"Class dismissed!" Rainbow Dash flew up in the air and hovered next to the door as she watched her students file out of the classroom. The final bell had rung. She smiled and waved at the students who left one by one saying their goodbyes. As much as she didn't think she'd ever say it, she liked being a teacher. Kids looked up to her, gave her undivided attention, and listen to every word that she said as she dropped the knowledge of what it meant to be loyal into their brains for five days a week. It was like having a fan club that she was training to be like her; though, she already had a fan club that Scootaloo held every Saturday around noon at the CMC clubhouse. She watched from the window like a secret attendee each week, and she loved every second of it, but it wasn't the same as molding the minds of the youth into lean, mean, loyalty machines. At first, Rainbow didn't think she'd have any form of fun teaching, being crammed into a room with 24 students for 45 minutes, but Twilight's free-form curriculum basically let her and the rest of the girls do whatever they wanted, so Rainbow had free reign over which classrooms she would use and what she would talk about and what she would teach for those 45 minutes.
Speaking of Twilight, that was her first stop after she locked up her room for the day. The school day was now over, and she needed something to do for the rest of the day, or else she would get bored. Luckily, all this school stuff had given her an idea of what that could be, and she needed to convince Twilight to help.
She flew towards Twilight's office saying goodbye to students she passed in the hallway. She grounded herself as soon as she reached Twilight's office door. She knocked firmly, but not too loudly.
"Come in!" Twilight had called. Rainbow opened the door and smiled. Walking into the big office, Rainbow saw Twilight doing paperwork. Rainbow couldn't recall a time in the past month or so where she hadn't seen Twilight doing paperwork when she wasn't teaching. There weren't stacks of papers stacked to the ceiling, but there were always a few little stacks scattered around her desk. Twilight had been working on and off, getting them done between princess duties and teaching duties and headmare duties. Rainbow wondered what the paperwork could be for a second before reminding herself not to get sidetracked.
"Hey, Twilight," Rainbow started simply enough.
"No."
"Aw, what? You didn't even give me a chance," Rainbow whined. Twilight didn't look up from her paperwork.
"I'm sorry, Rainbow, but I can't. I got paperwork," Twilight stated firmly, still not looking up from her paperwork.
"You don't even know what I'm here for," Rainbow retorted.
"It's Wednesday."
"So?"
"You have nothing to do on Wednesday."
Rainbow looked at Twilight, surprised. "Y-You don't know that," she stammered.
"Monday everyone goes home, Tuesdays are game night at Fluttershy's, Thursdays I don't know what you do, and Friday you go home and sleep so you can wake up early to go to your fan club," Twilight listed. Rainbow blushed.
"How do you know that last part?" She asked.
"Everypony, but the ponies in the fan club meetings, know. It's the only reason you would get up before noon on the weekend." This statement caused Rainbow to blush deeper. She physically shook off her flushed feeling before Twilight could catch a glimpse of her crimson cheeks, even though Twilight hadn't looked up at Rainbow Dash since she made it to the office. Twilight wasn't trying to be rude; the paperwork was just essential.
"That's not the point. Yeah, maybe I don't have something to do this evening, but you don't know that I'm here to find something to do."
"This is the seventh week in a row," Twilight said, and, admittedly, she was starting to get tired of it. She had tried letting Rainbow down gently by saying, "Maybe next time," or "Not today, sorry," but this week, she had decided to be firm with her. Twilight knew it wasn't going to be easy, though.
"This time it's different!"
"Oh? Then what is it?" Twilight asked with her quill in her magic, still scribbling words down on the parchment. Rainbow smiled sheepishly and kicked weakly at the ground before replying.
"I want you to do something with me."
"I knew it," Twilight sighed.
"This time, I know what I want to do, and I need you specifically to do it," Rainbow interjected. Twilight scoffed quietly.
"Why don't you go out drinking with Applejack?" She asked.
Rainbow briefly had flashbacks to the last time she went drinking with Applejack, or, at least, what she remembered. She and AJ were having a good time before the two got competitive. Before she knew it, she woke up the next morning to Big Mac, poking her with a stick out of an apple tree covered in applesauce and other fluids that may or may not have been apple-related, underneath Applejack, who was also drenched in applesauce. That same morning they were forced to clean the mess they had made in the barn during their drunken escapades. It's tough to clean applesauce and wood-chips out of hay and off the ground with just a mop. Rainbow shook the memory out of her head before answering. "I have my reasons." Twilight didn't question her any further, giving Rainbow more time to state her case. "Anyway, look, I need you for this, and if you let me explain my case, you'll understand. So just hear me out."
"I'm listening," Twilight said, still working furiously. Rainbow Dash cleared her throat.
"So, I've been liking this whole friendship school thing, and since I'm back in school talking about the Magic of Friendship and the Elements of Harmony, I've been thinking about magic and stuff. Thinking about magic got me thinking about the difference between magic and science-"
"They're the same," Twilight interrupted.
"Whatever. Look, the point is, I was thinking about science-y stuff, and I thought of a question that I knew you could help me answer," Rainbow explained.
"And that question is...?" Twilight questioned.
"You think you can catch lightning in a bottle?"
A pause. The quill enveloped in Twilight's magic stopped writing. Twilight blinked twice quickly and looked up at a nervously smiling Rainbow for the first time since the conversation started, trying to process the question. "What?"
"You know, is it possible to catch lightning in a bottle?" Rainbow repeated.
Twilight nodded once before shaking her head. "Yeah, no. That's not possible."
Rainbow frowned and pouted, "Aw! You don't know that."
"Do you think it is?" Twilight asked.
Rainbow sat and shrugged. "I dunno. I'd like to believe that it is."
"And why do you think that?" Twilight questioned.
"I mean, why, else would the phrase mean 'extremely difficult' and not 'impossible'?" Twilight rubbed the space between her eyebrows with a hoof and sighed.
"Are you using the meaning of a common phrase to justify your argument?"
"Probably," Rainbow replied confidently, "But hey, thinking about it, I've never learned of the pony who tested whether or not lightning could be caught in a bottle, have you?" Twilight shook her head incredulously.
"Nopony has done it because it's common sense that it wouldn't work," she said.
"And the power to shoot rainbow lasers because of the power of friendship is common sense, too? C'mon Twilight," Rainbow responds. Twilight stays quiet for a second, looking at her friend. Rainbow Dash was right. The magic of friendship wasn't something she called "common sense." Before she moved to Ponyville, Twilight didn't think other ponies were needed for anything. She had thought she could do anything herself. Also, who knew you could weaponize rainbows?
Twilight looked down at the paperwork on her desk then back at Rainbow Dash, who was giving her a pleading puppy-dog face. She couldn't do it as well as Rarity or the CMC, but it was sufficient enough to sway Twilight's decision. After another second of thought, Twilight sighed. "Screw it. Why not?"
"Yes!" Rainbow flew up, and hoof pumped as Twilight got up from her chair and started walking toward the door of the office.
"Follow me. I have a place for us to work and experiment," Twilight said, locking her office for the evening. Rainbow tilted her head, perplexed.
"We aren't going to use the school science lab?" She asked. Twilight chuckled leading Rainbow to the front of the School of Friendship.
"Oh, Rainbow. We're not using some rinky-dink school science lab. No, if I'm indulging this, we're doing this right. Plus, if all goes like I think it will, we wouldn't have somewhere to take cover in the school science lab." She said. Rainbow's look changed from confusion to slight worry.
"Take cover? W-why would we need to take cover?" Rainbow asked, hovering over Twilight's shoulder as she followed Twilight outside. Twilight stayed quiet and focused on leading Rainbow Dash through the castle, into the library to a bookshelf off to the right. Rainbow hadn't stopped asking why they would need cover and why she wasn't talking and was in the middle of a third question when Twilight's horn glowed with magic. The magic engulfed the bookshelf, and, with little effort, Twilight moved the bookshelf to reveal what was behind the slight roadblock.
"A wall," Rainbow said disappointedly. Behind the bookshelf was the purplish-blue of the castle wall. Twilight nodded slightly. Rainbow looked at her friend, worried that all that work had slowly warped Twilight's mind toward insanity, and she was the pony who had broken her. Rainbow Dash grounded herself and watched Twilight more. Twilight staring steadfast and unblinkingly at the wall in front of them, a small smile visible on the princess's lips, just about confirmed Rainbow's worries. A wave of emotion hit her at once. A tidal wave of tears fought to escape Rainbow's eyes, and her body was fighting against a personalized earthquake her knees were trying to initiate. She had to stay strong. She had to remain strong for Twilight. If she broke down, Twilight would ask what was wrong, not knowing that her own mind was gone. Rainbow Dash lets a single emotion-filled tear escape from her bottom eyelid. "Farewell, my friend," Rainbow Dash muttered, wiping the tear from her cheek with a hoof. She sniffled a little before looking stoically at her friend. Twilight turned around.
"You say something?"
"Oh! No! No. I didn't say anything." Rainbow shook her head violently. Twilight looked back a little suspiciously.
"You okay?"
"Yup! Totally fine," Rainbow Dash beamed with false positivity. Twilight thought nothing more of it and went back to looking at the wall, to Rainbow's dismay. Twilight closed her eyes as her horn glowed magenta with magic. The magical hold soon took hold of the wall, outlining a rectangle. Rainbow Dash thought that her friend was now trying to use telekinesis and move the wall. But, to her surprise, after a second, the magic receded from both the wall and Twilight's horn as the wall faded away, revealing a tall, dark passageway wide enough for a pony to comfortably fit with stairs leading downward. Rainbow's jaw dropped. "H-how...?" she trailed off, unable to get any more words out.
"Illusory Wall. It's been a while since I used that spell. I wanted to make sure I remembered it right," Twilight said, taking her first steps down the stairs into the abyss. "C'mon! The place is this way!" Twilight waved a hoof before continuing down the stairs, an illumination spell stuck to the tip of her horn. Rainbow walked to the edge of the passage watching her friend's light continue downwards into the darkness. The thought of her friend becoming crazy quieted a little, but the idea resurfaced with a bit of a change.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to kill me, Twilight," the blue pegasus muttered under her breath while reluctantly following Twilight down the stairs.
Following Twilight's light downstairs, it was about a minute walk down until the stairs leveled out to a long hallway that took another minute to step down. That hallway opened up to a large room with linoleum floors. Twilight moved forward a little and lifted the light spell off her horn and upward toward the ceiling, just barely illuminating a giant lantern suspended from a large metal chain. Twilight set the light into the giant lantern, not only fully Illuminating that lantern but causing a magical chain reaction lighting up all the smaller lamps on the wall illuminating the whole room in white light. It was a massive laboratory. Lab stations, flasks, beakers, anything stereotypical to find in a lab, Twilight had it in that room.
"This is where we are going to work," Twilight stated, admiring her laboratory. Rainbow looked over to Twilight, who had somehow gotten into a lab coat.
"How long have you had this place just... under here?" Rainbow Dash asked, dumbfounded. Twilight turned to face her friend.
"Probably about a month after I became a fully-fledged princess," Twilight said. Rainbow nodded before the time frame re sunk in, and she became baffled.
"So, you've had this lab here for over two years?"
"Yep."
"Under this random spot of the ground?" Rainbow asked. Twilight shook her head.
"No, no. It used to be underneath the library. When Tirek destroyed it, and the castle appeared, I moved the lab over here," Twilight explained.
Rainbow Dash nodded again, seemingly understanding, before tilting her head at an angle in more profound confusion. "How," she asked.
"Equivalent exchange. I used volumetric exchange magic and took this space from under the library and grabbed the same volume of dirt from here and switched them." Twilight walked deeper into the room as her horn started to glow once more, "Now are we going to experiment or am I going to answer questions until Luna raises the moon."
Rainbow followed in earnest behind the alicorn as Twilight's horn revealed a dark steel dome with a hole at the top and observation windows on the side. Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash and then to the back wall where she motioned to another passageway with stairs. "Well, we need lightning to get started, so that will be your duty. There's the back entrance. Get a few small ones and return to the back," Twilight instructed. Rainbow Dash salutes and becomes a rainbow blur as she zooms up the stairs and out the back entrance.
Rainbow Dash smiled and immediately made her way toward the weather factory. If it were any other day, she'd sneak in, create a few storm clouds, and leave. Creating clouds is relatively quick, but it would still take a few minutes to make all of the clouds she would need, and if she got caught, she'd have to think of an explanation on why she needed them, which would not go over nicely. That would be any other day. That Wednesday was a different story because a storm was already scheduled for that evening, so the storm clouds were already; she just needed to get them out of the factory back to the lab safely.
Thanks to her speed, Rainbow Dash popped in and out of the factory in a couple of minutes undetected. She quickly headed back to the rear entrance of the laboratory. She races down to find Twilight waiting with several glass bottles on a workbench in front of the metal dome. Twilight looks over to her and smiles.
"How many storm clouds did you bring?" Twilight asked.
"Three," Rainbow answered as she showed off the three small black storm clouds. Each cloud was about double the size of her hoof and just brimming with lightning. Twilight nodded and pointed a hoof to the top of the dome.
"There's an opening on top of the dome place a cloud up there and wait for my signal. That's when you'll the cloud aiming the lightning at the bottle. Think you can do that?" Rainbow nodded vigorously and flew up to the dome opening as Twilight teleported a table and one of the bottles on the workbench into the dome and watched through one of the observation windows. Twilight looked up to Rainbow, seeing that she was already in a cloud-striking position looking back at the alicorn waiting for the signal. Twilight looked back through the observation window and put on a pair of safety shades.
"Now!" She shouted, and a split second later, the lab was engulfed in a blinding white light as if the sun had teleported into the room. A seemingly distant rumbling of thunder accompanied the lightning. The sound of shattering glass could be heard over the roar of thunder. As quickly as the lightning struck, it disappeared, and Twilight flipped off her safety shades to observe the aftermath. As she thought the bottle had been completely and utterly destroyed. There were tiny scratch marks were the glass from the bottle had struck the window, and as Twilight got closer, she saw the remaining shards scattered on the ground. Rainbow floated down and observed the scene a little disappointed.
"Aw man," she exclaimed. Twilight looked over to Rainbow and sighed.
"What did you expect? It's a bottle vs. a force of nature. Nature was bond to win." Rainbow returned the statement with a sigh of her own.
"Yeah, but I thought it would be at least a bit more...exciting."
Twilight looked back at the lone table surrounded by glass shards. She teleported another of the bottles into the dome then enveloping the bottle in her magic before releasing it once more and turning away. Rainbow Dash, thinking they were done, looked at her friend in confusion. Twilight stood behind the workbench and looked back at Rainbow Dash. "Oh, we're not done, yet," she started, "That was just the control. I put a reinforcement spell on the bottle, so it shouldn't shatter when the lightning strikes, so get into position. We're going again." Twilight flipped on her shades again as Rainbow flew up to the opening and readied the second storm cloud almost unable to contain her enthusiasm and wait on Twilight's signal.
Twilight checked on Rainbow before giving her the signal and yet again a bright light accompanied by a light rumble of thunder. This time instead of shattering glass, rapid tapping was heard, and like this time, the light stayed around slowly dissipating. Even though it would take another minute to look at it normally, using her safety shades, Twilight was already able to understand what was going on in the dome, and she was shocked. The bolt was bouncing forcefully around inside of the bottle after expending most of its initial energy, shaking it around the table while the bolt itself slowly got smaller and smaller. By the time the lightning bolt ran out of energy and disappeared, Twilight had taken off her shades to get closer and was joined by Rainbow Dash to watch the spectacle happening before their eyes.
The two mares looked at each other with excited looks once the show was done. Rainbow was teetering on Pinkie Pie levels of happiness. They had done it, almost. It was possible, with a little tweaking, but the small stuff didn't matter to her. They were a step closer to catching lightning in a bottle, and that's all that mattered, and she would leave that final tweaking to Twilight. As Rainbow looked into Twilight's eyes, she could see her friend's mind racing at a few hundred miles a minute. The ramifications of what they just did were evident in her mind. If they could have captured that bolt, the energy output of that could be used somehow and start the push of a new technological age. They could have electricity. Gone are the days of lanterns and spells for light. New appliances and devices can be invented, creating a more curious society, which means more exploration and more inventions. It becomes a positive feedback loop of innovation. Twilight scrambled in her mind thinking of ways to store the energy. What material would be able to act as a conduit for the electricity? What could she put in the bottle? Pulling apart the question and going through the list of possibilities, Twilight started to pace around the steel dome quietly muttered to herself as Rainbow Dash watched on. The scientist continued to walk around the dome, and after a few laps, she absentmindedly stuck out her hoof to touch the dome. She quickly pulled her hoof back in slight pain and mild confusion. She looked back at the dome and tentatively stuck her hoof back out and was met with the same jolt of pain as before. Twilight hadn't even touched the wall, but she saw a quick tiny flash of light jumping from the dome to her hoof. Twilight had been shocked. The first bolt must have bounced and dispersed into the wall after destroying the bottle.
That's when It struck her. She quickly ran over to a storage cabinet full of different materials she used for experiments and found some steel ingots. Using her magic, she broke off a piece and turned it into a steel rod. She rushed back to the table where the final glass bottle was prepared, swiftly stuffed the rod into the bottle, teleported and cast her reinforcement spell, and turned to her cyan friend who had been watching in silence.
"Rainbow. Positions."
Without a word, Rainbow grabbed the last remaining storm cloud and zipped back to her spot. The look Twilight gave her signaled that she had an epiphany. From that look, Rainbow knew that this was serious. Twilight flipped down her protective shades. She gave Rainbow the signal one last time, anxiously waiting for the results. The flash and boom came and went; all that was left was the aftermath. Twilight moved to the observation window with a creeping smile. The whole bottle was noticeably shaking once again, and an audible hum could be heard. In the bottle was a bright red rod periodically crackling with bolts of electricity. Rainbow soon descended from her position to join Twilight. After a few seconds of stunned silence, they both turn to each other, smiles plastered on their faces and cheer in uproarious laughter and happiness. The two mares dance around both on land and air, unable to contain their excitement. They had caught lightning in a bottle. Sure, they needed a few more things than just a bottle and lightning, but the result speaks for itself.
"We did it! We actually did it! Rainbow, do you know what this means?" Twilight asked wide-eyed while Rainbow continued to dance in the air. While glancing at her friend, Rainbow Dash flashed a cocky grin.
"Uh, that I was right, and I'm awesome for thinking of something that no other pony had thought of actually trying?" She answered, pausing her victory dance to strike a pose and revel in her self-confidence. Twilight flew up to the rainbow-maned pegasus and placed her hooves on her shoulders, half ignoring the rhetorical answer given to her.
"This has the potential to change Equestria as we know it," she points to the bottle, "Think of all that energy stored in there. What if we figured out a way to power things. That power could help everypony in Equestria." Rainbow Dash stared deep into Twilight Sparkle's eyes. Excitement shimmered in her irises, but Rainbow could faintly see a hint crazy hidden behind all that excitement. But as soon as she caught on, Twilight turned and looked at the dome. "We need to see how much energy we can safely store," Twilight continued, "Rainbow go get bigger storm clouds. We still have some experimenting to do." Caught up in the excitement, Rainbow saluted and zoomed back out to appropriate some storm clouds.
For the next two hours, Rainbow Dash and Twilight continued to experiment, gradually increasing the size of the bottles, steel rods as well as the clouds. Success after success, the two mares stepped up their game, bringing bigger and bigger testing materials. Eventually, the dome was too small to contain the bottle, and they moved over into the open space of the lab. But after a while, the lab, even with its high ceiling, wasn't able to hold their operation. The clouds were so big the Rainbow Dash had to bring in multiple smaller clouds and stuff them together to make one supercloud. Twilight was no different. She started out using bigger and bigger bottles, but when she ran out of those, she turned to other lab equipment made of glass and used her magic to stitch them together to make huge bottles. She did the same with the steel she had. Finally, all that was left in the lab was the bottle, the looming storm cloud taking up most of the ceiling, the dome, and whatever else wasn't glass or steel.
Twilight looked at the glowing bottle that was more than four or five times her height and frowned slightly. Rainbow, standing next to her somewhat out of breath from all the flying, looked on with pride. The two had gotten used to the site and the vibrations, which felt like a small perpetual earthquake. Rainbow took out her newly needed earplugs and turned to her lavender, alicorn friend. Seeing Rainbow's face, her Twilight did the same.
"Why are you looking down?" Rainbow started, "I can't wait to show this to everyone." She turned back to the bottle and daydreamed about possible parades dedicated to her and this discovery. Hundreds of ponies chanting her name. Floats and balloons in her likeness. She'd be more popular than she was in the Wonderbolts.
Twilight also turns back to the large bottle buzzing with power. She stared at it, taking in its splendor one more time. "We need to move this outside," Twilight stated. Rainbow, caught up in the spectacle of the moment, absentmindedly nods her head. The second she realizes what was said, her head snaps over to her in concerned confusion.
"Take this outside? Twilight, you know I'm all for this experiment, and the breakthrough we've made is great, but wouldn't taking this thing outside be Incredibly dangerous?" For extra emphasis, Rainbow gestured to the massive looming cloud right above them. Twilight glanced up and thought about the situation for a second. She understood where her friend was coming from, but she needed one last bit of data to see how far she could push this.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Rainbow," She says with a self-confident smirk. Twilight was steadfast in her decision, and Rainbow Dash knew that. Nothing she said was going to get to her, so she opted for a compromise.
"Just promise me this is the last test. I don't know how many more clouds I can sneak away with at this point." Twilight nodded in agreement.
"Promise."
Twilight then enveloped the whole room in her magic, and suddenly the two ponies were outside behind the castle. The rumble of thunder made the cloud's presence known to the rest of Ponyville. As soon as Rainbow got her bearings together, Twilight was already giving her final orders.
"Round up as many clouds as you can. I'll handle the rest." Without another word, Rainbow took off, leaving Twilight to scrounge up as much glass as she could to make the bottle. She started by cannibalizing the other glass jar and then pulling from windows from surrounding buildings. Under her breath, she silently apologized and promised to put back at the glass used. All the windows, from houses to restaurants to Trixie's wagon, within a wide radius, broke through their window sills and made their way to Twilight. All this casual window theft didn't go unnoticed by the citizens of Ponyville, however, and soon ponies followed the floating glass to find Twilight creating a bottle that would size up to be about half the size of the Princess of Friendship's castle. They would then look up to see the storm cloud directly above them that was steadily growing larger.
Rainbow Dash was zipping back and forth, quickly gathering clouds from the area. The weather pegasi had already started moving the storm clouds into position, so taking them was now both easier and harder. It was easier to get to storm clouds, but it was harder to go unseen. Of course, eventually, Rainbow got spotted by Sunshower, who gave chase, and after about two minutes, the rest of the weather control team was after Rainbow as she continued to add to the storm cloud. After noticing the bottle was just about done and the fact that she had almost doubled the size of the previous cloud, she made a pass by her friend yelling, "Is that a good enough size?"
Twilight whipped her head up to see the blanket of dark grey above her and the growing crowd. She grinned and went back to concentrating on her magic as she replied with, "Yeah, that's perfect! Just get in position!"
As Rainbow flew off, trailing ponies, Twilight contorted the steel dome into the final piece and placed the last steel rod into the bottle. Twilight let out a sigh of relief before starting to acknowledge the confused and somewhat angry ponies that had gathered. Pushing through the crowd, AppleJack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie stood in front of Twilight with varying emotions ranging from intrigued and excited to justifiably worried and concerned.
"Twilight, what in tarnation is going on? I'm backing up my stall getting ready to head home for the day when all of a sudden, I see windows moving by themselves. And here you are in the middle of it."
"Yeah! What's with all the ponies and the big cloud above the castle and the giant bottle," Pinkie squeezed out before gasping as if she had an epiphany. "Are you throwing a Rainy-Day-Bottle-Appreciation Party?" The pink mare asked.
Twilight glanced at the orange and pink earth ponies before her horn lit up one last time, enveloping the giant bottle in magic once again and reinforcing it. She then turned back to Applejack with steadfast eyes, calmy exclaiming, "Science."
Immediately afterward, Twilight gave Rainbow Dash the final signal. Rainbow successfully shook off her pursuers and used her whole body to slam into the cloud. Thanks to the other experiments, the two knew that with a cloud this size, it would take a little more than a second for the bolt of lightning to be processed and expelled. So with bated breath, they watched the energy from Rainbow be transferred from one side of the cloud to the other. Once the shockwave settled, the two ponies covered their ears and closed their eyes in anticipation, but nothing came. After five seconds of waiting, Rainbow began to panic and turned to her former pursuers. "Hurry! Tell everypony to get as far away from here as possible," she ordered before rushing down to Twilight. "Twilight, we have a problem!"
"What's wrong, Rainbow? What happened to the bolt of lightning?"
"It was a dud." Rainbow could stop glancing back up at the behemoth of a cloud above them, nervously. "We need to move quickly."
"Why? If it was just a dud, Why don't we just hit it again?" Twilight studied her friend. Rainbow was worried sick. Her whole body was trembling, and even though she hadn't shown any sign of exhaustion the entire evening, The cyan pegasus was sweating profusely. 'She can't seriously be this worried about a bolt failing to form in the cloud, could she?' twilight thought. 'Her ego must be a lot more fragile than I thought.'
"No, Twilight!" Rainbow began in urgency, "If a cloud that big fires a dud, it could-." but before she could finish, the two mares were blinded and subsequently deafened as the cloud finally expelled the lightning bolt. Thanks to their setup, the bolt stuck accurate, hitting the bottle dead on the mark. And after the floating dots were out of the mares' eyes, they could see the glowing beacon in front of them. However, what had let Twilight and Rainbow know that their plan worked were the tremors created by the jar. The vibrations coming off of it were so powerful that ponies a few hundred feet away could feel them.
Twilight looked at the bottle, finally content and eager to write about this experiment in one of her many scientific journals, but she knew that cleaning up her work station came first. Not to mention the time it would take to explain everything to the citizens of Ponyville. Twilight figured that she should hurry so she wouldn't forget any details, so she turned to Rainbow Dash to get started breaking up the cloud and let the rainy evening start. She was about to say something, but Rainbow's look halted her. Rainbow was shaking in worry, searching around them for something, and glancing back at the cloud often. She was fidgeting with her front hooves. She looked eager to leave the area. Rainbow turned to Twilight suddenly and with dread in her eyes said, "Twilight, we need to get out of here now."
"Why," Twilight started, "It wasn't a dud. The plan worked, and we're done for the day. All we have to do is clean up. Everything should-" And just like Rainbow about a minute before, Twilight got cut off by another bolt of lightning, this time followed by torrential rains. Rainbow cursed under her breath. She began to sprint toward the ponies that were instructed to move by the weather pegasi. Twilight followed instinctually.
"Where are you going? What's going on?"Twilight cried.
"Once a cloud gets to a certain size, the chances of a dud bolt happening increases as the cloud's size increases. The thing is if that happens, the larger the cloud, the more likely the dud will set off a chain reaction causing the cloud to go berzerk," As if listening to Rainbow's explanation, another bolt touched down next to the two mares. Rainbow looked back to make sure that Twilight was safe before continuing, "A berzerk cloud this size could cause a lot of damage, so we need to break it up quickly." As if on cue, the cloud expells another bolt of lightning right next to the two running mares. The two make it to the weather team and ask them for help after a quick apology. Knowing the potential outcome, they didn't hesitate to agree. One quick look and they could see that the cloud was beginning to move, so they needed to act quick.
In this situation, it was Rainbow Dash who was able to formulate a plan and quickly explain it to the group. They promptly rushed around town things made of metal and gathered around near the cloud. Twilight used her magic to change the trinkets and objects to make them into several makeshift rods about ten feet each and stuck them into the ground around her. Once Rainbow and the others made sure the rods where secure, they flew towards the cloud in a tight formation. Rainbow knew that if they tried to break up the cloud bit by bit, they would be there forever, and the town would be destroyed, so she chose a faster, albeit slightly more dangerous way. The pegasus team consisted of nine ponies, including Rainbow herself. Rainbow would lead the team to the southern center of the cloud. From there, they would fly up into the cloud to the actual center. Once they reach the center of the cloud, they would split into eight other directions: front, back east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest while Rainbow continued north. That should cause the cloud break-up into big but manageable chunks, and from then on, it would be regular cloud kicking. That was the plan. While the Pegasus team was doing that, Twilight would be protecting the buildings and ponies with barriers once all the rods placed in the ground to use as lightning bait where struck. Rainbow told her a trick to predicting where the lightning would strike. Natural lightning glows for a second before going off; Twilight should be able to put up a protective barrier around the area before it was struck by lightning using that glow.
With preparations complete, the plan was underway. The pegasi flew fast and smoothed through the wind and rain. The lightning rods in the ground helped the group not get hit by lightning, and everything was going according to plan. The group of pegasi burrowed up into the cloud's center and split up into their directions. Fortunately, everypony made it out soaked in a puff of cloud at around the same time. Rainbow popped out of the top of the cloud and looked down to see if the plan had worked.
It didn't work. Rainbow hadn't accounted for the thickness of the cloud, so when she looked down, all she saw was a pony-sized hole in the top of the cloud, and that was it. The cloud didn't break apart. It was still as massive as ever. Rainbow flew back to the ground using the new hole as a shortcut, racking her brain for another solution. She hoped Twilight would be able to help, but the ground plan had also gone awry. The ponies she could see were safe, which was a good thing, but several buildings where destroyed. Twilight looked tired and strained from all the magical effort she had exerted the two minutes that the plan had started. She was sweating and panting a little, but she was still keeping focus when Rainbow came in with the bad news.
"Twi, I've got bad news!"
Twilight strained to keep focus by only sparing glances at her prismatic friend. "Did it not work?" She asked through gritted teeth.
"No. The cloud was thicker than I thought. We need another plan. We need something to slice through the cloud fully. So do you have any ideas?" Rainbow batted her eyes and placed a wide smile next to her friend. Twilight sighed heavily as she just barely protected a house.
"Try a... Rainboom," she stammered, "the rainbow should be able to... cut it in half at least."
Rainbow looked up at the cloud and nodded. "Thanks, Twi! Keep up the good work!" Rainbow Dash yelled back at her struggling friend as she zoomed back through the cloud. Once through, she kept going upward, creating enough distance to perform a Sonic Rainboom inside the cloud. When she thought she was high enough, Rainbow looked down at the behemoth and took in a deep breath before flapping her wings as hard as she could, diving straight toward the city's terrorizer. The faster she flew, the more she straightened out her body to be as straight as possible. Soon enough, she could feel the cone start to form, and she prepared for the plunge.
Without breaking form, she entered the cloud with a final flap of her wings. After that, Rainbow let gravity do its job as she kept as straight as an arrow. The cone got sharper and sharper, and even in the grey-ish black of the cloud, she could see the sparks of rainbow jumping out. She steeled her gaze started to count down aloud.
"3..."
Rainbow Dash was so used to this that she didn't struggle to keep her hooves steady as the wind resisted with everything it had.
"2..."
She could feel the air around her compress around her entire body as the cone came to a point, the rainbow growing brighter.
"1..."
The moment right before she broke through that barrier of air, she could feel that she had made it to the center. Even though she was surrounded by wind and pelted and fighting the sound barrier, she could tell the corridor made of cloud had opened up and became more spherical thanks to the weather pegasi. She had done it.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, exhausted from defending the citizens of Ponyville and their homes from the massive cloud that she created, heard a loud boom, and for a few moments, she felt like it had stopped raining. She watched the cloud hoping that no rain or sweat got in her eye when she saw it — the Sonic Rainboom. The familiar circular rainbow extended outward, slicing the cloud in half. The force Rainbow Dash exerted on the lower half of the cloud instantly obliterated it, only leaving the top half. Twilight saw Rainbow pull up and begin to work on the other half. Twilight faintly heard her friend call out, and soon the weather pegasi joined in the cleanup once again. Twilight sat down and sighed in relief with a smile on her face as she admired the circular rainbow. Soon the cumulonimbus was no more, and they started to set on this eventful day.
Rainbow Dash landed and sat next to her friend, and they took a moment to look at the town. Everypony was safe, but a few houses and shops had been partially destroyed, the roads were a mess, every building was partially flooded, products to be sold were ruined, and peeking a bit behind the Castle of Friendship was the glass bottle. Rainbow Dash let out a sigh, partially in relief and partially in anticipated stress.
"We really did a number on the town, didn't we?" She asked a little amused.
"Yep. It's gonna take a bit of time to repair all this. Not to mention having to explain to everypony why we borrowed most of the glass in the town and created a giant storm cloud in the first place," Twilight replied. Rainbow chuckled a bit.
"For Science?" Rainbow cast a sidelong glance to her alicorn friend as Twilight nodded and sighed again.
"For Science," Twilight said, returning the gaze before looking back to the town, "Science that got a little out of hand."
Rainbow let out a small grunt in agreement and looked back at the Castle looming over the partially destroyed town. The town's ponies were starting to come out of hiding and began to mill around Ponyville. Most of them had a mixture of anger, sadness, and confusion on their faces. The two sat in silence for a few moments while watching everypony before Twilight spoke up again.
"More experiments next week?"
"Yes."