Derpy happily removed the batch of muffins from the oven. She gave them a big whiff as the fragrance filled her small kitchen. They smelled heavenly and she was surprised to find they had a bit of a smoky scent to them. Upon closer examination, she realized they had turned black during the baking process for some reason. It was a new recipe though so Derpy took that into consideration.
Beep-eep-eep-eep-eep! Her smoke alarm was going off again. That thing was so sensitive. It seemed like every other time she turned on the stove, the alarm would start acting up. She set the tray of muffins on the top of the stove and flew up to the device attached to her ceiling. She hit the button on the side of it to reset it and the beeping stopped. The little thing sure did make a lot of noise.
She flew back down to the floor to check on her treats again. They almost seemed to sizzle on top of the stove as if they were still cooking in the tray, even now. Slowly though, the blackened lumps of dough began to cool and Derpy turned off the oven. After they'd reached a safe temperature, Derpy popped one out of the tray and placed it on a plate. It being a new recipe, she would try the first one herself before she delivered the rest to her friends. It was only the right thing for a chef to do.
The muffins were still too hot to eat so Derpy decided to place the muffin by the windowsill to cool down a bit. She opened the window to let the breeze in and then turned back to the rest of her treats.
Meanwhile, just a couple houses over and across the street, Twilight Sparkle was doing a little baking of her own.
"You think you've got it now, Twilight?" Spike asked.
"There's no room for error here, Spike. I have one shot at this so that means no practice spells, no warm-ups, no do-overs."
"Wow," Spike remarked with a claw on his cheek. "This is one complicated spell."
"It's the biggest spell I've ever attempted," Twilight admitted. "But if it works, it will condense all the knowledge of my entire library into the space of a single book."
"The whole library in one book? That sounds amazing." Truthfully, Spike hoped Twilight would achieve this spell. He was eager to not spend so much time organizing and reorganizing Twilight's library every day or so. While he would never shy away from his duty as her number-one assistant... he did look forward to a lighter daily work load. And any opportunity to make things more efficient he would happily embrace. He crossed his claws.
"Is everything ready, Spike?"
Spike quickly read through the checklist he was holding. All the books in the library had been assembled in their places in alphabetical order, the book all the others were to be transferred into had been selected and the symbol of the underworld had been drawn on the floor with the appropriate number of candles surrounding it. Wait... no, that was for another spell. Spike crossed that last step off the list.
"It looks like we're good to go!"
Twilight looked over the spell in front of her one more time. She squinted her eyes to make sure she read it correctly. A trickle of sweat formed on her brow but she managed to examine it to the point where she was satisfied. She closed the spell book and brought out another tome.
The book she levitated to her from off of the shelf was a bit larger than the others but it was perfect for her needs. It had considerably more pages than the other books in her library and unlike the others, every page was blank. She was about to attempt to stuff a wealth of information between its pages. Every book in her library, ever piece of information committed to writing was about to be transferred to this single book. It was a huge project but if it worked, she would have a lot more space for even more books. She was eager to head to the library after it was finished.
Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated on the spell. She focused magic into her horn, feeling all the energy in her body rush into the point on her head. It built up, the aura around it pulsating with super-natural power. The room around Spike and Twilight began to glow. The books levitated off of their shelves. New, old, worn and pristine books, a collection of knowledge, hovered around Twilight and encircled her. They began to rotate, spinning around her and glowing brightly.
The books spun faster and faster, a beam of energy sprang fourth from Twilight's horn and hit one of the books in front of her. The beam spread out when it contacted the surface and surged around it. The energy arced through the other books floating around he as they spun creating a wall of whirling light. A hum filled the air like a generator and Spike had to back away. Just then, the note he was holding began to glow. Pulled by an invisible force, the piece of brown parchment was pulled from his claw and sucked into the swirling vortex of literature.
"Ow!" The note hit Twilight in the face. She lost focus in that brief moment and the books fell to the ground around her. The spell in her horn, meant to hit the larger book with the combined knowledge spell instead burst from her horn and bolted out the window.
The beam of energy raced towards the sky only to be blocked by an enormous bell hanging from a building above. It reflected off the bell's polished surface and down to the street below. It would've impacted in the street if not for a stallion carrying a mirror on his back being right where the beam was aimed. The beam bounced off the reflective mirror and shot across the street. Finally, the renegade ray reached its target in the windowsill of a local home on the street. It connected with a small pastry somepony just happened to be letting cool on the ledge.
Derpy turned around to see that her blackened muffin had finally cooled off. Without really noticing the muffin happened to be glowing with a strange magenta light, the Pegasus took it off her windowsill and popped it into her mouth.
"Hmm," Derpy thought to herself. "Needs more cinnamon."
