The Wonderbolt Academy's New Volunteers

by Jay Watson

Ch. 18 Wonderbolt Trials pt.14

Cloudy Sky reluctantly followed after Wind Raider and his wing pony, nervous and jittery being around these edgy ponies. When he turned to look up at Sunglow walking near to him, the way she looked back with that fiendish smile of hers; as if looking right through him, made Cloudy Sky shrink back from her.

Sunglow knew what he must be thinking and gave an ever so soft snicker, as if to impart to Cloudy Sky, ‘you don’t know what you’re in for, shorty!’

Inwardly, Cloudy Sky groaned with fear of what was going to happen to him. His attention then turned to her lead pony, Crimson Sky, walking just a little ahead of her. Of the foursome, he seemed at least indifferent to his presence and really wasn’t paying attention to him.

“Don’t lag behind, pipsqueak! I’m not going waste my time repeating myself if you don’t keep up.” Wind Raider didn’t bother to look back to speak to Cloudy Sky, as if not worth the effort to address him.

“We’ll see if you even have a clue about some of the most basic principles of flight; especially how to land properly.” Stormbringer gave a half-look back to see that, indeed, Cloudy Sky was walking right next to Sunglow.

Cloudy Sky took umbrage to their insinuation; that he was clueless and knew nothing about flying. True, in the past two days he’d learned more about performance flying from his fellow BFFs then all his book reading and solo practicing could ever have. But being able to land on all fours was something any pegasus knew.

“Of course, I do. I’ve been-”

WHAM!

“Oof!”

Cloudy Sky never saw Sunglow’s left foreleg sticking out in front of him, his eyes focused on Stormbringer in front of him and not her. He tripped right over the mare’s extended forelimb and he’d hit the ground with a thud, knocking the wind slightly from him. His clean jersey was now soiled across the front with a big green stain from the grass.

At that moment, he didn’t know what was worse, having fallen prey to such an obvious prank or that horrible, taunting laughter of Sunglow’s in his ears. Stormbringer and Crimson Sky laughed as well.

“Have a nice trip? See you next Fall!” Stormbringer mocked Cloudy Sky with an old schoolyard taunt.

Sunglow continued to mock him as she laughed. “He’s pathetic! What pony would ever want to be his partner?”

“I can’t believe you fell for the oldest prank in the book! What a goof! What’s with you, dude?! Come on!” Crimson Sky teased Cloudy for his gullibility at being such an easy mark.

Cloudy Sky mustered all the courage he could, weakly smiling and trying to laugh at himself while feeling incredibly humiliated.

Cough! Cough! “Uh, yeah. Heh heh. That was a good one there, fellas.” He looked down at his formerly clean jersey, the grass and dirt stain going right over the small Wonderbolt Academy insignia that he loved to admire. He was proud to get to wear something official of the school.

“First rule of flying; pay attention to what’s in front of you at all times.” Wind Raider finally stopped to turn around and see Cloudy Sky standing there with his now soiled jersey, looking quite the sap at the moment. He grunted with annoyance at the sight of Cloudy Sky.

How in Equestria am I supposed to get this twerp to fly like anything remotely decent?! He can’t even keep he eyes on where he’s walking, much less fly!

Like it or not, he was stuck with Cloudy Sky. Stormbringer, too, for that matter was just as stuck.

=====*****=====

Silverstream saw the mean prank played on Cloudy Sky and was instantly incensed. “Miserable little bit-” She pounced suddenly when seeing her friend, the target of the bullying, wanting to confront them for doing that. She was restrained by four determined pony legs.

“Silver, stop it!” Firebolt clapped her forelegs around Silverstream’s neck, her hind hooves planted firmly in the dirt to brace her and hold fast, preventing the hippogriff from pushing her aside in an act of rashness.

“Did you see that?! Did you see how she tripped him like that?!” She tried to pull free, but she could not, Firebolt refused to let up. For the first time since meeting her, Firebolt heard Silverstream actually emit a hippogriff growl; a kind of throaty mid-range raspy sound that trailed off into a soft hiss like an angry cat’s hiss. A most intimidating sound to be heard by any pony; Firebolt could feel how tense her friend was and wanted to take vengeance.

“We can’t do anything about it now, Silverstream! We just have to deal with it and keep going! Now c’mon, we have to keep practicing; let’s not waist the time we have worrying about Cloudy.”

Firebolt steadily pulled Silverstream away, trying to get her to stop looking back at Cloudy Sky dealing with those four meanies. She hated it too; hated to see a nice kid like Cloudy Sky have to deal with that lot. But her C.O. had made a change and they had to act like good recruits and follow directions. How they felt about it personally was of no importance.

Most reluctantly, Silverstream did as Firebolt insisted, forcing herself to try and not think about it for now. She was all churned up inside with anger and anxiety of the trial today, making her whole body more tense. This was going to be nearly impossible for her to do. How can she not think about Cloudy Sky’s predicament? It was going to take all her concentration to get through the next few hours without losing sight of the task she had to do.

=====*****=====

“What do you think he’s capable of doing?” Crimson Sky and the other three older ponies stood around and looked at Cloudy Sky for a moment, assessing him.

“Hardly anything by my account.” Sunglow found it all very amusing and she continued to snicker at Cloudy Sky, seeing how he cowered somewhat in their presence.

“Well, he’d better be able to do something, ‘cause we’re not going to waste our time if he’s a total loser at this!” Stormbringer didn’t mince words, he didn’t like the situation.

Cloudy Sky had to think quickly of a way to get on the better side of these four and convince them to help him pas the trial. Rather than trying to ‘play nice’ with them, he tried a different approach, trying to appeal to Wind Raider’s ego.

“I might be a small pony, but I know I can do some harder flight moves. Like the way those Resistance flyers out maneuvered those lumbering airships of the Storm King during a raid; getting them to crash into each other near Rainbow Falls. That must have been some kind of amazing flying; only a pony with super skills could have done that!”

Wind Raider and Stormbringer’s head snapped around to look at Cloudy Sky, startled to hear him speak of something they did not suspect he knew about. Sunglow and Crimson Sky, too, were surprised to hear Cloudy Sky mention that fight in particular.

“Hey, how’d you know about that raid?” Wind Raider could not fathom how Cloudy Sky knew about that particular battle. The only ones who know about it were those involved in the fight and the possibly the archivist of war records at Central Command.

“Did you have family that served?” Stormbringer wondered if this small gray stallion was from some military family or had friends that had served in Canterlot Armed Forces or in the Cloudsdale Air Defense.

“Why, what’s the big deal?” Crimson Sky didn’t see why this kid knowing about that was something important.

“So, he knows some tidbit about the Three Days War. Big whoop de do.” Sunglow dismissed the guy’s sudden interest in this twerp knowing something about some random battle.

“We, meaning me and my friends, learned about the insurgent forces across the country that had mounted counterattacks against the Storm King’s forces from some of the cadets last night. They read from a new book that was being published giving first-hoof accounts from those who did the fighting. In fact-”

In less than five minutes, Cloudy Sky gave a recap of the things they’d heard about the Three Days War as well as eye-witness accounts of the horror the soldiers had gone through. He left the impression that he ‘got’ why Wind Raider and Stormbringer felt the way they did, having suffered through that terrible ordeal and to be forgotten in the wake of national victory. Guys like Wind Raider and Stormbringer were the unsung heroes who’d stood up for Equestria when the other military forces had been neutralized.

Perhaps without realizing it, Cloudy Sky had effectively disarmed Wind Raider, getting the legacy pony’s attention like he had. He came to stand at attention before his lead pony, snapping a proper military salute with his right wing and clicked his hooves together as well, before speaking again. “I’m deeply sorry for you and your family’s loss. I have no doubt he was an inspiration to the rest of the Flying Sixty-Ninth and many others.”

It caught Wind Raider cold to hear Cloudy Sky speak earnestly and with respectfulness, calling back to that particular dark night from his memory. He and his squad of flyers had returned to their hidden base, flush with success of having taken out the Storm King’s airship mooring docks in Rainbow Falls, only to learn of the other squad getting ambushed and two of the members being killed; one of them being Sky Chaser.

He’d seen boys much the same age as Cloudy Sky go off and not come back, fighting and dying for their homeland. They left as mere cadets of a school, but they returned home soldiers from the fighting. They’d won the war but lost their youth in exchange. Seeing Cloudy Sky standing there, at attention and showing proper respect for his lead pony, gave his heart a small ache at the remembrance.

How many ‘other families’ sons’ didn’t come back that night? Or after any of the other battles he’d been in? It gave Wind Raider pause to think. But his numbskull flying partners were not so respectful.

“Oh-h-h, look, he’s playing ‘soldier boy’ now! Ha ha! How cute!” Sunglow pointed at Cloudy Sky’s attempt of appearing serious, as if playing the role of a real flight scout. Crimson Sky was smirking as his wing pony continued her taunting.

“Hey, why don’t you shut that big, flapping pie hole for yours, Sunglow?! You’re not scoring so great either, sweetheart, so I suggest you get practicing so you don’t embarrass yourself and Crimson Sky like I’m sure you will!” Wind Raider shouted at her, getting the mare to instantly fall silent.

Crimson Sky laughed and pointed at her now. “Ha ha! He sure told you!”

“Screw you, alright! Let’s get started, for Celestia’s sake!” She waved him to follow; her muzzle scrunched up in a sour expression from being insulted like she had and was not in a good mood.

“Have fun with loser-boy there!” She blew them all off with a flippant wave of her wing and a sneer at Cloudy Sky, taking off into the air. Crimson Sky was right behind her.

Good luck with the pathetic case of a flyer! She thought to herself, countering the bitterness in her mouth from taking Wind Raider’s insult was the amusing idea of watching him getting some terrible score because he was shackled as the lead pony to a hopeless contender like Cloudy Sky.

Score: one for Cloudy Sky, zero for nasty ponies! Cloudy Sky thought to himself at seeing the outcome of his little attempt to play up to Wind Raider. It got two of them to leave and if not feeling more confident, at least now he felt he had a better chance of dealing with the situation.

Wind Raider and Stormbringer’s attention returned once again to Cloudy Sky, both of them looking sternly at the younger stallion.

“Okay, kid, you think you’ve got what it takes to be wing pony to a legacy lead like Wind Raider? Do ya’?” Stormbringer snarled at Cloudy Sky, trying to intimidate the younger pony. But Cloudy Sky wasn’t going to back down.

“Yes I do!”

“Keh! Alright then, get up there and let’s see what you can do!” Stormbringer pointed up in the sky with his left wing, ordering him to fly.

“Is that an order, lead?” Cloudy Sky turned to Wind Raider, making sure.

“Get to it, wing.” Wind Raider only gave a slight nod with his command, wanting to get on with the job at hoof, even if he wasn’t thrilled about having to do it.

Cloudy Sky took off, trying to get up in the air as quickly as he could. If he was going to make any kind of impression on these two, he had this one chance. Limbered up as he was from the practice he’d had already with his friends, he signaled to the two ponies below him on the ground that he was starting.

“So, like, what’s the deal with him? You saw how upset those two freak-beaks got when their little playmate got reassigned. You’re not gonna give him a pass on this trial, are you?” Stormbringer was somewhat bummed-out that Wind Raider was going to ‘take it easy’ with Cloudy Sky, ruining their idea of fun.

Yes, that had been Wind Raider’s initial idea; to torment this punk and get him to flunk out. But he had the feeling in the back of his mind that he’d better not. Assigned this duty by their C.O., he suspected he was under scrutiny.

“No, I’m not got to ‘go easy’ on him. But I am going to give him a real taste of what kind of workout he’d get if he really were admitted as a student. I don’t need to make him fail; he’ll fail from his own inability to keep up with me.”

Wind Raider explained more. “It doesn’t matter if this kid can do whatever routine I come up with or not; it probably won’t count for me. The flight routine we are going to do will be the one we get scored on.”

The two of them return to watching Cloudy Sky flying above them, running through the few-but-steady flight moves he’d learned. It only took Cloudy Sky about two minutes to perform all of them, retuning back to the ground right in front of Wind Raider and Stormbringer, breathing hard but not panting. He felt proud of his new flight skills, able to nail each one of the moves perfect, or as near perfect as he’d ever done them. He was sure to have made an impression.

“Okay, you’ve warmed yourself up. Now go do some actual flight moves.” Stormbringer pointed again up into the sky, annoyed at Cloudy Sky.

“Um, I just did. Those are the moves I’ve learned.” Cloudy Sky could almost feel the two guys’ disappointment with his flying, reading the upset in their expressions.

“You’re kidding, right? That’s all you’ve got?” Stormbringer’s mouth fell open a little, stunned by the lack of Cloudy Sky’s abilities.

Wind Raider grimaced in agony and hoof-planted, his right forehoof making a
loud slapping sound as he struck himself, dragging his hoof down the length of his muzzle, frustration with the situation growing.

“This is going to take forever!” Stormbringer openly lamented, looking up to the heavens for help.

“I… I can do harder moves! I know I can. Just give me a chance.” Cloudy Sky didn’t want to fail, but he also didn’t want to make these two short-tempered stallions more upset with him. He was willing to do anything to pass this trial. Wind Raider threw a forehoof in the air, capitulating to the request.

“Fine! Fine! You’d better listen to my directions, understand?!” Wind Raider turned to his real wing pony.

“Storm, get him up there and put him through the paces; some basic loops, double-twists and the like! See if he’s got anything to work with!”

“Got it!” Stormbringer saluted his lead. Flipping the bangs of his mane out of his eyes he turned to his right to face Cloudy Sky. “Follow me on my right wing and don’t lag behind.”

Cloudy Sky didn’t have the chance to say anything in return as Stormbringer jetted right up into the air, leaving him momentarily behind. Cloudy Sky quickly followed after, pumping his wings hard to get in position as ordered. He made sure to be off Stormbringer’s wing when the older pony turned to his right to see him flying right in correct position.

“Forward loop, counting down… four… three… two… one…go!” Stormbringer yelled out to Cloudy Sky, making sure to make eye contact with the younger stallion and be sure he heard him. Cloudy Sky did, giving a quick nod.

Stormbringer took Cloudy Sky into the loop, the g-forces increasing against their wings as the air rushed past them. Cloudy Sky held his wing muscles taught, holding them in position as he soared through the loop. The force he had to hold against for performing a loop this fast was straining his wings, but he held firm. It still scared him to keep his eyes open as the ground coming rushing towards him, forward into the loop and then briefly flying upside down and then turning upwards toward the sky when returning to the starting point of the loop.

He congratulated himself for actually keeping in position to Stormbringer through the entire maneuver, still flying in position. Seeing the gray stallion staying with him, Stormbringer proceeded with more loop maneuvers, adding small changes to each and successfully confusing Cloudy Sky in a matter of seconds.

For a brief moment, Wind Raider thought his assignment might not be as bad as he thought but now, he was seeing it was going to be that much harder. Stormbringer and Cloudy Sky returned to the ground, landing close to Wind Raider. Cloudy Sky was panting a little from the strain while Stormbringer was not even breathing hard from the workout. The pale blue pony turned to his lead, flipping aside his bangs again out of his eyes and holding out a wing with a single tip feather held up.

“One!” Stormbringer spat, “One stupid loop move was all he could do right! He couldn’t do another thing at all! He’s clueless!”

“You are barking out flight moves to do I’ve never even heard of, for Celestia’s sake!” Cloudy Sky tried to defend his lack of knowledge of harder flying tricks, but he knew ignorance was not a good defense, especially by this time into the trials.

“You should know this stuff! This shouldn’t be new to you!” Stormbringer couldn’t fathom the idea that any pegasus worth his wings at flying could be this ignorant of such rudimentary flight moves.

“Look,” Wind Raider interjected, “there’s limited time left so I’ve got to get this sorted out and I don’t need you two bickering in my ears right now!” He picked up his notebook and textbook from off the ground nearby, flipping open the textbook to a later chapter and proceeded to dictate just what moves he and Cloudy Sky were going to fly.

“Hey, don’t I get any say in this?” Cloudy Sky, watched and listened as Wind Raider and Stormbringer talked to themselves about what the flight plan was, ignoring Cloudy Sky altogether.

“No!” The two older stallions sounded off in unison, causing Cloudy Sky to shrink back a little by their fierce shout.

“Why not?!” He took a step forward, trying not to be intimidated by them.

“Because you don’t know anything about this. You are going to fly whatever routine I devise and like it.” Wind Raider wasn’t going to listen to any backtalk from some know-nothing wing pony like Cloudy Sky.

All Cloudy Sky could do was stand close to them and listen to what was discussed and pointed out in the textbook. The moves Wind Raider and Stormbringer were selecting were some he’d only glanced at while curiously flipping through the later pages of his textbook. After a few minutes, Wind Raider had formulated a flight program, surmising what he could get away with Cloudy Sky’s limited skills. He and Stormbringer turned now to face Cloudy Sky.

“Here's the plan,” Wind Raider turned his notebook around to show what he’d written out as a plan. He had folded over the pages in the textbook to the pages where the maneuvers came from, “these are the moves we’re doing and here’s where you need to read from.”

Cloudy Sky flipped through the pages of the textbook as indicated, his anxiety mounting by the second when faced at doing five new flight moves, he’d never attempted before along with two more he’d only practiced for fun with Silverstream and Gallus.

“I… I can’t fly these! I’ve never seen them before!” Cloudy Sky’s objections fell on deaf ears.

“What, just because you’ve never seen them means you can’t or won’t fly them?!” Stormbringer wasn’t going to let Cloudy Sky wimp-out on Wind Raider, not at this stage of the trials with so much at stake for all three of them.

“Uh, I…, uh… I mean, you’re can’t just expect me to learn all this instantaneously. I need help.” Cloudy Sky didn’t expect Stormbringer’s comeback to his objection, half-expecting the pale-blue pony to just yell at him more.

“Fine. You need help? Here’s what we’re going to do; Storm is going to be your lead and I’m going to instruct you from down here. But you’re going to follow his directions to the word while in flight and keep in position. Understand?” Wind Raider laid down the law about what to do and Cloudy Sky actually felt a pang of relief. It was the same thing his friends had done to initially help him with his flying, acting at coach and ‘test lead pony’ for him. What relief!

“Understood.” Cloudy Sky was given the textbook and notebook.

“You got twenty minutes to read up and be ready to try. Stormbringer and I are going to warm up and run through those moves. Got it?” Wind Raider made sure his wishes were heard. Cloudy Sky snapped a salute to him, trying to impress his lead pony by standing tall before him.

“Got it!” He hustled over to the sidelines of the field and hunkered down, trying to blot out everything else around him and crammed more information into his head in twenty minutes then he thought possible. Once or twice, he looked up to watch Wind Raider and Stormbringer flying the routine he would soon have to perform. Just from observing them in flight, he gained some insight on some of the maneuvers assigned and watched Stormbringer’s position was in relation to his lead pony during the transitions between each move. Instinctively, Cloudy Sky knew this was going to be the toughest trial he’d faced so far.

Wind Raider and Stormbringer, for their part, made sure the routine was sophisticated enough that it would push Cloudy Sky’s limits and get him to perform better then he imagined he could as well as be something that would keep Wind Raider interested enough to make an effort.

Those twenty minutes seemed to fly by for Cloudy Sky as he’d only read through the book material twice and studied Wind Raider’s notes. Cloudy Sky could feel the nervousness building in his gut, but at least what he was reading did make some sense to him, having Brightstar and Firebolt previously explain some of the more complex flight terms and criteria to him.

“Are you ready?” Wind Raider and Stormbringer were warmed up and ready, not wanting to waste another minute of precious time. Cloudy Sky got up and handed back the textbook and notebook to Wind Raider, taking a deep breath and slowing exhaling, trying to ready himself.

“I think so.” Cloudy Sky did not look up at his assigned lead pony, busy trying to recall all the diagrams and instructions he’d read only a minute or so ago. He was about to follow after Stormbringer but Wind Raider stuck out a forehoof to poke Cloudy Sky in the chest, momentarily stopping him and getting the smaller gray stallion to look up at him. Wind Raider scowled a little at Cloudy Sky, displeased with his lack of enthusiasm.

“That doesn’t sound like a wing pony ready to give his all for Wonderbolt Academy tryouts. I said, are you ready?!” Wind Raider raised his voice a little, questioning Cloudy Sky’s commitment to trying. Cloudy Sky, for his part, wasn’t going to be easily pushed around by his lead pony.

“Yes sir!” Cloudy Sky barked back, standing at attention and snapping a salute to Wind Raider.

“Good! Now get your sorry ass up there and let’s see what you really got!” Wind Raider, satisfied to have stoked a tougher answer from Cloudy Sky, pointed up to the sky above them, watching as Cloudy Sky took off after Stormbringer, moving faster than the lead pony had ever seen him fly before.

“Maybe now I’ll get some fire burning in his belly, for Celestia’s sake!” Wind Raider watched as Cloudy Sky moved into position, seemingly able to keep pace with Stormbringer, prepared to follow his lead in the first run-through.

When Stormbringer looked to his right, Cloudy Sky was right where he was supposed to be.

“Going into the first move…on my count, three… two… one…” Stormbringer called out to his wing pony and Cloudy Sky followed right along with Stormbringer, flying down into the first loop and into the second move, a vertical spin coming out of the loop and then jetting up into the sky higher still.

Cloudy Sky kept pace with Stormbringer as best he could, following slightly behind his lead through the moves, trying to count the seconds along in his head for each move he performed. Stormbringer kept calling out the maneuvers to Cloudy Sky, keeping him informed and on track of the routine. It was tough for Cloudy Sky, trying to remember the pattern of movements for each maneuver and then correctly transitioning in and out of each and then into the next. The entire flight only lasted maybe three minutes, going through the seven moves at a steady pace and then coming to a conclusion with a landing right in front of Wind Raider. Stormbringer landed on his hooves while Cloudy Sky landed almost two seconds after him, stumbling a little and breathing hard. That was an intense flight for him, and he felt slightly disoriented from all the twists and spins.

“If that’s your best, there’s no way you’re passing today’s trial and you’re going to get me a low score for trying to help you to pass.” The words from Wind Raider were hard for Cloudy Sky to take, having given what he thought was a first-rate attempt at a new routine after given so little preparation. What was Wind Raider expecting on the first go-round?

“This is all new to me!” Cloudy Sky turned to face Stormbringer. “Why do you have to go so fast through the routine anyway? You could go a little slower and not fly so far ahead of me.” But Stormbringer wasn’t going to accommodate him.

“Fast?! That was already slower than the rate you need to fly at. We don’t have a lot of time to go slow, and we’ve got to get you up to some kind of ability to fly Wind Raider’s flight plan.” Stormbringer flipped his mane away from his eyes, snarling at Cloudy Sky for his complaining.

“Part of the problem is,” Wind Raider got Cloudy Sky to turn and face him, “you’re not counting when flying and you’re not paying attention to your body position between moves. That’s why you’re not keeping up.”

Cloudy Sky tried his best to look tough, glaring hard back at Wind Raider and defending himself.

“I am so counting while flying! You can’t just… dump this on me and think I’m going to understand instantly! I need help!”

“You can say that again!” Stormbringer’s sarcastic remark did not help the situation, making Wind Raider roll his eyes and angering Cloudy Sky more, making him actually growl back at him.

“Look,” Wind Raider stopped any more snipping between his two partners by flipping open his notebook to show Cloudy Sky once more, “You’re not understanding the notes…”

Wind Raider speedily talked Cloudy Sky through the notes. He also kept the two wing ponies in their place, minimizing any sideswiping comments between them with a quick ‘shut up’ at whomever was talking. Time was against them all and Wind Raider could not spare time answering every question from Cloudy Sky. He kept his teaching short and direct, leaving it to Cloudy Sky’s slower understanding of flight moves to process what he’d explained. The lead pony had to focus on getting Cloudy Sky and Stormbringer to repeatedly fly the routine as many times possible with what time remained. Once Cloudy Sky had a grasp of the moves and could go through it without messing up too badly, He would fly the routine one or two times to make sure Cloudy Sky understood what to do before they went and did it for the instructors.

But as Stormbringer and Cloudy Sky got started with the flying once more, Wind Raider had to remind Cloudy Sky again of what he’s supposed to do, frustration mounting for him at the glacial pace of this assigned wing pony.

“You’re not pay attention; close up to him! You’re too far of his wing; that’s why you’re falling behind!” Wind Raider shouted up at Cloudy Sky, making the young stallion more nervous and anxious to do right and not make these older guys angrier at him for messing up. He pumped his wings harder, pushing himself to keep up with Stormbringer.

Cloudy Sky put everything into trying to follow Wind Raider’s directions, ignoring Stormbringer’s annoyed looks when asking his instructor about some aspect of what he was being asked to do.

Stormbringer couldn’t believe how little of the basics about performance flight Cloudy Sky knew. It was like trying to cram a lifetime’s worth of hard practice and training for this in the ninety minutes they had left. He shouted to Cloudy Sky from down below, watching and critiquing the gray stallion’s progress.

“Scalloping! Scalloping! You’re scalloping again! Flight straight and level! Stop flapping and then gliding!”

“I am!” Cloudy Sky tried to do as told, keeping right off the end of Wind Raider’s right wingtip. He had to flap as hard as he could just to keep pace with Wind Raider. His muscles burned and ached from the strain.

“Inverted barrel roll move; counting down…three… two… one!” Wind Raider shouted out over the rushing wind to his wing pony before going into the move. For Cloudy Sky, this was disorientating; having the sky and ground rapidly rolling past his eyes like this as he flew through the movements. He slapped his eyes shut, trying to feel his way through the move like Razzle Dazzle would try to explain.

Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… Cloudy Sky counted the seconds in his head, arching his back through the rolling part of the move, listening to his lead pony’s wing noise just off to his left side. Even with his eyes shut, he could feel where he was in the maneuver, able to get into position before setting up for the next. When he opened his eyes, to his surprise and relief, he was in the correct position next to Wind Raider and feeling much less dizzy. He found himself smiling.

Wind Raider glanced back behind him, expecting to see Cloudy Sky once more out of position and lagging behind. It was something of a surprise to find the small gray stallion still hanging on, doing all he could to keep up. Wind Raider went on through the remaining three maneuvers of the mandatory minimum of six the routine required.

Cloudy Sky struggled to keep timing for the two huge, zooming outward loops that followed as well as that flat-scissors finishing move Wind Raider first demonstrated with Stormbringer and kept pushing him to do. It was hard for Cloudy to get to the right places at the right times; mostly arriving too late. It pissed Wind Raider off to no end at how many times they went over this maneuver, frustrated at Cloudy Sky’s inability to keep up. They finish the routine; the wing pony stumbling on his hooves but managing to stay upright and not crash.

Wind Raider stomped a forehoof on the ground. “Damn it! What’s the matter with you? Why can’t you keep up?!”

“Why… (pant!)… don’t you… (pant!)… slow down some?!” Huffing and puffing hard from the work out he was tasked to do, Cloudy managed to wheeze out his objection, his frustration giving him some courage to fight back.

“He is going the normal speed you’re supposed to fly that move at; you’re just too much of a damn slow-poke to keep up!” Stormbringer only shook his head, stunned and flustered but the sheer lack of skill Cloudy Sky had. He finally had to ask the question that had been on the back of mind since being this farce.

“What, in sweet Celestia’s cutie mark, flight competition could you have possibly won to get selected for the trials?”

Cloudy Sky bit his lower lip and looked away slightly, not wanting to say as he knew it was hardly worth mentioning, let alone something that made up a good resume. “The Nimbusville Semi-Annual Fall Classic.” He watched as both Wind Raider and Stormbringer first choke back and then let go of their laughs, mocking him.

“Yo… you’ve got to be kidding me? That puny little event?” Stormbringer laughed on, thinking Cloudy Sky must be joking, almost falling over.

“I didn’t know the Flight Competition Association still sponsored or even recognized that event anymore.” Wind Raider couldn’t recall a single flyer he’d met in his time competing or during the Three-Days War coming from some obscure track that was in the far west of Equestria.

Cloudy Sky should’ve expected such a reaction from two experienced flyers hailing from Cloudsdale and the Crystal Empire. So few ponies who came to this school knew or even cared about his town’s history.

Many moons ago, a mare named Sundancer had successfully become a Wonderbolt who had hailed from the same little town of Nimbusville that Cloudy Sky was from. The town board members had erected a small statue to their home-town heroine in the town’s square. A local event had been instituted by the F.C.A. in her memory when she passed away some time ago.

The statue erected gave inspiration to many young towns-ponies to seek out their dreams as one who had done successfully from humble roots. It had inspired Cloudy Sky too. The words on the small plaque at the base of the statue was forever ingrained in his mind; ‘from this little town came the Little Pony that could; and she did!’

What did he expect to hear from the likes of these two anyway? The way they flew together in synchrony and the moves they could do; it was like they’d spent their whole lives doing this. All he could do was give it his best and hope it was enough. By their standards, it wasn’t.

He waited a minute or so for the two of them to finally stop laughing, his confidence already shaken by the unpleasant situation. They were just making it worse for him. Wind Raider managed to get his mocking somewhat under control.

“It might not be much, but you don’t have to rub it in like that!” Cloudy Sky tried to stand up for himself to these two, but he just seemed to amuse them more then be taken seriously by them.

“You’d better keep up with me for this routine. If I get a low score it’s going to be your fault.” Wind Raider wiped back the tears form his eyes from laughing so hard.

“If you get a low score it won’t be my fault, it’ll be because you’re a lousy lead pony and all you and Stormbringer do is yell at me what to do!” Cloudy Sky was not got to take getting blamed lying down. He was trying, they weren’t.

“If you don’t want to get yelled at, then you’d better get to practicing on those moves again! You’ve only got a little time left before being called to fly for a score!” Stormbringer got in Cloudy Sky’s face, the two of them touching muzzle-tip to muzzle-tip, staring each other down. Cloudy Sky didn’t flinch or blink.

“Fine! I’ll do it again!” Cloudy shouted, louder than he had ever before at them, almost trembling from his anger.

“Good! Get going!” Stormbringer yelled right back, watching Cloudy Sky take off and retry the same moves again in the air above them both.

“Do you think it worked?” Wind Raider didn’t take his eyes off Cloudy Sky’s flying, silently counting the seconds in his head as he watched the gray stallion push himself hard.

“Well, at least he doesn’t cower from you like he did earlier. Maybe he’ll get through this, but I doubt it.” Stormbringer knew if they got any tougher with this pony, one of two things would happen. Cloudy would have either give up or get with the program and start pushing himself like he had to. Apparently, Cloudy Sky had chosen the latter, by their estimates.

They pushed him like any drill instructor of this school would. And, like any recruit worth his wings, Cloudy Sky responded like a recruit should; pushing himself beyond what he thought was safe and comfortable. Getting Cloudy Sky madder at he and Stormbringer got him to listen and learn more from them; in spite of hating the way he was being treated.

“Steady wing flapping! You’re not steady!” Wind Raider yelled up at him, seeing Cloudy slipping with his tempo. As soon as he yelled, Cloudy pushed harder to get back in time with the move.

From his vantage point up high, Cloudy Sky caught sight Amber Haze and Nightflight working on their routine, flying loop-de-loops in perfect synchrony and melding into a pair of flat spins that faced one another.

At another spot on the ground was Gallus and Solar Flare, discussing something about tier work while off in another spot in the air flew Firebolt and Silverstream, also flying in measured synchrony together, honing their moves. His moment of distraction did not go unnoticed.

“Focus! You’re drifting again!” Wind Raider snapped Cloudy Sky out of his moment and got back to finishing his routine. Into the Lazy-Eight move with the quick quarter-loop into the move and then the quick half loop out of the move, leveling off and into that tricky zigzag flying of the Flying-Scissors move. The end couldn’t come quickly enough for Cloudy Sky, landing not far off from where Wind Raider and Stormbringer had stood to watch. That was three times in a row he hadn’t stumbled or tripped up for his landing and he had thought to have gotten the timing right on the scissors move.

“Well, how was that?” He hauled himself over to them, exhausted but hopeful that he had impressed upon them some improvement.

“That was barely even passable. You keep speeding up and slowing down when you fly. Why can’t you keep steady pace?” Stormbringer snapped at him, seeing the obvious flaws in Cloudy Sky’s skills.

“This is hard to do! Three of these moves I’ve never seen or flown before and trying to learn all this so fast is hard for me!” Cloudy Sky thumped a forehoof on the ground, flustered by the constant criticism and fault finding by them. Why couldn’t they teach the way Brightstar or Silverstream did? Why do they have to yell at him all the time? The two older ponies groaned in exhaustion, dealing with this situation.

“Just… just go sit down and rest, alright? I don’t want to hear your complaining.” Wind Raider waved him away with a dismissive hoof, rubbing his temples in exhaustion and not wanting to deal with him right then.

Cloudy Sky was disgusted by Wind Raider’s flippantness. “Oh-h-h-h, I’m going to the bathroom!” He stomped off, heading for the lavatory in the locker room and a few minutes of peace and quiet while he sat and relieved himself. At least in there, no pony was going to yell at him for doing something wrong.

“Now what?” Stormbringer turned to his partner, seeing Wind Raider first looking over at Gallus and Solar Flare flying parts of their routine and then out to the other pairs of flyers on the field, then looked up at where the sun was in the sky.

They’d spent maybe ninety minutes or so this morning trying to get Cloudy Sky‘s flying up to par. Both believing there was still time to do a quick run through of their routine before they would be scored on their routines and by the looks of the ten pairs of flyers around them, Wind Raider felt the small growing gnaw in his gut about how good he and Stormbringer were going to have to be.

“Let’s just stay loose and fly our routine once more for good measure while I think of some way to get through this.”

Stormbringer got right into the air after his partner, getting into position off Wind Raider’s left wing, getting the hoof signal to start as soon as he was in place. Like a precision watch, the two ponies glide seamlessly through the routine of eight maneuvers, causing a few on the ground to stop what they were doing and watch. It was like watching real Wonderbolts flying about, the way the two of them moved through the routine and made a textbook perfect landing aside one another.

“Oh-h-h-h, impressive you guys! You’re going to do great, of course not as good as I and Crimson Sky are going to!” The two ponies came over to talk with them, watching them put on a preview of what they had planned for real.

“Oh, give it a rest, Sunglow.” Stormbringer rolled his eyes at the mare, not in the mood for her attitude. That needling tone of hers grated the nerves.

Crimson Sky gave a small chuckle at her antics. “Don’t pay her any attention. If that inflated head of hers got any bigger, she wouldn’t be able to get off the ground!” The bright red stallion smirked with smugness, having dealt with egos like hers many times before.

Flight competitions were full of flyers like her; ponies with lots of ego but only a few with the stuff to back it up. Somehow, her so-so skills had managed to nab some wins and a few top finishes in the races she completed, according to her bragging when they weren’t flying.

“Bite me, Crimson!” She spat back.

“Sure, just tell me where and I’ll oblige!” He gave it right back, venturing into a bit of ‘blue’ territory. Now it was Sunglow who rolled her eyes at Crimson Sky.

“So, where’s the pipsqueak?” Crimson Sky scanned the field but did see the smallish gray stallion nearby.

“Went to the lavatory. That’s about the sum of his flying skills; crappy!” Wind Raider’s joke got them to laugh at little and he grinned to himself.

“Sorry you got stuck with him but, hey, it’s no big deal, right? One trial and you’re done with him.” Crimson Sky thought it amusing but not a problem for the lead pony.

“He won’t get past today; after the trials, we have to get on the Dizzatron again. He’ll be way too exhausted to score anything respectable.” Stormbringer was sure of it.

“It’s driving those two crazy thinking that one of their little playmates is in harm’s way. I thought that hippogriff was going to have a major conniption fit trying to get to us when Sunglow tripped him.” Wind Raider seemed quite sure of himself. “They’ll be so pissed off and distracted by worry for this kid that they’ll goof up for sure when it’s crunch time. I’m just wondering how much Firebolt and Solar flare are going to like have a couple of freak-beaks as partners; getting a crummy score by having partners unable to focus on good flying.”

“Hey, that hippogriff set a record on the Dizzatron last time. She’s no slouch, beak or no beak. She’s a quick flyer.” Crimson Sky was honest; Silverstream was an exceptionally good flyer and shouldn’t be underestimated, in spite of what Wind Raider, Stormbringer and Sunglow felt personally.

“Oh, she just got lucky on the first go-round. Wait ‘till they crank up the speed for real. Then we’ll see if Miss Hotsey-Totsey flyer is all she’s cracked up to be.” Sunglow was irate that she’d been beaten by Silverstream in the endurance trial, surpassed in the number hoops cleared by the hippogriff. She was top mare recruit, not some interloper.

“No good… mean spirited… lousy, big mouthed…!” Cloudy Sky grumbled bitterly to himself as he headed back to the activity field to rejoin Wind Raider and Stormbringer. The few minutes of peace alone in the lavatory was a much-needed break to clear his head and rest a little from the beating his body had endured so far this morning. Today’s trial was going to be the toughest thing he had to attempt since starting the tryouts and his nerves were on edge as it was about being eliminated. But being stuck with those two older guys was making this so much harder for him. He hoped he could get through this trial and never have to deal with either one of those two for the rest of the time here.

“Hey, Cloudy, how’s it going so far?” A voice caught his ear, causing him to look around, wondering where it came from. It was Brightstar; she and her partner, Rainsong came swooping down to the ground and land right next to him. He was so relieved to see them again. His bent expression could not be missed.

“What’s wrong?” Rainsong was first to ask.

“Oh, it’s those two jerks! I’m trying my best to follow both of their instructions about flying but any time I mess up, they start yelling at me!” Cloudy Sky tried not to fume about his predicament, but he was pretty fed up with the whole thing. He understood why Commander Spitfire made the decision she did; Wind Raider and Stormbringer were the top scoring duo and veterans. She was doing what she thought best for her recruits. But how he wished she would’ve taken Brightstar or any of his other friends offer to fly with him.

“Brightstar, I know those guys served in the Resistance and fought against the Storm King and all, but do they have to be loud like that? It’s like they think I’m not even trying to follow them.” He didn’t mean to sound like complaining, but they made this just so much tougher for him to endure.

“Are they not showing you what the routine is? Because if they’re not doing the duty assigned to them you can go protest-” Brightstar wanted him to be aware he didn’t have to take their abuse lying down. He had rights as a recruit to fair and equitable treatment.

“No, it’s just I have to do these super-hard moves I’ve never seen before and the whole routine is so much harder than the routine you, Rainsong and I worked on together.” He kicked at the ground with a forehoof, frowning.

“Do you want me to go get one of the instructors to come over and deal with them? You do have the right to make a complaint to the instructors if they’re being uncooperative.” Brightstar wouldn’t let that mare make this harder for him, having to deal with Wind Raider and Stormbringer already.

“No, I don’t want to do that. I just want to get through this and not be around them anymore.” Cloudy Sky was hoping to keep it between them and not escalate this.

“Alright, if you’re sure.” She gave him a pat on his back with her wing, an assuring touch to boost his spirits as he endeavored to continue his practicing. He gave a big sigh and plodded on by, seeing both Wind Raider and Stormbringer watching impatiently for him.

“He’s one plucky kid; putting up with those two tough guys.” Rainsong admired Cloudy Sky’s determination to soldier on with his trial, wishing he had her partner and herself to help him along.

“He deserves better than being stuck with those two. I should’ve pushed harder to get partnered with him.” Brightstar’s ears drooped some, feeling bad at failing to keep Cloudy Sky under her guidance. Wind Raider and Stormbringer are great flyers but not the easiest to work with. She could imagine how rough they must be on him.

“You did what you could. Besides, I’m sure some of us are going to get cut after today’s workout. This is still a competition, remember?” Rainsong hoped her lead pony wasn’t forgetting that fact. She needed to do well on this trial with Brightstar’s help. She was scoring in the lower third of the recruits on the list and was in danger of getting eliminated. Her lead pony sighed with resignation.

“I do. I just know I could have flown routines for you both.” Once more the yellow mare had to focus on her routine, she was doing with Rainsong. She could not abandon her partner. She had to give Rainsong just as much attention and focus as if it were Cloudy Sky next to her.

“Hurry it up, pipsqueak! We don’t have a lot of time!” Wind Raider commanded, seeing his assigned wing pony barely moseying along. Cloudy Sky was dreading at once again dealing with these two and their attitudes.

“Stop yelling and don’t call me pipsqueak!” Cloudy Sky shouted back, snarling at Wind Raider and Stormbringer. This was awful for Cloudy Sky to endure, being yelled at and ordered around like some flunky. How he wished he was with his friends right now; they would know how to work with him and help him pass this trial. But he was stuck with two of the meanest ponies he’d ever had the misfortune to meet and had to deal if he wished to pass.

“Oh ho! The little runt actually has some spine! That’s more than I can say for those two loser freak flyers you hang around with.” Stormbringer knew just how to push Cloudy Sky’s buttons, seeing him get more flustered by their trash talk.

“You know,” Cloudy Sky huffed, “I don’t get you two! Why do you guys hate my friends so much? What, because they look different? Because they’re not ponies like us?” Cloudy Sky looked back and forth between the two of them, finally fed up.

“Because they’re cowards!” Stormbringer flipped aside his gold-striped bangs, his brown eyes boring into Cloudy Sky’s armor of disgust for them.

“When the call went out from the pony nation to its ‘allies’, no creature from any neighboring country showed up to help! They left us standing alone against the Storm King and his legions.” Wind Raider watched how Cloudy Sky’s head snapped around to face him.

“We got the warning out about the attack, but no other creature Equestria came to help! The griffons didn’t show up to help, the dragons didn’t show up to help, those horrible yaks with that…that…ignoramus Prince Rustyfork or whatever his name is in charge, they didn’t show up to help! No creature showed up!” The veteran flyer gave him the unvarnished truth.

“The princesses never had the chance to call for help! It was a surprise attack! It was Princess Twilight and her friends who saved us by bringing back the hippogriff queen and their army to help in the fight!” Cloudy Sky distinctly remembered reading that in the newspapers in the aftermath, sure of his facts. Stormbringer filled on more about that day’s sneak attack.

“That was because of us! If it weren’t for all those cadets and reserve guard ponies that fought on when the regular defense forces were overrun in Canterlot, Princess Twilight and the other Protectors of Equestria would never have gotten away! It was our efforts that kept the Storm King’s forces occupied long enough so they could escape! Try to find that in any one of those damn newspapers!”

That took some of the wind out of Cloudy Sky’s sails, never hearing that small piece of historical significance. The paper had only mentioned in brief passing of a ‘running street fight’ as the invasion took place between the Storm King’s soldiers and some ‘irregular forces’ as it was described in one article. Cloudy Sky started to wonder more about what he had learned from the news reports verses what he’d been told by those ponies where were there.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I have to help your sorry flanks get past this test so let’s quit the chatter and get moving.” Wind Raider got them back on duty, the remaining time slipping away quickly.

The work continued among the flyers, getting the finer points worked out and doing final fly through runs and final tweaking of movements. On a brief break from his workout with Amber Haze, something caught the two pony’s attention.

“Hey,” he scanned the length of bleachers that lined one side of the field, spotting a small number of pony observers scattered about the seating, “since when did the trials become a spectator sport?” Amber Haze followed his line of sight to where he was looking and pointing to with a forehoof.

“I don’t know. But I can see some of them are dressed in the school’s uniforms. I thought cadets weren’t allowed to watch recruits try out.” She could spot some in the stand who weren’t cadets, the family members who’d been at the morning’s meal and were done with the meet & greet now were watching along from their vantage points.

Over to join them flew Razzle Dazzle and Whirlwind, the brightly colored mare wanting to see what her friends were so occupied looking at.

“What’s going on? You think there’s going to be a Wonderbolt performance today or something?” Razzle Dazzle thought it a treat for the recruits to get to see a show before having to fly themselves.

“I don’t think so, Razzle. But why are there ponies in the stands?” Whirlwind asked the same question Nightflight had, finding this a bit odd and intrusive. As if there wasn’t enough pressure to do well, but to have an unwanted audience didn’t help.

“I didn’t read anything on the bulletin board outside the barracks this morning about there being watchers for today’s trials.” Amber Haze was nervous enough, even with Nightflight as her lead pony, about her performance. She was scoring only so-so in the middle third of the recruits and needed to shine in this performance to stand out. She agreed with Whirlwind. Having an audience watching today only increased the pressure to do well.

Whirlwind checked among his fellow recruits. “Any pony here know how much time we have left? How soon do you think it is until the instructors call us in for our trials?”

They all shook their heads. “Sorry, I haven’t got a timepiece.” Nighflight looked up at the sun, guestimating what time it might be. “We’ve been out here since six-thirty. Maybe it’s, like, around nine by now? I’m not sure.”

“Was there something about having families watching us because I recognize some of the ponies in the stands as some who came to this morning’s breakfast.” Razzle Dazzle looked among her friends for an answer, believing they would know.

“I’d say let’s try to forget about it get back to practicing for now; the instructors will let us know what’s up.” Nightflight led Amber Haze away, wanting to get the last bit of time in on their work. The others went their separate ways, getting back to work.

Some pairs of fliers worked on final details of their flights while some sat dawn to write out their final submissions together. Achieving a good score encompassed all they had learned so far; planning, rehearsing and then executing a routine of at least six flight maneuvers. This was the first real test of a recruit’s flight capability.

Wind Raider, watching from the ground as Stormbringer and Cloudy Sky were flying above him, would catch sight of Gallus and Silverstream constantly looking over at them, both of the non-pony fliers getting riled up and distracted from flying by the way their little friend was being instructed; instructed like a real Wonderbolt Academy cadet would and not handled with kid gloves. He got a kick at seeing the two ‘freak-beaks’ getting angry and unable to focus on their flying. Their pony partners repeatedly trying to get them to stop looking. With those two freak-beaks so distracted, his prediction of those two put on a mediocre showing when it came time to fly their routines with their pony partners might come true. Wind Raider found himself smirking to himself with satisfaction at getting back at them in this way.

Wind Raider had Cloudy Sky fly and re-fly the same difficult moves as Stormbringer’s wing pony, driving him harder than any of the instructors or Cloudy Sky’s friends had ever done. While this routine was nothing for Stormbringer to do, it was proving harder and harder for Cloudy Sky to keep up.

Cloudy Sky tried desperately to follow their directions, but it was all he could do just to keep going, trying to recall what he’d read from Wind Raider’s notes and what his friends had told him about this fact or that point of flying during their time together. But now under all this pressure and having the two older guys ordering him around, it was all just a jumbled mess of words and voices in his head right then and nothing made any sense. His wings were starting to ache from the workout he was subjected to, worried if was going to make it to the actual flight trial.

This was very upsetting for Silverstream to see and hear, even being this far away from Cloudy Sky and those two mean ponies he was assigned to. Firebolt had picked out a spot on the activity field far away enough so as to, hopefully, not let Silverstream become distracted. It didn’t work.

“Silver, on the next run I want you…” She caught her lead hippogriff once again looking away and not listening to her. “Silverstream-m-m-m!” Firebolt whined loudly, growing more annoyed with her partner. Silverstream’s head whipped around to face her.

“Wait, what? What were you saying?” Silverstream faced an irritated wing pony partner who was losing patience with her continued wandering attention. Firebolt’s bent expression was a sure indicator of that.

“What’s with you? You’re goofing up on stuff we’ve worked on all day yesterday to perfection and now it’s like you’ve never flown the routine before!” Firebolt didn’t need to hear Silverstream’s answer. All she had to do was follow where her partner kept insistently looking over to; it was just over Firebolt’s left shoulder. Firebolt turned around to see what it was.

The two of them watched as Cloudy Sky was subjected to tough training from Wind Raider and Stormbringer, the two older guys losing patience with Cloudy Sky’s lack of flight skills, barking at him repeatedly. They couldn’t hear all of what was being said, but a few remarks of ‘you’re not listening to us’ and ‘that’s not what you’re supposed to do’ made it to their ears. It made Silverstream angry to hear those two guys acting so mean to her friend.

“They don’t have to yell at him like that! When Gallus and me were working with-”

“Look, Silver,” Firebolt cut her off mid-sentence, determined to get her lead hippogriff back in focus, “you need to stop worrying about Cloudy. He’s a big boy and can handle himself. I don’t like to see Cloudy subjected to those two bastards anymore then you do. But we’ve got a job to do, and time is running out. So, please, focus on what we have to do.” Firebolt didn’t want to sound mean or heartless to the plight of their friend, but this was ‘crunch time’ and she was desperate to have Silverstream focus on their flight plan. This seemed to go against everything Silverstream had learned at Princess Twilight’s school. It felt like she was abandoning her friend when he needed help.

Firebolt could see in Silverstream’s eyes how she was wrestling with this vexing situation, trying to find some way to deal with this. The wing pony watched how Silverstream clamped her beak together in a frustrated scowl, having to tamp down her instincts to protect Cloudy Sky and somehow ignore what she’d seen. Silverstream took a few deep breaths and shut her eyes, attempting to let go of the anger and to try to not lose her cool.

“Okay,” Silverstream gave a last big exhale and opened her eyes once more, “I’ll try to focus more. I’m sorry for being so distracted.” Firebolt looked back with understanding in her eyes, aware of how close a friendship had developed between Silverstream and Cloudy Sky.

“I know you will. Now, c’mon. There’s not much time left and we can still get those rough spots ironed out in time.” Firebolt finally got Silverstream to stop looking over at Cloudy Sky dealing with Wind Raider and Stormbringer, seeing her friend making the effort to not be distracted. Silverstream only nodded back to her wing pony’s insistent urging, feeling torn at the moment; fearing for Cloudy Sky’s safety and betraying Firebolt’s trust by jeopardizing her friend’s chance pass this very important trial.

Still the work and practice continued for all the recruits. Pressure coming to head as several pairs were feeling the strain about who was flying what correctly and what need improving. Tempers began to flare up, unkind and cutting words exchanged between lead and wing ponies, requiring High Winds’ attention to smooth things over between some flyers.

At a loose end, Windflower and her wing pony, Bluestreak, paused to rest with Morning Glow and Sunstrike from their routine work, watching right overhead Silverstream and Firebolt going through their flight routine again, executing some excellent twists and turns, peaking with a double stall-turn move at the apex of a swooping dive and then pulling up to soar high into the sky. The duo of hippogriff and pony end with a graceful sweeping arc and landed at nearly the same time on the ground. The foursome of ponies walked over to talk with them, impressed with the aerial display of flying skill by Silverstream. The all stomped their forehooves in applause of great flying.

“Wow, that’s really something to watch! You two have got that double stall-turn move down cold.” Windflower loved doing a stall turn; that crazy sensation of hanging motionless in the air for a second or so before gravity took over. It was a tough maneuver to get right but even tougher to get two flyers simultaneously doing the same move and getting the timing right so that they mirror one another in flight. Silverstream was graceful with her acceptance, smiling. She was glad to take a break and talk more with some of her fellow recruits.

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say. I must admit, I’ve been feeling rather nervous about flying competitively, but now-”

“C’mon, Silver. Let’s fly it again. I want us to really nail the timing for that falling corkscrew move. I think you missed count of the turns that last time.” Firebolt interrupted the conversation, unwilling to spend precious time with idle chit-chat.

“Let’s just take a little pause for a minute, okay? I want to,” the hippogriff’s eyes again turned away to the trio of ponies working some distance from where they stood, “just keep an eye on things.” Windflower and her fellow recruits followed Silverstream’s line of sight, seeing what she was looking at. They instantly understood.

They watched Cloudy Sky working with Wind Raider and Stormbringer, too far to hear but all of them witnessing the contemptable way the two older guys were directing the younger stallion around, a meanness to their directions.

“Oh, your friend, right? Sorry that he got shuffled around like that.” Windflower and her fellow recruits were witness to this morning’s rather unfortunate twist of fate for their young stallion friend. Bluestreak and the others saw the look of great concern on Silverstream’s face, clearly thinking about her friend’s wellbeing.

“Tough luck for the kid, I guess. I’d thought Commander Spitfire would’ve been more flexible with who was his lead and picked one of you. I wonder why she chose Wind Raider anyway.” Sunstrike thought the switch unnecessary as he’d seen Silverstream and her friends helping out the young stallion earlier on in the trials.

“Kinda unfair, if you ask me. He seemed to be hanging in there. Must be making this tough to stay focused for you, I’ll bet.” Morning Glow only stated the obvious to both Silverstream and Firebolt, noting the wing pony’s slightly annoyed expression directed at the hippogriff.

“And this is why we have to re-fly our routine again, Silverstream.” Firebolt’s under-breath comment caught the hippogriff’s ear, unhappy with her lack of concentration as lead in this flight duo, despite saying she would try harder.

“Just give me a few minutes to rest and we’ll get right back to it, alright?” Silverstream felt the sting of Firebolt’s words, fairly called out for being distracted again and not focusing. It was hard to not think about Cloudy Sky’s predicament, but she was glad to have a short break.

“So, how does it feel to be part of the trials? Is it anything like you imagined it would be?” Bluestreak hadn’t had a chance to chat with Silverstream as all of them had been quite busy with the trials but in this chance one-on-one, he got his wish. He’d never met a hippogriff before, and he was curious if she liked being here.

“Oh, well, I was not aware how serious these trials were taken. I was under the impression that-”

For a couple of minutes, Silverstream got to indulge in some light conversation with a fellow recruit, making acquaintances and inroads with those she’d not had the opportunity to. Silverstream also got to smooth things over with them too, talking the opportunity to apologize for the unintentional insult she and Gallus had said the other night. To her relief, she discovered that these recruits did not hold a grudge against her or Gallus; they understood she and Gallus were volunteers here and probably were unaware of the academy’s legacy and history. They could cut them some slack, hearing the sincere apology come from Silverstream.

Firebolt paced about in a circle behind Silverstream, waiting for her lead to finish socializing with the other recruits. She finally stood still for a moment, tapping a forehoof with impatience as more time slipped away. Indulging her lead flyer for another minute or so of waiting, she interrupted the casual conversation going on.

“Sorry, folks, but we need to get moving now.” Firebolt pulled insistently at one of Silverstream’s forelegs,

“We can catch up at lunchtime, if you‘re free.” Sunstrike wanted to hear more about Seaquestria and what life underwater was like.

“You can tell us more about your time at Princess Twilight’s school.” Morning Glow was a fan of the princess and wanted to ask Silverstream more about the School of Friendship and what the student body was like.

“Okay, we’ll talk later.” Silverstream waved to them as the four ponies headed back to their practicing. She then turned to face her wing pony, annoyed by Firebolt’s curt manor. “You didn’t have to act like that to them. I was just trying to be polite.”

“We don’t have time to waste with jibber-jabber, Silverstream. I know why you’re still struggling with our routine; you’re too busy worrying about Cloudy, am I right?”

Firebolt didn’t need to hear the answer, the hippogriff’s souring expression was enough of an admission. “Look, Silver,” Firebolt was doing her best to not get uptight with her lead’s lack of focus, so she tried a different approach, “I think it admirable you care so much, but you’re totally playing into Wind Raider’s hooves. You’re letting him get inside your head and throw you off. He wants you to mess up. Don’t let him. You’ve got to trust me on this because I need you to be my lead and help us get the top score for this trial.”

She could not be clearer, imploring her friend to get her mind right and focus on the work. For the past couple of hours, Silverstream had be consistently inconsistent with her flying. Messing up on one part, then re-flying the routine again only to goof on a different part, and unable to achieve a solid run through all morning.

Silverstream knew her friend was right, she had been sneaking peaks over at Cloudy Sky slaving away with Wind Raider and Stormbringer during her flying and not paying attention to her flying like she should’ve, even after promising she would.

“I don’t mean to be such an airhead, Firebolt, but…it’s hard not to think about Cloudy. I can’t help it!” Silverstream, once more, turned to look across the field to see their friend was now reading from a book something Wind Raider pointed out to him on a particular page.

“Try looking at it this way, Silver, the faster we get ready and get through this trial, the sooner we can get Cloudy away from those two jerks. Believe me, I wish Brightstar had been made his lead and not Wind Bag over there.” The insult got the response she wanted, getting Silverstream to laugh a little at the insult and maybe stop worrying so much. Silverstream took a cleansing breath, trying to clear her head.

“Okay, no more distractions; I’m one-hundred present focused. Let’s do this!” Silverstream gave her wing pony a look of fierce determination, resolute to be the best lead flyer for her friend. Firebolt saw the reinvigorated fire in her friend’s eyes. She hoped it would burn long enough and strong enough to get them through this trial.

At another area of the activity field, Solar Flare was having problems with his wing griffon’s persistent wavering attention. Gallus, too, witnessed from afar the treatment Cloudy Sky was getting from Wind Raider and Stormbringer. The griffon was trying desperately to focus but his repeated stolen looks over at Cloudy Sky caused him to miss crucial timing points in the routine with his lead pony, throwing them out of time yet again and nearly causing another mid-air collision.

Solar Flare growled a little to himself, patience ebbing with his distractible partner at flying and then re-flying the same parts of their routine they needed to go over, trying get the rough points ironed out but not succeeding. Solar Flare knew they were almost ready, if only Gallus would just pay more attention. He landed smoothly on the ground, but Gallus was almost a full second landing after him. The pony turned to face his partner who was yet again looking away, focused on what was going on across the field with Cloudy Sky. Gallus watched as Cloudy Sky continued to struggle with the regiment Wind Raider and Stormbringer were putting him through. Hearing those two recruits yelling at Cloudy Sky only made Gallus’ temper rise more.

“Gallus, come o-n-n-n-n!” Solar Flare thumped a forehoof against the ground in frustration, causing Gallus to quickly turn back around and see the exasperated look on Solar Flare’s muzzle. “You keep messing up on the timing! Why do you keep speeding up and slowing down when we’re flying?”

Vexed by situation Cloudy Sky had to endure and unable to help, he lashed out at his lead pony. “Yeah, well, maybe if you flew that fat pony ass of yours faster and tried to keep up, I wouldn’t have to keep slowing down! Then we wouldn’t have to keep re-flying this dumb routine!”

Even as the last angry syllable escaped his mouth, Gallus knew he’d made a mistake. His eyes went wide as he slapped the talons of both forelegs over his beak, clamping his mouth shut, horrified of what he just blurted out. He felt a small chill hit him and cool his hot temper. “Dude, I’m sorry! I didn’t-”

“He-e-e-y!” Solar Flare glared at the griffon, cocking an eyebrow at him. “You want to rephrase that, fella?!”

Gallus stepped closer to his friend, extending an open clutch of talons with the hope of acceptance. “I’m sorry, Solar; honest. I was wrong and I apologize.”

Solar Flare did not react immediately but could tell his wing griffon was speaking honestly and forthright. He was aware of Gallus’ quick temper and rash tendencies and how it could unintentionally undermine him. But the lead pony could forgive him because he understood what it was that has his friend so preoccupied. It bothered him too, but he could put it out of his mind and focus.

Solar Flare’s snarly glower finally dissolved into a lopsided smirk, extending his forehoof to shake with Gallus. A wave of relief washed over Gallus.

“Stupid featherbrain!” Solar Flare made a crude joke, tweaking Gallus’ beak ever-so-slightly in return for the insult. Gallus could only laugh with relief as he shook Solar’s hoof.

“Still cool?” Gallus still asked, needing to hear it for real as he was so regretful for his insult.

Solar Flare’s expression softened some more. “Yeah, we’re still cool.”

Gallus gave a big sigh of relief, his body slumping slightly as the tension left his body. He was thanking his lucky stars for having such a cool and understanding partner with Solar Flare.

“I’m just reacting to how rotten those two are treating Cloudy, Solar. It’s just not fair!” Gallus once more turned to face the direction on the field where their young friend was compelled to work with those two veteran flyers.

Even at this distance away from them, the two friends could faintly hear Wind Raider barking directions at Cloudy Sky, reprimanding him for not following their instructions. “They’re not even trying to help him; they’re just yelling at him the whole time! That’s not the way any of us worked with him.” Gallus couldn’t help but be incensed by the way their friend was being treated. Why wasn’t Solar Flare as mad as he was about it?

“I know it’s hard to accept, Gallus, but Commander Spitfire made her decision so there’s nothing we can do about it. They haven’t done anything wrong or out of line with Cloudy yet; they’re trying to get him to fly better.” Solar Flare sounded so cold and logical to the griffon, unmoved by Cloudy Sky’s dilemma.

“C’mon, Solar! You can’t be serious? There’s no reason for the way they’re treating-”

Solar Flare cut him off. “They haven’t done anything wrong yet; you might not like their methods of pushing Cloudy along but they haven’t broken any rules of conduct. If they strike him or something like that, then we can intervene. Otherwise, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Solar Flare’s by-the-book answer didn’t quell Gallus’ resentment of this situation. The fact that those two senior recruits could treat Cloudy Sky like that and get away with it was, in Gallus’ mind, criminal. Even if Wind Raider and Stormbringer were veterans of the fighting against the Storm King, he knew that no creature should have to put up with such terrible treatment.

Gallus could only look on and growl. “Nothing we can do about it; what total meadow-muffins!” He thumped a fistful of talons against the ground, hating the sense of helplessness.

“I’m no fan of it either and we’ve still got to get through this trial. A few more hours is all we have to go and then Cloudy won’t be stuck with those two anymore. But this is also what it means to be a good recruit and potential cadet at this school, Gallus; following orders from a higher rank flyer without question, even if you disagree with the order given.”

“Right, following orders.” Gallus’ shoulders slumped a little, admitting to himself that Solar Flare was one hundred percent right, they had to get through this trial. If he wanted to prove that a griffon could be a good candidate for this school, he had to resist his instincts of rushing to Cloudy Sky’s aid and demonstrate a willingness to follow directions.

Solar Flare was sympathetic with Gallus’ concern for their friend. “Try to put it out of your mind as best you can, Gallus. The more we work out the routine, the quicker the time will seem to pass and then this will be over. Trust me on this.”

A bitter pill to swallow, but his lead pony was right again. This was just temporary and would pass. “Okay, I’ll try my best to focus and not let you down.” Gallus’ head dipped some, as if admitting defeat and looking down at the ground but Solar Flare reached out to put a hoof on his left shoulder, getting him to look up and face his lead pony.

“I know you will because I believe in you.” The husky pony assured his friend with a small smile and nod, his confidence unwavering about his chosen wing flyer. It made Gallus feel rather humble to have a pony friend so committed to working with him, even after acting like a jerk to them.

“We’d better get back to it; we’ve still got to get the ‘big finale’ move timed right and I want to show off in front of two those two piles of stall muck just who’s the best flight pair!”

Solar Flare saw it reappear; that gleam of competitiveness shining in Gallus’ eyes about being the best flyers. He noticed it during Gallus’ first day of introduction, how Gallus’ interest was captured by the trials and a genuine desire to prove that griffons could fly as well as any pony here.

“Then let’s jet!” Solar Flare was grinning as he took off into the air, leaving Gallus momentarily behind. But Gallus didn’t need prompting, taking off right after his lead pony and getting into position right off Solar Flare’s right wing. He was determined not to mess up anymore and come through for his lead pony; absolute concentration on the routine and nothing else.

“One more time, lead!” Gallus shouted to Solar Flare, letting him know he was ready for this.

“First move in three… two… one… go!” Solar Flare didn’t have to look back to see whether or not Gallus had his game-face on or not; just in the sound of his voice did he know his wing griffon was ready. He was still grinning to himself as he led Gallus into the rolling turn of the flight routine, feeling surer that the remaining time they had to practice was going to pay off.

=====*****=====

The morning hours waned, every one of the flight pairs putting all their energies and efforts into writing and then rewriting their routines. Some flight pairs trimmed back on exotic tricks and complex sequences of moves, finding that dream routines written in the head were best to be kept there when under a time crunch.

“C’mon, Razzle, let’s just rest for a second, okay? I need a breather.” Whirlwind confessed after the steady pace of work they’ve put in this morning, finding his wing pony to seem to have a boundless reserve of energy. He had no idea where she got it from. Razzle Dazzle came zooming in, executing a quick back summersault before landing on her hooves next to him, seemingly unexhausted by the rigors they’ve been through.

“Oh, okay. We can take a break. I feel fine, though. Wha-he-e-e-e!” Razzle Dazzle did a quick backflip, her wings fluttering briefly to help her do the fun move. She was giggling like a school-filly, seemingly unaffected by the morning’s workout they’ve had so far.

Where does she get the energy from?! She isn’t the least bit tired! Whirlwind could not figure this out. She wasn’t even breathing hard. It was as if this kind of intense flying was perfectly normal to her.

“I need to rewrite out the routine again with those changes. You think this is going to work out okay; I mean with the timing of both of us being at the right transition points. It sounds a little out of the ordinary.” Whirlwind retrieved the sheet of loose-leaf paper from the pocket of his jersey, unfolding it and getting his pencil ready to change it again for the umpteenth time. Razzle Dazzle stepped over to watch him erase most of the preplanned flight moves for her and rewrite out the much looser interpolating moves that she wanted. She would fly three of the seven of her own choice on the second, fourth and sixth of the seven trick moves they would perform. The first, third, fifth and seventh moves they would fly as a pair, in traditionally lead and wing positions.

“Oh, definitely! Commandeer Spitfire is sure to like it; it’s all about creative interpretation in flight. No pony is going to expect. We’re sure to stand out from the others.” Razzle Dazzle sure sounded confident with her thinking, able to convince Whirlwind of the changes they made with the flight routine.

As they started going through the routine together, they could not help but overhear Wind Raider barking out orders to Cloudy sky, who was flying probably thirty yards way and not very high up.

“Scalloping! You’re scalloping! Don’t flap and glide! Steady flapping!”

Razzle Dazzle turned around, looking on rather glumly as she watched her stallion friend struggle to keep up with Stormbringer. Her gaze then lowered to the pony doing the shouting, Wind Raider.

“(Sic)! Why does he have to be so mean to Cloudy? Why can’t he just be nice?” To Whirlwind, she seemed rather innocent of proper flight training, perhaps from having such a super-natural flying ability.

“Well,” He turned around to stand next to Razzle Dazzle and watch her friend attempt to fly an inverted barrel roll, falling behind Stormbringer and out of position. “I thought your friend knew about the basics; you know? Those first rudiments of flight discipline? Not sure why he doesn’t know much about it. You know how he got selected for these trials?”

Razzle Dazzle tried to recall what said at the mealtime the other night when the discussion about flight competitions came up. “I think Cloudy mentioned winning a race somewhere or at some kind of special event. I’m not one-hundred percent sure, though. Firebolt was talking most of the time, Night Flight too. But mostly Firebolt. She had lots of stories about her time spent on the F.C.A. tour.”

They watched for a minute or so more, witnessing how Cloudy Sky was giving it his all and trying to keep up with Stormbringer. It was tough to watch, especially when Wind Raider would start hollering out instructions, clearly displeased with Cloudy Sky’s skills.

Whirlwind turned his attention back to his work, not wanting to see more. “C’mon, Razzle, let’s get this finished and try flying it once more.” He tried to pull her away with his left foreleg from watching more, trying to get her to look at his flight routine paperwork again.

“Stupid meanies!” She spat, kicking a little at the ground with a forehoof and wrinkling up her muzzle with disgust for the way they treated her friend.

======******======

“I think we’re almost there with it, Amber. A few more tries should have us on point and ready to fly for the instructors.” Night Flight was all smiles with his girlfriend, making a great partner for him as well as being one of the loveliest girls here at the trials.

“Those cool looping moves we came up with are going to wow both Commander Spitfire and the Wonderbolt’s captain,” she moved in much closer to her new beau, holding his gaze momentarily with her ice-blue eyes, “and it’s all because of your wonderful flight training. I couldn’t have been luckier to have such a talented lead and so darn cute as well too!”

She gave him a not-so-discrete ‘fluff’; giving him a quick and flirty swipe across his butt with her left-wing feathers, startling Night Flight for a moment. But he responded back with a quick snap of his silvery-while tail across her butt, the distinct crack of air at the impact on her tender flesh.

Amber Haze gasped, her eyes going wide and she giggled too, delighted he was willing to be flirtatious publicly. She snuck a quick kiss with him, pushing their luck at getting in trouble. This was not acceptable behavior for recruits. It can get them ejected from the try-outs. But the quick flush of romantic desire was interrupted by a loud stallion’s voice.

“Tighten up! Tighten up to him! You’re not going to make the turn!”

The two lovebirds lift their heads up to watch Cloudy Sky trying to follow Stormbringer in a deep dive towards the ground, only to watch him pull out of the dive early and circle around, landing near Wind Raider, who then got in his face about not attempting the move. Stormbringer landed right after Cloudy Sky, upset at his wing’s reluctance.

“What’s with you?! Why can’t you follow him thought this simple diving move?” Wind Raider demanded, annoyed by Cloudy Sky’s limitations.

“It’s intimidating for me! It feels like I’m going to crash headfirst into the ground flying so fast!” Cloudy tried to defend himself, genuinely uncomfortable with the sensation of nose diving straight down at high speed.

Stormbringer pounced on what he thought was Cloudy Sky’s flimsy excuse. “That’s because you’re not keeping track of the time; you’re not counting the seconds in your head and trusting it for your altitude as to when to pull up and out of the dive! That’s why you keep chickening out!”

Both Night Flight and Amber Haze knew what Stormbringer said was true; neither of them was intimidated by the high-speed nose dives, bodily twists, flips and turns they had to do to perform a good routine. They were comfortable and familiar with the sensations while Cloudy Sky seemed to be still at the very basic foundations to first performance level flying.

“I’m’…sorry for your friend over there, having to deal with those two, I mean. He seems like a nice kid.” Amber Haze had only spoken a few words when first meeting Cloudy Sky, spending much more time with her new boyfriend and not with his group of friends.

“C’mon, Cloudy, you can do it!” Night Flight softly urged on his friend, “Don’t let them push you around!” He’d watched his fellow BFFs tutor and work with Cloudy Sky and help him succeed at passing each of the trials so far. But that was an extraordinary amount of assistance with very patient teachers. Night Flight suspected correctly that neither of those two were either patient or probably good instructors.

The two older stallions repeatedly point out something in the textbook to Cloudy Sky, emphasizing what he needed to read and understand before they went further. Night Flight’s heart went out to the youngest member of their group, understanding the stress Cloudy Sky must be under.

“Do you think he’ll be alright?” Amber Haze, too, felt it was unfair and unnecessary that Cloudy Sky got reassigned. Her lead pony’s friends had stepped forward to help but to no avail. It would be disappointing to see the young gray stallion get eliminated because of a mismatch in partners.

“I hope so. I know Firebolt and the others had helped out getting him this far, but I don’t think any one of us were expecting this situation arising.“ He pursed his lips tightly together, feeling upset a bit bad for not trying to help the youngest BFF get a better understanding of flight basics. Maybe Cloudy Sky wouldn’t be struggling as much had he given a little more time to help out like his friends had.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. He’s had lots of help from your friends so far, and, if he’s got the will, he’ll pull though this.” She tried to put a positive spin on the situation, seeing her lead pony irked by this conundrum.

“Let’s just try not to think about it for now and get back to our practicing.” Amber Haze wanted her beau not to get distracted and lose focus. Time for practice was dwindling and she was still a little shaky on one or two points of the routine. She gently pulled at him, hooking her left foreleg around his right foreleg and urging him to stop looking and return his attention to their work.

He relented some, turning away from the sight of Cloudy Sky trying again at the same difficult flight move. As unfair as he believed it was, he couldn’t do anything about it now. “Yeah, back to work.”

Back up in the air again with Amber Haze and going through the loop-de-loop moves once more, he still had that little niggle in the back of his head about Cloudy Sky’s chances of making it today. He would be disheartened if it turned out Cloudy Sky couldn’t make the cut after all the work he’d put into the trials so far.

=====*****=====

“I think we’re done; we’ve got those double back flips timed right and the transition timing at the end of the two inverted barrel rolls ironed out. We’re got a little time left to rest up and stay limber.” Brightstar did not have to do much to get Rainsong up to speed on some flight principles she needed help with. Her wing pony was a fast learner, worry of getting cut from the trials proving to be an effective motivator to pay extra close attention to Brightstar’s instructions.

“Sounds good; I could use a rest before we fly for real.” Rainsong had worked very hard to keep up with her lead’s regiment of flight moves, finding some of them more challenging than first imagined. Then something caught Rainsong’s attention from out of the corner of an eye. “Hey, what’s going on over there?” She pointed to the far end of the field, getting Brightstar to look as well.

“Not sure. With those two, it could be anything.” Brightstar had been too busy with getting Rainsong ready for the trial to have paid much attention to what was going on at the other end of the field. With a bit of time to spare, she and Rainsong watched what was going on with those two guys and her friend. From the textbook Wind Raider was holding, he was instructing something to Cloudy Sky, getting him to nod along with understanding. Stormbringer and Cloudy were up in the air again, running through flight moves that she knew Cloudy Sky wasn’t familiar with.

It was disheartening for her and Rainsong to watch Cloudy Sky struggle at keeping up with the flight routine he had to fly with Stormbringer. She and her wing pony were familiar with such intermediary flight moves Stormbringer was taking Cloudy Sky through. But Cloudy Sky kept falling behind and lose his place in the routine, causing them to abort the attempt and have to try again.

“Why are they pushing him with those level of moves?” Rainsong turned her head to the right, seeing how intensely Brightstar was looking on with. “I know you and your friends have helped him for the earlier trials but I’m not sure he’d be familiar with what Stormbringer’s attempting to do.”

“I know he’s not. We hadn’t gotten that far along with showing him and now he’s got to learn, literally, ‘on the wing’. This is so unfair for him.” Brightstar wished she had been made his lead pony. She and Rainsong had worked with him this morning along with Gallus and Solar Flare, and all of them believed they had Cloudy Sky feeling surer of himself. He’d listened to their instructions, and he’d done his best to follow. Brightstar, having spent her younger years first on the E.F.C. racing circuit and then in the Cloudsdale Defense Force’s flight prep training program, knew how far and hard to push a flyer’s skill level.

They watch Cloudy Sky try again at following Stormbringer through the flight routine. He could manage to stick close to his lead and getting through the first few moves successfully, only to miss a transition point and fall behind or get tripped up on a particularly tricky inverted looping move, causing them to abort the attempt and re-fly the routine from the beginning again.

Rainsong could see her lead pony unhappy at the sight of the youngest member of her circle of friends having to undergo such strenuous work; having to learn new flight moves so quickly and under an incredibly short about of time. Every time they would watch Cloudy Sky retry flying the routine, Rainsong listened to Brightstar ‘coaching’ Cloudy Sky, as if she were there herself to instruct him.

“C’mon, Cloudy,” Brightstar ‘walked’ him through the move as he flew overhead, “make sure to count to twenty-five before you try the turn and then by thirty-five to have your body inverted for that roll into the dive.” She was pleased to see on his next try that, as if magically somehow hearing her instructions, he performed the two moves in perfect sequence, having his body in the correct position and able to try then continuing the routine’s next sequence of moves.

“Hey, he got it this time. Looks like he was paying attention to what you said, eh? Not bad for a green flyer like him to get that, right?” Rainsong kidded a little and gave him kudos for showing them he was still in it and not giving up. She thought Cloudy Sky was plucky for putting in that extra twenty percent effort to push through like that.

Though they were heartened by his ability to keep up but, as Brightstar correctly predicted, Cloudy Sky got tripped up on another part of the routine, requiring him to return to the ground and listen to Wind Raider forcefully explain again what Cloudy Sky got wrong and what he needed to do.

“He’ll make it; he had us and the rest of your friends to get him this far. He’s got a lot of heart.” Rainsong sounded fairly sure of herself, remembering a time when she was at a similar level of skill and was working hard to get better.

“Yeah, but heart doesn’t necessarily equate into passing this trial.” Brightstar wondered if this was going to be too much for Cloudy Sky to handle and cause him to get cut from the trials.

=====*****=====

Watching what was going on as well was Harmony Blues, the mare Cloudy Sky had asked to be his partner for this trial. She’d turned him down, what with her partner now recovered and out of the infirmary to rejoin the trials. Snowblossom had quickly completed some of the previous day’s requirements for the trials and, in only an hour or so time, she was back and raring to get going with the routine she and Harmony Blues had planned out.

At a brief rest from their intense practice, the two mares watch from afar how Cloudy Sky came swooping down much too fast to pull up and execute the loop move he was attempting. They watched as he hit the ground with a thud and went sliding along on the grass and dirt, rolling over a few times and coming to a crumbled heap of a stop at last.

Cloudy Sky tried to get to his hooves, trying to push himself up but just collapsed to the ground, his strength seemingly sapped. The two mares watch and hear Cloudy Sky’s assigned partners berate him about his flying.

“You can’t even do this simple of a flight routine? You’re hopeless.” Stormbringer harrumphed about Cloudy Sky’s lacking flight skills. Wind Raider piled on with more vitriol.

“Yeah, why don’t you just lay there on the ground like some helpless, cowardly little weakling; be just like those freak-beak friends of yours! Be a coward and just lie there because you don’t have the skills to get in to this academy or the guts to stand up and fight to protect yourself or your homeland! Celestia and Luna help us if the likes of you or those dirty ‘griffs were to defend Equestria, much less get into this place!”

Fed up with hearing these two bigmouths put down Cloudy Sky, Harmony Blues wordlessly headed right for them, momentarily confusing Snowblossom.

“Harmony, where-?” Her lead pony made a sudden departure, heading away and right for the trio of stallions who were working over in one corner of the activity field. Concerned, Snowblossom followed after, watching Harmony Blues make a beeline for the small gray stallion who was lying on the ground.

“Cloudy, are you okay?” Harmony Blues tried helping Cloudy Sky up to his hooves, hearing him coughing still and trying to catch his breath. He only half-nodded to her question, being in too much pain to talk and wincing when he tried to take a deep breath. She glared angrily at the two older guys for their mistreatment of a fellow recruit.

“What’s the matter with your two?! Take it easy with him, he’s just a little guy.” Harmony Blues scolded them, but only getting sneers of contempt for her concern in return.

“Take it easy?! Take it easy?! I’ve got to get this pathetic lump of pony crap into some kind of capable flyer in a ridiculously short amount of time and you want me to take it easy with him?!” Wind Raider snarled back at her before turning to Cloudy Sky again.

“I swear, pipsqueak, you’d better start using your head! Do you know what that is?! It’s that useless lump on top of your neck, four feet away from your ass!” Wind Raider slammed a forehoof down, momentarily glaring at the younger stallion before stalking off a short distance away, fuming and trying to regain control of his temper.

Harmony Blues suddenly felt Cloudy Sky slumping over against her body, his head flopping against her side, nearly spent from his workout.

“Help me, please!” He wheezed, just loud enough for the two mares to hear him but not enough that Wind Raider could.

“Why do you have to act like such a bastard to him, Wind Raider?! Can’t you see he’s trying as best he can?” Snowblossom called him out for his terrible method of teaching, unaware that Wind Raider was so short tempered. But the war veteran was not going to take any advice from either mare. He knew what it took to motivate a flyer into getting with the program.

“Oh, why don’t you cram a sock in it, Snowblossom?!” He came back over to stand right in front of Cloudy Sky, getting right in front of the younger stallion’s muzzle.

“Before joining the academy staff as a teacher, Wonderbolt Midnight Strike was my flight coach at flight school, and she called me the biggest flying pile of stall muck she’d ever trained right front of every pony in the crowd! And that was when my parents came down all the way from the Crystal Empire to watch me race for the first time in competition, but did I give up when I got beat by the better flyers?!” He taunted Cloudy Sky, mocking him with his condescending tone.

“No… probably not…” Cloudy Sky managed to answer between his labored breathing, his head dizzy and light-feeling, still managing to stay upright on his wobbly legs but assisted by being propped up by Harmony Blues.

“No, I didn’t give up when the going got tough. And do you know why?” Wind Raider continued his rant, stomping his forehoof. “Because I wanted to be the best! I had the will and desire to be more then ‘just another flyer’. I wanted more, and you don’t!”

======*****======

Unbeknownst to him as scene was unfolding on the ground below him, Gallus had been diligent at keeping his word to Solar Flare, resisting the urge to keep watch over Cloudy Sky working with Wind Raider and Stormbringer. Solar Flare knew it was tough for his wing griffon; keeping focused on their flight work and not looking over at their friend who was having a rough go of it with those two. For more than an hour, he and Gallus made real progress at getting those finer points of their routine ironed out. It was just down to getting the ‘figure-eight’ move for their ending to work on and then they would be ready.

It was on another run through of that ending move when Gallus caught sight of Cloudy Sky’s inadvertent crashing into the ground and subsequent rolling and tumbling from the momentum he’d carried. He and Solar Flare finished the move and landed back on the ground, but Gallus was instantly focused on what was transpiring on the opposite side of the activity field.

He watched how Wind Raider and Stormbringer lorded over his friend who lay prone on the ground from his impact, unable to get up. Those two did nothing to help his friend get up. This made Gallus see red, unwilling to witness his friend’s mistreatment. Solar Flare witnessed it too, distressing at it was, but did not see either one take physical action on Cloudy Sky.

“Screw this, Solar! I’m not going to let those two get away with treating Cloudy like that!” Gallus knew he had to stop this but wasn’t dumb enough to intervene personally. He would use his head; act like a real recruit would. He’d get one of the instructors involved and avoid the physical confrontation. That would be what Wind Raider and his cadre wanted; get him so cross that he’d start a fight in reaction and then get kicked out of the trials. Gallus zoomed off in the direction of the first Wonderbolt pony he spotted on the activity field.

“Gallus, wait up….!” Solar flare watched the blur of movement that was his wing griffon zip right past him and heading for some recruits at the far end of the field who were standing with one of the Wonderbolt instructors. In seconds, Gallus was landing right next to Sunstrike, who was listening to something Wonderbolt High Winds was explaining about flying. Gallus moved around both he and Morning Glow to get to the official overseeing this trial. He was not patient with getting the instructor’s attention.

“Ma’am! Ma’am! We need your help!” Gallus grasped a fistful of the instructor’s jersey sleeve and gave several insistent tugs, all while watching what was now going on across the field between Wind Raider, Stormbringer, Cloudy Sky, Harmony Blues and Snowblossom. He could not hear what was being said but was momentarily relieved to see at least two other recruits now stepping in on Cloudy Sky’s behalf.

This time he’s gonna get it! He’s getting kicked out for sure! Gallus was sure of it. No instructor was going to let Wind Raider get away with treating Cloudy Sky like that. Solar Flare caught up with Gallus, wondering what his friend was going to tell the instructor.

“Ma’am…” He tugged insistently again on the sleeve of the instructor’s jersey, finally getting her intention.

“What?! What’s the problem here?” High Winds spun her head around to face the recruit, annoyed by his interrupting of her talking to another recruit.

“Ma’am,” Gallus straightened himself up, wanting to express his seriousness and concern, “I want to make a formal complaint against two of the recruits here; the ones assigned to help Cloudy Sky.” He pointed across the activity field to where Cloudy Sky and the others were standing about.

She did not see anything out of order; several recruits were talking rather loudly about something but that was it. Still, the look on this griffon’s face led her to believe him about his honest concern. “Alright, let’s go talk with them.” Gallus and Solar Flare were right behind her, stepping swiftly towards the small cluster of recruits.

“Any idea of what’s going on over there?” Morning Glow asked her leady pony who was watching with her.

“No idea, but I think it has something to do with one of their friends.” Sunstrike had not really paid attention to what was going on over at the other end of the field. They’d been busy enough getting ready for their own flight routine.

=====*****=====

Silverstream witnessed Cloudy Sky’s ill-timed looping move and his subsequent hitting the ground and skid across the grassy field. She was aghast seeing and hearing Wind Raider and Stormbringer’s horrible treatment of her friend. Rather than help him up, those two just stood over him and yelled more at him as Cloudy Sky lay helplessly on the ground.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Silverstream shouted. Incensed, she bolted off in their direction with her talons balled up into tight fists, ready for a physical conflict if it came to it. Firebolt launched right after her, going so far as to tackle her right out of the air before Silverstream got too far.

Whack! They hit the ground and skidded for a few feet on the grass before stopping. Firebolt wrapped her forelegs around Silverstream’s body forcefully, pinning the hippogriff’s left wing and left foreleg between their bodies as they briefly rolled around on the ground. Silverstream fought against her bindings, fury in her eyes.

“Silverstream, stop it! What are you doing?!”

“Let go of me!” Silverstream shouted as she struggled against her restraint. “They’re doing that on purpose! They hate me and Gallus being here so they’re taking it out on Cloudy!” But Firebolt held tightly on, shouting back at her.

“Silverstream, this is no time for heroics! You don’t know what’s going on over there and we still need to practice! Cloudy’s a big boy and can take care of himself! We don’t have a lot of time!” Firebolt squeezed tighter with her forelegs, restraining the thrashing hippogriff more. Other recruits nearby watched the scuffle briefly but quickly averted their eyes and stepped away, not wanting to witness or get caught up in the drama unfolding, should one of the other Wonderbolt instructors come over to investigate.

“I don’t care about some stupid trial! I have to help-!”

“You wha-a-at?!” Firebolt cut her off, yelling and suddenly letting go of her partner, almost like pushing her away. When Silverstream got to her hooves and talons to spin around and face her partner, she was greeted by a very pissed-off Firebolt who glowering back at her.

“I don’t believe what I just heard!” Firebolt was floored. Her partner didn’t care?! Three days into the trials and scheduled to showcase their awesome routine as the first ever pony-hippogriff flight pair in a couple of hours and now her partner says she doesn’t care?! Silverstream glared back at Firebolt, angry at her wing pony for acting so willfully blind to Cloudy Sky’s treatment.

“You’re not taking this trial seriously, Silverstream! We talked so much over the past two days about what we were going to fly as a routine and now you’re putting it in total jeopardy!”

Firebolt knew that this particular trial was something of a ‘cut off’ because along with their solo flights, this trial was important. It was one thing to be a ‘hot shot’ solo flyer, but to do a flight routine synchronized with a flying partner really showed talent by the participants. Many flyers who did not perform well after this trial tended to get cut, especially if they’d been scoring only so-so at the other trials so far. And this was still only a ‘flight duo’ trial. There was still the group flight trial yet to come she hadn’t informed her lead hippogriff about.

Firebolt was also keenly aware of how she and Silverstream were going to be reviewed by the instructors; being the first hippogriff-Pegasus pony team-up to fly at the trials. The instructors would be watching with extra close attention at how well they flew together. It was history in the making, and she desperately wanted the recognition, boosting her status as a new recruit as well as give her some serious cache with the academy cadets. She even wondered if Commander Spitfire herself would be the one to score her and Silverstream.

“I am too taking the trials seriously! Don’t you care what happens to Cloud-”

“Stop worrying about Cloudy and concentrate on us!” Firebolt’s voice got still louder, stomping a forehoof at her partner’s stubborn insistence at running off to their friend’s aid.

“Maybe you don’t understand the concept of friendship and-”

“Maybe you’d understand what these trials mean if you’d been dreaming of this moment all your life like I have, like a real pony and not acting like some impulsive freak-bea-!” Firebolt caught herself, biting down on her tongue to stop her from uttering another syllable before she did any more irreparable damage. She slapped her eyes closed and tried to look away, angry and horribly upset at herself.

Silverstream jerked her head back, as if she was avoiding physical punch. There was an awful silence suddenly between the friends, despite the chatter and activity going on around them from the other recruits. It was as if suddenly the whole world had turned into a silent vacuum.

“You were about to say, ‘acting like some ‘freak-beak’, weren’t you?!” Soft and lethal she asked, her eyes narrowing with anger at Firebolt. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Something like that coming from the mouth of Wind Raider or Stormbringer? Sure. Coming from her wing pony? Never. Silverstream had been enjoying and learning so much during her time here and embracing more of her ‘equine half’ of who she was as a hippogriff. Newly made friends had made her feel welcome at the academy tryouts, in spite some personal issues with a few other participating recruits who felt otherwise. But this was completely unexpected.

“I… I didn’t mean it that way.” Firebolt desperately tried to backpedal, angry at herself for letting her emotions and blinding ambition overtake her common sense. She couldn’t look Silverstream in the eyes just then, with her head hung low and ears drooping with sadness and regret.

“Well, how did you mean it then?!” Silverstream wasn’t going to let Firebolt off the hook so easy. She demanded a straight answer.

“It’s… it’s…” Firebolt stammered as she bit her lower lip, trying to come up with the right words to somehow pick up the pieces of a broken friendship she’s instigated. “You just don’t know what the academy tryouts means to me!” She blurted out, at a loss for any eloquent words to convey what she felt inside. Firebolt finally looked up to face her friend. “I’ve been waiting for this time for as long as I can remember! I’m so incredibly lucky to have you as my partner for this time in my life, and to risk it all by you getting into some stupid fight with either of those two morons and get thrown out of the trials is just… just… crazy to me!”

Silverstream and Firebolt were locked in a death-stare, neither one looking away or blinking. The two flyers were able to read each other’s expression, Firebolt could feel the anger and betrayal coming from her hippogriff friend’s eyes as her stare bore into her pony soul. Silverstream could see the glassy look in Firebolt’s green eyes and see the pain she felt for having hurt her so. She wasn’t faking the sincerity by her looks; there was honest remorse in those pooling tears.

Firebolt was angry at herself for letting the trials bring out her hyper-competitive nature when under pressure. She’d believed before her arrival here that with all the prep work and training, she would act with a cooler head when it came to crunch time, but old flight competition habits were hard to shake.

The silence continued, neither one yet yielding to the urge to look away, either in antipathy or guilt depending on which. “I’m sorry. I was a total loser for saying what I did. It was so wrong of me.” Firebolt finally broke the death-stare, her head drooping again as she looked away once more, ashamed of herself.

Silverstream held her wing pony in suspense for what seemed like a painfully long time before she spoke again. She was not sure how to take the apology. She understood that this was a very intense time for the pony recruits as all of them were deeply committed to the idea of gaining acceptance to this school. She had discovered how exciting, interesting and challenging it was and getting to be a part of this with a new friend only made it better. Silverstream had to take a couple of deep breaths in order to keep her cool and not lose it, trying to let go of the moment and get back to focusing on getting through the morning’s work. After chowtime, she would have to do some serious thinking about what to do next. Her intention of going over to intercede on Cloudy Sky’s behalf was already being addressed, spotting Gallus and Solar Flare bringing one of the instructors over to get involved. Whatever altercation was going on with Cloudy Sky and those two jerks, it would be resolved now. She didn’t need to get tangled up in it.

“Fine. Let’s just get back to practicing.” Silverstream spoke with such coolness and distance in her voice while turning away to head back to the area on the field they’d been practicing at. She left Firebolt standing behind her, looking on. “Coming, wing pony?” She emphasized Firebolt’s position as her subordinate while not bothering to look back.

Firebolt, feeling liked she’d been kicked in the stomach, duly following after her lead all while seriously stressing over a stupidly self-inflicted fracturing of a friendship. Fear gnawed at that hollow sensation in her gut at how she was ever going to fix this and try to concentrate enough to get her performance edge back.

======*****======

“Why don’t you two mind your business, anyway? I’ve got work to do and I’m sure you’ve got better things to do then hang around here.” Wind Raider dismissed Snowblossom and Harmony Blues with a flippant wave of a wing. But they spotted Gallus and Solar Flare, along with one of the Wonderbolt instructors heading right over to them.

“I think we can spare another moment or two to wait.” Harmony Blues wasn’t going to leave Cloudy Sky’s side until that instructor got here, which was only a few more seconds anyway.

“Alright, what going on over here? What’s with the group chat?” High Winds looked about the group of young flyers, trying to assess the situation.

“It’s him!” Gallus pointed an accusing talon at Wind Raider, shouting. “He’s being such a bas-”

“Easy there, fella. Let me get to the bottom of this.” High Winds made sure to keep everyone here in check and not let things spiral out of control. She turned to look at Wind Raider, who had an exasperated look about him concerning this small situation.

“He had an accident, ma’am. He came zooming in too close to the ground and took a hard spill.” Wind Raider explained away the issue with another half-hearted wave of a wing, as if this was nothing to be concerned with. Cloudy Sky managed to find the strength to prop himself up and stop leaning against Harmony Blues for support, wanting to show their instructor he could handle the rigors.

“And what’s your story, ladies? How are you involved with this?” High Winds turned her attention to the two mares standing with Cloudy Sky, as if guarding him from Wind Raider and Stormbringer. Harmony Blues and Snowblossom looked briefly at one another, momentarily at a loss for words.

“We…. uh, well, we’re friends with Cloudy Sky and were just wanted to check to see if he was alright.” Harmony Blues came up with a quick answer as to why there were standing here.

“I think you two ladies should get back to your practicing. There’s only a little more than an hour’s time left before being called in. I will handle the situation here.” High Winds dismissed them both.

“Yes, ma’am.” Snowblossom and Harmony Blues had to leave Cloudy Sky’s side. Being led away by her wing pony, Harmony Blues looked back over her right flank to see Cloudy Sky standing alone, feeling terrible for treating him like she had.

“I’m…I’m sorry! ” She mouthed the words silently to him, forced to leave him defenseless against those two meanies.

Cloudy Sky could still manage to muster a small smile to her, as if to tell her ‘It’s okay, I’ll make it through’ in spite of the physical grinding down he had to endure. Snowblossom, looking back, could see her lead pony was upset by the situation.

“I… I have to do something to help him. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.” Harmony Blues mumbled, more to herself than actually speaking to Snowblossom.

“After we’re done with this morning’s trial, go and talk with him. Even if we did partner up with him, I’m pretty sure Commander Spitfire still would have reassigned him anyway. Besides, I’m sure he’s going to get through today’s trials; he seems like a scrappy young flyer.” Snowblossom sounded so sure about it. She’d checked the scores this morning that were posted on the bulletin board’s list of recruits and saw how Cloudy Sky was hanging in there, but just barely. Snowblossom knew if Cloudy Sky really didn’t have what it took to complete the trials, he would’ve been eliminated on the first day.

“I guess…” Harmony Blues couldn’t help but feel responsible for Cloudy Sky being in this position. She could have helped him a little by working with him this morning with Snowblossom, even if what her wing pony said was true and was reassigned after all.

“Now then,” High Winds turned to face the two flyers who brought this situation to her attention, “what was it you witnessed these two doing to your friend?”
“This jerk here,” Gallus once more pointed to Wind Raider, “and his flunky sidekick were acting like a couple of maniacal tyrants. They weren’t trying to help Cloudy Sky fly.”

Before the instructor could ask him a question, Wind Raider retrieved his textbook and notebook from off the ground nearby, making his defense by showing her. “Ma’am,” He held open the textbook to the pages he was using as well as the four pages of notes he’d written out, “I planned out the whole routine; all my information was written down with the timing schedule and sequence sheets. All he has to do is follow my instructions and-”

“Instructions?! You call yelling at my friend over and over about how bad he is at flying ‘instructions’?! Why don’t I come over there and just rip out-” Gallus shouted back at the war veteran whom he believed to be acting vengefully, by beating down on Cloudy Sky to get back at him and Silverstream. High Winds cut him off as he’d cut off Wind Raider when talking.

“That’s quite enough!” High Winds faced the griffon now. “One more peep out of you and you’re ejected out of the trials! Got that, volunteer?” She emphasized his position here, merely a ‘guest’ participant in the trials and not a potential student.

Gallus back down, emitting a low grumble while glaring at Wind Raider. Solar Flare put a foreleg up in front of Gallus’ torso, preventing him from surging forward.

“Easy, Gallus. Be cool.” The lead pony warned his wing griffon, keeping an eye on Wind Raider as well, listening to what was asked.

“Recruit, did either one of these flyers physically strike you in any way?” High Winds watched Cloudy Sky step closer, clearly a little shaken up and intimidated at suddenly being the center of attention. He swallowed the small lump in his throat before speaking up.

“No, ma’am, they did not. I just crashed really hard and got the wind knocked from me.” He didn’t lie, that’s what actually happened. But he added more to his explanation. “I’m just having trouble keeping up with the routine Wind Raider wrote out. But I’ll be okay, I feel better already after some resting up.” Cloudy Sky tried hard to put on a brave face and smile, not wanting to let on how much pain he was in.

“Permission to speak freely, ma’am?” Wind Raider made sure to follow protocol before saying what he had to say.

“Granted.” High Winds saw no reason to object. She’d read up the notes left behind for her and was checking up as instructed by the C.O.

“With all due respect, ma’am, this is a waste of my practice time.” He half-turned to look at Cloudy Sky, who stood on wobbly legs to the left of him. “He’s got nothing to offer. I’ve seen rocks fly with more precision than him.”

The Wonderbolt instructor went through her scoresheets and records on the clipboard, re-checking on the two flyers in question and their scores and rebuking his claim. “It says here, your assigned wing pony has passed every trial and has worked well with the other recruits. What's your problem then?”

Wind Raider was not expecting this. He thought it was clear as day to her. “My problem?”

Stormbringer jumped in. “Ma’am, this wing pony recruit,” Stormbringer didn’t even have the politeness to call Cloudy Sky by his name, “simply doesn’t have the skills or experience to pass this trial. I don’t know how he’s got even this far.”

“I wholeheartedly agree, ma’am. There’s no point to this exercise.” Wind Raider thought his friend’s comment was perfect, getting right to the point and spelling it out. But their instructor had other orders.

“There is a point for this exercise, recruit. It’s more than just showing off how hot you and your partner are at flying.” High Winds tried to get him to think more about what his assignment was. She was very aware of her C.O.’s suspicion about this small gray stallion being some kind of spy sent by Central Command to look in on the trials this year.

“Ma’am, for the past couple of hours Stormbringer and myself have tried and tried.” Wind Raider pointed to Cloudy Sky with a forehoof, “He can’t do any of the moves we have attempted to teach him. He isn’t good enough, plain and simple.”

“That’s for Commander Spitfire to decide, not you.” High Winds began writing down more notes in her records, making him all the more nervous by what she might be writing down.

“My lead pony and I are the best flight pair of the whole group. We are ranked first and second in points. We should be practicing and getting ready for our trial.” Stormbringer could not understand why they were selected for this terrible duty. It seemed so pointless and hopeless. Cloudy Sky was never going to pass this trial no matter who helped him. High Winds paused her writing, rolling the pencil to the side of her mouth while still clenching it between her teeth as she spoke.

“Then I guess you two aren’t the best flyers here if you can’t help doing something as simple help another recruit pass this first level of formation flying. So, I guess this means you’re giving up and forfeiting this trial then?” She kept scribbling down more notes, causing the two guys to panic.

This got Gallus to smirk a little, seeing some kind of justice metered out for the mistreatment of Cloudy Sky. Seeing those two suffer the humiliation of getting failing grades for acting like a couple of jerks would be fair recourse, by his estimation. Solar Flare, too, watched silently as those two veteran flyers suddenly looked so pale from the danger of failing a trial. He kept his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, doing all he could not to let on that he was enjoying seeing these two squirm a little under the eyes of a Wonderbolt instructor.

“No!” The two veteran flyers yelled out in near unison, horrified at the idea of getting a zero grade for this trial. The idea of not being ranked as the best was unimaginable. No pony should be ranked higher than them.

Wind Raider grew more and more nervous by the amount of writing the instructor was doing. Undoubtedly documenting this instance as some kind of insubordination to the orders they were given.

“I’ve got things covered here. You two get back to your flight practicing.” High Winds dismissed Gallus and Solar Flare, the situation here was in good hooves. Gallus, in spite of his gut feeling, allowed Solar Flare to lead him away and back to their practice spot on the field.

“C’mon, Gallus. Nothing here for us to see.”

High Winds made sure that Gallus and Solar Flare were out of earshot before she returned her attention to the two flyers in front of her. “Okay, you two are going to stay here while I speak with your new wing pony in private. Recruit,” She looked now at Cloudy Sky, “let’s take a little walk.” She began to walk away, not looking back at him. Dutifully, Cloudy Sky followed after the instructor, leaving Wind Raider and Stormbringer standing there, non-plus about what to do.

“Dude, he’s going to totally rat us out! He’s going to make up anything to trash us and get us both thrown out!” There was genuine panic in Stormbringer’s voice, his mind racing with ideas of what Cloudy Sky might say to badmouth them.

“Relax. We haven’t done anything wrong. We’ve explained our side so he can’t make anything up.” Wind raider was cool and confident. “If anything, we can take a break from helping him and focus on us for a few minutes.” That much was a welcome break for Stormbringer, having flown so much already this morning.

“Why don’t you park your butt down here and we’ll talk some, okay?” High Winds pointed to a spot on the grass for them both to take a rest on.

“Um, okay.” He sat down and the instructor sat next to him, smiling very pleasantly at him and making Cloudy Sky feel more at ease.

“So, how’s it going this morning with those older guys? Must be kinda hard keeping up with those two, I’ll bet.” She tried to gage his reaction to the question, wondering if it would clam-up or let lose his frustration.

Cloudy Sky didn’t feel nearly as nervous around this particular Wonderbolt instructor. She didn’t give off that same intense aura of intimidation like when he stood in front of Commander Spitfire or the Wonderbolt team captains. It felt more like being around his teacher from secondary school, or like the herd-leader from his time in the Colt Scouts when he was younger. He did confess some of what was on his mind.

“Yeah, it’s pretty tough to keep up. They’re both so much faster and more experienced with flying. Heck, they both were part of the Resistance Force that fought against the Storm King’s Stormguards.” After what Cloudy Sky had learned about what both Wind Raider and Stormbringer had been through, he was so intimidated and nervous around them. He worried if he’d ever get good enough to fly this routine without looking like such a novice flyer.

“What’s giving you the most trouble with keeping up to your lead pony? I’ve watch you fly, and you got a handle on the essentials.” High Winds fell back on her teaching experience and knew how to engage with a struggling student. Her genuine smile of concern must have worked, because Cloudy Sky took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to let go of some inner tension.

“Well, almost all the moves I have to fly now are new to me. So, I’m struggling with…” Cloudy Sky tried to explain himself as best he could, using his forehooves to simulate himself and Stormbringer in flight, rather than trying to use the right flight linguistics, which he had trouble recalling anyway.

Wind Raider and Stormbringer were too far away to hear just what Cloudy Sky was saying to the instructor. They could see the small gray pony’s movements were, obviously, demonstrating the flight routine he and Stormbringer were working on. But what Cloudy Sky was saying, neither knew. Stormbringer paced about in a small circle, growing concerned by how long Cloudy Sky was talking with the instructor.

“Stay calm. What’s he going to say? That he got a boo-boo from taking a bad spill while flying the routine? I’m not worried.” Wind Raider was cool as cool could be.

Across the field from where Cloudy Sky sat with the instructor, Solar Flare and Gallus were finishing another run through of their routine, trying to get back into the groove of flying again. At the end of a better attempt at their closing move and landing once more on the ground, Gallus looked over to see what was going on with his young pony friend.

“See? Everything’s going to be fine, Gallus. The instructor is talking with Cloudy now. I think she’ll take care of those two.” Solar Flare tried to put his wing griffon at ease a little more, pointing out what was going on from afar. They, like Wind Raider and Stormbringer, were too far away to hear what their friend was saying to Wonderbolt Instructor High Winds. But it must have been helpful to Cloudy Sky because when the instructor spoke, he was nodding at her in response, understanding what she was saying.

Solar Flare tried to get Gallus to stop looking and draw him away with an insisting tug on one of the griffon’s forelegs. “Hold up, Solar. I want to see what she’s going to do next.” The two friends watched as High Winds left Cloudy Sky waiting where he sat and walked over to Wind Raider and Stormbringer. Like when she spoke to Cloudy Sky, neither Gallus nor Solar Flare could hear what she was saying to those two. The instructor pulled out her clipboard, flipped through a couples of pages and read to them something from the records that caused a reaction to hearing whatever it was.

There clearly was shock and alarm in the expressions of Wind Raider and Stormbringer as High Winds spoke to them, making both Gallus and Solar Flare wonder what it could be. The Wonderbolt instructor snapped her sheets flat onto the clipboard, tucked in under her right wing and gave the two veterans an audible “Is that clear, recruits?” order to Wind Raider and Stormbringer. Pointing a forehoof at the two of them to emphasize her point. The two guys snapped a salute to the instructor and stood up straight when doing so.

“Yes, ma’am!” They sounded off, also loud enough for Gallus and Solar Flare to hear, even at this distance away. Solar Flare gave a satisfied nod at the apparent outcome, clear to him that things got ‘straightened out’ and Cloudy Sky wasn’t going to have any more trouble with them.

“Like I said, everything is going to be fine.” Solar Flare was relieved to see his wing griffon seemed to believe him and began to turn away from watching, seemingly satisfied with the outcome. Gallus didn’t look back, giving Solar Flare even more relief that he’d would be able to focus more on their routine before they had to perform for their actual scoring flight.

“I guess Cloudy’s going to be okay now.” It was the final admission Solar Flare had hoped to hear from Gallus, wanting his friend to relax.

“Let’s try working on the inverted spiral move we do right before the big figure-eight ending like we want to.” Solar Flare took off for the sky, eager to get refocused. Gallus was right behind him, his head clearer now and ready to get back to the work at hoof.

High Winds waved Cloudy Sky over to join her and the two older guys he was to work with. As he did, Cloudy Sky could see the restrained expressions from both Wind Raider and Stormbringer, as if they were suddenly in the presence of something to be wary of. It confused Cloudy Sky to see them looking at him like that. When he came close, Stormbringer actually took a step back, as if to avoid being too close to him.

“I don’t believe you should have any more problems following your lead’s routine now, wing pony. We’ve come to an…. understanding, haven’t we lead pony and assistant lead pony?” High Winds gave the two older stallions a sideways look, the inflection in her tone was not missed by Cloudy Sky and left him wondering what she meant by ‘understanding’. Whatever it was, it caused both Wind Raider and Stormbringer to stiffen up, as if hearing a threat of some kind. They silently nod, unwilling to risk worsen their situation.

“Carry on.” She dismissed them, heading back to her observation point over on the opposite side of activity field, High Winds added to the notes about Cloudy Sky, making sure Commander Spitfire knew what was going on with the spy from Central Command and what discipline she used to get the two most senior recruits in line. She was actually pretty proud of herself for coming up with such a crafty ruse to get them in line. High Winds could not help but smile to herself.

Cloudy Sky didn’t know what was up With Wind Raider and Stormbringer all of a sudden; the way these older guys kept looking at him, as if he was some unknown kind of horror and afraid to be nearby.

“So… how do I do that looping trick again?” He wanted to get back to work, aware that they had maybe an hour left before their flight trial.

“Forget about it, kid. We’re not doing anything from what I wrote down.” Wind Raider dropped any and all pretexts of trying any new flight move with his assigned wing pony. It caught Cloudy Sky completely off guard.

“What the-? Why? After all that work I put into trying those moves this morning?” Cloudy Sky felt blindsided by the decision, bewildered by the sudden abandonment.

“Look,” Stormbringer got Cloudy Sky’s attention, “Those six move you already know are about all you can handle, so let’s just focus on them and be done with it. You want to pass this trial don’t you?”

Stormbringer too? What was going on here? Nothing from Wind Raider’s flight plan was going to be used? Confused, he gave the obvious answer.

“Well, sure I do.” Cloudy Sky shrugged a little, not sure what was going on. True, Wind Raider’s flight plan was tough, but he thought he was getting the feel of some of the trick moves already. Why the sudden abandonment?

“Then all we need to do is rearrange two of those six moves you know with one transition move added and you’re done; routine complete and ready to be handed in.” Wind Raider made it sound so plain and obvious to get a routine out of what he knew.

“Wait, how’d you know my flight moves could…?” Cloudy Sky caught himself asking a very obvious question, seeing the looks on the muzzles of Stormbringer and Wind Raider, incredulous at being asked about such basic flight principles.

“Oh, right. Yeah.” Cloudy Sky looked away, cringing with embarrassed at having been so clueless as to ask.

“Anyway,” Wind Raider let it go, there wasn’t any time left to get annoyed, “here’s what you’re going to fly.” He picked up his notebook once again from off the ground and on a fresh piece of paper, began to plot out what it was going to be. Quickly, he rearranged the moves Cloudy Sky knew to fly and added the simple transition move in between two of them to make the routine flow together more smoothly.

“There, that’s about it.” Wind Raider concluded his work in less than five minutes and then showed Cloudy Sky the flight routine they were to fly. Cloudy Sky recognized each move and understood how each move was to follow another. He felt confident enough he’d get it right without out too much effort.

“Hey, can’t we put in that looping move I was attempting? I’m sure I can get it if we make the loop smaller, I’ll get it for sure.” Cloudy Sky braved to offer up a suggestion of what to do with such vastly superior flyers then himself.

“Dude, please, you can’t even handle a basic high-speed loop move without freaking out at the speed of flying downward so fast; you kept pulling up out of the dives, for Celestia’s sake!”

Cloudy Sky did look away slightly from both of the when reminded of how unnerving it was to fly straight towards the ground, thinking he was going to crash headlong into it. He ‘chickened out’, slowing down to a more comfortable speed or aborting the attempt all together. He just wasn’t us to flying like that.

“But there’s got to be something that can be added to this to make it better. I don’t want to just repeat the same things I did before for my solo flight. I want to show some kind of improvement to the instructors.” Cloudy Sky made his case as plain and simple to understand. He knew these guys probably had a million trick moves up their sleeves they could pull out and show him if they really wanted to. But he just suspected them of not wanting to help him in any way, as if to get at Gallus and Silverstream.

Wind Raider’s eyes kept focusing from his real wing pony’s look of genuine concern and disapproval about trying this, to Cloudy Sky’s imploring expression and then his looking at the textbook his notes being held in Cloudy Sky’s forelegs, trying to figure his way through this.

He knew how little time was left at trying to get this kid up to some level of competency and not make himself look foolish flying such underwhelming flight moves as the lead.

A low grumble audibly reverberated from Wind Raider’s chest, annoyed at this situation already and now having to handle this wing pony’s stated desire with such delicacy that this felt almost impossible to get through. “Fine.”

He took the textbook back from Cloudy Sky, flipping open to a later point beyond what Cloudy Sky had probably looked at, stopping at the first diagrams of the first flight move. “Here, we’ll start in chapter five; intermediate level flight moves. About the only one I think you might have the slim chance of a possibility of performing would be this,” Wind Raider pointed to the first trick flight move in the chapter for Cloudy Sky to read.

“Flitwing’s Flip.” Cloudy Sky read out loud what the move he was going to have to do.

“You’ve had enough practice trying to do some looping moves this morning so hopefully this won’t be such a stretch for you to do.” Wind Raider thought it the easiest of all the flight moves to try that were not of an elementary level. “You said wanted to do ‘something harder’, well, this is from the very next chapter of the textbook. If you really were in flight-training class here at the academy, this is what you’d be studying.”

He did say that, trying something more advanced or tougher than he’d flown previously. Now, having made the request and presented with the selection, Cloudy Sky knew he couldn’t back out or object. His lead had made the choice and he had to follow.

“Okay, so, how do I fly this move?” Cloudy Sky was not going to back out of this. He was going to prove to them he was not intimidated, sounding confident and sure of himself.

Wind Raider, in spite of himself, was a tiny bit relieved to see this kid was, at least, demonstrating seriousness about getting it right. That made the prospect of getting something of a slightly more respectable routine hashed out, written down and worked out in time for submitting to the instructors an obtainable goal.

“Alright,” Wind Raider spoke with a slightly drawn-out emphasis, hearing Cloudy Sky’s determination, “this is how it goes in the routine.” He went to a yet another fresh page of his notebook to rewrite the routine once more to include the new flight move.

“Waste of time; just do the six moves he knows already.” Stormbringer mumbled in objection and shaking his head, unbelieving of Cloudy Sky’s skill at getting even this slightly more demanding flight move down. Cloudy Sky scowled a little at Stormbringer’s negativity.

“I’ll know in five minutes weather he can handle it or not, trust me.” Wind Raider was sure he could tell straight away if it was too demanding of a move or not for Cloudy Sky. If his wing pony couldn’t handle it, the move would be dropped. Everything else they’ve tried to get him to fly was above Flitwing’s Flip level of difficulty so maybe Cloudy Sky actually could handle something like this.

With Stormbringer acting as lead pony again, Cloudy Sky once more took to the air. The moves he knew felt familiar and comfortable to do, even if Stormbringer was flying them at a quicker pace then he’d flown them for his solo routine.

The only real challenge for him was getting those transition points timed right; moving smoothly from one trick move to the next without pausing or awkward body twists to get into the correct position. It was tougher than he thought, even knowing the moves already and Wind Raider did not hesitate to point out to Cloudy Sky when he was not flying correctly.

But Cloudy Sky persevered, following his lead’s verbal instructions and, despite the tough going, by the fourth attempt of the flight routine, he had the flip figured out and almost timed perfect. So pleased with himself at the modicum of success, he wanted to yell out in joy. But wanting to demonstrate a serious and mature approach to his flying to the older guys, he funneled that nervous-happy energy of first flight success into flying each of the moves more precisely. His wings were strained enough from the workout already but his desire to push himself on more blotted out any ache his brain might have registered from his muscles.

“Alright, alright.” Wind Raider flagged the two of them in after the sixth run through of the flight routine; twenty minutes seemed like enough practice Cloudy Sky needed to get it.

Cloudy Sky landed right behind Stormbringer, doing all he could to smother his smile of self-satisfaction at having gotten that new trick flight move right and added to the routine now.

“Let me try leading him. Keep an eye on him while he’s with me; he has a tendency to drift out of position.” Wind raider switched places with Stormbringer, passing him the textbook and newly minted routine to follow.

Once in the air and with Cloudy Sky flying off to his right wing, Wind Raider went through the simple flight routine, catching sight of Cloudy Sky maintaining his position throughout the flight run from out of the corner of his right eye. Seeing Cloudy Sky giving it his all and looking more fiercely determined then he’d seen all morning, put Wind Raider a little more at ease. Perhaps seeing the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ to this part of the day was not so far off and not as disastrous as he imagined.

======*****======

The work continued among the flyers, getting the finer points worked out and doing final fly-through runs. Some were still rushing to finalize changes to routines, finding some the move they selected too complex to execute and compromising on others in order to get the assignment done and still have time to do some flythroughs. Achieving a good score had to encompass as much of what they had learned so far; planning, rehearsing and then executing a routine of at least six maneuvers. This was the first real test of a recruit’s flight capability.

The time seemed to whiz by as some of the recruits who were still flying above the field spotted the C.O. and two Wonderbolt instructors heading this way. Some were already heading for the ground when a screech of a whistle split the air. The shrill note got all the recruit’s attentions and they all hurried into formation and stood at attention.

The second group of recruits who were doing their first solo flights took longer to get into formation, some still chattering as Commander Spitfire and her lead instructor came to stand in front of all of them.

“Aten-tion!” High Winds ordered and the recruits snapped into shape.

“At ease, recruits.” Commander Spitfire walked up and down the length of recruits, looking them over. “It is now eleven-hundred hours; you should all have your routines written out and ready to hand in. Once all your compositions are submitted, we will begin flight evaluations, starting with solo flyers and then paired flyers.”

Along with Captain Soarin, High Winds collected up the routines; some of the paperwork clearly written out with great effort and detail while two or three looked like something a couple of foals had scribbled out a flight routine with some crayons.

Soarin passed to his C.O. the routines after sorting them by group, making sure the solo flights were on top of the pile. High Winds did the same, getting the solo flyers at the tip of the pile.

“All recruits doing their first solo flights line up by the starting line.” Spitfire ordered and the second group of recruits hurried past Silverstream and her friends to stand in line. The BFFs hung back from the two dozen unfamiliar ponies that’d arrived after them, standing with their partners to watch.

Comments

[Sugar Spoon]

Woo Happy New Year!

[KittyrinnAiko]

“We got the warning out about the attack, but no other creature in Equestria came to help! The griffons didn’t show up to help, the dragons didn’t show up to help, those horrible yaks with that…that…ignoramus Prince Rustyfork or whatever his name is in charge, they didn’t show up to help! No creature showed up!” The veteran flyer gave him the unvarnished truth.

This guy is either extremely unreasonable or hasn't a clue how long it takes to mobilize an army. Probably both.

[KittyrinnAiko]

“No… probably not…” Cloudy Sky managed to answer between his labored breathing, his head dizzy and light-feeling, still managing to stay upright on his wobbly legs but assisted by being propped up by Harmony Blues.

Ya, in real life he'd have been taken to the base clinic. If someone takes a hard hit you don't sit there and berate them.

[SuperPinkBrony12]

Poor Cloudy, but at least we got to see Wind Raider and Stormbringer be put in their place.

[Jay Watson]

11788407
My take on the timespan between the start of the attack on Caterlot and the time Twilight and the others got out of the city is something in the nature of an hour or so. With three princesses neutralized and the armed forces being, most likely off duty and not prepared for an attack, it made it easy for Tempest Shadow and her forces to made quick work of the regular forces at first but came up against a reconstituted resistance force made up of remaining Canterlot armed guards, military academy students and Canterlot Reservist forces. I guessed that there was maybe a 15-minute window of time between when Twilight and the girls got away, the alarm being sent to all of Princess Celestria's allies about the attack and then the city being taken over. But then again, that's just my take for this story to work....

[KittyrinnAiko]

11788628
The amount of time to mount a sizable force to provide relief to the first defenders is at a minimum several days. Depending on the size of the force needed it could be weeks. And the comics have it that the Storm King had already successfully invaded other kingdoms. The fact that Celestia sends Twilight to the Hipogrifs for help when the kingdom has been in hiding for some time suggests that the ponies were rather clueless about what was going on. The hippogriffs refuse at first but lend their aid after Twilight and friends save the day. Subsequently, everything was more or less over by the time the first relief would have arrived.

[Zubric]

You would think the pegasi would have the height advantage since none of the storm king army can fly. They have high ground all the time. Just a short thought.
Well that and baffles me how airships were able to sneak attack at all. They are slow. Big and not stealthy. There should be no way they should have only been seen once right on top of them. Candatlot has a lot of sky clearance for miles

[Jay Watson]

11814624
I get the feeling the attack on Equestria by the Storm King's forces was not a sequence of battles one after another, but one mass simultaneous attack on all the major population centers in order to overwhelm the forces of Canterlot and the Crystale Empire. Too many airships all deploying troops and, therefore, force the defending armies to spread out too thinly across the land. Shining Armor and the other generals could not mount a successful counteroffensive to repel an invading force with their armed forces spread out so thinly.

[Zubric]

11815601 Logistics for such a combined assault on all major cities at once and not being seen coming. :P Airships aren't known to be very fast
That would be like attacking the USA all at once. Would have been a lot of time as they idly floated into southern Equestria. Eh sorry nitpicking for no reason. Fun story none the less jsut not givne ht show(Storm King) more credit than it needs lol