Cloudsdale Reunion - Chapter 14

Cloudsdale Reunion

 

Chapter 14

 

'Operation Storm Breaker' (Part 2)

 

* * *

 

A few moments later, Rainbow flew up to a suitable distance to gain enough

speed for her plan. A Sonic Rainboom, straight through the snow clouds core.

As she reached far enough away, she made a turn, took aim... and started flying,

while speeding up, more and more with every moment. She could feel the

wind cone building around her, narrowing, as she neared Sonic speed.

Almost there... She thought to herself, as she kept going.

And then, at the moment she entered the cloud, she burst the sound barrier.

The rainbow-colored sonic boom "exploded" outwards, tearing the cloud into

nothing, while Rainbow herself made a minor turn in order to not smash into the

ground, as she had attacked the cloud from a downward-tilted angle, instead of

straight horizontal or vertical. She swooped around and turned upward,

and as she flew, she started to slow down, rapidly decreasing speed.

 

Once she reached regular flight-speed, she turned around again,

to see if her Sonic rainboom had worked. She smiled as she saw that the cloud

was gone, and nopony was hurt. She flew back to Thunderlane and Fleetfoot,

who were discussing what to do next.

 

"Well, the main problem in this area is done, so we could leave the rest of the

clean-up here to the regular squad, and go help the other nearby squads."

Fleetfoot suggested.

 

"Yeah, but in the other hoof, they all seem to be doing quite well,

as far as I could see when I scouted the areas around us." Thunderlane replied.

 

"True. So the question is, where would we do most good right now?

Stay here, or move on?" Fleetfoot asked.

 

Rainbow decided to join the conversation.

"Just contact Spitfire and see what she thinks, if you're unsure of what to do.

I mean, you do have the headsets now. As for me, I need to get the rest of the sets

to the other squads."

 

Thunderlane nodded, and then added, "Hey... Maybe we could help with that?

I mean, it'll be much faster if we take a few sets each and go in different directions."

 

Rainbow nodded. "Sounds good to me, but check with Spitfire first.

After all, she's the boss."

 

Thunderlane switched on his headset. "Spitfire? Come in, Spitfire. This is

Thunderlane speaking, do you read me? Over."

 

"Spitfire here, I read you loud and clear, Thunderlane." Spitfires voice replied

in his earpiece. "What do you want? Over."

 

"Requesting permission to split duty with Rainbow and help her get the

headsets delivered, Boss. I figured it'll be faster that way, and the squad here

can handle the rest without me and Fleetfoot present. The rainboom took care

of the main problem in this area, only regular clouds remain here now. Over"

 

"Hmm... Agreed. You, Fleetfoot and Dash take a third each of the sets, and deliver

them to the remaining teams, and then report back to me for new orders once that's

done. Understood? Over."

 

"Exactly what I had in mind, Boss. We'll report back as soon as we're done,

as requested. Thunderlane Out."

 

Thunderlane then switched his set off again and turned to Fleetfoot and Rainbow.

 

"So?" Fleetfoot asked. "What did she say?"

 

"We're cleared to help Dash. we'll each take a few sets, deliver, and then report back

to Spitfire for new orders."

 

Rainbow gave them each a few sets. "Okay, So... I'll head north.

Fleetfoot, you head south-east. Thunderlane, Go west. Agreed?"

 

Fleetfoot and Thunderlane both just nodded, took off from the ground,

and sped away in their assigned directions.

 

Rainbow did the same.

 

* * *

 

After the deliveries were all taken care of, Rainbow returned to Spitfire.

 

"Hey, Spitfire?"

 

"Yes, Dash?"

 

"Request permission to go kick some specific clouds. I need to help Gilda."

 

"Gilda?"

 

"A Griffon friend of mine, who's keeping a safe house, well, safe.

She's holding a board to a broken window, to prevent hail from crashing in.

Those giant hails. I wanna go take care of that cloud."

 

"Permission granted, but once you're done I want you back here.

You and a couple of others are going on another mission. How fast can you fix the

hail cloud?"

 

"Including flight there, actual cloud-buck, informing Gilda it's done, and flight back

here... I'd say ten minutes. Maybe fifteen, tops."

 

"Good enough. Go."

 

"Thanks!"

 

Rainbow flew off at top speed once again, and after a few minutes she found

herself back at the safe house where Fluttershy and Gilda was.

She looked around, and spotted the cloud form which the hail was coming.

By now, the ice balls had grown, and some were almost the size of apples.

Rainbow flew in seemingly irregular patterns, dodging the hail as she moved around

the area, assessing her situation, and looking for the clouds weak spots.

 

Looks like I need to take this one from below, pounding a few spots to break apart

the structure and have it disperse itself into smaller clouds, and then wipe them out

one by one... She thought to herself as she inspected the cloud.

 

Then, she thought she should check up on Gilda and Fluttershy first,

and made a small loop to turn around quickly, landed, and knocked on the safe

house door. An elderly stallion opened it. "Yes?"

 

"My name is Rainbow Dash, I'm from the weather crew. I'm here to check on my

friends." Rainbow said.

 

From inside, she heard hoofsteps, and Crescent appeared behind the old stallion.

 

"Hey Dash. Everything okay out there?" He asked.

 

"Yeah, work is progressing smoothly. Just came to check on you guys.

Is Gilda okay? and Fluttershy? I'm about to take care of that hail cloud,

so Gilda won't need to hold up that table much longer now. Just a few more

minutes, and then I'll be done."

 

From inside the house, she heard Gildas voice. "I heard that, dweeb! You better

not be lying, because I really want to put the table down and rest now!

Nothing hurts yet, but I'm getting really tired and worn out here!

Pretty sure I'm gonna feel this in the morning..."

 

Crescent smiled. "Don't worry. As you can hear, Gilda is okay,

and Fluttershy is too. She's nervous, but she and some of the elders in here

keep each other company and keep each other calm by playing some old

board games they found, to pass the time. Nopony here can sleep for long,

too much tension, and the noise from the weather outside."

 

Rainbow smirked. "Very well, if everypony here is alright, I'll have the hail

taken care of!"

 

She sped up once again, and went back to the hail cloud above,

slaloming between the falling hails, and striking the weak spots she had located

before she landed. As she had predicted, the cloud broke apart into smaller

pieces after she got a few direct hits on the weak spots.

Then, once the cloud was turned from one huge into five smaller ones,

she began the second attack, going to each cloud one by one and giving them a few

strong kicks from different directions, breaking them apart into even smaller pieces.

Pieces too small to remain intact on their own, so they started dispersing,

just as she had planned. As the clouds broke and dispersed, the hails got smaller,

and eventually, ended completely. Rainbow looked around to make sure she'd gotten

all of them, and wiped some sweat off her face.

 

Then, she landed at the safe house again. "All done, hail cloud's taken care of."

She shouted through the once-again-closed door.

 

She saw and heard the table get dropped from the window it had been blocking,

and saw Gildas face look out through the hole where the glass used to be before

the hail had destroyed it. "Good job, dweeb! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna

go pass out somewhere on a couch..."

 

"Just make sure everypony stays inside. Weather's still bad, even if the worst is

fixed now. Still too risky for civilians."

 

"Yeah yeah, we know. We'll stay here until you or somepony else from the

weather crew says we can come out." Gilda replied, and then walked away from

the window.

 

Rainbow, her work being done, flew back to Spitfire, as she'd agreed.

 

* * *

 

"Okay, so what's the new mission and who am I going with?"

Rainbow asked.

 

"Those two." Spitfire replied, waving at two stallion. One very large white one,

and one average-sized blue one with a black, badly combed mane.

 

"Hey Bulk." Rainbow smiled at the big white stallion, who smiled back.

 

"Hey Dash!"

 

Spitfire kept talking. "Right, you two know each other. Forgot that part.

Anyway, the other guy is Clever Blue, A technician from the weather factory."

 

The blue pony smiled and nodded when his name was mentioned. "Nice to meet you,

Miss Dash. Or, do you prefer if I call you Rainbow Dash?"

 

"Just Dash is fine, no need for the 'Miss'. And okay, so what's the plan?"

Rainbow said, turning back to Spitfire again.

 

"Wind." Spitfire replied.

 

"Care to elaborate a bit on that?" Rainbow said with a deadpan look.

 

"Look around. Most of the big clouds are taken care of now, and we mostly have

a bunch of smaller ones to fix now. So instead of going around kicking all of them,

Clever and I came up with an alternative. We can simply, literally, blow them away

from Cloudsdale. And then, just let them evaporate on their own, since they're

all built with self-evaporation. But since that takes a few days, it wasn't an option

to just wait for the whole storm to die, hence operation Storm Breaker.

Point is, all these smaller ones, we can just move them away and let wait for them

to self-evaporate in a couple of days."

 

"And we're doing that... how?" Rainbow asked.

 

"Like Spitfire said, we plan on using wind. More specifically, the wind machines

from the Wonderbolt training area. Those huge fans you have there." Clever said.

 

"U-huh. Yeah, makes sense... Those fans are pretty powerful." Rainbow nodded.

 

"So the idea is, Bulk here is able to carry and set them up. So he'll be the raw muscle.

I know how they work, so I'll be the operator - and also, I'll be jerry-rigging them

to boost the fans a bit beyond what they're normally intended for. Basically I'm going

to unplug the safety system." Clever said, with a somewhat devious smile.

He seemed to enjoy that 'unplug safety' part, perhaps a bit too much...

 

"So what do you need me for?" Rainbow asked.

 

"Your combined experience as a weather mare and wonderbolt." Clever replied.

 

"Okay?"

 

"As a weather mare, you know about clouds, basic aerodynamics, and such.

as a Wonderbolt, you know advanced aerodynamics, and you know the winds

those machines produce, due to having trained with them a lot.

So you'll be able to easily determine the best locations and angles for the machines

to make them as effective as possible for this mission." He explained.

 

Meanwhile, Spitfire just nodded. "What he said. As for Clever himself...

Like I said, he's a technician, so he'll be able to handle all the technical aspects

of the plan. Which, by the way, is codenamed 'Operation Hurricane'."

 

"Okay then, we better get going right away. You boys ready for some work?"

Rainbow said, looking at Clever and Bulk.

 

"I'm ready." Clever replied with a eager smile.

 

"YEAAAH!!!"