Crosswinds

“Shit, and I thought you were the light one Michaels.” Hawkins grunted as he shifted the weight of his co-pilot on his shoulders. His conscious immediately began to plague him as soon as he took his first steps away from his crew chief. He hadn’t gone farther than twenty feet before he swore to himself, and turned around to get him.

Now, fearing his security, he was trotting as fast as he could with his injuries and the combined weight of his crew chief and their gear on his shoulders. Which was not easy, as his crew chief weighed a measly 190lbs, and the gear was only another twenty on top of that. Normally, such a feat would be taxing on him, but with the added boost from the adrenaline pumping through his veins, he was having a much better time at it. He just hoped it would last long enough to lose the trailing…ponies.

‘Shit, what kind of weird Oz did we end up in Michaels?’ he though as he crashed through the underbrush.

He had initially gained a lot of ground on the six of them, they seemed to hesitate entering the forest for some reason, he only briefly heard the name, or so he thought. Everfree Forest, or something like that. He wasn't sure what lay ahead for him, but if it kept the ponies behind him at bay, then it was all the better for him.

Unfortunately, their initial hesitation was only temporary, most of it seemed to stem from the yellow colored one with wings. Wings*, he still couldn’t understand why some of them looked like Pegasus. He also saw that two of them had what looked like horns on them. Not quite sharp enough to gore someone, as far as he could tell. But what other purpose they had, he couldn’t gather, nor did he care at this point as he continued the trek deeper into the forest.

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One hundred yards behind him, Twilight and the others continued their trek into Everfree Forest, following the trail left of the retreating creature from the crash site. The thickness of the brush prevented them from venturing at a great pace. Thankfully, the creature that they followed left an easy to follow trail deeper and deeper into the forest.

Applejack lead the group as she looked for signs of the creature’s path. She stopped at a bush and inspected the broken branches. “Looks like they went this way. Come on y’all, can’t be too far ahead now.”

“We’d have caught up by now if somepony wasn’t so scared of the forest.” Rainbow Dash muttered. She looked over her shoulder at Fluttershy who was trying her best to not tremble with fear of being in the forest.

Twilight glared at Rainbow Dash, “She has every right to be scared of the forest Rainbow Dash. We’ve gone through a lot of scary things in the Everfree forest.”

Rainbow Dash sighed, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Ugh, I still don’t know why we have to go trudging through the forest after some creature that we know nothing about, Twilight.” Rarity complained, careful to avoid the branches of the bushes and trees as they continued forth as to not ruin her perfect hair, yet again.

“That’s precisely the point though,” she answered, ducking to avoid a low hanging branch, “This is quite possibly a new creature that no one in Equestria has ever seen the likes of. On top of that, it may be injured from the crash, and may need our help. The least we could do is to offer our assistance.”

“Which so far it seems keen on keepin’ away from us.” Applejack added as she saw what looked like the footprint of the creature they were chasing. “Lookee here, it’s footprint is over twice the size of our hooves!”

“Oh my,” Fluttershy whimpered, “maybe we shouldn’t bother helping it, if it’s such a large creature.”

“Come on Fluttershy, you’ve helped out much larger creatures before. Like Mr. Bearington!” said Pinkie Pie.

“Oh, he doesn’t like being called Mr. Bearington. Mr. Bearington was his grandfather.”

Applejack stopped and inspected a fallen tree limb in front of her, “Looks like it tripped here and fell. Come on, we should be able to catch up now!” There she saw the footprint in the mud, twisted in front of the tree limb, and beyond it, a mass of ferns and saplings had been crushed by a large object. A few had been ripped up by its feet it seems, trying to get back on its feet.

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‘Shit, should have been watching where I was going, instead of trying to look out for them.’ Hawkin’s swore to himself as he lumbered on with Michaels on his back. The stumble greatly shortened the distance between them and the ponies.

His breathing became heavy and labored as the adrenaline began to wane and his strength ebbed from his muscles. His back and shouldered cried out to be relieved of the heavy burden of his comrade for a moments rest. He tried to ignore the burning sensation in his legs as they pounded through the underbrush.

The forest cleared for a moment, and his hopes brightened for a brief moment. It wasn’t until he saw that the forest cleared out to reveal a wide ravine, at its bottom was a narrow river. He peered over the edge of the ravine, and tried to guess at the depth. Fifty, eighty feet down? No vines, ladders, or anything natural to use to get down there. He could try to use the rope in his survival gear, but he didn’t have the time.

He could try to go around it, but he couldn’t see any way of getting across the ravine. What about the forest? He turned and gazed back into the forest from where he entered. He honestly had no idea where he was going, he just chose a direction and hoped for the best. At the very least, he could probably find his way back out with the path that he had inadvertently made. But those weird ponies were behind him, and for some reason, he feared them more than anything else right no-

“Can’t be too much farther now gals, come on, the forest is starting to thin out some!”

“Fuck me.” They were practically on top of him now. His mind raced. Try to slide down the ravine? No, too injured. Might end up worse than he already was. Try to go around? No, at his speed he could barely keep ahead of the ponies. His muscles ached, and weighed him down with their fatigue. He turned back and forth sluggishly, trying to decide on what to do. With little other choice, he decided on probably the stupidest thing he could do right then. He steadied Michaels with his left arm, and let his right arm go free. He reached to his holster and brought his pistol out, hanging his arm at his side.

‘This was my last tour damnit’, he thought to himself. ‘Last tour with the Navy and I would retire from military life. Spend more time with the wife and kids, go to my son’s baseball game for once, maybe my daughter’s tae-kwon-do tournament, but no. Routine training op went completely FUBAR because of a freak storm, and now I’m in the freaking land of Oz.’ He wiped the sweat that had been dripping from his forehead. “Well, so much for that.” He panted.

They then emerged from the forest in front of him. First the orange one, with the cowboy hat, then the purple one, followed by the blue one, the white one, the pink and yellow one brought up the rear. He then noticed that they all had some sort of markings on their hind legs. He squinted at the orange one’s, three apples. ‘Huh, wonder what those mean?’ he then saw that they all had different markings. What they meant was lost to him right now.

He raised his weapon, albeit unsteadily. Though the threat was completely lost on the six ponies. They all seemed to be at a loss as what to say as they looked upon the scene in front of them. A tired, wounded man, carrying his comrade across his shoulders with a pack of gear slung across his back, pointing a black metallic object towards them. He tried to keep his weapon steady, but his arm was not obeying his wishes. It shook and swayed with fatigue like a branch in the wind.

“Hi there.” The purple one spoke, “My name is Twilight Sparkle. This is Applejack,” the orange one nodded, “Rainbow Dash,” the blue one smirked, “Rarity,” the white one flipped her purple mane with her hoof, “Fluttershy,” the yellow one tried to cover her face, “And Pinkie Pie.” The pink one bagan to bounce around with abandon, constantly smiling.

“Hi there mister!” she said cheeringly. “What’cha got there on your back?” She pointed to Michaels. “Is that your friend? Is he sad? I can make him happy!”

“Stay back!” he shouted, “Not one step closer!” he emphasized his right hand that held the pistol.

“Wait!” Twilight cried, “We’re not going to harm you! We just want to help!”

“Ha!” he scoffed, “A likely story. How am I supposed to trust multi-colored talking ponies?” he took a cautionary step backwards, inching towards the cliff edge.

Twilight and the others took a step forward, “Look,” she assured, “we’re not going to hurt you. We saw your craft crash and came to investigate. We just want to make sure you’re going to be fine.”

“How am I supposed to believe that?” he took another step backwards, “For all I know, you’re going to take me to some magical emerald castle and offer me a balloon ride home, if I’m that lucky!” Hawkins took another step backwards, his right foot just on the edge of the cliff, his attention now fully on the six ponies in front of him, completely unaware of his proximity to the ravine.

“Hey!” the blue one yelled, “We’re just trying to help you!”

Hawkins pointed his pistol at her and took another step backwards, but all his foot found was empty space. He and Michaels toppled over the edge. And the last thing he remembered was seeing the world upside down, and a purple aura forming around Michaels.

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‘Pain, oh good, I’m still alive. Maybe I’m at the bottom of the gorge, lying broken and twisted on the rocks waiting for some horrid creature to eat me alive.’ Hawkin’s eyes were unable to open, so he tried to move his limbs. His legs were fine, except for his left foot, it was stiff and refused to budge, like it was in a cast. He then tried his arms, both of which refused to budge. They felt constrained, yet his hands were free to move and flex. Straps maybe? That couldn’t make sense, unless he were in a hospital.

He was finally able to open his eyes. The light was bright, and blinded him for a moment, his hearing though sounded like he was underwater. ‘Drugged? Painkillers maybe?’ He then came to the conclusion that he had been captured somehow. ‘Possibly something to do with that purple aura I saw around Michaels? No, that couldn’t have been real, could it? This has to be the drug, I’m not thinking straight.’

He then noticed that the six ponies that had chased him were next to him, and that he was in fact in a hospital bed. He looked down at his arms, and saw that they were in fact, restrained. Not exactly tight, but still not allowing his arms freedom of movement.

The purple one spoke first, “Sorry about the restraints, we didn’t know how you would react when you woke up, so we asked the doctor to at least restrain your arms.”

“Ya’ll took a mighty tumble there.” The orange one added, “If it wasn’t for Twilight here, ya’ll would have fallen in the river. And we would’ve have hard a hard time tryin’ to get you out then.”

“I still had a hard time trying to rescue you two. Unfortunately you both hit a few rocks before I could stop you two.” Twilight said.

“You weren’t trying to go sledding were you?” the pink one smiled, “It’s not even winter time silly! Unless you wanted to go mud sliding. But mud sliding usually involves a lot more water than dirt. But I suppose there was a lot of water in the river. But how were you-“

“Pinkie!” the one called Twilight interrupted.

“Oops, sorry.” Pinkie grinned sheepishly.

“Now, if you can would you like to tell us your name?” she asked, leaning forward expectantly.

Hawkins looked from one pony to the other, still unsure of what their motives were. Or if they had any. Until he could determine that, he knew exactly what he would say to them, “My name is Lieutenant Commander Reginald Hawkins, service number 524-06-9273, born June 17th, 1970.”

“Loo-tenant Commander Regenawld Hawkins?” Pinkie laughed, “That’s a silly name mister.”

“It’s probably a military title, judging from the clothing he has.” Twilight added.

“What about the numbers?” asked the blue one. “Doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Probably something to do with the military as well, Rainbow Dash. Some sort of identification number. What purpose it has, I don’t know.”

While the ponies went back and forth about his answer, Hawkins tried to gauge their personalities. The purple one, Twilight, was easily the smartest one of the six. Book smart anyway, the Pinkie one was bubbly and constantly happy, Rarity seemed a bit pretentious. ‘Kind of like my Mother-in-law.’ He thought wryly to himself. Fluttershy seemed shy, and soft spoken. ‘Kind of like my little girl before she discovered martial arts.’ Applejack definitely worked on a farm of some kind, judging by the accent alone, the hat probably had something to do with it as well, he thought. Rainbow Dash was easily the tomboy of the six, aggressive and full of bravado. ‘Probably all talk and no show.’, he thought to himself.

The conversation started to wind down, and Twilight looked back to him before she asked another question, “Alright Commander Hawkins, where are you from?”

His reply was swift, “My name is Lieutenant Commander Reginald Hawkins, service number 524-06-9273, born June 17th, 1970.”

“Uhh, you already said that. I was asking where you were from.” Twilight gave her best grin, hoping that he just misheard her question. But he repeated the same answer again. Undeterred, she tried several other questions, from family, to what his land is like, how old he was. On and on she went, until she became increasingly frustrated.

“Ugh! This is going no where!”

“Umm, Twilight,” Fluttershy stepped forward sheepishly, seemingly embarrassed at interrupting Twilight, “Maybe he just doesn’t want to talk right now. Maybe we should come back at a later time.”

Twilight looked at her, and sighed in resignation, “I supposed you’re right Fluttershy.” She turned towards the door, “Come on girls, let’s leave him alone for a bit.”

“Twilight,” Fluttershy added, “Maybe we should get his arms out of those restraints. Just in case, you know, he wants to eat or something.”

Twilight looked at her for a moment, and then to Hawkins, her eyes trying to discern if he would try something drastic. She turned back towards Fluttershy, “Alright, but we’ll have the doctor’s keep an eye on him.” She looked back at Hawkins, “Look, we’re really trying to help you. If you just co-operate, maybe we can figure out how you got here, and more importantly, how to get you back home if at all possible. I’ll have the nurse send you some food and water in a bit.” He horn began to glow, and an aura appeared around the leather straps around his arms. Seemingly of their own accord, the straps unbuckled themselves and fell to the sides limp. Hawkin’s eyes widened slightly at the small spectacle.

‘Oh great, Unicorns that actually have…magic.’ He flexed his arms, and rubbed the places that the straps had held his arms in place. It was then he realized that his arms were bare, which meant that he was quite possibly naked. How this detail eluded him was a mystery, but the sudden realization had bigger implications, his blood suddenly ran cold.

“We’ll be back soon, we’re just going to check on your friend.” Twilight said as she and the others left the room.

No sooner had the door closed behind them did he lift up the sheets, to see if he was, in fact, nude. Thankfully he wasn’t. He sighed with relief. All he had on was his pair of boxers, and he saw that his left ankle was, in fact, in a cast, stretching from his calf all the way down to just before his toes. He noted the heavy bruising on his right side. He pressed his hand on the bruising and winched. ‘Well, even if I try to get out of here, I’m not going anywhere fast. At least I don’t have any broken ribs, just bone bruising.’

He sat up and fully surveyed the room. There was a window, but he couldn’t tell how far above the ground he was. There was also a nightstand and a lamp just to the right of the bed. He reached over and opened the drawer. He was relieved when he saw that everything but his flight suit was in the drawer. He first grabbed his undershirt and put that on, next came his dog tags.

There came a light knocking on the door, he quickly shut the drawer, and sat back in the bed. The nurse came in, pushing a cart that had a tray with food on top. Her eyes seemed weary of him as she approached. Nervously, she pushed the cart up to his bed, keeping her eyes locked onto him. When she came up to his bed, she quickly grabbed the plate and placed it in front of him. No sooner had the plate touched the fabric then she was out the door.

“Nice to see that I’m a familiar sight around here.” he said to the empty room. He looked down at his plate, thankfully it had an assortment of things that he could eat, mostly fruits and vegetables. Not surprising coming from a bunch of herbivores. He admitted to himself that he was very hungry, and dug into the food. While he would have preferred a pork chop with some home-fried potatoes, he figured that he wasn’t going to be eating anything meat related for a while.

As he ate, he went over his options. The ponies seemed genuinely interested in his well being, at least the yellow one, what was her name again? Fluttershy? She seemed to be very worried about him. Twilight was as well, if just for the intellectual knowledge. The others he wasn’t sure about. When he finished, he placed the tray on the night stand and waited.

He went over his options as he waited for the six to return. One; continue upholding the Code of Conduct, article V, and refuse to give any information, other than matters of health and welfare. Two: Find his gear and Michaels, if he was still alive, their gear and escape. Which concerning his injuries, would make the attempt all but impossible. Or three; violate the Code of Conduct, and co-operate with them.

While option one was the easiest of the three, it would get him nowhere closer to getting home. Two was completely out of the question. His condition was not desirable for escape, not to mention that he had no idea what Michaels’ condition was at that time. For all he knew, he could have suffered multiple injuries, and would require weeks to recover. Option three did, however, offer the best chance of getting back home for both him and, hopefully, Michaels. However, he also wanted to know about this world as well, just in case option three goes sour, he would have at least some knowledge about this strange world.

There was another gentle knock on the door, “Mr. Hawkins, its Twilight.” Twilight entered, quickly followed by the other six. “Your friend is doing okay, he’s stable right now.”

‘So you say.’ he thought.

“Now, are you ready to talk now?” she smiled, hoping her show of compassion had shown him that they meant no harm to him. Hawkins crossed his arms and looked first at Twilight, then to the other ponies, studying them with hard eyes.

He looked back at Twilight who gazed back expectantly, “Alright.” He said, “So long as you answer my questions as well.”