I pulled at the straps again. They held tight. “Twilight, help me with that.”
Twilight grabbed the oxygen mask in her hooves and suddenly pressed it to her chest. “…No.”
“Come on, Twilight, we talked about this.”
“This is suicide, Rainbow,” she said, with a hint of tears in her eyes. “You’re going to hurt yourself. I only helped you because I hoped you’d wise up along the way.”
I grinned. “Hello, have we met? I’m Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in Equestria. Seriously, Twilight, drop it, I’m doing it and that’s final. I thought you knew me better than that.”
She sighed. “What if the engine explodes?”
“Pinkie made it,” I pointed out. “Her stuff only explodes when it’s funny. It wouldn’t be very funny if it exploded up there, and Pinkie wouldn’t be able to see it, so I think I’m good.”
“But what’s the point?” Twilight started, finally relenting and connecting the tube of the oxygen mask to the tank on my back, “We’ve been to the Moon already. There are much safer ways to get there. Hay, I could teleport you there if you wish to go again so much. I would need to make about fifteen jumps in quick succession, but I know I can do that, and we’d be there in a minute.”
I stared at her. “I’m not doing that to get to the moon, Twilight! I’m doing it to see if I can.”
She looked at me thoughtfully, checking the fuel level for the fifth time. I bet it’s the same as the first four times. If it isn’t, I have a leak, which would be very uncool. “But have you thought about how you are going to get back?” she asked. “If anything breaks down…”
I scanned the room for a certain napkin. Yes, I kept that napkin. I kept it all this time since you calculated it. You might have forgotten, but I kept it. “Here,” I said, fishing it out from between Applejack’s tools and Pinkie’s emergency candy box. “You wrote it yourself.”
Twilight stared. “Is that…”
“Yes, it’s your calculation of required delta V to reach an orbit around the Moon,” I confirmed. I didn’t even know what delta V was, back then, but the idea stuck. “The one that says that a pegasus should be able to do it, if they can fly fast enough. Well, tell you what, I can fly fast enough. I’m not good at the egghead stuff, but I’ve got you for this. I’m not good at tinkering, but I have Applejack and Pinkie and Rarity. They all doublechecked that. I learned every breathing exercise Fluttershy knew, I can hold my breath for ten minutes. I’ve got enough wing power. I didn’t, a month ago, but now I do. I can get home even if everything breaks.”
Twilight pulled the napkin out of my hoof with her magic and tried to stare a hole through it again.
“I’m an athlete, Twilight, I do stunts,” I said. “I might be reckless, but I’m not stupid. Yes, it’s risky. If it isn’t, what’s the point? I’ve covered every base you could think of.”
She sighed, but finally decided there was nothing else she could say. I actually felt bad for her a bit.
“If it makes you happier,” I said, zipping up the high altitude suit, “It will make me happier that I have a friend watching my back. Even if I never need the help.”
✶ ✶ ✶
The plan was simple.
That’s what I liked about it, it didn’t require much of anything I didn’t know already. Fly up as high as possible, which is why I needed the high altitude suit and the oxygen mask. Go as fast as possible. Up there, high above the clouds, where the air is thin, barely air at all, it’s only me and my wings, and I can accelerate much faster than the air will slow me down. Pegasi fly by magic, you know. We don’t really push against the air, we push against the magic in it. Bigger wings help, but really, it’s all in how you use them.
Once I’ve accelerated enough for compression heating to start – and that’s really, really fast – my trajectory is all that is holding me to the Earth, so I need a rocket engine to give me one last push out of the magic field. If I time it just right, if I get the angle just right, it should only take a few minutes to get captured by the gravity of the Moon and fall down. Wouldn’t want to spend more time in space than absolutely necessary. Pinkie said, that in space, nopony can hear you squee. We didn’t get to test that back then, and I’d rather not do it this time either.
And if I don’t miss the entry angle, I will glide down and land on the other side of the Moon.
I have trained for this. I even studied for this. I can do this.
Piece of cake.
There’s cake and a party waiting for me when I get back. I Pinkie promised I would show up.
I looked down at the Earth, into the cloud layer deep below me, and saw a purple spot following. As I kept accelerating, Twilight tried her best to keep up, she was even leaving a contrail. When I passed the sonic rainboom threshold, I saw that unmistakable pink glow of her magic behind the rainbow, as she tried to do something clever on the spot… Yes, blasting holes for herself in the air to fly faster, and you called me reckless.
But that wasn’t enough. She had to switch to teleporting, crossing miles with every jump, but even that wasn’t enough to keep up, and eventually, I lost sight of her.
My suit was getting hotter, but Rarity’s best work held fast. It’s almost time, the Moon is rising.
I gave it one last push, tilted upwards by gently twisting my wings, and pressed the button of the rocket engine to start the burn.
What remained of the air exploded.
Twilight once told me that the words “Sonic Rainboom” are actually nonsense. It’s not really sonic. Lots of things can go faster than sound, and they don’t make rainbows in the air. Only things that fly by magic do, because when you push magic into magic, magic pushes back. If you push really hard, which you’re not supposed to be able to do, magic goes splat all over your goggles and makes the pretty colors. “Magic Rainboom” would be a better term, but “Sonic” just sounds so much cooler.
That’s old news.
At the edge of the atmosphere, there’s a sharp boundary, like a water surface, where magic stops and space begins. And as I finally crossed it, I saw the infinite wave of rainbow spreading out in all directions, covering the entire Earth in my colors, from Crystal Empire to Badlands, from Griffonstone to Luna Sea, an endless ocean of chromatic light.
And that’s how I knew I was in orbit.
That’s how all my friends knew.
Author's Note
After writing the long and detailed blog post in which I concluded that canonically, Equestria's Earth has to be really, really tiny, this idea stuck and wouldn't let go until I finally wrote it down.
Summer in the Frozen North is sort of a misnomer. When it’s winter, it’s so cold that nopony ventures outside city limits without a full outfit of warm clothing, coat and hat and all, but in summer, one can get away with just a scarf. Barely. Inside the city limits, ponies only wear clothing for formal events, as is the custom across Equestria, but that is only because the city limits are defined by the radius of the shield that covers the Crystal Empire, powered by the Crystal Heart and the love of all the ponies within.
Neither Celestia nor Luna remembered that, which is why they were standing there in the empty field of snow before the shield and pretending they’re not cold at all.
Finally, the shield parted, revealing the self-styled King Sombra, all decked out in his red cape and armor. Behind him, in a sinister, writhing mass of shadow, highlighted with the green and purple of dark magic, trailed an object more akin to a large morningstar without a handle than just about anything else.
“Ah, the mighty suzerains of Equestria,” Sombra began with a sneer, dissolving into a short, low, guttural laugh. “Why have you not sent an envoy ahead? We would have prepared a welcome party worthy of such important visitors. What is your business with the Crystal Empire?”
“You know well what our business is, usurper,” Luna replied dryly.
“No, I do not,” Sombra replied. “The terms of the Equestria Accord state plainly, that the Alicorn Sisters shall not have any say in how the kingdoms of Equestria conduct their internal affairs. Your role is but to guard the signatories from an external threat. You have no business here that I know of.”
“Slavery? Labor camps?” Celestia said coldly, colder than the air and snow. “Even if crimes against equinity do not fall under the purview of the Accord, which is a problem we will remedy soon, we’re not here as your suzerains. We won’t sit idly by when you murder our friends. Nopony would.”
“You have certainly taken your time getting here, then, Princess-s-s-s,” Sombra hissed back. Luna looked away. The news of the death of Princess Amore, delivered by Radiant Hope, who had to make the long and dangerous trek across the snow, alone, before she finally stumbled into the nearest pony settlement, hit Luna harder than her sister. Who was just getting really angry.
“YOU DARE TAUNT ME, MONSTER?!” Celestia bellowed out, slowly but surely turning from white to glowing amber of a miniature sun, her mane bursting into flames.
“That’s king of monsters for you,” Sombra replied with unexpected dignity and calm, and made a step to the side. The object behind him came into the sisters’ view, a complex design of crystal and metal, a sea urchin floating where one has no business floating at all. “No rash moves, princess! Have you heard of the newly discovered earth pony magic of nuclear fission? Crystal Empire is an earth pony kingdom, after all.”
Celestia made a step back, her flames winding down slightly, the expression of fury on her face giving way to abject horror.
“It… it is but a theory!” Luna stated. “None have so far been able to isolate sufficient material to start a chain reaction, or even to determine how much is required, it just doesn’t grow that way!”
“Grow?!” Sombra laughed. “Why grow it, when mining will do just as well? Throw enough pony power at a problem, and everything becomes possible!” Sombra declared, motioning with his hoof towards the device, still gently floating in his bubbling and writhing shadow. “Shall we test it?”
Luna lit up her horn and fired off a quick scanning spell. That confirmed her suspicions, and she made a step back to stand next to her sister, no longer bothering to conceal the tremor of her legs. It was, after all, winter, and not everyone can be a sun princess.
Celestia looked at Luna, who stared back. They needed no words to conclude between themselves, that there was no easy way out. Were they to retreat, Sombra would forever hold this trump card, free to visit untold destruction on Equestria whenever he wants. Were they to fight, there was no guarantee that they would survive, but there was no doubt that many, many crystal ponies would die.
“What do you really want?” Celestia whispered at the king of monsters.
Sombra appeared to actually consider this seriously, as the grin on his face gave way to a grimace. “Revenge for years of torture by Crystal Heart? I don’t need you for that. No, I don’t want anything for myself from you,” he said, pacing around the device. “You ponies have invaded these lands, stolen the Crystal Heart from a dragon who found it, used it to seal my people away from this world, and you dare to ask me what I want?!” He stared at Celestia from behind the sphere. “Swear fealty to me, that would be a start!”
“You know we cannot do that,” Celestia replied, slowly working herself up to fury yet again.
“Then this discussion is over!” Sombra bellowed out, raising the fission device up above his head. “Let’s test this! I know I can survive it. Let’s see what happens to an alicorn princess!” he shouted, sending a surge of dark magic into it, which triggered the explosive components.
A lot of things can happen in the merest fraction of a second. It helps if they start a little before that.
As Sombra has been lifting the device up in the air, Luna sent a bolt of magic into it, crushing several of the explosive charges into dust, while Celestia enveloped herself and her sister into the strongest shield she could muster, putting every available ounce of power into the spell. That was all they had the time to do. That, and cover their eyes with their wings. Celestia’s were bigger.
In that merest fraction of a second, Sombra became nothing but a shadow on the surface of the city’s magical shield… scratch that, this is exactly what he has been in the first place, a shadow pony, an Umbrum given form, so nothing much changed for him. The tremendous force of the explosion shook the earth, and as the ball of Celestia’s shield magic was rolling across the snowy plain, buffeted by the shock wave and bouncing on the typhoon of steaming, evaporating snow, the only thing Luna could think of was that she didn’t destroy enough of the explosive charges. Enough to decrease the yield significantly, but still not enough to prevent the chain reaction at all.
Luna was the first to come to her senses and dig herself out of the snow. She had to spend a few minutes digging further for Celestia, but eventually found a posterior sticking out, the distinct cutie mark prominently displayed – untouched by the flash of the explosion, which was, after all, only as powerful as the sun. The same couldn’t be said for Luna, who was singed, scorched, and had her coat burned off completely in a few places, revealing pasty, tender skin. At least she still had most of her feathers, unlike her sister.
Celestia’s first words when she awoke were, “Luna… Where is the Crystal Empire?”
Instead of the Empire, or even the crater one would expect to see, there was a gigantic mushroom cloud rising to the heavens – but not even the merest sign of the magnificent crystal city. “I think the Crystal Heart actually saved it,” Luna said.
“What do you mean?” Celestia stared.
“Amore told me she designed some really strong protective magic into the very structure of city streets,” Luna said, trying to straighten her feathers with a hoof. “In the event the environment around the city becomes incapable of supporting pony life, it can fold the entire shielded area outside space and time, and keep it there until the danger passes. She was worried that some really cold and long winters would come if the unicorns could no longer raise the sun…”
“Oh,” Celestia said, sitting up and observing her own wings. This would take some magic to restore. “I didn’t know that… Where’s Sombra?”
“Sucked in with them, I think,” Luna sighed.
Celestia stood up and spread her wings, sending a wave of magic across them. “How long do you think it will be?”
Luna looked up at the mushroom cloud, which was already starting to disperse in the upper atmosphere. “Can’t you feel the poison in the air? It will be at least a thousand years… Let’s go. We’re not safe here. And I’m freezing.”
✶ ✶ ✶
“And that’s how the Crystal Empire was made…” Pinkie completed her story. “Or unmade? But it’s here, so it wasn’t. But without that it wouldn’t be, and your mama wouldn’t become the Crystal Princess, and maybe you’d be born in Canterlot, but your name definitely would not be Flurry Heart, and I think I’m rambling and you should sleep, silly filly.”
“Awww…” Flurry Heart whined, making the cutest eyes possible, but Pinkie pretended to ignore that and wrapped the little princess tighter into her blanket. “But I want to know what happened next! Tell me, auntie Pinkie!”
Pinkie just smiled at Flurry – a soft, friendly, encouraging smile, rather than her more usual excited, jumpy one. “They all lived happily ever after. All of them. Princess Celestia still raises the sun every day, and Princess Luna raises the moon every night. You were born right here, when the Crystal Empire reappeared, and the crystal ponies are still sending waves of love and happiness across Equestria as they always did. Even King Sombra returned, was defeated again by your mama and papa and auntie Twilight and Spike, and then came back one more time. His friend Radiant Hope actually convinced him to repent for everything he has done, so they’re still out there, searching for all the shards of Princess Amore, and I’m sure that one day, they will restore her, too. Sleep, little princess. Tomorrow will be another day, and another story, and another party,” Pinkie said, turning off the night light crystal.
“Can they… can they make another bomb like that?” Flurry Heart whispered into the darkness.
“No,” Pinkie said, stopping in the door. “I’ve been born on a rock farm, I should know. Uraninite really just doesn’t grow that way.”
When Flurry Heart fell asleep, her dreams were peaceful, and when the next day came, there was another story and another party, just like Pinkie promised.
Author's Note
Out of the left field, you say? Can't happen, you say? Well, maybe it can't. After all, it's just Pinkie telling Flurry Heart a fairytale, what do you think happened? Maybe she's just being Pinkie.
But once you decide, ask this guy. The yellowish stallion in the back row, with a cutie mark for nuclear physics. He was there when the Crystal Empire vanished, after all, and he was there when it came back.
He might have a darker story for you, or he might tell you it's an atom of lithium and he's actually a psychopharmacologist. It's your call which to believe.
