“Look,” I said crossly, “I’m not gonna-”
“Dude, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ve done it plenty of times.”
I sighed again. Matt was trying to talk me into doing skydiving. Sure, I do daring things, but those are on my skateboard or bike, not in the air. I’d hate to admit it to anyone, but I’m scared of heights.
“I don’t want to go skydiving with you! I’ve never even been in a plane before!”
“But it’s so much fun! You have a parachute!”
I tried a different tactic. “Isn’t skydiving expensive?”
“My older brother has all the gear for it. He even knows how to fly a plane, so I do it for free all the time.”
Dammit. I was running out of excuses. “But that’s not even legit-”
“I’ll take that as a yes! Bye!” -Click-
Shit.
-----
I don’t know how I got from that conversation, down on the ground, where it’s safe, to up here in a plane, the bay door open, with Matt pushing me out into the open. I didn’t even scream; I was too paralyzed. Air resistance made me flip over, and I saw Matt diving towards me. I saw his mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear him over the rush of wind in my ears. He seemed frantic, but I didn’t know why. Then I heard engines. But the plane was too far away, and I heard them fade earlier. So why...?
Matt pointed behind me, to my left as I was facing him. The engines grew louder. I flipped myself over, and a large jet plane was below and far away, but coming fast. I froze in fear again, and I could only watch as I came closer to the jet’s path. Matt crashed into me, pushing me out of the way. He dove further, putting himself out of harm’s way. I thought he had saved me. Then something large and metallic slammed into me.
-----
Twilight Sparkle was reading on her bed in her library. It was a usual morning for her; she liked reading before everypony woke up. It was quiet this early, as the sun rose. Except for today. Today she heard a loud explosion and felt it shake the library. The ground shook, windows broke.
“Rainbow Dash...” she growled. Ponies could get hurt from her rainbooms, and she knew that Dash knew it too. She ran to her window and threw it open, ready to give a certain pegagus a piece of her mind, but instead of a rainboom in the sky, she saw a black portal closing, and underneath it, something falling towards the ground, what seemed to be head-first. It was almost a speck, it was so high. She tried to teleport outside to the sidewalk, and ended up in the branches of her tree. She tried again, and when she opened her eyes, her viewpoint was lower than Spike’s would have been and she couldn’t move the lower half of her body.
“What’s wrong with my magic?” She asked herself angrily, looking down at the ground.. The sound of hoofbeats caught her attention. She looked up and saw an orange mare with a familiar Stetson desperately galloping down the road.
“Applejack!” Twilight yelled, relieved to see somepony. She could barely expand her barrel to get more air because of her position, and she worried that Applejack wouldn’t hear her. Luckily, Applejack heard her and veered towards her position.
“Howdy, Twi’! How’d you get yerself stuck in there? Does it have anythin’ ta do with the explosion I heard earlier?”
“Applejack! Am I glad to see you! Help me out of here! And not every explosion around here comes from me, you know!”
Applejack grabbed Twilight’s hoof and yanked. “Ouch!”
“Sorry, Twi’. Yer stuck in there real nice and tight.”
“Well stop yanking and dig me out then!”
Applejack stood back up and gave Twilight a ‘did-you-really-just-tell-me-to-do-that’ look. “Why don’t you just magic yerself outa there?”
“I think that explosion messed with my magic, Applejack. That’s why I’m down here in the first place!”
“Maybe this’ll do fer ya.” Applejack backed up a step and reared.
“No wait-!”
“Yee-haw!” She slammed on the ground hard enough that the ground around Twilight cracked and split. “And there ya go Twilight.” She gripped Twilight’s hooves again and pulled back. Twilight came out with a ‘pop.’ She didn’t waste any time galloping towards her library. Applejack dashed after her.
Twilight explained what she saw on the way. Her teleport had stuck her in the ground about halfway from Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres, so it wasn’t a short run back. When the library came in sight, so did the pony falling. They could see its grey fur and wings. It had already fallen past the top of the library.
“No!” a shout escaped Applejack’s throat, and she started to sprint. Twilight kept up her pace; it was the fastest she could go, and she didn’t want to try to teleport again.
Twilight left Applejack’s mind as she pushed herself to where the pony would land. It had almost hit the ground, and she dove to try and break its fall, not caring for the damage she would do to herself.
After the dust cleared, Applejack looked up from where she lay with tears in her eyes. She had felt no impact, and that and the small crater in front of her told her she had failed. Tears of anger at herself and fear for the unknown pony trickled down her muzzle. She didn’t move as Twilight ran past her and down into the crater.
“Applejack! Quick!” Twilight’s voice broke her moment of self-depreciation and startled her back into motion. She ran down to where Twilight was crouched over the pony, who, somehow through the mangle of broken bones and blood, she could confirm was a male grey pegasus. He had flame-colored hair, much like the Wonderbolt captain. He was large, about her brother’s size, which was odd for a pegasus. She couldn’t identify a cutie mark on him.
Twilight’s voice again broke through her brooding. “He’s alive! Applejack! Run him to the hospital!”
“We can’t move him! What if it’ll hurt him more?”
“It’s that or let him die, Applejack.”
Her decision was made.
-----
Applejack was galloping full speed towards the hospital, trying to make the ride as smooth as possible. She was tiring, though; the pegasus was heavy, another odd thing for a pegasus. Twilight had stayed to send a letter through Spike to give the hospital a heads-up. Applejack started to slow down. No! Keep...goin’...!
A while later, Applejack heard a snarky voice call down to her, one that she had never been so happy to hear. “Applejack! What are you doing? Who is that?”
“Rainbow! Am Ah glad ta see you! Git down here!” After Dash swooped down and started to fly with her at pace, she continued. “I’ll explain later! Take him to the hospital! Quickly!”
Rainbow flew closer, and they transferred Applejack’s load on the run. “Why? Who is this? Gah, he’s heavy!”
“Just go! Twilight sent them a letter explainin’ everythin’! Ah’ll tell you after Ah get there! Go!”
With that, Dash flew off faster than Applejack could keep up with. She slowed down and took a breather. Several minutes later, Applejack arrived at the hospital. When she threw open the doors, she was blasted by a cyan blur. She landed hard on her back. Magenta eyes stared accusingly.
“So what’s going on here? I’m on my way to work, when I hear this explosion, and I’m the only one who does explosions on that scale! I see a giant crater outside Twilight’s house, and I see you running from it with a pony on your back! Then when I sk you about it, you give me this task and no explanation! So cough it up!”
“Git off me! I came here to explain!”
The crackle of teleportation sounded from above where Rainbow straddled Applejack. Rainbow turned her head just in time to see Twilight landing on top of her. Twilight bounced off of the pile, trotting inside the doors, calling over her shoulder, “Sorry, forgot Spike’s out with Rarity!” Rainbow lifted her head off Applejack, trying to get her vision focused again.
“Well, looks like her magic’s startin’ to git back ta normal,’ Applejack observed.
“Huh?”
“Alright, look,” Applejack shoved Rainbow off of her and stood up, grabbing her Stetson off the ground and setting it back on her head. “Here’s what happened...”
-----
“Well. We’ve got nothing.” Spike was blunt.
“There are always gems out here,” Rarity whined.
They were in the usual barren field, digging for gems. Well, Spike was digging, while Rarity was standing in the heat, fanning herself telekinetically with a giant paper fan, wearing one of her giant hats. Their empty cart was hooked up to poor Spike, who was finding nothing with Rarity’s guiding spell.
“Rarity, we aren’t finding anything!”
“My spell isn’t working correctly, Spike, and I don’t know why!”
Her spell was indicating gems that weren’t there, having Spike dig for nothing. He was getting frustrated, but he was trying not to let it show. He let out a breath, running his hand through his head ridges.
“You want to call it a day, Rarity? Or at least take a break for a while? We could go see Twilight, see what’s going on.” Spike was hopeful. It was hot outside. And why didn’t Rainbow Dash set clouds out today?
“Well, I suppose.”
They started on the long trek back to Ponyville. Spike felt odd; the relatively light load of the empty cart felt different than it normally did. It just felt weird, wrong somehow.