Ever since I was a colt, I've had big wings, making me a very good flyer, thus attracting the attention of a lot of other Pegasi, including Rainbow Dash. We've been friends for as long as I could remember, we flew together all the time, but even when I was a teenager, and the hormones were kicking in, our relationship has been strictly platonic. I remember one day in particular. We were flying home together, her parents had invited me to her house to stay the night, and one of the school bullies flew up above me and started poking at the base of my wings, making me shake from side to side.
"Hey, cut it out!" I had to yell over the wind for him to hear me "You're going to make me fall, stop it!" I tried to be as mature as possible, but it's very hard considering I was flying about five hundred feet in the air shaking violently. He laughed at my weak attempt at resistance. "Why don't ya get your girlfriend to make me stop!"
That made me a little angry, though I am a very patient person. "She's not my-" before I could finish, he got a good jab in while my right wing was down, and when it came back up, his hoof got caught under it and it dislocated with a sickening pop so loud it could be heard over the loud sound of the wind.
I screamed out in agony and fear as I started to fall out of the sky. I heard the bully gasp as he realized what he had done, and saw him fly away quickly before I could get a good look at him. Rainbow Dash dove for me, going faster than I'd ever seen her going before, and that's saying something. She flew down behind me as I plummeted towards the ground back first. It took her a few seconds to position herself under me to put her front legs under mine so she could fly upwards and prevent me from splattering on the ground.
I tried to help, but my wing was still badly out of place, so when I tried to move them I got hit with a fresh wave of extreme pain. I never was very good at dealing with pain, especially when I was younger, and this was worse than anything I had ever felt at that age. I couldn't help it. As she lowered me to the ground after slowing me down to a safe speed just inches from the cobblestone streets of Ponyville, I passed out.
When I awoke, I was in the hospital, and Rainbow Dash and her parents, as well as my parents were standing over the bed. When she saw my eyes open slowly, Rainbow Dash let out a sigh of relief. "I thought with all that screaming you did, you might have actually been hurt! Don't be such a baby, Bolt!" I tried to say something, but quickly found that hospital drugs had made me pretty much completely incoherent. Rainbow Dash laughed at my slurred attempt at speech.
When she was done laughing, she came back over to the bed, still smiling a bit, but I could see the relief in her eyes. "If it wasn't for me, you would have been dead, ya know that?" she gave me a little nudge in the shoulder with her hoof. I smiled up at her. I finally managed to speak coherently, though my voice was still very slurred "You're right" I said. I wanted to tease her back, but then realized I had never done anything that heroic in my life.
I decided to be honest, but tried to hide my embarrassment at being saved by a girl by appearing playful "I guess I owe ya" I said. I laid my head back down on the pillow, smiling up at the ceiling. I felt as if I was wrapped in a warm blanket made from some thick liquid. I had to admit, those drugs were pretty good. I didn't have a worry in the world. I couldn't even remember what pain felt like, truly, it's as if I was just being born.
My mom loomed over me, her front hooves on the railing of the bed "Does it hurt, dear, are you alright?" I wanted to tell her that I felt just fine, but all I could muster was an "mmmmmmmmmmm" Rainbow Dash laughed again, and fell back into one of the recliners that sat in the hospital room "You should get hurt more often, this is hilarious" she was still smiling and looking at me from the recliner. I wanted to ask how long I've been out, but I wanted nothing more than to sleep.
Just before I shut my eyes, a nurse came into the room "I have good news, and for a change of pace, no bad news at all!" she seemed a little too cheery "The wing is back in place with no permanent damage, and he should be out in about an hour, to run some final tests, and let the drugs wear off" at that, she walked over to me, and very carefully removed the I.V. from my left front leg, disposing of the needle in a container that was on the cart she had wheeled over to the room. She reentered the room and took the bag of liquid from the hanger-thing that held it up, and took it back to the cart, wheeling it away. So much for a nap.
After I got out of the hospital, both of our parents agreed I could stay over at Dash's house tonight. As we were walking to a suitable take-off location, Dash said something that surprised me "Stop looking at my flank!" she did a double take before she said it, smirking at me. I blushed as I realized I had been looking at her flank.
I didn't even know why I was, maybe I was just staring into space, and that happened to be the spot my eyes rested. I hadn't really had a crush on her. Maybe it was the drugs putting me in an intoxicated-like state, I don't know, but I was definitely staring at it pretty intently.
Embarrassed, I caught up to her so there was no way I could be tempted, and walked with her to a spot relatively underneath her house, and took off. We got to her house and made idle conversation until her parents set us to bed at about eleven a-clock. We sleep in each others beds when we stayed over, but tonight I thought I should stay as far from her on the bed as possible.
It was a day like any other when it happened. I had asked Rainbow Dash to race me many times, always resulting in me losing, but it was always close. Today I felt different though, better somehow, I was sure I could beat her. We were sitting on a cloud a little ways from her house, she was twenty, about the same age as me, and she lived alone now.
She didn't really get along with her parents anymore, and I had no way of knowing why. Whenever I would ask her, she would always give me the same answer "I just don't wanna talk about it. With anyone, I mean, it's not you, I swear, it's just that I wanna forget about it" so I left it alone.
We were sitting on the cloud, I was itching for a race. I looked over to the obstacle course some Pegasi had built before for fun. It was close enough to see, but the grey storm clouds were all but dots from the cloud we were sitting on. I finally spoke up "Wanna race?" I asked, turning my head to Dash.
She didn't even turn her head, but smiled and said "The same thing happens every time. I'll cream ya again if you want" she finally turned her head to me, smirking open mouthed. I pointed to the obstacle course in the distance "Let's race on the obstacle course, for a change of pace" she wasn't smirking anymore, but openly smiling "Are you kidding me dude, you can't fly straight, what makes you think you'll win in that maze of clouds?"
I answered honestly "I feel good today, I'm pumped" I did a little dance, still sitting down "Fine" Dash said "We better start flying, or it might be dark before you get over there" I wanted to retort, but refrained.
It was about a five minute trip over to the obstacle course, but when we got there, Dash had to move a cloud over to the beginning for a starting point. Once positioned, she spoke again "Stop looking at my flank" she said, laughing a little. I didn't notice I was.
"Oh, sorry" I said, embarrassed. I blushed a bit, and she giggled under her breath. She began the countdown "Three... two... one... GO!" we took off, I got a good start, but then again, a bad start I guess would be crashing right off the starting gate.
We were neck and neck for a bit, then I started getting ahead. I looked to my right at her as she began to panic a little. My wings were larger than most Pegasi, but I was able to move them just as fast, making me a very fast flyer, but there was something about Rainbow Dash that just made her way faster than all the others.
Regardless, I was getting ahead, and I felt I should rub it in a bit. I looked over to my right and started to say something, but she interrupted.
"Look-" before she could finish, I slammed into a storm cloud. Expecting to stop, I went right through. I would have laughed, along with Rainbow Dash if it weren't for the horrendous pain that shot through my body. Rainbow Dash was crying as she watched me shoot through and pierce cloud after cloud, trailing electricity and emitting animal screams of agony as the electricity from the clouds shot through my body.
I had violent spasms as I continued to shoot through the clouds, all the while screaming in pain until my throat was sore and my lungs were empty. I simply gave up, tears streaming down my face as I continued still to fly through the air, out of the clouds, but still violently twitching as I fell through the air, landing on a very large white cloud.
It was great to touch something that didn't electrocute me violently. As I lay there, writhing and twitching on the now grey and rainy cloud, Rainbow Dash flew down from the obstacle course and landed next to me, taking my head in her hooves.
The pain was still very much there, and I was moaning in agony, completely helpless as she tried to talk over her sobs. "What the fu... what the fuck just happened..." I was still in a massive amount of pain, but to my surprise I was wide awake, forced to suffer every second of horrid jolting torture.
Rainbow Dash picked me up as I continued to twitch in her front legs as she lifted me of the cloud and flew for the hospital.
When we got there, I had stopped twitching, and was still awake, though now I was extremely tired. I just couldn't fall asleep for some reason. She hurled me over her back and galloped to the entrance to the emergency room. I tried to lighten the mood a bit.
"I don't want the last thing you said to me to be 'Stop looking at my flank'" I laughed a bit, but she wasn't nearly as cheery as I was. She ignored me, taking me right inside the emergency room and yelling for help. A few seconds after she had yelled, a nurse came out of the waiting room double doors that led to the hospital rooms, looked at the scene and ran back in.
A few seconds later, she and three other nurses came through the doors with a stretcher, took me from Dash's back, and heaved me up onto it. Rainbow Dash trotted along with the stretcher as they wheeled it down the hall, sticking all kinds of monitoring equipment to my body.
I saw one of the nurses look at me as if confused, and then continued looking ahead, helping steer the stretcher.
Later when things had settle down, I was in a hospital room as Rainbow Dash watched the heart monitor I was hooked up to, glancing at me every couple of seconds. This was the most distressed I've ever seen her, constantly frowning and sniffling, trying not to openly cry. I don't think it was in worry, because the nurses had come in earlier and said I was stable, but more from the panic and thoughts of what could have happened.
A few minutes later still, a completely different nurse came into the room and walked up to the bed I was on, looking very confused. "We didn't find any internal damage, any bleeding, abnormalities in organ function, nothing. You're completely undamaged" I was shocked. I thought I would have at least had some heart abnormality, but I was completely fine? That didn't seem credible.
"We still need to run a couple tests" the nurse continued "an MRI, x-ray, some blood tests, and we definitely need to check for nerve damage. Other than that, you don't have any visible damage. You're free to go until we can get an appointment for the MRI" at that, she pressed a button on the side of the bed that lowered it close to the ground.
I rolled over and stepped off the bed, giving my legs a little test by jumping up and down a couple times. On one of the jumps, I saw little blue streaks of electricity spread from my hooves. The others didn't seem to notice, so I kept it to myself. I didn't want to give them another reason to keep me in the hospital.
As I sat at the desk in Dash's room, I looked down at the journal I kept here at her house. I reached for a loose pen on the desk. As I touched it, sparks flew from my hoof, repelling the pen and putting a small scorch mark on the metal clip. Curious, I reached for the pen again, but got a different result. This time my hoof didn't even get to it. A stream of blue electricity shot from my hoof and sent the pen flying across the room in tiny pieces.
Something more than meets the eye is happening, and I think I should keep it to myself.