• Published 22nd Dec 2011
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No Need for Rainbows - terrycloth



Rainbow Dash never did her sonic rainboom, and now Nightmare Moon has returned. Who will stop her?

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Chapter 8: Ideas

They reconvened at Pinkie’s rock farm, which wasn’t too far from Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle and Applejack were the last to arrive, since they’d stopped at the Ponyville library to check out every relevant book they could find. Cheerilee had been happy to help them sort through the collection, and while it wasn’t the largest library they’d ever seen, their lack of specificity meant they still ended up with a huge pile of hundreds of books on plants, light, weather, and magic. It was a good thing they’d brought the wagon.

They saw Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flying back and forth overhead with their own wagons as they made their way to the farm, and when they arrived saw that the pegasi had accumulated a huge pile of junk in front of the manor. “What in Celestia’s name?” Applejack wondered.

“Supplies!” Pinkie said, jumping out from behind the pile.

“Donations from the ponies nearby,” Rarity explained. “I told them that it was premature, but Rainbow Dash is so impatient! When you didn’t arrive with us, she dragged Fluttershy off to see what they could scavenge.”

“No pony can say no to a Shadowbolt!” Rainbow Dash said, screeching to a halt above the pile, and dumping a load of quill pens and a single smallish sofa onto the heap. The sofa started an avalanche, the entire pile settling into a new configuration. Twilight winced at the sound of glass breaking.

“More like, no pony can say no to free trash pickup,” Applejack said.

“Hey, all I know is we’re in a hurry to invent some replacement sun, right?” Rainbow Dash said. “So I figured, inventors make magic stuff out of junk, so bam. Junk. Now get to inventing.”

“I’m not an inventor,” Applejack said. “I hire inventors, after they invent something worth buying.”

“I… dabbled a bit with it,” Twilight Sparkle said, “although I was mostly working out theoretical magical enchantments. That’s less dependent on junk and more dependent on transcendental mathematics.” She smiled at Rainbow. “The quills might help.”

“Oh dear, you’re one of those enchanters?” Rarity said, disapprovingly. “Really, my dear – enchanting is much easier if you just let yourself *feel* the magic flowing through your horn…”

“Oh, I’m not actually an enchanter,” Twilight said. “I’m terrible at casting anything beyond simple levitation. Working out the formulas is a hobby of mine, though. It’s very relaxing as a mental exercise.”

“I’m an inventor!” Pinkie Pie said. “I don’t start with *junk*, though.” She looked at the pile appraisingly.

“Do you start with books?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking at the contents of Applejack’s cart.

“Nope!” Pinkie Pie said. “That’s two guesses!”

“So what’s with the books?” Rainbow asked.

“Background material,” Twilight Sparkle said, proudly. “If we split them up and look for anything relevant, we can probably work through them all in a few days.”

“Right. No,” Rainbow said, swooping over to grab Twilight under her shoulders. “How about this. I take Miss Bookworm here way up into the sky, and she can explode into a new sun.”

“Explode?” Pinkie Pie asked, instantly distracted from the pile of ‘supplies’, her eyes wide.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “It’s her special talent – just look at her cutie mark!”

“It’s just a random star pattern!” Twilight said, squirming in the pegasus’ surprisingly firm grip. “Every pony in Canterlot has a cutie mark like this!”

Pinkie Pie ignored her. “Oh, that’s so great! My special talent is exploding too!”

Everypony looked at her. Applejack eyed her flank. “How is three balloons a cutie mark for ‘exploding’?”

Pinkie grinned, and bounced towards her. “Balloons POP!”

“I… guess that makes sense,” Twilight said, trying to subtly disengage herself while Rainbow Dash was busy staring at the frighteningly enthusiastic pink pony.

“And if you fill them with a mixture of two parts hydrogen, one part chlorine, they pop *really loud*,” Pinkie Pie said. “Old family recipe. Everypony knows about hydrogen, but it’s the chlorine that gives it a kick.”

Rainbow Dash set Twilight down, and landed near Pinkie. “Are they still lighter than air?” she asked. “Because, if we could make a whole bunch of them, and send Twilight up with those, we’d get a *double* explosion. That’s *sure* to make a new sun.”

“No,” Applejack said. “No one’s exploding.”

“Oh come on!” Rainbow complained, waving her arms, “We have *two* ponies here that randomly have special talents for exploding? That can’t be a coincidence. It’s destiny.”

“We also have two unicorns who’ve dabbled in enchantment,” Rarity said, standing next to Twilight. “I’d prefer to have pony sacrifice be our last resort.”

“Still, no,” Applejack said. “No pony is sacrificing anypony, especially not Miss Sparkle. If you’re so keen to sacrifice somepony, Rainbow, you can sacrifice yourself. We could probably do just fine without you.”

“Um, duh. I don’t explode,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.

Applejack nodded, and turned her back. “So another way that you’re useless. What a surprise.”

“Hey! Say that to my face!” Rainbow shouted, charging straight at the orange earth pony, only to take a buck to the face. “Ow!” she said, picking herself up off the ground, “It is *on*.”

“RAINBOW DANGER DASH!” came a loud angry voice from overhead. Every pony looked up to see Fluttershy glaring down at the other Shadowbolt, arms folded in front of her chest. “Are you starting fights again?”

“Ugh, Fluttershy!” Rainbow said, “I’m supposed to fight. We’re Shadowbolts! Elite Pegasus guards! Fighting is what we do!”

“Maybe that’s part of it, but we don’t fight our friends,” Fluttershy said, softly but firmly, staring Rainbow Dash in the eye. Rainbow tried to look away, but couldn’t break her gaze. “Now you apologize to Miss Apple, and I don’t want to see you starting any more fights!”

“Yes, MOM,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. She mumbled something incomprehensible in Applejack’s general direction.

“I didn’t hear that,” Applejack said. “Care to repeat that?”

“It’s not my fault if you’re deaf,” Rainbow Dash replied. She flew over to look down at the huge pile of books. “Are you really going to read all those?”

“I think that’s a good place to start,” Twilight Sparkle said. Her horn glowed as the cart full of books levitated up into the air and sorted itself into categories. “Rarity and I can take the books on enchanting, Pinkie Pie can read up on non-magical optics, and, well, explosives I suppose.” As she assigned reading, the books in question flew over to the ponies named. “Applejack – you said you were interested in the plant growth spells?”

“It seems like the most direct solution,” Applejack said, with a nod. A small stack of books landed in front of her.

“What about bioluminescent animals?” Fluttershy asked, quietly. “I, um, I brought some fireflies.”

“Put them over by the frogs,” Pinkie Pie said, poking at one of her books with a hoof.

Fluttershy frowned, and looked down. “That might not be such a good idea. Frogs and flies don’t really get along very well.”

“And Rainbow,” Twilight said loudly, to be heard over the side conversation, “you can read up on weather control.”

Rainbow Dash swatted the book that flew at her out of the way, and said, “Like I said, you eggheads can waste time with your books, but I’ve got better things to do. If you want to know about weather, I’ve got some friends in Cloudsdale that work in the weather factory. We can get it straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Twilight blinked. “That’s actually a good idea,” she said. “I guess you aren’t so useless after all!”

“Don’t you start!” Rainbow said, adding “Catch you later, dweebs!” as she darted off into the night.