Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Ocean Waves

Rain and wind beat down against Rainbow Dash as she flew away from the Stormlands. It was as she expected, and though she was only a short distance from the Storm King’s Island, it was already impossible to see if she turned back to look at it. Dark clouds, fog, and rain blocked it off entirely. She wasn’t going to take things slowly though. She wanted to be hitting the coast by this time tomorrow. That stony shoreline would be a welcome, familiar, sight. The first truly familiar sight since she had left the Crystal Empire behind to be honest.

Rainbow Dash could hardly believe it.

It was something she was really looking forward to.

Partially because she had long grown tired of flying over oceans.

The clouds rumbled loudly over her head and Rainbow briefly glanced up at them to make sure she wasn’t in danger of being struck by lightning. There didn’t seem to be much lightning though the winds were starting to form vortexes and waterspouts in front of her. Looking down at the ocean she saw how violently it was raging thanks to this storm, the waves at the mercy of the heavy weather. She wished she had a raincoat or her usual Wonderbolts uniform right now.

If she flew any higher right now she’d be blind in the dark storm clouds so she wanted to just stay right below them. That way she could at least tell when she was close to getting out of the storm. She might later decide to fly down closer to the ocean’s surface though, maybe have some fun going in and out of the waves, being a dare-devil and just barely avoiding when they came crashing down. Having some extra fun while flying could make up for being stuck on her hooves for so long. The wind and rain trying to beat her down was actually welcome right now—she enjoyed beating it. Proving to the world what an awesome flier she was.

The hurricane force winds pulled at her mane and tail pretty intensely, the only thing really annoying. The rain wasn’t much of a bother once you were already wet. Not like she could possibly get more soaked than she already was a few seconds into flying.

She wanted to get totally out of this storm, leave the area that could be called the Stormlands behind, before she rested or slept for the night. There weren’t any islands that she knew of between here and the coast so she’d have to make a bed of clouds. And to do that she needed clouds that weren’t stormy like these ones all around her. So flying against the wind and the hard rain without pause was what she needed to do for the rest of the day.

Fizzlepop was smart to recommend her having something to eat before she left. Her stomach would be growling right now if it wasn’t for those sandwiches.

Full stomach, healthy wings, full of energy, this storm didn’t stand a chance against her.

Rainbow Dash grinned and flapped her wings harder, springing out ahead at a faster pace. Sometimes she just had little bursts like this. Any thought that put her in a good mood and a put a smile on her face led to even more energy filling her body.

Humming to herself she decided to put that earlier thought into motion and dove down at a steady slope towards the ocean. The waves were so large and frantic that it reminded her of the few storms she had been in back on the Grand Ocean. She could see the Heart of Azure fighting its way over the water in her mind…

That brought back good memories. The weather was bad, but the memories were good.

She made it low enough where the tips of the highest waves could reach her and smash her down into the water if she wasn’t careful. Of course, she was Rainbow Dash, and she could easily fly around here without a problem. It was just another obstacle course—and not a particularly dangerous one at that. The violent waves did try and reach up to claim her but a single lazy flap was all she needed to move just out of their range.

Howling wind blew against her from every direction—sometimes all at once—and the rain poured hard onto her back no matter how far she flew for now. A waterspout in front of her swirled around on top of the ocean, almost tall enough to reach the clouds. Rainbow Dash flew past it, feeling the currents in the wind trying to draw her in. She fought against it, not fully at first, not wanting the fun to end so quickly. The winding waterspout was even moving closer to her direction so Rainbow finally decided to put a little effort in and broke away from it. After that it was only more waves with the only sounds around her being that of the howling wind and the endless rain pounding against the surface of the ocean.

Rainbow Dash yawned. Nothing special.

The more than week long storm centered over the Stormlands stretched on for quite a ways over the rest of the ocean as well. Rainbow Dash was unfortunately realizing that as the miles and hours went by and she was still being rained on. The dark clouds over her head seemed to not have an end.

Annoying, but still hardly the first big storm that took a long while to get through. She couldn’t change her direction either—going straight north would still be the fastest thing no matter what.

Looking east and west for a moment though she just wanted to take in the ocean. The stretch she was flying over wasn’t nearly as big as the Grand Ocean but it was still nothing but water for as far as the eye could see. She admitted that she was always kind of impressed by how big the ocean was, sometimes she needed a reminder of it. So many big waves right now too thanks to the storm.

It was impressive. And this would pretty much be her last time seeing it, or at least really traveling over it, for who knows how long. One really big change. She hadn’t really gotten to think about it too much when she was traveling over the south pole thanks to her having to constantly fight and evade those penguins…

Not a bad thing though. She did prefer having ground beneath her when she was flying. There was just something calming and familiar about it after spending basically her whole life in the skies above Equestria.

Lightning crackled in the clouds overhead and Rainbow sped up some more to avoid getting struck.

Unlikely, but it could happen.

She was still relatively low in the sky, dancing around and over the big waves that the storm kicked up. The rumbling of thunder was the only thing louder than the wind right now. A casual glance over her shoulder showed her nothing but darkness and rain, it was possible she was already halfway to the coastline, it was possible she was almost out of the big storm. It wasn’t possible to tell any of that for sure yet. So Rainbow Dash flew on.

An hour of humming to herself to listen to something other than the wind, rain, and thunder, and the dark clouds ahead slowly began to break. The rain had begun to let up ever so slightly, and the raging ocean below her had gone from impossibly treacherous for sailboats to just really dangerous to navigate instead. Sunlight. She actually saw real, unobstructed sunlight coming down from the sky for the first time in a week. It was still a fair bit away but there it was.

Rainbow Dash grinned. She wasn’t going to miss the Stormlands at all.