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When she had first gotten the wings, she hadn't really thought much of them. Yeah, it had been scary and all, but she'd kind of had bigger things to worry about at the time, so she didn't really put effort into wondering where the odd new limbs had come from.
In fact, the first week or so, she hadn't even actually checked to see if they even worked, instead sticking them under a long coat and going about her day at the lab. (It helped that they easily slid under her arms, hiding easily under a fully buttoned lab coat, so long as no one bothered to ask why she was looking so... wide, that day.)
But after the week was up, she decided it was time to give them a test.
Her hopes weren't exactly high, even though her tiny little Natu had been able to carry her in a decently steady glide back when its own wings were only slightly larger than one of her hands. Flight with wings on a human was impossible, it was a fact that had always been drilled into her (and one she had always done her best to drill into her students).
But what kind of teacher would she be if she didn't do her best to learn new things from time to time.
She stood at the edge of the ledge, sweat dripping down her chin in the hot beams of the sun.
Above her, her Xatu Xatee was circling carefully, ready to catch her with its strong talons or with a powerful psychic blast if she ended proving herself right.
She trusted Xatee, she could do this.
She had leapt into the wind, spreading her wings and letting it take her suddenly higher in a clumsy imitation of the movements that she had always seen her Pokemon use to take off in the past. Thankfully, she didn't seem to have messed up quite then, flapping her wings forward and down when she remembered that she needed to gain altitude so as not to crash into the treeline behind her.
Excited, Xatee had made a whistling sound, and Crystal had unconsciously responded with one of her own.
She was flying!
She didn't know how that was even a little bit possible, but she didn't care. She was doing it!
The sun had felt cold at first, but much of the burn had quickly disappeared as she met the wind present in flight. Her clear extra eyelids, which she had learned early on through various sets of experimentation, kept her eyes from getting try as she rose to spin in the sky.
She had quickly reached Xatee, and the two had all but played in their excitement, despite Crystal still not quite knowing what she was doing.
Now, she was going to do it again.
(She flew most days, these days.)
At her side now was not just Xatee, but some other friends as well.
She couldn't really understand it, but she was glad anyway.
Arceus, the God Pokemon that Gold had fought so violently that one time and which she had attempted to catch another time, had blessed them. (That was another thing about the wings she didn't really understand, but chose not to question too deeply. She was thankful, and that seemed to be enough.)
Gold's wings were bright and long, and his tail exploded out behind him in the tell tale glow of a Ho Oh. Sometimes, just like the bird he found himself reflecting, he let out a rainbow trail when he got too excited in the air.
Silver's wings were nearly the opposite, dark on the backs and not all that much brighter on the insides, with a strange puff of white and red that he called a tail as his rudder. Similarly to Crystal, he had apparently taught himself to fly based directly on one of his pokemon.
And of course, they could not do without their teachers, stood Xatee, Silver's beautiful Honkrow, and Gold's rude Togebo, who was currently preening his weirdly shaped wings.
“Are we ready to fly?” Crystal asked, her voice edging on high pitched. (This was going to be the first time that all of them flew together in a few months now, and oh boy was she nervous about messing up mid air and getting laughed at.)
”Is that even a question?“ Gold asked, his usual snarkiness replaced by pure excitement for getting in the air. (Crystal was pretty sure he was going to try and dazzle the both of them with some crazy tricks if he was acting like that and they weren't even off the ground yet.)
”Then let's fly!“ Silver said, jumping into the air with his Honchkrow is a show of pure power as the two took to the wind.
Wings open, Crystal leaped after him, her square shaped flight feathers catching the wind and carrying her backwards for a moment before she got herself under control enough to catch up to Silver.
Gold followed, and a stream of rainbow light flashed after him as he casually outpaced them both. He had legendary wings, so Crystal did her best not to beat herself up over it.
”Where are we going?“ He asked, his voice somehow clear despite the fact that it shouldn't have been. (Crystal had noticed that about her winged form. Somehow they seemed to make it easier to tune out the scream of the air hitting her face.)
”Whenever you want to,“ She called back, ”I'm free off of teaching until the end of the month,”
She flapped her wings a beat and waggled her finger, “But I'm not going anywhere dangerous mister, and neither are you,”
Gold did a little twirl, and the rainbow faded back into the blue of the sky, “Awh, but you know me! Always getting into trouble,”
“Let's just fly, why don't we,” Silver called to them, “We don't have to be going anywhere,”
And that's just what they did.