Lone Thestral of Ponyville

by The REAL Mister Pkmn

Ein: Distrust Evident

A new day dawned, and one pony of Ponyville was still snoozing. After all, she was no morning pony. Melia slept peacefully well into noon, when her hunger finally woke her from her slumber. Melia rolled out of her comfy cloud bed and landed on her feet. She went to her kitchen and made some haybrowns for breakfast. She whistled to herself a little as she prepared her plate. She wasted no time after sitting down wolfing down her breakfast. She stood up and made her way to her bathroom to brush her teeth. After rinsing with mouthwash and flossing, she started to carefully brush her hair. It always liked to tangle itself in her sleep, almost like it had a mind of its own.  After she was satisfied with her hairdo, she went into her lobby to check her clock. When she saw the time, she was a bit alarmed.

It seemed that she’d slept longer than she thought. Sure, she wasn’t late for her shift at the weather factory, but she was still surprised that she’d slept until 2 PM. She had to be ready to go at 7, but she usually had an extra hour to get ready. She decided to not worry about it much. She had 5 hours and it usually only took her an hour or two to get ready, so it wasn’t that bad. After averting the non-crisis, Melia went out to spend some time with her friends.

Melia sped out of her cloud home with a direction in mind. She first stopped by to see Cloudkicker, seeing as her shift was practically over. She arrived as soon as Cloudkicker touched down. She smiled earnestly. “Hey, Kicks! How was work today?”

A bit out of sorts, Cloudkicker was at first surprised at Melia’s presence. She calmed down quickly though and chuckled. “You never stop, do you? Always checking on us after our work… It really affirms the Elements made no mistake choosing you to represent Devotion.”

Melia blinked a bit at that. She knew that Maestro had said the Elements “Had minds of their own”, but she hadn’t thought about it seriously. She shook away that query, though. If it was true or not didn’t matter to her in the end. As long as she proved herself worthy of it, that was enough. Melia replied with a chuckle. “Well, if that’s what you like to believe, then I won’t argue. That aside, I should get in my exercises before work. I’ll see you later, Kicks!” Melia sped off with little hesitation towards a clearing in Whitetail Woods. She always found it easier to focus on exercise here, so she had made a regular effort to always come here when she needed to. She landed on the ground and stretched a bit so she wouldn't end up pulling something. After she had sufficiently warmed up, she started doing wing-ups. She found herself reminiscing a little about when she had first arrived in Ponyville some months ago.

To be frank, she wasn’t expecting a warm welcome that day, and her predictions had been mostly right. Pinkie and Roseluck were the first to warm to her, but most every other resident took a while to get used to her. Some grew to like her, others remained distrustful of her until recently. Even after she and her friends had saved the town twice, there were still some that gave her the stink eye. She sighed as she finished up her exercises. She supposed that some people would likely never change, and she should live with that. Putting that sour thought aside, Melia flew home to take a shower.

Her exercise routine today had burned away about two hours, so she decided to start getting ready for her shift. If she was honest with herself, she wasn’t exactly appreciated at work. But as the only Thestral in Ponyville, Melia Breeze was basically the only expert on Night-time weather the town had. Melia sighed deeply. Being tasked with this was nothing new, but she had hoped that her status as a Bearer would give her some level of respect from her subordinates. Alas, it was not to be. Until she could get the knuckleheads working under her to actually learn, she was basically stuck.

She took her time eating lunch and preparing her lunch for work. She made herself presentable, and grabbed her Night Supervisor badge and clipped it to the navy blue vest that was her uniform. It was basically time to go, so she grabbed her work lunch and flew off to the weather factory. It took her only a few minutes going at top speed. She let herself in, and braced herself for another lousy shift. Night shift had it rough, seeing as the Everfree weather had a habit of leaking over into Ponyville more often at night. She took a look at the Everfree through the telescope in her office and let out a pained sigh. A storm was brewing, meaning it would be a long night. She took out her Storm Classification Manual and made a few notes: Thunder clouds, and lots of them. There wasn’t anything much more serious involved, so it was only a Class 3. Still, those still had some potential to be dangerous, so caution was the best bet.

She got out of her office to meet the knuckleheads. Brash Squall, an orange pegasus stallion, was the most trouble. His ego easily eclipsed Rainbow Dash’s any day, and his incessant flirting was incorrigible. Cirrus Blast, a forest green pegasus mare, was easily the second most agonizing. She was always snide and uptight, except when things got serious. Then there was Cumulous Stride, the turquoise stallion. He was the most tolerable, but he still made things difficult on Melia. Taking a deep breath, she looked them in the eye with a serious look. “Tonight, we are on Storm Aversion duty. Based on my analysis, the storm coming from the Everfree is a Class 3. If we’re lucky, it won’t get worse than that tonight. Is everypony aware of the procedure, or do I have to drill it into your heads again?”

The three of them brushed her off, and Cirrus voiced their irritation. “It’s only a Class 3, Chief. We can deal with those in our sleep. Right, guys?”

Just as Brash was about to chip in his negative two bits, a loud crackling wave shot through the room. Melia didn’t want to think it possible, but she had to check. She rushed back to her office, and looked through the telescope again. Her eyes widened as she saw the storm grow worse. The unruly thunder clouds grew in size, threatening a vast quantity of rain, much more than Ponyville was equipped to handle. She knew that her initial judgment had been tossed out the window. She exited her office, a grim look on her face as she glared at Cirrus. “You think a Class 3 is nothing? Well, congratulations! That storm out there has swelled into a Class 2! And I know for a fact none of you morons have ever dealt with one of these, so don’t try lying to me!”

The sheer ferocity of Melia’s anger caused the three of them to back off. They hadn’t seen her angry very often, but they knew that she meant business. They stood at attention as she peered back at them. Cumulus spoke first. “So Chief, what do we do? We can’t just let it flood the town!”

Turning away, she beckoned them to follow. “We don’t have time to practice this. If you guys would’ve gone through the drills, we wouldn’t be in this position!” Melia let out an exasperated sigh, then continued. “You are just going to have to follow my lead on this. We go in formation, understand?”

Melia lifted off, and the others shook off their shock to follow. The four of them flew off in a diamond formation, seeing as they didn’t have more ponies for it. There technically was somebody else that was supposed to be on shift, but he was sick with the flu.Melia grit her teeth as she and the knuckleheads stared down the storm threatening to bear down on Ponyville. She flew straight ahead, bracing herself. Direct impact was required for dealing with these, and constant at that. From her last encounter with one, she knew that keeping up the pressure was necessary so it didn’t chance spiraling into a Class 1.

She pierced through the storm and quickly turned around to go again. She noticed that the knuckleheads had seen her tactic, and copied her. Melia felt a smile emerge on her face. They might not be the brightest bunch, but they picked up pretty quickly when the pressure was on. She shook that thought aside as she re-focused. She knew that busting a storm like this was risky, but there wasn’t exactly a better method that she knew of. The team was keeping it under control, but only barely. She also had a few close calls with the inner lightning of the storm, but that was normal for dealing with these Class 2s.

A stray thought popped into head, and she recalled what had happened the only other time she had run across a Class 2. She pushed it away, though. In this situation, she couldn’t afford dwelling on past failures. She had to focus in order not to repeat that mistake. As her team kept the pressure up, she noticed the storm waning a bit. However, she knew that they couldn’t let up now. Class 2s were volatile things, always having a chance to bounce back if you weren’t careful. Melia started pushing harder, going faster. She knew now what she didn’t know back then, and she was going to put it to use.

It was much riskier than just flying through the storm to break it down. In order to ensure the storm didn’t bounce back, she would have to perform the inner tunnel technique. She braced herself as she dived into the storm until she found the center. She then focused as she started flying in a circle around the center. She kept pushing, and the lightning was more terrifying than ever. But she resolved not to falter now. She kept up the speed as she felt the water inside starting to disperse. She couldn’t let up, though. She had only learned this technique after the last time, and she hadn’t used it inside a storm before. She steadied her nerves as she sped up again. The funnel was working, and the storm was shrinking.

After a few more minutes, she saw that the storm was no longer so volatile. Letting out a sigh of relief, she slowed down. She was spent, but they had de-escalated the situation. She popped out of the storm and saw her team adjust to how to deal with Class 3s. She smiled, proud that at least they were being proactive. She spoke with a tired voice. “You guys can handle this on your own for a bit, right? I need to catch my breath.”

Brash and Cirrus looked a bit annoyed, but Cumulous took one look at Melia and understood. “I think so, Chief. I’ll keep these two hooligans in line while you recover.”

Melia was surprised at that. Had his experience with the Class 2 actually changed him? It wasn’t unprecedented, but it remained to be seen if he’d actually learned something. She put that thought aside as she rested and supervised their form.