Soldier of the Night

by Skyfire Storm

41. Changing of Seasons

A swift, yet satisfying breeze billowed through the fields demarcating the outer fringes of Vanhoover, the smog and soot which sheathed the distant city core dispersing at least somewhat and facilitating a view which almost called to mind postcard images of Los Pegasus. The day was markedly more cloudy than usual but a seemingly-boundless warmth had set in nonetheless, presumably some of the last gasps of a steamy, muggy summer before a cold, rain-washed fall typical of the area. For how far north Vanhoover was relative to the locations of a lot of other major Equestrian cities it honestly did surprise Storm how much of the city’s climate called to mind the climate back home; true, it didn’t get nearly as warm as it could get in Cloudsdale, but there were a few parallels here and there with regards to the humidity and the daily weather patterns drifting in and out. The northbound ocean currents bypassing the city several dozen miles offshore had a hand in influencing the climate here, but so did the presence of mountainous terrain flanking the city in three directions; it was oceanic but less so than its location would imply.

Two days had passed since Storm began the flight training course, and just as promised by Arrow when he started the two flight classes had been promptly integrated into one; however, whether or not this arrangement would turn out successful in the end was all a matter of time and of circumstance. Although Arrow’s stated rationale for this was to both ease and facilitate better communication between himself and his students, while a much larger pool of trainees enabled more things to be done it was also much harder to keep under control. With the class being as diverse as it was there came a multitude of differing thoughts and opinions, whether in regards to the training program itself or Arrow’s methods of teaching; and hand-in-hand with that came the possibility of certain members of the group disrupting the prescribed lessons.

Arrow, however, didn’t seem fazed by such a prospect in the slightest, and nothing of the sort had happened, at least not yet.

In fact, if Monday’s events were anything to go by, Storm knew that he was fearsome when angered, perhaps overly so even. The two stallions who’d incited his rage the previous day had been reduced to timid shells of their former selves through quite the talking-down by the disgruntled instructor. Although part of him felt a slight tinge of sympathy for the duo, it was ultimately overshadowed by the part of him which saw them as nothing more than a pair of buffoons who merely sought to create a ruckus and ridiculed them as such. With both classes being aware of Arrow’s near-encyclopedic knowledge of flight by the looks of it—in addition to potential ramifications of unruly behavior—everypony remained at attention and awaited his order. Although some resentment did prevail amongst the group nopony dared voice it, not even Storm. He didn’t show it out of fear of receiving the same treatment the others got, but at this point all Storm wanted was to get what he wanted from the factory and leave this place for good, no matter what the outcome of flight week was. He didn’t care about whether he’d pass or fail on Friday, all he wanted was to go back home.

Although admittedly irreligious, as he flew through the air he silently murmured a prayer for deliverance, not out of a sudden spark of faith but rather out of increasing desperation to leave, that Clear would be able to work something out with him in regards to that. This has gone on for long enough. The pain, the stress. That longing to be back home.

He just had to make it through the week as best as he could.

How long now, Clear? he asked himself as he flew over the quaint, pristine suburbia of Vanhoover, tailing another trainee about a hundred feet ahead of him in fourth place.

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

How long now?

The day’s task was to complete three simple races around the periphery of Silverwood, Arrow having at long last decided to step things up a notch with regards to their training and rightfully so after mainly focusing on the theoretical aspect of flight for the past couple of days. The torrent of information that Arrow threw at them was fascinating without a doubt and a lot of it was things that Storm himself had no idea of before, but there was just too much of it to fully process and digest especially in such a short space of time. At last, they were able to move past that and now came possibly the only remotely fun part of training.

As dissatisfied as he was with the training regimen overall, Storm had to admit — and it definitely struck him as a surprise to have come to this conclusion — that he was actually enjoying himself, grinning madly as he crept ever forward and closed the distance between himself and the trainee currently in third.

The sudden refocus on flight definitely came as a relief to many, Storm included, and Sand Scraper— perhaps the only pony there that he could confide in—was missing out. Where he was, Storm had no idea, but he hoped that they could see one another again before Friday’s big race. He knew full well that passing the course and getting on the team wasn’t exactly a priority for Scraper, but nonetheless, he’d have to show up again at some point.

It wasn’t like him not to come.

“Alrighty, final lap,” Storm muttered under his breath as he entered the stallion’s slipstream directly above factory grounds and awaited an opportunity to overtake him. “Steady now.”

Surely enough, the stallion did momentarily decelerate for reasons that were unclear to Storm, but what did it matter? He was now in third place, and although the stallion attempted to rectify his error and regain his spot, by the time he regained his bearings Storm was already several hundred feet ahead and had the second spot in his sights already. Winning wasn’t something he particularly cared about but at the very least he was having fun, the most fun he was having in recent memory. Although he had only three years of flight experience under his belt unlike most of the other trainees, flight was second nature to him as much as it was to the others. He was a Pegasus after all.

Now, all that was left to do was keep his position for the duration of the race. This particular race was the last of the three, and although Storm didn’t do particularly well in the previous two he hoped to fix that this time around, in the time he had left. He’d greatly underestimated the speeds of some of his opponents, resulting in him attaining a measly seventh place the first time and tenth the second, but so far so good this time.

He’d learned his lesson and started taking into account every angle they could come at, every single possible position his rivals could be in, occasionally turning his head back to see if he could catch anypony closing in on him in the corner of his eye.

And unfortunately whoever was in second place also applied that very same strategy by the looks of it, pulling off in a sudden burst of speed as Storm closed in on him and disappearing from view through a low-hanging cloud.

“Oh, no way,” Storm smirked, briefly glancing back to see a speck approach him from behind before giving it his all in terms of speed as he approached the cloud, a tiny, puffy-white cumulus that inconspicuously blended itself into the surrounding sky, probably not much larger than he was in fact. “Don’t give me that.”

He pierced through the white veil, surging towards his opponent with whatever speed he had built up over downtown Silverwood, the hazelnut Pegasus’ outline fading into view roughly a half-mile ahead over the old train yard next to the industrial area of town. How fast could an average Pegasus normally fly? It wasn’t a question that Storm asked himself very often, but now, as he pondered over it, the realization that he was flying at easily over a hundred miles an hour struck him like a wall.

Seconds passed and the gap between Storm and his opponent began to close and narrow, first incrementally and then exponentially, even as Storm’s energy levels dwindled. At a distance of probably around two hundred feet between them Storm entered his opponent’s slipstream, his heart racing at speeds faster than he was flying at as he tried to recover from this sudden burst.

Would he have the energy to overtake him before he noticed? Storm had no idea, but as they approached the outskirts of the airport, where the flight path would curve back towards the north, he figured it would have been more than worth a shot. Glancing back at both his blind spots in case somepony was approaching them both, Storm pulled out from behind him, veering slightly to the right while the stallion looked to the left and setting off with whatever remaining speed he could muster up from within.

And just like that, as the opponent took note of his blunder, Storm was in second place.

And he was able to maintain that spot until they returned to the “home hill”, as he liked to call it. Although he couldn’t even begin catch up with whoever was in first place, at the very least he made it as far as second.

And he was more than content with it.

“Hey Clear, how was that?” Storm, sweat-drenched, grinned as he approached Clear, who continued observing the rest of the group slowly coming into land even without the use of her binoculars. “You know, I don’t mean to brag but I think I did pretty well overall.”

“I was watching you there, you really showed ‘em,” Clear responded with a smirk, momentarily glancing down at her binoculars and clipboard. “You didn’t win but second place is great nonetheless, it more than warrants a pass in my book.”

“Yeah, I’ll try my hardest on Friday,” he replied with a smirk, panting heavily as sweat ran down his forehead. “I think I’ve got the hang of it. At least now we’re focusing on the actual flying element of the course and not the theory, it should all go by pretty quickly.”

“Storm, can I have a word with you once Arrow dismisses you?” Clear raised an eyebrow all of a sudden as something came or returned to mind, taking note of the last couple of trainees arriving at the start-finish line. “I’ll be waiting here, and it’s something that you might like to hear about.”

“Of course,” Storm smiled, quaking somewhat inside as all sorts of different possibilities shuttled through his mind. What could it have been? Was it something important? “I’ll be no longer than a couple of minutes tops.”

“That’s fine, I’m in no rush,” Clear smiled, watching as Storm turned towards the now-almost-complete group. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“What is it about?” he furrowed a brow as a breeze billowed through his mane.

“You’ll see, now go,” she smirked, flailing her hoof mock-authoritatively in the group’s general direction and motioning for him to join the others. “Go!”

“Alright, will do,” Storm playfully saluted her, drawing in a deep breath as he set off to join the rest of the group.

“Alright folks,” Arrow began just as Storm arrived, observing the combined class with some degree of evident pride in both his class and his methods of teaching, questionable as they may have seemed. “That was great, not too shabby for your first proper races on my watch. Now that I’ve seen what you’re all capable of and being as we’re slowly running out of practice time here, I figured we’d step things up a notch starting from tomorrow. No more theory, folks, no more me explaining potentially-useless things, we will be practicing for our big race on Friday non-stop as best as we can. Tomorrow, we go onto obstacle courses!”

Obstacle courses? Storm raised an eyebrow as the others started discussing amongst themselves. Shouldn't be too bad.

“Alright, LISTEN UP!” Arrow barked all of a sudden, interrupting the commotion which ensued before proceeding after a beat, though with a markedly-lower tone of voice than before. “Before I dismiss you, pop quiz time. Low flight altitude is crucial when it comes to flying through severe weather, as crosswinds can easily knock you out of your flight path and send you into a potentially-dangerous spin, but there are several other hazards you need to take note of when flying through severe weather. Who can tell me of any other potential hazards one should take into consideration when flying through, say, a thunderstorm?”

“Turbulence,” one mare responded.

“Very good,” Arrow smirked in response. “It’s kind of a no-brainer that we want our flights to be as smooth as possible; try and avoid flying through thunderstorms or any other severe weather unless you really must. If it is imperative that you do fly through a storm always stick to a sensible altitude and fly slowly. Next please.”

“Rain.”

“Good - rainfall can not only impede visibility but also distract from the prescribed flight path, in some cases dramatically increasing the likelihood of a loss of control. Next.”

“Lightning.”

“Good,” Arrow smirked. “Lightning is known to cause horribly-agonizing injury or even outright death in some cases, but I’m sure that you already knew that.”

“Visibility?” Storm piped up all of a sudden. Arrow did not specify the type of severe weather being flown through, and many different atmospheric conditions fell under that umbrella term; visibility varied across the board as such. Some of the recruits snickered underneath their breaths in response, but Storm paid them no particular heed.

It was bound to be correct.

“Very good,” Arrow nodded in response, much to the surprise of a few of the other recruits. “I’m surprised none of you have come up with that answer yet. Visibility is a very important factor to take into consideration when flying, especially when passing through areas of the sky that are obscured in any way or another, be it by clouds, smoke, whatever. What does your field of view cover? What can you see? What can you not? Can you see anything at all? This is all stuff you need to take into account lest you fly into a utility pole, or a tree, or god forbid somepony’s home.”

And then it hit them.

“Alright folks, hope you enjoy the rest of your day,” Arrow replied. “You’re all dismissed. See you all tomorrow.”

Looking around amid the hubbub as the class dispersed, Storm tried to spot Sand Scraper in the shuffling crowd before coming to his senses and remembering that he wasn’t there; turning away from the others he set off back towards Clear, who was still there but talking on the phone to one of the other higher-ups.

“I’m back,” he declared, just as she hung up and slid the phone into her saddlebag, taking off the binoculars she had brought with her for observational purposes. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Well Storm, I have great news for you,” Clear proclaimed all of a sudden, Storm’s ears perking up in intrigue as she slid them into her saddlebag also. “Remember how I said yesterday that I’d try to get in touch with High Wind? Well, seeing as I had a free moment after you’ve left I was able to email him about your situation.”

“Y--yeah?” he raised an eyebrow, heart skipping a beat. “Don’t tell me he got back to you.”

“He did,” Clear nodded with a faint simper across her face.

“W--what did he say?” Storm blinked thrice, trying to comprehend what had just transpired.

“Well, it’s pretty long-winded,” Clear explained, taking his stance into account. “But in essence, he tells me he’s ‘concerned’ about what happened and that he’s looking at options of getting you home as soon as possible.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we’re doing what we can on our side too,” Clear smiled in response. “I’ll do whatever is in my power to make this transition as smooth for you as possible, including making your compensation readily available to you as soon as possible. Hopefully, you’ll be back home within the next two weeks or so...who knows, maybe you’ll hitch a ride with Lilli once she flies off for weather school?”

“That won't be very long now, will it?” Storm gulped at that prospect, though not audibly. “When does her first semester start?”

“September the 4th, she’ll be flying off on the 27th,” Clear explained. “So, what are your thoughts overall?”

“Wha--what, on this?” Storm raised an eyebrow. “Just,...in general?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

Comments

[HolyCross9]

Hey, come on, forget Lilli, Storm! Blue's your rightful soulmate you deserve to be with her.

Anyway, that was a great chapter, and it's understandable if your struggles with college are interrupting your progress because I'm willing to be patient with you.