The Prices of Loyalty

by Apocalypse Pony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 1942

Twilight needs Rainbow Dash for an experiment. What can go wrong?

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned that the value of true friends has the potential to become infinite, no matter how....noble the search for information may be.

Published 2011-10-18 23:24:20 UTC
Last updated 2011-10-18 11:12:47 UTC

Chapter 1

Rainbow Dash never was much of a critical thinker, she would always choose to take action first. However, sometimes it doesn’t even take her a half-second thought to tell that something was a bad idea, like the situation that she was in now.

It wasn’t the fact that she was nearly touching the booming black clouds of a scheduled thunderstorm above her head.

It wasn’t the nylon and aluminum umbrella she was holding properly opened and pointing toward the clouds, which were dangerously likely to belch bolts of lighting.

It wasn’t even the multitude of small white circular pads on the end of thin wires stuck to random points on her body, which went down to the ground and into a machine which was apparently supposed to keep track of her vital signs.

It was the fact that Twilight asked her for help with an experiment.

The lavender unicorn could be seen down below, from Rainbow Dash’s point of view, flicking away at switches and pressing buttons, all while her eyes dart between the multiple screens of the silver monstrosity.

All aspects taken into consideration, the cyan pegasus was more than qualified to fear for her life.

It all started two hours ago when another one of Rainbow’s more flamboyant tricks wound up in a crash landing into the second story of the Ponyville library. Once she had shaken off the books that piled on top of her, she prepared her ears for another one of Twilight’s lectures on how sacred those pieces of sandwiched paper were. However, what she instead received was an eccentric greeting.

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“Oh, Rainbow Dash, excellent timing!” Twilight proclaimed as she came up the stairs, her giddy smile looking entirely oblivious to the toppled bookshelf, as well as the small slope of books the pegasus had shaken off. Rainbow Dash looked around the room for a second, hoping to find the source of Twilight’s good mood before replying. “Um.....if that’s what you call it.”, said Rainbow in reply. Once the pegasus finished a quick self analysis to make sure nothing was broken or harmed, she righted herself to face Twilight to see just what she needed of her.

“So, what’s the occasion?” asked Rainbow Dash as Twilight silently gestured with a hoof to follow downstairs into the actual public library portion of the hollowed tree, an assortment of written notes and open books placed orderly on a table Twilight typically used for personal studies. The table was also illuminated by a newly ignited candle, as to provide comfortable reading conditions throughout the upcoming thunderstorm.

Once the two mares had settled in front of the table, Twilight began to explain, “Recently I have been studying the different attributes of each of the three species of pony, Earth Ponies, Unicorns and Pegasi,”. She paused for a second to allow Rainbow to follow along. Rainbow raised an inquisitive hoof alongside her next question, “What’s the big deal? Unicorns can use magic, Pegasi can fly, and Earth Ponies....” she trailed off, unsure of what to say. Picking up on Rainbow’s loss for words, Twilight picked up. “Earth ponies are generally believed to have increased endurance and strength compared to Unicorns and Pegasi. In the case of unicorns, multiple hypotheses state that they have increased resistance to magic spells due to their own aura, or magical field.” She began pacing back and forth, “Said hypotheses were derived from studies involving stunning spells on one earth pony, and one unicorn,”. Rainbow was lagging behind a bit, but still following. “Both ponies were exposed to a stunning spell with enough power focused into it to stun them for approximately one hour. The unicorn regained mobility within 30 minutes, while the earth pony was stunned for 45 minutes.”

Rainbow’s eyes were looking upward while she processed Twilight’s explanation before she presented another question. “Okay, that covers the earth ponies and unicorns, so lemee guess. You want me to help you figure what I-I mean, pegasi can do?”. Twilight halted her pacing to face Rainbow and nod. “Yes, what my predictions are is that pegasi have increased resistance to extreme weather as well as elemental hazards, such as extreme heat, extreme cold, hail, lightning, et cetera. But to begin I’ll need you to get warmed up before we can begin.”. Rainbow had quickly angled herself toward an open window and flared her wings open, preparing for takeoff. “Great! I just need to clear the sky and set up a storm, that should be enough of a warm up.” As Rainbow Dash launched herself through the window, Twilight trotted up to it and yelled after her, “Once you’re done, meet me near the town hall where I’ll be ready!”.

Rainbow Dash was very well aware of the fact that Twilight always kept notice of the upcoming weather forecasts, which in Rainbow’s thought process, conflicted with Twilight’s upcoming experiment. She had to pause in her flight to question the unicorn’s logic. “Wait, why would she want to do this out in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

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Unfortunately, the pegasus didn’t realise the actual danger in Twilight’s expiriment until she found herself amidst thunderclouds, howling wind and rain, with a makeshift lightning rod in hoof, wondering if she should be more questioning when it came to favors.

The majority of Ponyville was indoors to avoid the storm, but the small spectacle involving Rainbow dangerously close to the clouds attracted a few viewers. Bon Bon had came outside clad in a raincoat to fetch Lyra, who was casually sitting on a bench in the midst of the storm. When Bon Bon spoke to her, Lyra simply pointed toward the sky and Rainbow Dash, the scene silently convincing Bon Bon to take a seat as well. Colgate was watching through the attic window of her own living quarters, Berry Punch soon to follow. Even Vinyl Scratch was standing not too far away from the grounded machine, her grin punctuating the one sided humor in Rainbow Dash’s predicament.

Once Twilight finished configuring her machine, she looked up towards Rainbow Dash and prepared to speak. “Okay Rainbow, a single arc of lightning should be coming within two minutes.”, Rainbow couldn’t hear what she had to say due to the distance between the two and the weather however. “WHAT’D YOU SAY?!”, She yelled back, Twilight apparently receiving the message, yelled in reply. “I SAID, LIGHTING’S GOING TO STRIKE IN ABOUT TWO....ONE MINUTE!”.

Rainbow didn’t reply, instead she looked away as her conceince began to fight itself,

Okay, maybe this was a bad idea.

Oh come on, its just a little lightning!

Don’t even try to act like you don’t remember what happened to Ditzy back in flight school!

Okay okay, but what’s the harm? We’ve been through worse.

Sonic Rainbooms don’t count.

….And why not?

BECAUSE THEY DON’T INVOLVE GETTING SHOCKED WITH LIGHTNING!

Rainbow Dash’s actions were put on hold, her opinion on what to do next split perfectly down the middle.

Just fly back down now and tell Twilight that this looks too dangerous.

Don’t chicken out!

ARE YOU INSANE?!

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

Because immense pain and possible paralysis counts as strength building.

Okay, she made up her mind. She was going to fly down, explain to Twilight that she thought this was too dangerous, and then everypony would go back ho-BZZZKOWWWW

For a fraction of a second, Rainbow Dash’s entire body felt as if it were on fire while her vision turned from the ground below to a rapid flickering between pitch black and pure white. As for her other senses, it felt like each of her limbs had succumbed to the strange tingling feeling that happens when you don’t move for a certain amount of time, and everything smelled like burnt....the smell wasn’t familiar with any of the limited thoughts she was capable of at the moment, but it was certainly something burnt.

From the audience’s point of view, the cyan lightning rod had suddenly turned into a blinding white light that required them to shield their eyes with a hoof until the glare died down. Once it was suitable to look again, they saw a burnt black mass whose wings were somehow still keeping her afloat, however besides her wings she wasn’t moving. After about five seconds in her partially suspended animation, her self-willed wings slowly lowered her to the ground, where a crowd of the few ponies watching quickly surrounded her.

Once she reached the ground, Twilight was the first to approach her and check her condition. She waved her horn around Rainbow’s sitting mass with a scanning spell and found suprisingly few injuries, she then had to check for conciousness.

“Rainbow, say something--anything if you can hear my voice!” Twilight and the small crowd of ponies waited on baited breath for an answer, and receiving a low, zombie-like moan in response. Rainbow then opened her eyes and took in her surroundings with a silent urgency in her eyes.

The crowd of bystanders had inched in closer, pushing Twilight out of the circle as Vinyl tried helping Rainbow register another one of her senses by waving a hoof in a circular motion within her field of vision. “Hey Dash, follow my hoof if you can see straight.”. Rainbow complied and then stood up slowly and shook herself, extinguishing a few trails of smoke coming from her tail and a few on select feathers, and then checked her voice with two words.

“Never. Again.”

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Studies pony species-specific attributes: Pegasus

Yielded results introduce possibility of electricity resistance, as well as a muscle memory based fail-safe requiring only use of the wings to guide the victim to what was previously registered in the optical lobe as well as the right temporal lobe as a safe location for the body to rest. Recorded data is more than enough to complete this research as a whole, and thus I close this experiment with not only a satisfactory amount of newfound information, but also with a refreshed appreciation of my friends.

Twilight ended the report with a sentence that would help her keep in mind one of the greatest lessons she’d learned the other day. Of course this was a personal copy for her own collection, she would later ask Spike to make another copy lacking the closing sentence with a new one in its place.

Shortly after she ended her report, she heard a knocking at the front door. She trotted from the space she had reserved for her studies to the door to greet the visitor as she opened it with her magic.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight quickly plastered on a false grin as the guilt from the experiment that took place three days ago once again snuck its way into her thoughts, “Glad to see you’re doing well! Any problems? Muscle spasms? Paralysis? Visionary problems?”. Rainbow gave her a questioning stare before shrugging, “I already told you its fine, my wings are working fine and I’m still the fastest around.” She nodded before flapping her wings twice to prove her point. “I just came by to ask, how’d the science-thing go?”. Rainbow’s mention of the event made Twilight flinch as she replied, “Fine, sorry about the.....you know.”, Twilight forefeit to the guilt and let her head drop low, but Rainbow continued to smile. “Hey, don’t sweat it Twi, at least I know I’m lightning proof! Anyway, I gotta go, so I’ll catch you later.” Rainbow sped off in no specific direction for a a cloud out of Twilight’s view before landing on it, giving an exhausted sigh.

“The things I do for friendship.”