> Harmony Squad > by Rainbow87dash > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter one part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Dare you look inside? To see the darkness that you hide?' Shouting, screaming, things being broken. This is what Dash had been hearing almost every night this week, her parents were constantly fighting and arguing. She was scared, scared because she couldn't do anything to stop it, scared because her mother was talking about leaving her dad and she knew that, if that happened, she'd would probably never see her dad again, and she would never have a happy family again. She began to get angry, angry at her parents for being so stupid, angry at herself for being so useless. Crying like a foal when she should be doing something, anything, to stop her parents from doing this to each other. She stood up, wiped away her tears and turned towards her bedroom door. She decided enough was enough, if her parents weren't gonna stop arguing on their own, then she was gonna make them! She slowly began inching towards her door knob, the sound of her parents shouting echoed in the background. She reached out slowly, grasping the knob in her teeth, before slowly turning it and opening the door. With the door opened the sound of her parents shouting became louder and she nearly flinched back inside her room. But she held strong and kept going, slowly creeping down the stairs, towards her parents. When she reached the bottom, her parents words became clearer, although still slightly muffled by their living room door, which was open slightly. "LIAR!" her mother shouted, throwing a lamp at her father. "Please honey, you know I'd never cheat on you! I love you!" Dash's father shouted back, dodging the incoming lamp as it whizzed by his head, smashing into a million pieces on the wall behind him. "Yeah right! I bet you love that other mare too!" Her mother retorted, throwing another lamp at her father. It smashed near his hooves, leaving a few shards embedded in his leg. He winced in pain and managed to grunt back, "Please Firefly, there isn't another mare! *ugh* I would never, ever think about dating another mare!" he held his hoof up to his face and winced at how bad the wound was. Dash peeked through the crack in the door, upon seeing her Dad’s hoof, she became even more angry. Her eyes began to glow, but she didn't notice, she was too appalled by the scene before her. She shoved open the door and flew into the room, unaware that her body was glowing white and her mane looked as though it was a rainbow coloured fire. "STOP!" she screamed, scaring herself at how loud her voice was. Her parents turned to her and froze in shock, their mouths falling open at what they saw. In front of them, instead of what was once their little girl, was now a luminescent filly with a flaming rainbow mane. Her eyes were glowing white and she was floating without the aid of her wings. "Why are you fighting!? Why are you hurting each other!?" Dash screamed as tears flowed down her cheeks, vaporizing before they could drip off her face. "Don't you love each other!?" The tears continued to flow and she seemed to glow brighter with each passing moment. "ANSWER MEE!!" Light exploded from Dash as tendrils of energy began to shoot off from her, scorching the nearby walls. Rainbow dropped to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, "Please answer me," she said in a voice just above a whisper. The glow began to subside and Dash slowly turned back to normal but she continued to cry into her hooves. Her parents still stood there, dumbstruck, at what had just transpired. Slowly their parental instincts kicked in and they rushed to their daughter’s side. Firefly wrapped Rainbow into a wing-hug and began to Sing to her. Dashie mine Don't you cry Dashie mine Dry your eyes Rest your head Close to my heart Never to part Dashie of mine Little one When you fly Don't you mind Don't be shy Let those wings Flutter and glide Never to fall Dashie of mine If they saw how you could soar Rainbow crash you'd be no more All those same colts that scold you What they'd give to just fly half like you Rainbow's sobbing ceased, her eyes started to become heavy whilst her mother held her, slowly stroking her mane. Dash snuggled closer to her mother and held onto her, unwilling to let her go. From your nose down to your tail You're made to fly, made to sail You're just so precious to me, Fast as can be, Dashie of mine All those same colts that scold you What they'd give to just fly half like you From your nose down to your tail You're made to fly, made to sail You're just so precious to me, Fast as can be, Dashie of mine Dashie of mine Dash drifted off into sleep, still snuggled into her mother’s chest, her snores were the only thing to be heard in the silent room. "Spectral? I'm sorry for accusing you of cheating, I know you would never do it, it's just that I've been under a lot of stress late-" she was cut off by Spectral's hoof on her lips, he smiled at her. "I know dear, you work yourself tirelessly for us all of the time, how about you take a week off of work? Spend some time with Dash." he looked down at Dash’s sleeping form, "Speaking of which, what just happened? She turned into some weird glowy thing!" he shouted, making Dash shuffle in her sleep. "Shh! You don't like it when ponies interrupt your sleep!" Firefly whispered loudly, glaring at her husband whilst still stroking her daughters mane. "Sorry! But do you think she is gonna be okay? I mean I've never heard of a pony doing that before, never mind a little filly!" Spectral whispered, looking at Dash as if she had sprouted a second head. "Should we do something about it? Take her to some professionals? A doctor? Celestia!?" he almost shouted, before remembering the sleeping filly. "To be honest, I think we should just forget about any of this and never mention it again," Firefly answered, folding her wing tighter against her filly. "If we take her to any of those ponies, she'll never have a normal childhood, she'd become some kind of experiment and I don't want that to happen to her!" "Yeah but what if this happens again? What if next time she hurts herself? Or hurts somepony else?" Spectral said anxiously, looking down at Dash for what must have been the fiftieth time. "You’re worrying too much, I think if we keep her calm, she won't have another.... 'breakdown.' When she wakes up tomorrow, pretend like nothing happened, now help me get her to her room." Firefly instructed, gently lifting Dash up and placing her on her father’s back. They then began heading upstairs and towards Dash's room. When they arrived, Spectral pushed open Dash's door and walked over to her bed, gently depositing the lightly snoring filly onto her cloud mattress. Firefly picked up her stuffed animal off of the floor and placed it in the the sleeping filly’s arms. She then gently brought the blanket over her and kissed her head. "Goodnight my little angel, sweet dreams." > Chapter one part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The choice is yours." It was just a short hour since an ear-splitting crack had split the sky and caused a beautiful rainbow ring to spread out across Equestria. The aftermath of which caused every nearby animal to cower in terror, each either frightened by the noise or the gale force winds that followed. It took the gentle words of a cream yellow mare to calm them down. Fluttershy had just received her cutie mark, along with befriending over a dozen woodland critters. She had decided to explore the wilderness in hopes of meeting some new friends and to admire the beautiful scenery. So far she had managed to ease the worry of a few animals still hiding in fear and discovered a serene, blue lake. She joyfully skipped along, through a meadow of flowers, when she heard the sound of light thumps and the soft cries of an animal in pain. She stopped and perked her ears to listen more closely. The noise was coming from her right, behind a small berry bush. The yellow mare began to slowly stalk towards it, shaking in fear at what she might find behind it. She reached out her hoof and gently parted the bush, making sure not to make much noise. She gasped at what she saw, there, in a semicircle, were a group of large, grey hares. All of which were kicking a small white bunny, who was huddled in the fetal position and letting out cries of pain at each kick. "P-please stop, you're hurting him," she asked in a voice barely above a whisper. The hares ignored her and continued their beating of the small bunny. "I s-said stop it, c-can't you see you're hurting him?" she asked again, slightly louder this time. One of the hares stopped and turned to face her, he grinned before kicking the young rabbit even harder. This elicited a loud cry of pain from the defenseless bunny. She gasped, that was the last straw. "I SAID STOP!" she screamed, staring down the hares. They all froze in fear, all staring at the intensity of her anger. Her once timid aquamarine eyes were now ferocious cess pools of anger and despair. "Good, now don't let me ever see you harming another creature again! Or there will be consequences! Are we clear?" The hares all nodded in unison before running off, a pile of brown pellets left in their trail. Fluttershy quickly ran to the bunny's side to see if it was okay. When she saw it, she began to cry. It had many bruises along its body, mostly around its ribs, one of its front legs was bent at an odd angle and it’s torso was riddled with small cuts. She gently lifted it up into her forehooves and began flapping her butter yellow wings. When she was airborne, she quickly flew in the direction in which she had seen the lake, hoping the weak creature in her arms wouldn’t die on her. "Please little guy, don't die, we're almost there," Fluttershy all but wept, seeing the small lake come into her line of sight. She sped up her pace, finding it hard to see clearly with the amount of tears falling from her eyes. She landed, quickly putting the rabbit down near the waters edge and getting to work on its wounds. She checked it’s heartbeat and felt it slowly growing weaker with each quiet beat. She stopped, realising her efforts were in vain, and began crying harder, her tears falling on the bunny's body. She was so lost in her grief that she didn't notice her body beginning to glow or the fact the bunny was being encased in a sphere of water. The yellow mare looked up and froze, her eyes locked on the small bunny which was completely surrounded by a sphere of water. This wasn't what caught her attention however, inside, the bunnies wounds were slowly healing. It's bruises disappeared completely, it's cuts were closing up and it's broken leg was slowly bending back into it's original shape. She could clearly see its bones repairing themselves beneath it's skin. She looked away, unable to look at the grotesque scene before her, that's when she saw her reflection. Her heart nearly stopped. There, looking back at her, was a pony she didn't recognise. Her blue mane looked as though it was aflame, flowing calmly atop her head, her coat glowed with a strange energy but her eyes were the worst part. Instead of the ocean blue that they were meant to be, they glowed a powerful white. She stared at her reflection for another half second, wide eyed, before her legs buckled beneath her and everything went dark... --/)(*3*)(\-- Fluttershy's eyes fluttered open shyly, she blinked away the blurriness in her vision and looked at her surroundings. She noticed that she was at the edge of a small lake surrounded by trees, her back hooves were slightly submerged in the water. She felt something push itself into her chest. Her eyes widened in fear and she looked down, only to see a small white bunny sleeping soundly against her breast. She sighed in relief and began wondering what she was doing there. Then it all came back to her, the hares, the dying bunny, her desperate attempts at saving it, her sorrow, her helplessness over what was happening and... her whole body glowing with a mysterious aura. She shuddered, remembering her glowing white eyes. She looked back down at the bunny, still sleeping soundly, and smiled. She didn't know anything about what had just occurred but she knew she had somehow managed to save the young rabbit’s life, and that's all that really mattered to her. She began wondering where the poor thing’s parents were and how it had gotten into the situation in which it had found itself. Did it’s parents abandon it? Did they loose it? Were those hares beating him for fun and enjoyment? Or did they have a reason? She shook those thought from her head, deciding that she would have to take it in and give it a home. "I think I'm going to call you... Angel," she whispered softly, nuzzling the small bunny as it continued to dose on her chest. > Chapter one part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sky over Cloudsdale was a raging maelstrom, gale force winds tore at the cloud structures, nearly tearing them to pieces. Hail ravaged and battered the streets, leaving minuscule holes straight through each cloud. Ponies were evacuated from their homes, most cowering in fear at the destruction of their home city. Foals and children cried as their mothers held them close. One stallion, however, was not huddled in fear, he was in fact battling the storm head on. His body was bruised and his blue and gold spandex uniform was tattered and wrecked from the onslaught of hail. His wings screamed in agony and begged for rest, but he pushed on, the lives of every pony in Cloudsdale rested in his hooves. He continued to fly, kicking and smashing any cloud in his path, pushing himself to his limits and then some. He worked frantically, trying to clean up the huge mess that he had caused. 1 hour Prior Soarin had been assigned to just clear out a small storm that had been coming in from the north. It was a punishment from his superiors due to his selfishness, lazyness and his inability to control himself around pie. Whilst he was supposed to do this, the rest of his team was away, doing an airshow in Hoofington. But, being him, he neglected his duty and decided to slack off, sleeping whilst the storm grew nearer. In fact, he was in such a deep sleep, he didn't hear the storm as it drew nearer and nearer to the weather factory. The storm head hit the factory with a deafening boom, ripping a large portion of the factory apart, waking Soarin from his slumber. He watched as It continued its path through the factory, destroying room after room and growing in size as it absorbed the building’s materials. Suddenly, a large multicoloured explosion erupted from inside the factory, tearing what was left of the factory apart, leaving only the cloud base of the building remaining. Soarin stood stock still, mouth agape at the complete destruction of the massive factory. All the while, the storm continued its growth, becoming more violent with each passing second. After a full minute of open mouthed staring, Soarin finally snapped out of his dazed stupor, shaking his head to wake himself up. He looked towards the storm, pulled down his goggles, opened his wings, and jetted towards it head on. Rain pelted at him as he flew, barely dodging a lightning bolt as it whizzed past his left wing, making his fur stand on end. As if things couldn't get any worse, the rain turned into ping pong ball sized hail that began pelting Soarin's body, ripping his uniform and leaving bold purple marks. He grunted and fought through the pain, dogging what hail he could and getting ever closer to his target. 'Damn it, why did I have to slack off!? If I hadn’t had been such a lazy flank, this would never have happened!' He berated himself mentally as the raging storm clouds drew near. As soon as they came into his physical range, he unloaded all of his force into destroying them, tearing large holes into them and blasting them into non-existence. After minutes of gruelling cloud homicide, Soarin flew above the storm to see how far he had left to clear. His jaw dropped at the sight before him, his hard labour had barely put a dent in the storm and the area in which he had just cleared was quickly being refilled. Not to mention the fact that the storm was seemingly getting worse by the minute, slowly rotating around its centre and gradually morphing into a supercell. "Crap, what am I gonna do!? There's no way I'm stopping that on my own!" Soarin' shouted aloud, staring down at the raging maelstrom that was tearing Cloudsdale to pieces. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed a small group of pegasi trying to fight the storm as it raged on, they were losing horribly. Every time they kicked and destroyed a cloud, two more would replace it. They must have known they were fighting a losing battle, but they continued on anyway. "I may not be able to stop it on my own, but with a team maybe I'll have a chance!" Soarin snapped his wings to his sides and dove down towards the group of pegasi. As he neared them, his wings flew out from his sides to slow his descent. He then aimed himself towards the pony that looked to be in charge, a pink pegasus with a blue mane. "Hey Miss! Over here!" He called out as he neared her. She didn't respond and continued to buck at a rather large, angry black cloud. Soarin hovered a few feet away from her and tried again. "HEY MISS! TURN AROUND!" This caused the pink mare jump and turn to face him, giving him a cold glare. "What do you want? Can't you see we're a little busy trying to stop this thing from destroying Cloudsdale!?" She asked whilst pointing her hoof at the carnage that was Cloudsdale, or at least what was left of it. "Are you in charge of this team!?" Soarin questioned back, struggling to have himself heard over the loud, rumbling thunder and the heavy rain. "Yeah I'm in charge here, name’s Firefly, what's it to you?" Firefly crossed her forelegs and gave Soarin a questioning look. "I need you and your team to follow me, we're going the wrong way about this! We need to organise and hit the storm at its centre!" Soarin ordered, pointing towards the eye of the storm, earning a shocked expression from the pink mare. "ARE YOU CRAZY!? The clouds over that area or more dangerous than these ones, somepony could get seriously hurt if we even tried to destroy them!" Firefly glared at him, unwilling to let the mad stallion in front of her get her and her team injured, or worse, killed. "Everyone in Cloudsdale could be badly injured if we don't try! Just kickin' at the edges won't do anything! Trust me, I've tried!" The blue colt shouted back over the howling winds. At his words, Firefly looked around her and noticed what little effect their efforts had made. The gaps and holes they had managed to create were quickly being closed and covered. She looked over at her team, who were desperately kicking and tearing at the cloud behemoth, barely holding up against the harsh winds and rain. "Alright you win, what do you need us to do!?" Soarin grinned, clapping his hover together. "Right! We're gonna create a reverse vortex in the storm’s eye, if we create one with enough force, it'll knock out the storm’s momentum and break it apart!" he said confidently, in truth he had no idea what he was talking about. "You sure that'll work!?" Firefly questioned, still doubtful to the crazy stallions logic and/or mental health. "If this doesn't work then my name isn’t...W-Wave Chill!!" Soarin said with a nervous grin, hoping Firefly hadn't caught his stutter. Thankfully, after a curious look, she turned around to address her team, telling them about they were about to do. "Now you all understand what we're doing?" She received a series of head nods and salutes, "Good, now lets get to it!" At the words, all present pegasi flew towards the eye of the storm, dodging stay lightning bolts from the raging clouds below. A few were knocked out of the air as they flew, either succumbing to the gale force winds or a stray bolt of lightning, falling down to what little remained of Cloudsdale, unconscious. By the time the group had arrived rt they storm’s eye, just under half of them remained conscious and airborne. They hovered over the eye for a moment to catch their breaths and take a head count. "Okay ponies, you all know what to do and what's at stake here if we fail, so lets do this!" Firefly screamed, snapping her wings to her sides and diving towards the storm's eye, Soarin and the other pegasi following close behind her. They began flying in a tight knit circle, going in the opposite direction in which the storm was turning. Gradually a small tornado began forming, disrupting the calmness and pulling all nearby clouds towards it. At first it was going okay, the clouds entering the tornado were quickly being torn apart. Eventually the clouds became too much to handle and the tornado was disrupted, scattering the small group of pegasi in all directions. Soarin managed to right himself before he hit anything, however the other pegasi weren't fast enough and ended up colliding with the thick layer of clouds around them, rendering them unconscious. The storm quickly reformed itself and continued to raise havoc. A sudden blood-curdling scream pierced through the howling winds, making Soarin nearly piss himself. He searched the skies for the source of the scream. After a minute of searching his eyes set on a pink dot, on top of the remains of a house, that looked as though it was rolling around. He quickly recognised the dot to be Firefly and sped towards her. "Miss Firefly! I'm coming!" Soarin shouted as he neared the squirming pegasus below him, her cries of agony getting louder with each passing moment. He landed next to the squirming mare, ran to her side and cradled her in his forelegs. "Miss Firefly are you okay!?" the blue stallion asked, mentally pleading with himself, hoping that she wasn't dead. “DO I LOOK OKAY!? MY WING FEELS LIKE ITS BEEN RAN OVER BY A SPEEDING TRAIN FULL OF COWS! IF I WAS OKAY I WOULDN'T BE ON THE FLOOR IN AGONY WOULD I YOU STUPID DOLT!!” she screeched in his face, making him jump back in surprise, nearly soiling himself. "S-sorry I shouldn't have snapped at you like t-that..." Firefly said apologetically, avoiding eye contact. "I guess I'm just... scared. My daughter already lost her father, I don’t want her to lose me too. I know this seems a little out of the blue, but do you think, ugh, maybe, you'll be able to look after her? Just whilst I'm in hospital." "Of course but, uh... who is she?" Soarin asked, looking at Firefly's face, unsure. "Her name's Rainbow Dash, you should find her at my house in Ponyville, should be easy to... ugh... spot, it’s the only cloud house for miles. She'll probably throw a fit when she sees you, she's a big fan of you guys..." Fyrefly said, trying to stifle a laugh before groaning in pain and falling unconscious. "Miss Firefly? Miss Firefly!?" Soarin shouted, beginning to panic as the pink mare didn't respond. He noticed her chest gently rising and falling and began to calm down. "Oh thank Celestia, she just unconscious." A sudden lighting flash brought him back to what was happening around him. "This is all my fault," he said as he surveyed the scene, "All of this is my fault! Nopony would have been hurt if I hadn't been such an idiot!" During his rantings, Soarin failed to notice his body, which began to give off a faint glow. "If I had just done my job and not fallen asleep, Cloudsdale would still be in one piece!" He began punching the cloud in which he was sat on, cursing his stupidity. Meanwhile his body began to glow brighter and brighter as his temper grew. Eventually his mane and tail took on a flame like quality and began to glow blue. Eventually he stopped his brutal assault on the cloud and finally took notice of his glowing appearance. "Woah! What the hell!? What the heck is happening to me!?" He shot up in shock and looked down at his forehooves. "I'm all...glowy..." A sudden wave tore through his body, healing all the bruising and wounds he had recieved from the raging onslought around him, his body being filled with renewed energy. "Woah...t-this feels...awesome." Soarin grinned, quickly snapping his wings out the side and getting ready for take off. "Time to go save me a city!" Like a firework he was off, shooting up into hell above him, leaving a contrail of shining blue light. He began to circle the storm, going in the opposite direction in which it was turning. Steadily speading up as he progressed, until he was nothing but a blue blur surrounding the entirety of the devastating storm. Gradually the rotation of the storm decreased, soon coming to a complete halt. As this happened Soarin began circling closer and closer towards the eye, the mass of clouds beginning to bunch up and compact. Eventually all that was left of the raging typhoon was a giant sphere of clouds, all tightly wound and squashed together. With one final swoop, Soarin tore straight through the center of the mass, creating an explosion of light and sound as he did so, a massive shockwave spreading out from its center. The clouds were ripped apart and destroyed, leaving only a small trace of them ever being there. With the threat over and what remained of the once great city safe, Soarin bled off his remaining speed amd flopped onto a nearby cloud, the mistical glow surrounding his body vanashing as he fell into unconsciousness. 10 days later "Hey! Mr Soarin! Mr Soarin! Hey wake up!" A high pitched, scratchy voice called, along with a small object prodding his side. "Mmm...five more minute mom...leave the pie by the door I'll get to it later...." He mumbled in his sleepy state, not yet ready to face the cruelty that was morning. A giggle accompanied his outburst, quickly turning into laughter, promting him to slowly open his eyes. The sight that met him was that of a small, cyan, rainbow maned filly rolling around on the floor in laughter. "Kid...why wake me up so early? It's like 7o'clock in the morning!" He groaned, slowly sitting himself up as the small pegasus quietened down, her laughter subsiding quickly. "Uhh...it's actually 9..." The filly said, glancing at the clock that hung on the wall above their heads, its hour hand on the 9 mark and it's minute hand just a few centimeters past the 12 mark. "Oh...you had breakfast yet? Coz i'm starving!" He said, the thought of food making him almost drool. He looked down at the small mare, who shook her head no. "Well how about I make us some pancakes? I'm pretty sure I saw the ingredients yesterday...." Soarin got up from the couch, just as the chromatic ball of cute squeeled in delight, rushing into the kitchen and sitting down at the table. Soarin just shook his head and smiled, no matter how annoying kid was at times, she sure was cute at times, even if she hated to admit it.