Chapter 1: Up There, Among the Stars
Tic. Tock. Tic. Tock. Tic. Tock.
In a dimly lit room, windows all open to the starry night sky, a bleary pair of lavender eyes broke from their exhausting labor and turned towards the clock.
3:49 A.M.
The eyes narrowed, before being distracted by a tuft of unruly purple hair flopping in front of them. The hair was deftly swiped away in annoyance. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t concerned with the state of her mane, anyway. Though it probably looked awful, she silently admitted. The lack of sleep wasn’t doing her any favors.
But honestly, how could anypony sleep soundly at a time like this?
There was a long, obnoxious snore from the next room over.
No, the baby dragon doesn't count.
Twilight groaned at the temptation to sleep that Spike's snoring was causing her, then turned her attention to her charts. They contained a mountain of observations, calculations, and raw numerical data that had yet to be processed. But by this point she wasn’t even bothering with the math. Things had progressed to the point where one did not require star charts or trigonometry to see what was going on.
One just needed to look at the clock.
It was 3:50 A.M. on the dot, and the sun was coming up. Sunrise was not supposed to be for another three hours.
When? When had the world stopped making any sense?!
And that was part of the problem. Nopony was sure when this craziness had first started. The princesses swore they hadn’t seen it coming until it was already upon them. It had apparently crept up on them silently and very slowly, such that anypony who saw it wouldn’t immediately notice anything out of place. At first it was little things that weren’t terribly unsettling. Word didn’t spread much at all, so each oddity had been viewed as just that; little more than an isolated curiosity.
Twilight put her strained eye back to the eyepiece of her biggest, most expensive telescope. She loved this telescope. So big, new, and shiny with such finely tuned and accurate adjustment knobs. It was candy apple red and three times as powerful as her next largest telescope. It even had a slot in the side where you could screw in a camera to take pictures. It was her most expensive purchase ever, not counting some of the absurdly rare books she'd acquired in her life. At the time, everpony thought she was totally insane to buy it.
"Why in the hay would ya need another telescope?" Appejack disputed. "Ya got TEN already! Why don't ya sell some a them and then buy yerself the new fancy toy with all the bells and whistles! It's jus' good business sense!"
"I must concede Applejack's point, darling." Rarity agreed. "Your other telescopes are more than sufficient to look at those wonderful sky-borne gems in rich detail. I'm all for a little excess in the name of observing beauty, but even I must say it's smidgen overboard."
"Does she think she's gunna discover some missing planet out there or somethin?" Rainbow Dash guffawed. "Come on, Princess Luna isn't just gunna toss a new planet up there nopony can see without some crazy expensive dohicky. What's the point in that?"
"Maybe it's a surprise! Or even better, a treasure hunt! I've never thought of a treasure hunt in space! But Dashie has a point. It's not really fair to make the entry costs for a treasure hunt exceed four months wages at a middle class job. That's just bad sportsmareship."
"It's... nice."
Okay, sure, there are only 8* major celestial objects out there to see, but wanting a bigger nicer telescope did not make her insane! She happened to like all of her other ten telescopes! They all had names, and she'd already splurged for the custom paint jobs!
Twilight checked the clock again. 3:51. A.M. By her calculations, the Sun would be all the way up in just another twenty-five minutes. That would be the end of her stargazing for the rest of the shortened day. She grunted with no specific emotion and went back to the telescope. If she kept checking the clock like that, she would have spent all night doing anything other than looking at the stars.
She panned her telescope across the constellation Sagitta, the arrow, at a brisk but measured pace. She didn't want to waste time, but didn't want to miss something either. Next she made a pass over Lyra, the lyre. Twilight briefly giggled at the thought of the mint green mare who was always sitting weird on park benches. That filly may have had some quirks, but she was a great pony to talk to on intellectual topics.
Next came Cygnus, the swan and Northern Cross. A bigger constellation than the previous two. She couldn't observe the whole thing inside viewing angle of her grossly overpowered telescope. But she didn't rush. Starting at the star Albireo, she followed the swan's "neck" and observed the left "wing". Nothing unusual. She briefly lingered on that spot for a moment, but then lost track of what star she had been following.
Darn, off target. Sky moving faster, remember? Ah, there we are. There's the tail, and then the base of the neck again. And out to the tip of the other w-
Wait a second.
Twilight abruptly stopped and inched the view back to just behind the star which made the joint of Cygnus' right wing. Her mouth hung open as her eye bore into the lens.
Around that star were six other stars visible to the naked pony eye. Anypony with a telescope could probably see more than that. Regardless, Twilight had already looked at this part of the sky a couple times before, with the very telescope she was using at that moment. She'd carefully charted the number of stars visible. She knew them by heart.
There was a new dot of light in that field. It wasn't twinkling. Just barely, it had a noticeable movement relative to the other stars.
That afternoon, or as much as it could be called afternoon with the sky moving faster than normal, Twilight was still digging through every detail she had been able to gather in her observations before the glare of the Sun ended them. Considering how little time she'd been allowed, the amount was quite impressive. All her notes, measurements, and photos were laid out in front of her on the floor of her room. Strewn all around her, piled up almost to the ceiling, was every book and scroll remotely pertaining to astronomical phenomenon that the library had in stock.
Twilight herself looked no less frazzled than she had hours earlier. Her hair was wildly out of control and she had rather frightening bags under her eyes.
"Ugh... This micrometer isn't adjusted properly." Twilight groaned, straining her tired eyes at the offending instrument. She concentrated a bit of magic, her horn glowing lavender as she tried to fix the settings.
"Let me... just... Come on, you." she protested when her hold on the micrometer fumbled and slipped, the device bobbing around in the air as she failed to maintain control. Finally, she completely lost her grip and dropped the micrometer on her knee.
"Ow! Stupid micrometer!" Twilight yelled, picking up the device again and hurling it across the room. With a crash, it went right out the window.
It was the last sharp kick she needed to finally break out of the trans that had held her for hours upon hours of arduous labor and observation. Twilight panted for some time to vent her frustration, feeling the adrenaline ebb away while the pain in her fore-knee subsided. Exhaustion from days of sleeplessness and stress hit her at once, and her whole body felt like it weighed a million tons. Twilight fell over, unable to muster up the strength to move.
"Just, rest my eyes. Nopony will mind." Twilight slurred, her eyelids quickly drooping down. She was asleep the moment they fully closed. In the realm of dreams, her mind wandered away to distant and unfamiliar places.
Her breathing was heavy and panicked. Her lungs begged for air that they could not take in fast enough. Her heart pounded against her ribs. Her legs screamed for more blood so that they might resist the agony of fatigue. She had to run. She could not slow down. She didn't know where to go, but she couldn't stop no matter what. To stop would be death.
She kept running, taking random turns down long corridors that seemed to go in circles. At some point, her blind panic had made her lose her sense of direction. She no longer knew where she was or where she was going. What did it matter? What place was safe from this creature? Who could protect her from it? She had passed unwary bystanders during the chase, yet the beast seemed ignorant of them and focused solely on her. When confronted, it kept charging forward unimpeded. When met with a wall, be it steel or solid rock, it crashed right through them.
She took another turn, and realized she had made a horrible mistake. Before her stood a massive circular door of solid metal. It spread out ten times her height in every direction and undoubtedly weighed as much as a small building. But this door would not be her exit, nor would it provide her sanctuary. She could not open it, not that she would want to. Opening it would only expose her to the emptiness outside and swiftly kill her. This was the end of the chase. She had trapped herself.
There was a deafening thump behind her and the snap of splitting rock. She stood frozen for a second that stretched into eternity in her mind. She warred with the urge to turn around, half of her telling her to stand still and act like she didn't hear anything. The other half dismissed that delusion. She knew it was there, and she knew there was no way out. What else could she do but turn to face it?
There it stood at the end of the corridor. It was easily half again her height. Its form was partly obscured by a charred and tattered brown cloak. Yellow veins of molten metal glowed through cracks in its bronze skin, sparks of lightning arcing out to every nearby surface. Golden fire trailed away from its scalp in a mane of roaring energy. Its eyes burned so bright, they were blinding to look at. Its face displayed a confused range of different emotions. None of them were positive.
It took a step forward. The stone cracked under a creature impossibly heavy for its size. She tried to step back, but found the massive door at her heel. Her executioner trundled towards her, the intent to destroy projected in its predatory posture. This was it. Tears welled up in her eyes. She knew there was no way out. She fell limply to her knees, the will to run long gone.
The beast stood over her and raised a sparking hand, then...
Then she woke up. Her body quivered as she collected her senses, the bed drenched in sweat and tears. When she finally felt secure in the sense that she was no longer dreaming, she reached out and placed her palm on an etched plate embedded in the wall. A small lamp came on over her bed, and she looked at a small mirror on the bedside table.
Two almond-shaped black pools dominated by orange irises stared back at her.
Twilight's eyes creaked open, her brain trying to clear the bleariness of sleep. After a moment of wandering thoughts, she turned to the clock. An hour had passed since the last time she'd look at it. Her legs wobbled as she picked herself up from the floor.
"Considering how tired I was, I didn't sleep that long." Twilight thought out loud, rubbing the side of her head to nurse an ebbing headache. She vaguely felt as though she'd had a dream, but for the life of her couldn't recall one bit of it.
"I usually remember my dreams. I can't have completely forgotten it already." Twilight mused as she tried to break the fog in her head. After some time trying to brute force a recollection, she gave up and decided to let it be.
"Maybe I'm just imagining it."
She took a moment to survey the state her room had gotten to. While finally paying attention to her surroundings after many hours of ignoring them, the princess's student felt sick to her stomach. This place was an inexcusable mess. She couldn't justify making Spike clean it up by himself. She had to have some standards.
"I shouldn't be making this library an even bigger disaster than it already is."
"Ya got that right! I thought Re-shelving Day was bad!"
"Bwaaaagh!"
From her new position hanging upside down from the ceiling lamp, Twilight look to the source of the voice. Her fear dispersed, replaced by annoyance and exasperation.
"Hello Pinkie." Twilight greeted with a long-suffering groan as she carefully climbed down. "Good 'afternoon', as if I can even call it that."
Pinkie Pie, chipper as ever, grinned back at her from her upside-down position above the window. With in-equine speed, and some ignorance of certain laws of physics, Pinkie zipped out of sight and then reappeared right behind Twilight. The purple mare wasn't nearly as surprised this time, having gotten used to Pinkie Pie's inexplicable quirks over their years of friendship.
"Hey to you too, Twilight! I was just passing by on my way to throw a "happy dentist school graduation" party for Dr. Pearly White's son Enamel! Did you know, before yesterday I didn't even know there was a school for dentists in Ponyville? I was like 'oh my gosh how did I miss something like that?!' And then I was-!"
Twilight half-listened to Pinkie as she picked herself up off the floor. She occasionally let out an "uh-huh" or "really?", but her mind was off to parts unknown. She clued back in to the present when she felt like Pinkie's "punch line" was coming up.
"And so I said 'What do catamarans have to do with gingivitis?!' But the answer to that question is a story for another time, because right now you seem to be busy Twilight!"
"Oh, no, Pinkie. What could have possibly given you that idea?" Twilight replied in a way that almost sounded completely sincere.
Pinkie Pie, being completely oblivious to sarcasm, obliged with an answer.
"Well, I got that idea from seeing all these notes around, most of which still have wet ink so you were obviously just working on them. You look really tired and worn out, so I don't think you've slept much more than the hour that you were asleep since I got here. You also threw this micrometer out the window as I was passing by earlier, so you must have been really frustrated about something. That, or you were playing fetch! Except you don't have a dog. I mean, you might play fetch with Spike, but he's not a dog and I don't think he'd like playing fetch!"
Halfway through Pinkie's meandering monologue, she produced the micrometer in question. Twilight glowered at the device as if she could melt holes in it with her eyes. Considering the horn on her head, she more than likely could.
"I even set it, so you wouldn't have to! It was angled 4 millimeters too low for the magnification of your telescope."
Now more fully awake than she had been before, Twilight's discerning eye confirmed that Pinkie had in fact adjusted the discrepancy to the required setting. She could have ranted about it. The logical corner of her brain told Twilight that it was simply not worth the effort. Sighing, she grabbed the micrometer with her magic and grumbled out her thanks to Pinkie.
"No problem! So what'cha workin on?"
"Examining these photographs I took while stargazing last night." Twilight said, gathering up said photos and arranging them on the nearby writing table.
"Sounds fun! Need help? I have a lot of star charts stashed around town! Like this one!"
A chart was produced from thin air in Pinkie's front hooves. Twilight didn't even bat an eye. She'd gotten used to these things a long time ago.
"Ya know, in case-"
"In case of astronomy emergencies?" Twilight finished with an amused smirk.
"I was gonna say bad horoscope emergencies, but they're great for those too!"
Twilight ignored that and got back to finalizing her measurements on the set of seventeen photographs. Pinkie Pie watched over her shoulder as the unicorn jotted her formulas and worked them out. Tired as she was on top of the annoyance of Pinkie breathing down her neck, Twilight finished in a few seconds. She did not like her result. She couldn't see anything obviously wrong with it, though.
"Oh, hey I think you forgot a zero!" Pinkie suddenly blurted out. She quickly grabbed the quill and added the zero to the final result.
"Pinkie, you can't just mess with my results randomly... like... that." Twilight paused her complaint as something clicked in her head. She went back over every step of the formula and realized that Pinkie was correct. The result was bigger than she had thought.
She gave the scratch paper a flat stare, her brain chugging away to process the implications of these numbers. She didn't like the implications much better than she liked the results. So, she tried to think of different implications. She could only come up with one more. As much as she wished it was the right answer, she got the feeling it wouldn't be. Assuming her primary assumptions were correct, she had just discovered a very serious problem. Another problem was the last thing she needed.
Twilight was being very quiet and she looked completely calm, but Pinkie couldn't help but think that her purple friend was really angry about something. She was sure it hadn't been anything she'd done. All she'd done was help Twilight finish her math problem. Still, to be safe, she decided to quietly back towards the staircase and leave. Twilight probably wanted some peace and quiet anyway.
Twilight suddenly turned and looked at her with a face as hard as chiseled stone. That face said many unpleasant things. Pinkie sweat under the power of that stare for several seconds. For a moment, she was sure Twilight would burst into flames, grow teeth as big as dinner knives and rip her apart limb from limb.
"Pinkie, would you kindly stay right there?" Twilight asked, her stare turning to a calm smile. "I need to write a letter, and then we're going to have a nice trot around town to unwind. Does that sound okay to you?"
Then the tension was gone. Pinkie briefly wondered what the hay that had been about, but soon put it out of her mind and went back to her regular mood.
"Sounds terrific! You look like you need it, too! You're a total wreck!"
Oh, no. Twilight was giving her a different look. Not as scary as the one before, but a pretty scary one nonetheless.
"On second thought, why don't you just wait downstairs."
"Um... Okie dokie lokie."
Pinkie was out the door in a blur before any more could be said. Pinkie was out the door in a blur before any more could be said. By herself again, Twilight made a token effort to clean up some of the mess before she left. As she gathered up lose paper, she paused on one of the photos.
The slightly grainy image floated in front of her eyes as she focused intently on it. This was the closest, highest quality photograph she had taken. It mostly showed the black void of space, but it also showed one Bit-sized smudge of brown all alone in the dark. It was a rock, roughly shaped like an egg. Twilight had calculated its size to be greater than the biggest mountain in the world at least twice over.
"Just what are you, and what do you have to do with all this?" Twilight asked the photo.
She was answered only by silence.
* I am assuming Neptune is Luna's personal secret. I also assume that the Solar System as set up by the princesses does not have any roaming asteroids or comets. Wandering space clutter would be against pony sensibilities. "Asteroid" does not exist in common Equestrian language.
