A blue form streaked across the sky over Ponyville, zipping to and fro, corkscrewing, axle-spinning, loop de’ looping, that Rainbow Dash just had to see who it was.

Whoever this is, she thought as she flapped her wings overtime to catch up, they just might be what I need!

“Hey! Lemme talk to you!”

The blue blur didn’t slow down. In fact, it flew even faster, as if it were trying to get away.

“Hey come on, I just wanna talk!” Rainbow shouted as she pumped her wings harder. “You know I’m gonna catch you anyway. Nopony outflies Rainbow Dash!”

But then the blue blur flew straight for the sun, its intense glare blinding Rainbow Dash for a moment.

As she cleared her eyes, she looked around but whoever that blue blur had been they were gone!

“Faust-damn it!” she brayed in frustration. She sighed and thought, Ah well, might as well start spreading these flyers

From his hiding place in an alleyway, Midnight phew’d in relief, glad he hadn’t been caught.

“Good thing flying into the sun always works,” he panted as he looked down proudly at the aviator goggles he had in his hooves, the lens reflecting a shimmering blue.

After arriving at the weather station, Rainbow went to her office as the Ponyville weather captain. Check that, the co-captain, evident by the ‘co-’ drawn onto her door in permanent marker, much to her chagrin. Rainbow had ever since regretted making Thunderlane her co-captain, partly because of their differences in getting the job done and the methods in which they conducted.

Of course, Thunderlane was a great co-captain, organized, responsible, and he breezed through the paperwork and had an excellent strategic mind in coordinating Ponyville’s weather.

However, before he shared the position Rainbow Dash was given by the mayor (solely because she was the fastest pegasus in town), Rainbow had had her way of doing things. She’d been used to barking orders, assigning her weather ponies air spaces and what kind of weather to put in them, which had been more or less productive and adequate in getting the job done.

But, silly her, Thunderlane had never seen eye to eye with her methods, saying they were lazy, sloppy, and just barely held together without falling apart at the seams. Back then, she’d been able to go over his head and force him to comply with her orders, but these days they shared the same amount of authority and sometimes the team deferred to Thunderlane’s leadership over hers, which did not help the rainbow-colored mare’s ego.

But now, Rainbow Dash was determined to show what a great weather captain she was, as she’d been approached by a very certain pegasus from Cloudsdale, and wanted to share that with the pegasi of Ponyville.

“Calling all pegasi!” she called as she flew over Ponyville that afternoon, throwing flyers about and letting them fall into the hooves of the Ponyvillians. “Meeting tonight!”

Specifically, the flyers read:

‘Mandatory Meeting tonight for all Ponyville Pegasi, located at the Golden Oak Library’

Night came and the pegasi of Ponyville piled into the library, Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane standing at the sides of the doorway like sentries.

“Alright, in you go, find a seat,” Thunderlane waved them in with his wings.

Once the intake stopped, Rainbow peered through and appeared to do some counting. She groaned, Thunderlane asking, “What’s wrong?”

“Go on ahead and get things started with the film,” Rainbow directed.

Thunderlane shrugged and went in.

Inside, the pegasus ponies were all abuzz of what this meeting might be about. Thunderlane went over to the projector set up in the back where Midnight and Spike were getting things ready.
“We good to go?”

“So long as it-” Midnight tried to say but Spike interrupted as he yelled, “LIGHTS!”

Somepony killed the lights as a screen rolled down and the pegasi all hushed in wondering anticipating and Spike started the projector.

A silhouette of a pegasus stallion appeared as fifties P.S.A. music played when an announcer started speaking.
‘Every living thing depends on the life-giving nourishment of rainwater, and it is up to Cloudsdale to provide rain-filled clouds to every corner of Equestria. But how, one pony might ask, does Cloudsdale gather all this extra water? Tornado power! That's right, Pegasi-driven tornado power. A team of pegasi combine their wing power to create a jumbo tornado, powerful enough to pull water out of the local reservoir and funnel it all the way up to Cloudsdale. Remember, pegasi, your jumbo tornado must reach a minimum of eight hundred wing power to lift that water up to Cloudsdale. So, the next time you're wondering "Where does all that extra rainwater come from?", just remem–‘

The music distorted while the picture suddenly went ablaze, much to the complaints of everypony, as they all glared at Spike, the film in the projector going screwy.

“Uh, intermission?” he smiled awkwardly through the tangled film.

“So! Here’s the scoop!”

Everypony faced forward again, seeing Rainbow flapping aloft, as she reported, “Cloudsdale’s chosen our own highland reservoir as the source of the rainwater they need for all of Equestri- Oof!”

Thunderlane had knocked Rainbow out of the way as he took over explanations.
“And you know what the means, everypony! It’s up to us, the Pegasi of Ponyville, to get all that water straight up to Cloudsdale!”

The pegasus ponies started murmuring excitably as Rainbow pushed her way back in.
“Not only that, but Spitfire” she pulled down a Wonderbolts poster featuring Spitfire (don't ask from where) – “Captain of the Wonderbolts, will be here to oversee the water transfer and record our top tornado wind speed.”

*KICK*

Thunderlane got back in as he pulled down a graph, “Now last year, Fillydelphia broke the wind-speed record of with a top speed of 910 wing-power.”

“But I think we can do better!” Rainbow deigned to share the spotlight with her co-captain as she pulled down another graph. “I think we can get a top speed over 1,000!”

The crowd were getting more intrigued as Rainbow went on.
“And! …Each and every pony trains, and trains hard to get their wing-power levels up!”

“So are we gonna train hard?” Thunderlane asked, punching into his other hoof, everypony yelling, “Yeah!”

“Are we gonna be strong?!” Rainbow challenged them, which they answered with a collective, “Yeah!!”

“Are we gonna be fast?!” Thunderlane exclaimed, the pegasi shouting, “Yeah!!!”

“Record-smashing fast?!” Rainbow added, a big white and muscle-bound pegasus stallion huffing, “YEAH!!!”

“Then let’s do it!!!” Thunderlane and Rainbow Dash cheered, as did everypony else! But Rainbow noticed, much to her irritation, a certain yellow pegasus mare with butterflies for a cutie-mark, had flown the coop.

The next morning, every pegasus pony had gotten up early and gone out to the track that had been set up, and were training hard. Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane walked about, both of them wearing caps and whistles

“Stretch those glutes, Flitter!”

“Nice flexibility, Cloudchaser!”

“A… little too much flexibility, Blossomforth. Somepony give Blossomforth a hoof?”

“Let’s see a little faster trotting, Silverspeed.”

“Good pacing, Soarin!”

“Keep it up, everypony!” Thunderlane encouraged, Rainbow adding, “We’re gonna need all the wing-power we can get to break that record!”

“YEAH!!!”

“Good work, everypony!” Thunderlane yelled to everypony present.

“Everypony except Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash muttered impatiently.

“Dash, don’t stir a hornet’s nest that shouldn’t be stirred,” Thunderlane rolled his eyes.

“But we’re gonna need all the wing-power we can get, did you not hear me?” Rainbow protested.

“Dash, the point of this job we’ve been given is to get that water from the reservoir to Cloudsdale,” Thunderlane maintained. “Sure I’d love to break that record but the task of providing rain for all of Equestria is what really matters here.”

“Ugh, you and your integrity,” Rainbow huffed. “I don’t care, I’m gonna go find `Shy.”

Watching her fly off, Thunderlane sighed woefully.
“Something wrong, coach?”

He looked to see Soarin giving him a sympathetic smile.
“It’s just… Dash has such an ego! Doesn’t she understand what we’re doing here matters more than a record?”

“Then what was all that encouragement you were giving everypony last night?” Soarin brought up.

“Exactly what it was, encouragement,” Thunderlane insisted. “The drive to do their best is what will help these ponies accomplish this important job!”

“I see what you’re saying,” Soarin shrugged. “Honestly, in some ways, Dash reminds me of Spitfire.”

“I take it that’s a bad thing?” Thunderlane asked.

“Yes and no,” Soarin replied vaguely. “What I mean is, Rainbow has awesome ambition and tenacity, and that will surely help her in getting into the Wonderbolts, whereas you have a clear sense of responsibility and asking of everypony to just do their best. That will help you too.”

“Thanks,” Thunderlane said with a smile.

“But in both your cases, Rainbow Dash can lose sight of what’s important whereas you don’t seem to have the drive to go beyond your limits,” Soarin explained. “It’s not a bad thing in the latter but dreaming big can help you out in the long run.”

“Hmm,” Thunderlane contemplated Soarin's words as the blue stallion returned to his warm-ups.

A while later, Twilight, Midnight, Spike, and even Big Macintosh showed up. Twilight brought out a device with a propeller and some kind of dial on the base, explaining it would be a big help in everypony’s training.

“What exactly does this machine do?” Cloudchaser asked, her sister Flitter looking equally interested.

“This is an anemometer. It measures your accelerative velocity and translates it into wing power, thus gauging your cumulative H2O anti-gravitational potential,” Twilight explained. “Any other questions?”

“Yeah…” Flitter said slowly before turning to Midnight and Spike. “What exactly does this machine do?”

“I’ll dumb it down for y’all,” Midnight chuckled. “Simply put, it tells you how fast you fly and translates that speed into wing-power.”

“Ohh…” the sisters said in dawning comprehension, Twilight snorting at these ignoramuses.

*Cough, cough*

“Who was coughing?” Twilight demanded. “Please, we must have a germ-free environment!”

“Relax, Twi,” Midnight sighed before announcing, “Look everypony, we need to start determining and tallying up everypony’s wing-power. So who wants to try out the anemometer first?”

“Lemme at it!” Thunderlane insisted as stepped up to the line. Taking off his cap and whistle, he hunkered down, his wings spread, his ears flattened, his brows furrowed in concentration. He started beating his wings and… he was off!

*ZOOM…!!!*

The ponies all felt the slipstream rush past them, as well as saw it spin the anemometer. Twilight read the device and reported, “We have a solid 13.0 wing-power!”

The pegasus ponies all wowed as Thunderlane landed next to Cloudchaser and Flitter, his little brother Rumble gazing proudly up at him.

“Impressive,” Rainbow said with a smirk before she took her place at the line. She got rid of some cricks in her legs and wings… before she took off.

Her slipstream was decisively more powerful, causing some ponies to actually fight to hold their balance while Fluttershy had actually been blown off her hooves.

“16.5 wing-power!” Twilight reported with an excited look and messy mane, much to everypony’s cheering delight.

“Impressive indeed!”

That voice cut through the cheer and everypony gaped incredulously to see Midnight at the starting line.

“Midnight, what’re you doing?” Rainbow asked with a raised brow.

Midnight said nothing but smirked as he levitated a pair of aviator goggles onto his head, making sure they were snug and tight. He then made eye-contact with Rainbow and winked before…
*Flash*

Everypony gasped in amazement!

Midnight’s horn was gone but he’d somehow gotten some impressive-looking wings in return, as he spread them out, looking ready for anything!

For the record, it's the goggles Midnight put on, and I improved Thunderlane's wing-power from its canon 9.3 to 13.0 to make it seem more impressive as the co-captain of the Ponyville Weather Team