The air was a lot chillier up here without the comfort of the gondola to block the wind and the heat of the balloon's burner. I shivered lightly, making the extremely warm coat I rested on all the nicer. Rainbow Dash sat on her haunches on the clouds as we both watched the hot air balloon navigate into position below. My waist and under my shoulders were hooked through the leather harness. To ease up the strain on her, my back legs were resting on the clouds. It was vaguely similar to standing on pillows. Twilight cast some sort of cloud walking magic on me, 'just in case', as she had said.
My eyes remained closed as I gently drifted in and out of sleep. The barrier was hooked up to my life force still and made me tired far faster. It didn't help that I felt sick as well, although my insides seemed to be getting used to whatever my form now consisted of. I wasn't entirely sure if that's a good thing or not, but decided to just go with the flow for now.
Rainbow Dash slowly breathed in and out below me, not seeming apprehensive at all. My head was tucked onto her right shoulder tiredly, her mane flowing over me and mixing with mine. It kept out the wind nicely, and smelled of a faint spice, oddly enough. She didn't seem to be straining in the least and just looked around quietly. Her composure surprised me.
"First line up is almost complete. How are you two holding up?" I heard Twilight ask, a voice lightly whispered inside of my ear. She'd given the spell to all of us, saying it would last about two hours. It was some sort of basic distant verbal communication spell, to time things.
"Totally bored," Rainbow Dash groaned, shaking her head weakly. Her mane tickled my nose and I tried hard not to sneeze.
The urge dwindling, I sighed weakly, adding, "No changes. Just sleepy."
"It’s probably the barrier. I'd tell you to give it a rest, but Dash wouldn't appreciate that," Twilight replied. I mentally envisioned her trademark smirk.
"Oh! That would be bad. Um, could you please keep it up for a l-little longer, Mender?" Fluttershy asked hesitantly, this time earning a snicker from Rainbow Dash.
Twilight groaned. "I wasn't serious, Fluttershy. How are you two doing, AJ? Rarity?" she asked, sounding frustrated.
"We'd be done ahn apple buckin' half hour ago, if Rare here'd stop switchin' the flags out!" I heard Applejack growl. I winced myself out of dozing and sighed at her volume. Rainbow started snickering even more.
"Please! You simply need to pull them to the top faster. I mean, really now. These beauties have to match and compliment perfectly," Rarity protested. It earned a low groan from Twilight, an amused giggle from Pinkie, and a growl from Applejack. "Well, I never! How else is the poor mare to see them from up there? They must stand out!" she added after a huff.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that landing lights might be better suited, not that they likely existed here. Actually, given my 'driver', perhaps a large bull's-eye painted to a stunt-grade air cushion might be the best idea. "But Dashie has really good eyesight, Rarity," Pinkie suddenly spoke up. Dashie?
"Totally true. My eyes are as cool as I am, remember?" Rainbow 'reminded', stretching out her wings and giving what felt like a cliché pose.
"B-But, isn't that a pegasus thing?" Fluttershy asked timidly.
Rainbow deflated and sighed, shaking her head. Her mane tickled my nose again, and I scrunched my face up. "I've got even more awesome eyesight than the average!" she corrected, fussing.
"An' three times the ego," Applejack tacked on in a lower voice, sounding a little annoyed.
Rainbow jerked her head and made a stomping motion, causing me to lurch forward and getting one of her mane hairs shoved up my nose. Crap! I think it was a blue one. I tried to pull my head away but it was far too late.
"Hey, when you're as awesome as I am, you," she started to declare. My entire body shook as I violently sneezed, blowing her mane sideways with a blast of air and mucus, getting her directly in the right ear.
Rainbow Dash almost flailed off the cloud, a shrill, "Yeeeeee!" being emitted. She managed to fall on her face seconds before we took a spiraling dive towards the ground.
"What's wrong?!" Twilight asked, sounding startled. Pinkie must have recognized the sound however, and burst into laughter.
"Not! Cool!" Rainbow Dash growled, scooping up some clouds in her hooves and trying to 'wipe' her mane off.
I blushed and gave a sheepish smile, feeling a little mortified and apologizing, "I'm sorry. Your mane tickles."
Pinkie gasped for air between bouts of laughing. "That was so funny! My Pinkie sense told me he was gonna sneeze and I was so going to warn ya, but I'm so bored down here and I thought a prank would be really fun, so I stayed quiet! Of course, I didn't know it was gonna be such an epic sneeze or I would have given you an umbrella earlier, but I forgot when that group of birds flew past. They were singing the coolest song! But I'd much prefer a banjo. I wonder if a bird could learn to play one? Octavia might know. Of course, I'm almost out of cake, so..."
"Pinkie..." Twilight groaned. My headache flared up again as I painfully tried to follow her repeated topic derailing.
"...and then Derpy smashed into the counter and sent baking supplies everywhere! It took over an hour to clean up, but that was a lot of fun too. Chocolate syrup is really hard to clean out of your coat, but oh so tasty! We must have stayed in the bath for hours because I was all wrinkly pinkly and," she plowed on, apparently not hearing Twilight. Wait, what?!
Rainbow Dash gave up sulking and started laughing instead. "Pinkie!" Twilight shouted, causing me to wince in pain.
"Huh?" the pink one asked, momentarily knocked out of the cacophony of madness she had shifted into once more.
"The net? Is it ready?" Twilight asked impatiently. I sympathized with her pain.
Pinkie giggled merrily. "Oh, that? Yuppers! It was done a while ago, Silly Willy!" she declared whimsically. I caught myself smiling, regardless of how tired I felt. Twilight let out a weak sigh, and I heard a scratching noise. Her pen on the paper?
"Pre-Checklist Checklist is thus concluded. We're ready to begin our first run, then!" Twilight announced. I frowned to myself, wondering what was on full checklist now. Did she really need two?
Rainbow Dash stood up and flexed lightly, shaking her hooves one at a time. "Finally. We should just do this. Whether it works or doesn't, at least it gets the jitters out," she pointed out.
My body shifted at different angles as she stretched, and she smirked back at me. "Are you sure you can do this with me on your back?" I asked, a little nervous.
"You're light as a feather. I could haul you around all day," she assured, giving an absent-minded wave back at me. The powerful muscles were very apparent as they shifted under her skin, and I honestly didn't doubt her. "You really should put on a bit more weight, though. It's kinda sad to see a stallion as shrimpy as you," she tacked on shortly after, returning to her smirk. My ears flattened back as I glared at her.
"He doesn't need t-to. He's fine the way he is," Fluttershy defended. A twinkle lit up in Dash's eyes and I prepared for the most obvious retort.
Applejack beat her, though. "Ah think ah bit o' muscle will do him some good. It's ah healthy look, an'll go ah long way ta gettin' the mares interested," she lectured gently, with a hint of amusement in her voice. Er, what? Rainbow started snickering and nodded in agreement.
"H-Hey, that's n-not true. Some mares l-like the gentler l-look. Lots of m-muscles can be s-scary," Fluttershy nervously defended, voice barely audible. I noticed, interestingly enough, that they all seemed to instinctively quiet down when she said anything, most of the time. They must be used to her.
Twilight made a light tisking noise, before adding, "Fluttershy's right. Personality is a far bigger draw than physical appearances. I for one, greatly value a conversation as well."
"Huh. Well ah'll be. Ah reckon' ya don't need no help attractin' the mares after all," AJ muttered, now sounding even more amused. Ug. That would just stir things up, insinuating they liked me back. Why did she and Dash insist on throwing salt into the wound periodically? Wait, why were we even talking about this?!
There was a light choking noise and an almost inaudible squeak in behind it, from two entirely separate voices. See what I mean? "Wh-What is that supposed to mean?!" Twilight asked, sounding badly stunned. I kinda wish I could see her face, now. The cyan mare I was strapped to promptly burst into copious amounts of laughter and rolled onto her back, wiggling. I sighed in automatic resignation as I was flipped upside down and dipped into the cloud. Okay then, it only treated my legs as solid. That was good to know.
"For Celestia's sake, focus girls! All four of you are correct. Personality is the most important facet, but an appealing body type is obviously not without its pleasantness," Rarity spoke up, intervening and cooling off the debate before it started, and probably saving us the better part of the morning. Not that I was complaining, exactly. Listening to a bunch of cute mares bicker was certainly better than being flung through a potentially lethal quantum portal to another reality in attempts to rescue your other self.
Pinkie disrupted everything with a sharp gasp. "Wait, this is peeeeerfect! We should all have a super awesome sleepover after this, and discuss what we like to see in somepony else! I'll get the snacks, of course," she squealed, sounding suddenly ecstatic. The blood started to pool in my skull. I couldn’t decide if it was from the Pinkie Effect, or me still hanging upside-down.
There was a collective groan from Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack. I think I heard a timid whimper in there somewhere, too, but that might be the effects of the blood rush. "Pinkie, dear, it's a simply splendid idea, but we need to focus now. How about we plan out all of the details after this fiasco is done, all right?" Rarity suggested politely.
"Aww, phooey. Well, okay. I'll just have to make sure it's that much more fun, then!" the pink party mare declared, obviously not staying put out for very long.
"Wonderful! I deeply look forward to it. Oh, also, I would like to have a word with Fluttershy and Twilight in private, after all of this," Rarity requested.
There was a momentary pause before Twilight hesitantly agreed with, "Well uh, certainly, Rarity. I'm not sure why, but Fluttershy and I don't mind." I could almost picture her gesturing towards the probably shaking ball of yellow fur and feathers with her in the balloon.
"Can't... feel my hooves," I muttered weakly, shaking the dizziness away.
"Oh! Oops, I kinda forgot you were there," Rainbow muttered, rolling over again.
The blood rushing out of my head disoriented me and I momentarily clung to her neck as my head spun. "Wonderful. Thank you so much for that," I muttered weakly.
Rainbow snickered, unfazed by my sarcasm. "Welcome! Throw up in my mane and I dangle you off the cloud by your tail," she warned, earning a low groan from me.
"Dash! Be careful with him," Twilight reprimanded, as if I were a fragile technical instrument. Well, I was a little fragile, I guess.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's get started, though," Dash requested, walking to the edge of the cloud again and peeking over it.
The four flags were barely visible to me but I imagined her eyesight was several times better. Well, this was either going to be really awesome, or be the most agonizingly painful moment of my brief life. Twilight's balloon was drifting off to the side of the point we were aiming for and I saw the tissue line Pinkie was slowly extending from the gondola. She drifted away from the underside of the balloon on her strange, candy gyrocopter, and gave us a salute as she reached full extension.
Personally, I thought Twilight was the insane one. Our goal was to hit the Sonic Rainboom right there, next to both Pinkie and Twilight. Just based off the explosion I had seen from Rainbow Dash simply landing, I had to guess that her Rainboom was significantly worse. For all purposes, I hoped Pinkie was really good at bouncing at high velocity.
"Okay then. Markup spread, check. Flags lined up visually, check. Balloon and Fluttershy in place, check," Twilight started the final listing. I heard a light scratching against paper with each item and assumed she had a physical list. Her level of preparation was impressive. Scanning past Rainbow's mane, I was frustrated that I couldn't manage to see Fluttershy. Where was she 'in place' at, and what was her duty?
Twilight's and Rainbow's duties were obvious. Rainbow was to generate an absurd amount of energy in however manner she managed to do it, and then hurl me through using the release cord on her chest. I’d been very adamant on being the only one to go through the portal, just in case. Twilight then would solidify the portal that I activated using her magic and hold it open for me. Applejack and Rarity were on ground level recovery, in case something went wrong and somepony hit the net. Pinkie was here for holding the target streamer in place and for midair recovery, which I honestly thought Fluttershy would be doing. Speaking of, I had no idea why Applejack had brought a massive tub of apples along, or why Spike was brought up to the balloon after we were dropped off.
Something was off. I think Twilight was up to something and suspected Rainbow Dash thought so as well, if the looks she was giving Twilight indicated anything. Well, I suppose it didn't matter, anyway. "Net secured, check. Applejack and Rarity in place, double check! The readings are normal as well, and we're dead on," Twilight finished up. I sensed a bit of apprehension, mixed with excitement in her voice.
"We ready to do this, then?" Rainbow Dash asked, grinning suddenly and shifting her weight back and forth on her hooves.
Twilight sighed uneasily. “Is it too late to state that I think this is crazy? I’m sure… um, Princess Celestia could be here by as soon as Saturday. Probably. If I sent… a letter…” she spoke up quietly.
“Yeah, it’s a little late to call it off now. We’ll be fine, Twi. Have faith in us!” Rainbow retorted, bumping her right hoof to her chest and giving a nod. I dexterously avoided her mane this time.
There was another sigh, more frustrated this time instead. "Begin when ready then, Rainbow," Twilight acknowledged, with a light swallowing noise after.
Rainbow gave a curt nod, to nobody in particular, and started backing up. My nerves spiked up and I realized I was now wide awake as my stomach started dancing. "M-Mender, remember, p-please come back. You h-have to, okay?" I suddenly heard Fluttershy whisper, almost drown out by the thudding of Dash's heart beneath me.
I swallowed weakly and squeezed around the cyan mare's neck lightly, wishing I had just a bit more time. "I'll try my hardest, Fluttershy. I really will," I returned quietly.
"Hang on tight, Partner," Rainbow warned. Her voice went cold as I felt every muscle in her body tense and her wings jut out to the side. We took our final, half step back upon reaching the end of the cloud. Her sleek, muscled body tensed, if but for a second, before snapping like a spring. One bound, then two. She skipped on the second, managing to clear the entire surface of the cloud in just those two bounds, wings up at an arc now. My heart skipped a beat at the same time her wings became a downwards blur, and we were gone.
The side of the cloud disappeared frighteningly fast and I felt my stomach lurch downwards into her back. The force of ascension surprised me completely and I wondered what her insides were made of to take this so casually. Coiled steel? Three seconds passed. The pressure was off as we hung in the air, still for a moment. She didn't flap but simply rotated with her velocity, turning her nose towards the ground with practiced precision. The rest of her body followed suit and her wings tucked at an angle. It all happened so quickly I could barely keep up. The wind blasted my eyes suddenly as we dropped into a brutal, eighty-five degree dive straight towards the ground. I closed them finally against the stinging and held on harder. Rainbow twisted and entered an extremely tight spiral in the air.
We completed a solid three rotations before she snapped her wings up again and we lurched out of it, trajectory heading right for the thin ribbon so far below, I guessed. Air flooded my nose forcefully and I wondered if I'd get a nosebleed from this. Breathing in became simple and out lethally hard as she accelerated further. Her neck straightened, her legs tucked in, and her wings angled tightly against her body as she became even more aerodynamic against the air. Somehow, we accelerated even more, slowly building beyond the already insane velocity. I tucked my head in as close to her neck as I could to maximize aerodynamics.
The balloon rapidly grew larger as I tried to lock my jaw shut. My lips and cheeks were catching the flow of air as they were pulled apart. My nostrils burned as well, frigid air blasting into them to match our speeds. She tucked in even more, like a bullet now. Thankfully that comparison would fall short here. That's why you're doing this, Mender. To make sure it stays that way.
"Tsh, too slow!" Rainbow shouted above the airflow. I watched her wings angle slightly, and our trajectory curved. Our angle of descent spiked up to almost eighty-seven percent. Any further and we'd be going straight down!
"Abort, Rainbow! Angle is wrong. You're going to miss the target!" Twilight shouted back.
If Rainbow heard her, she didn't react to it. Our angle ticked even closer to ninety, balloon looming even closer. We were off mark by almost four meters. We also weren't producing a Sonic Rainboom, it seemed.
"No. I... I can do this!" Rainbow snarled, gritting her teeth as the air pressure buffeted us from all sides. It felt almost like she was elongating, forces tearing us backwards as she bull headedly smashed into an impossibly strong barrier right in front of her.
I suddenly realized why only Rainbow had done a Sonic Rainboom. Her very being was geared for this. Most would shy away from these kinds of forces but she just stubbornly smashed on, consequences be damned. It takes, to be figurative, a certain level of balls to see if you or physics would snap first. Either that or insanity. She lived for the rush, and I was both deeply impressed and terrified at the same time.
"Rainbow! I knew it," I heard Twilight growl, followed by, "Fluttershy, now!" What was she doing?
The balloon approached rapidly. There was no correcting our trajectory anymore. I hoped that the precise location wasn't needed because we weren't going to hit it. "Shift tha net, Pinkie!" I heard Applejack scream, to the background noise of her heavy galloping. Then my breath caught.
Twilight dove out of the side of her balloon. Fluttershy followed her less than half a second later, closing the distance through the air. No! We shot past them in an eyeblink and I winced. No explosion of prismatic light. Either it looked different from within, or we missed our altitude as well. "What the hay?!" Rainbow screamed, wings starting to flinch in hesitation.
"Somepony has to wedge the portal, even if it opens well below the height of the balloon," Rarity spoke calmly, which was a strange sensation with winds from hell screaming around me.
"Shy has her, don't worry!" Pinkie added, in a singsong manner. Thank you, Pinkie! I couldn't turn to look, after all.
Sadly, it looked like the ground was our next checkpoint. Giving in, Rainbow dropped our angle to as close to ninety as she could manage. It felt like my stomach dangled from my back hooves. "Too much resistance," I heard her mutter weakly. The last of the clouds blew away and my view of the ground was now unimpeded. Not good. That meant we were running out of air space to pull this off.
"Abort, Dash!" Twilight called out desperately. It felt like my bones were starting to turn to mush as we sped up even more. Way past target now, our chances of this working dwindled into the single digits. Rainbow bottomed out our angle and started a slow rotation. It felt like my skin was going to tear off as I almost saw a physical wall of air we were indenting into! It formed a cone from her rigidly outstretched forelegs and widened out over us. It felt like it was squishing us together and breathing rapidly became impossible. My heart slammed into my ribs repeatedly, as I began to make out the forest and trees below.
What was she doing?! This wasn't working and if we hit the ground at this speed, it would take weeks to find every piece of us! Realizing I was about to be reduced to the consistency of raspberry jam, my eyes slammed shut and I tensed up. Well, they'd definitely get rid of the link this way.
"Rainbow!" I heard Applejack scream out, panic now evident.
"I can do this!" Rainbow Dash shot back as we rocketed towards the ground like a missile. AJ. Rainbow had reasons to live. Why was she doing this? Even if she pulled the rip cord here, she’d still crash into the ground instead.
My thoughts from earlier returned. It was bigger than either of us. Maybe they had nothing. Maybe they hadn't even noticed. But maybe they were mere minutes from opening a stable portal to here. The potential risk was huge. Was I a hero? Did I set out to save this world? Hell no. I didn't want to die. Dying terrified me. But what was the alternative, if I didn't want to risk it? Make this entire universe take the risk instead? I was just a normal person, even before I became a normal pony. The fate of the universe was utterly beyond me when I could barely manage fate of my own breakfast each morning.
But that didn't hold a flame to what was right, now did it? It suddenly seemed so simple. Smiling then, I let go of Rainbow's neck and just let the straps hold me. My forelegs whipped backwards in the blink of an eye with a light snapping noise, going pleasantly numb instantly, probably from shock. There. Aerodynamics maximized.
I heard Rainbow gasp as she felt it but I cut her off with, "Go."
It was barely a whisper but she nodded and snapped her wings back further. The cone tightened, practically crushing us as I saw crackles of energy along the very tip. Individual trees were visible now and the ground lurched into view with amazing speed, familiar crater off to the right. A strange calm slipped into me, as I put my trust in the cyan bolt of pony lightning that was dragging me downwards. A bolt of energy skipped off my left cheek as I wondered what would happen.
"No!" I heard Twilight scream out, as I felt the tingle of her magic trying to catch up with us. Too late. Rainbow seemed to almost outpace reality. She was the fastest pony alive, without a doubt.
The blades of grass in the field burned away as they touched her forehooves. The cone of air snapped into a rainbow explosion that radiated in all directions, obliterating dirt and grass alike in a sudden, deafening roar. Then we hit the ground.
* * * * *
Okay, that was a pretty odd sensation, I admit. We just kept going. I felt the ground as we passed through it, rainbow hues distorting and twisting as all of our velocity was killed in an instant. Well no, not exactly. Our velocity was still here, but shifted in another direction, I guessed. I had no time to consider it, however.
The connection opened fully. I felt it. My mind lit on fire as I screamed, suddenly feeling myself in two very different places at once. He was me, aware of his own body as much as I was aware of mine. Two bodies, two minds, one consciousness. The immediate pain was dulled, as I felt two sets of eyes, both closed. One was asleep. I suddenly realized that. His mind was dreaming it seemed. Frowning, I felt the images drifting. The end of the world was being played back in slow motion. So those were dreams I had visited when my pony body slept? A sudden apprehension occurred then. What was real, if that was a dream? All I could get were the images from the dream itself. Frustratingly enough, no memories returned with the connection.
My eyes opened wide, as I forced myself to think through the disorientation. I was me! Nobody else. I could feel him, and he thought like me, but he was asleep. He was also me, but that didn't do me any good, so I pushed it back and solidified my grasp on just me instead. My eyes focused again and I realized I had gone rigid.
Rainbow Dash flailed under me and ultimately went nowhere. We appeared to be in a strange prismatic tunnel of some sort. "No, flying isn't working, and he's frozen still," Dash responded, to a question I missed.
"Yer moving down the tunnel, thou'?" Applejack asked into the magic.
It suddenly occurred to me. It had worked! We were passing through an active portal. Lines of purple light gently held it open as we drifted. "Yeah. The air is getting thinner, too. It's like when I fly really high up," Dash complained. Uh oh. Wait, my barrier was gone! My cyan transportation showed a distinct lack of screaming in agony while being wrapped up in quantum flesh slime however, so I guessed that I was safe to touch, now.
Groaning, I let my muscles relax gently. The sharp pain from my forelegs told me they were either broken or torn. Either way, they were useless, so I pushed the thought from my head. "We might have a problem, then," I managed to mutter.
"Mender!" Twilight exclaimed, suddenly sounding happy again.
"Oh, th-thank goodness. We were r-really worried about you," Fluttershy added quietly, voice warming me up.
Rainbow looked back at me and gave a smile. Her eyes belayed nervousness, yet a certain amount of relief. Had she thought she was going to be doing this by herself? "Glad you're awake. I thought I'd have to haul you back unconscious. What's the problem?" she asked, shifting back to her brash and annoyed facade in an instant.
"My images were dreams, not current information. I'm not sure if there's a localized atmosphere where we're headed," I informed rapidly, fighting down the headache.
Dash frowned and looked confused, but Twilight beat her to the punch with, "Oh no. That means there's no air, Dash!"
"Like water?" Dash asked, tilting her head slightly.
"No. Like nothingness. It's a vacuum. That means there is no air or other objects of mass present. Space, was our word for it," I explained.
Dash seemed horrified, but finally got it. "What the hay are we supposed to do, then?! I can't turn around and we kinda can't breathe there. Totally not cool!" she declared, entirely understatedly.
"The tunnel's one way, but I'm charging up a teleport spell to pull you two back. Ideas on not dying until it's ready would be appreciated," Twilight requested, sounding a little stressed.
Admittedly, as our air thinned more, I was starting to get a little apprehensive too. Plus, Rainbow wasn't supposed to follow me through this thing. I couldn't let her die, even if I didn't care about myself. My mind whipped into high gear. Wait, I could still feel my other self. We were essentially the same entity, right? If I had fingers, I would have crossed them as I tapped into my other self's energy pool.
Rainbow gave me a weird look when I shouted "Yes!" at the top of my lungs, almost crying in happiness. His entire energy pool had refilled while asleep. My current body was brand new, and its level of magical energy was pathetic in comparison to my other self. Tapping into it, I rapidly started forming symbols around Rainbow Dash and I, forming two independent, skin tight layers of shielding. No hole was needed in me, as ‘he’ was doing the casting! Same as my last barrier, but this one held air in, sealing us. Pulling a massive level of air from the tunnel, I started filling a large bubble in the barrier, for storage.
"Whoa, what's this stuff?" Rainbow asked, looking at her forelegs curiously.
"I pressure sealed us and made a makeshift air tank using my other self's energy reserves," I explained curtly, still focusing on cramming as much air in as possible.
There was a shifting and the tunnel started to disperse around us. I felt Twilight pushing as much air as she could down the tunnel and I greedily sucked it up as it came. There wasn't much time however, as we phased through another rock and were unceremoniously dumped into open vacuum.
It wasn't as dark as anticipated, the light from our old star shining through the massive debris field. Impossibly huge chunks of planet drifted above and I realized in horror that this was in real time compared to Equestria. The chunks had already started to cool and I knew heat loss through thermal radiation took a really long time. Something was keeping my other self alive, then. Gravity was almost non-existent, and it took us almost ten seconds to drift to the ground. Ours was one of the slightly smaller chunks of planet it seemed.
Rainbow Dash gasped, scrambling as she finally touched down, incidentally boosting us weightlessly into a jutting rock, which she latched onto and looked around. "Whoa! This is totally awesome!" she declared, finally starting to grin. Well, that wasn't expected. Considering it used to be my world, I had trouble matching her enthusiasm.
"I finally got a lock on you two with my magic. You're a ways away from the portal, probably having drifted off course due to the change in transfer locations," Twilight reported. That didn't surprise me.
Rainbow got a flustered look again, so I cut her off prematurely with, "She means you missed the target, so we popped out someplace else. How far and in what direction, Twilight?"
"Hey, it's not my fault the aerodynamics were off and slowed us down," Rainbow grumbled, crossing her forelegs in a pout. As that's what she was holding onto the rock with, we immediately started to drift again as the rock slowly rotated. She let out a yelp seconds later and grabbed the chunk of planet once more.
Twilight let out a curious humming noise, before sighing quietly in relief. "Only a kilometer or so. It's straight 'up' from your current location," she informed, a few seconds later.
"An' that reminds me. We’re gonna have ah serious discussion 'bout yer risk takin' when ya get back, Rainbow," Applejack suddenly spoke up. I suppressed a snicker as Dash blushed lightly.
"I had it totally under control, AJ. Don't worry," Rainbow tried to waive off.
Applejack let out a derisive snort. "Too late fer not worryin', Sugar Cube. Ah thought ah was gonna lose ya when ya tried that there craziness, an' ah can't unfeel those feelin's. Promise that yer never gonna do that again, an' we'll talk when ya get back," she requested, sounding surprisingly serious.
"I know. Sorry, AJ. We can talk when I get back," Rainbow actually apologized, looking a little glum.
"A-And please get M-Mender home too," Fluttershy added timidly. My turn to blush.
The cyan mare snickered and nodded to nobody in particular. "Sure thing, Shy. We just have to go up there and grab his other form, and then we'll be back in ten seconds flat, piece of cake," she assured, giving our friendly rock a smack with her hoof. Well, at least she seemed confident again?
"You have cake there?! Jealous! Eating cake in this ‘Space’ place sounds like so much fun," Pinkie chimed in, sounding a bit miffed. Actually, it did kinda sound fun, as much as I hated myself to admit.
"Nah. Cake's what we're havin' after, Pinkie. We're gonna throw one blinger o' ah party!" Applejack corrected affectionately.
There was a gasp, followed by, "Yay! That's an amazing idea! A 'welcome home with your alternate reality self' party! I'll get right on planning," Pinkie promised, causing my brain to spit out error reports. How many types of parties does she have?! How could she possibly plan for this type of situation? She was a genius. Or insane.
"Wait, how do we get up there? I'm flapping, but nothing's happening," Rainbow asked, struggling to gain momentum using her wings.
Oh yeah. No air. "Oh, there's no air here for your wings to use for lift. And no gravity, either. Uh, give me a second," I requested, considering the issue. I could give her magic thrusters but I'd rather leave her in control of the mobility. Her reaction time was worlds ahead of mine.
"Flying won't be like normal, then. There won't be an up or down, Dash. Just fly in the direction you want to go in," Twilight explained, as I got another idea. Her wings! She was definitely used to those. My magic activated and I started weaving thruster after thruster in magic symbols along her wings. Account for her movement, and then give a burst of thrust to simulate the amount of force she’d normally generate per flap! Perfect. It would take a lot of thruster symbols, though.
Dash didn't respond and instead decided to watch what I was doing with her wings. I wove micro-thrusters up and down the length of her wingspan. I hummed to myself as my mind worked. Main thruster on the root of the wing. Output uniformly regulated in ratio to that. All others treated as auxiliary and conforming to regulation. I noticed I was going through a mental checklist as I cast the magic and smiled, finding it oddly comforting. "I'm attaching magic thruster disks to your wings and telling them to turn on and off with your movement," I explained gently, finishing with the left and moving onto the right.
She nodded quietly and continued to simply watch, curious it seemed. "Oh, smart! That way she can use her talents fully," Twilight agreed, giving a contemplative hum after.
"They'll need to be calibrated, but it'll do in a pinch," I agreed.
Rainbow surprised me by whipping her head around and looking up into the dust and chunks of rock. "Wait, did you hear that?" she asked, quietly.
"Hear? You couldn't have heard anything. There's no atmosphere here," I reasoned, frowning.
Sure enough however, there was a light clattering. It sounded like rocks skipping off other rocks. A few moments later, I saw a few chunks of debris clatter into the side of our drifting sanctuary. There must be the tiniest bit of atmosphere still present. I definitely didn't trust it to breathe, though. "There's something really, really big moving around up there. It's huge!" Rainbow exclaimed, squinting into the debris.
I swallowed. Uh oh. The Grosh couldn't still be here, could they? No, of course not. They only stay in systems they're interested in, with the emphasis of interest being planets or structures they decidedly didn't blow up. They blew this planet up, so why would they stick around? Unless of course they found something aside from the planet interesting. My blood ran cold as I shivered. No, it couldn't be.
"She's right. There's a large, moving object close to the portal that's admitting heat and light. I can't get visuals through this thing. Ug," Twilight confirmed. Damn it.
It needed to be identified. "What shape is it?" I asked cautiously. They were predictable, if nothing else. They used technology with singular purpose. Every ship they had, even if complex and massive, only ever had one purpose or theme of purposes.
"Yah, an' how big are we talkin' 'bout, 'ere?" Applejack asked curiously a few seconds later.
I could almost picture Twilight frowning as she let out a low exhale, probably concentrating again. "It seems to be the shape of an angular turtle shell from the front. I can't feel the back, so it's at least two kilometers long, by one and a half.
"Oh mah goodness," Applejack muttered. I groaned weakly in agreement.
"Uh, that's big, right?" Rainbow Dash asked, looking exceedingly apprehensive.
I nodded and peeked through my memories for a comparison. "Um, think Dragon Mountain, but moving?" Twilight suggested a few seconds later.
"What the hay are we supposed to do about that?" Rainbow growled after her moment of horrified shock passed.
"It’s a research vessel without heavy military weapons. Grab my other self and flee in terror through the portal?" I offered, just to toss it out there. In reality, I doubted it would be so simple. The size and shape lead me to believe it was one of their research frigates, which was well, bad.
Rainbow Dash stared blankly for a brief second, before snickering and nodding. "Admittedly, that sounds better. I may be awesome, but taking on a mountain is pushing it," she finally agreed.
"Especially one with Tachyon Lasers," I tacked on, doing the math in my head. We were two dinky sources of body heat amidst still warm planet wreckage. Chances are, they had no idea we were here, which gave us the stealth advantage.
There was a light huff. "Is that somethin' big an' bad from yer world?" Applejack asked, sounding a tad annoyed at my vagueness.
"Technically still in my world, thankfully. And yeah. Long range pulse laser meant for blowing nifty holes in reinforced plating, bypassing traditional shielding," I elaborated, finishing the other wing finally.
"What of magic shielding?" Twilight asked hesitantly.
I smirked and shook my head. "If angled right, it skips right off. They really hated our magic," I informed, still glad my specialty was barriers and support magic.
"Sweet! We have a fighting chance then! They won't know what hit em," Rainbow agreed, sliding naturally back into her confident normal self.
Laughing, I shook my head at her bravado and activated her thruster arrays. She gave a surprisingly giddy grin and gave an experimental flap.
We smashed into the bottom of the landmass above us less than a second later, me first of course. "Whoa!" she yelped, rotating me off the rock and 'standing' upside down on it. My head spun and I coughed lightly to flex my lungs back into inflation, wheezing. Oh well. I didn't need those vertebrae. Ponies have extra, right? Right?
"Can ya turn em down a bit until we clear these rocks?" she requested, looking back at me. My head cleared again and I winced, a sharp pain reminding me of the condition of my forelegs.
I glanced to the right and saw that the leg had come undone from being tucked under me and was wedged against the rocks. "Aaahaha. Can you uh, use your wing to shove my right foreleg back under me, so it doesn't hit anything?" I asked, gritting my teeth sharply.
"Er, you can't do it yourself?" Dash asked skeptically, turning and looking at the mangled and swollen limb. Her eyes widened significantly.
"Ah, not exactly. They're either broken or have severe muscle damage. Not using up magic to find out," I grumbled impatiently, wishing the agony would stop.
"What?!" Twilight shouted over the spell. There was a sharp intake of breath, followed up with a light squeaking that was decidedly very Fluttershy in nature.
Rainbow gently took her wing and shuffled the leg back under me. "Oh dear. This is simply the worst possible thing that could have happened! How did they get hurt?" Rarity asked, sounding, in her own vocabulary, 'simply mortified' at the thought. I didn't have the heart to retort that having our flesh sizzled off by a Tachyon Laser would be a little worse.
"Apparently, letting your arms go limp just prior to, ah!" I yelped as Rainbow secured my leg under me, before pulling it together and continuing, "Prior to Sonic Rainboom velocity is a really bad idea. Air friction did a number on them."
Rainbow frowned, but nodded. "Both front legs, right? Can you manage?" she asked, looking back up in the direction of where the other me should be located.
I smirked, masking the pain with a confident expression. "I used to be a soldier. Of course," I assured. It was a rarely spoken of language. It didn't actually mean 'of course', but instead that the mission was way more important and stopping now wasn't an option. I recalled suddenly having heard it a lot. Most of the speakers of the phrase and its many variations hadn't made it. Oh, wait. I was technically the only one to make it at all, in all probability.
"Oh no. No, no! I'm preparing to teleport both of you back to safety still," Twilight protested.
"Twi, we can't leave without his other self," Dash reminded, scratching lightly at the loose dirt along the underside of the rock we were on.
There was a sharp gasp almost instantly. "Oh no, please don't do that! I'd have to re-write all of these cool 'welcome back with your alternate reality twin' banners!" Pinky protested.
"Uh, yer makin' the decorations now, Pinks?" Applejack asked, sounding perturbed.
"Oh, it's a g-good idea, Pinkie. H-He might need m-medical attention first, is a-all Applejack is saying," Fluttershy spoke up.
There was a momentary pause, as I contemplated exactly what it was like to be Pinkie Pie. "Ooh! Okay, I'll decorate his hospital room then, and we'll party there instead!" she corrected, not really missing a beat.
My head started to hurt, so I finished turning down the thrusters instead. Rainbow lightly flapped off the chunk of rock, doing a spin and landing back on our original one. She stabilized herself and then grinned back at me. "At least let me lock onto you two, and charge up the teleports. Then I can whisk you away in a moment's notice," Twilight finally consented. Wait...
"Uh, Twilight? How visual is that locking spell?" I asked rapidly.
"Huh? Why?" she asked, exactly as she cast it. Rainbow and I both became distinctly aware of a sudden flash as two beams of purple energy homed out of the rocks like angry hornets and smashed into us. We were tagged with a light purple glow, after.
There was a sudden flurry of movement and I saw several beams of light shine down into the debris, following the purple light. Aw, crap.