Lightning Derp
By Game-BeatX14
Lightning Dust flew through the open sky, gliding over Ponyville and enjoying the beautiful view surrounding her. Today was a perfect day for flying, but more importantly, it was a perfect day to make another attempt at the stunt which had eluded her for an entire lifetime…
A Sonic Rainboom.
Other ponies had told her that Rainbow Dash was the only one who was capable of performing it. But what did Rainbow Dash do to reach that point? She flew and trained herself every single day. There was no possible way she was the only one who could execute it. So, Lightning Dust had committed herself once a week, to take to the skies and attempt the famed stunt. The clear weather would be ideal for reaching the required height. During previous attempts, simply not going high enough had caused her to run out of room to accelerate, before she would have to loop back up to avoid crashing into the ground.
She climbed to higher altitudes, rocketing up at a 45-degree angle. Nothing but blue sky was in her field of view. Her mind was absolutely focused, as every other thought became irrelevant. All that mattered right now was going up as high as possible. Her body was being pounded by fierce winds, and she began riding the jet streams steeper and faster. The sparse clouds in the sky were thousands of feet below her. Ponyville became a tiny speck beneath her body. She imagined Rainbow Dash would be jealous if she could see her right now.
“WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO, YEAH!” She yelled in excitement.
The sensations were incredible, as the cold air blasted against every facet of her body. But soon, the air pressure changes started to affect her. The oxygen at this altitude was thinner, and it was starting to get harder to breathe. The determined green pegasus ignored it, pushing ahead even harder. She had failed dozens of times, and gaining enough speed would require pushing herself beyond her normal limits. There was no turning back now.
Just a little further and I’ll dive bomb back down, I need to go higher...
Within the next few seconds, everything changed. A sharp pain shot through her wings and back, and a terrifying feeling washed through her very core. It was just a cramp, nothing she hadn’t dealt with before. But it happened in just the right place so that she couldn’t flap her wings properly.
“Oh Celestia, not now... Not at 20,000 feet!”
She tried to flap her wings to loosen the muscles, but they just tightened even more. If it got any worse, she would be on the fringe of plummeting to her death.
“Oh shit, no no no, gah SHIT!”
She started to panic, but quickly realized that would only exacerbate the problem.
Okay Lightning, just relax... Stay focused.
She tried to mentally calm herself, as her flight school lessons slowly came back to her. Her instructor had always told her: Never panic, just slow down and glide gently until you reach the ground or some low hanging clouds to land on... But she couldn’t. The speed at which she was descending was far too fast to control with such light flaps and movements. Every time she forced a full extension of her wings, her body burned. She bit her tongue in pain as her wings nearly locked up for good. Tears stared to well up in her eyes. This wasn’t going to end well.
Lightning Dust screamed in fear for her life as she felt her stomach drop, the nerve-racking sensation of free fall taking over her body. The world raced closer and closer beneath her until she could make out the landmarks in Ponyville nearby. The wind was brutal at these speeds, putting even more pressure on her cramped wings. A small patch of oak trees loomed below her. She barred her hooves in front of her head, but a thick tree branch knocked her legs out of place just as she was breaking through the forest canopy.
“FUC-”
Lightning Dust only heard a massive thump and crack as she slammed into the side of a boulder, skinning her side along the jagged rock and tumbling head over hoof for nearly fifty feet. Everything went black as her damaged body lay motionless in the dirt.
Lightning Dust woke up in a hospital bed with a massive headache. To her dismay, she was sitting all by herself. It was a small, cozy room, but very bare and uninteresting. The walls were white and sterile, with only a few cabinets of medical supplies scattered around.
“Ugh... hello?” She groaned. No answer.
Her vision was slightly blurry. Thinking it would subside, she blinked a few times. Nothing changed.
“Wait, what?”
She closed and re-opened her eyes several more times, feeling her vision roll to the side involuntarily. Something wasn’t right. Suddenly, she realized it was even worse than she thought.
“Why can’t I see straight?”
She sat up, now genuinely worried. Deep down, she hoped it was just a temporary aftereffect of the accident. But every time she blinked or turned her head, her eyeballs rolled in the opposite direction she wanted, making it hard to focus on any one single point. The disjointed vision made her headache worse.
“No...”
She felt a deep, horrible realization building up inside.
“This can’t be happening!”
A storm of negative thoughts filled her mind, as she realized just how much a vision injury could ruin her life. This was a serious impairment.
“Raaaghhhh! GODDAMIITT!”
She started to sob loudly. Her eyes spun, and every muscle in her body still hurt. Down the hall, Nurse Redheart heard the disturbed patient, and quickly raced out of her office and put her paperwork on hold.
“Tell me the truth, how long have I been out for?” Lightning asked.
“Actually, you might be happy to know you were only comatose for a week. Normally it could be longer than that, but your body is very resilient.” Redheart replied.
“A whole week?”
Nurse Redheart continued with her questions.
“Do you feel okay? Any problems breathing, or seeing? Is your vision clear?”
“No...”
“Please elaborate.”
Lightning Dust opened her eyes, revealing her derped irises to the medical mare.
“Oh, dear lord. I’ve never seen that happen from a crash landing.”
She stopped, as she noticed Lightning was starting to cry.
“Please nurse, you need to help me. Everything is lopsided, my depth perception is ruined and it’s making me nauseous. If this is permanent, then I might never be able to fly again!”
“Alright Lightning Dust. Calm down. I need to go get my assistant, then I’ll be right back with some more information. Ok?”
“Alright…”
Nurse Redheart raced out of the room, feeling extremely worried. There was no fix for this type of injury with the simple technology they possessed, but she couldn’t tell her just yet. The poor Pegasus was going to be in for a shock. When she reached her office, she quickly picked up her office phone and called the only pony she knew who could help.
“Hello, Derpy? It’s me, Nurse Redheart. I need your help with a patient. Come down to the Ponyville medical center quick and meet me at my office.”
The derpy eyed mare stood patiently, listening to everything Redheart had to say.
“Listen, I may be a medical expert but I don’t know how to break the news to her. Her injury just caused the same disability you’ve been living with your whole life. Maybe you could use your knowledge to guide her through this transition? Cheer her up a bit, anything. Help her adapt to her vision.”
Derpy nodded her head.
“I’ll do my best.”
Derpy cautiously approached the injured patient’s room.
“Lightning Dust...”
“What?” She cried out anxiously.
Derpy flinched a little from the outburst. She couldn’t imagine the trauma Lightning Dust was going through right now.
“I need to tell you something…”
“Is it good news or bad news? Because Redheart didn’t seem too comfortable when she left to go get you…”
“Well… It’s not great news. You see, the doctors don’t exactly have any way to fix your eyes in this state.”
Lightning Dust twitched anxiously and grit her teeth, then put her head down. It made Derpy uncomfortable.
“But everything is going to be okay... I can teach you how to see better!”
Lightning Dust briefly perked up from her sullenness.
“You *sniff* can?”
“Of course.”
She gently put her hooves on the sides of Lightning’s head, holding it straight.
“I want you to stay still and focus on that chair right there.”
Lightning Dust could barely keep her eyes from spinning, even when she looked straight ahead.
“I can’t...” She croaked. “My eyes aren’t cooperating even a little bit.”
“Keep trying. It might take a few attempts. Just like a Sonic Rainboom.”
Lightning Dust blinked several times, trying her hardest to focus even for the briefest of moments, but no matter how hard she tried, the chair in front of her remained a disjointed blur. If seeing a stationary object was this hard, then flying would be out of the question for the rest of her life.
“It’s not working; my depth perception is ruined...”
“You’ll adjust to it...”
“No, I won’t...”
The tears beginning to well up in her eyes were starting to blur her vision even more. Lightning Dust put her head down, blocking her face with her hooves in a feeble attempt to hide her pain.
“D-derpy, I know you’re just trying to h-help, but...” She was practically heaving at this point. “This can’t be happening. I need to be in the sky. It’s the most important thing I have in my life!”
In an emotional outburst, Lightning Dust smacked Derpy out of the way and jumped out her of bed. Her legs were sore, but she could still hobble her way out of the room and down the hall to the double back doors of the hospital.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“Flying! I can’t let this cripple me!”
The distressed green pegasus burst through the back doors, looking out into the wide-open field behind the building complex. There were a few trees, but it was mostly flat grass. Derpy quickly followed her.
“Please stop, you’re going to hurt yourself again!”
“Don’t tell me what to do! I’ll figure out a way to fly with these eyes, you just watch!”
Lightning Dust took off on a wobbly running start, then jumped into the air and let instinct take over. It seemed the one week recovery had been enough, as her wings functioned perfectly. But after a few seconds, she lost her sense of direction. The ground spun underneath her, and she lost her aerial balance. She came crashing to the ground. Thankfully, it was a much smaller impact than before.
“I know you’re upset, but please listen to me…” Derpy begged.
“Shut up! I can do this!”
Lightning took off again, this time trying to compensate for her lopsided vision. To her dismay, it didn’t last much longer than before. Her eyes fought against her will, making it impossible to manage her direction. She crashed into the dirt again, heaving angrily and clambering back to her feet to face Derpy.
“Flying fast is everything to me. You’re just a mailmare; you can take your time. But when I’m doing stunts I can’t deal with my eyes like this, a slight miscalculation could even get me killed.”
“Lightning Dust… I know this is terrifying for you. But you can still fly. It’s going to take a lot of practice and re-adjusting. But I believe in you. And I’ll teach you for as long as it takes. You just need to calm down.”
Her breathing slowed down, and a glimmer of hope flashed through her eyes.
“Do you really mean it?”
“Absolutely. I’ve lived with it my entire life; I can show you how to control it.”
For the first time since she had woken up, Lightning Dust cracked a smile. She leaned forward and wrapped Derpy in a strong embrace. It brought her comfort knowing that somepony fully understood what she was dealing with and was willing to help her overcome it.
“I have some deliveries to make tomorrow, but as soon as I’m done, I’ll meet you right back here. And we’re going to teach you how to fly again like the lightning fast pegasus you are.”
Derpy paused, realizing she shouldn’t be exaggerating at a time like this.
“Just, maybe not quite as fast as before… You probably won’t be flying like a rocket for quite a while yet.”
“It’s fine Derpy. Any speed is better than falling over and crashing constantly.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
The two pegasi grinned at each other, starting to feel a budding emotional connection.
“Oh, and by the way Lighting?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let anypony tease you over your eyes. You look beautiful, no matter what they say.”
Lightning Dust smiled, letting her derped irises focus on the kind mare in front of her.
“Thank you, Derpy.”
