Something was off about the waters today, Silverstream could sense it swimming. She wasn't the only one, most of the seaponies were confused by the odd disturbance. Even fewer were claiming to have seen what they described as a moving mountain, but mountains can't move. Unless mountains on land could move, could they, was it some sort of land contraption, is it even real, or is it just a made up prank? Silverstream continued to overthink these questions as she swam further and further into nowhere. She finally came up to a massive trench, peering down into it she saw nothing of interest. Turning to swim back home, she heard something. It sounded like a growl echoing from the bottom of the trench, Silverstream quickly swam back over staring back into the trench. Now there was a bright blue glow pulsating in the dark, slowly it began creeping upward towards the top. A high pitched roar bellowed from the blue light, causing Silverstream cover her ears. She turned and immediately started swimming back towards Seaquestria, knowing that whatever that creature was, it wasn't natural.
The Crystal Empire didn't seem that bad, it was colorful, everyone was nice, and best of all Gallus got to meet an actual princess. Twilight might be the Princess of Friendship and all, but she doesn't rule her own kingdom. And who knew Spike was so popular here? Well, a lot of people actually, but that didn't really matter. There was one weird thing about this place though, the storm looming over the Crystal Mountains. It was brewing over them when Gallus had made it there on the train, and had been there for the few days they had stayed. The weird thing about it was that it wasn't just a snow storm, it was a thunderstorm, almost a hurricane, and it wasn't moving. It stayed in the same spot, getting larger and larger each day, no magic holding it down or anything. How bad could a little storm be though? If it did start moving towards the empire, the professors would just cancel the trip and we'd be on our way back.
Active volcanoes tend to give a little earthquake now and then, but never this much. Cracks in the mountain appearing more frequently, the quakes getting more and more aggressive each day, something was up. Most of the other dragons didn't pay much mind, Smolder had tried to tell Ember, but she didn't care either. Nothing was in the lava, if there was, it wasn't bursting out of the lava, so why should anyone care. They were dragons, they could handle pretty much anything. Did they have a real plan, no, all they were gonna do is breath fire at it until it either dies or retreats. Smolder saw nothing like that working since whatever it was, it lived in a volcano so fire shouldn't hurt it. If or when it comes out of the volcano, it was gonna be a bad time for everyone.
Thorax was extremely worried, some of the workers had discovered a massive egg in a cave, and it was getting ready to hatch. He had been pacing around his throne room, trying to think of a way to deal with this situation. Ocellus was walking through the massive crowd gathered around the entrance to the cave. When she squeezed to the front of the crowd as a tiny bug, she saw the egg. It was nothing like what she heard, it wasn't just any egg. Just by looking at it she could tell it was soft and squishy, with whatever inside it visibly moving around on the inside. It emanated a blue glow, but it started fading. Everyone was thinking the worst, the egg was going to hatch, and the hive was going to be destroyed by whatever was inside it. The top of the egg slowly began to split open as an insectoid creature emerged from the inside. It was light brown, with a caterpillar like body, and small crystal blue eyes. It scanned the surrounding area, seeming to take note of the crowd. It made a chirping sound at the changelings, making most of them back away in fear. Finally Thorax flew down getting a good look at the creature. He was immediately showered in questions about what he was going to do about this. He whispered something his assistant and flew off. Occelus, out of curiosity followed, transforming back into a bug.
"Twilight! This is important! It's form Thorax!" Spike called, holding a new scroll in his hand. Twilight quickly took the scroll from Spike, reading it over quickly. She called over Applejack and Fluttershy, and all of them had a concerned look. Twilight and Fluttershy began flying towards the train station.
"Professor Applejack, you know where they're heading?" Gallus had asked, "We haven't even been here a full week, why are they running off so soon?"
"I don't exactly know, Thorax just said some new huge creature was discovered in their hive, so Twilight and Fluttershy are off to see what it is," the orange mare replied.
"Wait, isn't Ocellus at the hive? What happens if something goes wrong? Can I go with them?"
"It's always the tough ones who care the most. Gallus listen, I'd say yes but ultimately it's up to Twilight."
"Well if you excuse me I have to catch up with her before she gets to the train."
"Good luck, don't get yourself into trouble, that's the last thing we need right now," Applejack said turning to the storm.