Chapter 1: Science Is Cruel And Evil
Twilight turned the page in her book, eyes quickly scanning the new page with hurried glances. She had grown accustomed to this fast pace of reading. Why, in less than a minute’s time, she was already done with the text and was quickly flipping ahead yet again.
Of course, this monotonous task of page turning and hasty reading became somewhat of an addictive habit. Twilight’s mind absorbed the words like a plant to sunlight, growing vast lands of thought from the ink-laden letters to form entire worlds just using her imagination. From grandiose adventures across mysterious lands to the vastness of space while studying the stars, Twilight’s mind could conjure up the most fantastical interpretation of the book’s words.
The downsides to this were the lack of sleep from late night studying, and the really obvious one, disregarding her surroundings when reading. Which was happening right now, with Spike waving a claw in front of her face.
“Hello? Twilight, you in there somewhere?” Spike asked, snapping his fingers in front of Twilight’s face to literally snap her out of whatever trance the book had placed on her.
Twilight shook her head, blinking her eyes rapidly to clear her thoughts from the invigorating world of words she had descended into.
“Oh, sorry Spike,” Twilight apologized, closing her tome with a loud clap. Setting the book down on a stack towering high near the ceiling, Twilight asked, “Was there something you needed?”
“Well, after calling your name for several minutes and learning that you weren’t coming, no,” Spike said, releasing the grip on the fire extinguisher he had dragged behind his back. “Also, dinner is done. A little extra crispy, if you wanted to know.”
Twilight stared up to the ceiling where smoke swirled up in the rafters. Blushing awkwardly, Twilight said, “Whoops, sorry Spike. I was just really interested in this book I was reading.”
“Does it have anything to do with cleaning burn marks from furniture?” Spike asked.
“Nope,” Twilight replied with a roll of her eyes. Grabbing another book from her stack, she showcased the title ‘Dimensional Studies of the Universe’. “I’m reading about quantum physics and different dimensions!”
“So, new topic of the week I presume?” Spike asked, resting his elbow on the desk. “What makes this one so exciting?”
“Well, the implications and theories behind it, of course!” Twilight said, flipping through the book’s pages with an eager vigor.
“Of course,” Spike sighed under his breath. Glancing over Twilight’s shoulder to catch a look at what exactly she was reading, his eyes widened. Diagrams and figures far too complex for his young mind to understand covered the page, along with explanations that confused rather than enlightened the reader. He felt his mind quickly become a devastating trainwreck as he tried to comprehend what Twilight was reading into actual coherent thought. “That… wow,” Spike muttered, forcing himself to look away before his brain overworked itself from trying figure out the science/math/knowledge/intelligence/meaning/whatever it was that was in that book, “how do you even understand this stuff?”
“It’s really quite simple,” Twilight told him, stopping on a particular page and nodding her head at giving it a read. “Dimensional studies is actually one of the lesser explored sciences compared to all the others, but still an interesting topic to study nonetheless. I’m sure I can explain it to you simply enough.”
“Don’t I have some chores to do?” Spike asked with a bit of desperation in his voice.
“Nonsense!” Twilight said, pulling up a seat for her dragon assistant to sit in, whether he liked it or not. “I’m sure you’ll learn a thing or two from this.”
“Me too,” Spike grumbled, crossing his arms and looking down at the floor with a downcast glare.
Lifting the book she was reading in her magical grip, Twilight pointed to some statistics and said, “Now see here, Spike, that there are an infinite number of universes stacked atop one another.”
“Like pancakes?”
Tapping her chin, Twilight shrugged. “Not the best simile… but I guess it works. So yes, like pancakes.”
“Does that mean there’s syrup too?” Spike asked excitedly.
“No,” Twilight said to immediately shoot down his joy. “There is no syrup in the infinite stacks of universes.”
“What about butter?”
Twilight groaned and lifted a hoof to her forehead. “Spike, please, can we get back to the topic on hoof?”
Spike huffed under his breath, but finally ended his questions.
“Anyways, these universes, while stacked closely together, never actually touch one another. There’s nothing connecting one from the other. So basically where they’re right there, out of our reach, there’s no possible way to reach them. Which means this infinite number of universes are just contained to our own, since we can’t reach the others.”
“Wait, so why do we even know about these infinite number of universes if we’ve never been to them before?” Spike asked, scratching his head with an errant claw.
“Well, we’re just speculating the possibility of them being there. But without actual evidence that we can reach them or that they’re out there, there isn’t much point writing these thoughts into scientific fact,” Twilight answered him.
“Hold up a sec,” Spike said, holding one hand up. “So, we think there’s an infinite number of universes out there… somewhere, but we can’t actually reach them?”
Twilight nodded her head. “Correct.”
“Then what’s the point of talking about different universes if we can never know anything factual about them?” Spike asked with an exasperated wave of his claw.
“Because, that’s what scientists do, Spike,” Twilight told him, smiling cheerfully.
Spike stared at Twilight with a deadpan expression, eyes unamused as his mouth formed a straight line of contempt.
“But as long as we discuss different universes, we can discuss different ways to go to them,” Twilight said with a wide smile on her face.
“Didn’t you just say it’s impossible to go to another universe?” Spike asked with a raised claw.
“Yes. But that’s mostly because the process of moving from one universe to the other completely obliterates all your atoms and atomic structures to teeny tiny bits and then reform them back together once on the other side.” Spike stared at Twilight with sick horror while Twilight continued to smile. “So while traveling to a different universe may be possible, the experience and trip would completely destroy the person traveling, leaving them pulled apart by the strands of spacetime itself or just ending up into a puddle of unbonded atoms on the floor.”
“That sounds gruesomely horrifying,” Spike said, his purple scales on his face quickly turning green.
“I know! Isn’t science amazing?”
Before Spike could manage a proper rebuttal, a flash and bang ripped through the library right above their heads. Books were knocked from their stacks and a violent concussion blast rocked through the room.
Spike cradled himself into a ball, books landing atop him in a quite painful fashion. After several seconds the room was once again still, the explosion before that appeared right above their heads apparently gone.
“Twilight, are you okay?” Spike called out, pushing several books that had fallen atop himself out of the way.
“Spike! Spike, is that you?” Twilight shouted in the pile of tumbled tomes. “Help me, I’m trapped! Some… thing is on top of me!”
“Don’t worry, Twilight, I’m coming!” Spike finally managed to free himself and was climbing over the mountain of fallen books to arrive at Twilight’s location. Throwing one book after the other out of the way, Spike dug himself closer to Twilight’s position.
“Hurry, Spike! Whatever this thing is, it stinks!” Twilight cried out desperately.
With one final tug, Spike managed to clear the last of the books off of Twilight, only to find an entirely different object laying atop the mare.
It appeared to be a creature of some strange appearance. Large and apparently bipedal, its limbs were long and smoke continued to pour out of its skin. With no books blocking her, Twilight finally managed to push the creature off herself.
“Ugh, what even was that?” Twilight asked, backing away quickly from the still smoking creature. Its face was now turned upward, so the duo got a look at its face. No facial hair with a flat face and nose, with a short mane of some sort atop its head. Its mouth was open slightly, but there was no indication it was breathing or even alive.
“I… have no idea,” Spike replied, staring at the creature with equal amounts of confusion as Twilight. Taking a small step forward, Spike said, “Is it even alive?”
Twilight grabbed Spike’s shoulder and held him back. “I don’t want to find out,” she said, giving the creature an intent scan. “Whatever it is, it appeared out of nowhere, and it looks like no other creature I’ve heard about before.”
“Did it come from another universe or something like that?” Spike asked.
“What? Don’t be ridiculous, Spike,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “Just because we were talking about different universes less than five minutes ago, doesn’t mean some random thing from another universe enters our own. That type of coincidence is just absurd and impossible.”
“But you just said that if something entered another universe that it’d die!” Spike pointed to the unmoving creature. “That thing is definitely dead!”
“Hush now,” Twilight said. “Whatever that thing is, we need to get rid of it.”
Spike scratched his head for a moment. “So… should I get the shovel then?”
“Nonsense,” Twilight replied. “I’ll pour the acid in the bathtub, and you get the hacksaw. Drag his body up the stairs, will you?”
“Ugh, fine,” Spike replied, grabbing the creature’s leg to do as Twilight said. Giving the creature’s body a quick glance, focusing for a moment on the creature’s chest where he spotted some writing, Spike shrugged and placed the creature’s foot over his shoulder. “Well, whoever you are, Mr. Brony, you got screwed up bad.”