Rainbow's Curse

Slipping out of her cloud cover, Rainbow Dash glanced around. Nopony around except a few school fillies playing down the street and somepony in a cloak taking in the shade. Nothing to be worried abou. Slipping into Twilight’s library, Rainbow Dash entered just behind Twilight herself. Glancing around, she took in the total chaos in the room, books and microscopes and equipment scattered everywhere. Twilight’s eyes were a bit bloodshot and her mane was frazzled, but she was grinning happily, and as they entered Zecora looked up from a cauldron she was stirring.

Rainbow gestured to her pacifier after a moment, having a question. Twilight removed it and, though she missed it’s presence for a moment, Rainbow Dash continued anyways. “How long is this gonna take?” She asked, happily. “Is it just a potion I can drink, or do you need to give me a shot or something?”

“Actually,” Twilight said, “We just need you to sniff some flowers.”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head, confused. “Wait, how?”

Glancing at Zecora, Twilight asked, “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

“It was your discovery,” Zecora insisted, shaking her head. “You should reveal the mystery.”

Grinning, Twilight turned her gaze back to Rainbow and gave her a satisfied look. “Well, when we we were cross-examining the data from when we had you strapped to my analyzation device,” she explained, “We noticed some abnormalities with the magical energies that were causing disruptions in the data. Once we accounted for an error margin, I was able to-”

“I don’t speak egghead,” Rainbow Dash pointed out, rolling her eyes. “Can you explain it to me like I’m five?” She blushed, thinking better of the expression after a moment, and added, “Or, uh, just like I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

Nodding, Twilight rephrased what she was saying. “Once we realized what was different about my readings, we were able to realize what was causing the effects. It’s just Poison Joke!”

Dash blinked a few times, considering that. It seemed so simple. Almost… too simple. “It’s… That easy? Really?”

“Well… No,” Twilight said, shaking her head a bit. “However you got it, it’s a lot more aggressive and intense than the kind we stumbled on in the forest. It’s probably a different subgenus, as can be compared to the difference between the Aesculus Hippocastanum and the Castanea Denta-”

“I get it,” Rainbow Dash said. “So, what, I just take a bubble bath?”

“The Poison Joke you ran into is too strong,” Twilight told her. “So you’ll have to get yourself afflicted with the more mild strain. It’ll act like a vaccine, flushing out the more intense strain, and then a bubble bath to wipe out the effects of the Everfree forest strain of the plant.”

Rainbow Dash was skeptical, but Twilight seemed confident enough. “Doesn’t that mean I won’t be able to fly? Last time I ran into this stuff, my wings didn’t respond to anything I tried to do in the air.”

Stepping in, Zecora put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Be not afraid, Rainbow Dash, we’ll have you cured in a flash. Your wings will fail for but a second, then we’ll have you cured I reckon.”

A little reassured, Rainbow Dash asked Zecora, “How do you do that?”

“What do you mean?” Zecora asked, confused.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at that, waiting a second. When Zecora didn’t say anything else she remarked, “Buck it, never mind.”

Frowning, Zecora said, “That was a little obscene.”

Spluttering, Rainbow Dash didn’t have time to say anything else before Twilight cut back in. “We’ve got some samples of Poison Joke,” she said. “Let’s have you get some on yourself, okay?”

“Right,” Rainbow Dash agreed. Eyes on the prize. “Let’s get this stupid, awful curse dealt with.”

…

Fifteen minutes later, and Rainbow Dash was sitting on the floor, waiting impatiently for the Poison Joke to kick in. Twilight insisted that it wouldn’t take long, and that as long as the Counter-Clothes Curse was still in effect, as soon as the new Poison Joke fought off the old strain, the blue crescent-moon sleeper would be forcefully removed from Rainbow’s body along with the the diaper.

“How much longer?” Rainbow Dash groaned, annoyed. “This is taking forever!”

Twilight sighed, checking the water temperature for the bubble bath they had already prepared. “Just a few more minutes, Rainbow, be patient. You’ve been waiting a few days for a cure, ten more minutes won’t kill you.”

“But I’m bored, and I just want to not be wearing stupid diapers again!” Rainbow whined, feeling restless. Knowing how close she was to having this whole scenario over with, she was feeling more and more anxious and eager to have it done.

Sighing, Twilight got to her hooves. “Here,” she said, shrugging. “Come tell me if this bathwater is too hot. At least it’s something to do while you wait.”

Rainbow Dash groaned in annoyance, but Twilight was right. It was something to do. Getting to her own hooves, the waddle in her hind legs barely noticeable anymore, she started to spread her wings partway to cross the room in one quick flap.

Her wings opened up fully.

Eyes going wide, Rainbow Dash realized with a slight delay that her wings were not responding the way she had intended them too. While she didn’t have time to puzzle together what this meant, she did quickly realize that instead of crossing the room in a quick flap of her wings, the new trajectory of flight was going to send her directly into the ceiling. Trying frantically to readjust, her wings flapped powerfully and she managed to veer off course only by a few degrees. Twilight didn’t even have time to call out or do anything as Rainbow Dash careened towards the window, hooves flailing in the air as she tried to stop. Glass shattered, and she crashed into the courtyard outside with a painful ‘Thump’.

Blushing bright red, Rainbow Dash looked around in terror. Nopony had been looking her way, but the sound of the crash was starting to draw looks, ponies peeking out of houses to see what had happened. The school fillies looked up from their game of jump rope, the cloaked pony looked up from her shady spot beneath the gazebo, and heads started peeking out to see what the issue was.

Direction wasn’t an issue, Rainbow Dash needed to escape. Wings responding or not, she could still get them to move. Trying to take to the sky, her wings reacted disjointedly, launching her straight up first, then out, careening away at breakneck speeds. She tried to take control, but it was like trying to operate a bicycle on stilts: awkward, nearly impossible to control accurately, and very strange to look at.

In lieu of a safe landing, then, Rainbow calculated a few angles on the fly and just stopped flapping, cutting the proverbial power to her wings. In seconds she started to drop, crashing mightily into an alleyway.

Perfect landing, she thought. Rubbing a bruised wing she brushed herself off, feeling good about the crash in spite of everything. She had managed to land somewhere totally out of view, where nopony would stumble upon her accidentally. Twilight may have been wrong, maybe the Poison Joke needed more time to fight off the new strain… Or was it the old strain? Zecora had seemed pretty confident in the cure, too, but as Rainbow tried to remember the explanation her head just started to hurt. If the old Poison Joke was supposed to go away, why were her wings not working when she still had one the stupid Sleeper? Wasn’t that supposed to fix everything?

Before she could puzzle it out, though, she heard hoofsteps and stepped further back into the alleyway, backing as far up as she could. Flying out wouldn’t be an option and the only other way out was running into the main street, so she just had to hope nopony would come this way.

The hoofsteps got louder, though, not quieter. “Uh… Heww-”

Right. Pacifier. Better not say anything.

Trying to stay as far back into the alley as possible, Rainbow finally saw the other pony walking by. She seemed… Familiar. And she was turning into the alley, headed straight for Rainbow.

“Hello, Rainbow Splash,” the Mare’s voice said. It was definitely a voice Rainbow Dash recognized, though she couldn’t remember from where.

“Wha’?” Rainbow Dash asked, confused. Looking more closely, she tried to see some memorable detail to figure out who this pony was. The cloak the mare was wearing had been dyed a dark blue or purple or black, something that blended into shadows well, which worked in the shady alley. She wore a large hat pulled over her face, concealing her identity further, but Rainbow knew she had seen this pony before nonetheless.

But… who?

“How foalish are you?” The mare commented, her tone one of condescension. “Rainbow Splash. You wet yourself, and it makes a splashing noise. It rhymes with your last name. Can you not even understand a simple pun?”

“Wha’?” Rainbow Dash asked again, before catching herself. The lisp from her pacifier didn’t seem important, but she found herself suckling it for comfort in between speaking. This situation was getting uncomfortable, fast. “I mea’, uh, who awe yah?”

“Oh, you don’t even remember me?” The mare asked. “Well, maybe the foal is just too tired. We’ll see how your memory works once you’ve had a nap.”

Rainbow was about to just ask ‘What’ again, but thought better of it. She wasn’t sure what to ask, the whole situation was getting to be a little baffling and she didn’t know where to begin trying to figure it out. Then, she saw the blue glow of unicorn magic lifting something from behind the mare’s cloak. It was a plastic ring spinning in the air, little toys dangling and moving around in a surprisingly fascinating pattern.

A… A mobile? Is that what it is called?

Mobile or otherwise, it was... almost... hypnotizing. Rainbow Dash tried to look away, but as it glowed with the unicorn Mare’s pink-purple magic, she couldn’t seem to draw her eyes away from the mobile. She tried to stammer a question as her eyes grew heavier and heavier, but all that came out was a sleepy babble. She tried to keep them open, to keep watching the incredible mobile, but before long there was nothing she could do to keep them open. Eyes sliding shut, she fell into a deep, deep sleep.