Rainbow Dash snickered to herself as she lay in wait, her breath turning to mist in the cold morning air. This time she'd get Applejack good.

She was sprawled out on the roof of Sweet Apple acres, not an unusual spot for her to nap, although she preferred the trees to the cold tiles. This time she needed the position though, so she'd brought a warm blanket.

It had been a pain to wake up earlier than the perpetually workaholic farm ponies, but she'd managed it with the help of two alarm clocks and a pot of coffee. She still had some left in her thermos.

She unscrewed the cork and took another sip of the hot bitter liquid as she went over her plan again. It would be a simple, yet very funny prank.

The Apple family had woken up, and by the sounds of it was having breakfast. Soon they'd emerge to start the day's chores. Big Macintosh would take the front door, seeing Apple Bloom off to school and shovel away the snow that had accumulated during the night. Then he'd make a passage to all the other buildings. Granny would stay inside, taking care of the washing up and Applejack...

Applejack would emerge through the back door and head straight for the trees. That's how the farmpony always started her workday, and Rainbow would be ready to strike.

This'd be fun.

Unbeknownst to the ponies inside there was a huge frozen rain cloud hovering above their backyard. It had been put there by a mischievous and brilliant pegasus.

Okay, it was a classic prank, one the rainbow maned prankster had pulled off countless times. Which was why she had cranked it up a few notches this time, brilliant and innovative.

Not only was the cloud bigger than average, it was also the middle of winter, hence when Dash bucked it it wouldn't release a light shower of rain, no it would plomp down a massive torrent of cold and wet snow.

Rainbow was positive that she could make even Applejack squeal after being greeted by the mother of all snow storms out of nowhere. It'd be a good laugh.

Rainbow silenced her snickering when she heard the front door open. The bright voice of Apple Bloom shouted a goodbye and the deep voice of her brother grunted something monosyllabic in response. Rainbow watched the smaller pony run off and the larger grab a shovel and start clearing the path.

The queen of pranking put down her coffee and rubbed her hooves together, any second now.

The back door opened and Rainbow heard the voice of her best friend exclaiming her dismay at the cold weather.

"Oh Applejack, it's going to get so much worse," Rainbow whispered as she slid out from the blanket, took to the sky and after a lightning quick arc up in the air she slammed hooves first into the overloaded cloud.

There was a rumble of thunder, the slush of half a cloud's worth of snow and the satisfying scream from the pony below.

And then more rumbling, and yet more, the whole cloud turned to snow under the enthusiastic assault of an expert weathermare.

Only too late did Rainbow realize that maybe, just maybe she'd gone too far. This was a bit much even for a tough pony like Applejack. Rainbow didn't want her best friend to be angry at her after all.

"Heh sorry AJ!" she called down at the pile of snow. "I got ya though!"

There was no reply.

Rainbow gulped, okay AJ would be mad.

"I said I was sorry!" This time she cupped both hooves over her mouth as she yelled.

Still no reply.

"Eh, Applejack?" Rainbow called out, getting a bit worried now that her friend wasn't emerging. There should be an angry mare sticking her head out of the snowheap now. There should be complaining about how Rainbow's pranking was going too far again.

There was no such thing.

"AJ?!" Rainbow tried again, getting more worried now, "I'll dig you out, okay?"

She had barely made a dent in the heap when the red shape of Big Macintosh appeared, shovel in hoof. He gave the mare standing on top of a massive pile of fresh snow in his backyard a really annoyed glare.

"Really RD," he huffed, "You didn't think we had enough snow already?"

Rainbow gave a nervous laugh, eyeing his shovel, it would be a really good thing if he started using that right now.

"No time to explain," she called and resumed shoveling snow off the top of the pile with her wings and hooves, "Help me dig!"

"What did you do?" Big Mac's eyes narrowed, "And where is Applejack?"

Something in her eyes must have given her away because his eyes grew wide as understanding dawned.

"Move!" He shouted before half a ton of earth pony barreled into the snowheap, shovel first.

"Granny!" He roared as he hacked away at the white mass that was slowly suffocating his sister.

"What's all them noise?" A cranky voice replied from inside the house. A wizened green muzzle could be seen through the kitchen window.

Rainbow froze, panic rising as she realized what she had just done to their beloved family member.

Luckily for her, or rather lucky for Applejack, Big Mac was not paralyzed with the same fear and guilt.

"AJ," he huffed breathlessly, his hooves working frantically as they threw shovel after shovel full of snow across his shoulder, "Trapped, beneath snow!"

"Shit!" the green mare swore as the seriousness of the situation sank in.

Normally Rainbow would have been impressed by the spryness as the ancient mare leapt through the window, grabbed one of the spare shovels and started to frantically hack away at the mound imprisoning her granddaughter. Normally, this time she was all too taken by the sheer desperation in Granny's eyes.

Rainbow just stood there and watched as the two apples did everything in their power to save their family member, to save Rainbow's best friend. Rainbow's best friend whom she'd just... just…

A tap of a shovel knocked her out of her panicked stupor.

"Ye's dig too ya useless featherbrain!"

For a second Rainbow rubbed at her head where the shovel had struck, it was probably going to leave a bruise, then she jumped into action.

She was Rainbow "Danger" Dash and this was beneath her. She didn't panic, she saved the day! She had bucked up, yes but she could fix this. She was a fucking Wonderbolt for Celestia's sake, and this was just snow. Just a few inches of common damned snow standing between her and her best friend, as if that'd stop her.

"I'm coming AJ!" She shouted as she resumed her effort to paw at the mound beneath her. She'd already managed a sizable crater in the white matter.

It took all the combined strength of all three ponies working their flanks off to off to get Applejack out of the snow.

But by the time that they did, it was already too late.

Author's Note

Prompt was Snow, the story of a prank gone horribly wrong.

Alternative title: 28 Minutes later.