//------------------------------//
// The Storm Breaks 
// Story: The Study of a Winning Pony 
// by Ponibius 
//------------------------------//


The Study of the Winning Pony


Chapter 26: The Storm Breaks


"Ditzy, why is the concessions table on fire?"

Ditzy Doo gave me a sheepish smile as the concessions table burned a little ways from the racetrack. Blossomforth was leading a hoofful of pegasi to gather a raincloud and put the fire out. After another morning of searching for shirkers to tornado duty, I had hoped to get something quick to eat. Sadly, my derailment quota had other ideas.

"Um, well you see..." Ditzy cleared her throat and shuffled her hooves. More than a few ponies were giving her dirty looks. "I was making a sandwich when..." She struggled to find the right word before settling on, "fwoosh."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Fwoosh?"

Derpy nodded. "Fwoosh."

"That tells me what happened, but not how."

Rainbow smacked herself in the face with a hoof. “Derpy, this is exactly why I didn’t get anything that might catch fire for lunch, but somehow you did it anyways.” She groaned and ran her hoof down her face. “Why do I even bother?”

For today, it had been build-your-own-sandwiches and chips. Things that should not have caught fire easily. Part of me was beginning to wonder if there was secretly the soul of a pyromaniac underneath the bubbly exterior of Ditzy Doo.

Cloud Kicker chuckled. "That's Derpy for you. She once set cereal on fire. That's not even getting into the fire tornado incident."

Ditzy groaned and covered her face. "Nopony is ever going to let that go, are they?"

Cloud grinned. "Not on your life."

Rainbow let out an amused laugh. “It’s pretty funny, in hindsight.” She glanced at the table, and seeing that it was being put out by Blossomforth’s team, called out to everypony that had gathered to watch the incident. “Alright, all of you get back to work!” When there was a disheartened groan from the crowd, Rainbow cracked her voice like a whip. “I said now! That tornado ain’t gonna make itself, you know!”

That got the crowd moving, and they all returned to the training activities they had been doing before the inexplicable fire had caught their attention. Rainbow turned back to the rest of us. “You too, Derpy. Just—try not to set anything else on fire, okay?”

Derpy let out a chuckle that spoke of her own embarrassment. “I’ll try, promise. Until next time.” She left to rejoin her team, hopefully not to unleash the little arsonist inside of her just waiting to burst out into the world.

Rainbow let out a low groan and rubbed at her eyes. “Great, that’s exactly what I needed right now. Now everypony is going to be hungry on top of everything else.” Before I could try and reassure her that we could probably get more food, something my growling belly and I were all for, Rainbow switched topics. "How'd it go with getting all the missing ponies?"

"About the same as the last two days." That was to say, not so great. I levitated over the clipboard with the list of missing ponies on it, now with additional marks saying what had happened to them. "We had a few that were just trying to skip out on tornado duty, a few more that were sick, and now we have a few injuries."

Rainbow's eyes scanned the page, and she let out an annoyed grumble. "Seriously? We don't have time for this! We need all hooves on deck!"

"A hundred percent attendance was never going to happen, Dash," Cloud pointed out.

Rainbow made a derisive snort. "Not with that attitude. I'm putting a hundred and twenty percent into this. The least everypony else could do is give a hundred and ten. Instead, they're only giving seventy." She jabbed a hoof at some of the ponies racing along the track. "Half the ponies here are treating this like it's a paid vacation. This is Ponyville's pride on the line here, and they're half-flanking it."

Noting that Rainbow was becoming more agitated, I spoke in a soothing manner. "There were always going to be those that weren't as committed to this as you are, even with the threat of fines. Hay, Closed Deal went ahead and paid all the fines ahead of time. She said that she earned more money at her job than she would on tornado duty, even after subtracting the fines." When we showed up at her business to see why she hadn't shown up for tornado duty, Closed Deal had simply asked what the fine would be and then gave us the thirty-five hundred bits.

It took a few seconds of indignant sputtering before Rainbow could make a comprehensible sentence. "But-but she can't do that!"

"Legally, she can," I said. "I checked the law books last night. Fines are the only punishment a pegasus can face when avoiding tornado duty. Sorry, but our hooves are tied on that." I didn't like the fact that Closed Deal was using her money to get herself out of tornado duty, but the law was the law, and it would have struck me as extreme to start arresting ponies for something like this. Not when they weren't really hurting anypony.

"B-but, but, but..." Rainbow made an angry growl and threw the clipboard to the ground. "It isn't fair!"

Cloud made a pacifying gesture with her hooves. "Whoa, calm down, Boss. We'll make it work."

"At least Fluffy Clouds and Moonrunner had only overslept." I gave her an encouraging smile that felt strained at the edges. It just didn't seem like anything that would please her unless we could drag everypony to the mustering field, and that just wasn't going to happen.

"That's ... better than nothing, I guess." Rainbow turned to Cloud. "Think you could get the others to come in with your ... y'know..."

I couldn't help but frown at what she was implying. "Are you seriously suggesting that Cloud—proposition herself to get them to come?"

Cloud gave her an equally unamused frown. "Yeah, that's not gonna happen, Dash."

"What? No, I just meant..." Rainbow groaned and ran a hoof down her face. "Y'know, with her so-called 'charm' and stuff, not ... urgh, minds out of gutters!"

"I'm already laying on the charms as is," Cloud said. "Trust me, I'm busting my flank out there trying to get everypony to come."

I nodded in agreement. The two of us had gone the extra mile to help Rainbow. I had helped ponies with everything from weeding their gardens to helping organize their homes to get them to come to tornado duty. We knew that it was bodies that Rainbow needed the most for her plans, not ponies getting fined, but there was only so much that could be done. "If us asking nicely and the threat of a fine aren't going to bring them in, I don't think anything will."

Rainbow's wings flashed out. "But I need them if we're gonna break that record!"

This was one of my greatest worries during the Tornado Day planning, that Rainbow was setting unrealistically high expectations of what she could do with her available labor pool. She seemed to forget that this was a town that hadn’t been able to be on time with its Winter Wrap Up for years. Shame all it seemed we could do for her was try our best and hope for the best. 

"We’ll do what we can, but I can't guarantee anything," I said.

Her wings wilted and her face looked downcast as she stared at the ground. "Okay, just ... just get it done. I do not need anything else going wrong right now." She let out a sigh and drew herself back up again, but without the usual bravado I was accustomed to seeing in her. "By the way, can you run things for a bit, Cloud?"

Cloud’s ears perked up. “Yeah, sure. What's up?”

“Gotta go talk to Flutters,” Rainbow said, waving vaguely in the direction of Fluttershy’s cottage.

“She still hasn't shown up?” This was the third day in a row she hadn’t signed in for Tornado Day. The rule follower in me said that Fluttershy should be racking up fines as a result of that, and I should tell Rainbow to get on that. After all, Cloud and I had been doing that very thing across Ponyville. Though it was difficult to say the least to advocate fining one of my best friends, and at the end of the day it was Rainbow’s call as weather manager.

Rainbow shrugged. “She's supposed to be in later today, but I wanna check on her.”

“Alright, I'll run some more teams by the anemometer to see how their wingpower is coming along then, if that's alright,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. You know how that works.” A grin returned to Rainbow’s face. “If somepony's below ten, yell at them to try harder. If they're above ten, yell so they don't slack off.”

I frowned at her. “As sure as I am that that’s a viable encouragement strategy, I'm not going to yell at anypony, Rainbow.” Some of her more aggressive methods had caught me off guard when I had been recording everypony’s wingpower the first day of training. Her ways were just not mine.

“Don’t worry.” Cloud poked me in the ribs with an elbow and grinned. “I can handle that part of it.”

“Just so long as it gets done.” Rainbow’s tail gave an annoyed flick. “Oh, I crunched the numbers for the tornado again, can you double-check my math while I'm out? 'Cause I'd really like to be wrong.”

“Sure, I can do that,” I said. “Where are your numbers?” Rainbow passed over a slightly used napkin with a bunch of figures scrawled onto it. Naturally this was in her usual chicken scratch writing, which had also torn the napkin up in a few places. And was that… was that doodle supposed to be me?

I scowled at her. “Right, I'll get right on that. Though next time can you use actual paper?”

Rainbow shrugged. “What? I had the napkin right there. You’re the one that’s always telling me stuff like ‘waste not, want not.’”

“It's a little hard to read off of,” I pointed out.

Rainbow craned her head in to look the napkin over. She casually wiped off some half-dried frosting from it and ate it. While that did make it a bit easier to read, I couldn’t imagine that was terribly hygienic. “That help?” she asked, ignoring my grimace.

I suppressed the urge to chastise her manners or the state of her notes. “How about I collect those new numbers with the anemometer and draw up a new figure based on those?”

“Yeah yeah, whatever works,” Rainbow said dismissively. She was a results-oriented pony; as long as she got what she wanted, she would be happy.

“I'll get on that.” Looking towards the anemometer, I saw Spike busily recording wingpower measurements as pegasi flew past it. “Spike's been doing alright with the anemometer while I've been gone?”

“Yeah, he’s doing fine.” Rainbow nodded. “It's not all that hard to use, really.”

“No, not really. Just thought I'd ask,” I said. “If there isn’t anything else, I better get back to work with the anemometer and check in with him.”

“Yeah, see ya.” Rainbow took off like a dart and streaked toward Fluttershy’s home.

I frowned as I watched her fly off. “You think Rainbow is doing alright, Cloud?”

Cloud rubbed the back of her neck. “She’s looking kinda stressed. Not surprised, this is a big thing for her.” She stretched out her wings and gave them a flap. “Well, best way to de-stress her is to get everything working smoothly. The more that goes right, the less she’ll worry about.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I walked towards Spike and the anemometer and Cloud followed. “Let’s get to work then.”

“Sure.” Cloud gave me a mischievous grin. “So, did I mention how pretty you’re looking today?”

I gave an amused snort. “Earlier this morning, if I remember right.” Not that I was going to complain. It was actually kind of nice to get complimented like that.

“It’s still true now,” Cloud said in a sultry manner.

“Oh stop, lover-filly.” I bumped her hips with my own. “We’re in public.”

Cloud’s grin never missed a beat. “Hey, I’m willing to let everypony know how pretty you are.” She took a deep breath and might’ve started shouting if I hadn’t hastily put a hoof over her mouth.

“Don’t you dare,” I warned her. “I’m not particularly anxious to see if I can die by embarrassment right now.”

“Aw, that’s a shame.” She puckered her lips in a pout. “You’re cute when you blush.”

I felt my cheeks warm slightly at that. “I am not,” I mumbled.

Cloud grinned and tossed a wing over my back. “Are too. See, you’re doing it right now, and it’s adorable.” She let the wing linger on my back for a few moments before she removed it, and I was a bit surprised to find I missed it once it was gone. Wings are just so warm and feathery and comfortable...

Darn it, my cheeks were burning red enough that everypony around us could probably see it. Cloud could be so terrible. Stupid anatomy having such an obvious sign when I’m flustered. “I need to go ... er ... anemometer ... check ... wing ... thing.” I trotted to put some distance between us. Though despite how she had disconcerted me, I found myself grinning once I was a bit away from her. Even if it did fluster me a bit, it was nice to know she thought I was pretty.

“What’re you grinning about?” It took me a few moments to realize that it was Spike who had addressed me.

“Oh, um, what?” I asked, trying to pull my thoughts together. It seems I had been daydreaming about something.

“Why’re you grinning like that?” Spike snickered. “You look like such a doofus with that big grin on your face and blushing like that.”

“I-I do not!” I protested.

Spike laughed all the harder. “Yeeeah, you do. Gosh, you’re blushing even harder now!” He poked me in the shoulder. “So is it because of Cloud Kicker?” He waggled his eye ridges suggestively.

“N-no!” I spouted immediately. “I mean it’s not like that!” I paused, frowning. “Wait, how do you even know about that kind of thing?!”

He snorted. “You do remember that we live in a library, right? I mean, you remember the copy of Daring Do and Mystery of Caves Cove you gave me, where there was that one scene after Daring Do and Lock Pick got out of that old haunted temple and ... well, you know.”

“Wait, you mean...” My jaw dropped as I realized what I had done. I had completely forgotten about that scene when I had given Spike a copy of that book for his birthday. It wasn’t a particularly explicit scene but... Dear Celestia, I had corrupted Spike! I hadn’t even realized I had done it! What else had I exposed Spike to that had destroyed his innocence?

“Um, Twilight? Twiiiliiight.” Spike waved a claw in front of my face. “Equestria to Twilight, mind saying something?”

“Spike! I’m sooo sorry.” The words came flowing out in a disorganized mess. “I didn’t mean to— it was an accident! You shouldn’t have—this is all my fault!”

“Geeze, relax,” Spike said casually. “It’s just sex. Not like me reading about it is the end of the world. It’s not like Daring Do is porn or anything.”

“How do you even know what porn is?!” I covered my face with my hooves, being unable to properly register everything as the world spun around me. This was it, this was the point I realized I had failed as a parent for Spike. All my preparation and careful planning for when I would tell Spike the facts of life were now so much burning debris thanks to my own ineptitude.

“So, um, are we going to get our wingpower measured or not?” asked somepony I didn’t immediately recognize. The question made me realize that I had been screaming loud enough for everypony to hear what I had been saying. That made me consider the validity of finding some rock I could hide under.

Spike whispered to me. "Sheesh, relax, Twilight." He picked up a quill and nodded to the pony. “Sure, go on ahead. I got this.”

To be fair, Spike did a good job of managing the recording of everypony’s wingpower as they all flew by the anemometer one by one. It took me a fair while before I could recollect myself. It seemed the two of us were going to be having a very specific talk much sooner than I thought considering what I had just learned about my assistant. Having that conversation certainly didn’t seem appropriate in front of everypony, even after my outburst. This day was just not going my way.

After about an hour, Rainbow Dash and Cloud Kicker came over to help supervise the process. We had gotten around to recording the numbers of about half the gathered pegasi when I noticed that Cloud and Rainbow were speaking in harsh whispers to one another. They were talking about something to do with the merits of encouraging rivalries between the pegasi gathered when Rainbow called out, “Cloud Kicker, you’re up.”

I double-checked the list of pegasi, and noted that it wasn’t close to Cloud Kicker’s turn to be tested for her wingpower. Part of me was irritated to have somepony shuffled ahead of everypony else waiting for their turn at the anemometer, but I didn’t want to cause a fuss over the matter. Rainbow must have had a reason for wanting Cloud to go at this point.

Cloud flew around the course at a good speed. I checked the readings on the anemometer and announced, “Twelve point one wingpower!”

“Twelve point one?” Rainbow made very unimpressed little snicker. “I’ve seen better numbers from Junior Speedsters.” It seemed that Rainbow couldn’t help but turn this into a contest too. 

“Well get some of them in here, we could use the extra wingpower,” Cloud shot back. No doubt having plenty of experience with her boss’s banter.

With Cloud done, we returned to the regular order of the line. Eventually, it was Blossomforth’s turn. As she stretched out her wings, Cloud let out a loud, “Whoo! Go Blossom!” It wouldn’t have surprised me if Cloud was trying to win some points with her friend by encouraging her.

It seemed to work, because Blossomforth put on a little grin right before shooting forward.

“Nine point seven wingpower?” I gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s a lot higher than she ever managed when she was helping me calibrate.”

“Guess she just needed a little motivation from me,” Rainbow declared proudly. The pride in her tone quickly shifted as she frowned. “Still ... not even ten. That’s kinda low for a pony that’s supposed to be one of my assistant managers.”

“You promoted her because she’s good at running things,” Cloud pointed out. “Not because of her wing muscles,” 

I glared at my friend and gave a sharp nod in agreement. The point of being a manager was being good at managing things. Physical aptitude wasn’t a big part of that. In truth, I wasn’t particularly pleased with her tendency to put ponies down when their wingpower was lower than she liked. While the water tornado was important, Rainbow didn’t need to be mean to ponies to get results. I was beginning to worry that tornado duty was bringing the worst out in my friend.

Rainbow Dash didn’t bother to address the two of us, and instead flipped to the next page of the list. “Fluttershy, your turn!”

Fluttershy winced when her name was called. I too grew worried. Fluttershy had never been a consistently good flier, which factored into why she wasn’t in weather work. She had even confided in me that she was thankful that Rainbow didn’t call her up to help push clouds most of the time. Though it isn’t a secret that she was not a strong flier, she naturally still preferred not to draw attention to it. Which, when coupled with her general timidness, made this a particularly troublesome situation.

Judging by their renewed harsh whispers, Rainbow and Cloud must have realized the same thing. As Fluttershy stepped up to the start line, trembling all the while, I bit my lip as I struggled to think of a way out for her. Calling her away would just draw more unwanted attention. The best I could think to do was to try and get some of the ponies gathered around the track to move onto other exercises. Maybe Fluttershy would feel a bit better if there wasn’t as many ponies watching her.

Rainbow dug in her hooves, and her volume reached an audible level. “No, we don’t. She’s gonna do fine.”

Cloud sighed. “Whatever you say, boss.” For my part, I could only hope that Rainbow was right.

That hope was very quickly snuffed out when Fluttershy took off from the start line at what was probably the slowest speed I had ever seen, even compared to the ponies who had been screwing around. Despite her speed, though, she looked pleasantly surprised, as though she had not expected to fly at all. Yet for some reason, the boost in confidence was short-lived when she suddenly cut her speed down to a crawl. By the time Fluttershy passed the anemometer, I could have trotted faster than she was flying.

The anemometer creaked as it moved barely a third of a rotation. A deathly silence fell over the track, beckoning to know one thing: how badly she had done.

I could scarce believe my own eyes, and as Rainbow flittered over to me, I considered telling her the calibration was faulty. Of course, it wouldn’t be true, and all progress we have made so far would have then been wasted. Ponies would get frustrated, and Cloud and I would have an even harder time convincing them to come. Given how much Rainbow wanted to beat the record, I couldn’t do that to her. And even if that didn’t happen, in the end, Fluttershy would have to do this again, thereby only delaying the inevitable.

At Rainbow’s hushed inquiry, I could only shake my head helplessly as I motioned at the marker. Her face blanched at the result. She turned a pleading eye on me, but I could only say it was accurate. She wilted slightly in resignation, and taking a deep breath, she turned to Fluttershy with a strained grin. “Great job, Fluttershy! You measured uh ... um ... point five.”

I cringed sympathetically as parts of the crowd snickered. Fluttershy wore a mix of horror, disbelief, and shame on her face. There was no way around it, that was an abysmal result. Blossomforth had only managed a point seven when she had actively tried to do that badly, and she had nearly fallen on her face trying to control her flying at those speeds.

Before I or anypony else could say anything else to create some damage control, Spike grumbled, “Point five? Isn’t that like, less than one—Ow!” I cuffed him on the back of the head and made a zipping motion but it was too late. Tears welled up in Fluttershy's eyes and she ran for it.

I was considering running after her when Rainbow beat me to it by zipping after her. It was probably for the best that Rainbow took care of this. She had known Fluttershy longer than I had, and my failed attempt to ask her out would make my efforts to comfort her awkward at best. I just had to pick a great time to make things difficult between us.

It took me a moment to realize that Cloud had said something to me. Before I could ask her what it was, she said, “Derpy, you’re up.”

Instead of heading to the track, she whispered something to Cloud, and the two of them got into a conversation.

I took the opportunity to turn to Spike. "What was that?" I asked with a displeased tone.

"What was what?" he asked, still rubbing his head and glowering at me.

"Why were you being so hard on Fluttershy?" I wanted him to be sure he knew exactly what I was talking about. "You should know how sensitive she can be about her flying."

"Well, her flying does stink," Spike said in his defense. "Everypony knows it. Nopony else did nearly that bad."

"That's beside the point,” I said. “It’s not nice, and I don’t want you treating Fluttershy or anypony else like that.”

“Rainbow Dash’s been treating everypony like that,” Spike shot back.

“And I don’t really approve of that either.” I saw Rainbow coming back—without Fluttershy. Judging by her drooped ears or how her wings were practically brushing the ground, things hadn’t gone well. That in mind, I worked to finish things up with Spike quickly. Rainbow was going to need me in a minute. “While there is such a thing as constructive criticism, the thing is—”

“Yeah yeah, you told me so!” Rainbow yelled loudly, cutting my thoughts off. She was glaring at Cloud and her lips were curled into a snarl. “You said she was gonna choke, and she choked! Are ya happy now?”

Cloud took a step back. “Whoa! I wasn’t—”

“And it was your fault!” Rainbow said, not letting Cloud get any traction. “She was probably all nervous ‘cause you were here!”

“Rainbow!” Ditzy interrupted, giving Rainbow a disapproving glower. “That’s not fair, and you—”

“Stay out of this, Derpy!” Rainbow snapped at her before going back to glaring at Cloud. “So having you around is gonna mess up Fluttershy? Fine. You’re fired. Get outta here!”

Cloud’s jaw dropped. I could hardly believe what I was hearing either. “Boss, I...”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Rainbow snarled. “I said you’re fired! Get lost!”

Cloud stood there motionlessly for a long moment before she slowly turned and took off. Many other ponies continued to stare at the scene that had taken place before them, looking unsure what they should do now.

“Rainbow, what was that?!” Ditzy’s wings unfurled aggressively.

Rainbow crossed her forelegs in front of her chest. “What? She was outta line!”

“She was out of line?” Blossomforth stomped her way over, looking every bit as incredulous as she sounded. “She didn't even do anything!”

Ditzy stomped a hoof. “You can't fire her over that!”

“Yeah, I can.” Rainbow lifted her chin, not giving an inch. “I'm the boss, I can fire anyone I want!”

Snorting in disgust, Blossomforth turned her back to Rainbow and took flight.

I decided I had sat on the sidelines long enough. This was falling apart fast, and I needed to do something to turn it around. “Um, you can’t actually just fire somepony without reason. Not without consequences.”

Rainbow snorted. “Look, she wasn't bringing in enough of the stragglers either. And you saw how she messed with Fluttershy's performance.”

It was all I could do to not huff indignantly. “First,” I said, forcing my voice to remain even, “we were doing everything we could to bring those ponies in. We did more than we technically had to. Second, I saw no such thing. What I saw was that Fluttershy was running the course, and choked at the last second for whatever reason.”

“Probably 'cause Cloud was there,” Rainbow groused.

I … what? “And how is that supposed to affect Fluttershy's wingpower performance?” Near as I could tell, Fluttershy hadn’t even been looking at Cloud when she choked. Near as I knew, the two of them hadn’t exchanged a word with one another in who knew how long.

Ditzy wasn’t looking at either of us by this point, and seemed to be trying very hard to keep her gaze to the ground. Whatever she was thinking, it was enough to keep her from talking any further.

For her part, Rainbow ground her teeth, and a series of emotions struggled over her features. “It's ... uh ... stuff you don't know about. Doesn't matter.”

I glowered. I was getting really tired of ponies refusing to tell me things that were relevant to current issues. “It matters when your friend gets hurt for it.” I drew myself up to my full height in front of Rainbow. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in right now? You or the weather service could very easily get sued right now for an illegal termination, and ‘stuff you don't know about’ isn't going to cut it in a courtroom.”

“What? Nah, that's not ... look, I had good reasons. You just don't know about 'em, 'cause you weren't there.”

“Reasons you can't tell me about? Reasons that may not even exist?” I shook my head. “Sorry, but I can't buy that. Nothing justifies what you did.”

Rainbow ran her hooves through her mane, making it even wilder than it normally was, letting out a groan as she did so. “Look, you're just gonna have to trust me on this one, Twilight. That's what friends do, right?”

“And do friends fire each other on a whim? How about you do the right thing and give Cloud her job back instead?” I asked. “That would make me feel a lot better, and I’m sure your friend would like to have her job back too.”

Rainbow rubbed at her face, her growing frustration clear on her features. “Look, I need to go check on Fluttershy.”

“Rainbow, we're not done here,” I insisted.

Rainbow lifted herself off the ground and made an annoyed snort. “What, you wanna yell at me some more about stuff you weren't even there for?”

“Does that even matter?! All I’m hearing right now are flimsy excuses!” I forced myself to calm and hit her with an ultimatum. “If you’re not going to explain yourself, then here is how it’s going to be, Rainbow: Either you give Cloud her job back, or I'm going to take my anemometer and go home. Because this isn't what I signed up for.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped and she nearly plummeted to the ground when she missed a beat of her wings. “But ... but you can't do that!”

“Oh yes I can.” I scowled at her. “I'm a volunteer, I’m not getting paid to be here, and I don’t have to be here. And last time I checked, I don't have wings, so you can’t draft me for weather duty.”

“But ... but I need your help!” she protested, a whine working its way into her tone.

“I agree. So either you need to do the right thing and rehire Cloud, or you need to give me a better explanation than ‘because I know I'm right.’” I didn’t like being so hard on my friend, but neither could I condone her recent behavior, and I would be doing just that if I kept working with her. Seeing Fluttershy cry wasn’t fun for any of us, but we needed to keep a certain perspective on things. Really, what I was hoping for was that this would shock her into seeing reason. Shame Rainbow was being her usual stubborn self.

Rainbow turned to Ditzy with a desperate look. “C'mon, Derpster, help me out here.”

She didn’t meet Rainbow eyes and scuffed a hoof along the ground. “She's right, Rainbow. You need to apologize to Cloud and tell her she still has her job.”

Rainbow’s ear flicked. “You're just saying that 'cause you're her girlfriend now.”

“Now that’s not fair!” Ditzy took a steady breath to calm herself. “You can't just fire ponies on a whim and you know it.” She waved a hoof at a group of the gathered ponies, most of whom seemed to be watching us intently, and most of them did not look happy. It wasn’t hard to imagine that they were as unhappy as Ditzy and I were about Cloud’s firing. “What do you think everypony else is going to think of this?”

Looking in the direction of the crowd, Rainbow threw up her hooves in frustration. “Grah! So everypony's taking her side, huh? You're all against me?” Nopony seemed to meet her eyes. Big surprise, they were probably all worried about being punished in some way if they confronted their local weather manager when she was clearly this upset. Their silence only caused Rainbow to tremble with frustration and rage. “Fine!” She took off several feet into the air. “Of course. Everypony's gonna take her side and go against me. Just like always. Oh yeah, it's all Rainbow's fault, let's just forget about how badly she got messed up after that f—" Catching herself, she turned to look at me and Ditzy. “I’m getting outta here. Fluttershy needs me, and she’ll understand.”

“If that's what you feel you need to do,” I said with a sad sigh. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

“Yeah, the library,” Rainbow said, her full stubbornness being brought to bear.

Ditzy frowned after her. “Rainbow, if you don't give Cloud her job back, don't expect me to show up either.”

That seemed to finally push Rainbow Dash over the edge. “If that's how it is, then fine! Whatever! I don't even care anymore!” She shot off like a bolt, leaving the rest of us with a mess to pick up.