The land of Equestria stretched out across the horizon, spacious, magical, and for now... free. Lord Xaphan would correct that soon. He had travelled from world to world leaving nothing but darkness and despair in his wake, and now his conquest had led him here. It was a beautiful sight, there was no denying that, but that only fuelled his desire for its destruction. So much love, happiness, friendship, and magic - he licked his thin lips feverishly – the magic sickened him the most. Such power and it was being used for such foolish and good purposes, a true waste of its real potential.
He paced back and forth, never taking his eyes from the orange horizon. His clawed hands clenched and loosed. “To think,” he hissed through sharp and glistening teeth, “it is ruled by mere ponies.” He spat on the ground and where his saliva touched the grassy perch, the green faded to brown, the brown became black, and the black crumbled to dust. He paused his march and an evil smile grew on his face, a smile that never touched the yellow slitted eyes. He wrung his hands and his forked tongue protruded again to wet the thin-lipped smile.
“Get ready, ponies,” his mouth sneered around the word, “I’m sure you’ve dealt with some adversity and challenges, but soon you will see what true evil means. Sleep tight my little ponies.”
Fluttershy was beside herself. The animals had never acted this way. She had gone out in the woods, as she did most mornings, to greet the animals and to see if any needed her help, but today the woods were quiet.
“This is very peculiar,” she said to herself. She had caught a few glimpses of squirrels and birds but they disappeared as quickly as she could turn her head. It was as if they were scared of her.
“Please,” she pleaded in a soft shaky voice, “don’t be afraid. You all know me, I’m a friend.” One particularly brave chipmunk peered out from a knot in a nearby tree. Fluttershy slowly approached and asked timidly, “What is wrong my deary?” The poor animal was terrified and his whole body shook as he slowly lowered himself out of her view. “Please, come back. I promise I’m only here to help.” She was slightly desperate now and dropped to her belly resting her chin on the dirt. “Please,” she pleaded once more, but no animal was willing to show themselves.
She stayed there, prone, for a while before she decided that she needed help. She stood up and set to leave, but before she did she turned back to the woods. “Don’t worry, I’ll find out what’s wrong... I won’t let you down.” Her brow burrowed in determination as she set off to find Twilight.
It had been a typical morning so far. Twilight had just finished her breakfast of cabbage and oatmeal when a particularly loud snore from Spike startled her.
“Same every morning,” she chuckled to herself. “Spike, wakey-wakey,” she called in a sing-song voice. No response. “Sp-i-i-ike.” A loud snort this time. “Spike!!!” Spike lay motionless snoring comfortably. Twilight flared her nostrils and huffed loudly. “Fine. We’ll do this the hard way then.”
Using her magic she filled a pitcher with water and hovered it over the sleeping dragon’s head. “One last chance Spikey-Wikey.” Finally, the young dragon opened his eyes.
“Oh, hey Twilight. You up already?”
“Already? Half the morning is over.” She turned away forgetting about the floating wake-up bath.
SPLASH!
“Aaahh! What was that for?”
“Sorry,” Twilight stammered, “so-so sorry.” She couldn’t help but show a nervous smile at the pathetic sight of the poor drenched, but adorable, dragon. Spike continued to direct a frown at her.
“You know there are other ways to wake me up.”
“None of them were working. Besides now you can skip a bath.” She turned away laughing as she magically fixed her mane and washed her face at the desk mirror. Spike wrung water out of his tail and shook the excess from his head.
“What are we doing today anyway?”
“Er- I don’t know,” Twilight shrugged.
“Then why not let me just sleep?” Spike whined.
“You can’t just sleep the whole morning through,” she tilted her head side to side in the mirror and finally, satisfied, turned back to spike. “If we don’t have plans for the day then we have to go out and find out what the day has planned for us.” She smiled reassuringly at Spike. He was having none of it.
“Whatever,” he growled, “just let me grab some breakfast first.” He went to pour a bowl of his favourite Gem-ios but the box only produced some brightly colored powder. “Let me guess... Rarity found my stash of cereal again,” he sighed.
“Apparently so,” Twilight answered.
“Fine,” he sounded resigned, “I’ll just have some oats I guess.” He had just settled down to eat when the front door burst open.
BAM!
Fluttershy stood in the doorway, or barely stood. Twilight noticed the poor filly was completely winded. “Fluttershy, what’s wrong?” she asked hurrying over to help her friend in. “You look absolutely gassed.”
"The-the...all the animals..." she stuttered through heavy breathing.
"Just calm down and tell me what's wrong," said Twilight in a comforting tone. Spike had turned from his breakfast and brought the worn out pony a drink. After a moment she calmed down some.
"There is something wrong with all the animals in the woods."
"What do you mean?" asked Spike.
"Well, I went out to greet them, like I always do, and none of them greeted me back." Twilight shot an unconvinced look at Shutterfly.
"Maybe they just didn't hear you, or maybe they were sleeping," she smiled trying to diminish the poor pony's doubts.
"No... I think that something is scaring them. I've never seen anything like it." It was obvious to Twilight that Fluttershy was worried, and what worried her friend worried her.
"Well, let's head back to your place and see if we can figure out what's going on then."
They opened the door to see Rainbow Dash about to knock. "Uh... Hi guys."
"Hi, Rainbow you're up awfully early," Twilight greeted her.
"Is everything okay?" added Fluttershy.
"Well... define okay," Rainbow Dash answered.
Twilight raised her eyebrows at this; her two friends were acting very strange. "Okay, as in nothing is wrong."
"Well..." Rainbow Dash continued, "I mean it's mostly okay."
"What do you mean mostly?" Fluttershy inquired.
"Okay, you know that it's my job to clear the clouds on certain days, right? And you also know that there's nopony better at it than I am." Her usual bravado was in full effect. "So this morning I start bursting through the clouds, like always, to break them up only this time they won't cooperate. I'll show you."
With that she took off with a bound zipping this way and that she pulled up next to a cloud and bucked it with all her force. Nothing happened. She zipped back and forth through it, still nothing.
"See what I mean? There's something wrong with 'em." She descended back down to the others looking upset.
"Don't worry Dash, we'll get it figured out," Twilight tried to reassure her. There was definitely something strange going on. Right on queue Applejack came galloping up.
"Does anypony know what the hay is going on?"
"Let me guess you've noticed some strange things as well?" Twilight asked.
Applejack looked from Fluttershy to Rainbow Dash, she was used to seeing Fluttershy looking down but it seemed unnatural for Rainbow.
"You okay, Dashie?"
RD shook her head as if as if coming out of a trance. "Yeah-yeah, fine. What's going on with you?"
"It's the apple orchards. I woke up this mornin' an' went out to check on the trees. Well, would'n you believe it a good lot of them seem to be dyin'. It's unnatural!" She shook he head in disbelief.
"No clue as to what caused it?" asked Twilight.
"I can't figure a reason, that's why I was on my way to see you."
Twilight tried to see a connection between the problems, but nothing added up. The animals, the clouds, and the apple orchard, she just couldn't find the connection. Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Rarity with a bouncing Pinkie at her side.
"Where is Rainbow Dash? I must have a word with her." Spotting her, Rarity trotted up to her. "Now I know that the weather called for nothing but sunshine today," she huffed. "Now look at my sunhat. It looks ridiculous with these clouds."
"Well technically it kind of looks ridiculous anyway" mutter Rainbow Dash.
"What was that?" Rarity shot back.
"Girls please," interrupted Twilight, "Rarity there are clouds because for some reason Rainbow can't burst them like normal."
"And don't forget about the dyin' trees back at Sweet Apple," chimed in Applejack.
"And, of course, the animals," Shutterfly quietly added.
Rarity looked to each of them in turn stunned by the news. "Well we certainly need to figure this out. I simply can't leave my outfits to chance."
CRACK!
A flash streaked across the sky and the rumble that followed was no normal thunder. It shook the ground and shook each pony to her core. They all ducked and covered their ears. Finally after what seemed like minutes the roar began to subside.
"What in tarnation!?" Applejack was the first up and went to help Shutterfly stand as the others were recovering.
"Spike!" called Twilight. "Come on. We need to write a letter to the princess right away."