//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: Dashes, Dots, and Pegasus Spots 
// by Nightwings81 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 7:
It was just past midnight when an incredibly loud clanging split the night air over Ponyville. Rainbow Dash sat up with a gasp, blinking confusedly in the darkness and wondering what had awakened her. She cocked her head, listening carefully, but heard only the angry moaning of the wind, which sounded even stronger than before.
Sighing in disgust, she snuggled down again and curled into a ball, only to yelp and clap her hooves over her ears as the deafening sound rang out again.
A blue glow blossomed under the door, followed quickly by the sound of approaching hoofsteps. The pegasus winced as the door burst open in a spill of bright light from Rarity’s horn. The unicorn was dressed in a pink bathrobe and matching slippers, her long mane hanging at her neck in curlers. Sweetie Belle, wearing a frilly nightgown and looking sleepily frightened, hovered close by her side.
“What in the name of Celestia is that?” Rarity asked.
Rainbow Dash shoved the blanket aside and crept to the window. “Sounds like somepony’s ringing the bell in the clock tower,” she said, pulling back the curtain.
“Why would they do that?” Sweetie wanted to know. “It’s the middle of the night and everypony’s trying to sleep.”
“I don’t know…” Rainbow looked out the window as the bell sounded a third time. Across the village, lights were going on in houses and windows were opening as confused and sleepy ponies called out to one another. She quickly scanned the street below, but saw nothing to cause any alarm besides some broken branches. Slowly, her eyes drifted up the street, then lifted instinctively to the skies.
“Oh horseapples!” she breathed, the blood draining from her face.
“What is it?”
Rainbow Dash spun around. “We’ve got to get out of here—downstairs, hurry! Sweetie, grab a scarf or a blanket. It’s gonna be cold outside. Rarity, where’s Opal?”
“Sleeping on my bed, why?” The unicorn was forced to trot after her friend, who was already rushing down the hall. Opal hissed and spat as the pegasus tried to lift her off the bed, then yowled as Rainbow simply bundled her in a blanket and tossed her to Rarity, who caught her with her magic and wisely decided to keep her wrapped up.
“Rainbow, what is going on?” she demanded, now following her down the stairs to the boutique where Sweetie Belle was waiting for them. “What is it? Why do we have to go outside? Tell me! Rainbow Dash!”
“It’s bad,” Rainbow finally answered her. She opened the front door, wincing as a blast of icy wind roared into the shop, swirling leaves and twigs across the floor. “It’s really bad. We’ve got to get everyone out!” She broke into a fit of coughing that bent her over for a moment, then a look of determination crossed her face and she pushed her friends out the door.
The wind was worse as soon as they stepped outside. The force of it stung their eyes, bringing tears, and whipped their hair about so wildly that it got in their way. Sweetie Belle cried out as she lost her footing and was dragged down the street by the gale, but Rainbow Dash leapt after her, catching the fluffy pink and lavender tail in her mouth and hauling her back to safety. The filly pressed her face to Rarity’s flank and whimpered.
“What is this?” Rarity shouted, her words lost by the roaring of the wind. Rainbow cocked her head and pointed questioningly at her ear. “What is this?” she yelled again, jumping as a brilliant flash of lightning crackled overhead, bathing the entire town in an eerie blue light. The resulting crash of thunder was almost immediate and painfully loud. Sweetie screamed.
“Go!” Rainbow shouted back, shoving her again with her head. “I’ll explain later! Run to Twilight’s! Now!” 
Rarity went, the fear in her friend’s eyes all the incentive she needed. Careful to keep her own body between the worst of the wind and Sweetie Belle, she cantered away from the boutique while Rainbow darted back and forth across the street, kicking frantically on doors and ordering any ponies who answered to run to the library. More lightning flashed, a series of bolts that turned the night into day. Rainbow paused long enough to look over her shoulder as one particularly bright bolt illuminated the funnel cloud rapidly reaching towards the ground.
**
Twilight Sparkle and Spike were already awake, alerted by the bell a few moments before, and were suitably surprised by the onslaught of ponies who poured into the library as soon as they opened the door. Her tree home was soon filled to capacity and the din of raised voices became cacophonous. 
“What’s going on!” Spike asked, covering his ears with his claws and climbing onto a table so he wouldn’t be stepped on.
“I—I’m not sure. It must have something to do with the bell ringing so late.” Twilight looked around, bewildered, and shouted, “Please! Everypony, calm down! Can somepony tell me what’s happening here?”
Spike’s green eyes surveyed the crowd and he pointed. “There’s the mayor. Maybe she knows.”
“Right!” Levitating her little friend onto her back, Twilight pushed and nudged her way through the milling mass of ponies, heading towards the tan mayor mare, who also seemed to be trying to calm the crowd with just as little luck.
“Hey Twilight!” Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared at her side with her baby alligator, Gummy, clinging tenaciously to her mane. “This is really exciting, isn’t it? It’s just like a big party, except there aren’t any treats and nopony seems to be having any fun.”
“Pinkie, do you have any idea what’s going on here? Spike and I woke up because of the bell and, the next thing we know, every pony in town is at our door!”
Pinkie frowned and looked over the roomful of ponies. “Well, I wouldn’t say everypony, Twilight. Fluttershy isn’t here and I don’t see Applejack or her family. They must still be out at the farm. But I saw Lily and Rose and Daisy, and there’s Ace, and Bon Bon and Lyra are here and—”
“Yes, yes! But why are they here?”
“Oh! I thought you knew that. Rainbow Dash told us to come here. The Cakes and I were all sleeping when we heard the bell ringing and telling us to wake up, and then there was this really loud banging on the door and it was Dashie looking all scared and upset and she told us that we all had to come here as quick as we could. She didn’t tell us why though—she just ran off to bang on another door.”
“Rainbow Dash? But she’s still sick and staying with…” Spotting a familiar white pony through the crowd, Twilight grabbed Pinkie Pie and shoved her way across the room to where Rarity huddled against a wall with Sweetie Belle, who had somehow managed to find Scootaloo in all the confusion.
“Rarity! Rarity, over he—” Twilight’s hoof came down on something soft and she screamed as a yowling, bristling ball of white fur shot into the air in front of her.
“Opal! No, sweetums! Down!” A blue ball of light surrounded the enraged cat, lifting her away from Twilight and depositing her on a high shelf. “You stay right there, sweetheart, so nopony will step on you.” The white unicorn turned away from her pet as soon as Opal started licking a paw, and fixed Twilight with tired, worried eyes. “Twilight, I’m so sorry that we’ve all dropped in on you like this without warning. Hello, Pinkie.”
“Hi!”
“It-it’s alright, I guess. There must be a reason for—Snips, Snails, you put those books down right now! They’re not toys!”
The two colts jumped and looked at her guiltily. Quickly, they put the two books they had been tossing around back on the shelves and melted into the throng of ponies.
Twilight groaned and hid her face wearily in her hoof. “Do you have any idea going on here? Pinkie says Rainbow Dash told everypony to come here, but she didn’t say why and I don’t see her anywhere.”
“She’s not here yet? I thought she was right behind us!” Rarity stood on the tips of her hooves and looked over the room for a familiar multi-colored mane. “We were all sleeping and the bell woke us up. Rainbow looked out the window and saw something out there that really scared her. She went pale and then she ordered us to come here She wouldn’t even tell me what she saw.”
“Yeah. Mr. Cake wanted to know what was going on too, but she wouldn’t say. She only ran off to another house.”
“This isn’t good, Twilight,” Spike spoke up. “Hardly anything gets Rainbow Dash spooked.”
“You’re right, Spike. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this and for that we need to find Rainbow.”
“I’ll help!” Pinkie volunteered.
“Me too. Sweetie, you stay here with Scootaloo, alright? I’m sure we won’t be long.”
“But I want to come too!” Sweetie jumped to her hooves and nudged Scootaloo. “You might need the Cutie Mark Crusaders for this.” 
“Actually, you’re right! Do you think you two could watch Gummy for me? All this commotion has made him scared and he really needs some hugs.” Pinkie peeled the tiny alligator from her mane and passed him over to Scootaloo. Gummy’s purple eyes blinked blankly at the little pegasus, then he latched toothlessly onto her wing. Sweetie Belle frowned, knowing she was being manipulated, but nodded anyway. She yanked Gummy free and wrapped her hooves tightly around him.
The three mares fought their way through the crowd again, pausing sporadically to ask if anypony had seen Rainbow Dash and knew what was going on. Each answer was the same—Rainbow Dash had told them all to come here as quickly as they could and then had rushed off to some other house. Nopony knew what was wrong—even the mayor was completely confused—and Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found.
“This is really serious,” Rarity murmured. “Twilight, I don’t know what Rainbow Dash is doing, but she’s still sick. She thinks she’s all better, but she still has that awful cough and—”
“I know. We’ll find her.” Twilight reached for the door, only to yelp when Rainbow Dash suddenly slammed it open, flattening her and Spike against the wall. Pinkie and Rarity gaped at the wild-eyed pegasus, whose mane and tail were mussed from the wind and tangled with twigs and leaves. She had an equally disheveled colt at her side, his orange-maned head hanging low.
“Everypony! Listen up!” Rainbow called. Her voice barely carried over the din and the noise continued unchecked, so the pegasus pulled in a deep breath. “Everypony, listen up!”
The room finally fell silent, all eyes turning to the doorway.
“There you are, Rainbow Dash! What is the meaning of all this?” The mayor pushed her way to the front of the crowd, frowning severely and straightening her glasses on her nose. “Why were you ringing the bell at this hour?”
Rainbow Dash started to reply, but went into a fit of coughing instead that drove her to her knees. Her friends quickly gathered around her as the rest of the townfolk suddenly remembered that their usual weather pony had been sick. The few pegasi in the room backed up nervously, hiding behind unicorns and earth ponies.
“She’s got pegapox!” somepony shouted. “She’s contagious.”
“Yeah, she’s supposed to be in quarantine! She’s still got spots.”
Rainbow managed to get her coughing under control. With Pinkie and Twilight helping her, she got back to her hooves, though she was visibly trembling. Ignoring their accusing words, she turned to glare at the pegasus colt beside her and nudged him hard with a hoof. “It wasn’t me ringing the bell. It was him. And now the featherbrain has something to tell you all.”
The colt lifted his eyes to the villagers, his ears flattened against his head as he dragged a hoof across the ground. “Well…” he murmured. “I, um, I needed to get rid of the snow and the wind wasn’t…well, it wasn’t working, but I thought I could melt it with some rain, so I whipped up some clouds and…” He broke off, a whimper escaping him as Rainbow Dash continued to glare. “I’m sorry, everypony. I couldn’t remember what clouds I needed, so I brought a cumulonimbus and it, uh, it reacted with the wind and…”
“Th-there’s a supercell coming straight for Ponyville,” Rainbow Dash finished for him. “A huge storm. And it’s already forming a tornado!” As the ponies burst into cries of alarm, she turned to unicorn at her side. “Twilight, the library has a cellar, doesn’t it?”
The studious purple pony looked at her, momentarily struck dumb by the horror that was rushing towards them, but Spike nodded and pointed to a door. 
“Over there. It’s dusty and doesn’t have anything in it but some old chairs, boxes, and trees roots.”
“That’s perfect. We’ve got to get everypony down there. Everyone but the pegasi. It’s safer underground.”
“Right!” Spike grinned and tapped the top of Twilight’s head with his knuckles. “And we definitely don’t want everypony panicking and rushing and causing a stampede, do we? If only we had somepony who could organize everyone—”
Twilight’s eyes cleared at the mention of organization and she immediately took charge, directing all the earth ponies and unicorns down to the basement with the help of Spike and the mayor.
“But Dashie, not everypony is here,” Pinkie Pie said. She and Rarity held back from the line of ponies heading downstairs. “Applejack and Apple Bloom, and Granny Smith and Big Macintosh are all still at Sweet Apple Acres and Fluttershy is way out by the Everfree Forest. What are we gonna do about them?”
Rainbow closed her eyes briefly as another painful coughing spasm shook her. “Th-The Apples will be alright. The storm’s blowing away from them and—cough, cough, cough—I intend to keep it that way. And Fluttershy’s house is in a hill. Not much a tornado can do to that, unless she decides to go outside.”
“Unlikely,” Rarity said. “Fluttershy hides inside as soon as she sees any hint of a storm. They terrify the poor dear.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I was visiting her once and I wanted to make some cookies but I dropped a pan on the floor and Fluttershy screamed like this, ‘aaiiiihh’, and ran and hid under her bed and it took me almost an hour and a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies to talk her back out and—”
“Right, Pinkie. So she’s probably okay.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “I just hope all her animals are alright. They’re really the only reason she’d go outside. We’ll just have to move the clouds to—” Her voice drifted off for a moment, her eyes taking on a faraway look.
“Rainbow? Darling, are you alright?” Rarity put a hoof on the pegasi’s shoulder. “You’re trembling all over and you’re chilled through! Come inside, we’ll get you a blanket and—”
Rainbow shook her head. “No time,” she murmured, looking at the pegasi gathering around her. Most seemed leery of her spots and a few were openly trying to cover their mouths with their hooves. She frowned, but faced them anyway. “With the size of this cell and the direction of the wind, any twisters that drop are going to run right through Ponyville unless we stop them. If they hit, they could destroy everything they touch, all the houses, the school, the entire town.”
“What can we do?” asked a petite mare with a pale pink coat. She fluttered her wings nervously. “The only weather wrangling I’ve ever done is for the Winter Wrap-Up.”
“We’re gonna need every set of wings we can get.” Rainbow raised her own wings and flapped them hard. She was able to lift a foot off the floor, but couldn’t maintain the hovering for longer than a moment and quickly set down again. “And I can’t fly yet. But I know what to do and I’ll direct you. It’s not gonna be easy, but if we work together, hopefully we can shift the path of the storm so it’ll miss Ponyville completely.” A gust of wind struck the library, making the thick branches shake and creak loudly. Rainbow ducked and lowered her ears. “But we’ve got to hurry.”
“But you’ve still got pegapox!” a colt shouted out. “We could all catch it! You shouldn’t even be here.”
“The books said she’s not contagious anymore,” Rarity snapped at him. “It was the mayor who said she had to stay quarantined until the spots went away completely. And she couldn’t very well stay alone in the boutique. Not with such a storm coming…right for…it…” The white unicorn’s face fell as she suddenly realized the very real danger to her home and livelihood. She swayed unsteadily, putting a hoof against the wall to keep from falling over. 
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie said, jumping forward to glare at the colt in a way that was very unlike her. “And do you know how to fight a superduper cell?” She turned her blue eyes to each of the pegasi, stretching forward to press her face uncomfortably close to theirs. “Huh? Do you? How ‘bout you?” She sat down with a thump and bobbed her head knowingly. “That’s right. I didn’t think so! So you are going to do what Dashie tells you to do and get rid of those big cumuloninny cloud things right now, because if you don’t and Ponyville gets destroyed, I will never bake any of you anything yummy again!”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t help laughing and smiled smugly at the other pegasi. “Let’s go. We’ve already wasted too much time already. Pinkie, you and Rarity better go downstairs with the others. Underground is the safest place for you to be during a storm like this. Everypony else, outside!”
The wind was fiercer than ever outside. The giant, roiling mass of clouds summoned by Cloudkicker blocked out the stars and Luna’s moon, but lightning flashed so rapidly that the sky seemed almost as bright as midday. The accompanying thunder competed with the roaring wind for which was louder. The funnel cloud Rainbow had seen before was still rapidly dropping towards the ground.
The jewel-toned eyes of the ponies went wide at the terrifying sight, then quickly turned to Rainbow Dash for directions. The blue mare coughed into her hoof and lowered her head to keep the wind from whipping her mane into her eyes.
“Okay!” she shouted to be heard above the thunder. She jabbed a hoof at three of the ponies. “First things first! You, you, you! Up into those clouds—we’ve got to break that cell apart before it forms anymore tornadoes.”
“How do we do that!” a blue and green colt wanted to know. He yelped and ducked, almost losing his balance to the wind, when Rainbow Dash spun around and kicked at him with both hind legs.
“Like that! Kick holes in them, push them away, do anything you can! Just do it now!”
The three ponies leapt into the air, struggling against the wind before vanishing into the mass of clouds. Without pausing to watch them, Rainbow turned to the others.
“The rest of you are going to go for that tornado.” She twirled her hoof in a clockwise direction. “It’s going counterclockwise—you’re going to fly around it clockwise as fast as you can! Change the direction of the wind and we might be able to bre—!”
“Look! There’s another one!”
Spinning about, Rainbow was horrified to see a second funnel cloud dropping from the base of the storm. It moved faster than the first, sending a long, tapered tendril stretching for the ground. As though taking its lead from the tornado, the cloud overhead opened up as soon as the funnel touched the earth and hail as large as chestnuts poured onto the town. 
“Ponyfeathers,” Rainbow breathed, flinching as one hailstone struck the tip of her nose. Trying to ignore the stinging pain, she wracked her memory for all she had ever learned about giant storm cells and tornadoes. She had taken all of the classes in flight school, having discovered her aptitude for weather work early on, and had aced all her tests when it came to the harsher forms of weather—but Ponyville was so peaceful, she never had to deal with anything greater than a rain shower and the occasional thunderstorm. 
But there were still seven pegasi staring at her expectantly and this new tornado heading their way. Biting her lip, Rainbow squinted through the wind at the second twister, tracking its path along the ground and determining that it was on a collision course with the joke shop and the school. The tip of its funnel was particularly narrow and thin—this one was fast and kept shifting across the ground, vacuuming up everything in its path. 	
A bright yellow mare darted into her line of sight, her dark green eyes wide with fear. “Rainbow Dash, why are you just standing there?” she shouted, the wind whipping her words away as soon as they left her mouth. “What do you want us to do?”
“Give me a minute—I’m trying to figure it—oh!” She gasped and smiled toothily as a crazy idea came to her. “Lemondrop, come here!”
The yellow mare leaned close, her concern for Ponyville greater than her fear of catching pegapox. She looked stunned as Rainbow Dash shouted her plan into her ear and glanced nervously at the tornado for an instant before nodding firmly.
“It’s worth a try!” she shouted, flaring out her wings and jumping into the air. The wind immediately tried to catch and spin her away, but she battled against it and tapped three of her friends. “Let’s go—I’ll explain on the way!” The four darted into the sky, their colorful forms quickly swallowed in the darkness.
“Alright, now you three need to—” Rainbow Dash turned to address her three remaining helpers, but froze when she found four ponies facing her.
“Rarity?” Rainbow shook her head in confused shock. “What the hay—what are you doing here?” A flowerpot full of wilted daisies suddenly whizzed through the air over their heads and they both yelped and ducked just in time. It struck the bakery instead, shattering into hundreds of terra cotta shards and showering them all in clumps of soil. Standing up again, Rainbow grabbed her friend and pushed her around the corner to the back of the building, where the wall and roof offered protection from the wind and hail. “I told you to go into the basement with the rest of the earth ponies and unicorns!” she yelled. “You’re gonna get hurt out here!”
“I had to come and help!” Rarity had a blanket, no doubt a throw taken from the library, slung over her back. She yipped at a loud clap of thunder, but held her ground determinedly, raising the blanket with her magic and draping it over Rainbow’s shoulders. “You may be the only pony who knows what to do,” she shouted, tying two corners around her friend’s neck like a cloak, “but you are still sick, Rainbow Dash. Somepony has to watch over you—and I don’t care if you call me bossy or not. I’m staying!”
Rainbow started to protest, but gave up when the warmth of the blanket made her aware of how cold she was. “Thanks,” she murmured, no longer shouting. Rarity, however, understood and smiled. They stared at one another for a moment, then both said in a simultaneous rush, “I’m sorry!” 
“It was my fault!” Rarity added. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No!” Rainbow broke in. “It was me! All you wanted was to—”
“No! No, no, no, no, no! Rainbow Dash! Come here, quick!” A sage green mare named Snapdragon had peeked around the corner of the bakery and now came running back to them. “There’s another one! And it’s big! Bigger than the others!”
“What!” Rainbow gave Rarity a startled look, then galloped back to the main street and gaped at a third funnel cloud that had formed from the storm. She had never heard of three tornadoes coming from the same cloud before. Stunned, her mind went briefly blank as the cone touched down—what in Equestria was she going to do now? There were only three pegasi left and this last twister was the largest one yet. It was a giant wedge, easily half a mile across at the base, the swirling clouds filled with dirt and rocks, trees, branches, water, even a carriage that had been parked on the road. Electric blue flashes of lightning crackled across the roiling surface and shot down to the ground, splitting tree trunks like kindling. One nearby oak was hit, the wood groaning and screaming in protest as an enormous bough tore free and crashed to the ground, forcing the ponies to jump out of the way or risk getting crushed.
“Oh sweet Celestia!” Rarity’s voice cried in her ear. “It’s coming right for town!” The unicorn looked back and forth between the tornado and the village. “Everything will be destroyed!”
“No, it won’t!” Rainbow yelled. “We’ll stop it! We’ve got to!” Her teeth chattered violently with the cold and her legs trembled weakly. Though she hadn’t done any flying, she felt very tired. “We’ve got to,” she repeated more softly.
“How in Equestria are we going to stop that one?” Cloudkicker yelled frantically. He danced from hoof to hoof, his orange wings flapping and flaring at his sides. A window broke nearby, shattered by a hailstone, and he jumped a foot in the air at the noise. “There’s only three of us left against it! We can’t! We need to all get underground like the others and wait for it to go by!”
“Be quiet, you birdbrain!” Snapdragon shouted at him. “This storm is all your fault to begin with! Dash is trying her best to fix your mistakes so the least you can do is shut your muzzle until she—”
Rainbow Dash stepped away from them, unable to concentrate while Snapdragon continued to berate Cloudkicker. Leaving the shelter of the bakery, she trotted into the street, facing the storm again as hail tumbled and cracked on the ground all around and the wind brought tears to her eyes.
“Come on, Rainbow—think!” she berated herself. “They’re all counting on you!”
This twister was too powerful for them to try counter spinning, and the tip of the funnel far too wide to lift and redirect like Lemondrop’s group was attempting to do with the second cone. The only way to stop something this large was an equally powerful force to disrupt the spinning winds and the updrafts that fed the tornado, but there was no force made by ponies strong enough to…
“That’s it!” she shouted. Whirling, she galloped back to the bakery, where Snapdragon had Cloudkicker cowering against the wall, refusing to let the colt flee back to the library. “I’ve got it! But we have to hurry! We’re only gonna get one chance!”
“One chance at what?” Rarity asked, following her. “What are you going to do, darling?”
“A sonic rainboom!”
“What!” the four ponies cried in unison.
“We perform a sonic rainboom in the center of the tornado! The force of the rainbow should blow through the cyclone and break it up!” 
Snapdragon stared at her as though she had gone mad. “A sonic rainboom? How are we gonna do that? Dash, you’re the only pony who’s ever done one! I can’t fly that fast!”
“Neither can I!” said the third pegasus, Honeydew.
“It’s crazy!” Cloudkicker protested. “Insane! Who’s going to—?”
At that moment, Ditzy Doo, one of the pegasi Rainbow had sent to break up the supercell, managed to poke a hole in the clouds. A shaft of bright moonlight slipped through, shining down directly onto Rainbow Dash so her multi-colored mane shone with a strange, silvery tint. She glanced upwards, eyebrows raised, then grinned as an even crazier idea came to her.
“I will!”
**
“Rainbow Dash, what are you thinking?” Rarity tried to catch the trailing end of Rainbow’s blanket cloak in her mouth, desperate to stop her friend from trotting towards the roaring tornado. “You can’t do a sonic rainboom now! You can’t even fly!”
“That’s why I’m going to need your help. You can do it, Rarity!”
“But you could be hurt! Rainbow…” She succeeded in grabbing the blanket and tugged the pegasus back a step, but Rainbow Dash simply wriggled out of the makeshift cloak and put a hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder.
“Rarity!” she shouted. “I know you’re scared, but time is running out! Now, are you going to help me do this or not?”
“I—of course I will. But I still think you’re crazy!”
Rainbow laughed. “Hey, it’s always worked for Pinkie Pie!” She galloped towards the tornado and, despairing her part in the impromptu plan, Rarity hurried to keep up.
“Okay, you all know what you have to do!” Rainbow glared at the tornado and took in a deep breath. “Let’s do this!”
Snapdragon and Honeydew caught the blue pony in their hooves and lifted into the air, carrying her up into the storm. Cloudkicker hesitated on the ground for a moment longer until he caught Rarity glowering at him. Muttering under his breath, he leapt for the sky, leaving the unicorn to watch and wait.
Ducking under a bench to hide from the hail, Rarity stared up at the first twister and the trio of ponies she could see flying in rapid circles around the grey vortex. As Rainbow had predicted, the counter spinning was working on this smaller tornado and the cone was breaking up into filmy wisps of cloud like cotton candy.
Lemondrop and her group were still struggling with their own twister. They were flying only around the tapered end, their motion thinning the clouds into a trailing rope they used to pull the tornado off course. It fought their efforts like a dog fighting a leash, but Rarity could see that, even if they lost their hold now, they had dragged the funnel far enough from the town to keep it from causing any harm.
That left only the giant monster of a tornado bearing down on Ponyville, the swirling winds roaring louder than any dragon or manticore the unicorn had ever encountered. Trembling, Rarity peeped out from beneath the bench and searched the skies for Rainbow Dash, but the little pony had been swallowed by the clouds.
“You can do it, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity murmured. “Good luck!”
**
“Higher!” Rainbow called, her words whipping away into the night. She pointed a hoof at the base of the stormcloud. “We have to go higher!” 
Snapdragon nodded, she and Honeydew battling the winds to fly higher. Frigid, soaking rain poured down on them, interspersed with bruising hail. They had to dodge bolts of lightning that seemed determined to knock them from the sky and ice began to form on the edges of their feathers and in their manes and tails, making the upward climb more difficult. Though Rainbow Dash was light weight even for a pegasus, the two mares were soon flagging, their wings struggling with each beat.
“I—I can’t go a-any further!” Honeydew gasped. Her grip on Rainbow slipped and Snapdragon cried out, swooping to catch the blue pegasus before she fell. “I’m sorry!” Honeydew called, dropping back towards the ground. 
“We—we’re not high enough! I need to be able to get up to speed!” 
“I’m trying!”
Snapdragon flew higher still, gritting her teeth as the air grew colder and thinner and her muscles ached with the effort. Just when she was sure she couldn’t flap another foot higher, Cloudkicker pulled close to her side, taking Rainbow from her hooves and powering upwards.
“Good luck, Dash!” Snapdragon yelled. Folding her wings, she sped downwards, eager to get out of the storm.
His forelegs wrapped tightly around Rainbow Dash, Cloudkicker surged higher into the storm, weaving through bolts of lightning like Scootaloo had woven in and out of obstacles on her scooter earlier that evening. One bolt came particularly close, washing them both in heat and filling their nostrils with the acrid smell of singed hair. Cloudkicker winced, but didn’t dare look back at the remains of his tail.
Shielding her eyes with her hoof, Rainbow indicated a patch of gray fractal cloud just twenty yards ahead. Cloudkicker flew above it, then spiraled down to land on the leaden surface. Directly below them, the gaping maw of the tornado spun and whirled, tearing up earth and trees on its way to the tiny, helpless Ponyville.
“You really think you can do this?” Cloudkicker shouted. He looked over the edge of the cloud and gulped, his knees quaking.
Rainbow Dash bit her lip and didn’t reply. Though she was well aware of her talents in flying, the sonic rainboom was one stunt that had repeatedly denied her efforts. She had only pulled it off twice before, and never through the center of a tornado, and never while stricken with an illness that affected her ability to fly. If she failed this time—if she couldn’t build up enough speed or if she got hit by a piece of flying debris—Ponyville was doomed. Though she probably wouldn’t survive to see it.
She couldn’t deny that it was an extremely dangerous idea, and the Ponyville residents surely wouldn’t fault her if she didn’t go through with it—but a flash of lightning suddenly lit up the town far below and she could see the Carousel Boutique and Sugarcube Corner and, further away, the large hollow tree of the library. 
“No storm is destroying Ponyville as long as I’m around!” she snarled, raising her wings. Pawing the cloud with a hoof and kicking up a miniscule flash of lightning, she launched herself into the air, jackknifed, and shot down through the eye of the tornado.
Darkness enveloped her and the low pressure inside the funnel made her ears pop, deadening the roar of the wind to a dull drone. Rainbow pointed her hooves straight down and let gravity take over. She plummeted towards the ground, flapping her wings to fall even faster. Muscles that hadn’t been used in two weeks protested the strain, but she pushed herself harder, gaining speed with each passing second. Her eyes stung, then began to water. The wind pushed her lips back in a fierce grimace.
“Come on!” she moaned. “Faster! Have…to go…faster!”
Her head began to pound, but the air around her hooves was starting to bow outwards. It felt like pushing against a taut sheet. She flapped faster, gritting her teeth as the air fought back, threatening to stop her and fling her back into the clouds like a trampoline.
“Oh…no…you…don’t!” she screamed. A wave of dizziness washed over her, but she dug deep inside for one last burst of energy and shoved against the barrier. “Just…a little…more!”
In a brilliant flash of rainbow lightning, the air burst around her and the tornado exploded outwards in a thousand fragments of colored cloud. The sudden change in pressure made sparks flash before her eyes and threw her into an uncontrolled freefall. Wings hanging helplessly at her sides, Rainbow Dash plummeted towards Ponyville hundreds of feet below.