//------------------------------// // Supersonic // Story: Technicalities // by BionicBrony //------------------------------//         It was a shame.         Really, it was.         Rainbow Dash looked so peaceful when she was taking a nap. Naps which she honestly took all too often. For the time being, she was just lying on a cloud without a care in the world. She was wearing her new flightsuit, so she must have been practicing with it just before this. But for now, there were no ponies to come by and bother her; no breeze to ruffle her feathers and irritate her.         No breeze to alter Alex’s shot.         It really was a shame.         Even as Alex sat in the pilot seat of the hovering Raptor, gazing at Rainbow Dash’s sleeping form through the scope of his rifle, he couldn’t help but shake off the slightest guilty itch.         But alas, it had to be done.         For science, of course.         Alex carefully aligned his crosshairs between Rainbow Dash’s shoulders, just below her neck. Now was the time that all that practice on the range would finally come in handy.         He slowly released breath, steadying his shot.         Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull…         Only Alex heard the muffled fwoomp as the gun fired.         “YEOOWW!” Rainbow Dash sprung into the air, flailing before landing back on her cloud in a scrambling heap. Finding her senses, Dash zipped her head around until she spotted the only nearby disturbance in the air around her.         Hovering some yards away was some sort of weird looking machine. Its cockpit was open and inside was Alex himself, wearing a flight suit, a strange helmet with dark lenses, and the biggest shit eating grin Rainbow Dash had ever seen.         Before Rainbow Dash could voice her anger, Alex waved. “Tag, you’re it!” The Raptor’s cockpit closed over him and the aircraft spun around and flew off.         “Hey! Get back here!” Rainbow Dash yelled, leaping off her cloud and shooting after him.         As Alex slapped his oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, he glanced at the target finder on the Raptor’s HUD. Just as he predicted, Rainbow Dash was on him like leaves on a tree.         Alex grinned and pushed the throttle on the Raptor. “It's on!”         “Hey, Guy! Could you come help me with this?” called Applejack from the barn’s door. “The darn thing’s stuck again!”         “Sure thing!” Guy called back, dumping a load of fresh apples onto the market cart before making his way over to her.         Applejack stepped out of the way to let Guy do his thing. Grabbing the top of the door (since none of the handles were big enough for him to properly grip), Guy forced the first barn door open all the way.         When the second one was open, Applejack tipped her hat to him. “Thanks for that, Sugarcube. This thing really needed airin’ out after those pigs–” An odd whooshing noise caught Applejack’s attention. She had never heard anything like it before. “Hey, Guy, you hear that?”         “Yeah, I do…” Guy looked around, trying to find the source of the noise. “What is that?”         Applejack squinted her eyes. “Ah have no idea… It kinda sounds like…” Her ears drew her eyes upward. “What in the name of Celestia’s mane is that?”         Applejack gawked as two objects soared over the farm. One of them was big and alien looking; definitely belonged to Alex, if she had to guess. The other was much smaller and left a rainbow trail in its wake; definitely Rainbow Dash.         Both streaked across the sky, and promptly vanished from Applejack’s sight over the barn. In an attempt to get a better look at what was going on, Applejack galloped through the barn toward the opposite door, with Guy close behind her.         The sight Applejack met on the other side caused her heart to lurch in her chest and she dived to the floor. “Get down!”         Guy barely managed to get out of the way as the alien machine dived out of the sky and stormed through the inside of the barn with the rainbow blur close behind it. A smash was heard as the machine impacted the floor of the barn, gouging a rut in the floor and spraying dirt everywhere in the process, but otherwise continued sailing all the way through the other doorway unimpeded.         With no more fuss, both Rainbow Dash and the flying machine she was chasing were flying off somewhere else.         Applejack breathed heavily as the sound of the two fliers gradually drifted away. Eventually, Applejack got back on her hooves and retrieved her Stetson, which had flown off her head in their wake.         Brushing the dust off her hat, Applejack stared at the inside the barn, slack jawed. The impact mark of that machine ran deeper than she would have liked, hay was blown everywhere from the torrent of wind, and dust was still hanging in the air. “What in the hay was that?”         For most ponies, today was just another day. But not for Fluttershy and Rarity. No, today was the day that they would take their weekly trip to the spa. Except this time, Fluttershy brought along a plus one. “Are you sure you don’t want me to make any changes to your dress, Fluttershy?” asked Rarity as the two of them entered Ponyville’s main square. “The Gala is in two months. I know you love the dress, but do you really want to wear it to the most formal gathering in Equestria for two years in a row?” Fluttershy gave her a gentle smile in return. “Oh yes, Rarity. I absolutely love it. I don’t want to trouble you to make another one for me.” “Oh, nonsense, darling! It’s no trouble at all! You know I would do anything for you.” Rarity paused, eying the curled up machine on Fluttershy’s back that gave a light flutter. “But all that aside… could you remind me again why you decided to bring your dragon with us?” Fluttershy moved her head around to nuzzle Garry as they walked, a gesture the dragon returned. “He was just curious to know where I always go every Saturday. You won’t bother the spa ponies, will you, Garry?” The dragon responded by burying its head inside her mane and lightly scratching the back of Fluttershy’s neck with its muzzle. Flapping his large, webless wings in contentment, Garry gave nearby ponies the impression that Fluttershy had somehow grown a second set of strange wings altogether. Rarity scrunched her nose as the sight. “Hmm… You know, I’m surprised Alex still hasn’t made something to help him fly yet.” “Oh, I’m sure he’ll make something soon.” Rarity shook her head with a tsk as they walked up to the spa building itself. “If worst comes to worst, I could have a hoof at it. Although it does surprise me. Out of all the machines he’s made, the only one that could actually fly can’t even do it ye–” A large flying machine suddenly tore through the air above the spa building, silencing Rarity and causing Fluttershy to shriek. Nearly jumping out of her skin, she bolted inside with Garry barely hanging on. Rarity, along with everypony else in the town center, gaped up at the flying machine that had seemingly come out of nowhere. Over and over again, the machine flew sideways around town hall in a large circle, almost dangerously low to the ground, with what looked like Rainbow Dash attempting to follow it from above. Rainbow Dash was keeping pace with the machine, but it looked like she was having some difficulty maintaining the endless loops. After almost a dozen revolutions, the flying machine righted itself before suddenly flying up and then back down below roof level in another street, with Rainbow Dash hot on its tail. After a moment, Fluttershy poked her head out of the spa. “I-i-is it gone…?”         Whistling a happy tune, Pinkie Pie hopped out of the driver’s seat of her party cannon car ... thingy. Sticking a hoof in her mane, Pinkie fished out a large remote. With a push of a button, the hatch over the driver’s seat closed with a satisfying honk. Shoving the remote back into her mane for safe keeping, Pinkie Pie made her way inside Sugar Cube Corner.          Pinkie’s mind spun around the tasks ahead for her for the day. The morning had been dull, but the evening promised an exciting party. Ready to start her day, she placed a hoof on the bakery’s door, but froze in the pose as her tail started twitching.         Pinkie blinked at the sensation and instinctively looked up.         Nothing.         “Huh, that’s weird…”          A torrent of wind mixed with the sudden sound of ponies screaming behind her drew her attention towards town. For a brief moment, Pinkie’s heart froze and her eyes widened as a flying machine unlike anything she’d ever seen before blazed its way just over the ground and directly toward her.         Pinkie Pie yelped and braced herself against the door.         However, the flying machine suddenly angled itself directly upward, and rockets on the back end of it blasted against the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust and launching the entire machine straight into the sky and over the bakery.         Pinkie Pie let out a breath, soaking in the relief that whatever that thing was, it didn’t crash into her.         But why was her tail still twitching?         “Whoa!” Pinkie’s question was answered when Rainbow Dash blew through the cloud of dust and crashed into her, somersaulting them through the front door of Sugar Cube Corner before they both finally landed in a heap, with Rainbow Dash lying on top.         Pinkie Pie, as usual, seemed completely unfazed by the tumble and grinned up at her. “Oh hey, Dashie! What’s up?”         Rainbow Dash hopped off her pink crash pillow with a groan, but wasted no time running back out the door to take flight again. “Sorry, Pinkie! It’s really tough to turn with this suit on! Catch ya later!”         “Okay! Bye!” Pinkie chirped with a wave as Rainbow Dash took off once more. Just as she was taking off, however, Pinkie barely managed to catch a glimpse of something glinting on Dash’s back. Unfortunately, she paid it no heed. After dusting herself off and getting back on her hooves, Pinkie was welcomed by the sight of every customer in the store staring at her and the door with gaping jaws and wide eyes. Pinkie Pie tilted her head at them. “What? Is there something in my mane?”         Throughout all of her years of study with Princess Celestia and her school for gifted unicorns, there was one arguably valuable skill Twilight Sparkle managed to acquire. Namely, it was her ability to block out any and all distractions while she was in the middle of reading a book, be it a novel, magic guide, encyclopedia, or even a dictionary.         Of course, the only way to actually get her attention at that point would be physical contact. Poking her would sometimes work, but a good shove always worked best. Unfortunately, despite the number of years he lived with her, Spike never actually figured this out.         So when Spike ran into her in a panic while she was busy reading an electronic copy of Magical Conundrums Surrounding Bread and Teleportation by Starswirl the Bearded, it was only a coincidence that that happened to be the best way to get her to address the problem at hoof.         “Twilight! Rainbow Dash is chasing something really big and really fast all over Ponyville!” yelled Spike while vigorously shaking Twilight by her mane.         “Spike! Calm down!” said Twilight, barely managing to push him away, though he still looked fidgety and extremely worried. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”         Spike once again latched onto her and began pulling her upstairs towards the library’s observatory. “Upstairs – come quick!”         “Okay okay! Easy on the hair!”         Twilight trotted behind Spike up to the observatory, where Grand Master Google stood by a lectern, reading through one of the library’s more recent additions. Despite Twilight’s and Spike’s presence, Google completely ignored them, casually flipping the pages as if nothing of note was going on.         Spike pushed Twilight over to the balcony and opened the door for her. “Look outside!”         Twilight trotted out on to the balcony and her eyes scanned over Ponyville, trying to see the commotion Spike was talking about.         Unfortunately, the only thing Twilight managed to spot was a giant, heaping help of nothing out of the ordinary.         Twilight frowned in confusion. “Uh, Spike? Are you sure there was something – AH!”         Twilight yelped as some sort of machine made a dangerously close flyby right next to the balcony. The rainbow blur that followed close behind it was unmistakable.         Holding a hoof up to her chest in some vague attempt to protect herself, Twilight gawked as Rainbow Dash and whatever machine she was chasing weaved in and out of the streets of Ponyville, banking this way and that with the occasional barrel roll. Or was that an aileron roll? Dash always got mad when she confused the two.         Confusion and fear soon gave way to interest and wonder. Alex had told Twilight about human aircraft many times before; about their zeppelins that were very similar to Canterlot airships, about their planes that could travel as fast as nine times the speed of sound, about their fueled helicopters that were nearly identical to the pedal-powered ones that occasionally flew around Ponyville, about their harrier planes that could both fly and hover…         But this was something else entirely. Despite its rapid movements, Twilight managed to catch clear glimpses of it here and there. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for her to know that it didn’t match any of the descriptions Alex provided her. It didn’t have any rotary blades above it, and it didn’t have any wings either! At least, none large enough provide lift. Despite lacking all those things, its agility far surpassed anything she would have expected, especially if it was able to give Rainbow Dash a run for her bits.         “Google?” Twilight called out. “Could you come out here?”         After a few moments, Google appeared in the doorway to the balcony and gave her a small bow of recognition, though said nothing.         Twilight pointed towards the UFO flying around Ponyville. “Google, can you tell me anything about that aircraft?”         Google’s oculus followed her hoof and located the object in question. “Consulting local database… Information unavailable. Consulting primary database… Information classified. Requesting authorization… Authorization granted.” Google turned back to Twilight. “What would you like to know?”         Twilight couldn’t help but grin as he asked her that question. “Did Alex build it?”         “Affirmative.”         Twilight raised her eyebrows in curiosity. “Well that explains that. Does it have a name?”         “Vehicle designation: Raptor.”         Twilight rubbed her chin in thought. “The Raptor, hm? Can you send as much information about it as you can to my tablet?”         “Acknowledged. Is there anything else you would like to know?”         This time, Spike grabbed Google by the arm and shouted, “What’s going on?! What is it doing?!”         Google simply turned his gaze toward Spike and, after a moment, answered, “Raptor speed test and Rainboom data collection currently in progress.”         Twilight and Spike shared a surprised look and simultaneously repeated, “Rainboom data collection?”         The two of them turned their attention back to the aerial chase just in time to see the Raptor and Rainbow Dash fly far out of town, quickly gaining altitude.         “Fuck, I think I’m gonna be sick…” groaned Alex, leaning his head back against the pilot seat.         “We’re almost done, you big baby,” came Rose’s voice.         “You fly like a fucking maniac!”         “I thought you enjoyed roller coasters?”         “I do, but this is absolute insanity!” Alex let out a small, but foul tasting belching noise. “Shit, I’m just glad I skipped breakfast…”         “Are you done complaining, yet?” After choking down his insides’ final attempt at regurgitating his lack of breakfast, Alex drank a fresh lungful of oxygen from his mask. “Ugh… Yeah, I am…” Alex glanced at the target finder to discover that Rainbow Dash was still right where he expected her to be. He placed his hands over the Raptor’s controls. “Alright, give me control. I’ve had enough of this.” “Relaying to you.” With control of the Raptor in his own hands once more, Alex eased the throttle forward and pitched up. Alex’s eyes darted over the HUD. “Do a system check for me real quick. We ready to hit Mach?” “All systems are prepared.” “What about the sensors? You have your eyes on Dash?” “Everything is working as expected.” Alex nodded. “Alright. Let’s see how fast these birds can go.” After the Raptor’s and Rainbow Dash’s display above Ponyville, virtually everypony in the entire town had their full attention on the high speed aerial chase. Even when the Raptor angled up and began flying far out of town, most of the ponies who couldn’t maintain eye contact with it got themselves to a higher elevation just to see what was going to happen next. Some ponies assumed that the show was most likely over, much to their relief. Trouble always seemed to find its way in Ponyville, and any opportunity to avoid it was always welcome. This time, however, they were proven wrong when the Raptor turned back toward the town, though continued its steep climb. Almost everypony in Ponyville, from Sweet Apple Acres, to the Spa, to Sugar Cube Corner, to Golden Oaks Library, kept their eyes to the skies as the two increasingly small objects flew high above them. Deafening silence penetrated the entire town as they observed the two fliers go faster, and faster, and faster. Then it happened. A large, cone shaped cloud of mist suddenly formed around the leading flier as air pressure alone caused water vapor to instantaneously condense over its frame. But it was what followed after that caught everypony’s attention. A moment after the mist formed around the Raptor, a large, chromatic explosion erupted from its pursuer. Ponyville collectively gasped as waves of brilliant color radiated out from the point where Rainbow Dash burst through the sound barrier, a large rainbow trailing behind her. Unfortunately, everypony was only able to admire the sight for a few brief seconds before the sound of an explosion tore them from their wondrous stupor. Naturally, everypony credited Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom for the explosive sound. It was only when the second explosion sounded just a few seconds later did they realize that something was happening–something probably bad. While most ponies gazed around in confusion, worry, and panic, wondering what could have caused the second bang, Twilight Sparkle simply gazed up at the two flyers with a wide grin and huge eyes. A residual echo from the two sonic booms and the continued bombardment of compressed air waves hung in the air, giving the scene before her a more mystical appeal. As the chromatic effects of the rainboom’s shockwave dissipated, Twilight was only one of a handful of ponies who continued to stare long enough to witness the Raptor quickly accelerate and speed far beyond Rainbow Dash’s reach.         Breathing heavily, Rainbow Dash finally lowered herself down and landed on the roof of Alex’s garage, where the Raptor also did the same. Still hovering a few feet from the floor, the Raptor’s cockpit opened, allowing Alex to grab his rifle and jump down.         Still panting from all the exercise she was hoping to avoid that afternoon, Rainbow Dash yelled, “What the hay was all that about?!”         Alex removed his oxygen mask to reveal a toothy grin. “What? You didn’t think that was fun?”         “Hey, I was having all the fun I wanted relaxing before you came along, thank you very much!”         Alex handed off his rifle and backpack full of assorted equipment to a waiting Blue. “You’re welcome. But in all honesty, I should be the one thanking you.”         Dash blinked at him. “Huh? What for?”         Alex removed his stuffy helmet and mask and handed them to the Blue. Before saying anything else, Alex walked over to Dash and promptly plucked something off her back, eliciting a yelp. He held up the object he just grabbed for her to see. “This.”         Dash glanced at her back before eying the tiny device cautiously. “What the… What is that?”         “It’s a sensor!” said Alex, pocketing it. “I shot you with it while you were taking your nap. Woke you right up, now didn't it? Heheheh.”         “And why did you do that?” Dash growled at him.         “Two reasons,” Alex said, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. “First, I wanted to compare how fast that thing over there could fly to you.” Alex indicated over to the Raptor with a thumb.  The two looked on as the Raptor hovered over to another section of the roof on its own, where a large aperture opened part way to allow the aircraft entry. When the Raptor disappeared and the roof closed behind it, Alex continued, “And two, I wanted to scientifically analyze your sonic rainboom. Pretty impressive stuff, by the way.”         “You could have just asked, you know,” she deadpanned.         “Oh, I know, but it was more fun this way,” Alex said with a grin, prompting a glare from her in response. “How about this: for being such a good sport, I’ll buy you lunch anywhere you want, once I’m done going over the preliminary data.”         Rainbow Dash raised a brow. “Oh really? And how long will that take?”         Alex started making his way over to the elevator. “Couple minutes, really. Rose probably crunched most of the data by now. You wanna come inside and see if we can figure out how your rainboom works?”         “Might as well if you’re buying lunch,” said Dash with a shrug, following him.         Once they were both inside the descending elevator, Alex said aloud, “Rose, what do you have for me?”         “I’d prefer a few more tests to be done,” came Rose’s disembodied voice, “but it would seem we have enough information to derive some rather… interesting conclusions. I’m compiling everything for you in the drawing room.”         “Then to the drawing room we shall go,” Alex said with a nod.         Rainbow Dash looked up at him. “The drawing room? What’s that?”         Alex grinned down at her. “You’re gonna love this place. Twilight flipped her shit when I showed it to her.”         Dash grimaced. “Look, I know Rose explained your swearing habit to us, but do you think you could keep doing what you were doing before?”         Alex shook his head. “Hey, I’ll keep trying, but now that everything’s out of the closet, I’m not giving any guarantees. You’ll just have to learn to live with it.”         The elevator opened on the level of the Prototype Lab and Rainbow Dash followed Alex out. It had been a while since she had last been down there, and it was still just as impressive. Past the security hall, Rainbow Dash gawked around at the various machines, scanners, terminals, and hologram projectors that littered the room. Even a large section of wall was completely dominated by machines that held about a half dozen individual Liandri. While they all looked different in one way or another, each one shared a common theme: they all resembled human females.         And, of course, the centerpiece supercomputer was just as imposing as ever.         Rainbow Dash stared up at its blue metallic eye. “Hey, Rose. What’s up?”         “You, actually,” replied Rose. “Could you not fly around while you’re in here?”         Dash let out a nervous chuckle and planted her hooves back on the ground. It was so natural to her that she didn’t even realize she was hovering. “Heheh, sorry.”         A sharp whistle brought Dash’s attention back to Alex, who was standing next to the doorway to the Core’s elevator. Dash trotted back over to him and entered the second elevator.         Except it wasn’t an elevator anymore. It was just a circular room with three other doorways leading out.         Rainbow Dash blinked at her memory. “Huh? Wasn’t there some kind of elevator here before?”         Alex made his way to the leftmost door. “We’re standing on it. This type of layout makes things more space efficient, especially if we compartmentalize larger rooms.”         Rainbow Dash continued to follow Alex through the automatic door and into a short hallway that came after it. Alex stopped at the door on the opposite end this hallway and turned to face Dash. “One last thing, this is a no-fly zone. I’m gonna have to ask you to stay grounded, okay?”         Dash rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright.”         Alex shrugged at her answer and pressed a keypad to open the door. When it opened, Rainbow Dash’s eyes bugged out. Inside was a massive dome shaped room. It was fairly dark, and had no visible light sources, but a strange glow from the air itself seemed to evenly illuminate the walls, which themselves were covered with large, hexagonal plates. A bright blue, human-sized holographic version of Rose was already waiting for them in the middle of the room, though without any clear projector that usually accompanied the image.         Alex held his arms out as he walked in, the glow covering him from head to toe. “Welcome to the drawing room, Dash. This is where Rose and I design pretty much everything.”         Rainbow Dash slowly made her way inside, the door automatically closed behind her. She was used to that sort of thing by now. However, she failed to notice a hexagonal plate slide out of the floor beneath her and cover the door. Dash followed Alex to the waiting holographic humanoid, gazing around at the disconcerting uniformity of this new chamber.         Once Rainbow Dash was next to them, Alex inhaled deeply and his eye began to glow green. Holding his arm out, he snapped his fingers, and moved his arm as if he were throwing a baseball. Dash yelped as a train of bright orange holographic panels suddenly materialized next to her. The rectangular panels curved from their path and eventually formed a circular wall around them, with Alex standing at the very center.         “Alright, graphs on top, everything else on the bottom,” said Alex. With a few arm movements, almost half of the panels flew up to the level above the others. The panels quickly approached Alex, filling in the new gaps.         With more arm movements, holographic panels flew from their place on their makeshift wall and positioned themselves next to Alex, where he briefly examined them each in turn. “Alright, Rose, what am I looking it?”         The holographic representation of Rose moved her lips, but her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Unlike at ground level, it would seem there is actually a considerable presence of PCE in the atmosphere. Why it’s there and how it got there are currently unknown, but from what the data indicates, that is what is responsible for the so called ‘rainboom.’ However, there is something else you might want to look at.” Rose held out an arm towards one of the panels and it hovered closer for Alex to examine.         After examining the information on the hologram for a few moments, Alex’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit…”         Rainbow Dash frowned in concern. “What? What is it?”         With a single flick of his hand, Alex returned holographic panel to its place and faced Dash. “Okay, so from what we can tell so far, from both the Raptor’s sensors and the one I stuck to you, there’s actually a fair amount of PCE in the mid and upper troposphere.”         Dash held up her hoof. “Whoa whoa whoa, time out for a second. What’s PCE?”         Alex crossed his arms. “PCE stands for Power Core Energy. You know it more commonly as ‘magic.’”         Dash blinked at him. “Magic? Then why does that surprise you? Magic is pretty common in Equestria, you know.”         Alex rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I noticed. But so far, we’ve only seen it generated in Power-Cores and unicorns.” Alex fished one of the panels closer to him to double check the information. “This atmospheric PCE doesn’t seem to have a source, or at least, none that we can pinpoint. That’s the weird part. I mean, as far as we know, PCE doesn’t just manifest out of thin air.”         “Okay, but what does any of this have to do with my sonic rainboom?”         Alex swapped the holographic chart for another one. “Well, according to your sensor, when you’re flying fast enough, you start to act as some sort of conduit. That would explain why you get a rainboom and the Raptor just gets a regular old boom—it’s not built to do what you do.”         Alex floated the panel away from him and, with a snap of his fingers, conjured up images in the air. “Here, picture this. Imagine you’re some kind of funnel, with the broad end being your front. As you fly through the air, that funnel catches and condenses that PCE. It’s that condensation of PCE that causes that rainbow trail you leave behind. The boom itself, on the other hand, seems to be a reaction between you, the PCE, and the waves of air pressure that collapse over each other when you go supersonic. Pretty neat stuff, actually. If I put in enough effort, we could probably recreate it.”         Rainbow Dash gave him a blank look. “Huh… You know, it… kinda feels less special now…”         Alex dispelled the holograms with a flick of his hand. “To be fair, Dash, you’re still extremely impressive. I mean, humans have been making aircraft that can go as fast as nine times the speed of sound for decades now. The Raptor going Mach two point five? Pfft, trust me, that’s nothing special. But an organic life form capable of going Mach one without assistance? That’s something, even if that new suit helped in that regard.”         A smile started to grow on her. “I guess you’re right. I am pretty awesome.”         Alex smiled in return. “There you go. But there is one thing that still worries me, though.”         “And what’s that?”         Alex began pacing in front of her while rubbing his chin. “The fact that we can’t identify the source of this Core Energy. I’m convinced that either something or someone is generating it. It just shouldn’t occur like this…”         “So? What’s the problem?”         Alex stopped his pacing and faced her. “What’s the problem? Dash, this has all sorts of implications. For instance: this room is saturated with PCE, just like the atmosphere. It’s relatively harmless, for the most part, but you could do all sorts of things with it if you have the right tools.         “Here, watch this.” Alex snapped his fingers and a small, brilliant white light appeared on the end of Rainbow Dash’s nose, causing her to perk up and stare at it through crossed eyes in surprise. Alex reached a hand over and “grabbed it,” though it hovered between his fingers more than anything else. “Using my Brain-Computer Interface, practically anything I can imagine in this room becomes reality. So far, it’s all just smoke and mirrors, but it’s pretty damn good.”         Dash gazed at the light hovering above Alex’s palm curiously. “Whoa…”         “Ah, but that’s not all.” Alex closed his hand and extinguished the light. Turning to Rose’s hologram, he said, “Rose, load up the Ponyville sim.”         Rose gave a single nod and her hologram flashed out of existence.         Rainbow Dash blinked as the room itself warped around her. The floor became distorted and changed from hard steel to hard cobblestone. The hexagonal plates of the dome phased out of existence and were replaced with the homes and buildings of the town above. Rainbow Dash suddenly found herself back outside, right next to town hall… in the middle of the night?         The moon and stars were very clearly shining overhead, illuminating the street she was now standing in. Lights from the various Ponyville buildings around them also helped her see what was happening. Unsure of what to think, Rainbow Dash tapped her hoof against the floor, resulting in a metallic tap.         “What just happened…?” asked Dash, slowly looking up to where Alex was standing.         Dash was blinded as the moon vanished from the sky and the sun rose over the horizon and directly above them in only a matter of seconds. When her eyes finally adjusted, she saw Alex with his hand on a small holographic panel, which promptly disappeared.         “This is a holographic simulation of Ponyville,” Alex answered as he made his way to a nearby house. “It’s pretty good, wouldn’t you say? At a cursory glance, you wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference. Except for one, itty bitty problem…”         Alex stuck his hand through the door of the house. “It’s not real. None of it. In fact, we’re still in the drawing room. You could walk in any one direction and eventually hit the wall, but you won’t find it until you do. Otherwise, this all looks pretty convincing, doesn’t it?”         Rainbow Dash glanced around. The place where she was standing looked like an exact copy of town hall and the surrounding area. The only problem was that there were no ponies walking around, no breeze, and aside from Alex and herself, it was deathly silent.         Alex walked up to Dash and crossed his arms. “Now it could be doing nothing, or it could be doing something. Either way, I think we have a number of really important questions to ask ourselves. Does it have a source? If so, where is it coming from? Why is that source doing what it’s doing? But most importantly...         “What exactly is that PCE doing in the atmosphere?”