The Brothers Don't

Somewhere in Equestria, a bluebird flew over a vast forest. He wasn't a baby bluebird anymore, but only just! His mother had begun teaching him how to fly not one week ago, and he was already getting the hang of it.

Flying was all about making sure that the forces acting on the little bluebird—forces pulling him down, pushing him forward, lifting him higher—were balanced in such a way that his wings and body allowed air to stream around him uninhibited, keeping him gently afloat. While he understood this in theory, he began to wonder what would happen if that airflow was interrupted.

Curious, the little bluebird pushed his tail feathers straight down, disrupting the air underneath his body that provided a lifting force. Almost immediately, the bluebird's slowed to a crawling pace and began to fall backwards toward the scary forest below.

Of course, the little bluebird had muscles in his neck, wings, and body that quickly allowed him to backflip, flap a few times, and regain speed and altitude, with a deeper understanding of the forces of flight than he had before the experiment.

Unfortunately, the Film Flam Brothers' military commissioned aircraft had no muscles whatsoever, and when its hatch dropped open in mid-flight much like the tail feathers of the little bluebird, the gigantic machine buckled backward, shooting its nose straight up at the sky—and then began to fall.

"Ooohhh..." Flash Sentry's vision blurred. "I knew this would happen..." As his consciousness slipped away, his body went completely limp moments before the craft and everypony on board began to freefall.

"Zephyr!" Shining Armor screamed.

Zephyr looked terrified. "Wh-what's going on?"

"You've crashed the plane, you idiot!" Spitfire screamed. Before she could say another word, she noticed Flash's body floating limply near the sideways cots. "Flash! Wake up!" She moved to his side with one flap of her wings and began to slap Flash across the face over and over.

Zephyr looked down through the open hatch at the snow covered mountains below, fast approaching. "I-I-I didn't mean—!"

Macintosh grabbed onto the staircase railing. Shining yelled to him, "Macintosh! Can you get up to the first floor? See what the pilots can do!"

Nodding, Macintosh pulled himself diagonally toward the top level of the craft. Shining, meanwhile, swam through the air to a petrified Zephyr. His flailing limbs accidentally hit the pegasus in the face.

"Ouch!" Zephyr flipped upside down and turned away. "Hey, that hurt!"

"You deserved it!" Shining yelled. "You may have just killed us all!"

Using his wings, Zephyr realigned himself with Shining and gulped. "Well, not all of us. There are pegasi aboard."

A throat-shredding roar erupted from Shining Armor. He reached out and grabbed Zephyr around the middle.

Panicked, Zephyr flapped his wings wildly. The two stallions whipped around the lopsided underbelly of the craft and then, caught by a gust of cold wind, were pulled out into the open air above the frozen north.

Mad with rage, Shining wrestled Zephyr as they plummeted farther and farther away from the craft. A loud noise from above caught both of their attentions. They looked up to see the engines under the aircraft's wings begin to glow. It stopped falling and shrunk in the sky as Shining and Zephyr continued downward. Spitfire and a wobbly Flash dove out of the bottom of the plane, but didn't come to their rescue. Instead, they flew up to the nose of the craft and slammed into it, rotating the whole thing forward.

The forces of flight were still not on their side, however, and the overpowered engines launched the craft in a rainbow-like arc. Mortified, Shining watched it nick the peak of a distant mountain and crash, sliding down the far side and out of his sight.