TWILIGHT SPARKLE
The sleepover went as expected. Rainbow Dash and Applejack started a competition on who can build the best pillow fort only to be floored completely by Pinkie’s and Rarity’s pillow mansion. Fluttershy began on the s’mores and Rarity decided to help out. Applejack predicted that Rarity’s meticulous and perfection-driven nature would drive Fluttershy up a wall but oddly enough the two seemed to work well together. Within no time, they had produced immaculate treats that even Twilight had difficulty distinguishing which Fluttershy had created.
Once they had gotten around to the scary-stories portion of the sleepover, Twilight, once again, scared the living daylights out of everypony though she may have gone overboard. One particular story about a ghostly mare haunting the schoolponies who tormented her in school scared Fluttershy so badly she flew to the ceiling and took refuge up there only to be coaxed down by Spike at the suggestion of hide-and-go-seek. Pinkie and Rarity didn’t understand what a scary story was, weaving tales of running out of cake frosting and dresses spun completely out of proportions respectively.
Even Applejack’s scariest story was losing her precious apple crops to thieving vampire fruitbats to Fluttershy lament and embarrassment considering the last encounter she had with them. Rainbow was easily the most enthusiastic for telling stories but even she was unnerved by Twilight’s ghastly story-telling skills.
The cyan pegasus, however, wasn’t very enthusiastic for the make-over portion of the sleepover. Following her detailed checklist, Twilight suggested the make-overs as per the sleepover guidelines dictated by the authors of old. Naturally, they ganged up on Rainbow who insisted she was perfectly fine without all of that “junk” on her face.
Rarity, however, was adamant. “You have an enviable complexion, darling,” she said with the aristocratic air of a princess. “So, I shan’t disrupt that but rather emphasize and increase the effectiveness of your natural beauty.”
Rainbow eventually conceded to Rarity’s suggestion and the girls went at it. Within a few minutes of griping and complaining, Rainbow looked ready for a night on the town, they even fixed up her unruly mane. Rainbow wasn’t impressed but even as she frowned it was difficult not to appreciate her.
“You did it,” Rainbow grumbled. “You actually did it, you made me, me, look like a fool! Take it off.”
Rarity wanted to protest but one harsh glare from the pegasus and they eventually cleaned her up, ending the affair with loud, unadulterated laughter. Even Rainbow joined in on the laugh. They finally ended the night sitting beside a lantern, cuddled up in their sleeping bags, just talking and exchanging stories. It felt nice because it made Twilight feel normal for once. No doomsday monster threatening the whole of reality, no dangerous quest, just hanging out with her best friends.
“I still have no idea how Fluttershy managed to convince Princess Celestia not to sentence Discord,” Rarity said pointing to the esteemed pegasus who shyly bowed her head. “Personally, the scullion deserves whatever punishment the Princesses had in mind.”
“Exactly!” agreed Rainbow. “He did betray us, ya know.”
“Oh, I know—“ started Fluttershy.
“And nearly got Twilight hurt or WORSE!” chimed in Applejack. “Th’ little scoundrel deserved Tartarus.”
“I realize what he did was wrong,” interjected Fluttershy. “But if you really think about it. Without him, we wouldn’t have made it out okay. Twilight wouldn’t have achieved her key and this castle wouldn’t be here.”
“But it was his fault Twilight needed the key in the first place,” argued Rainbow. “If he had done his job like he was supposed to, none of this wouldn’t happen. Twilight would still have her house!”
“But perhaps this was meant to happen all along,” Fluttershy suggested.
“What do you mean, darling?” Rarity asked.
Fluttershy looked a bit uncomfortable being the center of attention but she took a deep breath and said. “Well, the reason we’re all together is almost like destiny, right? The chances of us getting our cutie marks at the same time and meeting up are astronomical.”
The girls looked to Twilight for confirmation. The princess nodded and sat up straight. “I’ve done the calculations myself. They are pretty much impossible.”
“I LIKE being impossible!” cheered Pinkie, running up and hugging Twilight. “Just call me the Impossible Mare!”
Fluttershy laughed softly but continued. “In a logical and just universe, we wouldn’t be friends, not like this. There is something connecting us all together, an unseen force, maybe, but definitely something. So, it isn’t too hard to suggest that that same force is responsible for Twilight getting her key and becoming the Princess of Friendship.”
“I do suppose you have a point,” confided Rarity. “The concept is a bit romantic, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t like it,” decided Rainbow. “That just means that I don’t have any choice in the matter. That I have to let destiny decide everything for me.”
Fluttershy frowned slightly and looked down at her hooves to the count of three before looking back up. “I’m not sure it’s like that,” she said. “Perhaps destiny doesn’t decide everything, just the little things, like me falling from Cloudsdale and landing on a swarm of butterflies.”
“Or me encountering the boulder filled with jewels,” agreed Rarity.
“Or my nearly botched magic test that made me a student of Princess Celestia’s,” said Twilight.
“Or me seeing that sonic rainboom and deciding to throw a party!” cheered Pinkie.
“Or, hay, me seein’ the same rainboom that led me home,” Applejack said.
The girls turned and faced Rainbow who blushed from the sudden attention and smiled at her. “Your decision to race for my honor allowed all of us to acquire our cutie marks,” Fluttershy continued. “Destiny may not decide everything but it allowed us to become friends.”
Rainbow wanted to argue but the girls took the end of Fluttershy’s sentence as a cue to hug her suddenly. Rainbow was never one to refuse a hug but she hated when they would be all cutesy to defeat her argument, but she hugged them back anyways.
“Destiny brought us together,” Twilight said, nuzzling Rainbow. “And there’s nothing we can’t accomplish as friends!”
An explosion outside rocked the castle with such force the girls were jostled out of their group-hug and landed on their butts. It didn’t sound like a detonation, in fact, it reminded Twilight of a sonic boom. The Princess glanced at Rainbow who was shaking her head to get rid of her disorientation, nope, it wasn’t her.
“What was that?” Rarity asked, her face buried in Pinkie’s tail.
“I don’t know,” admitted Twilight as she got up and ran to the window. Looking up into the sky it was as starry and beautiful as ever, nothing really going on… Except that purple mass. It was a bright purple and blue thing in the sky. It reminded Twilight of the anomaly that occurred the other day, except this time it was opening up.
The purple mass stretched until it was shaped like a doughnut and in the center, where the hole was, absolute darkness remained. Not like starry night darkness, but it was more like a black hole. A burst of light erupted from that hole and shot down toward the planet.
“What in Equestria is that?” Applejack asked.
“A shooting star!” cried Pinkie.
“No, it isn’t,” Twilight muttered, feeling the same magical disturbance from the other day wash over her body only 100x stronger. Her horn glowed brightly and fizzled and popped, Rarity’s horn did the same thing and the fashionista yelped as her horn popped.
Twilight tried to conjure magic but nothing happened. She could feel the magic within her body rise up and prepare for the spell she wanted to cast but when it reached her horn it simply stopped. Panic rose in Twilight’s throat as the memory of her fight with Tirek popped into her mind.
“My magic!” complained Rarity, trying and failing to produce magic. “It’s gone!”
“Whatever that was, it ain’t good,” Rainbow muttered.
Twilight nodded slowly as the “shooting star” arced elliptically downward and slammed in the center of the Everfree Forest. The shockwave shook Ponyville but otherwise left it nearly intact. Twilight frowned, a celestial body crashing in the Everfree Forest would have a much more devastating impact, someone, or something, intervened so the collateral damage would be minimum.
“Come on girls,” Twilight said. “We have to check it out.”
It took them twenty minutes to run into the Everfree Forest, in spite of Fluttershy’s protests, and the girls sprinted right in. The enchanted forest was scary and creepy during the daytime but at night it was much worse. Twilight tried for a basic light spell but her magic was still down and she cursed under her breath.
“Why haven’t the Weather Patrol been deployed?” Rainbow asked, looking up at the skies in search of pegasi first-responders but nothing was up there.
“Whatever crashed disrupted unicorn magic,” Twilight answered, looking at Rarity. The fashionista nodded sadly as her horn sparked slightly. “The Towers must be down, they probably didn’t even sense that something breached the atmosphere.”
Rainbow looked disturbed by that news but kept her comments to herself. The Weather Patrol, while being the primary agency for meteorological activity in Equestria, monitored atmospheric disturbances not officially registered by any of their agents. Despite the amazing control the Weather Patrol had on the weather, deviations were expected. Freak storms and weather systems often drifted in Equestrian territory and it was up to them to either reverse it or stop it entirely.
But if they couldn’t see and intercept that meteorite… well, that didn’t exactly instill Twilight with confidence. They walked deep into the forest, Fluttershy was careful to warn the girls about the Poison Joke brush up ahead and then they found the crash site.
At first, Twilight thought it was just a small ravine but smoke plumed from the hole and stunk with sulfur. Twilight held her breath as she examined the crater. It was massive, easily bigger than her home, with the edges of the crater still smoking yet cooled quickly in the night air. The trees and foliage around the crater was slightly disturbed but the magical forest worked quickly to regenerate the damage.
Twilight looked over the edge, trying to see the bottom, but it was empty.
“There’s nothing here,” Twilight remarked.
“Really?!” asked Pinkie a bit too loudly. She zipped down to the bottom of the crater and yelled something back that was too difficult to hear.
“What?!” yelled Rainbow back.
Pinkie appeared right next to her, startling the poor pegasus. “I said, ‘She’s right, it’s empty!’”
“What could survive a crash like that and simply walk out?” asked Rarity, her voice quivering.
“Wh-who knows,” said Fluttershy, visibly shaking. “M-Maybe we should investigate in the morning. You know, when it isn’t so scary…”
“We need to keep going,” Twilight said to both Fluttershy’s and Rarity’s dismay. “Once we find out what it is, then we could go.”
“Th’ asteroid could’ve burnt up on impact,” suggested Applejack. “If it was small enough, the atmosphere would’ve whittled it down and the earth could’ve vaporized it.”
The girls stared at the farmpony, dumbfounded. “What?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Ah may not be a student of Princess Celestia, but Ah can read.”
“That’s entirely possible but I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling,” Twilight admitted.
The girls nodded, quick to learn that if Twilight has a bad feeling about something it’s best to follow that instinct. Twilight lead the girls away from the crater, continuing north and heading for Zecora’s cottage.
“Why there?” Rainbow asked.
“Firstly, to make sure she’s okay,” Twilight answered. “Secondly, the asteroid crashed scant meters away from her house. She might’ve heard or seen something.”
“Oh, I do hope Zecora is alright,” muttered Fluttershy.
“I do hope she took my advice on interior decorating,” chimed in Rarity.
They looked back and gave Rarity a look. “What?” she asked. “Her place could use more natural light.”
Finally, they came across Zecora’s cottage. It was virtually untouched from the last time Twilight visited. Nothing was wrong with the place yet Twilight couldn’t shake this feeling of dread. “Okay, we’ve seen the place,” Rarity whimpered. “Now can we go?”
“Let’s knock,” Twilight suggested, walking forward without waiting for an answer.
Approaching the door, Twilight was about to knock when she noticed something odd on the floor. There were hoof-prints but something else right next to it. It looked like something was being dragged inside by somepony, her Fetlock Holmes expertise drew her to that conclusion as dread filled her chest.
Twilight pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Zecora?” she called out.
Zecora was standing in the middle of the room, her cauldron bubbling in front of her and a confused expression on the zebra’s face.
“My, this feels like déjà vu,” Zecora said with a small smile. “Very reminiscent of when I first met you.”
Twilight blushed, feeling a bit self-conscious from her outburst and was about to apologize when Fluttershy gasped and floated forward. “Who is that?” she asked.
Twilight looked to where the pegasus was pointing to and she finally noticed the pony there. He was lying down, sprawled over Zecora’s couch and looked horrible. The stallion looked like he’d been in a fight for his life. He wore a red and blue form-fitting suit that was cut up and stained with dried blood. The parts where his fur was revealed were bandaged up. His mask was nearly intact except for the left side of his face where Twilight could see light brown fur and a chocolate mane poking through.
The princess’s eyes widened as she took a hesitant step forward. There was something drawing her to this pony, like he produced a gravitational force that she couldn’t disobey.
“I do not know, my dear Fluttershy,” Zecora admitted. “He is a strange pony, like rain, he fell from the sky.”
“Wait, he’s the asteroid?” Rainbow asked.
“Is he, uh…” Applejack trailed off.
“He is fine,” Zecora promised. “He is resilient and strong, he will be okay with time.”
“He don’t look so well,” Applejack remarked.
“That outfit has seen better days as well,” said Rarity.
Again, the girls paused to give Rarity an incredulous expression. “What? Somepony needed to point it out.”
The girls asked more questions about this strange stallion but Twilight wasn’t listening. She approached the stallion slowly, as if afraid he’d combust if she made the wrong move. That strange insignia of a spider on his barrel drew Twilight’s attention but it was mostly him. There’s something that felt off about him, like he shouldn’t be here…
She reached out to touch him.
“Twi?” Applejack asked, looking over in time to see her poke the stallion’s face.
Light exploded around Twilight and her eyes began glowing. Arcs of electricity shot out and zapped Rarity as well but it hadn’t harmed her. She yelped and soon her horn’s magical aura returned, her magic was restored!
Twilight squeaked as she shot across the room and crashed into Zecora’s kitchen. Zecora ran for the princess. Twilight was tangled up in a bunch of plates and pans, smoking still and her fur was singed but otherwise she looked fine. Even her horn glowed purple.
“Okay, I didn’t see that coming,” she babbled in a daze.