Lighting Can Strike Twice

by Lightning_Colt

Chapter 2: First meeting

"Ugh, what happened?" I asked myself, my voice groggy and unfamiliar. My head splitting like a cord of firewood, bringing up a hoof to try to relieve some of the pressure, feeling a bandage around my head. "Okay… this isn't good". I finally stop to take in my environment, I appear to be in a well kept, cosy cottage and in one of the most comfortable beds I have ever been in. I notice that the door is slightly ajar and two shadows are taking to each other.
"Well what do we do with him?" Asked the first voice, it sounded nervous.
"Ah Reckon y'all should wait for the others tuh get here, then we can all deal with him properly" replied the second voice.

Oh ponyfeathers. I've read enough mystery novels to know where this is going. A wave of terrifying scenarios started rushing through my head. What if they want to use me for slave labour? Or they are going to ask my parents for a ransom and send bits of me until they do? They could torture me by pulling out all of my feathers one by one and leave me starving and weak in the Everfree Forest! I needed to get out of here. I quickly but quietly leapt out of bed and started to formulate a plan. "Right I need to get out, the door is a no go, they're right outside, I'll have to use the window!" I silently opened the window and leapt through. The first flap of my wings erupted in a twinge that crippled my flight and a fell to the ground. "Okay, looks like I'm walking" and I started down the trail away from the demon cottage.

After 5 minutes of full sprinting I found myself in Ponyville. I walked towards town hall, stopping at a newspaper vendor selling new issues of 'The Ponyville Express' and saw that the date is the same. Good, it's still the day I left, I heard a clock strike and I searched for the source, the large clock tower near the school. I walked backwards as to take in the time, "Good it's one pm, I've only been unconscious for a couple of hours". I continued to walk backwards as to take in more of the sights of Ponyville. I had been walking for about ten seconds when I bumped into the back of somepony, I wheeled around readying a quick 'scuse me' but I was silenced by what I saw before me. On the ground in front of me was a yellow and pink lump shaking and emitting almost inaudible squeaks.

"Er, are you okay?" I asked the lump, bending down so that my face had become level with it.
"I'm s-sorry I b-bumped into you, here, t-take all m-my b-belongings as c-compensation" it said in a light, whispery voice while a yellow hoof poked out holding a saddlebag. Within her voice I could sense fear, what? I had frightened her so much that she became a quivering wreck? I noticed that the pink appeared to be her mane and tail. Following one of them led to a pair of ears, into which I spoke softly "hey, no it was my fault, I walked into you, miss?..."
"flu……y" she mumbled.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Flutt…y".
"Huh?"
"Fluttershy" she replied as a pair of large cyan coloured eyes rose out of the mass.

"Well, miss Fluttershy, as I most clumsily walked into you, I shall be happy to help you finish your shopping." I don't know how I became so courteous, usually I can be quite impolite to other ponies, usually because they would stop and laugh or point at my blank flank. However, this pony had completely shattered that part of me, all I wanted to do was help her. Fluttershy rose to a full stand and I could actually see all of her meek, quivering form. She was a pegasus too, and she had three pink butterflies for a cutie mark. I looped my head through the saddlebag in front of me and tried to loosened the straps, Fluttershy was quite a small filly and the saddlebag was a bit constricting. I was starting to struggle for breath when I felt the saddlebag loosen and air return into my lungs. I turned my head to see that Fluttershy had loosened the straps and was now pulling them to fit.

I turned to face her and was about to thank her when another wave of headaches, probably brought on from the panic of being strangled, hit me and I kneeled down, bringing a hoof to my bandaged head. Fluttershy had noticed the bandage, sped towards me and looked around my head worryingly. Within 5 seconds her demeanour had changed completely, instead of being frightened and nervous she was careful, attentive and worried. "Oh you poor thing! What happened?" she asked.

"I collided with something… hard" I muttered as she brought herself under my left foreleg, I was surprised she was able to take such weight, looking so fragile. "Here, let me help you, you need to get some rest" she said as we started walking to what I was hoping was help. We walked in silence for a few minutes before Fluttershy surprisingly broke it, "so, w-what's your name?"
"Lightning…"
"Oh, that's…nice."

Then a sudden though hit me, 'where's my necklace?' my right hoof suddenly sped for my neck, causing me to fall face first to the ground. "Oh my!" Fluttershy remarked, "is there something wrong?" both of my hooves were searching round my neck. My lightning bolt necklace was gone! My mind started darting around in memories trying to find its last location. Where could it be? When did I lose it? Who could have it now? My mother would be heartbroken if she found out I had lost it, not really for how much it cost but the sentimental value it held. My vision started to become blurry and before I could reply to Fluttershy, I slipped out of consciousness again.

Rising up from the bowels of consciousness wasn't pleasant the second time as I slowly opened my eyes, allowing more and more levels of light through, though unfocused. Even though my vision was blurred, I couldn't ignore the large pink blob hovering inches from my face. It seemed to have noticed me open my eyes as it moved away from me slightly and suddenly rolled away chanting "He's awake! He's Awake! He's awake!"

Recovering from the sudden burst of excitement, my eyes started to focus only to reveal a familiar-looking cottage bedroom. I started to panic again when sudden speech from my left cancelled it "If I knew you were gonna take off, I would have kept an eye on you." I looked to my left to see a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane sitting on a cushion next to my bed. I turned to look in the direction that the pink blob disappeared to "Oh, don't worry about her, that’s just Pinkie Pie. She's probably off getting her party cannon or something".

Before I could enquire about what a 'party cannon' is, the door swung open violently, making both myself and the cyan pegasus jump in surprise. "It's about time y'all woke up!" shouted an orange pony with a long blonde mane with a large brown leather hat atop her head. I winced from the sheer volume that the pony's voice carried and pulled a hoof up to my forehead, knocking a damp flannel from my head. The pegasus seemed to notice and told the orange pony, "Applejack, could you speak a bit quieter, he just woke up!" The pony called Applejack seemed to be a bit hurt by what the pegasus said and replied "WHAT? Ah ain't allowed tuh speak tuh the new pony?". I sat up and mentioned to Applejack "It's alright Applejack, I just have a headache".
"Applejack, why can't you be quiet like Fluttershy!" Contested the pegasus.
"Ah would be quiet, but Ah didn’t know Ah needed tuh be quiet, Rainbow". Retorted Applejack.
"He's been unconscious! Of course He'd need quiet!" Rainbow shouted.
"Ah'm sorry that Ah'm not thuh most medically knowin'!"Applejack shouted back
"LADIES!" I interrupted. "Can I have some quiet please?"

Both of the ponies fell silent, giving each other angry glares. "I vote for quiet" whispered a voice to my right. I turned to see that Fluttershy had been sitting next to me, holding the flannel that was on my head, she saw me looking at it and seemed to take the hint and lay it on my head. We all sat in the room in an awkward silence for several minutes before a voice at the door broke the silence. "We're Here!" A sultry voice sang. Looking at the door noticing the purple and white unicorns at the doorway. The purple one had a lavender mane with a stripe of dark purple and pink in a neatly cut line. The white unicorn having an expertly coiffed light purple main with a twist in her tail.
"Now then, My name is Twilight Sparkle" announced the purple unicorn. "Would you mind telling us how you came to becoming unconscious in my friend's care?"

"Sure" I replied. I told her that I was out practicing some moves, didn’t need to tell her that I was breaking rules. From the look of her, I could tell she like rules and organisation. She seemed to be writing down everything I was saying on a floating clipboard and pencil floating a foot away from her. I told her that I had just finished a loop-the-loop when I crashed into something and woke up in this room. I mentioned that I thought that they were gonna do bad things to me and they all stood, stunned for a couple of seconds before Twilight asked me to continue. I mentioned how I 'bumped into' Fluttershy in town and offered to help her and then panicked when I couldn’t find my necklace and fell unconscious again and woke up not long ago.

"I haven't seen you in Ponyville before" added Twilight
"Yeah, I'm from Hoofington, it's about ten miles south of Ponyville".
"Ah yes! I remember delivering an order there just before Cadence's wedding!"
"Light blue with lavender trim?" I asked the white pony who was called Rarity.
"y-yes… how did you know?" she said looking slightly puzzled.
"That was my Mom's dress for the princess' wedding" I answered.
"Ah! A pony with good taste!" Rarity said with a smile growing on her face.
"Ugh! Forget the dress!" interrupted Rainbow "Listen, Lightning, I'm really sorry for flying into ya like that, I guess I should have shouted you before coming over" she said as her cheeks slowly became redder and redder. She seemed to have noticed the shocked expressions on her friends faces, "err… I gotta go do, uh weather, erm… stuff." She panicked as she bolted out of the nearest window.

"What was that about?" I questioned, still looking at the window that rainbow used to escape. "Well, Rainbow ain't the kinda pony tuh say sorry tuh anypony like that before" answered Applejack.
"Usually it’s just a quick 'sorry' before she rushes back to what she was doing" piped up Fluttershy.
"You musta' really made an impression on her tuh like ya that much!" Said Applejack and I could feel my cheeks change to a bright crimson.
"I wouldn't think so, I was just being clumsy" I managed to speak quietly before almost shutting down with embarrassment.
"Alright girls, I think it's time we let Lightning get some rest" Twilight said calmly, I looked at her and she gave me a wink. "I you ever need anything, come up to the library and I'll see what I can do". I simply nodded and pulled the covers up to my eyes and rolled off into sleep almost instantly. I hadn’t realised I had been so tired.

It felt like only minutes had passed when I felt something poking me in the side, I just ignored it and tried to get back to sleep. Without warning two solid stumps almost penetrated my abdomen as they collided with such force causing spasms of pain throughout my body, jolting me awake shouting "OW!". I turned my head to see the culprit to find that it was Rainbow, what was she doing here? Before I could ask she reached behind her and brought out something shiny, squinting my eyes to get a better look, I saw that it was my Lightning bolt necklace! I whisked it from her hoof and hugged it, thank god somepony had found it! "After we collided, when I caught you I noticed it shining on the ground and I thought it was yours, so I collected it with your saddlebag and brought you here".

"Thank you so much Rainbow" I whimper as tears start to well up in my eyes.
"You're Welco-" she couldn't finish her sentence as I had leapt from the bed and enveloped her in a great hug. "Thank you" I whispered. I felt a hoof start to stroke the back of my head and another reach around my middle, Rainbow was hugging back.

"You're Welcome" She replied softly.

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*Reads last paragraph*
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