The Stallion Who Can Never Die

Wind Heart yawned as she pushed the cloud away lightly with her hooves. Hopefully the cloud would stay where it belonged. The light brown pegasus glared at the large numbers of dark clouds hovering over the city, all of them in the wrong area. It wasn't the weather team's fault. But the coastal winds conflicted with the winds from the mainland, thus making it very difficult to keep the clouds where they were over Vanhoover. Still, she was getting paid for overtime, and that money would be needed to help get her idiot brothers out of the debts they got themselves into. She wondered if perhaps she should dawdle and extend her work time so she could get more money, nopony else was around and her boss already felt guilty for sending her out. She checked her mental clock, 1:03 AM. Then again, maybe not, it was ridiculously late and she had been sleeping very poorly the last week.

She yawned again as the thought came that she may pass out, so she flexed her wings and got back to work, deciding it would be best if she tried to get it done as fast as she could. A loud rumble was heard that echoed all around her. Oh no she groaned inwardly. Did a thundercloud get drawn off course? Upon trying to find the source, she grew confused. Pegasi had the ability to sense the vibrations of thunderclouds and other weather phenomena that would go completely unnoticed to the other ponies, and they could tell when a thundercloud had activated long after it had happened. But when Wind Heart tried to sense the thunderhead's activation, she found nothing. In fact, her sense told her they were normal clouds with a small of rain collecting in them.

She scratched her head, maybe she was imagining things? That was when a bright flash of silver light blinded her. She gasped and closed her eyes, rubbing them intensely and a loud boom exploded around her. But she also heard something else in the boom, it almost sound like... someone screaming. She gasped and opened her eyes, frantically looking around, did somepony get hurt!?

Seeing nothing but the clouds in the sky, she looked down and saw something on the street that wasn't there before. Diving down at full speed, her heart pounding in her chest. She slowed and landed, her hooves clopping hard on the cement. That was when a horrible burning smell hit her nostrils. She shuddered, the smell giving her a bad feeling. She looked to where it was coming from, and saw a pile of clothes and- Wind gasped, ash.

"Oh sweet Celestia!" She cried out, the scream she heard before now echoing loudly in her mind, she felt she was going to be sick. Her knees shook and her legs felt weak. She knelt down and stared intently at ground, taking deep, heaving breaths. After a while, she looked up and her eyes widened. The ash was gone and the clothes were no longer laying flat on the ground as she saw a skeleton underneath. A pony skeleton, the skull facing ahead, the eye sockets vacant.

But then, she saw something forming in them, eyes began to appear in them. She screamed and shook her head, this was a nightmare, she had passed out and was having a horrible nightmare. She clutched her head and rocked herself.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" She said repeatedly. But she was still on the road, next to a body that was rebuilding itself. She opened her eyes and the skeleton no longer in sight, covered in skin and a quickly growing silver coat of fur. A dark gray mane growing on his head. Wind Heart watched in horror and shock as the body lay still on the ground, and she screamed and jumped into the air when the stallion's eyes opened up and he gasped for air, coughing. He clutched his chest with his right forehoof, groaning and coughing. Wind Heart stared, petrified as he looked ahead and began crawling, abandoning the clothes that seemed far too big for him, towards a black object on the ground not too far from him. Wind Heart had never seen anything like that before, it had a handle and a trigger. The Stallion, whom Wind could see was a pegasus, his splayed out uselessly on his sides, crawled to it like his life depended on it, he groaned and reached his hoof out to it, before collapsing, his head falling on the ground, his eyes closed as he fell unconscious.

Wind Heart stared in confusion and fear at the stallion that seemed to have rebuilt himself from his ashes, and the rumbles from before came again, echoing ominously all around her...