//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 Lightning Strikes // Story: A Third Front Has Opened Up // by waywardfallout //------------------------------// Rainbow was lost and it angered her to no end. What had been heavily snowing earlier was now a blizzard making it very hard to see far. Even up in the sky where she was right now trying to get back to base and Rainbow’s left foreleg was not in good condition going by the amount of pain the pegasus was feeling. All of this infuriated the pegasus. “I swear this night jus-“ Whatever the rainbow maned pegasus was saying was cut off when an arrow hit the left side of her barrel, right under the wing preventing her from flapping. Rainbow tried to control her fall and did for the most part. She managed to slow down her velocity by crashing into as many tree branches as possible. She landed finally in a snowbank with a groan of pain. She dug herself out of the snowbank to find she had landed in the middle of a snowy forest. Any pain she had previously felt was gone replaced by adrenaline. “Who hit me?” Rainbow asked as she looked around for her assailant but couldn’t find them in the blizzard. She now had not only a possibly broken left foreleg but an arrow under her wing stuck in her armor making it very difficult to fly. Also judging by the drops of red that colored the snow nearby she was bleeding from where the arrow hit. Thankfully Dash still had everything on her even after the crash. She heard the sound of flapping wings above her and looked up at the source of the sound. Landing in front of her was a mare with a light turquoise coat and a mane with mixed amber and gold stripes. She was wearing armor that matched hers but without anything covering her hooves. “I’m Lightning Dust.” Rainbow watched the mare turn into actual lightning that held the shape of a pony and zipped over to the cyan pegasus. Landing a punch to Rainbow’s face that sent the mare flying back first into a tree, knocking snow down off the branches. “And I’m your replacement.” Rainbow didn’t even get a chance to respond. As the mare zipped up to her and went for another swing. Rainbow ducked her head under the swing and kicked her ‘replacement’ in the chest with her hind legs sending her back a small distance. Dash quickly got up to her hooves and threw a wing dagger at her. Lightning Dust batted it away sending it off to who knows where with a lightning covered wing. Then the turquoise mare pointed the same wing at Rainbow sending a lance of lightning at the cyan pegasus. Rainbow dove to the ground in shock, feeling her fur stand on end at the electric charge that pasted over her and exploded on the tree behind her. Sending charred bits of wood everywhere. This ‘Lightning Dust’ had just shot a bolt of lightning out of her wing and nearly hit her! How!? Rainbow didn’t get to question the lightning shooting out of the mare in front of her much longer. As the sound of sparking warned her of the next blast the turquoise mare was preparing. Rainbow dashed towards the pegasus trying to close the distance before Dust could fire another bolt of lightning. “You’re going to have to be faster than that.” Lightning Dust vanished with a flash of blue light and a clap of thunder. The rainbow maned pegasus heard another clap of thunder come from her right and turned her head to face it. Lightning Dust might as well have teleported with how fast she had moved. The turquoise mare had her now glowing hoof out going for a strike to Rainbow’s right side. Rainbow tried to shift her body out of the way of the incoming punch that was headed her way but couldn’t move out of the way fast enough. The hoof landed on her right side. Hitting her wing right on the bone. Rainbow heard a sickening crack come from her wing as she felt the bone give out. The force of the blow had broken her wing and sent her rolling into a snow covered brush with a scream of pain. “So this is the mighty Rainbow Dash.” The turquoise Pegasus walked up to the injured rainbow pegasus and looked down at her. Then lazily kicked Rainbow’s head like a bored foal would kick a ball. “Doesn’t look like much to me.” Rainbow looked up at the assailant and replied to the statement the pegasus had made. “What are you?” Lightning Dust laughed at the downed pegasus. Lightning Dust’s laughter was that of a pony who knew she had already won the fight. Then she held up a forehoof and it started glowing. There was light blue electricity jumping from hair to hair making a small crackling sound with each jump. Rainbow could feel her coat stand on end. She could even feel heat coming off the hoof. “Like I said I’m your replacement.” “Why? What did I do wrong?” Rainbow knew she was stalling, trying to find a way to escape. The rainbow pegasus knew she couldn’t win this fight, this mare could shoot lightning out of her body and move faster than she thought was possible. She had to think of something. She couldn’t fly away and her broken wing saw to that. She also couldn’t run away with her possibly broken left foreleg and Lightning Dust would just catch up with her, going off of what had happened earlier when she tried charging the mare. The pegasus came to the conclusion that Twilight’s staff was the only way out. “I don't truly know our glorious goddess’s ways. But if I had to guess it’s because I’m better than you and now you're just a loose end.” Lightning Dust had leaned her head down so she was eye level with Rainbow as she spoke. “and that means you die here.” Rainbow saw an opening and took it, she head butted the Lightning pegasus sending her back a step giving her enough room to get up and out of the bush. Rainbow reached for her armor’s built in saddle bag, that held Twilight’s staff and pulled it out. Twilight had told her that if she smashed the gem it would teleport her to the cave and that's what she intended to do. She dropped it on the snow covered ground and raised her hoof to smash it. But was interrupted by a bolt of lightning hitting her along her left side. It melted her armor and burned her fur and the skin underneath leaving burns all along her left side. Worse still she felt the arrow fall out of the wound it had plunged up and now it was bleeding heavily. Then Dust was in front of her looking her in the eyes. “What do you think you're doing?” Rainbow could barely stand, every nerve on her left side was yelling in pain. “Know what doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t miss this time.” Lightning Dust pointed a glowing blue wing at the rainbow pegasus’s chest. Rainbow stomped on the gem as she shot another bolt of lightning. Dust looked around for the mare's body then laughed. “Must’ve blown her to dust.” Rainbow appeared in the cave and tumbled to the cold cave floor. Rainbow immediately tried to get back upon her hooves. But when she did, she’d fall to the cave floor again after taking a step. After a few more attempts at getting on her hooves she finally accepted that she couldn’t stand. Rainbow also noticed the large stain of blood that she had left behind as she tried to walk. She found she was bleeding heavily from where the arrow hit her left side. Her ‘replacement’ had missed the arrow wound with her Lightning bolt, letting the wound bleed openly. “I’m going to bleed out.” She said as panic started to fill her voice at the realization. Rainbow remembered sending the med kit to the cave with the desk earlier. She looked around the cave and found it. It was only a meter or two away lying on the desk she had sent he. Rainbow tried to lift herself up to her hooves but couldn’t as her left foreleg could no longer hold her weight and fell as her balance was lost. The pegasus landed on her right side, directly on her broken wing. Rainbow roared in pain as she landed on the wing. “I’m going to die” Rainbow started to cry as the hopelessness of her current situation set in. “I can’t even get up. Even then what am I going to do? Get the med kit that I am to fucking stupid to use.” She remembered she couldn’t use the med kit earlier so what made her think she could now? She had been replaced, what use was she now? What use was a replaced pegasus to Twilight? To anypony? “NO!” Rainbow shouted. Rainbow grabbed her mane in frustration. She wouldn’t just sit down and die, she had to do something. “What am I going to do? I can’t just sit here and die. Come on, think Rainbow think.” She felt her hooves touch something in her mane and she yanked it out angrily wondering what it was. It was hope in the form of Twilight’s message book. Rainbow immediately put the book down on the cave floor and looked for ink. And didn’t find any. “N-No” Then Rainbow made a noise that sounded like a angry wolf. “W-Why can’t you just let me have a BREAK!” Rainbow shouted in anger and slammed her not useless hoof down on the book in rage. She looked at the book with anger and pulled her right foreleg up to slam it back down on the book again. But stopped when she saw the crimson hoof print on the page. Rainbow didn’t think she just did. She started writing the word ‘help’ and ‘cav’ with her bloody hoof on the page, using the tip of her hoof like a quill. When the pegasus finished writing she closed the book, sending the message. Now all she had to was stay awake till Twilight showed up. “If she does. No she has to.” Rainbow knew how she would try to stay awake. She just let her anger fill her mind. She was angry at the stupid Steadfast in the fort for breaking her leg. She hated this Lightning Dust. The fact she could shoot lightning drove the mare livid. She couldn’t stand the fact she couldn’t use a simple med kit. She hated how fucking stupid she was. She..... Twilight was pulling an all nighter, again, much to her guard’s dismay. How could she not? Today she had shown Rainbow the observatory and met an actual dragon. A dragon! There was so much she could learn from him. She had so many questions She just wanted to ask but couldn’t due to how little time she had left. So Twilight sat down at the war map in her room and pulled out some quills, ink pots and sheets of paper. She started writing every question she thought of, all the way from “What do you eat?” to “What’s your strongest weapon.”. Unfortunately for her personal guard the sound of quill on parchment filled the room. Making it impossible for Applejack to get any sleep. AJ had already written tonight off as a lost cost. She knew Twilight plenty well enough to know that once the general got one of these moods where she was writing furiously and was basically unresponsive to questioning, there was absolutely no stopping her. Applejack had decided to read some of Twilight’s battle plans on the floor to pass the time. She was currently reading about Twilight's plan to beat back some general named Star Sight who had, in Twilight’s mind, overextended his force’s making him easy to flank. As the orange mare turned the page to continue reading she saw the alicorn’s saddle bags light up. She was right next to them so she figured she might as well check it out, besides the alicorn wouldn’t mind too much. The mare reached out a hoof and dragged the bags over to her. AJ opened the top of the saddle bag and pulled out the glowing message book. AJ opened it not expecting much, maybe at most a request to meet with Twilight. What she found was terrifying, the words ‘help’ and ‘cav’ were written in blood across the page, going by the color and the smell. AJ grabbed the book in her mouth, ran over to Twilight and shoved the alicorn out of her seat and onto the floor with a thud. “What the hell was that for Applejack!? You better have a damn good explanation for-“ Twilight stopped talking as she saw what was in the earth pony’s mouth and while it was upside down from her point of view. She could still easily make out the word “help cav” written in blood. Twilight magicly grabbed the medical kit stored under the bed while AJ put the book down and ran to her new armor and put on a gauntlet on her right foreleg. Then ran back to the alicorn who was standing in the middle of the room. “Ready?” Applejack nodded. “I reckon so.” Twilight lit her horn up and teleported them to the cave with a flash of purple magic. Twilight could smell blood when she and Applejack appeared in the cave. The smell was strong even by her standards as she didn’t have as strong a sense of smell as Applejack. But the alicorn didn’t need a sense of smell to find the source as she could see it. Near the middle of the cave was a streak of blood on the cave floor that led to Rainbow. Who was laying on her right side, head laying on the cave floor. She was covered in blood and had a line of burns running most of the way down her left side. Her armor had somehow melted in her fur binding it to her body where it melted. There was also a large line of blood coming from just under the cyan mare’s wing and a growing pool of red under her. Rainbow must have heard the sound of Twilight’s teleport as she lifted her head and looked up pleadingly at Twilight. Rainbow was crying, heavily too judging by the tear stains. Twilight felt something change in her that sight as Rainbow’s magenta eye’s made eye contact with Twilight’s purple eyes. Rainbow spoke to the alicorn, her voice was raspy even for her. “T-Twilight help please.” With Rainbow’s plea for help in Twilight’s mind she acted. Twilight applied pressure to the open wound with her magic stopping the bleeding. She ran over to the pegasus and put down the medical kit she was holding in her magic aura and opened it. Twilight vaguely heard Applejack say “Whoa nelly” in the background as she pulled out bandages. “Rainbow you need to stay awake.” Twilight told the wounded pegasus as she magically ripped off the armor that wasn’t bonded to her body. Rainbow’s head had fallen to the cave floor but this time facing Twilight. Rainbow looked at mare who had saved her life twice now. “I’m trying T-Twi.” Rainbow’s voice was weak. Twilight knew the pegasus had lost a lot of blood going by the large strains of red on the cave floor and the pool that had formed. She was going to need a blood transfusion without a doubt. “Rainbow do you know what blood type you are?” Twilight asked hoping that the pegasus knew. “What’s blood type?” Rainbow answered. Twilight started to panic at Rainbow’s answer. She had no way of telling Rainbow’s blood type and the alicorn couldn’t use healing magic on the pegasus because it was her magic, not Rainbow’s. The pegasus’s body might react violently reject her magic causing more harm than good. She was going to lose Rainbow and there was nothing she could do. Applejack spoke up interrupting the alicorn’s thoughts. “Twilight she’s got a broken wing on her other side.” Twilight remembered who her guard was and nearly smacked herself in the head for her absolute stupidity. She had one of the Apple family as her personal guard. There was a list of reasons why Twilight, one of if not the best general in Celestia’s army, was protected by an earth pony of all things. One of them being the fact that AJ was one of the strongest Steadfasts of the Apple family and the Apple family was famous for the strength of their Steadfasts. Applejack had been born with a ludicrous amount of earth pony magic. Another, and right now more important, reason was that AJ had an O negative blood type. Which meant Twilight (in Celestia’s mind) had a supply of O- blood type around her at all times. Which was the only blood type that would work with the alicorn’s one of a kind blood. It also worked with any blood type which meant she could use Applejack’s blood to save Rainbow’s life. “Applejack we will worry her wing later, Rainbow needs a blood transfer and fast.” Twilight pulled out a tube from the medical kit that would allow Applejack to donate her blood to Rainbow. Applejack nodded and moved to sit next to Rainbow as Twilight simultaneously bandaged closed Rainbow’s wound and connected the tube to AJ and Rainbow in the correct places. Then turned on the magical runes on the tube and started the blood transfer. “Twilight we need to get Doc. He's better at this than either of us and heavens knows what that broken wing is doing to her.” The guard pony said as she knew they couldn’t just stay in the cave. “I know AJ just needed to stabilize Rainbow a bit. So I could safely teleport us back to the infirmary.” The alicorn replied. “Rainbow you still awake?” Twilight got a response that sounded like a heavily slurred “Yeah” from the rainbow pegasus. Twilight didn’t like what she was about to do as it might blow her cover but Rainbow was worth risk to her. “I’m going to teleport us to the infirmary in three, two, one.”