Cloudsdale Hospital:

Lightning groaned as she adjusted her eyes to the light, the soft boop-boop-boop of the heart monitor reaching her ears. The room all around her was painted in soft, calming hues of white, pink and light blue. Lightning then reached out and felt the bed-sheets covering her. Not comfortable by any means, but there they were.

Her eyes widened, so she wasn’t dead. By all rights, from the blood loss she endured, she should have been in Skyhaven. But evidently, that wasn’t to be the case. Lightning snorted, maybe she was in Tartarus and this was her punishment. Living with only one wing, never to fly again. Soft, calming guitar strummed music played from a radio nearby. The sound was like that of an old record, crackling as it played. Lightning chalked that up to the age of the radio, not of the song itself. Evidently, some parts of the hospital were better looked after than others.

“There are loved ones in the glory,
Whose dear forms you often miss;
When you close your earthly story,
Will you join them in their bliss?

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by.
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky.”

Lightning scowled. While the rational part of her brain was telling her that the music played was entirely at random, she couldn’t help but think some part of the universe was mocking her… disability. She knew it, she’d never be a Wonderbolt again. Seems her dad was right all along, she’d never amount to anything in the end after all.

“You bucking happy dad? Huh, are you bucking happy you bastard? There, I screwed up and look what bucking happened!” Lightning began to rant to her father, despite knowing very well he couldn’t hear her.. “Lost a wing, and now Sky Stinger’s the only member of this whole bucking family who’ll live up to your damned legacy!”

Lightning snarled. He couldn’t even be bothered to even send her a sympathy card, for crying out loud! Just some small notice that he cared! But no, if her “Father” cared one jot about her, he would have shown it a long time ago.

“Yeah, that’s dear old dad for ya, not giving a damn about somepony unless they benefit him directly, and I never really was a benefit to him. I was just one more child to look after, one more mouth to feed. More money to come out of his pocketbook, that’s all I was to him. All I ever will be,” She thought as she suddenly found herself gazing to where her wing once was. But to her surprise, the space wasn’t as empty as she thought it would be. Instead, there was a metal appendage, a crude copy of a wing with very sharp metal feathers and adorned with glowing runes gleaming with magic.

“Great, so I’m a freak now. Wonderful,” Lightning thought sarcastically. “Should have just left the damn thing off and let me bleed to death,”

Lightning stifled a sob, she couldn’t cry. Not now. She’d long ago carefully constructed a mask, and she couldn’t let it break now. Suddenly, she felt very warm arms wrap around her and pull her into a hug, long yellow and red hair falling in front of her face.

“S-Sunset?” Lightning whispered, scarcely able to believe her eyes. Last she heard, Sunset was off in another country doing Twilight a favor. Helping her find some crystal of some sort. Lightning barely remembered the details, she couldn’t have cared less about things like jungle expeditions to foreign countries.

“Yeah, it’s me,” the Princess of Empathy answered. “I came as soon as I heard, even had to teleport across an entire continent and you know much how much I hate that.” She joked.

Lightning smiled weakly as Sunset released her from the hug. Yeah, she remembered alright. “Yeah, makes you sick to your stomach, doesn’t it? Thrown up yet?” Lightning teased.

Sunset tried to look at anything but her. Lightning snorted. Yeah, she thought so.

“Boring as I thought it would be?” Lightning commented. Sunset frowned, she knew the pegasus was trying to deflect things away from her current situation. But she answered anyway.

“Well, wouldn’t go that far. Had to fight a perverted thief and a giant river god, among other things.” Sunset replied, and Lightning stared, unsure if she was kidding or not. Then again, Sunset, at least the one she knew was never one to brag about her accomplishments or make things up. Robert maybe or even her, but Sunset?

“...Tell me at least you kicked that pervert’s sorry ass.” Lightning asked, still not sure if Sunset was lying about the river god part. In her mind, Sunset would probably do that to make it seem like she had a worse week than Lightning herself just to make her feel better.

“...Imayhavekickedhiminthetesticles.” Sunset mumbled rather quickly in response, her face flushing red. Lightning snorted once again, unable to help herself. Good for Sunset. There was a soft rapping at the door and a Trottingham sounding accent asked: “May I come in?”

Lightning nodded and Sunset opened the door to reveal to Lightning’s shock, Robert Williams.

“H-How are you even up here?” Lightning stammered out.

“Well, Twilight may have performed the cloud-walking spell on me, said she wasn’t sure if it would work or not because I had no magical DNA in me whatsoever and it could very well just make me explode from the inside so didn’t make me very confident as being used as a lab rat, for better or for worse,” Robert muttered, though judging from his tone he didn’t hold anything against Twilight and was just joking around as always in an attempt to lighten the mood. Lightning, however, did notice he was trying to avert his gaze from her artificial wing as much as possible. “So, not dead as it turns out. Didn’t explode in a shower of blood and gore, so yay for me,”

He then turned to Sunset, probably in yet another attempt (At least that’s what Lightning was thinking) in order to not look at her new appendage.

“So, heard you kicked a guy in the plums while you were in Party Central after he got a little too hands-on. Good for you.” Robert commented lightly. Lightning stared at him in shock.

“Who are you and what have you done with Robert Williams, Foxy Man-Whore extraordinaire?” She asked, completely stunned.

“Hey, a difference between coming onto someone and just plain sexual harassment. I do have some class after all.” He said, somewhat offended.

“Could have fooled me…” Sunset muttered to herself and Lightning smirked. Seems even Sunset had her limits of what she was willing to put up with relating to Robert’s comments. If Robert heard her, he showed no sign of it.

“What about the Org?” Lightning asked.

“Got its sorry arse kicked by me, Sunburst and an old friend,” Robert stated before joking: “Brought who knows how many years of bad luck down on us when we shattered it.”

“I’ve already gotten that bad luck, I think,” Lightning mused privately, in a bitter tone of voice. “Still, good for Sunburst. I’m happy somepony took that thing down. ...Just wish it was me though...”

She then spotted Sunburst and Vapor outside, with Sunburst hiding behind Vapor in apparent fear. Lightning knew why, he was afraid of her and what she might do to him.

“Mystic Mother… Is that really what everyone on this team thinks of me, a snarling, boiling cauldron of rage who could erupt at any moment?”

Lightning thought back, and realized something rather horrifying. They, or at least Vapor, Robert and Sunburst did. After all, she hadn’t been particularly nice to them had she? Tartarus, for quite a long time, and with very good reason Robert thought she would try and murder him in his sleep for crying out loud!

“Course they think of me that way, why wouldn’t they? I’m the perfect embodiment of the Thunderbird, after all. The one who brings terror and the fury of the Gods themselves from the skies,” Lightning thought, and if you looked closely you could see a small tear trailing down her face.

“You two can come in you know, not like I’m going to be up and about for the next few days is it?” she whispered in a tone of bitterness. Vapor walked in, but Sunburst still looked absolutely terrified of her. “It’s okay Bat-Brain, not going to do anything to you. Not going to yell, not going to scream. It wasn’t your fault,”

Hesitantly, Sunburst stepped forwards as Lightning smiled.

“Good job on kicking that idiot’s flank for me, good job.” Lightning stated, and Sunburst’s jaw dropped in shock. He had been expecting for Lightning to just yell and scream at him, tell him this was all his fault, like everything always was with him.

“I… I’m so sorry, so sorry,” Sunburst whispered fervently over and over to himself, almost like a mantra before teleporting away in a flash of black light.

“Sunburst!” Robert shouted before cursing in Japanese (“Kuso!”) and teleporting away after his friend. Sunset sighed sadly. Lightning looked towards her.

“Go after them, Sunburst needs your help more than I do right now. The doctors have got everything well in hand here,” Lightning reassured.

“But-” Sunset started.

“Go, just go,” Lightning ordered. Sunset looked at her.

“You sure you’re going to be alright?” She asked and Lightning nodded.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? Same as I ever was after all. Just got a badass metal wing now, that’s all.” she said. Sunset looked as if she didn’t believe her for a moment, but nodded anyways and teleported away. Vapor meanwhile just brought Lightning into a hug and the aqua colored pegasus broke down in her adoptive sister’s arms, finally letting her mask break completely and just cried. Vapor just cried with her, sharing her pain and held her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK7AGhiin-o

The Animarium:

Sunset screamed in anger as she punched the trunk of a tree in frustration. It was all her fault! If she hadn’t gone off on that trip with Daring, Lightning might have never lost her wing and had to get it replaced.

“Some Princess I turned out to be. Daring could have handled herself, but I had to go along with her and leave my team… No, my family flailing about without a leader,” she thought to herself. With a scream of rage, she fired a blast of energy up into the tree and birds scattered and flew off into the sky.

Sunset pulled out her sword and sliced a training dummy in half to blow off some steam, imagining the dummy as the Mirror Org from the rest of the team’s descriptions. She then sliced another dummy in half, thinking of it as Goldar and then another dummy imagining it as Thrax. One last dummy met its fate as Sunset saw Solar Flare laughing at her and her failures in its place.

“Goddess dammit, it’s everything with her. Everything boils down to her in the end, doesn’t it? All the bigotry and sheer hatred, that if what Shining told me is true, brought the Orgs back to life in the first place and by extension gave Lightning her prosthetic, she started,” Sunset thought to herself, as she demorphed panting and sweating. “Sooner or later, we have to take down Solar Flare, or who knows how bad things will get. Mystic Mother above, I just hope Twilight can pull this off, otherwise we’re all going to burn. Solar Flare won’t stop at anything, and sooner or later she’ll probably deem all of us a threat to her and attack us directly. We need to strike first, otherwise… We’re bucked,”

Sunset growled and threw her sword into the tree behind her, the short sword type blade impaling itself in the trunk scorching the bark somewhat.

“It’s not your fault you know. None of it is,” Princess Shayla said in an attempt at reassurance as she wandered into the glen. Sunset scoffed as she sat herself down on a nearby boulder.

“Believe me, every bad thing that’s happened to this team can probably be blamed on me in some way. I’m a failure at a leader, and don’t you bother denying it. You know perfectly well it’s true. I told you before, I wasn’t cut out for this shit.”

Shayla sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her in comfort.

“And yet I still believe in you. So does the Phoenix Zord, and the rest of your team. If they didn’t, you would know. Now, instead of lurking around feeling sorry for yourself, I suggest you start thinking more about your plan to deal with Solar Flare and separating her from Celestia. That is what you intend to do with her, is it not?” Shayla asked eyebrow raised. Sunset smiled as she hugged Shayla, with her fellow Princess returning the hug. As Sunset teleported away, Shayla looked towards the Lion’s Perch.

“You think she’s ready?” Shayla asked, and the Red Lion seemed to shake his head no before responding.

“No, there’s one more thing she needs to face before she’s earned what you ask of me. That particular Animal Crystal can’t be given out, not yet. I’ve spoken with him, and he agrees with me. Only once Sunset’s worked through all of her fears will he give up his abilities for the team’s use. A Pride of lions cannot function without its King, and a team cannot work together if all of the members have their doubts. You know this as well as I do.”

Shayla sighed to herself. Yeah, she did.

The Nexus:

Thrax looked up as Retinax walked in, axe in hand. He chuckled, he’d have been a fool if he hadn’t seen this coming sooner or later.

“So, now you’ve finally worked up the courage to take the throne for yourself?” Thrax asked as he got up off his throne. “Going to have to deal with me first,”

“I intend to, far too long have I listened to your lies and machinations. You couldn’t give a damn about us, so you’re absolutely right. You must be destroyed if Org-kind is to survive.”

Thrax snarled and shot red fireballs from his palm. Retinax deflected them with his axe before swinging it downwards into the ground sending a series of explosions towards Thrax. The false Master Org slammed the tip of his staff into the ground and created his own explosions to counter this. The two lunged towards each other, weapons meeting in the middle again and again in a shower of sparks. Retinax elbowed Thrax in the face before kicking him in the gut making him stagger before getting in a slice across the chest. Retinax went for another swing, but Thrax leaped upwards and fired lightning from his Wand. Retinax used his axe to block the energy before slashing Thrax across the chest again. Thrax’s eyes widened when he heard the sound of shuriken coming in from behind him. An energy blast fired and reduced these shuriken to ashes as Goldar teleported in and got in several quick slashes across Helicos’ chest.

“My advice, when you’re staging a coup… Be aware of all the players in the game.” Thrax laughed. He then grabbed Helicos with his Wand and threw her into Retinax. Goldar laughed as his energy beam charged up again...

Wonderbolts Academy

A few days later, Lightning returned to work at the Wonderbolts Academy. Vapor had informed her that she and Rainbow had thought up the excuse that Lightning had lost her original wing in a night time flight accident. So far, nopony seemed to be questioning that excuse much to Lightning’s relief. However, she did wish she could avoid the stares, whispering and pointing.

“Great, normally I like to be the center of attention but today I wish I wasn’t,” Lightning muttered to herself. “Irony, you really love me don’t you?”

Every so often, Lightning took a glance at her wing and just sighed. She still hadn’t gotten used to it, and if she was to be honest with herself, probably never would.

“Hey sis, heard about what happened,” Sky Stinger said as he jogged up alongside her. “...Mystic Mother above, I visited you in the hospital while the doctors were patching you up, along with this strange fellow in a blue suit who suggested the prosthetic wing in the first place. What happened, I know you’re smart enough not to go flying in the middle of the night, so why’d you do it?”

Ignoring the fact that Sky had accidentally divulged who exactly was the reason she was a freak in the first place, Lightning glared at him harshly.

“I had my reasons, okay?” She snapped.

“Dad?” Sky guessed.

“If it were only him… Least then I’d have somepony I could punch in the face and somepony to yell and scream at without feeling like a little bitch,” Lightning thought to herself and lied through her teeth.

“Yeah, it was about him,” She said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. Sky swore quietly.

“Can’t believe he didn’t even show up to see if you were alright, though that’s no surprise. Couldn’t even be bothered to send a card,” Sky growled quietly to himself. Lightning noted Sky hadn’t even said Wind Rider’s name at all. He actually seemed to be actively avoiding it. Then again, Lightning remembered that Sky didn’t really consider the stallion much of a father either anymore. For a moment, just a brief fleeting moment, the Wonderbolt in Training idly wondered if there was a time Wind Rider even showed the slightest love towards his kids, but quickly brushed that thought aside. She already knew the answer to that.

“Yeah, shittiest father of the year goes to him, as always,” Lightning muttered to herself.

“Should you even be at practice today, I mean with your…” Sky trailed off, taking a quick glance at Lightning’s wing before a harsh glare from his sister quickly told him to either change subjects or shut up. Sky got the message/warning in an instant and quickly heeded it.

“Hang in there sis, and yes I know that’s probably coming off one of those cat posters those shops sell, but you know what I mean. And listen, if you ever need to talk or a shoulder to cry on you can always come to me or Vapor,” Sky said in support.

“I. Don’t. Cry,” his sister hissed. Sky didn’t look like as if he believed her for a moment.

“You know what I mean.” he said and Lightning sighed to herself.

She then muttered “Yeah, I do,” to herself as she headed towards Spitfire’s office. She had something to do. As much as she didn’t want to do it, it was probably for the best nowadays. Not like she was going to be in the best of shape anymore. As she walked through the hallway leading up to her Captain’s office, Lightning brushed past Angel Wings. The younger mare gave her a sympathetic glance, eyes filled with only pity. Lightning snarled and shoved her aside. She didn’t need anypony’s pity. She wasn’t worth it.

With a light shove, Lightning pushed the door to Spitfire’s office open. Like the corridor leading up to it, it was adorned with Wonderbolts posters. Lightning swallowed nervously before chuckling darkly. Last time she had walked in here of her own violation it was at one of the worst points of her life. Now she was doing it again, once more at a very low point in her life and at a crossroads about what to do with it.

As always, Spitfire was looking through her paperwork. It was often a topic of scuttlebutt amongst the junior Wonderbolts that their Captain never took a day off in her life and/or that she was secretly a Robot in Disguise from another planet. If Soarin’ or any of the other seniors knew, they weren’t talking.

With only a brief glance upwards from her work, Spitfire knew at once who was in her office.

“Something the matter, Dust?” She asked, and from the look on Lightning’s face, she could tell it was serious. Lightning took a long breath and nodded hesitantly before placing a sheet of paper on Spitfire’s already cluttered desk. Her Captain’s eyes widened in shock.

“This is…” Spitfire breathed out.

“Yeah, I’m handing in my resignation form. With this… wing,” Lightning scoffed in disgust after taking another look at her appendage, a mockery of the thing it was supposed to represent. “I’m about as much use to you as a flier as a broken pencil is to a student.”

“You really believe that? I’ve known a few flyers in my time who’ve been able to get along perfectly fine with prosthetics, and I don’t see them complaining. Last time you walked into this office, you were begging me to take you back, you just going to walk away from that?” Spitfire asked, and Lightning hung her head. “That’s not the mare I know, not the Lightning Dust I know. Plus, it’s not just this team that needs you,”

Lightning’s eyes widened as Spitfire took off her sunglasses.

“W-What do you mean ma’am?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean. You going to walk away from them too?” Spitfire asked eyebrow raised.

“H-How long have you…” Lightning stammered out, unable to complete the sentence.

“For a while now, this is the reason why I haven’t been so mad when you or Vapor fail to show up on certain days. Connected the dots really to when the Aqua and Purple Rangers were about and the days you failed to show. But I’m getting off track. Last fall I was in Ponyville one night and here’s what I saw…” Spitfire began to explain...

Last Year:

She was out walking one night on her way home from a bar, that’s when she saw it. At the time, Spitfire had dismissed the Power Rangers as just drunken rumors. But seeing was believing. There Lightning was, fighting off a hoard of Putrids in an alleyway. Just when they were about to overwhelm her, Lightning shouted out “Legendary Wild Access!” and in a blue flash of light and an explosion of energy knocked back several of the young Orgs-to-be. With a flurry of rapid-fire punches, Lightning took down several more before there was a ringing sound. Lightning pulled out the gold colored phone-like device that she had yelled into as her morphing call and flipped it open.

"L-Lightning... I-I might need your help down here. I'm not alone, I can feel it." Vapor stuttered out over the Growl Phone and Lightning rolled her eyes before punching a Putrid in the face.

"Well of COURSE you're not alone you dumbo!" Lightning Dust snapped as she kicked a Putrid into some crates before backhanding another trying to come at her from behind. "There's a freaking damned Org on the loose! The Princess sent you after it, and you're going to get it! I swear, my brother would have been a better pick for a Ranger than you, both you and Sunburst are such worrywarts!"

"I-I'm not joking around here, there's something powerful here, and I don't think it's the Org the Princess sent me after!" Vapor yelled in fear and Lightning's jaw dropped in shock. Vapor sounded genuinely terrified out of her mind. With a resigned sigh after a few moments of hesitation, Lightning responded.

"Alright, I'll get over there as fast as I can, but remember this, you and I are going after the Org I'M supposed to be hunting after this, understand?" Lightning said before she hung up. Now, with both of her hands free Lightning took down the last two Putrids with two quick slashes from her Crystal Saber.

Now:

“And that’s the end of it. Been keeping an eye on your team ever since. Wasn’t that hard to figure out who was the newest member when he showed up. I’m not an idiot after all,” Spitfire remarked. Lightning chuckled.

“No, you’re not ma’am. I guess I’m the idiot really. Walking away from them, I’d just be like… Well, him really,”

Spitfire raised an eyebrow in curiosity but decided not to press. Didn’t seem to be her business. If Lightning wanted to keep some things to herself, that was her choice. If she wanted to speak up about something, she could do it whenever she was ready to do so. Right about then, Lightning’s Growl Phone rang.

“Can I take this?” She asked. Spitfire smirked.

“Go get ‘em,” She stated and Lightning returned the smirk before running out the door as the situation was explained. Spitfire still kept that smirk on her face, that mare was going to go far in life. She just knew it in her gut. With a glance towards her desk, she looked at a picture of an older mare with a similar appearance to herself. Spitfire smiled softly.

“Hope you’re proud of me and the ‘Bolts, mom. I’m keeping them together, just like you asked me.” She thought.

Ponyville:

Lightning, riding in on her Savage Cycle to find her teammates wrapped up in what looked like pipes and slowly being strangled/electrocuted by a faucet themed Org, who had the hot and cold knobs for eyes. She poured on some speed and smashed right through the Tenga blockade and fired the Savage Cycle’s lasers at the pipes cutting right through them. Lightning leaped off the bike and kicked the newest Org spirit in the face making him stagger back.

“You want a fight? You got it bud,” Lightning snarled before dealing out a few quick slashes with her Crystal Saber and then a powerful downward slash striking the Org right down the middle.

“Sure you don’t need any help making a show of things, Lightning-Bitch?” Robert teased.

“No, he’s all mine,” Lightning snarled. Vapor smiled under her helmet, the Lightning she knew and loved was back, no question about it. The Aqua Ranger thrusted her arm skywards before shouting “I need Red Dragon Thunderzord power, now!”

A roar pierced the heavens as towering storm-clouds gathered and covered Ponyville in blackness. Next, Lightning focused her energy towards her wings, both mechanical and flesh and they extended outwards before she rocketed skywards shouting “You want to be really shocked, Org? Try this one for size!”

Even as she did that, she thought back to something she had seen Rainbow do a few times before.

Rainbow, in a flurry of color, was darting from cloud to cloud rebounding off of them in flashes of light till she rocketed through the hoops and bucked a cloud out of existence entirely. Rainbow then landed on the grass and smirked at Lightning’s impressed look.

Lightning came down, darting from cloud to cloud zigzagging between pillars of storm-cloud as a lightning bolt before she flew down like a bullet. She dealt one final slash across the chest charged with lightning before another lightning bolt came down and struck the Faucet Org dead on.

The Org, staggering to his feet chuckled and swallowed what looked to be beans before vines wrapped around him and he grew to the size of a titan. But the Red Dragon was quick to react and breathed hot flame at the Org as Lightning leaped inside the cockpit. Inside, it was simple enough with just two joysticks to control the Zord and an Asian style dragon painted in red behind Lightning. Oddly, however, there was what looked to be a keyhole between the two joysticks used for controls. Lighting grunted. She could think about that for another time. Right now, she had other things to worry about.

“Warrior Mode, now!” She shouted and with the shifting and whirring of parts and a sound like a jet engine, the Zord assumed its Warrior Mode and pulled out its Bo Staff. “Now, let’s see you try this on for size... “

As the Faucet Org sprayed hot water at the Megazord, the staff split apart and became a sansetsukon, a three part staff not that different from the weapons known as Nunchaku. Lightning commanded the Red Dragon to spin the sansetsukon around and around and it did so, fending off the hot water streams. The resulting show was elegant, dance like almost. Lightning continued spinning the weapon around and around striking the Org multiple times.

“Piece of cake. And now for the finisher!” Lightning shouted before the sansetsukon became a Bo Staff once again. It was spun around 360 degrees creating hot embers as the Red Dragon charged forwards and dealt one final strike across the chest sending the Org up in a tower of flame. The Red Dragon, per Lightning’s command, raised its staff high in victory. She smirked to herself and in the cockpit whispered “Thanks, Captain. I needed that... And thank you Rainbow, I wouldn't have been able to defeat this Org without you.”

Lightning smiled wistfully to herself. Maybe she should call up her favorite pegasus and have a small chat with her...

Author's Notes:

Okay, here we go, the second part of the storyline I left you on last month. What I tried to do here with Spitfire was strike a balance with her Drill Sarge-like persona when she's off duty and what little we see of her off-duty persona. Also, on another note, the Org of the chapter was inspired by this pre-PR series monster:
http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/Faucet_Dimension