We weren't going to make it rain.
We were actually trying to push back and disperse a severe thunder head. As we flew, I could sense the changes in the wind, the thermals, the subtle pressure changes, moments before they came, and reacted before the rest. They were adapting while I was prepping for the next change, so despite the high winds, I was equal to Dash. "This is awesome!" I exclaim joyously.
"You sure you've never flown before?" Twilight questions me.
"Never. Didn't we go over this before we left your place?"
"Yea, but the way your flying, it's better than most pegasi, and certainly better than what you'd expect from a first time flyer."
"I'll explain later," I say firmly, "Let's deal with that storm right now."
No one argued, and it was obvious why. The thunder head was incredible, a thousand feet high and a mile wide at narrowest, it was big, black like a starless, moonless, night, the cloud looked like an anvil of darkness. Ominous was an understatement that wanted to curl up and die somewhere secluded. But that was just the look. I could sense the real danger, it wouldn't just flood, and thunder, and go away, it would cause a tornado that would tear the town apart, there would be cinder block sized hail, lightning strikes that would take out about half of a block; I could sense the signature hook pattern in the clouds, the high winds that held the hail in the air, the pent up electricity in the cloud. Over the intense howling of the wind I heard... something. I look around and see about a hundred pegasi in the air coming from all directions, and on the ground I saw the same for the unicorns, yet I couldn't hind the source.
"What's that sound?" I ask. It reminded me of a fighter jet.
"The Wonderbolts," Dash said. That didn't help my confidence. Stuntfliers?! I thought. Their using stuntguys!
"Tim?" Fluttershy asked, snapping me out of my shock. "A-are you okay?"
"No," I admit, "we need to stop this thing, now."
"Ha! You don't know a tenth of it." Dash remarked.
"I probably know more about this cloud, and the threat it caused, than most do!"
"Prove it."
"The number of pegasi and unicorns here mean this is some pretty big shit that's going on here and its happened at least once or twice before, the fact that there are stunt guys here adds another encounter to the list and I'm pretty sure that Twilight's not here for the hell of it. No doubt Rarity is down there with the other unicorns, I know you told Applejack to keep them organized and I'm going to guess that boom and cheer was Pinkie boosting moral."
"And the cloud?" Twilight worriedly asked.
I think I said it a little to eagerly.
"Tartarus." Fluttershy breathed.
The winds kicked it up a notch and it started to rain. It wasn't much better on the ground given the fact that a full cart just rolled onto its back. I guess that the ponies down there would be magically held to the ground.
"How..."
"I could, well, sense it. I knew that feeling would be important, I didn't know how important, but now I do," I notice Dash got very quiet and very pale. " What's eatin' you?"
"It's what you said... It was dead on. This is the sixth time we've seen this cloud hit a city, first Cloudsdale, then Fillydelphia, then Hoffington, then Manehatton, then Whinnyamsburg. It was devastating. At first we thought it was Discord's doing, but there was a pattern to it, and Discord's not a pattern kind of guy. It went from thunderstorm to tornado in one town, then tornado to hailstorm in the other, then hailstorm to thunderstorm in the next. We have Twi to thank for that. The spell that's keeping the unicorns on the ground is only so strong and they can't strengthen it if they have to deal with hail, lightning and a tornado, it's too much!"
"Actually...!" I shout, the wind and rain apparently wanted to test how tough we were and got even harder. "Its turned into two tornados and the cinder block hail got 50% bigger! As for the lightning, is being dispersed throughout the cloud, and I have a feeling that I've missed something on that subject!"
We were all silent, or at least I was they could have been muttering a string of swear words for all I knew and the wind was just overpowering the words. The second proved true for Fluttershy when a change in the wind brought part of what she said to me: "... gonna get butt fucked." I glance at Flutters then the others. Fluttershy blushes but the others don't seem to hear what she said. We continue to the cloud until we were within half a mile of it and the lightning starts to strike at us. "Holy shit!" I shout. "Disperse, now! Now now now n-!" That's when we nearly got struck by lightning and when I found the thing that I missed in the lightning. It was systematic, concentrating on the pegasi, extremely so on us. Now, here's where my memory gets a little muddled. I remember shouting orders of some sort, get zapped and mauled at the same time, the words "Your efforts are pointless," and passing out on Fluttershy's couch, so I'm relying on the others information on the next happenings and even that has a fair sized gap. In other words I'll be showing you some of the other perspectives.
The four of us dodge the bolt and come out more than a little burned and slightly darker skinned, but all in all fine. I flip onto my back to look at the group, "Twilight, I need you to go to strengthen the spell that keeps those ponies on the ground!" I shout. "We can't lose them! Once that's done, find Fluttershy and help her with dispersing the cloud! Flutters, round up some ponies and continue dispersing! Dash, gather as some smart, fast, and endurent ponies but leave some for Flutters! Report back to me A.S.A.P.! Now move!" Dash finds them quick and comes bake to me in three minutes. "How many?" I ask.
"Twenty-six!" Dash shouted.
"Good, half of you go with Dash, the rest with me, we're going to counteract the tornados! Dash yours is about a mile and a half north-by-northeast from hear! Move in a V formation and fly in a counterclockwise rotation to stop them! Well?! MOVE!"
While our groups departed immediantly through the insane winds and rains to our near suicidal missions Fluttershy was fairing pretty well considering her situation. Of the 28 ponies she found four remained with her and the rest - on her orders - were orginizing the rest of the pegasi to attempt to separate the thunderhead into more manageable parts. Now this naturaly was expected to be easier said than done especialy since it took six tries to get half of what she wanted to say across, but this proved to be at least 10 times harder than expected. The lightning was not cutting her any slack, the ridiculously sized hail were chucking themselves at ponies heads, and every pony was half deaf and half blind. Fortunatly after the first 15 minutes they all got fairly used to such things and on guard for them.
Fluttershy was very thankful for the steady rush of adrenaline because without it she would be cowering in her bed, jumping at every squeak she inadvertedly makes. But now she had the bodies natural reaction to stress and reasonable things for her to jump at.
The first problem she ran into was dodging the lightning it self; if they clustered together, a large blast forces them to separate and crash into the hail, and if they flew alone the wind would wreak their flying and make them vulnerable to the hail and lightning. Fluttershy tried to counter this by having her ponies break formation for thirty seconds, get into smaller groups, then alter their formations every thirty seconds for two minutes before they return to the large group in a different formation for ten seconds. It was very successful.
For about twelve minutes.
The second problem was hidden behind the first on seamingly back with a vengeance. The storm was anticipating their movements, making it so that you had to move quickly or die. Two of Fluttershy's ponies met that fate already and she wasn't about to lose another. She tried to change the pattern twice more, each time the the same thing happened in less time than the last. As Fluttershy was trying to puzzle out the solution, the answer came tearing through the sky, screaming at the top of their lungs and flying like they'd all gone mad.
As she watched in horror as a group ponies flew by, she noticed that they flew with a vague sense of pattern at all times, but every time she almost found it it changed into some thing even more confusing.... And it was working! Her horror turned to excitement as she told her ponies to follow their lead to the thunderhead.
As Fluttershy was, in my book, having a blast and Rainbow Dash was in hell with the tornados, Twilight was somewhere in between, having to hold ponies down in one place while placing shielding to others in another was a challenge but the unicorns were kept in line to Applejack and most of the ponies didn't have to worry about getting crushed by hail thanks to...
BANG! CRACK!
...Pinkie Pie and her partycannon.
"That one was close, be a bit more careful Pinkie!" Twilight called to the trigger-happy mare.
"Okie-dokie-lokie!" Pinkie called firing another shot. BANG! CRACK CRACK! "Oooooh! Two for one!"
Twilight shook her head and looked around the area. Nopony was in need of her help. That wasn't expected but it was okay since she needed to get to Fluttershy. She looked to the sky to try to see where she was and something caught her eye. It was a mass of shifting colors that were twisting, bending, warping, shaping itself around everything the storm threw at it all while ripping chunks out of cloud. She tore her eyes way from the mass to look at the cloud itself. She saw the multicolored glows of unicorn magic causing areas of the thunderhead to condence into water, the beginings of a tornado swirling steadily downward twards them, and lastly what looked like a whirlpool in the bottom of the cloud.
"Applejack!" She called out. "Applejack!"
"Twilight," the blonde mare shouted back, pointing to the mass, "what in tarnation is that?!".
"I don't know, but I want to find out. Think you can handle without me?"
"Sure."
Twilight then spread her wings and alighted on the wind, making her way to the mass.
Dash was starting to dislike her job. She had made it to her tornado without getting everypony killed and successfully countered the tornados spin. Unfortunetly the momentum that they had built up was to much to have them stop, so they just kept on going until they were tumbling in a tornado inside the cloud; I was the epitime of her hatred.
"GAHHHH!"
She wanted to look around but from expirence told her better of it. She saw a flash of white a second before she felt and heard the bones in her wing get crushed. Her scream was followed by those of the others until it was all just one cry of agony, so powerful that she barely noticed her momentum slow, or the purple glow around her and the other ponies, steadily taking them to the ground as she drifted from consiousness....But there's still work to be done... and drifted into dreamless sleep.