Love Locks

by Burraku_Pansa

Round 3: Supercell (Luster Lock vs. Vanilla Skies)

Author's Note:

Character biographies here. Original entry alongside my opponent's here (Warning: chapter link).

Vanilla Skies is a character created by Civviq Writer.

---

It was a dark and stormy night, flying in the face of any concept of scheduling. Either Manehattan’s weather ponies were playing hooky, or it was that plus the maritime wild zone a few dozen miles off the coast was acting up again. And Vanilla Skies was lucky enough to be responsible for both.

Which wasn’t to say that she oversaw pony resources, per se, and neither was she one of the veteran weather-busters on retainer for situations as dire as the storm heading towards the city late that afternoon, with the lighting and the hail and the not-quite-tornadoes and all the rest of the sensational schlock better suited to a copper dreadful. No, Vanilla was merely the dusk-dawn shift change coordinator—the might-as-well-be-lone steward of those most woeful times to which all Tartarus seemed honorbound to gravitate.

The day pegasi were good, sensible, hard-working sorts, and the night pegasi their polar opposites—the dawn shift change at least tended to be manageable. But dusk? The day pegasi were tired and the night pegasi were useless even when they weren’t absent. And for that particular shift change, it also happened that one veteran weather-buster had just the week previously celebrated his retirement, while the other was the recent victim of a crippling bout of hypochondriasis.

Thusly, it had fallen to Vanilla, as it so often did, to pick up the slack and push others to do the same. But there was one miraculous fact of the antiquated Manehattan weather division that worked in her favor: the shape of its funding.

---

Not a day in, and Luster Lock’s latest attempt at a vacation was already looking pretty cruddy.

Why had she decided on Manehattan? It was a big, active place, yeah, but what was the point of leaving Hoofington for… a bigger, more active version of Hoofington? Cities were just cities, at least when earth ponies had made them. But there she was. At least the skyscrapers were cool. Big.

‘Active’ didn’t really apply, though, or not right then. Luster half cantered, half danced right down the middle of a lamplit street, with no carriages in her way or pedestrians on the sidewalks telling her to stop. Where was everypony? Thinking back, the reason Luster had settled on Manehattan was probably that it couldn’t be uneventful. But lo and behold…

Was it the storm? In the middle of executing a perfect cartwheel—balancing with her wings was probably cheating, but whatever—she looked up to the sky. Dim and gray, like her coat. Dreary. Little bit rainy, which felt nice. Looked pretty windy up above, where the buildings stopped. And the thunder was kind of exhilerating.

It looked… bad? Luster wasn’t a pro at weather stuff. Give her some tools and Ol’ Downy and Mr. Tickle could crack a safe or pop a padlock like lifelong felons—her wings alone had earned her a stint in escape artistry, even—but they never could handle themselves so well in the air. Pro or not, though, the storm wasn’t the worst she’d ever seen, she didn’t think. Didn’t seem like enough to bring a place like Manehattan to a halt or anything. So…

Luster cut the prancing and eyed the surrounding buildings. The alleyways. If it wasn’t the storm, had she just gotten off the train in a bad neighborhood? Now that she’d thought of it, that storefront off to the left was definitely boarded up, and there were an awful lot of cracked windows around. And—and was that a shad—

“Hey!” called a voice from above.

“Wagh!” Luster jumped out of her skin. Or onto her back, more like.

Four hooves smacked down onto the pavement. “You okay?”

Getting back up, Luster got an eyeful of a crazily orange-and-yellow mare who stood out sharply from the dark street. “Long as you’re not gonna try to rob me,” said Luster, “I’m perfectly fine.” The mare’s cute little messenger bag and short, pretty—if a bit naturally windswept—mane definitely didn’t make her look like a thug, but you never know.

“What?” The mare shook her head. “No, I’m wondering if you aim to help.”

Luster quirked an eyebrow. “With what?”

The mare gave Luster a look like Luster had just punched her in the gut and asked what was wrong. She pointed up.

Luster tracked the hoof up to the swirling clouds above. “Oh, right. You don’t have ponies for that?”

“Not tonight we don’t,” said the mare. “Not enough of them.” She opened up her messenger bag and drew out a piece of paper, shielding it from the rain with a wing. “If you sign this and I confirm that you helped out, you’ll get a flat fifty bits when the storm’s over. Of course, the Manehattan Weather Cooperative won’t be liable for any injuries, though it shouldn’t be that dangerous once we’ve got enough wings in the air. Interested?”

Slowly, Luster approached and began looking the form over. Fifty bits was a nice chunk of spending money, and it would probably be more fun than just heading to her hotel. Weather, though…

“Miss,” said the mare, “I hate to rush you into a decision, but it’s rather urgent that I go and find willing pegasi. If you accept, you’re not bound to do any work—you just won’t get paid if you don’t.” With her free wing, she drew a pen out of the bag’s side pocket. “If you’re unsure, you can sign now and then think about it while I get back to my job.”

Luster bit her lip, but nodded and took the pen in her own wing. She signed her evening away with a nice little flourish.

The mare smiled. “Thank you…” She looked down. “Miss Lock. We’ll be meeting in about twenty minutes above Dame Harmony.” Form tucked firmly back into her bag, the mare held out a hoof. “I’m MWC Overseer Vanilla Skies. If you do wind up contributing, we’ll notice, so just come find me after the storm for your pay.”

Luster shook the offered hoof, saying, “Can do.”

“Alright,” said Vanilla, taking to the air, “I’m off to find others.”

“Good luck,” said Luster.

They smiled to one another, and Vanilla flew off.

Luster watched the bright speck of a mare disappear over a rooftop, and her eyes lingered on the sky. She felt her smile die.

---

The air there was congested with… well, cumuli congesti. They were swirling and pouring, no doubt, but they weren’t yet cumulonimbi, so it was about as safe a spot to talk as they were all going to get.

“Alright!” called Vanilla. The other pegasi—about thirty-five of them in all, counting the MWC weather ponies—cut their side conversations and turned to her. “First, a quick thank you. I know not all of you are residents, and Manehattan appreciates your assistance, paid or no.” That brought smiles to some of their faces, where before there’d mostly been worry. Vanilla made sure to dial up her own smile as she continued, “With that in mind, some of you need to be informed of our general process.

“Manehattan has a sophisticated lightning protection system, grounded rods and charge negation charms on most every building—we’ve got all the time in the world to handle the basic storms, even if the potential for hail could become an issue. Our big worry is the possibility of a tornado. You see any mesocyclones forming in the cumulonimbi, you dissipate them. You see a supercell going full force, you block the wind shear, kick down through the anvil, cool the air around any striations in the base and collapse the updrafts—whatever you’re capable of doing. After that, we clear up the simpler thunderstorms. Any questions on technique?”

The roughly two dozen pegasi Vanilla had approached to volunteer, she’d approached because they’d seemed capable at a glance. Big wings, slim enough frames, good balance. It looked to have paid off: nopony’s eyes had glazed over during her speech, and there were no questions, but for a single exception. “Yes, Miss Lock?”

Miss Lock lowered her hoof, saying, “Um, yeah…” There was some definite tension in her hover, and not any good sort. “What do we do if we don’t know what any of that means?”

The encroaching thunderclouds had the decency to balk, refraining from any dramatics, but a far less modest gust whistled by.

“I…” said Vanilla. “I suppose you should just follow somepony else and try to do what they do.” Hopefully Miss Lock just didn’t know technical terms. Either way, Vanilla needed all the wings she could get, and it was doubtful one pony could make things very much worse… Though, that sounded dangerously like an open challenge to fate. “Better come with me, in fact.”

Miss Lock nodded, and her movements were a bit surer.

Vanilla looked over the group at large. “Any other questions?” No hooves. “Okay, everypony. If you’re a volunteer, speak with an MWC officer”—she motioned to the ponies at the group’s center, and they hovered higher—“to be put on a sub-team and given further priorities. We all do this right and you’ll have your pay in time to enjoy the sunset.”

Chattering began once more as the ponies organized themselves. Peals of thunder rang out all the while—seemed the storm had decided it was time for drama.

---

Wow!

Luster had been up in a storm or two before she’d won her padlock cutie mark—even a ground-born pegasus always gets to thinking they might be destined to go get struck by lightning—but they didn’t even begin to compare. Not to a full-on, ice-cold, bare-ankled, absolutely massive, wilderness-spawned monstrosity of a real storm.

And she’d thought the thunder from before was exhilerating.

Luster did her best to follow after Vanilla—hooves down the better flyer—as they punched through banks of clouds and out into the open air. Only to dive right back in, towards whatever the biggest cloud in sight was. Luster dutifully kicked and flapped and corkscrewed whatever bit of heavy fluff that Vanilla pointed her towards.

It was around the sixth trip back to the clear sky above the storm that Luster was beginning to feel the burn in her wings. She looked over to Vanilla, wet with what had to just be rainwater—the mare looked like she hadn’t used up an ounce of energy yet. Vanilla’s head snapped suddenly off to the side, and the break was apparently over.

“These have all just been cumulonimbi,” she called, her voice carrying to Luster over the rushing wind in her wake. “Stormclouds. But that”—she pointed a hoof forwards—“is a supercell! It’s a stormcloud, a cyclone, and a lot of other things all rolled into one. We have to focus on it, or there’s a chance it’ll form a tornado.”

Luster looked ahead, at an utter mountain of a cloud. Bigger than a pegasus apartment complex. It had a wide, fluffy-looking base that curved up and in, and then mushroomed back out again—the top looked almost like it was reaching towards them as they closed the distance.

“How?” yelled Luster.

Vanilla didn’t answer for a moment, but then said, “Nopony else is on it yet, so we don’t have many options. The wind shear—the wind coming at it—is what makes the air inside spin, but the two of us alone can’t stop that.” Another beat of wind and wing flaps, and then Vanilla turned her head back to Luster. Her brows were knitted and her eyes unsure. “Two pegasi can cool air around the base to keep it from getting sucked upwards, but it’s dangerous. Are you up for trying that, Miss Lock?”

Dangerous? Luster wasn’t afraid, but… “Is that the only thing that’ll do any good?”

Vanilla frowned, saying, “If I’m being frank, I’ll say that we’d have more options if you were a stronger flyer. Creating opposing air currents, for example.” She shook her head. “No, it’s our best option for making a difference together. Even a foal can cool air.”

That was true—it was one of the few pegasus tricks Luster had ever managed to grasp, apart from cloud-walking. Just a matter of sucking heat into your feathers. “Let’s do it, then,” she said, and they turned forward again.

They were coming up on the supercell’s bottom, and Vanilla led Luster down below it. Fat raindrops buffeted them, to the point that Luster was having trouble seeing even the brightly colored mare in front of her—until lightning flashed from elsewhere on the cloud, highlighting Vanilla, the eerily flat bottom of the supercell, and a little bunch of clouds sticking out of one spot. It was to there that they were apparently flying.

“Is this dangerous because of the lightning?” yelled Luster.

“No,” said Vanilla. “The updrafts.”

They reached the cloud-blob, and Luster could feel what Vanilla meant; the air around was getting pulled towards it, up into the supercell. It was… pretty strong, actually. The burning in Luster’s wings flared up as she fought back.

Vanilla came to a halt, saying, “Alright. You cool the air, get it to be low pressure, and that’ll weaken the updraft. Meanwhile, I’ll be in the cloud, ready to rip the channel apart when that happens. Then we’ll move to the next one. Ready?”

Luster grunted, “Ready.”

And Vanilla took off, tearing a hole into the supercell’s bottom that quickly filled itself back up. Luster took a deep breath and focused on her wings. Thinking them cold, thinking them empty. Thinking just how warm the air was. And… there.

---

The clouds were pressing in on Vanilla. Heavy on her wings, making it hard to hover, and thick in her ears. But she couldn’t have missed it when the roaring, spiraling wind nearby started dying down to a relative whisper. Miss Lock had had it in her, it seemed.

Vanilla burst forward and into the weak updraft—still enough to send a less experienced pegasus tumbling and spiraling upwards, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She tore into the wind of the channel, flapping hard downwards, in a reverse spiral. It didn’t take, and the channel’s currents just picked up again.

She flew up and tried again, moving hard and fast against the current, and this attempt bore fruit; the current was weak enough by the time she reached the bottom that the updraft collapsed, thickening the clouds of the channel and killing the last of the spin.

Flying down and out through the base of the supercell, Vanilla took a breath and reoriented herself. She spotted Miss Lock and headed over. “Good work,” she said over the rain.

“Thanks,” said Miss Lock. Vanilla noted the other mare’s light panting, and the way the rain hissed and sizzled against her steaming wings. “So, um. More of that?”

Vanilla nodded. She scanned the base, spotting at least two more striations, and asked, “Think you can handle it?”

Miss Lock took a deep, closed-eyed breath and tried visibly to relax her hover. She opened her eyes again, her look not quite resolute, but much better than worried. “Sure thing.”

Good enough.

They made their way to the next striation, Vanilla making sure to charge the air with every flap of her wings. If she was going to wake up in a hospital tomorrow, it wouldn’t be because of anything as amateur as lightning.

At their destination, Vanilla spared one more glance towards her comparatively haggard companion.

“Good luck,” they said at once.

They both smiled, and Vanilla flew up into the roiling cloudstuff.

A few moments in, she settled on a spot to wait, and that damnable fluff set about muffling all her senses again. It condensed on her coat, her body heat the only thing keeping it from freezing, and that heat was getting sapped all the while.

Vanilla’s head jerked back, and she sneezed. And now it was in her nose and mouth! Smelling of ozone and tasting of gobby nothing. Her ears were a lost cause by that point, the cl—

Her ears twitched forward. Was that… a shout? Or was it just more of the same wind, rushing p—

That was definitely a shout!

This wasn’t good. It had to be Miss Lock in there, and the volume of the wind’s movement meant she hadn’t cut its speed down much, if at all. Vanilla couldn’t go down and do that herself—it would take time, and every moment the other mare was left spinning out of control was another chance for her to go unconscious, and if that happened… there was every possibility she could be flung from the mesocyclone, free to fall to the ground.

Vanilla revved up her wings. The only option was to power right through the channel before the current could get a hold on her, and either spot or hear Miss Lock on her way through the thinner cloud there. Then do it again, but grabbing Miss Lock as she went.

She shot forward, pumping with all her strength, ears on alert for any more shouts.

She failed to swerve out of the way when from out of the haze came the shocked face of Miss Lock.

---

Vanilla’s groans rung out from the other side of the cloud, and Luster let out a long, satisfying breath. “You okay, Vanilla?” she asked, turning.

Vanilla raised her head, eyes all but spinning, and asked, “What happened?”

Luster chuckled. “You smacked your head right into mine right after I escaped that updraft.” She turned back to the nearly clear skies, and the sunset over the bay. Tangerine and royal purple reflected by skyscrapers and glassy, lapping waves. She wished she were a better painter. “You fell unconscious,” she continued airily, “and I brought you to your weather friends, and a medical guy looked you over and said you just needed some rest.”

Groaning some more, Vanilla sat up. “How’d you manage to get out?”

Luster shrugged, saying, “Mostly luck, I guess. And probably a bit of escapology experience.” The wind in the updraft had started to feel an awful lot like chains once Luster’d been panicking hard enough. Instinct had definitely kicked in a little. She turned to Vanilla once again. “Again, though, you okay?”

Vanilla nodded, and she gave her wings a little flap. “I think so.” She flapped in earnest, rising up from the cloud and moving out towards the sunset. She turned her body, flying easily upside down, like she was reclining.

For the first time, Luster noticed what looked like a little sunset cutie mark on Vanilla’s flank. And the mare’s whole body was like a few extra shades of orange and yellow melding into the real sunset’s colorful display.

“Yes, Miss Lock,” said Vanilla, a happy sigh in her voice, “I’m perfectly fine.”

Luster put on her best grin. “Does that mean I can get my bits now?”