The sun shone through the gaps of Concorde’s curtains on the morning of the display. He rolled over, part of his mind telling him it was pointless to try and sleep now while the other screamed for rest.
Nerves had kept him awake all night and his mind was racing with their planned routine and potential ways it could go hideously wrong.
So far, potential disasters had ranged from knocking a few chimney pots off roofs and onto onlookers right up to somehow burning the entire town down, the exact details of which had vanished randomly from his mind since. That had led him to thinking about why the brain did that, usually when trying to think of an obscure word.
So ten hours of attempted sleep had turned into ten hours of on and off panicking about only having two weeks of experience before his first performance, for which the stakes were fairly high.
Captain Trotter was a legend in this part of the world and messing up during an annual celebration of this major figure wouldn’t do his own reputation much good and that was before wondering about how much of a laughing stock the name of the Red Hawks would become.
“Oh f***ing hay!” Concorde mumbled to himself, rolling off his bed and casting both the sheets and the line of thought aside.
Quickly glancing at the clock, he realized he had about an hour before he had to meet Hurricane and Maffett to prepare for their routine, so went over to the balcony window and threw the curtains open.
From his window, he could see the town getting ready for the celebration. A Ferris wheel was being tested on the other side of the harbour and the mighty Victorious Endeavour, the last ship Captain Trotter had captained and which it was said he had died on, was sailing up the river into position for the day.
There had been a time as a colt, before he’d learnt to fly, when Concorde had dreamt of captaining that famous ship. These days, however, he doubted he’d be able to put up with climbing the chain of command to get to such a position, especially as he rarely could take authority figures seriously.
Besides which, if he had gone sailing around the world it seemed likely his mother would be stood waiting for him on some far away shore, waiting to drag him home by the ear.
Glancing back at the clock he noticed about 2 minutes had elapsed. He could probably keep this up for an hour, though he suspected he’d likely go insane well before then.
After wasting the time by scribbling out a letter to Octavia, something he hadn’t done in a while, Concorde flew to Hurricane’s place. The old Pegasus was busy searching through a suitcase when he got in, several red costumes dotted around the room.
“Put this on.” Hurricane said after a while, throwing a costume at Concorde. The tight fitting suit was almost the same scarlet as his own mane and tail with a blood red belly. A golden ring with a red, hawk like bird in flight in the middle adorning the flank.
Concorde looked at Hurricane.
“Is this really time for your fantasies?” Concorde asked, smirking at Hurricane’s irritated expression.
“Just put the damn thing on, Concorde.”
“I didn’t know you had these with you. How many have you got?”
“They’re the costumes from the original team. Seeing as I couldn’t get one made for you, I guessed Spitfire’s old costume would fit you.”
“Spitfire? Isn’t she the captain of the Wonderbolts?”
“She is now. She was in the Red Hawks before then.”
“How long for?”
“Four months.”
“That it?”
“Aye. Are you going to put that on or not?”
“Not with you looking at me like that.”
Hurricane rolled his eyes and left the room. Concorde smiled to himself, enjoying winding the older Pegasus up.
It took about 10 minutes to wiggle into the costume, the stomach being too tight for Concorde’s tastes. Spitfire was either extremely thin or she was younger then he was at the time. Regardless, he found he couldn’t quite breathe properly.
Hurricane came in a moment later, wearing his own Red Hawk costume which looked a little worse for wears, carrying a pair of retro goggles in his mouth.
“Does it fit?” He asked after putting the goggles on the table.
“Just a say.” Concorde replied, trying to push the material into position so he could breathe more easily. At that moment, Maffett entered the apartment with a clipboard hovering in a blue glow before her.
She regarded Concorde in the tight costume for a moment.
“You’re getting fat.” She commented with a smile.
“Mornin’ to you too, gingersnaps.” Concorde replied sarcastically, standing up on his hind hooves and stretching towards the ceiling in an attempt to make the suit fit a bit better.
“Do you have a time for us, Maffett?” Hurricane asked.
“I do, boss. You’re on at one o’clock.”
“Why’d we only just find this out now?” Concorde enquired, stretching out his hind legs as the suit material creaked.
“Celestia only knows.” Maffett remarked before checking the rest of her notes “Speaking of which, Prince Blueblood won’t be attending this year.”
“No great loss. What’s his excuse this time?”
“Likely something to do with not wanting to be surrounded by commoners or the smell of seaweed ruins his hair or some such rubbish.”
“Never ceases to amaze me that Governor Percy puts up with him.”
“Considering Governor Percy lives in Alnwick on the other side of York, I doubt he cares.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Hurricane interrupted. “Concorde, we need to get to our starting position up river.”
“But it’s only ten.” Concorde pointed out.
“We’ll do a quick run through of the maneouvers while we’re there.” He said before turning to Maffett. “Signal us when they’re ready.”
“Will do, boss! I’ll just put these spells on you and you’re good to go.”
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Hurricane and Concorde stood at the top of a cliff about a mile up the valley. Hurricane was stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the town in the distance as he waited for Maffett’s signal to start.
Concorde was stiff with nerves and hadn’t moved or said anything for about ten minutes. He wanted to break the tension with some form of witticism, but he knew Hurricane probably wouldn’t react even if he could think of anything.
Instead, he continued visualising exactly what they were going to do. Maffett had cast various spells on the pair to improve the spectacle of some of their moves, though Concorde did half think she’d cast the wrong spell on him for a laugh.
“Concorde.” Hurricane suddenly said, snapping the younger Pegasus out of another visual run-down of how the display could go wrong. “They’re ready.”
Concorde had never been more terrified by those words before and his legs felt physically incapable of holding him up. He looked towards the town, where he could see the remnants of blue magic firework that Maffett had told them she’d use to signal them with when it was time for them to perform.
“Let’s go.” Hurricane said calmly. His voice seemed to pierce the mass of nerves that Concorde was becoming and reminded him that if he stuck to the routine they’d be fine. “Good luck.” Hurricane added before jumping off the cliff, followed by Concorde.
The air rushed past Concorde as he flew downwards, picking up speed as he went. The cool air took away his nerves, replacing them with the confidence he always felt when he flew at speed and, as the pair curved upwards onto a level flight towards the town, Concorde knew one thing: They could do this.
The pair flew in formation towards the town, picking up speed as they flapped their wings. As they flew over the out lining houses, they spread their wings and allowed themselves to glide into what they had dubbed the ‘Performance zone’, which stretched over the main section of the harbour where the most ponies could see them. As they approached they could hear Maffett’s commentary:
“...Flying in from the west, makes some noise for Hurricane and Concorde of the REEEEED HAAAAAAWKS!!”
Right on cue, the pair flew over the top of the performance zone, Concorde’s mind mentally editing out the noise of the crowd, which was somewhere between excitement and bemusement.
Once over the sea, the pair split up, turning in a wide circle before reforming and flying back up the way they’d come. Concorde positioned himself over Hurricane and turned upside down.
“This formation roll may look simple,” Maffett started as Hurricane and Concorde rolled around a point between them so Concorde was right way up below and Hurricane was upside down above, holding in position for a moment before rolling again “But keeping co-ordinated is a heck of a feat! Is that not impressive enough, then watch as the boys perform the ever popular Firework Pinball.”
Maffett had made the name up on the spot as, after a fifth roll, the two Pegasus got back into their side by side formation and split again, doing the same wide turns they had done over the sea.
However, when they continued around in their turning circles until they faced each other before they started to loop up.
Several ponies watching gasped loudly enough for Maffett to hear them from her small commentary booth on the dock side. As they got a quarter of the way through their loops, Hurricane and Concorde brushed off each other, leaving a bright firework like explosion where they’d touched, which was the main spell Maffett had cast on the pair.
They carried on around, both competing full loops before launching into a second loop, brushing off each other again, leaving another fire work, before they flew straight up, flying towards and away from each other and brushing against each other as they went, leaving four fire work explosions behind them before they spun around, aimed for a spot just above the sea at the mouth of the harbour, continuing to fly towards and away from each other and leaving more collision fireworks behind them.
For Concorde, everything seemed to blur together into one seemless, perfectly executed series of rolls, flips and gentle collisions with fireworks going off almost constantly. Even when he had to screw his eyes shut as they performed the Fly Wheel, he knew instinctively where he had to go and where Hurricane was as the fireworks generated by flying through the other Pegasus’ trail went off around him. With the adrenaline coursing through his veins, everything made sense, though his total focus was preventing him from hearing the ohs, ahs and cheers of the crowd watching them.
Maffett smiled; happy the crowd was enjoy the show. She watched as Hurricane and Concorde spiralled away from each other after they’d finished the Fly Wheel, leaving a slowly fading disc of light in the air that left it’s imprint on her eyes. As the two Pegasus swopped over the river, kicking spray up at the walls and onto the docks at the feet of the crowd, Maffett continued her commentary.
“If you thought that Fly Wheel was spectacular, then the Hawks have just the thing to blow you away. If you’ll look towards the sea, you’ll see team leader Hurricane as he sets up our local lad Concorde for what I like to call the Sonic Bloom.”
Concorde spotted a cloud that he could sit behind while he waited for Hurricane to get ready. With little time to practice this move and three failed attempts, Concorde wasn’t sure about performing it before the town. As there wasn’t much else they could do besides ricochet off each other and spinning in circles until the crowd got bored, however, Concorde agreed to do it.
He landed on the cloud and watched Hurricane quickly fly around in circles, quickening his pace as he went. The air inside the circle he was creating started to turn dark, almost a deep green and started to swirl, quickly becoming an ever expanding vortex of wind.
Hurricane was doing his best to keep the top as wide as possible so Concorde would have a clean run into the eye of the storm, but he was still slightly worried he’d get caught up powerful wind and end the show with a spectacular crash.
After a minute of Hurricane making the vortex bigger and bigger, he started to angle the cone so it pointed into the harbour at a 45 degree angle. Concorde jumped off his cloud and lined himself up to fly straight into the mouth of the storm, making sure he’d hit the eye at full speed. Hurricane’s idea was for him to create a sonic boom inside the vortex, so Concorde kept his wings wide open so he didn’t hit the sound barrier too early.
The raging, swirling winds was all he could see as he hurtled into the vortex. His nerves and any sane thought had long since vanished and all he focused on was the right point to accelerate.
As soon as he did, he folded his wings back to get rid of all drag and accelerated in a manner no other Pegasus could and hit the sound barrier.
The colossal boom bounced off the inside of the vortex and caused it to rip open, revealing the sea before him, almost as if he was flying out of a flower as it blossomed.
As he quickly pulled up to avoid flying into the sea he could see the town in front of him lit up with a scarlet light. It didn’t fade until after Hurricane rejoined Concorde as he flew through the harbour, which was when the stunned crowd roared, cheering at the spectacle they’d just seen.
“Mares and Gentlecolts, we are the Red Hawks and we hope you enjoyed our show!” Maffett shouted over the commentary, waving to the two Pegasus as they flew by. Concorde smiled before waving back at the crowd below.