The Master Mind

By Platinum Shift

Chapter 1

Stars are beautiful things, they twinkle way above the ponies' heads, seeming to be impossible to reach. Twilight was outside on her balcony, observing the radiant night sky above. She sometimes went to her notebook, where she scribbled down her observations of the night. Twilight was an enthusiast when it came to astronomy, but it didn't hurt if she kept an eye out for anything special to report to the full time astronomers.

The night sky was in it's usual form, being radiant but dark at the same time. Twilight looked eagerly through her telescope, hoping to find something odd to report; it had been a while since she did. Sadly, nothing anomalous shown itself. Twilight growled to herself in anger.

"Why isn't anything showing, is this all that there is in the night sky?" Twilight asked herself. "There's the stars, the moon, the unusually bright meteor, the...wait, what?"

Twilight saw a bright shooting star, not racing across the night sky, but instead getting brighter every second. Suddenly a low pitch rumble could be heard across the town. The meteor glided across the town in clear view and hit the edge of the Everfree forest, causing a loud boom. Dust and dirt ejected itself towards the sky, but settled quickly.

"Just a relief that it hit the far edge of the forest," Twilight said, wiping some sweat off with her hoof. She suddenly saw ponies waking up. She packed up her telescope and quickly recorded the impact on her notebook and headed out towards the site. No way is anypony getting their hooves on that.

The forest was deep, dark and most of all, scary. The trees arched over the ground, causing near pitch blackness in the night. However this didn't stop Twilight getting her hooves on a rock from the stars themselves. She trotted towards trees that were singed by the heat from the meteor.

She found herself at the impact site, to her surprise she found a much larger rock than she had expected. The meteor was approximately eight feet in diameter and 10 feet long. The rock was mainly composed of a shiny metal and glowed with a purple aura. Could this be the discovery of a new material?

Twilight reluctantly walked up to the edge of the crater and attempted to get a closer look without being in the crater itself, who knows what the unknown material could do to ponies. She couldn't see anything, she had to inspect it further. Twilight breathed in heavily and muttered to herself,

"Well, only one way to find out".

She walked closer to the metallic rock, almost tripping on the small shrapnel the meteor expelled. The meteor seemed to hum quietly in sync with the pulsing purple aura. Twilight cast a levitation spell on the meteor, trying to extract it from its crater. However the purple aura followed across a path to Twilights horn, which then caused Twilight unbearable pain. When she stopped casting, the pain ceased.

"What the buck?" Twilight asked in panic, putting her head close to the purple aura. She attempted to touch it but the meteor seemed to have a electric charge as Twilight suddenly felt a shock. Rubbing her hoof, she was determined to get this back to her house.

"Celestia save me, I've turned into Rarity with Tom!" Twilight shouted to herself, putting a hoof to her head. She finally admitted defeat and went back home.

The Next Day

Twilight woke up, and did her daily routine. She couldn't stop thinking about that meteor,

"I wonder if anypony managed to go it from its crater?" She asked herself. She was met by Rainbow Dash who flew up to her.

"Hey Twi! Woah, loving the new horn. How'd you get it done?" Rainbow complimented, pointing at her horn. It hadn't occurred to Twilight that she should look in a mirror.

"What? What's wrong with it?" Twilight asked with concern, she looked into a shop window and screamed. The entire town looked at her while she panicked. Rainbow then managed to snap her out of it.

"Don't worry, It looks awesome!" Rainbow reassured.

Twilight's horn had turned from it's usual lavender to a metallic, grey colour. Twilight tried to cast a spell but it was futile as the horn was unresponsive. She then remembered the meteor had touched her horn with that aura, and then she ran to her library. She looked around for the Cures and Curses book, luckily Spike woke up due to Twilight's frantic search and handed her the book. She searched around but found nothing, no curse told about a horn turning into metal.

Suddenly, Spike belched out a gout of flame, revealing a scroll from the princess.

Dear Twilight Sparkle

I request your presence alone at Canterlot Castle I require your knowledge in magic. Please bring any book relating to Celestial Bodies. Thank you and please hurry

Princess Celestia.

Twilight grabbed all of then necessary books and flew to Canterlot Castle, even though the Princess would be slightly alarmed by her horn, she couldn't turn down her summons. She flew over the impact site and found that the meteor had gone.

"Looks like somepony was lucky," Twilight sighed, looking at the empty crater.

She landed in Canterlot Castle, next to 2 guards who were about to fall asleep on duty. They stood to attention so fast that one of the guard's helmet fell askew. They bowed.

"Princess Twilight, Princess Celestia requests your presence at the Throne room," One guard said.

"Thank you sirs," Twilight replied, walking off.

The throne was surrounded by scholars of all kind; Astronomers, Biologists and Chemists all debated. When Twilight entered the room, the room dropped to a dead silence. They stood there. Silent. Staring. Celestia, as predicted, was slightly alarmed but then broke the silence.

"Ah, Twilight. I thank you for coming," Celestia calmly said, but still looking at her horn in concern.

"It was no problem, so why did you call me here?" Twilight asked with concern, looking at the other scientists.

"A meteor passed through Equestria at 12:34 in the morning, several parts of the meteor broke up and has impacted throughout all of Equestria," Princess Celestia explained, pointing to several pictures of different parts of the meteor in separate places.

"Ah, that," Twilight muttered.

"We believe that the meteor contains some sort of magical countermeasure, which is why you are here Princess," A scientist said.

"Twilight, may I ask what happened to your horn?" Celestia asked with concern, walking up closer to her and observing her horn.

"I tried to lift one of the meteors with a levitation spell, however the meteorite must of put some sort of curse on me which rendered my horn useless," Twilight explained, touching the metallic surface of her horn.

Suddenly Twilight collapsed on the ground and her head began throbbing, like a migraine had suddenly assaulted her brain. She began hearing mutters of voices in her head but they were distorted. Only a few words were understood from the distortion. Prison. Freedom. Help.

Twilight regained her senses and stood up slowly, she looked around and everypony was staring at her. The pain had subsided like nothing had happened. She touched her horn and it had restored to her former lavender, bone like form. She looked on the floor and trod in a metallic powder. The metal was just a coating, not a curse.

"OK, this is more than just an meteorite storm," Twilight panted, breathing heavily.

"Get a metallurgist to study that powder!" A scientist ordered 2 of his subordinates, they quickly ran out of the giant door.

"Twilight, what happened? Why did you faint?" Celestia asked with a large amount of concern and urgency in her voice, she wrapped her wing around Twilight to comfort her.

"I...I don't know, all I heard was 3 words; Prison, Freedom and Help," Twilight stuttered, still in slight shock. "Princess, I feel different".

"In what way?"

"I feel like I know a new spell, I'm not sure what it does though". "I feel that it is linked with the asteroid I touched, it was in the Everfree forest".

"I know that one, It caused a lot of trouble when we tried to extract it. It even went as far as causing a electrical surge amongst my subjects," Celestia said.

"If I could cast this spell on it, we could finally see what it contains!" Twilight shouted with glee, learning new things always made her happy.

"I trust you completely Twilight, so I will let you do this," Celestia said, "but please be careful and tell me everything that happens".

The Everfree meteorite was locked in the lower levels of the castle, next to the other pieces. Twilight walked up to the Everfree meteorite, which was the only one glowing with the purple aura. Twilight began casting the spell, the meteorite suddenly began to shake. As the spell began to charge up, it shook more vigorously. She then fired a large beam at the meteorite, the purple aura grew and filled the room. Suddenly the aura dispersed and nothing had happened, the meteorite was still intact. Twilight sighed.

"Well this has been a waste of time". Twilight walked out of the basement and locked it. Suddenly the meteorite began to pulse purple a lot brighter.

1 Week Later

Twilight woke up, got ready and then began her work at the library. The day was slow and quiet. And boring. Twilight closed the library and headed out into the town to visit her friends. Cruising through the day, nothing seemed that exciting. The day seemed lazy and calm.

Twilight gave up on the meteorite business as it was just a lost cause to find anything. Although she asked herself one question repeatedly,

"Why in the world of Equestria do I know that useless spell?"

She tried to cast the spell on other things but nothing happened. It just created a fancy beam. So why did she know it? Twilight was deep in thought before she was interrupted by Spike.

"Twilight you have to come quick, something has just flew into the town!" Spike panted, trying to catch his breath. She got up off her seat and ran as quickly as she could to the town square.

There it was again, the Everfree meteorite. Pulsing with it's purple aura.

"What the hay?" Twilight asked herself, looking at the meteorite. She noticed that it's glow had intensified but no other changes were seen. She touched the meteorite hesitantly and suddenly saw something. Several pictures had flashed into her head of unknown context. She could only make a few of them out. Flashes of battle, destruction and death came up. She was then met by a strange scream.

"FREE ME!"

She flew back and then regained her senses once more. She quickly cast the useless spell on the meteorite, but retrained that beam on it. The metal began to split in response, releasing a large amount of steam as a result. Twilight stopped casting the spell and observed the contents. A smaller pod containing a large amount of opaque liquid. Twilight studied it further. It was made of metal plates containing some markings on it. Presumed to be the serial number of the container. Twilight heard the voice talk to her again.

"Good," it spoke, its voice was soft and calm, "now there should be a keypad, press 2445 on the pad in order". Twilight responded by pressing the numbers with her horn. Suddenly 4 pipes appeared out of the floor. Twilight ran back out of the meteorite.

Several pipes plugged into the mysterious canister. The liquid began to drain out of the pod, revealing what was inside of it. Everypony gasped of the contents, for it was a living being.

It had a short brown mane on top of what appeared to be its head, a tiny nose and a small muzzle. Its body was large and wide, resulting in a predicted size of what Princess Celestia has. Its legs were extremely long, connecting to the torso of the body and had very tiny fur on its body. It was a bipedal creature and by looking at the rest of the body, it was obvious that it was male.

The tank stopped draining and the canister opened, releasing a small hissing sound. The wind blew at the creature, making his mane flow with it. He took in a deep breath and walked forwards. He opened his eyes and instantly had a look for shock upon his face. He laughed loudly and fainted.