More Than A Stallion

Big Macintosh's eyes fell lazily to a painting of flowers on the wall. The hospital room around him smelled fresh and sterile, homely even.

Across from him, there were the three fillies he'd rescued earlier that day, being checked out by a doctor. Fortunately, it looked like they were going to be fine: bumps, bruises, and no ill effects from the Quarry Eel's stomach acid. He breathed a sigh of relief.

His eyes traveled out the window, and fell upon the Ghastly Gorge, where this whole adventure started...

~One Hour Ago, in Ghastly Gorge~

Big Macintosh stood by his sister's side as her friends approached. They'd asked him in his downtime to help them with their next plot to get their cutie marks.

"So ya'll're tryin' to get a cutie mark in rock climbin', and ya need me to keep the anchors safe? I'm not too sure, Applebloom. I don't want ya falling and smashin' yer head open like a watermelon. I'm yer brother, and while I want ya to find yer cutie mark, I can't just sit by idly while you go off and do something stupid and dangerous to get it."

Applebloom jumped in front of Big Macintosh's path, standing confidently for a filly of only nine years. Her two friends joined her sides, posing just as over-dramatically. Big Macintosh could've sworn he saw a twinkle of sunlight reflect off of the corner of Applebloom's bow.

"Big Macintosh, I know that we can do it! That's why we brought ya along!" Applebloom gestured to the metal hooks dangling from her pack. "So that you can help us! All we need is fer ya to keep our anchors stuck in the rock so that we can wrap apple down."

"It's 'rappel', Applebloom."

"Right, 'rappel'. Thanks, Sweetie Belle." Applebloom looked back to Big Macintosh in order to continue her instructions. "So all we need is fer you to hold our anchors in the ground while we go down and climb back up. If we need yer help, we'll jus' tug the rope a couple times. Easy as apple pie!"

Big Macintosh let this sit on his mind. After a few minutes and a completely unfair use of a triple-decker puppy dog stare, Big Macintosh gave in.

"Alright. I'll help ya'll with this. Just don't hurt yerselves."

"Cutie Mark Crusaders Rockclimbers!!! Yay!!!"

The trio rushed to a patched area of rock and soil near the edge, and began setting up their equipment. Big Macintosh watched closely, making sure it was all in order. Once they had finished setting up their harnesses, they brought over a set of rock anchors and a hammer. Scootaloo tossed the hammer up to Big Macintosh and Sweetie Belle set the anchors down and let Big Macintosh get to work driving them into the stone. Scootaloo did a pretty good impression of Pinkie Pie from the way she bounced in place with excitement.

Setting down his hammer, Big Macintosh looked up after pounding in the last anchor.

"Can we go now?"

"Eeeyup." Big Macintosh nodded lightly to Sweetie Belle and backed away so that the trio of fillies could go down the ledge. Once they'd passed a distance he judged okay, he stepped forward again to keep a closer eye on them. He smiled at the thought of Applebloom expanding her horizons. He knew she wouldn't get her cutie mark out of this endeavor, but he hoped she would enjoy it enough that it would make up for the minor defeat.

As Big Macintosh thought to himself, Applebloom was thinking about different things.

"Hmmm. If I step on this rock right here, then I can go down to that rock right there, and we'll be able to walk the rest of the way down." Applebloom pushed herself away from the wall and rappeled down to the predetermined rock. However, as she put her weight down on to it, the rock crumbled away, and the rope connecting her to her anchor dragged along the canyon wall and over an area where the rock strata jut out like a row of shark teeth. The rope snapped, unable to handle the razor sharp stones. Dangling from where she was connected to Scootaloo, Applebloom spun.

"Whoa! Sweetie Belle, get big Macintosh to pull us up! I need to replace my anchor rope!"

Sweetie Belle did as told and tugged on her rope a couple times. "Big Macintosh! Pull us up! Applebloom's rope broke!"

Big Macintosh nodded and stooped down. Gripping Sweetie Belle's rope in his mouth, he began the slow process of lifting the fillies up.

Unbeknownst to all, a pair of hungry yellow eyes lurked in a hole just near where Applebloom dangled. With a low hiss, a Quarry Eel shot out of its burrow and snagged Applebloom, pulling her and the rest of the Crusaders into its tunnel. Before Big Macintosh could react, he was pulled down, and tumbled through the air.

Instead of shock or terror, Big Macintosh found himself feeling… disgust. He failed to keep his sister and her friends safe. He didn’t haul them up in time. He was falling to what would surely be his own death.

A loud crack split through the air as pain shot through Big Macintosh's spine.

When he realized he wasn't dead, Big Macintosh opened his eyes and looked himself over. There on the ground was his yoke, smashed into pieces. Among the wreckage was a small blue chunk of rock. Upon touching the air, the blue rock began to sizzle and evaporate. As the rock faded, Big Macintosh felt a strength within himself he'd never experienced before.

Running to the side of the canyon, Big Macintosh was prepared for a long and grueling climb, but instead his run had turned into a high-arching jump. Landing inside the eel's burrow, he cracked his neck.

"I can't rightly say I appreciate you eatin' my kin."

The Quarry Eel didn't take kindly to the intrusion and rushed at Big Macintosh, fully intending to eat him as well. However, any plans it had for seconds were cut short by a pair of hooves smashing into its lower jaws and sending it flying through the rocks above it, leaving a hole big enough for the red stallion to travel through.

~Meanwhile, in the skies above the Gorge~

Rainbow Dash flew with her loyal tortoise, Tank, at high speeds over Ghastly Gorge. For weeks now, she had been working with Tank to improve his stunt performance. The Tortoise Tornado, a smaller part in a much bigger stunt, the Lightning Blast.

Tank hovered at the center while Rainbow Dash gathered clouds around the outer edges. Spinning the clouds into a wicked chromatic tornado funnel, Rainbow Dash grinned in excitement. She would succeed; she could FEEL it this time!

At the center, Tank was preparing to fly over the top of the storm and channel lightning up into the sky to help super-charge Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom into a blast of lightning that would dazzle any crowd with the power of a thunderclap and the beauty of a rainbow.

However, the training session was cut short when Rainbow Dash caught a flying object in her line of sight. Halting the tornado beside her with one hoof, she used the other to shield her eyes from the sun.

"The heck is that? Is it a bird?"

Tank poked his head through the clouds and shook it.

"Yeah, you're right. Too big to be any kind of bird from around here. Maybe a plane.

"You know Tank, I betcha it's-"  The Quarry Eel passed by, blowing back her mane. A large red stallion trailed behind it, a look of pure anger on his face. Rainbow Dash and her reptile companion turned to gawk at the sight of the flying earth pony. "BIG MACINTOSH!?"

With a sound that shook the stone below, Big Macintosh smashed into the Quarry Eel faster than the speed of sound. His stupendous feat of speed broke the serpent's bones with a sickening crack. It hit the ground with a thump, its drool pouring out onto the grass. Big Macintosh stomped on it's stomach, forcing the beast to hork up the Crusaders.

One by one, the Crusaders picked themselves up. Rainbow Dash touched down nearby with Tank in tow.

"Big Macintosh! That. Was. AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash sweat with a bit of nervousness as Big Macintosh looked back at her, realizing she'd broken her facade of cool and collected and had done an impression of Scootaloo that convinced Big Macintosh that the two were related in some way.

"Ahem. Well, not as awesome as me, but still, pretty darn awesome by my standards."

The Crusaders ran up to the stallion and hugged his legs, shedding tears. Their blubbering was nearly incomprehensible, but he knew what it meant. They weren't dead, and that's what mattered. Turning back to Rainbow Dash, Big Macintosh barked orders.

"Rainbow Dash, I want you to bring in a cloud to put Scootaloo on. I'll carry Applebloom and you carry Sweetie Belle. Once we're in town I want you to get Applejack n' the others while I take these three to the hospital."

"Alright, but one question." Rainbow Dash flew up and gathered a cloud and her tortoise. Giving it a sharp kick, it unloaded rain onto the fillies, cleaning them of the bile and stomach acid they'd taken a short bath in. She carefully picked up Scootaloo and placed her onto the cloud. "Since when could earth ponies fly?"

Big Macintosh looked down into the chasm where he assumed the remains of his yoke lay. Assuming the blue stone probably had something to do with it, he decided to answer with another bizarre happening.

"Since sapphires boiled like hot stew."

"Yeah, I guess that makes- Wait, what?" Big Macintosh ignored Rainbow Dash, picking up Applebloom and placing Sweetie Belle onto Rainbow's back. With the crisis over, and the injured fillies in tow, he walked past the dying eel. It glared at him weakly. Big Macintosh casually walked by it, remembering to to give it one last good stomp to the face for good measure.

As he left, he thought he heard it mutter, "Ouch."

Lifting his head from his hoof, he saw that everypony in the room had stopped what they were doing and had begun bowing in the direction of the door. The clock's hands showed he'd spent some time thinking to himself.

Big Macintosh looked back to see a tall white mare, with a flowing mane as brilliant as the aurora.

"Please, everypony, there is no need to bow every time I enter a room." Princess Celestia removed her tiara and teleported it out of the room. "I'm simply here as a friend, nothing more. After all, I do have a large amount of vacation days built up, so I can surely spend them without being treated like royalty." Celestia looked around the room, her eyes falling on Big Macintosh.

"So here is our local hero, Big Macintosh. I hear from Twilight you managed to save Applebloom and her friends from a Quarry Eel. I must say I am impressed that you could do so, considering how those eels are notorious for their speed."

Rainbow Dash flew around to face Celestia. She put an arm around Big Macintosh's shoulder and held him up.

"Saved them in the nick of time? I saw what he did with my own eyes! He bucked that eel right out of its hole and flew after it! And he beat the eel up until it burped up Squirt and her pals!" Rainbow Dash pulled her foreleg off of Big Macintosh and mimed a few punches, which drew a raised eyebrow out of the princess.

"But that's impossible! An earth pony can't possibly fly!" Twilight protested. "Are you sure the sun wasn't in your eyes? It could have possibly created a mirage and made it look like he flew."

"Twilight, my egghead, I know flying. And he may not have wings, but what Big Macintosh did was definitely flying. Heck, he was flying so fast he did a rainbowless Sonic Rainboom. It was a little less cool than a Rainboom, but it was definitely radical."

Twilight puffed a bit. "Big Macintosh, were you actually flying, or is Rainbow just exaggerating this?"

"Eeeyup."

"'Yes' you were flying, or 'Yes' Rainbow is exaggerating things again?"

"The first'un."

Twilight smirked. "See Rainbow, he wasn't flying at a- WHAT!? You mean you were actually flying? That doesn't make any sense!"

Big Macintosh shrugged, not really wanting to speak any further on the matter.

The creaking of Granny Smith's chair halted. With a sigh, Granny Smith looked to Celestia. "I'd never thought the day would come. Princess, could you do me a kindness and fill in the places where my memory gets a bit fuzzy?"

"I suppose now that he knows, we'll have to."

Big Macintosh looked over at the old mares, confused. What could possibly be so secret that the only ponies that knew were Granny and the Princess?

Granny Smith started rocking again. "It happened the day before we was blessed with little Applejack."

Pinkie Pie bounced up and down excitedly. "Ooh! Ooh! A flashback! This calls for popcorn and soda!" Pinkie pulled a tub of steaming popcorn and a large cola. Everypony in the room stared at her with a confused expression, before just shrugging it off as Pinkie being Pinkie. The room's attention back on the centenarian mare, Granny Smith continued on with her story.

"As I was sayin', it happened the day before Applejack was conceived. I was out sorting the apples for cider season when all of a sudden, the clouds over the farm started a spinnin' and this green fog started a leakin' from 'em. So I went onto the hill to investigate, and what did I see?"

Pinkie bounced. "What did ya see, what did ya see!?"

Granny Smith ignored Pinkie.

"I saw a metal pod fall out of the center of the clouds. It looked like a giant apple, the way it was built n' all, but that wasn't even the strangest thing about it. It popped open, and inside was this little red colt sleepin' like he didn't just fall right out of the sky!

"Besides little Big Macintosh, there were some torn clothes and a whole bunch of doodads. But what stood out the most was this picture pinned to the wall. There were these mighty handsome young folks with a little red colt in a basket, standin' in front of a giant statue of a planet. Now this weren't no picture of our Earth. I could tell because the shapes where the land should be were covered in water. So I knew I had to get a hold of the princess, because right there in front of me wasn't just a baby! The little feller was from another world entirely!"

Celestia nodded. "As soon as I had received a letter telling of an atmospheric disturbance in Ponyville, I rushed there as fast as possible. After all, it was approaching the ending period of Nightmare Moon's banishment, and it would've been terrible if she'd broken free early."

"And rush she did! The Princess managed to get here not but five hours after I sent in that letter. By the time she'd gotten here, she'd plum wore herself out! So I took her to the baby, but when we got there, the baby was gone! Of course, when I followed a bunch of tiny hoofprints, we found little Big Macintosh playing with a barrel full of apples." Granny Smith tapped her chin with her hoof, musing on the memory.

"When we found Big Macintosh playing with the barrel, I have to say I was bemused. The natural magic field around him was far different from that of a normal pony. Normally, if you're magically adept, you can tell something about a pony from their magical field, or aura for a more simple term. For example, my aural field smells of sun flowers and Twilight's field tastes like coconut. It's often faint, but it is recognizable.

"But Big Macintosh's aura was different from most ponies. It smelled of raw power, and the taste was like steel. There was another flavor in there, and I have only ever tasted this flavor from one source. The sun itself. His aura is just as I remember it, meaning he must have broken his yoke."

Applejack looked a bit confused. "Ya mean his yoke was keepin' him weak this whole time? Shucks, we could have gotten the harvest done fer every year since Big Macintosh started buckin' the trees!"

Celestia nodded. "Indeed. That was a dampener enchantment I used based on some materials from his home realm. It was designed to suppress his aura within a radius of a few acres."

Pinkie Pie raised a hoof into the air.

"Pinkie, you don't need to raise your hoof. This isn't a school."

"Yeah! So if Big Macintosh is an alien, does this mean we can throw a 'Big Macintosh Just Found Out He's An Alien Slash Yay Applebloom Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo Are Safe Party'!?"

"Pinkie, I don't wan't any par-"

Without waiting for any reply, Pinkie dashed out of the room, leaving a Pinkie-shaped popcorn dust-cloud where she'd previously sat.

Apple Bloom looked around the room, her eyes shimmering with barely-held tears. Her voice became a whisper that dared to break into a thin sob.

“If Big Macintosh is an alien… then… then does that mean he ain’t REALLY mah brother?”

"Applebloom! You shouldn't say things like that." Applejack nuzzled Applebloom reassuringly. "We were raised with him as our older brother, and alien or not, that will never stop being true! He's just as much Apple Clan as Winona and our friends!"

Applebloom looked down a bit, ashamed she even asked the question. "I'm sorry, Big Macintosh. Fergive me fer askin' such a dumb question?"

Big Macintosh shook his head lightly, answering absent-mindedly with his signature drawl. "Eeeyup."

As soon as he stated he was unoffended by the question, albeit very indirectly, many of the ponies in the room mobbed him with questions of their own.

"What did it feel like to fly!?"

"Could you help me run some experiments on your natural magic field? This could be a breakthrough!"

"Hey, you wanna go flying with me? I can give you some lessons! On the house, of course."

"Oh please allow me to get your measurements! I simply must make you a new yoke for your heroic act!"

Cornered by ponies and growing increasingly uncomfortable with all the thoughts on his mind, as well as the barrage of questions, Big Mac did what he rarely needed to. Shout.

"QUIET!"

Everypony in the room fell quiet. Even a noticeable lip-zipping sound came from the general direction of Sugarcube Corner.

"I don't want tah be asked all these questions at once when I have questions of my very own! And aren't some easy little questions a school colt can ask his teacher and get a straight answer! Where do I come from!? Who are my parents!?"

Big Macintosh stormed up to the hospital room window.

"Well go ahead and ask yer questions! But ya'll aren't getting any answers until I get some myself!"

Applebloom looked at her big brother wide-eyed and stunned. "Big Macintosh..." She sniffed a bit. Her brother rarely showed his anger and frustrations, but when he did, it was absolutely explosive. And even though this most volatile of rants wasn't directed at her, she knew he was hurting inside, just like during the Gabby Gums incident.

Big Macintosh sighed and looked down at the tile flooring.

"I need to do some thinking. I'll be home after supper." Big Macintosh turned away from them and jumped out the window, taking flight off to a secluded corner of Sweet Apple Acres.

Everypony in the room stood awkwardly. Only the Apple family and the Crusaders had experienced an angry Big Macintosh before. Rainbow Dash was the first to break the long silence.

"So does he always-"

"Do that when he gets mad? Eeeyup." Applejack cut Rainbow Dash off, familiar with being asked the same question by her cousins. “He has his own place he goes, to put himself in better humor. His Laughing Place. He’ll be fine.”

Big Macintosh landed with a thud beside the Apple Family Pavilion. The events of the day had been troubling for the stallion, in more ways than one. Being thrust into the spotlight and learning he had a secret kept from birth put a lot of stress on him. But he was glad it had happened today. Because now he finally had something to say beyond 'Eeeyup', Nnnope', or 'Mmmaybe'.

"Sorry I'm late, Cheerilee."