“Where… where am I?”
The small filly attempted to lift herself off of the cold, wet ground. Although her body ached with pain, she was able to sit up straight. Rain rushed off of her yellow coat, but was quickly replaced by more. She squinted to take in her surroundings through the fog. Rocks. Sand. Grass. Hills. No signs of life were visible in any direction.
“He- Help!” She screamed as she started to panic. She began to flap her tiny wings as hard as she could from her sitting position. Rain bounced off of her feathers, and mud was splashed around by her under developed wings. No matter how hard she tried, the little pegasus could not lift herself off of the ground.
“Anypony! Pl-please!” She got out, starting to sob uncontrollably. She fell limp, back into the hole her body made only seconds before. She covered her emerald eyes with her hooves as she shed more tears. Never has she felt more alone. Never has she wanted so badly to be in the safe, warm comfort that was her house. Hope was completely lost. The young pegasus lay in the field with absolutely no idea as to what to do next.
The sun crept into the rather large bedroom and replaced the darkness of the night. As the light illuminated the bed in the center, the covers rustled around. A head slowly popped out from the blankets. The messy mane stuck vertically as the owner adjusted to sit up.
Mondays. I hate Mondays. She thought to herself as her eyes scanned around her room. Two posters depicting the Wounderbolts were hung on opposite sides of the room, both resting above a separate piece of furniture. The bed lay with the headboard against the wall providing space on both sides to step out. The foot of the bed pointed straight towards the door. The pegasus turned her head to the nightstand on her left that held a small calendar with her work schedule for the weather patrol. A doozy of a downpour was planned for today. That’s going to be tedious. Her body started to sink back into her bed slowly. She began to wish, just like every morning, that she could just stay in that bed for the whole day. She did not want to go to work. She would rather just sleep a few more hours and go out flying around for a bit. Some ponies call it being lazy. Rainbow Dash called it prioritizing.
The cyan pony stretched her hooves out and let out a monstrous yawn. One hoof over the other, she fought to get out of the enticing bed. She felt the soft cloud floor underneath her hooves and began to stretch out her wings. She relaxed for a moment in order to take in her room again, to think back on how long and boring it was to mold the cloud foundation around her house. Over all it was worth it, but it took forever! The cloud structure used a type of magic to support the furniture within the room. Presumably the same magic that pegasus ponies possess that allow them to stand on clouds; something that could not be done by unicorns or earth ponies without the use of a spell. Rainbow grabbed a chunk of cloud from the walls and used the water to fix her multicolored mane. She likes to keep it a little messy anyway.
Rainbow left her house and winced as the unfiltered morning light blasted into her eyes. She let them adjust as she held a hoof over her head for shade. She peered out over Ponyville and surveyed the land. As much as she loved Cloudsdale, Ponyville will always hold a special place in her heart. She stood for a few more moments on her cloud porch that levitated a good distance from the grassy plane underneath the house.
“HEYYYY RAINBOW DASH!” A high pitch voice called from the ground. Rainbow jumped slightly from the unexpected greeting. She poked her head out over the edge of the porch to find a small pink dot on the ground with a rather large mega horn pointed directly up at the floating shelter.
“Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow couldn't help but let out a tiny chuckle at the spontaneous pony on the floor. “You’re so random! Are you trying to wake up the town!?” A smile escaped the cyan pony’s lips as she began to glide down slowly to Pinkie.
“No silly!” Pinkie Pie sang as she bounced in the air. “Just you Dashie!” Who knows what Pinkie Pie could possibly want so early in the morning? Pinkie jumped and hugged Rainbow, weighing her all the way to the ground as she got closer. They both laughed as they picked themselves up. Pinkie’s gravity defying hair bounced back and forth and she balanced herself on all fours.
“What’s up Pinkie?” Rainbow asked.
“I have some super-duper wonderfully amazing pranks planned for today and I came by to see if you wanna have some fun too!” Pinkie shot out in one breath, like a water faucet on full blast.
“That sounds so totally awesome! Rainbow exclaimed. “I…..I don’t know if I could make it though. The weather patrol scheduled a doozy of a down pour and that could take forever.” Rainbow said. Truth be told, any other day the answer would have been yes. Lately, however, her boss has been getting on her about doing poor jobs and taking too many breaks. Rainbow is afraid that one more screw up could mean getting fired.
“Awwww. Bummer.” The pink pony’s mood drastically changed. She frowned and looked down at the ground for a few seconds before returning to her originally excited self. “Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be at Sugar Cube Corner preparing all of my pranks! See ya later Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie said as she began to turn around a bounce away like she normally does.
“Wait Pinkie!” Dash finally got out after a few seconds of thinking.
“Yes Dashie?” Pinkie froze in midair and turned around to catch Rainbow’s eye.
“I’ll be a little late, but count me in!” Rainbow exclaimed.
“Make sure to pay extra attention! It’s important that those clouds get separated into the right locations.” The weather organizer shouted at his small team of ponies as they gathered, standing in a perfectly straight line. “We all know what would happen if too many clouds occupy a very congested area! Isn’t that right, Rainbow Dash?” The tall grey stallion stopped at the end of the line where Rainbow was standing, drifting off inside her own imagination.
“Oh wait, what about being congested? You should really see a doctor about that, Psyrin sir.” Rainbow Dash said, looking her boss right in his blue eyes.
“Did you even hear a word I said?” The pegasus pony asked, rolling his eyes. He was mirroring Rainbow as he stood. His intention was to get as “into her face” as possible in order to make his point.
“Yes I did sir!” Rainbow spoke quickly; she could hear the rest of the pegasi on her team chuckle. Psyrin’s head dropped and faced the floor with a disappointed look stuck on his face.
“Alright then, you all know the quadrants that you are all accountable for.” Psyrin said, addressing the whole team now. They all straightened up as his attention turned to them from Rainbow. “You all may take off when ready.” The team began to flap their wings as they all became airborne in unison. “All of you except for Ms. Dash here.”
Rainbow stopped flapping and slowly returned to the grassy ground. She looked up to see the other ponies take off at admittedly fast speeds. Well, fast for them of course. Nothing compared to Rainbow. If she were to seriously take off in this grass field with no obstructions, she could reach amazing speeds.
“Rainbow.” Psyrin said in his deep voice, throwing Rainbow off of her train of thought. Her eyes met his again immediately. “You are very important to this team, and I would hate more than anything to have to fire you, but this has got to stop.”
“I’m not following sir.” Rainbow said, playing confused.
“Being late all of the time, only half finishing your work, daydreaming when I am giving instructions, the list goes on.” He said sternly. “You’re good at what you do, you just need to stop being lazy.” He got out as he turned around. “Your job depends on it.” He finished as he walked away.
“Yes sir.” Rainbow said, defeated. She can’t really afford to lose this job. She turned and looked up to the sky again. A few ponies were already preparing the blanket of clouds over the town. Rainbow took off and watched as the ponies got bigger and bigger. It only took a few seconds of hard flapping to get to their level. She scanned around for the opening that would be her area to prepare.
“You’ve got the boarder, Dash.” A voice called out about the dark clouds. It did not take long for Dash to find where the voice came from.
“Oh, okay. Thanks Blossomforth!” Rainbow called out to the pinkish gray mare dragging a cloud from one place to another. Blossomforth gave a small wave in response as Dash flew to her post. It was a lot farther out then a lot of the other ponies. In fact, they were all completely hard to see.
Rainbow got to work on grabbing the clouds in the surrounding area to make the boarder. As she worked, she couldn't stop thinking about what possible wild ideas Pinkie has in store for her victims. Dash quickly grew eager to get her job done and over with. Clearing the skies? That’s easy. Setting up a cloud cover for heavy rain? That takes control and patience. Rainbow shot a glance back towards the direction of her coworkers. Still couldn’t really see any of them.
“Maybe no one will notice…..” Rainbow began thinking aloud. “If I use a more… creative…. tactic.” Rainbow spared no time in her plan. She began to fly in a large circle around her clouds. As she picked up speed, the clouds started to spread out and cover her designated ground on the outskirts of Ponyville. Rainbow’s mind flashed back to Diamond Dust and how she endangered her friends using the same strategy. Dash, however, was positive that no ponies would be out this far. She was also pretty content with the fact that she had absolute and full control of the small, slow moving tornado. Rainbow’s plan seemed to be working quite well. The clouds were clumping up and keeping the area congested, but nopony lives there anyway. Content with her work, Dash began to slow the speed of the wind. After a few seconds of fighting the wind's current, she exited the vortex and hovered for a bit as she watched the wind she created start to die down,
“This is taking too long, I am sure it is fine.” Rainbow said aloud, tired of waiting for the tornado to stop. “It’s not going anywhere.” With that, Rainbow was off. It would not take long to get to sugar cube corner from here.
The defeated filly moved her hooves from in front of her eyes. She could not tell exactly how long it has been, but it felt like she has been laying in this grass field forever. Her sobbing came to a slow stop as she decided to stand.
“I’m never going to get back home if I stay here.” The yellow filly concluded as she looked around. “But… Which way do I go?” She started doing slow circles, stepping in a certain direction just to decide she could not see anything and change directions. This went on for a few seconds. “If I go the wrong way, I could end up even more lost than I am already.” Her emerald eyes began tearing up again. She felt so hopeless. If only she would have been more careful. If only she had reacted faster, she would not be here. “SOMEPONYYY!” She yelled at the very top of her lungs. The small pony was so desperate to be heard. She reached up a hoof and wiped the tears from her eyes, which did not really matter, as the rain just made her vision blurry anyway. She looked up and started squinting. Off in the distance, high in the sky, she felt she could almost make out a figure.
“He-hello! Over here! Help me!” She started screaming to the figure. She considered for a millisecond that the figure could just be a figment of her imagination. That thought, however, was quickly displaced by the chance that she could finally get out of this storm and to safety.
“RAINBOW DASH!” A thunderous voice boomed over the sound of the falling rain outside. The sound made all occupants inside Sugar Cube Corner jump. Mrs. Cake poked her head out of the kitchen to see what was going on, and Mr. Cake found himself taking shelter behind the counter with his eyes exposed. Both Rainbow and Pinkie Pie, who were sitting at a table, jolted up and faced the newcomer to the shop. Rainbow felt as though she was staring death in the eyes as Psyrin stepped into the store, soaking wet. “I am sorry about the intrusion Mr. and Mrs. Cake.” The grey pony said directly to the Cakes who both relaxed a bit as they recognized the creator of the voice. “Rainbow. Swift Breeze told me he saw you come here earlier.” He said sternly, turning all of his attention to Dash; who was shaking as if she had just seen a ghost. “Outside. Now.” Rainbow galloped outside quickly.
“Is everything okay, boss?” Rainbow asked, trying to hide her worry. She winced a little bit as she stepped out into the cold rain. Psyrin closed the door before he started to speak.
“Any reason the northern Ponyville team had to take a break to stop a tornado?” He asked. Rainbow knew from the very first second that this was going to be rhetorical.
“Sir.” Rainbow began, keeping as calm as possible. “I completed my work by using a tornado to spread out the clouds over my assigned area.” She got out.
“You are very lucky that no one got hurt, Rainbow.” He said, putting his hoof to his face. “You can’t keep pulling things like this!” He said, pointing the hoof at Rainbow now. “We JUST had a conversation about this!”
“I am sorry sir, I won’t do it again.” Rainbow said, trying her best to not loose her temper. No pony got hurt. The job got done. She saw no problem.
“I need you to go back to your location and even out the clouds. You remember what happened the first time you let the clouds get congested, right?” Psyrin asked.
“Yes sir. Fog.”
Rainbow looked left and right through the fog. She could absolutely swear she heard somepony through the sound of the rain. Rainbow hovered in the air for a little bit and strained her ears to listen.
“He-hello! Over here! Help me!” Rainbow faintly heard. She tried her best to pinpoint the direction of the desperate screams. Dash took off and made circles, following the strange screaming. Finally, Rainbow found the outline of a young filly waving her front hooves in the fog. Rainbow Flew as fast as she could towards the silhouette. Before long she was able to make out more details of the pony. She was a Yellow filly with a short messy, dark-green mane. She wore a lime green hair band in her mane that complimented the single dash of lime green she had streaking through her tail. On her left foreleg, she wore a white elastic wristband that one would often wear while working out that covered a little under half of her foreleg. She was completely drenched and shaking all over. As Dash got closer, the filly began galloping toward her. She jumped and hugged Rainbow Dash as tight as possible and cried into her cyan colored coat. Rainbow touched ground to hug and comfort the scared little filly.
“What are you doing out her all alone?” Rainbow asked, disconnecting herself from the pony.
“I fell- a- a- an- and – Im s-care-d.” She tried to get out in between sobs. “A-a-a-nd, and, I w-w-ant to g-o h-o-me and I don- don’t kn-n-now where.”
“Sh sh sh, it’s okay. Just tell me where you live and I will take you there, okay?” Rainbow Dash hushed the child.
“I- I uh, I liv-e in C-lo-uds dale.” The filly got out before jumping into Rainbow Dash again.
‘What should I do?’ Rainbow thought to herself. ‘It is much too dangerous for me to try and lug this kid all the way to Clouds Dale in this weather.’ Rainbow looked down at the poor kid burying her face in her chest.
“Alright kid, It’s too dangerous for you to go back home right now, so I am going to take you to Ponyville until this storm is over, okay?’ The filly nodded in response, and Rainbow put the small child on her back before taking off toward town.