Detour

by Jetset0099

Breakfast of Unfortunate Events

Jake slowly regained consciousness as the C-130 lumbered on with it's autopilot, seemingly unscathed. "Ugh, what the hell happened?" He sat up and looked around the cockpit, until he got to a mirror that was mounted on the control panel. "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! What the hell happened to me!?"

Jake expected to see his face when he looked at himself, just like anyone else, instead he saw what seemed to be a brown horse with a black mane in his place. He looked down, and saw he was still wearing his uniform, and it fit his new body perfectly for some reason. He examined his hands which were now brown hooves. He looked out the window and saw nothing but a valley with woods below him, bordered by a mountain range. "I don't think I'm in Nevada anymore..." he whispered. Then once again, Jake was taken to the magical land of unconciousness. The aircraft continued its course. Disturbing the quiet valley with it's engines filling the valley below with a quiet hum, headed straight for a distant castle perched on the side of a mountain where the valley curved.
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The royal pony sisters were sitting out on the deck to the tallest tower of the castle enjoying breakfast, the one time they got to see each other other than royal duties. With Celestia raising the sun in the morning, and Luna raising the moon at night, their schedules didn't allow them to interact that often except for this one meal.

"Sister I'm just saying, if we got the guards to comply, being the rulers of Equestria I think it shan't be difficult; we would have enough ponies to break the record for the longest wave in the world!" Luna spoke confidently of this idea to her sister, who didn't see it as importantly as her.

Celestia put down her toasted bagel and laughed, "Luna, you need to stop worrying about that record. What would you accomplish anyways? You're the co-ruler of our great land. How would the citizens of Equestria look at you if they knew you were wasting time on things like that instead of our nation's issues and state? Luna are you listening to me...Luna?"

Luna stopped listening to her sisters reasoning halfway in to focus her attention on a black speck heading straight for them in the distance. "Tia, look out there. What is it?"

Celestia turned around and followed her sisters hoof pointing north up the valley until her eyes fell upon what looked to be a dot with two extensions on either side jutting straight out. "I don't know for sure Luna, but it doesn't look like a pegasus, nor a griffon. I'm going to find out right now." Celestia got up from their meal and walked into the tower room to summon a guard with the telescope they use to watch over Canterlot. A white, armored Royal Guard pony ascended the spiral staircase with haste, telescope in hoof.

"Thank you corporal. Alert the other guards in the immediate facility to be on high alert just incase this 'thing' is dangerous. I don't know what it is yet or what it's capable of."

The guard bowed and replied, "Yes your highness, it shall be done immediately."

"Thank you corporal." And with that he left and descended down the spiral staircase immediately to follow through with is new set of orders.

"Tia hurry with that telescope! This thing is much faster than I anticipated!" Celestia ran out to Luna who was right in saying so. The black dot was no longer a dot, and it was much closer than before. She raised the telescope up to her eye and looked on. She saw a clear image of a cylinder with a window at the front and wings on either side with four spinning rotors, two on each one. In the back, there were two smaller wings arranged in the same orientation as the wings up front, and one wing standing vertically in the center between the two smaller wings. The entire thing was a dark grey and had a weird symbol on the vertical wing that appeared to be a flag with red and white stripes and a blue square adjourned with white dots in the top left corner. On the side of the main cylinder there was white lettering that read 'American Flightline'.

"What is it Tia? Let me see!" Luna snatched the telescope away from her sister and looked out at the same thing she saw. "Is it an airship? It doesn't have a balloon on it though." she said.

Celestia was worried now. "Luna, go downstairs and wait. This thing looks suspicious. If it gets too close I'm going to have to label it a threat. It's not something I like to do, for I am not one to quickly jump to conclusions without evidence. Yet I can't risk the population of Canterlot, or even Equestria on a whim."

After a short argument, Celestia managed to get Luna to go to the throne room and wait, while she waited to see how the "thing" was going to proceed on its course. She walked into the tower to explain to her personal guard, Crossblade, the situation. "This may or may not be a threat, but if I do label it one I need you to run as fast as you can to alert the other guards and put them on code red."

Crossblade looked puzzled. "But your highness, we've never been on code red. Even when the griffons invaded ten years ago we were only on code blue."

"That's the thing Crossblade."
Celestia exlaimed. "When they invaded I knew what they were and what they were capable of. In this situation I don't know either. I don't know how much protection we need against this thing. We may need none and this might be an experiment gone awry. But for now I need to do my duty as ruler and protect my nation by whatever means necessary."

He bowed, "Understood, your majesty."
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Once again, Jake came around and looked down at his new hooves. "Ok" he thought, "I'm now a...a...ok, this isn't the craziest thing I've seen. Wait, of course this is the craziest thing I've seen! Get a grip on yourself and asses the situation. I'm now some kind of horse, and I have no flipping clue where the hell I am. My fuel is low for some reason and I have no communication." He knew he had no communication due to the radios being fried from whatever had hit his airplane. He also tried to figure out why his fuel was so low. The only conclusion that he came to was that he must've been out for a lot longer than he anticipated and his plane just kept flying on.

For the first time since his awakening, he looked out the windshield to an astonishing sight. There was a castle to the south surrounded by a city with elegant architecture. What really amazed him the most was the fact that it was hanging off the side of a cliff while streams of water bathed in transparent rainbow spectrums cascaded off the side down to the valley below, which formed a river that flowed south to a very distant and tiny village. Then it hit him, he was heading straight for it. "Oh crap, ooooook how the hell do I do this with hooves!?" He was desperately trying to turn off the autopilot button with a hoof. But being a small button it was hard to press without hitting all the other surrounding buttons i. A random state. If this was a game of simon he would've lost immediately. The castle almost took up the entire windshield as he quickly approached it. Finally, he managed to turn it off and used both hooves to awkwardly grasp one side of the yoke and press down. Banking the aircraft in a hard right angle and narrowly missing a tall tower with two ponies standing in awe of his sudden appearance on the balcony of it.
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One minute ago:

Celestia walked back out onto the balcony only to be shocked at the sight before her. The thing was a mere quarter mile away and closing in on the balcony. The engine noise was apparent now and drowned the balcony in a deep hum. Crossblade ran out to see what the noise was.

"Princess, get back it's not safe!" he yelled.

Celestia could only stand there in shock as the thing banked hard to the right and flew right by them, narrowly missing them. The engines roared and the rotors emitted a piercing wind behind them, knocking Crossblade off his feet and blowing Celestia's crown off her head and over the balcony railing, falling hundreds of feet until meeting it's unfortunate end with its rival known as gravity.

Celestia looked at the thing, now flying away from Canterlot and unmistakably towards Ponyville. Now, being any other town in the world, she wouldn't have been as concerned. But remembering Ponyville's past and all the danger it attracts, Celestia knew that whatever that thing was, it wouldn't pass over the town without something happening.

Comments

[totallynotabrony]

The second chapter is better written, but for some reason your spelling and punctuation took a hit.

[Bread Shot]

LOL

[The outcast]

i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/016/170/funny-pictures-cat-gravity-wins.jpg

[redskin122004]

Did he really have to change into a pony? It would of been more interesting staying human...oh well.

[RagingCacti]

I cant imaging what difference between the number of people that have read the first two chapters vs. the rest must be. As soon as I read the words "Now a brown horse," I stopped reading. Nothing against you, your writing, or your ideas; but its not up my alley. Im just not a fan of ponification.

[TheWatcher]

All I could think about with the crown was:
The two missiles turned into a potted petunia and a rather startled sperm whale. The whale, after beginning to come to grips with its existence, fell to its death. All the pot of petunias thought was 'oh no, not again'.

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

[Verdigris]

Sorry, but I can't read any more. Celestia's all wrong, IMO, as is Luna. The odds - real or otherwise - of collision with Canterlot just don't add up.
And seriously, another human falling from the sky? Done to death.
No rating, up or down. I just can't.

[mcb893]

It annoys me when people write in aviation with barely any understanding of it.

I mean, would it kill ya to consult someone or do some research?

Okay, to be fair, this one wasn't so badly written aviation-wise, but first off...

Autopilot was created so that pilots wouldn't have to make constant corrections by hand while flying long distances. Recently, it has also been able to land and take off planes, but in this case your pilot, who is "best at what he does", decides to immediately turn to his autopilot to recover from an emergency situation. Mind you, I'm only a student pilot - few hours to go for my licence - but I was trained, in an emergency, to disengage the autopilot immediately and fly the plane by hand.

Second, the autopilot button wouldn't be so hard to hit.

Third, (though I've obviously never handled a C-130), it couldn't be that hard to bank it.

[EndGamer]

i would have continued reading if he had stayed human. The transformation into a pony was not needed.

[Thraxus908]

2348664 I think he was actually trying to turn off the autopilot. Also, I agree with the others. The ponyfication was unnecessary, though i will continue reading.

[Insidiaphilia]

I like it...

[Verequus]

Some stuff is still to explanationary. Celestia shouldn't describe so much why she would be willing to label the plane as threat, but merely say that she is considering it. We know that Celestia is caring and a UFO appearing without any warning would require investigations and preparations anyway. Consider the knowledge the characters have and write the dialogue from that perspective. If stuff is missing which can't be easily inferred on, you might want to consider have someone like that officer to ask the questions the audience my have. Or just put it into an author's note, if it is important enough, but something not fitting into the story itself.

"My fuel is low for some reason and I have no communication." He knew he had no communication due to the radios being fried from whatever had hit his airplane.

This piece of text can be easily improved to "My fuel is low for some reason and my radio is fried." More concise and all exposition done as well. Compared to the first chapter, still an improvement.

[OverWatcher]

heeey 130 likes, thats awesome

[IrritatingTarget]

this is awsome favorited

[Vates Despero]

asses the situation.

How many asses? Why is there more than one ass? Did the cars in the back turn into donkeys? OH! Did you mean "assess"? To evaluate the situation?