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// Alone Within the Storm 
// Story: Alone Within the Storm 
// by LyNx_X_PiE_PiE 
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The thunder shook the ears of all of the ponies in the surrounding area, followed by the consistent flashes of white, baffling the crowd with flashes of white, sending them not only into a frenzy, but into a blind panic, seeking shelter from not only the flashes that cut the fabric of reality open, but the noise that would rattle their core and make their souls shiver. Some ponies scattered to a nearby building, while others scrambled to get somewhere else as quickly as their little legs could carry them. There was one pony that didn’t mind all of the terror that was going on around her. Her name was Midnight, Midnight Aura.

Midnight just stood in the rain, letting the droplets of water absorb into her mane and her tail, making it feel a lot more silkier than before, due to how fine her mane and tail were. Her fur was almost able to deflect the little orbs of liquid matter, but some got caught and began to corrode her fur, making it absorb more water than it did before, lowering the amount of rain that she deflected more and more, until her fur was just like a sponge, ready to be squeezed to let the water out. She did not care one single bit, making the others look at the bat pony in disbelief.

Her mane fell over her eyes, making her need to sweep her mane to one slide to be able to see. She looked up, getting an eyeful of water, but also getting a flash of pure bliss too. She loved the lightning that blasted away at her eyes, something a normal bat pony would have screeched at, but not her for some reason. Other bat ponies would have tried to cover their eyes and seek shelter, like the rest of the ponies and stallions that were around, watching the crazed mare in pure shock that she wanted to stay out into the open.

Midnight closed her eyes and heard multiple cracks of thunder snap at the speed of sound, racing to get to her ears and making her smile. Her ears pointed in the direction of the thunder claps, before she turned and opened her eyes to see more lightning there as well, following up the first couple. The sky was becoming a warzone, which was something that she loved about the thunder and lightning, as she paced down the road, getting the same reaction from the ponies wherever she went.

The rain slowly died down, but the thunder and lightning remained constant, almost like she had bribed the weather to do what she wanted. As she continued to prance down the road, she stopped in the middle of a big open area, before looking up into the sky. She waited for the longest time, before she went and touched a fountain that was spitting out water, directly in the middle of the open area. It was gushing out water like there was no tomorrow, making Midnight think about something that happened a little while ago. She looked down into the water and saw herself, but saw herself as something different, somewhere different.

Midnight had been found by a family in the darkness of night, alone and abandoned in the middle of a road in Canterlot. A pony found her, before bringing her back to his home, where she grew up like a normal pony, not like a bat pony. All of the things that bat ponies were, she was not. She was not a bat pony, she was more or less a pegasus with different wings and some fangs, but that was about it. Midnight had lost her memory before that, which was something that really bothered her. She tried to see the light in all of it, thinking that she was a better mare now, rather than before, but she still wanted to know the unexplained, which was one of her passions. She liked to explore the things that other ponies didn’t, which made her a unique mare indeed.

It was almost like she was looking at somepony else when she looked into the water, seeing her reflection and gazing into its eyes, almost suspecting that it was an illusion. She blinked for one second, before the hoof of Celestia smacked the top of the fountain, sending a blistering crack into her ears and making her go deaf for a second, before shaking her head and seeing that the fountain was now indeed broke, almost like she had planned it. She couldn’t control clouds, so she could not have summoned a lightning bolt to her location, could she? That bothered her a little bit, before she got up and walked over to the fountain again, hearing the other ponies scream out in terror as more lightning flashed across the sky and the thunder hitting them all right to the core.

Midnight looked into the fountain to see herself in what remained of the water, due to it all spilling out over the side of the fountain, due to the wrath of the sky. She looked deep into her own eyes and… smiled, knowing that she was happy with the life that she was living as of then. She did care about her previous life and still wanted to know what happened, but she didn’t want her life to change at all, due to her being happy and more or less satisfied with it. She looked around and saw that all of the ponies and the stallions were gone, probably due to the sheer amount of thunder and lightning that was not only drowning out everything else, but vaporizing the sky that they knew, almost like the old ponytaies of the wendigos coming back, only Midnight was not feeling anything bad about any of the stuff going on around her.

She looked around to see if anypony was about, but she was indeed alone. This didn’t bother her in the slightest and allowed her to express herself a little more, being the one who was going to be vibing in the danger and chaos that broke the world around her. She had no regret, so she was going to do anything that she wanted to while the other ponies and stallions were gone. She knew that it was time to go home, but she was going to enjoy every minute of the journey back home, where her family held her closer than anypony else.

If bat ponies had epilepsy, Midnight would have been screwed due to the amount of her vision being blasted with pure white light. The world had gone dark, but the lightning was her light within the darkness that was looming over the land, making her constantly look for the light that was eventually going to guide her home. She began to sprint, enjoying the rust of energy that was flowing through her, combined with the coldness of the world around her and the warming of the thunder and lightning within her body, making the adrenaline kick in quicker than it had ever done before.

A puddle was the target of most of her steps, due to how much it had rained earlier, but it was beginning again, making her smile grow ever brighter. She looked up and showed her fangs to the sky, almost like she was threatening the sky with a deadly bite, which was something that apparently the sky didn’t like, reacting with a bolt of lightning that stretched across the entirety of her vision, almost like it was challenging her. The rain began to fall more and more onto her delicate dark purple mane, soaking it like she liked it, gaining weight to it and forcing her neck to work harder to keep her head up straight. Her tail was not a problem, watching as the rain hit it and almost bounced directly off onto the floor. If only!

Her light green eyes lit up a part of the sky, making her follow the path that she was seeing, using the wings that she had to push her up into the sky, something that all ponies avoided, due to ponies acting almost like antennas to the sky when it was weather like the one that she was experiencing. At that very point in time, she felt almost fearless, like nothing could ever touch her while she was in the state that she was venturing into, making her mind fill with positive thoughts, only making her stronger and more courageous.

Midnight headed in the direction of her home, knowing that she should have really gotten home to her family that adopted her, just to make sure that they didn’t worry about her too much. She flew closer and closer to the clouds, knowing that ponies would have thought that she was crazy or something to be going that close to the clouds above, but she knew better than to be crazy, it was just not her thing. Midnight touched the cloud with her hoof, feeling the cloud in all of its silky glory and taking out a piece of it to look at. Before she got a good look at it, it disappeared from her hoof, acting almost like it was a ghostly figure, being something that she could touch, but not keep in her possession, which did make her a little dull, due to not being able to claim the thundercloud as a little ‘pocket thunder’.

Midnight looked down and saw that she was passing over some homes, seeing no familiar faces down below her, almost like that day that she woke up, alone and afraid, but within the care of her now adopted family. Midnight flew closer to the ground before eventually landing and looking back up at the cloud that she had been right next to. A clap of thunder irradiated from it, before giving her a smile that she was proud to wear. She looked around and saw… nothing. Nopony was around, which made her a little paranoid to say the least, so she ran, ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She knew where she was, but she felt so alone, which did not sit right with her.

The rain began to fall again, almost like it was planned, sending her into a panic all of a sudden, like something was planned for her; to go badly, which was just dumb for others to believe, but not her. She was beginning to feel more and more alone within the world, but she knew that there were other ponies about, just not outside. Until she was able to see somepony outside in the rain, her brain would keep doubting her, plaguing her mind with more and more doubt, which would make her eventually break down and begin to cry and feel unsafe, but as she ran, splashing through puddles and making noise as she sprinted home, she had confidence within herself.

Turning corners and seeing nopony didn't help, but as she trundled across the way and kept an eye and ear out for anypony to show up. There was still nothing coming her way, which gave her a second to breathe, before looking behind her and still seeing nopony there. She was bewildered to say the least, but as the panic became stronger and stronger, the paranoia became stronger too, making her feel on edge all the time, not making her comfortable either.

Midnight began to see flashes of something in the lightning’s light, making her slow down a tiny bit, seeing images that didn’t spark any remembrance within her mind, but maybe that was what was meant to happen, due to it being something that she possibly could not remember, little chips of the past coming to fruition within the back of her mind. Midnight shook her head, before trying to get back home, that being the only goal that she had placed for herself.

As she travelled more and more, getting closer and closer to her home, she started to see more and more things that made her cry, but that was not only muffled out by the loudness of the thunderclaps, but also washed away by the rain that was falling with it, being the perfect combo to make it look normal and not out of the ordinary. She kept seeing flashes and kept getting blinded by the lightning, so she closed her eyes and ran, regretting it almost instantly as she ran into a door and then landed heavily into a puddle, her face being a streaming mess of water, both tears and acidic rain. Her head hurt, but she opened her eyes in pain and stopped breathing for a second, seeing a figure looming over her that seemed out of proportion, making her breaths before short and silent, despite her being out of breath from the running. She felt… better, due to seeing a figure outside, but there was something off with the figure, almost like it was unfamiliar, but familiar at the same time.

Lightning flashed, filling Midnight’s vision with the truth, the truth about the figure that was standing in front of her. She smiled, before getting a hoof pointed in her direction, wanting to help her up. She took the hoof that was offered to her, before the figure looked up at the sky and winced. Lightning blinded him and the thunder tingled his ears, making them fold back to try to reduce the noise that was emitted from the loudness that was the sky. The form changed from the rigid like creature, to… Midnight. It was a changeling, but Midnight knew that, before it was the pony who adopted her, who took her in when she had nothing, who gave her safety. Seeing the changeling change into her made her smile, knowing that she was indeed alone within the storm, just Midnight and herself, the thing that she worried about, only she was not alone, not anymore!