Munching Rainbows

by Frozen

Birth of a Supersprite

Rainbow Dash and Twilight found Zecora’s house abandoned. This was a chance for Rainbow Dash to get a good look at all the mysterious artifacts Zecora had brought home with her after her recent visit to her country.

Twilight softly set down all the objects she had levitated since her saddlebag had ripped. She floated the saddlebag off her back and gave it a disappointed glance - she knew that it was nothing like her old saddlebag, but that was gone ever since a pack of parasprites had devoured it right off her back.

Since ‘The Great Parasprite Plague’, about a month ago, she had gone through several replacements, which Rarity had insisted on fashioning for her. They were a quite a bit more comfortable, but just could not match the sturdiness of an original Canterlot made saddlebag.

"…umm Twilight…," She heard the slightly muffled voice of Dash and turned around towards her. She shrieked at the cyan colored wooden mask which bore an intimidating, grim, expression.

"Gotcha." Rainbow Dash said, giggling while she lowered the mask.

"That thing is awesome! I bet that Fluttershy jumps straight up to Cloudsdale when I sneak up on her…" The multi-chromatic maned pegasus beamed in anticipation of the pranks she could pull if she could convince Zecora to trade her the mask.

Twilight thought for a second about telling her friend about the zebra that had silently stepped up behind her.

"Could you get me that book from the table behind you?" Twilight tried to sound as innocent as possible. Moments later a startled pegasus ducked behind her.

"Hello Twilight, hello Dash - thank you for waiting, I hurried here in a rash." Both Twilight and Rainbow greeted back, still wondering about the constantly rhyming zebra.

"Oh, thats fine - we just arrived a few minutes ago. Are you all set for our experiment?" She said as she gestured towards a checklist she had placed on the table.

While the Zebra unbuckled a belt, which held small pouches and a sickle, Rainbow Dash picked up the blue container from the counter and set it down beside the mask she wanted to trade, or at least borrow for a couple of days.

"Yes Twilight, we are all set, now that I returned from the woods, retrieving some it's most precious goods."

Twilight summoned a small beaker off a shelf and unlatched the top of her jar. As her horn began to shimmer, a small lavender bubble began to form inside the jar, enclosing a small amount of the sampled material. Twilight slowly steered it above the beaker and let her magic collapse, releasing the contents into the beaker.

"It is quite an effort to grab liquids with magic, but this ensures that the sample is not contaminated."

"Yeah, yeah…" the pegasus commented, drawing the attention to her. "If bragging about it helps you with the fact that you just touched parasprite poop with your magic, tell me more…" Rainbow Dash said as she rolled her eyes at the unicorn.

Zecora now added a few ground up herbs into the beaker, monitoring the change of color in the mixture. Twilight levitated the blue container off the ground and onto the table. She focused on the clasps to open them, but a cyan coated hoof pulled the box out of her focus.

"Oh Zecora…" she fluted "I've got something that you need and you have something that I want…" she held up the mask with one hoof while clutching the blue box with the other.

"If you brought me what I need, you shall be rewarded greatly, indeed." Zecora gestured at the box.

Rainbow Dash put down the mask and unlatched the clasps to slowly open the lid. There was a shimmering glow, radiating from the container. As the lid was lifted, Twilight and Zecora gasped as they were bathed in shimmering light that constantly changed its color.

Dash saw the mesmerized looks on her friends faces and took a look for herself. She could not spot anything unusual, besides the few vials, filled with some of the base ingredients that were commonly used to produce rainbows.

Twilight broke the silence and addressed Zecora. "Are we happy?" No reaction. "Zecora. Are we happy?"

Zecora slowly closed the box and nodded. "Thank you Rainbow Dash, these samples are quite pure - our success will be ensured."

"uh… girls, are you alright? You looked like you had stared right into pony heaven?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you." Twilight started into a lecture on how the pegasus eyesight differed from the earthbound ponies.

About an hour later, Rainbow Dash found herself sitting at the table in Zecora’s house, left to watch the experiment on her own while Twilight had gone into town to fetch some treats and Zecora had left for her meditation on the front lawn. She had been volunteered to stir the bubbling contents of the beaker.

Twilight had told her that the reaction would be completed within the hour they added the samples which Rainbow had retrieved from the cloud factory. As soon as the mixture had stopped bubbling, she would be allowed to leave the experiment unattended - but not a moment earlier.

Rainbow Dash was bored to death and struggled to keep her eyes open while she listened to Zecora’s soothing low voice from outside. The Zebra kept slowly repeating a mantra. In an effort to keep herself occupied, she picked up the mask she had bartered for the samples and started thinking up a list of pranks she would pull.

A certain, competitive earth pony came to her mind. She still had to pay Applejack back for switching out her beverage for soapy water at the last party.

Thinking of that, there was still a slight scent of soap stuck in her nostrils, through which she had expelled part of the bubbly beverage shorty after guzzling down what she had expected to be apple cider.

"Applejack!"

Rainbow Dash jumped and almost hit the ceiling with the realization that she was about to miss the appointment with her to exercise for the running of the leaves.

She had to get moving, or else she wouldn't hear the end of Applejack accusing her of being too sore from their last unit and therefore skipping the training.

Although she would have been right about that - her pegasus hooves were still a little tender - there was no way she would serve Applejack another excuse to brag about how she was 'just built to buck'.

Applejack's voice rang in her head, her accent slightly exaggerated.

"All ya' floatin' fellas jus' don't stack up 'gainst me!"

"Eep!"

Rainbow Dash saw that she had spilled part of the liquid which she was supposed to watch and started viciously rubbing her coat clean with what she realized was Twilight's old saddlebag.

"Aww crud! These stains won't come out easily…"

A second later the stains had disappeared, as if they never touched the expensive lavender fabric. She took a look at the table and saw the last spilled drops seep into the wood, vanishing without a trace.

The mixture in the beaker had stopped bubbling. Rainbow Dash got up quickly, tucking in the mask behind her wing and started to the door.

"Your magic goop has stopped bubbling Zecora, I'd like to stay but I've got to set somepony right about who's the most athletic runner of Ponyville!"

Along her way she saw Fluttershy prancing through the bushes, checking on a few bird’s nests.

The yellow pegasus mare had braced herself at the first clip-clopping sounds that quickly closed in on her, taking cover behind a tree sapling that hardly offered any cover.

"…ello Flutter…"

Judging by the quickly fading greeting and the rainbow colored tail that stuck out of the dust cloud that had just raced past her, it was the blue pegasus she had a bone to pick with. She bit her lip, wincing at this saying, but she drew a blank as she tried to put it in another - less carnivorous - way.

"…um don't you dare running away from me missi! There's something…" The rest of her words did not come out. The usually calm keeper of the animals was hit by a gust of wind and some leaves the cyan mares trot had stirred up.

Plucking a few leaves out of her coat, her face turned grim. "… I. need. to. talk. to. you. about!"

She set off to go after Rainbow Dash, followed by angel her pet rabbit.