A Journy thru August

Rainbow Dash was enjoying her day. She had finished her work early since the town was only scheduled to be slightly cloudy. Thus she was free to indulge in her favorite pastime outside of flying…napping.

Quietly she slept atop a cloud just above Ponyville, the warm feeling of the sun against her fur and the relative peace of the town below providing the perfect balance for a restful sleep. It would’ve likely lasted well into the afternoon…only for her ear to perk up.

Groaning a little she turned her head to try and block the sound out, only for it to steadily get louder, prompting the pony to use her hooves to push parts of the cloud into her ears.

This proved truly futile as again the sound only got even louder, to the point where even the cloud couldn’t drown it out.

Her magenta eyes opened angrily, as she raised her neck up with a groan and looked over for the source. Immediately her eyes shifted to the direction the sound was coming from, yet all her eyes could spot was a rather large dust cloud.

Whatever it was, it was pretty big and pretty fast. Even at just a glance she could tell it would arrive in town in less than a minute.

Now awake and on high alert, Rainbow Dash rocketed towards town, a rainbow trail behind her.

“HEY EVERYPONY, CLEAR THE STREETS, QUICK! SOMETHINGS HEADED THIS WAY!” Rainbow Dash shouted, flying from one end of town to another in mere moments.

Several ponies immediately noted the sound and started running about, many fleeing into nearby homes and buildings for shelter.

Rarity, hearing the commotion, stuck her head out of her sewing room window and waved Rainbow Dash down. “Rainbow Dash, darling, what is going on? What are you bellowing about so early in the morning?”

“Something's heading towards the town and coming in hot. And whatever it is, it's kicking up a crazy huge dust cloud.” said Rainbow Dash, flapping her wings to stay eye level with Rarity.

"Oh, sweet Celestia, do you think it's another stampede?” asked Rarity, eyes widening in fear. Memories still fresh from the last one.

“Not sure. It looks like just one creature, but it's coming in fast and loud. We better brace ourselves and be ready for anything." Rainbow Dash said as a rumbling, growling sound could be heard getting closer by the second.

Quickly Dash flew up higher, preparing to get moving.

“Meet me down in front of town; we'll try to hold it off until Twilight gets back from Sweet Apple Acres. She’s gotta have heard this thing coming by now. Heck, she's probably chasing after it.”

Nodding, Rarity closed the window and quickly headed downstairs. Rainbow Dash went ahead and arrived at the entrance of town in seconds. Almost immediately she quickly gathered up some clouds, placing them near the entrance.

Thanks to her innate magic, if she needed to she could either shock whatever was coming with some lightning or wash it out with rain. Either way, she wasn’t gonna make this easy for whatever was coming, as she eyed the dust cloud in the distance.

• Scene Change -

With Ponyville in view, August slowly applied pressure to the break, allowing their pace to also gradually decrease. Sadly it was a little hard to see everything perfectly due to the insane amount of dust they’d kicked up.

Kind of a fun reminder for August that he currently wasn’t on a paved road of any kind.

Still he was able to see enough to know they were close and finally allow the bike to come to a complete stop.

August turned off the keys in the ignition and stood up, Twilight still hanging on to his back, like a koala to a tree. Honestly the visual of her clinging to him as tightly as possible was honestly pretty hilarious, though he decided to keep that to himself, for now at least.

"Wow, you really are light. You know that" said August as he plucked the still jittering pony off and put her down on the ground as gently as he could. Twilight then proceeded to collapse, her legs shaking from the vibrations of the motorcycle…or her frayed nerves hard to tell.

Regardless the poor pony looked utterly drained, eyes half lidded, chest rapidly expanding and sweat dripping from her brow. Reminded him of someone just after they rode a rollercoaster for the first time.

"That was much more stressful than I thought. How do you do that all the time?" Twilight asked, gasping for air and slowly trying to stand back up, only for her still wobbling legs to keep her grounded.

"You get used to it after a while. Besides, that was just a 5-minute ride. I've been on this thing for hours at a time. So…" August trailed off, looking around, "Where is everyone?"

Twilight, taking another minute to properly get feeling back in her legs, looked at him and then proceeded to look around town. None of the shops were being manned, and all the windows and doors were closed. She let out a sigh as she remembered something similar happening not too long ago with Zecora.

"They must have heard us coming. The ponies here are nice but a little skittish. Especially when something or someone unusual comes into town," she said, putting on a half-smile and looking apologetic to the human.

"I'll try not to take offense to that," he said. "Here, let me…"

August didn't get to finish his sentence as he reached down towards Twilight. He was tackled by a blue blur and went with it, skidding to the ground.

Twilight gasped when she saw it was Rainbow Dash trying to wrestle August to the ground, but she was not having much luck. The much larger August was on top of her, with one hand holding down one of her wings, the other wing smacking him in the side, and his other hand around her throat, his large palm covering most of her thin neck.

“What the hell is this, you little...”

August was interrupted yet again, this time by a blast to the face by Pinkie’s Party Cannon, sending him off Rainbow Dash and landing in a basket of fruit.

The young man was stunned, ears ringing from the sudden shock as he tried to move. Rarity came from an alley and used her magic to tie a rope around him before August could regain his senses and lifted him into the air above them.

"Twilight, darling, are you alright? This ruffian didn’t hurt you, did it?” said Rarity as she helped Twilight stand up and brush the dirt off her.

“Let him down Rarity; he's not going to hurt us,” said Twilight, looking at her with an angry expression, leaving the posh pony surprised while August continued to attempt to break free.

“I wouldn't be so sure about that. I might punch the pink one shooting me in the face with….I’m hoping for whipped cream.”

“It’s actually homemade buttercream icing with a hint of marshmallow.” Pinkie said rather proudly, not the least bothered by the threat.

Curious, August’s tongue popped out and sampled the cream still on his face. “Huh, yeah I can actually tell, pretty good…but I've still got a bone to pick with the blue one that sucker punched me," August bluntly said as he was hanging upside down, bits of icing and confetti stuck to him.

Twilight rolled her eyes and overrode Rarity's magic with her own, setting August down and untying him. The still dazed human staggered a bit, but straightened up and brushed the confetti off his shoulder.

As Rainbow approached, he reached for his belt and drew his tool off, looking angry at her and Pinkie as they approached.

“Take one more step and al blow a hole right through one of your legs,” August said, pointing the tool at them.

Panicking, Twilight ran between them and looked at them both. “August! Girls! Calm down; no more fighting from any of you!”

Neither party seemed ready to back down, forcing Twilight to grab the tool out of August’s hand with her magic, roughly pulling it from his hands, and his eyes went wide.

"NO! DON’T! IT MIGHT GO OFF!“ He shouted, and a loud bang could be heard all around town. Birds flew out of trees, squirrels and other small animals scattered. The four ponies hit the ground and stayed down, not getting up until the ringing in their ears stopped.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash both slowly got up and shook their heads, their ears still ringing, Pinkie hiding behind her canon along with Rarity.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Shouted Twilight, still not being able to hear herself.

“WHAT?” said Rainbow Dash, rubbing her ears.

“AUGUST? WHAT WAS THAT?" Twilight looked over at where August was, only to see that he wasn't there. She turned her head only to see August crouching over Pinkie Pie, his hands pressing down on her leg. He had ripped a part of his shirt off and was using it to tie a strip of fabric around her leg, most of the rest was pressed down lower to her hoof. The fabric was slowly being stained red.

His face was hard, but calm and focused. Pinkie conversely was whimpering and crying. Her hair had gone straight, and she looked pale. All Rainbow Dash and Twilight could do was stare at them frozen at the sight of the blood coming from their friend.

August said something to Pinkie, and she nodded. He picked her up in his arms, held her close to his chest, and ran to Twilight and said something to her; she couldn't hear him the first time. To her, his voice sounded muffled and far away as her hearing returned. All she could focus on was the blood slowly dripping onto the ground.

"Twilight! Snap out of it!” August shouted at her, snapping his fingers in her face. “Do you have a first aid kit at your house?”

"I…I ye…yes, I do,” She nodded, her mind recovering from the shock, though her eyes refused to leave the growing blood on the ground.

"Good, now all of you follow me.” he said, running towards the library.

In shock, both Rainbow Dash and Twilight followed him, Rarity similarly following, not saying a word as they ran ahead when they reached the front door. August barely stopped, kicked the door in, rushing in and set Pinkie down on an empty table as gently as he could.

"Twilight, listen to me get the first aid kit, some clean towels, and boil some water. OK?” August said. his voice was calm and level, but he spoke with a tone that left no room for argument. It reminded Twilight of Princess Celestia.

Twilight nodded quickly running upstairs while Rainbow Dash ran into the kitchen to get the water and towels.

In less than a minute, Twilight was back with the kit, Dash with the water in hoof, which Twilight immediately brought to a boil with her magic.

August opened the first aid kit, grabbed what was needed, seeing the gloves in the kit were both too small and lacked fingers, took a deep breath and put his hands into the boiling water, pain on his face from the intense heat, and started working on Pinkie Pie.

“We got lucky it didn't hit anything important. The bullet didn't go too deep from the looks of things. I have to get the bullet out and stop the bleeding. This is going to hurt, ok?”

August looked at Pinkie, and she nodded, fighting back against the tears still in her eyes. August grabbed a bottle of disinfectant from the kit, opened, smelled it, poured some on a cloth, and pressed on to the wound. Pinkie flinched and cried out, but August held her still.

“You two hold her down. I need her to be still for me to stitch her up.” August said, his hands held up to keep them as sterile as he could

"Wait, why should we listen to you?” asked Rainbow Dash glaring at him "Why should you do this and not a doctor at the hospital."

Her comment was interrupted by Rarity, having finally caught up and was panting in the doorway, covered in sweat and her makeup running, struggling to get a word in.

“How…is…Pinkie?”

As if fate was deciding to have a laugh, her question was then interrupted by the sound of another person walking down the nearby stairs.

"Twilight? What's going on? What's all the noise?" said Spike coming down the stairs, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

August, ignoring everything else going on, just turned his head and glared at Rainbow Dash, his eyes hard.

“Listen to me. Your doctors here don’t know how to treat bullet wounds and I went to med school for years. So unless you want your friend to bleed out, do as I say and hold her down now. You... white one," he pointed at Rarity blood on his hand. "Take the kid upstairs and keep him there. Kids don’t need to see this much blood.”

Looking a little queasy at the blood, Rarity nodded as she walked past him, nodding, putting a hoof on Spike, and walked up the stairs with him. “Come on, Spike, we need to give them some space.”

Spike, by now fully awake and viewing the situation, was wide-eyed and said nothing as they went up the stairs into the bedroom, closing the door behind them.

"And this wouldn't have happened if Twilight hadn't tried to grab my gun out of my hand." said August, eyes locked on Twilight, who shrunk under his gaze, truly feeling like she was dealing with a disappointed Celestia.

"Rainbow, listen to him; he doesn't want to hurt her, and if he has medical training, we may not have a better option.” said Twilight bracing herself for the task at hoof.

"Fine, but one wrong move, and I’m bucking you in the face,” said Rainbow Dash holding Pinkie Pies front hoofs.

August nodded, and as Rainbow and Twilight held Pinkie down. Quickly, Twilight cast a spell on her leg, to numb the pain as best she could, though sadly she had little experience with medical spells.

Fishing through the kit, August pulled out a pair of tweezers along with a needle and thread, lightly pouring alcohol on them. The other two ponies in the room were only able to hold their breath and pray to Celestia that their friend would be alright. Twilight spent the entire time blaming herself for her friend getting hurt.