//------------------------------// // 18: Thank You for Your Generous Donation // Story: Bring the Thunder // by Ze Guest //------------------------------// Unlike last night's bar-side bash, the breakfast the ponies of the town gave us was family friendly. It was a huge buffet outside in the middle of town. There were benches and tables packed with food. I didn't eat much at what they called the Defender's Breakfast for some stupid reason, but I did take a lot for the road because I was running low on food as it was. I was surrounded by ponies who were thanking me and acting as if I were important. We had a table of our own and I was sitting beside Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow was liking the attention. Twilight came back with nothing much on her plate but she had a little more than me. She leaned over and said. "Don't worry, I left some money on the counter for the door." "Good, I just hope they don't blame me for it." I said. Twilight quickly changed the subject to something that caught me off guard. "What was the ghost saying to you?" she said. "Huh?" I asked stupidly. "Yesterday, when Applejack finished her test, that ghost said something to you. What was it?" I fiddled with my hoofs. Should I tell Twilight? I don't know. "It's- it's nothing." I said. "I don't care. He told you something and I want to know what it was. So tell me." I sighed and gave it up. Some of it. "He wants me to do something." I said. "That's not good enough. Tell me what he wants you to do." Well, there was no way out of this. Even if I just stormed off and called Twilight nosey, she would still interrogate me. "He wants me to- to protect you..." Twilight sat there silent as someone came up and bowed and thanked her. "Wh-what? Why?" "I don't know. He just said that if he was doing it... he would do it with his life." Twilight and I didn't say much to each other after that. We just sat and ate. Saying hello to the other towns-ponies and assuring them that we will save the damn world and whatever. I looked over at Rainbow Dash as she showed off her flying skills and gave rides to the foals. Ponies wanted to give her money but she would say no because the rides were her pleasure. Now, with me, that can be taken one of two ways, but hay! That's just me. After breakfast, we left town and said good bye to everyone. And I even said good bye to Braeburn. Maybe because it felt good rolling out of my mouth. Which would explain why I said it multiple times in a very happy tone. But I guess his honesty made me hate him a little less. We had been walking for quite a while now. I felt so alone. The wind blew lightly past as I watched the sun set. Now for some reason, I kind of like the feeling of being alone, the only one. Maybe I was so used to it I started to find it as a sort of heroine. It was depressing, but I liked it. I shouldn't feel lonely though. I was with six mares, a bird, and some weird flashy guy who can control his body temperature. We were getting closer to a highly wooded area. "Uh oh." Rainbow Dash said. We all stopped. "What?" Rarity said. Rainbow Dash landed. "An ancient evil lurks in these woods. The Slender Mane! He'll take you and- well, no-pony quite knows what he does to you, but I imagine it's unpleasant." I walked forward. "Oh really?" "Yeah! Why, I know some-pony who knew a guy who wandered into these woods and she never came out!" "Then how come we never heard of him?" Rarity asked. "Well, the truth is, I don't really like to talk about it." Rainbow Dash said. "Oh yes, of course! The rock hard Rainbow Dash becomes melancholy about someone she doesn't even know. I mean, duh!" Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I should have known. You guys are too smart. And no fun either." "Well that's me Rainbow, fun police." I said. We walked a few more miles and came to a little building in the middle of the woods. We all decided to put Rainbow Dash in the middle of us so we can keep an eye on her so she didn't try to scare us. It was my idea too! It was a one story building but the thing was like a maze! Twilight found a sheet of loose-leaf paper taped to the wall and it just said stop a bunch of times in poor hoof-writing. "What did I tell you guys!" Rainbow said. We all scolded her for a second or two and kept going. Astheno found a staircase leading down. The farther down we went, this blunt banging sound got louder. I told Rainbow to shut up but she said it wasn't her. pfing, pfing, pfing! It only got louder. Twilight stopped and opened a door at the end of a little hall, where the sound was coming from. I could hear someone in there. They were making grunting noises like they were hitting something. When we walked into the room, it filled with gold and gems and other stuff. "Be careful," Twilight said. "This might be a dragon's lair." The grunting and banging stopped and guess what? The ghost came out. He had a bat over his shoulder. The bat was silver, most of it at least. There was some red on it but I don't think it was there originally. The ghost tossed it out of sight. "Sorry. Baby dragons everywhere. They can be pesky and stupid. They're gone though. But watch for the bodies. There's plenty of them." I just nodded my head and accepted while I looked at a red and orange dragon infant lay listlessly on the ground, face down in a puddle. Fluttershy on the other hand... "Who the hell do you think you are!" she shouted. She ran up to the ghost. "How dare you kill these dragons! They did nothing to you!" The ghost shrugged. "You don't know that. Too quick to judge. Not very kind, I'll say. But soon, my friend, soon. Now where's the mare of the hour?" He swaggered across the room looking at us. "Who's is this?" He held up another element with a purple gem on it. Rarity backed up sheepishly, but shook her head and tromped up to the ghost."I believe that belongs to me!" she announced. The ghost nodded and turned to Fluttershy who was giving him that demonic stare."I'm sorry, but you must move over, we are going to need some space." And out of nowhere, some kind of pony who looked very ill and most likely dying on a stretcher popped up. "Now believe me, Rarity, it's not so easy to make all of these tests, but this seemed to be the most effective." "It's just a ill pony. What is he- or she doing here?" Rarity asked looking puzzled. "Oh, right." the ghost said. Another stretcher came out and a blue curtain hung from the ceiling and touched the ground. "Now, this patient is in need of a kidney because at this time, she, has none functioning and time is of the essence! You have two working kidneys, right?" "Well, of course." she said even more confused. Before Rarity could say another word, the ghost pushed her onto the stretcher. "Now there is quite a problem I should mention. While I was- uh... obtaining the patient, I was only able to get a dose to let one pony fall asleep for the entire surgery and by law, it's all or nothing. Either I give you the full dose, or I keep you awake, at your request of course. If only you were Generous enough to, say, give this to some-pony else." I see where this guy is going, basically, he wants Rarity to give the knock-out drug to the patient and have Rarity awake for the surgery. Wow... I don't know what to say. "I can do this," Rarity said to herself. "Give her the dose. I'll be awake for it." "Wonderful!" the ghost said. Something finally clicked in my head that I guess I should have thought of before. "Wait. What about the rest of us? We're just going to be sitting around a little shield again for eight hours doing absolutely nothing?" The ghost turned to me. "Quite right! I should do something." About a second later, I started to get tired, really tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open. "There! That should do the trick!" Everyone just started hitting the floor except for Neon who just stood there like nothing was happening. "What are you doing?" He asked. I fell to the ground, trying to keep my eyes open the last thing I said was. " You- you bastard... ... "Oh shut up! We're almost done. This part doesn't even hurt. At least not as bad as the rest of the surgery." I stood up slowly and rubbed the back of my head. I looked up and everyone else was still asleep. I looked behind me and Neon was sitting back looking at a gold coin. "What are you doing?" I said to Neon. "Nothin'," he said. I could hear Rarity grunting in pain. "The guy is sewing her up. It was a lot louder in here while you guys were asleep." "Yeah, thanks for the update." I said sarcastically. I heard something moving on a pile of gold. I turned and saw a baby dragon leap at Twilight. It looked like it was going to eat her. "Twilight! Look out!" I shouted. "Huh? Wha-?" Twilight said lazily. Her eyes flew open and she quickly rolled away. The dragon flopped on the ground and ran over to it. I was holding it down tokeep it from doing anything else. Neon ran over to the dragon. He turned into his liquid form and surrounded it. I backed off. The dragon was trying to swim but it didn't know how to. I could see it had a black eye and it looked pretty beat up. "Shhh..." Neon said quietly to the dragon. "It's alright. Go to your family." The dragon gradually slowed down as it's facial expression turned from anger to woe. Then it closed it's eyes and stopped moving. Neon got off the dragon and turned into his regular form. Twilight stood there tearing up as she looked at the body. The ghost flung the curtains open. "What's going on?" The body of the dragon lied on the ground.The ghost looked in my direction. "Good job my friend. Now I can finally believe you saved a life now." Before he dove back into the curtains I got his attention. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. He slowly moved his head back out. "You should know." And headed back inside. "You guys saved me. And Neon-" Twilight looked at Neon who looked at the body. Neon peered back up at Twilight. "Are you going to scrutinize me again?" he asked. Twilight looked astonished that the question was even thought. "No, of course not. That was- that was- I can't even find a word for it." They stared at each other silently. Now I don't know why, but the song We've Got Tonight played in my head. Natural reflex maybe? "She's all done!" The ghost announced. Me, Neon and Twilight turned to the ghost. "if you want to visit, you have to come inside." Twilight ran inside as me and Neon waked everyone up. "Hay! What was that?" Rainbow Dash complained to the ghost. "Well, I had to do something with you." he said. We all walked over to Rarity. She looked horrible. She was pale... well, more pale than normal that is. Her mane was a mess and she laid motionless on the stretcher. She almost looked dead. "Uh oh..." the ghost said. "Uh oh?" I slowly turned around. "What do you mean uh oh?" I said. "Well, I mean she was awake a moment ago. Uh..." "Did you just kill her?!" I asked. He rubbed the back of his head. "She did lose a lot of blood." I stood there motionless, thoughtless, all of the above. "You- you SON OF A-" I heard snoring. I turned to Rarity who was making the noise. The ghost sighed in relief. "Here, I'll help her." And Rarity blew up. Well, not literally thankfully. Her mane was fixed and she became... less pale, I guess. But she was still asleep. "Let her sleep. In the meantime," He gave me the element. "You take this." "You're lucky she's still alive or I would have killed you- uh, again." I said "Yes. Indeed" And he was gone.