//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Into the Black // by CORACK //------------------------------// "I hate teleporting with you," Spike said, brushing soot off of his face. "I think I'm getting better at it. You don't look nearly as bad as last time, and this was the longest multi-teleport yet," Twilight said. "Though I don't know if that's from practice or the overall boost my magic received when I became an alicorn. Maybe we can do some testing later!" "No thanks!" Spike ran upstairs and grabbed the scroll from Celestia, he ran back down and gave it to Twilight. As she went to open it, she was surprised to detect the presence of powerful seal. The scroll was keyed to prevent anypony but herself from opening it. That was beyond unusual for a letter from Celestia. A shiver ran through her body as her mind began to imagine what the letter might contain. A shake of her head forced herself to recenter her attention on the letter. She opened it and began to read. "Good evening Twilight. I apologize for sending you a letter so late at night. I need you to make your way to Canterlot tomorrow. Luna and I have an important matter to discuss with you. Your old room in the castle has been prepared for your stay, you need not bring anything but yourself and Spike. I apologize for the lack of detail in this letter, but the matter that we wish to discuss with you is sensitive. I've included 2 tickets for the Ponyville Express to Canterlot. It leaves the station at 8:00. Be advised that we may need you to stay in Canterlot for up to a week. I am sorry for the short notice and any problems with your schedule this may cause. We will talk further when you arrive. See you soon, - Celestia" Twilight looked at the library clock, it was already 3:15. Tomorrow in the letter was today! Any thought of a good night's sleep quickly vanished as she tried to think of what reason Celestia could have for summoning her on such short notice. "What does it say Twilight?" Spike asked. "We need to go to Canterlot." "When?" "We're taking the Ponyville Express, it leaves at 8:00, Spike you may want to go back to bed, we're going to need to leave here by 7:30 to be at the station in time to board. That doesn't leave much time for sleeping." "What about getting packed? Do you need help?" "Celestia has prepared my old room, she said to not bother bringing anything." "Ok, well then I'm going to go back to bed. I'll set my alarm for 7:00." "Thanks Spike, goodnight." Twilight paced back and forth across the library. What could Celestia and Luna wish to discuss? Was there some sort of new threat? Things had been pretty quiet since Discord's reform. The only thing Twilight had even heard about in the last few months was she heard some news about somepony named Tirek escaping Tartarus, and injuring some ponies. Celestia had apparently personally apprehended him a few days later. There weren't many details of his attack but Twilight wanted to get some more information when she had a chance to talk to either Celestia or Luna about it. Looking at the clock again, wasn't sure what to do. It was too late to get a decent amount of sleep. "Well, I can take a quick nap right now and sleep more on the train, it's a little over an hour ride to Canterlot," Twilight said aloud to herself. Twilight made her way up to her room. Setting her alarm for 5:00, she closed her eyes and quickly fell asleep. BRINGGGGGGGG BRINGGGGGG!!!! Spike groaned and shut off the alarm. He stumbled out of bed. As he slowly started to wake up, he realized he smelled something cooking. He made his way downstairs and saw Twilight putting a stack of pancakes on a plate. "Good morning Spike," Twilight said as she poured some more batter on to the hot griddle. "What? How are you so awake? You're never up this early" "Oh, I got up hours ago," Twilight replied. "I'm going to sleep some more on the train, so I spent the last two hours packing." "Didn't you say the letter from Celestia said we didn't need to bring anything?" Spike asked. "Oh yeah, it did!" Twilight said grinning. "But for the Princess Celestia to summon me like this, something important is clearly going on. I don't know what it is, but I want to be prepared. I've got all 10 volumes of Predictions and Prophecies packed. I started skimming through them when I woke up, but I only made it through the first two. Hmm, maybe I won't sleep on the train, I could make it through the next book or two I bet." "Twilight, you need more sleep. If you get to Canterlot and pass out, you won't be much help to Princess Celestia," Spike said. "But what if I can't help because I'm not prepared?" Twilight said pouting. "Ugh, you're probably right Spike. I'm still going to bring the books, but I will sleep on the train. Or at least I'll try. Ok, please eat quickly, I need to make a stop before we go to the station. When we get to Canterlot, we need to head to the castle immediately." A pile of pancakes floated over to a very hungry Spike, held aloft in Twilight's magic. He reached across the table and picked up the bottle of maple syrup. With a twinkle in his eye he began to pour a generous helping of the sweet liquid over the stack. Only a cough from Twilight was enough to get him to put the bottle back down. Once Spike put the bottle down, Twilight grabbed it and used what little syrup remained to top her own pancakes. Not much was said between the two friends as they ate their breakfast as quickly as possible. After finishing breakfast, Twilight grabbed her book bag, pony and dragon made their way to the Ponyville station. She made a quick stop at the post office, and dropped off letters to Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Applejack explaining that she had to take a trip to Canterlot and could be gone for up to a week. As she was walking to the station, she saw Applejack setting up her cart. She galloped over and let her know that she had to go to Canterlot. "I just dropped off some letters at the post office letting the girls know where I'd be. I didn't want anypony to worry but I didn't have time to swing by and let everypony know." "Well thanks for lettin me know Twilight. I won't keep ya since I know ya need to make the train." "Thanks Applejack. Once I know how long I'm staying in Canterlot I'll write you," Twilight said as she took off. Twilight and Spike arrived just as the Ponyville Express was pulling into the station. They waited patiently for the current passengers to disembark, and then made their way onto the train. Sitting down, Twilight let out a big yawn. "Spike are you going to try to sleep also?" she asked. "Nah, I'm feeling pretty awake right now." "Ok, can you wake me up when we're almost to Canterlot?" "Sure thing Twilight." Twilight closed her eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep. ##### Sunlight sparkled off of the reflective towers of Crystal Empire. Shining groaned and pulled a pillow over his head. Shining was not a morning pony, and he had no desire to get out of bed. It never failed, every day at 6:17 a brilliant beam of sunlight reflected into the royal chambers and woke him up. "Maybe I can get Cadance to agree to some thick curtains," he thought. Cadance on the other hoof, was very much a morning pony. She was up at the crack of dawn every day and today was no different. She made her way back into the royal chambers carrying a cup of coffee for Shining. "Good morning Shining," she said. "I've got your coffee." "5 more minutes," Shining said. Cadance set the coffee down on a table and walked over to the bed. She started poking Shining with her forehoof. "You can't stay in bed all day." "Why not?" "We have too much to do today." "You can come back to bed too," Shining said. "We could take the day off." "And what? Spend the whole day in bed?" "Yeah, why not. It would be fun." Shining said with a wink. "Fun?" Cadance said, smirking. "You are talking about sleeping right?" "Well there is that," Shining leaned over and gave Cadance a kiss. "And..." At that moment loud popping noise was heard as a scroll appeared out of thin air and landed on Shining's head. "Oh, a letter from Celestia," Cadance said, looking at the scroll with interest. "That's odd, she usually sends them through the mail." Shining just frowned. Cadance noticed the scroll was marked urgent. She opened it up and read it. "Good morning Cadance, I am sorry to bother you on such short notice, but I need you and Shining Armor to make your way to Canterlot. Luna and I have a matter of great importance to discuss with you. I've sent word to Vanhoover to reroute the Crystal Express back to the Crystal Empire immediately, it should be arriving around 7:00. I'm sorry for contacting you at the last minute, but since the train wouldn't arrive till 7:00, I decided to send word in the middle of the night and wake you. I also apologize for the lack of details regarding this trip, know that the matter is very important but Luna and I need to discuss it with you pony to pony. Twilight has also been summoned, she should be in Canterlot by this morning. Please plan on staying in Canterlot for up to a week. I look forward to seeing you this evening when the train arrives, - Celestia" "Shining, get up, we need to get going," Cadance said. "What is it?" "We need to go to Canterlot. Celestia has sent a train, it will be here in less than an hour, so we have that long to pack and get to the station." "Is something wrong?" Shining asked. "I don't know, here, you better read this yourself, there aren't really any details. I'll start to get ready." Shining gave a quick glance at the letter from Celestia. They both rushed to pack as quickly as they could. Shining asked one of the guards to summon a carriage to take them to the train station. They finished packing just as the carriage landed outside the castle. Arriving at the station, they found the train already waiting for them. The Crystal Express utilized the latest in techno-magical hybrid engines and had an average cruising speed of 100 miles per hour. Wing travel had a higher average speed, but most ponies lacked the endurance to fly more than a few hundred miles in a day. The Crystal Express could make the thousand mile journey to Canterlot in just about 12 hours with stops for refueling. Ordinarily it ran from the Crystal Empire to Vanhoover, through Canterlot all the way to Manehattan. Being sent back to the Crystal Empire was going to throw off the schedules of a large number of ponies. Cadance and Shining boarded the train as quickly as they could. They had a private car at the front of the train. Inside they found a small detachment, one pegasus, 2 earth ponies and a unicorn. The pegasus was in charge and he approached the two ponies. "Good morning Lieutenant..." " Lieutenant Swift Wing ma'am," The guardspony said, bowing to Cadance. "I've received orders to escort you and Shining Armor to Canterlot." "Do you have any idea what's going on Lieutenant?" Cadance asked. "I'm afraid I do not ma'am. I was stationed in Vanhoover, I was given orders at 23:30 last night to board the Crystal Express. I was to rendezvous with you and Shining Armor and escort you to Canterlot for an urgent meeting with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. That's all the information I have." "Well, I suppose we'll find out when we get there," Cadance said sighing. The conductor entered the car and asked everypony to take their seats. The train was ready to depart. With a loud whistle and a hiss of steam, the train rolled out of the Crystal Empire Station and started off towards Canterlot. Twilight stepped off the train and looked around. The streets were packed with ponies, while not as large as Manehattan, the capital city of Equestria was still home to a huge number of ponies. Thankfully it was the weekend, so it wasn't as bad as it could get. Still, Twilight was in a hurry. Teleporting to the castle was out. First off there were wards to prevent anypony from teleporting directly in, the closest she could get was the main gate. Combining her relative lack of sleep with Spike and her luggage made a long distance teleport not a particularly good plan. Even with her relative inexperience, flight, however, was fairly easy and far less draining. Spike could ride on her back and levitation for the luggage was so easy she could do it in her sleep. Plus it could cut the 20 minute trot to a few minutes. She beckoned Spike to hop on her back and took off. Minutes later she arrived at the main gate of the castle. The guard at the gate let her know she was expected and to meet Celestia and Luna in the throne room. Making her way through the grand halls of the castle, she arrived at the throne room. The door, which was usually open for Day Court was closed with 2 guards stationed at the door. The guards gave a bow, then one of them addressed Twilight. "Ma'am we have orders to let only you in. Princess Celestia asks that Spike remain outside." "Hmm, that's strange," Twilight said. "Spike can you wait here? I'll check in with the Princesses and see what's going on." "Sure thing Twilight. I'll watch your luggage." After Spike hopped off the guards opened the door to the throne room and let Twilight in. She heard the doors close behind her, looking ahead she saw Celestia and Luna sitting on their thrones. "Twilight Sparkle. My most faithful student. Thank you for coming on such short notice." Celestia said. "Hello Twilight, it is good to see you again," Luna added. Twilight gave a deep bow to both princesses. "Twilight, there is no need for that," Celestia said getting up off of her throne and walking over to Twilight. "You too are a princess of Equestria and more importantly, you are among friends." She reached down and gave Twilight a friendly nuzzle. Twilight froze for a moment, her face heating up, but then she returned the nuzzle. "Thank you Princess-" "Just Celestia will do," Celestia said, interrupting the young alicorn. "Now, as you noticed we asked Spike to remain outside. Without getting into any details of why we summoned you here, I would like to say that neither Luna nor I have any problem with letting Spike in, but wanted to leave the choice up to you. " "We have a matter of potentially great importance to discuss that needs to be kept confidential, for at least, a short while, if it turns out to be as important as Luna and I suspect it could be, it will be going public in a few days time, I loathe to keep great secrets from my little ponies but it is necessary from time to time. If you think Spike is mature enough to handle keeping what we discuss confidential, then we shall let him join us." Twilight took a moment to think about the question. She remembered the adventures that Spike had accompanied her on. She thought about the assistance he gave during Sombra's return. "I trust Spike, he can handle whatever this is about." "Alright, Twilight," Celestia said. Luna's horn glowed and the door to the throne room opened. "Guards, please allow Spike the Dragon to enter," she said. Spike peered into the room and looked at Twilight questioningly. Twilight gave Spike a brief nod, seeing this he made his way to the front of the room and bowed respectfully to the celestial Princesses. The door closed with a thud behind him. "Good morning to you Spike," Celestia said smiling warmly. Her expression then turned more serious. "As Luna and I were just discussing with Twilight, there is a matter of potentially great importance. Twilight has placed a great deal of trust in your ability to keep the matter we are about to reveal a secret, please do not let her down." "I won't, you can trust me Princess," Spike said. "Let us begin then, Luna would you like to take over?" "As my sister stated, the matter we are about to bring up must remain a secret. We have sent word for Cadance and Shining Armor to join us, they should be here early this evening. They are the only other two ponies that you may talk to besides Celestia and I about this matter until told otherwise." "Is there danger?" Twilight asked. Luna hesitated for a moment before replying. "We... do not know. This is, in fact, an unusual situation. We are no more knowledgeable about the matter than any pony with the same information we have. It could be nothing, it could be the greatest discovery ponies have ever made, or it could potentially be the greatest danger. Twilight, tell me, what do you know of the uniqueness of our solar system?" "Do you want a detailed report or a brief summary?" Twilight asked, eyes lighting up at the thought of giving a lecture. "A brief summary will suffice." Twilight held back a frown and then mulled over the request for a moment before she began to speak. "Out solar system contains 13 planets, an asteroid belt, and one star. Unlike a normal solar system, our home world of Equus is at the center of the system. The orbits of all local celestial bodies, including the sun are controlled by you and Celestia. Typically Celestia handles the sun, while you deal with everything else, planets, asteroids and comets. Celestia is capable of managing the entire system alone, as evidenced by her managing things while you were imprisoned on the moon. I am not sure if you also possess this ability." Luna's face showed a hint of sadness when Twilight mentioned her banishment. It quickly disappeared as she replied to Twilight's "I do, but this was not always the case. In the past both Celestia and I lacked sufficient power to properly manage the entire system alone. Before the Nightmare I could not move the sun at all." Twilight looked confused. "But ponies reach their maximum magical potential around the age of maturity, surely for you and Celestia, that was ages... er uh..." Twilight stammered as she realized she was essentially calling both Celestia and Luna very old. "Yes Twilight, " Celestia said chuckling. "We reached maturity many thousands of years ago. We have in fact been around for a very long time. What very few ponies have known is exactly how long. We were around when Discord first appeared, nearly 50,000 years ago. We were physically mature a long time before he showed up." "Then why didn't you stop him earlier?" Spike asked. "Spike!" Twilight shouted. "It is alright," Luna said. "It is a valid question. The truth is we couldn't. When Discord first appeared, our combined strength was nothing compared to his. It took most of our power just to remain hidden, all we could do was wait, and plan. As you pointed out, ponies reach their full magical potential around the age of maturity. This varies from pony to pony and from race to race, but alicorns are special. "Alicorns are unique among the pony races in that they possess exceedingly powerful magic, a strong combination of the 3 other races that is more than the sum of its parts, and that they are very long lived. Five hundred to a thousand years is not uncommon. In addition magical potential of an alicorn is not tied to physical maturity. Alicorns continue to grow in magical strength well into their early 100s, often ending many times more powerful than they were at the age of physical maturity. You will notice this in yourself now that you have obtained alicornhood." "But you and Celestia are much older than that," Twilight said. "If you were around hundreds of years before Discord showed up, wouldn't you have already reached your full strength?" Luna continued. "Yes, and as I stated, alicorns are unique among the pony races, and among alicorns, my sister and I are also unique. We are, as far as we can tell, completely immortal. As the years go by, we gain more and more power. We have, apparently, no age of magical maturity, or if we do, we have yet to reach it." "This is why Nightmare Moon was able to escape her banishment after 1000 years," Celestia said. "Even banished and corrupted, Luna's power grew, eventually reaching the point where the spell I cast with the Elements could no longer contain her." "But my friends and I were able to use the Elements to free Luna from the Nightmare," Twilight said. "Indeed you were and I will be eternally grateful for you and your friends helping me. I will continue the history lesson and you will know why you were able to do so shortly," Luna said. "As I was saying, Discord was beyond our power, but we came up with a plan. Celestia and I combined our magic to create the Tree of Harmony. For thousands of years we poured more and more power into the Tree. We also developed powerful spells, that were resistant or even immune to chaos magic. As our power grew, so did that of the Tree. "The Tree of Harmony was intended to generate a field of anti-chaos magic, that would provide an area that Discord could not enter, nor affect. If it worked we could continue to create more Harmony Trees until Discord was pushed out of Equestria entirely. Something happened though, that neither my sister or I understand. The Tree of Harmony bore fruit, the Elements of Harmony were born. In time we discovered that when wielded by Celestia and I, these elements gave us the power to overcome Discord." "It was not till centuries later, after Luna's banishment, that I found out that the elements are strongest when wielded by 6 individual ponies, and more so when those ponies embody the spirit of the elements themselves as you and your friends do," Celestia added. "That is why when you and your friends wielded the Elements together, they spell they cast was far more powerful than when I wielded them alone against Nightmare Moon. The increased power was enough to free her of the Nightmare" "A fact that I am eternally grateful for," Luna said. "Twilight, I asked about our solar system because I wanted to see how much you knew about the level of control my sister and I have over it. Most ponies are only aware of the work we do with the sun and the moon. It appears that you have sufficient knowledge for me to begin." "Two nights ago I was making adjustments to the orbit of a comet at the edge of the system. It was at this time that I felt something pass close by. It was moving so fast I almost missed the object, but I was able to find it again. It appears to be on a trajectory that will bring it fairly close to Equus." "What kind of object? How fast was it moving?" "We do not know what it is yet, it is both too far out and moving too fast to see. As for its speed, when I did some more precise measurements last night, it crossed an distance of just over 330 million miles in an hour," Luna said. Twilight's draw dropped to the floor. "330 million miles. That's..." she ran a quick mental calculation. "That's about 50% of the speed of light!" "Indeed it is, neither my sister nor I have ever seen any object in nature move that fast," Luna said. "What is more shocking however, is that as I continued to track the object across the heavens, I have discovered that it is slowing down. It is in fact slowing down fairly quickly, decelerating at a rate of 40 gravities." "I don't get it Twilight, what's the big deal about this thing," Spike asked. "Spike, this is huge! First off nothing moves that fast in nature, secondly things in space don't slow down, not by themselves. " Twilight started pacing back and forth, with an excited look on her face. "Neighton's first law, an object in motion remains in motion unless acted on by an external force. Something must be slowing it down! If it's isn't natural and it is slowing itself down, could it be a vessel of some kind?" "You mean like aliens?" Spike asked. "That is a possibility, though we did not want to jump to conclusions," Luna said. "It could be some naturally occurring phenomena that we've never seen before. Even with our millennia of experience and knowledge to draw upon Celestia and I are not all knowing. "When will it get here?" Twilight asked excitedly. "If its course continues without change, it should come within 300,000 miles of the planet," Luna said. "What will happen next we do not know. If it continues to decelerate it will be captured by the planet's gravitational field. If that happens, I will have to ensure it ends up in a stable orbit. I am waiting until I am able to see the object get an estimate on its size before I settle on a course of action." "Luna, I know it's very far out, but have you tried using a distant sight spell to view the object?" Twilight asked. "It is both too far and moving too fast for a standard distant sight spell to work. I have been working on modifying it and combining it with a scrying spell to give us something useful. Would you like to assist me with me with the modifications?" Twilight stopped her pacing mid stride. A chance to work with one of the Princesses on spellcrafting was an amazing opportunity. "Luna, I would be deeply honored to assist you. When would you like to get started?" "If you start now, you may be able to finish before Cadance and Shining Armor arrive," Celestia said. "Meanwhile I am running a shortened session of Day Court for the next few hours, Spike can join me." "Can we stop at Donut Joe's?" Spike asked Celestia with a pleading look in his eyes. "Lunch is in a little while, don't go spoiling it with donuts," Twilight said. Celestia however looked at Spike and gave a quick smile and a wink when Twilight wasn't looking. "That is agreeable sister. Twilight, let us make our way to my observatory, we can work on the spell there." Twilight and Luna made their way out of the throne room and then took off at a quick trot towards the observatory. "Now Spike, about those donuts..." ##### Luna spent some time bringing Twilight up to speed on the spell work that was needed. They continued to work on it for a while, only breaking for a quick lunch. Part of the process was investigating exactly how one of the components would work. Luna suspected she would be using part of a scrying spell for the final new spell, so the two ponies had to do some research into how the spell worked. This was fairly straight forward and it helped that the scrying spell, originally written by Star Swirl the Bearded, was itself a modification of a distant sight spell Luna had written long ago. The distant sight spell functioned like a magical telescope, giving the caster the ability to see distant objects more clearly. Increasing the amount of magnification was fairly straight forward, but the higher the magnification, the more jitter was introduced. There was no way any pony would be able to keep their view steady enough to observe something billions of miles away. The scrying spell gave the caster a visual projection of an area, there were two issues with the using that spell though. The spell consisted of two components. The first part of the spell was cast on an area you wanted to observe. This required being able to see that area. The 2nd part of the spell would form a projection of that area. The view in this projection was fixed, it couldn't be moved or rotated. The ponies had no way to get into space to cast the first part, and even if they could, the projection couldn't track the object. "Luna, may I ask you something?" "Of course you can Twilight, you need not ask permission." "It has to do with what we were discussing earlier, about how you and Celestia's power continue to grow. Why is it that Celestia had me and my friends deal with Discord?" "Ah. Well, as I said before, the Elements work best when wielded by six ponies rather than by two. Celestia and I wielding the elements together could only lock Discord away, but the lock was flawed. It slowly lost power until Discord was able to free himself. She had hoped that with you and your friends using the Elements, a stronger, more permanent seal would be put into place. Instead something unexpected happened. The Elements made a fundamental change to Discord's nature. " Luna paused to write down some notes. She took a deep breath and continued. "In truth, we do not know exactly how it happened but I what I suspect is Discord was imbued with some of the aspects of the Elements. For the first time in his existence he experienced Harmony. It gave him perspective and I believe it was this change that allowed you and your friends to successfully reform him. No longer was he driven purely by chaos, instead he was filled with some of the same desires as ponies, to exist in harmony with other beings, to experience the joys of friends and family and to be part of something bigger than himself." "Well, I guess that offers some explanation in Discord's change of heart," Twilight said. "I'm glad he is no longer threatening the safety of Equestria. Oh, actually that reminds me, while we're on the subject of threats to Equestria..." The door behind the two ponies opened up and Celestia and Spike walked in. "...I heard something about somepony named Tirek escaping from Tartarus, who is that? I couldn't find any information on him at my library or in the Canterlot archives." Celestia froze the moment Twilight mentioned Tirek's name. Luna's smile instantly vanished, the room itself seemed to grow darker. "I... I would prefer not to discuss Tirek," Twilight thought she saw tears in Luna's eyes but the Princess of the Night quickly turned her head. "If you'll excuse me, I need to take care of something," Luna vanished in a flash as she teleported out of the observatory. Twilight sat down hard, a look of panic in her eyes. She looked at Celestia nervously. "What did I say?" Celestia walked over and embraced Twilight with one of her wings. "There there Twilight, do not worry, Luna will be OK. Tirek is a painful subject for her." "I didn't know, I heard about his escape from Shining but he didn't have any real details I was just curious." "I know you didn't intend to hurt her, and she knows that as well. Give her some time and she will return to us. for now, do not bring him up again in front of Luna, if she wants to talk about it, she will bring it up with you. If you are still curious, we can talk about it another time and I will let you know what happened." The two ponies and a dragon remained silent, Celestia continued to hold Twilight with her wing until the young alicorn calmed down. Minutes passed until Spike finally broke the silence. "Uh, this is getting kind of awkward, did you and Luna make any progress on the spell to see the UFO?" "It's not a UFO Spike, or at least we don't know if it is one yet." "UFO stands for unidentified flying object, it's unidentified, it's an object, and it's flying though space. It's a UFO," Spike said with a smug look on his face. Twilight scrunched her nose. "Well, I guess that's true, what I meant is it's not like one of the flying saucers from your comic books. It could be, but we don't know yet, but to answer your question, yes we've made some progress but we aren't quite there yet." "Would you mind if I looked at your notes?" Celestia asked. Twilight took the next hour bringing Celestia up to speed on her and Luna's progress. At the end of the hour, Luna returned but said nothing. The three ponies worked in relative silence till it was getting close to dinner. Luna stopped working suddenly and spoke up. "I think I have a solution. Why don't you three go grab something to eat and then meet up with Cadance and Shining Armor? I will prepare the spell." With Spike on her back and Celestia by her side, Twilight made her way to Canterlot Station. Ponies stopped and stared, it wasn't every day they saw Celestia walking around the town. Celestia, however enjoyed the change of pace from her normal ridged schedule. She loved her little ponies and enjoyed being able to see them outside of heavily structured interaction of Day Court. She smiled and greeted ponies as they made their way to the station. Some ponies even managed to get over the shock of seeing her walking around and greeted her back. One little filly even ran over and gave Celestia a hug. A very embarrassed mother ran over and apologized, but Celestia hugged the filly right back and let the mother know it was alright. They stopped at a small restaurant to grab some take out. The owner noticed Celestia in line and nearly had a stroke. He walked over and took their order personally. A short while later he came out with 3 sandwiches. Twilight tried to pay, but the owner refused. "Don't worry about it Twilight, I'll deduct it from his taxes," Celestia said with a wink. The group finally arrived at the station, sat down and waited for the train to arrive. Twilight glanced at the station clock, it was only 6:00, the train wasn't due in for another hour. They sat down and ate their sandwiches, eventually they heard a whistle in the distance. It sounded a few more times, each time closer than the last. Finally Twilight saw the train coming around the last bend in the track. It pulled into the station and slowly came to a stop. "Honey, we've arrived," Shining said, waking Cadance up from her nap. The trip had been long and uneventful. Cadance had taken a brief nap. Shining had spent the time talking to Swift Wing and his squad. They swapped stories back and forth for a few hours until the train finally pulled into Canterlot Station. Cadance opened her eyes and looked out the window. She saw Celestia, Twilight and Spike standing outside. She waved to them through the window, but they didn't notice her. "As soon as we disembark, we shall escort you to the castle and Princess Celestia," Swift Wing said. "Celestia is waiting right outside, we just passed her as the train was coming to a stop," Cadance said. "Oh, well that will certainly make our job easier." Swift Wing and his squad exited the train with Cadance and Shining Armor following. They immediately spotted Celestia and her group and walked over. "Lieutenant Swift Wing, reporting with Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Prince Shining Armor as ordered ma'am." "Thank you Lieutenant, your quick response to my summons is most appreciated. You remind me of your grandfather." "You knew my grandfather ma'am?" "I knew Red Dawn well, he was a loyal and kind pony and a fine officer. His service was exemplary. He was also one of the fastest fliers in the guard at the time. " Shining Armor broke away while Swift Wing and Celestia continued to talk. "Twily!" Shining Armor walked over to his sister and gave her a great big hug. "How've you been?" The two ponies spent a few minutes catching up with each other, Cadance greeted Twilight and Spike and then walked over to Celestia. "Hello Cadance, thank you for coming on such short notice. How are you doing?" "I'm doing well, but I'm very curious as to what this is about, can you tell us now?" "Not here, please follow me. We're going to meet up with Luna, she's in her observatory. Swift Wing, if you'd please accompany us, have the rest of your squad report to the Canterlot Garrison and wait there for further orders." Following Celestia, the group of ponies made their way to Luna's observatory. Swift Wing was asked to remain outside, while rest of the group filed into the main room. Celestia and Luna took turns bringing Cadance and Shining Armor up to speed. Both ponies had a number of questions. Celestia and Luna answered them as best they could, pausing part way through so that they could lower the sun and raise the moon. After the questions died down, Luna then brought up that she had successfully tested the new spell and should be ready to try to get a visual on the object. Twilight was curious, as before she left, they were still having issues with focusing the spell. "How did you get past the focusing issue we were seeing at high magnification?" she asked. "I bypassed it entirely. My solution will use a fairly low magnification, only about 10 times higher this telescope," Luna said, pointing at the large telescope behind her. "With the object so distant, will that be enough?" Celestia asked. "It should be, here let me explain how this works. First I modified the distant sight spell to use the visual display that Star Swirl's scrying spell uses. Instead of the caster seeing it, it functions more like a telescope. Anypony can look at the image that is projected in front of the caster. Then I modified the visual display. The one from the scrying spell is 2 dimensional, the new visual display is 3 dimensional. Let me demonstrate. Luna's horn glowed as she concentrated on the spell. A 3 dimensional image appeared focused on the desk on the other side of the room. "The 3 dimensional view is basically a one way portal that only lets light through. You aren't looking at a visual representation of the desk, you're looking at the actual point of space the desk occupies. By setting up the spell this way, I can then cast the modified spell on that point in space again. In essence, I am nesting the spells. The first spell is cast here, which gives us a view of a point in space a 10 million miles away. I am then able to cast another spell on that point in space which projects the image of a 2nd point in space another 10 million miles away from it, which is relayed by the original spell back to here. Only the final spell in the chain does any magnification which is then relayed back to the original point. I call it the Deep Space Imaging Spell" "That's brilliant!" Twilight exclaimed. "There is a limit on both the number of times we can nest the spell before it degrades and the magnification of the final spell. The higher the magnification, the less spells we can nest, hopefully it will be sufficient to give us a good view of the object. I've already written a wrapper spell so we can easily adjust magnification and the numbers of nests as we continue to find the optimal parameters." "I have no idea what Luna just said" Spike deadpanned, "does this mean we'll be able to finally see this thing?" "We shall find out in a moment my little dragon," Celestia replied. Luna lowered her telescope out of the way since she needed a clear line of sight to the sky for the spell to work. She then closed her eyes and concentrated on the new spell. Her horn glowed brightly and an image appeared in front of her. She opened her eyes and looked at the image. "I will now make some adjustments as I attempt to bring the object into view." Her horn lit again but she kept an eye on the image. It slowly zoomed in more and more on one point in space, but there was still nothing in the display but stars. After a few minutes of that waiting, the ponies started to lose hope. Twilight then noticed a very small dot in the center of the display that was not there before. "I think I can see something, can we zoom in any closer?" "We are getting close to the limit of this spell, but I think I can make a few more adjustments," Luna replied Slowly the dot grew larger and larger until the ponies were finally able to make it out. "Sweet Celestia!" Twilight said. She then gasped and shoved her hoof over her mouth realizing what she had just shouted. "Ordinarily Twilight, I would be disappointed, in your choice of profanities. But in this case, I think the use is justified," Celestia said. "Sweet me." In the display hovering in front of the group of ponies was a ring shaped object. It was still a little small, but the image was clear enough that it was obvious this was no natural phenomenon. Whatever this thing was it was artificial.