"Rainbow...???" Twilight Sparkle gnashed her teeth as the lavender forcefield pulled her after Rainbow Dash's rapidly ascending figure. The mesa containing Dark Reach became a distant speck against the slate gray blankness below them. "Rainbow Dash?! What are you doing?!"
"I'm not doing," Rainbow grumbled. "I'm flying!"
"Okay! Why are you flying?!" Twilight squinted into the whipping winds and starlight. "Where are you flying to?!"
"Hold on!" Rainbow's wings blurred faster and faster. "I gotta pick up some speed!"
"What for?" Twilight strained, concentrated, and finally "glided" alongside her anchor. "Rainbow," she spoke firmer, and sterner, once she was adjacent to Rainbow's curved ears. "Rainbow, if you were planning on making a long-distance flight, you really really should have alerted the rest of the Herald."
"Uh huh."
"Don't 'uh huh' me! This is serious! They're all you've got! Besides the girls and me, of course... but... you know what I mean—!"
"I can sense where they are at any time," Rainbow said calmly amidst her speeding ascent. The air grew colder and colder as she gained more and more altitude, nonstop. "If I get lost..." A shrug. "...I'll just wait until Fluttershy wakes up and find my way back to them!"
"You call that a plan?!" Twilight grimaced. She fidgeted even more. "Rainbow, tell me! Where are you going?!"
"I'm just testing something."
"Testing what?"
"The fastest way to a destination is a straight line." Rainbow struggled to speak firmly against the beating winds. Fog formed against Scootaloo's goggles and she had to wipe them clean every once in a while with an agile fetlock so she could see. "We all might be slaves to the curve, but that doesn't mean we've gotta live by it."
"Huh?"
"In other words, buck the circle." Rainbow's body angled Curveside as she repositioned her beating wings. "If there's a way to avoid all of the struggle and crud that Gwen's company went through, then I'd best darn well find it."
Twilight blinked curiously. She looked at where Rainbow's body was now angled.
Rainbow Dash kept the faint golden glow of the Midnight Armory dead-center in her sights. And even though she was flying straight towards it now, the curved landscape bent and fell away. Dead ahead was a monumentally large space that filled the void of the bent plane. It was continents in size, and it cast just as thick a shadow.
"Rainbow..." Twilight gulped. "Rainbow, you can't do this."
"Why not?"
"Look, I don't have time to explain the physics to you!" Twilight frowned. "The world isn't the only thing that's bent. The atmosphere is too!"
"You don't know that," Rainbow said, flying straight into the void that separated her from her golden goal. "This is a realm of chaos!" Something flicked. The goggles glinted with brief red and yellow "So long as we don't know what makes it all work, then what's to stop us from working things out ourselves?!"
"Rainbow, don't be stupid!" Twilight sputtered. "As awesome as you are, there are some things you just can't do!"
"And where has believing in that gotten me, huh?!" Rainbow frowned as she pushed herself against the freezing altitudes. The air grew thinner and thinner; she had to wheeze to produce her words. "Verlax tried to strip me of all I'm good for. Well screw that. Maybe what I need to do here is take control!"
"Rainbow, Verlax tried to do exactly what you're doing right now!" Twilight exclaimed, flailing her forelimb. "And it drove her crazy!"
"Verlax was never crazy." Rainbow clenched her teeth. Frost was starting to form on her mane and eyelashes. She fought the urge to shiver. "Just pathetic."
"Rainbow, even if you can make it far enough to pierce the heavens—you'll still have countless tens of thousands of miles to fly alone in deep space! Don't you get it?! You'd starve to death before you were done!"
"I just need to know... th-that I can..." Rainbow's teeth was chattering. Her coat had turned two shades bluer. "...that... th-that I didn't push us all against the meat grinder d-down below for nothing..."
"Remember, Sparky... the foundations of home will crumble without you."
Rainbow's eyes twitched.
"Rainbow!"
"A right selection or a big mistake..."
"Rainbow!" Twilight's face flickered beyond the fog. "Don't listen to him!"
Rainbow gnashed her teeth. She swung a numb fetlock up and wiped the fog away.
Fangs. Antlers. A mischievous grin. "What a nuisance. How about tossing the Element off?" A glinting smile. "You'll never have to hear her nag you again."
"Grnnngh!" Rainbow Dash flipped a few times, "punching" and "bucking" the air. "Get away from me! Go! Leave!" She hyperventilated and shrieked. All the while the heavens spun, freezing and bone chilling. "I'm never going to... listen..." She coughed. "...to you... a-again..." She wheezed.
It was impossible to breathe.
"Rainbow—!" Twilight cried.
Rainbow's eyes rolled back in her head. Her body went limp, and so did her wings.
A great black crescent twirled beneath her...
...and soon she was plunging towards it. Cold... numb...
And unconscious.
We already know that.
...I have a funny feeling that's a reference to Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
Oh, and she has fallen unconscience once again. Anybody keeping track of how many times she's done this by now?
Well, she failed, but at least she learned from this failure, and maybe through unconsciousness find out something else.
She better fix the icing problem...
aqu52.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/epic-fail-gifs-skateboard-fail.gif
Uh so do ponies in this universe not know there is no air in space or something? Or that it's extremely cold up there? Because this was just plain dumb, like not even a somewhat smart dumb like usual just really stupid.
*sigh*...Damnit, Rainbow...
....welp.
Smash cut to a week later when her dumb ass wakes up?
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
Brilliant Rainbow. If only you could breathe in space.
He actually makes a point.....
Welp....there's that.
Aww Dash, you're not a spaceship silly.
Well, not yet anyway.
For what its worth, I get it. You might not know what's coming, but you know it's going to suck royal donkey balls. Can't really blame you for wanting to find a way around that.
Now wouldn't that have made the whole journey to the midnight Armory so much easier. Sorry rainbow, there's no shortcuts on this train ride. This game has been set to survival difficulty, and there's no fast travel here.
Dashie
No
Rainbow farts are just for breaking wind, not orbit
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Hah, thats right. The main protagonist kept referring to herself as not very clever.
Welp, Spacebow Dash now gets to show us her metroid side of things.
That black crescent is the plane itself but....
The plane is a ringworld segment, from directly above it would be shaped like a rectangle.
It only would look like a crescent from the SIDE!
How high did she fly?!
Good job, RD. Now you have to wake up before going splat on the ground.
https://youtu.be/xqwD-QTo9fc?t=14
I have nothing else to say.
Eeyup
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Non boomer chaos glimmer is bad for paintbucket, yes yes yes
Silly east horse. Space flying is for fourths.
Silly Dash, even Flynn would have trouble givng you that much of a boost.
Oh well, back to the infirmary.
That is unless the pot of petunias and whale have anything to say about it.
Wat.
Why would she...
Where did that come from all of the...
And why didn't she stop doing...
Wat?
durandal.dnsalias.net/imgur/bd9bda4e604e50f372e02449c2860a3d1324498a.jpg
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Probably won't happen. We all know AJ is the Iron Pony.
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Humans can't go much above five miles unassisted. Since Dashie's a Magic East Horse, who knows how high up she made it.
Wonder what the size of the Impact Crater from her hitting the ground is going to be. Also how many bones is she going to break when she hits?
Adding to the list of 'Dash's Wholly Un-awesome Decisions'.
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Ehhh... I'd file that under '∀wesome'.
Gah... it feels like Dash keeps telling us that sure she's had character development, but then she goes and does boneheaded stuff that prove she's not changed a bit.
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The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Well...crap...
It's nice to see that Rainbow now fully recognizes the impact of the late Big Antagonist (and my personal favorite antagonist of the entire series). Nothin ventured, nothing gained; I guess. Though, for doing experiments this high up, there's usually a ground control. This isn't an amazing stupid-idea™. It's a dumb idea. Stupid ideas good, Dash. Dumb ideas bad.
You need to insulate your suit, Iron Man
Just because you're sailing through chaotic space on a magically life-supporting fragment of a sliver of an ancient cosmic megastructure that would give Niven and Dyson a heart attack, physics don't just stop applying to you.
must not make anime reference
On the bright side, it sounds like she passed out while whatever passes for gravity was still working normally. This gravity works in weird and anomalous ways, so we can't make assumptions how far it extends. At least this way, Ariel can catch her.
Anyone remember admiral Tigerclaw's story about high altitude flier Dainty Dish and how Rainbow almost died trying to keep up with her?
I'm . . . not exactly sure what she was attempting to accomplish here. Like, not at all. Was she attempting to prove that she can go into the great chaotic space in the beyond and then come back alive? Because if so, then she really is going crazy. Maybe Seraphimus is right, in a way. Maybe Rainbow is becoming a little unhinged after having to deal with Discord.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuhh... Wut.
This seems like the most malicious thing Discord has done, by far.
Space horse flies down
Wait, wasn't this exactly how Verlax-
Yep. There it is. Try not to get iceberged, Dashie.
I know Dash usually does risky things for the greater good, but that was just stupid.
Ok Rainbow, that wasn't the smartest thing. Good idea but come on.
Rip
Christ, Rainbow, you dumbass...
JESUS RAINBOW STOP
I mean she was also crazy, don't forget that.
Well that went about as well last it was gonna.