Equestria, the land of ponies and sunshine, was normally recognized by the species of the world for both its pony inhabitants and its blessed scenery. On this day, though, Equestria had plenty of ponies, but lacked a clear amount of sunshine. That is, except for the area surrounding the Everfree Forest, where attempts at terraforming and weather control by the ponies of Equestria never seemed to take hold. As such, Ponyville stood covered in the darkest bank of clouds any resident of the 'ville had ever seen, and in their homes everypony silently wished that it would stay like that. No pony wanted that more than Rainbow Dash as she zoomed around the thunderclouds’s edge, above the Everfree Forest. The lives of everypony depended on her and she would not be the one to let them down.
“Rainbow Dash!” a voice called to Rainbow Dash as she bucked a cloud back into place; it had begun to drift toward the Everfree Forest. She spared a glance along the edge of the massive thundercloud. Satisfied that no more pieces of the cloud were drifting, she flew to the top of the thundercloud.
Rainbow Dash landed softly on the cloud and ignored a slight static shock before she smiled to her closest friend. “How’s the eggheading going, Twilight?”
“Nergh, it could go a little better without the degrading the name of thousands of years of Unicorn Magic,” Twilight responded, between glaring at Rainbow Dash and concentrating on her magic. Her horn was brightly lit as several balls of shifting energy floated around her.
“Hey! We’re practically on a suicide mission here. Please, excuuuuuse me if I try and pull a Pinkie Pie and lighten things up,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, tilting her head away as she crossed her chest with her hooves. Rainbow Dash only held up the fake anger for a moment before she sagged, her eyes swiveling to Twilight with a worried look. “I’m the fastest flier in all of Equestria. I’m the head of the weather team. I’m the bearer of the Element of Loyalty. You don’t have to be here Twilight, I do. I…I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“Rainbow…” Twilight said softly, looking away from the balls of magic to lock eyes with her closest friend. “I’m the Element of Magic. With Celestia and Luna in the Griffon Kingdoms and Shining Armor protecting Canterlot, I’m the only pony who could do a spell like…this. Though, it's not just that….” Twilight moved over to place a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. “Ponyville is my home too, ever since I met you and the others. It is the place where the ponies I care for the most live and I could never live with myself if I just sat to the side while some dragon hurt my friends.”
“Heh…” Rainbow Dash chuckled, brushing a tear from her eye while placing her other hoof on Twilight’s. “Whatta day for Equestria’s most powerful ponies to not be home, am I right? So sorry, the only two ponies capable of opening the magical vault where the Elements of Harmony are kept are not in right now. Please leave a message after the beep while you fend for yourselves against the most scariest dragon in existence!”
“A little too coincidental if you ask me…” Twilight replied grimly.
Responding to the invitation of the Griffin Empress, Hildr the Honorable (or Horrible), the two Princesses had left for the Griffon Kingdoms to renew diplomatic ties. No sooner had they left than a great evil had literally descended onto Equestria. From the Mare Nostrum a great, dark dragon arrived at the port of Baltimare and burnt half the city to the ground before continuing inland. The dragon quickly earned the nickname ‘Dark Claws’ from his distinctive black claws and cruel nature. A general alarm had gone out across Equestria, with the pegasi in Cloudsdale working like mad to produce thunderclouds for all of Equestria.
After the Wonderbolts had been so very ineffective against a rampaging Spike, Equestria’s movers and shakers had decided that a more defensive strategy had to be undertaken should another dragon go on a rampage. Every city and town would be covered in an impenetrable shield of thunderclouds, but Ponyville had a unique problem due to the Everfree Forest. The Thundercloud Shield had to be perfect in surrounding Ponyville to work. The wild nature of the Everfree Forest, though, caused the weather surrounding the forest to be hard to control, and clouds wandered out of formation. It was a chink in Ponyville’s armor that, if not maintained by an expert member of the weather team, could lead the entire thundercloud shield to shatter.
Of course Rainbow Dash had volunteered immediately to cover the thundercloud until the last possible moment before the arrival of Dark Claws. Twilight had gone over the calculations again and again in her head and each time she calculated that Rainbow Dash would have to secure the thunderclouds AFTER the arrival of Dark Claws in TWENTY seconds flat. Twilight believed that there would be no way Rainbow Dash could survive, unless she added a new variable to the equation. Herself.
“Are you sure this spell is going to send that creep dragon away?” Rainbow Dash asked. Her hoof stamped on the cloud and sealed a small crack that had begun to form in the cloudbank. She didn’t want to have the cloud break up under Twilight, who lacked wings and relied entirely on the cloudwalker spell that she had used at the Young Fliers Competition.
“I’m positive it will work, Rainbow. History books say that Starswirl the Bearded’s spell of Mass Teleportation transported away dragons that had attacked Equestria in his time. I just hope the spell is ‘mass’ teleportation in terms of size and not in terms of quantity. That would be bad,” Twilight commented. The balls of magic around her stopped floating around. They swirled to a spot above Twilight’s head and froze. Suddenly, a ring of energy sprang from orb to orb, linking them into one golden ring of magical energy. “There. The spell is ready. Now all you have to do, Rainbow, is outrun the dragon for ten seconds.”
“I haven’t met a dragon yet I couldn’t fly circles around,” Rainbow Dash said as she hoof pumped the air.
“If you had met one you would be dead! Rainbow, please try to be serious about the danger you're in!” Twilight said her voice full of anger and worry as she brushed off Rainbow’s hoof from her shoulder. It stirred something in Rainbow Dash as she realized how much her friend was afraid for her.
“Come on, Twilight. Don’t act like I'm going to die or get hurt. Believe in me, or at least believe in the Twilight that I believe knows how awesome I am!” Rainbow Dash winked at Twilight with her ever-cocky grin.
“Rainbow…” Twilight’s mouth had begun to speak, when the air was split by a thunderous noise.
“RRRRRRRROOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRR!”
Both ponies looked away from each other to the source of the sound: the Everfree Forest. Without any warning a large area of the forest exploded from within. The blast created a large crater amidst the sea of treetops that billowed smoke and sent flames showering across the forest. Up from the smoking hole, two massive grey wings emerged and began to flap, sending out gusts of air that only caused the smoke and fires to spread. What followed next caused the hearts of the two ponies to skip a beat as the gigantic frame of the dragon known as Dark Claws pulled itself out of the ground. Unlike the noble and sleek-looking dragons they had encountered before, this one was absolutely frightening. Its bulky body was covered with twisted black spikes, its scales were misshapen, and its face was like a craggy mountain with two small caves filled with magma for eyes and a mouth like a large cave full of razor sharp rocks! The ground quaked as it stamped on the ground with its claws, crushing entire trees underneath, as if Equestria itself was afraid of this monster of a dragon. Its red eyes, shimmering with hate, scanned over the thundercloud covering Ponyville, but stopped as it narrowed in on the two insignificant ponies sitting on top of it.
“Oh, buck,” Rainbow whispered.
“GGGRRROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAARGH!” Dark Claws thundered, beginning to stomp his way toward them.
“H-how d-did it p-pop out of the g-ground? W-we're s-supposed t-o know when…” Rainbow asked, cowering down on the thundercloud.
“I don’t k-know I-I-" Twilight mumbled, her eyes scanning the horizon as they seemed to notice something. Gasping, her hoof pointed toward the distant hills that bordered Ponyville and the Everfree Forest, home to the jewel-hungry Diamond Dogs. The hills were smoking. “The Diamond Dogs! Their tunnels! Oh no, it must have found them first and…and…I don’t want to think about it.”
“Hot dogs…” Rainbow Dash mumbled and pressed herself down on the thundercloud next to Twilight. Dark Claws roared again; it made Rainbow’s ears hurt just listening to it. It felt like the sky was going to fall. Rainbow looked down at the protective thundercloud and noticed that the sky just might be falling as dozens of cracks appeared in the cloud. The entire edge began to float out toward the Everfree. Toward the dragon. Ponyville’s hope for survival was floating away on her watch. “Twilight! Get that spell ready to fire. I’ll keep ‘Big Ugly’ here distracted,” she said
“Rainbow, you can’t outfly that thing! My calculations were all wrong. You will die if you try and outfly it,” Twilight cried, her heart skipping a beat for the second time today. A part of her just wanted to grab Rainbow Dash and not let her go. Teleport somewhere safe, or distract the dragon with her horn while finishing the final algorithms on the spell. “Rainbow-"
“No. Twilight. I have to. I’m the only one and deep down you know it,” Rainbow cut Twilight off as she stared into the beautiful eyes of her friend. There was something else just on the tip of her tongue she wanted to say, but she just couldn’t get the words out. She was always the type of pony who preferred action over words. Instead of speaking, she saluted Twilight and began to flap her wings. “Don’t worry, Twilight. I’ll see you soon!”
Like a multicolored streak of lightning Rainbow Dash was off, flying toward certain doom, leaving Twilight on the thundercloud with one hoof extended outward, as if trying to pull Rainbow Dash back. Tears streaming from her eyes, she thrust her horn into the glowing ring of magic and prepared the spell weave for activation once Rainbow Dash lured Dark Claws close enough to Ponyville. She made up her mind that once this was all said and done, she would have a good, long talk with Rainbow Dash.
"You can do this, Rainbow! You're Equestria’s Number One Flier! You've got the wings, the skills, and the coolness to outfly the dragon that could just fall over and squash Ponyville. You’re doing this for your friends, for Ponyville, for yourself, and for…Twilight," Rainbow thought as she streaked across the sky. Dark Claws noticed her right away and once again roared, sending a shockwave of sound and bad breath crashing into Rainbow Dash and smacking her skyward. Rainbow Dash wasn’t out quite yet, though, as she righted her body and oriented her wings in order to hover in the air. Narrowing her eyes at Dark Claws, she slammed her forehooves together and shouted, “LETS DO THIS!”
Dark Claws’s answer was a gout of dragonfire. Rainbow Dash easily dodged to the side and smacked down on the back of Dark Claws, careful to avoid the twisted spikes that grew out of his scales like weeds. “Hey! Rocks for brains!" Rainbow shouted. "I may not have the space to do my sonic rainboom, but I can still-WOAH!”
Rainbow Dash kicked off from Dark Claws just as the dragon brought back a claw, smacking at his body as if Rainbow Dash were a fly to be brushed away. Moments later, Rainbow Dash kicked her hooves into Dark Claws’ head, then his back, then his shoulder, and then his side. Each kick sent quakes through her hooves. Rainbow Dash mumbled, “Ugh, this guy’s harder than steel!”
Dark Claws again brought up his claw to smash Rainbow Dash, but this time he also raised up his tail from behind. Rainbow Dash noticed it at the last moment and only managed to partially dodge it. Her lower hooves were caught on one of the scales, which caused her to tumble and skin her side against one of the jagged spikes that grew out of his tail. “Ah-!”
Rainbow Dash ignored the pain and blood trickling down her side as she flapped away from Dark Claws, desperate to put some distance between it and her. The distance she gained proved to be a mistake as the dragon opened its mouth wide to spit fire. Rainbow Dash’s mind panicked as she clawed at the air, trying to gain speed, when she was saved by a blast of purple magic that smacked into Dark Claws’s head. The blast distracted it enough for the dragon to misfire, its dragonfire scorching the air away from Rainbow.
“RAINBOW! IT'S READY! GET HIM CLOSE TO ME!” Twilight shouted from the cloud bank. A visible aura of magic surrounded her as the spell ring swirled around her body.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t reply, a grunt of pain escaping her lips as the gash in her side widened. Flying had pumped the blood in her body to the wound, and tensing her muscles in flight had made it worse. Rainbow pushed through the pain as her mind worked desperately. "Come on Rainbow…you can do it…just a little bit further and faster…."
“AaaaAAAAAHHHHHGH!” Rainbow Dash screamed as she beat her wings with all her might, moving as fast as she could, not toward Twilight, but toward Dark Claws. Dark Claws swatted at her in midair, but Rainbow Dash dodged his claw and smacked her hooves into his nose with all her might and momentum. No sooner had her hooves sank into his slightly tender flesh than she was off, speeding toward Ponyville. Dark Claws let out a roar of pain and anger, and began to flap his wings. Rainbow Dash felt the gusts of air push against her as Dark Claws spread his gigantic wings and sped after her like a mountain tossed through the air at her. Tears streamed down Rainbow’s face as she flew through the pain, her eyes locked directly on Twilight, but as she looked at Twilight she noticed something was wrong.
Twilight wasn’t looking at her. Twilight was looking behind her with a look of pure terror. Rainbow Dash saw Twilight’s mouth move, but she couldn’t hear what Twilight was saying. She noticed the unicorn point behind her. Rainbow Dash whipped her head behind her and noticed why Twilight was a little worried.
Dark Claws’s mouth was open and ready to blast her and Twilight out of the sky.
“No…nergh, n-not Twi,” Rainbow Dash mouthed. She immediately spread her wings and angled her body to fly away from a direct path to Twilight. It was too late, though. Dark Claws’s mouth erupted, flame heading not for Rainbow Dash anymore, but for Twilight. Her error realized, Rainbow cried to her body, willing herself to fly ahead of the flame and push Twilight out of the way. She tried to, at least, but her body wasn’t moving anymore. Dark Claws was however closing the distance. Rainbow tried to think of something she could do, but a flash of light brushed away her thoughts.
Twilight's spell had hurled itself directly toward Dark Claws, straight through the burning fire. The ring of magic expanded and became misshapen as the dragon's breath seemed to merge with it, before it all exploded.
The last thing Rainbow Dash saw was a wall of magic and dragonfire rushing to engulf her.
'When there's lightning. You know it always brings me down. 'Cause it's free and I see that it's me. Who's lost and never found. Nahanahanah'
The words echoed inside of James’ mind like a broken record
“Dio. Why are you haunting my brain?”
“What did you say?” a voice crackled in James’ headset. “Don’t tell me you're spacing out on me, Brodey. Thinking about those little horses of yours?”
“Ugh,” James groaned as he spoke into his Fox Trot (FM) Radio. “I’m just thinking about a metal legend. I’ve had ‘Rainbow in the Dark’ stuck in my head all day, Johnsson.”
“Try having that damn Bieber stuck in your head. Worst day of my life was when my little girl started going boy crazy.” Johnsson’s voice sounded off in James’ ear and he knew at least for now he diverted the older lieutenant’s ribbing. “Keep focused. Remember we are in enemy air space. Danger lurks around every corner.”
“I didn’t think the Saudi Desert had corners, just miles and miles of sand.” James replied, but deep down he was kicking himself. Losing focus and spacing out was his worst habit and had almost got him kicked out of his dream, not just becoming an Air Force pilot, but a pilot of the military aircraft he was piloting now.
James’ right hand on the control stick tightened at the thought of losing his A-10 Thunderbolt II. Ever since he had seen the A-10, otherwise known as the ‘Warthog’, at an air show when he was ten, he had dreamed of piloting one. The plane deserved the nickname ‘Warthog’ when compared to the sleek, fast jet fighters that the Air Force had built the bulk of its image on. With its blunt nose, turbofan engines mounted on its back, tub-like body, jutting double-tail, and wingspan of over 57 feet, James thought it was a thing of beauty.
Essentially, the A-10 was the tortoise in a race full of hares. While other aircraft could fly several Mach speed circles around the A-10, it was also reliable in getting its mission of close air support done. The Air Force had only really accepted the A-10 after Operation Desert Storm, where the A-10 had mowed through Saddam’s tanks and SCUD launchers. There also was a little legend between A-10 officers and crew that the Air Force’s commanders only started looking at the A-10 appraisingly after the Army had made an offer to take the A-10. The Army already had close air support helicopters and the Air Force commanders dreaded giving the Army fixed-wing aircraft, seeing it as a step toward the Army returning the Air Force to their organization.
“Just imagine we’re in Syria.” James could imagine Johnsson gesturing out over the landscape just a few miles north of Al Jouf Domestic Airport in northern Saudi Arabia, close to the Iraqi and Jordanian borders. The 175th had used the airport before, way before James had become a pilot, during retaliation strikes against Saddam following the Gulf War. He had only been with the 175th Wing in Afghanistan during late 2008.
“You really think this is it? The President is going to give the go ahead and everyone is going to charge into that mess?” James had Syria on the brain ever since the Arab Spring had kicked off in the Middle East, over a year ago. Ever since the revolts had begun against Assad, the entire place had become a quagmire of different religious, political, and ethnic factions fighting for control. After months of bickering on the sidelines it looked like the international community was going to act. Ever since the Free Syrian Army had begun their attacks in Aleppo and Damascus, the Assad government had become even more brutal. “Why aren’t we deploying in Iraq then? Don’t they owe us?”
“Oh I don’t know. Let me pick up my little red phone and call the President and ask him! It is politics, for one reason or another.” Johnsson’s voice spoke in James’s ear as if he had wondered about the same issue before. Considering Johnsson had flown in Bosnia, James didn’t doubt him.
James had begun to form another question in his mind when a sudden shock of electricity burst through his spine. He swore he was beginning to see stars through his helmet’s shades, but that wasn’t all. The desert horizon a minute ago had been clear and endless, but now it was a storming, seething cloud of sand. It was also coming right for the two pilots.
“Where did that come from?” James shook his head, driving the stars from his vision. He spared a glance at his instruments. The sandstorm wasn’t appearing on the radar. “Do-"
When there's lightning. You know it always brings me down. 'Cause it's free and I see that it's me. Who's lost and never found.
“Not the best time to pop into my head, Dio.” James was confused why those song lyrics had popped into his head. His head had started to feel funny too, a noise like flapping wings was filling his ears, and his vision was starting to experience tunnel vision.
“What was that, Brodey?”
“Nothing. How are we going to deal with this sandstorm?” This was his first time flying into a sandstorm, but James knew that the turbofan engines of the A-10 were designed so engine clogging wouldn’t be an issue.
“Climb over it before it catches us.” Johnsson’s voice commanded. On instinct, James pulled the stick of his A-10 and felt his aircraft gradually begin to lift skyward. The sandstorm, though, seemed to have other ideas. No sooner had James pulled his plane upward than the sandstorm had raced miles in moments, swallowing James and his plane whole.
I cry out for magic. I feel it dancing in the light. It was cold, lost my hold. To the shadows of the night.
No sign of the mornin' comin'. You've been left on your own. Like a rainbow in the dark. A rainbow in the dark.
“Damn. Again with the song lyrics? Johnsson what is your heading?” James asked into the speaker for the FM radio. All James could see through the canopy of his cockpit was the swirling sandstorm raging outside. A powerful downdraft smacked into his plane from above, making him grab the flight stick with both hands as his A-10 dipped. ‘This is bad. Johnsson could be anywhere in this. A few feet away or a few yards.’
“James...you…James…there?” Johnsson’s voice crackled on the radio.
“I’m here in the storm. What is your heading Johnsson?” A bead of sweat trickled down his neck as he both fought to keep his calm and to keep his plane from flying erratically.
“James I…the storm…above. You are…the storm. Swallowed. Get… I repeat…out.”
“JOHNSSON! WHAT IS YOUR HEADING?” James shouted into the speaker. His only reply was a garbled whine of radio signals before the radio cut out altogether. It was followed by half his instruments cutting out; their electronic lights flickered off at the same time. “I can’t…I can’t get out of here without your headings…”
Silence.
“Shit…” James cursed under his breath. He had no idea where Johnsson was in this storm. He only had two options: Pull up out of the storm blind and hope he wouldn’t crash into Johnsson on the way up, or keep on flying through the storm and hope nothing crashed into him. Indecision gripped James as mind as all thinking went blank and he stared into the sand storm.
Do your demons Do they ever let you go? When you've tried, do they hide deep inside? Is it someone that you know?
He sucked in his breath at those lyrics. It was as if Dio had risen from the grave and was calling him a coward. The faces of several people he knew flashed in his head: his parents, his flight instructors, his fellow pilots, Johnsson, and most strangely, Rainbow Dash. That last face caught him by surprise, especially her panic-stricken look. It was one he had never seen on her in the show. If anything, it should have been her stage fright look from the sonic rainboom episode. He couldn’t remember when or where in the show he had seen her expression like that before.
“Heh…what would Rainbow Dash do?” The words had come out of James’s mouth more like a strangled whimper, but the more he thought about it, the more he could feel confidence well up inside of him. Sure, she was just a made up character on a TV show, but anyone could say she always conquered her fears for her friends. It was her loyalty and courage that made her the most awesome pony in Ponyille and by extension the brony community.
“I won’t let a little fear of air collision hold me back.”
Pulling on the flight control stick he felt his plane once again pull upward toward the skyline and out of this storm. Immediately, his plane was swallowed by darkness, the sandstorm replaced by a pitch, dark abyss.
“Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”
James pulled on his control stick, but nothing happened. The controls were not responding. The instruments were dead. He scanned the outside for anything and for a moment he despaired, until he noticed a small pin of light. Squinting for a closer look, the light steadily grew brighter and brighter, a bridge of light rushing toward him. And he felt nothing.
You're just a picture. You're an image caught in time. We're a lie, you and I. We're words without a rhyme. There's no sign of the mornin' comin'. You've been left on your own. Like a rainbow in the dark. Just a rainbow in the dark. Yeah.
[1] I am actually not sure if they used Al Jouf during the 90’s, but the airport was used as a forward position airbase by other A-10 squadrons during the Gulf War itself.
[Author’s Note: Kudos to Dio for writing this awesome song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQzNBTukO0w ]
Crash Landing
“Funny. I thought when you saw a white light your life was supposed to flash before your eyes…” James sighed as the cockpit shifted back into focus. Dio’s voice inside of his head was replaced by a rhythmic beat of a migraine that grated on his already overloaded senses.
“Still…something feels funny…like my skin is on backwards…” James groaned and shifted in his seat. It was true. Everything had transformed from soul crushingly numb to feeling absolutely wrong. His flightsuit felt like it sagged around his legs and midsection but, had become tighter around his torso, especially his backside. “No, wait. Still can’t feel my fingers or toes.”
He fluttered his eyes open and winced as they were bombarded by…bright colors. He blinked several times and looked out the canopy. There was A sky and A sun, but they looked nothing like what the sky and sun should have looked like. They looked somehow more colorful then they should have been. “Feels like I’m staring at a picture frame.”
Something about all this just did not feel right. He shuddered as a chill crawled up his spine and his wings fluttered in response underneath his flight suit.
“What in the hell…” his eyes stretched wide as he turned his neck to the hump that shifted in the backside of his flight suit. The sudden flood of panic that swept through him only made him more disturbed which caused his wings to stretch and twist more. “AH! HOLY SHIT!!!”
He raised one of his hands to smack into his helmet in panic but, instead of what he had expected a hoof smacked to the side of it. He kicked one of his legs and the boot that was supposed to have secured his entire foot fell off as another hoof wrapped in a stretched sock emerged. He stared down his nose…no down his snout to the end of his muzzle where the oxygen mask had stretched away from his helmet. He wanted to wring his fingers but, he did not have any to do so. “WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?”
His words were soon answered.
“RRRRROOOOOOOOOARGH!!!” a bestial roar seemed to slam into the back of his A-10 and quickly caused James to grab the control stick...at least to grip it between his hooves. He growled as the control stick slipped through his hooves a few times as he tried to move his A-10, which only made the aircraft jerk around. “Come on you damn thing. Work with me here.”
James tightened his grip and pulled the stick which slowly turned his A-10 enough so he could see behind him. For a moment he wished he had not. He quickly guessed that he must have emerged from what looked like a rolling mass of brightly colored clouds but, at some point he had not emerged from there alone. Flapping its wings behind his A-10 a few hundred yards a monstrous dragon had emerged from and followed him out from the strange mass of clouds that even as he looked quickly dissipated. For a moment he thought he had caught a glimpse of a more solid, small blue form with wings but, before his eyes could focus the dragon belched a wicked ball of flame toward him. James pushed on the flight stick and dived downward out of the path of the fireball.
“DRAGON!” his mouth shouted but, his mind echoed a much longer stream of obscenities as he tried to take in the situation. He did not have much time to think as the dragon swooped down after him. Its wings flapped at impossible speeds as it and James dived toward the ground and a carefully arrayed bank of clouds.
“RAINBOW DASH!” Twilight Sparkle shouted as her Pegasus…friend…plummeted through the after effects of the banishment spell. The ear splitting roar of Dark Claws signaled to Twilight that despite her best efforts she had failed. Not only was Dark Claws still above Ponyville, Dark Claws was above Ponyville with Rainbow Dash knocked unconscious. She watched as the helpless form of Rainbow Dash fell through the air toward the ground that waited below. She screamed at her body to do something but, she could not move a single one of her limbs. Tears had begun to stream down her face before something totally unexpected snapped her out of her paralysis.
The first thing that had emerged from the failed spell field had not been Dark Claws, but some kind of new metal bird-beast that cried a high pitched sound as it was chased by the behemoth form of Dark Claws. Twilight Sparkle was amazed the beast-bird could fly through the air so quickly even as its wings were locked in place. From her point of view she could see the bird-beast’s head which looked like a shark to her and like the rest of its body appeared to be utterly rigid despite the fact that it dodged Dark Claws’ dragonflame. It did not move a muscle but, it almost effortlessly avoided every attack Dark Claws hurled at it. More importantly she realized that Dark Claws was distracted by the appearance of this new monster and completely ignored Rainbow Dash.
“Now’s my chance, magic, please, please, please don’t fail me now!” Twilight Sparkle mumbled as she concentrated her magic and disappeared in a flash of purple light. She reappeared several dozen yards away but, on the ground below. She disappeared and reappeared several more times as she closed distance to the spot where Rainbow Dash fell towards. Though she visibly panted and sweated with the magical strain by the time she appeared underneath Rainbow Dash she looked up and disappeared and reappeared next to Rainbow Dash’s body. She grappled for Rainbow Dash but, Rainbow plummeted too quickly and Twilight missed her by a few inches. Twilight spared not a single precious moment to curse as she teleported herself again to Rainbow Dash and only a few dozen yards from the ground.
“Yes!” Twilight panted as she grabbed a hold of Rainbow Dash and pulled her unconscious friend close before she teleported them both to the ground.
“Rainbow! Wake up Rainbow! Please, wake up right now! Don’t be…don’t be…” Twilight cried as she pressed her hooves to Rainbow Dash’s sprawled out body.
“Mmmmph…can’t you see I’m taking my nap…Twi...” Rainbow Dash mumbled as she raised her eye lids. She soon blushed as Twilight hugged her in a tight embrace. Her wings jerked straight up! “C-come on T-twilight. You know I wouldn’t leave a friend hanging. Element of Loyalty, remember?”
“Heh…yea I know. I am glad for that.” Twilight smiled as she moved a step back and wiped her tears. Both ponies jerked their heads skyward as another roar from Dark Claws echoed from overhead. They gasped as they saw the bird-beast swoop just above the cloud cover that protected Ponyville. It seemed to see at the last minute that there was an entire town underneath those clouds and instead sharply turned skyward again, followed closely by Dark Claws. Both monsters avoided ploughing into the town but, the kick up of air from their passage did it for the cloud cover and it soon drifted apart and revealed Ponyville.
“Oh, no…” Twilight gasped as Dark Claws noticed Ponyville and changed directions.
“He’s going for easier prey then that thing.” Rainbow Dash gulped and looked past Dark Claws “and it looks like so has it!”
James was actually proud of himself that he had managed to get a hang of flying without hands. He would have congratulated himself if it weren't for the dragon that chased him across the cheerfully colored sky.
“This thing is physically impossible. There is no way that this thing should be able to keep up with me. It has to be the most, least aerodynamic thing in all creation but, its making me jump through hoops to stay alive!” James gritted his teeth as he mouthed out how the dragon broke conventional laws of physics. He could not deploy countermeasures and whenever he tried to outmaneuver it and bring it into the range of his GAU-8 Avenger cannon it just shifted back behind him. When he noticed the dragon suddenly break off pursuit he was relieved for a moment but, the next moment his mind was hurled back into confusion and panic that had become the norm.
“I know that place. Oh, God. I know that place. I skip the damn intro but, I know that place!” he had dodged a impossible and strange looking bank of clouds just a minute earlier. The cloud bank had now dissipated and revealed the picturesque landscape of Ponyville.
His mind struggled to put the pieces together.
‘This place is colorful. I am being chased by a dragon. I’m a horse. No. I’m a pony. I’m a pony. I’m a pony. I’m a pony flying above Ponyville. Ponyville is below me. Ponyville is under me. I am flying above the geographic location of Ponyville. Ponyville does not exist. Ponyville should not exist. I am above Ponyville. I am a pony in Equestria…and a dragon is about to destroy it. Right then, not on my watch am I going to let Ponyville be destroyed.’
His trail of thoughts seemed ridiculous to him but, here he was and he did not have any time to waste. He was a United States Air Force Pilot. If he could not react to a sudden change of events then he would die, his comrades would die, and innocent people would die. In this case he substituted people with ponies.
He turned his A-10 around and chased after the dragon as it bore down on Ponyville. He pushed his throttle and sped closer and closer to the dragon and lined its huge body with the firing reticle.
“No, this won’t work.” James grimaced as he realized that even if he hit this dragon with the Avenger and did not spray any of the rounds then the dragon would still pretty much fall on top of Ponyville causing destruction and death. He couldn’t blow this thing out of the sky just yet. He had to get it away from town and that would mean…
“Alright, ugly how do you feel about a close shave?” James pushed the throttle and increased his speed. He gained on the dragon just as it stopped to land and do who knows what kind of horror. The dragon growled larger and larger in his vision as he literally charged at the beast. At the last few precious seconds before he could no longer pull out he pulled up on his flight stick and buzzed several of the dragon’s spines along its back. Control nearly slipped out of his hooves when his A-10 shuddered at the impact but, he managed to guide his plane back up into the sky.
Lucky for him, James did not have to look behind to see if his plan had worked.
“ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!”
The dragon once more had its eyes locked on him and had taken flight in pursuit. The town below it was soon forgotten as it plowed through the air after the A-10.
“Unless I am in some kind of dream coma and dying will wake me up I think I better show this guy how it’s done in the Air Force.” James pulled his throttle back and as his plane lost its speed he craned his head back to see the fast approaching dragon. “Only going to get one shot at this…” James gulped as the dragon’s claws stretched out to grab onto his beloved Hog and just as the dragon swept them down he pushed the throttle back even more and nudged the flight stick with his hoof. James looked up as the dragon’s bulk passed overhead and as its tail whipped back to strike at him. He managed to pull back but, the tail scraped somewhere along the rear of his Hog. “That’s something I’ll have to deal with later.”
He pulled his A-10 back up and sighted the monstrous dragon in his firing reticule once again. Even if he had sidewinder missiles he wouldn’t have used them in this case. No, he wrapped his foreleg around the front of the flight stick and over the firing trigger for the beast of cannon that his aircraft had been built around. The dragon tried to turn around in midair but, before it could its body was immediately shattered by the over a hundred eleven-inch long rounds that pierced its body faster then the speed of sound in the brief moment James pressed on the fire trigger.
THHRRRIP
The GAU-8 Avenger when fired sounded like ripping cloth but, in this case it was the dragon that was ripped. The dragon exploded as the high caliber rounds sped through its body at high speeds. The dragon’s hide had resisted swords, arrows, and even magical fire but up against the Avenger rotary cannon it may have as well be made out of tissue paper.
“And another one bites the dust.” James grinned behind his oxygen mask as he soared past the remains of the dragon as it plummeted toward the forest below. Before James could congratulate himself any further a sharp metal twanging noise that caused his whole Hog to shudder. He looked back and immediately paled. The dragon’s tail had knocked into not just one but, both of his turbofan engines. The metal twanging noise had been something coming undone in the engines which had caused miniature explosions. Both engines smoked and James quickly noticed that not only was he losing speed but, he was also losing altitude.
“What’s the word for this…horsefeathers?” The swampy ground below him speeded closer as he braced for impact.
