//------------------------------// // Trouble // Story: Lightning Aura Strike // by Mischievous Blue //------------------------------// Trouble Lightning turned to where the ponies were talking about her mother. There were two stallions, along with their mare companions. She started walking towards the group. Moon Gem noticed her advance towards the nobles and rushed in front of her. “What are you doing, Lightning,” Moon asked concerned. “They were talking about my mother. About the way she died and how the baby popped out like a spawn of the devil,” Lightning snarled as she attempted to shove her way through Moon. “This isn’t the place for a fight. If you have a problem, go talk to Princess Celestia or one of the guards. But don’t make a scene if it can be easily avoided.” “What would you do?” Lightning growled as she continued to fight against Moon. “I would do what I just suggested, even though I may hate myself for it,” Moon said as she shoved Lightning back. Lightning glared at the four ponies a second longer before whirling away in disgust. As she walked towards one of the balconies, she noticed her flanks were slightly warm. She looked down and her cutie mark was glowing lightly. As she watched, the glow dissipated and was replaced by the normal yellow hue. Moon looked on and smiled lightly. “I wish I had a mark like that. You always get all the luck. All the guys notice you, and all the girls want to be you. And you have a cutie mark that glows. I don’t know of any other pony’s mark that does that, not even the Princesses.” “Yeah, well, I wish I were more normal. The less normal I am, the more attention I attract from the wrong crowd,” Lightning said as she pushed through a crowd of ponies who had grouped around her. She and Moon stood on the balcony and looked at the moon and stars. Lightning thought to herself about how, not even a year ago, the moon was slightly eclipsed by the Mare of the Moon, symbolizing the banishment of Princess Luna after her attempted coup. She remembered staring at the moon back when she was a filly with her dad and talking about the story of how Luna had ended up there. Lightning sighed and laid her head on the rail. She thought about nothing for a few more seconds before raising her head and turning to Moon, who had started talking to a younger mare. “Could you excuse us, please,” Lightning asked the pony politely. The pony nodded, said a few more words to Moon, and trotted off. Moon turned to face Lightning. “What’s up?” “Do you know where Sunset is? I lost her a little bit after we arrived.” Moon looked around. There was no sign of her on the balcony. “I’m not sure. I’ll go check inside. I’ll be back soon.” Lightning caught Moon’s leg as she started back to the doors. “Can you get me a drink? At this rate, I need one to help me make it through tonight.” Moon smirked but agreed to bring a drink back after she found Sunset. She walked inside and was gone from view. Lightning turned back around and leaned on the rail again. She couldn’t get what those ponies had said out of her head. Of all the theories she had about her birth, that would have been the last one. Her father had never talked about her birth much, or even about her mother. When she asked, he would always reply, ‘Your mother was pure, but mistakes are in the past for a reason.’ She eventually learned that he wasn’t referring to her mother as a mistake, but whatever happened when Lightning was born, was. She continued looking at the night sky and was amazed at what she was seeing. Usually, she didn’t spend time looking at such mundane and ordinary things as the sky, but as she continued to stare, the more she saw. She saw thousands of stars, and hundreds of constellations. When she had been younger, her dad would take her outside and they would sit beneath the night sky as he would point out the various shapes in the sky. As she had gotten older, her fascination with the shapes in the sky grew, so she got several books from the Canterlot library and would start recording which constellations were in the sky at what time, month, and their positions. As she continued to look up, she heard talking and the sound of hoofsteps growing near. She turned her head, expecting to see Moon Gem with her drink and Sunset Breeze. But it turned out to be none of these things. It was the pony who had been talking about her mother, and tailing him was his friend and their two mare companions. Lightning turned away quickly, hoping that the pony didn’t see her and would walk to a different part of the balcony. But he choose to join Lightning at her spot. “Well hello there,” he said in his rich, aristocratic voice that Lightning despised so much. “I haven’t seen you around before. What’s your name, honey?” Lightning stiffened and her lip curled back in a snarl and it took all of her willpower to not curl her hoof into a fist and deck this stallion. She regained her composure and, without turning around replied, “It doesn’t matter what my name is. I don’t want to talk to you, so please leave.” The snob beside her laughed lightly. “My my, are we feisty tonight. Say, why don’t you come back to my place tonight and I’ll show you what rich ponies like me do with their free time.” Lightning’s self-control was starting to waver, but she held on. “No thanks. I’m sure you do everything illegal under Celestia’s sun and Luna’s moon and I don’t feel like getting involved. I’m sure your friends there can help you with whatever you want to do. But for now, leave me out of it and for the last time, leave me alone.” The pony was now obviously getting angry. He grabbed Lightning’s shoulder and shoved to where she was looking straight at his hateful face. “Listen here you little brat,” he breathed on her face, “I am the richest pony in all of Canterlot.” “And also the one in most need of a lesson in manners,” Lightning muttered as she tried to push her way around the stallion. He wasn’t impressed with that remark apparently, as he grabbed her mane and slammed her face into the rough bricks of the Canterlot castle walls. Lightning felt a hot rage growing inside her and her flanks started to grow warm again as her cutie mark shone with light. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see ponies coming out on the balcony to see what was going on. She also saw Moon and Sunset standing in the crowd with their mouths agape. Suddenly, the pony was pulled off Lightning and she looked around to see what had happened. A couple of Canterlot guards had grabbed the assailant and were attempting to subdue him. Lightning straightened her dress, causing a ripple of static to sizzle its way down the length. “Freak,” she said as she turned and started to walk back into the castle with the intent of leaving the gala. Then, from behind, she heard the sound of hooves hitting flesh and she turned in time to see the stallion barreling toward her with a crazed look on his face. She flinched and raised her hoof to protect herself. There was a blinding flash, a split silence, and then an enormous explosion ripped through the castle. Flames engulfed the pony and reduced him to ashes, and ponies started running around to avoid the flames. The inferno ran through the gala room, killing several other ponies who had the misfortune to still be in the room. Parts of the balcony and cover started to crack and break off. Guests unfortunate enough to be on the far end of the balcony fell the thousands of hooves to the bottom of the chasm below Canterlot. Others were unlucky to be hit by large pieces of balcony cover. Those knocked unconscious ended up getting trampled by hundreds of guests trying to not get killed by flames or falling rubble. Lightning looked around for her friends. In all the commotion, she had lost track of them. She pushed her way through terrified ponies and found them. She stood speechless at what she saw and her stomach heaved, forcing her lunch to leave her body. Moon Gem and Sunset Breeze were both laying beneath a large pillar that had been dislodged after the cover had broken and fallen. She didn’t have to go over to see that they weren’t alive. The pillar wasn’t for show; it was designed to hold up the weight of the balcony cover, as were the three others that lay scattered around. Two had shattered as they hit what remained of the balcony. Lightning backed into the gala room. Inside wasn’t much better than outside as there was the same amount of pandemonium. Sobbing ponies holding the charred remains of their loved ones, some guests running around either with their mane or parts of their body on fire, and a drunk violet-red earth pony in the corner, looking at all the commotion with a drunken interest. It took several minutes for the clamor to quiet down. Unicorn guards had come down and extinguished the fires on the gala floor as well as ponies. The Princesses even came down to see the extent of the damage and find the cause. Lightning was getting one of her wings bandaged after getting knocked to the ground and have somepony trample it as they ran past. The doctor examining Lightning’s wing told her to avoid using it for a while and left to check on other injured ponies when Princess Celestia called for silence using the Royal Canterlot Voice. “We ask that you all remain calm as we try to sort out what had happened this evening,” Celestia called out, her voice back to normal. “Sister, can you round up all the guests who can’t find the ones who accompanied them and take them to the royal court room,” Celestia whispered to Luna. “I’ll be with you shortly. I just want to finish up here.” “Very well, sister,” Luna said and proclaimed to the crowd in the Voice to follow her to the royal chamber if they couldn’t find the one who joined them. Celestia turned back to the significantly smaller group. She surveyed the ponies either getting their wounds treated, waking from unconsciousness, or sobbing from the horror that had just occurred. She walked to the center of the gala floor and asked in a loud, clear voice, “Does anypony know who did this?” There was a small stir among the ponies that remained. A murmur went through the crowd and Celestia caught words like “Lightning,” “attack,” “explosion,” and other incoherent phrases. She decided to use a different approach. “Does anypony know what happened?” This question was better received. One pony stood up, a dark green stallion with the remains of a nice suit hanging off his body. He looked dazed and one of his sides had a large gash that a doctor was trying to patch up, but he stood up tall. Celestia turned to face him. The stallion took a deep breath. “Yes, I do. I was outside on the balcony enjoying the summer night breeze. There was an argument on the other side but I didn’t think anything of it. Leave it to the guards, right? Anyway, the argument escalated and started getting physical. This caught my attention, and I looked over in time to see a brown pony throw a red mare against the castle wall. I moved forward to stop him, but the guards got there first and pulled him off the mare and held him back. There was a large crowd by then and the mare started walking toward the entrance of the dance floor, but the stallion got free and ran toward her. She raised a hoof and there was an explosion. That’s the last thing I saw.” Celestia thanked the pony. She asked if there was a red coated mare in the room. Slowly, the crowd around Lightning moved away from her and she was left alone in the center of a ring of ponies. Celestia fixed her gaze on Lightning and scanned her. Her eyes landed on Lightning’s cutie mark, and went wide with shock. She mouthed something that looked like, “I don’t believe it.” Celestia and Lightning stared at each other from across the gala floor. Neither one moved. Celestia was the first to recover, “What is your name, young one?” She was trying to control her voice, but even from that distance, Lightning could hear a tremble in the Princess’s voice. Lightning stood up. “I am Lightning Aura Strike. I came to this gala with two friends hoping for a nice quiet getaway from high society and let loose for a while.” “Then why didn’t you join Luna with the ponies who can’t find their companions?” “Because I know where they are. They’re dead. I saw their bodies underneath a pillar out on the balcony.” Celestia’s eye twitched slightly. She was getting aggravated about something. Lightning saw Celestia turn her head to one of her guards and whisper something to him. He stiffened and looked at Lightning before galloping out. He came back a couple seconds later with ten pegasi guards behind him. He pointed at Lightning and they fanned out. “Lighting Aura Strike,” the Princess called out, “I would appreciate it if you would cooperate with my guards, lest you get unnecessarily hurt.” By this point, the guards were closing in. Lightning looked around searching for an exit. She found a small gap between two guards and dashed between them. They tried to grab her but she was just a little too swift for them and ended up behind them and dashed for the ruined balcony. “Stop her!” Celestia screamed, flaring her wings open and leaping up and flying toward the red pony on the balcony. Lightning couldn’t fly with a bruised wing and there was no turning back with an angry Sun Princess and her guards running at her. She had no choice. She rushed up to the balcony edge, looked back at the bodies of her friends, whispered “I’m sorry,” and jumped over the balcony edge.