Rainbow Ghast
The final bell rang, the doors popped open, and School Of Friendship began emptying itself of staff and students. Rainbow Dash weaved impatiently between ponies slightly shorter and much slower than herself. She was always the fastest trotter in the room (or in this case, the main hall), and it was too cramped for takeoff. Not that she felt fit to fly today anyhow. In the scant space available, Rainbow Dash flared her feathers, reaching the softest ones at a small but persistent ache on her back. The one that had been there since yesterday. No dice. She had many athletic gifts, but flexibility wasn't one of them. Neither was quick healing. Her grunt of annoyance was covered by the ding of the principal's office door she pushed open.
"What's up, doc?"
"Eh?" Starlight Glimmer, the nominal 'doc' of the evening, peered up from the desk plant she was watering."Dash? Oh wow, you're early."
"Nuh uh. I'm on time. You said to be here for my look-see after work let out. So I am."
"I don't think I've ever used the term 'look-see' in my life," Starlight ventured. She spritzed her spray bottle a few more times at her plant. "But um... yes. Okay. You're here on time. Good. Very good."
Rainbow Dash observed the leaves wilting on the clearly overwatered plant.
"Nerves, Glimglam?"
"Hm?!"
The response had been too knee-jerk. It reminded Dash of greenhorn Wonderbolt cadets whose flight skills were all theory, no practice. They were always fidgety before their first flight round of drills. Or in Starlight's case, her first round of look-sees. Dash straightened up encouragingly, then winced at the renewed back pain it caused her. She opted to speak encouragingly instead.
"I've been having one of these every year ever since I became an Element Bearer. No big deal. Twilight casts the spell, I black out, and then I'm trotting home a few minutes later. C'mon, lets get another one done and over with."
"Its another one for you, Starlight tutted. "I'm still new to this."
"Huh? But didn't you already do Pinkie Pie yesterday? And Rarity the day before tha-"
"Nurse's office," Starlight hastily cut in. "We should walk while we talk. Helps get all the anxious energy out before the procedure."
Rainbow Dash wasn't the one who was nervous. Shrugging, she followed her boss to the adjoining med bay. A clipboard levitated near Starlight's scanning eyes, its details getting read and re-read while Starlight chewed her lip. Dash decided to supply the talking part of the walk.
"Nurse Redheart is running a real racket at this school, huh? On call all the time in case a student twists their ankle, but when somepony like me needs a special checkup, the Principal gets put on doctor duty."
"Nurse Redheart isn't a unicorn," Starlight stated. "And even if she was, this spell is... complicated. I'm not surprised Twilight did it herself all these years. And now she's trusting me to do it. And not make any catastrophic mistakes."
"Pff, we'll be fine. You've yoinked Cutie Marks off a pony before. Yoinking a soul is basically the same trick, right?"
A bulging artery in Starlight's forehead hinted that no, soul extraction was not basically the same trick.
So much for walking and talking getting all the anxious energy out. Dash hopped up onto a soft seat covered with crinkling paper. "Questionnaire portion first, right doc?"
Starlight straightened the clipboard while her patient slouched at the ready.
"Erm... yes. Just making sure your info is up to date. How would you describe your overall health level?"
"Awesome."
"And your sleep schedule?"
"Awesome."
"It helps if you're more descriptive," Starlight grumbled.
"Bleh, fine. I get restful sleep."
"Any food allergies?"
"Does hating pie count?"
"It doesn't. Nor does having a taste for snarky responses to medical questions."
"Aw yeah, stick-in-the-mud Glimglam can work up some jokes of her own after all. I knew you were awesome just like me."
Starlight hunched further over her clipboard, a smile tugging at the corner of her muzzle. It wasn't professional, but it also wasn't nervous. Rainbow Dash was pleased. Up until the next question was asked.
"Any recent major injuries?"
"Ummmm... no?"
Starlight looked up. "Was that a question?"
"Ummmm... no."
Starlight was eyeing her patient with skepticism, uncertainty, and - worst of all - renewed nerves. Dash hastily came clean.
"Okay okay, my back has been hurting a little lately."
"It has?" Starlight produced a quill and jotted the ailment in an available ledger line. "Do your family have a history of back problems? Do pegasi in general have a problem with this? Do you stretch properly before your Wonderbolt performances? Your birthdate here says you're past peak youthful years, so-"
"Whoa whoa whoa," Rainbow Dash held her hooves up defensively. "I tripped while taking off my flight suit last week and fell on my tail. Please don't go spreading that story arou-" she scrunched her snout. "Did you just call me old?"
"Umm..." Starlight flipped to a previous year's sheet. "It says here you found your first white hair ten checkups ago."
"That one doesn't count! I got examined right after the first Discord debacle and had some strands leftover from his grey spell. I'm still in my prime! Ponies in their prime just sometimes trip while taking off their flight suits."
Starlight nodded apologetically and scratched out the note.
Dash wasn't flustered at the thought of getting older. Not really. Spitfire was a spry old military mare, and Dash very much looked forward to following in those dignified hoofsteps. No, what really chafed her chaps was the thought of her mane going gray. Through back pain, wing aches, or eye wrinkles, she'd still be Rainbow Dash. But losing her mane color? Half of her entire namesake? That would be like losing a part of her very self. And speaking of having a part of oneself pulled out...
"Is it time for the main event yet?"
Starlight grimaced and set the clipboard aside.
"Looks like a yes." Rainbow Dash laid back on the papered table, the same way she had plenty of times before. She could see Starlight's horn lit, the soft glow highlighting how little confidence was on her face. It was almost enough to make Dash nervous too. Almost. She took a risk with one last joke to cut the tension.
"Hey Starlight, if you're not feeling up to this, we could always ask Trixie to cast it instead."
"Oh Faust no. Close your eyes and get comfortable, Rainbow."
"Ha! Yes ma'am." Rainbow Dash relaxed and did as she was told. If memory served, the icebox in this room's corner had fruit pops for good students who cooperated through their checkups. She decided to ask for one when she woke up.
"Alright, I'm ready."
A flash of magic. A full body tingle. Then no feeling at all. None except for the persistent lower back ache, anyway.
"I said I'm ready, Glimglam."
Starlight Glimmer shrieked.
"What? What is it?!" Dash was upright in an instant, scanning the room for danger. Starlight was unhurt, but staring slackjawed at a specter hovering above. It was monochrome, shadowy, and the shape of its features were very very familiar.
"Huh," Rainbow Dash managed. "I don't look so bad with grey hair after all."
"Are you okay? Can you breathe? Can you hear me?" Starlight's had no idea which version of Dash was the proper one to address. She settled on the fleshy one within poking distance.
"Stop it! I can't feel that, but its still annoying."
"You can't?" Starlight's panic wasn't abating.
"Nah, but I can hear you just fine." Dash rubbed her senseless ringing ear. "How come I'm down here but also up there?"
The spectral Dash shrugged mutely. Then it descended to observe its other half and Starlight.
"I don't know what I did wrong," Starlight blathered. "What did I do wrong? Everything went fine with Pinkie..."
Dash's body reached up to prod its untethered soul. It waved her off testily and pointed at their distressed friend.
"Uh... I think it wants you to put it back in me and try again."
The spirit facehoofed.
"I can't," Starlight whinnied. "This spell, it... its picky. It doesn't end naturally until the examination is done, and I don't know how to reverse it. I don't know what to do! Dash, what do I do?"
Rainbow Dash looked back and forth between her jittery boss and her annoyed spiritual self.
"Um, I guess you could... just do the examination. Ya know, since we're all still here."
Starlight was about to shout words unfit for a professional workplace, until she saw Dash's soul enthusiastically nodding.
"I... well, I guess I could. Sure. Everything about the extracted spirit essence looks the same as Rarity's and Pinkie's did." She glanced again at Meat Dash. "Aside from the obvious."
"Cool. Ya know, I've always wanted to sit in on one of these. See what exactly they're like. So really, your random buckup is a win for everyone!"
Dash's soul gave her a dirty look as Starlight rummaged shamefully in a nearby tool drawer.
"Uh, sorry. I didn't mean that the way it came out." Starlight's back was still turned, so Dash glanced at her soul for approval. All it did was roll its eyes.
"Okay," Starlight returned. "First... first is the transparency test." She produced a small flashlight and shined it through the ghost's body. It tilted its head and spread its wings for easy coverage, clearly an old pro at this process.
"No flecks or foggy patches," Starlight noted.
"Is that good?"
Starlight flinched, then addressed the Dash she wasn't examining. "It is, yes. Nothing but Harmony in your spiritual makeup. If you had any chaos or dark magic pollution, I would... I mean we would have been able to see it."
Dash's soul rolled over in midair and gracefully presented its elbow.
"Now for the reflexes test. To make sure the body and soul are still synched up."
"Pretty obvious we're not, but okay."
Dash's soul blew a silent raspberry at her. Starlight ignored the petty self-bickering and tapped at the spectral elbow with her medical mallet.
"Whoa, I felt that!"
"You did?"
"Yeah! Its the first thing I've felt since you pulled out my spooky parts!"
"Huh. So your back pain is gone too?"
Rainbow Dash shifted in her seat. "Erm, actually no. That's still there. It's just everything else that's numb. Sorry."
For the first time, Rainbow Dash's soul looked confused. Back pain? it mouthed. The specter glanced at its own spine, which cascaded into fog right past the wings. Starlight too noticed the lack of anatomy and wordlessly reached for her clipboard to pen a fresh note.
"So uh," Dash rocked in her seat uneasily. "How does this part of the exam go normally? Ya know when the patient isn't... How did this part go with Rarity and Pinkie?"
"Well, when I did the response portion with Rarity, her body sneezed."
"Response portion?"
Dash's soul leaned over and rubbed its nose on the feather Starlight was writing with.
Rainbow Dash sneezed.
"Oh! You passed the response portion!" Starlight scrawled a check mark while Dash's soul bowed like a showpony. "That leaves only one test left."
"Really?" Rainbow Dash didn't hide her disappointment. "I figured there'd be a lot more."
"What else would there be? Coaching your soul to jump through flaming hoops?"
Both Rainbow Dashes perked up excitedly.
"I'm not coaching your soul to jump through flaming hoops."
Spirit Dash harrumphed silently. Solid Dash harrumphed loudly.
"We're already way off procedure as it is," Starlight stated tersely. "So to hurry this up so I can relax again, the last part of the soul exam is... unique to each Element Bearer, actually."
Dash rubbed her hooves together. Although she couldn't feel them, excitement was still bubbling. A unique test just for her Element. This was more like the type of magecraft she'd expected to happen while she was blacked out. She bounced her eager eyebrows at her soul, wishing it luck. Curiously, it didn't return her foalish glee. In fact, it folded its forelegs like a stern teammate.
"So what's my Element's test, Starlight?"
Clipboard pages rustled. The Principal of the School of Friendship ummed and erred.
"I don't actually know."
"Huh? Whaddya mean you don't know? Didn't Twilight tell you before she pawned this job off on you?"
Starlight tapped her horn, a common gesture of unicorn confidence, but to Rainbow Dash it looked like a admission of weakness.
"Magic doesn't have hard and fast rules. That's something Twilight and I have had long sad talks about. To do the last test, the one that confirms whether you're still in tune with your Element, I need to figure out what your in-tuneness even looks like. I don't... I don't have a clue what..." Starlight hung her head, out of words to say.
Rainbow Dash swished her tail, thinking. Her ghost hovered nearby, and if it knew the answer to the puzzle, it wasn't telling.
Dash was used to not understanding how magic worked. She wasn't a spellcaster, after all. Truth be told, she always assumed unicorns instinctively knew all about hexes and charms, cantrips and auras, all those fancy terms that made no sense to the hornless breeds. Starlight was the most magically capable unicorn around, which was why Dash hadn't expected today to be a big deal. But knowing this, that it was Starlight's third soul exam and she was still winging it, that made Dash feel... resolute. Her friend couldn't figure this out alone. But by cosmic coincidence, she wasn't alone. Dash looked up at her soul, and it gave her a nod.
"What were the other two's tests?"
"Huh?" Starlight looked up blearily.
"Pinkie yesterday. Rarity the day before. C'mon, you already have two in the bag. Go for a hat trick."
"Um..."
"A hat trick is a sports term. It's when one pony scores three-"
"I know what a hat trick is, Dash. I'm not that helpless." Starlight fluffed her mane as she pondered, a habit she'd picked up from Twilight during her time as a Friendship Student. "Rarity was generous with her magic, performing the soul extraction spell on herself when I confessed I wasn't confident enough to do it myself."
"Yeah, that sounds like her. And her Element. So when it was Pinkie's turn, you were all jazzed up and able to cast it right that time."
"Well of course I was. You think Pinkie cast the spell on herself?"
"I mean... Pinkie is Pinkie."
Dash's ghost chuckled soundlessly.
"I pulled Pinkie's soul out myself," Starlight reiterated. "I didn't... I did a good job for my first try at a charm so complex, but the results weren't great. She came out... smushed. A little lumpy in some spots, a little thin in others."
"That sounds awesome. In a kinda gross way."
"She was able to pass the light test, the reflexes part, and response portion. She was just, ya know. Smushed."
"I bet that was good for a laugh."
"It was!" Starlight pranced in place excitedly. "At first I was panicking about my botched job, but as soon as Pinkie's soul realized it could stretch its face, it clowned around until I relaxed."
Starlight smiled and looked up at the ceiling, remembering the relief at seeing Rarity sit up after passing the final personalized test. Pinkie too. Starlight looked hard at Rainbow Dash's soul, drifting unbothered with its forelegs behind its head. Try as Starlight might, she couldn't detect any roundabout proof that Dash's soul was still in tune with the Element Of Loyalty. Then her eyes drifted down to Dash's body.
"What?" Dash challenged.
"Its you."
"What is?"
"Loyalty. Enough of it to stay awake and with me through this whole thing."
Dash's soul had a big bright smile as it offered its other half a hoof bump. Dash's body was sheepishly accepted.
"Y-you're welcome, Starlight. Glad I didn't take this one lying down, huh?"
Starlight marked a big check on her clipboard, though not for the lame pun she'd just heard. Rainbow Dash rocked in her seat, unsure what to do with herself.
"So... shouldn't my spirit be, ya know, blorping back inside right now?"
Starlight glanced up from her clipboard. "Is it still here?" Panic crept back into her voice. "Did I not guess right?"
Rainbow Dash's soul gestured wildly but reassuringly. Then it smiled before mouthing something directly to its body.
"Huh?" Dash wasn't a very good lip reader.
The soul mouthed the same words, slower but not any clearer.
"Still not getting you."
Rainbow Dash's soul huffed silently, then gathered its ghostly tail in its forehooves.
"Uh, Starlight? It feels like somepony's gripping my spine."
Dash's soul squeezed. Dash's body popped several vertebrae back into place.
"Holy-!" sensation completely returned to Rainbow Dash as she lurched up to standing position. She felt flushed and energized, but more important was what she didn't feel: any more pain in her lower back.
"You okay?!" Starlight's clipboard had clattered to the floor, quite forgotten as she supported her friend.
"I'm super duper okay," Rainbow Dash exalted. She looked around the nurse's office to thank her soul for the self care, but it was gone. Or more accurately, back where it belonged.
"I guess you're free to go," Starlight ventured. "Unless, uh, you needed anything else."
Dash eyed the icebox in the corner.
"Other than the fruit pops reserved for students."
"Blegh, I'm good then." Dash shook out her wings and trotted towards the exit to the main hall. She did however, pause in the doorframe.
"Yo Glimglam, who's next up? For their own exam tomorrow, I mean."
Starlight didn't need to look at her clipboard. "It's Fluttershy. Honestly, I wanted to see her first, since she's around Discord so much, she's probably got tons of chaos detritus in her-"
"Cool, I'll be there."
Starlight Glimmer was taken aback. "You will?"
"Sure. Solving soul riddles was pretty fun. And it sounds like we only get to do it six times per year."
"Wow. Okay, sure. But in return, you have to make a promise."
Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes.
"Watch your step next time you take off your flight suit. Doctor's orders."
Rainbow Dash chuffed with annoyed embarrassment, so loudly and deeply that Starlight Glimmer judged it had come from the soul. Then she trotted briskly out.