“She’ll be fine Ranger,” the medic spoke quietly enough that only the two of them could hear him, then leaned in and whispered into Dash’s ear, “I don’t know if she’ll ever fly again though. A couple bone fragments are missing, and none of the unicorns here have the ability to repair that kind of damage. Except the Princesses and Twilight Sparkle, who is on strict No-Magic bed-rest until she recovers from her recent ordeal. And the princesses are so busy trying to get Equestria back to normal. They can’t have the time necessary to repair your partner’s wings.”
Dash scowled, “Which bones? I need to know.”
The medic pulled her over to an X-ray lying flat on a desk, out of sight of Scootaloo, “See right here. These are the bones that hold the tendons for the flight-feathers. This is where they are chipped away and broken. There is nothing we could do. At best, we could put ceramic filler to get the bones to look right, but the tendons won’t fix to them properly, and will never heal in the right place.” Dash frowned at him, daring him to give another option. “The only other way would be to find a Pegasus willing to donate a few of her own bone-fragments, carefully cut off, to act as a new fixture for the tendons. It would likely cripple the donor though, with a small chance of even working.”
Dash growled at the medic and snapped her wings out, the massive span filling the room intimidatingly, “Fine. Do it.”
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Twilight pushed herself up in her bed, carefully avoiding putting pressure on her hooves, while also making an effort to not use her magic to just move her body like a rag-doll. She couldn’t imagine how hard it would be before she was living it. And beside her, stuck in another bed, Rarity held a pair of knitting needles in her hooves, frowning as she tried to knit a scarf without magic. “Twi! How does this go again? I always just pushed the yarn into the right shape before. I never had to use my hooves!”
“I’m not sure. I think I’ve got a book ov…” she winced as the instinctive telekinesis spell lightly touched the base of her horn and her vision went white. As she recovered, she realized that she was surrounded by nurses.
Her medic grumbled, “Told you not to use magic. Told you it would hurt you.”
Twilight looked at him through teary eyes, “S..s..sorry. Instinct.”
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Applejack looked at her brother, lying on his belly on a couch at the cafeteria table. He was recovering from straining himself, but he was still worn out. He hadn’t said a word about it though, about the pain she knew he must be going through, every time he moved. He didn’t even wince, but she could see the pain in his big eyes. Applebloom didn’t, and for that she was thankful. Their little sister was, fortunately, too busy trying to get into the medical wing to see how Scootaloo was doing to concern herself with anything else.
Discovering that her friend was still alive was a shock to the little filly, and the not knowing now was tearing her apart as she pressed her face and fore-hooves against the doors to the medical wing, trying to see through the snowed glass.
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Spitfire nudged her partner gently as the two of them reached the end of the long runway of the Shatterdome. It had been nearly fourteen years since they had been able to fly without an escort ready to drag them back to the Jaegers at a moment’s notice. Now, they were back in their Flight Blues, the uniforms still crisp, though not as well fitting on the now slightly thinner Pegasi. They looked into each-other’s eyes and darted forward, embracing the wind with their wings and rocketing into the air.
Soarin was the first to open the saddle-bags he was wearing, pulling out a pair of smoke grenades that he yanked the pins out of. He tucked the tubes into his boots and darted off, trailing thick grey smoke in the air. Spitfire joined him a moment later, her yellow tracking flares leaving a pair of brilliant streaks of yellow pigment in the sky, suspended by the white smoke. Together, they performed, once more, in the way of the Wonderbolts, twirling and spinning, painting a picture in grey and yellow on a canvas of blue skies.
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Trixie stared at the golden boot that was crushed by what looked like a tire track. A tire track pointed right at where she had parked. Where was her car? She panicked and followed the tire tracks, Kaiju-blue splatters indicating where the tire had gone after running through the puddle of leaking goo. It deteriorated quickly, but she was able to follow it. She found it, lying in pieces, like it had been looted. Not a good sign. “SNIPS! SNAILS!”
The two proceeded to fail to arrive, and with a sigh, Trixie remembered that the two miscreants had been inside the Kaiju when it had given birth. They were most likely dead. She stomped over to the car, still holding her boot in her magic, crushed flat. She dropped the shoe into the gutted passenger seat and slumped into the driver’s seat, tail sliding through the hole in the back. “Hope it’s still got gas. Maybe Johns’ll be able to fix it.” The car turned over with a low rumble, and she stared at the nearly empty tank. Somehow it had burned through half a tank in the span of three miles. “BUCK!”
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The two princesses stood on a tall podium in the castle garden, looking down at the assorted press and onlookers. Celestia was the first to break the awkward silence that had sat there from the moment she had raised the sun that morning. “My little ponies, I have wonderful news. The Kaiju threat has been driven back, and its attacks have ceased entirely, thanks to the sacrifice of a large number of Rangers. The two Pegasi who triggered the collapse are in Intensive care at this very moment, recovering from the damage done to them by the final battle. They are expected to make a full recovery!” The words were sour on her tongue. She knew she was outright lying. Neither was expected to recover fully, and would probably never fly again. And there was no way to get from Canterlot back to Hong Kong in the time it would take for the bones to naturally heal. Too many press conferences and political meetings. That was why she had given up the position as supreme ruler of Equestria, instead allowing democracy to take over. Of course, she was still an immortal Alicorn, who raised the sun every morning, and lowered it every night.
“The Jaeger program was expensive, both in Bits and Lives. None know this better than my sister, Luna. However, the disbanding of the Jaeger program brings with it a new program, designed to prepare us for any more of these incursions from any other worlds we are not yet aware of. My Peace-keepers, the Elements of Harmony.”
A cheer rose through the crowd. Some had suspected that the Jaeger program was finished. Some even suspected Celestia to have her own plans afterwards. Some knew her history, and fully expected something like this to happen. None knew exactly what it was, but they knew it would use Jaeger technology.
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Rainbow Dash opened her eyes, taking in the stale smell of the hospital pillow she was lying face down on. She figured that was where she’d wake up, since she had allowed, and almost ordered, several orderlies to use whatever parts of her wings were necessary to save Scootaloo’s ability to fly. She could feel the large canvas hammocks holding her wings steady, and bandages wrapped around the parts of her wings they had opened up. “Mornin’” a soft voice called from in front of Dash. Crimson eyes met blue as she looked into Scootaloo’s eyes. There were less hammocks suspending the orange pegasus’ wings, the span being much shorter, but the bandages were more numerous, and more tightly packed.
“Hey Scoots. They tell you when you’ll get to fly again?”
“Not yet. The Doc said maybe never though. And what happened to you? Doc wouldn’t tell me. Just called you a stubborn b…”
“Rehehealley…” Dash cut off Scootaloo and flicked one of the feathers near the end of her wing, where they hadn’t cut anything, “’Cause he told me he’d tell you exactly what he did to save your wings. How he gave you bone grafts from my wings. How it was so stupid of me to risk my wings for you…” she broke down, tears dripping onto the floor, “I don’t even know if it’ll work. But I thought it was worth the risk to see you fly, even if I can’t.”
“Hey, Dashie. Cheer up. We’ll fly again. Together. Pinkie Pie Promise.”
Dash chuckled, some of her stress evaporating, “Sure. Pinkie Pie Promise,” she raised a hoof and pressed it to her closed eyelid as Scootaloo did the same. Less than an instant after her hoof touched her face, she saw a brilliant flash that left spots in her eyes.
“I heard someone making a Pinkie Pie Promise, so I just had to get a picture, to make sure you keep the promise, you know.” She grinned, and Dash realized there was a bit of frosting around the candy-pink colored pony’s eye, “So you don’t have to stick a cupcake in your eye, ‘Cause that hurts.”
Dash stared at the hyperactive pony for a moment before slapping the emergency call button on her bed. Pinkie was still there when the orderlies arrived to see what was wrong, “She needs psychiatric help. Now. And probably clean up that cupcake mess in her eye before it gets infected.”
Dash spouted the orders instinctively, years of flight training preparing her for taking command in an emergency, and exhaustive knowledge of what sort of damage each type of pony was most likely to suffer, as well as how to cure it. Especially mental issues. Those had been drilled into her skull until she was certain her teacher had a few, and she could pick them out like a searchlight if she was called upon for it.
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Twilight looked down at the floor. It wasn’t that it was far away or anything. Not even that it was cold, after all, her hooves were wrapped in a good hoof-span of gauze and padding. It was that she wasn’t sure she could take the pain of putting pressure on her hooves, and the hard nails hadn’t quite healed up yet, where they had been sheared to the quick by the bubble. She was just about to give up when a purple and green dragon walked into the room, carrying a bundle of flowers and several books.
“Hey Twi, hey Rarity. I brought you some snacks and a few books to keep you entertained while your magic recharges.” The dragon barely noticed that Twilight was trying desperately to not touch her padded hooves to anything, even the books she so wanted to grab. ‘For your own good’ the doctor had said when he secured a magic lock around her horn, and Rarity’s, preventing them from casting at all. Period.
Rarity looked up from the knitting she was still working on, “Spike! So glad you got here. Do you think you could help me get Twilight out of bed. She’s been in there for two whole days. That’s not healthy for a mare her age.”
“My age?” Twilight seemed to anger slightly. Sure she was two whole years younger than Rarity, but that was no excuse for age cracks. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to use her hooves.
Spike rolled his eyes, “Twilight, come on. I saw the X-rays. As long as you step on the back of your fore-hooves and the front of your rear-hooves, you’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Rarity pulled down one eyelid and stuck out her tongue, “You’ll be fine!”
Rarity was glad Spike had showed up when he did. She had been just about to have to resort to physical force to dislodge Twilight from her bed. Now, words seemed to do the trick. Twilight lunged out of the bed, tackling Rarity to the ground, then jumping back as she realized what she had done. A few moments of horror, and Rarity opened her eyes, smirking. She had been cushioned by a probably less-than-soft dragon tail, but it had worked. “Hi Miss Sparkle. You’re on your hooves again. Wonderful,” the medic assistant Aorta had stepped into the room to check on them, “That means we can start on your physical therapy.