School Spirit (Part Two)

My second challenge of the day was the flying test.

A lot of squads chose this test to skip out on, because very few kids had taken the aviation courses offered. Not me. I saw aviation on the list of classes offered and wondered why anyone wouldn't want to learn how to fly a plane. It counted as a regular class. That was just more time I didn't have to spend doing math.

The best part: it had been a class of about five. None of whom were competing at the moment. Most of the people onboard the Blackbird with me when it took off were there trying to make up a low score from another part of Field Day.

Once again, I liked my chances of doing well.

I looked around at all of the others. I didn't know for sure, but they all looked nervous. I was calmer about flying than I had been during the accuracy challenge.

Sitting in one of the seats across the way from me, the pink-haired girl from the Paragons, Megan. Since she was one of the only ones I knew, and just sitting there in silence was boring, I spoke up, "Hey, what are you worried about?" I asked. It was all over her face.

"I thought this was literal flying," Megan said, letting her wings wiggle from how they were neatly pressed against her seat, "Like, with wings, or whatever else anyone has."

"Oh," I said, before looking around. When I made eye contact with three other students, I realized how many others probably figured thought something similar before getting up there, "Oh!"

Now that made a lot more sense. At least two of the seven kids there could fly on their own. They were probably feeling good until they realized that they hadn't been taken up to jump out of the plane and fly with their powers, but to actually fly the plane itself.

…Perhaps they should have named it the pilot test instead. Much less misleading. Oh well. Hindsight was 20/20.

I tried to think of anything to say to her, but in the end, all I came up with was, "That sucks..."

Not for me. For all of them, because there was only one aviation class, and I know full well I never saw any of them in there.

It was literally all I could say in return. I didn't have anything encouraging to say, because I wanted to win, and I didn't want to inspire anyone into idiot savanting their way into a top score. However, rubbing it in was a bit dickish, and I was trying to be a better person.

Megan nodded in agreement with me and seemed to cringe at every dip and roll she thought she felt the plane take.

"Solaris," A man said in a German accent. I unconsciously grit my teeth every time I heard that codename. I really didn't like it, "It's your turn. Come up front to the cockpit and take the controls."

I unbuckled my seat and got up from the back where I and the rest of the other students competing had been sitting. We had been placed back there so we couldn't get a look at how anyone else was flying. Of course, that was kind of redundant for one of us.

David Alleyne, a.k.a. Prodigy. An appropriate name, because the fucker knew any learned skill you knew for as long as he was close enough to you. God, what a power. If I had that, I wouldn't even have gone to this school. I would have cheated my way through classes and gotten a cushy job around tons of smart people I could rip ideas off from.

Which just showed how much better a person he was than me.

To be fair, David wasn't a fucker. He was a nice guy, he was honestly intelligent in his own right, and it wasn't like he was actively trying to get all of your hard-earned talents and knowledge. Hell, he didn't even keep them! But seriously, just by sitting in the damn plane, he could probably fly it at least as well as the best pilot there, which probably wasn't me.

Speaking of whom, I passed by him as he moved back to the sitting area and I headed to the front, "Good luck," He said on his way past.

"Thanks," I said. I didn't bother asking what he'd scored. It was either perfect, or as close as any of us were going to get to it, "Here's hoping something nuts happens so I can impress Nightcrawler and win this thing."

I eventually got to the front of the plane, my eyes getting a good look at us cutting our way through the sky before taking note of who was flying. A man with blue hair and fur, but not like Dr. McCoy's. He had pointed ears, solid-colored eyes and a long, thin, flexible tail. He wore a black bodysuit with red accents and white three-fingered gloves with white three-toed boots.

Kurt Wagner. Resident teleporter, drama teacher, devout Catholic, and all-around friendly guy. He was also the proctor for the practical flight test.

I took my seat in the chair next to him and strapped myself in. They definitely would have taken points off if I'd needed to be to. Mr. Wagner waited until I looked situated and ready to go, "Are you ready?" He asked. He had an encouraging, patient tone.

"Yeah," I said, my hands tightly gripping the wheel as I waited for control to be relinquished over to me, "What's the worst that can happen?"

"You wreck the plane and we all blow up in flames," Mr. Wagner said, completely ignoring the fact that I had meant that to be rhetorical, "…Of course, that's why I'm here."

And why he had said that so calmly. Apparently, he flew this thing better than anyone else, so if I sent it into and outright spinning nosedive, he was the man that could get it out.

Either that, or he could probably teleport a few of us safely away before it hit the ground. But he would probably leave me, because I was stupid and it would be my fault that it went down.

That was not thinking conducive with a man who was about to try and fly a high-tech plane, was it?

"There's no way I'm that bad at this," I said, "If I come anywhere near crashing this thing, I'll never drive anything ever again."

Mr. Wagner just chuckled before focusing on the task at hand, "I'm giving you control. You'll feel it in a moment," True enough, moments later, I felt tension in the wheel and tightened my arms a bit to keep everything perfectly level, "Now, we will go through a few maneuvers to see what you can do."

By basics, he wanted to see if I could safely gain and lower altitude, turn correctly, adjust our speed. Basic flying stuff with some fancy rolls and whatnot added in for flair. Nothing too difficult, and he never admonished me or took control of the plane over.

It went on that way for more than ten minutes before Mr. Wagner spoke up with a question, "Do you want to keep going with the test?" He asked. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't, "It's yes or no."

A mystery? How fun, "Sure. Why not?" I told him.

Mr. Wagner entered a set of coordinates into the system and sat back in his seat, "Alright. Head to this location and find a place to land."

And that was it. I didn't get any more instruction, and truth be told, anyone actually flying the Blackbird on a mission shouldn't have needed one. The point of having a hoverjet was so it could land wherever the hell it needed to.

I brushed it off easily enough. I didn't care. I hadn't flown an actual plane before, despite having run numerous simulations. But all I had to do was treat it like a sim. No big deal.

The coordinates sent us to the Pocono Mountains where I had to find a sweet spot to touch down. I could have used a state park parking lot, but I had a feeling he was looking for a place more along the lines of where we would try to let people off to begin an operation, so I tried to find a less conventional area... like a big flat field nestled nicely up past a few foot trails. Yeah that was the ticket.

Hovering to a landing was a little clunkier than I would have liked. I grit my teeth when I felt it, but I don't think it showed on my face. I'm pretty sure Mr. Wagner gave me a look for it, because he maintained the Blackbird that we used. Either way, we were upright, the plane was on the ground. It was a successful landing... for the most part.

"Good," Mr. Wagner said, "Now take off, put us on autopilot, and you're finished."

Taking off was much easier. Just as long as you didn't tilt the damn plane into the ground on one end or the other, you were pretty much good to go.

Seriously, that was the most stress-free competition I did for that Field Day. The only reason to feel nervous was if you didn't know what the hell you were doing... which more than a few students taking part in the challenge didn't.

"Not bad," Mr. Wagner said after he had taken back control of the Blackbird, "How do you think you did?"

"Better than a 7?" I ventured as a guess. It couldn't have been that bad if he didn't have to stop me from doing anything, "I didn't kill us all, so I think it should be pretty good. Sorry. Black humor and self-deprecation probably don't go together when I'm flying a plane where I can actually kill us."

All of those negative jokes probably stopped being funny twenty minutes ago. I had made a ton of them ever since I'd taken the wheel. Ever since I'd gotten on to begin with.

…Now that I think about it, that might have been a reason why all of the others waiting with me seemed so nervous. Whoops.

Mr. Wagner rested a hand on my shoulder supportively, "Let me tell you something, now that you've already finished. Half of being able to fly an aircraft is believing that you can," He said, before taking a big blink with his solid yellow eyes, "…The other half is actually learning how, but just as long as you're working on that, I think you'll be fine. You're very good at this."

I sat there waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I never got a compliment without some kind of criticism to go with it. But Mr. Wagner didn't approach the issue again, "Err... thank you," I said honestly.

Seriously, I never got straightforward compliments. You could count the number I'd gotten on one hand and still have enough fingers leftover to make a fist.

I left the cockpit to sit back and wait with the other students. The softy in me tried to get Megan jazzed up for her turn, even though she had never flown a plane in her life.

It worked. Megan was super-energetic. It was too easy to get her excited. By the time she was called on to fly, I think she really believed she could do it.

She was in the cockpit for a total of two minutes. During that time, we all felt a sharp jerk downward that lasted about fifteen seconds before everything leveled out.

While everyone was busy getting their heart rates back under control, Megan slipped back into her seat. She was trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone.

"Hey," I eventually called out, startling her enough to get a surprised ruffle of wings out of her, "What the hell happened? I thought you had this."

Her face lit up in embarrassment, "I didn't know planes used inverted controls!"

Oh. Well... I hadn't expected that. I knew that before I'd even taken the aviation class. I just thought it was general knowledge. Apparently I was mistaken.

I tried to find some kind of positive spin to put on things, "Uh, well, at least your team will have to drop one of your scores anyway."

"I guess you're right," Megan said, perking up a bit. She certainly didn't sweat the small stuff. Not for long, anyway, "I still think my squad will be fine! We did great in all of the other challenges."

Good lord, that girl could talk when she felt comfortable. Not that I had a problem with it. Listening to her was better than the tense, boring dead silence from before.

Megan chatted me up about Field Day stuff until we eventually landed back inside of the underground hangar bay the mansion had built underneath the basketball court.

As we all got off of the plane, there were members of several teams standing by waiting on us and the results.

I got off and made a beeline straight for where I saw Ruth standing and waiting for me.

"Score?" I asked, prompting her to point at a video board set up nearby. You normally saw them around school, not down in the underground area. They were usually to let students know about what was going on, functions, announcements and the like. For the next three days, they would be the boards of glory/humiliation, because they showed everyone's scores.

Flying Ability: Solaris – 8.5

"I'll take it," I said to myself with a sigh, accepting the way today had gone. Things could have been much worse. If we couldn't work with what we had going into the next day's team events, we didn't deserve to do well.

"Bellamy is a good pilot, yes," Ruth said to me. She was smiling the way she usually did before she said something cryptic and vague, "You can't crash a plane in space, no. Because then it is a spaceship, yes!"

I stared at her, then looked straight up at the sky, the right back to Ruth, who was still smiling, "I don't know. I don't want to know," I said, before letting her enjoy her little joke, "...You were proud of that one, weren't you?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I seriously wondered how much of her visions she saw. Clearly not enough to change anything bad, but maybe enough for her to get a kick out of a few that weren't.

As David went back to his New Mutants team members, Noriko took a moment to scrutinize the leaderboard. While David had outscored me with a 9 flat, I had the second-best score by a long shot. Like I said, not a lot of students cared to learn how to fly a plane.

I saw her electric blue hair coming our way, "How do you know how to fly that thing so well?" Noriko asked me, "You've been here for what, two months?"

I was dead serious in my response, "Because the aviation classroom with the simulator is usually open after-hours and you'd be surprised how much you can get done when you never need to sleep."

Six-to-eight extra hours every night was a lot of time to kick around. A lot of time.

Noriko seemed confused until Ruth shed some light on what I was talking about, "Bellamy has insomnia."

I saw Noriko's eyes go wide, "And they let him fly a plane?"

Hearing that must have startled her. Normally, I would have fostered that uncomfortable feeling she probably had for fun. But, being the upstanding person I was, or at least was trying to become, I decided it wasn't a good idea. The New Mutants didn't hate me… yet. I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.

"Insomnia, not narcolepsy," I said, trying to get a few things straight, "I'm not gonna just nod off out of nowhere. The opposite actually. You have to damn near knock me out to get me to sleep."

"Huh," Noriko said before she gave me a thumbs up with her gauntlet, "Well, good luck with that."

I didn't even know why it mattered how I got to be passable at flying. I didn't win. David won. I could see him being awarded with the medal right then and there.

God, I wanted one of those medals. Eddie had one already, and that should have been enough, but I wanted one. For me!

Don't judge me.