Jake was in shock from the sudden event that just occurred. He had almost killed himself and whoever was up there watching him. Not to mention destroying that tower as well. He took some more time to get his bearings straight and came to a conclusion in which he expected would be the best one. He had to land immediately. His fuel was critical and the warning light was flashing. The only problem was that there was nothing but woods and a river beneath him. In the distance he saw a small village and to the immediate east of it there was a large field. But then he realized he didn't have enough fuel to make it. Either he would stall out before he reached the town or he would wind up dead sticking it in. (Which is basically gliding without any power at all.)
As if things couldn't get any weirder, something caught his eye out of the left cockpit window and he turned to face it. If he hadn't caught himself he would've fainted for the third time today. For what Jake saw was astonishing: a white horse with a multicolored mane of various greens, pinks, and blues with a matching tail. She had a horn on the top of her head and on her back were two outstretched wings letting her effortlessly glide along with his plane. What scared Jake though, was the look on her face. He put two and two together and realized that that must've been the thing that was watching him as he narrowly avoided death a couple minutes back. She wasn't happy, and after a couple seconds of gliding beside him, she was gone in a golden flash of light.
Jake thought she was gone until the cockpit was suddenly illuminated with the same golden light that she had disappeared in a second ago. The flash blinded him, causing him to let go of the yoke momentarily, only to scramble for it awkwardly with his new appendages.
Then, as if instantaneous, she was beside him in the cockpit of his aircraft. Glaring at him menacingly.
"What is the meaning of that little stunt you pulled back there! Explain yourself at once!" She bellowed.
"I....I....where am I?!" he stammered.
Once again, she yelled at him with a voice only a person of power could posses, "Do you take me as a fool?! I am your ruler, and I try to be fair and just, yet your lunatic behavior almost got us killed! What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Ok this is getting weirder and weirder! I don't know where I am. I'm not even supposed to look like this!" He gestured with one hoof up and down his new body. "I was flying in my own world, when all of a sudden I was hit by a bolt of lightning I think. I woke up and saw that I was flying in an unfamiliar valley and I saw myself looking like this. I passed out twice while my plane kept going on autopilot. I woke up again just in time to narrowly avoid hitting that tower back there, and now here we are. I swear that's what happened." He looked on with an honest face, yet Celestia wasn't fully convinced.
"You expect me to believe this? That you "somehow" transported through dimensions and now your in a different world. You look just like anypony else in Equestria. Prove me wrong then." She said.
"Fine. Uh, hold on I think I know what to get."
He reached back and got his flight log from behind him. Surprisingly, grasping things with hooves wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. He opened to the first page and took out his pilots liscense from the front sleeve of the logbook and handed it to her.
"See, that's what I looked like before I was somehow transported here." he said.
The sun goddess looked at the card in silence. Undoubtedly, there was a picture of Jake; tall, brown hair and brown eyes with rimless glasses on his face.
"I...I've never seen anything like you before. What are you?" She asked.
Jake replied, "Well I WAS a species known as a human before I came here. Now I'm a horse I guess."
Celestia let her anger fade and adorned a small smile. "Well first off your a pony, not a horse, and uh...it says here your name is Jake Weston, captain for an organization known as American Flightline. Is that correct?"
"Yeah that's about right. And who are you, and how can you fly and teleport just like that?!" He asked.
Celestia held up a hoof to silence him and relax. "I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, raiser of the sun. Ill explain the magic and flying later."
Jake however, was having a hard time processing this information about his new passenger. "Oh uh....well it's an...honor? To uh...meet you I guess."
Celestia let out a small laugh. "I understand your confusion. But lets get to the important issues at hand. I need you to stop this machine as soon as possi-" Celestia was cut off by the sound of a warning horn and a flashing light that read bingo fuel.
Jake sighed, "uh...I think that's about to be sooner than you think."
Celestia looked panicked, "What do you mean by that?!" She looked out of the right cockpit window to the two propellers on the wing. The engine closest to the fuselage began to sputter. Finally the prop slowed to a halt. Jake knew he had limited options, so he opted for the emergency landing.
"Ok look, we're almost out of fuel and we're gonna lose the other engines and crash if I don't set this thing down somewhere flat immediately!" He pulled back the throttle that controlled the now dead engine and turned off it's fuel flow.
"You should probably get off the plane right now. I'm not sure what's gonna happen."
Celestia replied, "Even though I don't know what this thing is, I feel like it would create a lot of damage if it goes down. So I'm staying aboard to see this through."
Jake sighed, "As you wish. Ok sit down and strap in, it's gonna get a little bumpy."
Celestia complied and sat down in the copilot seat and buckled the harness in. With the three remaining engines, Jake pulled back and went into a steady climb. He was about five miles away from the landing sight, and wanted as much altitude for maximum gliding distance incase the other engines went out.
Sure enough, the two engines on the left wing sputtered to a halt after a couple minutes. With one remaining engine, the C-130 no longer had the power to climb, so he leveled off at eight thousand feet and limped towards the village, praying for the best.
Jake planned out his landing. He would turn to the west and come up the right side of the town. Then he would make a sharp left turn, fly over the town, and touchdown in the field. He opted to land away from the town incase he went farther than he thought. He didn't want to risk the lives of anyone living in the buildings if he hit them.
He began to execute his plan as he explained to his new "copilot" the procedure.
"How do you land something like this?" She asked.
"All I have to do is line up the nose of the aircraft with the field, lower the landing gear, touch down at the slowest possible speed as far back as I can, then slam on the brakes and prey I don't run into the trees at the other end. Simple really." he chuckled to himself.
"It doesn't sound simple, but if this is your profession, I trust you'll make the right decision." she said.
Jake was losing altitude fast due to the one engine not being powerful enough to maintain level flight. As he rolled out of the final turn he was perfectly aligned with the makeshift runway. The only thing between him and safety was the village. It would've been easy if not for the red barn on an orchard of some sort straight ahead looming dangerously close to his intended descent rate.
Being that the entire orchard was raised on hilly ground, the barn itself was high enough to be in his glide path. If he could clear the barn, he could glide over the rest of the town just high enough to make it to the field. Jake knew he wouldn't make it though unless he did something now. He thought for a second, then turned to Celestia, "Ok I know what to do, take the reins for a second, I'll be right back."
"Wha-?! I don't know what I'm doing here! You can't leave me in control, I'll kill us both!"
Jake raised his voice over the warning signal indicating the last engine was about to die, "Look, just keep this yoke from moving around and just make small corrections to keep us aimed at that field, I'll be right back!"
She yelled back for him, "What are you doing?!"
He stopped and turned to look at her, "I'm going to 'lighten the load', so to speak."
With that he dashed out of the cockpit and down the ladder into the rear cargo hold, leaving the bewildered Princess to control this strange piece of machinery.
"Ok" she thought, "your the ruler of a nation, I think you can do this. If you fail, Ponyville will be damaged, it's your duty to protect your subjects and thats what I intend to do." She narrowed her eyes and took control of the yoke, keeping the now gliding aircraft steady.
Back in the cargo hold, Jake ran back to a red lever on the wall of the fuselage. He pulled down, and after much struggle, eventually freed the lever which let off a hydraulic hiss. Seconds later, the giant cargo ramp in the very rear of the aircraft began to lower, bathing the interior of the plane in the suns yellow rays. Jake squinted at the sudden change of brightness and made his way over to the many ammunition boxes being stored in front of the Ferrari. He had to shed weight to clear the barn, and being a gear head back on earth he would never push a brand new supercar out the back of a moving aircraft, so he opted for the ammo. It was heavier anyways.
The wind swirling around him from the open ramp was making this task a little harder. He managed to reach into his pocket and pull out his Swiss Army knife he always carried with him. He held the knife handle in his mouth and hastily cut the cords securing the boxes. He clambered up the stack, and one by one, with much effort and leverage, he was able to tumble them off the pallet onto another one sitting in front of the two automobiles.
The C-130 was equipped with pallets that slid along rails then flew out the back for when the military wanted to do moving airdrops. So he thought he'd do the same thing with the ammo boxes.
Getting as many crates as he could off by pushing them down from the top, he managed to load at least half of them onto the sliding pallet. He couldn't move any more because that would mean having to lift the crates onto the pallet, and each one weighed about five hundred pounds. Six were piled on the pallet as he began to push. He hoped that would be enough as he grunted and heaved with all his strength, slowly the pallet began to move down the cargo hold on the rail between the vehicles.
Celestia was worried now, the barn was roughly thirty seconds away and closing in fast. She didn't know what to do other than keep it steady as Jake had instructed her to do. "Jaaaaaaake!" She yelled, "Hurry up back there, we're about to hit!"
Back in the chaotic whirlwind of a cargo hold, Jake gained momentum as the pallet moved faster down the rail towards the ramp. Finally, the pallet slid free from his grip and coasted the rest of the way down the angled ramp and flew out the back, disappearing from sight leaving nothing behind. He felt the plane lurch upwards from the sudden decrease in weight. He ran back up to the cockpit, shutting the ramp on his way. He arrived back just in time to see the barn disappear under the plane, but there was a small steeple-like structure at the front of the roof sticking up, and the plane ripped through it like tin foil. It was weak enough that it didn't cause any damage albeit a few scratches were made. Jake jumped back into the captain's seat and quickly took command once more over the lumbering giant, and began the emergency procedure, ready to touchdown.
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Five minutes ago:
Applejack had been in the orchard bucking apples all morning. The farm pony was tired and eager to get the days work done so she could have the rest of the day off.
She noticed her brother, Big Macintosh, out in front of the barn. "Hey Big Mac!" She yelled. "Gimme a hand with these here apple carts and take them inta the barn with me. I gotta get these things ready for sortin' tomorrow mornin', or else we'll be behind schedule."
"Eeyup!"
"Thanks Mac, ah sure do appreciate the hel....what in tarnation?.....Mac look out!!"
Without warning, a massive machine came out of nowhere and flew right over there barn. It missed the roof but shattered the steeple at the front of it. Sending wood cascading down on top of the red earth pony, knocking him out cold.
Applejack looked on as the machine continued its course for the field on the other side of town.
She ran over to her brother who was buried in wood and nails. "Mac?! Mac are you okay?!"
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If anyone were asked to describe Ponyville on a normal day, some of the most common responses would be peaceful, or quiet. However, as everypony would soon find out, today was not going to be a normal day.
The shops were open for business, the townsfolk were going about their day to day tasks. A certain pink pony was frantically bouncing around, offering free samples of delicious cupcakes to the passerby. Nopony could predict what was about to happen, as a giant metal machine swooped in from the direction of Sweet Apple Acres and glided over the town, narrowly missing all the rooftops. It casted a dark shadow over the town hall as it passed over, stopping many citizens in their tracks to look on in stunned silence.
A rainbow maned pegasus was practicing her flight routines as the machine thundered in, it's left wing missing her by inches.
"What the hay was that?! Hey get back here! You've got some explaining to do buddy!" With that she took off after it.
A certain purple unicorn who had been walking through town with her head in a book, looked up in time to see the giant bird-like machine glide over. She stopped and spoke up, "I think it's heading for the meadow outside of town. C'mon everypony!"
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Jake was seconds away from touching down. He started reciting emergency procedures to himself as he executed them. "Full flaps...spoilers armed...ok this is it, brace yourself, I don't know how rough this terrain is."
Celestia spoke up, "From what I recall, it's adequately smooth, you shouldn't have trouble here."
"Well that's a relief." he said.
The automatic voice in the cockpit started announcing the approach altitude. A robotic male voice sounded out in the cabin.
"Fifty...forty...thirty...twenty...ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two..."
They both braced themselves when he shouted out, "HANG ON!"
The C-130's landing gear hit the grass hard and began rolling towards the trees at the end of the field. Jake slammed the brakes on and prayed for the best.