//------------------------------// // Prologue part 2 // Story: My Little Draenei: Shamanism is Magic // by scootalooftw //------------------------------// It was a normal day in Ponyville, or about as normal as it got in said town. Twilight Sparkle trotted happily down the street, oblivious of the wary stares her fellow ponies cast her way. Her lavender coat was brushed to a shine, and her dark purple mane, with its light purple and pink highlights, was style to perfection, parting perfectly around her horn. All in all, she was looking better than she had in weeks, finally free of the stress of recent events. It all started when Discord, the Lord of Chaos, broke free from his stone prison and started wreaking havoc on Equestria. With the combined efforts of her, and her five best friends, they were able to come together and use the Elements of Harmony to end his tyrannical reign before it could begin. That isn’t to say, however, that they had an easy time of it. Quite the opposite in fact. When Discord escaped, the first thing he did was hide the Elements. However, not one to play with a completely stacked deck, he did leave Twilight and her friends with a clue to the location of the Elements, all they had to do to find them was solve his riddle, and play his game. The first attempt to find the Elements had ended when Rainbow Dash, the ever loyal pegasus, had abandoned her friends in favor of her home, Cloudesdale. As worrying as it was to see one of her best friends going against the key principle that she lived her life around, it didn’t end there. Discord had gotten to all of her friends, and warped their minds until they were the complete opposites of their former selves. The ever honest Applejack, now a compulsive liar. The sweet, kind Fluttershy, now a cruel, mean, bully. Even the ever smiling, ever happy Pinkie Pie had been reduced to a grumbling grump who hated laughter. When Rainbow Dash had abandoned her friends, Discord had called an end to the game, stating that Dash leaving had broken the rules. With the game over, Discord left for Ponyville, intent on turning it into the Chaos Capital of his new world. Returning to Ponyville, the Elements were found in the library, concealed in the book that had started their whole journey. Elements in hoof, Twilight had attempted to rally her friends behind her, intent on taking down Discord. Her friends, still under the effects of Discord’s mind games, decided to split up instead, abandoning Twilight and nearly causing her to fall as well. A few letters from her mentor, however, pulled Twilight out of her depression, and gave her an idea of how to save her friends and defeat Discord. A few memory spells later, and the Elements came together and Discord was beaten, encasing him in his stone prison and returning harmony to the land. The following weeks had been spent cleaning up, and fixing all of the damage Discord caused that the Elements didn’t fix. In that time, Twilight realized that had been so busy helping with repairs, she had stopped sending reports to her mentor, Princess Celestia, and in a state of panic brought on by stress had attempted to make friendship problems to solve by enchanting an old doll with a ‘want it, need it’ spell. The plan backfired, however, and before long the entire town was fighting over the doll. It was at this time that Princess Celestia herself stepped in, disenchanting the doll, and giving a new assignment to Twilight, as well as her friends, as “punishment”. The assignment, to write a report on what they have learned about friendship, when, and only when, they learned something new. Upon Celestia departure, Twilight’s friends had treated her to a trip to the spa, as an apology for ignoring just how stressed she had become. It was on her way back from the spa, head held high, with not a care in the world, that the next big thing happened. A bright flash in the sky caught her attention, before a loud boom caused all the townsponies to run to their homes and hide. The loud boom was accompanied by another bright flash of light, before what looked like a meteor went flying through the sky, crashing in the Everfree Forest with a final, ground shaking explosion. Without a seconds hesitation, Twilight took off towards her home, the local library, already writing the letter to her mentor in her head. Bursting through the front door, she slid to a stop in the middle of the room before shouting, “Spike!” She heard a crash from the kitchen, as well as a cry of surprise, before a young male voice shouted back. “Twilight, you made me drop my gem cakes! I thought you went to the spa to relax, what kind of relaxing leads to busting through the door like a batpony out of Tartarus?” “They’re called thestrals, Spike, and you know they don’t like being called batponies.” Twilight scolded, running to the kitchen to find a young purple drake cleaning up scattered pastries. “And the ‘busting through the door’ is a result of a meteor that just crashed in the Everfree. Are you telling me you didn't feel the tremors that thing made?” With a bashful chuckle, Spike folded his arms behind his back and started scuffing the floor with his foot. “Well, I may have been focused on watching my gem cakes bake.” Flinching at the glare he received, he held up his arms defensively. “What, I was hungry!” “And being hungry gives you the right to ignore your chores to watch cupcakes bake?” With a sigh, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Look, it doesn’t matter, we need to send a letter to Princess Celestia about the meteor. I’m sure she’ll want to send some guards to investigate.” Taking advantage of the subject change, Spike quickly grabbed a quill and inkwell, before scrawling a note to Celestia and sending it in a plume of flame. “Spike, you wait here for her reply, I’m going to go round up the girls and bring them back here. While you're waiting, finish cleaning up your mess, then get working on your chores.” Without waiting for a reply, Twilight ran out the door and sprinted into town, leaving the door hanging open behind her. With a grumble, Spike slammed the door before returning to the kitchen. “‘Clean up your mess’ she says. ‘Do your chores.’ Would it kill her to say please?” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A short time later, Twilight returned to a now clean library, the rest of the Element Bearers in tow. “Spike, has the Princess answered my letter yet?” Emerging from the doorway leading to the bedroom, Spike stumbled into the room, the slouching green spines on his head giving away his obvious fatigue. “Not yet Twi. I finished my chores, can I eat now?” With a gasp, Rarity, the other unicorn of their group rushed to Spike’s side, picking him up in her sparkling blue aura and nuzzling him affectionately. “Oh, my poor little Spikey-Wikey! I know Twilight likes to overwork herself, but has she been overworking my poor, baby drake too?” She cried dramatically. It was no secret to anypony, no matter how much Spike insisted otherwise, that he had a massive crush on Rarity. But it’s not like anypony could blame him. With her perfectly white coat, her beautifully styled purple mane and tail, her trio of diamonds as a cutie mark, and her lascivious figure made her the dream mare of many of the Ponyville stallions, and quite a few mares. “Now simmer down, sally.” A heavily accented voice called out. “Ah don’t think that Twilight here would starve Spike to get ‘im to work,” Stepping out of the group, Applejack fixed her emerald green eyes in a pointed stare at Twilight. “Ain’t that right, Twi?” “Of course not!” Twilight defended, giving the bright orange earth pony an insulted look. “And I’m kind of offended that you would even suggest that.” Pulling her brown stetson off her blonde mane, Applejack took a hesitant step back and attempted to stammer out an excuse, before Rainbow Dash jumped in to defend her. “Now hold on there, Twi, she wasn’t trying to suggest anything bad! She was just sayin’ that you tend to get caught up in what you’re doing and forget to feed yourself, so it wouldn’t be hard to imagine you forgetting to feed Spike.” With a sky blue coat, bright magenta eyes, and a rainbow colored mane and tail, Rainbow Dash was easily the most uniquely colored ponies present, down to her rainbow lightning bolt cutie mark. One of the two pegasi, and definitely one of the more adventurous ponies, of the group, Rainbow Dash was always quick to jump in and defend a friend. “Oh Dashey,” Pinkie Pie cut in, her bright blue eyes seeming to have a smile as wide as her own. “Don’t be upset, I’m sure they didn't mean it. Besides,” she paused in her constant bouncing to look at the gathered ponies, the temperature in the room seeming to drop a few degrees. Her bright pink coat seemed to dull a few shades, and her poofy pink mane and tail seemed to lose some of their bounce.“It’s not nice to argue with your friends.” As soon as she finished speaking, both the room and the pink party pony returned to normal, as she started bouncing around, humming a happy tune to herself. With a squeak, the final member of the group made her presence known. “Umm, maybe we should just get to why we are all here, and maybe eat, if that’s alright with everypony?” Seeing everypony in the room turn to her, Fluttershy released another embarrassed squeak, before the butter yellow mare attempted to hide behind her pink mane. “Oh dear, I hope I didn’t insult anypony, or make the argument worse. We aren’t arguing, are we? I’m sorry. I was so busy trying to calm my animal friends after that explosion that I missed lunch…” Fluttershy slowly trailed off, voice getting quieter until nopony could understand her. With a sigh, Twilight turned and lead the group towards the kitchen. “Fluttershy is right, we should talk about why I brought you all here, and since the Princess hasn’t responded to my letter yet, we might as well do it over lunch.” Chuckling at the vacant expression on Spike’s face, she started heading for the stove. “Don’t worry, Spike, I can take care of lunch. You did such a good job with your chores.” Snapping out of the daze Rarity’s affection left him in, Spike quickly got between Twilight and the stove. “Oh hay no, Twilight! Last time I let you make lunch, you ended up setting a daisy sandwich on fire!” Blushing in embarrassment, Twilight shot Spike a quick glare before seating herself at the table with her friends. “It’s alright, darling,” Rarity attempted to sooth her. “Sweetie Belle managed to burn juice the last time she made breakfast.” “It’s not my fault!” Twilight pouted. “How was I supposed to know you toast the bread before you make the sandwich.” With an incredulous look, Applejack spoke up. “You ain’t serious, are ya?” When no denial was forthcoming, she just shook her head in disbelief. “And we let ya teleport us all the time…” “Anyways!” Twilight cut in, trying to ignore the snickering of her friends, “Let’s get to why we are all here today. As I’m sure most of you saw, and heard, earlier today there was a loud explosion to the north west of Ponyville, before a meteor was seen traveling south east over the town and crashing in the Everfree. I have already sent a letter to the Princess detailing what I saw, and we are now awaiting a response as to whether we should investigate or not. Does anypony have anything to add?” “Yeah,” Rainbow was the first to speak up. “I was napping on a cloud north of the town, when that thing entered the atmosphere, that first boom it let off, it cleared all the clouds in that section of town. Those clouds are all held together by magic, so that meteor had to have been magic too, to be able to clear all those clouds.” “Wait, you're saying that meteor had to have been of magical origins, because it broke the spell holding the clouds together?” Twilight questioned. Dash nodded. “But you also said ‘when it entered the atmosphere’, correct?” Twilight asked, looking more excited by the second. “Yeah, given the speed it came in at, and given the trajectory, and its angle of its descent, there’s no way it could have originated somewhere on Equis.” Noticing the dumbfounded looks her friends were giving her, Dash crossed her forelegs over her chest and made a pouty face. “What? I have to know about stuff like that for my stunt flying. Just because I never finished flight school doesn’t mean I don’t know things.” “Well forgive us if this seems rude, darling, but I don’t think anypony expected words like ‘trajectory’ and ‘angle of descent’ to leave your mouth. You’ve always seemed like the type to just do, and not think about it.” Face turning red with either anger or embarrassment, Dash looked away before finding something interesting to look on the ceiling. “Come on girls, we’re getting off subject again.” Twilight spoke up, attempting to rein them all in. “If what Dash said is correct, then we could be dealing with an extraterrestrial spell. If that’s the case, then it’s even more important that we find where that meteor landed and secure the site, before anypony stumbles into it and hurts themselves.” Her stomach starting to rumble, she called out to Spike. “You almost done in there, Spike?” “Yeah,” he responded. “Just dishing everypony up right…” He was cut off by a belch before he could finish speaking. Before Twilight could ask if it was a response from the Princess, he came running into the room carrying a tray of sandwiches and a scroll. “The Princess just got back to us, and the food is done.” Grabbing a sandwich and the scroll, Twilight busied herself reading the scroll while eating, before grabbing a blank scroll and a quill. Writing a quick few words on the scroll, she rolled it up and handed it to Spike. “Send this please, Spike. Once the Princess responds to it, you can go and relax. You’ve done enough for today.” Sending the scroll away with a smile and a burst of flames, Spike seated himself behind a stack of his salvaged gem cakes and began munching away. “Alright girls, the Princess would like us to venture into the forest and see if we can find the crash site. We shouldn’t have to worry about wildlife, as the impact should have scared them all away. A group of guards are on their way down from Canterlot, and will be meeting us at the crash site. I just sent her a letter detailing what Dash told us about it’s suspected extraterrestrial magical origins, it shouldn’t take her long to respond, then we will head out.” “But darling, why have the guards meet us at the crash site?” Rarity questioned. “Why not have them meet us here? Surely she doesn’t want us wandering through that wretched forest on our own, now does she?” “The Princess said that whatever it is, it gave off an immense amount of magic, she could feel it all the way in Canterlot. She wants us moving in to secure it first because we are the closest to it, and it will take some time for the guard to mobilize and move in. Princess Celestia doesn’t want to risk anypony stumbling on to whatever might be in that crater. On the off chance that it is some type of powerful magical relic, having it on the loose and unaccounted for could cause serious problems.” No sooner had Twilight finished speaking, then Spike had belched another scroll. Picking up the scroll and giving it a quick read, she nodded once to herself before speaking again. “She said if it is indeed a piece of magic from outside of Equis, it’s even more important we find it, and secure it, before anypony else does. If nopony has any questions, then we will head out now.” After a quick affirmative from the group, showing they all were ready, they gathered what they needed and headed out.