The Defective Warp Pipe

by Level Dasher

Chapter 9: The Ride

On the way to the Whooves’ house, the Crusaders’ classmates made so much noise that someone from practically every home we passed looked out their windows or came outside to see what it was about, and every time they did, one of the kids would say to come watch. Ponies of all ages and families of all sizes started coming out of houses. By the time we were at the Whooves’, I looked behind me to find a giant throng waiting to see the big stunt I was about to pull. I really didn’t mind. After carrying Mario on my back for so long, one little filly was going to be easy.

When we got to the end of the street, I knocked on Derpy and the Doctor’s door. The Doctor answered it, and as soon as he saw the throng behind me, he said, “Oh! Right! That was today! Come out, you two— I think this is going to be good!” I watched as Ditzy Doo and Dinky came out of their house to join the crowd.

I beckoned for Spike, who came running up quick as a flash. Luckily for me, there was a tree right next to the Whooves’ roof. I asked him, “Could you stand up there for me? I’ll need you to do some last-minute translating for Scootaloo.”

“Um, sure. But how do I…?”

“Leave that to me. Scootaloo here is gonna need to get on my saddle, but I’ll give you a boost first. Get ready to grab one of those branches up there, okay? And tell Twilight you’ll be fine, please.”

“Uh, o-okay.” He turned to the crowd, spotted Twilight, and yelled, “I’ll be fine! Don’t worry!”

I heard a faint ‘WHAT?’, but I had Spike doing some more translating.

“Scootaloo, in a second he’s going to have you climb on his back, right on the saddle, okay? You’ll be fine. He says me first, though. Just a second.” I had Spike stand in my hands, and I launched him up to the top of the tree, level with the height of the roof. Spike grabbed hold of a branch, steadied himself, and gave me a thumbs-up, which I returned.

I motioned for Scootaloo to hop on my back. She was clearly nervous, but she did it anyway. I gave her a quick glance, and she said, “Yeah, I’m ready.” I gave a bound, and in one leap we were on top of the roof. I heard the whole crowd gasp, then they stomped their hooves. I put my hand up, and there was abrupt silence. I put Scootaloo down, grabbed Spike from the tree, and brought him onto the roof.

“Translating time, my friend. I hope your yelling voice is good and strong.” He nodded, then began interpreting for me as I addressed the crowd. “Okay, everypony. You may want to spread down the street for this. This is going to go down the whole block. I want to tell you all that this is a thank-you present for my friend Scootaloo here, who let me use her wagon for transportation while I was injured. This is the only time I am going to do it, so please don’t ask for repeat rides. I wasn’t expecting to have this many ponies watching, but it’s fine with me either way. However, I do want to ask you to please stay as quiet as possible. This is not going to be easy.”

When I finished speaking, the ponies started spreading down the street, and I kept an eye out for Fluttershy. At first I didn’t see her, but right as the scattering ended, I saw her way down the block, right in front of the house I was planning to finish the stunt on... holding a first-aid kit. I smiled. Even if she wasn’t completely confident I wouldn’t hurt myself, at least she was here, and that was what I wanted. She even came prepared.

Along with Fluttershy, Twilight was standing right across the street from the Whooves’, Rainbow Dash was sitting on a cloud right nearby, Applejack and Pinkie Pie had positioned themselves in a tree across the street right in the middle of the block, and at the last second, I even saw Rarity make her way into the crowd next to Fluttershy. They were all there.

I had Spike make the last translation for Scootaloo. “Okay kiddo, hop on. It’s time for the ride of your life!”

“Um, is this going to be dangerous? I mean, we’re starting this whole thing on a rooftop…”

“Has danger ever stopped you before?”

“…NAH! Let’s go!”

“That’s more like it! Get ready!” I slowly backed up to the edge of the roof, and Spike moved out of the way. “Hold on tight, kiddo. One more thing— if you want the full effect, why don’t you spread those wings of yours? But whatever you do, don’t flap ‘em, alright? It might veer me off course, and Fluttershy will kill me if either of us gets hurt.”

Scootaloo gulped. “Um, okay… I’m ready!”

“Alright kiddo, let’s ride!” I took a running start, then made my first bound off the Whooves’ roof.

---

I didn’t want to tell Scootaloo, but I was probably just as nervous as she was. I had never done something like this before, even with Mario. However, the gathered throng of ponies was pumping some adrenaline through my veins. While I wasn’t expecting to actually use the roof of every house, I wanted to get permission from all the inhabitants just in case I needed them. I may have been doing a crazy stunt, but I at least wanted to be polite about it. As we had been walking by the houses on the way to the end of the street, I was picturing them all in my head to get a feel for distance, and while I hadn’t actually done any horizontal fluttering just yet, I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to do. Still, this stunt was essentially going to be done cold.

As I hopped off the far edge of the Whooves’ roof, I jumped forward, just enough to keep it short so I could make it a double. I got that double jump on the roof next door, and bounced about 30 feet up. The jump alone got me about 15 feet forward, but I got another 10 feet after my flutter. As the stunt began, the whole crowd gasped.

I placed it perfectly; as we began to descend, I saw that we skipped one house and were on target for the very center of the roof next door to it. Feeling the descent, Scootaloo gasped and closed her eyes for a moment, but I bounded right back up. No short jump this time— right back to 30 feet. As I started my next flutter, she opened her eyes again, and I could feel her heart pounding against mine— this was a pounding of excitement, not fear. I could tell.

This pattern continued until we were about ten houses down the street, and while I didn’t land perfectly in the center every time, I did get a good jump off of them so it didn’t make me lose any height. In fact, by the eighth house, I had made it up to 35 feet. Scootaloo was very good at keeping her promise not to flap, so we had a perfectly straight flight with no veering. With the momentum I gained going down the street, we made it up to about 50 miles an hour. As we passed every house, each time I landed and bounced there was a gasp from the crowd.

At the end of the block, after about 17 houses, I saw a light post that I hadn’t noticed before. Unfortunately, that meant that I didn’t have another house to land on, which meant I had to either stop on the 16th house, and potentially fall between number 16 and 17, or do something about that post. I decided it was too dangerous to stop early, so I was going to have to improvise. As we approached house 16, a thought occurred to me. We were right on target, and Scootaloo was far enough on my back that if it worked, we wouldn’t get hurt, so I went for it.

I bounced off the 16th house, closer to the edge than I would have liked, and made my last flutter. As I descended, I reached for the light post and grabbed it right under the light. Scootaloo saw this, gasped, tucked her wings, and closed her eyes (she clearly thought we were going to crash, an experience she had had multiple times before from what I heard). I also was pretty sure I heard Fluttershy scream. However, as soon as I grabbed, closing my eyes as well, I began to spin around the post. Luckily, my skin was incredibly tough, or my hand would have been burning. We spun around the post like a vortex, all the way to the bottom, until we landed quite roughly on the ground. Scootaloo toppled over my head and tumbled about three times in front of me, stopping about two feet in front of a tree where Fluttershy and Rarity just happened to be standing. Her eyes rolled around a few times, resembling those of Ditzy Doo’s for a few seconds, before she regained her composure.

The crowd gasped, then went dead silent. It was so quiet that even the ponies four houses over could hear Fluttershy rush to Scootaloo and ask her, “Are you okay?”

Scootaloo sat up on her hindquarters and rubbed her head, then she groaned for a second. I slowly opened my eyes to see if everything was okay. I first looked at Scootaloo, who seemed to be fine. Then I glanced at Fluttershy, who looked like she was about to give me one of her famous stares. Scootaloo turned around and looked at the crowd, then looked down the street and saw how far we had gone. She looked me square in the eyes, hers of which were starting to dilate again. I had seen this look before, and I was hoping she was going to say what I wanted her to say. I grimaced, waiting for her response…

“Oh my gosh………… THAT WAS AWESOME!!!” The throng roared. Fluttershy and I gave sighs of relief at exactly the same time, but no one could hear them. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were galloping toward Scootaloo, who tripped once as she went to meet them, quickly getting back on her hooves.

Fluttershy trotted over to me. I was still gripping the light post with one hand, holding my head with the other. The crowd was so loud that we were able to talk without anyone noticing. “Are you okay? That was a rough landing. But it looked incredible! And Scootaloo is so happy!”

“That’s great. Yeah, I’m okay.” Then I gave her a discrete, flirty little smile and said, “But my leg…”

“OH, STOP IT! I can tell that you’re fine!” She popped me on my shoulder with her hoof. I started to laugh, and she did the same.

It was still a pretty rough landing, so I sat at the light post for about five minutes to regain my breath, rubbing my legs and hand, with the crowd screaming the whole time. I looked up at Rainbow Dash, wondering if I had taken away her number one fan. She was raising a brow at me, apparently thinking the same thing. After those five minutes I turned around, and there stood Scootaloo, with a huge smile, along with Spike (who later told me that Twilight had taken him off the Whooves’ roof with her magic— why didn’t I think of that?). I was still panting a bit, but Spike still managed just the same. “So kiddo, what did you think? Good enough for ya?”

Scootaloo just stood there silently smiling at me with admiration (I’d seen her look at Rainbow Dash that way). Then, still grinning, she started to cry. After a few seconds of this, she jumped on top of me, knocking me over onto my back.

“OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH THAT WAS THE COOLEST! IT WAS LIKE FLYING IN A WAVE! I’VE NEVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE IT IT WAS SO HIGH! AND THAT SPIN AT THE END WAS SO CRAZY! I kind of hit my head on the roll… BUT I DON’T CARE! IT WAS AWESOME! THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANK YOUTHANKYOU!”

I sighed, then I started to laugh. I watched as Rainbow Dash flew down from her cloud and walked up behind Scootaloo. “So, Yoshi, looks like you’ve got yourself quite the fan. That was an amazing flight!”

Scootaloo jumped off my chest and whipped around. I stood up as she looked up at Rainbow Dash, then back to me. She spoke kind of softly. “Um, Yoshi? Don’t get me wrong. That was amazing, and I’ve never done anything like it. But, no offense, Rainbow Dash is number one in my book. I mean, have you ever seen her fly?” Rainbow Dash looked a little shocked.

I glanced at Rainbow Dash and smiled. “Actually kiddo, I have. She was the first pony I met when I came here. It was quite an INTERESTING meeting, too. You say she’s your number one?” Scootaloo looked at me again, kind of embarrassed, and nodded. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. And you’re very welcome.” She smiled that wide smile at me again, then jumped up and gave me a big hug. I tousled her mane and she flopped back onto the ground.

Rainbow Dash trotted over and tousled her mane as well. “Kid, you are such a nut.” Scootaloo smiled.

Fluttershy came over to us. As she approached, I smiled at her and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I think my leg needs some tending to.” Spike didn’t even get a chance to translate before Fluttershy came up and popped me on the shoulder again. I smiled, then she whispered to me, “LATER if you’re lucky, you crazy dino!” Spike looked a little confused. I told him I was okay and not to worry about it.

Fluttershy spoke next. “So Scootaloo, did you have fun?”

“Yeah! Oh, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are gonna be SO jealous!” Hearing that name, I thought to myself, Ha! So I was right about that filly! As Rainbow Dash trotted off, Scootaloo followed her, giving her a detailed description of how our ride felt.

Right at that moment, another thought quickly went through my head, and I sighed. Fluttershy asked me, “Is everything alright? Were you serious about your leg?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m alright. That was just as fun for me as it sounds like it was for Scootaloo. But fun time’s over. It’s time to search for the Augmentation Stones. Mario still needs my help. I can’t believe it’s been so long and I haven’t done anything. I’ve been so busy here. I need to talk with Toad and see how he’s feeling.”

Fluttershy glared at me and started pushing me in the direction of her house. Spike looked confused, but I told him it was okay. Fluttershy began speaking to me as if she were my mother. “You are doing nothing of the sort right now. It is way too late in the day to do that now. After what you just did, you are going to have a good night’s rest first. You need to be at full strength if you’re going to do any searching! In fact, after a stunt like that, I say you should take a full day’s rest and not go after those stones until Sunday at the earliest!”

I looked at her, pouted, and crossed my arms. “Come on, Fluttershy! What did I just say? Mario still needs my help! After all this time, I can’t imagine what’s been happening! He must be going absolutely bonkers in that time loop!”

She sighed. Then she flashed me that smile. “Tell you what, if you wait until Sunday, I’ll tend to your leg tonight…”

Dammit. She was using my own joke against me. I flashed the smile back. “Deal.”