Chapter 36: Pony up

Paramail clumsily landed a few hundred feet away Fluttershy's cottage, causing him to tumble for ten feet, his face landing straight in the dirt. It has been forty-five minutes since Fluttershy was taken by the alicorn golem, but he still had plenty of tears to be shed. He wracked with the shame of just flying away, leaving his marefriend to Screameater's clutches. He pondered in his mind about how he could've saved her. He had yet to even find one.

He slowly got up from the ground and slowly began to walk the rest of the way. He imagined how horrible she must be feeling right now. He pondered as to of all the Pure of Hearts possibly out there, why her?

He let out a gloomy exhale as he spoke to nopony in particular. "Why did it have to be her? She didn't deserve it. I should've been the ritual." He kicked a rocked off the trail in frustration as he raised his voice and looked up towards the night sky. "She had plenty of friends that cared for who she was! She had animals that she treated as her own family! She had adventures and stories more amusing than ten ponies combined! She decided to follow her dreams! And you got her taken!"

He began to walk faster as he began to berate himself. "I should've been me! I'm just a workaholic, cowardly, pathetic FEATHERBRAIN who gave up on his dreams!"

He began to quiet down a bit in order to show the decency to let the nearby animals sleep in peace. He was not done berating himself though as the failure he knew he was though. The only time he could remember emotionally bashing himself this badly was the first day of flight school. How he regretted being such a rash youngster, yet at the same time, a free pony.

The little teal colt woke up in the morning in his Wonderbolts pajamas. He let out a small yawn as he looked around his room. He had his own bathroom, a couple of Equimorph action figures and foal's books on his shelf, a closet for clothes, and even a desk to do his boring homework. But his most valued item of all was a large poster of his favorite Wonderbolt Soarin', who was flying in the air with a fore hoof in front of him, as if either pointing at the poster's owner or offering a high hoof. He then remembered what day it was.

To most ponies, it was just another day in Cloudsdale; but to Paramail, it was the first day of Flight School. He eagerly jumped out of bed, hopping over the clothes he wore for picture day the day before. He opened his bathroom door and washed his face, brushed his hair and gingerly got out of his PJs.

"Honey! Breakfast is ready!"

At the call of his mother, the pepped up pegasus hurried out of his bathroom. He placed his folded pajamas under the pillow of his unmade bed. He hovered into the air and gave the poster a quick high hoof.

"ALL RIGHT! Today is the day to start Soarin'." He hopped off the desk, hoping that one day he would be good enough to be part of Soarin's Wonderbolt squad. Paramail remembered that he and his friend Rainbow Dash promised one another that they would both try their best to be just like them; daring, adventurous, and fearless. Both foals had some early private lessons by Rainbow's uncle Chromewing. He then went down the stairs, imagining himself flying through tons of obstacles, doing loop-de-loops and saving all of Equestria from Dragons and other monsters.

He went into the kitchen and noticed that his mother went back to his parent's room to go to sleep after her tiring night shift at the post office. His father wasn't around due to working morning shifts at the same post office. Due to that, he didn't see much of his parents. But they were a bore anyways.

Paramail noticed a plate of carrots and orange juice on the table and sat down to eat them. According to the Cloudsdale doctors during a checkup, he had twenty-ten vision. After that, his parents encouraged him to eat foods that would help his eyesight, hoping that it would improve to be even greater. He ate everything on his plate, drank down his juice, got his lunch bag and then ran back upstairs to brush his teeth and grab his books for school.

Ten hours later

Parmail enter his home with his head lowered in shame. He had bump on his head and a few bruises from crashing into a metal pole in an obstacle course in Flight School; the pipsqueak level course no less. He felt embarrassed, ashamed and stupid about messing up on the easiest obstacle course offered.

He had to go to the nurse and leave early. The coach sent a message for the colt's parents to give him a week off from Flight School to get him ready. He blamed his mane for this predicament for it got into his eyes, making him loose control. But what was really sending chills down his spine was what the other fillies and colts might think of him for his failure. Would RD make fun of him? Would his class isolate him? Would that yellow filly he just met think he's a crybaby loser?

His father was fast asleep at the time after his tiring job so he couldn't try to comfort the down in the dumps colt. Paramail knew there was dinner in the fridge, but he was currently in no mood to eat. He slowly went upstairs to his room, not even bothering to attempt to fly up.

He tossed his book bag onto his bed and took a seat at his desk. He began to stare at his Soarin' poster, which showed how carefree the Wonderbolt truly was. The little colt felt envy surging in his body as the poster began to appear as if it were staring at him, almost teasing him with utopian ideals of pegasus perfection. He soon began to dwell on how such a clumsy flyer like he would never be as Wonderbolt. He felt his envy swell into anger as he began to glare at the picture, feeling his breathing get faster and faster. No more than ten seconds later, he had it with the stupid poster.

"QUIT LOOKING AT ME!"

The colt got onto his desk and brought his hooves to the top right corner of the poster. He felt a sudden feeling of hate and contempt for those stupid showoffs that think that they have the right to set the standards for pegasi everywhere. He was ready to tear the picture right off the wall then rip it into a million pieces with his own teeth. Paramail took one last glance at the pegasus champion before never have to see that stallion ever again. He counted down to three in order to gain the courage to destroy the poster he spent much of his allowance on.

He couldn't do it.

He brought his forehooves to his face and began bawling out tears. He remembered when he and RD were at a Wonderbolts show with Chromewing. He got the last Soarin' poster that day. He also began to think about how Soarin' was one of Rainbow Dash's favorite members and always offered a trade of sorts. Paramail knew RD wanted this poster more than him and he didn't want to hurt his friend.

He forced himself to stop crying and began to gently take the poster off of the wall. He got it off in one piece and he rolled it up. He then grabbed a rubber band from his desk to keep the poster from unrolling. He then put it under his bed to give to Rainbow Dash tomorrow.

As he looked at his bed, he saw his language arts folder sticking out of his bag. He loathed doing homework and tended to just half-baked work. But now he felt like he had nothing else to do. So he took out the folder, went to his desk and started to work. As he worked on his vocabulary, his mane once again got in the way of his eyes. He cleared his vision and looked at his piggy bank, reminding himself to get himself a haircut during the week. Something that assured that he will never crash again.

Over time, Paramail began to radically change. He shaved his navy blue mane to the point where it was as long as his teal coat, giving him the nickname "Baldy". He began to devote himself to academics, greatly boosting his sub-par grades. He began to speak to his parents about their job, getting them to teach him the ropes. He passed Flight School with a wingpower of 7.1, average but a little below. He even got his cutie mark of two exclamation marks and one question mark thanks to his new lifestyle.

But one part of his new life hurt a lot. After admitting to Rainbow Dash about his lack of interest in the Wonderbolts anymore, the two ponies slowly began to move further and further away from one another. Eventually, Rainbow began hanging out with some Griffon and he began to make his own group of friends. But even then as time passed by, most of his newer friends left Cloudsdale for their own reasons.

Eventually after graduation, he took a job at the Ponyville Post office and moved there. Ever since that one day, he began to become just another mundane stallion.

Paramail shook the thoughts out of his head. This was not the time to feel bad for himself. This was the time to try to tell the animals what happened to their guardian and friend. This was absolutely no time for regrets.

Soon enough, he made it to the front of her cottage. He looked around the area to see most of the animals asleep, with only animals like tarantulas, owls, bats, and the occasional cat being the only animals awake. They all stared at the stallion curiously as he walked towards the door.

Paramail noticed how some of them looked around the area. From what he could guess, they were expecting Fluttershy to have come back too. He was going to hate having to break the news to them. But a bunch of animals must have noticed his tears or his melancholic mood, for a few of them started to show signs of sadness too. He approached the front door and knocked, expecting one of the two bunnies. The mailpony knew he was going to hate breaking the bad news to them.

The door opened to reveal the happy-go-lucky little grey bunny. Hopz hugged the pegasus's leg and looked around for the yellow mare. After looking behind the pony, she looked up at Paramail as if asking where she was.

He felt guilty about telling her the truth, but it had to be done. Paramail gently patted the bunny's head as he looked away from her in shame. "She's…she's not here."

The little bunny just stared blankly at him, to the point where he couldn't tell whether it was naivety or denial. Paramail crouched down so they can see at eye level. "She's been taken by bad monsters." He felt horrid for telling this to such an innocent creature. "I'm sorry that this happened."

Hopz understood that all too well. She quickly broke down into crying, with large fountains of tears coming from her eyes. With that, most of the animals began to visibly cry over the loss of their friend, keeper and in some cases savior. Even such animals as bears and vultures were tearing up. This woke up the diurnal animals which also began to cry. This was not helping Paramail's mood one bit.

A few seconds later, a white rabbit with a sleeping mask on his forehead groggily came to the door with an annoyed look on his face. Angel looked around at the crying animals around him and looked towards Hopz as if to ask what was going on. The grey bunny chattered to him and Angel just froze with his eyes wide open.

"I understand that this was hard for all of us." The stallion tried to comfort the white bunny, but looking more like he was the one in need of comfort. He buried his face in his hooves as he continued to cry with the rest of them.

Angel just stared as he watched the maneless pony make himself look pathetic. To Angel, he was more spineless than the jellyfish in the back. The cockroaches had more dignity than this excuse for a pegasus. He knew this ever since he first met him, going ga-ga over his owner, his benefactor, his friend. It made the little bunny furious at the stallion in front of him, and he couldn't take it anymore.

He picked up Paramail's head, slapped him across the face and stared into his maroon eyes as if to say "Pull yourself together".

Paramail immediately stopped crying after that, along with most of the fauna as they all looked towards the bunny, who was chattering unintelligible word to the pony. Hopz covered her ears though and began to move away, obviously not liking what he was saying.

Paramail stared at the ranting rabbit for a bit. He began to think that this rabbit wanted him to be a real pony. He wiped away the last of his tears and quietly spoke up.

"So you're saying you want me to grow a spine?"

Angel stopped ranting and just looked blankly at him, having no idea what he was talking about.

Paramail began to speak in his normal voice as he got up. "So you want me to get over my stupid whiny angst and go out there?"

Angel just looked around to see if any of the animals knew what this guy was talking about.

"You want me to rescue your benefactors and my new marefriend?" Paramail was beginning to gain aforementioned spine.

Angel gasped at the thought of Fluttershy and this guy being together.

Paramail looked towards the rest of the animals and called out to all of them. "DO YOU WANT ME TO SAVE EQUESTRIA AT THE SAME TIME?" The stallion thumped his right hoof on his chest.

When he noticed that all of the animals were just looking at him as if he was a madpony, he just sighed and took a stick from the ground. He wrote in the dirt in front of Angel and Hopz "I'm gonna save Fluttershy". That they got.

Hopz began to applaud for the hopefully valiant hero for his newfound courage. A little monkey joined in the cheering, then a crocodile, then a flamingo. It didn't take long for the whole animal home to begin to cheer for the pegasus. Angel looked at him for a bit, then begrudgingly also began to clap his paws.

Paramail made a genuinely thankful smile. "Thank you all so much!" He began to hover in the air. "I won't let any of you down!" He saluted to the resident animals. "Wish me luck!" He then flew off, followed with an elephant trumpeting his leave.

As the pony left, Hopz noticed that Angel's eyes were watery. She pointed them out and he immediately looked away, chattering his denial of the idea of him crying. He then hopped back to bed.

Paramail got back to his apartment to get supplies. He went into his "In case of" room and began to kick all of the glass away from the "In case of having to learn how to sail", "In case nightmares", and "In case of marefriend being kidnapped". From that, he got a manual on how to sail a ship, a dreamcatcher and a firepony's axe. He stared at the three items and just tossed the axe over his shoulder. He knew the other two would come in handy.

He then went to his desk to write letters to Applejack and Rainbow Dash about the situation at hoof. He then began to write to his parents should he not come back. He then folded the letters, but them in envelopes and flew out his window to send them himself. He knew he wasn't going to sleep tonight. He had far too many things to prepare for the next morning.

Sorry if this one was too OC centric. But hey, I think this pony was in need of more development. Read and review (think that was the first time I said that in this whole fic).