When does a magical experiment ever go right?
"Are you sure about this?" An extremely hesitant Spike asked the trio of ponies currently checking their notes for any errors in their calculations.
"Spike, there is absolutely nothing to fear." Twilight assured him, "The chance of anything going horribly wrong are as low as a Diamond Dog cave system."
"Yeah Spike, we've checked our notes a dozen times, we wouldn't risk hurting you if the odds were even what we'd consider low." Starlight interjected, not even turning to face the young drake. Instead, she and the others got into position, Starlight and Trixie on one end of the room, Twilight on the other.
"You guys know that at this point you're seriously tempting fate don'tcha?" Spike snarked with a hint of trepidation in his voice.
"Come on Spike, we need someone to test our teleporter bridge and everypony else is busy." Trixie replied, "If this works we can prove it's possible to create linked teleport portals. Can you imagine how much we'll be able to cut down on travel times!"
Twilight soon came to support Trixie, saying "She's got a point Spike. We could set portals up all over Equestria and beyond. We wouldn't even need to take a train to get to Canterlot, or the Crystal Empire! We could visit whenever we wanted to."
Seeing the look of Twilight, clearly excited by, most likely, the chance to visit Shining and Cadence whenever she wanted, Spike withdrew his complaints, unable to deny her. "Ok, ok. Let's just get this over with."
Twilight squeed in joy, giving Spike a quick hug in thanks, before trotting off to her end of the room, opposite the unicorn duo. "Ok, final checks; room is clear, magic is primed, everyone is in position. Does everyone remember their roles?"
"Create the portal on our end for Spike to enter." Called Starlight.
"Keep it steady and open 'till he exits your portal." Continued Trixie.
"Create and maintain the portal on my side and link it to yours until Spike comes through." Came from Twilight.
"Run at the scary glowing portal and hope I don't die?" Spike mumbled rhetorically, the group either with gnoring him or not hearing him.
"Ok you guys, let's get started." With those words Twilight and the others started to charge their magic, sparks dancing over their horns, before they were encased in their respective glows. There was a flash as at either sides of the room, two large semi circular portals appeared, their green bubbly glow illuminating the room. For a second a thin strand of light could be seen connecting the two, before fading away as the link was made. A harsh crackling filled the room, the gateways being the source. "Ok Spike!" Twilight yelled over the noise, "The portals are open, just go ahead and run through!"
"Got it!" Came Spike's loud reply. Turning to face Starlight and Trixie's portal, he took a nervous breath, before dashing towards the portal, not giving himself time to think about the consequences of dangers of his choice. Within a few moments he had reached the portal threshold, and leapt in.
The group waited for him to appear at Twilight's end. After a minute they started to worry a little. After 5 minutes they were in a full blown panic, with Trixie's magic running low from the exertion of mainting her and Starlight's portal. If it closed, the link would break, and none of them had any knowledge of what would happen when that happened. They only knew it wouldn't be good.
"Spike!" Twilight called, her voice wavering in worry. She cried out in alarm as the unicorn duo's portal warped, losing it's shape for a few moments as Trixie dropped to her knees in exhaustion, leaving a quickly tiring Starlight to try to power and maintain the portal.
However, it was not to be, as the portal continued to break down despite Twilight and Starlight's attempts to fix it. The portal collapsed, sending a shockwave through the room, knocking all of them to the floor.
When the dust settled, the group got up on weakened legs, still in shock over what had happened. "S-S-Spike?" Twilight breathed, tears welling in her eyes.
Not 30 seconds later, all of Ponyville heard her distraught cries, as the loss of her assistant finally registered.
The next year was hard on everypony. When Twilight's friends heard her cry, they dropped what they were doing and rushed right over. When they heard what had happened, the group denied it at first, only for Trixie and Starlight to back up her story.
Twilight took it the hardest, locking herself away in her room for days on end, bawling her eyes out and bathing in her own self-pity, blaming herself for causing Spike's apparent death. Trixie tried to convince her otherwise, saying that it was her who caused the portal to collapse, so she was to blame. This didn't break her out of her depression though. It took a visit from Twilight's whole family, her friend's, and Celestia to break her out of it. After that she turned her entire focus to finding a way to bring back Spike, having gotten the idea after a throw away comment from Celestia, who said it was entirely possible that Spike had simply wound up someplace else in transit.
Her friends continued to help her out, mainly through dragging her away from her research long enough to eat, sleep, bathe, and relax, claiming that Spike wouldn't want her to end up a mess.
Rarity took the news almost as bad as Twilight did, having much the same response she had had, coping through crying, but also through liberal amounts of ice cream. She had come to garner a small crush on Spike as time had gone by, finding the young dragon charming and just a little handsome, not to mention his dedication to her. When he had disappeared it broke her heart, knowing she never told him her growing feelings for him. Unlike Twilight, Rarity had to care for her younger sister, as well as run a business, so Rarity soon shifted her coping method to working and looking after Sweetie Belle. Somewhat ironically, she ended up creating some of her best work after Spike's disappearance, using her grief to fuel her muse. Her dresses were praised as 'hauntingly dark', and created a month long fashion craze. All throughout, she found herself thanking Spike, who even though he wasn't with her, continued to find ways to help her.
The rest of the gang, despite not being as close to Spike, were still torn up over his apparent demise. Rainbow almost completely stopped practicing her flying stunts, even having to take temporary leave from the Wonderbolts to grieve. Fluttershy only kept herself together through working with her animal friends, though the stress and grief made her snap at them more than once, leading to a more subdued and understanding menagerie. Pinkie Pie didn't throw a party for more two months, her mane remained as flat as her sister's, and her baking suffered greatly. Like Rainbow, she was given time off from working at Sugercube corner by the Cakes so she had time to grieve. Applejack was the strongest of the group, having experienced similar loss before with her parents. She didn't allow herself to be too affected, but her siblings let her end her days early so she could aid her friends with their own depressions.
The group had tried to call Discord for help, however even he had no clue as to where Spike was, let alone how to bring him back. They had attempted to use the portal to the human world as well, in case Spike had ended up there, but the portal was acting up, and Twilight was too afraid of a repeat of what happened to Spike to try it in it's current state. Starlight and Trixie had taken it upon themselves to attempt to fix it, providing their own way to help cope with what had happened.
Though it took her many months Twilight was eventually able to develop 2 spells that would enable them to find the wayward dragon, and bring him back to them. Having checked her notes for any errors over a dozen times, she collected her friends, her brother, and her fellow princesses (who had also had their own, albeit smaller, worries for Spike), and brought them to the castle.
They had all gathered in a specially furnished room, filled with comfortable seats all pointed towards a shimmering green crystal. Each taking a seat, Twilight explained that the first spell was designed to locate a being, and allow others to view what they were doing. Strangely, Discord had helped her create the spell, as they had to take into account the possibility that Spike had ended up in another world or universe, as her magic was incapable of searching that far without the aid of a little chaos magic. The second spell was far less complex, allowing the user to lock onto a being and teleport it, only over far greater distances than the regular teleport spell. This still required Discord's help, though Twilight found her own way of powering the spell without draining anyone of the magic required for such a teleport. By anchoring the spell to a magic absorbing crystal, she could set the spell to absorb and use ambient magic. It would mean a slow charge, but no one would be hurt as a result of a loss of power.
And so it was that the group sat themselves down, Twilight cast the viewing spell (linking it to the viewing crystal so that the others could see as well), and the group braced themselves for what was hopefully their first look at Spike in over a year.
