//------------------------------// // The Coming Storm // Story: Of Moons, Mares and Men // by Electricut //------------------------------// Twilight stirred, waking from a restless sleep in one of the castle’s many guest bedrooms. She had spent the entire day, and a good part of the night, running calculations. Equestria had never seen a spell this massive, except in the case of the princesses’ spells to raise the sun and moon. As such, a good portion of Twilight’s findings thus far were based only on estimations and guesswork. She rubbed her eyes and pulled herself from bed, then walked over to the desk on the other side of the room. She splashed some water over her face and ran a brush over her mane, then trotted out the door to get back to work. Halfway down the hallway though, she was stopped by a single royal guard. “My apologies, Miss Sparkle,” he began, “but captain Shining Armor has asked to see you.” Twilight’s eyes lit up. In her haste the previous day, she had let the thought of her brother completely slip her mind. After such terrible news, she was looking forward to seeing her brother and sister-in-law, Cadance. “Of course!” she replied. “Where is he? I’ll see him immediately.” “In the infirmary wing, room sixteen. Lady Cadance should be there with him, too.” The guard stated simply. “Th-the infirmary?! What happened? Has he been hurt?” “The captain suffered some moderate injuries in the battle with the forces of Tartarus. Nothing fatal though, don’t worry. The docs say he should be back on his feet within a few days. He’s mostly just resting and recovering all the energy he spent up using spells to protect his men.” Twilight thanked the guard and turned around, trotting quickly in the direction of the medical wing. That’s my brother, alright, she thought fondly, running himself into the ground to keep everyone else going. She soon found her way to the infirmary, and located her brother’s room. “Twiley!” Shining Armor exclaimed happily, embracing Twilight when she ran up and did the same to him. With all the insanity of the situation swirling around her head, it was reassuring to her to be able to lean on her big brother again. After a full minute of silence, simply allowing their breath and heartbeats to communicate and alleviate their fears, Twilight rose again and composed herself. At the foot of his bed, looking just as worried as the siblings was Cadance, Shining Armor’s wife and one of Twilight’s oldest and best friends. Twilight and Cadance embraced wordlessly as well. Shining Armor shifted slightly in bed, and Twilight turned her attention back to him. “Are you alright?” she asked. “I heard you were wounded in the battle…” “Oh, don’t worry about that!” Shining insisted. “Just a few scratches. I honestly wish I could do more though… Once I get out of this bed, I’m going to help you with that witch’s spell. You and all the others will need as much magic power as you can get, and you know I’m one of the strongest there is. ‘Course, that seems to run in the family, as well.” Twilight blushed. “Thanks, big brother.” “I’ll watch over him for both of us.” Cadance said reassuringly. “You should get back right away and help stop all this from getting so much worse. Twilight nodded solemnly, and left the medical wing a few minutes later. ____________ Almost two months passed. The scientists of Canterlot had broken some ground, but it still wasn’t enough to completely stop the spell. Several days prior, the spell had finally broken the bonds placed on it by Canterlot’s excess magic, and reports said that the lights were now over the skies of Ponyville, as well as being visible from Los Pegasus and several other towns. Questions and cries of alarm were flooding in from all of these places and more. The time had come when the story could not be hidden from the rest of the world any longer. “I’ll give the announcement.” Celestia stated to her research team. “Some of the ponies of Equestria may think we’ve been keeping secrets from them, lying to them, and they’ll want to hear the truth from their princess.” One of the other ponies nodded, and switched on the radio transceiver brought fourth for the princess. This would be the most convenient way to spread the word to all the citizens of Equestria as quickly as possible. The pony stepped forward and pressed a button on the transceiver, and spoke into the attached microphone: “Attention, Equestria. We apologize for interrupting your regularly scheduled programming, but the princess Celestia has an urgent announcement for the entire kingdom.” He stepped back, and Celestia took up the microphone. “Attention, citizens of Equestria. I’m sure that by now, you have taken notice of the lights in the sky, emanating from here in Canterlot. I wish to alleviate your fears, but at the same time, I want you to know the truth, so I will not in any way lie to you. During the battle against the forces of Tartarus around a month ago, a monstrously powerful spell was cast, and as you can see, it remains in effect yet. I assure you, Equestria’s finest are doing their best to put a stop to it before it takes effect, and while we do not yet know what will happen should they fail, unlikely as that is, you should also be aware of what type of spell it is. It seems to be an enlarged version of the standard teleportation spell. As I said, we are unaware of how this will affect us as of yet, but trust me, we are working as hard as we can on finding the solution. Please remain calm, patient and understanding during this time. Thank you.” She turned off the transceiver, and several long moments of silence followed. Finally, one of the scientists spoke: “How do you suppose they are reacting to this news? Even though they were told not to panic, I’m sure some are regardless.” Celestia sighed. “Until the problem is sorted out, there will be unrest. All we can do is resolve to end this chaos as soon as possible. Now, everypony, back to work. We have no time to waste.” Twilight nodded, and shortly went back to her calculations. The rest of the day passed without major incident or discovery. She returned to her chambers at the end of the day, but did not go right to sleep. It was hard enough to sleep with her mind racing all day, every day, but she didn’t feel like fighting that night. She stepped out onto the balcony that adjoined her room and the room next to it, and gazed up sadly at the stars. Her heart grew heavy and sped up at the same time, when she realized she was not looking up at Equestria’s stars. The constellations were all unfamiliar to her. It’s already gotten to this point… she thought despondently. We haven’t physically left the universe yet, but the skies are changing. The skies of the place we’re being sent to have already begun to imprint themselves in our sky… we need to hurry… _________________ The next day, the skies were dark with heavy rain and clouds, but Twilight’s hopes were high. She had scheduled several test stations, in which they could project the results of possible counter spells with slowed-down, miniature teleportation spells. Now that they were more confident that they knew how the giant spell was working, they could begin testing on a smaller scale and devise a spell powerful enough to counteract it. Twilight trotted to the room in which the testing stations had been set up. There were five different stations, all with tiny, rough replicas of Canterlot and the other cities affected by the spell so far. They also varied ever so slightly in the conditions of the spell, as there were still several possibilities of side-effects that could take place. “Alright everypony,” Twilight began, “you know what to do. Divide up into teams of three and get testing!” Twilight stood back to let the other unicorns in the room hurry to their stations, and began making notes immediately about the behavior of both the teleport spells and counter-spells. As the tests concluded, the results of one caught Twilight’s eye. “Station three, I’m going to need you to replicate that test, especially the first five minutes, before the counter-spell went into effect.” The unicorn scientists nodded, and the teleportation spell thrummed to life. Twilight kept her eye locked on it, until it began quavering at around five minutes in. Strange bolts of magic began to strike at the miniature cities launching tiny pieces into the air at high speeds. Nearly everyone in the room jumped in surprise. Most of the pieces managed to get themselves lodged in the high ceiling of the room. “A knock-back shockwave…” Twilight thought, her mind kicking into overdrive. “The equivalent of that effect at actual scale could be powerful enough to tear a small building from its foundation, or knock small objects, or even ponies…” she gulped, “straight into space.” The other scientists attempted to remain calm, but it was plain to see that panic was quickly setting in. One of the unicorns exclaimed “Is that going to happen to us?! How long do we have?!” Twilight shook her head, and spoke up above the commotion of the others. “Ponies, please calm down! We don’t know if this instance is the same as the one we’re dealing with!” “But what if it is?!” another scientist, slightly younger than the others, retorted. “If we waste too much time, who knows how many lives could be lost?!” Twilight sighed angrily, then dove for a pen and paper, and began scrawling calculations. After a tense five minutes, she raised her head and wiped her brow. “There. If it does happen to be this instance of the spell, we have two weeks before it should begin to take effect. Now, can we focus on determining whether or not that’s the case? I don’t want to cause any more panic than necessary.” The rest of the day dragged by, as well as the better part of the next, and despair began to set in. All signs pointed towards their initial reaction being correct, that the massive shockwave would indeed take place. With a heavy heart and racing mind, Twilight quickly composed a letter for her loyal assistant in Ponyville, managed to send it off, then rushed off to alert the princess. _____________ Without Twilight around, Spike had been incredibly bored. He had floated around Ponyville for the last two months, trying to fill in for some of Twilight’s previous obligations, but mostly just lazing around with his other friends. Once or twice he had considered attempting to make a move on Rarity, but decided against it each time. For the most part, his life had remained unaffected, if a bit lonely. As he was walking back to the library, Spike began to feel a familiar tingling sensation in his throat, and he realized with a start that somepony was sending him a message. He made sure not to face anything flammable as the note arrived, and caught it in one claw as the green flame and smoke subsided. He unrolled the tiny scroll and scanned over what was written, then slower a second time. “Tell everypony to stay indoors all day, exactly two weeks from now, on the twenty-third. Also, tell them to stay as low as they can. Basements are good, but they should be just as safe as long as they are on at least the ground floor and under some kind of cover, like a desk. That includes you, Spike. Stay safe. ~Twilight” Spike gulped slightly, but nodded in determination. He took off for the town square of Ponyville quickly, but slowed to a halt a few moments later. Even if he had become fairly well known and trusted by the ponies of town, he was still a baby dragon. They might not take him as seriously as they should if it was just him talking. He thought on the matter for a moment. Rainbow Dash? Pinkie Pie? Nah, if they wouldn’t take me seriously, they probably wouldn’t listen to either of them, either. Fluttershy would never get up in front of people like that, especially since she’d probably be panicking… And between AJ and Rarity, Rarity’s closer. Spike nodded, then changed direction again and headed for the boutique. He burst through the door, drawing Rarity’s attention immediately. She put down the garment she was working on and moved over to the panting dragon. “Darling, what’s wrong?” “You’d… better read this…” Spike said between breaths, handing Rarity Twilight’s note. “I’ll need… your help, telling the rest of town…” Just as Spike had, Rarity quickly read over the note, then read through it again to make sure she had read correctly. Her outer composure remained calm, but inside, she was already beginning to feel panicked. She was no expert on the finer details of magic like Twilight was, but she could tell that this was incredibly dangerous business that was knocking on Equestria’s door. As much as she wanted to panic, though, she had to retain her posture and composure, so the young dragon, and her young sister in the other room, did not worry more than they had to, and would not think less of Rarity as someone who would protect them. “Alright…” she said at length. “What can I do to help, Spike?” “We need to tell everypony about this, and if they get the message the first time around, they have more time to get ready. I figured they’d listen to you more than they would me, since I’m just an assistant and a baby dragon, and you’re a pretty well-known and respected pony around here…” Spikes cheeks flushed slightly at the end of his sentence, as he had let instinct take over without thinking, but he was glad that he managed to get the message across. Rarity beamed at the compliment and nodded. “I suppose you’re right. Come along then, we’ll go to the town square and gather everypony we can, and tell them all at once. Then… then we’ll talk to mayor Mare, and have her distribute the warning in the newspaper, so it will reach anypony we miss. Let us hurry, we only have two weeks to tell everyone!”