Flying With New Wings

Most people -- and probably ponies, too -- would question their sanity if they had the kind of realization that I just did.

And I’m fairly certain that they would turn themselves into the psych ward if that very same realization was strangely comforting.

But I wasn’t exactly one-hundred percent sane anyway, so I just shrugged off those worries. Especially because it made sense. Well... to me, at least. Mostly because as far as I could tell, there wasn’t much else that explained everything that had happened recently.

Shaking my head free of these thoughts, I continued my flight east. I needed to catch up with my flight schedule: find Spitfire before the end of the world. Or something like that. Whatever. Either way, it would take some time to get to my destination, probably another day or two.

I’m gonna need to keep an eye out for sources of water and food, I noted. With this long of a flight ahead of me, I’m gonna dry up fast.

Perhaps I could find some friends or something to team up with? It would certainly make it easier to get across the country. I had hoped that I would be able to get to Rockford, Illinois pretty quickly, but I’m not flying at the same speed as a commercial airliner. Those things fly at an altitude of 30,000 feet and an average of 150 miles per hour.

There is not a chance in Tartarus that I can fly like that without crashing and burning. Probably literally. And neither of those is currently on my Christmas wish list, thanks.

...Speaking of which, do I still need to send one to my family if I’m a pony now? A look of interest crossed my muzzle. I think I’ll have to edit it, though... no more video games for me. Stupid hooves.

I slowed my flight a bit and glanced around at my surroundings. More specifically, I looked at the bland land of Idaho below me. And by ‘bland’, I of course mean, ‘absolutely nothing of interest within sight’. God, this place was dull... no, wait, there was something over there.

“Oh.” I halted and turned back in my original direction. “Fuuuuuck that.”

It was the Idaho Air Force Base. Considering my actions back in that Mount Saint Helens grocery store, I don’t think going near that would be wise. Sure, it had been kinda stupid to go shopping like that in the first place, but getting into the air space of a military base?

That wasn’t stupid. That was suicidal. So there was only one real response: nope! Not happening!

Once the base was out of sight, I slowed down from my panicked flight and gave a relieved sigh. Looking at where I was now, I noted that my high-speed tactical retreat had led me right into Montana’s western border.

...This was going to be a long flight.

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“Final-fucking-ly!” I cried to the open skies as I spotted the sign of my destination: Rockford, Illinois. “Took long enough!”

There were a few things that I learned on my way over. First: flying under your own power and getting to see everything along the way was awesome. Second: doing so was exhausting. My plan is go to sleep and not wake up until Christmas... or at least wake up to a great, big buffet. Slowly making my way over to a nearby cloud, I collapsed onto it with a relieved sigh, letting every muscle relax. The only other major problem aside from my exhaustion and hunger was the location of Spitfire.

“Ugh... I should find her before I fall asleep...”

My muscles protested loudly as I stood back up and launched myself back into the air. I didn’t know much of where Spitfire was, except that she was supposedly close by and hiding in a forest. Which, with a quick glance around, wasn’t hard to spot. Heading over to the only forest area that was nearby, I kept an eye out for my companion. Which, considering how brightly colored she was, it wouldn’t be that hard to spot her.

And as a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Grinning as I spotted Spitfire, I landed nearby.

“Oh thank Celestia I finally found you!” I sighed gratefully. “Ugh, that flight sucked. Please tell me I can take the rest of the day off...”

“Soarin’!” Spitfire greeted me cheerfully with a smile. A very familiar smile. “Glad you made it, soldier. And not in bad time, too.”

Another familiar face popped up behind my old friend -- the face of a zebra.

“Soarin’, you remember Zecora, right?”

“Greetings, Soarin’, and how do you do?” Zecora greeted. “Spitfire was very worried about you.”

“Yeah... I don’t remember you just yet.” I gave the friendly zebra an apologetic look. “Sorry. I’ve been getting flashbacks for a couple days now, but I haven’t gotten anything involving you. But I’ll take your word for it that I know you.”

Zecora stroked her chin in thought. “If you want I can fix your memory issue. A simple potion and your lost memories ensue.”

I thought about it for a while, sitting down as I did... before shaking my head. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather let them come naturally. It’s more... exciting, I guess.”

Zecora simply smiled and nodded, understanding where I was coming from.

“So, Soarin’, how have you been the past few decades, anyway?” Spitfire asked casually. “I got to keep my gender, but Zecora here wasn’t so lucky.”

Zecora looked away, but the blush on white fur was pretty obvious. I winced in sympathy for her.

“Ooohhh... sorry to hear that. My gender didn’t change, so I got lucky there. Other than that, it’s been a pretty easy-going couple of decades.”

She shook her head. “It is fine just please do not remind me, I am still trying to put that behind me.”

I smirked along with Spitfire, who spoke next. “Alright, now that you’re here, Soarin’, we can figure out what to do next. Oh, by the way, I saw the newscast of your little stunt at that store. It wasn’t a bad idea, so I decided to pull off my own stunt, but with a slightly bigger audience.”

I listened carefully and grinned as she explained what she did.

“Slightly bigger audience? Spits, I got on the news!” I paused as I thought about it. “...Well, you probably did too, so how about we call it a tie?”

Then I put my hoof to my chin and thought about what we could do next.

“Well... hmm...” What should we do next? “There’s always... no... well, we could always be guest stars on The Daily Show or something.” I jokingly suggested. Then I paused. “...Actually that sounds like a good idea. I mean, I’m certain there are other people turning into ponies, right? And there are probably people and government officials freaking out about it being a disease or something? Then why don’t we convince some talk show to guest star us, and make a public service announcement or whatever about how this isn’t a disease, and that we’re not a threat?”

“Well there are definitely other ponies out there; the Elements of Harmony and the other Wonderbolts for sure. As for The Daily Show, I was thinking the same thing, but there are two flaws with that plan. First, we can’t exactly drive to... New York, right? And two,” Spitfire pointed to Zecora at this point. “She can’t fly, and I’m not leaving her behind.”

I blinked and shrugged. “Then don’t. We can fly with her. As for her stuff, we’ll just figure something out.”

“Don’t worry, I have a bag for my potions and brews, since some of those are too dangerous to lose.” Zecora replied just before trotting off. “Now my supplies I’m going to pack, and then we can leave once I get back.”

Spitfire grinned, “Well that takes care of that. Next stop, New York City!”

I grinned in return. “And back to being the world famous Wonderbolts!”

An entire two days of flying passed to go from Rockford, Illinois to New York City, New York.

...Why is it called that, anyway? I wondered as we landed on a roof to plan our next move. Naturally, the first idea came from The Boss.

“Why don’t we just bust into his office and ask him to interview us?” Spitfire suggested. “I mean, we’re kinda famous already.”

Zecora sighed. “We don’t want to scare him if we can help it, and if he calls the guards, we’ll be in deep shit.”

I just chuckled. “Sounds like your kind of plan, Spits. How about we just do this the same way I did the grocery store back in Washington?” I gestured towards the building where they filmed the show. “We don’t need some elaborate plan when we can just waltz in the front door and give them guests to interview for an episode that will bring in a ton of money.”

“I mean, come on, what’s more interesting: a news channel showing off a couple YouTube videos of me and Spits being seen in public, or Jon Stewart himself interviewing us? And especially after we walk in and say that we’re there to do exactly that.”

Spitfire blinked at my suggestion and thought it over. Then she grinned. “That’s exactly what we’ll do! Then maybe we can find the Elements. Or even better, the rest of the team!”

Zecora laughed. “Well then if we’ve got a plan, let’s do this. For this is a chance we cannot miss.”

So with that, Zecora hitched a ride on Spitfire again as we flew down to the building and walked right in. I smirked as people stopped and stared. Some even dropped their cell phones.

“Hi,” Spitfire greeted the receptionist. “We’re here for our interview.”

I chuckled slightly, and it grew as she grew rapidly impatient. “Hello? Two Wonderbolts and a witch doctor here? I know this isn’t usually how to schedule an interview, but my agent’s still in Equestria.”

It took that long for the security guards to snap out of their shock and to start approaching. What happened next can be described very shortly as Zecora getting them to leave us alone. Something about how we came in peace and all that... oh, wow, just thinking that made it seem so cliché.

“You two were on the news, weren’t you?” The receptionist asked, glancing between Spits and I.

Spitfire grinned. “I was in Rockford.”

“Washington state, for me.” I answered casually. I was giving my hoof more attention than the people in front of me at this point. “Now, miss... Julie, allow me to explain why giving us an on-air interview would be a good idea. First, the number of viewers you’ll get. Just think about it. What’s more interesting: a politician talking about something going on overseas, or three real-life ponies that more or less qualify as aliens from another dimension? Not to mention the fact that the live audience that will be here eventually will be all the witnesses you’ll need.

“Second, money. Aside from the ridiculous amount of viewers you’ll get just from having all of us be on this show, you’ll be raking in more money than before. I mean, really; just imagine how many people will do whatever they can to get their hands on this footage.

“Finally... you’ll get to do something no other talk show has done yet. You’ll get the chance to broadcast video of ponies that just happen to resemble those from a cartoon and just happen to actually be real. And of course, it’ll be a perfect chance for us to prove to you -- as well as everyone in the world -- that we mean no harm. That all we want to do is go home.”

As far as I was concerned, it was pretty solid reasoning -- and all because it was true. I don’t know about Spitfire, but all I wanted to do was find the other Wonderbolts and go home. To Equestria. I watched as the receptionist slowly reached for the phone on her desk.

“Mr. Stewart? You need to come see this. Yes, it’s important.”