"Open your eyes—we're almost there."

Scootaloo opened her eyes. She was surprised that they had been closed to begin with; she definitely didn't remember having fallen asleep. But there she was on the pilot's seat, lying against the back, forelegs wrapped around—

"Mmfff...!" Scootaloo sputtered, scrambling up to her hooves and stumbling left, bumping up against the armrest. She blinked. "What happened?"

"I dunno, you fell asleep or something," the green-grey colt next to her replied. "It's only been like an hour, but we're almost there. I figure I'll park us a little bit outside the town, so we don't draw too much attention."

Scootaloo was still blinking the sleep out of her eyes and brain and everything else, but she had enough consciousness to instinctually nod at the words that were in the process of washing over her. She looked out the window in front of her; the world outside looked much the same as it had last time she had looked at it. The filly wondered how Kevin could keep track of it all—every group of trees looked the same as any of the others, and the rivers weren't all that different either. But she trusted him. She had to, or else she was on her own in figuring out where to go.

"Alright, I'm gonna start pulling us down."

"How?" Scootaloo asked. "Does the wheel tilt?"

"No, but I found a lever here. I took that piece of paper with your alphabet on it to translate the label while you were asleep, and the label says 'Pitch adjustment'."

"Huh? Pitch? Like in music?"

"Heh, no, not like that," Kevin replied. "Basically it's flying-speak for up and down. So, right now, I'm just going to push it forward a little bit, so we start going downwards."

Scootaloo watched as Kevin's hoof pushed on the white ball end of the slender metal rod. The thing looked almost cartoonish, like something a villain would pull to drop out the floor from underneath a gang of mystery-solving teenagers. As he pushed it just a few degrees forward, Scootaloo heard the engine, somewhere beneath them in the metal belly of the beast, rumbling fiercely.

And then the floor dropped out from under her.

Scootaloo was thrown suddenly forward, her fuzzy orange stomach impacting upon the edge of the dashboard. She saw Kevin next to her facing a similar fate, his muzzle bouncing off the plastic steering wheel.

She craned her neck to look up as she fell down onto the floor. The view of the window filled up with the vibrant green treetops which had put her to sleep just an hour ago. Perhaps they would again.

Scootaloo fell to her haunches, dazed. Her head throbbed; she must have bumped it. She couldn't remember. She tried to move, tried to climb up to the lever so she could push it. Anything to move them upwards.

She clambered over a limp, fleshy thing, standing atop it just so she could reach, and thank Celestia she could. Scootaloo's orange hooves reached weakly over the edge of the dashboard and around that thin metal pole with the ball on the end. She pulled it back with all her might. Only just slightly was she able to move it, if at all--it was hard to tell. Then, hoping she had done enough, Scootaloo fell back to the ground.

The engine kept rumbling as the metal world around Scootaloo faded away.