Skyborn

by That Avi Nerd

Class 2-47

About an hour later the AIR Teams returned to Navis 7. Aurora had eventually gotten past her fascination with the clouds and assisted the rest of the team in clearing the ship of ice. Though there wasn't very much, she was still able to find enough to keep busy while shadowing her father. He pointed out sections of the ships covered in ice, which were difficult to spot due to their clarity and the white skin of the ship, and showed her how to carefully remove them with chemicals and picks without damaging the ship. The morning's MDT had done a fairly good job in clearing the previous night's build up off of the ship.

Aurora landed on the hangar deck with a heavy heart. She didn't want to bring her wings back to her side. She didn't want to take her mask off, or the rest of the flight suit. All of it meant that her expedition in the outside world had come to an end.

She followed her father and the rest of the Teams through the main hatch that lead out of the hangar. Aurora stopped just before passing through to catch one final glimpse of the outside world before the main hatch was closed.

"Amazing, wasn't it?" Aries asked her as he removed his own mask.

"Tell me you're going to take me on another flight," Aurora demanded as she removed her own. "Preferably soon?"

Aries ushered her out of the hangar and into the corridor. "We'll see what I can do. It took a fair amount of convincing with the admiral in order to even allow you to go on this one. This was just a routine mission, too. You're definitely not going on any emergency flights." They headed towards the locker rooms to change out of their flights suits, an act that Aurora was now almost desperate for. Although they provided great insulation to keep them warm outside the walls of Navis 7, inside, they turned you into an oven.

"Don't get it twisted," he said as they walked. "I can't tolerate what you did at school today. That flight was not a reward for your actions. Do something that stupid again and I'll make sure you're never on my Team. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Look, I understand that it was in the defense of another pony, and that loyalty is something I can respect. However, you need to have the discipline to stop before you take things too far. Next time, show that you're the better pony. Don't stoop to their level. I know you, and you're on a pedestal so much higher then they can imagine. They're jealous, which is why they try to bring you down with them. Don't let them."

"I won't. Thanks, dad."

"Hey, it's what I'm here for. Come on, we'll get out of these suits and head home, alright?"

"Okay."

Soon after the two ponies had arrived at their home on the edge of District 2. Ariel, Aurora's mother, was already hard at work on the family dinner. Andromeda was helping her with the preparations after having been grounded at home for starting her own fight; her being the aggressor and not the defender, however.

While they waited, Aries and Aurora entertained Cobalt in the living room. While the colt was occupied with his toys and not his family, the two pegasi turned to a book set out in front of them. It was an instruction guide on being a member of the AIR Team, something Aries had brought home from work that day. In it were all the vital subjects a potential candidate for the Teams would need to know: How to use the flight suits, the radios, how to properly fly, how to withstand the cold, safety precautions, emergency plans, eteceteras.

Though reading was spuratic due to the ball of magical energy zipping around and laughing in front of them, demanding their attention, the two ponies were making some progress in it. Aries told his daughter first hoof accounts of nearly everything the book covered and even went in depth to further develop her understanding of the material. Before they were finished with the third chapter they were called to supper by Ariel. With a minor bit of chaos the family was finally sitting as one around the dinner table. Aurora helped to feed Cobalt while in his high chair next to her. It was one of the few things she did to distract herself from the only empty seat out of the six available at the table.

Towards the end of their meal, Ariel dismissed Andromeda, leaving her with instructions to take Cobalt into the other room. Aurora sank into her seat at this news. This is it, she thought, my turn to get yelled at...

"So," Ariel began, putting her silverware atop of empty plate and pushing it off to the side so she could have ample room to lean forward on the table with. "I heard about what happened today."

"Look, mom," Aurora began, trying to figure anyway out of the situation she could. But with her father there, it was nearly impossible. "I'm sorry."

"I understand, it's not your fault..." Her cyan head turned towards the only other pony at the table. "How could you let this happen?!"

The sudden turn of emotion caught Aries off guard as he struggled to formulate a sentence. "I-I-I, dear I don't know what you're talking about! I don't understand how I could have prevented her from getting into a fight!"

"That's not what I'm talking about." She turned back towards Aurora, her horn lighting up with a magical glow. Aurora remained still, unsure of what to do. From the corner of her eye she saw a white piece of fabric float past, having been plucked out from behind one of her wings. Ariel floated it over to in front of her father. "You know what this is..."

It was Aries' turn to sink into his chair. "I can explain—"

"Explain what? That you took our daughter outside of the ship! You took her on one of your flights, didn't you? I pull this fabric off of you all of the time! Don't even try to say she was just trying the suit on because she was curious, I can see the mask lines around her face!"

Aurora's eyes widened as she covered her head with her wings, parting a few feathers so that she could just barely see. The mask leaving marks wasn't something that she had thought of, and apparently neither had her father.

Ariel sighed, "but I can't blame you, either of you. It's something that runs in the family it seems. I'm just afraid of loosing another one of you..."

"It'll be fine," Aries said as he scooted his chair over to the mare, draping her in a wing. "I'm not going to let anything happen to her."

"I know, and I trust you. I trust both of you." She paused in thought. "What's the next step?"

"Huh?" Aurora asked, cautiously moving her feathers back.

"Well, what's the next thing we have to do to get you on the Team?"

The young pegasus blinked at her mother, unable to response coherently. That's when Aries took over with a plan that he had obviously already thought of before.

"Next, we get her into the academy, where she can officially begin her training. Granted, on paper it'll be quite a ways away for you to be able to leave the ship, but the training will make you far more adept at it than you were today. It won't be easy, either."

"I don't..." Aurora stammered. "I don't know what to say, really."

"You could ask when you start."

"Okay, when do I start?"

"Tomorrow. Don't bother going to sixth hour. I'll be by after your fifth class to pick you up and take you to the academy. Your application has already been approved and the school knows. It counts as credits, so you won't have to make up any of your other classes."

Aries got up to head to the living room, while Ariel began cleaning up the dishes, leaving Aurora in shock to what she had just heard.

"Wait, dad, what?" she got up and chased after him. "Are you serious?!"

The next day seemed to drag on for Aurora. Crystal Star stared at her all day and the classes didn't feel like they would ever end. All that was on her mind was it was her first day at the academy, already. Her biggest dream was about to start to come true. The anticipation was thrilling to her. Who all was going to be in her class? They academy was small, and there weren't many pegasi as it was, so who all could have been selected? Who even applied? Would she be the best? She wasn't the greatest physically but she definitely believed that she knew the most about the job. Would her father being the Captain have any influences on how she would be treated? Would she be treated differently because of him? So many questions. All swirling in her mind until finally the bell rung to signal the end of their fifth class of the day.

Aurora was without a doubt the first pony out the door, taking to her wings and using the walls to jump off of to make tighter turns through the hallways. Her dad had said to meet in the gymnasium, where she would meet the other cadets, and where he would be to lead them to the academy. The gym door, along with her future, was in front of her; a spectre of light at the end of a long hall. She blew so fast overhead of the ponies walking through it most of them were dropping their papers.

Two ponies waited in front of the door for her. Aurora set her hooves on the ground and skidded to a halt along the slick linoleum surface of the school's hall. She was only about a food away from Rose and Buck when she finally stopped.

"Oh my gosh!" Rose gasped, bringing her best friend in for a surprisingly tight hug. "I'm so proud of you!"

"We knew you could do it," Buck added, watching from the sideline.

Aurora had to push her pink friend off of her. "Thanks guys, it means a lot."

"You'll do great," Rose encouraged her as she and Buck stepped off to the side to allow the pegasus through.

Nodding, Aurora calmly walked past and into the gymnasium. There she was stopped in her hooves, even being slammed in the rear by the closing door. Having seen that the door failed to close the rest of the way, Rose poked her head in to see what was going on. "Hey, you alright?" she asked, seeing Aurora's frozen expression. "What's the—oh."

In the center of the gym was five other pegasi: four stallions and a mare. Four of them were in their grade, and another was a level higher. The two recognized the mare from their classes, she was quiet, made sure not to make her presence known, and to Aurora's knowledge had shown no interest in the AIR Team. They weren't even sure if they knew her name. A couple of the stallions they knew from the hoofball team, but there was one in particular that caught their eye. Although he had an average build, he stood with confidence and bearing that made him seem powerful. His coat was brown accented by a soft tan main that was spiked. His yellow eyes were warm and comforting. His flanked was labeled with a yellow lightning bolt. Though his last name was unknown, the mares knew his first by heart: Storm.

Aurora felt something pushing her from behind as she was force ably moved to the center of the room. She turned to see Rose pushing her, a grin plastered on her face.

"What are you doing!" Aurora gasped, trying to back peddle with futile results.

"This is your chance! Come on!"

"Nope! I'm out! I'll be a waiter at a restaurant! I'm not doing this anymore!" Aurora could already feel her cheeks turning red.

"It'll be great! You two will be able to be side by side, working together, talking..."

"That sounds absolutely awful! I will have none of it!" She tried to unfurl her wings and fly away but Rose caught her in her magic.

"Look," the unicorn explained in a very serious tone, "We've gone through a lot of work to get Buck and Flora together. Look how happy they are now! It's great! We're already seeing amazing changes in Buck's day to day self. Now you're going to go out there and you're going to talk to Storm. You're not going to mess with my shipping."

"Your what?"

"Just go!" With a heave Rose pushed Aurora the rest of the way into the gym, sliding the mare across the floor on her hind quarters with a slight spin.

Aurora watched the gym go by in a dizzying blur. When everything refocused and she ceased to spin, she found herself in the center of the court with Storm looking down on her. At that moment she felt very small, part of it even escaping to show on her expression.

"Well hi!" Storm said, taking a step back in pleasant shock. "Making quite the entrance, eh?"

Aurora struggled to keep a slight 'eep' from escaping the corner of her mouth. He actually talked to me, she thought in a gasp. Nothing came to mind as to what action to take. This had never been one of the many contingencies to enter her mind.

"What's wrong?" he laughed. "You look like someone just grabbed onto your heart and won't let go!"

No, they wont... The white pegasus could feel her heart blushing. She only hoped that it wasn't showing on her cheeks.

"What's your name again?" He outstretched a hoof to help her up with. "I've seen you in class but I don't quite remember it."

"A-Aurora," the mare managed to spit out, shakily taking his hoof and accepting his assistance.

From behind the gymnasium's doors, an earth pony and a unicorn were casually observing the entire incident.

"Good things are happening?" Buck asked.

"Oh yeah," Rose happened. "Very good things are happening. This is almost as good as when we put you and Flora togeth—"

Buck slowly transferred his gaze from inside the gym to the pink unicorn that was leaning on him so she could see in. "What do you mean, "put me and Flora together"..."

"I didn't say that!"

The stallion moved out from under her hooves. "You were about to."

"No I wasn't!" She desperately looked around for some type of an escape. "Well would you look at the time! It's sixth hour! Whelp, gotta go to history! Catch you layer, Buckeroo!" Rose took careful steps back in the direction of her next class. Buck casually followed her.

"You forget we have that class together..." he casually reminded the mare, whose ears fell back."

In the meantime inside the gymnasium, Aurora had regained at least some of her composure. Just in time for her father to step in from the opposite door from which she entered, too. The quiet bickering among the gathered ponies trickled off as they turned their attention to Aries.

"Good afternoon, cadets," he said with a smile, approaching the group. "How are we feeling this afternoon?" His answer was everything between 'Good' and 'Fantastic', nothing came from his daughter. "Well with any luck, it won't stay that way. Follow me and I'll take you to your first lesson."

The ponies reached the fore-deck swiftly, breezing through the checkpoints with Aries' authority. There he took them to a part that Aurora had not seen before: the training facilities which were located on the lower portions of the fore-deck. Waking through the white halls they passed by various classrooms where they could see other small groups of pegasi studying. Aries said that these were the classes ahead of them, some of whom were about to graduate. Most looked at them with hope and determination. Aurora looked at them with jealousy.

After the class rooms they passed by what appeared to be a physical training area. Places designed to build on coordination and wing strength. Besides you're average weight lifting and endurance gym, there was a tunnel that had a pegasus tethered to the center of; he was being blasted with a continuous stream of powerful air and was trying to fly through it. Another chamber had a similar concept except the pony inside of it was hanging upside down from what appeared to be a replica of the ship's hull and was trying to climb forward on it, but the wing was beating them back with every step they took. Out of everypony she saw her Aurora noticed something. They were all wearing their suits. Even the ones in the class rooms.

Aries took his charge to a locker room, filled with dozens of lockers. He explained that this is where the cadets came every day at the appointed time to change into their gear and begin their classes. They would put on their flight suits and wear them the entire time they were there training.

"It's to add stress," he said, looking at every one of them. "They get extremely hot to be in when you're not outside the ship. So when you're sweating your feathers off, both literally and figuartively, it makes test taking difficult. It's supposed to. Depending on how hard you're working outside you'll even start to burn up out there too. You'll be tempted to take the suit off, but don't, it's the easiest way to get third degree frost burn if that cold air gets inside of your suit. It's your life line. We can't do what we do with out it. So you're going to respect it, love it, and live in it. Questions so far?"

The other mare raised her hoof. "When do we get them?"

"Right now, that's why we're here." Aries pointed to a series of six lockers next to him. "If you look here, you'll notice that these lockers all have your names on them. Inside you'll find everything you'll need on the daily job. Put on your flight suits. If you have any questions or get tangled up in them, don't be afraid to ask, it happens to the best of us."

The ponies nodded, taking to their assigned task. Aurora's locker was on the far end, and to her surprise Storm's just had to the one next to her. While a couple had a little difficulty putting the suits on, most did it in a decent amount of time, with Aurora being the first to put it on.

"Good," Aries said, inspecting their flight suits to make sure nothing was amiss. "Now we can begin our first lesson. You'll learn just how important those suits are."

He lead them out of the locker room and down another hall way. There was a single door at the end of it, made of metal and covered with a warning sign. The glass that made up its only window was frozen to the point you couldn't see through it, and the walls next to it were also developing a layer of frost. Aries explained that it was their environmental chamber. A room designed to plumet its temperatures to well below normal. With it, they can replicated how cold it is outside the ship, with or without wind factors, make it warmer if need be, or even make it colder than the coldest outside temperature record.

Aries turned the hatch-style door knob counter clockwise several rotations to unlock the room. The students immediately felt a blast of cold air that sent chills down their spines. "The room has already been set at a temperature that's warmer than the outside air, but most definitely colder than what you're used to. This is just to give you a taste."

Aurora was the first one to step in, thinking that she had the experience that she would be able to handle the temperatures. Especially if these ones were supposed to be warmer than it really was outside. She quickly realized how wrong she was. Something that she didn't take into account was that her adrenaline was pumping when she went out the first time, causing her to be numb from most of the cold. Here she was relaxed so she was feeling the full effects of the frigged temperatures. The other ponies filled into the rectangular room behind her as they took positions along the walls. Aries moved to the center as he shut the door.

"Sit," he commanded, to which they obeyed. Aurora was vaguely aware that he was talking, she was mainly focused on watching her breath turn to visible vapor. Soon she was overcome with cold chills and shivers, like everyone else. The only one who remained still was Aries. "Notice that you're wearing suits and I'm not, yet you are the ones who are showing signs of the cold," he said. "This isn't your fault. By the end of your training, you'll be able to bear almost what I can. I simply have experience on you. I've felt much, much colder."

"Ho-ho-how-how-how long do we have to stay in here?" Storm managed to chatter out.

Aries looked around thoughtfully. "Eh, I think you guys could last an hour at the least." The answer to the question drew the older pegasus a series of unbelieving looks. "You only think it's bad because you're stationary. Go ahead, move around, get the blood pumping. You certainly won't be sitting still out there I can guarantee you that much."

Aurora took to doing some wings up to stretch out her flying muscles, Storm was running in place, and the others were doing various exercises. Aries continued to sit in the middle, but instead with his eyes shut and his breathing under steady control. It wasn't long before the ponies could feel themselves start to warm up and the room didn't feel quite as cold. The time they were in there seemed to drag on but before they knew it the door was opened from the outside.

"Time's up, sir," the pony who was standing on the other side said. "Can't have y'all in here any longer."

"Aww," the stallion stood up, ushering the ponies under him to leave, "I was have a good nap, too."

"Well they're your rules," the other pegasus laughed. "Nopony's allowed to be in past three hours on their first day."

"Three hours?!" the new cadets gasped as one.

"That's how long we were in there?" Aurora questioned.

Aries nodded. "And you all did a great job, too. Now go home, be in the gym tomorrow at the same time so we can get started on the next series of training. That was just a taste. Now you're going to learn your actual job, how to do it, and how to get back alive. Good job today, Class two tack four seven. Keep it up. I wan't you to be the first class to not have any dropouts!"

The ponies shot each other quick glances. Drop outs? Somepony wasn't going to make it through the course. But who would it be?

"You're free to go home," Aries continued. "Go get some rest. You'll need it."

They said their good byes, to each other and to Aries, leaving one by one through the halls of the training facility. Aurora was left behind at her father's side.

"What did you think?" he asked her.

She looked at him and smiled. "This'll be easy."

Aries rubbed the top of her mane, turning it into a mess. "That's what they all say, I love getting to prove them wrong. Come on, hopefully dinner is ready."

Author's Note:

Well... a week short of a year I finally bring you guys the next update. I'm so sorry about it... about everything. As an author, I failed you, my readers. I'll do my best not to let that happen, but in my line of work you never know what can and will happen.

Anyway here's the newest chapter of any of my stories, and I'm pretty excited for it. It may not be the best written, it may not be perfect in grammar and spelling and plot, but that's what I hope you guys will point out. I want you to find ways I can make my stories better. Idea or suggestion? Hit me! Spelling error? Point it out! General hate? Lay it on me! Because I'm not stopping. Not again. I enjoyed this way too much. This isn't even how this chapter was originally slated to be written. The one that was supposed to be Chapter 3 got pushed back to like... chapter 5... so that's pretty neat!

Anyway, hope you guys stick around with me on this journey. Let's finish it together, then start the next.

Loyally,
-Sam.

Up Next: The class takes a spin.

Comments

[bastiaan]

very nice chapter,
im glad this fic isn't canceled
and your planning 5 chapter ahead!? awesome!
very curious there this is going. keep up the good work.

[Wing Dancer]

Need any help editing? :3

Other than that, excited to get to read this again x3