The Raging Thunder Act-1

by Thunder Bolt

A Confusing Encounter (Distant Memories)

The evening sun felt warm on Thunder’s back as he laid there atop the cloud. It had been a long day at the flight academy, so rather than train, Thunder decided he would take this time to treat himself to a short nap. Thunder was able to enjoy evening naps much more commonly now that he was staying at the academy. This being especially so, seeing as there weren’t very many pegasi to talk to. Well, at least not many that would talk to him.
After Thunder had been released from the Cloudsdale clinic several weeks ago, his presence there being a result of the testing incident, he was immediately enrolled in the academy with pre-select classes. He didn’t quite understand why his classes were chosen for him, but he was told that they were supposed to be special in some way. It didn’t seem very apparent to him why they were special though, because it seemed like he was only doing what every other pony was. Nonetheless, his schooling wasn’t the thing that was causing him problems. Thunder’s problems arose from the attention he drew during his ‘incident’. Immediately after Thunder had been released form the clinic, every pony that was present during his testing avoided him entirely, and many of those who avoided him began to spread rumors to those who were not present. Now hardly any pony would speak to him, and there have even been a couple circumstances of ponies being afraid of him, at least by ponies his own age.
Thunder looked up at the sky from his place on the cloud, watching the birds fly by. Then looking over his shoulder at Cloudsdale, he slammed his face down flat into the cloud and groaned. He thought about how much he missed Zecora, knowing that he couldn’t go to the forest for fear of suspicions from the other pegasi. He thought about his friend Razzle and the little lake where they would always go to. Rolling over onto his back, he placed his forelegs behind his head and looked up at the sky once more. Cloudsdale was a wonderful place, but to Thunder, it just wasn’t the same as the forest where he was raised. Everything was so different here, and he hadn’t even made a close friend yet. Then Thunder shifted his thoughts to the other pegasi, thinking about all the different pegasi he had encountered so far. He wished that he could make a good friend of another pegasus like him. If only he could just get them to speak to him, because none of the pegasi his age would. Well, except for one pegasus.
“Hey Thunder! Whatcha doin’?” Thunder sighed and rolled back over onto his face.
“Hey Dash.” Thunder grumpily replied to the blue pegasus hovering over him. Why did she always have to interrupt his naps?
Out of all the pegasi that it could have been to still pay attention to Thunder, it had to be Rainbow Dash. Thunder didn’t have anything against her, it was just that she always had a tendency to show up at the absolutely worst times. He didn’t enjoy having his naps interrupted, because that was when Thunder always did his deepest thinking, about his life and all the various events in it. Rainbow Dash was also obviously not very good with animals, as she never failed to scare the birds away when Thunder was trying to talk to someone. Yes it was new, but seeing as there weren’t any land animals in Cloudsdale, Thunder took a liking to talking with the birds every now and then.
Now, Thunder couldn’t blame her for scaring the birds away because he had never shared his liking for animals with any pony, but he had hoped that by now she would have at least gotten the picture about his naps. Ultimately, even though he didn’t enjoy doing so, Thunder decided to ignore her when he was trying to nap, so that she might get it at some point. Thunder couldn’t even understand why she was the only pony who didn’t avoid him. Perhaps it was that she had left before she got a chance to see what had happened during his test, but even then she still must have been told about it by some pony else. The simple fact of the issue was that because of Rainbow’s daring personality, when she had heard about Thunder she was only intrigued. Unfortunately though, Thunder was way more laid back than other pegasi, and content with just relaxing in the sun for an afternoon. He wasn’t by any means a competitive type, so he found it rather hard to get along with Rainbow, as much as he wanted a friend. Sure Thunder was a hard worker, but that was hardly that same kind of thing. He learned a long time ago living with Zecora that energy should be spent when needed, and saved when possible. So after making it into the academy, he decided to take it easy and only exert himself if it was needed.
“You know, you’re going to have to at some point!” Rainbow said a tad angrily at Thunder. She had been trying to get him to race her for the past week or so, and so far had failed at every attempt.
“Yea yea, I heard you the last three times Dash.” Thunder replied, his face still buried in the cloud. “I told you before, I’ll race you when the school makes us.” Rainbow groaned at this, annoyed.
“But that’s not going to happen until the end of the year! Come on, just race me once! I want to see how fast you are!” Thunder refused to reply to this and continued to lay silently with his face in the cloud. “Oh forget it. See ya!” Rainbow said before flying off huffily.
After she had left, Thunder sat up on the cloud and watched the direction of which she had flown. The truth was, Thunder was a bit curious how he would fair in a race against her, but after what had happened a few weeks ago, he felt it was best, especially now, not to exert himself too often, for fear that what happened might repeat itself. Was he being irrational? It was obvious to Thunder that he was capable of more than he knew about, but he was afraid of whatever strength it was that he might possess. This was mainly because of how it caused so many other pegasi to treat him, and to Thunder, if having special power scared others away from him, then he didn’t want any of it. So Thunder, out of his fear, became even more of a laid back pony than he was before he came to Cloudsdale.

Later that same afternoon, after finishing his nap, Thunder decided to fly around the city a bit. This was a bit unusual for Thunder though, because he typically remained on the ground, or cloud in this case, during the afternoon to rest his wings for class the following day. Today was a little different though, because his class was rather relaxed that day, and so he was hit with a sudden urge to go fly around a bit. Thunder still flew fairly relaxed though, not wanting to tire himself out. He flew gracefully around the city, swaying slowly from left to right between high buildings. Thunder felt the soft breeze through his mane and watched as the architect passed him by. He’d only flown around the city like this a couple times before, and he always ended up forgetting just how comforting it felt to move around the way he did. So gracefully swaying in the breeze, letting the wind carry his wings and gliding through the sky like a bird.
As Thunder flew, he watched the expansive cloud surface roll by him from beneath, passing over a small building, a river, or a bridge. Then, looking up in front of him, Thunder recognized some pony in the distance. Standing on the top of a ledge, out looking the land beneath the clouds with a small group of birds around her was the yellow pegasus from before. ‘Ah Fluttershy’ Thunder thought to himself, ‘what a nice name.’ He had heard her name called out on several occasions in his first few weeks of flight academy, which was something at least, but he had yet to meet her face to face.
Thunder just knew that if he got the chance to talk to her they could be friends, but she of all ponies would never speak to him. He then recalled a time just the week before when he had been walking down a hallway inside the flight academy’s main building. Thunder was just about to round a corner when all of a sudden Fluttershy stumbled out in front of him and he ran right into her. She was stuttering all kinds of apologies as she was lifting herself off the floor, but then she had looked up and saw Thunder. He felt so crushed after watching the way she shrieked and ran off down the hall, afraid of him. Though, at the same time it was also the first time Thunder had heard her voice from very close. Ever since, he couldn’t get the sound of it out of his head, how soft and calm her voice felt, even in a moment of panic. It was actually rather baffling to Thunder, because he didn’t think any pony could even manage to do something like that.
Watching Fluttershy from a distance as his flight path gradually brought him closer, Thunder contemplated whether or not he should just turn around and keep her from seeing him. He decided that it was probably best to just let her talk to the birds in peace, and was about to turn around a fly away. Thunder didn’t get a chance to turn away though, because just as he was about to, Fluttershy turned around and looked up at him. ‘Oh no,’ Thunder thought to himself, as he was now unavoidably flying closer, his mind going blank in her gaze like a deer caught in a bright light. He waited for the inevitable sound of her quiet, yet shrill shriek, before flying away in fear. That isn’t what happened though, in fact quite the contrary. As Thunder got closer, he noticed that rather than fleeing, Fluttershy was actually waving her hoof, motioning for Thunder to fly over to her. He couldn’t believe it with his own two eyes, but he wouldn’t possibly pass up on the chance to actually speak to her, so he flew over.
Landing a few feet from Fluttershy, Thunder walked up to her cautiously, still not sure what was going on, then opened his mouth to speak. “Flutersh?-” He managed to speak out before she interrupted him by lifting her hoof to her lips and hushing him, then she turned tail and took off into the sky. Standing there for a moment, completely confused, Thunder quickly made up his mind that she must have meant for him to follow her, so with a strong leap, Thunder bolted off into the sky as fast as his wings would carry him.
It wasn’t long before Thunder caught up to Fluttershy, his wings carrying him swiftly through the air, now being pushed for the first time in a while, but not to any great extent. Thunder pulled up next to Fluttershy, her long mane just blocking the view of her face, and he was about to say something to her just before she shot off at a much faster speed, gaining a large lead in front of him. ‘What is she doing?’ Thunder thought to himself as he watched her pull far ahead of him, but refusing to lose her trail, he picked his speed up and pushed himself harder, soon slowly closing the gap between them once more. ‘Is this really the pegasus who just barely passed her entrance test?’ He thought as he flew closer and closer to her. Now back within reaching distance of Fluttershy, Thunder once again made an attempt to shout something out to her, but was quickly cut off as she shot off even faster, and making a sharp turn to the left. Thunder quickly turned in suit and made a real effort now to try and keep up with her.
A short while later, the two pegasi had now traveled quite a far way away from Cloudsdale, and Thunder was just beginning to get rather concerned. It was also just in that moment that Thunder noticed something in the distance in front of them. A large black shape was forming in the distance, and it only took a second or so for Thunder to realize that the they were heading straight for a thunder cloud. He stared at it blankly, then looked back at Fluttershy, not seeing any signs from her of slowing down or turning. He strained himself and tried to draw closer to her, shouting out.
“Wait!” He tried to shout at her, but it was futile as it didn’t seem like she could hear him at all. He pushed himself faster to try and get closer, but only a moment later and it was too late. Thunder came to a sudden halt as he watched Fluttershy fly into the booming cloud and vanish entirely from view. He thought that maybe he should go around, or even turn back. It was much too dangerous for a pegasus his size to just fly through a thunder cloud this large, but what about Fluttershy? He couldn’t just abandon her, she might get hurt or even worse, so putting his fears aside, Thunder charged head first into the cloud, chasing after Fluttershy as fast as he could possibly go. He moved his wings so fast, and pushed himself so hard that he could feel as the cloud and even the wind were forced to warp around his body. Being pelted mercilessly by water droplets as they formed and fell from the thundering cloud, Thunder only pushed himself harder, trying as hard as he could to find Fluttershy, but still he could not see her. Then all of a sudden Thunder was engulfed in a bright light, and he shut his eyes, his wings seizing up.
His mind thrown into a moment of darkness, Thunder could feel so much pass through his mind. He could hear sounds, and voices of someone he didn’t know, yet somehow sounding familiar. He heard a loud blast, then screams, and then crying. Then silence. Everything went silent, all except for the faintest of whispers, far away in the distance. He listened carefully, and tried to make it out, trying to understand what was being said.
“Wake up.” Thunder’s eyes opened then, and he blinked, the late evening sun shining brightly in his eyes. He felt somewhat calm now, and a strange warmth flooded his body. Something was still wrong though. Thunder suddenly realized the odd breeze he was feeling shoot up from beneath him, then looking down, he realized he was quickly plummeting towards the ground. Giving a short cry of surprise he threw his legs out and opened his wings, flapping them as hard as he could to try and slow his descent, and as the ground was quickly approaching, he braced himself for an impact. Then the breeze stopped. Thunder looked down once more and found himself hovering just above the ground. Dropping down to the ground now, he gave a sigh of relief, sprawling out on his back and wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘Too close.’

After what happened that afternoon, Thunder ended up resting on the ground where he had landed for a short while before quickly making his way back into the sky, realizing that he still didn’t know what happened to Fluttershy. He looked all around the area where they were, and once he had looked a while without any luck, he decided that she probably went back to Cloudsdale and returned there himself. He flew around for a while longer after making his way back, trying to see if he could find her. She wasn’t anywhere to be found, not even on the ledge where he usually found her. It was getting late at this time though, and the sun was setting, so it seemed best that Thunder went to his dorm room at the academy to get some rest, then he would try to find her in the morning.
Turning around and making his way back to the academy, Thunder still couldn’t help but look down at the surface of the city and survey it as he flew, hoping to find her before he made it back. It seemed that Thunder’s luck suddenly decided to favor him now, as while he was flying, he saw Fluttershy walking along on the ground. Letting his excitement get the better of him, Thunder flew down to the surface of the cloud as fast as he could, landing right in front of Fluttershy. He walked right up to her before she even had a chance to react, falling over on her hind end out of shock.
“I found you!” Thunder said rather loudly. “I was looking all over for you! You flew through that cloud and I couldn’t find you. What were you doing any way? Did you want to show me something and why were you flying so fast and were you ignoring me?Or were you trying to surprise me with something-well?” Fluttershy stared up at him with wide eyes as he said all this rather quickly. She was at the same time trying to push herself backwards away from him on her hind end because he was still walking towards her while he spoke.
“We-..I..uh..I don’t kn...wha....EEP!” Fluttershy only stuttered a few sounds as she tried to reply to the intimidating pegasus standing over her, only to panic and flee, flying off in her usual fearful way. This once again left Thunder with his mouth hanging open, not understanding a thing.
“What...just happened?” Thunder said aloud to himself. It seemed like Thunder was just destined to keep on being left confused, trying to make sense of things that really didn’t make any sense at all.