This was the original opening to the chapter, what do you guys/girls/ponies think? Which opening is better?

Lightning's brain had officially stopped working, but it more like it her brain had handed its resignation form into its supervisor, then proceeded to enter its boss's office then smash everything in there with a sledgehammer then left while flipping the boss off, going to find the nearest hardware store to buy a flamethrower (don't ask me how) returning to the aforementioned office to then burn the smashed pieces of wreckage to the ground.

What The Buck!!!!!
This was pretty much the extent of Lightning's thinking at the current moment of time, Dust was further hindered in her rational thinking as the singular thought was on loop, playing over and over again in her mind. Spitfire and Solar Wind were glancing at each other before looking back to Lightning, neither of them unsure of the entire situation anymore, in all the scenarios that could've happened when Lightning figured out who she was actually talking to; this was not one of them.
What The Buck!!!!!
What The Buck!!!!!
What Th-

“Ow!”

A swift punch to her numb leg jolted her out of the loop that Lightning was experiencing; even though Lightning's forehoof was numb and unusable, it still stung like Tartarus. Regaining her senses to find out what had just happened, Lightning realised that it had been Spitfire (the closer of her current drinking 'buddies') who had punched her. Shooting her an indignant look Spitfire merely shrugged while Solar rolled his eyes.

“What? It’s quicker than waiting for her to finally realise how bucked up this situation is.” Spitfire said, defending her actions. Unfortunately this riled Lightning’s anger towards Spitfire back up again.

“The situation!? The ‘situation’ is that I was a Wonderbolt until YOU kicked me out!” replied Lightning spitefully, pointing to Spitfire with her (working) forehoof. This seemed to work as Spitfire cringed slightly at Lightning’s words.

“Lightning.” Solar said firmly, drawing Lightning’s attention back to him. “I know that there is some… …animosity between you and Spitfire. But if she hadn’t of discharged from the Wonderbolts, as I said before you would have been bought in front of Celestia and Luna to explain your actions against the Elements of Harmony, which from their point of view would has been an act of violence against Equestria itself.”
Lightning made to interrupt Wind by opening her mouth, but he raised a hoof to stop her.

“Let me finished. Yes, I agree that it could have been handled better; both from you and Spitfire as well as Cdt. Dash.”
Spitfire shot Wind a cold look, he ignored her.

“But, if you had been taken to Celestia, especially if had resisted which I would guess that you would.”

Lightning allowed herself a small smile, imagining a scene where she was surrounded on Mane Street in Canterlot fighting off roughly 10, no 20, no 50! Royal Guards refusing to be taken down or taken in alive! All leading to an epic final confrontation to the Princess of the Sun herself in the middle of her throne room, the battle was long and fierce and way too epic to even put down into words. But the duel between Lightning and Princess Celestia could only have one winner, and who else could be as epic as Lightning Dust! She stood victorious over the Princess, wearing all the Elements of Harmony and being crowned the new ruler of Equestria as the new Princess of Epicness! Lightning Dust looked over her new kingdom as her marefriend approached her with nothing but love and adoration in her eyes and know else would Lightning take as a partner than Princess Cadence but Cadence had abstained from her royal title to become nothing more just Lightning’s marefriend as nothing else could compare to Lightning. Princess Lightning Dust waited for Cadence to profess her undying love for her.

“Lightning, I know what you’re doing. So, stop it.” Solar Wind’s flat unamused voice had replaced Cadence’s.
And with that Lightning’s daydream/delusion was shattered into a million little pieces as she was mentally pulled back to a dingy back alley bar somewhere in lower Manehatten.
It was quite actually amusing to watch Lightning go from one moment being Dust’s eyes completely glazed over and faraway gaze as she constructed a make-believe Equestria fit to contain Lightning’s ‘epicness’, to next with Lightning desperately trying to salvage some pride in front of two ponies who currently holding her life at a crossroad.

“As, I was saying before you went off daydreaming about Princess Cadence. Celestia would have had no choice to banish you from Equestria completely.” continued Solar, ignoring Lightning’s redding muzzle and sheepish look. Dust was slightly curious and confused to how Solar had been be able to read her fantasies about Princess Cadence like a book, unfortunately for Lightning she didn't realise that she tended to mumble when she daydreamed.

"Yeah, and?" Lightning said extremely flustered, trying to defend herself again. "Means I that got the sky completely to myself!"

"The only two kingdoms that would even consider granting you asylum would either Griffonia or Zebrica." shot back Spitfire.

"Ha! You're forgetting Sa..."

"Saddle Arabia? Lightning, do you not understand how much power and sway Princess Celestia has? If she had exiled you, the Saddle Arabians' wouldn't have touched you with a 10 hoof pole!"
It was amazing how cold Spitfire could actually be sometimes.

"Look, we are getting off topic here." stated Wind, trying to bring some sense back to the conversation. "The point is that your discharge, Lightning was final. Celestia did have control over that much and as well as preventing you from any future try-outs for the Wonderbolts."

"WHAT!!!!! I'M BANNED FROM THE WONDERBOLTS!!!!!" screamed Lightning, even managing to stand for a few seconds on three legs to try and reach over the table to strangle Solar Wind. She only got halfway across the table when her numb hoof gave out on her again.

"Calm. Down." replied Solar to Lightning's outburst.

"HOW CAN I BE CALM!?!?" shouted Lightning, directly in Wind's face. "Yeah, sure I'll be calm while my dream of being a Wonderbolt is shattered in front of me!"
Lightning was trying once again to pick herself up and launch herself across the table at Solar.

"There is still a way that you could become a Wonderbolt."
That stopped Lightning completely, whatever she was going to scream next at Solar whatever she was going to do was instantly forgotten when he had said that. Slowly and careful Dust lowered herself back in her seat.

"How?" asked Lightning in barely anything more than a whisper, glaring suspiciously over to Solar.

"You join as an officer, not a cadet."

A total of three seconds passed, where Lightning just stared at Solar as if he had gone mad. In Lightning’s defence, it did sound like he had. She didn't know whether to start laughing at him or go back to try and strangle him again.

“You’re joking, right?”
A very deadpan stare from Wind was the reply.
“Look, Lightning you have two choices-” began Solar. But Spitfire interrupted, her voice quiet but the tone of her statement was raised with alarm.

“Hostiles. 4 O’Clock.”
Solar glanced quickly at Spitfire; she was looking over his shoulder back to the main area of the bar as well as the entrance. Cursing himself for seating with his back towards the entrance, Wind had to resist turning round to see the situation behind him; instead now he had to rely on Spitfire for information.

"1 U, 2 E's. Enter Block. Possib More."
This was usual military code used by both the Wonderbolts and the Royal Military. Its meaning; One Unicorn, Two Earth Ponies were now approaching their table. The Entrance (and exit) for the bar was being blocked and if a fight was started it was likely that Solar, Lightning and Spitfire would be outnumbered. Slowly Solar moved his forehoof to the neck of his cider bottle, in the corner of his eye Spitfire is doing the same but moving to the back of her chair, even Lightning had tensed up again. Sensing that something was wrong, she moved her usable forehoof off the table towards the floor to find her dropped switchblade.

“Tink that yo’s lot are in like the wron neighbawhood. Get outta hea.”
An extremely gruff voice with a thick Manehattan accent sounded out behind Solar; although they had just butchered the Equis language with that statement it provided an excuse for Wind to turn round to gauge the newcomers.
Unsurprising the unicorn and the two earth ponies all looked like that they had been visiting the gym way too much; all were thick set and burly, in short they were the perfect bunch to be hired as local muscle for some crime family or syndicate. But as it was common for ponies their size they always had major weakness; they always tended to rely on intimidation rather than an actual ability to fight to get what they (or their bosses) wanted. While this would work for shakedowns or against local authorities, it had no chance in Tartarus of working against two specially members of the military. Spitfire and Solar Wind, for example.

“Lightnin, you aw late with repayin the boss.” The unicorn heavily addressed Lightning. She gulped and opened her mouth to respond, but Solar cut across her before she could answer.

“She isn’t paying.”
The unicorn sneered down at Wind.

“What do yo mean like she aint’ payin?

“Exactly that, or would you prefer if we spelt it for you?” answered Spitfire sweetly, clearly goading the unicorn into trying something stupid. Snarling, he took the bait, looking over to Spitfire while charging his horn.

“Then yo’s lot gotta be taught a lesson, in mindin yea own damn business.”

He didn’t get the chance to even finish the spell. A split second after the unicorn took his eyes off Solar, a cider bottle smashed into his horn; the spell which had been forming was instantly disrupted sending the magic straight back into his horn. A small boom coupled with a shockwave blasted the unicorn away; he flew straight across the room into the bar behind him, the unicorn was unconscious before he hit the ground. One second of shocked silence rippled through the air, and then all Tartarus broke loose.
Roaring at the same time the earth ponies launched themselves at the three pegasi in the corner. Solar dropped the remains of the cider bottle and met one of them head on; the earth pony swung a hoof towards Solar’s head, the attack was so obvious and slow to Solar it may have well been standing still, easily Wind’s raised his hoof to block and deflected the punch; there was a sickening crunch as the hoof went straight into the brick wall behind the pegasus. The earth pony’s hoof was completely broken; howling in pain from his injury, he trained his eyes on Solar Wind he grunted in both angry and pain as closed the distance between the two of them. The earth pony raised his head to crack it down on top of Solar's. Wind knew what he was going to do, as soon as his opponent had lifted his head and exposed his neck Wind lunged, striking the windpipe hard and fast; a strange gurgling like sound was emitted from the earth pony as he choked for air. Reaching for his now bruised and airless windpipe with his non-broken forehoof unfortunately forgetting the other one was broken, and as soon as he put weight on it he crumpled onto the floor. Gasping for air and balance, the last thing he saw was Lightning delivering him a swift kick to the head knocking him unconscious.

The second earth pony was a bit more calculated than the one that Solar and Lightning had dispatched. Instead of going in like a bull elephant, he hung back and regarded his opponent for a second. Unfortunately his opponent was Spitfire and one second was all she needed, feigning right throwing the earth pony off balance to intercept a fake attack; Spitfire changed direction to her left side sticking his unguarded side with a swift jab before pulling back out of hoof reach. The earth pony who had teased up after being tricked by Spitfire regarded her unsurely, her jab was hard yes, but for the earth pony it wasn't the best punch that could have been thrown. Smirking, thinking that was the best the pegasus had to offer, he took a step to close the gap between them and press an advantage against her.
His smirk lasted another two seconds as he instantly collapsed under his weight, glancing up he saw that it was Spitfire's turn to smirk. Her attack while not completely a full punch had hit one of his pressure points rendering his front right side completely useless (Coincidentally it was same pressure point that Spitfire had hit on Lightning Dust). Trying to deliver a extremely wild haymaker in the vague direction of Spitfire, the earth pony was out of options and could only pretty watch as Spitfire quickly and swiftly punched two more places around his barrel with the same precision as her first punch, locking up all his muscles preventing from him moving or feeling everything apart from his head.

"Look sorry about this. But don't worry it's not permanent, it'll wear off in about an hour or so." She spoke down to him.
He was perplexed, why should she be worried about him, he and his brother had failed to carry out the boss's orders.

"Hey, ummm... What's your name by the way?' She asked, slightly nervously.

"Direct. Direct Stance." He managed to grunt out, although he really didn't know why he was telling her his name.

"If you get the chance and if you want to make something of your life instead of just being of a hired thug, come to Canterlot and look me up" the pegasus answered.
Before he could answer with a retort she reached inside her cloak producing a small card and stuck in his mouth.

With the unicorn and one earth pony both knocked out and the other paralyzed and thankfully the rest bar partons hadn't made a move to join in the fight, the three pegasi relaxed and were ready to go back to their conversation.

"Ohh, Yeah!!! Who else wants a piece of the Lightning!"
Or not.
Solar and Spitfire quipped around to face Lightning Dust, both were giving her extremely hard glares of 'Why in Tartarus did you just say that?'.

"What?" Dust said defensively.
But before anypony could say anything or do anything else, a jet black bolt of magic shot through the window at rapid speed straight at the group.

"Oh......"
The last thing that Lightning saw was the magic bolt flying straight at her, the shocked faces of Solar and Spitfire being covered as her vision was filled and overpowered by a pitch black light.

Then she fell into darkness.

Author's Note

This came out later than I intended, for that I'm sorry guys!
But I wasn't happy with the first draft of the chapter so I completely re-wrote it, by that everything in the chapter was re-written. The only part that survived is the quote back at the top the page, again if you guys like it; comment and I'll keep it. I'll also try to put more oddball humour in the future as well.

Anything else, again write in the comments section and I'll try to input it into the story. Cya!

Revised: 14/10/2015 25/10/2015