//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: My Little Pony: Sparkling Harmony: Future Incursion 
// by Captain_Cosmos 
//------------------------------//

On a beautiful late-spring day, in the City of Detrot, Dr. Night-Mare stood at a lab table, writing observations down on her notepad as she studied some magical sparks in jars. “Subjects seem drawn to elements originating from outer space.” She commented. “Reinforcing the theory that—“

That was as far as Night-Mare got before something suddenly wrapped their tiny hooves around her neck. “Nighty!” A familiar, happy voice came.

Night-Mare smiled as she set her pen down. “Hiya Flurry.” She said. She turned and took Flurry in her forelegs. She glanced around, expecting either Cadence or Shining to turn up. After a moment of them not showing, she came to the conclusion that Flurry got away from them…again. She lit her horn.

Night-Mare: Hey guys, Flurry just arrived at the observatory.

Cadence: Oh thank Faust she’s with you at least Night-Mare.

Shining: We took her magic inhibitor off for two seconds to give her a bath, and then she poofed away.

Night-Mare: Well Twilight and her family should be here soon. When they get here I’ll pass Flurry off to them.

Cadence: Thanks Night-Mare. One of us would come by but the Peace Symposium is too important for either of us to skip or be late to. Sorry.

Night-Mare: Oh it’s fine. In fact, mind if I get a magic sample from her while she’s here? I could use all the different magical signatures I can get.

Cadence: It won’t hurt her right?

Night-Mare: Not at all, she just needs to Spark.

Shining: Alright, we trust you.

Night-Mare: Is dinner still on?

Cadence: Reservation is set for 6:30PM for sixteen at Celestial Cafe.

Night-Mare: See you then and there!

She sent off the final Horn Pulse and smiled down at Flurry. “You’re quite the hoof full aren’t you.” She said. Causing Flurry to giggle. Night-Mare giggled along with her as she lit her horn and summoned a jar, and a syringe. “Hey Flurry. Can you Spark for me?” She asked.

Flurry giggled and lit her horn, A Spark formed above her head. Wasting no time, Night-Mare sucked the Spark into the syringe, and plunged the Spark into the jar. “Thanks Flurry.” She said as she placed the jar, which she promptly labeled Flurry, alongside three other jars, labeled Cadence, Luna, and Celestia respectively. “Upside of being related to some princesses, you can get things more easily.” She chuckled to herself.

At that moment, Night-Mare heard the intercom system activate. “Dr. Night-Mare, your sister Twilight and her family are here.”

Down on the first floor, Twilight, Sparkler, and their nine kids waited patiently in the lobby area. Melody was grinning. “I’ve never been to an observatory before!” She exclaimed.

“I hope Aunt Night-Mare lets us look through the giant telescope!” Sprinkle commented.

Sparkler and Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle over their kids’ enthusiasm. They had been looking forward to this trip to visit Aunt Night-Mare for a while, ever since Night-Mare invited them to come visit her observatory.

“I’m sure if you ask nicely she’ll let you look through it.” Twilight said.

“And after we’re done here can we go to the comic book store?” Spike asked.

“Sure Spike.” Twilight said with an eye roll.

“Awesome!” Spike exclaimed. “I hope they have the new Power Ponies comic!”

“No need to worry about that.” Came the voice of Night-Mare. “I thought ahead and checked it out this morning. They did have a new issue.” She said as she lit her horn and a comic appeared in front of Spike.

Spike grinned and snatched the comic from the air. “Thanks Night-Mare!” He exclaimed cheerfully.

Night-Mare nodded and turned to the rest of her family. “Hiya everypony. Welcome to my observatory.” She said.

“Aunt Night-Mare!” All the kids exclaimed happily as they each hugged her.

Sparkler meanwhile wasn’t even off the seat for more than a moment before a little white ball of fluff crashed into her and hugged her. “Sparky!” She cried out in joy.

Sparkler, for her part, recovered from her shock fairly quickly and smiled. “Flurry. Good to see ya.” She said.

“Are Cadence and Shining here?” Twilight asked.

“She teleported as soon as her magic inhibitor came off to take a bath.” Night-Mare responded. “They’re here for a Peace Symposium.”

“And let me guess. You guys want us to take her?” Sparkler asked.

“If it’s not too much trouble. My lab isn’t for a foal to be in unsupervised.” Night-Mare responded. “And as much as I want to say Flurry would be supervised, my current work requires my complete attention.”

“What are you working on?” Melody asked.

“And yea, we can take Flurry.” Twilight added.

“Great.” Night-Mare responded. “So, everypony ready to come upstairs? You can see what I’m working on there…and maybe even help me out.” She added.

“Can we look through the big telescope?” Trail asked.

“Of course.” Night-Mare responded. “Right this way.

Night-Mare led her family up into the main part of the building. “Welcome to my lab.” She said.

“Whoa!” All of the kids went. They were now standing in a large dome ceiling room that had all sorts of strange gadgets and gizmos that they had never seen before.

Sparkler herself was impressed. It was like stepping into the future. “Quite an impressive lab Dr. Night-Mare.” She commented.

“Thanks!” Night-Mare responded. “Everything in here allows me to do any kind of astronomy related research. From Black Holes in space, to incoming asteroids that Luna is ever so grateful for me telling her about. Fun fact, Luna is the only one who can stop incoming asteroids.” She said.

“Because she’s the only one who can breathe in space?” Twilight asked.

“Bingo dingo.” Night-Mare replied. “It gives her something over her sister. Which she admits helps to keep the jealousy away that turned her into Nightmare Moon.”

Sparkler and Twilight couldn’t help but laugh. By now everypony in Equestria was aware of what led to Luna’s fall. So to hear that something was helping her keep the jealousy away this time around was a good thing.

While Sparkler and Twilight were talking to Night-Mare, the kids were still running around looking at everything. Mystic approached a table, and saw the four jars with magic sparks in them. “Hey, what’re you doing with those?” She kinda called out.

Night-Mare, Twilight, Sparkler, and everypony else looked to where Mystic was. Night-Mare smiled as she walked over to the table and her niece. “That, Mystic, is my latest research project. You know how Celestia and Luna can control the Sun and the Moon respectively?” Mystic nodded in response. “Well, ever since we learned that your mother has more potential than anypony originally thought, I started to wonder if the Alicorns are connected to the cosmos in some way beyond what we know. So as an Astronomer, the premiere expert in the cosmos, I took it upon myself to find out.”

“Whoa.” All the kids said. “Cool!”

“Yeah. It’s a big undertaking.” Sparkler said.

“Exactly! And the more Magical signatures I can get my hooves on, the better. Which leads me into what I alluded to earlier when I said you all could help me.” Night-Mare said.

Twilight smirked as she realized where it was going. “You want us to provide our unique magical signatures.” She said.

“If it’s not too much trouble.” Night-Mare replied, summoning a bunch of jars, syringes, and labels. “I just need a few seconds.” She explained.

Sparkler and Twilight smiled as they glanced around to their Alicorn kids. “Lumber, Trail, Lightning.”

“Melody, Sky, Crystal. Wanna help out Aunt Night-Mare?” They asked.

“Sure!” The Alicorn kids responded, all gathering around and lighting their horns. Sparkler and Twilight doing the same.

Night-Mare immediately sent the syringes to collect the sparks, and deposit them into their accompanying Jars. After which they were labeled immediately. After a few seconds, she had eight new Alicorn Magical Signatures to run tests on. “This is perfect! Thanks guys.” She said. She glanced at Mystic. “Mind if I collect a spark from you too Mystic?” She asked.

“Why me? I’m not an Alicorn.” Mystic said.

“True. But you are a CLONE of one. So that technically makes you an Alicorn as well. Just wing-dormant.” Night-Mare explained as she placed the jarred sparks next to the ones she had already collected from the other princesses.

“Is that true?” Mystic asked, turning to her mothers.

“I mean. I guess so.” Twilight said.

“That makes sense to me.” Sparkler added.

Mystic smiled and lit her horn. “Alright.” She said.

Night-Mare smiled and jarred Mystic’s magic Spark. Putting it next to the others. “Thanks a lot guys. I really do appreciate it.” She said.

“No problem.” Everypony responded.

“Can we look through the telescope now?” Lightning asked. “Also, the mare in the lobby said I had to put my camcorder away. Why’s that?” He asked.

“It’s a security concern.” Night-Mare responded and she trotted over to the telescope. “Can’t have bad guys stealing anything.”

“Ok.” Lightning said happily as the kids gathered around the telescope.

Spike leaned up against a table to read his new comic while everypony else gathered around the telescope. He flipped to the front page, and smiled when he read the first few panels. “Ooh. Power Ponies in the Future. Nice.” He commented.

Unbeknownst to everypony, the jars that held a baker’s dozen Magical Signatures started shaking as the magical sparks started glowing brighter. Within moments, Spike was the first to hear the rattling of the jars and he looked up from his comic just in time to see the jars burst and the magical sparks start flying around. “Uh, guys!” He called out. Racing towards the other ponies.

Everypony heard him and turned away from the Telescope to see the 13 different magical sparks flying around. “What the?!” Night-Mare exclaimed.

“What’s happening?” Crystal asked.

The sparks bounced around for a minute, before suddenly flying in circles REALLY fast. Within seconds, the floor they circled started to glow, and the wind started to pick up towards the glowing spot.

Twilight, without even thinking, called out to Sparkler and Nightmare. “Spell chain!”

Nightmare, Sparkler, and Twilight lit their horns, and magical cables wrapped around some pipes that were running the wall. Sparkler turned to the kids. “Link up and grab onto mommy Twi and me!” She told them.

The kids did what they were told, and they formed a chain where they took their sibling’s tails in their mouths, Spike was at the end of the chain grabbing Melody’s tail. He started reaching for Twilight’s tail, but at that moment, the wind became stronger and something flew off the wall and hit his hand, Spike grunted in pain as his hand was forced back and in no time, the wind lifted all of them off the ground and Sparkler was the only thing keeping everypony but Twilight and Night-Mare from being sucked in. She was holding onto Flurry’s tail to keep her there.

“What the frax is going on?!” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know!” Night-Mare said. She glanced at the wall again and saw a security camera snap off it’s mount and fly straight for—“SPARKLER WATCH—“

Too late, the security camera smacked Sparkler in the head and she momentarily lost focus on the magical cable, that was all that was needed for Sparkler and everypony holding onto her to be sucked into whatever was pulling them in. The kids and Spike all screamed as they disappeared into the light.

“GUYS!” Twilight cried. She was about to deactivate her own magic to try to save her family, but before she could, there was a shockwave of wind and light that slammed Twilight and Night-Mare against the wall. They both grunted in pain, but landed on their hooves.

After all of that, the winds finally died down, and once the dust settled, Night-Mare’s lab was a mess, and even worse, when she and Twilight looked around, there was no sign of the others. Twilight shook her head, did she really just... “No, no, this isn’t happening, our family was NOT just sucked into whatever the frax that was. This isn’t—gah!” Twilight tried to flex her right wing, but it hurt to do so. She glanced at her wing to see it had been mangled up. It was safe to assume it was at least sprained.

“Twily, are you ok?” Night-Mare asked.

Twilight breathed in and out to ease the pain, before looking at Night-Mare. And before her brain could process things, she exploded on her sister. “What in the hay happened?!” She asked angrily.

“I…I don’t know!” Night-Mare responded.

“You don’t KNOW?! You’re the one who collected all the magical signatures! Aren’t you supposed to make sure this doesn’t happen?!” She asked.

“I didn’t know this was gonna happen! If I did, don't you think I would’ve taken every precaution AGAINST it?!” Night-Mare asked. “But right now, we need to get you to a doctor to get that wing checked out.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Twilight exclaimed. “Our family just vanished into black-hole for all we know and you think the first thing we need to do is make sure I’M ok?!” She asked.

“If we don’t get that wing checked out it could become much worse than a sprain.” Night-Mare responded.

“I don’t care about my wing! I was originally a Unicorn, I can deal with a useless wing! We need to find out what the hay happened and find a way to get our family back!” Twilight growled.

“Twilight! Calm down!” Night-Mare said sternly. “I get you’re angry. I’ll take full responsibility for this freak accident but us yelling at each other isn’t going to accomplish ANYTHING!” She said. “What we need to do is work together on this.” She said.

Twilight huffed, before taking a deep breath, and letting it out. Her brain caught up with her and she gathered her thoughts. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She said.

“Oh believe me I understand.” Night-Mare said. “Now, first, we’re going to get that wing looked at. And then, we’re going to check what security cameras are left to figure out what happened. And then we’ll find a way to—“

That was as far as she got before a disk of light suddenly appeared before them. They both squinted their eyes to combat the sudden bright light. After a second, they both started staring at the light. “Oh for Faust’s sake what now?” Night-Mare asked.

Twilight squinted, trying to make out a shape that was starting to form, before her eyes widened in shock. What? She thought.

To be continued…