Glorified

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.”