CMC: Training is Magic

by Cold Spike

Chapter Eleven: To Fly At Last

Had Scootaloo been able to fly herself, she would have jumped off of Rainbow and soared far, far away from their destination. Of course, if she could have flown, then they wouldn’t be going where they were going in the first place. It made her head hurt to think about. They also made a quick pitstop when Scootaloo finally remembered just where she had lost her bag and suit.

Rainbow kept making nervous glances back at the filly. Rainbow hated not being in control of situations. What if Spitfire doesn’t have a cure? she thought frantically.

Scootaloo had already surmised where they were actually heading; it didn’t take a genius to guess that Spitfire, Rainbow’s mentor and hero, was somehow behind it. She felt her cheeks practically burn when thinking about how she had yelled at the Spitfire. She must think I’m so lame, she thought mournfully.

“Almost there!” Rainbow called back, then curved her flight pattern, aiming toward the stadium. Scootaloo latched on tighter, her thoughts focused primarily on landing safely. Not that she didn’t trust Rainbow, but there was always that chance that she would crash. It had happened before.

Thankfully, they both landed safely and without incident. Unfortunately, the same could not be said about the pony that Rainbow had landed on. Scootaloo stared in mild horror.

Rainbow noticed her staring. “Eh, he’s a trainee, he’ll be fine,” she said with a lazy wave of her hoof.

“Did anypony catch the number on that chariot?” the stallion uttered in a dazed state.

“You found her? Good!”

Scootaloo’s body flinched upon hearing the mare’s voice. Rainbow let her down slowly onto the ground and approached Spitfire, but all Scootaloo could do was look away in shame.

Spitfire noticed. She crouched down to get on Scootaloo’s level. “Hey,” she started, almost comfortingly. “Don’t sweat it, kid. I should have told you I had a way to fix what’s ailing ya, instead of starting out with ‘something’s wrong with your wings’. It was, in Rainbow’s words, a totally not awesome thing to say. Can you forgive me?”

Scootaloo wasn’t sure how to respond, so she latched onto the first thing that came to her mind. “You can fix my wings?”

Spitfire smiled. “I can repair the magic dampening illness, yes. And,” Spitfire took a calm breath to pick her words very deliberately, “I wouldn’t say they’re broken, just that something went wrong, at some point.”

The filly thought back to when she had obtained her new wings and form, to how it had all occurred. If she were a gambling filly (which sounded more awesome in her head than she cared to admit), she’d bet that The Elder of her village had probably messed up her wings on purpose. Yeah, sounds like something she’d do, she thought bitterly.

“What do you say, kid? You up for this?” Rainbow urged with a smile of her own.

“Yeah, yeah, okay. I… forgive you, Spitfire. Uh, so what now?”

The mare grinned, then patted a nearby basin filled with water.

Scootaloo gulped.

“You ever hear of Poison Joke, kid?” Spitfire started.

“Uh, yeah. Didn’t you have it once, Rainbow?”

Rainbow blushed and mumbled something inaudible.

“Didn’t catch that, recruit. I’ll just have to order you to share those juicy details some other time,” Spitfire said with a laugh. “Anyway, the treatment bath for it is fairly good at normalizing one's magical balance. In your case, Scootaloo, this should help restore balance to your wings.”

She eyed the bath dubiously. Could it really all be that simple? Figuring there was no time like the present, however, she promptly jumped in and sighed with the pleasures from a warm bath.

I missed these, she thought pleasantly, her eyes closed in relaxation. Barely got to do them back with the breezies, and almost never once I turned into a real pony, she thought, thinking of all the times she was forced to bathe in a river or lake.

The warm bath filled her with a sense of calmness she hadn’t felt in ages. It was as if the bath had finally unlocked something she was missing; not just adjusting the magic to make her wings work, but inviting her to finally live among the ponies as a fully functional one. She could now feel the tingling sensation move its way to her wings. It was with a blush that she realized both mares had been gently massaging the bath into her fur.

“Uh, heh heh, did it work?” she asked, attempting to act casual. She didn’t feel comfortable admitting to the two mares just how amazing that bath had felt. She was too awesome for such things. She lifted herself out of the basin and plopped onto the cloud surface. To her astonishment, instead of feeling the water drenched into her fur, it seemed to vanish into it. No, she suddenly thought. They’re sliding off, she noted, figuring it was her natural oils. She felt warm, warmer than she had felt in a long time.

Spitfire examined her wings and slowly nodded. “They seem fine. The hue seems to have fully returned, yes; but we won’t know for sure until you’re up in the air and actually flying.”

“Pffft,” Scootaloo whinnied with her lips and waved her hoof lazily. “Good luck. Been trying to do that for… kind of a while now,” she said sarcastically.

Rainbow smirked down at her. “Yeah? You haven’t had a world-class flier as your flight instructor, squirt.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty lazy, big sis. When you gonna get on that?” Scootaloo asked cheekily; feeling her spunk and self-confidence return.

Rainbow chuckled nervously. “Heh, heh, we’ll start as soon as we get you back to Ponyville, kid.” She then turned to face Spitfire. “Is that all she needs? She’s cured?”

“Should be, yes. Just keep her close to the ground until you’re sure, but I haven’t had this fail me yet.”

Rainbow nodded then let Scootaloo climb onto her back. “Alright, squirt, hang on tight!”

As they ascended and starting to fly far away from the stadium, Scootaloo called back to Spitfire, “Thank you! I'm sorry I yelled! I think you’re really awesome! Maybe not as awesome as Rainbow Dash, but still pretty awesome. Not that I think you’re lame or anything, it’s just Rainbow’s my big sister, and--”

Rainbow cut her off. “Kid, we’re too far for her to hear anything; and I think we get it.”

The filly blushed but nodded. The wind blew around them, and even as her wings unfurled just slightly, Scootaloo just knew that something had changed. They could finally operate just as they were meant to. She was truly a pegasus.

“We gotta stop at your parents and let them know I’ll be teaching you flying,” Rainbow yelled as Ponyville neared. “And, again, sorry I haven’t been teaching ya, I just get so busy.”

“Uh, it’s okay, but maybe we shouldn’t hold a conversation in the air!” Scootaloo exclaimed while doing her best to keep any air debris from entering her mouth.

“Oh, right!”

The rest of the trip was flown in silence, with the exception of Rainbow’s declaration of her awesome moves. Scootaloo struggled to stay on, but couldn’t help but squeal with delight knowing she was riding on the Rainbow Dash and that she would be flying soon and that Rainbow would be teaching her! It was just too much not to squeal!

Of course, all fun things must come to an end, and this ended with Rainbow landing the two under her cloud mansion or Cloudominium. Rainbow looked down to the filly with sorrowful eyes and sighed. “Kid… uh, look, I can’t believe I paid this little attention to you. I don’t even know where you live!”

Scootaloo made a face that said ‘oh’ but couldn’t reply back quick enough.

“I didn’t even teach you to fly, and now this!”

Scootaloo needed to do some quick damage control. “It’s okay, Rainbow. I-”

“I’m the worst big sister ever. I-”

“Rainbow!” Scootaloo exclaimed, standing in front Rainbow who kept pacing back and forth nervously. “I never told you where I lived.”

The mare stopped, her frown fading. “Oh… that makes sense.”

Scootaloo rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “I haven’t exactly been truthful to everypony, about where I live and why…”

Rainbow, now curious, couldn’t help but raised an eyebrow to the way Scootaloo had phrased her response. “Okay… where do you live?”

“With Dinky and her mom,” Scootaloo replied. Rainbow’s eyes widened in shock, but Scootaloo could only guess as to why. Did Rainbow know Bubbles? “Heh, though I only just sort of starting living there… uh, recently.”

Rainbow nodded. “I should think so since I’ve been in her house plenty of times before. Um, were you adopted?” she asked awkwardly.

Scootaloo nodded, figuring it was mostly the truth. “Yeah, it’s a long story, but, um…” She paused, noticing that she had Rainbow’s undivided attention for once. But all she wanted to do was learn to fly! “Can we discuss it later?” she asked and gave her newly fixed wings a few experimental flaps while gesturing towards them with her head.

Rainbow laughed. “Eager to start? Right, uh, let me think back on this,” she said. She noticed the filly giving her an odd look. “Uh, it’s been a while since flight school, kid.”

“Oh. Was it hard to learn how to fly?”

She chuckled and, to Scootaloo’s surprise, nodded. “Kind of, yes. The funny thing is, once you finally get up there, most of it really is instinct. I--”

“Even the Sonic Rainboom?” Scootaloo interrupted.

Rainbow barked a laugh. “Heh, no, that one’s kind of complicated. But everything else, flying, gliding, doing cool tricks; it’s all based on keeping up with the flow- or, how eggheads would want to put it: The Ebb.”

“The Ebb…” Scootaloo muttered. That sounds familiar, she thought, but shook her head when nothing came to her.

“Yeah, though the tricky thing about The Ebb is just how you use it. Unicorns usually don’t have too much trouble figuring it out, but for us Pegasi it can take a little bit of work.”

Scootaloo nodded, looking unsure of herself.

Rainbow clapped her hooves together. “But for now, why don’t we give you a bit of regular practice. Stretch those wings and see what they can really do!”

“Alright!” Scootaloo exclaimed and pumped her hooves in the air. “Um, stretch them in what way? Like this?” she asked while she pushed her wings outwards and used a free hoof to try and tug on them.

Rainbow slapped it away and shook her head. “Kid, never pull on your wings if you can help it. Those feathers of ours are delicate, and they’re everything. If they get too mangled or banged up, then you’re not gonna be doing much flying.”

Scootaloo blushed and looked back at them with a worried stare.

Rainbow nudged her gently on the shoulder. “Here, Scoots, try stretching like this.” Rainbow Dash stretched both of her wings out to her sides and held them at a straight, ninety-degree angle. As she did this, Scootaloo saw that she began to struggle just a bit as she panted like a tired dog, but she was able to keep them steady for a good ten seconds before she let them go. She repeated the gesture again and again until Scootaloo got the picture. After the filly shrugged and tried herself, Rainbow spoke up, “It helps us keep them in balance so we can glide easier when we’re up in the air.”

Scootaloo nodded again but found she could barely keep them straight for more than two seconds at most. “What about flying?” she asked in a sort of whiney tone.

“We’ll get there,” Rainbow promised, “but flying’s no good if you can’t keep yourself afloat through gliding. Trust me, Scoots, this will help you out more than anything.”

“Hmm… okay,” she said, sounding completely unsure. But after around twenty minutes of stretches, she felt she could, at the very least, keep them straight for five seconds without straining to stop. Rainbow smiled down to her and gave the filly a firm nod.

“Good. Now comes the fun part,” she said, and she flew a few inches off the ground. She landed before Scootaloo could even blink, then repeated the maneuver a few times. “Watch my wings closely, kid. Watch and try to visualize your own wings doing the exact same thing.

Scootaloo’s eyes remained transfixed on her feathers. The blue feathers moved, bending downwards then quickly flipped up a few times before the mare’s body was raised high into the air. So transfixed on her wings, she barely noticed when the mare landed and had to force her mind to look away and focus on how her wings would fold in neatly.

Scootaloo frowned after getting a firm nod from Rainbow, letting her know to go ahead and try. She sighed and did her level best to visualize herself, again, doing exactly what Rainbow had done. She tried swiveling her wings several times but had to make the attempt at least ten more before she even vaguely got the exact pattern down.

“Good, now try doing that one more time, and then flap them as hard as you can a few times too,” she added on the end.

“Okay…” she did just that but struggled to keep from gasping as a cool blast of air was suddenly thrust in her direction. In the single moment that it happened, Scootaloo felt her wings tingle, but it all quickly stopped the second she stopped moving them. “That… that felt weird,” she noted out loud.

“That’s good,” Rainbow said with a smile. “Means your wings should be positively flowing with raw magic!”

“It- it does?” Scootaloo stammered, glancing down at her winged appendages with awe.

“Yep, just keep trying that. I noticed you paused from the wind, just get used to it and you should be flying in no time.”

“And that’s how you take off?” Scootaloo said.

“Should be, though when you’ve done it a million times like me you hardly even notice it.”

“R- right.” Scootaloo then tried a few more times to fly into the air, but all that seemed to happen was the tingling grew stronger and felt far more pronounced than before. Grumbling to herself in frustration, she tried again and again until, finally, she felt all four of her hooves leave the ground for all of two seconds. The shock of this new experience made her stop, and she dropped to the ground. She blinked upon landing and started jumping up and down, cheering like a familiar pink mare at a surprise party. “I flew, I flew! Uh… right?”

“You sure did! Not very long, but it’s progress!”

“Progress… The Ebb…” the filly muttered in awe.

“Yep, yatta yatta, Ebb whatever. Honestly, squirt, I never paid much attention to any of that fancy magic talk. Uh, I guess some other Pegasus ponies use it for special tricks and stuff, but for me…” she struck a pose like The Wonderbolts then did a few loops in the air before landing again. “It’s all instinct.”

“Instinct? Uh, but why not teach me about The Ebb? Don’t you know anything about it? Sweetie Belle kept talking about it and its magic and stuff…” Scootaloo trailed off, looking up at Rainbow expectantly.

Rainbow scoffed and did a few more loops while Scootaloo cheered her on. “Instinct, kid. Follow yours and you’ll never go wrong.”

The filly nodded again and scratched her head. She’s hiding something, her brain suddenly warned her. Being so used to hiding in the shadows with her own secrets, she could tell just when a pony was nervously fidgeting around a subject, and Rainbow didn’t seem fully calm about the whole thing. “Um, isn’t there more to flying than instincts?”

Rainbow landed and sighed. “Yes, look, I’m not, um…” Rainbow stopped talking when she noticed Scootaloo staring at her with her utmost attention. I can’t let her think I’m a dropout… stupid flight school, she thought irritably. “There are usually two ways to teach a pegasus to fly,” she said while doing her best to recite what she had learned from flight school. “The old way, how I, erm, mostly learned from, was to toss the pegasus through various situations until they got it and learned to use their wings.”

“Mostly?” Scootaloo asked, hoping for her to clarify. She’s sweating, she noted.

“Yeah, uh, not important. I--”

“Are you keeping something from me?” Scootaloo asked rather bluntly. “It’s just, uh, you’re sweating and stuff and, as Apple Bloom would say, beatin’ around the bush.”

“No! I swear, kid, I… okay, that was a lie. Yeah, I’m keeping something.”

“Isn’t it bad to swear?”

Rainbow felt her hoof hit her face while she slowly slid it down in exasperation. “I dropped out of flight school.”

Scootaloo blinked, then did that a second time, and even a third while her brain slowly tried comprehending those words coming from that mare. Not smiling or chuckling… not a joke, she finally conceded. “What?! That doesn’t make sense! Look at you,” Scootaloo yelled, waving her hooves at Rainbow’s awesome physique and amazing feathers. “You’re awesome at flying! What do you mean you dropped out?”

The mare scratched the back of her neck and sighed again. “It’s complicated, Scootaloo. I can still teach you and everything, but it’s gotta be my way ‘cause that’s all I know,” she said with a shrug.

Scootaloo rubbed the bottom of her chin while she thought about it. “But, how are the Wonderbolts taught? Don’t they all go to flight school?”

“Here and there. I know Soarin’ was a dropout, too; but I think Spitfire went all the way. Flight school’s really more of a guide than a required thing. It’s not like we have a ton of spells to learn or methods of growing stuff to hone in on, you know?”

“But isn’t managing weather hard?”

Rainbow waved her hoof lazily and shook her head. “Well, maybe for some; but I always had a knack for it. Plus, there’s usually only one class you can take for managing weather… stuff. Unless you want to work in the weather factory or something.”

“Oh… um, will I need flight school?” Scootaloo felt Rainbow tussle her mane and laugh.

“I’m sure you will; but for now, you got me as your number one flight teacher!”

“Yeah! Screw flight school! I got Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said with a smile.

“Whoa, kid, wait where did you learn that word, anyway?” Rainbow asked, giving her little sis a stern glare. Scootaloo shrugged with a bashful smile. “Heh, anyway. I never said Flight School isn’t useful; it’s just you probably don’t need it right now. But remember, uh, school is important!” she said with a firm nod. Probably saved a Twi-Lecture by saying that, she thought suddenly.

“School’s boring, Rainbow! You know that!”

Rainbow landed and returned a stern glare yet again. “Kid, if you want lessons from me, you’ll stay in school and focus, ok? I don’t want your… well, I don’t want Derpy to come chasing after me because her kids are behind in class. Got it?”

“Yeah…” Scootaloo mumbled. “Okay, okay!” She suddenly said as Rainbow started to fly away with a shake of her head. The mare suddenly stopped and smiled.

“Good, now let’s get flying!”

Comments

[CMC4TW]

Well, that was fun. Maybe we'll see some actual flight next chapter!

[Cold Spike]

7305547 Maybe...

[Emperor]

And now Scootaloo is off, on the wings of freedom...

[Cold Spike]

7307907 Under the teacher of showboating...

[Inferno demon Dash]

Whooooo! Very nice, very glad to see this, can't wait for more.

[Cold Spike]

7838980 Hopefully I can plan better and get more chapters out!

[ferret]

“Uh, heh heh, did it work?” she asked, attempting to act casual. They stared at her in open mouthed shock. "What?" she asked, "What's wrong?" Now that Scootaloo thought about it, she didn't remember the basin she was floating in being so huge, and she didn't remember Rainbow Dash and Spitfire being so ...huge. Oh no.