A quick application of the cloud walking spell, a hop into a chariot, and we were making all due haste for Cloudsdale. The trip to Cloudsdale itself was fairly short; the cloud-based city was fairly close to Canterlot at this point in its slow perambulatory path around Equestria. At my request Violette was allowed to accompany us. It seemed a bit brusque to snarf sandwiches and tea, have a brief gab about smut, and then flee the scene, and I thought it might be a bit of a treat for her to see the nation's weather capital. It seemed to go over well; she couldn't stop staring at everything in wide eyed wonder.

And you thought YOU picked out a good first date. Hah.

We had little time for sightseeing, unfortunately, we were going straight as the pegasus flies for the Cloudiseum. Violette looked disappointed when we flew past the weather factory; I took the impulsive action of promising her a private tour of the facilities once my business with the Princesses was complete. Now where had that come from? I didn't care, I decided; her smile of delight at the promised outing lifted my spirits too much.

I had seen the Cloudiseum before; as we approached though I noticed something different about it. There seemed to be a new decorative feature; a permanent rainbow ring around the top perimeter. The glowing ring seemed to wobble and flicker in the light breeze.

Then we drew closer still and I saw that it wasn't a ring at all.

"Rainbow Dash?" I exclaimed.

It was. It had to be. I could see the silhouette of a pegasus mare in the glowing ribbon, flickering as she flew around the track too fast to see. She was literally outracing her own contrail. A half dozen more laps in the blink of an eye, and she switched to zigzagging back and forth over the Cloudiseum, doing razor-sharp turns at speeds that should have pulped her bones just from the G forces.

The Cloudiseum workers had rolled out the hoofball floor so the ponies watching her could have someplace to stand. And there were a few there: Celestia, Luna, Twilight, a few scholars from the University, and most definitely several of the Wonderbolts. I recognized Soarin and Spitfire, and braced myself internally. I'm sorry, but I just did not like them. It was a personal thing. All of them were standing together in the middle of the cloud field, staring up with slack jaws as the pegasus-- pardon me, the alicorn-- shot back and forth through the sky above them.

We landed in the field a short ways away, and gingerly dismounted. (Don't judge; neither Violette nor I had wings, and my last visit to Cloudsdale I'd nearly taken an unscheduled skydive through a weak spot in the vaporous pavement.) I amused myself for a moment by filming everypony with my smartphone as they stood there, their heads turning back and forth in unison.

"Ah, Arthur, good of you to come so quickly," Celestia said, turning briefly away from the spectacle overhead to greet me. "I am sorry we couldn't be there to greet you when you were released from the hospital--"

I waved a hand. "Places to be, kingdoms to run," I said. "You can hardly be there for every employee who falls and bumps his bum." I looked up at the rainbow streak overhead; Dash had switched to doing spirals, corkscrews, barrel rolls, and dozens of other aerial maneuvers I had no name for, all at speeds I would have said were impossible, even with magic. "Besides it looks like you have your plate full at the moment... how fast is she going??"

"We don't know," Twilight said, obviously discomfited by the lack of information. "We tried using the wingpower meter--"

"And?"

"It broke."

 

I whistled. "Is this because she's an alicorn now, or--?"

"Not e'en at our fullest power, exerting ourselves to our greatest, could we do this," Luna said, not taking her eyes off Dash. "Tis the power of the Element of Loyalty."

"So it amplifies her natural abilities, then?" I asked.

"No," Celestia said. "There is more." She looked over at Twilight. "Twilight, would you--?"

"Of course," Twilight said. Her horn, and curiously enough her Element, flared. "DASH!" She shouted. "Bring it in for a landing! Princess Celestia wants to show Arthur something!"

There should have been no possible way for Dash to hear her, but hear her she obviously did. She pulled a backflip and raced for the stadium floor, pulling to a halt a literal inch above the cloud, then settling gently to her hooves. "Sure thing, Twi," she said. "Hey, Arthur! Good to see you up and around!"

"Good to be up and around," I replied. I looked her over. Like Twilight, she was ever so slightly lankier in limb than she had been before her ascendance, leaner and sharper. Her wings were slightly longer as well. Affixed around her neck was a golden torc, the Element of Loyalty. It had altered in form slightly and now suited her rather well, I thought. Nice to see that whatever controlled the shape of the elements was learning a bit of taste.

"Hey, I'm guessing you wanna show him the other cool stuff I can do now?" Dash said to Twilight. Twilight nodded. "Cool. Check this out, Arthur." The rainbow alicorn trotted off to one end of the field. A row of archery targets stood in the end zone. She turned and took a defensive stance in front of them.

A quartet of guards carrying crossbows marched out and took aim--- right at their new princess. I had an inkling as to what was about to happen, but my pulse quickened considerably all the same. You learn to respect what those archaic weapons can do to a body once you've seen them fired in anger (another story for another time, I think.) As one, they fired.

Rainbow Dash's horn flared, and so did the Element of Harmony. A transparent crimson shield leapt from the stone set in the torc and hung in the air in front of her, blocking the arrows easily. "Force fields," I said, mildly impressed.

"Exactly," Twilight said. "And the interesting thing is, they'll protect her, but they seem to get stronger the more targets she protects. Watch." Twilight's horn glowed briefly as she formed a dozen more targets out of the cloud floor behind Dash. Dash expanded her shield to cover them, and actually seemed to brighten. Once again the soldiers fired, once again the shield held. "I'm sure there's a bell curve of course," Twilight said, "but it's interesting all the same."

Dash let her shield drop. "And it gets weirder," she called to us with a laugh. "Check this out. Hey fellas, you ready for another go?" She was addressing a group of five pegasi standing nearby. They responded with a cheerful affirmative.

"Some random ponies from the Cloudiseum staff," Twilight explained. "The first time we used guardponies; we got these volunteers for comparison." As we watched, Rainbow Dash flapped and lifted off; the group of pony groundskeepers (cloudkeepers?) followed, hovering around her. Rainbow Dash lit up her horn, activating her element yet again. A crimson glow spread over her... and over each of the ponies in her group. (Party? Team? Wing?)

"Alright boys, let's see if you can keep up with me this time!" Dash said, and tore off across the sky. To my astonishment, the quintet of ponies rocketed after her, matching her speed.The six of them began flying stunts in formation as if they had been born doing it.

I was no judge of pegasi, mind, but even I could tell this group was anything but professional fliers. A couple were scrawny as brooms, and one was fat as could be... but all of them were flying like they were born to be Wonderbolts. "She's...empowering them?" I said.

"Giving them a portion of her skill and power," Celestia said. We all ducked instinctively as the sextet swooped and did a hair-ruffling low pass overhead.

I noticed that Dash and her wingponies were flying at her typical air speeds.... far faster than a typical pegasus could handle, admittedly, but also far less than what she had been doing when we arrived. "She seems to be dividing her power among them," I noted.

"Tis an odd mix of empowerments," Luna said. "We do not see the connection."

I mulled it over. "Loyalty," I muttered. What was loyalty? I grinned. "I think I get it," I said.

The others looked at me. I left them hanging for a second, just to tease. "Well?" Twilight finally said.

I chuckled. "So impatient..." Twilight stuck her tongue out at me. "Ah, how charming, your Highness. It's her Element. Loyalty. What is a loyal friend? Someone who's there in a flash when you need them. Someone who protects those they care about. Someone who gives you a little of their strength when you need it." I reveled in the expressions of dawning comprehension. I snapped my fingers. "Ah, and that's why she could hear you," I said, pointing at Twilight.

"Come again?" Twilight said.

"Her element is Loyalty. Yours is Magic, or more specifically the Magic of Friendship. Friendship is about communication; Loyalty is about knowing when someone needs you. I noticed your element ignite when you called her name..."

Twilight crossed her eyes trying to look up at her tiara. "I... hadn't really made the connection," she admitted, tapping the gem tentatively with a hoof.

"I suspect as the others ascend, their Elements will start to manifest thematically related powers," I said. "It's going to be very interesting."

"And it will mean we have more of a fighting chance against the Draconequi," Twilight noted. "...If it does happen. How can you be sure the others are going to ascend too?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh please. Like we all can't see where this is going."

Celestia and Luna chuckled. "Truth be told, I expect something of the sort myself, Twilight," Celestia said. Twilight looked shocked. "Oh, don't be so surprised, dear. You aren't the only extraordinary pony in Ponyville--"

"Q.E.D.," I said, pointing up at the cartwheeling Rainbow Dash.

"You were all chosen, and not by chance. As much as it seems like coincidence, the Elements were influencing you all to come together long ago. After the fact I was rather confused by why you all did not ascend simultaneously when you cast Starswirl's spell. You all had the traces of the power of ascension upon you, yet only you had transformed..."

"Like popcorn," I said. The others looked at me strangely.  "Even when the skillet's the right temperature, you don't expect all the kernels to pop at the same time," I explained. "I.... not the best metaphor, is it."

"No, no, it's... workable," Celestia said. "It would figure that their ascendance would be a bit... erratic."

Or in other words CHAOTIC, I thought. Another example of insufficient Chaos; the inability to reach or pass a tipping point. Was it the very presence of the Draconequi that was making their ascendance possible?

"Who dost thou suppose wilt be next to, ah, 'pop?'" Luna said.

"Don't say it that way, it sounds unwholesome," I pleaded mildly. "And I wouldn't care to make a wager on that one."

Luna suddenly smirked. "Which brings us to a tangent," she said. She looked at Celestia.

Celestia looked back. She suddenly had a VERY innocent look on her face. "What?"

Luna nudged her with a hip. "Pay up..." she said.

The Matriarch of the Sun sighed, rolled her eyes, and magicked a bit coin over to me. "Eh?" I said, plucking it out of the air. "And this is for?-- oh." I realized the significance when I rolled it over in my hand and saw  that it was copper, not gold, and there was a hole bored through it.

Some time ago Celestia, Luna and I had been quibbling over-- I forget what, some minor bit of legislation or taxation or something or other. Celestia had been adamant that the proposition would work, I was equally adamant that it would not, and stated what I believed would happen, Luna had just been irritated at our arguing. Celestia had proclaimed she wouldn't bet a plugged copper bit on my scenario coming to pass. In vexation Luna had pulled out a copper bit, magically drilled a hole through it, and slapped it down between us. "There!" she'd said. "Wager made! And I shall spot thee the plugged copper bit as well! Now stop arguing and pass the boysenberry sauce!"

To Luna's endless amusement, a month later I'd won that first plugged bit. From then on, it had become a thing between the three of us; whenever we came to loggerheads over something, grand or small, we'd wager a plugged copper bit on the outcome. Our way of agreeing to disagree, I suppose... or perhaps, more aptly, to accept the verdict when the facts came in. That copper bit got more than one poor law reversed.

For the record, at that point I had won five, Celestia three, Luna two (one from each of us.) What can I say, I had an unfair advantage: they had thousands of years of experience-- but so did I: uncountable man-hours in the form of human history and scientific progress. Read a book, kids.

Luna contributed her own coin to the winnings, I took it graciously. "So Whinnyton has rebuilt already?" I said, jingling the coins in my palm.

"And its sister village, Nickerville, doth languish," Luna affirmed.  The two towns thus named were close enough to Canterlot to have gotten caught up in the edges of the Discordian events. The damage had been considerable. "I am loth to guess how thou didst know the outcome of this wager THIS time, Arcturus."

"Easy," I said. "It's happened before on Earth, in my homeland."

To clarify, both towns had been half-leveled. Both towns had received royal aid-- but word had come back of ponies engaging in 'price gouging,' charging exorbitant prices for goods and services. Outraged, Luna had proposed punitive recrimination; Celestia had managed to talk her down to simply proclaiming price caps on goods and services till the crisis was past.

I had shocked and appalled them both by leaping into the middle of the discussion and pleading for them to do nothing.

Hence had come the wager; price caps would be instituted in Nickerville, but NOT in Whinnyton. If Whinnyton rebuilt, my policy would be standardized for all disasters in the future. If Nickerville, Celestia's proposal would stand for all of Equestria. My only surprise at the outcome was that my win had come so quickly.

Twilight had been informed of the wager and had been awaiting the outcome in curiosity as well. "So... what happened?" she asked.

I looked at Celestia. "Go on," Celestia said, waving a wing for me to proceed.

"Indeed," Luna said drolly. "Any pony that knows thee can see thou'lt burst at the seams if thou dost not."

I smirked. "Economics," I told Twilight. "And ordinary human-- or pony-- behavior. Which are really the same thing. Specifically, supply and demand.

"No matter how you cut it, Twilight, price caps never solve a crisis, they CAUSE a crisis. On Earth, a hurricane ripped through one of our cities. Prices for everything, naturally, went through the roof. Angry legislators passed regulations putting price caps on everything to stop all the 'gouging.'

"And businesses, workers, and companies with goods stayed away in droves. Why would they come? Think about what the legislators were asking of them; they were asking these workers and businesspeople to travel clear across the country, bringing their equipment and their supplies with them, to a place with no power, water, or infrastructure-- to make no more money than they would if they had stayed at home. Many would have had to operate at a net loss, just to do it. They were asking the businessmen who were already there to STAY there, in a dangerous, ill-supplied place, keeping their business open at their own risk and their own loss, without compensation. In short they were telling people that the only way they could help was by ruining themselves.

"So given the freedom of choice, since they couldn't raise their prices to compensate for their own danger or difficulty-- they stayed away. And instead of overpriced services and goods, the city had NO services or goods... and it took years, not months, to rebuild. Some parts probably aren't even rebuilt to this day.

"And to top it off, when the price cap didn't drive suppliers away, it still caused shortages."

Twilight is a smart little cookie. She caught on immediately. "ohh. Like Applejack's Cider shortages," she said. "Because she keeps the price so low, the first few ponies buy it all up."

"Whereas if she raised the price, the ponies would buy less individually... so there'd still be some left when the rush slacked off and prices could come down again," I concluded. "Just like in a disaster. Plus, as prices go up, folks looking to make a profit will come rushing in with wagonloads of goods to sell. Till eventually the supply outbalances the demand, and prices come down again. And it all happens FASTER when you don't try to block the market or cap the prices.

"You can't cheat supply and demand, regardless of the cause of the rise in demand or drop in supply.  People get mad when prices go up in a crisis because they're self-centered. They can't imagine that the storekeep, the delivery company, or the farmer are going through a crisis too, or that they're sticking their neck out to bring their business to a disaster area."

"All said, it was an important question to resolve," Celestia said. "It will establish how we handle the coming Draconequus attacks and their aftermath. We cannot afford to hobble rebuilding efforts with such a fundamental mistake."

"It's always fundamental in hindsight," I admitted. "Unless you're a devoted policy wonk."

"Still, we are fortunate that thy people are wiser in such matters--" Luna said. Her ears twitched when I barked in laughter. "What is so humorous?"

"Wiser?" I chuckled. "Maybe you missed the part about how my government is doing precisely what I just described? At least in major cities with political cachet... other towns not in the public's line of sight have been left to hang, more's the irony... they're the ones that are already rebuilt. Some humans are sadder, but wiser; the noisy mainstream continues on in its blissful ignorance."

"Folly always pleaseth the ear more than words of wisdom," Luna nodded. "Because folly telleth thee what thou wishest to hear, not what thou needest..."

"Either way. We will send out a decree revoking the price caps," Celestia said. "And cautioning against establishing any in the future attacks. Ponies will be upset when prices rise-- but you can't have your cider and drink it too."

Rainbow Dash thumped to the clouds next to us, her ragtag flying wing fluttering down behind her as the eldritch glow around them faded. "Whoo, worked up a little sweat!" She said, licking her lips. "I thought I heard someone say cider?"

"Sorry, Dash, no cider," Twilight laughed. "We were just talking over some of the preparations for the next Draconequus."

"Whups. Looks like you're too late," a female voice behind us said.

Violette screamed. I whirled about, whipping my cane out like a saber. Standing behind us was a creature with a shocking resemblance to Discord. Violette was backing away from it in terror; I grabbed her and pulled her behind me, keeping my cane at the level. "Who are you?" I shouted.

Tumult rose all over the stadium. Guards scrambled for their weapons. I heard Celestia and Luna give cries of surprise-- though as for that Luna's was more of a battle cry. Rainbow Dash whizzed past me in a rainbow-hued blur, her face set in rage, her forehooves out and aimed straight for the Draconequi's face.

....and slowed to a snail-like crawl in midair.

I gaped in surprise. She hung there like a fly trapped in amber, face still glowering in fury, hooves extended for a blow that would never connect. I realized I could still see her contrail, frozen in the air as well; I could pick out individual little colored sparkles, slowly winking in and out of existence. She was still moving; I saw her blink in slow motion as she inched forward through the air, mane and tail streaming behind her.

It wasn't just her, I realized. I could see ponies running across the field in the background, frozen in mid stride. I turned my head  to look back at the others-- but when I moved my head things got disorienting; things suddenly warped and changed color, shifting wildly in distorted rainbow hues. Dizzily I faced forward again and took a step towards the draconequus. To my shock everything around warped as if looking through a fishbowl lens; the distance between us seemed to expand by a hundred yards. Dizzily I fell to my knees.

I made an effort to stay very very still; so long as I didn't move, things looked fairly normal, despite being temporally frozen."Time dilation. Lorentz transformation," I croaked. "You did something to the speed of light."

"Oooh, you are a smart one," the draconequus said. I had actually learned it all from a free video game online, but I didn't feel like enlightening her.  "Actually," she went on, "I was shooting for that whole 'slow time to a crawl' thing, but time and space and lightspeed and all that are so intertangled that it's tricky to fiddle with one without affecting the other. Relativity and all that. You know how it is."

She walked closer. The odd effects that distorted things all around didn't seem to affect her. I got a good look at her; she had all the same features as Discord had sported; same mismatch limbs, same serpentine body, same horn and antler, right down to the single fang. She did lack the goatee, though, and overall she was slightly smaller. She also had a slenderness and shape of form overall that said 'female.'

She walked up to me and bent down to look me in the eye. "Hi-eee," she said. "The name's Eris. I got a message for you."