“The punchline comes before the question!”
“Bwaaaahhh!”
Yelping in surprise, Spike dropped his comic. Silver Stallion had been midway through his standard-issue villainous monologue, which was giving Saddle Rager the necessary time and distraction to bulk out. Presumably she would beat the living snot out of Silver Stallion and call it a victory, given Spike only had a small number of pages left to read. But the sudden appearance of Twilight’s grinning face mere inches away from Spike’s had killed the moment.
The comic fluttered to the floor, and Spike scrambled to make sure it hadn’t creased upon landing. At a glance, it seemed okay. Hooves clopped loudly away from him, and looking up, he watched the flank of the offending mare vanish through the door of the room. He frowned as the sound of Twilight’s hooves thundered down the stairs outside, growing quieter and quieter until eventually he heard the front door open and slam closed again.
That had been uncharacteristically maniacal. They hadn’t had an episode like that since… he thought for a while. The universe seemed to actively hold a grudge against him and his friends, dumping upon them a wide range of inconveniences and mishaps. It even seemed, on occasion, to cause rational thought to ebb away and let intrusive thoughts win. Why Twilight had gone along with a plan to take turns posing as a vigilante for the sake of bringing Rainbow Dash’s ego down a few pegs, that was beyond anything Spike could explain.
But this? The wild-eyed grin on Twilight’s face, he hadn’t seen that since the incident where Twilight had still been Princess Celestia’s student. When she had been so obsessed with having sufficient cause to send off a weekly friendship report, she’d magically incited a literal mob. Spike wasn’t sure if Twilight knew, but he’d had to pay a hefty bribe to the Ponyville police department to keep her from spending a night in the cells. It was no coincidence that about a week after the incident, the police had been able to replace their ancient prisoner wagon with a newer model. Twilight was too kindly a princess to be allowed to know just how corrupt her local government was.
Spike sighed. He was going to have to check on her, wasn’t he? If she’d gone out into the town, and was in a state of heightened mania, there was likely to be another mess that he’d be responsible for cleaning up. He grabbed a particularly juicy looking ruby from the bowl sat next to him, and hopped off his chair. Crunching down on the gem, he bent down to pick up his comic. Huh. No creases. Phew, still near-mint. He put it on his chair, resigning to finish it later, and headed for the door.
As he skittered down the stairs and into the main room of the library, he saw Twilight emerge from the basement door, a book held aloft in her magic and the standard beam of joy plastered on her face that she normally reserved for the grandest of discoveries. Spike stopped mid-step and looked incredulously at Twilight as she walked up to a shelf and exchanged her book for another. She turned on the spot, making to walk back to the basement, but stopped when she noticed him.
”Oh, hey Spike, are you done with your comic yet?” she asked, smiling at him.
”Wh… what?” Spike replied, jaw hung low.
Twilight went to take her first step towards the door, but paused with her front hoof half-way off the ground. “Your comic? I thought you said you were going to the living room to read it?”
“I… err… I did. I was.”
“Sooo… you’re finished?”
”Twilight, stop fooling around, it isn’t funny.”
She blinked twice. “…what isn’t funny?”
”Whatever prank you’re pulling. Did Rainbow Dash put you up to something?”
“Err… prank? Spike, I'm in the middle of something pretty significant here, can you just level with me and tell me what you’re talking about? Because I have absolutely no idea.”
“Oh really?” Spike queried, folding his arms and huffing. “You have no idea why you ran in, stuck your face in front of my comic and then ran off like some crazy pony?”
“I did what? When?”
“Just now. I thought I heard you run out the front door, now I see you just went into the basement.”
Twilight looked back and forth between the Spike and the basement door. “I’ve been down there for the last hour,” she explained. “Whoever just stuck their face in your comic, it wasn’t me. Though now you mention it, I did hear the front door slam just now…”
“Uh huh, a likely story,” Spike groaned. Why was cider season so infrequent? Twilight constantly had him on the verge of alcoholism. It was like being a full-time babysitter. And he was the closer of the two of them to being an actual baby! It was lucky for him that a legal loophole allowed him to purchase alcohol without needing ID. Apparently Equestrian laws didn’t technically apply to dragons.
“Look, I don’t know what you saw just now, but I promise you it wasn’t me. I’ve been in the basement, see. I think I’ve made a breakthrough,” Twilight explained, holding the book up.
On the cover, Spike recognised the Royal Seal of the Canterlot Library. He’d seen it plenty of times during the last few weeks, as Twilight had organised a loan from the private archives to aid her in some of her magical studies. It had been Spike’s job to reconcile the shipment to make sure the right amount of books had been sent, and to double check that all the books were in fact the ones that had been requested. Every single one of them bore that seal.
“Alright, nice deflection, I’ll bite,” Spike grinned. “What’s your alibi?”
“Deflection?” Twilight gasped, her ears folded downwards slightly in apparent indignation. “Well, my alibi is that I’ve been perfecting a time travel spell.”
“Oh yeah, cause that went so well last time.”
Twilight cleared her throat. “The problem last time was there was only a brief duration where the magic would allow you to be present in the desired time period. If I were to make a comparison, I’d say it was akin to sticking your head through a doorway. There was no passage, merely a temporary connection. If I’m correct in my calculations, I should now be able to fully pass through this theoretical doorway, without being dragged back.”
“Uh huh, sure. If you’ve been so pre-occupied in making this amazing discovery, why don’t you prove it?” Spike laughed, raising one eyebrow.
“Alright, I will. About five minutes into the past should do.”
With a resigned sigh, Twilight lit her horn, and Spike took a few steps back up the stairs. At first, tendrils of magic seemed to dance around her like ribbons. Cascading, writhing through the air in neat and organised patterns of light that were oddly beautiful and hypnotic to behold. From the centre of Twilight’s chest, the light started to converge into the shape of a star. It grew larger and larger, taking in more and more magic, and growing its own tendrils that began to encircle and encase the alicorn.
As the ethereal light continued to envelop Twilight, like some bizarre cocoon of purple magic, her eyes widened. Like something had occurred to her. And based on the rapidity of which her face twisted into a mischievous smirk, it wasn’t good in the slightest. A chill ran up Spike’s spine as she turned her gaze onto him, meeting his eyes a fraction of a second before the spell fully encased her, obscuring her entirely inside a pulsating bubble of purple light. The brightness increased tenfold, and she shouted from inside her protective cocoon. Then the light vanished, and she was gone. Where Twilight Sparkle had been stood moments earlier was now simply just empty space.
Spike gawked in disbelief. Some would think that when subjected to enough of Twilight’s experiments, eventually anypony (or anydragon in Spike’s case) would get bored. But the spectacles never ceased to blow him away. To say that Twilight had a flare for the dramatic would be the understatement of the century.
Such was Spike’s amazement, the final words Twilight had shouted out before vanishing still rung in his ears, but failed to process. They lingered there, echoing around the empty recesses of his adolescent brain, searching for any modicum of reasoning to latch onto. It was a mighty task, seeking out the necessary lobes for the words to make themselves understood. Overwhelming thoughts of moustaches, tasty gems, and Rarity in saucy lingerie formed a strong barrier around Spike’s pre-frontal cortex. Getting through said barrier took a solid minute, but finally the words hit home.
Spike facepalmed. Of course Twilight's spell had worked. But she’d been wrong when she’d given her assurance that it hadn’t been her who had interrupted his reading. He’d get her back for this.
Right before she vanished, she’d shouted ‘What’s the worst thing about time travel jokes?’
Author's Note
If you don't get the joke? Read the last line of the story, then go back and re-read the first line again.
