//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: Rainbows // Story: No Need for Rainbows // by terrycloth //------------------------------// There was a faint, shimmering glow from deep in the pyramid, barely brighter than the glow around Rarity’s horn, and then both guttered out. Rarity collapsed into the dirt, again. “It’s like trying to lift a mountain,” Rarity complained. “Even if I were fully rested, this might be beyond me.” Twilight looked really nervous. Applejack glanced at her, and said, “We’ve got other unicorns we can call on. It’s a few hours to Manehattan, and a few hours to find them, and a few hours back.” “Ponyville’s a lot closer than that,” Pinkie said. “They’ve got dozens of unicorns there! Maybe some of them are even awake, and know how to cast spells at crystals.” “I don’t see why we’re all dancing around the issue,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering around Twilight Sparkle in a lazy circle. “Why are we talking about spending hours or days scouring the land for unicorns when we’ve got a perfectly good unicorn right here.” She tapped Twilight’s horn. “I’m terrible with magic,” Twilight said, then sighed and added, resigned, “but I do know how to activate the spells, so I guess I can try…” She walked over to stand next to Rarity, and pointed her horn at the pyramid, then had a thought. “You might all want to get behind something.” “In case you explooode?” Pinkie Pie asked, grinning, then took cover behind a barrel. Fluttershy squeaked and vanished behind a haystack. Rainbow Dash shot off, coming back with a small, dark tuft of cloud to use as a makeshift bunker, hovering right over Twilight’s shoulders. “Standing back might help too,” Twilight said, looking up at the cloud, almost close enough to touch. Fluttershy squeaked again, and took cover behind a different haystack, over next to the barn, a hundred feet away. “Nah,” Rainbow said, “If you’re going to explode, I want a good seat.” Applejack walked over to stand next to Twilight, and put a hoof on her shoulder. “You’re not going to explode, sweetie.” “Really?” Rarity croaked, settling into a sitting position at the base of the stairs. “That’s excellent, since I don’t think I shall be moving from this spot for a few hours.” Twilight sighed, and lowered her head and cast the smallest, gentlest version of the spell to activate the gems. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. “Sorry. Failed. Next? No one? We’d better –“ “You can do better than that,” Applejack said, staring at her. “But Miss Apple!” Twilight whined. “Okay, bored now,” Rainbow Dash said, glancing nervously at the far end of the orchard where Nightmare Moon was, hopefully, still waiting. “Get *on* with it already!” Twilight gritted her teeth, and tried to pour as much energy as she could into the pyramid. Her horn sparked a few times, and fizzled, just like it had every time she’d tried to cast something important, with everyone counting on her. She was back in the examination room, about to be sent back to magic kindergarten… “You call that magic?” Rainbow Dash asked, mocking. “Stop playing around!” She kicked her cloud to send a little lightning bolt to zap Twilight in the butt. Nightmare Moon was left sitting in the apple tree far longer than she’d anticipated, but she was far from bored. Boring was sitting alone, in her castle in the Everfree Forest, having driven away the last ponies who’d been willing to risk her temper. Showing up in town and watching the ponies scatter in terror before her had been amusing for a while, but honestly if you’ve seen one panic you’ve seen them all. Here, at least, she could cast a distance-vision spell and watch the ‘royal research team’ she’d apparently formed work to assemble a crystal structure of great complexity and unknown purpose. When they started on the second layer of gems, it was obvious that Rainbow Dash had not been exaggerating when she’d said they were working on a massive scale. What were they trying to do, raise the sun? They would fail, of course, with Nightmare Moon’s grip on the moon as firm as ever, but the notion that -- *finally* -- some ponies were thinking to rebel against her filled her with anticipation. Perhaps she wouldn’t destroy them right away. Perhaps she would allow them – well, *some* of them – to escape and try again. Just to be sporting. When they started on the third layer of gems, and she realized they were probably constructing a full pyramid, she started to get a little bored. The assembly was so slow… and when they finally finished, the grey unicorn started casting a tiny spell, over and over, almost as if she was – oh no. They weren’t. They couldn’t! They were. They were double checking all the connections. She would be here for hours. By the time Rarity made her failed attempt to activate the pyramid, she was asleep. The first thing she saw, when the distant sound of thunder startled her awake, was the pyramid lit up with rainbow light, being charged by a white-eyed unicorn in some sort of trance, surrounded by other ponies suspended in midair. The second thing she saw was a massive rainbow, shooting across the farm, hitting her right in the face. So the first thing she *did* was leap across the orchard, screaming in anger and terror, and smash into the pyramid with all four hooves. The world exploded.