Prologue
There was not a single stray cloud over Ponyville granting a clear view Luna's night sky. Every star and constellation were at her whims to control, and she arranged them as if each star was her paint and the nights sky her canvas, and all if Equestria was an audience to gaze upon her work of art.
It was nearing midnight and all the residents of Ponyville were asleep except for a certain purple unicorn in the Ponyville Library. She was sitting by candlelight at a desk on the library’s bottom floor browsing a book she recently found hiding under a loose floorboard in the basement. This piqued her curiosity and interest as she found herself thinking at the time of discovery, Why would this book be down here?
The book looked ancient giving the impression that it’s been around a long time and seen its fair share of use; In faint letters, almost hard to make out was the title, Opera Atrium Arcanorum Et Tempora or Arcane Works and Tomes. On closer inspection, however, the lavender unicorn observed that the aged look the book’s spine lacked any lines indicating that it has ever been opened.
Reading the title, she got excited deciding to browse through the book later that day as she already had plans to spend the day with her friends. She couldn’t wait to look through the book later in the day as she always ready and eager to learn and discover new things, but now that she was perusing through the book and its contents she felt rather disappointed. All the text in every single page in the book was faded, smudged, and beyond being legible in any way. Just about ready to give up as she was just about near the end of the book, she pauses when she came to a page that was legible, or more decently than the others. The name of the spell was illegible, but the main body was somehow untouched and unsmudged; Her excitement rekindled, she read through the page curious as what the spell was or at least finding out what the nature of it may be; however, had she known more about that book she wouldn’t have been so hasty or eager into essentially leaping before you look.
If the very first page of the book was legible she would have seen the warning; that warning states to never under any circumstances read a spell’s body context unless you wanted it to happen because once the page was read the spell activates and there’s no way to stop it. Of course, that by itself doesn’t make the book dangerous, but the fact that the spell glossary just after the warning, which gave a brief description of what each spell did, was also illegible made it even more dangerous. In fact, it was decreed by princess Celestia herself that all copies of the book were to be gathered up and destroyed as if they never had existed; however, this lone book is the only survivor of its kind and was in the hooves of a powerful Unicorn.
When she was finished reading the spell she was confused as the spell to her was nothing but a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Still slightly confused and thinking on the issue, she was suddenly snapped out of her thoughts by a strange sound coming from outside which began softly but gradually got louder as the seconds pass. The sound she could be best described as something like stones pelting the sand then gradually shifted to hammers pounding steel at a rapid pace. The tree suddenly began to quake violently causing books to fall off the shelves causing a loud clatter in the process. On the second floor, a window shattered allowing the wind to wildly gust into the library causing parchment, scrolls, and quills to start flying around turning them into mini projectiles.
As all this was going on, a small baby purple dragon came rushing down the stairs while trying his best to avoid the flying projectiles. "Twilight, what’s going on?!?" The Dragon seemed to ask out in a raised panicked voice at the top of his lungs so he could be heard, though he quickly dived to the ground to avoid a quill that came close to inserting itself into his eye out.
"I don’t know Spike!" The unicorn known as Twilight yelled back trying desperately to use her magic to stop the flying projectiles; however, it seemed to be a tedious task as she stopped a few at least two or so more seemed to take its place coming close a few times to losing an eye herself.
The wind kept increasing in speed being now accompanied by thunder and lightning. Conditions were getting bad, and Twilight had to know what was going on. Moving quickly while weaving a bit to avoid the projectiles, Twilight made her way to one of the windows looking out to the world outside; as she did Spike soon quickly joined her side squinting his eyes as if to help him see out in the hell transpiring outside better. Outside the wind was whipping at blistering speeds bombarding the earth with a curtain of rain from the heavens. Things were looking like they were hitting the gutter at a rapid pace.
As Spike and Twilight watched, a lightning bolt suddenly struck the ground; this one was different than the others as it seemed to have unnatural colors, and was accompanied by the sound of shattering glass. The resulting flash of that strike caused Twilight and Spike covered their eyes; as the blinding flash cleared the world suddenly went silent as if the world was holding its breath.
The wind had all but stopped dying into a faint whisper, the thunder and lightning didn’t make another peep alert their presence was nearby, and no sign of rain could be seen. It was almost as if the curtain was pulled away to leave nothing except the soggy puddle infested landscape as the only proof of its existence.
Glancing at each other, both Twilight and Spike seemed a look that shared an unspoken message. Moving almost as if in they were one, both Twilight and Spike turned from the window quickly exiting the library. The scene they were greeted to was a shock. Windows were shattered up and down all along the street; Tree limbs could be seen protruding from sides of homes and shops. All along the stretch of road lights was flaring up as ponies came out of their homes; the air was full of murmurs of disbelief and wonder as ponies were speculating about where that sudden storm has come from, and where it could have gone.
As the ponies were pondering, one of them suddenly seemed to raise speaking above all the others exclaiming out,"What is that over there!?"
Hearing the pony that exclaimed out all the other ponies stop to look towards them before then looking towards where that specific pony was looking, And at what they saw seemed to cause a ripple of shocked disbelief and confusion ripple through the air.
At the outskirts of Ponyville in the direction of the Everfree Forest was a huge charred patch of ground, but everypony was looking at what was in the center of the charred patch: A lone house that nopony has ever seen before sat there untouched and damaged in any way.
Twilight, just like the other ponies of the town, just stared at the house in utter dumbfoundment. What Twilight was seeing shouldn’t have been possible, or rather it seemed to defy her logic of what made sense in the world. She was so deep in thought that she jumped when Spike tapped her on the shoulder before speaking.
"Twilight, where did that house come from?" Spike asked in a tone that seemed t to seeming , in a way, seek what she knew.
"I don't know Spike." Twilight lets out a sigh and turns to face him. "That house is impossible. There is no-" she didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence as she found herself flying backward into the library with a cyan colored pony with rainbow hair landing on top of her.
"Twilight! are you alright!?" Spike asked in a concerned voice quickly re-entering into the library to check on Twilight.
Twilight let out a faint breath out of agitation."I will be when Rainbow Dash get off me." she states glaring at the cyan Pegasus
"Heh, Heh. uh oops." Rainbow Dash gave a nervous chuckle as she climbed off Twilight to allow her friend to get up, and as Twilight regains her hooves she still glared at Rainbow.
"What the hay is so important that you have to tackle me?" Twilight asked in frustration to her Pegasus friend.
“Oh, well…” Rainbow rubs the back of her neck with a hoof. "I just wanted to know if you and that egghead brain of yours know where-"
"If you're going to ask if I know where the house came from don’t bother because I don't know," She stated in an agitated tone cutting Rainbow Dash off, "And furthermore, is that why you tackled me to the ground? Just to see if I knew where the house came from."
"Uh... No...” *Rainbow said with a faint smirk,* “I was sent by the others to fetch you and to let you know to meet them by the house.. See ya there." With that, Rainbow took off took off quickly using her wings to fly off in the direction that she had come from.
Twilight blinked as she seemed to not process it at first, though when she did she quickly calling out. "Rainbow, Wait!" Twilight cried out to her friend, but Rainbow Dash was long gone before she even finished saying Rainbow. Letting out a faint sigh off agitation Twilight turned to Spike saying, "Spike, take a note to the princess. Tell her about the mysterious home, and that my friends and I went to investigate if this could be a potential threat to Equestria."
Pulling out a quill and parchment, Spike quickly scribbled down something down on it before rolling it up and sending it off. By the time that he had that done Twilight had gone off towards the house being now just out of earshot. At that time, Spike suddenly felt sick as he belched causing a scroll to appear at his feet. Picking it up he glances it over and reading what it said quickly look towards Twilight quickly trying to catch up to her, or as fast as he could.
Meanwhile, Twilight had exited the library and was going at a fast sprint towards the direction of the Everfree Forest. As she was running, and once she was closer to the house, she noticed a group of ponies had gathered around the house, though they didn’t get all that close to it as they were a bit weary in case there was danger. Scanning the crowd that had gathered she quickly located her friends in the mass of ponies, or found them as they were closer to the mysterious home than anypony else. Having found them, Twilight made her way over there soon reaching their side.
"Took you long enough to get here." Rainbow Dash commented to Twilight as she glances towards the lavender Unicorn who had just arrived. She was hovering in the air with her forehooves crossed and wings making a gentle flapping motion.
"That's because somepony left not only after knocking me down but didn’t give me a chance to explain anything such as how this could be dangerous." Twilight vented, starting to go into rant mode.
"Um, girls." Fluttershy spoke out in a soft voice trying to get everypony’s attention; however, no pony could hear her.
Rainbow looked at Twilight for a moment before rolling her eyes faintly. "Come on Twi. Where's your sense of adventure?" Rainbow retorted.
"Girls." Fluttershy said in that soft voice again, but this time a little louder trying to be heard.
"Rainbow, this is not an adventure, this a serious matter." Twilight retorted back letting out a faint breath. “We don’t know where this house came from, or if whoever is inside is a threat or not.”
"Well-" Rainbow started off though really get far as now Fluttershy spoke up again raising her voice now being heard.
"Girls!" Fluttershy exclaimed in a voice to which to her would have been considered a shout, and when all eyes of her friends turned to her she got slightly nervous. "Oh, um. I thought you all would like to know if that's OK that is. Princess Luna is here." Fluttershy whispered out.
"Why wherever at darling?" Rarity, an elegant white unicorn asked Fluttershy as she was looking around for the princess. She spotted a guard in black armor, but that was it.
"Oh well, she went into to the house," Fluttershy answered in that same soft voice.
At that, there was a moment of silence, but soon Twilight seemed to exclaim out making Fluttershy let out a faint Eep. “What!? She went into the House!? Why didn’t you say something sooner??
"Oh, well. I tried to tell you, but you were so busy.” Fluttershy responded looking down towards the ground while giving it a faint kick with a hoof."
Twilight was going to answer that, and she was ready with a sentence on the tip of her tongue, but before she could Pinkie Pie started to have some sort of spaz attack while seeming to name the motions she did. naming the motions she did. "Eye flutter, left blink, twitchy nose, itchy back, right blink." She let out a loud gasp seeming to look out towards all the girls.
Rainbow was first to respond quickly asking, “What is it Pinke? What does it mean?
Pinkie looked towards Rainbow. “I.. I don’t know.” She responds before thinking for a moment. “All I could get it had something to do with fire.”
“Fire? What are you going on-” Rainbow started, but never finished as there was a loud sound causing her head to whip towards the sound as well as her other friends to look.
What they had seen caused each one of them let out an audible gasp of shock. The mysterious house that had appeared in that storm had blown into a blazing inferno.
