//------------------------------// // Step 3: Anticipate her words // Story: How to Frustrate Your Adorkable Alicorn // by ThePinkedWonder //------------------------------// It’s been about five hours since Twilight got busy learning how I read her mind. I had stepped outside for a while, but now I was in my bedroom in Twilight’s castle, lying on my bed, with a sheet of paper beside me; something was already written down. In case she'd want it off again, my hat was on my dresser this time. To amuse myself, I was tossing a baseball in the air to play “catch”. Sometimes, I pull a Twilight and read in my room, or do a jigsaw puzzle, but I didn’t feel like it this time. As for Ms. OCD, I was debating on if I should go and tell Twi my mind-reading secret, or let her keep squirming as she tried to figure it out herself. Starlight and Spike were in their rooms, so they were staying out of my Twi-fun. Another “AHA!!” echoed throughout the castle. I prepared myself for a certain purple alicorn to teleport to me with another “I told you so”. A burst of pink magic flashed into existence from outside the open doorway. Of course, Twilight came with it, who shouted, “There you are!” and ran into and across my room, stopping at the side of my bed. This time, as well as wearing a grin on her face, Twilight's mane and fur were a bit ragged. She must have been really hard at work trying to learn my mind-reading secret. If Twi were Rarity, I would have told her to look in a three-foot-long and one-and-a-half-foot wide mirror that hung on a wall. Even in her current state, she might have appreciated her reflection being "surrounded" by our friends: I have pictures of them hanging on the mirror's edges. I sat up from my lying position. “You look messy.” Twilight leaned her face toward me, giggling almost crazily. We were “eye to eye” again, but at least she took my advice and ate some breath mints. Her breath now smelt minty, not like rotten eggs. “Oh, you were gooooood with your ‘mind-reading’ trick, but as I said, it was a trick!” Like the last time she was so close to me, Twilight shoved a hoof to my chest. “Ha!” “You figured it out, huh?” “Yep.” Twilight backed away and closed her eyes. She had her lecturing face on again. “I found that ponies subconsciously resist when you push against the hoof they are thinking about. That’s why you kept feeling mine to ‘read’ my mind. You were using mentalism!” A wave of amazement made my mouth half-drop. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Twi could learn how I read her mind, but how fast she did still stunned me. I would have NEVER figured out how it worked if it wasn’t told to me by Erica, one of my two human big sisters in my old world. She was even the one who taught me these tricks. “Wow. You are something else, Twi. You might be Equestria's smartest pony, and I’m not joking.” In all seriousness, I truly do care for and even admire big sis Twilight and she’s the pony I’m the closest with. Thus, it’s not exactly unusual for me to say such heartfelt stuff like that to her. An adorable, or should I say adorkable, smile curled on Twilight’s lips. Her cheeks glowed red and she crossed the hoof on one of her forelegs over her other foreleg. The latter is something I only see her do when she’s feeling especially bashful. “Well, thank you, but I’m not the smartest pony in Equestria. You’re really smart yourself to come up with these tricks, and if I didn’t know you so well, you really might have had me.” “Fair enough, but I'll admit that I wasn’t the one that thou--wait.” I pointed at Twilight. I was so blown away at her newest show of brains, I didn’t even wonder about how she figured it out. “How did you find out how my mind-reading trick worked?” Twilight gasped and uncrossed her forelegs, her cheeks growing brighter and her grin a more nervous one. “Uh…” “Don’t tell me you ran around Ponyville feeling ponies’ hooves to do it.” “Nooo,” she answered in a high-pitched voice. “So what did you do?” A yellow unicorn mare walked to my doorway. Didn’t pay much attention when I heard her hoofsteps in the hallway: I thought it was Starlight when I first heard 'em. “Um, Princess Twilight? I’m sorry to disturb you two, but if you are done with your tests, can we all go now? Princess Luna will be raising the moon in another half-hour.” Of course that’s how she found out. Thought I heard Twilight in the library after I returned to the castle, but I didn’t go close enough to the library to know she had “company” in there. “You’re not the only one? How many of you did she bring?” “I’m not sure of the exact number, but I think she asked over a hundred--” “Uh, yes you all can go and thank you so much for coming,” Twilight said quickly, blushing even more and rubbed the back of her head. The unicorn trotted down the hallway. Wow. I couldn’t believe I didn’t see Twilight snatching up ponies when I was out! Was I just not where she went, or did she purposely keep what she was up to out of my view? After a snicker, I commented, “So, instead of testing them in their natural habitat, you chose to bring your test subjects back with you.” Twilight frowned, her ears drooped, and she sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t make those kinds of jokes. I would never think of my fellow ponies as ‘test subjects’ like that.” Oops. Overdid it with the jokes this time, making me “draw” little circles on my bed sheet with a finger while feeling a ping in my heart. If my ears were like ponies’ ears, they would have drooped. Messing with Twilight is one thing, but I never want to hurt her feelings or make her feel bad. Hate seeing her sad, even more so if I’m the reason. “I’m sorry, Twi. I know you really don’t think that way, so I won’t make ‘test subject’ jokes again.” Twilight’s ears perked back up and she gave a smile. “It’s okay, and thanks. I knew you were just doing it in fun." She gave a more remorseful frown. "Besides, I really can’t talk too much: I did get out-of-hoof when I was pretending to still be trying to learn why your beard stopped growing back. Again, sorry I overdid it so bad.” “Well, as you know, those two goofballs for sisters in my old world loved to mess with me, especially Erica, so I had worse when they got carried away. But enough about that.” My smirk returned. “How about, instead of cracking bad jokes, I just predict the future for real?” Twilight rolled her eyes and groaned. “Seriously? We’re doing this again? I was fine playing along the first two times, but it’s starting to get annoying.” Uh-oh. She was running out of patience, but I still had to perform the biggest trick yet! What now? Maybe appealing to her thirst for knowledge or tapping into her “genius ego” would be effective? “B-but I thought you never got tired of learning new stuff.” She said in a less annoyed voice, “It’s not that. I'm just getting--” I leaned toward her with an even bigger smirk than before. “Or, are you scared that you'll be wrong this time?” Twilight gasped, her eyes widening. “What?! I’m not scared of being wrong! Being afraid of being incorrect about something is absurd!” Got her. Twi’s not as bad as Rainbow or Applejack at being unable to back down from challenges, but she can be roped into stuff this way. “Then give me one more chance. If you figure out I’m lying, I’ll lay off for good.” Twilight tilted her head down and laid a hoof on her cheek. It was a good sign that she went into deep thought. After a few seconds, she gave a sharp sigh, then lifted her head to me. She wasn’t smiling, but her frown didn’t scream “no” at least. “Fine. I’ll play along again, but this will be the last time. But first…” Twilight’s horn glowed. A second later, a pile of ten books popped out of nowhere and dropped behind her. I pointed at the books. “What are those for?” “In case you’re about to use it again, these are books I found that contain every known mentalism technique. I had read about it a couple of times, but I never saw ponies use mentalism before, so it took me a while to even consider the possibility." After a sigh, Twilight added, "Now, let’s get your ‘prediction’ over with. I still need to start on writing a checklist of what’s needed to make two checklists for the three checklists of my tasks for next month.” No comment on the “checklist-ception”. But, I'm kinda surprised Princess Celestia never did stuff like this to Twilight at least once. She’s no Discord and I hadn’t seen it much, but Celestia can be a bit of a troll. At any rate, time for round three of Twi-fun! Let’s see if Equestria had learned how my best trick works. If not, those books of Twilight's would be useless. “Okay, but I have a feeling you're not going to be writing those checklists anytime soon. Now, what’s 1+1?” “2.” “What’s 2+2?” “4.” “4+4?” “8.” “8+8?” “16.” “Quick, name a vegetable!” I demanded in a raised voice. “Uh, carrot.” I pointed at the paper still beside me. “Now, take a look at the paper. I wrote something before you got here.” Twilight picked up the paper with her magic and pulled it to her face. Like with the first prediction trick, her wings spread out and her eyes grew. "WHAT?! Okay, this has got to be...wait.” Twilight facehoofed. “What in Celestia's name am I doing?” Twilight folded her wings and spun around to her books. She laid the paper I wrote "carrot" on beside her on the floor, then she opened two of her books at once with her magic, flipped their pages quickly while muttering to herself, and repeated it with the other books. This went on for about fifteen minutes or so. As she read, I lay on my bed while playing "catch" with myself with my baseball. With how fast she was blowing through her books, I knew the wait wouldn’t last too long. After Twi finished the last book and set it with the others, now in two stacks, she stared at me with her mouth wide-open. It was a glorious sight. Why are there never cameras nearby when I need them? I set my baseball beside me and sat up while giggling to myself. “So, are you about to admit you’re wrong about this for once?” “T-t-this can’t be. Nothing in my books about mentalism has anything about what you did! There really is no way you could have known I would say ‘carrot’ from asking elementary math questions! Unless…” Her horn glowed brighter and her gaze at the "carrot paper" on the floor grew stronger as she picked it up. After a few seconds, she growled, tore that paper in half, and threw it in a trash can. The fact that even the weaker unicorns, let alone a FAR stronger alicorn, can rip things so easily with their magic is almost a little scary. I lay on my bed again, stretched my arms, and yawned. Didn’t yawn from boredom, just from the stretching. “Let me guess: you thought some spell was cast on it?’ “Yes, but my scan detected no trace of magic. How could you be...of course!” Twilight smiled, but this was a creepy smile. “I know what’s going on now!” “You do?” “Yes! I don't know how, but Discord’s behind this, isn’t he?” Twilight ran up to my bed, her creepy grin growing bigger. My body moved to sit up on its own, but Twilight's glowing horn told me why it happened. “In fact, are you Discord pretending to be Eric? Well, tough luck, Discord, because I know it's you! I should have known he got your help with this!” This was almost getting sad. Then again, this is something that troll would do to her. “Uh, if I were him, Princess of Suspiciousness, I’d be snapping my fingers to do what I’m doing, but have you seen me do that?” Twi stepped back, her crazed smile waning into a baffled frown. “Well...no, but I--” “And isn’t he supposed to be having an evening tea party with Fluttershy right now? Even I know he NEVER misses them.” “Good point, but…then, how are you doing this? I still don't know too much about humans, so is it a special human ability that you never told me about?” From her calm voice and lack of stress in her eyes and frown, it seemed Twi was ready to call it quits and believe I was predicting the future. “You really want to know?” “Yes, tell me!” she answered, now with a big smile. I looked at my window to make sure no one was looking through it. Not that anypony usually does. “Can you promise to keep my secret just between us, brother to sister?” “I promise.” “Okay, then I’ll tell you.” I motioned Twilight with my hand to come closer, which she did with big, curious eyes. Once she was right beside my bed, I leaned my head toward one of her ears and whispered, “Here’s what I’m doing.” I took another look around. Twilight didn’t move a muscle and wasn’t even blinking. She was actually holding her breath from the anticipation because her chest stopped expanding and contracting. “Twilight...it’s a secret.” Ha! Got her! I fell backward to lay on my bed again and laughed my head off. As for Twilight, the sounds from her mouth weren't laughter, but screams of frustration. “Fine, don’t tell me, I’ll just figure it out on my own! Your big sis did it the other two times, and she’s going to do it again! Just you wait!” Twilight gave a crazed laugh as she ran out of my room with her books on mentalism in her magic. I kept laughing for a while before I finally calmed down. I stared at my open doorway and muttered, “Love that mare. Heh heh. Love that mare.” The Twi-fun was even more fun than I thought it would be! I wondered about letting Twilight lose it a little first, but I chose to go after her to tell how my prediction worked. If I left her alone, with Twilight’s OCD and incredibly powerful magic, things could end badly. Even going as far as I did with her was a little risky. Kids, don’t troll neurotic alicorns at home, or anywhere, unless you KNOW them. Not even the friendly, adorkable ones. Oh, and why did Twilight say “carrot”? I have no idea why, but if you ask someone to quickly say a vegetable after you ask them the math questions I asked Twilight, many will respond with “carrot”. Because there was a chance Twilight might not have said carrot, I was taking a chance with this trick. It also seems like ponies don’t even know about this, so I truly needed to tell Twilight the secret. No Equestrian book would help her. Since she'd put her hoof down about this being the last time she’d play along, there would be no attempts at round four of Twi-fun. Twilight -- and even I -- have had enough.