//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Molotov Phoenix Tail 
// Story: Lightning Strikes Twice 
// by Aswad Zeev 
//------------------------------//

By the time Spitfire had finished giving the two pegasi a bollocking for destroying the Dizzitron (aiming most of the blame at Lightning Dust), the sun was beginning to set as they made it back outside.  The rest of the cadets were beginning to traipse in for the night. Sky Stinger and Vaper Trail trotted over to the paler looking than normal ponies.


Having had a barrage of berating from Spitfire, Rainbow and Lightning were both feeling a little drained.  Sky Stinger spoke up first.  "That was landing was awesome.  Did you get your time for that Dizzitron run?"


"No," Rainbow Dash replied, "Unfortunately in the crash I lost the timer."


“Don't worry about it," said Vaper.  "We actually found it when we were helping to clean up,  and we kinda also timed it ourselves from the other side of the field."


"Yeah," said Sky, "Both watches agree it was 6.5 seconds,  it was amazing."


Lightning blushed.  "I only did what any pony would have done,"


"6.5?  It looks like you really are back on form already Lightning."  As Rainbow took the two stopwatches and looked at the time."


Vaper and Sky looked at each other nervously.  “So that isn't some kind of Academy record?” Vaper queried


“What did I say about when you saw her fly?"  replied Rainbow Dash.  "She's nearly as fast as I am,  nearly."


"I did 6.5 seconds before, but that was at the Dizzitron's top speed, I haven't really done all that much flying since then, so I wasn't expecting such a fast time, but it's no academy record."


This prompted the remaining cadets still outside to start to crowd around to ask the pair questions about the Dizzitron record."


"Woah, calm down"  Dash protested.


"Last I heard, Rainbow holds the record."  Lightning explained,  "6 seconds."


While this prompted more questions thrown at Rainbow Dash, this gave Lightning the opportunity to slip away.  Still wanting to get the nerves out of her from Spitfire's ranting, she set herself up to run a couple of laps of the course the other ponies had been doing in the afternoon when they first arrived.


After finally finishing answering everyone's questions, Rainbow Dash finally noticed Lightning's absence but quickly spotted her completing her first lap and going around again although most of the machines had been turned off for the night.  Rainbow pocketed the Dizzitron stopwatch in a uniform pocket to show Spitfire later, Resetting the stopwatch the group had used she set herself up at the finish line to time the next lap.  She was joined by some of the ponies and staff watching Lightning go round, again and again.  She just kept flying.  




Having pulled a small crowd to watch her performance, it slowly drifted away as people began to retire once the sun had finally set.  When the moon was well into the sky.  Spitfire finally came out to join the now lone observer."  I heard the chatter inside, How long has she been going?"Without taking her eye's off Lightning, Rainbow replied "Almost since we got out of your office.  Here, take a look at the time from the Dizzitron."  Rainbow passed over the stopwatch without taking her eyes off Lightning."6.5 Seconds?  Was that at normal speed?"

"Yep.  You know I believe her about seeing someone right?  After it happened I had a good look at it myself and I don't think an amateur would know how to make it fall."


“True, but then she also knows how it works from last time.”

“I can't deny that, but she's been with me nearly the entire time.  I can't see how she'd have had the time to do anything.”

“I've only got your word on that, Wonderbolt or not.  I can't ignore the timing.  Thing's started going wrong the moment she turned up.”

Rainbow yawned.

“She's been at this for a couple of hours?”

“Yep,  go hit the hay Dash, that's an order.  I'll call her in when she's finished doing the endurance run.”

“She's coming up on 35 laps, but I didn't start timing until lap three.  You know she started this on her own, you really rattled her.”

Rainbow handed over the active stopwatch she'd been using and left Spitfire to watch Lightning keep flying.  Lightning was oblivious to everything but the course.  It was midnight when Spitfire finally called Lightning Dust in to stop.

"That's enough,"  Spitfire called.


Screeching to a stop on the finish line, Light could barely stand given how tired she was.  Looking around, she noticed that she finally noticed how high the moon was in the sky and the realization of just how long she'd been flying for finally dawned.  Then she tried to focus her blurry eye's on Spitfire.


"Whatever it is, I didn't do it.  I've been flying here the whole time."


"I noticed.  Seems like you caused quite a stir with the other cadets.  I finally had some free time to supervise you myself and I sent Rainbow to bed.  Come inside, I made sure they kept some soup hot if it hasn't gone cold by now."


“Th.  Thanks, I think?"

"You were not supposed to be doing the endurance run until the morning, but it looks like you've skipped ahead.  And by my count, you went halfway round again."Lightning tried to stand up but fell back onto her haunches.  Spitfire then helped Lightning back up to her feet and let Lightning lean on her as they made their way to the mess hall."Don't think for one moment this means I'm letting you off the hook cadet.  I'm still keeping my eyes on you.  But that doesn't mean I don't respect someone who goes above and beyond."


Lightning said nothing as she hobbed alongside Spitfire.  Too tired to see straight, she managed to make it to the mess hall and gobble down the soup greedily before promptly falling asleep at the table.  After helping her to the Mess and finding the food, Spitfire had already left to retire for the night herself.


The next morning, one of the staff found her fast asleep at the mess hall table and with some help, managed to carry Lightning to a spare bedroom and let her sleep the rest of the morning.




Lightning finally woke with a start about 10 am, her body aching all over.  It took her some time to remember the events of yesterday, wondering why she was wearing a uniform and why there was lots of shouting going on outside.  Her head was pounding from having spent most of the night laying on a table. By the time she'd had a wash, a change of clothes and something to eat from the mess from a less than happy chef despondent by the late sleeper, she wandered outside to witness the other Cadets begin a cloud-busting exorcize.


Trotting over to Rainbow Dash and Spitfire as the other ponies lifted off.  "What time do you call this sleepy head?" Rainbow teased.


"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened last night.  I started flying and I completely zoned out."


Spitfire looked over at Lightning, pulling her glasses down to look over the rim.  “It's called Highway Hypnosis.  I've only read about cases as bad as that, for most ponies it only lasts a few minutes.  But you were out there flying for nearly 5 hours straight.”

Lightning took a step back.  “What?  I was out of it, flying for 5 hours?”


Rainbow turned to Spitfire in mild disgust.  “You let her fly for 5 hours?  The endurance is supposed to be no longer than 4?”


“She was either going to stop or fall out of the sky."


"Should have let me fall,  it might have hurt less" groaned Lightning.


"Well, you've certainly impressed everyone else.  Rainbow, why don't you get Lightning started up on some 'gentle' exercises."


"You don't want me cloud-busting?"


"Cadet, After that stunt, you must be stiff as a board.  I don't want you even flying until you've got some of those muscles loosened up.  And for that matter, do you really think I want to see your cloud busting moves?  That's what got you into this mess."


"ow,"  Lightning's headache chose that moment to throb.  "Damn headache, but point taken."


“Talking of points," Spitfire turned back to the cloud-busting scorer.  "How are they doing?"


Taking that as a cue that they'd been dismissed, Rainbow and Lightning wandered over to a distant corner at a pace comfortable for Lightning, where some training equipment had been set up yesterday.  The other cadets had already made use of them after their own endurance run.



A few minutes later, Rainbow had started Lightning on some general weight lifting exorcizes and was turning back to have a word with Spitfire when Lightning suddenly said: "I don't think I feel well."


Rainbow turned back to Lighting and seeing her look like she was going to hurl up.


“Look at me.”  taking Lighting's head in her hooves and looking into her eyes.


“What did you drink last night?”  “Nothing.  Just the soup,  then I fell asleep and woke up in a bedroom.”


Rainbow quickly grabbed a nearby bin for Lightning to throw up in.


"You're hung over.  Seems like someone is playing a practical joke at your expense.  I need to tell Spitfire.  Keep using the bin, I'll be right back."


Spitfire took her eyes off the cloud-busting efforts of the recruits to glance over at Dash and Dust, still suspecting Lightning of foul play, when she saw Rainbow standing over Lightning holding a bin which Lightning was unceremoniously throwing up in.



Spitfire took a few steps towards them noticing that Rainbow Dash was doing the same. Just then, there was a shout behind her as one of the cloud makers exploded in a puff of smoke before spewing clouds everywhere.



“Great!" she exclaimed, "Just what we needed, another mess to clean up."


Rallying all the Wonderbolt's and academy staff within earshot, as well as the recruits already in the air.  Spitfire began organizing a plan to both disable the machine and clear the clouds before they became hazardous.


"Whatever it is Rainbow!" Spitfire yelled over the chatter and the continual bangs from the machine.  "It can wait, I need you on this NOW.  See if you can get that machine turned off!  Lightning,  You.  You just stay there!"







It took them 10 minutes before Rainbow was finally able to get a clear path to disable the machine and reach a point where the clouds were beginning to look manageable although the recruits were starting to flag, having already done plenty of cloud-busting beforehand.


Touching back on the ground to re-access the situation and to talk, Spitfire and Rainbow discussed notes.  "It looked like someone had sabotaged the machine.  And we can rule out Lightning."


"What's wrong with her?  No pony randomly throws up"


"It looks like she's hung over.  I don't know how yet, but I suspect someone must have put something in her soup, I was just coming to tell you when this happened."  Rainbow directed a hoof towards the smoking remains of the machine she'd turned off before 


"Hmm, Alcohol?” puzzled Spitfire  “The only alcohol permitted on academy grounds is in the wine cellar and the only key to the wine cellar is in my office.  Access to it is strictly limited because the wine is for special occasions only."


"We have a wine cellar?" Rainbow asked surprised.


"Like I said, it's only for special occasions such as important celebrations or for retirement.  Since you joined from the reserves, we've not exactly had a special occasion to open it.  There is some very strong alcohol in there, that's one of the reasons I have the only key.  Don't want somepony taking a quick drink before flying."

"Better make sure the key is still in your office, I'll go and check the kitchen, see if the chefs haven't washed up the bowl yet," Rainbow suggested


Spitfire dismissed the recruits letting the Wonderbolt's finish cleaning up the clouds.  They'd done the job well, although she asked if Vaper Trail and Sky Stinger could check on Lightning.


A few minutes later Rainbow trotted into the kitchen to find the chef already washing up.

“The bowl of soup from last night?  Did you wash it up yet?”


“Nope, I was just about to though.”

“Hold on,  I need to check it.  It might be evidence.”  


“Evidence?”


“Yeah, the pony who ate the soup last night looks like she might have been slipped some alcohol."

Rainbow then trotted over to the soup bowl the pony had pointed her to and took a sniff.


“Yep," she said wrinkling her nose.  "This stinks of alcohol.  I need to take this to show Spitfire."


“That's fine," called Thunderlane who had overheard the conversation. He was pitching in, to work in the kitchen this week.  "The sooner Spitfire stops spitting fur over this saboteur, the sooner things will calm down around here."

The odd phrasing from Thunderlane caused Rainbow to pause for a moment before issuing a chuckle.  "Spitfire spitting fur, yeah, that's a good one Thunder.  Thanks, I needed the cheering up, I better get this to spitfire and check on Lightning."

"Oh before you go, do you want me to make up a special Wonderbolt hangover cure?"

"That's probably not a bad idea.  But I didn't know we had one?"


“You don't know the legendary story?  Bit of a fairy tale really but the story goes all the way back to General Firefly sharing a drink with Princess Celestia after the first Wonderbolt performance, I'll have to tell you about it sometime."


“Less talking, more washing" prompted the chef who gave Thunderlane a prod. That gave Rainbow the cue to leave.



She reached Spitfire's office as Spitfire was coming out, carefully closing the door behind her.  Spitfire was going as red as her fiery mane, which seemed to almost have taken on its own flame-like quality of flickering at the slightest breeze.

"Spitfire?"  Rainbow asked carefully.


Spitfire turned her head slowly with her eye's glowing red full of rage.  Rainbow quickly took two steps back suddenly remembering Pinky and Applejack's depiction of the time Twilight put herself on fire.


“Spitfire?  I'm your friend, you remember that right?”

Focusing on the multi-colored tones of the mane of the pony in front of her,  Spitfire breathed out slowly, slowly returning to her normal color in the process.   

“Somepony has destroyed MY OFFICE!"


“What?”  Rainbow moved to step pass spitfire to open the door but Spitfire put up a hoof.  “Don't!  It's not pretty.”


Rainbow pushed passed Spitfire anyway and looked inside.  The desk was overturned and smashed to bits.  The frames on the wall were all torn up and the pictures inside torn to shreds.  The trophies were the only things remaining whole but they were nearly all badly dented and misshaped.”

With tears rolling down her muzzle Rainbow turned to look at Spitfire.  “Who did this?”


“I have no idea, but I'm two steps away from calling the royal guard to turn the whole academy over.  This is clearly getting out of control and I'm not sure we have the wing power to manage this chaos in house.”


“Chaos?”  Rainbow asked herself.  “This doesn't sound like Discord's doing.  He messes things up, but he doesn't destroy things.”

“I had already ruled out discord," Spitfire said as she removed the bowl Rainbow had been balancing on her back.  "So this is the soup bowl Lightning had last night?"


Sniffing it, she almost dropped it.  “bleh”


“Yeah.  Whatever it was, it's damn strong.”

“One of the cadets found the bottle dumped in a bin outside the cafeteria.  It could only have come from one of two places, either our cellar, or I don't want to think about the security breach at the other place the bottle could have come from.”

“Breach at the other place?”

“Long story, but there are only a limited number of bottles of that make.  The only other place the bottle could have come from is VERY heavily guarded.  But I checked the serial number and it's ours.  It's the bottle I opened when Firestreak retired”


“Oh that reminds me, Thunderlane said he was going to mix up some kind of historic hangover cure for Lightning?"

"Good thinking, she's probably going to need it given that it was half a bottle of the stuff unless somepony else had some."

"He said something about an old legendary story?"

"You don't know?"

"Spitfire!" Rainbow exclaimed, "I didn't even know we had a secret cellar until half an hour ago."



Spitfire explained as they walked back outside to check on Lightning.

"The legend goes that after the first Wonderbolt show, Celestia invited General Firefly to share in a drink from her private drinks collection.  It's said he drank nearly a whole bottle before he became violently sick.  After the Princess cured his hangover.  Because he loved it so much she offered him and the Wonderbolt's access to her wine cellar and her private hangover cure.  Whenever we have a toast, We always have the chef make a cure on standby because we've not had a Wonderbolt at least in my time whose not demanded the hangover cure within a couple of hours of having more than a mouthful."


"Just what in Celestia's name is in that wine?" Rainbow asked."I have no idea but do you really want to ask the ruler of Equestria what her private drinks collection is made of?  Drink that have sent some of my best fliers into a paralytic state?"

"Well, when you  put it like, that I guess not."


“And now you know why we save it for super special occasions.  And we keep it locked up because it's the best damn tasting alcohol this side of Griffinstone.”

“So what about the key?”

“It's gone, but it's hard to tell if it was stolen last night or while we were dealing with the Cloud machine this morning.  The office was fine earlier, but checking the key was not exactly a top priority this morning, and I'm not in the habit of sleeping in the office!”





By the time they made it back to Lightning Dust, someone had managed to fetch her a blanket and a new bucket to throw up in.

“How are you feeling Lightning?”  Spitfire asked.


“Like death" came the weakened reply."Well, that's not surprising."  Spitfire continued.  "It looks like someone slipped half a bottle of Molotov Phoenix Tail in your soup.  Normally that much would a pony out of action for a couple of days but I guess the soup absorbed some of it you slept off some of it must have helped."

"That's not a lot of comfort."

Rainbow butted in.  "Thunderlane is cooking up a hangover cure for you.  Apparently, It's some kind of secret Wonderbolt recipe."

Lightning lifted her head at Rainbow.  "Apparently?  You don't know?"Spitfire interrupted. "That's enough, no more talking about Wonderbolt secrets.  Let's get you inside and see if Thunderlane has finished making it yet."