AiE: Twilight and the Magic of Rocketry: The First Live Test

>You are Anon

>Genius, playboy and, if this experiment goes well, quite possibly on the road to being a billionaire too

>Philanthropy can come later

>You look across the open field towards a sturdy, stone structure about 10 feet high

>Through a set of binoculars, you can see Twilight hooking up a set of cables to an unseen object behind the stone wall

>Waving at you, she quickly flies back to your location, the other ends of the cables in her mouth

>"Those are the last ones, Anon," she says, putting the cables in your hand

>You plug the cables into a strange device, which immediately begins spewing out paper with a flat red line upon it

>It joins a multitude of machines around the two of you, each giving its own data feed

"Okay, Twilight. Let's go over the list one last time. Fuel tank filled and pressurised?"

>Your assistant looks carefully at a machine printing out a steady green line. "Check."

"Oxidiser tank?"

>Another line upon a paper stream is examined, this one blue. "Tank pressure is nominal. Check!"

"Engine primed, valves prepped, coolant system online?"

>"Check, check and triple-check!"

"Earmuffs?" you ask, slipping a pair of simple plugs into your ears.

>Twilight magics a pair of adorkable, fuzzy purple earmuffs onto her head before nodding. "Check."

"Testing area clear?" you add, looking up at the field.

>Twilight looks up too, and at the same time, you both spot three tiny, familiar pastel-coloured blobs approaching the stone bunker

>Without skipping a beat, Twilight teleports away, reappearing by your side just seconds later, the Cutie Mark Crusaders wrapped in her wings

>"Check," she mutters, slightly exasperated

>"Howdy, Twah-light," Applebloom pipes in. "We were tryin' to get ah'r Cutie Marks in learnin' about techn'logical stuff."

>"Yeah," Scootaloo adds, somewhat irritated that the three had their antics interrupted. "What -is- that thing, anyway?"

"I'll explain later," Anon replied curtly. "But if you want to earn your Cutie Marks in not going deaf, I advise you cover your ears."

>"So, are we go for the test, Anon?"

"Yes. T-minus 30 seconds."

>"T-minus what now?" Sweetie Belle asks, confused

"T-minus 20 seconds"

>Twilight is on the edge of her proverbial seat, eager to see the results of this experiment

"T-minus 10 seconds. 9, 8, 7..."

>"Wait, what are all these papers for? What does the blue line mean?" Sweetie Belle is staring intently at the data feed going into one of the myriad boxes near the five of you

>"Don't worry; I'll explain later, girls," Twilight replies. "Just cover your ears!"

>You press a few buttons on a control box before you.

"Three! Two! One!"

>A faint orange glow shines from behind the stone wall, along with a sputtering-like noise

"IGNITION!"

>The faint glow around the stone transforms into a bright corona

>A moment later, the first sound waves of the full burn reach you

>The noise was unlike anything that had been heard in Equestria before

>A terrifying 200dB roar, a conflagration of the most pure distilled cider the Apples could provide blending with air liquefied through the most potent of alicorn magic

>A grin crosses your face as you take in the moment

>The Cutie Mark Crusaders, on the other hand, can only scream as they try to cover their ears and run away at the same time, knocking over one of your monitoring devices in the process

>Twilight can only stare, her mouth agape, as the light and noise rise in their intensity

>She had read every book on liquid rocketry that Anon had brought with him to Equestria, memorised every equation

>But only then did she truly understand their power

>After 30 seconds, the noise and light begin to fade

>Smoke pours from behind the barrier, flooding the field

>You turn around, and notice the CMCs cowering behind a tree

"You can come out now. The experiment is over."

>"WHAT WAS THAT, ANON?" Sweetie Belle yells, holding a hoof up to her ear. "SEDIMENTS FROM CLOVER? I DIDN'T KNOW SHE LIKED ROCKS"

>"WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT BLOCKS, SWEETIE BELLE?" Scootaloo responds, also holding her hoof up. "I THINK WE'RE TOO OLD FOR THAT"

>"WHO'S JEHOSEPHAT" Applebloom responds, doing much the same as her friends. "YOU'll HAVE TA' SPEAK UP! I CAHN'T HEAR YA OVER THIS RINGIN'!"

"Welp."

 

>Today was a tinnitus kind of day.