Slowly a young lavender unicorn began to open her eyes. They fluttered briefly before she was fully awake. She looked around her surroundings, which was illuminated with moon light, to see that a small straw basket that would normally contain her sleeping assistant was empty.
She didn’t think much of it, assuming that he was simply going to the bathroom, so she slid out from underneath the sheets and trotted over to her mirror.
The lavender mare looked at her disheveled mane and levitated a brush with her magic. It only took a few brush strokes before it was back in its normal condition.
The young unicorn looked downstairs to see a few beams of light peaking over the staircase. She assumed that her scaly friend was downstairs getting a drink or something to eat. So she made her way over to the staircase and trotted down, through the library, and into the kitchen.
Not to her surprise, she spotted her friend looking through the refrigerator. She prepared a dissatisfied look on her face and asked “Spike?”
The young dragon instantly yelped and smacked his head on the top shelf of the refrigerator. Spike then proceeded to pull his head out to reveal a cookie bag in one hand and one of the baked treats in his mouth, but not yet chewed. “What?” he asked in an extremely muffled, but still slightly understandable, voice.
Twilight shot Spike her disapproving look and asked “Really Spike?”
Spike took the cookie out of his mouth, not without taking a bite out of it first, and replied “What I was hungry. Besides we’re all out of sapphire.”
Twilight levitated the bag out of Spikes hand and set it on the nearby table. “You could have always just eaten the sulfur I gave you last week.”
Spike chuckled sarcastically. “You’re kidding right? That stuff smells like rotten eggs and you know what it tastes like? Rotten eggs.”
“Well the doctor said that you need more of it in your diet so I’m just-“ Spike quickly cut Twilight off there.
“The doctor also said you had high blood pressure and that you should study less, yet you just read a new spell book last night.” Spike then grinned a little smugly, feeling as though he were the victor of the argument.
Twilight stopped talking for a moment before she threw the bag of cookies back at him with her magic. “Fine, just leave me some.”
Spike easily caught the bag of treats and continued to grin. “I’m not going to promise you anything,” he joked as he reached his claws into the bag.
Twilight rolled her eyes and made her way over to the cabinet where she kept the dinner plates at. She opened it with her magic and levitated out a small white dish.
Just as Spike was about to gobble up a cookie, a burst of green flame shot out of his mouth and turned it to ash. Then a scroll appeared in its place. “Noooooo!” Spike screamed, “It was too soon!”
Twilight rolled her eyes again at Spike’s over dramatic display of loss and levitated the parchment out of his claws. She then proceeded to unfurled it. As she did this, she noticed it was wrapped up in a necklace with a small pendant attached to it instead of the usual royal seal. ‘That’s weird,’ she thought. Twilight then began to read the almost scribbled horn writing.
She only read a few sentences before the lavender mare’s face had a look of utter terror. Twilight could feel her blood run ice cold as she continued to read. She couldn’t help but lose her magical grip on all the objects she was levitating; sending the dish crashing to the ground, as well as the necklace and letter. This immediately caught Spike’s attention.
Spike looked over to the lavender mare and noticed her horrified expression. “Uh, Twilight? Are you okay?” Twilight didn’t answer. She instead looked over to the window and saw that the sun was just above the horizon.
Twilight then frantically ran over to the sink and shoved a cork into the drain, before turning on the water. “Spike!” she screamed, which frightened the young dragon, causing him to drop the cookie bag onto the floor. “I want you to go upstairs and start filling up all the bath tubs!”
Spike’s expression became rather confused and slightly worried. “What? Why?”
Twilight jumped over to Spike, at speeds he didn’t even know she was capable of, and threw her hooves onto his shoulders. “Spike, just listen to me!”
“Twilight! What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain later! Now go upstairs and fill up the bath tubs! We need all the water we can…” Twilight’s voice began to trail off as she noticed the lights above them began to flicker. As if her blood wasn’t cold enough, when she saw this it must have dropped by another ten degrees.
Suddenly all of the lights in the library were blinking on and off and within a few seconds they all went dark. Spike looked up at Twilight with a look almost as horrified as hers. “T-T-Twilight? What’s going on?” Spike stuttered.
Twilight knew she didn’t have time to explain, so instead she pulled Spike into a tight embrace and kissed him on the forehead. “It’s going to be okay,” she said with a cracking voice as tears began to fill her eyes.
Spike was no longer as scared as he was shocked. Twilight had never kissed him before. Now he knew whatever that letter said, it must have been something pretty important.
Suddenly there was a large crash. It was quickly followed by another, and another. Then the sound of explosions could be heard throughout Ponyville. Almost as soon as the booms had begun, screaming started to accompany it.
Twilight quickly broke the embrace and raced to the front door of the library. As soon as she opened it, she could see what the sources of the explosions were; Cloudsdale was falling.
First massive stone pillars would plummet to the ground, smashing anything unlucky enough to be caught in its path, then giant stone slabs that might have once been floors and roofs had a similar fate, and last was the most disturbing, Pegasi poured out of the crumbling structures as they plummeted to the ground.
Twilight wanted to believe that no pony was hurt by the destruction. She wanted to believe that all the ponies had escaped, but she knew deep down that some didn’t. After all it was far too early in the morning for most ponies. They were likely asleep when it happened.
Though the thought of her best friend, as well as many other ponies, being dead pained her greatly, one feeling almost made her want to puke; it was a feeling of helplessness. She knew there was nothing she could do to help the Pegasi, at least not without her magic anyways.
Twilight just covered her mouth and tried to hold back sobs as she watched the city of her dearest friend crumble. No matter how much she didn’t want to, she lost it. She began to sob heavily as she turned away from the destruction. Twilight couldn’t look at the chaos any longer, so she quickly galloped inside.
As Twilight slammed the door behind her she looked up to see Spike trying to hold back tears as well. But each massive bang and scream made it harder and harder. “Twilight? What’s going on? Is Rainbow Dash okay?”
Twilight cried a little harder at Spike’s question. “I don’t know Spike.” She then went over to the young dragon and rested a hoof onto his shoulder. “But I promise nothing will happen to you.”
Spike pulled Twilight into a second embrace as he began to sob himself. “Twilight, how can you be sure?”
The lavender unicorn pulled away from Spike slightly and smiled comfortingly through her tear soaked face. “Because as long as I’m here I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“But what about everypony else? Can’t you use your magic to help them?”
Twilight could feel a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach at Spike’s mention of magic; she knew she had to tell him what was happening. “Spike, I can’t help them.”
“Of course you can Twi! You’re the element of magic.”
“Spike, my magic-“ Twilight was interrupted by a particular blue Pegasus smashing through the door.
“Can somepony please tell me what the hell is going on?!” demanded a panting Rainbow Dash.
“Rainbow Dash!” Spike and Twilight yelped in unison. Quickly the pair ran over to her and wrapped their arms and forelegs around her. Spike even went so far as to kiss her on the cheek. This of course elicited a light blush upon the blue coated mare’s face.
“You’re okay!” squealed Twilight as tears of joy and sorrow streamed down her face.
Spike, who was in a similar mental state cried “We were so worried about you! We saw what was happening in Cloudsdale and thought you were there when it happened!”
Rainbow Dash chuckled emotionlessly. “It’s going to take a little more than that to kill me.” She then nuzzled both of her friends before she backed away from their embrace.
“But Rainbow Dash, what about your house?” asked Twilight.
The Blue furred mare threw a hoof over her shoulder. “I was planning on moving into town soon anyways. Besides It’s not like I had a lot of stuff in it.”
“But what about your Wonderbolts collection?”
Rainbow Dash looked down sadly. “It’s okay. Just as long as you guys are fine.” She then shot the pair a halfhearted smile.
Spike and Twilight returned the gesture through their still tear soaked faces.
Rainbow Dash returned herself to her original composure and asked “Now, can somepony tell me what’s happening out there?”
Twilight made a slightly regretful expression and looked away from her friends ad wiped away a few of her tears. “You may want to sit down,” she said sadly, trying to hide her eyes behind her mane. “P-Princess Celestia sent me a letter this morning. It said there was something wrong with the magic in Equestria. She said she sensed disturbances, I guess. She’d been noticing them for a while before, but it just kept getting stronger and stronger. Then this morning everything just fell apart. These disturbances became so strong that all the magic in the world just collapsed. She has no idea why this happened.”
Spike and Rainbow Dash just sat there perplexed for a moment. “You’re sure?” asked Rainbow Dash. “There’s no magic in all of Equestria?” Spike added as he wiped away the last of his tears.
Twilight attempted to levitate the small pendant over to her, but nothing happened. She let out a sigh and trotted over to it. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said as she slid the pendant around her neck.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“I’m not sure. Celestia had it wrapped around the scroll she gave me. She didn’t say anything about it, but I’m guessing it’s important”
Rainbow Dash and Spike examined the small pendant. It looked like a small clear crystal with a golden encasement. There was nothing too special about it besides a small blue glow from within the crystal.
“Hey, is it supposed to be glowing like that?” asked Spike. “Yeah,” added Rainbow Dash.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” The lavender mare then looked down at the pendant and, as a reflex, tried to levitate it up to her face. To every pony’s absolute shock, the small pendant was encased in a light purple glow and levitated in front of the trio. Twilight instantly lost her magical grip on the object causing it to fall limp onto her chest. As she did this the small blue glow from the pendant faded.
Spike and Rainbow Dash stared at the small crystal, wide eyed and mouth agape. “Did you just levitate that thing?” Spike asked, with disbelief clearly audible in his tone.
Twilight took a few steps back. “Th-Th-That’s impossible.”
Rainbow Dash smirked. “I think I know why the princess gave that thing to you.”
“Twilight,” began Spike, “You can never let anyone know that you have that. It they were to know, Celestia only knows what they would do.”
“Spikes right,” agreed Rainbow Dash, “But how in Equestria is that thing doing that?”
Twilight, who was still staring at the pendant, replied simply “I have no idea.”
Rainbow Dash then stood and began trotting over to a closet. “Well, in the meantime, I’m going to go find some lanterns.” The blue Pegasus paused for a moment as she thought to herself. “Hey wait a second. Isn’t it supposed to be light out by now?”
Spike was a bit surprised by how well Rainbow Dash had been taking in the events of this morning, but he just shrugged it off as her being a tough pony and all. However, her words did catch his attention, so he walked over to the window and saw that the sun was still just above the horizon. “What the hay?” he said to himself.
As Twilight’s two friends walked about the library, all she could do was sit on her haunches and stare at the tiny pendant. It almost seemed to mesmerize her the more she looked at it. She just couldn’t stop thinking about all the power it could have and why it was hers.