"Perhaps it is time to teach young Twilight of the element and it's uses?"
The Princesses, Luna and Celestia were sat in the throne room, which had been emptied out, save for one royal guard, holding a small platter, upon which sat a chunk of glowing purple mineral. He knew not why he was charged with standing here and holding it as he did, but it was his duty to do so.
"And what do we teach her about it?" asked Celestia to her sister. "We know little about it ourselves!"
"This is true, but we must also confess that we know less about Magic itself than young Sparkle does. It is her element afterall. We Alicorns and the Unicorns of our world merely use it. She embodies it." said Luna, with an authority not like her usual demeanor.
"Though you are right, she is still young, inexperienced. We know too little of what this element would do when manipulated with magic as it is, but Twilight will most certainly attempt to cast a variety of spells to determine it's use, and I fear that-" but Celestia was interrupted.
"Sister, please. Who better than she to do exactly that? Your prized student is no Filly, Celly, you must see that."
With a sigh, Celestia was defeated. Her sister was right.
"Very well." she said, with a heavy heart. "Guardspony, you are to send that stone to the town of Ponyville, and ensure it reaches Princess Twilight.
"Yes, your majesty!" he said, and threw the rock into his saddlebag, before taking off.
It had taken no more than three hours for the stone to reach Twilight, and the letter that preceded it explained all. It was an important task for The Princess of Magic, and Twilight took it with an enthusiasm bordering on the obsessive. For days she studied the stone and experimented with it incessantly, discovering new things about it with each passing day. Her first discovery of the stone was that it bore strong similarities to the stones present in the Elements of Harmony, and bearing an almost identical makeup to the stone in her own tiara. Armed with this knowledge, Twilight soon after discovered the stone's ability to amplify spells' effects or durations, when cast in it's presence. It bestowed magical properties and compatabilities to simple and non-magical objects when nearby.
However, the stone was not simply a boon. It had a detriment. Spells cast in the presence of the stone could backfire, and when they did, the effects of the backfire were hazardous to a pony's health, regardless of the spell cast. What was more was that the stone reacted unpleasantly whenever Twilight attempted to lift or move the stone with her levitation. It was difficult, and in her mind's eye it was as if the stone was avoiding her magical contact.
And then there was the issue of physical contact. The stone was volatile and dangerous to flesh or fur, with Twilight's hooves bearing small burns and bald spots from where the stone had burned her upon contact. Spike was able to touch it, the scales even on his claws seemingly resistant to it's caustic touch, though he did claim that touching the stone made him feel sluggish and tired. It also made him flammable. It was unusual to see spike being vulnerable to burns but as he sneezed when holding the stone, the fact that his belly got mildly burned as a result of his fiery sneeze was proof. Further testing showed them both that this was only the case when Spike was touching the stone however, and so the little dragon's fears of a curse were abated.
After two weeks of testing and reporting on all that she could, Twilight decided for yet another test, the flow of new discoveries having come to a halt.
"Well Twilight, we're all here and we got our elements on. What was it you were tryna do again?" asked Applejack, as she and the other four elements stood infront of Twilight, all wearing their elements as she had asked them to do.
"Thank you all for coming. You're all aware of this stone that I've been studying for the past two weeks, I'm sure."
"Yea!" said Rainbow Dash, a little grumpy. "That rock is the reason you haven't come out at all to hang our or anything!"
"We uhm...we miss you Twilight." whispered Fluttershy
"I'm sorry, really. But this is important. The Princesses charged me with studying this stone, as apparently it is the most common mineral in our world and they knew so little about it. They told me it was magically charged, and I can tell you that they didn't know the half of it!"
"I'm more miffed that in all this time, you wouldn't even allow me, of all ponies, to have a look at this gemstone of yours. Moi! One would think that I would have crossed your mind at least." complained Rarity, staring at the beautiful purple stone, her mind already aflutter with ideas to fashion this stone into an ensemble.
"Besides, considering what you say about this stone, it would be a useful item for any unicorn to wear, would it not?"
"Believe me Rarity, I did think of that." assured Twilight. "But this stone still has to undergo some tests before I would even think of allowing that. The one we're going to perform today, is that we are going to subject it to the magic of our elements, to see what becomes of it. Afterall, it is important that we know what this stone would do if the need to do exactly that to it, or anypony wearing it, arose."
"She has a point..." admitted Rainbow, with the others sullenly agreeing. All of them save for Pinkie Pie, who had remained calm and silent during the entire meeting. She simply stared at the stone in wonder, a look of confusion and amazement plastered on her face. Nopony took notice of course, as as it was near unthinkable for any of them to try and figure out what went on in Pinkie's mind, especially when she was engrossed as she as.
"Well then. Let's begin the test shall we?" said Twilight, looking straight at Pinkie, who responded surprisingly quickly, and ushered herself into position just as the others did.
As the six gathered in a circle around the stone, which was perched on a display case in the middle of Twilight's library, they each closed their eyes and focused, pouring whatever emotions and energies it was they needed to, in order to get their elements to activate. As it began to work, Spike noticed the commotion. He knew about Twilight studying the stone, but he had no idea of this particular meeting, and he was all too curious to find out what was going on. Stepping into the circle, clutching a small diamond in his hands, that he was planning to eat, Spike was able to witness the instant that the spell was fired from the elements.
It was fired directly at him, as he had unwittingly placed himself between the stone and the focal point of the spell.
Immediately spike threw up his hands, his small gem put up in defense. Instead what it did was create a secondary focal point for the spell, as it hit the gem, and spread out through it. It did hit the stone however, which began to rise as the magic enveloped it. When Spike dared open his eyes and saw that his tasty diamond was now in the middle of the spell, he didn't dare move it, as the element bearers were focused on their spell and didn't appear to notice much of what was happening.
Branches of the magic spread out, in seemingly random directions, and flew out into the world. As this was happening, the spell got a reaction indeed from the stone, the magical purple mineral. In a few moments it's own colour seeped into the spell, as if it had magic of it's own that it was using on the magic of the elements. It seeped in, and hit Spike's diamond, turning that purple aswell, before spreading through it and into the elements. Again, Spike felt that heavy sluggishness, and saw that he too was being enveloped by the magic of the stone.
The residents of Ponyville definitely saw these arcs of magic flaring from the treehouse of their local librarian and resident Princess. They even witnessed one of the branches fly up into the sky and head for Canterlot in the distance. Ofcourse, none of this elicited as immediate a panic as what happened next, when the treehouse exploded, showering the town with shards of wood and burnt books.
Princess Celestia had just received her latest letter from Twilight, detailing the latest of her discoveries of the mineral, and her intentions with the elements. It was mid-morning, so Luna was fast asleep as Celestia read the letter. What she didn't expect however, was to be struck with a wayward beam of colourful magic the likes of which she recognized. Confused, but ultimately relieved that the magic didn't appear to do anything to Celestia, she immediately set about writing a letter to her pupil in order to investigate.
However, as she wrote, Celestia heard something. it sounded like a voice, though it was very far off. The Princess of the sun had no idea as to why she was hearing this, considering how telepathy of any kind had not been in her repetoir of abilities thus far. Perhaps it had something to do with that spell that had struck her, seeming to do nothing. Celestia tried to use her magic to 'locate' the source of the voice, not certain as to how exactly she would do this.
"...bought a pony made of diamonds, because I'm...."
A pony made of diamonds?
A crystal pony?
Had someone kidnapped a citizen of the crystal empire?
Immediately Celestia set about writing another letter. Her cousin Cadenza would know something of this, and Celestia could likely organize a nation-wide search for the kidnappers.
Celestia did not expect however, to explode.
Or to come to, shortly after, blind and unable to move. Or feel her body.
"Angel? C'mon Angel I need you to focus here." said a voice. It bore a resemblance to the faint one she'd heard only moments ago.
"Where am I?" Celestia said. Or tried to say. She certainly heard what sounded like her voice saying what she'd said, but Celestia could not say how she'd said it, since she could not tell if her mouth had opened, or if it was even there. Her voice had also sounded different. Artificial in a way.
"Hey Angel, wake up sweetie, you're slackin' over here. You're still in the same place you were just a minute ago, don't go playing dumb on me now."
"Angel? I do not go by that name. Why can't I see anything?"
"The hell are you talkin' about? Did an asteroid hit you or something? Helloo~ anybody home? Who's in there?"
"My name is Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria and if-"
"HAH! AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAT!? PRINCESS WHAT NOW!? HAHA OH MY GOD! That's rich! That's fuckin' rich! I don't know WHAT's happened to you Angel but you're a hell of a lot funnier now, I'll say that much."
"Impudence! Is that you Discord!? I will have your HEAD for this if-"
"WOAH WOAH there Angel-oh, sorry, Your majesty. Haha, I don't know who this Discord fella you're talking about is, but since you insist you're not Angel, I guess I'll have to introduce myself. My name is Jack, and you are clearly my new Satellite assistant. Now, If you're not Angel, then I have one question."
With that, Celestia's vision was filled. First with a bright light, and then a sky blue glow. In amidst this lighting was a face. It was not the face of any pony Celestia had ever seen, and indeed it was not the face of a pony at all. It was an unusual creature, it's face flat save for what was clearly a nose. Those eyes however, they were something else. Small and beady, but with a depth that rivaled the universe itself.
What was worse, was that Celestia could no longer argue. She was compelled for reasons beyond her knowing, to comply with his demands. It wasn't even a struggle. Agian, the voice spoke, though it's attitude had changed, and now he was clearly very upset.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ANGEL"