Equestria Rim

by Imperator Chiashi Zane

Chapter 8

The small Pegasus whispered, “I’m scared Dashie. What if my feathers don’t grow back?”

Instinctively, the older Pegasus snapped her eyes open, blinking out the blood crusting the edges, “WHAT!” Her wingtips were already lightly brushing over the smaller Pegasus’ wings, feeling where the feathers had been ripped out, bent, or torn apart. Fortunately, most of them were just for mass. They’d grow back in a few months with normal preening. The bones she grazed though, where the more dexterous maneuvering feathers were, those concerned her. Those, and the way Scootaloo winced when she touched them. One time, only one time, had she had that much damage to her wings. Even five years before when she had lost Fluttershy… She instinctively bit back the memory, even though there was no Jaeger, and no Rabbit to chase. She had remembered back then to take the wing harness off properly, even as stunned as she was. But Scootaloo had never had the chance to ingrain that into her muscle memory, and had been in too much of a hurry anyway. Her own wings started to ache in the metal harnesses that had been snapped off with explosive bolts, since removing them took time, and it had been assumed that ejection meant the Jaeger was a loss anyway.

“You’ll be fine. Doctor Patches will get those fixed right up. You’ll be flying again in no time flat,” the lies flowed out of Rainbow’s blue lips amidst internal jolts as she realized that, quite possibly, this filly would be ground-bound permanently. Wing-bones didn’t heal fast, and Pegasi who had their wings stripped to the bone rarely lived long enough to heal up. The strain was too much for them. Not being able to fly. At least Dash could hover with her wing, and still bend it properly, if slow and limited.
She looked at the salt-water below her, on the other side of the only way out, “Now, Scoots, I’m going to ask you very calmly not to scream.”

“Why?”

“Salt-water. We’re gonna have to swim out from under the pod.”

“Rainbow, I can’t swim,” Scootaloo twisted her neck, tilting her head back far enough to see the water below them, “And I know there’s not enough air in here for me to stay.”

Dash scowled and as gently as she could manage, encased the smaller Pegasus in her wings, still trapped in their metal cages, “Fine. Don’t you dare let go.” She punched at the hatch release, watching as the water-pressure, meager as it was at the surface, held the lid against the explosive bolts. Oh well. She bit her tongue and lunged into the ocean, ignoring the sounds coming from inside her wings as she rolled and climbed on the exposed bottom of the pod and unrolled her sopping wet wings.

“You alright Scoots?”

“F-f-f-BUCK!” The filly had been able to get a good look at her wings, as well as really having the chance to feel what salt-water in open wounds felt like, and she was trembling now, muttering to herself words that Dash knew would have made her parents, and probably anyone else’s, go get soap for them to chew on. She ignored that and sat with her forehooves around Scootaloo’s shoulders, shuffling carefully out of the harness now that she had room to.

“Scoots, It’ll be alright,” she looked over at the other pod, where Applejack was sitting beside her sister, helmets off, watching the sun piercing through the clouds. Overhead helicopters were launching Pegasi and the gargantuan zeppelins that had been used for long-range transport, as they never had to land, were setting up, preparing to take tired Pegasi back for a quick rest and a meal.

A helicopter dropped down to the two pods, and Dash spotted someone very familiar, a dark yellow Russian Pegasus, who was already wearing a tether harness, not that she needed it, but it helped get the cable to the Earth ponies that did, and to the two crippled Pegasi on the other pod. “On behalf of the Equestrian Planetary Defense League, it is my honor to invite you aboard this humble helicopter. Watch your step. It’s not nearly as stable as a cloud, but the Apples won’t fall through.”

Dash smiled at her friend, somewhat hopeful that the mare and her stallion would be able to re-start the international Pegasus flight team, the Wonderbolts, now that they no longer were needed to drive Jaegers. “Hey Spit. Mind helping the Filly first. Careful though, she kinda jerked out of her harness wrong.”

Spitfire stared at the wings, tattered, shredded to the bone, and covered in drying salt-water and blood, “I can’t get a harness around her wings. Give me a second,” the former Wonderbolt passed the second harness she had brought down over to Dash, and unhooked herself, carefully wrapping her hooves around Scootaloo’s back, below her wing roots, “Alright Scootaloo, grab my neck, and hang on tight.”

As soon as the filly had a firm grip, Spitfire leapt, without flapping, as if she needed to, right into the helicopter. Being a stunt pony had gifted the yellow-orange Pegasus with formidable leg strength. Being a speed-flier, Dash had shucked leg exercise up until her accident, preferring to use her powerful wings to get everywhere. Now, with the pain of her jerked tendon faded, she shrugged into the harness, just to be safe, and flapped, hard enough that the pain came back. Not enough to stop her from flapping again though. Her wingspan, nearly twenty feet from tip to tip, just barely missed the spinning rotors on the second stroke, but that was enough to get her into the aircraft, where she dropped to the deck and grabbed for one of the chunks of ice in the cooler some thoughtful blue-haired unicorn had thought to include. She knew it was Scratch’s cooler because it was made out of an old record player, and it was filled with the kind of cider she would normally never let a filly anywhere near. But whatever, they had just saved the entire world. Scoots could have one. She would get one for herself after her wing stopped hurting.

JaegerJaegerJaeger

“Mares and Gentlestallions, the Breach has been sealed, STOP THAT CLOCK!” Luna ignored Celestia’s pointed glare. This was a momentous occasion, and so what if she indulged in the Royal Canterlot Voice for it. Besides, of course, the fifty or so big herd of mares and stallions piled around the big blue button, each straining, but all unable to reach it because of the pile-up, “Sorry. You go ahead sister.”

Celestia barely resisted slapping her hoof to her face, even as she flicked her wingtip against Luna’s nose and strode past the mass, pressing the button gently. The clock stopped, and like a spell had broken, the herd dispersed, their task completed. Knowing that it was over, Luna was ready to go take a long nap, like fifty years or so. The moon was probably still peaceful even now. Of course, a blue-haired Unicorn DJ had very different plans. And she seemed to be helped by a blindingly pink Earth pony with what looked like cotton candy for hair. Where had they even gotten decorations like that, and spread across the entire Shatterdome in the time it took her to blink. What magic was this?

“ATTENTION HONG KONG! THIS’S YOUR DJ, VINYL SCRATCH, HERE TO SAY THE BREACH IS CLOSED. IT’S PARTY TIME PONIES!” The sounds that thumped out of speakers both Luna and Celestia had sworn weren’t there seconds before, made the princesses skeletons shudder, and from the looks of several of the mechanics down on the floor, dodging randomly bouncing tools, a lot more than that up close. Still, it was unmistakable what tune it was, an epic fantasy operatic, by a long dead playwright, Trotkoffsky or something like that, specifically the part with the cannons. She remembered that. Celestia had thought setting loose a flock of pigeons at her coronation was a good idea. Luna had made sure the cannons were pointed somewhere well away from the palace, like that big open field that now housed Ponyville proper. The two plans interfered wonderfully, pigeons falling to the beat of the music. It had been hysterical.

The memory made her crack up, and she was almost forced to share with Celestia, who joined her, rolling on the ground in an undignified manner, whinnying and kicking at nothing in particular as they broke down completely.

JaegerJaegerJaeger

The pilots of the two Jaegers arrived, all four collectively drunk, and quite successfully, considering how much it took to actually get Pegasi drunk in the first place, what with half their mass being in their wings. And the Apples were known for drinking ponies twice, or three times their size, under the table. Dash admitted that Applejack had definitely won the drinking contest, even if Applebloom had just barely lost to Scootaloo. Probably because of her shredded wings. Pain had a tendency to dull drunkenness, from Dash’s recollection.

The four trotted into the hallway, and, with the exception of Scootaloo, who was being rushed to the medical area for a combination of the blood-loss and probable alcohol poisoning, were mobbed. It took Rainbow Dash almost fifteen minutes to extricate herself from the mass and get into the hallway, where she could make a break for the medical bay. Halfway there, she realized she didn’t want Scootaloo there alone. Something about one of Fluttershy’s memories coming up again. She snapped her wings back and darted down the hall, hooves only gracing the floor and walls where she felt it was necessary.

That meant there were maybe five blatant hoof-prints on corner walls where she had rounded faster than her still sore wing and drunken lack of coordination had made her hit at top speed. She screeched to a stop, hooves alternating to bleed off speed at first, then her armored chest, then her bare chin as the alcohol caught up to her hooves and she tumbled up against the door. A white-coated nurse opened the door, “Oh my. Are you alright?”

Dash wheezed out a breath of barely diluted alcohol-breath, “Yeah. Fine. How’s Scoots?”

JaegerJeagerJaeger

At the site of the last Kaiju kill that would ever be made, several ponies worked feverishly to carve the thing up into useable segments. They had coated the monstrosity in ammonia, and were working their hardest to keep it as basic as possible, sending other ponies to the store for bleach and household cleaners to keep the Kaiju from melting. Thanks to the mess with the Jaeger program, and with the two Kaiju, this one had been left to a team who had, unfortunately, died when the infant had burst out of the dead Kaiju.

One stopped as part of the infant, currently lounging in a garbage-truck full of fertilizer and Kaiju dung, the only big enough mound of ammonia they could find in the area, started to move. A knife, held in a thin blue magical field sheared a line across the side and a sky blue Unicorn wearing a Kaiju-blood soaked hat squeezed out, looking at her fore-hooves angrily, “WHERE IS MY CELESTIA-DAMNED HORSESHOE!”