Hurricane Fluttershy Aftermath
Spitfire walked into the head office of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory. Inside the room, there was Rainbow Dash, a pony whom she knew very well after saving her and her friends from certain death, had performed a Sonic Rainboom, had helped save the whole of Equestria twice, and was easily somepony she could fast track into becoming a Wonderbolt if she could just get the paperwork in on time, and Weather Factory Chairpony Daily Grind. Daily Grind had a grim look on his face, with Rainbow Dash giving an ambivalent one, teetering between angry and sorry.
"Do you know why I called you here?" Daily Grind said in a gruff voice. He was holding an official-looking letter in his hooves. His desk was littered with similar looking papers, but the angle from where Spitfire was standing kept them from being readable.
"No sir. But I was told it was quite urgent." Spitfire said.
"Miss Rainbow Dash here told me that when her town was trying to make the tornado to refill our reservoirs, you stood by and did nothing." he said angrily.
"Yes... the wing power competition states that only permanent town residents could participate." Spitfire responded, confusion at where this was coming from.
"And when it became obvious that they were not only not going to win, but they barely had enough to make the tornado, why didn't you join then?" His voice rose even more.
"Even if the town can't make the record, there's still a certain amount of town pride on the line in fulfilling their dut...."
"TOWN PRIDE?" he said with a shout. Spitfire jumped back in surprise, "You put the entire Equestrian ecosystem in jeopardy just so a town could save face?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You do know that rain is important, Spitfire?" he asked sarcastically, "That we need it to grow crops?"
"Yeah but..." Spitfire tried to interject. Rainbow Dash still ambivalent an ambivalent look on her face, looking both sorry and accusatory.
"So, our infrastructure, our economy, our food, our very lives were put on the line just so a town could say 'we did it!' I don't buy it." he slammed his hooves to the table and stood up, "It sounds to me like you're just a overpromoted, selfish, lazy little..."
Spitfire had had enough. She didn't make captain of the Wonderbolts by letting ponies walk all over her, and she wasn't going to start now.
"CHAIRPONY DAILY GRIND!!" the sound of her voice was so loud that she knocked the stallion back in his chair, "I am well aware of how important rainwater is. What I do not understand is why you're making such a big deal about it. We can make these tornadoes whenever we want. You have over 200 professional pegasi at your company alone who have a wingpower of 8 or higher. Making an 800 wingpower tornado would be trivially easy! You could do it during a lunch break! The only reason there's any sort of issue at all is because of the competition. That's why we don't make the tornadoes ourselves, because Cloudsdale has so many pegasi that they would crush the record of every other town on numbers alone!"
She calmed down a little, "I can think of maybe two ways on how it might become an issue: something happened to the reservoir, but that's something I have a hard time believing because even without taking into account my position, it would been all over the news; otherwise, it would have to be because the Cloudsdale water reservoir was horribly mismanaged. But given how easy it is to replenish our supply, the only way it could get to be as bad as what you're implying is if the factory was being run by somepony that was criminally incompetent." She glared at the chairpony, before softening, "but that couldn't be the case, could it?"
The chairpony stared blankly and Rainbow Dash had a moment of realization wash over her face before turning away in shame. After a few seconds, he looked at the letter that was still in his hooves. Unbeknownst to Spitfire, it was one of many letters he had received from all over Equestria complaining about rainfall shortages for the last season. Griffontown in particular was threatening to secede given the number of times years this has happened.
His face immediately switched to a big, embarrassed, and phony-looking smile as he crumpled the letter and threw it away, "Hehehehe... yes... exactly. Thank you for putting it so clearly. I needed you here to... help explain... to miss Dash here why your participation was not necessary."
Rainbow Dash turned to the chairpony with an angry look on her face and seemed like she was about to say something, but he shushed her.
"Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to help with our employees. I hope to meet again soon. I'll be sure to buy tickets to your next performance." he said magnanimously with a forced smile.
Spitfire gave a confused look at the two ponies in the room with her, shrugged, and left. When the two remaining ponies were sure she was no longer in earshot, Rainbow Dash gave the chairpony a death glare. "Oh shush," he said, "You overreacted too."
"Only because of what you told me!"
