“This is my day off, for Celestia’s sake!” growled Rainbow Dash, “So why am I here on my own time, busting clouds and ducking lightning bolts when I have a game to get to?”

“Tell it to the Everfree, Boss,” said Raindrops as she sped past Dash, dropping under a cloudbank to split a steel-grey puff cleanly down the middle.

Popping up above the cloud layer, Rainbow spun around, squinting as she eyed every cloud in the sea of storms that had spilled out unexpectedly from the wild depths of the Everfree forest. “All weather ponies, form on me!” she shouted. Spotting pastels and wings flitting among the clouds below, she yelled again over the din of wind and rain, ignoring the hoarse scraping on her vocal cords, “I said on me, ponies! Now!”

Seconds later a half dozen dripping wet pegasi climbed up to her altitude and held there, tired and sullen and glaring at her. A green pony spat from under a drooping lavender mane, “What gives, Boss? We’ve been out here for an hour already. This isn’t the time for a team pep talk. If we want to go home, then we should be in there busting clouds, not – ”

Rainbow shook her head and winced as she strained to shout over the roiling thunderheads below. “Change of plan, Merry. At this rate we’ll be here all afternoon and I’ve got somewhere to be. Much as I love you featherbrains, there’s no way I’m spending my personal time poking a bunch of cumulonimbus one at a time.”

Pulling the ragged group into a close huddle, she dropped her voice to its usual gravelly level. “Okay, new strategy. Instead of busting these clouds here, we’re going to send the entire cell straight back to the Everfree.” Smiling as shaking heads and dropping jaws greeted her, she continued, “Merry, Drizzle, Dewdrop, you three cut around the left side. Stack up vertically and stagger. Don’t split the clouds, just trail the outside edge. Airheart, Sunlight, Raindrops, you mirror them but on the right side. Same pattern, same tactic - don’t cut the clouds, just feather the border.”

“And you, RD?” Sunlight offered, wiping his goggles with a soggy hoof, “You aren’t just gonna supervise, right?”

A daredevil’s grin crossed the azure pony’s muzzle. “No way in Tartarus, Sun! I’ll give you about half a minute then I’m gonna thread this cell right up the middle. If you turkeys have done your jobs, the whole heart of the storm will get sucked up in my wake. I’ll be able to draw off the worst of it and lead it right back where it came from. Are we shiny, weaterponies?”

Merry chuckled, “Never a dull moment with you in charge, is there, RD?”

“Not when I’ve got someplace to be!” she laughed, then dropped her smirk and furrowed her brow. “Alright, ponies, playtime’s over. No mistakes! I don’t plan to be the next name on the 'In Memoriam' board. Places, everypony, now on my mark – three, two, one … Go! Go! Go!”

Six pegasi sped off, circling the growing storm, slicing its rolling and jagged edges neatly as if a giant hand had gathered the thundering chaos into a drawstring sack and pulled it tightly closed. Dash took several deep breaths, closing her eyes for a long moment, then rocketed off into the wall of grey. Her chest heaved and burned, her wings ached, and every feather and hair felt like hot needles as lightning arced all about. Driving rain stung her eyes as hammer-like winds tore and beat at her from all sides. Onward she tore, her rainbow contrail carving a knife-edge line straight through the thunderhead.

The six ponies completed their circuit of the storm and met above the fray, panting and winded. Airheart and Dewdrop held each other for support and Drizzle gnawed nervously on his hooves as the others stared into the cloudbank, wide-eyed and trembling. Dash’s trail faded into the storm and they waited for long and tense seconds. A cheer went up from all six as Merry suddenly pointed a hoof at the far side of the stormcell. There, headed straight for the Everfree, was a lone blue pegasus popping out of the storm, trailing a vortex of rainbows and grey-black thunderclouds in her wake. Slowly at first and then with building speed the storm cell began rolling back toward the forest wilds.

Rainbow made a wide circle over the receding thunderheads back to the cheering ponies. “Remind me,” she started as she wheezed and gasped, “please, remind me never to suggest that again!” One hoof on her aching side and grunting as she reached back with another to massage a wing joint, she continued, “Okay, you six bust up the stragglers then head home. We all earned our overtime today!” She called behind her as she sped away, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta be somewhere, I’m already late, and Rainbow Dash is never late!”

Half an hour later, exhausted and wet and bruised, she sat on the sidelines of the hoofball field at Cloudsdale Middle School. Diminutive pegasi darted this way and that across the field before a cheer went up. Over the roar of applause an announcer’s voice blared through a loudspeaker, “Goal for Cloudsdale! The CMS Manticores take the lead 1-0 early in the first period. That was Velocity Dash with the scoring kick.”

Zipping to the sidelines, a little midnight-blue filly with a striped indigo-and-green mane lit in front of Rainbow, hopping and bouncing. Grinning ear to ear, she asked, “Did you see that kick, Mom? Did you see me score?”

“Totally!” Dash yelled, pumping her hooves in the air. “That was awesome, kid! Just like I taught you.”

“I didn’t see you out front before the game,” called the filly over her shoulder as she flitted back toward the field, “did you have trouble getting here?”

The blue mare sat back and waved a hoof at her daughter. “Nah, just another day at the office, kiddo. Wouldn’t miss this for the world! Now get out there and show ‘em who’s boss, Vee!”

Author's Notes:

TMP Prompt # 249. The Prompt: Time for the big game.

"Are we shiny, weaterponies?" - do I need to tell you this is a Firefly reference?

The six weatherponies are canon background characters, some using their fan-given names, some with names from actual toys.