//------------------------------//
// Mike: She Blinded Me With Science 
// Story: Fastest Fall in Equestria 
// by Parchment_Scroll 
//------------------------------//


Fastest Fall in Equestria
She Blinded Me With Science


Mike: The party was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.  It was like everything I'd ever thought a block party could and should be, and more.  I have to agree with Rainbow Dash.  If you haven't been to a Pinkie Pie party, you haven't been to a party.

But all good things must come to an end, even Pinkie Pie Parties, and the citizens of Ponyville all started packing their things up and heading inside.  Twilight offered to let me stay with her so that we could work on the body-swap spell as soon as we got up in the morning, and Rainbow Dash stayed at Dave's so she could stay in touch.

Everyone slept in the next day -- we'd stayed out late, partied way harder than necessary, and were paying the price.

Well, almost everyone.

I woke up to the sound of talking.  Either Twilight and Dave had stayed up all night -- a possibility, I conceded -- or they had gotten up early to share information.

I stumbled into the main library.  "Morning guys," I said beteen yawns.  "What's up?"

"We're trying to figure out which one of you is Sam," Dave said.

"What."

"Sam Beckett?"

"You've lost me."

Twilight grinned. "Dave's been sharing 'Your Tube Videos' with me," she said.

"YouTube," Dave and I corrected simultaneously.

"Getting all the ponies hooked on the internet, Dave?  Sure that's wise?"

"Pfft.  Who cares about wise?" Dave said.  "I'm doing it for SCIENCE!"

"Careful with that science stuff, you'll go blind," I admonished.

"Good heavens, Miss Yakamoto, you're beautiful!"

"SCIENCE!"

"And you lost me," Twilight said.

"It's from a song," Dave explained.

"Will you all stop shouting?"  A grumpy man's voice sounded from off... screen?  Crystal?  Whatever.

"Who the heck was that?"

"Rainbow Dash," Dave said.

"I do not sound like that," I objected, to both Dave and Twilight Sparkle's amusement.

"You do when you're tired.  Sorry, R.D.!"

"Apologize quieter.  What's for breakfast?"

While Rainbow Dash puttered around Dave's kitchen making herself some cereal, Twilight explained to me what she and Dave had been talking about.

"It seems there was a human television program called 'Quantum Leap'," she said.

"Oh, hey, I remember that one.  With the guy from Enterprise, right?"

Dave hissed at me.

"Right, right," I said, "don't mention Enterprise around--"  I paused so Dave could hiss again.  "Around Dave.  Anyway, what about it?"

"Well, according to Dave, in this show, Sam would swap bodies with someone and be stuck in their body until he had solved some problem in their life."

"Not exactly," I said. "He and they would switch places, yeah, but they were in their own bodies.  Sam just looked like whoever he switched with to people there."

"Ha!"

I stared at the crystal flatly.  "What, Dave?"

"You don't get to call me a geek anymore if you knew that!"

I grinned.  "Please," I said.  "Everyone knows that."

"No, they don't," Dave said.  "Anyway, I like this comparison, because it makes me Al, and Al was cool."

"Sure you're not Gushie?"

"I don't like this comparison anymore."

"Anyway, it's a nice thought, but it looks like Rainbow Dash has a pretty good life here."

"So that means Rainbow Dash is Sam?"

I snickered.

"What's so funny?"

"I just pictured Twilight Sparkle in one of Al's horrible suits."

"Those suits were awesome," Dave objected.  "You just have no taste."

"Anyway, I don't think that's what happened here."

"Me either," Dave said, "but it was fun to speculate."

Twilight shrugged.  "It was an alternative that bore exploring," she said.  "I still think parrallelism is the culprit."

I frowned.  "And now you've lost me."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about," Twilight said.  "You're so much like Rainbow Dash sometimes I almost forget you're not her!"

I shook my head.  "I'm nothing like Rainbow Dash.  She's an athelete.  She's in public service, if I'm understanding this weather pony business right.  She's a pony.  She's female.  Shall I continue?"

"Dave says you used to be kind of a daredevil yourself," Twilight countered.  "You're studying to be a doctor, which is public service at its finest.  The other stuff is incidental."  She shook her head.  "Anyway, it's not the details of your lives that I'm talking about.  It's the personalities.  Sure, there are differences, but those are more cultural than personal.  I think, if we're looking at a parallel world situation here, that you two are counterparts for each other."

"And, what, you and Dave are counterparts?"

"Makes sense," said Dave.  "I mean, I identify most with Twilight, sure.  Of course, I am by no stretch of the imagination the only brony to do so."

"So, what we need to do is figure out what the two of you were doing when the switch happened, and if we can reproduce that exact situation, you'll be back in your bodies in no time!"

I frowned.  "Well," I said, "I was sitting down to watch My Little Pony for the first time."

"To watch what?"

I looked at Dave.  "You never told her the title?"

"I called it 'Friendship is Magic,' which is the rest of the title, and more appropriate, I think."

"'My Little Pony'?"  Twilight frowned.  "Whose little pony?  I'm confused."

"It's named for a line of toys," I explained.  "The possessive is... it's kind of a girl-toy thing."

"My Buddy," Dave said as a counter-example.

"I said 'kind of'.  Don't be such a stickler."

"Yup," Rainbow put in as she came into view with a very large bowl.  "That's Twilight all over.  Dave, you're a purple filly."

Dave blushed.

"I am not a filly," Twilight protested, which didn't help much.  Rainbow and I fell over laughing.  "I'm half tempted to leave you two where you are," she threatened, which shut us up quickly.

"Okay," I said.  "This is my serious face.  I am being serious here.  Rainbow, what were you doing when we switched places?  I mean, flying, I know, because the first thing I did when I got here was crash, but..."

Rainbow grunted, swallowing her overstuffed mouthful of cereal with a grimace.  "Nothing much," she (he? whatever) said with exaggerated nonchalance.  "I was only working on the coolest new stunt ever!"

"Cooler than the Sonic Rainboom?" Dave said with a grin.

"Pssh," scoffed Rainbow.  "That thing's old hat now," she said.  "I mean, yeah, it's like my signature move, but I need to keep pushing the envelope if I'm gonna be a Wonderbolt!  No, this takes the Sonic Rainboom up to the next level:  I call it the Sonic Corkscrew."

I frowned.  "Okay, first of all, what in the heck is a Sonic Rainboom?"

"Ooh!  Ooh!"  I flinched, turning to see that the Pink Pony of Party had somehow gotten into the room without any of us noticing.  "It's only the neatest trick ever!  See, when a Pegasus Pony like Rainbow Dash goes really really fast and breaks the sound barrier, you get a sonic boom and a rainbow at the same time!"

"That..."  I pondered it for a moment.  "Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty darn awesome.  So, this new trick would be that with a corkscrew twist?"

Rainbow nodded enthusiastically.  "Yeah!  See, if I do it just right, I should get two rainbow trails - one from my mane and the other from my tail - and they'll spiral around each other until I level off...  It's gonna be a show stopper when I get it right!"

"Wow, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said enthusiastically.  "That sounds like a great trick!"

"Oh, yeah," Rainbow said, buffing her fingernails on her shirt.  My nails.  My shirt.  Whatever.  "It's gonna be awesome."

"So...  I think I have an idea what we need to do."

"You do?" I grinned with relief. "Great, because I'm lost."

"It's not going to be easy," Twilight said, giving me a level gaze.  "You're going to have to do Rainbow Dash's new trick."

"But I haven't gotten it to work yet!" Rainbow objected.  "Mike doesn't stand a chance!"

"Hey," I said.  "Don't count me out yet, Rainbow Dash.  I might just surprise you."

"Right," Rainbow Dash said.  "Well, we've got a lot of work ahead of us, then.  Twilight, can you take this crystal out to the park?"

"Of course I can, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said, almost insulted at the request.

"Great, because Mike's gonna need some heavy-duty coaching if he's gonna pull off the Sonic Corkscrew."


* * * * *


"Okay," I said.  "I get that this is an important part of your repertoire, Rainbow, but why exactly do I need to know how to do this Buckaroo Banzai thing?"

"Buccaneer Blaze!" corrected Rainbow Dash for the twelfth time.  Eventually, she'd realize I was getting it wrong on purpose.  "And if you can't pull off the Buccaneer Blaze, you'll never manage the Sonic Rainboom.  And if you can't manage the Sonic Rainboom, how do you expect to pull off the Corkscrew?"

I shook my head, Rainbow Dash's mane hanging in front of my eyes.  "But...  I mean, the Sonic Rainboom is just going really fast, isn't it?"

"There's more to it than that," Rainbow said.  "When you break the rainbow barrier, there's a blast of magic energy that'll knock you right out of the sky.  It took me forever to work past that, and if I hadn't worked out the Buccaneer Blaze, I wouldn't have been able to push through it when I absolutely needed to."

"Needed to?"  I took a swig from the squeeze bottle of apple juice Applejack had provided for my practice session, not questioning how I managed to squeeze the bottle.

"Yeah.  I was having a serious problem getting the trick to work until Rarity fell out of the sky and I had to go that fast in order to catch her and the Wonderbolts before they hit the ground."

"Aren't... aren't the Wonderbolts flyers themselves?"

"It's kind of hard to fly when somepony's knocked you unconscious," Rainbow said.

"So... you first pulled it off in a life-or-death situation?"

"Well, no," Rainbow said.  "That was the second time.  The first time was when I was a little filly, the day I got my Cutie Mark."

"Your what?"

"Wow, Mike, I don't know who's to blame here.  Either Twilight or Dave has to have explained Cutie Marks to you at some point."


* * * * *


Air is not supposed to become elastic, no matter how normal Rainbow Dash says it is.  After about the twelfth time I was flung aside by what she called the Rainbow Barrier, I was ready to call it a day.  I was ready to throw in the towel, really.

"No!"  Rainbow dash had grabbed Dave's laptop and was shaking it, as though she could shake me by doing so.  All she did was made the image in the crystal zoom in and out really fast.  "You will not give up!  You're in my body, and you can do this!"

"Yeah!"  I blinked, looking around for the source of the cheer.  There, beside a cluster of bushes, were Scootaloo and her two friends, the Cutie Mark Crusaders.  "Rainbow Dash is the best flyer in Equestria!  She does Sonic Rainbooms in her sleep!"

"Guys," I said, frustrated.  "I'm not Rainbow Dash.  I'm not an athelete.  I'm not a stunt flyer.  And I am never going to get this right!"

"That's what you said about the Buccaneer Blaze," Rainbow said.  "And you nailed it the last five tries.  Just trust me.  Trust your body, it knows exactly what it's doing."

I nodded wearily, then looked over at the Crusaders.  "What are you guys doing here, anyway?" I asked.

"Well..."  Scootaloo scuffed the ground with a forehoof and I felt my heart clench as a blast of pure adorable hit me dead center.  "I was hoping you could help me with something, actually," she said.

Rainbow nodded.  "Yeah, I think you need a break," she said.  "You're getting, like, way frustrated.  I know how that feels, trust me.  Whaddaya need, Scoots?"

"Well..."  Scootaloo frowned, looking back and forth between me and the crystal.  "I thought, since Mike was working on a stunt routine, and since you said that you've seen stunts like mine on that intermajigger thing in his world, he might know a few that I could try."

"Well," I said, "let's see whatcha got, kiddo!"  It would do me good to watch somebody... somepony else doing stunts for a change.

Scootaloo proceeded to show off her stuff, and let me tell you, it was impressive.  First off, she can propel herself at some impressive speeds with those wings of hers.  After she got going for a bit, she showed off some moves, including a nice hands -- er, hooves -- free jump, a tail whip, and some nice jumps.  I tried clapping, but that felt awkward in Rainbow's body so I ended up just stomping my hooves and whistling.

"Not bad, not bad," I said.  "I'd love to see what you could pull off with a half-pipe."

"With a whut now?" Scootaloo's little yellow-furred friend -- Applejack's little sister Apple Bloom -- asked.

"Hey, Mike," Rainbow said.  "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

"I think so, Rainbow Dash," I said in my best Pinkie (not Pie) voice, "but where are we going to find three dozen trout and a dancing bear in Equestria?"

With that, Rainbow Dash, the Crusaders, and I began planning what would hopefully be not only my first public performance of Rainbow Dash's stunts, as well as Scootaloo's performing debut, but my farewell performance as well.