Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

Overstorm I

This wasn’t just any storm, it was the storm to end all storms. Impossibly huge and powerful, now that Rainbow Dash was up close to it she realized it would’ve taken every weather team from across Equestria to work together to replicate it. Natural or unnatural such a storm didn’t seem possible. The storm itself stretched for hundreds of miles and if it did have the circular shape of a hurricane like she was assuming based on its movement and the outer limits of the storm that she could see, it truly covered a massive area. The winds went from west to east in a counterclockwise motion if one thought of north as the 12 o’clock position. It was absolutely insane for Rainbow Dash to be sitting down at the base of one of the mountains on the edge of the storm, where the winds still blew hard through her mane and feathers like a typical storm back in Ponyville, but absolutely nothing compared to the powerful cyclone winds deeper in the storm that she could clearly see now.

“This storm is wild,” Rainbow Dash said even as her own voice was nearly drowned out by the howling of the wind.

The interior of the mountain range looked very rocky and sparse of vegetation. Not a surprise really if this storm had been raging over it for a while. What it didn’t tear up by the roots probably would’ve just died off due to a lack of sunlight. And it looked so dry in here too, despite the gray and black clouds making up the hurricane it didn’t look like they snowed or rained over the mountains much at all. There weren’t rumbles of thunder or strikes of lightning either, the storm was a swirling mass of clouds and incredibly powerful winds.

Rainbow Dash shrugged and flew up higher so she could be halfway up the mountain she was sitting at the base of. The good thing about all these rocky mountains that the storm sat over was that a lot of the time they would act as a barrier for the wind. She could sit on the eastern face of one of the mountains if she ever needed a break or anything. She was still going to try and just power right through the storm but without knowing exactly how big it was something like that could still take a while.

Still right at the edge of it the wind didn’t even make her wobble in the air yet. Maybe other ponies had tried to get through this storm and failed but she was willing to bet this hurricane had never faced a pegasus like her before. Rainbow Dash grinned and started to fly deeper into the mountain range, continuing her flight directly north, and pushing through the steadily stronger winds.

“This is like nothing!” She yelled, even though again it was barely audible inside the storm. And if she wasn’t careful the whipping winds would dry out her mouth.

The only thing she wished for right now was the goggles that came with her Wonderbolts uniform. It wasn’t so bad at the moment, especially since the wind wasn’t coming directly at her face, but they would’ve been really helpful. Getting to keep her eyes open all the way as she flew through here was almost immeasurably valuable. Now she’d have to squint or close them or put her hoof up to block the wind a lot of the time.

Looking at this desolate place too it made her think that maybe she should’ve brought more fruit from the oasis. Either carrying it in her hooves or on her back. Somehow she doubted she’d find much to eat in these mountains. Anything should stick out like a sore hoof with how stripped bare everything else was and if Rainbow Dash’s eyes caught sight of something unusual again, like the oasis, she’d head over to it. She wasn’t holding out hope for something like that again and she was pretty sure her stomach would be growling at her for the duration of her trip through the storm but she could deal with it.

The previous day when she had first seen the storm she honestly wasn’t worried about it. She still wasn’t worried per se but it was clear she had completely misjudged it. If she knew that it would be like this she would’ve flown here quicker instead of taking her time. And she would’ve saved one of those bananas too.

When it came down to it Rainbow Dash didn’t really have a ton of experience when it came to actually flying through storms. Most pegasi didn’t. She had more experience with creating or breaking them. She knew how they worked, or how they were supposed to at least, the atmospheric variables that went into them, the pegasi magic or the weird Everfree Forest magic that made storms on its own, but this huge storm gave off a different feeling. There was just something “else” about it. It made her knowledge and familiarity even less useful, especially with this being a full on hurricane in the first place and not a simple thunderstorm she occasionally dealt with from the Everfree or from Discord playing a prank.

Now that she had entered the storm if she looked up she could only see about a hundred feet before it became a completely indistinguishable blur of clouds. Ahead of her wasn’t much better but if she flew lower the clouds and winds were naturally less powerful and all-consuming thanks to the mountains. It might even almost be better to just walk across the rocky ground but that would take too long and she still would have to deal with some very powerful winds threatening to blow her away. She was at her strongest when flying and she’d need to be the strongest she could possibly be to muscle her way through the storm.

That didn’t mean she’d have to be a total meathead though. For now she flew a little lower, the ground below looking like it was entirely made of rocks thanks to the dirt being swept away long ago by the storm. Rainbow Dash flew over countless boulders of shale and granite, slate and limestone, and other rocks she only knew thanks to being forced by Pinkie Pie to attend a lecture held by Maud on the difference between sedimentary, igneous, and metawhozawhatsit rock. She still had nightmares about that.

The mountains themselves all bled into each other and kept the ground from being even or level in any place, it would’ve been impossible to farm much or have anything more than a tiny mountainside village here even if it wasn’t for the storm. In all the places of the True North she had been so far this very well may have been the most unforgiving. She remembered back when she had seen those reindeer shortly after climbing Mt. Everhoof, they were making out a sparse life but they had plenty of sunlight and there were rivers and glaciers around them. She didn’t envy any reindeer, ponies, griffons, or whatever that might have tried to live up here, whether past, present, or future.

Despite the fact that the mountains should’ve buffered the wind a good deal at the height Dash was flying she still found herself having to deal with a constant wind blowing into her left side. Not enough yet to knock her off course or make her struggle but if she stopped flapping her wings and gave in it would probably carry her off into the sky like an open umbrella instead of her just falling to the ground. She could imagine Fluttershy trying to do what she was doing… not a pretty thought. Hay, most every pegasi that wasn’t a Wonderbolt would probably be carried off by the strong air current.

Rainbow Dash winced as a lock of her mane whipped into her eye, forcing her to have to squint it shut for a minute. “Ugh, Rarity would hate this, her mane would be ruined.” Now that that thought was in her head she figured Applejack and Twilight would probably still be fine getting through here. Fluttershy… not so much. And Pinkie? She’d probably find some weird way or thing to do and end up fine.

Shaking her head to get back into the zone, Rainbow Dash flew in close to a mountain to give herself the most possible protection from the wind until she passed it completely.

“I guess this is what I have to look forward to for the next couple of days,” she groaned as she tried to look further into the center of the storm to see if there was a constant length of mountains the whole way through or not. But thanks to the low visibility she couldn’t see much further than one or two mountains worth in the distance.

Going through here was like a cold and windy version of when she and her friends had to trudge through the Bad Lands. Just nothing but inhospitable land all around them. Twilight mentioned that when she fought with Starlight and traveled through time or those alternate worlds or whatever that they finally ended up in some desolate and windy wasteland. Rainbow Dash wondered if this was similar to how that was. Well, probably not quite as bad as that. Even the Frozen North without the protection of the Crystal Heart was actually really dangerous and inhospitable too. She had to deal with that thanks to Flurry Heart that one time… yeesh, that was almost a disaster.

The moment Rainbow Dash made it past the center of the mountain the wind picked up again and tried to carry her further away and higher into the sky. The sudden change jolted her for a second but it was nothing she couldn’t fix with a single strong flap of her wings. An easy readjustment to fly straight again.

But the deeper she went the colder it got too. It was already cold enough outside the storm but the wind seemed to sap all the warmth from the air, making her colder and sending chills through her body. She kept her blood pumping thanks to all the movement but she’d probably have to find a cozy spot in the rocks when it was time to sleep or she’d freeze. And she couldn’t make an igloo or anything. How do you make a blanket out of rocks? She could probably bury herself to avoid the wind but something about that idea seemed stupid to her and she’d probably just wake up with a ton of pebbles stuck in her mane and wings. If she took the time to push some boulders or rocks into the right place she could probably make a wall, but she didn’t have the raw muscle that Applejack had and something like that could expend a lot of the energy that she really needed to conserve right now.

“Whatever, it’s not even close to night yet,” Dash said to herself and got back to focusing on her flying. Too often she found herself losing her concentration and thinking either too far ahead or back on something else when she should’ve just been tunnel-visioned on the task at hoof. But that’s just the downside of being stuck out here with no one else to talk to and not even really anything to do. It was something that kept happening on her adventure… it was something that happened all the time back home too.

Speaking of not being close to night yet, she was going to need to work on instinct when it actually came to telling the time now. The sky was completely masked by the clouds now, her internal clock was going to have to substitute for being able to see where the sun and moon were. For today she still had a good estimate of the time of day but once she fell asleep that would probably be thrown off.

Rainbow Dash frowned and snorted some air out of her nose. At least it wasn’t totally dark. Navigating through a storm like this was tough enough and her visibility bad enough even in the middle of the day. At night time it would probably be pitch black and she didn’t like the idea of flying into the side of a mountain or becoming totally disoriented. She’d unfortunately have to take a break whenever the visibility dropped or this trip through the storm could be a short one for all the wrong reasons.

With plenty of time still left in the day though she decided to make some more headway. And the best way to do that was fly up above the peaks of the mountains and bolt as fast as she could, not having to worry about hitting anything or curving around other mountains. The wind would be stronger up there so she’d only do it for a short time and see how difficult it was to deal with the unfettered storm before coming back down. She didn’t want to exhaust herself but it would be good practice and she needed to feel how strong this thing was at some point already. Cracking her neck, Rainbow Dash grinned and ascended.

Author's Note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

[Dashie04]

How’d I miss this?!

Well, I now have a brand new top priority.

[MagicS]

10492073
I'm not sure either but I'm glad to have you aboard now!