//------------------------------//
// #14 Rainbow Dash 
// Story: The Rift 
// by Colors 
//------------------------------//



I


The door was opened by a Twilight Sparkle who, for inexplicable reasons, was dripping wet. Rainbow paid it no mind.

“Twilight! Thank Celestia! Something is wrong! I can fly really fast!”

“Um,” Twilight made.

“No, you don’t get it! Really really really fast! It’s crazy!”

Twilight lit her horn. Her mane started blowing in what had to be a stream of air.

“Okay,” she said after a moment, and over the sound her magical mane-dryer, “how fast?”

“Dunno! Like, twice as fast as normally.”

Fluttershy came walking out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.

“Twice as fast as your normal maximum speed?” Twilight asked, redirecting the wind to dry her backside.

“Yeah. I think so. I was really fast when I just flew out for a bit, and when I got back I was even faster!”

“Okay,” Twilight said, “that sounds very odd.”

“Shouldn’t there have been a rainboom?” Fluttershy asked. “Or were you too far away and we didn’t hear it?”

Rainbow shrugged. “No clue. Thought that, too. But there wasn’t.”



II


Twilight cut off the stream, drawing a hoof through her hopelessly disheveled mane. It looked similar to when Rainbow had dried it on the first day they’d met.

“If there was really no rainboom,” she said, “even though you flew faster than ever before, that would be... uhm...”

“That’s what happened.”

“Rainbow, please don’t get the wrong idea, but what you’re saying sounds so unbelievable that I have to at least consider that it didn’t happen. Maybe you just thought you were flying really fast and-”

“It happened. I can show you. Come outside.”



III


“Okay,” Twilight conceded, “you were right.”

“Wow,” Fluttershy murmured. “That was really...”

“... really really...” Twilight continued.

“... really fast,” Fluttershy concluded.

“Really fast,” Twilight added.

“Told you.”

“Frick!” Now Twilight was visibly worried. “You flew way faster than you did at the Best Young Flier’s Competition. And no rainboom.”

“... and?” Rainbow asked, feeling somewhat nervous herself. “What does it mean?”

“I have no idea,” Twilight said, “but it’s really scary.”