Chapter 4: Tornado Twilight
Chapter 4: Tornado Twilight
“All right everypony! Are we ready to pull this off?!”
“YEAH!”
A crowd consisting of all the grown-up pegasi of Ponyville—plus one alicorn of Ponyville—was gathered on the highlands next to the village. Rainbow Dash was flying in front of the whole group, ten feet in the air right above the artificial lake, giving last minute motivational speech before they were supposed to raise the water from the reservoir all the way up to the Cloudsdale.
“That’s what I like to hear!” Rainbow shouted, swooping above the crowd. “Keep those wings flexed, as we are going to start as soon as they get Cloudsdale steady on the right position, in just five minutes!” As she spoke, the cloud city in question was slowly drifting towards their direction high in the sky.
Rainbow landed next to Twilight, who was at the back of the group with Fluttershy, both wearing their flight goggles on their forehead like everypony else present. “Hey Twilight, Fluttershy. Are you two okay? Feeling nervous?” she asked with a smirk, seeing the obvious uncomfortable smiles on their faces.
Fluttershy was content with just nodding silently, whereas Twilight took a breath and said, “I’m feeling more confident than this morning, but that’s not really saying much. I still don’t like doing this, and according to my calculations you’ve got more than enough wing power even without my effort, so if you could just consider—”
“No,” Rainbow said curtly. “We talked about this already, and you are going in with us. I know we have enough wing power, nopony being sick this time and all, but it’s not really about pushing ourselves over the limit anymore; it’s just about the team effort. If everypony attends, it boosts everyone’s morale, leading for a better performance. Besides, you don’t want to be the only one to chicken out, do you?”
Shoot. Well, it was worth a try... Twilight thought. “Well... no, but—”
Rainbow sighed. “I thought this discussion was over already. Looking for your flying back in Ponyville at the end of our training, I know you can do it if you just believe in yourself.” She looked back at the other ponies in crowd. “Well, I’d better check everything’s is still in order before we start. See you in the tornado!” With that she flew into the crowd, but after just a few seconds came back for a few more words, “Oh, and Twilight? One reason I made you to take part of this whole operation was to finally give you some flight practice, and seems like I totally succeeded! See you!” Flashing a one final smug grin towards the alicorn she flew back into the crowd of pegasi, occasionally shouting a word or two or encouragement to various ponies.
That sneaky little... Twilight could feel a bit of anger starting to boil inside her, but she calmed down quickly; it had probably been best for her to finally learn some flying after all. The training hadn’t actually turned out to be as bad as she had feared initially, and Rainbow had been surprisingly understanding and calm with her. Besides, now she could finally check the ‘learn to fly properly’ field in her checklist of thing to do before next winter, that being something she had been procrastinating for way too long already.
After a moment Twilight turned to Fluttershy, who looked surprisingly calm. Twilight remembered what the pegasus had said in the library yesterday about being a nervous wreck in the inside despite looking calm on the outside though, and suspected the situation was similar now too. “Are you feeling fine, Fluttershy?”
“Yes,” she answered, though it came out as an almost inaudible squeak. “I know I can do it, since I have done it before. How about you? Do you feel confident enough to do it?”
Twilight shook her head. “No, not really. But I’ll do it anyway, if only because if I now chickened out and stepped aside, I would never hear the end of it from Rainbow Dash. No, I have to at least try, no matter how nervous I am.”
Right after Twilight had finished talking, Rainbow Dash blew a whistle in front of the group to draw attention back to herself. “Cloudsdale is in position, so we’ll start now! And remember, even if we don’t have that fancy horn to give signals or a machine to measure the wing power this time, this is still serious business, and I want you all to do your best! Take off on my whistle!” A second later she took in a lungful of air, and blew her whistle with full force, discarding it on the ground afterward so it wouldn’t be on her way in the tornado.
The gathering of ponies started to take off, starting from the front end of the group. Twilight watched as the first pegasi in the formation were already starting to build up wind speed, forming a gigantic tornado right above the reservoir in front of her. Soon last of the pegasi would fly in, and she was expected to follow them. She glanced aside towards Fluttershy, who looked back at her. Fluttershy pulled her goggles over her eyes and gave a curt nod, having a determined look on her face.
Twilight gulped nervously, but also pulled her goggles on, returning the nod to the pegasus. They both turned their heads back towards the building up tornado right as the pegasi in front of them took off.
It’s now or never, Twilight thought, taking a running start and flapping her wings to get airborne. The other pegasi were flying much faster than she was, and even Fluttershy was getting ahead of her, but she wasn’t there to compete. She was there to be part of a team effort, to bring water up to Cloudsdale with the others. And to show Rainbow Dash that I am not a chicken!
As she flew closer to the tornado, which was spinning faster and faster every second, she could feel the wind trying to push her to the side and away from its center, so she put more force into her wing flaps. The forces were almost overpowering her, and she hesitated for a moment, thinking of just giving up—Rainbow said they had more than enough wing power to create the tornado even without her, so her leaving out wouldn’t be a big deal.
Except Rainbow Dash would never let me live it down, Twilight thought. If Fluttershy and all these other pegasi can do this, so can I! She put a determined look back on her face and pushed forward. She flew a few feet closer to the tornado, and yelped as the wind speed suddenly seemed to increase tenfold, and the direction of the wind was more inwards than outwards like it had been a moment ago. She knew there was no going back now.
She got sucked the rest of the way into the tornado, now flailing around among the other pegasi, getting a little nauseated in the process. She tried her best to correct her alignment while spinning around, but her wings were flapping on their own accord in the wind, making it almost impossible to do any corrections.
“Twilight!” she heard Rainbow shouting, barely audible over the roaring wind. “You’ve got to recover! Put more force in your wings! More determination!”
“I’m trying!” Twilight yelled. She tried her best to correct her flying, but the wind was simply too strong for her to fight. Her wing muscles were not as developed as with the others present, all of whom had been born as pegasi, giving her hard time to do anything. In her panicked state she thought of a few spells which could help her—temporary strength increase, reduced air resistance, self-levitation, and so on—but she couldn’t get focused enough to do any magic.
She put last of the strength she still had in her body into her wings, trying to fight the enormous power of the tornado. She managed to somehow regain some control and stopped her uncontrollable spinning, but the effort was quickly draining her of all of her strength. She closed her eyes and just pushed along the wind—she wouldn’t have to worry about colliding with other pegasi, since they flew faster than her anyway—and with sheer willpower and determination kept going on.
I can’t keep on going like this much longer...
The eight hundred wing power threshold was passed soon enough, and the water funneled through the tornado and into the sky, landing right into the carefully positioned water container in Cloudsdale.
As soon as the last drop of water had passed by all the pegasi, they let the tornado disperse by flying out of it starting from the top. The exhausted pegasi landed on the ground all around the now empty reservoir, cheering together for their yet another successful teamwork.
“Great work everypony!” Rainbow shouted, flying right where the tornado had been a moment ago. “We did it last time, and I knew we could do it again! We did even better than last time, thanks to nopony being sick and to our newest addition to the pegasus roster, Twilight Sparkle!” A loud cheering sounded in the field as every pegasus congratulated each other and the aforementioned alicorn.
Rainbow Dash didn’t join the cheering for any further though, as she scanned the area with her eyes. “Speaking of Twilight...” she mumbled to herself, looking at the crowds of pegasi, “where is she?” She saw Fluttershy sitting alone on the grass a few yards away from the reservoir, but couldn’t find Twilight anywhere. She even looked up to see if she was on some cloud or if she was still flying in circles like Fluttershy had been last time, but there was no ponies in the air, save for herself, and no clouds in sight.
“Has anyone seen Twilight around?” Rainbow asked, flying around the area filled with pegasi, but everypony just shrugged or shook their heads. She landed next to Fluttershy, and asked, “Hey, Fluttershy? Did you see where Twilight went to? I saw her flying in the tornado just moments ago, so she can’t be far away.”
“Um...” Fluttershy answered. “I’m not sure because I didn’t pay much attention to anything else but flying, but I think I saw something lavender colored fall into the rising water pillar right before the water launched up to Cloudsdale...”
Twilight coughed water out of her lungs as she was fished out of the water tank by a pair of pegasi wearing white weather factory lab coats. They set her on a cloud next to the tank, and after making sure their newest princess would be all right, they left to continue their work with the cloud-generating machinery.
“Ugh...” Twilight groaned, coughing a few more times and lying down on the cloud, her whole body soaking wet and wings still sore from the recent flying. In the end her wings had completely failed her and had gone limp, causing her to end up into the reservoir right as the pillar of water shot up, taking her along in the process. And now there she was, lying on a cloud in Cloudsdale next to the water tank they just filled up.
That’s certainly one way to get up here... A fast, but very uncomfortable way...
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XD I guess thats why you stray from the middle of a water cyclone
Good story, I liked it.
3368808
Yeah, I'm sure she's going to be fine though... it's not like a thousand-feet high leap into the air in a massive pillar of water is going to do any damage to her, right?
3368849
Thank you!
3371540
Wouldn't she know what? Would you care to elaborate?
You earn 5 moustache
I can definitely see a similarity to fluttershys first time and twilights first time, it was the fear of actually flying as fast as possible without over exerting them selves, but that's where the similarities end as for twilight she just got her wings not to long ago where as Fluttershy was born with them. So generally it is about learning new things and conquering fears.
3391946 That is quite much what I thought while writing this. Both Fluttershy and Twilight had fears about flying in the tornado, but what exactly made them afraid was different. For Fluttershy it was performance anxiety and her discomfort of being in large crowds, whereas for Twilight it was distrust in her own flight capabilities with the recently acquired wings and some fear of flying related to that.
3391990 okay maybe that is what I didn't see but the truth is that they both had learned things that the never thought they would when they did and now that its clear for Fluttershy it was as I will put it a lack of courage whereas for twilight it was her distrust in her ability to fly. Am I correct.
It would be really fun if there was a sequel where
1)Twilight dose the cyclone again years later and doesn't collapse then afterword she and her friends (including Starlight) laughs about it(maybe it could include Trixie and the other three princesses)
or
2)Princess Celestia rescues a soaking wet and exhausted twilight and lectures Rainbow dash on throwing friends in situations that's mentally or physically impossible for them.
7922764 I'm not planning to write any sequels to this myself, but some thoughts about the ideas anyway:
1) Appropriately a sequel set years later, seeing that I wrote this story over three years ago. Could work, but I feel it would need some more substance to it than just having fun remembering past events, some kind of unexpected twist or something.
2) I don't feel that Celestia would really be a lecturing type; she is sometimes kinda mischievous, but most of the time she seems to be calm and understanding. Besides, even Celestia herself occasionally sends Twilight on dangerous missions where she could push her limits. On the other hand, Twilight herself might have a few stern words to say back to Rainbow...
7923592 Okay how about this alternate ending idea.
1) Do to falling in the tornado Twilight brakes both her wings and Rainbow dash gets a stern talk from her friends. you could put it at the end of this one and name it alternate ending.
What do you think of that idea.
8068511 This was supposed to be a comedy-ish slice of life story, and I feel Twilight breaking her wings at the end wouldn't really fit in with the overall lighthearted theme. Besides, the story was all about Twilight preparing for her flight in the tornado, building up leading for that moment right from the beginning, and continuing the story for long after the tornado itself would have felt just superficially dragging the plot. I prefer a quick wrap at the end after the main conflict of the story has been solved, and leave whatever happens afterward open for the reader.
8068605 Could I make a AU of this story where exactly that happens.
8068608 Sure. I'm leaving this story as it is, but you're free to write any sequels, alternate endings, or whatever you like. As long as you don't straight up copy my story (or parts of one) and publish it with minor modifications claiming it's your own story, it's fine by me.
8068637 Okay.
One more question does this take place before or after equestria girls?
8069042 After, I guess. I mean, this was written a few months after the first EQG movie, somewhat inspired by Twilight's brief flight attempt during the opening scene.
There was no resolution to events here, no falling action, no denouement. The story simply stopped, nothing having changed.
9511770
Yeah, she probably could do that by now, or she could just teleport the water in. But maybe pegasi have been doing it with tornado power for centuries, and Twilight wants to respect pegasus traditions and let them do it without unicorn magic. You know how well Applejack took it when Twilight tried to help wrap up winter using her magic back in season 1.
Besides, where's the fun if you could solve everything with magic?
Did they broke the Fillydelphia wing speed record?
10569635
That's left open for the reader to decide.
Though I would say no; they didn't have as much time to prepare/train as the last time, and I would think most pegasi are not that athletically minded to keep training on their own in between this and the last time. Besides, even if they did break the record, there would be no proof since they didn't have anyone officially measuring the wind speed this time.
10569826
I wanted them to beat the record