Firefly flew before a structure of impossible size, whose origin made even less sense to her. She had spent years in the Cumulus Maze, exposed to every kind of structure imaginable. She had flown through monuments to unknown gods, civilizations long forgotten in the mists of history, as well as modern buildings that could be a trip to visit River.
Never in all that time had she ever seen a structure built inside a thundercloud—it went against everything she knew about clouds.
Those things take incredible energy to produce and maintain. Normal atmospheric forces could create familiar thunderclouds in Equestria, but how would they last long enough for someone to hollow one out and build inside it?
There were answers inside, if only she could get close to it. Firefly accelerated towards it, trying a straight line first. As she approached, the winds seemed to accelerate, until they carried her away from the building so fast that her wings started to ache and she let them push her back.
This wasn't a war of attrition she could win. Terrible rains poured out from inside, freezing to cutting snow as she neared it. The cold fogged at her goggles, forming a film that obscured all but the general outlines.
It was cold enough that even she started to shiver, despite the roiling energy of upper air all around her.
She let it push her back for a time, keeping her wings wide. With some careful gliding, she could angle that backwards push into upward momentum, with occasional flaps forward to keep close to it. It was also headed for Willowbrook, which was probably the only reason she didn't get battered out of sight. It was coming towards her.
She was so distracted with her thoughts that she didn't notice the other pegasus coming towards her from below, not until she heard the slight roar of air. It was a speed she rarely saw from other ponies, strange enough that she actually removed her goggles to look.
A bright blue pegasus came hurtling towards her from the ground, cutting straight through the clouds ahead of her. She flew with a kind of confidence Firefly had never seen—only Wind Rider got close.
The approaching stranger slowed, doing one last loop over Firefly to eat up speed. Sound roared as she went over, like a fighter-jet flyby. But of course there were no motors. The pony had a pair of flight goggles, though hers weren't fogged up.
"Hey you!" She stopped a short distance away, at least relative to the storm. Her wings moved in complex ways, maneuvers that Firefly had no names for. Her chest swelled, and her mouth fell open.
This pony was older than she was, but somehow married strength, grace, and confidence in a way she'd never seen from another pony in her life.
Buck me, I do not need a crush right now.
Even worse, the newcomer noticed. She ran one hoof casually through her rainbow mane, as though she expected this reaction in people. "Filly! That was some great flying, but you do not belong up here! Didn't you notice you're flying in hurricane winds?"
She did. The ache in her wings reached deeper by the second, with numbness spreading slowly through her guide-feathers. If she lost control of those important organs, she would be almost unable to steer.
"I, uh..." She was staring. The rain made it harder to see the other pony very clearly. If she could she would probably make an even bigger fool of herself. "You're up here too!"
The pegasus did a graceful roll through the air, angling the wind into an almost stationary maneuver, backwards. The complexity and skill involved was far more obvious to her than a simple loop through the air could ever be, even if a non-pegasus would not understand.
"Yeah? I've had a little more practice up here. How about I race you to the ground?"
Firefly looked down the way she'd come. Her path had cut such a dramatic slice through the clouds below that she could see grass again. It wouldn't last for long—the gyre that created the Cumulus Maze clustered all clouds together as they approached. Only the rising sun could clear the sky.
She wanted to do anything the mare said. Someone so pretty, so brave, and so skilled could only improve Firefly's own abilities. Just watching her fly was more of a lesson than whole semesters in Wind Rider's class.
But her initial curiosity remained unsatisfied. She pointed up at the cloud, towards the thinning upper portions. Whatever trick this pony used to sound so normal, she didn't know. She screamed, her throat feeling ragged.
"There's a building in that cloud! I'm trying to get in!"
The mysterious mare opened her mouth to argue with Firefly, ready to give some response without thinking. But she didn't say it, staring off towards the building. "Oh."
She bobbed slowly up and down, taking in the building from different angles. "I didn't think that was possible! The lightning would make it hard to build anything, and harder to get in!"
After almost getting killed by a mine monster, Firefly wanted to ask Lilac to go to the Fetlock Fete with her. She hadn't been brave enough, but it wouldn't matter anyway. Her friend was sent away, and she was trapped in Willowbrook without her.
She was not going to keep making mistakes like that. It was time to start saying what she meant. "Do you think we could fly in together? I've, uh... practiced flights with a wingmate. Maybe two could make it through the wind!"
The pegasus looked her up and down, considering. "Twilight would call it irresponsible to let a pony as young as you do something so dangerous, even with my help."
Firefly maneuvered closer through the air. She tried to copy the way this pony had done it, with subtler adjustments to her feathers, letting the wind do most of the work. She got better at it the more she tried. Maybe she could learn it, with enough time.
"I work up here in the Cumulus Maze! My father has been taking me up here since I was a little filly!"
That wasn't quite as long as it sounded, but that didn't matter. The pony didn't want to go back down. Firefly could see the same longing behind those goggles as she felt. This mare had seen a challenge, and she needed to conquer it.
"If you get tired, we'll back off!" she called. "I have a friend down on the ground who can probably get in with a teleport. But that would be cheating." She angled her wings, and the updraft shot her vertically.
Firefly copied her with considerably less grace, but the technique still worked. It felt a little like sliding her skis onto a lift that only serviced expert terrain. Her body jerked upward, showing her a sky filled with the most dangerous flying of her life.
Thanks to all the moisture in the air, she could see the eddies and currents, the swirls and steep up and down sections. The air here was terrain unto itself. Pegasi lungs were well-adapted to the heights, but even she started to feel a little light-headed. She felt a fizzy sensation in her hooves.
I should turn around. Instead of that, she gritted her teeth, focusing on her flight. Energy crackled down her wings, and breathing came more easily to her. Could she force that power to manifest, just as unicorns could? It brought her clarity of thought, returned sensation to her wings. Her breathing slowed, and she replaced the goggles over her eyes. Fogged or not, they would be better than air-blindness.
"Stay on my right!" the mare called, finally leveling out again. Even the powerful updraft-force had its limit. They were up so high now that frost formed on Firefly's wings. Any water still clinging to her fur froze, then beaded away as little bits of ice. "It shouldn't be as hard to fly for you. Ride all the way in!" She stretched both wings, one after another.
"One other thing—once we dive, the only way out is all the way to the ground. We can't fly backwards, or we'll get battered to pieces in those crosswinds. Yell if it gets too hard, and we'll land together, alright?"
She grinned back, nodding eagerly. "I-I'm Firefly! What's your name?"
The mare posed for her in the air, turning slightly to face her. The wind and the cold didn't seem to touch her. This mare brought power Firefly had never even seen before. "They call me Rainbow Dash. Rescue flier, weather pony team captain, and Wonderbolt cadet." She tilted her head slightly to the side. "Do young pegasus ponies know about the Wonderbolts here?"
She shook her head once. "I know who you are, but... I've never seen you perform. Like the Blue—" Her head throbbed with a sudden burst of pain, making her sag in her flight.
How long had it been since the portal spell hurt her? But she was exploring new subjects, and that meant new threats.
Rainbow Dash didn't seem to notice. Her attention was all on the dark cloud ahead of them. "Never seen a show, huh? Let's fix that."
She tucked her wings in close, then dove. Firefly had only a split-second to react, having to flap desperately to keep up.
The mare seemed to be expecting her to have trouble, because she didn't really start accelerating until Firefly got close. Close enough to find the little slice Rainbow cut through the wind, and feel the roar of sound and speed coming off her.
The books were right, having a wingpony who knew what they were doing really did make it easier. The wind still battered her, but Rainbow's trail gave her an invisible track through the sky, one with far less resistance. So long as she stayed just behind her, she could ride in that wake without much effort.
The mare didn't make it easy, though. As soon as Firefly was in place, she tucked in her body, angling both wings sharply downward in something Firefly had only seen on warning posters for what not to do. This was a Rainboom Plummet, a maneuver so fast and difficult to control that she hadn’t ever imagined doing it herself.
Instead of stopping, Firefly copied. She pulled her legs in close, then angled her wings all the way back like an eagle coming down on a shallow-swimming fish.
A roar grew in the air around them, overpowering the occasional rumble of thunder and rush of wind. They weren't just traveling straight down either, but in an arc towards the cloud. Rainbow had apparently picked the perfect angle so they would reach it before running out of space.
The wind tried to fight them, no less intensely than what Firefly had faced during her first attempt. But this time she wasn't alone. Rainbow's wings started to glow, crackling with prismatic light that trailed out from behind her.
She's doing the same thing I did! Only this mare wasn't a little filly flopping clumsily around in a cave. Her body erupted with a magical heat so intense the rain boiled to steam before it could get close, adding a cloud-trail to the rainbow.
Firefly screamed, a mixture of terror and an intoxicating rush of adrenaline. Rainbow was doing most of the work here—the slice she made pulled on Firefly, keeping her moving despite her waning strength.
She was no equal to this mare, and maybe she never would be. But Firefly wasn't going to get left behind now, to be buffeted apart by the storm. She followed, adding her own sizzling orange lightning to the trail.
Light built up ahead of them, a physical barrier that stretched ahead of Rainbow like the film of a bubble. It stretched further and further, sliding along the vortex, clinging to Firefly's body.
The building came upon them in an eyeblink. They passed completely through one terrible wall of clouds, then Rainbow flared her wings upward, in another impossibly skilled maneuver.
Firefly tried to imitate, but this was too much. She didn't turn fast enough, and struck up against a wall of white clouds. White, not dark gray. Her body skipped along them like the surface of a wet pond, squelching under her weight before rebounding her upward in a deadly spiral.
She screamed, and managed to keep herself from tumbling wildly. Instead she spiraled upward, totally out of control. Her hooves came out, kicking and scrambling for purchase as though the air would do anything. But that only made her path more erratic.
She was in a narrow column between a bright surface and a dark gray one, with the wind instantly gone. But she was running out of room. There was a wispy roof overhead, getting closer with alarming speed.
Firefly whimpered, tears of terror pooling in her goggles. If she hit against that surface at this speed, head on, it would be like smashing into concrete. There was no way to stop in time.