“This world is completely different, which means I can't depend on it following the original timeline. That means that I have to find out if Twilight has started her research on magic and see if I could use it to find a way back home… I can't live like this…” Austin thinks while walking along school hallways.
As he walked students seemed to be enjoying their lunch break with other friends, some even with what seemed to be girlfriends and boyfriends.
Every time he took a step the students in front of him moved around to let him pass. Confused, Austin tried to look at their faces, but they all gave him that same jealous look.
“I see…” he thinks “Damn Jake… what kind of a genius are you?”
Minutes turned to hours in his head, but he didn't manage to find her. From left to right to the second and third floor, he practically searched every place in the school.
“You know, from what the animations showed, people might have thought that this place was not big… BUT THIS IS HUGE!”
He physically made a desperate gesture.
“Come on Austin! You can do it! Alright, let's think for a second. Twilight wasn't the person to make friends, at least early on in the story. We already know that she IS in school, but she isn't in any public room. I could search for her next class, but that would limit the time I have talking to her” he thinks with an analytical face.
He turned to look at the signs at each corner of the halls. “Cafeteria”, “East Wing”, “South wing”, “Library”.
“Not even in the library… where else could she be? WAIT. He has Spike… it's lunchtime which means she might be eating with him, but Cadence told her that pets aren't allowed in the school, right? In the third movie? YES! She might be in the dormitories!”
With finally a concrete lead, he heads towards the entrance of the dormitory wing of the school.
As he walks he sees fewer and fewer students around. He guesses that Twilight doesn't like the company.
“Now that I think about it, why didn't I wake up in a dormitory? I'm a part of the school after all… I mean, Jake is. There is still a lot I don't know…
After a few minutes, he made it to the wing. There was a large glass door with a keypad on it which seemed to require a special keycard that they give each of the students that live there.
“You gotta be kidding, even here my luck is bad…”
He waits for a little in a far corner of the hallway until a student comes by and opens the door. Immediately Austin runs and catches the door right before it closes.
“Thank you new body!” he thinks while passing through.
Everything seemed a little bit closer together, especially the walls. The hallways were shorter and smaller in length.
With a little trouble, he manages to find a list of all the people who live in the wing and what their room number was.
“Twilight Sparkle,” he says while scanning all the names “Got ya!”
Right on the bottom right was her name, her room number being “222”.
He searches around, door by door, floor by floor. Room 128, 160, 200, 220.
He finally reaches room 222 on the third floor of the wing. The door was purple and the name in front was “Twilight Sparkle” shown in big black thick letters.
He takes a big breath and tries to organize what he's gonna ask her.
“With the information, I have right now, I'm in a superior position than her in the school hierarchy, which could mean we either have a competitive relationship or respect each other. In the movies, Twilight doesn't seem like the kind of person to have such jealousy, but it's been shown that I'm not in the same timeline… Gotta take precaution” he thinks.
He gets ready to knock on the door but stops himself, preparing himself for what was about to happen.
“Knock knock knock”
Immediately after the sounds emanated, the sloppy movement could be heard behind the door. A bark and a person saying “NO SPIKE!” in loud whispers. A few seconds pass until some locks are heard opening up and the door begins to open slowly.
“Hello?” an innocent voice said with fear.
“H-hi…” Austin said with a smile.
She opened the door a little more until the upper part of her body could be seen. She was just as the movies depicted her. Her skin was purple and her hair was large. She had wide purple eyes and the expression of a child that's trying to hide something from their parents. Austin couldn't stop fanboying mentally.
“Oh! J-Jake! I d-didn't know you were coming by” she said in a fast voice.
She was afraid, but not of him. She didn't want anyone to know Spike was behind her.
“Yeah sorry for not telling you before, this was all kind of sudden and I wanted to ask you a few questions that could help me with a research paper I’m doing for Astrophysics class,” he asks, trying to make her buy the lie.
“Oh, I didn't know you were taking Astro 3. B-but sure, I can help you. Could we just… d-do it somewhere else?” she asks with a smile.
“You can't hide it Twi, I know Spike is in there,” he says with a smirk and a chuckle.
Her face turns a little red and she starts to open the door a little more.
“PLEASE DON'T TELL ANYONE!” she whispers to him.
“I'm not a snitch”
“Oh, nonononono I didn't mean it that-”
“It's okay Twilight, I know you didn't,” he says with a smile.
They both enter the room as Austin closes the door and Twilight opens a hatch to let Spike out.
Spike runs around a little and sniffs Austin’s shoes. Satisfied that he isn't a threat, he goes back to Twilight as she throws a toy to play with.
“I figured you were here with Spike, lunchtime calls animals harder than with humans,” he says while inspecting the room.
It had only one bookshelf, a bed, and a desk with multiple stacked papers. Even the ground was full of books and work.
“You seem to be in a good mood today,” Twilight says as she takes the toy Spike brought her and throws it gently away so that they could continue to play.
“If I had a penny for every time they told me that I would be rich” he responds while looking at Spike.
“By the way, how did you know about Spike?” she asks with a worried face.
“Don't worry, no one else knows, I kind of saw him before and figured he was yours” Austin replied trying to avoid eye contact.
“Thank goodness… I was worried he might be taken away from me because of school rules…”
“Yeah, I can see everyone follows them pretty firmly”
“Yeah, everyone is so interested in doing their best that they figure following them might give them an advantage academic wise”
“Well, look at you. You don't follow all of them and you are the best student in the school!”
Twilight’s face turns a little red after hearing that.
“You don't have to flatter me,” she says with a smile “You already proved yourself to be the best already… especially after winning that chess tournament with your eyes closed… or that time you beat everyone in the shadow bolts football team but refused to play on the tournament… or that time when you were the only person to get a 100 in all midterms…”
She looks down towards Spike. Austin could see that she felt a little jealous. From the information Cinch gave him, Twilight was a close second behind Jake.
“T-that may be so, but look at you. You managed to keep me on my toes all the times we had an exam” he said with a smile “And besides, you are smarter than I will ever be! I just got lucky”
She turned towards him with big eyes but she immediately made a noticeable frown.
“You and I both know Luck isn't a thing. There is a scientific explanation to everything!” she says while standing up.
“Then that means that SCIENTIFICALLY, you are really smart”
She turns towards him and makes a nervous smile.
“T-thank you…”
A minute goes by before they interact again. It became kind of awkward, but internally Austin was enjoying every second of it. How could he not? He was with one of his favorite fictional characters.
“So… you had some questions for me?” she asked with a nervous look.
“Oh, right! For the paper”
He cleared his throat and mentally remembered all his questions as if they were listed on a piece of paper.
“I first would like to ask what day is it, with month and year too”
She looked at him confused. How could the most intelligent student in the school not know the date? All that confusion faded away after seeing his serious face.
“Okay, T-today is well… the year is 2013 and month September… and day… 23rd,” she said with a nervous look as if she were taking a test.
With this newfound information, Austin could now figure the most important question he has at the moment.
“I see. So we are in September, which means that we are around the Fall Formal event…” he thinks.
Twilight looks at his face a little bit too much. When Austin finally comes back from his thinking she immediately looks away to avoid an embarrassing situation.
“Do you know if the Fall Formal already happened?” he asked her with a soft smile.
“Fall Formal?” she replied with a look of confusion “I- I'm sorry, I don't know what that is. WAIT, IS THAT A CONCEPT THAT'S COMING IN OUR NEXT TEST?”
“Oh, no-no. It's an event happening someplace else. It’s not school-related” he said with a chuckle.
“Oof.. that's good” she responded with a sigh of relief.
Austin didn't notice but all through their interrogation, he was smiling. Normally he had to force himself, but with her it was different. He didn't have to make that conscious effort.
“One last question and this is the most important one”
Twilight leaned in with anticipation, her eyes glowing with life and wonder.
“Do you believe in Magic?” he finally said after a few seconds.
Twi’s face fell to the floor by this ridiculous question.
“Of course Magic doesn't exist,” she says while adjusting her glasses “As I said before, there is a scientific explanation to everything”
That answered the last of his questions. To be fair, those were only 3 but it confirmed multiple things.
Twilight hadn't started her research into magic yet which means the first energy anomaly hasn't happened, which also means that the fall formal is still yet to start, which ALSO means that Princess Twilight would soon come to this world.
Austin looks at his reflection in the only mirror the room had.
“Maybe I can go back to my world with her help. From what I can tell my presence here has created a whole different timeline from the original continuity. That could suggest that me being here… could change the whole story” he thinks.
Twilight looks at him with curiosity. She had never seen Jake this intensely immersed in his own thoughts before.
Austin notices her and panics a little, he can't let any more information spill out.
“Sorry, was thinking a little,” he said while trying to act normal.
“Oh, no problem. I kind of figured, you normally are not a people person… just like me”
This catches him by surprise. It reminds him of what happens in the third movie. This Twilight hasn't realized the importance of friendship yet.
“You know, sometimes we gotta reach out to others so that they can help us. Look at me today, we managed to get a good conversation going right?” he says with a comforting smile.
His comment made Twilight blush a little. It's true that she was jealous of him, but she hadn't heard any other student talk to her like this for a long time.
Just before she opened her mouth to say something a loud sound could be heard in the hall. It was that annoying ringtone that sounds when lunch is over and a class is about to start.
Austin took this opportunity to make his escape.
“That's my queue to go,” he says with a thumbs up.
Without saying another word he grabs his backpack from the corner of the room and heads towards the exit.
“WAIT!” Twilight exclaims while standing up “Do YOU believe in Magic?”
Before passing through the door opening he looks back at her. Her beautiful face shining in front of his.
“With you existing, hell yeah,” he said without even thinking.
This made both of them blush. Austin didn't mean to say that, he was too captivated by her beauty and the moment.
“I- I gotta go! See you later!” he says while running out of the room and gently shutting the door.
Twilight stayed there with her mouth open as Spike licks her legs to get a reaction, but she just could not believe he said that.
“CRAP, CRAP! CRAP!!” Austin thinks while leaving the dormitory wing “This is bad, now she is gonna think “Jake” has a crush on her… I gotta get my emotions in check! Remember Austin, you are just a pebble in the road. Just a tiny insignificant particle!”
He leaves the school via the front doors and searches the way to Jake’s apartment.
But before he started walking the way he remembered, his head turned back towards the Crystal Prep building.
“I'm sorry Jake but I'm gonna have to take action into my own hands. I can't stay in your body and I can't stay in this world… I gotta go back… and the only way I can is with her help… I hope you forgive me for taking control of your life…” he says.
And as he walks towards his apartment something activates in his mind. It's nothing big, just a tiny impulse in the back of his brain. As if there were another consciousness in his body waking up slowly…. but surely.