*Location: Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, approximately 45 minutes ago*
Twilight Sparkle was exhausted.
She'd just finished an all-night research session and even SHE knew when to stop. She was about to go get ready for bed when suddenly her stomach filed a complaint in the form of a grumble that to the casual observer/conspiracy theorist/insane asylum resident could have come from a full-grown dragon.
"Need food..." thought Equestria's most recently crowned princess. Now normally, the thoughts of such a scholarly mare would be much more rational and refined, but please remember that this scholarly mare hadn't slept in at least twenty-four hours and hadn't had a square meal in twelve.
Twilight also somewhat grudgingly acknowledged that she needed to go outside at some point, so she decided to kill two birds with one stone and go get take-out from Sugarcube Corner.
"Spike! I'm going to Sugarcube Corner to get breakfast! You want anything!?" she called, half-yawning as she did so.
"Just a couple of donuts would be fine, thanks!" replied the young dragon from somewhere within the massive crystalline castle.
"Okay, got it! Be back soon!" called the lavender mare, before muttering under her breath, "And after breakfast I can finally get some sleep..."
She was about halfway between her palace and Sugarcube Corner when she felt some sort of magical disturbance coming from the Everfree Forest. Now, all ponies know the Everfree is by no means normal, but when you can actually FEEL an abnormality coming from it, something is VERY wrong. Now quite alarmed and awake, Twilight looked in the direction of the forest and saw something that made her blood run cold: an ominous pulse of blood-red energy had just been released from somewhere within the Everfree Forest, and it was big enough that she could see it from the middle of Ponyville.
The now-terrified alicorn mare watched on in horror as the pulse, which she was sure was dark magic, raced towards Ponyville. Luckily, it fizzled out just before it hit the town. It was almost as if the magic stopped when it reached the edge of the forest. There was little time to be relieved, however, as Twilight knew what had to be done in this kind of situation.
She ran back to her castle and called out, "SPIKE! COME HERE! AND BRING PAPER, A QUILL, AND SOME INK!" In a split second the young drake was there with everything she'd requested. She took the ink pot in her magical grasp and said, "Spike, take a letter. Something major just happened and Princesses Celestia and Luna need to know."
"Dear Princesses Celestia and Luna,
I'm not sure if you saw, but a massive pulse of dark magic just erupted from somewhere within the Everfree Forest. We're lucky it dissipated before anyone in Ponyville was injured. I have no idea what caused it, but it would be wise to check the Everfree and attempt to find the source of this anomaly. I plan to gather the other Elements of Harmony and investigate.
Sincerely, Princess Twilight Sparkle
After briefly examining the letter, Spike sent it off to Canterlot via his magic fire breath. After he'd done so, Twilight turned to him and said, "We need to gather our friends! Quick, you get Rarity and Pinkie. I'll get Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. Hurry! Go! Now! We need to investigate the source of that dark magic!"
They gathered the remaining heroines of Equestria in record time. Within five minutes, the seven of them (including Spike) were standing outside Twilight's palace.
"So what's so important you needed to interrupt my sleep THIS time, Twi?" asked Rainbow Dash, obviously a bit annoyed.
"I'm not sure if you saw, but there was a huge pulse of dark magic a few minutes ago! We were lucky it didn't hit Ponyville! It came from somewhere within the Everfree Forest! We need to see what caused it in case it sends out another, bigger pulse! Ponyville could be in danger!" exclaimed Twilight, who by now was going into what her friends referred to as "crazy mode"--her mane and tail were starting to fray, and her left eye was twitching a bit.
The five mares shared a look between themselves, then four of them rested their gazes upon the fifth, deciding who would voice their decision. "Well dear, if you really think it's that important, I suppose we should," said Rarity, saying what they were all thinking.
"Great! Okay, we'll need our standard expedition gear. Saddlebags, rope, water..." Twilight would have continued listing off the supplies she thought they'd need for their trek into the Everfree, but she was cut off by the sudden appearance of two certain diarchs.
"Princess Celestia!? Princess Luna!?" Twilight was thoroughly stunned. "What are you doing here!? I mean, it's great to see you, it's just--" "Unexpected?" Princess Celestia cut off Twilight before she could go into full crazy mode via startled spluttering. "It's alright Twilight, it's just that when we got your letter, we felt it'd be best if we went along with you, just in case. And it's great to see you too. Now come along everypony, we'd better get going. And Twilight, don't bother with supplies, they'll just weigh us down."
Upon hearing this, everyone present other than Celestia and Luna was quite confused.
"Uh, sorry if Ah sound a bit rude fer sayin' this Princess, but whaddya mean, 'weigh us down?' Now that yall're here, can't ya just magic us to wherever this dark pulse whatchamacallit came from?" said Applejack. It was Princess Luna who answered her. "We would prefer this as well, but alas, we have no choice. My sister and I are both drained, as she has only recently awoken, and I am in desperate need of sleep. Factor in our recent teleport here from Canterlot, and you will realize why we cannot teleport all nine of us to the origin of the anomaly. Even if we WERE at full power, instantaneously transporting such a large group so far into the Everfree Forest is still a risk. Given its strange magicks, who knows what could happen? However, we were able to determine the anomaly's origin. The pulse came from the place where you six saved me," said the Lunar Princess.
"The Castle of the Two Sisters," said Twilight, more to herself than to the others.
"Exactly," said Celestia, before continuing, "and we'd better get going. If we're lucky it won't take us much more than half an hour to get there." Seeing no reason to stand around and talk, the gathered ponies (plus one dragon) decided to get the whole affair over with and head into the forest.
~Thirty-three Minutes Later~
*Location: Outside the Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, approximately two minutes ago*
The trek through the Everfree had taken a fairly long time, but Rarity's near-constant whining made it seem like an eternity. No, scratch that, "complaining." They all knew the difference between Rarity "complaining" and flat-out whining. After all, they'd been there when that unfortunate pack of Diamond Dogs learned the difference the hard way.
"Alright everypony, we're here. Time to fan out and search for whatever caused that pulse! Remember, the sooner we find it, the sooner we can get back to our regularly scheduled lives!" said Twilight to everyone there.
After about a minute of searching the clearing in front of the castle, they hadn't had much luck. "There's nothing out here," said Twilight, stating the obvious. "Let's start checking inside the castle."
They were about to cross the bridge to get to the entrance to the castle, when suddenly they heard what sounded like hoofsteps on stone. And they were getting closer.
"Quick! Hide in the bushes! Somepony's coming!" said Twilight, whisper-shouting so that only her intended audience could hear her.
"Ooh! Ooh! are we going to throw them a surprise party?!" asked the ever-eager Pinkie Pie.
"Yeah Pinkie, we'll throw 'em a surprise party...the main meal will be hoof sandwiches!" said Rainbow in reply, eager to lay down the smack on whatever threatened her hometown.
"Shh! Quiet, both of you! Quickly, hide!" said a somewhat fearful Twilight. The two mares, noticing the urgency in their friend's voice, decided they'd better listen.
*Now...*
As the eight ponies and one dragon lay hidden in shrubbery, they heard the hoofsteps grow louder and louder, until a figure unlike anything they'd ever seen emerged from the castle. Even Celestia and Luna, in their thousands of years of living, had never seen anything even slightly similar to the creature that had just emerged from their old home.
For starters, it was quite tall. It had to be at least seven hooves tall, counting its...helmet? The nine of them couldn't tell if the pointy, vaguely triangular bit at the top was really its head or just a helmet. Based on how it moved, it appeared to be wearing baggy clothing, with a rather slight frame underneath it all. They couldn't see anything of the creature's skin, but its clothing was, in a word, otherworldly. It was mostly black, with a crimson front that had some sort of silver design on it. The sleeves were absurdly long, fully covering the creature's arms, and had strange turquoise designs running all up and down them, and eight tassels hung from the cuff of each and ran all the way to the ground. The creature's shoes appeared to be gold, and were apparently designed to resemble heads of dragons or perhaps cragodiles. Its metallic helmet (they were now convinced it was a helmet) looked very much like some sort of exotic lizard, with eyes that bulged out so much it was certainly possible they were exaggerated, and a strange segmented tongue. Its shoulder guards were decorated with serpent-like designs.
The strange biped simply stood there, examining itself for a moment. It looked at the designs on its clothing, then lightly hit one side of its helmet, producing a hollow, metallic *bong*. It said something that they couldn't quite make out. Then, just loud enough for the onlookers to hear, it said, "What on Earth is happening?"
This greatly confused all who'd heard it. Earth? Did that make this thing a human? It was certainly dressed differently than the humans Twilight had seen when she went through the mirror. The ponies and dragon turned to look at each other, only to see that a certain pink party pony was poking her head out from her cover. She called to the creature, which was male according to its voice.
"Wait, if you're from Earth, does that make you a human? 'Cuz if you are, then I have to throw you a 'congratulations on being the first human in Equestria' party!" she said with her usual amount of perkiness.
The creature looked straight at her. After processing what he was seeing for a moment, he finally spoke. He said a single word: "What."