Twilight turned around and faced her castle. From the outside nothing appeared wrong, but inside a melodic, urgent chime echoed through the corridors. Twilight gaped stupidly a moment, then ran inside at a full gallop. Her friends followed.

Twilight's castle was a massive structure and had many dozens of rooms of various sizes inside. The lower portion, the one that resembled a tree trunk, was where the throne room, library, and several meeting rooms were located. Up in the branches, where the castle flared outwards in all directions, was a mansion of a living space, complete with another library (seriously, Twilight got creepy when she drooled over all the empty shelves), permanent quarters for all of her friends (which made a lot more sense now that they'd seen the amount of paperwork their court might need to handle), live-in staff housing, and a full laboratory suite. It was the laboratory that Twilight bolted towards.

Once inside, Twilight made her way to a device that looked like the mutant offspring of a tuning fork, a chandelier, and a bonsai tree. Precious metals, stones, and crystals formed delicate spires and branches in sharp points, dull blocks, squat knobs, even corkscrews. It was also the source of the insistent chiming and had some rather urgent red flashing lights. Both stopped when Twilight's horn lit and she attended to the device.

The other Element bearers piled in through the doorway. "What's going on, sugarcube?" Applejack asked.

"It's a monitoring spell. Somepony's trying to spy on my castle," Twilight growled.

"It's the Second Postulate of Magical Theory," Twilight said. "Magic always leaves a mark. Scrying magic isn't the easiest to pick up, but Princess ordered this installed hours after naming me Princess of Friendship. I didn't really see the point. The Castle of Friendship refracts scrying magic. Whoever cast the spell is only getting gibberish."

Rainbow slammed her forehooves together angrily. "Somepony's poking their muzzle where it doesn't belong. Not cool."

"I'm with RD," Applejack agreed. "That kinda thing just ain't right. Any way to find out who's doin' it, Twi?"

"First Corollary to the Second Postulate, every mark is unique." Twilight levitated a scroll to the array and slid it under the machine. "I've enchanted the paper so...um, short version. The array is going to imprint the 'mark' onto the paper as a waveform. Everypony uses magic a bit differently, and that can be shown as a twisting line, all organic curves and twists. Celestia's is quite beautiful."

"Oh?" Rarity asked. "Do you think you could show my my own mark after this is all over with, darling?"

Twilight shrugged. "Sure, no problem. I'll need to test the magic of everypony else to get a match, anyway. Well, let's take a look at the pattern."

Twilight pulled the scroll from the device and lifted it up. "Hey," Rainbow said, "I thought you said it was supposed to be all curvy."

"It...was..." Twilight said haltingly. The diagram she held in her field was all straight lines and corners, every few centimeters making a quick jag up and then down before returning to midline. The pattern repeated itself perfectly, over and over, with no variation at all. "I've never seen anything like this," she admitted.

Twilight shook her head. "It's really weird, but it still looks like unicorn magic. Maybe something close. Fluttershy?"

"Do you know any animals around here that can use spells like a unicorn?" Twilight asked.

Fluttershy shook her head slowly. "Nooo, I don't think so. There are plenty of critters in the forest I don't know that well, though. Maybe one of them can cast a spell?"

Rainbow snorted at the timid pegasus. "If there's an animal in the Everfree that you haven't met, chatted with, and had over for tea, I don't think it's going to develop an interest in us now."

Pinkie giggled. "Discord's hoofwork doesn't look like that, silly. That's all beep beep beep," she said, bouncing in time with her beeps. "Discord's more like beepy bangy wahey bouncy bouncy splat!" Pinkie dropped down from the ceiling and shrugged carelessly. "It's probably aliens. They're probing us. But not with probes because we'd notice that. Who wouldn't notice somepony shoving something up your-"

"ANYWAY!" Twilight said loudly, not a moment too soon. "Checking everypony in town is a waste of time."

"Not to mention it would be a bad edict to start your reign with," Rarity pointed out.

"That too," Twilight agreed. "I'll just need to be ready to trace it if it happens again." She sighed. "Sorry, girls, this is going to take me a while. But if you want to go to Canterlot without me...and you're already out the door."

Dear Princess Celestia,
As I mentioned in my last letter, I am sorry for my friends' behavior at the Equestrian Civil Service headquarters. I am sure, had they known the Senior Undersecretary of Northwest Equestrian Weather Management was allergic to whipped creme that Pinkie Pie would not have set his mane on fire. Applejack told me she sent his family a fruit basket, with a promise of another as soon as the stitches come out and he can eat solid food again.
However, I have made a rather startling discovery. There is a group of creatures spying on Ponyville. I have been using some of the crystal devices coming from the Empire to spy right back on them, however I seem to have bitten off more than I can chew. From what I have gathered, they are not hostile. They have taken extraordinary measures to remain unnoticed, and I do not believe they pose an immediate threat to anything save our privacy.
What should I do?
Your eternal friend,
Twilight Sparkle

Princess Twilight Sparkle,
Undersecretary Blustering Wind's prognosis is good, his family tells me. They send their appreciation for the fruit basket and also mention that Wind's hooves should return to their proper color inside of two weeks, much sooner than the paramedics originally believed.
I am most disturbed by your discovery. However, it takes place in your domain, Princess. Destiny has conspired to place this challenge in your hooves, and I choose to put my faith in you. So long as this incident lies in Ponyville, you mst take command of the situation. Not I.
You are not alone. You have your friends, and I will always be here to offer you what assistance I can. What will you do, Princess Twilight?
-Celestia

Princess Celestia,
I need a lingual expert and three scribes to make sense of all the recordings I've made over the past day alone. All material and conversation related to this issue must take place within wards no weaker than that called for by Crescent classified material, but due to the potential magnitude of this discovery I strongly recommend all ponies be cleared for operating under Dusk protocols.
Unless they're Pinkie Pie. But I only have time for three impossible challenges at once.
Your eternal friend,
Princess Twilight

Two days later, Twilight held a grim meeting in her throne room. Rarity and Rainbow Dash were the only others in attendance -- Applejack had bowed out for some applebucking, Pinkie had sensed a birthday party in demand of her personal attention, and Fluttershy was, well, probably hiding in her cottage.

"Pish," Rarity demurred with a wave of a hoof. "I'm days ahead on all my designs, darling. This is far more important than my beauty sleep, I'm sure."

"I'm not," Rainbow grumbled from her throne. The other ponies ignored her with the ease of long practice.

Twilight trotted to her own throne and set her jaw. "I'm still getting those readings," she said. "Whoever was trying to scry my castle is still at it."

"I know," Twilight growled. "And it's not just a spell. I'm getting the readings all the time, now. Somepony is very determined to scry in here."

Twilight nodded. "Day and night, the same spell, the same magician. I've triple checked the readings."

"That's impossible," Rarity declared. "Not even you could keep such a schedule, Twilight. Nopony can."

"But we're not looking for a pony," Rainbow said. Of the six of them, she'd had the most time with non-pony friends. Well, unless you counted Fluttershy's animals, which Rainbow did not. "We don't know what kind of thing is spying on us, do we Twilight?"

"Not at all," Twilight agreed. "So it's important that we find out who, and what, is doing this. And to do that, we need to know where it is. Which is why I need both of you." Twilight's horn lit up and she pulled a couple large crystal arrays from behind her throne. Like the crystal-tree-device-thing in her lab, these were fusions of many different elements and had strange, vaguely unnerving shapes built into their design. "I need three points to 'listen' to this magic at once and I can track it down. One here, then these two. The more spread out, the easier the math is."

Rainbow frowned. "Twilight, these things look like Pinkie's sister got into some bad cider." She prodded one branch with a hoof and was rewarded with an unmusical toonk noise that her hoof should not have been able to produce. "I think they might tip off the bad guys."

"I must agree," Rarity sniffed. "In fact, I don't see how you could put these up at all without somepony asking questions, and if you were to answer them outside this castle..."

"Then the scrying spell could overhear me and tip off the bad guys," Twilight finished for her. "I know. That's why these need to be placed carefully, they need to be moved quickly, and they need to look," she stumbled a bit, "well, overlookable?"

Rarity smiled coyly. "I think I might be able to help with that, darling. What do you need?" She reached into a saddle bag with her field and produced a small notebook.

Twilight sighed in relief. "I hoped so. They need to be placed in open air, but a thin layer of cloth or something won't throw the readings too bad. Rooftops work, but the cloud layer is way too high."

Rarity sketched as Twilight talked and then snapped her notes shut. "I can work with that, dear. A slip cover with enough ribbing to disguise the shape, and I can put one on my boutique's balcony."

Rainbow looked the devices over. "I can move 'em without being seen, sure," she said uncertainly. Speed was one thing, exterior decorating was another. "But I can't think of anywhere in Ponyville we can just plop one down without a pegasus seeing it eventually. Maybe the Everfree?"

Twilight tapped a hoof to her muzzle. "Hmm. The Everfree is usually a pretty bad choice for scrying magic. There's too much uncontrolled magic and too many beasts all creating their own fields." Most of them, she had realized, were drawn by the power of the Tree of Harmony. "This signal's so far from normal, though. Let's give it a try."

Rarity needed less than an hour to dress up the array for her botique and Rainbow had both devices placed in five minutes. When Twilight linked them to the master array in her castle, however, she found something very odd. "I'm getting dozens of signals," she said. "Somepony has arrays already in place!"

Pinkie Pie fell out of a closet in a burst of confetti. "I hid them all over Ponyville in case of spy emergency!"

Twilight didn't so much as move a muscle. "Rainbow? If I keep staring at this non-Euclopean horror of a scrying array, will Pinkie Pie start to make sense?"

"That's too bad, because all these extra signals are perfectly positioned to pinpoint the perpetrator of this perplexing puzzle and I'd like Pinkie to tell me how she bucking does it!"

Twilight felt her eye twitch three times. "Rarity, double session at the spa tomorrow. Take it out of the slush fund." There were benefits to being royalty. Not having to account for expenses off a research grant was one of them. Anypony that tried to research Pinkie quickly needed to add stress relief to the bills, and then came the audits.

"So," Rainbow said, rolling her eyes as if sarcasm would keep the spa-based girliness from contaminating her, "where is this thing, anyway?"

Twilight tweaked a control and turned around. "All I have is a bunch of numbers," she admitted. "The castle's map should be able to turn them into a location. To the throne room, girls."

The four ponies piled into the throne room and made for their particular thrones. Fluttershy and Applejack weren't there to trigger the castle's innate magic, but it was more than willing to accommodate the request pushed to it from Twilight's array. The magical map of Equestria formed over the crystal table. It shimmered once and expanded, closing in on Ponyville while the majority of the world simply vanished over the edge of the table.

"Thanks to Pinkie's Pinkieness," Twilight said, "we should get a pretty precise location." The map shifted again, now showing only Sweet Apple Acres. The assembled ponies frowned at eachother. Why would the Apples be spying on anypony? The map shifted again and showed only one orchard, one infested by vampire fruit bats.

"The bats are spying on us?" Rainbow asked incredulously. "Seriously? Bats? Even after we didn't drive them out of town?"

"No," Twilight said slowly. "Something's missing. This area's still too big for how many detectors we used." She hopped up on the table, her muzzle brushing through the illusionary terrain. After a few minutes she made an excited noise. "Found it! The scrying spell originated here, a good ten feet below the ground."

"Below the ground?" Rarity asked. "Oh Twilight, tell me those horrid dogs aren't back."

"That's a possibility," Twilight said grimly. "I'm more worried about changelings. They struck me as subterranean."

"Somepony that doesn't want to be seen, silly," Pinkie said. "Maybe they're just really shy. Ooo oo, or maybe they have really big claws and don't want to scare anypony by showing their hideous monstrous faces!"

"And something that doesn't want anypony just walking by," Rarity noted. "Applejack and Big Mac don't go to that part of their orchard anymore, and no pony else does either."

"Should I scry them back?" Twilight wondered. "They might be able to detect it, but the only other thing I can think of is to just walk up and announce ourselves."

"Why not just do that?" Pinkie asked. "We can throw them a welcome to Ponyville party!"

Rainbow snorted. "I'm with Pinkie, only instead of a party, I say we throw them out."

Rarity glanced at the two empty thrones. "I think we are sorely missing our friends right now. Applejack and Fluttershy may have some ideas. I think we should be careful in doing anything we cannot undo. This situation has far too many unknowns for my tastes."

Twilight nodded. "Agreed. We'll see what the others think. I want to know more, but I agree with Rainbow. We can't let whoever it is spy on everypony. We have to protect our friends." She held up a hoof and glared at Rainbow. "But we will try to talk before using any kind of force."

Rainbow rolled her eyes, but nodded. "I'm with ya," she grumbled. "Let's just get to AJ and Flutters quick and take care of this, okay? I'm tired of all this talking!"

As it turned out, Applejack was less than useful. "Corsarnit! I knew letting those bats into mah field was a bad idea! Fluttershy may know her critters, but she don't know the first thing about graftin' apple trees an' growin' an orchard. Now them varmints are helpin' spies too?" She shook her head. "Bad business. Jus' bad business all around. So, when we gonna buck em outta town?"

Fluttershy was a bit more useful. "Oh, that must be why the bats have been so agitated," she gasped. "Their poor ears are so sensitive they can't hardly sleep with all the noise coming from underground."

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, many things, almost all the time. Always too high or too quiet for me to hear, though."

"Fluttershy, that's perfect!" Twilight gushed. "All we need to do is drop some sympathetic crystals in the orchard. They're practically undetectable. Can you talk the bats into carrying them?"

It took Twilight a day to enchant the necessary crystals. They were similar to her arrays, but much simpler. Physical vibration was much easier to pick up than magical fields. The bats scattered them over their part of the orchard the next day and Twilight vanished into her lab. She emerged at the end of the week.

Cleaned and smiling, Twilight gathered her friends in her throne room. "This has not been an easy task," she said. "The crystals relay raw sound to my lab, but the spells needed to alter the sound for distance, medium, and background noise were surprisingly complex. If it wasn't for the rather disturbing uses such magic could be put to, I'd write a paper on-"

Twilight huffed. "I made a spell that makes it sound like you were in the room with the source of the sounds and got rid of all the bat noises and stuff, then had the receiving crystals etch some records."

Twilight facehoofed. "Really?" she asked rhetorically. She levitated a small vinyl disk onto a record player and picked up the needle in her magic. "I have a collection of chirps, clicks, beeps, and hums that were made repeatedly, but I can't make sense of them. I also have many hours of conversation, mostly about Ponyville. They're watching the entire town."

Twilight took in her friends' grim faces and nodded. "But it's strange. First off, they don't speak Equestrian."

"I have no idea," Twilight admitted. "I haven't found a match in any language I've ever heard of."

"A lot of languages don't sound like what you read in a book," Rainbow said with certainty. "Gilda taught me some Griffish back when we first met. From the way it's written you'd expect all squawks and chirps, right? Well it really sounds more like singing than anything."

Rainbow frowned and gave a credible impression of a songbird contralto. She ended with a hacking cough. "Ugh, been a while since I tried that." She bent over and made a light retching noise. Rarity scowled at the display.

"Not really," Fluttershy said, shrinking back behind her mane, "but, um, thank you anyway."

Rainbow sighed. "I just said she was really great at helping me with Tank, okay? Drop it." She glanced at Fluttershy and sighed again. Fluttershy couldn't even take a compliment in a language she shouldn't understand! How did that make sense?

"Anyway," Twilight said, calling attention back to herself, "I cast a translation spell on the records. The results were...weird. They talk about us a lot. Not us six, ponies. They're trying to understand us."

Pinkie fell out of her throne laughing. "Good luck!" she gasped before laughing some more.

"Well, I mean everypony, not just us six," Twilight clarified. "But...here. This bit really sums up what I've learned." She finally put needle to record and a male voice came from the speaker.

Research log, stardate...we have been observing Ponyville for days now and are still no closer to getting sensor readings from inside the castle. Ensign Lorian repeated his suggestion that we remove a sample for material analysis. I still think it's too risky. Even if we had a way to infiltrate the indigenous population, we have no way of knowing what means would be required to remove such a sample. As it is the abode of one of this world's leading political figures, we must exercise caution.
Unfortunately, that brings up another point of failure. The Equestrian government is as opaque to us as ever. We have learned that Twilight Sparkle was, in fact, transformed into an alicorn immediately prior to her coronation. The nature of this metamorphosis is unknown. All references tie back to the translation issue.
The universal translator has failed to translate key technical terminology to explain the abilities of these ponies. To date we have tried ten million different algorithms and have only managed to arrive at a partial, and useless, definition of "magic." We have been forced to conclude that somehow, this pre-warp civilization has stumbled upon a branch of science, or perhaps a model for describing scientific phenomenon, that is unknown to any culture known to the Federation.
In accordance with this hypothesis I have ordered computer resources shifted from translation to sensor analysis and stepped up scans. The stronger intensity still failed to penetrate the castle, but we have a much better resolution of the metagravitational field surrounding pegasi in flight. Doctor Lewis believes he is close to constructing a working model of the mechanics involved. If so, we may finally have a point of reference to understand the means by which these fields are created. End log entry.

The record player quieted to a soft hiss of white noise and Twilight turned it off, leaving only empty silence. She coughed once. "Well?"

Twilight nodded. "I have a few answers, I think. Rainbow, I'll start with yours. From the other 'logs' I've listened to, these Federals are studying magic, but they don't know what magic is."

Rarity gasped and launched herself backwards into her throne. "How can anything not know what magic is?"

Rainbow frowned. "So why start with pegasi? Sure, flying is awesome, but wouldn't unicorns be easier to study?"

Twilight frowned. "I think they understand nonmagical flight, like birds and insects use. This Doctor Lewis logged some kind of 'simulation' that tried to predict how pegasus magic would mimic that mechanism." She shook her head in frustration. "But that doesn't make sense either. I can't figure it out just by eavesdropping. I need to see it!"

"But it's clear they're tryin' to figure out magic, sugarcube?" Applejack asked.

"Several of them are. I've recorded half a dozen voices, stallions and mares both. One of the mares is very strange, though. I think she may be a golem." Twilight's mane was falling apart as she ran another hoof through it. "But I don't understand how they could create an animated construct without understanding magic."

"Sounds like they know some tricks we don't," Applejack said. "That pre-warp business?"

"No idea what that refers to," Twilight admitted. She grabbed her tail compulsively. "They only mentioned it a couple times, each time calling us 'pre-warp.' They didn't think to define it for me."

Twilight blinked once and created a list in her mind. "We're being observed by unknown creatures. They use something like magic. They do not know magical terminology. Their language has no equivalents to magical terminology. They speak a language we don't know. They come from a Federation -- has anypony heard of anything called a Federation? Right, they come from off our maps."

Rarity rubbed her muzzle with a hoof. "Hmmm," she mused. "It sounds like what we know is that these Federals don't know a lot of basic facts about us."

Twilight nodded and stroked her tail. "So. Do we tell them we know they're here?"

Watching the Watchers

by Ryvaken

Chapter 2