I didn't know how long it was before I woke up. I didn't know how long it was before everyone else woke up, too.
I cracked my eyes open only to be greeted with hazy vision. I caught the glimpse of a huge electrical spark though, and I hurriedly shut them again through my own reflexes. I didn't want to get anything in my eyes.
A few seconds later, after some of the audible cackling of electricity faded, I reopened them, looking away from the source of the other sudden spark that decided prolonged itself It gave me a tiny bit of light to look around with. Even with that much, I still couldn't see much; there were things thrown everywhere from the crash landing we had no choice to take. Among the major debris I did see, though, were some support beams, paneling, stray wires and a few other parts of the ship's anatomy.
My legs? I tried moved them to make sure I could both feel them and make sure neither of them were missing. My left leg was slightly spread to the side and it had a heavy pipe laying over it, and though it hurt like hell... Legs, I've still got legs!
What about my arms and hands? I wiggled my fingers, and yep, they were still working and there was nothing sticking out of them, or my arms. I told myself I wasn't hurt, because I really didn't feel pain other than the beam on my leg and a few slight bruises on my body.
I honestly really struggled to lift the cylindrical girder off of my leg, but when it clambered onto the floor with a loud clang, it rolled away and I eagerly patted myself up from the floor, realizing a horrid weakness in the same leg that carried the weight of a ton just a few seconds ago.
"Luna!" I called out for her. "Luna, are you okay!?
Nothing.
"Can you hear me?"
"Where are you?" she called back, bringing me a huge relief.
Right, like I know... "I don't know. just follow my voice and come here. Everyone, in fact." No one else responded until just a few seconds later, as I heard Luna asking for my voice repeatedly.
Sky was relatively close to me, his voice coming from below. He had just regained consciousness seemingly just as soon as I asked where anyone else was.
"I'm...here." he slurred weakly. I heard him getting to his hooves, taking much caution as he attained balance. "So you and Luna are here, still."
"Me too, Sky. Bullseye's voice began to travel to me faster, as he was most likely following the pilot's own voice. I tried to use the white gem imbedded in my arm to move some of the debris from around us, but, for one, I couldn't see much of anything, that, and I couldn't concentrate enough to will it to move. My primary concern was relevant with everyone's well being.
Luna was the first to find her way to me, and she hugged me close. "Father..."
"Luna!" I gasped as she pulled me insanely close. I couldn't blame her though. "Would it be at all possible...if you could teleport us all out of this wreck and onto the forest floor? That would be easier than digging through everything trying to find the others."
"I agree, but I wouldn't be able to do that unless we were all in close quarters to each other." At that point, Bullseye came to us too, and all Sky had to do was take a few steps to his right to be able to see us in this darkness.
"Ratchet!" Sky called. His desperate voice only seemed to echo in the ship, and no response from the darkness made it grow even more desperate. "RATCHET! Where the hell are you??"
"Is there any way you could trace her?" I asked Luna, but she frowned at my suggestion.
"I'm afraid not. But maybe you can, I don't know."
"Really?" I asked, honestly surprised she would suggest that.
"Maybe. Try it."
So I took Luna's advice and tried using my own new magical abilities plus the extra Ley that soaked the area. I imagined Ratchet's image and thought about a few of the things she has done since we met. Suddenly, when I conceived a thought of her location, my eyes saw—in a hazy aura, her bloodstains. I looked around to the leftmost corner of the ship—where Ratchet had earlier been buried under debris—and I saw how rubble was spread out around a disturbingly large sized puddle of blood. That alone caused me to sprint along the trail, Luna instantly following my pace.
I reached the wall where the blood stopped advancing, but Ratchet was not here. I stopped my own advances as well, looking over the scene with my heightened vision
"Take down all of that!" instructed Luna, worried about her just as much as me. Sky and Bullseye then caught up behind us. They saw sunlight leaking through some cracks in the debris that was in front of me. But I couldn't, though; I was in tune with Luna's subconscious mind and could only see through the darkness.
I tried to move it without a word, but I couldn't help any, and that's where Luna took initiative. She pulled me back with her magic and shot a small azure blast at the rubble. It didn't break, but instead, Luna was holding it in her aura like it weighed nothing and was pushing it outside as she herself went into the back splotch in my vision that must have been the sunlight. My vision gently returned to normal just then, not at all blinded by the light, and I headed outside with Bullseye and Sky.
There was still no sign of Ratchet, and we saw that her bloodstained trail ended as it started to head into the lush forest. Out there, we also saw the further detailed shape of the ship when we looked back at it. It was still standing upright, that it was, but the whole balloon was torn to shreds, presumably from the crash we took. I remember us flipping around and upside-down a few times. The trees were what tore it up, them and their many ligaments. A large opening torn from one end to the other hung over the side that we were able to see. Dents littered the hull like dimples on a golf ball, and green streaks were present everywhere from the greenery scraping across the metal.
I honestly forgot something.
"Shoot, my bags."
"Oh?" said Luna. "Do you need your things?"
"I think so, yeah" I teased her, and she knew I was, because she was doing the same thing to me. "Can you teleport all my bags out nine and Bullseye's, actually? I don't want to risk climbing through there and getting hurt."
"Thanks," called Bullseye as we were all still looking around for a route to take into the green woods. "Heh, I just might need my stuff too." Sky was trying to make his way into the maze of trees on his own, but his desperation wasn't of much use, as he couldn't get through the thickets; some of them like razorblades. With a spark and a pop, my canvas satchel and backpack appeared right before my feet, and Bullseye's most needed possessions appeared right in front of him, too. He threw his bow over his shoulders and strapped the bag containing his arrows around his left foreleg, tying it tightly. His spears were in a different bag entirely, one that he threw over his other shoulder. They weren't too big up close, and they stayed intact, attached to the bag as tight as it's knot was.
"Hehe, there you are, guys!" Luna said. "Now Sky... I wish I could help him out..."
I reached into my bag to pull out all four of my knives. I strapped kukri to my right leg, the bushcraft knife on my belt at my left. I cut a sliver of rope from it's worm-like structure and used the thinner twine to tie the sheaths of the two blades to each leg. The mora I tied with a length of string around my neck. The sheath was made so I could easily hang it there, and it was a small knife anyway.
We all made efforts made an effort to keep the crashed airship in our sights. It was pretty big, though, and with the swaying of the torn-up balloon still visible in the far distance we were slowly attaining, it would be no task to retrace our steps at all.
But I spoke too soon, because as we delved further into the jungle, the trees towered far over our heads, and soon enough, our shadows no longer existed below us and the ship was long gone behind us. However, we did manage to find several large wooden limbs and dried sticks, which we bundled up and tied together. We placed every one of them behind us about four feet at a time, hoping that they would be enough to lead us back to the ship when the time came. It took some effort to drag them some of them out in a somewhat single-file sequence, and it took a seemingly gratuitous amount of energy to do so the entire way to the actual walls of the tall thickets. Then, satisfied as how we had a good enough backup trail behind us, I reached down for the kukri and began to chop through the tall barrier of plants that would hinder any further progress otherwise.
There was still no sign of Sky at all.
"Sky! Ratchet? Anybody out here at all?" Bullseye called out loud, his voice making no effort to emanate through the empty shaded jungle.
And just some sort interval later, we heard his voice met with a response. Except it came from all the way behind us.
"Guys, get over here!" It was Sky's powerful voice. It beckoned us into thinking he was in trouble. Even if he wasn't though, we would still join back up with him.
Lucky we had already made a trail to find our way back. Again.
We started to see Sky inside the broken entrance to the ship. He heard up coming and he turned his head to look at us.
"There the hell you are!" I called.
"What's the matter?" shouted Luna. "It sounded like you were..!"
Then we saw his situation. He moved to the side, where we saw Ratchet laying on the lighted floor, as the sun was now shining down on it overhead,
It also shined down on her unconscious body. We couldn't see where the primary wound that made her lose so much blood earlier was, but enough scars and bruises littered her figure to the point where I instantly ran up to her and knelt down above her level.
"I found her all the way it there..." muttered Sky, blatant concern in his softer voice. "I just barely saw her."
"Dammit..."
Ratchet's machine-like rear legs were were evidently damaged, some of the internal parts to the gears and artificial joints missing or deformed in some way. It didn't look like she would be able to walk, very easily least. Her whole body was mostly free of any physical damage, but when I overlooked her face, the only kind of damage I saw was emotional, with dried out tears that made their trail through the splattered blood on her face, now also dried. It became evident that the 'blood' I saw earlier was a mixture of oil, and other fluids that operated the mechanical portions of Ratchet's body mixed with blood.
"We need to take her inside," I said, not really thinking too much anymore.
"What, while we move into the forest or whatever you wanna call it? What if something comes along and looks inside? If this really is a jungle, then there are more than likely plenty of beast out here, looking for food." It was hard to tell if he had a little humor in his voice. I mean, not to sound like a dick or anything, because the situation was more like an emergency. But it was also just then when she began to twitch and move her legs around.
"Wait! She's coming to-"
"Hey...Sky?"
The pilot responded immediately. "Ratchet. You alright?"
"What happened, exactly?" Luna and Bullseye asked.
"I remember trying to push her out of the way when a shitton of the ship was gonna fall on her," started Sky. "But we flipped over so fast that something else must have hit me and pushed me out of the way. Even though I tried tom save you, I still feel...really bad."
"Damn," I awed. "I would have done the same if it weren't so hectic."
"Me too," Bullseye added.
"Well hey, I'm not dead yet." Ratchet looked us all over, huddled together in front of her. She laughed gently and tried to get herself on her hooves.
"You can't possibly be serious about coming along with up right now." Sky launched himself at her to support her. And indeed, Ratchet did shout in terrible pain as she stood halfway upright, whereas Sky was there to help her, with my own addition.
"Hold on, guys..." Ratchet gently shook herself out from mine and Sky's grasps. "I can't thank you guys enough for your concern, but I think my legs were just disjointed." Regardless, Sky still held onto her, making sure to be there if anything happened to her. She took a few steps forward, using all four of her legs, and the news was clear.
"Hey, what do you know! I can walk perfectly!"
"Perfectly?" I asked of her.
"Well, I can still feel a bit of friction between my bones and rods, but yeah, I can come with you guys." She started to head outside now.
"We never said you couldn't!" Sky said, darting his eyes to everyone except her.
"Yeah yeah, I heard that much before you knew I was awake. Now let's get going." She smiled at all of us and waited for us expectantly. I think it was safe to say that we were all insanely taken aback by her stamina and her energy; every other time, yes, but right after she just woke up from a severe fate?
"Even I am impressed by her recovery," whispered Luna.
Yep.
"But what about the ship?" Sky and Ratchet discussed the topic as soon as we caught up to her.
"Whelp, unless mine and Luna's magic is enough to make all the repairs it needs," She turned around and looked at the ship for two seconds--as did Sky-- and deduced an assumption. "It'd take forever to fix it, one problem at a time."
"Would it help if I headed in there and assess the damage done?" he offered.
"It actually would do us some good. Not sure if it'd be a good idea, though..."
I heard this far into their conversation, and I really had to agree with Ratchet. "Unless like, one of us goes with you."
That's when Bullseye piped up. "I'll go with you, Sky! I still need to get my favorite blanket and some other stuff in there." And then he looked at Luna, who in turn gave him a totally hilarious look, quirking her head and eyes up while sporting a teasing grin that curved it's way across her muzzle. It made him giggle and look away for a brief second. "Sorry Luna."
"Hehe, it's alright. Honest mistake, right?" She patted him on his shoulders. "Don't let him get hurt anymore than he has been. And don't hurt yourself anymore in there, either."
With that, Sky and Bullseye both headed into the wreckage, the dark shadows of the interior casting their visible presences out from sight.
About twenty-minutes later, they both returned from the ship. Sky had brought back a bag full of tools and nothing more than that. Bullseye had found some more of his provisions and possessions too, and there he was, a few feet behind the pilot, catching up to him. It didn't take them very long to reach us, as they knew we would wait for them.
"Damn, it's a real mess in there," said Bullseye.
"He's got that right." Sky also had to agree. It didn't look like either of them had earned any injuries at all, and then, thinking back to his earlier offer, I questioned him about it: "Damage report, Sky?"
As Bullseye rejoined the group somewhat silently, muttering something under his breath, Sky gave me his full attention with his report.
"Well, thankfully the boiler is still working, as are some of the instruments I grabbed to repair the ship with." He looked inside the toolbag he had salvaged, reviewed it's contents, then closed it, smiling just a little bit. But I think I saw it go away immediately. "The only thing that's probably gonna be on my mind from this point on is the actual job of fixing it."
"Well," I started to speak, but Sky must not have heard me. I wasn't very loud either, to be honest.
"I mean, there's spare paneling stored in the floor of the ship, some of it, at least, to repair something as big as that gash in the side of both the balloon and hull. That part shouldn't be too much of a problem, but as for flying home..." he paused and gave an uneasy groan.
In his pause, I spoke to him again. "Well, you might like the fact that Ratchet and Luna together might be able to repair the ship, or at most, do a whole ton of it.
"That much I can't be certain about. It's possible, but we'd have to take it easy for fear of everything ripping apart. All that aside, besides dents and scrapes everything else is pretty much alright."
I asked. "Is that good news, then?"
Sky replied with, "It's as good as it's going to get in this situation."
"Now's the time to go take out everything you need, I don't trust sleeping in those beds in case something else collapses, or at least until I know it's safe back in there."
"Where do you suggest we sleep, then?" asked Luna
"This is going to sound rather unbecoming, but... Pick a spot." I used my hand not holding the kukri to gesture to the debree-strewn ground.
She shot me a flat look "You can't be serious."
"I've got more than enough means to make shelter and beds, but it will be rather uncomfortable. I'm almost about to make a fire to keep away any nasties that come awake at night." Speaking of which, it's getting rather late. I might as well light the fire and cook something for us to eat. Looks like we'll have to begin on the dehydrated and sealed foods.
I went to the edge of the jungle to collect a few stones. There weren't that many, only half a dozen or so. I made them into a circle big enough to contain the fire. I got a clump of dried grass, put it in the middle of the circle, and made an upside-down 'V' shape with some of the smaller sticks and twigs. I got out my tanto and ferro rod, placed the end of the rod into the dried grass with a cotton wad from my bag, and used the spine of the knife to send a shower of sparks into the cotton to light it on fire. It took a few tries, but eventually I managed to get a small flame going. It took a minute to catch everything else, and when it did I went about putting some of the thicker sticks and twigs on. The logs were for when we go to sleep.
Food is next on the list. I found the three straightest, longest sticks I could and tied them together to form a pyramid of sorts above the fire, which I then hung the pot over. I added some rice, and put in a few sachets of pre-made, vacuum-sealed vegetable stew of some description to heat and eat. I went back to chopping the remaining log into sections and putting the rest of the short logs next to the fire so they could dry out somewhat before they go on the fire. I managed to get about two and a half dozen logs from the three bigger ones. Plenty of wood to keep going through the night if used sparingly.
After the rice cooked and the vege sachets heated, I drained the rice from the water, but kept the water, mixed everything up and gave it to Luna, Sky, Bullseye, and myself. I made sure to save some for when Ratchet wakes up though, no telling when she would.
I told everyone I would keep first watch while they slept. Bullseye made a bed out of what I could best describe as Heather, and lay his blanket over that and went to sleep. Sky, being a pegasus, went and pulled a cloud down to a few metres above ground to sleep on. I've never slept on a cloud before, but I'm guessing they'd be comfy as hell. I know Rainbow Dash likes napping on clouds. And on tree limbs. And everywhere else. For... some reason.
All I did was pull a tarp out of my bag, unfold it, peg one end to the ground and used a couple more sticks to prop up the other end as a makeshift shelter of sorts. It doesn't look like it's going to rain tonight, but I'm not going to take any chances. Throughout the night, I kept my eyes peeled as best I could while watching over Ratchet.
Around one thirty in the morning, she began to wake up.
"My head... What-"
"Shh!" I cut her off before she could make any more noise. "Everyone is sleeping. The ship crashed and it's night time." She looks into the glow of the fire.
I heard her stomach growl. "Dude, got any food?"
I handed her the bowl of veges and rice I prepared earlier. "It's cold, hope you don't mind."
Her horn began to glow and she leant down to the bowl. A few seconds passed and I felt heat radiate from it. I looked at her with mixed expressions, but primarily one that said 'What the hell was that?' I didn't need to ask anyway, she answered regardless.
"Just a spell I learnt while in college. Came in handy heating up leftovers." I snickered and she giggled. "How long was I out, anyway?"
"Not really sure, but would have easily been seven to ten hours, somewhere in that region.
"Heh, I was always the type to sleep in." I didn't find that hard to believe.
"Me too." I added. "On Earth, my sleeping pattern was always fucked up. Sometimes I wouldn't get to sleep until three in the morning, other times I'd get tired as early as ten-thirty at night. I guess it depended on when I was working I guess."
"Heh, yeah..." she replied, looking down at the ground.
While poking the fire with my stick, I gave her a friendly nudge. "Hey, you okay there?"
"Well it's just... After college there was this accident."
I looked over the machinery that covered her body. "What... what did happen."
"I don't remember much of what happened. I was working in a machine shop one day, but that's all I can actually remember. The next thing I know I'm waking up in a hospital bed with a tube down my throat and a numb feeling over half my body. It wasn't a totally dull can't-feel-anything pain, it was more of the everything-is-excrutiatingly-painful-so-my-body-shuts-down kind of deal. That, and the painkillers the doctors pumped into me. After the first instance I woke up, I feel back asleep and didn't wake up for... Months... It wasn't until later that the doctors told me what happened; That I was in an accident and they had to rebuild parts of me. I can tell by your look too; Of course we have technology to rebuild legs and so on, then magic gets used to integrate muscle, nerves, and tendons etc into the mechanical parts so they behave in a biological manner. From there, I just tried living a normal life as best I could. But, since the skin that had my cutie mark was gone, I went through a bit of an identity crisis afterward."
"I must be devastating to lose something that made you who you are."
"Yes, but not entirely. You get a cutie mark when you realize what your special talent is supposed to be. Mine is engineering, so my cutie mark was concentric cogs with a screwdriver and wrench overlaying them. As saddened as I was with that loss, I learned to accept it. Besides," her magic lit up and the ring she had on her horn floated off. "I had this beauty made."
I took the ring from the aura and looked it over. The decoration I noticed on the ring when we first met turned out to be her cutie mark. I don't know why, but I never payed much attention to it. In response to seeing her cutie mark on the ring, I got accosted by different feelings. Empathy, sadness, happiness. I don't know what I should be feeling towards this. "I... Don't know what to say. I feel sorry for you because you lost your cutie mark, but at the same time I'm happy because you have this wonderful piece of jewellery to remind you of it."
Ratchet gave a half-hearted smile. "Call it being sanguine. Even though I don't have one that's part of me, I can still be happy knowing I have one."
I slipped the ring back on her horn, then added another couple logs to the fire. "Why don't you get back to sleep, eh?"
With a smile, she lay down next to me and eventually dozed off.
It was hard trying to stay awake all night, not to mention boring too. With basically nothing to do but poke at the fire and play the staring game with glowing eyes that stared at me through the trees and bushes. I saw Luna get up while still dark to lower the moon to make way for the sun. At least Celestia knows Luna's ok. After that, she came and sat down next to me and gave me a cheeky look.
"So... What's for breakfast?"
I shot her a, You cheeky little shit, look. "Cereal and powdered milk. Mix water into the milk, pour over cereal, and enjoy." She did. During breakfast, the others woke up of their own accord and I told them to hang around so I don't have to repeat my plans three times. They all got something for breakfast and sat down in front of Luna and I, and the fire.
"So this is the plan. Luna and I came here for a reason, and we're going to keep going." Sky opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off. "Ah ah ah, let me finish. The way I see it, there's not much point in us staying here. What I'm thinking is that Sky and Ratchet will stay behind to repair the ship while Luna, Bullseye and I continue looking for the Breach. Questions?"
Sky raised his hoof. "Yes, Sky?"
"Why should we stay behind while you three go gallivanting off into the jungle looking for something that might not even exist?"
"Because when we find it," and I stressed when, "we could possibly use it to fully repair the ship too."
"How?"
"The Breach contains the source of this worlds magic. Luna can feel it, I'm thinking Ratchet can too." Sky turned to Ratchet. She nodded at him. "If it's that powerful, then between the two of you, you could have more than enough magic to pour into the repair of the ship. Heck, Luna and Ratchet might even be able to conjure up a teleportation spell powerful enough to take us all home without having to spend the return trip on the ship."
"I still don't understand why Ratchet and I have to stay behind."
Ratchet face-hoofed, then slapped Sky across the back of the head. Or however you slap someone across the back of the head with a hoof. "Because we're the only ones that know how to repair the ship you idjit!"
"..." Sky just got told! We could practically hear the ellipsis in his silence.
With a smug grin I finished with, "Any more questions?" Silence. "Good then. Sky, Ratchet, begin fixing the ship. You can send messages via magic can't you, Ratchet?"
She nodded. "Yup! Not much different from dragon fire."
"Good. Just remember to keep the fire going, although mainly at night, and to take breaks every hour so you're not over-exerting yourself. Eat and drink plenty of food and water too. Bullseye, Luna, get all the things you'll need. We move out in an hour."