Ghost of the Everfree

by David Silver

43 - Sudden Stop

Apple Bloom landed on top of the back of a bench that had served as a fine sitting place not long before. "Oof." One pony hadn't been sent flying, but only because their leg got caught on the same bench. Apple Bloom was pretty sure they weren't supposed to bend quite like that. "Ah gotcha!"

The stallion was barely whimpering. Were they even awake? Apple Bloom couldn't be sure. She flipped out a healing potion into her mouth, but delayed in trying to administer it. "Needja back together." She grabbed the injured pony and, ignoring medical advice, tried her best to heave him back up onto the bench instead of wrapped around it. "Ain't gonna do you no good to heal like that."

Sweetie Belle was focusing on injured ponies not in such a precarious position. With melodic entreaties to the universe, she could banish the hurt from some of them, a few at least before her reserves ran dry. Bards were not specialized in the healing arts, and she never trained as a mundane healer. But she had to help. She just had to...

So she did what any good bard would do. She began to sing a new song. "Even when you're given a fright, your hooves will always move right..." She bolstered their skills, so that any ponies that did know how to help would be bolstered.

Silver Spoon landed with a heavy thud at the bottom of the car. A lot of other ponies had arrived there a lot faster and violently than Silver had just managed it. "Alright, like, who needs help?" Hooves went up, but some of them weren't just raised in pleas for themselves. Several were pointing at a specific pony. "Oooo.... Oh... wow." That pony... "I... don't think I can help them..." She could only heal the living. Not an expert, she felt pretty sure that pony was not that. Ponies needed all their various parts to be connected. "Um, you." She hurried towards a still living and hopeful pony.

With a loud squeal of metal against metal, the door leading to the next car was forced open, a prybar shoving up and wrenching to finish the job. A conductor poked his head up into the mess. "Is everypony alright?" Alas, for him, some bits of that pony fell on him. "Sweet Celestia!" He almost fell in surprise. "Everypony who can walk, follow me. We're getting ponies out of here."

Newly administered ponies, and those who had miraculously avoided busting anything up too bad to start, rushed to follow the conductor. A foal sobbed, passing the grisly scene, their mother trying so badly to shelter them with limited success.

"Wait!" Dry zoomed between that crowd and the conductor. "Just one moment." He brandished his holy symbol. "In the name of Princess Luminace, I banish these injuries, that these ponies may learn and make new friends!" A wave of positive energy exploded free of Dry in all directions, not as strong as any individual healing spell, but it washed over all the ponies in the area.

The ponies only sped up, their aches abated. Some got out quick thank you or a wave, but most were in a state of panic, rushing for the safety promised by the conductor's words. To their credit, none of them shoved Dry aside, just flowing around him towards escape.

Apple Bloom descended slowly from above, helping a stallion make the trip along with her. For having his leg bent in such a way moments before, he seemed in, relatively, good spirits, but that the leg was still giving him trouble was clear, and Apple Bloom was doing her best to lend a helping hoof along the way.

"Gotcha!" Scootaloo took up the stallion's other side to help Apple Bloom on the descent. "Sorry, don't have any fancy healing tricks."

"You're fancy enough on yer own," assured Apple Bloom, accepting the help gratefully. Together, they got the stallion to the bottom and let him stiffly walk towards the conductor. "That kinda hurt ain't gonna be fixed with no quick fix. He'll need some real time to heal, or way more powerful magic."

Dry raised a hoof, and Apple Bloom met it in a great clop. "You did good! Um... I wish we could have helped them all, but, um..."

Silver thumped against Dry, side to side. "We get it. We can only do so much. Like, imagine if we weren't here."

A sharp whistle got their attention. The conductor was watching them intently. "C'mon, foals! You're the last ones." At least the last ones that were in a state he could yell at them and expect much response.

Diamond shook her head, arriving last, but looking alright. Not like she had healing tricks, just a sharp eye. Not ideal for the situation. "What's the rest of the train look like? Any doctors on board? We may be your only help."

"You're foals. C'mon. We'll get you somewhere safe." The Conductor waved down into the next car. "Don't be scared."

Apple Bloom patted herself down. "Nope, still got potions. If there are hurt ponies, we wanna help." She lifted a potion to demonstrate it to the doubtful conductor.

"This ain't a place fer apple juice," he scoffed, climbing up into their car fully. "Now, let's move. All the other ponies already left, don't you want to go with them?"

A plea for herd instinct, but they had a herd already. The foals gathered closer together. Dry shook his head quickly. "We are not just foals. We have magic that can help ponies who are hurt. This is not a game."

The conductor squinted at the lot of them. "I saw you do something..." He turned away from them, hopping down through the floor, or the door that had become the floor. "Either way, gotta come this way."

With a shared look, the young adventurers followed after the conductor. The only thing behind, er, above them was the room they had started in, and there wasn't much there. The next car had ponies escaping out a jagged cut in the side of things, with some windows kicked out to make it wider and a little less hazardous as they popped free of the ruined train.

Dry hurried to the front, jumping from seat to seat to get to the ragged opening in the car, but not to escape. "Luminace, on this trying day, be our light of hope!" He held his holy symbol up, unleashing a new wave of healing energy over the ponies trying to escape.

Silver landed next to him with a thump. "Nice work. Us war priests have a harder time doing that fwoosh--" She spread her hooves in pantomime of the explosion of energy. "--thing."

Dry could do something better than Silver? That was a hard concept to accept. "But you can do it? You can help."

"I've, like, been helping." She gently bopped her boyfriend. "But good timing, getting so many ponies better." She leaned over the seat to get a better look below them. "Are there other cars down there, with other ponies?"

Dry looked instead to one of the conductors. "What did this? Is it still here?" Danger was not a thing to be ignored.

"We do not know, but we have to get everypony off this train. It's clearly not safe here." The conductor waved towards the exit. "Why don't you get in the line? You've done a lot already."

"Thank you." But he jumped down instead, springing from seat to seat towards the next car.

The others followed after him without a word of prompting. Apple Bloom landed next to him on a seat. "Lookin' fer others?"

"Yeah. They're focused on running. Um, I understand that." It was an excellent survival strategy! "But there could be ponies that need us."

"Let's do it!" The crusaders met with a triumphant clop of hooves, certain on their goal.

Diamond grunted, last in the crowd. "Not feeling super helpful right now..." But she followed anyway.

A conductor was trying to get a pony with a shattered leg moving with extremely limited success. They were trying their best, but there was only so much they could do. They didn't expect a cadre of foals to drop in. "W-what?"

Dry rubbed his hooves together, starting to glow. "We can't fix that entirely, but we can..." He tapped the injured pony, a spark of life rushing into them. "Get them up."

The injured mare squeaked in surprise, suddenly awake with clarity. "What happened?" She scrambled to her hooves, which could support her. "My... ow..." But her leg was still quite tender. The conductor leaned in and under her, supporting her towards the exit.

Silver hissed, finding a conductor seated with an entire leg missing. He was watching stoically, unmoving. "Are you... like... even awake?"

"Yes." One syllable, curt, through clenched teeth.

"This isn't a safe place to be..." Silver Spoon inclined her head. "Want some help?"

"You shouldn't... be here." He grunted, a wave of pain washing through his savaged form. "Please, go... up."

"Nuh uh." She pressed her hooves to the injured stallion. "Just, like, relax. It'll feel better." There was no prayer, her shoving her faith more directly in an application of battle healing. "How's that?"

He struggled to stand, doing so awkwardly with only three hooves to his name. "B-better... How'd you do that?"

"Not important. You get up there." Silver Spoon pointed up to where they had left the exit to the train. "Can you get up there?"

"Not easily..." It didn't stop him from trying, but three legged locomotion was not graceful, and he had to climb, making it a slow process at best.

"Diamond, Scoots!" Silver looked around to find the two. "Over here!" Soon she had the two non-healing fillies giving a helping hoof to the injured conductor. "This is, like, awful..." The sudden stop of the train had hurt a lot of ponies, some the final injury they'd ever have... Even the survivors, many had hurts that may never get better. "Awful..."

Dry pawed at his girlfriend. "Good job. Let's keep helping where we can."

"Yeah! Yeah..." She smooched him, perhaps more than required, but she needed a smooch just then, perhaps a reminder she was still alive and had things worth fighting for. "Back to it!" She was still a foal, despite her battle readiness.

There would be no next car, at least not one they could reach. The end of that car was literally crumpled and smashed, entirely impassable. "Anypony in there?" shouted Apple Bloom at the mangled metal. "Jus' shout if ya can hear me!"

Things became quiet, just the foals listening as hard as they could.

Scootaloo raised a hoof. "I heard something!" She pointed at the source. "I think somepony's in there!"

Sweetie put her hooves over her face. "That..." The way the metal was bent and warped, any pony in there had to be... badly hurt, or amazingly lucky... "How do we get them out?"

Apple Bloom pulled out a new potion. "Time fer the big guns." She slugged down the contents with rapid chugs, her form deforming as she redoubled her muscles with a grunting roar of steroid-like rage. "No metal's gonna stop me!" Having transitioned from Jekyll to Hyde, she hopped down and slammed a hoof against the deformed metal, creating a new screech as she slammed it aside. "Ah'm comin'!"

They found the source of the noise, closer with each powerful bang of Apple Bloom's furious kicks and punches.

Several other foals came into view, but they weren't rushing to escape. They were pinned under the form of a larger pony, the only reason they hadn't been crushed or sliced. The larger pony had. Their mother had given the ultimate sacrifice to protect them. The three were sobbing quietly, tears spilling from their eyes as they tried, poorly, to address their would-be saviors.

Diamond shoved to the front. "No time for sadness right now." She fixed them with a haunting stare. "Your mom wants you to be safe and off this train. Up!" She thrust a hoof upwards. "Now." Her mental power pierced through their sorrow and they took off like a monster was chasing after them. It wouldn't fix their trauma, but it was getting them towards more immediate safety.

Author's Note:

Not every adventure is full of thrilling battles against monsters.

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Comments

[Booster Spice]

Someone is looking for a major bit of reengineering, an it better be the mountain. cos if it isnt, someone is looking to be riidng the Plumbob Express.

[redmar]

The Crusaders and their friends have been very helpfull and I hope they can deal with whatever caused the train to crash like that.