Rainbooms 101: How (Not) to Make a Sonic Rainboom

by Needling Haystacks

Results II: Gelatin, Repetition, and Repetition

"Ok," Haystacks said a little later, "Now we have obtained a giant container of gelatin, which for some reason Pinkie Pie had ready to go, and I've pushed the platform cloud up a bit to compensate."

Some distance below the two pegasi, Pinkie Pie bounced up and down next to a container several ponies tall and a few ponies wide, filled most of the way with bright red gelatin.

"Hey there Rainbow Dash!" she yelled up, waving enthusiastically.

"I have to be honest," Haystacks said, peering down at Pinkie Pie as he spoke to Rainbow Dash, "While I thought she might have such a thing, I never expected her to have it ready to go 'for just such emergencies.'" He made air quotes with his wings.

"Yeah, that's Pinkie Pie for you," Rainbow Dash said, stretching her own wings. "The point is, I'm not gonna bust my head open, right?"

"Right," Haystacks said with a nod. Well, he was 99% sure of that. He had only done a rough estimate, and he had made some assumptions that might be wrong, but if she got going faster than his safety margin, it was almost certain that she would be doing a Sonic Rainboom anyway.

"We will need to do a little cloud manipulation between runs to re-gel it," he added, "More of a delay than I'd like, but safety first and all that. To recap, I'll drop this dummy off of the cloud." He gestured to the dressed-up ponyquin he had brought back up after the tub was in place. "I'll time the drop and you'll wait for my signal to go. At that point, try to picture it as your friend and dive after it as fast as you can manage. Don't even worry about pulling up until you hit the gelatin, or you might hold back."

"Yeah, yeah, whistle blows, fly like crazy," Rainbow Dash said, dropping into a race starting position, "I know the drill."

Haystacks glanced askew at her and grimaced, but held his tongue. One hypothesis was that this was unlikely to work if she did not take this seriously. The other was that staying relaxed might help. No way to know without trying.

"On your mark!" he said, trying to get into the spirit of things. Rainbow Dash dropped into a racing stance. "Get set!" At this he shoved the ponyquin off the cloud and raised his hoof. He then counted in his head as he watched it. One Celestia... Two Celestia... And so on.

"Go!" Haystacks said, throwing his hoof down.

Rainbow Dash took off. Or rather, down. She dashed after the falling dummy. Faster... faster... Haystacks leaned further forward in anticipation, wings ready to snap a photo. She was starting to show the tell-tale cone-glow of high speed when... she caught the ponyquin and looped upward, well ahead of the gelatin.

"Tch", Haystacks clicked his tongue. Too soon.

"Pretty good, huh?" Rainbow Dash said, "I mean, it was no Sonic Rainboom, but I caught this thing in plenty of time."

"Yeah, my fault, I told you to go too soon," Haystacks said, his eyes unfocusing as he guesstimated the gap between the grab-point and the gelatin in his head. "I think we also need to be higher."

He looked up and saw Rainbow Dash's decidedly skeptical look.

"Oh, sorry, you were getting close, though. Good job," he said, "Now, help me push this cloud up higher and we'll try again."

The next run, Rainbow Dash got a little faster, the glow-cone narrowing a bit. She still caught the ponyquin before hitting the gelatin, but her pull-up's low point was much closer to it.

"A bit faster, but I think you still need more room," Haystacks said, "Up we go, then."

On the run after, Rainbow Dash got to about the same speed, but caught the dummy at about the same point.

"Drat, I didn't compensate for the added height correctly," Haystacks said after this one, "Let's try that again."

Rainbow Dash was starting to show signs of annoyance, but a bet was a bet. This time, Haystacks waited longer to give her the signal. The speed cone started to show, and started to narrow, and he leaned forward again, nearly falling off the cloud. Then the ponyquin hit the gelatin, and Rainbow Dash pulled up just before hitting it. She then went back down and extracted the ponyquin.

"Mmmm," Haystacks murmured in irritation as he noted the results down. Not that he had any real right to be irritated. He would probably have done the same.

"Waited too long that time, Doc," Rainbow Dash said, brushing some of the gelatin off the dummy.

"No, though maybe we need to be even higher," Haystack replied, "I think you're forgetting why the gelatin is there. Don't pull up UNTIL you hit it. If you try to pull up short of it, you'll be focusing on when to pull up instead of going faster, and you won't be able to reach your fastest possible speed."

"Uh!" Rainbow Dash vocalized indignantly, "You just know everything, don't you?"

Haystacks opened his mouth to answer, then thought better of it and just looked at her blandly.

"Eh," Rainbow Dash said after an uncomfortable moment, "Alright, so you have a point this time. Gelatin's all broken up now, though. What do we do about that?"

"Well now here's where I'm gonna need to call on some of your expertise," Haystacks said.

With a little weather manipulation, the pegasi melted the gelatin just enough close the gaps, then re-chilled it to the right consistency. Haystacks said what they needed to do, temperature-wise, and Rainbow Dash supplied the practical weather knowledge. When that was done, they took the ponyquin back up and pushed the cloud up yet again.

"Alright, I think we're nearly as high as Cloudsdale now," Haystacks said, "We've also confirmed that we can't really be any lower than this for this to work... So just so you know, that's a very important discovery right there."

"Uh huh," Rainbow Dash said without any real enthusiasm, "But it still hasn't worked."

"Point made," Haystacks said with a grimace, "But we've still got a good chunk of the day. Let's try this once more before we break for lunch."

"Alright, lunch! Now that, I can get on board with," Rainbow Dash said. Haystacks shook his head with a slight smile.

"AFTER another run," he said, "Ok, on your mark... get set..." Then some waiting. "Go!"

Rainbow Dash gradually closed in on the ponyquin, now falling at terminal velocity. There went the glow cone... narrower... narrower.

Haystacks took shots with the camera quickly. He did not have time to aim, so he really hoped they came out Sparks had started appearing around Rainbow Dash. Was this it?

The sparks continued for a moment, but nothing further happened. This time, Rainbow Dash slammed into the gelatin just after the ponyquin. So close! Haystacks flew down himself, at a much slower pace.

"Gah! Gelatin everywhere!" Rainbow Dash said as she tried to shake as much of the goop off as possible. She had set the ponyquin down beside her.

"That was awesome!" Haystacks said exitedly.

"Heh, yeah, I know," Rainbow Dash said, posing automatically. She dropped the pose and looked confused. "Wait, diving into gelatin?"

"No, I mean you almost did a Rainboom," Haystacks said, circling her and looking her over, "I saw the magic sparks said to precede it. I wasn't even sure that was real! How do you feel? Did you notice them?"

"Uh... no," Rainbow Dash said, taking a second to think, "I mean, I knew I was going faster than usual, but that's it."

"Hmm, fascinating," Haystacks said, lifting up her wing and examining its underside, "I wonder why? Maybe the flight magic insulates you?"

"I don't... know?" Dash said, pulling her wing away.

"Oh, sorry," Haystacks said, taking a step back, "Well, let's get the gelatin started. If we leave it on a low chill, it should finish while we go eat. Lunch is on me, just don't eat so much you get a cramp later."

"Really? Awesome!" Rainbow Dash said, "Race you to the cafe!"

She dashed (hah!) off without waiting for an answer. Haystacks grinned and shook his head.

"Hey, no fair!" he yelled, flying off after her. He knew he stood no chance, but it was moderately fun and she probably needed the ego boost at this point.

"Wow, you really are bad at short distances," Rainbow Dash said as she hovered in the air near the cafe's outdoor seating. Haystacks, on the other hand, was gasping for breath on the ground.

"Never... said... that," he said between breaths, "If you don't compare... to a top flier... I'm not really that... bad."

"Heh, top flier," Rainbow Dash said, fluttering her wings a bit extra.

"Whew. Right," Haystacks said, catching his breath enough to talk normally. "I believe you suggested this place for lunch?"

Over hayburgers, Haystacks attempted to explain his idea.

"You strike me like more of a visual learner," he said between bites. "Ok, so look at it like this. Suppose this salt shaker is a Pegasus and this burger is a wall."

He held up the two items and had the shaker move towards the burger.

"Now you're flying towards the wall. What do you do?"

"Uhh... stop?" Rainbow Dash said, with a look and tone suggesting she thought that was a dumb question.

"Right, but stay with me... what do you have to do before that?"

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash said, not understanding the point of the question. Haystacks moved the shaker in what he thought was a helpful manner and looked at it meaningfully.

"Slow... down?" she said, sounding confused.

"Exactly! And it's the same whether you're flying straight at a wall or down at the ground. When you see it coming, you slow down. After a certain age, it's pretty much instinctual," he said, putting the shaker down. "But, and I hope you don't mind that I did some research on you before this, I understand you hit that age later than most?"

Rainbow Dash blinked. "What?"

"Oh, sorry. Put simply, I understand your foalhood nickname was Rainbow Crmmf" Haystacks said. Rainbow Dash had quickly covered his mouth with her hoof.

"Shh! Not so loud! You'll ruin my rep. How'd you find out about that anyway?"

When Rainbow Dash took her hoof away, Haystacks grinned abashedly.

"Sorry. I talked to a stallion who knew you back then. H-something. Hoofs? No... What was it?"

"Hoops?" Rainbow Dash supplied.

Haystacks nodded. "Right, Hoops."

"Ok, fine. So how does an embarassing foalhood nickname help in performing a Sonic Rainboom?" she said.

Haystacks grinned again, normally this time. "Well, that's the clever bit," he said, obviously please with himself, "Without that instinct to stop, you can keep accelerating as fast as you can, regardless of what's in the way. Now, usually, that leads to some painful injuried, but if you're fast enough..."

"You do a Sonic Rainboom!" Rainbow Dash said, "I think I get it. But how do I just not slow down when I'm about to hit the ground?"

"Well," Haystacks said, rubbing his chin with his hoof, "The disguised dummy is supposed to help you visualize that something more important than avoiding likely injury is at stake, while the gelatin is to make sure you don't actually get injured and put you at ease. If that doesn't work... Well, I'll come up with something new tomorrow if we don't make progress this afternoon."

That afternoon, they repeated the experiment with the parameters of their last run from the morning. There was some success: on the first run back, the sparks showed up again. They did not last as long as before, though, fizzling out before Rainbow Dash hit the gelatin. The next run, there were no sparks at all. Rainbow Dash was visibly disappointed to learn that. The next time, she seemed to exert herself more, and they appeared again. This time, they appeared later in the run than they had previously, but lasted until she hit the gelatin.

Now that the basic set-up was worked out, they had to re-set the gelatin every time. As a result, progress was slow. Rainbow Dash could consistently create a glow cone, which was something. Haystacks happened to know from his research that only the top ten or so fliers in the world could manage that much. He had read that there had been pegasi who could make sparks appear, though the only living pony's name he had found was Spitfire of the Wonderbolts. Maybe he should pay her a visit when he had the chance. There was another feet Spitfire could also supposedly do, and from his calculations, Rainbow Dash was getting close.

Rainbow Dash make sparks appear most of the time, but throughout the day, they never lasted as long as they had that first time. It was getting late, and Haystacks was about ready to call it a day. Rainbow Dash had reached the point where she was stubbornly pursuing her goal, and insisted for a second time on doing 'one more run'.

"Mm... alright, one more time," Haystacks said, "But then we really should wrap things up for the day. We can pick things back up tomorrow."

"Alright, I'll start on the clouds!" Rainbow Dash replied, flying up to arrange the clouds to focus sunlight and heat up the gelatin for re-setting. Due to loss from Rainbow Dash and the ponyquin getting some of it on them, the overall level had dropped a bit. They really could not keep going much longer without getting more. Haystacks would have to talk to Pinkie Pie about that.

Once the run was set up, Haystacks yawned as he raised his hoof. "On your mark... Get set..." He once again pushed the ponyquin off with his free hand and counted in his head.

"Go!" he said once the appropriate amount of time had passed, lowering his hoof.

Rainbow Dash once again dived down after the dummy, gaining speed as she went. The cone appeared. Haystacks snapped pictures excitedly. The sparks appeared. Then... they fizzled out again. Haystacks sighed. He thought he saw something, though. While she was no longer pulling up before hitting the gelatin, it looked like Rainbow Dash was still slowing down slightly before she hit it.

"Darn! One more time!" Rainbow Dash said as she flew back up with the dummy. This time, though, Haystacks shook his head forcefully.

"No, we need to clean up a bit before we leave, so we'd better stop here for today," he said, "I've gotta look over what we've done today, and you shouldn't overexert yourself."

"Awww," she said, visibly disappointed.

"Besides, I don't think it would help at this point," he said distractedly, staring off into space. "We'll need to try something else tomorrow. Hmmm..."

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash said.

Haystacks shook his head, this time to bring himself back to the moment. "Don't worry about it, I have a sort of inkling I have to think on. Let's say 10 AM tomorrow? I should have something by then."

Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Eh, alright. Now, what are we supposed to do with a giant tub of gelatin and a ponyquin?"

"Eh, just cover them with a tarp, I guess. I'm sure the Apple Family has one around here somewhere," he said, suppressing a chuckle as his apparently juvenile mind came up with a different image.

Author's Note:

For the curious, Jell-O(tm) is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods and thus that name is not used here.