//------------------------------//
// I: SCIENCE! 
// Story: The Adventures of Capt. Ambrose Mittens, Explorer of the Skies and Seas - Part XIX: The Equestrian Experiment 
// by Mr Anomalous 
//------------------------------//

There is a blur, quick, cat-like, and the face Dr. Fuzzyboots is thrown back, a light spray of blood following close behind.
"You fool!" Captain Mittens bellows, indignant and offended, "You've just interrupted the forging of the greatest idea ever known to felinekind!"
Fuzzyboots crawls back to a standing position, shaking his head and says in a less boistrous but equally indignant voice: "And what idea might that have been, Captain?"
"I don't know!" Captain Mittens cries, swiping his paw against his assistant's face again, "You interrupted it!"
Fuzzyboots wipes his cheek and grinds his jaw, struggling to contain an angry response.
"It's gone! Lost in the void! Forever!" Captain Mittens trails off, gazing angrily out the window of his study, grunbling and mattering as he watches as the dark, desert-like landscape passes beneath him.
Fuzzyboots groans, careful to keep it to himself. 
"Well, if you are finished being so melodramatic, sir, I have an announcement."
"Eh?" Mittens responds, his rage subsiding, "And just what might that be, Doctor?"
"It's a message. From the capitol."
"Well if that's the case, where is Jasper?"
"Still asleep, I'm afraid."
"What!?" Captain Mittens bellows once again. "That can't be! Why, it's . . ." he checks the grandsire clock near the wall, ". . . it's four o'clock! Two hours after stirring time!"
Dr. Fuzzyboots simply shrugs helplessly as his master shoves past him and exits the study.
The early morning is cold and nippy but perfectly tolerable.  Of course, Captain Ambrose Mittens would have said the same thing if they were five miles up in the sky during a blizzard measuring negative seventy degrees below zero--on the ground--but it matters not; Jasper is about to experience a very rude awakening all the same.





Ah. Yes. 
She is young, unused, mostly innocent but not completely; still just with the right amount of daring and playfulness.  The world is perfect; the room is small but well-lit and cozy, with a warm fire burning in a nearby hearth and earthly-smelling pots of flowers perching atop books of admirable thickness.  Jasper is dressed his best with a brand new trilby, a waistcoat sewn from the highest-quality rat fur, and a shiny pocketwatch of pure platinum.
And, of course, there's the utterly phantasmagoric dam lying sensually before him, stretched out, and with a mischevious glint in her eye.
She stands up, presents herself--she is very wet--and then promptly pisses in his face.
Jasper awakes, sputtering, to a sight much less pleasant than the one he was only just experiencing: the dark, furry underbelly of his boss.  And there's something else. . . .
Captain Mittens lowers his leg and scoffs, saying, "There! That ought to teach you, you lazy rapscallion!"
Jasper, realizing what just happened, frantically begins spitting on the ground and wiping his face, cursing.
"You bastard!" he says, "That was completely unnecessary!"
"Oh?" the Captain says, "You're awake, and it's two hours overdue."
Jasper spits again and then furrows his feline eyebrows. He retreives his pocketwatch--not platinum, sadly; only copper--and flicks it open.
"What?" he gasps, "Since when do we wake up at bloody . . . two? Our bleedin' wake-up time was seven yesterday!"
"Yes, yesterday. That was yesterday. Today is today. It is different. The moon is slightly closer and we are all older. Get your thoughts straight, you slubberdegullion."
"Ponce," Jasper retors.
"Cunt," responds the Captain.
"Utter merkin."
"Slimy Batty-fanger."
"Pompous meater."
"Disgusting paup-"
"Enough." says a stern voice. "You two are like kittens. Just-born ones, with severe mental issues and only one leg who are destined for a thourough smothering by their mother."
Jasper scowls and Ambrose curls his lip.
Suddenly, out of the blue, Captain Mittens picks himself up and says: "Well, that message that Jasper here was supposed to be awake to receive and then make me receive: what is it?"
"Ah, yes of course," says the bespeckled Doctor, fumbling to retreive a scroll from one of the many pockets in his lab coat, "It reads . . . 'Greetings, Sir Master Lord Earl Commander Captain Ambrose Mittens: It is with great glee and joy that I, Empress Puss of the Kitish Empire do humbly and cordially invite you to my palace, specifically, the Eastern Science-ing Wing, where Sir Felix Meowzer Meowsirs, as I am sure you know, works and dwells; he has a surprise for you that I am sure an adventure-minded feline such as yourself would find rather interesting.  And then, of course, to my quarters, where I, too have something you might find interesting; namely, my new . . .' Wait, what?"
Dr. Fuzzyboots cocks his head and turns the open scroll diagonally. "Oh my . . . a . . . a typewriter? . . . and a candlestand? . . . well now that's just cru-"
Ambrose sweeps the parchment from his companion's hand and stuffs it into his overcoat.  
"That's enough of that, when does it say she wants us to be there?"
"I don't know, I never got past the 'twenty foot tall-.'"
"I said enough. Ah well, this baby of mine-."
"I helped build it."
"This baby of ours can make it there in just a few hours. Where are we now?"
"Over the Southern Wastelands."
"All righty then! Let's get a move-on!"





Elsewhere, on a planet very distant and different from that Mr. Mittens, a table is thrown at a wall.
It lands with a crash and a smash, splattering quill ink and scattering a plethlora of parchment against the brick and stone.
"Oh. Oops," says a little unicorn filly.
"Oh, um . . . not a problem! That ink was . . . well it was nothing special," Says a much larger pony, one purple and with both wings and a horn, "Everyone makes mistakes? . . . "
A scroll appears, carried in by a tendril of rolling smoke, and lands on Twilight's head. 
She picks it up, ignoring the curious gaze of her apprentice, and reads it.
"What does it say?" asks the young filly.
"Well . . . it appears there's been a disturbance."
The filly cocks her head. "What kind of disturbance?"
"A big one."
"Where?'
". . . Everywhere."
"What does it mean?"
"Well . . . someone or something is . . . preparing to come here."
"Can I see?"
Twilight lifts the scroll higher with her aura. "No, no, classified."
"Aww," says the filly.
Twilight takes a big breath, tired but content and says, "All right then, I think that concludes the day's lessons."
"Okay!" says the filly. "I'll see you tomorrow!" 
As the table-destroying pony happily prances out of the study, Twilight sighs and goes about cleaning up the mess.  Fortunately, the ink was only imported from Trotland; not Trottingham, and the work that had been destroyed was minimal.  And besides, that filly was growing quickly, almost as fast as Twilight had.  Twilight could not wait to see as her apprentice grew and developed.  Then she wondered if this was the way had, at one time, Celestia felt.
But even with her mind fitted upon her personal student, Twilight's true thoughts mingled within the ink of that hastily-written letter.
"There has been a fluxuation in the sphere," it said, "Danger level high. Initiate code 777."