Dale and Foxglove were stuffing the last few acorns they'd collected into a sack bigger than either of them. "Whew!" the red-nosed chipmunk wiped sweat from his brow. "Think that'll be enough?"
"I hope so, cutie," the bat replied. "That bag's already too heavy for me to try to fly with."
"No problem; I can drag it..." his words were cut off by a loud crashing sound, like several branches breaking. "What was that?!"
She shook her head. "I don't know, but it sounded close."
"Didn't your sonar tell ya nothin'?" Foxglove arched one eyebrow and smirked; Dale smacked himself in the forehead. "That's right; it only works when you make the sound."
"Right; c'mon," she jumped into the air and did a quick loop-de-loop, then caught Dale by the shoulders with her feet and glided toward where the sound had come from. They quickly came to a cleared area about ten feet high with a pile of tree limbs on the ground. Swooping down, the pair found, sticking out of the pile, a horse's head. At least, it was similar to a horse; the muzzle was too short and curved wrong, appearing more like a stylized carving of an equine than an actual horse. More obviously, it was bright yellow with a pink mane.
The creature opened its blue eyes and glanced around, a little dazed. "Oh... what happened?" it asked in a soft, distinctly female voice. Its eyes then fell on the two Rangers and it smiled. "Oh, hello little friends. Can you tell me which way Ponyville is?"
Bat and chipmunk looked at each other, then back to the equine. "Ponyville?" asked Dale. "What's that?"
"Isn't this the Everfree Forest?" She now looked and sounded more worried.
"Not sure what that is, either," Foxglove told her, "but this is Central Park."
The horse's eyes widened. "Isn't that in Manehattan?"
"Yup," Dale grinned, pleased to finally be getting somewhere, but Foxglove rested a wingtip on his shoulder.
"She said Mane-hattan," the bat pointed out, "not Manhattan; I'm not sure they're the same place."
Dale shrugged. "Maybe that's just what horses call it?"
Further discussion was cut off by the buzzing of twin battery-powered motors approaching. The yellow horse yelped and tried to sink further into the woodpile.
"Don't worry," Dale reassured her as Foxglove flew up. "That's just the rest of our friends; they probably heard your fall, too. How'd you get up there, anyway?"
"I... I don't know," she replied. "I was sitting and talking to my friends one second, and the next, I was falling through the branches."
"You fell through a dimensional rift, I think," Gadget explained, approaching with the others. "After my device detected it, we came out here to make sure Dale and Foxglove were okay."
"Who?" The horse paused a moment then shook her head. "Oh, you mean them."
"You didn't even introduce yourself, dummy?" Chip admonished his fellow tamias.
"I was a little distracted by the fact that I was talking to a yellow horse with a pink mane," Dale retorted with a growl.
"We're the Rescue Rangers," the blonde mouse said to the horse. "I'm Gadget; this is Chip, Monty, Zipper, Tammy, and Nathaniel, and you've already met Dale and Foxy."
"Pleased to meet you," the horse smiled. "My name's Fluttershy. Maybe you could help me get home?"
"We'll do our best, Miss Fluttershy," Chip told her, tipping his hat. "First, though, we should get you out of there."
The female squirrel, Tammy, stepped forward as the boys started shifting the fallen branches. "Are you hurt? I'm a trained medic."
"I don't think so," Fluttershy answered. As she felt the weight of a particular branch leave her back, she stood tentatively. Her body was the same yellow as her head, and her tail the same pink as her mane. These, to the Rangers, were not her most distinguishing feature, nor were the three butterfly markings on each of her flanks... far from it, in fact.
"Hoppin' horsefeathers," Monty cried in astonishment, "you're a pegasus!"
Fluttershy glanced over her shoulder at one wing. "Well, yes." She looked around meekly. "I'm sorry if that's a problem..."
"It's not a problem," Chip tried to explain. "It's just..."
"Pegasus-us-es aren't real," Dale blurted.
"Neither are leprechauns," Tammy pointed out with a knowing grin.
"Or spell-casters," added Nathaniel, sharing a similar look with Foxglove.
Monty felt the urge to add "or genies", but he couldn't explain why.
"Remember, guys," Gadget reminded, "Fluttershy here is from a completely different reality than ours".
The pegasus looked confused. "My friends Twilight and Discord would probably know more about that than I would," she said. "As for pegasi, there are lots of us back in Ponyville, and even more in Cloudsdale. I don't know what a leprechaun is, but unicorns cast spells all the time; so do alicorns."
"Alley-whats?" asked Monty.
"I've heard the term before," said Nathaniel, "combination of unicorn and pegasus, correct?"
"Actually, they have traits of earth ponies, too," Fluttershy corrected. "There are six - um, five of them." She glanced around nervously, hoping they either wouldn't catch her slip or simply not question her about it. She tried to stretch her wings, then winced as a stabbing pain shot through her left shoulder.
Before the pegasus could say anything, Tammy hopped onto her back and gently felt around her shoulders. "Hmm... I think there's some swelling in the left wing joint... seems like it compared to the right..."
Fluttershy turned her head to give the squirrelmaid a concerned look. "Is it bad?"
Tammy shook her head. "Best I can do is guess; trying to figure out pegasus physiology is way outta my league." She looked toward Gadget. "You know if Flash took his radio with him?"
"One way to find out," the inventor replied. "We should probably get Fluttershy back to headquarters, anyway; we're lucky no humans have shown up to check out the noise."
"I've heard of humans," Fluttershy said brightly. "They're kind of like monkeys without fur or tails, right? My friend Twilight sometimes goes through a mirror into another world where she turns into one."
Before any of the Rangers could question this, Gadget climbed into the Ranger Wing and keyed up the radio as the others followed suit. "Ranger Wing to Canine Squad; you read me, Flash?"
"Loud and clear, Gadget," the German shepherd's voice replied from the radio a moment later. "Everything okay?"
"Well, not exactly," the mouse told him. "Could you bring Doctor Drake by the Ranger Tree? We may have a patient for him to look at."
There was a brief pause, then another male voice came through the radio. "Sure I can come by; is Tammy busy, or...?"
Gadget handed the microphone to Tammy. "This one's a little beyond me, Al," she said. "How are you with birds and horses?"
"Fair enough, I suppose..." there was another brief pause. "Wait, birds and horses? I thought Gadget said a patient."
"Trust me," Tammy replied, "you'll see when you get here".