Crossing Over

Part 2: Laughter and Loyalty - Chapter 4: City of Clouds

"We're here!" Lyra announced, waking me up.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Thankfully, I'd had a dreamless sleep. I didn't know how many more dreams I could've taken. Standing up, I stretched, and then trotted over to the wall of the balloon basket where the others were. They were staring out into the distance, so I did the same. My jaw dropped.

Cloudsdale was massive, a thousand times more massive than it had looked like in the show. It was sort of like a floating Long Island, New York. Ever so slowly, we moved closer, the massive cloud city getting more massive by the second.

"Wow," I breathed. How could a city made of clouds get so big?

"You said it," Lyra agreed. "I've seen pictures, but I didn't know it was this big!"

I looked at Twilight, the memory of my kiss trying to push itself to the forefront of my mind. "Was it this big the last time you came here?"

She nodded. "Pretty much, though all we got to see was the outskirts."

"Don't worry, Twilight, this time we'll get to see the city center," Rainbow Dash assured her. "The Wonderbolts want me to audition in one of their stadiums close to it anyway."

I glanced at her. "Wait... one of their stadiums? How many stadiums do the Wonderbolts have in Cloudsdale?"

"Six," she said immediately. "Two in each section of the city. That means two in the Old Age section, two in the Middle Age section, and two in the New Age section. The New Age section is where city center is."

"Ooo, Dashie, can we take a tour of the Weather Center?" asked Pinkie Pie, bouncing up and down. "I don't think Jordan or Lyra have seen it yet."

"Well, I suppose," answered Dash, staring at the incoming cloud city. "I'm pretty sure we're early."

Pinkie beamed.

"Yeah, I think so too," Twilight said, peering up at the sun. "I don't even think it's noon yet. There's probably time to do a quick tour of the Weather Center."

I frowned. This Weather Center seemed slightly familiar. I knew the Mane 6 had toured it when they'd been here for the Best Young Fliers Competition, but it also stirred something else in my mind. It made me think of something ominous, something evil, even though I had no idea why.

Soon enough, we'd entered the outskirts of Cloudsdale. Large cloud buildings floated past that reminded me of those large stone buildings of Ancient Greece, complete with cloud columns. We also passed pegasi on occasion, some looking at us with curiosity, others with distaste. Apparently, some pegasi didn't like outsiders in their city.

A couple minutes later, we saw an extremely large, factory-looking building with little white clouds puffing out of vents on the sides. On the side we could see, there was a huge, regal double door.

"Is that..." Lyra began, gazing at the building in wonder.

"Yep," said Rainbow Dash, smiling. "The Weather Center."

Twilight gazed at it curiously. "It's changed a little."

Dash nodded. "It does that from time to time."

"Why is the entrance so big?" I asked, pointing at the giant double door.

"Oh, that's the employee entrance," explained Dash. "They bring in supplies and stuff through it. There's one on the other side I think too."

We parked the balloon on a patch of clouds near the Weather Center. After Twilight had performed her spell on herself, Lyra, and Pinkie (enabling them to walk on cloud), we got off the balloon and made our way to the large weather-making facility. I almost wasn't able to leave the balloon; I was afraid I'd fall through the clouds, not completely trusting the fact that I was a pegasus, and I insisted Twilight use her spell on me too. However, after they all reassured me I could walk on clouds perfectly fine by myself since I was indeed a pegasus, I reluctantly exited the balloon. Fortunately, i didn't fall through, though standing on cloud felt very strange. It felt like I was standing on a mattress except without the springs, sort of like that memory foam stuff.

Going around to the front entrance, which was considerably smaller and less grand than the employee entrance, we entered a small reception area. There was a desk directly across from the entrance, a door that led to a hallway on the left, and a closed door on the right. Behind the desk was a pretty turquoise pegasus mare with a blindingly white mane. She looked up as we entered.

"How may I help you?" she asked, smiling warmly.

After we walked up to the desk, Rainbow Dash answered, "We'd like to take a tour of the place."

The turquoise mare nodded and walked out from behind the desk. "Of course. Follow me. My name is Daisy and I'll be your tour guide today since the actual tour guide is out sick."

"Hold on," said Lyra, looking from Daisy to her desk, "if you're going to be guiding us on a tour, who's going to be the receptionist?"

"Don't worry," Daisy replied, "the main visitors we get are shipment deliverers, but they usually use the employee entrances. I'm only here to greet random visitors like you guys, which are few and far between, and, um... do other stuff. Anyway, let's get the tour started, shall we?"

With that, she led us into the hallway to the left and started the tour. First, she showed us the cloud-making portion of the Weather Center. To my surprise, there were no pegasi in there, except for a few maintenance workers; there were only machines.

When I asked about this, Daisy smiled and said, "Cloud-making is one of the easiest things we do here. As such, we've developed a way to automate it so we don't have to waste energy on such simple, easy task."

I thought of the clouds puffing out of the side of the Weather Center. "But why are there--" I started to ask, but she was already leading us out of the cloud-making area.

Next, she led us to the snowflake making portion. It looked exactly as it had in the show. There were a bunch of pegasus workers in here, each wearing the same plain white uniforms, and each looking through a magnifying glass at what I assumed were snowflakes. They all used thin metal instruments to poke these snowflakes, which, I guessed, was supposed to be altering their design.

"How are the snowflakes not melting?" I asked.

"Well, for one, the temperature in here is rather low," Daisy answered, shivering a bit.

"Yeah," said Rainbow Dash, also shivering, "how have you not noticed?"

I looked at the others. They were all shivering!

I laughed as I finally started to feel the icy sting of the cold air. "I'm just used to cold like this, I guess. I live in Wisconsin, one of the coldest states in the US."

Daisy looked at me funny. "You live where?"

Oops. I wasn't supposed to talk about that stuff around other ponies. I didn't want unnecessary questions. "Um... nowhere of importance."

From the look on her face, it looked like she didn't buy that. Luckily, Twilight came to my rescue. "I think we've seen enough in here. How about we go to the Rainbow Factory now?"

Rather reluctantly, Daisy led us through the rest of the hallways and into the Rainbow Factory. As soon as we entered, I gasped, as did Lyra. It was a large-- very large-- room made, like all of Cloudsdale, completely out of cloud. Scattered about were a multitude of golden fountains, all of them spewing liquid rainbow into the pools at each fountain's base. Rainbow rivers flowed through sections of the floor, their sources the holes in some of the walls where liquid rainbow poured out. Over some of these rainbow rivers were small bridges, which the pegasus workers in here used to avoid taking a dip in the rivers below (though why they needed these bridges at all when they had wings was beyond me). The whole place seemed to have a cheery glow about it. All in all, the Rainbow Factory was simply breathtaking.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed, taking it all in. "That is-- this is-- wow!"

"Yep," said Daisy, laughing a little, "this is our pride and joy, the Rainbow Factory. This is where rainbows are made."

I was about to relish more compliments onto the Rainbow Factory when that sinister feeling from earlier stirred in my mind, though I still couldn't fathom why. Why did this wondrous place stir these dark thoughts in my head? How could this place be related to anything dark and sinister? It didn't make sense to me.

Unlike the other two areas, Daisy led us through the entirety of the Rainbow Factory, showing it off. As she did this, Pinkie attempted to drink rainbow, like she had in the show. Here reaction was exactly the same as it had been then. Rainbow Dash's resulting laughter had echoed in the large room. One thing I failed to see, strangely enough, was how exactly rainbow was made. The closest thing I could see to that was the rainbow pouring out of the walls, but I had no idea where that came from or how it was made. Had the others failed to notice this? Or were they just being polite and not asking about it?

While Daisy was explaining to us the importance of the golden rainbow fountains, on the far end of the room, opposite from where we had come in, I noticed a black door with a sign on it. Quietly, and without alerting the others, I trekked though the room towards the door. Upon my arrival, i read the sign on the door, hoping no one had seen me. The sign said 'AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY'. On the wall next to the door, embedded in the cloud, was a scanner looking thing. It looked a lot like a fingerprint scanner from back home, just bigger. Had... had ponies invented hoofprint scanners? If so, i wasn't getting through this door.

Then I had an idea. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I pressed my ear to the door. The first thing I noticed was that it was ice cold and very hard. this made me recoil. Looking at the door again, I realized the door was made of metal, not black cloud like I had thought. Bracing for the icy cold of the metal this time, I gently pressed my ear to the door. I listened intently for any sign of noise.

Then, suddenly, muffled by the door, I heard an agonized scream.

"I can't believe they kicked us out!" Rainbow Dash shouted as we sat outside the Weather Center shortly after getting kicked out. Then, rounding on me, she asked, "Why couldn't you just ignore that door? If you had, we'd still be in there!"

"I was curious," I replied, still a little shaken by what I'd heard behind the door. "And, in case you didn't notice, they never actually showed or explained how a rainbow is made. Hiding something is a surefire way of causing rampant curiosity."

Dash rolled her eyes. "Of course they're hiding it. Otherwise, the secret would get out and everyone would make their own rainbows. It'd be utter chaos!"

I shook my head. "Yeah, I'm sure that's the reason they don't want it getting out."

After I had heard the scream, I instantly remembered why I'd had dark and sinister thoughts about the Rainbow Factory and Weather Center. In the Rainbow Factory, where fears and horrors come true; in the Rainbow Factory, where not a single soul gets through. Those lyrics had rung clear in my head ever since hearing the scream.

"Well, at the very least, that Earth pony guy--" began Lyra.

"You mean the Head of the Rainbow Factory?" Twilight interjected.

"Whatever," Lyra retorted, rolling her eyes. "He didn't have to be so mean."

Pinkie nodded. "Yeah, he didn't have to be such a meanie-pants."

"My question is," said Twilight, her tone curious, "how is an Earth pony working at the Rainbow Factory in Cloudsdale?"

At this, everyone fell silent, unsure how to answer. I thought back to when I'd first seen him. After I'd heard the scream, he pulled me away from the door and scolded me for being where I didn't belong. The blue Earth pony had had a yellow mane and had been wearing a normal white Weather Center uniform. His eyes had been gray, devoid of any color. I had to admit, though shaken by the scream, I too had been curious as to how an Earth pony got a job (and such a high level job at that) at one of Cloudsdale's most prestigious work places.

"Hey, c'mon, let's just forget about this and go," said Rainbow Dash, taking off into the sky. "I've got an appointment to get to!"

With that, we all got up and followed her deeper into Cloudsdale, leaving our hot-air balloon, the Weather Center, and the Rainbow Factory behind.

Journeying to the Wonderbolts' stadium in the center of Cloudsdale took over an hour. However, despite how annoyingly long the journey lasted, it was very informative. I learned, from a combination of my own observations, Twilight's prior knowledge, and Rainbow Dash's somewhat prideful remarks, that Cloudsdale had been built from the outside in. What had once been a fringe of cloud-constructed buildings was now a floating metropolis. Buildings kept getting built, which meant the city got closer and closer together, until it finally got to the way it was today. As such, buildings got progressively more modern the closer we got to the city center. Buildings around the outskirts (barring the Weather Center) looked they'd been built in Ancient Greece; buildings towards the middle ranged from Renaissance-looking buildings to Victorian era mansions; building in the center and directly surrounding the center looked like it would have been right at home in New York City, skyscrapers included. How they could build such massive towers out of cloud was beyond me.

During the journey, whenever we weren't talking about Cloudsdale or its rich history, I found myself stealing glances at Twilight and thinking about my kiss from last night, my heart positively glowing. Every time I noticed myself doing this, I was quick to internally chastise myself as thinking about such wonderfully blasphemous things would only make it hurt worse during (and after) her inevitable rejection of me.

I also stole glances at Pinkie Pie, wondering how she was holding up. As we slowly got closer to our destination, her expression got more and more panicked, but also more and more conflicted, though she hid this inner turmoil behind a mask of enthusiasm whenever someone who wasn't me looked at her or talked to her. I was the only one who knew of her growing pain.

Shortly before we reached our destination, we were passing what Rainbow Dash told us was the Cloudsdale Police Station when a green-coated, blue-maned pegasus stallion was thrown out the front door of the police station only to land on the patch of cloud-sidewalk directly in front of us.

"And stay out, you stupid, caniving, bribe-taking sonuvabitch!" shouted an angry, yet familiar sounding voice from inside the building. The next moment, another pegasus stallion emerged from the police station, this one brown-coated, black-maned, and with a slight middle-aged look about him (though maybe his graying hair might've been a dead giveaway). His cutie mark was that of a magnifying glass; his eyes were a glowing pink.

At the sight of him, two things happened simultaneously: the pegasus on the ground quickly got up and flew away as fast as possible, apparently scared away, while Rainbow Dash jumped back and began whispering, "Ohmygoshohmygoshomygosh!"

Once the green pegasus was out of sight, the brown one turned to us and smiled apologetically. "Sorry about that," he said, his voice vaguely Italian sounding, "but he was taking bribes to keep us off the trail of a criminal we've been trying to catch for months."

I stared at him, wondering why his voice sounded so familiar. He didn't look familiar, he just sounded familiar. I'd heard that voice before, I was sure of it. But where...

"Y-you're Vice G-grip," stammered Rainbow Dash, gazing at the pegasus in awe, "world famous detective and... and author of the Daring Do books!"

Vice Grip smiled. "Yep, that's me, though I haven't written anything in a couple years." He looked at Rainbow Dash for a moment before a glint of recognition appeared in his eyes. "Hey, aren't you that pegasus who won the Best Young Fliers Competition?"

Dash nodded vigorously. "Yes, sir!"

"Well, good job on winning that," said Vice, chuckling. "You know what I always say..."

"Winning isn't everything," finished Dash, "it's the only thing!"

Upon hearing that, understanding and recognition immediately blindsided me.

"Oh! Now I know who you remind me of!" I exclaimed, facehoofing at my previous ineptitude. How could I not have seen it before? "You remind me of Vince Lombardi!"

Everyone stared at me.

"Who?" they all asked.

"Vince Lombardi!" I repeated, forgetting about secrecy for a moment. "He was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959-1967. He was probably the greatest coach in the history of football, if not all of professional sports."

"Football?" Lyra asked.

"Green Bay Packers?" questioned Rainbow Dash.

"Sorry, I'll have to explain later." I couldn't believe I'd forgotten to mention that stuff to them during out talk the previous day. "But he--" I pointed my hoof at Vice. "-- reminds me of Vince Lombardi. Even his catch phrase is the same. 'Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing'? Lombardi preached the same thing."

Vice gazed at me, deep in thought, for a few moments before saying, "Interesting... however, I need to go back inside now. There's a case, see..."

"Of course," said Twilight, nodding and beginning to push us along, "we won't disturb you anymore."

However, as we walked away, I noticed that Vice didn't go inside; instead, he continued to stand at the entrance of the Cloudsdale Police Station, watching us intently. I wondered why that was as we turned a corner and the detective vanished from sight.

A couple minutes later, we were approaching a large sports stadium that looked vaguely similar to the many I'd seen back home. Briefly, I wondered what sports pegasi played. I was sure they stadium wasn't only for events hosted by the Wonderbolts. There had to be more than that to justify such a huge venue.

In direct correlation with Pinkie Pie's growing panic and turmoil, as we approached the stadium, I could sense a growing nervousness coming from the direction of Rainbow Dash. To be honest, I was surprised she hadn't shown signs of this earlier. She'd been nervous through the entirety of the 'Sonic Rainboom' episode. Maybe it was due to the fact that, besides the Wonderbolts, we'd be the only ones watching.

Finally, we reached the entrance to the stadium. Walking inside, Lyra, Pinkie, twilight, and I made our way towards the stairs that led to our seats, while Rainbow Dash moved out towards the open stadium

Just before doing so, however, she turned to us. White-faced, and her sounding shaky, she said, "Wish me luck."

With that, she soared out into the stadium to face the Wonderbolts.