Pilot's Story

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."

"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.