A Streak of Rainbow

by 6-D Pegasus

The Spark, Part 2

"Thank you!"

"Thanks Professor Dash!"

"See you next week!"

One by one, Rainbow Dash's students shuffled out of the room, giving a brief farewell to their professor as they left. Rainbow sat at her desk and waved to each of them with a smile, her thoughts occupied by earlier events. She unfurled her left wing, the one she noted several of her students sneaking quick glances at throughout the remainder of her class time, and gave it a quick once over. All its primaries were present and undamaged, save for looking a little messy from a long day of teaching.

"Hey, is your wing okay?"

"Huh?" Rainbow snapped out of her contemplative stare and glanced around the room for the speaker, her eyes finally landing on the unicorn stallion standing to the left of her desk. She quickly folded her wing to her side and cleared her throat. "Uh yeah, of course! Why would it not be okay?"

The stallion gave her a concerned and curious look. "That shock looked real painful... I got shocked earlier this week by a cloud I summoned during my magic lessons." He gave a short chuckle. "Wasn't all that big, just the size of a few books, but it definitely left a mark on me." He lifted up his left hoof to show the a thin layer of bandages wrapped around it. Rainbow peered curiously at it, her mouth forming a slight "o".

"I don't know how you pegasi can manage handling those things all time; I swear up close, they're just floating disasters waiting to happen, static electricity and all!" He shrugged. "Maybe it's a special pegasus thing or something. I've always wondered what'd it be like to build stuff out of clouds haha. Anyways, I'll see you next week prof. Oh by the way, you dropped this earlier, here ya go." The stallion lit his horn and lifted a small piece of white chalk off the floor from under her desk. With careful precision, he placed it on her desk so it sat balanced on its unworn edge before turning to trot out her door.

With that, the last student of Rainbow's class left her classroom, more than happy to rest after a long day of classes. Rainbow could easily sympathize; her brain felt like it was melting after dealing with five classes today. Thankfully, she only taught one or two classes most days of the week. She silently cursed her past self for dumping so many classes on the last day of the week. Still, the stallion's words hung in the air.

Static electricity, huh? Humming quietly to herself, Rainbow packed her remaining objects into her saddlebag as she pondered what happened earlier.

Rainbow Dash was no stranger to static electricity. As a filly, she used to roll around the cloud carpet her parents set up in her room while wearing the most mischievous grin. Once satisfied, she would sneak up behind one of her parents and, with a nice, loud "gotcha!", poke their shoulders with a hoof, releasing all the stored up electricity in a single discharge. She would roll around on the floor cackling after seeing her unfortunate victim yelp and jump in shock (no pun intended). Even the smallest discharge was enough to surprise any unsuspecting pony.

With that thought in mind, it had to have been a considerably large discharge for a bolt to jump a full forelimb's length from her. Yet, she never felt a thing, let alone saw it. That stallion's bandaged foreleg certainly attested that she should have more than felt a shock like that. Normally, she'd be quick to dismiss the comments as part of the students' tired, overactive imaginations, but some remaining thoughts weighed on her mind.

When we did that experiment with the speed spell the other day, there was a lot of blue lighting... Rainbow raised a hoof to stare at it. She remembered, in perfect detail, the way those cyan arcs of electricity danced across her fur, jumping from her body to nearby clouds or other areas of herself.

Rainbow put a hoof to her chin in contemplative thought. Starlight looked her over after the incident and said she couldn't detect any trace of the speed spell in her body. There was something about dissipating and latent energy that Rainbow assumed meant the spell was just gone from her body. One comment stood out to her in her memory. Starlight said my aura looked more... excited? I mean, it's probably always excited, but what does it mean if it's more than usual? Rainbow's gaze slowly shifted towards the lone piece of chalk still sitting atop her desk, balanced perfectly. A devilish grin spreading across her muzzle.

"Static, you say..." Rainbow whispered to herself, mischievous thoughts flooding through her mind accompanied by the slightest spark of filly-hood imagination. Without a second thought, she raised herself on her hind legs and shot her right hoof towards the chalk, her face turned away and eyes squeezed shut in anticipation.

"Bam!"

"..."

She stood there, still as a statue, for what seemed like eternity before slowly prying her eyes open. Her hoof still pointed to the chalk, which continued to sit completely unharmed and undisturbed on her desk. Getting back down on all fours, she inched slowly towards to her desk and glared intensively at the small writing utensil. Eventually, her face got so close she could swear she felt the chalk bristle the fur of her muzzle. Her eyes darted across its surface, searching for any sign of damage, even the slightest mark or discoloration. Aside from its normal wear from use, she could spot not change. She could almost hear the chalk mocking her, taunting her for her seemingly childish behavior. What did you expect would happen? It would probably say. That you'd blow me away with some awesome strike of lighting?

Rainbow continued to stare intently into the chalk piece, moving her head back ever so slightly. She brought her right hoof up again and started jabbing at it expectantly, hoping to catch something, anything.

"Come on, stupid chalk, blow up or something."

Still as nothing continued to happen, her jabs slowly lost vigor, eventually degrading into small frequent pokes. Her glare shifting to a look of mild abjection. So many of her students saw something, and so soon after her incident, it couldn't just be a coincidence.

"Rainbow? What are you-"

"HUH?! What the-" Caught by surprise, Rainbow flailed and instinctively flapped her wings, hurling her straight up and into the ceiling. "OW!" She tumbled back towards the ground, but her descent was quickly halted as her body was suspended in the air, her entire view of the world taking on a familiar violet hue.

"Oh my gosh, Rainbow I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" The magic surrounding her vanished, and Rainbow adjusted her wings to gently float down the remaining twelve inches of fall with whatever dignity she had left. "I didn't think you'd jump that much!"

Rainbow groaned a little as she rubbed the base of her wings, which absorbed most of the impact. She turned her head to the door to see that her unexpected guest was none other than her friend, Twilight Sparkle, who stood in the doorway with the most sheepish grin imaginable. "I was, um, thinking very hard about something! Geez Twi, can't you knock?"

Twilight walked fully into the room and lightly closed the door with her magic. "Well, the door was open and," Twilight giggled. "I was wondering a little what it's like to be on the sending rather than receiving end of all those times you've barged into my office while I'm working. 'Can't you knock' sounds awfully familiar doesn't it?"

Rainbow opened her mouth to retort, but paused. "Alright fine, I guess I walked into that one. What's up?"

While the warm, welcoming smile on Twilight's muzzle continued to shine, the look in her eyes shifted from one of jest to a mix of curiousity and concern. It was the smallest change in her expression, small changes were something Rainbow's many years of attentive weather management and daring flights had trained her to notice.

"I did tell you I'd be checking up on you again after the week's end." Twilight's horn lit up with violet light and Rainbow felt the familiar sensation of her magic aura being examined from head to hoof. "We still don't fully understand what it is you experienced and if it has any long lasting effects."

Rainbow groaned in slight annoyance, letting out a brief shudder as Twilight's spell washed over her front hooves. "Come on, Twi, couldn't this at least wait for the actual end of the week? Like, you know, tomorrow? Besides, didn't Starlight already check over my aura after the whole thing?"

Twilight narrowed her gaze as she moved her scanning spell up to Rainbow's wings. "Yes she did, and she told me it looked fine. You know Starlight's definitions for what is fine and what is safe don't exactly line up all too well."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah, you don't need to remind me. I was there for some of those personally, remember?"

Silence filled the room, broken only by the faint sound of magic from Twilight's horn. Rainbow blinked. "Anyway, is something up? You've been staring at my wings for a while now. Last time you used this spell on me it was way faster than this."

Twilight stared even more intently as her spell remained focused on her wings, her nose scrunched in scrutiny. Rainbow could do nothing but awkwardly shuffle around on her hooves. She shot a quick glance at one of her wings, but found nothing obviously out of the ordinary as it glowed in the soft light of Twilight's magic.

"I'm... not sure. Your magic aura has calmed back down to what it was before the experiment, which is good and... pretty much what I was hoping to find..."

"I'm sensing a 'but' somewhere."

"But... there's something else here, something perfectly hidden. I don't know how to really explain it; I can feel something that wasn't there before, but I can't directly see it and I have no idea what it is."

Rainbow looked over at her wing again, this time a little worried. If Twilight of all ponies said she has no idea what something is, chances are it's serious. "Something... else? Am I in danger or something?"

Twilight gazed quietly at her wing for a few more seconds before finally dropping the spell, closing her eyes and letting out the breath she'd been holding in. Rainbow gave her wings a quick stretch before folding them back comfortably to her sides. "That's just it, while I don't see any danger here, I don't even really know what I'm looking to be able to make that judgement."

Twilight reached out with her magic and, to Rainbow's quiet dismay, plucked a couple of pencils out of her already packed bag and levitated then between them.

"Imagine a pony's magic aura as the choreography of a Wonderbolts' aerial show." She floated the pencils around herself and Rainbow in graceful symmetry, moving them up and down, into spirals and spins, perfectly mirroring the other's movements. "All of the twirls, the twists, the spins, it's a lot like a dance, albeit far more intense and dangerous. Likewise, much like a magic aura, no two Wonderbolts shows are ever the same."

Rainbow opened her mouth to object, but Twilight lifted a hoof to silence her. "Yes Rainbow, I'm aware many of their shows may follow the same planned choreography, but it never ends up the same. The thoughts, moods, experience of the fliers, the weather that day, all of this ensures no two shows turn out the same way. Sure, they might start out exactly the same for a few seconds, but once the fliers are in the air long enough, all the factors I mentioned will nudge them off course by even the smallest of measurable distances, no matter how quickly they adjust. It's the same way that identical twins are only instance when two ponies can have identical auras, but this lasts for just a few moments until the smallest difference in memories and experiences nudges their auras apart."

Twilight then hovered the pencils in such a way that one was perfect eclipsed by the other from Rainbow's point of view. "A common trick in Wonderbolts' shows is when one or more pegasi fly behind a lead pegasus from the perspective of the audience." Twilight proceeded to float the pencils into another bout of spins and tricks, but this time perfectly kept one pencil behind the other the whole time. "As the lead pegasus carries out moves, the other pegasi carefully execute the same moves at the same time behind each other, giving the illusion that there is only one pony. The only reason you can tell there are more is it'll sound like multiple ponies soaring around rather than just one. Sometimes, some shows would start out with this trick, and you wouldn't even know who else is flying with the lead pony until they separate and reveal themselves." With that, Twilight finally separated the two pencils as if they had encountered an invisible crossroads in the air, and they flew around Rainbow in a few graceful arcs before gently floating back into her bag.

With the makeshift air show done, Rainbow closed her bag and moved it behind her with a hind leg so no more of her pencils 'escaped'. "That was actually a really nice explanation and all, but what does this have to do with whatever the hay you saw in me?"

Twilight tilted her head and gazed upwards in thought. "Just like that trick I explained, there is something in your magic aura that dances and twists and jumps in perfect synchronization with it. I can't see it at all, and I would've missed it entirely if I didn't feel its presence."

"Woah woah woah! You think there's something else inside me?"

Twilight slumped down a little. "I... can't fully explain it in words, I just... felt it. It's like how I mentioned you can tell there's more than one pegasi flying even when you can't see them all because all together their flaps are louder than that of a single pony. The difference is so small, it's pretty much imperceptible if you don't know what you're listening for."

Twilight's gaze grew more serious. "Whatever is inside you is matching the chaotic turmoil of your magic aura so perfectly, it's completely masked behind it. There's no way for me to be able to tell what it is even with my magic until it separates or detaches itself from your pegasus magic. Or at least, until its behavior is no longer parroting your own aura and I'll be to see a glimpse of it."

Rainbow felt a little sweat starting to pool from her forehead. Twilight then gazed curiously at her, as if looking her over. "However... as far as I can tell, whatever this thing is doesn't have any effect on your aura or any other part of your body for that matter. It's like it's just, well, there. It doesnt seem to be doing anything ."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Is thaaaat a good thing?"

Twilight looked down and sighed in defeat. "Yes and no. It's not doing anything bad or harmful, so that's obviously good. But I also have no way of knowing if it might do something horrible in the future." Twilight glanced back up and locked her eyes onto Rainbow's. "You need to tell me right now, have you noticed anything weird or unusual with your body, flight, or, well anything in general?"

Rainbow scratched the back of her head with a hoof. "Well I mean, not really anything big or scary if that's what you mean. I did get shocked by a nasty bit of static earlier but that's about it."

Twilight winced. "Ooh ouch, hate when that happens." She shuddered a little and stretched out one of her wings. "Especially when they hit a wing, those sting the most. But, did anything-"

Rainbow cut her off. "That's the thing! I got hit in the wing too, but it didn't hurt at all. I didn't even feel it!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh? Not even the slightest pain?"

Rainbow shook her head. "Nothing at all, I didn't even notice it! I wouldn't have even known it happened if the students didn't act so shocked."

There was a brief, hanging silence in the air as Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought. Rainbow shuffled her wings nervously, not sure what to make of it. "You think that thing inside me has something to do with that?"

"I can't say for certain Rainbow, not without either more context on that or more information on what's hiding in your aura."

Suddenly, Twilight's horn began stroking with a soft, lavender glow, accompanied by a gentle hum that pulsated with the light. Twilight's eyes widened. "Oh no no no no!" She scrambled to her hooves and made for the door in a mad dash.

Rainbow barely had time to jump out of her friend's way to avoid getting knocked over as she leveled a slightly irritated glare at her friend. "Hey what was that for?!"

Twilight paused briefly at the door and turned around. "I set a magical alarm of sorts to remind me that I'm supposed to be at an appointment with a few of my students' parents in a like a minute!" She spared a quick glance to the hallway outside before turning back to Rainbow. "If anything else changes, please come to me right away, alright?"

Rainbow opened her mouth to begin what would've been another half hour worth of questions but quickly shut it upon noticing the sheer panic in her friend's eyes. She knew better than to mess with Twilight's schedule. She gave a quick nod, and Twilight swiftly teleported away, presumably to wherever her meeting was, leaving Rainbow alone in her classroom.

After a few moments of silence, Rainbow tentatively unfurled her wings and gave a few good flaps to put herself in a brief hover before lowering herself back to the ground. My wings and my flying feel fine, no different than they usually do... She reached down to grasp her saddlebag in her teeth and, in one fluid motion, swung it over her head and onto her back.

Maybe Starlight might be able to find out more about this. It was her spell after all. Rainbow sped out into the hallways, once more swerving around alarmed students as she sought out the direction to a particular guidance counselor's office.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the long wait! Writer's block combined with that I recently graduated college and have begun working full time have moved my priorities around, but I intend on putting writing back up as a hobby again!

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Why is this story darker than the previous one?

[Crafting]

This looks awesome! I really hope you continue this soon, it looks to be a lot of fun down the line!