Rainbow Dash strolled through the campus, shuddering with each step. The eyes of several hundred students weighed on her—but the voices fluttering past her ears tugged at her body even more.
“Rainbow Dash, I-I think I'm starting to put it all together,” Twilight Sparkle stammered, her voice turning dry and drier by the second. She gulped and fumbled to catch up with the furiously marching pegasus. “You've... you've been through a lot, haven't you? I mean... what Discord did to you, it's obviously taken its toll. But you're different now! You're no longer gray! Just try and reach into your true, harmonic self! I'm your friend! I only want what's best for you... what's best for us... what's best for the Elements and all of Equestria!”
“Ma'am? Uhhhh... Ma'am?” Nick scampered up, still fumbling with his bookbag. “If I could ask you just one thing—uh—ma'am!” He galloped until he was backtrotting in front of Rainbow Dash, facing her with an awkward smile. “I don't take offense to your pushing me or nothing. I mean... eheh... I was once on the School Varsity Hoofball Team. I can take a nasty fall if I have to. But I have to ask...” He cocked his head to the side. “Did you... just come from the Blighted Sea just now?”
Rainbow gnashed her teeth, skirting past him. Meanwhile, Twilight Sparkle chattered into her ear.
“Trust me, Rainbow Dash, if we just look eye to eye and agree to work together, then I'm certain we can get back at Discord for what he's done! I mean... h-he had to have given you a really good reason to abandon the game in the hedge maze, right? I'm certain—” She gasped as she phased through a lamp and a park bench. Fumbling, she resumed her speech with a nervous smile: “I-I'm certain that whatever was done couldn't possibly have been permanent! I mean, how could anything chaotic be permanent without an overseeing sorcerer to maintain the unstable spells—?”
“—legend speaks of islands on the far side of the Ocean. Even continents! Why... before Verlaxion graced the Archipelagos, it's been long theorized that equine beings migrated from a far-off terrestrial location. There are even those who think civilization sprouted from beyond the Great Falls! So if ponies could arrive from the Firmaments—”
“—just need your help in contacting Celestia and Luna, then I'll be out of your mane! At least until I need your help with the Element of Loyalty, of course. But you've already got that on you! So... uh... yaay! As awesome as ever, huh, Rainbow Dash? Please... I'll make it up to you, I promise—”
“—than this latitude for the Archipelagos! So it stands to reason that a pony could have crossed over from the other side! Is that what happened to you, because—eheheheh—if I spent more than a week in the Blight, I'd have gone nuts and begun shoving ponies around myself! You should have seen me prepping for my Architectural Exam during midterms—”
“—all the Wonderbolts Airshow tickets in the world once this all blows over if you would just... please... stop trotting away and look at me!”
By this point, Rainbow Dash was shaking. Furiously. Her muzzle snarled, then exploded as she spun completely around and hollered straight into Twilight's ethereal face. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!”
The resounding echo shook every pony within earshot. Nick about fell on his haunches.
Twilight winced, recoiling as she raised a dainty leg. Her ears folded back as she gulped and opened her meek muzzle again: “But I just—”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!” Rainbow bellowed. Even once the yell was finished, her eyes remained frantic and enlarged. She stared at the lavender phantom like a rabid wolf.
Ponies murmured with one another, gawking at the scene.
Nick chewed on his bottom lip as he shivered. He craned his neck to see what the crazed stranger was glaring at.
Twilight stared back, frozen in place. At last, after a full minute of tense silence, she peeped: “If you could only—”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAUGH!!!” Rainbow Dash yelled so hard and for so long that she collapsed on her fuzzy blue chest, wheezing against the grass. She covered her eyes with her hooves, shuddering. Then, after several panting breaths had finally re-filled her lungs, she peeked into the warm tropical air.
Twilight gazed down at her, dull and bored. “I'm still here, Rainbow,” she muttered.
“Grkkk!” Rainbow instantly hopped to her hooves, the thunderous clop of which made several students gasp and flinch away from the scene. “Grnnngh... hrmmmff!” Furious, the mare spun and prepared to gallop away—when suddenly she froze in place.
Twilight Sparkle blinked.
“... … ...” Rainbow Dash looked aside.
Nick leaned back, as if afraid her stare might be venomous.
Her brow furrowed. With a jerk of the head, she glanced past her flank.
A line of young students flinched. Their eyes were on her. Everypony's eyes were on her.
No one was looking at Twilight.
“... … ...” With full wings spread, Rainbow Dash took flight. It was a slow glide, however, and she coasted her way towards one of the nearby buildings.
Nevertheless, the ponies on campus gasped in dumb shock—as if she had just breathed fire in the process.
“Did you see that?!”
“No way!”
“She'll kill herself!”
“You sure about that? She seems to be just fine...”
“But... b-but how can that be?”
Nick blinked quizzically. Just then, to his side, he heard a resounding yelp.
“Guys! Guys!”
Nick and everypony else turned to look.
A pegasus had stripped of her bookbag, choosing to flap her wings on either side of her. To the mare's own incredulous shock, she was ascending rapidly into the air, unfettered by the elements. “Are... are you seeing this?!”
“Holy cow, Moira! I-I haven't seen you fly since we were East of the Bridge!”
“Cut it out! You'll hurt yourself!”
“No! It's... it's normal!” The mare smiled brightly. “It's just like normal! See?!” She proceeded to glide around in swift circles.
“She's right!” a stallion along the edge of the courtyard threw down his books and flapped his own wings. “Check it!” He lifted up, then blazed past several oak trees, blowing their leaves off while earth pony peers clapped and cheered.
One by one, those with wings began practicing their flight for the first time.
Muzzle agape, Nick tilted his eyes up towards his forehead. With a nervous gulp, he concentrated—then nearly jumped out of his own skin when a purple aura emanated from his horn. “No way...” He glanced at his saddlebag, then levitated his Nautical Engineering book around. “You've got to be kidding me!” He then snarled. “Where were you when I bought that lame-ass hoof tablet?!?!”
That's a war muzzle! Now, show me your war muzzle!
Also, Rainbow brings the magic back?
Also Also, Rainbow is no longer unique. Huh...
Twenty close-hand pushups, ):(. knock 'em out!
WHAT. How do. . . . . they not use magic before. It does say that they were taught that flying is dangerous. But why unicorn magic? Did Nick just use magic for the first time too?
I see it is full of yelling. Please tell me if that is true.
Football In A Nut Shell
edit: AIEEIEE I just typed the name of the one never to be mentioned! Too bad. . .
Poor Twi. RD now has Discord inside of her. Permanent much?
No pony/one needs to even push you. How did you even play hoofball?
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What time is it?
RainBoarke Time.
5799429 At least this far west.
seems to show that magic works farther east, just not this close to the choke
They built a university inside the no-magic zone? Maybe it's meant to discourage powers further east from invading?
I'd say it's earth-pony supremacists, but clearly unicorns and pegasus ponies are willing to come here en masse to study. The no-flying rule must be for their own protection.
Addendum: The existence of this university means the Val Roa & Grand Choke Railroad was probably feasible from a magitechnical (if not economic) standpoint even before Rainbow did her thing at the tower. They might need to run condensing locomotives to avoid having to haul so much water across the desert, but the Choke shouldn't twist basic physics to defy them.
...She's going to have a breakdown at any moment. I can feel it.
I think that Twilight's in the denial phase, judging by her body language.
...Breakdown imminent...
Aaaaaaaaaaaand there it is. Holy cow.
Two things I definitely found interesting in this chapter:
What a cowinkydink. Dude, you have no clue how right those theories are.
As for this:
Well, okay, make that three things: there's Pegasi here
(although given my feeble memory, this may have already been mentioned by Chryssy...)(EDIT: ...wait...wasn't one of the survivors from the Grand Choke expedition a pegasus? Fuuuuuck, I don't remember), and apparently they have trouble with flight....At least, in this area and not until Rainbow Dash got here. The area must've been part of the magic dead zone until recently, since Dash supposedly fixed all that with the Tower stuff and all that. Guess the effects are just now spreading here. That, or they're following Dash in some kind of unseen Harmonic aura.
So Rainbow Dash (or Twilight) can give ponies back their magic now. I'm assuming it was stolen by the Grand Choke a long long time ago
So magic was somehow suddenly restored in a place that had none, right?
Could this mean anything for the choke itself?
Also, omg, I can basically feel Rainbow's frustration. These last two chapters have been almost hard to read due to the non-stop barrage of unsympathetic talk from both Twilight and Nick.
Goddammit, I really want Rainbow to actually realize that Twilight is not actually a hallucination. I don't even know how, but I want it.
The magic is back! The Grand Choke is no longer a choke! Huzzah! Maybe some of the Jurists will make their way over. Or maybe not. They all have things to do now, important things.
-Spirit
Hmm, so I assume something with the Grand Choke or Verlax has caused these ponies to not be able to use magic or fly. Guess Rainbow Dash is spreading harmonic energy to counter act the effect... or she is Dovahkiin.
And Twi's feeling like a Ghost
And it's what she hates the most...
This time she might just disappear!
Hmm...this makes me wonder, that professor and the group of students were talking about the independence of the outlying islands or something like that, right? Just how far away is this "East Bridge"? Where is it located? Is it part of the outlying islands? How many of the islands are also part of the dead zone?
Rainbow's fixing of the magic dead zone could have some unforeseen effects on an inter-societal level depending on the answers to these questions, and that intrigues me.
Now then, if Rainbow would just calm the hay down for once...
5799449 I have a feeling that they couldn't do magic at all. But that "fixing Tower magic dead zone" sounds pretty right. Dammit I need to think while reading and before yelling in circles in the comment box.
I was more under the impression that she shut down the Choke earlier.
Meanwhile, she has some lungs. How long will it be before someone concludes that yelling really, really loud is what fixed things?
Why weren't the Pegasi flying before hand?
I'm kinda confused now...
Also, Dash is still a little out of her gourd.
5799443 So there is a boundary to the dead zone. Did the magic dead zone recede, or is the zone gone? My opinion is on the first.
Not enough hopeless sobbing to resemble college life.
And speaking of sobbing, I'll go weep in a corner.
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Why? Did a building collapse on you back in 'Nam and you've feared them ever since?
This is going to be interesting. Still can't wait until Twilight learns what happened to her and the others. Possibly through means of a Chaos Dash Dizzy Spell? Either way, we have locals for RD to get around to talking to first. Now that they've gotten magic restored they'll surely notice the connection with RDs arrival right? This is gonna be good. All hail Zadubadabu.
Looks like Dash,
Choked the Choke.
Dash came accriss a massive flat stone land, then chasms and canyons, then dunes, the ocean. There was no water there. At that time.
There was a huge super un natural locked weather system in the middle of the ocean linked to a mega dead zone of life and magic.
The rain is heading back to the Choke, the Great Falls are coming back to life.
I wonder if Val Roa is going to be suprised by Sheperd Rock ending up an Island?
How to fix problems in one easy-
AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!
Okay, so I guess I was late to the party.
Anyways, I have a bad feeling about Rainbow's mental state.
She's going to get a lot worse before she gets any better.
Is nobody going to talk about the fact that the Tarkington can now scale the Choke with a cadre of badass Jurors?
I guess bringing that up falls to me, then.
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I think college is more like the stifling of individuality and personal freedom.
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Worse, actually.
I'm an architecture student.
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Nah man looks like Whizzball got there first. But that would be a sweet way to end the book.
Although... I'm conflicted. I want Rainbow Dash to see Roarke again, but since it is now so likely that Applejack will come back in some respect, I don't want it to happen, for Rainbow Dash's sake. She shouldn't have to choose between that.
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I'm theorizing that maybe the Towers were the middle of the magi dead zone. However far it took for Rainbow to walk is how far Rainbow needs to go before flying pegasi are common place again.
5799557 Adding on to that, we don't know how far Rainbow flew between chapters 3 and 4, so for all we know this university is right on the edge of the Blighted Sea (which is what I'm going to call the no-magic zone on the east side of the tower, where on the west side it was the Choke).
5799596 My theory is that the machine in the center of the ocean was absorbing all the magic and physics. And once RD activated/destroyed it, the Grand Choke returned to normal.
5799596
Good point. Half of the Blighted sea could've only been 50meters for all we know, but since Rainbow was moving at roughly .02m per second, it took forever.
Yeah I thought after Rainbow Dash flew out of the tower that the crippling effects of the Grand Choke had been removed
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If you think that's bad, I have a buddy who's a music major. Juries, playing for a panel to decide if you passed a class for a certain instrument, sounds both awful and absolutely terrifying. I can't wait for my advanced genetics courses for microbio.
I'm gonna cry in a corner now
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But it's a Newly Transformed Rainbow Dash.
What if she no longer has them, or they're far less frequent?
5799633 then we cut off twilight's ghost horn with a ghost saw and hook her up to a ghost sequencing machine so that she relives RD's memories like Belle did.
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memecrunch.com/meme/3TDR7/no-chill-over-here/image.png
Jesus dude.
YELLING SOLVES EVERYTHING!!!
5799501 Try finance exams. They're a nightmare
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AGAIN WITH THE YELLING
5799601
Well... We know that the sea extended over the horizon, as Dash couldn't see the other side when she started.
On our world, over the horizon is around 4ish kilometers at sea level, but I can't comment on what it might be here.
5799676 Now I'm scared. I'm only in High School and I'm struggling.
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I'm wondering exactly what's gonna make Dash finally stop and talk to Twilight.
well if this is college lifewait, never mind, I'm not a pony.Hoh my god Rainbow, now people are looking up to you for your flight, not the fact that you have wings
My dear Rainbow, there is more to a young pony's life than impressing people with your wings, so I'm sending you over the sea to where they are normal: College! And, I have an even more essential task for you to complete: make some friends! Again!
Sorry for the double post, but saw this.
Also, hello next final destination? Sounds like at the end of the world, there's a massive waterfall...
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So that's what is learned in colleges. Glad I don't have a student loan.
5799428
Surprised that after generations of the no-magic zone, pegasi and unicorns can't keep away from that side of the bridge.
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5799676
I never judge anyone, because , hey, everyone has different issues in life and they all deal with them in their own way. So who am I to say what's worse for a student?
But I've only slept four hours since Friday, two of which were on a bus on the way home, because I have a deadline for a project on Tuesday, and the teacher felt like increasing the workload at the last moment. I'm only half-way done and I still have a dozen renders and a video to make, and I don't think I'll get any sleep until then, and this is only the first assignment of the semester, and this is only for 'one' class, and I already wanna curl up in a ball and sleep the pain away, but I can't because if I do that, then I may not be done in time.
Where I was going with this? I don't even know anymore. Sorry for rambling.
SO
That Rainbow Dash rascal sure is making an impression here, isn't she?
Craaaaaaawling in my skiiiiiiiin Screaming always heeeeelps!
Sorry
Ah the primal scream. Such a beautiful way to calm an ass down. Though it probably would have worked better if she'd screamed words rather than just noise.
Though maybe now she'll find somewhere private and talk to Twilight.
Also, Twi... we get it, your empathy drive is stunted. But for Celestia's sake... stop yammering at Dash and give her some time to think.
I'd also like to know something, what is the phase of the moon? Hopefully Twilight can point that out at some stage.
"Hey, the moon's in a waxing/waning/new phase, it's only ____ until the next full moon."
-Memories given light, ease a lonely flight. Ynanhluutr.
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I think I have a good one. Take the written exam for, then the oral interview with a panel, covering: theory, construction, safeguards, operations, and control of a nuclear power plant.