The weather was warm and mild in Ponyville, courtesy of the resident Pegasus Weather Team. Birds sang sweetly as they flitted between trees looking for their morning meal, and the citizens of the tiny village began their day at ease. That peace and quiet was shattered by a rogue thunderstorm crashing through Sugarcube Corner, driving a dozen frightened bystanders to cover as the sound of lightning and a cry of, "Sooooooorrrrrrrryyyyyyyy!" coming from a young pegasus who clung to the cloud for dear life filled the square.

The bystanders of the town square were just beginning to poke their heads out from cover when a rainbow blur shot through the air and caused several of them to lose their balance. Following the path of the storm, the streak slowed, Rainbow Dash's form becoming visible as she glared at the dark cloud and its rider. "Derpy!" she called. "Rein in that storm cloud!"

"I-I-I'm trying!" Derpy cried out as she tried to tug the cloud into a climb. When she finally got her forelegs wrapped around the front of the cloud, she stamped her hind legs down on its rear and yanked the front end up. The cloud barely turned, and instead sent a bolt of lightning through the air.

"Whoa," Rainbow gasped and flinched from the lightning flash in her eyes. She pressed onward in her slightly blinded state, but was caught in the belly by a weather vane and sent spinning. Her eyes cleared and she regained a visual on her target for a fraction of a second, which was all she needed to kick off the weather vane and use the momentum to launch herself at the cloud even faster. “Hold on, Derpy!”

Derpy took Rainbow's advice and squeezed the cloud as hard as she could, which unleashed a torrent of rain in just about every direction but down and more random bolts of lightning streaked across the sky.

"Yow!" Rainbow barely dodged a lightning bolt and zipped toward the out-of-control storm. She weaved heedlessly through the fulminations, dodging on pure instinct. Eventually she got herself into range and slammed her hooves into the cloud. The storm practically screeched to a halt and Rainbow proceeded to pry her shell-shocked charge off the cloud. With a couple light bucks in the right place, the storm returned to its dormant state.

Once Rainbow was certain the cloud was stable, she shot a stern look at Derpy, who had the decency to look sheepish. "What the hay were you thinking?"

Derpy shrugged and looked away. "I dunno... it just got away from me somehow."

"Some..." Rainbow said, slack-jawed. "'Somehow'!?” Rainbow threw her front legs into the air. “You don't just 'somehow' cause a storm cloud to go on a rampage. Well, you do, obviously, but..." Rainbow suddenly found herself at a loss for words and resigned herself with a sigh.

Derpy continued avoiding eye contact, her face growing increasingly guilty. "My bad," she said softly.

"Look at all this," Rainbow continued, her hoof sweeping over the wet streets and scorched buildings. "You're darn right it's your bad. I'd tell you to clean it up, too, but I think that'd just make it worse!" Rainbow glared icicles at her subordinate, who responded with a cross-eyed stare. The previous eight months of being this part-timer's supervisor flashed through her mind. All of the accidents, damages, apologies, repairs and subsequent headaches piled onto her psyche all at once. By the time the flashback stopped, Rainbow could practically feel steam coming from her ears. Her teeth gritted and her voice cracked when she spoke, "Derpy...this is the last straw. You're banned from the Weather Team... in fact, don't even bother visiting Cloudsdale until you can stop being so... well... you."

"Oh..." Derpy sulked. Her gloom only lasted a moment before a smile spread across her face and her ears perked. "Well, at least we'll see each other this afternoon. I'm bringing muffins!"

Rainbow facefrogged angrily. "No,” she said firmly, jabbing her hoof in Derpy’s chest. “I don't want you coming to my house anymore. Every time you do, you manage to break something or set my house on fire.” She huffed with incredulity and silently prayed to Minerva to descend on them and explain the situation. “How do you even set a cloud on fire? I certainly don't know."

Now Derpy's face fell into a truly distraught expression, and her eyes began to shimmer with unshed tears. "But, Rainbow Dash... you can't..."

"Like hay I can't," Rainbow said as she turned around and flicked her six-hued tail. Before flying off with the cloud safely in her grasp, she gave Derpy a sidelong glance. "And by 'like hay I can't' I mean 'I can.' And I am!"

Derpy's wing beats slowed as Rainbow took off, and she descended to the ground. For a moment she stood in the middle of the street as the other ponies resumed milling about the soggy streets and did their best to take this latest disruption to their routines in stride.

"Ditzy Doo?"

Ditzy turned and saw two familiar faces looking at her curiously. "Oh, hi, Twilight Sparkle. Hi Spike,” she said with a bright smile. “Sorry about the crate last Sunday."

Twilight Sparkle rubbed her head at the memory. “That’s alright,” she said. “But… we saw that storm coming through from the library. What was that about? I didn’t think anything was scheduled this week.”

Ditzy sighed and settled back into a glum mood. “It wasn’t.”

“Oh…” Twilight said, and she exchanged a dubious look with Spike. “Well, at least Rainbow Dash managed to get a hold of it. I saw her flying off with that cloud just a minute ago.”

“Yeah, Rainbow Dash saved the day,” Ditzy said. She looked up at the sky with a pained expression. “But she also banned me from weather duty and Cloudsdale.”

“Can she do that?” Twilight asked, a bit shocked.

Ditzy sighed. "Let's just say the city council doesn't have a very high opinion of me. Not only that, but Rainbow Dash is super popular, so it wouldn't take much for her to convince everypony to keep me out."

Twilight frowned pensively. “But... don’t you live there?”

Ditzy shook her head. “No. I used to, but I kept accidentally falling through the clouds while I was sleeping.”

“Is that… a normal danger for pegasi?” Twilight asked.

“No,” Ditzy said. “I… don’t know of anypony else who has that problem, actually. Anyway, it’s safer for me to live here in Ponyville. I don’t fall as far when I hit the ground.”

“Well, that would explain…” Spike crossed his eyes at Twilight, for which she bopped him promptly on the head.

“Well, I’m sure Rainbow Dash is just… um… frustrated right now.” Twilight attempted a reassuring smile. “Once she cools off everything will go back to normal.”

Ditzy shook her head. “She said I had to stay away until I stop being me.” Her eyes watered up. “I don’t even know how a pony can stop being herself.”

Twilight nodded in understanding. “I see. Well, you know, maybe we can help you there.”

“You can?” Ditzy asked.

“We can?” Spike echoed.

“You wanna do wha-?”

“Ditzy needs to learn how to be… well… less ditzy,” Twilight explained to her friend, Applejack.

“And you think workin’ as a farmhoof will do that?” Applejack asked, eyeing Ditzy suspiciously as she seemed to stare into space... or possibly at the ground. She couldn't really tell. “I don’t know if I’m following.”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Twilight said. “You’re extremely well-coordinated, Applejack. And why is that?”

“Well…”

“Physical labor can have a positive impact on coordination,” Twilight explained. “If she works here for awhile, I’m sure she’ll learn to better control her body.”

“Uh huh,” Applejack said, unconvinced. “I guess we can give it a shot.”

Ditzy gave them a wide grin. “Yay!” she cheered. “I’m going to do my best to help you in whatever way I can.”

One week, several spilled buckets, a dozen broken dishes and a field planted with the wrong seeds later, Applejack approached Ditzy—who was currently tangled in rope and dangling from the barn’s gutter.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do rope tricks like you, Applejack,” she fawned.

“No kiddin’,” Applejack said glibly. “That there was just jumpin’ rope. I can only imagine what you’d do with a lasso.” She shook her head and sighed. “Listen. We’ll try one more thing, Ditz. Can’t nopony mess up applebucking too bad. Worst that’ll happen is no apples will fall.”

Ditzy grinned and followed her new boss to the apple orchard. Upon arrival, she watched carefully as Applejack explained and demonstrated the perfect applebuck. “Think you can do it?” Applejack asked.

Derpy nodded and moved herself into position. “Okay,” she said, going over the essentials. “Position, aim, breathing, and haunch squeeze,” she repeated under her breath for a few moments before lifting her back end and delivering a strong buck to the tree. Derpy smiled at the satisfying connection with the trunk and turned her head to watch for the fruits of her labor to fall to the ground. But they never came. With a deflated expression, she tried again and yielded the same results. She began to kick at the tree wildly and with growing frustration before Applejack stopped her.

“Whoa, whoa there, partner,” she said. “Ya can’t get all in a huff ‘cause you didn’t get it right the first time. Just take a deep breath, get into position, and try again. With purpose!”

“Sorry, Applejack” Ditzy frowned, but determination blazed in her eyes. “I can do this.” She breathed in deeply and let her mind focus on her goal. She would get those apples off that tree one way or another. She reared her hind legs into the air and, with a mighty squeeze of her muscles, she bucked the tree.

The apples came off the tree alright, but not in the normal fashion. They were flying everywhere, filling her view with red deliciousness. “What the…” Applejack began as her eyes widened in shock. Her sentence was cut off when an apple separated from the flock and struck her in the eye, causing her vision to go dark.

“Applejack…”

“…”

“Applejack, are you okay?”

Light poured in through a newly cracked open eyelid. The other one refused to cooperate and throbbed painfully. “What… just happened?”

“Sorry, Applejack,” Ditzy said. “I guess I got carried away.”

Applejack looked around with her one good eye and her jaw dropped. There were apples everywhere. They were splattered across the ground and embedded in the sides of other trees. One of her trees had apparently been set on fire. Somehow. “Wh-wh-wh…”

“Anything I can do to help?” Ditzy asked bashfully.

Applejack turned to her and gave her a baleful look. “Ditzy… just… go. Just go and don’t come back. Never again.”

“Uh…” Ditzy said nervously. “Okay. Sorry…”

Ditzy smiled cheerily at the small, furry creatures that ran about the front yard of Fluttershy's peaceful cottage.

"Well..." Fluttershy said, "She does seem to like animals, but..."

"So it's perfect," Twilight said. "You can teach her to be more... delicate."

"I guess... that might be okay," Fluttershy said.

"Great," Twilight said. "I'm sure everything will be just fine."

Fluttershy winced and looked fearfully at Ditzy, who was now tossing a baby squirrel into the air playfully and catching it in her hooves. "Please don't do that... if you don't mind..."

"Twilight, are you sure about this?"

Twilight looked up from her tome and regarded Spike with a quizzical expression. "What do you mean?"

Spike leaned on his broom and sighed. "Well, leaving Ditzy alone with Fluttershy... and all those poor, defenseless animals. You saw the shiner on Applejack."

"I understand what you mean, Spike, but we have to give our friends the benefit of the doubt." Twilight turned back to the pages of Magical Mimicry, the thick tome which she had been studying for several hours. "I believe Ditzy can really improve if she puts her mind to it, and I trust Fluttershy to be able to deal with a little klutziness."

"Sure, Twilight. But... y'know, maybe it would be a good idea to check up on them. Y'know... maybe give them some... moral support?"

Twilight closed the book and sighed. "I suppose you're right, Spike. It certainly wouldn't hurt. But I'm sure they're fine."

"Nutty, don't you quit on me!!"

Spike faceclawed as Twilight took in the scene with a morbid fascination. Fluttershy was currently performing frantic CPR on a ferret with a red and swollen face, and many of her animals were running wild. The chicken coop was on fire. Ditzy Doo was sitting bashfully in the middle of the chaos.

"What happened here?" Twilight asked slowly.

"Um..." Ditzy said. "I'm not sure what went wrong."

"She fed Nutty nuts," Fluttershy cried.

"I thought he'd like them..." Ditzy said.

Fluttershy nearly tore a clump of her mane out with her hooves. "He's allergic to nuts!"

"So his name's one of those ironic things..." Spike guessed.

"And I guess I forgot to secure the pens," Ditzy admitted. "And I may have mixed up the chicken feed with the flame salamanders..."

Fluttershy sighed in relief as Nutty began to cough and rolled back onto his feet. "Oh, thank goodness you're okay." She turned to Ditzy, her eyes blazing with the righteous fury of a protective Ursa Major. Rearing onto her hind legs, her barrel inflated as she breathed deeply through her nostrils, and her front hoof rose as if to strike the oblivious Ditzy. "I'm sorry,” Fluttershy said meekly, deflating and hiding her face behind her mane. “But this isn't going to work out."

"Muffins!"

Pinkie Pie bounced up and down with excitement. "Oh, this is going to be so great! Derpy Doo's one of my best customers, always first in line for my muffins. Well, except for that one time during applebuck season, but even I didn't want to look at a muffin for a while after that, so I can't blame her..."

"I think this might be good for you, Ditzy," Twilight said. "Pinkie is a great baker and I’m sure she’ll be able to help you learn about attention to detail. Especially after last time."

"I dunno, Twilight," Ditzy said, her face downcast as she rubbed her shoulder self-consciously. "I enjoy eating muffins, but I've never tried to make them before..."

Twilight placed a hoof on Ditzy's back reassuringly. "Don't worry, I trust you."

Spike rolled his eyes. "And with that shining endorsement, nothing can possibly go wrong."

"Is... is Applejack getting enough rest?" Nurse Red Heart asked.

"Not... Applejack..." Pinkie wheezed. She was now more Greenie than Pinkie and felt so queasy she didn't even care about the kitchen blaze that firefighters were still attempting to put out. "I had my eye out... for the worms. Didn't suspect... the ipecac." She coughed violently. "Don't know... why I even had that lying around."

"Oops..." Ditzy said dejectedly.

"Twi... Twilight. Come closer..." Pinkie pleaded.

"Uh..." Twilight started forward. "Yes?"

Pinkie desperately gasped for air and held out a foreleg. Twilight held her friend’s hoof as she summoned the strength to speak. "If I don't make it..."

"Pinkie, you're going to be..."

Pinkie pulled Twilight down to her muzzle and squished her face in between her hooves. ”If I don’t make it!” she squealed, her wide eyes boring into Twilight’s. The outburst left her drained and she collapsed back onto the bed. “Tell Gummy… he always goes flat when he tries to hit that high B. He really needs to work on that…” With those words, she drifted into blissful unconsciousness.

“Well…” Twilight said. “I guess there’s still one last pony who might be able to help…”

Spike gasped and turned to Twilight goggle-eyed. “No, Twilight… you can’t!”

To be continued in Act II

Author's Notes:

Edited 9MAY13 by BBofC of the Proof-reading, Pre-reading, and Editing Group.