//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Meanwhile, with Spike… 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks: Our House Now 
// by TheColtTrio 
//------------------------------//

Spike walked into Twilight’s study to find three mares arguing the contents of their various chalkboards. Each board was crammed from top to bottom with scrawled equations and magical notation.
“It’s been weeks,” he said, loud enough that he knew the mares would hear him, as he set about clearing up the scattered pages of notes, magic tomes, and scrolls from the floor, “and the equations still look like Nightmare Moon gave a lecture at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.” He set the gathered materials on one of the few open spaces on a desk, dusted his claws, and turned back towards the door...
And immediately tripped over a newly discarded scroll.
“Wha-” The purple dragon rubbed his eyes, but the floor remained covered in detritus once again. “I just cleaned this!” He picked his way through the mess as the mares continued their three-way debate, passing documents off to Owlosicious as he went. “Seriously, do we even need a floor with all this stuff? I knew Twilight could get bad, but I expected better from Starlight…” 
Eventually, after much grumbling and venomous side-glances at the mares, the workspace was clear once again, this time with plenty of space on a desk to stack discarded documentation.
“There!” He turned to the door, this time checking under his claws before he started walking. “I think this is deserves some well earned victory ice cre-”
He was interrupted by a stack of papers sliding to the ground in front of him like a spilled bucket of water. In the midst of their discussion, one of Sunset Shimmer’s animated hoof-waves had knocked over the stack, resulting in a Rube Goldbuckian series of cascading messes across the room.
Spike stared at the papers for a moment before gathering a few papers and turning to the mares. He cleared his throat loudly, cutting off their argument. “In the interest of avoiding any more wasted effort on my part,” he said pointedly, “I feel like I should point out that you three are at the point where you should either test the stupid spell, or scrap the whole thing and start again!” With that, he tossed the papers into the air, walked out of the room, and slammed the door.
    The three mares looked about the room, each with an owlish expression on her face before all three sighed.
“He’s right. I guess it’s now or never,” Twilight admitted. “Unless...” She trailed off, looking hopefully at Sunset who simply shook her head.
    “It’s the same as it was last time you asked. No sign of them.”
    “O-okay,” Twilight sighed, moving to the center of the room. “I’ll do the main casting. Sunset, you help me hone in on their magical signatures, and Starlight will back me up with powering this thing. We’re finally gonna get those three where we can keep them out of whatever trouble that comes looking for them.”
    Twilight closed her eyes and focused her magic in her horn, preparing to channel it into the spell. She immediately felt Sunset’s magic join her own, helping to guide the spell to the beings they were seeking. Just as Twilight was starting to feel like she didn’t have enough magic to craft and focus the spell as well as power it, Starlight’s magical might supplemented her own, easing the task of powering the spell and leaving Twilight to finish crafting it.
    She wove, twisted, and entwined her magic just as the three of them had worked out before hoof: a combination of Starswirl’s Mirror spell and Search Light’s Beacon Spell. Twilight patiently and carefully bound the magic to the Mirror Portal loaned to her by Celestia, then switched her attention to the Friendship Map.
    “Visualize the colts on my mark, Sunset,” the Princess of Friendship warned. “...Now.” The flame-haired unicorn summoned up all her knowledge of the three bo- colts. She thought of Wits End’s dry humor and sarcastic comebacks, Light Patch’s tangential conversations, and Purple Heart’s overly dramatic behavior. She remembered all she could of the trio and brought it all to the forefront of her mind. She faltered briefly when Twilight’s voice cut through her concentration.
    “Starlight, full power on my mark,” Twilight ordered. “...Now.” A surge of power pulsed from the reformed villainess’ horn and the mirror began to glow. Sweat streamed down the mares’ faces as they focused all their concentration on their part of the spell. The glowing mirror started to rattle in its frame. The sheer magical power was nearly overloading the artifact.
    “Almost there...” Twilight ground out as she searched for the colts in Limbo. “Just a little bit more...”
    “Twi!” Starlight panted. “I’m giving it all I’ve got! I’m almost out!”
    “Almost there.” The princess ignored Starlight’s warning, her magic still searching through Limbo.
    “Twilight!” Sunset had opened her eyes and was peering worriedly at Starlight’s shaking form. “Hurry up!”
    “Keep on the colts!” Twilight snapped at the fire-haired mare. “I think I’ve found them!”
    Sunset and Starlight were panting now. The mirror was rattling so hard it was about to fall over. A resounding shriek split the magically charged air, drawing the mares’ eyes to the mirror. A long, jagged crack zig-zagged across the mirror’s surface.
    “Twilight...” Sunset urged, her voice pained.
    “Got them!” Twilight crowed. She heaved on the signatures of the colts and the villains, pulling them through the Mirror Portal. Just as she felt the spell was about to finish, something happened. The spell’s matrix shifted unexpectedly and it lost its grip on the colts. The moment she felt them slip from the spell, the rest of it tumbled into a cascade failure and before she could even try to safely end the spell, all of the energy bundled up and, with a noise halfway between an explosion and something squishing, the spell completely fizzled and blew the three mares off their hooves.
    The three lay in silence. Surprised, stunned or just exhausted none of them could say before they heard the door slam open.
“What happened! Are you three okay?” Spike shouted nervously, starting to run towards one of the mares before abruptly moving towards another.
    “That’s what I wanna know. What the buck happened?” Sunset said, slowly and carefully rolling onto her hooves before switching to a sitting position. “I thought we had them.”
    “We did,” Twilight admitted, looking critically at the damaged mirror. “But then they just suddenly slipped away and from there, everything else started to fail.”
    “I’m sorry. Maybe if I had noticed sooner, I could have-” Starlight started to apologize before a wave of Twilight’s hoof cut her off.
    “No. At best you could have severed your flow of magic and the spell would have only slightly exploded.” Twilight looked around the room at the new and the ruined chalkboard equations. “Looks like we’re starting over.” She turned at the sound of Spike trying to gather up some of the books and intact pages. “Leave them, Spike. We’ll clean up in the morning. I think we all just need rest now.” She glumly left the room, her head low. Spike just stood there, a book in his claws and surprise carved into his face. Then, he whipped around to face Sunset and Starlight, recognizing the sadness and surprise that fought for control of their faces before they too just followed Twilight silently out of the room.
    Spike just stared at the door, listening to the mares’ hoofbeats echo back to him. With a sorrowful sigh, he set the book in his claws down. “I’m gonna have to get up early tomorrow morning,” he mumbled to himself. “I’ll need to make a run to Sugar Cube Corner to get enough pancake mix to get them out of this funk.”
Giving the messy room one last once over, he walked out. With practiced ease, his claws reached out and signaled the room’s lights off without even looking back. A gentle gloom settled on the room, the only source of light being that of the map and the three pulsing cutie marks floating above it.


* * *


    The snow continued to fall, trying it’s best to return the world upon which it fell to it’s blank slate. It fought to hide the blemish, a crater in the snow carved out by the impact of the stallion that had popped into existence above it. The stallion began to move and shift, the light covering of recently fallen snow quickly falling free. The figure stood up from the snowy crater and looked around. Blurry shapes greeted the stallion’s eyes and with a huff he began to look around. As he dug through the snow around him, the snow sloughing off his body revealed the light grey nature of his coat. Finally, the stallion found what he had been looking for and pulled a pair of glasses from the snow and, after a quick cleaning, sat them upon his muzzle. The stallion was now able to clearly make out the light of a city in the distance, it’s light reflecting off the snow and clouds.
    After a quick scan revealing no other closer shelters in the snowy night, the bespectacled pony began to trudge towards the town’s warm glow. The snow continued to fall, and it continued to try and restore the blank slate that the stallion’s entrance and now hoofsteps disturbed. Quietly, the grey stallion took in the soft, snowy night. The glow of even more distant towns and cities were noticed, as well as one very bright light far in the distance shining like a beacon. The various lights and slightly different hues cast various shadows and gradients across the clouds and snow, and it seemed like no matter which way the stallion looked, there was always a new pattern to see.
    The stallion was broken out of it’s silent revelry when it felt something brush across it’s leg. With a short panicked hop, the stallion jumped away and looked down only to find a flower somehow growing in the snow. A shovel haft stuck up from the snow surrounding the flower. It appeared as if someone had meant to dig up and replant the flower, likely to protect it from the cold. The bespectacled stallion stood there, looking at the flower for a few quiet moments. The snow fell on him and the flower, dusting both like powdered sugar over a pastry. The stallion with a hoof reached out took a step forward towards the shovel before a breeze rolled over the two of them. A sudden shiver froze the stallion, causing him to wrap his wings tightly around his sides.
    The stallion glanced between the flower and the still distant city. And, with an almost apologetic smile, stepped back away from the flower before turning and trudging towards the city again. This time, his head remained locked on the lights, trying to not let himself be distracted again. If the figure had glanced behind himself he might have noticed how sometimes his hoof prints would seem to suddenly stop before starting just as suddenly several lengths away.


* * *


    Water ran under the simple bridge near a fork in the dirt road, adding its gentle watery sound to the natural orchestra of the steppes. Fish swam upstream and downstream through the river, occasionally diverting to leap at a low-flying insect or snap up some underwater greenery. One such fish broke away to investigate something laying at the bottom of the riverbed. Something that had landed recently from above, at a much higher speed than any diving bird or sinking stone it knew of. It nudged at an outstretched extremity of the thing, wondering if this was something to eat, or ignore.
    The limb jerked, as something under a thin layer of river stones released a stream of bubbles. It jerked again, freeing its body from the rest of the stones that covered it, and kicked off of the river floor for the surface.
    Shortly, the pony breached the water’s surface, gasping and sputtering to fill its lungs with air as it began to sink back down. Even as panic set in, the pony’s eyes darted around its environment, picking out a gnarled tree root that had broken through. The pony’s horn glowed as it grabbed the root with motes of energy, drawing closer to both it and the surface again.
    A Pinto-patterned foreleg grasped the grass outside of the river, pulling the rest of the gasping mint-colored unicorn along with it. Eye squeezed tightly shut, it heaved itself onto dry land and once all but its tail was out of the water, it rolled over onto its back.
     A ray of sunlight gleefully stabbed at the unicorn’s eyes, forcing it to focus once again. It groaned under its breath as it opened its eyes, lifting its head and shielding it from the sun. Slowly, it took in the hoof that blocked the light in front of it. The pony rolled its eyes, letting its head drop back onto the grass. It let out a long, tired sigh.
    After a few minutes, the unicorn rolled back onto its hooves and stood. It looked at the river, and at the simple bridge near the fork in the dirt road, and sighed again. With a few choice expletives, it took the left-most path in the fork, and began trotting as the steppes disappeared into the woods.


* * *


    Minarets of dust twisted upwards as pulverized vegetation cascaded down onto the fractured earth. A long furrow stretched from the forest to the precipice of the cliff overlooking the sandy sprawl of land that was the Badlands. Animals of every species peered out of the foliage flanking the new trough that split their forest. A crater billowing dust and sand could be seen clearly in the distance.
    A sharp cry split the air and most of the animals scurried for cover as a massive vulture swooped overhead, gliding gently on the wind currents left over from the violent landing. Piercing yellow eyes scanned the sandy terrain below, searching for what had caused the disturbance. With any luck, it would soon become a meal for the vulture and it’s brethren.
    Several minutes of wafting on the breeze later, the vulture spotted the crater. Sand and dirt had settled, revealing the new land feature to the air along with the source of its creation; a large earth pony the color of late dusk marked with jagged splashes of blue similar to that of a cloudless sky. The vulture banked and coasted down to land beside the pony. An involuntary blink coaxed itself from the vulture as it realized the true size of the dusky equine and a shiver of excitement ruffled its feathers. All excitement drained from the bird in an irritated squawk when the pony gave a sudden exhale and lifted its head. With a cry of displeasure, the vulture beat its wings and took to the sky, once again searching for a suitable source of nourishment for its brethren.
    Blinking rapidly to remove dust and grit, the purple earth pony rolled onto its legs with a groan. Eyelids fluttered open to reveal startling emerald eyes that, with a rapid blink, shifted into sharp cobalt. The now blue orbs flicked about, taking in the sandy crater. The pony rolled onto its stomach and tried to stand. Sturdy, yet unused limbs shook and promptly gave way. The blue eyes glanced down and a great huff of air burst forth as a pair of purple hooves swam into focus. The earth pony froze, lifting a hoof to eye level. It gave another gusty sigh and slowly stood, casting his gaze skyward.
The large pony spoke, its voice a deep baritone that reverberated across the crater.
    “Oh no. Not again.”