Matter cannot be created or destroyed, unless you believe otherwise
Professor Bill Neigh knew that he was simply living on a nice, pleasant rock being orbited by a sun. That rock was part of a vast galaxy of rotating planets with their own orbiting suns. He knew where he sat in the grand scheme of things in a vast universe. But he was in the unfortunate situation of being here and now. And he didn’t like where he was “now.”
He was currently sitting in the stands awaiting the Equestria games to start, making every effort to occupy his mind with something interesting to think about. It had been at the prodding of his wife and his two grandchildren that had gotten him into this mess in the first place. He hated crowds and did not understand the appeal of sports. He would like nothing more than to be back at Canterlot University continuing his research. Given another few weeks — give or take a few months— he was bound to either prove or disprove another mathematical proof. That proof could provide the very backbone for an aspect of how the universe functioned. Or at least provide a paper so mathematical that the University would get more prestige, regardless if anypony else besides himself and a few of his colleagues would understand it. But no, he was stuck in the here, and now. At the Equestria games. Surrounded by ponies. Waiting.
“Grandpa Bill! Would you like some popcorn?” asked Lemon Sunshine, his granddaughter.
Professor Neigh smiled at the young filly and took some popcorn. He hoped his outward smile would implant some nice memories of this occasion for the young filly. He loved his wife and two grandchildren, and he loved spending time with them, but did they really need to spend time here? Why couldn’t they have had nice quality time together reading books at home? Together. Separately.
Two weeks from now this would all be a distant memory. A happy memory for the grandkids and a pretend happy memory for Professor Neigh. Just two more weeks and he’d be back at the university, happily explaining complicated topics to undergrads and finding yet another wrong way to calculate proofs. He stared back at his watch again, only forty seconds had passed from the last time he had looked at it.
The ceremonies were starting. Flags were pitched out on the field, and the torch was about to be lit on fire any second now. He stared harder at the center of the field at the glorified centerpiece. A blur of purple and green was standing next to it. A flicker of memory cast the name of an old project back from the recesses of his hippocampus. Was that... Spike?
“Dear, can you hand me the binoculars?” he asked his wife. Rose Amethyst peeled her eyes away from looking through the binoculars and handed them to her husband.
“There’s really not much to look at.” said Rose, “that dragon has been like that for a while now.”
Professor Neigh gazed into the binoculars and spied that Spike the dragon was indeed the one trying to set the torch aflame.
Spike had been an interesting project at one point in time. The spell that enabled Spike to be able to send and receive letters to Celestia was one of the many personal research assignments that Princess Celestia herself had tasked with Professor Neigh. Despite not being a unicorn himself, Professor Neigh was well versed in magical mathematics. Math was the pure law that physics, chemistry, and even magic had to follow.
Watching Spike try to breathe fire was triggering all sorts of memories of pouring through dusty tomes, retrying several mathematical proofs, and awkward afternoons where the combination of spells that should’ve worked failed to have any effect on the freshly hatched dragon. He still remembered the burns and singed eyebrows. But one afternoon, using an algorithm that he was still trying to prove, Celestia had cast the right combination of spells on Spike. And suddenly Spike the dragon had become a better mailpony than the entirety of the Equestrian Postal service.
The system worked on the most curious phenomenon of hammerspace. He loved thinking about hammerspace. He had never done a successful conjuring himself, despite witnessing it several times by other ponies. He had conducted numerous studies and questionnaires of the phenomena over years from many different ponies. None of which lead to statistically significant results.
If he could just find out how often willing an object into existence occurred he’d be on his way to a research grant, or at least stop his colleagues from poking fun at his ideas. Showing his fellow professors the interesting way in which Spike’s fire breathing and letter sending worked should have been proof enough for them. Even the math agreed with him, but very few understood it. There weren't enough concrete real world examples noticed to prove his ideas.
“What’s taking so long?” his grandson spoke up.
Spike was still next to the torch and nothing was happening. He looked more intently into the binoculars and saw Spike struggle to produce any kind of flame. In one sudden moment of clarity, Professor Neigh felt horribly responsible for the poor situation the dragon was in.
However, the next moment the torch was lit, seemingly out of nowhere. Had that been an effect of hammerspace too? What was or wasn’t a factor? And why didn’t anypony else ever seem to notice it happen?
“Can I have a turn with the binoculars?” asked Topaz.
Professor Neigh’s eyes readjusted as he handed the binoculars to his grandson.
***
Spike could never imagine feeling more terrible. It was a few short hours after his… singing incident in front of thirty thousand ponies. Twilight had asked Spike a few questions and had gone to find a doctor. Like a doctor would help whatever problems he was facing. Why hadn’t he been able to produce a flame at the opening ceremonies? Why had he thought he could create fire with his mind? Why did think he could sing at the medal ceremony? Why was he such an idiot!?
“Gah!” Spike cringed into a pillow. He laid on his bed in the hotel moping. If there had been ice cream to eat, he would have eaten all of it. He wondered if it was possible to die of embarrassment. The scenes of his worst blunders kept replaying in his head from thirty thousand different perspectives. The weight of his mistake was like gravity pushing him further and further into the bed until he would sink down so low into it that he would just fall through and enter oblivion.
It was in this state of mind that Spike heard a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” croaked a somber sound from the room.
Professor Neigh was standing next to Princess Twilight Sparkle. He was still not quite sure what she was planning on doing. Celestia had referred Twilight to him and he had proceeded to explain his hammerspace theory and how he had thought it might have affected Spike, and from there she had immediately whisked the Professor off to this room. But what was he supposed to do here? He was a math professor, not a therapist. And after that singing performance at the game, Spike was due for a lot of therapy.
“Spike, it’s me!” announced Twilight. “I couldn’t find a doctor, but I did find a Professor!” she nudged the door open.
The dragon groggily sat up to look at the new guest entering the room. Professor Neigh wasn’t adept at recognizing the facial expressions of dragons, but the way Spike had his face contorted looked like he had been cringing all day. The look of uncomfortableness seemed like it was in danger of becoming a permanent part of his facial structure.
“Ahem,” Twilight cleared her throat. “After I told Celestia about how you couldn't breathe fire at the opening ceremonies, she told me that I should talk to Professor Neigh here about why your breath hadn’t been working properly. He is the only pony who might have an idea of what could have gone wrong. I was going to consult him after the games were over, but I figured that you could use the help now.”
Spike stared blankly at Twilight and the Professor.
Bill Neigh gulped and started to try to say something… but was unable to find the words. His hooves instinctively reached for chalk. He was nothing without that feeling of chalk on his hooves as he prepared to explain something.
“Uhh… Princess Twilight… do you by any chance happen to have chalk and a chalkboard?” asked Professor Neigh tentatively.
“I never leave home without it!” Twilight smiled as her magic opened up her luggage and fished out a small blackboard and a piece of chalk.
Professor Neigh rolled the chalk in his hooves, thinking of how best to broach the subject before finally speaking up. “Well… you see Spike, your inability to breathe fire at the opening ceremonies may not have been entirely your fault.”
Spike blinked.
“It has to do with the way your dragon breath enables you to send letters to and from Celestia. The way I designed the system might have problems on a quantum level due to too much observation.”
“You designed how I send letters?” asked Spike.
“Yes. Dragon’s aren’t magically hatched with the ability to send letters to Princess Celestia, you know. The princess tasked me with enabling a dragon that could send and receive letters. A very interesting idea, that one, I’m not sure where she got it from, but she wanted me to research the underlying magical mathematics to see if such a spell could even be possible. After delving into the magical properties of fire, I figured out a spell that could integrate a dragon’s fire breath with the curious phenomenon of hammerspace.”
“What’s hammerspace?” Spike sniffed as he grabbed a handkerchief from out of nowhere and wiped his face off with it.
The professor did a doubletake and a huge grin formed on his muzzle. “That was hammerspace!”
Spike froze, dumbly holding the handkerchief.
“What?” Spike said, confused.
“That handkerchief you are holding. Where did it come from?” asked the Professor.
“I uhh… my... pockets?”
“But you don’t have any pockets.”
Spike stopped and looked around himself, rather confused. “I… don’t know,” Spike admitted.
“You got that handkerchief right out of hammerspace!”
“Where?”
Professor Neigh started scribbling a diagram on the chalkboard. A stick figure Spike had his hand in some kind of pocket of an xyz grid plane located in mid air.
“Hammerspace is the magical space that allows ponies and apparently dragons the ability to conjure up any object they need out of existence. The funny thing is that it only happens when the user least notices it. If you stop and think about the concept of hammerspace and how the process works, you will be unable to summon the object into existence. But by using hammerspace, one can bring out anything they need when they need it.”
“So that’s where that seatbelt came from!” Twilight interjected.
“Yes, exactly!” said the Professor. “Wait… what seatbelt?”
“Nevermind,” said Twilight quickly.
“As I was saying…” Professor Neigh was excitedly scribbling on the board while his speech grew increasingly more enthusiastic. “This whole process works on the quantum principle of observing something take place. Namely, if something is witnessed, that event actually occurred. Normally, taking an everyday object out of thin air is completely impossible. And in fact, quite improbable. But nearly every week I see ponies taking objects from seemingly out of nowhere. The reason they are capable of doing this is because they aren’t being watched too closely and they aren’t watching themselves. It was doozy to figure that out. It’s a phenomenon that doesn’t like being observed, and by watching it, it changes the outcome. Unfortunately the idea still remains a ‘theory’ as it’s incredibly difficult to observe the unobservable.”
Spike still stared at the Professor dejectedly. “So why couldn’t I breathe fire?”
“Your flame isn’t a combination of gas and spark that ignites flames like normal dragons. Your flames, if my understanding of the spells is correct, actually come straight from hammerspace. But everypony knows that dragons breathe fire, and you believe that dragons breathe fire. And because of that belief, fire comes out every time!”
“However,” the professor’s tone shifted from excited explanation to awkward admission, “because your flames come from hammerspace which works with belief… there may be times that you pay too much attention to the process by which the flame breath comes out. Resulting in being unable to produce a proper fire.”
The professor sighed. “I think that is what may have happened to you at the opening ceremonies. You paid too much attention to a phenomenon that doesn’t like to be paid too much attention to. The crowd also might not have helped that much, not all ponies have seen a dragon breathe fire, so their unconscious ignorance of the idea may also have been a factor. But their effect should be negligible compared to your own belief in the system.”
“So…” Spike began slowly. “You’re saying that because I was thinking about my flame too much… I couldn’t light the torch on fire?”
“Correct!”
“I… didn’t believe in myself enough?” Spike’s frills started to droop down even lower.
“Uhmm… yes, you could put it that way.”
“I have to believe I can breathe fire?” Spike spoke, dejection permeating his words. “If I have to believe… then… I’ll never be able to breathe fire again.”
“Oh dear…” said Twilight.
“With that attitude, yes, you would be quite correct in your fear,” the Professor unfortunately had to agree. Twilight shot him a sharp look. “The key is to not think too hard about it and you should be right as rain! Dragons breathe fire, and you are a dragon, everypony believes that. You’ll be fine! It works the same way you brought out that handkerchief you are still holding.”
Spike eyed the handkerchief. A piece of matter that for all intents and purposes should not be in existence… but there it was... in his hands. But now that he thought about where these random objects sometimes came from, he couldn’t even imagine getting anything from thin air ever again.
“Will I ever be able to breathe fire like a normal dragon?”
“If you want to, we could reverse the spell and get your dragon spark and gas combustion system working again, but then you would never be able to send letters. And, having your breath connected straight from hammerspace means that you may be able to breathe more fire than should be physically possible. Or even spit out water or a freeze breath if you believed you could enough. To be honest, it’s all up to what you can get your mind to believe and then observe to make hammerspace work for you.”
Spike just stared at the professor. A mixture of confusion, hurt, and cringe glared back up at him.
“Well… I think that’s enough to think about for now, Professor,” Twilight said. “I’m so grateful you took some time out of your vacation to help us out.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” spoke Professor Neigh, who realized that his lecture was over and that he now had to return to some dull sport with his family again.
Twilight thanked him and then turned back to Spike as the Professor left the room. “Well that was interesting.”
Spike sat on the bed, dumbstruck, unable to think of anything to say or do. It was too weird. He had never thought about where the random objects he sometimes used came from… they just sort of… appeared.
“Spike,” Twilight sat on the bed next to him, unfurling a wing to embrace him. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy with Princess duties for the games. I really want to sit in the stands next to you and everypony else, but I can’t right now. I know you’ve gone through a lot the last couple of days. Do you want to talk about it?”
“I… I just want to be alone for a while.”
“Okay Spike…” Twilight said. “I’ll see you in the stands tonight though, right?”
“Yeah… probably,” said Spike.
***
Several days later, Professor Neigh was in the stands with his family at the final event of the Equestria games. His grandson was watching the ice archery event through the only pair of binoculars. The professor was occupying his conscious mind with trying to figure out the rate at which ice from an ice arrow froze. His subconscious mind was mildly worrying about how his explanation of hammerspace had affected Spike. Had he explained everything correctly to him? There were always the outliers in his research that, once taught what hammerspace was, never seemed to be able to do it ever again. He himself had never been able to get so much as a spatula out of hammerspace. He paid too much attention for the occasion to ever happen.
How would Spike respond? Would he be unable to breathe fire? Had explaining all of this resulted in undoing the Princess’s spell to send letters? Only time would tell. He tried to shove the thoughts away and focus his full attention on deriving the rate of ice forming on a target. He watched as a pony down below tripped and sent a rogue ice arrow shooting into the sky, landing into a cloud.
The soft cloud started to freeze into a hard and heavy block of ice. Professor Neigh couldn’t help but wonder how in Equestria a cloud could get heavier from a single arrow. That would mean that more water molecules were being created. Which meant that there was more matter being added to the universe. Was this also hammerspace at work? Or perhaps the arrow was drawing humidity in from the surrounding air and adding it to the cloud.
“Bill! What are you doing!? Grab Lemon and run!” Rose, his wife, had already grabbed Topaz and was running toward an exit. The Professor stopped and realized that he was in the direct path of an oncoming huge block of ice. He picked up his granddaughter and quickly threw her on his back and galloped out of the way. A number of pegasi had already flown up next to the air iceberg when a pinprick of purple and green caught his eyes.
Spike was hopping up on various pegasi, reaching higher and higher towards the ice. The professor grabbed a pair of binoculars to watch Spike. Near the vertex of Spike’s parabolic trajectory he breathed out an impossibly huge fireball, melting the ice into water. Gravity caught up with Spike and he descended, landing on a few pegasi before his feet touched the soft ground. The professor watched in fascination as Spike pulled out an umbrella straight from hammerspace with a crowd of thousands of ponies watching. The umbrella was pelted by rain which then weakened to a sprinkle. Then Spike returned the umbrella to hammerspace.
At this, Professor Neigh started to cheer more loudly than anyone else in the entire stadium. Spike was fine. More than fine. Spike had just produced — if the Professor’s hasty calculations were correct— twenty thousand times as much fire as his own body mass. It was the largest amount of mass Professor Neigh had ever even heard come out of hammerspace. And to add to the already amazing feat witnessed, Spike had pulled an umbrella out of nowhere. Surely somepony besides himself would notice.
Professor Neigh looked back into the binoculars and eyed several of the camera ponies that had been recording the event. This had been recorded. Thirty thousand ponies and cameras had just witnessed— whether they recognized it or not— the largest display of hammerspace usage that had ever occurred and it had been recorded! He had proof! His mathematical proof should have proven his hammerspace theory true to begin with, but now there would be video evidence! He couldn’t wait to show his naysaying colleagues.
He was the last pony cheering as the commotion and jubilation eventually drew to a close. Spike wouldn’t be an outlier that would never be able to use hammerspace again. He would be an outlier on the opposite end of the spectrum that could now use hammerspace even more.
Rose Amethyst made her way back to the seats and sat back next to her husband, embracing him and her grandchildren. A happy grin was plastered over the Professor’s face. The stadium eventually calmed down and the ice archery event was about to redo their round.
“Is it my turn with the binoculars now?” asked Lemon Sunshine. Professor Neigh reached to give his binoculars to her when he noticed that Topaz was also trying to give her his pair of binoculars. A look of confusion passed over all of them as they recounted the number of binoculars they owned.
“Dear, how do we have two pairs of binoculars?” asked Rose. “We only brought one.”
Professor Neigh racked his brain to when he had brought out those binoculars. He had been so distracted by the ice cloud and Spike and the running and the screaming. He had been distracted enough that for the first time in his life he had unconsciously willed an object into existence… right from hammerspace.