At Ponyville hospital, inside a room, Jake was lying on a bed still unconscious from a combination of both exhaustion from his accelerated running and crash. The girls and Spike watched from the side, as a doctor and Nurse Redheart entered, "Well doctor, anything?" Twilight asked.
"Nothing to worry about, Princess Twilight," he began, "Despite that crash, there's no head trauma. All he has is a severe case of exhaustion. But we've given him plenty of fluids to hydrate him."
"What was he doing, anyway?" Nurse Redheart asked.
The girls weren't exactly sure how to answer, but Rainbow Dash spoke up, "He was running."
The doctor and nurse were very confused, "He was... running?" the nurse asked.
"Yeah."
"He'd have to be running at the speed of lightning to just be this exhausted." the doctor noted.
The girls eyed each other, not sure if they should tell him he wasn't that far off. Suddenly they heard groaning coming from the boy, "Is he?" Fluttershy asked.
"He appears to be." the doctor noted.
Jake groaned as his eyelids started opening. Once they were opened he waited for his vision to become clear again, "Wha-where am I?" he asked as soon as his vision was finally clear, seeing he was on a hospital room, "Wait, I'm in a hospital?"
"Yes, you really wore yourself out." a voice spoke.
"I did..." Jake looked until he saw the equines looking at him. Going on instinct he let out a scream as he backed away going up against the pillow, "What the hell is this?!"
"Please, you need to clam down." Nurse Redheart insisted.
"You're asking me to calm down? Oh great, I'm talking to a pony who's talking back to me!" he stressed, "This has to be a serious messed up dream. Those idiot scientists must've drugged me again!"
"I beg ya pardon buckaroo, but this ain't no dream." Applejack answered.
"It isn't?" Jake asked not feeling any better.
"No, if it was the sky would be purple and the water would be made of juice." Pinkie joked.
"Huh?" Jake asked feeling more confused.
"Forget what she said," Twilight began, as she trotted up to him, and laid a hoof on his arm trying to comfort him, "But you don't have to be afraid of us. We mean you no harm."
"How can I be sure you're telling the truth?" Jake asked in skepticism.
"Hey pal, if we were lying you wouldn't be here getting the best treatment." Rainbow reminded him.
Jake looked around and sighed, "Just great, of all the places to end up I'm back in a hospital room."
"Look sir, could you please tell us your name?" the doctor asked.
"Just so we have something to call you instead of just sir." Redheart answered.
He looked at them and sighed before reluctantly answering, "My name's Jake McGinnis. At least that's what I used to be known as."
"Used to be?" Rarity wondered.
"Yeah, I was given a new identity ever since they took my life away. They called me Project Accelerator."
"Like it says on your suit?" Spike asked.
"Oh, you saw that, huh?" Jake asked, before realizing what spoke to him, "Whoa! Are you a dragon?"
"Yeah."
Jake let out a sigh of exasperation, "Now I know I'm drugged," Rainbow flew up to Jake and bopped him on the head, "Hey, what was that for?!"
"You felt that didn't you?" she asked.
"Of course I... felt it," Jake realized what that meant, "So, it is real?"
"Yuparoonie!" Pinkie nodded.
Jake sighed, until Twilight continued to help him calm down, "Jake, I know a lot is going on through your head, but I should warn you wherever you came from you're not there anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"You're in a land known as Equestria, no humans exist here, except you now." she continued.
"So what are you saying, that I'm in some kind of other dimension?" he inquired.
"If you want to put it that way, yes." she answered.
Jake gasped in shock, "Then I finally did it."
"Did what?" Fluttershy asked.
"I broke through the barrier."
"Barrier?" Rarity asked in confusion.
"What barrier?" Applejack asked.
"The barrier between space and time." he answered.
"Huh?" Rainbow Dash asked feeling clueless.
Jake suddenly realized he was talking to other world creatures without even knowing anything about them, "Whoa, hey, I'm getting off course here. Who are all of you, and where am I again?"
"Like I said, you're in the land known as Equestria. This place here is a hospital located in the town of Ponyville." Twilight answered.
"Ponyville? Sounds like a place in a child's storybook," he said, before looking over and saw a tray of syringes close to him. He screamed in fright as he curled up into a fetal position, "GET THOSE THINGS AWAY FROM ME! GET THEM AWAY!"
The doctor seeing his discomfort with the syringes turned to the nurse, "Please takes those out of the room, nurse?.
"Yes, sir." Nurse Redheart took the tray out of the room, as Jake started calming down seeing as they were gone.
"Sorry about that. I just have a large discomfort around needles." he admitted.
"We understand." Fluttershy answered.
Jake finally sat up and looked at the ponies, "Now, could you all tell me your names, if you have them?"
"Of course we got names, silly." Pinkie chuckled.
Twilight approached, "I'm Twilight Sparkle, and this is my number one assistant, Spike."
"Hi, there." Spike greeted him.
Pinkie spoke up, "I'm Pinkie Pie. Nice to meetcha!"
"Name's Applejack, sugarcube." Applejack tipped her hat to him.
"I'm... Fluttershy." she said softly.
"Soft talker aren't you?" Jake asked, and she looked sheepish.
"My name is Rarity. A pleasure, Mr. McGinnis." the elegant unicorn greeted him.
"And I'm Rainbow Dash, how's it going?"
Jake looked the the pegasus and gasped, "You! You're that pony who was able to match my speed."
"That's right. You sure can move fast." Rainbow admitted.
"And you sure can fly fast." Jake admitted in shock.
"Got that right." she replied smugly.
"Uh, Mr. Jake, sir?" Fluttershy spoke up.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Forgive me for asking, but how were moving so fast?" Fluttershy asked. When she noticed Jake looking depressed, she gasped, "Oh, I'm sorry. Was that wrong of me to ask?"
"No it wasn't wrong. It's just this ability of mine is apparently the reason why I'm here." he answered.
"It is?" she asked, and he nodded.
"Well that answers that, but what's up with your look?" Rainbow asked, "You look pale as a ghost."
"Rainbow Dash, don't be so rude." Rarity scolded her.
"I'm just curious." Rainbow replied.
"Curiosity killed the cat, Rainbow." Pinkie said in sing song.
"You wanna know why I look like this, and how I can move so fast?" Jake spoke up, grabbing their attention. They all couldn't help but be curious, as they slowly nodded, "Then I'll tell you."
He looked at his reflection in a nearby mirror, "Long before I looked like this, I had normal skin, normal eyes, and normal hair color," he saw in his reflection his original look which was normal skin color, green eyes, and raven black hair, "I once lived with my family in a place called Milwaukee. I had my mom, dad, my little sister, and little brother. We lived a happy life. I had big dreams planned out for when I got older. I was gonna become a track star when I got to high school. That's why I spent my junior high years getting in shape for it. My friends would call me the Flash, like my favorite superhero. But one day it was all taken away from me." he said bitterly.
"What happened?" Twilight asked.
"Three years ago, these scientist goons took me away from my family and brought me to their facility outside Los Angeles," he continued, "It was then they wanted me to become part of their 'little experiment'." he did air quotes.
"Experiment?" Pinkie asked.
"What kind of experiment?" Applejack inquired.
"They said it was one that was gonna change the world and all of mankind. They called it Project Accelerator."
"And they wanted you to be part of it?" Spike asked.
"Yeah, as it turned out they were looking for test subjects so they checked out just about all the major schools in each state of America. Once they compiled a list of their top choices of candidates who were well known for running fast they picked the top of the list. And guess who the lucky winner was?"
Pinkie gasped, "Wait, don't tell me let me guess, let me guess!" she started thinking, "No don't tell me, it's on the tip of my tongue." The girls sighed as Jake just answered.
"Me."
"Darn, I was so close!" Pinkie grumbled.
"They sweet talked me into going along with it, saying it could revolutionize the world. They wanted to make someone who could move faster than a speeding bullet or strike of lightning. They told me if I went along with this and it turned into a successful project they would let me see my family again and would never bother me again."
"What'd you do?" Fluttershy gasped.
"The only thing I could do. I agreed to do it," he replied, "But soon enough I wished I didn't. They subjected me to the most brutal and painful experiments, poking and prodding at my body, injecting me with drugs and serums, delivering electrical jolts and shocks on me from the inside out," he explained, as he could still feel the painful jolts course through his body, and could even hear his screams echo through his mind, "Any normal person subjected to such torture would've cracked. But not me."
"So then what happened?" Rainbow asked.
"When the procedure was over they put me through a field test. It was a success. My body can now move at the speed of sound, faster than the eye can blink, and all those other metaphors. They kept me indoors testing me to see how far I could go, and all I was capable of doing with an accelerated body. I felt like a lab rat in a maze."
"Oh dear." Fluttershy put a hoof to her mouth in surprise.
"The reason why I look like this was because of some drawbacks to being given this power. A speed force now surrounds my body, and it blocks off ultraviolet rays making my body unable to produce melanin. Plus they kept me indoors for three years without sunlight or fresh air. As you can see it did a lot of damage to my complexion." he looked at himself.
"Oh dear, me." Rarity gasped knowing such a thing could not be good for pony or his species.
"Whenever I tried talking back to the scientists, telling them I had enough for one day or stepped out of line, they poked me with syringes which administered drugs into my system which made me weak."
"That further explains your fear of needles." Applejack realized.
Jake nodded, "Finally the guy in charge of the whole project, Dr. Vellian Dagger, came to me with what I hoped was good news, but it wasn't. He was supposed to hold up his end of our deal and let me return home peacefully. But he wanted to keep me around for more research, but I knew it was all just to keep me contained so no one else could have me. He lied to me, and intended to experiment on more lives so he could sell them to armies, marines, and all other types of national service leagues. Outraged, I finally managed to break free of my restraints and escaped the facility, but I knew they would try and catch me."
"Whoa." the girls and Spike gasped.
"To make sure they'd never find me I tried running faster and faster. Though during my training they forbade me from running at the speed I was going at then, and now I realize why."
"You ran so fast you crossed over to our dimension." Twilight realized.
"Yeah, and I should consider myself lucky. Running at that speed should've peeled my skin right off my muscles and bones. I never want to run at that speed again." he sighed.
"So that's why you were so exhausted after you crashed." Rainbow noted.
"Yeah, running at that speed can really leave ya dehydrated."
"Well, you should be safe now," Twilight said, "I don't think you'll have to worry about those scientists looking for you here."
"I should hope so. But if that means I'm stuck here, then there's no way I can ever get home and find my family." he dropped his head.
"And you don't wanna risk doing what ya did to come here again, huh?" Applejack asked.
"Exactly." he answered.
Pinkie not liking how mopey Jake was spoke up, "Hey come on, I wanna see you smile. And I know just what to do," suddenly she started being her usual crazy Pinkie Pie self, doing all sorts of jokes and gags. When she finished with a pie falling on her head, Jake smiled and started laughing. Pinkie's smile brightened, "I made you laugh!"
"That was so funny, I almost forgot what funny was!" Jake laughed while clutching his ribs, "Oh, I gotta calm down or I'm gonna wet myself," he started calming down, "So can I get out of here, now? I wanna see more of the outside. It's been so long since I've seen grass, the sun, clouds, everything." he said feeling nostalgic.
"I'm afraid we cannot let you leave this quickly." the doctor answered.
"Why not?" he complained.
The nurse answered, "We'd like to keep you overnight until you're truly back up to strength."
"What're you talking about? I feel perfectly fine." he tried to get out of bed.
"We insist, and don't make us have to use this..." The doctor said, as he levitated a syringe out.
Seeing it, Jake cowered on the bed, "Whoa-whoa, let's not be hasty here! Ok, I'll stay overnight, as long as you put that away."
So the doctor put the syringe back and turned to the girls, "You can all come back tomorrow afternoon to see him."
"Ok, and thanks again." Twilight said, before they could leave, Jake spoke up.
"Hey, wait a minute. What am I supposed to do until tomorrow? I'll go batshit crazy here from boredom!"
The girls pondered, until Rainbow spoke up, "Say no more. I have just the thing," she zipped out, and suddenly came back holding a book, "Here, read this and before ya know it it'll be tomorrow."
Jake accepted the book, and looked at the title, "Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone?"
"Trust me, it's an awesome read." Rainbow assured him.
"I'll take your word for it." he said, as he got comfy.
"We'll see you tomorrow, Jake." Twilight said, as they all left Jake.
Jake couldn't help but lie back and look at the book, "Well, I haven't read any literature in three years, except for science books on how to better understand acceleration and velocity. So this should be a nice change up." he opened the book and started reading.
Outside the hospital, Twilight and Spike were heading off for home, "Spike, when we get back we need to write to Princess Celestia about this."
"I know," Spike agreed, "But what else can we do for Jake once he gets out of the hospital?"
"We treat him like we treat any friend of ours, and hope that the ponies here will accept him as well." Twilight answered, as the princess and her number one assistant trekked back to their place.