//------------------------------//
// Calm Before The Storm 
// Story: Spells and Rainbows 
// by 6-D Pegasus 
//------------------------------//

"What... was... THAT?!"

Rainbow's jaw fell as she gawked at the lilac unicorn groaning on the floor near her. Stars swam around the edges of her vision, and her head still throbbed slightly from the sheer brightness of the magical light show she had just witnessed. "Why was THAT one so intense while the one before was, like, practically NOTHING?!"

Starlight also shook her head a bit to clear up her sight before slowly climbing back on her hooves. "Well, Accellero isn't really the EASIEST spell to cast. It requires multiple base spells precisely interweaved together in a thaumic lattice that would..." One quick glance to her pegasus friend made it quite clear that she had absolutely no idea what she was saying.

"It's a harder spell, so I used more magic."

"Oh, gotcha."

Once her vision was clear enough, Starlight scanned the floor around her before spotting the amulet lying on the crystal floor a little off to her right. Rainbow followed her gaze to the magical gemstone and noticed that, while the glow it emitted was certainly no longer blinding, it was now bright enough to cast faint shadows across the walls. Making sure not to shake it too much, Starlight carefully levitated the amulet up to eye level and inspected it closely. She tenatatively poked it with a hoof before nodding to herself. "Yep, the spell's been integrated!"

Rainbow's face lit up with excitement. "Awesome! Let's test it out now!"

She reached out a hoof to grab at the glowing amulet, but Starlight quickly floated it back out of her reach. "OH NONOnonononono not here, DEFINITELY not here! Were you NOT listening earlier?! We have no idea how this could turn out, and we're not exactly in the..." Starlight gestured to the crystal ceiling, floor, and walls surrounding her with a hoof. "... safest place to do this right now."

Rainbow cocked a head in confusion. "I thought you didn't want to do this at the school cause it would be distracting to the students or something. Would it actually cause damage?"

"Well, I mean I'm not sure. But there are several historical records of spellcasting through magic-storing gemstones going wrong and creating massive explosions or sometimes worse!"

"Is it weird that I want to do it even more now?"

"Hmm.. a little. My point is, I just think it would be SAFEST to do this where there isn't really anything that can get destroyed."

Rainbow put a hoof to her chin as she thought over where and what the "experiment" would be exactly. Gasp"OH! I know where! Give me... TEN MINUTES!"

With that, Rainbow disappeared in a puff of dust and a trail of rainbows. Starlight blinked, the after-image of the cyan pegasus still hovering directly in her line of sight before dissipating into nothing. She trotted over to the window and pushed aside the curtain and blinds with her magic just in time to catch a glimpse of the rainbow trail speeding away from the castle entrance up into the sky. "Hmm... maybe I should... "

Starlight floated the amulet in front of her again and focused her magic into it, weaving another spell matrix underneath the speed spell. She then turned around and, upon spotting her gift box, levitated it over to her, dropped the amulet inside, and shut the lid.

"Why did I agree to do this?"





Nine minutes later...

"And you AGREED to this?!"

To Starlight Glimmer, Twilight Sparkle was one of the most amiable ponies in all of Equestria. It was she, after all, who was able to show her the error in her ways and reintroduce her to the warmth of friendship when she had turned her back on it. And it was she who led her through the fog of her mind, through which she emerged anew, as a changed pony. She may have been assigned as the guidance counselor for the School of Friendship, but if she ever had concerns or problems of her own, Twilight was always the first pony she would go to.

Well, technically the second. Trixie was the first.

But if it was magic-related or something complicated, she would always go to Twilight. And whenever she went to Twilight, she would give her the response she was looking for 99.9% of the time...




Turned out today was that 0.1%.

Starlight nearly tumbled out of her seat after hearing her former mentor's outburst from across the table. The other ponies at the [insert pony pun restaurant name here later] all turned to see what the commotion was about, and Twilight awkwardly shrank back to her seat, her wings quickly folding back to her side. "Hehe, sorry about that, just ignore us."

Once she was sure most of the attention had been diverted elsewhere, Twilight let out a sigh of relief and turned back to Starlight. "What in the name of Celestia were you THINKING?!"

Starlight rolled her eyes. "It's just a speed spell, nothing too dangerous. I showed it to you once, remember?"

Twilight released an exasperated groan and buried her face in her hooves. "Ughhhh, yes you did, but it's not exactly the spell that I'm worried about, it's the pony that will be casting it."

"Rainbow Dash? Well, that's why we're doing the experiment in the first place. She's already one of the fastest fliers in Equestria, if not the fastest, so I'm just curious on how the spell will affect her. Besides, she clearly wants to know as well."

"I understand what you're trying to say, but..." Twilight started finding a great deal of interest in a particular crack on the ground. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea to test this idea with Rainbow Dash in particular..."

Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Why not? Do you know something about her that I don't?"

"Ummm not entirely... Okay, actually I still have no idea why it happened..."

"What do you mean? Did something happen some time ago involving her and speed enhancement that I don't know about?"

Twilight bit her lip and spared a glance at everypony around her as if to check for any eavesdroppers. She then turned back to Starlight and motioned with a hoof to bring her ear closer. "There was an ... " Twilight lowered the volume of her whisper even further. "... incident a few years ago involving Rainbow Dash and an ability enhancement potion I created. It was REALLY bad, so bad that afterwards Celestia and Luna had to get involved to quickly undo the damage."

Starlight cocked her head in confusion. "Ummm, that sounds... pretty big... How come I've never heard a single pony talk about or even mention it during my time here?"

"Oh, that's simple. Celestia wiped the memories of everything that happened that day from the minds of everypony in Ponyville except for me."

Starlight reeled back in surprise, shock evident on her face. "Yikes... that bad huh?" Twilight nodded. "What exactly happened that day?"

Twilight sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. "Well, it started one day a few months before I became an alicorn. I was conducting the experiment that would create the ability enhancement potion when Rainbow suddenly startled me, and I..."





If anypony were to casually glance up at the sky above Ponyville, they would be greeted with the sight of a mostly clear sky, save for a few tiny puffs of cloud here and there...

... and a wide, thin ring of clouds forming a little ways off from the northern edge of the Everfree forest, one last tiny cloud being pushed into its place along the side.

"Hmm, perfect! That should do it!"

Rainbow Dash shoved the last few clouds into position and drifted back a few meters to get a view of her finished product. The ring of cloud looked almost as large as the cloud track the Wonderbolts use for aerial performances in Canterlot. She glanced down at the town below her and nodded to herself. "Okay, this seems high enough. This was where I used to practice my flying routines anyways and nopony ever complained, so this definitely shouldn't bother anypony!"





Somewhere within the Everfree forest, a lone zebra stood outside a small hut, glaring menacingly at the cyan pegasus in the sky above her.

"Grrr, my sleep you like to disrupt? One day, your number will surely be up..."

After a few seconds, she grumbled to herself in annoyance and retreated back into her hut, shutting the door behind her then closing every window she could find.





Rainbow brushed her hooves off on her chest and looked back to admire her creation one last time before turning around and speeding back down to Ponyville. She felt a small spark of excitement burst within her as she felt the wind trail around her body, her wings cutting through the currents like they weren't even there. After spending so much time around the school and its students, she eventually managed to tone herself down a little so that others could have an easier time following during lectures or lessons. However, nothing would ever be able to take away her drive for breaking limits and boundaries. Her own were never such an exception.

Now I just have to find Starlight. Rainbow scanned the streets of Ponyville from above and eventually found her talking to Twilight at that one restaurant whose name always crossed her mind. They seemed to be arguing about something. She glided down and touched down right next to their table. "Hey Starlight, you ready to this?"

Twilight turned to Rainbow with a concerned look on her face. "Look Rainbow, I know how much you want to do this and all, but I feel like this is just too dangerous."

Rainbow rolled her eyes at her purple friend. "Yeah I KNOW it is! That's why I made a place where Starlight and I can test it out a safe distance from everypony else!" She pointed up to the sky with a hoof, to which Twilight and Starlight followed up to a large cloud ring a little off in the distance.

Twilight squinted a bit in an attempt to discern it from the surrounding sky. "Well, that's really thoughtful of you Rainbow, but what I meant to say is I think this experiment might be pose too many risks to YOU."

"WHAT?!"

Now it was Starlight's turn to roll her eyes. "I know you're worried Twilight, but this isn't the same as... THAT time! First, you were working with a potion that you had no actual idea how it worked; I'm familiar with the whole structure of Accelero, so at least I know what I'm working with. And second, we can't even control potions! We're really just hoping that the ingredients react the way they're supposed to, compared to spell casting where we have almost full control over what we're doing!"

Twilight shivered. "I know, I know. I just... I still remember seeing all their faces.. so sca-"

"Twilight, if you're so worried and all, why don't come with us?"

The anxious alicorn looked up at Starlight. "Really? How would that help?"

"Well, for one part, this whole this is really just a big experiment, and it's always useful to have more than one person record what happens in case one of us sees it differently. Also, the two of us fared pretty well against the Pony of Shadows when you brought the Pillars back from Limbo. I think if some magical disaster happens, the two of us could manage."

Twilight looked at Starlight; she could tell she was convinced nothing wrong would happen. Deep down, she still could not ignore the uneasy feeling that a another horrific incident would happen. But it won't happen again, right? I mean, Starlight's with me now, we can totally handle it. Besides... what would happen if Rainbow Dash was enhanced by a speed spell? She sighed to herself.

"All right, let's do it."

Starlight nodded and lit her horn. A mint-colored saddlebag floated up from under the table and came to rest on Starlight's back. It was mostly empty, save for a small crystal box sticking out near the top of cover. "Okay Rainbow, I have the amulet with me here. What do you plan on doo..." Starlight trailed off, noticing that Rainbow had already diverted her attention elsewhere. After glancing around for a bit, she found a small pebble nearby and levitated it above Rainbow's back before letting it fall.

"What the- ?!"

Rainbow whipped her head back and let out a surprised shout. Her wings opened on reflex and propelled her up a little before she froze in midair and turned to her two friends. Starlight stared right back, trying, while desperately failing, to stifle her laugh, all while Twilight was giving her former student a very annoyed expression.

"Well sorry, you girls were taking too long. Now come on, let's go!"

Rainbow spread her wings once more and leaped to the air to take flight, only to find herself held in place by the teal aura of Starlight's magic. "Woah woah woah! Before we do ANY of this, I just want to be sure that whatever it is you plan on doing isn't anything too... reckless."

Rainbow dismissed her with a hoof. "Pfft, it's the simplest thing anypony can do when it comes to testing out their speed."





"A race?"

Twilight looked around at the crude cloud track her polychromatic friend had put together in the sky as she flew around it. It looked almost like those race tracks she would see during her trips to Cloudsdale that the pegasi would use for exercise every so often. The only differences were its lack of an outer ring and how messily it was clearly put together. After scanning the area for a second she spotted a moderately sized, unused cloud nearby. She flew over to it and poked it with a hoof to test its structure before landing atop it.

"Well, not really since I'm gonna be the only one on there. It's more of a... time trial." Rainbow flew up from behind Twilight and touched down next to her on the cloud. "I'm going to race four laps around the track and compare the time with my personal best!"

"Annnd what IS your personal best?"

Rainbow audibly smirked upon hearing Twilight's question, and the purple alicorn immediately knew what was coming. "TEN SECONDS FL-"

"Why didn't you just use one of the cloud tracks up in Cloudsdale, the ones you showed us when you gave us a tour there?" Twilight cut Rainbow off as quickly as she could, lest she start hearing the complete phrase in her nightmares once more.

"All of the cloud tracks at Cloudsdale are taken for now, so I figured I would make my own close to Ponyville."

"You're missing the o-"

"Outer ring, yeah I know. That's really to help young fliers practice control when making quick turns, so I don't really need it anymore."

Something rustled behind Twilight and she turned around to see an exhausted looking Starlight pulling herself up onto the cloud, her whole body wrapped in the teal aura of her own magic. "For Celestia's sake... could the two of you have slowed down?! I can levitated myself around, but do you have ANY IDEA how tiring it is to do it from the ground all the way up to the cloud layer!?"

Twilight trotted over to her lilac-coated friend and offered her a helping hoof, which she graciously accepted. "Why didn't you just teleport up here?"

Starlight looked to her former teacher in confusion. "It's too far for me to teleport in a single jump, and I don't want to risk exhausting my magic by doing multiple teleports through the air."

"No, I meant fly up a portion of the distance with your magic then teleport the remaining distance."

Starlight looked straight into Twilight's eyes with the dead expression one could possibly imagine. "One day Twilight..." She tapped into her magic once more and opened up her saddlebag to reveal the crystal box. "One day..."

Rainbow's eyes lit up the moment she caught sight of the box. "So are we gonna do thi-"

Starlight cut her off. "Yes, but I need to explain to Twilight what we're doing specifically first." She turned to Twilight. "Actually now that I think about it, it's VERY good that you decided to come along. "

Twilight cocked her head in confusion. "Yeeeeeaaaaah?"

Starlight giggled to herself before continuing. "I'll be using a stopwatch to get Rainbow's time." To further her point, she scooped out a chunk of the cloud in her hoof and fired a thin beam of magic at it. A second later, she was holding a perfectly normal-looking stopwatch in her hoof. "I'll need you to scan the thaumic field around Rainbow Dash during the experiment. I want to know how the amulet's magic interacts with her latent pegasus magic."

Twilight put a hoof to her chin as she pondered the thought. Eventually, her own curiosity got the better of her. "Hmm, all right. Just tell me when you need me to start. "

"Right now would be good. " Twilight nodded and closed her eyes, her horn flaring alive with violet magic. When she opened them again, the world around her looked the same with the exception of the bright auras of light now surrounding her and her two friends. Her own violet light cascaded smoothly through and around her body, emanating from points on the base of her horn, wings, and from another point deep inside her. Curious, she glanced at her friends to observe their auras.

Starlight's aura seemed to originate only at her horn, and travelled through her form in teal lines between tiny points of light that shifted throughout her body, creating little geometric patterns. Rainbow's aura started from the base of her wings, and arced through her body like bolts of magenta lightning in slow motion. She made a mental reminder to subtly check the aura of the rest of her friends, just to sate her already growing curiosity. "I got the spell working, Starlight."

Starlight nodded back and floated the crystal box out of her bag to the middle of the group. After taking a few seconds to cast an inanimate cloudwalking spell on the box and everything in it, she opened it and floating out its precious cargo. Twilight focused her magically-enhanced vision to the amulet, and saw a lattice-like structure embedded deep inside the gemstone, bright teal lines connecting several stationary points throughout it. It looked similar to Starlight's magic aura, except that the lines didn't travel and the points didn't move.

Starlight let the decorative gift box slip from her magical grip, and it dropped onto their cloud with a soft poomph. She mentioned with a hoof to Rainbow for her to get closer and floated the faintly glowing amulet up to her neck. Rainbow caught it with a hoof and, once again, used her wings to fasten the clip behind her neck. This time, she made sure to tighten it a little more, so it didn't loosely dangle from her neck whenever she moved around.

Twilight turned to Rainbow once more to observe the way their magics interacted. The glow from the amulet brightened slightly, but other than that she could see nothing else really happening. Starlight turned to her. "See anything yet?"

"No, nothing yet."

Starlight looked away in thought for a split second, then turned back to Rainbow. "Okay, are you ready to do this?" Rainbow nearly squealed in excitement.

"Awwwwww yeah!"

THERE!

One small bolt of Rainbow's aura arced from her body and struck one of the stationary points inside the gemstone. The sudden change cause Twilight to blink in surprise, but when she looked again, she could see no longer spot a difference. What was that? I could have sworn...

Starlight took notice of her friend's confused expression and mirrored it. "What is it, Twilight? Did you see something?"

Twilight continued to focus on Rainbow as she flew off towards the cloud track, holding behind her a makeshift finish line out of cloud. "I could have sworn..."

Starlight took note of Twilight's nervous expression. "Come on, Twilight, you're worrying too much. If it eases your worries, I weaved a cancellation spell into the amulet that should negate the effects of Accelero if it detects dangerous levels of magical energy release."

"And what level of energy is that?"

Starlight searched for the numbers through her memory. "Ummmm, double rainboom?"

"Ready when you are, girls!" Twilight cleared her thoughts to check on her friend. Rainbow had attached the strip of cloud for the finish line to the cloud ring, normal to the side of the track and pointing towards the cloud from which Twilight and Starlight were watching her.

Starlight prodded at her cloud-turned-stopwatch for a second to make sure her transfiguration spell wouldn't randomly die out on her during the experiment. And to figure out how to use it at all. Once she had everything in order, Starlight shouted back to her friend in confirmation. "Ok, we're ready now! The spell should trigger the moment you begin since you're trying to go faster than your best time, as long as you think that!"

Rainbow nodded fervently and touched down onto the cloud strip. She stretched her wings in and out to get herself into the moment. She then proceeded to loudly crack every single joint possible throughout her body, eliciting a groan from Twilight. "Raaaaiiiiinboooow get on with it!"

Rainbow rolled her eyes and smirked, before focusing her attention back to the track in front of her. She opened her wings out one last time and bent down in a ready stance.

"One!"

Rainbow began flapping her wings, slowly at first then gaining speed until they appeared as a light blue blur to Twilight. Suddenly...

I knew it! There it was again! Twilight's spell-enhanced vision confirmed her suspicions from before; another small spark of magenta lightning arced from her body and hit the amulet's spell matrix. This time, however, it wasn't alone. Another bolt followed, then another. And another. And another. The little points within the gemstone began slowly moving, the beams of light connecting them starting to shoot between each point as well, getting faster and shifting from Starlight's teal color to Rainbow's magenta hue with every bolt of magic lightning that struck the spell lattice.

"Two!"

Rainbow picked up the speed of her wings. They were going so fast now that her back legs we had already lifted off the cloud platform, the only thing keeping her in place was the resistance her front hooves gave. The points within the gemstone were moving faster than Twilight could keep track off. Suddenly, one of the points shot out from the amulet into Rainbow and began spinning throughout her body the way Starlight's did. More and more points travelled from the gemstone into Rainbow's aura until the amulet was completely devoid of magic. Tiny beams of red lightning began shooting between each them until Rainbow's aura in general looked similar to Starlight's, but the red color and lightning gave it a more unstable appearance.

A flicker of light broke Twilight's concentration and the spell she was using to view the auras collapsed. She gritted her teeth in annoyance and began to construct the spell once more, then gasped when she got a look at Rainbow without the spell. Small bolts of bright cyan lightning were streaking across Rainbow's form, flashing more frequently and brighter the faster Rainbow flapped her wings, and occasionally arcing away and striking the cloud she stood on.

Twilight's fur stood on end as the air around their general region was charged with more and more electricity. A particular bright bolt streaked through Rainbow and arched upwards into the air, producing a small crack of thunder. It was then that Twilight realized what they were in for. She threw a panicked look at Starlight, whose attention was concentrated completely on the stopwatch in front of her. "Starlight, wait! "

But her words fell on deaf ears.

"Three!"

Twilight instinctively threw up a magic barrier around she and Starlight just as the world around her seemed to melt away in a brilliant flash of white light.