Equestria, planet Equus
The trouble makers known as the cutie mark crusaders where currently busy about their daily attempts to get their cutie marks. Today Applebloom suggested they try and get their excavation cutie marks.
"So what exactly is excavation" Sweetie Belle asked
"Well excavators basically dig up really old things like treasure or dinosaur bones and even a few times ancient relics" Applebloom explained
"Sounds kinda boring" Scootaloo lamented
"Oh come on its not that boring we could find, really neat things"
"Okay and assuming, how and where do we start looking?" Sweetie Belle asked
"Easy" Applebloom began "We use this" The earth pony brought out a long metal device with a disk attached at the end.
"Whats that" Sweetie asked
"Its called a metal detector ponies use it all the time to find stuff buried underground, mostly its used for finding bits, but I bet we could find and dig up something neat"
"Okay and this is gonna help use get our marks?" Scootaloo said
"Yeah think about it not only could we get our cutie marks but we may dig up something that will make us famous and rich"
At the end of that sentence the three fillies began fantasized about being as famous as their sisters then nodded in agreement
"Alright I'm in" Scootaloo said
"Me too!" Sweetie Belle
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER EXCAVATORS"
And with that Applebloom turned on the device and set to work.
After 30 minutes of dragging the detector around, the device pinged with the sound of a item buried under the Crusaders hooves.
"Found something" Applebloom yelled
Almost immediately the foals set to work digging with the one 2 foot plastic shovel Appleboom bought with her.
Predacon Kingdom, Planet Cybertron
"Slylynx what is the status of the energon holdings, how much do we have?"
The dragon known as Skylynx came up to the esteemed ruler the Predacon race(bowing before his presence) and answered his masters inquiry.
"Predaking, we have gathered several megatons of energon as of now we have enough to support everyone in the tower for weeks my king"
"Good and what of the the living quarters?"
"Lazerback and Vertabreak have chosen rooms opposite of each other, Grimwing, Backbite and Skystalker have taken rooms D-11,D-7 and D-3 the rest are still deciding"
"Good and how goes furnishing?"
"Well, the Terracons have begun painting our insignia one the face of the castle my liege and Shockwave says that the space bridge will be completed in a few cycles"
This sat well with Predaking, the Terracons where 5 Predacons (who for some reason where very loyal to the Predacon king as though they where his personal fan group) that where revived along with Grimwing, Backbite, Skystalker, Ripclaw, Lazerback and Vertabreak from the few fossils left on cybertron after unicron used them as his personal puppets , Shockwave was a different story, the Decepticon scientist was responsible for reviving the Predacon race in the modern time and by default the Predacons where grateful for the scientist giving them life, however the Autobots and some subgroup called Dinobots wanted revenge for the pain the scientist caused them, Predaking deemed Shockwave necessary for the revival of his Predacon brothers and this lead to a verbal conflict with the Dinobot leader Grimlock, but before blows could be thrown Bumblebee the current Autobot leader stepped in before things could get messy. Bumblebee talked over with the both of them and declared that Shockwave would make up for his war crimes by assisting Predaking in any developments in rebuilding the Predacon race, and although Grimlock resented the idea it would ensure that Shockwave would keep his tools out of him.
"Good and what of the other Predacons that have emerged from the Well of All Sparks?"
During the few days the Allspark was returned to Primus the demigod decided to help along with the restoration of the Predacon race seeing how the primitive dragons could coexist peacefully with their Cybertronian neighbors already many of them made their way to the city of Darkmount some had already proven themselves as civil and loyal subjects Scourge, Stormrazor, Corhada and Hydrax among them.
"More are coming every day my king already two new Predacons who have named themselves Divebomb, Rotgut and Cindersaur"
"Excellent, show the to their desired rooms, I shall introduce myself to them later, you are dismissed"
"As you wish my king" Skylynx turned around and began to walk away.
"Oh and one more thing Skylynx"
The dragon stopped walking "Yes?"
"Make sure Darksteel is not getting into any mischief, I would hate for him to screw something up"
The Predacon nodded "Gladly my king"
Twilight Sparkle sat in her new library in her beautiful new castle while all her stuff was destroyed in the battle with Tirek, Celestia had offered to restock anything Twilight may have lost in the explosion.
Currently however the alicorn was busy on one of the most important days of her life.
"Re-shelving day!" As soon as the words left her mouth the pile of books came out of the boxes as if bidden by their master and began to hover around the renowned royal pony.
"Lets see Star Swirls book on potions go here, Tenderhooves guide to living goes here, and Luna's Guide to bat ponies go here"
But before the former librarian could finish a knock came on the door
"Come in!" Twilight said
The pony in question was Applejack.
"Oh high Applejack what brings you here?"
"I was wondering have you seen Applebloom and her friends? I believe I saw them coming in here a few hours ago"
"Yes Appleboom came here a few hours ago to borrow a metal detector"
"Why would she need that?"
"She said something about her and the crusaders going to get their excavation cutie marks"
Applejack sighed with fustraion those three where always trying to get their marks like their was no tomorrow as well as she told Applebloom that any attempts at crusading should be notified to her in case the adventure was to unsafe to try, she was worried that the day will come when they do something they might regret.
"Okay did you happen to know where they went?"
"I think I saw them going to the fields thats right behind the feilds they shouldn't have gotten very far"
"Alright thanks Twi" the cowpony then left the castle to look for her sister.
Meanwhile the crusaders had dug a hole that appeared to be 30 feet deep and 10 feet wide and was growing larger.
Are you sure theirs something here?" Sweetie Belle asked
"Sure I'm sure, this thing is still pinging" Applebloom said referencing the still beeping metal detector"
"Well unless I hit something hard in the next 5 seconds I'm gonna-!"
Before the Pegasus could deliver her empty threat the plastic shovel snapped in two as it came in contact with something hard and heavy.
"Wait I think I see something!" Sweetie Belle said
The three began to clear the dirt surrounding the object and they began to see strange inscriptions that covered the stone construct.
Scootaloo gave a confused face "Do any of you know this language?"
Both fillies gave a confused look as well and shook their heads.
"Never seen this kind of inscriptions before" Sweetie Belle replied
Dismissing the strange writings the fillies continued to clear the dirt surrounding the strange find.
Shockwave was busy pacing around in his personal laboratory gathering parts to finish the space bridge that Predaking Requested, the purpose of this space bridge was so that Predacon could go back to Earth and hopefully find any remaining Predacon bones that layed buried in the human homeworlds tectonic plates. While Shockwave didn't see the logic in building a space bridge since the one the Decepticons built on Earth was still working, but due to certain events he had to follow Predakings commands for the time he was stuck in Darkmount.
Currently Shockwaves only company was Ripclaw who was the latest Predacon to be birthed from the cloning chamber, but the female dragon was busy looking though the various fluids in one of the lockers.
Applejack searched the fields of Ponyville for her sister and her friends, after a while she began to here voices not far from her position.
After coming over a hill Applejack came over to sight of a giant hole in the ground.
Applejack's left eye twitched a little "Applebloom!"
The Crusaders stared at the strange object they had "excavated" It was a large ring with four flat arcs extending outwards and four pistons facing inward, the symbols themselves where yellow while the stone itself was....stone colored.
But what intrigued the crusaders the most was the feeling of power that radiated from the stone.
"What in the name of Luna's moon is this?" Scootaloo asked
Before Applebloom could answer she heard her name coming from what sounded like a very annoyed sister.
"Applebloom, how many times have I told you to not go around and do things with out my supervisio-"
Applejack looked down at the hole and at the bottom was not only her sister and her friends but also a very large ring with strange inscriptions.
"What is going on here?" Applejack asked
Scootaloo was the first to respond "Hey Applejack we found something"
"I can see that, but what is it?"
"Where just as lost as you are?" Sweetie Belle said
"Well get out of there so we can talk about this"
The fillies got out of the ditch and stood at attention.
"First of all you should not go of digging holes without me or somepony knowing and watching you three"
The crusaders looked down in shame.
"Now about this thing you just found I think its best if you just wait here while I get Twilight, she may know what to do"
"I may know how to do what?"
Surprised Applejack turned around to see Twilight and Spike(who just got back from Rarity's) flying down to them.
"Twilight, did you follow me?"
"Nope, I just realized that I kinda need my metal detector back"
"Well the girls just dug up something that ya may wanna check out"
Curious as to what Applejack was referring to Twilight zipped over to the hole in the ground.
And her jaw nearly touched the ground.
"What in the name of Luna's moon is this?"
"That's what I said, except non of us know" Scootaloo said
After a while of staring at the large ring Twilight began to get a weird vibe coming from the ancient relic, while it seemed friendly at first it was also powerful, dangerously powerful.
"Well whatever this is it may seem important, probably the lost relic of some long forgoten pre-Equestrian civilization"
"Well what do we do with it?" Spike asked
"Well in my opinion I think its best if the Princesses know about this, they'll probably put it in a museum after we have had a chance to study it"
"Why must the princess know about stuff like this?" Scootaloo asked
Twilight looked at Scootaloo with a unamused expression "Well this is a never before seen object that could hold some importance, I thinks its best if the princesses know about this then keep it a secret"
"But aren't you a princess as well?" Sweetie Belle asked
"I know but I feel like that the other princess must know about this regardless"
"Well how exactly do you plan to get it out? that thing looks too heavy even for you" Applebloom stated
"It may be heavy but I think that I can lift it, so everybody just stand back"
Although skeptical at first the other did as they where told and watched as Twilight worked her magic.
At first the giant ring wouldn't budge as the ring stubbornly refused to be lifted by the alicorns magic.
With a bit of irritation growing inside her Twilight poured more magic into the spell hoping that the buried find would come out of the hole.
However instead of the ring rising the inscriptions on it began to glow a bright yellow and an ominous sound was heard as Twilight put more magic into the spell.
Spike soon caught wind of what was going on and came to the conclusion that something big was gonna happen if Twilight continued down the path.
"Twilight wait stop, somethings happening!"
Opening her eyes Twilight saw the ring glowing nearly as bright as the sun, she tried to cancel her magic but to no avail.
"I can't somethings wrong!" She exclaimed
Her horn no longer headed her commands, it felts as thought the ring itself was in control now.
"Everyone stand back I don't know whats gonna happen!"
Spike didn't want to leave Twilight in possible danger but did what he was told and stepped back a few feet.
As the ring glowed brighter, the strange noise grew louder, then finally at last their was a bright explosion of sound and light.
Predaking walked into the lab of Shockwave having grown a little impatient with the lack of updates on the completion of the space bridge.
"Shockwave what is the status on the space bridge?"
The Decepticon scientist looked at his creation with his emotionless eye.
"Well you came at right time, the space bridge is now fully operational"
"Very well, prepare to lock onto Earth I shall send Lazerback and Cinderssuar to-"
Predaking was interrupted by the sound of one of Shockwaves monitors flashing.
"What is it!?"
Shockwave looked over the monitor and confirmed his suspicions.
"My instruments have detected a massive energy burst in the far reaches of space a few hounded light years away but its energy signal is glowing like a beacon"
Predaking became curious. "Well what does it mean?"
"By all indications we could be dealing with a powerful Cybertronain relic being activated by someone or something thats non cybertronian, a data cylinder most likely, those things send out signals whenever alien lifeforms touch them"
"Then by all means we must retrieve this relic, doing so will keep it out of that hands of these lesser lifeforms, Shockwave lock onto that signal and activate the space bridge"
While Shockwave didn't see to logic in going in blindly to retrieve a relic from a world that they knew nothing about, Shockwave knew the value of his planets lost treasures, the power or knowledge that laid hidden on that planet could greatly benefit Cybertron.
As so as Shockwave activated the bridge Predaking activated the intercom.
"Skylynx Skystalker report to Shockwaves immedie
Warning, Warning spacial disruption detected
Predaking was once again interrupted by the sound of blaring sirens.
"Whats going on now!?"
Shockwave once again looked over his instruments.
"The space bridge vortex is reaction to the energy signal, I can't isolate the problem, but one things for certain is that the bridge is gonna-
SHAKOOOOM
Shockwave never got the chance to finish his sentence.
Because at that very second, the scientist as well as the entirety of Darkmount and every Predacon in it, disappeared from the face of Cybertron.
Canterlot Castle
Shining Armour sat in the balcony of his room in the castle suite that was always reserved for him and his wife, he was planning to visit his sister and her friends as soon as Celestia, Luna and Cadence where done with preparations.
After a few seconds of fantasizing about looking through his sisters new castle a knock on the door came.
"Come in"
Entering into the room was a pink alicorn with a crystal heart for a cutie mark.
"Shining deary the Princess says their ready"
"Okay I'm coming sweetie"
The prince garbed his belongings and headed out into the hall where his wife was waiting then the two began to walk down the hallway.
"I'm so proud of her you know" Shining staed
"You and me both Shining, Twilight earned this and we must be their the celebrate"
As the two came outside of the castle, what waited them was Princess Celestia and Princess Luna along two carriages, one that would carry him and his wife while the other would carry the sisters.
"I can see where all here" Luna stated
Celestia all nodded in approval. "I'm really glad where all doing this, a day of to spend with Twilight is just what we all need"
"Agreed, after all the time we saved Equestria I just hope that another disaster is not waiting to rain on our day" Cadence said
Celestia gave a warm smile "Don't worry I made sure that this special day will not go interrupted, I have taken all the necessary precautions to ensure that nothing will possible go wrong"
Then all of a sudden as if the universe was not done screwing around with Equestria and its ponies, a very loud noise and insanely bright green light bright came from the area of ponyville, and after a few seconds of blinding (and somepony screaming like a little girl), the event fade just as quickly as it came.
"Is everypony okay?" Celestia asked
"Yes I am fine, what was that?" Luna said
"I have no idea" Cadence replied "Shining are you okay?"
But the prince was not paying attention to his wife, his eyes where glued to something in the general direction of ponyville.
"Shining, whats wrong? What are looking at?" and when the love princess turned her head in her husbands direction, she mimicked her spouses face.
Finally it was the sisters turn to look.
And when they did, their eyes went as wide as saucers
Looming over Ponyville, and what appeared to be not far from Twilight's castle, stood a giant black Tower with a orange menacing symbol.
