That Which Darkness Sends

"The core is reaching critical!" the white unicorn yelled at his counterpart. He rapidly typed on his keyboard, bits whizzing by like streaks of light on his monitor. Sparks flew out of the large dome shaped machine, lighting up the dark concrete room.

"I fear we may not be able to stop it!" the blue unicorn replied. "We've waited too long to stabilize it!" She tightened a screw with her wrench, but it rebelliously shot out of its place.

The white pony ran over to the machine. "If it continues like this, it could destroy the known universe! There's only one way we can stop it! We have to activate it!"

"We can't do that! Even a fraction of a miscalculation and the temporal disruptions will-"

"-they'll tear the fabric of the universe apart. I know that, but we at least have to try!" He grabbed his own wrench and pulled open a panel, exposing the glowing green orb acting as a core.

The whole room was shaking, and the machine was making an unhealthy whirring noise. The white pony focused on the core and shifted it into place with his magic. The opening was filled with bright green light from the core. The blue pony slammed her hoof down on a large red button and the whole room flashed brightly as they fell unconscious.

* * *

Spike the dragon ran down the castle hallway. "Twilight!" he yelled, stopping at the last room. He clutched the scroll and pushed his way inside.

Twilight Sparkle was asleep. The purple alicorn princess had been dreaming about studying with Celestia, just like old times.

"Twilight, you need to see this!"

"Mmh," Twilight said as she buried her face into her pillow. She risked a peek out the window of her castle. "Spike, it's almost midnight. What could possibly be going on?"

"The princesses sent a letter!" The little dragon waved his arms frantically.

This got Twilight's attention. She sat up in bed and yawned. "What's it say?"

The out-of-breath baby dragon unrolled the scroll and started to read. "'Twilight, something is wrong in your kingdom. I sense a large amount of dark magic. It may soon overtake you. It might be left over from Tirek's battle. I am sure you know what to do.' Signed Princess Celestia of Equestria."

They were interrupted by a bright flash of light outside the window. Twilight ran over and looked out at Ponyville. A great white dome was growing up from the ground, enveloping everything in its path. Spike burped up another letter from Celestia. He read the single, terrifying word on the scroll:

"'Hide.'"

The floor started to disintegrate as Twilight grabbed Spike and huddled next to the bed. The world faded away in a flash of white.

* * *

Twilight, oddly enough, did not feel dead. She felt normal, laying down just like she normally would. She opened her eyes, and sure enough, she was not dead. She was laying on a green field of grass, and there appeared to be a creek running down in front of her. Next to her, she saw an odd-looking lavender filly who looked just as puzzled as Twilight.

"Excuse me," Twilight asked. "Do you know where I am?"

"Beats me," the filly said. "I just appeared here. No clue where I am." The filly tried to stand up on her hind legs, before abruptly falling over. "What the what?! I'm a filly!"

Twilight laughed as she put two and two together. "Spike? Is that you?"

"Twilight? Twilight! What happened?"

"I have no clue, Spike. The last thing I remember was that there was dark magic destroying the town or something." Twilight eyed Spike again. "Do you need any help standing or walking? Your body doesn't look like the average pony's."

Spike attempted to stand on all fours, and had a bit of success. "You shouldn't be the one talking. You look like your mom."

Twilight stood up and looked herself over. She did indeed look somewhat like her mother; pink fur instead of white, but she had her white and purple mane.

"I'll fly up and check out where we are," said Twilight. She leaped into the air, spreading her wings... and promptly face planted into the ground.

"Contrary to what you may believe," Spike giggled. "Your mother was in fact not an alicorn."

"Shush and help me up."

Spike started to trot over to Twilight, but a sudden gust wind picked up that almost sent him (her?) falling over backwards. Giant dragon-type beings flew down from the cloudy sky.

"Everypony, quick! Come on!" Terrified ponies hurried to a large garishly pink castle, which must have served as a home to everypony.

"What's going on?" somepony yelled through the storm.

"It's the Stratadons!" somepony else screamed.

Stratadons? Twilight wondered. She and Spike hid in the river until the whole mess ended. They saw the 'Stratadon' snatch up a blue earthpony, but she escaped just in time. However, a white unicorn and a familiar pink earthpony were not so lucky.

Twilight recognized someone riding one of the Stratadons as Scorpan, brother of Tirek. "You are all doomed! Soon everypony will belong to Tirek, master of Midnight Castle!" He and the Stratadons flew away.

Spike and Twilight got out of the ditch just in time to see the contrail of a pink and blue pegasus fly away into the dark sky.

"Wow." Twilight was too out of breath to say anything else after the whole event. Tirek is here, and she had no idea as to what was going on.

"I know, right?" Spike agreed. "Why couldn't I get a body like that?"

* * *

The two unicorns viewed the scene from over a nearby hill. They had seen the whole thing.

"The disruption had some... unexpected results," the blue pony observed.

"I agree," conceded the white one. "I think it would be best if we reveal ourselves now."

The blue unicorn raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure it would not be too soon? Laughter was captured, after all. They may not be stable enough for a larger impact."

The white pony sighed. "They need all the help they can get. We need to tell them what's happened sooner or later. I would prefer sooner."

"Yes," the blue one said after some consideration. "I see your point. I suggest we head down right now."