The Storm's Challenge

by OneLonelyPickle

37 - The Princess of Friendship Fights a Strange Cloud

Chapter 37

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The Princess of Friendship Fights a Strange Cloud

The night before the second race…

Twilight Sparkle power walked down a spiral staircase, eager to escape the palace, but cognizant of her situation and how important it was to not draw suspicion to herself. At the bottom of the staircase was the hallway that would lead to the exit she sought. A smile crept onto her face.

Almost home free! I can’t believe this worked without a hitch!

As it had become late in the evening, there weren’t many palace retainers about. Once in a while, Twilight met eyes with a tired scullion or maid shuffling past. Guards were posted at random intervals throughout the hallway, standing tall and motionlessly.

Suddenly, as Twilight reached the midway point in the hallway that led to the open room with the double doors which would be her escape, a loud twang of bells echoed and bounced off the stone walls. She stopped for a moment to look around. A nearby guard stirred from his dutiful trance.

“That’s the escape alarm!” the guard said to Twilight, brow furrowed. “Somepony has escaped the palace jail!”

Twilight began to sweat up a river and she bit her lower lip. A vibration of worry slithered down her spine.

Spoke too soon, she thought. She turned to continue down the hallway.

“I’ll go guard this nearby exit!” she said to the guard to cover her escape. The guard nodded and broke off in the opposite direction. Twilight’s pace increased in speed, and if it weren’t for the alarm going off, she’d definitely look suspicious. The sound of hooves rapidly clip-clopping against the cobblestone floor were just as loud as the alarm itself.

“Look alive, solders! Twilight Sparkle has escaped!”

The bellowing voice boomed from the other end of the hallway where Twilight had come from minutes earlier. The voice was thick and belonged to an old stallion, Twilight had no doubt. She was nearly at the open, wide door frame that led into the exit room. She gulped.

So close! Nopony knows I’m in disguise. It’s fine! I’ll be fine!

Once she passed the door frame, she sighed in relief that there were no guards present in the huge, open room. There was nopony at all, just the slow burning flames of the braziers on the walls. From the appearance of the room, Twilight reckoned it was a receiving station for all the goods coming to the castle. There were docking stations where wagons would enter to be inspected. Each station had a wooden table with a set of weights on it and a stack of unrolled scrolls and an ink quill. Twilight rushed for the double doors and her freedom.

No use holding back now!

Twilight lowered her head and forced a piercing glow from her horn. She closed her eyes and and tensed herself in preparation for the collision. She crashed through the doors with a thunderous roar of wood being smashed apart, receiving barely a scratch thanks to her magic.

The surprisingly cold chill outside the palace was quite welcome and Twilight breathed out in relief. She found herself surrounded on two sides by high stone walls, the same type of brown and tan stones that the walls around Clopstantinople were made of. The path leading away from the smashed double doors was about half a mile long and at the end of it was a closed iron gate.

Twilight sighed in relief.

“Okay! No use for this armor anymore, but I’ll keep the disguise,” she quietly reasoned, taking off each piece of armor as quick as she could with her horn’s glow. Then, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

“Okay, here goes… NOTHING!”

She reopened her eyes and at the same time a powerful discharge from her horn blasted her through the space-time continuum and transported her into the air some distance above and away from the city. Twilight was falling like a rock as soon as she reappeared, and she couldn’t help but scream and flail her hooves every which way in abject terror. Wherever it was that she had reappeared, it was high enough that she fell for a good ten seconds before coming to a foolish realization.

Twilight drew all of her power to her horn and broke her disguise spell with a quick, magical release of violet light. At the same time, her wings returned to her and she flapped with all her might. Twilight stopped her rapid descent right before she crashed into the top of the forest surrounding Clopstantinople.

Twilight desperately caught her breath as her mind raced.

T-that was too close! I can’t believe I didn’t plan for that!

A smile broke onto her face.

But I escaped! Time to get out of here.

Twilight only looked behind her for a moment. The night-covered city of Clopstantinople was maybe a mile or so behind her, with a dark row of mountain peaks further off in the distance behind it. Searchlights on top of the domed palace and stationed around the city walls were scrying the skies for any sign of the escaped alicorn princess. Pegasi that looked like dots from how far Twilight was were starting to flock to the air and investigate. Twilight flew upwards to increase her altitude, then leveled out and glided.

The Frozen North Ridge is directly north of Clopstantinople, meaning due south of the Ridge is the Unicorn Range, then to the south-east is Canterlot.

Twilight smiled.

I’m not sure how long it will take to fly all the way back to Canterlot — maybe another half a day? But once I get to the Range, I should be in the clear as far as pursuers go.

Twilight’s route seemed to take her straight toward the moon, as it was so full and glowing bright that night. Her use of magic for the teleportation spell, even after she had eaten a hearty lunch earlier in the day, took about half of her energy. Twilight could barely go above a gliding speed that would make an elderly pegasus lose her patience if she were stuck behind.

This should be fine, though, Twilight thought, easing her doubts, Nopony should have any idea where I am.

Minutes passed. Twilight continued pacing herself and every so often she glanced behind to see the city become more and more of a distant object. She exhaled all the built-up stress in her lungs

Clouds rolled in around Twilight about a half hour into her great escape. The air was otherwise still and silent. There were just a few clouds at first, followed by more as the breeze carried them into Twilight’s path. She grew anxious. Did clouds really just randomly gather together like that?

When a thick fog began to set in around her, Twilight knew trouble was ahoof. She furrowed her brow and glared forward.

This isn’t some natural weather occurrence, is it? she worried.

A familiar whisper quietly hissed from seemingly all directions.

“Oh no, this won’t do! The little princess from the south has rudely left the Prince’s hospitality. And you thought nopony would find you…”

Twilight halted her flight and flapped in place. There was no use in proceeding if she couldn’t see past the thick fog, which had formed an opaque wall all around her. She lit up her horn to reveal the surrounding area. The whispers continued.

“Flying outside the city on nights when the moon is largest is my favorite thing to do. Looks like you were unlucky.”

“Show yourself, whoever you are!” Twilight shouted, losing her patience. “I remember you from the palace that day!” She quickly looked, carefully scanning for any signs of movement in the grey fog clouds. Though the bright, violet light from her horn was piercing, all it showed were even more clouds hidden in the fog. Nothing else. Just clouds.

“Show myself? I’m not mad, princess. You’d best me quite easily,” the whispers said. “I’ll need to take a more indirect approach.”

Without warning, a cloud burst forward out of the fog and headed straight for Twilight. Since she saw it coming, dodging was an easy feat. However, with a gasp, she realized her folly. A cloud that had been thrown from behind enveloped her and held her in place in the sky.

“W-what is this cloud?” she cried, struggling to escape. It didn’t budge a bit. It was more a floating hunk of concrete at that moment than a cloud. A hushed laughter bounced around.

“Cloud combat is not quite as popular as it used to be in Equestria. I might even be the last one to use it — it’s interesting, isn’t it? You won’t be able to move now, so best to stop struggling.”

Twilight gritted her teeth and shot a beam of violet at a random point in the fog. It travelled on and on until she couldn’t see its glow past the fog. She cried in frustration and shot off several more beams in random direction until she felt her magic run close to empty. She struggled to catch her breath amid the crushing suffocation of the cloud.

I need to calm down… she reasoned with herself. The whisper kept laughing all around her. Quiet, chilling laughter.

“Hehehe. Obviously, your little lasers missed me, princess.”

A string of clouds shot out of the fog and formed a tether between Twilight’s cloud prison and something inside the fog. The tether harshly tugged at Twilight’s cloud prison and sent her soaring through the air back towards Clopstantinople.

“No, I won’t let you take me back!” she screamed in a panic. She closed her eyes and focused her magic to her horn with so much strain that it caused veins to pop up on her forehead and neck. She howled as she released the stored power from her horn, creating a 360-degree blast of violet energy. It cracked her cloud prison and she struggled free at last. The energy continued to travel and it blew apart the fog as it did.

“H-horsehay!” the whispering voice complained. The air was clear, leaving only several grey clouds floating about. Twilight could trace the noise to a particular cloud in the distance. Two wings made of cloud flapped outside of the inner cloud. It looked like a big, fluffy, flying sheep without a head. Twilight glared and shot a bolt of violet magic at it.

“YEEEOWCH!” the voice cried as the bolt exploded on impact. Twilight immediately continued flying southward at as fast a speed as she could manage, not worrying to look back.

That should be enough to get rid of whoever that was. I can’t risk using any more magic. Just flying is using too much of my power and energy right now. If I cast even one more spell, well…

Twilight glanced down. The treetops were very, very far away. She swallowed hard.

…it’s not going to be pretty if I freefall from this height.

Despite her assurances to herself, Twilight again heard the familiar whispers before long. They sounded as close as a breath away.

“I can’t let you escape! I’m the Acting Commander of the Pegasus Corps, and if the true Commander came back and found out that I dishonored his position…”

Twilight glanced back for a second. It was just enough time to warn her of a mass of cloud billowing toward her. She swooped down and narrowly avoided it. Her lungs were burning.
Every few seconds she looked back just in time to catch a glimpse of another attempt by the cloud with wings to encapsulate her, and every few seconds she had only an instant to steer herself out of its dangerous trajectory.

“Stop resisting, arggggh!” the whispering cloud complained. Twilight closed her eyes. Every fiber of her being wanted her to stop.

“No! I’m never, ever stopping! I’m going back to Canterlot and letting the other princesses know what Tsunami’s up to! And I’m going to stop whatever that Maelstrom guy is planning, too!”

Twilight managed enough of a distance to look back and grin smugly.

“All your plans are going to fail.”

She saw angry, cartoonish eyes form on the “face” of the winged cloud sheep. They were red with black pupils.

“THEN LET ME SAY THIS, PRINCESS!”

The voice of the cloud turned into shouting.

“I WILL NEVER, EVER STOP CHASING YOU! WHO DO YOU THINK IS WEAKER RIGHT NOW, YOU OR ME?”

Twilight admitted to herself that he had a point. She closed her eyes and breathed out as calmly as she could while the rest of her body worked as hard as a hummingbird to propel forward through the cold, night air.

Fine, I have no choice then. Let’s hope I can manage not to become a pancake after this.

Twilight breathed in a large gulp of air, stopped mid-fly, and swerved back. At the same time, she powered up her horn for one last spell. Before the cloud with wings could stop, he flew headfirst towards Twilight’s spell.

“See you next year, you weird, sheep, cloud… thing!” Twilight cried. Her horn momentarily became glowing and purple, and then discharged a thick wave of violet magical energy. The cloud’s strange eyes grew twice as large as it realized what was about to happen. The energy from Twilight’s horn enveloped him like a tidal wave and blasted him back, all the way to the dark horizon and the city just beyond.

“YOU LITTLE — AAHHHHHHHHHH!”

The cries dulled and died out, as did all the magical energy, dissipating into violet nothingness . Twilight weakly smiled as her wings gave out and she tumbled to the earth below.

“G-good, it worked…”

Twilight managed, just barely, to hold open her wings so she could glide. Bute very half-second spent with her wings open, even just to glide, and even with token resistance from the breeze, was like a lifetime of jabbing pain. Twilight cried out and tears formed at the ends of her eyes.

“JUST A BIT MORE!”

She stared forward and squinted. The dropping altitude on her guided freefall led her closer and closer to the thick treetops below. Slowly, oh so slowly, Twilight led herself toward an emergency landing. With a brace before impact, Twilight closed her eyes and swiftly crashed through hundreds of fir branches. The snapping, whipping noises around her slowly faded as she lost consciousness.

* * *

Back to the morning of the second race of the Storm’s Challenge…

Twilight’s eyes painstakingly fluttered open. She groaned and reached up with a sore hoof to her even sorer forehead. Her body was unceremoniously crumpled up around a pile of dirt that had formed when she collided with the ground the night before. Needless to say, Twilight felt as bad as she imagined she looked. Miraculously, she realized she must not have been discovered.

“This isn’t good. How am I going to fly back in this condition?” Twilight whispered to herself, still holding her throbbing head. She groaned while trying to stand. Her shaky hooves tensed and she bit her lip. The pain was manageable, but the mental fatigue was blinding. Almost literally.

“Ohhh, I knew I wasn’t ready for this kind of task!” she lamented, seeing the disappointed face of Celestia in her mind. “I needed to do more planning, more thinking!” Her self-deprecating remarks continued while Twilight forced her tired, sore hooves through the forest.

An hour passed. Twilight had managed to take most of the pressure off her hooves by gripping the trees with her wings as she passed them. It didn’t seem like she was covering much ground, since the forest looked the same no matter where Twilight turned.

Tall needle-bearing firs and broad-leafed oaks with treetops that towered overhead reminded Twilight of Manehatten, only greener and less polluted. The soil beneath Twilight’s hooves was maroon, and in spots a little green bush or weed stuck up like an untrimmed piece of facial hair. She thanked her stars that the only movement she saw came from ground squirrels scurrying about. The sun weakly peaked through the leaves above.

Twilight pulled away from the tree she was leaning against with a grunt. She looked up with determination at the sun through the forest canopy.

I need to risk flying. I can’t spend any more time here than I already have, because at this rate, I won’t get back to Canterlot until tomorrow.

She took a deep breath and sighed. She unleashed her wings with a wince and took to the air.

I can beat myself up later! Right now, I have to get to my friends as soon as possible! They may be in danger!

Author's Note:

A million pardons for the week break. It's been a terribly busy second half of the month.