Dragon in the Burning Woods: Continuation

Everything hurt.

His arms, his legs, his stomach. Everything. He was starting to wonder what had happened. It was a normal flight, but then they just... dropped. They fell to the ground, and crashed in a spectacular mess of debris, flames, and hydraulic fluids. The aircraft's wings were torn off, but still rested in more or less the same position. He wondered if anyone else had survived. Opening his eyes, he saw that he had been thrown clear of the plane. There was nothing around except for dense forest. He could hear the sounds of leaves rustling and some sort of bird singing. It was so serene.

Until you turn around and see the wreckage. What an eyesore...

Trying to stand, he found himself unable to do so. He collapsed in a flood of pain, which was only increased by the impact with the ground. He looked at his legs. His right leg appeared to be fine, but his left was obviously broken. A small shard of bone stuck through his shin, so he wasn't even going to try walking again any time soon. His arms were badly bruised, but his legs seemed to have taken most of the crash. His head was sore, but a quick check proved it wasn't bleeding. He hoped search and rescue would arrive soon.

Of course, that still meant he had a lot of time on his hands. To wait for rescue, hopefully. These bushes obscured his view somewhat, but he could still see some shapes moving about the plane. What they were, he couldn't tell exactly. But the sound of voices made him hopeful for survivors.

"Hey! Over here! Someone help me!" he called out.

Twilight's head was on fire.

Not literally, but not quite figuratively either. The high heat of her combined spell use and the plane crash left her lying in a heap on the control console, mane starting to smolder. Struggling to her feet, she noticed that something was certainly not right about this. For after a crash, that is. Looking into the cabin, Twilight saw something that surprised her.

No one was there.

Just minutes before, the passenger cabin had been filled with those ape creatures, but now there were none left. Standing, Twilight found herself able to stand, despite her injuries. Looking through the cockpit windows, she could see no one else around. Strange, she would have expected Rainbow Dash and Big Mac to still be there. She was about to try opening the doors when she could hear a voice outside. Her own.

"Really Spike? Zombies?"

"Well, what if it was?"

Twilight began to panic. Why was she hearing her own voice? And where were all the ape things? Most importantly, what had happened?

Time was running out. She could see Big Macintosh walking around to the other side of the craft. The door was hanging open, and a long slide had deployed from the side of the craft. Looking frantically around, she decided on the only logical thing she could do. Teleport.

With a flash, she dropped herself in the clearing just outside. 10 feet up over some shrubs, unfortunately. She dropped like a rock, only to be met with a pained scream.

As if the pain wasn't bad enough. Now not only did he have a broken leg, but the bone had shifted. He quickly controlled his screams, and started to bite his lip. He couldn't see anything, but there was something lying on him. He remembered seeing a flash of light above him, and then something fell on him. It wasn't too heavy, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. His vision blurred, leaving him half blind.

Controlling the pain, he tried to look at what was crushing him. He was surprised, to say the least.

A purple unicorn, a bright streak in her mane, was lying across him, and it seemed it was trying to get up. He certainly wasn't going to stop it. As much as he tried, he couldn't help but start to freak out a little. Was he hallucinating? Hopefully it was just the blood loss getting to him, there couldn't be a unicorn there, right? He began to calm himself, but for nothing. As soon as it spoke, he lost it.

"Ow, my stomach..."

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

"AAAAH!"

The unicorn jumped to its feet. Judging by the voice, he guessed it was female. As she looked at him, she quickly regained her composure.

"Um... are you hurt?"

The answer seemed so blatantly obvious that he didn't even bother to reply, he only made a "you don't say" face at her. She apparently didn't get it.

"So, that's a no? Or a yes?"

"It's a yes you fucking moron! I have a fucking bone sticking out of my fucking leg, and you ask if I'm hurt? Are you blind?!" he shouted angrily and painfully.

She seemed to be frightened by his outburst. The unicorn sank back nervously, and her horn began to glow.

"Aw shit, what are you doing? Don't hurt me, I didn't mean anything! I'm beggin' ya, I didn't mean anything by it." he was now freaking out, as anyone with any sense would.

It didn't help that she remained silent. Nor did it help when he realized that although he was talking, no sound came out. Her horn dimmed, and she brought her face really close to his.

"Point to your injuries." she said.

The man obliged, pointing to the bone sticking through his leg. To his surprise, the unicorn's horn began to glow again. As she touched it to his leg, the bone began to recede. It sank back into its place, and the flesh over it grew back together, closing the wound. The unicorn looked back at him.

"Is that all?"

The man nodded, the bruises wouldn't be a problem and his head wasn't bleeding, so why bother with that? He started to stand up, but the purple mare shoved him back to the ground.

"We can't go anywhere, not yet. I'm going to unsilence you, and you have to promise not to yell, alright?"

He nodded. Her horn glowed again, and he found his voice had returned.

"So, how exactly did you do that?" he said, his voice just above a whisper.

"Magic. What exactly is that thing over there? I've never seen anything like it before." she pointed into the clearing.

He stood up, and saw she was pointing at the plane. Of course he couldn't expect her to know this, why should she? Thinking about the best way to answer that, he turned back to her.

"Do you want the long version or the short version?" he asked.

"Short."

"It's a Boeing 777-300, a jet airplane."

"Um... what would that be? I know it flies, but why and how?"

"Now that's the long version. To make that simple, it carries people over long distances very quickly. We can cross the entire US in only five hours. Used to take almost a week by train." he always liked bragging about that to his friends, most of whom had gone into the rail system.

"What the US?" she asked.

He stood there dumbfounded for about three seconds before he realized that no shit she wouldn't know that.

"The United States. It's my home country."

"Ok. I guess we can go now, it seems that the crowd over there is quite distracted."

Looking back at the plane, he saw that indeed, a large crowd had gathered around the airplane. All horses, he noted. Why was this so familiar to him? Turning back to the unicorn, he asked her about it.

"Are all the people around here, well... horses?" he asked awkwardly.

"Ponies, to be more precise. And no, there are some gryphons, some dragons, and a few zebras."

"Whoawhoawhoa. Dragons? Seriously?" That didn't bode well for him.

"Yes. Most of them are down South for a few years before the Great Dragon Migration to the mountains just over there. But my assistant Spike is a dragon."

"Will we be meeting Spike?"

"Probably not. We're going to need to stay hidden while I try to fix all of this."

Well that's a relief. At least he didn't need to worry about being dinner. Speaking of which, he was very hungry.

"Oh, I never caught your name. What is it?" the pony asked.

"What? Oh, my name's Matheuz Dubnik."

"Interesting name. I'm Twilight Sparkle, you can just call me Twilight." she told him.

My name's interesting? Compared to 'Twilight Sparkle' it's like being named John Smith...

"Well, in that case, just call me Matt. Everyone else does anyway."

"Ok Matt, you look familiar. Give me a minute to think about that..." she replied.

I'M familiar? How is that even... ugh, I don't even care anymore. Still, I know I've heard the name Twilight Sparkle before. It's not the half-assed excuse for a book, I know that.

"That guy from the cockpit!" she exclaimed.

"Huh?" Oh, what an intelligent response.

"You were sitting on the right side of the cockpit, weren't you? You're dressed the same way as the guy who was, and you have the same name."

"Yes, I'm the first officer, co pilot, whatever you want to call it. What difference does it... TWILIGHT SPARKLE!"

Suddenly it clicked. The cartoonish forest, the purple unicorn pony, the name, it all added up now. My Little Pony, of course! All those times he had to sit through the episodes with his daughter Susan. She'd never shut up about it afterward, so it was a given that he'd be unable to forget these things. What else could he remember... Not much, he tried to drown out as much as possible. He could recall a few other names; Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy... SPIKE! Now he remembered who he was. All of a sudden he felt a lot less on edge. Now he was just getting irritated.

"Um, Matt? Why did you just yell out my name?"

"Wha... Oh, no reason. Something just clicked is all. So, where to?" he answered, trying to change the subject.

"Hmm. Well, we'd better get moving. We need to get to shelter soon. Night's falling in a few hours, and some pretty scary things can come out at night in the Everfree Forest."

"Well, let's try to salvage something from the plane first, shall we? I know there's bound to be a few things that are worth recovering."

Twilight nodded an agreement. As the last of the ponies dispersed from the wreck site, Matt made a run for it. He scrambled up the emergency slide into the cabin. The seats were all empty, which was quite disturbing to him. They had taken off with about 170 passengers and 5 flight attendants. Why were all the seats empty? The question was answered in part by the presence of blood on the back wall. The flight attendant uniforms laid in a heap on the floor, as if the people had been torn out of them and thrown through the wall.

Looking away from the gruesome sight, he saw the emergency axe on the wall and grabbed it. You can't go wrong with having tools in the wilderness. Unless they're power tools, those would be useless. Looking through the seats, he could see a few still had their belongings in them. Looking at one seat in particular, he was pleased to find his prize.

The Air Marshal's pistol.

A .38 revolver, it carried 6 rounds already loaded. There weren't any more, so he would just need to save his shots. Walking back out and jumping down the slide, he saw Twilight standing there nervously waiting for him.

"We need to hurry, I can hear some ponies coming back. Follow me closely."

Matt nodded his agreement, and began to follow her into the forest, the cloak of darkness not yet having fallen, but being just ahead. As the two ran, he hoped that the pistol he carried in his pocket wouldn't need to be fired. Hopefully that wasn't just wishful thinking.

Too bad he was wrong.