//------------------------------//
// The Spark, Part 1 
// Story: A Streak of Rainbow 
// by 6-D Pegasus 
//------------------------------//

A chilly wind whisked through the Crystal Mountains of northern Equestria, brought down from the icy realm of the Crystal Empire just to the north and beyond the horizon. Thick dunes of snow looped through an endless cycle of buildup and collapse on whatever flat sections of ground could be found amongst the mountainous terrain. Flurries of ice and snow danced around within the mouths of the occasional caves 

While the Crystal Empire was protected from the icy snowstorms that frequently spawned in the area, the same could not be said for the surrounding land. Without the ambient magic of the Crystal Heart, the forests and mountains south of the Empire were bathed in a blanket of eternal whiteness. The temperature rarely saw a day over the freezing point of water, and even a patch of small blue sky was a scarce sight to behold in this region of Equestria.

For obvious reasons, most ponies tended to stray away from the mountains, save for the occasional explorer or mountain climber. With the radiant beauty of the Crystal Empire to the north and the lush, expanse plains to the south, there was no reason anypony would want to suffer the harsh conditions of the barren mountains in order to establish some sort of permanent shelter. It was a bleak, desolate, dismal wasteland of rock and ice, and a horrible place to live.

On the other hoof, it was also an excellent place to stay hidden.

Deep within the mountain range, one particular cave stood out from the rest. While all other caves had their entrances covered with swirling patterns of ice and snow, this cave's entrance was unusually clean. 

Any particles of snow entering the cave, upon crossing an invisible threshold at the mouth of the cave, instantly melted into water and slid down like drops of rain on a window. A small groove carved in the ground along this hidden barrier collected the water and led it towards the mouth of a wooden pipe. This pipe led past a shimmering illusion of rock concealing a long, carved out passage at the back of the cave. The pipe travelled deeper through the hidden corridor , which eventually opened up into a large room lit by the warm light from several glowing crystals of various colors, placed evenly around the walls.

The pipe eventually stopped over a large, hollow cylinder of wood in the corner of the room. A faint, green circle of glowing light hovered above the opening of the container, tilted at a slight angle. When the melted snow water poured onto the circle, any bits of rock caught in the stream would bounce off the circle and land off to the side. The remaining, filtered water flowed through the circle and trickled into the container, sending faint ripples across the surface of the already-stored water. 

A small, clear cup roughly cut from crystal floated over to the trickling stream, surrounded in a pale, yellow glow. It hovered under the stream for long enough to fill halfway with clean water before slowly floating to the other side of the room. There, on a stool of stone and in front of a makeshift desk of the same material, sat a dark figure masked in the shadow of a large, equally dark cloak, their face obscured from the ambient glow of the. A horn protruded from the top of the hood, bathed in an aura of lime yellow light. The glow illuminated a pony's muzzle barely visible under the hood, casting the rest of his face in shadow.

The cup floated closer to the unicorn, who took a lazy sip before setting it back down on the desk. Numerous diagrams and notes littered the stone desk to the point where a quick glance could convince any unsuspecting pony that the desk was made of said pages. The figure's eyes traced back and forth between the papers, floating a quill in their magic as they made small adjustments to different pages. Some new notes written here, an entire section crossed out there, a few symbols added to an obscurely long equation. Occasionally, a faint mutter could be heard over the distant sound of howling wind. The figure shook their head and let out a tired sigh.

"No no no, that would never work..." The quill floated to the bottom of one particular page and crossed out a rather long equation. "The margin of error is just too high..."

A blank sheet of parchment floated out from a saddlebag next to the cloaked unicorn and rested at the center of the desk atop the many older pages of notes. The figure took a second to center it before floating the quill over to the top of the page and giving a long, bored exhale. "Alright, maybe if I offset the ambient loss by absorbing from the natural leylines, I could-"

A single, yellow spark flew from the figure's horn. The figure's eyes widened, and he let out a short gasp of shock and surprise. 

"What?! That... that's impossible..."

The unicorn's horn released a bright burst of yellow light, and they disappeared from the cave. A moment later, they reappeared outside the mouth of the cave, their cloak flapping violently in the freezing wind. They looked up and glared at the stormy sky, but spotted nothing out of the ordinary. Their horn once lit up once more. Their surroundings suddenly appeared much more dull and muted, the sound of the northern wind distant and deafened. They turned their attention the sky again and, where once only dark gray clouds could be seen, a faint arc of rainbow fire traveled the sky from the south. 

The figure's eyes widened in astonishment, then narrowed as they turned their attention down to the horizon, from where the fire seemed to come from. 

"I was right... there does exist a perfect match... This... this changes everything." The figure's voice was barely above a whisper, and yet carried a tone of absolution and certainty.

Their gaze settled on the southward horizon and focused into a harsh glare. A determined fire burned fiercely in their eyes; the very snow around them would have melted under their glare if only its heat could be felt. Something deep within the unicorn's core began to wake, a power that had not needed to see the light of day for many, many moons. 

In a burst of yellow light, the figure's saddlebag reappeared on their back. The unicorn's horn flashed once more, and the entrance to the cave that was once their residence collapsed in a shower of dust and snow. To any other pony, this loss of shelter would be a devastating blow, but the figure didn't even spare a second glance. 

The figure glanced down just in time to spot a small, almost unnoticeable arc of red lightning dance from their foreleg to the snow. A slight grin spread across their muzzle as they turned around and began their walk southwards towards the source of the magical anomaly. 

"I will not be stopped this time."





"Stop stop stop stop!"

Back in Ponyville's local School of Friendship, a panicked cyan pegasus whisked around her classroom in desperate circles, trying to avoid the floating pieces of confetti and streamers that filled the air. Her pleas were unfortunately drowned out by the cries of glee and laughter from young ponies of all colors and ages. 

Just the previous day, Pinkie Pie had finally convinced Twilight to let her introduce tiny party cannons to her class to use in the next day's lesson about Laughter. The concept was that even the tiniest objects can bring a laugh or smile to another pony, which would then draw a parallel to how even the smallest action can help spread laughter to other ponies. When Pinkie proposed the idea during yesterday's school council meeting (a fancy term for when all six professors plus Spike and Starlight met up weekly to discuss anything related to the School ), Twilight thought it was a stroke of genius on Pinkie's part. The rest of the group, including Rainbow Dash, approved of the idea. 

What they didn't account for were all her students using their newfound mini party cannons to constantly "spread laughter" during their other classes. Rainbow's last class for the afternoon just happened to be after Pinkie's last, meaning everyone had their own mini party cannon.

How Pinkie had enough of those for the entire school, nopony knew.

"Please, for the love of Celestia, wait until after class to use your party cannons! Pleeeaaaseeeeee!"

After roughly five minutes of pure pandemonium, the laughter had died down just enough for Rainbow's voice to cut through the noise and enter the ears of her distracted students. One by one, they put away their miniature instruments of chaos and gazed forward attentively to their professor with a bright grin, who glared back in mild annoyance.

"Right, now then!" Rainbow cleared her throat, silencing most of the whispers. Once she felt most eyes were on her, she put on a cheerful grin and turned back around to her students. "As you all know, Loyalty and Honesty are two separate Elements of Harmony and are equally important when making and growing your friendships! For today's class, we will be looking at a few times when you might feel like you're forced to choose one or the other, and how to handle these situations." 

The faint sound of quills scratching on parchment quickly filled the classroom as the many students within began writing the subject of the day. Rainbow patiently listened in as she deftly twirled a piece of chalk between her right wing's outer feathers. It was a passive skill she had picked up during her time as a professor here as per Twilight's advice. Her friend had read somewhere that spinning an object between your wing feathers apparently "aids the exercise and gradual improvement of the dexterity of your primaries." 

Whether or not it truly yielded such benefits for her, Rainbow could never tell, but it did help her pass the time a little faster.

A young, white-coated unicorn mare with a curled, lime-green mane seated near the back of the room raised her hoof. Rainbow waited a few more seconds for most of the other students to finish writing before gesturing to her with her outstretched wing. "Yes, Lily Breeze?"

Lily lowered her hoof. "Sorry, I'm a little confused. Since they are both important to friendship, when would I ever have to choose one or the other?"

Rainbow nodded. "That's right, Lily, they are both important to friendship! However..."

She spared a brief glance down at her desk where her lesson notes were laid out to figure out her next response. She and Applejack had spent the better part of yesterday's afternoon writing those notes together so they could share the same lesson between their classes. She shifted the chalk from her wing to her hoof and flew up a little to her chalkboard.

"Think about this for a second, imagine that your friend just bought a new dress and is showing it off to you." Rainbow drew a crudely-drawn depiction of two ponies facing each other, one of which donned an equally crude-looking dress. Several students began furiously trying to redraw the sketch in their notes.

"Now imagine the dress they bought is absolutely horrid! Awful! It looks like something out of a dumpster!"

An earth pony at the front began to raise his hoof. "Wait, why would anypony buy a dress that looks aw-"

Rainbow swiftly cut him off. "Nuh uh uh! This is just hypothetical, as Twilight would say. Don't worry about details and just focus on the important bits." The stallion lowered his hoof, and Rainbow smiled.

"Good! Back to this, imagine your friend is showing off to you their horrible-looking dress, and they are now asking you how it looks on them. How would you answer them?"

Several hooves rose from across the room. Rainbow made a show of scanning each one until pointing to one belonging to an earth pony filly seated at the front of the room. "Yes, Spruce Sage?"

The filly coughed slightly before speaking in an adorably high-pitched voice. "Well, Applejack said that it's important to be honest when a friend asks for advice. So, I would tell them that the I think the dress doesn't really look that good and maybe tell them why."

Rainbow went to respond, but the filly quickly added a final point. "Oh! I'd also, um, tell them that was just how I felt, and it'd be totally fine if they liked it anyways."

Rainbow smiled, recognizing that statement to be from Fluttershy's lessons on kindness just yesterday. "Awesome job, Spruce!" She turned to the rest of the class. "Everyone else who agrees, go ahead and raise a hoof!"

Every student in the room quickly raised a hoof, some giving a few murmurs of agreement. Her smile widened.

Hehe, excellent! Just like Applejack said, they all took the bait. 

Rainbow subtly swiped a wing at her notes, shifting the page on top over to glance at the next page's contents to refresh her memory. This may have been the fifth time she taught this exact lesson today, but she could feel exhaustion starting to seep through and cloud her memory. Better safe than sorry.

Rainbow flew up to the chalk drawing of the dressed pony and drew some tears falling from the eyes. She added a frown to the face and turned back to the class. "Now then, class! Pretend you're in a slightly different scenario with your friend and their awful dress. Your friend had just had something really sad happen to them earlier that day. Maybe they were fired from their job, or maybe they lost a memora-... memor-... something that meant a lot to them. Whatever it was, it's put them in a really sad mood all day. Maybe they're still crying a little as they speak to you." She furthered her point by adding a small puddle of tears collecting under her chalk pony. 

Rainbow shifted her chalk back to her wing and turned to face the class once more. "And now for the big question, how many of you would still say the same things about the dress?"

Almost half of the students put down their hooves, some slower than others. Some kept theirs up, while others wavered at a half-up, half-down position. Everyone's eyes flicked around and brows furrowed in in thought. Rainbow scanned the room for somepony who had dropped their hoof and called on a particular pegasus mare seated in the front-left on the room. "Rainy Skies? Why'd you lower your hoof?"

Rainy let out a quiet, surprised "eep!" before raising her voice to answer. "If... if my friend is really that sad, I don't think I'd want to call a dress they just bought ugly. M- maybe they bought it to cheer themselves up too?"

Rainbow added on to their response. "You feel loyal to your friend's feelings, right? That you should be there for them and do what you can to comfort them? Even if that means not being honest?"

Rainy nodded, prompting Rainbow to continue. She flew back to the top of the chalkboard and roughly drew out the silhouettes of an apple and a lightning bolt on opposite ends of the board. She passed the chalk back to her wing and began twirling between feathers again as she slowly paced the front of the room.

"Now we have a case where you might feel pressured to choose between loyalty and honesty towards your friend. If you were to be completely honest about the dress, you might tell them your feelings about it, and risk upsetting them even more. If you were to stay loyal to their feelings, you might want tell them the dress looks nice to try to make them feel better."

Rainy shyly nodded their head once more. "Y- yes, I would want to-"

"But isn't that more like kindness than loyalty?" A pegasus stallion from the other side of the room interrupted the timid mare. 

Rainbow thought about it for a second. "Well yes, it couuuuuuld also be kindness, but that's not what I'm ge-"

"Wouldn't my friend feel hurt if they found out later on that I lied to them?" Another voice interrupted Rainbow. She opened her mouth to respond but was immediately cut off by several more voices.

"They'd probably be more hurt if you just insulted their dress while they're crying!"

"Couldn't you just not comment on the dress and say they look good? That way you're not really lying."

"But they asked how they look in the dress, so if you said that, isn't that technically a lie too?"

Rainbow's gaze frantically darted from the many speakers; she could feel her control over the conversation slowly slipping away. "Now now, one at a time please!" Her voice fell on deaf ears as several more students joined the fray, turning the original argument into an indecipherable commotion not so different than what she was dealing with at the start of the class.

"... -no, why should I have to comment about- ..."

"... -maybe if I just change the subject entirely, I wouldn't have to-..."

"... -was there anything due today I kind of forg-..."

Rainbow's original conversation with Rainy was far beyond the point of saving. If she were to close her eyes, it'd sound like she was back at another one of Ponyville's town hall meetings, except all the voices were significantly younger. She silently prayed that the walls were thick enough such that none of her friends' ongoing classes were being interrupted by the ruckus. "Please everyone, let's just calm down and-"

Somewhere amidst the chaos, one of the student's mini party cannons went off, littering the air once more with streamers and confetti. Rainbow's eye twitched.

HONNKKKKKKKK

Several students jumped as the sudden, loud noise cut straight through the hubbub of the classroom. Everyone fell silent and turned to face the source at the front of the room where Rainbow was hovering, an air horn held high above her head. Once she was sure she had most her students' attention back, she tucked the air horn back in its drawer under her desk. She inhaled deeply.

"Alright students, while I can appreciate a good debate between you all, we're not going to make any progress if we're just interrupting each other like this! Let's just take it nice and easy, and speak one at a time like friends, not a bunch of arguing ponies! And the cannons! Please, for Celestia's sake, wait until after you get out of my class to go crazy with them! As much as I love them, this is going to be the fifth class today that I have to clean up confetti off my floor! The weekend is just right around the corner, and if we all just behave and stay in control, maybe this class will go by much faster for you!"

Satisfied with her little speech, Rainbow turned back to her chalkboard and started to erase the pony drawings to make room for the next part of her lesson.



"D- did you see that?"

Rainbow blinked. "Did I see what?" She turned around to see the entire class staring at her wide-eyed, their surprised faces replaced with a frozen look of shock. She glanced around the room, trying to decipher a clue from their expressions. "Why are you all staring at me like that?"

A pegasus filly near the front of the room was the first to break the silence, pointing a hoof to the chalk held in Rainbow's outstretched wing. "D- did you see that?" 

Rainbow shifted her gaze to her unfurled wing and the chalk. Her writing tool was still loosely gripped between her feathers and, other than being a little worn at the tip, did not appear unusual in the slightest. She turned back to the student with a confused frown. "You might have to be a little more speci-"

"A spark!" Lily Breeze spoke up from the back of the class. "There was like, this weird spark of lighting from your wing to your desk!"

Rainbow turned her attention down to her desk and narrowed her eyes. Any spark of electricity strong enough to cover the distance between where her wing had been and her desk should have left a visible scorch mark, albeit small. However, she couldn't spot any marks or other source of indication to validate the mare's claim. 

"Ha ha!" Rainbow laughed awkwardly. "It must have just been some static electricity from flying around all those streamers and confetti earlier. Gotta be careful where you fly, you know!" 

She finished off her point with a brief flap of her wings. Some students still stared at her in confusion, but most of them seemed somewhat satisfied with the explanation. She heard a few concerned murmurs exchanged between them however. She turned back to her chalkboard to continue writing the next part of her lesson, but subtly flicked an ear towards her students to catch bits and pieces of their whispers.

"...-never seen a static shock that big before."

"...-must've hurt hard, that thing was as long as my leg..."

"...-never seen blue lightning before-..."

Blue static lightning? Rainbow furrowed a brow in confusion. Static can't be blue? I don't think it should ever even have color! They must have seen some light bouncing off a blue streamer or something... right? 

After finishing writing her lesson, she shook her head briefly to focus her thoughts back on the class. Just one more class and she could take her nice, long nap. She could practically hear her bed calling her name already. 

"Anyways, now that we have a situation where you might feel forced between loyalty and honesty, we're going to look at ways to get through this scenario without having to lie while still remaining loyal to your friend's feelings. I want all of you to get into pairs and act out the following situation shown on my chalkboard for the next five minutes! Afterwards, each group will share their final answer with the rest of the class."

Rainbow watched as the students stared at her board to grasp the pictured events before scrambling to their hooves to find their partners. Soon, the classroom was once again filled with chatter, this time less chaotic as the students began exchanging words, trying to find ways to comfort their pretend-crying partner without explicitly lying about their Celestia-forbidden fashion choices. Convinced that the class could manage themselves for a few minutes, Rainbow tuned out the noise and turned her thoughts inward.

Lily's comment still hung in her mind. Normally she would readily dismiss a statement like that as a result of the overactive imagination of a tired student. After what happened last week however, she couldn't help but feel a slight pang of worry that the mare's observation held weight than she would have liked.

She could still remember her experiences during the experiment with Starlight and her speed spell from the previous week. The eerie silence surrounding her, the colors of the world muted and grayed, the familiar feel of wind stripped from her senses, the streaks of blue lightning arcing between her and the nearby clouds. 

It had been far from a negative experience, but nevertheless she, Twilight, and Starlight agreed to avoid repeating the experiment in the future. Combining her innate pegasus magic with that of the Accelero spell was so unpredictable, not even those two magic powerhouses were able to record any useful information about it. The burst of pegasus magic released from her rainbooms was so powerful, even creatures beyond the borders of Equestria were able to faintly observe the three rings of expanding, rainbow fire.

Fortunately, their world was no stranger to weird, magical shenanigans, and most nations dismissed the sight as just another villain defeat at the hooves of friendship.

"Excuse me, Professor Dash? We're done with our exercise."

The voice of one of her students snapped her back to reality, and she looked up from her desk to see most of the class had quieted down and were patiently waiting for her for the next part of the lesson. Rainbow gave a brief smile and nod to her class before getting up from her chair to introduce the students to her next exercise. She would worry about the comment later; for now, her students came first.