Silver Spoon sat there. Her eyes were sparkling, and her face spoke of the absolute ecstasy that she felt. "It's real... time travel is real..." she mumbled joyfully.
Twilight on the other hand, had gotten over the initial shock. "What is it?" she said."And why isn't the world destroyed by paradoxes?"
Sweetie Belle, on the other hand, just groaned. "Great. Just great." Twilight and Silver Spoon both looked over at her, questions already forming on their lips as they tried to understand how Sweetie Belle seemed not only to be handling this with a surprising lack of shock, but actually seemed annoyed.
"What's wrong, Sweetie Belle? Silver Spoon asked.
Sweetie Belle looked at her grimly. "I've seen that box before, Silver Spoon." As soon as she said this, Silver Spoon stopped moving. Then she turned around.
"Seriously?" she said.
"Seriously." Sweetie Belle confirmed. "Before you ask, it was a long time ago, and no, it's not where I saw it anymore. It was in Canterlot when I went to that wedding in Canterlot. You know, the one with all the changelings? Anyways, I saw it there. I wouldn't remember, except I saw this weird creature open the door and go in. It was all tall and creepy, looked like it had spaghetti hanging off of it, kinda. It went inside the box, then it disappeared. I tried to show Rarity, but she told me it was just a figment of my imagination. And seeing as how I, um, kinda sorta had been drinking with Spike, it sounded like a reasonable explanation." Sweetie Belle grinned a little apologetically. Twilight looked at her with stormy eyes.
"You went drinking. When you were only NINE years old."
"Ummmmmm...yes?"
"You said this was with Spike?"
"Maybe? Just a little bit?"
Twilight stormed off, muttering to herself. "I'm going to kill him. I really am this time. Going out drinking with young filly? Seven years ago or not, he is GOING. TO. PAY."
"Uh, Twilight?" Sweetie Belle called out. "Isn't the time travel box thingy a bit more important right now?"
"NO!"
Sweetie Belle sighed. "Oh well. Anyways, Sil, I guess that we might want to look through these pictures a bit more, see what we can find." She glanced over at Silver Spoon, who was already copying the pictures into a file.
"Uh-huh. You look for the...spaghetti guy. I'm going to see if I can figure out why this box is at these specific times and places. There must be some sort of reasoning behind this spaghetti time traveler." Silver Spoon said.
Sweetie Belle sighed and started going through the database of images their machine had archived.
"Blue box....blue box....blue box, nothing but this stupid blue box. Why isn't there a picture of the time traveler?" she mumbled. Silver Spoon turned around and looked at her, exasperated.
"Maybe if you set the search for pony facial recognition, Sweetie? That would probably be faster and quite a lot less annoying." Silver Spoon paused as Sweetie Belle looked at her, grinning as she realized that Silver Spoon had finally said something rather stupid.
"Sil? He wasn't a pony, remember?" Sweetie Belle said, her voice ringing with false innocence. "So maybe you should do something useful and not so annoying. Like not talking. I think that would help me a lot more than your petty arrogance, don't you?" She patted Silver Spoon patronizingly on the head, grinning with victory. Silver Spoon just grabbed her hoof and groaned.
"Maybe he wasn't a pony, but his head was probably roundish. Simple scientific fact there, Sweetie. And given that that's what the facial recognition software looks for, it still might work." Sweetie Belle turned back around and crossed her arms, frowning.
"Humph." Sweetie Belle said. She went back to tapping away at her keyboard. A few seconds later, the computer dinged.
Facial recognition scan complete. 14 images found. Sweetie Belle gasped. Whatever this was, it definitely wasn't a pony. It wasn't even slightly a pony. Well, except for one picture at the bottom, but Sweetie Belle wasn't worried about that. Probably just an error in the program. Her neural scanning code wasn't perfect, after all. But all the others....they were the same, all of this strange alien. But none of them were clear. Just blurry shots of it running, or silhouettes leaning against that blue box. But that silhouette was more than enough for her to recognize what she had seen, all those years ago.
"It really does look like fleshy spaghetti," she said. Silver Spoon turned and looked at her, a little bit disgusted.
"Sweetie Belle?"
"Yeah, Sil?"
"I swear to Celestia, you should be arrested for weirdness sometimes. And creepiness, craziness, and for having a funny insect collection."
"I am not creepy!"
"Face it, Sweetie Belle. Spiders got nothing on you."
"Just shut up and look at what I've found."
Silver Spoon turned and looked at the screen. "Ewwww....you may be creepy, but you're kinda right. Why is it always wearing clothes? Wouldn't that be uncomfortable?" Silver Spoon said as they both turned back to their screens.
"Meh," Sweetie Belle replied. "Maybe it's from a colder place, you know?"
"Possible," Silver Spoon replied."Anyways, I've been analyzing where and when these photos were taken. At least half of them have been during some global crisis. One is actually from Canterlot during the changeling invasion, probably the same one that you saw. I've also managed to pick up a small audio file of that thing. Wanna hear?"
"Sure." Sweetie Belle shifted in her seat so she could get a better angle.
"Annnnd...play!" Silver Spoon said.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but whoever is listening to this file, you are in tremendous danger. They've homed in on my voice, and they're coming. Don't trust anyone. They might not be who you think they are right now. Anyone who's been with you since the start of this message, don't let them out of your sight, because they are the only person you can believe. However, there is one action you can take that just might save your life right now." The voice paused, the obvious Estuary accent fading almost into nothing, before starting again, sounding like a joyful maniac.
"Run!"