Wonderful Mechanical: Keen Eye and the Wonderbolt Saboteur.

by Monocrome_Monogatari

The Failure Squad

They were staring at me with incredulous looks on their faces.

Swift spoke first. “You know, I bet Shine would love to hear how you called her a ticking time bomb”

“I bet Surprise would love to hear about your crush on her.”

“I bet Captain Spitfire would love to hear about the real reason you’re here.”

“I bet you’d love to hear about the costume Rivet wore that one Nightmare Night.”

“Deal.”

“No deal!” Rivet said, lunging to clamp my mouth shut.

“Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm.” I laughed as well as I could given the circumstance.

“You still haven’t answered why Dash reacted like she did.” Swift said.

“Hm hmmm hmmhmm hm hmm hm hmmm hmmm hm.”

“Um…Rivet, he can’t answer my question until you let his mouth open.”

“Not until he promises not to say it!” Rivet said.

“He…he can’t do that while you’ve got his mouth shut.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to silence him forever.” He spoke, twitching and unblinking.

“Rivet, you’re scaring me.”

“Hmmmmmlllllllllllll”

I stuck my toungue out and ran it along Rivet’s hoof.

“Ah!” He immediately began frantically wiping his hooves against his chest. “Ew ew ew ew ew.”

I took a moment to laugh at Rivet's distress. “You don’t have to worry Rivet.” I said. “I don’t have the photo anymore. Even if I did say it, no pony would ever believe me.”

From the look on Swift’s face, I hooked his curiosity now more than ever. Rivet definitely won't be hearing the last of this

“As for your question,” I said to Swift “I don’t now! Maybe she mistook me for someone else. After all, I only know ponies worth knowing. Rainbow Dash isn’t a pony worth knowing, ergo I don’t know her.” I nodded at my own wisdom.

“Um…”

“Anyways!” I cut off whatever they were about to say “Such a shame about Squad Charlie. I’m shocked, personally. I was expecting something more exciting, like a 2-2 score and a dramatic tiebreaker to settle everything.”

“It’s not surprising.” Swift said, with the finality of a pony saying that 1+1=2.

Swift, who normally looked somewhat amused at the world around him, looked uncharacteristically solemn.

Almost pitying.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He sighed. “Squad Charlie has a nickname. It's an insult that stuck when Crashin' found it hilarious and made it her own.” He looked at me.

“…Squad Charlie is The Failure Squad.”

“What?” my mind ran through the skills that were put on display moments ago. “THOSE ponies are failures?” A chill ran through me “I’d hate to see your successes…”

“It’s not that they’re incompetent.” Swift said. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s their personalities. Maybe it’s their team makeup. Maybe it’s bad luck. Whatever it is, things tend to go wrong around them, or they fall apart at the last moment. You even saw it here. Almost every match ended with a pony heading to the infirmary.”

“…That isn’t normal?”

His piteous mask cracked as the tips of his mouth inched upward. “Well, when we’re messing around, let’s just say what happens, happens.” And just like that, it fell again. “But not during official sparring. It’s definitely not normal.”

With that info, something clicked into place.

“And I assume Foxtrot has been much more of a success?” I asked.

“Dude, they’re the first recruit squad to actually pass The Test.”

The Test.

The surprise simulated dragon attack.

The one meant to make them think their lives were in danger.

The one meant to be failed.

“If you’re curious,” Rivet said “when Charlie took the test, they didn’t run away exactly. It’s more that…before they had a chance to pick between fight or flight, they kind of... accidentally broke the entire set.” His voice petered out into Tradewind-esque grumbling “It took so long to fix it too.”

It became clear why Squad Charlie was being paired up with Squad Foxtrot.

They want to see if training with the unprecedented successes will pull up the unprecedented failures. Whether it’s due to coincidence, conspiracy, or their condition, the result of their collision has been…

Mass Malfunction.

Enough of a disaster to get a pony like me involved.

“So yeah,” Swift said. “It’s not surprising. Everypony was expecting Charlie to lose to Foxtrot. The only question was by how much.”

“Hmm…”I rubbed my hoof against my chin “That explains why Silver waited until the second round to mention the lap running punishment. It wasn’t planned, but something desperately improvised to break their losing streak…”

Of course, it didn’t go well. I guess working with The Failure Squad can cause even veteran trainers to fail.

“Well, we’ll see how hard they’ll have to run soon.” Swift said. “All that’s left is Foxtrot’s Squall and—“

“Velocity Vector.” I interrupted.

“You know her too?” Rivet asked.

“I know OF her.” I said. “You two should really spend more time off-compound.”

Velocity Vector was an anomaly.

The daughter of a family of scientists, her only public appearance as a Wonderbolt was during a ceremonial lap around the arena, before the professionals took the field. Her only claim to fame is existing. Despite this, she’s already had her fair share of fame. It’s nothing compared to the flash in the pan of her first appearance, but she still has a fan base waiting for her to establish herself. She’s even had a few interviews, talking about how she fell in love with the beautiful formations of the Wonderbolts as a filly, about the trials normal and abnormal she had to face to get where she was, about her training, about her status as an overnight inspiration to certain ponies.

Even I, who barely knew anything about the Wonderbolts, remembered her.

After all, it’s hard to forget about the one-winged Wonderbolt.

The fact that a pony like her was a fixture in The Failure Squad was… deliciously heartbreaking.

Down in the arena, Silver had yet again taken position next to the bowls holding the Wonderbolts’ cards. Even when the next fight was obvious, he still went through the motions.

“Next is…” When he shoved his hoof into Charlie’s bowl, his words stopped. “Huh?” The bowl was empty. He blinked at this, and furrowed his brows as he turned to the entrance, his voice harsh. “Velocity! Did you avoid putting your card in again?!”

“No Sir!” the feminine voice replied.

“Then. Where. Is. It?” He said, each word stressed with a pause.

“I-If you would excuse me saying so, Sir, have you che--“

“It’s by your feet.” a deeper voice said.

Silver looked down. Fallen to the floor was a single plastic card.

“Oh.” Silver picked it up. “Thank you Squall.”

“Whatever…”

Silver turned his attentions elsewhere. “You better remember this day, because you won’t hear me say anything like this ever again. Sorry for yelling at you. Now get out there, Velocity.”

“It’s no problem, Sir.”

Into the arena trotted a night-sky dark blue mare, her coat bringing out her strikingly bright green eyes. Her light brown mane was perfectly parted down the center, the bangs almost forming an arrow, as if to point out her forehead and high hairline. Her cutie mark was a capital V and a delta symbol.

On her back, one of her wings was made not from flesh and blood, but of metal and plastic, painted to match her coat.

If I remember correctly, Velocity Vector had suffered an accident in her foalhood, one that, in normal circumstances, would have ripped apart any dreams of being a Wonderbolt.

Being in the Vector family is not normal circumstances.

Since that day, they shifted priorities to prosthetics, and worked countless hours to replace her lost wing. Even now, it’s not perfect. According to her, it gives no tactile feedback, and she has to work twice as hard and stay twice as aware while flying. While she volunteered to use this system, it’s apparently not good enough to recommend to the general populace. Rumor has it that it might have been recently made obsolete by a unicorn doctor.

Despite all this, she made it through, and became an icon to handicapped ponies.

Still, the way she walked in wasn’t with the confident sway of a self-assured hero. Her movements seemed almost mechanical and forced.

“You too, Squall!” Silver said, pulling out Foxtrot’s last card.

Stomping into the ring was a scowl of a stallion, black coated with a red mane that fell forward very slightly into his face. He shook it off with a huff as he took his place, paying neither Silver nor Velocity Vector any mind.

“Let me guess.” I said “Loner. Not good with others. Impatient. Skilled, but can be overconfident because of it. Issues with his parents. Extremely fragile and sensitive behind tough exterior. Desperate for approval.”

“Huh?” Swift seemed shocked. “…How in Celestia, Luna’s, and Cadenza’s name did you know all of that?”

“Cosmetic Psychology, Swift. Cosmetic Psychology.” I gestured to Squall. “I mean, just look at his read and black color scheme.”

“I’m…I’m not sure that’s how anything works.” Swift said, his shocked disbelief turning into another kind of disbelief entirely. “I’m starting to see why some ponies considered you a joke.”

I laughed. “You haven’t seen anything yet.” I turned to Rivet and noticed a shift in his posture. He was more leaned forward, his hooves gripping the seat a bit harder than normal, and he was biting his lower lip from worry. His back hoof was tapping the seat from anticipation. Something about this fight had caught his attention the way the other fights hadn’t. “You rooting for someone down there, Rivet?”

“Huh?” he gave a tiny jump at his stream of thoughts being rerouted. “O-oh. Yeah, I guess. Vivi can’t do any work there yet but, she sometimes visits the basement and talks shop with the engineers. I’m just hoping she doesn’t get hurt.” His eyes drifted to her opponent. “That and…well Squall did kind of go off on me once…”

Note to self: Get Dirt on Squall.

“Keen, I don’t like that look in your eyes…” Rivet said.

“Don’t worry.” Swift pat my back “We took care of that problem a while ago.”

“Yeah…” I said, my voice level as I looked at him sharply.. “You did. I haven’t had my turn.”

“Er…Okaaaaaay…?” He slowly withdrew his hoof.

Down in the arena, Velocity Vector was going through yet another series of stretches while Squall was impatiently scraping his front hoof in the dirt. Despite his body language saying he was raring to go, he refused to look at his opponent, as if he was above it all.

“So,” she said, “Let’s do our best?” she said, offering an awkward hoofpump in his direction.

He just scoffed. “Whatever…” and offered an equally awkward hoofpump in response.

And with that…

BZZZT

They were off.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the cliffhanger chapter. In my excitement to start writing this I aimed for a chapter every other day, and burnt myself out. Needed to get something out to get back in my rhythm.

Thankfully, this story will switch back from the action genre to the mystery genre by next chapter.

That isn't to say, however, that no relevant information has been given during these fights...

Comments

[Prism Shine]

Damn, we just got cliffhangered.