Daring Do watched as the cloud house disintegrated below her, the damage that had been done to it too much for the internal magic to continue to hold together. The rock that should have anchored her to the ground burst through the clouds, revealing a little orange pegasus filly, who smiled and waved at her.
...of course. Some tagalong kid, just to make it harder for Daring to get back to ground level. Could there be any more evidence that the universe hated her? Daring reached for her belt, for the small knife she kept there... but her hoof brushed against an empty scabbard. There it was, indeed, more evidence that the universe hated her.
Daring sighed, and took stock of the situation. There were two problems – the first problem was too many balloons. It wouldn't be a good idea to get rid of all the balloons, she knew, since she was already high enough that an unslowed fall could injure her – but she had to get rid of some of them.
The second problem was the filly on the rock below, whose name she still couldn't seem to recall. The poor little pegasus was no doubt relying entirely on Daring to get out of her rather dangerous predicament. Daring looked down again... and sure enough, the filly was looking up with a trusting and hopeful expression on her face.
“Hang on tight, kid!” she called down.
Items at hand... no knife, unfortunately. It would be so much easier if she could cut just a few of the balloons loose. A lettuce, the lunch of a flying tortoise; her hat; a pair of wings but no flight magic, so she could steer but hardly slow a fall...
Inspiration struck.
Daring looked down, below the pegasus on the crumbly rock, and saw what she hoped to see... a small green shell, topped by a set of helicopter blades.
“Hey, Tank!” she called. “Here, Tank, here boy!” She waved the lettuce. “You want some nice green lettuce? Here, boy! Cooooome and get it!”
Much to her relief, the tortoise took the bait. The green shell rose, approaching rapidly, faster than the wind that blew Daring Do out over the nearby forest.
“Here, boy!”
“What do you need Tank for?” asked the filly.
“You'll see.” said Daring, with a wink. “Heeeeeeere boy! Nice yummy lettuce, alllllll for you! We'll be on the ground in no time, kid, just hold on tight.”
It was only a moment before the tortoise closed the distance; Daring tempted him closer with lettuce leaves. And then she moved the lettuce back slightly, holding it alongside her body; Tank followed. Finally, Daring hooked one hoof over one of the balloon strings, and pulled it forward, tugging the string so that it touched the edge of Tank's helicopter blades; and the blades lived up to their name, slicing instantly through the thin string.
Daring allowed herself a small smile at the sight of the escaping balloon. If she could just get the quantities right, this would be her ticket back to the gentle landing on the ground. She hooked a hoof around another handful of strings, and let Tank's blades cut through them as well. She noticed the rock with the pegasus on it getting closer, as the balloon-bedecked bucket was now rising a good deal faster than she was; another hooffull of strings, and Daring was definitely dropping, albeit slowly.
She carefully sliced through one final string, and felt her fall speed up. The rope around her middle abruptly caught her, now hanging from the rock (and the bucket) instead of vice-versa; the sudden jerk caused her to drop the lettuce, which fell down to the dark forest canopy below. Tank buzzed mournfully for a bit, and then, deprived of his lunch for the second time, buzzed away somewhere else.
Daring studied the canopy for a moment... they were a long way up, and it was hard to tell, but she was pretty sure that they were slowly descending... she turned aside, and studied a passing cloud, instead. Either the cloud was rising, or she was sinking.
Daring looked up at the rock, grinning. “See, kid?” she asked. “We're drifting down now, so we just gotta wait until we hit the ground, and then hoof it back to Ponyville!”
“Through the Everfree Forest?” asked the kid, peering cautiously over the edge of the rock.
“Sure, is that a pr- hey!” Daring looked up, past the kid, to the bucket; the half-empty bucket with dozens of balloons tied to the handle which was holding up the kid and the rock and doing a sterling job of ensuring that Daring didn't fall too fast.
The half-empty bucket which Tank had just buzzed his way towards, presumably in search of a drink of water.
“Get away from that bucket!” shouted Daring, waving her hooves frantically.
“Me?” asked the filly.
“Not you! Tank! His propeller's gonna -”
Tank moved forward, reaching his head down for the water, and his propeller passed through the space directly above the bucket's handle. In an instant, every balloon holding the bucket up was sliced loose, and the balloons flew up into the sky in an explosion of colour.
And, to Daring's horror, the bucket, the rock, and the filly all dropped like stones.
Tank, of course, just hovered there, looking surprised at the fact that a bucket of water had just decided to flee from him.
A flap of her wings tugged Daring aside, before the rock could smash into her head. A swipe of her hooves, and she was holding the filly. Another flap of her wings, and the falling bucket missed them both.
Then the rock reached the bottom of its fall, and Daring knew that she was falling too fast, that a broken leg (at least) awaited her on the forest floor. And if the forest was dangerous, then a broken leg could be a death sentence.
“Untie the rope!” she said, turning the filly around so that her forehooves were at about the middle of Daring's body. “Untie the rope, quickly! We need to lose the rock!”
“Got it!” said the filly, going to work immediately on the knot with teeth and forehooves
Daring wasn't sure she'd be quick enough. Looking down at the forest below. Daring spotted something that could give them a little extra time, and angled her wings to try to change precisely where they hit.
...at least the filly was listening, that was one good thing in all this.
The ground was approaching, far too fast. It charged at Daring, too big a target for her to avoid entirely, a million trees pointing up like miniature spears, approaching too fast for Daring to make any other last-minute plans...
...and then the ground went past, as Daring and the filly dived into a deep chasm that split the forest in two. The boulder had smashed through a rope bridge, Daring noticed...
“Got it!” cried out the filly, triumphantly. The rope snaked its way off Daring's barrel, releasing her from the combined weight of bucket and rock, and letting the balloons still attached to her slow her fall to a more manageable speed.
“Well done, kid.” she said. “Now climb up and sit on my back.” That way, she carefully didn't say, she could at least be sure that the filly didn't break a leg when they hit the bottom of the chasm.
The rock, she couldn't help but notice, shattered into pebbles when it hit the ground. She felt very, very glad that she wouldn't be hitting it quite so fast. There were ways to land which would minimize the chances of serious injury – flap her near-useless wings to slow the fall, let her hooves touch ground and then collapse her legs, spreading the impact over time as much as possible – but there was no guarantee, never any guarantee...
Fortunately, Daring was lucky this time, landing without serious injury.
“Urg.” she said, not bothering to get up just yet. “Please tell me you know the way back to town from here, kid?”
“Sure I do!” said the little pegasus, grinning widely. “You wanna see the harmony box first?”
“Harmony box?” asked Daring.
“It's what we're collecting all these things for!” said the pegasus, jumping up and down in excitement. “It's just in that cave right there!”
“...huh. That's convenient.”
* * *
“...an' that's why we need ta borrow your helicopter.” said Applebloom. The earnestness of her plea, Cherry Berry decided, was somewhat undercut by the fact that she and Sweetie Belle appeared to have both been dipped in liquid rainbow (or possibly had it spilt all over them, it was hard to be sure).
Cherry blinked rapidly at the two little lumps of rainbow colour. “As much as I'd love to help you,” she said, “I don't have any fuel at the moment.”
“Aaaargh!” said Applebloom. “What are we gonna do?”
“What are you gonna do about what?” asked Scootaloo, strolling casually along.
“Not now, Scootaloo, Ah gotta figure out some way ta rescue... Scootaloo?”
“Yes?” said Scootaloo, with a cheeky grin.
“SCOOTALOO!” yelled Applebloom, and her and Sweetie Belle leapt forward to hug their little pegasus friend, getting rainbows all over her – not that any of the minded in the least.
“The only downside,” said Daring Do, mentally noting down Scootaloo's name, “is that I, unfortunately, left the Wonderbolts badge on the floor when I was dragged off. On the bright side, it probably fell to the ground, so it should be somewhere around the area where...”
“Didn't I tell you?” asked Scootaloo. She reached into her mane and pulled out a Wonderbolts badge. “When I came up through Rainbow's floor, it was right there, so I picked it up...”