Rainbow Crash
Twilight is getting ready to call a break for her hardworking- and exhausted- work crews when the object they’re uncovering suddenly moves. It tilts down, until it’s angled about as steeply as the hillside facing Ponyville, while it also twists away from the rock face, wrenching itself free. It stops for about a second before the plug of rock they’d been so far unable to cut into inside of it is launched right out, flying into the Everfree. The impact is heard almost eight seconds later.
“Another one!?” Rainbow asks. She’d stuck around to help with the excavation as much as she could; Applejack had to go finish her applebucking.
“Wait, I don’t think this one can point at us,” she says, looking at the hub they’d revealed- and that had swiveled with the rest of the new … weapon. “It doesn’t look like it can go down as far as the others.” She turns towards her half-startled, half-frightened work parties. “Break time! Thank you, everypony! I think we can take, what, a couple hours?” She’s met by a combination of relieved and excited responses, though there’s a couple disappointed ones. “If you want to keep going, you’re welcome to,” she informs them.
In the end, nopony sticks around to keep working, and Twilight meanders towards the cave she’d waypointed earlier- amazing how invisible it is- with Rainbow in tow. Pinkie had zipped off towards town, intent upon her caloric job at Sugarcube Corner, as soon as she’d announced break time. Rainbow Dash had been starting towards Ponyville on foot; her wings have been more and more painful to use this last month, and nopony could ever label her as a masochist. She had been, until she noticed that Twilight- who, she’d noticed earlier, had lost the limp in her right hind leg- was not headed towards Ponyville, but rather on a heading that would take her clean past it, through the grass- such that she’d pass about halfway between Ponyville and Fluttershy’s house. So she’d followed, tucking her aching right wing into place. It hurts the least when it’s folded, and even less if she doesn’t have to hold it folded with her wing muscles.
“Where’ ya headed?” she asks, looking out at the meadow. Twilight is not normally one to hit the meadows without at least a couple of books.
Twilight glances over at her. “I thought I’d talk to Zeus a little.”
“Zeus? Who’s Zeus?”
Twilight pauses. “I forgot to tell you about him, didn’t I?”
“Him?” Rainbow stops midstep, cringing as her wing comes unfolded for a second.
A blush. “Sorry! He’s a machine, and he lives in a really nice room in a cave not far from here.”
A raised eyebrow. “Is he awesome?” Her body language screams ‘Like me?’.
The blush fades, covered by a sigh. “I don’t know,” she returns- and gains a mischievous smile. “Wanna meet him?”
Rainbow goes wide-eyed. “Uh, no, I don’t think so.” She shakes her head. “He’s your machine-colt.”
Twilight scowls at this. “Fluttershy knew him before I ever heard of him.”
This stops Rainbow in her tracks.
“Wait, Fluttershy? HER coltfriend?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so. And no, she didn’t expect to shine like that.”
Rainbow scowls at her headed off follow-up question. “Rarity’s never going to leave her alone about that.”
“It wasn’t me either,” Twilight retorts. “Perhaps he can tell us what happened?”
“I’m not askin’.”
Sigh. “He even offered to play bunker for us, if needed.” She pauses at the mouth of the tunnel, pointing a hoof down it.
Rainbow takes a quick look at the cavern, and turns back to her friend. “Pass,” she says. “I’mma go take a nap.” With that, she trots off.
Twilight shakes her head slightly, turning to enter the tunnel- and pausing. Rarity… Right, Rarity would never leave Fluttershy alone, until she found out how to do it herself. She takes one, long look down the tunnel, and trots off herself, to find one or both.
Eight hours later, Rainbow Dash has a predicament. Her wing has been hurting more and more all day, even when she kept it folded. Now, with a soft yelp of pain, she stretches it out for the quick jump, almost perfectly vertical, into her cloud mansion. If it hurts this much today… She actively dreads the return journey, but she really wants to sleep in her own bed one last time. A little pain is a small price to pay for the luxury of home. Another soft yelp comes from her test flap, and she decides her home is worth the pain. A deep crouch, a high leap, and a real stroke.
The first stroke is just as painful as she had expected. The second hurts more; the third, even more. She’s beginning to debate the wisdom of her choice, even as she clears her front lawn, when her first- and only- flap to move horizontally ends early in a sharp cracking noise in her right wing, effectively immobilizing it in pain.
She strokes frantically with her other wing, also painful but thankfully not damaged, while she uses a hoof to steady her right, attempting to make a landing. Unfortunately, she had not gotten enough forward momentum to reach her home, and the dynamics of her issue have turned her away. She makes an attempt to turn back, but loses too much altitude. So she attempts to navigate back to Ponyville, there to check in to the hospital- not that she expects them to be able to help very much; they’ve been nonplussed by hers and her friends’ pains these last few months.
Pegasi are not designed for one-winged flight. Rainbow knows this, but attempts anyways. After completely failing to direct herself towards Ponyville, she works towards simply making a safe landing- anywhere. Even a safe crash landing would be good enough; her legs are still just fine. Once on the ground, it should be easy for her to trot over to the hospital, or anywhere else, for that matter.
One-winged landing, however, proves to be too difficult for even the self-proclaimed fastest flyer in all of Equestria. She does manage to avoid killing herself as she crashes into the hillside. However…
She cries out in pain as her good wing is smashed against the ground, breaking in at least one spot. Her attempt at a three-legged landing is even more punishing, though. Her hind legs are OK, but her left foreleg now sports a sprained ankle. Her right foreleg, where it had been holding her now limp- and even more hurt, though not broken- right wing, has broken, right at the knee. She’s in no shape to walk as far as Ponyville; she’s landed too far away.
She’s also too close to the Everfree for safety. She contemplates visiting Fluttershy’s house for only two seconds, before she recalls the fractured windows; the work ponies are scheduled to install new windows tomorrow. Unfortunately, even though the house is within earshot of her current position, that means it’s empty. Fluttershy herself has been sleeping in Twilight’s castle ever since the explosion.
Rainbow is fairly close to panic, climbing slowly- and painfully- to her three working hooves, when she notices something. ‘He even offered to play bunker for us,’ her memory replays for her. There is a glow, ever so faint, coming from the cave mouth not three meters from her current position. Bonus, she recognizes where she is. This, then, must be ‘his’ cave- though she forgets what Twilight called him. If he offered to play bunker, she might as well take advantage of that and wait in safety until one of her friends comes to visit him tomorrow, at which point she can alert them of her problem. She makes her way painfully to the tunnel.
It’s an interesting tunnel, she decides. Even as she hobbles her way down it, her mind is far too active to remain occupied by her steady, painful steps. Speaking of which, she’s found that she can still fold her wing at its joint, but she’s lost any ability to lift or lower it on its own power- aside from the massive pains every time that particular mid-hip shifts. But, she admonishes herself, she doesn’t go on tangents the way Twilight does. The tunnel, even as far in as she has gone, feels more like a darkened hallway than a cave in the ground. Eventually, she reaches the bottom- where a metal doorway is standing open.
“I might recommend hurrying inside,” a stallion’s voice comes, quietly, from inside. “A creature has emerged from the Everfree, and appears to be following your scent.”
“What?” Rainbow only pauses for half a second before she picks up her pace. She’s right in front of the door when she hears the thing approaching the final bend, and launches herself into the doorway, glancing back. She’d spotted the door itself, barely visible in the wall, as she came in.
The thing- there truly is no better word to describe it- can’t be more than a meter away from the door, and bounding towards her, when her tail clears the entry. The door instantly lands shut with a solid clang, momentarily before she hears the faint sound of something coming up hard against it.
“Thanks,” she mutters, climbing unsteadily back to her hooves and ambling further in, to the room on the other end of this massively deep doorway. She glances around and, not seeing anypony, directs her question towards the center of the empty room. “Do you mind if I wait here for my friends?” she asks, and takes a worried glance back at the door.
“You’re welcome to wait here,” the stallion replies- from all around, Rainbow decides. “I might suggest using one of the chairs, though- I understand they’re more comfortable, even when injured, than the floor.”
The response he gets for that is a critical look at the nearest seat in question and a tilted head. Key in her contemplation is just how worth the pain of moving this unknown comfort is likely to be. Even as she stands, her right wing waves painfully with her breathing, her left screaming from the broken bone. Her right foreleg also howls, but she’s tall enough she can see the indentations for her forelegs on the foreleg-rests. Additionally, her eyes are good enough she can see the indentation in the cushions, suggesting that it aught to support her injured limbs better than the floor might.
After a full minute of quite un-Rainbowlike standing in contemplation, she speaks up again. “How soft are they?”
“They are adjustable; as soft, or as hard, as you like.”
That settles it. If that claim is true, it will be at least twenty percent more comfortable than the floor. She starts her way towards the seats. “Any that I should avoid?” she asks.
“No. You may pick any seat you please.”
A pained smile spreads across Rainbow’s face. “Thank you,” she says and, upon reaching the seat, starts climbing into it. She simply can’t hear the monster at the door anymore; she’d noticed a second door, on the inside, slide more quietly shut once she entered, blocking out the noise of its relentless attacks.
It takes her several minutes to get onto the seat and turn around, settling her hind legs into place, then she gets to work squeezing her right wing into place, already deciding the comfort is worth the pain. At least it’s not actually broken, so it folds naturally, and all she has to do is direct it into place. She then places her right forehoof on the armrest and begins the trouble with her stubbornly broken left wing. It takes her close to ten minutes to get it to settle properly into the cushion, against her side, as she finishes leaning back and drops her left hoof onto its rest.
She closes her eyes for a second, relaxing into the seat. “You’re right,” she agrees. “These things are comfortable.” She drops off to sleep not two seconds later.
“You’ll be even more so when you wake up,” Zeus chuckles. “Broken bones and cancers in the nerves are nothing to laugh at.” He declines to mention the painkillers he’s already administered, even though she’s fast asleep.
That night, and for much of the following day, Rainbow catches up on the sleep she’s lost to the pain each night- and nap- over the last three and a half months.
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So the Six have encountered something carcinogenic, or possibly radioactive? Presumably not the Bolo itself - Rainbow hasn't been around previously. Something from a previous mission? Weird residual magic?
8659799
Glad you like it, thank you!
8660482
Something like that, yes.
8660535
Me too, actually. Thank you!
8660482
A radioactive Everfree.
8660661
Not in this one- that was a construct in Fire and Thunder... This one's a little more subtle, such that even a Bolo might not notice or recognize it immediately.
8661421
Oops. Sorry! Losing my mind.
8661517
No problem- it is a real plot point, if only for another story.
I have never heard of nerv cancer is that even possible? What is it with that all of they have tumors or cancer. regural life spand for a pony is 20-30 years but these ones are magical etc so aslong as humans mayby. But that one in two has tumor or cancer what is with that place it´s like a atomic bomb has been dropped there.
8765675
Anyways, yes, it's a little funny to be seeing cancer like that, especially so much of it... But it's not an atom bomb- it's something a little more malevolent...
Yes, I'm pretty sure nerve cancer is possible- by the way cancer works, given the right conditions, just about any cell could theoretically become cancerous. I don't know, I'm not a doctor!
8765696
It's neurofibrosa and neurosarcoma.
8912364
Yes, what he said.
Neuro-whatsits.
8912384
New-row what who?
I bet the Elements of harmony &or some kind of magic they are around is causing the cancer.