//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Not Another Romance! // by LordBrony2040 //------------------------------// Chapter 2: And It Is Your Duty As the informative movie explaining the basic mechanics of Tornado Day ended, Twilight brightened up the room via the lights in the library with her magic, and noticed that Spike was having a bit of trouble with the film reel. He apparently became tangled in it before tearing the thing in two. Twilight sighed and shook her head while she trotted over to help her assistant unravel himself since the angry glares of the pegasi over destroying the tape. She didn't blame him though, those things were hardly reliable. Thankfully, Dash came to her little assistant’s rescue by clearing her throat to get everypony’s attention and flying up in front of the projection screen, giving time for Twilight to untangle Spike before she brought out the slide projector. After that, the dragon wisely made himself scarce. “Okay everypony, if you haven’t figured it out, the Ponyville highlands reservoir has been chosen to provide the rainwater for all of Equestria this year!” the alicorn announced as she looked over the crowd. “Now, I’m sure that those ponies up in Cloudsdale, in their bright cloud offices, sitting on their cushy cloud chairs just want me to fly out there and wave my wings and do the alicorn thing to whip up a tornado like the big Celestial Sun Celebration or something.” Twilight blinked as she heard a few mumbles of agreement, particularly from the ponies who were not on the Ponyville Weather Team. From the sound of it, most of the pegasi in the room in the room thought that’s exactly what would happen. Hay, they even thought that the whole reason Dash was calling the meeting they were all at was to spread the word that she was going to put on a show, and…Twilight found herself wondering just why that wasn’t the case. Princess Celestia had the Summer Sun and Princess Luna had Nightmare Night. It seemed like the Tornado Day stuff would have been perfect for a holiday tied to the newest member of the Equestrian Royal Family. Hay, it would have been the perfect excuse for Rainbow to show off. While Dash had changed a little since she became an alicorn, Twilight still saw the egotistical braggart she befriended on her first day in Ponyville; as well as the insecure filly underneath that the braggart was just a cover for. The fact that Rainbow Dash could do the work of one-hundred pegasi on her own made the unicorn ask: why wasn’t she? “But you know what? I say buck them!” Rainbow Dash said as she rose higher into the air. “I may be the Alicorn of the Sky, but you guys are Ponyville pegasi! we’ve got the harshest kind of weather in all of Equestria right on our doorstep!” “Yeah, your sneezes!” As the pegasi let out a few good-natured chuckles, Rainbow spun and pointed a hoof at Cloud Kicker, who was standing off to the side of the crowd. “I’ve only blown one house down, and we all know Pinkie was just as much to blame for that as me!” she said before turning back to the crowd. “Now, as I was saying…you deal with the Everfree forest, Hoof-only Winter Wrap-ups, and bucking cotton candy clouds that rain chocolate milk!” she went on with the ponies nodded in agreement and smiled at all the things they had overcome in just the past year. “I say that you guys are the most awesome pegasi in all of Equestria! And now we’re going to prove it by setting a tornado wing-power record that blows all the others out of the sky!” With a nod from the alicorn, Twilight turned on the slide projector. A second after it finished warming up, a silhouette of a large town with a rising bar graph positioned above it appeared. “Now, last year, Fillidelphia set a wing-power record of nine-hundred and ten. And if a bunch of sissy city ponies can do that after sitting on their plots all day and taking the taxi carts to work instead of using their own wings, then the pegasi of Ponyville are going to blow that number away with a cool one thousand!” A wave of…something washed over Twilight, and she could practically feel the level of excitement in the room begin to rise as the pegasi talked amongst themselves. She had to admit, it would be a pretty neat thing to see Ponyville go into the record books for something like that. From what she could tell, living on the edge of the Everfree, with the threat of timber wolves and other things wandering into town, Ponyville had become quite the…athletic town. Applejack might not have won a blue ribbon at the Equestrian Rodeo, but the records had shown that nopony had even come close to matching the sheer amount of awards she had picked up from all the events. Then there was Rainbow Dash, who had claimed the title of Best Young Flier with a legendary move no other pegasus could do. Of course, she wasn’t that much of a slouch either, but…Twilight had only lived in Ponyville for about a year, it wasn’t right to count herself amongst the populace quite yet. “But its not going to be easy,” Rainbow Dash said as she smacked one hoof into another. “Everypony in Ponyville is going to have to train and get themselves into top shape if we hope to get the amount of power needed to put Ponyville on the map!” There was a chorus of cheers, and once again, the crowd of pegasi broke into an excited rumble. At least, until one of them asked a question that brought all the excitement to a halt. “But…Ms Dash? Wouldn’t it just be easier to have you do the tornado for us?” Every single pony in the room went silent, along with the dragon. Although Twilight couldn’t tell who had spoken since she was at the back of the room at the moment, she could tell the voice came from a male. Then every pegasus in the room took one giant step backward, and Twilight teleported onto the stairs to see who had just ostracized himself from every winged pony in town. In the center of the circle of pegasi, stood the golden-orangish-yellow pegasus Twilight had seen the other day. His name was…Brash…something. In all honesty, Twilight had been paying more attention to the dark pegasus that had been standing beside him. There was just…something about her that made Twilight’s magic senses tingle. But at the moment, she was more focused on Brash Something to concern herself with trying to figure out the puzzle of Starry Night. Unfortunately for Brash, there was one other species in the room that was giving him a look of contempt: and that species was divine alicorn. “What did you just say?” Rainbow asked the new weatherpony as she glared down at him. “I just don’t see why we got to work our flanks off when you can just flap your wings and do the job for us,” Brash explained with a shrug and half-closed eyes as he looked away from the goddess towards the end. “Who cares about some stupid record?” Twilight winced as the rest of the crowd became a collection of angry murmurs focused on Brash. She had to admire his ability to speak his mind, but…even though Twilight was a unicorn, she knew that the pegasi were the most proud tribe of all the ponies thanks to several experiences with the royal guard. Even Fluttershy would brag on and on about something with a manic amount of excitement in her eyes as long as it was in her comfort zone when Twilight let her. Her first three weeks with the pegasus had taught Twilight more about animals that the unicorn had ever wanted to know; and that was really saying something. The fact that there was a pegasus who didn’t seem to share that trait was a curious oddity. Twilight had to wonder if it was caused by something that happened in Brash’s past, or was there something on a genetic level that made him different than other pegasi? The unicorn looked up at the ceiling and tapped her chin in thought as she tried to think of how to proceed with discovering the answer to her query. “OW!” Brush cried out, making Twilight down at the group and see Raindrops had left the herd to do…something to the other pegasus who was currently rubbing his cutie mark. “What was that for?” The irate mare let out a loud humph. “Just checking to see if that was your real cutie mark. A pegasus as lazy as you should have a couch.” “Tch please, I’m probably the fastest pegasus in this room!” Brash declared as he practically shoved his flank in Raindrops’s face. “See this lightning bolt? Only the fastest of fliers get a cutie mark like this, and my parents didn’t name me Flash for nothing.” As several of the pegasi began grumbling amongst themselves, Twilight noticed Cloud Kicker speaking with Rainbow at the edge of her vision. But before anything could come of it, Starry Night stepped forward and struck a hoof to the ground so hard it seemed to make a bang. “If you do truly believe that, then I look forward to changing your opinion come practice on the marrow.” “Okay, okay! Break it up everypony!” Kicker shouted as she flew over the crowd. “Now, since this is tornado duty, we’re going to be calling on ever single last one of you to do your parts one week from today. So get some sleep, and we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning!” A second later, the local alicorn flew up next to Kicker after doing a quck loop around the room. “Cause we’re gonna train hard, right?” “Yeah!” several of the pegasi exclaimed. “And are we gonna make that tornado?” she went on. “YEAH!” more of the pegasi joined in, including an overly large white one with small wings that made Twilight uneasy about just what type of juice he was using. “AND ARE WE GONNA BREAK THAT RECORD?” Rainbow Dash shouted to the crowd. “YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” All of a sudden, Twilight’s ears felt like they exploded, and then her whole body tumbled through the air. A second later, she blinked as she felt a pair of forearms envelop her, and looked back to see Rainbow Dash had caught her. A quick glance around the room told the unicorn that the other pegasi hadn’t fared as well as her, what with several of them embedded in book cases, handing from the library’s chandelier, or run through the projection screen. Down at the center of the room, Starry Night gave an embarrassed cough. “My apologies. Um…I should probably be going now. The stars are out and I have work to do...sorry once again” she said with a look of contained shame before quickly cantering out the door. With that, it seemed the emergency mandatory pegasi meeting had come to an end. One by one, the pegasi righted themselves and slowly left the tree-house. Thankfully, none of them were injured beyond a headache here and some air sickness there. As the room managed to be cleared out except for one last pegasus and the blue alicorn, Twilight managed to catch the tail end of their conversation. “-going to be a problem?” Cloud Kicker said before both her and Rainbow looked over to the unicorn. “Hey Twi, thanks for letting us use the library for the meeting,” the alicorn told her. “By the way, who was that pegasus from before the one with the blue mane?” she asked. Cloud Kicker was the one who answered. “Starry Night?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you met her yesterday? Well…guess meet was too strong a word. Heck of a pair of lungs on her, and I haven’t seen anypony with her amount of flying talent…since my princess here of course.” As the light purple pony’s looks turned a little…amorous, and she moved to nuzzle the alicorn, Twilight found a few very interesting book titles just sitting on the shelves. Then the temperature dropped a good ten degrees and she glanced back in time to see Rainbow giving the smaller pegasus a glare. “Remember what happened the last time I banged you CK?” the alicorn grumbled. “That wasn’t banging! You hit me with a table after offering to get it on in the middle of the restaurant,” she said before her voice took on a whiny tone. “Come on Dash, you’re you and an alicorn now! That puts you on my list twice! You got to let me at least have one night.” Although she usually kept far away from the local…whatever Cloud Kicker could be considered, the mention of a list perked Twilight’s interest. “What list?” The smile that CK gave her had Twilight immediately regretting her decision. It was the same look that she got the first time Kicker had approached her with the proposition for sexual intercourse. “The list of ponies Blossom will join me in banging of course!” Twilight simply groaned and hit her face with her hoof. I walked right into that one, she told herself. Cloud Kicker’s rather…open relationship with Blossomforth, and pretty much anypony who wanted in on a night of passion just made no sense at all to Twilight. According to Cadence, everypony had their own special somepony out there somewhere that they were meant to be with and could make them the happiest pony in the world. It was the simple math of 1+1=2. Cloud Kicker’s relationship equations looked more like 1+1+X=>3/2 on Tuesdays*Toys/#number of ponies involved per week. She just didn’t get it. Before things could get even more weird, Twilight teleported Cloud Kicker off of the alicorn and dropped her off a foot from where she disappeared before turning her attention to Rainbow. “Oh Dash, I was wondering about that one pegasus from before.” Rainbow raised an eyebrow before flexing her wings and returning the surrounding temperature to normal. “Uh, Twilight…we just had all one hundred and three pegasi in Ponyville in this room. You need to be a bit more specific.” “Umm…the one with the yellowish coat and blue mane,” Twilight specified. “What was his name? I’d like to talk with him about something.” She remembered Rainbow calling him Flash, but she would need a full name to get an address. Just because the Ponyville population only numbered in the triple digits didn't mean everypony knew everypony else. Well, except for Pinkie Pie...but she didn't count! The expression on the alicorn’s face fell from one of amused curiosity to something a little more downcast. Twilight couldn’t see where it ended, as Rainbow looked away from her a moment later. “Uh…look Twi…I need to get going. Haven’t eaten yet. Uh…CK, what was that guy’s name?” Cloud Kicker’s eyes moved back and forth between the two a couple of times. An odd look of uneasiness in them. “Uh…Flash Sentry,” she replied before trotting up to Rainbow to give a raised eyebrow to Twilight. “Why? He seems a little…” Once again, Cloud Kicker spared a look at the alicorn before continuing. “Kind of a jerk.” “Oh…just curious,” Twilight replied before shrugging off the insult to the pegasus who wasn’t in the room. Just because he didn’t go with the herd like the others didn’t make him a bad pony. It was actually the main reason Twilight was interested in him. “He kind of reminds me of you, Rainbow. I mean, he’s got that lightning bolt cutie mark, and from the way he talked, I bet he naps a lot too.” She snickered at the last comparison. When she looked back up to see the play-filly stretched her wing out to tap Rainbow on the back, then motioned for them to head out the door, Twilight frowned. She wished that Cloud Kicker would leave the alicorn alone when it came to her advances. Twilight knew that when pegasi touched each other with their wings, it was very serious business. Not nearly as serious as it had been when they had their own society of course, but it was still pretty high up there when it came to the intimate contact scale. Under some circumstances, one pegasus placing her wing over another winged pony was an even more of a more showing sign of devotion than sex! It wasn’t right that Cloud Kicker was doing that sort of thing when Rainbow clearly wasn’t interested. “Come on Boss, we’ve got to uh…work out those last minute details,” the pegasus told the alicorn. “Deta-oh…uh, yeah, details,” Rainbow mumbled when Kicker gave her a leading expression. “Right.” Coming by to dump some of the feathers that had fallen in the multiple crashed in the dumpster bin, Spike looked over at the pair of winged ponies. “What details? I thought you guys got everything worked out.” The pegasus rolled her eyes. “Obviously not, if we need to do more work.” “Well, Twilight’s great with details, take her with you. She could help out." Ignoring the frown Kicker gave to her number one assistant, Twilight looked over to Rainbow Dash’s slumped shoulders as everything fell into place. Obviously, whatever work she had left to do was…well, considering it was Rainbow Dash, it was probably a lot. The alicorn probably did everything like her weather work, last minute rush jobs. But this time she didn’t have her athleticism to fall back on. However, she doubted Spike’s motivation was completely benign. In fact… “You just want to get out of cooking dinner, don’t you?” the unicorn asked her assistant, who shrugged before giving his response. “It’s eight at night Twilight.” “Come on then Twi, we’ll go to the Hay Bar, it’s always open late,” Rainbow told her without her usual energy. Apparently, the alicorn’s rush of adrenaline was wearing off. Considering she had set up the whole meeting in less than two-and-a-half hours, run through some paces with two new weather ponies, and just put on that exhilarating performance, Twilight figured she had to be crashing from whatever had been keeping her going like mad all day. The pegasus looked back and forth between the two. “Uh…if you two are going, maybe I should just head home.” “Oh well-” Twilight frowned at the pair. “Oh no, you are not dumping all that work on her,” Twilight said, not sure if she was speaking to Kicker or Dash. “Now come on and let’s go.” As she walked past the air, Twilight noticed the stars had been covered up by a gloomy group of clouds. Weird, I thought tonight’s skies were supposed to be clear, she thought to herself before looking back to spare a glance at Rainbow Dash while the pegasus was giving the alicorn an odd look, half-way between apologetic and encouraging. Twilight gave the pegasus a frown and told them to come on. Although she didn’t know how much work those two would be getting done tonight, at the very least she would be able to keep the hussy’s hooves off her friend.