Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

Overstorm X

Rainbow Dash thrust a hoof up from the last rung that ran from the base of the laboratory to this outside balcony and pulled herself up past the railing with all of her might. Wheezing in exhaustion she rolled over onto her back and lied there for a moment to catch her breath. Curiously, the moment she had actually reached the end of the chain and began her climb up the ladder, the weather wasn’t as harsh. It was like the wind had weakened and slowed down, even though as she looked out past the lab at the clouds it looked like they were speeding by at the same speed they had always been. So why wasn’t she currently being blown away into the storm? It must’ve had something to do with the lab itself, she thought. There must’ve been something magical about it or some kind of field around it that dampened the weather. Twilight and her brother were really good with huge shields and stuff, maybe this was a barrier kind of like that?

Well she could ask the scientists about it when she got inside. If there was something like that it would help explain how this thing was able to float up here in the first place.

After a minute of resting she got up onto her hooves and untied the rope harness she still had around herself. She had untied the one loop earlier to get off the chain but kept it on just in case she needed it later. Luckily she didn’t have to use it for anything when climbing up the rungs. The wind still had just enough strength to lightly blow about her mane and tail but all Dash needed to do was hold up a hoof to keep the rainbow locks out of her eyes.

“Okay, now how do I get in here?” She said as she looked around the balcony.

There was a single door on it leading into the lab, Rainbow Dash sighed in relief and walked over to it. Despite the handle on the door she decided to knock first. It was probably locked anyways and she didn’t want to startle the scientists inside by suddenly opening it up and stepping in out of the blue. Although they were probably going to be pretty surprised to hear knocking on it too considering where they were.

Rainbow Dash shrugged and started banging on it anyways. “Hey! Anybody in there?” It was probably soundproof too unless they wanted to hear nothing but wind all day and night but she yelled anyways.

She kept pounding away at it until she saw the handle twist and a hissing sound of air escaping as the air-tight door was opened up. It swung out so Dash had to back up but when it did so she looked inside and saw four perplexed stallion’s faces staring at her.

Rainbow Dash put on an awkward grin and waved at the scientists. “Uh, hi.”

---

Getting to drink some hot coffee felt pretty good. To her knowledge no one down in the tunnels even had coffee, this was a real treat.

“So you’re saying… that you actually managed to climb up the chain and reached our laboratory like that?” One of the scientists asked her. He was one of the two unicorns of the group, the other two being pegasi.

“And before that you had even made it deeply into the storm under your own power?” Another questioned. The first pegasus.

“Yep,” Rainbow Dash simply nodded. “And I came up here so I could get through the entire thing. Was hoping you guys could help me after what everyone down in the tunnels was saying.”

“It’s quite remarkable that you were able to accomplish such a thing,” the first scientist said.

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I’m just awesome like that.”

“But not awesome enough to actually get through the entire storm? That’s why you came up here after stumbling across the tunnels below?” A third one said, peering through his glasses at her.

“Yeah it’s really annoying but the storm just gets crazy when you try to go deeper. Obviously you guys know about that,” Rainbow said to them.

“We do indeed,” the glasses-wearing one nodded. “Well it’s good to make your acquaintance, I feel we likely have much to talk about. Truly I didn’t think it was possible that any pegasus could do what you just did. You might be able to help us out just as much as we can help you.” He coughed into his hoof and then smiled at her. “But where are our manners? Introductions should be in order first. My name is Lightning Rod, meteorologist. And you are?”

“The name’s Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolt, hero, and all around awesome pony,” she stuck out a hoof for him to shake and he gladly accepted.

Lightning Rod was the other unicorn of the group. A relatively short stallion he stood eye to eye with her, his coat was almost the same as hers as well only a little more of a wintery shade while his snow white mane shot up all over his head like the leaves of a pineapple. Befitting a meteorologist he had a Cutie Mark of a bright sun on his flanks.

The only pegasus that had spoken so far then came up to Rainbow Dash and smiled. “My name is Whistler. Former chief of the weather team before this storm arrived.” He was an older pony with just the slightest start of wrinkles under his eyes and a receding hairline. His forest green coat looked like it had dulled a bit with age and the same could be said of the sunflower yellow mane he had combed back on his head. On his flank rested a trio of raindrops.

The first unicorn that had talked to her then decided to introduce himself as well. He was a sparkling yellow pony with white fetlocks and a rusty red mane and tail that he both kept tied in braids. His Cutie Mark was a bright shooting star piercing through a halo. “Hello as well, Rainbow Dash. I am Cosmic Sight. Not a weatherpony or anything like that, just the foremost magician around. I felt my abilities would be better suited for helping to solve the riddle and problem of this unnatural storm and thus joined my fellows in this lab.”

“And my name’s Autumn Breeze,” the other pegasus who had so far been silent said, giving a small flap of his wings to come right over to Rainbow Dash. “I was studying to became an expert on weather when all this happened, so I wouldn’t say I’m a scientist just yet, but hello anyways.” Autumn Breeze was a mousy looking pony with a short face and wide, blue eyes. His brown coat looked dark in the room but his spiky yellow and blue mane stood out even more because of that. His Cutie Mark was a much more simple book compared to the other three.

“Nice to meet all you guys. I’ll totally be willing to tell you more about myself but… I’m kind of really tired after making that climb,” Rainbow Dash gave them an apologetic grin and rubbed the back of her head.

“Of course, we understand,” Lightning Rod said. “After all I can’t imagine what any of us would feel like right now if we were in your shoes.”

“Yeah… I’m pretty beat,” Rainbow said and looked around the room they were in. After stepping in from the storm they brought her to the primary living space, where they had a small pantry and some things for preparing food, along with a number of couches and chairs and a few windows that Dash could look through and see the storm. From here there was also a ladder leading up to an observatory and the roof of the lab, where other hatches opened up to the exterior and the balloons and propellers up top. Open panels showing wiring and glowing crystals littered the walls too, the whole lab an amalgamation of magic and technology. A few other doors leading to the sleeping quarters and various sealed off parts of the lab for experiments also all radiated from this one living area.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but think of how empty it all felt with only five of them in here.

Despite the exterior size not doing a good job of showing how crammed full of magical and technological gadgets this place was to keep it flying, it was still a big place and could easily sustain more than four ponies comfortably.

“So there are only four of you here?” Rainbow Dash asked as she stared around the lab and at the scientists (and non-scientists) in confusion. “The others down there kind of gave me the impression that there were more of you up here.”

“There were,” Whistler stated simply with a stony look.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened and she looked at the others, all with varying expressions of dismay. “Oh...”

“A number of unfortunate experiments and accidents. This storm is unforgiving and we’ve been giving it our all to find an answer to it. Which has led to us, and our former comrades, taking some dangerous risks,” Lightning Rod said.

“Sorry...” Dash pawed the floor awkwardly, uncomfortable at her faux-pas.

“It comes with the territory of being up here. We all knew the dangers,” Lightning Rod said.

Rainbow Dash frowned. “The others down below don’t know about any of that do they?”

Lightning Rod shook his head. “No. We’ve been hiding that, we don’t want them to get disheartened or worry more.”

“They don’t need that,” Whistler nodded in affirmation.

“Yeah, that’s pretty understandable. They’re working hard enough too down there,” Dash said as she thought about Dust Bunny and the others.

“Truly. But enough about all that,” Lightning Rod said and walked over to the door leading to the sleeping quarters. Opening it up with a soft thud. “It’s well late enough and I believe we all could use some rest. In the morning we can tell you about our work and what we know of this storm in detail and you can tell us about yourself and what you may be able to do for us. I think we’re on the path to a breakthrough now.”

Rainbow Dash smiled, stretching her wings and yawning. “I’ve got a good feeling about all of this too.”

“You don’t have to worry about the room either, there’s plenty of space in the bunks and the rest of the lab,” Cosmic Sight yawned with her and stepped over the threshold into the sleeping area.

Autumn Breeze waved goodnight to her as well and stepped in to go find his bunk. Rainbow Dash followed along with Whistler bringing up the rear and Lightning Rod still holding the door open for everyone.

“Yeah, goodnight you guys,” Dash said with another yawn, happy to get some sleep after the rest of the day’s events.

---

She had completely clonked out like a light the moment her head hit the pillow. Feels like she had been doing that a lot lately but it’s not like she could help it with how packed her days were and the lack of naps she had been taking. Either way once she woke up she realized she was the only one left in the sleeping quarters, the others must have awoken earlier and got down to business already. They probably had a number of experiments, projects, and tests to run every day. At least that was her assumption with what the others had said.

Rainbow Dash hurried out of bed and stepped back out into the living room, shutting the door to the sleeping quarters behind her. What she now saw was Whistler and Cosmic Sight sitting around like they had nothing to do while Lightning Rod and Autumn Breeze were nowhere to be seen.

“Uhh, you guys busy?” Rainbow Dash asked the two.

Cosmic Sight snorted and laughed. “No, not really. The two of us aren’t scientists like Lightning and Autumn, we just help out and do the “lifting” whenever they have a new experiment or something to run.”

“We do still know everything they do about the storm though in case you had any questions?” Whistler raised an eyebrow at her. “Might be a good time to chat.”

“Yeah, yeah I did have some questions,” Rainbow Dash nodded and sat with them at one of the living area’s tables. “Or honestly, like—can you just tell me everything you know about it?”

“Sure,” Whistler shrugged and sat back in his chair. Rainbow Dash noticed for the first time that all the chairs in here were bolted to the floor. “The first and most obvious thing we learned about the storm is that it’s magical and not a natural occurrence. I know you may roll your eyes at that but it’s important for the scientists to verify everything like that.”

Rainbow Dash thought about how Twilight would tackle this and realized she couldn’t exactly argue. “No, I get that.”

“Secondly, what we confirmed after numerous tests, is that the storm has the exact same magical signature as ordinary pegasus magic.”

“Wait, what?” Rainbow Dash scrunched up her face in confusion. “How is that possible? There’s no way a pegasus could do this.”

“I understand your disbelief but it’s true. Whatever the cause of this storm is the fact is it’s powered by pegasus magic just like you would find from you or me. We’re certain of it,” Whistler answered.

“We ran all sorts of tests to make sure we weren’t mucking it up,” Cosmic Sight shrugged.

That was just weird. Rainbow Dash remembered thinking it would take an entire country of pegasi to do something like this. It just didn’t make any sense. “So what else do you know about it?”

“As you yourself probably noticed from your travels deeper into it the storm automatically reacts to any intrusion. It gets stronger than it should be and random, unpredictable, bouts of weather begin to occur. It’s almost like a defense mechanism. Despite the storm blowing one direction wind will also come directly from the center to keep you at bay and throw you back to the edge of the storm if you try and reach the eye,” Whistler said.

Rainbow nodded. “Oh yeah, I know all about that.”

“The eye itself is unsurprisingly the epicenter of not just the storm but the pegasus magic that permeates it. We’ve triangulated the magical signature and found that it is indeed generated from the exact center of the storm,” Whistler suddenly sneezed. “Excuse me. Furthermore the storm has stayed exactly the same size since the very day it first appeared. It grew to cover the entire mountain range and then stopped, never expanding or shrinking since.”

“Which obviously means something is permanently maintaining it and keeping a steady source of pegasus magic flowing into it. Or it has some other magical property beyond our understanding or measurement,” Cosmic Sight shrugged.

“Pretty encouraging,” Rainbow quipped.

“Exactly,” Whistler said. “Unfortunately no one was prepared for something like this storm and it’s still largely a mystery. We’ve made progress but honestly the past couple of weeks have been pretty… unproductive.”

Rainbow Dash tapped her hoof on the table for a second, thinking about things. They didn’t know much that she didn’t already know about the storm. Although obviously they had to have made some successful experiments just to keep this lab up and running and finding out about the magic. Speaking of the lab itself, she was pretty curious about it. “So how is this place staying up like this? And how come the wind didn’t feel as strong when I got up here?”

Cosmic Sight grinned. “That would be a mixture of my spells, pegasus weather magic, and technology. We’ve been able to dampen the effects of the storm in a bubble around our lab, it’s sort of like an anti-weather barrier. It was our first major, and in my opinion greatest, accomplishment. Unfortunately the attempts to use the spell on individual pegasi to allow them to travel deeper into the storm didn’t work as well. Without the built-in technology to augment the spell, and the greater distance from me, the spells failed too quickly. Not to mention that without first-hoof knowledge and information about the inner areas of the storm I can’t tailor a spell that will work better for allowing travel through it.”

“The problem is that we needed a pegasus to go deeper into the storm to make a better spell. But we needed a better spell for that to be possible in the first place,” Whistler sighed.

Realization dawned on Rainbow Dash. “That’s why you all think I’ll be able to help you.”

“Yes,” Whistler nodded. “I don’t know much about you or what else you may have done, but if you were able to make it up here and make it deep enough into the storm where it actively tried to force you out then you’re a more powerful flier than any pegasus I’ve met.”

“Lightning Rod and Autumn Breeze are working on fixing something up right now for you,” Cosmic Sight said to her.

“What do you mean?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“You’ll see in a minute probably,” Whistler waved a hoof to brush off her question. “Why don’t you tell us about yourself? Where do you come from anyways? It was a pretty big shock to see some random pegasus show up at the door.”

Rainbow Dash smirked and stretched her hooves out, clasping them together for a second before bringing them back and folding them behind her head. “Well I hope we aren’t interrupted anytime soon buddy cause I’ve got a long story to tell for you. Let me just say first off that yes, I am as incredible of a flier as you think.”

For who knows how many times now since arriving in this storm, Rainbow Dash told her (embellished) life story to some new friends. She ended it this time with what she specifically wanted to accomplish here and how it wasn’t just her goal to conquer the storm for her own pride but to help them and all of their fellow in the tunnels out. By the time she was finished the pegasus and unicorn had a very good idea of just how amazing of a pony they were talking to, and how she could fly and do things they could never dream of an ordinary pegasus doing.

“And yeah, now I’m up here with you guys,” she said.

“And we’re happy to have you,” Cosmic Sight said, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

Perhaps she finished just in time too because a door swung open and Lightning Rod and Autumn Breeze came walking out from it. Rainbow Dash peered behind them to see the doorway descend into stairs that must’ve gone down to the bowels of the lab. The two scientists walked right over to her, with the unicorn holding something in his magic. It looked like some kind of cloth or sheet to her at first.

“Rainbow Dash! Excellent to see that you’ve woken up, Autumn Breeze and I have just finished work on repairing and adjusting this for you,” Lightning Rod said and held it out to her.

When it limply hung there in the air she noticed it was actually a gray suit of some kind, with wires and small boxes running over its exterior along with a few crystals and gemstones sewn into the thick material.

She grabbed it from him and held it up in front of her face, inspecting it all over. “Is this some kind of flightsuit?” It didn’t compare in the slightest to the sleek and aerodynamic suits the Wonderbolts used but it held the same form and general appearance. Turning it over she saw that its stomach was a mess of dials, switches, and miniature keypads.

“That’s exactly what it is,” Autumn Breeze said. “That suit is designed to gather, read, and record the information and experiences from the storm the pegasus wearing it goes through. Weather patterns, magical signatures, anything. That suit takes it all in and can be brought back here for Lightning Rod and I to analyze.”

“It also will slightly dampen the power of the storm around you and make flying a little easier,” Lightning Rod said.

Rainbow Dash glanced over at Whistler and Cosmic Sight. “Will it now?”

“A little. But I wouldn’t rely on that if I were you,” Cosmic Sight replied.

“Don’t make her worry about unnecessary things,” Lightning Rod shot him a glare before smiling back at Rainbow Dash. “Anyways, I’m sure you’ve already spoken with these two? So you know what we were going to ask of you?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow nodded. “I know. I guess you guys have been short for a while and couldn’t do something like this yourself.”

“So you’ll do it?” Lightning Rod implored.

Rainbow Dash grinned and threw the suit over her back. “No duh I’ll do it.”

“Wonderful!” Lightning Rod clapped her on the shoulder. “If you can just fly as deep into the storm as you possibly can and then return here you have no idea how much information that will provide for us. We might be able to help you break through the storm completely afterwards! We could probably make a new and enhanced flightsuit, or create better spells, or something! So many possibilities have arisen thanks to you, Rainbow Dash.”

“Hey, no problem. So should I just go out as soon as possible?”

Lightning Rod opened his mouth but before any words could come out a metallic grinding sound like something being yanked or broken loose came from outside and the whole lab vibrated and shuddered briefly before listing slightly, just enough to make things a little sideways. Without giving anyone time to react a loud screeching alarm went off and the lights in the laboratory flashed red.

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

Is the Storm able to listen to them somehow or is it something else or somepony else?

[superfun]

Still calling it: Piles is the one behind the storm.

[redmar]

This is cetainly not a coincidence and something or someone in the eye is controlling this storm.

[Maud of Sterner Stuff]

The overarching universe your stories take place in has such interesting magical elements to it. Applejack Gets Lost and Trixie Searches for Magic had a lot of known and unknown magical phenomena, and now this story has shown off a lot more. Really makes me want to keep going to see if they get explained or if more show up.