This is based on the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Which I totally own. Yeah. Own so much I am gonna charge people muffins for using it. This is not at all a lame joke to cover that I don't want to write it is the intellectual property of Hasbro. No sir!
Chapter Three: In which Dash connects the dots.
“And then” said the donkey carter, “the wind just stopped.” He brought his left front hoof down with a stomp. “Just like that.”
“Ya mean it died down?” asked Applejack, who had met the donkey couple as usual pulling their carts from Ponyville to Manehatten, filled with farm produce. Most in Ponyville sent their veggies to Canterlot. Those who didn't used the Shaft couple's services.
“No, I said stopped and meant stopped. The wind didn't slow down, it just wasn't there.”
“It took some while for the windmills to catch up, so they kept going on momentum a while. It was creepy – really creepy” said his wife. “The birds all stopped singing, and junior here thought he saw ghosts”. She indicated their colt, who flushed with anger.
“I didn't 'see ghosts'! I saw something real, it was a big shadow in the sky. Like a big bird!”
“Yes yes dear” said the jenny, clearly indicating she didn't believe a word of it.
“And where were ya when this happen, did ya say?” said Applejack.
“Well first I thought the weather reports were wrong again – they have been off a little – but by more now. I mean, unscheduled thunderstorm?” The mailmare chewed on her break muffin.
Pinkie nodded. “Yeah, it seems hard to mislay a thunderstorm. Unless you have as very cluttered house.” The mailmare smiled. Pinkie had no trouble following her gaze, which calmed her. Few managed that, so she didn't worry about Pinkie's other sides.
“And I was about to think that I would need to turn around pick up my raincoat at home, when I didn't because I had to think about the thunder.”
“Was the thunder wrong?” said Pinkie who had somehow produced a dicta-phone
“It wasn't there! You know there is always a gap between lightning and thunder, right?”
Pinkie nodded. “Except when you are where it strikes! Then they are there at the same time, flash bang!” she said. “Trust me, I know!” The mailmare choose to ignore the implications of this.
“It wasn't a big gap between it and the lightning, there was no thunder. It was silent lightning! Never seen that before. Heard it, I mean.” She poured some coffee after her muffin bite.
“So that's where it come from!” Pinkie mused into her dicta-phone
“What came from?”
Pinkie hastily spoke into the machine again: “Disregard that statement!” And then: “The saying – 'stealing my thunder'! By the way, disregard that statement as well!”
“Who are you speaking to?” said the mailmare confused.
“Twilight Sparkle!” said Pinkie happily.
Spike dumped the heap of newspapers on the table.
“These are the last.” Then he collapsed on the floor. Twilight smiled and started sorting them.
“Thank you, Spike!”
“From now on, Madam Boddoni at the newsagent thinks you are the best pony” Spike panted.
“Well, the work isn't over, Spike. Now we must read them all through, cut out anything that speaks about weather, note which date the paper was from, and put them into order.”
Spike groaned. “Why does this has to be so hard?!”
“Because there isn't a Ponyville newspaper, but any of the big newspapers in Canterlot or Manehatten could mention Ponyville, since they know Ponyvillians read them. So we need to check them all. Since they are all national newspapers, we can check for national weather trouble at the same time, and actually save some time. Take five, Spike, and then step on it!”
Spike groaned again.
“TIKKA-NIKKA-NIKK-TIKK-TAKK!”
“You don't say, Mr Woodpecker? That was awfully rude of that nuthatch! I mean, it probably had its reasons...” Fluttershy was always being dragged into various conflicts among animals, completely against her will. A naive pony would that thought that ever since ponydom came to control nature around it, to the degree that they even weaned predators off eating their friends (well, at least the warm-blooded ones), peace would reign in nature. Not so. Conflicts were constant.
“TAKKI-NAKKI-KIKK-TIKK-NAKK!”
“So it started raining when the chickens had guaranteed it wouldn't, that's why you had the quarrel to start with.” Domestic animals tended to carry news to the “wilder” ones, truly wild animals being nonexistent outside Everfree Forest and inside Equestria.
“TIKKI-TIKKA-NIKKA-KNAKKI-TAKK-TAKK!”
“But then the rain started drifting north, and there was no wind? Well, that is strange... Where were you then?”
“TIKK-TIKK-TAKK-TAKK-NOKKA-NIKKA-NAKK!”
“Over the hill with the old bole with the ants but on this side of the stream that has a lot of round stones?” Animals weren't much for proper names for anything.
“NOKK-NOKK-TOKK-TAKK-TIKK-KIKKA-KAKKA-KIKK!”
“And then... the blueberry sauntered slicing anthropoid splotches? What?”
“TIKK! NYKKA-NIKKA-TIKK-KAKK-TIKKA-NIKK-NIKK!”
“Oh, you found a worm, sorry. I thought you were making conversation...”
“It's scandalous, is what it is!” The little old unicorn mare waved her umbrella telekinetically, keeping her mouth free to be loud.
“Oh, it is most rude, I agree” said Rarity dodging the umbrella while holding the box of scarves the old mare technically was there to inspect and then decide were too expensive. Rarity knew her customers, and the only reason Meadow Flowers shopped these days was to chat. She would never admit this, however. Rarity had known that letting the gossip in with a comment about something exactly for her would start her talking at once.
“They keep moving these things at night and not avoiding the village completely, so they wake you up!”
“Oh, there were more than you?” Rarity asked and held up a silver-embroidered black shawl.
“Certainly! Three of the mares in my sewing circle! Though I assume Rose Garden just claimed it to make herself sound important...” The old unicorn laughed hard at that. Rarity kept her smile.
“When was it? All the same night?” she asked innocently.
“Oh no... let's see, the first time was the day after the Flower sisters had that incident outside their house...” Meadow Flowers switched for another line of gossip. Rarity hoped she would get back soon, her horn was getting tired of waving shawls around.
“Thanks chief for the help” said Rainbow Dash, not really used to feeling grateful, especially not to Beaufort Scale. “And thanks for the time off.”
“Don't spend it all playing detective!” the old green pegasus grumbled. “And you weren't of much use when you tried to work last week. It's better you take the time off.” Rainbow Dash laughed weakly. He looked at her seriously.
“Don't let it get to you. Nopony blames you. It wasn't your fault. Well, not in that way. It was your fault, but you have done your part to correct it, and nopony has any right to blame you any longer.”
Rainbow Dash looked at her co-workers, who had avoided her. “It doesn't feel that way, chief” she said quietly.
“'Nopony' includes you, Dash” said Mr Scale gruffly. “'Nopony' includes you.”
Having gathered in Twilight's library that evening, the Elements of Harmony compared notes and memories and dictaphones (the statements were duly disregarded) and Twilight used a marker to draw little arrows all over the map Rainbow Dash had gotten from mr Scale. What direction (if possible, otherwise she made the little arrow go in two directions), what time, and what day. When everyone else had done their thing, Twilight gave the marker to Rarity and picked up her binder with clippings.
“First – there are indeed a number of angry letters about the weather. Most complain about small things, that's probably why it didn't bother someone like you, Applejack, who is more seriously affected by weather.” Twilight rattled off a number of somewhat incomplete data, half of which matched the angry old mares' statements Rarity had collected.
“A fearsome force indeed” said Pinkie. “What would happen, I mean, if some dastardly villain could channel the power of the little angry old lady?!” She was speaking into the dicta-phone again.
“Then, there are reports outside Ponyville... which are like this.” Twilight held up the almost empty pages of this part of the binder, with only a couple of clippings. “Unscheduled smog in Manehatten, drought in Appleloosa – that can't have anything to do with this.”
“Yeah” said Spike “that was a pity! All that job for nothing!” Twilight shook her head.
“Oh no! Sometimes it is important to know that something doesn't exist as well! Now we know that it is a local Ponyville thing.” Everyone fell silent.
“You know, that doesn't mean someone from Ponyville did it, just that it is only happening here. Ahem. And then we have the final thing I found, which is a dozy.” She turned to the last page of the binder and read from the luridly-colored clipping glued there:
“SWINEHERD SPOTS SPACEPONIES – UFO OVER PONYVILLE – THEY ARE HERE, AND THEY WANT OUR PIGS!”
“What” said Rarity.
“Spaceponies!” shouted Pinkie Pie.
“Where's that from?” said Rainbow Dash. Twilight grinned impishly.
“Equestria Daily, three days ago!” The library groaned collectively. Rainbow Dash facehoofed.
“Twilight, ED claims Soarin' is really a disguised griffon. They might be fun to read but they are manure. It ain’t flying saucers stealing our weather.”
“To be fair to ED, it doesn't talk about flying saucers, but UFOs” said Twilight.
“Aren't those the same?” said Rarity. Twilight shook her head, and Pinkie held up a hoof and jumped up and down.
“Oooh! I know! I know!”
“Go on Pinkie, tell the rest of the class” said Applejack.
“Well, a flying saucer is when you have a spaceship with spaceponies who will land and make crop circles or stuff. But a UFO, that just means you see something up there which you don't recognize!” Twilight nodded.
“And Scuffle Truffle, the swineherd they mentioned, who lives outside Ponyville, did really see something in the sky that he couldn't say what it was. 'A cloud moving too fast, faster when them pegasuses pull 'em!' Like a stolen cloud!” The others pondered this, and Rarity looked sourly at Applejack.
“You have been looking smug a while, so you know more!” she said. “I am so curious!” Applejack giggled.
“Yeah, sorry. Twilight sent a message to me an' Ah went out and talked to Scuffle Truffle. An old friend of ma Pa's. He was really angry what them city-slickers wrote in their paper, but he did see the cloud, an' his pigs confirmed it. They could say where it was as well.” Applejack borrowed the marker and drew an arrow on the map, far away from any other arrow.
“So, Rainbow Dash, what do you make of this?” Twilight said.
“Me? I'm not good at this thinking thing...”
“You are the one who knows weather, darling” said Rarity.
“Yeah, this is like cops do when they look for burglars!” Pinkie said. “You have to use your weatherly knowledge to say: how could the have moved all this swag after they took it.”
Rainbow looked a little helpless. Applejack stuck the marker in her muzzle.
“Here, sugarcube. Go on ahead. Do some graffiti.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. Then... she started to draw. Everyone was silent, even Pinkie Pie. Lines grew and shapes formed on the map, and it took Rainbow Dash maybe an hour, but when she was done...
“It looks little like a fleeing squid!” said Pinkie Pie.
“It makes one big fat arrow!” said Appejack. “Every single one piece of weather adrift is goin' in one direction, an' then they turn north-west where Scuffle Truffle an' his hogs saw the 'UFO'.” Rainbow Dash nodded and planted a hoof at the map.
“Towards Shuttlecock Mountain. And behind it you could hide everything in the stores of Cloudsdale's weather factory, and no one would see it!”
“Because there is this strange weather stationed there permanently!” said Pinkie and made a little dance.
“And because of the angle from Ponyville!” said Rarity.
“Great job, Rainbow Dash!” said Twilight and smiled. Rainbow Dash beamed with brash pride, her usual expression, for the first time in a long while.
“Of course!” she said. “I'm the greatest!” Then she reared and plunged. “So, expedition to Shuttlecock Mountain starts tomorrow?” The others nodded.
“I can find someone to mind the store” said Rarity.
“I can get time off!” said Pinkie Pie. “I'll bring food! And a loudspeaker!”
“I'll get some serious packin', and the family can mind the farm for two days. Back and forth shouldn't take longer.” The apple farmer nodded.
“Why a loudspeaker?” said Twilight, then added: “And sure, I and Spike will come too.”
Fluttershy, cleared her throat and failed. She spoke up anyway.
“How many are there?” The others grew silent.
“What do you mean darling?” asked Rarity.
“How many thieves, I mean, not that I know much but... they have to be more than one. Look at all things they moved, and how fast. I mean, sorry Rainbow Dash, not even you could fly that fast carrying a whole thundercloud by yourself.” The others pondered her words.
“How many weather thieves are there?”