"Wha...What happened?" Rainbow dash thought slowly coming to. She could hear the two people talking nearby.
"You know, I honestly couldn't figure out why, but something about these ponies had seemed familiar." She could hear Marshall speak.
"I had honestly forgotten about it when we first saw Rainbow Dash flying beside us. After taking that buck to...well you know," Garrick said, "It all came back to me. In all honesty, I'm not too unhappy about this. I mean, its a hell of alot better than being dead, right?"
"I can't argue with you there, besides I kind of like these, uh ponies. They're kind of cute." Marshall added, both him and Garrick broke out into laughter.
Rainbow Dash started to sit up, finally getting her thoughts straight. Her wing was throbbing, but it there was less pain than earlier. As she opened her eyes, she noticed that the sun was down, and her and the others were laying around a fire with Garrick and Marshall sitting across from them talking to each other. Garrick noticed her movement out of the corner of his eye.
"Well look whose waking up," he said, although his speech was a little slurred.
"Uh, yea sorry about that, I guess what you told us sort of caught us off guard." Rainbow Dash apologized.
"S'no problem, even I was taken back by Mr.Toughguy's story here." Marshall laughed, he also seemed strange.
"Um, are you two ok?" Rainbow Dash asked confused.
"Haha, well now that you ask, we might be just a tad bit drunk." Garrick responded followed by a hiccup.
"Drunk?" Rainbow Dash looked at the two men quizzically.
"Yea, ya know, when you've had just a little too much to drink?" Marshall added, putting emphasis on "little."
The first thing that popped into Rainbow Dash's mind was Berry Punch, that pony was always running into stuff around Ponyville.
"You've got to be bucking kidding me..." Rainbow Dash facehoofed in disbelief.
"What? You've never gotten tipsy before?" Garrick asked, becoming unbalanced.
"Mind telling me where you two got alcohol from?" Rainbow Dash demanded.
"We pilots always carry some of tha' stuff with us, sorta like a tradition in our base." Marshall replied.
Rainbow dash heard some noise next to her, it look like the others were beginning to come to. 'Perfect timing,' she thought to herself, she could use all the help she could get at this point.
"What's going on, where are we...oh yea that's right, the humans." Twilight exclaimed as she sat up.
"How long was ah' out for?" Applejack asked to no one in particular.
"About five hours to be exact." Garrick replied drunkenly.
"What the buck is wrong with them?" Applejack asked again to no pony in particular.
"Uh, from what they told me, they're drunk." Rainbow Dash answered nervously.
"Well, this isn't good." Twilight added, also becoming worried.
"Wha' do you guys sound so worried for?" Marshall asked very loudly.
"Uh, nothing in particular dear, just don't mind us," Rarity butted in, turning to the other ponies around her. "Uh, girls, I think we need to do something."
"I agree Rarity, but what can we do, we have no idea what they are capable of." Twilight said.
"Ah' say we knock em out until the stuffs gone from their systems." Applejack suggested.
"I hate to say it, but I agree with AJ, these guys may seem nice, but we all know how Berry Punch can get when she's like that." Rainbow Dash added. All four ponies swallowed in nervousness thinking back to the many times Berry Punch had gotten out of control, the alcohol made her harder to take down than usual. No telling what these two giants would be like.
"So it's agreed then, we knock them out for now, then take them back to Ponyville and into my Treehouse until they wake up!" Twilight said, formulating a plan as she went. All five ponies, including Fluttershy who stayed quiet the whole time, shook their heads in agreement. "Alright, let's do this."
The ponies turned around ready to get to work. However, to their surprise, and honestly relief, the two men were out cold laying on the ground.
"I guess they just passed out." Fluttershy said, relieved that they didn't have to resort to violence.
"Well, that definitely made things a lot easier." Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. "now, just to carry them all the way back to Ponyville...at night...through the Everfree forest..." Twilight Sparkle froze as she said this.
"Uh, all for staying next to the fire, raise a hoof!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed raising her hoof into the air. Four more hooves followed suit. The ponies took up positions around the fire after moving the two humans side by side next to the fire. They sat there in silence for what seemed like an hour, staring into the fire and occasionally feeding the flames.
"Ok, guess i'll be the one to ask," Rarity broke the silence, "any idea of what to make of this man, uh Garricks, explanation?"
None of the ponies spoke again, trying to pull together their thoughts. Twilight was the first to respond.
"Well, Celestia used to tell me about a pony a very long time ago that had the idea that there could be multiple universes that coexisted with each other. Each of these universe's were connected in some way or another, but it was nearly impossible to break through the dimensional wall. If this is all true, then these two humans must have found a way."
"How about helping us simpler Ponyville ponies out with that science mumbo-jumbo." Rainbow Dash said, slightly confused.
"Well, to put it simply, Garrick and Marshall are from a different universe entirely." Twilight replied, she was responded with a collective gasp from her friends.
"But that doesn't explain how their universe knew about ours!" Rarity interjected.
"True, but remember what I said, all of the universe are connected somehow. This means that either someone in their dimension found a way into ours a long time ago, or more likely our universe is a creation that came about from theirs." Twilight said, still trying to make sense of all of this herself.
"Wouldn't that mean that we aren't real?" Applejack inquired.
"Not at all, it would only mean that we exist because of the universe that these two came from." Twilight added in more convincingly.
"I don't understand though, how could a world so peaceful like ours, come from a world as terrible as theirs?" Fluttershy questioned, "Oh my, that sounded mean, I'm sorry..."
"I feel like that part of their world is only caused by a small amount of their people. In other words, I'm guessing that for the most part their population is really peaceful and friendly deep down." Twilight continued to sort things out in her mind.
"Well, if most of them are like these two guys seem to be, then I can believe it!" Rainbow dash exclaimed confidently.
The five ponies continued to talk through the night. As Celestia began to raise the sun, the two humans began to stir themselves awake, aided by the rays of sunlight breaking through the trees.
"God damn, my head is pounding." Garrick said rubbing his temples.
"What the hell happened?" Marshall asked. Both humans sat their rubbing their heads until the pain became a dull throbbing. They looked up to see five ponies holding back laughter.
"What?" Marshall asked completely confused.
The five ponies burst out into laughter as he asked this question. Both Marshall and Garrick looked at each other quizzically, then back at the ponies.
"Mind telling us what's so damn funny?" Marshall asked, attempting to hold back his own laughter.
Applejack was the first to catch her breath and reply. "Ya'll should see what ya' look like right now!"
Both the men looked at each other again, only this time noticing the state of their hair and noticed that while they were asleep, the ponies decided to play a prank on them. Garrick had a full facial beard drawn on in what Marshall assumed was marker. As his eyes focused, Garrick noticed that Marshall had black drawn around his eyes with a curly french style mustache drawn onto his upper lip. Neither pilot could hold back, they both fell onto their backs in laughter. Rainbow Dash sat up onto her haunches finally able to breath again.
"That's what you get for being drunk and leaving your stuff in your pockets!" She said pointing a hoof at the marker lying next to the two men.
"Just so you know," Garrick began to wipe the marker off his face using water from a nearby puddle, "Where we come from, there is something we like to call payback. We will get ours, don't you worry your little pony heads."
The five ponies looked at each other after he said this, they began to laugh hysterically again. The two humans looked at each other again, and caved in to the infectious behavior. The seven creatures continued to laugh for minutes on end until they had no choice but to breath.
"Well, now that's over with," Twilight forced out between suppressed giggles,"we've got the matter of Ponyville to discuss."
"What do you mean?" Marshall asked Twilight.
"Well, as I had said yesterday, you guys need to come back to Ponyville with us. We have no idea how long you two will be here, and we can't leave you here in the Everfree forest." Twilight Sparkle responded.
"Well, that's easy, we just leave the same way we got here." Garrick butted in.
"Now its my turn to ask what you mean by that." Twilight said, cocking her head in confusion.
"Well, we got here using the F-40, and that's how we'll leave. All we need to do is start her up and do the same manuver as last time, simple." Garrick replied confidently. He began to walk in the direction of their jet. Marshall and the five ponies followed him. As they arrived at the jet, Garrick walked over to it and opened up a panel on the side of the cockpit. Inside was a small lever which he pulled down. A panel opened up along side the aircraft allowing a small ladder to unfold out leading up to the cockpit.
"This girl was designed for just about any situation." Garrick boasted. He climbed up into the cockpit and sat down. "See, now we just start her up and we'll be able to go home." He attempted to switch the jet on, but nothing would happen. He continued to try to start it up, but to no avail.
"Hold on, I'm coming up." Marshall yelled climbing up the ladder. He climbed into the rear seat and began to check the gauges. He looked over everything, unable to find the problem. "Everything seems to be working fine, I don't know what's wrong."
Garrick facepalmed as he realized it, "Hey Marshall, check the fuel gauges."
Marshall almost hit himself realizing he had overlooked those gauges. He found them, and saw that the gauge read empty. "Well, looks like we found our problem."
Garrick dropped his head against his dashboard. Of course they would run out of gas, after all that maneuvering and flying they were doing.
The five ponies looked up in suspense waiting for any kind of news. Rainbow Dash became inpatient and flew up to the side of the cockpit.
"Hey, what's going on? I don't remember this thing being this quiet when you had it next to me!"
"That's because it was working when were flying it, but we seem to have run out of gas." Garrick replied pulling his head up. "Seems like we're not going anywhere. That is unless you happen to have some Jet Fuel lying around?" Rainbow Dash just gave Garrick a confused look. "Yea, I thought so..."
The two men climbed out of the aircraft to again meet the ponies.
"Well, here's the situation." Garrick began, "Our Jet is out of fuel which is what it needs to run. Seeing as I doubt you ponies have any top grade Jet Fuel lying around, my co-pilot and I don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. So with that said, I guess we're going to accompany you ponies back to Ponyville after all."
Twilight was the first to speak up, "I'm sorry you can't return home anytime soon, but we'll gladly have you join us back at our town."
"Yea, Twi's right, if ya'll need anywhere to stay, we've also got plenty a' space over at Sweet apple Acres." Applejack added in.
"As do I at my Boutique. I would gladly have company stay with me." Rarity offered.
"Um, if you need to, I have spare rooms as well," Fluttershy added, "If you want to that is."
"Well, I can say I've never had a warmer welcome." Garrick laughed.
"Thanks for the offers, but I honestly couldn't impose on any of you." Marshall added modestly.
"It really is no problem, I would gladly have a gentlecolt, er gentleman, such as yourself stay under my roof." She said smiling at Marshall, as well as throwing a glare in the still laughing Garrick's direction.
"Same here!" Applejack added.
"Um, me too." Fluttershy said quietly.
"Its settled then, you two will come back and stay with us in Ponyville until we have everything figured out. Until then, I'll put an enchantment around your, um Jet, to keep it safe from everything in this forest." Twilight concluded, her horn turning purple as well as the Aircraft. As she finished, Twilight turned back to the two people and her four friends. "Well, we should probably get going before the sun sets again, I'm sure everypony's already worried about us as is."
"Right!" The four ponies replied in unison. The seven friends then set off in the direction of Ponyville.
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Author's note: Ok, so I couldn't reach my desired length for this chapter, but I felt this was a nice point to wrap this chapter up. Hope you guys enjoyed this one. Until next chapter...
-RespersSprint