Majija: Under the Weather

by Plonq

Rallying The Troops

The rain did little do cool Rainbow Dash’s temper as she pumped her wings, willing her way through the onslaught of wind and fat, heavy droplets. The nearer she got to the clouds, the worse the situation looked. It had been clear from the ground that the pegasi were in a state of chaos, but now she was close enough to make out the sordid details. She watched Flitter bounce ineffectively off a cloud, while another pegasus plunged through a second one without leaving a trace. Moments later, two more of them emerged from the overcast at different angles and ran headlong into each other.

Dash gave a snort of annoyance when she saw the two hovering in place, rubbing their foreheads and apparently arguing over who was at fault. The discussion included much gesturing and hoof-pointing. She watched the scene before her with a growing sense of disbelief; it was as if the sky ponies had forgotten everything they knew about controlling weather during the night. She witnessed more collisions and arguments before she spied a familiar figure loitering aimlessly nearby.

“Cloudchaser! Yo, Cloudchaser!” she called, swooping over to the other pony. As she drew closer, the other mare turned to look at her and Rainbow Dash gasped at the state of her. Cloudchaser was soaked to the bone. Though her mane was normally perky, it now hung down straight, dripping in the rain, and obscuring half of her face as if she was too tired to notice or bother pushing it back. She was panting for breath, and her eyes brimmed with tears as if she had been been crying recently.

“Rainbow Dash, oh thank goodness you’re here,” she said, almost sobbing with relief. “These clouds. There’s something… they’re… they’re not right!” she stammered between gasps for breath.

“Well, I’ll say they’re not right,” said Rainbow Dash. She made a sweeping gesture with her hoof in the general direction of the overcast. “Not right as in they’re not supposed to be here! Am I the only pony here who remembers our team meeting from yesterday?” The other mare shook her head violently. “That’s what I thought,” continued Dash. “There was that whole sunny tomorrow with one or two puffy clouds for decoration thing that everypony seems to have forgotten.” She crossed her forelegs across her chest and glowered disapprovingly.

“No!” said the other mare with enough uncharacteristic vigour to set Rainbow dash aback. “The clouds themselves aren't right. They don’t act like clouds should. One moment they’re solid, and then they’re like air. They move on their own, and they fight back.”

Dash looked pensive for a moment, and then she sighed and flew up to within a few inches of the cloud bank. She uncrossed her forelegs and gave it an experimental poke with her hoof, and it deformed in the usual way. She frowned and shrugged. “It’s just a cloud,” she said. She put her hooves together in front of her chest and cracked her joints menacingly. “It looks to me like you just need somepony to remind us that we’re pegasi. Time to inspire the troops.”

She launched herself around into a large, backward arc and sailed gracefully on outstretched wings until she was flying straight up toward the clouds. As she had planned, the manoeuvre caught the attention of the ponies around her. Sometimes there were advantages to having a mane and tail in bright, eye-catching colours - other than the sheer awesomeness of it,that is. She heard scattered calls of, “It’s Dash,” and “It’s Dashie!” and in spite of her irritation, it brought her a touch of warmth. "Darned right, it's Dashie," she thought, breaking into a self-satisfied grin. It was nice to be acknowledged, and she definitely worked best with an audience. She stretched her hooves before her, pressed together like a diver leaping into a pond, and she plunged upward into the clouds.

A few moments later she broke through into bright, cheery sunshine, but as Rainbow Dash glanced back she nearly skipped a beat with her wings. If the clouds had looked ominous from below, from above they looked downright menacing. She flipped around upright and hovered over the clouds, watching them roil and shift like the freaky smoke in one of Zecora’s cauldrons. Cloudchaser’s admonishment of, “they’re not right!” echoed in her ears. No – they were just clouds; a little menacing perhaps, but just clouds. Another pegasus emerged through the cloud deck, followed by a third. Dash bided her time, buffing a hoof on her chest aloofly until the entire weather crew had emerged from below.

“OK, now let’s show them how this is done,” she muttered. "Time to do it the Rainbow way." She acknowledged her audience with a sweep of her hoof, then gave her wings a few extra pumps and began a leisurely, vertical rise. She kept it slow to increase the drama, and also to give the other ponies a chance to catch their breath. It was clear to her that the others were tired and frustrated. They were better than the comedic display she had seen when she first arrived. She knew that all they needed was for somepony to get things started for them, and they could take care of the rest. As she rose, she gauged her height by the relative size of the other pegasi.

“High enough,” she thought. Though Rainbow Dash would have preferred a proper fanfare, or at least a drum roll, she opted to create her own soundtrack for the next move. “Yeeeeeah!” she yelled, partly out of the sheer joy of flying, but also to grab any attentions that had waned. She pulled up hard and stalled, allowing herself to keel left into a spinning dive. The move drew a gasp from the spectators below, since a stall was considered to be a cocky manoeuvre, even for skilled fliers.

Rather than attempt to pull out of the spin, Rainbow Dash tucked in her wings and legs so that she would spin faster. As her dive picked up speed, so did her RPMs. Around the midway point, she became grateful that she had skipped breakfast. At the moment of her top speed and rotation, she spread her wings wide and plunged into the clouds. The vortex she created around herself shredded and dispersed them as if they were mere vapour, and by the time she cleared them again on land side, she had opened a hole at least thirty ponies across.

“Yes!” she shouted, pumping her hoof with glee. “That’s how it’s…” She froze, mouth agape and eyes wide in disbelief as the clouds closed the opening again as quickly as it had formed. She’d have achieved about as much success if she had plunged her foreleg into a pond. “… done,” she finished softly to nopony in particular. She flew back up through the ceiling of cloud to rejoin the other ponies above. They all started talking at once as she came into view. “Like we said … happening all morning … keep closing up … moving back in …”

“They’re just clouds!” thundered Rainbow Dash, silencing them before they could get too worked up. She had felt her confidence waver slightly when the hole had closed up behind her, but her annoyance brought it rushing back. “If they’re clouds, we can move them. Seriously guys, that’s what we do.”

“But…” began Flitter, but Rainbow Dash cut her off quickly with a brusque wave of her hoof and a shake of her head.

“No buts,” she said. “You saw that my vortex worked, right?” There was a bit of muttering, but most of them nodded in agreement after a moment. “Well, we just need to make a bigger one,” continued Rainbow Dash. “If we work together, we can have those pesky clouds out of here before noon. Are you with me?” she yelled.

“Yes,” came a halfhearted reply from the pegasi around her.

“Are we pegasi?” she yelled.

“Yes!” came a louder reply.

“Are we weather ponies?”

“Yes!” The reply was louder again.

“Are we the best weather ponies in all of Equestria?” she cried. It was a silly question; of course they were.

“Yes!” bellowed the other ponies, pumping hooves in the air and clapping each other on the backs.

Rainbow Dash felt the energy building. “You’re on a roll, Dashie.” She thought, giving herself a mental pat on her own back. “Are we going to let these dumb clouds get the better of us?” she yelled.

“Yes … NO!” replied the other pegasi, catching themselves quickly.

“Now, are you with me?” she yelled again.

"YES!" came the thunderous reply.

Suddenly Rainbow Dash felt hooves on her, and a moment later she was on her back, supported from beneath by at least three sets of hooves. "Dash! Dash! Dash!" chanted the pegasi as they hoisted her aloft. After her initial shock faded, she allowed herself a moment of smug satisfaction.

The rainbow pegasus buffed her chest and thought, "Now this is more like it." Even though her vortex had failed, it had planted the seeds of an idea that she was sure would work. It would take a bit of work and coordination, but she was confident in her prediction of having the sky clear by noon.

---

If there was one thing pegasus ponies were good at, it was creating wind, and their training from the Cloudsdale tornado quickly kicked in. Dash had sketched out the plain in great detail, so with very little prompting or guidance, they broke out into their teams and were hovering in their start positions in short order. “Ponies, on my mark,” called Rainbow Dash when she was satisfied with their positioning. “Three, two, one … GO!”

Dozens of pairs of wings picked up their intensity, and the ponies began to move. They circled slowly at first, jockeying to find their preferred spots, but with each rotation, the column of ponies picked up speed. At first nothing seemed to happen, but as the column rotated faster and faster, a dimple formed in the clouds below them. The dimple quickly became a stalagmite of cloud, and soon it became a column, spinning and twisting as the vortex tugged it relentlessly. The column swelled upward as more cloud rushed in to fill the gap that had been sucked clear.

“Using your own trick against you,” said Rainbow Dash with a self-satisfied smirk. By design, the column slowly arced away as it cleared the top of the vortex. The idea was to put the clouds “Anywhere but here” as Dash had explained it rather eloquently in her pre-mission briefing. She glanced up at the swirling tube of cloud and allowed herself to feel a bit smug again. “Easy-peasy,” she thought. “Just a couple more minutes of this and…”

From somewhere lower down in the column a pony gave a shriek of fear, followed by another. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Now what?” She glanced down and saw that the other ponies were looking up, wide-eyed at something above her. The mare glanced over her shoulder to follow their gaze, and felt her pounding heart threatening to rise up her own throat.

The arc of cloud above them had continued to bend until it was curved back around on itself, and it was bunching up at the end, looking for all Equestria like a giant hoof that was poised to stomp.