The slight rise of pressure in Rainbow's ear was the first tell. Already heightened senses hummed through her body, waiting for the next, most important sign, and a half-breath later, it came. The smaller feathers on her left wing stood on edge, the static charge in the air reverberating through her bones. The strike wouldn't be on top of her, but to her left, probably at her ten o'clock. The last time she saw anything clearly, though, there was another pony in that exact spot.
"Cloud Kicker! Dive left now!"
The words had barely left her mouth when the sky ripped itself apart in front of her. In the midst of the blinding white light, she could barely see a lavender and yellow flash curling around the lightning bolt, flipping in the air with a grace that belied the scant inches that separated the other pony from certain death. An acrid mixture of copper and burnt atmosphere clung to her nostrils as she swerved left to intercept the nearly torched pegasus.
"Whew, thanks! That was a close one!" Cloud Kicker yelled.
"No sweat! You alright?" Rainbow asked in return. In truth, Rainbow could barely hear or see anything through the dark maelstrom of rain and wind. But the fact that she had heard anything at all meant that her weather team partner was at least alive.
"We've got to get out of here! Have you seen Thunder?"
"Have I seen who?"
"I said, have you seen Thun— Ah!"
Rainbow jerked wildly as a hoof tapped her shoulder. Spinning around, she caught sight of Thunderlane, his blue and silver mane matted across his soaked grey coat.
"Miss me, Rainbow?"
Forcing her heart back down from her throat, Rainbow sputtered out a reply. "Y-yes, we did, Thunder! I thought your team was covering our left side! Cloudy and I could have been crispier than hay fries just now!"
Thunderlane ran a hoof over his head in a futile attempt to wipe his soaked mane away from his yellow eyes. "Sorry, but it's chaos up here! Ditzy's team got caught in a massive cross-draft and crashed into the fields at Sweet Apple Acres, and I had to redirect my team towards the North edge of town to support the Wonderbolts!"
Rainbow ran through the remaining weather teams in her head, and frowned intently as her count came up woefully short. Accidents had occurred at the weather factory in the past, but never to this magnitude. A complete failure of the containment system separating the low and high pressure energy stores ignited a completely unbalanced reaction between the two mutually destructive forces. The resulting explosion all but destroyed the factory and left a truly massive storm in its wake. As Captain of the Ponyville weather team, it was Rainbow's job to lead the efforts to combat the monster storm... And for the first time in a long time, she found herself on the losing end of a fight.
All three pegasi instinctively jumped as another flash of lightning lit up the sky behind them. Swallowing hard to push the bile back down her throat, Rainbow tried to project calm as best she could.
"We'll need to send a medical unit to check on Ditzy's team, make sure there aren't any serious injuries. What about Cloud Chaser's team?"
Thunderlane's face quickly turned into a dark grimace. "Last thing I heard from her was something about a possible wall cloud... Then, nothing. I can't find her or her team, and the Wonderbolts haven't seen them either."
Rainbow's stomach was doing a barrel roll inside of her body, but her mind refused to accept what she had just heard. "Thunder, I know this storm is bad... Okay, it's really, really bad."
"Umm...Rainbow?" Cloud Kicker tried to get Rainbow's attention, but her voice was lost in the roar of the driving rain.
"But there is no way she saw a wall cloud! The only time you ever hear of those is in weather team training books, and it's been over a hundred years since anypony has even seen one!"
"Rainbow? Hey, Rainbow!" Cloud Kicker tried to yell above the storm.
"I'm telling you Thunder, there's no wall cloud! It's just not possible!"
"Rainbow!"
"What?! Geez, you don't have to yell, Cloudy!"
She paused when she saw the terrified look on Cloud Kicker's face, her hoof pointing over Rainbow's shoulder. Rainbow spun in place to see what she was pointing at... and looked straight into a nightmare.
In the distance, a massive, mile-high wall cloud was rolling across the landscape, plunging everything it touched into a rain-driven blackout. The three pegasi hovered in place, looking on in disbelief as the seemingly solid wall consumed Ponyville street by street, block by block, inching ever further towards the town's central square.
Part of Rainbow's mind would have given nearly anything to be back in the Golden Oak Library, where a warm fire and her best friend were awaiting her return. The sky had been perfectly clear when she arrived for her customary weekly visit with Twilight, and Rainbow had intended for this to be a particularly special visit. In fact, she was mere moments from admitting her months long crush on Twilight and asking her out on a date when the scream of the Cloudsdale weather alarms pierced the night air.
At first, she thought there had been a mistake, or an unscheduled test, as the alarms had not been used in a real emergency in years. One look out the window, however, revealed the true gravity of the situation; the Cloudsdale skyline was awash in flames and smoke, and the local weather was quickly spiraling out of control. With a quick smile and a promise to return, Rainbow had leapt out into the night, but now, the only leap her mind wanted to make was back to the library.
Come on, pull yourself together, RD! Rainbow's mind yelled at her inner self. You're the Captain of the weather team, and ponies are counting on you. Now is not the time to go run and hide. Rainbow stamped down the butterflies in her gut and turned to her partners with a renewed look of determination etched into her muzzle.
"Cloudy, Thunder, Ponyville needs us now more than ever, and I'm not going to hover out here and do nothing. We may not be able to stop this thing, but we have to at least make sure that everypony is safe!" Not waiting for their replies, Rainbow turned and shot off into the ever darker night, aiming straight for the wall cloud.
Rainbow approached the wall cloud at breakneck speed, her two partners only a few wing beats behind her. Severe cross-drafts grew stronger and stronger the closer they got, and bit-sized hail began pelting them from all angles. Even Rainbow's powerful wings struggled to maintain a stable flight, the vicious air currents batting her around like a hoofball.
What limited sight she had was quickly obscured by her fogged-up goggles, the torrential rain forcing its way past the eyewear as if it were not there at all. No obvious way through this, so we'll just have to make our own door.
"We'll have to force our way in! Ride the next current in and blast your way through!" As if on cue, Rainbow crossed the path of another current, and she immediately steered into it, letting the wave of air catapult her towards the wall cloud with even greater speed than before. With the cloud nearly upon her, Rainbow stretched out her legs even more and lowered her head, presenting the smallest profile possible. With a loud yell into the wind, Rainbow tore into the rampaging storm, piercing the wall cloud like a knife through butter.
As soon as she cleared the cloud barrier, a cross-wind slammed into her like a runaway train, sending Rainbow hurtling towards the ground in an uncontrollable spin. She tried to scream, but the wind ripped the sound from her mouth in an instant. She wasn't sure which end was even up, but the last thing she saw was the fast approach of the cobblestone paths that made up Ponyville's central square.
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Rainbow's head was still spinning like a top as she tried to reorient herself. She brushed her mud-splattered mane out of her eyes, only to find herself lying nearly face down in a grimy puddle. With a loud groan, she lifted herself up as best she could and began scanning the area for her two teammates.
"Thunder! Cloudy! Are you okay? Where are you?"
"We're here! Rainbow, we're right ove— Oww!"
Fighting very unsteady hooves and a spinning head, Rainbow moved as quick as she dared in the direction of the painful shouts. She squinted her eyes in a vain attempt to see through the torrents of wind and rain that pelted her from all sides. Another flash of lightning cut through the sky, casting the square in a mixture of white light and knife-edged shadow. The light was gone as soon as it appeared, but it was enough to reveal the forms of two pegasi lying in a heap near the fountain at the center of the square. Doing her best to turn her head away from the driving rain, Rainbow made her way to her downed partners, praying to Celestia that they were not badly hurt.
"Are you two okay? What happened?" asked Rainbow as she tried to pull Cloud Kicker off of an unconscious Thunderlane.
"I... Oof... I don't know. Thunder and I were right behind you, but as soon as we breached the wall cloud, the world started spinning out of control. I tried grabbing on to Thunderlane, but all that did was drag him down with me."
"Can you stand?" Rainbow answered as she offered a helping hoof to Cloud Kicker. "We need to check on Thunder and get you both to shelter!"
"I-I think so. Just let me try and get whoa— Ahh!"
Rainbow barely caught Cloud Kicker before she toppled on to her side, clearly favoring her right foreleg. "I... Ow! Oh, pony feathers, I... I must have sprained a fetlock," she said between hurried, painful breaths.
"Just hold on, alright?" said Rainbow. "I'll get Thunder, and we'll get out of here! The heart of the storm will be here any minute!"
Rainbow guided Cloud Kicker a few steps to her left and slowly sat her down onto the ledge of the overflowing fountain. As soon as the hobbled flyer was situated, Rainbow turned her attention to Thunderlane, who was just beginning to stir.
Rainbow didn't need much light to see that he had sustained a serious wing injury. The leading edge of his left wing was clearly broken, the normally solid, smooth bone line rough and out of alignment.
"Thunder? Can you hear me?" asked Rainbow, gently placing a hoof on his back.
"Dash? Wha... What happ— Ahh!" Thunderlane's question morphed into a painful cry as he shuddered in pain. As gingerly as she could, Rainbow let some of her weight fall onto his quivering shoulders, pinning him down to the ground.
"Thunder, your wing is broken, so try to lie still! Moving will only make it worse!"
"Buck me... It's that bad, huh?" Thunder winced. "How's Cloudy?"
"A little banged up, but she'll be fine! Right now though, I need to tie down your wing before you damage it further!" Rainbow's mind quickly went back to the first aid training she received from the weather team school, and an idea struck her.
She removed her flight goggles and set them on the soaked ground before turning to Thunderlane, gingerly removing his goggles from around his neck without jostling him. She set to work disassembling both pairs of goggles, separating the black elastic bands from the eye pieces. Fighting her soaked hooves and her frayed nerves, Rainbow didn't hear the metallic shriek ring out in front of her.
"Rainbow get down!"
Rainbow didn't even have time to look up before Cloud Kicker dove into her, knocking them both to the ground seconds before the sign from the Sofa & Quills store tumbled through the air mere inches above their heads. The blast of wind in the sign's wake tore one of the elastic bands from Rainbow's hooves, carrying it too into the endless maelstrom.
"You okay?" yelled Cloud Kicker as she struggled to roll off of Rainbow's back.
"Yeah... Though I guess this makes us even now at one save apiece." A smile tugged at the corner of Rainbow's lips for a split-second before fading into a look of despair. "But, I lost the elastic from my goggles, and I needed them to tie up Thunder's wing."
Realizing that she had managed to hang onto her own pair of goggles amidst the chaos, Cloud Kicker removed them as best she could with one hoof and tossed them to Rainbow. "Here, take mine. I'll look out for any more flying signs!"
Rainbow set to the task once again, working as quickly as her soaked hooves could move. She disassembled the new pair of goggles and tied the two elastic bands together to increase its overall length. After a series of loops and double-knots, Rainbow had managed to tie down the damaged wing enough to prevent most movement.
"This isn't perfect, but it'll keep the break from getting worse. Try not to move your wings, got it?"
Thunderlane grunted a bit from the pain. "Yeah, I've... Oww... I've got it."
Rainbow nodded her head in reply as she concentrated on lifting Thunderlane to his hooves, taking care not to touch his injured wing. "This is hopeless." Exhaustion was already creeping into Rainbow’s voice. "Both of you are injured, and this storm's right on top of us!" She jumped to the side as a small bush flew past her legs. "We need to find shelter and some medical attention!"
Cloud Kicker took a quick look around the square, trying her best to shield her face against the torrential rain. "The shops are all closed, but I guess a busted door would be the least of their worries right now."
"Good idea. BonBon's shop is the closest one, so let's head there!" An ear-shattering thunderclap erupted behind them, this one close enough to again leave the smell of burnt ozone in Rainbow's nose. Her senses jolted into hyper-speed, the incessant assault of rain, wind, and flying debris felt twice as intense as before, and for the first time in a very long time, Rainbow felt pure, unfiltered fear running through her veins. "We have to go now, before one of us gets hit!"
Rainbow nearly fell twice as she tried to stand, her hooves constantly slipping in the muddy ground. Her head was pounding as hard as her heart, her vision was still clouded by the rain, and hearing was all but impossible. She was running on pure instinct – but this time, it told her to get out of trouble, instead of running straight to it.
She was about to drag her injured partners to their hooves when nearly every feather on her wings stood straight up into the air, her bones shivering like a tuning fork as the static charge raced around and through her. The ringing in her ears built up so fast, she had to fight to keep from blacking out on the spot. Rainbow could almost hear the hum in the air as the charge continued to build at a frightening rate.
"Get down!" Rainbow had barely hit the ground again when the gates of Tartarus broke loose around them.
A massive surge of lightning raced its way through the wall cloud, drawing a jagged, crackling circle of light above the square. In the blink of an eye, the searing white light arced in and out of the clouds, splitting and reforming more times than anypony could possibly count. Under any other circumstance, the instantaneous display of light and power would be awe-inspiring, but in the midst of this chaos, it felt like the world was ripping itself apart around Rainbow.
As the white-hot light raced above them past the end of the square, a second lightning bolt shot down into its path, splitting the first arc and sending an enormous blast of energy directly to the ground. The ground strike was immediate, lighting up the blackened sky like a second sun.
If the sun was pink.
Rainbow didn't have to wonder what the lightning had made contact with when it hit. Even the horrific roar of the accompanying thunderclap couldn't drown out the blood-curdling scream that ripped through the air around her like an enraged banshee. As soon as it pierced her ears, Rainbow's heart nearly stopped mid-beat.
She knew that voice. She knew it all too well, and she knew exactly where it had come from.
"Twilight?!"