Through the Looking Glass (MLP)
Chapter 10: Flight Lesson with a Shock
At Cloudsdale things are going on as normally they do with the Pegasus Ponies hard at work making rainbows, snowflakes and rain clouds for the rest of the lands below. With the Wonderbolts extended stay there it seem to be normal seeing them on a daily bases now with them even getting their hooves dirty and helping out with the daily jobs as well keeping an eye on Wind Note till he fully wakes up.
That day was now as Wind Note slowly woke up in a daze not knowing where he was or what happened, "uhhh... my head" he moaned slowly sitting up in a bed "where the hell am I?" he looked to the other side of the room, there in front of him were two pegasus ponies playing chess, the whole room looked like a military officers room with Wonderbolt posters on the wall and a uniform hanging up by the wardrobe.
"Hey Soarin, check it out, the Rookie is awake, I’m gonna go get the others, why don't you welcome him and such and don't think this chess game is over, I’ve got ten bits on me kicking your butt" Spitfire ordered as she left for the others, "hehe and the prize of ten bits goes to me hehe, like a ninja" Soarin chuckled to himself taking a couple of chess pieces off and moving others around the board to his advantage.
Soarin walked over to the bed Wind Note rubbing his head, “Well I guess I'll be the first to welcome you to Equestria Wind Note, that is your name correct?” Soarin said putting his hoof out to the now awoken Wind Note.
"Y... Yer that’s my name, well one of them, nice to meet you.... erm?" shaking the unidentified pony's hoof, "I'm Soarin, I’m the pony that touched the mirror when you entered Equestria"
"Im a pegasus pony too, I look just like my drawings, awesome! I’ve even got my cutie mark!" his cutie mark being a guitar with wings and a thunderbolt on either side of the guitar neck.
"Wait a second... your Soarin of the Wonderbolts?" Wind Note looking rather shocked as he got out of bed. "Yep, the very one my friend, may I be the first to welcome you to the Wonderbolts base Cloudsdale". Wind Notes face lit up for a brief moment then the pain in his head came back, "uuuhhhh damn, I feel like I’ve drunk the local shop out of rum... again", Soarin looked puzzled "what is rum?" he asked tilting his head a little to one side just like a puppy would or just like a fursuiter would, which ever suits you best.
"hmmm... one cigarette and I should be fine" he said as he reached into his bag opening the tin with filters and papers inside, Soarin looked on a little puzzled "what is a cigarette?" he watched Wind Note "well it's a stick shall we say, filled with a plant called tobacco, you roll it up and smoke it like so" he tried rolling a cigarette, have you ever seen anyone roll a cigarette with hooves? this action is a failure and amusing at the same time, Wind Note got frustrated "ugggghhh..... Looks like today is the day I quit smoking, this is gonna be one hard week" he packed up the tin and placed it back in his bag.
"So why arrant you in uniform?" he asked surprised about the lack of uniform.
Soarin chuckled “We all taking a break to take care of you that’s why, each of the Wonderbolt team are also helping around in Cloudsdale while we each took turns in caring for you and thanks to Twilight’s book and Rainbow Dash’s experience in Ponyville with your buddy Electuroo we had it easy compared to them” Soarin said to him with a smile.
“I am really in Cloudsdale?” Soarin nods and Wind Note dashed past him causing him to spin a bit then see Wind Note on his hind legs looking out the window “Whoa… this is better than seeing it from the show…” he looked around in amazement seeing the Pegasus Ponies flying around and some working as they usually do.
“Yep you are my friend” Soarin came up beside him “It's where most of the Wonderbolts came from” He then turn to the newspaper “Have a look, I kept it so you can see how much of an impact you and Electuroo had already”
Wind Note looked at him first then saw the paper he sat down and took it by both hooves and read the article “After the arrival of the second Pegasus Pony from Earth which the magic of the mirror turned him from human to pony has brought delight and some fears over the mirrors, since from now on the Princess has spoken that no one else should really touch the mirrors.” Then he saw a picture of a lightning bolt blast shooting into the sky mixed with rainbow colour and reads that section.
“After the Wonderbolts took the new arrival Wind Note to Cloudsdale, Electuroo and Rainbow Dash showed off their signature moves in a fusion of bolts and rainboom blasts as they hit supersonic speeds and ended it with a huge thundering Rainboom Lightning Bolt which the name of this has been given. They soon collapsed from exhaustion stating to their friends and fellow ponies around whom was concerned by this that they had over practiced their performance to all of those at event and soon found asleep at the party held in honour of arrival of Wind Note after bragging they have all the energy they need for the party held by Pinkie Pie” He saw another image of them both asleep on either side of the bench against the wall.
He laughed at that part and Soarin also laughed a little “We find that funny every time we read it, those two are sure talented in speed specially the Sonic Rainboom and the Thunder Bounce”
Wind Note chuckled "hehe now it's time to show this world I can fly too" he said with a grin on his face spreading his wings and about to take flight.
“Hold it” they turn to see Spitfire standing there with the other Wonderbolts “You surely not going to try to fly already are you rookie?”
“Well I was but why not? Can’t be much different to flying an aeroplane, right?” Spitfire shook her head a little at what Wind Note said.
“I don't know what an aeroplane is but you can't fly yet, you recently woken up, you need something to eat and finally Electuroo tried to fly straight away and failed epically and surely you will to” Spitfire said to him walking around him “Now stand straight, chin up” he did as she said and a smirk came from her “Well I can see you’re not the typical look of a pony. spread your wings rookie" she ordered and just as she said Wind Note spread his wings as fast as he could fully spread in under half a second, "not bad, your wings look good and strong, perfect for what we have planned for you" she smiled.
Wind Note took a look at her and said “Your Spitfire right?”
“Yep I am and sharp as a hawk too” she said then turn to the others “Alright time for breakfast, I think we all haven’t been together for a while and out of uniform to enjoy a great breakfast” they replied in a cheer and Spitfire turn to Wind Note “How would our guest of honour like to join us before flight training?”
Wind Note eyes went wide “Would I!” then dances around doing flips and lands before them blushing a little bit from falling flat on the floor in front of the Wonderbolts. "erm... let me just get my bag, there is some stuff I would like to show you during breakfast".
“I can see his got some moves there” Soarin laughed
“Very enthusiastic, I like that now let’s all get breakfast, oh and Soarin, you owe me ten bits and fifty laps of the training ground for cheating at chess” she chuckled as a rather annoyed Soarin muttered to himself. They all left the bed room together and Wind Note came into the openness of it and was amazed. “Great city isn’t it?”
“I say… and I am walking on clouds, this is cool” he said walking by Spitfire and Soarin feeling a bit of pride in himself walking alongside the Wonderbolts.
"how about after breakfast I take you on a tour of Cloudsdale, you can see where the weather is made and how things work up here" Wind note's face lit up, being invited to breakfast with the wonderbolts and now invited to go on a tour of Cloudsdale with Spitfire "It would be an honour!" he replied back, more excited than a kid on Christmas Day.
"Really the honour is all mine Wind Note, you must tell us what your world is like and how it differs to ours, maybe we could learn something from each other"
"Sure, I’ve got loads of things to tell you about our world" still excited as they approached the mess hall, "ya like explaining what an Aeroplane is and this drink you call rum, anyway welcome to the mess hall, let’s get some chow and catch up with each other before we all go for morning drills"
They sat down to breakfast, each of the team members occupied with each other, Spitfire turned to Wind Note "so, what did you do as a job back in your world?"
"Well I worked at a rather dull shop called Argos, it's like a big warehouse shop but people order their products from a catalogue, in my spear time though I drew character art and worked on cars and aeroplanes"
Wind Note took another bite on his breakfast muffin as Spitfire sat there very puzzled with these new words and things she was hearing, "ok let’s start with what is an aeroplane?" Wind Note went through his bag and grabbed his iPad with his mouth and placed it on the table, "ok, I don't have fingers any more so bear with me", he grabbed a pencil out of his bag and started poking the screen with the rubber end, he eventually got to a picture of his aeroplane, a Lacombe 8A from 1946, "this Spitfire is an aeroplane, it's what humans use to fly since we don't have wings of our own, the propeller at the front spins round using an internal combustion engine, the movement of the propeller pushes the air back and moves the aeroplane of which the faster the aeroplane goes the more lift it will get for the wings, unlike our wings the ones on the aeroplane don't move"
Spitfire was stunned, sucked into the inner workings of an aeroplane, she was very interested on how it worked and the way it looked, "this is incredible, it's a shame you cant bring your flying contraption into this world, I would love to learn more about it"
"Well if you get me the right equipment and materials I’ll build you one, but first it's time to get these bad boys working!" Spitfire stood up agreeing with Wind Note, "ok everypony, the fun is over, it's time to get back to work and start training for the next air show, while we train we will teach our rookie here how to fly, with out using a flying machine hehe, now lets suit up, I want to see all of you out there on the training ground in ten minuets on the double! Soarin, get our rookie the correct uniform for his training".
Everypony cleared up and hit the changed rooms to get into their uniform flight suits, "Hey Wind Note, you’re gonna need this" Soarin gave him the Wonderbolts flight camp uniform to change into, "your one of us now rookie"
"I thought we were going on a tour of Cloudsdale first?" he recalled wondering what was actually planned, "well rookie, if you were a captain of that flying machine in your world, I want to see what you can do with the new wings you have got now"
"hmm... seems legit, my chance to impress hehe, also Spitfire, the term is pilot not captain"
"Oh, I see, well get going, it's fifty press ups for every minute your late"
He held up his new uniform gazing at it not believing what was happening, he was going to be trained by the Wonderbolts "if Rainbow Dash knew about this, i would be a dead pony right now"
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They took him to what looked like a sports ground made of clouds with pillars sticking out of it and the race track very clearly marked out with stands by the start/finish line. He looked to his wings and thought to himself this be easy it always been in his dreams and tried to fly right off the bat but as he took off the wings flapping came out of sync and he fell flat on back with the Wonderbolt team looking down at him. “Good for first try huh?”
“Not bad but your way out of sync one wing was flapping faster then the other and you turned the wing on the left a bit to sharp causing you to barrel roll onto the ground. Now lets try it again” Spitfire helps him up with a hoof and they start lesson 101 with him.
For the next few days things didn’t go as they planned, Spitfire and Soarin took it to their business to get Wind Note to fly or at least take off without spinning out of control and landing with a thud on the clouds. They just didn’t know what was going wrong, they easily taught a few filly and colts without too much trouble but Wind Note as the watched just kept crashing then flying.
By the next few days closing in on the end of the week things just went down hill to the point that Wind Note refused to leave his room and seem rather upset and anger over himself that he was showing up two of the Wonderbolts with his dreadful flying, he dreamed he could do it but he just couldn’t get the take off right at all.
Spitfire sitting at the café with Soarin as he ate the applepie spoke to him “We need to figure out what we doing wrong, for five days now we tried everything we know and taught throughout our lives and we even messing it up for him now. It seems we just going around in circles…” Spitfire grumbled, then look annoyed at her co-flight teammate “And all you can do is eat that damn apple…” she paused raising her head. “That’s it!”
He swallowed licking his snout then said “What it?”
“You’re a genius! Why didn’t I see this before?” she dashed off into the sky after kissing him on the side of his snout.
“I am aren’t I” he smiled with closed eyes then blinked “genius to what?” he looked clueless then went back to eating his yummy applepie.
Day 6…
“Right sugar it time get that blue and black tail backside out of bed and get some serious training” a female voice that Wind Note heard before but pushed away and covered himself
“I told you before I am not doing anymore, crash 50 was my limit” Wind Note grumbled
“Hear that? He thinks he had it as bad as ya” Wind Note wonder who she was talking to and heard laughing then came the voice he realized he knew then whom was speaking to.
“Your right there, I had more crashes then I could count and also lost my cool with Rainbow Dash…” he paused then chuckled “Guess more than your and her lessons rubbed off”
“To right sugar” then Wind Note pulled off the covers from his head and saw Applejack and Electuroo standing before him. “Now isn’t that better? So Wind Note, shall we get started?”
He noticed she was standing on the clouds “How…” then he recalled “Twilight magic spell for walking on clouds?”
“Yep and I gather ya know of the others too?” he nod then Applejack turn to Electuroo “So how big of a show is this cartoon back on Earth anyhow?”
Electuroo rubbed is hoof on his head “Well erm…” the he recalled the papers “Sorry got to get these papers to the weather centre to get, the next week’s timetable for weather over Ponyville for Rainbow Dash” then in a burst of speed Electuroo left.
“Why does he always avoid answering that question…” Applejack straighten her hat then turn to the two Wonderbolts “Well thanks for getting me up here but ya two be helping out”
“Us?” both point to each other with a questioning look.
“Yes, that’s what Rainbow Dash did as well to help Electuroo to fly, first thing is to work from the ground up with balance and such. Don’t worry it will be hard work” she saw them backing up but Applejack saw Electuroo was behind them with a thunder cloud and on cue jumps on it zapping them in the back sides they landing before her. “I see ya two volunteered good” she winked to Electuroo then he dashes off again.
Wind Note watched all what happened feeling a little lost “So when did I miss the action that Electuroo came something cool?”
“Trust me sugar it didn’t come overnight, it most likely to do with Rainbow Dash giving him some of her self-confidence” Applejack said then notice a piece of paper and pencil before her on the bed. “Huh?” she looked at it with a frown.
“Before we start could you erm… give your autograph?” Wind Note asked Applejack
“Say what now? Autograph? My I never had anyone ask me that before” Applejack did it with the pencil in her mouth then gave him the paper “I gather this cartoon has us six as stars or something?”
Wind Note smirked “Yep, it called… yaw!” he jumps up and crash in front of her on the cloud ground with smoke coming from his backside with Electuroo outside the window on a cloud and he looked to Electuroo shaking his head and going a zip up motion on his mouth. “What was that for?” he flew right out of the window and snout press against Electuroo’s and all he got was a grin and Applejack was laughing and saw what he did. “What with the grin and laughing?” he looked both of them.
“Is the altitude really getting to his head?” Spitfire shook her head
“Your flying” Soarin spoke out and Wind Note looking down then at his wings with amazement then back at Electuroo “I see what you did there Electuroo, good thinking”
Electuroo sitting on the black cloud just still keeping the smile “Well it the same trick that was pulled by Rainbow Dash on me but it took a balance lesson still to get it just right so Applejack, do your stuff” he saluted “I got someone to scare back at Ponyville with this little cloud” he chuckled and flew off with the cloud.
Wind Note lands back in the room and turn to them “Why do I have a feeling he talking about Rainbow Dash?”
“Yep ya on the mark sugar, she pulled a prank on him with the weather report and I was in on it but ya two kind of got in the way of the bolt” Applejack turn to the two Wonderbolts
Spitfire rubbing her backside “Tell me about it”
Applejack then put a hoof around Wind Note and pulled him up to her “Well it time for some ground up balance, now let’s get going, the day not getting any earlier” she walks out and with a sigh both Wonderbolts Spitfire and Soarin follows.
Wind Note put the paper on the table “Only five to go” he whispered then ran after them “Wait for me!”
In the distance a flash of lightning could be seen and followed a thunder was heard then Rainbow Dash screaming out “ELECTUROO!!! I will get you for that!” followed by the echoes of laughter and Wind Note looking below hearing this with a shake of a head he knew he was in for some hard work but also fun since it would be with the Wonderbolts and no other then Applejack in his training at the cloud tracks.