//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: How It All Began... 
// Story: Close Encounters of the Sixty-Third Kind 
// by Yoshirocks341 
//------------------------------//

	It all started on a perfectly ordinary day for Dusk Shine, Prince Solaris’ faithful student. In fact, the day was so ordinary that it caused one of the most common feelings that every being that has ever existed has felt at one point, utter boredom. To make sure this case of boredom wouldn’t come back again, Dusk formulated a plan.

“Spines!” Dusk shouted across the Golden Oaks Library, the place which he calls his home and his workplace, “Can you write a message for me?”

“To Prince Solaris?” A young girl’s voice yelled back.

The owner of this voice turned around to face Dusk. She was a young dragoness, whose age was in the single digits. She had green scales, which stood on top of her head like a scared mare. On the sides on her face, little light green fin-like objects sprouted out. Each contained three “hearts”, giving the edges a wavy look. Her eyes were a deep green that accented the color of the scales on top. The rest of her body was covered in purple, except her belly; this contained a white tint. There was a pointed tail sticking out of her, finishing the dragon look.

“Actually, this message will just be delivered around town,” Dusk answered.

Dusk himself continued the purple color theme to his skin. However, the color was just a tint lighter of Spines, but you could only tell that if you creepingly stared at them. His hair fell down his neck, but dared to go no further. It was also on the bandwagon of purple, but it decided to take the darker route. Plus, it secretly cheated with the pink bandwagon for a stripe down the middle. These colors continued into a tail that started from his purple butt. This contained a star that wanted to be different and became a tone that was the mixture of the hair colors. 

His chin came up to the very top of Spines scales (he sometimes told her that he could squish her underneath his foot, but Spines knew he never would ever try and couldn’t do it). His overall body was not very muscular, since reading books and studying don’t take a lot of muscle power. His body was tipped off with eyes the same color as his skin and a horn which didn’t want to be left out on this purple parade.

“I want to invite the guys over tomorrow to have a mysterious spell party.” Dusk explained to Spines while walking over to her, “I need some excitement after today’s lack of.”

“Ya…I have to agree with you there. Today was especially dull,” Spines replied, nodding her head.

So, Dusk told the message he wanted to send to his friends to her. When the messages were completed, Spines ran outside to deliver the messages by hand, instead of the usual “air travel”. She was lucky enough to run into the mailcolt right outside the library. He insisted that he deliver the letters, since it was his job after all. So, Spines left the messages with the double lazy-eyed colt and head back inside.

The next morning, Dusk woke up and made some preparations for the arrival of his friends. First to the library was the one who always wanted to be first, Rainbow Blitz. Rainbow Blitz was a colt always in the skies, and his own body reflected that. His skin was a light blue color, which matched the sky perfectly. His head shot rainbow colored stripes of hair from the back of his neck over the top of his head. His long tail matched the same color scheme, but looked like it never met a curve in its life. Between this tail and his two powerful, well worked wings, were a cloud and a rainbow. His brown eyes were partnered with lightning bolt eyebrows.

“Well, it looks like I win again!” the athlete shouted joyfully with a smirky smile.

Dusk chuckled to himself, knowing his friend Rainbow Blitz’s over-the-top competitiveness was taken to everything. “When will he realize everything is not a race…” Dusk whispered to himself.

Not too long after this line had been spoken, the next pony came tumbling in. The colt donned a giant smile and bounce in his step, which was completely standard for him and never seemed to change. He was covered with pink from head to toe, with his hair taking a little red into their color. This hair bounced on his head like he did to the ground, almost giving it a look that seemed to be a mix of cotton candy and ice cream. His tail poofed the same color hair from his rear. This bum contained a cartoon picture of balloons. His body size was overall normal, which seemed to be the only thing normal about him. His wide open eyes seemed to scream the only thought on his mind, “PARTY TIME!”

“PARTY TIME!” the newcomer screamed from the top of his lungs.

“Hold on now Bubble Berry,” Dusk said to try to calm him down, “We can’t do anything until everyone is here. Rainbow, can you try to keep Bubble from exploding before we start?”

“That’s way easier said than done,” Rainbow muttered in response, but none the less went over to try to talk to Bubble.

With the three occupied on the party animal, the next guest was totally not noticed. He quietly slipped in, and was going to say something, but decided not to. His skin and wings were a light cream yellow. His hair fell around his ears and down the back of his head. The hair was pink, but was lighter than any color on the pervious guest. His tail continued this color and stuck out in a way that almost stuck out like the tip of a cartoon mop. On his upper thigh, which was definitely on the small side like the rest of his body (he was easily the smallest of his group of friends) three pink butterflies were printed there. His teal eyes were big, almost scared at the sight in front of him.

“Umm…hello?” He spoke meekly, finally getting enough courage to say something.

“Huh? Oh, hi Butterscotch!” Dusk said turning around after hearing the new voice, “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“Oh that’s ok,” Butterscotch said in return, “I just got here, and I see that Bubble got here just before me.”

A quick chuckle passed Dusk’s lips. “Yep, that’s Bubble for you; practically crazy in every way.”

This statement got a tiny laugh from the small colt. The next guest suddenly stepped in from behind Butterscotch. The well-toned colt was covered from head to toe in a pure white. His hair was stylized, falling across his forehead and down his neck, taking a rich mix of the color purple and navy blue with it. His tail captured this color and flowed in such a way with its curves that it looked like someone took hours to get it to look as such. His derrière showed three blue diamonds in a triangular pattern. His rich blue eyes shined from his face, with his eyebrows accenting them perfectly (someone had once spread the rumor once that he plucked them). When looking at him, there was no doubt in anyone’s head to say that he was good looking.  

“I have arrived, my friends!” he shouted, striking a pose.

“Ya…ya... ‘Lucy. Whatever,” Rainbow turned and mocked. He rolled his eyes but kept a smile on, because he knew what was coming next.

You could see the rage building in the newcomer. “MY NAME'S...NOT...'LUCY! My name is Elusive!” he said the last word like it should be put on a pedestal and worshiped, 	“My name is not a girl’s name Rainbow Blitz, and you know that!”

“Whatever.” Rainbow repeated and then brought his attention back to Bubble.

Elusive finally gathered himself and brought himself inside. The final guest was right behind him, and was a tad out of breath. He looked like he had been doing some hard work, and was not new to it. His body was covered with big, strong muscles. His orange skin that covered him stopped right before reaching his white toes. Over his pale blonde hair, he had donned a cowboy style hat. His hair was in the style of a pony tail, which went down his back. His tail was also in the style of a pony tail, which makes a lot of since if you think about it. Three red apples sat upon the thing he worked off every day. Sweat covered his face and dark green eyes. The last thing worth mentioning were white freckles that lived under his eyes.

“Howdy yall, sorry Ah’m late. Ah was doing some late second work at Sweet Apple Arcs before headin’ over here,” The worker said with a thick southern accent.

“That’s perfectly fine Applejack,” Dusk told him. “Everyone has just arrived. We haven’t been waiting longer than…”he looked over at the clock, “thirteen seconds for your arrival.”

“Woo, that’s good to hear,” AJ said, “Ah would hate to make yall wait.”

With everyone together, Dusk decided that it was time to explain why he had brought them here (he didn’t in the letter; he feared that it would scare them off). He saw that everyone was staring at him, so he started his speech.

“Well men, I have a mission for you guys, if you choose to accept it. I won’t lie to you, this could be very dangerous. I have some spells that I have found while searching around this library. Some could cause body changes, some could cause random teleportation, and some could even cause the most deadly diseases. This is why I need brave volunteers to put themselves on the line; in the name of magic. There might be some challenges along the way, but together, I know, nothing is impossible. Now, who’s with me men?!”

No one was paying attention. They were all looking past Dusk at something strange behind him. Even Spines, who had woken up due to the loud ruckus, was transfixed by it. What was behind Dusk was like nothing anyone had seen before. Rainbow was the first one to speak up.

“Dusk? What’s that?”

Dusk turned around and saw something even the library hadn’t seen before. It looked like a blue and black circle on the floor. It was sucking in air, taking anything that happened to be light enough with it. It was taking books, loose pages, and even one of the book shelves was slowly rocking towards it. Weirdest thing of all, it was getting bigger.

“I….I really don’t know.” Dusk replied puzzled.

Curiosity got the best of everyone present as they gathered around the mysterious object. Each person gave their own ideas on what this…thing could be.

“Is it alive?” Spines asked.

“It’s nothing I've ever seen in nature.” Butterscotch answered.

“Maybe the blueness of it is a clue. Could it live in water?” Elusive questioned.

“Well, there is really none here.” Rainbow commented.

“Ah don’t think it’s real guys, Ah think it’s a weird vacuum of some sort.” Applejack put out his two cents.

“Where are all the books going to?” Spines, a part owner of the books questioned.

“Hope we can get them back, that’s a lot of knowledge down the drain!” The other part owner was worried.

While they were all talking amongst each other, the mysterious object grew and grew and grew. It got so huge, that whole bookcases were being sucked into it. Suddenly, they noticed that the wind from it was getting so bad that they were getting pulled it.

“Make a break for it!” Rainbow yelled.

However, it was too late. Their ignorance of the speed it grew at was going to be their downfall. Their running was like watching a man work out on a treadmill. Spines was the first one be pulled in. 

“Eeeeek!” Spines screeched as she slowly disappeared into the mysterious oval.

“Spines!” Dusk shouted over his shoulder.

The growing showed no stop in slowing down. The whole library was starting to shake a little with all the suction happening. Then, each pony one by one got pulled in.

“Oh, ahhhhh!” Butterscotch yelled before disappearing into the black and blue monster.

“Waaaaa…” Dusk shouted while falling in.

“Aiiieee!” Elusive cried.

“Adventure time!” Bubble cheered, still a grin on his face.

“Yaaaa…” Applejack bellowed.

Only one colt remained. His wings pumped as hard as he flew. If he had a head start on the blue hole, maybe he could have made it to safety. He may be the “fastest” flier in all of Equestria, but he was not the best distance flier. Eventually, wear and tear over powered him, and the new blue disaster eventually won.

“Woah…” Rainbow breathed tiredly as he plummeted into the blue portal. 

And thus, their life changing, once in a life time, adventure began.