It seemed like a normal day in Ponyville, Equestria, the sun was shining in the sky and all the ponyfolk including the mane six were doing their own businesses.
Applejack was helping harvesting the apples with her family, Rainbow Dash was perfecting her flight capacity in preparation of a wonderbolt exhibit in which she'd perform, Fluttershy was taking some food for her pets, Pinkie Pie was helping at the bakery, Rarity was working on new dresses and in the end Twilight was studying some new spells in the castle's Library.
"so if i focus the magic onto the somatic cells of the target's body i should be able to cause them to regress or progress to new age states...it's actually pretty simple" Twilight said reading a book about the age changing spell "to do so i need to channel my concentration on the age i want the target to reach, then gather enough magical power to start the process, let's try it... Spike! could you bring a plant in the library please?"
"of course Twilight" the little dragon said doing exactly what he was asked to and returning with an old and withered flower in a vase "sorry about it, i couldn't find anything better" Spike said
"no Spike i actually think it's a good subject" she said making the vase levitate to her.
"now let's try" she said closing her eyes and aligning her horn with the flower.
Soon after she did that both the flower and the horn started to glow of a purple-magenta light and the flower started to change, it's petals got back some color, the leaves started to become greener and so did it's stem.
However the aura disappeared shortly leaving the flower in a younger state, and Twilight pretty exhausted.
"wow...it's one of the hardest spells i ever cast..." she said opening her eyes "but it seems it worked, even if it lasted so shortly the spell returned the flower to it's mature state, with some more studying and exercise i should be able to do better" she announced smiling "better to let princess Celestia know, Spike, notify the princess please"
"i'm already on it" he said taking paper and pen and writing a complete report of Twilight's progresses "done!" he announced in the end.
"well done, now send it" she said
Spike immediately held the scroll in front of his mouth and blew a fire that turned it into a cloud of smoke that flew out of the window "sent!" Spike said making an o with his claws.
Twilight smiled and then got to the door.
"better if i go out and get some fresh air, i wonder how the others are doing" she said projecting an aura of magic around the main door of the castle opening it...but suddenly, the aura vanished and the door hit Twilight.
"OUCH!" she yelped finishing on the ground "what...what happened?" she said getting up again and massaging her muzzle.
"Twilight something strange just happened!" Spike said
The purple alicorn ran to where Spike's voice came forgetting for a minute what happened.
"what is it Spike?" Twilight asked upon reaching him
"look!" Spike said holding a piece of paper.
"wh...wait...isn't that the report you sent?" Twilight asked
"exactly! but...for some reason it came back, or well, most of it came back, it only happens when none of the princesses can receive the message and even in such case it would arrive intact, its like the transportation spell was cut off" Spike explained
"cut off? just like...uh oh" she said realizing what was happening and verifying if she was correct by trying to levitate an object, and to her horror the aura disappeared right after it took consistence around it "something must be interfering with the magic...oh no! this is dangerous! i need to see if this affects only the unicorns, just in case have the elements ready" she said running out of the castle directed to sweet apple acres.
At Sweetapple acres the apple family was preparing the apples to make the cider, except big mac who was plowing the fields.
"ah what a great harvest we had, 120 bucked trees and not a single worm in an' apple" Applejack said bringing in the barn another batch putting it near the ones that were already brought in.
"this is going to be a great apple cider season! we haven't had such a plentiful harvest since i was a in prime!" Granny smith said inspecting the apples.
"you can start the cooking here, i'm gonna go buck some more trees" the mare said galloping towards the orchard again heading for the farer parts of it.
However she started to feel weak all of a sudden...
"woah...wha's going on her'e ? wha is mah body so heavy..." she said slowing down, sitting and panting...
"Applejack!!!" Twilight yelled coming in her direction
"Twilight? what are yah doing here?" she asked
"there is something strange happening, my magic has stopped working and it seems that also yours has!" she explained
"oh shoot, i gotta go back to the barn and tell the others" she said
"i already told them, however we gotta find Rainbow Dash as soon as we..." Twilight couldn't finish he sentence that she started hearing a scream coming from the sky, and as soon as she looked up she saw Rainbow Dash flapping her wings savagely but still in free fall.
"HEEELP!!!" she was screaming
"oh no!" Twilight said trying to calculate the trajectory of her friend, and running towards where her landing point would be.
"Ah am behind you Twilight" Applejack said limping to reach her friend.
Twilight arrived first and immediately looked around.
"I need to find a way to make Rainbow land softly..." she thought thinking about what she could do...
She quickly located a pond, and soon elaborated a plan to make Rainbow fall in it...
Her magic was mostly blocked, however she could still generate little sparks of magical power...and enough of these sparks would have saved her friend.
"alright!" she said to herself starting to create localized force fields around Rainbow Dash modifying her trajectory slightly but constantly.
After a few corrections the pegasus was in the right course and safely landed inside the pond, much to Twilight's relief.
"puah...puah..." she said coming out of the water, spitting it and scrolling her wet fur.
"Rainbow Dash are you okay?" Twilight asked running to her
"I am...thank you for the help, i don't know what happened, I was flying normally then suddenly i started to fall!" she explained
"something is interfering with the magic, it already happened to me and to Applejack! and i think it might be happening allover ponyville by now! we gotta go check on Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity!!!" she said
"right on it!" Rainbow Dash said
"finally...ah got here..." Applejack said plodding to them "wha did ah miss?" she asked panting.
"Applejack?" Rainbow asked almost not recognizing her friend that was starting to look like Granny Smith.
"yeah the absence of magic causes the body of the earth ponies to become weak and fragile" Twilight explained.
"it's nah problem, ah can still help...maybe after a little...*YAWN* nap..." she said closing her eyes and snoring, causing Rainbow to facehoof.
Meanwhile Fluttershy was having problems too.
"excuse me? what?" she asked to Angel only to receive a confounded squeak as an answer.
"Angel this isn't funny anymore please speak clearly" she asked again getting the same answer.
"this isn't right...why can't i understand you all of a sudden?" She said to herself worriedly, hoping that nothing was wrong with her cutie mark or something...
She ran outside to the hen-house in her garden trying to speak with her other pets without understanding anything again either.
"what's happening?" she asked getting even more worried.
"FLUTTERSHY!!!" Twilight said arriving to her
"oh Twilight, thank goodness you came here, for some reason i can't talk to animals anymore... oh dear what happened to Applejack?" she asked noticing her friend sleeping on the shoulders of Rainbow.
"let's say that her strength went away like the magic" Rainbow Dash said
"will she be alright?" Fluttershy asked
"surely after we manage to understand what caused this..." Twilight said before being interrupted by Rainbow.
"what about that?!" She said pointing her hoof at a giant metallic sphere, covered in streams of light hovering in the sky towards Ponyville.
"that's probably it...we gotta go make sure the others are safe and decide what to do" Twilight said heading back to Ponyville with her two friends.
At the same time at Carousel Boutique.
"come on...levitate..." she said focusing at her most on her dress-making instruments at no avail "why won't you levitate!?" she asked growling, starting to lose her patience...
"oh now what?" she asked afterwards when the light suddenly went out "Does Celestia have problems with her magic too?" she questioned reaching the window and looking outside.
"Errrr?" she then mumbled in bewilderment looking at the sphere hovering towards the city hall.
"oh no! not another monster attacking the city!!!! better if i go to meet the others!" she said running out of the door.
As Twilight, Rainbow and Applejack reached the town they found it in completely disarray, pegasis struggled to flap their wings, earth ponies were having troubles standing up and the unicorns couldn't use their magic at all, and the arrival of the sphere didn't help at all...
"we are under attack!!!" some ponies were screaming and looking for shelter
"run for your lives!!!" others were screaming instead
"not another monster from tartarus!!!" others yelled as well remembering about Tirek's attack.
"what do we do Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked
"we gotta find a way...*yawn* tah make everyone calm down er...somepony could get hurt..." Applejack remarked
"don't worry girls, Spike has the elements ready, in case that thing is hostile we can use them" Twilight explained
"Hey girls!!!" Pinkie Pie said walking towards them "you won't believe what happened today, i was baking cakes with gummy then suddenly something felt wrong, I thought that i accidentally burned a cake but it wasn't it, for some reason i couldn't bounce anymore, so i tried running, but i couldn't do that either! then this gigantic sphere started to move onto town! and my Pinkie sense couldn't advise me!!!" She explained randomly
"you think it's something serious?" Pinkie asked in the end
"hem, we aren't sure, but i think it has something to do with that sphere" Twilight said looking at it.
"you think it has some kind of futuristic device that causes all forms of magic related phenomena to be suppressed?" Pinkie exclaimed
"well...that could be a theory..." Twilight admitted
"then how do we make it stop doing that? in theory?" Rainbow Dash asked annoyed and impatient to get her flight back.
While they were discussing however the sphere reached the center of the town and hatches started to open around it, from them smaller robotic machines started to fly to the margins of Ponyville, while the streams around the sphere started to shine brighter.
"what is it doing?" Twilight asled
"oh it's having babies!" Pinkie Pie said
"Pinkie i don't think that thing is alive" Twilight
"we don't know however, mmmmh let's ask it!! if it answers it must be alive, if it doesn't then it must be just a metallic sphere controlled by somebody!" she said
"I don't think that we should act so lightly it might be dange..." Twilight was cut short seeing Pinkie Pie entering the city hall, and reappearing onto the terrace of the building.
The pink pony then took out a megaphone, took a deep breathe and...
"HEY THERE!!!! I'M PINKIE PIE!!!! WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA!!!!" She yelled to the sphere "what are you doing here? why are you blocking our magic? hey most importantly! are you alive?"
No answer came from the sphere, besides the fact that it kept glowing brighter
"are you shy? or maybe you don't have hears?! it's that, just look down!!!!" she yelled more trying to get the attention of the sphere waving her hooves around.
Shortly after the hatch on the bottom of the sphere opened and what looked like a parabolic antenna became visible.
"Hey girls! i think it worked!!!" she yelled to her friends without noticing particles starting to dense around the parable.
"PINKIE LOOK OUT!!!" Twilight exclaimed as the parable shot a ray towards the city hall, which then collapsed into a blaze of light
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" Pinkie yelled vanishing into it as well.
"PINKIE!!!" Her friends screamed in horror, while the blaze started to expand engulfing other buildings and ponies as well.
The ponies ran away but the blaze was just too fast for them, few managed to get away from the town's center but the ones that reached the outskirts weren't going to make it either...because as soon as soon as they thought they could get out, a force field stopped their run, an invisible wall that stopped them from getting out.
In panic they started to stomp their hooves onto the invisible barrier but it seemed like it absorbed the hits as soon as the hooves touched it...then the blaze reached them, and immediately they vanished inside of it.
The mane six embraced each other and were engulfed as well, they were the last ones to disappear...
As the blaze reached the force field it disappeared leaving only a crater behind, Ponyville was gone and so was everyone in it...transported trough space and time to a new world.