The Acts of Doctor Whooves: Act II

~ProloguE~

Canterlot,

1,742 years B.C.R. (Before Celestia's Reign), year 277 R.T.S (of the Reign of the Two Sisters)

Age of Equestria: 2,498

A grey coated pegasus mare walked out of her home and into the welcoming night. It was a nice evening, with a soft warm breeze. Crickets chirped and birds whistled, with the faintest sounds of owls waking to hunt in the night. She smiled, and took flight. Flapping her wings, she inhaled slowly, taking in the sweet aroma of nature and the fresh air. Taking flight, she began to rise in altitude. She always loved going out on night’s like this, even though she risked being ridiculed as the pony she was. Her name alone was enough to make ponies snort and brush her off. Sighing and shaking her head, she garnered a smile and looked at her surroundings

In the distance, she could see the hints of a sunset, still lingering about. Magenta's, pinks, oranges and reds streaked the horizon and stirred a feeling of awe inside of her. The setting sun still persisted in warming the citizens of Equestria, and mellow light danced along the landscape beneath her. Looking on the other side of the horizon, she could already see the moon peeking out amongst the mountaintops that so dominated her surroundings. Stars were beginning to spot the skies, and she wished upon the first star she saw.

“Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight,” she began to mutter, her eyes twinkling with the radiance of a filly, “I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”

As if by seemingly impossibly coincidence, she saw a shooting star at the same moment. She gasped at the flaming object, watching it in fascination as it streaked across the sky. “I wish upon a star…” she trailed off, wanting this moment to stay with her for the rest of her life She could feel her breath catch. In her field of vision, she could see the remaining golds, crimsons and violets leave the sky and watched as the horizon slowly turned from orange to yellow, and began its transition to a light blue and finally to the deep blue that was the night sky. The night wind was beginning to get slightly colder, but not by much. As much as she wanted the warm air to grace her presence, she knew that being in the shadow of the planet only meant cold. Occasionally, there would be very warm nights, but those were usually from swelteringly hot days that nopony really wanted, so many ponies just grew a backbone and learned to deal with it. Besides, in the mountains, it’s bound to be colder than usual.

It began to rain stars. Dozens of meteors streaked the starscape and she watched in fascination. More and more kept flaming by, a definite sight to behold. She could see the last traces of the day disappear simultaneously with the lessening of the intensity of the shooting stars, yet it still didn't take away from the majesty of the moment. With all the many shooting stars, she focused all of the wishes she would potentially have into one thought. She smiled, and continued to watch as the meteor shower eventually died out, with one meteor left.

After a while, she began wondering why said shooting star hadn’t disappeared yet. If she remembered correctly, shooting stars usually blazed across the sky for mere seconds, yet this celestial object had insisted on staying for what seemed like hours. She began to look at it closely, knowing it was not a regular occurrence. She then widened her eyes when she realized it was coming straight for her. It had slowly gotten bigger the closer it burned towards her, yet she hadn’t noticed due to and her want of a peaceful night. Now knowing such a thing was never going to happen, she shot downward and out of the trajectory of the meteor. Waiting a few seconds, she could hear a rumbling slowly growing louder with the simultaneous nearing of the fiery blitz. It then passed over her, a loud explosion propelling forward faster than before. She flew to the left as quickly as she could to avoid a burning piece of debris. She could feel the heat, it barely singeing her feathers.

She quickly folded her wings and dived to the treeline, making sure she was well out of the effective radius of the odd meteor. As if time slowed, she saw the flaming hunk of outer-space-material crash into the deeper part of the Canterbury forest. The thing crashed, sending flames into the air and debris flying upward and outward. A shockwave of energy could be felt as she hid unsuccessfully behind the tree she was hiding behind. In the spur of the moment, she couldn’t help but gaze in awe at the somewhat unsightly show of flame, sparks, and abnormality to the normal life of an Equestrian pony. As if that weren’t enough, the flames died and the dark night reigned once again. All traces of an otherworldly entity crashing into Equestrian soil having seemingly removed entirely. Even the shrapnel from the craft had just puttered out and disappeared, but she knew the truth.

Trying to be as sneaky as she could, she ninja’d across the treetops, going to where she knew she last saw the fireball effect come from. Sensing the local wildlife fleeing in unknown terror, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread the closer she reached her destination. However she felt, it wasn’t comparable to the curiosity that held her in grips at the moment. The closer she neared, the more she could see the effect this alien object had on the wildlife. It seemed to be making it more livelier, greener… Darker. Something about it wasn’t right. Not only that, but the trees were getting more singed the closer she got. A testament to the reality of the situation she was in.

Finally, she reached her destination. A crater, smack dab in the middle of Canterbury Forest (I do hope you see that as an over-exaggeration). The grey coated pegasus looked at the wreckage before her, and it completely boggled her mind. A spaceship. An actual spaceship. In Canterbury Forest. In Canterlot! A quiet province nestled in the heart of a mountain, somewhere where nothing ever happens! Ponyville was more interesting compared to this small city. With the Castle of the Two Sisters, and a reputation for being able to fend off wild monsters, the same couldn’t be said for Canterlot. Canterlot was Canterlot. Boring. Mountain City with little arable land to work with. Such a small town high in the mountains was revered for it’s ability to survive in such extreme conditions, but many ponies living here knew. It was boring as hell, and everypony knew it. Even then, ponies still singled her out as the odd pony. To be perfectly honest, she didn’t mind it. It gave her and everypony else something to do. Still, it was rough for her somedays.

Now there was finally something to break the endless normality of Canterlot. An alien spaceship. She gawked at it, not knowing what to do. She could see smoke rising off of it, said smoke somehow quickly dissipating. Scorch marks were everywhere. Whole areas of shrubbery and flora having burnt upon impact. Burned and charcoaled stumps and pieces of wood lay scattered everywhere. The object itself had pieces of it completely missing. Odd pieces of metal jutted out in all sorts of shapes and angles, odd incredibly thin tubes with some sort of metal filament ran through them. She flew closer to take a closer look, careful not to touch anything in case it was blisteringly hot. Strangely enough, there was no heat to be felt, no humidity to be borne. It felt just like the normal Canterlot night that it was. Gingerly placing her hoof on what looked to be a door she gasped pulling back from it. She didn’t pull her hoof back because of the intense heat, but because of the absence of it. It was completely cold to the touch.

Now at the height of her curiosity, she slowly backed away from it in untold fear and intrigue. Nothing in Equestria, nothing on Equus itself could do something like that. She knew little to nothing about thermodynamics, but she knew for a fact that objects always retained heat after being exposed to it, but this was a whole different ballpark. She saw it go up in flames. She saw it burning upon entry of the planet. She saw it explode. It didn’t even take her 5 minutes to get there. And yet… it was cold to the touch. Unnaturally cold. Alienly cold. She shook her head, wondering why she ever thought coming here was a good idea, and then it happened.

The door was blasted off its hinges by an unknown force. She dropped to the ground, literally. Ceasing to flap her wings and dropping like a rock, she watched in shock horror as it flew straight at where she just was previously and watched as it kept flying. Now covered in ashes, she slowly turned to the now gaping hole in the unearthly object and could only see darkness. Not the darkness that she was surrounded by right now. Not something as dark as night sky. Even darker than a sealed off room with no light.

It was as black as the void itself.

She started to back up quickly, getting some distance from whatever this thing was. Yet it wasn’t enough. She saw the darkness begin to glow gold. The whole thing. It began to emanate a sickly yellow aura that made her feel queasy and uneasy. She kept backing up until she hit a burned tree stump. The now glowing darkness began to stick tendrils of itself out, as if feeling this world for the first time.

The pegasus mare quickly realized she could just fly away from this situation and abandon it altogether. She stretched her wings out. She cried out in pain and looked to her left. She saw her left wing in a bloody mess.

She cursed.

“No!” she hissed to herself, and then heard the alien body stop. Her heart quickening, feeling it’s steady beat begin to rise, she turned her attention once again to the foreign object in front of her. It had noticed her. It seemed hesitant at first, stopping and seemingly turning to get a better look at her. She could only watch in mute terror. The monster began to undulate and made crackling noises. Noises that sounded like the lightning her kind had tamed. With only a little bit of rationality left, she started to shout around her, tears of fear and dread beginning to form.

“HELP! Somepony, anypony!” she then turned to see the monster begin to work it’s way toward her. “HELP!”

With one last ounce of strength, she whispered, “...please…”

The monster began to advance to her. With nothing left to do, she began to burst into tears and couldn’t help… but to finally scream.

“AHHHH-!”