The crescent moon hung low that night as the rain poured down on the Golden Oaks Libraries autumn branches. Waterfalls weeped from its mighty comforting branched. No light came from it’s windows. The tree almost looked dead. Twilight rubbed her freezings shoulders looking up at her home. Comforting yet also ominous and twisted. She made no effort to enter, hooves planted firm as she stood alone looking into the comfort of her home.
The streets of Ponyville were abandoned save for the solitary unicorn. The windows closed, candles snuffed out. Everyone inside warm and waiting for the storm to pass by. Except for Twilight who stood alone. Uncaring for the cold, the chill of her soaking wet dress had no real effect on her. It was a lovely dress, and it was sad to see it ruined by the weather. Rarity made it special for her, slaving over it for days. She did that a lot now. Locking herself away from the rest of Ponyville, alone in her shop. She focused all her attention on her dresses, rarily leaving only to eat and sometimes get new materials when her younger sister Sweety Bell was at school.
Not that Twilight was any better really. She could easily use magic to shield herself from the rain... But what was the point... Why even bother... Without... Her.
Twilight finally cracked falling to her knees ruining the dress with mud. She didn’t care. What was the point in anything now that Rainbow Dash was gone forever. Twilight cried to the heavens, to Celestia, Luna, anyone to help her. But she was all alone...
The Pegasi had scheduled rain for the next five days straight in her honor, and to symbolize the five remaining elements. The mare was gone. No coming back. Dead! She finally thought. Dead and buried. Stone cold in the ground. They all saw it. It was her, so peaceful and calm it was sickening. It was all a joke right? A prank? She was fine, in a few minutes she would sit up and start laughing saying she got us all. Right? That’s what would happen? But it didn’t. Twilight was just at the funeral. Big Mac dug the grave. Applejack lowered her in. They all said a few words and laid flowers down next to a stone branded by her cutie mark. Leaving before the Pegasi’s scheduled storm after the funeral, leaving Twilight alone next to Dash’s grave. She to eventually left the tomb stone, but after the rain had already come down. The element of loyalty was dead. Leaving the unicorn with a gaping whole where her fiend once resides.
Twilight kept crying, falling to her hands and clutching the mud in a fist. Her tears blended with the rain giving her no satisfaction. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Why was she so stupid? Why was she so impulsive to make a mistake like that. Dash had a bad landing, breaking many bones, most notably her spine and both wings, even more notable her neck killing her (Twilight was told) instantly and painlessly. Why? What was the point of it being painless if she was dead? Was there one? Where all there victories in the end just meaningless in the grand scheme next to the all encompassing mass of death? Who was next? Can the elements even still function?
Twilight curled into the fetal position whining like a foul. Her sadness turned to anger. Anger at Dash, anger at Celestia, anger at her friends, anger at herself. She wanted her friend back.
There was no way.
No spell existed t—
Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck something near the Everfree forest. Twilight shot up wiping her wet mane out of her eyes. She saw the glow of a fire burning just outside Ponyville. The next few days of rain would snuff it out before it reached Ponyville but that wasn’t what she focused on. She saw a spark, not just any spark, but a spark of electricity turn a long dead tree into a pyre of light. An inferno of activity.
If a dead tree could become a forest fire because of a spark of electricity. What could that do for a mare’s brain that’s buried under ground?
Twilight began running calculations in her head. She stood up watching the fire grow outside the town whipping tears from her eyes. It could work. She thought. It would work. She was determined to find a way.
Twilight swung open the door to her home and got to work, lighting every candle with just a flick of her horn. She only had five days before the storm would be over. After that there wouldn’t be another one for a while, and then it might be too late to save Dash.
Twilight whipped all her notes off her desk into the trash. This was far more important than anything before it. Whilst the storm outside raged on, another storm took place inside the town library, brightly lit by candles, a storm of books surrounded Twilight: Weather charts, Engineering diagrams, Pony anatomy, necromancy, electrical engineering. She absorbed it all.
She slipped the dress off over her head with her magic, throwing it on the ground by the door. She didn’t even bother getting dressed again too determined with the details of her plans to worry about modesty. It’s not like Spike was in any condition to complain anyway with him comforting Rarity. She dried herself with magic, levitating over a quill and parchment she started taking down sketches for her invention and a list of materials she would need as well. She could do this. She had to do it before the storm passed otherwise she didn’t know what she would do.
With a sketch done she moved down to her basement, she levitated over her lab coat from the hook, slipping it on over her still nude purple fur. She still didn’t bother buttoning it, letting the white cloth flow down her exposed petite body.
She kept working however, moving several pieces of machinery larger than herself aside with her magic to make room for what she was building.
This is where it would happen, the unicorn thought to herself putting down her notes and her hands on her hips as she looked over the empty space.
This is the place she would bring her friend Rainbow Dash back from the grave...