Guardian

CHAPTER 5 - RELEASE

“Ho boy,” An orange pony stretched and yawned as she found her way into a kitchen, “Ah didn't get one lick of a good night's sleep. Them dreams sure were bad.”

“Ah hear ya, sis.” A younger pony with red hair in contrast to her older sister's blonde hair stumbled into the kitchen shortly thereafter, “Ah didn't think ah'd ever get to sleep.” A bulkier stallion plodded into the kitchen after this.

“Eeyup.”

“Well, ya know what they say about bad dreams!” An elderly mare with a white mane and tail entered the kitchen, “The bad'uns always mean somethin's goin' on.”

“Well ah just hope that ah sleep better tonight. Won't be able to do much apple buckin' with cat-nappin' like that.” The orange mare poured a glass of milk for herself as everyone situated themselves at the kitchen table. The filly looked out the window and suddenly sprung up and rushed to get a better view of something outside.

“Applejack! Big Mac! Granny Smith! Look!”

“What is it, Applebloom?” Granny Smith made her way to the window and looked out, suddenly becoming filled with shock. “What in tarnation-” Her sentence suddenly cut off by a powerful gust of wind, Granny Smith found both herself and Applebloom hurling through the air across the kitchen as a blast of rain smashed through the window. The sudden gale blew open the door as well, leaving the addled wits of the Apple family to attempt some form of fixing the home.

“What's goin' on? What's happening?” Applejack shouted as she barred the door, the wind fighting her the entire way.

“Ah don't know!” Applebloom shouted, attempting to button the curtains closed as Big Macintosh held the window shut, “There was a big wall of rain that just randomly appeared out there! Ah've never seen a storm like this before!”

“Oh, all the apples're gonna be blown into Phillydelphia by the time this storm passes!” Granny Smith braced herself against a chair until Big Mac finally managed to shut and bar the window. Fixing her messed hair, she walked over to the window and peered outside. “It's raining cats and dogs out there! The apple harvest isn't gonna be a good'un this time around, I tells ya.”

Outside, the wind had calmed slightly, but the torrential downpour continued without interruption. Across Ponyville and inside of a boutique, a white pony with curled hair furiously scurried about to grab up clothes that had been blown about by the gale that had blown open her front door.

“Oh no! Oh no!” Scooping up a blue dress into her front leg, Rarity turned and shouted across the room at a pile of clothes, “Sweetie Belle! Shut the door, quickly!”

The pile of randomly-strewn clothes rustled and erupted as a small white filly jumped out and ran to the door, closing it with haste. Looking outside, the little pony peered up at the sky.

“Woah...” In awe, Sweetie Belle found herself completely locked on the sight of the clouds above. The dark blanket moved at a speed beyond anything that she had ever seen, and rainbows tore through the openings that allowed minute amounts of sunlight to pierce through and illuminate the raindrops.

Rarity stopped gathering the clothes as a loud bump and crash were heard upstairs. Setting the folded dresses down neatly on a table, Rarity walked up the steps into her room, and was greeted by the sight of a tangled mess of blankets moving about the room. Opalescence sat across the room from the ball of cloth, hissing and growling at it with each movement. Rarity let out a shrill scream that caused the flopping ball of clothes to stop rolling about on the floor.

“What are you screaming at?” A familiar voice calmed Rarity slightly.

“Rainbow Dash?”

“Get me out of this!”

The white unicorn walked over to the ball of cloth and untangled a cyan pegasus mare with a rainbow mane and tail, who shook some of the rain off like a wet dog before sitting down with a grunt.

“What is this dreadful weather, Rainbow Dash?” The white unicorn queried, “Cloudsdale hadn't scheduled such a deluge like this, had they?”

“Not that I know of. I was out for an early morning flight near Cloudsdale and saw this big black cloud in the north that was also unscheduled. A few minutes later the clouds disappear and I get blasted in the face by a tornado! I bet Cloudsdale's having a great time right now.”

The sound of a door closing downstairs turned the two ponies' attention. Upon their arrival on the ground level of the boutique, the two were greeted by their friends – a purple dragon and mulberry unicorn.

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash quickly shot over to the unicorn, hovering above her, “What's going on out there?”

“I don't know! I've never seen anything like it before.” The unicorn removed her raincoat and handed it over to Spike, who hung it from a coat rack nearby. “I saw the cloud earlier this morning and had been trying to figure out what it was since it didn't look natural or like something that Cloudsdale would make. None of my books had a single answer to the issue, though. All I do know is that whatever the cloud was, it was holding back a lot of wind from the north. That's why when it dissipated earlier the wind rushed down south to Ponyville.”

“Do you think it could be King Sombra again?”

“No, Rainbow, I don't think so. Sombra never turned himself into a cloud of that magnitude. Besides, the Crystal Heart destroyed him, remember?”

“Then what could it be?” Rarity asked concernedly, her anxiety growing. Another knock on the door caught the attention of the group, and Sweetie Belle answered the door again, allowing Applejack to step into the room.

“Alright, just what in the hay is goin' on out there?”

“We were just discussing this,” Rarity replied, “How are things out there at the moment?”

“They ain't good, ah know that much. Thought the farm was gonna get blown over by the wind that came through here. Almost all the apples and leaves on the trees at the orchard're on the ground or blown away. Once the wind died down ah decided to head this way to make sure everypony was alright.”

“We've still received no word from Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie,” Twilight stated, “We should probably head out to check on them.”

“Ah wouldn't worry too much 'bout Pinkie. She was hoppin' around more than a frog in a pond when I came this way. Asked if she wanted to come, but she said she wanted to play around in the rain.”

“Well what about Fluttershy, then?” Spike interjected “She must be scared half to death.”

“We should probably go check on her.” Twilight stood up, “Let's go, everypony. There's no time to waste. We'll get everypony together and send a message to Princess Celestia.”

The group gathered gear to weather the downpour and headed out into the torrent.