Sorrow's Downpour

Rainbow Dash looked around, surveying the town before her. Huge tents had been set up for the rescued ponies and excavations were well under way. Several of the larger houses had already been cleared out; most of the ponies had survived one way or another. The living ponies were taken to a giant tent holding what was left of the hospital. The bodies went to Zecora; she managed to avoid the escaping flood waters and was busy preforming last rites for all the lost ponies.

Rainbow had wanted to dig out the Sugarcube Corner first, but from the looks of it, all they would find was a broken pink body. She wasn't ready to face that yet. They started by clearing out some of the likelier looking buildings instead.

Twilight and Rarity woke up at almost the same time. Spike and Sweetie Belle were over in a corner playing with some cards they had found. "Go graze," Spike said when Sweetie asked him for twos.

"Well somepony's up bright and early," Rarity said, giving a luxuriant stretch.

Twilight cast a quick spell. "Not really," she said, "it's almost noon."

"Really? That late already? That magic last night must have worn me out more than I thought." They had made it through the storm by placing Rarity's room in a huge magic bubble; unfortunately the same protection hadn't extended to the rest of the building. They were now trapped underneath the results.

Spike turned to look at the two unicorns. "A couple of times we thought we heard voices outside but they didn't answer when we yelled." He laid a pair of threes down and turned back to his card game, "of course, you two didn't wake up for that so we probably didn't yell loud enough."

Eventually, the two unicorns grew tired of talking and joined in the card games. After Sweetie won twelve straight games though, nopony wanted to keep playing very much. During the fifteenth, Spike shushed everypony and said that he heard digging.

Dust began falling from the ceiling and soon loud scraping noises could be heard. Twilight tried hurrying things along with her magic. After a couple of bright pink beams exploded against the ceiling the noises stopped and there was a lot of shouting. A few seconds passed while the trapped ponies waiting for the noise to continue.

A familiar voice, though muffled, could be heard coming from a crack Twilight had made in the ceiling. "Hey in there," Rainbow Dash yelled, "is everypony all right?"

Twilight sent a small focused ray of magic through the crack, it was meant to hit Rainbow and give her a quick mental image of the three ponies sitting with Spike and playing cards. Twilight was afraid that it hadn't worked; nopony said anything back and the digging hadn't started again yet.

Several minutes passed while they sat in silence. "Okay," Rainbow Dash said, "I'm going to leave Caramel here to dig you guys out while the rest of us go look for everypony else. It'll take a while but he's all we can spare right now."

A loud scraping sound began and more dirt began to fall. Twilight tried helping with magic, but after the first bolt shot through the ceiling there was a loud squeal. "Mrs. Sparkle, um, Twilight? Could you please not do that," the voice was familiar, but Twilight wouldn't have recognized it if she hadn't known who was up there; it sounded much higher than usual.

Pinkie was fully awake now. The water continued dripping in and the pools inched closer and closer as time wore on. The flashlight was growing dim and she and begun sneezing violently and regularly. She was cold and wet and she couldn't sleep. Her hunger gnawed at her focus, but she had nothing to fill her stomach. So she sat, alone in the darkness.

A rippling sound echoed through the dim, stony expanse. It switched between splashing and the clicking of sharp claws and back again. Pinkie swung the light around, she had no idea what might've gotten into her pit while she wasn't paying attention. Knowing the local animals though, she knew it couldn't be anything good.

The faint beam fell across a spreading trail of v's on the water. Slowly, two purple dots emerged, followed by a small green shape. "Gummi!" Pinkie yelled as she scooped up the toothless alligator. He began gumming at her mane and she held him closer. Finally, something had happened to ease her fears. She held him close and a few things became obvious to the pink pony: she was very hungry and there was no food, some ponies ate meat and they always said it was very good, Gummi sounded like he wouldn't last much longer.

Pinkie shook her head. "No, I haven't been down here that long." She realized Gummi was ice cold. She held him close and pulled him under the blanket with her. It was soaked and smelled like the fetid water around them, but it was still warmer than the rest of the room.

Pinkie wondered just how long she'd been trapped down there. There was no way to measure time in the black void of the Sugarcube Corner's sub-basement. Any amount of tie could have passed. She might have been there for days or only a few hours; the ignorance of her situation was maddening. She wanted to scream, to break things, to do… something. Pinkie felt herself slipping away. She couldn't handle being alone for this long; she wasn't used to the intense quiet, to the darkness, to the sheer bone chilling frigidness of the water.

She sunk back into the corner she'd been in for most of her time in the water filled room, however long it had been. It was slightly warmer than the rest of the floor and it was a little higher up, so there was less water. If only that meant there was no water.

Pinkie sniffed at the air; even now it had seemed to be growing stale, growing ever more foul. Even the stench of the brown water was fading compared to the new smell in the air. Pinkie recognized it from when she had tried mailing herself to her parents not long after she moved out. She woke up next to them in the hospital; the box hadn't held enough air for the trip. She was lucky she hadn't suffocated. Now that same sense of thick stillness pervaded the air around her. She pulled deeper into her damp, smelly blanket and held Gummi close, he was warming up, but he still felt far too cold.

Her tears joined the water pooled across the floor. It accepted the new additions, it had no reason not to; its growth wasn't planned or steady. The water had all the time in the world. If only the same could be said for frightened pink ponies and their pets.

Applejack walked through the streets of Ponyville. There was still water at least hoof deep everywhere, but the pegasi had decided they got rid of enough and were going to start trying to rescue any ponies trapped in their homes when they collapsed.

Applejack could see huge pits in the ground where bright, colorful buildings had once stood. They now were shadowed with murky floodwaters and echoed with the cries of those who had lost. Nothing stood other than a few piles of rubble, but those looked like they'd been made by rescue crews while they were digging.

A large number of ruins had been dug out, but many still remained. Some, like Twilight's library, were just ignored. Other places still had some obvious safe places in them; this is where most of the ponies were focused. A third site also seemed fairly common. Places like the Sugarcube Corner, where nothing was left above ground level, had been bypassed. It didn't make sense to try and find corpses when so many ponies were still trapped elsewhere.

Applejack looked around. "So much lost," she whirled and saw Twilight standing by her. She scooped the purple unicorn up and gave her a spine crushing bear hug.

"Oh Twailiaght, you're alraight!" Twilight uttered a few grunts as her face changed colors alarmingly. Applejack, grinning sheepishly, put her down.

"Yeah, Spike and I stayed with Rarity. A tree isn't a very good place to be in during storms, remember?"

"What ah remember is that wherever Rarity is is a bad place to be during a storm." Twilight looked at her friend shocked, but couldn't help smiling when she saw she'd just been kidding. "So what's the damage so far?"

"I don't know for sure. We just got out of the boutique a few minutes ago. Rarity and I managed to put up a shield that kept us nice and safe while the storm was going on. I did find out that most ponies are either missing or seriously injured right now though."

Something buzzed in the back of Applejack's mind. "Twailaight," she gasped, "I just remembered. Do you know where Owlowiscious was last night?"

"He was with you, Fluttershy and the other animals right?" Twilight was worried. She hoped the owl had made it through the terrible ordeal form the previous night.

"He wasn't with us sugarcube. Ah was talkin to Rainbow Dash jus' this morning and I think you should go see that library of yours. Somethin might've happened there that ya jus' might wanna see about takin care of."

"Oh, what happened?"

"Rainbow said something about seein something on the floor. She didn't have time ta check it out, but ah think it might've been Owlowiscious."

Twilight nodded and hurried towards the giant stack of books that had been a library the night before.

Rainbow Dash looked around. Rescue operations were well under way. Hundreds of ponies had been saved, but there were still a lot more houses to check out. She looked over at the remains of the Sugarcube Corner. She wanted to make sure Pinkie was all right, but from the looks of it, they wouldn't find very much of her, if they found her at all.

She sighed sadly, she wanted Pinkie to be all right, but it didn't look like even Pinkie could pull out of something like that. She steeled herself; there was work to be done and ponies to be saved. She didn't have time to worry about personal feelings.

Rainbow turned back to pulling the pieces of ruined walls away. She hadn't expected anypony to be at the school house, but it wasn't rare for Cheerilee to spend the night there, busy planning fun activities for the local foals. Plus, it wouldn't take long to clear away; there wasn't much to the place.

A particularly large board caught on something as she pulled it away. Giving a huge tug, Rainbow ripped it free and a few drops of red liquid splashed across her face. He dropped the board and hurried in. A hoof lay on the ground, surrounded by wreckage. A thin trail of red showed where the nail had dug through. "Mrs. Cheerilee," Rainbow yelled.

She instantly knew it was a mistake. Scootaloo had insisted on coming with her to help. So did all the other foals when they were found. Everypony ran over to help, but when they saw the hoof, most of the school house lay upon or around it, they backed away.

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She suddenly snapped them open and lunged forward. Using all of her strength, Rainbow Dash cleared away a huge section of the school in record time. Cheerilee lay on the ground, blood trickled from her mouth and her body was soaked. Rainbow Dash went to pull her out of the wreckage so that she could get medical help, but she noticed how pale the pony's face was and how blue the lips were.

The foals had all begun crowding in and Rainbow motioned for the older ponies to take them away. They'd have to deal with this eventually, but not yet. She sighed and placed a bright red flag near the broken pony. This wasn't the first time she'd had to do this today, she knew it wouldn't be the last. She just hoped it would be the last time she came across a pink pony like this.

Dinky shivered. The boat she'd seen before had left with the water. She'd managed to move the board with her mother on it to where they'd slowly move towards the ground as the water drained away, but wouldn't go with the water. They were now on the ground. She pulled the board along. Her hooves were completely numb and even though it was warm out her breath fogged up.

Dinky stopped, she'd heard moaning from behind her. She turned, ready to defend the unconscious Derpy. The gray mare's eyes fluttered for a second before remaining half open. "Wha-what happened?" She turned her head to look around, "where am I?"

"Mommy," Dinky shrieked with delight as she jumped into the gray pegasus.

"Muffin!" she nuzzled her daughter. "Where are we?"

"I don't know. The big storm last night hit you and then we got pulled away by all the water."

Derpy sniffed the air and looked down, she noticed that her flanks were black and smoke was still rising from them in tiny amounts. She reached to touch one, but Dinky grabbed her leg, "that's probably not a good idea," she said. She hadn't paid much attention in class when they were going over how a pony's body works, but she didn't think that it was smart to touch yourself where it looked like that.

The veins in her neck stood out as the mail mare rose to her hooves. She lowered a wing like she always did when she flew Dinky around. Dinky enjoyed flying with her mom, but she knew it probably wasn't a good idea to go without a helmet.

As she climbed on, Dinky realized how warm her mom's body felt. She tucked her legs in and pushed her face into the blonde mane in front of her. The warmth rushed in, but was quickly taken away as Derpy took off; the wind battered against the small unicorn and she had to hold on tightly to keep from falling off.

They rose high in the sky and Derpy could see a bunch of huge tents all marked differently. She frowned. This seemed familiar, something Rainbow Dash had told her before. Something about something called murblecies. She shook her head. It was hard to remember too many things, so she focused on ponies' names and different muffins; it made things much easier and it never made her head hurt.

"Mommy," Dinky said, pointing at the tents, "I think I know what those mean. Rainbow Dash told me to tell you to always go to the big red one first if you saw them."

Derpy nodded, she remembered now. She tucked in her wings and began spiraling towards the ground, this trick always made Dinky laugh, but not this time. She was worried so she began flying faster. She had to go back to her normal speed when she almost hit a few trees and other pegasi though.

Dinky held on tightly. She loved flying with her mom and usually had a lot of fun. But this time, everything seemed blurry and she was having trouble holding her head up. She just wanted to go to sleep, but a small voice in her head told her not to. She tried to stay awake, she really did, but her eyes felt so heavy. They slowly began closing.

Dinky was woken up by a scream. She had just dozed off and as a result had slipped off of Derpy's back. The blonde mare had caught her, but it was still too close to the ground for comfort. "Don't go to sleep until we land sweetie," Derpy said. One eye was focused on Dinky, the other watched where they were going.

Fluttershy was happy. She knew she shouldn't be with everything that had happened but that didn't stop her. Almost all of her friends were safe with her, she had even found Angel. She just wished he wasn't so sad. He had left to find his family, they hadn't been together long, but already he and his mate Amelia had had a littler of bouncy baby bunnies. Fluttershy had found him floating in a nest, he was alone except for one baby bunny.

They all had to wait for the rest of the water to dry up before the animals could start building new homes. Angel spent much of the time staring out at the ruined forest that had once held his home and all he loved. Fluttershy didn't want to bother him, she knew he would talk about it when he was ready, he had his own way for getting over things, but she knew she had to do something. The only question was: what could she do?

Fluttershy spent hours trying to answer this question. During that time she had taken care of most of the animals that had been saved. The other ponies with her tried to help, but most of the animals seemed to avoid everypony until Fluttershy got to them. She didn't mind, it helped keep her mind off of what must have happened in town. One of the pegasi had flown in to give them news at one point, but most of that had just been what had been guessed at that point, nothing was for sure.

Fluttershy hoped that her friends were all right. In the meantime though, she had animals to care for.

For those of you hoping Pinkie would eat Gummi, you're all awful people... and you seem to think just like I do. But, this isn't my grimdark, so she won't.