The frame opens wide:

The museum looms against a bruised-violet sky. Smoke curls from shattered windows; glass glitter rains down the steps. Alarms wail like broken trumpets, red strobes painting everything in heart-stop flashes.

The marble banners of ancient runes that once guarded the entrance lie cracked and glowing, like bones.

You stand at the base of the steps. The girls are behind you in a half-circle—faces lit by panic, by firelight, by faith.

Fluttershy clutches her arms, eyes wide. Dash paces, fists balled. Rarity shields her face with a scarf against the smoke. AJ’s jaw is tight, steady but shaken. Pinkie, uncharacteristically still, stares at the glow.

And you—your pulse thrums like a war drum. The Canterlot Museum of Magic is collapsing.

Inside, an artifact from the Star Swirl Collection—a crystalline core of condensed ley-energy—fractured during tonight’s exhibition. Twilight, of course, insisted on “just a few more readings.” When the containment field imploded, the staff cleared out. But not her. She’s still inside.

The girls know it. You know it.

AJ mutters, “That place is a tinderbox. Roof’s about to cave.” Dash barks, “We gotta move—but we can’t all just run in blind!” Rarity, voice sharp with fear: “Twilight wouldn’t leave us. But she also wouldn’t forgive us if one of us—”

Fluttershy: “…if one of us didn’t come back.”

They all look to you.

The museum shudders, a low groan like stone mourning. Heat pulses at your cheeks, smoke claws at your throat. Somewhere inside—under flame, under glass, under weight—Twilight is waiting.