Chapter 14 – Flight School
The scream she made was of both fear and exhilaration, the Hylop shouted as she gripped Blade's neck while the grey pegasus flapped his wings, the speed he gathered whipping the Hylop's short stylish hair back into a whisp that nearly reached the bottom of her shoulder blades. Fluttershy staying behind a bit with a large brown carrier bag at her side as he raced off, letting the cat girl experience the rush of wind and speed as the two rocketed through the air. Once Hulon let go, but Blade reacted as if by muscle memory and flipped into a circle to grab her before gravity found her. Once again, the Hylop was placed right on Blade's back, legs behind his wings, and a fist full of his mane, "You're lucky I'm so thick-skinned, this would hurt any other pony." Blade said to himself, and Hulon simply closed her eyes, "Ok, we're here!" She hesitated, letting her eyes flutter open just to close them again, and then decided, just to open them all the way. There they were, Fluttershy next to them as they floated there in front of a cloud. A thick cream white cloud that flashed with gentle colors as the creature inside flew around.
"Nervous?" she heard Fluttershy ask from beside her, and she looked to see the yellow pegasus smile at her, almost as a parent smiles at their child for a discovery they made.
"A little, more amazed." she explained as she looked back at the cloud.
The two pegasi smiled, Blade's more unnoticeable as Fluttershy reached her hooves into the bag at her side, gently pulling the small fish-like creature from inside, and leaned in to hand the Sifter to be in front of Hulon, "Just place her in the cloud and watch." Hulon looked down at the Sifter, the small creature still sleeping in the hooves of her new friend. With caution, she lifted her hands to gently pick the small creature up, and glance at Fluttershy.
She hesitated a bit, and slowly reached her hands into the cloud, she could feel particles attaching themselves to her fur bit by bit, but she could also feel the creature in her hands stir, in sat up and seemed to just wiggle a bit. She wondered what was going on, and asked, "Can you get closer?" Fluttershy and Blade both looked to her, "I want to see what's going on." The three of them moved a bit closer, and each of them stuck their heads into the cloud. To her surprise, it was pretty clear inside the clouds, and what she saw both frightened her and brought her excitement, there was a much larger Sifter in front of the little one that flew around, its fins waving up and down as they changed colors. It seemed to taunt the younger one, but the little one seemed fascinated instead of irritated.
"I think that one is trying to teach the little one how to fly." Fluttershy said as she listened to the singing melody of the Sifter in front of her.
"Makes sense." Blade said in response.
"How can you tell?" Hulon asked, and suddenly the little Sifter in her hands started moving, its fins waving up and down as it tried to gather speed until it lifted slightly from her grasp. She gasped in a small bit of excitement as the little one lifted from her hands, and with all the excitement in the world, followed the larger one deeper into the cloud. Hulon pulled her head out, followed by Blade and Fluttershy before she began to tea up, "That was amazing!" she said with happiness.
"First time seeing that huh?" Blade asked, "Mine too."
"I wish we could take some of these clouds with us." the little Hylop said, "there's just something I'm missing in my replacement formula."
"Blade?" Fluttershy asked, only to get a nod from him in response. He reached out and grabbed part of the cloud before pulling a small piece of it free from the rest of it.
This action caught Hulon by surprise, and she shrieked after she got over her initial shock, not a shriek of fear, but a shriek of excitement, "You…can grab…clouds!" she said as she tried to take it from the pegasus' hoof. Her hand passed right through it and the bit of cloud dispersed into nothing. She looked a bit disappointed but looked up in curiosity as she heard Fluttershy and Blade chuckle a bit.
"On our planet, pegasi can tame and control the weather by placing and dispersing clouds." the stallion explained, "It's part of the magic of our world." With this, he reached out again and pulled off another bit of cloud.
"Why don't I hold onto that for you?" Fluttershy asked, and gently grabbed onto the cloud piece.
Hulon looked to both of them, and then looked down at the ground, then back to them, and held on tight as Blade turned and took off, this time at a slower speed, one where she found herself enjoying the time. Slowly, though she barely registered it, she let her amazement shine, the smile on her face spreading until it dominated her face, "THIS IS AMAZING!" she shouted as they flew towards the hospital.
Kalin was just finishing up, exiting one of the examination rooms as he sighed heavily, and then cracked his neck just as his daughter came rushing into the establishment, "DAD!" she shouted as she rushed up to him.
"Huh?" he asked and was sure she was going to knock him over.
"You'll never believe what we just did." She said as she got her volume under control.
"Uh…" he drew out as he watched Blade and Fluttershy enter in behind her.
"We flew up to the clouds." she told him, her ears now perked up as high as they would go, "And you'll never guess, but they can grab clouds! I can finally finish my Substitute Feeding Formula!"
"They can wha…" he tried to catch up to her, but then heard the last part run through his head, "That's great, sweetie!" He looked up at the two ponies, and finally saw the bit of cloud tucked under Fluttershy's wing. "How…?" he asked.
"I can't wait to finish it; I wonder what I was missing?" Hulon interrupted and raced off, grabbing a beaker and racing back in to let Fluttershy gently place the cloud into it before she closed it with a lid and raced back.
"She seemed so excited." Fluttershy observed. Blade simply nodded; his smile hidden under his permanent scowl.
"I've…never seen her this happy." Kalin said, and turned to the two ponies, "I can't believe you've done so much for her. I thought she was never going to smile again." When he looked at them, he had tears in his eyes, the streaks of saltwater sunning down the fur on his cheeks at an incredible rate.
Suddenly Blade felt something get pulled from his wings, and the tell-tale pinch of feathers being plucked from them, "OUCH!" he called out, and turned to see Hulon smiling happily as she held up a pair of feathers in her hands.
"Need these. Sorry!" she said excitedly, and once again ran to disappear into the glass room full of alien creatures.
This action got the tree of them; Fluttershy, Blade, and Kalin to start chuckling at the excitement of the little Hylop. "I thought she'd given up!" Kalin said as he rubbed the tears from his eyes. He then turned to them, "I can't thank you enough, you two. You gave my daughter hope once again. Maybe she can finally move past the incident. I'd like it if she kept smiling."
"Well, I guess that helps with the wing braces?" Blade asked, only to have his and Fluttershy's hooves lifted from the ground as the much larger Hylop wrapped the two of them into a tight hug.
"Thank you, thank you very much." he said, and set them down, "Don't worry about the payment, I'll have one of my specialists down to your garage to measure your racer's wings immediately." he told them, "And the shipment of supplies is on the house as well."
"We can't let you do that!" Fluttershy said as she began to panic, "That's way too much!"
"Not for my daughter's happiness, it's not." the Hylop said in response.
Blade quickly pulled out the card from his pocket, "At least take half. I'd never sleep right if I didn't know you at least got that." he said.
Kalin smiled and then nodded.
Fluttershy and Blade were both proud of themselves as they exited the building, and suddenly, their stomachs both growled, not painfully, but still loud enough that they both noticed, "Wanna get something to eat to celebrate a job well done?" he asked, and Fluttershy nodded as she blushed. The two of them looked up to see the sun getting ready to set behind the mountains in the distance. What they didn't see, was the clouds as they darkened for the night.
They noticed a few minutes after sundown, they still hadn't found any actual restaurants as they made their way to what they thought was the direction to the train station, but as soon as the darkness fell, the rain fell. Not a torrential rain, just a gentle soaking rain. Blade and Fluttershy ran as soon as they felt the drops on their fur, trying to make their way to some kind of overhang. They were, unfortunately, soaked by the time they found anything that could keep the rain off of them.
Blade looked around, trying to find where they were, but it seemed once again, he could not read any of the signs. He lowered his eyes to think, trying to remember anything about where they could be. He was unprepared when he heard water splash to the ground. He turned to his side, watching as Fluttershy pushed the water from her hair and to the ground using her front hooves. She turned to him, a gentle smile on her face as she dried her mane. He smiled, the corners of his lips lifting up as much as they could and she giggled and without warning, began shaking his head to get the water off of his own mane. Fluttershy squeaked as he did, using her leg to guard her face from the spray, and then flew above him to squeeze the rest of the water from her mane and let it drip down to his back.
"I thought I recognized that giggle!" the two of them heard from their side. Just as they turned, Pinkie Pie and Piks emerged from around the corner. Piks had a large umbrella in his hand, and again a smile on his face. "There you two are! Have fun?" the pink pony asked.
Fluttershy came back down to the ground, and they both agreed, "Absolutely." she said as he simply nodded.
"Good, we were able to get a boatload of Points for our team." Pinkie said, and smiled, "Who knew Equestrian Bits would be worth so much on an alien planet?"
"And we were able to get a great deal on medical supplies." Blade said.
"Good, hope you got everything you wanted?" Piks said as he turned and waved them all with him, "To be honest we were worried when you didn't show up at the train station."
"We…" Blade said as he turned to the yellow pegasus next to him, "…lost track of time."
"Ooooh, what'd ya do?" Pinkie asked, and Fluttershy smiled as she took a big breath, calmly telling the entire story as they made their way back to the garage.
"That was some adventure." Piks said as the four of them neared the garage door.
"Tell me about it, and there I was at first complaining about being hijacked." Blade said in a snarky response.
Fluttershy nudged him with her side as they entered into the doorway, "I just wish I could have brought some of those cute little creatures back to the garage with me."
"Kalin was supposed to send over a specialist to fit Rainbow Dash for any casts or wing braces, did they show up yet?" Blade asked.
"She sure did!" Spike called out from what looked like a group of their friends.
There in the middle of the group was not only Rainbow Dash, but Hulon, except she sported rainbow hair just like the rest of them. At the moment, she was standing over the blue pegasus, measuring tape in hands as she stretched it from the base of Rainbow's open wing to the tip of her feathers. "Tell ya what, she sure knows what she's doin." Applejack said as she turned to Fluttershy, "You got yerself one humdinger of a pardner."
"Wait, I thought…" Blade said curiously and then watched as Fluttershy walked forward and smiled at the Hylop.
Hulon noticed the yellow pegasus right after she lifted herself from Rainbow, and then politely bowed, "My dad thought it would be a good experience for me to work on a team where my skills would be important. I hope my help will be enough." she said.
"It will be more than enough." Fluttershy said, "Welcome to the team."
"GO TEAM RAINBOW DASH!" Pinkie shouted happily.
"I'm sure everyone is tired." Hulon said, "Now that we're all here, let's get some sleep."
Blade and Fluttershy parted ways in the hall, as usual, smiles on both of their faces. When Fluttershy entered her own room, she stood there surprised, several changes had been made, a single tank that looked as if it were holding onto a cloud, and around the room the old bed had been replaced with one that looked a lot comfier. "I hope you don't mind." she heard from behind her, and turned to see Hulon standing there, "I saw how much you liked the animals I was taking care of, so I brought a few along with me."
Fluttershy looked back at the room, from inside the cloud, a few small heads poked out, and then from around the corner of the room, a few of the dragonfly-like birds flew by. "I figured you'd like the company." she heard Hulon say, and watched as the Hylop turned and walked away, "See you tomorrow." Fluttershy was speechless, but the joy could wait as her energy started to fade. So much was happening and it drained her for the day. The moment she hit the mattress, she could feel herself sink into her dreams, and barely managed to pull the covers onto herself. One of the softest beds she'd ever slept on.
