After Twilight had seen Show Stopper out and cleaned the confetti up, she and Spike set up the lab for Talon. They had invited Rainbow over as well, promising her a chance to show off her weather manipulating skills. She had even given Twilight a few ideas for her tests, mostly indirectly due to her bragging.
They had set up several areas by the time Spike heard knocking and ran over to open the door. The now familiar group of Talon, Day, Fluttershy, and Emerald trotted in, following him down to the basement where they gaped at the extent of the preparations Twilight had made.
In one corner, there was a sealed box with a spring pushing the top panel down. The side of the container had a gauge, currently set to zero. Along the left wall were stacked a series of glass boxes, each containing a small cloud about the size of Spike. The wall across from those had a large wooden tunnel with a fan on one end, hooked to yet another gauge. Just outside of the entrance to the makeshift tunnel was a weather vane bolted to the floor, next to a drain in the corner.
In the middle of the basement was a decent area roped off with a lightning rod in the center. Just in front of them was a table containing, among other things, a thaumometer, a thermometer, a barometer, a voltmeter, and several foam balls.
Twilight cantered over to them after making some adjustments to the gauge for the wind tunnel, jotting down something on a clipboard. Smiling, she flipped a page over. “Hello, everypony. We've got pretty much everything set up, so right now we're just waiting on Dash to get started. Day, I'd like you to help us with making sure that nothing goes wrong with the weather while we experiment. Emerald, I'd appreciate if you could help me with some of the equipment during the experiments.”
The two guards nodded as they all sat to wait for Rainbow to show up. “So,” Fluttershy broke the silence, hesitantly looking out at the others. “How is Talon doing in the lessons?”
Twilight smiled as she straightened up. “He's doing pretty well. He seems to like learning about things, at least. He's best at the things that are more conceptual, though. He picked up pretty quickly on the principles behind some basic science, but he needs more time to learn large quantities of information. I think that geography and history will take him the longest. Honestly, though, outside of those, he should be able to participate in class with-”
A rainbow contrail suddenly blurred into the room, kicking up a small cloud of dust on landing and blowing back everypony's manes. “Hey everypony! Sorry I'm late!”
“Alright. Everything is ready, so let's start.” Twilight had given everypony lab coats and goggles. She didn't have any lab equipment that would fit Talon, so she settled for giving him flight goggles. Twilight levitated one of the foam balls over to sit in front of Talon. “Let's start basic. Talon, try to levitate this.”
“Levitate?”
“Here, like this.” Twilight's aura flared up as she picked the ball up in her magic momentarily.
“Okay...” Talon stuck his tongue out in concentration as he reached out with one claw. The ball briefly floated as a tiny gust of wind blew it up from beneath.”
“Alright, so levitation is probably a no, but you can float objects with wind, which is fairly interesting...” Twilight scratched something out before scribbling a quick note. “Maybe we can still use the basic control exercises for you...” Twilight absentmindedly grabbed a jar from the table with her magic.
“Wait!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed in surprise. “What are you gonna do with a jar of rainbow, Twilight?”
“Well,” Twilight began as she set the jar on the floor. “I thought that with his magic being so unique, he might be able to do something with it. After all, I've never seen anypony manipulate lightning like- wait, don't eat-”
Talon looked up from the jar he had scooped a handful from. Swallowing, he looked back and forth between the others guiltily. “Sorry!”
“Uhh...” Twilight stepped towards Talon carefully, hoping that there wasn't some sort of delayed reaction. “Do you... feel okay, Talon?”
“Yes?” Talon looked around once more as a small stream of rainbow dribbled down his chin before he wiped it with a paw. “What is wrong?”
“Um, Talon, isn't that, um, spicy?” Fluttershy asked.
“What is spicy? Is bad?” Talon looked over to Twilight with his ears pressed back. “Sorry.”
“What? Oh!” Twilight shook her head rapidly. “No, it's just, most ponies who eat rainbows end up, well...” Twilight glanced away and her eyes fell on Emerald. “Emerald, perhaps you could demonstrate. It's somewhat hard to explain with his current vocabulary.”
Emerald sighed, walking over to where the jar had been abandoned on the floor. “Yes, Princess Twilight.” He carefully extracted one drop of the multicolored liquid, making sure Talon was watching as he placed it on his tongue. “Ah, ah, hot!” Emerald danced in place and panted before he ran over and shoved his head into a cloud, sucking in the water vapor for relief.
“Most ponies who eat rainbow end up like that. Even pinkie, and she loves spicy food.” Twilight shuddered before turning to Talon. “I was going to ask if you could control the rainbow in any way, but I think I'll set up something more extensive for later.”
Twilight led Talon over to the large, spring-topped glass box, clipboard in her aura's grip. “Talon, I want you to squeeze the air in this box. Can you do that?”
“Squeeze... air?” Talon brought a paw up to his chin as Twilight nodded. “Okay...” Talon reached forward with the paw that was still slightly stained with rainbow. Twilight glanced back to the center of the room, noting the trail of multicolor paw prints with a frown before turning back to watch Talon. He looked as though he was struggling to squeeze an invisible object in his paw, his brow wrinkling as his claws started to glow with a soft white light.
The lid of the container creaked as it was pulled downward by the compressing air. “Hmm...” Twilight checked the gauge, recording the readings in her notes. “This would be high for the average unicorn your age , but I'm starting to think you have an affinity for weather magic.”
“Gee, really, Twilight?” Spike rolled his eyes. “What gave you that idea, the lightning or the other lightning?”
Twilight stuck her tongue out at Spike before turning back to her notes. “You know we can't assume things like that, Spike.” She trotted up and looked over a thermometer attached to the box. “Okay, Talon. Try to see if you can make the air inside the box hot or cold.”
Talon flexed his paw, which felt oddly sore, before looking back up to see Twilight happily scribbling in her notes. The last thing had worked, so maybe this one would as well. Talon focused on trying to make the box heat up. Sweating, his claws started to glow again before Talon was launched backward with a loud pop.
Fluttershy was the first to rush over, the others quickly following suit. “Are you alright, Talon?”
Talon sat up, shaking his head and holding his forelimb awkwardly in his other paw. “Paw feel...” he hesitated, trying to find a word to describe the current zinging, tingly feeling in his affected appendage. “Weird.”
Twilight's quill scratched rapidly at the clipboard. “You're suffering some magic burnout, so we'll need to take a break. Spike, could you grab an apple and a few gems for Talon?” She sighed as he pouted at her. “Yes, Spike, you can have a few too.” Twilight rolled her eyes as he pumped his fist in victory. “It makes sense that you'll need to build up your reserves after so long not really using them for anything but the most intuitive magic. It is interesting that your claws appear to be your focus for channeling your magic.”
Spike soon returned with the food, which Talon downed in a few bites. Twilight started on some calculations while Talon recovered.
“So, you raised the air by 0.6 degrees, the box is a meter to a side, the heat capacity and density of air around Ponyville...” Twilight mumbled to herself as she did some quick calculations. “That's about eight and a half thaums, not bad for somepony just starting out with magic.”
Twilight smiled softly as she returned to the group. “How about we try something that won't strain your magic for a little while?”
Talon nodded vigorously as he went to stand up, momentarily forgetting his numb leg as he tumbled back down to the floor.
“This test is actually something they use in flight schools. Rainbow told me about it, but I'm going to make it a double blind study.”
Rainbow looked at her in confusion as she hovered over to sit next to the wall of cloud containers. “We're gonna wear blindfolds?”
“No, but Talon is.” Twilight levitated said item and tied it over Talon's eyes. “Double blind means that you'll bring a random cloud over from the first set of sixteen, writing down what kind they are as you go. I won't know what kind of cloud you bring over, and I'll write down what kind of cloud Talon thinks it is. This way, I can't accidentally give him any clues or push him toward a certain answer. I'm even blocking my own weather senses.”
“Okay, whatever.” Rainbow grabbed a cloud container from the pile, checking off what kind it was on the sheet Twilight had given her before she flew it over to the other side of Talon.
“Okay, Talon, can you tell what kind of cloud this is?”
Talon sniffed at the air for a moment before hesitantly answering. “Wet?”
“Okay,” Twilight checked a box on her own chart. “Rain cloud. Next one, please, Dash.”
After Twilight had checked off a normal cloud, snow cloud, lightning cloud, and another rain cloud, she looked over to Rainbow. “Are you just bringing them over in the order I put them there, Rainbow?”
Rainbow quickly put the box she had been lifting off of the pile back down. “What? No, of course not! Heh, that would be bad science or whatever, right?” She picked up a different crate from the pile as Twilight resisted rolling her eyes and settled for an exasperated look.
Twilight looked up from her chart after the last box had been checked. Rainbow had rushed the cloud boxes back to the wall in a haphazard pile before bringing her chart over to Twilight.
“Looks like his weather sense is just as good as any pegasus. Though it seems he senses it through smell, which is odd, even for him...”
Rainbow thrust her forehooves out before her in exasperation. “Really, Twilight? Wouldn't it make more sense that he can just smell what kind of cloud it is?”
Twilight suddenly looked sheepishly at the others. “That... would make more sense, yes. I'll have to look into it. I did have a few more tests that I wanted to finish before the crusaders come over, though.”
After testing the strength and control he could put into his wind magic before he started to strain himself again, as well as his control over rain, Twilight looked at her last page of test procedures.
“Okay, we're almost done for today. I just want to test some of the ways Talon interacts with lightning.” Twilight floated over two crates, one with a dark storm cloud, the other a puffy white cloud. “Talon, if you could, I'd like you to take the lightning out of this cloud and put it in the other one.” Twilight stood a small distance away on the other side of the lightning rod and erected a shield around the group.
Rainbow hovered with her forelegs crossed. “Twilight, this is crazy. Nopony can just take lightning out of a – holy turnips! What the hay? How did he do that?!”
Twilight watched as Talon placed the ball of lightning in the center of the pure white cloud, which quickly turned a dark gray. The other cloud had changed form dark gray to almost white.
Twilight wrote furiously as her thaumic detectors hummed in the background. “Okay, now can you take the rain out of one of them?” Rainbow gaped as Talon grabbed the inside of the now white cloud, his paw emerging with a ball of water the size of a grape. The cloud rapidly dissipated as they watched.
“Now put the water in the other cloud, please.” Talon pushed the water into the cloud which turned a churning a dark gray and black in swirling motions.
“Is good?”
“This is great! I've never seen readings like these, but if I cross-reference them with records of pegasus thaumology I might be able to find out some amazing things about weather magic!”
In her excitement, Twilight dropped her shield, bouncing in place.
“Uh, Twilight?”
There was a familiar loud boom, and Twilight vaguely noticed a sparking and blackened Talon flying past her and crashing into one of the cloud crates.