> Cumulus > by Kaidan > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Post-Cloud Clarity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thunderlane had just finished new hire orientation at the Cloudsdale weather factory for his part-time summer job to make some extra bits. The factory was located over the Everfree this year, making it a good place to pick up a side gig and make some cash. The safety videos covered all the normal things he had expected: industrial safety, workplace ethics, sexual harassment, and the drug testing rules. There was, however, one part of the PSA that just didn’t make sense to him. For almost half an hour they’d gone on about the dangers of having sex with clouds. Yes, clouds. As Thunderlane followed the other workers out of the break room, he pulled aside one of his friends as he passed by a bright yellow sign on the wall. “Hey, Sky Stinger, you’ve worked here before. What’s the deal with all these signs?” He raised a hoof up to tap on the warning. If you have sex with a cloud, you’re having sex with every stallion that cloud has ever mounted. “Oh?” Sky smirked and looked around, waiting until the other employees had finished filing down the hall into the assembly lines where clouds were made. “I think it’s because cloud sex is the best kind, but they don’t want it gunking up the machinery.” Thunderlane rolled his eyes at the pun. “I mean, sure, yeah, an industrial accident waiting to happen but the signs are everywhere, and that was a very long PSA. I’ve never even heard of sex with a cloud, but after all those horror stories in the PSA, now I’m just curious how good it must feel for ponies to be that reckless.” “Which one?” Sky asked. “The one where the stallion jammed himself in between a conveyor belt and the stratus cloud generator and came to death of dehydration?” He began to hover so he could use his other hooves to count. “Or the one who accidentally autoerotically asphyxiated himself when the nimbus clouds condensed and water boarded him to death? Or the one who stuck it in the thundercloud and shot a stream so hard it blew out the backup generators for a week?” He felt a twitch between his legs, slightly aroused at the thought. “Yeah, that's it! I mean, maybe as a horny colt I might have considered it, but until they forced me to watch that PSA and look at all these damn signs, I’d never have thought about it! So… is it really as good as they say?” Sky took another look around to make sure they were alone. “It’s better than they say. The staff here does it all the time, you just have to be discreet, make sure not to over-use any of the clouds, or get caught in the machinery… You wanna try?” Thunderlane sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I’m gonna be up all night thinking about it if I don’t.” “Follow me.” They walked past another of the signs as they rounded a corner in the factory, heading towards stairs to a sublevel. Remember Boston Weather Factory. Don’t have sex with clouds. “We usually head down here, there’s nothing but pipes and maintenance shafts. You’re less likely to get caught, but if you do get caught and it’s a stallion they’ll usually let you off with a warning,” Sky explained. “You can tell by how white the clouds are whether they’re overloaded or not. The best clouds are usually the ones carrying a stronger charge.” There were no more warning signs down here, just a mix of metal scaffolding, pipes, and clouds. There were a few places with suspicious indents in the clouds, and hoofholds carved into the walls. “Here we go, we’re under the cumulus cloud generator, they’re some of the best for this.” Thunderlane looked around and stuck a hoof into the cloud to test its consistency. It clung to his fur resisting slightly, but with more force, his foreleg slid easily into the cloud. The moisture coated his limb, and it slid out more easily than it had slid in. He couldn’t help that he was fully erect by now, and looked over to Sky. “I, uh… a bit of privacy?” “Oh, so I’ll keep a look out but my kink is … uh, watching. Is that ok?” Sky asked. He shrugged and let out a sigh, “Yeah, I guess. Just don’t talk unless you hear somepony coming.” Thunderlane climbed up onto a nearby pipe, braced himself against it, and slid his member into the thick layer of cauliflower cloud. Granny Smith sat in her rocking chair reminiscing about the good old days, when gentlecolts knew how to treat a lady, and technology was at the perfect level: just enough to be helpful, but not enough to make ponies lazy and ungrateful. Her eyes drifted across the sky to the weather factory. Granny winced in pain, nearly collapsing in her chair. “Granny! Are ya okay?” Applejack shouted, rushing over to check on her. “I felt a disturbance in my loins that I’ve not felt since before menopause…” Granny explained. “Uh… what?” Applejack asked. “Y’all better get Apple Bloom and get into the storm cellar. There’s a storm brewin’, a white tide to expose all the sin of ponykind, and I pity any mare out in the open when it hits,” Granny explained. “You’re not makin’ a lick of sense.” “That’s how it starts, with hubris, thinking they ain’t bit off more than they can swallow… but no! This ain’t a drill. Y’all best get Apple Bloom into the storm cellar pronto if’n you want to survive. I’ve gotta get into town and warn everypony. Duct tape, saran wrap, dive suits… they’ve gotta use anything they can to protect themselves!” Granny galloped off into town with a speed that Applejack hadn’t seen since the mare was twenty years younger. Twilight had finally found Rainbow dash, sitting on a cloud staring up at the Weather Factory. “There you are, do you know what’s going on?” She pointed a hoof up at the factory. “Yeah, it looks like it’s about to blow. The rainbows stopped falling out, and I haven’t seen a cloud float out either.” “Should we head up there and try to help?” “I’m not sure,” Dash asked. “What could clog up the system so bad that the entire factory shuts down at once? There’s like, fifty fail safes for that! Drains just don’t get clogged in the factory, most are over a foot wide.” They began to notice several shapes flying away from the factory, possibly the employees vacating the buildings. The two heard shouting from the ground and looked down. They saw Granny Smith waving frantically but couldn’t hear her. She was gesturing lewdly with a hoof to her groin. “What on Equestria has gotten into her, I wonder?” Twilight mused to herself. There was a rumbling noise, followed by a strong gust of air that knocked Dash and Twilight off the cloud. A loud coom filled the air. Dash was quicker to correct her fall as she tumbled towards the ground, just narrowly avoiding the side of a nearby house as she landed. Twilight, being a weaker flier, had instead opted to protect herself with a magical sphere. She had pinballed off a couple buildings before coming to a stop in the middle of the street. The two looked up in the air but the factory was gone. The ground was trembling as if an Earthquake were rolling into town. The sky was bleached white as a thick mist fell to the ground, stinging their eyes and sticking to their coats and mane. Twilight gagged as she smelled something she’d only been around once or twice when Spike was “discovering” himself. Dash, a bit more familiar with the stringy loads, had both eyes wide open in horror. A towering white wave of spunk crested up over the treeline, tearing several houses off their foundations as it washed past. Dash was already in motion, yanking Twilight off her hooves and diving into a nearby culvert where the river ran through. Both mares began to cough as the thick sticky rain made it hard to breathe. Both had to swallow constantly to keep the fluid from building up in their mouths, and keep their lungs clear. The wave slammed into them as they gripped a tree root in the culvert, submerging their world in a white sticky, and hot, sea of mixed pony cum that had been building up in the factory for weeks. Twilight finally came to her senses and a bubble sprang up around the two of them, but not before they’d been coated in a thick white layer of swimmers. “All arise,” the bailiff said. There was a slow shuffling and several groaning sounds as everypony got to their hooves. At the defendants table sat the all-stallion lawyer team for the Cloudsdale weather factory, Thunderlane, and Sky. At the prosecutors table sat several high-powered lawyers, all mares. In the jury box sat a mixture of mares and stallions. “Has the jury reached a verdict?” Judge Noble asked. “We have,” the muscular Earth pony said. “You may now read it.” “On the, uh, many many counts of destruction of property we find the Cloudsdale weather factory guilty. On the counts of negligent and inadequate warning signage, we find Cloudsdale guilty.” Some soft applause started in the crowd among the many mares in attendance, until the bailiff shot them a nasty glance. “On the…” The leader of the jury looked at a small notecard, “six hundred eighty seven counts of child support, we found the factory should be liable, and not Thunderlane and Sky.” The two stallions sighed in relief, almost slumping back down into their chairs. Behind them in the crowd sat Twilight, Dash, Fluttershy, Mayor Mare, Pinkie, Rarity, and dozens of other well known mares from Ponyville. The Apple family seemed to have been the only ones spared by Granny’s early warning. The trial had started nearly eight months ago and they were each swollen from the size of their pregnant bellies. Though their hooves were sore from standing, they all began to enthusiastically cheer at the prospect of the Weather Factory being on the hook to help raise the children they had inadvertently fathered. “You may be seated,” Judge Noble said. “We find the case of the Cumulonimbus closed. Though the jury has found you not guilty, Thunderlane, we would strongly recommend you follow the age old adage: Don’t stick your dick in cumulus.” Thunderlane groaned, and nodded his head. “Yeah, or wrap it before you tap it,” Sky added. A larger groan came out from the jury and the spectators, before Pinkie chimed in. “Oh, or just pull out next time and leave a little frosting on the cloud!” The gavel banged down several times. “That’s enough of that. Court dismissed!”