Awesome As I Wanna Be

Chapter 18: Brainstorming

Sunset, Twilight, Pinkie, Applejack, Fluttershy and Rarity were all stood or sat outside the police station. Once they had heard from her parents that Rainbow was in hospital and then prison, they had rushed here to come and see her. They all felt dreadful but at different degrees as to how they had reacted around Rainbow lately. Nothing that was happening to her was her fault and they shouldn't have tried to push her to talk to them. It's not like they shared everything with each other the minute it happened either, especially if it was very personal to them.

Sunset probably felt the worse, she'd pushed Rainbow the hardest to tell everyone what was going on. She'd been there when that woman attacked and had only yelled at her afterwards. Considering all the things she had done in the past, Sunset considered it very inconsiderate and hypocritical of herself to start frowning upon Rainbow. This is partly why she was so confused to see said attacker, walking out of the prison following Rainbow and her family. Despite what the woman had told her, it sounded far-fetched even if Rainbow had stated similar things. Standing up, she pointed behind them. "Hey Rainbow, you know that she is behind you, right?" A frown etched itself across her face.

Rainbow laughed and sighed as Madam Gradient made indignant noises. "Yes Sunset, I know." She smiled at looked at all of her friends. "It's good to see you all, I'm glad you're here." Rainbow made her way around the group and hugged each of them in turn.

Afterwards, Applejack looked around at them all. "You're right Sugercube, we're all glad to be here as well. Although do y'all intend to tell us what's going on, or do we have to guess?" She grinned as she folded her arms. The other girls also looked curiously at the group.

Madam Gradient looked at all of the expectant faces around her. "Well, as I'm sure you all remember from what I've told you, you have another threat on your hands. However from what I've learnt from you, threats with magical powers are not that difficult for you to fight." She turned to Rainbow who had been studying the sky. "What do you think we should do first?" Rainbow looked surprised by the question and turned away from her thoughts.

Turning to her friends and family, a thoughtful expression took over her face. "Mum, Dad, you two can go to wherever our new home is. Get settled in, you've done plenty." She hugged them both and let them kiss her.

Windy wiped her eyes with a smile. "Okay Rainbow, take care. Come along, Bow." She grinned at her husband and waved at the rest of her daughter's friends.

The group waved back at them and then turned their attention to Rainbow who had her arms crossed. "The most important thing we need to do is find her. We need to take the fight to her. On her turf, yes, but with less causalities. She thrives on suffering so the least pain in any sense of the word we can stop, the better." Turning to her former headteacher, she raised an eyebrow. "How did she come to you?" A spirit could and would be hard to locate and follow.

Madam Gradient thought for a moment. "I don't know, I would just come home one day and there she would be. I didn't do or say anything to trigger an appearance, she just arrived." Looking at the faces of the magical girls, she laughed at herself. "Apologies, I know that isn't the most useful information you've ever heard." She continued to laugh while Twilight rubbed her hands together.

Rather abruptly, she snapped her fingers above her head with a big smile. "It may have been enough though." Pulling a notebook out of Spike's mouth, Twilight quickly pulled out a pen and started to write. After a few moments, she stopped and looked up at the woman expectantly. "Okay, so can you tell us what was going on previously in those days when she did visit you? And how often? Has she visited you since Rainbow left the village? What did she said during those visits?" Those were a lot of questions and Madam Gradient looked kind of startled by the abrupt change in pace but gracefully managed to take it all in her stride.

Taking a breath to collect her thoughts, she began with the easier questions. "She has only ever appeared to me three times. The first, during the day I had given Rainbow her prophecy. Deeming her to be Iridescent Evil and doomed to destroy us all. When I arrived home she was just floating in the middle of my living room. Around her this navy, dark blue, blackish smoke billowed around her and her skin was moth-like. It was rather pale and seemed to burn easily in sunlight. I know because I accidently did burn her, I opened the curtain and she was caught in the sunlight. Her skin went very flakey and paper-like before it disappeared in what looked like ash. The second time was the day Rainbow chose to leave, she was angry and demanded that I keep an eye on her. She seemed to be frightened of something but when I asked, she blew me off and became infuriated. The final time was shortly before I sent the letter to Rainbow. She had decided that she was tired of waiting and had come up with a plan. We were to strengthen Rainbow's Iridescent magic and allow it to grow. In the process of doing so however, she would hopefully distance herself from her loved ones with perhaps some encouragement from us. Then, when she has no one else to turn to and her powers had gotten out of control, this Spirit would swoop in and turn Rainbow to her side." She grimaced at the devious acts of her past self. "I really doubt that I would win any prizes for teacher of the year award any time soon." Rainbow laughed beside her and nodded.

All the time Madam Gradient had been talking about her encounters with this Spirit of Darkness. Twilight had been feverishly scribbling down a lot of notes. Rainbow wouldn't have been surprised if it was a word for word script of what she had just said. With a final flick of her pen, Twilight nodded. "Okay, thank you. I think we have plenty of substantial information. This Spirit doesn't sound at all Equestrian. I'm not quite sure where to begin." She and the rest of the group turned to Sunset who was from the magical land of the Ponies, even if her time there felt like a distant dream.

Sunset looked surprised that they had all turned to her. "Well you're right, Equestrian magic doesn't work how Rainbow's other magic does. It just does what you tell it to do, in Equestria. Here, the magic appears when we're showing the truest part of ourselves. This... Iridescent magic appears to work at the will of the user at different levels. Some you control through emotions and others when you want to. That makes it difficult to establish exactly how powerful it is. We also need to figure out why this Spirit is so interested in eradicating whatever threat Rainbow's magic may hold." Turning to the girl in question, Sunset gestured to her. "Dash, have you got any ideas?"

Rainbow looked upwards towards the sky again where it was a bright blue sky with a few white, fluffy clouds. Something was nagging at the back of her brain, trying to tell her something. Whatever it was would make their lives easier in trying to track their enemy down. "Rainbow, Rainbow, glimmer and shine. Listen to me, for I command what's mine. Burn, copy, glow and heal. Dampen, storm and steal." Nothing happened with her hair as she had no need for any of the powers however a couple of the clouds did darken and it started to rain slightly. The group ran and ducked for cover.

While Rarity and some others shrieked about the sudden change in weather, Rainbow watched as her namesake appeared bright in the sky. It was s fairly clear rainbow that allowed you to easily separate the colours into sections. Suddenly, it began to fade even though the rain hadn't stopped and within a few seconds it was gone. The only hint of it was a slight trail of colour that was difficult to see. Rarity huffed as she combed her hair. "What did that shower achieve Rainbow? Except from annoy my hair. We still don't know where to go!" She began to wail and stamped her foot.

Rainbow turned to her friends with a grin. "Oh yes we do." She pointed towards the thin strip of colour held against the sky. "We follow the rainbow and hopefully find an evil Spirit at the end."

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, quite a nice one I thought. Now where will the rainbow take them? Hopefully, to an answer. I'll probably update again tomorrow. Bye, bye.