Chapter 3: Partially Cloudy
Broken Accords Chapter Three: Partially Cloudy
By Somber
Stormy gaped at the picture in her hooves. There were Rosewing and the brown stallion that had attacked them, along with several others. When had she taken a picture with Rosewing? She appeared as if this had been during weather training in Cloudsdale, so three years back at least. Only the old stallion, a mature avuncular fellow, and Rosewing tickled her familiarity. In the background was some old cave. Her in a cave? She’d certainly remember that!
Wouldn’t she?
Stormy turned to search for more clues when Misty said, “Do you smell smoke?”
That made the charcoal pegasus roll her eyes. “Misty, we’re in a cloud. Clouds don’t-” She paused as she sniffed the air.
Wait. That was smoke!
She opened the hallway door and a roll of thick gray smoke poured into the bedroom. Stormy instinctively dropped to her belly. In the living room at the end of the hallway she saw magical blueish-white flames rapidly consuming the contents of the room and the cloud itself. The white walls melted like wax as the flames consumed them. Worse, both exits were that way.
Stormy slammed the door closed and rushed to the window, her bruised and battered body aching. Her hooves kicked the glass-like pane, shattering it. “Come on, let's get out of-” She gaped at the thin bars providing an elegant, yet secure, barrier to intruders. “Who puts bars on their windows in Ponyville?” she snapped, kicking out at them. Like the walls of the house, they were magically fortified cloud, and though they deformed a little at her blows, they snapped back into place a second later.
The smoke was starting to get bad, even with the opened window. Stormy beat at the bars in futility before all fears of punishment broke down to screams of help. The walls behind them sizzled, and then pale blue flame poured through as if the it were water. The heat of the fire made her eyes water. Stormy’s old fear of being crushed to death was making a brand new friend: being burned alive.
“Kick! Kick!” Stormy shouted frantically. A cloud home was a cloud, and even though the mist was magically treated to remain firm and keep its shape, it was still just a cloud. The prim Misty set her forehooves down and battered at the same section of wall right next to Stormy. Under their barrage, the wall began to distort and bulge outwards. Misty stared at the sinuous lines of blue fire as they crawled across the floor. The walls. The ceiling.
Suddenly the bulge popped like a blister and spilled the two of them out into the air. Stormy tried to spread her wings, but her injured wing refused to extend fully and she spun down out of control. She landed in a heap, the long grass cushioning her fall a little. “Owwww…” she groaned into the grass. “I really hate this day.”
Misty crash landed on the grass besides Stormy. Overhead, the house rapidly shrank as the blue fire consumed it. A minute later and the entire structure evaporated in a hiss of steam and a shower of tiny flecks of wet ash. Even the few things that hadn’t been made of cloud were gone. All that was left was the photograph in the grass before her.
“We have to get out of here,” Stormy said as she struggled to her hooves, tucking the picture under her tail. Indeed, the screams and fire were drawing a lot of attention. More people were looking at the rapidly disappearing cloud of steam, and not at the two mores that had just gotten free. Together, they struggled towards the woods. Stormy tried to flap her wing, but it was useless. Somepony yelled out her name, and the gray mare winced.
“You need a doctor,” Misty Morning said as they pushed their way through the bushes and out of sight.
“If I go to the doctor then the Mayor and guard are going to be asking how I got hurt. And if they think I just burned down Rosewing’s home after I ‘accidentally’ killed her then I’m pretty sure I’m going back in that cell. Even I think it looks fishy,” she said trying to think of what she could do. She was a pegasus and needed to fly. She couldn’t go trotting around like-
“Ooooooh…” she said softly, her eyes brightening. “That… That just might work.”
Stormy rapped her hoof on the door to the cottage. “Careful, she’s really shy,” Stormy warned Misty. “There’s a reason she’s not on the weather team.”
The door opened, revealing a smiling Fluttershy. “Hello, Twi-” she started to say, when the yellow pegasus balked immediately. The door closed a few inches and she shifted to let her mane cover her face more. “Oh. Um. Stormy… what an unexpected… surprise.”
“Hello, Fluttershy,” Stormy said as politely as she could. She had even less association with Fluttershy than she did with Rainbow Dash, but that might actually work in her favor. “I hurt my wing. Can you look at it?”
“Oh. Oh my. I don’t think so. I only do little birds' wings. And falcons'. And eagles',” she said, starting to ramble as she worked her way through avian families. “You really should go see the doctor. I can’t really help you,” she murmured as she started to close the door.
“Fluttershy,” Stormy whined. “It hurts and you’re here. Please?” Stormy tried giving her the weepiest look she could, pouting and showing her banged up wing. Doing anything with Fluttershy was a chore, especially if you weren’t one of her friends. Even Stormy was more socially well-adjusted than Fluttershy… mostly.
Fluttershy opened the door enough to look at her wing, then away, look again, then away. “Oh, okay. I’ll… um… see what I can do. But you should really see a… a real doctor.” She opened the door wide and the pair trotted in.
Misty balked at the sight of all the little animal homes built into Fluttershy’s cottage, but more so at the smell. It wasn’t so much unpleasant, exactly, as it was overwhelming strong. You simply didn’t get dozens of animals in a building without the word ‘musky’ being applied. Sure, Fluttershy had some windows open in the back so birds could come and go as they needed, but it did little to mitigate the smell. “Misty? This is Fluttershy,” Stormy said. “She’s Ponyville’s resident wildlife specialist.”
“Oh. I don’t know about that,” Fluttershy immediately stammered, looking down at her wings. “I just deal with animals a lot, which is how I know so much about them. And really, I have so much more to learn… like the secret of bees making honey. Or how robins are able to sing that one special note. They’ve tried to explain it, but… um…” Fluttershy became aware of Misty staring at her and shut down with a little whimper.
Stormy gave Misty’s shin a little kick and whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Don’t stare. Shy. Remember?” Then she turned and extended her injured wing. The dark gray feathers were all bent and she couldn’t fully extend it. “Could you help my wing, please?” she asked Fluttershy as kindly as possible. While Fluttershy had overcome some of her social anxiety, that was primarily due to her friends. Get her alone and force her to interact and suddenly old habits came back in a big way. Maybe someday she’d help out with the weather too. Someday.
Fluttershy jumped a little as her blue eyes focused on the wing. “Oh. Yes. I… um… I think I know what might help. I once helped Mr. Falcon after he got his wing banged up by a quarray eel. This looks similar.” And she got to work. Stormy relaxed a little. Once Fluttershy was in motion, she tended to stay in motion until acted upon by a criticizing force. She led Stormy to her couch, made her lie down on her stomach, and carefully extended the wing with her hooves. “I think it’s probably just a sprain. If it were a fracture… well… it’s probably a sprain. Angel.”
A small white rabbit in a nurse's cap hopped out of a back room carrying a wooden box twice his size. He set it down next to Fluttershy, pulling it open and revealing a dazzling display of medicinal materials… and some not so medicinal. What was with the chewed up stick and why did she need a lump of beeswax? Fluttershy got to work, and Stormy kept still to let her help her wing.
A minute later, stings of pain shot along the wing, and she had to talk to try and take her mind off the zings. “Misty, how did that cloud burn? I’ve seen lots of things, but I’ve never seen that before.” It was the easier question to ask. The harder one was why she appeared in a picture with no memory of being in it. Oh yeah, and why were people trying to kill her? Twice. That was a good one too. “Is there some spell or something…”
“I don’t know. Why do you think I’d know?” Misty said, suddenly flustered, so much so that even Fluttershy looked at her in surprise. “I don’t know anything about magic! Why would you assume I do?”
Stormy just blinked a moment. Where did this come from? “Well, because in general most ponies are smarter than me, so I ask. If you don’t then you don’t. No need to get all worked up about it.”
“You should ask Twilight. She knows all kinds of spells, even when they don’t always work out like you’d expect,” Fluttershy said calmly, returning her eyes to the wing. “It could also be salamander mucus.”
“Salamanders?” Stormy frowned. “Those slimy lizard things?” A pinion got a strong yank that made her jump, and she had to keep from shouting.
“They are not slimy. They are amphibious,” Fluttershy said primly. “But no. Not those salamanders. There’s are salamanders that are covered in flame. Their mucus ignites when exposed to water. I suppose if you had fireproof boots or magic, you could collect the mucus, dry it out, and start a fire that way.”
That seemed a little involved, even to Stormy. Then Misty suggested in a quiet voice, “It might have been firedust too. It’s a very soft, crumbly metal refined alchemically or magically from minerals. When you throw it on water, it bubbles furiously and bursts into flame. I’ve never heard of it used on clouds though.” Stormy considered both. Then there was also the magic wildcard, but if there were a unicorn with a cloud burning spell… she didn’t like that possibility.
Didn’t like it at all.
“Um… why are you talking about clouds burning?” Fluttershy asked in a tiny voice. When they both looked at her, she squeaked and amended rapidly, “Not that it’s any of my business. I’m just… um…” she lowered her eyes again.
Stormy sighed. This was way more than a failed lightning specialist should handle. “I’m in trouble, Fluttershy. Did you hear about Rosewing this morning?”
Fluttershy shook her head as she bandaged her injured wing. “I saw the biggest lightning bolt ever over Sweet Apple Acres. After that, I was hiding under my bed with the other animals for a while.” She turned to Angel, “Please be a dear and get me some ice from the ice box. Pretty please?” The rabbit seemed to contemplate her request a moment, then hopped back into the kitchen.
“Well… Rosewing was killed by that bolt. Princess Twilight and the Mayor think that I’m responsible because I… have a lightning… thing.” Hobby? Habit? Obsession? “They think I had another collection that went off, like with Ditzy and Town Hall.” Fluttershy let out a soft ‘ahh’, nodding. Stormy continued, “But it wasn’t. There was a huge Class A bolt of lightning in there, and Rosewing attacked me. She tried to kill me, Fluttershy.”
“K…k…k…” Fluttershy gulped, shrinking away from Stormy as if the charcoal pegasus confessed to having a disease. “But.. no… certainly it was a misunderstanding? A joke taken too far?” she suggested, trembling a little. Stormy shook her head. “Temporary cloud rage?”
Stormy started to shake her head again, but paused. “That’s a thing?”
Misty Morning sighed, getting them back on track. “It’s true. I didn’t hear Rosewing shouting or anything like she was angry. She had no reason to attack Stormy, but she did. And fighting like she was, it almost got me killed too. I think Stormy’s right and something is going on.”
Fluttershy kept looking at the pair of them and glancing away, as if she really regretted helping her wing. Misty adopted an even softer tone. “We went to Rosewing’s house to try and fine something that could explain what she did, but a brown pegasus stallion was there ahead of us. He was taking papers and things. He attacked us too. And when we screamed for help, he left. That was when the fire started.”
Stormy pulled out the picture from under her good wing. “That’s the only thing that he didn’t take and that wasn’t burned up.” She tried not to fidget as Fluttershy examined the black and white picture.
Fluttershy chewed “This looks like…” she started to say and then looked at her.
“Me. I know. Only I don’t remember who any of them are except Rosewing. I don’t even remember taking the picture.” She pointed at the middle, youngest looking stallion. “He was the one who attacked us and almost burned us up at Rosewing’s house.”
The quiet yellow pegasus’s eyes looked from one to the other, then away, as she chewed on her lower lip. Finally, she said in a low voice, “You should tell Twilight.”
Stormy groaned, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. “I tried that at the hearing, Fluttershy. She didn’t listen.”
“I don’t mean at a hearing. I mean just her. She’ll listen to you if you give her a chance.”
Stormy fought her frustration as Angel returned with an icepack over his head and a carrot in his mouth like a fat cigar. “I said I tried. I even told her to use some of her magic on me and force me to tell the truth. She told me it didn’t work like that.”
“It doesn’t,” Misty replied absently, and then realized that she had three pairs of eyes on her. Immediately, she started doing the looking away thing Fluttershy had a moment before. “I read it in a book. Truth magic is notoriously unreliable and illegal. The spells Twilight could have used wouldn’t have revealed anything you didn’t already believe was true. Essentially, she could have cast a spell to detect if you were actively trying to deceive her, but it might have not gone off because you convinced yourself it was true, or it might have gone off because you were trying to put yourself in the best light to not get in trouble.”
That did seem pretty worthless. “Why not just use a spell to make me only say the truth?” Stormy asked with a frown.
“Think about it, Stormy. If you’re clever enough, you can phrase anything to answer nothing at all, but still not technically lie. Like I could say I saw something that might have been a lightning collection, but that I wasn’t sure. Both are technically true. It might have been a lightning collection. I know it wasn’t but it might have been. And I would also be telling the truth about not being sure. But it would have gotten you in deep trouble.”
“Then a spell to force somepony to tell the truth?” That was getting serious, and even she could see that. “Same problem as before?”
“Or worse. They could ask you anything. About the lightning. About the worst possible thing you’ve ever done. They could make you sound really guilty by asking very slanted questions. And if they’re really unscrupulous, the person casting the spell can just say you’re lying anyway. That’s why Equestrian courts don’t allow truth spells to be utilized in interrogations.” Misty Morning glanced at Fluttershy. “Not that Princess Twilight would ever lie about the results of a truth spell,” she added hastily.
Stormy stared at her a long moment. “You sure do know a lot about this,” she observed, making her flush even more.
“I… read a lot?” she said with a sheepish little smile.
“I’ll say,” Stormy said lightly, then looked at Fluttershy. Go to Princess Twilight. It’d be so simple… but it was easy for Fluttershy to suggest something like that. She was friends with the Princess. She was friends before Twilight Sparkle was Princess. Stormy Skies was a nopony. A mare with a bad habit of screwing up, who had a record of mistakes and no evidence to support her beyond the testimony of a mare she’d just met. Stormy considered the pale pegasus; what if she got dragged down with her? Misty had been nothing but helpful so far. Sure she was a little odd, but right now beggars simply couldn’t be choosers.
Stormy sighed and bowed her head. She wasn’t one of the Princess’s friends, didn’t bear some magical Element. “I need some evidence first. Something that proves what happened to Rosewing and her house wasn’t my fault. Then I’ll happily let her and her much more competent friends handle it.” Fluttershy furrowed her brow, clearly not agreeing. “Please promise me you won’t tell Twilight till I find some, Fluttershy.”
“Oh. I… um… I’d really rather not. I don’t think… I mean…” she stammered as Stormy pleaded with her eyes, trying to will her to agree. “Okay… unless I think somepony’s going to get hurt,” she added, tapping her hooves together, “If that’s okay?”
“Yeah. That might be smart.” Stormy nodded. “After all, if something happens…” she trailed off, glancing at Misty.
Misty chewed on a wing tip a moment but then asked, “So what’s next? All we have is that photograph.”
“That I can’t remember taking,” Stormy said with a scowl. She set it out so that Fluttershy could see as well. “Do you recognize any of these pegasi?” She asked Fluttershy plaintively.
Fluttershy stared at the black and white picture and shook her mane a minute later. Misty did the same. Stormy sighed, narrowing her eyes at the picture of herself. The combed over mane. The happy, silly grin…
It was her… three or four years ago? She hadn’t worn her mane combed off to the side in Ponyville. That’d be before her first major fuck up in the Weatherworks. The first of many. “I think I need to go back to school. Ask the instructors if they recognize any of these ponies. I need some names. Maybe I can find out something about Rosewing too.” There had to be some reason the mare had tried to kill her.
Kill her. Two ponies. Ponies! Stormy felt her legs shake and swallowed. “Um, Fluttershy? Could I stay here till tomorrow? Just to rest my wing?” She did all she could to keep herself from crying.
Fluttershy gave a little sympathetic smile. “Of course you can.”
Stormy struggled to choke down the feeling in her throat. Misty gave a polite smile and rose. “I should get back to the bed and breakfast. I can find out... well... if there's any... you know...”
“Warrant out for my arrest?” Stormy said, trying to keep the gibbering sensation in the back of her mind from breaking through.
“Yeah. That,” Misty said as she trotted to the door of Fluttershy's cottage. She froze at the window. "Somepony is coming!”
Stormy sat up, her wing aching as she looked around for a hiding place. She heard voices outside. “Hide!” she gasped, not sure where they could find a hiding spot. Stormy's wing ached as she ran to a table and ducked under the white table cloth. Misty ducked behind a curtain. Fluttershy picked up her medical kit and slid it underneath the couch an instant before the a hoof knocked on the door.
Stormy could barely see through the tablecloth. Fluttershy trotted to the door and opened it, admitting Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle. “Heya sugarcube. We wanted to check up on you. Make sure you're all right,” Applejack said as they trotted in.
“Oh. Ah... I'm fine.” She glanced over at the curtains and the table cloth. “The animals were terribly upset by that lightning. So was I,” Fluttershy said with a little fidget. Angel scowled at Stormy's hiding spot, rubbing his chin.
“So was I,” Applejack said. “Mindin' my own business and then suddenly, boom. Knocked me flat on my keister. That poor barn...” The farmpony gave a little sniff and covered her heart with her hat. "It lasted a good nine months.”
“Oh my, were any of the animals hurt?” Fluttershy asked.
“Badly shaken. Vet Snack Treat is taking care of them, but I just know they'd like you to visit them, Fluttershy,” Twilight Sparkle said as the three friends took a seat on Fluttershy's couch. A distinctive crunch came from beneath Twilight, making Stormy wince. She wondered if she had enough bits in the bank to replace it.
“Ohhh. Yes. I'll be sure to go right away,” Fluttershy said as she sat on her love seat. “Um... that was a pretty big bolt of lightning. Is it true somepony was... hurt?”
“I'm sorry, Fluttershy. Rosewing died,” Twilight said gently.
“If you ask me, Stormy got off way too easily, Twilight. That girl and lightning go together like Tank and slow,” Rainbow snapped, then added, “Uh, but bad, because Tank being slow isn't... oh, you know what I mean.”
“You seriously think that Stormy collected enough lightning to do that to a barn and a pony?” Twilight asked. “I did the math. If she collected one D Class bolt of lightning a day, it'd take her two years and nine days to gather enough to cause an explosion of that magnitude. Where would she hide all that lightning? Why would she be transporting it today in the middle of the day?
Where? Why? It doesn't make any sense.”
“So a bolt of Class A lightning magically appears in a cloud?” Rainbow Dash huffs. “The Weatherworks might mess up cloud orders, but they took inventory. None of the Class A bolts were missing. So where'd it come from? And what about that fire? A cloud burned up.”
“And do you think you think Stormy could do somethin like that?” Applejack asked.
“If anypony could, it'd be her,” Rainbow replied. “Rosewing isn't the first pony that she's hurt. Badly.” The words make Angel bunny glare even harder at the concealed pegasus under the table.
“Why? What'd she do?” Fluttershy asked in a light voice.
“We've got special machines to collect the static from clouds to minimize lightning. She decided to crack one open. Bolts flew everywere. A dozen ponies were sent to the hospital. Stormy gets knocked out and doesn't even remember it. That ended her job as a lightning specialist then and there,” Rainbow Dash said as she looked at each of her friends. Then she spread her hooves wide. “But it doesn't end there. She gets transfered to Manehattan as a weather pony. Two months later, another lightning accident. Caused a fire. That got her in Ponyville.”
“Que Ditzy droppin' her collection on Town Hall. Girl sounds like a right menace,” Applejack said flatly. Angel seemed to agree as he grabbed the corner of the tablecloth and started pulling. Stormy bit the cloth on the other side of the table to keep from being exposed.
“Maybe... maybe there were some extenuating circumstances?” Fluttershy suggested, tapping her hooves together.
Twilight shook her head. “Nothing about this makes sense, but what are we supposed to do? Stormy's disappeared. I've asked the Guard to bring her in as soon as they find her. Misty Morning too.”
“Misty Mystery is more like it,” Rainbow Dash scowled. “I know she was transferred to Ponyville, but I've gotten nothing from Cloudsdale about her. No test scores. No certifications. Nothing. And she's disappeared too.”
“I don't like it,” Twilight said with a frown. “It feels like something's going on. I don't see how Stormy or Misty could be behind it. Lots of things don't make sense.”
“Think she's a changelin'?” Applejack asked. Angel Bunny's grip slipped and he went rolling away from the table. Applejack glanced his way, and he leapt to his hooves and pointed at the table. "Onery critter,” she said dismissively.
“It might be Discord,” Rainbow Dash suggested.
“It's not Discord,” Fluttershy stated firmly, then squeaked, “Er... probably.”
Angel dove under the table, grabbed Stormy's hoof, and tried to drag it into view. She wrapped her hooves around the squirming bunny and held him tight. He responded by sinking his carrot loving chomper into her leg.
“What I'm afraid of is it might be something new. Something we've never dealt with before. It's just between the lightning and the fire there's so many unanswered questions and a lot of ponies are scared,” Twilight's horn flashed, and a pair of rolled up newspapers appeared. “This made the evening edition in Manehattan and Canterlot.”
“Woah. Pegasi destroy earth pony residence in Ponyville. Fatalities reported,” Applejack read aloud. “Kinda playin' loose and fast with the facts, ain't they?”
“Irresponsible pegasi unleash lightning on Ponyville citizens,” Fluttershy read as well.
“They're making it sound like we're tossing Class A lightning around the skies for fun,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Celestia and I are going to make a formal announcement early tomorrow morning. Hopefully it'll calm some ponies down,” Twilight said. Angel finally wiggled free and ran over to where Misty hid. The little rabbit began to yank on the cloth, but oddly, it didn't move a bit. The little rabbit stomped his feet in frustration.
“Fluttershy, is he okay? He's acting a little weirder than usual,” Applejack asked.
Fluttershy flew up and picked up the rabbit in her hooves. “Oh... uh... he's just being fussy.”
Angel kicked his leg against Fluttershy's in code. She hugged him, covering with her wings so only his head stuck out. After a small struggle, he waved his ears like semophore flags at Twilight. “It seems like he's trying to tell us something.”
“Oh. Ah... um... probably that he's ready to go to bed,” Fluttershy said, flying him from the room, and upstairs.
“Is Stormy still a suspect?” Rainbow Dash asked. Stormy froze, her heart in her throat.
“She's a pony of interest,” Twilight said gravely. “After the fire at Rosewing's and witnesses saying she fled the scene... well... we don't know.”
“What are we gonna do about it, sugar cube?” Applejack asked just as seriously.
“I don't know. Was it an accident or is something going on? I just don't know,” Twilight said evenly. “Spitfire is checking the weather factory records and Darkstar is investigating any possible magic connection.”
“Darkstar. Really. Who names their kid that?” Rainbow Dash shivered. "Guy's creepy.”
“He's tops in magical offensive and defensive spells,” Twilight said primly. "My brother speaks very highly of him.”
“Doesn't change the fact he's creepy,” Rainbow Dash muttered.
Fluttershy returned to the others. "He just needed a little snack.” Her friends rose to their hooves. "Oh, you're going?”
“Yeah. I should check in on Bessy and the Oinker twins before gettin' back on the farm.” Applejack said with a sigh. "Having a barn roof blown off over yer head is very upsetting.” Fluttershy squeaked at the thought.
“And Spitfire wants me to go through all weather team operations for the last six months and find any places where Stormy could have stashed more lightning. It's, like, going to take forever!” Rainbow Dash whined.
“Well, that's what happens when you file your paperwork under the 'nearest drawer to stuff it in' system,” Twilight said primly before turning to address Fluttershy in gentler, more concerned tones. “If you see Stormy or a white pegasus pony, be sure to tell a guard right away. I'm not sure if they're dangerous, but I don't want to take chances. Okay, Fluttershy?”
“Oh... um... sure,” her friend replied, looking over at Stormy's table. Stormy nearly wet herself in the next few seconds, but didn't answer.
Applejack trotted over to Fluttershy and gave her a parting hug, telling her to come by and see the animals if she could. The others gave fond farewells also. Finally, the three left. For a few seconds nopony moved, then Stormy and Misty poked their heads out in unison.
“Um... thanks...” Stormy said sheepishly. Her sprained wing ached terribly from being stuffed underneath the table, but at least she hadn't gotten caught. "What'd you do with Angel?”
“Oh, he's just getting a little time-out. In a box of carrots. With a bottle of cherries,” Fluttershy murmured. Sounded to Stormy like a time-out in a lightning repository. She chewed her lower lip. "About Twilight...”
“I can't go to her, Fluttershy. Not till I have some evidence that clears me,” Stormy replied. She pulled out the photograph. “Three years ago I was in weather training in Cloudsdale. That's where I'll start looking and see if anypony knows the other four in the picture.”
“I should get back to my room at the bed and breakfast,” Misty said as she trotted to the door, checking out the little window set in it to see if the coast was clear.
“Uh... bad idea. The guards are looking for us, remember?” Stormy pointed out in alarm.
Her lips curled in a smile that didn't match her soft jade eyes. “Don't worry about me.” She opened the door.
“Misty, about what they said...” But what could Stormy say about it? All of it was true.
Again, the little curl of her lips with eyes about to cry. “Which part?” was all she asked in reply, then stepped out into the evening twilight. “I'll meet with you tomorrow morning. Good night.” And with a soft click, the door closed behind her.
All in Ponyville was still. The smoke from the dirtpony barn fire still contaminated the air, but what was new about that? The filth had always polluted the skies with their stink as they ran around, savages shackled to the ground. How could the pegasus ponies down here stand it? They must have lived down here for so long that they’d become inured to the reek.
Still, mudponies were better than horn heads. What did you call the top of a unicorn’s head? A lightning rod! He chuckled to himself as he waited in the dark eaves of Town Hall, staring across at the apartment atop Quills and Sofas. He’d been watching all night, regularly chewing one or two bitter brown beans every hour. Stay hydrated. Stay awake. Stay out of sight. Don’t take your eyes off the apartment for longer than a few seconds, but stay aware of your surroundings. Pee into a capped bottle so nopony was alerted by the smell. Dispose of said bottle so nopony asked gross questions.
So many things they didn’t teach you at the academy. Or weather school. He didn’t bear Stormy any animosity. If things had been different and she’d been more open minded, she’d be helping their work.
Now things were… complicated. This was damage control. Control the information. Misdirect. Stormy would be an unwitting martyr for the cause. Maybe when everything was over, she’d receive a hero’s pardon. It’d make great public relations. But for now, he had to know what she knew. Enough ponies had seen the pair escape, so they had to be somewhere.
Unknowns were intolerable in this line of work. He hadn’t gotten to that last room before they’d arrived. Rose might have held something incriminating in there. Something Stormy might have saved. If Stormy had nothing, she was no threat. He’d been through her apartment, carefully this time, and found nothing. The white pegasus was supposed to be at the bed and breakfast; there were infuriating inconsistencies about if she was or not. Regardless, she hadn’t had any saddlebags so it was unlikely she had anything incriminating. If she had, the pegasus traitors in the Royal Guard would no doubt be acting on it and they’d have to accelerate the plan.
Information. What did Stormy know? What would she do? Who would she tell? There hadn’t been any action from that damned Princess beyond helping the mudpony clear away the charred remains of her barn. Princess. He fought to not hiss through his teeth at the word. Jumped-up unicorn with wings she didn’t deserve was more like it. Unicorn becomes a Princess and they treat her like royalty. Pegasus becomes a Princess and they make her a foalsitter until she’s hitched to a unicorn husband.
Calm down. Breathe. There was a unicorn guard down there and he couldn’t risk alerting him. There was work to do. It was critical things be allowed to calm down. That the situation be controlled. He had the worst evidence from Rosewing’s apartment; she’d been dangerous keeping anything incriminating in Ponyville, but then Rosewing had been a stickler for detail.
It’d be fine. Calm. Breathe. Take the air in. Let the air out. Feel its power. Control its power. Wait.
It’d all work out in the end. Just be patient.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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"“It doesn’t,” Misty replied absently, and then realized that she had three pairs of eyes on her. Immediately, she started doing the looking away thing Fluttershy had a moment before. “I read it in a book. Truth magic is notoriously unreliable and illegal. The spells Twilight could have used wouldn’t have revealed anything you didn’t already believe was true. Essentially, she could have cast a spell to detect if you were actively trying to deceive her, but it might have not gone off because you convinced yourself it was true, or it might have gone off because you were trying to put yourself in the best light to not get in trouble.”"
“I don’t know anything about magic! Why would you assume I do?”
Smooooth.
The clarification on the truth magic is good, though, I think, and addresses my concerns for the previous chapter. Though I imagine that Stormy would have been happier if she had just been released to be tailed and the brown stallion ran into an alicorn princess at the door.
"It lasted a good nine months."
:D
And a viewpoint shift…
"Unicorn becomes a Princess and they treat her like royalty. Pegasus becomes a Princess and they make her a foalsitter until she’s hitched to a unicorn husband."
…Hm. Tribalism aside, that's an interesting point.
And my, the plot does seem to be thickening!
Memory problems? Or is she a sleeper agent, I wonder?
Apple Barns collapse with startling regularity.
Misty and Twilight in the same place at once? There goes that theory :D
Found a couple of typos
It was critical for things to be allowed to calm down?
I'm gonna guess...
Nazis. Pegasus Nazis.
Also, "and fine something" should be corrected.
" If it were a fracture… well… it’s probably a sprain."
I should hope so. All the guy did was bite it. He wasn't a crocodile.
" A small white rabbit in a nurse's cap hopped out of a back room carrying a wooden box twice is size" <-- his size
"There’s are salamanders "
" I suppose if you had fireproof boots or magic, you could collect the mucus, dry it out, and start a fire that way.”
Fluttershy: "Then you could burn down that cloud house your parents bought for you in the middle of town, collect the insurance money and buy a much nicer little cottage way over near the forest where it's quiet and you can have all the little animals visit and live with you without breaking any city ordinances.
...um, I mean, if that's what you wanted to do. I've certainly never done it before. Or even thought about it! N-nice weather we're having lately, r-right? Ha... haha..."
" went to Rosewing’s house to try and fine something" <-- find
"If you’re clever enough, you can phrase anything to answer nothing at all, but still not technically lie."
That only works if the asker isn't really paying attention to the answer.
By the way, I no longer am annoyed by Misty. Lots of good clues as to her origins, now. Perhaps too many. For someone who clearly previously was involved in either elicit or covert activities, she's got a problem with running her mouth.
But as long as Stormy finds her questionable as well, I don't feel as frustrated with how obvious it is that she's hiding a ton.
" “You seriously think that Stormy collected enough lightning to do that to a barn and a pony?” Twilight asked. “I did the math. If she collected one D Class bolt of lightning a day, it'd take her two years and nine days to gather enough to cause an explosion of that magnitude. Where would she hide all that lightning? Why would she be transporting it today in the middle of the day? Where? Why? It doesn't make any sense.”
"
Oh, wow, so this ISN'T a dumb Twilight!
...now I seriously wonder who could have convinced this princess to lie and scapegoat an innocent mare.
No matter why or how, Twilight's an ass for laying this all on Stormy with such certainty if she had such strong doubts.
" Stormy gets knocked out and doesn't even remember it."
Oh, well that explains everything.
" Twilight said with a frown. “It feels like something's going on. I don't see how Stormy or Misty could be behind it. Lots of things don't make sense.”"
Twilight, you barely know Misty. That's the point... no one does.
I think the only obvious thing here is, while this whole incident likely involved Stormy and Misty, it had to also involve a bunch of other ponies. Neither of them had the time or opportunity to gather a huge lightning collection and get it to where that bolt went off. Even if you threw Rosewing into the conspiracy, too, there had to be more involved.
“After the fire at Rosewing's and witnesses saying she fled the scene... well... we don't know.”
They made a B-line for Fluttershy's from there. I'm surprised witnesses didn't state that, if Twilight or the police got a statement from them.
There should, at least, be an organized search in this direction for them. But Twilight's not mentioning that, so... I guess not?
“Darkstar. Really. Who names their kid that?” Rainbow Dash shivered. "Guy's creepy.”
Missed Opportunity
Rainbow Dash: "Darkstar. Really. Who names their kid that? Might as well of named him Captain Suspicious Evilguy."
Stormy: *mental facehoof*
“Uh... bad idea. The guards are looking for us, remember?” Stormy pointed out in alarm."
...well, they are looking for Stormy. Twilight just said that Misty had gone missing, IIRC. She wasn't spotted leaving the scene of the fire and hasn't been "missing" for more than a few hours, in all likelihood. Just long-enough to get discharged from the hospital, have a quick stop at Stormy and Rosewind's houses, then fly to Fluttershy's. If she wanted to, Misty could walk into town and say she was just on a short hike through Whitetail Woods to help clear her mind after her ordeal.
Just doesn't seem like much of a big deal to me given the only ones curious about her lack of a history are Rainbow Dash and Stormy.
" All in Ponyville was still. The smoke from the dirtpony barn fire still contaminated the air, but what was new about that? The filth had always polluted the skies with their stink as they ran around, savages shackled to the ground. How could the pegasus ponies down here stand it? They must have lived down here for so long that they’d become inured to the reek."
Ah, you KNOW he's evil because he's racist, just like Stormy!
Wait...
(I know this sounds like a joke, but seriously, I'm guessing her racism might be an effect of her involvement in this group of bad guys, whether she remembers said involvement or not)
" Enough ponies had seen the pair escape"
Okay, so I guess I made another bad assumption. When Twilight said witnesses had seen Stormy fleeing the scene, she means "and Misty, too".
" There hadn’t been any action from that damned Princess beyond helping the mudpony clear away the charred remains of her barn."
I find it kinda weird there's no racial slur for alicorn.
" Pegasus becomes a Princess and they make her a foalsitter until she’s hitched to a unicorn husband."
...huh. Is Cadence the only reason this guy doesn't have a racial slur for alicorn?
I mean, she married a unicorn, so she's a race traitor... I would think he'd have little to no respect for her.
Chapter done. This was pretty interesting. Looking forward to the next one. That's all, pretty much...
Hey, Somber. A nice, petty criticism for today:
If you don't mind, please use put a single space between sentences rather than two spaces (you can easily change old chapters by doing Find -> Replace All). The reason I ask is because Fimfiction assumes that writers put a single space between sentences, and adjusts spacing accordingly. Double spaces confuse Fimfiction. When I read a story with double spaces on a screen with a narrow width (like an ereader or a 7-inch tablet) there are often spacing glitches that jar me from the experience.
It's minor, but annoying and frequent. See here, where there's a line in the middle with only four words. Issues like that happen often when you use double spacing.
Anyway, as for the chapter itself? Great. We're still mostly in the introduction phase of the story, so there's disappointingly little that I can think of to talk about, but what's here is good. Keep it up!
cdn.slowrobot.com/11132012171073.jpg
Blimey...
Sounds like poor Stormy and Misty have kicked up a hornet's nest. "They" have apparently sicc'd the pony version of Anton Chigurh on the both of them...
One thing that continues to puzzle me is everypony's insistence that Stormy was able to secretly manufacture and store class A lightning in her attic loft all on her lonesome with naught but some mason jars, gaffer tape, and a static wick. I was under the impression that Class A bolts were strategic weapons; the pegasi equivalent of a nuclear warhead.
I feel like it is expecting the nutter kitchen chemist who reads Anarchist Cookbook to be able to machine, manufacture, and maintain a working nuclear bomb from in their shed using garden tools and some pyrex bakeware (the explodey, mushroom-cloud type nuclear bomb, not the dirty, "spread radioactivity everywhere" salted bomb). Stable, military grade RDX plastic explosives? Yes, possibly. Thermonuclear warhead? Not so much.
Go careful Stormy.
I have a feeling that eventually Stormy is going to spill the beans on these guys. With a class A lightning bolt. Because... you know... Chekhov's Gun and all that jazz. Also, as an excellent song states, "But as sure as God made black and white, Whats done in the dark will be brought to the light."
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I'm sensing Stormy's about to go full on Corvo when she discovers this.
4802306
So... we need some person to give them the Allied welcome to the spotlight
4795042
In soviet equestria Sleeper Agent is you