Energy rippled through the air. Everypony could feel it, a powerful change in the atmosphere. The crushing darkness that they had all felt over the past weeks seemed to lift, replaced by an electric sense of wellbeing. Even the sky reacted; the growing, darkening clouds shifting and rending, and rainbows crossing the land like none that any pony had ever seen before.

In Los Pegasus, the ponies cheered for reasons that they did not understand. Only later would they learn that six heroic mares hat finally defeated the centaur Tirac, banishing him to Tartarus and restoring the lost power to numerous drained, limp ponies that littered the streets of Canterlot and Ponyville, including all four of Equestria’s princesses.

Deep in the desert outside Los Pegasis sat a decrepit set of concrete buildings. Their stone faces had not been cared for in decades, and they were starting to crumble. The gardens of the campus had been unkempt and unwatered, and were now overgrown with dry, lifeless native plants that would have been ugly even if they had been properly alive. A nondescript sign outside the collapsing metal fence read “Winterstone Research Campus 6”, a paradoxical name for a long-shuttered scientific research center.

No pony had entered the dark hallways in decades, and the sun-baked, crumbling floor tiles were illuminated through dirty windows by the light of the moon.

In the darkness of the digy, abandoned laboratories, sat a closet of samples, untouched for years. The lables were torn and faded, and indicated a number of reagents for both chemical and alchemical preparations. After sitting for so long, many had begun to precipitate, or convert; some had long since lost their potency, and others condensed into far more volatile natures with no pony to tend for them.

As the Elements of Harmony ignited in the far distance, one particular jar in a rusted-shut closet sparked and jumped slightly. That particular jar had been placed high on a shelf, and was layered in dust far thicker than those around it. Even when the facility had been active, it had hardly been touched.

The solid substance in the jar shifted, becoming liquid, sensing that something was wrong. The substance slowly gained color, converting from pale aquamarine to deep blue. A pair of equilateral triangles condensed into its surface, and shifted around the jar, as if searching.

With a spark of blue light, the jar collapsed, having been cut into several perfect rings. Some dropped to the floor, shattering, but the remainders simply fell as the material inside oozed out, dropping down the shelf.

At first, the blue slime was limited in size, having spent a tremendous amount of time in jar that had probably previously housed apple jam. As it scraped past the dust and grime of the shelf, though, it left a trail of clean as it absorbed matter.

It collapsed onto the floor, taking several vials of chemicals with it. They mixed, releasing vile and colorful smoke, but the material seemed not to care. It reached out and engulfed them, absorbing their matter. It began to spread, stretching outward, forming shapes of itself, and directing the pair of triangles to one side.

Then, shakily, it stood up. Standing was not easy, especially on a pair of narrow, skeletal legs. It developed something analogous to an arm and braced itself against the shelves. Though it had rapidly grown to the size of a small pony, it still barely had the mass of a rabbit.

It looked at the shelf it had been sitting upon, its triangles focusing on the label below the jar. It read “D27”, but the creature had no concept of what that meant.

The creature had no capacity for conscious thought, but realized that it could not navigate its current environment by instinct only. It focused its energy inward, and adapted to its environment by forming consciousness. Though it still did not understand the meaning of “D27”, it realized that it had been conscious at some time previous. The memories were jumbled and incomplete, and seemed to have been from a significant distance in the past, although how long ago was unclear.

It had developed enough mental capacity for a conscious plan, though, and after absorbing more chemicals to restore mass, it had gained enough strength to move forward under its own power, and disappeared into the night.

Amygdule Strata looked across the moonlit desert, and sniffed the air. He smiled, and his horn glowed an earthy tone as he set down his saddlebags.

“Here!” he said. “This is where we will start!”

“Why here?” said his assistant, as if materializing out of darkness, sounding as completely uninterested as ever but still causing Strata to jump.

He turned and looked down at the gray-coated, gray-purple-maned mare beside him. Even in the middle of a desert, she had still somehow managed to wear pocket-filled shorts and an equally pocket-filled vest, something that was marginally fashionable in a dreary, gray sort of way, but overtly functional.

Strata smiled nervously and brushed his hoof against his bushy beard. He dearly appreciated Maud Pie, and her odd non-enthusiasm for everything, but in many ways, she still gave him the willies.

“Can’t you smell it?” said Strata, trotting around the dusty earth with enough excitement for both of them. “Can’t you feel it? The slight depression in the land, the fact that we’re surrounded by peaks, the vague taste of salt in the air? This is a dry lakebed, Maud, but this spot. I can feel it.”

Maud smelled the air, but it was clear that she could not sense it clearly. That was, in part, because Strata’s special talent was one for geology, specifically in the subject of sedimentary formations and water-derived crystals- -hence his cutie mark, a slightly wavy, earth colored stone with a bright red crystal in the center. His magic was, partially, helping him.

Maud, as expressionless as ever, reached into her pocket and withdrew a well-worn piece of basalt. She put it to her ear, and Strata barely managed to suppress a sigh.

“Boulder says over there is better,” said Maude, pointing.

“Boulder is not the boss of me!” snapped Strata, losing his normal cool for a moment, in part because he knew that Maud’s prediction would turn out to be correct. “Boulder” was always right. Or Maud was; Strata was not sure. He was sure there was some psychological reason, but his special talent was for geology, not psychology- -though with Maud’s personality, the two were not exceedingly dissimilar.

“Well, that place is within the search-zone anyway. But it is too late at night now. Might miss something.” He really did hope, though, that the sun did rise the next day- -properly, this time, not like the odd wavy path it had taken several days earlier that he attributed to Celestia indulging too heavily in the local cider. “I will rope it off. You set up camp, and get some rest. Start a fire.”

“With what wood?”

“With the - -” Strata looked around him as the cool wind wisked through his long mane. “Oh. Lakebed. Yeah. I’ll magic one. I know a spell that makes rocks burn. The best part is, they’re rocks, so they don’t even get hurt! It never needs more fuel!”

Maude stared blankly, and then set down her saddlebags and began to assemble the tents.

“I even brought my guitar,” said Strata, pulling out the stakes and string from his bag. “You know, I used to be in a rock band back when I was your age. The Mossy Stones, we were called. Back then, everyone called me Strats.”

“Why?” said Maud, through a tentpost in her mouth.

“Because my name is Strata,” said Strata. He sighed. “Never mind.”

Strata stepped out into the darkness, lighting his way with his horn, setting the posts in a square, using his magic to ensure that the shape he was forming was perfectly square.

He really did not understand Maud at all. She was, by far, his best student, and really, the best he had ever taught. That was why he had accepted her assist in his research, which, to his surprise, she accepted, even though his current area of research was largely in fossils more so than in her preferred field, which was igneous formations. She was a highly effective assistant, though, and quite knowledgeable- -but eerily impossible to read.

As Strata contemplated, he noticed something suddenly glint in the center of his square, something he had not seen before. Thinking there might be a crystal, even one of salt, he approached it. He could show it to Maud; fresh rocks always excited her, even if her version of excitement was generally imperceptible.

When he reached it, though, he saw that it was a piece of glass. Not a shard, though, but rather a ring, as if someone had managed to slice a drinking glass into perfect, orderly segments, something that even with magic was incredibly difficult with most glass.

He picked it up and turned it over in his magic, considering it. As he did, he hears something behind him- -something that sounded like breathing.

He turned, and found his face inches away from a pair of equilateral triangles, their flat sides together, mounted in a hard-shelled but uneven bipedal creature, its skin- -if it could even be called that- - illuminated blue by the light of his horn.

Before he could cry out, the creature reached forward with a narrow blue claw and tapped the tip of his horn. There was a surge of magical feedback and a flash of light that instantly knocked Strata unconscious, causing him to collapse into the rocky soil below. With his light extinguished, the string square was suddenly shrouded by darkness.

Maud Pie exited her tent. Her eyes slowly turned to the other one she had set up. She had been put in charge of requisitioning supplies from the university, and she had considered “forgetting” one of the tents, just so that they would be forced to share.

She knew that her emotions were difficult to read, and, in many ways, was glad of it. It meant that her professor could not sense her passionate, forbidden infatuation with him. Never before had she met anypony so knowledgeable or geology and rocks. Her own extensive knowledge was dwarfed by his. In addition, he was not as old as most geologists, and had a rugged unicorn handsomeness to him. In addition, he had a beard, and thick sideburns, the latter a trait which, she noted, was a trait he shared with her father. There was probably a psychological reason for that, but Maud was a geologist, not a psychologist.

Boulder, of course, strongly disapproved of the relationship, and had only recently come to begrudgingly accept it. He said it was unprofessional, but Maud thought that he was just afraid of losing her to another stallion.

Strata had been gone a long time, though. Maud was getting cold, and rather wanted to know what color rocks burned- -and wondered if she could get him to play a guitar accompaniment to her poetry. Perimeters did not usually take so long to set up.

So, she went looking for him, cresting the small hill he seemed to have found his way to the top of- -exactly where Boulder had said the best fossils would be found. There, atop it, she found him sprawled out in the center of his perimeter, asleep. It seemed that the long journey had existed him, but not extinguished his excitement- -a small hole near him indicated that he had already started excavation, only to have fallen asleep.

Maud suddenly felt herself blush. Something about a stallion sprawled out over stones and dirt, unconscious, made her feel strange inside, like she imagined her sister felt most of the time. She felt herself blush, and looked around, as if someone would be watching.

No one was, of course, but for a moment, Maud thought she did see something. Something thin, sprinting away awkwardly in the moonlight.