Chapter 1
It had been a quiet night and Luna had decided to take a walk through Las Pegasus when it happened. Something that she had never felt before. Looking in the direction of Canterlot she stares worriedly as if trying to see through the numerous buildings. She had barely felt it by how subtle the magical energy was. Something had happened near Canterlot. It had been too fast for her to understand completely, but it was enough. It was something powerful enough to be felt miles away so that it only had a faint magical signature. Abandoning her nightly walk she flew high into the sky trying to get a better view of what she felt. There had been a shift. Calling out to her guards she set off to her temporary home in Las Pegasus. She had a letter to send.
*Fwoosh*
Celestia caught the letter as it dropped to the ground. Abandoning her letter to sister, she was glad that Luna had been quicker. It had been late at night and she was asleep when it happened so she was unable to make anything out of it. Asking her advisors had gotten nothing interestingly enough, they hadn’t felt anything. Meanwhile her sister was on a tour of their realm as an attempt to catch up on the thousand years she was gone yet she had felt it too. Perhaps she needed new advisors. Reading it gave her a better insight though she had to translate her sister’s archaic writing. It was big, something had torn the wall between their world and another. After reading through Luna’s apologies, she wrote that it had been too fast and she had been too far to grasp where exactly the spell had happened but she had caught the general direction. That was what worried her the most. Most unicorns don’t have magic powerful enough to send a discharge that can be felt miles away. It had happened to the south of Canterlot, in the direction of their old castle. Ponyville. There was only one pony that would be able to do such a thing and she was in Ponyville. Wondering what her student was up to if it involved breaking into another world, Celestia decided to send a letter asking her exactly that.
*burp*
Spike groaned as he fell out his bed from his delivery. Trying to rub out the sleep from his eye, he picked up the letter and waved it in the direction of Twilight’s bed.
“Twilight, there’s a letter for you.”
…
Grumbling about having to do late night deliveries, Spike walked over to Twilight’s bed and readied himself. Normally he would let it wait until morning, but it was from the princess so desperate times called for desperate measures. He pulled the blankets from the bed and shouted.
“Twilight!”
…
Spike groaned again as he realized the bed was empty. Twilight must have gone up to use the bathroom or something. Tempted to just go back to sleep and leave the letter on her bed, Spike walked over to the bathroom and knocked calling out to her. He noticed that there wasn’t any light coming from underneath and cautiously opened the door. Nothing. Slowly coming to full consciousness, Spike decided to check the lab in case she had woken up –again– to look into something that was bothering her. Spike walked down to the library turning on the lights and called out to her. Getting worried when he didn’t get an answer Spike searched through the entire library. Twilight hadn’t said anything about going out and had gone to bed at the same time he had, so where did she go?
“WHERE ARE WE?” Shouted a filly with her hair in a ponytail pacing back and forth looking around herself with tail whipping around agitatedly as a filly taller than the her attempted to speak up.
“Please calm down-“
“DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, WE’RE-“
“Be Quiet.”
A gray filly was suddenly in her face after having ignored her rant for the last five minutes. Before she could react, filly shook her mane and began walking away to two other fillies and looking back at her over her shoulder.
“We need to be careful; we don’t know what might be around here.”
The reprimanded filly looked murderous, but remained quiet only muttering angrily to herself as she continued to pace, looking at herself once in a while only to continue her pacing in a jerky manner. The taller filly sighed and looked furtively around herself searching for some sort of clue, anything really just to distract herself. With the half-moon –or at least it looked like a moon– above it was too dark to really make out anything, but they were in a wide clearing somewhere. They were the only ones there. Her eyes fell on the two fillies on the ground. They gray filly was sitting down with the two fillies and whispered reassurances to them one of the fillies seemed white, the other brown. Continuing to look around herself she could see buildings nearby, but refused to go near them for the same reason the others haven’t. As well as the other reason that she and the others had stayed away from the lamps. Luckily it didn’t seem that anyone –or anything– had heard the shouting and come to investigate. Yet at the same time it gave her nothing to distract herself from the very predicament she wished to avoid. She was used to strange things, they all were, but this is the first time that their bodies were changed preemptively.
She was a pony.
Celestia saw the green mist headed towards her and caught the letter as soon as it appeared so that it didn’t fly away from her chariot. She had decided it be best to see for herself what Twilight was up to. Twilight always had the tendency of taking her experiments too far, made even more dangerous by the sheer magical potential she had. There had been far too many accidents to not be cautious, especially if she was messing with the barrier separating their world from another. It was short and reading it only furrowed her brow.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I’m sorry but Twilight isn’t here right now and I don’t know where she is. She was asleep earlier so I don’t know where she could have gone. Don’t worry I haven’t read the letter and I’ll keep it safe for Twilight,
Spike
“Guards! I am going to go on ahead, meet me at the library” No sooner did she finish that she teleported in front of the library. She felt it, there seemed to be some sort of magical residue still clinging to the tree. It seemed to loom ominously over her head at night. The lights were on, so she decided to knock on the door. No need to panic the baby dragon, particularly since it seemed that Twilight had decided to do her experiments behind his back. The door opened.
“PRINCESS—“
Celestia quickly zipped his mouth before he could alert everyone in town of her visit, but his eyes were still needle points. Well that was a wasted effort. Shifting him away from the door and closing it behind her, she unzipped his mouth. He immediately began to talk, but he wasn’t yelling at least.
“Celestia! What are you doing here?”
“It’s okay Spike, it’s just a little visit.” Looking first out the window to check if anyone had heard or if her guard had arrived, she didn’t see Spike’s skeptical face. Keeping her senses open, she could get a better sense of the residue. It didn’t have Twilight’s signature. Heading toward it, she answered Spike’s question more thoroughly.
“My sister and I felt a magical disturbance near here and I was wondering if Twilight caused it, however seeing that she’s mi- not here, I decided to look into it myself.”
“Oh…well she wasn’t planning any experiments today. Was it something like Nightmare Moon?” He asked following her up the stairs, having not noticed her near slip, not sure if he really wanted to know. Celestia looked at him with a smile to reassure him, even as it did nothing for herself.
“No, it was only for an instant, you didn’t hear anything did you Spike?” He shook his head. “Then I’m sure that it was probably nothing to worry about Spike. I just wanted to make sure that Twilight was okay and didn’t attempt anything too dangerous again.”
Reaching Twilight’s room, she opened it to see that the magical residue seemed to have come from her bed and left a trail out the window. Examining it, she could see that it felt similar to the larger burst earlier. Having a closer look at it she could see that otherness of it. It definitely wasn’t unicorn magic or any other magic that she had seen over the years. Looking out the window, she saw it wisp away to the sky near the park. Then she saw something that made her stomach clench. It wasn’t the only wisp in the cloud, there were more, coming from all over Ponyville. There was a knock at the door. As much as she disliked it, she had to prioritize.
“Spike, tell my guards that they are to check on the homes of the other Elements and report back here. There is something strange going on tonight.”
Finally after some urging from the gray filly, the little white filly had stood and seemed to have gotten over their situation as she began to head towards the nearest lamp. Her friend looked nervously at her.
“Wait, are you sure you want to do this?”
The white filly looked down nervously before swallowing and looking up with determination.
“I-It’s better than standing in the dark, isn’t it?”
With that, the filly trotted closer to the lamp, light giving her color. She looked around to see herself. She had a white coat and her mane and tail were pastel pink. Her ribbons had stayed in her mane. Following more hesitantly, the other filly came to light and the white filly’s eyes widened. She was completely blue with her mane and tail a lighter shade. As the blue filly looked herself over, the white filly called out to the others.
“See! That wasn’t so bad!”
There was a moment of silence from them, before one by one they walked out to the light and surprised the white and blue fillies. The gray filly had a black mane and tail. The taller mare was completely yellow with her mane in twin tails. The last filly was red with her mane in a ponytail. They all had a picture on their back legs. A red bow, two metal hearts tied together with a yellow ribbon, and a pair on wings with a leaf above them respectively. Seeing it only cemented the situation they were in.
“Hey, what are you doing out here?”
Applebloom crept out of her room and down the stair until she could see the front door. She had heard a knock at the door and her big brother get up to open it. Making sure to be quiet she had followed him down. Big Macintosh opened the door to reveal a white pegasus in armor. Her eyes widened in excitement even if she couldn’t hear what was said. It was Princess Celestia’s guard! Her excitement was interrupted when Big Macintosh turned around toward the stairs. Silently as possible, she ran back to her room and jumped into bed, listening to Big Macintosh walk past her room and knock on her sister’s room. After calling out to her, Applebloom heard him open the door for a minute before closing it and walking back down the stairs. Immediately she jumped out of the bed and followed him. Moving as close as possible, she listened in. They hadn’t noticed her. Maybe she’ll get a spy cutie mark after all!
“I’m sorry but she isn’t here right now.”
“Do you know where she might be?”
“Nope.”
Suddenly she felt a shiver. Doing another silent mad dash up the stairs as the guard asked her brother some more questions, Applebloom waited behind the door this time. However, Big Macintosh hadn’t come back up. Instead she heard the screen door open and shut. Not questioning her good luck, she headed out again, this time to Applejack’s room. Opening the door with the excuse of being scared in her mind she looked around. It was empty. Then she saw her sister’s hat on one of the bed post. Walking towards it, she picked it up suspiciously as she began to think to herself.
Wait, Applejack doesn’t go anywhere without her hat.
‘It seems that you have a knack for moving around at night.’
She froze. That wasn’t her brother or Granny Smith. Turning around slowly she saw there was something sitting by the door. It looked like white cat with red eyes, but its ears were too long. It was looking up at her with a tilt in its head. It didn’t make a move towards her except to shift its tail, maybe she imagined it? Then the cat spoke.
‘Hello, my name is Kyubey, what is your name?’