An Odd Experiment

"Alright the experiment begins...now." A voice blared over an intercom. 6 ponies sat uneasy in the center of a large room.  The room was rather dull, having 4 white walls, a white ceiling and floor, and a white door. 3 brown tables were situated in a circle at the center of the room. Each table had a single piece of paper on it and a stack of note cards. The only non-ordinary part of the room was the huge one-way mirror on one of the walls. The 6 ponies were sitting such that each table had a pair and each pair sat across from one another.

Rainbow Dash sighed out of pure boredom. She wondered how she was talked into this. Across from Rainbow sat an exited Twilight Sparkle, who seemed to be doing her best Pinkie Pie impression. Said pink pony appeared to be deep in thought as she studied the note cards intently.  Across from her sat Rarity who looked positively annoyed, probably at the room's stylistic choices. Fluttershy sat, demure as always, across from Applejack who lacked her trademark hat.

"Ah don't see why Ah can't have my hat. Ah don't see how my hat would mess with this...whatever it is" Applejack said with a huff.

"I'm sure the researchers have a good reason. They probably want to ensure that no external variables interfere with the results." Twilight responded eagerly.

"Gee, thanks Twilight that sure did clear it up." Applejack said with a healthy serving of sarcasm.

"I'd like to remind the participants that there is to be no talking during the experiment." The intercom blared again. Twilight's face flushed a deep crimson and Applejack merely huffed again.

" So just to clarify, you expect a lady such as my self to play charades?" Rarity suddenly chimed in. There was a brief pause before the intercom responded.

"If you want to put it in such terms, then yes we want you to play charades. Don't worry though, we have harder tasks lined up for you." the pony talking over the intercom said with a little too much enthusiasm

"Oh wow, You mean we get to play more than one game. Whoopie!" Pinkie suddenly bounced up from her seated position.

"Please begin the experiment now. We do not want to fall any further behind schedule." The 6 ponies noted the finality in his voice and began the experiment.

Pinkie immediately held up a note card and looked eagerly towards Rarity. The white unicorn  stared quizzically at Pinkie because she hadn't even begun to act out the first item written on the paper. Despite this, Pinkie still held fast to her eager appearance. Rarity sighed and shook her head. The party pony remained unfazed as she held up another card. The fashionista simply shook her head again. This continued until Rarity became exasperated and rapidly shook her head, becoming quite dizzy in the process. Pinkie, oblivious to her plight, held up yet another card. Rarity was going to explode at the pink pony when she realized the card pinkie held up was the right one. The white pony nodded happily and Pinkie bounced up and down. Rarity's brief moment of respite was shattered when Pinkie held up another card. The unicorn put her head into both of her hooves and shook it.

Meanwhile, Twilight hooves flew about her in intricate patterns. She made these motions for a minute or two before stopping and smiling enthusiastically. Rainbow Dash simply sat and gave a deadpan look to Twilight. The purple unicorn frowned, surprised that Rainbow hadn't figured it out from that. She then began to move her hooves in the same manner, but Rainbow grabbed her hooves and put them down as she slowly shook her head. Twilight crossed her hooves and gave a frustrated sigh.

The scene of the final table was a bit different from the other two. Applejack made a simple gesture to Fluttershy, who immediately picked a card and showed it. Applejack nodded in delight and proceeded to make another gesture. The pair worked through the rest of the list in no time at all and were soon finished. No pony else seemed to take note of their accomplishment until the intercom came on again.

"Time's up! This concludes the first part of the experiment. Your results have been very...interesting. You may take a short break now." Once again the creepy enthusiasm of the voice invaded the room.

"Ugh that was stupid. What's the point of all this?" Rainbow groaned.

"Oh come on you weren't even trying. My hand signals were perfectly descriptive." Twilight retorted.

"Yeah whatever you say Twilight." Dash rolled her eyes at the purple unicorn. "Even If I did understand them, this list is too long! We couldn't have possibly finished in the time limit!"

"Uh.. Rainbow not to be rude or anything...but me and Applejack uh... finished." Fluttershy spoke unexpectedly. Twilight's, Rainbow's, and Rarity's jaw dropped.

"What? How could you finish that huge list in such a short time?" Rainbow said incredulously as Fluttershy shrank back a little.

"Yes, I too am curious as to how you accomplished such a feat." Rarity said in agreement with the blue pegasus.

"I think I have an explanation." Twilight said. Rainbow and Rarity raised one eyebrow as Twilight continued to speak. "Fluttershy spends a lot of time working with animals, who can't speak. So it's only natural that she can interpret what Applejack is gesturing." Fluttershy gave a little nod.

"Makes sense I guess." Rainbow Dash said reluctantly.

"Oh my gosh wasn't that game super fun! I wonder when the next game will..." Pinkie was cut off by a blare of static from the intercom.

"Alright break time is over. Let us move on, now, to the second part of this experiment. One of my associates will bring each pair a puzzle to be solved. This part  of the experiment will end once one of you does. Once again no talking." After the intercom went silent a  brown unicorn with a white lab  coat entered the room. He had 3 cubes in his magical grasp, which he levitated towards the 6 ponies. He then left without saying so much as a word. Each pair stared quizzically at the contraption before them. The object looked like a wood cube, but it had two metal handles coming out of it. The handles were set up on opposing sides of the cube.



Applejack and Fluttershy, in contrast to the previous challenge, both looked stumped. Suddenly the orange earth pony grabbed the cube by one of the handles and held it before Fluttershy. Fluttershy paused for a moment and then grabbed the other handle. Both pulled in opposite directions, but the  nothing happened. Frustrated, Applejack pulled harder on the cube. Fluttershy did not expect this so she was pulled off her hooves and knocked the table over. The bewildered ponies sat on the ground, luckily neither of them had been hurt. As they came to their senses, Applejack blushed and gave a goofy grin.

Rarity and Pinkie rushed over to make sure everything was ok. Once they were reassured the pair went back to their table. Almost immediately, Pinkie produced a marker from who knows where and drew a smiley face on the cube. Rarity sighed deeply and levitated the marker and cube towards herself. Rarity proceed to draw a monocle and top hat on the cube. The unicorn gave a small smile after she was done.

Twilight, who had paid no attention to the accident, studied the cube intently. Her eyes flashed as she grabbed the cube by one of its handles and held it up to Rainbow Dash. The pegasus grabbed the handle, ready to do anything besides just sit there. Twilight jerked the cube in a clockwise fashion and Rainbow merely followed her lead. Nothing happened, but Twilight jerked the cube counterclockwise, Rainbow following again. Still nothing happened, but Twilight twisted the cube clockwise again. Annoyed, Rainbow twisted the cube in the opposite direction and it popped open. A small piece of paper fell out of the cube which read "You Win". Shortly thereafter the intercom buzzed on again.

"Excellent. We may now move on to the final part of the experiment. There will be a short break again as we get things ready."

"Finally! I can't wait to get out of here!" Rainbow said as she stretched her wings.

"Ah'm awfully sorry about before Fluttershy. Ah guess Ah don't know my own strength." Applejack said.

"Oh that's alright Applejack. No harm done." Fluttershy responded.

"If you don't mind me asking Twilight, how on earth did you figure that out?" Rarity asked curiously.

"Oh I don't mind. In fact, I'm glad you did. It was easy once I noticed the lines running along the cube. I knew it had to be twisted in two different directions, so I just had to get Rainbow to twist the direction opposite of me. Considering her personality, I knew she would eventually oppose me." Twilight explained as Rainbow looked on with a tinge of annoyance in her face. The blue pony opened her mouth, but she was cut off as the intercom interrupted once again.

"Alright, It's time to finish the experiment. You will each be presented with a picture. Together you must decipher what it means. No talking as per usual."

The same brown pony from before came in and presented each pair with a piece of paper. On the piece of paper was an odd jumble of shapes and colors. The 6 ponies didn't know what to make of it.
Rainbow Dash shrugged and pushed the paper towards an annoyed Twilight. Twilight looked at the paper but couldn't seem to understand what this mess could possibly represent. She tried rotating the picture, but to no avail. Twilight looked to Rainbow for help, but she had fallen asleep. Twilight sighed and continued to look at the odd shapes before her.

Applejack gave the picture a confused look and Fluttershy followed suit. The pink haired pegasus flipped the page around hoping for some kind of clue on the back but it was blank. This was her only idea apparently as she placed the paper down in front of Applejack. The earth pony stared blankly at the paper and scratched her head unsure of what to do next.

Rarity and Pinkie seemed to be in a similar situation until the pink pony gave a gasp. She then made folding motions to the white unicorn. At first Rarity didn't understand, but then she suddenly grabbed the paper with her magic. She proceeded to fold the paper this way and that. When she was finished she showed the result to Pinkie. Both immediate got up from the table and turned around. Both of them began to wave at the mirror in the room. The intercom came on one last time.

"That concludes our experiment. I would like to thank you for participating in this, you've helped us greatly in our research. Feel free to leave at any time."

The 6 ponies got up and proceeded towards the door as they chatted amongst themselves. Rainbow Dash was of course the first one out the door. Once everypony was gone, the room was left eerily empty and silent. Meanwhile an equally eerie scene was take place in the adjacent room, where 3 ponies sat.

"It looks like today was a success oh great and powerful one." Said the brown pony.

"Oh course it was a success, failure is not possible for Trixie." Said a blue unicorn.

"But what about that one time where an Ursa minor showed up?" the third pony chimed in. Trixie grabbed the pony by his lab coat collar.

"And that is exactly why we are going to correct it! Trixie shall not be remembered as a failure! But first Trixie needed to make sure that Trixie could handle anypony who dares oppose her." With that Trixie let go of the pony and stormed out of the room.