Please Save My Little Creatures (and All Their Myriad Nests)
Rainbow Dash and several of her friends huddled on the beach. Behind Rainbow, the sky over the ocean had already turned greenish, heralding a severe storm's approach.
"A hurricane...is the empress of storms," explained Rainbow. "You can't just make a hurricane do whatever you want it to. The local weather ponies should have planned ahead."
Fluttershy said softly, "But when that storm hits land, millions of little birdies and bunnies are going to lose their nests."
"Not to mention everypony who built their homes less than eighteen inches above mean sea level all up and down the Flora Da coast," added an orange earth pony, who wore two coal-burning chainsaws in matching holsters.
Around him, many other Flora Da ponies nodded. "That's pretty much all of us," explained a magenta pegasus wearing sandals. "Good building lots are scarce down here, and ponies don't want the government telling us where we can and can't build a shack."
Applejack ran out onto the beach, with a bridle-and-reins set balanced on her back. "Sorry Ah'm late, everypony. But Ah had to get Rainbow an anniversary present."
Rainbow blushed.
Applejack put her lips close to Rainbow's ear. "Dashie...if'n you can bridle that storm an' steer it way back out to sea, Ah'll do somethin' nice for you."
Rainbow thought very hard, for several minutes.
"Everypony!" Rainbow said. "Hurricanes gain their power from massive upwellings of hot air. To attack the hurricane's power, I need everypony to think suspicious and rude thoughts about each other."
"Even the birds and bunnies?" Fluttershy asked.
"ESPECIALLY the birds and bunnies!" Rainbow demanded.
Within minutes, an entire beachful of ponies and other creatures were giving each other the side eye. Arguments broke out, filling the air with grumbles, accusations, and even some angry shouts.
Clouds filled the sky, and the air temperature fell until ponies shivered.
"I don't think this is working," Twilight said nervously. "The weather is just getting worse!"
"Your MOM is getting worse!" Rainbow Dash said.
"What? That doesn't even make sense."
"Your MOM doesn't make sense!" Rainbow retorted. "Because I've got everything under control!"
"I don't think you have the foggiest notion what you're doin'!" Applejack's Flora Da cousin, Hippomane Manchineel Apple, gestured at the darkening sky overhead.
A moment later, the dark clouds coalesced into a shape like an enormous cloud monster, continually shedding hail and sleet like dandruff. The monster's head was like a horse's, with eyes that glowed a chilling shade of blue.
"AJ!" Rainbow shouted over the wind's wailing. "I need somepony who's good with ropes to make the biggest halter-and-reins set that's ever been!" She pointed with one wing at the circling monster.
"Ah'm on it!" Applejack yanked a coiled rope out of her saddlebags. She wove and knotted faster than the eye could see, creating a halter capacious enough to harness a sea serpent or an ancient T. Rexaponus. "This big enough, Rainbow?"
Rainbow accepted the halter. "Might be! I'll give it my best try!" She grabbed the halter with her mouth, flew up to the enormous circling monster, and shoved the halter onto its head.
The monster struggled and bucked, but Rainbow held the reins in her teeth as all four of her sleekly muscled legs gripped the monster's neck tightly. Rainbow tilted her head as she pulled the reins to one side, wrestling the windigo out towards the sea.
Everypony watched the windigo vanish in the distance, and within minutes the weather cleared up.
"Huh," Pinkie said. "Since Rainbow rode away, we've almost got our beachgoing weather back again." She started smearing suntan lotion on her body.
"Ah don't QUITE get what Rainbow's plan is," Applejack admitted. "But Ah trust she knows what she's doin'."
An hour later, a Flora Da pony sighted Rainbow returning, the weatherpony's wings beating slowly with weariness.
Applejack and Pinkie Pie rowed a boat out to meet Rainbow, who gratefully landed on the refuge. "Ha," she said. "I never knew I could be this happy NOT to have to fly."
When the boat returned to shore, Rainbow's other friends crowded around. "What happened?" Twilight asked. "Did you do something to stop the hurricane?"
Rainbow nodded. "Like I said, hurricanes are powered by hot air. So I thought, what if I can find a way to cancel out all that heat with some COLD? That's why I got everypony arguing until our bad feelings created the biggest windigo ever. And then I rode it out to sea, and shoved it right into the middle of the hurricane, and then I bucked it apart until the HOT air fueling the hurricane was cancelled out by the COLD air."
"Wow," Twilight said. "That's amazing. I've never heard of that technique. I've certainly never read about it anywhere."
"That's because most of the ponies who would try something like what I just did don't live long enough to write an article about it," Rainbow admitted. "But I really am awesome enough to make it work AND survive to tell the tale."
Chainsaws Pony pushed through the crowd. "Rainbow Dash," he said, "I have something I want to tell you."
"That I'm awesome?"
"Sure, but not just that. If you move down here to Flora Da, I'm sure everypony would love you. You're brave and bold and just the right amount of crazy, so I think you would fit in perfectly. And you could be our new chief weatherpony."
"Well," Rainbow said, "I guess it IS tempting."
"Just one more thing, though," Chainsaws Pony added. "We do have some special new laws here. Grooming ponies under the age of forty years old to act gay is illegal now."
"I'm only twenty-three. Am I allowed to be gay?"
"You only have to wait seventeen more years. But living in Flora Da is MORE than worth it."
Applejack sidled up to Rainbow, and bumped her flank against the pegasus hero's. The earth pony whispered in her marefriend's ear. Rainbow blushed bright red.
"Um...I think I'm too young to move down here yet."
Chainsaws Pony winked. "I'll be waiting. I'm SO eager to give you a special discount when I sell you a timeshare condo on the sea."
"You mean, oceanfront property?" Rainbow asked.
"Sure! Oceanfront on all six sides! Or seven, if you include the INSIDE." Chainsaws Pony winked again. "It really is the most amazing deal ever!"
Addendum
If you do a web search for Hippomane Manchineel Apple, you'll find out it isn't anything good. It's so deadly, you might think it was from Australia!
🇦🇺
Also, this story was inspired by Estee and FoME joking in a discord server about a particularly chaotic looking hurricane prediction chart.
Estee:
Go home, Rainbow: you're drunk.
FanOfMostEverything:
There's something very funny about a drunk Dash riding a wild hurricane like a mechanical bull.
(A bet with Applejack was likely involved.)
Whether the FoME inspiration connection disqualifies this story from the contest, I have no idea.
