Rainbow Dash only made it about half-a-mile before she had to descend. Her lungs couldn't contain their breaths any longer.
Rainbow landed in a sparsely wooded thicket. She stumbled onto numb hooves, and she had to lean against a random tree for support.
The mare wheezed and wheezed. Her vision was getting blurry.
Nevertheless, her heart ran circles inside her chest, and in between each split-second beat, she saw flashes of Applejack's tear-stained freckles... heard echoes of the mare's sobbing voice.
Rainbow Dash clenched her eyes shut, and still the sensations would not go away.
She had never seen the mare that distraught before... that weak... that hurt.
"Mrrrmmmfff..." Rainbow Dash pressed her forehead against the tree. "Rrrrgghhhh!" She banged and banged and banged her head against the bark, but the recent scene would not go away.
The pain would not go away... the pain that belonged to another mare... the last pony on earth who deserved it.
Rainbow gnashed her teeth until she couldn't contain it any longer. "Rrrrrgh—Aaaaaaaugh!"
She punched and punched the tree until the numbness was completely gone. Her heart slowed to a normal, angry lurch, and she was seething.
Glaring skyward with renewed vigor, the mare breathed in, breathed out, breathed in... then propelled herself into the air. SWOOOOOSH! A miniature clap of thunder rolled, disturbing the topmost branches as she burned a beeline for the north edge of the Everfree Forest.