Chapter 62 - Cloudsdale
It was early in the morning, not too long after sunrise. Applejack, Big Mac and I were standing on the edge of an open area of grassland on Sweet Apple Acres. A ways out in front of us, silhouetted by the rising sun, was a medium sized barn; one of many that was used for short term storage. This particular example though had been deemed unsafe for use; condemned by various building inspectors. A small number of parasprites (evidently offspring of the ones Twilight had encountered) had gotten inside the barn at some point, and in the manner of those varmints, ruined the woodwork. As a result, we would have to knock it down and build a new one in a few months before the next harvest season.
Now, just in case you don’t know, it can be quite tricky to safely demolish a building without access to explosives or heavy machinery designed for the task. Even my own magic would use up a fair portion of my reserves in bringing the structure down. So, we went to one of the few ponies in town capable of performing such a feat; Rainbow Dash.
Dash had discovered quite early on, that if she performed a sonic rainboom too close to the ground, it created a ground burst effect; effectively a large explosion. She’d done this sort of job for the Apples’ on a few occasions and had gotten pretty good at it. However, this time, the display had attracted a crowd.
“Twenty four, twenty five, twenty six. Twenty six ponies plus us, ‘Jack,” I called as I completed the headcount. This explosion could be pretty damn big; we were taking no chances about anypony being caught in the open.
“Thanks, Bones!” AJ replied. She then turned to address the crowd. “Alright everypony, if y’all want to settle yourself down in the trench, we’ll get this show on the road.” A few feet behind me, was a deep trench which would protect everypony from the blast. Standing up on their hind legs, a pony could just about see over the top. When the blast hit, everypony would get down to avoid the debris. As the ponies settled in, Rainbow herself landed next to me.
“Hey, Blade Star,” she said as she tucked her wings back to her sides. I looked up.
“Oh, hey there, Dash. Ya ready for this?” I asked. She rolled her eyes.
“C’mon, you know me; I was born ready to do stunts like this.” She stuck her chest out proudly. I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that she’d neglected to mention that she had no official training.
“Alright, if you say so,” I replied. “Get yourself airborne, and when you see me fire a blue flare, start you run. Okay?” She nodded and prepared for take-off. Just before she disappeared in a literal dash, she turned back to me.
“Oh, Blade Star, just figured I should let you know. I was planning on taking Lizzie up to Cloudsdale today. Twilight says she’s happy to take you up there in her old balloon and your folks too if they want. I think she’s just using it as an excuse to teach that cloud walking spell though.” She then took off at a steep angle leaving a rainbow trail in her wake.
I promptly returned to Applejack, who handed me a hardhat which I exchanged for my Stetson, along with a pair of anti-flash goggles. We did one final headcount of everypony who had assembled. Apparently the chance to see something blow up in a rainbow coloured fireball was quite a popular pastime in Ponyville. As Applejack retreated with her brother into the trench, she handed me the large megaphone with its stand, as well as a small crank siren. Given how big this would probably be, everypony in a five mile radius needed to know about it. Other than that, the only things above ground level were a load of scientific meteorological equipment Twilight had set up to measure the blast.
Using my magic I began to crank the heavy handle of the siren. The familiar eerie wail could be heard for miles, nothing could be heard except that ominous, cold sound that turned the blood in your veins to ice. I turned to use the megaphone.
“Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Take cover at once!” I called. In the unlikely event anypony was stupid enough to still be in the blast area, they now had about thirty seconds to run. I then addressed the crowd. “It is now thirty seconds to zero time. Put on goggles or turn away. Do not remove goggles, or face blast until ten seconds after the first light.”
With that, I tilted my head back, and fired a basic light spell upward. It acted in a manner similar to a firework; going high into the sky before exploding in a bright flash. I saw the faint speck than was Rainbow Dash start descending. We’d worked it out very carefully, once she started, we had thirty seconds. I put my own goggles on and began to count, calling the time into the megaphone.
“Minus fifteen seconds.”
“Minus ten seconds.”
“Niner, eight, seven, six, fiver, four, three, two, one, impact!”
In an instant, I flung myself into the trench to protect myself. Even with the goggles on, I wasn’t about to look at the light. Everything became silent for a moment, then the thunderous noise of the explosion and the blast wave hit. I felt a roaring wind shoot over the top of us; I doubted that Twilight’s equipment would survive the blast. Then, just as soon as it had started, it stopped. I heard the familiar sound of a speeding pegasus overhead.
“Okay guys, it’s clear. Barn’s gone too,” Dash called. As one, we all rose out of the trench and dusted ourselves off. Looking across to where the barn had been, all that could be seen now was the both terrifying and amusing image of a rainbow coloured mushroom cloud. It wasn’t actually nuclear; we’d all be dead if it was. It was simply the sheer forces and pressure caused by Dash when she performed a sonic rainboom. I patted the cyan pegasus on the back.
“Nice work, RD. Nice work.” We were now free to let the land recover and then start building. A part of me though still couldn’t help but feel that it was a bit over the top. With the job done, Dash headed off toward Fluttershy’s whilst I went to my parent’s house. I’d wanted to see Cloudsdale since I got here. My mum had a strong interest in Roman history, so she’d find the pegasi culture fascinating too.
As I was about to head off though, a thought occurred to me. I was leaving without Applejack, again. I’d been thinking and to be blunt I hadn’t been much of a coltfriend or whatever the hay I am to AJ these past weeks. A trip to a floating city would sure be something. I quickly found her amongst the dispersing crowd.
“Hey, AJ. How’d ya like to go on a little trip?” After quickly telling Granny where she was going, and after I told Big Mac what I was up to, we both headed off to my parents’ house. As we left, with the cloud still hanging overhead, I couldn’t help but look back and mutter one thing.
“War. War never changes.” Even in the magical land of Equestria.
Mum and Dad happily jumped at the chance to see the floating city of Cloudsdale. Dad had heard a fair bit about the city, and had even met its mayor during his time working for Celestia and he’d wanted to go for some time. Mum too was interested in the city, having seen it on her way to the school every morning as well as passing Rainbow’s own cloud home. The city was the great redoubt of the pegasi and of course home to both the Weather Factory and the Wonderbolts. After quickly grabbing a few things the four of us headed on over to Twilight’s to get ready. Whilst the two humans and earth pony merely relaxed and chatted, Twilight pulled me aside to impart to me yet more knowledge.
“Alright, Blade Star, this spell is pretty easy to accomplish, as long as you have the right method,” she said, prompting me to tilt my head to one side.
“Right method, Twilight?” I repeated. She nodded, smiling.
“The spell requires absolute concentration in order to function properly. Any distraction or loss of focus and it could degrade at a faster pace than it should. And I think we can agree that the results of that might be, well, unfortunate.” Unfortunate was bloody right. If this spell went wrong it would do so in a big way.
With this in mind, Twilight handed me the tome which contained the intricacies of the spell. For once, politics intruded into the domain of magic. When it had first been created, not too long after unification as a means of allowing cultural exchanges between the pegasi and the other tribes, there had been some disagreement. Many of the pegasi ‘old guard’ disliked the idea of imparting a form of flight magic to non-pegasi, some hogwash about it being their birth right. One Cloudsdale politician even went so far as to invite all non-pegasi to ‘Go back to the Sodom from which you came.’ Anyway, to settle this issue, the only form of the spell taught had a built in failsafe that would terminate the spell in three days. This is what made it tricky.
Adding in a time decay function to a spell takes work, particularly if you want it to be precise. A delay of three days, if one isn’t careful, can easily become three seconds. I therefore studied the tome intensely, going over every single nuance several times to ensure I had got it all correct.
“Okay Twilight, Ah think Ah’ve got this,” I said as I set the book down. My teacher instructed me to perform the spell on myself for now. I was glad of that, just to keep my own conscience at bay, I was going to ask her to cast the spell on my parents and AJ anyway. Keeping a steady focus, I closed my eyes and began to cast the spell. Aside from the time delay, it isn’t that difficult really, but that didn’t mean I was going to take any chances.
When I finished and opened my eyes, I found Twilight had quickly gone and pulled down a small tuft of cloud, just about large enough for a pony to stand on. Tentatively, I stepped on the cloud. And believe it or not, the gaseous object took my weight and held; I’d done it.
With my own spell completed and checked by Twilight, she cast the same spell on the rest of our group, double checking to be sure. When everypony was ready, Twilight called up the stairs to tell Spike she was going out and we headed outside. Twilight’s balloon was ready and waiting. Cloudsdale was only a few miles from Ponyville at the moment so the journey would be relatively short.
The five of us piled in, and Twilight released the anchor ropes. Steadily we rose upwards leaving Ponyville far behind. I’ve flown in aircraft before, but never a balloon; it was quite a pleasant experience. After about five minutes, we breeched the lower levels of cloud that were hanging around Ponyville, and Cloudsdale came into view. As we neared the floating city, I could make out pegasi bustling between the cloud buildings and I could spot the famous coliseum for which the city was famous. And just barely, I could make out two pegasi, one teal and one that left a rainbow coloured trail in her wake.
Twilight carefully steered the balloon toward an available spot, out of the way of most pegasi, but near enough so that we wouldn’t need wings to reach the centre of the city. With barely any noise, the basket settled onto the base of the cloud and Twilight tied the anchor ropes down onto some of the available pegs. With that, she invited us to step out, onto the clouds. It’s not like we knew they were made of gas and that we were over five thousand feet up at this point. I looked out over the edge of the basket.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I muttered to myself. With a hoof, I leapt over the side of the basket. Naturally, I didn’t leap to my doom, like every other inhabitant, I landed on the clouds, which gave a little under my weight, but otherwise held.
“Nice job, Blade Star,” Twilight complemented as I settled myself on the cloud. “Okay, you two, now you try.” Just as hesitantly, my parents looked at the clouds beneath them, eventually, with some trepidation still evident, they both stepped out, each one holding the other’s hand. When nothing happened, they both breathed a sigh of relief.
“I still can’t believe this,” my father said in quiet awe. “A whole city made of clouds, just floating in the sky.” Where we were, you had a great view of the city’s two big attractions; the coliseum and the Weather Factory. My mother spoke up as we looked across the vista.
“I’ve seen pictures of the cloud coliseum before, but I never imagined it was so vast. It’s probably bigger than the one in Rome. Lots of similarities too. You know, I remember reading once…” And she was off. Roman history was a passion of my mother’s, and if you started her on it, she wouldn’t stop for at least six hours. Luckily the world’s greatest lecturer was on hand to quieten her.
“Oh, so your world had a similar culture to the pegasi by the sounds of things. Multiple deities, imperial foreign policy, extremely influential military commanders and the beginnings of modern government.”
Or not.
Luckily at that moment, we were interrupted by an ominous shadow passing over us. For one horrifying moment a few bars of music I had learnt to fear played in my head.
Rainbow and Lizzie, Lizzie looking slightly less stable, landed a few feet in front of us after Rainbow had spotted us from the air. The sight of my little sister flying was enough to finally make my mother pipe down and let everypony else think for a minute. Once again though, I found myself missing my own temporary wings.
“Hey guys,” RD said. “Glad to see you got here okay. We’ve just been practicing a few moves around the city. Lizzie catches on pretty quick. Seriously kid, if you ever do decide to become a pegasus again after all this, I’ll definitely have a spot open on the Weather Patrol for you.” Lizzie looked away shyly at that. “So, do you guys want to grab a bite to eat first or what?”
It was getting on for lunch time anyway and we all agreed that getting a bite to eat would be a good idea before we all started wandering around Cloudsdale. Dash and Lizzie quickly took to the air again, though they kept low to the ‘ground’ of the clouds in order to better talk with us non-flyers. Twilight, in spite of her wings, elected to stay with us.
However, before I could set off, I was accosted by a small pegasus colt. He wore a dark blue uniform with a mail and wings logo emblazoned on the lapel. Obviously he worked for the post office.
“Telegram! Telegram for you, Mr Star!” the little colt squawked out, handing me a slip of paper before buzzing off to his next job. Opening the telegram, I began to read:
Blade Star STOP.
Do not alert Celestia to your presence STOP. Whatever you do, do not taste the rainbow STOP.
- Pinkie.
I dropped the brief message, now utterly confused and followed everypony else into town.
Dash led us into the main part of the city into what was evidently a sort of restaurant district. There were all sorts of cuisine on offer. Given that griffons could walk on clouds, there were a few restaurants that catered to meat eating customers. We initially took a look at them, but they did not really cater to mixed groups, serving a strictly carnivore menu. After that, we tried a few more pony based places, but of course, my parents couldn’t eat a great deal of that menu. In the end Dash decided to take us to a pegasus restaurant, not one of the typical tourist places. Looking at the prices, they were pretty over the top anyway.
We found ourselves walking through a maze of side streets that Dash seemed to know like the back of her hoof. Even Twilight was having difficulty remembering the route back to where the balloon was tethered. Eventually though, we came across a small little shop that seemed to almost jut out of the wall at you. A single small fish symbol hung on a sign outside. As we drew nearer, my parents and I picked up on a familiar scent. I could pick up cooked fish, and the smell of a good fry up. As we entered, the reason for this became obvious; this was, effectively, a fish and chip shop.
As it turned out, it was common practice to batter fish in Cloudsdale, and while they didn’t have chips per se, the staff did do fried potato wedges, which were effectively the same, and a great deal healthier for you to boot. As we all ate our meals, Dash told us that her folks had used to bring her here when she was a filly as a rare treat. While it seemed she knew where she was going, she had had to draw upon quite a few old memories to remember where the place was. I’d definitely be back here if I was ever in Cloudsdale again. They did the closest thing to true fish and chips this side of the rift.
When we had all finished up we headed out for a little tour of the city and maybe a little shopping too. As long as it didn’t launch Mum into another lecture on Roman or pegasi history, I was content.
Given that my gender was outnumbered more than two to one on this trip; our first stop naturally was the shops. It seems that taking females out shopping is a pastime that, for males, is universally boring. Luckily, as it turned out, the husband chair is also a universal constant. Dad and I had nothing to but chat amongst ourselves and try not to look bored whilst Mum, Applejack and Twilight went to every, single, little souvenir shop and Dash and Lizzie went to anything Wonderbolt or otherwise flying related. The latter wasn’t so bad, at least flying was interesting. Though to be fair, until my mother found out about it, Roman and pegasi history was quite interesting too.
Finally, though after around two hours of going and looking at things we either had at home or didn’t need, and then buying them, the girls declared their shopping complete and a success. This at least, allowed Dash to take us to a few of the more interesting places in Cloudsdale.
After a short introductory lecture by Twilight, which Dash and I promptly cut off, we arrived at Cloudsdale’s unique Weather Factory. Here everything from the most violent thunderstorm clouds to rainbows (of the non-magical rainbows of friendship variety) were manufactured and crafted by the, artisans I suppose you’d call them. The place, whilst important, was open to the public for visits, just so long as you didn’t interfere with daily operations. We were all given white hardhat helmets and reminded to on no account touch or consume unprocessed rainbow material.
“Yeah, they say that,” Dash whispered to me as we moved along. “But I sometimes use it as a quick hangover cure, works wonders, just a bit of a rough ride to go with it.” I chuckled at that, remembering Pinkie’s reaction when she tasted the rainbow. While it may be a quick hangover cure, I had no desire to go through numerous colour changes and ruin my tongue.
As we entered the raincloud production section, a quiet area at this time of year, Dash gave Lizzie a chance to learn a little bit about weather work. She began by forming a small dark grey raincloud from one of the huge machines. It was about the size of my barrel, so not overly large, but more than just a tuft.
“Okay Lizzie, now a pony doing weather work usually has two jobs when it comes to rainclouds; either to start ‘em up or blow ‘em apart. They’re built pretty simple, jumping on top will cause them to start up and kicking them with get rid of them. Why don’t you try it, over here?” She moved the proto-raincloud over to a testing area. “See if you can start it up on your own and then try to knock it out.
With a few flaps of her wings, my little sister got herself on top of the small cloud. After settling herself down on the smaller than normal object she began to do as Dash had instructed. Within seconds, much to her alarm, the cloud rumbled and began to rain heavily. After letting it run for a few moments, she then jumped off and gave it a healthy kick, dissipating it into nothing. Her performance earned approval from all of us. From what Dash had told me before, weather work took a lot of effort and skill. Maybe Lizzie had missed her calling.
We then had a stop at the rainbow factory, and I can safely say nothing untoward goes on there, the rainbows are just that, rainbows, there’s no organic matter in them. The only trying portion of the tour was where we went through the snowflake production area. To this day, the sight of a lone falling snowflake makes me cry like a filly. Dammit, I miss Snowdrop. As we walked through, I had to covertly dab my eyes.
With the tour complete, we all headed back outside, I swapped my hardhat for my usual Stetson; I’d been swapping my hat a lot today. Dash was chatting to my parents about taking Lizzie to see a few ponies she knew in Cloudsdale who might be able to teach her a few tricks. Now that Lizzie had been able to master basic flight, and I do mean basic, Dash was keen to teach her stunts and tricks and wanted to take her to a few places. Apparently, she’d gotten in contact with Spitfire and got permission to use some of the lower level training equipment at the Wonderbolt Academy.
“It’s an advanced flight school,” I said, when my parents asked me and Dash about the place. “It’s supposed to be for the best of the best. Every eight weeks the top one percent of all the weather patrol flyers is selected to attend a five week course and work in teams of two. Dash has been there, it’s a good place to learn more advanced stuff quickly, plus it’s a lot of fun.”
With my parents’ approval, Lizzie and Dash took off and quickly left our sight. We, on the other hand, began to work our way back toward where the balloon was parked. The three of us thanked Twilight for both getting us up here and casting the cloud walking spell. We then released the anchor ropes and drifted downward. I just hoped that Dash wouldn’t try to put Lizzie in the Dizzitron.
Proofread by Sidetrack.
An excerpt from user FedoraGamer's userpage comments section:
Blade Star: Thank you for favouriting 'My Family and Other Equestrians'. 
Divine Path (who had previously commented on FedoraGamer's user page): Um, my apologies, but I think you have replied to the wrong person. I haven't found a story by that name. I'm happy for you though.
Blade Star: Sorry, must have clicked the 'reply' button accidentally. The message was intended for FedoraGamer. Reposting comment now. Correctly this time. 
FedoraGamer: The confusion is glorious.
Feel free to laugh at my fail.
And now FedoraGamer is making me wear this:
Stats
Page generated in 0.032 seconds
Total duration
1,074 users online
2,548,949 hits today, 2,571,732 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
he wears the cone of shame!
THE CONE... OF SHAME!!! Sorry Cone Of Doom.
Double facehoof plus wings and the cone of shame! Dude, you can't catch a break can you?
Thank you for reminding me that I need to finish reading Fallout: Equestria. Not even halfway through with that thing.
Phew. Took a fair deal of searching, but I got creative with the search arguments and managed to find this story.
5362291 I know what you mean; the new system is terrible. I tried looking for it myself the other day. Hopefully, enough people will badger Knighty and he'll switch us back to Google.
Finally caught up with this one, things are moving nicely still, a couple things I feel could've had some elaboration or explanation, but from what I can gather, this is a retelling of the characters memories and as such isn't to be expected as a consequence
5370819 feel free to PM me about things that throw you. I'll let you know if it is intentional or not. I'm always up for a bit of helpful criticism. This story has been going around a year now, so I might have forgotten about the odd minor thing.
5371163
Intriguing, but do be careful, or you might end up making a verse. One-shotober saw that mistake happening a few times (though they were wonderful amazing mistakes to be sure)
And I will certainly take you up on your PM offer soon enough
Nice chapter. Got a great laugh though when I clicked on the little video clip of RD nuking the barn. It came up with an ad at the bottom for free meditation classes. That plus the vid and I almost lost it.
now I am going to sit hear and think about Snowdrop for the next hour I love that video it brings a tear to my eye every time.
harts fire
Fallout Equestria anyone?
6702011
I was about to post that XD
I WATZ FOE D: I WANT IT NOW!!!
I would like a bomb that explodes blue so I can say, “I blued it up.”
1:00
1:17
What so an ice cream cart ran by?
Applejack didn’t have any reactions to clousdale or was even mentioned in it nor did she have any lines.
better RD nuke vid
huh. was expecting more interaction with Applejack in cloudsdale since blade invited her along to spend time with her specifically.