//------------------------------// // Overstorm VI // Story: Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego // by MagicS //------------------------------// There were more ponies out and about now while Rainbow Dash and Dust Bunny walked through the tunnels. Made sense, this was probably the most active time of the day in here. Although she still didn’t know what exactly the time was. A few stopped to look at Rainbow Dash but she just casually waved at them for now, she didn’t want to have to constantly stop, instead she could just meet with a whole bunch of ponies at once while she ate breakfast. She hoped they didn’t have to walk very far this morning to get to that cafeteria or whatever. Rainbow Dash had had enough of walking over this cold metal flooring, but most of the tunnels were too narrow for her to comfortably fly in. She really wanted to stretch her wings again, maybe going up topside and flying in the storm for a minute would actually feel good. It occurred to her that while Pile had mentioned there being some pegasi up in the science lab she hadn’t seen any down here, only earth ponies and unicorns. “If you don’t mind what we do today I was thinking I could show you the gardens and hydroponics after we eat breakfast?” Dust Bunny said. “Sure,” Rainbow Dash said in reply, not caring too much one way or the other. “What are hydroponics?” “It’s a way of growing plants only using enriched water without any soil,” Dust Bunny answered. “We actually have an easier time pumping up water than finding suitable soil for growing plants in.” “But you still gotta conserve for showers?” Dust Bunny chuckled and gave her a lopsided grin. “I think that’s just Pile being extra careful if you ask me. Well, it’s good to make sure nobody wastes anything so I guess I shouldn’t complain.” “Yeah, makes sense,” Rainbow had to agree. They twisted and turned through more and more tunnels down in this maze-like place. Rainbow Dash was doing her best to memorize the route they were taking, it would be good if at some point she didn’t need Dust Bunny or another pony to always be her guide. They took a turn in the tunnels that made Rainbow think they were walking west but her sense of direction down here was a little off. There were still barely any signs for anything, and Dust Bunny herself said they didn’t have total knowledge about the tunnel system, everyone must stay to the locations they knew well. “Hey do you know what time it is? Are there any clocks down here?” Rainbow asked. “There are, yes,” Dust Bunny answered. “There’s one in the maintenance pod, another in Pile’s office, at the gardens, one in my room back in the janitorial pod, and a few others. The time right now should be around nine.” “Thanks,” Rainbow was happy to know she hadn’t been woken up at dawn or even before it. It explained why she actually felt decently rested, although she wouldn’t have minded another hour or two of napping. Before long as they walked, Rainbow Dash could hear the bustling noise of many ponies talking and eating together. The cafeteria must have been close by. Dust Bunny turned a corner into a wide hallway where an open door at the end showed an even larger room that had several dozen ponies seated at tables and eating food or conversing with each other. She wondered how many conversations would come to a screeching halt when she went in there and Dust Bunny told everyone just who she was. Rainbow Dash grinned at the upcoming spectacle. She loved being the center of attention. “The heads of maintenance and digging should be in here too right now, along with plenty of others to spread the word about you. Although I think some have already heard that you’re here,” Dust Bunny said as they walked into the cafeteria. They stepped over the threshold and Dash got a better look at the cafeteria for a moment. There were two large metal containers that were practically like troughs set up at the end that were filled up with spinach and beets. Ponies just grabbed bowls and piled in as much of the vegetables as they could before finding a place to sit. Not the most varied of diets it looked like down here but Rainbow could understand why they didn’t have much else. Dust Bunny walked to the head of the cafeteria by the two containers and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, everyone!” Her shout carried through the large room and most ponies stopped and turned their heads while a few others just ignored her or didn’t hear over their own noise. Dust patiently waited for them to notice that she had an announcement and for the noise to simmer down while Rainbow Dash stood off to the side. She noticed a few glances thrown her way and a hushed word or two said about her but she waited for Dust to speak before she did anything. When she was adequately satisfied that she had most ponies’ attention and wouldn’t need to shout over anyone, Dust Bunny spoke up again. “Good morning to you all, I’m sure some of you already heard rumors about this but last night a visitor from outside came here!” She cheerfully said and waited for the importance of that statement to ripple over the audience. With a smile, she continued, waving a hoof over at Rainbow Dash. “Here she is, Rainbow Dash! She’d love to make your acquaintanceship and I know you’re probably all just as excited as I am but please keep in mind she’s had a long journey, don’t just crowd her all at once.” Her suggestion went unheeded. Once it became known that Rainbow Dash was an outsider the dozens of eating ponies bolted up from their seats and ran at her with questions and awed gasps fumbling out their mouths. Rainbow Dash was backed up against the wall as they all tried to speak over each other, asking her where she was from, why she was here, how’d she make it through the storm, the usual fare she had come to expect from the ponies down here. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dust Bunny put a hoof over her face and shake her head in embarrassment. Rainbow Dash for her part was able to handle this pretty well, since being mobbed by fans was relatively normal for her back home. If she could handle that fan club Scootaloo had made she could probably handle this. “Okay, okay!” Rainbow Dash said, flapping her wings and making some space between herself and the crowd, floating herself up above their heads. “One question at a time, dudes!” An earth pony stallion with a bushy mustache and wearing a baggy jumpsuit raised his hoof. “Hello! Grinding Gear, chief of the maintenance team, here. Where do you come from? And why’d you come all the way out here?” “That was two questions but I guess they’re the big ones everyone had on their minds,” Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her neck. “Okay, so I told this story last night so there might be some minor stuff I leave out but be prepared to hear the most awesome story of your life.” She grinned and got to telling her ultra awesome life story once more to a far bigger crowd this time. It was even better having a big audience for it, made her feel even more special getting to tell a crowd about herself and her adventures. After that was done she could get to know some of the ponies like Grinding Gear better. “-And then I electrocuted him with the stored up lightning in all the clouds and saved the day!” Rainbow Dash finished, smugly folding her arms over her chest as she at last dropped back to the floor. “Oooohhh!” All the ponies clapped their hooves together for her. “Yep! And then I flew out here and found you guys,” she said. “What do you think of this home we’ve managed to make for ourselves?” A unicorn mare asked her. “I mean, it’s pretty impressive and all that. You guys really had to go through a lot and it was probably pretty tough,” Rainbow said. “You’re right about that!” Grinding Gear said to a chorus of cheers. Dust Bunny then came over and tried to break up the large crowd. “Okay everyone I think that’s enough for now. I wanted to introduce Rainbow Dash to some of you but we really need to eat breakfast too. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll all be able to talk and have fun with Rainbow Dash some more on other days.” “If some of you want to sit down and talk while we eat that’s cool too,” Rainbow said. Most of the ponies went back to their own tables, some more disappointed than others but hopeful that they could talk to Rainbow Dash at a later date. Meanwhile, Dust Bunny and Rainbow Dash grabbed some bowls full of beets and spinach and went to sit with Grinding Gear and three other ponies Rainbow Dash didn’t know the names of yet. One of them was a more muscular earth pony stallion with a tan coat and brown mane, his tail was cropped short and Rainbow Dash could see a shovel Cutie Mark on his flank. Right next to him was a yellow unicorn mare with a peach colored mane and tail and seated next to her was one of the first pegasi Rainbow Dash had seen down here, a stallion with a sand colored coat and merlot mane wearing the same kind of jumpsuit Grinding Gear was. “So I guess you’re the ponies Dust Bunny wanted me to meet?” Rainbow Dash looked between them. The muscled stallion reached up a hoof for her to shake. “Flint. Chief Digger.” He nodded to the mare next to him. “This is my number two, Shimmering Jewel.” “Nice to meet ya,” Rainbow Dash smiled and shook both their hooves in turn. Shimmering Jewel giving a smile back. “And you already know me and what I do but this is my nephew,” Grinding gear said as he introduced the pegasus. “He’s in charge of making sure our turbines work properly.” “My name’s Bright Eyes,” the pegasus said. “Nice to meet you guys too,” again Rainbow reached out a hoof and happily shook the two pony’s representing the maintenance team. “She already met Pile last night but I wanted to introduce her to the other most important ponies here,” Dust Bunny explained. “Could you all spread the word to your teams and others you see today? It would help us out a lot.” “Of course, was there anything else you needed help with?” Grinding Gear asked both Rainbow and Dust. Dust Bunny shook her head. “I was just going to take Rainbow Dash on a tour of places like the gardens and anything else she wanted to see.” Rainbow Dash thought about it and actually did come up with something. “Actually I wouldn’t mind seeing those turbines too? Back home I did a lot of weather duty, I want to see how your stuff works, and my friend Twilight would probably want to learn about it too.” “That’s fine by me,” Dust Bunny shrugged and looked over at Bright Eyes. “I guess we’ll see you again sometime later today?” “I invite you to come see our mining work at some point too,” Flint said. “We’re working on a new tunnel right now, Shimmering and I usually don’t have the opportunity to show off our work like this to other ponies but it’s something we’re very proud of. It would be nice to teach an outsider how our digging goes.” He gave her a surprisingly warm smile for a pony as hard looking as him. “Me and Flint have made miles of new tunnel down here,” Shimmering Jewel proudly said, clapping a hoof over her chest. The chief of digging nodded. “Mhm. Back when the storm started there was already quite a lot of space down here but most of it wasn’t really meant for any ponies to live in you know? So we worked on either refurbishing or digging new spots to make room for everyone who had to take shelter down here. Which uh, there were a lot of.” “Yeah, sorry to hear about what happened to you guys and everything. This storm is crazy, I don’t get it at all!” Rainbow Dash said. Shimmering Jewel sighed, playing around with a leaf of spinach. “Neither do we.” “Our friends are trying to at least,” Grinding Gear said. Dash felt the more somber mood when the topic of the storm came up and it made her curious about something else. “What did you all do before that storm hit?” Flint was the first to respond. “Actually pretty much the same thing, I worked in the mines and helped out at our quarries too, getting stone for buildings and what have you.” “Same!” Shimmering Jewel said and pushed her chair out, standing up and pointing a hoof back at her flank. Now Rainbow Dash could see the trowel Cutie Mark she had. “I helped build stuff from the stones mined and picked out of the quarries. Mostly houses but some walls, and a well or two you know?” “Street cleaner,” Dust Bunny shrugged. “Weather service,” Bright Eyes said. Not a surprise there. “Sewer maintenance,” Grinding Gear laughed. “I’d say things have changed the least for me.” Rainbow Dash chuckled along. “Maybe. Sounds like you all at least get to keep doing what you like, even if the circumstances aren’t great.” “I guess we’ve been lucky that way at least,” Dust Bunny agreed. The group made small talk for a bit longer, Rainbow Dash didn’t want to pry too far into their lives before the hurricane since it might bring up some painful memories so instead she mostly just ate and answered any questions they had for her. Which there were a lot of even after she had told her whole story earlier. She was also pretty curious about how the pegasi that lived in here managed to not go crazy not having any open places to fly around in. She wouldn’t be able to last here at all, she’d get way too antsy. “So Bright Eyes do you not mind not being able to go out and fly?” She asked the maintenance pony. “I certainly miss it, and my wings could certainly use better exercise but there’s just not much I can do about that,” the pegasus shrugged. “I can at least make do with getting them massaged or flying around the top of the maintenance pod sometimes.” Rainbow Dash would probably have to keep that in mind if she was down here for more than a couple days. She hated not being able to fly however she wanted. “So just to be certain but in all your travels you’ve never come across a storm like this?” Flint asked her. She shook her head. “Nope. I mean, I’ve seen some crazy and just downright weird weather but I’ve never seen a storm that was just this big and strong. And from what you guys have said it doesn’t look like it’ll ever just end on its own. Sorry.” “You don’t need to apologize to us for that, I’m sure our scientists are working their hardest to come up with an answer up in the lab,” Grinding Gear said. “Yeah. I hope I can meet those guys too,” Rainbow Dash wistfully said as she sat back in her chair. “It’ll just be a couple of weeks, no big deal,” Grinding Gear said, obviously not knowing that to Rainbow Dash that was a pretty big deal. She didn’t want to dampen the mood and bring it up though, instead just finishing her spinach and beets. It was a healthy and filling meal but she kind of wished she could have a cupcake from Sugarcube Corner right about now too. Either way breakfast was over once she finished and the others at the table had work to get to. Which left her and Dust Bunny free to start their little adventure through the tunnels and all the places Dust Bunny wanted to show her. Dash swallowed the last bite of beet she had in her mouth and kicked her chair back from the table, standing up and briefly stretching her legs. “So where to now?”