Dr.Pinkhatten
Ch.04 “The Eggheads Guide to Alicorns”
After we finished our breakfast Pinkie teleported back to Sugarcube corner. Apparently ascension to godhood was no excuse to not appear for work in the Cakes’ book. I just hoped that nopony would stumble into the kitchen while Pinkie was there.
On the upside however I was finally alone, only my trusty number one assistant at my side. It was time to do some research.
“Spike!” I bellowed. He gave a quick salute, as soon as he recognized my “there’s science to be done”-voice.
“I’ll need the “Equestrian-Encyclopedia”, the “Beginners Guide to transformation magic”, Starswirl’s “Theocracy” and “Baking muffins for eggheads”.” I dictated.
“I got you Twilight.” He replied eagerly. Spike had been my assistant for a long time, and he knew that there was no arguing with me when I was “in the zone” as Rarity would have called it.
“Oh and bring me Celestia’s autobiography.” I added before Spike could run off.
His eyes shot wide open. ” All sixty volumes of it?” he asked seemingly not trusting his ears.
“Of course, we can’t afford to miss anything.” I replied. The little dragon groaned.
Soon I was surrounded by large towers of books on all sides. My quest of understanding alicorns had lead me through all of Equestria’s history, from the classical era, to the founding of equestria and even to the time before Discords Reign. My findings didn’t exactly put me in a happy mood.
The accounts of alicorn sightings were numerous, and if even half of them were true, Canterlot castle would need rebuilding, to house all the long lost sisters, distant relatives, and illegitimate children of Celestia. Some tabloid magazines even suggested that I, myself, was Celestia’s daughter. It was like every two-bit author felt the need to write a story about a normal pony becoming a alicorn......
After I drafted through all the myths, hearsays and embellished stories, it quickly became clear, how little we actually knew about this race of powerful beings. Celestia’s biography had proven to be a dead end, since it focussed on politics, culture and the princess' relationship with various historic figures. The few parts that actually mentioned her or Luna’s origin, or the extent of their powers, were mostly retellings of popular equestrian stories, like the banishment of Nightmare Moon. Now that I thought about it, Celestia always did dodge my questions about her birth or upbringing. For all i knew she could have just appeared from thin air. What was even more shocking was, that the same applied to my foalsitter Princess Cadence. She had always seemed so accessible, yet I knew next to nothing about her family.
In the end I could only find three pieces of Information that were both reliable and matched my personal experience:
1. Alicorns are powerful. - This one was a real no-brainer.
2. Alicorns are immortal. - Gee, and I thought Celestia lived a thousand years because of regular exercise …
3. Alicorns affect the world around them just by existing. - Huh? That one was new....
Once I again I sifted through the small collection of yellowed notes, that revealed this last tidbit of wisdom. Normally I wouldn’t even have paid attention to them, but my search had resulted in only the most basic information so far, and I was grasping for straws by now.
As it turned out, a student of Celestia’s School for gifted Unicorns had made alicorns the subject of his dissertation. He focused on something he called “empathic projection". According to his theorie, alicorns constantly discharge a small amount of magic. When an alicorn has a strong emotional reaction, this ambient magic manifest in small environmental effects.
Immediately I had to think of, Luna’s appearance during Nightmare Night. So far I had chalked the dramatic lightning, that had followed her around, up to an overgrown flair for drama. It also explained my rather recent run in with Pinkie’s vision of terror. I shuddered as I tried to imagine the feeling that had caused this particular vision. After all this had blown over I really needed to talk to Pinkie.
Sadly the study was lacking any conclusive data. Apparently Princess Celestia, hadn’t been to keen on being hooked up to measuring equipment (I could confirm this: this one time that I had tried to measure my mentors brain activity during her sleep, had nearly resulted in my banishment to the moon - some people are just so uncooperative when it comes to science).
Even worse, time had faded the authors name beyond recognition, allowing for no cross referencing, and as far as I remembered there was no other mention of “empathic projection” in any book I had read (and I had read a lot of books).
I glanced at the clock: two hours left until Pinkie’s party and I still had no idea, how to either hide Pinkie’s transformation, or how to keep Pinkie away from the party, without causing another Terror-vision. The last time only I was caught in it’s effect, but what would happen if a huge crowd suddenly found itself trapped in a realm of horror.
Fanatically I returned to my research, there had to be something I missed, some way to return Pinkie back to normal. A new thought suddenly entered my brain. What if Pinkie didn’t want to return to normal? I mean putting all the weirdness aside, who wouldn’t want to be immortal and all powerful? Sometimes I had thought about what it would be like, myself.
Was that why I had such a hard time accepting the change? Was I just envious of Pinkie’s new found godhood? Maybe I was overreacting and their was no real reason to hide Pinkie away?
Spike suddenly burst into the room, breathing heavily.. “Twilight! I think you might want to see this.” he muttered before pushing me towards the front door.
“Can’t this wait? I think I finally found something useful.” I asked irritatedly. If there was one thing I hated, it was being interrupted during my research.
Spike looked at me pleadingly: “No, I really don’t think it can wait.”
I grunted something along the lines of “drama queen”, but made my way to the door anyway.
I opened the door, expecting to see some sort of minor disruption.
Ponyville had exploded.