Pinkie Pie had arrived as promised, but she was wearing a colorful umbrella on her head and was looking around nervously as if something might happen at any moment.
Moon Dancer squinted at the sight. "I will take all proper safety precautions. We can go over the checklist together." A pad floated closer with a list of things any proper scientist needed to go over when performing such measurements.
"It's not you." Pinkie pushed the board down as she glanced around. "My tail's twitching! That means something is about to fall, maybe lots of things. I'm never sure..."
Moon threw out a hoof, grabbing a measuring collander of a device to get on Pinkie. "You didn't tell me we'd already begun!" In the hurry, she let go of it too quickly, and it bounced off Pinkie's umbrella to clatter to the floor.
"Huh..." Pinkie held her tail gently. "It stopped. I guess that was it."
Moon crossed her arms. "I was unable to gather any measurements. That was inconclusive by far. You made me move haphazardly, which resulted in the falling you 'predicted'. Please remove that umbrella." She wobbled her hoof at the colorful headware. "I can't get this on you with it in the way." She grabbed her measuring cap with her magic. "Let's get you under observation before we properly begin."
Pinkie pulled her protective shield free to have it replaced with a blinking collander. "This looks funny."
"It is unusual in appearance." Moon was carefully inspecting the connections and the larger device it all went to. She peered over the lines. "Alright, let's get a base. You are not feeling any predictive hints of any kind right now?"
Pinkie leaned forward slowly. "Are you gonna prove it's real?"
"No."
Pinkie blinked at that simple answer. "You already think it's fake?"
"No." Moon ran a hoof over the lines that spat out. "Why would I think that?"
Pinkie pointed upwards. "Twilight never believes me. It's just 'Pinkie being Pinkie'." She exhaled. "I try not to let it show, but that hurts a little."
Moon paused in her work, considering her test subject. "I am not Twilight... Though I feel... strongly towards her, we remain two different ponies. You have presented me enough evidence to not dismiss your claims out of hoof. Something is happening. The question is what, and why, and if we can measure it. I am hoping we can get all three of those answers. Now, you are not feeling any predictive stimuli?"
Pinkie smiled gently at that, quiet a moment. "I'm feeling... seen... But no, no predictive whatevers."
"I hope I see you." She poked at the side of her head. "My eyes are operational and in good working order. Let us continue!" Moon sounded excited at that last part. "Now, tell me when and if your tail begins to twitch."
"Nothing... Nothing..." Pinkie tilted her head. "Wait, there was a little, a tremble?"
"Fascinating." Moon made a mark on the paper. "You can predict when I consider dropping something myself. This deserves proving. Spike!"
"Hey." He poked his head in from upstairs. "Woah." He could see Pinkie all prepared for science. "Am I interrupting?"
"Yes, but I requested it." Moon pointed at where Spike was. "Do not move. Without telling us, begin considering dropping something in the room. If not told otherwise, you may inform us a minute after that event."
"Oh, uh... alright..." He looked around for something that'd be good for dropping. Moon Dancer? She would be hard to pick up, let alone drop. Oh, the quill she was working with would drop pretty well!
"Twitcha twitch!" Pinkie's tail shuddered and jumped behind her. "And it's gone."
Moon inclined her head. "Spike, were you focused on dropping something?"
"Uh... I was just thinking your quill would be safe to drop. Nothing would get hurt if I did that."
"Fascinating." She took a note with that same quill, marking where it happened on the lines. "We're already making progress! Your mind seems to react... I can't say why." She reached for the cap and soon had it on her own head. "Spike, repeat the thought without informing me." Moon Dancer's head was on the chart with a singular focus.
"Uh..." He considered the quill and its dropping. The machine was also a valid dropping target. He could knock it over and it'd make a big noise, but also probably beak? He shouldn't do that. Yeah, the quill..."
"Twitch?" Pinkie barely got a sensation. "This isn't nearly as certain as I was when I first came over."
"This isn't nearly as certain," repeated Moon Dancer. "You are reacting to thoughts, and not even certain thoughts. It's amazing you're reacting at all." She pawed at the papers. "And I'm not. Look here." She trailed her hoof along the straight line. "Spike had his thought, you reacted again, but mine, nothing happened." She ran quickly back to when it was on Pinkie's head. "When you react, it's a sharp jump, right here." She tapped with a big smile. "Something is happening. I can't say what... But I'm feeling increasingly certain. This is proof."
"Excuse me." Twilight stepped around Spike carefully. "Are you done looking at the impossible?"
Moon pointed at her squiggles. "The impossible is simply what we do not yet understand."
Pinkie clopped a hoof to her head. "I didn't see this coming! Normally my back gets all itchy when it's my lucky day, and this qualifies. I wonder what went wrong..." She couldn't know things were not quite right around her. "See, told you, Twi! I wasn't just making it up."
"We need more evidence." Moon poked at the paper. "The more we have, the better the paper I can write and the more attention it will attract. Maybe Princess Celestia will make this a formal assignment." As happy as Pinkie was, Moon was grinning with the hope that she'd get a new task officially set at her hooves. "What are your other stimuli?"
"Well, let's see..." Pinkie considered with a slow tapping. "There's a big list of little things..."
"Here we go." Twilight walked past them all towards a bookcase and began to pluck things from it with her magic. "Moon, I expected better from you. Playing with things you... Just let Pinkie be Pinkie."
"I will not cease in my search of knowledge." Moon nodded at Pinkie. "Please proceed. I am listening. Twilight, I will speak to you later."
Twilight felt suddenly dismissed. In her own home! Hmph... "Good luck then." She marched up past Spike, vanishing onto the first floor to take care of her own duties. "Don't blame me if you get hurt."
"When my back is itchy, it means it's my lucky day, I mentioned that already." Pinkie was pointing at her back. "And, when my knee gets pinchy, that means something scary's about to happen. Glad that's not happening, though a good scare can be fun at times."
Moon shook her head. "Scares are not fun."
"Gonna agree with Moon Dancer on that." Spike nodded slowly. "Avoiding scares is generally the idea."
Pinkie stuck out her tongue in a ripe raspberry, but went right on, "When my shoulder's achy, that means there's an alligator in the tub!"
Moon blinked softly. "Does that happen often?"
"More often than you'd think." rubbed at her shoulder. "It's a little stingy right now actually." She looked around, but saw no tub for an alligator to be in. "Huh... Well, I have a pet alligator. His name is Gummy and he's great!"
"I would like to meet them, but they are not related to thi--" A piercing scream came from above. "What?" Moon willed the cap off Pinkie and they all ran up the stairs, following Spike at the lead. The library itself was empty. The sign on the door read 'Open', but that was facing inside, which meant the library was actually closed. They could see the books Twilight had taken were there, on the return shelf. All but one of them.
A shriek of dismay reached them from further upstairs. "This way!" Spike hurried up the steps. "Is that you, Twilight?! We're here to help!"
They arrived to find Twilight backed up against a wall, dripping wet. Coming towards her with slow, plodding steps from her bathtub was a fearsome and horrifying little alligator with no teeth. "Gummy!" Pinkie burst past the surprised Spike to grab up her pet in a warm hug. "When did you get here? Silly thing!"
Twilight sagged in place. "That's yours?" Her horn glowed as she picked up her abandoned book, the missing of the set, and put it carefully on the counter. "It was in my tub!"
"Sorry about that." Pinkie was being chomped in energetic bites from Gummy that had entirely no effect on her. "He wouldn't hurt anypony, promise."
"I didn't know that!" Twilight circled widely around Pinkie back towards her tub. "Now... I'd like to finish, so... begone." She shooed her rescuers away. "By Celestia..."
Moon coughed nervously. "Sorry for bothering you, Twilight. Let's go." She led the way back down stairs. "That was embarassing..." She considered a moment. "But it is evidence. You could not have known when Gummy would appear in Twilight's tub, even if you did bring him here." She tapped at the wooden floor. "When he would have encountered Twilight was effectively random, but you predicted it." She looked Pinkie over from top to bottom from where she stood. "You seem able to... You have some fashion of predictive ability. I couldn't say where it comes from, but it's difficult to argue with the results."
Spike hiked a thumb at the door leading outside. "Do you need me for anything?"
"I was hoping you could assist in further experiments. It's a shame we only have one tub..." Moon frowned with thought. "We could see if introducing Gummy when you couldn't see him would reliably trigger that reaction. Does a pony need to be present at the time?"
Pinkie was descending into the basement, Gummy on her back. "Yep! There's no alligator in 'your' tub if you aren't there. They could come and go all day when you're not there and who'd even notice?!" She pffted at the idea as she hopped down to the basement floor. "Besides, then it might go off all the time and that'd be really annoying."
"Hm." Moon descended to join her. "Logical... but we'll have to wait for Twilight to finish before we can test the limits of that. Pinkie, have you attempted to determine the limits of this sense?"
Pinkie shook her head quickly. "Nope. It just comes, and I pay attention. I never tried to be all... science-stuff about it." She poked at Moon gently. "Twilight likes being that way, but she doesn't believe in it, in me."
Moon considered that. "She wants things she can explain the origin of, which I cannot with this. That is frustrating, but I would like to know more. Spike, can you take down a letter?"
"On it!" Out came a quill and a paper.
Greetings Princess Celestia,
There are some things that defy straightforward explanation. I have had it made clear to me that this is not indi... mean. This does not mean, sorry, Spike is dictating this and I will try to stay in his range. Just because you don't understand the source of something does not mean it does not exist.
It also doesn't mean it's not worth studying and trying to learn it! I also learned that some ponies have talents that are taken for granted. They don't like that. Believing in them and accepting their words is a mark of friendship. Of course, if those words are proven false later, one should inform them.
Oh, she's looking at me. Pinkie is here. She is the subject. I will continue my studies and report as I find things. 'Pinkie Sense' as it is called has tested valid so far, but more tests are required. I look forward to the time spent with my friend.
Learning,
Moon Dancer