//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12 Boy Meets Girl, Boy Blows Girl Up, Boy Loses It In Public 
// Story: Boomer's Crisis 
// by WEKM 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 12 Boy Meets Girl, Boy Blows Girl Up, Boy Loses It In Public
Fifteen years before, Boomer had been helping out the Pie Family Rock Farm, by blasting a group of starter rocks for them over at the nearby quarry. He was all ready to go. The charges had been set. All ponies had been cleared of the blast area. And most of all, Boomer had a good head of mad on, to pump into the blast crystals he had placed around the large sapphire formation to break it free. THAT was going to bring the rock farm a lot of future profit.
He had called the all clear, and pumped his anger energy into the blast crystals. Then, he sparked the fuse and they started counting down. Twenty seconds was enough time for all the quarry ponies to get back under the blast shelters. But Boomer stayed where he was. The blast couldn’t hurt him, and these explosions were the only joy he had left now.
From high above, what he could only describe as an angel swooped down and landed near the sapphire formation. She was a pegasus pony unlike any he had ever seen before. She looked to be barely in her late teens, twenty at the oldest, a good ten years younger than he was. Her body was the color of a ripe orange, and she looked strong, like beat Big Mac in hoof wrestling strong. Her mane and tail were midnight blue with some purple accents, woven into tight braids, and she had the most vivid lavender eyes. He couldn’t help but stare at her beauty.
Then, the countdown from far behind him cut through his admiration. 
“Five!”
Oh gods above! She would never be able to fly clear.
“Four!
He charged down there, knowing it was too late, but praying he could manage to do, something.
“Three!”
Maybe he could get between her and the blast, maybe.
“Two!”
She looked back at him, and saw the horror in his eyes as he charged towards her.
“One!”
Boomer reached her, and shielded as much of her as he could, and tried something he never had before. He tried to pull all his blast magic back out of the crystals he had charged. He couldn’t reach all of them, but maybe at least the ones closest to her.
THOOM!
He felt the massive force of the explosion throw them across the open ground. Shards of rock and shattered crystal slashed against him like bullets from hundreds of guns. And he heard her screams. 
A cold burning was all around his horn stump as he got up, covered in heavy frost. He reached up one hoof, and felt a mass of hard cold over his horn stump. He tapped at it, and ice broke away and rained down in front of his face.
A groan turned him to look at her.
He had shielded, most of her.
She would probably live.
Maybe.
But the whole left side of her face and partway down her neck was a mass of deep cuts and burns. Half that ear was just, gone. Her wing on that side looked like nothing more than shredded meat and bone.
And it was his fault.

They rushed her to the hospital. They started working on her right away, but the doctors weren’t sure how much they would be able to do. If they could stabilize her, they might be able to save her eye, possibly. But they feared her wing was destroyed. When he heard that, Boomer grabbed the doctor and slammed him against the wall. “You save her! You save her eye! You do everything you can an more. Do whatever you can with her wing! I will pay for whatever it takes. But by all that is holy, if she can’t see or fly again, I will see you all in HELL! I will turn this hospital into a smoking crater, and do even worse to you! No more dead ponies because of me!!!” He threw the doctor back down the hall towards the operating room and ran out of the hospital.
Boomer ran to the end of town. Filthy Rich had made an offer for Boomer’s parents home when they had moved away to Baltimare to take care of her aging parents. He had been living there alone since he’d left the army, but it really wasn’t home anymore without them. And he needed money more than he needed the house.
He nearly ran Filthy Rich over on his way to his store. “How much can you give me for my parents house right here, right now?” Filthy hemmed and hawed about needing to get inspections, and appraisals taking time. Boomer screamed back, “None of that matters! How much RIGHT NOW!”
Filthy Rich quoted him a figure that was way below the offer he’d originally made. Boomer knew the house was worth a lot more than that, but right then, he didn’t care. “Fine! Meet me at the bank in ten minutes and it’s yours. If you’re not there, I’ll sell it to the first pony that can be.” and raced to his house to get the papers.
He put all of that, along with nearly all of his savings into a new account, and rushed back to the hospital. As he got to the counter where he had checked her in, some of the hospital security ponies grabbed him. He fought against them as he shoved the bank book at the nurse behind the counter. “This is for the pegasus hurt at the quarry! If it isn’t enough, I’ll get more somehow. Just please, save her! PLEASE!” The anguish in his voice had the security ponies pause, and ease up on their struggles with him. They ended up just holding him up as he wailed, “No more dead ponies because of me! No more dead ponies. Please, no more. No more because of me.”
The doctor who Boomer had yelled at earlier, was stomping towards them in a rage as that had started, but as Boomer broke down, he stopped and just stared at him. Then he turned and told the nurse at the desk, “Nurse Redheart, get a hold of Doctor Stable and Doctor Hugo and get them here STAT. I don’t care if we have to fly him in from Manehatten. Contact Doctor Whooves and Madam Zecora as well. They may be able to help us. Get Princes Celestia if you have to. Just make this happen. We have a pony to work on.” With that, he turned and ran back towards the operating room.
The waiting room had ponies come and go. Some of them tried to talk to Boomer, but he didn’t hear any of them. He just sat slumped in a corner for hour after hour. It got dark, and then light again. At some point, someone made him eat and drink something; at least he thinks that was what happened. Honestly, he couldn’t bring himself to care. 
It was his friend Indigenous Rock who finally broke through the haze. “They’ve taken her to a recovery room. They saved her eye, although it may have some problems. She’ll be able to see, but may need glasses. They did what they could with her wing, but too much of it was damaged. One of the people who came to help thinks they can build her a mechanical one. She’ll be able to fly, but it won’t be like before. They asked if you wanted to go in and see her…”
She lay on the bed asleep, mostly covered in bandages. They said she would make it. But she was damaged, and would never be the same. Because of him. 
He walked over to the bed and reached out a hoof to her, but couldn’t bring himself to touch her. It was his fault.
He turned away from the bed and back to his friend. He handed the bank book over. “See that all the bills get paid. If they need more, let me know. I imagine there will be some sort of physical therapy. Let me know how that goes. The wing, the glasses, anything else she needs, I’ll cover it. Just, just don’t let her know it’s from me. If she asks, tell her it was anonymous donations. NO ONE tells her anything about me. This is my fault. I’ll fix it. But she doesn’t need to know. Tell her I’m sorry for what happened, but nothing else.” And then he left the hospital.
He never went near her again. Many times, he'd watched her from afar, but never face to face.
Oh, there had been attempts to contact him. After he built a room onto his shop so he would have somewhere to live, she had come out there, several times. But he refused to answer the door. He was there in the background when she made her first flight with her prosthetic wing, but he made sure she didn’t see him. He stayed back in the shadows at the ceremony when she opened her own rock quarry, as had always been her dream. She thanked the donations that were left over from her recovery that had helped make it possible and said, “Lots of ponies laughed at me when I was growing up; a pegasus pony who loved rocks and dirt. But I followed my heart and finally, it has led me here. Thank you.”
That was the last time he had seen her, or his friend, close enough to hear her voice. Ten years of hiding away from one more pile of guilt. Hiding away, but keeping watch over her from far off.