Author’s Note: Wow. I wrote this all today. I can’t believe I did that. Anyways, here’s the second installment. Thanks to Bronymaster for editing and pre-reading. I hope you enjoy.
Rage Against the Memes
Ch. 1: Taste the Rainbow Pt. 1
As Celestia’s sun began its ascent, Lyra walked out into the center of town, ready for another day of doing what she loved, playing her harp. She picked up the stringed instrument with delicacy, stood on her hind legs and began to strum lightly. The gentle sound filled the air and passing ponies stopped for a bit to listen. More and more villagers came out of their homes and surrounded Lyra. Then, with enough ponies gathered around, the harpist sped up. A cascade of notes rushed from her instrument and washed over the spectators. She quickened the pace even more; her hoof now a blur as it danced across the strings. It even seemed as though her hoof had split into five individual hooves, each striking the cords with accuracy and grace. Anypony watching closely would have sworn that the golden lyre had caught ablaze. Her audience let out a collective gasp at the sight followed by a loud ovation, as they cheered her on.
“Right, just about time for the grande finale," Lyra thought with a smile.
She slowed down the tempo for a few seconds, causing the audience to lean towards her in anticipation for whatever she was planning.
Lyra raised her hoof high into the air, holding it above the lyre’s trick string, which Lyra had added magic to in order to increase the volume of the note it produced. As she did, she felt her harp get significantly hotter. While her hoof fell to the string, she noticed a focused beam of light hitting her instrument. Her hoof struck the string and she thought, “Well buck..."
What resulted was a sound that blew the crowd and Lyra over, their forehooves covering the sides of their heads in agony. Lyra was the first to recover. She stood back up and looked for the source of the light beam. Looking across the sky she spotted a shaking cloud with a small grin, two magenta eyes and a rainbow colored tail situated right in front of the sun.
“Rainbow Dash,” Lyra said in a low voice, narrowing her eyes.
A cyan pegasus popped out of the cloud. She looked at the mass of ponies still clutching their heads, stifled a snicker and dashed off in the direction of a nearby lake. While she fled a small magnifying glass fell from her mouth.
“RAINBOW DASH,” Lyra shouted, waving her fis…, (er I mean), hoof towards the cloud.
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Rainbow Dash touched down on the shore of the lake and collapsed in a huge fit of laughter. She rolled around the dew covered grass, snorting as she remembered the look on Lyra’s face. She made a raspberry, rolled over to her stomach and started pounding the ground with her hoof.
“Still, the same ol’ prankster as ever, huh Dash?” a solemn voice remarked.
Rainbow Dash looked up and recoiled at the sight of the most bizarre-looking pegasus that she’d ever seen. The pony’s body was abnormally large compared to its head and was flat, shooting up and down creating a vertical wall. Its pink coat was sprinkled with dots of varying color. Its mane was a mix between grey and brown. The pegasus’s muzzle was pushed back a bit and its mouth formed the shape of an inverted Y. The most bizarre feature however were the pony’s cutie marks, or in this case, pair of marks. On the pony’s flanks there were large Xs placed over a set of faded unidentifiable cutie marks. Next to the faded pair, there were images of a shiny metal box with two slots at the top a lever on the front and a black rope coming from the back.
“Um… do I know you?” asked Rainbow Dash, still cringing from the sight of the pony.
The pony looked offended from the question. “Of course you do. It’s me! Don’t you remember back when we were in flight ac…” she looked at her torso and sighed, “Oh, right. I guess I don’t quite look the same. Just call me Nyeigh for now.”
“All right then. (What a weirdo),” Rainbow replied warily. “So what can I do for ya?”
"Nothing, I just wanted to hang out with an old friend. You know, pull some pranks together, eat cupcakes... race each other." Nyeigh said the last part with a glint in her eye.
"A race? You bet! Where are we starting from, and where is the finish?" Rainbow suddenly seemed excited, and forgot all about the strange behavior of her opponent.
“The south edge of the lake to the top of those mountains out there and back.” replied Nyeigh.
“You’re on!”
The two flew over to the south bank of the lake and dug their back hooves into the dirt, readying themselves for takeoff. Had somepony been watching the two, they would have run from the sheer magnitude of the tension between them.
Nyeigh opened her muzzle and begun the countdown, “Three…”
Rainbow continued, “Two…”
A loud boom resonated through the area causing both pegasi to jump, startled. Rainbow shook it off and leaped into the air, arcing over the lake. Nyeigh recovered as well and popped up, following Rainbow with speed equal to the cyan pegasus’s.
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Rainbow was feeling great today. Throughout her body adrenaline surged as she put on more speed. Her wings were creating winds so strong that it bent the trees of the Everfree Forest as she passed overhead. “Nopony could keep up with me at this speed,” she thought, exuding confidence.
She turned around to see how far she was in front of her opponent. What she saw caused her to come to a screeching halt and hover in midair.
There was nopony following her...
“Boo.”
Rainbow whipped her head around. Her mouth fell open at the sight of a rather amused looking Nyeigh.
“So long Dashie!” the pink pegasus shot off, a sparkling rainbow trail following her as she went.
Rainbow’s jaw fell so low that it looked like it would fall off entirely. “But I, then she, then I, but…Grr!!!” she exclaimed before zooming after that flying wall of a pony.
She caught up with Nyeigh, but only after a few minutes of strenuous flapping. The two stared each other in the eyes, Nyeigh smiling while Rainbow scowling. Suddenly a massive looming object cast a shadow over the pair. They looked up to see the face of the mountain coming up on them. They broke the face-off and turned upwards, flying parallel to the mountain side. Looking over at her nemesis, Rainbow could see Nyeigh struggling as she tried to fly up the almost 90° angle. All of Nyeigh’s extra surface area caused gravity to affect her more than the average pegasus. Still she kept up the same pace as her opponent, much to Rainbow’s shock. “How in Equestria is she keeping up with me? That's it, time to bring out the big guns.”
The two circled around the peak and began the descent back down the mountain. Rainbow tucked in her legs and stuck her muzzle out. She beat her wings harder and faster, gaining velocity at an exponential pace. She glanced over at Nyeigh and, for what seemed like the fiftieth time today, dropped her jaw at what she saw. Nyeigh was flying upside down, her body barely avoiding the side of the mountain. She had also tucked in her legs and stuck out the stump of a muzzle she had. Rainbow tried to figure out what this mean and came up with only one solution; a solution that made her pale when she realized it. “No...It's not possible. It can't be”
“NO!! I WON’T LET YOU WIN!!!!” Rainbow screamed as she pulled off the world’s first ever horizontally launched Sonic Rainboom.
A huge smiled appeared on her face as she shot towards the lake. “HA!! Take that!” she yelled back to her opponent.
“The win? I’ll gladly accept it,” a familiar voice purred from in front of Rainbow.
Rainbow’s pupils shrank as the pink pegasus passed by, giving off her own slightly tanned rainbow trail. Soft tinkling noises followed Nyeigh as she easily overtook Rainbow. Nyeigh arrived at the lake a good five seconds before Rainbow reached the southern bank, slowly stopping and lightly touching down with a dejected look on her face.
“Well, thanks for that Dashie. It was just like old times,” Nyeigh said with a smile both on her face and in her voice.
Rainbow sat down, “I lost… How in the hay could I lose?”
Nyeigh cantered over to the defeated pegasus, “Don’t worry Dashie. You could redeem yourself, ya know.”
Rainbow’s ears perked up. She quickly got up, raring for a rematch, “How? Are we racing again? I’ll totally school you this time!”
Nyeigh’s smile dropped and was replaced with a sullen frown, “Please Dashie. Don’t mention school.”
Rainbow, though she believed that she should at least get an explanation for the change in mood, simply nodded her head in compliance.
Nyeigh’s smile returned, surprisingly fast. She turned to Rainbow and said, “Allow me to tell you a bit about Equestria’s history. A couple hundred years ago, there lived an unicorn named Trotl. Ed Trotl to be precise. Anyways, this unicorn was a loyal servant to Princess Celestia. So loyal that she gave him…”
“Can you cut to the chase, already?” Rainbow said, “I’m falling asleep here.”
Nyeigh shook her head and smiled sadly, “Never did like history didja Dashie? Well, in that case I’ll get to the point. I’m not here for a visit, unfortunately. I’m here to give you a test; a trial if you will.”
“Uh-huh,” responded Rainbow, a skeptical look on her face, “What kind of a test?”
“Oh, you’ll see.”
“And if I refuse?”
Sadness covered Nyeigh’s visage, “I’m afraid you have no choice but to accept. Same with your friends.”
Rainbow snarled, “What about my friends?”
“Yeah. They’ll have their own trials over the next couple days,” Nyeigh said with a shrug. “For right now, you should probably focus on your own, Dashie.”
Rainbow leapt into the air and took off for Ponyville. Nyeigh easily caught up with her and blocked her path. Rainbow changed directions, trying to go up and over the breathing airblock. Nyeigh stopped her again. Rainbow tried and tried to get around the obstruction, but she was unable to and eventually fell to the ground, exhausted from the rapid succession of short bursts of energy that turning required from her.
Nyeigh landed on the ground and muttered under her breath something that sounded like, “th…k cel…ia for tr…’s mag..”
She walked over to Rainbow and carried the exhausted pegasus to the water’s edge on her back. Rainbow took a quick drink of the lake’s water and said in a small voice, “Thanks.”
“No prob, Dashie,” Nyeigh’s smile returned. “So are you ready?”
“I guess,” the cyan pegasus replied.
“Right. Let’s go then,” still carrying Rainbow, Nyeigh flew off into the Everfree Forest.
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A Few Minutes Later
Nyeigh landed in a small clearing of flowers surrounded by trees on all sides. She set Rainbow down on a patch of irises. Then, after looking around the clearing, she began to scrunch up her face and concentrated. Rainbow watched with awe as Nyeigh’s wings began to glow as what looked like magical energy built up in the pegasus’s feathers. Six feathers suddenly flew from her wings and shot into the trees as if magnetically repelled from each other. A gray barrier began surrounding the clearing. Nyeigh looked down at Rainbow smugly.
“How did you do that?!” Rainbow asked, not believing her eyes. “You’re a pegasus right? How can you perform magic?”
“You’ll find out in due time, Dashie,” Nyeigh responded.
“You say that a lot, don’t you?”
Nyeigh just shrugged for her answer. She concentrated again for another spell. However, this time the magic didn’t appear in her wings, but on Rainbow’s wings instead. Rainbow gasped as her wings snapped in against her body, tightly folding themselves in. Rainbow now was unable to move, due to both the barrier and her inability to use her wings.
“Hey what are you doing?!” she asked with a hint of panic.
“This is necessary for the trial. Are you fully prepared?” Nyeigh responded.
Rainbow sarcastically said back, “Don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
“All right. But before we begin, I need to tell you what’ll happen if you fail. Okay, Dashie?”
“Ummm…I guess?”
Nyeigh, with a despondent tone, told this to Rainbow, “You’ll lose both your title as the Element of Loyalty and your relationships with the other Elements.”
Rainbow’s body shook as the news hit home. “WHAATTTT!!!!!! WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY!!!!!!! NO WAY, NO BUCKIN’ WAY!!!!!! LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!"she thrashed and flung herself at the walls of the barrier.
“Sorry Dashie, no can do,” Nyeigh said looking down in sadness.
“WELL, I'LL JUST PASS THIS BUCKIN' TEST OF YOURS AND THEN I'LL KICK YOUR FLANK!!!!"
“Seems like you’re ready. Right here’s the trial. You have to… sit there and listen to this song,” Nyeigh said calmly as a song, which sounded like it was coming from the pink pegasus herself,
“And that’s it?” Rainbow asked incredulously.
“Well, not quite,” Nyeigh said with a shy tone. “You have to listen to it continuously for a full day.”
“WHAT???!!!!” Rainbow looked shocked at the cruel torture she had to endure.
“Yeah. So good luck with that, Dashie,” Nyeigh walked past Dash. As she did, Nyeigh softly said, “You still want to see my Blue Horizons?”
Rainbow shuddered in realization as she was asked this, watching Nyeigh settle in some flowers nearby.
“Arty? Arty is that you?” Rainbow asked, tears coming to her eyes.
To Be Continued: Taste the Rainbow Pt. 2