“Twilight, you asked to see me?” Princess Celestia asked as she strode into the Palace courtyard. Twilight looked up from a collection of books and loose papers and broke out into a huge grin.
“Princess, I think I did it!” she exclaimed in excitement. Celestia smiled warmly.
“Twilight, again, please just Celestia. I have so few chances to hear my own name unaccompanied by titles, I’d like to enjoy them all.” Twilight grin became sheepish.
“Oh, right. Sorry. I’m just excited!” Celestia raised an eyebrow as Twilight floated several scraps of papers in front of her. All were covered in extremely complex arcane calculations.
“Excited about what, exactly?” Twilight practically bounced in place as her exuberance returned in full force.
“I was going over the magical residue left in Ponyville by those…creatures.” Twilight’s smile faded. After the death of the two Guards, the youngest Princess had thrown herself into discovering a way to find their murderers. She hadn’t said as much, but Celestia suspected Twilight felt guilty about the loss of life occurring practically under her nose.
“I was attempting to find something in the Archives that would describe something similar to what we felt there, but then it hit me; I could modify a Source spell to track magic signatures.” Source Spells were spells designed to find the origin of certain substances. They were normally used during investigations by the Royal Guard; a piece of hair from a brush could be used to find missing ponies or drops of blood at a crime scene used to find either the victim or the perpetrator. Occasionally they were used for more mundane pursuits, but the skill required in their casting primarily limited them to the highly trained unicorns of the Guard.
“And what was your result?” Celestia asked.
“Actually, I was just about to test it. I thought you might like to observe,” Twilight replied. The familiar twinkle in her eye reminded Celestia of the magic lessons the two had once shared. Before every spell, Twilight would look to Celestia for a nod of approval to begin. Even after several years of independent study, Twilight still occasionally glanced at her mentor for permission to go forward.
Celestia bobbed her head, and Twilight lit her horn.
For several moments nothing happened. Twilight furrowed her brow and the light from her horn doubled in size and intensity. Still, no reaction. The magic expanded again, forming a cone around her horn nearly a dozen hooves long. The brightness became such that Celestia, Mistress of the Sun, was forced to avert her eyes. And yet, despite the incredible power pouring off the purple alicorn, the spell had yet to succeed.
Then Twilight got serious. When Twilight Sparkle was a unicorn, she had been one of the most magically gifted ponies in recorded history. Though she had still been working to perfect her spell casting, her raw power was unrivaled save for the Princesses. After her Ascension, her well of Magic had begun to grow. It hadn’t taken long for her to surpass Cadence, and as it stood the only beings more magically capable than her were the Royal Sisters and Discord.
The aurora coming from her horn lit up the courtyard in a raging shimmer. It was as if a star had been plucked from Luna’s Night and dropped to Earth. To Princess Celestia, it felt as if the pressure of an entire ocean was pressing down on her. The few trees and potted plants that lined the courtyard were shifting between every color in the spectrum as the loose magic bleeding off the spell ravaged the space around Twilight. The situation became dangerous when the marble tiling under her student began to crack and disintegrate.
“Twilight! You must stop!” she shouted.
Only then did she notice the panic on Twilight’s face.
“I-I can’t! I’ve lost control of the spell!” Twilight focused all her willpower into stopping the violent flow of magic. Her horn began to glow red from the heat caused from the excessive power. Celestia scrambled for a way to save Twilight, going through every bit of wisdom and experience thousands of years of life had given her. Even with her profound magical prowess, Celestia could not think of a way to prevent the spell from consuming her student. With tears clouding her eyes, Celestia stared helplessly as her surrogate daughter was devoured by her own arcane energy.
Then, the mystical blaze exploded upwards into a pillar that ripped the sky apart. Pink light burned away what clouds there were as the spell discharged above Canterlot. A shockwave rushed in every direction, twisting and distorting Equestria's natural Ley Lines. Across every corner of the planet, every magically-sensitive being felt as if the air itself was vibrating. In Canterlot, at the epicenter of the blast, dozens of Unicorns dropped to the ground clutching their horns in pain. Pegasi in the surrounding airspace fell from the sky before catching themselves as even their passive magic was disrupted by the wave.
It took slightly less than a full minute for the effects to pass completely. Smoke and steam filled the Palace square as Celestia rushed forward. With her own magic, the Solar Princess dispelled the mist to reveal a limp lavender form. Her hooves skidded over scorching stones as she rushed to cradle her student in her forelegs. Celestia put her ear to Twilight’s chest, desperate for a sound. To her indescribable relief, a faint heartbeat sounded in Twilight’s chest.
As Guards and servants rushed to the origin of the disturbance, Princess Celestia wept in relief.
Approximately 170 miles southwest of Denver, a Boeing 767 flew over rural Colorado. The pilot, Captain Nicholas Green, was enjoying a cup of tea delivered by a flight attendant. He was careful not to spill any, as he didn’t feel like changing shirts when they landed. His copilot, Junior Captain Malakai Yurov, was in the restroom for the sixth time on the five hour flight. Captain Green chuckled lightly. Yurov, a former Ukrainian Air Force pilot, had a habit of going through bottled water like tic tacs and as such tended to spend what seemed like half the flight time in the bathroom.
“Denver International Tower, this is Southern Airline Flight 141. We are at 35,000, airspeed 495 knots. Do you have us on radar?” With the plane on autopilot, Captain Green was free to sit back in his chair as he went down the list of housekeeping tasks required when piloting jumbo jets. Flying commercial airlines wasn't the most exciting business, but it suited Green.
“Flight 141, Denver Tower. Roger, proceed on current heading at current altitude for one four zero miles. Landing instructions will follow.”
“Denver Tower, Flight 141. Roger. See you folks in a bit.”
The check-in done, Captain Green stretched. Sitting for hours on end, even in the very comfortable Captain’s chair, wasn’t good for his back. He couldn’t stand until Malakai returned so he contented himself with popping his spine.
After his stretches, the Captain looked at the cabin door suspiciously. After a few moments of deep thought, he reached into a small bag slightly behind his chair. It took a moment of searching to find what he was looking for; a small glossy black plastic bag. Captain Green smiled devilishly as he extracted his prize from the sack; a handful of sour gummy worms.
Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be eating them. An expanding waistline and a heart attack scare had convinced his wife that he was getting too old in the tooth to eat like he had when he was in his prime. He had eventually relented as his wife wasn't exactly a pushover. When she set her sights on something, she tended to get it. Salads replaced steak and baked chicken replaced fried. He even agreed to give up coffee, something he had considered a food group since his days in the Navy.
The one thing he hadn’t given up, however, were the sweet delights that were gummy worms. The moment he had first tasted them, they had dug their talons deep in him and he just couldn’t bring himself to drop them.
A knock on the cabin door interrupted his guilty snack. He quickly stuffed the bag back into his satchel and checked the door camera. On the monitor was Malakai, back from his latest bathroom adventure. Captain Green quickly pressed the button that unlocked the door and allowed his copilot to step back inside.
Malakai dropped into his seat, rechecked the instruments, and nodded in satisfaction. “Anything happen while I was gone?” Malakai asked as he adjusted himself to get comfortable.
Green rolled his eyes. “Oh, you should have been here, we had a huge party. That pretty blonde in first class even got up on stage and danced. Too bad you were on sabbatical,” he said sarcastically. Malakai glared before he lost his composure and laughed.
“Sorry I missed it. You can give me some of your worms to make up for it.” Green looked at him indignantly.
“Why, sir, would you be so bold as to accuse me of cheating on my diet? An outrage! An outrage I say!” he protested in his well-practiced British accent. Malakai smirked and glanced down at Captain Green’s black tie. Green lowered his gaze and saw that the soft fabric was covered in sour dust.
Green cleared his throat and made a point to look away haughtily as he tossed the treats to Malakai. “Yes, well. I should think we shan’t speak of this again.” Malakai snickered as he enjoyed his plundered sweets.
The lighthearted air was quickly brought to an end when a vicious shudder passed through the aircraft. The pilots immediately went into business mode; grasping the aircraft controls and checking instrumentation for faults. Several seconds later, another even more violent tremor rocked the plane. The fasten seat belt sign lit up in the cabin as the flight attendants quickly walked through the aisles ensuring passengers were in their seats and strapped in. For the flight attendants, it wasn’t particularly unusual. Rough turbulence wasn’t exactly uncommon in their line of work.
In the cockpit, Captain Green and Junior Captain Yurov had switched off the autopilot and were gripping the flight controls tightly. The gyrations in the plane weren’t turbulence; it was the plane itself.
“Primary hydraulic failure, switch to secondary hydraulics,” Captain Green ordered. His grip was so tight on the controls his knuckles had gone white as he struggled to compensate for the system. “Denver Tower, this is Southern Airline Flight 141. I am declaring an emergency. I have multiple system malfunctions and have lost primary hydraulics.”
“….ega…..ncy…………peat y…..” the radio garbled incomprehensibly. Captain Green repeated his message until a loud, shrill whine buzzed in his headset. He winced and pulled the earphones down around his neck, as did Malakai. The two shared a concerned glance as their plane trembled again. The controls in their hands were shaking wildly and their arms were already growing tired from the strain. The sticks were completely wrenched from their grasps as the sound of an explosion tore through the cabin.
“Secondary hydraulic failure! Switching to tertiary hydraulics. We’ve got a fire in Engine 2, shutting down fuel lines. Flaps keep adjusting without input, I'm trying to compensate,” Captain Green’s voice was slightly frantic as he and Malakai scrambled to keep the jet in the air. Emergency alarms filled the cockpit with a symphony of discordant beeping as the plane dropped into a sharp forty degree descent.
A heartbeat later, the two pilots jerked in surprise as every light in the cockpit lit up. Switches began flipping on their own as the instruments fluctuated wildly. The altimeter wavered between 50 feet and 50,000 feet in seconds as the fuel gauge alternatively showed full and below empty. The throttle jerked back and forth in its grooves with enough force to cause loud metallic bangs as it slammed against its confines. In the passenger cabin, people clung to their seats in terror as the aircraft convulsed in the air. Children cried hysterically, oxygen masks fell from their compartments, and panicked prayers were offered to any deity that might have been listening.
“What the hell is go-“ Junior Captain Malakai Yurov never got to finish his sentence as Southern Airlines Flight 141 exploded midair above the Colorado Rockies.