Grounding

by MasterThief

Above

The clouds were out to get Rainbow Dash, and she did not feel all right.

Simple cloudbusting mission, my sparkling flanks, she thought. Instead, she was #3 in the command lead flight of a bunch of Wonderbolts who were somehow flying into the most vicious windstorm Dash had ever felt. She could barely see Spitfire’s wings in the #1 position, flapping just in her peripheral vision, all else was clouds and raindrops flying horizontally, coating her entire body. The shifting winds seemed to fight Dash’s wings, threatening to knock her off course with every gust, and forcing her to use her hind legs like rudders.

“Where the hay is the center mass of this thing?” Dash heard Spitfire yelling.

“It shouldn’t be like thith!” Fleetfoot called out from behind her, in the #4 slot. Dash’s heart sank, as she remembered that Fleetfoot, the best meteorologist in the Bolts, only now lisped when she was scared. “It wath a thimple—”

Just then, Dash felt a violent updraft under her wings, forcing her higher and almost blowing her forward and leftward into Spitfire. Her wing bones flexed hard, almost to the breaking point, and Dash barely suppressed a scream of pain, but she heard both Spitfire and Fleetfoot cry out.

“What was that?” Spitfire yelled out. “This shouldn’t be…”

“Ith a derecho!” Dash heard Fleetfoot shouting. “The cell mutht have changed shape! We’re in a bookend vortexth!”

“Can’t be!” Soarin called out from across the formation in the #2 slot. “Derechos are summer storms!”

“They can form anytime with enough moithture and the righth fronths! Ith the only thing thath maketh thence!”

Another updraft, this one even more sudden, jolted the flight. This time, Dash could control her vector, but not the pain. “We can’t stay in here! We’ll be torn apart!”

“Soarin!” Spitfire yelled, slowly but clearly. “Pull up and reverse, get back to the rest of the squadron! Tell them we’re in a derecho and they need to look for a bow echo pattern and break the other vortex! We’ll just have to do what we can on this one!”

Dash’s heart pounded in her chest, and she fought back the fear. Soarin’s the strongest flier here, but if even he pulls an Immelponn while an updraft hits…I don't know what I'd do if...

“Yes ma’am!” Soarin called out, no hesitation in his voice. “3…2…1… BREAK!”

Dash heard a loud snap coming from her left. Out of the corner of her goggles, she saw a blur of a Wonderbolt flight suit shooting upwards into the sky. Then he was out of sight and sound. Now they were down to three.

“Dash, I’m slotting back to your left, danger close! You are now #1!” Dash heard the Wonderbolt captain’s call and immediately understood. Dash was now going to be the lead pony of the flight, Spitfire and Fleetfoot an echelon behind.

It’s all on you, Dash, she told herself as she saw Spitfire flare her golden wings for a split second to slow down.

Watch out for updrafths and downdrafths!” Fleetfoot yelled. “If iths thrait up or down, thatth thenter math and we can thtart buthtin!”

“Affirmative!” Dash called out, now as the Flyer In Command. She concentrated on the flight path ahead, searching for the center of the vortex so they could start tearing it apart from the inside out. “On my mark, left rudder fifteen degrees with legs for two seconds, in three…two…one… MARK!”

The three pegasi turned as if one, keeping perfect formation. Their vector changed and the turn completed. Then Dash felt an equally violent downdraft pressing upon her whole body. The raindrops flew at her with furious speed, each one on impact feeling like a grain of sand abrading them down to bone, the leading edge of her wings searing, her feathers being pulled and stretched at once…

Now or never.

“STORM CENTER, STORM CENTER!” Dash called out. “BUST! BUST! BUST!” Dash lowered her front and back hooves. She felt her innate pegasi magic flowing through them, tearing giant gashes through the vortex, slicing through the heart of the storm. She felt the storm destabilizing.

“ITH WORKING! CLOUDTH BREAKING!” Fleetfoot jubilantly replied. “KEEP GOING! KEEP GOING!”=

Dash fought a wave of pain.

Not today! Not to us!

“ON MY MARK, LEFT RUDDER FIVE DEGREES WITH LEGS, AND LOCK!” Dash called a vector that would keep the formation in a circle, cutting out the heart of the vortex, breaking it before the storm could do any more damage to the lands and ponies below. “THREE…TWO…ONE…MARK!”

She flexed every muscle in her back legs and her core, shifting her legs off-axis. She felt herself turning, turning, in what she knew would be a perfect circular course. The turning movement made the gashes in the storm clouds she was cutting with her hooves bigger and wider.

They were unstoppable now.

Then, just as suddenly as they had flown into the vortex, the storm fell away and they were out of it. Thick clouds and violent rain gave way to clear and cool skies. It was over. Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot had broken through. But it was not over. As the wind died down, Dash took stock of how her body felt, and it was not good at all. “Storm clear!” Dash called out. “Status reports! I am compromised!”

“Compromised!” Spitfire replied.

“Compromithed!” Fleetfoot replied in turn.

Dash’s heart rose in her throat. A compromised pegasus could not fold in their wings, or had lost feathers, or both. Their movements had to be slow and careful, or they could stall or spin out. An entire flight compromised required immediate emergency landing. Dash swore silently. “Understood! Mayday, mayday, mayday, smoke out and lights on!”

With practiced reflexes, Dash reached back with a forehoof and yanked the ripcord that ran down from her chest to her back legs. She felt the red smoke canisters on her back legs hissing and fizzing. Her peripheral vision was filled with the slow flashes of magic-powered red lights snugly looped around her rear pasterns. Between the smoke and the lights, everypony in the sky or ground for miles around who could see them would know they were in trouble. “Deployed,” Dash announced.

“Deployed,” Spitfire called out. “I see a road, right ahead of us. Long and straight. Recommend you line us up for a tandem landing.”

“Deployed,” Fleetfoot called in response. “We’re faithing into the wind on course three-one-five, altitude fourteen hundred. Windthpeed 40 and thteady,” she said. Dash vowed she would never say another word about Fleetfoot always flying with her instrumented goggles ever again.

“Acknowledged,” Dash replied as she spied the road ahead of her, locked her eyes onto it, and called a vector that would put them on the ground with all deliberate speed, then briefed an emergency approach. “No flaps. Flare upward and drift down slowly. If you’re gonna miss the approach, pull up gently and recenter. Looks like plenty of road. Begin descent now.”

Dash kept her wings flared open and level despite the searing pain. She feared a sudden crosswind from the storm behind them, but none came. Dash drifted down, down, down, onto the road below, her hooves touching the rough dirt road at a gallop, then a trot, then a walk.

Then she stopped, and looked behind her. Through a haze of red smoke and lights, she saw Spitfire and Fleetfoot standing there. Their wings were held out, their hooves were wobbly, but they were safely on the ground.

As the adrenaline faded, the pain started. None of them said anything, but as Dash took off her flight goggles, she could tell the others were suffering. Their wings, though still extended, drooped to the ground, their feathers bent, broken, disheveled. Tears filled their eyes. All of them simply laid down on the ground, according to standard procedure, and waited.

It was not long before they heard the clip of hooves and the noise of cart wheels.