"Valorious morning, Celie!" Princess Luna happily greeted Celestia when the day-time ruler stepped out on the platform in preparation for their daily ritual of lowering the moon and raising the sun.

"Good morning, Luna," Princess Celestia responded in kind. "How was your watch?"

"Quiet and uneventful," Luna replied, but her tone carried her unease.

"Is something the matter?" Celestia asked, picking up on her sister's concern.

"That—storm—that we has't noted o'er the Everfree forest these past few days," Luna began. "It disturbs Us."

"Has it encroached any further into our territory through the night?" Celestia inquired. "The pegasi said they were having trouble keeping it at bay from the border with Ponyville yesterday evening."

"We has't been watching their efforts," Luna said. "The storm has't crossed our boundaries to fully hitteth Ponyville within the last couple hours, but it apparently hath begun to weaken and is doing so fast. What concerns Us is the reports from the pegasi about the nature of yonder beast."

"Ah, yes," Celestia said nodding. "How it doesn't seem to be a normal storm at all. It is disturbing, indeed. How are the pegasi holding up? Have there been any injuries?"

"None, although, We has't hath taken a report that the Element of Loyalty hath been absent her duties in the emergency. In fact, she hath not been seen for these past four days."

"Rea—?" Celestia began to react, but was interrupted by the concussive sound of a rainbow boom. They both turned to look and saw the prismatic shockwave rapidly approaching and a second concussive blast was heard as the wave passed by. They saw the streaking rainbow contrail rising straight up from deep within the Everfree, about the location of their old castle. That could only mean that Rainbow Dash had been involved with fighting it, despite the reports from the weather patrol. The double shockwave apparently had damaged the cohesiveness of the storm, and the two princesses could see the clouds were already breaking up in the center of the cloud mass.

"Well, it would appear that perhaps Twilight Sparkle and the others had been working to put an end to the bad weather, after all," Celestia sighed with relief. "I look forward to reading their report."

"As doth We, sister," Luna added. "We doth not like the feeling We has't at which hour viewing that phenomena. But alloweth us perform our office this morning, so that We may retire."

Celestia and Luna focused their power through their horns and reached out with their magic to their respective orbs. But as they reached out, they each felt something odd.

Luna sensed the presence of something beyond the atmosphere just off of the edge of her beam she sent to the moon. As it was not directly in her path, she did not falter in performing her task. If it was still there when she was finished, then she would look deeper into the matter.

Just then, there was another concussive sound again coming from the south.

"What could that has't been?" Luna wondered. She was already looking in that general direction and there had not been the usual prismatic shockwave approaching, nor could she see Rainbow Dash's colorful contrail.

On the other hoof, Celestia detected an object when she reached out with her magic to grab the sun to start the day. It was so small, it almost escaped her notice, but she did realize there was something there only at the last moment. When she looked closer, she saw it was metallic, definitely artificial, and was traveling so fast, she had little time to react other than to know it was heading straight for the sun's surface!

It was moving so fast, she didn't know if she could pull it back in time. Still, she quickly shifted her beam to try and grab the object, but the moment she did so, it exploded!

"No!" Celestia gasped in shock. There had been no time to see if there were beings on the object. She couldn't even be sure just how big it was, but it could easily had been a starship of some sort.

She dropped her magical charge in her horn and shed a tear for whatever creatures that may have lost their lives due to her being too slow to react. But who could've anticipated seeing a spacecraft deliberately plunge into their star?

"Celie?" Luna inquired, hearing her sister cry out. "Is anything the matter?" Luna asked with concern, now seeing the tears streaming down Celestia's cheek.

"I hope not," Celestia replied. "I just saw an object flying straight for the sun. It exploded before I could catch it. I don't know if any creature was on board it. It all happened too fast for me to react."

"A spacecraft?" Luna exclaimed astonished.

"I'm not certain. It may have only been a probe or it may have been the main ship," Celestia said. "As I said, it happened too quickly to get any details about it. It was still about a million and a half furlongs from the sun, but it was going so fast, it only had fourteen seconds before it would hit. I tried to make a grab for it, but it exploded just as I did. We should scan the sky for signs of anything out there! If it was a probe, there must be a mother ship that sent it. But if it was the main craft that fell into the sun, hopefully there are survivors in an escape pod of some kind."

"We didst sense an odd strangeness in the heavens when We hath reached out to set the moon, as though my magic nearly brushed against something," Luna said, considering where to start searching. "High above us but toward the south."

They sent out their magic to search and were rewarded with not just one object, but three! One was still outside the atmosphere but coming down fast, while another was accelerating up into the sky as though it had come from their old castle. The two objects did not seem to be alive, so far as their magic could detect. However, to their surprise, the third object they felt that was between the other two to which they were apparently converging was alive and none other than a well-known pegasus pony! And the life force within her was rapidly fading!

"Rainbow Dash!" Celestia cried out.

"Apace, Celie! We shalt has't needeth of the sun to aid in our search!" Luna yelled as she launched into the air.

Immediately, Celestia used her magic to raise the sun. It was a sloppy job, but it would suffice for now. The refinement to the sun's positioning could be done later, after Rainbow Dash was rescued. Their scans had detected her in free fall and way, way too high for any pegasus to have safely reached there to start with.

Celestia then teleported into the sky to join her sister Luna in flying toward their old home. Then together, they teleported the rest of the way, hoping they would be in time.

Celestia and Luna both appeared above their old castle and sighted several of the Elements of Harmony walking out, accompanied by two humans!

"There's good news," the slightly bigger of the two creatures said as he turned to face Twilight Sparkle. "They've caught your friend. She suffered some injury but she seems to be doing well for the moment. I suggest you have whatever physicians you have check her over."

"Oh! That's great news!" Twilight exclaimed. "Can you tell us what happed to her?"

"The cold and the thin air had gotten to her," the male, resuming his walk to leave the ruins. "She wasn't breathing when they got to her, but she immediately woke up with CPR and they say she doesn't seem to have taken any noticeable brain damage from it. I know it sounds serious, and it should be treated as such. Panthera said your pegasus friend was flying erratically just before they reached her, so she must've still been breathing up until she started to free fall."

"Sister! Didst thou hear?" Luna excitedly whispered.

"Indeed!" Celestia responded with all her hope. She focused on the sky above them and sent out her magic. The three figures were indeed traveling together at a fast but controlled descent. Furthermore, Rainbow Dash's life force was back to full strength! But it was so odd…the other two figures still seemed to have no life signatures whatsoever. She had never encountered anything like this—even Timberwolves had—something.

"Yes, it appears true!" Celestia said. Let us hover for a bit to learn more of what's going on."

"Sister—doth thou not receiveth the strangest feelings from the beings accompanying the Element of Loyalty?" Luna asked. "We canst not sense any life those folk!"

"Indeed! I'm sensing the same thing!" Celestia said.

"Let's join them, but keep our senses open on Rainbow Dash's progress," she added. "The human mentioned two individuals by name. They may be the figures currently with her. Curious that we can't detect their life force. Furthermore, I'm getting the oddest feeling about him, as well."

Twilight's heart only started beating again at the conclusion of the human's report.

"Oh my goodness!" Rarity exclaimed. "I hope she'll be alright!"

"The damned thing must be a regular Chuck Yeager," the male human said laughing. "She sure stretched The Envelope to the breaking point."

"Hey! Tha's no way to talk 'bout our friend!" Applejack shouted.

"No! That didn't sound at all very nice!" Rarity agreed.

"Actually, General Charles Yeager is a hero on our world," the apparent human mare spoke up. "He was the first man to break the sound barrier where we come from."

"Oh! A general?" Rarity squealed. "That does sound good!"

"Heh! Don' nopony say nuttin' to Rainbow 'bout being called a gen'ral!" Applejack muttered with a chuckle. "Her head's swelled 'nuff as is."

"Although, what the lieutenant said isn't entirely accurate," the male added. "Yeager is just the first human to break the sound barrier—and live! Others had broken the barrier before, but they all died when their planes broke up or they lost control and crashed."

"That horrible!" Twilight exclaimed in astonishment. "When did all that happen?"

"Let's see…Yeager broke the barrier in 1947, some ninety-one years ago," Trevar explained. "The very first time the barrier was broken is rumored to have been shortly before jets were created during a really bad war just a few years before but no one knows who or the exact date. However, all we do know that, if it was true, the poor bastards didn't live long. Of course, because everybody now had had jets, and once the war was finally over, the effort to break Mach 1 got serious. Of course, the records are more complete from there. There were lots of crashes until Yeager finally managed to bring it home.

"And the old buzzard's still around, as far as I know. He's currently supposed to be the oldest human still living. Never got a chance to meet him, but I'd love to have the opportunity. He's quite the character, from all accounts. Back home, they named bridges, roads, and airports after him. He once talked about how they normally name such things only after dead people and that he was worried that someone was trying to tell him something."

"Princess Celestia! Princess Luna!" Twilight Sparkle suddenly called out as the two circled about to land in front of the group.

"Twilight! How are you doing?" Celestia greeted. "I suspected that you would be here and managed to find some way of ending that storm! I look forward to your report."

"Oh-uhhh, we—uh—we didn't stop the storm," Twilight had to admit, not at all understanding how Celestia could think she had.

"Thee didst not?" Luna asked. "But we both witnessed the Element of Loyalty smashing through the heart of the monster just moments ago! If't be true 'twas not for the purpose of dispatching these clouds, then pray telleth what wast it for? And wherefore wast Loyalty's life in distress by being too high for any pegasus to fly?"

"It's—a little complicated," Twilight responded, not really understanding all that transpired.

"These two humans came through a portal within the castle," she said. "They met a couple of shadowcats, and one of the creatures suddenly took off with a bomb the humans had brought with them. Rainbow Dash set off in pursuit, but it seems the shadowcat was trying to save everypony. We then heard that Rainbow Dash was in trouble and now we just got word that the shadowcats are about to bring her back safe and sound."

"Hello," the human male stepped forward. "My name's Allec Trevar. This is Lieutenant Melisa Scott. She's a member of one of my world's defense organizations. We seemed to have gotten ourselves stranded on the wrong side of a warp tunnel that had momentarily linked our worlds."

Luna gasped at hearing his name.

Celestia blinked in surprise. She had had an odd feeling about him as they had clandestinely watched from above and behind them. But now facing him, she finally understood what it was that made her uneasy. She could always tell when somepony or some being was lying to her, but she was stunned to be getting absolutely no reading from him, either for the truth or for a lie!

"What is this I hear about a bomb?" she angrily demanded.

"That wasn't my doing," Trevar said, momentarily glaring at the lieutenant. "I'm not really sure if was hers, either. She was, after all, only acting on orders from her superiors.

"The bomb was supposed to explode and shut down the warp coils that were maintaining the portal," Trevar explained. "Except that would have been a huge mistake. Fortunately, the tunnel apparently closed down on its own and I was able to disarm the weapon. We were about to dispose of it when Number Seven here reactivated it!" Trevar finished, glaring at Twilight Sparkle.

"'Number Seven?'" Twilight demanded, not certain if she was being insulted in some fashion. Given the human's evident anger at her, she was, but she couldn't figure out the reference in order to take offense.

"Is this true, Twilight?" Celestia asked, astonished.

"Uh—I'm afraid it's at least partially true," Twilight admitted with a nervous gulp. "There was a device that we saw Allec working on. I had performed a magical scan on it to try to figure out its purpose, but it seemed that Allec hadn't fixed it properly, and I thought I could understand it better by fixing it. It—wasn't until after one of the shadowcats took off with it that Allec explained what the device was and that he had intentionally broken it."

"What art these—'shadowcats'—thou speaketh of?" Luna demanded.

"They are a pair of—well—big—winged panthers!" Twilight explained. "I've never seen their like before, but apparently, they can camouflage themselves. Moreover, they seem to be made completely out of equustite. One of them saved us from some Timberwolves before going down the passageway to where the portal had been. The other was there with the humans when we arrived. And not long after we got there, it turned out the female shadowcat had slipped behind us somehow and was stalking us the whole time!

"Well, when I fixed the device," Twilight continued, "the male shadowcat yanked it out of my grip and took off with it. That's when Rainbow Dash gave chase, and then the female took off when Allec told us that Rainbow was in trouble."

"Are these shadowcats friends of yours?" Celestia asked Trevar.

"They seemed friendly enough while they were here," Trevar said with a shrug after taking a moment to think about it. "And the male didn't take offense when the lieutenant here tried to shoot him. I know that I'd be more than a bit upset if something like that happened to me. Also, they did seem to understand about what the nuke was, so when Number Seven here reactivated it, Pardus hauled ass to get it the fuck out of here! There was only eighteen seconds left on the timer when I had shut it down the first time."

"Is this true?" Celestia angrily demanded of the other human.

"Uh—yes, ma'am," Lieutenant Scott replied, startled at being addressed so. "So far as I know, yes. Although, I do find it strange that Mr. Trevar seems to have quite a bit in common with those creatures. They all three seem to have strong telekinetic ability and they all claim to be telepaths, as well. Plus, he seemed genuinely concerned with the wellbeing of the one that took off with the weapon."

Celestia blinked again, surprised. She had almost expected the other creature to also be able to hide its honesty. Quite the opposite, in fact. The creature obviously didn't believe her own account, despite her spell indicating she was actually telling the truth!

"As well as anyone should be!" Trevar testily responded. "He needlessly risked his life to save everyone here! And as for myself, I do tend to make some of the oddest friends pretty quickly. The cats obviously didn't come through the warp tunnel with us, since it shut down the moment we stepped through, so they had to have already been here. Then the doorway shut down and Pardus didn't show himself until after I had stopped the countdown on your weapon. But then, Panthera didn't appear until all these mini-horses bolted out of the corridor."

"PONIES!" Twilight and the others all instantly corrected him, to the amusement of the other two princesses.

"Well, yeah, that's all true," Scott sheepishly admitted when she regained her composure after the outburst.

However, Celestia was flabbergasted. Again, she could tell the human mare was telling the truth as the creature understood the situation, but she could get no reading, lie or truth, from her stallion. From the viewpoint of the spell, it was as if he didn't even exit!

"Pardon me for asking," Trevar spoke up, "but do you know there's a portion of a large warp drive down there? It's a series of thirty-two circular rings all standing up on edge, each ring is about—yea-wide," he held his hands apart about thirty-some inches apart, "their walls are so thick," again gesturing with his hands the distance, "and they are several times our height in diameter."

"Yes, I am aware of what you've described, and what it's capable of," Celestia replied after carefully considering the risk of acknowledging the system. Obviously, the creatures were aware of its nature, so she decided to do so.

"Art thou saying the portal through which thee traveled involved them?" Luna inquired with alarm.

"I'm afraid so," the creature replied. "As I explained, the lieutenant's people had built a set of their own on our world and there was a malfunction that linked our planets together."

"'Twas a severe malfunction, forsooth!" Luna exclaimed. Celestia grimly nodded in agreement.

"Well, I wasn't involved with the construction," the male creature said, shrugging his shoulders. "If I was, I would certainly have made sure they never built it like that! But I did arrive just in time to help shut it down before it did too much damage to both our worlds."

"I see," Celestia neutrally replied, still irritated that she could not get any sort of reading from this human.

"So I have a question for you. I can assume that you're familiar with a high level of medical expertise?" the human inquired. "I ask, because one of your people was injured a short time ago, and I'm very much concerned for her wellbeing. She's a pegasus that the shadowcats are bringing down as we speak. She flew way too high and passed out. When the shadowcats were able to catch her, she wasn't breathing. However, they don't think she suffered too much time without oxygen as the pegasus was still consciously flying, if a bit erratic, shortly before they rescued her."

"I see," Celestia sighed, with both relief and concern.

"I advise you to ground her from flying until she's properly examined and determined to not have been—well, it's difficult to express it without sounding callus or morbid, but—determined she wasn't permanently affected by the experience."

"I understand your concern," Celestia finally responded. "Thank you for your consideration. I will take your advice seriously."

"Sister!" Luna cried out, getting Celestia's attention. The white alicorn looked up to see three figures descending. Two large, black winged leonine creatures had the nervous azure pegasus held tightly in their grasp.

"And here she is, back safe and somewhat sound," one of the creatures announced. Only once they all three were on the ground, did the winged panthers release Rainbow Dash from their grasp.

"Rainbow Dash! Are you okay?" Twilight cried.

Once she was released, Rainbow Dash tried to lift off, but suddenly found her hooves forcefully slamming back to the earth.

"NO!" the human male yelled at her, marching right up to the blue pegasus. "Until she says so, you're grounded! That means NO FLYING!" he said, indicating Celestia.

How did he—? Celestia wondered.

"Er—okay?" Rainbow uncertainly responded. Then, when Twilight rushed up, Rainbow regained her normal enthusiasm.

"Hey! Twilight!" the pegasus excitedly began, "As they were bringing me down, they told me that they saw I had managed to get to fifteen times the speed of sound! A new record! HOW AWESOME IS TH—? HEY!!" she was saying flapping her wings, but was interrupted by suddenly being forced back to the ground again as well as the human using his hand to swat her on the back of the head. Instantly, all the ponies tensed, including the two rulers.

"I said, NO FLYING!" the human yelled at her, ignoring the audible gasps from everypony. "You've no right to be compared to Chuck Yeager, if you don't wake up RIGHT NOW! YOU ALMOST DIED UP THERE!"

"Okay! Okay!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, seeing that nopony was jumping in to intervene. His words evidently carried more authority to justify them not responding to his slapping her. Of course, it didn't hurt, but it was surprising and very insulting.

"Uh—who's Chuck Yeager?" Rainbow ventured to ask.

"In my world, he's the first human to successfully break the sound barrier some ninety-some odd years ago," the human male told her. "There's a difference between 'pushing the envelope' and 'breaking it'. But you just about shredded it! Yeager's still alive only because he didn't take foolish risks. You probably don't even remember reaching Mach fifteen, do you? Well, if you want it to mean something, don't ever pull a stunt like that again and get yourself killed!"

"Uh, okay," Rainbow Dash meekly replied.

"Now report to Number Nine, over there," the human said, pointing at Celestia. "She'll get you medically checked out, and when you're cleared, then you can fly again."

"'Number Nine'?!? 'Number Seven'?!?" Twilight angrily exclaimed before anypony could respond. "What are you talking about? That's Princess Celestia! And I'm not a Number! I am a pony! My name is Twilight Sparkle!"

"Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Gray, White, Gold, Silver, None!" the human suddenly rapidly recited. "Now, I have a riddle for you: what starts with two hundred thirty-four thousand, five hundred sixty-seven and ends with seven hundred sixty-five thousand, four hundred and thirty-two, but is only six in the middle, plus or minus nine thousand, two hundred and forty-six percent?"

The moment he finished, the two shadowcats burst out laughing so hard they were soon rolling on the ground. The ponies were shocked speechless.

"Th-th-that would make Celestia nine, plus or minus five percent!" one of the shadowcats said, trying to get control of its amusement.

"And that other one would be zero, plus or minus ten percent! Awesome!" the female spoke up, only for them both to resume their guffaws.

For his part, the human male remained quietly waiting for an answer, but the female human looked as confused as everypony else.

Celestia and Luna looked at each other in puzzlement.

"They dare callest Us a Zero?" Luna whispered, incensed.

"And me, Nine, plus or minus five per—?" Celestia whispered back, but then her mind clicked. "Wait! What did the human say at the beginning? That list of colors! It started with black! White was the tenth he mentioned, but if white is nine, then perhaps black is zero! And remember, he kept calling Twilight Seven, but violet was eighth in his list! Don't you see?" she whispered to Luna, nodding her head toward the human. Beside him, stood Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle.

"Loyalty!" Luna excitedly whispered. "Oh! How clever! And that extra bit about percents, it must refer to our cutie marks! Loyalty's is a white cloud with a red, yellow, and blue lightning bolt! But those other colors that gent mentioned: gold, silver, and none?"

"He called me Nine, plus or minus five percent, and you Zero, plus or minus ten," Celestia responded. "So it must be something special about those numbers to have additional colors. Gold refers to my cutie mark, and silver to yours."

"'Tis curious how those shadowcats wast able to analyze his riddle so apace," Luna muttered.

"Very," Celestia agreed. "But they did seem surprised by his puzzle to be laughing so."

Both of them began chuckling in earnest, getting the attention of the other ponies. The winged panthers by then had recovered from their own mirth and were patiently waiting.

"We have your answer," Celestia spoke up. "Zero, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Five, Ten, and we have no information for what is None. Rainbow Dash starts with red through violet in her mane and ends with violet through red in her tail, while she, being blue, is Six in the middle. The plus or minus nine thousand, two hundred and forty-six percent is her cutie mark!" The human was smiling, obviously pleased.

"Hey! I kinda like the sound of that!" Rainbow Dash chuckled.

"Wait, what?" Twilight Sparkle asked, perplexed.

"He called you Seven, Twilight, which is violet," Celestia explained. "Gray was not used, but it's position can only mean it is supposed to be Eight. Again, the last word you mentioned in your list was None, for which we have no information."

"None would be twenty percent," the human male replied smiling as he gave a little bow. "It's an old encoding that had various uses in my world, chief of which, saved space in situations where writing would be impractical."

"Quite clever," Luna praised.

"I'm glad I was able to entertain," the human male responded, bowing also to her.

Trevar, Luna thought, frowning. There was something she tried to recall…something from the past…something about this human stallion….she had heard of his name before…..but from where?