//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: The Storm // Story: Lighting Can Strike Twice // by Lightning_Colt //------------------------------// After Rainbow left, a couple of hours had passed before I had another visitor, Fluttershy had come in to change my dressing and refresh the cold flannel on my forehead. She performed these tasks with silent precision, though there was always the feeling of care and kindness emanating from her. Occasionally our eyes would meet but she would emit a quiet 'squee' and quickly look away. After she had finished she got up and made towards the door without saying a word. Had I done something wrong? Had I done something to upset her? I was about to sit back and ponder these thoughts when I noticed to my surprise that a small wooden tray had been left on my right, with a glass of orange juice and a daisy sandwich resting on it. I quickly shouted out a polite "Thank you!" before the door Fluttershy had just exited through had clicked closed. The daisy sandwich had reminded me of how famished I was, having only eaten two apples in the morning, I had completely devoured the sandwich within minutes and gulped down the orange juice. Being a little bit grateful that nopony was around to see my not-so-spectacular table manners. A lot of the pain that was around my abdomen had been alleviated by the sandwich and my head was starting to clear. I decided that I was probably well enough to walk around so I got out of what I guessed was Fluttershy's bed, neatly folded the covers, slung my saddlebag on and my necklace over my head. Grabbed the wooden tray with my teeth and made my way downstairs. Fluttershy was sitting downstairs brushing a white cat, it's coat looking beautifully groomed with a purple bow and matching collar. The cat was loving being groomed by the yellow pegasus and plainly ignored my entrance into the room. I placed the tray lightly on a table and suddenly a strange feeling came to my nose, I tried wiggling it to get rid of it but it grew into a situation shattering "AAAAAATTCHOOOOOOOOO!!" Fluttershy shot out of her chair and was clinging upside-down on the ceiling and the cat shot underneath Fluttershy's chair. "B-b-bless you" whimpered Fluttershy, "Sorry Fluttershy!" I said flying up to her and gently guiding her back down to the floor. "It's alright" she replied, "you just startled me" she gave me a small smile emphasising that she's okay and reached under her chair to retrieve the cat. "That's one beautiful cat you have" I commented as she sat back down with it. "Oh, Opalescence isn't my pet, she belongs to Rarity" she said as she looked up. Suddenly her eyes widened as an idea hit her. "I have a lot of animals to take care of today, could you take Opal back to Rarity for me… if you don't mind" she completed the last part of her sentence quietly and looking down at her hooves as though she were ashamed of it. "Sure" I replied nonchalantly, "Where does she live?" I kept repeating Fluttershy's directions out aloud to remember; "turn right onto road into Ponyville, keep waking till I get to the market, hang a left at the asparagus stand, turn right at the spa and it should be on the left, if I've hit Sugarcube Corner I've gone too far." Unfortunately for my poor mind, repeating such a list of directions had muddled it up into ' turn right onto road into Ponyville, keep waking till I , hang an asparagus at the market, turn left to hit Sugarcube Corner and go too far to the spa.' Opal didn't seem to mind me so much to dislike me but I could tell that all of my dawdling and talking to myself had started to irritate her. A brown pony with a brown mane and tail was ambling past me looking quite cheerful, he was also wearing quite a dashing pinstriped suit. I noticed that his cutie mark was an hourglass and I shortly wondered what his talent was before a growl from Opal reminded me of my current task. I heard the brown pony say calmly "Ah, Ponyville is quite nice when the Cyberponies aren't trying to assimilate it". Not really thinking about what 'Cyberponies' are, I walked up to the brown pony and politely asked "Excuse me, can you direct me to Carousel Boutique please?" "Certainly" the brown pony replied, "Just go through the market, at the asparagus stand turn left, turn right at the spa and it should be on the left" I smiled with gratitude "Thank you…, mister?" "oh, I'm the Doctor" the brown pony declared "Well thank you Doctor", I said as I waved goodbye and proceeded to follow his instructions. Surely enough, thanks to the Doctor's directions I had made it to Carousel Boutique, the dress shop that Rarity owns. I pushed the door open and was amazed at the sheer beauty of the store, there were dresses on pony manikins that looked like they belonged to royalty. I just stood there, jaw hanging in awe of the quality of clothing made by Rarity. I set the basket containing Opal down and she climbed out and started to rub her head against my leg as if to say 'thank you for bringing me home'. "Ooh a customer!" piped a voice from the back room and Rarity walked from it, stopping when she saw that her 'customer' was me. "Well hello Lightning." "Hey Rarity, I brought Opalescence for Fluttershy" I said starting to turn to leave. Rarity had noticed and her demeanour changed "Wait! You can't go yet! I really need your help!" she said, desperation all too apparent in her voice, she came up to me and gave me a the sad puppy dog face that swayed me into helping her. "Fine, what do you need help with?" I sighed hoping this wouldn't take hours. I was wrong. It did take hours, or days, or weeks, the amount of time and boredom that had passed felt like an eternity. I Casually looked at the clock hanging above the door and my jaw dropped, 2 HOURS?! It's only been two hours? I had physically lost count of how many suit Rarity had pushed on me to take pictures for her new clothing range, it was all male, with an array of suits, coats and ties. Even though they did look very well made, fashion really wasn't my passion. After trying on a tweed suit with leather patches halfway down the arms along with a bowtie and strangely a fez I had to get out, I also needed to get home, if not, I wouldn't get dinner, plus dad would probably ground me. I walked up to Rarity, who had her back to me searching through a rail of suits, quickly thinking what to say. "Hey Rarity?" I asked, slightly quietly, Fluttershy must be rubbing off on me. "Yes Lightning?" she replied without turning around. "Er, I, kinda, need to get back home now so…" I hadn't though quick enough but Rarity seemed to understand "Of course you can go, you have helped me a lot with these pictures besides I heard earlier that the pegasi were preparing a thunderstorm later." "'Kay" I said noting that the storm should be avoided. And walking out of the boutique into heavy downpour. I sighed and started to make my way towards the south road. After fifteen minutes of trudging through the torrent of rain I noticed that I hadn't even made it out of Ponyville yet. After letting out an "ARGH" of aggravation, an idea struck me, what if I flew? My wings should be okay now, I brought them out and gave them a couple of test flaps, no pain, let's go! I took off and started flying south, oh this was so much easier, instead of walking around all the building I could just fly over them! Within minutes I had reached the edge of Ponyville but unfortunately the storm had gotten heavier. I was about to set off when CRASH of thunder made me jump and shatter my concentration and I fell to earth. Or at least I landed on something, not earth, soft but strong. Looking down I see a familiar cyan coat, Rainbow had caught me. "What are you doing out here?!" she exclaimed, concern running through her voice. "Getting home?" I replied in confusion "Flight camp Rule number four! Never fly alone in lightning storms! It's far too dangerous!" she explained. "Fine…" I sighed. We both took off and flew south towards Hoofington in silence, but as we flew the storm seemed to get worse, my ears flattened as a second roll of thunder echoed in my head. Within seconds a bolt of lightning streaked from the clouds right in front of me, barely giving me time to swerve left to avoid it. Something felt wrong, this storm felt… unnatural, other lightning storms didn't have much lightning, but as I flew closer to home, more and more bolts were appearing from the clouds. Rainbow seemed to notice as she gave me a look which read 'this isn't right', I gave her a nod in agreement and focused on the dim lights of Hoofington. After dodging several more bolts we managed to get to Hoofington, I landed round the corner from the house so that dad couldn't see me land. Rainbow landed next to me and I turned to speak to her. "Thanks for coming with me, see ya around Rainbow." I dismissed. "Uh, I'm not flying back in this" she said pointing a hoof at the sky. "Oh, Well I guess you could stay at mine until the storm clears out" I suggested, dreading the conversation with my mother, I've never had any friends no matter girlfriends and I'm sure that no matter what I say my mom will assume that Rainbow is more than a friend. I started walking around the corner onto my street and trudged through the almost boggy road. As my house came into view, I could not believe what I was seeing, the tree, under which I had spent 14 years of my life, under which I was born, was laying on its side blocking the road, I looked at the base of the tree and saw that where the tree broke was burnt to a crisp, I guessed that it had been hit by lightning. I followed the trunk of the tree and saw that it had fallen through my house. I leapt onto the tree and ran along the trunk to see the damage to my house, it had fallen through the roof and first floor and was resting across the ground floor through the living room and kitchen. "L-Light?" Something groaned from underneath the tree Dreading what made that sound, I followed it and almost couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. My mom and dad were underneath the tree.