MINIFIC LIGHTNING ROUND

The library door opened as Rainbow Dash stalked into the hollow tree. She looked around, nopony was in sight. If Twilight was following her morning schedule exactly Rainbow had four minutes and thirty seconds to set up her prank.

Opening her wings Rainbow flew over to Twilight’s clock on the library wall. She stopped the pendulum and gently put the clock in her bag. Opening her other saddle bag she took out a second duplicate clock and placed it on the wall.  Rainbow chuckled as she gave the pendulum a push.

She went out the window with nopony the wiser. The clock moved malevolently as it told the time with a faint: tick, tock, tick, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, crunk…

Rainbow set down under a window outside to wait for her prank’s certifiably hilarious result and after a minute was joined by Pinkie Pie with a popcorn bucket.

“Did you get Rarity?” Rainbow asked.

“Yep, I hid all her needles in a haystack,” Pinkie said with a grin. “It will take her ages the find them all.”

“Classic prank, Pinks, but nothing compared to mine.” Rainbow stood to peak in through the window. “See that clock on the wall?”

“You mean the clock that’s always been there?”

“Actually, that’s in my bag,” Rainbow said. “The one on the wall’s new. I had to pay, like, forty bits to get Time Turner to make that one, and it’s going to drive Twi nuts.” Rainbow giggled in anticipation.

“Here she comes,” Pinkie gasped.

Exactly on schedule Twilight opened the Library and walked in with a bag of groceries. She left them – and Spike – in the kitchen while she came back out to start her publicly scheduled “study time”. Twilight selected a book from a shelf and sat down to read.

Still unseen, the pair of pranksters outside put their ears against the window. Through an unmatchable force of will, Rainbow kept herself sitting patiently and waiting. Only the imagination of the inevitable result held her in place.

Soon Twilight would be comfortable and then when the rhythm of the clock became second nature, she’d notice. Minutes passed until the inevitable crunk.One of Twilight’s ears flicked. She looked up from her book and around the room once before she returned to the pages. Another minute passed and the crunk returned. This time Twilight’s ears shot toward the clock and she looked directly at it.

The clock continued its evil work as Twilight listened, her head unconsciously following the rhythm. Tick, tock, tick, tock… tock.

Twilight cringed when the rhythm broke. Rainbow leant further onto the window, her wings were out and she couldn’t wait for the snap. Any moment now Twilight was going to go nuts; she’d tear Ponyville apart, shoot the clock to the moon or make the entire town fall in love with it.

Twilight took the clock down from the wall and listened to it. Tick, tick, tick, tock-tock-crunk.

Twilight stood and walked toward the door with the clock in tow.

Rainbow shot around to the front door, raising a hoof to make it look like she was about to knock on the door.

The door opened, “Oh hey, Twilight,” Rainbow said. “What’s with the clock?”

“You’ve never seen this before?” Twilight asked. “It’s amazing, an irregular tick pattern and it still tells the time accurately. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed it before. I’m going to go see Time Turner and find out how it works, bye.” Twilight walked away at rapid canter toward Turner’s workshop.

Watching forty bits walk away Rainbow yelled, “Oh come on!”