In the clear blue sky above Ponyville, a single cumulonimbus cloud floated through the sky. If it weren’t for the prismatic mane peeking over, nopony would notice the pegasus using the weather phenomenon to lounge about. Rainbow Dash, atop her cloud bed, looked down at the hustling ponies going about their day below her. A bored expression was cast upon her face. While the flier could be quite lazy, preferring to lounge about instead of working, today the case was quite different. In fact she had the opposite problem. Being the fastest pegasus pony in Equestria, Rainbow Dash was actually able to get her work done so fast that it left her entire day wide open with nothing to do. The cloud busting that would take the average pegasus hours, Dash had completed the task in a manner of minutes, and as such her whole day was now open with no tasks to fill it.
Normally that would be a good thing, but Rainbow knew that her friends were busy, meaning that she herself had very few outlets to relieve her boredom. Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity would all be busy with their jobs, Twilight would have her time consumed with some sort of experiment and or studying, and Fluttershy would be out of town visiting family for the rest of the week.
So then, what was a pegasus pony to do with no outlet to relieve her boredom? She had simply decided to lay on a soft fluffy cloud and pony-watch. But watching ponies go about mundane tasks like shopping or simply sitting around chatting was of little interest to the energetic pegasus.
“So bored!” She complained to herself, rolling onto her back to stare up at the sky.
‘Maybe I should just take a nap. That’s a good way to eat up some time.’ She thought to herself. It was 12:00pm, which from in Rainbow’s opinion of view was the perfect time to take a nap. She was about to close her eyes when a sound caused her ears to twitch. It was the sound of a pony whistling.
Now ponies whistled all the time. But this particular tune was one that only one pony, or rather one CREATURE ever produced. Rainbow turned over and looked down to see none other than Anonymous the human whistling as he strolled down a dirt path leading out of town.
Anonymous was the only one of his kind and had taken to living in a cottage on the outskirts of town. Rainbow had initially been suspicious of the mysterious and lanky creature when he had arrived in Equestria, through utterly bizarre means. According the the human, he had simply ‘woken up here’ a short distance from the Everfree forest.
He had been confused and a little unsettled by suddenly appearing in what he had called ‘Skittle Horse World’. But after learning that there was no clear way home, Rainbow and the other Elements had taken it upon themselves to make the human feel welcome. And they had been genuinely surprised by how well he had managed to acclimate. And at least according to Rainbow Dash, he had one of the best attitudes, and most cheery dispositions in all of Ponyville, surpassed only by Pinkie Pie herself.
He also had a remarkably good sense of humor. He understood a good prank, and could laugh most of Rainbow and Pinkies tricks. He even managed to counter prank them a few times. Rainbow in fact had played a great many pranks on the human, and thought a quick little practical joke on the unsuspecting human would banish her boredom. The two would laugh, and then perhaps if Anon was free, the two of them could hang out. But what could she do? She had no pranking supplies on her, and she couldn’t just pull a whoopee cushion or a joy buzzer out of her mane like Pinkie could.
‘Joy buzzer…’ Rainbow thought to herself. She didn’t have one of those, but she did have a cloud! Clouds where great to use to prank ponies, as Rainbow often demonstrated. A light stomp on the cloud and a harmless bolt of lighting would shoot down at the ground, scaring the unsuspecting target of her prank something fierce! Spike was a frequent target of this prank, and his reaction was always hilarious!
A wicked smirk drew across Rainbow’s muzzle as the idea formed in her head. Quietly she began propelling her cloud across the sky, trailing Anon as he walked. Rainbow never had the opportunity to hit Anon with ‘the thunder strike of shock and awe’ before, but now seemed like the perfect opportunity!
Anon wasn’t walking particularly fast, and herself being such a speedster, it was easy for Rainbow to get into position. Anticipation welled within her as she reared on her hind legs and slammed them down on the cloud.
Krak-boom!
The sound of a soft bolt of thunder rang through the air followed by a scream emanating from Anon.
“Mission accomplished!’ Rainbow thought to herself as she rolled on to her back laughing. She held her sides as she laughed, tears falling from her face.
“Oh man Anon, I really got you good!” She guffawed with her eyes shut. She expected to hear Anon respond with some surprised anger, but when she heard not even a slight response from him, she looked over the cloud, still fighting back her laughter.
Anon was lying on the ground, unmoving.
“That old trick, come on Anon I wasn’t born yesterday!” She challenged Anon, believing him to be faking unconsciousness. She hopped off of her cloud and elegantly glided down to the ground in front of the human. He was lying on his back, eyes closed. He was completely still except for minor twitching of the strange appendages he called fingers. She had to admit, he was doing a decent job at pretending to be hurt. But he couldn’t fool her!
“Come on Anon, I know you’re faking it! Just get up already, and admit I got you!” She waited. She waited for several moments but was met with no response. Rainbow Dash poked Anon with her hoof. “Come on Anon, get up!” She was getting a little annoyed now.
Anon let out a strange croaking sound that Rainbow had never heard from anypony before. His eyes spastically fluttered open, not immediately meeting hers. But after some blinking, Anons eyes eventually managed to meet Rainbows.
“Ehhbow…sshhshash…” Was that supposed to be her name?
“Come on Anon, jokes over! You got me back okay, now get up and stop fooling around!” She was starting to get worried now. She knew he was just counter pranking her, but he was doing…too good of a job pretending to hurt. He was pretending right? Rainbow used her hoof to nudge Anon again but aside from a few more twitches in his fingers, he remained motionless.
Anon’s mouth opened only to let out a few gasps of air that might have been meant to be words, but they didn’t even come close to sounding like anything comprehensible. Anxiety was starting to grow in Rainbow’s stomach. She was about to chastise Anon again for taking this too far, when the strangest smell assaulted her nostrils.
It smelled like burning coal, but more foul. It smelled like it was wafting off of Anon. Rainbow lowered her head and sniffed, noticing that the smell was indeed stronger. She reared back, not liking the odor. Concerned graced her features as she thought of what could be causing the odor.
‘No way, no no, not possible! Thunderbolts can’t actually hurt anypony!’ But she had to check. Rainbow gripped Anons shirt with her hooves and lifted it up to look at his bare torso. Her eyes widened in shock and fear as she saw what looked to be a large burn mark between Anons neck and right pectoral muscle. It splintered away from the center like a grotesque spider web.
Rainbow could no longer pretend everything was okay. Anon was hurt. He was REALLY hurt! And it was her fault! She didn’t mean for this to happen! It was supposed to be a prank! She didn’t think he’d actually get hurt, lightning bolts were just loud and bright, she herself had felt the sting before and it was only a little worse than being hit by a joy buzzer!
‘I mean his natural magic should have kept him from getting hurt! And the lighting bolt wasn’t supposed to go more than a few meters out of the cloud! It was just supposed to be loud and bright! How did this happen!’ Rainbow thought, her internal panic skyrocketing.
“Anon! Anon can you hear me? Oh crap, I’m so sorry, this was just supposed to- I didn’t mean to! It was just a prank!” Rainbow wasn’t able to keep still. She looked down at Anon. He didn’t appear to be showing any signs of being in pain, which she was surprised to find would have been preferable. He wasn’t moving, the only sign that he was alive was his shallow breathing, and his eyes.
‘His eyes! They didn’t used to do that before did they?’ Rainbow now noticed that Anons eyes were now looking in different directions. The left eye was meeting her gaze, while the right was lazily gazing off to the side.
“Ra…bah….ened…ett,” muttered Anon. It was apparent that he couldn’t even speak. Just what had she done? How could one measly lighting bolt do this much damage? Rainbow wasn’t going to waste time panicking anymore. She needed to get help! The pegasus looked at Anon with great concern.
“Okay, okay, don’t worry Anon, I’m going to get help! You just, uh.. you stay here okay?”
‘Like he has a choice! What have you done you monster!’
Rainbow Dash was going to fix this. She’d get Anon help! The doctors could make this better! They could fix anything! But Twilight, she was the one to go to first! She knew everything about everything! She’d know exactly what to do!
“Don’t worry Anon, I’ll go get help! You’re going to be fine!” And with that, Rainbow was off, flying towards Ponyville as fast as she could with more urgency than she’d ever had before!
‘Everything’s going to be fine!’