Spark Notes

by Sharp Spark

A Dash of This, a Dash of That

“And what exactly is this spell supposed to do?” Rainbow Dash asked.

They were in Twilight Sparkle’s brand new experiment room. For all the sadness that the loss of Twilight’s old tree-home had brought, at least the fancy new crystal castle had lots of space, and it hadn’t taken long at all for Twilight to designate one big empty room as a combination study and experiment space, furnishing the walls with shelves, setting up her potion-brewing apparatus across a few overloaded tables, and most importantly, moving in her sophisticated magic testing and measuring machinery.

Twilight looked up from the tattered spellbook she was currently studying, only to see Rainbow Dash idly toying with the oversized metal bowl over her head. “Don’t touch that,” she said, and Rainbow frowned as her hooves dropped back to her lap.

Truth be told, Twilight knew that it wasn’t really that important. In fact, unlike the bulk of her valuable testing equipment, the strange headpiece was just a metal colander she had borrowed from the kitchen (over Spike’s protests), with a few wires attached for extra authenticity. It was only there because Rainbow tended to be less fidgety when she thought she was hooked up to ‘sciency stuff’, as she called it.

“Well, the source text is so old that I haven’t been able to find any records of previous castings. I’m not entirely sure how it manifests, but—”

“Wait,” Rainbow interrupted. “You’re casting a spell on me without having any idea what it does?”

Twilight winced. “Technically speaking. But, if you take into consideration the general nature of the rest of the spells I’ve been able to identify in the book… Well. I mean, if you’d rather not, we can always move on to something else.”

“Hay no!” Rainbow Dash grinned widely. “That sounds awesome! What if it makes me fly super fast or something?”

“I don’t think that’s a possibility,” Twilight said dryly. “The section is titled Prifmatic Perfpective. Chances are it’s just another mild form of focusing aid, though the roots of the magic seem to have some connection to an odd branch of thumomancy. Ideally, there will be something I can tweak to incorporate into my own special blend of studying spells. There’s some integration of color-based divinations that are fairly inexplicable, as traditionally that’s more connected to empathetic constructs but everything else seems very grounded is psychological expression, and I can’t wait to see— You’re not paying attention to any of this, are you?”

Rainbow Dash jerked her head from where she had been staring out the window. “I was listening, I swear. You said—”

“Whatever,” Twilight said, annoyance creeping into her voice. “It’s fine. You don’t need to know the details, just sit still and tell me if anything feels out of the ordinary.”

“I really was listening,” Rainbow muttered, eyes downcast. She perked up to smile at Twilight. “And then, that’s everything, right? I was thinking we could take a break. Maybe go flying? We haven’t had a chance to really practice in a while, and it’d be a good opportunity…”

Twilight waved a hoof absent-mindedly, as she stared down at her book again. “I don’t think I can spare the time today. I need to write up a report on what we’ve done so far. Maybe next week.”

“That’s what you said last week,” Dash said, her voice sounding strangely despondent.

Twilight looked up and blinked. “Yes, well. You know, I really appreciate how much help you’ve been lately.” She didn’t notice the light blush across Rainbow’s face as Dash rubbed her hoof against the ground. “Most of the rest of the girls are too busy with their work. Or are Pinkie Pie. Or both.”

“You’re lucky I’m so good at weather duty that I can finish all my work in no time at all,” Dash exclaimed, grinning.

Twilight just rolled her eyes. “Yes. And so humble too.”

“I know!”

“Let’s just stick to the spell. Are you ready?”

Dash’s wings flared out. “Am I ever! Hit me, Twi.”

Twilight closed the book carefully, and set it aside. She took up a position in the middle of the room and inclined her horn down, pointing it straight at her pegasus friend. “Here goes nothing,” she said, and her horn lit up magenta as she carefully began constructing the complicated specifics of the spell.

A curl of glittery power started at the base of her horn and spiraled its way up, flashing through a variety of colors as it went. Then, when it hit the top of her horn, it burst outwards, a radiant beam that hit Rainbow Dash square in the chest, causing her to release a slightly startled ‘Eep!’ in response, one that she would undoubtedly deny if ever questioned about.

The light faded, and Twilight looked up, panting slightly from the exertion. The spell had drawn quite a bit more power than she had anticipated.

“Feel any different?” Twilight said.

Dash blinked. She flexed one wing, then another. “Nope!”

Twilight tapped a hoof against her chin. “Hm. The spell mentioned something about problem-solving. Try thinking about some kind of complicated problem or something.”

“Psh. Like I have any problems.”

Twilight sighed. “Please, Dash. Take this seriously?”

“I am!” Rainbow Dash leaned back, her brow furrowing. “Any sort of problem…?” she said, almost too soft for Twilight to hear. “Maybe…”

And then Rainbow Dash exploded.

Twilight found the room suddenly full of huge billowing clouds of smoke, swirled with all sorts of colors. She coughed and hacked, and pushed forward. “Rainbow!” she yelled out. “Rainbow!”

Her horn lit up and she used a simple wind spell to swirl the smoke around her and push it to the corners of the room as she dashed to where her friend had been seated. With a lead feeling in her stomach, she realized the only thing there was that stupid big colander that Rainbow had been wearing as a helmet.

“What have I done?” she gasped. “I… I… What if I killed her?!”

She forced herself to calm down. Forced herself to do that breathing exercise that Cadence had taught her. She realized that she was doing it at about ten times the normal rate and stopped, shaking her head. Maybe… maybe she had just teleported her somewhere? But she hadn’t felt the sort of spatial signal that would have occurred.

She felt tears well up in her eyes, making her vision blurry. “Oh, Rainbow,” she gasped.

In fact, her vision was so blurry that when the colander moved, at first she thought she had started hallucinating. When the edge then slowly lifted up and a tiny blue head poked out from underneath, she was almost sure of it.

But to make certain, she slowly, cautiously bent down, lifting the metal bowl, and alternately hoping and dreading what was underneath.

The sight that awaited her was unexpected, to say the least. Six tiny Rainbow Dashes looked up at her in varying states of confusion and dismay. She barely had time to register their odd appearances, each of the six having a solid-colored mane of a different hue, before they reacted.

Tiny trails of color went in every direction as the little Dashes rocketed off, clumsily flying around the room, bumping into books and equipment. “Ah!” Twilight shouted. “Wait!”

She scurried around the room, flailing her arms and wings out trying to catch the pegasi, even as they stubbornly eluded her grasp. One thumped an overloaded bookshelf too hard and with a dreadful creaking, the shelf came loose from its fastenings and crashed down, spilling books all over the floor. Another slammed into the complicated series of glass tubes that Twilight had been using to titrate a complex potion, and the beakers and flasks shattered as they hit the floor. A bunsen burner lit one of the books on fire and Twilight had to frantically dash over to blast it with a water spell, further spraying liquid across the floor.

“Stop!” she cried out desperately. “Hold still!” Her vision was suddenly taken up by a red-haired pony floating right in front of her, and she let out a sigh of relief. “There, now, let’s just—”

“Twitwi!” the little Dash chirped. “I love you I love you I love you!” And then the mini-pegasus attempted to hug the entirety of Twilight’s face, causing her to stumble back in alarm and almost trip over a soggy spellbook.

“Twilight, is something wrong?” Spike’s voice called out, as she heard the door open. “I heard— Whoa!”

With a high-pitched roaring, several colored blurs shot past him and out into the castle.

“Noooo,” Twilight moaned, trying to extract the overly-affectionate pony from her muzzle. She had a surprisingly strong grip for somepony so small.

Spike looked around the experiment area, still smoking slightly, scattered books and broken glass spread all across the floor. “And I was hoping we’d have a normal Tuesday for once.” He sighed. “I’ll get the broom.”

Author's Note:

This is the first chapter from a TwiDash story that I was considering writing. It would have involved Rainbow Dash split up into six miniature versions, each representing one emotion/approach in resolving her feelings towards Twilight. And as Twilight tries to round all of them up, she slowly figures this out.

Then someone else wrote that exact story but with it being AppleDash instead (ew), and I abandoned it. (Perhaps more relevant, I couldn't quite nail down what I was going to -do- with certain Dashes. Other than the green one representing envy and repeatedly dive-bombing a very confused Flash Sentry patrolling the friendship castle)

Comments

[SirCxyrtyx]

This is a cool idea. Would have loved to have seen your TwiDash take on the idea. But since that's not to be, would you mind linking the AppleDash version?

[Sharp Spark]

5481411
The other story is called 6 Shades of Rainbow.

[PresentPerfect]

Prifmatic Perfpective

I appreciate this so much, you have no idea. :D I'm sorry you didn't finish this, it really feels like it needs more. :B