Chapter 1. The Storm.
Rainbow Dash wasn't having a good day. A freak storm had decided to make its presence known from the Everfree forest, and as the leader of the Ponyville weather team, she was in the thick of it. Lightning was flashing around her. Her ears were ringing from the claps of thunder. And to top it off, she could feel the sharp tingle of magic from this storm.
"Blossomforth, keep the north clouds corralled," she hollered in a voice only a pegasus could manage. She saw the pale pink pegasus move further north. Rainbow moved to a somewhat tamer part of the storm, she needed a moment to breathe, and keep an eye on the rest of her team. Swiveling her head around, she saw her team wasn't getting into the clouds, but pushing them away from Ponyville. That earned a smile from her, they were well trained. Celestia's sun was just setting. Rainbow growled as she noticed the rest of the storm was advancing. It was like it had a will of its own, she was missing a get together with her friends because of this damned storm. But with Flitter finding her at the Golden Oaks library while she was talking to Twilight, the urgency in the blue gray pegasus' purple eyes said that this storm was a bad one. And those eyes weren't lying. This storm didn't want to dissipate.
She shook her head, and flew back towards the brunt of the storm.
"Rainbow!" She barely heard the voice as she was heading back to do battle, the voice gave her pause. She turned to see a lavender form with wings and horn fly up to her.
"Twilight, this is too dangerous for you," she snapped at her friend as Twilight reached her.
"Too dangerous for me?" the young alicorn asked rhetorically. "And what about you?"
Rainbow flipped around and bucked an errant cloud, it promptly dissipated, but not without discharging a lightning bolt. "I'll be fine Twilight, this is my job. You haven't been trained in weather work. Head back to the library. With my team, we'll get this storm whipped quickly." She had to duck quickly as another bolt of lightning stabbed between the two fliers. "Please Twilight." Rainbow's normal bravado was replaced with cold determination.
"Do you want me to use my magic to help you Rainbow?" Twilight pressed.
"No, Twilight, there's already magic in this storm, something bad might happen if you mix your magic with it. Just let us do our jobs. Please, Princess." Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash, shocked. Not only was Rainbow Dash begging her, but she used her title. This was serious. The alicorn folded her wings and dived towards the ground without another word.
"Thank you my friend." Rainbow Dash whispered as she got back to her work. This was not an evening for a Princess. Her extremely fast reflexes allowed her to avoid a near hit by another lightning bolt.
"Turns out, this isn't a night for your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash either." She said grimly to herself as she bucked another cloud into nonexistence.
"Flitter, Cloudchaser, the southern fringe of the storm is getting out of control," she yelled over the general noise.
The sisters moved to corral the clouds. There was no pony near Rainbow Dash. She flitted north a bit, pushing a large thunderhead into another larger cloud, her instincts telling her they would cancel each other out. She was right. The two formations came together for a moment before exploding into mist. She was in the clear for a few moments.
She hovered for a moment. She then saw something that made her curse.
Flashing forward she started yelling. "Thunderlane, you idiot. You are going to make that formation double in size!" She wasn't fast enough, one of the youngest weather stallions in her crew had pushed two compatible clouds together, they melded together to the young stallion's surprise, and emitted several blasts of lightning, hitting the stallion and stunning him. He started to fall from the sky. Rainbow Dash redoubled her speed trying to get to him. Coming up from under the main formation of the storm, a grey pegasus mare caught the falling Thunderlane. Her mismatched eyes caught Dash's cerise eyes for a moment.
"I'll get him to the ground safely," the mailmare that had been drafted into helping with this storm yelled at Rainbow Dash as she adjusted her course to blast the newly strengthened storm.
"Alright everypony, let's push this storm back where it came from," she yelled at her team. Over two dozen pegasi started pushing parts of the storm back towards the Everfree forest. They had finally gotten a handle on it, despite the setbacks by Thunderlane's mistake. Three hours of fighting this storm were finally paying off.
The storm was still being stubborn. It wouldn't dissipate, and pushing it back where it came from wasn't a perfect solution, but better for it to rage over the forest than over Ponyville was the next best solution. Unfortunately, it meant hours more work, making sure it wouldn't head back. Every flier in the weather team was exhausted. And if Rainbow Dash was being honest with herself, she was just as tired. They all headed back to the meadow near Fluttershy's house to keep an eye on the storm. Fluttershy was there, tending to an injured Thunderlane. Rainbow Dash landed heavily and trotted up to her friend.
"How is he?"
Fluttershy smiled at her friend, "He is going to have to take a few weeks off. The lightning didn't do much except singe off half the feathers on his wing. Nothing permanent, but over half of his primaries are in no condition for flight. He'll have to wait for them to regrow before he spends any time in the air." Rainbow trotted with her friend over to the stricken pegasus stallion.
He turned his head to face her. "I'm sorry Rainbow Dash, I thought they would cancel out."
She bit back the words she wanted to say. A member of her crew was hurt on her watch, she just wanted him to be okay. "It's alright Thunderlane, I'm glad you are going to be okay. But Fluttershy tells me you are going to have to be on desk duty for a while." This earned a pained groan from the dark grey pegasus. Everypony hated desk duty.
She turned around and almost tripped over another of her friends.
"Twilight, I thought I told you to go back to the library."
Twilight had an impish grin on her face. "You aren't going to the library any time soon, not with that storm still threatening. So, I had Spike bring dinner here." She gestured with her wings, all of Rainbow Dash's friends were there, joining the Ponyville weather team. The genius alicorn apparently had Spike busy, enough food for every pony was ready. "So we can all eat, and I know your team is probably very hungry after hours of flying like that."
Rarity was using her magic setting up places to eat comfortably, while Applejack rode herd on the CMC as they bounced around, every pony trying to be helpful. All Rainbow Dash could do was smile at her friends.
"Thank you everypony." She moved towards one of the hastily set up pavilions and sat down as a large salad was placed in front of her. She was famished. So she ate quickly with her friends.
Just as she was finishing her meal one of her weather team landed quickly and trotted up to her.
"Boss, we've got a problem." Cloud Kicker said as she panted. She apparently had been still in the air keeping tabs on the storm.
"Go ahead." Rainbow Dash said with a frown.
"The storm is gathering strength. I don't think it was a good idea to push it back. It's heading back towards us, and it looks nastier than ever."
With a curse Rainbow Dash gathered up every pegasus she could get. Taking a moment to hug her friends and thank them for the meal, she took off and led her team back into the fray.
She had Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth on each side of her as they headed back to the renewed storm. She shouted instructions to them before they peeled off to handle the perimeter of the storm, leaving Rainbow Dash and a few others on the weather team and some of the drafted pegasi to handle the main body of the storm. They were just about to hit the storm hard when an errant lightning bolt slammed into Rainbow Dash. Though unlike Thunderlane, she didn't start falling. She was simply gone. A few cyan feathers fluttered down as the pegasi that were flying with her stopped in shock.
"What happened?" Derpy asked. Every pegasus looked at each other. Rainbow Dash was gone.
***
For Rainbow Dash the experience was horrible. It felt like she was being squeezed through a hole way too small for her. She felt electricity jumping across every nerve ending as she screamed. In moments it was over. And she was falling. She only had moments before she saw that she was going to crash. She desperately tried to flare her wings, somehow to slow her mad decent. It worked, to a point. She crashed into some kind of building. But this was no building in Ponyville. Through her haze of losing consciousness, she could hear chanting of thousands of voices.
"Eight…Seven…Six…Five…Four…" She looked around groggily, wherever she was, there were a lot of large buildings, she didn't know of any city in Equestria that looked like this. There was a large glowing ball slowly descending in time with the chanting. "Three…Two…One… Happy New Year!" The chanting gave way to wild screaming and celebrating. She couldn't move far enough to see the source of all of those voices. But she was able to focus on the glowing orb a few buildings away from her as it landed and new lights came on. She was able to make out those lights formed a set of four numbers. One…Nine…Seven…Eight. She had no clue what that meant as her consciousness fled.