Dash lay slumped, her cheek rested against the cold surface of the desk. At the front of the room, Ms. Cheerilee stood in front of a blackboard covered in complex mathematical equations. Ugh. Trig. Dash HATED trig.

The small phone that sat on Cheerilee's desk began to ring. Cheerilee looked back at her class, gave an apologetic smile, set down her chalk, and crossed the room to answer it. As she walked, her hips swayed enticingly, the shape of her figure betrayed by her tight skirt.

Dash alway’s got a kick out of watching Ms. Cheerilee, but not for any lewd reason. Sure, back when she was a freshman and was still going through her ‘gay phase’, Ms. Cheerilee had been a frequent object of Dash’s late-night fantasies. Back then, Cheerilee had only been teaching for a year. She still had the air of a college student about her, and the hormonal thoughts of many a Canterlot High student fixated on her.

Now, though, Dash didn’t focus on her teacher- instead, she enjoyed watching the boy’s in her class. As Cheerilee walked across the room, the gaze of nearly every male was firmly glued on her ass. Dash alway’s got a kick out of seeing her classmate’s faces flush, and struggled to hold in her laughter as more than one boy tried to discreetly adjust themselves.

Cheerilee reached her desk and grasped the phone. As she turned, phone in hand, the many eye’s on her shot off to every other direction, the male students casual ‘dindu nuffin’ appearance about as convincing as a fake whistle.

Dash smirked, amused. However, that brief show was over. Once again, she was bored out of her mind. Of course, Trig was the only class that she didn’t have with at least one of her friends.

Things had been really quiet at CHS for some time. After their trip to Camp Everfree and brief time spent locked in a mirror, they had been living as normal student’s for several months. Her other friends seemed to enjoy the peace and normalcy, but Dash couldn’t stand it.

She turned her head to the side, brushing her hair out of her eyes, and looked out of the window. It was a beautiful, sunny day. The snow was just beginning to melt, it’s illustrious white dulled by the ensuing mud and slush. Across the campus, the white blanket covering the bleachers had nearly melted off, and the field was becoming visible.

Dash gazed out longingly at the field. She had gone nearly two and a half months without playing a single game of any kind. Her grades had been slipping, and Dash’s dad decided that she needed to take a season off to help with her studying.

The phone made a ‘click’ as Ms. Cheerilee hung up. She stood back up, and resumed her lesson. Dash didn’t notice. She was too busy fantasising about the upcoming soccer season. Not only that, but Sunset said that Twilight was going to come back and stay a few days during the spring dance.
As her mind wandered, so did her gaze. She glanced towards the sky, two very distant jet trail’s cut their way across the sky, their source clearly moving at a very high speed. Lucky Dash thought. What she wouldn’t give to be up there, dancing between the clouds.

Dash let out a small sigh, and willed herself up from her desk. She reached down to her notebook, and began to copy the equations into her notes. She glanced at the clock. Another thirty minutes until lunch. Well she thought I might as well pay attention.

______________________________________________________________________________

Many miles above Dash’s seat in CHS, the jet trails broke from their straight lines, curving and twisting like two snakes in a box. Had Dash still been looking out of the window mere seconds later, she would have seen one jet trail abruptly end, it’s head no longer a faint black speck, but rather a churning fireball, the cloudy white of burning jet fuel replaced by an inky black trail of smoke careening towards the ground.

In Everfree Forest, camper’s looked up to the sound of a roaring scream only to see an object trailing black smoke whip past. For the briefest second, the plane seemed to level itself, it’s sheer dive slowed as it leveled off at tree height. A second earlier, and it might have made it.

The plane caught on some particularly tall pine trees, and it’s left wing sheared off, sending what was left spiraling into the lake. For a moment, time seemed to freeze. The camper’s standing on the dock looked at the impact point, dumbfounded.

A secondary explosion erupted, flinging a geyser of water onto the bystanders. Someone screamed.
______________________________________________________________________________

RRRRIIIINNNNNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!! The school bell rang, and Dash let out a sigh of relief. She actually had some semblance of understanding about this. Sure, there was a couple of things she would have to ask Twilight about, but overall, radians weren’t nearly as tough as she thought.

She gathered her papers into a rough stack before shovelling them into her backpack.

“Have a nice day!” Ms. Cheerilee called out as Dash left the room.

“You too, ma’am!” Dash responded. Dash walked out the door, into the bustling hallway. She stopped by her locker, throwing her bag in and grabbing her wallet.

After she payed for her food, she looked across the cafeteria, scanning the room for her friends. Across the room, Dash saw a familiar pink hand shoot into the air. She smiled, and walked over to her friend’s table. She set her food down, and took a seat next to Rarity.

“What’s up, guy’s?” Dash inquired. Most of her friends answered with the typical ‘oh, fine.’ Rarity, however, didn’t look up from her phone. Her eyes were glued to the screen, and she was listening intently through her headphones.

“Whatcha lookin at, Rarity!?” Pinkie asked.

Rarity was broken out of her stupor, and looked up. She took off her headphones, and looked at Pinkie. “I’m sorry, darling, I couldn’t hear you! Haven’t you seen the news?” All she got was a confused glance from the entire table.

“What are ya talkin bout, Rarity?” Applejack asked.

As Rarity unplugged her headphones, turned the volume up, and hit play.

A graphic of the words ‘BREAKING NEWS’ flew across the screen, revealing the two local news anchors. “Shock today after an aircraft was seen plummeting from the sky into the Everfree Lake. With more on the story, we go to Jennifer”

The camera cut to the image of an attractive woman standing on the all-too familiar beach of Camp Everfree. She stood still for a moment, before beginning to speak. “Thank you. Behind me, only a half an hour ago, witnesses describe a small jet of some kind crashing into the lake behind me. Eyewitnesses say that the plane appeared to be heading for the forest, but tried to pull up seconds before impact.” The camera looked over her shoulder, zooming as far as it could on a patch of trees in the background. “As you can see, several trees seem to have been hit. The police have not yet released a statement, though-”

The news report cut out, the visage of the attractive young journalist flashing into black for several seconds before bars of color ran across the screen. A siren wailed- “RRRR...RRRR...RRRR…” The siren caught the attention of several people around the girls, and a small crowd began to form as a robotic female voice called out.

“THIS IS THE NATION EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM. THE OFFICE OF CIVIL DEFENSE HAS ISSUED THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE: THIS IS AN ATTACK WARNING, REPEAT, THIS IS AN ATTACK WARNING. ATTACK WARNING MEANS THAT AN ACTUAL ATTACK AGAINST THIS COUNTRY HAS BEEN DETECTED AND THAT PROTECTIVE ACTION SHOULD BE TAKEN. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ACTION NOTIFICATION. THIS STATION HAS INTERRUPTED ITS REGULAR PROGRAMING AT THE REQUEST OF THE EQUESTRIAN GOVERNMENT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EMERGENCY BROADCASTING SYSTEM SERVING THE CANTERLOT AREA. IF YOU ARE NOT LOCATED…”

Every eye was glued to Rarity’s phone. “An… attack warning? What are we supposed to do?” quired Applejack.

Twilight thought for a moment. “I don’t know, AJ. If we’re under attack, surely someone would have said something before. Plus, since we are deep inside the country, I think we’ll be fine… but I don’t know what to do right now.”

“I’m going to ask Twilight. She’s an actual ruler- she must have dealt with similar situations. I’m sure she’ll know.” Sunset reached into her bag, and grabbed her journal.

“Dear Princess Twilight,
Something terrible has happened. We were just told that an some kind of attack is going to take place against Equestria. We don’t know what to do, and could really use your advice.
-Sunset”

Sunset put down her pen, and closed the book. The sigil on the cover glowed brightly for a moment, before going dark. Sunset opened the book, finding it empty. “Well, she’s got the message. There’s nothing we can do right now.”

A few minutes later, and the book began to glow. Sunset looked down, and anxiously grabbed it. She flipped it open, and read aloud.

“Sunset-
Try to stay calm. Canterlot is central in Equestria, so you are probably alright for the time being. I had something to do, but this sounds much more serious. I have to wrap up a couple of things, and then I’m coming over. Until then, stay calm and do whatever Principal Celestia says.
Best,
Twilight”

At hearing her name, Twilight’s head popped up. When no one asked her anything, she realized that they meant the other Twilight.

“So, Twilight’s going to come over!” Dash excitedly asked. “Awesome!”

Pinkie looked at Twilight, then looked at Dash, then said “Twilight’s here, Twilight’s coming… It’s so confusing! Maybe we should just mark our Twilight!” The a few of the girls let out a small smirk, maybe even a chortle or two, and the mood lightened.

However, when Dash looked up, she noticed that the lunch room was empty. Rather, the entire room was pressed against the large windows on the far wall. Confused, Dash pushed her way to the front, eager to see what everyone was staring at.

Finally, Dash got to the front of the pack, and looked out. Far in the distance, she saw the specks of aircraft. Not one or two, but ten’s, maybe even hundreds, flying obscenely low… and rapidly approaching.
The mechanical cloud’s drone became audible. As the individual specks solidified into discernable shapes, a faint haze of smoke could be seen around them. Segment’s of sky, previously untouched, suddenly erupted into black puffs of smoke. Dash struggled to break free of the crowd, running back to her friends.

“You guys are never gonna believe th-” Dash’s declaration was cut off as the door to the cafeteria was wrenched open. Applejack’s big brother hustled through the door, his gruff voice rang off of the walls.

“Applejack, we gotta go!” His eyes darted around the room, hunting for his sister. Applejack’s eyes leapt up, her confusion palpable.

“But we’re in scho-”

“Eyup! But I said, we gotta go!” “Y'all can come along!” he said, gesturing towards her friends.

Applejack could count on both hands the number of times her brother had said more than one or two words in public in the past year. If he was willing to talk so much know, something must be seriously wrong. “Come on ya’ll, let’s go”

The girls rose from the table and followed AJ towards the door. Once they got into the hallway, Big Mac broke into a run, the girl’s trailing behind him. They burst from the school, and sprinted towards the battered, rusty truck that sat running. Big Mac threw open the door, and leapt into the driver’s seat. AJ jumped in next to him, settling into the passenger’s seat. Behind her, the rest of the girls came to a halt and stared at Big Mac, confused. Big Mac shouted “Get in the back! Quick!”

As soon as the girls were situated, Big Mac stomped on the gas pedal, tearing out of the parking lot. He took the corner onto the road at full speed, the truck mounting the curb and throwing the girls into the air, depositing them back into the bed of the truck in an unceremonious pile.

As the truck sped away from Canterlot, the flock of planes grew closer. Applejack strained her neck, trying to get a good look out of the windshield. A sudden flash filled her vision as one plane exploded, another trailing smoke and spiraling downwards. Applejack stared in awe as the aircraft spun, still watching as it smashed into the ground.

A minute later, the truck and the fleet crossed paths. Flashes erupted from the bottom of some of the lower flying craft, bullets spitting gravel all around the truck. The girls tried to press themselves as far into the bed as possible, Fluttershy letting out a small shriek every time a plane came overhead.

And in seconds, the fleet had moved on. Big Mac kept speeding down the highway, eager to put as much distance between him and the city as possible. Applejack turned around in her seat, staring out of the rear window. The sky was no longer blue. Instead, it was filled with thousands of silk parachutes, human figures floating downwards towards the city center in the background. As the truck hit a small patch of snow, the girls were shuffled. Twilight looked around, confused. Pressing her fingers together, she felt something sticky. She raised her hands to her face, studying the red substance smeared over her fingers. Twilight looked around her, trying to find a source. All the girls were moving, trying to find a comfortable place to sit. All except one.

“AJ!” Twilight’s voice cracked as she tried to shout above the screaming of the wind.

“SUNSET IS BLEEDING!”

Author's Note

I have this problem where I have multiple idea's and only a very small amount of time. I'm sure you guy's can relate. Anyway, now I have three incomplete stories. Luckily, this one basically rights itself. So I think I will do three or four chapters of this, then jump back to something that is more involved and will actually involve planning and whatever. I hope you enjoyed this story. I love constructive criticism, so if you have some advice from me, please feel free to send it my way.

Thanks for reading!
CuttlefishGod