Sumac appeared to be none the worse for wear, and Twilight was thankful that Rainbow had sorted him out. No doubt, a number of clouds had been wrangled, and then either tickled or squeezed until they let go of their water. It was never a good thing for Twilight to think about how a cloud could be tickled and made to rain; nor was it good think about pegasus ponies having feathers, nature’s perfect ticklers. Something about all of this just seemed… off. Perverse, somehow.
Something still felt wrong about everything that had happened, but Twilight couldn’t quite put her hoof upon what it was. At some point, when this was over, she would have to get the film developed so that she could check and see what the camera saw, not that the camera had probably seen much of anything. According to everypony else, there was a flash of light followed by Rainbow and Twilight vanishing.
Sitting in the grass, Sumac was eating Father Goose’s Crispy Waffle Snacks, a treat that wasn’t quite a waffle, though it was shaped like one, and wasn’t quite a cookie, though it was rather crispy and chewy like one. The bright yellow rubber duck on the cheerful blue cardboard canister was instantly recognisable and there was a promise that all profits generated went to charity. Pebble was pestering him for a crispy waffle, but he kept squirming away, no doubt because he was hungry, but so was Pebble, and she was persistent.
“Go ‘way, Pebble! These are sweet chili and ginger! My favourites!”
“Sumac, friends share.” Pebble resorted to batting her eyelashes while looking as sad and dejected as possible.
Turning away from the two foals, Twilight waved a wing at Sunburst, trying to get his attention. He and Starlight were talking, and Twilight was almost certain it wasn’t about what they had observed. Clearing her throat, she allowed them a moment to finish their conversation before she spoke to them.
“Sunburst, did your magic sense tell you anything? You never told me, or if you did, I can’t remember.”
One of Sunburst’s ears rose while the other sagged, almost as if that ear wished to be closer to Starlight Glimmer. The one that stood up quivered, pivoted about, and sunlight glinted off of Sunburst’s glasses while he scratched at his goateed chin with his hoof. For the briefest moment, Twilight thought she saw what her student Starlight had to see in Sunburst; he was so studious, so solemn, so thoughtful, patient, and careful before committing to any answer.
Starlight was wise to take a purely cerebral approach in finding a special somepony.
“Now that you mention it, there was a huge burst of chaos magic, both when all of you vanished and then again quite some distance away. I barely felt that one. It’s like hearing a bottle rocket go off a long ways away… you just kind of know it’s there even though it exists on the edges of your perception.”
That didn’t seem out of place to Twilight, and she frowned, thoughtful. Sumac’s sorcery was chaos. He defied harmonic order by amplifying magic around him. Discord had been surprisingly helpful in explaining the finer mechanics of how Sumac’s sorcery functioned. Rubbing her ear with her wing, Twilight brought her head back around to look at Sumac once more, and saw him fending off Pebble’s aggressive efforts to steal his crispy waffles.
Rainbow Dash, it seemed, had ripped reality a new one with the aid of Sumac’s sorcery. Not only was Rainbow benefiting from the sorcerous effect that Sumac projected all around him, but the symbiotic shield took on aspects of her powers—thinking about this, Twilight had a better understanding of why wars broke out and nations had burned in the past, all for the sake of having a sorcerer, a living amplifier of magic. With Sumac, Rainbow Dash had transformed into something… that defied categorisation or explanation.
“Moonie, are you doing okay?”
In a nasal whine, there came a reply, “I’m missing my eyebrow—”
“Oh, good, you’re fine,” Twilight said before her friend could get worked up about her loss. “Okay, everypony, are we ready to continue? Rainbow Dash, ready to find out what other great mysteries exist?”
Before anypony could protest, Twilight moved to begin.
A zap apple lozenge powered up Sumac and now he floated inside of his bubble once more, about a foot or so above Rainbow’s back. The rainbow-crested pegasus kept her wings tight against her sides and stood unmoving, except for the fact that she made awful gookie faces. But that was what a Rainbow Dash do—as Sumac Apple might say it—make gookie faces to hide the fact that she had nothing intelligent to say.
Standing close to the shield, Twilight could feel the static coursing through her mane, her hide, and her tail. A curious rainbow shimmer intrigued her, as she had never quite seen rainbow-hued electricity before. Angling her head off to one side, she got a good look at Sumac’s cutie mark, searching for inspiration. It held similarities to Rainbow’s cutie mark, his zap apple with nine tiny rainbow-coloured lightning bolts shooting off in all directions.
Sniffing, Twilight smelled ozone and her magic sense was telling her that a magical thunderstorm approached, though the skies were mostly clear. No sign of any stormcloud. Her eyes saw the shimmering of the visible light spectrum and the shield reminded her of sunlight shining through a prism—that had been electrified somehow.
“Uh… Twilight…”
“Yes, Sunburst?” Twilight’s ears turned back to listen, but she stood with her nose almost pressed to the shield bubble.
“I am sensing dangerous levels of chaos magic again.” Unseen by Twilight, Sunburst licked his lips and began retreating. “It’s as if Sumac’s sorcery is warping harmony magic to make it behave badly. I don’t like it.” Now several yards away, Sunburst raised a golden, glittering shield of his own, which fizzled, sparked, and spat.
“Sumac, what is your magic sense telling you?”
From within his shield bubble, Twilight watched as the colt shrugged and Rainbow crossed her eyes. Curious, too curious, Twilight followed Rainbow’s example, stuck out her tongue, and closing her eyes, she touched it to the shield, fully expecting to be zapped, but that isn’t what happened. It tasted electrical, and there was a bit of a jolt, but it wasn’t dangerous. It was almost pleasurable, in its own way.
“Twilight”—Starlight’s voice was one of confident assurance—“we triggered Moondancer’s explosion by striking the shield. I suggest you give it a whack… carefully, of course. Any results with the taste test? Can magic be tasted? Can alicorns taste magic with their enhanced tongues?”
“I dunno yet,” was Twilight’s absent-minded reply. “More testing required. I need to lick more magical things.”
Within the bubble, Rainbow Dash had giggling fits, but Twilight ignored her, because the prankish pegasus pony was so perplexingly puerile. What was so funny, anyhow? Moondancer appeared in the corner of her vision and Twilight was glad to see her friend taking such an active interest.
“It appears to be the same electrical phenomenon observed around zap apples—”
“You’re right!” Twilight blurted out while nodding. “Good work, Moonie!”
“Uh… Twilight…” When Sunburst said these words again Twilight felt a sense of déjà vu. “Um, before we do anything, anything at all, we should deduct what we know about these two ponies and then make speculations about predicted outcomes. I cannot help but notice that both of the test subjects have lightning bolt themed cutie marks.”
“Yes”—Twilight found herself nodding—“very stylish. They share a matching theme. They also share a rainbow theme. Very cheerful and colourful.”
“Um… uh… is that all you have observed?” Sunburst asked while further retreating. “Because I observed that Moondancer has a cutie mark signifying a talent for magic and Sumac has a cutie mark that is unique for sorcery, and together, they produced a concussive magical burst that held so much force that it ignited the, uh, the um, the uh, very air around them and set it ablaze, and that, was, uh, what blew up your castle.”
“Oh please,” Twilight said, dismissing Sunburst’s concerns with a wave of her hoof. “I’m part pegasus now. I’ve made friends with electricity. We’re very close.”
“We’re not,” Moondancer muttered, and she began to back away. “I am a small quadrupedal terrestrial mammal that keeps my hooves on the ground and there is a lightning rod protruding from my head, right above the spot where my eyebrow used to be. Electricity and I don’t get along at all!”
“Moondancer, stop overreacting!” Twilight cast a stern sidelong glance at her friend, who was being a silly pony. “Moonie, you and I were on Canterlot’s Junior Weather Team! The unicorns took over Canterlot’s weather centuries ago because we’re so good at it. I don’t understand what you’re so afraid of—”
“I got struck three times, Twilight! Three times! Those clouds had it out for me!”
Rolling her eyes, Twilight offered up a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Pshaw! Nonsense. It was just random occurance.” A quiet voice in the back of Twilight’s mind reminded her that she had dismissed Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie Pie sense as well and she returned her attention to the shimmering, rainbow-hued shield.
It didn’t look dangerous…
Reaching out with her hoof, Twilight whacked the shield—which made everypony gasp—and nothing happened. Pebble, perhaps taking no chances, packed up her parasol, brushed grass from her gauzy sundress, and she hurried away as fast as her chubby-stubby legs would allow for without running.
Twilight smacked the shield again, and again, and nothing happened. Olive, after watching Pebble depart, chucked a small stone at the shield and it bounced off, harmless. Like Twilight, she tried again, throwing the same stone, this time with greater force. The ripples produced upon impact were breathtaking, and Twilight watched the dazzling display of riotous colour.
“Oh, hey, that’s pretty.” With a great deal of caution, Moondancer picked up a nearby stone, hefted it a few times, and then sent it flying into the shield with great force, revealing her power as a unicorn.
This time, the ripples were spectacular and rainbow sparks danced along the surface of the sturdy magical barrier. Inside, Rainbow Dash now looked bored, and was humming to herself, while above her, Sumac appeared mystified by his own magic. Smiling from ear to ear, Twilight waved her wing at Rainbow to cheer her up while taking a few steps back.
“Perhaps the inclusion of electricity somehow provides the shield with greater integrity?”
“It’s possible, Twilight, but I have no idea how such a thing would work. It seems curious.”
“Indeed it does, Moonie, indeed it does.”
Now, almost everypony save for Sunburst was chucking rocks at the shield, and quite some distance away, Pebble unfurled her parasol. Sitting down beneath its shade, she watched as curious equines tampered with strange magic they did not comprehend. Out of all the ponies present, Pebble might have been the smartest—or at least the one with the most common sense—but this remained to be seen.
“If we could replicate this effect somehow by applying electricity to unicorn shields, we could have a stronger defense for our strategic assets. It would revolutionise spot-defense during town invasions.”
Starlight’s words caused Twilight to pause with a stone held in a glowing, pulsating, glittering glow of vivid magenta. Electrically boosted magic shields was a terrific idea. The shimmering, glimmering rainbow glow of the shield reflected in Twilight’s eyes rivaled the manic gleam also to be found within. It was the glow of a purposeful alicorn lost in thought, the same sort of glow that might be seen reflected as the last vestiges of a recalcitrant city set ablaze collapsed into ashes.
Twilight had such lovely thoughts coursing through her beautiful mind…
“Pebble, would you like to try punching it with all of your earth pony might?” Twilight asked, not realising how far away Pebble now was.
“Nope,” was the distant deadpan reply.
Wanting—needing—to check shield integrity, Twilight realised it fell upon her to test it. Thinking earthy thoughts, she imagined images of dirt, stones, and glowing orange oceans of lava in her mind, following the advice of one Maud Pie on how to get in touch with one’s earth pony nature. With her mind, she reached down into the dirt below her hooves and tried to connect. She felt something, it made her tingle all over, and the muscles in her crotch clenched so tight that she worried that she might of sprained something unmentionable…
“KERCHOO-SHOO-SHOO-SHOO!”
The rapid-fire sneeze was infuriating; for it to happen at this moment of all moments. Snot flew out from her flared nostrils like confetti and streamers from a party cannon. All earth pony thoughts forgotten, Twilight tapped into her anger instead, stood up on her hind legs, pulled back with Ol’ Lefty, Wrecker of Tirek, and she bared her teeth in a fierce snarl. Inside the bubble, Rainbow Dash stuck out her tongue again and flapped her ears in the rudist, most impertinent way, an act that Twilight’s mother, Twilight Velvet, would have stood a pony in the corner for.
Twilight bore down with strength born of anger…
When her hoof connected with the shield, Twilight let out a ferocious bellow to aid in her follow through. There was a sputtering crackle, and Twilight’s hoof bounced from the shield with a flash of multi-hued light. Afterwards, frozen in place, Twilight tried to understand what had just happened. It was a blow that should have smashed the shield barrier, or at least weakened it. She had taken stone punching lessons from Maud and could turn boulders into gravel. Her hooves and the bones in her legs had hardened from the many stress fractures and microfractures she had endured. Twilight knew she was hardened, because Maud had said so and Maud wasn’t the sort of pony that would lie.
“That isn’t what I thought would happen,” a calm deadpan from behind her said.
Miffed, Twilight was pretty certain that she could punch Canterlot Castle from the Canterhorn if she was worked up enough. No, miffed wasn’t enough, Twilight was peeved, the dreaded p-word that a polite pony dared not make a public utterance of. Well, if she couldn’t punch through the shield, she would bring it down the old-fashioned way. That shield was coming down, because Twilight’s earth pony dander was now worked up and she was feeling stubborn.
With a flare of brilliant magenta light, Twilight’s horn ignited and she began to prepare for her shield-buster spell. Inside of his protective bubble, Sumac had joined Rainbow in making faces and blowing raspberries. Twilight suffered a Why I Oughta moment, as Prince Gosling liked to call them, and she knew she oughta. When she brought the shield down, she was going to hug the insolence right out of Sumac until he begged for mercy, because she oughta.
Reaching out with her magic, Twilight moved to pierce the shield, only to realise her mistake a fraction of a second later. Rainbow light flickered, there was an ominous thrumming hum, and then Twilight Sparkle discovered—too late—what it must have felt like to be on the opposite end of the Elements of Harmony. With alicorn speed, Twilight tried to backpedal away, but the rainbow train was incoming, the eleven-o’clock friendship express was barreling right into the station.
Never had a rainbow been so intimidating.
The arcing rainbow electricity snaked up her own beam of magic, struck her horn, and never-before-seen colours danced in Twilight’s vision while she danced a convulsive jig. As it turns out, lightning wasn’t her friend, no, lightning was a lot like Starlight Glimmer when she was bad. Lightning needed to attend friendship kindergarten, and how. Twilight rode the rainbow lightning for several seconds that felt more like several millennia, with each second—each millenia—longer than the last. After one sizzle to many, her horn shorted out, her magic died, and the beam fizzled from existence.
Staggering away, while Twilight tried to recover, the shield had to add insult to injury, and when she was about a half-a-dozen steps or so away, one final rainbow-coloured discharge zapped her right on the dock, sending electric agony shooting up her spine. It was the worst of pain, because it was an injury of pride. Twilight had a tender pride, and now, a tender tuchus too… there’d be no sitting on her throne, or any throne of any sort for that matter, for at least a week or more.
Extending her wings, Twilight tried to fan the smoke from her eyes and her rainbow-blasted retinas could see nothing. Her tongue felt leathery and too large for her mouth. The blast to her backside left her nethers clenching and rainbow sparks arced along her wings. Somehow, Twilight remained standing, because she was Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight Sparkles were difficult—though not impossible—to knock over.
After coughing out a cloud of rainbow-tinted smoke, she only had one thing to say: “Class dismissed… for now… come back after lunch.”