//------------------------------//
// Prompt #571-Equestria Online 
// Story: Ponywatching 
// by ThunderTempest 
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Five of the Elements of Harmony gathered outside the Golden Oaks Library, all in various states of worry. Twilight had barely emerged from the literal tree of knowledge since she’d returned from that mirror portal world, simply stating that she ‘didn’t want to talk about it’. 

However, the five other Elements knew Twilight well enough to recognise when the recent alicorn was on a research bender, and had long ago learnt that it was often best to just make sure that she kept eating and simply leave Twilight alone until she collapsed from exhaustion. This time was different, though. Normally it was Spike who summoned them to the library when he’d finally had enough of Twilight’s rabid researching, but the messages that had popped in front of them were directly from Twilight.

The messages themselves were also vague. Oddly so, as Twilight loved to share her research with anypony in earshot, regardless if they actually wanted to listen or not. She was working on that. Deciding that there was nothing to do but go into the library and see what Twilight had come up with, Rarity knocked on the door, and got a call to enter.

“Oh, great, you’re all here!” said Twilight, coming into sight from behind a shelf, her coat stained black, and the distinct smell of smoke followed in her wake.

“Twilight, dear, have you been experimenting with pyrokinesis again?” said Rarity, “We did warn you about that, you know.”

“What? Oh, the smoke, and the...yes. Yes, I can see how you would come to that conclusion,” muttered Twilight, “No, this was lunch.”

And just like that, the other five relaxed. Twilight and pyrokinesis didn’t mesh well. For that matter, neither did Twilight and cooking, but at least when she tried to cook it didn’t lead to the destruction of half of Ponyville. Most of the time, anyway.

“So, what did you invite us here for? Is it a party? Huh? Is it Spike’s birthday? Is it your birthday?” said Pinkie Pie, bouncing in place.

“Pinkie, there is no party,” explained Twilight, and Pinkie partially deflated, “I just invited you girls here because I wanted to show you the results of my newest line of research. Come on, I think you’ll all enjoy this.”

Twilight lead them down to the basement of the library, where, set in an alcove off to the side of the main area where Twilight had her Research Station, a crystal matrix floated, glowing with magical power.

“Girls, I present to you the first prototype of the Equestrian Inter-Library Information Network.” A resounding silence permeated the room, until Rainbow Dash broke it.

“The whosit whatsit now?”

“The Inter-Library Information Network,” repeated Twilight, “It’s a magical repository of all the material in the Golden Oaks Library. It magically scans any new books coming into the library, and keeps a magical copy. You can access it through this terminal here,” Twilight motioned to a floating magical screen and a typewriter keyboard, “And if the information is available in the library, it will tell you where the book talking about it is. Isn’t it great? You can have a try, if you like.”

“It’s certainly an interesting concept, Twilight,” said Rarity, while Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash moved over to the terminal, and Applejack and Fluttershy decided to look at the floating crystals, “however did you get the hornpower to keep all those spells going?”

“That’s what the crystals are for-they’re acting as both power sources and spell foci. Eventually, if Princess Celestia likes this idea, I can have one of these put into every library in Equestria, and link them all up. Then, if a pony wants to find a book, but it only exists in the Manehatten Library, they can still find it!”

[Time]

As Rarity was about to agree on the usefulness of the idea, Pinkie Pie spoke up.

“Hey, Twilight, what’s this stuff doing on here?” Twilight glanced at the screen, did a double take, immediately blushed and dived to cover the magical screen. Unfortunately, in her haste, Twilight forgot that she couldn’t actually physically interact with the magical construct, and crashed to the floor.

“You okay, Twilight?” asked Rainbow, “What was so...wow. Huh. Never would have pegged you’d be into that. But okay.”

“I’m going to die of embarrassment now,” muttered Twilight from her position on the floor, “and then I need to learn to refine that scanning spell.”