//------------------------------//
// Interlude: Dissipation 
// Story: Kuro, shiro to shian 
// by Terabyte West 
//------------------------------//

	"Dash, you ready to take Nightmare Moon down?"
"Sure thing, Spitfire, just gimme a few minutes to-" I didn't get to finish that train of thought, as an alarm indicating an intruder started blaring.
"Hold that thought. I gotta take care of this thing." I told Spitfire as I grabbed the H.N.B. and took to the skies. After about 3 minutes of flying in the direction the alarm indicated -east-northeast- I was begging to think that it was a false alarm, until some giant-as-hay mech came up from behind me and nearly took me out with a single shot. At that point, I was feeling so lucky that my weapon was always active, and as such, I turned around to find a robot roughly 40 times larger than me, with a shape that somehow reminded me of what would happen if a manticore and a cockatrice had a child. Particularly, it was a lunar-dependent mech that was sorta shaped like a manticore, but without the teeth, or... anything. It looked like a wire frame manti-trice... that's a word, right?
"Element of Loyalty! Be my prisoner, or I will be forced to kill you!" The mech's pilot said while I was thinking about how I was going to take this thing down.
"Option C, please. Your demise!" I responded with no shred of second-guessing in my voice.
"Very well. En Garde!"
The entire fight went in a blur for me. I think it was just the mech firing bullets, all the same color, at me, and then firing a missile of the opposite polarity, which I then picked up. Not in the literal sense, the missile was more a big ball of lunar energy or something. But, I felled the mech, the pilot ejected, and I went down to finish off the pilot once and for all.
I wasn't expecting a familiar face to greet me at the clearing the explosion made, but, well...
"Uh, Spitfire?" I asked over the intercom.
"Yeah?"
"There's something you might want to see here..."
"On my way right now!"
Laying at my forehooves was the comatose body of Lightning Dust. I assumed that if we took her in, we might be able to turn her around and have her help us combat Nightmare Moon.



Lightning Dust was out cold for two straight weeks. I was kinda worried that I took a life, but the Las Pegasus doctors were able to confirm her vital signs were very clear, and my patience paid off eventually, when she finally woke up, as I was staring out the window, contemplating how heavy my actions would be.
"Hey Dust, how long has it been?" Dust didn't respond, she just stared at me, grabbed a pen from a nearby stationary set, and proceeded to try and stab me with it. But, I was fortunately faster than her, and was able to sidestep around her quick enough do put her in a headlock and keep her from moving.
"Let me kill you!" Lightning growled with audible struggle.
I proceeded to get one of the nurses to retrieve Spitfire so she could help me turn around Dust. Which I could already tell was going to be difficult, considering that my grip was weakening, and she was getting pretty close to that pen again. My grip was getting too weak for me to hold onto her, so I resorted to something that I never thought I would have to... talking it out.
"Lightning Dust, what are you going to get out of killing me? I won't be able to stop Nightmare Moon, and as such, after a while, you'll realize that his was a kamikaze mission, but it'll take the entire planet down with you as well!"
I think that may have gotten to her, since I could hold onto her a little easier. And so I kept on explaining.
"There is absolutely no benefit whatsoever for killing me! Revenge is never the answer, so you can't say anything about the academy!"
"... You're right."



The next couple of weeks passed by for me and Lightning Dust. I showed her everything that once was Las Pegasus had to offer, which wasn't a lot, but, she found it charming. And one day, she said something that really caught me off guard: "I want to help defeat Nightmare Moon."
I stood there for what felt like forever, contemplating what she just said. She tried to kill me not even half a month ago, and now she wants to help take down her former leader? Wow. One can change quickly, but, I guess I learned that already with that whole Discord Reformation fiasco.
"I think I might have something in the wreckage of my ship that can help." She continued as she flew away back to where we fought each other. 
I gave chase and saw her rooting through a storage compartment on the side of the ship, and she pulled out a bulky-looking vest. I realized where she was going with this and told her she would have to get Spitfire's go-ahead.
"And I say, go on ahead!" Spitfire said when I asked her over the intercom.



After about 3 days of the scientists reworking the vest, Lightning Dust was given a new vest looked slightly different to mine, in the sense that it looked slightly bulkier, and had a slightly less bulky gun. I was starting to get the feeling that she would go along with me on my adventure, until she got a virus of some sort and was incapacitated. I was hoping that soon, she would recover, but after yet another two weeks, she was out for the count, and I would have to go it alone. Well, here's hoping!