Chapter 1

The sun had been set some time ago. Down in the town of Ponyville, some of the populace had turned in for the night, while quite a few more had stayed out late for one of the more special times of the year: the annual meteor shower that graced Luna's night, her gift to the ponies that she and her sister ruled.

Rainbow Dash fluttered her wings a little, just enough to keep herself loose. Sitting still for prolonged periods of time was not really her thing, so slight agitation helped to keep her calm. She looked up at the night sky, then back at her gathered friends, trying to draw some kind of reaction from... well, anything really.

"Hey Twi, how much longer until the shower starts?" she asked, subconsciously kicking a small rock down the hill they were seated on.

"Just a few more minutes, Rainbow," Twilight Sparkle said, the unicorn having set up a large telescope to observe the shower. "I don't remember you ever being this impatient about a meteor shower before."

"Last time we got here just before the shower started, but we've been sitting here for two hours. I'm starting to get all twitchy."

"Nopony ever said you had to sit still for two hours. You could have gone for a quick flight any time you wanted."

"... Okay, maybe sitting here with you guys is a little more important right now. But still, this is boring. Don't you have a book or something that has activities for times like this?"

"Um, well, I did, but Pinkie accidentally set it on fire when we went on that camping trip last month." Rainbow Dash chuckled a little; she had not actually been there, but Twilight had apparently had a meltdown that made the "Smartypants Incident" look like a foal's tantrum. Pinkie and Applejack had calmed her down, but the two earth ponies had swore never to go camping with Twilight again.

"Aw, come on Twilight, it wasn't that bad," Pinkie Pie said, popping out from behind Twilight's telescope. "I only burned it a little, and now it's got that old-timey look to it." Twilight wanted to answer, but a flash of light across the sky distracted her.

"Look, it's starting!" Rainbow Dash looked back up as hundreds of small lights flashed through the sky. She had seen meteor showers dozens of times throughout her life, but she never got bored of them. If anypony had asked, she could just say "They're cool" and be done with it, but her admiration for meteors and comets went a little deeper. When she was younger, she would imagine herself up there, racing through the sky with the meteors for everypony in Equestria to see. She showed off all the time nowadays, but meteors were still something special to her, something that spoke of childhood innocence and a sense of wonder she tried not to let slip away.

Still, she was not the pony to get philosophical; she left that job to Twilight, or possibly Rarity. She was just here to enjoy the show.

"So, Twi," Rainbow Dash said. "What's it like looking at one of those meteors through your telescope?"

"Amazing." Twilight said, still focused on her observation. "With the right calibrations I can see the entire structural makeup of the meteors; all the pockets, the irregularities, everything. They're kind of like snowflakes, in a way."

"I was never good at working with snow, or snowflakes for that matter." Twilight chuckled a little "What's so funny about that?"

"I-I don't really know." Twilight said, stifling her chuckling as best she could. "It's just... snowflakes."

"Hey, it takes a lot of work to make a good snowflake! I'd like to see you try it sometime."

"Believe me, she has." Twilight's dragon assistant Spike said. Twilight shot Spike a glare before looking back at Rainbow Dash.

"Sorry, Rainbow. It's just that I'd expected you to try to be a perfectionist at everything weather related, but snow kind of seems like a mundane thing to be bad at."

"I never said I was bad at it, just that I wasn't good at it."

"Isn't that kind of the same thing?"

"You would think that Twilight." Rainbow Dash watched more meteors streak across the sky. "So, what do you do with all that egghead stuff?"

"I store it, in case anypony ever needs any information on meteors."

"Or in case you get bored?"

"Yes, in case I get-" Twilight's mouth flapped a little before she returned to her stargazing. Rainbow Dash chuckled a little before standing up, stretching out her wings as she did so.

"I think I'm going to head home."

"Why? Don't you want to stay out here longer?"

"Any other night I would, but we've got a big storm coming in later this week and last time I screwed up the lightning because I didn't get enough sleep."

"You, the pony who takes three naps a day, didn't get enough sleep?"

"Yeah, I didn't. Besides, don't we all have that Pony Pet Play Date thing down at the park tomorrow?"

"Oh, that's right... wait, you didn't get enough sleep for that?"

"Sometimes, and I forgot to feed Tank before I came over here; he gets kind of grouchy when he doesn't eat... at least I think he does. Kind of hard to tell when he doesn't move all that fast most of the time."

"Maybe you should ask Fluttershy about it."

"I tried, but she talks about animals the same way you talk about egghead stuff."

"Oh. Well, see you tomorrow Rainbow." Rainbow Dash nodded and started to take flight before an orange hoof stomped on her tail.

"Hold on Rainbow." Applejack said, removing her hoof from Rainbow Dash's tail. "Don't forget ya promised me you'd help with harvestin' some apples before that big storm y'all are plannin' blows in."

"Yeah yeah, I remember that. What, do you think I'd actually let you down on something like that?"

"Last time ya came to help, ya just found a tree and took a nap while me'n Big Mac had to do all the work."

"Okay, there was that one time, but I promise I won't ditch you guys like last time." Applejack looked at Rainbow Dash for a few seconds before releasing the Pegasus.

"All right, but I'm holdin' ya to that promise." Rainbow Dash made a mock salute with her right hoof and took off, quickly speeding away from the hill. Her house was not very far away, but she decided to slow down and enjoy the night a little longer. A cool breeze came in from the south, blowing through her mane and cooling her down a bit. She spun lazily in the air for a bit before reaching her house, a two story cloud home complete with rainbow fountain, veranda and massive columns. She spun in the air one more time before landing outside her door.

"Hey Tank, I'm home." she called as she walked into her house. Tank was waiting for her in the main hallway, the tortoise's little flight harness giving him away in the darkness. Rainbow Dash walked over to Tank and kneeled to be at eye level with him. "Do anything cool while I was gone?" This received only a slow blink from the reptile.

"Well, next time I'll take you with me. I think you'd like to see the meteors." Tank made some sort of croaking sound while Rainbow Dash made her way into the kitchen. It was nothing much, just a stove that only worked when she did not need it and a fridge that was too small. Rainbow Dash opened the fridge and pulled out a package of glossy leaves, something that Fluttershy had said was good food for tortoises. Rainbow Dash selected several of the larger leaves and set them before Tank, who began to methodically chew on them while Rainbow Dash made her way to her room.

Still have to finish that last Daring Do book I got from Twilight; she seemed kind of anxious to get it ba-

Her train of thought was interrupted when she entered her room. Sitting on her bed was a rock, about the size of one of her longer feathers. Rainbow Dash frowned; Tank was always bringing back rocks whenever they went down to the ground, and this could have been the latest addition to his collection. She did not mind most of the time, but when he left them around for her to find it started to get annoying.

"Tank, did you leave one of your rocks on my bed?" she asked. Tank slowly shook his head no and returned to eating his food. Curious, Rainbow slowly walked over to her bed, her eyes fixed on the rock.

Okay, mysterious rock shows up in my room and it's not Tank's... How am I supposed to deal with this? She leaned over and looked closer at the rock. It was a greenish color, and it seemed to glow a little when she got close. She frowned again and tried to think if she had ever seen a rock like this before.

"Maybe it's a meteor..." she mumbled. It was not an uncommon phenomenon; ponies would find little meteors all over the place, and most just put them up on shelves or gave them to eggheads or museum. Some kept them around, showed them off to friends, sometimes even made them into things. Rainbow perked up at this.

My own meteor. Even Twilight doesn't have a meteor. Maybe Rarity could fit it into some kind of necklace or something so it would be easier to show ponies. It would say something like "Coolest Pony Ever" and then everyone would say "Hey, Rainbow Dash is cool, but now she's got a meteor and is even cooler!"... Yeah, I'd like that. Rainbow Dash smiled and scooped the rock off her bed, looking around for a place to keep her prize somewhere until tomorrow.

"I still have that leftovers box from the last time we ate out. That should do." With the rock wedged between her forelimbs, she began to fly towards her kitchen, thoughts of owning a meteor permeating her mind.

However, she did not notice that the rock had started to glow when she picked it up. At first it was only the glow, but slowly, ever so slowly, things began to happen to her.

She stopped flying for a moment. Rainbow Dash had started to feel a bit drowsy, her wings feeling like they were made of lead. She tried to shake it off, but the feeling got stronger and she dropped out of the air, the rock bouncing off to one side of the hallway. A wave of nausea overcame her, and she had trouble focusing on the area around her.

"Wh... Wh-What's happening to me?" The nausea reached its peak, and Rainbow Dash vomited , the combination of stomach acid and half-digested food splattering across the floor. She tried to get back to her room, but vomited again before tripping over her hooves, collapsing into a heap on the floor. Violent spasms shook her body, twisting the Pegasus into unnatural shapes.

"T-Tank!" Rainbow Dash called, hoping her tortoise would respond "I-I need you t-to go get... help..." Then another spasm hit, casting Rainbow Dash into darkness.