Chapter 1: Promotion!
Situated on the outskirts of Cloudsdale stood the massive Cloudsdale Stadium, home to many pegasus events. Currently, it was home to the latest performance of the Wonderbolts.
“And another spectacular performance from the Wonderbolts and the greatest flier in Equestria, RAINBOW DASH!”
The announcer’s voice boomed throughout the stadium but was drowned out by the cheers of the crowd as they stomped their hooves and chanted the name of their favorite Wonderbolt. Rainbow Dash just soaked it all in. She stood on a cloud in the middle of the stadium surrounded by her fellow Wonderbolts. “Nice work, Rainbow! Maybe one day you can show me how to do some of those tricks,” Spitfire said. Rainbow only nodded in response.
Rainbow just gave the fans the biggest performance of her life. She just ended the show with her patented Buccaneer Blitz followed by a Sonic Rainboom. Sweat dripped from her mane and she felt like collapsing and taking a nice, long nap. But Rainbow pushed through the exhaustion spreading through her body and listened to the crowd chanting her name. This gave her all the energy she needed.
She flared her wings and rocketed into the air. She hovered there and yelled out to the crowd, “Come on, everypony! I can’t hear you!” This riled the crowd up even more. Rainbow threw her hooves up and down, urging the crowd to chant louder. “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!” the crowd chanted as they stomped their hooves even louder. Rainbow closed her eyes and let the sounds of the crowd fill her ears.
Rainbow fluttered her eyes open, yawning and stretching the kinks out of her. She had one of her best dreams yet about the Wonderbolts. She took one last look around her before launching from the cloud. Right now she was supposed to be managing the weather around Ponyville. While Rainbow wasn’t prone to working, she would do it if it was absolutely necessary. Today was supposed to be her day off but one of the weather team got a case of the feather flu. Having nopony else to cover since the rest of the team was in Cloudsdale for a meeting, Rainbow was forced to work.
The job was simple. Buck a cloud, poof, cloud disappears, repeat. Problem was that the entire eastern half of Ponyville was covered in clouds. In Rainbow’s mind this amounted to two words, boring and repetitive. There was no sense of thrill or adventure. Right now, while wrong to say, she wished some major disaster like Discord would happen. Rainbow dreamed of anything to get her adrenaline pumped to make the task go by faster but nothing worked. She just finished bucking another cloud when a voice snapped her out of her fantasies.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow shook her head and blinked her eyes a few times. She looked around for the owner of the voice.
“Rainbow Dash, down here!” Rainbow looked down to see Derpy Hooves, hovering and waving up to her.
Rainbow flew down and hovered in front of Derpy. Rainbow couldn’t decide what eye to look at, the one that was looking up or the one that was looking off to the left. She mentally shrugged her shoulders and looked between both eyes. “Hey Derpy, what’s up?”
Derpy looked confused. She looked down at the ground then up into the sky. “Me, you, the clouds, the sun, and I think I see a bird over there.” She smiled at the thought of giving the correct answer.
Rainbow facehoofed. “No, I mean what did you call me for?”
Recognition flashed across Derpy’s face as she blinked her eyes a few times and shook her head. “Oh, that makes much more sense. I have a message to deliver to you.” The grin plastered on her face never disappeared.
Rainbow Dash crossed her hooves and frowned as she beat her wings faster. An awkward pause followed. She didn’t have time for this. “Well? Let’s hear it!” Rainbow leaned her head forward and threw her hooves in the air.
Derpy didn’t catch the impatience in Rainbow’s voice so she kept smiling. “Cloudsdale Weather Management decided to give you a promotion!”
Rainbow’s ears perked up at the mention of a promotion. All impatience within her disappeared when her brain finally registered what that word meant. Rainbow couldn’t help the little twirl she did. She smiled bigger than Derpy and made little loops in midair.
“Yay, Rainbow Dash!” Derpy said, clapping her hooves together.
“I wonder what kind of promotion! Maybe I’m getting transferred to The Wonderbolts?! Or maybe management? The weather factory?!” Rainbow placed her hooves on her cheeks as visions of her new life flashed before her eyes. She could see it now. Her sitting in one of those plush, comfortable office chairs directing an entire factory. Or her performing with the Wonderbolts for ponies around the world! Rainbow really hoped it was the last one. It would make her daydream earlier—
“Since you’re so popular right now, management decided to use this and promote you to…” Derpy interrupted
Rainbow leaned forward, her eyes filled with stars and drool practically running out of her mouth.
“A weathermare! Way to go, Rainbow Dash!” Derpy threw her hooves around Rainbow and hugged her.
The star in Rainbow’s eyes stopped dancing and she finally noticed her mouth was open. “Derpy, I think you made a mistake. I’m already a weathermare. How can I get promoted to something I already am?”
Derpy pulled out of the hug and stared, or at least tried to stare, at Rainbow. “No mistake, I’m repeating what I was told. They told me if I repeated it word for word, I’d get muffins!” Her eyes glazed over at the thought of muffins as she rubs her stomach and licks her lips.
“Hello, Equestria to Derpy!” Rainbow waves her hoof in front of Derpy’s eyes and gets no response. Rainbow shakes her head at the strange pegasi. It’s a wonder she ever got a job as a mailmare in the first place.
“Right… see you later, Derpy.” Rainbow turns and flies in the direction of Cloudsdale, leaving a rainbow wake behind her. Her mind is still trying to figure out how somepony could make a mistake as big as this.
“Looks like somepony has one hay of a mess to explain to management.”
When Rainbow Dash arrived at Cloudsdale Weather Management, she was greeted by the boss, Cold Front. He was a grey, slightly portly stallion pegasi with a short blue mane with streaks of white scattered throughout. His Cutie Mark was three snowflakes falling from a cloud.
“Ah, the one and only Rainbow Dash! So glad you could make it.” Cold Front said, outstretching his hoof to her.
Rainbow wrapped her hoof around his and shook. “Yeah, yeah. Listen, I think you made a mistake. I was told I was getting promoted to weathermare. But I’m already a weathermare. See the problem here?”
“Mistake?” Cold Front cocked an eye at this before he smiled and laughed, “I assure you there is no mistake my dear. You are getting promoted to weathermare but it’s a different kind of weathermare than what you are used to.”
Rainbow darted her eyes around, looking for a hidden camera crew to jump out and tell her it was prank.
“What do you mean by different?” Rainbow asked with a hint of skepticism in her voice, her head cocked to the left.
Cold Front just laughed at her confusion. “Follow me inside and we’ll get you settled into your new life.”
Rainbow, still thinking this was all a prank, decided to play along and followed Cold Front inside.
As soon as she entered the building, she was whisked away to a dressing room with her name on the door. Before Rainbow could protest, she was swarmed by stylists that placed her in a chair. They preened her wings, applied makeup to her entire face, and tied her normally wild mane into a nice, controlled ponytail. They left just as fast as they entered. Rainbow was trying to comprehend what was going on when Cold Front walked in.
He smiled when he saw her. “Perfect! You look the part of a weathermare! Now on to business.”
“Hold up. Just what the hay is going on?! If being this kind of weathermare involves girly gunk like makeup and hair styling, then count me out.” Rainbow crossed her hooves and leaned back in the chair. This was her way of saying that it’s final.
Cold Front just laughed. “My dear Rainbow Dash, you can’t refuse this promotion. It’s in your contract that any and all promotions will be accepted.”
Rainbow turned her head away from Cold Front. “No, it doesn’t.”
Cold Front reached behind him and grabbed a stack of papers. “But this contract, with your signature, says otherwise. Did you even read the fine print before you signed it?” Cold Front smiled, knowing the expected answer.
Rainbow turned her head back to face him. “No, I didn’t. A pegasi as awesome as me doesn’t need to read that egghead stuff. It doesn’t matter, I’m NOT doing this.”
Cold Front’s face formed into a frown as he trotted in front of her and leaned down to get right in front of Rainbow’s face, so close that their muzzles were almost touching. He knew this would be the killing blow. “How would ponies react if they saw Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty, backing out of a contract? An item like this is very similar to loyalty to your friends. You wouldn’t leave them, you can’t leave us.”
Rainbow’s eyes went wide. He used her own Element against her. She was caught in a trap. Going against her own Element was something Rainbow just couldn’t do. Rainbow sighed and hung her head in defeat. Rainbow mumbled under her breath, “Stupid contract.”
“Fine, what do you want?”
With these words, Cold Front’s smile returned. “It’s simple really. Just read the lines on the prompter and gesture to the chart behind you. Oh, and before I forget, put this on.” Cold Front reached behind him and pulled an item that made Rainbow Dash bolt up out of the chair and hover in midair. She shook her head to make sure she was seeing this right.
Rainbow threw her hooves up in protest. “Oh come on! You can’t be serious! I’m not wearing that!”
Rainbow Dash, the greatest flyer in Equestria, reduced to wearing a suit and tie while standing in front of a picture with the upcoming weather patterns for the week. Right now, she wanted to introduce the building to the power of a Sonic Rainboom at close range. She settled on blushing, grinding her teeth, sweating, and glaring at Cold Front who was standing behind the prompter.
“…And once the warm front leaves the Detrot area, we can expect to see a cold front move in for the rest of the week. So for everpony in the Detrot area—”
Rainbow squints at the next lines. Her head turns towards Cold Front, her glare shooting daggers at him. “I am not saying that!”
Cold Front calmly holds up a stack of papers and smiles at her. “But it’s in your contract,” he says in a sing song voice.
As soon as this was over, Rainbow was going to buck him so hard in the face he’d be sent back to last week. She sighed and gave the fakest smile she could for the camera.
“So for everypony in the Detrot area, it’s about to get twenty percent cooler. Back to you, Chatter Box.”
With her final lines, Rainbow stomped towards Cold Front and pushed her muzzle right into his face. “You happy now?!” she screamed.
He didn’t even flinch. He calmly replied, “That was a wonderful job. And yes, I’m happy now,” he then leaned forward so that he could whisper into her ear. “Just think. You’ll be doing this, forever.” He leaned back in his chair and laughed at Rainbow.
Rainbow’s eyes glazed over and grew wide. She heard the echo of his voice resound through her head, repeating that single word, forever. She looked around the room to see everypony pointing and laughing at her. She sat down on her haunches, took a deep breath, threw her hooves in the air, and screamed out a single word.
“Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Rainbow’s eyes shot open. Her wings and hooves flailed about as she sat up. Her head darted around, looking for the ponies laughing at her. Rainbow only saw open skies around her with nopony around. She looked down and noticed that she was sitting on a cloud. She leaned her head over the edge of the cloud. There were no cameras, no suits, and especially no trace of Cold Front anywhere. She placed a hoof over her beating heart and realized she was covered in sweat. After Rainbow calmed down enough, she sighed. Thank Celestia that nopony was around to see her.
She gave a slight chuckle, “Heh, it was only a dream. Like I would ever let somepony bring this mare down!”
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Derpy was flying towards Rainbow.
Rainbow placed her hooves behind her head on fell backwards onto the cloud as Derpy came to a halt and hovered in front of her. This felt strangely familiar to her dream. “What’s up, Derpy?”
Derpy smiled. “Did you hear, Rainbow? You’re getting a promotion!”
Rainbow’s eyes bolted open. She launched up, grabbed Derpy, and screamed in her face, “NO! I don’t want it! You take it!”
Derpy blinked her eyes a few times and looked to make sure nopony else was around. She looked back into Rainbow’s eyes and said, “Me?”
Sweat was running off Rainbow and her breaths came out in pants. “Yes, you!”
Derpy smiled and hugged Rainbow Dash with enough force to constrict her breathing. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash! You’re the best!”
Derpy pulled out of the hug and flew in the direction of Cloudsdale. Rainbow gasped for breath as air rushed back into her lungs. Once she had calmed down, she landed back on the cloud to relax. Rainbow smiled to herself as she placed her hooves behind her head and chuckled. “Good luck, Derpy.”
A few days later….
The sun was just beginning to crest the horizon and colored the land a brilliant shade of orange. Flying in the sky above, Rainbow Dash was heading towards Sweet Apple Acres to see how Applejack was doing. The Apple family probably needed help right now. Cider season was right around the corner and if sales from last year were any indication, cider production would need to increase. Rainbow figured that if she helped out with the apple harvest, she’d get dibs on the first batch of cider!
As she neared the farmhouse, Applejack came out and looked up to the sky. Noticing Rainbow, she waved up at her. Rainbow did a little loop and nosedived towards the ground. The winds rippled along her body, blasting her mane and tail back. Right before Rainbow face planted the ground, she leveled out and landed on all fours with a loud thud.
Applejack smiled and held out her hoof. “Howdy, Rainbow! I didn’t reckon ya ta be up at this hour.”
Rainbow returned the hoof bump. “Yeah, yeah. Figured you could use some help with cider season.Think I can get the first batch?”
Applejack chuckled at her. “Sure thing. Looks like somepony is mighty generous this week. Keep that up and I reckon Rarity might get jealous, what with you hogging the front page.”
Rainbow shot her a look that was a mixture of excitement and confusion. “I’m in the paper? For what?”
“Ya haven’t seen the paper yet?”
“No. Why would I read something as boring as the news?”
“Cause like I said, ya are on the front page,” Applejack said as she turned around and trotted into the farmhouse. She reappeared a few seconds later carrying the local paper, The Equestrian Times. She tossed it on the ground in front of Rainbow Dash where it fell open to the front page.
Rainbow stared slack jawed at the title before her. It screamed in her face, “LOCAL WEATHERMARE REFUSES PROMOTION! GIVES IT TO LOCAL MAILMARE!” Below it was a split photo. The left half shows Derpy dancing in front of a muffin store carrying two bags. The right half was a simple picture of Rainbow Dash relaxing on a cloud, her eyes closed and her hooves behind her head.
Rainbow’s left eye twitched as she read the first few lines of the article. “Resident weathermare, Rainbow Dash, was offered a promotion to become head of weather management in the Cloudsdale facility. When offered said promotion, Rainbow Dash declined. She then offered the promotion to resident mailmare, Derpy Hooves. When asked what she was going to do with the increased pay, Miss Hooves replied with, ‘I’m going to buy my very own muffin store!’”
By now, Rainbow shook with rage. She stomped her hoof on the ground and snorted.
“Ya alright there, sugercube?”
Rainbow slowly turned her head to face Applejack. She said in the calmest voice possible, “AJ, you got any buildings that need rebuilt?”
Applejack sat down on her haunches and placed a hoof on her chin, deep in thought. “Well, the feed silo is going ta need rebuilding in a couple of weeks and the—”
“The silo gets rebuilt now.”
Before Applejack could respond, Rainbow bolted high into the air and hovered over the silo. Applejack had only seen her this high in the air when she was destroying her old barn…
Applejack’s eyes grew wide in panic. Rainbow wouldn’t do that, would she? Applejack’s fears were confirmed when Rainbow made a beeline for the silo. The air around Rainbow started to form into a cone shape as she steadily increased her speed.
Applejack ran into the farmhouse, interrupting her family having breakfast. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “EVERYPONY DUCK AND COVER!”
They dove under the table, just making it to cover when the entire house shook. Outside the window, Applejack could see dirt and pieces of the silo flying by accompanied by a rainbow mushroom cloud.
When the dust settled, the Apple family slowly crawled out from under the table. Poking their heads out the front door, they made sure nothing else came flying out of nowhere before trotting outside. Pieces of the silo laid scattered everywhere. They trotted over to where the silo used to be and found Rainbow Dash standing in the middle of the wreckage, wings flared and panting from exhaustion.
“Lousy. Stupid. Dreams.” Rainbow mumbled.