In the highest tower of Canterlot Castle, overlooking the city, below, five mares and an adolescent dragon have gathered for the monthly council of friendship to hear about Twilight Sparkles' latest experiment. Two of the mares were incredibly lost. One mare was cooing over a young foal who was sleeping in her forelegs and another was desperately trying to understand exactly what was going on. The dragon, having been working tooth and scale for the last 48 hours with no rest, was showing signs of exhaustion and clearly wanted this current presentation to end, the fifth mare ... was fast asleep.
“So by monitoring the feedback and comparing that to the values recorded from the velocity charm, then taking into account time, we should be able to prove the circumference of Equs, once and for all proving that our world is spherical. I also believe that this will expand the cutie map, allowing creatures to go on friendship quests further afield from what we currently have.”
Twilight Sparkle took a deep breath. She’d been facing unexpected opposition in the recent month, first, the Stable of Lords attempted to restrict Equestria borders to other races, then they claimed her perfectly processed report on Equestria’s growth due to the new immigration and trade deals, was a lie. They claimed that had things been ‘the old ways,’ the kingdom would be achieving greater achievements right now. Then, there were the creatures who believed the ridiculous notion that Equs was flat, something had to be done, and after several nights, lots of coffee, and no small dent to the treasury, Twilight had come up with a plan.
“Ah ya sure this is a good idea sugarcube?” Applejack asked, Twilight didn’t blame her, after all a small part of Twilight's sanity told her that she’d spent way too many bits to get everything prepared, but, the line between crazy and genius was rather slim, but there was one other revelation she’d been holding onto.
“If those were the only reasons, perhaps, but theirs also one more test that Rainbow will be doing.” The purple princess walked over to a table covered by a sheet, below this sheet were her crowning achievements as a mage. With a flash of her magic, the sheet was removed revealing six objects. Four of Twilight's five friends gasped at what was revealed.
“Twilight darling, are those what I think they are?”
*GASPE*
“Oh my, they are so lovely.”
“Whoa, nelly.”
“ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz”
The year was 18 HE (Harmonic Era), which was convenient for Twilight since the calendar started with her ascension to sole ruler of Equestria. The kingdom had entered into a golden age shortly after, thanks to creatures of all shapes and sizes journeying to Equestria, for learning, trading or to make a new life and make new friends. While, as the Princess of Friendship, this brought her untold joy and pride in her subjects, the mage Twilight Sparkle, had aspirations of achieving what was once considered impossible, and she was not disappointed.
Levitating the golden crown embedded with a five-pointed amethyst star onto her head.
“Girls, I present you the foci of harmony, and with Dash’s help, we should get an idea of its limits.”
Having carefully set her foal down on her chair and giving them a gentle quick nuzzle before parting, Pinkie Pie began bouncing around the room. “This is, so, totally, awesome! We had so much fun when we got the elements the first time, then we got to have even more fun once we realized that we were the elements all along and that all the elements did was allow us to access our super duper friendship powers. If we have both now then things will only get even more superduperly fun!”
“I guess that is true” chimed in Applejack. “The elements brought us together, but ah’d like to know how exactly you plan to have bucket brain here do all this ... stuff. Theirs a couple a bolts shows comin up an the pear orchard needs a good waterin before she gets too busy.”
“Oh but darlings, look at the necklaces, if I didn’t know better I’d say Twilight had reclaimed the originals.” Rarity blinked, before considering what she’d said, and who she was referring to. “Twilight, please tell me these aren’t the originals.”
“No, of course not, that would be impossible, probably. These foci are new, they are designed to help us to focus the powers of harmony. The original elements helped us draw out what was inside us all along, though the necklaces themselves are the same the jewel is the important part, and completely different.”
“Oh this is wonderful, though Equestria hasn’t had a need for the elements, Zecora’s group in Zebrica haven’t needed to use their powers in almost ten years. Would you please go over exactly what you plan to do with them?” Fluttershy asked as she attempted to delicately wake up her fellow pegasus, “or rather, what you plan for Rainbow to do.”
The yellow pegasus flinched away from her blue friend as an orange hoof abruptly shoved the sleeping Rainbow Dash off her chair.
"I'm awake."
“With the foci, we should be able to channel the energy from five of us into one of us, it’s similar to how I used my element on the other side of the portal. I channeled magic from your counterparts to become stronger and cleanse Sunset Shimmer. I believe we can replicate the power boost we received when we defeated Tirek the first time, which empowered us to fly across Equrestia to return every pony's magic, but by channeling all that power into Rainbow Dash, and with Rainbow Sonic Rainboom, a phenomenon that has relevance to Harmony, the combined power should (in theory) boost her speed to record highs.”
“Whoa steady on Twi, I’m all for harmony powers and being the fastest pony ever, but I don’t do magic enhancement things. My speed is 120% natural, it's also against Wonderbolt code, it's big trouble if anyone gets caught doing that kinda thing just to set a new record.”
Five ponies, and one dragon all looked blankly at the Wonderbolt. It was Fluttershy who broke the silence. “Erm, Rainbow. This isn’t a contest, Twilight is trying to, erm, spread Harmony and using you as a focus, I think, sorry I didn’t quite understand.”
Twilight’s eye twitched as she leveled a glare at the blue pegasus, “Dash, did you not hear a single thing I was talking about?”
“Eeerm, I recall something about apple pie and wine in Prance and super rainbow powers?” To her credit, Rainbow did seem to be at least a little bit embarrassed, only Rarity did notice that Applejack was grinning like a love-sick filly at the comment.
"*Sigh*, Basically, I want you to go really fast in a straight line until you get back here, for friendship and harmony. It should allow us to make the Cutie map stronger and bring harmony and friendship to those beyond our current reach.”
“Okay, but when do I stop? If I go too far I’ll hit the edge of the world right?”
*********************************
Flying eastwards, with Canterlot now very far behind her, Rainbow Dash, wearing her neckless of harmony flew ever faster from the enraged Alicorn.
*Geez, you’d think Twi of all ponies would know the world was flat, or was it round?*
Rainbow sighed, it was a problem for another day, for now, she was going fast, faster than she’d ever gone before, and she hadn’t even created a Sonic Rainboom yet. With another lazy flap of her wings, she again shot forwards, but still no Rainboom.
*Twi did say to make a sonic Rainboom, so I guess going fast just isn’t good enough, time to see what this neckless can do*
********************************
“Wahoo, she did it, she’s made it around the entire world! Wahoo!” Pinkie celebrated, jumping around the other gathered creatures, even spike at this point had joined the mares to see the rainbow contrail now shooting into the horizon.
Rarity, who was checking the machines measuring the feedback from Rainbow spoke. “Something is strange darlings, Rainbow isn't slowing down, she's going faster than I’ve ever seen and accelerating, but I can't see anything indicating that she's done her Sonic Rainboom yet.”
“Hey Twi, I was just thinking, over the last few days, did you ever consider that you might need to stop the harmonic resonance between the elements? I don’t think Dash is slowing down until she hits that Sonic Rainboom.” Spike was smiling, mostly out of exhaustion and amusement that Rainbow Dash with the help of their enhancements, had traveled around the entire world in 10 minutes, making the last last two days somewhat worth it, but the prismatic mare had completely missed her stopping point.
He looked over to Twilight, a strand of her flowing mane now sticking out of place, as her eye started to twitch. He had a really bad feeling about what the mare was about to say.
“Don’t worry every creature, I have a plan, all I need to do is set a telepathic net above us so that when Dash comes back I can have a message relayed to her. It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
Every creature was worried.
********************************
Faster, Faster damn it!
Colors flashed ever faster past Rainbow, blue, green, yellow, and grey, however, the Sonic Rainboom was still out of reach, something was missing, and it was just out of touch.
Then several things happened.
First, her world flashed purple as she collided with something, though it didn’t seem to be solid as she tore through it with ease.
Second, she heard a voice, possibly Twilights.
Finally, and most importantly she achieved a Sonic Rainboom, and everything went white.
********************************
Flying over Cloudsdale, and past a checkered flag. Rainbow Dash began to slow down, though, something felt wrong. Making her way over to a cloud, Dash closed her wings and dropped the last few feet, only to fall further than she had expected. Her hooves were on the cloud, but she was much closer than she should have been to the cloud. After a quick examination of herself, Rainbow discovered why.
“Oh no, what the bu..”
********************************
“..cking Tartarus, what happened!?”
Twilight Sparkle, massaged her skull to relieve the horrible mana feedback migraine she was suffering. After a few seconds she managed to look around the room to check for any damage. First, while nothing was destroyed, everything seemed to be too larger, the exact opposite problem Twilight was used to. But why? Because she was now a small filly.
OK, checklist time.
The room is different, much less regal, and five potted plants in strange places.
Wings and horn? Both check, but she was a small filly now, at least her mane had stopped flowing in none existent wind.
Friends? None but Spike was there, and he was now a 30 ft dragon with his … baby-ish head sticking through the roof.
He looked exactly like he did the day he was hatched … The plotted plants, after a second glance, Twilight realised the plants she most likely her parents and examiners from the day she took the exam at Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. With a quick dispelling charm, three examiners and her parents poofed back into existence where the plants had once been.
She was back to the day she met Celestia, the day when got her cutie mark. The day Rainbow Dash performed her first Rainboom. Casting a quick illusion spell to hide her wings, she took a deep breath and prepared herself to meet Celestia for the first time, again.
********************************
Luna awoke.
For some reason, her bed was hard and her room was cold. If she didn’t know better she say she was back on the …
Her eyes shot open. Rocks and craters as far as the eye could see, and in the sky, was Equs.
"Sparkle damn it."