In another time, another place, an alicorn Princess sent her faithful student a final test-- an unfinished spell by the greatest unicorn mage in Equestrian history. After a near-disastrous first effort, the student finally solved the riddle of the spell, completed it, and was transformed (as her mentor had planned) into an alicorn princess.

This is not that time and place.

In this time and place, the time for scheming and plotting by sneaky-pants princesses had come and gone. Twilight Sparkle had finally called the old woman out, and after an emotional tussle (and a good bit of drama) they had reconciled. Twilight was no longer a 'faithful student.' Unicorn or not, she was a peer who could meet Celestia and Luna eye to eye; she was, more importantly, her own mare.

She (and her friends) had consequently been enlightened to a great number of things that her mentor had been playing close to the vest; many secrets of the past, and of the magic of Equestria. Among them, a great number of things about the nature of the Elements of Harmony, how they operated, and how those strange relics were influencing the course of events themselves...her personal perspective was naturally very different.

In brief, the key difference in this time and place was that, when Twilight received a certain notebook by a certain Starswirl the Bearded from a certain Princess, she actually had half a clue as to what she was doing the FIRST time...

"Okay, everypony," Twilight said. "Take your positions on the hexagram." She and the other bearers of the elements stepped into their respective positions on the corners of the diagram Twilight had drawn out(1) on the library floor.

"So what is this spell supposed to do?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Nopony knows, not even the Princess," Twilight said. "But Celestia said Starswirl the Bearded made the uncompleted version to be used with the Elements of Harmony. So we're the only ones who can figure out what he was trying to do."

"Ah dunno," Applejack said. "Just feels weird, usin' pegasi an' earth ponies to do a unicorn spell."

"Indeed, I've never heard of any spell that used all three tribes of pony," Rarity said, stepping daintily into her place in the diagram. "Of course, I'm no student of the arcane, but--"

"That's what makes it so fascinating," Twilight said eagerly. "It's one thing to say that all three tribes have magic of their own; it's another thing to find an example of all three kinds being used together."

"A-are you sure about this, Twilight?" Fluttershy said nervously, fiddling with her Element. "This could be dangerous."

"Of course, it's perfectly safe," Twilight said confidently. "The diagram will confine the effect of the spell to the hexagram, so we can observe it safely. Now, does everyone have the completed version I wrote out?" The others nodded; there was a bookstand in front of each of them, each with a copy written on a scroll. "Okay, all together now..."

"From one to another, another to one. A mark of one's destiny singled out alone, UNfulfilled;

From all of us together, To each of us together, With the marks of our destinies made one,

and one shared by all without end--"(2)

The library bloomed with light.

There is another dimension that overlays the cosmos of Equestria; a plane of mystic energy and power, a higher wavelength that all Equestrian magic emanates from and expresses into. It is a realm filled with vibrations that are neither sound nor light, yet both, that hum and sing and cascade over one another in a rich and intricate song. The Elements of Harmony, even when quiescent, express themselves on that plane most prominently, constantly sending out these vibrations like waves in an ethereal sea.

There are beings in Equestria (two of them in particular live in a castle in Canterlot) who are sensitive to the musical thrumming on this plane, even in their sleep. When Twilight's revised spell was activated, the non-sound those sensitive beings experienced could best be described as

THOOM.

Celestia sat bolt upright in her bed, bedsheets flying in every direction. Every magical nerve in her body from the frogs of her hooves to the tip of her horn was reverberating to the sound/light/color/texture/blastwave that had washed through the thaumatic plane. Her mane was standing out in every direction. She could feel the aftershocks in her teeth.

Even as barely conscious as she was, she knew this was deathly important, a moment that required that she make some profound  meaningful statement or other, something ringing of venerable wisdom and cosmic insight.

"Ebbeh," she said.

Her mane still frizzed and her head still ringing like an inside-out bell, she dashed to her balcony, scanning the night with her horn. Her mind was just starting to clear. I know that sign, she thought. It can only be one thing. If I work quickly, I can triangulate the exact location from the thaumatic echoes---

A moment later Luna, her mane frizzed and her feathers askew, landed in a tangle-legged clatter on the balcony next to her. "Sister!" she yelped. "A huge magical explosion has just struck Ponyville! I saw the flash of light from my tower!"

--Or, that, Celestia thought to herself, vaguely disgruntled. "It can only be one thing. Quickly, Luna," she said, shaking out her mane. "We must get to Ponyville at once."

Luna nodded. The two teleported in a flash of light.

The Royal Sisters blinked into existence in midair over Ponyville. One would say that they appeared in the air over the Ponyville library, except for the fact that there wasn't a Ponyville library anymore.

In another time and place the casting of Starswirl's last spell had resulted in a single Element bearer ascending, causing her to disappear in a flash of light, leaving behind nothing more damaging than a charred spot on the floor. In this time and place all six bearers had vanished. As could be expected, the side-effects were a trifle(3) more substantial. The great oak tree that had served as the Ponyville library was simply gone, vaporized. All that stood in its place was a blasted, rubble-strewn stump that had once been the ground floor. A gentle fall of leaves, splintery bits of bark, and scorched book pages was just beginning to rain down.

Celestia and Luna landed. Celestia carefully cast a spell to sweep the falling debris out of the air and away from town; no sense letting some poor innocent get a book binding to the head or a chunk of bark in the eye.

The scorched rubble stirred. Some of the splinters and soot shifted to one side, lifted out of the way by a rising trap door. The door flopped to one side with a bang. Out came a rattled-looking owl and a small purple dragon wearing a hard hat. Spike looked around with the air of someone having his expectations confirmed. "Yep, looks about right," he said. "I knew it was a good idea to start napping in the basement the moment she got that book..."

"Spike?" Celestia said.

"Oh, hey, Your Highnesses. Um, call it a hunch but I think Twilight hit a snag on deciphering that spell you sent her."

It was at that precise moment ponies started dropping out of the sky like overripe fruit.

The quiet Ponyville street was suddenly lit brightly as day. Celestia, Luna, Spike and Owlowiscious looked up; six glowing lights had appeared in the sky. Just as suddenly they disappeared with a loud POP, and from each one plummeted an unconscious form that landed with an audible "whump" in the street.

One sat up. It was Rainbow Dash. She groaned and rubbed her head. "Oh, my head," she moaned. She tried to rub her forehead-- only to find her hoof was obstructed. "My... head?" She froze, then prodded around her forehead again, feeling carefully along the protrusion, clear out to the point. Her eyes crossed as she looked up at her new unicorn horn. "Head, head, HEAD! HEAD!"

The pony next to her stirred. "Land o' goshen, Dash, whut're you--" Applejack started to say, when an orange wing-- her own-- fanned out in front of her face. "Great horney toads!!" She jumped to her feet and began turning in circles, first one way then the other, trying to look at her own back where her new wings had sprouted.

"Aah, you got one too!" Dash yelled, pointing at Applejack's forehead. She was correct; the farmpony had a spiral horn poking out from under her hat.

Applejack looked up at her forehead. "AAah! A horn, too? I--I have wings and a horn now??"

Twilight looked at her own fanned wings. "We all do!"

"Oh dear oh dear," Fluttershy gasped, trying to cover her new horn with her wingtips.

"Oh my," Rarity said, flexing her new swan-like pinions. She pirouetted on one hoof, fanning them for best effect.  "No need to panic, girls. In fact I think I rather like..." then she glanced over and saw a gleefully grinning Pinkie Pie poking and prodding at her own new wings and unicorn horn.

"Oh boy oh boy oh boy, does this mean I can do magic now too?"

"GOD HAVE MERCY ON OUR SOULS!" Rarity screamed, eyes starting in horror.

Twilight spun around. "Everypony stay calm, just stay calm!" She looked up and saw Celestia and Luna. "Princess Celestia! Princess Luna!" The relief in her voice was boundless. "Am I glad to see you!"

"I can imagine," Celestia said.

Twilight was already starting to spin up into a babbling fit. "I I I don't know what happened, I set the wards so carefully and it should have contained the spell perfectly but the last thing I remember is that blast of light ricocheting back and forth between us and then there was this big sort of non-kaboom and oh Maker is that all that's left of the library?--"

Luna glanced around. Ponies had been awoken by all the light and noise, and slowly but surely were trickling out into the streets to see what was going on. "Celestia ?" she said, warning.

Celestia smiled warmly at her former pupil. "Twilight,  I think we have some things to discuss." Then she looked over the remains of the library, the bemused dragon and shell-shocked owl, the six brand new alicorns, and the rapidly gathering  crowd. "....back at the castle," she added, her smile becoming a little fixed. "Everypony ready to teleport? Good. One, two, three..."

With a flash of light all of them disappeared.

1)With a ruler. And a compass (both kinds.) And a blue pencil, overlaid with a Spiffy Quick Waterproof Guaranteed No-Smudge Marker. She was going to need to sand the floor to remove it completely.

2)Yes, I changed it. The canon version seemed to be more about fulfilling one pony's destiny...which made it seem like the spell was about exploiting five other ponies to ascend oneself. Starswirl, I suspect, was a jerkass.

3)To be specific, about five orders of magnitude more substantial.

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