It was a bright sunny day in Ponyville, the birds were singing, and the flowers were blooming. And for some reason, Fluttershy was hiding in a bush, watching a plate of freshly baked muffins inside of a rope trap. “I’m almost positive it’ll show up, Angel, I know it will!” , Fluttershy whispered to her pet bunny. Angel just waved his paw dismissively.
Fluttershy turned back to the plate, only to find it empty. “Shoot!”, she hissed, leaving the bush to check her trap. When she stepped into the loop, the trap went off, leaving her to dangle in the tree. Fluttershy heard a snicker from somewhere in the trees.
“Angel! Was that you?!?”, Fluttershy asked in an annoyed tone. Angel shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Then, she heard it again. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks! I know you’re out there! I know you’re real!”, Fluttershy shouted at the empty grove around her.
“Don’t be too sure!”, a voice replied, before snickering and going quiet. “Argh! I almost had it! How is it so quick?”, she growled, still dangling helplessly. Twilight came strolling through the grove and saw Fluttershy slowly spinning in the air. “Umm, Fluttershy? What are you doing up there?”, the purple alicorn asked.
Fluttershy sighed, “I almost had that critter that been in my garden, but it’s too fast. And now I’m here.” Twilight tilted back her head, “Funny, I came here because I was tracking a weird magic surge, particularly one that bends time.” As she helped Fluttershy down, Fluttershy interjected, “So maybe it’s not so fast? Maybe it’s just using magic?”
“Maybe, but I’ve only ever seen magic associated with time in legends, not even Celestia knows any time spells.”, the purple alicorn pondered. After she helped Fluttershy down, she noticed she stepped on a solid, warm object. She picked it up and examined it, it had green magic rapidly flowing through it. Fluttershy looked over Twilight’s shoulder, “What is it?”
“It looks like a scale, a dragon scale maybe? Let’s take this back to my place and run some tests on it, I have a feeling it might belong to your mystery mischief maker.”, Twilight replied. So Fluttershy and Twilight started back towards Ponyville, little did they know they were being watched. A pair of sky blue eyes peeked out of a nearby den. “That can’t be good, I better see what they plan on doing with my scale.”, declared the mystery voice, whose eyes shined from the den.
Meanwhile, back at Twilight’s castle, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Starlight were watching as the magic substance in the scale dissipated when dunked in in a glass of ice. “Wow!”, Starlight gasped in awe, “What do you make of this, Twilight?” The princess thought for a second, “So far, I can deduct that whatever this thing is, the cold is bad for it, see how some of the color is chipping away as well?”
She pulled out the scale and showed it to them, the orange scale had some gray flecks, from where it started to peel. “So how does it survive the winter? Hibernation could kill it, even if it ate enough to keep its body temperature up.”, Fluttershy wondered. Twilight replied, “Perhaps it doesn’t hibernate, see this?” She pointed to some burn marks along the top of the scale, “You know how an asteroid burns up when it travels very fast through the atmosphere? Theoretically, if you were to travel fast enough, you’d be able to do the same thing without leaving the ground.”
Starlight tilted her head, “But how fast would it have to be traveling to do that?” Twilight sighed, “This is where it gets crazy, usually for that to happen is average 10 to 20 miles per second, or 72,000 miles per hour. There’s no creature in Equestria that can move that fast, not even the Wonderbolts!” Fluttershy took the scale from Twilight to take a closer look, “That sounds dangerous though, that constant stopping and going at such a velocity can’t be good for your insides.”
“Exactly, and that’s what that time bending magic is for, this thing uses the magic to put its internal organs in suspended animation. That way, when it stops running, its organs remain in the same condition as before he started running. Of course, this is just a theory, I could be wrong, I’d like to get a hold of it to perform some experiments on it.” One of Twilight’s machines started wildly beeping.
“What’s that?”, Starlight asked. Twilight gasped as she looked at her monitor, “It’s another surge with the same readings, right outside!” Fluttershy flew up to the open window, “Twilight! Another scale, and oh! Footprints! Leading towards Sweet Apple Acres!” The purple alicorn smiled, “Maybe this thing won’t be too hard to find.”