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// Prologue: The Stranger Tides 
// Story: Friendship is Ancient 
// by Alexander Jack 
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Twilight was sitting comfortably on the pillow she had laid on the floor, next to larger, even fluffier pillow for the princess. The room was only lit by dim candles placed randomly around, leaving a slight scent of lavender. It was late; even Spike got too tired and went to bed. Twilight was dosing off as she waited for her majesty, Princess Celestia that is, to arrive. The clock was ticking, slower and slower, time began to slow down, until the faint snoring of a tired pony could be heard. Silence filled the room with it's own song and darkness died at the edge of the windows, giving the feeling of separation from the world entirely. Then there was a knock at the door; waking, Twilight got up lazily and walked to greet the visitor.

She bowed to the tall figure and said softly, "Hello Princess, I hope you weren't busy.".

Celestia returned, graciously, with "Hello my most faithful student, And don't worry, I wasn't in any manner of importance."

Now fully awake, Twilight showed the princess the pillowed spot she had made for her, and asked "Would you like some tea princess?"

"Yes please, no sugar."

Twilight walked into the small kitchen like area and got the pot of tea that had been setting on a low fire for an unknown amount of time.

"So, Twilight, this 'thing' you found is a 'he'?"

"Yes, and he's...whatever he is, I have never seen it before." Twilight then gives the cup of tea to Celestia, as they both lay on their seats.

"So, Twilight, what was it that had everypony so scared a few days ago? I would like to hear your story, instead of the rumors I was told previously."

"Okay princess, It started like this...

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...It was stormy, with plenty of lightning to wake me up a few times throughout the night. Each time it woke me, I knew it was nothing but the weather. However, at dawn, there was an unnerving crash of sound, far too loud, and it could not have been lightning, it sounded too...unnatural.

I walked outside to see what it was, but I couldn't until the pegasai had cleared the clouds. Everypony else was getting up and looking as well, and what we had seen, scared everypony. It was a massive, dark sphere that bent the light around it's edges, and it didn't cast a shadow, about the size of a half a football field. I sat there and watched all of the pegasai try their best to fly to it for a closer look, but a mysterious wind was blowing to keep them all away from it, even Rainbow Dash.

As I sat dumbstruck, said friend exhaustively landed next to me.

"Twilight, what the hay is that thing?"

Never before had i seen such a thing, nor anything that had ever resembled it.

"Dash, i have never seen this before,in fact, I have never seen anything like it." Then, an idea hit me. "Dash, Remember that launching pad you made when Applejack had that bumper harvest and she tried to get all the apples alone? Where is it?"

"It's at Applejack's actually, it was too heavy to put into a cloud." 

Without another word, we then went off to AJ's. Heading through the town, we had seen Fluttershy gathering all the bunnies that ran off in fright of the sounds. We had also seen Pinkie Pie singing her 'Fear Song' to a small group of children, but Rarity was not with everypony outside, at the time I thought she was just busy with another order of clothing for an important client.

Nearing Apple Acres, we found Applejack and Bigmac Pulling the Launching device, all folded up, in a Two horse supply Carriage.

I said "I can see you guys were thinking the same thing I was, Need some help?"

"Eyyup" said BigMac. Applejack didn't speak but grunted, as she tried to keep up as much pulling as her stronger brother. So I swapped out with Applejack every once in a while to let her have a rest, using the come-to-life spell. We approached the town square, directly under the dark sphere, and began to set up the catapult-like device. It didn't take more than a minute to re-assemble the five-piece contraption. 

Shortly after setting up said contraption, Me, Applejack and Bigmac all climbed to the top.

Then I said "Okay Dash, we're not sure if this will work, so if this gets you close, try not to touch it, we have absolutely no idea what this is."

She hesitantly said,"Got it." Rainbow-Dash reluctantly stepped onto the other side, waiting for us to jump. Ponies saw what we were doing, and they watched nervously, more so than Dash. On the count of three we had jumped, and as we almost landed together, time slowed for me, enough to see sudden fear in the eyes of Dash, for that moment, I too shared that fear.

We hit, and Rainbow-Dash flew so fast, she was on the edge of another sonic rainboom. She was flying too fast, and she wasn't able to turn at that speed, so flying directly into it. I closed my eyes, waiting to hear the cracking of shattered bones, But I never heard such a sound. She had flown right through the ball of energy, or magic, and my Stomach sunk. 

Was it somepony's magic? Or perhaps just a visual trick? Is Trixie playing a very bad joke? I ran to the library as fast as my slightly sore hooves could carry me. There was no time to waste, i had to move whatever it was away. I was panting as I opened the door to see a still-sleeping Spike. So quietly, I had began going through the list of books I had.

I was looking for the teleportation spell that didn't teleport me with what I relocated. After a bit of browsing I found it in the 'Advanced Magic for Foals'. I studied it quickly and hurried back to the square. My friends were all there, except for Rarity.

Then I said "Okay girls, since none of us have any idea as to what this is, I'm going to try and move it out of here, you may want to stand back." They all looked at me with worry, and just like what their expressions were telling me, there was something very off about all this.

I could faintly see Applejack mouth the words, "Just, be careful Twilight.". I Knew this thing was dangerous, I could feel it in my gut, so I HAD to get rid of this ominous orb.

I began charging the spell, as the other ponies stood back. Electricity surged throughout my body, at first it was just through me, but then it got so charged it covered me in a field of purple colored wires of lightning. It hit full capacity and I was practically light itself, and so, fired a bright violet lightning bolt at the sphere, expecting it to disappear from sight, but it didn't. 

My magic reacted with the black hole in the sky, and I realized that my spell was the catalyst of some catastrophic event. 

I just hoped no-pony would be hurt because of my mistake.

Combining with my magic, The orb was shrinking, and pulsing white light, while producing air-piercing screeches and whines. Like an ear-piercing whistle but was as loud as a train. It became louder and louder, pulsing faster and faster until it became so small you couldn't see it. 

That moment it went mute, or maybe, we went deaf, as loud as it got, it instantaneously exploded in a ring, like one of Rainbow-Dash's Sonic Rain-booms. But, it was different, around the edge of the quickly expanding ring it was all black, while emitting a trail of misty light without color. It was memorizing, so much in fact, that only by a slim chance, had I seen something fall out of it's epicenter, towards the everfree forest at an incredible speed.

Dazed, I stumbled around a bit before I got back to my senses. Although there was, thankfully, more time than before, I hurriedly got back to the library to see if I had anything that came close to what I just saw.

I opened the door and saw a panicked purple Dragon that greeted me with "Twilight, What's going on? I heard this loud noise and when I looked outside, everypony was just staring into the sky! Did Derpy release the-"

"Spike, I need to find every book we have that is related to Natural and Magical Phenomenon's."

We searched high and low in every bookcase in the entire library. Each book we found that was related was set in the center of the room and I searched through each Title individually.

"Let's see...Spirits and magic, no...Cutie marks for fillies, no...Your Horn and you,no...Supernatural magics, Let's see...nope, Nothing on floating spheres of Darkness."

Spike panicked. "Spheres of Darkness? Is that what everypony saw out there?"

"Yes, but it's gone now, come on, we need to find the others."

It seemed my friends and I were all thinking the same thing, because just as I had opened that door, I saw those 5 familiar faces standing there. They sat there patiently, waiting for me to answer the one question we all had.

I said "I know what you all are thinking, but I don't have any idea what had happened. I will tell you what I do know, when that thing exploded something fell out of it, towards the everfree forest. Did anypony else see it?"

Rarity spoke up, "I did, and it kicked up a bunch of nasty dirt and dust."

Then I said, "Alright girls, we are going to have to find whatever fell, it may very well be the only clue as to what had happened. Go get some things in case this turns into a night-time search."

All of them simultaneously agreed. They all left for home, while I was already there, and mostly just got some warm clothing and dinner for later. When we met again within half an hour, it was roughly noon. We were walking through ponyville, I could hear ponies saying "Good luck." and "Be Safe.", I suppose we ARE the same group who saved everypony from eternal night.

We began nearing the forest area by Fluttershy's cottage, and I stood there, apprehensive feelings came over me. With small amounts of regret, we entered the Ever-Free Forest. The most peculiar thing was amiss, for hours we walked around, maybe in circles, I began to notice these small chunks of charred dirt. It wasn't anything to make a big deal about, but I knew that it meant we were getting close. The closer we got, the larger and more numerous these burnt rocks with roots had gotten. I knew we were very close, as we had walked into this foggy haze of dust, dirt and smoke. It had gotten so thick that you couldn't see two steps ahead of you!

So I said, "Dash, would you mind if you cleared a bit of this fog? So we don't have to walk blind?"

"Yeah, just give me a second." She began to make a small tornado to push the dust higher into the atmosphere, So we all had closed our eyes and stopped moving to keep safe.

I heard Dash say "Whoa..." so I opened my eyes and gasped. There was a massive crater right in front of me, if I had taken another step, I would have fallen and broke something. Obviously this was the crash site, so with squinted eyes we all looked to see what had caused such an explosion, at that point it was quite near dusk. We had found it, whatever it was, it looked like a glistening pile of metal, tinted red from the now setting sun. After seeing what I assumed to be the fallen object, we descended the side of the water-less lake.

At the bottom was massive piles of charred rocks, some still smoldering. We walked carefully, to avoid the still-burning embers, towards the Shiny metallic object. The sun was no longer hitting the object, but looked just as light as before. As we grew closer, I had realized it wasn't scrap, it was a full suit of armor. There was no way anything could survive that fall! 

We went right up next to it and we saw, yes, it was armor, a full suit of armor so purely white that it could shine without the sunlight. We were dumbstruck and speechless, I myself, not able to believe how it could even do that. It covered the whole body, seemingly made to fit him perfectly. The only exposed area was around the eyes, where small slits were cut out to give exposure to light. It had extra pieces set on the joints as well, to protect weak points. It had what looked like a single saddle-bag on it's back, and two, very large double Bladed knives sheathed in leather around it's waist. Obviously, this was a trained fighter, seemingly a knight of sorts.

It had four limbs, two legs and two arms. It's head was small in comparison to the rest of it's body. This was most definitely not a pony, in fact, if i put a good guess in, i would say it looked somewhat like a monkey with a straight back, longer spine, and no tail.

After a few minutes of examining this thing with my eyes, I leaned in and felt the armor, it didn't feel right. It felt as smooth as silk, and as hard as diamonds. Not only that, but it was warm, not the sunlight-heated warm, or a campfire warm, it felt, alive, as if the warmth of it was homeostasis. I moved it to check out what it looked like from the front, and as I turned it over it let out a low, pained moan. By the deep sound I assumed it was male. Whatever "He" was, he was still alive.

Knowing this, a slightly tearing Fluttershy had instinctively said, "Oh, poor thing, we need to help him right away." Fluttershy then tried to carry it, but to no avail, He simply weighed too much. So Applejack and RainbowDash took turns carrying him on our way back. 

I teleported us to the top of the edge of the crash-zone, then we all walked home, pondering what this thing, what "he" could mean for the near future. I hadn't noticed that the sun was well passed set and it was dark out, because the armor was glowing brighter as it got darker, so it illuminated our way.

When we got back to the cottage, Fluttershy begged to take care of him, since she was good with animals, why not? Tired, we all left for our own homes, trusting nothing bad would happen with Fluttershy.

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...The next day is when I mailed you those letters, princess." Twilight said, with a sore throat from the story telling.

The tea was gone, the candles were nearly burnt out, and the clock read a time of 6:00.

Celestia broke the silence, "Could I take a look at 'him'?"

"Certainly Princess, Fluttershy is usually up by now, preparing breakfast for the little critters." Celestia then proceeded to go outside to raise the sun while Twilight blew out what was left of the candles, and put up the tea-cups.

Twilight joined the princess in a moment. As the two walked through town, they watched everypony else wake up and prepare for work, and school. They were both tired so they walked rather slowly, slow enough for some of the other ponies to notice that the princess was in town, and they waved. After what seemed a long time, the made it to Fluttershy's cottage. They stepped up to the door, but before Twilight could knock, it had opened up with a distressed Fluttershy behind it.

Fluttershy said worriedly, "Oh, thank goodness your here, I don't know what to do or where to go. I can't find him anywhere!".

Twilight, with a sudden frown said, "Slow down Fluttershy, what happened?"

"That thing, that we found in the forest, He's gone!"

Twilight and Celestia Simultaneously had their Jaws Drop, and pupils Contracted.