//------------------------------//
// The worst is fall 
// Story: Sacrifice 
// by Balastis 
//------------------------------//

	Scootaloo quickly ran into her house immediately followed by a sound of thunder and her two friends, which too sought shelter under the roof of her house. As soon as all three of them were inside, Scootaloo closed the door with the loud boom to prevent the raindrops from getting inside her kitchen.
The landscape was being whipped by the rain, and the light was dimmed by the thick layer of clouds that hung above the town. Needless to say the trees and grass gladly accepted the water the rain provided, but Scootaloo somehow didn’t familiarize herself with their enthusiasm.
Her house was on the outskirts of Ponyville on the way to Sweet Apple Acres. It was a simple, old, but big house with an old barn built next to it. There was also a little room in the attic that was given to Scootaloo as her own room when she was born.
The house didn’t look very different from inside, than it looked from the outside. The rooms were large, not separated by any walls except for the bedrooms and bathroom, but this plainness and space somehow added to a feeling of a happy family life.
Scootaloo and her friends were all standing in the kitchen. On their right were an oven and the kitchen line with counter, hidden beneath the layers of kitchen equipment and tools; it was rather apparent that Scootaloo’s dislike in order was inherited. And on their left was a big dining table, spacious enough to host at least ten ponies at the same time. 
Behind the kitchen there was a living room with a large couch on the left, stairs on the right and a little table covered in papers in the middle. On the far side of the room was a wall separating bedrooms and a bathroom from the rest of the house.
Scootaloo looked at her friends and saw that they were both soaking wet yet smiling awkwardly at her while she was giving them an angry look, hyperventilating and growling: “It’s not going to rain for at least another hour!!”
Both Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at the ground while Scootaloo rested her sore wings and gave them the oxygen they needed after the long and sorrowful trip they just endured.
“I don’t know why I always listen to you two!” she complained, “I better go find us some towels, although you two deserve to be left outside instead!”
Scootaloo wiped the water from her eyes and departed towards the rightmost door in the living room wall, beyond which a bathroom was, and quickly returned with three towels on her back.
She gave one to Sweetie Belle and one to Apple Bloom while keeping the third one to herself. It didn’t take her long to shake the bad mood off and grin, afterwards. Pegasi couldn’t get actually wet, so had only little to complain about.
An awkward silence occurred in the room until Sweetie Belle broke it with caution: “So, Scootaloo… You have a really nice home.”
Scootaloo looked at her and said: “Really?! Ehm… Thanks, but I don’t spent that much time here, because I am usually outside with you, or I am stalking Rainbow Dash on the skies.”
Apple Bloom looked around the house and listened to the quiet atmosphere here, wondering where are all the ponies that were bound to live in such a spacious house.
“How come nopony is home?!” she asked curiously then.
“Yeah, there must be at least a dozen ponies living here,” Sweetie Belle agreed while drying her mane.
“No,” Scootaloo simply replied, “I know it is a big house, and we have that large dining table, but we have only three bedrooms here. See?”
“Oh, right,” Sweetie Belle nodded when she realized there were only two bedrooms on the far side of living room and the stairs leading up.
“Still, why ain’t anypony in here? It’s rainin’ outside,” Apple Bloom asked still confusedly, trying to dry her back.
“The house is almost always empty,” Scootaloo replied, drying her tail, “I have an older brother, but he doesn’t spent that much time around.”
“You have a brother?” Sweetie Belle asked from under the towel.
“Yeah, he is eight years older than me.” Scootaloo shrugged with a chuckle, examining her tail.
“What about other members of your family?” Sweetie Belle asked, this time drying Apple Bloom’s back, because she wanted to use this opportunity to get to know Scootaloo a little better.
“Hm, my dad has some really important job at the dam a few miles up the river stream. I don’t see him all week, because he comes home late at night when I am asleep and leaves late in the morning when I am in the school,” Scootaloo said, but then stopped and thought for a while, “Y’know we had a hard time a few years ago, and sometimes I just have a feeling that we still hadn’t gotten pass it, even now.”
Sweetie Belle stopped with drying Apple Bloom’s back, looked at Scootaloo and asked: “What hard time?”
“You know that kind,” Scootaloo said, reluctant to answer, “Just… Hard time.”
Scootaloo was troubled by that one could say as much just by listening to her tone and making connections, but for some strange and described reason she didn’t want to talk about it.
“But anyways,” she quickly continued to steer away from the topic, “My brother is pretty much like my dad. They both are enthusiastic technicians, which could be either inherited, or it is just some defect all unicorns share.”
Sweetie Belle gave Scootaloo a little frowned look, but it was more than obvious that Scootaloo was just teasing her unicorn friend, since Sweetie Belle wasn’t really talented in delicate manipulation needed for technical skills.
“My brother, Iron, is a not very famous inventor, but that never stopped him from trying,” Scootaloo completed.
“Really?” Apple Bloom asked a bit excitedly and looked up at Scootaloo, “What has he invented, yet?”
Scootaloo though for a moment and then answered with a chuckle: “Hm, let’s see… A perfect way how to waste time and about eight ways to set our house on fire, I think. That big barn next-door has burned down twice thanks to him and we had six more visits from the firefighters in the past years.”
“Wow, is he really so fiery?” Sweetie Belle asked, having Apple Bloom dry her back.
“Not quite,” Scootaloo replied quickly, “He was really impressed by that scooter I made and tried to copy it, but he is a unicorn, so he had to find a way to make it move. First he thought about a small steam engine, but had only twice burned our barn down, trying to construct it. Nowadays he is inventing some other type of engine when he is not in town, scaring mares with his face, that is.”
“They both sure seem like pretty busy ponies,” Apple Bloom noted a bit dreamingly.
“Pretty much,” Scootaloo said with a smile, even though she would certainly be happier, if her family had more time for her, “I mean… Given the fact I am home alone all the time, they have to be really busy.” 
Scootaloo said with head up and water dripping from her purple mane onto the floor. Her towel was quickly soaked because it absorbed the water that was held by Scootaloo’s hair, however her feathers couldn’t get wet.
“What about your mother?” Sweetie Belle asked in order to shift the topic into different waters. 
But this time Scootaloo’s smile vanished entirely, only to be replaced by a glom frown. She expected this question to come at some point, but she could never cope with the truth herself, let alone telling it aloud.
“My mother died when I was three,” she said with her gaze cast upon the wooden floor.
“Oh-ou!” Sweetie Belle said when she realized what she must have caused in the heart of her friend, “I am sorry, Scootaloo… I didn’t know!”
“It is alright, Sweetie,” she calmly replied yet she retained her glom frown, “Almost nopony in the town knows.”
Just by looking at her, one could easily say that Sweetie Belle struck a very sensitive topic. Scootaloo was often sad, because of her inability to fly, or because she was left alone when her friends were with their sisters, and she had to walk home alone, but it never was this bad.
One could almost swear that Scootaloo was about to cry, but that wouldn’t be Scootaloo. She just shook her head and then picked the totally soaked towel from the floor and threw it over the chair to dry up. 
“C’mon, girls,” she urged them then, “let’s go to my room.”
Scootaloo quickly trotted up the stairs. Some old memory wasn’t nearly enough to get to her, even though it was a strong one. She, however, already pushed it to the background, because she couldn’t afford to look like some sort of weakling in front of her friends.
Apple Bloom gave Sweetie Belle an angry look and followed Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle felt awful, because she reminded her friend of something that apparently caused pain, even though Scootaloo would never admit it. Eventually and with a sigh she followed them, though.
Scootaloo quickly reached the second floor and opened the only door on the very end of the staircase. Then she went in and let her two friends slip in behind her.
Right opposing the door was a big window with a beautiful view on Ponyville and the distant Cloudsdale. In the corner was a bed, whose legs ended exactly before the window, so Scootaloo had a free access to it. Next to the bed, on their left, was a nightstand table with a firefly lamp, clock, and some photographs. On the other side of the room, on their right, was a table positioned against the wall, and next to it was a small wardrobe.
It appeared to be a tiny room, but Scootaloo didn’t spent much time at home anyway, just like she said. It was also a bit messy, but honestly no one expected anything else. Textbooks were scattered across the room on the ground and on the bed, her work desk was covered in papers and she also had all kinds of stuff laid all over the floor.
Two fillies entered the room, and Sweetie Belle closed the door behind them. Despite having so much to ask about, both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom remained silent for some time, letting the drumming of the raindrops fill their ears with tranquility. 
Scootaloo opened the wardrobe and pulled out yet another towel and placed it over her head, drying her mane while she slowly walked to the window and looked out.
Ponyville was being cleaned by the long awaited rain, which wouldn’t stop for another six hours at least. Strands of water, falling from the sky were making calm sounds, and the fresh air soothed and eased Scootaloo just like it always did.
The heat of the day was removed and all that was left was a cool, wet air. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths in order to fully enjoy the mood of the storm she appreciated.
There was this thing about storms that every pegasus enjoyed, even the one still unable to reach above the clouds. They calmed and soothed, brought back lost serenity and made the world stop for a while just to enjoy the moment in time. Who needed to fly? Flying in a lightning storm was a stupidity anyway.
Her two friends were impatiently standing in front of door and waiting for Scootaloo to say something, because none of them could fully comprehend the bound pegasi had with the storms such as this one.
“Don’t you wanna sit or something?” she asked finally, her face cracking into an amused smile over her friends’ insecurity. 
Apple Bloom sat on bed while Sweetie Belle took a seat on the chair at the table, but they both remained silent as if they needed Scootaloo’s permission to touch anything, or to just speak up.
She turned her face to them. Fresh air made the difference, and she was now looking and feeling much better than the wet and gloomy Scootaloo she used to be a minute ago. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were feeling much more comfortable once their friend smiled again.
“So,” Scootaloo began, “What are we going to do until the rain stops?” 
All three fillies merged into thoughts. Truth to be told, there was not much to do inside such a small room, especially when Scootaloo had no board games, books or anything.
“Oh, oh,” Apple Bloom was attracting their attention. “Maybe we could tell stories…” 
“…Or sing a song!” Sweetie Belle interrupted her, but Scootaloo’s pupils quickly shrunk upon hearing that sentence.
“Oh, no!” she denied quickly and resolutely, “I think stories would be the best option from the ones suggested!”
Sweetie Belle looked a bit sad, but she was also the first, who talked afterwards: “Ok, who wants to go first?” 
“ME!” Apple Bloom shouted, “Ah’d like to tell y’all a story that mah sister told me yesterday. It’s ‘bout an ol’ mare, who investigates a murder…” 
Scootaloo cut her in the middle of the sentence by saying: “It was a bartender, because he had a romance with his wife.” 
Apple Bloom was shocked from being interrupted and even more astonished that the interruption was actually a correct answer. 
“How did ya know?!!” she asked in astonishment.
“I tried to tell this story to Rainbow Dash two days ago in the Sugarcube Corner… She didn’t really listen, but she at least let me tell it to her. Apple Jack was there too,” Scootaloo explained.
The silence fell upon the three fillies… Until Sweetie Belle finally cracked the silence: “My sister told me about some book she read recently. It was about a stallion with a memory loss, who got to work on the farm and fell in love with one of the mares owning it.”
“Oh, c’mon,” Scootaloo objected in disappointment, “Do you really think I could withstand something like this?” 
“Well… I thought, that maybe if you gave it a shoot…” Sweetie Belle was trying to convince Scootaloo with her puppy eyes, “You may find it really touching; it is called Cores of Apples.”
“Don’t be silly, Sweetie Belle, you know this stuff isn’t working on me,” Scootaloo said calmly, dispersing any other efforts from Sweetie Belle.
She wasn’t able to come up with anything either, though. They planned to do a mouse catching in Apple’s barn and not to tell stories out of nowhere in her room.
“Ok, stories stink!” she admitted despondently, “So, what are we going to do instead? There must be something to do!”
She turned to window and looked outside for inspiration. The rain was just getting stronger, and the yellow light above Ponyville was becoming rarer and rarer as the sunset filled the air with an intensifying darkness.
“Maybe we could…” in that moment the sound of nearby thunder pierced her concentration, and a flash above the clouds shocked her as well as her friends, “Dang it!!”
Scootaloo’s heart just skipped a few beats, and it was now making up for it with her breathing following the suit. She turned to her friends from the window and smiled a little sheepishly before saying: “What a bang, heh?” 
Both of her friends were smiling just as her before all of them bursted into a long series of giggles, which lasted several seconds before it ceased. After that a silence filled the room again until Sweetie Belle noticed a small object falling from the sky right above Ponyville.
“Look,” she said thoughtfully, zooming at the object, “What is that?!”
The three fillies turned to the window and they too tried to zoom at the small object, which was falling straight to the ground in a free fall. It appeared to be a blue chunk of irregular shape, but there was something familiar about it.
“Oh, curses!! Is it a pony??” Scootaloo said in disbelieve and tried to zoom in even more.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie belle squeezed next to Scootaloo to see for themselves, but it was hard to tell, because the blur was falling way to fast and brighter clouds in higher layers made it hard to recognize the shape well.
“Oh no!” Scootaloo suddenly uttered to herself, “It is… It is Rainbow Dash, girls!!!”
The realization came with the sight of a multicolored mane and tail against the darker clouds closer the ground, and in that very moment Scootaloo’s pupils shrunk into just two little dots. The shock was terrible from the beginning, because Rainbow Dash was a friend of her family ever since she was born. 
Scootaloo lost no time and ran out of the room straight towards the town. She rushed forward even though she knew she had no chance of getting there in time. Her two friends followed her, however in much slower pace.
Rainbow Dash was nearing the ground very quickly, making her way through the rain drops, which were mildly shattering on her face as she fell, and nearly dispersed clouds that hung low above the ground.
“Wake up! Wake up!!” Scootaloo was silently praying, flipping her wings as fast as she could in order to lift up and help her move faster, but she was way too far from the town for it to have any effect. 
She was running as fast as her legs allowed her to, through the puddles and holes, paying them no attention and not slowing down. Only things that mattered right now were the short stripes of rainbow colored mane glowing against the dark sky above her.
Scootaloo didn’t mind the pain in her wings, nor did she mind the pain in her legs; she was just running forward with rain falling onto her feathers, and water from the pools splashing mud all over her.
She looked up to see Rainbow just a few dozen meters above the buildings. Scootaloo was breathing heavily, giving oxygen to her aching muscles in futile attempts to somehow reach the town before her, but she was just too far.
Suddenly a flesh of light appeared just next to Rainbow Dash, but it missed. And a second one! And a third one! All of them missed the falling blur, but it was an indication that somepony in town was trying to catch her.
“C’mon!!” Scootaloo was praying silently between her breaths while still running like crazy.
Another flesh, this one much stronger and brighter! A direct hit! Rainbow Dash disappeared from the sky, and the only thing hitting the ground were her saddlebags.
Scootaloo stopped, hyperventilating and still having more than a half way to the town ahead. She scanned the sky with several quick glances, but there was no sign of Rainbow Dash and no screaming of horror, either. 
Scootaloo fell into the wet soil with the sigh of great relief and closed her eyes to shield them from the rain drops, just breathing heavily. Twilight mush have caught Rainbow when she neared the ground, because there was nopony else in the town, who could do a teleportation spell.
After a few moments her friends caught up with her, both of them ventilating just as heavily as her. She just raised her head and looked at her friends, whose wild breaths were much louder than any sound the storm could ever make.
“What was she thinking?!!” she asked them, angry at the foolish mare, “How could she just fly through air during the lightning storm like that?!!”
Her friends were just staring at her and letting the fresh air slowly fill their muscles with renewed energy while Scootaloo was asking those questions loudly and indignantly. 
After a few moments of rest she said: “C’mon! We need to see what happened to her!”
They once again went towards the Ponyville, but this time Scootaloo was slower than before. However, even though she was slower, her friends still had problems to keep up with her, because she was driven forward by concern.
Scootaloo made her way quickly through the town and headed straight towards the library, where she knew Rainbow would be. The library was a huge hollowed out oak, where Twilight Sparkle, the librarian, lived and worked.
Water in her eyes made her sight a blur for most of the time, but she was still walking towards the library with the same pace of a faster canter.
Bursting into the library, she saw three mares standing in the middle of the spacious wooden hall and eyeing her fearfully, because she forgot to knock on the door before entering.
Fluttershy was a young and yellow mare, after Pinkie Pie the youngest of the bearers of the elements of harmony. Her long, pale pink mane and tail mostly served her as a hiding from unwanted stared, for she was incredibly shy. Only few ponies ever saw her teal eyes, hidden under innocently looking eyelashes, but those who did, she always called her close friends. Her cutiemark were three pink butterflies, because her special talent was communicating with animals on a level nopony else understood.
Rarity on the other hand, could have easily been the one oldest from the group after Apple Jack, with her being twenty two years old. She was Sweetie Belle’s big sister, although she often found it a lifelong test of her patience rather than a blessing. An elegant white unicorn she was, with a perfectly styled purple hair and blue eyes, highlighted by her make-up. Her cutiemark were three gems, although she wasn’t a miner; she worked as a fashion designer and excessively acted as a part of higher society she so desperately wanted to be.
They stood in a large round room with many small shelves set in the walls of the hollowed out tree. On their right were some comfy looking seats with tables in front of them, but none of the fillies thought about them, although their legs ached like hell.
On their left was a passage into another room and just next to it a stair case leading to the Twilight’s personal rooms. There were also another door right in front of them, and one under the staircase, probably leading into the kitchen.
There was a small round carpet in the center of the room and candle lamps set on every table, which was rather strange for a unicorn like Twilight. There were also round windows all over the room in random heights depending on where the walls were thinnest, but there was no ceiling except for the roof. 
“How is she??? How is Rainbow Dash???” Scootaloo asked without a second thought, whereupon she started ventilating with her head hung down to save energy and relieve her sore neck.
“Well, actually…” Twilight started uncertainly, even though she expected Scootaloo to rush into the library second she hears the news.
“What?!”  she interrupted her with a terrified sigh, “Do not say she is not gonna be OK!”
Scootaloo almost yelled in desperation. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom entered the library as well a while later. Both of them were totally exhausted from the long run and all three of them were soaking wet, again.
“Where is she?” Sweetie Belle asked anxiously between breaths.
Twilight looked at Fluttershy, then back to the three fillies and then said with her own anxious tone: “She isn’t here.”
“What?!” Scootaloo said with exhalation, “Then where have you teleported her to?!!” 
“I… I don’t know,” Twilight replied anxiously, dodging her gaze in guilty manner, “She was going down so fast, and I just wanted to catch her… But I couldn’t get a proper fix on her, so I panicked and tried to just shoot from the hip… I caught her, I guess. But she was so fast! I don’t know where she could have ended up.
“What do you mean by not knowing where she could have ended up?!!” Scootaloo asked angrily now. 
“Calm down, Scootaloo!” Rarity settled the conflict by standing at Twilight’s side.
“We are all concerned for Dash as well as you,” she continued with an even voice, “Twilight here did a great job, catching her. Now we just need to find her to make sure she is fine.”
“Then what are we waiting for?!!” Scootaloo urged and threw her arms wide.
Scootaloo rushed to the still opened front door, not even looking back at her friends, or any of the three mares, which were now exchanging confused glances.
“Scootaloo, wait!” Fluttershy called, but Scootaloo wouldn’t listen; she made her way outside and looked around herself, deciding which way she should go.
“Scootaloo, come inside,” Twilight called for her.
She turned towards Twilight and she was just about to say something, when another flash just in front of her blinded her. It appeared and was gone in less than a second, leaving Rainbow Dash lying in the mud and smoking a bit.
Rainbow Dash, a pegasus of a cyan color and short rainbow hair, was often given a title of the best flyer in Equestria, because of her previous achievements on the field of flight. She had only little that could be called a girly charm, although her deep magenta eyes might say differently. She was masculine and overly sleek for a mare, but on the other hoof she was fast and strong. Her cutiemark was a cloud with a rainbow lightning.
Rainbow Dash was a long time friend of Scootaloo’s family, and she was also the daredevil Scootaloo always wanted to be. She sure had no lack of confidence, for she bragged as much as she could to hide her more sensitive feminine sides, which she considered to be weaknesses.
“Rainbow Dash!!” Scootaloo shrieked and ran to the mare on the ground.
She knelt to her and placed her ear to the mare’s chest, but in the rain she was unable to hear anything, however she felt the rising and falling of her chest at least.
As soon as the residents of the library saw the cyan feathers in the mud in front of the library, they all ran out to see for themselves if their friend was alright, but none of them actually dared to touch the unconscious mare.
Only Twilight, though stressed and surprised just as anypony else, took the initiative and grasped the injured mare with her telekinesis, dragging her into the library to check on her and, if necessary, revive her.
Inside, Twilight set Rainbow down onto the wooden floor and immediately pushed her muzzle against her neck, trying to find out if Rainbow’s heart was beating. Luckily, she was able to feel the pulses of her heart on her neck and hear her breathing.
After checking her physical condition, Twilight used her magic to open Rainbow’s left eye and checked the pupil reaction. Fortunately, even in this case was everything in normal, which was extremely relieving yet also confusing.
Being hit by the lightning wasn’t just something you could shake off in a moment, so Twilight proceeded to check upon the Rainbow’s wing itself to determine the full extent of the damage the lightning caused.
Surprisingly, the wing was entirely scorched, and the burned flesh and feathers filled the library with an incredibly disgusting stench; the wound was much more serious than Twilight would think. Lightning, capable of causing such burns, would certainly be lethal for everypony, so Twilight couldn’t comprehend how Rainbow could be still alive with only a mere shock.
But that didn’t matter at the time, because she needed a medical care Twilight couldn’t provide, and so they needed to get her to the hospital as soon as possible.
Twilight heaved a large sigh of relieve and turned to the scared crowd in the library, saying: “Alright, everypony! She seems to be alright, but we still need to get her to the hospital for further diagnosis!”
“Are you sure she will be fine?!” Scootaloo asked in desperation, because she knew well what a lightning can cause.
“I am, but we must not lose time!” Twilight urged, “I will need some help getting her to the hospital.”
She spoke to Rarity and Fluttershy, but Scootaloo immediately protested, not wanting to be left behind: “And what about us?! I wanna go with you!”
“No, Scootaloo,” Twilight rejected, casting a protective spell over Rainbow’s wing, “You should stay here and dry yourself up before you catch flu; we can handle this on our own.”
With this said Twilight and the two other mares left the library through the small crowd, which gathered in front of it in the meantime. Scootaloo watched them from between the doorframes as they disappeared in the distance.
Then she only looked sadly at the ground and was just about to go back inside when she noticed the very same dark coated pony like before in the Sugarcube Corner.
He was looking on the three mares as they were disappearing in the rain, but then his gaze slowly shifted towards Scootaloo with an uncertainty of a kind Scootaloo never saw before, almost as if he was scanning whether she could really see him or not.
He was an incredibly tall pegasus stallion with a dark blue coat and light white hair. His eyes were pure blue and Scootaloo failed at noticing his cutiemark, possibly because the dark coat made it very hardly visible.
“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle called on her, “What are you looking at?” 
Scootaloo turned back to see a confused look on Sweetie Belle’s face, so she looked back to point at the stallion, but he was already gone before she could even raise her hoof.
She stood in confusion for a while, but she had bigger concerns now, than some stranger standing in the rain, so she closed the door and went towards the pool of water Rainbow left.
Spike, Twilight’s baby dragon assistant of purple and green scales, gave her a towel, so she could dry herself up just as her friends were doing, but he was obviously much more confused by what happened than the fillies.
He gave them one more anxious look and then his eyes shifted to the floor of the library and the huge muddy pool, which resided there. An annoyed groan could be heard, whereupon he went to fetch some rags to dry the floor up as well.
Scootaloo used the towel to shield her head from an unwanted looks of her friends’, pretending to be drying her mane off, but in fact the shock now got the time to really settle in within her, and she felt nauseous and dizzy.
“I wonder who’s done that,” Spike asked to broke the silence after a while.
“Who’s done what?!” Apple Bloom asked in a reply, not following his train of thoughts.
“The teleportation spell,” he said to clarify, “Twilight couldn’t have done it, because she was just as surprised as we were when Rainbow appeared again.”
“But, who else has the ability to duplicate her teleportation?” Sweetie Belle asked, drying her belly.
“And under the circumstances not even Twilight could handle?” he added thoughtfully.
Scootaloo sneezed, removed the towel from her face and said firmly: “That doesn’t matter anymore! For as long as Rainbow Dash is save.” 
Both fillies and the dragon nodded.