Lighting Can Strike Twice

by Lightning_Colt

Chapter 8: Nightmares and Cutie Marks

Clouds whizzed past as I was soaring through the sky, I had no idea how I got here as the last thing I remember was crashing into a young orange pegasus and losing consciousness. But that was at the back of my mind as I soared past brilliant white clouds. I can't ever remember a time when I was happier. I continued to zip around the clouds, performing loop-the-loops, barrel rolls, and quite an over-compensatory Corkscrew. All of my excitement was suddenly shattered when a flash of lightning broke into the scene. The lightning not only changed my mood but also changed the entire scene, all the clouds turned dark grey, almost black, and shrouded together to form a thick canopy. Another lightning bolt streaked down, this time a few feet on my right. I quickly reacted and dived, hopefully there will be some cover on the ground.

When I reached the ground, there was no grass or buildings, the ground was alternating Light and dark blue squares. I landed and something felt weird, the ground didn't feel like it was there, I could see it but I couldn't feel it, "okay, that's not weird at all" I thought aloud. What was also weird was that there was lightning and thunder, yet there was no rain. "What in the hay is going on?" I say, Lightning flashed through the scene again "I sure could do with some cover" I ask. The ground shook and a tree sprouted from the numbing ground. Without thinking I ran over and dove underneath the tree. Another bolt of lightning ran from the clouds, this time it struck the tree causing it to fall. I only just manage to dodge it in time as it crashed to the patchwork ground. The tree stump that was left behind had caught fire but I didn’t think anything of it until a spark landed on the tree trunk and ignited it. As fire danced all over the trunk all the way up to the leaves, I felt some heat at my flank. I turn around to find my tail had caught on fire too! I waved it, patted it on the ground to extinguish the flames but that only made the fire more powerful. It slowly crawled along my tail, when it reached my flank the fur also caught fire. The pain was unbearable as the flames engulfed my entire body, I screamed out in pain. I could see the flesh melting off my flank, the pain becoming beyond imaginable as I closed my eyes tight.

I screamed out in terror.
"What's the matter, mister?" something asked. My eyes shot open to find me lying on a blanket in a very small wooden room. Feeling the blanket it was sodden wet, as I looked around an orange pegasus was holding an empty bucket, What I thought was me being on fire was actually this pegasus throwing water on me to wake me up. "I said what's up mister?"
"Nothing" I gasp out "Bad dream" I look out the window, seeing nothing but green foliage. "Where the hoof am I?" I ask.
"Oh you're at the Cutie Mark Crusaders Secret Clubhouse".
"The Cutie Mark Cru-what now?"

She spoke slowly, as if I were really stupid "Cu-tie… Mark… Cru-sa-ders… Sec-ret… Club-house…"

"Yeah, alright please don't insult my intelligence".
"Sorry" the young filly apologised.

"So what are the Cutie Mark Crusaders?" I asked.

"Oh, well we're three fillies who are on a mission to get their cutie marks, no matter what, I'm Scootaloo."

"Ah'm Applebloom"

"And I'm Sweetie Belle"

I sat up on my haunches and looked to my right to find a pink maned yellow filly, with a huge pink bow knotted in her mane at the back of her head. Right next to her was a white unicorn, looked about the same age, her mane was split into half lavender and the other half a pale pink.
"Err hey, how you doing?" I said, slightly nervous, "hey wait a minute, Applebloom, are you related to Applejack?"

"Yeah, she's mah older sister" she said beaming with pride.

Sweetie Belle looked at me sceptically "How'd you know that?" she demanded.

"Err" I said Looking between the three fillies who were bearing down on me with angry faces "Err lucky guess?"

"oh" said Sweetie Belle "Okay!" She said a large smile erupted on her face.

"How did I get here?" I asked looking at the quite professionally painted tree house and the carpentry was almost at the level of my dad's.

"Oh yeah" said Scootaloo, blushing. "I kinda accidentally crashed into you near the spa, Sweetie Belle was nearby so I asked her to help me carry you here."

"right okay, who built this place? The decoration and furnishings are amazing" I say in admiration.

"Oh that was Applebloom!" Sweetie Belle blurted out.

"shush, Sweetie Belle, it's not that good" Applebloom said, looking down at her hooves.

"Applebloom" I said putting a hoof on her shoulder. "My dad was one of the most talented carpenters in Equestria, when I say they are amazing, I mean they look as good as my dad's work".

"Really?" She asked wide eyed.

"Really really" I replied.

"But ah don’t wanna do that, ah'm gonna help mah family with thuh apple business".

"And I'm going to follow in my sister's footsteps and become a fashion designer" added Sweetie Belle.

"And I'm going to become a famous singer!" Scootaloo piled on.

"okay, this is a technique that my teacher taught our class about how to find out what our special talents are, all of you sit in a triangle." They positioned themselves as a weird lopsided triangle. "Okay, now Sweetie Belle, talk about what you think Scootaloo is very proficient at." Sweetie Belle looked at me with confusion, "good at" I sighed.

"Oh, well I think Scootaloo is really good at doing tricks on her scooter" She said smiling.
"Okay, Scootaloo, what do you think Applebloom is really good at?"

"Well, She's really good at home decorating" She replied.

"All right then, Apple Bloom, what do you think that Sweetie Belle is really good at?"

"She's got a really good singin' voice"

"okay, there we go, now as you can see what your friends are saying, what they think you are good at are very different to what you want to do. Many of my class mates found that their friends were correct, and they received their cutie marks within a month of the exercise, well except for me" I said, looking down at my blank flank, all three of the Crusaders look down at my flank too and smiled.

"You're a blank flank?" they question in unison.

"Yeah" I sigh "I've gotten a lot of ridicule for it too"

"huh, tell us about it" Scootaloo said with equal enthusiasm.

"But that has never gotten me down, now listen, for all those fillies that laugh at you for being different, you laugh at them for being normal. From what I've seen, it's boring to be normal, it's exciting to be different, ponies only make fun of you because they are jealous themselves. You can go out there and you discover who you are meant to be, but don't forget that you don't need a cutie mark to be special." I said, tingles spreading all over me, I've never been so deep, the fillies sitting in front of me were looking up at me in wide-eyed admiration. All four of us were sitting in complete silence before I broke it.

"Err anyway thanks for err… waking me up, I gotta sort stuff out with Twilight, see you around Cutie Mark Crusaders!" as I walk out of the wooden tree house.
While walking away from the Clubhouse I began thinking about what I can do to earn my cutie mark, but then I remembered that I had been trying for ten years of my life before I thought that I had no special talents. I walked through the throng of apple trees before realising something, I haven't set one hoof on the Apple's farm. I literally have no idea where I am. I stopped and tried to get my bearings but unfortunately, it was later in the day than I thought, the sun was already setting. Without hesitation I started to sprint towards the sunset hoping to find something. I could feel the last rays of sunlight as the sun disappeared below the horizon. I looked around in the dwindling light and saw a ridge that rose through the apple trees. I ran to the ridge and all the way to the top. There was a single apple tree and the highest point of the ridge, I trotted up and sat beneath it and lay down to sleep.

CRASH! I woke with a start. Looking around bleary eyed, seeing a strange mist hanging around the orchard and a bright light in the distance. I leapt to my hooves and started running towards the light, conveniently, there was a path made through the trees well, gauged through the trees. The ground in the path was all dug up and thrown all over the place. I navigated my way along the dodgy path towards the strange light, keeping my eyes on my hooves, hoping not to twist an ankle on the extremely uneven ground. As I was walking along the path, I saw an object move across the path, it was long and thin, it looked like it had wings, but it looked like it also had horns which left me puzzled. A flash caught my eye and I noticed that the bright light had intensified, I carried on slowly towards the light, suspicious of what lay ahead.

Comments

[Enceledus]

oh what the hell lightning whats with you and crashing into ponies?

[Koala2001]

Discord.....?