It took Rarity almost ten minutes to carry Gyro out of the debris field and drag a tarp behind her to smooth over her hoofprints so they couldn’t be tracked. The earth pony was heavy despite her size, and her limp hind legs bounced and kicked Rarity’s side with every step. At some point, Gyro had broken down into silent tears and sniffles, and Rarity felt the urge to cry with her as well. How did a day that started off with so much promise go so wrong by sundown?
At least the rapidly descending sun had already set behind the mountain, and the island grew darker by the minute. It would provide Rarity and Gyro with plenty of shadowy cover to hide behind and wait to see who came to investigate the wreckage. Hopefully the noise attracted Rainbow, or at least attracted something that would help them figure out what happened to the pegasus.
A pile of rocks and cluster of trees masked by some ferns stood at the base of the mountain, and Rarity gently let Gyro off her back as soon as she stepped inside. Masking the engineer within the shelter of the plants, Rarity crouched down beside her and helped her move her hind legs as she settled into a more comfortable position. She rolled up the tarp as best she could and put it behind Gyro to cushion her back—what parts of it she could still feel. “Still nothing?” she asked in a tender, concerned voice.
Gyro shook her head from side to side. “I can’t feel anything below my belly button. It’s like I’m only half a torso…” She wiped her nose on the back of her fetlock and sniffled. “Are you sure my back is broken? It’s… it’s not going to heal on its own, is it?”
Rarity sat down by Gyro’s side and wrapped her forelegs around the engineer. “I don’t know, darling,” she said. “There’s definitely something wrong with your spine. I don’t know how bad it is.” She lifted one of Gyro’s rear legs and dropped the lifeless limb back to the ground. “Do you feel nothing, or does it tingle?”
Gyro screwed her face and tried to focus on her legs. “It… feels kind of tingly,” she said. “It’s so faint though that I can’t tell. I just… what if I can never walk again? Can’t you use your magic or something to fix this?”
“I would if I knew how,” Rarity said. “Healing magic is complicated. Not even Twilight is very good at it. It’s one of those disciplines you have to have a mark in to be passable at. And I’m hardly anything close to a talented mage myself.”
“But it’s possible, right?” Gyro asked. “I could get this fixed when we get back to Equestria?”
“Assuming your naturally superior earth pony constitution doesn’t fix it for you!” Rarity nudged Gyro’s side. “For all I know, your magic could fix your spine in a matter of days.”
“I don’t think earth pony magic is that strong,” Gyro admitted. “A broken spine would take months to heal, assuming my magic could even do it in the first place.”
Rarity reluctantly nodded. “Well, so long as you get your legs back in the end, that’s the important thing.” She shifted her attention to the debris in front of them, peering out from behind the brush. “What happened in there, darling? What made the wreckage fall like that?”
“I was scavenging what I could, and since the whole thing was sideways, some of the parts containers that were mounted on the walls were basically on the ceiling for me,” Gyro said. “When I tried to open the scrap metal container on the ceiling, the entire unit broke free and disturbed the wreck.”
“And you broke your back in the fall?”
Gyro shook her head. “No, I… I think I managed that before it fell. When the thing started swaying, I lost my grip on the floor and fell across the room. I cracked my back on an open container. That’s when I think I broke it, not during the fall.” She rubbed her shoulder and frowned at the wreckage. “The interior halls of the lower decks are designed to be very sturdy. That’s likely the only reason why I even survived the fall in the first place.”
“I’m just glad that you did,” Rarity said. “The debris knocked me off the rocks, too, but I think I somehow teleported myself to safety before I hit the ground.” She crossed her forelegs and immediately winced when their touch reminded her of her cracked and bruised ribs. “Though I fear I still hurt my rib cage in the process.”
“You can teleport?” Gyro asked. “Not many unicorns know how to do that. I didn’t know you could do that.”
“To be honest, I didn’t know I could either,” Rarity said with a shrug. “It must’ve been something I casted through sheer desperation. I probably couldn’t cast it again even if I tried. Besides, my horn is split from it. I won’t have my magic for a day or two.”
“How wonderful,” Gyro muttered, recovering a little of her sarcastic wit. “Rainbow’s missing, I can’t walk, and you’ve lost your magic. Could this day get any—?”
Rarity covered Gyro’s muzzle with both her hooves. “Don’t even say it,” she hissed at the engineer. “I’ll break your other legs if you do.”
She took her hooves away and brushed them against her coat. Gyro worked her jaw from side to side and coughed. “Alright, sure. Forget I said anything.”
“Good.” Rarity’s eyes widened during her scan of the wreckage, and she immediately ducked a little lower. “Because I believe we have visitors…”
She noticed the movement beneath the trees long before three ragged ponies stepped out of the shadows. Two stallions and a mare, the three ponies each wore ragged, salt-stained clothes covering muscular and scarred bodies. One of the stallions was missing an eye; the other, an ear; and the mare used a bandana to tie her mane back. The two stallions had cutlasses hooked to their clothing, and the mare carried a single flintlock pistol in a shoulder strap, with easy reach of her mouth.
Those three ponies seemed much more gruff and cruel than anypony on the Concordia, even as far as Rarity could tell from a distance. And given that she was fairly certain the Concordia didn’t have any swords or pistols on it, she felt it was pretty clear who they were dealing with.
“Pirates,” she murmured to Gyro, who was having trouble seeing through the foliage without the ability to move her hind legs and maneuver herself into a better position. “I suppose we know what happened to Rainbow now…”
“Oh, shit,” Gyro whispered back, giving up on sitting upright and simply slouching back against a tree. “Do you think she’s okay?”
“I’m not going to dare to think otherwise.” Rarity furrowed her brow and watched the pirates begin to poke at the wreckage. “She’s alright, but she may have simply run into unexpected company.”
The three pirates wandered around the debris and rubble. One of the stallions picked up some wooden planks in his magic and threw them away without much more thought. Though she figured they were looking for survivors, looking for her, she’d at least covered her hoofprints with the tarp, so they wouldn’t have anything to track her by. That, and the three were too busy trading insults and airing grievances to notice her and Gyro hiding in the trees not too far away.
After a few minutes to lazily look around, the pirates began to wander back to the trees, once more stepping into the jungle. Rarity chewed on her lip as she watched them go, only sighing with relief and stopping when they were too far away for her to hear. “They’re gone now,” she told Gyro. “At least for the moment.”
“Good.” Gyro closed her eyes and flung her head back. “We’ve got pirates to deal with, and they’ve likely got Rainbow. I can’t walk, and you don’t have your magic. What in Celestia’s name are we gonna do against that?!”
Rarity thought for a moment. “First, I need to find Rainbow,” she said, “and I have a feeling I know roughly where she is.”
Gyro blinked, then shook her head. “Rarity, you can’t go wandering off into the jungle looking for the pirates’ camp! You’re just gonna get caught, and then I’ll be all alone out here! We’ll all die!”
“I can’t just leave her!” Rarity retorted, careful not to raise her voice too much in case the pirates heard it. “It’s just us three versus who knows how many pirates. I need to get her out of there and at least even the numbers a little bit. They’re probably torturing her right now, trying to figure out who else is on the island with them.”
“Which they definitely know that she’s not alone now.” Gyro crossed her forelegs over her chest. “They’re gonna be looking for you, Rarity. What we should do is look for this next figurine thing at least until you get your magic back. If they haven’t killed Rainbow—”
“Don’t you even dare insinuate such a thing,” Rarity interrupted her, her voice as desperate as it was forceful and angry.
“If they haven’t killed Rainbow,” Gyro repeated, “then they won’t do so over the next few days. If they have, then you’re looking for her for nothing. At least wait until you have your magic back before you start looking for her!”
Gyro’s sound logic made Rarity hesitate and falter. “But if she’s still alive…”
“You won’t be doing her any favors by getting yourself caught, too. You won’t be doing me any favors either!” Gyro put a gray hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “I need you right now, Rarity. I’m fucked up and can’t walk. At least get me back to our camp and leave me there where there’s food and water instead of leaving me here to fend for myself while you follow those pirates back to their camp.”
After a moment of internal debate, Rarity hung her head when she realized Gyro was right. “Okay,” she said, standing up and shaking some of the sand off her coat. “You’re right. I just… feel so helpless, not doing anything.”
“Better to wait and plan instead of rush headlong into danger and get yourself killed,” Gyro said. “Now’s not the time for stupid stunts.”
Rarity nodded along, but guilt gnawed at her conscience the entire time she helped Gyro onto her back and started to hobble back to their camp.
What she wouldn’t have given to turn the clocks back and just stay on their cozy island instead of wandering out here into a deathtrap!