Chapter 3
Clank clank splutter rumble bang crash!
“What is that noise?” Asked a grumpy looking baby dragon from under the covers of his little bed.
He looked up from his spot and saw the emptiness of Twilight’s own bed. Quite empty, it seemed.
“Twilight?”
Grudgingly, Spike dragged himself out of his comfy resting place which called his name, and made for the door handle.
Pulling that to, he carried himself down the stairs and into the living area of the hollowed out treehouse. Nopony here, He thought. Better check down in the cellar.
Clank rumble crash slam rumble! Went the noises again.
Spike’s head was already beginning to ache from the vibrations, which seemed to be getting louder every downward step he took of the house. However, once he reached the bottom step all noises ceased.
For a moment the little dragon supposed he could now just walk right back up the stairs, pretending that nothing had woken him from his perfect dream, and slip cozily back into his bed for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, somepony had the complete opposite idea in mind; for the noises: bing clang garble bang crash! Started yet again and Spike did not slip cozily anywhere, but dragged his scaled legs further into the darker area of the treehouse.
He thought about calling out the unicorn’s name. Simple would it have been if he did and he wouldn’t have to be sneaking around in the dark anymore, but something about the room made him shiver and unable to make an audible sound. The atmosphere around him seemed heavy, almost tangible; like you could just reach out and grab it, put it in a jar and hide it away for a rainy day.
Spike didn’t do this of course; he didn’t have a jar and didn’t feel like going to fetch one at the time, so he continued on his search for the lavender pony.
Slip bang gong smash bash smash! Again the noises were heard, never once being of the same clatter; but Spike could tell that it was coming from his right. A light was emanating from the spot of which he turned to face, so he decided to head in that direction.
Why is this happening? Spike asked himself worriedly. He rubbed his claws together nervously as he walked. I was having a very pleasant dream just a few seconds ago, and now this.
The lower room was very cluttered with old junk. ‘Old junk’ as Spike called it anyway; Twilight referred to it, immediately after, as a collection of objects she had not yet found the importance of yet, but of course would eventually and then use it for said purpose.
Spike then, being a dragon of few words, reasoned that that was far too much to remember.
As the purple and green lizard was thinking of such things as what to call this messy mess of a basement (a curious and rather coincidental title beginning with the letter ‘m’), he came to a stop outside the light. He spotted Twilight in the warm glow of the lamp dangling from the rather high ceiling.
After a few moments of thought to why Twilight was down here, standing in the dim light of a dangling lamp light in the middle of the night (which explanation for didn’t get very far), Spike ran up to her and looked at what she was doing.
“Twilight?” He said finally.
“Hm?” The unicorn replied, seeming to be coming off of a trance to notice the little dragon beside her. “Oh, Spike, it’s you. What are you doing down here? It’s the middle of the night.”
“That’s what I was going to ask you. What’s going on and what is with all the racket?” Spike shouted impatiently.
The pony didn’t pose an answer to his reasonable question, but Spike noticed she was glancing at something. Turning his attention to the something, he figured it was some sort of machine; used for what, he couldn’t tell. It looked like an old gaming machine to him.
“What is that?” He decided to ask.
This caught Twilight’s attention, as she took her eyes away from the strange device to look upon the baby dragon. “Oh, it’s a probability machine.” She answered clearly.
“A what?”
“It's really just a computer, actually.” She stated with a giggle at Spike's confusion. And at the raise of Spike’s left eyebrow, Twilight continued her explanation, “But I’m going to use it to calculate the probability of Pinkie’s twitches. I’ll have to make a chart of all known Pinkie shudders and shakes and track her movement everywhere. My data collected from the last time wasn't enough for it to calculate a proper histogram from the frequencies of her twitches. Now how would I get her to go along with me the entire time?” I’m guessing that to her I wouldn’t even need a reason to tag along.
“So you’re still on that. You woke me up from a wonderful dream for this?”
“It’s not the same, Spike. Not really. I’m not trying to disprove the existence of her sense; I’m just trying to further my understanding of it. I want to see if there is a pattern to which senses come, at what time and in what frequency and percentage.”
“Uhh…you lost me.”
Ignoring Spike’s complaints, Twilight kept talking in a wistful manner. “This time though, I might invite her along as I conduct research on other animals to see how Pinkie reacts to outside stimuli. Hopefully I can get some more clear evidence of scientific anomaly from this set of experiments.” Then Twilight cleared her throat. “Spike, I’ve decided to cancel my planned study day today. I have to figure this out.”
This was what Spike could muster to say from that very odd statement, “What?”
“Now I just need to think of a way I can test Pinkie without her knowing that I am testing her.”
“But…Twilight? You’ve never cancelled a study session before.” Spike scratched his head in disbelief.
“Wait. Maybe I can ask her to help me with some experiments I’m doing on the other ponies. And if anything strange happens to them, hopefully her sense will come up to warn them. That way I won’t be hurt.” Twilight nodded at that sense of logic and turned off the machine. “Oh, what were you saying Spike?”
The dragon was still coming to terms with the fact that Twilight had said she wasn’t going to be studying, so all he could say was, “Huh?”
Twilight giggled. “Come on, Spike. You need to go to bed, and I need to find some way to get Pinkie to accompany me.”
“Bed?” Spike echoed. Now that was a word he understood. He didn’t really hear the rest of the sentence around the word, but hoped it went something like: Please, Spike, go to bed or Here Spike, your bed is ready.
All Twilight did was magic Spike onto her back and trot back up the stairs to the main floor, up the second flight and into her room. Levitating the dragon into his little bed, she wished him a goodnight and wrapped his blanket around him.
Within a few minutes Spike was fast asleep again, and Twilight was prepared for bed as well. She stood for a moment in deep thought, before making for her bed.
Slipping under the covers she closed her eyes, but her brain was still very active.
The inner machinations of her mind were now at work, finding a reason for her to invite Pinkie to such a peculiar activity for an excitable pony. An idea suddenly struck Twilight, and blinking her eyes open, she said, “Oh, I have an idea! I’ll invite her to a nature study and we can do some research on our friends and view different species of plants. I’m sure she’ll be excited.”
She yawned a large yawn and lay her head down on her pillow. Before she drifted off to sleep, Twilight continued. “It’s…worth a shot…”