Pilot's Story

Chapters

Nice to meet ya
The buzz(ing) of the town
53
Protein
Learn To Fly
Run
Some Kind Of Magnet For Strange
Morning After
Turn the Page
Walk in the Park
Welcome To The Party
Convergence
Reunion
Ponyville
True Freedom
Answers: Part One
Answers: Part Two
Answers: Part Three
In Times of Peace: Part 1
In Times of Peace: Part 2
Stormfront
One Night Stand: Part 1
Pegasus 550
Mr. Daniels, Mr. Beam, & Mr. Williams

Nice to meet ya

Pilot's Story

Chapter 2: Nice to meet ya

"What are you doing in Equestria, Human!" the larger mare yelled as she stomped one of her hooves against the side of the aircraft, next to the smaller one's head. "Your kind brings nothing but destruction and tragedy!"

The pilot pressed herself harder against the fuselage, trying to, if possible, melt herself into it and away from the angry...unicorn? no, she had wings, there was a word for that, which eluded her. "Okay well... angry talking unicorn lady I uh..." she started, somehow instinctively aware that the being before her was more than capable of turning her into a red stain, "Well I was just flying my completely peaceful airplane here and there was a bright flash of rainbow colored light and..." she paused, her eyes drawn to the horn on the... 'alicorn, that's what a winged unicorn is' alicorn's head, sparks of what looked like electricity arcing to the fuselage.

Clearly the alicorn was very angry, but there was something else, the same carbon scoring from the engine nacelle was on the side of the airplane now, where the electricity was arcing to. The pilot's eyebrow twitched, her mood shifted from afraid to angry, "You!" she screamed at the alicorn, "You shot me down! You could have killed me! What the hell were you thinking? If I had been going any slower when I lost that engine I'd have crashed!"

The pilot was inches from the alicorn's face when her expression shifted, she looked down at the ground with a frown, "And now... somehow, I'm a horse" she sighed as she waved her hoof around as if to explain.

"Pony." she heard.

"What?" The pilot asked, looking back up at the now non-sparking non-pissed-off mare. She could see feeling in those eyes, regret?

"You're a pony... at least you are now." She said, softly. She stepped back from the pilot-mare and seemed almost embarrassed.

The pilot turned around and intently examined the tail control surfaces of the plane as she spoke back to the alicorn, "I take it you've run across humans before then, and that it didn't end very well." She stepped a hoof onto the horizontal stabilizer and pressed down a little, checking for any excess flexing.

"It didn't... nor did it begin well." the alicorn said sadly, "and still... I was no better, judging you so quickly, I acted out of fear and attacked you."

"Does this mean we're friends now and all is forgiven?" the pilot asked with a hint of mirth in her voice. She had worked her way back up the fuselage and was cranking on the door when she turned back to the alicorn, an eyebrow raised inquisitively.

The larger mare laughed a little bit in spite of herself, "I wouldn't go that far, I'm not sure I trust someone who walks around with a gun on her back, not just yet."

"Oh, you know what it is, see, I was kind of wondering about that since you don't seem to actually have, you know, fingers. In my defense though, between the two of us, you're the only one who's actually shot at the other." The pilot said with a laugh, somehow more at ease. "Besides, I get the feeling if you wanted to you could turn me into a bowl of grape jello before i could even get the thing off my back" she added with a laugh.

"Do you confront every situation with humor?" the tall one asked with a laugh as she eyed the aircraft, taking in the shape of the polished metal skin, noting a distinct lack of anything that looked like a weapon, this wasn't the same as she'd seen before.

"I try. Eva Lohengrin by the way." the pilot said, extending a hoof.

"Princess Celestia." the taller replied, taking the hoof and shaking it, a slight smirk at the corner of her mouth as she watched the grey mare's eyes widen.

"I uh... your majesty I uh..." Eva muttered, stumbling over her own words as she realized just how far down her own throat she'd stuck her foot, or hoof, as it were. 'Great, she's freakin royalty and I screamed at her... well yeah she did shoot me down but she could throw me in the dungeon or something!'

"Will it fly again?" Celestia asked, mercifully distracting Eva from her litany of faux pas, "your...airplane, is it badly damaged?" she gestured towards it with one forehoof.

Eva took a couple of steps back and climbed up onto the ledge from opening the cargo doors, sitting down and taking a breath, "It could have been worse, the landing wasn't that rough but whatever you did when you shot me knocked out the magnetos on the right side engine, coils are burnt so that engine isn't going to start until I fix or replace them, can't fly this heavy on one engine, and couldn't take off on one engine anyway, I'd just spin in place," she explained as she grabbed the shoulder strap of her rifle and picked it up over her head and tossed it gently behind her onto a tarp.

The princess nodded and narrowed her eyes in concentration, mulling over the conversation and trying to set aside her fears. This human-turned-pony, which she mused, was likely her subconscious mind's way of turning something she was afraid of into something she wasn't afraid of, didn't seem to be a threat, even if she was... peculiar.

She looked up to see that the pilot, Eva, was hooves deep in a metal box, digging out random bits of metal that the princess didn't recognize. She cleared her throat to get the grey mare's attention, "ahem."

The pilot's head perked up, "Oh, sorry, sorry, I was just... looking for that spare part, feel kind of exposed being stuck in the middle of this field, what's er... up?" she ground out awkwardly as she looked over at the princess.

The princess couldn't help my laugh a little at how... flaky this mare's personality seemed to be. "I was going to say... you don't seem to be too much of a danger, so for now you're welcome in Equestria," She said kindly, "and, as an apology for damaging your machine I'll see to it that you've a place to stay and food to eat until you get on your hooves or... we figure out how to get you home."

Eva dropped down out of the cargo bay, tool box and spare magneto in hoof and stood up on her hind legs to walk around to the damaged engine, "I actually... really appreciate that, thank yo-" she abruptly found herself cut off by a face full of dirt as she tripped and fell.

"You might want to try walking on all four hooves, I find it's easier to get around that way." the princess deadpanned, struggling with but succeeding in keeping a smile off her face.

Eva dug her face out of the ground and hopped back up on her hind legs, tools and part in hoof, "That... actually makes a lot more sense than the way I've been doing it."

"Why does it say pegasus on it?" a raspy female voice said, startling Eva, who was head deep inside the engine nacelle, half way through replacing the magneto. She cracked the back of her head on a support strut as she pulled her head out.

"What?" she asked, looking around for the source of the voice. 'that's not the princess, so who...' she wondered.

"Well, it's not a pegasus, it's not even a pony, it's some kind of flying machine right?" the same raspy voice said... from above.

Eva looked up and saw the cyan colored pegasus with a rainbow colored mane idly flapping above her. 'Alright, flying pony, not the weirdest thing to happen today... which doesn't say much for my day.' She propped a hoof up against the engine, "It's my company name: Pegasus Air Freight. Hi, by the way."

The rainbow maned pegasus fluttered down and set down on top of the wing, her hooves making a faint tapping sound as they settled onto the metal. "I guess that makes sense then, I saw you flying over by Cloudsdale Stadium, so I came over to see what was going on... what are you doing anyway?" she asked.

Eva grabbed a wrench and slid her head back inside the engine casing, cranking down on a bolt, awkward without fingers but still manageable. "Fixing this engine, it's the thing that makes the plane move, it uh... broke. I'm almost done then i should be able to get this engine started and get out of the middle of this field" she said from inside the nacelle. 'Assuming I can still pilot this thing in my current form.'

"Oh, I see" said the cyan mare, "Name's Rainbow Dash by the way."

The pilot-mare laughed inside of the engine casing, the sound distorting and echoing through the wing. "That... somehow doesn't surprise me, I'm Eva Lohengrin, pilot and owner of this here flying machine," she added on the last bit with a forced southern inflection.

"Hah, now you sound like Applejack!" Dash commented with a laugh. "Need any help with that?" the pegasus asked, stepping up onto the nacelle itself.

"Applejack? like the booze?" Eva asked. 'Pony names are definitely weird...' "And actually, yeah you can help, if you could grab a hold of the propeller... the three bladed thingy at the front of the engine here, and turn the top of it just a tiny tiny bit towards the main part of the plane."

"Like this?" Dash asked as she pushed hard on the propeller with her hoof and was rewarded with the top blade tilting towards the cockpit.

"Perfect!" Eva yelled as she cranked the wrench and locked down the timing nut. "I think I'm ready to test start the engine now!" she exclaimed as he pulled herself out of the nacelle and latched the cover down, picking up her tool box with her mouth and trotting around towards the stairs to go back inside of the plane.

"Wanna see something cool?" she asked after she set the toolbox down, poking her head back outside of the hatch and looking up at Rainbow Dash, who had lifted herself back up into the air.

"I'm always up for seeing cool stuff!" Dash laughed.

"Well come inside then, you can even help me out." Eva said, beckoning Dash over with a hoof, "and close the door behind you!"

"Alright, main battery... on, generator one... off, generator two... off." Eva said aloud, mostly for her own benefit as she ran through her startup checklist. 'Not as hard as I thought it would be to flip switches with hooves, small blessing I guess.' she thought to herself.

"Seems pretty complicated." Dash commented as she looked at all the switches and gauges in awe, "But I guess it would be kind of complicated for an earth pony to fly without using any magic."

Eva decided not to comment on 'magic' and continued to run through her check list in her head, "It's complicated at first but once you get used to it it's not so bad, the actual flying part isn't really that complicated at all to be honest." She looked out the window as she pulled on the control yoke, "Control surfaces check."

"This could get a little loud." She said to her pegasus companion in the co-pilot's seat, "Fuel on, magneto off, cranking engine one." She announced as she pressed down on the starter button, spinning the thousand horsepower beast of an engine as she counted the propeller revolutions, "Oil pressure good. Magnetos on, ignition booster on... here comes the fun part dash" she explained as she pressed down the starter button a second time and the number one engine roared to life.

Dash leaned forward and looked out the window at the spinning propeller, a smile plastered on her face ear to ear as she listened to the rumbling of the engine. "This is... so cool..." she said as Eva flipped on the generator for engine one and ran through the checklist for the recently repaired engine two.

"Alright oil pressure is good on engine two, Magnetos on, ignition booster on..." There was a pregnant pause as she pressed down the button to start the second engine, the propeller started to chug around, one revolution... two revolutions... three...

A puff of smoke and a soft rumble finally issued forth as the engine started to run on it's own, she adjusted the throttle and mixture controls and soon both engines were running smoothly and in sync. Eva smiled as an idea popped into her head.

"Say, Dash, Is there a flat open area near town that I might be able to set this thing down, maybe not in the middle of somebody's pasture?" Eva asked, grinning at her cyan coated companion.

"Oh yeah lots of open space why do you...oh...oh this is gonna be awesome!" She exclaimed, her mouth curling into a toothy grin as a... noise not unlike a rubber duck being squished came out of her. This surprised Eva but... still wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened that day.

"Well then, you're about to see how those of us without wings do it," she said with a grin as she pushed the throttle forward.

The buzz(ing) of the town

Pilot's Story

Chapter 3: The buzz(ing) of the town

"So, what do you think?" She asked her blue passenger with a smile, "Pretty cool right? Probably not as cool as being able to just, you know, fly around, but still" she continued as she adjusted the throttles, backing off her airspeed as she descended into a slow turn to circle the town, Ponyville, dash had called it, to look for a good landing site.

"It's... not as fast as i thought it would be," Dash admitted, her face still pressed up against the cockpit window, "but it's... a lot different being up here with something else doing the flying."

"Not as fast as you thought it would be? How fast can you fly?" Eva asked as she fiddled around next to her seat with her left forehoof, trying to manipulate the buttons on her cassette player without looking. Looking at rainbow dash, at her wings specifically, she couldn't see how she could possibly generate enough lift to fly, let alone fly faster than... one hundred ten miles per hour indicated, she noted, looking over at the airspeed gauge.

"Faster than sound." She answered plainly, as if it wasn't even really a thing, "Most pegasi can't, but I'm the first pony that I've ever heard of to actually pull off a sonic rainboom, I mean, I am pretty amazing. I actually did one earlier today, won me first place in the best young flyer competition!" she explained, her face curling up into that same toothy smile that Eva had seen earlier.

Eva raised her eyebrows 'faster than sound? interesting...' she thought to herself as she finally got the cassette into the tape player. "That's pretty impressive... damn impressive actually, I'd like to see that sometime, if you don't mind, that is." This place was full of surprises, it seemed.

Dash rubbed her chin with her forehoof. "You know, I could probably do that some time, kind of worn out today but... yeah, I can totally show off some other day" she said, leaning back in the co-pilot's seat, trying to resist the urge to press her nose back against the window and ruin her attempt at looking cool and nonchalant.

Eva stepped into the left rudder pedal gently and with a smirk on her face. "So, miss Dash, this old bird may not be the fastest thing in the sky but... there is something I've always wanted to do. Keep an eye on this bank of gauges," she gestured a hoof towards the panel in front of the pegasus, "If any of the needles dip into the red let me know" she finished as she started to advance the throttles, the rumbling of the engines raising in pitch as they revved up.

"Wait, what? what are you gonna do?" Dash asked splitting her attention between the cluster and the pilot, a small part of her brain wondering who would build such a machine that had so many small switches and buttons that were difficult to operate by hoof.

"Goose, it's time to buzz the tower." Eva said with a toothy grin as she shoved the throttle and propeller controls to the stops. The roar of the engines thundered through the flight deck as the engines ran up to full rated power, the aged aircraft surged forward under full thrust as her pilot dropped the nose and banked towards the town ahead. Still grinning, Eva pressed her hoof down on the play button on the tape deck and the cabin speakers screamed the sounds of an electric guitar.

The aircraft started to shake as it dropped through the sky, airspeed indicator climbing as it shed altitude, the town of Ponyville rapidly growing in the cockpit wind screen. 'Might not be the most diplomatic way to introduce myself to the town' she thought 'but damn if i haven't wanted to do this my whole life.' "Shoot to thrill, play to kill, I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will!" she screamed along to the song, barely able to even hear herself over the sound of the engines and the song.

Dash was yelling something but Eva couldn't make out what it was, though from the smile on the pegasus's face she didn't imagine it was anything too bad, though the light blush on her cheeks indicated that she may have understood the lyrics of the song 'hmm, interesting.... Looking out of the windscreen she saw she would be over the town in moments. Pulling out of the dive, she pushed the fuel mixture control to full rich, the extra unburned fuel leaving a trail of black smoke behind the plane as it cannon-balled through the sky, clearing the first rooftops by only tens of feet.

Pulling off a few inches of throttle, the grey pilot-mare eased the control yoke over, putting the aircraft into a shallow turn to bleed off a little of the... two hundred sixty miles per hour indicated airspeed... that she'd built up in the full throttle dive and pulled the mixture back to auto rich, having cleared the entire town in only a matter of seconds.

"Not so slow now, eh Dashie??" Eva joked to Dash as she slowed the plane to circle around and land.

"Twitchy tail, twitchy tail!" Pinkie yelled as a sudden roaring sound bombarded her as she walked next to Twilight towards the latter's library-house-tree.

"What is that noise!?" Twilight yelled as she put her hooves to her ears trying to block out the thundering rumble. The shine of sunlight hitting bare metal almost blinded her as she looked up in time to see the same machine she saw at the airshow shoot across the sky, nearly touching the rooftops.

The propwash blasted straw free from the rooftops and leaves from the trees as smoke trailed behind the machine. The ground itself seemed to shake but the scientist in her told Twilight that it was no earthquake. Narrowing her eyebrow in concentration, she teleported onto the top of her library and looked out over the horizon, the flying machine still... flying. 'I should learn what that thing is called...'

Abruptly the smoke stopped pouring from the machine's engines as the sound reduced in volume and the pitch started to change. Twilight watched the silver machine begin a slow arc to the left as wheels started to drop from under the wings. Metal plates started to swing down from the trailing edge of those wings as it fell closer and closer to the ground, its speed slowing all the while.

"It's landing..." she thought out loud as she teleported herself back to the ground and started running for the edge of town, following the ever fading sound of engines.

"Alright, let's try not to pass out this time," Eva said mostly to herself as she pulled more throttle, shedding airspeed as she deployed more flaps, the nose rising a little as she settled into a controlled stall, a second later the main wheels touched down on the soft earth with a gentle thud.

Pulling throttle down to idle, she leaned into the brakes, a little lighter than she had the last time she set down, slowing the plane as she hauled back on the yoke to keep the tail down, slightly off-put by the awkwardness in pulling so hard on the controls using hooves.

As the plane finally slowed to a manageable taxiing speed she spotted a pair of rather large trees and decided on her 'parking spot'. "Hold on, I'm gonna swing the tail around," she announced as she leaned into the left brake and throttled up the right engine slightly, gently but briskly swinging the plane around one hundred eighty degrees around the left main.

She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding as she pulled back the mixture and cut the ignition to the pair of thousand horsepower radials, the propellers freewheeled for a few seconds before stopping along with the engines.

Finally, she shut down the electronics and awkwardly extracted herself from her seat. "So? What did you think?" she asked her winged companion with a smile while balancing on her rear legs, to get out of the cockpit.

Dash climbed out of her seat and followed the pilot towards the back of the plane, "Well, I thought it was pretty awesome actually, but I don't think Twilight thinks it was, because I just saw her running out here through the window and she looked pretty mad."

"I'm sure it won't be that bad, I mean, my little... conversation... with Princess Celestia went over... decently." Eva said while judiciously applying hoof to the cargo door catch. After a few seconds of pounding the latch released and the door swung outwards.

"Hey Dash, this Twilight, purple unicorn by any chance?"

"Yeah, she's got a stripe in her mane too." Dash answered as she came up to the door behind Eva.

"Well, you're right, she does look pissed."

53

Pilot's Story

Chapter 4: 53

"Wait, hold that thought, just... I'll be back in just a second." Eva vocally hemorrhaged at Twilight with her hoof held up as if to say 'one moment please'. The purple pony patiently waited as the gray mare in the strange clothes ducked back inside of the metal tube. She cocked an eyebrow as her anger dissipated to make way for confusion, there was a rustling, clanging, and finally a ripping noise from inside of the machine.

Rainbow dash offered up a shrug to her purple friend before a gray hoof shoved something into her mouth. The hoof revealed itself to belong the gray mare of Twilight's ire. "Eat this." She said, throwing a brown cube at the unicorn.

Twilight caught the cube with her magic and looked at Dash, who, while looking rather confused, was slowly chewing what she'd been force-fed. Twilight spun the cube around in front of her face and with a shrug popped it into her mouth, chewing on the... whatever it was as the taste hit her tongue. 'Not bad... I wonder what it is?' she thought to herself as her jaw worked up and down, crunching the cube into a powder and then a paste.

"You know that's actually kind of good" Dash said as she swallowed the remains of the cube she'd been fed. "What is it?"

"Alfalfa cube." Eva responded as she bit one of the cubes she'd grabbed in half and chewed. "Hey you're right, not bad. How's that for an ice breaker" she thought out loud to herself.

Twilight swallowed the gooey mess she'd chewed the cube into and cleared her throat, "Ahem, don't think I've forgotten about why I came out here just because you fed me!"

Eva hopped down from the deck of the aircraft and dropped down to all fours. 'Huh, this is a lot easier, she was right.' she thought, remembering what Celestia had told her. "Well uh... This is an airplane... and uh... I'm guessing you're pissed about the low altitude flyover, that uh... would be my bad, I did it for fun, you see..." She began, more than slightly intimidated by the look the unicorn gave her.

"And scaring everypony with that... airplane... is your idea of fun?" Twilight yelled, "Just terrorize ponyville for thrills!?"

Eva could swear she saw smoking beginning to rise from the mare, she looked out of the corner of her eye and saw Dash edging away from the pair. The blue pegasus trying her hardest not to be noticed before she could get out of sight.

"Don't you even think of running off, Rainbow Dash! What were you doing with this troublemaking mare!?" Twilight continued, pointing her hoof at Eva, "Princess Celestia told you and everypony else not to go investigate and that she'd take care of it!"

Eva raised a hoof hesitantly. "Oh yeah, she's the one that shot me down in the first place..." she interjected. Trailing off as the unwanted rage-tention was once again directed at her. She winced a little bit at the sudden ringing in her ears. She put her forehooves up in her messy blonde mane and held onto her head as the pain rapidly spread. "I... what?" she managed before her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the ground.

"Eject!"

"No, I can hold it!"

"You're coming apart, punch out damn it!"

"No, I have to hold it, I can hol-"

Eva woke up with a sharp intake of breath, launching herself bolt upright in the hospital bed. Her eyes were wide as she tried to catch her breath, a single tear running down her face. 'That dream... again...' She blinked again, clearing the sleep from her eyes as she looked around her, a hospital room. She looked down and saw that she was still a horse. 'Pony' she mentally corrected herself.

"You never said you were a pegasus." she heard from behind and to the left. She turned and locked eyes with Rainbow Dash, "Wasn't that the whole point of the flying machine...er, airplane? To fly without being a pegasus?"

Eva blinked at Dash, 'What is she...' "I'm a pegasus?" She said finally, turning her head to look over her shoulder and sure enough, without her jumpsuit on she had two slate-gray wings attached to her back. "Huh."

"Nurse Redheart found them when she took your weird clothes off, you didn't know you were a pegasus? How did you pull that off?" the blue pegasus continued, sticking a hoof out and poking at Eva's wings.

Eva flinched at the sudden poke in a body part she never knew she had, she focused on the feeling and concentrated, slowly extending the wing from her body. "That's um, complicated. All of this is pretty new for me," she answered finally, wincing a little at the stiffness in the appendage.

"I bet." Dash said, straight-faced. "I'm not an egghead like Twilight, but I'm not stupid. 'Eva Lohengrin' doesn't sound like any pony name I've ever heard of, and that machine didn't look very hoof friendly, so what's going on?"

Eva sighed, "I don't think I should tell you too much but... okay, who is the oldest pony you know?"

"Well, Princess Celestia is a few thousand years old, why does that matter?" Dash asked with a shrug.

"Wait, what, really?" she sighed again, "Who is the oldest pony you know who isn't an alicorn."

"Alicorn?"

"Winged unicorn, anyway, who is the oldest you know?" Eva continued. 'Celestia is that old? That goes against everything that makes any sense at all...'

"Well... Granny Smith is like...sixty-ish, I think?" Dash said with another shrug, "What kind of point are you trying to make?"

"I'm fifty-three." Eva replied, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"No way, you look, like, thirty, tops!" Dash interjected in astonishment, "I mean, nopony could...oh."

"Not a pony, or... not born a pony anyway." Eva said, starting to explain, then something strange occurred, to her and she stopped, hesitated, and then took a closer look at Dash, "You're blue."

"Yes, and? What's your point? Is something wrong with blue?" Dash asked, the irritation in her voice betraying her displeasure at being given the run around.

"Well, I can see that you're blue, and you can see that you're blue, which means you can see color, I can see color... horses can't see color!" Eva exclaimed waving her hooves around in the air, attracting the attention of passing nurse.

"We're ponies," both Dash and the nurse stated simultaneously, as if by some unbidden reflex.

Eva rubbed her fetlock against the back of her neck, "You know what, not important anyway. Hi Nurse um..."

"Oh, Redheart, Nurse Redheart." The white mare replied, shaking off her own confusion at her knee-jerk reaction to the patient's statement. "You're awake! That's good.... Which is even better because nopony actually knew what was wrong with you."

Eva stretched out and winced a little bit at the throbbing in her head "Probably has something to do with magic, um... I've got an absolutely righteous headache, can you give me something for that?" she asked, holding the sides of her head in her forehooves.

"I'll be right back with something." The nurse said with a smile as she backed out of the room, leaving Dash and Eva alone again. The silence hung in the room like hot stale air.

"So."

Eva finally broke the chain, "So... Where did your purple friend, Twlight? Where did she go?"

Dash rolled her eyes, this pony couldn't keep herself on one topic for very long it seemed, "She's with Applejack at your airplane, she left a few hours before you woke up, she wanted to investigate."

"She's... investigating my plane..." Eva's thoughts drifted to her cargo manifest, her eyes opened wide as she started to launch herself off the bed and onto all fours, "Oh... shit we need to get out there right now it's not safe!"

Before Dash even had a chance to respond the gray mare was already out of the room and stampeding down the hallway. She stood in place in the room for a few seconds before nonchalantly shrugging and running out after her.

"Should we really be doin' this, Twi?" the orange cowpony asked as she nosed through the open wooden crate in front of her, it was full of the same food cubes that Twilight had mentioned the strange new pony had fed her. "Ah mean, isn't this kinda... dishonest? Rootin through somepony's things without permission?" She shifted on her hooves uncomfortably, partly from what she was doing, partly from standing at an angle on the deck of the cargo plane.

"Something wasn't right about her, Applejack, she comes to town in this loud flying machine, scares everypony in town doing it, she shoves food into Rainbow Dash's mouth, and then she just passes out in front of me, I want to know what's going on, if I'm wrong... well we can ask for forgiveness later." Twilight explained as she tried to magic open a padlocked crate, her progress greatly slowed by her unfamiliarity with the lock's operation and her unwillingness to simply damage it.

The lock suddenly popped open, startling both mares with the sudden clack of the locking bolt retracting. Twilight levitated the lock out of the latch and nosed the lid of the crate open, revealing several rows of olive green metal containers. Some of them were sealed like long rectangle shaped soup cans, all of which said '7.62ПСгж', though Twilight had no idea what that meant, the ones with the latched lids, however, had paper labels on them that said all manner of different things.

"Hey Twi, what does uh..." Applejack trailed off as she looked at one of the paper labels again, each row of cans was labeled, and each row had a different label, "Seven dot six two..." she trailed off again as she looked at the letters printed on the label, "neigh-toe mean?" she finally finished, reflexively winnieing her 'neigh'.

Twilight pulled one of the labels off of a can and held it up to her face, "I don't know Applejack, some of these numbers look like measurements, but... they seem to be from two different units of measurement... anyway I don't think we're going to find any answers in this crate, let's try the next one."

The next crate was locked, the same as the one she had just opened. 'Maybe I can use what I learned on the other lock to open this one.' she thought as her horn started to glow and she got to work on the lock.

"How do you even know where you're going?" Dash yelled as she caught up to the galloping gray mare, her wings blowing dust and debris around as she buzzed along at ground level.

"Unless..." Eva panted, the run already starting to wear her out. "you moved it... it'll be where I left it, I remember the layout of the town from flying over it." she finished, skidding on the cobblestone road as she sprinted around a corner and off towards the plain on the edge of town.

"It would be faster if you flew." Dash commented, slowing down to the leisurely, to her, running pace of the older mare, "Pegasi aren't really made for long distance running, we're made for flying."

"Don't... know how to fly... and I can't spend the time to learn right now, we've got to get there before they open up my cargo!" Eva yelled and accelerated as if the urgency of the situation gave her more energy as she bolted around another corner. The twisted and winding streets of Ponyville not making for a very direct route.

"What's so important anyway?" Dash asked, flying above and to the side of the sprinting gray pegasus. "You let me fly with you, what's so bad about them checking out the plane?"

"There are things," Eva started, slowing a little to catch her breath, "Things in there that a pony shouldn't see... It's not bad but they might get the wrong idea... it might scare them..." she trailed off, accelerating again, "I'm not here to give people nightmares."

With a final burst of speed Eva cleared the last alleyway and could finally see the light reflecting off of the hull of her DC-3. That's when she heard the screams.

Protein

Pilot's Story

Chapter 5: Protein

"What kinda monster are you!?" the orange cowpony roared as she charged the gray pegasus, her head low as she crashed into Eva's chest, knocking her onto a tarp in the back of the plane. Applejack kept charging.

Eva hooked her hoof around a canvas strap and kicked off of the deck plating, sending herself out through the open cargo door. She could feel her heartbeat in her neck, she knew she was overdoing it, first the run and now this... but she didn't have a choice. "It's not what you think!" she yelled as the orange mare chased after her.

"Oh, so ah didn't just find a box full a' meat in that there flyin contraption?" Applejack spat as she spun around to buck Eva, both of her legs kicked out at the pegasus but deflected off of something hard, "So what, ya come to turn some more ponies inta jerky?"

Eva gripped the brush gun tightly in her hooves as the impact against it sent her tumbling backwards away from the DC-3, she caught herself after a couple of yards and extended her wings to balance her on her rear hooves as she cycled a round into the chamber on her rifle. "Look, it's not pony meat, if you'll let me explain..." she started before Applejack cut her off.

"Not pony meat? That don't make it okay!" she roared as she charged in for another attack, her hat flying off of her blonde mane as she ducked her head for another headbutt.

Eva looked down at the rifle in her hooves, her mind racing, weighing the choices, did this orange mare even know what a gun was? With a sigh she dropped the lever and tossed the gun off to her side, holding out her forehooves and waiting for the blow.

The cowpony hit her like a locomotive, the orange mare's head crashed into the gray pegasus's sternum, knocking the wind out of the pilot and rocketing her into the air. Eva flared her wings at the apex of her 'flight' and glided awkwardly back to the ground, crashing onto her knees and gasping for breath as she stared down at the grass, spitting blood where the hit had made her bite her lip.

Applejack started to charge again... and then stopped as the events processed in her mind. The other mare hadn't tried to get out of the way, hadn't tried to fight back. Heck, she'd thrown away that stick at the last second, leaving herself wide open. Applejack was completely taken aback at the sudden turn of events.

"Why did ya let me hit ya?" Applejack finally said, standing over the wheezing pegasus, "Ya... ya didn't even try to get out of the way."

"I... I told you," she choked out, "It's not what you think. I didn't make the meat, I'm transporting it..." She dropped from her knees to her stomach, laying down on the soft grass, "and... it didn't come from anything that can talk... and you weren't supposed to find it."

"Not supposed to find it still doesn't make it okay."

Eva looked up and saw the purple unicorn from before trotting over, her expression... troubled. Twilight's horn glowed purple for a moment and Eva felt a tingle on her lip, the bleeding stopped, though her lip felt... bizarre. "There's more to it than that." Eva said, finally.

"So what is it then?" Dash asked as she landed next to the other three ponies. "This is kind of a big deal."

Eva pushed herself back onto her hooves with a wince and looked off towards the DC-3, "If you haven't noticed by now, I'm not from around here. Dash picked up on it first, small toggle switches are not exactly something a being with hooves would come up with, I'm sure you've noticed too, Twilight, how... off... everything in there was, as if it was built to be used by a being not like you."

The three ponies stood and listened intently, Twilight's face painted with an expression of interest, Dash and Applejack looked more uncomfortable than anything. Eva continued, "Before I go farther, I just want you to know, I didn't know. Where I'm from... before I was a pegasus pony, before I came through... whatever that flash of light was, where I came from there's nothing like you. Ponies don't talk where I came from, they don't... think, they don't reason the same way, they're animals."

The three gasped, almost unwilling to process that there could be a place where ponies were... not as they knew them, the very idea of it was insane and yet... this gray pegasus didn't seem to be lying.

"So, yes... that is meat, and what I used to be ate that. What is in there is cargo, food that I was delivering with other supplies to a settlement in a place called Alaska, that's where I was heading when I ended up here. I.. I never knew that anything like this place could exist, and I don't want you to be afraid of me, I'm not going to try to hurt anybody." Eva explained, still refusing to make eye contact with the ponies in front of her.

"Well... ah guess if ya didn't know... and ya didn't mean any harm..." Applejack started, looking down, a little ashamed of herself for how she acted, attacking Eva like she was some kind of monster, "ain't sayin it don't make me mighty uncomfortable... ah guess ah could look past it, long as you don't give me a reason to worry again."

Eva jerked her head at the sudden sound of wings and saw Dash flying away, "I guess she's not as forgiving."

Twilight put her hoof up on Eva's shoulder, "She's... probably feeling a little betrayed right now... we'll have to work on that later... for now... do you have a place to stay?"

"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer we keep this incident between the four of us," Eva said as she, Applejack, and Twilight sat at a table in the library, "somebody should ask Dash to keep hush about it... but this isn't the kind of thing that would go over well if the entire town knew about it."

"It's not like we don't know that there are some things out there that eat meat... it's just that finding so much of it was kind of alarming, and in the possession of a pony... the situation could have been handled better though." Twilight said, sipping at a cup of tea levitating in front of her in a purple aura.

"Well, it's not from here... not by a long shot, so, at least it's nobody you know, nobody you've ever met. I'll admit... Being a pony kind of puts a different perspective on it now, we should get rid of that crate as soon as we get a chance." Eva added as she balanced a teacup between her front hooves.

"Can't say ah hate that idea." Applejack interjected, a slightly sick look on her face as she thought back on that box full of dried meat. Eva swore that she could almost see a green tinge on the mare's face. "What's in those olive green cans anyway?" she asked, changing the subject.

"That's... ammo." Eva said, eying the orange cowpony for any signs of recognition.

"What's ammo?" the aforementioned pony asked, an uncomprehending look plastered across her features. She looked cute like that, the freckles didn't hurt, Eva decided.

"It's what you load into a gun." Eva continued, eying both the unicorn and the earth pony now, still looking for any hint they knew what she was talking about.

"What's a gun?"

That was a new voice, Eva turned and saw a small purple and green... dragon standing at the foot of the stairs, her thoughts turned to a certain television dinosaur, she shook the thoughts away from her head. "That's not something you really need to be concerned with right now." she said hastily, all too aware of the rifle slung across her back at that very moment.

"Oh, Spike, this is Eva, she's... new in town." Twilight explained to her fire-breathing companion, "she's going to be staying here for a few days.

"Thank you for that, by the way." Eva said to Twilight as she set down her cup and turned to the dragon and extended a hoof, "Heya Spike, put 'er there."

Spike hesitantly clasped his claw around the offered hoof and shook, "Nice to meet you Eva."

The gray pegasus smiled at the little dragon and turned back to the table, "So, Twilight, where can I find Rainbow Dash?"

"It's getting late, we should probably wait for tomorrow." Twilight replied.

"...and I get up there how?" Eva asked as she stared up at the...cloud house. Pegasi could walk on clouds, she'd been told, and Dash's house was made out of clouds. It was in the sky. Isolated. 'Still, I guess that explains the cloudaseum.'

"Well, ya fly up there, ya got wings right?" Applejack stated as if it was painfully obvious, her face set into an almost smug expression. The orange cowpony had agreed to show the pegasus where dash lived when she'd woken that morning.

Eva sighed, having figured that it was going to be something like that. "Well, flight, that's just lift and thrust versus gravity and drag, that's no problem..." She said hesitantly as she started to flap her wings, the sensation still disturbingly odd for her.

To her great surprise she started to lift into the air, clumsily, but she could more or less point herself in a vague direction, and she was gaining altitude. Fortunately the house wasn't very high into the air and she soon found herself approaching it... backwards.

She collided with the door of the cloud house with a loud crash, finding herself on her back staring up at an unamused rainbow-maned pegasus. "Oh, it's you." Dash said flatly.

Eva rolled onto her hooves and stood up, "Look, I came to explain things... I didn't mean to upset you or anyone else. I didn't even think about what it was that they actually found, I was worried about something else... but it seems like nobody actually knows what guns are around here, let alone how to use them or anything like that... but anyway that's not why I'm here, I came to apologize for not telling you everything sooner."

Dash stood still, her face pensive as she mentally reflected on the eventful previous day. 'Okay so she didn't actually lie, but that box...' she thought with disgust. "Fine, apology accepted... but only if you get rid of that disgusting box."

"Twilight is already taking care of it. When I started to think about it, I kinda got a little freaked out myself at the implications so... yeah I asked her to dispose of it." Eva offered while rubbing the back of her neck with a fetlock.

"That's... probably for the best." Dash said flatly. She turned her eyes from Eva to the now broken front door of her house, "So, you flew up here? You kinda suck at flying."

"Ah... yeah well it was my first time flying so what can you do?" Eva offered with a shrug.

"Well, you show me how to fly that plane of yours, and I'll teach you how to fly like a pegasus." Dash said finally with a smirk, "Sound good?"

"Just like that?" Eva asked incredulously.

"Just like that."

Learn To Fly

Pilot's Story

Chapter 6: Learn To Fly

"Transponder signal detected, Pegasus 550, broadcasting distress code."

"Human technology detected, must investigate."

"Estimate one thousand hours until power levels reach activation threshold."

"Signal lost, restoration protocol activated."

"Okay Dash, the first step in learning to fly this plane will be... that you help me get all of the crates out of the cargo hold, the second step will be... that we are going to need to find a source of fuel." Eva explained, waving a hoof at the aircraft shining in the midday sun.

"You were flying it just fine with all those boxes in there!" Dash protested with a groan "why do we have to move them now?" she complained as the pair walked towards the idle aircraft.''

"Because I know what I'm doing, and you're inexperienced, it would be a lot more difficult and dangerous training you with a fully loaded aircraft, it's far less forgiving than an empty one." Eva explained as she stepped up into the rear hatchway. She saw Twilight standing over the offending crate of animal products with her horn glowing, her face tensed up in concentration.

There was an audible popping noise and the crate shook a little, the glow faded. Twilight opened her eyes and turned to see Eva inside of the plane and Rainbow Dash's head poking in. "I take it things went well with Rainbow Dash?" the unicorn asked.

"Well, I was going to teach her how to fly this, and she was going to teach me how to fly with these." Eva replied, stretching out her wings in explanation. "We just need to get the crates out of here and find some source of fuel... which might be a little difficult because I'm pretty sure you don't just have barrels of avgas laying around." The gray pegasus sighed as she plodded towards the cockpit watching as Twilight's horn started to glow again and the meat crate opened to reveal...

"Why did you fill the crate with dirt?" Eva asked in confusion.

"I didn't fill it with dirt, I turned it into dirt." Twilight explained, more at ease now that the offending material was no longer... quite as offensive.

"You can do that? That gives me an idea..." Eva trailed off, thinking. She spun around to face the other pegasus, "Dash, can you start clearing out some of the lighter things? I need to discuss something with Twilight outside... I might be able to solve one of our problems."

Before Rainbow Dash had a chance to protest the other two mares had already left the plane. She stared at the open doorway and then back to the crates she was supposed to move. "Yeah, no problem at all, I'll just do all the lifting..." she grumbled sarcastically.

"So, you can turn... that stuff... into dirt," Eva started as she slid a bucket under the aircraft's drain valve, "Could you magic up some more of this stuff?" she finished, cracking the valve open long enough to dump a few cups of fuel into the bucket.

Twilight recoiled at the strong smell of the aviation fuel. "What is that stuff? It smells horrible!" She yelled, stepping backwards a few feet and coughing the fumes out.

Eva cocked her eyebrow at the unicorn in confusion. Then the smell hit her, she had a similar reaction, 'Okay, pony sense of smell is superior to the human sense of smell... good to know.' she thought to herself, just barely managing to keep a hold on the bucket as she set it down and stepped back.

"That is the stuff that makes the engines on this plane run, alcohol might work in a pinch but I'd have to re-jet the carburetors and make sure none of the fuel lines broke down from the alcohol... it's really sub-optimal." the pilot rambled on, oblivious to the unicorn's examination of the bucket of foul smelling liquid.

"I think I might be able to transform some heating oil into... something like this." Twilight said, her tone betraying her queasiness over the fumes. "Maybe... with a little less smell."

Eva nodded her head, her attention caught by the unicorn's voice, "I guess I'll need to find some way of making money, I'll need about... eight hundred gallons of fuel to fill up the tanks from empty, I've got about six hundred still in the tanks. I suppose I could try to set up a cargo route to make some coin..." the pilot rattled on while Twilight seemed to stare off into space.

"Four hundred bits, that should be enough for the heating oil and the enchantments." Twilight said finally, her eyes snapping out of the far off look. "I'll do it for free if you pay for the materials involved." She added, turning her eyes back to the shiny metal hull of the plane.

"Free? Why free?" Eva asked incredulously, "I'd be more than willing to pay you if I... you know, had money, which I'll need before you get started anyway..."

"You ramble on a lot don't you?"

Eva turned to see Dash standing but a few feet away, a smirk on the blue pegasus's face.

"Well... yeah, I guess. Anyway, Twilight?" Eva asked, directing attention back where to the matter at hand.

"Well, I'm curious about this aircraft... and you can think of it as a favor." Twilight said with a smile.

Eva nodded, "Alright then. Dash, let's get this thing unloaded and we can get started on your first lesson."

"Alright, I'm skipping the book part of this because you don't really seem the type that would want to stick her nose in a book for hours, and being a pegasus I imagine you already know more than I'd ever be able to teach you about flight theory. So we'll start with the hooves on part." Eva explained into her headset, Dash was wearing the co-pilot's headset next to her.

"So, I'm right in assuming you understand the basic principles of lift, drag, thrust, aerodynamic stalls, and the like?" Eva continued, turning to look at the rainbow maned mare on the other side of the cockpit.

"Yeah that's basic stuff you learn in flight school." Dash explained with a wave of the hoof.

"Well, that's great, this isn't so much teaching you how to fly as it is teaching you how to control the aircraft, and the aircraft's limits. As a rule you won't want to go over three gees empty or two and a half with a load, and you'll want to avoid negative gees whenever possible." Eva explained distantly as she ran through a mental pre-flight checklist.

"And what happens if I do?" Dash asked, placing her hooves on the control yoke and moving it around gently.

"Well, those are conservative limits, but if you go over the limits you could potentially snap the wings off of the fuselage, and then we crash. I will be very sad if that happens." Eva said with a slight smirk, "Still, don't worry about it, as long as you don't go crazy with it. Now, you're holding the control yoke, twisting the wheel to the left will raise the left aileron, and lower the right aileron, causing a left roll, turning the wheel to the right will perform the opposite action."

"Aileron... like an aileron roll?" Dash asked, her curiosity piqued.

"You call them that? Yeah that's exactly right. Pulling the wheel towards you will pitch the nose of the aircraft up by deflecting the elevators, pushing forward will pitch the nose down. The pedals at your feet, left pedal is left yaw, right pedal is right yaw... anyway let's run through engine start-up and we'll get this thing into the air."

In the distance, unseen in the underbrush, a pair of blue eyes watched the aged aircraft intently, mentally taking note of all of the details of the situation, not even flinching as the pair of thousand horsepower radials roared to life. The blast from the propellers as the DC-3 charged down the meadow blasted his brown mane as he watched it lift into the air.

"They always do find a way." He laughed to himself as he turned back towards town, "Humans, you never stop surprising me."

"I figure we travel parallel to the railroad tracks for a while, do some light maneuvering practice, so, take over." Eva said with a grin as she let go of the yoke. She suppressed a laugh when Dash's hooves shot out to grab on the yoke.

The cargo plane dipped slightly before Dash brought the yoke back, after a few experimental movements of the controls she found the point where she had to hold it to keep it level. "It's more sensitive than I thought it would be." she said.

"It'll be more sensitive as airspeed increases, but it'll also be harder to manipulate..." she trailed off as something outside the cockpit windscreen caught her attention. A plume of black smoke rising in the distance, at least twenty miles out by her best estimation. "Hey Dash, hold it level for a few minutes I've got to go get something out of the back."

"Wait!" Dash called out as Eva ran into the back of the plane, but the pilot had already taken her headset off and couldn't hear her over the sound of the engines. Dash stared intently out the windscreen, understandably nervous at being left alone in control of the machine.

Almost as suddenly as she'd rushed out, Eva returned to the cockpit with a pair of binoculars. "I want to see what's going on up ahead, are there any towns out here?" She asked as she pressed the binoculars up to her face and gazed out at the source of the smoke, the image fuzzy as she struggled with the focus ring.

"Well, Appleoosa is out this direction but it's an overnight train ride, Ponyville is behind us, and those are the two closest towns... that I know about anyway." Dash explained, relaxing slightly now that the pegasus who actually knew how to fly the plane was back on the flight deck.

"Appleoosa? Really? I'm trapped in a world of puns..." the gray mare trailed off as she got the binoculars focused. "So it's not a town... It's a train derailment, I can't see much else, looks like there might be a clearing, let's hope there is." she finished, climbing back into her seat and grabbing the control yoke.

Eva reached over and pushed the throttle and propeller levers forward, "We're going in, we might be the only ones who even know about this, let's see if we can help them."

Dash nodded her head and started to unbuckle herself from the co-pilot's seat, "I fly faster than this thing, I'll fly ahead and see if there's anything I can do to help!" she yelled over the sound of the engines.

Eva looked at Dash in confusion for a moment before the implication of the latter's statement finally click, "Alright! Just take that headset with you so we can communicate, there's a two-way you can plug it into by the door, just twist the knob to turn it on!"

She was answered with a nod and the younger pegasus rushed out of the cockpit. Gripping tightly on the controls she prepared for the inevitable lurch that would rush through the aircraft when Dash popped the door open.

The DC-3 jumped. 'That's it.' she thought as she eased the controls, compensating for the change in aerodynamics. A second later she saw the blue streak of Rainbow Dash shooting ahead of her and towards the rising smoke.

"This day is certainly more interesting than I thought it would be." She commented to herself, nosing the plane over and increasing airspeed, if anyone was hurt, she didn't have time to screw around.

"Transponder detected, tracking."

"No, I don't think you will."

Run

Pilot's Story

Chapter 7: Run

"Transponder detected, tracking."

"No, I don't think you will," a brown coated stallion with a messy mane said in an... almost laughing trottingham accent, "In fact, I think I will do the tracking, thank you very much, tracking down all the information in your databanks!" His voice bordering on downright gleeful as he pointed a metal cylinder at the computer terminal and pressed a button.

There was a sudden high pitched whine as the end of the cylinder glowed a bright green. The terminal sparked and the lights in the bunker dimmed. The tube beeped and the stallion spit it out onto his hoof and looked at the display, "Oh my, you are a clever little species."

"Databanks c-c-c-c-compromised dispa-a-a-a-atching sec-c-c-c-c-u-u-urity."

"And that's my cue to run!"

"What have you got down there, Dash?" Eva asked as she throttled back her engines, throwing the plane into a sharp corkscrew maneuver to shed speed, "Casualties?" she asked even as she dropped the landing gear, lining herself up to land straddling the rails.

"There's a lot of confusion down here, Eva, a lot of ponies are hurt, and there's a fire spreading to the passenger cars. came Dash's uncharacteristically panicked voice. "We're trying to get everypony out but the fire is spreading so fast"

"Alright, you keep getting peo...ponies out, I'm going to set down in front of the locomotive, tell any of the un-injured to meet me there to turn the plane around, we'll load up as many as we can fit and get off the ground as quickly as we can." Eva yelled into her headset over the sounds of the engines.

The aircraft started to settle in over the rails, headed directly for the locomotive. Eva didn't waste time, she nosed the aircraft over and retracted the flaps, spilling lift and forcing the main gears into the soft dirt. She pulled the throttles back to idle and leaned hard into the wheel brakes while pulling the yoke back, causing the aircraft to rapidly shed airspeed.

The locomotive was getting bigger in her windscreen, she started to sweat, had she overshot her landing speed in her haste? A few tense seconds later the tail finally dropped all the way to the ground and her forward speed dropped. Without any further delay she threw all the engine controls to idle and tore her headset off, charging down the aisle.

She stopped by the still open doorway to grab the fire extinguisher and jumped out the door, running flat out towards the passenger cars, most of which, she could now tell, were fully involved. She charged past a group of ponies dressed up in what looked to be uniforms of some kind and she stopped, spitting out the fire extinguisher onto the ground.

"Hey, you six, go to the locomotive, turn the big metal thing in front of it around so it's facing the other direction and do not touch the spinny things on the wings or you'll be cut to ribbons, I'm going to fly the injured out." She yelled, the stallions stood stunned for a moment, just staring at her. Her face flashed in anger as she got into the face of the nearest stallion, he was wearing a pony version of overalls, "Hey, move, now!"

Seeing the ponies finally start to run, she grabbed the extinguisher in her teeth again and ran towards the familiar looking rainbow maned pegasus trying to push through the flames engulfing the exit to one of the train cars. She planted her hooves in the soft dirt and skidded to a stop, pushing Dash out of the way as she dropped the oversized extinguisher into her hooves and tore the safety pin out with her teeth.

She brought herself up to her hind legs and held the red cylinder in her forehooves, took a deep breath, and charged up the stairs into the inferno, spraying the contents of the fire extinguisher at the flames as she went. The heat hit her like a freight train but she pushed deeper, spraying the flames even as they licked at her fur, singing it and in some places burning her down to bare hide.

She saw a group of ponies, foals if she had to guess, hiding under some of the seats behind her. She turned her head to them as she fought the fire away from the stairway, "Run, get outside before this thing runs out, I can't hold the fire back much longer!" Already the pressure was dropping, soon she wouldn't have anything left.

The fillies, if her guess of gender based on facial structure was right, rushed out, leaving the car empty. Taking one last look around her, Eva saw nobody else in the car and dropped the empty extinguisher and jumped out of the open doorway as the flames pushed back, the extinguisher no longer there to fight them.

"Dash!" She yelled as she hit the ground, "Get as many ponies as you can onto the plane, injured first, and then fly back to Ponyville as fast as you can, tell them to expect injured and try to clear out a place for me to land near the hospital." She started coughing as she trotted back towards the plane, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs.

"You heard her! Injured on the plane, come on!" Dash yelled to the passengers gathering off to the side of the burning train.

"We could talk about this you know, I like talking about it, find that helps out a lot more often than you'd think!" the stallion rattled off as he was pushed into a corner by the advancing machines. "I mean, you all seem like very reasonable automatons you know?"

The robots raised their wrists, red glow emanating from the palms of their hands. "Unauthorized access, security protocol activated." they yelled in unison.

"Guess not then, thank you Captain Jack!" He said to himself as his left hoof stomped a button on the device strapped to his right fetlock, an instant later he was gone.

Eva slammed her hoof against the throttle and pitch levers, running the engines up to rated power in an instant, the aircraft lurched forward from it's standstill on the soft earth next to the railroad tracks. "Dash, I don't know when you'll get out of range, but... I might not be in very good shape when it comes time to land this thing, make sure there's a really long landing strip in case I screw this up." she said into her headset before punctuating the statement with another cough.

"I'll do what I can, just hold on!" she heard Dash reply, the transmission already crackling from the distance; Dash was flying for all she was worth in the opposite direction.

Eva pulled back on the control yoke as the airspeed indicator clicked over one hundred, the tail lowered and the wings caught the air, lifting the craft gently into the sky. The radials thundered as they dragged the aged airplane through the sky. Pulling the controls to the left she set the plane into a shallow roll, arcing towards the original direction of travel and towards Ponyville.

She pulled up on the landing gear handle and keyed up the intercom, something she hadn't had occasion to do very often, "Alright, everybody just keep calm for the next forty five minutes and I should have you back-" she coughed loudly and took a breath, "anyway, I should have you back in Ponyville. Dash went ahead to let them know we're on our way. The ride might get a little bumpy, don't worry, that's normal."

She checked her altimeter, twelve hundred feet, she turned on bleed air and pitched the nose up. 'Get up over eight thousand and I can hit top speed, should shorten travel time but... it's going to be hell on the fuel supply... should be fine as long as there's enough left that I don't have to dead-stick it in.' she thought to herself as she manipulated the controls.

She leaned back into her chair and rested her eyes for a moment, relaxing after the mad rush to get the injured ponies onto the plane. It was at this point that her burns began to hurt. "Marvelous."

The brown stallion crashed through the blue double-doors in the back of his clock shop, the interior of the room was almost pitch dark, with the exception of the glowing metal tube in his mouth. He sprinted across the room, in fact going much farther than she should have been, granted the size of the shop, and plugged it into a round console.

"A-ha! That's why you can't go anywhere... or anywhen!" he exclaimed as part of the console lit up and text rapidly scrolled across it, he smiled, he laughed even. "This planet shouldn't even be here, and yet, here it is, the star shouldn't exist, nothing should exist!"

He sat against a chair mounted near the cylindrical console tower and sighed, "Not to mention magic, real magic, they invented magic!"

With a sigh the stallion dropped back onto his hooves and started walking towards the doors, leaving this 'room' of his shop behind him.

It was for that reason that he never noticed the soft glow at the base of the round console he'd been sitting in front of moments before.

"Backup drives accessing..."

"System reinitialized, countdown resumes."

"The protocol has been complicated."

"The Doctor has survived."

"Must adapt to unforeseen circumstances."

Some Kind Of Magnet For Strange

Pilot's Story

Chapter 8: Some Kind Of Magnet For Strange

Eva bit the lid off the bottle with a sharp grunt and dumped four of the white ovals into her mouth, choking them down and throwing the bottle into the corner of the cockpit. "Damn childproof bottles. Who the hell ever thought those were a good idea anyway?" she complained to herself.

She let out a sigh and rubber her eyes with her fetlock, stifling a yawn as she stared out the windscreen. She could make out the buildings of Ponyville in the distance, she cut throttle back a little and started her descent, as little fuel as she had left from the full throttle flight she wanted to set it down on the first pass.

As the aircraft shed altitude a new complication arose, a rainbow coalition of pegasi seemed to take an interest in her approach. Eva keyed up her microphone. "Dash, got your ears on?" she called out as she eyed the approaching pegasi with caution.

"I always have my ears on, what are you talking about?" came Rainbow Dash's confused reply over her headset, Eva could hear commotion in the background, hospital sounds, she'd hoped.

"It means... is your radio on, and it is apparently. It's getting awfully crowded in my sky, can you clear out some of our winged friends? They are severely limiting my maneuvering options." She called out as she dialed back more throttle, putting the craft into a lazy arc towards the hospital on the edge of the town, the clearing marked off by... chalk lines, it seemed.

She dialed back a few more inches of throttle and brought the pitch back, clicking the flaps down a few notches and dropping the landing gear. She saw her blue friend yelling something at the pegasi that had been crowding her flightpath and they started to disperse, good.

She settled in on final approach, she switched to an open microphone and eased back on the yoke slightly, "Touchdown in about five seconds, get ready for the wounded...." she trailed off, concentrating on making the touchdown gentle. She looked up ahead of her.

Orange, Yellow, White. There were foals running into the landing strip right in front of her. The main wheels touched down. "Shit!" she yelled into the open microphone as her right hoof threw full power back to the engines and hauled back on the controls, the aircraft struggled to bring itself back into the sky. "Aborting!" she yelled out again. 'Power up, nose up, gears up, flaps up, speak up...' she mentally recited as her hooves flicked across the controls, a sharp jolt rocked through the airframe right before the craft picked back up into the sky.

"Holy... Dash, check the landing zone, there were foals... for the love of God tell me I didn't hit them!" Eva almost screamed into the microphone in her panic. She heard confused groans coming from the aft compartment of the craft as she put it into a bank, taking a wide arc to re-align to the landing zone.

After a few tense moments she heard her radio crackle to life. "They're okay, but they might wish they weren't when their sisters get a hold of them." she heard Dash reply, her voice betraying a not inconsequential note of agitation.

"I'm gonna bring it back around for another attempt, keep the field clear, I don't think I'll have enough fuel left for a third try and I really really don't want to bring this thing in dead stick!" Eva shouted into the microphone boom over the drone of the engines.

Said engines chose that moment to surge and sputter. 'Tanks are just about dry...' she thought to herself and flipped the booster pumps on, calming the the throttle fluctuations as she settled in on final approach for the second time. "Alright everybody, hold on if you can, hold on for those that can't, I'm afraid I can't make this one gentle." She said into the intercom as she cut the throttle back again, her eyes peeled, making sure the strip was actually clear this time.

The messy-maned stallion watched intently as the aircraft descended, he'd heard the commotion after Rainbow Dash had arrived, and was more curious than he'd ever been about this new arrival, this 'Eva' as he was told her name was.

"I can't think of many who would do what she's doing..." he said aloud to himself while pointing the metal cylinder at the DC-3, the high pitched squeal once again filling the air as he pressed the button down. One flick of the hoof later, he was staring at a readout.

He looked up again and that's when he saw it. 'Those fillies do get themselves into no end of trouble.' he thought as he watched them rush out, directly in the path of the descending aircraft. He wondered what would happen, he knew she didn't have much fuel left...

Those three, the 'Crusaders' as they were known, had caused him no end of trouble when he'd first arrived, on a number of occasions and to his great distress they had nearly discovered the 'secret room' in the back of his clock shop.

The engines roared and the craft lurched back into the sky, the Doctor smiled, "So, it's like that..."

He'd have to meet her before too long, he decided.

The DC-3 hit hard, Eva had shed airspeed early to bring the wheels down and give her more room to stop on the ground, room she intended to use to maneuver the craft as close to the hospital entrance as she could safely manage.

The wheels stopped and the aircraft settled into the grass some fifty feet from the building, Eva locked the wheel brakes and cut the engines immediately, trying to conserve what little fuel she had left. 'Not that it'll do much good if I can't get any more...' she thought to herself as she slapped her hoof across the main battery cutoff.

The gray pegasus trotted down the aisle in the center of the plane, stepping over and around her injured and uninjured passengers and hooved the door open, dropping the stairs to the ground outside. She stepped awkwardly down them and turned back to help unload her 'cargo.'

She felt a hoof touch her shoulder, "Miss, if you'll come with me..." the nurse-pony started.

"Wha?" Eva said as she turned her head to face the blue earth pony, "No, I wasn't in the crash, I'm the pilot, help the ponies still inside." She finished, pointing a hoof up the stairs. "I uh..." she looked at herself and could only imagine how terrible she looked to anyone else, "I'll be fine, just tired, take care of the others okay?"

The nurse nodded slowly. Confused, but not willing to press the issue, she turned toward the hatch and began to help offload the injured. Eva watched her for a few seconds before deciding she had other things to deal with at the moment.

Eva turned away and trudged towards the front of the aircraft, wincing slightly with each step as she became painfully aware of just how torn up she'd been in her train car adventure; each step sent a sharp sting up her flank, each blade of grass rubbing on her raw skin burned.

She knew she'd been through worse, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out when that might have been. She caught a flash of rainbow in the corner of her eye and turned to see Dash standing with a trio of fillies, the blue pegasus did not look pleased.

Eva trotted off in their direction, to say she was angry would have been an understatement, she could have crashed, she could have killed somepony. 'and now it's infecting me, I'm even thinking in ponyspeak.' she thought to herself.

The kids were actually pretty cute, infectiously so, and it started to disturb her how easily she was empathizing with and acclimating to being, what was for all intents and purposes, an alien. On the one hand, she'd always been good with all kinds of animals, even had a soft spot for horses. On the other hand, none of them could talk, smile, or emote quite like the ponies she was getting to know.

It bothered her that it didn't bother her.

She finally found herself standing in front of the three, scared, she realized, fillies. She wanted to yell at them, she wanted to scream, yell, berate. She wanted to knock some sense into them. She turned to the yellow one, with the bow in her mane, she raised her hoof, and brought it down, gently stroking the earth pony's mane. "Well, at least you're okay." she said softly.

'They're kids' she reasoned, 'It's not like I never did anything stupid when I was young, and they couldn't have known any better.' Rainbow Dash looked at her like she'd grown a second head. Eva shook her head a little, "It's not worth yelling Dashie, they're just fillies right?"

Dash nodded slowly, not really understanding it completely but willing to roll with it. "Girls, go home, we'll talk about this later." Dash said to the three after a few seconds consideration, her voice more tired than anything.

Eva put her hoof on Dash's back, between her wings, like she would pat a friend on the back, were she still human. "Is it always this crazy around here or am I some kind of magnet for strange?" she asked her technicolor friend.

Dash's cheeks tinted slightly red. "Not-always-but-it-does-get-crazy-now-please-take-your-hoof-off-my-back." she said with the speed of a machine-gun.

Eva pulled her hoof back and gave the other mare a confused look, "But... I... what?" she asked, unable to make sense of the strange embarrassed rejection of, what she thought of as, a simple friendly gesture.

Dash looked away and reached out her own hoof, gently prodding Eva in the same spot on her back before quickly pulling away. Eva's eyes shot wide open and her mouth opened in surprise as a blush formed on her own face, "I did not... That is... Huh." She finally settled on, "We will never speak of this."

"Good idea." Dash hastily agreed.

"So, it gets crazier than today?" Eva asked, changing the subject, still blushing, it had been a very long time since anypony... 'No, shut up, do not think down those lines Eva!'

"Oh... Yeah, it does. I mean, you haven't even met Pinkie Pie yet."

In the heart of Ponyville, plans were taking shape, items purchased, goods baked. A peculiar pink pony with a predilection for parties was plotting; this new pony in town would have a party, it would be perfect, a celebration without peer.

Pinkie Pie hummed a happy tune to herself as she shoved another tray of cupcakes into the oven, tomorrow was going to go off perfectly.

Morning After

Pilot's Story

Chapter 10: Morning After

Eva was floating on a large cloud made of cotton candy, all around her straws were sticking out of it. She trotted around on the soft-sticky cloud, examining all of the straws with a critical eye before she picked out a three foot long crazy straw colored like a rainbow. She sucked on the straw and found herself with a mouthful of Irish Cream and... another taste she couldn't identify. "hmmmmm..."

Twilight Sparkle was a reasonable mare, at least, she thought so. If there was anything her time in Ponyville taught her, it was that there was always more than one explanation for things, and she shouldn't always jump to the worst conclusions. She was also taught that sometimes you should just trust what Pinkie says at face value.

This was an example of one of the former. She let out a yawn and froze, on her floor, the two drunken pegasi she'd chastised the night before, one of her best friends, Rainbow Dash, and the newcomer, Eva Lohengrin, were spooning. Unconscious and spooning. In the middle of her library.

She blushed slightly at the possible implications and shook her head, 'Nope, there's no way, at all, gotta be something else.' she told herself. This was probably completely innocent, drunk ponies were known to find themselves in strange positions the next day without anything having actually happened.

At least that happened in a lot of the comedy plays she'd read. Usually there was some simple explanation and they spent most of the story trying to figure out what that was and... Eva was chewing on the back of Rainbow Dash's head. Twilight could see the latter's rainbow colored mane matted to the back of her head by pony saliva.

"No...nooo...my...no...brains..." She heard Dash moan in her sleep. Twilight's legs locked up and she face planted the floor in her shock, the floor rattled slightly and Dash stirred in her sleep.

Eva's jaw clenched as she bit down on Dash's head particularly hard, the blue pegasus's eyes snapped open and she launcher herself onto her hooves, screaming. "It's eating my brain!" she yelled as she ran around in panic, knocking books off the shelves as she dashed in circles through the room.

Eva's head popped up muttering something about 'a pitcher of gin' before dropping back down onto the floor, it seemed even a miniature stampede wasn't enough to keep her up for long.

Twilight grabbed Dash with her telekinesis to stop the panicked mare from trashing her home any further, "Dash, she's not eating your brain, it was a nightmare, calm down!" She yelled, pointing a hoof at Eva and her distinct lack of blood on her mouth.

Dash stared at the passed out pegasus with a raised eyebrow, a thin stream of drool was rolling out of her open mouth, along with... a few strands of polychromatic hair. Dash's polychromatic hair. She rubbed the back of her head with a fetlock and it came back sticky. She groaned, "I need a shower."

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, "So you didn't do anything... Thank Celestia." Dash watched as it seemed like all of the tension suddenly melted out of her purple friend.

Dash raised an eyebrow up to her mane. "What are you talking about Twilight?" Dash asked, apprehension and confusion thick in her voice.

"Well you two were... spooning." Twilight said nervously, "and you both did drink a lot last night..."

"What? No! No way! Twilight, I don't... not... mares!" Dash stammered out before thrusting one of her hind legs into the back of Eva's head, "Wake up, mare!" she yelled.

"Ah! Airmen are not ordnance, airmen are not ordnance! Sir, I'm sorry sir, it won't happen again, sir!" Eva yelled as she scrambled to her hooves, her eyes wide open and bloodshot as she swayed slightly. She blinked a few times and then spit out the hair hanging from her mouth and looked around, aware of a sudden and throbbing pain in her head.

"Cuddle much?" Dash asked, accusingly as she stared down the older mare, a slight blush unmistakable on her pale blue face.

"Sometimes?" Eva said, uncomprehending, though her brain was starting to formulate a picture, based largely on her dream of strange tasting cloud beverages and the hair in her mouth. The light bulb lit up. "Oh, that! I was cold." She said, mirroring the same wing-shrug she'd seen Dash perform before.

Dash face-hoofed, Twilight laughed.

Eva vomited into a potted plant.

"You know, I'm kind of surprised it was this easy." Tommy said offhand as he typed away on his laptop. The soft glow of the screen complimented the lighting from the instrumentation panels, bathing the darkened cockpit in a soft blue-green aura.

"Well, now that you've said that, I'm sure things are going to stay easy." James deadpanned, giving his brother a harsh look from the other side of the cockpit, his hands working the throttles delicately, easing the four engined cargo plane away from the hanger and into the night.

"So, Tommy, it's it going to work?" James asked as his eyes scanned the small airstrip, looking for anybody that might notice the Lockheed L-100 rolling down the taxiways. He turned up the volume slightly on his headset, waiting for the inevitable questioning from air traffic control.

Once they got into the air, they should be fine, as long as nobody actually saw them on visual, he'd swapped transponders with his own, much smaller, aircraft and filed a VFR flight plan, as long as nobody saw them before they got into the air they should be able to avoid much suspicion before they succeeded... or failed, by either eventuality it wouldn't matter anymore.

"By the time they do anything about the radar signature being... off... they won't have a chance to intercept us before we reach the fissure," the younger man said. "Probably, anyway." he added with a shrug. The bespectacled scientist tapped another sequence of commands into his laptop and a loud whirring noise permeated the aircraft.

"I take it that's what's getting us to wherever Eva is?" James asked as he swung the large aircraft onto the runway, lining up for the take-off roll, "because if it isn't going to work, we still have time to walk away."

Tommy laughed, starting out as a low chuckle before it built up to a body-shaking guffaw, "James, we've comitted at least six felonies today, more if you include specific NFA violations. No, we're in this, we'll deal with the consequences when we get Eva back, alright?" His laughing died down as he set one final command into the laptop and closed the lid, "No, it'll work. Punch it."

James nodded and shoved the throttles forward.

"This is bullshit!" Eva yelled through the door before her body convulsed again, her body ejected another mass of stomach contents into the toilet, her eyes watered and the splatter made them burn.

"So you've said." Twilight muttered from the other side of the bathroom door, "If you'd asked I would have told you this would happen, you know!" The purple mare sighed, 'She just had to egg Dash on, they both acted like such foals!' she thought angrily to herself.

"Horses can't--" Twilight heard another choking sound and another splash in the toilet. She was going to have to clean that up later, she put a hoof to her forehead. "-puke!" she heard Eva finish as the sounds died down again.

"Ponies! and we can, obviously!" Twilight yelled through the door as she stomped the floor with a forehoof. 'and she still insists of saying horses, we're ponies, what's not clear about that?' She sighed, "If you want I have a spell that should help with that."

The door creaked open slowly and the haggard face of Eva poked out, her eyes bloodshot watering, the fur on her face matted with tears and... other things that Twilight didn't want to think about, "Why didn't you say that before?" she asked with a quiet voice.

"Well... you were too busy yelling... and ruining my fern." Twilight said, shuddering a little bit at the memory, she liked that fern, she really did, and now it would never be the same again. 'Such is life.'

Eva lurched out of the bathroom and put her front hooves on Twilight's shoulders, pressing her face nose-to-nose with the latter mare. Twilight could smell the alcohol and... other things on her breath. "Magic. Me." Eva said forcefully, her eyes wide as saucers.

"Okay, okay, calm down..." Twilight started, trying her hardest not to visibly betray the sick feeling in her stomach from the... fumes. She touched her glowing horn to the other mare's forehead and concentrated.

Eva's eyes started to drift shut as she relaxed, the headache and sickness leaving her body... Her eyes snapped back open, she shoved herself away from Twilight and dove back into the bathroom. The pegasus's body emitted sounds and fluids best left undescribed for what Twilight counted out to a full fifteen seconds.

A ragged and worn looking Eva shambled back out of the the bathroom, water from the sink dripping from her mouth. "What...the...fuck?" she ground out in exhaustion as she stared at the unicorn. Twilight could see that one of her eyes looked to have a burst blood vessel in it, red discoloration was creeping across the white of her eye, that wasn't unexpected.

"Well, it all still had to leave your body... the spell makes it all leave at once so you can get past it quicker. You feel better now don't you?" Twilight asked, her voice full of concern. Eva found it hard to be angry.

"Hmm... Yeah, actually. I uh... I'm gonna go pour myself into the shower now." Eva mumbled as she turned back around and trudged back into the bathroom, not bothering to kick the door shut as she climbed into the bathtub and looked at the confusing shower controls.

"Uh, hey Twi? Could you help me out here?" Eva called out in confusion as she fumbled with the strange knobs.

The brown stallion stood in the middle of the empty field, the sun just beginning to clear the horizon behind him as he stared in open eyed panic through his glasses. The rupture was growing at an alarming rate, he almost didn't need to be a Time Lord to see it.

Almost.

The swirling polychromatic matrix of time-space quivered in the air above him, growing and massing upon itself as it spun, he could feel the time vortex calling out to him from behind the veil, it's call so long absent from his life, like everything else he'd he'd left behind.

'...and everyone' he thought sadly. "Well time to fix this before it becomes a problem." He said, entirely to himself. 'Still have talking to myself, at least.'

He pointed his sonic screwdriver into the sky and pressed the button. The device instantly began to emit green light and a high pitched squeal.

Then it exploded.

That, was something he hadn't been expecting.

Turn the Page

Pilot's Story

Chapter 11: Turn the Page

Eva sighed and looked at her blushing purple friend. "Look Twi, I don't understand why you're still so embarrassed!" she pleaded, loudly.

Twilight facehoofed, "I'm not embarrassed, I'm just shocked! You're a grown mare and you needed help bathing! I could understand a foal but..." she trailed off.

"Okay, yeah that makes sense but you know, I kind of am like a foal, up until a few days ago I had, you know, hands, and, you know didn't have a tail or... other horse--"

"Pony." Twilight interrupted.

"--pony parts." Eva finished. "Do you really have to correct me every time?"

"What are you talking about?" The lavender mare asked with a cocked eyebrow, somewhat jarred by the sudden change in topic.

"You really don't notice?" Eva asked incredulously as she rubbed the towel through her wet mane. "Alright, watch, and pay very close attention."

"Hey Dashie!" Eva called out to the other pegasus, who was... somewhere in the library still, though Eva wasn't sure. "Where can I get some horse clothes made?"

"Pony clothes!" She heard echo back through the library in Dash's raspy voice, "Rarity should be able to make some, we can go see her later!"

"Thanks Dashie!" Eva yelled out again, then turned to face Twilight, "See? as soon as I said horse she corrected me, you all do it."

Twilight blinked as the gears in her head started to turn, 'How didn't I notice that before?' she thought. "Well, you are a pony, not a horse, she has a point, Eva."

"And what is a horse, Twi?" Eva pressed, as she rubbed the towel through her tail.

"Well it's... a horse is..." Twilight started, "I don't know." she concluded. Eva could see... something in her eyes, something she wasn't sure she liked.

"Well, anyway, How about those clothes? Naked might work for you guys but It makes me a little uncomfortable." Eva said after a pregnant pause hung in the air. 'Maybe I shouldn't press this so hard, I may not like what I find out...' she thought as she smiled at Twi.

"I'd forgotten about Rarity..." Twilight said under her breath, with all the excitement the last few days she'd forgotten that Eva hadn't met the rest of her close friends yet. 'And there's Fluttershy too... that should be interesting.'

"Mes amis, allons-y!" Eva yelled suddenly as she slung her duffel on her back and headed for the door.

"So where's your friend, uh Bourbon? no that's not right... Scotch? Gin? Vodk-no that one's just stupid, oh, wait Jersey Lightning! Haven't seen her in a while, figured she could have drank with me and Dash." Eva commented as the trio walked down the cobblestone streets of ponyville.

"Who?" Twilight asked in confusion.

"Uh, orange fur, blonde hair, adorable white freckles, cowboy hat?" Eva explained, tapping her right fore-hoof with her left as if she were counting off fingers.

"You mean Applejack?" Dash offered with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, right Applejack, well, distilled hard cider either way right?" Eva said with a laugh, which faded as she realized her companions weren't laughing along. "Alright fine, bad joke, anyway... I still don't have any money yet and I burned out all of my fuel yesterday..." Eva started, wincing a little as she was reminded of the pain of her burns.

"Are you asking to borrow money?" Dash asked, shooting Eva an amused look.

"That is... possibly what I'm doing, yes." Eva admitted as they resumed walking.

"How much money?" Dash asked.

"Oh... four hundred bits?"

Dash flinched at the number, "Oh, well, if that's all..."

"I'm just saying, if you loan me the money, Twilight can work up some fuel, and I can pay you back after a single cargo run!" Eva exclaimed as she stepped through the threshold of the aptly named 'Carousel Boutique' which looked just like a carousel, she noted with amusement.

"Welcome to Carouse- Oh hello Twilight, Rainbow Dash. Who is your friend?" The elegant white unicorn asked in a friendly tone.

"Eva, pleased to meet you." Eva said, stepping forward quickly and extending her hoof. 'And suddenly I find myself thinking about Katharine Hepburn.' she thought with some amusement.

Rarity raised an eyebrow slightly as she took the hoof, "Rarity, it's a pleasure." Hmm, i wonder if that vocal inflection is a pegasus thing or...' "Are you related to Rainbow Dash by chance?" she asked.

Eva turned her head slowly to the side and remembered her wings, flipping them a little bit before she turned back to the white unicorn, "Right, pegasus... No, I'm actually new in town and Twilight and Dashie were helping me get settled in." She half-lied.

"She was the one flying that machine that flew over the town the other day." Twilight interjected, to Eva's great disappointment.

"That too." Eva admitted sheepishly, "Dash was with me, I was showing her how the plane works and... stuff." she added, spreading the blame out a little bit.

Rarity cocked an eyebrow under her well groomed mane, "Really? I'd heard the awful racket but I never actually saw it. You sure do know how to make an entrance don't you Miss Eva?"

Eva rubbed a fetlock on the back of her head, "Well, I mean... Dash was there... and I may have been showing off a little, you'll forgive an old woman her vanity won't you?" she asked sheepishly. "Anyway, I was hoping you could make something like this..." she said as she stuck her mouth into a pouch on the side of her bag and pulled out a picture.

Rairty laughed softly, "Well everypony will forgive you after what you did yesterday."

Eva blushed in embarrassment and slid her hoof behind her head, "Well I, uh, I was just doing what anybody would have done..."

Rarity smiled as she lifted her tape measure off a nearby table, "Dear you're far too modest, Now, let's get your measurements and I'll see what I can..." she trailed off for a moment as she looked over the picture, "do with this!"

Eva was stunned still as her bag and rifle were suddenly enveloped in Rarity's magic, lifted off of her, and deposited to parts unknown. "You... don't mess around." She said in a stunned voice.

"Oh of course, fashion is serious business after all! Although, I have to ask, what or who is that in the picture? I've never seen anypony who looks like that." She asked conversationally as she stretched her tape measure along Eva's torso.

"That's ah, me, actually, about... twenty years ago, I wasn't always a pegasus, that's... actually a pretty recent change." Eva explained, mentally bracing herself for the inevitable reaction. She caught Dash and Twilight looking at the picture out of the corner of her eye.

"So you really were telling the truth." Twilight said finally.

"Well, yeah... I mean if I was born a pegasus I wouldn't need that airplane would I?" She asked the unicorn.

"I like the jacket." Dash interjected into the conversation as she examined the photo, having relieved Rarity of it.

"Yeah it's called a bomb--" Eva flinched as the tape measure brushed against her wings. "--er jacket. So you guys are not freaking out, what gives?"

"It's not the strangest thing we've ever seen." Rarity commented distractedly while she measured across Eva's chest.

"I'm not sure that I want to know." Eva said hesitantly. "By the way ah... I don't actually have any money right now, which just occurred to me." she said suddenly.

Rarity smiled, "Well, just this once I think I can let it slide, you seem honest enough, I'll just extend you a line of credit until you're on your hooves, so to speak."

Eva smiled, "Thank you, so much, I'll... figure something out soon I'm sure!"

"Well that was really nice of her." Eva commented as the trio walked through the town, "I mean, she doesn't know me from Adam."

"Who's Adam?" Twilight asked with a lifted brow.

"It's an expression." Eva explained, "She doesn't know me from anyone else."

"Well, you did help all those ponies at the train, that's kind of a big deal." Dash offered.

"It was just the right thing to do, I couldn't have not done it, you'd have done the same thing, you even helped!" Eva deflected.

"Well yeah but I'm pretty awesome so it goes without saying." Dash joked. "So what are you going to do for money?"

"Well, that I'm not sure about..." She trailed off as her ears twitched over towards her left, she could hear... music? She turned her head and squinted, a mint green unicorn was playing a harp as passing ponies threw bits into an instrument case. 'No, not a harp, too small... Lyre?' she thought.

"Then again, I think I've got an idea."

Eva grunted as she dragged the case up the last step, the handle clasped tightly in her teeth. The heavy case thumped onto the floor of the library as she finally let it drop. "There we go. Thank you for letting me keep all of my stuff down in your basement, Twi." she said as she started flipping the latches open.

"It's no problem at all, there's a lot of space down there that I'm not even using so it would have been silly not to use it!" Twilight replied with a smile, "Besides, I'm sure there are worse ponies to share space with."

"You sure about that?" Eva joked as she lifted the beat up acoustic guitar out of the case. She leaned back against a bookshelf and set it down in her lap, strumming experimentally. She was rewarded with a crisp clean sound, "It's still in tune, small favors, eh?" she asked rhetorically, "This is my dad's old Gibson J-45, this thing is even older than I am, if you can believe it."

"Are you going to play something or just talk about it?" Dash asked with a smirk, "come on, play something."

"Calm yourself, mare." Eva teased before cracking her neck, "alright let's see if I've still got it."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, clearing her mind. Then, she began to strum; a soft, deep melody started to fill the room.

"On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha, you can listen to the engine moanin' out its one note song. You can think about the woman or the girl you knew the night before.

But your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do, when you're ridin' sixteen hours and there's nothing much to do, and you don't feel much like ridin' you just wish the trip was through."

Dash and Twilight leaned in closer, both finding themselves enraptured by the song, the emotion the gray pegasus was putting into her words, it wasn't the very best singing they had ever heard, but the feeling in those words was undeniable.

"Here I am, on the road again.

There I am, up on the stage.

Here I go, playin' star again.

There I go, turn the page."

Eva took in a breath, her eyes still closed as her hooves deftly plucked at the guitar, her mind far away, in a time and place long forgotten...

"Well you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road and you feel the eyes upon you, as you're shakin' off the cold. You pretend it doesn't bother you but you just want to explode.

Most times you can't hear 'em talk, other times you can. All the same old cliches; 'Is that a woman or a man?' And you always seem outnumbered, you don't dare make a stand."

She opened her eyes, blinking away the wetness as she continued her song, taking a soft breath before she continued.

"Here I am, on the road again.

There I am, up on the stage.

Here I go, playin' star again.

There I go, turn the page."

"Out there in the spotlight, you're a million miles away. Every ounce of energy you try to give away. As the sweat pours out your body, like the music that you play...

Later in the evening, as you lie awake in bed with the echoes from the amplifiers ringin' in your head. You smoke the day's last cigarette, rememberin' what she said."

She slid her eyes closed again and fell back into her memories, a smile found its way onto her lips as she began to finish the song.

"Here I am, on the road again!

There I am, up on the stage!

Here I go, playin' star again!

There I go......

Turn the page."

As her hooves stopped on the guitar strings she let out a sigh and set the guitar against the bookshelf, "Well, there you go, how was it? I haven't really tried singing in a whi--"

She found herself cut off as Twilight wrapped her in a hug, which she hesitantly returned. "Usually people clap when they like the song." Eva joked.

"Right... sorry..." Twilight said nervously as she let the elder mare go. "It's just that you seemed so sad..."

"Well, yeah a little bit, there's a lot I left behind, even before I came here." She said sadly, "Don't worry about it though, those are old wounds, just picked at the scars a little bit. I'll be alright."

"Well, if you ever need a friend to talk to, I'll be here." Twilight offered, smiling. Eva couldn't help but smile too.

"I'd like that."

Walk in the Park

Pilot's Story

Chapter 12: Walk in the Park

"So, do I need a permit or anything like that? This seems way too simple, nothing is ever this simple." Eva said as she lugged the guitar case onto her back. The stiff case bounced with each step down the cobblestone road.

Rainbow Dash gave her a strange look, "No, of course not, why would anypony need a permit to play music?" She said as she pumped her wings and hovered in the air next to the gray pegasus. "What's the deal with the straw hat anyway?"

Eva narrowed her eyes and looked around, "Just trying to keep a low profile, don't want a bunch of ponies swarming me when the story gets out about what I did at the train."

"You're about to go play music in the park and you're trying to avoid attention?" Dash asked with a laugh.

"Well, I didn't say it was the most well thought out plan..." Eva admitted as her hooves clopped against the stones, "Besides I like the shade."

"I guess, but that hat doesn't make a very good disguise, I don't think there are a lot of blank flank adult pegasi in Ponyville, so you're going to stand out anyway." Dash explained.

"What what?" Eva asked as she curled her head around and stared at her flank, "What about it?"

"You don't have a cutie mark, that's... kind of important. Wait, you went this whole time not knowing what the mark on everypony's flank is?" Dash asked incredulously.

Eva wingshruged under her guitar case, "I guess so? What's so important about having butt artwork?"

Dash cocked an eyebrow at the other mare. "Your cutie mark is a representation of your special talent, it appears when you find out what makes you special and unique!" Dash exclaimed.

Eva blinked, "Okay... well I'm a damn good pilot, and I already know that, so what's there to find out? Besides, I wasn't born a pony, so maybe it's not that simple for me?"

Dash sighed, "Maybe, I guess nothing like this has ever happened before."

"I'd have been okay with it never happening..." Eva muttered under her breath as she shrugged the guitar case off of her back and onto a park bench. She cleared he throat as she popped the snaps open, "So, you think this will work?"

"Well, you're good enough, if that's what you're worried about" Dash said with a shrug, "there's enough ponies here... I don't see why not."

Eva nodded her head as she delicately twisted a tuning key, then strummed. "Perfect." she said mostly to herself as she listened to the vibration. She looked over at Dash and her face scrunched up slightly as if in thought before she finally smiled, "And now I know what to play."

Closing her eyes she drew her hoof across the strings, she held the note and bent it as she started to sing.

"I put myself on a limb and I feel it giving way from the weight of the rain. If I break or I bend, I get myself together again, put my face to the wind."

"It might be a long, long way to my golden day, that's a chance I'm willing to take. Theres no chain, no cage that I won't break. In this long, long leap of faith."

"I close my eyes and I walk right to the edge, throw my hooves to the sky. Oh, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid to live this life through my dreaming eyes."

She cracked her eyes open and looked over at Dash, smiling a little as she took a breath. A number of ponies had gathered in the clearing, listening with interest as she sang, a few had even put coins in her guitar case.

"It might be a long, long way to my golden day, that's a chance I'm willing to take. Theres no chain, no cage that I won't break. In this long, long leap of faith..."

"To a rocket I've been tied, I'm ready for the screaming ride, it's full of fuel and I just lit the fuse. I'm a ragin' burnin' ring of fire and I get hotter as I get higher and I'm tearin' a hole right through this sky of blue.

She closed her eyes again as she started in on a solo, the notes building up much like the lyrics themselves until reaching a crescendo. She slipped back into the original tempo as she continued to sing.

"Oh, There's no chain, no cage, that I won't break, in this long, long leap of faith. In this long, long leap of faith."

Her playing sped up as she began to draw the song to a close, her face tinted red from the exertion and concentration of her playing.

"To a rocket I've been tied, I'm ready for the screaming ride, it's full of fuel and I just lit the fuse! I'm a ragin' burnin' ring of fire and I get hotter as I get higher and I'm tearin' a hole right through this sky of blue!

I'm tearin' a hole right through this sky of blue!

In this long, long leap of faith..."

As she finished the song she let the last note fade out on its own as she took a breath, letting herself relax as the small crowd tapped their hooves on the ground. 'Pony version of clapping?' she thought as the sound slowed and then stopped completely.

She looked over at the case to see a number of coins sitting in it, more than the first time she'd checked. "Thank you, thank you all very much, I'll be here all.... day?" She finished awkwardly.

"Well that was something. Haven't heard singing like that in... Oh, centuries I think. You're that mare with the, wassit, aeroplane, that's it, Douglas DC-3 right?" the brown stallion asked in almost frantic rapid-fire as he pushed through the crowd.

Eva stared at him, her mouth half open as she tried to process this... individual, the gears in her brain turned as she tried to come up with something to latch onto, something intelligent say. "You sound British." She failed.

"And you sound American" he replied with a grin that Eva found to be infectious. His messy brown mane added to his charm, she found it hard to be annoyed despite the situation. He flipped a silver coin into the guitar case and turned his head to stare at the hourglass Eva had just now noticed on his flank, "Well look at the time, I'd love to stay and chat but I must be going, we'll have to do this another time."

"I uh..." Eva started as the brown pony seemed to vanish back into the crowd, her mouth worked up and down uselessly as she tried to think of anything to say; she came up empty. She shook her head and looked down into her guitar case and froze as she saw the coin he'd left.

She poked it with her hoof, it was real: a nineteen-eighty-six American silver eagle coin. This was not something that a pony should have, this wasn't something most humans would have. "and... the mysteries keep piling on" she muttered under her breath as she started to strum again.

"So just like that, you're going to cut and run? Betray what you stand for?"

"I was here to serve, to do good. Not to stand as a pawn to the whims of some jackass jockeying for a promotion, and I'm not going to get thrown under a bus for him like James. No, I'm not betraying what I stand for at all, I've been betrayed."

"You've been staring at that coin for an hour." Dash said flatly, "are you expecting it to grow wings and fly away?"

Eva blinked and looked up, the crowd had dispersed as the sun went down, gas street lamps lit up the park in a soft glow. She had scooped the coins into a pocket on the side of her bag, quite a bit of heft for a day of playing in the park, and put her guitar away.

Still, that one silver coin.... "I'm just surprised, didn't expect to see one is all" she answered as she flipped the coin back into the guitar case and closed the lid. She hefted the case onto her back and looked up at the sky, contemplating just who that strange stallion was...

"Well, you did get quite a few bits today, I guess you'll be good to pay Rarity tomorrow then?" Dash probed as she motioned for the older mare to follow her.

"That... and maybe get a little fuel for the DC, there's got to be money in high speed courier work even here. I suppose passengers could work too, I'm not a huge fan of live cargo though..." She explained as she followed Dash in the direction of Twilight's tree. "Probably ought to see if I can find somepony who has the wiring I need to properly repair that magneto and get the engines running good..."

"Well, at least you've got plans..." Dash said while rubbing the back of her head with a fetlock.

"Now all I need to do is make the plans work... and figure out who that stallion was."

"We'll be on station in half an hour, you're sure this will work?" James asked as he set the autopilot and released the control yoke.

"Yeah I'm sure... pretty sure, I mean... Yeah it should totally work." Tommy rattled off as he typed furiously on his laptop, checking and re-checking last minute equations, "I mean... I wouldn't have let it get this far if I didn't think it would work. Yeah, we're good, I'm going to start warming up the accelerator right now."

Welcome To The Party

Pilot's Story

Chapter 13: Welcome To The Party

"Tommy what the hell did you do!?" James screamed as he fought with the aircraft's controls. Alarms blared and smoke filled the cockpit as the deck pitched down.

Tommy tore his harness off and turned towards the back of the cockpit. "We're on fire, but it worked James, the portal is open!" he yelled as he grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and rushed into the smoke, down into the cargo bay.

"That's... great. I'll just stay up here and try not let us die, sound good brother?" James yelled over his shoulder as he pushed more throttle to the engines and leveled out the aircraft. The smoke had gotten thicker, his eyes burned. He reached over to the side and pulled the window latch, instantly the pressure on the glass pushed the window wide open and fresh, cold air filled the cockpit, displacing the smoke almost instantly.

Ahead of him, hanging in the sky, the rippling distortion in time and possibly, space, rotated lazily, refracting sunlight. James had never seen anything like it, not that that was particularly surprising. He stepped on the rudder and nosed the damaged aircraft towards it, pushing full throttle to the engines as he fought for the altitude he'd need to intersect it.

"James, I can't put out the fire... I'm dumping the accelerator before we lose the plane!" the pilot heard his brother yell in his ear over the headset. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the ramp at the rear of the aircraft opening, saw his brother shoving a cart with the upper half engulfed in flames towards the void.

"Tommy, wait, how are we going to get back!?" He yelled into his headset as the cart rolled off the end of the loading ramp and tumbled into the open sky.

"I'll figure that out on the other side, we can't help Eva if we burn up on the way through. It's now or never James, let's do it." Tommy yelled back up through the radio. James saw the indicator wink out, showing the cargo ramp had closed.

"Now or never then..." he muttered to himself. Almost there, he hauled back on the yoke and brought the nose of the craft up. He wouldn't get far, as fast as it was shedding airspeed in a climb like this, but he would get far enough to crossover before the wings stalled.

'Just a few more feet...' he thought while gritting his teeth, the stall warnings screaming in his ears even over the roar of the engines, the clatter of the cockpit window rattling in the breeze. Contact, there was a bright flash of light--

"Surprise!"

The lights in the library suddenly came up as Eva and Dash stood in the doorway. Dash proceeded into the room while Eva remained in the doorway, stunned. "What is--" Eva started.

"It's a party, silly!" Pinkie laughed as she bounced over to Eva "a 'welcome-to-ponyville' party, for you!" she continued as she grabbed onto Eva and pulled her into the room. Eva reluctantly followed into the semi-crowded tree-library. She saw Applejack, Rarity, Twilight, and... a butter yellow pegasus she hadn't met yet.

'She is cute though.' Eva thought as she looked at the pegasus, 'Wait... did I just... don't think about it Eva, that way lies madness.' She shook her head, "So Pinkie, who is that over with Twilight?"

"You mean Fluttershy? Oh, you haven't met Fluttershy yet!" Pinkie squealed, "Well let's just go over here and I'll introduce you!"

"Bank angle! Bank angle!"

James was nearly thrown from his chair as the aircraft was caught in a crosswind. Out of his side of the aircraft he could see the starry sky, out of the other the ground. He bounced off his straps as he heard everything that wasn't strapped down crash against the side of the aircraft.

The altimeter dropped like a rock as he fought with the controls, trying to pull into the wind and regain control authority. The open cockpit window flapped violently in the turbulent air, James slapped it shut and locked it down as the aircraft started to level out.

"Terrain, pull up! Terrain, pull up!" the warning screamed.

"Shut up! Shut up!" James yelled as the engines started to surge. 'Air in the fuel lines!' He thought quickly as he pumped the throttle levers. The airspeed indicator started to climb even as the altimeter continued to click down.

The aircraft pulled hard to the left as the engines lost thrust on that side. Additional warnings flashed across the panel as the computers detected the flameout. James slammed his hand down onto the starters as the ground continued to rush up at him. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday--"

"Well, it was very nice to meet you, Miss Fluttershy." Eva said as she stepped away. The mare was adorable both in manner and appearance, no denying it. 'And she definitely lived up to her name. shy indeed.' she thought as she picked up a glass of red punch and sipped at it.

"This is actually kind of tame for a Pinkie party." Dash commented as she walked over to Eva. "Usually there's a lot more... stuff. You know, games, food, music. That kind of thing."

"That's fine, I'm not really a huge party kind of gal, ya know." Eva said as she took another drink, "Good punch though."

"I almost want to suggest spiking the punch, maybe liven Twilight up a little." Dash joked as she picked up a cup of her own, idly swishing the liquid around as she stared into the cup. The thin red liquid swirled and stuck to the edges of the wooden mug.

"It's better if you don't. Pinkie will get into it, and the concept of a drunk Pinkie Pie terrifies me beyond the capacity for rational thought."

"It was just an idea." Dash deflected.

"It's an idea that we'll both live to regret." Eva deadpanned as she gave Dash a severe look.

"I didn't even think we--" Dash started before a crackle of static from across the room interrupted her.

"You left the radio on?" Eva asked as she walked over to the shelf in the corner that her duffel was still leaning against, the portable two-way was sitting on the shelf, the red light was lit, indicating it was still powered on.

'-ayday, Mayday, November-Niner-Two-Three-Two-Quebec Heavy, Engine flameout, attempting restart."

Eva grabbed the radio off the shelf, she recognized that voice, would recognize it anywhere. "Copy, November-Nine-Two, there is no ATC, no Tower. If you're in range you should be able to see the lights of the town, clear landing area approximately five hundred yards--" She started to explain when she was interrupted.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, November-Niner-Two-Three-Two-Quebec Heavy, Engine flameout, attempting restart. Position unknown, heading due north." the message repeated.

"--and you can't hear me, great." Eva muttered as she dropped the handset. "Dash could you--"

"Already on it." Dash said abruptly as she bolted through the door and into the night.

Eva turned around slowly, feeling the eyes staring at her back, she faced the crowd of ponies standing there, staring at her. Twilight stepped forward, a look of concern and confusion on her face. "What was that all about?" she asked.

"It ah... It looks like I'm not alone anymore."

"Anything?" Tommy yelled as he pulled himself back into the co-pilot's seat. He started strapping himself in as the craft bucked and jumped through the turbulent air.

"Thought I heard.... something, can't raise anyone now though. No nav beacons, no GPS." James explained as he throttled the engines up slowly, trying desperately to keep the struggling craft in the air. The wind whistled around the plane as the asynchronous hum of the engines reverberated through the airframe.

James hit the landing lights and was surprised to find himself low over a forest, trees stretched to the horizon as the injured aircraft skimmed along, the turbines howled into the night.

"Any idea where we are?" James asked as he eased the craft higher into the sky, the airframe continued to shudder, the engines were running but not running well.

Tommy looked up at the sky and frowned in confusion, "I don't recognize any of the constellations... wherever we are, whenever we are, it's so far removed from where we left... I've got nothing."

"Well... I had a return on the radio for half a second, couldn't make it out, might be Eva, might be somebody else, but with GPS returning nothing and without autopilot beacons they might be our only chance. Look for a clearing, we need to land and shut down before we break something we can't replace" James said solemnly.

"What are you doing?" Twilight asked while watching Eva dig through her duffel bag with her head.

Eva pulled her head back and brought with it a red plastic case, "I'm going to give him a signal he can't miss!" she yelled as she half-ran half-flew out the door and into the night.

Her wings flapped awkwardly as she fumbled the case into her front hooves, the mismatched flapping holding her aloft enough to let her focus on opening the box. "He can't miss this, might not have heard me on the radio... but he'll see this." she said to herself as the case finally split open.

The flare gun tumbled out onto the ground, followed by the pack of flares. "Rainbow Dash! I need you!" she yelled into the sky as she opened the breech of the flare launcher, she slid a flare in before she snapped the breach shut with a satisfying click.

"I couldn't see anything from up there-" Dash started as she dropped to the cobblestone road beside Eva, her mane frazzled from high speed flying.

"No time, take me up, high as you can. I'm going to signal him!" Eva interrupted as she flapped her wings in emphasis, her forehooves fumbling around with the flaregun as she held a spare flare in her mouth.

"You really need to learn to fly on your own." Dash deadpanned as she grabbed Eva around the chest and pumped her wings hard, taking the pair into the air; at first slowly, and then with steadily increasing speed, steadily increasing altitude.

Dash clenched her jaw as she flapped her wings, fighting gravity with the added burden of an entire other pegasus weighing her down, still winded from her mad dash through the sky in search of... whatever it was that had called Eva's radio. She spared a glance at the ground, hundreds of hoof lengths below. Even burdened, she was no slouch.

Eva clenched her teeth around the base of the spare flare as she raised both of her forehooves in a double hooved grip on the flare gun. "Closh yer eyesh!" Eva yelled around the flare as she pulled the trigger. The orange gun bucked as a bright orange flare shot higher into the sky, bathing the town in a pale orange glow, turning the gray and cyan pegasi a fading orange as the burning flame flew higher and higher.

She pressed the release catch and flipped the barrel open to eject the spent flare when, to her horror, the gun slipped out of her hooves and tumbled towards the ground. She stared after it for a moment, her eyes locked on the tumbling orange plastic as her hooves reached out for it...

She launched herself out of Dash's grip, shoved herself down off of the cyan mare's chest, and dove after the flare gun, her wings flapping powerfully as she closed on the falling flare-gun, closed on the ground. She reached her hooves out, the tips ever closer to the tumbling plastic, the wind whipped past her ears, her mane flattened against her neck. She pumped harder.

Contact, she latched onto the flare-gun and curled her body around it, she shoved the second flare into the vacant chamber with her teeth and clicked it shut. She chanced a look at the ground, less than a hundred feet, less than a second. 'I hope you see this...' She thought as she rolled onto her back and pulled the trigger. The bright orange flare joined its brother in the dark night sky.

She closed her eyes.

Impact.

Convergence

Pilot's Story

Chapter 14: Convergence

"Flaps?" James asked as he angled the aircraft towards a gap in the tree cover. The propellers thrummed through the airframe as the injured cargo plane descended.

"No go on flaps." Tommy called back as he pushed the flap actuator lever back into the retracted position, "Gear hydraulics look good though. I think we blew more than a few relays with the accelerator, I can fix it when we get on the ground."

"When we land, 'get on the ground' sounds too vague for my liking right now- The hell is that?" James interrupted himself as he caught sight an intense orange light off to his left. He made a mental note of the bearing as a second flare lit up.

"Looks like somebody heard your mayday and is signalling us." Tommy commented as the plane dipped even lower, a whine pierced the cockpit as the landing gear lowered and locked into position. "Gear locked, tire pressure looks good."

"Alright, here goes nothing, hang on!" James yelled as he abruptly pulled the propeller controls into the reverse thrust range, the plane dropped like a stone as it crossed the tree line, lift and speed spilling from it as the landing gear slammed into the soft grassy earth.

"Celes, it's not that simple... you know that. These people, they don't believe me when I tell them you're safe. I know better but..." The man said, his voice soft and understanding.

"I know... I still don't like it, being cooped up down here. There's a whole world up there that I want to explore! To live in!" The female replied, her voice frustrated as she stomped at the ground. "It's not that I don't like your company, I just... I wish there was more."

The man sighed and slumped his shoulders, "I have a meeting with the directors, I'll be home later, just ask Icarus if you need anything."

The female slumped her head down as the man left, she turned to a grille in the wall, "Icarus, can you get me a friend?"

Eva's eyes opened and she became acutely aware of the pain radiating throughout her body, from the tips of her wings all the way down to her hooves, and all points in between. She looked up at the soft white ceiling above her as her vision came into focus.

"Ugh... I feel like I got hit by a train." She complained with a groan. She started to turn her head and stopped when the pain shot through her neck.

"Ya look more like ya crashed through an apple cart, if I'm to be honest."

"Oh, hey there Applejack, I uh... guess I wasn't really thinking when I dove after the flare-gun... where's everyone else?" Eva asked as she managed to finally get her head turned to the side to look at the orange cowpony. 'Definitely the hospital' she thought as her eyes flicked around the room.

"We took shifts, it was mah turn. I ain't too worried about the apple cart, better'n hittin the ground right? Still, why'd you do such a fool thing?" Applejack asked as her eyebrow raised inquisitively under her hat.

"The voice on the radio, I recognized it, he was in trouble... must have come looking for me, somehow. I had to signal him, couldn't get him on the radio, but those flares, at night, with a clear sky? Could see them for a hundred miles." Eva explained, her voice low, her words slow and deliberate as her tongue worked in her dry mouth. "How long have I been out?"

"'Bout three days now, hit your head pretty hard when you uh... landed." Applejack explained as she rubbed the back of her head with her hoof, "Didn't look real good when we found ya, doc did a real good job patchin' ya up."

"I hope I look better than I feel then, because I feel like I should be dead." Eva deadpanned as she leaned back and rested head on the pillow. She let out a sigh as she slid her eyes closed again. 'Three days, she didn't say anyone else had shown up in town either... they either didn't get the signal or...'

Her thoughts ended abruptly when she heard the door open, her eyes slid open again and she turned her head to see who she assumed to be the doctor trot in, carrying a clipboard in front of him in the soft glow of unicorn magic.

"You're awake, huh." The doctor said as he rubbed his chin with a forehoof, "So how are you feeling?" He asked as he looked over his clipboard at the bandaged mare.

"Like death warmed up. What's the damage, doc?" Eva asked, her voice slipping into a slight drawl as she closed her eyes again. 'Slipping into old habits eh lohengrin?' she mentally chided herself.

"Where to start, you dislocated both wings, ruptured six discs in your spine, bruised a kidney, fractured more bones than I care to count." The doctor listed off as he looked through his clipboard, "That said, most of the injuries were not as severe as they sound, you'll be sore for a while, I'm certain, but you'll recover."

"Are my legs okay?" Eva asked as she sat up in the bed, wincing as she did so. 'Definitely hurt the wings and spine...

"More or less why--" the doctor started before being cut off.

"Because I can't wait around, it's been three days, and he's out there alone." Eva interrupted as she pushed the blanket off of herself and slid herself awkwardly off of the bed and onto her hooves, "He came here looking for me, I'm not going to leave him alone out there."

She sucked in a sharp breath as she caught her footing, her head was still a little hazy but she kept herself upright. Standing wasn't much more painful than laying down, she discovered.

The doctor took a few steps back to give Eva room, Applejack stepped closer, "Who?" she asked.

"My wingman."

"Relays are burnt out, that's where flaps and navigation went, accelerator must have fried them when it surged." Tommy said as he plucked the charred plastic cube from the electrical box. "I can probably scavenge non-essential systems for spare parts, nothing looks like it'll keep you from firing the engines back up."

"Doesn't help much." James said defeatedly, "She's stuck hard, need a tractor or a team of mules or something to pull her out of this mud." James said as he walked back up the lowered ramp at the aft of the aircraft. "We need to unload the truck, see if we can make it to civilization and resupply."

Tommy shut the relay box and turned to face his brother, "And if we can't find the supplies we need?"

"We pray that Eva's aircraft is still intact and fly out in it." James explained, "Unpack the guns, we're leaving in twenty."

"Rainbow Dash feels real bad ya know." Applejack commented as she followed the limping pegasus through the hospital lobby.

"Not her fault, she didn't know I was going to jump." Eva deflected as she stepped into the sunlight, her hurried pace slowed only by the pain in her joints. Her wings twitched with each stinging step 'I should totally have to deal with pain from parts I shouldn't even have...' she thought to herself in annoyance.

"Yeah but you know Dash." Applejack offered by way of explanation. "What are you movin so fast for anyway?" She asked as she trotted to keep up with Eva.

"I'm gonna try the radio on my plane, it's more powerful than the handheld units, I'm going to try to raise him on that." She explained as she approached the DC-3, still sitting in the field near the hospital, the polished aluminum skin shining in the sunlight.

Applejack followed her, not letting the pegasus out of her sight, not while she was the one keeping watch over her. She couldn't deny, however, that part of it was curiosity, both about this strange new mare, and about what exactly it was her apple cart died for.

"Twilight?" Eva asked in confusion.

Applejack looked up, standing halfway inside of the airplane's door was the lavender unicorn of mention. "Hey Twi, what are ya doin in there?"

The unicorn pulled her head out of the open door and turned to face the orange mare and gray pegasus, "Oh hey girls, there was a report of a strange pony poking around here last night... So I was going to investigate." Twilight explained as she levitated a small slip of paper in front of her, "This is all I found, but it's written in some other language."

бензин

Eva looked at the note in slight confusion. "That's Russian... and where did you find that?" She asked as she limped past the unicorn and up into the tail of the plane. She looked around, slowly scanning her eyes across the interior of the dimly illuminated cargo hold, looking for things out of the ordinary.

"It was stuck to the wall next to the door, you can read it? What does it say?" Twilight asked as she followed the older pony into the plane, "I mean, it looks similar to the writing in stalliongrad but the characters are not quite... right." she explained.

"It means gasoline, more or less. And I'll tell you how important that is in a minute" the pegasus said as she limped up towards the cockpit, her eyes still scanning back and forth as she walked, taking in any changes since the last time she'd been aboard. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing missing.

If anything, it seemed cleaner. Not that she typically kept her aircraft untidy, she just... didn't always get around to cleaning as often as she probably should.

She reached the cockpit despite the dull ache in her joints from standing on the slanted deck. She reached a hoof overhead and toggled the main power switch, the instrument panel lit up immediately, the gauges followed shortly thereafter, voltage, amperage, engine temperature, outside temperature, fuel level--

She did a double take, the fuel level indicator was at maximum for all four tanks. She continued over the remainder of the panel as she tossed the thought around in her mind. Oil level checked out full as well, she should have been down to at least half.

"Twilight... Did you refuel the plane? I know we'd talked about it but I didn't have the money yet..." Eva asked as she turned away from the panel and towards the orange and lavender mares standing in the cockpit doorway.

"Not yet, I still haven't completely figured out the molecular structure, this really isn't my field of expertise, so I've been reading up on it... why?" Twilight asked as she broke herself out of her explanation.

"Someone did, tanks are reading full, fuel, oil, batteries are at full charge... at least according to the instrumentation." Eva explained as she powered up the radio. A dull hum started to fill the otherwise silent cockpit as the vacuum tubes heated up.

"But who would know how?" Twilight asked in confusion. Her eyes turned towards the instrument panel, attempting to discern what it was that Eva had seen.

"Nopony should know how" Eva answered, and then hesitated, "I just said no'pony' didn't I? You guys are rubbing off on me."

"Could be" Applejack commented, "'Less you were always this reckless and you didn't pick that up from Rainbow Dash."

"Could be a little of both." Eva admitted before she keyed up the microphone, "Pegasus Five-Five-Zero to any station, is anybody receiving?"

The old military cargo truck bounced and shook as it traversed the forest, the old diesel engine letting out a roar to rival the most angry beast as it pushed through the gaps between the trees. The headlights cut through the darkness below the forest canopy.

"Just make a road huh?" Tommy asked with a smirk as the heavy steel bumper plowed through a small tree and shook the truck. The engine revved up as the drive tire momentarily lifted off the ground, the truck jumped forward when it caught traction again.

"Unless you've got a better idea, this is all I've got alright? Besides, we can follow the carnage back to the plane." James answered as he shifted the truck down a gear, the truck slowed and the ride smoothed out slightly, "If you've going to be a baby though, I guess I can slow it down a bit."

"Oh don't slow down on my behalf, old guy, I've still got a few years before I need to worry about brittle bones and so on." the younger man needled.

"I'm fifty, not eighty, you want to try me? Ok-- the hell is that?" he cut himself off as he slowed the truck down, "Did you see that?" he asked as he pointed ahead and to the left of the truck. The bushes moved in the distance, something was moving behind them, heading in their direction.

James stopped the truck and killed the ignition, and then he heard it.

"Aiiiiiiieeeeeee!"

"I hear that, sounds like a lady screaming. Shall we?" Tommy asked.

James grabbed the rifle off the dashboard and leaned out of the truck and yelled, "Hey! Hey miss! over here!"

"Timberwolves!" The voice yelled back, closer now, much closer. It was distinctly female. The rustling in the brush was now at least two distinct objects, the nearer he assumed to be the woman screaming, the latter the wolves, he'd never heard of timberwolves, but wolves were wolves.

Or so was his reasoning. He opened the door completely and slid out of the truck, he dropped to the ground and brought the rifle to his shoulder, sighting in on the second disruption in the brush, "Hurry up, get inside!" he yelled as he disengaged the safety.

A flash of blue and purple burst from the brush to his left and launched itself up into the truck's cab, he heard the growling drawing dangerously close, he pulled the trigger, five rounds leaped from the barrel in rapid succession, he was idly aware of the spent casings impacting the still open door.

The rustling in the bushes paused as a loud whimper pierced the forest. James flipped fire control back to safe and scrambled up the steps and into the truck. He threw the rifle up on the dash as he latched the door with his other hand, and then turned to the middle.

Tiny. Blue. Horse. A pony. There was a little blue pony balanced awkwardly between Tommy's lap and the floor between the seats. It was wearing a pointed magicians hat, and a cape.

"T-thank you for... what are you?" The pony asked. It was the same voice as the woman. The gears in James's head started to turn as the details clicked into place.

"There's a talking pony in my truck. On any other day this might seem strange." James said before he turned his head forward and, deciding that there were some things he just wasn't ready to deal with, fired the engine back up and slid the truck into gear.

The pony, for her part, stayed silent as the truck bounced through the forest, heading steadily towards the direction of the signal flares. "So. You're a pony. We're Humans, and this is a truck." James started, glancing towards the- 'There's a horn sticking out of her head, so she's a unicorn pony. We didn't travel through time, we traveled into a children's storybook.'

"I'm Tommy," the younger started, "that's my older and socially inept brother James." He looked at the little unicorn, her voice sounded like an adult, though he had no real frame of reference for her species. She looked like if she stood on her hind legs, her head would be about face level with an average adult, and based on how heavy the half of her on his lap was, she was at least one hundred and eighty pounds. She didn't seem injured, just fatigued, likely from the running.

"I'm Trixie, and I'm really... tired." She said before slumping headfirst onto Tommy's lap. Her hat fell the rest of the way off her head and Tommy paled, there was an ugly red gash on the back of her head.

"Hey James, speed it up a little bit, she's got a head injury and I can't do anything about it, there might he a hospital wherever it is that we're going, this girl's clothes look machine stitched, if these ponies have that kind of technology they must have medicine as well..." Tommy rattled off as he pressed his fingers to the side of the collapsed mare's neck.

James up-shifted and steered the truck onto a dirt path, a game trail or a road, he couldn't tell, but it lead in the direction he wanted to go. "I feel like the astronaut in planet of the apes, only, you know, horses." He commented to himself as the speedometer climbed. "Is she breathing alright?"

"Looks like, her pulse is strong, I'm not sure what the pulse rate is supposed to be for her species but she doesn't look like she's going to die on us... still I don't want to leave a head injury untreated." Tommy answered. "She is adorable though isn't she?"

"She didn't know what we were, that doesn't bode well for the human race." the older said, "I can only hope Eva's alright, who knows what a group of these things could do if they decided they didn't like you."

Reunion

Pilot's Story

Chapter 15: Reunion

"Receiving broadcast, additional human presence confirmed."

"Activating scout drones"

"Omega protocol schedule adjusted by eight percent."

"Shouldn't be much farther now, hold on to her, this is going to get rough!" James yelled over the roaring of the engine, the truck tore through the forest, bouncing off of rocks and tree stumps, plowing straight through bushes and saplings with no consideration.

James was driving like a man possessed, the monster chasing them saw to that. "A hydra. A damn hydra! can you believe that?" He yelled as the beast roared behind them. The needle on the speedometer crept up over forty miles per hour, the truck shuddered violently on the rough terrain, and still James kept the throttle to the floor.

"I wouldn't have believed unicorns either, but evidence would seem to contradict that assumption!" Tommy yelled back, his arms wrapped tight around the pale blue pony in his lap, he kept his eyes locked on the rifle sitting in the rack on the dashboard.

"I know what you're thinking, I don't think it'll be enough. Bet you're wishing you let me bring the fifty right about now huh?" James joked despite the situation, the trees were beginning to thin out, the larger hydra was starting to close the distance, the dense trees no longer slowing it down.

"..to any station, is anybody receiving?" the radio crackled over the chaos.

"Eva!" James yelled as he grabbed the handset and keyed up the microphone, "Eva! You're not going to believe this-"

"A hydra, a damn hydra! We're in a deuce and a half tearing through the forest heading towards the signal you fired the other night, well, I assume it was you. We've got wounded and we're heading due east towards your location, I don't know if you're in any position to help, but anything you can do we'd appreciate!"

Eva's eyes widened, she hadn't seen a hydra, but if it had James in such a panic... "James, I... I might have something, try to keep ahead of it, I'll try to pick you up on the portable as you get closer. Hospital is on the east end of town, the DC-3 is in the field next to it, can't miss it. I'll try to cover your approach, over and out!" she yelled into the headset before throwing it off and turning to the confused lavender mare behind her.

Twilight hadn't heard James's half of the conversation, "What was that all about?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"James is being chased by a hydra, I assume that's very very bad. I need to get to the crates we pulled out of the plane, quickly." Eva explained as she trotted out of the cockpit, her face twisted up in pain with each forced step.

"I can get us there faster." the purple mare said, and the trio disappeared in a flash of light...

And reappeared an instant later in the library basement. The green wooden crates were undisturbed, sitting up against the wall. "That'll work." Eva said flatly as she kicked open the latch on the nearest crate and started digging through it, the sounds of metal clanging against metal filled the room as she dug through the container, mumbling under her breath as a pile of packing straw and odd shaped wood and metal objects formed around her.

"What are you looking for?" Twilight asked as she edged closer to the frantic mare. The lavender unicorn turned her gaze to the pile of objects on the floor. The straw was familiar, the other objects were not.

'Actually... They look kind of like that thing she was holding that day at the plane, after the meat incident, a gun she called it...' Twilight thought to herself. The way she'd been holding the 'gun' that day was oddly familiar in her mind, and to be searching through a collection of what looked to be similar devices while a hydra was on the loose... "You're looking for a weapon aren't you?"

"No." Eva answered as she set a final gun down next to the box and pulled the lid closed before she slipped a thin wire headset over her ear, "I found one, let's go."

James dropped the handset and put his hand back on the wheel, "She's going to cover us? How is she going to cover us? Does she have a tank?" He asked Tommy incredulously as they crossed the tree line onto an open plain. The truck settled down as it accelerated up to fifty five, the clear ground allowed a softer ride and a higher speed.

Tommy shrugged his shoulders as he watched the hydra in the side mirror, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the monster was close, too close. "Who knows, at this point I'll take any help we can get."

The hydra closed further as it took to a sprint across the open terrain, it's many heads snapping and hissing at the olive green intruder. Rage filled its thoughts, a furious directed rage, that this strange beast would just carelessly tear through its territory, scare off its prey.

If it was going to drive off the hydra's dinner, the hydra would make it his dinner. The beast lunged forward, mouths open, and bit down on the wooden railing around the cargo bed. The truck jumped as the railing snapped away. The hydra slowed it's pursuit slightly, opening up the distance.

The radio crackled, "I've got a visual, confirm speed please." Eva's voice came through the radio, relatively calm under the circumstances. The truck accelerated.

James grabbed up the handset and looked down at the speedometer, "Fifty two miles per hour, we're out of time." he answered as the beast lunged forward again, he knew it wasn't going to come up empty handed this time.

"Fifty two... closing at about five... range nine hundred meters..." Eva rattled off into her open mic, James listened intently to the sound of her voice, hoping, praying that whatever she was doing was going to work. "Firing."

The brothers heard the cadence of gunfire through the radio, evenly spaced shots, one, two, three, four, five. An instant later they heard the gunfire outside of the cabin of the truck, then both turned to their left to see five tracers arc towards the creature pursuing them before flying over its head.

"Missed high, firing second volley, stand by." She called through the radio again, and again they heard the five evenly spaced gunshots. This time they watched the brightly glowing tracers arc directly onto the body of the beast. The shots bounced off the thick hide of the creature, but the effect was still instantaneous; the creature pulled back, as if finally realizing where it was.

James let out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding as he looked in his mirror to see the beast break off and head back into the forest. He eased off the throttle and slowed the frantic pace of the truck has he turned down a dirt road towards the... colorful town ahead.

Tommy smirked a little as he looked at his older brother, "So... she hasn't changed much has she?"

"Target is breaking off, you're clear into town. Avoid entering the town proper, the roads are not suitable for vehicle traffic, head around the perimeter to the hospital, you can't miss it, I'll see you there." Eva called into her headset as she pulled the rifle off of the balcony guardrail.

"I didn't expect it to be that loud." Twilight said as she held a hoof to her head. "My ears won't stop ringing..." She complained as she blinked repeatedly, her hooves rubbing at her temples.

Applejack lowered her hooves from her ears and tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a smirk, "She did tell ya to cover yer ears, ya shoulda listened." The orange mare snickered quietly as she leaned against the railing, her hat hid her grin... poorly.

Eva dropped the empty magazine and slid a fresh one into the rifle before she slung it across her back. "Kind of wish I hadn't had to do that. I'll bet the entire town heard that" She commented finally as she rubbed her eyes with her left forehoof. "Celestia will be hearing about it, and then I imagine I'll be hearing about it from her," she complained.

"Well you didn't hurt anypony... and you did it for good reasons even if the idea of a weapon that can attack at that range is a little disconcerting..." Twilight started, "I'm sure she will understand if you explain it to her."

Eva started towards the door, silently suggesting that they take their conversation on the road, "Yeah, but I get the distinct impression she doesn't like me a whole bunch. The whole 'magical beam of death' trick she tried to pull when I was forced down on 'ol Applejack's farm and all."

"Well, she--" Twilight started in defense of her mentor before being cut off.

"Save it, I'm not mad, she could have had a really good reason for reacting like that. I mean, I was pretty pissed, but I'm over it, water under the bridge... as long as she doesn't do it again." Eva cut in, "What I'm really worried about is how James is going to react to this whole 'by the way, I'm a pony' thing."

Twilight paused, her eyes blinked slowly as the gears began to turn in her head, "Wait... If you became a pony when you arrived here, shouldn't he have also? But... he would have mentioned that to you if he had... So how did you become a pony?" the lavender mare thought aloud, "You both arrived on aircraft..."

"Celestia didn't try to shoot James down... as far as I know anyway." Eva supplied as she continued down the stairs inside the library, "So, I guess she did it somehow."

"Bein a pony ain't that bad." Applejack interjected as she eyed Eva, her eyebrows narrowed.

"I've never had so much fun." Eva deadpanned in reply.

"I'm guessing that's the hospital." Tommy commented as the truck came over a rise.

"Well, it's next to a DC-3, and I can't imagine there are a lot of those around here." James answered with a chuckle. "How's our passenger doing?"

"Same as she has been, can't tell if it's a coma or she's just exhausted, other than the head wound I haven't noticed anything out of the... uh... ordinary." he replied, stifling a laugh at the absurdity of the word.

"Well, life's gotten interesting at least, eh?" James said with a laugh as he slowed the truck to a stop in front of the hospital doors, the hiss of air brakes engaging announced their arrival as the big diesel engine spun to a stop.

Ponies that had moments before been milling about in front of the hospital doors turned to look at the bizarre arrival in a mix of confusion and apprehension. The passenger door opened and Tommy stepped down out of the truck, unicorn on his shoulders.

"Can somebody get a doctor? This girl is hurt!" He yelled at the stunned ponies as he fast-walked towards the front doors.

"R-right this way!" a white pony with a red cross on her hat yelled as she turned for the doors.

The air flashed over in fire for a single instant, and with a pop a brown stallion snapped into existence in the middle of a small charred circle of 'used to be grass', he opened his eyes and scanned the area. "At least this still works..." he commented to nobody, "I may owe Jack an apology."

The pony flipped the leather strapped 'watch' on his fetlock shut and turned his head around and back again, listening intently in the darkness of the forest. "This is where the atron energy readings were coming from but I don't... see... anything..." he trailed off as a low rumbling filled the air, he dove into a bush as the ground in front of him split open, millennia of dirt and rock and rust cracked and broke as the metal doors separated for the first time in the age of ponies.

Two small metalic spheres buzzed out of the parted doors before they loudly, slowly slid back together, leaving a scar where the earth had split. The pony looked at the seam, and then back up at the spheres buzzing into the distance. "This is going to be problematic."

With a flash and a pop, the stallion was gone again, a single camera lens the only witness to the event.

"That's my truck." Eva said suddenly as the trio of ponies stood on the path leading to the hospital. The olive drab truck sat alongside the walkway, engine making 'tink' sounds as it cooled.

"I assume this 'truck' moves using similar technology to your plane?" Twilight asked, her inner scientist examining the machine as they approached, already formulating thoughts on its mode of operation.

"Yeah, sort of." Eva answered halfheartedly, "Listen, I'll tell you all about it later, I just want to make sure everyone's alright." The gray pegasus shambled through the double doors of the quaint small town hospital, the cool air that hit her was a welcome feeling.

She'd not seen a single air conditioner in her entire time in equestria, and yet somehow the hospital managed to be a cool ten degrees colder than the outside. 'Probably magic. Everything is magic.'

"I don't suppose you're here because you've decided to actually submit to medical treatment?"

Eva turned her head towards the voice to find herself face to face with the doctor that had treated her after her fall. "Actually, I might take you up on that later," she answered with a wince as a stabbing pain shot up her neck, "Right now I'm looking for ah... well how to describe him... strange looking guy, about oh, a head taller than a pony on her hind legs?"

The doctor stared at her with a blank expression on his face for a moment before a soft chuckle forced it's way out of his mouth, "It would figure they would have something to do with you. Come on, this way."

The trio of unicorn, earth pony, and pegasus followed the doctor as he lead them down a side corridor, "The mare they brought in was unconscious; dehydration and overexertion combined with a mild head trauma seem to be the likely cause. A simple healing spell and some fluids should have her back on her hooves in no time," he explained as they approached the open door to the room at the end of the hallway.

"-pretty much what happened while you were out."

"Sounds like James." Eva said with a grin as she stepped ahead and pushed on the door with her forehoof and walked into the room. James and Tommy were standing next to a bed occupied by... a sky blue unicorn. 'So, they had already met a pony before getting here.'

Her hoof clops drew attention, the two humans turned to the door. "Who are you?" James asked as he took in the pegasus, she looked like she'd seen better days, mostly healed burns covered her back and wings and she was holding herself as if she was in pain... and she had a Dragunov slung across her back.

Eva turned her head around behind her to look at Twilight and Applejack, "Twi, AJ, this is James Bolton, and his younger brother Tommy." She turned her head back towards the two stunned humans, "The two lovely mares behind me are Twilight Sparkle and Applejack. Now, which of you decided to steal my truck... and since I remember where I parked it, I'm going to guess you stole my plane too."

Tommy stared for a second, taking in the absurdity in front of him. 'Hmm, carrying a rifle, knows who we are, complaining about her truck...' "That would be James's idea. Good to see you Eva, you seem a little hoarse."

Eva let out a groan, "You haven't changed any." She turned to James and stepped further into the room, "So, did you crash my plane? Do I have to kill you?"

"You're a pony." James said, his jaw slack, his eyes wide in incomprehension.

Eva blinked and jerked her head back as if stunned and then looked down at herself. Her wings flapped around in panic and she screamed, "What!? Oh god, James, Tommy, somebody, call a doctor!"

Twilight stifled a laugh at the immature display and stepped forward, past the gray mare, and up to the two humans, "As Princess Celestia's protégé and bearer of the Element of Magic I welcome you to..." she trailed off as her eyes flitted to the silvery mane and sky blue head laying on the pillow in the hospital bed, her eyes widened in shock.

"Trixie...?"

Ponyville

Pilot's Story

Chapter 16: Ponyville

Violet eyes slid open; slowly, hesitantly they scanned the room. Her head felt like she'd been at the wrong end of a stampede. Her eyes flitted to the window. Light, accursed light; she slammed her eyelids shut against the solar intrusion.

'Let's try that again' the mare thought to herself as her eye slid open a second time. She turned her head the other way this time, away from the wretched light.

"Hey there."

Her ears swiveled to the left and her head followed suit, her eyes widened 'So it wasn't a dream.' The... human. Tommy. She was being chased through the everfree, saw the odd carriage, jumped inside, and he was there... and now she was... "Where am I?"

"Hospital in a town called, uh... Ponyville." He said awkwardly, "Still can't get over that name."

Trixie dropped her head back down on the pillow. Ponyville, again. She shouldn't have been surprised, it was the closest town and yet her visit only weeks ago had ended in the loss of her home and possessions. She let out a sigh and rubbed her head with her hooves. "Oh."

"You don't seem very excited about that," Tommy pointed out as he leaned forward in his chair. "Problems?" he continued, giving the small pony a concerned look.

"Last time I was here... things didn't turn out so well" she started with a sigh, then turned her head on the pillow, "a pair of colts took my show a little too seriously and I went a little overboard and uh... the town was nearly leveled."

"I sense that there's a lot more to this story" Tommy said with a raised eyebrow. 'Show huh?' he thought as he watched her.

"I don't really wanna talk about it."

"Could have done worse I guess."

"Run that by me again?" Eva asked her human companion as the pair trudged down the cobblestone streets of the aptly named ponyville, for the streets were crowded with ponies and their eager eyes, taking in this new creature walking alongside the mare who'd become so prominent in recent times.

James shifted uncomfortably under their gaze and his left hand absently stroked Eva's mane. "Well, we weren't sure what we were getting into when we came here, but... I have to admit, if we can't get back, this seems like a pretty nice place from what I've seen of it."

"You're still human," Eva pointed out as she leaned into the hand, 'that actually feels pretty good...' "I mean, I'm doing okay, don't get me wrong, but I've got a shiny new pair of wings that I'm garbage at using and... oh." She stopped herself.

"Something wrong?" James asked as his hand worked its way up her neck to the back of her head.

"Well, with all the commotion of the last few days I forgot I really ought to apologize to Pinkie and Dash," the little gray mare explained as her head rubbed up against the hand. 'Definately don't hate this.'

"More friends? You've been a busy little pony haven't you?" James needled as he rubbed at the base of her ear.

"Oh you'd like Dashie, she's... exuberant... and impulsive and... kind of awesome actually" she said with a laugh, "reminds me of myself thirty years ago."

"I think we're doomed then" James deadpanned. He finally noticed what his hand had been doing and pulled it back in embarrassment. "Ah... sorry about that."

Eva blushed slightly and turned her head up at him, "I'm not."

"Oh."

"...anyway," Eva redirected as her embarrassment caught up with her, "We should try to find Dash, I... need to talk to her about the other night, tell her it wasn't her fault."

A loud rumbling interrupted their walk and it was Eva's turn to look embarrassed, "But first... we should probably eat."

"That's a good idea, I haven't had a decent meal since we set down; I'm so hungry I could eat a h--" James started before he suddenly found his mouth full of hoof; It tasted of grass.

"It would be a bad idea to finish that thought in present company." Eva deadpanned as she stared up at his face with a raised eyebrow, her hoof still firmly in his mouth.

"goo foont," he mumbled around her hoof.

The mare pulled her hoof out of his mouth and grinned, "what was that?"

"Good point, so what are we dealing with here, strict vegan diet or what?" James asked as Eva lead him deeper into town.

"Eh, I was thinking waffles actually," Eva said with a grin as they stepped into the town square, she raised her left forehoof and pointed it at their destination.

"It's a... gingerbread house," James noted with some confusion as he took in the building that bore such resemblance to a baked treat.

"It's sugarcube corner, and once you get past the diabetes inducing name, everything they make is amazing." Eva explained as she limped up the steps into the front door, the smell of baked goods: cookies, cakes, muffins, and cupcakes, all assaulted her senses with sweetness.

"And we're here for waffles," James commented flatly.

"You have a problem with waffles? You too good for waffles?" Eva jabbed playfully.

"Oh no, lead on, mon capitaine."

The sharp sound of a whip crack pierced the quiet of the forest's edge. The brown stallion winked into existence and hit the ground running, his hooves tore divots in the forest floor as the buzzing sound drew louder. Sweat slicked his mane to his fur as he tore through the underbrush, desperate to get to town first.

He broke through the tree line as the stainless steel orbs shot past him, he clenched his jaw and pushed himself harder, running as if his life depended on it. He tripped on a tuft of grass and went tumbling.

Panic set in when he heard the sound, like keys run across piano wire, only one thing he ever knew could make that sound.

It terrified him. He jumped back onto his hooves and looked around frantically, 'I'm risking a paradox... that... I wouldn't do that...'

And then, as soon as the sound began, it was over. The stallion watched helplessly as the orbs sped over the town. He'd failed.

"No," he said quietly, shaking his head, "No, there's always a way out." Again, he ran. He ran and prayed that he was right.

"That could have gone better" James deadpanned as the pair walked towards the edge of town. The cobblestone roads gave way to dirt paths.

"Could have gone worse. I didn't really think to explain before we both just walked in, you scared them a little bit but they got over it... eventually..." Eva replied with a grimace.

"I thought the blue one was going to beat me with a rolling pin."

"Well... that was possible, but she calmed down when I explained that you're a friend of mine, and she still gave us waffles," the gray pegasus explained and nudged her companion with a forehoof.

James shrugged, "It was a little hard to enjoy them with the orange haired one glaring at me the entire time." The man shivered as he thought back to the look the stallion had given him.

"And now you're just being a baby. We're here," she announced, gesturing up with her forehoof, "Casa de Dash."

"Cloud house?" James asked incredulously as his eyes took in the absurd sight before him.

"Cloud house" Eva confirmed.

He stared at the bizarre construct of clouds and rainbows, ignored the liquid rainbow falls. He'd ignored that it was a house made of water vapor. "How are we getting up there?" he asked, focusing on the most pressing issue at hand.

"Well," Eva chuckled, "I'm going to fly up there, and you're going to stay down here, and then we'll... all..." she trailed off, looking around, her ears perked up, "do you hear that?"

James raised his eyebrow and turned his head, listening closely at the soft thumping sound approaching them, "Sounds... kinda..." he started, searching for where he'd heard that sound before as it got closer. "Sounds kind of like a helicopter on autorotation, doesn't it?" he asked.

In answer to his question, the most bizzare sight either had ever seen rose above the treetops. A pink pony on a candy-striped pedal powered rotorcraft, flying up towards the aforementioned 'Casa de Dash.'

"That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life and it shouldn't be possible..." He said, slack jawed.

"Well, you ain't seen nothin yet," Eva laughed as she stretched out her wings and gave a few experimental flaps. "I'm pretty terrible at this, so try to keep your laughter to a dull roar..." She said as she crouched down and flared her wings. With a burst of strength she kicked off of the ground and flapped her wings hard, lifting sloppily off the ground and quickly gained altitude and speed towards the floating cloud house.

Her flaps were well synchronized, if amateurish, and she carried herself in the correct direction, if only because of the close proximity and size of her destination. James watched in mute fascination as the pegasus mare rolled over in mid air and crashed, spine first, into the side of the cloud structure.

Then, in spite of all rationality and logic, she bounced off the wall and fell down onto a protruding ledge before finally coming to a stop, without falling through the cloud. He watched as she shook off bits cloud that had stuck to her, as if they were balls of cotton and not just consolidated water vapor.

"Hmm, yeah I must have crashed the plane and this is just the pre-death hallucination."

"So it flies without any magic at all?" Trixie asked. She was finally sitting upright on the bed, the bandages wrapped around her head were the only indicator that anything had happened to her at all. "Even pegasi use magic, maybe not to the same extent as unicorns, but still."

Tommy sighed, 'Magic... right...' he thought privately. "Well, Magic is just science that isn't fully understood yet. But heavier than air flight isn't really that difficult when you understand the fundamentals of it. Lift and thrust versus gravity and drag." he explained.

"Hmmm" she hummed, "So, if it's that simple, you just make it move fast enough and it doesn't fall?"

"Well, no, not quite that simple. The shape of a wing causes the air to move faster over the top than the bottom, which causes lower pressure on top, which... 'pulls' the wing upwards. The faster you go, the more lift you generate, though some strange things happen in the transonic range... but that's getting too far ahead," he answered as he picked up a sheet of paper and started folding.

"What are you doing?" the unicorn asked as she leaned in closer to watch.

"Making an example" he answered simply as he threw the finished product, a paper airplane, across the room. It flew in a lazy left arc, skipped off of the far wall, and came back to land on the opposite side of the hospital bed. "No magic involved. Neat huh?"

Trixie pulled the crashed airplane over to her with her magic and examined the folds in the paper. "It's so simple, just looking at it, why haven't I ever seen a pony make one before?" she asked in wonder as she turned it over, rolling it this way and that as she unfolded and refolded the thing.

Tommy stared intently at the unicorn, deep in thought. "Well," he started, "I guess if a full third of your species can fly, and another third can use magic... you wouldn't really have a vested interest in developing heavier than air powered flight, not when you can just magic something up or get a ride from someone else."

Trixie shook her head, "No, that's not right, there was a time when the three tribes were separate, Earth ponies could have used something like this, they weren't getting any help from the pegasi or unicorns but... they didn't. At least, I don't think they did, if they had they'd still have it right?"

Tommy shook his head, "I don't think so, I mean, we've only had powered flight for around a hundred years, and in the early days it was more of a show piece than anything actually useful. They became useful quickly, and we've come a long way, but... It makes sense, I think, where you're all at right now."

'Well, as much sense as magical pony land can possibly make I suppose.' he thought privately with some amusement. "So, magic?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Trixie smiled, "well, to start with, all magic comes from your anima, the strength of that magic is based on the anima flow within a pony."

Tommy blinked. "Anima... as in animating principle, spirit or soul?" he asked, his mind went back to studies of latin.

"Exactly, I thought you didn't have magic where you come from?" She asked.

"We don't have magic but we apparently share the concept of anima," he answered. 'Even if it is widely dismissed as false...'

Trixie nodded, "Well, the first step is to find your center of anima, your anima well, the spring from which you draw your magic."

"Dash..." Eva said softly as the pegasus finally answered her front door. The prismatic mare looked like she'd seen better days, the bags under her eyes and her even-more-unkempt-than-normal mane spoke volumes of how she must have felt.

"Oh, you're up and around then." the surprised blue mare said as she opened the door wider, "And Pinkie is up here too huh?" she asked rhetorically as she stared at the bizarre flying contraption piloted by the pink pony.

"Yep! Pinkie too!" the earth pony answered with a laugh.

"Well, I came to see you, and, well I'm glad Pinkie is here too because I need to apologize to both of you, for the other night. Pinkie, I'm sorry I ran out on your party like that," Eva started as she turned to face the pink pony, "And Dash... I'm sorry that I put you through... know, the whole... crashing thing..." she trailed off as a blush graced her face as her apology lost cohesion and fell into awkwardness.

Dash put a hoof up on the other pegasus's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, you were trying to help a friend right? Nothing wrong with that, is there Pinkie?" she finished with a glance over at Pinkie, who was still hovering above the cloud in her candy-striped contraption.

"Yep, Dashie's right, friends are important, and helping friends is even more important, so I don't mind at all, besides, now I can throw an even bigger and better party for all three of you!" the pink party planner proclaimed with unrestrained glee.

Eva smiled, "Well... I really appreciate that, both of you. That said, one of my friends is down there right now," she said, gesturing with a hoof towards the road below, "and I'm sure he'd love to meet you both."

True Freedom

Pilot's Story

Chapter 17: True Freedom

"So, you've got a helicopter." James commented offhand as the quartet walked steadily down the well trodden dirt path. 'Well, we're walking at least...' he thought to himself; the blue pegasus was flying, the Pink One was bouncing along.

"Oh that? Well, I figured that since Dashie lives up in the clouds and she's one of my very-very-bestest-best friends that I had to have some way to get up there and see her!" Pinkie explained as she continued to bounce, "So I invented it!"

James raised an eyebrow, "And... how? I mean, that's... not something you would just... come up with out of the blue."

Pinkie shrugged mid-bounce, "It's just lift versus drag and rotation, how hard could it be?"

"But... How-" James started dumbly.

"It's Just Pinkie being Pinkie," Rainbow offered, "It's best not to question these things."

"That way lies madness, James," Eva declared with a far off look in her eyes.

The man sighed and rubbed his temples. The headache would be a doozy, he decided, "Fine, fine. But don't expect my brother to give up so easily."

"So, where did you two crash my plane?" The gray pegasus asked as she nudged the man with her wing. "How bad am I gonna have to hurt you?"

"Well... You remember that one time in Korea?" He asked hesitantly.

Eva's eyebrow twitched, "Vividly."

"It's not quite that bad," he answered with a perfectly straight face.

"That's not really saying much you know," she replied, "there isn't a lot about Korea that could have been worse."

"I don't remember it being that bad," the man deflected as he raised his hands in a placating gesture.

"That's because you weren't the one with an engine fire," the mare shot back.

"Okay, fine, well it'll still fly... probably," he finally said, sheepishly.

Eva slapped her forehoof into her forehead, "What did you do?"

"The flaps wouldn't deploy and... I may have pulled reverse pitch while still in the air," the man admitted while taking a step away from the gray mare.

"Starting to sound a lot like-" she broke off as a loud buzzing suddenly deafened her. Her hooves went straight to her ears to try to block the sound out. A quick look around showed that her three companions had a similar reaction. Pinkie had stopped bouncing, Dash had stopped flying, and James...

James was wincing in pain, but he'd drawn the rifle from his back, was searching for the source of the noise. Eva could tell he was in pain, but not debilitated, perhaps he was less sensitive to the sound than she and her other two companions were.

Eva was aware of the weight on her own back, she'd almost forgotten about it, not that it would do her much good when she didn't even know what was making the noise, or if it was even hostile, "What the hell is going on?!" she yelled over the roaring noise.

"I have no damn idea!" he yelled back as he took off at a run towards the DC-3, it was only but a few hundred yards ahead of them, their conversation having taken up the better part of the walk.

Eva cursed under her breath and charged after him, her ears pressed down in an attempt to drown out the noise without her hooves to do the job for her. The pain in her body from the exertion was a nice distraction from the noise as she pushed herself faster.

"Eva. what is that bucking noise!?" Dash yelled. Her face was twisted up in pain, but she seemed to be handling it better than the grey pegasus she was keeping pace with.

"I was hoping you knew!" Eva shouted back over the ever-intensifying drone, the sound seemed to be coming from every direction at once. Her head was pounding, the plane wasn't much farther.

"Why would I know!?" Dash yelled back incredulously.

"Well why would I kn-" Eva paused as she cross the threshold into the DC-3's cargo bay; the pressure let off at once and the pain went away, "-ow, why did the buzzing stop?"

"Pinkie is still out there!" Dash yelled as she extended a hoof out of the open doorway; the pink mare was lying on the ground, holding her head and groaning. A faint distortion passed through the air above her. The buzzing sound came back, but it was from a clear direction, and not as intense or painful.

Eva's eyes widened as two metal spheroids descended over the incapacitated mare, "What the hell are those?"

"If I was gonna bet money... I'd bet they don't mean anything good. Eva, get ready, on three?" James asked as he brought his rifle to his shoulder, took aim down the sights.

"Dash, cover your ears, this is gonna be loud," Eva said as she turned to her cyan friend. She slid the rifle off her own back and brought it up to her shoulder, lined her eye up with the scope, "I'll take the one on the left, James. On three," Eva said finally as she cycled a round into the rifle's chamber.

Dash covered her ears with her forehooves and looked anxiously between her friend lying in the field and the two next to her. Looked with uncharacteristically undisguised fear at the two... 'somethings' descending towards Pinkie.

"One," the pair counted off together, the spheres descended lower, compartments began to open up on them.

"Two." Sparks issued from open compartments as tools extended. Rainbow Dash closed her eyes.

"Three."

Twilight's ears perked up and swiveled as the sound of two closely spaced pops reached her library. Her good mood evaporated with a frown. "Spike, I'm going out, I feel like our new friend has done something foolish again!" She yelled into the air an instant before her horn charged up and she disappeared with a snap.

Sound alone was not enough for Twlight to navigate by--it gave her a direction but that was all. Still, she had a suspicion as to her destination as she navigated the aether for the brief eternity before she snapped back into reality. Twilight emerged from her teleport with another snap, and stood just off the left wing of the DC-3.

She was nearly knocked over when Rainbow Dash burst out of the open hatch on the side of the plane and shot past her like a rocket. She turned her head to follow the hurried pegasus and froze as her eyes locked on Pinkie Pie, who was lying on the ground rubbing her head.

"Hey Twilight," the unicorn heard from behind her. She turned to see the human, James, saunter nonchalantly past her and towards a vague wisp of smoke rising slowly from the ground near Pinkie Pie.

"Hey?" Twilight said back with no small measure of confusion evident in her voice. She'd teleported because she suspected gunfire, saw James carrying a gun in his hands, completely nonchalantly, and nothing seemed to be amiss aside from Pinkie, who was finally sitting up.

"Hey Twilight," Eva said in greeting as she dropped out of the plane next to the other mare, "You missed the fun-"

A sharp report pierced the air and masked the rest of Eva's sentence; The two ponies turned their heads to see James standing over one of the metal spheres. The man pointed his rifle at the one at his feet and casually fired another round into it, then shifted his aim and fired two more rounds into the one six feet to the left of the first.

"-and James shoots it in the head, just to be sure," Eva muttered as she rolled her eyes. "I mean, granted, as spheres they are all head, but still," she continued as she waved her foreleg around.

Twilight blinked and then facehoofed, "Could somepony just please explain what just happened?"

"Hey Twilight."

The unicorn's head snapped around and she was greeted by a wall of flesh; her head pivoted upwards until she saw the man's face. "You're Tommy, right?" she asked, "I don't suppose you know what's going on?"

The man scratched his chin and surveyed the scene. He took in the myriad details; a pink pony sat in the middle of the field with a confused expression on her face, two sparking metal spheres flanked her on either side. He spotted his brother poking the sphere to his left with a bayonet, while a rainbow-maned pegasus poked at the one on his right using her hoof. He turned towards the plane and saw a pair of spent shell casings reflecting the sunlight in the corner of the cargo bay door frame.

Finally, he turned back to Twilight, "It appears to have been some form of ruckus."

"That's your scientific opinion?" Eva joked as she prodded Tommy with her forehoof.

"Absolutely."

Twilight's eye twitched, "Could somepony please explain what happened?"

"You know, I'm not sure," Eva admitted. "We were headed to the plane when this, sensation hit us. It was like something buzzing inside our bones, hurt like hell. We ran for the plane, but Pinkie collapsed on the way. I think those spheres did something to her. They looked like they were going to harm her, so we shot them. Twice. Well, I shot one once, James shot them both, two in one, one in the other, so that kind of averages out--"

"You're rambling," Tommy cut in.

"Make yourself useful and go do science-y crap over there before your brother starts shooting those things again," Eva shot back as she pushed the man towards the damaged spheroids. "Maybe figure out where they came from?"

"Hmm, yeah, sounds about right. Yes ma'am, I'm on it, ma'am, please don't beat me, ma'am!" Tommy rattled off with a mock salute before he turned on his heel and marched towards the spheroids.

"What was that all about?" Twilight asked the other mare with a raised eyebrow.

"He's being a wise ass is what that's all about," Eva muttered while rolling her eyes.

"By saluting you?"

Eva blinked and turned towards the lavender mare. She cocked an eyebrow. 'So they have that here too...' she thought. "Well, yeah. He was picking fun at me since, well, his brother and I used to serve in the military together, that's how we met," she explained. "Major Eva Lohengrin, United States Air Force, at your service," She offered with a halfhearted salute.

"Air Force... so, you were in an airborne military?" Twilight asked as the gears started to turn, "Wait, is your plane, is that for... war?" The mare's ears drooped as the implications started to run through her head.

"This thing?" Eva asked, gesturing towards the Dakota with her forehoof. She sighed and smiled a little as she thought back on better days, "No, James and I, and the rest of our squadron, we flew..." she trailed off, noticing the disturbed look on Twilight's face, "what's wrong?"

Twilight shook her head, "I just... I guess I should have suspected, the way you were with the hydra, the way you and James were here just now but... with what those 'guns' can do and how happy you looked when you started to talk about it..." she trailed off as she took a few steps backwards.

Eva's eyes widened and she put a hoof on the younger mare's shoulder, "No it's nothing like that... I think Rainbow Dash might understand better, but, I was just thinking back on all the good times we had back then, when we were all still together. Flying the DC is one thing but, twenty years ago, all of us up in our F-15s..." she trailed off, closed her eyes and smiled again, "that was something else entirely, fifty thousand pounds of thrust, breaking the sound barrier in a ninety degree climb like there was nothing to it, that was true freedom."

Eva paused and cleared her throat,

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

The pegasus wiped her face with her fetlock and blinked a few times, "Well... That's how it used to be anyway, but that was a while ago, have to move forward now, right? Can't live in the past."

She turned her head when she felt a hoof on her shoulder, Rainbow Dash was staring at her with a look of contemplation.

"I'm not usually one for poetry but... I think I get it, and there's nothing wrong with remembering the past, especially when it's something good," she said to the elder mare. "But uh... don't tell anybody I said that, I have a reputation you know!" she added with a laugh.

Twilight looked between the two pegasi and stifled a snicker, "Well I think that-"

"Guys, we've got a problem!" Tommy yelled from across the field, "It's still alive, and uh, on fire!"

Author's Note

This was painful to write, I was trying *really* hard not to screw it up, and eventually I got it somewhere that it's readable.

Enjoy, I'll try to be less of a failure in the future.

Answers: Part One

Pilot's Story

Chapter 18: Answers: Part One

"You're a real special guy Tommy. You catch the particle accelerator on fire, now you've caught the robot thing on fire. You know what? You're not allowed to touch the truck." James scolded as the group watched the metal orb hover erratically in a small circle, trailing smoke and fire.

"Particle Accelerator?!" Eva asked incredulously.

"We... might have stolen a bunch of expensive equipment and committed a litany of other federal and state crimes... which may have been felonies, in order to get here," Tommy admitted. "And part of that was stealing a particle accelerator... and then it caught on fire... and then James crashed your plane," he finished as he leveled an accusing finger at his older brother.

"Hey, It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't-" James started.

"Okay, you know what? No. You can both stop or I'll have Twilight turn you both into teacups. Magic can do that right?" Eva asked as she turned her head back towards the unicorn.

"Well technically yes, but that's not really-" Twilight stammered.

"Good enough. Tommy, James, are we clear?" She asked, not waiting for an answer, "Good. Now, somebody hit that thing with something heavy and then I want to have a look at what you did to my plane."

"How are you doing that, exactly?" Twilight asked.

Eva smiled and turned to face the little unicorn as the sound of metal striking metal echoed through the field, "we're flying, of course!"

"Tommy is staying here, last time he got on a plane it caught on fire and crashed," James interjected as he walked past the two mares. "I'll take shotgun, ya know since I actually know where we went down, and I have fingers," he added while holding his hands up and wiggling his digits with a grin.

"I can kick really hard." Eva deadpanned.

"I have a stun gun." James countered.

"No you don't." Eva pointed out.

"No, I don't," James admitted, "but fine, I'll drop it. So, are we gonna do this thing?"

"You're in a hurry, got a hot date I don't know about?" Eva joked as she jumped up into the open hatch on the DC's tail. The pegasus looked down at the unicorn still standing in the field, looking lost, "You coming along Twilight?"

"Me? Why?" She asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"You wanted answers, right? Well that's where we're going. Tommy and Dash look like they've got things under control here. Like you said, you didn't know what those were, they only appeared after I got here, after Tommy and James got here. I find that very curious," she explained, "almost as curious as how the fuel tanks in this plane were refilled."

"And we're going to find answers to that at a plane crash?" Twilight asked as she climbed up the steps.

"It's a place to start, can't ask more than that."

"Battery on, generators off, priming," Eva announced as she pushed her hoof against the control panel, "James, count out the blades on number two, magnetos off."

James pulled back the sliding window on his side of the cockpit and looked out and down at the engine, "Ready."

Eva pressed down on the starter switch and listened as the starter spun the radial over, she watched the oil pressure climb.

"...six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. We're good over here!" he called out, as he pulled his head back into the cockpit, "Prop is clear, we're good to go."

"Magnetos on, ignition booster on, contact," she called out as she pressed the starter button over again and spun the engine over, five, six, seven blades and then a puff of smoke poured out of the exhaust stack and the engine rumbled to life.

"Oil pressure looks good, generator coming up now, cylinder head temp coming up, we're good on number two, I'll run it up if you want to focus on firing up number one," James called out as he reached for the throttle quadrant. He throttled the engine up and was pleased to hear it spin up gracefully. A few moments after he throttled it back down to idle he heard the other engine fire up and throttle up.

"Engines are good, let's release the wheel brakes and get this thing rolling then shall we?" Eva yelled across the cockpit with a grin. She turned her head back and looked at Twilight sitting on a jumpseat in the corner of the cockpit, "Twi, hold on, this part will be a little rough!" she yelled over the roar of the engines.

The unicorn nodded her understanding and pressed her forehoof against the pillar next to her as the drone of the engines increased and the decking started to rumble gently, she felt herself shifting in her seat as the aircraft started to roll out of the depressions it had made in the ground.

"Pushing to rated power, give me ten degrees on the flaps, I want to get out of this thick grass as quick as I can, think I blew out a shock absorber on the starboard landing gear on the way in," Eva explained at the aircraft started rolling down the improvised runway, kicking up dust as the propwash blasted the ground,

"Yeah, I can feel it," James replied as the craft bounced along, accelerating quickly. The plane pitched forward and the tail lifted off the ground, showing the treeline at the far end of the field through the windscreen, "That never gets old, been a long time since I've been on a taildragger!"

"Best way to fly!" Eva laughed back as she eased the control yoke back, the rumbling smoothed out as the main gears lifted off the ground and the plane began to gain altitude and airspeed. A soft electric whine indicated the retraction of the flaps and landing gear as she brought the plane into a shallow left-handed arc around the town and reduced the throttle setting.

"Looks like I've drawn some attention," She commented off hand as she looked out the side window at ponies stopping to look up at the plane, still low enough to make out individual faces. "So where are we going, or do you just want to take over? I mean, assuming you don't crash this time," she asked.

"Tommy's not here, I think we'll be fine," James deadpanned as he stepped into the rudder and leveled off the plane, "Should be about fifty miles or so off in this direction, we can go higher if we miss it, as clear as the skies are today we can probably see for a hundred miles."

"Sounds good, I'll just relax for a bit, haven't been able to delegate for a while, I think I like having underlings!" she said with a laugh.

"You know we're not in the air-force anymore, you don't outrank me anymore," James shot back.

"James, I will always outrank you."

"...and you're sure you're supposed to be out of the hospital?" Tommy asked as he carried the dented metal sphere back towards the library. Behind him, Trixie floated the other sphere in a magic field.

"As if they could stop Trixie from leaving if they tried," She answered with a smirk.

"Okay, fair point," Tommy conceded, "Is this third person, er, third pony... whatever, thing going to be a regular inclusion to your speech?"

Trixie scowled and bumped the metal ball into the man's back. "It's a habit!" she shot back. "One that... Tri-, one that I could probably work on changing," she admitted, grudgingly.

Tommy stumbled a little bit as she hit him, and shot her an annoyed look, "Well, as much as I appreciate the help, I don't understand why you're so insistent about it. You don't owe me anything."

"It's not about that... well it's not just about that anyway. All of my life has been about showmareship, sleight of hoof, misdirection, and magic. This technology is... well it's like its own kind of magic, I need to understand it, understand the rules that it works under," she explained as they drew ever closer to the library.

"And then?" Tommy prompted, his own mind raced with the implications of introducing a seemingly primitive race to the technological advancements he was aware of and knowledgeable about.

"And then... figure out how to break those rules, or at least bend them. With that kind of edge I could put on the best shows Equestria has ever seen!" she exclaimed finally, rearing up on her back legs and waving her front hooves in the air wildly.

"Okay then," Tommy deadpanned, mildly off-put by the sudden giddiness, "I will teach you everything I can, but under one condition."

"What condition?" Trixie asked excitedly as she trotted up next to the man.

"First per- pony speaking only, you come off as a little insane with the third person thing and I would feel way too much like a mad scientist if I let you get away with that," He explained with a smirk.

"Fiiiiiine," she drew out with a dramatic eye-roll, "I'll do it your way then."

"Good, now let's get inside and crack these things open, I wanna see what makes 'em tick."

"No, no, no, no!" the stallion yelled as he pounded his forehoof down on the console. His face was a mask, hiding his panic and anger, "they didn't stop it in time..."

He slumped backwards onto a cushion in the dimly lit chamber, "I hope that you all know what you're doing... because this time I can't make it all better." He sighed as he looked at a picture up on the console, "What would you have had me do? Would we have been able to do more? Not everyone will get to live this time and... this is one time when everybody should."

"I've carried the world on my shoulders for this long, what's a little longer?" he said finally into the darkness, "You wouldn't have wanted me to give up, no matter how dark it became. I can't fix this but... if I'm very, very lucky... I can help."

"And you..." He said softly, turning away from the console and staring off into the dimness of the room. "You brought me here... you knew I could do something... or maybe you just wanted me to see something," He said, as if to the room itself.

He faintly smiled as he pulled a brown long-coat over his back and made for the door, "In any case, I suppose that means I've got work to do."

Author's Note

It's been over a month, you guys can have this, and I'll work on the second half as the next chapter.

Answers: Part Two

Pilot's Story

Chapter 19: Answers: Part Two

"And you did this at night?" Eva asked incredulously as the DC-3 orbited the landing site, "I'm not saying it couldn't be better, but you didn't really pull a Korea either." She eased back on the throttle as she took the plane lower, tightening up the circle as she notched the flaps down.

"Well like you said, you remember Korea being a lot worse than I do," He laughed, "So, you think you've got enough room to set down?"

The plane rumbled softly as it pushed through pockets of rising hot air over the damp ground. The clearing looked almost too large to be natural, and yet bore none of the signs of having been mechanically cleared. The L-100 had landed along the narrow axis of the ovoid clearing, and aside from having been burried in the soft earth from the hard landing, didn't seem to be damaged, at least from two hundred feet up.

"I think so, might have to bring it in on a three pointer though," she answered as she reduced throttle again and took a shallow curve out over the forest again. "Twilight, I'm gonna land on this next pass, hold on again!" She yelled over her shoulder towards the rear of the cockpit.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Twilight yelled back over the sound of the engines as she braced her forehoof against the bulkhead.

"No, but I'm gonna do it anyway," Eva admitted as the craft settled into its approach, the sound of the landing gear deploying whined through the aircraft's aluminum structure and the sound of the engines dropped in pitch.

"Gear locked," James called out as he watched the panel. Another whine indicated the flaps were lowering and the aircraft started to noticeably slow as it descended. The nose pitched up and a few moments later the deck jumped as the mains touched down.

Eva leaned into the wheel brakes hard as the aircraft decelerated, the other aircraft became larger and larger in the windscreen as the speed dropped. The deck bounced and jerked as the rough terrain jostled the aircraft around.

Two hundred feet from the other plane, one eighty, one fifty. Eva leaned harder into the brakes and started to arc the plane to the right. One hundred feet, eighty, seventy, sixty, the plane stopped and settled into the ground.

Eva throttled back the engines and let them idle, "So, that wasn't so bad huh? Let's take a few minutes for a breather and go check out the damage."

"So far nothing too science fiction in here," Tommy commented offhand as he hunched over the partially disassembled spheroid. Screws and wires and plates of metal lay out across the wooden table top around it as he dug deeper into the machine.

"What do you mean by that?" Trixie asked as she peeked over his shoulder into the neat, yet crowded inside of the device. She'd been asking questions throughout the process, even helping when his hands were too large or unwieldy to reach a part.

'But why do I feel like she's trying to figure out how to build her own' he thought to himself with a grin. "Well," He started as he pulled another circuit free," aside from a few parts I don't recognize, probably related to why it can fly, everything in here looks reasonably similar to what I'd expect in any radio transceiver. Parts are way more high tech than anything I've ever seen but not enough that I can't recognize what they are, but it's strange."

"I think all of it's pretty strange, but what, exactly, is it that's wrong?" Trixie asked as she mentally recorded as much as she could.

"Well, it's just that they way some of this is put together, especially what I suspect to be the anti-grav unit... It's almost like whoever built this had to go out of their way to make the transmitter assembly low-tech," he said with a frown.

"Why would anypony or... anything want to do that?"

"I couldn't even begin to guess at what would motivate that kind of anachronism in design. This thing might be made out of scrap parts somebody had laying around, maybe they didn't want to give away any designs if it was captured, maybe they had a lack of resources," He sighed, "without actually finding where it came from and asking, I can't really know."

"Maybe whoever made it was trying to match you or... your technology. You did say you recognized some of it, maybe they were trying to... talk to you, or your radio?" Trixie offered with a raised eyebrow.

"That's kind of terrifying, if that's the case then that means something with this kind of technology knows we're here, and it's looking for us. You didn't know what we were, it's safe to say that most if not all of your kind don't know what we are, and you certainly couldn't have built this..." he trailed off and then started writing on his notepad, "I'll need to think about this."

"This one is a lot bigger," Twilight remarked as the group ascended the boarding ramp into the stuck plane, "you could fit a lot of ponies in here, that's for sure."

Eva turned her head back and nodded, "Yeah you could, bought this plane last year, was planning on scaling up my operation but then the economy tanked and it was all I could do to keep from going under, not enough cargo work to even break even flying this."

"I... see." Twilight said hesitantly, "I just have a hard time imagining something as incredible as this not being useful for something."

"Well it was about to be useful but then I ended up here and... well the rest you know," the pegasus explained as she hooved open an access panel, "I see what you mean about the relay panel, those were going to be replaced anyway, there should be a box of spares in here somewhere..."

"We didn't really look that hard," James admitted, "we were caught up in trying to find you so we packed up the truck and hit the road."

"What all did you bring anyway? The truck looked fairly loaded up from what I saw," Eva asked as she pushed the panel closed and walked across the cargo bay and started hoofing through a stack of boxes.

"Ammo, provisions, shelter, tools, fuel, a pair of dirt bikes, spare parts, the usual," he listed nonchalantly as he walked over to a very large tarp in the front of the bay and started pulling it back, "we also brought these, just in case."

"What are those?" Twilight asked as she stepped closer.

Eva lifted her head out of the pile of boxes and turned towards James and Twilight, she smiled, "Those would be engines for the DC-3, I didn't think they were ready yet. How did you pull that off?"

"Well, I had to pull a few strings, but we had to be prepared for anything right? Once Tommy figured out where you were I wanted to make sure we were prepared for as many contingencies as we could be," he explained with a shrug.

"There is such a thing as being too prepared, but I'll overlook it this time. You said you figured out where I was? Where is that, exactly?" Eva asked as she stepped closer to take a look at the engines.

"Well, that's kind of the funny part, apparently, and since it worked I guess Tommy was right, this is the future, at least from our point of view. Future earth, but apparently humans are not part of it from what we've seen so far," he explained as he finished pulling the tarp off and started to fold it.

"So, I traveled through time and turned into a horse-"

"Pony," Twilight interrupted.

"Right, pony," Eva continued, "I can accept that, I guess. Celestia knew what I was though, she knew what the DC was, even if she didn't know exactly what it was, she recognized it. So much for finding answers, I just have more questions." She sighed and sat against the wall and stared out the back of the plane and towards the forest.

"We've been through worse, we'll figure this out, same as we've figured everything else out," James offered as he sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders, "We'll figure out how to get back home, my brother is the brightest guy I know, if anybody can figure it out, he can."

"Time travel..." Twilight said softly under her breath. Suddenly she turned around smiling, "I might be able to help, I read a book that referenced a time travel spell written by Starswirl the Bearded himself, if I can find that spell, maybe we can get you home!"

"See? Things are looking up already!" James said with a grin as he squeezed the pegasus against him. "With a magical unicorn and my magically egg-headed brother on the case we can't possible fail!" he joked.

Twilight rolled her eyes and laughed, "now that sounds like something Rainbow Dash would say."

Eva snickered, "Yeah it does, you know I can't tell if I'm rubbing off on her or if she's... rubbing... hey can anyone else hear that?"

"What the hell?!" Tommy yelled as the spheroid before him started to emit static and then a series of rapid tones and shook the table. The wires and circuits and scraps of metal vibrated off the corners of the table onto the floor as the tones increased in volume.

A flash of light distracted him and he turned to see Trixie's horn enveloped in an icy blue glow, her stance widened as a bolt of energy sprang forth and impacted the probe, encasing it in ice and ending its activity abruptly.

"That was a hell of a thing," Tommy deadpanned as he stared at the panting mare. "That was magic?" he asked with eyes wide in shock.

The unicorn nodded, a slight tinge of red across her face, "Freezing spell." She answered, "I didn't want to break it but... I had to stop it, it was making me all... dizzy." She blinked and shook her head and sat down, "Still a little dizzy."

Tommy nodded and then frowned, "But why did it try to re-activate like that I wonder..."

Eva hoofed at the pile of scrap before her, the smoking fragments of what was once another of the metal spheroids now reduced to nothing but parts. "Another one of these damn things!" she yelled in frustration.

James stood over her, rifle still in his hands as he scanned the treeline, "I think we can safely assume that whatever or whoever is sending these things is sending them after us."

Eva turned towards the DC-3 and rubbed her chin with her hoof, "You know, I met a pony the other day, he said I sounded American, I think we ought to talk to him and I think I know how to draw him out."

Author's Note

I lied, it's going to be three parts.

Answers: Part Three

Pilot's Story

Chapter 20: Answers: Part Three

Tommy, James, Eva, Twilight, and Trixie were seated around the low round wooden table in the center of the room, candle light illuminated the room in the dusk hours of the day as the quintet conversed.

"You know, I don't think we've had a chance to just sit down like this since you got here," Eva said across the table to her human companions, "normally I'd suggest breaking out the bourbon but Twilight will probably turn me into a tree or something if I pull that again."

"You might be right," Twilight ground out through gritted teeth, memories of that night and morning still fresh in her mind, "It would keep you out of trouble, at least."

"I think I'd pay money to see that," James laughed. "It has been a while though, hasn't it?" he asked, waving a hand across the table.

"Once upon a time, when we were all younger, with more years ahead of us than years behind..." Eva said with a sigh, "You know it's been more than a few years. You didn't have to come and I wouldn't have held it against you."

"No, you wouldn't, but I couldn't just leave you hanging in the wind either. If there was even a chance..." he started before trailing off.

Eva laughed softly, "You know, this isn't the first time that sentiment has gotten you in trouble so why do I feel like it won't be the last?"

"Benefit of age and experience," Tommy joked as he jovially shoved his brother in the arm.

"If you're done laughing at my expense... What do we know and what are we going to do about it?" James asked, directing the conversation towards the matter at hand: the drones.

"Well, what Trixie and I were able to establish so far, our best guess anyway, is that most of this tech is low tech. It's better than anything we've got but no where near as good as it ought to be, considering when we are." Tommy started to explain as Eva interrupted him with a raised hoof.

"Tommy, the things were flying without any kind of visible engine or exhaust output, how is that low tech? How is that even possible?" She asked in an incredulous tone.

"This is why it's possible." Tommy said simply as he tossed a small metallic cube with wires trailing out of it onto the middle of the table, "I said most of it was low tech. That part right there is where it all goes pear shaped. It's putting out nine hundred kilowatts and it's the size of an orange. For comparison, one of your DC-3's engines puts out slightly less power than that."

Eva whistled and raised her eyebrows, "So, what is it? Some kind of battery?"

Tommy shrugged, "Could be, could be some kind of generator, though that scares me more."

Twilight paled at that as she stared intently at the device, "Oh no."

"Mind sharing with the rest of the class?" James asked as he looked between the unicorn and his brother.

"I don't fully understand your units of measurement, but I have a pretty good guess as to how heavy that airplane is, and what two of those engines can do for acceleration, so I've got an idea of how powerful it is, but if I'm getting the right idea from what Tommy said," Twilight started to explain as she levitated the device in front of her, "if this isn't just storage, if this is actually generating electricity, it has to have some kind of fuel source, which means not only is it generating the electricity, it's also storing the fuel within the same volume, that kind of energy density..."

"Should be impossible, more impossible than if it was just a battery." Tommy finished for her, "and I still don't know how it flies, but I know enough to know I don't want to have to get into a fight with whoever made the thing."

"Trix- I mean, I was able to use a freezing spell to stop it, when it started to move again while we were taking it apart," Trixie added.

"That's right, we do have some limited defense, and as James and Eva proved, they do stop working when shot, at least for a little while. On that note, it doesn't look like they self repair, but it does look like they attempt to route around damage if they can." Tommy offered as he leaned back in his chair.

"So if we shoot it enough, it'll stay dead?" James asked, "I guess that's a small comfort, what do we do now?"

"I'm going to go sit on a bench in the park and... See if I can't meet up with a new friend." Eva said as her eyes drifted to her guitar case.

Her hoof slid across the guitar strings. A soft note echoed through the small clearing, catching the attention of a few passing ponies as the mare settled into a rhythm. The notes strung together in a melodic flow as she leaned back on the bench, opened her mouth, and began to sing.

"Way back on the radio dial, a fire got lit inside a bright-eyed child. Every note just wrapped around her soul, from steel guitars to Memphis, all the way to rock and roll..." she began, her voice soft and quiet, her eyes closed as the words crossed her lips.

"Ohhh, I can hear 'em playin', I can hear the ringin' of a beat up old guitar! Ohhh, I can hear 'em singin', keep on dreamin' even if it breaks your heart!" Her voice intensified as she sang.

"Downtown is where I used to wander, old enough to get there but too young to get inside. So I would stand out on the sidewalk, listen to the music playin' every Friday night.

"Ohhh, I can hear 'em playin', I can hear the ringin' of a beat up old guitar! Ohhh, I can hear 'em singin', keep on dreamin' even if it breaks your heart!"

A small crowd of ponies had gathered and listened intently as the mare played her song. They enjoyed it despite the few lost references, and still, the stallion she was searching for did not show up, and so she played.

"Some dreams stay with you forever, drag you around and bring you back to where you were. Some dreams keep on gettin' better, gotta keep believin' if you wanna know for sure...

"Ohhh, I can hear 'em playin', I can hear the ringin' of a beat up old guitar! Ohhh, I can hear 'em singin', keep on dreamin' even if it breaks your heart!"

Eva's eyes scanned the small crowd of ponies, looking for that brown stallion, the one who knew too much, her playing slowed, and finally stopped, the final note hung in the air as she spoke the final line, "Keep on dreaming, even if it breaks your heart."

"So it looks like you do come here often... but then I never did ask you that did I? It seems like I'm always drawn in to a good song. Even saw a song save an entire race of people once... no matter."

Eva's head whirled around on her shoulders to face The Voice. There he stood, the one she had sought, behind her and leaning casually against a tree trunk. "I was hoping you'd show up," she said, "I don't know if you know what's been going on, but it's obvious you know more than any of the other ponies here and you gave me something that you should not have had..."

"As it happens I have been needing to have a talk with you Miss Lohengrin, and I think now would be a good time, but perhaps not the best place. So, your place or mine?" He asked with a wry smile.

"I think my place will be fine," Eva said as she stood and pushed her guitar onto her back, "And you have me at a disadvantage, you know my name but I don't seem to know yours."

"Well... You can call me The Doctor," He said with a grin. "Lead on, madam."

"Alright Professor, I assume you know where the library is?" Eva asked as she started to walk away, keeping one eye still trained on the other pony.

"I said 'The Doctor' you know." the brown pony said, his expression half way between a grin and a frown

"I know what you said," Eva answered with a smirk. "Come along Professor."

"-and that's pretty much what's happened so far," Eva finished explaining as the pair crossed the threshold into the library, the brown pony followed right behind her.

"So the other two retained their original form? Fascinating..." The Doctor replied as he rubbed his chin with a forehoof. "It's almost as if something is controlling the morphic field..."

"You're losing me, Professor; I don't speak geek," Eva said with a laugh as she shrugged her guitar case off her back and up against the wall.

"I'm fluent, however," a different voice answered, "So I guess you found who you were looking for?"

"That'll be Tommy," Eva said as she pointed towards the man with her forehoof, "the smart one."

Tommy smiled and opened his mouth to speak but was cut off before the first syllable.

"Well, smart-ass one anyway," Eva added with a laugh.

Tommy frowned, "Okay, you have me there, I guess. So, 'Professor' was it?"

"Doctor, actually," the brown pony answered with a smirk, "I think our friend is just enjoying poking a bit of fun at me."

"She does that," He said with a grin, "And you don't seem surprised to see me, Doctor, why is that?"

It was The Doctor's turn to laugh, "Well, you might say I'm rather familiar with the human race."

"That's not a shock, I'm guessing you got the pony treatment too?" Eva asked, "Maybe not quite the same way though, I think."

"You're not wrong about that," he answered, "My people were there at the birth of your race, and I was there at the end but this... This is something else and yet... well look around, why don't you?" he finished with a sad smile.

And they looked, Tommy and Eva took in the library's interior, the chairs, the table, the bookshelves set into the living walls of the tree. The windows, the doors, the cupboards in the kitchen beyond the open door in the side of the room.

"You've noticed it by now, you'd have to have noticed it by now. Nagging at the back of your mind just out of reach, a whisper in your ear even," He continued. "That something is familiar and yet different, a certain wrongness that you just can't put your finger on."

Eva's eyes flicked across the table, the still half full cups from their meeting earlier in the day, the latches on the windows, the knob on the front door. She paled as the implication started to sink in.

"The question that you haven't quite asked, haven't quite consciously thought of yet. It took me a few days before it clicked, It wouldn't have been the first time one race left out and another took its place, even on this planet, but still that question keeps nagging in the back of your mind..." The Doctor trailed off.

Tommy turned towards The Doctor, slack-jawed as all of the tumblers fell into place, as the wheels finally stopped turning, their work done. Everything could be summed up in a single word on the tip of his tongue, "doorknobs."

"Indeed."

Author's Note

Oh snap. And while you're at it, listen to this, just because I really like the track and have had it on loop for a while. doop

In Times of Peace: Part 1

Pilot's Story

Chapter 21: In Times of Peace: Part 1

"Ma'am, the report, as you requested," the pegasus said as she lowered the cloth-bound folder down on the table.

“Thank you Silent Eye, you may go," Celestia said with a smile as she lifted the documents in her magic.

The other pony nodded her head and stepped backwards out of the office.

Celestia opened the cover of the folder, marveling at the fact that her ponies still used a bit of string to keep these folders closed. They were such a bother to open without magic, she thought as she opened up the folder to the cover page.

CONTROLLED DOCUMENT, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS OR EDITING TO THIS DOCUMENT--

She sighed and lifted a teacup from her desk. Sometimes her intelligence group was overzealous with their secrecy. After all, if she couldn’t have access to a piece of information, who could?

Subject of Interest: Eva Lohengrin

Identifying Traits: Pony Of Interest(henceforth referred to as 'P.O.I.') is a light gray pegasus, apparent age of 28-32 years of age. (P.O.I. claims to be aged 53 years.) P.O.I. lacks a cutie mark, but has no other atypical/noteworthy physical traits.

P.O.I. arrived in Equestria in a machine of unknown manufacture. She identified as a “DC-3” Identification was made without interrogation nor while under duress. P.O.I. states that above machine is...

Celestia rubbed her forehead with her hoof, she knew exactly what the bulk of the file said due to the first part of it being based on Twilight’s friendship reports.

P.O.I. has been contacted by subject [redacted] on two confirmed occasions. No significant data at this time regarding their interactions.

Celestia rolled her eyes as she sipped at her tea, the intelligence ponies had given her an edited report again. Her horn glowed as she called up the counterspell to wipe all the editing from the document. Technically, what she was doing was treason, she thought. But she could pardon herself if anyone decided to say something about it. The edited blocks cleared, and she saw the name on the sheet. "Time Turner..." she said under her breath.

'So he's involved now, why doesn't that surprise me?' she thought as she turned the page.

P.O.I. Has recently made contact with two bi-pedals of unknown species. Henceforth referred to as 'T' and 'J'. T and J arrived via unknown form of self-propelled carriage. Circumstances of arrival were not directly observed by Intelligence Group, but allegedly involved a hydra and a form of non-magical weapon.

Celestia narrowed her eyes, suddenly feeling like this report, and her day, were about to become anything but pleasing. Still, she steeled herself against the inevitable with another sip of soothing tea,

Forward observers witnessed two separate engagements between P.O.I., Subject's T and J, and two spherical entities of unknown origin, at both of these encounters P.O.I. and company engaged the entities with their non-magical weapons (Observer note: the word 'gun' was used, perhaps related to cannons?) resulting in apparent neutralization of said entities. (Observer note: Entities appeared to be metal and operate on some form of electricity.)

Her eyes widened as she finished the paragraph, her teacup fell from her startled grip. The sound of porcelain shattering on the marble floor broke her from her stunned paralysis and she turned towards her office window, "Oh no."

"So, what exactly does this mean? Ponies came in and killed off the Humans, then stole our interior design?" James suggested.

"Yes, I'm certain that's exactly what he's suggesting," Twilight snarked, "we came and friendshipped you all to death and then completely forgot you ever existed."

"Your brother isn't very bright is he?" Trixie asked Tommy under her breath.

"He has his moments," Tommy admitted with slight shrugging of his shoulders. "I don't think it's quite that simple," he said louder, "I don't think he's suggesting that the ponies killed us all off but... well look around? Everything is human-friendly. I think that we died... and they picked up the pieces. Given enough time another sentient species could have evolved."

"What are you saying, exactly?" Eva asked suddenly, leaning forwards.

The Doctor looked between Eva and Twilight and raised his hoof, "Twilight... What is the name of your planet?"

"Earth." Twilight answered simply, "Why?"

"Doctor, we already knew that," Eva protested, not understanding the direction he was trying to take things.

"Yes, that's right. You called it Earth too. So ask yourself: why does she know that name for this planet?" The Doctor asked with a smirk.

"Because somebody was still alive to tell them," James said suddenly, "They know the name of the planet, they have door knobs and cups with handles and shovels and forks and spoons... because somebody was still around to tell them. To teach them the language and culture."

Everyone at the table suddenly looked to the man with surprised expressions. "What? It might have taken me a minute to get there but I'm not stupid."

"Celestia." Eva said simply, "She knew exactly what I was, she knew what my plane was. She knows, but nopony else does... So who's up for a trip to Canterlot?"

"Just like that? You can't just show up in Canterlot unannounced and expect to see the princess, she's very busy and--" Twilight ranted as the door the library popped open and cut her off.

Rarity trotted through the door humming a happy tune with a package perched on her back. She cheerfully pushed the door shut with her hind leg before her eyes finally adjusted to the dimmer lighting in the room and she turned her eyes to the table, "Oh! You have company! Such... unique company..."

"Oh, Rarity!" Eva said excitedly as she jumped up from the table, "You haven't met my good friends yet!" She trotted over to the alabaster mare and gestured her hoof to the table, "That's Tommy there next to Trixie, and James over by Twilight."

Rarity's face twitched into a look of slight disgust as her eyes passed over Trixie before her original jovial smile returned. "Well it is certainly a pleasure to meet all of you!" she said with a slight bow as she lifted the package off her back and unfolded it in the air.

"Is that what I think it is?" Eva asked with a grin as the jacket floated in front of her.

Rarity beamed at the other mare's reaction, "Oh it most certainly is! It's a bit different from what I usually do but it was a very good learning experience, I learned a lot about some of the more exotic synthetics and... well just try it on, I must see you in it!"

Eva stared into the mirror, her eyes scanning every inch of her form, from the tips of her ears to the bottom of her hooves. She... approved. The jacket was, for all she could tell, a very convincing synthetic leather, formed in the style of a classic bomber jacket, but with cutouts for her wings.

The cherry on top, however, was the skull cap and goggles, she decided that she looked every bit like an old biplane pilot, and she wholeheartedly approved. "Not bad... not bad at all."

Her mood was better than it had been in months, even before the crossover. Despite everything that had been going on, this one thing, the effort that went into it, the end result... It made her feel welcomed in a way that she'd be missing, in a way she hadn't even known she'd been missing.

She left the bathroom with a bounce in her step that would have been obvious even to the most oblivious of ponies.

"We'll have to start calling you Amelia."

Eva looked over at James and smiled, "Yeah, you might have a point there."

Rarity trotted in a circle around the pegasus with a grin across her face, "I must say it looks better on you than I'd ever imagined! Wonderful!"

Eva preened a bit under the attention, while Tommy peered closely at the jacket. “Hey, uh, Rarity?”

“Yes...Tom, was it?”

“That looks...really good.” He reached out, and felt the sleeve of the jacket. “It even feels softer than normal synthetic leather. How did you do it?”

At the mention of leather, Twilight looked a bit disturbed, while Trixie just looked curious.

Rarity fluttered her eyelashes a bit at the compliment, “Well, I have had some contact with the real thing-”

“Rarity! How could you?” Twilight now looked a tad ill.

Managing to make patronizing seem more like concern, Rarity waved a hoof at Twilight, “Oh come now, dear, you know the griffons and such of the world are much less averse to those sorts of materials. One must keep an open mind in the world of fashion!”

Twilight said nothing further, but looked less than convinced.

Rarity looked back to Tommy, “As for making a synthetic version, well, the material I’ve handled had a rather dull, matte finish to it, but between the feel of that, and the way light reflected off the fabric in the picture, I was able to figure something out using a cotton base, and some magically-bolstered coatings.”

“Wow.” Tommy looked at the mare with some respect, then looked thoughtful, “That’s pretty amazing work in only a few days.”

Rarity beamed, “Well, I don’t like to brag ”--Trixie’s eye twitched a bit at that--” but I am rather well known for having a certain...je ne sais quoi, when it comes to nouveaux matériaux."

“Hmm...do you have any experience with hard polymers, like plastics?”

“Oh, not too much,” she replied, casually rubbing a forehoof against the floor, “the occasional custom buttons or lightweight accessory.” She tilted her head at him, “Did you have something specific in mind...?”

He leaned forward, nodding, “On our way here, some of the components of our airplane blew out. I can probably scrounge up replacements for the inner workings, but the casings themselves got partially melted by electrical arcing. They need to be tough, insulating, and to fit pretty exact dimensions...”

“Well, it’s not my usual fare, but I could certainly take a look for you, Tom.” She smiled at him, primping her hair slightly.

“Uh, uhm, great!” He stammered, wondering why he was blushing slightly, and hoping nobody noticed. “There’s a broken relay out in our truck,” he continued, waving in that general direction.

“Mmm, lead the way!”

Tommy stood and walked to the front door, then held it open for Rarity.

The fashionista followed, then paused on the threshold and turned back to the room. “I’m so glad you like the ensemble, Eva, and it does quite striking on you. Indeed,” she smiled with just a fleeting hint of smugness, “you could even start a trend!”

Eva ducked her head at the comment, “Heh, thanks again, Rarity.”

“Ta ta~” She waved around the room, and departed.

Tommy started to follow, then glanced back at Trixie, who blinked, looked at the group left in the library, then silently slinked out the door, followed closely by the human.

Eva blinked and turned to Twilight, "did Rarity just speak French?"

Author's Note

This chapter was violently awkward, and for that I apologize. I'll try to do better in the future.

While you're at it, read this: Here

In Times of Peace: Part 2

Pilot's Story

Chapter 22: In Times of Peace: Part 2

"Batteries are connected, we've got power." James announced from the flight deck as the aircraft's interior lighting came up. The voltmeters slid up into the green arc as he toggled the aircraft's individual electrical systems up.

"Navigation looks good... despite the complete lack of nav beacons," Eva commented dryly from the co-pilot's seat, "fuel tanks are at about fifty percent... at least that's less weight to dig out. Not getting any obvious signs of malfunction."

James nodded and slid his headset on and keyed up, "Tommy, looks like those relays are holding up so far, I'm going to try to extend the flaps. Hell, we might even get this thing out of here today." He reached his hand out and pulled the flap actuator, there was a slight hesitation, and then the droning of the actuators reverberated throughout the flight deck.

"Slight hesitation, not bad. The man knows his craft," Eva commented as she checked the tire pressure indicator, "tires are good, if we can get this thing unstuck we shouldn't have much trouble getting it airborne. Shame Rarity couldn't be here to see the fruits of her labor."

"Well, we've still got Tommy's girlfriend to help get this thing unstuck, that unicorn magic can do some pretty wild things." James laughed as he pulled his headset off, "I'm gonna head down and help chain the truck up so we can give pulling this thing out a shot."

"His girlfriend eh? Don't let Trixie hear you say that about her." Eva commented with a chuckle as she started powering back down, she'd never had to jump start a turboprop before, and she didn't want to chance it now. "I'll be down in a minute, just gonna button everything up."

"She hasn't answered my letters in days, Rainbow Dash! She left Canterlot and nobody has seen her since! Of course I'm going to panic!" Twilight shrilled as she paced back and forth through the library, to Dash's agitation.

"So something probably came up, she's the Princess, Twilight, she can take care of herself, I'm sure she's fine," Dash insisted as she rubbed her hoof along the bridge of her nose. A panicking Twlight was worse than a drunk Pinkie ten times out of ten.

Twilight whirled around on her, "Fine? Fine?! Dash, this is not just something that came up! Eva shows up, her friends show up, those metal things showed up, all inside of a month! Now the Princess is off doing who knows what!" The lavender mare's eyes turned glassy for a minute before she sighed and sat down against the wall.

Dash walked over and sat next to her and put a comforting hoof on her friend's back, "Look, I'm not gonna say that this isn't really weird, because it totally is, but Eva's a good pony and her friends seem alright... even if they have been hanging out with Trixie."

Twilight seemed to calm down a little, "It's not just that, I was talking to Pinkie, she hasn't been able to get a few of her shipments in for a few days, and nopony seems to know why. It's like that all over town, little things, scheduled deliveries not being met, and the courier companies have no idea why!"

Dash's ears drooped a little as her thoughts drifted back to the flying metal spheres. 'probes' Tommy had called them. "So... Do you think it's more of those 'probe' things?" she asked.

"I hope not but the coincidence is hard to ignore isn't it?" Twilight pressed as she got back to her hooves. This close, and now that she'd slowed down, Dash finally got a look at her. Her eyes were bloodshot, her mane unkempt, Dash had seen this before.

"You haven't been sleeping." It wasn't a question.

"I had eight hours of sleep," Twilight defended with a frown.

"How many days ago?"

"...three," Twilight admitted in defeat, her ears dropped and she sat down again, "Is it that obvious?"

"It's pretty obvious. Twi, go to bed, you need it. I'll see what I can find out, okay? If I find anything out and I need you I'll come get you alright?" Dash offered as she waved a hoof towards Twilight's bedroom.

Twilight raised her hoof and opened her mouth to protest "...yeah you're probably right." She turned for the stairs, swaying slightly from fatigue, "You'll tell me if anything important comes up, won't you Dash?"

"I promise, get some sleep okay?"

"No, run the cable around the tree!" Tommy yelled at his brother as he stormed across the field. six hundred feet of winch cable lay coiled in a pile next to the truck while James attempted to lash a pulley to a tree.

"I'm working on it, it's not my first day ya know!" James yelled back. He grabbed tight onto the cable as he spun the ratchet on the u-bolt to secure the cable. "Why don't you go figure out where we're gonna lock onto the plane and let me fumble around blindly as I'm sure you must think I do when you're not around!"

Trixie eyed the two as she walked over to Eva, her left ear pivoted towards the quarreling brothers. "Are they always like this?" she asked the elder pegasus.

"Only on days that end in 'y'," Eva said with a rueful smile, "Now that the shock and stress has worn off they're back to bickering. Honestly I'm surprised they lasted this long without getting at each other's throats."

Trixie looked perturbed by the information her ears fell a little bit as she turned back to Tommy and James, who were gesticulating violently while yelling, she couldn't actually pick out any of the words. She seemed uncomfortable with the commotion, "So, they don't get along?"

Eva laughed and put her hoof on the unicorn's shoulder, "No, they get along like brothers do I'd guess. This just happens sometimes, they don't mean anything by it, it's... just an outlet," she explained. "So why did you want to come along? I'd have thought you had enough excitement lately."

"Trixie is... That is to say, I am not ponyville's most favorite pony, I did a few... potentially mean things to a few ponies and... well I feel a lot more welcome here than I do there," she said while digging at the ground with her forehoof, her ears were still drooped.

Eva frowned. 'No matter where or when you are, it seems like the people are always the same.' "Hey, don't worry about that alright? You seem like a nice enough pony, I'm sure everything will work out in the end, Twilight is a pretty decent sort, and so are her friends," she reassured the other pony.

Trixie idly noted that the fight seemed to have ended and the pair of brothers were running the cable back and forth between the two pulleys, one mounted to the tree and the other to the plane across the field. "Twilight and her friends are who I was horrible to," she explained while continuing to hoof the grass.

Eva rubbed the back of her head with a fetlock, "Ah... yeah that could be rough..." She stared at the plane stuck in the mud before smiling, "but hey you know, Twilight and her friends were pretty nice to you when we were in the library, and at the hospital. It's not hopeless!"

Trixie cocked an eyebrow at Eva's apparent enthusiasm, all thoughts of her own unhappiness pushed to the wayside in light of her companions uncharacteristic cheeriness. "Laying it on a little thick?" she asked flatly with a blank stare.

"That's entirely probable, it's been a long time since I had to give a pep talk. Still, not worth worrying about right now, if they could forgive me, they can forgive you," she explained with a shrug. Her ears perked up as she heard the engine on the truck starting, she turned her head.

The winch cable was drawn out of the spool on the front of the truck, attached to the wire looped through the block and tackle shackled to a thick ancient tree. The other end of the wire was latched onto the rear of the L-100, and smoke was steadily rising from the stack on the side of the truck.

"I feel like this is going to end in tears," Eva deadpanned as she heard the truck's engine throttle up and the winch drum started to turn, pulling the slack out of the cable and putting tension on the pulleys. The plane jerked slightly and the engine in the truck lugged down as the cables let out 'twang' as they became taut.

"The mud is like a suction cup..." Trixie noted as she watched the truck struggle with the cable, actually sliding forward in the grass despite the wheels being stationary while the cables groaned and the plane stayed stuck.

Eva nodded, "Yeah, we're gonna have to try something else before they end up breaking something. If there was some way to break the suct--" she was cut off as the unicorn stepped forward, her horn ablaze.

"Trixie can fix this!" she exclaimed as she broke into a run, "keep pulling!"

James looked at the sprinting pony from across the field, and then over to Eva, raising his hands in confusion.

Eva replied with a shrug and gestured over towards the truck, giving a 'go' signal with her hoof.

James passed the signal on to Tommy, and the engine in the truck revved up higher, increasing the load on the winch as Trixie finally made it over to the side of the aircraft.

There was a sound not unlike a whip-crack and Eva felt her ears pop uncomfortably, she shook the feeling out of her head and listened as the pitch of the truck's engine dropped. She turned her head towards the plane and saw it steadily inching out of the mud and onto the hard packed ground behind it.

Trixie was jumping around in excitement, though Eva couldn't hear anything she was saying over the sound of the engine and winch howling as they extracted the multiple thousand pound aircraft. Trixie stopped and turned back to the plane as a loud moan filled the air, her horn flared and another whip-crack filled the clearing, and again the struggle eased.

The rear tires of the plane had finally risen up to the surface and were rolling steadily across the hard dirt, shedding mud as they rolled along. Finally, the engine slowed and the whining decreased as the nose gear rolled out of the muck and the airplane easily coasted to a stop, having moved about two hundred feet backwards from where it had settled into the marsh originally.

Eva trotted over to the unicorn and immediately noted the rather smug expression on the latter's face, she wasn't going to begrudge her that, she'd just done something to move a forty ton aircraft. "What did you just do?" Eva asked with a half smile and a raised eyebrow, "my ears are still ringing, but that was pretty incredible."

Trixie's smug grin turned into a smirk as she flipped her mane over her shoulder, "Well you said 'if only there was some way to break the suction' so... I teleported packets of air into the mud under the plane to break the suction!"

Eva whistled, "wow!"

Trixie beamed, "It is just a minor example of Trixie's incredible skill."

"No, that's not what I mean. It was more of a 'wow Tommy's really rubbing off on you' kind of a whistle," Eva explained with a smirk.

Trixie harrumphed her annoyance and frowned.

"Hey, if you're done flirting with Tommy's girlfriend, we've got to clean the crud out of the undercarriage before we even think about flying this thing out of here," James chided as he jogged over to the pair, "let's get it going, I don't wanna be out here all night."

Rainbow Dash glided through the sky in the dusk. She'd heard nothing in town of any substance, it was the same story over and over, missed shipments, packages not arriving, missing couriers. The more she heard, the more she thought Twilight was actually on to something, but nothing actually gave her a lead to go on, so she flew.

The road was a thin line below her, high as she was in the sky, but her keen vision made that irrelevant; she may not have been able to count the stones in the road, but she could count every pony she'd seen on it. She was about to turn back for ponyville when she caught a glint of the setting sun reflecting off something in the distance.

She descended, picking up speed as she shed altitude, closing in on the glint. Whatever was giving it off was moving closer to the road. She dropped under the cloud deck moving roughly twice as fast as she'd been moving before when the tingling in her ears started. There was a small caravan in front of her down on the road, and the reflective object was closing in on it from the tree line.

Everything clicked in her mind and she turned to the left and pumped her wings, screaming as she dove for the object, hoping the ponies in the caravan would hear, "Get down!"

Author's Note

apologies if the writing seems a little anemic, big things are planned I'm just... having a hard time getting there.

and, as always, if you like this, you'll like the other stuff I'm writing too, so go click stuff on the side bar!

Stormfront

Pilot's Story

Chapter 23: Stormfront

Rainbow Dash dove.

Wind whistled past her ears as she plunged through the morass of dense muggy air, shouting her warning to the caravan before leveling out and barreling through the tree line.

The last light of day left the forest as a quagmire of muted colors and shifting shapes. Though she could not see the forest for the trees, a single golden glint peered out from the vegetation. The eye of a hunter, lurking nearly out of sight. Excruciating static filled her head as the steely sentinel returned its gaze.

She could hear shouting from the caravan behind her, more surprise than terror. They needed to move quickly. Her lungs ached to yell one more time, warning them of the impending horror.

But she could not.

Every ounce of energy drove the angry stamp of her hooves. Briars and branches tore and snagged at her precious primary feathers as she charged headlong through the undergrowth, her legs pummeling the leafy soil with the stupid consistency of a locomotive’s pistons.

The noise that nopony could hear grew loud and shrill within her mind, a sharp stabbing icy pain that threatened to send her forelimbs clamping across her forehead. The probe rose quickly from it’s still recumbrance, buzzing up and away with all the mimicry of an angry wasp.

It flew. She flew faster.

With a spring loaded leap and a strong flap of her wings, she hurled herself toward the glinting spheroidal object. Her front hooves connected painfully with the outer shell, driving it straight into the solid trunk of a gnarled oak tree. Sparks danced across her fetlocks a she pulled her hooves free, the metal probe fell to the ground, dead. The harsh buzzing within her head went silent, leaving her ears ringing.

A warm wet feeling oozed down through the fur on her face. She rubbed her leg against it, attempting to squeeze away the sweat before it could sting her eyes and blur her vision.

It was blood.

Another metal sphere glinted in the sunlight near the edge of the forest. And another. And another. Her blood ran cold. The buzzing within her head resumed with a ferocious resolve.

She turned quickly towards the road, shouting to the caravan as she tore away from the golden glow in the periphery of her vision.

"Run! Get out of here, try to make it to Ponyville, I'll hold them off!"

A flash of prismatic light filled the cockpit, replaced by the sullen glow of the setting sun. The interior lights flickered and died at the same instant, followed shortly by an urgent and dreadful alarm.

“Sink rate. Sink rate. Sink rate,” the cockpit dashboard droned in a mechanically unconcerned voice.

"The hell was that?" James asked as he stared over at the instrumentation panel, noting that the compass was spinning like a top and the altimeter was dropping rapidly, despite the complete lack of a sensation of descent.

“Engines are fine, flight controls are fine. It’s the avionics going nuts,” Eva remarked after a few terse moments. “What the hell was that flash? Did we get nuked?”

She leaned forward to stare through the side window. A rainbow colored corona tore through the sky in a shallow arc leading toward Ponyville.

“Oh.. my. Tommy, you have to see this. Tommy?” She whipped her head around, but he was nowhere to be seen. “James! Where’s Tommy?”

And then the entire cockpit went dark. Eva toggled the main power disconnect back and forth to no avail, engine displays were dead, avionics was dead, cockpit lights were out, running lights were out. The only light on the flight deck was the orange glow of the rapidly setting sun.

"Tommy--" She started as she turned, only to notice that Tommy was gone, his bag along with him. "James your brother's gone!" She yelled across the cockpit in irritation as she tried to guess their current airspeed.

"He's probably trying to fix this, we've still got engines and flight controls, we can get through this, we're not that far out. Little better than Korea. right?" James asked with a glance across the cockpit. His left hand was gripping the control yoke while his right gripped the throttle quadrant. Eva noticed, for all his trying to keep her calm, his knuckles were white from the death-grip he had on the controls.

A vivid magenta aura passed through the cockpit suddenly, sending sparks from a few of the consoles before passing through the windscreens. The instrumentation sprang back to life almost immediately thereafter. Engine readouts slid back into the green, altimeter and airspeed indicators rose back to their original positions and the cockpit illumination came back up.

"That was anticlimactic." James deadpanned.

"Dash went supersonic..." Eva said dumbly as she watched the prismatic trail arc through the sky.

"She can do that?" James asked incredulously.

"Yeah... she can, at least she said she can. 'Sonic Rainboom' she called it, I've never seen one but that fits the bill," she said as she gestured with her forehoof, "I don't like this, something isn't right here. I'm throttling up, we need to hurry back."

Her hoof pressed the throttle levers forward and the engines responded with a louder exhaust note and the needles on the gauges climbed higher in the green arc.

"Easy, don't push it too hard," James warned as the airspeed indicator rose.

"Somehow I think that's the least of our problems."

The tears streamed from her eyes as the wind whipped through her mane. She passed low across the tree tops, the ambushed caravan in the distance behind her as her momentum carried her closer to Ponyville, closer to safety. Her courage had failed her, the fear set in and she ran.

I felt the yoke of her guilt resting upon her as she descended towards the town, the first buildings already showing on the horizon. There was a time in her life that nothing would have stopped her, she'd have fought to the bitter end. She'd gone up against that manticore, and yet those stupid metal balls drove her off.

'I couldn't win... They told me to run, I had to run!' she thought with a look of disgust. Disgust at herself, disgust at letting them injure her, disgust for letting them wear her down, take the fight from her. Disgust for running away.

But she continued forward, she couldn't go back, couldn't fight them any more, not then. The first time a pony sees a dead body changes them a little, and she'd seen it happen....

'No! Not like this!' The thought blazed through her mind, fighting back against the fear, the pain. She grit her teeth and dropped her left wing, curling into a tight u-turn as she snapped her wings down with a powerful flap. The mach cone narrowed as she tore a hole through the sky.

'If I can't save them... I'll avenge them!'

"Reversing thrust now!" Eva yelled as she reversed the pitch of the propellers, she felt the g-forces pressing her into her harness as the plane bounced along the grass. Short field landings were never fun, and the patched-together nature of this aircraft made it more harrowing than normal.

Forward velocity was bled into the brakes as they bounced along the uneven terrain; one of the cleared pastures that Applejack had 'donated' the use of. The engines dropped in pitch as Eva pulled the throttles back, the bouncing smoothed out as the craft rolled to a stop.

"Well, that could have gone worse. I'm gonna head down and check on my brother, you think you can take care of things up here?" James asked with a grin as he pulled his headset off and slid out of his seat.

"Yeah, I've got it handled..." Eva trailed off, not paying much attention to her friend as her hooves slid across the panels, running through a few post flight checks; making sure nothing was knocked out by the interference during the flight.

She felt a slight vibration through the deck, one of them must have opened the ramp. The sound of a diesel engine cranking up a few seconds later confirmed her assumption. "Well they're not wasting any time..." she muttered as she finally pushed her headset off. She pressed a few more toggles, shutting the engines down and disconnecting the main battery.

The sudden sound of hooves on the deck plate startled her, she caught the sight of a cornflower blue coat out of the corner of her eye and turned to face the unicorn she knew it belonged to. "Trixie? I thought you'd be outside by now. What brings you up here?"

The mare laughed nervously, "I was checking to see if that magic dispelling spell had worked and... I guess it did." She hesitated and continued, "things have been... different, lately. I know you used to be just like them but..." she trailed off and stared out the window.

"But... you wanted something familiar," Eva finished with a smile, "I know what you mean, when we were in Korea we'd hang out with anybody who looked like they were from our part of the world, even if we'd never met before. Helps make you feel less like an outsider."

Trixie looked over at the pilot and tipped her head, "Maybe you're right. I don't even know why I'm here. Something about all of this drew me in, made me think that maybe this would be the next big thing I'd do with my life." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "You know, I hadn't felt like this since my first show, when I started performing years ago. Maybe what I learn will help me with my shows or..."

Eva leaned forward in her seat, a soft smile on her face, "Well, go on?"

Trixie paced the cockpit a few times, her eyes wondering between the various panels and displays, "Well, Cutie marks are supposed to be a representation of what a pony is supposed to do with her life, her special talent, the thing that makes her unique. It's destiny but... What if you're destined for something greater? What if your special talent isn't the only thing you have... or what if it's not what you thought it was?"

"I've never been one to believe in destiny. Maybe there's a higher purpose... maybe there isn't, but I've always believed that your 'destiny' is whatever you make it out to be. I think that ponies are a lot like humans, everything so far has lead me to believe that's the case, so I think you've got the potential to do whatever you want with your life, even if it's not what you thought you were going to be doing with it," Eva explained as she dropped out of her chair onto all fours, "Maybe you're going to go back to show magic, maybe you're going to become the next Tommy, but either way I think that's up to you, not destiny."

Trixie hummed and scrunched her face up a bit in thought, "You really think so? Maybe you're right. I'm supposed to be good at magic, but--"

Trixie was cut off by yelling from the cargo bay, James was sprinting up the ramp, his face red, his breathing labored, "We got a problem!"

The loud whip-crack of teleportation pierced the air as Twilight snapped into existence on the edge of Ponyville. Her head immediately started to pound as a familiar loud buzzing filled her ears. Those metal 'probe' things were pouring out of the everfree in mass numbers, a quick count had her well over fifty. "This is really bad..."

Ponies fled from the outskirts of town, seeking the illusion of refuge within dark alleys and between wooden walls. They huddled in the broad daylight of the machine’s infrared vision.

Twilight flinched as a hoof tapped her shoulder. She turned with a start, coming face to face with the Doctor’s wild shifting eyes, a manic expression conveying the sense of ‘I have a plan for everything - except possibly this’.

A breath of relief burst forth from her chest, but it did not last.

“Doctor, what should we do? I’ve sent word to Celestia, but I don’t know if they’ll make it in time!”

The Doctor looked out over the forest, and then back towards town, his face twisted up in a grimace.

"I imagine Eva and her friends will want to fight. You need to get as many ponies out of here as possible, evacuate the town. No shelters here are going to be strong enough, they've got to get out, flee towards Canterlot!"

“But they’re coming too quickly! Somepony has to slow them down,” Twilight shouted over the oncoming roar of the drones.

Without hesitation, she turned and leveled her horn towards the encroaching formation, charging her horn and letting loose with a bright purple lance of arcane energy, obliterating one of the darting spheroids in a shower of sparks.

The Doctor reared onto his hind legs and slid a metal cylinder out of a pocket into his hoof, it emitted a loud buzzing that seemed to counteract the buzzing given off by the drones. He swung his hoof wide as a drone buzzed close, a glow emitted from the end of the device as the drone fell from the sky and bounced along the road, inert.

The Doctor pursed his lips, failing to hide his admiration of the raw destructive force unleashed from the meekish librarian.

“You don’t think I’m going to let you go it alone, do you?” he shouted in no particular direction as he struck another drone at a distance with a high pitched buzz from his silvery implement.

“Come on, we’ve got to get to the library! Take as many magazines as you can carry. There’s enough guns in the basement of that place to stock a whole militia, but the only ammo we got till we get there is what we can take.”

Eva explained as she wheeled a dirt bike down the loading ramp, "We're going to push for the library, from there try to arm as many as we can and drive them back, failing that we'll stall them long enough for a full evacuation."

"Tommy, I'm going with Eva!" James yelled as he ran down the ramp towards the mare, his rifle was already slung across his chest as he rounded the corner out of the cargo bay. Age was catching up with him, his brow was already damp from even that short sprint.

"No," Eva said, shaking her head, "Tommy can't fly this thing out of here, we've got to get as many ponies out as possible before the town is overrun, take as many as you can and make for Canterlot."

"What about you then?" James said, his expression strained, obviously holding back something he didn't feel the need to add to his statement. He shifted to his other foot, looking out at the horizon, towards town. Fires were burning in the distance, the smoke coiling up into the setting sun.

"You know what I'm going to do. Gonna raise some hell,"

She stomped the kick starter and revved the engine into a throaty roar.

“Tommy! Let’s go!” Eva yelled as she spun the throttle and kicked up a cloud of dust. The bike roared into the dusk as her figure shrank and she peeled off towards town.

James turned around to see his brother and the cornflower blue unicorn climbing into the truck, "You watch her. She's right, but... if I can't watch her back, I need to trust you to, Tommy."

The younger man nodded and spared a glance at Trixie, "Yeah, we're not gonna let you down, brother. I'll make sure she comes back to you."

Author's Note

Gonna throw this out there, give me some motivation to do the next chapter some time this year probably. yeah.

One Night Stand: Part 1

Pilot's Story

Chapter 24: One Night Stand: Part 1

"Giant Killer, This is Interloper Two; Interloper flight is in the A.O. Airspace is clear, proceeding on run."

Eva blinked, her eyes stung from the sweat running down her brow, the stick vibrated in her hand. The twin engines droned out their one note song as she cruised through the sky, high above the desert 'What am I doing here again?'

"Three you're drifting."

It was happening again? Her head turned slowly, like she was sunk in cold molasses. The helmet was heavy on her head. She looked up to the mirror, he was still back there. He was alive.

"Snap-on, you see that?" She said into her radio. I didn't... what's going on?'

"Missile plume? SAM launches! Gypsy, break left!"

Her hand clenched around the throttle and threw it forward to the locks as she stood the aircraft on its left wing and hauled back on the stick. The strike eagle slammed her back in the seat as it tore through the sky, screaming as it ejected flares, lighting up the sky like the Forth of July as it fought for speed and distance. The missile couldn't track all of them, and if they were very lucky the missile would track one of the countermeasures instead.

But that's not how it happened this time. She knew the inevitable, and she couldn't stop it this time, not any more than she could change the past.

She sucked in a greedy lungful of air as her eyes snapped open. The scent of burning oil and gasoline assaulted her senses, the smoke burnt her eyes. She forced herself off the hard cobblestone and blinked away the sting in her eyes, took in the wreckage around her and the sound of weapons-fire in the distance.

Some of it wasn't distant enough, as evidenced by her crash. "Ugh... Head wounds are never fun," she muttered as she felt the knot growing on her head with the side of her fetlock. Her rifle hung heavily on her back.

"Miss, are you alright? We've got to get out of here!" A feminine voice called over to her.

Her ears swiveled and she turned to face the speaker, a soot stained mare, she couldn't see what color she was under all the marring. There must have been more than one fire, or maybe she was out longer than she thought and it spread. "H-hey! Uh..." she stumbled as the thoughts slowly clicked into place in her head, the reason why she'd come in the first place. "Hey, is the library still standing?"

The other pony blinked and looked off towards the direction of the library, the sound of fighting and the smell of fire thick on the air. "It.. It was, a few minutes ago. Listen you can't go there, it's not safe, we've got to get out of here before they get us!"

Eva pushed herself onto her hooves and shook her head, a slight smirk creeping onto her face as she looked off in the direction of the conflict, "No, I'm afraid not. I came here with a clear goal in mind. No running for this old mare, I'm here to fight." Her wings spread out with a slight shudder and gave a few experimental flaps.

She started towards the library and hesitated, turned back to face the other mare, "Head west to sweet apple acres, tell anyone you find to go with you, you'll find help there."

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth against the pain as the wind whipped through her fur and feathers, exhaustion and blood-loss added up to a struggle to stay in the air. Adrenaline kept her awake, obligation and duty gave her strength. Her friends would need to know, would need to be warned.

She hadn't saved them. She hadn't been strong enough, hadn't been fast enough... and she'd surrendered to dark impulses. Rage, hate, revenge. And it... hadn't felt bad. It gave her a measure of satisfaction to end the abominations that had taken those ponies, each swing, each kick, had relieved the anger she felt. 'Is that what I should become?' she thought as she descended below the clouds, seeing the dim glow of the town below. 'I should be better than revenge... but maybe that's part of loyalty.'

She let out a sigh of relief when she saw the dim glow separate out into individual pinpricks, the light of street lamps and windows. Thatched rooftops and cobblestone streets, soon she'd be back, and she could rest--

"Those aren't street lights... that's--oh no!" she yelled as her heart rate jumped, adrenaline flowed through her bruised and battered body and her wings gave a mighty pump as she accelerated towards the town. She grit her teeth harder, not from the pain that suddenly seemed less important, but in a growing rage building deep inside of her. Her fears about becoming something dark had evaporated in the instant that she saw what was happening to ponyville.

She might not have enough left in her for another rainboom, but that didn't mean that she was out of the fight... not when her friends needed her.

"Damnit..." Eva muttered under her breath as she popped the quick release and dropped the shattered scope into the dirt, then raised the rifle back to her shoulder and lined up the irons, rapidly firing off three shots into one of the spheroid drones. Sparks and fire exited from the 'wounds' as it shuddered and dropped to the ground. And then she advanced.

Progress had been slow going, as she had to stop to fire due to her quadrupedal locomotion, yet progress was still being made. 'Being able to fly would make this a lot easier... but right now that would just make me an easier target.'

And the library was close, two hundred, two hundred fifty yards ahead. A few branches were broken, scorch marks on the trunk, small fires here and there, but it was still standing. She pushed forward, gritting her teeth against the wounds she'd taken over the last few days, some having healed more than she would have thought possible, while others were still fresh, the ache and sting still fresh with each movement of her skin.

Her ears snapped forward automatically, tracking a new unfamiliar sound up ahead. A hash metallic squeal and a deep low frequency thrumming sound trickled into her ears, her eyes scanned the road looking for the source. "What the he--" she started as the sound of a diesel engine interrupted her thoughts. Her ears rotated again, behind her, and she turned to see a truck turning a corner and approaching, trailing smoke and the dust kicked up from the cobblestone road.

The engine dropped in pitch as the driver slowed the truck to a stop, the brakes engaging with a soft hiss as the suspension settled. The engine finally wound down into silence as the driver killed the fuel and the lights.

Eva grinned and waved a hoof at the driver as he came into focus through the windshield, the glare from the lights having died down, "Hey, took you long enough! Thought you got lost!"

The door clicked open and the truck rocked to the side as the driver climbed down out of the cab, leaving the door conspicuously open as he hit the stone road, "Ah well, you know how it is. Took a left at Memphis instead of a right, had to go the long way around."

"Yeah, I know how that is," she answered, keeping the joke going. She paused, and her voice turned serious, "still, good of you to make it. Resistance has been light so far, not sure if the attackers are somewhere else, or if we're too late. Found a few survivors and sent them out to meet your brother. We need to get to the guns and mount a defense or... a counter offensive. If we can't push them back, we'll have to evacuate who we can and try to hold out for reinforcements or..." she paused, her ears pivoting over towards the truck again as the sound of hooves on steel reached her.

Trixie hopped down out of the cab with a sharp click of her hooves hitting the cobblestone, she hauled a bag out of the truck behind her and dropped it on her back, "or, we all can run or die fighting? Is that what you were going to say?"

Eva nodded her head, "That's about the size of it, yeah. Unless you've got a better idea; I'm all ears."

The cornflower unicorn raised her head and stepped to the front of the crowd, in front of the truck and facing deeper into the town, "I had some time to think, about what I've done, and what you've said about it, and about me... and about all the ponies here. Maybe, Trixie, maybe I am not the best most powerful unicorn in Equestria... but you know what?" she paused as she shuffled the bag off her back and onto the ground, the sound of metal clanking against metal came through the thick canvas as her magenta magic lit up and unzipped it.

A Dozen or so metal fence posts rolled out onto the cobblestone, each one plucked up in her magical grasp as they formed an array above her, suspended in her magical field "I can always learn a new trick."

Eva whistled, impressed with the mare's control and her courage. It might not be much, but if her time with and as a pony had taught her anything, it was that every little bit, no matter how inconsequential, could do more than you'd imagine.

"Walkers!" Tommy yelled out, "up ahead, look like infantry or something, nothing like the probes before!"

The two ponies turned, Eva raised her rifle and fired the first shot, catching what appeared to be a man-sized walked in center mass, stunning it and shooting sparks everywhere but not stopping it cold. "Not good, find the vitals!" she yelled as she readied another shot.

Trixie's eyes lit up as her makeshift spears started to let fly, each tracking an independent target and punching through their chest armor, some had even been nailed to the structures behind them, however temporarily.

Eva fired another shot into the next shot into the center of a pinned robots neck and was rewarded with the automaton shaking and twitching violently before falling still. She sighed as she scanned for other targets to fire on, "Looks like zombie rules, aim for the head and neck, that seems to work!"

From the corner of her eye she saw Trixie's head drop, her fur standing on end as her eyes turned white, her horn lighting up with another intense burst of magic. She looked down at the row of robots that had been impaled and watched with wide eyes as the fence posts exploded into thousands of fragments, explosively shredding their targets from the inside.

And then she watched Trixie fall, and saw Tommy running to her side. Eva fired a few more rounds into the broken machines and turned to the truck, "Get her out of the road, let's push for the library and load up, we... well we won't be fine but we'll be better off when we get there. I don't like this new development at all, either way.

Author's Note

Couldn't deal with leaving it hanging for any longer, more soon, i hope.

Pegasus 550

Pilot's Story

Chapter 1: Pegasus 550

A rainbow flash blinded the pilot as her aircraft shuddered and popped. ‘The hell was that?’ she thought to herself as she tried to blink away her flash blindness, she felt like she'd been staring at a lit flare. The rhythmic humming of the DC-3’s engines reassured her that the aircraft, at least, was functioning after the…whatever it was that had resulted in the bright flash.

She blinked again and her eyes snapped wide open, she saw--'What the hell is that?' she thought as she gritted her teeth and slammed the throttle forward on the number two engine and stomped hard on the left rudder pedal as she hauled the control yoke back and to the left, throwing the aircraft into a hard bank.

The aircraft strained and shook as it was forced into a maneuver it was never designed for to avoid the… ‘coliseum of clouds?’ she thought, unsure of what it was that she had seen. She felt the entire aircraft lurch as the underside of the fuselage struck something. The number two engine stalled out, she cut the ignition and pulled back the mixture. ‘One engine down…not good.’

She cleared the cloud coliseum at the expense of altitude and inertia. She shoved the number one engine’s throttle to the locks as she fought the aircraft, the stall warning screamed in the cockpit, her altimeter clicked down rapidly as the one running engine roared at full throttle.

As she leveled out of the slip she saw a red barn and a grassy field, she could land there, it would be rough but she doubted she was going to keep it in the air anyway; low slow and heavy on one engine, no time to gain enough speed to stop the descent but maybe enough to slow it.

The thousand horsepower engine torqued the aircraft hard to the right as she compensated with rudder, her fingers clumsily slammed down on the starter switch for the number two engine, a last ditch effort to start it back up before she was forced to set down…somewhere. She had no idea where she was, she’d been cruising at eleven thousand feet over the ocean before the flash and found herself under five hundred and no water in sight afterwards.

Reaching over her head she flipped the ignition on and pressed down on the starter switch, the starter chugged as the propeller on the number two engine started to spin, but it wouldn’t fire. Cursing under her breath she feathered the propeller and activated the landing gear, the dexterity in her fingers started to fail her but the stress of the situation distracted her from that fact.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Pegasus five-five-zero, declaring an emergency, have lost engine power and have insufficient altitude to recover, am making an emergency landing, location unknown, setting transponder to seventy seven hundred” she yelled into her radio headset as she hauled back on the control yoke.

The aircraft pulled into a shallow stall and settled onto the ground, rolling along the grassy field with the occasional shudder transmitting through the airframe as she cut ignition to the remaining engine and shut off the fuel control valves.

She leaned heavily on the wheel brakes to slow the aircraft to a stop. The pain in her gut now too much to ignore, she let out a loud groan as she pushed herself out of the pilot’s seat, her vision starting to blur again as she struggled with her harness. An inhuman scream forced its way out of her throat as she thrashed.

Bones were shifting, breaking, reforming; it felt like her entire body was being crushed under a massive weight while being stretched like taffy. Her harness snapped and she crashed out of her chair onto the deck of the plane as consciousness finally left her.

The crowd cheered as she landed on the clouds, a hero’s feat; she’d dove to rescue her friend and in the process created the second sonic rainboom of her life. Rainbow Dash basked in the attention, all of her training had paid off… even if it wasn’t in the way she had originally planned.

The rumble of the crowd continued as she shook a little from the adrenaline still pumping through her, grabbing four ponies out of a free fall of certain doom had taken its toll on her, but she held together.

The rumble grew louder and the cyan mare blinked, the crowd wasn’t making that noise. She pumped her wings and shot back into the air in spite of her exhaustion, whatever it was it sounded angry and she had to see what it was; a great metal monster charging towards her, the stadium, her friends. She turned back and saw that everypony had gone silent and was listening to the same rumble she heard, she locked eyes with Princess Celestia and saw recognition in them.

The alicorn launched herself into the air with a flap of her large powerful wings, flying towards Dash with purpose and speed. The metal beast roared louder as it shot over the top of the stadium, the reflective metal flashing sunlight through the crowd.

Celestia’s eyes widened, “Aircraft? No, not here, not now…” she whispered to herself. She grit her teeth and her horn shone as bright as a star; she let fly a bolt of magic that slammed hard into the plane's wing, arcing across and scorching the sheet metal skin.

“Humans…” she said softly under her breath, legitimately afraid for the first time in a long time.

“It looks like it’s going towards Sweet Apple Acres…” Dash said as she flew over to the princess, “Should… should we do something?”

She stirred with a groan, the pain in her head reminding her of what a tree must feel like when it meets the axe. “Ugh… it’s not a fighter jet… remember that.” She said as she pushed herself to her feet. Her legs felt strange, weak, awkward. She reached to either side and grabbed onto the cockpit door frame to balance herself as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.

A hoof. There was a hoof at the end of her arm and it was grabbing onto the door frame… somehow. She pulled back but it was stuck, she turned her head to the left and that arm had a hoof as well, which was still stuck to the door frame.

She let out a yelp of panic and let go of the door frame, falling backwards into the cockpit and found herself looking up at a mirror on the ceiling. A light grey horse looked back at her.

She screamed.

The horse screamed.

She stopped screaming, the horse stopped screaming.

She reached up to grab at her face and the horse did the same, pulling at its features as she pulled at her own, it was wearing a headset just like hers as well. She stuck her tongue out and wiggled it around, making strange faces at the equine when she came to a startling revelation.

“I’m a horse.” She laughed in a slightly unhinged way as she sat back up, “A horse of course!” She looked down at her hooves and chuckled softly, "I've still seen weirder shit than this, just wish I could remember when..."

Still laughing in the face of absurdity, the pilot-turned-mare slid her headset off of her head and into the pilot’s seat, reaching up to cut off power from the main battery, wouldn’t do her any good to run the battery dead, not that she could take off on one engine anyway.

“Or fly a plane as a horse, I guess.” She said to herself as she climbed back to her hooves, walking awkwardly on her hind legs towards the door at the rear of the plane, reaching out to grab the edges of the crates lining the side of the walkway every time she started to lose her balance.

She stopped near the rear door and retrieved the brush gun from beside the door, looping the sling around her neck and hanging the rifle from her back, not one to enter unfamiliar territory without being armed, who knew what kind of wild life there was around here?

Judicious application of hoof to the release mechanism caused the sticky latch to release and the door to drop down into a staircase, which she descended with the help of the hand rail “Or is it hoof rail now?” she wondered aloud as she stepped into the sunlight, looking out over the grassy field, "Definitely not Alaska."

'Okay...' she thought to herself, 'No idea where this is, and you're a horse... Deal with what you can deal with, freak out later, right let's go.'

She stumbled over to the engine on the right wing, the one that had failed in flight. At fifteen feet she already had a very good idea of what was wrong, the nacelle was covered in carbon scoring from an electrical strike, a powerful one at that, ducking under the wing she opened up the access panel and frowned, “Magnetos are shot, that’ll do it. I’ve got a spare in cargo somewhere… suppose I could scavenge one off the number one engine but then I’m in trouble if I lose one…”

She sighed and pushed the panel closed “not that I’m not screwed anyway.” She stepped back from the engine and pushed on the propeller with a hoof, it turned, a good sign if nothing else was, she figured. Stepping back she noticed that there was oil running down the right landing gear, likely blew a shock absorber while landing, not surprising and not crippling, fortunately.

She whistled to herself as she checked around the aircraft, making sure nothing was too damaged in the forced landing. She was glad that she could still whistle, this horse thing would take getting used to but it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.

“Could have hit the ground at two hundred miles per hour and died on impact” she reasoned.

She heard footsteps in the grass behind her… no, hoofclops. She turned around and then had to look up to meet the eyes of the most angry looking mare she’d ever seen, not that she’d seen an overabundance of angry mares, she was, needless to say (but it’ll be said anyway) intimidated by the sharp looking horn and impressive wingspan of the much larger mare.

She raised her own hooves in a placating gesture as she leaned back against the side of the aircraft, “Don’t suppose you wanna talk about it? maybe over an alfalfa pellet?"

Mr. Daniels, Mr. Beam, & Mr. Williams

Pilot's Story

Chapter 9: Mr. Daniels, Mr. Beam, & Mr. Williams

"Tommy, you said you had something?" The man asked as he crossed the threshold of the lab, the glow of dozens of monitors lighting up the otherwise dark room. "Did you find her?" he asked with a hint of hope in his voice.

"Tachyons, and I feel like I'm going crazy because the mere proposition is completely bat-shit insane, but yeah, I think I know where she is, and this is the bat-shit insane part..." Tommy started, looking up at the other man before he turned the monitor in front of him around so the other man could see, "It's not where, it's when."

"So, in English that means what? Throw me a bone Tommy, you got all the brains in the family." The other man said, his voice thick with incomprehension as he started at, and found that he couldn't make any sense of, the monitor.

Tommy turned the monitor back around and slipped his glasses off, rubbing his eyes, "Time travel. It's impossible, and at the same time I can't think of any other explanation for the tachyons." He sighed and slipped his glasses back on, "We're diving deep into science fiction here, and there's no real rational basis for it, but if what I'm seeing is tachyons, and they behave like they theoretically should, than whatever caused this hasn't happened yet, and if we assume she went to where it happened..."

"Then she's in the future, I get it, so how do we follow her and bring her back?"

"Hey Dash, help me carry some of this, would ya?" Eva asked as she hung tail-first out of the forward cargo door on the DC-3.

Dash could hear some commotion, burlap on steel scraping, and a few seconds later she saw Eva drop out of the compartment, dragging three duffel bags with her. "What's with the bags?" she finally asked the scorched pilot-mare.

Eva jumped up and flapped her wings hard, as she reached the door she hoofed it shut, and then dropped back to the ground. "Luggage." she answered simply, reaching down and flipping one of the bags onto her back with her teeth. The bag settled down on her back, sagging on either end. After flinging a second bag onto her back she ducked her head through the sling of her rifle and settled it against the pair of duffels.

"I guess I'll take this one then." Dash said flatly as she picked up the third and final bag. "So, where are you staying anyway?" she asked as they started a slow walk towards the town.

"Oh, Twilight said I could stay with her for a few days... I wonder if Celestia had anything to do with that..." she trailed off, considering the idea as she continued towards the treebrary, as she'd come to call it.

"I wouldn't be surprised, Twilight is her 'most faithful student'" Dash explained, positioning her forehooves in an approximation of air quotes. Somehow she managed to not fall on her face while doing it, Eva noted with some apprehension.

"I thought I'd heard something like that." Eva commented, shifting herself a little to re-balance the load of duffel bags, "So, what kind of fun is there around here? Preferably on the ground, if possible."

"Well there's... Bowling?" Dash suggested with a wingshrug, "I usually nap on clouds or fly for fun so... yeah."

"Well, any place to drink?" Eva asked hopefully as they approached the front door of Twlight's tree.

"Um, most places that sell food sell drinks." Dash said, raising an eyebrow.

"...Not what I meant-" Eva started as she hoofed open the front door.

"So anyway- Oh hi!" Eva heard, the speaker was a painfully pink pony.

'Pinker than anything should be allowed to be' Eva thought, "And you would be Pinkie Pie, right?"

"How'd ya guess?"

"Oh hell no, hijacking? Are you out of your fucking mind, James?!" The younger man yelled incredulously.

"It's not hijacking, it's borrowing, it's Eva's plane for shit's sake!" 'James' yelled back, "It's not like she's here to give us permission and we're doing it to bring her back, I don't see the problem!"

"No, you're right James, no problem at all, in fact, I can have new business cards made, I can see it now: 'Thomas Bolton: Astrophysicist, Terrorist, Thief, Hijacker.' I bet I could get work with one of those fundamentalist groups!" He yelled, his face red.

"Tommy, she was there for me when she didn't have to be, we're not leaving her there. I'm doing this, with or without you." James said quietly to his younger brother.

The scientist sighed, "You know what, fuck it. Let's do this, but when we end up in prison I get the top bunk, and you get to be the one to tell mom and dad."

"She's energetic." Eva said, her voice completely devoid of all emotion as she sat slack-jawed in her chair at the table. "Like a force of nature, or a lightning storm, or something." She continued, blinking away her shell-shock. "I didn't know... that that many words... how..."

"Pinkie Pie is... Pinkie Pie, you just gotta get used to her." Dash said, stifling a laugh as she took in Eva's shocked expression.

"I bet." Eva said simply as she ducked her head down to the side, there was a sound of a zipper being pulled open and then the sound of glass on glass as she pulled her head up and set two bottles on the table, repeating the process for a third, "And now we drink."

"Drink?"

"Yes, alcohol, I need to drink alcohol." Eva said, gesturing a hoof at the three bottles, "I'd like to introduce you to my good friends, Mister Daniels, Mister Beam, and Mister Williams."

"Oh! That's what you meant by drinking, alright, I'll go get some shot-glasses" The technicolor pegasus said as the connection was made in her brain. She got up from the table and trotted over to the cupboards and left Eva with her thoughts.

"So, I guess they don't have the same euphemisms here, makes sense... I guess..." she said softly to herself as she twisted the caps off of the bottles.

There was a clink as dash set a tray of six shot glasses down on the table, Eva grinned. "Hey Dash, how about we play a drinking game, ponies have drinking games right?"

Dash nodded as she took a seat across from the gray pegasus, "Yeah, what did you have in mind?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, it's a really fun game, it's called 'Take-A-Shot', the rules are really similar to another game I like to play called 'Drink-A-Beer'" Eva explained, her grin pushing farther and farther towards her ears. "The rules are simple: You drink a shot, if you finish the shot, your reward for finishing the shot is that you get to drink another shot."

"And if you can't finish the shot?" Dash asked, her eyebrow edging higher, nearly hidden under her vibrant mane.

"If you can't finish the shot, your punishment is that you have to drink another shot. First one to pass out loses." Eva finished, smirking as she started to pour the amber whiskey into shot-glasses, two of each type, and split them between the two ponies, "Wanna play?"

"Sure... If you feel like losing." Dash said with a smirk as she slammed one of the shots back, her face twisted up and she coughed into her hoof, "That's... strong."

Eva gave a nonchalant shrug and threw back the first shot, rapidly followed by the second and third, and swallowed them down in one big gulp, flinching slightly as she slammed the third shot-glass down on the table, "Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"

"Oh, it's on." Dash said before double-hoofing her two remaining shots and choking them down. "Eyaaaaaahhh!" she roared her battle-cry, followed by another coughing fit as the burn filled her mouth.

Eva grinned like the Cheshire cat. "Oh? Little Dashie can't handle her booze?" Eva taunted as she refilled her own shot-glasses.

Rainbow Dash leaned menacingly forward over the table, her nose inches from Eva's , her eyes narrowed, "Pour the shots, mare."

"Ooooooooooooooh, There once was a mare from nantucket-" The highly inebriated pair sang loudly and off-key as they stumbled down the cobblestone streets of Ponyville, each with a foreleg wrapped around the other's shoulders, holding each other up in the dwindling daylight.

"She liked to drink beer by the bucket!" The drunken mares continued as they stumbled against a produce cart, rebounding off and back into the streets.

"After drinking the gallon, she said to the stallion, 'if your'-" There was a loud popping noise and suddenly the pair found themselves cut off by an angry looking unicorn standing in front of them.

"If you're done acting like foals, maybe you should go to sleep before you scream something vulgar in the middle of town!" Twilight hissed at them at them, grabbing the pair by the ears and teleporting them back into the library.

The hammered pegasi fell away from each other and started laughing, Eva rolled a lazy eye over at Twilight, "Whhhy shyou gocha be sucha killjoy, shyou mah mother?"

"What... Twilightsh yer mom... hehehehehehe." Dash cackled, flopping around on the ground.

Twilight stared in disbelief at the pair before she double face-hoofed, "This is gonna be a long night."

"Alright, we've got the guns, the supplies, the fuel, and the transportation, we'll move out tomorrow night. You're sure you can re-open the rift?" James asked his brother as they planned out their operation in the lab.

"I should be able to get us through it, but we'll have to fly through almost the exact same area of airspace as she did, I can probably get us plus or minus five days, that's all I can guarantee, and I'm hesitant to even offer that." Tommy explained as he soldered another connector onto the device.

James nodded at his brother and walked over to another desk, sitting down with a sigh as he looked down a picture in his hand, it was old and faded, of himself and a woman, though he was much younger in the photo. "Eva... We're coming."