Magic...
Magic was something that only decided to exist in a handful of universes. Most of them didn't care for the hassle. Science, physics, that was reliable. What was magic, after all? What rules did it follow? Who was it accountable to?
Magic, accountable or otherwise, was fully aware of its own rules. Unlike the rest of reality, it knew exactly what it was doing. However, it decided that sharing those rules with the rest of the multiverse was a complete and utter waste of time. Magic was secretive. Magic was unknowable. Magic had a mind of its own, and despite popular opinion, had very little imagination.
Magic was a copycat. It would lean over the neighbouring universe's shoulder and scavenge for ideas. It would look at something like aerodynamics and think to itself, crikey, that's a jolly good idea. How about sticking wings on a horse?
Magic tried to borrow ideas from science but missed the point of it entirely. Conservation of energy, for example. Magic loved the idea of conservation of energy. It thought it was the best thing since cheese on toast. What it didn't understand, however, was that the energy to get up in the morning wasn't quite the same thing as the energy required to power a lightbulb. Confusing the two tended to lead to significant issues with physics, who didn't agree with magic at all.
Magic was the one who'd keep on clinging to a metaphor that stopped being applicable three questions ago.
Magic was the foal who insisted on following the rules without quite understanding what they were or what they were for.
Magic was the inexplicable logic, the rulebook that nopony ever understood but accepted anyway.
Magic was magic, and it defied comparison.
It was in the water everypony drank, suspended in the clouds pegasi walked across. Magic was in the fire burning across the surface of the sun, responding to the willpower of the ponies millions of miles away. Magic was in the light, and it was in the place beyond light.
Science didn't have any ideas for that place beyond light, though, and that was where magic, true magic lived, and physics lived in absolute terror that it'd invite somepony over for tea. Because when you went beyond rules, what could mere physics do to bring you back?
"How do you steer?"
The question took Rainbow Dash by surprise. She had been asked many questions about flying, of course, but more on the topic of how fast she went. Steering was something that came naturally to most pegasi.
"Well," she replied, "It's a complicated process, of course." She stretched out her wing. "You've got to adjust your weight, where all the wind forces sort of hit your body, what angle your wings point into the wind, your yaw...."" She waved her hoof. "It takes a whole load of quick thinking and careful calculation. Not just anypony can manage a really tight turn, you know."
"No, I mean... how do you know where you're going?"
Rainbow frowned. She stopped pushing her cloud and put her hooves on her hips.
"What do you mean, 'how do I know where I'm going?" she asked. "I look. With my eyes."
Thunderlane scratched his head. "Well, I was thinking about teleportation, right?" Rainbow gave him a puzzled look. "And that it's pretty fast."
Rainbow felt a familiar itch at the base of her wings. It crept across her spine until it settled at the base of her skull, like a vagabond mosquito. "Uh huh."
"Well, I wondered if it was the same as your flying," Thunderlane went on.
Rainbow Dash grit her teeth. "Well, teleportation is cheating, first off," she said. "Second, it's completely different. Teleportation is instantaneous, whereas I can actually see me going from, say..." she pointed at a cloud in the distance. "Here to there. Teleporters can't see that happen."
"So you can change your direction mid-flight even though you're flying that fast?"
The itch kept on travelling up the back of Rainbow's head, sinking through her skin and into her brain. "Thunder', if I've changed my direction mid-flight, it's because I've not been flying so fast I can't see where I'm going."
Rainbow flapped her wings, her feather-tips fluttering with the gentle breeze. She fixed her gaze on her cloud. "Now c'mon. We've got to get these into place, right, Thunder'?"
Thunderlane sighed, and kept pushing.
The cold air was beginning to bite at ponies' skin. Scarves were becoming more and more common as winter's official start date drew nearer. At this altitude, Rainbow's breath generated a thin cloud of fog that clung to the clouds she worked with.
"So... you don't even come close to flying as fast as teleportation?" Thunderlane asked, catching up with his superior.
Rainbow sighed with the resignation of a pony who had spent far too long sulking over the matter.
"Thunder', I told you, teleportation is instantaneous. That's why everypony knows it's cheating," she said. "I actually have to move. Teleportation isn't even about speed, since that would mean it involves time, right? It's just distance." She snorted. "Nopony can go faster than teleportation. There's science and stuff that gets in the way."
"I just think that's a shame."
Rainbow tilted her head as she squeezed her cloud in-between a large pile of others. "Why's that?"
"Well, it just means pegasi aren't the fastest pony tribe."
"Bit of national pride going on in there, Thunderlane?" came Cloudchaser's voice from behind the cloud. "Y'know, there's nothing wrong with it. Pegasi can't teleport, so that's just that."
"Shut up, Cloudchaser," Rainbow snapped. "Teleportation is cheating. It doesn't count."
"Just like flying doesn't count to Earth ponies, right?"
The fur on Rainbow's chest bristled. "That's different. We are the fastest." She looked over at Thunderlane. "It's science, all right? Distance over time. Teleportation doesn't have time, so it can't be speed. Or velocity. Or whatever the difference is," she said. "I should know: I'm the fastest pegasus alive. If there's a leading authority on the matter, it's me." She tilted her head. "Or the Wonderbolts, I guess, but I'm at least in the top three."
"Can't Twilight Sparkle teleport?" Flitter asked. Rainbow breathed in through her nose.
"Yeah, so what?"
"If you guys were to race..." Flitter went on, "and we timed you... With a stopwatch..."
Rainbow narrowed her eyes. "Yeah."
"Twilight's the one who'd cross the finish line first, right?"
Rainbow kicked her clouds hard, leaving a large, unseemly dent in their formation. Flitter couldn't help but flinch.
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?!" Rainbow exclaimed. "I can't make pegasi teleport. I'm not just saying this because I don't like losing, okay? Pegasi are great. I love being able to fly. But we can't make time stop or do anything like that."
"I'm just saying," Cloudchaser said, "You're not the fastest pony alive."
The itch reached Rainbow's eyes. Turned out it was red, because that's all she could see.
"I am!"
"...but..."
Rainbow was already gone. Thunderlane, Cloudchaser and Flitter flinched as the winds around them were kicked up by the sheer speed Rainbow could bring to bear, and squinted to avoid being dazzled by her bright rainbow trail. The cloud formation nearby got bigger and bigger and bigger as clouds from all over Ponyville shot from wherever they were floating into the big cumulonimbus.
Just as suddenly as Rainbow had gone, she appeared back in front of them, her trail taking a second to catch up to her.
"Three seconds. That's how fast I am," she said, gesturing at her handiwork. "I went all over Ponyville to get those clouds. Nopony can do that as fast. Not even the Wonderbolts." She gave the weatherponies a defiant look, holding their gaze for what seemed like a decade or two.
Thunderlane swallowed.
"I don't know about grabbing clouds and moving them," he said, "But Twilight could have gone across Ponyville faster."
Rainbow wore no expression.
"Work's done," she said. "Go home."
She sighed, and as the weatherponies turned to leave, she let herself fall into the massive pile of clouds she had amassed, her weight causing her to sink several inches into the thick, meaty cumulonimbus.
Her ribs felt like someone had set them on fire with gasoline. Her lungs felt like they had been used as a pair of balloons by Pinkie Pie. Given more than five seconds for her body to catch up with her, sweat poured through her coat, and sank into the cloud which soaked it all up like a big white sponge.
"Fastest pony alive," she muttered to herself. "Fastest pony alive."
She held up her hoof. Her sweat felt icy as it came into contact with the cold, late Autumn air. She closed her eyes, panting heavily. All across Ponyville in three seconds, and look what it does to me... She let her wings stretch out across the surface of the cloud. No sense getting cramps just because she needed to let off some steam. I bet Twilight wouldn't have broken a sweat.
It wasn't fair, she thought. Magic was one of those things you just had to shrug off. It was a common playground taunt for unicorns. They could levitate things, shoot little fireballs out their precious little horns, and do all kinds of things. Rainbow shrugged it off like all the rest. Eventually she learned that unicorns could only cast spells that they had a particular affinity for. Rare indeed was the unicorn who could master more than a half-dozen simple spells that weren't directly tied into their cutie-mark. So that made it okay.
Until somepony used a spell that trespassed on sacred ground, Rainbow thought. Flying. Sports.
Going fast was about using your body, not some cheap trick you read in a book. It took pegasi their entire foalhood to learn flying properly, longer in some cases, in the same way you transitioned from a doggy-paddle to an effective stroke when you learned to swim. It wasn't fair to have all that hard work taken away from them just because somepony read a spell in a book.
Rainbow sat up.
Well, what was she going to do about it?
She stretched her wings. They felt worn out from their recent treatment, but otherwise fine. She took off, and left her cloud behind.
Ponyville was excited. Winter was many ponies favourite time of year, and they were preparing accordingly. Festive foods were being piled into baskets for storing, as well as logs of wood for fires. Several barrels of winter cider and wine were being rolled through the streets by enthusiastic mares and stallions alike.
Applejack leaned against her apple stall, chewing on a lone stalk of grass as she nodded at passers-by. She tightened her bright red scarf around her neck to ward against the chill breeze.
"Apples for sale," she shouted through the thick woolly fabric. "Apples for..."
"Afternoon, AJ!" came Rainbow's distinctive voice from above. Not a moment later did Applejack's cart sink an inch into the snow as it picked up some extra weight. "Hey, I have a question..."
Applejack craned her neck to look up at her friend, balancing on one of the poles holding up the tarpaulin above the cart. She tipped her hat. "Well, good afternoon to you too," she said. "Mind gettin' down before you break my cart?" Rainbow rolled her eyes and fell from the pole and onto the snow, her hooves gingerly brushing the snow. Applejack snickered at Rainbow's discomfort at the cold. "Should've brought hoofwarmers."
"Yeah, whatever. Listen..." Rainbow scratched her chin. "Do you ever feel like you're slow?"
Applejack narrowed her eyes. "What, in the head?"
"Nah, not like that. I mean, like you're way slower than pegasi." Rainbow scratched her mane. "It's just... I've been thinking about things, and I wanted to know what you thought."
Applejack shrugged. "I don't think we're all that slow. We just can't fly, is all."
Rainbow frowned. "Yeah, but do you think that's... fair, I guess?"
"Ain't fair or unfair," Applejack said, leaning on the side of her cart. "Just is. 'Sides," she went on, "We made some handy lil' contraptions that evened the odds."
Rainbow widened her eyes. "Right. The 'copter things."
"Yup, them silly flyin' machines. Apparently there's this pegasus in Cloudsdale workin' on some kind of thing that'll make us earthbound ponies go as fast as pegasi," Applejack said. She swallowed. "Not that I'm, uh, interested on stuff like that."
"Do you think there'd be a machine for teleportation?"
Applejack tilted her head. "I dun' think so. Just spinnin' wings an' rockets, mostly."
Rainbow chewed the inside of her mouth. "Well, it's just... if there was something you couldn't do, and that really bugged you, but there's nothing you could do about it..."
"I'd think I hadn't tried hard 'nough yet," Applejack replied. "I ain't a fan of bein' told I can't do something."
"Me neither," Rainbow said. "So... teleportation. You think I could do it?"
Applejack gave Rainbow a hearty chuckle. "What, teleport? 'Course not." She jabbed a hoof at Rainbow's forehead. "You ain't a unicorn."
"But you just said..."
"I said I ain't a fan of bein' told what to do," Applejack said. "That don't mean I don't have to accept a fact of life."
"Why is that?" Rainbow replied with an unhappy look in her eye. Applejack spat out her stalk of grass.
"'Cause I've got half a brain, sugarcube." A look went across her expression for a second. "Dealin' with hard facts is what keeps us grounded."
"So you don't believe in being able to go further than that?" Rainbow asked, downtrodden.
Applejack frowned. "I think that even if you tried, you'd hurt yourself a whole lot more than if you didn't. Things like that... being grounded ain't a bad thing."
Rainbow folded her hooves and flashed a look at Applejack's back. "Uh huh. Grounded." She looked up at the sky. "It still isn't fair, though," she said, and beat her wings, soaring into the skies once again.
Applejack sighed, and turned back looking for customers. "Ten bits I'll find her by her house later tryin' to fly faster'n light," she muttered to herself. Her shoulder sagged. "I'd better go see her later."
Faster! Faster!
The wind wasn't merely brushing past Rainbow. It was hurtling by at break-neck speeds. It pulled at her mane and dragged at her hooves, forcing her to press them into her body to change her shape into something more like a bullet than a pony. Always, her wings were beating with furious intensity faster than the eye could see.
She circled left, her eyes switching from obstacle to obstacle. Tiny movements in her muscles adjusted her course out of instinct. She angled away from a passing cloud, out of the way of a rogue wind. She turned in a wide arc, burning into the sound barrier as she went around her house.
She passed the small windometer she had balanced on her porch. It span around as the force of the wind Rainbow yanked after her passed through its little blades.
Not a few seconds later and Rainbow passed it again. Combined with the sudden shock it had only moments ago been subjected to, the speed-measuring device fell on its side.
Faster!
Puncturing the wall of dense air in front of her, Rainbow shot past the speed of sound. An instant's worth of electricity jumped from her wings and across her coat before it shoot out in a kaleidoscope of colour, dazzling the countryside as the sonic rainboom blotted out the horizon. Rainbow's speed doubled, tripled, in a fraction of a second.
More speed!
It didn't stop there. Rainbow's wings felt like they were going to come apart at the joints, but Rainbow pressed on, desperately snatching any small measure of speed, every ounce of velocity she could muster out of her small pegasus body.
Her eyes could barely keep up with the rapidly shifting countryside. Clouds appeared and disappeared within instants. It'd take somepony able to see the future to keep up with how fast she was travelling. At the same time, she needed to slow down, to end the strain she was putting on her eyes, wings, and every single muscle in her body, but she also needed to go faster.
In the battle of will versus body, body won out. Her eyes were just too slow and her reactions just a hair sluggish, and her wings clipped the side of a cloud, sending her spinning downwards. Her muscles and senses were faster than her eyesight, but even they couldn't keep up with the sudden change in direction. The wind and induced drag pulled her wings out of the airflow and like a truck hitting a brick wall, she stalled. The shock that ran through her wings and bones caused her to cry out, and she spiralled out of control, nosediving down, down, down...
Splash!
The cold water coupled with the sudden absence of air gave Rainbow pause. It took a moment, maybe two, to comprehend what had happened and where she had ended up. She span her head around, trying to figure out where she had been sent to by her sheer, out-of-control speed. The lake.
She looked up, bubbles escaping her mouth and nostrils. She must be several yards under. She beat her hooves and began to swim to the surface, escaping the murky depths towards air.
An orange hoof shot through the water and grabbed onto her own, and pulled.
Both Applejack and Rainbow erupted through the surface of the water and into safety, spluttering and coughing.
"Ugh!" Rainbow grunted, spitting out water. "S-so close..."
Applejack paddled with her rear hooves, keeping her afloat. "Not even," she grunted. "C'mon, lets get outta here."
The pair moved away from the lakeside, dripping water across the thin layer of sand at the edge and grass further on. Rainbow's house wasn't far, but it wouldn't do Applejack any good visiting a house she couldn't stand on, and she didn't feel like detouring to Twilight's house just to be able to go all the way back again.
"I had to have been close," Rainbow repeated to herself. "I went at least twice as fast as I ever have before."
"And look where it got ya," Applejack retorted. "I don't know much 'bout science, but I know light flies hundreds of times faster'n sound. And teleportation is thousands of times faster'n that. Cause it don't take any time at all, you dolt."
"Well, what if I don't care about all that?" Rainbow replied, her voice raising. "The sonic rainboom was just a myth before I did it. Nopony is allowed to tell me what to do."
Applejack ran her hoof through her soaking wet mane. "Then how're ya gonna' fly faster? What's your plan? Just beat your wings a bit more'n before and see what happens?" She leaned back against a nearby tree. "I wouldn't even be able to see travellin' at those speeds. Even if I did have a pegasus's know-how to even survive goin' past the sound barrier, I wouldn't be able to think fast enough to react to stuff." She bumped her head on the rough bark as she let out a caged sigh. "And that's on top of everythin' else. Like whatever comes after the speed of light."
Rainbow swallowed. The burning feeling she had felt searing through her chest all day only got worse.
"What's your plan?" Applejack asked again.
Rainbow winced.
"I don't... know," she said. She hung her head. "I don't know. I'm not the Wonderbolts. I'm not... I don't have armies of science-ponies coming up with weird ways to make ponies fly faster, or big testing chambers to experiment new flying techniques." She pawed the ground. "All I have is me."
Applejack paused, those last words stinging her more than she'd have liked. She folded her hooves. "And what if you did have all those things?"
Rainbow shrugged. "I dunno. I'd have a shot, maybe." She tilted her head. "You think of yourself as an athlete, right?"
"On my better days, yeah."
"Then you get trying to push yourself further... further than anypony else can go. Right?"
Applejack hesitated.
"Yeah," she replied. "I get it." She rubbed the bridge of her nose, thinking of something to say. "You wanna hear 'bout my great-uncle Apple?"
"Sure, I guess," Rainbow muttered.
"My uncle... He used to say silly stuff like there were millions of us, one for each thing we did or didn't do. He liked to think that there was always a version of yoursel' that was going to manage whatever it was y'all couldn't." Applejack sighed. "He's what got me into tryin' harder'n stuff. I always felt I was competin' 'gainst millions and millions of other versions of myself, and I wanted to win."
"Sounds like a weird guy," Rainbow commented.
"He was."
Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes, getting up. "'Kay. I'm freezing, so I think I'm just gonna call it a day," she said. "Besides, I don't really feel much like talking."
Applejack scrambled to her hooves. "Sure thing, sugarcube," she said. "And if it means anything, you're still the fastest pegasus in the world."
Rainbow Dash chuckled. "Y-yeah, I guess so." She flicked the water out of her wings and began slowly walking away. "I guess that'll have to do."
Rainbow sank into her fluffy cloud pillows, almost disappearing entirely. Not far from her was a large pot of yoghurt. Strawberry flavoured. Calcium was good for bones, after all, and you needed strong bones to have strong wings, and you needed strong wings to be able to fly faster than...
On second thought, screw yoghurt. Nopony likes dairy anyway. Rainbow's head peered out from among the fluffy pillows and eyed a bottle of cider she had refrigerated near a handy little snowcloud she kept in her house at all times. It wasn't hard, but it was sweet, and it was refreshing. Just what she needed.
"Uh, Tank?" she called. She small tortoise flew into the side of the bottle, lazily knocking it down onto the floor where it rolled towards Rainbow's comfortable pillow-fort. Only once it was close enough did her hoof shoot out through the cushions and wrap itself around the cider, before darting back inside. After a sharp snap the bottle cap rolled back out. "Thanks, buddy."
As the cool drink slid down Rainbow's throat, her mind couldn't help but race. Her mind became a maze of vectors and forces, pressures and speeds. She didn't know the words to many of the terms she conjured up in her mind, but she knew what they were. In her way, mostly.
She shook her head. No matter of thinking could help her now. Applejack was right. Everything was designed to slow her down. Air hardened as she flew faster. The very fact she had a shape generated friction. Even her thoughts slowed her down, forcing her to react to every little thing that came her way.
"They ought to call me Rainbow Slow," she muttered, sinking even deeper into the quicksand of cushions.
Tank floated over to her and landed on the small tuft of mane still sticking out of the sea of soft, warm pillows. Every time Rainbow needed to take a sip of her drink, it'd gently shift, but other than that, you could stare at it for hours and never know a pony was hidden inside.
"Hey there," Rainbow muttered, her voice muffled. "I suppose you kinda know what I'm on about, right?"
Tank, being a tortoise, did not reply.
"Yeah, I love you too, buddy." She sighed. "I guess I should focus on being a Wonderbolt before I try breaking physics, huh?"
A moment of silence passed.
"Yeah, I get ya. I'm just gonna be quiet now, if that's cool with you."
Tank retreated into his shell, heading to sleep. No more noise came from the mountain of pillows.
Evening came, and with it a cold beginning-of-Winter chill permeated the air. Applejack wrapped her scarf around her neck, warding off the cold as she trotted through the streets of Ponyville. Many ponies were outside, despite the weather, enjoying what might be the last evening they'd get before it'd become too cold to do so.
Applejack quickened her pace, the exercise warming her muscles and hooves. She hurried through the streets, passing the Sugarcube Corner and Carousel Boutique in no time.
"Oooh, heya, Applejack!" came Pinkie's distinctive voice.
Applejack turned on her heels. "Uh, hey there! Listen, I gotta' be someplace, but I'll catch you later!"
Pinkie sagged in disappointment, but quickly perked up again. "Okie-dokie-lokie! See you around!" she exclaimed before bouncing away.
Applejack carried on her walk, brushing past the ponies trotting through the streets. The sun disappeared behind the faraway mountains entirely, plunging the town into a light blue half-light. As Applejack rounded the last corner, Twilight's castle appeared looming overhead.
Applejack knocked the large double-doors, a shiver beginning to run up her spine. Earth pony fur was light and thin, perfect for warmer weather, but not the cold chill of winter. What Applejack would give to have a pegasus's thick, fluffy fur right about now.
Hoofsteps approached the other side of the doors, and slowly they opened, revealing Twilight's little purple head peering around the side. Her eyes brightened. "Oh, Applejack. What brings you here so late?"
Applejack's teeth began to chatter. "I had a question. And uh... a friendship problem."
Twilight stepped aside, letting Applejack pass through the doorway and into the warmer, pleasantly lit castle beyond. Despite being made out of crystal, a material not renowned for it's insulative properties, the place was always kept at a perfect room temperature. It must be a special kind of crystal, Applejack reasoned.
The pair trotted through into Twilight's living room, a pleasant thing with a fireplace and multiple cushions and carpets. A bottle of warm mulled wine rested next to a small pile of books, hinting at Twilight's activities before Applejack's arrival.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Twilight asked.
Applejack sighed. "Is it... possible to go faster than light?" she asked.
Twilight tapped her chin. "Well, as a matter of fact, ponies have been hinting at faster than light travel for a long time. Many old Crystal Empire artefacts had crystals that vibrated or reacted in sync with each other, regardless of the distance between them. There was also the Great Fires of the Black Isle, which are supposedly so fast you can never see them coming. That's why the place is so dangerous."
"Yeah, but... Ponies travelling faster than light."
Twilight shrugged. "Well, there's always teleportation. But considering our current knowledge on the matter, only magic can bend the rules of space and time in that way." She tilted her head to the side. "Why do you want to know?"
"Rainbow got real upset earlier," Applejack said. "She didn't like thinkin' that she couldn't fly faster than a teleporter."
Twilight chuckled. "Well, it's not about speed, per se. Speed implies distance and time, and teleportation has nothing to do with time whatsoever. How upset was she?"
"Very. I told her it weren't possible. She didn't look none too pleased." Applejack scratched her head. "But... what if I'm wrong?"
"You're not wrong. Currently, everything indicates faster than light travel to be impossible."
"I meant for puttin' her down like that. She's like me. An athlete. A better athlete, in fact. I don't practice nearly as much as she does on account of my work. But we think the same way. I don't think it's right to ask somepony to give up just 'cause it ain't been done before."
"But it's impossible."
Applejack sat down heavily. "You did just say currently."
Twilight sat herself down as well. "So, your problem is that you want to believe anypony can do something if they put their mind to it, and therefore don't want to tell anypony they can't do something, but at the same time, they can't."
"And that's a good thing, too," Applejack went on. "If y'all start thinkin' you can do everythin', you lose sight of what's real."
Twilight tapped her chin. "Do wait a minute, would you? I have something I need to look at."
Applejack's ears pricked up as Twilight trotted off to her own personal library. She edged closer towards the mulled wine, and gave it a sniff. She nodded appreciatively. "Not bad."
When Twilight returned, it was with a stack of papers arranged haphazardly, tied together with string. She dumped them down in front of Applejack.
"What are those?" the farmpony asked.
"These are notes... research... that was published by a Cloudsdale research team," Twilight said. "I copied these down when I found a book about it in the Canterlot library. There was only one copy." She untied the string and handed some of the papers to Applejack. "They were about experimenting with superfast pegasi, and worked alongside the Wonderbolts."
Rainbow's words echoed inside Applejack's head. I don't have armies of science-ponies coming up with weird ways to make ponies fly faster, or big testing chambers to experiment new flying techniques. This... this was exactly that. She began reading.
"I recognise some of these names," she said, looking at the ponies who were in charge of the project. "Lieutenant Spitfire? Who knew she was anythin' other than a captain."
"She was their test flyer," Twilight said.
Applejack kept reading. "Hey, I know this name. Vector Velocity. He makes them flyin' machines for non-pegasi. I was talkin' bout them to Rainbow just earlier." She looked up at Twilight. "Ain't he real smart?"
"Well. Within his own field," Twilight replied. She held up some diagrams and notes. "They were trying to look at the effects high speed had on pegasi. Apparently, a special kind of magic gets unlocked when they approach the sound barrier, and it differs from pony to pony."
"I reckon that Rainbow's is the rainboom, then."
"That would be a safe assumption." Twilight took a deep breath. "Listen, if you really want to support Rainbow... I think you should."
Applejack's brow furrowed. "Didn't y'all just say it weren't possible?"
"Well... yes... But these ponies thought there might be something there. Something worth exploring. Maybe... Just maybe... I'm not one-hundred percent right."
Applejack snorted. "Well, it's too late now. Rainbow's down in the dumps 'bout it. And y'all know she don't trust fancy numbers 'n stuff."
Twilight paused, then smiled. "I have just the way to get her invested," she said. "But first, I need to write some letters." She frowned. "I wonder if Spike can send letters all the way to Cloudsdale..."
Rainbow's eyes opened. This did not prove as effective as she would have liked, since all she could see was pillows. She shifted her weight, and Tank dislodged himself from her head.
"Mmhf. I must have dozed off," she muttered to Tank. "I guess that means you're hungry, huh?"
Tank buzzed around Rainbow as she disengaged herself from her soft and warm prison. Her own stomach rumbled. She had fallen asleep before making dinner. Even yoghurt looked appealing. She trotted into the kitchen and whipped up breakfast for herself and lettuce for Tank. Eggs, she thought to herself. Eggs were what she needed.
She eyed her calendar, and with a grumpy look in her eye crossed off the word 'practice' from it. She looked over at Tank.
"What? I'm not in the mood."
She looked outside. "I guess it's weather work today," she grunted. "Gotta bring in the snow." She looked over at Tank. "Oh yeah, and drop you off at a nice little patch of woodland. Forgot about that." She ran her hoof through her mane. "I'll take you down first, then head to work. Shouldn't be all that hard, right?"
"Yeah, uh, see, the cumuli are the little fluffy clouds. We've already done them. What we need are a bunch of nimbi, see?" came Thunderlane's voice from inside the weather-office.
Rainbow narrowed her eyes. Had Derpy forgotten which clouds were which again? She rolled her eyes. Yet another irritation to deal with. Putting Tank away for Winter had sent her mood plummeting again. She entered the office, glaring at everything, before stopping in her tracks.
Even without his Wonderbolts uniform, it was pretty hard to mistake Soaring, looking at a half dozen pictures of clouds, eyes wide in apprehension.
"Ah, so, which ones are the big ones again?"
Thunderlane looked up at Rainbow Dash, relief flooding his expression. "Oh. Boss-pony. I thought you weren't showing up today?"
Rainbow looked at Soaring, then Thunderlane. She narrowed her eyes.
"Why wouldn't I come to work? What are you doing here? And they're called cumulonimbus," she said in quick succession.
Soaring grinned and scratched the back of his head. "Oh, uh, well, I was instructed to take over for you for a bit by the Cloudsdale Weather Board. Unfortunately, I don't know all that much about weather..."
Thunderlane shrugged. "You'd think a Wonderbolt would know the difference between cirrus and cumulus, but we've been here all morning trying to get him to tell the difference."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. On any other day, she'd be overjoyed to be near the Wonderbolts again, but today, she had only questions. "Why are you taking over for me?"
"Because I said so," came a female voice from behind Rainbow. The young flyer span on her heels, coming face to face with Spitfire's intimidating shades. "Outside. I need a word. Soaring, don't make us look too bad."
Soaring saluted. "You got it, captain! I'll keep our image under acceptable levels of awful as detailed by the 'Bolts handbook, ma'am."
Rainbow looked at Spitfire with a look of complete bewilderment. "Okay, now I'm really confused. Am I under arrest or something?"
Spitfire beckoned Rainbow to follow her. "I do not like that that's where your mind went," she said. "Why would I want to arrest you? Should I arrest you?"
The pair left the building and stood outside. Pegasus fur was the best kind of insulation there was, and neither even felt the chill bite at their skin. In fact, the winter air was pleasantly refreshing.
Spitfire leaned against the wall of the weather-office. "So. I heard that you wanted to fly faster than light."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Okay. Who told you that? Was it Thunderlane, or AJ?"
"Neither. I got a letter on my desk this morning from Princess Twilight." Spitfire leaned closer to Rainbow. "Do you have any idea what kind of stuff we put ourselves through last time? What I had to go through?"
Rainbow held her hooves up. "Hey, hold your horses, I don't know anything about this! I just... I got mad yesterday. I had no idea there was a 'last time'."
Spitfire frowned. "Well, there was. I was the flyer for it."
Rainbow's ears pricked up. "Did it work?"
"What do you think?" Spitfire folded her hooves. "Anyway. If you're gonna come on board, you'll need somepony to cover your shift. That's where Soaring comes in."
"Wait, come on board what?"
"The project. I've been reassigned from drilling recruits and have been moved back onto Vector's little hobby. You think you've got what it takes?" Spitfire snorted. "Let's test that."
"But it's impossible to fly faster than light... isn't it? That's what everypony says."
"Not us. We dumped more money and effort into punching through than anypony else in history. And we made advances. Big advances. We just need the right pony."
Rainbow looked away. "The right pony, huh?" she asked. Her accident the day before flashed in front of her eyes. "Pfft. I can't even fly faster than two Rainbooms. Why would you think I'm the right pony?"
Spitfire recoiled, surprised at Rainbow's uncharacteristic lack of confidence and irritated that she thought flying twice as fast as sound was inconsequential. She opened her mouth to retort, but before she could, Twilight's voice echoed through the street.
"Rainbow Dash!" she cried, causing both Rainbow and Spitfire to look over at the princess, standing not far from them. They weren't the only ones to stop and stare, either. At least a half dozen ponies raised their eyebrows and turned their attention to Twilight and the two pegasi. "I challenge you..."
Don't say it, Rainbow thought.
"...to a race."
Crud.
Twilight trotted up to Rainbow. "You can prepare for as long as you want. But when you're done, I want to race you over a mile behind Ponyville. I'll set up the track and everything."
Rainbow swallowed. Pride and anxiety were at war within her. Startled by the challenge, the ponies in the street paid close attention to her. To everything. Rainbow looked Twilight straight in the eye. This had to be a joke. A prank after all those times she had boasted and bragged.
"Do you accept?"
Rainbow knew that if she insisted on no teleportation, she'd be shot down. And everypony would have heard, too. Rainbow grit her teeth. She was cornered. Trapped by her own friend and ego.
"I..." she began, her voice coming out in bits and pieces, "...accept." She squared her jaw. "Do your worst."
"Likewise," Twilight said with a smile. "I look forwards to it."
Rainbow felt like the world had opened up beneath her, and her wings failed to function. She turned back towards Spitfire.
"So, uh, you wanted me to join your project, right?"
