When Twilight receives a strange package, she gets more than she expected. Which is a good thing. Not necessarily for her, but a good thing nonetheless.
After Twilight receives a package, that was never intended to end up in her hooves, she can't resist but to take a closer look. And what a look it is, indeed. With knowledge that no pony before her held, will she use it for good or fall prey to Mad Science? Or both? Or neither? One way or the other, Ponyville and all of Equestria is bound for some changes. After all, every budding Princess needs to bring something new to the table. Like a new table. Made of steel, plastic and science.
A knock on the door nudged Twilight Sparkle ever so slightly out of her reading trance. It only managed to do so, because it was a single, unusually loud knock, like somepony had crashed into the door.
“Spike, would you-”
“I’m on it.”
“Thanks.”
Returning her attention to ‘How to be a Princess, Volume XLVIII: Proper dining etiquette, Part IV’, Twilight tuned out the conversation Spike had with whoever was at the door. After all, her schedule demanded, that she finished this book until nightfall, including Princess Celestia’s hoofwritten notes. Those 500 pages would not read themselves.
About seven pages later, her attention was again diverted from the fascinating read.
“Um, Twilight? I’m not sure where to put these books. I cannot even tell if they’re fiction or not.”
“What books? Who was at the door?”
“That mailmare, Ditzy Doo I think, delivered a package with lots of books. I thought you ordered them.”
“I did, but I only sent the letter to the Canterlot Bookshop of Various Interests yesterday. They never deliver that fast.”
Confused and somewhat annoyed, Twilight put a bookmark on the current page and stood up from a large collection of books, pillows and cushions. Totally not a fort.
Spike had dragged the package into the middle of the room and had begun unpacking its contents. Twilight counted no less than nine books lying on the floor and the package did not seem to be empty yet. Walking down the stairs, she eyed the package suspiciously. It didn’t look like a normal package. There were more stickers and symbols on the sides than usual. The cardboard was held together by strips of a brown, shiny material, that she didn’t recognize.
Spike held up one book and showed her the cover. It was a paperback, but the cover glossed in the light of the afternoon sun shining through the windows. The cover showed an abstract design of lines and geometric shapes. The title read ‘Complex analysis’, written by ‘Theodore W. Gamelin’. Spike pointed to the other books lying around on the floor.
“These books seem expensive. They are all printed on very nice paper, with incredibly precise typography. From the strange names of the authors I’d say those are all imports too. Who knows how good the Marebian printing has gotten in the last decades.”
“I never ordered any books like that. I would remember.”
Spike looked at Twilight and gave her a dirty look. “Are you sure? I’d like to remind you what happened last Cider Season.”
“That was only one time! And those books turned out to be great addition to the library.”
“Yes, because it turned out that half the town likes to read romance novels. You know, I still can’t stand reshelving those books without being reminded of ‘Dragons and unicorns: A romantic guide’.”
“Well, nopony forced you to read that book, Cassanova.”
Spike blushed and turned away from Twilight, busying himself with stacking the books on a pile. Twilight examined the package closer and looked at the addresses printed on a piece of sticky paper.
“That’s odd. I’ve never seen somepony bothering to print the addresses neatly on- Hold on. Spike! This package is not for us!”
“What?”
“It isn’t addressed to the library or anywhere near Ponyville. I’ve never heard of London and my name is certainly not Margaret. Spike, why did you open this package?!”
“I... I didn’t check the address. I assumed it was for us. We get packages all the time. What are we going to do now.”
“Repackage it and send it off again, of course. And by we, you obviously meant you. I have a book to finish.”
~~~
The sun was high in the sky, when Twilight finished the last bite of her daisy sandwich and slurped the last of her breakfast tea. Princess Celestia’s notes were quite extensive on this particular volume and forced her to stay up until midnight reading them. She sighed. The things a pony does to stay on schedule.
Twilight crossed off the second item on a three item checklist.
“Waking up, check. Breakfast, check. Volume XLIX, uncheck. Let’s get to it.”
Having barely gotten past the introduction, Twilight heard the door open and could hear Spike breathing hard while dragging a large package into the house.
“I’m *wheeze* back.”
“Why do you still have that package? Did you drag it all around town and brought it back here? Oh Spike, I know you don’t always understand everything I say, but I thought it was obvious, that I wanted the package send to the correct recipient.”
“Yes, yes, I understood you just fine. But the mare at the post station said, that they can’t accept the package, because it is not a valid address. They don’t have that town in their list and wouldn’t know where to ship it off to.”
“But it came here from somewhere. Clearly somepony accepted it. Did you talk to the mailmare from yesterday?”
“No, apparently she is on vacation from today until next tuesday and nopony knew how to contact her.”
“Great, now we’re stuck with the package. Oh well, just put it somewhere.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I told you to stop saying that. One might think you mean it sarcastically.”
Spike snorted and began dragging the package into a corner, leaving Twilight to return to her book. It was an exceptionally dry volume on the minutiae of addressing a subject in informal situations. Time crawled like a snail and paragraphs turned into sentences, sentences into words and words into syllables, until she could no longer remember how the sentence even started. Clearly this volume was not meant to be read in one sitting. Or at all. Twilight needed a break.
“You know,” she began “it wouldn’t hurt to look into a few of those books. Just to find out what they’re about.”
Spike looked up from his own reading material and couldn’t help but to put a grin on his face. “For science?”
“For science!”
~~~
There were a total of twenty-two books in that package, as well as two smaller boxes with lots of confusing printing on the sides, that only baffled Twilight. She didn’t dare to open the boxes, especially as she never heard of anything like a ‘3D-printer’ or a ‘netbook’. Why somepony would put a book into its own box was a mystery to her. There also was a letter attached to the inside of the top, hoofwritten on pinkish paper. It obviously was personal, so they left it alone.
Twilight recognized some of the titles as scientific works, but some touched subjects, that seemed utterly strange and unknown. What was ‘Software’ even supposed to mean? Did it have something to do with the device show on the larger of the two boxes? At least the books about chemistry and mathematics seemed reasonable enough, although their tables of content revealed many more topics than Twilight had learned so far. Clearly this was advanced material for study by esteemed members of the scientific community. But why did she never learn anything of this in Canterlot? Had Princess Celestia hidden the more advanced fields of study from here?
One mystery after the other came out of these books and that did nothing to divert Twilight’s interest from them.
“Spike, do you know what this calls for?”
“An unexpected rescheduling of everything for this week?”
“Well, that too. But I thought more of some treats from Sugarcube Corner.”
Spike’s eyes gleamed with joy, as he got up and started for the door.
“I’m on it!”
“And make it double, I think we have a long day ahead of us.”
Sugarcube Corner was filled to the brim with customers, all chattering away with each other while enjoying their treats and beverages. Spike loved all the different smells wafting through the air. Cinnamon, caramel, chocolate, banana, but most fragrant of all for him was a new smell, that reminded him of the time in Canterlot. The wonderful, burnt smell of coffee.
Two weeks ago, Twilight had come into Sugarcube Corner with bags under her eyes and a clearly unbrushed mane, which was her default state nowadays, and had asked if they had coffee. Mrs. Cake had to decline, but muttering something about ‘royal privilege’, they quickly added coffee to their sortiment. A great deal of debate had sprung up since then, discussing whether this was a good thing or not. As far as Spike was concerned, he was torn between both sides. On the one claw, he was finally able to put his Canterlot upbringing into use and impress Rarity. On the other claw it was concerning to see Twilight becoming even more obsessed than she tended to become without coffee thrown into the mix.
Still, it certainly became popular with the guests and as Spike reached the counter, two other customers received their mugs of coffee. Behind the counter was Pinkie Pie, trying to balance two bits on her muzzle, which promptly fell down into the cash register.
“Hello Spikey-wikey!”
“Oh hello, Pinkie Pie. It sure looks like you have your hooves full today.”
“Nah, this has become normal in the last week. This morning there was a lot of work to do, because Mr. Cake couldn’t calm down the twins and Mrs. Cake had to help him, so I was alone at the counter and almost wasn’t able to handle all customers, which would have been super sad, because then I would have had to turn down some of them and to make up for it I had already planned a Sorry-you-didn’t-get-your-coffee-party in my head, but luckily Rarity came by and agreed to help with the coffee machine, because that was en vogue, or something like that, and then all was fine, except that one stallion, who had to wait like so long for his coffee, because I almost wasn’t able to serve him and thus I-”
“Rarity’s here?”
“-was already planning, she’s in the kitchen, a Sorry-you-didn’t-get-your-Sorry-you-didn’t-get-your-coffee-party-party, but then that would have been silly even for me, so I just gave him a free cupcake and all was well.”
“Uh huh, sure.” Spike wasn’t really listening anymore and tried to peek into the kitchen. “I’ll just, uh, go look for Rarity. In case she needs help.”
“Okey-dokey-lokey.”
Leaving Pinkie to her antics, Spike went past the counter into the kitchen, where Mr. and Mrs. Cake were busy making cupcakes. Across the room a loud machine was grinding coffee beans into powder, right next to an array of four filters, three of which were currently filled with powder. Rarity stood further to the right, checking the temperature on the largest boiling can Spike had ever seen.
“Hello Spike.”
“Hello Rarity. You look wonderful today.”
“Why thank you. Ever since they replaced mud baths with coffee baths at the spa, my coat has become more radiant than ever. Lotus Blossom truly knows what she’s doing. But enough of me. What brings you here today?”
“Oh the usual. One large coffee for Twilight and for me one cup of regret, that I brought up coffee in conversation two weeks ago.”
“How is she? Why, I haven’t seen her in days and the last time she looked like she hadn’t slept enough.”
“She probably hasn’t. I’ve tried to peel her away from the books, but unless a letter from Princess Celestia demands it, she rarely does anything else. And she doesn’t just read those books, she basically recreates everything in them on a blackboard. This is worse than when she prepared for the final test at the School for Gifted Unicorns.”
“Those books? You mean the books in that package she talked about?”
“Yeah, there were twenty-two books in it and Twilight works on them like they come straight from the hoof of Princess Celestia.”
“But didn’t you send that package back?”
“No, see, after we first skimmed through them, Twilight realized that they were more advanced than anything in Equestria. At first she thought Princess Celestia had hidden something from her. She even wrote a letter expressing a ‘very mild disappointment’. But in the answer Princess Celestia urged Twilight to find out more about the books, because she couldn’t bear the thought that Twilight might think that she has hidden something her.”
“So you didn’t send the books back.”
“No, Twilight even declared by royal decree, even though that’s not a thing, that the books are now the cultural property of Equestria and she would personally see to it, that the knowledge within may be used ‘for the betterment of all of Equestria’. Not that anypony else would even have a chance to get some time with the books. She guards them like a Phoenix mother.”
“That does sound like Twilight. Still, I wonder what the original recipient expected from the package.”
“Actually, we know. You haven’t heard this from me, but Twilight did read the letter that came with the package. I have a copy with me.”
“You do? Why would you carry a copy with you?”
“I tried giving it to Applejack, so she might convince Twilight to give the whole package back. But once Twilight has set her eyes on something, not even the Bearer of Honesty can convince her otherwise.”
Rarity huffed and stomped a hoof on the ground. “We simply must have a talk with her these days. I certainly would be offended if somepony robbed me of a package of gems. Darling, can I have a look at this letter?”
Spike took out a letter and gave it Rarity. She unfolded it and levitated the letter in front of her.
Dear Margaret,
I know we’re not supposed to be on speaking terms, but please read this letter before you decide anything. In one of our rare conversations you mentioned that David is going to High School now and that he has shown interest in science.
I have recently gotten substantial windfall from one the projects you always complained about. I want to give some of it back to you, but since I know that you would reject any money I gave to you, I instead want to provide David with the means to pursue his interests. I hope we can both agree, that this can only be a good thing for him.
Therefore I have send you with this package a collection of books and tools. Please make sure that David knows that it’s purely a gift from his Dad and in no way carries any obligation. He is free to do whatever he wants with it.
That is all I dare to say today.
Your Stephen
Rarity turned the letter around, but there was nothing written on the back. “Is that all? It does not seem like something you’d expect from a package containing dangerous secrets. And what is ‘High School’?”
“Probably some kind of school of higher learning. If that stuff is on the curriculum, it’s more elite than university.”
Rarity gave the letter back to Spike, who refolded it and pointed at a can with steaming coffee. “I now better get back to Twilight with one those or she might replace me as her Number One Assistant. Can’t have that happening.”
“You do that Darling. I will talk to the girls and see if we can’t put something together to get Twilight back on track.”
~~~
As Spike returned to the library, he imagined what he might find when he opened the door. Twilight sitting between stacks of books, furiously scribbling away on endless scrolls while a piece of chalk with a come-to-life spell drew equations on the blackboard with symbols written in alphabets never before seen in Equestria. Twilight standing in the middle of the room, levitating dozens of books in a cloud of knowledge. Twilight lying on her back, stroking her mane and muttering incantations in forgotten tongues.
Instead he found Twilight sitting in front of a small device. The same device they found in the smaller box inside the package. It did kind of look like a book, in so far you could open it and there were characters written on buttons. But instead of just sitting there inertly, as the device had in the past days, it glowed with a dim light and the upper, inner side showed a colorful picture of some leaves with small symbols on the upper end of the frame. Twilight sat so close to the device, that her muzzle almost touched it and her eyes were fixed on some point of the picture.
“I’m back, Twilight. But I really don’t think you should drink any more coffee. It might be bad for-”
“What? Oh yes, coffee. Doesn’t matter, just put it somewhere. I switched back to tea when you were away. Did you know you can extract caffeine from tea leaves? I found a wonderful experiment in one of the chemistry books, the red one over there, with a yield of up to 90%! I placed an order with Crystal Clear to make the glassware shown in the book. I don’t think she knows what it actually does, but it should be fine. I mean, how hard can it be to make a reflux condenser?”
“Uh, a what now? Anyway, what’s up with the device? How did you make it glow and show a picture?”
“Oh, that thing is simply marvelous! You know how I couldn’t figure out how to power it? I assumed it runs on magic, because of how complex the components in the inside look. But then I remembered that unicorn, what was her name again? DJ Pon-Four? Nylon Stretch? Something like that. She showed me how she powers her music box and that runs actually on lightning!”
“Lightning? That sounds dangerous!”
“Relax, Spike. Only a tiny bit of lightning, barely enough to make a spark. Opalescence gives out worse when the weather is damp.”
“You never had to babysit that little pest. The claws are worse. My scales still have scratches from the last time!”
“Yes, your love quest is a dangerous one. Enough chit chat, look at this.”
Spike raised his claw to protest, but was interrupted by Twilight, who pointed at the glowy picture.
“I simply cast an increasing lightning spell with surge protection components on the metal contacts in the back of the device and after a point it just magically came alive on its own. At least I think it did. There may have been some random button pressing involved.”
“So it’s a device that shows a picture?”
“Oh it’s much more than that. When it first did something, there were lots of words appearing on the frame, so many and so fast that I couldn’t read any of them. After a minute the words disappeared and a little box appeared with ‘David’ written on it.”
“Like the David mentioned in the letter?”
“Maybe, I don’t care.”
“Twilight, really. You should be more respectful.”
Twilight sat back on her behind and waved her forelegs in the air. “But it’s for science!”
“That excuse is wearing a little thin. Do I have to spell out ‘Hydra’ and ‘Pinkie Pie’ for you?”
“That was one ti- no wait. That was two times! Can’t we forget the past and concentrate on the wonders before us?”
“Alright, but you have to promise that you won’t spontaneously catch fire. I may be fireproof, but not Twilightproof.”
Twilight huffed and mumbled something, that was better left unheard. Spike used the moment to bring the coffee pot into the kitchen and get himself some leftover pancakes. When he returned to the main room, Twilight had calmed down a bit and gathered some documents from the various stacks standing all around the room.
“So what happened after the little box appeared on the frame?”
“I tried to press some of the buttons. When I was pressing one with a number or letter on it, a dot would appear in a box underneath the other box. When I pressed some of the buttons with the arrows on it, another box appeared that said ‘Invalid password’. I figured the box asked me for some password. There was something written about passwords on a piece of paper in the cardboard box of the device. Eventually I must have gotten it right, because the box disappeared and the picture of the leaves came up on the frame.”
“So what were you staring at when I came in?”
“If you look very closely, you can see a very, very small grid of lines on the frame. I think the image is composed of millions and millions of little dots.”
“Wow, that certainly is some magic. Controlling millions of dots can’t be easy.”
“That’s just it. There’s nothing magic about the device.”
“What do you mean? That this is a mechanism? But nothing so complex would ever fit into such a small space.”
“I don’t know how the device does what it does. I need some time to tinker with it. That reminds me.” Twilight gave Spike a bundle of documents. “Would you like to become my Number One Experimenter?”
~~~
Rainbow Dash knew she couldn’t slow down yet. Just one more second. Another half a second. Ponies never realised just how much work went into making a proper entrance. You couldn’t just dash right in, there was a careful and precise routine behind it. So to her, it was no surprise that she landed on exactly the right spot with the exact remaining force to make her bones vibrate with the exact frequency to shake the exact amount of water from her fur into the air to produce a rainbow from head to tail. “Equestria’s fastest flyer has arrived! Did somepony order one pegasus worth of awesome?”
Spike barely looked up from his clipboard as he checked off the last item on the list. ‘Power source’. “Hey Rainbow. Ready for a dash? You’re late, by the way.”
“Well you can’t expect me to win a race without a nap beforehoof, now can you? Where is the starting line? I only see all this egghead stuff. Have you become an egghead too?” Rainbow softly bumped Spike on the head.
“It’s not a race. I just need you to run really fast.”
“That’s all? Where’s the point in running when there’s not a race to win? Sounds boring!”
“Well if you don’t want to, I guess I’ll have to ask Applejack. I bet she’s faster too.”
“No way!”
“Is too!”
“Alright, Spike. I’ll run around a bit, only to proof that nopony is faster than me!”
Spike pointed to a wooden running wheel, that was connected to a frame with several bulky metal objects attached in a circle. Inside the circle was a thick beam of wood covered in copper wire. The wire connected to another contraption with even more wire and a bar of iron in the middle reaching into yet another contraption. There was a lot of copper wire involved. The final wire lead to two large metal tubes, forming a V-shaped object without touching at the base.
“A running wheel? Are we making cider?”
“No, we’re making science. Now get in and start running.”
“Ok, bossypants. Now watch and marvel at my speed.”
Rainbow flew into the running wheel and started with a light canter.
“Is that what counts as running in Cloudsdale?”
“I’m just warming up and leg cramps are nasty. On wingpower, you’d see nothing but a blur.”
After a minute of cantering, Rainbow accelerated for the first sprint. The wooden frame with the metal objects started to vibrate and blur from speed, even though it was very well balanced. Evidently there were larger forces at work than visible. One of the smaller contraptions started to hum in a low note, but became louder as Rainbow accelerated even more.
Suddenly a spark sprang from the base of the metal pipes, connecting both sides. The spark was larger than any spark Spike had seen before. Almost like a lightning bolt, but smaller and permanent. The spark gave off a loud buzzing noise and began to arc upwards towards the upper end of the V-shape. In a few seconds the arc travelled upwards, becoming longer and reaching above the pipes. As the arc became too long, it suddenly vanished with a loud bang, like a full grown tree being snapped in half.
“Wow, that was awesome!” Rainbow had left the wheel after the arc vanished and the wheel slowed down rapidly. Spike just stood there and looked at the spot, where the arc had disappeared. His eyes became a bit larger and he spoke with a clearly audible tremble in his voice.
“Twilight... She said it wasn’t dangerous! ‘Barely any danger’ she said!”
“That was fun! Let’s do it again!” Rainbow was already in the wheel again and started running.
“Su- sure, but let’s not get crazy, alright?”
Rainbow did not seem to hear Spike and got into a full gallop. The spark appeared once again and filled the air with the buzzing sound. But Rainbow wasn’t finished yet. This time she began to flap her wings to provide enough lift, that she eventually started to run upside the inside of the wheel running in circles in reverse order as the rotation of the wheel. A rainbow trail after her, both the wheel and Rainbow turned into blurry circles of opposite rotation.
The spark had travelled to the upper end and connected the tip of each tube with an arc much bigger and much longer than before. The arc reached well beyond the tubes and into the air above the setup. Even in daylight the arc gave off light and must have been visible from all around Ponyville, if they were not well outside the inner town.
Spike noticed that the frame around the wooden beam had a slight red glow to it. Like it was on fire, but you couldn’t see the flames due to the fast rotation.
“Um, Rainbow? Maybe you should stop. I don’t think the machines can handle this speed much longer.”
Right on cue, the machine gave way to the forces and broke apart while still spinning. The break was undermined only by a thundering bang as the spark disappeared. The burning frame was catapulted into the air, while the running wheel no longer had any resistance and was just spinning as fast it could. The sudden change caused Rainbow to lose control and fly out of the wheel with a trajectory that intersected luckily with nothing but empty air. The whole event lasted only seconds, giving Spike not enough time to do anything but to cower in fear while debris began falling down back to earth. A small part of Spike’s mind was nagging him to check off the experiment as both success and failure on the checklist, but was drowned by the remaining part telling Spike to stay in cover until the flaming debris stopped falling.
Having more than the usual scheduled transports from other towns was uncommon in Ponyville and often indicated that new building material was shipped in to repair damages from the last of the increasingly frequent, destructive events. The last months however, had brought only three things to Ponyville. Peace, autumn and enough technological advances for the mayor to declare Ponyville ‘the new center of technology outside Canterlot’.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, who still preferred simply Twilight, was also declared unofficial Minister of Technology, although nopony knew on whose authority or what the title exactly meant. The townsponies had their own nicknames anyway, including ‘Princess Eyebags’, ‘Twilight Cackle’ and ‘the other Princess of the Night’. The latter arose from the fact, that there was always a light burning in the building across the town library.
Twilight Sparkle had rented the building seven weeks ago and moved a lot of strange equipment into it. Every week another researcher from Canterlot or Manehattan seemed to move in and take on some project. A week or so later, they would emerge again and present another invention to the impressed public of Ponyville. It started with a new material, that could be extracted from wood pulp with a simple spell and some chemicals. Since it was a lot like wood, except that it was malleable at higher temperatures, it had a multitude of uses. Soon, most shops offered some form of novelty with the new material. It was commonly known as soft wood.
Other inventions were such a novelty, that not all of them had immediate uses. But many agreed, that sooner or later they would be incorporated into everyday life too. The general public of Ponyville had accepted that some changes were inbound and the work of Twilight Sparkle was seen indifferently at worst.
This fact was not lost on Spike, but did little to ease his mind, as he locked the library one evening and went towards the building across. Twilight was only coming to the library to eat, sleep and shower. Shirking her duties as librarian, most of the work fell on to Spike, with some help from the local reading club and copious amounts of self-organization. Patrons were encouraged to reshelf their borrowed books themselves and nopony had to pay late return fees.
Determined to make Twilight eat at least one proper meal this day, Spike balanced a tray with steaming rice and fried vegetables as he entered the building. Rice wasn’t easy to come by in Ponyville, so it was always something special when they got their hooves on a shipment. Inside, he navigated a maze of tables, all filled with different instruments, glassware, books and half-finished machinery. Spike nodded a greeting to a stallion writing a report of sorts. Other researchers absently responded to Spike’s greeting as well, immediately returning to their work. Spike found Twilight in her ‘domain’, the largest room in the building.
Her current project concerned the bigger of the devices they found in the package months ago. The device stood on its own table, cables connecting it to the other device, nicknamed ‘controller’, because Twilight couldn’t figure out why it was named a netbook in the documents. She had come to the conclusion that the bigger device was supposed to be a printing press, which explained the name of ‘3D-printer’. But instead of ink, it used malleable materials like soft wood, gallium or chocolade; a fact well hidden from Pinkie Pie. And instead of flat patterns on paper, it produced thin layers stacked upon each other, until a three-dimensional structure emerged.
Spike placed the tray on a free spot on a table and approached Twilight. “Hey Twilight, I brought you some food and I swear upon my drago-”
“Spike! You’ve come at the right time. I just made a great breakthrough!” Twilight bounced excitedly up and down, before handing over a small object made of soft wood. Spike didn’t know what it was, but it looked like a bracket.
“What is this? And why is it so exciting?”
“Don’t you see? I made it with the printer.”
“Oh, so you got it to work? That’s great, I guess? I just don’t see why you’d want make anything in a such a complicated manner. But at least you can make... uhm, what is this exactly?”
Twilight looked a bit confused at Spike’s underwhelmed response. “It’s a bracket.”
“I can see that. I mean, a bracket for what?”
Twilight pointed at one part of the printer, where three metal rods joined together. The part looked very much like the one in Spike’s claw.
“Wait, you made a part of the printer with the printer itself?”
“Yes. Even better, in the controller I found more blueprints for a lot of the other parts of the printer. With some replacements, I guess I can print almost every part of it. I’m having Copy Cat research a lightning spell matrix with the same function as the internal circuit parts, because I can’t replicate those.”
Spike looked at Twilight in confusion, then his face lit up, as he understood what she was hinting at. “You want to print another printer!”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you. Didn’t you listen?”
“You can’t do that! Don’t you remember the Great Parasprite Infestation? I don’t think Pinkie Pie can sing a song to save our hides this time.”
Twilight held a hoof up and giggled. “Oh Spike, you have a vivid imagination. Don’t worry, this has nothing to do with parasprites. This is just a machine. It doesn’t do anything when there are no commands from the controller.”
“I remember that you were not very sceptical of parasprites at first either.”
“This is different. I am not dealing with an invasive lifeform; I’m simply creating more of a machine, that I have researched very thoroughly.”
Spike continued to look at Twilight, who turned back to the controller and typed something into it. After a minute of thinking, Spike shook his head and walked over to the tray. “I really don’t think that this is a good idea. But I trust your judgment. Just don’t make me regret it.”
“Don’t worry Spike. I have everything under control.”
“What you certainly do not have under control, is your appearance.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight turned to Spike again and looked at him quizzically.
“Your mane is dishevelled, your wings haven’t been preened in a week, you have eyebags and Nurse Redheart would not be amused by your eating habits. I won’t tell you what the other ponies start to call you these days.”
“But- But who cares how I look? That doesn’t matter.”
“It certainly does, Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
“Well, that’s their problem. I have better things to do.”
“Yes, of course, Princess Eyebags.”
“What was that?”
“I’ll tell you, if you promise to eat the food before it gets cold. Look, I made rice.”
Twilight looked up and licked her lips. “Oh, you did? I suppose I can spare a few minutes. Thanks, Spike.”
Twilight trotted towards the tray and dug in as though she had not eaten anything that day. Halfway through the meal, Spike remarked “Oh, and you have an appointment at the spa tomorrow afternoon.” Twilight abruptly stopped chewing and looked at Spike, her eyes narrowing. He could not help but to grin.
~~~
The night of the following day brought a cloud cover to Ponyville, scheduled to water the last of the crop later that night. Spike had already gone to bed, hoping that Twilight would not wake him when she got home. The day gone had served well to restore some of the tarnish her neglect had caused. Reluctantly, she had gone to the spa to meet with the others. Even Rainbow Dash had shown up. After that, Spike had convinced her to make proper dinner with him and they had gone an entire conversation without talking about the countless projects Twilight worked on. Seeing how Twilight was back on track, he was not concerned that she went off to work after the dinner and went to bed, finally once without being worried.
His slumber was only disturbed when Spike awoke some hours later to a faint noise. The noise repeated itself and vaguely resembled somepony yelling commands or arguing loudly. The yelling continued and was accompanied by the sound of things breaking, being dropped or otherwise mishandled. Deciding that this was not normal, Spike got up to locate the source of the noises.
Going on a hunch, he left the library and across the empty square towards the building on the other side. Some lights were still on, as always, but from one of the windows, Spike could see the purple glow of Twilight’s magic being repeatedly fired on something. This alone was enough to send shivers down his spine, but Spike really got scared when suddenly the window broke and a small construct, looking like a spider, fell down on the street.
The construct did not waste time and walked right at Spike, intentions unclear. He was not sure what to do and began to panic. When the construct had reached him, the only thing that came to his mind, was to breath fire. Spike rarely used his non-magic fire, but seeing no choice, he breathed nonetheless. Instead of the red-hot fire he intended, he actually did use magic fire and promptly sent the spider to Princess Celestia. At least she was most likely able to handle the magic construct.
More constructs were crawling and jumping out of the broken window, all of them with the same spider-like design. To Spike’s relief, none of them headed towards him. To his horror, they were scattering across the town. Quickly, all of the constructs had left the building and no new ones were crawling out. Still, about three dozens had escaped into the night.
Twilight appeared in a purple flash on the street, looking around in bewilderment. Spike ran over to her. “Twilight! What happened? What are those constructs?”
“It was only supposed to be one. Oh, this isn’t good! I tried to deactivate them all, but I can only do one at a time.” She began to run in a random direction, darting around and looking for any constructs she could find.
Spike followed her, still confused about the event. “What do you mean? Did you create those? We have to stop them!”
“I’ll explain later. I’ll just hope I can get them all before they do too much damage.” One construct crawled out of a flower arrangement, holding a freshly-cut branch of rambler rose. Twilight quickly zapped the construct with a beam of magic, deactivating it in the process. “They will try to gather wood.” she continued.
“Why?”
“I really don’t have time to explain. Can you cover the other side of the street? Just hit them hard on the body and they stop. They won’t attack you.”
“But one of them came straight at me!”
“It probably was heading to the library. Now quick, we can’t let them spread too far!” Twilight took flight, leaving Spike on the ground. Reaching the height of the rooftops with some difficulty, she pointed down the street and called back down “There are two at the clock shop over there. Can you get them? I’ll take on the cluster of buildings across the square.”
Having not much choice in the matter, Spike ran over to the shop and saw the two constructs starting to cut down the sign above the door. Shortly after, the sign fell down; the constructs hanging onto it and carrying it towards the square. Meanwhile, Spike had picked up a stick from a cart nearby and proceeded to hit the constructs with all the force his tiny arms could muster. The constructs stopped moving after two hits each.
Many windows were now filled with light as the other ponies in town woke up. They quickly discovered the ‘spiders’ crawling around town. Only the fact that they were already at home prevented one of the famous Ponyville Panic Stampedes; much to the chagrin of a close-knit group of ponies, who always readily partook in them.
It took Twilight, Spike and a quickly recruited, very sleepy Pinkie Pie the better of two hours to find and deactivate all constructs. Rarity was nowhere to be seen. Seeing no more movement and hearing no more frightened yelps, Twilight descended back to earth in front of the library, where Spike and Pinkie had gathered, leaning on each other and looking ready to sleep on the spot. “I think that were all of them. I cannot thank you two enough for the help. Who knows how long it would have taken me to find them all alone. I’m glad that this did not happen during the day. The mayor would probably have sent a letter to notify Princess Celestia.”
Spike looked up and jerked upright, when he saw something behind Twilight. He raised a claw to point, but was cut off by a new voice, sounding regal and very much not amused.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle, you have some explaining to do. Why was I awakened in the middle of the night by a magical construct dismantling my two-hundred year old bed?”
Twilight was mortified; her mentor staring at her with a stern expression. She didn’t know what do, how to respond. Should she act strong and in control or rather submissive and apologetic? Certainly, things had gone a bit awry, but was it really so bad? Did she have to fear to stand responsible before Celestia?
Twilight decided to take the middle ground, hoping to salvage the situation either way it was going to swing. “Princess Celestia! I- I did not expect you.”
“You did not?” Celestia looked around, the now calm village taking the edge off her stance. “I assumed that you were in danger and unable to send a full letter as warning.”
Twilight was not sure what to make of this. How did one of the constructs end up with Celestia? Unless- “Spike. Did you send one of the spiders to Princess Celestia?”
Spike looked embarrassed and folded his claws in front of him, looking down. “My bad. Sorry.”
Twilight shook her head, but turned to Celestia again. The damage was done already; no need to shift around blame. “Princess, I am grateful that you responded in order to help. But I can assure you that the situation is now under control.”
“Yes, Twilight, I gathered as much.” Celestia relaxed almost unnoticeably, but held her gaze at Twilight. “I still expect an explanation to what happened.”
Twilight shifted around nervously, unsure where to begin. There was no point to talk around the subject with Celestia; eventually she had to tell the truth. “Well, last night, or sometime earlier this night, I gave the printer a command to print out the components for a magical construct I whipped up. It was a simple design, with a single spell matrix in the center. Copy Cat is really good with that, I must say. The spell matrix would assemble the construct from the given components and contains a come-to-life spell interwoven with a wood-divining enhancement and a sorting quality filt-”
Celestia held her hoof up and interrupted Twilight. “No need to explain the technicalities. I presume the ‘printer’ refers to one of the devices I heard so much about?”
“Yes, it can construct objects from soft wood by repeatedly printing layers of material on top of-” Twilight continued, but stopped as she realized that she was rambling on.
“I understand. Please continue with the events of earlier this night.”
“Right, well, the construct was supposed to help with finding suitable material to make soft wood of higher quality. I watched as the parts were printed out, but must have dozed off. When I awoke again, there were suddenly dozens of the spiders. I must have hit the keyboard and repeatedly send the print command. When there was no more material, something caused the spiders to seek out wood. Maybe the feeding mechanism for the printer was more complex than needed; I’m not sure.”
Celestia looked at Twilight, seemingly processing some of the terms she had used. She paused momentarily in thought, then addressed her again. “So if the material had not run out, would the printer have made even more of these constructs?”
“As much as there were wooden chips with the spell matrix on it. There were another hundred or so of those. Copy Cat is worryingly good at that; I guess I should talk to her sometime.”
“And suppose you had another contraption, automating the process of turning wood to soft wood. Would the constructs have fed said contraption?”
For a moment Twilight gazed at the stars, thinking, then responded “If the machine is designed properly, it should be possible.”
Celestia’s voice had taken on a slight tone of playful condescension. She sometimes did that, when she led Twilight on a trail of thought leading to a desired conclusion. “And suppose further you had taken an extraordinarily long nap, or simply forgot to turn the machines off in the evening. What would have happened?”
Twilight looked at Celestia puzzled, then she understood and hastened to reply “Oh, but Princess! I never would take it that far!” Behind her, Spike folded his arms and silently mouthed ‘Parasprite’.
Celestia hardened her expression again, regaining her regal composure and reminding Twilight, that she was in the presence of the Princess of the Sun. “That may be so; we will determine that at a later date. Still, you have violated one of your new responsibilities. I will now return to Canterlot. You can go to sleep, but we will have a private audience tomorrow afternoon at the court.” With a look at Pinkie Pie, who had fallen asleep laying curled up next to Spike, she added “And I expect the presence of the Bearers of Harmony.”
~~~
The six Bearers of Harmony entered the courtroom of Celestia with mixed feelings. Five of them were not entirely sure what their purpose in this meeting was, but could guess at it, when they observed the sixth one for even a little while. Twilight could not hide the dread she was feeling. Despite being almost a surrogate mother to her, Celestia could very well take on her role as diarch of Equestria. If she felt the need to reprimand Twilight, it was fully in her right and ability to do so.
Except for the six mares and Celestia herself, there were only two guards and a transcriber present. The latter reminded Twilight, that a transcript of this audience would be available to privy eyes. Then again, if what Spike had told her was true, then her reputation was already permanently damaged.
When the group had arrived at Celestia’s seat, they gave her a bow, to which the guards and the transcriber responded in kind, facing Twilight. Then, the transcriber took a step forward.
“Princess Celestia receives Princess Twilight Sparkle and friends. The third audience of October 11th in the year 3471 begins now.”
Celestia nodded towards the pony and stood up from her seat. “Thank you, Fast Quill. This audience will address the work of Princess Twilight Sparkle and the events, that happened in Ponyville on the night from yesterday to today. Princess Twilight Sparkle, please recount everything that has happened since yesterday evening until my arrival in Ponyville, including technical details.”
Twilight tried to tone down her nervousness and began to describe the flow of events. This time, Celestia did not interrupt her and only asked technical questions about the time frame of individual events and the position of some objects. Her voice never rose in pitch or volume, as if she was merely checking off some items on a mental checklist. Twilight could only assume, that Celestia did not care much about the detailed description, but was required to form a full report.
When Twilight was finished, she breathed out slowly, releasing the tension, that had accumulated during the long talk. The others had listened patiently, Rainbow and Pinkie with some difficulty, and gave her supporting smiles.
Celestia turned towards the transcriber and said “We will close the transcription here, if you please.” The transcriber raised an eyebrow, indicating that this was somewhat unorthodox, but then nodded and jotted down some final lines on the scroll.
Celestia gave Twilight a minute to gather her thoughts and for her friends to whisper among themselves. Then, she addressed Twilight again: “Twilight, do you know why I had you come here to report in an official audience?”
Twilight silently panicked. What rule had she broken? Was this covered in one of the books she hadn’t, but should have, read yet? Maybe this was a trick question or a test of her knowledge. She began to think back to everything Celestia had told her since her coronation, but this was too much to remember in the span of a moment. Or was she referring to her friendship reports?
Twilight opened her mouth to stammer out some fill-ins to buy her a bit more time. But then the answer became clear to her, as obvious as it was. She lowered her head and spoke with a tremble in her voice.
“Because I have endangered all of Ponyville.”
“Precisely. Given your report from just now, you should have been able to predict what was going to happen when the device was finished printing the components. I understand why it seemed like a convenience to give the constructs that much autonomy, but by doing so you also could no longer guarantee the safety of these machines. Instead of taking a safer alternative, you chose your convenience over the safety of others and yourself.
“While I would like to be lenient this time, I have to hold you responsible as a Princess of Equestria. Your actions endangered the ponies of Ponyville. I need you to understand this and be more careful in the future. You need to internalize, that the well-being of those around you is more important than your work.
“Since the damage is not great, I am sure that you can take care of repairs on your own time and with your own funds. I will not punish you, but expect a public apology to your fellow ponies.”
Twilight held her head down in shame, a tear sneaking down her cheek. At her side, Applejack laid a hoof over her shoulder; Pinkie offered a smile. The others looked like they wanted to give Twilight a hug, but could not move without turning their back to Celestia.
“That brings us to your work in the past months. I cannot deny that I am impressed and pleased with the progress you brought to Equestria. I am, however, concerned about the effect of your sometimes overzealous work ethic on your health and your appearance.”
Celestia could not hold back a small grin. “Rumors have a way to travel to Canterlot.”
“I can assure you, that all that work and all those projects will still be there tomorrow. Take it easy, Twilight.”
Wiping away the tears in her eyes, Twilight looked up again and met Celestia’s gaze with a hint of confidence. When Celestia did not continue, she finally replied “Thank you, Princess, for speaking the truth. I can remember when I wrote in a friendship report about the importance of being honest with your friends. I see that you know this too. I just wish, I were not such a disappointment as a princess.”
Celestia’s expression softened and she began to walk towards the group standing before her. “You are not, Twilight. When Luna agreed to your coronation, it was after I had convinced her, that you are ready for it. I still stand by my judgement. You made a mistake, yes, but do not let this get too close to your heart.”
Celestia had arrived at the group and nudged Twilight to look up to her and meet her eyes. “Everything is going to be fine.” she said, as she nuzzled Twilight. Pinkie Pie could not help herself and pulled all seven of them into a group hug. Nopony complained.
~~~
Holding a big package in her magical grip, Twilight walked through Ponyville with a whistle and a smile. It had taken her two days, and an embarrassing amount of ice cream, to cheer her up again, but her friends had done their best to improve her mood.
The residents of Ponyville had taken the whole affair with stride. Compared to an Ursa Minor, a couple of spiders were not as frightening. The next day, everypony was back to their routine and only a disgruntled clock maker had actually filed a complaint. The work in the ominous building across the library square had continued as always, only being made less ominous by the absence of Twilight Sparkle.
She had decided that Celestia was right and there was no need to spend day and night working on everything. Spike had been relieved to hear that she would stay the afternoons and evenings in the library again and only work in the morning on her projects.
The package was the same cardboard box, that had ended up in Twilight hooves. The contents were also the same, albeit with some additions. The books were full with bookmarks, sidenotes and one or two or many coffee stains on each page. The printer was made from the original components, while Twilight had made a copy of it for herself; a tribute to her work with it. The controller was missing from the package. Twilight could not bear to part with it, especially since it was still holding so much secrets and was irreplaceable for her work. Instead, the box contained a bar of gold and a heartfelt apology. Hopefully the recipient could just get another controller.
Twilight arrived at the post office and entered the building. There was not much work to do, so the two post office workers were sitting behind the counter when Twilight entered. One of them was a pegasus mare with gray coat, staring at a muffin before her. Twilight went up to the counter and greeted her.
“Hello, Ditzy. How are you?”
Ditzy took a bite out of the muffin and simply smiled sheepishly.
“Do you remember the package you brought us all those months ago? I think it is time for it to finally arrive at its destination. Could you deliver it for me?”
“Sure!”
Ditzy grabbed the package with ease and flew off, as soon as she left the building. Twilight decidedly did not look to see in which direction she was headed. It was better that way.
