[Untitled.Uncertainty]

by GMBlackjack

II - The Fragment - VoidTemplar2000

The Grand Hall of the Castle of Friendship was a complete and utter mess. Equipment had been brought up from the cellars with the intent to measure all kinds of arcane matters. One of the inhabitants of the castle, Princess Twilight Sparkle, was in the middle of the mess of equipment; running around, organizing royal scientists, and just generally freaking out. She had sent a message for her friends to come and “help” her few minutes prior, even if she thought they’d be mostly moral support rather than actually help with the experimentation.

When Twilight’s friends entered the room, a dark blue beam of magic shot out through the door accompanied by a string of swears. They walked towards Twilight, whose hair was just a little frazzled and her eyes rather bloodshot. To anypony normal, this would’ve been weird behavior, but to Twilight’s friends this was normal; Twilight often had the habit of forgetting time when studying some interesting. Food as well. And drink. And practically everything else. Spike had set at least two plates with daffodils and hayfries

“Productive night, sugarcube?” Applejack asked the alicorn, a bit concerned due to her strained physical state.

“Oh, yeah the night went just great. I think I even figured out what it is!” Twilight’s head shot up from one of the books, having barely noticed the group entering the room.

“Let me guess, some ancient artifact made by old ponies?”

“Far from it. The rock came from beyond the Moon. Although I haven’t figured out what it is made of, I’m sure a small trip to the Everfree Forest would clear things up. But think of it - I have never seen a rock so mysterious. No book or article I have in my library speaks of anything of this kind. Think of all the research that could be done with it! What we could learn from it!”

From what they could see, Twilight had trapped a small fragment of the shooting star in a transparent cube surrounded by sharply focused machines. The rock vibrated and trembled in the transparent cage, glowing and bouncing around while making clear b-notes. It seemed alive, and yet, all they saw was a small, dark, and purple stone fragment.

“Uh, Twilight, are you sure that this won’t blow up the castle?” Rainbow Dash announced, looking around. She spotted Twilight getting ready to pull a lever.

“I’m 100% sure there’s only a 0.0001% chance of us getting blown to Celestia knows where. Besides, if it happens, it’ll be contained to this room,” Twilight said, levitating a clipboard and pen to her side.

“I’m not sure how more secure I am about that,” Applejack said, leaning on a crystal pillar.

Twilight didn’t hear her. She pulled the lever and activated numerous screens with complicated readouts, printers, and the machines that fired beams of light onto the fragment. The first beam hit, and the fragment turned bright blue. Then a beam of pure magic hit and the fragment released out a grayscale rainbow, hitting a backboard and desaturating it, turning the greens and the blue chalk into much more muted tones.

Another machine fired a laser, prompting the stone to grow. A deep shudder went through Pinkie’s body and her tail began to twitch uncontrollably. She immediately pulled a thick bookshelf supported by iron girders out of her mane and dove for cover behind it. Seeing this, Rarity and Applejack followed suit, finding a thick oak table to hide behind. Starlight walked into the room at this moment, saw the other ponies behind cover and immediately teleported behind a wall of sandbags, dragging Spike to her location shortly thereafter. As for Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, they had already flown out of the hall and were now in the Cutie Map room, cowering behind the thrones. The royal scientists were already in full gallop away from the Castle. They weren’t exactly too keen on being in a place where the Pinkie Sense went off.

Twilight didn’t notice them; she was so busy keeping an eye on the readouts that she didn’t notice all three beams firing at once. They converged in the middle of the box, with the fragment at the apex. The fragment reacted immediately, shattering the box and sending large shards of transparent material around the room. Some drilled their way into the table; another embedded itself in the sandbags with enough force to scare Starlight into summoning a crystal around herself and Spike, freezing the dragon mid-scream. Twilight, who now had been alerted to the fact that something had gone terribly wrong with the experiment, put up a force field around the fragment to try and isolate it. The effort was in vain. The now purple-blue fragment rose into the air – taking the force field with it – eventually reaching a point just below the ceiling where it exploded. The force field shattered and a magical shockwave was unleashed. Parts of the ceiling crumbled and fell onto the machines. Twilight herself dove behind the thick bookshelf, away from the machines she had been near – machines that exploded a fraction of a second later.

The fragment began spinning, first slowly, and then faster, and faster - until it spun into nothing. A few sparkles that fell to the ground were the only remains of the fragment. Twilight was the first to venture out from her hiding spot, trying to find printouts of the data that the machines recorded before had exploded. Pinkie Pie looked her head out, trying to avoid the sharp glass and metal that laid around the room. Rarity, who had taken a hit from a splinter of the table, had to be supported by Applejack as they rose to their hooves. Not that Rarity was unable to walk, but the shock had crippled her momentarily. Starlight removed the crystal, pressing play on Spike’s frozen scream.

Rainbow and Fluttershy were the next to enter, coming to see a room that looked less like a mess and more like a war zone. Rarity’s laceration was being tended to by Starlight and Applejack while Twilight desperately tried to dig through the rubble to find answers, or just something salvageable from the ruins. She was at last shaken from her trance by Rainbow Dash. The pegasus took the princess by the wings and shook her thoroughly.

“Twilight! Look around you!”

Twilight looked up from the rubble, coming eye to eye with Rainbow Dash. She could see the devastated scene for what it was. The idea of her being responsible for this… Rarity had a wound. The realization of what she had done strained Twilight and sent her into shock. She fainted, mercifully into the hooves of Fluttershy.

“Uhm, should we get Nurse Redheart?” Fluttershy asked in her signature meek tone. Those were the last words Twilight heard before she slipped into unconsciousness.

~~~

Quite a long distance away, on the other side of the ocean, in Griffonstone to be more precise, sat two griffons who were also acquaintances of ponies. Gabriella (better known as Gabby) and Gilda were their names, and they discussed what had gone down earlier in the day.

“I really hope they can remove the meteor before the next week. It really doesn’t do the city a lot of good,” Gabby said, lifting a scone to her beak and taking a bite.

“Maybe the stonecutters can make some bricks out of it,” Gilda replied, while decidedly looking more interested in the cup of liquid in front of her.

“Oooh. If it comes to that, I’ll want some of those!” Gabby blurted, turning her head towards the crater not far from the city.

In that moment, their little friendly chat was interrupted by an unknown pony entering Gabby’s field of view. Seeing as he was clad entirely in a dark cloak concealing everything but his face – which itself was concealed by a white mask - neither Gabby or Gilda could make out any personal traits of the pony. The only defining thing they could see was a large blue gem in a thick silver frame hanging around his neck.

“Hey, stranger, what brings you to Griffonstone?” Gabby shouted at the pony loud enough to make Gilda think she got a ruptured eardrum.

The cloaked figure didn’t respond. Instead, he began to gallop towards the meteorite, leaving Gabby and Gilda where they were.

~~~

Three evils unleashed.

Three craters far apart.

Three in search of them.

Author's Note:

Written by VoidTemplar2000

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well now. This should be a lot of fun to see play out. May have to get in on the fun myself at some juncture. For now, though, I'll simply observe with great interest.

[Ponygood11]

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We have a Discord here, if you or anyone else wants to join. Originally created for SotS, but easily repurposed for many other things, including discussing this story.