“Whatever this is Pinkie, I’m quite sure it could’ve waited a few more hours,” Twilight grumbled as she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes and work out the stiffness in her joints, especially her wings. The new appendages were still taking some getting used to, despite Rainbow’s flight lessons.
Rarely did she get the chance to sleep in, what with her studies with Princess Celestia or her own experiments taking up big chunks of her time, so Twilight cherished those few days in which she could just curl up beneath her covers and spend an extra hour or two in her nice, warm bed. Today was supposed to be one of those days.
Unfortunately, Pinkie Pie showed up and threw her plans into complete disarray, bouncing and babbling excitedly as she literally dragged Twilight out of bed, out of her cosy library and all the way to Sugarcube Corner’s kitchen.
So much for a nice, quiet day…
Pinkie, either oblivious to her irritation or choosing to ignore it in favor of whatever shenanigans she’d cooked up, giggled and bounced around her, talking at a mile a minute about something involving new cooking equipment that the Cakes had bought and a super-special-fantastical-funnerriffic experiment she needed Twilight’s help with.
Too early. It was way too early for this. Twilight needed coffee or, at the very least, tea in order to make sense of her friend’s impressive stream of excited babbling.
A purple hoof swiftly reached out and covered Pinkie’s mouth, bringing the verbal assault to an effective halt. “Pinkie,” Twilight said slowly, trying her best to keep her voice level despite her justified - in her opinion - annoyance. “It’s six in the morning, I haven’t showered, I haven’t eaten, I haven’t had coffee. Or tea, for that matter, but that’s beside the point. Whatever it is, if it’s a problem, if it’s an emergency, I’ll hear it. But, I need you to slow down and explain this to me in terms that I can understand.”
It almost pained her to tack that on at the end, but Twilight hoped that Pinkie would just take the hint and get to the point.
The urge to facehoof hit her immediately as she realized that there was absolutely no chance of that happening in this lifetime.
“But I already did explain!” Pinkie exclaimed, cocking her head to the side to fix Twilight with a look of confusion. “Weren’t you listening when I asked you to come over?”
“You dragged me out of - oh, forget it! Just run it by me again, please. For my benefit!”
Sighing heavily, Pinkie turned her eyes skyward and repeated herself in a tone very similart of an exasperated foal. “Fine!” She said, dragging out the vowel. “The Cakes went out and bought this micro-wavy thing that beeps and whirs and makes stuff you put inside it hot after a little bit; you just throw something in, press a few buttons to set the time, the food goes around and around and around while the micro-wavy makes this whiiiiiiiiiiiiir sound and then, ding, the timer ends and the food is hot and ready to eat! Cool, huh?”
Through the muddled, sleepy fog, Twilight worked to piece together the little bits of information she’d been able to extract from Pinkie’s… rather descriptive rambling.
Machine. Heats up food. Timer. Micro-wavy?
She was awake. “A microwave?” Twilight asked.
Pinkie’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! A micro-wavy! See! It’s right over there!” She chirped, pointing toward a white box-shaped object resting on the counter. Twilight could see the numbered control panel and screen on the right hoof side, and the grey-tinged window on the door.
The Cakes had bought a microwave - a recent innovation in kitchen appliances.
Certainly this would benefit them in some fashion, Twilight could imagine that their constant rush of customers left them little time to sit down and prepare a hot meal in the middle of the day. But using a microwave was incredibly simple. It didn’t take a genius to hit a button and wait for time to expire.
So… What was she doing here?
“That’s… nice, Pinkie,” she said slowly, still not quite getting whatever this was supposed to be. “I’m sure the Cakes are… thrilled?”
“Oh, definitely! They love it! They actually bought another micro-wavy, this is just the one they want me to test!”
Twilight slowly turned away from the microwave to fix Pinkie with a look of horror and questioning. ‘Pinkie’ and ‘test’ and ‘microwave’ were three words that went together like hydrochloric acid and water: badly.
Smoldering ruins of Sugarcube Corner and a family out of their home and business while Pinkie grinned sheepishly and said ‘oopsie!’ badly.
“Explain. Now,” Twilight ordered, mind racing with all the hypothetical scenarios in which this went horribly, horribly wrong.
Which was, to say, all of them.
Pinkie raised an eyebrow at her sudden shift in mood, but shrugged and answered happily. “Well, the Cakes kinda, sorta, mighta, definitely lost the directions. I think Pound and Pumpkin were being fussy, so they got all frazzled and forgot where everything was. Now, they’re not sure what does and doesn’t go in the micro-wavy, sooooooo I said that I’d test it out and let them know! But, you and I both know that I know that there’s only one pony in Ponyville who knows enough science-y stuff to know what goes in a micro-wavy! So, here we are!”
Well. That was actually a rather impressive example of foresight on Pinkie’s part! Perhaps Twilight would have to reevaluate her judgement of - wait just a second.
“Pinkie, if there are two microwaves, why don’t you just use the other set of directions?”
“Oh, those? I threw those away!” Pinkie giggled. “I already know how to start it all up, and it’s not like they can account for everything that somepony might put in one of those things! So, I wanna find out the best way possible!”
“And that is?” Twilight asked, uncertainty creeping in as she realized just where this was going.
“Random choice!” Her friend cheered.
There it is.
She had to move quickly if she wanted to head Pinkie off at the pass, this was a bad idea. No, this was the mother of bad ideas! “Pinkie, this is extremely dangerous! Just randomly tossing things into a microwave could lead to a whole host of things going terribly wrong! It’s like - like experimenting blind!”
“I know,” Twilight did a double take, blinking at Pinkie reply. “I know that we don’t know, and that’s why I want to know! I want to know what can go wrong, how it can go wrong and why it can go wrong! I need to know! That’s why I need your help, Twilight!” Pinkie stepped forward and bowed low. “Please, help me learn about micro-wavies! I have to do it! I have to make sure it’s safe! For the Cakes! For science!”
All of Twilight’s objections were brought to a screeching halt; so Pinkie had thought this out. She genuinely wanted to learn, in her own way, about the safety risks that might come up depending on what went in a microwave. That image of a ruined sweet store wasn’t unique to Twilight’s thought processes, it had occurred to Pinkie as well.
Plus… Truth be told, it was an interesting idea. There was no way the manufacturers had tested everything. They probably just ran a few things through the microwave and said ‘don’t put this in’.
If Pinkie wanted help in writing comprehensive safety guide for microwaves, then, by Celestia, they would write it together!
“Alright,” Twilight said, unable to hide her excitement at the prospects of this experiment. “I’m in!”
The air was driven from her lungs by the unstoppable force of a Pinkie Pie glomp. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” She squealed. “You will not regret this, Twilight!”
Pinkie released her grip, letting Twilight fall to her hooves, gasping for breath as she cartwheeled over to a supply closet and began rummaging around inside.
“Whereisitwhereisitwhereisit - Here it is!” Pinkie sang, holding a black rectangular object in her hooves. “I knew I had my video recorder box-a-majig in here somewhere! Now we can record everything!”
Twilight deadpanned. “That’s a video camera, Pinkie.”
“That’s what I said! A video recorder box-a-majig! But that’s not important! It’s time for our first experiment!”
“W-Wait a minute! I don’t have my lab notebook! Or safety goggles! Or a coat! Or -”
“Oh, feh to your doohickies! We can get those later! We’ll test something small first and get the other stuff when we move onto big things!”
“But - But -”
“Ew! No! We’re not putting any of those in the micro-wavy! I just meant some stuff around the house! Jeez, Twilight!” Pinkie fixed her with a stern glare, placing the camera onto the counter and bringing a small square of tinfoil into view. “Like this! Tinfoil! We use it all the time to cook and store things, but what happens when we put it in the micro-wavy?”
Twilight blinked. “W-Well, I don’t know, but I’d say it should melt, depending on temperature.”
“Oooh, good hypotha-thingy! Here! I’ll set up the camera, you put this in the micro-wavy!” She giggled, hoofing it over to Twilight.
Taking hold of it in her telekinesis, Twilight shook her head and floated the tinfoil over to the microwave and tossed it in, closing the door securely and regarding the control panel. “Pinkie? How long should we put it in for?”
“Oh, let’s start small! How ‘bout thirty seconds?”
“Got it,” she replied and punched in the command. “Thirty seconds, ready aaaaand -”
“Nope!” Pinkie shouted, dashing forward and jerking Twilight away from the panel. “Bad idea! Set it with magic!”
“But isn’t there a chance my magic might break it?”
“We can replace the micro-wavy, we can’t replace you.”
As much as she was loathe to admit it, Twilight conceded the point. “Alright, fair enough. Should we… get behind something?”
“Sure, just duck behind the counter, the box-a-majig will record it.”
“It’s called a - oh, forget it! Starting it now!” She declared, sending a telekinetic jolt at the start button. “Get down!”
Both mares ducked behind the counter, leaving only their eyes slightly above the edge as they peeked out curiously to observe the fate of the tinfoil square.
For the first few seconds, there was nothing. The tinfoil just circled lazily around as the heating plate moved, only seeming to crinkle a bit as the heat set in.
There was a sudden crackling sound! Sparks sprang from the tinfoil square and danced along the edges and splashed against the window as it burned and smoked in the confines of the microwave.
The timer hit zero and the bell rang, signaling the end of the experiment.
Pinkie and Twilight shared a look of silent amazement, smiles slowly creeping across their muzzles.
“This is brilliant!”