One hour earlier…
“What an absolutely fabulous day, isn’t girls?” asked Rarity. She was laid back in an extravagant beach chair by the edge of a pond.
The girls had taken the day off, and had decided that lounging at their favorite swimming hole and have a picnic would make this a great day to relax. Applejack was done her chores for the day, Rarity had caught up on her orders, Fluttershy had made sure that all of the animals in her stead had their needs taken care of, Rainbow Dash didn’t really have anything going on that day, and Pinkie Pie…Well she always had time for her friends. Twilight Sparkle had packed the lunch, and instructed Spike to keep an eye on Owlicious while she was gone.
Applejack nodded in agreement. “Darn tootin’! It’s nice to get away from the farm once in a while.”
“Isn’t this great guys? I just love spending the day with you all! I mean, I love spending time with you all individually, but together, it’s like five times, no, tentimes better!” Pinkie pie bounced around the girls as they lay by the pond.
All except Rainbow Dash, who took the opportunity to show off her diving skills from the swing, “Hey, check this out!” Rainbow Dash held the end of the rope between her teeth, she walked backwards until the rope was taut. The others gathered around to watch the spectacle that would be. Rainbow, making sure that they were watching closely, then galloped full speed towards the pond. When she got close, her momentum carried her upwards as the rope swung. She then extended her wings and flapped as hard as she could, gaining more momentum.
Before the rope began to wind itself back onto the branch, she stopped her wings, and let go of the rope, letting her momentum carry her upwards into the sky. When she reached the zenith of her climb, she began to do increasingly difficult aerobatics as she fell towards the water. Spins, twists, loops, and a whole manner of others as she plummeted towards the water.
“Oh dear,” exclaimed Fluttershy, “I hope she knows what she is doing.”
“She does seem to be putting a little more flair into this than she normally does.” added Rarity.
Rainbow Dash added one more twist before curling up into a ball and shouting, “Cannon ball!” just before she landed in the pond. A stream of water billowed upwards. Suddenly Rainbow Dash sprang back out of the water, and plowed through the pillar of water, shattering it, and spreading a curtain of water droplets over the pond. The water droplets caught the light, and formed a rainbow over the water. Rainbow Dash arced over the pond, and completed a loop around the water formed rainbow, a trail of color forming in her wake.
“That. Was. Amazing!” Pinkie began to do her impression of Rainbow’s dive, “First she was all like spinning and twisting around and around and around! Then she went sploosh, into the water! Then she went whamo, right through that column of water! Then she went neeooow, up and around the rainbow! Which is awesome because she is Rainbow Dash, and she made a loop around anotherrainbow that she made with her amazing trick!”
“Whooee partner,” cheered Applejack, “that was some performance you put on there!”
Rainbow Dash hovered above the ensemble and bowed to each of them, “Thank you, thank you. Just all in a day’s work for such a talented pony like myself.”
“It was quite the stunt you pulled of there Rainbow Dash,” added Rarity, “ Though I daresay that I’d much rather be relaxing on the beach and working on my tan, thank-you-very-much.” She grabbed her reflector and laid back in her beach chair. Just then, a thunderous crack echoed across the land, startling the ponies from their relaxation.
“What on earth was that!” exclaimed Rarity, her reflector fell from her hooves in her shock.
Applejack looked around and saw a dark storm cloud a short distance away from them. “That might be the cause of the thunder. Rainbow Dash, I thought you took care of ‘em all today!”
“I did!” she glared angrily at the growing storm cloud, “I don’t know how this one came along. I’ll go take care of it!”
“Wait a minute Rainbow, I see something else.” said Twilight. As she spoke, a large object appeared out of the cloud. It was large, and somewhat bulbous on one end, then tapered to a long, slender shaft that split at the other end. The object also seemed to have something attached to the top of it, but the distance made it too hard to tell. The object seemed to be out of control, twisting and spiraling as it fell towards the ground.
“What in tarnation is that?” asked Applejack.
“I don’t know,” Twilight responded, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
The storm dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, just before the object was lost from sight behind a hilltop. Shortly thereafter, a column of smoke could be seen rising from behind the hilltop.
“Whatever it is, I want to find out. Come on girls.” Twilight sped off, leading the five others towards the column of smoke, and the mystery of what the object could be.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
It took over half an hour to reach the impact site, as they crested the last hill they stopped to look upon the scene. There was a fifty foot long, one foot deep trench that terminated at the object they had previously seen. The object was much different when they first saw it. They first saw that the object was now in several pieces. The smaller section had separated away from the main body of the object. At the top of the object, they clearly saw that there was something on top of it. Or rather, was something on top of it. Smoke was billowing from its top, but they didn’t know about the source.
“Oh my, I hope nothing was hurt.” said Fluttershy.
“This is very strange.” said Twilight. “Let’s take a closer look.”
Twilight and the girls made their way down towards the crash site. As they drew near, they came across an unbearable stench.
“Dear Celestia, what is that stench?” Rarity retched at the smell. “It is absolutely unbearable.”
“Ah’ve never smelled something as bad as this.” added Applejack, “Manure doesn’t smell half as bad as whatever that it.
Rainbow Dash made her way to the front of the object that had stopped at a tree. “Uhh guys, I think I found what’s making that stench.”
Applejack got their first, ahead of the other girls. “Oh dear, Fluttershy don’t come around here. Ain’t somethin’ you wanna see. Pinkie, you too darlin’.”
Fluttershy and Pinkie did as they were told and stayed behind as the others went around front. Everyone gasped audibly, Rarity nearly fainted at the sight. They first saw a creature that they’ve never seen before seated inside the object. Twilight thought it was a craft of some kind judging by the design, and the fact that there was a creature inside of it. However, she didn’t believe that it was alive .
“Whatever that thing is, don’t look like it survived the crash.” Applejack said quietly, taking off her hat.
Fluttershy looked around the craft, and spotted a trail of flattened grass leading from the craft into the forest. “Umm, girls. I think I found somethi-“
“What’dya suppose that thing in there could be?” Applejack asked.
“Hay if I know Applejack.” Rainbow Dash replied, “Never seen something so…weird in my life.”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that normally Rainbow Dash,” Twilight answered. She gestured towards what she believed to be its head. “My guess is that the…thing had its neck broken on impact with the ground.” Then she saw the tree branch that had impaled the craft, and the creature’s abdomen. “Or that tree branch.” She said sullenly. “Either way, we won’t be finding out about it.”
Undeterred, Fluttershy tried to speak again.“Umm girls, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I found some-“ This time she was interrupted by a loud series of coughs that emanated from the forest nearby.
“Hey, shh! Do you hear that?” said Rainbow Dash
“I think it came from the forest!” replied Twilight. The girls sped off into the forest to find the source of the coughing.