Twilight and Applejack were by their sides in an instant, with Impact close behind.

“Spike!” Twilight begged, “Please wake up!”

“Hold on, sis!” Applejack sobbed, “Ah’ve gotcha!”

“Twilight! Do a spell!” Impact said desperately, “Check their vitals!”

“I-I can’t…” she moaned, still in shock from seeing them so severely hurt.

“NOW!”

“O-OK…” Twilight furrowed her brow in concentration as her horn began to glow. After several seconds, she breathed a slight sigh of relief. “Spike’s alright, just knocked out. But Apple Bloom…” Her breath caught in her throat and she started to panic even more. “I can’t find a pulse!”

“And she ain’t breathin’ neither!” Applejack cried after placing an ear to her sister’s chest.

Suddenly, Impact shunted the mare aside, rolled Apple Bloom onto her back, and began pressing her hooves hard into her chest.

“You know CPR?” Twilight said with astonishment, “But how…?”

“Took a course in Cloudsdale back in the spring,” Impact replied without looking back at her. After ten compressions, she took a deep breath, pressed her lips to hers, and exhaled into the unconscious filly’s mouth.

“What in tha hay do ya think yer doin’ ta mah sister?” Applejack shouted angrily.

“Saving her bucking life!” she shouted above the rain. “Now, when I say ‘breathe’, you breathe! Got it?”

The orange mare nodded, needing no further instruction.

“One…two…three...four…five…six…seven…eight…nine…ten… Breathe!” Impact shouted.

Applejack exhaled into her sister’s mouth.

“Twilight, can you flash us to the hospital?” Impact implored while counting the compressions in her head, “Breathe!”

“I…I think so…” she whimpered, her mind still reeling from the crisis at hoof.

“Whenever you’re ready. Breathe!”

“Alright.” Twilight replied as Applejack gave her sister one more breath of life. She steeled her resolve and summoned all the magic she could muster, surrounding the five of them with a pink energy bubble. In the blink of an eye, they were gone.

A white pony with a pink mane sat at her desk in the lobby of Ponyville Urgent Care, filing her hooves and whistling a happy tune. It was just another normal shift for her. Derpy was brought in this morning after she crashed into a wall. She had some bruises and a couple cuts and scrapes, but she was fine. Around lunchtime, a limping Lyra was escorted in by Bon-Bon. Apparently, Lyra’s awkward style of sitting caused her to pull a muscle in her leg. The doctor prescribed a warm compress, some pain relievers, and a day of bed rest.

She was expecting another slow evening of making her rounds and filing paperwork when a blinding pink flash knocked her out of her chair. Blinking the glare away, she emerged from behind her desk and saw three mares, soaked to the bone and dripping wet, huddled around an equally drenched dragon and filly, both of whom were unconscious. One mare appeared to be performing CPR upon the latter. Her silver horn glowed white and the spell she cast pulled away every drop of water the storm had poured upon them, leaving the five completely dry. Nurse Redheart blinked several times, vigorously lubricating her corneas to give the situation more clarity.

“What in Equestria!?!?” she shouted, “What’s going on here?”

“Struck…lightning…” Twilight gasped breathlessly, pointing a hoof at Apple Bloom.

“Dear Celestia…” she gasped as she got to her hooves and pressed the intercom button. “Code blue, main lobby!” she spoke into the microphone, “I repeat! Code blue, main lobby! Somepony get a crash cart in here!” She released the button and raced to their aid.

“We don’t have time to wait!” Impact said as she continued her compressions, “Twilight, think you can take over for me?”

“Yes.” she replied after catching her breath, “I’ll do what I can. Just say when.”

“Three, two, one, switch!”

Without skipping a beat, Impact rolled out of the way and Twilight took her place to keep the rhythm going. Impact's horn began to glow white and as a similar aura surrounded her left leg, the bionic appendage underwent a remarkable transformation.

“Nurse Redheart! Will this work?” Impact asked as she pushed the upper panel back. Nurse Redheart looked down…and did a double-take. Lying before her were two rectangular paddles, undersides glistening with a gel-like substance, connected by wires to a control box. The nurse couldn’t help but smirk slightly at the bionic pony’s sheer ingenuity; she had actually transformed her mechanical limb into a working defibrillator.

“It’ll have to.” she said with a sigh as she picked up the paddles with her hooves. Meanwhile, a small crowd of ponies began to gather in the lobby to watch the crisis unfold.

“120 volts,” the nurse called out.

“120 volts,” Impact repeated, adjusting the dial on the defibrillator’s control box.

“Charging…” she said as she rubbed the paddles together, followed by a loud, sharp “Clear!” as she pressed them to Apple Bloom’s chest. The young filly’s back arched violently as the electrical impulse coursed through her system. Twilight checked her vitals.

“Nothing,” she relayed before applying ten more compressions.

“Take it up to 160.”

“160,” Impact increased the voltage, her mane and tail crackling with electricity as the energy output grew higher.

“Charging… clear!”

Another shock and another violent contortion, but Twilight still felt no pulse.

“C’mon, Apple Bloom!” Applejack called out in anguish, tears now streaming down her face. “Don’t you quit on me!”

The crowd of ponies surrounding the scene had grown larger as the four mares struggled valiantly to resuscitate the filly.

“Bring it up to 220.”

“Are you sure?” Twilight wondered. “That sounds dangerously high.”

“It’s our last chance,” Redheart said with a hint of frustration, “220!”

“220,” Impact replied, twisting the dial a final time as her mane glowed brighter still.

“Charging…CLEAR!” she shouted, pressing the paddles to the filly’s chest one more time. Her body bent backwards once more. Twilight did ten more compressions and Applejack gave one last breath of life.

“Apple Bloom! Can ya hear me?” Applejack asked desperately, her voice quaking with fear. She grabbed her sister’s shoulders and tried to gently nudge her awake. “Anything, Twi’?”

Every passing second felt like an hour. Every heartbeat seemed to drone on for an eternity. Everypony in the room held their breath, hoping for good news, but Twilight didn’t need to answer. A series of short, quiet coughs pierced the air. Everypony looked down to see Apple Bloom open her eyes just a crack.

“Applejack?” she mumbled.

The orange mare’s tears of despair became tears of joy instantly.

“She’s back!” she shouted gratefully as she hugged her sister, almost squeezing out what little life was left, “Oh, praise Celestia! She’s back!”

The hospital lobby erupted with cheers of joy as the little filly returned to the land of the living.

“Wha…where am I?” Apple Bloom asked. Applejack pressed a hoof to her muzzle to silence her.

“No talkin’, sugarcube. You just rest up now, ya hear?”

Nurse Tenderheart raced into the room with a crash cart, followed by Dr. Flatline and two hospital orderlies wheeling in a stretcher, but all were surprised to see that it was no longer necessary.

Impact stood up slowly, the defibrillator paddles retracting back into her artificial leg. In an instant, they were gone and her leg had returned to its default mode. As a final gesture of kindness, Impact lifted the revived Apple Bloom and the still-unconscious Spike onto the stretcher.

“Wha…what happened?” the wounded filly asked, clearly in a daze.

“You were struck by lightning.” Twilight explained. “Spike tried to push you out of the way, but he got caught in the blast too.”

“Well, where is he?” she croaked fearfully.

“He’s right next to you.” Twilight said with a misty-eyed smile.

She turned her head to her left and saw Spike’s unconscious form still clutching her shoulder.

“Oh no…” she whimpered. “Is he gonna be alright?”

“I hope so…” she replied with an uneasy sigh.

As the hospital staff wheeled the two patients away, the three mares were left alone in the lobby.

“Grr… Ah don’t know what ta do now!” Applejack said with an anguished groan as she threw her hat to the floor, “Apple Bloom’s in tha hospital, Big Mac’s sick in bed…”

“Go to him.” Twilight said. “Big Macintosh needs at least one of his sisters by his side right now. Apple Bloom will be fine. I’ll stay here and look after her.”

“Thanks, Twi’. It really means a lot.” Applejack said as they hugged one another. “Are ya staying too, Impact?”

“Until they drag me out the door,” she replied with a reassuring nod.

“Ah can’t thank ya both enough fer savin’ mah sister,” Applejack said on the brink of tears. “Words can’t describe…”

She was suddenly interrupted by a warm group hug.

“So stop talking,” they said simultaneously.

“OK… Ah’ll be back in tha morning.” she said as she picked up her hat in her teeth and set it on Twilight’s head. “Give this ta Bloom when she wakes up.” With that, she turned around and galloped off toward home.

As the doors swung shut behind her, Applejack broke down crying, her tears now invisible in the pouring rain.

Twilight and Impact took a seat beside each other in the waiting room. Several agonizing seconds passed before even they couldn’t hold back. Twilight burst into tears and flung herself into Impact’s hooves, babbling incoherent questions about Spike and Apple Bloom while desperately seeking some form of solace and sanctuary from the excruciating pain in her heart. As her friend pressed harder and harder against her chest, Impact began to cry as well, not only because she was feeling sad, but also because Twilight was feeling sad. She wanted to take Twilight’s pain away, draw every last drop of it from her body, and cast it out into the night so she could see the unicorn smile again. Unfortunately, until Spike was safe in her hooves once again, there would be nothing for Twilight to smile about. Until he and Apple Bloom recovered, there was nothing the two could do but wait, pray, and cry. Their manes, coats, and tails began to fade from colorful vibrancy into despondent grayscale.

As the muted symphonies of the storm echoed all around them, everypony in the waiting room could only watch with misty eyes and heavy hearts as Impact lost her impact and Twilight lost her sparkle.