//------------------------------// // The Rainbow Bridge // Story: My Little Heartbreak: Heartbroken // by Jet_Black1980 //------------------------------// Chapter Nine The Rainbow Bridge Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight questioningly. “Don’t tell me you buy into that spazzoid’s story about being from another Universe!” She exclaimed. “Another Uni-verse? Um excuse me, but that sounds hiiighly Im-” Gremlin began. “Improbable. Yes. I know, but hear me out.” Twilight began. “I don’t know what all goes into a rainbow, however, I do know that in order to make a rainbow arch like pegasi do, you have to connect to particular points almost simultaneously, I know this cause I have seen rainbows being put together.” Rainbow Dash eyed Twilight. “Right and that has to do with any of this how?” “There is an idea in the field of quantum magical physics known as a Rainbow Bridge. Basically it is like instantaneous travel between two points using a rainbow.” She explained. Rainbow Dash looked at her blankly. “Ugh...”She sighed “Right, Let’s say that you have a Rainbow that’s set up. With enough speed you propel yourself at the starting point of the rainbow. If you were going at the right speed, you would hit the rainbows beginning and then be instantly transported to the rainbows’ end. In a way you would be traveling ‘in’ the light.” Rainbow Dash looked thoughtful. “Wait wait.. What were to happen if I were say performing a sonic rainboom at the beginning of the rainbow?” She asked. “Um...hard to say...but if it were as instantaneous as predicted, you would ‘rainboom’ at one side, come out the other end ‘rainbooming’ and continue on your way?” Twilight said in a guessing manner. Some of that sounded like nothing but sciencey egghead mumbo- jumbo...But the idea of going fast enough to make a sonic rainboom whiles hitting one end of a rainbow and then coming out the other end making another sonic rainboom? That sounded doubly awesome. “Is that even possible Gremlin?” She asked. “Theoretically that’s possible..”Gremlin replied. “But the amount of energy just to produce such an event would nearly shatter the rainbow upon either exit, if you were lucky, or worse upon entry! And there’s no telling what would happen to you if you didn’t come out the other end!” “And that’s bad...” Rainbow Dash said her ears drooping in a worried way. “And that’s just the energy it would take using it here!” Gremlin continued mulling it over in his head. “The energy it would take just to transverse to another universe?! That would be almost the same as what was unleashed in the Big Boom!” “Aaaalright, and now I am kinda lost.” Rainbow Dash said as she rubbed her temples. “Gremlin is just saying that it would take even more energy than even a hundred Rainbow Dash clones could muster.” Twilight said. “However that doesn’t make it impossible, it just makes it highly unlikely and extremely difficult. But if that much magical energy was used in such an event, it might still leave a magical imprinting on the vat itself.” She looked at Rainbow Dash and Gremlin. “Would it be possible for me to scan the liquid rainbow here without setting it off using my magic?” “I’m not too sure that’s a good idea..” Gremlin began. “I think she could do it.” Rainbow Dash interjected. “But RD, there’s a lot of things that could go wrong...” Gremlin said worried like. “Yeah, and if Twilight is right and something like that happened, it would contaminate this entire batch of rainbow liquid wouldn’t it? Some pony would try to use it and the rainbows would come out distorted, or runny or even might explode. And as cool as all those things sound, the Cloudsdale Security Chain of Command would really frown upon it. It’s better that we find out an entire tank has to be tanked than later on find out that because of our negligence somepony else got hurt.” Rainbow Dash explained. Twilight blinked. “Wow...I have never heard you sound so responsible before Rainbow Dash...” “Well...Yeah...They drilled that into us for the first two days of training. Besides.” She looked over the still surface of the rainbow pond. “I kiiiinda want to see what will happen.” She elbowed Gremlin. “And I’m sure you want to see this mystery solved don’t you Daring Doo-ling?” She put up her hoof. Gremlin thought about it. He had never been part of an actual mystery, let alone one that sounded so...Exciting.. Rules were part and parcel to his life.. He gulped and clapped hooves back with Rainbow Dash. “I might regret this...but I think I might regret not knowing how this all ended even more...” He looked up. “Do it...” Twilight nodded, she looked over the liquid before her and paused. She then lowered her horn and concentrated on a most simple of spells.. Detect Magic. As her horn glowed, the surface of the pool started to move a bit...tiny bubbles started to form and froth...She pushed harder but more bubbles kept forming. Gremlin looked nervous. “RD...” “I know Gremlin. But Twilight is a talented unicorn. She knows what she is doing.” Rainbow Dash replied. Still she couldn’t help but back away a bit. “Nnnnnngh!” Twilight groaned trying to feel for any magical energies. Were they just not there? The harder she toiled, the more the liquid looked like it was about to boil over! And that meant more trouble than this spell was worth. She pushed on just a little more, the rainbow froth now starting to rise up the sides of the vat. “Ugh! There has to be something here!” She grunted. By this time the froth was now near the lip of the vat. “Ugh!” She sighed and lowered her head. “It’s no use...I just can’t find what I’m looking for.. If there was magic here it’s long gone..” Rainbow Dash sighed. Something about this was all together unsatisfying. “I’m sorry Twi’..” She started to climb down the ladder. Her horn tapped against one of the bubbles; it popped, and in a hiss all the bubbles popped en masse. “It’s alright Rainbow Dash, I just thought...” Twilight began. Gremlin looked at the surface of the vat. “Whoa...” Twilight looked confused. “What Gremlin?” She asked. “Um Whoa is right...Twilight you better come up here and see for yourself...” Rainbow Dash said motioning her with a hoof. “Alright...” She climbed back up half expecting them to just prank her over this event. After all that was all bubble and no show. However a strange thing met her gaze when she looked over the surface of the tank now. The rainbow liquid was calm and no longer frothy. But it looked like some sort of strange abstract art piece. Psychedelic colours swirled and created sharp thin needles that turned and twisted in different places. Between them were thin, thin stretches of black. A black that looked to be blacker than any black ink.. As if nothing really was there. The swirling lit-up colours perhaps were what was making what was in the middle of the pond stand out the most. There in the off-centre of the pond, where the points of colour were converging was a negative space. A place that was only defined by the points surrounding it. A vague, pony shaped black spot. Rainbow Dash flew over the vat carefully. “Oh Wow...This is...Just wow...” “What is it?” Twilight asked. “It’s...Hard to describe. There is well...you can kinda see it from there, but there is this pony shape.” She pointed at a few things. “There’s the head, the front hooves...the back hooves and the tail. Though you can’t see these weird points of light surrounding it.” Rainbow Dash looked around. “I need some place high enough for Twilight to see this...” She thought to herself. She spotted a railing and then Zipped over behind Twilight. “Alright. Really, you got to see this.” She said lifting her up the best she could. “Damn Twilight...No offense but Whew!” Rainbow said laying down on the catwalk. Twilight rolled her eyes. “I am not that heavy Rainbow Dash. Eeesh. Now what am I...Oh my...” Around the pony shaped hole there were small circles of light. It looked like there were eight of them surrounding the negative space. A red and violet dot were at what you could call its ‘eyes’, an orange and strange blue-ish-purplish colour pin pointed the ‘ears’, her front hooves had dots of yellow and blue, while her back hooves had green on them. Lastly on her tail there was a white dot. Wait no, Nine. There was a small circle of black at what would be the nose of the ‘pony’. “That is exceptionally beautiful...That’s it. Who ever did this must have had some form of powerful magic.. Magic that I haven’t even seen before...” Twilight said almost mesmerized. Gremlin had landed back on the floor and looked to be taking the long route here as he climbed up the ladder leading to the railing. Rainbow Dash looked up. “Magic that you haven’t seen before? That’s kinda worrisome there Twilight. I mean you are the pony any pony goes to when it comes to anything magic.” “I know, but this isn’t unicorn magic.” She said. “Zebra magic?” Dash asked “Zebras don’t have real magic, what they have is a rather profound understanding of nature and magical things. I mean if we used Zecora as an example for all her people...No..” Twilight couldn’t put her hoof on the magic being presented here. Gremlin finally got up to the cat walk. “Uff...Whoa...Dizzy...Need to lay...Whoa...” He pulled himself up on the railing and blinked. “That’s.amazing.. You think this is what Daring Doo felt when she discovered the Wheel of Time?” He asked. “Maybe..” Rainbow Dash said. “Maybe...So...Twilight...Think that this is our mystery pony’s way back home?” “It very well could be but there’s no telling how long it’ll be...open..” Twilight said. That’s when the surface of the tank rippled. “Whoa, did you see that?” Twilight asked. “Yeah, what do you think it means?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I don’t...” Twilight began, but then the black dot at the tip of the negative pony’s nose disappeared and so did the colour in front of it. Then the red dot followed by the orange one. As they did so, more of the black swallowed up the swirling colours. The yellow and green dots popped away, almost like soap bubbles. The blue, almost indigo and finally violet snapped away. Now the empty blackness that was once just pony shaped had taken over the whole of the surface of the vat. All that was left now was a single white dot that lingered. “What the hay?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “You saw that right?” “Yes...I don’t know what is going on. But it isn’t good...” Twilight replied. That’s when the white dot was snuffed out of the inky black liquid in the vat. A liquid that was once bright and colourful was now black and sludgy, there was a slight burnt smell to it all.. and within seconds cracks started to form on the surface of the vat. “Oh Gaaawds!” Gremlin said gasping and gagging. “I know that smell. Whatever the magic that was in that tank was doing, it’s now totally cooked the liquid rainbow in it. Ugh! Smells just like when Cumulus wasn’t paying attention to vat A2. Great...we’re going to have to scrap the whole vat there...” Twilight looked down at Gremlin as she turned around. “I am sorry about that Gremlin.” “Bah, wasn’t your fault Miss Sparkle. I mean if you didn’t do what you did, like Rainbow Dash said, we’d be shipping out faulty product. Still...as much as I don’t look forward to having to do the paperwork for all this.. That was an interesting adventure!” He pushed himself up and waggled his hoof. “That it was. Thank Gremlin you were a great deal of help.” Twilight said giving the awkward pony a hug. Quietly in the background Gremlin was really quiet. “Oh Wow...A Mare Actually -Touched- Me!” He thought when it finally sank it. Twilight made her way down back to the floor, and walked out of the rainbow room, with Dash in tow. “Twilight, I know you don’t quite know what that all was about, hey, I don’t know what that was about, But.. I’m just guessing. If that was her way back, It’s now a dead end right?” Rainbow Dash asked in a concerned manner. Twilight nodded. There was a strange sad almost trapped feeling running through her. “Yes Rainbow Dash, I am sure that was her way back.” She looks thoughtful. “If others sent her here, they seem to have abandoned her here too.” “Really? Wow.. um...that really sucks for her...” Rainbow Dash said rubbing the back of her head. She didn’t know what to say about this. Whoever that pony was, she didn’t know her too well, other than she had an awesome recollection of one of the best days of her life ever. But she couldn’t imagine anypony just being abandoned by anypony else...it just was something that you didn’t do... “So what are we going to do now?” She asked. Just then a burst of green flame appeared near Twilight and a scroll dropped out. Twilight unrolled it. “Update from Spike, our mystery pony seems to now have a name and is passed out on the library floor.” Twilight said looking over the letter. “Really? What is it?” Rainbow Dash asked wanting to get her mind off of that sinking feeling she felt after watching one of the most awesome things ever wither and die. “Heartbreak.” She looked at Rainbow Dash as they walked down the hall back to the balloon. “And we’re going to do the one thing that we can do. Well one thing I can think of that we can do.” “And that is?” “There is only one pony in all of Equestria who knows more about magic than I do and who may be the only one powerful enough to help.” She rolled up the scroll and levitated it to the balloons’ basket. “We’re going to have to take this ‘Heartbreak’ to Princess Celestia.”