//------------------------------//
// Chaos (309) 
// Story: AlwaysDressesInStyle's Ponyville CiderFest '23 Interactive App Stories 
// by AlwaysDressesInStyle 
//------------------------------//

ENDING A (CHAOS): 

“I can handle myself up there.”

“I know you can.”  You stroke her back.

“It’s what pegasi were born to do.  There’s nothing in the sky I can’t handle.”

“Even jet engines?”

“Be serious.  Any pilot worth his salt is flying above the storm.”

“You really want to go in alone?”

“I’ve flown solo in storms before.  I’d only need help if I was trying to change the storm.”

“Earth doesn’t have magic. Our storms are different.”

“I know.”  Her rage is barely constrained at this point. “That’s the whole point.  I want…no, I need to know how different it really is.  Ponies have been on Earth for years and we still don’t have any decent data.”

“What if… what if the worst happens?”

She opens her saddlebags and gives you her car keys.  “Then congratulations, you’re the proud new owner of the convertible you always wanted, but talked yourself out of because it’s not sensible enough.  You only live once.  Live life to the fullest, or get out of the way of the ones who will.”

You take your hand off Sunny’s back.  “If you’re sure.”

“Surer than anything.” She slips off her saddlebags, then leaps into the air and is gone as the first sprinkles of rain start falling. The darkness swallows her up and she’s lost to you.

You put her saddlebags in her car, then go back inside to finish your now cold pizza.  There’s nothing else you can do.  Sunny Rays will either come back… or she won’t.  You pull up the National Weather Service’s website and watch the radar as the storm continues tracking towards you. Lightning strikes are everywhere. Sunny has assured you multiple times that pegasi get struck by lightning all the time and just shrug it off.

If she’s not worried about it, you shouldn’t be worried about it.  Right?

The waitress tops off your drink as you stare transfixed at the little map on your phone.  Somewhere in that storm is your friend, a little spec of sunshine in a raging tempest.

The storm finally hits its stride.  The pouring rain gives way to a torrential downpour.  Wind shakes the pizzeria as rain lashes the windows.  You count the seconds between lightning flashes and the boom of thunder.  Three seconds.  Five seconds. Six seconds.  No seconds.  The building rattles as your ears ring.

Just like that, the storm starts tapering off.  Downpour gives way to steady rain gives way to drizzle, then finally sunshine illuminating the debris-littered street.  Twigs and branches are everywhere.  Newspapers are blowing in the wind.  And one yellow dot on the horizon is getting bigger by the second.

Sunny Rays lands, shakes herself out, then trots into the pizza parlor like she owns it.  She’s flown in a storm on Earth, and she’s got a lot to tell the weather experts back home.