"Hey Twilight?"

"Hmm?" the purple unicorn mare hummed while turning away from her stargazer. Her hooves however, continued to adjust the delicate dials upon it's tripod.

"I know you already it explained it, but..." he said before biting into a piece of rock candy. His eyes were glue to the night sky above. "What makes this meteor shower different?"

"Well..." Twilight began while taking a glance through the eyepiece, making sure that the telescope was properly adjusted. Personally, she had no objections to explaining the rare phenomenon. "It's not a scheduled sort of occurance. You remember what I told you about their moon cycles and comets?"

"Yeah, but..." Spike glanced over to the purple unicorn. "But aren't meteor showers supposed to be random? I mean, all those rocks burn up."

"You're correct Spike," Twilight replied with a smile while her eyes looked up at the nioght sky as well. "However, with the right calculations, we can find exactly when a meteor shower might happen. To answer your question, this shower is different mostly because I wasn't looking for it. I have yet to fail at detecting any outer atmosphere anomalies."

"That means... what exactly?" the dragon stood next to the mare with a puzzled expression.

"It means that this shower appeared out of nowhere," Twilight said with a hint of excitement. "There's room for error, but after a thorough look through my notes, I'm absolutely positive that it appeared just inside the moon's orbit."

"Huh..." Spike grunted. "If something like this has never happened, do think it could be... aliens?!"

"Spike..." Twilight sighed. "While I know that there hasn't been sufficient evidence supporting nor opposing the existence of extra-terrestrial life, and that there is a chance of this being them, I'm certain that they're not the aliens in those sci-fi graphic novels you've been reading so much."

With that said, Twilight looked down at her number one assistant with a reassuring look. He was still looking a bit apprehensive, but that quickly changed as a flash of light appeared out of the corner of her ye. Twilight looked over and quickly matched her assisstants own awe.

What appeared was a stream of light streaming from the sky. It arced downward over the horizon and seemingly disappeared. Not three seconds later did another stream of light soared overhead. It matched the first, but was colored a soft pinkish color. Twilight noticed that this one seemed to land directly over by Fluttershy's cottage. She couldn't exactly wonder more about it before the night sky was filed with dozens of streaming lights. Each had an individual color, and it's own individual direction. They seemed to be going everywhere!

"Whoa..." Spike drawled in awe. "This... this is amazing!"

Twilight did not hear her assistant. Her well trained eyes were looking at every small detail from the tails the rocks left behind to their exact trajectory. It was only when she was shoved by Spike that she was forced out of her train of thought.

"Spike! What the hay?!" Twilight exclaimed, looking at her assistant with a glare. In response, Spike pointed to a portion of the grass. A piece of debris, no bigger than any normal rock, lay in the center of a ring of scorched grass. The chunk itself was glowing a bright purple. The two stared in wonder and amazement.

Spike stepped towards the small thing, and reached out to pick it up. As soon as his claw touched it, he pulled away with a yelp. "It's too hot, even for me!"

"Of ... of course it is Spike," Twilight said after a shake of her head. "It just fell through several atmospheres."

"Still though, aren't dragon scales able to withstand at least a thousand degrees of heat, or something?" Spike asked while rubbing his slightly seared claw. Meanwhile, the space rock cooled visibly losing it's bright coloration.

"Some dragons, yes," Twilight said as she delicately reached out with her magic to pick the rock up. "Some don't, and some even don't have scales at all."

The unicorn brought the rock up to her, or she tried to. The rock seemed to fall out of her magical grasp halfway through. This caused Twilight's attention to focus on the object. Twilight felt something when the rock fell... It wasn't like someone pinching her skin or getting under skin. This feeling was her magic being drained away in a mere instant.

"What's up, Twi?" Spike asked worriedly. Twilight didn't respond at first because of her deep thought processes ticking away.

"Spike," she finally began with a curious tone. "Try picking it up now... it should be cool enough..."

The drake looked at the unicorn with a dubious expression before going to pick the rock up. "Okay... but... what happened there?"

"I'm not sure Spike, but..." Twilight said while staring at the rock. "I know that I'm going to busy for a few days... I'm gong to need you to carry it back to the library for me."

"Sure," the drake said looking at the rock. He knew Twilight well enough to know that she was going to experiment with it for a few days. He looked up and around at the sky. "Looks like it's over..."

"Yep," Twilight said while packing up her stuff. "Looks like it." With that, the two began to clean up their spot on the hill.

"Test number 42," Twilight spoke aloud as she began to fine tune some scientific instruments. Upon a lab table, a quill scribbled independently as the violet unicorn spoke. "Subject of experimentation: unusual space debris, has shown time and time again an unusual affinity for magic. Not just unicorn magic, but magic in general."

The unicorn approached where the rock lay. Currently, it rested in a petri dish with a wire leading back to some sort of analyzer where a needle ticked back and forth, making what scribbles on it.

"The proper preparations have been made. I am going to record all possible data as I, Twilight Sparkle, will allow my magic to be absorbed partially," she said as she took up a small stance. With a small breath to calm herself, she shot a concentrated magical beam at the rock. After a few moments, Twilight began to feel a bit winded. "As...as expected, the subject is absorbing magic as fast as I... I can... agh!"

The rock began to glow a purplish hue as Twilight continued. As the experiment continued, Twilight began to feel herself being pushed to her absolute limits. Feeling that this was far enough for today, Twilight thought it best to stop.

Except she couldn't.

"S-subject is absorbing magic at an alarming rate and, I... I cannot stop the experiment!" Twilight exclaimed. "I-if my friends find this, I want you all to know-"

A bright flash erupted from the rock as a sort of feedback causing the mare to be flung back against the wall. The light lasted for a few moments before dying out. When Twilight came to her senses, what she saw shocked and amazed her. After a few moments, she bolted up the stairs from her basement shouting, "Spike!!!!"

Author's Notes:

Preview of the next chapter... Also counts as a spoiler... Open this link in a new tab. Do not look at what pops up. Just listen.