into a deep pool of sadness, then relaxed. “Are you intentionally trying to piss me off, Discord?”

Uncle Discord shrugged. “A little bit. You see, after watching so many of these shows with Fallacy this week, I felt that we really ought to simulate what a war with these machines might be like. I needed someone capable of truly hating me and leadership at the head of the opposition army. I’d considered Twilight, but we’ve become a bit too buddy-buddy for her to really fight a war against me. In this game, provided you and your pilots here are capable enough, you may even get the satisfaction of killing me a few times.”

Wait, what?

A smirk curled up the Princess’s lip. “Really? I get the opportunity to fell Dark Canter with my own two hooves? Look you in the eyes as I sink the blade in?”

Uncle Discord smiled maliciously back. “But of course. All is fair in love and war… provided you can keep up.”

An equally dark smile overtook the pegasus mare. “Very well then. What are the rules of this game?”

Discord’s claw broke out of his hoof and he snapped. The projector screen had become a hologram and displayed a pair of battleships on either end of an asteroid field. “We each have one battleship undercover, three battalions, and one ace unit comprising three of our six strapping young stallions here. The aces will have advanced weaponry compared to the battalions, and you’ll have less direct control over them. The goal is to capture or kill the enemy commander. If all your ace units fall, you lose on account of the technology difference. We have eight hours, so we can play the game until dinner time.”

The princess inspected each of our faces. “Do I get to pick my aces?”

Uncle Discord shook his head. “No, the aces are assigned randomly each round.”

“Question!” I raised a hoof.

“Yes, mister groom.”

“Do we get to choose the Roboknights? What universe is the technology based on?”

Uncle Discord snapped again, and six Roboknights that looked to be a mishmash of several different ones appeared on the screen. “In the spirit of fairness, there will be three identically specced knights on each team. Fallacy showed me some of your design documents, so these custom machines are based on your ideas. The pilot system comes from a mixture of the shows in a form I believe easiest to use. The hand-to-hand combat series style controls will make the machine move like your body, and you will of course have to operate any tools your machine has by voice command or physical action. When you and your team load in, you may decide amongst yourselves which of the three knights you wish to use. Your commander may also choose a custom for you in the event you can’t decide amongst yourselves or we see a particular leaning for your skills.”

“How about magic?” the Princess asked.

“Like in many of the series, magic doesn’t reach the same power as the suits and does not do much outside of infantry warfare. Within regular pony limits, it’s allowed.”

Satisfied with that, she nodded. “Very well then.” She turned and addressed us: “Boys, I may not know you all very well, and this is my first time meeting a few of you, but I’ll let you know now that there’s an old wound between me and—” she gave a dark glare to Uncle Discord “—that stallion. I am choosing to see this as his attempt to reconcile our relationship, so if I order you to do something cruel during this little fantasy, please do it.”

Fallacy shivered. “D-do something cruel? T-to Father?”

Again, she was hit with that wave of sadness addressing Fallacy. “Yes… it was… your brother…” She shook her head. “I will not ask you to do anything to him when you can see his face. Is that fair?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“I suggest—” Uncle Discord approached the yellow unicorn “—you change your tune, my dear boy. If I’m the villain, I certainly won’t be showing you any mercy. In fact, I’ll likely have you killed first.”

The poor guy looked horrified. “You would do that!?”

“The word is ‘has,’ my son. I have done that. I believe you’ve been told the story, haven’t you?”

With an entirely different look in his eyes, he turned to the princess. “If… if you know, then that means you’re… Sunny?”

The princess cringed. “That girl died a long time ago. This form is simply a fantasy I entertained once upon a time.” Irritated, she scratched at her forehead. “I’m about ready to watch you explode and go up in a ball of flames, may we begin?”

Discord turned and smiled. “We may.”