Family of Chaos (6) (Patreon)

Hurricane was falling. She didn't know how she'd got there, or even where she was—there was only brilliant white light, and the terrible roar of thunder in her ears.

She reacted on simple instinct, tucking in her wings and cowering from the worst of the blast. Something exploded in the factory. Some part of her knew, however dimly, how much danger they were all in. The factory stored enough captive magic to provide weather for hundreds of miles around, gathered together by their own team of weather ponies. If one tank exploded, the others would soon follow.

She tumbled through one cloud floor, emerging in the ceiling of Production Floor 2. Ponies in clean suits and goggles looked up in terror as Hurricane Force and several tons of torn metal and broken glass came hurtling through the ceiling overhead. Cloud supports groaned under the weight, then collapsed. Ducts of wind and cloud tore like they were paper, barely slowing the damage for an instant.

The shockwave tossed ponies around like wisps of cumulus clouds in a hurricane. Some lucky ones went tumbling out into the open sky, where they could catch themselves with their own wings. Many more were thrown down like Hurricane, through the dissolving ceiling of the first production floor.

Not them! She didn't know every worker, of course. Many were strangers to her, ponies who cared little about their job beyond accomplishing their duties and collecting their bits at the end. Even so, they were Hurricane's ponies. Every scream came from a parent or child with ponies waiting for them, ponies who their loss would utterly destroy!

Hurricane spread her wings in vain, as though she could somehow protect them all. Not today. Not here, not now! The last ceiling gave way much like the first, only now there was a veritable avalanche of metal, cloud chunks, and half-formed weather all pouring down onto the factory floor. No shockwave remained, just the inexorable crush of equipment and cloud, driving all of them down. Pegasi screamed, alarms blared, and they were falling through open sky.

She tumbled with the rest, wings extended and voice lifted into futile screams of protest. If the factory was going down, she would keep her workers safe, or die with them!

They fell together, but not nearly as long as they should have. Distant ground waited to meet them, but that wasn't where they hit. Hurricane hit a cloud, so diffuse and fluffy that the heavy equipment could pass through easily, but her own wings and magic caught.

She sunk down a few meters, like landing in fresh snow, before finally coming to a stop. 

She heard more than saw as several other ponies came down around her, landing with gasps of surprise and pain. 

The rattling continued as metal and glass vanished into the sky, little more than a flash of motion underneath.

Hurricane lay there in the cloud for a few seconds, too shocked to move. Her feathers felt lightly singed by the blast, but that was all. Not a single chunk of glass or piece of shrapnel had stuck into her in the explosion.

Then she clawed out of the opening, peering around at the cloud . It was one of the huge, featureless white blobs they usually brought here to process into rain, or else reshape into a structure. Normally they kept these pinned up in the construction yard, how had it drifted so far down?

Her workers didn't seem to care about the why. A few dozen of them emerged from the fluff, lifting goggles or peeling away torn uniforms to get a better view.

Not all had escaped unscathed—a few stained the cloud red around them, or else clutched at twisted or broken limbs. But there were so many... had anypony missed the cloud and kept falling?

The sky was thick with other pegasi now—other factory workers, citizens of Wingapore, and even their little hoof-full of royal guards. 

"Boss?" asked a voice, from the cloud just beside her. One of the engineers, she didn't even remember his name. "What happened?"

"I don't know," she said. Whether she actually believed it was something else. "Are you okay?"

"Somehow." He shook out the clouds, before bending down to help another pony out of the ground beside him. "We're lucky someone left this cloud down here. Wouldn't want the ground to catch me under all that."

Hurricane Force took off, waving the guards over to her scattered survivors.

She spent the next few hours helping with the rescue and recovery, along with the youngest and strongest members of Wingapore. That meant a lot of digging ponies out of clouds, helping carry stretchers, and flying messages around. 

A news crew was already swooping in on the factory, along with every guard in Wingapore. Everypony wanted the same answer—how did it blow up?

She lingered near the fence as one of the broadcasters began, speaking into a portable radio. "Witnesses on the scene suggest the explosion began on the third floor. The factory's lightning equipment was down for servicing... so much for workplace safety."

Hurricane's factory had been gutted by the blast, its three central floors ripped right out of the cloud leaving only tanks and pipes dangling weakly behind. But thanks to the strange properties of sky construction, the upper management floor remained, bizarrely untouched by the blast.

Hurricane opened the door to her office, and found Frostline still sitting at the desk.

Her tax papers were gone, replaced with huge yellow binders filled with safety certificates and inspection reports. She flicked through like a mad pony, shoulders stooped and pupils too wide. "Don't understand... shouldn't be possible... not a single large failure in our history..."

Hurricane stopped beside the table, resting her hoof on the page. "Frostline. Look at me."

She looked up, dazed. "Hurricane?" Her eyes watered, and a few tears fell on the page. "Boss? I thought... somepony said they saw you go into the third floor just before..."

Hurricane nodded. "Yeah. Saw it happen. I didn't see any obvious cause... whole thing was disengaged, like it should be. Maybe just a freak accident."

The mare stood from her seat, rushing over to embrace her. She held her close with both wings, ignoring the stink of blood and chemicals. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

"It's my fault," Hurricane said, barely a whisper.

The mare released her, looking down. "How? Were you... fixing it? But if you were inside, you never would've survived. The explosion..."

"I didn't touch it," Hurricane said. "But it's still my fault. I can feel it." She touched her chest with one hoof. "I should've stayed in Canterlot, stayed until Princess Luna listened to me."

Frostline dropped to her haunches. Now she really showed her age—face lined, mane pale and white, expression distant. "I don't know... what we do, boss. Not much of a factory left."

She slipped past Frostline, then lifted her saddlebags from the wall, tossing them onto the cloud in front of the older pegasus. "Take that. There's another stash in my house, you know the one. Bits are in a safe hidden behind some old cereal boxes in the pantry. Deed should be in there too—sell the place. I'll be out by tomorrow morning. Make sure everypony gets the care they need. If there's enough left, you can rebuild."

Frostline pawed at the saddlebags. "Hurricane? Boss? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you can do this, Frostline. Make sure everypony gets taken care of... but don't build another lightning machine. Outsource to Cloudsdale like everypony else does."

She brushed her cheek with a wing, wiping away tears. "This wasn't your fault, it was mine. But I don't think... I'm pretty sure nopony died. There were some clouds there to catch us. Guess we had somepony looking out for us." 

The pegasus stood up, following her to the balcony. "Hurricane?" she asked, whimpering. "Are you leaving me now? I need you here!"

"If I stay, you'll only be in more danger," she said. Hurricane Force took off, hovering over the edge. "You can do this. And if there are parts you can't, hire somepony. What's the point of all that gold if you never spend it?"

She slipped into the early evening air, into a dense crowd of ponies around the factory. A few tried to stop her, or call out. Some with thanks for help during the rescue—others with blame. It was her factory, even if they didn't fully understand exactly how she'd caused the collapse. It must be her fault, somehow.

Not that she understood much better. She felt it as surely as she could read the wind and weather from the sky. This was her fault. Now the choice of whether or not to stay was out of her hooves. I have to get away, before it gets worse.

Her home hadn't attracted a crowd, and maybe it wouldn't. Hurricane Force never understood the appeal of living in mansions, or wasting bits on things nopony could possibly need. Now that frugality could help put things back together in Wingapore, she hoped.

There wasn't much to do inside—just a little packing, arranging her collection of ancient keepsakes carefully into her saddlebags, along with a jacket and a few bits for the road. The rest would stay, waiting for Frostline to find. She lingered in the kitchen with a pad of paper and her quill, scribbling one final note to the old mare.

"Frostline—I know how much you care about squaring things away. Consider this a legal document, transferring ownership of Wingapore Weather and all its assets to you, along with all the property I own in Wingapore. I hope you'll use it to rebuild the factory. Once that's done, and our workers are cared for, the remainder is yours to use as you see fit.

You did good work, Frostline. I know you're the mare for the job. —Hurricane Force"

She left it on the kitchen table, properly signed and dated the way her assistant always wanted. 

Hurricane Force lingered on the front yard for a moment, looking up at her town. So many ponies from all over Equestria had come here to work at a promising new weather factory. Many had found families here, built their lives here. They're strong ponies, they can rebuild. 

She wanted to stay and help—but some part of her insisted that was a selfish thought. She had to get away from these ponies, before the Draconequus still trapped in stone lashed out at her again. Maybe next time he wouldn't settle for just hurting, and he would kill instead.

The wind blew harsh and cold as night fell. Hurricane caught it with her wings, and let it drive her down to the ground. She glided over another pile of wreckage, where torn bits of weather equipment and broken glass piled on thankfully empty ground. At least they weren't over a town when that explosion happened, or ponies would be dead for sure.

Instead there was nopony—no structures, no railway, only a few distant lights and the swaying, regular blocks of earth pony fields.

Flying through the night was a miserable, cold process. But Hurricane Force deserved nothing less. She flew in solitude and silence, carrying her meager belongings on her back.

What did I do to you? Why do you even care? She cursed the dream vision, cursed the Alicorn who hadn't helped her, and cursed herself for refusing Twilight's offer. Through all this, only that mare showed any sign of a useful plan. If the rulers of Equestria wouldn’t help her solve this, maybe one of their apprentices would.

Besides, Twilight and the Elements were the ponies who defeated Discord. If anypony could find a way to stop his magic, it was them!

Hopefully she could get to Ponyville without murdering anyone on the way.