Death in the Dark

Death's scythe clattered to the ground. Rainbow opened her eyes, amazed that the final blow hadn't come. Looking up she saw death was still standing right in front of her, it's glowing red eyes stared at Rainbow first with shock and then with a look of hatred that was so deep it made Rainbow shiver.

"You were supposed to f..f..forget me." Rainbow struggled as Death stared at her.

Death just continued to glare at Rainbow for a long time, finally it spoke. The voice was strange it was neither male nor female and didn't come from one place, but everywhere at once creating a eerie echo, the only thing certain about Death's voice, was that it was outraged.

"HOW DARE YOU!" Death roared, "Have you any idea what you've just done you stupid mare!"

Rainbow shrunk under the molten hatred of Death's gaze.

"WELL?!? HAVE YOU?!" it asked again.

"I..I.." Rainbow tried, but her voice was gone, along with her courage. She was more scared now than when the scythe had been on a collision course with her neck.

"You thought you'd make me forget you, didn't you?" Death said icily "You thought you'd cheat me and carry on as if nothing had ever happened, DIDN'T YOU?!"

"y..y-yes.." Rainbow squeaked. Suddenly Death's eye's changed, for a moment Rainbow could have sworn she saw fear, but it was almost instantly replaced by another emotion she had never expected. In Death's smouldering eyes Rainbow saw pity.

"You do not understand mare. What you have done is not temporarily stave of merely your own death, but the deaths of all." Rainbow stared at Death with wide eyes.

"For all I know, death may never come to any being in Equestria again." Rainbow could feel the corners of her mouth forming a smile, she couldn't see what death thought was so wrong, it would be out of the job, but surely it could find something new to do.

"We shall see if you still smile when you understand the gravity of your tampering with fate." Death gave Rainbow one final sorrowful look and then suddenly a bolt of pure raw magic struck Death, Rainbow watched in silent horror as Death screamed in agony. She didn't understand what was happening, only that Death was in pain. Tears cascaded down Rainbow's cheeks as she watched until Death disappeared as if it had never been there. Rainbow sat in silence as she watched the spot Death had been only minutes ago, she would have continued watching had she not heard the shouts of the pegasus who'd come looking for her. Rainbow panicked, she was still a ghost, she wasn't in her body like she had thought she'd have been. She had to do something fast or everypony would see her corpse and then she wouldn't be able to come back from that. Screwing up her courage Rainbow turned around and faced the gory mess that was her. It took all her self control not to go speeding off in the opposite direction. Gently touching one of her charred wings with her ghostly hoof she was instantly sucked back into her body, she almost wished she was dead again. Rainbow screamed in agony, everything hurt, almost everything was broken. Through her pain dulled mind she realised that the worst of her injuries, the ones that were the cause of her death, were busy healing. That didn't make the situation any less painful though, she cried and screamed until she just couldn't take the pain anymore and passed out. It was fifteen minutes later that Soarin found Rainbow, by which time all her serious wounds were healed, but her wings were still destroyed and she was covered in cuts and bruises. His heart stopped in his chest as he looked at her still body, tears ran down his face as he spoke her name with no reply. "Rainbow?" he tried again choking through the tears "Rainbow please be okay..." he whispered. Slowly laying down next to her he put his head to her chest, what he heard was faint laboured breathing and a very weak heartbeat. A massive weight was off his shoulders, he didn't know what he would've done had he lost her. Not wanting to move her for risk of greater injury Soarin stayed right next to Rainbow and screamed his heart out. The search party was a far way behind him and hadn't wanted to fly through the storm, but Soarin hadn't cared, all he'd wanted was to see if Rainbow was okay and he'd gone shooting off into the storm. He had seen the bolt of lightning that had hit her, it had stopped it's journey to the ground mid strike and had struck something, he knew it had been her that was struck and that's why he had to get there so quickly. Soarin waited as the time passed by; the seconds turned into minutes, the minutes into hours and hours of shouting out and waiting for the pegasus search party, all the while keeping his head on Rainbow's chest. Truth be told he had no CPR training so he wasn't sure what he would do if the beating or breathing stopped, but hearing that she was still alive brought comfort to his guilt racked mind. It was his fault after all, he had invited her to the try-outs and he had told her to do her best, he had known she was an amazing flyer and that she would push herself to her limits. Soarin was suddenly drawn out of his thoughts when it started to rain, he panicked, getting sick would be the worst thing for Rainbow right now, he lifted his head from her chest and quickly stripped off his water retardant wonderbolt uniform which he lay gently over Rainbow in order to give her some protection from the drops of icy water falling from the sky and slowly rested his head back on her chest. He was not going to have her survive being struck by lightning just to die from a cold.

More hours crept by as Soarin continued to shout out to alert the search party, his eyes grew heavy and his throat hoarse as the night crept in. The rain had stopped an hour ago, but cold autumn winds blew across Soarin's wet body, making the night feel very cold. Two hours later the search party eventually found Soarin, fast asleep next to Rainbow Dash with his head still on her chest. His entire body was icy to the touch, had his heart not been beating the rescue pegasi would have thought he was dead, in fact they all agreed it was a miracle that neither him nor Rainbow were.

Many miles away from where the search party had found the two pegasus another search party had found something else. Princess Luna, escorted by two of her night pegasus guards stood on the edge of a massive crater. It had taken them quite a few hours to travel out his far. They were here because the Princess of the night had been roused from her sleep by the sudden arrival of  a dark, ancient and powerful magic in Equestria that she'd never felt before. This crater was were it had arrived and where it still was. Luna waited patiently before investigating the crater, she would not do this without her sister. The magic she sensed inside the crater was far greater than her own and she wouldn't risk the lives of both her and her guards. Celestia arrived half an hour later and together the rulers of Equestria flew down into the crater, properly scared for the first time in over a thousand years. Upon reaching the bottom a pile of strange black cloth covered something lying down in the middle of the crater, with the arrival of the princesses it slowly began to stir.

"Who are you?" Celestia asked in her most demanding voice, embarrassed to hear just how much it shook with fear.

"What is thy business?" Luna asked equally as meekly as her sister.

The dark figure slowly rose revealing a cloaked pony taller than Luna, with smouldering red eyes.