~~Spike~~
Spike opened his eyes. He looked around his room that the people of the city gave to him several months ago. He rubbed his eyes, hearing the soft groans of his wife in the back of his head. In the great spiral shape of the city, she was laying in a room almost identical to his, and in an identical house. He was told this layout was so that the two of them can always be connected, and never have an issue of running into a wall he didn't see on her end of the vision. She awoke, and moved to her feet, "You okay, Spike?"
He sighs in response, "It's just been almost a year since I last saw my friends.
She nodded in response, "I feel the same way...but we can't leave now...can we?"
He shakes his head, "Not for a few more months...we still have to wait out another..." he looked at his wall, which, out of many things, held a calendar, "Month and a half...then we'll go to your place, which is closer, and then to mine. We just have to do our jobs until then."
Spike got up, his slightly elongated body from maturity was still in the process of "getting used to". He grabbed up his bag, and headed out. He walked the gentle streets of the city to one particular building. He sighed, put on a helmet, and walked in. He was part of the new mining group that had started a bit before he came to the city. His job was to mine amethyst, which littered the sediment underneath the city. This was so they could sell the material to Textile and Manufacturing factories in Phillydelphia. He descended the elevator with ten or so other purple dragons so that they could work in several directions at once. Spike got to work, he was tasked to mine straight down to see how deep the layers of The Lavender stone go. He was a bit nervious, he was told, fairly early on at that, that he's doing one of the more dangerous parts of the job. He prepared himself, and grabbed his gloves.
Spikes gloves had tiny spears on the fingers to gouge out rock, and it was mainly a multi-purpose tool: able to be converted into a shovel and used by the city as weapons in some respects, it was one of the cooler things he's discovered about what a society with fingers can create. He worked in a large circle, making sure that the was always a way to ascend in case something bad happened to the tunnel he was building. Every time he found something, he placed it in a bucket that followed him down the mineshaft to allow him to work without worrying about being over burdened by the weight of gemstones.
This was Spike's thirteenth day of working on this, and his mineshaft was about 8 body lengths wide and his was still finding a lot of material to help with the city. He was approaching what his supervisor called "The Dark Earth". The rock in those parts were heavy and had a distorted coloration than the previous layers of rock. Spike moved back up with his bucket, and went to his supervisor, a older Dragon with most of his back spikes sharpened to a point and held several chunks of them removed.
"Dayolez. I found the Dark Earth. Can I get a more reinforced bucket to use since this one..." holding up his bucket with huge bents and strain marks on it, "This one has taken more abuse carrying the odd rocks up then the entire time I've been here."
The dragon takes a careful look at it, "We'll replace it tomorrow, since the work day's almost up. Keep going for a bit, and if it breaks before then..." he chuckles, "Well, we're already replacing it, so there you go."
Spike nodded, and continued working. His day ended an hour or so later, but he was still halfway filled in his bucket, and he had some time, since it took a bit to walk back up. He kept digging, and then his glove caught on something. He tried digging at it again, but his gloves couldn't pierce through this stone. He dug around it to see it in full. What he uncovered looked about the size of an egg, and heavier than the entire rest of the bucket combined. He was mystified but it's smooth appearance, and it's weight. He covered it back up, and then headed up out of the shaft. He dumped all of his collected rocks into a sorting bin, and placed the wounded bucket beside it. He was about to head up, when he noticed something strange. He looked back, but nothing was there. He then thought, "Hey...did you hear that?"
Amethyst, who was home from her own work schedule nodded, "Yeah...I heard a voice behind you...it sounded like-"
"Hey Spike!" he turned around, startled by the sound of Dayolez, calling to him, "Can you come here?" he turned around and saw him standing there with another bucket, "The new bucket just arrived...if you want, you can continue for a bit to test it out a bit for tomorrow."
Spike considered it, "Sure...But...did you hear something?"
He shook his head, "Not really? Maybe something on your mate's end?"
"Didn't seem like it...but maybe?"
He puts a claw on his shoulder, "Well, be careful down there...we don't want one of our best workers to become sick or something."
Spike nodded, and took the bucket, moving back down the shaft to where he left the stone egg. He moved over the rocks, and looked at it, "So what are you anyways?" he looked at it again, and then put it in the bucket. After a little bit, he found another one, this one was slightly bigger, and weighed about the same. After a bit, he found five of them of all sizes, and each was a smooth cream color. Spike brought them up, and was satisfied that the bucket was able to carry them all up, and placed the largest near the sorting bin, since he doubted it would sort it through. he then took the smallest, half the size of the first one, and put it into his bag.
He walked home, "Are you sure you should have taken one of them?" Amethyst was reading a book in her spare time.
Spike shrugged, not sure what it is, but I know who might. Spike had been able to keep in contact with the princess, getting news about Twilight and her friends. He grabbed a box, wrote a letter on it, and breathed fire over it, sending the box to her. He smiled, knowing that she'd figure this thing out.
~~Twilight~~
Twilight Sparkle was working in her tree library when she heard a knock at the door. She opened it with magic, and turned to see Princess Luna standing in the doorway, "Oh...Luna. What can I do you fo-"
Luna placed a box in front of her, the top of it had a letter from Spike on it, "What do you know about the space beyond the sun?"
Twilight raised an eyebrow, "You mean the outlaying planetary objects or the stars?"
Luna scoffed, "You Doth be my sister's student alright." she opened the box, and inside wasa stone about half the size of an egg, "Between the planets Sagittarius and Fentarius is a Belt of meteorites that most ponies can't see without being there themselves." she placed it away from her, "Most of them have odd properties, like the fact that this one might have been hollow, which many smaller ones inside of it."
Twilighht looked at the strange rock, "And how do you know this?"
"Because I-" Luna gets cut off by a large noise outside the tree. They both run out and see thousands of shooting lights scatter over the dimming sky, many crashing straight into the ground with a thunderous crash, "Oh, no..."
"Twilight looked over, concerned, "What's going on?"
Luna swallowed as she stared at a large moon-like object rising behind the other moon, "The Brother moon has returned."
Twilight just looked confused at he large orb in the sky, "Luna...what IS that thing"
Luna's coat darkened into a onyx purple, "My flagship..." Luna stood, her body in the form of nightmare Moon, and her eyes dead-set on it, "Retrieve Spike before the night is done...or we might never have a day!" Luna launched off like a bullet, at the large orb, and Twilight rushed back inside to grab his package, and focused hard on it. She reversed the magic on the box, send her and the box back to Spike in a flash.
~~To be continued?~~