Laments of the Dimension-Stranded

Off. On. Off. On.

The orange light being projected from the caged lightbulb hanging from a hook in the ceiling winked off, then on again in a split second.

Rainbow Dash groaned softly, reaching a hoof up to rub at her throbbing head in a futile attempt to eliminate the pain. The headache, she suspected, was because she had hit her head on something hard when she crash-landed.

The last memory she recalled was flying peacefully through the cheerful blue skies of Equestria, preparing to execute a new stunt she had been practicing. Then, her wings had mysteriously stopped producing lift when she flapped them. Rapidly losing control, she had attempted to control her descent as she spiraled down towards the hard, unforgiving ground.

Before the collision, she was met with suffocating darkness. Then she woke up here.

At first, Rainbow was hopeful. She thought she had been rescued by somepony and they had transported her to somewhere safe where she could recover from her injuries. It wouldn't have been the first time Rainbow had awoken in Ponyville General Hospital or somewhere similar.

Rainbow rolled until she was lying supine, careful not to squash her wings beneath her body, continuing to massage her aching forehead with a hoof. She moaned in discomfort.

She observed the malfunctioning lightbulb winking above her. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled, smelling the musty, metallic tinge of corroded metal and the nauseating stench of lubrication oil.

Her ears swiveled as they detected pings and clinks as unknown metal bits rubbed against each other and were dropped against a hard surface.

Rainbow stood up and sat back on her haunches, wincing in discomfort as the cold, harsh stainless steel of the table made contact with the sensitive hocks and fetlocks of her rear legs. She looked around, examining her surroundings.

The room was massive with an abnormally-high ceiling. One wall of the room was entirely dedicated to windows, which had been reinforced with nails and wooden boards. The dying light of twilight was feebly leaking through the cracks in the boards.

Two gigantic machines were packed tightly against a wall. Considering how dark the room appeared at this time of day, Rainbow wasn't close enough to properly examine them. Weirdly, they had wheels, like they were constructed with the intent to move at any time.

Several wide doorway-shaped machines were situated side-by-side against the back wall. They had four metal "arms" which lied in deactivated positions near the floor.

Above countertops littered with junk and tools, some of the grey concrete walls were adorned with hooks where lights and larger, more specialized tools hung. Were some of those tools actually parts of machines as opposed to tools? It was impossible to tell.

Rainbow's eyes flicked in the direction of movement she noticed. An unidentified creature was standing beneath a large machine suspended in midair by one of the machines with the arms.

The creature was lanky—tall with elongated arms with thick, corded muscle that ended with surprisingly small and delicate hands, a distinguishing feature which made it vaguely resemble a diamond dog or minotaur. Its torso was bare of any hair. The exposed, light-brown skin of its muscley back flexed as it reached upwards and tinkered with the machine in some way.

It had long, tangled black hair that draped down from its head, obscuring the rear of its neck.

It looked filthy. Dark splotches of mud or oil coated the exposed skin of its back and arms.

Terrified, Rainbow squeaked and tried to silently lift herself into the air with her wings. She stood up and balanced her weight onto all four hooves, jumped into the air, flapped her wings several times and... failed to lift herself higher. She landed hard on the edge of the table, her momentum causing the wheeled table to roll a few feet to the left.

Rainbow faceplanted onto the concrete floor, groaning. When she managed to lift herself onto her hooves again, she noticed the creature had abandoned whatever it had been working on and was now gazing at her with a facial expression of absolute consternation.

Rainbow spread her wings, glancing back over her shoulders to examine them. Her primary, larger feathers she used to fly and manipulate objects were far shorter than normal. Her flight feathers had been mutilated!

She quickly glanced the creature up and down, noticing it was wearing a pair of trousers and holding a wrench. Obviously, judging by those facts and its facial expression, it was intelligent.

"A - alright, you... whatever you are!" Rainbow shot up onto her rear legs, balancing as she waved her forelegs in a display of aggression. "You think I'm afraid of you? No way! Where am I, and what did you do to my wings‽ Did you abduct me‽"

The creature's mouth dropped agape slightly in what appeared to be shock. At least, Rainbow thought that was its mouth. If so, its mouth was partially obscured by a thick, black beard that extended up the sides of its face towards its tiny, stubby ears and down its neck halfway.

"Wait, you can... talk?" Its voice was gruff and sounded rusty with disuse. It was male, Rainbow concluded. Whatever it was, though, she wanted answers—no, demanded them.

"You gonna start talking? Huh? Or do I have to force the answers out of you‽" Rainbow cantered forward, closing the distance between the two rapidly until she was only a few feet away. He was... tall. He was one of the tallest intelligent creatures she had ever interacted with, disregarding dragons. Even Princess Celestia, she thought, was shorter than he was!

Rainbow fluttered her wings instinctively, prepared to fly upwards and hover in front of him at eye level, before remembering that she couldn't fly.

She resorted to tilting her head back to gaze up at him, which felt incredibly awkward and demeaning.

"Hey! Back up!" The creature took a few steps backwards and extended the hand that was holding the wrench like he might use it as a blunt weapon in self defense. "I found you outside in the dirt earlier today! You were passed out, figured you were easy pickings. I..." He looked Rainbow up and down, eying her hooves and bright, multicolored mane. Something inside him clearly clicked and he blinked, looking away. "Holy shit, I've really gone off my rocker this time."

Rainbow watched as the creature set his wrench down onto a little metal wheeled cart nearby and turned his back on her, walking a few steps away. He wiped his hands on a rag, cleaning them of oil and persperation, then grabbed a shirt bundled up in a little pile and dabbed at his eyes.

Rainbow was no longer afraid of the creature. In fact, he looked harmless. His movements were slow and uncoordinated. His gait implied he had a high center of gravity and was prone to toppling over. Sure, his muscles implied he was strong—far stronger than her, easily—but she knew she was faster and more nimble, even without her wings to give her extra mobility.

He looked over his shoulder quickly as if to confirm she hadn't escaped when he wasn't looking. "Are you real?" He turned, gazing at her strangely.

"What?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow, taking offense. "'Course I'm real! Look at me! Don't you know who I am? Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty, official Wonderbolt, inspiration to ponies all across Equestria!" Not receiving a reaction from the creature, Rainbow persisted, changing her approach. "Sole pony to create a Sonic Rainboom for centuries? Friends with princess Twilight Sparkle...?"

The creature scratched his beard in thought.

"You're... a little talking horse."

Rainbow rolled her eyes at the gross oversimplication.

"Jesus! I know they taught me not to eat weird mushrooms in boy scouts, but I figured if I screwed up it'd just give me the shits for a few days, not make me go on a weird trip and talk to a... whatever you are, ghost in my head."

"This isn't a dream!" Rainbow protested. "This is real! At least, I..." She frowned, sitting back on her haunches. "I think it's real. This is... really weird," Rainbow commented aloud, rubbing at the concrete floor with a hoof. She was primarily talking to herself.

"Look, Skittles, you're a talking mini-horse. With wings! And you're more rainbow than liberals at the start of June!" The creature shrugged his wide shoulders, twisting his wrists so the palms of his hands were facing upwards as he did so. "It don't get much weirder than that, my friend. Well, it does, but we don't need to get into that right now."

Rainbow scowled, incredulous. She considered responsing with a harsh protest in response to the new, terrible nickname, but bit her tongue. There was no point in trying.

She looked away for a moment, avoiding eye contact. She sighed, seriously considering her pradiciment. Either the creature who stood before her was passionate about pranking and merely pretended to be completely ignorant about Equestria and its residents and their culture, or...

Or...

"Where are we?" Rainbow tried again.

By the time Rainbow was done pondering, the creature had turned around and started wandering away. He rotated, looking back at her. He frowned, scratching at one of his small, lumpy, seashell-shaped ears. He was staring at her silently now with a facial expression of bewilderment.

Rainbow wasn't heartless. She knew when to draw a line and act seriously, especially when dealing with sensitive creatures like Fluttershy or her various animal friends. The creature who stood before her now, despite appearing to have a flippant and silly side, was also showing signs of genuine distress. He clearly had never witnessed a pony with his own eyes. He didn't even know what ponies were.

"You've really never seen a pony before?"

"Nope." The creature sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers in frustration. "I thought I was dreaming a minute ago. Apparently not. I'm still seriously wondering if this whole thing is a dream, or some kind of government experiment, maybe? Why me? What the hell did I do to wind up out here? And why is no one else out here except for me?"

The creature grabbed one of the caged lightbulbs hanging from its hook on the wall and rotated a dial on the side, brightening the light it was producing. He walked forward carefully, stopping once he was a mere foot away from Rainbow. He crouched, squatting, and looked her square in the eyes. "You're sure you're real? Flesh and blood? You're not some kinda ghost or something? Maybe all in my head?"

"Yeah, I'm real! Last time I checked, anyway. Now can you get that light out of my face?" Rainbow squinted, looking the creature square in the eyes right back. His eyes were tiny, yet expressive. It was difficult to determine what color they were, but they appeared to be green or blue.

When he didn't relent immediately, Rainbow tilted her head to a side to avoid the brightness. She was seeing spots, afterimages. Some strings of her rainbow-colored mane fell into her eyes, which she promptly brushed aside with a hoof.

"Huh. Okay." The creature stood, dialing down the intensity of the light and hanging it in the hook where he had retrieved it from. "Okay. Here's the deal. I'm going to try to get some sleep, and if I wake up and you're still here, we... talk like this shit is normal, I guess." He shrugged.

"But I have so many questions!" Rainbow hopped up onto all four hooves. "You still haven't answered any of them!"

"You wanna know where we are?" The creature spread his arms, gesturing widely. "Albuquerque. Fürstenfeldbruck. Timbuktu. Or, as I lovingly call this inhospitable nightmare alien reality: Fuck All Nowhere.

"'You unlock this door with a key of imagination. You've just crossed over into... The Twilight Zone.'" The creature chuckled, apparently amused by the look of "what the fuck" Rainbow was expressing.

"What the flying feather are you talking about?"

The creature sighed, releasing a final chuckle. "Ah, whatever. Sorry for teasing you so much, Skittles, I just haven't—"

Rainbow lifted one of her hooves into the air to interrupt the creature. He stopped, raising an eyebrow.

She sighed, struggling to keep her cool. The creature so casually and effortlessly bounced between multiple different topics at any given moment. It was exhausting trying to keep pace, especially because she was still attempting to comprehend his words and find any sort of sense hidden within. So far, she wasn't having any luck.

She changed her approach, acting less direct and more curious with her questions.

"What's your name?"

"What?" The creature blinked, clearly having not anticipated the question. He pursed his dry lips. "Vincent. My name is Vincent. Vinny J. Mills of Arizona, USA. Human, homo sapien, from Earth. I'm not from Fuck All Nowhere. Not a native."

Rainbow nodded, acknowledging the name he had provided. It was a start. She didn't quite understand the definition of most of the other words he had mentioned, but she figured he would eventually explain. Like when speaking with Pinkie Pie, she needed to try to keep her cool and be patient.

It wasn't simple. She could feel frustration bubbling inside her like a pot of water heating up.

Speaking of Pinkie Pie, the creature who stood before her apparently valued humor, even in situations where it wasn't typically appropriate. He undoubtedly had a heart beneath his tough, somewhat insensitive exterior. Maybe she could attempt to find it in the future.

Vincent looked away for a moment, scratching his beard. "Y'know, I've seen some weird shit in this here world. Creatures that used to be alive but are long-extinct back on Earth. Stuff I can only describe as 'monsters'. Nothing quite like you, though. Everything alive here either wants to kill me or is so brainwashed they wander aimlessly in the Migrations and pay me no mind. But you aren't doing either. It's... not what I'm used to. I haven't had company in... a long time.

"Anyway, that's why I don't want you going outside tonight when I leave you alone. Do you understand me?" Vincent squinted his eyes in a manner that indicated he wasn't joking. "There's some serious shit out there that'll fuck up your day."

Stubbornly, Rainbow crossed her forelegs. She desperately wanted to go outside and orient herself using the sun, moon or constellations. Anything.

But without her flight feathers, she was temporarily crippled. She possibly wouldn't be able to outrun any dangerous creatures if they attacked her.

"You still haven't explained what you did to my wings!" Rainbow demanded, huffing.

When Vincent opened his mouth, she held a hoof up, interrupting him. "And don't spout any of your stupid jokes, okay? I'm not in the mood right now."

Vincent visably winced. "Look, I'm sorry about your wings. You weren't moving when I found you. Honestly, I figured you were dead or close to it. Thought you were, like I said, easy pickings. So I brought you back here and cut your large feathers at the base to prevent ya from flyin' 'round like crazy if you woke up, just to be safe. Was tryin' to decide whether to... eat you or not. Maybe keep ya as a pet?"

Noticing Rainbow's growing anger suddenly be accompanied by shock and disgust, Vincent quickly continued. "I said I was sorry! They'll grow back eventually, you just gotta give 'em a couple weeks or months. I don't know, I'm not a veterinarian."

"A few months‽" What was she supposed to do while she waited for her primary flight feathers to molt and regrow?

Awkwardly, Vincent brushed his hands against his jeans, sticking them into the side pockets for a moment. He retrieved his t-shirt and slipped it on. "Sorry, Skittles."

Rainbow sighed sadly, her ears drooping downwards. She was unspeakably disappointed, but... the damage was done. It was irreversible, at least without unicorn magic.

"One time I spent a couple days in the hospital in Ponyville healing a broken wing, but I haven't ever dealt with anything like this."

Vincent nodded solemnly. Silently, he managed to slip away, approaching one of the machines in the corner of the workshop. He opened a door on the side of one of the machines and slipped inside, shutting the door behind him.

Rainbow almost neglected to notice. The creature—no, human—was surprisingly stealthy despite his large size and weight.

She frowned. Now that her cowardly human companion had slipped away in the middle of their conversation, what was she supposed to do?

Rainbow noticed through a wide glass window on the front of the machine that he was lounging on a seat, head tilted low. She could follow him and attempt to revive their conversation, but she honestly didn't want to try. She wanted time alone to ruminate and gather her thoughts.

She could obediently remain in place and attempt to get some sleep or explore.

Which option she chose was obvious.

Now, how was she going to get onto the roof of this establishment? Without wings, it would be tricky. She couldn't simply find a window and leap out of it.

Rainbow circled the perimeter of the room she was in, looking around carefully for any windows or doors that might lead outside. All of the windows she found were secured tightly with wooden boards or blocked behind improvised barricades. Or both, simultaneously.

The rest of the first floor of the building that Rainbow explored consisted of rooms containing unidentifiable machines and junk, along with a few posters and signs with text that, surprisingly, looked legible.

Rainbow stopped trotting through a corridor to read some of the posters, curious. They all sported gaudy, colorful depictions of machines and machine parts in a cartoon-like style.

New Italian Liscio tires! Buy two, get up to 10% off your order!

Buy now and our skilled auto technicians will give your vehicle a free diagnosis!

Despite only understanding the definition of half of the words on the posters, Rainbow could deduce they were all advertisements.

Her attention no longer captured, she moved on.

Finally, Rainbow discovered an obvious exit. It was a tall human-sized door made of metal. Above was a glass sign labeled "exit" in red-colored letters. The neon sign was no longer glowing, but was still legible despite the low-light conditions.

Briefly, Rainbow studied the door, trying to identify how to open it. It looked reinforced, with two thick, stacked metal bars extending across the middle of it horizonally.

Rainbow tried pushing the door with a foreleg, but it resisted, not budging an inch. She changed her approach, rearing up onto her rear legs and placing both forelegs onto the metal bars. She leaned all of her weight into her push and shoved them, hard.

There was a loud click. The mechanical door pushed outwards slowly, struggling against its speed-regulating door closer.

Satisfied that she had managed to solve the little puzzle, Rainbow happily trotted outside, passing the threshold.

Unbeknownst to her, the door slowly withdrew inwards by its mechanical automatic door closer, clicking shut behind her and locking tightly.

Rainbow stepped onto the concrete, looking around. What she saw was... strange. She was standing before some type of artifical precipice. Immediately outside of the mechanical door was a little concrete square which yielded to an elongated flat strip of black material. Then, it dropped away abruptly. She saw the tops of trees beyond the precipice. How high up was she?

Rainbow cautiously approached the edge of the black strip, peering out over the edge.

She gasped. She was high up in the air, standing on an artificial plateau. The natural ground of grass and trees was approximately 100 or 200 feet below. It wasn't a height she could survive falling.

Without her flight feathers and the ability to fly, Rainbow backed away from the edge quickly, sensing a slight twinge of fear. She wasn't afraid of heights, but it had suddenly occurred to her that if she fell she would have no method of slowing herself down during the descent.

Rainbow turned around and examined the building from the rear. It was obviously the rear—the wall was flat with no windows. Pipes and other unrecognizable metal objects protruded from the wall. Trash bins were lined up in an organized fashon. One had been toppled over, spilling its contents onto the ground.

Rainbow circled around the building, exploring.

The black platform at the front of the building sported multiple white painted, parallel lines spaced at regular intervals. They crossed occasionally, forming shapes that made them resemble wide-toothed combs.

Situated between the white lines were machines that closely resembled the one Vincent had been tinkering with. They sported four circular shapes, two on each side, which resembled wheels like those of a carriage. They were composed almost entirely of metal and painted various colors. Their shells of metal were broken up by the occasional little square of glass which were probably windows. There was one large window at the front and another in the rear.

It was bizarre to witness. Were they arranged for a ceremonial purpose? Why were they situated within the white lines at seemingly random intervals?

Rainbow moved on.

Large letters made of red-colored glass were arranged above the primary entrance to the building, which had been boarded up. Probably by Vincent. Predictably, the letters were no longer glowing. Some had been shattered to pieces, obfuscating the original sentence. Rainbow had to guess how it had been arranged originally.

_ _ _ ' S A _ T O R _ _ A I R

"Something... 'auto repair'?" Rainbow wondered aloud.

Noticing no obvious stairs leading up to the roof, Rainbow decided to improvise. Painstakingly, she dragged two of the waste bins to the front of the auto repair shop where the roof sloped downwards at its lowest point. Using the smaller waste bin, she climbed onto the larger bin and launched herself upwards, kicking off the large waste bin to give herself a boost.

She landed with a thud on the metal roof, managing to scramble onto her hooves before she slid off. Proud of herself for improvising and successfully finding a solution to her problem, Rainbow trotted forward towards the center of the roof, which was the highest point.

Her hooves made unsubtle clanking noises with each step she took on the corrugated tin. She winced, hoping that Vincent wouldn't hear her making excessive noise and come investigate. She wanted to be alone for the time being.

Finally reaching the peak of the roof, Rainbow slowly spun in a circle, examining her surroundings.

The plateau wasn't suspended from the side of a hill or mountain like Rainbow had suspected. It was... floating. The black platform the auto repair shop was built upon was floating above the ground below. She knew there was ground below—she could see trees, grass and other vegetation.

Thrown for a loop, Rainbow blinked. She had witnessed floating objects before, it wasn't an impossibility, but the only instances she could recall of objects randomly floating were all associated with Discord.

She scowled, stamping a hoof against the tin roof.

"Discord!" Rainbow raised her voice, bellowing out into the red-colored sky during twilight. The last vestiges of the evening sun were slipping beneath sloping hills in the far distance.

The sky gradually descended through the color spectrum, glowing purple, then blue and finally navy-blue as night arrived.

Frustrated, Rainbow pawed at the roof with a forehoof. She hated being ignored and feeling insignificant.

A tiny moon slowly began to rise. It was perhaps twice as small as Equestria's moon and reflected far less moonlight.

It wasn't Princess Luna's moon, and the stars weren't Luna's statrs. Rainbow had been studying the stars for many years; she could immediately recognize what was or wasn't Equestria's night sky.

Rainbow felt insignificant. She couldn't resist the urge to submit to despair. Discord enjoyed a good prank from time to time, same as Rainbow, but teleporting her to another world was...

It would be so cruel and unprecedented. He wasn't even nearby to observe her reaction!

What could one pony do without her friends and everypony she had grown to depend on over years of bonding?

"Anypony...?" Rainbow's tone was soft this time. She sat back on her haunches, looking around. Again, there was no reply. The evening was quiet and still.

She gazed up at the tiny moon. Some unruly clouds drifted between her and the little satellite. Translucent as they were, the clouds merely cast a soft shadow, not obscuring her view.

Rainbow wanted so desperately to fly into the evening sky, buck a few clouds to vent her frustrations and create a cloud nest to sleep. Without her flight feathers, though, she couldn't even fly. The greatest—a title that was self-appointed—Wonderbolt to have ever lived was now flightless. It was terribly ironic.

Everything had been stolen from her in one short evening. Something had ripped the carpet right out from under her. It felt so unfair.

Rainbow sighed sadly. She laid down and curled into a little ball on top of the tin roof.

She was familiar with loneliness. She embraced it, even, as a necessary break from stardom. But there had never been a moment in her life where she was truly alone, unable to contact anypony she knew or trusted or even remotely cared about.

Intent on sleeping alone and isolated on the roof in the spot she had laid down, Rainbow closed her eyes, struggling to relax.

Tomorrow was a new day. She could search for answers then.