//------------------------------// // 9 - The Storm // Story: Predictions & Prophecies // by Kinrah //------------------------------// Wednesday morning. Wake up, bathe, breakfast. Tidy library. Prepare checklist set for restocking stationery as required. Receive mail from Ditzy Doo, promise to give Dinky another session practicing Share later, read latest news in Canterlot Star. Head out to Quills and Sofas for new quills as required. Restock parchment and ink as required. Visit Sweetie Belle, check on her hoof, apologize profusely to her parents. Visit Rainbow Dash nearby, make sure she didn’t get mobbed in the night. Visit weather patrol HQ, check with Snow Veil, rain planned for later. Stop off at Carousel Boutique, update Rarity about the previous day’s shenanigans. Stop off at indoor market, buy some fruit, chat with Applejack. Detour to Sugarcube Corner, get some snacks, endure weirdness from Pinkie Pie. Head back to library. After the dream had ended, and Twilight woke up in a cold sweat, the rest of the night had been fairly uneventful, and what remaining sleep she got was quiet. Her second wake-up call came from a letter delivered by a sleeping dragon, which sought to alleviate the concerns she hadn’t yet remembered about Princess Luna; her vanishing act had come about as she was ejected from the dream as it destabilized. That, at least, had a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation. She would do her best to track down the pony whose dream she couldn’t enter, but feared that it may be the equivalent of tracking down a needle in a haystack made of needles. (Or at least that’s what she probably meant to say. After having had her language patterns desynchronized by a thousand years, she was doing well with her diction, but she still had trouble with metaphors.) Using the library floor as a workspace was, she decided with the benefit of sleep on her side, not one of her brightest ideas. There had been sound theory behind starting it but it had very quickly spiraled out of her control towards simply becoming an obstruction. There were multiple ways to go about looking at things from a distance, and that was evidently the wrong way. Fortunately with Spike’s assistance, it was pretty easy to transfer the diagram in its entirety to the blackboard and return the downstairs floor to a workable state. As she had to keep reminding herself, it was technically a public building. Tree. Whatever. And of course, since she’d wasted a whole pot of ink just writing out all the cards in the first place, and broke two quills due to overexcitement, she needed to replace them. That was fine. Twilight got along well with the stationery salesponies, Davenport in Quills and Sofas and Bee Pencil in the other stationery shop (thinking about it on a tangent, she couldn’t actually recall ever seeing its name), and actually got slight discounts for being one of their best customers. She could pick up a ream of parchment, too, while she was at it. There were duplicate checklists filed away for the purchase of writing implements, since she always burned through them quickly as part of her studies. Some slight adjustment to one of those, done and done. Wednesday was the day the Canterlot Star published, so that was what Ditzy Doo brought to the door when the mail rolled around, as usual not a second late. Not that there was anything likely interesting in it, though; Twilight gathered it had been a slow news week in the city, and Rainbow Dash’s rainboom of the previous day was unlikely to even make a small column due to the recent frequency of them. It had been big news after the Young Flyers Competition, and even bigger news eleven years ago, but now they were barely worth mentioning. “Morning, Twilight Sparkle!” Ditzy chirped, pulling said paper from her mailbag. “One copy of the Canterlot Star, and a thanks for looking after Dinky yesterday ‘cause I forgot about it till this morning.” “Actually, Dinky was in Fluttershy’s group,” Twilight said. “Though I’m told she was a model student throughout the trip, even after it… got cut short a little.” Ditzy waved a hoof at her. “Aw, details. She had fun, and that’s what counts, right?” You couldn’t help but smile at that. “Yes, I suppose it is.” The pegasus turned, and got a couple of steps before apparently remembering something and spinning back. One of her eyes continued whirling. “Oh yeah. Dinky wanted me to ask you if you wouldn’t mind trying again to teach her that spell you showed her last week.” It took a few seconds for Twilight to run through the loose schedule for the day. The morning would be spent shopping, but the afternoon should be free, excepting any prophecy-related stuff happening which no doubt it would. “Sure,” she eventually decided. “If you want to bring her over at about one-ish, I’ll be free.” “One-ish. Gotcha.” As predicted, the Canterlot Star didn’t contain much in the way of notable news, opting instead for the usual April sales advertisements and fashion faux-pas articles, so she was slightly ahead of schedule when she left for the morning’s shopping. First stop: Quills and Sofas, where Davenport was all too happy to sell her some new quills, and would she possibly be looking to maybe look into buying a sofa? Her refusal was polite but firm. The math had already been done, and there was no room in the library for a sofa, or even a settee, without sacrificing shelf space, which was much more valuable. Bee Pencil in The Other Stationery Shop was similarly amicable but minus the specificity, so she had the offer of things like geometry sets, charcoal, and, rather bizarrely, Princess Celestia-shaped erasers in addition to the ink and paper Twilight was already purchasing. While she was in the area, she decided to knock at the house of Magnum and Betty Bouffant to see how Sweetie Belle’s hoof was holding up. Zecora’s remedy would have fixed the crack almost immediately, but it would still be sore for a few days so she had strict instructions not to do anything strenuous, or at the very least nothing which would involve much running around or jumping up and down (so in other words, no crusading). Despite that, though, she seemed perfectly content with getting the day off school (conveniently forgetting that all the foals got the day off school due to repairwork to the schoolhouse). Her parents were making a fuss of her as parents tended to do, and stubbornly refused to accept Twilight’s apology for losing track of their daughter. “Foals do these things,” they said, “and she’s learned her lesson.” She suspected they might be singing a different tune if Sweetie Belle hadn’t turned up at all, but you had to work with what you got, and she had been found, so all was well. Another thought that occurred to her, as she caught a glimpse of a rainbowfall being tugged across the sky, was that of Rainbow Dash. The pegasus had been in a slightly better mood when Twilight and the others had left yesterday, but that of course wasn’t speaking for the rest of the suspended weather team, who Snow Veil said she was going to make a personal visit to each and every one of them. If Rainbow was pulling her house right across the middle of town without any effort made to conceal it then things must have presumably improved, if only a little. “Rainbow Dash!” A rainbow maned head popped out from behind the cloudominium. “Oh, hey Twilight.” Sometimes the only practical way of talking to pegasi was to just raise your voice. “How are things with the weather patrol this morning?” “Ughh.” Rainbow rolled her eyes dramatically. “I mean, better, I guess. Snow Veil made ‘em promise not to blame me for Wind Chime’s decision but it’s gonna be a while before we can work as a team again. Did you get anything from the Princess?” Oh, right, the letter. “Earliest she can schedule for is likely next week,” Twilight explained. At Rainbow’s groan she continued. “In the meantime she wants you and the team to be tolerant of the replacements.” Rainbow huffed. “Yeah, that’s gonna go down well. Is she sure she can’t do something, like, today?” Twilight opened her mouth, but got cut off. “I know, I know, she’s busy, can’t drop everything, so on, so on. I’m just gonna get really bored.” “Well, if you’re interested, yesterday afternoon the library got a copy of the third Young Daring Do spinoff book…” That got her attention. “Seriously?” “Super-seriously.” Ever since the hospital incident Rainbow had become very bribable with Daring Do literature and merchandise. “Fine, you got a deal. I’m coming over later and it better be there.” “Already reserved it in your name.” A smirk spread across the pegasus’s face. “Are you sure you didn’t prophesize that, too?” Actually, Twilight was pretty sure Rainbow would have been at the library within 24 hours regardless of whether she specifically had mentioned it or not. When Daring Do and the Trek to the Terrifying Tower had been published, the unicorn had woken up to the pegasus plastered all over one of the downstairs windows, having apparently sleep-flown there so she could be the first one to read it. Rainbow Dash didn’t need a prophecy; she was just predictable. There was one more matter Twilight wanted to ask about, and she quickly moved on to that topic before Rainbow could abscond. “Before you go, do you know what the weather’s going to be today? Everypony I’ve passed this morning seems to be unsure.” “Ughh.” The expression dropped back into annoyance. “I’m not allowed to know so I don’t try to help. Those guys may have been hoof-picked but they know nothing about telling anypony.” That was her next destination, then, the Weather Patrol Headquarters in the park. A couple of the Ponyville team were loitering in the vicinity, not maliciously, but rather more hopeful than anything else. Trying not to make eye contact, Twilight stepped up the path and knocked on the door. To her slight relief, it was opened by Snow Veil, rather than one of the other replacements she hadn’t met yet. In her words, the schedule wasn’t fully approved yet (wasn’t this what Wind Chime had been annoyed with in the first place?) but it had been decided that there was going to be a shower later. Wonderful. There was still plenty of time before that was to begin, though, so she had time to finish her shopping, but around the time that Dinky would be showing up it would be getting very wet outside. Since Carousel Boutique was on the way back to the main part of town, Twilight made a spur-of-the-moment decision to stop for a moment and talk to Rarity. Despite her disapproval for Sweetie Belle’s going on the trip in the first place, she ought to know what had happened if she didn’t already. If she were to be kept out of the loop there somepony (meaning Twilight) would get shouted at. In fact, adding her to the loop was probably going to earn her some shouting anyway. Rarity had reached a not-quite-Applejack-on-Apple-Bloom-level of sibling overprotection since the Sisterhooves Social. As it turned out, she was one hundred percent correct. “Oh, Twilight! What if they’d never been found again?!” “Rarity, that’s what I—” “Ooh, it sounds like it was just horrid down there!” The fashionista shivered. “So dark, and dirty, and labyrinthine…” “Rarity.” “To think it would be that easy to get lost down there… it would be the worst—” “Rarity!” Rarity shook her head. “I… I’m sorry, darling, I let that get away from me.” Twilight put a hoof on her back and smiled. “Happens to the best of us, Rarity. But everything turned out good in the end. Well, mostly.” “Yes…” Rarity picked up the teacup she’d almost dropped when Twilight had first started speaking. Alas, tea for Twilight would have to wait until she returned to the library. “I must thank Zecora when I next see her, and perhaps Sweetie Belle will be more respectful of why I frequently have my hooves cleaned and cared for professionally.” Well, doubtless Sweetie Belle would be back up and about in no time at all. Foals bounced back quickly, especially the Crusaders. They just wouldn’t stop. At this point, it didn’t even seem like finally getting their cutie marks would stop them. “Oh,” Rarity added, “That reminds me. Would you mind if I stopped over the library later? I seem to recall seeing an intriguing title last time I was there but I hadn’t the time to read it. Something about hoof accoutrements of the 9th century…?” It only took Twilight a moment to run through the library catalogue in her head. Of course she’d memorized the whole thing. She’d read the whole thing. “Accoutrements, Bracers and Cuffs: An ABC of hoof and sleeve decorations in the 9th century. No, of course I don’t mind.” Oh, right. “Just so you know, the replacement weather team let me know there’s going to be a shower later.” Hardly anypony in town didn’t know of Rarity’s dislike of rain. “Joy of joys. Thank you for telling me.” Dinky, Rainbow Dash, Rarity. The library was going to get busy later. Not as busy as its busiest had been, of course, it took Pinkie Pie to build up a crowd that strong, but nevertheless. As there was going to be rain later, she might as well bump forward her snack shopping trip from Thursday. Usually that meant heading to the market, but the rain necessitated the indoor market being trialled in the town hall. Some fruit, some vegetables, and then maybe a trip up the road to Sugarcube Corner for some sweeter treats. Spike should have come with her, Twilight thought. He was usually happy to be of assistance carrying shopping. She could carry it all in her magic, though, so going back to the library now wasn’t necessary. It was… crowded in the town hall, for lack of a better word. Mayor Mare may have had the best intentions when announcing the testing of an indoor market, but despite the building’s impressive interior size for an exterior that appeared small, it really wasn’t big enough to fit the entire marketplace at once. Twilight would have been willing to aid in the logistics of it if only the Mayor would ask. She tried not to butt into things if she could help it. Locating Applejack amongst the melee was easy enough, the giant apple sign above her stall acting as a beacon. Reaching her was another matter entirely. The sea of ponies swarming to buy and sell their merchandise threatened to swallow her up if she wasn’t careful. One wrong step and she, along with a number of other ponies, would plant their faces into the floor. Fortunately for the unicorn, though, it still paled in comparison to Canterlot during the Summer Sun Celebration. Applejack didn’t have a lot to say on the recent matters, mostly because she was trying to field sales to several ponies at once, but she took her usual stance of not rushing headlong into things, giving a word of caution about keeping an eye on Rainbow Dash, and darnit Emerald Green I said the golden deliciouses were two bits each. Not wanting to cause too much disruption, Twilight finished the conversation and transaction as quickly and politely as possible before excusing herself and fighting back through the crowd towards the doors. And she managed it without slipping over on the cabbages that had been spilt across the floor, too. That had to be some kind of record. Normally, Sugarcube Corner was just as busy (well, in terms of queues out the door rather than an impenetrable throng), but this being mid-morning, it was just the couple of regulars on the outside benches and a few ponies who had missed breakfast. Mrs Cake was all too happy to prepare a box of assorted baked goods for Twilight, Pound and Pumpkin Cake appeared behind the baby gate to say hello, and the unicorn was just about to leave when she noticed Pinkie Pie, or the conspicuous absence of. She could hear her, there was no mistaking that cheerful humming, and she sounded nearby, but Mrs Cake was the only pony behind the counter, there was an insufficient pinkness quotient at the tables, and the humming lacked the muffled quality that might indicate her being trapped in the basement again. Then something dripped on her nose, and she looked up. “Pinkie Pie?!” Pinkie craned her neck to look down, and waved the wet cloth at her, sending more droplets everywhere. “Hi, Twilight!” What… why… there were just no words. The pink pony appeared to be completely unsupported up there, her hooves just dangling into the air. “Why are you up there?!” “Well, I’m cleaning the ceiling, silly! The fact that I’m getting weird Pinkie Sense signals meaning I’m stuck up here is a complete coincidence. Well, actually no, I’m cleaning the ceiling because I’m stuck up here and it saves Mr Cake embarrassing himself with the ladder again. Eh, makes the same.” That explained the bucket strapped to her side, and the cloth… Twilight tried to ignore all the warning flags ‘Pinkie Sense’ was bringing up and failed. “I’m sorry… what?” “I got a doozy twinge earlier and it surprised me so much I flew straight up here! I totally didn’t see it coming!” As if to prove her point, Pinkie spasmed. “Ooh, that tickles! And of course a doozy twinge means somepony’s gonna get a really big surprise! I hope it’s me!” Doozy. Warning flag the size of Canterlot Mountain right there. A hydra had been involved during the last doozy. “So… why are you still up there?” With a splash, the cloth dropped into the bucket. Twilight ducked. “You know that fun game you play where you rub a balloon across a carpet and then it sticks to things?” “…Static cling?” “Yeah! That’s the weird part, though.” Pinkie rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Normally when my mane goes all like that and I start getting my head stuck to things it means I’ve missed something, or somepony’s missed something really important, like a flyer for free cupcakes! Free cupcakes are srs bzns. Anyway, I’ve never had this combo before, and it doesn’t make any sense! So somepony’s gonna get a surprise, but they’ve already missed getting that surprise? How does that work?” It was probably a bad idea to bring up how Pinkie Sense made no sense most of the time. Twilight glanced off to the side, and momentarily locked gaze with Mrs Cake, who was shaking her head slowly; don’t ask how. Side-stepping the issue of how exactly Pinkie was able to generate static cling in her hair, the unicorn tried to work it out anyway. She just couldn’t help it. “Are you sure that it’s not just a pony being surprised by something other ponies have already been surprised by?” “Oh, nonono, that’s the same as ‘late to the party’ and that’s an itchy neck. I don’t really get that one that often though. Hmm. It could be that somepony was surprised by something once and totally forgot about being surprised by it until suddenly they’re surprised by it again. I’ll have to write this one down somewhere. Staticky mane and doozy quiver, a missed surprise that’ll make you shiver! No, that’s not it. Doozy quiver and staticky mane, things will never be the same! Staticky ends with ‘icky’ and that’s not the message at all, so drop that…” As Pinkie was showing no signs of stopping, even for breath, Twilight took the moment to slip out unnoticed. She had enough to worry about without bringing Pinkie Sense into the equation. ‘A surprise that a pony will get but has already been missed.’ There was a fine line between legitimate Pinkie Sense (ugh), completely innocuous twitches, and things Pinkie was interpreting wrong. Chances were it didn’t even apply to the situation at hoof anyway. She’d lost track of the amount of times Pinkie had twitched, Twilight had prepared for the worst only for the predicted situation to happen to another pony entirely. She felt a certain amount of relief when she returned to the library. Most of the Ponyville Weird Things happened outside its walls. It was safe. It was home. The rain had just started falling when the first visitor arrived, Rarity, who took a moment to shake off her umbrella before committing her entry to the tree. “It seems I arrived just in time,” she mused, joining Twilight at one of the windows. “Shower or not, it’s not pleasant out there.” “Spare a thought for the ponies who have to keep it in check,” Twilight said. And the ponies who should have been keeping it in check, she added to herself. When she got there, Rainbow Dash was not going to be a happy bunny. A week without being able to do one of the things she did best… it was going to be hard preventing her from going stir-crazy for one day, let alone at least a week. Daring Do would only last so long. If Rainbow hadn’t discovered the intrigue of the series, Ponyville probably wouldn’t last. Though then again, if she hadn’t discovered it, there would be a significantly less amount of awkwardly worded, Mare-Sue-ish fanfiction going around. Rarity had barely been shown to the history shelf when Ditzy and Dinky turned up, slightly wetter but fortunately no worse for the wear. As she hadn’t quite gotten the coat-drying spell down pat yet, Twilight went and got a couple of towels for them; Ditzy’s saddlebags would have to stay wet for the moment. Having a wet coat was immensely distracting even if you weren’t trying to cast a spell, and the towel was a much better alternative than simply shaking dry in a place where water damage was a real concern. Time and time again Twilight had made mental notes to install some kind of cover on the shelves nearest the door, just to prevent any accidents from occurring, but at that point she’d have to put covers on all the other bookshelves, and that would just mean an extra shattered pane of glass when Rainbow Dash inevitably came crashing through the window. Speaking of, while the mother and daughter were drying themselves, she wandered over to the weatherpony’s favorite access point and looked out. No sign of her out there yet… With any luck she’d be considerate enough not to be breaking and entering while it was raining. Well, there was no harm in having the book with Reconstitution out just in case. It paid to be prepared for the most likely eventualities. “Before we start,” Twilight began, sitting down to a now mostly-dry unicorn foal, “Have you been practicing this past week?” Dinky nodded. “Mm-hm! I’ve been practicing lots!” Her face fell slightly. “I set fire to a muffin.” “Oh dear. Do you know where you went wrong?” “Um…” Twilight looked up at Ditzy, then over at Spike on the stairs, whose eyes hadn’t left his reading material. “Feel free to find a book or something. I think Spike’s going to be making tea when he’s finished with his comic book.” Ditzy’s leg sprung up in a salute and its movement was only arrested by magic an inch or so away from her eye. “…Oops.” She giggled. “My mistake.” “Momma, you really need to be more careful.” Mother and daughter stuck their tongues out at each other. Twilight could only let out a light chuckle. Her relationship with her own mother had been… somewhat different. There were more books involved on her side, and her mother had the benefit of already having dealt with a young teenage stallion. And then there was Princess Celestia, whom Twilight had considered, much more when she was younger, a second mother. Things hadn’t really changed that much in eleven years, aside from the obvious changes that naturally came about as she grew and learned more. Life had had its fair share of highs and lows, triumphs and embarrassments. Dinky’s no doubt would be full of the same. When Dinky found the words to explain it, the burning muffin incident turned out to be a simple mistake; a slight error with the matrix and the incomplete Share had discharged on the nearest non-living object it could find. Twilight herself had done it many times. Once, she’d managed to set fire to Princess Celestia’s tiara; while the alicorn found it very amusing, the guards hadn’t. Naturally, Twilight had been mortified, but stopped panicking when the Princess dumped a bucket of water over her own head to put it out, and the two had laughed it off. It was her patience that the unicorn now sought to emulate while teaching a spell to another unicorn slightly younger than she would have been. An hour was spent back and forth, Twilight giving encouragement, Dinky not-quite-casting Share, and a few fuzzy images transferred. Much like the previous week, Twilight didn’t expect her to master it; like most spells, Share became harder to cast the more ponies it was being cast for, and like most learning situations, jumping in at the deep end only gave you more problems. It was progress. No Rainbow Dash. As they took a short break for tea, now that Spike had finished, spotted Rarity, darted upstairs to find a hat, not found one, come back, and boiled the kettle, Twilight voiced her concern. “Did anypony know if Rainbow Dash was occupied with something this afternoon?” she asked, filling in Rarity and Ditzy about the Daring Do spin-off. “I find it a little strange she isn’t here yet.” “Oh, she’s probably shouting at the ponies replacing her,” Rarity dismissed, without looking up from the 9th century fashion book. “I wouldn’t worry yourself too much, darling. It’s only a shower, after all.” “’S dark for a shower,” Ditzy said around a mouthful of cupcake. It was dark, now that Ditzy mentioned it, and it was only a little before two. And now that Twilight was taking a closer look out of the window, the rain was coming down awfully hard for what she’d been told was going to be a short shower. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say it was going to— The door crashed open. Rainbow Dash stood there, soaked through, out of breath, fury on her face. It was the same face she’d been wearing when confronting Lightning Dust at the Wonderbolts Academy the previous month. Very not a happy bunny. “Rainbow Dash, are you—” “I’m fine.” Before Twilight could get another towel, Rainbow shook herself, spraying water everywhere. “If I was still in charge, this wouldn’t be happening!” The others shared a glance. “It’s only a shower, Rainbow,” Twilight ventured. “Surely they can manage a—” “They changed their minds,” Rainbow said curtly. “It’s not a shower anymore.” Lightning flashed behind her, followed by the loud rumble of thunder. “It’s a thunderstorm.” Despite the added effects in the background, it still took a moment for that to sink in. Yes, all the signs were there, it was too dark for a shower, it was raining too hard for a shower, that was lightning, that was thunder, but it was just so… sudden. On record, ponies had to be warned a minimum of twelve hours before the scheduled start of a thunderstorm, allowing for preparation ahead of start times at night or in the early morning. For one to just come up out of the blue (or, well, the lighter grey) was unheard of. “My stars, darling!” exclaimed Rarity, book forgotten, jumping up to her hooves. “You’re drenched!” “Yeah, no kidding.” Normally Rainbow Dash would have objected to Rarity fussing over her with the towel, but either because she was wet or because she was cross she didn’t. “This is how they think rain should be done in Cloudsdale.” “Wait, so…” Ditzy swallowed her cupcake. “I thought it was just gonna be a shower, not a big storm.” “They were told to do it,” Rainbow said, scooting her hooves against the doormat. “Wind Chime, again.” “How do you know that?” Twilight frowned. “I thought you told me you weren’t allowed to help.” Rainbow waved a hoof in the air and twirled it around. “Yeah, well, they suddenly realized most of their team’s never been here before so they had to get a pony in who knew the town. Naturally they came to me first, ‘cause of my awesomeness, but whatever. So I wasn’t allowed to chip in or anything, just show them around, make sure they know the tricky spots and stuff, you know? So they get the shower going. Then this message comes down from Cloudsdale, saying it needs to be a thunderstorm instead, Snow Veil flips out, I flip out, she gets told off and I get kicked out!” She sucked in a breath. “I’ve been flying all over town like crazy trying to warn everypony. Not. Cool.” “That doesn’t sound very nice,” piped up the foal’s voice from the direction of the floor. The blue pegasus finished drying herself off, walked into the library proper, and ruffled Dinky’s mane. “Yeah, you got that right, little buddy. Grown ups are jerks.” She looked up, remembered Ditzy, and immediately backpedaled. “Er, most grown ups are jerks,” she corrected, grinning sheepishly. Ditzy giggled. By all counts, that had to be against the rules, or something. Twilight’s memory of weather laws and stipulations wasn’t fantastic, though, so maybe there was a clause or a loophole somewhere which allowed Wind Chime to do that. Probably something along the lines of ‘In (x) circumstances, the Weather Forecast Centre can request specific schedule changes’. It was a little odd that a pony known for being a stickler for the rules would do such a thing, unless she really wanted to get Rainbow Dash’s metaphorical goat. That… Twilight wouldn’t put it past her. Well, the library had survived countless thunderstorms before, it could survive another one. If push came to shove, and the storm lasted into the night, it would be easy enough to do another sleepover-type-dealie like she’d done with Applejack and Rarity last year. They wouldn’t need to go quite as far as following the Sleepover 101 book this time (as much as that was an excellent reference) but it would save sending the others out into the deluge. It was a good thing that Ditzy was here with Dinky, otherwise somepony would have had to go over to the post office regardless. Four full-size ponies, a foal and a baby dragon. There were some spare blankets somewhere. “I wanted to tell ‘em they were doing it all wrong,” Rainbow continued, breaking the short silence. “Putting storms together is easy peasy, but the way they were doing it you’d think they’d never made one before.” “I’m sure they’re all professionals, Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight, gingerly taking the dripping towel back and carefully levitating it upstairs. “They wouldn’t have been sent otherwise.” While Spike handed out another round of tea to everypony but Rainbow Dash, and the pegasus herself was placated with an apple and the Young Daring Do book, Twilight put her thoughts to the day’s events and how they went together in the grand scheme of things. This would doubtless be something the Princess brought up in her meeting with the Forecast Centre. Even if it was on a technicality, you didn’t just make a storm and leave it to somepony who wasn’t even supposed to be working to communicate it to the affected ponies. You had to organize it. Rainbow Dash may appear lazy from time to time, and leave all of her work to Icy Rain, but at least she talked to others and let them know what was going on. She and Dinky tried practicing Share a few more times, but every time they’d be making progress another flash of lightning distracted both of them and they’d have to start over. The foal was doing rather well, all things considered. Her best transmitted image was upside down, and a little sketchy in places, but it was still a little more than you could expect from a pony her age in only her second lesson. This little pony was definitely going to be going places when she was older. Thought journal, bookmarked entry; April CE 1001, 3:01PM I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Dinky could get a place at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. While she hasn’t found the specific area of magic that her special talent lies in, I have no doubt that she could find it there. Ditzy can definitely be proud of her as her Please hold. Something didn’t feel right, but Twilight couldn’t quite place it. No leg tremble. Spike hadn’t set fire to anything. The other ponies were occupied. And it wasn’t something in her gut, either, it was in her head. Sweep for nearby magical anomalies. Nothing. Everything was perfectly fine, and yet… Okay, edit that out. Ditzy can definitely be proud of “WHAT?!” Twilight flinched, then risked opening one eye. Everypony was staring at Rainbow Dash, who was staring at the Daring Do book with her jaw practically on the floor. “What was that for?” Rarity rubbed an ear in discomfort. “I’m sure you do have an indoor voice, Rainbow Dash.” “That was louder than Twilight was just before the Crystal Empire thing,” Spike felt the need to add. The pegasus picked the book back up and frantically flicked through the first third. “What? I, I don’t… what?! How can they do that?!” False alarm, Rainbow Dash just found the book’s act two twist. I had the exact same reaction when I read it, too, and I had to go back and make sure it hadn’t just been a deus ex machina. Nope! The signs were all there but I’d just glossed over them without paying too much attention. I love it when books do that. It makes for great re-reading bonuses when you understand how the plot actually works. Doubtless that’s going to happen with… okay, that’s not what this is about. Where was I? Oh dear. Right, ahem. DITZY CAN BE PROUD OF HER AS HER MOTHER. No interruptions? No interruptions, huzzah. Now, let’s rerail the train of thought. At her current rate of learning, it should only be a couple more lessons before she can Share on a 1:1 basis reliably, and then, maybe half a dozen more if she wants to broadcast to multiple ponies. I asked her a couple of minutes ago, and with the sage advice you can normally get from foals, she said she’d see when she got there. Now that we’re done, I’ve dragged out my Star Swirl the Bearded costume from Nightmare Night last year, since she wanted to look at it. She went out as a firefighter then, but she wants to do something more magic related this year, so for something simple yet effective Rarity and I are going to try and make a little more accurate version of the Clover the Clever costume I wore in the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant. I’m pulling out all the stops with this one, trying to find all the textual references to her dress. At that point if she doesn’t like it, well, Rarity can probably sort her out another costume and then I’ve got something to refer to when I do more research. Win-win. This really is some storm they’ve got going outside. I’m getting the shive Shivers. Not due to temperature, or nerves. That was a sign of surrounding magic beginning a peak. Twilight looked around. There still didn’t seem to be anything odd in the room. Neither Dinky nor Rarity were spellcasting, though if the shivers was due to them they would have needed to get themselves checked as soon as possible. No, this was something more. She cocked an ear downwards. It didn’t sound like the capacitors were overloaded, not that she thought lightning had hit the library at all. That would be harmless, but just very loud. Another sweep for magical anomalies. Noth— no, wait, there was something that time. It was faint, but it was there. It was familiar somehow, but it wasn’t yet strong enough to be actually recognizable. “What is it, Twilight?” She was startled again by her #1 assistant walking up beside her. “Oh, don’t worry, Spike. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.” “Are you sure?” He was giving her The Look - the one he always put on when weird magical things were going on that he didn’t understand and that he was sure Twilight was playing down to make him feel better. As usual, he was correct. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Now was not one of those times. In this case, though, it was just a little magical buildup. So what? Magical buildup happened all the time. Unicorns felt uncomfortable when they were going on, and true to that Rarity was looking a little ill at ease now, but it wasn’t harmful or anything. It only became dangerous when ponies set out to mess with it, and even then it would only leave them with a little magic fatigue and, hopefully, the will not to do it again. But Twilight knew better than that. She patted Spike on the back. “Absolutely, one hundred percent—” Then the first bolt of lightning hit the rods. Lightning bolts were categorized using a number system, from 10 being the weakest to a 1 being the strongest. A Category 10 was the equivalent to being stung by a wasp; pegasus foals kicked them out of clouds all the time, while Categories 3 to 1 were reserved for high intensity storms and were forbidden in built up areas. A normal thunderstorm would have bolts ranging from 10 to about 5. The first bolt to hit must have been about a 9, on one of the outlying branches, but as the current ran down the conduits into the basement Twilight felt like a 6 had hit her directly on the horn. “Ow!” Both hooves went up to a horn that was aching like crazy. Never before had a lightning storm elicited this reaction - they just weren’t magical, or at least, not unicorn magical, anyway, but there wasn’t much crossover between unicorn and pegasus magic, and Twilight was hoping desperately that running through the facts would distract from the experience. What didn’t help was realizing that what she was feeling was similar but not completely identical to the surge she’d experienced at Skyview Lake yesterday. She was not going to have a full-blown cascade here if she could help it. Not here, not now. There was a clatter and series of thumps as everypony dropped what they’d been holding, and they each let out exclamations. When Twilight Sparkle had trouble with magic, you helped, you didn’t just stand back and wait for her to fix it. Even if you could only offer words of encouragement, that was better than nothing at all. Before anypony could speak again, the second bolt hit another outlier, in the region of a 5, the hum from the basement became audible as the capacitors charged, and the intensity of the magical charge in the room spiked. This was exactly what the lightning rods were meant to prevent! If it was to get any worse… “Dinky!” Twilight managed through gritted teeth. “Could you… go and get an ice pack… from the freezer, please?” She’d rather have the foal as far away as possible. “Everypony else… stand back!” She was going to have to cast something, anything, to stabilize the magic both inside her and in the tree. Burning it off was no longer an option, there was just far too much of it. What she needed was a spell to dump magic as quickly as possible. What spells did she know that took up a lot of magic? Oh, hay no. But she didn’t have much choice in the matter. If she didn’t do anything there was going to be a pretty significant explosion. Any moment now her magic was going to start misfiring and casting at random. She had to act. Now. Of course she remembered the matrix. How could she forget it? She screamed. “PROPHETIA!” A 3 hit the central lightning rod. Everything went white.