Sorrow's Downpour

Pinkie woke up. She was cold, alone and darkness surrounded her. She could hear the steady dripping of water. The air felt cool and dank, like the time she fell into the well at Applejack's farm. She felt around for a little while, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light. She soon found herself hoof deep in a large cold puddle. The water felt slimy and she could feel the grit clinging to her soft fur. She tried shaking the water off her hoof, but very little came off, no matter how vigorously she shook.

She stumbled along a little ways before finding a small flashlight. She turned it on, but nothing happened. Pinkie felt herself breaking away. After the intense storm the night before, Pinkie was still scared. Then she woke up to find herself alone in near total darkness. "Now the stupid flashlight won't even let me see." Her breathing grew slightly ragged as a few sobs escaped her.

Pinkie hardened herself and began shaking the flashlight. Usual, that worked no matter what the flashlight had gone through, but for once, the luck usually protecting Pinkie seemed to have left her. She unscrewed the top; it still had batteries in it. Pinkie was about to throw it away when she realized why it hadn't turned on. The batteries weren't dead, they were just backwards. She breathed a sigh of relief and switched them.

The small light turned on as she screwed the top back on. Its meager beam showed her the extent of her surroundings. She was in a deep stone-lined hole. Great puddles of murky brown water covered the floor. Huge wooden beams had fallen around the entire area. One stuck out of a shattered patch of stone inches from where her head had been when she woke up. Most of the room was filled with rubble; every now and then she could pick out things that she recognized: a dented oven, a set of pranking tools, even a broken crib that lay on its side, the blankets spilling out.

Pinkie noted with a sense of morbidity that a selection of large, wicked looking knives had fallen into the crib, point first. Once again, she was extremely grateful that the cakes hadn't been in town for this.

She continued to survey the wreckage. Splintered remains of her past life only seemed to emphasize her hopelessness. She couldn't hear any noises coming from above and, based on the wreckage around her, nopony could even get close to where she was any time soon. She decided to try and find a way out, but after several minutes of digging, she realized just how lucky she'd been. Somehow, the floor where she'd fallen had collapsed into the bottommost of the Sugarcube Corner's basements. For more than ten hooves in the direction she'd dug, she found nothing other than rubble. Going over a few figures in her head, she realized that if anypony saw the ruins from the outside, it would look like nothing would be left of her except a crushed body, a lifeless corpse amongst the pieces of bakery. They probably wouldn't look for her until the other buildings in town had been checked.

Pinkie walked back over to where she had woken up. Her large pink comforter lay there. It was damp and stained with muddy water, but it helped keep out the worst of the cold. She shivered as she drew the dank fabric around herself. She wouldn't risk a fire for fear of filling the area around her with smoke. She felt a rumbling in her stomach and knew she'd have to try and find something to eat eventually, but for now she could ignore it. Pinkie lay in the darkness, she wanted to leave the light on, but was afraid of running down the batteries so she'd shut it off and placed it on a nearby cobblestone.

She drifted off into an uneasy sleep, waking occasionally at the sounds of muffled yells, but it didn't seem like anypony could hear her replies. Each attempt at contacting the voices left her more tired and broken than before. She finally fell once more into a fitful sleep, thinking that she'd only imagined the voices and that nopony was even looking for her.

Her tears joined the water already covering much of the floor.

A loud grinding noise jolted Applejack back into consciousness. The grinding grew louder and louder until, with a huge mushroom cloud of dust, the bran collapsed inwards on itself. She stared in amazement, that barn had stood since her grandmother was a filly. The water continued flowing out of Ponyville and the surrounding area. The pegasi were attempting to drain all of it so that they could save any survivors, but they hadn't mentioned that that included running the remains of a storm big enough to destroy Ponyville through her farm. Applejack cursed her luck, she should have known it would go through her farm, it meant going downhill and it was closer to the forests, flooding those didn't matter nearly as much as sending all of that water straight to Canterlot.

Rainbow Dash flew over. "How are things over here AJ? I'm trying to make sure nopony gets hurt while we drain the town."

Applejack pointed wordlessly at the barn. So many memories had taken place there, so many apple crops stored against lean times. Rainbow Dash stared. "I'm so sorry Applejack, I hadn't meant to-"

"No, no," Applejack sad, waving a hoof. Everypony else had lost so much, it shouldn't matter if one creaky old barn fell in. "T'aint yer fault Rainbow, don't go blamin' yerself. That ol' barn was about to fall over anyways, maybe now ah can get Big Mac to help me put up a new one that don't leak none."

"Have you seen the town yet?" Shadows ringed the cyan mare's eyes as she asked this.

"Yeah, ah saw it when the rain stopped. Ah told Fluttershy that ah had to make sure everything was okay here. Then ah climbed outta the boat and swam most of the way back. It gave me enough time to see plenty of the town."

"Nothing's left," Rainbow Dash said hoarsely, "even Pinkie's house is just a huge pile of wreckage." She looked into the cowpony's eyes, "Applejack, I don't think Pinkie made it."

Applejack gasped, "Ya can't mean ya think Pinkie's-"

"Yeah. I hope she isn't but it doesn't look good. I'll have pegasi digging her out as soon as I can spare them."

"Good. Ah'll see about headin over there to help out just as soon as ah can clean things up here. Shouldn't take Big Mac long to get up an help." A large red stallion stood up just behind the mares. He had taken to sleeping in the loft lately. With the cutie mark crusaders around most of the time, it was too loud for him to sleep in the house. He'd grown to like the loft of the barn. It was always quiet and there was more room than his bedroom. Plus it always smelled like a mixture of hay and fresh apples. He had even managed to put enough hay around him to drown out the sound of the storm; the farm had been just outside the storm's main path of destruction so all they'd gotten was a heavy thunderstorm. But, when the floodwaters rushed through and knocked the barn over, he'd still been sleeping inside.

"What happened?" he said rubbing his head. His deep voice had a strange soothing quality and managed to calm down the two mares.

"We tried draining the water out of town and it had to go this way. It knocked over the barn while it went. Sorry."

Big Mac looked at the boards he had just pushed off of himself; they were still in the shape of the roof. "Well ah can see that much," he said, "Just how bad was that storm last night?"

"Ponyville is gone," Applejack said before Rainbow Dash could go back over what she'd been tortured with since the previous afternoon. She'd have to relive it when she flew back into town for cleanup, she shouldn't have to go over it while she was off.

"How gone?" Big Mac asked, looking worried.

"Nothing's left, not even the street signs. Even Twilight's library managed to burn down." Rainbow Dash was staring at her hooves as she spoke. "The rain even tore my house apart. That storm shouldn't have been possible."

"How could it've burned in all of that?" Applejack asked. She had been near the edge of it helping Fluttershy save the animals and she's still been half drowned within seconds of the rain starting.

"I don't know, but her books all survived, she must've put a spell on them or something. Well, except one thing. We haven't gotten to looking around the remains of the buildings yet, but I saw something that looked like a huge burned book. For a second I thought it might've been something else, but Twilight and Spike had gone to Rarity's house and Owlicious was with you, Fluttershy and the other animals."

"No he wasn't," a look of horror spread across the orange pony's face, "he wasn't with us. Ah checked. Ah thought he was with Twailaight."

Rainbow Dash's face lost its color. "I saw Twilight and Spike when they were going to the boutique; they said Owlicious was with the other animals."

"Well, ah was with the animals and he wasn't there."

Rainbow Dash turned to fly away. Big Mac had gone back to the barn and was busily searching through the broken boards to find his things. Applejack placed a hoof on her friend's shoulder, "Ah'm sure things'll turn out all raight, thy always have before." Rainbow Dash nodded and took off, determined to find the rest of her friends in the emerging wreckage that, a few hours before, had been a quiet little town.

Twilight woke up feeling very warm. She felt something soft and smooth pressed against her side. Another pair of warm spots were stretched across her back, partially on her, partially off. Rolling carefully to avoid disturbing anything, Twilight sat up and looked around. Sometime during the night, Rarity had pressed in close and fell asleep. Spike and Sweetie Belle had curled up together on top of the two mares. They seemed peaceful in their dreams, but would cry out every now and then.

Twilight's horn glowed and she could see through the walls and ceiling. The water from the night before was gone, but they were surrounded by rubble. Nothing could be seen of the surrounding town but, stretching her spell, Twilight saw that the room she and Rarity had placed a shield around was mostly in a hole, so little of the town could have been seen anyways.

A loud meowing came from the bed. Twilight released the energies form her spell and looked over. Opalescence crawled out from under the blankets and looked at Twilight expectantly. Twilight's stomach gave a slight rumble and she realized what the cat must want. "Sorry Opal," she said, trying to sound as soothing as possible, "but as far as I know there's no food in here. You'll just have to wait until we dig ourselves out or somepony comes in after us." Opal seemed displeased, but she curled up on the bed and went back to sleep.

Twilight was tempted to get up, but she decided against it. It was so warm and comfortable here with her friends. She snuggled down and prepared to go back to sleep; they weren't likely to go anywhere. Spike rolled in his sleep and his claws dug into Twilight's flank. 'Then again,' she thought, 'maybe I should find a way out of here.' She started to get up, but Rarity moved in closer and wrapped a hoof around her. Rarity mumbled something in her sleep and nuzzled her face into Twilight's mane. Heart melting, Twilight lay back down. 'It could be worse,' she thought, 'I could be stuck like this with Pinkie. At least now I can sleep.'

They rescue crews flew around overhead, their synchronized movements pulled the water along. This created quick moving rivers that efficiently drained all of the flood waters and removed much of the more irritating mess.

Dinky and her mother washed up in the top of a tree. The rain had stopped a while ago, but the water was still coming as much as ever. She shook her mom, but the gray mare wouldn't wake up. She had been flying through the storm searching for her daughter when she was hit by lightning. Dinky had managed to pull Derpy onto the board she was clinging to and had pushed all night until they snagged on something and she fell into an exhausted sleep.

Her legs ached from pushing herself and her mother all night. She was very numb and cold from spending the night in the water. Her legs were tinged slightly blue and she knew she had to warm herself before she caught, what did Ms. Cheerilee call it, new-moan-ya.

She had given up trying to wake the gray pegasus hours before. She could still feel a heartbeat, it was irregular, but it was there. A large black burn covered Derpy's haunches where she'd been hit and a sickeningly sweet smell rose from it.

A large boat floated just off in the distance. Dinky knew she wouldn't be able to make it there while pulling her mother along. But if she left, Derpy would probably float away and be lost. Rather than risk losing her, Dinky decided to stay with the board; rescue would come eventually. She shivered violently, she only hoped it would come soon enough.

Fluttershy looked around. Most of her animal friends were on the makeshift boat with her. Several ponies were there as well; they had helped construct the massive thing and had saved hundreds of small furry lives. Fluttershy knew that she had only saved a fraction of the animals in the area though, but more had probably had time to escape, they just wouldn't have anything to come back to.

She missed Angel; it had been years since she spent a night anywhere without him. He had left the boat to try and save his family, they weren't at the meeting place for the boat and he knew something was wrong. Fluttershy had a strong feeling that she wouldn't see him again, but she hoped it was just her nerves talking.

Many ponies had tried to reassure her, but most quit after a while. Applejack had tried to keep her thoughts off of the bunny through the whole night, but she had to leave to make sure her family was safe. That only made Fluttershy dwell on Angel even more.

Most of the water was gone, but everypony stayed on the boat, it was dry and there was nowhere left to go in town anyways. They opened up the doors and let in others who had made it through the storm. Even with this though, by the time the water was gone the boat was still mostly empty.

At one point, one of the ponies who had been looking for stragglers called down to Fluttershy. "You may wanna see this," Lyra yelled, "and hurry."

Fluttershy quickly flew to the top of the boat, hoping against hope that it would be news on Angel. She quickly scanned the area Lyra had pointed. Off in the distance she could see a bird nest with a soggy white ball in it. She flew out over the water, hooves stretched out for what she dearly hoped would be her lost friend.

In the nest, two bunnies lay curled up. One full-grown, the other still a baby. She recognized the way the grown bunny breathed. "Oh Angel," she said, scooping them both up.

Angel woke up and began pushing against the unknown attacker. As his eyes focused he pulled himself as close to Fluttershy as he could get. She gave him a hug but pulled him away sooner than she wanted to. "Where are the others?" Angel just pointed to the sleeping baby in Fluttershy's hoof. She gasped, "But what about Amelia and the other babies?" He shook his head sadly and gestured at the baby once more. "Oh, I'm so sorry Angel," she held him close again and he hung limply. "Let's get back and see if we can warm this little guy up before he catches a cold." Angel nodded wearily and fell asleep in Fluttershy's hooves.

Celestia sat on a cloud looking over the ruins of what was one of her favorite towns. She sighed sadly and Luna alighted next to her. "It's just awful," Celestia said, "so much heartbreak and destruction and we were powerless against it."

"Why don't we just go fix things now?" Luna asked. She had been banished to the moon as Nightmare Moon the last time this storm had hit.

"We cannot," Celestia said. Her sorrow-filled eyes gazed on the wreckage heaped before her, "if we intervene the storm will return again. It was sent as a result in the change in power resulting from you coming back from the moon. The same thing happened back when you were banished there."

"So we can do nothing?" Luna asked. She felt as though this was her fault. So many ponies had lost so much because she returned. The only reason she had to return is because she had hurt ponies and was punished. No matter how she viewed it, she was responsible for the scene before her.

"Nothing," Celestia agreed, "except hope that we have left enough of ourselves in the ponies here for them to overcome this." Seeming regretful, Celestia lifted her immense wings and began to take off. She flew away, every motion seemed filled with sadness at her subjects' suffering. Luna followed after, their shadows making twin trails of darkness over the flooded expanse of ruins below.