The night sky above Equestria was anything but dark. Magnificent auroral light waved and curled among the thousands of visible stars, painting the heavens in a display of celestial art not seen for centuries. Comet trails of bright blues and greens complimented the newly unblemished moon. The sky was truly alive.
Millions of Equines looked up in awe, a stark contrast to the panic and despair only but a day ago, having never seen such sights before. Many ponies broke into tears at the sight before them. Not even a certain snow white alicorn possessing a mane of brilliantly shifting colors, similar to the aurora above, was exempt from such emotion.
'Oh how I've missed this sky… I never thought I would see it, or Luna, ever again. It's so beautiful,' Princess Celestia thought with a teary smile, losing herself to the heavens above. Her joy at being reunited with her sister after all these years still at its peak. She couldn't remember a time she had been this happy since she ban- Since her sister left. 'I'm glad that Luna has decided to go all-out tonight, because what better way to show everypony just how special my little sister is?'
Celestia looked in the direction of the small village her student now resided in, and with a grateful smile she spoke, "Thank you, Twilight. Thank you, and your new friends so much." With a small crack in her voice, she finishes, "I… I knew you could do it."
Sighing with contentment, she settled deeper into the royal-sized cushion underneath her, and trained her gaze to the sky once more.
An oddity appeared in the bright sky just outside her peripheral vision; a glint of green started a slow descent towards the unaware princess directly below. The small green sphere, about the size of a hoof, landed on the balcony with almost gentle grace, right behind the Princess. A second later, the object… hatched. The soft, fleshy sound was just loud enough for the alicorn to notice. Her ears flicked towards the orb.
"Hmm, what was that?" Celestia muttered to nopony in particular. She broke her gaze from the sky and got off her comfortable cushion to turn around. She turned just in time to see a green worm-like creature fumbling its way out of the newly formed slit in the cocoon. Her thoughts raced, attempting to analyze the strange creature, "It looks like a worm, or a small snake? Very peculiar. How did it even get here? Is it dangerous?" She wasn't sure, but she lit her horn with a golden aura, quickly and expertly weaving a stream of magic into a semi-permeable barrier, just in case. Being cautious has saved her more times than she could count.
This display of magic wasn't entirely quiet, a slight hum and pop accompanied the creation of the barrier; it was enough. With a frighteningly quick motion, the unknown creature snapped its body in Celestia's direction, quickly folding its feelers and coiling itself in preparation for a leap. Celestia tensed as it launched itself at her…
...Only for it to collide with the shield, sliding down the side and subsequently smacking into the ground with a dull splat. Celestia couldn't help but chuckle a bit, "Feisty little thing, aren't you?" Of course it didn't respond, but it repeated its previous action, albeit slightly weaker than before, and collided with the barrier. Its drill broke off, but even that wasn't enough to get it to give up.
It slowly slithered towards the shield, leaving a trail of green blood-like fluid, and weakly bashed the now drill-less head against it, making a slapping sound with each consecutive hit. "This thing seems really motivated to get to me, doesn't it?" Celestia thought with a slight hint of pity. She found its devotion to its goal, whatever it was, kind of sad. Alarming, sure, but still sad.
Deciding to end its pointless struggle, she dropped her shield and surrounded the tiny thing with her magic, the creature hardly in any state to resist even if it could, and engulfed it in an omni-exclusion barrier. She then pumped the air out of the newly created shield, and watched with a hint of sadness as the creature asphyxiated relatively quickly. Celestia would rather have captured it alive, but she knew it couldn't have survived such a wound, as the injury was obviously pretty bad. At least it seemed too simple to have suffered all that much. Celestia reasoned to herself, sure that she did the right thing.
She looked at the egg it seemed to hatch out of, as well as the small amount of glowing blood, and decided that she really should clean up. And so, she caused the blood to, in effect, cease to exist with a quick spell, encompassed the egg in an identical barrier as the creature, and then moved the two barriers in front of her, an inquisitive glimmer in her purple eyes as she analyzed the two objects they contained.
One of the barriers, and more specifically what was in it, held her attention. "Whatever this thing is, it's obviously aggressive to a fault. If this thing appeared in front of an unsuspecting unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony instead of me it could have actually hurt them. The sharp drill-like protrusion where a mouth would be really doesn't leave much to the imagination. It must have been some kind of leech, or maybe even an internal parasite. In any case, I need to have a professional look this over." With that decided, she grabbed both in her golden aura and, flaring her horn brightly, she vanished with both objects.
A single green orb gently drifted across the Ponyville skyline, headed straight for an open window of a little building called Carousel Boutique. Leaning on the window seal with her forelegs, Rarity watched as the strange orb fell. A few thoughts went through her head as she observed this strange phenomena, "Is that one of Princess Luna's new additions to the night sky? That's an ugly shade of green. Wait, why is it falling?"
Her eyes widened a fraction as she noticed where the sphere was headed; directly towards her. In response to this, she unfolded her forelegs from their position on the window seal and planted them firmly on the ground, allowing her to back up a bit. Seconds later, the object landed right on top of some of her sewing materials.
Rarity cautiously walked up to the orb and critiqued it with a critical eye, recoiling slightly as she came to the conclusion that it was quite nasty looking. She couldn't imagine the new Princess, who created such a beautiful night sky, being responsible for such an ugly, fuzzy green thing such as this. She squinted her eyes and leaned towards to pod-like object, "What are you?" she mumbled just under her breath.
The pod cracked open without warning, an action that startled Rarity just enough to give out a squeak of alarm. She stood aghast as a small worm-like creature slithered out of the now open pod and settled on some of her fabric. This, naturally, urged Rarity to complain. "Eww! Get off of that! You'll ruin it you nasty thing!"
The newly born creature's tendril-like feelers picked up the noise with a nearly mechanical precision, and it immediately oriented itself towards the source, extending a sharp, drill like needle from its 'mouth'. In the time it took for Rarity's eyes to widen, the miniscule creature was already lunging itself at her, knocking the piece of cloth under it to the ground in the process, aiming for one of her forward facing ears. Before she had a chance to so much as react, it reached her right ear and burrowed itself deep inside the canal, using its small amount of feeler-like structures to wiggle itself deeper.
Feeling the creature in her ear, Rarity immediately shrieked, "Eeeeeee! Gross, gross, gross! Get out!" She tried to grab it with her magic, but the creature's sharp drill ripped past the delicate eardrum much too quickly for her to truly react, carelessly destroying her inner ear in its single-minded goal. Her shrieks of disgust and panic instantly turned into full blown agonizing screams.
Understandably, the piercing pain caused her magic to flicker and die. Her legs gave out as well, and she collapsed onto her right side, her ear subsequently splattering blood on the floor. She tried to think of a way out of this, but with her magic forgotten in light of the excruciating sensation, she came up with nothing. Tears mixed with mascara streamed down her muzzle in light of the hopeless situation.
She gritted her teeth and weekly called out for help, "Somepony help… P-please." She gasped as the pain suddenly grew more extreme. "Any-" Her vocal cords ceased functioning as the creature finally penetrated her brain, consuming and growing into its new home.
On the balcony of Ponyville's public library, a unicorn fumbled with her new telescope, trying get the perfect focus to observe the beautiful sky. It was a housewarming gift from Celestia, and so she barely had any time to set it up before Princess Luna started working on her amazing sky. She was so focused on the telescope that she completely missed the glowing pod that landed just outside her bedroom's open window, right into some greenery.
Said pod cracked open like an egg, and a hideously green worm-like creature slid itself through the opening. It reared up and spread its bulbous tendrils, feeling the air for any vibrations that may signify a target. It didn't have long to wait. An adolescent dragon slumbered in his nest, his snores like a beacon, content and oblivious to the small creature marking him as a target.
And so, its instincts lead it to crawl through the window. It flopped onto the ground as it made it past the seal, headed straight towards the sleeping beast. As it arrived at the basket, the parasite crawled up the side of the dragon's dangling blanket and onto the dragon's head, examining his green ear fins with its dozen feelers. There was only one problem; it couldn't find an ear canal.
If the parasite could comprehend confusion, it would wonder why Its instincts have led it to a dead-end. If it could see, it would also be able to tell that this being was no pony, and therefore not its target; but alas, this creature was not gifted with sight. However, their kind do not give up. Continuing to examine Spike's head with its feelers, the dragon snorted in annoyance but otherwise stayed asleep, it found an alternate opening. And so, the little worm crawled into the fire breathing dragon's nose, which irritated his olfactory system and caused him to, well, sneeze fire.
"Achoo!" Being a squishy creature, this was not good for the worm. At all. The sneeze spontaneously ignited its flesh and flung it a good ways away. Every inch of the creature was charred black, and all but three of its feelers disintegrated.
It also caught the attention of Twilight, but only long enough for her to say, "Gesundheit". She then went back to watching the sky; after all, there were some amazing new celestial phenomena to document!
Spike opened his crust filled eyes, and proceeded to rub his poor muzzle, "Ugh, that hurt. I don't think I've sneezed that hard before." He usually didn't sneeze unless something really irritated him, but that's just the thing; not much can irritate a dragon's nose. He's also positive he felt something blocking one of his nostrils right as he woke up, just before the sneeze, so whatever it was must be nearby.
With that decided, he wrapped his blanket around himself and crawled out of his basket. His slit eyes scanned the room, and he quickly found what looked to be a burnt twig. Perplexed, Spike whispered, "How would a twig get in my nose? Did the wind fly it through the window, right up it? That's some weird precision. Mare, I'm too tired for this." He shrugged, deciding to just grab it and throw it back out the window. So, he sluggishly walked up and grabbed it with his right hand, which is when he immediately noticed something was off.
"This feels nothing like a twig! It's all- AHAHAH!" Spike proceeded to scream, more out of surprise than pain, but pain was still a factor, as the 'twig' burrowed itself into his palm in a last ditch effort to accomplish its goal. It couldn't hope to possibly make it to his brain with what little strength it had, not to mention no way to move without most of its tendrils. With no other option, its body released powerful chemicals to cut off nerve signals, and started bonding itself to Spike's flesh.
Twilight's ears oriented themselves instantly towards Spike's scream, which caused her head to jerk, consequently jabbing her in the eye with the optics of the telescope. This was barely a concern for her, however, as she ignored the sudden pain and rushed to Spike's side with sudden urgency.
The sharp pain immediately went away as the chemicals went to work, but that didn't stop Spike from doing what he did best: breathing fire. He took a deep breath and propelled green flames directly at his hand, not quite thinking through the fact that he is fireproof. He also did not consider that the floor beneath him was not. The floor ignited almost instantly. Naturally, Twilight shrieked as the area where Spike stood burst into flames.
Her adrenaline fueled mind failed to process the fact that dragons are flame-retardant, and so she called out in terror, "Spike!" Her thoughts raced for a way to 'save' Spike, running through all the possibilities in an instant, and came to the best solution she had at the moment. She lit her horn and teleported Spike to her side, which stunned him out of his panic, and then trapped the fire in a solid barrier, cutting it off from any new oxygen. The fire quickly died down, leaving a fairly small mark all things considered. She then vented the smoke out the window, and swiftly seized Spike with her forelegs.
Now, it was at this point that her system stopped releasing adrenaline, allowing her to think clearly. Any embarrassment she might have had was washed away as she recalled his scream, which only made her hug him tighter, whispering, "I've got you, Spike. Whatever it was, it's okay. I'm here."
It was at this point that Spike burst into tears and clutched her equally as tightly, "I-It was horrible! I thought it was a twig, but it attacked me! And- and- it went into my hand! It hurt so badly, Twilight! You have to get it out!" He pushed his right hand into her face, forgetting that her night vision isn't quite as good as good as his.
She lit up her horn to provide illumination, and spoke softly, "Okay, Spike, slow down. I'll look, okay?" With her horn lighting up his palm, she saw it clearly; absolutely no blemishes, besides the soot from the fire and hastily put together teleport of course. She sighed, having an idea of what is going on, "Are you feeling any pain right now, Spike?"
"No… No, my hand feels fine." He sniffled, and then looked at his palm. He moved it around and flexed his claws. He was sure something dug in there, but nothing seemed wrong. 'I did not imagine it, I know I didn't… right?' Spike thought, his mind in dissonance.
'That settles it, it must have been a nightmare of some sort, or maybe a half-asleep hallucination. 'Twilight thought, secretly glad it wasn't anything too serious. This wasn't the first wasn't the first time he almost burnt something because of a bad dream, after all. Twilight was just glad she was awake and able to respond to the fire before it spread.
Clearing her throat, Twilight explained to the distraught dragon, "It was only a dream, Spike. A bad one, sure, but still a dream. Sometimes dreams can bleed into the real world." She then put on her 'lecture voice', as Spike called it, and clarified, "Contrary to popular belief, one can actually feel pain in a dream, or much more likely, remember that they felt pain while not actually experiencing the sensation itself. There was a fascinating study done by-
Spike cuts Twilight off before she can get ahead by putting his left hand over her mouth, "Sheesh, Twilight. You don't need to go all professor on me." He removed his hand from her mouth, wiping the saliva on Twilight's mane, which earned him a death glare, and continued, "You're right… It was only a dream. Only a dream…" He cut off with a whisper and hugged Twilight, this time less urgently than before.
Realizing that he was being 'totally uncool', he cut the hug a bit short, stepped away, and puffed up his spines, trying to act tougher than he was. Twilight just smirked, knowing he was just a big softy on the inside and any attempt at intimidation made him even more adorable. So, she just let him think his nonchalant attitude was working, which translated to more cuteness for her! Win-win in her book.
Deciding to cut Spike's unintended embarrassment short, Twilight offers, "Hey, do you want to sit on the balcony with me? We can observe Princess Luna's new night sky, it really looks 'awesome'!" She decided to say, thinking it would appeal to him more than beautiful.
Spike dropped his 'tough guy' act and eagerly said, "Sure! Just let me grab my blanket and-. Oh, right." He realized that it must have burnt in the flames. So, he looked at Twilight and asked, "So, uh, I might have accidentally destroyed my blanket. Can I borrow yours? Please?"
She rolled her eyes and responded, "Of course you can, Spike." Pausing to look both of them over, she flared her nostrils in disgust. "Oh, and before either of us do anything else, we both smell like smoke and need to bathe. Especially you. No buts!"
"Aww, but Twilight! We smell fine!" Spike whined, blatantly ignoring Twilight's 'no buts' comment.
"Maybe to dragons, but us ponies really do not like smelling as if we were the sole survivor of a forest fire. So right after I finish bathing, you're next." Twilight said in a no-nonsense tone, and headed down the stairs to the bathroom.
Sighing in defeat, Spike resigned himself to wait. He tried not to think about what had happened, he really did, but the longer he sat the more he was convinced what happened was not a dream. Only problem was, he had no proof. Twilight taught him that without sufficient evidence to an outrageous claim, you can dismiss it without a counter argument. Or at least, he thought that's what she said. Something about burden of proof or whatnot. Her rants can be hard to keep track of...
After a few minutes, Spike decided to go wait downstairs, the bedroom reminding him too much of the 'totally not a dream' he had. The library was still a mess from yesterday, so he picked up a couple books on the way down, cleaning up on habit. He stopped when he realized his hands were leaving prints on them. Dread filled him, especially since this was a public library.
"Oops. She won't notice." Spike chuckled nervously, not convinced by the words coming out of his mouth at all. So, he placed the books back where he found them. 'Playing dumb works, right?' He reasoned to himself.
"Spike, I'm done! Your turn." The sudden exclamation caused him to jump and turn towards the bathroom. There was Twilight, with a towel wrapped around her barrel and mane, waiting with another towel in her magic.
Twilight held out the towel for Spike. He grumbled as he grabbed it, walked past her, and closed the bathroom door behind him. She felt much better after the shower, refreshed even! She walked through the library and took a deep breath, and crumpled her muzzle as she smelled ash. Walking around and sniffing, she found two books with black hand prints on them. As well as a trail of soot leading upstairs. 'Oh Spike, I'll let you off the hook this time,' she decided.
The door to library slammed open, knocking a few books off bookshelves in the process, revealing a pink mare with straight hair, "Twilight! I had the most horrible Pinkie sense!" She said, fear and worry showing in her blue eyes.
Of course, Twilight had to ask, "Wait, Pinkie, slow down. What's a 'Pinkie sense'?" She squinted her eyes, "And why is your hair straight?" Instead of answering, Pinkie rushed up to Twilight and pushed her from behind, "H-hey! Stop that!" She said, blushing.
"I can't! I need your help to save one of our friends before something happens! I don't know what it is, but I know it's just horrible!" Her body started to vibrate, followed by a tail twitch. "Oh no. Tail twitch, body shutter, heart flutter, and even that horrible feeling! It's getting worse! We have to go now, Twilight!" She actually managed to push her across the floor a few body lengths before Twilight decided she had enough and just teleported away from her.
She reappeared directly in front of Pinkie, and spoke before she could edge in a word otherwise, "Now, what do you mean you have a sense to know if someone is going to get hurt? You're not a unicorn, how could you possibly know temporal magic?!"
"Tempor-wha? I don't know magic, Twilight, it just happens! Now, I need you to follow me to Rarity's house, it's the closest after all. After visiting her, the rest of our friends will be in a straight line, even Dashie. She's most likely at Sweet Apple Acres sleeping in a tree; the party really took a lot out of her," Pinkie explained, almost too fast for Twilight to follow. Luckily, Twilight is used to processing information quickly.
Twilight thought it through, 'Pinkie really believes that this Pinkie Sense exists, I may as well give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she listened to me about Nightmare Moon when I barely had any evidence. Besides, if I were wrong and a friend did get hurt I would never forgive myself.' With that decided, she nodded to Pinkie and said, "Alright, I'll go."
Pinkie Pie leaped at Twilight, which startled her, wrapped her forelegs around her neck, and said, "Thank you! Now, we have to leave right now, otherwise we might be too late!" She urged.
"Okay, but first I have to tell Spike I'm leaving. I said I'd stargaze with him after his shower, and leaving without telling him where I'm going might hurt him. He had a nightmare, and looking at the night sky with him usually makes him feel better." Twilight explained. Pinkie, meanwhile, looked torn between letting her talk to Spike and forcefully dragging Twilight with her.
Seeing the look Pinkie gave her, Twilight tried to placate her, "Don't worry, it'll only take a second." With that said, she rushed to the bathroom, knocked on the door, and yelled, "Spike! I'll be out with Pinkie. She has something very important she needs my help with, so I really have to go with her. I'm sorry, but you'll have to be by yourself for a couple hours, maybe longer. Will you be alright?"
A response came through the door almost immediately, "I guess, but why? What does she want?" His voice sounded slightly strained near the end, but she concluded it was her imagination.
This time Pinkie responded, "Sorry to have barged in like this, Spike, but this is really super-duper important! I'll make it up to you by baking a special cupcake with crushed gems, how does that sound?" Her body vibrated again, much stronger than before, causing Pinkie to gasp. She grabbed Twilight's cheeks and yelled in her face, "We have to go. Now!"
Twilight was rushed out the library's door by Pinkie, but she had just enough time to shout, "Sorry Spike! I'll be back as fast as I can." And with that, they left.