Watching the Watchers

by Ryvaken

Chapter 3

"What the hay kinda question is that, sugarcube?" Applejack asked. "'Course we tell 'em we know what they're up to, an' then we run the varmints outta town!"

"But we don't know, Applejack," Rarity said primly. "I say we try to learn more. It would not do to lay a card out of turn, and we have several tricks left in this hoof."

"Awww, but I wanted to throw them a party," Pinkie whined. "They don't sound like meany mean pants, so why bother sneaking around?"

Rainbow glanced around the table. "What do you think, Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy eeped quietly. "Oh, whatever you girls decide is fine with me."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Flutters. You flinched when AJ and Pinkie spoke up."

"No," Fluttershy protested. "Well, yes, I did, but, ohhhh." She pouted. "I just don't want anypony getting hurt if they feel threatened."

Rainbow sighed. "Yeah well, that sounded way too much like a bunch of eggheads doing egghead things. What's the worst that could happen?"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? 'Epic freak out aria,'" she quoted.

Rainbow shivered slightly. "Good point," she conceded.

Twilight nodded. "If they are researching pegasi, and me specifically, at least we have a way of influencing them. We can learn from how they react."

"So we're not runnin' the varmints outta town?" Applejack grumbled.

"Not yet," Twilight said. "For now, we'll see what we can learn about them."

"And how are we going to do anything to them?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight sighed the heavy sigh of the doomed. "Up for some flying lessons, coach?" she asked gamely.

---

Twilight collapsed into the cloud, her legs splayed out in, as best she could tell, a particularly random assortment of directions. She sucked in a breath straight through the fluff and tried not to choke on the vapor. She didn't have the energy needed to get her muzzle into clear air.

The cloud rippled slightly as somepony landed next to her. Soon enough she felt a too-cold nose nuzzle her mane. "Up, Egghead," Rainbow insisted.

"Mufeafrain," Twilight mumbled intelligently.

Rainbow grinned slyly. "That's the way you want to play it, huh?" she asked. She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a fresh paperback. "Lookie wha' I go'," she mumbled around the book.

Twilight lifted her head weakly and looked at the book. Her eyes shrank to pinpricks as she recognized the cover. "Is that?"

"Daring Do and the Secret of Muffin Bay," Rainbow said, holding the book on one hoof. "Your advance copy, Princess."

"How did you?" Twilight began.

A couple garnets and a promise not to implicate Spike. "That's not really important," Rainbow said. "The important thing is who I'm going to read it with."

Twilight stopped breathing.

Rainbow looked over her shoulder. "Mail should be coming by soon. I bet Derpy'd love to join me. See ya, Twi!" With that she opened her wings and lazily flew off.

Twilight's eye twitched as she reviewed the late fees accrued on any book with "muffin" in the name. That bubble-flanked mare had covered a third of old Golden Oak's budget all by herself!

Twilight snapped protesting wings open and crawled off the cloud. "Get back here, Dash!" she bellowed.

Rainbow grinned and glanced behind her. Twilight was flying like a drunk duck with a lame wing, that would never do. "Gotta do better than that, Sparky!"

Twilight grit her teeth and poured as much magic as she could into her wings. The part of her brain not focused on saving her book from its muffiny doom clapped its hooves in glee. She was giving the Federals exactly what they wanted -- a demonstration of flying magic made all the clearer by the grossly exaggerated overcompensation of a grossly overpowered novice. Their reaction to this display would be most...why was Rainbow stopping?

Rainbow landed on a cloud and frowned at Twilight. "What were you doing?" she asked, suddenly serious.

Twilight landed next to her, managing to fall to her haunches rather than flat on her barrel. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Your wings," Rainbow said. "You were pumping them way too hard for the speed you were getting. So, what were you doing?"

Twilight blinked in surprise. "Um, I was focusing my pegasus magic into a field on the interior of my wings to decrease their inertia on the upstroke and increase it on the downstroke, allowing my muscles to impart more force into the air. Why?"

"No wonder you fly like a goose," Rainbow groaned. "That's not enough, Twilight. You also need to make the air thicker under your wings."

"What?" Twilight yelped. That wasn't in the script! Yeah, Rainbow was supposed to critique her technique and give her an excuse to lecture on how pegasus magic worked, but Twilight wasn't supposed to be wrong. "I thought you said unicorn magic was cheating!"

"Well yeah," Rainbow said. She tilted her head in confusion. "But why don't you just do it the normal way?"

Twilight mouthed the words 'the normal way' while trying to make sense of the world.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Egghead. I mean the pegasus way. Force the air under your wings to behave more densely while cutting the resistance above. Once you're good with that we'll move on to projecting your field before and after you to make it easier to speed up. Of course," she said with a smile, "even if you get good enough to hold up a field against a mach cone, you'll never hold it long enough to rainboom."

Twilight reclaimed her slack jaw. "But only unicorns can project their fields!"

Rainbow snorted. "Who told you that?"

"Starswirl's Treatise on the Three Tribes," Twilight recounted instantly. "Chapter seven, principles of spellcasting, and chapter nine, pegasi."

Rainbow brought her hoof over her muzzle and groaned. "Uuugh. Well, take it from a pony who actually has wings, Old Beardo the Magnificent was dead wrong on that one. We have to project our magic to work the weather. What, you thought a wind was just a bunch of pegasi flapping really hard?"

Twilight blushed as she thought about that. "Well I've seen that it doesn't work that way...I guess I really never thought about it."

Rainbow sat down on her haunches and flared her wings out. "You need to use your magic to do three things. You feed your muscles, and you're good at doing that so we'll skip that. But you also need to put a field around yourself and push back against the stuff pulling you around."

"Huh?" Twilight asked. "What do you mean, stuff?"

"Like gravity or winds or stuff," Rainbow said. "Once you've got a field around you, you can move yourself around in it. That's how a good flier can turn so sharply. Pegasus foals are so light they can pretty much fly just by deciding to ignore gravity." She snorted. "Once they start weighing more than a hummingbird it stops being that easy."

"How do you know all this?" Twilight asked.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "I'm one of the best fliers in Equestria, Egghead. Awesomeness counts for a lot, but if you want to be reliable you gotta know what you're doing. You think I could pull off a rainboom at your brother's wedding if I didn't know this stuff?"

Twilight blinked rapidly and felt two lemons and a cherry spin though her eyes. "What does this have to do with a sonic rainboom?"

"Everything!" Rainbow said, throwing her hooves into the air. "Go fast enough and that field can't keep up. Around when you reach sonic speeds the air pressure forms a wall in front of you." While she was talking she gestured with her hooves, putting her left up and pointing at it with her right. "They're called mach cones, 'cause the faster you go the more it bends around you. Even the fastest ponies have trouble with mach cones. No matter how good you are, go fast enough and you can't keep up with the cone. And as it pulls back around you, your field is going to have to pull back or just plain collapse when the cone touches it. Most ponies just can't hold it and end up plowing right into that mach cone like a brick wall." She now slammed her right hoof into the side of her left with a loud clack. Twilight winced at the implication.

But then Twilight's eyes danced as she worked through everything else Rainbow was saying. "The rainboom isn't a matter of accelerating fast enough, but dealing with the mach cone?" she asked wonderingly. "It's a magical explosion, not an optical one, so it has to be a disruption in a highly charged field...you let the field collapse?"

Rainbow shook her head and grinned. "Nah, that's just another way to plow into the mach cone. I make a second field around the mach cone. Then I push me and my first field through the second and the mach cone like an arrow through a bullseye. The cone and field collapse together and create a kind of void behind me which sucks in the air and keeps another mach cone from forming as long as I can keep that wake going."

Twilight pawed at the cloud, scribbling something that looked too complicated for Rainbow to care about. "You use the second field to contain the pressure cone rather than disperse it. When it collapses the magic explodes and takes the dense air with it. If it's strong enough and big enough," Twilight blinked and snorted. "If. Because it is a freakishly powerful event it leaves a void behind that feeds off your remaining field. That's the contrail. But you're not trying to magically balance the pressure, so it takes it from the air around you. A new mach cone can't build up without the air being sucked away!" Twilight pumped a hoof in the air. "It all works!"

Twilight blinked rapidly several times. She lowered her hoof and stared at Rainbow, her head slowly tilting to one side.

Rainbow just stared at Twilight with a half-grin. "To hear you talk about it, I'm not sure if I'm even more awesome than I thought or not."

"Rainbow, how did you know all that?" Twilight asked again.

"I thought we went over that," Rainbow said dryly.

"I mean that sounded almost...egghead," Twilight said. "I wasn't expecting you of all ponies to put out a lecture like that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow challenged.

"Rainbow," Twilight said dryly, "I've seen you study, remember?"

"Well, yeah," Rainbow muttered. "But that was, like, history and math and egghead junk like that. This is flying." She pulled a backflip and nodded once. "Totally different."

Twilight narrowed her eyes. "How many standard sized clouds does it take to assemble a type four rainstorm with two rainbows?"

"Thirty seven," Rainbow said automatically. "But since you're calling in for rainbows anyway it's easier on the town budget to order a type seven prefab out of Cloudsdale and trim it down." She shrugged. "Type fours are really only useful for watering fields, anyway. Why?"

"Oh, nothing," Twilight said quickly. She flexed her wings and winced. "Aaa, my wings are really sore. I'm going to head back home and have a nice long soak. But first..." Her horn flared and her Daring Do book vanished out of Rainbow's grip to reappear by Twilight's side. "Never steal a Princess's book," she said with mock indignation.

"Rarity would be proud," Rainbow deadpanned, rolling her eyes. "I still get it when you're done, right?"

"Of course," Twilight said.

"Whoo hoo!" Rainbow cheered and jumped into the air. "Okay, have fun in your bath!" She flew off, humming loudly (and slightly off key) a song Twilight knew should have had the words "I'm awesome" in there somewhere.

Most songs Rainbow came up with did.

Smiling at Rainbow's antics, Twilight flapped her wings experimentally and decided against teleporting. Pushing herself a bit further would only help, after all. Besides, she wanted to try out magicking the air "the normal way." She made her way home at a leisurely pace, but even so flying was already so much easier than it had been.

She grinned ruefully. "Rainbow's a great flier," she said to herself, "but she needs to work on her teaching." She swooped in through the large doors of her castle and landed solidly on with a loud staccato clipclop. An earth pony ran up to her quickly.

"Princess!" the stallion greeted. He wore a huge smile and little else over his grey coat and close-groomed, green mane. His cutie mark was the triangle of a pony's ear with concentric circles inside it, his left mark covered by a single bag, a satchel made to hold scrolls more readily than an ordinary saddlebag. "Amazing results!"

"Really?" Twilight perked up. "What is it, Sharp Ear?"

The royal analyst pulled a scroll out of his satchel and hoofed it over. Twilight took it in her magic. "The Federals dropped everything to watch your lesson. We recorded the entire conversation. But that's not all. See?"

Twilight skimmed the report.

First stallion's voice, tentative ID Ensign Lorian: Doctor, the Princess has left the castle. In flight.
Second stallion's voice, tentative ID Doctor Lewis: Just keep the scanners on her. Once we crack pegasi, it will be good to have a comparison to how alicorns fly.
First stallion: Very well, doctor. Has the latest model produced results?
Second stallion: Some. That little pegasus, Scooter or somesuch,
First stallion: Scootaloo.
Second stallion: Thank you, Lorian. Scootaloo. Studying her last attempt to fly gave me some useful information.
First stallion, confirmed Ensign Lorian: Doctor, Princess Sparkle has just met with the lady Rainbow Dash.
Second stallion, confirmed Doctor Lewis*: Hmm. (pause) Lewis to Matthews. Charley, I need extra power from the subspace array. Sparkle and Dash are flying together.[/preline]

Twilight glanced down at the footnotes. Asterisked entries were recorded from two positions at once. With all the processing the sound went through to record and translate the words, they had as much hope figuring out which voice was 'real' as they did figuring out the tone of voice used. Assuming their inflections were even a little like pony tones.

New voice, Charley Matthews*: Hmm, that'll slow down the scans on the castle, but I can give you an extra ten percent.
Ensign Lorian: Lady Dash has informed Princess Sparkle that these flying lessons are going to be extremely intense.
Doctor Lewis*: That won't be enough. I've just been told that these are flying lessons. Lessons, do you hear me? I can't afford to miss any of this!
Charley Matthews*: Agreed. (pause) You have full access to the array, Doctor. Good luck.[/preline]

Twilight's eyes widened and she grinned hugely. She reread the last few lines and promptly forgot the rest of the report. "Squee. What happened on our array?"

Sharp Ear pulled out another scroll. "The scrying stopped."

Twilight took the scroll eagerly and studied the diagram. "Not entirely, there's still some vibration in the lines. I'll increase the sensitivity to confirm for the next experiment."

"Uh, right," Sharp Ear said. "Princess, do you mind me asking? Where did that device come from?"

"Hm?" Twilight asked. "Oh. Crystal Empire. Cadence is getting their economy up and running again by exporting crystal devices. They're cheaper to build and enchant than natural gem work."

Sharp Ear pursed a lip as he thought that over. Twilight went back to the transcript. Most of it was dry and boring. Whatever excitement the Federals may have felt at observing Twilight's performance didn't survive spell and quill to make it onto the paper. One snippet did jump out at her.

Ensign Lorian: (Unknown word), what energy patterns are present around subject Rainbow Dash?
Third mare (presumed golem): No structured energy pattern detected.
Ensign Lorian: Compute all forces acting on subject over a five second interval. Mark.
Golem: Working.
Ensign Lorian: Onscreen. (Unknown word, assumed to be a type of golem), account for discrepancy.
Golem: The discrepancy cannot be accounted for.
Ensign Lorian: Create an energy field in the model. Oblate spheroid, centered on the subject's center of mass. Closest approach to the subject, three centimeters.
Golem: Model adjusted.
Ensign Lorian: Now, project onto the energy field all necessary properties to account for the discrepancies in the model.
Golem: Unable to comply. No solution found.

Twilight tapped the section with her hoof. "They heard everything Rainbow said, but can't find her magic field?" she wondered aloud. "What does that mean?"

Sharp Ear shook his head. "I have no idea, Princess."

"Nor do I," Twilight said glumly. She hung her head and winced as the motion reminded her of aching muscles. "I'm going to take a bath. Good work, Sharp Ear. I couldn't have done it without you."

Twilight went to her bath some minutes later, after diverting through the library. As she settled down in the water, she groaned in contented agony and closed her eyes, even as her magic cracked open her first book, well above the water. Cloudsdale Monthly vol. 325 iss. 6. There was an article, Economics of Rain and the Massive Cloud Paradigm by Prisma Sprint. Her next selection rested on a dry table on the far side of her frankly extravagant bathroom: the latest issue of Hoofwork and Gardens and an old, suspiciously pristine copy of Forgotten Magic: The Synergy of the Tribes.

Comments

[Sweetblue]

Pretty good for now.

[Advent Link]

Reading about how rainbow performs the sonic rainboom in detail was rather interesting.

[Dudofall]

Prisma Sprint, huh? That sounds like a penname or something...

[CCF_100]

Twilight mouthed the words 'the normal way' while trying to make sense of the world.

ROFL