"Princess," Twilight and Shining bowed at the same time. "It's good to see you again!" Twilight spoke.
"Indeed it is, my student but I have some slightly concerning news not allowing me to enjoy this reunion to its fullest." The Princess just sighed and took a sip of her tea. This confused Twilight.
"What could be so bad that it concerns you? Is there some kind of ancient ultra evil that we will have to go and smash with friendship?"
Celestia just chuckled at this "Nothing so poetic, Twilight." She ordered all of the guards out of the room. "Something has been... Seen... Very far away. Some kind of... Unnatural object and it is moving very fast." She said in a hushed voice
"How far is it and how fast is it moving?" Twilight inquired
"Well... It is about nine billion miles away and it is moving at approximately one hundred eighty-seven million five hundred thousand miles per hour. Predictions put it directly in the path of Equus..."
Twilight looked like someone hit her with a ton of bricks "That would put it on the edge of our solar system... You're trying to tell me that... An interstellar object is going to crash into Equus in, what? 48 hours?" The look in her eyes was worthy of the situation. "What is it?! How can we stop it?!" She hurried out, hyperventilating
Celestia just looked like usual. "I move the sun on a daily basis, I can handle some space thing. As for the first question, we don't know, this is why we called you. You are to help us figure this out. It should also be a good learning experience for you."
Twilight just looked taken aback. "Why would I ever need experience deflecting space stuff?" She looked at the Princess dumbly.
"Because, one should... Always be ready." Celestia responded uncertainly "Look, just help us with this" She said, teleporting them to some sort of facility.
They were in a circular room with steel walls and a high ceiling. One side was full of chairs. It looked like a meeting room but all of the chairs were pointed towards a centre stage that cut the room in the middle. On the other side of the stage were machines and telescopes pointed out of a half open roof towards one point in the sky. There was several tables with maps on, some marked with lines and Xes and some were covered in red circles. Ponies dressed in white clothes were milling about, some carrying clipboards some carrying papers in a generally hurried fashion. Magically projected on the wall of the stage was a general area of space. It looked static. Twenty unicorns were in a corner with their magic activated, eyes closed and silent. They were holding up the magic probe in orbit in lieu of the princess. They were some of the best mages in the kingdom.
"What in Tartarus is this?" Twilight blurted out, amazed.
"This is the Early Disaster Avoidance Bureau . Its where we keep tabs on the stability of countries in case of war, the state of the ground in case of earthquakes and, of course, space. We don't have much ability to monitor space but detecting a meteorite, or something similar, late is better than not at all." The Princess replied.
All Twilight could do is gawp.
"Indeed. Well we are going to have to cast the spell on the stage. Its structure is built upon a large amount of refined Thaumium to boost magical clarity. Your extra magical ability will be just the little kick that we need to enhance the resolution of the probe. You see, I can kinda feel the solar system if I can concentrate hard enough, but to actually have more than a gut feeling, I will need to interface my magic with other large pools of mana. You along with my sister should be just enough to see what this thing is a bit better. It feels... Strange. Not like normal space debris. That's why I we are using all of this" Celestia explained, waving her hoof towards everything.
Twilight was just about to ask another question when Princess Luna came in through a sliding metal door, cutting her off.
"Ah, Twilight, you are here! We shalt finally figure out this conundrum! Come, we must make haste, we don't have much time. Open the roof all the way!" She shouted
The ceiling retracted, giving way to the abyssal stygian black sky. Luna had crafted this night to be extra crystalline for the purposes of this test.
With that, the three headed down the centre steps and onto the dais.
Celestia started by weaving the initial spell, drawing a magic circle in her mind, adding subtracting and changing seemingly inconsequential markings and shapes to a degree that could only be achieved by a goddess. Sending waves and waves of magic into her horn, a wispy string of pure thaumic energy trailed up and sprung forth from her horn and blasted into the sky. At that point, Luna mirrored the process, making a replica of her sisters spell but changing tiny things like the thickness of a line or a tiny shape. A strand of searing white energy shot out of her horn and joined the other, thickening as it connected.
Twilight knew how to feed another's spell, it was simple. She simply locked onto the magic manifestations and turned her mana on. Like a tap, she just simply opened the 'valve' and the spell took what it needed. She was almost like a battery to a circuit. When she opened her 'valve' to a certain point, though, something happened. Everything went black. Before her spanned the emptiness of space, stars and planets slowly appearing almost like an invisible fog was clearing away. Then, slowly, came the two who's spell she was inside of, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.
Outside of the spell, their eyes were burning white and they were slowly rising off of the ground.
"W-Where are we?" Twilight asked, stuttering at the sheer size of what lies before her.
"Don't fear, we are inside my spell, Twilight" Celestia answered. "This is space, we are controlling a magic probe and it is time to find out what is coming." As she finished her sentence, the space around her started to move. Quickly.