Thunder

Weather. Since the pegasi controlled it you might just consider it normal for clouds to move despite the prevailing wind. For the laypony, clouds wandering across the sky towards the Everfree would be a point to mention in passing. For the well informed it might seem strange that the scheduled cloudless sky was filling with menacing clouds. For the weather team it was definitely strange, cloudless days were days off for most and they would've been told if a the weather schedule changed. From the sky Rainbow Dash could see clouds convening over the forest. From the library Twilight could see the sky dimming and feel a deathly chill. From the forest Fluttershy could feel the air chill and electrify. She could see the sky dim and her animal friends fled for the relative safety of her cottage. She couldn't hear the wind. No one could.

Deep within the forest - past the castle and countless groves - on the bank of a river, a lone woman stood wrapped in a fur coat. Her hair was ragged and tangled, eyes bloodshot and eyebrows furrowed. Her pale skin was caked in mud and blood; her hands grasped a long sturdy stick. At her feet lay another woman, though you could scarcely recognise her for one anymore. Where she ought to have hair there was cracked skull and blooded scalp. Where she ought to have limbs there were gnawed stumps. Her chest was ripped open as if Jack the Ripper had had his way. Deep bloody hoof prints trudged off down the river. She followed.

“Twilight, Twilight, it's just awful!" Fluttershy announced, exiting the forest to her gathered friends. “Mr Bear said that something got attacked in the forest, I went to help the poor thing when the weather became so... scary.”

“Something got hurt and now the weather's got itself all trussed up, what'cha reckon, Twi?” Applejack spoke turning to face the group.

“I don't know, none of my books have any mentions of clouds acting like this...”

“Something's controlling the clouds, I can feel it,” Rainbow declared with a hoof to her chest.

“Wanna go check it out?” Pinkie asked the group in her usual chipper style, already disappearing into the brush.

They walked in three rows upon the narrow path; first Twilight and Pinkie, the former reading books from her stuffed saddle bag, the latter humming sweetly. Next came Fluttershy and Rainbow who kept their eyes fixed upon the brush. Last came Rarity and Applejack, marching in companionable silence. As the group reached the river that marked the halfway point between Ponyville and the Everfree Castle, the rain began to fall with a flash. The torrent swelling the river turned the normally difficult crossing lethal, leaving only the bank as a route.

She stood before a looming gate, a walking stick at her side and a face slick with rain. Her hair hung drenched down to her shoulders, and her face was now clean of mud. The old mansion lay decrepit, its walls crumbled under the pressures of time. The whole east wing was torn asunder, along with a section of the wall to her left; the rest of the mansion fared only just better. Some of the walls still held up the patchy roof. The clouds circled overhead, vultures, sending cries between them, illuminating the mansion. A single window was lit on the third floor of the west wing, so the woman pushed the creaking gates open and marched up what could be generously described as a path. Three loud booms echoed through the cracked foyer as her stick struck the door, and with it, three loud thunderclaps. She pushed the door open and a pony in the west wing shot up. The woman walked to the damaged stairs in the centre of the room, marched up them, hand hovering over what remained of a silver banister. Her slow footsteps echoed far more than her bare feet had any right to, and the pony drew his blade.

The group had spent an hour dredging up this blasted river, the thick mud just about preferable to the raging river beside them. They were almost too tired to notice the thunder, but nothing could stop their fright as lightning struck the river a quarter of a mile up from them.

"Ah!” Both pegasi screamed, to the fright of their companions.

“Rainbow, you're not scared of some lightning, are ya?” enquired Applejack.

“That wasn't just lightning, couldn't you feel it?” Rainbow replied, wearing an uncomfortable expression.

“Feel what, Rainbow?” Twilight asked, sharing her friends' worry.

“It felt... painful...” Fluttershy added meekly.

“Girls, look.” Rarity commanded, cutting across their chatter, and pointed towards a clearing where the lightning struck.

They could see a pony and a tall figure attempting to fight one another. The pony could barely move in the mud, swaying and grunting as they swung their gleaming sword with little grace or power behind their swing. The tall figure clutched both her stick and her side as if they were more important than the blade mere inches from her face. Twilight charged up her magic as Rainbow, Fluttershy and Applejack ran towards the fighting figures. The figure slammed her stick into the pony's horn, crying out in anguish, before raising it above her and bearing it down upon the now prone pony.

Rainbow and Applejack burst forward with all the speed they could muster, Fluttershy screamed “No!” as the stick fell upon the pony's head with a sickening crunch and a blinding flash.

Twilight's spell discharged just as the blow came, and shot wildly into the water, sending a shock wave through the river as her friends all looked on, horrified. The tall figure brought their stick down upon the pony's corpse once more. BOOM. Twice more. CRACK. Thrice more. SNAP. Her forth blow came not with her stick, which hovered above her in a magenta aura, but with her fists as she collapsed to her knees before Rainbow Dash tackled her.

The woman pushed the blue pony off her with a grunt, her face once again bloodied by a combination of hooves. She tried to rise to her feet only to be met with a second one, this time in yellow, which pushed her down into the mud, her eyes too large and her face contorted into a fearsome glare which forced the woman deeper. Again she tried to rise, pushing the freak off of her, but the addition of an orange pony made the venture futile. That didn't not stop her thrashing from side to side. Three more turned up completing a ring around her as she could do little more than stare as they spoke in their weird tongue, clicking and neighing in frantic tones. Not once did the yellow one break her glare, so the woman replied with a glare she hoped equally fearsome. What came out was more a desperate tired expression than declaration of eternal hate, which made the yellow one speak in a soft tone to her friends. Whether the words meant kill it or save it the result was the same. A hoof to the side of her face.

“There, now it's knocked out. Let's just leave it here and take the stallion's body home” Rainbow spoke harshly.

“No. Rainbow, I told you it was scared. Look at the poor thing, its got cuts all over it, and it's fur is all messed up and mangled, I don't know how much experience you have with animals but they don't like to stay like that. We need to get it to a hospital, then we might be able to find out why it acted like it did,” Fluttershy said.

“What even is it? Ah ain't ever seen anythin' like it.”

“I... I don't know. Twi?”

“Me neither, Fluttershy. That means that no matter what it did, we need to get it to Ponyville so we can find out. The Princesses might know.”

“Didn't you guys notice the lightning? Whatever it is, it can use magic. And it can make the weather act like it did, it'll just escape and go all wacko if we take it to Ponyville,” Rainbow objected.

“I'm with Rainbow, if it's done something like this once it can do it again,” added Rarity.

Pinkie Pie stood gazing sadly at the crushed corpse. “Take it to Ponyville. There's already been enough death today.” She received a hoof on her back as response. Looking into Rarities eyes, she saw her own.