Faded Rainbow

by Trinary

Chapter Nine

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Early afternoon in Ponyville. Ponies were in the process of finish up whatever errands they had to do before their afternoon shower. Ditzy Doo was finishing up her Saturday mail route and since there was no school, her special helper was there with her.

“Lookit me, mama! I’m delivering the mail!” Dinky giggled as she clutched an envelope in her mouth. She ran up ahead on her tiny legs to the mailbox. She hopped up and down, but couldn’t quite reach the mailbox.

Ditzy Doo flew over and gently rapped her hoof on the mailbox. “Open up Mr. Mailbox it’s time for your breakfast!” Ditzy said as Dinky giggled. The mailbox lid fell open and Dinky stood on precariously on her hind hooves. She flailed her forelegs but she managed to spit the letter right into the mailbox. “Perfect!” Ditzy beamed as she closed up the mailbox. “That’s my muffin!” She hugged her daughter fiercely.

Dinky giggled. “Yaay! I’m a mailmare just like you!”

Ditzy hugged her daughter even tighter. One of her eyes tilted upwards which was why she noticed the approaching thunderheads first. “Hmm, good thing that was the last stop Dinky, it looks like it’s about to rain.”

“Awwww…” Dinky pouted. Ditzy nuzzled her as she started to walk her home, one wing stretched out over the tiny unicorn in case it started raining before they got home.

A loud clap of thunder made Dinky squeal and sent her running to her mother’s side. “It’s okay, it’s just some thunder…the storm must be moving fast if it’s already that loud.” Ditzy said as she turned around. She frowned, one eye idly rolling in another direction. The storm was still pretty far away. But that thunder sounded awfully loud for a small shower, and especially when you consider the distance…her eyes snapped into focus as a sudden lightning strike split the sky. The bolt of lightning was immense!

Her voice suddenly tight but carefully kept even, Ditzy called out. “Come on Dinky, I’ll race you home! Winner gets their pick of muffin!” She picked up the pace, careful to keep Dinky under her wing, metaphorically and literally as she kept one eye on Dinky and another on the approaching storm.

As the thunderheads rolled in ponies all over town stopped and looked up. Those who were packing up their things in the market or were closing their shutters and windows now did so with an added sense of urgency.

Bon-Bon looked at Lyra as they finished a mid-afternoon lunch. “Whoa…I’ve never seen storm clouds like that: they’re pitch black! And huge! Is that normal?”

“I-don’t know. My horn’s tingling.” Lyra shuddered. “There’s a lot of power in the air. I think we should get home.”

“Sounds good.” Bon-Bon said nervously.

A sudden terrifying BOOM of thunder sent ponies squealing.

“It’s a horrible, horrible disaster!” Yelled Daisy.

“It’s the end of the world!” Shrieked Lily.

“Everypony run!” Shouted Rose. The three of them zoomed into their home and slammed the door shut behind them. The fear was infectious. Berry Punch pulled her sister indoors as Colgate closed slammed the shutters shut. Aloe and Lotus quickly started closing the spa and the Cakes did the same for Sugarcube Corner. Cheerilee started shepherding little colts and fillies that she had been taking through town on a weekend outing back to their worried parents. Snips and Snails were staring at the clouds with slack-jawed awe (which aside from the awe is their general expression) while other fillies and colts started to sniffle and cry as their parents started soothing them and hurriedly prodding them home. Manes started to frizzle and pegasi felt their feather’s bristle with all the electricity in the air, which only added to the general feeling of discomfort and fear.

Cloud Kicker, Raindrops and the other pegasi of Ponyville looked fearfully up at the approaching black clouds. The wind wasn’t fierce and there wasn’t any rain falling, but this storm looked all the more dangerous for it. They took the air determined to do whatever they could—only to quickly land when they saw a huge tree split in two by a bolt of lightning.

Over at Sweet Apple Acres, Granny Smith sat in her rocker. “There’s a storm a brewin’” She said croakily to her grandson. “Where’s yer sisters?”

Big Macintosh looked up. “Applejack’s out of town with her friends Granny Smith, she’ll be fine. Apple Boom’s with her friends in the tree house.”

Granny Smith leaned forward, “Well? What’re ya waitin’ fer? Go and git her you big galoot!” Big Macintosh nodded.

“Alright, get yourself down to the storm cellar Granny. Ah’ll be back with Apple Bloom and her friends.”

Nodding once, Granny watched Big Macintosh gallop out the door. She shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold. Old as she was, she could feel in her bones that this would be a bad one. “Bring mah granchillun back safely.” She quietly prayed. “Bring ‘em all home safe and sound.”

Rainbow Dash soared. The ground below her dissolved into a blur of greens and browns as she zoomed by. Like looming black mountains, the lightning clouds approached Ponyville. The dark clouds lit up with bright flashes of light as lightning crackled between them.

She felt her mane frizzle. Rainbow felt a knot in her throat she could only half-swallow. It threatened to choke her. The clouds were massed close together, making them seem like one giant solid mass.

“Wings, don’t fail me now.” Rainbow Dash begged as she zoomed past one of the outermost clouds. She thought she was keeping a reasonable distance from it when it suddenly erupted with lightning. A giant lightning bolt as thick as a tree launched itself out of the cloud only narrowly missing her. In fact, it didn’t entirely miss. Thin, smaller volts branched off the main bolt and were drawn to Rainbow. She yelped as she felt tiny pinprick shocks strike her side as she zoomed past. She winced, then immediately felt grateful she got off as lightly as she did.

Rainbow gasped as she realized that if that bolt had struck her there wouldn’t have been anything left of her: she would’ve been incinerated! Oddly enough, some small corner of her mind marveled at the fact that she knew the meaning of the word incinerated. She didn’t know she knew that.

She shook her head. “C’mon, head in the game. Head in the game.” Only she knew this wasn’t a game. The stakes were much higher and the price of failure much, *much* higher.

“You’re going to die.” A voice in her head warned. Startled, Rainbow Dash fell several feet as she actually forgot to flap. The voice was so calm, so hard, so…familiar. It was her own.

She shuddered. Ignoring the rising panic in her gut, she flew by another cloud. Again, she felt herself struck all over her body by many of the smaller branching bolts of lightning, only to shiver as she felt the searing heat from the massive lightning issuing forth.

Rainbow panted. Turning her head she saw tiny black marks pockmarking her coat where the smaller bolts had zapped her. It stung fiercely but compared to what would happen if those big bolts had hit her…her whole body shuddered at the implications.

The two clouds she had set off started to whiten and break apart, having been emptied of their load. But the rest of the clouds still rumbled on towards Ponyville.
“Why are you doing this for them?!” Some tiny corner of her mind screamed at her. “These ponies laughed at you! Humiliated you! All the ponies that really care about you are safe in Cloudsdale! Let somepony else take care of this mess! This isn’t your problem! You didn’t make this mess! Let those three losers get out here and risk their flanks! You don’t want to die!”

And there it was. She didn’t. But Ponyville was her responsibility. The weather was her responsibility. And she couldn’t help but feel responsible. Especially when she remembered her own harsh words on the subject.

‘They can clear their own weather. See how they like it when lightning starts crackling down around their heads! And hey, who knows? Maybe I’m just not COOL enough to save them from the next monster that comes skulking out of the Everfree!’ Rainbow winced as she remembered her own anger, her own words. Her own callous attitude.

“I-I didn’t mean it!” Rainbow Dash said back to herself. “I didn’t…” She hugged herself. “I can fix this…I can fix everything…”

Lightning flashed through the window of the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse followed almost immediately by the loud booming of thunder. Three scared fillies squealed in terror and tried to hide under blankets, tables or whatever else they could find.

“Make it stop!” Sweetie Belle wailed, tears running tracts down her cheeks. Apple Bloom, who was shivering under a nearby blanket, crawled over and hugged her friend, wrapping the blanket around both of them.

“T-there there, Sweetie Belle.” Apple Bloom stammered, trying to sound braver than she felt. “Ah’m sure somepony will be by soon…why, ah expect Big Macintosh will be by any minute now!”

Scootaloo slowly poked her head out the window. “W-whoa….” She stammered in equal measures of awestruck and terrified.

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle hissed. “Get down!” Apple Bloom bit down on Scootaloo’s tail and dragged her back under the blanket with the others.”

“Are you nuts?!” Apple Bloom shouted at her. “Keep down!” Another sudden flash and boom sent them all screaming and hiding under the blanket. Apple Bloom sniffled. “A-ah want Applejack and Big Macintosh!”

Sweetie Belle nuzzled Apple Bloom as she began to hum softly, though her own breathing was a little ragged. Scootaloo unfurled her own tiny wings and tried to lay one over Apple Bloom.

Big Macintosh was running through the orchard when a thunderous lightning strike destroyed an apple tree just ahead of him. He whinnied and hit the ground as dirt and bits of charred wood fell around him. Covering his head with his hooves he waited until he stopped hearing the sound of things clattering to the ground. Slowly he raised his hooves away and climbed back to his feet.

He looked up. His eyes narrowed. Against the backdrop of black clouds there was a dash of blue, zooming and zipping around; darting around lightning bolts. Just one small blue speck, holding the line against the black.

Rainbow Dash was breathing heavily, a fine sheen of sweat coating her body. She didn’t know how long she had been at it. A few minutes or an hour—time had started to blur together. No matter how many clouds she triggered into setting off, there always seemed to be more and more left.

“Oh geeze, c’mon already!” She threw up her hooves in exasperating, then regretted it as her whole body ached from dozens of small sore spots where the smaller bolts had struck her. “There’s gotta be a better way!” She thought about trying to perform a sonic rainboom, but realized that a big explosion plus large explosive lightning clouds would probably equal an even bigger explosion. And that would be bad.

Besides, after everything she’d done already she doubted she had the strength to pull it off anyway. Another boom of lightning seemed to explode right in her ear, deafening her. She clapped her hooves over her ears and groaned.

So far she had just picked off the outlying clouds on the periphery of the cloud mass. At this rate, even with her super speed, she wouldn’t be finished clearing the clouds before Ponyville was demolished.

“Not good enough…just not good enough.” She started rubbing her hooves through her mane, feeling frantic. “I can’t do it! I can’t—” She shook her head. “NO! No! I-I can do this! I just gotta think…c’mon think think think.” She rapped her hoof on her own noggin, trying to jumpstart her mind the way one would smack an errant toaster to get it to work.

Try as she might, she couldn’t find a solution. Perhaps she was trying too hard, or perhaps she was afraid that if she started thinking too much about what she was doing she would realize just how likely she was going to get herself killed and—oh crud she just thought it. She shook her head. “C’mon, I’m too cool to die.” She murmured. “I don’t get beaten by the weather, I rule the weather!” While her own bravado helped stave off the prospect of her own death, she couldn’t think of any solution to her problem.

She tried thinking about what some other pony would do: Twilight would just grab a book, babble a bunch of egghead stuff and then solve everything with some awesome spell. Applejack would grit her teeth, snort and say that nothing was gonna beat her and then buck the hay out of it. Fluttershy would either charm or demand the storm leave or perhaps get her legions of animal friends (as Rainbow thought of them) to deal with the storm. Rarity would do…something classy, like maybe make a giant umbrella for the town? And Pinkie Pie would do something completely random and crazy that would somehow manage to save the town in spite of all logic. But what could she do? She wasn’t her friends. She was…Rainbow Dash. Her eyes lit up as a crazy, awesome, wicked idea flashed through her mind. There was a problem in front of her and she was going to meet it the only way she knew how. Rainbow Dash style: Head on!

Don’t over think, just do it. In her mind’s eye the clouds with their killer lightning became just one more challenge on an obstacle course. She never let one beat her before and she wasn’t about to let one beat her now when so much was ridding on her. “I’ve officially gone insane.” Rainbow rubbed her head. “But insane is fine, I can work with insane. What the hay, you’d have to be *little* insane to fly THROUGH a lightning storm.”

It was the only way. Instead of flying past the clouds on the edge, she was going to set off the main body of the storm clouds by flying through the storm. Of course, those clouds were awfully close together…

“This would be totally awesome if I wasn’t probably gonna die.” Rainbow sighed. “I just hope they all appreciate what I’m doing…” She shook her head. No, that wasn’t right. Appreciation wasn’t the point. She was doing this to save her home and the ponies that lived there. Whether they appreciated her or not wasn’t the point. It was about her being herself. Being loyal. “E-even if they laughed at me…they deserve to have the chance to be happy.” Cheerilee, Bon-Bon, Lyra, Carrot Top, Pokey Pierce, Seaswirl, Horte Cuisine, Caramel, Blues, Cloud Kicker, Raindrops, Sparkler, the Mayor, Berry Punch, June Bug, Aloe and Lotus, Lily, Daisy and Rose or even Sticks and Stones. “Here I go!” She charged ahead as if facing down another herd of buffalo.

Big Macintosh’s hooves thundered across the ground as he galloped across the apple orchard. Out of the corners of his eyes he could see a number of charred holes from where lightning had a struck and more than a few trees were missing branches or had been completely destroyed by lightning. The storm stretched from the farm down to Ponyville proper and there seemed to be two or three flashes of lightning every half minute.

But the stubborn red stallion refused to turn back. Over the cracks of lightning and the booming thunder he could hear the startled cries and squeals of his little sister and her friends. “Apple Bloom!” He bellowed over the storm. “I’m a coming!”

The clubhouse was in sight. So far it had been spared from the storm’s onslaught, but Big Macintosh knew that couldn’t last forever. He stepped on the plank that led up to the tree house. It groaned in protest at his weight and he quickly stepped off. “Apple Bloom! You and yer friends haveta come out!”

A trio of frightened faces peered out the door. “B-Big Macintosh!” Apple Bloom’s face lit up. She galloped down the plank and buried her face in her big brother’s side. “You came!”

“Shore did.” He smiled. “C’mon Miss Scootaloo, Miss Belle, we gotta go!”

“You heard ‘im!” Apple Bloom shouted. “Let’s go home!”

Sweetie Belle trembled. “B-but the lightning’s out there!” She ducked down with a whimper when another flash lit up the sky, followed by a loud grumbling boom of thunder.

“The higher you are, the more likely the lightning will hit you!” Big Macintosh said in a hard mixture of a shout and a soothing tone. “Y’all will be safer here on the ground!”

“P-promise?” Sweetie Belle sniffled.

“Ah promise!” Big Mac nodded firmly. “You can always count on an Apple promise!” On shaky hooves, the little white unicorn took a tiny trembling step outside the clubhouse door, as if expecting the lightning to be waiting for her. When she didn’t get zapped Sweetie Belle took another little step. Then another.

“Hurry up Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom encouraged. Sweetie Belle took a deep breathe, closed her eyes and with a yell started running helter skelter down the plank and didn’t stop until she ran into Big Macintosh’s legs. Rubbing her head she looked up and trembled.

“I—I made it?”

“You sure did!” Apple Bloom hugged her. She turned back to the clubhouse. “You’re next Scootaloo!”

Scootaloo was about halfway down the plank when she looked up at the sky and smiled widely as she saw a rainbow contrail cutting through the sky.

“Look! It’s Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo cheered.

The rainbow trail zoomed straight into the black maw and was swallowed up whole. Then the sky glowed as lightning zapped from cloud to cloud. Then everything was silent. There was no sign of Rainbow Dash.
Scootaloo’s eyes welled up with tears. “R-rainbow Dash?”

A grim smile lit Rainbow Dash’s face as she soared into the black mass. “Just like slaloming through Sweet Apple Acres,” she said, albeit in more dimensions. The trick was to go fast enough to avoid the lightning after her wake set off the clouds but still be able to chart a course around the clouds without flying into one and being instantly fried. She made a snap turn to the left then had to dive down beneath another cloud and then tucked in her wings to slip through a narrow crevice between two more.

Lightning crackled all around her and she was half-deafened by the thunder. It was like being inside of the speakers at a Vinyl Scratch concert. She could feel the claps of thunder as much as she heard them. Her heart, her stomach and most of her organs seemed to vibrate within her.

“This…is….incredible!” She whooped. She was actually flying through a lightning storm! She had told Soarin’ that flying past lightning was awesome but this was at least 20% more awesome than that!

She was scared but the rush of adrenaline she felt from facing the fear helped her drown it out. She could do it. She could actually DO it! Forgetting the gravity of the situation entirely, she twirled, doing a little loop de loop around a cloud and danced around the lightning as if they were no more dangerous than falling leaves.

Rainbow thought about all the things she’d already done and things just seemed to…click. She whirled around one cloud as if it were a manticore. Then she dove dangerously close to another cloud like she did the snoring dragon. It was wonderful. She just wished her friends could see her now. A loud clap of thunder from a cloud she was flying past startled her out of her reverie. She nearly lost control and had to work twice as hard to maintain herself. She could’ve sworn the rumbling thunder suddenly sounded like a deep chuckle.

Infuriated, Rainbow Dash started to scream, shouting angry defiance at the storm. “You think you’re so tough? You’re just a flash in the pan!” Another reference Rainbow Dash didn’t even realize she knew. “I’ll show you!”

Throwing herself forward, she started flying even faster than before setting off cloud after cloud. Sometimes she managed to avoid being shocked entirely. Other times she felt the pinpricks of branching bolts strike her, but she shrugged them off. After so many hits she was starting to feel numb to them. That was good…wasn’t it?

She didn’t dwell on it. That was just her way. She wasn’t a deep thinker like Twilight and she had no real problem with pushing thoughts she weren’t able or willing to deal with to the side in favor of immediate action to do whatever needed to be done. Action was her specialty.

With a loud shout and a whoop she tore her way through the storm, using every bit of speed and agility she had to draw close enough to set the clouds off and empty their loads before they could strike Ponyville, but already be on her way before the lightning hit her.

But at time went by her wings started to ache. Not a lot, but a little bit more and more. Her breath came a little bit more ragged and she seemed to slow down. Not by a lot, but just enough. Her legs, which she tried to keep tucked in so she could keep herself streamlined, started to dangle below her. It was just too hard to concentrate and her body was practically begging for a rest. Rainbow’s eye fluttered as if wanting to close for a nap. Shaking her head, she managed to keep it open. But the harder she fought to keep her eyes wide open, the more fluttered they seemed to get.

Looking around, Rainbow Dash saw one last big bank of dark storm clouds looming ahead. Most of the storm clouds had either turned white and broken up or were now shaded a light gray and no danger to anypony. “Just one more…just one more…” She panted as she pushed herself forward. She mistimed her first flyby and was painfully reminded by a particularly sharp volt to the haunches. Yelping, she closed her eyes which were watering with pain. That one had been worse than the others. She could actually smell her own fur burning and hoped that’s all it was.

Her flight growing increasingly staggered, Rainbow weaved between a pair of clouds, grimacing as she felt tiny bolts shock her from head to tail. She gave a pained grunt and flapped her wings. She had to flap harder than usual since a number of her feather’s had been singed or completely burned away. It only got worse as she kept going. By the time she got to the final batch of clouds it took almost all of her concentration and strength just to stay up in the air.

Knowing her strength was ebbing, Rainbow decided she would do the whole group in one go and get it over with. She flew up and dived downwards, towards a gap between the three clouds…when she noticed the clouds starting to move together. Rainbow tucked her legs together and flapped her wings faster as the gap started to shrink. “Come on…” Rainbow dived faster, the wind whistling past her as she approached the ever increasingly small hole.

Her hoof passed through the opening just as the trio of clouds came together. She was halfway through the cloud when a bolt of lightning struck her. She felt a white hot heat that seemed to just coarse through her body. She screamed and then mercifully blacked out. The lightning, its force spent, loosed its hold on her. The last black clouds in the sky lightened and started to break apart, unmasking the sun and its rays which the storm had blotted out. The day grew warm and bright but she didn’t see it.

Rainbow Dash fell.
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Comments

[MellowMabari]

Aw crap. I'm glad I don't have to wait for the next chapter, or I'd be freaking out a little. Onward!

[Rainbow87dash]

Um I would point out the big mistake you made about the whole thunder and lightning thing and how that doesn't apply In Equestria but this is too awesome

[Kalskirata02]

That. Was. Awesome!

[nopeeeee]