Twilight Breaks All of the Storm Chasing Safety Rules

Chapters

The Call
The Storm
The Aftermath

The Call

"I don't like that you accepted that weatherpony's proposal, Twilight," Celestia said as the door to their bedroom slammed behind them. "You know how dangerous wild tornadoes can be."

"I do know how dangerous they are, and it's why I accepted," Twilight countered.

"What, so is this some kind of twisted way to get a bit of excitement into your life? Am I that boring to you?" Celestia asked her wife.

"Tia!" Twilight shouted. "You know that's not what this is about!"

"Then what is it about?"

"It's about understanding them!"

"So you're throwing your life away to understand some rare weather patterns? That'll make a great note on your grave. 'Here lies Princess Twilight Sparkle, wife to Princess Celestia. She died studying the most obviously deadly phenomenon known to ponies."

"It's not about studying for the sake of studying, Celestia! It's about saving lives!"

"By throwing yours away?"

"Do you really think me that fragile?"

"They aren't safe!"

"Neither was facing Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, or Tirek, but that never stopped you from throwing me in harm's way before, did it?"

"That was different!"

"How was it different?"

"They're all living things. They can be reasoned with. A tornado is an unfeeling, unthinking, killing machine!"

"Yes, because Sombra would just love to sit down and talk things out over tea and crumpets."

"But, but..." Celestia stuttered, scrambling for a way to respond to that. "You're more important now than then. The circumstances have changed since you became a princess."

"Just what do you mean by that?"

"You have such a bigger role in the government now than you did when you faced all of those villains! Equestria can't afford to lose you now!"

"And it could before? Are you saying that my life was expendable before now?"

"How dare you accuse me of saying that! Of course your life was never expendable! No life is expendable!"

"Good, we agree. Since no life is expendable, we have to figure out how tornadoes work sooner rather than later."

"A princess's duties are to her people—"

"Which is why I have to do this!"

"Which is why you have to LIVE!" Celestia shouted back. "Do you have any idea how much worse everypony's lives would be if you died?"

"So am I just supposed to sit on my butt here in Canterlot all day doing nothing while ponies die out there from something I could stop with minimal effort? Just like you do?"

"Equestria NEEDS you in order to function, just like it needs Luna and me. You play a bigger role in the lives of our ponies than you ever did before. Getting yourself killed will hurt everypony!"

"Equestria won't exist at all if everypony gets killed by these wild tornadoes! We need to figure out how they work!"

"I'll tell you how they work! They move across the land, destroying everything in their path. Trees, buildings, ponies. Everything they come across is completely obliterated."

"You don't even know the first thing about them. What makes them form? What causes them to move in certain directions? Why are some more strong than others? If we could learn to predict where they're going to appear next, we could get ponies out of the way and save lives!"

"Want to know how we can learn where they're going? We have eyes!"

"Do you think all the ponies who have been killed by them are blind? Or do you think they're all too stupid to think to get out of the way? You think you're so much better than these dumb peasants, don't you!"

"I do NOT think that!" Celestia screamed back. "I'm not the one trying to get herself killed in the futile hope that we might be able to better understand the un-understandable! Are you just trying to get away from me that badly?"

"I'm NOT trying to leave you, Celestia, I'm trying to save lives!"

"By throwing away your own!"

"ARGH!" Twilight screamed. "How absolutely TYPICAL for you, Celestia! Throwing away the lives of our little ponies to try and make yourself happy!"

Celestia gasped. "How dare you! You, you... AAARGH!" With a light of her horn, Celestia blinked away.

Twilight screamed and stormed over to their bed. She slammed her hooves down onto their mattress hard enough to completely destroy the bed frame underneath it, before shoving her face into a pillow and screaming into it.

"Why won't she just LISTEN to me? Can't she see that it's for the greater good? More ponies will die if we continue to let these wild tornadoes ravage Equestria. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID IDIOT!"

Twilight repaired the bed frame with magic before stomping over to the door leading out of the bedroom, nearly ripping it off its hinges as she left, startling both of the royal guards who were stationed outside of it.

"Your highness, are you—" one of the guards began to ask.

"I'm FINE! I'm going to the library and I do not wish to be disturbed until dinner!" She yelled, cutting the guard off.

Twilight was well aware of the whispers floating around the cafeteria as she ate alone. Obviously the rumor mill was up and running at the sight of her eating dinner without Celestia for the first time since the two had gotten married. She tried her best to ignore them, but without anything to distract her, all she could do was pick out individual words from the amalgamation of quiet conversations going on around her.

Finally deciding she wasn't hungry, she stood up and placed her mostly uneaten dinner on a cart to be taken back into the kitchens for washing before heading back up to her room. Her time in the library had been a complete loss, finding herself much too angry to concentrate on reading. Her anger had been fading ever since she arrived at the cafeteria, and was little more than annoyance by this point. Thinking back, there was a lot she regretted saying in her fight with her wife, as well as a lot she regretted not saying.

Twilight definitely wasn't expecting for Celestia to be in their bedroom when she walked in, but was somehow still disappointed that she wasn't.

"A list," She muttered to herself. That was what she needed. She needed to make a list of everything she was sorry for in that fight. That being said, while there was a lot she was sorry for when it came to the fight, she still felt the same amount of conviction that she was in the right. Ponies were dying, and Twilight was far and away the best pony for the job. What she and Celestia needed to do was have a calmer discussion with more "I" statements and less "you" statements. Using her magic, she pulled some ink bottles, paper, and quills toward her to begin working.

The sun had long since set by the time Twilight heard the door to her balcony open. She looked up to see her wife walk in. Celestia looked like she'd had a rough evening. Her wings were drooping, her posture was slumped, and her bloodshot eyes were firmly cast to the ground.

"I'm sorry."

Celestia looked up to her wife, surprised that those were the first words out of her mouth.

"Celestia, I'm so, so sorry for what I said to you this afternoon. My emotions were running high, and I just... said some things I didn't mean. That's not a excuse, I know, but... It's what happened."

"I understand, Twilight," Celestia said. "I also said quite a few things I regret. I just... I'm scared. We both know how dangerous those things are, and you want to get close to one of them. You have absolutely no idea how much that frightens me. I don't think I could take it if something happened to you."

Twilight wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she put it off until she could think of something. "I made a list of things that I'm sorry I said."

Celestia chuckled. "Of course you did, sweetheart."

Twilight gave a small chuckle. "Can I go through the list? It would make me feel a lot better."

"Twilight, there's almost nothing that I would stop you from doing if it would make you feel better."

Twilight pulled a cushion out for her wife to sit across their tea table. "To start with, I'm sorry that I brought up you sending me off to fight all of those villains as a way to accuse you of intentionally putting my life in danger. I could have said no to any of them, but didn't because I also knew it was what needed to be done. Furthermore, you tried to stop me from fighting Tirek, so bringing him up was doubly unfair."

"I, in turn, apologise for giving the illusion that I was doing that. Even if you don't believe it, the fact that it could be believed at all is something I've done wrong. I also apologise for accusing you of wishing to throw your life away. You care deeply about our ponies, and I sometimes worry that you would put yourself in harms way if it meant one of our ponies could sleep a little easier. Just because that's something I worry about, however, does not make it true."

Twilight thought for a moment. "I suppose it is a little true. I do care deeply for our ponies, and if there's something that I could do to help, then it eats away at me until I do it. I didn't realize how much it hurts you to think that I would willingly hurt myself, and I'm sorry. I'm also sorry that I accused you of thinking that the lives of our ponies are expendable. It was a horrible thing to say, especially since it's not true."

"I will not lie, Twilight, that comment really hurt me. Especially because I can legitimately see why somepony may believe that, doubly so given what I was saying at the time. I apologise for even giving a little bit of legitimacy to the idea that I may believe that lives are expendable. There is no circumstance in which that should even be considered, and yet my words forced you to believe, even if it was in a moment of passion and anger, that I did believe it. There is no excuse for that. I apologise that I made you have to consider that I would think such a thing."

"I don't think that's something you need to apologise for, Tia, I was the one who made the accusation," Twilight argued.

"Well, that's just something we'll have to disagree on."

Twilight thought for a moment. "I guess if we're both insisting that the we should be the one to apologise, then mare-ing up and accepting each other's apology is probably our best bet. I'll forgive you for making me think that you believe life is expendable if you'll forgive me for thinking it."

"I do." Celestia chuckled.

"That's all settled then. I'm sorry for accusing you of looking down on the tornado victims. Even if you were blaming them for being a victim— which you weren't— it wasn't right for me to try to use them against you."

"You were right though. I was blaming the tornado victims. I should know better than to engage in victim blaming, yet in the moment, I did to try and beat you in the fight. I was angry, we both were, but you were right to call me out on that."

"I wasn't right for what I said after, though. There is no universe in which it was okay for me to accuse you of throwing away the lives of our ponies so that you'd be comfortable. I'm so, so sorry that I said that. There's absolutely no excuse for that, and you have every right to be angry at me for that. Hay, you are probably obligated to be angry at me for that."

Celestia was silent for a moment as she chose her next words carefully. "I... don't think I'm quite ready to forgive you for that one, Twilight. It hurt me when you said that. We're supposed to be a team, a single functioning unit. There's no room for accusing each other of using ponies like that in a marriage, and yet... you did. I believe I may forgive you for that eventually— in fact I have no doubt that I will— but..."

"You aren't ready for that yet," Twilight finished. "I understand, believe me, I do. Nopony should ever be accused of that, and to have your wife do that? I don't know if you should forgive me for that."

"Well, it's a little different when it's a pony you love, who said it in the heat of the moment, and you know they didn't mean it. But it hurts nonetheless."

"That's perhaps the thing I'm most sorry for," Twilight said. "That I didn't say 'I love you.'"

"I can forgive you for that, at least," Celestia chuckled. "I suppose we've covered everything from the fight then?"

"No, not yet. We still need to resolve the disagreement between us."

"Are you sure that's wise? We just finished apologizing for our last fight; do we really want to have another?"

"We aren't going to have another— at least not tonight— because this won't be a fight. We're going to have a nice, calm discussion where we both say how we feel about it, and we're not going to accuse each other of anything. I think something that we can both agree on, is that the longer it takes us to come to a conclusion, the more ponies will get hurt. This is an important topic, Celestia, and we can't afford to avoid it just because it makes us uncomfortable."

"When did you get so wise? Last time I checked, I was over a thousand years your senior. How are you suddenly the one dispensing in the wisdom?"

The two shared a laugh at that.

"I still want to do it," Twilight said seriously. "I can't stand idly by and let ponies get hurt, Celestia. You know I can't."

"But... It's dangerous, Twilight. You could get hurt, or worse!"

"I have to do it because it's dangerous. I could never forgive myself if somepony else got hurt doing something I could have done."

"But I could never forgive myself if you got hurt doing something I could have prevented. Twilight, I don't know if I could live with myself if you... if something happened to you out there. You know this, but those thousand years spent alone were the worst period of my life, and it took me years to drag myself out of the depression it put me in, and I'm still affected by it."

Twilight didn't say anything for a few moments. "I... I'm aware of how much you're affected by that, Tia, but I promise you, I'll be safe. I'm a big girl now, I can take care of myself."

"It doesn't always have to be you who puts her life on the line, Twilight. I know you have this... idea, in your head. That you need to do everything for our ponies in order to be a good leader, and I was definitely no help with squashing those ideas."

"You're right, Celestia, it doesn't always have to be me, but this time, it does. Who else could do this other than me?"

"I don't know, maybe somepony who knows more about weather than you? Perhaps one of the Wonderbolts? They have to know about weather, and they're some of the most daring and experienced fliers around."

"A Wonderbolt is just one pony, and if we're to gather enough information to understand these things, we're going to need more data than a Wonderbolt could gather on their own. We'd need the whole fleet of them to monitor several tornadoes to gather even a tenth as much data as I could from just one."

"A unicorn then. One that's specially trained in both combat and magic scanning."

"The best a normal unicorn could do would be to scan the debris that the tornado flings around. As an alicorn, I can use magic to scan the air itself, and get a much more comprehensive model of not only the tornado, but the storm around it as well. Not to mention what would they even do if they got caught up in the tornado with no way to control what happens to them in the air. It has to be an alicorn that does this."

"I could do it then, or Luna."

"No. The two of you are needed to raise the sun and moon; if something happened to you, then the whole world would suffer. And we both know it can't be Cadance, since she has a daughter to raise. I'm quite literally the only pony who can do this, Celestia."

"But what if you get hurt? What if you break your legs, or your wings? What if you damage your horn? Magic is such an important part of your life, and to have it taken away from you like that..."

"If I do get hurt, I have a very wonderful wife that will take care of me. If I lose my legs or wings, I won't be any less of a pony, and I would gladly give up my magic if it meant saving lives."

"What if you die? What am I supposed to do then? What is Equestria supposed to do without you? What of your friends? What of your family? What of our ponies? Don't you see how much your death would affect them?"

"Those are valid points, but I'll be careful. I'm not very fragile, Celestia, I know how to take a couple hits. And besides, if things ever get really dicey, I'm an accomplished mage, perhaps the most talented to ever live. If I ever do get in a situation where my life is in danger, I can just teleport away."

"It's precisely that overconfidence that worries me, Twilight. You aren't invincible, and if you don't respect the danger that you're in, you're more likely to be hurt by it."

"Celestia, I promise you, I will be careful. Please trust me enough to not get cocky. Did you not compliment my wisdom only a little bit ago? I'm not some clueless filly, or some overconfident colt. I'm a grown mare with a good head on her shoulders. Please trust me enough to do this."

Celestia was silent for a long time after that, and Twilight was content to let her wife work through her thoughts and emotions.

"Okay," Celestia eventually whispered. "I get it, this is something you have to do. But please, Twilight, swear to me; swear that you will be careful. Please."

Twilight stood up from her cushion and walked around the table to grasp Celestia's hoof in her own. "I promise you, Celestia. I will be careful," She said, looking directly into her wife's eyes.

"Thank you," Celestia said, pulling Twilight into a hug. The two cuddled for a long while after that. Eventually, Celestia yawned.

"Getting tired?" Twilight asked, to which Celestia merely nodded in response. "Let's get to bed then."

The two headed towards the bathroom to brush their teeth before making their way over to their bed. Celestia climbed in, but Twilight hesitated.

"Aren't you coming?" Celestia asked.

"Are you sure you want me to, after what I said?" Twilight asked in response.

"Yes, Twilight. I'm still upset about that, but I'm not going to kick you out of our bed over it. Please come join me."

Twilight crawled onto the mattress and settled underneath Celestia's raised wing. Soon, the only sounds in the room where the gentle snores of two ponies sleeping.

The Storm

Twilight's eyes fluttered open as the rising sun began to shine directly onto her face. She instinctively reached over across the bed she was lying in to get in some last minute cuddles with her wife before the day began, but upon finding nopony else there, the events of the past month came back to her. Deciding to study the tornadoes, creating a weather scanning spell with the help of Rainbow Dash, finding a way to remotely record the data, and heading out to the settlement that had been hit with the most tornadoes to hopefully get some data on them.

Yawning, Twilight made her way over to the window to look over the oak homes of Bull Town. She had been staying here for just over a week, and the cattle had shown the utmost hospitality toward her. She got the feeling that their hospitality was not just because of her crown, or because she was offering a potential way to stop the destruction of their homes, but just how they are. A smile graced her lips as she saw a couple calves run out of their house and down the street towards the nearby park.

Turning away from the window, she grabbed her hairbrush, toothbrush, and toothpaste in her magic as she trotted over to the bathroom. The grooming tools rushed about her head in a whirlwind as she made herself presentable for the outside world.

She greeted the various cattle she passed by as she made her way to a diner for breakfast, and paused to take a few pictures with some of the calves that asked for one. Her breakfast was good, though nothing compared to Spike's cooking. The thought of her little brother dampened her mood a little. He had tried to convince her to let him come with her, but she had refused and they got into a bit of an argument. Ultimately Twilight was able to convince him to stay back at the castle to keep Celestia company in her stead while she was out.

Twilight chuckled as she remembered her wife poking fun at the situation, and how it was payback for their own disagreement.

Finishing up her food, she thanked the cooks for the meal and headed out to the house she was helping to fix up. Several of the houses in town had gotten hit by some of the smaller tornadoes, and had some moderate damage. Since Twilight had nothing to do until the next big storm, she had been all too happy to help out with the renovations. The current project was fixing the roof on a house that had its old one completely ripped off.

It was an hour after the construction crew had wrapped up their lunch break when one of the younger cows ran up to her.

"Princess Twilight!" she called out. "It looks like there's a storm brewing to the west!"

Twilight gently set the hammer she was floating in her magic down. "Thanks for telling me, I'm going to take a look."

Twilight took to the air to get a better view, and saw that there was a tower of fluffy cumulus clouds rising very quickly over a darker base. The top of the tower had begun to shoot out towards the village. Her brow furrowed as she continued to watch the system develop. The top of the cloud had developed into a long flat section, not unlike an anvil. Beneath the anvil, the clouds appeared to be moving to the right, but the storm itself didn't appear to be moving at all.

Twilight lowered herself back to the ground where a crowd had gathered to hear what she had seen.

"Listen up, everypony," she began. "Er... everycattle, I mean. There's a storm system coming, and it looks nasty. I'm going to go out to observe it a little closer. While I'm out there, I want you all to get everycattle in town down below ground. I want you all to stay there until the storm has passed. Once the storm has passed, I'll be back to review the data. Understood?"

The cattle dispersed to spread the word as Twilight made her way back to the inn she was staying at. The basement held a data receiver she had set up to remotely record the data she was gathering from the storm. She quickly flapped her wings to get some wind blowing down there, and began to magically scan the air around her. Happy that the device was working, she teleported out to a field closer to the storm.

Taking stock of her surroundings, Twilight noted a vast open field in front of her, and the oak forest where the cattle had been gathering the wood to repair the houses that were damaged by the storms. The portions of the fields that weren't beneath the storm were depleting as the storm rolled in.

Now that she was closer to the storm, it was a lot easier to see that the whole thing was rotating counter-clockwise. The clouds closer to her were moving left to right, whereas the clouds further back in the storm were moving right to left. There didn't appear to be any precipitation quite yet, at least none that was reaching the ground, so she had an unimpeded view of the storm.

Twilight closed her eyes and lit her horn. Breathing out, she centered herself. The scanning spell itself wasn't too complex, but casting it over the entire storm would be incredibly difficult. She was reasonably certain that nopony else in Equestria had enough magical strength to attempt such a thing. Even Celestia and Luna would likely struggle to output enough magic to get a full scan of a storm of this size.

Luckily for Twilight, her magical strength had been growing exponentially ever since she became an alicorn, and she had more than enough strength to get it all. That being said, there was still a lot the spell was keeping track of, and concentration would be the biggest difficulty for this task.

Finally, once Twilight was fully centered, she began to draw upon her unicorn and pegasus magic to cast the spell. After a full minute, the spell was ready to go. Twilight opened her eyes to make sure that she was aiming correctly, and the storm took on a magenta hue as her magic took hold.

Twilight staggered from the force of the magic she was outputting, and almost fell due to the lack of concentration the spell took to keep going. Twilight clenched her teeth and planted her hooves firmly below her and slowly got used to holding the spell.

By the time Twilight felt stable enough to walk, the storm was nearly upon her, and had increased in intensity. Twilight looked up towards the clouds to get a visual on what was going on. Lightning flickered across the sky, and occasionally wandered its way down to the ground, in a chaotic branching mess that Twilight thought Discord might appreciate.

As the storm began to roll over her, Twilight noticed something peculiar in the clouds. There appeared to be what looked like a giant horseshoe shape in the clouds. That's odd, Twilight thought. I wonder what could be causing that. Tapping into the scans, Twilight noticed some concentrated rotation near the north end of the horseshoe, and the rest of the storm seemed to be feeding it.

Twilight stared at the north end of the horseshoe as the rotation became more and more visible. The lightning seemed to change; instead of the branching and flickering that had characterized the earlier bolts, they seemed much smoother and were comprised of a single bright flash rather than many. Suddenly the clouds at the top of the horseshoe seemed to be descending, and soon, there was a tornado on the ground. Twilight checked to make sure that the spell was still going fine, and that she had captured the formation of the tornado, and was relieved to find that the spell was going fine.

It was beautiful. Twilight gawked openly at the sight of the tornado on the ground. It was a thin fragile thing at first, but it quickly picked up dust and took on a much darker and more sinister look. It appeared to be frozen in place, and Twilight was content to just watch it if it wasn't going to go anywhere. She levitated a stray stone she had found lying near her out in front of her to make sure that the tornado wasn't moving subtly left or right, but it stayed perfectly centered on the stone.

It was then that the clouds finally began to let loose the rain that it had built up. Twilight watched as it fell in sheets around the tornado, quickly moving from left to right. It looks sort of like a curtain, she mused as she watched the rain.

Twilight's ear twitched. A faint roaring sound could be heard from the direction of the tornado. How odd, she thought. Is it getting stronger? Twilight closed her eyes to check in on the scanning data, only for them to fly open in shock.

"450 kilometers per hour?" she cried out in shock. "I didn't even think it was possible for tornadoes to have wind speeds so high! Hay, I didn't even it was possible for air to move that fast in general without magical interference."

Twilight continued to stare in shock at the utter beast before her as the roaring grew louder and louder. The rain was coming down harder by the second, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to see where the tornado actually was.

Suddenly the wind around her intensified considerably, and seemed to be pulling her away from where the tornado last was. She turned away to see what was happening, only to be greeted by a smaller, but significantly closer tornado that was right on top of her.

Twilight screamed as she felt her hooves leave the ground. The smaller tornado carried her for a bit, before she managed to use her magic to increase the force of gravity on herself. She grunted as she hit the ground after falling out of the smaller tornado, but was hopelessly disoriented and bruised from some of the debris that was picked up with her.

This is crazy, Twilight thought frantically. If I don't get out of here right now, I could get seriously injured, or worse. Twilight looked around, finding the forest from earlier just behind her, but could not see the tornado. She tapped back into the scanning spell to try to locate the tornado, only to be horrified that it was quickly approaching her, and would be right on top of her in less than two minutes.

Twilight quickly decided that she wasn't particularly fond of trees getting in the way of her and a view of the tornado, so she turned and ran to the south. She barely made it ten seconds before slamming into harsh winds and heavy rain. She tried to run through it, but the wind seemed to be pushing her back to the northeast, and the rain had quickly given way to hail that was rapidly growing from the size of a pebble to the size of a bit, and larger still.

Deciding that continuing deeper into the hail was not a great idea, she turned around and ran into the forest. She ran as fast as she could, ducking between the trees. The roaring of the tornado sounded like it was coming from everywhere, and was so loud. It's probably in the forest with me, Twilight's mind wizzed. The sound has to be coming from the leaves getting ripped from the branches.

Her head whipped to the right as a loud cracking came from right beside her, only to see the tree that she was passing by was twisting and began to fall away from her and towards where the tornado was. The same horrible sounds of the trees being cleaved apart were now coming from all around her, as the tornado began to tear its way through the forest towards Twilight.

Twilight skidded to a stop as she ran right into a dead end. Trees were down in front of her and to both sides, and behind her was the tornado. She frantically looked around for some way to get out of this when suddenly, pain exploded across her face and right over her eyes.

Twilight cried out as her front leg whipped up to her face. She could feel the deep cut that went across her face and went directly over her eyes. Luckily, whatever had hit her didn't seem to cut too deeply, but unluckily, she couldn't see anything anymore.

This was it, Twilight was done for. She had nowhere to go, and even if she did, she had no way of seeing where she would be going, and would more than likely just run face first into a tree, or twist her leg by stepping into a hole.

She thought about her friends, and wondered how they would receive the news of her death. She thought of her family, and how she had promised them that she would be safe, but had failed them. Mostly though, she thought of her wife. Celestia was right, trying to understand tornadoes was a stupid idea that would only end in tragedy. She could at least take comfort in the fact that the data the spell would leave behind would be able to help Equestria, and she would be the last pony to be killed by a tornado.

Wait, Twilight thought. The scanning spell! I can use that to see. She tapped into the spell to gain more insight into her surroundings. The tornado was rushing towards her, but she still had a good 15 seconds to do something. The memories of her friends panicking in the old castle that night came back to her, as did the memories of Shining Armor teaching her defensive spells when she was a filly.

Suddenly, Twilight had a plan, and things weren't looking so hopeless after all. Tapping into her earth pony magic, she quickly cast the same spell she had used to freeze her friends in place on herself, locking her in place. There was no way she could get tossed around by even the strongest of forces with this spell on her. She began to pay much closer attention to the area immediately surrounding her in the scanning spell.

A large chunk of a tree was hurtling towards her. She tried to form a shield around her, but between the strain from the locking spell and the scanning spell, a barrier was all that she was able to muster. Still, it worked well enough to deflect the debris away from her.

Twilight used barriers to block more and more debris as the tornado bore down upon her.

She knew she was inside of it when the wind started ripping away at her mane and feathers. Suddenly it was a lot harder to keep herself locked in place as the tornado fought her for control.

The tornado's roar was almost deafening now. Luna could be shouting right next to her at full volume, and she probably wouldn't be able to hear her. Twilight's ears popped, as the air pressure dramatically decreased around her, and she began to pant as breathing became a lot harder.

This was a stupid plan! Twilight thought. Why did I decide to try to resist the tornado when I could just teleport away?

Twilight tried to muster up enough magic to escape, but she couldn't afford to let any of her current spells stop to concentrate on teleporting. If she let the scanning spell go, she would be totally clueless as to what was going on around her, and would be clobbered by all the debris that the tornado was hurling around her. If she let the locking spell go, she would get swept up by the tornado, and would just as likely teleport herself dozens of feet below the ground as to safety. If she let the barriers go, there was nothing stopping the large bits of trees from knocking her out. She was well and truly stuck in this position.

Twilight could feel her legs and horn grow tired as the force of the magic she was throwing around began to wear down on her. She just needed to keep going until the tornado passed overhead.

After what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a couple minutes, the wind began to die down as the tornado passed over her. Not being one to take chances, Twilight waited until the wind had died down to the point where it was less than 50 kilometers per hour. Still strong, but not dangerous to her.

Twilight nearly collapsed as the adrenaline ebbed away, leaving her exhausted from how much energy she had spent. Her legs were sore and her horn was aching, she had small cuts and bruises all over her body from where smaller sticks and rocks had made it past her barriers, and she was barely keeping herself awake, but she was alive.

She did it. She had somehow survived a direct encounter with the strongest tornado Equestria had ever seen. A feeling of triumph unlike anything she had ever felt before flooded through her veins, and suddenly she was completely re-energized.

She checked the scanning spell to make sure it was still collecting data on the whole storm, and hadn't deteriorated from her direct hit with the tornado. She was amazed to find that the spell was still going strong, and didn't seem to have stopped collecting data at all. She did notice something peculiar, however.

There appeared to be a smaller mass of air coming out of the back of the tornado that was feeding it. The wind speeds, while not matching the absurdity of the tornado's core, were still nearly 200 kilometers an hour. She marveled as it appeared to snake its way through the path of destruction the tornado left behind.

Wait, Twilight thought. If that... thing is moving through the path of destruction, and I was directly hit by the tornado, that means...

Panicking, Twilight tried to run, but was quickly caught up in the winds and sent hurtling towards a tree trunk that had the upper portion completely ripped off by the storm. Pain exploded across her hind legs as they slammed directly into the tree, and she was sent spinning as the winds continued to carry her through the ruined forest. Twilight cried out as her entire body impacted another tree. The world was spinning faster than the tornado as Twilight finally fell out of the winds.

Twilight didn't know how long she laid there at the base of the tree, and was only vaguely aware of the sun setting as she slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

Author's Note

Metric to imperial conversions:

450 kmph ≈ 280 mph (which would be the 4th strongest tornado if it happened on earth)
200 kmph ≈ 125 mph
50 kmph ≈ 30 mph

The Aftermath

Twilight was vaguely aware of her surroundings. She was pretty sure that she was lying down, but couldn't be certain. For all she knew, she was balancing on only her forelegs with the rest of her body in the air. She thought that there were voices around her, but couldn't tell what they were saying, or even what they sounded like.

She tried to recall how long she had been in this state, but time seemed to be nothing but an abstract concept at this point, and memories were just not sticking.

Eventually she got tired and slipped back into unconsciousness.

Twilight wasn't entirely sure when she regained the ability to form memories again, but she could now. She tried to open her eyes to see what was around her, but oddly found that she wasn't able to. She felt... something wrapped around her head that was restricting her ability to open her eyes. She briefly wondered if she was blindfolded for some reason.

As Twilight became increasingly aware of her surroundings, she guessed she was on a bed of some sort, with a blanket covering her. She wasn't sure how she ended up here, and the last thing she remembered before now was... She was in that town with all the cattle. She had gone out to do some magic scans of a storm, and ended up getting hit by the tornado.

Twilight grimaced as she remembered the wind slamming her into two trees. If she had gotten as hurt as she felt, and wasn't still in a lot of pain, and was lying down, she was probably in a hospital of some kind.

Paying more attention to her surroundings, there didn't seem to be anypony around. Maybe it was late at night? The thought made her feel tired again, and she failed to hold down a yawn. Shifting into a slightly more comfortable position, she eventually found herself drifting off once again.

When Twilight next came to, she was vaguely aware that her left forehoof was held slightly aloft, and somepony appeared to be holding it there. It took Twilight a moment to remember how to move her hoof, but when she finally did, the pony holding it gasped and dropped it.

"Twilight? Are you awake?" Twilight heard her wife ask.

Twilight tried to respond, but her mouth was far too dry to form any sounds beyond a few grunts. In the end, she decided that nodding her head would be good enough to let her wife know she was awake.

"Oh dear Harmony, Twilight, you have no idea how worried everypony was about you," Celestia said as she gently embraced her wife. Twilight found it odd that Celestia was treating her so gently. Usually her wife wouldn't hold back and give bone-crushing hugs, so being treated as if she could break at any moment was more than a little jarring for Twilight. "Stay right there, I need to inform the doctor that you're awake. I'll be right back, I promise."

Twilight tried to respond with 'I don't think you have to worry about me running off', but all that came out were a few groans and coughs. While she was waiting for Celestia to get back with the doctor, she tried to move around a bit, but still felt fairly sluggish.

Eventually, she heard two sets of hoofsteps approach her bed. "Princess Twilight, are you awake? Princess Celestia informed me that you seemed lucid."

Twilight nodded her head, and tried to say 'water', but what came out was more of a 'wah-ah'.

"Did you say 'water'?" the doctor asked, and Twilight nodded again. "There's some on the table next to your bed. You can have some if you're feeling well enough to sit up, otherwise, we're going to have to stick with the IV line."

Twilight tried to shuffle herself into a sitting position, but was unable to do so. For some reason, her hind legs just wouldn't listen to her. After a couple moments of struggling, Twilight felt her wife's magic encompass her and gently prop her up into a more upright position.

"Could you please hold out your hoof? I don't think you really want to spill it all over yourself reaching for it." Twilight did as she was told, and felt a smooth glass object be placed into her hoofs. Gingerly, she brought it up to her mouth and took a sip. The water was just about the most amazing thing she had ever tasted before, and felt heavenly as it slid down her throat. Once she had drank all of it, the glass was slowly taken from her grasp.

"Are you able to speak now, Princess?" the doctor asked.

Twilight cleared her throat and made another attempt at speaking. "I think so," she said slowly.

"Excellent. I have a few questions about how you're feeling, and then we can talk about what the future is going to look like for you." The doctor asked a few questions about pain in various parts of her body. Twilight was mostly fine, a little sore, but overall not too bad. The thing that worried her though was that she wasn't able to feel her hind legs at all.

"Okay, well, things do seem to be getting better at least," the doctor said. "Now, we're going to talk about your condition. I am obligated to tell you that there's nopony else in the room other than you, me, and your wife. I also must gain verbal permission from you before discussing your condition with another person in the room."

"I want Celestia here," Twilight said, reaching out to where she thought her wife was standing.

Twilight heard a few hoofsteps as Celestia moved to where her hoof was outstretched. She then heard a quiet thud as her wife sat down and grasped Twilight's hoof in her own once again.

"Alright then, let's start with the most pressing matter, your eyes. It looks like they got scratched up fairly badly, as you had a massive gash all across your face that cut into your eyes a bit. Luckily, the damage was not too catastrophic, and we think you might be able to see again one day, but we're reasonably certain that you're going to need glasses from here on out, and even then, your vision won't be what it once was."

Twilight had a hard time processing this. Her vision was going to be permanently affected. Would it affect her ability to read? Would she ever be able to see her wife's face again? "How sure are you that I'll be able to regain my vision?" she asked tentatively, suddenly finding herself very afraid of the answer.

The few seconds it took for the doctor to respond was one of the scariest moments of Twilight's life, even worse than when she was inside the tornado. "Well," she eventually said, "we'll never know for sure until we get those bandages off your eyes, but if I had to put a number on it, I'd say there's around a 70% chance you'll be able to gain some amount of vision."

There was a 30% chance Twilight would be blind for the rest of her life, and the thought terrified her. "How long will I have to keep the bandages on?" she asked.

"Most likely a month or two," the doctor responded. "We're going to be keeping tabs on how your eyes feel, and depending on a few different criteria they could come off as soon as five weeks, or as late as ten. We just can't be certain about that this far out."

Twilight almost started crying then and there. She was going to be completely blind for a month, possibly longer. And that's if she ever regained her vision at all. What stopped her was her wife squeezing her hoof and gently nuzzling the sides of their head together.

"Okay," Twilight said once she had calmed down, "I'm ready to continue."

"Please don't feel like you have to rush anything here, Princess. You can take all the time you need to take in the information. We also have a few counselors on staff to help ponies with potentially disabling injuries come to terms with the changes in their lives."

If Twilight was able to, she would have blinked in confusion. "Where are we, right now?" she asked.

"We're in Canterlot General Hospital, Your Highness," the doctor responded.

"Canterlot? But that's so far from Bull Town. How did I end up here?"

"Well, when the search party found you, they were able to bring you back to bull town for some initial care, but you were rushed to a hospital in Las Pegasus fairly quickly after we got the news. You spent a few days there before your condition improved enough to move you closer to home," Celestia responded.

"A few days?" Twilight asked. "How long was I out for?"

"You were unconscious for a little over a week."

"A week?!" Twilight asked.

"I'm afraid so, Your Highness."

The doctor let Twilight process the information for a bit, which she really appreciated. "What else is there?"

"Your legs were broken fairly bad, the bones were fractured in at least 3 places on each leg. You're not going to be walking for a long while, unfortunately. We're guessing you'll be walking on your own four hooves in six months to a year."

"Will I walk again?" Twilight asked.

"Oh yes, definitely. The damage was bad, but nothing that cannot heal with time."

"Okay," Twilight responded. "Is that all?"

"Unfortunately not. In addition to a few dozen cuts and bruises that should heal by the end of the week, your wings are in... bad condition. Several of your feathers appear to have been entirely ripped out of your wings, and the ones that remain are too damaged to be of any use. I'm afraid you're going to have to wait for all of your feathers to grow back before you can start flying, and that'll take up to three months from now."

"Okay," Twilight responded. Truthfully, she wasn't too broken up about her wings being non-functional for a while. She spent most of her life as a unicorn, and only had her wings for the better part of a decade by this point. Going without them for a while would be a lot easier than if her horn had been damaged. "Did anything happen to my horn?" Twilight asked.

"Nope, your horn is in excellent condition. Magic shouldn't be an issue for you. If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to answer them, otherwise I'll leave you here."

Twilight thought for a moment. "No, I think that's all, thank you."

"It's my pleasure to help," she responded. "There's a button to the side of your bed that you can use to call a nurse should you need anything and there's nopony around. I'll leave the two of you here for now."

Twilight heard the doctor's hoofsteps pause at the door. "Would you like me to send your... dragon friend in?" she asked.

"Do you mean Spike?" Twilight asked.

There were a few moments of silence before the doctor responded with a "If you mean the small purple dragon with the green spines, then yes."

"Yes, I would appreciate that very much," Twilight said.

Twilight heard the door open, and the sound of lighter footsteps rapidly came towards her.

"Twilight!" Spike yelled, scampering up onto her bed. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Is there anything you need?"

"Spike, please, give her a moment to gather her thoughts," Celestia said.

"I'm... not doing too well at the moment, Spike," Twilight said through grit teeth. "I messed up badly. I didn't know what I was doing out there, and..." Twilight was struggling to hold back tears at this point, afraid of any damage they could do to the healing process. "I'm so stupid!"

Celestia and Spike both took Twilight's shuddering form into a hug as they held her through the tears she could no longer suppress.

Twilight's eyes fluttered open. Like she did every morning ever since she was released from the hospital, she reached over to pull her wife close. Humming in quiet contentment, Celestia also reach out and pulled Twilight into her grasp. The two stayed like that for a good few minutes of snuggling before reluctantly parting.

Celestia left the bed to raise the sun from her balcony, and Twilight sat up and rubbed the last bits of sleep from her eyes. She lit up her horn to grab her glasses from the nightstand. The two months she had spent blind had done wonders for her spatial awareness, though it was but a small blessing from the mountain of pain she'd had to endure as a result of her little tryst with the tornado.

Her optometrist had suggested contact lenses, but Twilight favored the thick rimmed glasses because they did a better job of covering up the large scar that spanned her face. That, and Celestia thought she looked cute in them.

Once Celestia had come back into the room, she climbed back into the bed and began to preen Twilight's wings. Preening wasn't something Twilight used to enjoy very much, but now that her wings were back in perfect condition, preening was a reminder that she was healing, and wouldn't be so dependant on her wife soon. Although she would miss Celestia doting on her at every opportunity, she was eager to be back on her own four hooves.

After Celestia had finished working on Twilight's wings, she helped Twilight into her wheelchair, and brought her into the bathroom. Twilight did her business while Celestia brushed her teeth, and then the two swapped.

Soon, the wives were down in the castle's cafeteria, eating breakfast with a very sleepy Luna as they discussed their work. Apparently, a new horror movie had come out, and Luna would be stuck with helping foals— who were probably too young to have seen it— work through the nightmares it gave them for the foreseeable future. Celestia was dreading a day full of meetings with heads of business, who always seemed to want to weaken workplace safety regulations, no matter how hard Celestia shot them down. Twilight would be giving a public lecture on the results of her research on tornadoes at the Canterlot Weather Academy.

The three princesses bid each other luck (or a good sleep, in Luna's case) and went their separate ways. The rest of Twilight's morning was a rush of preparations, between making sure the visual aids she had brought were working, going over her lecture a few times, and making sure she looked her best.

Later in the afternoon, Twilight wheeled herself out in front of the audience who had come to hear the first time she would be speaking publicly about her encounter with the tornado, and it was packed to the brim. Even though she was in the large auditorium the academy hosted its more popular classes in, there wasn't a single seat left empty. More ponies still were sitting on the floor, and some were even on makeshift benches that were hanging from the ceiling to provide even more seating for pegasi.

Once the applause had died down, Twilight got into her lecture. Mostly it was about the technical aspects of tornadogenesis, and how she was able to build portable machines called Atmospheric Condition Surveyors, or ACS's, that used ambient magic to take atmospheric data and provide predictions of where severe storms would be. The laboratory test results had come in with 90% accuracy for 3 days into the future, and was even more accurate for shorter time frames.

Twilight very much doubted that anypony but the professors and graduate students understood much of what she said, but that was fine with her. If there were ponies willing to learn more about the magic of the world around them, she wasn't going to complain.

Twilight had scheduled some time for audience questions after the lecture, and as soon as she announced she would be doing so, nearly everypony in the room had a hoof raised. After looking around for a bit, she called on a pegasus who she noticed had been diligently taking notes during her lecture.

"If these ACS's you've created are able to accurately predict where severe weather might manifest, have you given any thought to ways to dispel storms that have already formed?" the pegasus asked.

"That's something the team has considered, but working with a scan of only one storm really limits how much you can do," Twilight responded. "We're hoping that the ACS's will provide us more data to work with, and use for more accurate predictions, and eventually maybe prevention. Unfortunately we just don't have enough information to have anything other than wild speculation on how to actually fight these storms. As such, the best way to save lives is by getting advanced warning out to ponies in danger of these storms so they can make sure to seek shelter."

The next pony Twilight called on was a young earth pony who looked as though he had only just become a stallion. "Can you talk about what happened when you actually went out to scan the tornado?"

Twilight cringed. She knew that many ponies would be curious about how the tornado had managed to do more damage to her than any of the villains she had faced before. She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment as she thought of how to answer the question in a responsible manner. She didn't want to glorify her experience and inspire more ponies to try to copy her, but she also didn't want to terrify any of the foals that were in the audience.

"I... don't want to sugarcoat any of what I went through. I nearly died many times, and only survived because I'm an alicorn, and even then I was nearly killed. I want to be as clear as I possibly can be here: tornadoes are dangerous. Please keep informed of the ACS's predictions, and don't put yourself in harm's way. The only reason I'm going to tell the story is in the hopes that you all will learn from the mistakes I made, and be able to make better decisions than I did."

The entire audience leaned forward, suddenly paying the utmost attention, unwilling to miss a single detail. Twilight guessed she could probably have heard a pin drop from the back of the auditorium.

"The first mistake I made was that I went in without an escape plan. In any dangerous situation, you should always have a plan to get out if things get worse, and I didn't. I went in overconfident that my magic would be enough to get me out of any situation, but I was wrong and I paid the price."

The audience gasped at the implications. Twilight Sparkle, the most magically talented pony to ever live, was not strong enough to fight the tornado. Twilight could see quite a few of the audience members shudder.

"My next mistake," Twilight continued, "is that I wasn't paying close enough attention to my surroundings. The first major surprise I had was when a smaller tornado that was orbiting the larger one— which we call a 'satellite tornado' by the way— nearly hit me from behind. If I had been paying more attention to what was going on around me, I would have been able to get out of the way. Because I didn't, I ended up distracted long enough to be directly in the sights of the larger parent tornado. The other major surprise came after the larger tornado had passed. Tornadoes have 'tails' which feed into them, providing more air as the tornado itself sucks the air up into the storm. We've called these the 'rear inflow jet', but sometimes refer to it as the 'ghost train'. These are just as dangerous as the main tornado, and should also be avoided at all costs."

Twilight wasn't sure how to feel about the myriad of ponies who had started taking notes. On one hoof, she was glad they were taking safety seriously, but she was also worried that the information she was giving out would cause the ponies to be overconfident and put themselves in danger. There wasn't much she could do about that now, so she continued with her discussion on her mistakes.

"My third mistake was that I didn't try to leave when I had the chance. The tornado I was observing became obscured by rain, and I lost my ability to track it. There was a region of the storm where somepony could see what looked like a wall of rain, but it was actually hiding the tornado inside of it. Some of the team members called this the 'bear's cage', where the tornado is the proverbial bear hiding inside. I should have tried to leave the moment I lost sight of the tornado."

Twilight took a breath to gather herself. "I want to be very clear. What I've just told you is nowhere near enough information to safely view a tornado. There is no truly safe way to observe one, and my hope in going over the mistakes I made is that it benefits ponies who find themselves unwittingly in the path of one. Please don't risk everything just to be able to look at one of them."

Twilight fielded a few more questions from the audience, mostly from some of the professors and students of the weather academy asking questions about the findings of her research.

Once the time she scheduled for the lecture had ended, she left the stage and made her way back to the castle. Some reporters had tried to intercept her to ask some more detailed questions about her story with the tornado, but she shot each of them down. She was still unsure if she had been too forthcoming about what had happened back at the academy, and was definitely uncomfortable giving as much detail as the media would have wanted from her. As far as she was concerned, the only ponies that needed to know the details of what happened were her immediate family, and her closest friends.

When Twilight arrived back at the castle, the sun was beginning to get low in the sky and she was completely exhausted. She briefly contemplated trying to get some work done, but figured it would probably be best to take a nap before dinner. She didn't want to make any mistakes while working on such an important project, and didn't trust herself to get things right given how tired she was. She wheeled herself up the newly installed ramps up to the bedroom she and Celestia shared, and eased herself out of the wheelchair and into the bed. She yawned as she gently laid her head onto the pillow and brought the blankets up around her with her magic. Her eyelids slowly closed as she drifted off to sleep.

Author's Note

If you have any questions about whatever happened, feel free to leave a comment, and I'll do my best to get back to you. I also want to reiterate what Twilight said in the fic. Tornadoes are dangerous. Please don't think that just because you've read this one story that you're ready to go out and chase a tornado. I have never actually gone out storm chasing, and most of what I know comes from what others have said.

If storm chasing is something that you're interested in, I once again recommend my primary source for this fic, which are Skip Talbot's videos on storm chasing safety. He does an excellent job of explaining the practical side of storm chasing, and I highly recommend watching the whole playlist before even considering going out.

Anyway, that's all from me. Thanks for reading and have a great day!