Journey To A New Home

Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. Five words that every fighter pilot dreads to hear, is scared to have to attend, but is thankful for if they ever need find themselves isolated or lost after being downed. The training basically teaches us how to keep from dying in the wilderness with the barest of equipment, how to keep from being captured by hostile forces, how to resist interrogation if captured, and how to escape from capture if the opportunity arises. SERE was two weeks of pure hell for me, plain and simple. With some stroke of luck, I managed to pass the course and escape from my captors with a few fellow pilots after spending two days in the forest being pursued and five days of imprisonment and interrogation. I still remember my successful break for freedom like it was yesterday. Myself and three pilots by the names of Jazz, Slag and Boiler were being taken for our 'execution' as we were being rather uncooperative during our interrogations. I guess they got sick of us telling a myriad of mother jokes and other insults after the fifth day.

We had arrived at the site of our 'deaths', and were being pulled off the back of the truck when I made the attempt. They had been stupid enough to use simple cable ties to restrain our hands behind our backs, and had piled us in a metal-tray utility truck for the journey. I had quickly found a sharp edge against the back end of the tray and was using the constant bumping and bouncing of the truck as a motion to saw through the weak plastic. By the time we had arrived, it was cut through enough for me to snap with a quick pull of my wrists. The other three pilots were already unloaded by the time they reached me, and as the guard reached to pull me from the tray, I pulled my wrists and grabbed at the M9 pistol clipped to his vest. I 'shot' the guard point blank and killed him, quickly using the surprise to 'kill' the remaining guards and free my comrades. With a load of blank-fire M4s and M9s, we jacked the truck and drove in the general direction of the last known friendly position. I tell you, the assessors were surprised to see a truck with four bloodied and beaten pilots with captured weapons driving up to the exercise command post that simulated a friendly checkpoint.

Thinking about my current situation, I realised that most of my SERE training would be pointless here. I was already captured, seriously injured, with no idea of where I am and where any potential friendlies may be, and a very slim chance of escaping. The most I could do was resist whatever potential interrogation may await me if and when I came around. I replayed moments of my brief time on the ground as the crowd had studied my wreckage. A lot of the civilians were just that; civilians. A few had construction hats, most wore pretty ordinary clothes. The only ones that really stood out to me were the nurse that was treating me and another woman in the crowd that I seen wearing rather official looking clothing. Aside from that, I saw no real emergency or military response to my arrival. Then again, there's no telling what had happened to me once I had blacked out. For all I know, local police might have arrived after while I was down and out to haul me to the local cells until such a time when I was able to be interviewed.

I was drawn from my own thoughts in the blackness by a faint beeping nose next to me. I focused on the monotonous beeping noise, the beat fairly steady in pace with no noticeable change in tone. Something about that sound was familiar to me, but I could not for the life of me place where I had heard it before...

Life...

It was a heart rate monitor, I was now sure of that. After recognising that sound, I could only assume that I was alive and being held in some kind of facility with medical facilities. That was a relatively good sign, it meant that I was being given medical care, meaning that whoever had me under watch was the responsible and/or treaty abiding type. I refocused on the sound a bit more, and could now faintly hear the sound of chatter nearby. It sounded distant, but given that I could only just hear the monitor that was presumably right beside me, it might just be a lingering after-effect of my crash-induced deafness. I changed tactics, and tried to move my head. I was both shocked and surprised to find it restrained in what now felt like a brace of some kind. Seeing I couldn't move my head, I moved my efforts to my arms. They moved a little, but I could distinctly feel restraints around my wrists. Understandable, given my method of arrival. One final effort, my eyes.

I forced my eyes open slowly, letting the artificial light from the room fill my eyes. They were blurry, but after a few blinks it cleared. I took in the sight of the room around me and was surprised to find myself in a room that greatly resembled a regional hospital. Off-white walls, various posters about hygiene and health care pinned on the walls, storage for medical equipment and fittings for additional equipment like oxygen respirators and IV lines. Maybe I had dreamt the entire transportation sequence to that strange world and have somehow miraculously survived the crash into the stadium. My hopes soared a little more when I spotted the silhouettes of two people through the translucent glass panel on my door. One man and one woman, the woman wearing what looked like a nurses cap while the man had the shape of a...

Horn...

Crap, I guess I didn't dream that sequence after all. Maybe I am alive in a different world. I moved my eyes around to take a little more of the room in, and spotted a control resting just under my right hand. How I didn't feel that earlier I had no clue, but from the look of it, it was a call button. I gave it a moments thought, decided on the 'fuck it' option and proceeded to press the button. Through the door, I could see the glow of a light illuminate above the door frame and cast light on the two figures outside. The nurse turned to face the door and then looked back at her companion, who nodded and walked off. The nurse seemed to give a sigh before I saw the door opened slowly. Through the gap, a white head with light pink head appeared and looked into the room. We made eye contact for a few seconds before she proceeded to fully open the door and step through, closing the door behind her.

It was the same nurse from the field, the one working with the butter yellow girl to assess and presumably treat my injuries. She stopped at the head of my bed and picked up a chart, reading my information from it and occasionally glancing up towards me every few seconds. She then set the chart back down and walked around to my left side, taking a seat on the edge of my bed. I don't know if it was her motherly-approach or something else, but I felt relaxed with her there. She smiled at me before she did something that blew my mind.

"Good to see you're awake, mister."

She spoke. She spoke Osean. She spoke clear Osean. She spoke clear Osean with no detectable difference in dialect or accent. Okay, I think I may be slowly going crazy...

"Are you okay sir? Not feeling too much pain I hope..." she trailed off as she looked towards me, probably expecting some kind of reply. I must look like some kind of idiot, probably because my jaw was practically unhinged in shock and as far as it would go. If not for this brace, it would have most likely hit the floor with the force of a Mark 84 dumb bomb. I had to answer, just in a way that would not betray my astonishment.

"What. The fuck?" I said, my eyes widening as I realised what I just said. I backpedalled. "I-I mean, what happened and where am I?" The nurse looked at me with an odd look before her features softened and started answering.

"So you can talk. I thought Twilight was starting to get over-stressed when she said that you had said 'help me' to her before you fell unconscious. Anyway, I don't exactly know what happened, but I can tell you that you are currently residing in Ponyville General Hospital."

"... Right..." I said, the information slowly sinking in. "And who are you, if you don't mind me asking?" She laughed a little at my question, holding a hand up to her chest.

"Oh, forgive me for being so rude. I'm Nurse Redheart, but most folks around here call me Red. I'm one of the head nurses of the hospital here, and I've taken you under my official care, given the unusual circumstances surrounding your... arrival." Oh yeah, the plane crash. Almost forgot about that.

"That's... good to know... I guess. I do apologise for any damage that my... arrival... might have caused. Was anyone else hurt or anything?"

"Well, aside from Rarity fainting and Twilight almost following her lead, the only injured pony at the scene was yourself." Oh phew, I wa- wait... pony?!

"I'm sorry, but did you just say 'pony'?" I asked tentatively.

"Well, yes. I mean, you aren't like any normal Earth Pony male we've seen before. After running a few simple magical scans to determine the extent of your injuries, we noticed that you have one real major difference that is out of the ordinary."

"And that being?"

"Well, we couldn't find any trace of the magical ability possessed by members of the Earth Pony genus." Well... this world has magic, and these humanoid beings are called 'pony's, yet they speak and act very much like humans. Guess that explains the wings and horns. "That is something that Ms Sparkle would really like to talk to you about."

"Okay..." I started, still sorting through this new batch of intelligence. I decided to file that stuff away for later and refocus on more pressing issues, namely my health and wellbeing. "So, how am I doing Nurse? Am I able to play the piano again?" I said with a soft chuckle. Good to see that my sense of humour is still intact. Redheart gave me a weird look for a second as she formulated her response.

"I don't see any real reason why you shouldn't be able to once you recover... why?" Hook, line and sinker.

"Well, I couldn't play it before." I started to laugh at my own joke as Redheart just stared at me for a few seconds. Then the joke hit and she started to laugh as well.

"I can honestly say I haven't heard that one before. I'll have to remember that for later." She said, calming down after the brief bout of laughter. She then reached over and collected the chart. "Well, you sustained severe bruising to the face and chest, as well as minor lacerations to the arms and legs. There were no major fractures, just a few hairline breaks along your forearms which shouldn't take too long to heal with the correct treatment. Your body in general was showing signs of extreme shock and fatigue, but given your appearance, that was easy to diagnose and treat. We had feared a spinal injury, but seeing that you move your toes during our little chat, I can safely say that our concerns were just that, concerns. I'll double check with the doctor to run a few more scans, but if all is well, we should be able to remove that neck brace in no time at all."

Well, I was basically in one piece, with a few scratches and bruises. Like they said in basic flight training, any landing you can walk or crawl away from is a good landing. With that in mind, I think mine was walking that line between what could be called a landing and what could be called a crash. Still, I survived, and at the end of the day, that is what mattered most. Like Captain Bartlett had said after taking that missile for Nagase, 'We can replace these things, it's getting the crew back alive that counts'. I thought back to what Redheart had said earlier, regarding one of the girls having a panic attack or something.

"Hey, Nurse. This Twilight, she wouldn't be that purple one who found me, right?"

"That's the one, yes. Why? Would you like to see her?"

"If that isn't too much trouble, then yes please. I want to thank her."

"I'll go fetch her for you then." Redheart stepped up from the edge of my bed and headed towards the door. But just before she left, she stopped and turned to face me. "You know, she's been rather eager to talk to you. She's been pestering me about if you had woken up yet. But that's just how she is, she's worrisome by nature. I'll be back soon. Better make yourself comfortable." With a smirk, she left my room.