Locked and Unlockedby lifeofthe6ChaptersLockedPinkie PieTwilight SparkleUnlockedLocked“I didn’t know you had an account with the Royal Canterlot Bank, Pinkie.” Princess Twilight Sparkle tilted her head as her enthusiastic friend, Pinkie Pie, produced a membership card from somewhere deep within her voluminous pink mane. “Well, duh!” Pinkie replied, barely holding her face still for the bank’s magical identification machine to scan her, “I have bank accounts all over Equestria—” “In case of bank account emergencies?” Twilight smirked, eliciting a grimacing look from Pinkie. “No. Because diversifying your wealth across multiple institutions is an intelligent financial decision to protect it from excess loss in case of an economic downturn.” “Oh.” Twilight blinked. The receptionist pony returned Pinkie’s card to her, and she placed it in her mane where it went… somewhere, much to the receptionist’s surprise. “So what business do you have here, anyway? I know you wanted to come with me on my trip to get Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes out of my safety-deposit box, but magic’s not really your thing,” Twilight asked. “I’ve got stuff here, too!” Pinkie smiled. “Oh, really? Like what?” Pinkie’s smile disappeared as quickly as it came on. She gave Twilight a blank stare, “Don’t worry about it.” Before Twilight could press any further, one of the bank’s guards came forward to let the two mares know they were cleared to enter the safety-deposit box vault. He guided them down a long hallway with several security clearances where he and another pony each had to be scanned and scanned again by magic screening devices, along with Twilight and Pinkie. “This process always makes me feel so… exposed.” Twilight covered herself as if somepony was seeing some of her that they weren’t supposed to. They reached the end of the hallway with the vault. “Right in here, ladies,” One of the guards put in a final access code which prompted all twenty-four of the huge metal locks to disengage with a resounding KA-CHUNK. The guards heaved the vault’s massive round door open and unlocked the inner day gate to let Twilight and Pinkie in. “There you go. Take your time, Princess.” The guards tipped their hats and walked off. Nodding her thanks to the guards, Twilight magicked her safety-deposit box’s key out of her saddlebag. Pinkie shook her own out of her mane. “How do you even—” “Hey!” Pinkie exclaimed before Twilight could address the space-time conundrum, “It looks like our boxes are right next to each other! Who knew?” Indeed, on the far end of the vault were the larger boxes for ponies who either had bigger items to store or deeper pockets to flout. While Pinkie was more of the former (though she did have a pretty penny saved up), Twilight’s royal status came with perks that included any and all bank space she could ever need. Pinkie’s box was number 15, and Twilight’s was number 16. “Oh, so they are.” Twilight said. Dismissing Pinkie’s shenanigans for the time being, Twilight proceeded to open up her safety-deposit box where she began rummaging for Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes. “This might take a while, Pinkie. Since I don’t come here very often it’s pretty much the only collection of things I have that aren’t meticulously organized.” “That’s all right! I’ve got plenty of stuff to look through, too!” The second Pinkie Pie’s key clicked her box unlocked, all manner of objects defenestrated out of it, enough to nearly bury her. “Wow. I’ll… leave you to that.” Twilight returned her head to the cavernous box, igniting her horn for illumination. Meanwhile, Pinkie dove into her pile of things-probably-only-valuable-to-Pinkie, making an inexplicable splashing noise. Sometime later, Twilight had located six of the Eight Lost Tomes while Pinkie had retrieved a few dozen sealed scrolls, an expensive-looking necklace, and what appeared to be an ornate jewelry box. Twilight looked over at Pinkie’s hoard after coming up for air in her own searching efforts. “I’m guessing those are some super-secret recipes, right?” the Princess asked, referring to the scrolls. Pinkie nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh! There are some really important holidays coming up and each one of these super-duper-secret sweets needs to be baked!” “So that’s why you wouldn’t tell me what was in here earlier. Don’t worry, Pinkie, I won’t peek,” Twilight winked. Pinkie giggled, “Oh, Twilight. That’s not what I was hiding from you. Nopony gets to see the most secret thing I have here. I wouldn’t show it even if you royally decreed me to! Even if all the princesses royally decreed me!” “It’s not a threat to national security, is it?” Twilight raised an eyebrow and involuntarily flared her wings. Before Pinkie could answer, the two ponies were interrupted by a loud CLANG. The day gate to the vault had closed. “That’s not good,” Pinkie said. “Don’t worry, it just shuts itself automatically at closing time. We have been in here a while. I suppose I can get the other two Lost Tomes tomorrow.” Twilight walked up to the closed gate. “Hello!” she called, “We’re still in here! Could somepony let us out?” She expected one of the guards to come back right away. After all, the Princess of Friendship was in the bank. That’s not a customer you just ignore. As if the universe was telling Twilight she was not to have her way that day, though, rather than being freed, nopony came, and the main vault door was beginning its automatic closing sequence. “Wha—Hey! There are ponies still in the vault! Can’t anypony hear me? Hello!” Twilight yelled. Pinkie pulled a megaphone from her pile of stuff. “HEY BANK PONIES! WE’RE ABOUT TO BE LOCKED INSIDE THE VAULT! SOMEPONY GET US OUT OF HERE!” The sheer force of the sound waves shook the immediate area. The vault door stopped closing—for about a second before beginning to close even faster. “Oh, come on!” Pinkie complained, “Even I know that’s a load of—” Anyone outside the vault wouldn’t be able to hear Pinkie’s expletives as the vault door had finished closing, trapping any sound inside. The vault’s twenty-four locks re-engaged in sequence. Each KA-CHUNK of the tumblers made Pinkie and Twilight flinch. Inside the vault, four magic lanterns on each corner of the room provided the only illumination. Twilight stared at the closed gate and door in front of her, desperately trying to process what just happened. Without so much as turning her head, she addressed her friend, “Pinkie, in my safety-deposit box there’s a copy of The Royal Canterlot Bank: The Workings of Wondrous Wealth. Could you get it for me?” In a split second, Pinkie had it in her hooves, “Right here, Twilight!” “Now open up to page 394. Remind me what it says at the end of the section on vault operations.” Cheerfully, Pinkie began reading, “’At the end of each day, the day gate and safety-deposit vault close automatically with a spell that’s been in place for hundreds of years. No one, not even a Princess, can open it or break through due to special magic nullifying metal several feet thick on all sides. To prevent thieves and rogue bank employees from making any late-night withdrawals, the spell makes sure that the vault’s contents will only be accessible again the next morning when the bank opens.’” “That’s what I thought it said.” Twilight fainted. “Wow. I hope they changed that since the book was written. If a pony got stuck in the vault, they’d have to stay there all night!” Pinkie looked up from the book at Twilight, then the closed door. “Oh. I guess they didn’t.” Author's Note I guess it's safe to say these ponies are in quite the predicament! Also trying some new formatting to make my stories easier to read. Pinkie PieTwilight Sparkle awoke with her head resting on Pinkie Pie’s poofy tail. “Ugh, what happened?” she groaned. “I had this terrible dream that we got locked inside the Royal Canterlot Bank’s safety-deposit box vault.” A quick look around her revealed to Twilight that her dream was, in fact, reality. “Oh, sweet Celestia.” The sound of a page flipping garnered her attention. Pinkie had a small pair of reading glasses on, likely pulled from her stored items, and was nose-deep in the second of Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes. “Pinkie?” Twilight said. Pinkie turned around, “Oh, Twilight! You’re up! How’d you like my tail pillow?” She fluffed her tail with her hooves. “Uh, great, I guess. How long was I out?” Twilight asked. “About fifteen minutes,” Pinkie replied. “And you’re already halfway through Starswirl’s Second Tome?” “No, silly! I just started with the second one! You know the saying: first is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest! Though I guess that would make the third pony normal since we all have hairy chests. Who would make a saying like that? Is there some place where there are ponies without hair on their chests? Or maybe there’s a place full of hairless apes!” Pinkie Pie continued to ramble on an increasingly nonsensical tangent. This was a cue for Twilight to temporarily tune her out and begin assessing her situation. She looked all around her. Three of the four vertical walls were covered in hundreds of safety-deposit boxes of varying sizes. Behind those was several feet of magic-nullifying thaumaturgium, the metal named for its resistance to magic and magical properties. The fourth wall held the day gate and vault door. While the timed locking and unlocking spell ran through them on magic conductors, they were also protected by thick sheathes and layers of thaumaturgium. The vault’s ceiling was intricately painted and ornately decorated with hoof-crafted tiles and gold leaf around the edges. This façade only covered yet more impenetrable thaumaturgium. The marble tile floor was the same. Four lanterns with magic flames in them were on each corner of the vault, providing a fair amount of light despite the vault being windowless. With so much material between the two ponies and the outside, the vault was also soundproof. Not even Pinkie’s megaphone would make them audible, even if there were somepony still in the bank. Twilight sat down and sighed. “I guess we are stuck in here all night,” she said. Pinkie, piqued by her friends sounds of dejection, finally ended her monologue. “Oh, that’s all right, Twilight. That means we can spend a lot of time together! You know, between the six of us, you and I are the ones who are together the least.” “Really?” Twilight asked, “How do you know that?” “I have a chart.” Pinkie produced a scroll of parchment with detailed graphs and charts on how much time each of the Mane 6 spent together, in every possible group combination. The information had been gathered since the day after they defeated Nightmare Moon. “Wow, I guess it’s true. But how do you get the data on the pairs or groups that don’t include you? You’re not there to record it.” “I’ve got to extrapolate it from observations and primary sources. I’m around town a lot and I know everypony in Ponyville. That means I can pretty much keep track of you girls without much effort.” Pinkie crossed her hooves and nodded, pleased with herself. “That would be really creepy if I didn’t know you’re only looking out for us,” Twilight chuckled. Pinkie’s face changed to a worried expression, “I’m not being too nosy, am I?” “Not at all, Pinkie,” Twilight put a reassuring hoof on her friend’s shoulder, “You’re a mystery to a lot of ponies. We’ve just come to accept that.” “But what if I don’t want to be a mystery?” Pinkie snapped suddenly, taking Twilight aback. “It’s always ‘That’s just Pinkie Pie,’ or ‘You’re so random,’ or ‘I’ll never understand that mare!’ I know ponies aren’t trying to be mean, but it hurts that the way everypony knows me is that they don’t know me.” “I… Pinkie, I… I don’t…” Twilight stammered. This outpouring of emotion was rather impromptu, and quite uncharacteristic of Pinkie. Or was it? Twilight realized that the pink earth pony was right. She called Pinkie one of her best friends. They’d been on life-changing, harrowing adventures together. They’ve lived in the same town for years now. Just about all Twilight knew about Pinkie, though, was that she was good at planning parties, could bake very well, was bubbly and hyperactive, and… that was it. Sure, there was a lot more Pinkie than just that, but Twilight had learned to dismiss anything unusual Pinkie said or did to Pinkie Pie, well, being Pinkie Pie. She had no idea what being Pinkie Pie meant, though. Twilight thought about asking Pinkie to tell her all about herself. Pinkie would oblige, of course, probably in thousands more words than necessary, but Twilight knew that just hearing words wouldn’t let her get to know her best friend. “I’m sorry, Twilight. That was uncalled for. Sometimes my feelings just pop out of me like a confetti cannon!” Pinkie tried to muster a laugh but it was rather pitiful. Then, she was surprised by the feeling of two hooves surrounding her. “It’s okay, Pinkie. I promise that starting now I’ll be the first friend in Ponyville to get to know the real you. After all this time, I owe you that much.” Twilight tilted her head and smiled. Just as quickly as the sadness had appeared on Pinkie’s face, it flushed away and a huge, toothy grin replaced it. “Woo hoo!” Pinkie cheered. She jumped all around, bouncing like a pinball off the walls, the floor, and somehow the ceiling, too. “I’ll tell you what, Twilight: I’ve made more friends than I can count in all my years—” “You’re only twenty-one.” “But I’ve never made a friend twice.” Pinkie hugged Twilight. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any games stored away in your safety-deposit box, do you? If we’re going to be trapped here until morning we may as well have some fun, right?” Twilight asked. “You read my mind!” Pinkie zipped into her box and returned half a second later with a stack of board games. “Which one do you want? Word Tiles? Word Tiles Junior? Sweets Nation? Predicament? Adult Twister?” Pinkie waggled her eyebrows at the last one. “Uh, what’s in ‘Adult Twister’?” Twilight asked cautiously. Pinkie gave a sly grin, “I can’t tell you, this story’s rated Everyone!” “Ugh, never mind. Let’s start a game of Word Tiles.” Twilight magicked the game’s box over to the table in the center of the vault, shifted the Tomes to make room, and set the game up in a matter of seconds. Pinkie, with a particularly good opening set, began by spelling C-A-T-H-A-R-S-I-S, occupying a double-letter and triple-word score space. “Wow. Good move,” Twilight said. She looked up at Pinkie, who was staring at her with expectant eyes. In a moment of nervousness, her own gaze flitted back to the board, where the word that was just spelled out clicked in her mind. “Oh. OH. We’re doing this now, aren’t we?” Pinkie nodded so fast it looked like her mane might fly off. “So I guess I should start by asking: why do you think we don’t hang out much?” Twilight posited as she built D-I-A-L-O-G-U-E off of Pinkie’s word. “I’m not sure,” Pinkie tapped her chin, simultaneously in thought of Twilight’s question and what word to play next. “I mean, it’s not like I avoid spending time with you.” “Same here,” Twilight agreed, “But your data doesn’t lie. We’re simply not alone together much.” Pinkie played G-U-E-S-S. “Do you think it’s because we don’t have much in common? I don’t think we’re that different.” Twilight laid down U-N-S-U-R-E. “Really? I don’t know the first thing about organizing a party. That’s why I brought you to get that thing for Moondancer together, remember?” “Yeah, but you do know a thing about organizing other things. Between the two of us, we are a couple of pretty put-together ponies.” Pinkie produced F-R-I-E-N-D. Twilight gave the earth pony a quizzical look. “No offense, but ‘step-by-step’ isn’t how I imagine your brain working,” Twilight said. Pinkie rolled her eyes, “That’s what we’re trying to change here, remember? Believe it or not, I bet I have just as much of a scientific mind as you do, miss smarty pants.” “Sorry. I guess I’m just having a bit of a hard time shifting my mind’s picture of you… This isn’t going very well, is it?” Twilight looked dejected. “Well, think of it this way, Twilight: Remember how I answered your question about how I got the data for my friend chart?” Pinkie said. Twilight’s eyes grew wide with realization, “You said it just like a seasoned scientist would!” “Of course, silly! That’s because I am a seasoned scientist! And boy, am I spiiiiiiiiiicy!” Pinkie licked her hoof and placed it on her rump, where it inexplicably made a sizzling sound. “And did you notice how you didn’t think using those words or going through that work was weird for me? Those are the kinds of conversations I want with ponies—with you!” “Pinkie… I can’t believe we had you pegged all wrong for so long. When we get back, I’ll be sure to tell the others—” “No, Twilight. I want the other girls to find the real me the same way you did.” “By getting locked in a bank vault with them?” “By making an effort to read into me. Nice joke, though. Very Pinkie.” “I learn quickly,” Twilight winked. For the next couple hours, Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle chatted in-depth and powered through several games of Word Tiles, the majority of which Pinkie won. They talked about shindigs and science and mascarpone and magic. Twilight was exhilarated that she had another intellectual mind to pal around with, and Pinkie was relieved that someone finally understood the real her. Did this mean that Pinkie would no longer be an eclectic, hyperactive, and utterly unpredictable party pony? Absolutely not. That much is the essence of the Element of Laughter herself, but now at least one of her friends knew that there was so much more to her. Author's Note Well, it's not their vault they're stuck! Today's chapter brought to you by absolutely horrid puns. Twilight SparkleTwilight Sparkle breathed a heavy sigh. She and her friend Pinkie Pie had been locked in the Royal Canterlot Bank’s safety-deposit box vault for a good seven hours now. They had talked a lot, slept a little, and exhausted just about every board game in Pinkie’s safety-deposit box, of which there were a dozen or so. This morning, Twilight would have not questioned why Pinkie would place such seemingly insignificant objects in the most secure location in Equestria, but now that Pinkie had been unlocked, she knew all she had to do was ask to get an answer: “If one day all the games in the world disappeared or got destroyed somehow, it’d be up to me to re-introduce them to all of ponykind!” Pinkie was a pony that planned ahead. With little else to occupy them, Twilight decided she should try to figure a way out of the vault. Safe cracking was not her forte, much less cracking one from the inside, but she figured anything they could attempt was worth a shot. She took another deep breath and stood up, pointing her horn at the day gate. “Stand back, Pinkie. I’m going to try to get us out of here,” Twilight said, scuffing her hoof against the ground. “What are you going to do?” Pinkie asked. “Something stupid, most likely.” That was enough information to make Pinkie duck under the table just as Twilight fired a magic blast at the day gate in an attempt to bypass the thaumaturgium and hit the magic-conductive locking mechanism. It failed. Twilight found herself scrambling to join her friend under the table as her own spell ricocheted wildly off the walls, ceiling, and floor. It caused books, scrolls, games and the other things to go flying around the room. “Why would you try that!?” Pinkie yelled. “I thought it might work!” Twilight panicked, covering her head with her hooves. “You had me read an entire paragraph to you on exactly why it wouldn’t work!” The blast finally dissipated and the two ponies cautiously re-emerged from under the table. “Remind me to never do that again,” Twilight sighed. Pinkie took Twilight’s face in her hooves, “Never do that again.” “Not now,” Twilight pushed Pinkie’s hooves away, “At least nothing we took out got damaged.” Twilight began organizing her various belongings. Pinkie, wanting to help out, started to pick up some of the books. She came across the fourth of Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes. “Hey, Twilight,” she called, “What’s with these tomes, anyway? Why do you need them?” “Oh, don’t worry about those. I’m just studying them for a… personal project.” “Uh-oh.” Pinkie said. “What’s ‘uh-oh’?” Twilight asked, suddenly worried. “You’re uh-oh,” Pinkie pointed with her hoof, “You never hesitate to tell us what you’re studying something for, so those three seconds of silence are a big ol’ red flag.” Pinkie dove into her pile of stuff and returned a second later with a chaise lounge… somehow. She patted it and motioned for Twilight to sit down, “Come on, Twi-twi. Tell your auntie Pinkie what’s really going on.” Twilight grimaced at what she was about to say, but knew that she had to say it, at least for Pinkie’s sake. Twilight mumbled. “Sorry? I didn’t quite hear that.” Pinkie flicked her ears. More mumbling, only slightly more articulate this time. “One more time, Twilight. I think Auntie Pinkie might be getting old,” she put a funnel to her ear. “I can’t read them,” Twilight said, still barely audible. “Like they’re in a secret code or something? Do you need a spell to unlock them?” “No, Pinkie, I literally can’t read them. Like a foal that still has to learn. I know at least some of every language known to Equestrians, and I can’t read these books. I knew Starswirl the Bearded was brilliant, but this is just impossible. I wanted to take them out to see if I could finally crack some of his crazy writing, but I just can’t.” “So? Lots of ponies can’t read stuff.” “But I’m not ‘lots of ponies,’ Pinkie!” Twilight snapped, “I’m Twilight Sparkle: Princess of Friendship, Celestia’s star pupil, bookhorse and librarian extraordinaire!” “That last part sounds made up—” “There shouldn’t be anything I don’t know or at least can’t learn! Who am I if I’m not the smartest, huh? Who am I if nopony can rely on me for answers? Who am I supposed to be if I don’t even want to be a Princess!?” There was only a moment of silence. “Well you’re Twilight Sparkle, silly!” Pinkie smiled warmly. “What?” Twilight breathed, “Pinkie, I’m being serious!” “So am I! No matter who you are or were or want to be, you’re still you!” Pinkie booped Twilight on the nose. “I may have needed help for someone else to see the real me, but it looks like you need help to see the real you.” “I… that’s…” Twilight began, “Was the rest of that sentence, ‘very insightful, Pinkie’? Because I know. Come on, Twilight, keep up! We just went through an entire chapter about me and knowing things!” Twilight sighed the ever so familiar you’re-not-making-any-sense-but-I’ll-dismiss-it sigh. Twilight continued, “It’s just… so much of my life has been planned and organized. Becoming a Princess was a huge wrench in those plans that I just wasn’t ready for. Now that I’ve got to be one, I don’t know if I’m up to the task.” “What did you want to be before?” Pinkie asked. “Now that you ask that, I’m not really sure,” Twilight responded, her eyes to one corner in thought, “I guess I sort of thought that I’d be studying magic and academics my entire life. I’ve imagined just kicking the bucket in the middle of a book—and that was all right with me.” Twilight fluffed her wings. “Ever since I got these, though, I don’t know if I’ll ever kick the bucket. Not even Celestia and Luna know if immortality comes with alicorn territory. What if I decide not to rule anything? What will I do with thousands of years of life?” During Twilight’s existential questions, Pinkie had sidled herself up next to the alicorn on the chaise lounge, startling her a little bit. “Wow, all that and you can’t read these books,” Pinkie said, holding Starswirl’s Second Lost Tome above her. “Yeah, there’s a lot going on,” Twilight nodded. There was another moment of silence. “Hey! Are you reading that?” Twilight gasped. “Yup!” Pinkie chirped. “And you were reading it earlier, too!” “Uh-huh!” “But how?” “Believe it or not, it looks like me and ol’ Swirlybeard—” “Starswirl the Bearded.” “Whatever. Anywho, it looks like we think in a pretty similar fashion. Remember those recipe scrolls? Take a look at one of them.” Twilight followed Pinkie’s instructions and levitated a scroll marked with Pinkie’s Cutie mark over. She unfurled it and was amazed to find that, just like Starswirl’s Lost Tomes, the recipes were in a startlingly similar near-indecipherable language. “Incredible!” Twilight exclaimed, “But why would you—either of you—write like this? Don’t you want anypony else to use this information?” “Well, sure, but if Beardystar—” “Starswirl.” “Starbeard is anything like me, only the ponies dedicated enough to figure it out deserve to know it,” Pinkie explained. Twilight frowned, “Am I not dedicated enough?” Pinkie shook her head, “I think you’re plenty dedicated. Starswirl’s just a jerk. Take a close look at this tome again.” Pinkie shoved the book in Twilight’s face. She squinted, then widened her eyes, “Oh my gosh, it’s different than before! That’s why I could never get anywhere!” Twilight said. “Yep! Looks like that old unicorn put a spell on them to change the arrangement of the words every time someone opened the book on top of using our weirdly cryptic language,” Pinkie explained. “That’s why the tomes are called ‘Lost’! Not because they had been physically missing, but because anypony reading them would get ‘lost’ every time they decided to take a break!” Incidentally, such a spell was something Twilight was familiar with, having used it to keep Shining Armor out of her diary when she was younger. She adjusted it for the magic algorithms more common for Starswirl’s time, pointed her horn at the book, and fired a counter-spell. Pinkie picked the book up and looked through a few pages, “All in order! It’s not changing anymore!” “Great! Now let’s get the other ones!” Twilight ordered. One by one, Pinkie tossed the Lost Tomes in the air for Twilight to shoot with the scrambling counter-spell. “Nice shooting, Twi!” Pinkie cheered. Twilight blew the magic smoke off her horn and smirked. “Now, if you don’t mind, Pinkie, could you tell me a little about what these books are even about?” Twilight asked. “Can do!” Pinkie saluted, then buzzed through each of the books in record time, giggling occasionally. “What’s so funny?” Twilight tilted her head. “Haha! Seven of these books are just journals! This guy had a lot of marefriends!” Pinkie laughed. “What about the eighth one?” “You’re not gonna believe this: It’s all about the properties of thaumaturgium!” Author's Note Quality may suffer, but I'm gonna bring this one to a quick close. Next time, Twilight and Pinkie finally escape! UnlockedTwilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie spent the next couple hours deciphering Starswirl the Bearded’s Eighth Lost Tome and unlocking the mysteries of the enigmatic metal, thaumaturgium. “So Starswirl was the one who designed this vault in the first place!” Twilight said after Pinkie read a paragraph to her, “That explains why this book had the same scrambling spell as the others. He didn’t want the wrong ponies reading this, so it was protected. Who knew it’d be among a bunch of his private journals, though?” “That guy had a lot of marefriends!” Pinkie giggled. “Yes, Pinkie, that’s the fifth time you’ve pointed that out,” Twilight rolled her eyes. It was true, though. That guy had a lot of marefriends. “Say, Twilight,” Pinkie started. Twilight perked her ears and looked up from the new equations and notes she was scribbling down. “A lot of things had to go right for all this to happen, didn’t they?” Twilight was perplexed. They had been locked inside a vault with no way out for almost half a day now. If anything, that’s a lot of things going wrong that had to have happened for them to end up where they were. As she learned earlier, though, it was best to listen to Pinkie, not just dismiss her. “What do you mean?” Twilight asked. “Think about it. We wouldn’t know the things we know about each other now if we hadn’t been trapped in here. Now you know I’m into science, and I know you’re constantly tormented by a looming shadow of uncertain immortality.” Pinkie’s smile was incredibly unsettling. “You know, we still have to address that. It really upsets me…” Twilight said. “It’s all right, Twilight. I’m sure that problem will be center stage in another story.” “What?” “The point is, being locked in this vault is the best thing that could have happened for the two of us. I think after this we’re closer than ever!” Pinkie accentuated her line with a big hug to Twilight. Twilight chuckled, “You’re right, Pinkie. I’m glad I got stuck in here with you.” She returned to her thaumaturgium research. “All right, Pinkie, I think we have enough info to craft something to bust us out of here!” Pinkie bounced up and down in anticipation. “Ooh, what are you gonna do?” “Well,” Twilight began, “According to Starswirl’s notes, thaumaturgium isn’t magic resistant, it’s actually a metal that’s full of magic. It’s very atomic structure acts like a counter-spell to, well, everything else magical that it encounters. That’s in addition to being the strongest material known to ponykind. So, given all of this data, I should be able to formulate a spell that disturbs thaumaturgium’s structure enough so that magic can actually act on it. If I do it just right, I—” Click. Twilight’s monologue was interrupted by the sound of the vault door beginning to move. The twenty-four locks disengaged in sequence and the massive door swung open, allowing the full might of the day’s sunlight to pour into the vault and assault Twilight and Pinkie’s eyes. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Twilight’s eye twitched. “Huh, I guess we were so caught up with all that introspection and trying to get out we didn’t even notice it was morning already,” Pinkie said with sunglasses on. The guards who opened the vault were startled. “Sweet Celestia,” one of them gasped, “You two… haven’t been in here all night, have you?” “We sure have!” Pinkie replied chipperly. The other guard put her hooves to her head, “We locked a Princess in the vault! We are so getting fired for this!” Twilight walked over and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’re not getting fired,” she smiled, “You’re getting arrested.” The smile disappeared immediately. “Such an oversight on the job is unforgivable! That was the most stressful night of my life!” Twilight looked over at Pinkie, who was cramming all the stuff she didn’t need back into her safety-deposit box and packing her recipes into her saddlebags. She breathed a wistful sigh, “And also one of the best,” she whispered. “Come on, Pinkie! Let’s get back to Ponyville; the rest of Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes aren’t going to decipher themselves! Plus, you owe me something from one of those recipes!” Twilight and Pinkie left the bank as Royal Guards entered to put the negligent vault-watchers in custody. Over the past day, two ponies were locked, both in vault and in heart, but they found ways to free themselves through a little misfortune and the power of friendship. Author's Note What'd I say? This chapter sucks. But the story's done. Maybe one day I'll come back and edit it so it's a better ending. Maybe. Sorry the ending was anti-climactic, but if you did enjoy the story, I'm glad you did. Please stay tuned for much better writing in the future!
Locked“I didn’t know you had an account with the Royal Canterlot Bank, Pinkie.” Princess Twilight Sparkle tilted her head as her enthusiastic friend, Pinkie Pie, produced a membership card from somewhere deep within her voluminous pink mane. “Well, duh!” Pinkie replied, barely holding her face still for the bank’s magical identification machine to scan her, “I have bank accounts all over Equestria—” “In case of bank account emergencies?” Twilight smirked, eliciting a grimacing look from Pinkie. “No. Because diversifying your wealth across multiple institutions is an intelligent financial decision to protect it from excess loss in case of an economic downturn.” “Oh.” Twilight blinked. The receptionist pony returned Pinkie’s card to her, and she placed it in her mane where it went… somewhere, much to the receptionist’s surprise. “So what business do you have here, anyway? I know you wanted to come with me on my trip to get Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes out of my safety-deposit box, but magic’s not really your thing,” Twilight asked. “I’ve got stuff here, too!” Pinkie smiled. “Oh, really? Like what?” Pinkie’s smile disappeared as quickly as it came on. She gave Twilight a blank stare, “Don’t worry about it.” Before Twilight could press any further, one of the bank’s guards came forward to let the two mares know they were cleared to enter the safety-deposit box vault. He guided them down a long hallway with several security clearances where he and another pony each had to be scanned and scanned again by magic screening devices, along with Twilight and Pinkie. “This process always makes me feel so… exposed.” Twilight covered herself as if somepony was seeing some of her that they weren’t supposed to. They reached the end of the hallway with the vault. “Right in here, ladies,” One of the guards put in a final access code which prompted all twenty-four of the huge metal locks to disengage with a resounding KA-CHUNK. The guards heaved the vault’s massive round door open and unlocked the inner day gate to let Twilight and Pinkie in. “There you go. Take your time, Princess.” The guards tipped their hats and walked off. Nodding her thanks to the guards, Twilight magicked her safety-deposit box’s key out of her saddlebag. Pinkie shook her own out of her mane. “How do you even—” “Hey!” Pinkie exclaimed before Twilight could address the space-time conundrum, “It looks like our boxes are right next to each other! Who knew?” Indeed, on the far end of the vault were the larger boxes for ponies who either had bigger items to store or deeper pockets to flout. While Pinkie was more of the former (though she did have a pretty penny saved up), Twilight’s royal status came with perks that included any and all bank space she could ever need. Pinkie’s box was number 15, and Twilight’s was number 16. “Oh, so they are.” Twilight said. Dismissing Pinkie’s shenanigans for the time being, Twilight proceeded to open up her safety-deposit box where she began rummaging for Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes. “This might take a while, Pinkie. Since I don’t come here very often it’s pretty much the only collection of things I have that aren’t meticulously organized.” “That’s all right! I’ve got plenty of stuff to look through, too!” The second Pinkie Pie’s key clicked her box unlocked, all manner of objects defenestrated out of it, enough to nearly bury her. “Wow. I’ll… leave you to that.” Twilight returned her head to the cavernous box, igniting her horn for illumination. Meanwhile, Pinkie dove into her pile of things-probably-only-valuable-to-Pinkie, making an inexplicable splashing noise. Sometime later, Twilight had located six of the Eight Lost Tomes while Pinkie had retrieved a few dozen sealed scrolls, an expensive-looking necklace, and what appeared to be an ornate jewelry box. Twilight looked over at Pinkie’s hoard after coming up for air in her own searching efforts. “I’m guessing those are some super-secret recipes, right?” the Princess asked, referring to the scrolls. Pinkie nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh! There are some really important holidays coming up and each one of these super-duper-secret sweets needs to be baked!” “So that’s why you wouldn’t tell me what was in here earlier. Don’t worry, Pinkie, I won’t peek,” Twilight winked. Pinkie giggled, “Oh, Twilight. That’s not what I was hiding from you. Nopony gets to see the most secret thing I have here. I wouldn’t show it even if you royally decreed me to! Even if all the princesses royally decreed me!” “It’s not a threat to national security, is it?” Twilight raised an eyebrow and involuntarily flared her wings. Before Pinkie could answer, the two ponies were interrupted by a loud CLANG. The day gate to the vault had closed. “That’s not good,” Pinkie said. “Don’t worry, it just shuts itself automatically at closing time. We have been in here a while. I suppose I can get the other two Lost Tomes tomorrow.” Twilight walked up to the closed gate. “Hello!” she called, “We’re still in here! Could somepony let us out?” She expected one of the guards to come back right away. After all, the Princess of Friendship was in the bank. That’s not a customer you just ignore. As if the universe was telling Twilight she was not to have her way that day, though, rather than being freed, nopony came, and the main vault door was beginning its automatic closing sequence. “Wha—Hey! There are ponies still in the vault! Can’t anypony hear me? Hello!” Twilight yelled. Pinkie pulled a megaphone from her pile of stuff. “HEY BANK PONIES! WE’RE ABOUT TO BE LOCKED INSIDE THE VAULT! SOMEPONY GET US OUT OF HERE!” The sheer force of the sound waves shook the immediate area. The vault door stopped closing—for about a second before beginning to close even faster. “Oh, come on!” Pinkie complained, “Even I know that’s a load of—” Anyone outside the vault wouldn’t be able to hear Pinkie’s expletives as the vault door had finished closing, trapping any sound inside. The vault’s twenty-four locks re-engaged in sequence. Each KA-CHUNK of the tumblers made Pinkie and Twilight flinch. Inside the vault, four magic lanterns on each corner of the room provided the only illumination. Twilight stared at the closed gate and door in front of her, desperately trying to process what just happened. Without so much as turning her head, she addressed her friend, “Pinkie, in my safety-deposit box there’s a copy of The Royal Canterlot Bank: The Workings of Wondrous Wealth. Could you get it for me?” In a split second, Pinkie had it in her hooves, “Right here, Twilight!” “Now open up to page 394. Remind me what it says at the end of the section on vault operations.” Cheerfully, Pinkie began reading, “’At the end of each day, the day gate and safety-deposit vault close automatically with a spell that’s been in place for hundreds of years. No one, not even a Princess, can open it or break through due to special magic nullifying metal several feet thick on all sides. To prevent thieves and rogue bank employees from making any late-night withdrawals, the spell makes sure that the vault’s contents will only be accessible again the next morning when the bank opens.’” “That’s what I thought it said.” Twilight fainted. “Wow. I hope they changed that since the book was written. If a pony got stuck in the vault, they’d have to stay there all night!” Pinkie looked up from the book at Twilight, then the closed door. “Oh. I guess they didn’t.” Author's Note I guess it's safe to say these ponies are in quite the predicament! Also trying some new formatting to make my stories easier to read.
Pinkie PieTwilight Sparkle awoke with her head resting on Pinkie Pie’s poofy tail. “Ugh, what happened?” she groaned. “I had this terrible dream that we got locked inside the Royal Canterlot Bank’s safety-deposit box vault.” A quick look around her revealed to Twilight that her dream was, in fact, reality. “Oh, sweet Celestia.” The sound of a page flipping garnered her attention. Pinkie had a small pair of reading glasses on, likely pulled from her stored items, and was nose-deep in the second of Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes. “Pinkie?” Twilight said. Pinkie turned around, “Oh, Twilight! You’re up! How’d you like my tail pillow?” She fluffed her tail with her hooves. “Uh, great, I guess. How long was I out?” Twilight asked. “About fifteen minutes,” Pinkie replied. “And you’re already halfway through Starswirl’s Second Tome?” “No, silly! I just started with the second one! You know the saying: first is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest! Though I guess that would make the third pony normal since we all have hairy chests. Who would make a saying like that? Is there some place where there are ponies without hair on their chests? Or maybe there’s a place full of hairless apes!” Pinkie Pie continued to ramble on an increasingly nonsensical tangent. This was a cue for Twilight to temporarily tune her out and begin assessing her situation. She looked all around her. Three of the four vertical walls were covered in hundreds of safety-deposit boxes of varying sizes. Behind those was several feet of magic-nullifying thaumaturgium, the metal named for its resistance to magic and magical properties. The fourth wall held the day gate and vault door. While the timed locking and unlocking spell ran through them on magic conductors, they were also protected by thick sheathes and layers of thaumaturgium. The vault’s ceiling was intricately painted and ornately decorated with hoof-crafted tiles and gold leaf around the edges. This façade only covered yet more impenetrable thaumaturgium. The marble tile floor was the same. Four lanterns with magic flames in them were on each corner of the vault, providing a fair amount of light despite the vault being windowless. With so much material between the two ponies and the outside, the vault was also soundproof. Not even Pinkie’s megaphone would make them audible, even if there were somepony still in the bank. Twilight sat down and sighed. “I guess we are stuck in here all night,” she said. Pinkie, piqued by her friends sounds of dejection, finally ended her monologue. “Oh, that’s all right, Twilight. That means we can spend a lot of time together! You know, between the six of us, you and I are the ones who are together the least.” “Really?” Twilight asked, “How do you know that?” “I have a chart.” Pinkie produced a scroll of parchment with detailed graphs and charts on how much time each of the Mane 6 spent together, in every possible group combination. The information had been gathered since the day after they defeated Nightmare Moon. “Wow, I guess it’s true. But how do you get the data on the pairs or groups that don’t include you? You’re not there to record it.” “I’ve got to extrapolate it from observations and primary sources. I’m around town a lot and I know everypony in Ponyville. That means I can pretty much keep track of you girls without much effort.” Pinkie crossed her hooves and nodded, pleased with herself. “That would be really creepy if I didn’t know you’re only looking out for us,” Twilight chuckled. Pinkie’s face changed to a worried expression, “I’m not being too nosy, am I?” “Not at all, Pinkie,” Twilight put a reassuring hoof on her friend’s shoulder, “You’re a mystery to a lot of ponies. We’ve just come to accept that.” “But what if I don’t want to be a mystery?” Pinkie snapped suddenly, taking Twilight aback. “It’s always ‘That’s just Pinkie Pie,’ or ‘You’re so random,’ or ‘I’ll never understand that mare!’ I know ponies aren’t trying to be mean, but it hurts that the way everypony knows me is that they don’t know me.” “I… Pinkie, I… I don’t…” Twilight stammered. This outpouring of emotion was rather impromptu, and quite uncharacteristic of Pinkie. Or was it? Twilight realized that the pink earth pony was right. She called Pinkie one of her best friends. They’d been on life-changing, harrowing adventures together. They’ve lived in the same town for years now. Just about all Twilight knew about Pinkie, though, was that she was good at planning parties, could bake very well, was bubbly and hyperactive, and… that was it. Sure, there was a lot more Pinkie than just that, but Twilight had learned to dismiss anything unusual Pinkie said or did to Pinkie Pie, well, being Pinkie Pie. She had no idea what being Pinkie Pie meant, though. Twilight thought about asking Pinkie to tell her all about herself. Pinkie would oblige, of course, probably in thousands more words than necessary, but Twilight knew that just hearing words wouldn’t let her get to know her best friend. “I’m sorry, Twilight. That was uncalled for. Sometimes my feelings just pop out of me like a confetti cannon!” Pinkie tried to muster a laugh but it was rather pitiful. Then, she was surprised by the feeling of two hooves surrounding her. “It’s okay, Pinkie. I promise that starting now I’ll be the first friend in Ponyville to get to know the real you. After all this time, I owe you that much.” Twilight tilted her head and smiled. Just as quickly as the sadness had appeared on Pinkie’s face, it flushed away and a huge, toothy grin replaced it. “Woo hoo!” Pinkie cheered. She jumped all around, bouncing like a pinball off the walls, the floor, and somehow the ceiling, too. “I’ll tell you what, Twilight: I’ve made more friends than I can count in all my years—” “You’re only twenty-one.” “But I’ve never made a friend twice.” Pinkie hugged Twilight. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any games stored away in your safety-deposit box, do you? If we’re going to be trapped here until morning we may as well have some fun, right?” Twilight asked. “You read my mind!” Pinkie zipped into her box and returned half a second later with a stack of board games. “Which one do you want? Word Tiles? Word Tiles Junior? Sweets Nation? Predicament? Adult Twister?” Pinkie waggled her eyebrows at the last one. “Uh, what’s in ‘Adult Twister’?” Twilight asked cautiously. Pinkie gave a sly grin, “I can’t tell you, this story’s rated Everyone!” “Ugh, never mind. Let’s start a game of Word Tiles.” Twilight magicked the game’s box over to the table in the center of the vault, shifted the Tomes to make room, and set the game up in a matter of seconds. Pinkie, with a particularly good opening set, began by spelling C-A-T-H-A-R-S-I-S, occupying a double-letter and triple-word score space. “Wow. Good move,” Twilight said. She looked up at Pinkie, who was staring at her with expectant eyes. In a moment of nervousness, her own gaze flitted back to the board, where the word that was just spelled out clicked in her mind. “Oh. OH. We’re doing this now, aren’t we?” Pinkie nodded so fast it looked like her mane might fly off. “So I guess I should start by asking: why do you think we don’t hang out much?” Twilight posited as she built D-I-A-L-O-G-U-E off of Pinkie’s word. “I’m not sure,” Pinkie tapped her chin, simultaneously in thought of Twilight’s question and what word to play next. “I mean, it’s not like I avoid spending time with you.” “Same here,” Twilight agreed, “But your data doesn’t lie. We’re simply not alone together much.” Pinkie played G-U-E-S-S. “Do you think it’s because we don’t have much in common? I don’t think we’re that different.” Twilight laid down U-N-S-U-R-E. “Really? I don’t know the first thing about organizing a party. That’s why I brought you to get that thing for Moondancer together, remember?” “Yeah, but you do know a thing about organizing other things. Between the two of us, we are a couple of pretty put-together ponies.” Pinkie produced F-R-I-E-N-D. Twilight gave the earth pony a quizzical look. “No offense, but ‘step-by-step’ isn’t how I imagine your brain working,” Twilight said. Pinkie rolled her eyes, “That’s what we’re trying to change here, remember? Believe it or not, I bet I have just as much of a scientific mind as you do, miss smarty pants.” “Sorry. I guess I’m just having a bit of a hard time shifting my mind’s picture of you… This isn’t going very well, is it?” Twilight looked dejected. “Well, think of it this way, Twilight: Remember how I answered your question about how I got the data for my friend chart?” Pinkie said. Twilight’s eyes grew wide with realization, “You said it just like a seasoned scientist would!” “Of course, silly! That’s because I am a seasoned scientist! And boy, am I spiiiiiiiiiicy!” Pinkie licked her hoof and placed it on her rump, where it inexplicably made a sizzling sound. “And did you notice how you didn’t think using those words or going through that work was weird for me? Those are the kinds of conversations I want with ponies—with you!” “Pinkie… I can’t believe we had you pegged all wrong for so long. When we get back, I’ll be sure to tell the others—” “No, Twilight. I want the other girls to find the real me the same way you did.” “By getting locked in a bank vault with them?” “By making an effort to read into me. Nice joke, though. Very Pinkie.” “I learn quickly,” Twilight winked. For the next couple hours, Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle chatted in-depth and powered through several games of Word Tiles, the majority of which Pinkie won. They talked about shindigs and science and mascarpone and magic. Twilight was exhilarated that she had another intellectual mind to pal around with, and Pinkie was relieved that someone finally understood the real her. Did this mean that Pinkie would no longer be an eclectic, hyperactive, and utterly unpredictable party pony? Absolutely not. That much is the essence of the Element of Laughter herself, but now at least one of her friends knew that there was so much more to her. Author's Note Well, it's not their vault they're stuck! Today's chapter brought to you by absolutely horrid puns.
Twilight SparkleTwilight Sparkle breathed a heavy sigh. She and her friend Pinkie Pie had been locked in the Royal Canterlot Bank’s safety-deposit box vault for a good seven hours now. They had talked a lot, slept a little, and exhausted just about every board game in Pinkie’s safety-deposit box, of which there were a dozen or so. This morning, Twilight would have not questioned why Pinkie would place such seemingly insignificant objects in the most secure location in Equestria, but now that Pinkie had been unlocked, she knew all she had to do was ask to get an answer: “If one day all the games in the world disappeared or got destroyed somehow, it’d be up to me to re-introduce them to all of ponykind!” Pinkie was a pony that planned ahead. With little else to occupy them, Twilight decided she should try to figure a way out of the vault. Safe cracking was not her forte, much less cracking one from the inside, but she figured anything they could attempt was worth a shot. She took another deep breath and stood up, pointing her horn at the day gate. “Stand back, Pinkie. I’m going to try to get us out of here,” Twilight said, scuffing her hoof against the ground. “What are you going to do?” Pinkie asked. “Something stupid, most likely.” That was enough information to make Pinkie duck under the table just as Twilight fired a magic blast at the day gate in an attempt to bypass the thaumaturgium and hit the magic-conductive locking mechanism. It failed. Twilight found herself scrambling to join her friend under the table as her own spell ricocheted wildly off the walls, ceiling, and floor. It caused books, scrolls, games and the other things to go flying around the room. “Why would you try that!?” Pinkie yelled. “I thought it might work!” Twilight panicked, covering her head with her hooves. “You had me read an entire paragraph to you on exactly why it wouldn’t work!” The blast finally dissipated and the two ponies cautiously re-emerged from under the table. “Remind me to never do that again,” Twilight sighed. Pinkie took Twilight’s face in her hooves, “Never do that again.” “Not now,” Twilight pushed Pinkie’s hooves away, “At least nothing we took out got damaged.” Twilight began organizing her various belongings. Pinkie, wanting to help out, started to pick up some of the books. She came across the fourth of Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes. “Hey, Twilight,” she called, “What’s with these tomes, anyway? Why do you need them?” “Oh, don’t worry about those. I’m just studying them for a… personal project.” “Uh-oh.” Pinkie said. “What’s ‘uh-oh’?” Twilight asked, suddenly worried. “You’re uh-oh,” Pinkie pointed with her hoof, “You never hesitate to tell us what you’re studying something for, so those three seconds of silence are a big ol’ red flag.” Pinkie dove into her pile of stuff and returned a second later with a chaise lounge… somehow. She patted it and motioned for Twilight to sit down, “Come on, Twi-twi. Tell your auntie Pinkie what’s really going on.” Twilight grimaced at what she was about to say, but knew that she had to say it, at least for Pinkie’s sake. Twilight mumbled. “Sorry? I didn’t quite hear that.” Pinkie flicked her ears. More mumbling, only slightly more articulate this time. “One more time, Twilight. I think Auntie Pinkie might be getting old,” she put a funnel to her ear. “I can’t read them,” Twilight said, still barely audible. “Like they’re in a secret code or something? Do you need a spell to unlock them?” “No, Pinkie, I literally can’t read them. Like a foal that still has to learn. I know at least some of every language known to Equestrians, and I can’t read these books. I knew Starswirl the Bearded was brilliant, but this is just impossible. I wanted to take them out to see if I could finally crack some of his crazy writing, but I just can’t.” “So? Lots of ponies can’t read stuff.” “But I’m not ‘lots of ponies,’ Pinkie!” Twilight snapped, “I’m Twilight Sparkle: Princess of Friendship, Celestia’s star pupil, bookhorse and librarian extraordinaire!” “That last part sounds made up—” “There shouldn’t be anything I don’t know or at least can’t learn! Who am I if I’m not the smartest, huh? Who am I if nopony can rely on me for answers? Who am I supposed to be if I don’t even want to be a Princess!?” There was only a moment of silence. “Well you’re Twilight Sparkle, silly!” Pinkie smiled warmly. “What?” Twilight breathed, “Pinkie, I’m being serious!” “So am I! No matter who you are or were or want to be, you’re still you!” Pinkie booped Twilight on the nose. “I may have needed help for someone else to see the real me, but it looks like you need help to see the real you.” “I… that’s…” Twilight began, “Was the rest of that sentence, ‘very insightful, Pinkie’? Because I know. Come on, Twilight, keep up! We just went through an entire chapter about me and knowing things!” Twilight sighed the ever so familiar you’re-not-making-any-sense-but-I’ll-dismiss-it sigh. Twilight continued, “It’s just… so much of my life has been planned and organized. Becoming a Princess was a huge wrench in those plans that I just wasn’t ready for. Now that I’ve got to be one, I don’t know if I’m up to the task.” “What did you want to be before?” Pinkie asked. “Now that you ask that, I’m not really sure,” Twilight responded, her eyes to one corner in thought, “I guess I sort of thought that I’d be studying magic and academics my entire life. I’ve imagined just kicking the bucket in the middle of a book—and that was all right with me.” Twilight fluffed her wings. “Ever since I got these, though, I don’t know if I’ll ever kick the bucket. Not even Celestia and Luna know if immortality comes with alicorn territory. What if I decide not to rule anything? What will I do with thousands of years of life?” During Twilight’s existential questions, Pinkie had sidled herself up next to the alicorn on the chaise lounge, startling her a little bit. “Wow, all that and you can’t read these books,” Pinkie said, holding Starswirl’s Second Lost Tome above her. “Yeah, there’s a lot going on,” Twilight nodded. There was another moment of silence. “Hey! Are you reading that?” Twilight gasped. “Yup!” Pinkie chirped. “And you were reading it earlier, too!” “Uh-huh!” “But how?” “Believe it or not, it looks like me and ol’ Swirlybeard—” “Starswirl the Bearded.” “Whatever. Anywho, it looks like we think in a pretty similar fashion. Remember those recipe scrolls? Take a look at one of them.” Twilight followed Pinkie’s instructions and levitated a scroll marked with Pinkie’s Cutie mark over. She unfurled it and was amazed to find that, just like Starswirl’s Lost Tomes, the recipes were in a startlingly similar near-indecipherable language. “Incredible!” Twilight exclaimed, “But why would you—either of you—write like this? Don’t you want anypony else to use this information?” “Well, sure, but if Beardystar—” “Starswirl.” “Starbeard is anything like me, only the ponies dedicated enough to figure it out deserve to know it,” Pinkie explained. Twilight frowned, “Am I not dedicated enough?” Pinkie shook her head, “I think you’re plenty dedicated. Starswirl’s just a jerk. Take a close look at this tome again.” Pinkie shoved the book in Twilight’s face. She squinted, then widened her eyes, “Oh my gosh, it’s different than before! That’s why I could never get anywhere!” Twilight said. “Yep! Looks like that old unicorn put a spell on them to change the arrangement of the words every time someone opened the book on top of using our weirdly cryptic language,” Pinkie explained. “That’s why the tomes are called ‘Lost’! Not because they had been physically missing, but because anypony reading them would get ‘lost’ every time they decided to take a break!” Incidentally, such a spell was something Twilight was familiar with, having used it to keep Shining Armor out of her diary when she was younger. She adjusted it for the magic algorithms more common for Starswirl’s time, pointed her horn at the book, and fired a counter-spell. Pinkie picked the book up and looked through a few pages, “All in order! It’s not changing anymore!” “Great! Now let’s get the other ones!” Twilight ordered. One by one, Pinkie tossed the Lost Tomes in the air for Twilight to shoot with the scrambling counter-spell. “Nice shooting, Twi!” Pinkie cheered. Twilight blew the magic smoke off her horn and smirked. “Now, if you don’t mind, Pinkie, could you tell me a little about what these books are even about?” Twilight asked. “Can do!” Pinkie saluted, then buzzed through each of the books in record time, giggling occasionally. “What’s so funny?” Twilight tilted her head. “Haha! Seven of these books are just journals! This guy had a lot of marefriends!” Pinkie laughed. “What about the eighth one?” “You’re not gonna believe this: It’s all about the properties of thaumaturgium!” Author's Note Quality may suffer, but I'm gonna bring this one to a quick close. Next time, Twilight and Pinkie finally escape!
UnlockedTwilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie spent the next couple hours deciphering Starswirl the Bearded’s Eighth Lost Tome and unlocking the mysteries of the enigmatic metal, thaumaturgium. “So Starswirl was the one who designed this vault in the first place!” Twilight said after Pinkie read a paragraph to her, “That explains why this book had the same scrambling spell as the others. He didn’t want the wrong ponies reading this, so it was protected. Who knew it’d be among a bunch of his private journals, though?” “That guy had a lot of marefriends!” Pinkie giggled. “Yes, Pinkie, that’s the fifth time you’ve pointed that out,” Twilight rolled her eyes. It was true, though. That guy had a lot of marefriends. “Say, Twilight,” Pinkie started. Twilight perked her ears and looked up from the new equations and notes she was scribbling down. “A lot of things had to go right for all this to happen, didn’t they?” Twilight was perplexed. They had been locked inside a vault with no way out for almost half a day now. If anything, that’s a lot of things going wrong that had to have happened for them to end up where they were. As she learned earlier, though, it was best to listen to Pinkie, not just dismiss her. “What do you mean?” Twilight asked. “Think about it. We wouldn’t know the things we know about each other now if we hadn’t been trapped in here. Now you know I’m into science, and I know you’re constantly tormented by a looming shadow of uncertain immortality.” Pinkie’s smile was incredibly unsettling. “You know, we still have to address that. It really upsets me…” Twilight said. “It’s all right, Twilight. I’m sure that problem will be center stage in another story.” “What?” “The point is, being locked in this vault is the best thing that could have happened for the two of us. I think after this we’re closer than ever!” Pinkie accentuated her line with a big hug to Twilight. Twilight chuckled, “You’re right, Pinkie. I’m glad I got stuck in here with you.” She returned to her thaumaturgium research. “All right, Pinkie, I think we have enough info to craft something to bust us out of here!” Pinkie bounced up and down in anticipation. “Ooh, what are you gonna do?” “Well,” Twilight began, “According to Starswirl’s notes, thaumaturgium isn’t magic resistant, it’s actually a metal that’s full of magic. It’s very atomic structure acts like a counter-spell to, well, everything else magical that it encounters. That’s in addition to being the strongest material known to ponykind. So, given all of this data, I should be able to formulate a spell that disturbs thaumaturgium’s structure enough so that magic can actually act on it. If I do it just right, I—” Click. Twilight’s monologue was interrupted by the sound of the vault door beginning to move. The twenty-four locks disengaged in sequence and the massive door swung open, allowing the full might of the day’s sunlight to pour into the vault and assault Twilight and Pinkie’s eyes. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Twilight’s eye twitched. “Huh, I guess we were so caught up with all that introspection and trying to get out we didn’t even notice it was morning already,” Pinkie said with sunglasses on. The guards who opened the vault were startled. “Sweet Celestia,” one of them gasped, “You two… haven’t been in here all night, have you?” “We sure have!” Pinkie replied chipperly. The other guard put her hooves to her head, “We locked a Princess in the vault! We are so getting fired for this!” Twilight walked over and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’re not getting fired,” she smiled, “You’re getting arrested.” The smile disappeared immediately. “Such an oversight on the job is unforgivable! That was the most stressful night of my life!” Twilight looked over at Pinkie, who was cramming all the stuff she didn’t need back into her safety-deposit box and packing her recipes into her saddlebags. She breathed a wistful sigh, “And also one of the best,” she whispered. “Come on, Pinkie! Let’s get back to Ponyville; the rest of Starswirl’s Eight Lost Tomes aren’t going to decipher themselves! Plus, you owe me something from one of those recipes!” Twilight and Pinkie left the bank as Royal Guards entered to put the negligent vault-watchers in custody. Over the past day, two ponies were locked, both in vault and in heart, but they found ways to free themselves through a little misfortune and the power of friendship. Author's Note What'd I say? This chapter sucks. But the story's done. Maybe one day I'll come back and edit it so it's a better ending. Maybe. Sorry the ending was anti-climactic, but if you did enjoy the story, I'm glad you did. Please stay tuned for much better writing in the future!
