The Storm ( part 4 of TwiJack )

Apple Bloom woke up before the rooster in the chicken coop crowed its morning greeting.  She’d gone to sleep much earlier than she usually did and her stomach growled in protest at missing dinner.  She hopped out of her bed and looked out the window.  It was still dark outside and it was cold, her breath fogged in the air even--and it was raining a rather miserable and insistent rain that drove most sane ponies inside.  Which meant her sister would be out in it working. She made her way into the kitchen, looking for her sister for a quick breakfast.

Applejack was already up and making a pot of strong cider on the stove.  There were apple pancakes already stacked and drenched in maple syrup with a glass of golden apple juice on the kitchen table. There were also hash browns sizzling away in the skillet.  “Morning sis!”  Apple Bloom chirped as she took her seat at the kitchen table.

“Morning sugar cube,” Applejack drawled, pouring a huge mug of hot cider for herself.  “Eat up Apple Bloom, I don’t want you getting too skinny.  Ya skipped dinner last night and that ain’t healthy for a growing filly.”  She transferred the hashbrowns from the skillet to another plate and set it down next to the pancakes.

Apple Bloom tucked in with a will and the kitchen was quiet but for the enthusiastic sounds of the enjoyment of a large breakfast.  Applejack sipped at her cider, enjoying the quiet time with her sister.  Last night had been a hard one, but as usual, hard work had helped her through it.  When she had finally dragged herself up to bed she’d fallen asleep almost as soon as her head had hit the pillow.  She’d even left her hat on and never noticed.

Applejack picked up a pink ribbon from the counter where she’d set it.  She walked over to Apple Bloom and tied it into her little sister’s favorite large bow.  Unexpectedly, Apple Bloom threw her hooves around her big sister in a hug.  “Thanks Applejack.” she said snuggling in close to Applejack’s orange fur.

“Uh... no problem sugar cube,” said Applejack, returning the hug.  “You got any big plans today?”

Apple Bloom let her sister go and took a drink of her apple juice, “Well, me and the Crusaders got important plans to make.  We’re gonna get our cutie marks for sure this time sis, I just know it!”

“Right...  You got time in your busy schedule to help your sister out with a few chores around the farm?  And lemme give you a free hint: the right answer to this question is yes.”

“Ofcourse I do sis.  Besides, you know Sweetie Belle don’t even get up ‘til way after the sun comes up." Apple Bloom smirked. She brightened as she remembered that Twilight was supposed to come over to the farm, “Oh!  When’s Twilight coming over today?”

Applejack thought about it for a minute before grimacing. "I'm not sure she's gonna be able to make it sugar cube. It looks like this rain's gonna stick around all day and nopony would want to spend any time learning about the proper care of apple trees in a drench like this."

Apple Bloom frowned as she thought about this new wrinkle in her plans. Finally she asked, "So... if it wasn't raining... Twilight would come?"

Applejack took a sip from her cider, her thoughts already lost in the day's chores.  Distracted by her thoughts she said, "Uh, sure thing sugar cube."

“Okay, Applejack.  Let’s get to work then!”  Apple Bloom carried her empty dishes to the sink and tossed them in.

The crash of dishes in the sink snapped Applejack out of her haze.  She followed her little sister out of the kitchen muttering dire imprecations against Apple Bloom if she’d cracked a plate tossing it in the sink.  As they were exiting the house, they saw Big Mac hitching himself up to the cart Applejack had loaded with cider barrels the night before.  “Howdy there Big Mac,” Applejack called.  “Y’all have a good sleep?”

Big Mac cast his eyes away and down, shuffling one hoof bashfully on the ground.  “Nope.” he mumbled softly.

“Huh?” Applejack asked.  Apple Bloom stared at her big brother in confusion.  Big McIntosh nodded at the filly, refusing to speak.  Applejack shook her head and shooed Apple Bloom off.

 “Go feed the chickens squirt.  Go on, git.”  Apple Bloom scampered off to the chicken pen glancing back over her shoulder at her brother and sister standing staring at each other in a rather awkward tableau.

As soon as Apple Bloom had disappeared from view, Applejack narrowed her eyes at her big brother.  “Now why in tarnation would my big brother not have gotten any sleep?”  She tapped her chin with her hoof in mock

"Would it have anything to do with a certain... pink mare?”

Big Mac blushed and looked up at her, “Eeyup.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re finding happiness with Pinkie.  She’s a good one.  Even still, you might wanna have a little talk with Apple Bloom so she don’t start asking awkward questions at awkward times.  Y’know... sorta pre-empt her like.”

Big Mac nodded, settling the harness around his neck more comfortably.  He began pulling the cart out onto the road toward Ponyville.  “Hey Big Mac,” Applejack called out after him.  Her brother paused. “I know I don’t actually have to say this... But be careful.  Pinkie... Pinkie’s a real special pony.”  Her brother started walking again, nodding his head as he went.  Applejack watched him go, snorting in amusement.  “Well just make sure you don’t talk her ear off, you big galoot.”

~*.*~









Apple Bloom stomped her hoof on the floorboards of the tree house.  “I call this emergency session of the Cutie Mark Crusaders to order,” she announced. “Crusaders,” she said, “I got an urgent project for us today.”

It was midmorning and the rain which had started before dawn looked to be settling in for a nice, long soak.  The air was chill and damp, but the three fillies in the tree house were cozily warm with blankets wrapped around them.  Apple Bloom stood at the podium with a determined expression on her face.  Sweetie Belle watched her attentively as Scootaloo yawned and stretched her wings.

Scootaloo crossed her forelegs in front of her and looked bored, “Oh really?” She challenged.  “This isn’t gonna be like the last emergency meeting is it?”

“No.”  Apple Bloom retorted, “This is important.”

“Oh good,” said Sweetie Belle, “I really did not enjoy collecting all those beetles.  They were too creepy crawly.”

Apple Bloom glared at Sweetie Belle, “It would've worked if they hadn’t escaped from your jewelry box, Sweetiebell!"  I swear, I could feel a tingling in my flanks right before your sister found the worms in the icebox and kicked us out of your house!"

Scootaloo chuckled, “You sure it wasn’t the layers of mud you had caked to your flanks?”

“That ain’t the point,” huffed Apple Bloom. “The point is that we need to get a hold of Rainbow Dash.”  That stopped Scootaloo’s laugh.

“Oh really!?  That’s awesome Apple Bloom!  We’re for sure gonna get our cutie marks this time!”  Scootaloo jumped up in the air, her tiny wings buzzing and giving her a second of air time before she came back to the ground.

"Wait," said Sweetie Belle, "how does getting Rainbow Dash help your sister and Twilight Sparkle to fall in love?"

"What?!" Scootaloo yelped. "We're trying to do what now?"

Apple Bloom glared at Sweetie Belle and rolled her eyes, an expression of long-suffering martyrdom on her face. "I was getting to that, Sweetie. Now listen here Scootaloo," she turned her glare on the orange pegasus, "we're gonna get our cutie marks for sure this time."

"Yeah?" Scootaloo challenged. "And how're we gonna do that? We already tried being matchmakers, and look how well that turned out."

"I was wondering the same thing," said Sweetie Belle. "Not that I mind!" She assured Apple Bloom quickly, "I just wanted to know how this time would be different from last time."

Apple Bloom sighed and stepped down from the podium where she had been conducting the meeting. She sat between her two closest friends and threw a foreleg around each of their shoulders. "C'mon," she said, "trust me. When've I ever led yall wrong?" Another glare silenced Scootaloo's protests before they even started.

Apple Bloom sighed and let her friends go. "Look, I can't make you help me. But it's important to me. I think... no, I know my sister needs somepony to love. Someone to be there for her.  I mean, she works herself to the bone for me and at the end of the day, she's just plum exhausted. She deserves to have a special somepony waiting for her."

Scootaloo looked at Sweetie helplessly. Sweetie Belle drew her friend into a comforting hug. "Hey," she said into Apple Bloom's ear, "You're the best little sister Applejack could possibly hope for. She doesn't need anyone else to lean on when she's got you."

Apple Bloom hugged her back tight and cleared her throat. "Thanks for saying so, Sweetie Belle.”  She pulled back from the hug, “Now, let’s get to work.  We need Rainbow Dash to clear away this nasty weather before lunchtime or Twilight won’t come.”  She stood up, a look of firm resolution on her face, and walked out of the clubhouse.

Scootaloo hesitated a moment before following, turning to Sweetie Belle and asking, “Why’re we trying to make Applejack and Twilight fall in love?”

Sweetie Belle giggled and rolled her eyes.  She stood up and said, “C’mon Scoots, I’ll tell you while we look for Rainbow Dash.”

~*.*~

Rainbow Dash flew high above the towering cumulonimbus clouds of the storm system her and the rest of the weather team had moved in over Ponyville overnight.  The air up here was thin and freezing cold, but she was in her element.  The sunlight was bright and brittle and turned the tops of the clouds blindingly white.  She folded her wings and angled down for a dive, condensation from the air beading on her flight goggles as the wind tore at her mane and tail.  With a whoop of pure joy, she plowed through the storm cloud, spinning through the rain and high winds.  Up here, the drizzle the ponies on the ground were experiencing was more like a typhoon.

High powered winds tossed Rainbow here and there, but rather than fighting it, she let herself ride through them, allowing the storm to toss her where it would.  Ponies died if they fought a storm like this, Rainbow knew, and she was the best flyer in Equestria. She burst out of the cloud cover maybe a mile above the ground, wind and rain lashing her face, a bright rainbow contrail following her high-speed progress.  She glided along in the rain, examining her team’s handiwork.  It looked like Ponyville was getting a good drenching.  Time to knock off for a while someplace warm and nap off the sleepless night...

Rainbow tucked her wings and turned over onto her back into an inverted dive, her eyes scanning the ground far below her for a likely target.  She began accelerating into the dive when she spotted Sweet Apple Acres out of the corner of her eye. Grinning, she beat her powerful wings, pouring on even more speed into her inverted dive.  When she was right above the roofs of Ponyville, she pulled her wings tight against her sides, corkscrewing into a high-speed series of tight barrel rolls, her rainbow contrail corkscrewing behind her as she laughed with the thrill.  With a snap, she opened her wings, arresting her acceleration and giving her a little altitude.  She flew the rest of the way to Sweet Apple Acres in relatively sedate flight.

As she was flapping to gain altitude for a final dive so she could sweep into the kitchen window, Rainbow spotted three small forms heading away from the farm and down the road towards Ponyville. She was tempted to ignore them, but once her curiosity was piqued, she almost couldn’t refuse to satisfy it.  It had gotten her into trouble more than once, but she made it a policy never to regret anything she ever did.  She banked sharply and flew out to the road.  Before she’d come in for a landing, Scootaloo was already jumping up and down in excitement, pointing her hoof and flapping her little wings furiously.

“Hey there fillies,” said Rainbow fluttering her wings and landing in front of them, “the storm’s scheduled to get real bad in about an hour or so, so I wouldn’t be caught outside when it happens.  We got some killer winds about to begin and you should probably be inside somewhere before it all goes down.”


Scootaloo flapped her wings even harder, managing to almost hover.  “I’ve been practicing real hard, just like you told me to, Rainbow!” She announced proudly.  “I’ll be doing stunts like you in no time.  That dive you did over Ponyville rocked!  We could see your trail all the way from out here!”

“Pssh,” Rainbow waved off the compliment with a hoof, “That was nothing.  You shoulda’ seen me last night.  I was the cloud-wrangling champ.  See that cloud over there?”  She pointed a hoof at a dark grey spot in the sky indistinguishable from the other dark grey spots in the sky, “That was all me!  And lemme tell you, it did not wanna come quietly.”

“Uh... actually, Rainbow,” Apple Bloom interjected quickly before Rainbow could go off on another weather story, “we were going into town to find you.”

“Me?  Why would you wanna see me?” Asked Rainbow quizzically.  “I mean, not that I blame you.  I am the most awesome pony ever!”

“Well, we were hoping that you could kind of um... y’know, stop the rain around here this afternoon,” Sweetie Belle said sheepishly.

Rainbow Dash burst out laughing, fluttering her wings so she didn’t fall over.  It was a while before she could catch her breath, “Are you kidding?!” She wheezed, still chuckling a little, “That front is massive.  It’d take the whole team hours to clear it away.  And besides, this storm’s been scheduled for months!  Sorry girls, it just won't happen.”  Rainbow Dash shook her head, still smiling a bit, “Now, where’s your sister, Apple Bloom?  I wanna see if she can make me some pancakes. I’m beat after all that flying.”

Apple Bloom hung her head sadly, “Aww shucks, Rainbow.  Now I ain’t never gonna get my sister to fall in love.”

“Say what now?”  Rainbow Dash missed a beat of her wings and splashed onto the road.  “I don’t think I heard you right... For a second there, I thought I heard you say your were trying to get Applejack to fall in love.”

Apple Bloom scowled, “That’s what I said!”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t help it.  The idea was just so...unbelievable.  She burst out laughing.  This did not have a positive effect on Apple Bloom.  The little filly glared daggers at the cerulean pegasus and stalked past her.  “Hang on, hang on!”  Rainbow gasped, “Don’t go!  You just caught me by surprise, all right?”

Apple Bloom stopped, but didn’t look back.  “So are you gonna help us or not?”

“Well... Those clouds are pretty big, squirt.  I mean, they’d make Ponyville look small by comparison if ya saw them up close...”

“So you’re not gonna help us,” Apple Bloom said flatly and started walking again.

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and jumped in front of the angry filly, “Now, I didn’t say that!  I’m just trying to impress upon you the sheer magnitude of awesomeness that’d be involved if, say, a certain ace flyer were to bust up that storm.  I mean, this’d go down in the history books.”

Apple Bloom cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt.  The self-styled best flyer in Equestria seemed to be talking herself into it.

“I mean, no pony’s ever even come close to cloud busting something like this.”  Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes at the storm, then nodded, an anticipatory grin stretching across her face.  “I’ll do it!”


“Now,” Rainbow Dash said, “I gotta know, since I’m gonna do this awesomely dangerous and completely amazing thing... Who’s the lucky stallion you’re hooking Applejack up with?  He’d better be one special pony.”

Sweetie Belle giggled, “It’s Twilight.”

Rainbow Dash looked blank for a moment, then her smile seemed to split her face in half.  “This is gonna be so awesome,” she raved, “I had no idea Applejack was into mares!  And her and Twi... Sweet Celestia, they’re gonna owe me so big.  Heh.”  She clapped her hooves together and flared her wings.  “All right fillies, are you ready to see the most awesome flying?

Scootaloo couldn’t even speak, so settled for squealing in excitement.  Sweetie Belle looked a little nervously at Rainbow Dash and even Apple Bloom looked worried.  “You ain’t gonna get in trouble for this, are ya?”  Apple Bloom asked.

Rainbow waved her concern away, “Pssh, nah.  I mean, I might get my pay docked for like, a month--so you can expect me to be here a lot more often for meals and whatnot-- but they’d never fire a pony who could bust up a storm like this.”

“Good luck!”  Sweetie Belle said.

“You’re sweet kid, but luck don’t come into it,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling over her shoulder, then she leapt into the pouring rain and flapped up into the storm.

Scootaloo watched the pegasus go, her eyes glued to the mare as she shrank in the distance, her wings fluttering so fast she hovered like a hummingbird, but in her excitement, she didn’t even notice.

~

Rainbow Dash flew around to the edge of the storm, gaining altitude slowly, working out her plan of attack as she flew.  That was a pretty sweet exiting line though, she thought, smirking as she remembered that totally cool parting line she’d thrown back over her shoulder at the Cutie Mark Crusaders.  Luck don’t come into it.  But there was something else that was troubling her. Not troubling really, but certainly thought-provoking. And that was unusual for Rainbow. She was a mare of action.

Why didn't AJ ever tell her she was into mares? She beat her wings, steadily ascending over the storm.  Maybe she should feel hurt about that, but she really only felt glad that she was able to help one of her best friends. It went against her nature to abandon a friend. She did represent the Element of Loyalty after all.

Rainbow Dash climbed higher and higher, circling over the cloud bank as she did, searching for the center of the storm.  There, she thought, spotting a towering, dark grey cumulous cloud which loomed over the others like a giant, that’s the center mass... She performed a few aeronautical calculations on the fly, and arrived at a staggeringly large number.  She doubled it, just to be sure, because math wasn’t really her strong point.  Then she began her first dive.

The plan she had come up with involved two dives to build up velocity for the subsequent ascent, then a final dive straight through the middle of the storm.  Assuming she had enough speed, the turbulence created by the initial three dives plus the disruptive jetstream of her last dive should be enough to disperse the storm and blast the clouds away.  She reached the spot where she would perform her first dive and stretched her neck, getting ready for the fifteen-thousand foot dive.  She took a deep breath and then tipped herself forward into the dive.

The sheer speed ripped the breath away from her, but being an experienced pegasus used to high-speed unprotected flight, she had developed techniques to allow her to breathe at speeds much higher than she was currently going.  As she dove, she flapped her wings, pouring on even more delta-v as she screamed closer and closer to the ground.  She blasted through the cloud layer on the eastern edge of the storm, her passage sucking a good bit of cloud after her.  At only a thousand feet above the earth, she pulled out of the dive, still flapping her wings and heading toward the western edge of the storm.

As she ascended, she started a slow barrel roll, beginning to weave a wind vortex behind her.  At such high speeds, her signature rainbow contrail sparkled behind her with almost blinding brilliance as she twisted up through the clouds and even higher to twenty-five thousand feet.  The air up here was very thin and she was relying more on her skills than displacement of air to steer her.  That same skills protected her from the sub-zero temperature of the air this high.  She banked hard into her next dive, not wasting any precious momentum getting as high as the energy from the dive had allowed.

The air felt like it was trying to rip her wings right off her body, but this was still nowhere near as fast as she’d gone.  She pumped her wings and fell like a comet, her rainbow contrail spinning as she continued her corkscrew dive.  She felt the air currents around her shift as she dove, the storm responding to her maneuvers as she blasted through the upper cloud cover again, leaving a large hole in the clouds as she passed.  She pulled out of her dive five thousand feet above the ground, almost skimming the bottom of the clouds and going so fast that the horizontal winds didn’t change her vector even the slightest.

This last ascent would take her much higher than she’d ever been and she’d be relying entirely upon her wing power, a very respectable 17.9.  Ever since creating the hurricane to get water up to Cloudsdale, Rainbow had been training just in case such a desperate maneuver was necessary again.  Normally, such a bold cloudbusting would require an entire team of pegasi, but Rainbow Dash thought that this particular storm could be dissipated with a single, precise strike.  Besides, at the speeds she’d be traveling and the windshear generated by her spinning dive, the storm really had no chance.

She banked hard into an inverted dive, feeling her guts want to explode out of her with the G’s she was pulling in the dive.  She gritted her teeth and clenched her stomach, still pumping her wings.  The rainbow contrail behind her began to effervesce as she reached sonic rainboom speeds.  She carefully timed her wing flaps to control her descent and just as she hit the top of the center storm cloud mass, she flapped a few more strong surges of her wings, she felt the electric crackle and subsequent rush of photons as the sonic rainboom exploded behind her.  This was the crazily dangerous part of the whole maneuver.  She was flying straight down toward the ground at lethal speeds and, even though the storm was blasted apart behind her, she was far from safe.

Rainbow Dash opened her wings slowly, ever so carefully changing the angle of her descent, decelerating as she went.  She was still going too fast and the ground was coming up at an alarmingly fast rate.  She strained her muscles, putting her whole strength behind backflapping against the terrible speed and she could feel it slowly beginning to work.  Just as she thought her wings would give out from sheer exhaustion, she was able to pull out of the dive and into a gentle glide.

Rainbow Dash looked up and saw the sonic rainboom still expanding as she flew, tattered clouds disintegrating in its wake.  The sun shone brightly and there was not a raindrop in the air.  Rainbow smiled,  now she was tired.  Time to see about that nap.