Twilight Sparkle tinkered with another bronze gyroscope before setting it down, screwing it back into place. Everything had to be perfect for this spell.
She was going to go beyond the limits of unicorns, on the edge of the limit of alicorn powers. The most trying spell ever that could be perform was about be performed. By her. Princess Cadance did not have her talent with magic. Princess Celestia had only raw power. Princess Luna was still weak.
No, only she could do this.
She stepped back, turning to Spike. "Let's check the list one more time."
"Ugh. Do we have to, Twilight?" Spike groaned loudly in an exaggerated manner.
"Yes!" she snapped back. "This spell could have serious negative effects if even the tiniest thing, like the chemical composition of the water or the-"
"-In Equish, please?" Spike interrupted.
Twilight sighed. "Something goes wrong, I'm destroyed on a quantum level. Theoretically."
"I said Equish!"
Twilight facehooved. "Something's wrong and Twilight Sparkle go boom boom."
"Well, that sounds bad, but on an upside you won't have to clean the-"
Twilight turned on Spike and finally snapped. "READ THE LIST!"
Spike held his hands up in surrender, groping for the list he dropped. "Gyroscopes zeroed?"
Twilight cast a detection spell. "Check."
"Harness secured?"
Twilight looked down at the worn cloth harness around her neck and slipped the end into a clip attached to the small tub in fronmt of her. "Check."
"Magic at full res- resov- resav-?"
"Reservoir, Spike," Twilight said. She took a needle at stabbed it into a mana channel above her right wing. The modified heart monitor next to her let out a high tone. "We're good."
"Snarky bookworm pony acquired?"
"Snarky bookworm pony?" Twilight asked, confused. "Oh. Very funny, Spike."
Spike cracked a grin and looked at the list.
"Uh, that's it," Spike finished. "I'll get to the blast shelter and activate the instruments."
He ran away behind a metal shelter, with thick Plexiglas windows and magical wards set on it. He flicked a few switches. "The scrying pool is armed."
She took a purple respirator off its hook on the wall, slipping it into her mouth. Next, she put on a pair of thick iron diving goggles with perforations, designed to direct her spell to her eyes.
Sliding her head into the water, she began to activate her magic. The gyroscopes on the side of the steel bowl began to spin crazily in no particular direction, sparking with purple magic.
She knew something was wrong after the first minute, when magenta sparks began to dance through the water- that shouldn't be happening. He eyes widened in shock as her vision began to go purple. It felt as if somepony was boring a hole through her eyes and out the other side of her head. Her horn felt as if it were about to explode, and she began to have violent spasms that wracked through her entire body.
The last thing she heard was Spike's scream.
Meanwhile, in Pyrrhia, five dragons flew in the moonlight.
The first was a small, golden SandWing. She flitted between the other dragons, chatting happily.
"Hey, Tsunami?"
The large turquoise SeaWing turned towards her. "Yeah, Sunny?"
"I'm sorry you had to leave your home."
"It's fine, Sunny. It wasn't my place."
A long, curvy RainWing flew over. "It's the Talon's fault it wasn't your place. Clay would have been a bigwings-"
The large copper Mudwing interjected. "To be fair, I'm the bigwings around here."
The RainWing rolled her eyes. "I meant of your own tribe."
"I'm fine with all of you, Glory."
"That's good to know," said a small NightWing.
"I guess we have to-" the SandWing, Sunny, was interrupted with a bright purple flash just above an island. Something purple tumbled out of the sky.
"Uh, we should probably go check that out," Clay, the large MudWing pointed out.
"Agreed!" called Tsunami, the SeaWing. She plummeted towards the island with Clay close in tow. Glory, the RainWing, was the next to rush down with them, and Sunny and the NightWing flew down at a leisurely pace.
What they found there was extremely unexpected.
"What is that?" Tsunami said, wrinkling her nose slightly. Lying on the sand was a small purple figure, no bigger than a scavenger. They were shaped like a horse.
The most abnormal things about the prone figure were the wings and the horn.
The NightWing looked it over. "It looks like a unicorn, but it has wings-" he gestured to the figure's wings "-so it's not. Pegasi had wings in old legends. Maybe it's a pegacorn?"
Glory snorted. "Of course, Starflight. Leave it to you to memorize every single scroll."
"Hey!" Starflight said defensively. "Someone needs to know about the environment!"
Sunny called out. "Look, it's waking up!"
Twilight was having a bad day. She woke up to the sound of chattering voices.
"-Hello? Are you sentient?" a voice asked.
"Of course," she snorted, still half asleep and not opening her eyes.
"Well, that makes things a ton easier," a snarky voice sarcastically said.
"Shut up, Glory," another deep, obviously masculine voice said.
Great. Canterlot nobles. There was no other place in Equestria that would name ponies "Glory."
Twilight gradually opened her eyes. What she found was a few dragons looming above her.
She screamed.
Author's Note
I lost half this chapter and had to rewrite it.