Chapter 1

"SPIIIIIIIIIKE!"

Spike the baby dragon slowly woke up from his nap. "You have got to be kidding me, I just went to sleep 5 minutes ago..." He mumbled. His hazy vision centered on the clock, and told him that it was 5pm. "Wait...scratch that, 6 hours ago. Still..." Spike got up and stretched his limbs, popping his neck and back.

"SPIIIIIIIIIKE,"

"I'm coming Twilight!" Spike hopped out of his bed and fell two feet to the floor. Having a room and bed in Canterlot Castle is a different experience to say the least, but he wasn't the one who became an alicorn. It has been two weeks since Twilight's coronation, and her princess training was almost complete. When it was done, she would probably be assigned to govern a part of Equestria, most likely Ponyville. But, even with all,the new changes, Spike was still Twilights Number One Assistant, and being Twilights NOA meant being there for Twilight whenever she needed help!

Spike ran past two of the Solar Guard who were on post. Entering a cross in the hallways, Spike couldn't decide where Twilight was and he certainly didn't want to run in circles. Spike looked at the Guard closest to him and asked, "Excuse me, where can I find Twilight?"

"You can find Princess Twilight in the Royal Laboratory, sir" the Guard answered in a monotone voice.

Spike smiled and ran off, yelling thanks in return. The Guard looked at the dragon scampering off, cocking an eyebrow and returned to being a statue.

In the Royal Laboratory, Princess Twilight was going over the new information she got from her various instruments that cluttered the lab when Spike burst in. "I was in the middle of a nap, Twilight. I was having a most wonderful dream about Rarity..."

Twilight giggled and said, "It better not be that type of dream, or she'll never forgive you."

Spike became flustered and stammered out, "Bu-Wha-Hey! It wasn't! Honest!"

"It's okay Spike, I'm just teasing. Now, I called you here for a reason. I need your help to find out what's causing the disturbances I'm reading in the weather patterns."

"Shouldn't this be handled by the pegasi in Cloudsdale? What's so special about these 'disturbances'."

" Apparently, there have been lightning flashes around Ponyville that only happen on the ground. I tried to see what was causing the electrical surges, but when I scanned them I couldn't find any electricity in the environment. The flashes are made of...something else. I already notified The pegasi, they're working on it too, but I want to make sure nothing goes wrong myself.

"So, I need you to stand over there, by that green computer."

Spike waddled over. "This one?"

Twilight nodded and trotted to her particle analyzer. A glowing purple vial was sitting on the analyzer, with nothing inside. Her horn became enveloped in the same purple glow, and buttons on the machine became imbued with the same glow. She pressed a few and the machine warmed up. "Spike, I need you to watch that screen. Tell me whenever you see the red numbers go past 10,000. Ready?"

"Ready!"

She flipped a switch on the analyzer and the machine whirred into life. The transparent vial started spinning, slowly at first, then accelerating in speed. It turned rapidly in circles, faster and faster until you could become concerned that the glass vial would fly off and hit somepony.

Spike started calling out numbers. "It's climbing. 4567...5810...7596...9934...it's over 10,000! Hey, it's still going. 12,483...18,796...40,371?"

Twilight trotted over. "Spike, those numbers are impossible. No substance in existence can have a magical rating of over 20,000."

"Well, look at it yourself. It's at 83,412 now."

Indeed the screen was not lying. The red numbers indicated magical strength in a substance that was too small to see with the naked eye. Historically, ponykind has never found a particle that exceeded 20,000. Anything beyond that would practically tear the universe apart. Science always took ponies far, but never this far before. Now, Twilight has just discovered a black hole in her lab.

"Oh no" Twilight moaned. She galloped over to the analyzer and shut it down. The machine let out a sigh and the vial started slowing its revolutions. She fidgeted around, impatiently waiting for the vial to stop completely and snatched it with her magic. Turning over to her left, she carefully put the vial in a strongbox and locked it. Levitating the strongbox, she hastened to a closet. She opened it and stuffed it on the bottom shelf, out of view and closed the door, locking it.

Spike watched this with concern growing in his stomach. "Twilight?...what's going on?"

"This is bad, Spike. Nopony has ever found such a volatile and dangerous substance before, and it came from Ponyville! We have to talk to the Princesses as soon as possible!" She started for the lab doors, calling Spike to follow her. Spike jumped and ran after her. She needed to talk to Celestia and Luna as soon as possible, and she hoped she would find at least one of them. Galloping down the halls, she raced as fast as she could to the Throne Room. Spike was lagging behind and crashed into a maid. She reached the Throne Room, and immediately burst in.

Princess Celestia was sitting on the throne, signing a document when she looked up to see a harried Twilight. "Twilight? Is something wrong?"

"Yes there is, Celestia. I was in my lab, studying the particles the Ponyville weather team found and I ran them through the particle analyzer. Not only did their magical quotient reach 20,000, it kept growing and almost reached 100,000 before I shut it off! What do we do?!?"

Celestia's eyes shot open and she closed the Throne Room doors. She told her guards to summon Luna, and then strode over to Twilight. "Twilight, who else knows about this?"

"Just Spike, he was helping me in the lab."

Celestia opened the doors and poked her head out. "Valor, fetch Spike for me at once" she said to one of the guards.

"Wait, Princess, Spike was just behind me" Twilight called out.

"Really? Then where is he?"

On cue, Spike ran around the corner covered in linen cloth. He tripped on a piece, and scrambled back to his feet. "I'm sorry, so sorry, I ran into a maid carrying bed sheets. I tried to help her pick them back up but she insisted that I keep going."

Celestia's horn glowed yellow and the sheets covering Spike were covered in the yellow glow and were thrown off. "Now hurry Spike, in you go."

Spike grunted and hurried into the Throne Room. Celestia closed the doors after him, and turned to the two of them. "Now we wait for Princess Luna."

Luna came through one of the hidden back doors near the throne a few minutes later. She was covered in dirt, soiling her lovely midnight blue mane. "Sorry that I'm late, but Derpy Hooves got into a fight with a bakery worker, claiming that she was a rip-off artist for selling muffins at a high price and bucked her in the shins. I had to break up the fight, it escalated quickly..."

Celestia smirked and quickly regained her stern pose. "Luna, Twilight has some disturbing news to share."

Luna's eyes blinked. "Then let us proceed. Twilight, what news have you brought forth?"

Twilight told Luna what she told Celestia. Luna's eyes shot into alarm and her jaw dropped. She quickly regained her composure, but the damage was done. "Impossible. The only way for a particle like that to exist would involve ripping a hole in the universe, and our solar system is still intact. Twilight Sparkle, are you sure about this?"

Twilight grimaced and nodded her head. "The machines in the lab were all calibrated this morning, there's no mistake."

The two other princesses lowered their heads and sighed. Celestia looked up at said to Twilight, "Twilight, I want you to devote your time to find out where these particles are coming from, and if there is a way to stop them."

Twilight opened her mouth to respond when the Throne Room doors swung open. A brown pegasus colt wearing glasses with a dark green mane and a cutie mark composed of storm clouds trotted into the room. "I am sorry to interrupt Princesses, but the mysterious lightning surges are back around Ponyville, and they...um, they, well, produced a metal object. Nopony knows what it is..."

Celestia nodded at the Pegasus and said, "Thank you Cumulus." Cumulus nodded and backed out of the Throne Room. The three alicorns were now faced with a dilemma of unprecedented volumes, and they silently looked at each other. Never before has an object appeared out of thin air due to nature. It was terrifying and shocking. Even though Celestia and Luna had thousands of years of experience, nothing prepared them for this. A full two minutes passed before anypony spoke.

"We must take action about this. It is our duty as the Princesses of Equestria to make sure that no harm comes to our little ponies. If this metal object is dangerous, we must remove it immediately" Luna stated the fact of the matter.

"That is true, but we cannot leave Canterlot ungoverned. Somepony will have to stay behind" Twilight said.

"Then I will stay," Celestia told them. "Out of the three of us, I believe you two are best equipped to deal with this situation. I will stay in Canterlot and make sure the nobles and officials don't go out of hoof, while you two investigate this matter. Report to me what you find in 2 days. Is that understood?"

"Yes Celestia."

"I will make sure all goes well, sister."

Spike felt left out. "Hey, what about me?"

Celestia responded, "I need you to make sure that these two don't do anything hasty and/or dangerous. Can I count on you?"

Spikes eyes lit up and he wriggled his tail. "You can count on me Princess!"

Luna scoffed. "I do not need supervision."

Celestia smirked, and jived, "Need I remind you the time you said you could handle the Trottingham parasprite infestation?"

"...That was different. Nopony could have foreseen them doing a musical number and causing the guards and I to dance and sing in...buzzes" she said with a shudder.

"What was the headline from the Manehattan Times again? 'Princess causes quite a buzz at Trottingham'?"

"Yes, and I remember burning all the copies of the newspaper I could find."

Spike held up a copy of the Manehattan Times. "You didn't find every copy. This is my personal copy of that article, and you can't have it" he said, grinning deviously as he did so. Luna's horn promptly lit up and the newspaper was lit in a blaze, causing Spike to yelp and drop it. The paper quickly crumpled up on the floor, erasing the evidence of the Princess of the Night's embarrassing day at Trottingham .

Luna stomped out the fire with her hoof, and started trotting towards the throne room doors. Twilight leaned over and whispered in Spike's ear, "You shouldn't have showed her that."

"Don't worry, I have more," he whispered back.