The Fall

by Malicious-Badger

Part 7

Bump.

Applejack smacked into something that sent her falling backwards. Ahead of her was an explosion of bright light mostly purple of tint.

Twilight's telewalking didn't have the greatest blink distance, though one might now consider that a good thing. From her house, Twilight had been jumping the short distances along the road to Canterlot, the presumably easiest way to walk. Caught by surprise of running into something in the middle of the road, Twilight too found herself on the ground.

It had been a complete stroke of luck. It was lucky enough that Applejack had found one pony, in the first place, but now two? Somehow, with all the odds that were stacked against them, with all chances they had to meet before, and yet didn't, and with all the beliefs in their minds that told them they were the last ponies alive, each individually, managed to find their own way to the random desolate piece of road they were on.

"Ow, what was that?" Twilight asked herself, unaware yet that in front of her, as well as another behind her, lay her friend. Though Applejack, was still in quite a daze.

Hearing a familiar voice, Applejack, shook the daze off and looked up. She could not believe her eyes. It was a friend! Not some red pony in the middle of the street, but a friend, her friend! And though she would not say this in front of her other friends, would they still be alive; her most intelligible friend, though that thought was not commonly disputed. It was Twilight. She looked a bit banged up, with a couple of bruises here and there, and was in need of a brush, but it was with out a doubt, Twilight. Her cutie mark confirmed it.

"Praise my lucky stars..." Said Applejack, awestruck, "Twilight, please tell me I'm not dreaming... is that really you?"

Twilight still caught in her own haze, too heard the familiar voice of a friend, an impossibility she would assume if she had not looked up to see for her self that right there, right before her eyes, was an orange mare, known to her by none other than the name: Applejack.

She could not respond to Applejack's question, it seemed that her brain just shut off, refusing to implement any logic to the odds of this situation occurring. A look of dumbfounded happiness amidst confusion started to spread on the faces of both mares. It took another moment of silent confusion, staring, examining, detailing and reassuring the fact somehow a friend actually sat in front of them, and that it was all not just a mad dream before Twilight was able to form any sort of response.

"I suppose so..." Replied Twilight, though not in any matter of factual sort of way, no, her voice sounded conflicted as if wondering she herself was actually Twilight.

Neither pony knew how to react, neither pony knew if it was real, though the fact that conversation had occurred would suggest so. Since neither knew how to engage in conversation at this point, it fell silent once again. At least it would, if not for a pony, one temporarily forgotten, who was seemingly wailing in pain. The noise of sharp screaming slowly reached both Applejack and Twilight's ears. With some time to process said sound, there was no time to converse with one another, nor was there time to figure out if either one was real or an apparition, a figure of one's imagination, no, there was somepony in pain, somepony who needed help.

The pony lay a few good meters away, roughly 100. Applejack and Twilight had gotten up and instinctively started running towards the sound.

"I sure hope that's you, Twi." Applejack whispered to herself.

___

Rainbow Dash was trying to cry away the pain. She knew that she needed help, but from who? There was no one alive besides her, or at least to her knowledge, and in her current state there was no notion of helping ones' self, as what would that be to?

Rainbow's eyes were watery when she saw something of colour drift passed her a few feet down the road. Words to describe what Rainbow thought would probably be 'intriguing' or 'curious'. Nothing she had seen so far of this new world possessed any other colour than black, or at least variations of the color tone, therefore it must have indeed be very confusing to Rainbow to see such a thing.

She stopped crying for a second, it was only momentarily, but after a few attempts she stopped. After clearing her eyes, Rainbow could see that what was in front of her was brown, a brown hat; a very familiar looking brown hat. Tears again filled Rainbow's eyes, she did not know what emotion to feel, nor how to react, though she was nearly on the verge of laughing. She was almost laughing not because it was funny in any way, but because she thought life, or whatever god above controlling this entire ordeal, was playing a cruel joke on her; that this was nothing but a mind trick.

"Oh I see how it goes, hehehe." Rainbow Dash yelled through her cries ending in a maniacal laugh. She was being pushed to the brink of insanity.

Rainbow Dash knew that there was a limit to the physical pain that she could endure, and that had not reached her limit. However there was also a limit to the mental stress she could bare, and this hat, this tiny sliver or what one would normally perceive as hope pushed her over that limit.

Without reason in mind Rainbow Dash stood up. It was too abrupt and the wounds were still open. Her wing, already being dislocated, fell down against her body, seemingly ready to be severed. The blood oozed and the cut grew, but Rainbow could not feel the pain, the hat was too much of a distraction, the hat was the only thing in her mind. Everything, not even the pain, nor the sound of hooves behind her, could distract Rainbow from the hat.

With her certainty that the hat was some sort of testament to her insanity, Rainbow walked forwards. If the hat were real, there would be a reason for it being here, if it wasn't real, then maybe everything else wasn't either. With seeming ease she walked, without the pain it wasn't so bad. But that's what she thought.

The damaged wing dragged along the ground hitting every bump and indent, and with every one it dragged lower and lower. The wing was tearing itself off. It was already disconnected from the socket, and the skin was already ripped; with it dragging along the road, the situation was right for that to happen. If it kept up, Rainbow would lose a wing, forever…

___

Two ponies watching in horror saw and heard the red pony, though it was becoming obvious that it was not a naturally red coat and mane laugh, become silent, stand, and walk toward the object Applejack had determined as her hat, however that was not what was horrifying. What was shocking was that now they had a clear view of the injuries, especially the tearing wing.

Applejack and Twilight's faces scrunched up in disgust. They had a clear view of the wing tearing, slowly pulling itself off the Pegasus' body. The monotonous walk of Pegasus made it looks as though the Pegasus didn't even seem to notice its own wing getting ripped off it's body!

It fell. Not the Pegasus, not some tree in the general vicinity, no, it was the wing. The wing had fallen right of the Pegasus' body. It lay dead on the ground, and as Twilight and Applejack got closer, they could see the good amount of skin that came off with it.

They reached the Pegasus. What they could see was the layer of deep red blood actually covered a once blue tinted fur, very cyan like. More interesting though was the Pegasus' man. Under the red, it became visible that the mare's mane had not one, not two, but six different shades of colour! It was a rainbow coloured mane, and there was only one pony that they knew who had a rainbow coloured mane: Rainbow Dash.

Twilight, being the quicker of the two to pick up on the fact that it was Rainbow Dash who just had her wing severed from her body was the first to yell, "Rainbow, is that you?" They were well in hearing distance and she still needed to clarify whether it was Rainbow or not.

Rainbow did not take notice to the question, instead she collapsed to the floor; a loss of blood being the reason. While passing out Rainbow looked up and through the slits of vision she had, she saw faces, two of them in fact: Applejack and Twilight. Rainbow figured that she was seeing those who were important to her, some sort apparitions, greeting her into the next world. Soon everything was fading and two faces became four, became six, became 8. She soon saw all her friends; her family was there too.

Everything was so peaceful to her. At that point in time there was not a single care in the world for her. Her perception of reality had broken.

Comments

[maximus25]

Nooo, not Rainbow. Hopefully Twilight can fix that wing.

[Drazen_Flames]

Why are you making it seem like Dashie is dying?.... you know that means you're not gonna have a good time right? either way, excellent job with the story! also happy to see athe three reunited again!

[ThatOneBronyGuy]

Well fuck.