(This chapter was really hard to write for me. I went through a whole gauntlet of emotions, and even now I'm still having feels. As per usual, let me know if there are any real errors to be found. Without further ado, I give you one of my personal favorite chapters: Chapter 35: Get Your Tongue Off Me...)
You play the song (Note from Howitzer: If you listen to the song, don't proceed, since the music isn't fitting with the rest of the chapter. Just so you know.), and as you finish you simply lay your hooves on the keyboard, suddenly tired. Pinkie gives you a small hug, and you reciprocate it.
“That was a really nice song, Storm.” She nuzzles your neck, and you let her finish before you stand up.
“So, Pinkie, what would you like to do? I have absolutely nothing to do, and I’m open to suggestions.” Pinkie puts a hoof on her chin, and she sinks into deep thought. You watch her as she thinks, but there is no visible sign of her mental progress. Several minutes pass in this fashion before she makes any movement whatsoever. And this is nothing more than switching hooves.
Finally, after almost half an hour she gets a great big smile on her face. “We could just go for a walk through town. There’s bound to be something we can do!” A small smile graces your own face, and you stand up.
“Sure. I remember going on walks sometimes during the summer. I’d always try to find a nice spot to watch the sunset. Maybe we can do the same?”
Her eyes go wide, and she gives you another hug. “How romantic! I’ll go pack a picnic basket, and we can have a picnic as we watch the sunset! It’ll be great…” She continues talking about this as you both head downstairs, and you watch as she rummages through your fridge, picking out a large variety of different food products. You swear that most of that stuff was never in your fridge, but you’re dealing with Pinkie, so you know to make some allowances for lunacy.
After a few minutes of packing Pinkie finally stops, and she puts the basket on your back. It’s surprisingly light, given how energetic she was in her packing. The two of you head out the door, and onto the streets of Ponyville. Your trip through town is a pleasant one, and Pinkie greets everypony she sees, getting a smile from every one. You feel a smile grow on your own face, as Pinkie’s infectious happiness bleeds into you. Before long you find yourself in a small park, and so you and Pinkie both find a nice spot to sit. It’s not going to be the spot for your picnic, but it’s a nice park.
You lean up against a tree, simply enjoying the warmth of Celestia’s sun, and the presence of Pinkie Pie. Before long you hear the sound of small hooves racing around, and you look down from the sky to see the Crusaders, except for Scootaloo, bunched up in front of you. They both have worried looks on their faces, and this gets you standing in a flash.
“Storm, we need your help! Scootaloo was trying a new trick, but she hurt herself!” Sweetie Belle’s voice is ragged, and you can tell that she was crying not long ago. She’s also panting, which isn’t helping her voice. Pinkie also stood up next to you, her smile gone.
“Lead the way, Sweetie.” You didn’t even think about what it may entail, you just knew that you had to help. It took several minutes to get where you needed to go, and soon the ground changed from lush grass, to barren stone. You had no idea where you were headed, but soon you came to a massive chasm. It was quite wide, and quite deep, but the four of you ran along the edge without fear.
Soon you spotted a large wooden ramp, and things became quite clear. Really? Is Scootaloo trying to emulate Evel Knievel? You let the thoughts die in your head, since they really weren’t going to help you now. When you got to the jump the Crusaders stopped, and looked over the edge, to the bottom of the chasm. You looked as well, and you were shocked to see Scootaloo lying at the bottom of the chasm.
She was motionless, and you feared the worst. You looked at the other two Crusaders, and you had to ask. “Whose idea was this?” You had to strain to keep your voice level, but the anger rushing through you was too intense. But the anger was only a veil to hide your fear. “No, don’t tell me. Just go to town, and find Rainbow Dash, Twilight, anyone. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help her on my own.” The two girls ran off again, leaving you and Pinkie. “I’m going to go down. I…”
“Just go, Storm. I’ll be here.” You don’t stop to look at her, but you can hear the fear in her voice. With a quick pump of your wings, you fly to the middle of the chasm before you begin to drop. After just a moment, though, a deep growl is heard from the chasm. A tingle runs down your spine, and without thinking you do a quick roll, and a massive monster emerges from one of the holes on the side of the chasm.
You only barely avoid the beast, and it quickly makes a second attempt on your life. Your heart is pumping harder than it ever has before, and somehow you get a twisted thrill from this. The exhilaration of testing yourself against these monsters is enough to get you going.
You feel the burning sensation of your adrenal system working overtime, and the world seems to slow around you. The second attack is just as swift as the first, but it still isn’t quite quick enough to grab you. You fold your wings, and you dive steeply to the bottom of the chasm, but less than a second after you start your dive two more eel-beasts emerge from the wall, and block your path.
You pull up at the last possible second, and you manage to deftly avoid their simultaneous attacks. “Come on, you damn eels! Just try and catch me!” Your taunting has no effect, unsurprisingly, and so you continue to roll, dive, and dodge the attacks, all while slowly losing altitude. As you finally get out of range of the topmost eel several more emerge from lower on the cliff face.
A faint rumble nearly slips your attention, and you turn in place, to see the gaping jaws of another eel mere feet away from you. The jaws snap shut around you, but you manage to get yourself in an upright position at the last possible moment, holding the jaws open. The force is slowly crushing you, but you hold on. The tongue of the beast begins trying to worm its way around you, but you recoil from it.
“Get your tongue off me you damn dirty eel!” As the tongue continues to wrap itself around you, an idea pops into your head. You hold the jaw open a moment longer, and then you allow it to snap shut. However, rather than stay closed, it opens up again, as you had twisted as the jaw shut, trapping a part of the tongue between the creature's teeth. Freed from your saliva filled prison, you powered your way down the chasm, getting to the bottom just as a few more eels emerged from the walls of the chasm, effectively blocking off your most effective escape route.
You crouched next to Scootaloo, your escape plans forgotten, for the moment. You put an ear to her chest, and you could feel her chest rise and fall with her breathing, but her heart was slow. You checked her body for any wounds, and you winced as you brushed a sharp protrusion coming from her leg. You rolled her over just enough to see the bone sticking out of the skin. “Shit, shit, shit! I can’t do anything to help her!” Your frustration mounts, as you realize just how bad things are.
Only now do you realize that the stone you're on is actually quite porous, and so most of the blood she has lost has simply seeped into the stone. You spot her helmet lying a few feet away, and you grab it. You rip the strap off, and you measure out a length, hooves shaking. You lift Scootaloo’s leg gingerly, and you tie the makeshift tourniquet around her leg. The bleeding slows, but doesn’t stop. Her eyes flutter briefly, and she looks at you.
“Please, help. It hurts so bad.” Her voice is weak, and you can barely hear it over the screeching of the eels around you. There are tears running down her face, but the pain in her eyes is worse than you can imagine. You’d only seen pain like that once before, and it sent a shudder along your spine. Before your mind could call up the memories, you squashed the thought.
“Scootaloo, save your strength. Help should be here soon. And if not, well, I’ll have to carry you out.” Your voice is quavering, and you take a deep breath to settle your self, but it doesn’t help. “I promise I’ll get you out of here, Scootaloo. I promise.” A tiny smile appears on her face, and you lay a hoof on her cheek. The smile is short lived, as a tremor runs through her body. Her eyes close, and you feel a tear running along your face. “Keep your eyes open. Keep them open, and just keep looking at me.” Your desperation is clear in your voice, and she obliges.
“It’s too hard.” Her voice is even weaker than before, and you doubt that she’ll last much longer. You give a groan, and you know what you have to do. You move next to Scootaloo, and you give her a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“This is probably going to hurt a lot, but I need you to just keep talking to me, okay? I don’t care what you say, just keep talking. Do you understand?” She nods weakly, and you gently life her onto your back, careful to keep her broken leg up. “Just wrap your hooves around my neck, and talk to me.”
“I’m sorry for all of this… I… Storm, make the pain go away…” Her voice trails off, and you wipe a tear from your face.
“Talk about things that are positive, okay? Just… Keep positive thoughts in your head, okay?” You feel her hold your neck a bit tighter, and her mumbling takes on a more positive note. You look up at the mass of eels above, and both up, and down the chasm. You crouch, and spread both wings, ready for what will probably be the hardest flight of your life. This is fucking fantastic! I have to fly UP while carrying a filly. That’d certainly be a challenge, given that I have to fly smoothly given her condition. But NO! No, there also have to be carnivorous eels that want to eat me. Because, hey, there’s no such thing as a problem that can’t be made worse, right?
A rumbling is faintly audible, and you pause for a moment, waiting to see what is causing the rumbling. You faintly hear Pinkie’s voice shouting about a doozy, or something to that effect. You banish it from your mind, though, as you have bigger problems than some doozy that Pinkie is predicting. A sharp snap of your wings gets you airborne, and Scootaloo holds you even tighter. You feel a warm trickling running along your leg, and you know that it’s Scootaloo’s blood.
You are soon in reach of the lowest level of eels, and already you are bobbing and weaving to avoid their jaws. One grazes your wing, but you manage to pull your wing out before it can try again, but it costs you altitude to do so. Soon you’re in the thick of the eels, and your mind is going at warp speed, filled only with the thoughts regarding flight, and a tiny portion listening to the slowly fading voice of the orange pegasus on your back.
With a sickening jerk your flight is stopped as you feel a tug on your tail. “No…” You feel the jerk again, and you give a powerful beat of your wings with the tug, adding more momentum to the powerful kick you gave the eel holding your tail. It lets go of your tail, and you are free. You begin climbing once more, still avoiding the monstrous eels so intent on eating you.
You feel Scootaloo’s grip beginning to weaken, and that spurs you on to fly even faster. Soon you can see Pinkie clearly, and the look of fear on her face was as plain as day. Only one eel stood between you and your goal, and you pumped your wings harder than ever, whizzing past the beast with a final surge of energy. However, a sharp tug, and an even sharper pain indicated that you didn’t make it past unscathed.
You alighted upon the edge of the chasm, and Pinkie rushed over to look at Scootaloo. Before she could get close, though, you turned to look at her. “No. I need to get her to the hospital now. Find the others, and have them meet me there.” That said, you spread your wings once more, and you began making your way towards the hospital. As you flew you mumbled to yourself softly just a few words. “I don’t know if I’ll make it…”
Scootaloo kept talking, but by now you could tell that she was talking more by the movement of her jaw, rather than the sounds she was making. Her whole body was shivering, and you knew that it may be too late already. Compared to your ascent from the chasm this flight was easy, but with the pace you were keeping it was still quite strenuous.
Finally, Ponyville came into view, and with it the hospital. You dove for the entrance, and you landed as softly as you could at the speed you were traveling. You kept your momentum, and you galloped into the hospital. The nurse at the counter snapped her head up at the sound of your entry, and immediately she stood, seeing the condition of the filly on your back.
“Follow me.” She was right to the point, and soon you were placing Scootaloo on an operating table, and you watched as they began putting IV’s in, and putting a mask over her face. You heard her last words before she went under, and they rang in your ears as the doctors forced you out of the room.
Soon you found yourself in another room, and a nurse was examining your back legs. Several minutes passed, and you were finally coming down from your adrenal high, and the pain in your back legs began to worm into your consciousness. With a grimace you looked over your shoulder to see a large fang sticking out of your back right leg. They removed the fang, and immediately covered the wound with plenty of bandages, and ointments.
As the doctor finished, you grabbed her before she could leave. “How is the filly? I need to know.” Your voice betrayed none of the emotions running wild inside your body, but she offered a sad smile.
“We’re doing all we can. Right now it could go either way. I’m sorry, but there’s a good chance she won’t make it.” You let her go, and your hoof dropped back to the ground. “You’re in pretty good shape, all things considered, so you can stay in the waiting room. Will anypony else be coming to see you, or the filly?”
You just nod, and she leads you to a waiting room. You sit in one of the chairs, and time seems to both fly, and crawl. Every time you look at the clock it seems like less time has passed than the last time. After what feels like a few hours, but was only a few minutes, a group of ponies enters the room. You feel yourself being hugged, but you are too dulled to be able to reciprocate.
You soon find yourself holding two shivering fillies in your arms, and you look down to see both Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom curled up against you. You simply hold them, and you finally take the time to look at the ponies around you. Twilight was there, sitting across from you, patting Rainbow Dash on the back. On Rainbow’s other side was Fluttershy who was speaking to Rainbow Dash in hushed tones.
You also spotted Applejack, slowly pacing around the room, with Big Macintosh nearby, keeping an eye on both of his sisters. Rarity was seated next to you, on the side where Sweetie Belle was curled up with you. Pinkie was the last one you spotted, as she was sitting on a chair away from the other ponies in the room. Without thinking about it too much, you gently gave Sweetie Belle to Rarity, and you placed Apple Bloom in the chair you were just occupying.
You could feel the eyes of several ponies on you as you stood, but none of them said anything. Without thinking, you made your way out of the waiting room, and into the hallway. You could hear the hoofsteps of somepony following you, but you didn’t care. After several minutes, you found a stairwell, and you went to the top floor. You opened up the small hatch that allowed access to the roof, and you climbed up.
It was early evening, and the sky was a magnificent mix of reds, blues, and oranges. You walked to the edge of the building, and you just sat down, suddenly feeling the fatigue of what you had been doing. The pain of your leg was a dull throbbing, but it was enough to remind you that it was there. The hoofsteps of the pony that was following you came a moment later, and soon there was a pony seated next to you.
You didn’t look to see who it was, since it didn’t really matter at this point. As the sun finally touched the horizon you felt the pony lean into you, and you wrapped a hoof around them. You watched the entire sunset, from beginning to end, and you had never enjoyed it less. Scootaloo’s words were still running through your head, and it made you crazy to think that you might not be able to make her wish come true.
You finally looked at the pony next to you, and you were only slightly surprised to see Rainbow. She just kept staring at the horizon, silent as you had been. You were the first one to break the silence.
“They aren’t sure if she’ll make it.”
“I know. While you were just sitting there a doctor came in, and told us how things were. You were unresponsive, but nopony wanted to bother you.”
“I don’t want her to die, Rainbow. She’s so young… She’s so young, and I encouraged her to do more on her scooter.”
You feel Rainbow move away from you, and then her hooves grab your face, and force you to look at her. “Don’t you ever think to blame this on yourself. She’s always been eager to go above and beyond what she’s capable of. Now she’s finally bitten off too much.”
“She talked about you while we were coming here. I told her to just keep talking to me while we flew, and she talked about you. I only barely noticed what she was saying, but your name kept coming up.” Rainbow doesn’t say anything, clearly waiting for you to continue. “She kept saying how she viewed you as a role model, and a perfect example of a pegasus. Fast, agile, daring, and loyal.”
“I know. She started a fan club in my honor quite some time ago. I go to watch them occasionally.”
A mirthless chuckle escapes your lips. “An ego boost like no other.” You stop for a moment, and then you look at Rainbow Dash once more. “If she doesn’t make it… If she doesn’t wake up, I heard her final words. They shocked the hell out of me, but I will relay them when the time comes.” Rainbow nuzzles your neck, and the two of you sit in silence for a few more minutes. “Let’s go back down. It’ll be getting cold out soon.”
The two of you head back to the waiting room, and you take the same seat you vacated not too long ago. Both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom retake their positions in your arms, and you slowly drift to sleep, your exhaustion finally catching up to you.
(There you go. For those who felt feels, I'm glad to have touched you(NOT THAT KIND OF TOUCHING! JESUS, I'M NOT THAT TYPE OF PERSON!). For those who felt nothing? Quit lying, and admit to the feels. And I will share nothing about the final words, or Scootaloo's fate till the next chapter.)