When Lightning Strikes

When Lightning Strikes

Prologue

I yawned and stretched, feeling my back and neck crack and my whole body whine. It was probably about 8 in the morning and every joint I had was screaming at me to go back to sleep. But I refused, knowing I was in control of them, instead of it being the other way around. I immediately walked over to my desk, sat down, and opened my laptop.

Okay, so maybe I should fill you in on the setting of this day a bit more. It was a bright, summer-y Saturday morning and i was about to check one of my most frequented web sites - iBrony. It's sort of like a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, but for Bronies and Pegasisters. The creators of that site were geniuses.

Anyway, I blew a good hour and a half on my computer before I remembered this one thing that could make your stomach stop gurgling and growling at you, and that I had neglected to obtain any. Food. So I reluctantly got up out of my comfy desk chair and headed to the kitchen.

Now let me tell you how a teenage male eats food. It goes in steps. Step 1 - Find any appetizing food you can. Step 2 - Devour it in as short a time as possible. So yeah,the whole eating process didn't take too long, and before i knew it I was back on the Internet, chatting with some friends.

After wasting all of my morning, and some of the afternoon, on the Web, I finally closed my computer, reacquainted my legs with the 'standing' position, and decided to actually get dressed and go outside for some decent exercise. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but I couldn't just spend all of my time indoors, right? Right? Right. I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved to run, still do, actually, but I just preferred being indoors with my ponies and stuff.

I threw on a pair of jeans and my favorite tee-shirt, a dull greenish one with an eagle emblazoned across the front,a real epic article of clothing that was, threw my old tennis shoes on, headed outside and decided to go to the nearby park, running at sort of a half jog, half sprint, my usual running pace. I felt my knees creak every step, but hey, like I said before, I knew I needed the exercise.

Once I reached the park I immediately headed for the swings. Call me childish,but the swings have always been my favorite part of any park or related area. In fact, don't even think about calling me childish. You're the one reading stories about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. We're all equally childish here.

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, park, swings, that stuff. I sat down and wasted away at least an hour on the swings, either actually swinging or just sitting there daydreaming. Pretty sure I spent most of it daydreaming. That's how I spent most of my schooling years, at least, so I'll just assume that was it. When I finally came back to the world of the living, I noticed it had gotten dark out really fast, like some sort of huge storm was brewing. I didn't like the idea of that at all, so I hastily began the jog home.

Mere minutes after leaving the park, the storm had hit full swing. Rain thundered down to the sidewalk as i sprinted towards the direction of my home, not that I could really make anything out. Everything just blurred together. Did I mention I wore glasses back then? No? Because they made it really hard to see in rain sometimes.

At this point I was freaking out, because I had seen lightning and heard thunder so many times in the past few minutes I was afraid it was all aiming at me or something. I was really paranoid like that, thanks to the news and my mother's constant warnings about everything ever.

At some point, I fell down. It wasn't just a stumble either,I seriously just face-planted onto the sidewalk. And let me tell you, that kind of crap is NOT fun. I don't care how funny it looks in cartoons, it hurts like heck. I kind of just curled up on the spot, pulling my legs into the fetal position. Looking back, I probably looked pretty dang silly, just laying there. But at the time I was truly terrified.

And that's when it happened.

A brilliant streak of pure white lightning, much different from any other I'd seen before, came cascading down next to me, singing the ground two feet in front of me. A similar streak grazed the ground behind me. In shock, I flipped onto my back to look straight into the sky...

...And witnessed a third bolt of lightning drive itself into my chest.

It didn't hurt, no. And it didn't just hit me. It seemed to...go inside me, I guess. Next thing I knew, I was glowing almost as brilliantly white as the streak that hit me, and i saw that everything around me seemed to just fall out of existence. I was whisked away into a 'room' of pure nothingness. There was no sound, nothing to look at, just a white backdrop with nothing on the foreground. It was a pretty surreal place.

Then suddenly, I felt an intense heat seem to expand across the entire back side of my body. I turned around to discover the source of the heat, when I was blinded by an extremely radiant, orange light, as if i had looked at the sun itself.

The whole 'sun; thought occurred to me back then as well, and the gears in my mind had begun to twirl. I opened my eyes again, noticing the light seemed to pull back in intensity, as if noticing I couldn't look at it properly. I got a clear look at the orange ball of light this time. It still looked remarkably like the sun, but more like how you'd see it on TV, as in, it wasn't blinding me.

"I'm sorry," a smooth, silky, feminine voice began, "I did not wish to harm you in any way. The sun likes to...flare up on occasion, regardless of how much i try to keep it in check. A way for it to retain some sort of 'independence,' you could say."

Now I'm sure you've already all guessed who this was by now, but at the time I just couldn't believe it. I slowly turned around, and there, smiling warmly at me, was the magnificent Princess of the day herself, Princess Celestia. My jaw dropped, my mind working in overdrive in a vain attempt to process this new information.

"I'm sure you're confused, and perhaps you have many a question for me. Alas, I cannot help you. Not because I don't want to of course, I would be delighted to. No, because I simply know nothing of your appearance here. Perhaps there was some sort of divine intervention from some sort of higher being than even myself. Perhaps it was fate. I could not tell you if i wanted, young one."

I felt instantly warm, and increasingly comfortable as she continued talking. She seemed to regard me as some sort of close, personal friend instead of just another random stranger to her land. And her voice. It seemed to just pull me in and make me feel warm, welcome, and accepted. I had never experienced anything quite like this feeling before. Unable to find my voice to make any sort of coherent response, I simply nodded at her.

She softly and gently laughed at my apparent display of wonderment, "Well, you don't exactly seem to be as full of questions and queries as I thought you'd be. I expect you are simply in an extended state of shock, and will recover on your own soon. I will wait for that time. When you find your voice and have readied yourself, please speak to me."

She turned and walked over to the small ball of light. i assume you all know what she looks like, seeing as she's a very prominent character in the show, but I feel the need to describe her anyway. You know, because she's royalty and all. She was, of course, at least a foot taller than me, putting her at about six foot-something, and her coat shined a brilliant, pearly white. Her horn reached out from underneath her ethereal, eternally billowing multicolored mane, her crown resting not far behind, reaching around to her ears and around to the back of her head. Her great, white wings appeared large and powerful, each feather as striking as the next, unfolded wide and unwavering as she attended to her sun. Her gleaming, golden pendant adorned with a single, diamond shaped amethyst was a sight to behold in itself, and the ensemble was completed by the golden "shoes" adorning each of her hooves. Finally, my eyes moved to her flank, and I took in the glorious tattoo of the sun that was her Cutie Mark, and finally decided to steel myself and talk to her.

"P-Princess?" I managed unsteadily, "Y-You wanted to speak with me, right?"

She turned back to me, the same, wonderful smile on her face, "Yes. Yes I did. I'm glad you finally decided to stop ogling me over there and speak up," she giggled.

I blinked in surprise, "W-What? No! I was just-"

"Relax, young one. I was just joking. I don't get enough chances to be silly and fool around in my position, so I relish every chance I get. I apologize if I offended you."

I let out a small chuckle despite myself, "Oh, I wouldn't say 'offended', Princess. just, uh, surprised is all."

"My victims usually are," she laughed again, "Anyway, as I said before, I wish to talk to you. However, also mentioned previously, I cannot even guess as to how you ended up here. I would first like to ask if you have any guesses or explanations for me?"

I scratched my head and shrugged, "Honestly, Princess-"

"Please, just call me 'Celestia'."

I nodded, then continued, "Right, Celestia. I have no idea either. One minute I'm in a park, then there was a storm, then I got hit by some weird lightning and ended up here. Not really anything to go by."

"Weird lightning, you say?"

"Um, yeah," I nodded again, "instead of the usual, bright blue, it was just...white. Like you. All shiny and radiant and then BLAM! It sent me into subspace. or wherever this is. Where exactly are we?"

She looked around, then back to me, and shrugged in the way only pegasi and allicorns can, with that little shift of her wings, "I have no idea. I assume we're in some sort of dreamworld-esque limbo. I can't really be sure of the exact location."

"Wait..." I asked, thinking over her words, "so I'm just dreaming all of this,and none of it's real?"

She smiled, walked over to me and nuzzled me. She was so real and soft and warm. She looked at me and said, "Dream or not, this is real. You know that as well as i do. I wish to know more about you, young one. Once you wake up, I'd like you to come find me. I'll be waiting."

And with that, she disappeared in a flash of golden light, and the orange ball exploded into a mass of color and sound, and I was wrenched from the dream and deposited onto what felt like some sort of field or prairie or something.

"Thanks, Celestia," I mumbled to myself, "you couldn't have at least warned me, huh?"