Of all the places in Ponyville, one of Twilight’s favorites was the tall hill in the park. The grassy knoll offered a great vantage point of the rest of the town, a town she’d slowly come to love. Her step was light as she climbed up the hill, to where her friends waited with a blanket spread upon the grass.
She smiled and exchanged nuzzles, before settling down amongst them. Rarity was appropriately shaded and dressed for the sunny weather, Applejack sprawled on her back and tucked her hat down over her face, and Pinkie vibrated with barely contained excitement, gesturing wildly at the vaultless blue sky above them.
“Oh, have they already started?”
Pinkie’s ear twitched and she settled down, reaching out a hoof and resting it on Twilight’s own to steady herself. Her nose twitched and flared, and Twilight watched in morbid fascination. “Can you feel it?”
Twilight glanced up and watched carefully. It seemed like the entire pegasus population of Ponyville had taken to wing, high enough that they were barely distinguishable multicolored specks. It looked random at first, but after a while of watching a pattern began to emerge.
Watching the pegasi in their element was truly breathtaking, the four ground-bound ponies left in quiet wonder. Their cavorting looked like play, but Pinkie pointed out the way the winds teasing the treetops shifted, the way the taste of the air gradually changed by the second.
As the four nestled close in companionship, Pinkie leaned to fold her hoof over Twilight’s, brushed their cheeks together momentarily before they picked out a a speck only distinguishable from the sky by the pennant of rainbow streaming behind it. Twilight breathed the air slowly, tasted the drawing of water, felt the earth beneath her reach for the growing storm.
Pinkie’s eyes sparkled as she watched her marefriend work to shape an air current with a series of complicated twists and rolls, with a butter-yellow mirroring her moves. At times their wingtips touched, others they were nearly belly to belly, moving and working on the world around them in perfect unison.
Twilight cocked her head at a thought. “You asked me the other day how Pegasus magic works, why do you seem like such an expert now?”
Pinkie stifled a giggle and shook her head, candyfloss curls bouncing and swaying. “Silly filly. You looked all wrapped tight inside yourself. You really only come out of that little place when you’re explaining something, so I picked something at random to ask about. My nana was a Pegasus, she was even a Wonderbolt when she was younger, and when she retired she did a lot of the weatherwork for Nickerlite. When I was a teeny tiny tinkie Pinkie I was fulla questions, and she answered everything.”
Twilight chewed her lip thoughtfully. Pinkie was loud, excitable, and charming- but no matter how random she seemed, everything she did had a sort of solid logic behind it, and the pink mare’s intellect easily matched or exceeded her own.
Pinkie flicked an ear slightly and watched the pegasi wheeling overhead. “They’re building… something. The Earth is scared.”
The unicorns blinked and peered at Pinkie, and Applejack mumbled an assent. “Ya. The trees can feel the wind, they’re gettin’ ready too.” She pulled her hat up and tilted her head at the blank stares. “Consarnit… You didn’t think Pinkie was the only Earth pony with a lick of sense in her skull, didja? The Earth sings; plants and soil and stone all.”
She waved a hoof uncertainly. “Ah can’t explain it, Ah just know it’s there.”
Pinkie nodded a little. “All magic ripples. Weather magic touches the magic from the Earth, and stuff… Whatever they’re building is going to break tomorrow. See? They’re winding down.”
They set about packing up their picnic, Rainbow Dash dropping abruptly into a four-point landing with Fluttershy coming for a more sedate glide-down and trotting landing behind her. Both were breathing heavily and flecked with froth. Rainbow Dash pounced and crammed a massive chunk of bread into her mouth, giving Pinkie a perfunctory nuzzle before flicking her wings.
“Well I’ll be sore as heck tomorrow but it’s done.”
Four curious ponies grilled the other two as they flopped down in the grass, Rainbow stuffing as much food into herself as she could manage before it was taken up and Fluttershy accepting a light preening from Rarity.
“What did you guys build up there?”
Rainbow snickered softly and shook her head. “It was all Fluttershy’s decision, I just pushed it to the team for her.”
Fluttershy blushed faintly and let out a tiny ‘ow’ as a bent feather was pulled. She attempted to hide in her mane, but the tiny smile across her muzzle was as good as the shit-eating-grin that Rainbow wore.
“I’ll tell you at the library, if you promise not to tell.”
Several hours later they convened at the library after giving the pegasi a chance to rest and clean up after the hard day of work. Twilight noticed the air gradually growing thicker and chillier as time went on. They gathered in the main reading room, and Twilight helped Applejack mull cider in a cauldron over the fireplace.
Fluttershy dumped an armload of furled papers on the central table, spreading out a couple. She took a deep, sharp breath, and closed her eyes as she launched into a rapid-paced spiel she’d obviously practiced frequently in a mirror.
“I had to clear this with the Mayor, and the power company. It will take a little work every day to sustain this but the weather team can handle it with the assistance of townsponies. It will extend Extreme Weather by one week. There will be a gradual increase in severity, and then a drop-off.”
She unfurled the first of her sheets and hung it up, scribbling out equations in swirled pegasus characters. “The first two days will be foggy. It will be thin on the first day and thicken on the second. Visibility on the second day is expected to be restricted to about three feet.”
Applejack furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head. “But that’s been the way it’s been since Extreme Weather Week started.”
Fluttershy nodded. “The traditional two days of fog is a safety precaution. It’s the only time it is ever significantly foggy for very long, so it’s a warning to push ponies into safe places. This year it will clear and break about two PM on the second day, with significant cloud to cloud lightning.”
She started drawing on the blackboard in different colors of chalk. Twilight recognized a topographical map of Ponyville, and began to grow more concerned as Fluttershy filled in more and more details.
She defined a loose circle around the boundaries of Ponyville, and filled in air currents circulating around it. “In the pre-Harmonic Era, this weather system was used as a weapon against unicorns and earth ponies.”
Her eyes were starry as she defined the outer bounds of the cell, and the excited mood in the room gradually dampened and turned to fear.
“Winds with speeds over a hundred miles an hour. Flash flood-causing amounts of rain. Lightning. Covering dozens of square miles. It’s a god in the form of a storm, causing damage and flooding over an incredibly wide area. The middle part is completely safe, but it’ll rapidly move away and break apart over the Everfree. It’s the most severe of extreme war weather. It was named after its creator, the one who taught pegasi how to create it and allowed us to become independent.
She turned to face her friends, grinning shyly and rubbing her hooves together nervously.
“Commander Hurricane.”