"Say... weren't you in the Flyer Games that Animalia had?" a female voice asked to Sophie as the Pterodactylus Dinotopian relaxed a bit in the Sophomore Dorm she'd been assigned to at SMU.
The trip down from Lyre was the same long journey as it was for her Freshman year the year before, though, this time her parents and Roland's were better able to navigate Dallas's streets to get them to the campus than they did the previous year. The only point of frustration was more in the traveling to the specific area of the campus where their dorms were. Sophie didn't get Pauline as a roommate this year, and the both of them had tried to look for a way that would let them stay closer to JC and Roland, but they'd found that the "married students" housing was only for those that actually gotten married and had the license to prove it. An Animalian's bond-mate didn't apply, thus they'd had to split up into a couple of dormitories on campus for Sophomores and Juniors.
This year, Sophie's roommate was a young African American woman named Mona and they'd had a relatively decent introduction and Sophie learned that Mona actually wanted study engineering which was interesting and contrasted a bit with some of the scientific related courses that Sophie had been taking. From there, they began going over their respective summers which then brought up the fact that Mona had often followed a lot of the things going on in Animalia, which then brought out her engineering interest. All the alterations to machines, chairs, vehicles, and even structures had to have a lot of engineering to it. That soon turned to the question about the IAC.
"And why not the games down in Dino City?" Mona wondered, "I mean didn't they have a lot of the games there set up to deal especially with the size difference between the Dinotopians and most other Animalians?"
"Well... there aren't that many Pterosaur Dinotopians at present," Sophie answered, "so it isn't like there would be too may aerial races they could have had there... and at the same Pterodactylus wasn't all that big. In terms of size it's actually closer to the size of many modern birds of prey... like a medium sized hawk. Thus in terms of size, there really isn't all that much difference between me and many other flying Animalians. The differences are more in the aerodynamics on how my wings work and how I can respond to certain air currents. But it doesn't changing anything with regard the strength of my wings versus the strength of theirs..."
And that left Sophie's mind to think back to the IAC Flyer Games...
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The Flyer Games were things that the Olympics couldn't have. The closest thing the Olympics could duplicate was in relation to the swimming events, but that was the only way Humans could duplicate the ability of Flying Animalians' ability to fly, and even that wasn't a perfect duplication. The main flying events were races, with short distance races being in a straight line over the main open area where all new Bird and Bat Animalians came to learn to fly. It allowed for those races to be held over an area that was set up for a soft landing for new flyers and many of the distances were already measured as part of the efforts to help new flyers understand on how far they were progressing. It then doubled to allow the short range races to know where the finish line was. One hundred yards would be a straight line flight while two hundred yards was down and back, with racers landing to turn around and fly back.
They also had long rang races that circled Lyre/Animalia and these races were timed. Contestants in the long range races would wear a radio tracker on a wristband that judges could then follow on the field to make sure no one left the assigned route. Those that veered from the route would have time added to it or potentially disqualified depending on how far they deviated from the assigned flight path. The only other event that they had was more an agility challenge where goal was more to dart through a large set of rings that were held in place by drones and it was this event that Sophie had entered in, and she had some friends there to root her on.
"This will be fun to see," Jessica said to Sophie as Sophie was stretching her wings for the event.
With Jessica were Roger, Roland, JC, Pauline, and Roger's brother, Codey Lightfoot, and Michiko Shikamatsu. Codey had invited himself along, but in some ways, Sophie was glad to have a more friendly crowd to cheer for her. Abbey, Samson, Sarah, Malice, and Travis had gone to Mieni for the beach and body-building contest events there and that had left much of the original Animalia Ambassadoria cast still in Lyre with the other events. Sophie had entered into this agility contest largely now with the fact that since they'd graduated out of covering all these events, there was now some time to train for it. At the same time, the training she'd given Hazel, Quetzal, and Buzz was enough to get her more interested in things from a more competitive edge. She felt she'd gotten enough practice in to be competitive.
"And this will be like a race?" Codey wondered noting the rings that were hanging in the air with drones holding them up. He was still Human and could here them, but Jessica, Roger, and Michiko could hear the hum of the electric motors on the drones fairly well.
"Partially," Sophie answered, "but the big thing is to be able to corner and turn in the air as the rings one is to dive through are in a set order. Thus each flyer must be able to make either a tight turn quickly or arrange their movement through the hoops so that they can make the turn for the next one. One must also avoid touching the rings as one passes through them. Doing so adds time to the run. It's something that's then divided up between the size of the flyer. They have runs for the larger Bird Animalians, then the mid sized flying Animalians, which includes Birds, Bats, and one Pterosaur... me. The last is with the smaller flying Animalians, which are all Birds."
"I would also imagine that you can't have all the participants going at the same time," Michiko commented while holding Codey's hand.
Sophie nodded, "Yes. Particularly in this round that will have more of them. It'll be divided between types of flyers. They put me in with the "Birds of Prey" so I'll be against largely the Hawks and Owls and some of the larger Falcons... but yeah. They wouldn't have everyone in the same run at the same time. Though the larger flyers would be the same as the Eagle, Condor, Geese, and Swan Animalians could all have larger wings than I do, thus if they all try to squeeze through at the same time... there is an increased risk of collision and since this isn't combat they don't want that."
The others nodded and Jessica promised to cheer for her. Roland even promised a special present if she won, though it wasn't long before a loudspeaker announced that Sophie was up next. She waved to them and then moved to the starting point and crouching down while readying her wings for the style of take off that she had grown used to since her own conversion. A horn was sounded and Sophie launched herself into the air and beat her wings hard. She could feel the air flowing over her wings and quickly dove through the first ring without any trouble. From there she rapidly turned and was soon beating her wings again to move on toward the next ring that she was to go through. This repeated in a cycle with Sophie banking to the right or left, depending on which direction she'd been going and which was the closest way to get to the next ring she was to go through.
There were a few cheers as Sophie made each turn and dive, particularly as she made it through each ring without hitting any of them. That let her come back for a landing at the end with even more cheers as she landed. Roland even came forward to hug her after she landed while the announcer gave her time.
"You did great!" Roland said to her.
"You didn't hit any of the rings," Codey added.
"Yeah... I might have fallen back a bit in terms of the powered flight between the wings," Sophie admitted, "but I cornered well and didn't hit any of the rings."
"Hopefully you win," Jessica commented gave Sophie a hug as well.
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"Which I didn't," Sophie gave a sigh as she finished telling Mona of her experiences in the IAC Flying Games, "the guys that kept the time said I actually turned with the fast speed, but not enough to off set the time lost in terms of powered flight. It was good enough to take second place, but not enough to take first place in my group. The one who won didn't turn as fast as I did, but she was able to get far better speed than I did in the straight line flight between turns."
"I think I remember seeing that online," Mona commented, "you actually weren't going all that slowly while in the straight line runs."
"Yeah... I didn't do too bad," Sophie admitted, "but the one who beat me had been training for it longer than I was and thus was far faster while flying forward and reached a fast enough speed to make up for the fact that she couldn't turn as quickly as I could."
"One thing I'd never know..." Mona commented.
"A lot of that has more to do with the nature of my wings," Sophie answered and expanded one wing for Mona to look at, "a bird's wing is covered feathers that limit their ability to "feel" the air currents. My pycnofibers don't interfere with that as much and thus I can actually feel air currents and changes in air pressure. It's actually something that helped me know how to turn and accelerate that process. So that helped me turn... but that's still more a natural advantage than anything else and which the one who beat me was able to overcome."