Chapter 1: The Breaking of Buildings and Bones
By Googleplez in joint force with Fusion
“WEATHER TEAM! LINE UP, WE HAVE WORK TO DO!”
The weather team. Controlling the weather. Even bucking clouds. Everything about the weather team excited you and today you were finally part of it.
Rainbow Dash walked up and down the lines of pegasi, staring intently at each one. “Celestia wants a storm and we’re going to bring one to her! You’ll be divided into three teams, each one with a certain area you need to grab clouds from,” Rainbow ordered in a stern voice.
Rainbow moved her hoof and split the row of pegasi into three groups, before continuing to talk. “Hoof team one, you go to the Everfree Forest; Hoof team two, you’ll be heading to Canterlot, and Hoof team three...” Rainbow Dash said, pointing to you. “You’ll be staying here on cloud control, as you’ll be moving and positioning clouds that the other teams send your way. Any questions?”
You and your teammates shook your heads, prompting a smile from your rainbow-maned commander. “Good! Let’s get to work!”
Accompanied by the rest of the weather ponies, you walked into the soft glow of the setting sun. Excitement and energy burst through you as you eagerly awaited to help. A slight tap on your shoulder made you snap out of your trance as you looked over to see Rainbow dash standing next to you.
“Don’t get too excited, rookie; there won’t be much action,” she said with a smile, though upon seeing your mournful expression, she let out a small chuckle, “Don’t you worry, though; big tough stallion such as yourself will see action soon enough.”
You chuckled to yourself. You were never a large stallion, but that didn’t stop you; you had a love for flying and knew the way to use it.
You nodded your head, and a smile sat on your face as you heard Rainbow yell, “Let’s go everypony!”
All of the weather ponies vaulted into the air with one spectacular jump. Your stomach churned with excitement as you soared into the air after them.
“I’m finally a weatherpony...” reverberated through your skull.
<><><><><><><><><><>
Your body laid under the collapsed rubble of the building, unresponsive to any attempt at movement. A subtle chuckle escapes your mouth as your limbs cried out in pain.
“Ah hell, this doesn’t seem good,” you whispered to yourself.
Your eyelids began to become heavy, and with each passing second the darkness gained a small bit of headway. With a last act of defiance against the feeling, you tried to move, but quickly stopped as your limbs sent piercing signals of pain through you. You tried to move your wings, only to be met with scathing pain.
You stared up into the rubble and sighed to yourself as you thought back to all of the regrets in your life, as one took prominence over any other.
“I never did figure out what this damn cutie mark meant,” You wheezed to yourself as you looked down to your flank.
The cutie mark had appeared one day without notice, as most do, but also without reason. You had been asleep and when you had opened your eyes, it was there.
The cutie mark resembled a sunrise, with the light pervading through the clouds and traveling off into different directions.
You’ve tried all your life to figure out what it had meant, even attempting as a colt to stay up at night and wait for the sun to rise, but you found it no more or less beautiful than the next. Despite repeated attempts at discovering the meaning of the mark, for the life of me I could never figure it out.
You silently shrugged off your memories and glared at the crumbled roof that laid on top of you, your breath becoming quick rasps and your eyesight diminishing. “At…least… Rainbow’s okay...”
Your vision blackened as your body became devoid of physical feeling. As you let yourself drift off into the unknown darkness, a single shout enters into the abyss after you: “There’s someone still in there!”
But you know it’s too late, so you drifted further downwards, letting the darkness wrap you in its embrace.
<><><><><><><><><><>
The blackness hugs you like a blanket as you float in the endless nothing. “Is this what death is; an endless nothing?” you think to yourself. All of a sudden, the blackness flashes white like lightning and pain shoots through you, a high-pitched ‘beep’ coming after.
“What in Celestia?” you say to yourself. Another flash of light bursts into the dark and another high-pitchedfollows. Your mind reels as your brain tries to deduce what’s going on.
As you prepare for the next flash the voice roars “CLEAR” and it rips through the abyss, with pain filling your body from head to toe. This time the abyss stays a stagnant white and pain lingers in your body. Persistent, steady beeping rattles your ears.
A whimper permeates the shell you were stuck in. “Clear…” and the white rips away from your vision. Your senses overload with a strange feeling of numbness and pain; in another situation you would most likely laugh at the feeling, but it tears at your very being. Your lungs burn and you realize a sudden, desperate need to breathe.
Your eyes shoot open and you take in the biggest breath you can before you send it reeling out of your body within seconds of its arrival. You take more breaths, pushing through the searing pain of your ribs moving up and down. You savor the air flowing in and out of your body as if it were a delicacy.
When you open your eyelids, nothing is visible because of the bandages heavily wrapped around your face. You try to call out but only a small “yay” escapes your mouth. You sit dumbfounded for a minute but try again, taking in an extreme breath and try to scream, “Yay.” You want to try again but your lungs are almost overwhelming you with pain, your vocal chords adding to it as well.
You clamp your mouth shut and try to move, but your efforts are met with only a slight movement. After a few more attempts, you give up and relax.
You hear the click of the door and the clop of hooves echoing off the walls of the room you’re in. The pony comes close to you and you can hear the mare humming Giggle at the Ghostie. You can hear her scribbling something down on a clipboard and placing it down; you can hear her stepping closer to you.
Fighting through the burning in your vocal chords and lungs, a simple “hello” comes out of your mouth in a whisper.
You hear a small gasp and the stillness fills the air. “You’re awake?” the voice asks with a hint of excitement.
In response, you whisper, “mostly” and after another moment the mare comes over to the bed and begins to remove the bandages around your face.
“Now, when these are off, I want you to look straight first and then slowly, while blinking, bring your head up to the light above you. You’ll get used to the light easier.” The mare instructs.
You shut your eyes quickly, and feel the light rush over you and encompass your eyelids as she unwraps the bandages. Listening to the mare’s instructions, you open your eyes slowly and began to blink. You sluggishly lift your eyes towards the light, blinking, though it not being enough you use your hooves to alleviate the feeling of virtual pressure on your eyes.
The light seems alien, as if you had been abducted by aliens and were lying on an examination bed waiting for them to come over and say “Take me to your leader!”
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” the mare said, chuckling. The mare was pure white with a nurse’s cap sporting a cross identical to the one on her flank.
“Uhh, good morning.” you say.
“I’m Nurse Redheart by the way,” she states.
“Nice to meet you,” you respond, barely above a whisper. “I’m Tempestas.”
Nurse Redheart stares at you for a moment in thought before she opens her mouth. “That’s a beautiful name,” she says with a smile.
“Thank you,” you whisper while nodding your head slowly. You sit up and allow her to unwrap the rest of the bandages that are stuck to your body and back legs. Nurse Redheart slowly unravels the tightly-wrapped bandages while, at the same time, taking care not to hurt you in any way. Once they’ve finally been removed, she moves to the bedside and begins to usher you out of the bed.
“You’d taken quite a beating when I found you. We had most of the town trying to dig you out. If it were not for Rainbow Dash, you might have not made it,” she stated with a somber smile.
Your breath catches for a second “She’s alright? Thank goodness...” you say, letting out a sigh.
Nurse Redheart smiles at you and continues. “Oh yes, I believe she was coming to visit...” her voice trails off.
“What’s wrong?” you ask.
A feeling of absence enters your body as you place your hooves on the floor, your body feeling lighter then you remember. You look over to Nurse Redheart and she turns away.
“I’m not sure how to break this to you, but… come over here,” she orders. Beckoning you towards her, you wobbly begin to trot towards the other end of the room. You approach Nurse Redheart and she picks up a small mirror and slowly turns to you.
You stare into the mirror and for a second, you don’t see anything that appears to be wrong. You squint at the mirror and sweep over your body only to be met with that which Nurse Redheart was trying to break to you. Your eyes widen and you step back from the mirror in terror; pain and numbness filling your head as your body goes into shock, with you finding yourself doing little more than crumble to the floor in disbelief.
Nurse Redheart’s ears flatten and a sad expression washes over her face. “Please understand... There wasn’t much left and unicorns can mostly repair any appendage but...” Nurse Redheart’s voice was becoming less and less audible. “We didn’t have enough ‘blueprint’ to go off of...”
Your mind is reeling, as you try to dissuade yourself from believing what you’ve seen. You try to send a desperate instruction for them to move, but you're met with nothing, only a slight twitch of the stub that was left.
The world begins to crash around you as it had days before, with sounds becoming nothing more than mush blurred together in your ears. You begin to hyperventilate and your vision goes a milky white. Blackness threatens to take hold of you once again, but you don’t care. Nothing can hide you from the painful truth the mirror showed you.
Your wings are gone.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading!
Honestly I am quite nervous about this chapter, mostly because it’s my first fiction.
I hope everypony enjoyed my first chapter. This is my first fanfic and I will hopefully have more!
Whether you liked it or not, thank you! Criticism is always accepted no matter what form it is; I like to hear each side of everypony’s reactions!
I would also like to thank Fusion, for his help for many more chapter ideas!
More to come soon!
