Pinkie Pie Clicks a Cookie

by Kwisatz Haderpone

Chapter 2

Spike the dragon was in the midst of reshelving the remnants of Twilight Sparkle’s most recent reading binge when she returned to the library with her box of cookies.

“Spike! Where are you?”

“I’ll be right down!” He hastily shoved a well-worn copy of Obscure Unicorn History more or less into its proper place on the top shelf, slid down the ladder, and scurried off to meet Twilight as she entered the front door.

“Ah!” Twilight said. “There you are.” Her horn glowed with magic and half a dozen books, a few of which Spike had very recently put away, floated off the shelves and dropped into his arms. “Help me carry these books down to the lab. It’s time for a little scientific research.”

Spike grunted under the unexpected weight of the stack of books he suddenly found himself holding. “Uh, Twilight? Today was supposed to be your day off, remember? You’re supposed to be out having fun, not locking yourself up in the basement for hours to work on another one of those projects of yours. Don’t think I won’t chase you out of here with a broom if I have to.”

This was not an idle threat. Enforcing Twilight’s vacation time was one of Spike’s many duties, and one he took very seriously, having had plenty of firsthand experience in dealing with an overworked and overstressed Twilight Sparkle. He had, in fact, resorted to physically shooing her from the library with a broom on more than one occasion.

Today, however, Twilight would not be denied.

“Scientific research is fun, Spike. Now come on, I’d like to get started as quickly as possible.”

Spike sighed and dutifully followed her down the stairs into the basement laboratory, where he dumped his armful of books onto the nearest workbench. “You really need to find a normal hobby, Twilight. Have you ever considered stamp collecting?”

Twilight ignored him. She was already wearing safety goggles and a lab coat and humming a cheerful little tune while arranging a rack of test tubes, three Erlenmeyer flasks, a microscope, a Bunsen burner, several bottles of assorted chemicals, some eye droppers, and a beaker filled with glass stirring rods on the table in front of her.

Spike rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why I even bothered to ask,” he muttered under his breath. Then he noticed the box of cookies. “Well, at least you brought snacks. Good thing, too. I’m starving!”

He grabbed a cookie and took a bite. Or, he would’ve taken a bite, if Twilight hadn’t telekinetically yanked it from his grasp and returned it to the box.

“Don’t eat those, Spike!” she said. “I need them for the experiments!”

“Wait a minute. We’re going to run experiments on cookies? What for?”

“Because I need to find out where they came from.”

Spike glanced at the box, clearly labeled Freshly baked sweet treats from Sugarcube Corner!, then looked back to Twilight. “Uh, Twilight? Are you feeling okay? You didn’t hit your head or anything while you were out, right?”

“No, I’m fine,” Twilight said. Her attention was divided between Spike and one of the books he had brought with him (101 Easy Cookie Recipes), currently open on the table in front of her. “I mean, yeah, I fell off a park bench earlier, but those are pretty low to the ground, so no risk of serious head injury there. Why?”

“Well, I’m gonna take a wild guess and say those cookies probably came from Sugarcube Corner. You know, ’cause of the box and all.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I know that much, Spike. That’s where I got them from, after all. What I really need to find out is how they ended up there in the first place.”

Spike was getting more confused by the minute. “You do realize it’s a bakery, right, Twilight? That’s kinda what they do there. Again, like it says on the box.”

“Yes, Spike. I know that, too. The thing about these cookies is, they weren’t baked. Pinkie Pie… well, for lack of a better term, she clicked them into existence.”

“Clicked them?”

“That’s right,” Twilight said. “Somehow Pinkie has gotten her hooves on some sort of cookie button that makes cookies appear out of nowhere when it’s clicked. And I want to make sure it isn’t dangerous, and to know that for sure, I need to figure out how it works. That’s why you and I are going to reverse-engineer these cookies and see if we can determine how they were made.”

Spike was debating whether or not to ask Twilight again if she had hit her head, because her story was only getting more and more ridiculous. Then again, considering Pinkie Pie was involved, he figured there very well could be something to this “cookie button” business after all. Then his stomach rumbled. So he grabbed another cookie from the box and opened his mouth to take a bite.

For the second time, a cookie was pulled from his claws before he could taste it.

“Cut that out, Spike!”

“Geez, Twilight! Can’t I have even a tiny little bite?”

“Oh, please. You and I both know you can’t stop at just one bite. There wouldn’t be any cookies left to experiment with.”

Spike groaned, though deep down he knew she was right.

“Now then,” Twilight said, “if you promise to be a good little lab assistant for me, I’ll take you down to Sugarcube Corner after we’re done here and buy you anything you want.”

Spike’s eyes widened and he began to salivate as visions of delicious baked goods danced across his imagination.

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

Spike, suddenly dressed in a little white lab coat of his own, whipped out a quill and a roll of parchment. “Number One Lab Assistant, reporting for duty!”

Twilight grinned. “Great! Let’s get started.” She fired up her Bunsen burner and grabbed a cookie out of the box with a floating pair of tongs. “Experiment number one: I am going to burn this cookie to find out how many calories it has.”

“Oh, come on! That’s just cruel!”

The cookie ignited with a woosh and was reduced to ash in a matter of moments.

“Hmm… the bright blue flame indicates that this was a particularly sweet cookie. Make a note of that, Spike. It might be important.”

“I hate you so much right now.”

~ * ~

A few hours later, a couple dozen cookies had been sacrificed in the name of science. Rolls of parchment filled with hastily scribbled notes littered a workbench in the corner of the room, a couple spilling down onto the floor below. Cookie crumbs were scattered everywhere. Spike was massaging a claw cramp and trying to take his mind off his growling stomach as Twilight Sparkle paced back and forth, mumbling to herself.

“Twenty-seven experiments!” she exclaimed suddenly. Spike’s head jerked up at the sound of her voice. “Twenty-seven! And what do I have to show for it? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!”

Her once-pristine lab coat was stained with chocolate. Her safety goggles were slightly askew, and a few stray hairs had sprung out from her formerly well-combed mane. Spike could read the signs clearly. A complete and utter Twilight Sparkle meltdown was rapidly approaching. And that would mean, among other things, no delicious treats from Sugarcube Corner for him. He spoke up, hoping to defuse the situation.

“Don’t talk like that, Twilight. Think of it as narrowing down possibilities. I’m sure the next experiment—”

“Will end just like the last twenty-seven,” Twilight interrupted. “And then I’ll have twenty-eight experiments all pointing to the conclusion that these are nothing more than perfectly ordinary chocolate chip cookies!”

“Well,” Spike said after a moment, “have you considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what they are? Perfectly ordinary chocolate chip cookies?”

“You weren’t there, Spike,” Twilight snapped. “You didn’t see these cookies appearing out of thin air at the click of a button. That kind of thing just can’t happen. At least not without leaving behind evidence of how it happened. Some alteration in chemical composition, or a physical abnormality, or traces of residual magic significantly above normal background levels.” She shook her head. “But there’s nothing! They’re just cookies!”

“Well then, maybe we should just file this one under ‘Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie’ and leave it at that. I don’t think either of us wants a repeat of the Pinkie Sense incident.”

Twilight sighed. “I wish it were that easy. But Pinkie didn’t make the cookies herself. The button did. And she didn’t make the button either. Somepony gave it to her as a gift. That means the Pinkie Pie argument doesn’t apply, and that means there has to be some logical explanation for how the button works. But I’m getting nowhere with these experiments! Argh!” She slammed her head onto the table hard enough to rattle the rack of test tubes.

Spike winced at the sound of the impact. “Geez, Twi, take it easy. You’ll dent the table.”

Twilight glared down at him.

“Uh, that is, I mean,” Spike backtracked quickly, “well, since we’re not having any luck with the cookies, maybe we should try looking at this from a different angle. You know, the button.”

“Yeah,” Twilight scoffed at the idea, “good luck trying to get Pinkie Pie to give up a cookie-generating button for more than five minutes. Experimenting on the button is not gonna happen anytime soon.”

“I can see how that might be a problem,” Spike admitted. “Still, you said it was a gift, right? So, somepony out there must have given it to her. If we ask around town, then sooner or later we’re bound to run into somepony who knows something about it!”

Twilight shook her head. “I wouldn’t count on it, Spike. This isn’t the kind of thing you can just pick up while you’re out grocery shopping. It’s an incredibly complex and powerful magical artifact, probably one of a kind, and it’s not listed in any of the major magical artifact catalogs I’ve ever read. Potsherd’s Compendium of Arcane Artefacts and Enchanted Oddities alone has detailed entries on thousands of artifacts dating back almost to the founding of Equestria, but no cookie buttons, or any food buttons of any kind, for that matter. And there aren’t any ponies around today with the expertise or the sheer magical power needed to construct an artifact of this quality, much less sneak it into Pinkie Pie’s room in the middle of the night. As far as I can tell, it shouldn’t even exist.”

“Huh.” Spike thought for a moment. “You could try writing Princess Celestia. She knows about all kinds of stuff that nopony else knows.. Maybe she can point you in the right direction.” He snapped his fingers. “Or maybe she even made the button herself!”

“I don’t think even Princess Celestia knows how to make food appear out of nothing, Spike. Everything I’ve ever read says that it’s physically and mathematically impossible to—”

Twilight’s voice cut off abruptly, her eyes unfocused slightly, and Spike could almost see the gears rotating inside her head.

“Uh, Twi?” Spike waved a claw in front of her eyes. “Is everything all right?”

“I just had a thought,” Twilight said. She turned her attention to a shelf along the far wall, and an unlabeled bottle floated its way across the room to her. “I think it’s time for one more experiment after all.”

She took a final cookie from the box, crumbled it into a clean test tube, added some water, and set it aside in the rack. As the cookie crumbs settled to the bottom of the test tube, she unstoppered the unlabeled bottle and extracted a small amount of cloudy gray liquid from within using a dropper. She added three drops to the test tube and waited.

Thirty seconds later, the liquid in the test tube began to glow with a faint green light.

“Green.” Twilight said. A grin spread slowly across her face. “It turned green. It turned green!”

“Hey, that’s great!” Spike said. “So, uh, what does it mean?”

“Well, on its own, not much. But in conjunction with the results of our first experiment, it tells us a great deal.”

“Still kinda lost here, Twi.”

“Oh, Spike,” Twilight giggled. “I don’t suppose you know what kind of magic leaves a green spectral trail and has an unusually high sugar content, do you?”

“Nope,” he said. “I must have skipped over that chapter when I was reading The Big Book of Useless Magic Trivia the other day.”

“I really should have seen it earlier,” Twilight said, ignoring his sarcasm. “This whole time I’ve been looking for a logical explanation for how the button works. I just assumed that since Pinkie didn’t make it, then it had to follow at least some of the fundamental laws of science and magic. I based all my experiments around this assumption. I didn’t even consider any other possibilities, at least not until you made me think about the problem from a different angle. I came up with a new hypothesis, an idea of who might have made the button, and that last experiment just confirmed it. The cookie button really does make absolutely no sense!”

“And that’s a good thing why?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? We know where the button came from! Oh, I love science!” Twilight was nearly dancing with excitement.

“Okay,” Spike said, scratching his head, “maybe I missed something here, but where exactly did the button come from, again?”

Twilight gave him a look. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet? It’s so obvious! It was—” She suddenly stopped dancing. Her eyes widened as the discovery she had just made about the origin of the cookie button began to truly sink in. “Oh no. No no no no no!”

“Twilight?” Spike said. “You’re starting to scare me. Is everything okay? What’s going—whoa!” He was cut off as Twilight’s magic glow lifted him onto her back.

“We have to go, Spike,” Twilight said, trotting up the stairs and into the library. “There’s no time to lose. I’ll explain on the way to Fluttershy’s house.”

“Fluttershy’s? But you promised you’d take me to Sugarcube Corner!”

“Sorry, but we’re gonna have to take a rain check on that,” Twilight said. “The fate of Equestria could very well be at stake.”

“Wow. Whatever you found in those cookies must be really bad stuff if it has you this worked up.”

“You can say that again,” said Twilight as she galloped down the road toward the outskirts of town and Fluttershy’s cottage, past several groups of kittens headed in the opposite direction.

---

---

For those of you who are curious, the Compendium of Arcane Artefacts and Enchanted Oddities was originally published in 891 CE by the archaeologist Potsherd, who, before its publication, was perhaps best known as the pony in charge of sorting shards of ancient pottery according to the size, shape, and color of their painted stripes in the basement of the Museum of Equestrian History (don’t call it “MEH”, they hate it when you do that).

In researching the book, she traveled to the far corners of Equestria and lands beyond, and if she had done anything even the least bit exciting or adventurous during this time, maybe somepony would have written a book about her. But she didn’t, so we will have to content ourselves with reading about Daring Do instead.

Upon its publication, Potsherd’s Compendium was the most complete catalog of magical relics ever compiled up to that point, and subsequent editions further cemented its status as the go-to source for information on all things arcane and enchanted. The most recent edition contains entries for over nine thousand separate artifacts, including the Alicorn Amulet, six of the great mage Meadowbrook’s eight enchanted items, and the mysterious Drinking Bird of Trottingham, which is made of glass, wears a top hat, and, through some strange magic, can move on its own to repeatedly dip down and drink from a cup of water.

Notably absent from the Compendium is any mention of the Elements of Harmony. Thankfully there exists another book, The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide, which has all the information anypony could ever want or need about these most important of magical artifacts. Except for, you know, what they do, how to use them, what the sixth Element is, unimportant stuff like that.

Oh, and just so you know, The Big Book of Useless Magic Trivia is not a real book. That was just Spike being a jerk.

Comments

[Robot972]

At first when I read these chapters, I was so confused about why you involved cats...
Then I remembered the milk part of the game and it all came back together XD

[Kwisatz Haderpone]

Well, crap. People are actually reading this. Now I've gotta put even more pressure on myself to make sure it doesn't suck.
No, wait. Never mind. I was gonna do that already anyway.

5998191
Everyone's gotta steal a joke from The Simpsons at one point or another, right?

5999054
Meow.

5999158
Yes, chaos magic looks like that, when you rip it all out of Discord at once. But when he's just using it to make exploding chocolate milk and whatnot, you can't see it. Maybe there's a flash of light or something, but nothing like unicorn magic with its obvious glowy glowness.

Also, the green glow from the test tube wasn't technically magic. It was the chemical Twilight added reacting to the presence of trace amounts of certain types of magic. Kind of a CSI-type of thing, like that stuff they spray everywhere that makes bloodstains and other assorted bodily fluids glow in the dark.

...Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I'm gonna go with that.

[Robot972]

6000342

meow

[Randompig212]

c'mon, twi! tell us some info!!!

[Darkus Relling]

makeameme.org/media/created/cookies-cookies-everywhere-sy71se.jpg
LOL this is awesome.

[Emperor]

Saw the Simpsons reference, assuming it was a direct reference to that one episode and the scene in that episode wasn't referencing something else.

Typical Twilight, not explaining anything and giving us cliffhangers

"The cookie button really does make absolutely no sense!”

"Make sense? What fun is there in making sense?!"