“Look out below!”
Twilight turned her head. Several pegasi were streaking toward her group, bearing the distinctive colors of the Wonderbolts. As she watched, three of them in a tight formation barreled at the group at an extremely steep angle. They approached and seemed to only get faster as they drew near. A twinge of doubt entered Twilight’s mind and she drew back slightly. She’d been stronghoofed into seeing a few of their shows back when ponies still tried to get her to do things with them, and during said shows she’d watched the performers level out from much steeper dives. But this didn’t seem to be a performance.
Levitation was beyond her at the moment, but not all spells needed intricate thought patterns. Quickly, she drew on her magic. Power flooded her horn. She picked out a strand of magic and twisted it into a simple move spell, one that would fling anything in its path backward, or hopefully slow down three speeding Wonderbolts. She got ready to throw all her power into the brute-force spell when the professors (except professor Radiance) started using their magic. Their horns lit up and the three pegasi were surrounded by the rainbow prism of a shared levitation field.
Twilight abandoned her spell, dispersing all the built-up magic she’d been about to force into that one ‘move’ strand so that it wouldn’t turn into a mini chaos storm. My spell would’ve worked, she thought with a huff.
The trio slowed to a halt until they were inches above the ground. Then the levitation field suddenly disappeared and the pegasi dropped to their feet. The gray pegasus in the middle immediately collapsed, apparently unconscious, while the two beside him stumbled but maintained their upright positions. Twilight trotted over, joining the gathering crowd.
“What happened?”
“Is he alright?”
“I think he needs a hospital, or at least a medical spell…”
Indeed, on closer inspection the unconscious Wonderbolt had cuts all over his uniform, which was itself stained with a number of red smears. Twilight uneasily remembered how she’d unthinkingly resented her teachers for a second for levitating the pegasi. Ponies were hurt, and she’d just been jealous that she hadn’t been able to show off. Well, it was just a second, and she didn’t do anything. In fact, if the teachers had been too slow she would have...saved...on second thought, a pegasus who had their momentum suddenly reduced to zero would suffer major whiplash. The wounded Wonderbolt might not even have survived. She immediately resolved that her rash almost-spell would be a secret that she kept until the day she died, then leaned in closer to see if the Wonderbolts would answer any of her classmate’s questions. Just because she’d almost killed someone didn’t mean she wouldn’t leap at a chance to get information.
“Can everyone back up a bit unless you know some medical spells? Silver here was clawed up by a griffon. Or seven. Not sure how many got to him. Yes, I’ll answer your questions. Just...oh, you know some? Go right ahead,” said one of the Wonderbolts.
His uniform covered his coat, but his white and orange mane was visible. He let Amber pass. The professor then knelt down beside the downed pegasus and began casting healing spells. Those were notoriously tricky to get right—from what Twilight had read, they involved casting a series of ‘move’ spells that affected time, but didn’t really mess with time either. It was complicated and she wasn’t anywhere close to skilled enough to use them yet. Not that she would be able to even if she knew how, as unless everyone stopped for a minimum of three days she wasn’t even able to use basic levitation. She idly began channeling magic and separating it into the components required for a levitation thought template. Never hurt to practice.
“Anyway,” the Wonderbolt continued, “the name’s Fire Streak. I’m technically retired, but in times of crisis the Wonderbolts pull out all of the reserves. This is one of those times. Now that introductions are out of the way—that’s right, no need for any of you to introduce yourselves. I can share my own ego, thank you very much. Don’t worry, it’s big enough—we can talk about the Everfree. So as you probably know through your magic vision spells—”
“They don’t work too close to the Everfree! We’ve tried.” That sounded like Moon Dancer.
“Right, then as you probably don’t know, the Everfree’s eating unicorns and earth ponies.” Fire Streak waited for the exclamations to stop. “Anyway, yes. We don’t know if it literally eats ponies. All we know is, any earth pony or unicorn to go into the forest that isn’t shielded, never comes out again. Any pegasus that comes out...well, we’re not yet sure how, but the forest just steals their magic. They can’t fly or do any magic and it apparently really sucks. Some of them said they would have preferred to be eaten, and to date none of them have had their magic come back, so if you see any pegasi on your travels, do not, for the love of Celestia, do not tell them it’s safe to go into the Everfree.
“Now that we’re all on the same page—and before you ask: no we don’t know where the princess went or why the sun still hasn’t come up—some of those pegasi I mentioned that got caught in the Everfree are coming this way. They should catch up to you slowpokes soon. Silver Zoom okay yet?” he asked, suddenly switching his focus to Amber.
“Mmm…should be in a few minutes. I’m good at what I do, but he’s lost a lot of blood. He needs lots of water and lots of rest,” the professor said, raising her head from Silver’s side to look at Fire Streak.
“You still never explained how he got that way,” Lyra said, pointing a hoof at Silver.
Hopefully it was the Everfree. Maybe that would make those unicorns abandon their plan—scratch that, it wasn’t even a plan—their suicide in the pony-eating forest.
“It was the griffons, of course,” Fire Streak said with a blink.
“Yes. You said that. Why did they attack him?”
“Huh. I didn’t think all of the port cities and trains were blocked from your spells.”
There was a moment of silence while all the unicorns in hearing range looked away or fidgeted with the grass.
Fire Streak looked around. “Are you telling me,” he said slowly, “that none of you thought to see if your destination was safe? Or why the trains weren’t working? Are you all really that—never mind. We’re going. Try not to get yourselves killed. I’ll even give you a free tip, since you’re all so smart: a nice big moving shield should help against the griffons. Or anything else that tries to attack.”
Professor Luminescence immediately started whispering to Veracity about setting up something like that. Her monologue faltered and stopped when she caught Fire Streak looking at her. “Um...yes. Shields. We have those,” she stammered out.
Fire Streak just sighed. He turned and supported a woozy Silver Zoom, helping the other Wonderbolt as they lifted him into the sky and rejoined the wheeling patrol in the sky, which, after a short discussion, zoomed off into the distance.
“So...magicless pegasi coming, huh?” someone said. “And griffons. I hope we see some. It’d be cool to see how they fight.”
Twilight facehoofed.