Chapter 1: Stranded

“Hey Rainbow, Rainbow!” I heard Scootaloo yell as she ran up to me with her wings buzzing behind her.

“Hey squirt, what’s up?” I asked as I came out of my near nap, completely dumbfounded and half in a daze.

“He replied, that’s what!” She screamed, causing me to have to poke my ear to equalize the pressure.

“Okay, okay, settle down and spill, preferably with less volume.” I ordered as I pointed to the spot next to me under the mighty oak tree.

“Remember that bomber pilot I met awhile back, during the Hearth's Warming Dance?” She asked, to which I nodded in reply, stifling a yawn. “Well, he said that it’s a date!”

“Wait, what? Date?” I asked sitting up a bit more as I turned to face her.

“Yeah, a couple of months ago I told him if he ever got the time off that I’d love to go on a date with him, and well, look!” She resumed shouting as she bounced with joy.

“I took the paper from her after she settled down a bit and stopped vibrating,

‘Dear Scootaloo,

It would be my utmost pleasure to take you into town this coming Friday for that date we had talked about. I’ll meet you at the south gate to Air Base that morning, if you are available and nothing comes up for my crew.

Yours,

Rumble’

I re-read it a couple more times before handing it back to my young friend who had a massive smile plastered on her face, “How did the letter get here?”

“He was already here this morning before we got up, his crew had to land and refuel, so he left this note where I would find it.” She replied, her eyes practically pleading with mine.

“We’ve got an escort op scheduled three days prior, after that nothing.” I said, neither confirming nor denying her the ability to go on this date.

“Understood, so if nothing comes up?” She asked, and yet again I nodded.

For a time we both sat there saying nothing, her barely containing her glee, and myself letting Celestia’s midday sun warm me thoroughly as we both watched a flight of P-47s take off. I smiled to myself and gave a small wave to a dark grey and electric blue one piloted by the second best in the squadron and a dear friend who I had a plan for later that night.

“Captain!” A voice yelled in a near begging tone, I felt myself being tugged on as warmth spread through my body. “Cap….? Rainbow Dash………..?” The voice repeated this time with much less vigor, “Dammit, why, oh Luna why?” I recognized the voice now as belonging to Scootaloo as I moved to pat where I thought her head was, only succeeding in finding air.

“Scoots?” I moaned as I opened my eyes to a terrifying sight. I had managed to crash land in a rut, both my wings were missing and the prop was a good four or so feet closer than I would have liked. Directly above me with a look of pure joy was Scootaloo with a large rock in her hands, “Whats up with the rock?”

“Rainbow… You’re alive!” She yelled as she threw the rock away and gripped my shoulder, “We need to get out of here before they come looking!” She said, trying to unbuckle me from my seat.

“Where…? Oh… Yeah that would be a good idea squirt.” I said as I tried to help her help me.

“Don’t move, your wings are both broken and I think your legs aren’t in much better shape.” She said in a panicked tone as she managed to undo the harness holding me in place and began to pull me out of the plane wreck.

I immediately felt pain in my right leg, but chose to tough it out and walk on with her supporting me on my left side. We both managed to get to a cluster of nearby bushes a few seconds before Crystal Soldiers converged on my former craft.

“Überlebende?” I heard one yell.

“Wo ist der Betreiber?” Another asked as we both tried to lay as flat as possible on the hard ground under the bush.

“Suche in der Nähe!” The first one said, this time moving his boot a mere two feet from my face.

The other boots in my vision clicked together as I heard four separate footfalls begin fanning out in search of us,I also knew that if they found us we would be dead, or worse. Looking over slightly I could see Scootaloo silently mouthing a prayer that they wouldn’t find us as she remained stock still. Slowly, ever so slowly I placed my hand on her back and gave a small reassuring smile to let her know that all would be well.

We stayed like that for hours, neither one of us daring to move as my fighter sat before us in its crater. The last soldier had left a few minuets ago, but we didn’t want to push our luck. Looking again towards Scootaloo I saw that she had a multitude of small scrapes and bruises on her face and tearing through her flight suit.

“Hey, you doing okay?” I asked in a near whisper.

“Yeah… yeah.” She replied as she got up slowly and checked around us before standing up fully, “Doing fine, just found a tree on the way down and got stuck for a few minutes, by the time I got free you were falling out of the sky.”

I nodded in a silent reply as I too got up slowly, though my speed wasn’t so much for caution as it was the total amount of pain I was in.

“Question is though, how are you holding up Cap?” She asked, a omnipresent frown upon her face as she helped me out of the bush.

“Aside from the obvious I’d have to say that something is wrong with my right leg, hurts when I put pressure on it.” I replied, wincing as I did just what I said.

With her support we both hobbled over to my fighter, two minutes later I had the rear compartment open and was grabbing what emergency supplies we had to our names.

“Think we could get to the Foghorn Leghorn?” I asked, though to my surprise my friend shook her head.

“On my way down I think I saw a barn close to where it hit, I don’t think so, not in our condition.” She replied as she checked the supplies.

Together we had two loaded .45 cal M-1911 pistols, a couple of knives, four spare ammo clips, two MREs, A flashlight, one canteen filled with water, a first aid kit, compass, and a map of the Crystal Empire. It wasn’t much, but if used properly could very well get us home, or at least to friendly territory.

“So, which way?” I asked, leaning on my plane.

“We need to go south east, I heard that we have a small armor division courtesy of the Solar Empire trying to grab a foothold in the Crystal Empire’s territory, last I heard they were doing fairly well.” Scootaloo responded as she put the map in its holster and strapped the pack on her back.

“Sounds like a plan.” I smiled, a little grim, but it was a smile nonetheless that she gladly returned before supporting my side. I turned my head one last time to my fighter plane, grateful that it had managed to save my life before we hobbled along towards what we hoped was a friendly controlled area.

We had been hobbling along for a couple of hours through whatever kind of foliage we could find. Neither of us had said much of anything else, both in fear of getting found, and out of the sheer concentration while we walked on to not fall. Everytime we came across a road we would find a spot where we had good long stretches on either side, so we would know that we had enough time to cross without getting plowed over by a motor car.

Eventually we came to the edge of the populated area, though scarcely so as it was mostly wooded, and found a rather large stream. When I said stream I should rephrase, it was a raging river, far too deep for us to cross on hoof and in our current conditions. Thus we had to use the small covered bridge and pray that there were no soldiers or anyone else around to see us.

Unfortunately for us, there were two guards walking up and down the bridge.

“Cap, wait here, I’ll take one out nice and quiet and when the other comes to check on him, well, you get the picture.” Scootaloo said as she and I both hobbled at a quickened pace down the side of the river bank and laid on our stomachs.

“And if this fails?” I whispered to her as I tried my best to get even lower than her since I couldn’t very well fight or even stand on my own..

“Well, then we can consider ourselves SOL…” She whispered back with a sly grin before she reached for her knife.

In a span of seconds the first soldier, a buck with a tarnished green crystal hide, had received a face full of cold steel. He never even got the chance to scream before she quickly yet quietly lowered him to the ground and crouched in a ready position. I gave her a nod of approval before grabbing the dead soldier and rummaging through his equipment, one can’t be picky when it comes to survival.

“Quarts wo bist du?” The second soldier asked, her voice taking on a tone of worry.

When she rounded the corner and saw us it seemed as if time itself had slowed to a crawl, her eyes were wide with fear as she reached for her pistol, but she didn’t move nearly fast enough.

“Guten abend” Scootaloo said as she jammed her knife into the side of dark blue crystal mare's head and gave it a twist, killing her before she could scream. “Kinda feel bad about that.” She added as she closed the mare’s eyes before looking at me.

“Why?” I asked, probably the most stupid question I ever could.

“Well, they were just kind of minding their own business, what if that had been us?” She asked, frowning in thought.

“Simple enough, for one it wasn’t us,and for two… they would have killed us if they had found us and we hadn’t, well, you hadn’t killed them first… Survival.” I replied as I slowly closed the eyes of the first dead soldier.

“Reasons I chose to be in a plane instead of on the ground…” Scootaloo added before taking what she could from the mare and helping me up. “Let’s get out of here.”

I nodded my reply as we hobbled back up the small slope and managed to make it halfway down the bridge before we noticed lights coming from behind us. From what I could tell it wasn’t too bright so they had yet to lay eyes upon us so we hobbled as fast as we could before jumping off the side and onto the opposing bank of the river, luckily going under the bridge and providing ample cover.

“Think they saw us?” Scootaloo asked.

“Think they will check for the bodies?” I asked giving her a worried look as I drew my pistol.

We watched with held breaths as the car drove over the bridge and stopped on our side of the river. Three pairs of boots hit the ground in audible haste as the three pairs began to walk around in search of the pair of soldiers we had already dispatched.

“Wo sind die Wächter?” One voice asked as we heard the hooffalls halt above us.

"Ich weiß nicht, Herr, können wir sie nicht finden." Another voice replied from nearby, close enough for both of us to try and squeeze as far into the shadows that we could manage.

“Melden Sie dies ihren Vorgesetzten , wir haben keine Zeit mehr , hier zu verschwenden.” The first voice stated before they all audibly turned and marched back to the motor car and drove off.

We sat in silence a moment praising Luna for her glorious dark night concealing us from our foes before we climbed back up the slope and hobbled our way to the tree line and agricultural areas beyond it. It wasn’t even a full thirty minutes later that Celestia's sun began to rise over the horizon.

“Hey should we stop someplace that they won’t look, you know so we don’t get spotted in the middle of the day?” Scootaloo asked as she paused a moment when we reached a small secluded clearing.

“Yeah, that’s actually a good idea.” I replied, my breath having left me during the crash had never actually returned, thus I was panting slightly.

“We are fairly far from any roads from what I can tell, in fact so long as we stay in this forest we should be alright.” She added as she helped me sit up against a tree without squashing my broken wings.

“Can you take a look at my wings Scoots, I think they may be worse than I initially thought?” I asked, not even trying to look at them myself as I merely looked at her.

What I saw however almost made my heart skip a beat, the look of apprehension on her face and sorrow spoke everything I needed to know.

“Thanks squirt, you can forget I asked.” I said as I closed my eyes, “I’m just going to sleep a bit, wake me up in a couple hours so I can take over watch.” To which the world instantly faded away.

Author's Note

Okay so this chapter was fun to write, though admittedly the German was difficult to add as I tried my best (Sorry if I got any of the translations wrong, I took Spanish when I was in school). Will Dash ever fly again? Where are they going to go next? Will they find friends or only foes? We can only read on to find out!

And now we welcome chaospaladin as my new editor/Proof Reader