Wind and rain tore at the small town of Ponyville. The storm that had come in from the Everfree forest was the worst one yet. The residents huddled in their homes while Princess Twilight stood on the balcony of her castle firing structural reinforcement spells at the houses and buildings that were taking the brunt. A rainbow blur tumbled past.
“Rainbow, did you manage to subdue the thunderheads?”
“No- wind- strong- can’t- mosphere!”
Twilight could barely hear Dash through the howling wind. She grabbed her struggling friend in her magic and reeled her in. Dash landed on the balcony and immediately collapsed from exhaustion.
“This is insane! I’ve never seen a storm this strong ever.” She rolled onto her back and stretched her wings out on the floor. “It’s a good thing Applejack sent that warning. We had to relocate every cloud house to Cloudsdale to keep them from being destroyed.” She gave Twilight a doleful look. “I’m sorry the team didn’t make it back to actually stop the storm."
Twilight shot one final beam at Vinyl and Octavia’s house. She placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “It’s ok. While you were gone, Pinkie managed to spread the word fast enough that almost everypony had enough time to board up their homes.” She looked over the balcony at the line of ponys retreating into her castle. Unfortunately pinkie was only able to warn ponys that were close to the center of town. As a result, those on the outskirts panicked and ran for the castle just as the storm started. Those houses had been obliterated by the gale, except for Fluttershy’s cottage, which was literally a tree. It was dug in enough to survive the storm. She had reinforced it as well though, just to be safe.
There was a flash of lightning, and to the mares horror it struck the ground only a few yards away from the evacuation line. Thunder shook the castle as twilight readied a teleport spell.
“Rainbow, tell the rest of the pegasi to get inside. There’s nothing more we can do but ride this thing out.” She nodded and took off. Twilight activated the spell and ported down next to Applejack and Rarity.
“C’mon y’all, get your rears’n gear.” Applejack, with a hoof holding down her hat, was yelling at a crowd that was still a little shell shocked from the lightning. Twilight grabbed the last six ponys with her magic and practically tossed them into the foyer. Rarity pulled the doors closed behind them. The storm sounded muffled through the crystalline walls of the castle. They let out a sigh of relief.
“Ok everyone, just relax. We can ride out the storm in here for the rest of the night. There are plenty of extra beds and food, so if you all just stay calm-“
A prismatic bullet shot down from the upper floor. “Twi! You need to boost your spells now! There’s a vortex headed straight for the castle, and it’s gonna tear right through the middle of town!” The ponys who heard this started crying out in panic.
There were shouts of, “My home!”
“This is a disaster!”
“Of all the worst posa-“
“My Cabbages!”
“I want my momma!”
Twilight appeared on the balcony once again. The sight before her was near cataclysmic. A titanic funnel of wind and debris was bearing down on Ponyville with frightening speed. She charged her horn with layer upon layer of magic. With glowing white eyes, she detonated the spell. A wave of pink magic erupted from the balcony. The castle and everything that was still standing began to glow with the same hue. For a moment Twilight thought she saw something spinning around in the whirlwind. It only lasted a second before everything went black.
The cyclone had enveloped Ponyville completely, and it had stopped traveling. It just sat there on top of the town, churning and churning. It tore up everything that wasn’t secured by magic. The rail lines were ripped out of the ground and flung into the air. They ricocheted off the barrier around the castle with a loud metallic screech, and flew off into the darkness. More debris slammed and pinged off the walls. Twilight swore she heard a loud groaning noise, like an immense wooden structure was being warped and twisted. The sound disappeared, whatever it was the storm had carried it out of earshot.
The wind was relentless, her head felt like it was going to split open. Her horn started to spit and spark. Just when she thought she was going to break, everything stopped. Frozen like it had never been moving in the first place. There was total silence for only a moment. The sudden drop in kinetic pressure caused Twilight’s spell to explode away from everything it was connected too. The clouds, the dust and the debris were all blasted up into the air.
Twilight collapsed onto the ground and smiled in relief. She didn’t cancel the reinforcing spell just dialed it back. She knew that Everfree storms are never that horrendous, so why was this one so bad? A light tinkling broke her train of thought. She looked around as small pebbled were bouncing off the shield. A sudden torrent of water erupted up from the nearby lake before she realized that the danger wasn’t over yet. She brought the spell back up to maximum strength as trees, wood, metal and all manner of shredded debris came raining down from the sky. It lasted for about thirty seconds before petering out. Now it was quite. So quiet she could have heard Fluttershy yell from across town. She canceled the spell and walked back to the foyer of the castle.
Everyone waited with baited breath. She slumped down on a bench and rubbed her head.
“Darling are you alright? What happened out there?” Rarity walked up to her. “Everything was so loud and then it just stopped.”
Twilight looked up at her friend. “That wasn’t a normal Everfree storm. Something about it seemed off.” A dark look passed over her face. “I could feel slight magical traces crackling throughout the whole thing.”
“That’s mighty interesting and all, but we need’ta get out there n’survey the damage, and make sure no pony was hurt.”
Twilight got to her hooves. “Applejack is right. We can figure out the oddities of the storm later. For now we need to organize relief teams.” She walked up to the doors and turned to face them all. “Ok everyone, I know this is asking a lot especially after everything you’ve already been through tonight. But we need to go out there and make sure that everything is ok.” The crown of ponys muttered and nodded in agreement. Twilight began to open the door and muttered, “Let’s just hope it’s not as bad as I think it’s going to be.”