"Spike?!"

The purple-scaled dragon's eyes opened slowly, allowing the blurry ceiling above to gradually come into focus. He turned his head slowly. "Wha—?"

"Spike!" Twilight's voice shouted again. Spike jumped where he lay in bed, throwing off the small part of his covers that had still been on top of him. Rubbing his eyes, the young dragon sat up.

"What's up?" Spike called. He couldn't see Twilight in his room and the door was still closed, so she must have been out in the hall. Finally she was learning not to just open his door whenever she felt like it.

"C'mere! I need your help! Also, your opinion!"

Spike raised an eyebrow but got to climbing out of bed, stretching out his limbs as he stood on the cold crystal floor. What would Twilight want his opinion on, anyway? Spike glanced over at the clock on his bedside table. 9:30 in the morning wasn't that early, so he couldn't exactly grumble about it. Twilight knew that he hadn't gotten to sleep until pretty late the night before, though. Meh.

Yawning, Spike opened his bedroom door and took a step into the hallway. It was when his eyes had opened again that he blinked in surprise. In the middle of the hall stood Twilight Sparkle with a variety of papers and notebooks floating around her head in her magenta magical aura. The mare had an almost manic expression on her face, lips curved upward into a wide smile as deep purple bags beneath her eyes sagged downwards. At least she had the natural advantage of a purple coat, allowing the extent of her sleep deprivation to go unnoticed by the untrained eye.

"You... alright?" Spike asked, not sure of what to say.

"Am I?!" Twilight exclaimed, a little too loudly. Her voice reverberated down the hall. "Erm, yes," she added, a little redness showing through on her cheeks. "After you went back to bed, I had a super fascinating conversation with Doc Zed about the planets out there! And, of course, I had to take notes."

"Of course," Spike agreed, nodding. She wouldn't be Twilight Sparkle if she hadn't been taking as many notes as she possibly could. "So did you find out what happened to Scootaloo?"

"Oh, yes!" Twilight replied, nodding vigourously. "Doc Zed hasn't met her yet, but he says a colt named Kevin that used to live in Dienna—that's a village on the Kindred planet—stowed away on her ship after she accidentally got towed by another ship he had been stowing away on. And they're not quite sure where Scootaloo is, but they think she might have gotten captured by the government. Now Kevin and some other filly are going to get parts to fix the ship, which I guess crashed, but they're going to look for Scootaloo too."

"Hold up, hold up..." Spike said, taking a step back. "So you were right about the whole planets thing? There really are other ponies out there?"

Twilight nodded again, grinning wider. "Yes, I know! And I must be the first pony in Equestria to have ever talked to one! Eee!"

"Dang... that's a lot to take in," Spike said. "And to think, one of my friends is out there in the middle of it all..."

"I know, right? What I wouldn't give to be in Scootaloo's place right now." Twilight's eyes glazed over as she looked dreamily ahead.

"So... what exactly did you need me to get up?" Spike asked. "Not that this isn't exciting and all, but maybe it could have waited 'til later?"

"Oh, right! No, I've got some important details to tell you and ask you about. C'mon, let's go to the study so I can show you all my notes." Before Spike had a chance to reply, Twilight had already turned around and was skipping merrily away down the hall.

"Luna's horseshoes," Spike murmured to himself as he began jogging after the princess. "When Twilight's making discoveries, it seems like she just doesn't get tired."