//------------------------------// // 15: H.A.L.O. Training // Story: The Games We are Forced to Play // by Kablam Pony //------------------------------// Connor By some divine intervention, Applejack was completely okay with Connor leaving the farm and working for Rainbow Dash with cloud busting. It surprised Connor greatly, but Applejack understood that Connor was moving on to bigger and greater things with his time in Ponyville. Apparently, Applejack heard the story about his game of tag from Fluttershy, who heard it from Pinkie Pie, who was eavesdropping on Twilight while she was having a small panic attack after the she got home at her tree house. So the next morning, Connor was standing before a house made of white fluffy clouds with rainbows spouting out from a couple of orifices and flying in the air. When he first saw the home, the first word that came to Connor's mind was 'grand'. But after he connected the thoughts that this was Rainbow Dash's home, the second thought that came to mind was 'egotistical'. How Rainbow lived in such a place and not fall through the cloud floor was beyond him. But, he had a job to do and it was about time to get started. He spread his angular wings and took off for the flying home. Connor circled slowly around the cloud castle looking for Dash inside through the openings. After making two passes around the home, Connor was about to turn and leave to look for her elsewhere when Rainbow Dash came bursting out the front door to greet the new day. “Helloooo sun! I am ready to start the day and make it even more awesome than yesterday!” Rainbow Dash flew around expressing her excitement for the new day before spotting Connor. “Ah, good. You showed up. I thought I was going to have to come down and make you start flying again after yesterday,” she said in half jest. “Heh, yeah...” After Connor had left the presence of Twilight and Rainbow and found himself a little private spot, he let himself have a little freak out from being seconds away from dying yesterday. In fact, he had kept his hooves firmly planted on the ground for the rest of that day until this morning when he needed to fly up to Rainbow Dash's home. It was taking Connor a bit of effort to work up the courage and fly again. Unlike motorcycling, Connor didn't have pavement to slide on and slow his momentum through friction if he screwed up. If he made a mistake while flying, he had one way to go and the ground was a punishing mistress for failures. “Come on, why do you look nervous? This will be easy work. Just follow me and we'll get through this, no problem,” Dash said with the upmost confidence before flying off into the bleary morning sky. Connor followed suit after her, but at a slower pace. He fell inline next to her before asking his first question of the day. “So what exactly are we doing?” He spoke over the wind noise. “We are whipping up today's weather! We're supposed to have partly cloudy skies for the next couple of days so we need to make sure those clouds don’t get too big.” “Okay, how are we supposed to do that? We can't grab clouds and break them apart,” Connor gave a deadpanned look at Rainbow. “What do you mean, 'We can't grab clouds'? Just watch,” Rainbow Dash took off for the nearest cloud above them and struck it with a mighty kick, making the cloud break into smaller pieces. Then, she grabbed the pieces with her hooves and scattered them apart so they wouldn't reform again. Connor stared in disbelief as he watched Rainbow break apart clouds with her bare hooves. The scientist and physicist inside him were having a field day trying to figure out what he just witnessed. What allowed Rainbow to manipulate clouds? Was it something to do with her wings? He needed to test this. Rainbow came back around to hover before Connor who was staring blankly into space. “Hey! Let's go! Work starts now and we need to get this done as soon as possible before we start training!” Rainbow zoomed off again after another cloud leaving Connor in a dumbfounded hover. He blinked out of his stupor and flapped hard gaining more altitude to reach the clouds. The low flying clouds were about the same altitude as the top of Rainbow's home. It wasn't anywhere close to his record yesterday, but he could still feel the oxygen thinning out ever so slightly. It felt like the air was becoming more crisp like breathing in the air on a cold morning as he went higher. It didn't feel debilitating, rather it felt invigorating as if the leaner air was enriching his blood with more energy than usual to burn at hotter temperatures. He came to a hover in front of a cloud and stared at it with uncertainty. There was no way a cloud could be considered a solid object. It was scientifically impossible for a vapor formation to also be a solid, tangible, object. He gave the cloud a short jab and a part of the cloud broke off. “Are we flunking serious, here,” he angrily shouted in his head, “Are, we, serious, here? I just punched a cloud like a pillow and it broke. How the gunk is that possible?” Connor gave the cloud an evil, wide eyed, death glare for breaking a fundamental rule of physics. Matter can not exist in two different states unless it is a transitional state, like air condensing into water droplets or dry ice evaporating into wisps of air. However, this cloud was supposed to be a water vapor formation and yet, it had weight and density behind it like it was a floating snow mound from winter. The cloud burst in front of him as Rainbow Dash kicked it, “Come on! Move your flank, cadet!” Connor gave a subdued angry glare, but did as he was instructed, “And use your tail more when flying!” Rainbow shouted after him. Connor glanced back behind him to look at his blonde colored tail fluttering behind him and flicked it back and forth in the air experimentally. He felt his flight path divert slightly off course giving the same yaw effect as a tail rudder did on a plane. He raised his eyebrows in surprise for not considering using his tail as a makeshift rudder. Connor and Dash flew around the sky for a couple of hours making sure that today's cloud cover was broken up and let plenty of sunlight through. It was a new kind of work for Connor as he moved between different altitudes for both high and low clouds. It was fun and cool getting used to varying atmospheric conditions and using more of his tail in a rudder-like fashion to help make turns faster. But Connor was wearing out and was in need of a break. Eventually Rainbow Dash called for a break, “Alright, Connor! Break time!” “Finally,” he said quietly to himself before speaking to Dash, “So are we landing on the ground?” “Nope! We can just land right here on a cloud. It's way more comfy than the ground,” Rainbow Dash pushed some clouds together so they both had their own fluffy white pads to land on. “Alright, stop, stop, stop!” Connor held his hooves up in a stopping motion, “You expect me to believe that I can just land on a cloud and walk around on it? Okay, going up and physically manipulating a cloud and moving it around or breaking it apart; already, that is pushing my limits of believability. Now, you expect me to think that I can land on a cloud and not fall through it? You do realize clouds are just made of water vapors and are not solid objects, right?” Connor growled in disbelief while gesturing angrily between the cloud and Dash. But Rainbow just gave a deadpanned look while she hovered near her cloud and without missing a beat, she side stepped out of the air onto the cloud to prove her point. Connor withheld his outburst but his eyes said he wanted to flip a table in raging disbelief. How was this feat possible when clouds were not solid platforms? A stupidly simple, yet ridiculously infuriating explanation came from Rainbow Dash, “Its magic. All pegasi have the ability to control weather and walk on clouds,” she rattled off in a bored tone, “Look, just stay here and wait for me until I get back with some snacks.” She jumped off her cloud bed and dived for the ground in search of food leaving Connor there trying to come to grasps with what he just witnessed. With Rainbow gone, Connor hovered in place giving the clouds a narrowed glare, not wanting to give up his pre-established views on world workings. But his wings ached in protest and demanded rest; so he grudgingly forced himself to relinquish his views on the world just for a little while and test to see if this cloud walking was real or just a fluke happening with Rainbow Dash. He hovered inches above the cloud waiting for his back hooves to just pass through it with no resistance. But his hooves hit solid ground when he finally let himself drop far enough. Connor gingerly let the rest of his hooves touch down on the cloud but kept his wings open in case he did fall through. He tested the rigidness of the cloud to see if it would hold his weight by giving it a stomp. The cloud met his hoof with equal force and did not budge. Slowly, Connor folded his wings as he glanced around the cloud watching for any signs that it might break. With his wings tucked neatly at his sides, he bounced a little on it just to make sure the cloud wouldn't break before laying on his stomach. To his surprise, the cloud was extremely comfortable. It was soft in all the right places and supportive in all the right places. He rolled over on his back found this cloud to be an excellent makeshift bed. All the space-age, form-retaining foam back home had nothing compared to this cloud; he could quite easily fall asleep here if Connor laid there long enough. An apple came whizzing by his cloud and Connor sat up to catch it with his wing. Rainbow Dash reappeared with a bundle of apples for the two of them to share. She landed on her cloud before tossing a few more apples to him, “Nice catch.” Connor wordlessly caught the rest of the apples tossed to him with either his wings or his hooves. Since he didn't have any fingers, he sort of scooped them out of the air and set them down in front of him. With the last apple caught, he wiped one of the apples on his bandana before taking a bite out of it. The apple was sweet and crisp as his mouth filled with it's juices. At least some things remain constant across dimensions. They ate in silence relaxing from the morning's work of cloud busting. The two of them had thoroughly beat every cloud flying over Ponyville into smaller clouds and had scattered them evenly across the sky at varying altitudes. Connor found the easiest part of the job was going from high altitude to low to bust up some clouds. All he had to do was drop out of the sky and punch or kick the cloud to bits before pulling up and grabbing the remains and scatter them to the wind. As they neared the end of their break Connor asked rainbow about his training, “So, how are doing training today?” “The same way we were training on the ground! We are going to training even harder up in the air and get you used to working with different altitudes for the Wonderbolts show! So after we finish with arranging the clouds, we're going to start with fifty wing-ups, then move into sprints and endurance laps. After that, it's inverted flight practice while flying higher and higher into the sky. Then to end it all, we will doing 100 laps at the higher altitudes to build up your tolerance,” Rainbow rattled off her torturous training schedule with excitement. Connor gave a pained expression and a single, quiet, moan. “Was that whining I heard?” Rainbow's voice dropped to a dangerous, acid-like tone. Connor sighed and gave a robotic response, “No ma'am.” “Good, now finish up your snack and let's get flyin'! We've got a lot to do and only three weeks to do it!” Dash took off from her cloud leaving Connor to finish the last few bites of his apples. When he was done, he stood up and gave his tail a small flick before spreading his wings and jumping off his cloud. Now that he had spent about two weeks in this world, he was becoming more accustomed to having wings and a tail. It still felt weird at times, but he no longer looked at them in disgust and hatred. Now that he was past the harsh stage of accepting his new body, it now felt like a new tool or toy to experiment and play with. He wanted to see the limits of his new body and how far he could push it; if Rainbow Dash allowed him to live long enough to see that end. It was going to be a really, really, long three weeks before that show. ~~~ There was an old motto from his world that liked to say, 'Things never get easier, you just get better'. Well, if Connor really was getting better he couldn't see it through the sweat blocking his vision. The first week of training was a tough one. Rainbow dash had put Connor on the fast track to reaching Cloudsdale in three weeks and there was no signs of slowing down. About half way through the first week, Rainbow had already pushed him to his previous altitude record before he passed out. Despite his tiredness and low energy levels, Connor could still function quite well at this altitude. Even though the oxygen was noticeably less, it wasn't a significant difference that prevented him from flying around. The cool air singed his lungs a little as he breathed in and the muscles in his wings burned, but he pushed on wanting to achieve another goal in this world. Connor monitored himself looking for any signs of dizziness, light headedness, or his vision fading in case he was about to black out. Thankfully, he didn't find anything outside of normal exhaustion and fatigue; at least he thought so, he couldn't really tell. The second week of training was becoming a grueling one. By the end of the first week, Rainbow had Connor flying well above where he passed out at. After a certain point, the cloud busting job could only take them so high before they ran out of clouds. The thinner atmosphere made it more difficult for clouds to form until they reached Cloudsdale's altitude where clouds started forming again. At this altitude, Connor was now feeling the effects of having less oxygen to breathe. He was sucking in air harder and he was becoming fatigued faster. It didn't stop training, but Rainbow did notice the change and switched the schedule to focus more on endurance and tolerance building. Before, Rainbow Dash's training had consisted of an equal balance between strength building, endurance training, and flight control exercises. But since Connor was having more difficult time breathing at this higher altitude, she moved towards tolerance building exercises and flying laps to help speed the process of getting used to the thinner air. Connor was glad the Dash wasn't all work and no heart. She was more understanding to giving him more breaks to catch his breath than before and wasn't being so forceful with their lessons. She was still firm and brash, but their was an undertone of 'Don't push yourself too hard'. The rest of that week was spent just getting used to flying around at moderately high altitude levels. The other thing Connor was having to deal with was his slight fear of heights. He never really noticed it when he was focused on flying around, but when he did peer over the edge and look down his gut tensed up a little and he had to wrench his eyes off the ground and stay focused on not hitting a cloud. Despite being water vapor, clouds were surprisingly solid and still hurt when you ran into them. On the third and final week before the show, Rainbow and Connor had reached a point where if Cloudsdale was next to them, they would be right underneath it. Connor could still feel the thin air burning away at his lungs, but it was becoming bearable. His lungs felt better and more adapted with the thin air after spending so much time in it that he felt ready to try and return to their old routines for practice. Rainbow agreed and she slowly incorporated more strength training and flying maneuver practices again. She still placed an emphasis on endurance and tolerance building, but agreed it was time to start getting back to actual flying. Rainbow never told Connor, but she noticed Connor was flying faster, his turns were becoming sharper and his wings becoming more capable of withstanding the G forces he was putting them through. He was using more of his tail and arching his body more when turning and was getting into the habit of tucking his arms behind him for more speed. It was more proper to have his arms out in front of him like Super Mare for better stability, but he seemed fine with keeping his arms tucked close to his chest. He also had a funny habit of sticking his forelegs out to the side as he banked left or right; almost like he was dragging his arm through the air to grab onto some invisible anchor point to hook on and yank himself around. Rainbow Dash didn't question it too much, as each Pegasus developed their own unique way of flying. Outside of training, the group had been preparing for the trip to Cloudsdale. Connor had asked if Applejack had any small bags he could borrow for carrying money around with him to buy food while at the show, and Applejack had loaned him a small satchel for him to use while on the trip. He had been saving this worlds' currency (apparently called bits) for any kind of special occasions that would come up and this show would be a perfect use for the money. On the day of the show, he stopped by Applejack's place to pick up the bag and money before meeting Rainbow Dash at her home. The two of them were going to meet up with Twilight and the rest of the gang before flying to Cloudsdale to meet everypony at the stadium where the Wonderbolts show was happening at. The plan was everypony would be traveling by hot air balloon, but Rainbow Dash had other ideas of getting to the show. She was planning on taking a more exciting route there.