Education
Tony leaned over his desk as he briefly scanned through various texts online regarding home schooling, and the material of various subjects he would need to cover. As he went over the sheer volume of material he would need to cover, he began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was getting in over his head with deciding to home school Rainbow. Sure, he felt confident in teaching her sciences, math, and language skills, but that was only half of what she needed to learn. He could easily enrich her in those areas just by explaining a few things about his work in the lab. But history, the arts...how did he even begin to teach her that?
Of course, the first thing to be done regarding her home schooling was to see just how much she had absorbed from her environment, and how fast she could absorb new material in general. As such, he had told JARVIS to give her a placement test while he went over material for a hypothetical lesson plan. A holographic interface made the test a game for Rainbow, so she shouldn't get too discouraged.
"Tony, I have completed Rainbow's placement test," JARVIS spoke up, projecting into the main lab.
"Alright," Tony said, sitting back from his desk. "What are her scores?"
The holographic display changed to display actual scores. "Her manual dexterity appears to be limited, as she has difficulty holding pencil or pen in hoof, wing, or mouth. Her hoof-eye coordination is excellent, however, so it would be best to utilize touch screens in her education, rather than written material."
Tony nodded. "Kinda expected that. What about her academics."
As per past instruction, JARVIS began with the 'bad news'. "Her awareness of history is non-existent. She will have to begin at the very beginning in that subject. Language skills in English are approximately equivalent to a human child in her presumed age group, although it would appear she has been deliberately hobbling herself in the language she uses, as - despite an aversion to being 'cute' - she has learned it enables her to get more out of those around her. Analyzing her eye movement and other signs, I would project her actual lingual comprehension at fifth grade or higher, as well as a basic spoken phrase recognition of all languages she has heard spoken in the work place, including French, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Hebrew, German, and most Chinese dialects."
Tony whistled under his breath. "Soaks things up like a sponge. What about her other subjects?"
"Her grasp of theoretical mathematics is less than those her age can understand," JARVIS continued. "She is lucky to manage basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in a 'classroom' setting."
"Wait, she can't do math?" Tony asked, shocked.
"In a traditional exam formula, no," JARVIS qualified. "However, in practical mathematics and sciences, her ability to intuit the correct answer is flawless. Out of 300 real world scenarios of advanced sciences and math - especially those regarding physics, aeronautics, weather formation, and advanced mechanics - she was able to correctly intuit the solutions or corrections 300 times, although she was unable to explain her solutions beyond things 'looking right' or 'not looking right'."
"...damn," Tony breathed at this report, reaching over to press a button on top of a box labeled 'Swear Jar'. The display above the box increased from '$15' to '$20'. "That level of instinctive understanding?"
"I would qualify her instinctive understanding of the higher maths and sciences at early college level, although she would never pass those courses as she cannot explain her understanding," JARVIS continued. "Her grasp of chemistry is also somewhat deficient...or possibly, she simply enjoys watching things explode."
"She's barely four at most," Tony pointed out. "Everyone loves explosions when they're young."
"Some never outgrow it," JARVIS commented. Before Tony could react, he moved on. "In order to keep her entertained, I provided her an 'extra credit' problem while I reported her results."
"Oh?" Tony inquired. "What problem?"
"The one you were working on when she first arrived," JARVIS explained. "The difference between your armor's capabilities, what you need them to be capable of, and the arclight's energy production capacity."
Tony laughed. "As gifted as she seems to be, if she solves that, I'll eat my hat."
"You do not wear a hat," JARVIS pointed out.
"Solved it!" Rainbow called out from the next room.
"Good thing, too," Tony pointed out as he ran in to see what Rainbow had come up with.
Rainbow smiled proudly as she pointed up at the holographic display. "Daddy! I made your armor 20% cooler!"
Tony stepped forward, examining the changes she had made. The first thing he noticed was that she had tweaked the base nature of the metal the armor was made of. Using the light weight armor which could be unfolded from a suitcase as a base, she had changed it to a reactive metal that changed its properties slightly based on different energy wavelengths. While this would make it much weaker than normal on its own, she had added an extra converter in a circle around the arclight that changed the wavelength of the energy flowing into the armor so that overall integrity and impact inertial dampening was higher than his regular suit.
And that was just the beginning. Since the armor now displayed different properties based on the wavelength of energy flowing through it, she had changed the design to accept modular components - each with their own smaller but efficient power supply - to effect the armor's offensive or defensive properties. Shoulder epaulets increased the armor's resistance to high temperatures and variable gravimetric fields. Greave like attachments around the boots allowed for an intense burst of thrust from the repulsors for instant acceleration to high speeds. A lightning flail that had been recovered from one of the villains he'd previously faced had been adapted to attach to one wrist for use to grab things, to pull them to him, him to them, or to just swing them around or around them (admittedly, it could only latch on to certain types of surfaces). Wrist braces also allowed for variable types of energy to be released from the palm repulsor units, beams with effects that ranged from searing plasma, freezing cold, high electricity...even one setting that would pass through inorganic objects to inflict a Taser like effect directly to the target's nervous system, and keep going through several targets for a preprogrammed range.
As he took it all in, Tony couldn't help but chuckle.
"What's so funny, Daddy?" Rainbow demanded.
"Just wondering how long I could get away with this design before I got sued by Nintendo," he replied easily. At Rainbow's confused grunt, he kneeled down beside her. "Never mind." Reaching out, he started scratching her behind her right ear like she loved. "This is amazing, Rainbow. How'd you come up with all this? Heck, how did you learn enough to make this work?"
Leaning into the ear scratch, Rainbow shrugged her wings. "Just picked it up watching you work, I guess," she admitted. "It's always fun seeing the bits and pieces of data flying across the screen like that."
Tony paused in scratching her ear, frowning thoughtfully. "So you learn best when the things you're learning are active in front of you and fun, huh?"
"Guess so," Rainbow replied, batting at his hand to make him keep scratching.
Tony resumed his ministrations, using his other hand to jot something down on the holo-display. "Can you make this happen, JARVIS?" he asked.
JARVIS was silent for a while. "I believe I can make this work," he said eventually, although his tone managed to sound dubious.
A week later, Pepper was heading to Tony's office to discuss a new proposed project when she heard an...unusual conversation from within.
"Wait, why can't I just order them to fight the Reds? What about that leadership feat you said George had?"
"You have to give a reason why you're giving the order. That's how leadership works."
"And 'cause they're stupid-heads' isn't good enough?"
"No, that will lose you followers for being arbitrary."
"...what about those tax things? Didn't that make them all unhappy?"
"That's right, it did."
"So what if I said it was to get rid of the taxes?"
"But a government needs taxes."
"Well the Reds aren't listening to the Colo...oh! I tell them that I want to give them their own government where they have more of a voice!"
"That's the ticket!"
Confused beyond belief, Pepper opened the door. Rainbow and Tony were sitting around what Pepper recognized as a holographic D&D table set up for a Revolutionary War reenactment. Rainbow was wearing a version of George Washington's uniform modified for her frame, and Tony...was dressed as a Spartan.
All three stood stock still for a time. Eventually, Pepper spoke up. "...history lesson?"
"Yup!" Rainbow replied eagerly.
Pepper turned to Tony, glanced down at the Spartan uniform, and raised an eyebrow.
Tony shrugged helplessly. "She got through Ancient Greece faster than I expected today, and my Redcoat uniform hasn't arrived yet."
Groaning, Pepper facepalmed. Rainbow giggled.
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Oh my god
This is brilliant.
This will get interesting ...
I can see how she got through Greek fast. After all she IS a pegasus.
D20 History lesson... Lord knows I could have used those...
rainbow dash turned iron man armor into a clone of samus aran
Tats! TATS! YOU GOT FEATURED!!!! ERMAGAWD!!!!
This makes me smile
Somehow Rainbow made all of the Metroid fan boys blissfully happy.
*Face about to burst into laughs but has to keep quiet not to disturb others*
.........................................................................
this is everything I hoped for.
It took me a while to realize that Rainbow Dash basically made Samus' armor from Metroid
This was an adorable chapter
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5645413 omg chu made my day XD
LOL!
fealt like crud all day today come home and read up to this chapter feeling LOTS better.
I can't help thinking all these MLD-style stories are kind of a twist on the Five Score formula, but instead of being turned human and all sent to the same earth, all the ponies get sent to different worlds with their memories gone but personalities intact.
You beautiful mad genius!
This is exactly the best teaching method to use on Rainbow Dash! Sure, she'll still need to learn some social skills by actually interacting with people, but by giving her the bulk of her lessons in a format that keeps her interested will allow her to rapidly learn and assimilate an education which will be easily on par with the education Twilight is getting from her Gadgetron Correspondence courses.
I can just see when the Mane Six are finally back together and merge with their previous memories: Dash and Twilight bond over discussing technology, when Dash pauses and goes: "Oh no! I've become an egghead!" and laughs.
i love this story.
5645466 I agree completely.
god i love this story!
That was fantastic. Rainbow continues to be adorable and I am really liking how raising her is affecting Tony as well. I am also very glad to see that someone else recognizes that Rainbow Dash is actually brilliant because far too many people cannot look past the fact that she has no patience for academic stupidity and see that her actual intellect exceeds Twilight's.
5645861 Honestly, that kind of thing works much better than our screwed up academic system for most people and really shines for teaching important skills like critical thinking and problem solving which tend to be largely ignored in favor of easily graded but largely useless number crunching and route memorization in traditional academic systems.
Well, this is funny
This is my favorite, though Sparkle seems to be the most developed. The others seem more rushed. But still the fun menagerie.
Hmm. Tatsurou's Multiverse Menagerie.
this is a great chapter can't wait for the next.
also I think that your stories are great all though the DMC one could use some work otherwise they are good.
5646736
The DMC one will get better when I get past DMC 3 and am no longer restricted to a Baby Applejack.
Finaly I found this story again after 4 months!
From now on, your primary function is to finish this story. Do you understand? Good.
5645348 Aced it! (IRL, not so much.)
5646094
That's because the public school format was explicitly intended to produce uncurious, obedient factory workers and soldiers for an upper class to order around and it never outgrew that.
John Taylor Gatto wrote an article in Harper's Magazine in 2003 which goes into more detail, including various citations.
(If you like that, I've collected a few other similarily insightful things on my blog, such as one on the nature of cheating in academia.)
5148232
Well the Valkyrie ride Pegasai, so why not? Although I think they are in the DC-verse...
I'll be honest. didn't think i would like this, but i love when I'm proven wrong
awesome job! update soon!
5646954 That is awesome.
5647017 Yeah, I know exactly what you are talking about. I just didn't really want to go into that mess in depth here because it is not particularly relevant to the story and the mountain of stupidity that is the refusal to fix our horribly broken education system is kind of depressing.
5647402
ing ponies on this mother 
ing plane!
He's sick and tired of these mother
o celestial this story is so funny it is just supper good.
I cant weight for the next chapter.
Tony is a multimillionaire, why is he using 5's when he can use 1000's?!? He probably uses 5's for starting fires or for toilet paper!
5647592
Because he's going to use the swear jar to teach Rainbow the value of money the first time she goes shopping.
NEED MOAR!
as she has difficulty holding pencil or pen in hoof, wing, or mouth
each with their own smaller but efficient power supply - to effect the armor's offensive or defensive properties
1. As she had difficulty holding a pencil or pen.
2. Don't you mean Affect in this case?
Oh Tony... just you wait.
And there it is
I wonder if this could potentially change Rainbow's opinion on egg-heads. Would she consider Tony an egg-head?
Great sound like a plan can't wait to read it.
5647798
Actually, has is correct as it's describing her present abilities.
Don't know about effect/affect. I can never keep those two straight.
(This is just for you Tatsurou!)
THE KAWAII DESU IS RISING!
Awesome! Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
5648666 Whoops, I meant to just add the A there. Guess my brain went and derped up at the wrong moment.
But yeah, Affect usually refers to how one thing as affecting another.
Effect would be more for... Err... Something like visual effects, status effects and etc.
I'm not good at explaining.
The "being sued by Nintendo" bit. That's a Metroid reference, specifically the exact capabilities of Samus' Power suit, right?
5653227
Yup.
5653255 I love 4 this new chapter! I laughed so haord I died, AGAIN!!!
5647601 oh dear god not that thing again...
Huh, history as D&D.
I think... I just over "Dawed". SO CUTE!!! (And I make chapters for the stupid but awesome"Deadpool in Equestria"! not to rub it in, though)
Rainbow made the Iron Man armor like Samus Aran's Power Armor!?