Concorde couldn’t remember the last time a week had past so quickly. His school days had always dragged mercilessly while working at Caramel Apple Aches, a job he had now officially quit, had largely been mentally edited down to kicking the occasional tree and laughing a lot with the other farm hooves.
Display flying was turning out to not only be one of the few things he’d picked up almost effortlessly but among the most fun he’d had outside racing. Performing tricky manoeuvres in such close proximity to another Pegasus required full concentration and filled him with the kind of adrenaline that he usually only got when battling for position in a race.
The thing Concorde enjoyed the most, however, was winding up Hurricane. The older Pegasus favoured getting to the point and usually only said what needed to be said and Concorde’s somewhat light hearted, unserious attitude did seem to keep rubbing him up the wrong way and his desperate efforts to keep a straight face just encouraged Concorde more.
Hurricane had started simple, making sure Concorde could break and reform formation and perform some simple manoeuvres. Between lessons they had been trying to work out a decent performance and after a late night they had come up with a reasonably entertaining routine that ended with a card Hurricane had labelled ‘unique’.
This was causing the biggest sticking point as they needed to come up with a stunt to fit the space.
Besides winding Hurricane up, Concorde had been trying to learn more about the original Red Hawks. For whatever reason, Hurricane didn’t willingly talk about them, insisting it wasn’t important and only increasing Concorde’s curiosity.
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Concorde paced up and down the tarmac street in front of the apartment block Hurricane was living in. Hurricane had stated they wouldn’t start until ten AM so Concorde was just considering what to do fill the ‘unique’ space.
The day before, Hurricane had shown Concorde his own signature move, which involved creating a green hurricane that could blow away any loosely held down items if they were close enough.
Concorde only really had his sonic boom as a signature move, which wasn’t particularly impressive from a spectator’s point of view. The scarlet shockwave and consequent trail didn’t last long and certainly wasn’t even an eighth as exciting or dazzling as the fabled Sonic Rainboom his Grandmother had told him about when he was younger in her overly sweary manner.
“Corde!” called an unmistakable voice from behind him. He turned to see Maffett trotting towards him wearing a saddle bag.
“Maffett!” Concorde said cheerfully. “Where have you been hiding? Not seen you all week.”
“I’ve been researching, actually.”
“Ingenious ways of leaving hated jobs?” Concorde remarked with the first thing that came to mind.
“No. But I did quit.”
Concorde was quiet for a moment, surprised his remark had actually been true.
“Really?” He asked, though he knew how much she hated her day job and the fact she’d finally quit it didn’t really come as a surprise.
“Yeah, but enough of that. I’ve got something to show you.”
“Not more slash fiction, I hope.”
“No. I hid those in my dad’s study.” She grinned, levitating a book out of her bag, opening it and fanning through the pages. “Check this.” She added, holding the book up for Concorde to see.
It was a lengthy article regarding the original Red Hawks, quite an old one judging from the pictures.
Quickly scanning the pages, Concorde noticed they were regarded as the best team of the time and the pictures that dotted the article showed various stunts and tricks, including a 6 pony formation roll and a Synchro Pair, a move that caught his interest.
“What do you think?” Maffett asked after a moment.
“I like the look of this Synchro Pair.” Concorde responded, the image showing two ponies flying past each other at speed having apparently narrowly missed flying into each other.
“I meant the picture.”
“I just said I like the look of it.”
“The second picture from the bottom.”
Concorde looked at the picture Maffett meant which showed 2 adult pegasi and a young colt stood between them. The caption said they were the team’s headline flyers Hanriot and Sopwith Hawker with their son Hurricane. Glancing quickly at the caption for the Synchro Pair, he noticed it was performed by Hanriot and Sopwith too.
“Well?” Maffett asked again.
“I didn’t know his parents were original Red Hawks.” Concorde shrugged, not 100% sure what she expected him to say. “He did tell me they fell apart after a personal spat. Hmm.”
“What?”
“I wonder, would said ‘personal spat’ involve these two?” Concorde thought aloud, taking a closer look at the picture. Nothing in particular stood out; besides the idea Hurricane could smile broadly. “Is that what you wanted me to see?” Concorde asked after a moment.
“Well, that and I was wondering if you needed anyone else.” Maffett shrugged.
“How’d you mean?”
“Well,” Maffett trailed off, thinking about how to phrase the question. “I’m not really feeling the commentary at Windy Valley any more now you’re not there and I did notice in that article that the Red Hawks used to have a commentator.”
“You want to be the new Red Hawks commentator, eh?” Concorde guessed at her question.
“Yeah.”
“And you want to escape that office you currently work in?”
“That too.”
“And you can’t bear to be without me?”
“That’s debatable.” Maffett said, trying to hide the idea that it was one of the reasons. Concorde just grinned.
“Well, I’ll see what the boss says.”
“Concorde, you’re early.” Came Hurricane’s voice from behind them. Concorde turned to see the older Pegasus closing the door to the apartment building behind him as Maffett quickly put the book away.
“Thought I’d try setting a better example for you.” Concorde smiled. Hurricane still didn’t look like he knew how to react to Concorde’s jabs so he just ignored it and looked at Maffett.
“Who’s this?” He asked.
“Oh, this is my friend Maffett. Maff, this is the boss pony Hurricane.”
“Hi!” Maffett smiled, Hurricane nodding in response before returning his attention to Concorde.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, come on.” He said, ready to jump into the sky.
“Wait just a minute. I had a thought last night.” Concorde started, quickly thinking about how to make Maffett’s request sound like his own idea “A commentator could be useful.”
“Why do you think we need a Commentator?” Hurricane asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, not everypony knows what we’re doing and I thought a good commentator could make the performance more, er, interesting, you know. Building up a bit of, erm, suspense while we sort ourselves out between manoeuvres, right?”
“And I assume your friend here fulfils that purpose?”
“Well, she’s not bad at the whole commentating thing.” Concorde continued, knowing they’d been rumbled. “But she could do an okay-ish job.”
Maffett gave Concorde a look that translated roughly as ‘only an okay-ish job?!’ while Hurricane thought for a moment.
“What commentary have you done?” Hurricane asked Maffett after a while.
“I did commentate at the local race track.” She said simply.
“Okay. Come with me a moment, I’ll give you a list of the manoeuvres we’re going to perform next week and I want to see what you can do with them. How are you with light spells?”
“Erm... you mean light bolts and the like?”
“Yes. I could use a unicorn to cast spells to change the colour of our trails, maybe cause flashes of light if we come into contact which could be useful for training purposes.” Hurricane added, glancing at Concorde.
“You keep flying into me, not vice versa.” Concorde injected, but Hurricane ignored him and waited for Maffett’s answer.
“I’ve not tried them before, but I can probably do it.”
“Good. I’ll give you the appropriate spell book and you can try them on the colt.”
“He is a good genie pig” Maffett smiled at Concorde, who just rolled his eyes.
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Now Maffett was with them, Hurricane had opted to walk to their training ground. He’d been using an open area of sea next to a cliff about a mile outside of the town to teach Concorde and they’d been rehearsing their performance there as well. They were far enough away from the town for ponies not to see them yet close enough for them to return quickly.
In the distance, further up the coast line they could see the start of the hills that made up the Highlands, where Hurricane had originally come from. Beyond those were the mountains that separated Equestria from Griffin lands to the north.
Maffett had been reading and re-reading the list of manoeuvres Hurricane had given her as they walked and made the occasional note that she could make into a fully fledged script. She’d insisted the two Pegasus didn’t talk to her while she was thinking and remained under a tree while the two Pegasus flew over the sea, continuing to practice their routine while she took notes on how long it took the pair to recover after manoeuvres so she knew how long she could talk for.
The morning wore on as Hurricane and Concorde perfected their routine, but the question of what the finale should be still loomed over them, even as they walked back to town for some lunch. Another question, however, came to Hurricane’s mind first.
“What exactly are mushy peas?”
“Erm...” Concorde thought for a moment. He’d suggested they got kelp, chips and mushy peas for lunch “Sort of a semi-solidified pea soup.”
“That doesn’t sound very appealing.”
“They taste better then they sound or look.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any more inclined to try them.”
“What are you, a wimp?”
“No, I just don’t think they sound even vaguely appetizing.”
“Oh Hurricane, I don’t think I can take you seriously as a leader if you start chickening out like this.”
“I’m surprised you don’t know what they are. You’re only from up the road.” Maffett injected.
“Edinbridle’s over 2 days walk away.”
“Far enough away for mushy peas to be foreign and strange, but close enough for haggis to be perfectly acceptable?” Concorde remarked.
“We’re just getting sandwiches and going back.” Hurricane said simply, getting sick of the subject. “I can’t stand the stench of vinegar from those shops anyway. We still need to think of something to finish our routine with.”
“Well, Concorde can go supersonic. You’re not making any use of that at the moment.” Maffett commented.
“The shockwave isn’t dramatic enough to have much of an effect.” Hurricane responded. Concorde pretended he didn’t hear him and looked around at the houses as they entered the town.
“What can you do?” She asked, half sticking up for her friend.
“I can make controllable hurricanes.”
“Then why not combine the two?”
“How exactly?” Concorde asked, not sure how flying at high speed and whirling vortexes of wind could work together. Hurricane seemed to be mulling the an idea over in his head.
“Maybe my hurricane could be used to emphasize your sonic boom?” Hurricane wondered out loud as the three entered a cafe.
“How’d you mean?” Maffett asked as they sat down. A waitress quickly came over and took their orders before Hurricane continued.
“Well, if you fly through the eye of my hurricane and hit the speed of sound inside, the hurricane should increase the sound of the boom and the dark wind could make what light the boom creates brighter.”
“An interesting plan but you’re basically saying I should fly into a whirling cone of death.” Concorde remarked.
“I am. You’re not afraid are you?”
Concorde leaned back in the chair and folded his fore legs.
“That sounds like a challenge, Mr Hawker.”
“If you think so. Worth trying at the very least.”