Chapter 6
Jacob did a better job not looking the higher up they got. He felt his phone vibrate from his pocket, but didn’t dare reach for it to find out whatever message he might be getting. The latest in a string of impossible events was apparently being lifted into the air by winged… people… and carried up so high that his head started to spin. His grip started to slacken about the time he felt something paradoxically solid beneath him again, and the strong arms no longer carrying him. There was a few more seconds of fierce wind, then metal snapping closed, and he looked up.
It looked a little like they were standing inside a fairly large Learjet, save that it was far too squat. Soft tan carpet was set onto the floor, along with a double row of leather seats, all empty. Jacob barely managed to stay standing as his rescuer disconnected him from the safety harness and made her way into the back of the craft with her fellow pilots.
“We weren’t supposed to be making rescues this early in the day,” their blue-haired leader said to Harley. “You want a ride back down?”
“I’ll go myself in a few,” she responded, apparently not as winded by the flight as the rest of them. “Got to get these three situated first.”
“Suit yourself.” He walked away, past the empty seats into a rear section of the vehicle. He slid a metal door shut behind him, concealing whatever might be going on beyond.
“Where are we?” Eric stood by the wall, glancing out one of the little round windows. Jacob followed his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything more than a sky full of clouds.
“Close to straight up. I’m not a pegasus, so I couldn’t give you exact altitude.” Harley helped Danielle to her feet, who seemed to be the worst off, helping her to a chair. “Keep your head elevated, drink plenty of fluids, and don’t move too quickly. I’d tell you not to eat anything heavy, but I already know there isn’t anything.” She turned away. “Earth gives us a world of culinary marvels and all we have are prepackaged grocery store salads.”
“I guess you still don’t have time to give us answers.” Jacob followed her to the first row of seats, though he didn’t actually sit. It was enough to hold the wall for support and not move too quickly. For his part, Eric had already recovered and didn’t look even a little light-headed. “Like how we’re still up here even though I don’t hear an engine.” That was the worst part about it so far—they didn’t seem to be more than drifting slowly, yet he heard nothing. No jets, no roaring props, nothing.
“Unfortunately not.” She started walking backward, in the direction their rescuers had gone. “Control is up here, but she’s far too busy running things to be bothered right now. But… we always keep a pilot, even if we aren’t flying.” She pointed in the other direction, towards a food preparation area and a metal door. “Smart money says the pilot is losing her mind in there. She won’t have a damn thing to do, but Twilight says we always have to have somepony ready to fly after last time…” She shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry I keep doing this, but I promise it’s almost over. Once we finish rescuing all the lost ponies, we’ll take you somewhere safe and answer every question you have. I swear by Celestia’s…” She choked back a laugh. “Never mind. I just swear, okay?”
“Okay.” He sighed, but didn’t argue. Jacob still wasn’t sure he had chosen the right side. But if he was going to even pretend, then he had to accept that rescuing his friends still on the ground was the most important thing. “One quick thing before you go: is my sister in danger just because she knows me?”
Harley considered a moment. “Princess gave you the wand last night, right? There aren’t stories about you doing weird stuff going around?” When he shook his head, she continued. “She’s probably safest left alone, then. They’ll take her in for questioning, but… just being family isn’t enough. What they call ‘contamination’ doesn’t run in families.” She turned away, raising her voice as she made her way towards the rear door. “Bother the pilot if you have any more questions! Ask for her autograph first and she might even answer some!” She heaved the door open a moment later, then snapped it closed.
Jacob turned to his friends, where they rested in the front row. Eric appeared to be sponging sweat from Danielle’s brow with a napkin, and the poor girl was already holding a barf-bag. “You want to come with?” he asked, not so much to either one of them as at them. Eric just shook his head.
“You could figure out what we’d want to ask. Unless you know more than we do.”
“Not much more.” He walked away, fumbling with his phone as he went. He had made it to the metal door by the time he got it out, and he glanced over the message. It was a Facebook notification, informing him (and the rest of the club) that the usual meeting had not been canceled, but moved to a public park in town at the same time. He didn’t have service anymore, so there was no way for him to reply. Well this doesn’t help at all. Maybe the pilot knows who I can warn about this.”
He banged on the metal door, still holding the phone as he did so. “Is someone in there?”
There was a sound of something rustling from within. Papers falling, or maybe books. “Y-yeah!” The door opened a crack. “We’re not flying, so the cockpit’s open. What’s up?” Though the voice itself wasn’t familiar exactly, there was something in the tone Jacob thought he recognized. His current theory was that they had picked characters from the show to imitate, or maybe to model themselves on. He would reserve judgement for when he learned how they were doing magic. Or what it even is for that matter.
The young woman inside was exactly what her voice suggested: lithe, fit, and rainbow-haired. What Jacob had seen on “Twilight” the night before could very well have been darkness, yet on this girl there could be no mistaking it. The rainbow of colors was impossibly vivid, yet lacking the plastic look of a wig. Either she had the best dye job he had ever seen, or… or something. She had wings too, with blue feathers. She was slouching a little in the seat to avoid crushing them.
The cockpit itself had two seats, and was filled with advanced-looking electronics. True to what he had suspected, most of it was off. “What’s up?” she repeated, straightening out disheveled hair with a few sidelong strokes with one hand. “Whoever you are.”
“Jacob.” He stepped inside, moving into the space the copilot would’ve used. “Are you really Rainbow Dash?”
“The one and only.” She stretched both wings, folding her arms behind her. “You come in for my autograph?”
“Yes,” Jacob answered without thinking, offering the back of his phone towards her. “But this was the only thing I got out. Got a permanent marker?”
“Somewhere.” She fished around under the chair, coming up with a hardbound flight log. She removed a Sharpie from within, twirling it around between her fingers. She signed, then passed the phone back. He could barely read her penmanship, swept together and blurred as it was.
She looked like she expected him to leave, but instead Jacob sat down in the chair and turned the phone over. “I don’t have anyone to tell…” He opened up the Facebook message. “Harley seemed to think that it was Bronies in danger. If that’s true, the club is still meeting today. It’s been moved to a park…”
“Really?” She looked a little more alert. “The egghead probably cares.” She scooped up something from the ground in front of her: a helmet with a headset in the front. Her tone changed as she spoke into the radio, all traces of relaxation gone. Unfortunately, Jacob couldn’t make out a word of it, except for his own name mixed in with whatever… language, code, something… they used. It didn’t sound remotely like English, yet Dash apparently spoke fluently, her words sounding elongated and almost animal. It didn’t take long before she slipped the helmet off again. “Twi thanks you for telling us. Super useful in… whatever…” She slumped back into her seat, the helmet clattering to the ground beside her.
Jacob frowned out the window. The sun was very bright up here, but there was some sort of coating on the glass. It didn’t seem as bright as he expected. “We aren’t moving.”
“Well… technically, we’re drifting…” She looked up at the controls. “South by southeast at a speed of about five knots. But no, not much.”
“How are we staying up?” He felt so silly bringing it up, yet he did anyway. “In… In the show, pegasi can walk on clouds. Is that what we’re doing?”
She shot him a grin. “Not bad. It’s the same sort of spell for holding machines and cups and stuff on clouds, only bigger. Little weather magic to keep this huge cloud-system together. No engines, no heat, no fuel.”
“Why is…” The words came before he could think, coming out so quickly that he didn’t think of the emotion making its way into his voice, or the way his vision was splintering a little with tears. “Why is this happening? Some of us don’t even like the damn TV show all that much. But it’s been less than a day, and I’ve been shot at twice. I don’t know what’s happening to the rest of my f-friends, but if it’s anything like what they were doing to Danielle it isn’t good. What the hell did we do?”
“Nothing.” Her words were suddenly flat, almost emotionless. “That’s why we came.”
“W-what?” Nothing made sense, and this conversation so far was not making it any easier.
“Look, if I tried…” She sighed, pulling her helmet up into her lap. “We’re kinda responsible for helping you all manifest your powers. It was supposed to be nice and slow, take a real long time or whatever, and nobody was supposed to freak out. It seemed like that was how it was gonna go… but then things changed. Now instead of passively tolerating you as you slowly spread the magic around, your whole world is fighting us. You’d think after living thousands and thousands of years without magic you’d be thrilled to have it, but apparently not!” Something beeped from within the helmet, and she started settling it back onto her head, still talking as she went. “You can get the details when we get to Unity, but all that you really need to know is that it’s our fault, and so we feel like it’s our job to clean it all up.”
“Why not just tell everybody?” he said, frustration growing in his words.
She didn’t answer, though her face seemed to be darkening by the second. “Bucking hell, are you sure?”
A second later and Harley came pounding down the hall, clutching at her side. Her clothing had changed again, to one of those blue jumpsuits. She had reddish wings, wings Jacob knew hadn’t been there from the tightness of her top earlier. Of course that wasn’t his first thought under the circumstances. “What’s going on? My radio just went out!”
“Change of plans.” Rainbow buckled herself in. “You ponies get strapped down, we have to leave right now.”
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The plot thickens...
7424535 not totally, celestia and cake haven't arrived yet
Two hoofs forward, one hoof back... well, Dash always livens things up.
Neat tech.
7424564 Celestia bringing cake. How nice of her.
Calling it now: Harley's a changeling.
Dashie! Tell us what's going on!
PoE, then? With bronies as their equine and other counterparts?
That moment when you realize you have jet fighters closing in on your position.
Thats my guess as to what's gonna happen next...
Warning, Rainbow Dash, we've picked up a new group of signals. Enemy fighters heading your way.
7426789 Do my eyes deceive me? A star wars: a new hope reference?
yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Harleys a changeling!!!!!!!!! I'm calling it now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7426789 ???: Sending reinforcements, combat fighters, one heavy. ETA of enemy ships?
So Equestria's ultimately responsible for these manifestations. Why do they bother messing with earth? I mean, I don't think it'll go down well for their new friends if they find out Equestria just started meddling in Earthly affairs. They must have a motive for doing so. But why? Did they instigate the inception of the TV show just to start this whole magic process? Questions, questions, things are pretty muddy on both sides of the conflict.
Oh, hey, looks like I was pretty close. So apparently Twilight just likes being cryptic and condescending.
So the Eauestrians decided to slowly introduce magic into the world, but instead of studying it logically, the feds decide to imprison, torture, and flat-out MURDER anybody involved? The accuracy of the governmental reaction is astounding.
7811057
fuck you more
8881935
Yea and fuck you for being a militaristic dick
Well we've already met the trinity quota of unicorn, earth pony and pegasus it seems.
Ah, now it makes sense. To humanity it looks like an invasion from another world. And the ponies are apparantly being super sneaky about it, making it look even worse. From that perspective the US government probally feels they are at war, an undeclared one at that. No wonder they are terrified and reacting this way! Heck, it might even look like invasion of the body snatchers to them!
At least from the information given at this point in the story. Once I read more I may have a more clear picture.