The room was perfectly spherical, the off-white walls nearly featureless; marred only by six rectangular depressions that functioned as doors. A pane of glass so clean it was nigh invisible cut through the middle of the room, providing a floor ponies could stand on if they were able to overcome what their eyes told them didn’t exist. In the center, seemingly floating in the air, was a vaguely hourglass-shaped device. Two cones capped with chrome rings punctured a smoky sphere that buzzed with purple electricity. The cones were lined with lights that slowly blinked on and off, indicating the device was in a safe ‘standby’ mode.
The device had never been taken out of standby mode since its creation.
That would change today.
One of the wall’s depressions split into four triangular sections, sliding away to create an opening. An immense four-legged being stepped into the sphere, her silver-adorned hooves clinking against the glass as she moved. Every step she took was one of calculated, elegant grace. Her immense wings were folded to her side, the feathers the same soft purple color as the hairs of her coat. Both her mane and tail moved with an ethereal, cosmic energy; seeming more like portals to distant, nebulous areas of space than strands of hair.
Her face held two wide eyes with deep amethyst irises, lenses that held the spirit of a being ancient, wise, and powerful. A sharp, conical horn poked out of her forehead, glowing slightly with a mystical lavender aura that accentuated the silver folds of her crown.
However, despite all this, it was her smile that dominated all her other features – immense, brilliant, and full of joy.
This majestic beast did not enter the room alone, for to her side was another horse-like creature, though she was more akin to a pony given her smaller size. She was nowhere near as impressive, lacking the horn of the other and sporting wings that lacked the other’s sharp angles. The smaller one’s coat was a light blue and while her short mane was not filled with the stars, it was colored like the rainbow. Her body was devoid of crown or silvered hooves, though she did wear a simple grey uniform with an orange-gold symbol on her chest that resembled a “u.”
“Rainbow, you said your name was?” the elegant being asked, flaring her immense wings now that she had the space to.
The depression behind them sealed shut before Rainbow could answer, though this didn’t concern her. “Yes, Empress Twilight.”
“Just Twilight is fine,” the regal mare said, continuing her casual stroll to the center of the room, stopping only when she was directly in front of the hourglass-shaped device. “Here it is. My life’s work.”
Rainbow raised an incredulous eyebrow.
“I’ve been working on it for a few centuries, on and off. That qualifies as a life’s work.”
“Sure,” Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes. “Whatever floats your boat.”
“I have not heard nautical sayings such as that for a long, long time.”
“Must be your lucky day,” Rainbow said, trotting up to the hourglass device and scrutinizing it. “How do you turn it on?”
Twilight held out one of her hooves and gingerly touched the top of the hourglass; an action Rainbow was too short to do herself without taking to the air. A holographic screen appeared in front of Twilight’s face, displaying numerous graphs and lines of text Rainbow could not decipher – though a large green section that said ‘begin test’ seemed pretty self-explanatory.
“That?” Rainbow asked.
“Tap here, the test will begin. The preparations finished today, actually. You have such convenient timing.”
Rainbow chuckled. “That’s the story of my life, right there.”
Twilight looked to Rainbow with a coy smile. She dismissed the screen with a wave of her wing. “And what is the story of your life, Rainbow?”
“Well, you s-“
“Think carefully before answering, because if I don’t like what you say, this day will not end well for you.” Her smile did not falter in the slightest as her words took on a new tone.
Rainbow’s smile vanished in an instant and she visibly tensed. “I’m just a-“
“A pony who didn’t exist two days ago,” Twilight said. She lit her horn, bringing up a holographic image of Rainbow Dash and a digital file with a lot of ‘UNKNOWN’ fields in it. “No history, no family, nothing. Even my deep networks haven’t the foggiest idea who you might be or where you might have come from.”
“…Look, I don’t want any trouble.”
“That’s good!” Twilight said, clapping her front hooves together. “I don’t like trouble, things tend to get messy when there’s trouble. So, if you don’t mind, I’ve shown you the device you wanted so desperately to see. Now explain why you’re posing as a star pilot, what your purpose is on my station, and why I shouldn’t lock you up in a singularity prison for the rest of your minuscule existence.”
Rainbow gulped. Slowly, she reached into one of her uniform’s pockets and pulled out a small, disc-shaped device. It was composed mostly of a simple screen, though the edges served as nested dials that could be rotated in thousands of different combinations. Currently, the screen displayed a red error message.
“Do you know what this is?” Rainbow asked.
Twilight’s horn lit with a lavender aura, tapping into her power. A similarly colored aura appeared around the device, levitating it into the air. Twilight turned the device over in her telekinesis, eyes widening further every time she did so. “It’s… broken?”
“Just lost,” Rainbow said. “And that’s why I need your help. Your devi-“
There was an explosion somewhere nearby that shook the entire room, upsetting the sparks in the center of the hourglass.
Rainbow’s wings flared and her pupils shrunk in fear. “Oh no. They found me.” She quickly swiped the disc out of Twilight’s telekinesis. “We have to work quickly! We ca-“
“I think I’d like to hear what these pursuers have to say, first,” Twilight said. “Though I have to admit, their use of destructive force does put them significantly further down my list of ‘people to trust’ than you. Not that you’re trustworthy.”
“Look, you don’t have to trust me, but they’re going to charge in, guns blazing, and there’s not going to be any talking to them.”
Twilight smirked, surrounding her horn with a dark arcane fire. “Oh, I think they’ll listen.”
Rainbow groaned. “Normally I’d be all for solving our problems with excessive amounts of violence, but I kinda don’t want to break your thing!”
“It’ll be fine. I have more than enough magic to go around. I could teleport this entire station if I wanted. These invaders are foolish if they think they have the upper hoof.”
The depression that had slid open to allow the two of them entrance a few minutes ago was blasted to oblivion by a neon red explosion. Twilight acted quickly – focusing the magic in her horn to cast a barrier spell around her, Rainbow, and the central device. The shrapnel harmlessly bounced off the lavender bubble, spreading haphazardly along the smooth glass, scuffing the perfect surface in a few places.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to wax that?” Twilight asked the smoke billowing from the new hole into the room. “I don’t, but I pay a lot to get it done, so it has to be difficult.”
Three beings stepped out of the hole, all of them wearing black armor marked with glowing runes of various colors. They had two arms and two legs, though given their cloudy appearance it was unlikely that was the only form their bodies could take. While they had heads, they looked like wisps of orange fog instead of faces.
Twilight’s grin widened. “I’ve never seen creatures like you before.”
All three of them hefted black, cylindrical weapons in their wispy arms. The runes on their armor flashed brightly for a second, powering up their attack. As one, they unleashed three beams of darkness.
Twilight easily caught the attacks with an extra barrier spell, but her eyes widened in surprise at the force the dark beams impacted. “That’s some impressive firepower you got there! Mind telling me where you got that?”
The cloudy beings didn’t say anything. They also didn’t stop firing. Their guns didn’t look like they would run out of energy anytime soon.
“Well…”
“Yeah, this is a problem,” Rainbow said, flying up to the top of the hourglass device and tapping it with her hoof, prompting the screen to appear in front of her. “So we’re getting out of here.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Don’t you dare! We have no idea what will happen with all this energy!”
“No time to discuss!” Rainbow declared, ramming her hoof into the ‘begin test’ button. Instantly, all the lights on the hourglass switched to a deep, menacing red. The electric energy within the smoky sphere shifted to a bright green color, shooting out and striking the inside of Twilight’s barrier.
Twilight’s miffed expression was replaced with one of curiosity. “That’s not supposed to happen… interesting…”
And then the hourglass started glowing bright white, shaking as though it were about to explode.
“Uh oh,” Rainbow managed.
“Regrets?” Twilight asked.
“Maybe?”
The hourglass exploded, engulfing everything within Twilight’s barrier in a magnificent purple light.
The cloud beings swore they could hear something fundamental crack around them…
~~~
Five colored spheres of light appeared around the sun for a moment, demanding the denizens of the desert below look upon them in wonder.
Few noticed the spheres appear. Fewer still were looking when the spheres vanished unceremoniously.
One lonely, wandering mare covered from hoof to ear in tattered fabrics saw the entire display. She paused a few moments, contemplating what she’d seen.
Without so much as another glance at the sky or a curious ‘hmm’ she continued her journey, walking further along the ancient road as grains of sand blew in the wind…