//------------------------------//
// Interlude: Discoveries and Angry Birds 
// Story: Family 
// by FleetlordAvatar 
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‘’Nothing! There’s absolutely nothing anywhere!’’

Twilight Sparkle groaned in frustration as she slammed her face into the pages of yet another book, such had been the pattern for the last few days.

Ever since she had brought in those strange artefacts, the unicorn mare had been trying to find out what they were. She was especially interested in the medal she had recovered from what she had dubbed ‘the crash site’.

Unfortunately, every avenue of investigation she tried had come back with nothing, the unicorn had been through every single text, book, and academic journal in Golden Oaks and had even requested a few ancient scrolls from the Canterlot archives in the hopes they would reveal something new.

Sadly, they had not.

Currently, she was where she had been for most of her research, sat at a table in the Library’s main room with books piled high all around her, some teetering at precarious angles.

Unsticking her face from the pages, Twilight stared at the medal with such intensity one might think she was trying to will it to give up its meaning.

‘’How is it I can’t find any sort of clue to this thing anywhere?’’ she said aloud.

‘’Well it is an alien symbol Twilight, that’s probably the reason it isn’t in any books?’’ yawned Spike, he should have been in bed hours ago, but his caretaker insisted they work late, again.

Twilight mentally gasped Something that wasn’t in a book? That was madness!

‘’Don’t say crazy things like that Spike, even if it’s not in a book we should at least be able to find clues which would enable us to make an educated guess.’’

Spike just rolled his eyes.

‘’I mean, we managed to find out a few things, comparing the images on those bottles with a botanical journal revealed they’re some kind of herbal extracts and we can theorise the creature on the coins must be some sort of ruler as she’s depicted similarly to Princess Celestia on the gold bit.’’

Twilight looked at the remaining objects that still refused to give up their secrets, specifically, the book and the wooden box.

‘’But we still can’t find any clue to what language that book is in, or what that creature on the cover is, and I still don’t have a clue what’s in that box.’’

‘’Why don’t you just open it and find out?’’

Twilight’s head snapped in the dragon’s direction and Spike briefly considered diving for cover.

‘’Are. You. CRAZY! We have no idea what’s inside! What if those symbols are some sort of binding spell? We could release a demon that destroys Equestria just to satisfy our curiosity!’’ she yelled in frustration.

Spike wilted under the verbal assault, and Twilights expression softened as she suddenly realised what she had just done.

‘’I’m sorry Spike,’’ she sighed. ‘’It’s just, I’ve never been at such a dead end before. This whole thing is driving me up the wall.’’

‘’I know Twilight,’’ said Spike. ‘’But you’ve been up late for nearly three days straight, you need to sleep.’’

‘’But I can’t just abandon my investigation-‘’

‘’Twilight!’’ interrupted Spike. ‘’You, need sleep, I, need sleep. You’re not thinking clearly and I can’t stay up like this every night to send messages to Canterlot for more books, so, for the love of Celestia please go to bed! This will still be here in the morning!’’

Twilights exhausted brain processed Spike’s argument and reluctantly admitted, he did have a point.

‘’You’re right Spike,’’ sighed Twilight. ‘’I need to rest.’’

Spike blinked, his own tired mind struggling to process that he had just convinced Twilight to stop studying. When the cogs finally clicked into place, he let out a quiet victory cheer.

‘’I’m going to clean up a little, I’ll let you know when the bathroom’s free.’’

Twilight made her way upstairs, leaving Spike alone with the mountains of literature. Looking at the mess occupying the Library floor his shoulders sagged. Deciding to tidy up a little, the dragon picked up a few books and began to stack them neatly on the shelves; reaching for several on the table Spike felt his claw contact the last artefact from the Crash Site, the black box with the cracked window. Spike watched as it appeared to slide in slow motion towards the edge of the table and off it.

With a panicked burst of speed, he threw the stack of books to one side and dove towards the object, sliding the last few feet along the floor he shut his eyes, not wanting to watch as the artefact hit the floor and smashed into a thousand pieces.

He felt something metallic hit his palm and his fingers instantly snapped shut, nervously peering out from under his eyelids, he found that he had caught it.

With a sigh of relief Spike sat up, curious, he looked over the box, turning it over in his claws. There were buttons on the side and what looked like an apple stamped on the back, but other than that, it didn’t have many distinguishing features. As he inspected it, Spike accidentally pressed down on one of the buttons near the top of the device and the window lit up.

He jumped in surprise and the black box flew out his hand, scrabbling desperately, he managed to catch it for a second time. Wiping his brow in relief Spike turned the box over and looked at the now lit up window.

There was more of that strange writing on it, but Spike did recognise and arrow that was pointing to the right side of the window. He carefully tapped it a few times with his claw, not wanting to make the cracks get any worse, but nothing happened. The he swiped his thumb across it and the window changed as groups of symbols appeared. Eyes wide with wonder, Spike began to experiment, and realised he could make them move by swiping a claw across the broken glass.

He tried tapping a few of them and found they changed what was in the window, sometimes he saw more writing, others showed maps and charts, one looked a little like a bird so he decided to tap that one next.

The image flipped sideways and it began to play some music as Spike turned the box sideways to see it correctly. The window now showed a bird and a catapult, there were also some pigs under some flimsy scaffolding. Spike watched as one of the birds jumped into the catapults sling, he tried swiping the glass one more time and watched in fascination as the bird was catapulted towards the pigs, crashing through the wooden scaffold like a boulder. Some numbers appeared at the top of the screen and then a new set of birds and pigs appeared.

Spike sat down as he played with the box, his previous exhaustion temporarily forgotten. With some more experimentation, he found that different birds did different things. Some exploded while others could speed up mid-flight, meanwhile the pigs built better and more complicated buildings and he found himself getting frustrated when he couldn’t knock it down in one move.

‘’Spike!’’

The dragon jumped and the box flew out of his claws for the third time that evening, only for it to get wrapped in a purple aura as Twilight caught it.

‘’I told you not to touch this thing,’’ she said disapprovingly. ‘’It could be dangerous.’’

‘’But Twilight it’s not dangerous at all’’ protested Spike as he reached for the box, only for Twilight to lift it out of his reach.

‘’I saw the way you were staring at it, this thing had you under some sort of spell.’’

‘’It did not!’’

‘’Then tell me, what you were doing?’’

So Spike did. He explained to Twilight how he had knocked it off the table, how he had caught it and how it had lit up when he touched the glass. He told her about the different symbols and the bird’s game that he had been playing before she arrived, all the while Twilights expression shifted from one of annoyance to curiosity.

She cautiously levitated the box to eye level and saw it had gone dark one more, scrutinising it closely she slowly lifted a hoof towards it and lightly tapped the glass, causing it to light up. Jumping slightly at the box’s activity, she quickly composed herself and dragged her hoof across it, although this time it didn’t respond. She tried again, and again, getting increasingly frustrated with each failed attempt.

She heard a small chuckle from Spike.

‘’Alright Mr Smarty Scales, how did you do it?’’

Levitating the box over to Spike, she watched as he ran the flat of his thumb across the surface and the image changed.

‘’Amazing’’ she marvelled.

‘’You think that’s cool, look at what else I found.’’

Spike showed her how the images changed when one was tapped by his fingers, her previous weariness forgotten for the moment, Twilight sat down with Spike as they explored the strange device.

‘’Those look like numbers’’ said Twilight as Spike pressed a symbol that brought up a keyboard, similar to the one found on a typewriter. ‘’And those look like basic mathematic symbols, this might be some sort of adding machine.’’

‘’Weird,’’ replied Spike as he tapped a few more images. ‘’That looks like a clock, but what’s with those numbers underneath.’’

‘’That’s a twenty four hour clock Spike,’’ replied Twilight as she leaned in for a better look. ‘’You sometimes get them on stopwatches or even in train stations.’’

She studied the image for a bit longer, rubbing her chin in thought.

‘’If that’s a clock,’’ she pointed to a string of numbers underneath, ‘’then these numbers could be a date.’’

Using her magic to pull a few books from the various piles, Twilight skimmed several volumes before she settled on one in particular. 

Running her eyes over the pages, she occasionally glanced back to the strange device as she analysed it.

‘’Ah-ha!’’ she exclaimed. ‘’This thing is using a variation of the Late Romane Calendar!’’

‘’Uhhhh...come again?’’ asked Spike.

Twilight sighed.

‘’If we assume the numbers at the end are a year, then that means the ones before are a month, and a day. So this thing is dated to the third of the second month of the year two thousand and fourteen,’’ she finished, feeling just a little bit chuffed at her deduction.

‘’Hang on a second, this thing is from the future?’’ exclaimed Spike.

‘’Well, I wouldn’t go THAT far’’ scoffed Twilight.

‘’But you were visited by future Twilight, who’s to say this isn’t from her, or somepony else?’’

‘’Because Spike, the Time Travel spell only allows a unicorn to go a few days back in time, and even then only for a few seconds. These things would have vanished long before now if that were the case.’’

‘’Okay...so maybe they’re not from the future, but then why is it using an old Equestrian calendar?’’

‘’I don’t know Spike, this device is far more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen before, maybe we should-‘’

Twilight was cut off by the library door slamming open with a loud bang, huffing and panting in the doorframe was Applejack.

‘’Applejack?’’

‘’Twilight, its Reiver.’’