Substance
by TrampingPony
Thinking back, there might’ve been some bad decision-making involved. It wasn’t like a pony usually ended up like this. In a crater, both wings hurting like hell, a crying filly in her arms, and the earth shaking with every step the beast took towards them. Yeah, Lightning Dust thought, this ain’t one of my good days.
Nevertheless, she put on a smile. Whether it was for the kid or herself, she didn’t know, but she managed to produce one, as painful as it was on her. Her entire face was aching from that last punch, but she tried to stand up anyways. What had gotten into her when she had spotted an ursa major on a rampage through some village, why had she cared?
“Brat,” she asked, hoping that the sobbing ball that hugged her would answer with something coherent. That didn’t happen though, and instead Lightning was forced to make a decision.
I need to get up, she thought and tried to force her body to move. Every nerve that could protest did so, every muscle that could hurt did so, and every bone in her body screamed out in ways she hadn’t thought possible. Had she really thought becoming a wonderbolt would make her a badflank? Just getting smacked around a few times by some space bear seemed to qualify as harder than training for a glorified racing team ever seemed.
Thoughts like that actually made it easier, and the dirt fell off her coat as she rose, the young child in one arm, her legs on the ground, weak and wobbly. Lightning Dust’s breaths became heavier, as she became more aware of how little strength remained in her body. She was fast, but that hardly made her good at fighting. However, she did spot the ursa major, a giant of a bear, the stuff Equestria’s most terrifying legends told of. Seriously, why had she thought of coming here? This village was doomed either way, she needn’t play the hero.
“I’ll just get you out of here,” she said, and despite herself, added, “then I’ll go kick his ass.”
The foal might’ve looked up, might’ve spotted a determination in Lightning Dust’s eyes, or not; either way, the crying stopped and what remained where the sounds of ponies running in the distance, their screams of fear and anguish, and the beast stepping closer and closer. Lightning Dust felt herself wavering with every step, between the pain and the realization of her own powerlessness against the beast there was a growing hopelessness. She couldn’t fight, couldn’t win, like always.
Grey clouds rolled over the hills beyond the village, covering the small town of Saddlestrap in a dreary darkness, and the coat of the ursa, a sea of stars and light gleamed as the wind went over the fields in a gale. Its claws slammed on the ground, sending blades of grass flying and loosening the dirt. One of the buildings, its roof already torn up, collapsed, as the steps’ weight had become too much for the construct to bear. In the distance behind her, a bolt of lightning must’ve hurled itself across the sky, because its light was reflected on the windows around her.
A second later the thunder roared up and the ursa major did the same, before its arms landed on the ground and it stormed towards the broken pony. Lightning Dust merely stood there, thinking about what she should do, feeling the filly’s arms slung around her neck in a vain hope that the cyan pegasus with the hair like fire would keep her safe. The beast seemed to grow bigger with every step, and then it lifted its claw one last time.
Lightning Dust knew that she should spread her wings, should fly away, but then again, why had she come here in the first place? It wasn’t like she made that much of a difference, she never did.
She felt herself racing up to the sky as earth and grass whirled around and the beast’s claw crashed into the ground. Her instincts, honed to perfection over all the years of training, had kicked in not even a second before the claw would’ve hit her and suddenly she was flying, the filly in her arm. Lightning Dust felt the wind playing with her mane, felt the hard breeze against her cheeks and adrenaline shooting through her veins. She understood the excitement she felt, she knew all about it, that she lived for it, and yet …
The beast roared and raised itself up, on all fours it was as tall as a building, but as it stood up Lightning Dust found herself beneath eye level, and she stared into the beast’s eyes. They were filled with baseless rage and a mad, seething craving for destruction, and they reflected a young pegasus, one who had dreamt of doing great things once.
With another howl the bear’s claw went up, but Lightning saw it coming. She prepared herself to dive beneath it and then just fly away, together with the filly. A simple enough move for her, the most skilled flier, the bravest and brightest. It was like the bear was moving in slow-motion. This wasn’t a problem. Lightning Dust would’ve smiled, maybe, once upon a time, when she still had the confidence to do so. She prepared herself to move, but a sudden pain surged through her wings and delayed her reaction. She had no time to really feel it, as the claw slammed into her side. For a moment she felt how it pressed against her body, how it cut into her wing, and she wanted nothing more but scream, but then the world was whirling and she couldn’t see where she was going.
She felt herself hitting something, breaking through a wall, before finally crashing into another wall, a loud noise piercing her ears as she felt her right wing twisting itself under her own weight, giving in, and breaking.
All she wanted to do was scream and cry, but instead she hugged the filly in her arms, hoping to keep at least her safe, because just one thing needed to go right.
It was a haze, really. Lightning Dust couldn’t tell how much time passed, how long the two of them laid there. She only knew that she was in pain, and that the filly was still breathing. Dizzy and nauseous as she was, she still felt her arms around the kid, rocking her softly.
“Don’t worry,” she croaked with a voice that pretended to still not know fear and pain and exhaustion, “everything’s going to be fine.”
It wasn’t, though. Lightning Dust looked up, found a hole in a roof, and an attic all around her, much like the one she had spent most of her life in. Every time she blinked, it was like the scenery was changing, like she was back on her sorry excuse of a bed, with her aunt screaming that she should finally get her ass up and to work.
The only reason I ever got up was because that damn mare pushed me, Lightning Dust thought, and her mouth tasted like iron.
Keeping her eyes open was a pain, so she quickly decided to close them. It was probably done anyway and whether she tried to stay up or just remain didn’t matter anyway, because she was useless and couldn’t do anything.
“You’re still young, things might change,” she heard her cousin say in a memory somewhere in the back of her head.
Her cousin had been a unicorn with a rose colored mane, a pale coat, and a tooth for sweets. She had barely eaten anything but, and Lightning had found her naivety more annoying than sweet. She had been older than Lightning, and taller too.
Lightning remembered her smiling as she had said the specific words, had told her to never give up. Fleur never had, and Fleur had become a model with rich friends, despite her own, poor background. The one bright spot of her life had vanished long ago and all Lightning had had were the idiots in her school, of whom half were only usable as punching bags and the other half were constantly trying to backstab each other.
“You can’t be a wonderbolt,” a colt had once told her, in her third year of school. Lightning remembered wearing braces and she remembered him being a fat little brat who only talked tough in the company of his friends. “Wonderbolts are the best fliers in Equestria, not orphans.”
Once, she had disagreed, and once, she had tried to beat him up for saying it. One against eleven, odds even she couldn’t handle, but that didn’t matter, as she had never given up on her dream. She’d become a wonderbolt, the first wonderbolt from the slums and the first pony in a long while to remind the princesses that not all knew of their benevolence.
Once, not anymore though. Rainbow Dash had seen to that. Lightning Dust had cut all bridges to her past, no home to return to, no nothing. She would die alone and forgotten, and maybe that was the most satisfying conclusion she could hope for.
She felt something tugging at her arm.
“Miss,” she heard a voice call, “Miss.”
The pegasus opened her eyes, saw the filly standing between old chests and clothing for the winter. The young filly, an earth pony with a blueish green mane and a dark green coat, looked at her, panic in her bloodshot eyes. She wore braces and her face was freckled.
“Finally able to talk, eh?” Lightning asked, a small and tired smile on her face.
The filly nodded, her lips quivering. She’s still afraid, Lightning thought. She mustn’t have slept long then. A moment of silence later, the ground started to shake and the beast was clearly moving closer.
“It’s coming,” the filly said, moving towards Lightning. “You need to get up, miss.”
Why? She wanted to ask, but the filly’s eyes were teary and she didn’t want to scare her even more. “Just give me a sec,” she said instead, not even bothering to actually move.
The filly looked at her, turned around as the ursa’s roar echoed, and then back again. “Please don’t joke around, miss. We need to move,” she said, grabbing Lighting’s arm.
A part of her still wanted to get up, but the arm remained limp. Lightning Dust found that most of her had already given up. She had gotten away from that rotten city to become a wonderbolt, and what did she have to show for it? Just more failures. She wasn’t Fleur, never had been. She was an orphan, left behind by her parents, without any hopes for a future, an untalented child that couldn’t even make it past the first week of wonderbolt training.
“Why aren’t you moving?” the filly asked, her voice breaking.
“Cuz I’m worthless,” Lightning Dust answered before her brain even started to work.
She blinked, and then heard the thunder roar with droplets of rain falling down on the roof above and the wind howling.
“But you’re not worthless. You came out of the sky, and you helped my brother escape and you protected me.”
Lightning Dust looked at the filly, with her bright eyes. She wanted to say something, but instead she thought about Rainbow Dash’s friends, and how they fell through the sky. I didn’t try to save them, she admitted to herself. The ground quaked and something fell down on the other end of the room.
I never tried to save anypony but myself.
It wasn’t really a realization, or a rationalization. It was nothing really, just a passing thought. There was no great enlightenment there, no lesson to be learned, and of course none she had learned. Lightning Dust found herself moving for an entirely different reason, she only had to think of one.
Her legs felt worse than before, but at least they were working. As she lifted herself from the ground, her right wing hung from the side, hurting worse than most wounds she had gotten during training.
It was then that the claws dug themselves through the tiles and ripped open the roof of the building they had fallen into. Rain washed over Lighting Dust’s coat as the large figure threw the remnants away, where they crashed into another building. It was a strange sight, stars amidst the rain, but a scary one too. Lighting had no idea how much strength she had left, and she didn’t care all that much, either.
She looked to the side, where the stairway down was still in tact. “Run to your parents, kid. I’ll do something about that bear.”
The filly, who had turned towards the beast, frozen with fear, only turned her head a second later. “What?”
“Just go,” Lightning said and this time, she produced a better smile. She felt brave. “Go and tell them I expect royalties for beating up the local wildlife.”
Then, the filly went out of focused and Lightning was walking, every step another surge, another stinging pain that went through her body. She couldn’t fly, she only barely clung to the waking state, but she walked as the beast leaned down towards her, fletching its teeth.
Lightning felt herself accelerating.
Despite the pain, despite the fear and despite the exhaustion, she felt herself smiling. She’d considered fighting eleven boys at the same time the high point of her life until now, but as she leapt out of the window, hoof ready to punch that beast in the face, she was very much aware that no matter what would happen next, the bragging rights were hers.
I get that you want to be the best. So do I! But you're going about it in the wrong way.
The words Rainbow Dash had said to her ran through her head, but she didn’t care. She was in flight again, away from her rotten home, her angry aunt, the colts who had laughed at her, the fillies that had despised her, and all the things that had kept her down. Suddenly, she was a blaze of lightning in the sky and alive.
Her fist came down on the monster’s face.
“Screw you!”
