Twilight needed a longer microphone cable and it was upon this that she gave a gentle tug, trying to extend her leash a little longer. She eyeballed her subjects and pondered the pun, because they were her subjects, as in residents of her demesne, and they were her subjects, potential sacrifices made in the name of science. Watching them play together, Twilight was confident that whatever happened today would yield results. So little was known about pegasus pony magic; it was a source of near-constant frustration for her. Today’s results would be explosive and amplified by the power of sorcery, but that was fine, that was good, Twilight considered that to be like using a microscope to get a better view of things. Today would reveal pegasus potential and whatever she discovered might be able to be isolated and studied later in greater detail.
Rainbow Dash and Sumac were sitting in the grass, on their haunches, facing one another, and playing a clip-clop game. There was a complex rhythm formed by banging their front hooves together and of course, Rainbow Dash pushed faster and harder. Sumac was keeping up though, and Twilight marvelled at how the foalish playtime game taught better eye-and-hoof coordination. It was such a simple thing at first observation, so easily dismissible as frivolous fun, but now she required this as part of her curriculum. It taught trust, built friendship, and accomplished so much while allowing a stressed-out student to blow off a little steam.
The Royal Academy of Science poo-pooed her ideas that earth ponies and pegasus ponies held complex, nuanced magic of their own—with said rejection coming from earth pony and pegasus pony scientists. Twilight resented them for their own short-sightedness and longed to prove them wrong. Yes, one day, she would be victorious and she would dance in triumph, the ancient and meaningful dance of, In Your Face! It was easy to observe active unicorn magic in action and results were easy to achieve. Observing a zooming pegasus had only become possible when Twilight had sprouted permanent wings.
As for earth ponies, Applejack didn’t like it, and claimed it felt like she was being watched while she pooped. The very idea that earth pony magic and the earth pony way shouldn’t be observed was downright poop-posterous. Observing Pinkie Pie had its own unique hazards, but Twilight would do another thorough examination—someday. She could still feel a few aches and pains from the last time there had been credible observation of the pink test subject.
Of course, as with any quantum entity, observation altered the outcome, and sometimes the observer.
“Subject is the peak of pegasus perfection,” Twilight began, speaking into the microphone in her best documentarian voice. “Rainbow Dash has been to the Grove and she has underwent significant alteration. What this means is as of yet unknown as the subject is hesitant to say anything about what took place in the Grove during said transformation. Subject is a recognised Super under the terms laid in place by the I.E.A, or the Individuals of Exceptional Ability. The full potential of subject? Unknown. Top speed? Unknown. Physical strength while under the affects of Awesome? Unknown. Subject has super-equine endurance and since her transformation also displayed enhanced damage resistance, countering her previous documented frailty.”
Rainbow’s moving hooves caught Twilight’s attention and the microphone was pulled away from her mouth. She blinked, having trouble with what she was seeing, more so because of Sumac’s involvement as well. The pair of them, their hooves were moving so fast that they appeared to be in multiple places at once, leaving behind phantom images as they continued to move at supernatural speed. For Rainbow, this was normal behaviour, but for Sumac, Twilight allowed herself to assume that his sorcerous abilities were enhancing him somehow. Perhaps he was getting some manner of a passive boost from Rainbow Dash… but how?
Was this evidence of Awesome?
Rainbow Dash had ways and means of bringing out the best in others. It was what she did as a Wonderbolt. Scootaloo was a success by any yardstick of measurement. Every foal that Rainbow mentored or put her wing over had a certain displayable sense of Awesomeness about them—and Sumac was no different. Casting a sidelong glance at Spike, she was pleased to see that he was filming this.
Better cameras were needed and Twilight had plans to dump resources into the research of new technology.
“Are we ready to begin?” Twilight asked and the clip-clop game ceased due to her interruption. She was sad to watch it end, but ecstatic to move on to bigger and better things. “Sumac, need another lozenge?”
“Naw, I think I’m good,” he replied, and Twilight nodded to acknowledge him.
“Rainbow, are you ready?”
“You know it, Twi.”
“Let us begin…”
Sumac’s shield bubble now radiated a strange magic that Twilight had trouble discerning. She knew that Sunburst was hard at work trying to get a read on the magics, and she would have to collect his notes later. As Pebble had stated, Sumac was suspended, apparently weightless within his own bubble, and Rainbow Dash stood inside with him, looking like a giant hamster with curious body deformities. Of course, it didn’t help that Rainbow was holding her breath and allowing her cheeks to bulge out, so she could make funny faces for the camera.
A crackling tether of magic connected Sumac to his shield bubble and Twilight could not help but feel that there was something almost umbilical about it. This was different, her own shield bubbles and her brother’s shield bubbles lacked a tether, and Sumac’s tether only appeared when another pony shared his bubble with him. She was certain that the observation was significant, a mystery waiting to be explored.
“Twilight, I feel weird!” Rainbow cried, her cheeks deflating.
Scowling, Twilight made a note that Rainbow felt ‘weird’ and was somewhat peeved with her friend because the silly pegasus pony could never quite define what ‘weird’ was. Rainbow Dash had once been in a bipedal beyond-the-mirror body, with her mammaries relocated to the most peculiar location, and that had felt ‘weird’ as well. It was mighty embarrassing too, because Rainbow hadn’t been able to stop fondling her own pillowy enhancements, saying they felt like wet, squishy, soggy storm clouds trapped inside of meat-balloons. Rainbow Dash could elucidate upon the state of her curious mammaries, but could not elaborate on ‘weird.’
“I feel weightless, Twilight!”
Well, at least that was helpful and Twilight added it to her notes.
Sumac’s shield had the most curious rainbow shimmer to it, like an oily soap bubble. Motes of raw aether crackled along the surface and Twilight’s alicorn senses showed her how she could make modifications to her own shield matrices based on what she was observing—but what those changes might do remained to be seen.
Perhaps nervous, Rainbow spread her wings and the bubble rose from the ground, weightless. Twilight watched, fascinated, and of course Rainbow Dash figured this out fast. Raising her wings above her spine caused the bubble to rise, lowering her wings caused the bubble to settle, while holding them straight out and level caused the bubble to hover in mid-air. Spreading her wings, Twilight rose with the ascending bubble, squinting at it, marvelling at the effortless movement. This was total gravity cancellation, by the look and feel of it.
“Twilight, it feels weird to be flying while standing on something and not flapping my wings… this ain’t natural!”
“Be brave, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out to her friend.
Within the bubble, Rainbow angled her wings forwards a bit, just a tiny careful action, and now, the bubble began to drift westward, moving at a sedate-yet-terrifying speed that Twilight would not have believed without witnessing. It seemed to slice through the air without resistance, but how? Twilight had to teleport to keep up and when she arrived, Rainbow had brought the bubble to a halt.
“Twilight…”—Rainbow’s voice trembled like a scared filly—“I’m gonna go fast, Twilight.”
“Rainbow?” Twilight hadn’t heard fear in Rainbow’s voice in quite some time. Her friend was quivering like the last leaf on a tree, determined to see the snows of winter.
“Sumac… when this is over… you and I might just be the fastest creatures that have ever existed…”
The colt seemed to be considering this for a moment and then, in a cracked voice he replied, “Neat.”
“Twilight, my vision is all weird, but I know what I’m seeing somehow. I’m seeing things that don’t exist yet, Twilight, but they are things that will be. Don’t ask me how I know. I can see birds in my future flight path, and bugs, and things that might pose a danger.”
“Rainbow Dash! I need more data!”
“Goodbye, Twilight Sparkle… just in case we don’t meet again on this plane of existence. I can’t see how this ends.” Rainbow’s voice—though afflicted with a tremulation of terror—had an eerie calm to it that unsettled Twilight.
“Rainbow! Sumac’s mothers will end you!” Twilight reached out for the bubble with her hoof, but too late, she could see the twitches in her friend’s wings. Arcing rainbowfied electricity lept from feather to feather and danced along Rainbow’s primaries.
“It’s weird, Twilight, I can see the futures as they happen. I can see all possible outcomes. Twilight… Twilight… I wish you could see what I’m seeing, I think it would blow your mind. No matter what happens next, you always have been, and will always be my friend. I can’t see that changing.”
“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight, flapping her wings, made a desperate attempt to understand what was going on.
With a terrific stillness-shattering explosion, Rainbow Dash was gone. Twilight found it impossible to breathe, and she tumbled through the air, sucked into Rainbow’s wake, and she knew that she had to have moved for at least hundred miles or more in the span of an eyeblink. Every bone in her body threatened to liquify and her eyeballs struggled to stay inside of her skull, the place where eyeballs belonged, at least according to Twilight’s extensive and ever-so-comprehensive notes. Somehow, she managed to raise a shield as the sky began to collapse around her, and the atmosphere ignited as the implosion came crashing in.
Gritting her teeth, Twilight screamed; it took every last bit of her magic to keep her constituent atoms from going on strike and quitting their beneficial, existence-allowing union. Light warped, distorted, and seemed to be sucked into the all-consuming void that Twilight found herself in. For a second, she saw plaid, reality bled plaid, and just when she wasn’t sure if she would continue to exist in her currently issued matter, the most peculiar thing happened.
Something grabbed her: magic at first, followed by an unfamiliar fuzzy body wrapping around her as the plaidification of everything intensified and time dragged on like molasses poured over a windigo’s back. Nothing made sense and reality was slow-motion fury that smelled—and sounded—of plaid. Then, somehow, above the chaos, she heard not one, but two voices, one of which was curiously like her own.
“Stupid Rainbow Dash! Ripping open a causality disruption vortex like that! Stupid, stupid me for allowing it to happen! Ugh, how could I be so dumb? How did I survive this stage of my life! I was an idiot!”
Strange manic laughter filled Twilight’s ears, it was familiar and unsettling, and then she heard the second voice say, “You might’ve become like me at this moment. Would that be so bad?”
“Yes!” the other voice snapped in supreme irritation.
Twilight struggled to hear what was being said, but liquid plaid ran down her ears, poured into her eyes, flooded her nose and mouth, and she began to drown upon the unpleasant fluid of reality. She wanted air, but wasn’t sure if she needed it. Whatever was holding her was gentle, affectionate even, and she felt a kind pat upon her neck as her mind reached the point where it could no longer function.
Blinking, Twilight stood in the grass and tried to make sense of her surroundings. She remembered being in the sky and Rainbow Dash taking off. And that was all that she could recall. Glancing around, Twilight felt alarmed, but couldn’t say why. Six minutes had passed. How did she know this? How peculiar… she had no idea. Still blinking, she checked herself, snorted while feeling like a silly filly, all while wondering if her senses had betrayed her.
Then, she stopped blinking, because the insides of her eyelids were plaid. Eyes closed, Twilight turned her head in the direction of the sun and sure enough, she could see plaid of all things. How weird. She had no means to expand upon her description and felt disappointed with herself. Why were the inside of her eyelids plaid? Where was Rainbow Dash?
Rainbow Dash had taken off… and exploded?
Yes, something had happened, but what?
Overhead, there was a pop, almost like a soap bubble, and when Twilight opened up her eyes, she saw a familiar looking shield sphere filled with two excited ponies that were very special to her. The bottom of the bubble was flooded and Rainbow Dash was standing in some unknown, chunky liquid. Sumac was vibrating in a way that foals should never vibrate, just like the time that Rainbow Dash had strapped him into the dizzitron and turned it on at the highest possible setting.
Lemon Hearts was still miffed about the incident.
An ominous crackle filled the air as the bubble zoomed away, moving only for a few yards, and then it halted. The shield vanished, Rainbow landed on the ground with a squishy splat, and then the sour stink of vomit hit Twilight like a slap in the face. Rainbow was drenched because Sumac had been suspended directly above her. A second later, Sumac landed on Rainbow’s back, looking both thrilled and nauseous.
“I stopped when I reached the ocean,” Rainbow Dash said in the most cavalier way she could manage while dripping with puke.
“But… but… that’s thousands of miles away!”
“I know,” Rainbow replied while using her wings to hold Sumac up. “Uh, Twilight, can I have a shower before we continue?”
“Yeah.” Nose crinkling in disgust, Twilight retreated from the plucky, proud puke-plastered pegasus pony. “Sumac, you okay, little guy?”
“I feel great!” Though he said he felt great, the colt didn’t look well at all, and his face had the most unpleasant greenish tinge. “I went fast! So fast! I—BLARGH—ARGH—GLARGH!”
If Rainbow Dash was bothered by Sumac barfing all over the back of her neck, she showed no sign of it. Twilight was grudgingly impressed. Rainbow had a way with foals, perhaps because she was a big foal herself. Again, Sumac retched and Rainbow’s smile never faltered.
“Rainbow… hit the shower… and take Sumac with you. See if you can’t get him cleaned up. And whatever you do—”
“Yeah, Twilight I know, okay?”
“—don’t let his mothers see him like this!”