//------------------------------// // Peachnado Passion // Story: A Tornado Full of Peaches that Randomly Explode is Destroying Ponyville // by Palm Palette //------------------------------// If you haven't already, read the site blog titled Tagged Story Abuse posted by Obselescence. I blame him for this, by the way. “Dear Diary, today I learned that–” Woosh. “Huh?” Twilight looked up when a stiff breeze rushed through the room and disrupted her work. The wind howled again, whipping the curtains against their rods, billowing out tapestries and knocking books off of shelves. “What's going on?” Twilight stood up and a clacking of claws on the hardwood floor caught her attention. Spike burst into the room sweating from exertion. “T-Twilight—” he panted for a bit to catch his breath “—y-you've got to come quick! Everypony's in a panic. It's total chaos out there.” He fell forward, which was unfortunate, because the next gust of wind buried him in a pile of books. “Spike!? Are you okay?” She started levitating books to dig him out. “I'll be fine,” he groaned from under the pile of literature. “Just get out there, okay? They need you.” “R-right.” The wind whipped and howled so hard that the very walls of the building groaned and creaked in protest. Carried with it were cries of terror and screams of panic coming from the ponies outside. Twilight left Spike to dig himself out and rushed downstairs. When she stepped outside, her jaw dropped and she added her own scream to the mix. A tornado was barreling down on Ponyville. It was so large that it stretched from the ground to the top of the sky and it was full things that buzzed around inside of it like swarms of flies. Flashes of light could be seen around the base of the funnel as it carved a path through the forest on its way towards them. The next gust of wind caught her wings and hurled her down the street past dozens of ponies who were shouting and screaming. When she skidded to a halt against the fountain, she spotted a fuzzy object that rolled nearby, and seemingly lost all reason. It was a peach—a delicious, juicy, ripened-to-perfection peach. Her mouth watered and she felt like she was drawn towards it—like it was her destiny. Applejack, who was closer, leaned in to sniff at the delectable fruit. “There's something funny about—” she paused and reared up with a perplexed expression “—What's that hissing noise?” KA-BOOM! It exploded. Applejack was hurled through the air and crashed on the roof of Sugarcube Corner, which she slid off of and fell two stories to land in a bush. Freed from the grips of her inexplicable craving, Twilight flew over to help her friend. The earth pony's face was covered in black soot and her eyes rolled in different directions. “Applejack,” Twilight spoke as she helped her to her feet, “are you all right?” “Huh?” Applejack shook her head and winced and rubbed at her ears. “ARE WE GONNA FIGHT? OF COURSE WE'RE GUNNA FIGHT.” “No, I mean, are you hurt?” “NO, AH'M NOT WEARING A SHIRT. WHY WOULD YA ASK ABOUT A SHIRT?” Another explosion and screams from ponies prompted Twilight to fly up and survey the damage. She had to grab a lamp post to avoid getting blown away again in another blast of wind. The tornado was getting bigger as it made its way towards them. The flashes of light were getting closer and more frequent too. Those must be explosions. Speaking of which, there was a small crater where Applejack had been standing and another crater nearby. When the wind died down, Twilight stressed her magic and threw up a magenta shield around Ponyville. “Everypony, calm down. Just—calm down, please. We'll do our best and find a way to stop it.” “DO AH GIVE A SHIT? OF COURSE AH GIVE A SHIT!” “A-Applejack! Watch your language!” “A RAIN GAUGE? IT'S NOT RAINING, TWILIGHT. WE DON'T NEED A RAIN GAUGE.” Twilight facehoofed and ignored Applejack. “Linky, see if you can find Fluttershy. We need her to get Discord. Lyra, try to find Rainbow Dash—” “No need to search, Twilight. I'm right here.” Rainbow Dash flew up to her and saluted. “Great, you can gather up the others, then. We may need to retrieve the Elements of Harmony from the Everfree Forest.” “THE ELM MINTS OF HEDGE MONEY? WHAT?” “And somepony get a doctor!” Twilight wailed. She wasn't the only thing wailing. The wind was deflected by her barrier and she cringed when a round of peaches exploded against it. They left cracks in her shield and she had to recast the spell to maintain it. Even as the tornado grew closer and battered the shield with exploding peaches, a temporary calm settled on the town as ponies rushed to complete their tasks. Rarity and Pinkie Pie joined the others in the square while Dr. Stable wrapped bandages around Applejack's head. Linky returned dragging a timid yellow pegasus by her tail, with Discord sitting on her back and munching popcorn. Twilight flew over and accused the draconequus, “Discord! I know you're behind this! Stop goofing off and get rid of that awful tornado.” “Now Twilight, why do you always have to blame me for every little—” Some peach-splosions caught his attention and his eyes bugged out when he saw the impending peachnado peachpocalypse. “That's way too crazy for even me. I'm out of here.” “Discord!” Twilight yelled, but it was too late. He snapped his fingers and vanished. The unrelenting barrage of peach-splosions against her shield caused Twilight to falter. Her barrier shattered into a thousand magical shards and she was blown away before she could bring up a new one. Ponies screamed as a barrage of dangerous explosive fruits rained down and rolled through the streets, hissing. “Everypony, get inside!” the mayor screamed. It was sensible, but somewhat useless, advice. Explosions rocked through the streets, hurling ponies into the air, and letting the wind toss them about like leaves. High winds tore the roofs off of buildings and the orphaned walls collapsed, trapping many ponies in the rubble. Rarity tried to catch the peaches with her magic since they didn't seem to explode until they hit the ground, but the wind was too strong and kept pulling the peaches out of her grasp. Rainbow Dash whipped up a mini-tornado of her own and hurled it at the bigger one but it poofed without doing anything useful. Pinkie Pie shot pies up to intercept the peaches but that only resulted in exploding peach pies raining down from above. “It's no use. We can't stop it. We're doomed!” Rainbow Dash grabbed onto a tree branch for support. Even her impressive flying skills were no match for the fury of the peachnado. The branch broke and pony and limb joined the debris that was cluttering the sky. Twilight Sparkle rubbed her head. She'd hit her horn when she landed and was having trouble forming spells. A hissing peach rolled nearby and she forgot everything to lull her tongue out and drool. It exploded, blackening her face with soot. She shook her head and blinked in confusion. Had she gone deaf? She didn't hear anything. Slowly, she stood up and looked around. She didn't see anything either. Well, she saw rubble, and plenty of other confused ponies, but the tornado was mysteriously absent. “Huh, what happened? Where did it go?” Rainbow Dash had also recovered from her tumble and flew over to join Twilight. Both ponies milled about in confusion. “It was just here a moment ago. Whatever happened to it?” Rarity casually tossed an unexploded peach away from town. “Ooh ooh. Is it under this rock?” Pinkie Pie looked under a rock. “Or this one? Or-or even this one?” “Pinkie, don't go looking for it,” Rainbow chided. “I-I don't get it.” Twilight rubbed her sore temple. “How can we just lose a tornado like that? It's huge. It shouldn't just vanish.” Spike came running up to them with a huge smile and holding a floppy book in his claws. “Hey guys, I did it! I managed to trap the tornado in one of those enchanted comic books.” “Wow Spike, that's great! Thank you so much! Now we can—” Twilight read the title “—Uh, Spike. I don't think that's going to hold the tornado very long.” “Aw, I always mess things up.” He looked so dejected. “No no, Spike. You did good, very good.” She hugged him. “I'm really proud of you. We can use the time you've bought us to prepare. We'll just have to find some other way to get rid of that tornado when it comes back. That's all.” \\\¤/// Meanwhile, in Japan, a huge green lizard was shooting atomic blasts from its mouth at the tanks and helicopters that were gathered around it trying to stop its rampage. They weren't even slowing the monster down. It roared with atomic fury as it swatted them out of the way and smashed building after building. When it rounded a corner, it finally found a worthy foe. The peachnado whipped around the reptile, picking it up in its tornadic winds, and tossed him far out to sea. The Japanese people were shocked, but welcomed this random development... “We're saved!” “It defeated Godzilla!” “Hooray!” ...at least until they realized what they were looking at. With a fury of its own, the peachnado bombed the city with its explosive peaches. It overturned cars, knocked down buildings, and left a huge path of destruction in its wake. “Nooo!” “Why us?” “We're doomed! ...again.” \\\¤/// “The Elements of Harmony?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I'm not sure we can. Applejack's still all loopy, and Fluttershy's stuck in a rabbit warren.” Twilight sighed. “We can dig out Fluttershy, but I'm not sure we have time to let Applejack recover.” “And we don't want those nasty plunder vines to come back either,” Rarity added. “How else are we supposed to fight it?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Twilight chipped her horn and she can barely even levitate stuff until it heals.” “Ooh ooh. I know!” Pinkie hopped up. “We can get rid of the tornado with—a bigger tornado!” Rainbow Dash facehoofed. “That's stupid.” “That's perfect!” Twilight exclaimed. “It is?” everypony else asked, and looked at her. “With a sufficiently large wind field of opposite rotation, they'll cancel each other out. Hmm...” “But how can we make a tornado of that size? Isn't that a bit much?” Rarity asked. “Remember when we moved the water from the reservoir to Cloudsdale? If we can build a tornado with at least eight hundred wingpower, then we should have enough kinetic energy to make this plan work. I know we can do this because we already have.” Twilight flew up to address the larger audience. “Alright, everypony! Here's what we're going to do. Rainbow Dash, take that comic book and drop it off in the Everfree forest. Don't take it too far because we don't want to endanger any other towns.” “Right.” Rainbow Dash took it and flew off. “Unicorns and any pony with medical training, dig through the rubble to free the trapped ponies and help them out. Earth ponies, start digging underground shelters in case this plan doesn't work. They're for foals and the injured first. Pegasus and Spike, you're with me. We're going to the training field to get this tornado started.” Twilight wrote up a list of the pegasus ponies and was checking it over as she flew past Spike who'd set up the anemometer. “Four point two wingpower. Not bad for a pony who just got her wings, right?” Twilight looked about in confusion. Who was he measuring? “Who'd first on your list?” Spike asked. “Thunderlane.” Thunderlane clocked in at an impressive eleven point seven wingpower. “That's excellent, Thunderlane. Good job.” Twilight wrote down the measurement and called out the next pony. While there wasn't any sickness going around, many pegasus were too injured to participate and they needed measurements to see if this plan could get off the ground, so to speak. Pony after pony clocked in and... “Who's next, Twilight?” Spike asked as she looked at her list. “That's it, Spike. Those are the pegasus who can still fly.” “And how's it look? Do you have enough wingpower?” “It looks bleak—” the sky went dark and all eyes turned towards the Everfree Forest “—very bleak.” Having sufficiently destroyed Tokyo, the peachnado emerged once again to threaten Ponyville. It seemed even larger, hungrier, and nastier than last time. The explosions were more frequent, and it was coming for them, and they had scant time left to prepare. “Twilight, aren't you forgetting somepony?” Spike poked her in the wings. A streak tore through the field and wind whipped everypony's mane out of shape as it blurred past. “Seventeen wingpower! That's a new record for you, Rainbow Dash!” “Yeah, I'm just as awesome as always,” Rainbow Dash boasted. “With that added on... I think we can do this! Everypony will have to push themselves to the limit, but we can do this! We can stop that tornado!” Twilight set down her clipboard and started hooking up the windmill to the anemometer so they could measure the power of their own tornado. “Listen up, everypony!” Rainbow Dash said as she got into position. “We're going to get up there and we're going to show that tornado who's boss. We can't let some freak exploding weather event get the best of us! So give it your all everypony. On the count of three—one—” they hunched in formation “—two—” they flared out their wings “—three!” Smoke billowed as they took to the air. Lines of ponies raced in to fill out the growing vortex. “Five hundred wingpower.” Twilight read off the gauge. “Seven hundred wingpower. Seven-fifty, seven ninety-five … seven ninety-five. Spike, they're stuck at seven ninety-five.” “Twilight, you're forgetting somepony!” Spike responded. “But Fluttershy's already up there.” “No, Twilight!” Spike grabbed her wing and pulled it in front of her. “YOU. You can fly too! So are you going to pull a Spitfire or are you actually going to DO SOMETHING!?” “Ow, Spike, I... You're right, Spike. I need to be up there. I got so caught up in organizing things that I forgot I could participate.” “TWILIGHT!” “Right, sorry. Going, going.” Twilight slapped on some goggles and flew into the tornado. “Seven ninety-nine. You're doing it, Twilight. You're almost there. Seven... ninety-nine. Come on! So close...” The peachnado wasn't waiting for them to finish their vortex. It sped towards Ponyville at a much faster pace then before. It had a schedule to keep, and it was making up for lost time. This rival tornado's winds were starting to interfere with the ponies, but they still held their incomplete vortex together, somehow. It would do them no good, though, if they couldn't breach eight hundred. They were getting tired, and once one pony faltered, the whole thing would collapse. As the destructive vortex grew closer, all hope seemed lost, but then something truly magical happened. A peach was thrown into the ponies' vortex. Twilight struggled to keep up with the pegasus. Her wings might be powerful, but she was still weak at using them. All of that changed when she saw the peach. All thoughts of tornadoes, ponies, and explosions faded from her mind. She must have that delicious, delectable fruit—she simply must. Fueled by pure gluttonous passion, Twilight pumped her wings harder than she ever had before, harder than she even thought possible. They burned with fiery agony but she forced them on anyway. She nearly collided with several other ponies as she passed them in her passion fruit pursuit. She was getting closer. With drool trailing behind her, she extended her lips in hot anticipation. In an instant, they touched. It was the barest of kisses: her pony lips, on the peach's fuzzy skin. A crosswind tore them apart, and Twilight wailed in tearful agony. “Eight hundred and eleven wingpower! That's almost as much as Rainbow Dash!” Spike looked at the gauge in disbelief. After hitting eight hundred wingpower, their tornado came alive. That barest of touches between pony and peach set the tone for what was to come. The peach turned a little redder, a little juicier, it was blushing. Physics be damned—there was another power at work here: the power of true love. “What's happening?!” Raindrops yelled. “We can't control it!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. Rather than merging and annihilating one another, the tornado full of peaches and the tornado full of ponies began a sinuous, seductive dance. They spun together in unity, in harmony, in love. They barreled across the remains of Ponyville, destroying what was left, and twisted off into the sunset, trailed by a baby suction vortex full of golden Fluttershy action figures. The End.