Chapter 3: The Library
Night life was just settling on Ponyville, and the streets weren’t as crowded as they would be during the day, seeing as the majority of the ponies had gone indoors for the night and only a few remained out. I am not sure what Jake was thinking when he thought finding Twilight’s library would be easy, on the show they don’t actually show the layout of the town, and when they show the overviews, they are very broad and don’t show how to get from one place to another really. The only thing he really had going for him was when he found the library it would stand out since it was, well you know…a tree, the only tree, smack dab in the middle of a town, so he didn’t have to go searching through every house door by door.
He used the emitter Mike gave him to get into town, but after that remembering his advice, turned it off and used the alleyways between the buildings and deserted streets to move around. He had left his flight jacket with Mike and Jiggs. He was wearing a black tank top with a black hawk outlined in white, giving the illusion that it was glowing, and had the words “Night Hawks” written on the back with the same white glow effect. To be honest, their squad shirts looked manlier than most; so simple, yet so effective. He was wearing his army-issued pants, a pair of black cargo pants, and the boots of course. The only thing protecting his face from discovery was a black ski mask he put on shortly after entering the town. It was a silly thing that he kept from how the Hawks went around as gangs messing with other squads They would go out in all black, wear black ski masks, and really nice pairs of sunglasses and basically play pranks on other squads. Personally being commander of all of that for a bit was honestly very entertaining, and I was sad when I had to discipline them and put it to an end because it was a “disturbance” to others. Jake was very glad he kept the mask, at least if he were to be discovered he would still have his identity hidden for the span of time it would take them to remove the mask, assuming they caught him. Jake continued his walk through town, randomly guessing which road to take and hoping he would end up in the right place after a while of searching. He felt that Twilight’s library would be easiest to find in this town, due in no small part to the fact it was the only building made entirely out of a plant. Guess that’s why he chose to go search her library rather than search for the other Mane 6 residence, even though personally I believe Rainbow Dash’s or Fluttershy’s home to stand out the most. Fluttershy would have been the easiest house to search, considering she lives alone on the edge of a forest, but I doubt Jake had the stomach personally to break into Fluttershy’s home and search it thoroughly. Jake went through several alleyways and down several deserted roads, and had no success in his search. He had been doing such a good job so far at avoiding detection that he had relaxed his guard a bit. BIG. MISTAKE. A young colt saw him and pointed him out to his mother. Now, if you saw a man wearing nothing but black, with a ski mask on at night in your neighborhood what would you think? Well I’m not sure what you would think, but the mare saw him and let out an ear-piercing shriek, (let there be unwanted attention). Jake booked it out of there as quickly as his feet could carry him into another alleyway. Sadly, a nearby cop both saw and heard the incident and ran after Jake. Now let’s be realistic for a moment. Horses on earth are naturally faster than humans; that’s why we used them for transportation before we invented cars. So as you can imagine, Jake had a hard time shaking off the stallion chasing him. Jake looked in front of him. To his dismay, the alley ended in a dead end, and he had nowhere to run. Jake quickly activated the emitter allowing him to disappear from the sight of the cop.
“Alright kid, where are you?” The cop flipped on his light. The bright rays of light spread across the alley revealing Jake’s shadow, he may be hidden from sight but he was still there nonetheless. Jake quickly got out of the spotlight hiding himself, and confusing the stallion at the same time.
The cop held the light straight and randomly jumped to the left after spotting a flitting shadow. “OH NO YOU DON’T!”
The cop’s efforts proved to be worthless, as he missed, but not by much. Jake lost a piece of pants on the back hoof of the cop as he ran away. The cop quickly shook it off his hoof seeing it as insignificant, and ran down the alleyway after Jake. Jake saw the end of the alleyway but the guard was very persistent, and very keen on capturing him, so he did directly what Mike told him not to do. He rounded a corner, picked the closest door and ducked inside. The guard passed him by, but Jake didn’t want to take any chances with the guard and chose not to leave through that exit. So he went further into the building he just entered. What he believed to be the front door was locked; breaking out that way may be a bad idea. He looked around the dark building. From what he could tell it was some kind of bakery. There were shelves upon shelves of cakes, bread, pastries of all kinds just sitting there right in front of him. He practically had to slap himself to keep himself sane since Equestria’s pastries are legendary for their deliciousness, at least by the fanbase anyway, so resisting the urge I will admit is impressive. The temptation of eating just one cupcake was just unbearable. All the windows would be hard to access, as they were either near the front of the store or too small for him to exit from. Frustrated with this Jake tried upstairs.
He could hear snoring upstairs, and suddenly he began to sweat, realizing someone was still in the building, not only that but sleeping as well. He was glad he kept his emitter active. He couldn’t even begin to think what would have happened if he had turned it off, and whoever owned this place just randomly walked downstairs…it was an ugly thought. He avoided the room with the loud snoring and proceeded to enter another room nearby. He opened it and saw a window big enough for him to fit, but he also noticed two cribs carefully placed near the window. He took note of the two foals inside the cribs; one was a pegasus, the other was a unicorn. He personally thought they were adorable, but marked them as potential land mines. If they let out as much as a peep guess who comes running, no other than mommy and daddy. He took extra care to be as silent as he could be when he went over to the window to open it. A small *click* was the only noise he made as he released the latch to open the window, he was about to escape when the unexpected happened the foals began to cry uncontrollably.
Jake froze for a moment with fear. “Don’t panic Jake! You can’t think straight when you panic,” he thought to himself. As he tried to calm himself down, he heard movement down the hall. Someone was approaching the little room. He pushed on the window and found it moved nowhere, sweat began to soak the portion of the ski mask touching his forehead as he rapidly searched for what was holding the window in place. He looked up and noticed another bolt on the top of the window holding it in place. He reached for it, just as the lights flipped on and the door swung open. Jake simply froze. All of his muscles locked in place, afraid to give off any movement and alert the stallion that just walked in the room.
“Hey, what’s wrong, everypony daddy’s here now...” he took one sniff of the crib and winced with disgust “…smells like some ponies need their dipper changed. PINKIE!”
Within a few seconds a Pink pony rushed through the door. Jake couldn’t believe who he was staring at right now: Mr. Cake owner of Sugar Cube Corner and Pinkie Pie, the famed destroyer of all laws of physics. Suddenly all the cakes downstairs made sense and he deeply regretted not taking one. But when he really thought about it, he contended that stealing from the Cakes would send the wrong message.
“Could you go downstairs and get some fresh diapers for the twins please?”
“Sure thing Mr. Cake.”
And as quickly as she came, she was gone. Mr. Cake remained, doing his best to calm the two foals down while Jake desperately looked for a way out. He knew that if he tried to go for the bolt he may make too much noise and give himself away. He tried to find a way past Mr. Cake without disturbing him but he had positioned himself in such a way that there was no real clear way past him. Jake was now deeply concerned, and he was rapidly running out of time on the emitter. Jake looked down and suddenly noticed he could see his hands. “Screw you Mike! That was only eight minutes.” were his thoughts. Mr. Cake still had his head turned away from Jake, the sweat continued to drench his forehead making the mask very itchy to the point of being unbearable…removing it was so tempting. If Mr. Cake just stayed down there for another twenty seconds he could reactivate the emitter for another eight to ten minutes. He made it to ten seconds before Pinkie came back through the door it took less than a second for her to notice him.
“I’m ba….HEY, WHO ARE YOU?” She pointed a hoof directly at Jake, and the diapers went flying off her back onto Mr. Cake’s face, and the floor.“ Pinkie I said to get diapers not throw them at me…” He turned to pick up the diaper and he made eye contact with Jake. “….WHOA! Who in the great world of Celestia are you?!” Mr. Cake picked up an old rolling pin took it in his mouth and pointed one of the ends at Jake, immediately began to bombard him with questions. “HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?! WHAT ARE DOING IN MY HOUSE!?”
Jake responded trying very hard to retain his dignity although he had pretty much lost most of it. What he said here would matter a lot. He didn’t know how skilled the ponies were at hand-to-hoof combat but didn’t want to figure that out. He had his Peacemaker on him at the time, and could shoot them if he wanted to but he wanted to avoid that option at all costs. Killing a man is different from this. “Look, I know this looks bad…but it’s not what you think.”
“OH IT’S NOT?” Mr. Cake said as he shoved the pin closer into Jake’s face. “THEN WHAT IT IS IT?!”
“….I’m just looking for some answers ok….” Jake said still breathing heavily as the stress of the situation increased.
Then what he defined as the strangest thing ever happened, Pinkie Pie stepped in between him and Mr. Cake. “EVERYPONY JUST CALM DOWN, SHEEEESH!” She proceeded to examine Jake a little more closely without either of their approvals.
“…Pinkie…what are you doing…” Mr. Cake asked from behind her. She gave him no response as she stared straight into Jake’s eyes. Jake felt as if she was staring into his very soul.
“He’s not evil…” She said as she continued to stare at Jake.
“…Pinkie…he broke into our house…” Mr. Cake said rolling his eyes, pin still in his mouth.
“…Well yeah, but if he wanted to steal anything he would have done it already, I mean think about it, he made it all the way up here, and was able to stand right over there,” she gestured over to the corner Jake was standing in, “and stare at you without you noticing for Celestia knows how long. He’s too good at stuff like this to get caught while stealing…and Twilight did say another would be coming.” She continued to stare at Jake’s face.
“Another,” Jake thought to himself he was now more puzzled than ever, but for the time being he just decided to play along.
“What are you looking for?” Jake asked, still trying to keep the situation under control while maybe getting info out of Pinkie.
“I’m trying to figure out who you are…there have only been three of you so far, and the third one was the first one’s first time so he really visited twice, but we haven’t seen any for a pretty long time so…it’s a long story, and I’ll tell you the whole thing as soon as I figure out who you are. But it’s hard to tell who you are with that black thing over your face.”
She reached out her hoof to remove the ski mask from Jake’s face, he wasn’t thrilled at all about that. He reached out his hand to stop her hoof. “Please…don’t do that.”
“Why not? No pony should be that ashamed of what they look like.”
“You don’t get it. It’s something far more different than that.”
“Hey get your hooves--or whatever those are off Pinkie!” Mr. Cake took a swing at Jake, Pinkie quickly turned and stopped it from hitting Jake by holding the pin with her hoof.
“Mr. Cake STOP!” Pinkie tried to reason with Mr. Cake, but Jake couldn’t wait any longer. He quickly seized the opportunity to escape, undoing the latch and shoving the window open.
“PINKIE YOU’RE LETTING HIM ESCAPE!”
“HEY WAIT!” Pinkie released the roller, trying to stop Jake from leaving “I JUST WANT TO TALK!”
Without even looking down, Jake jumped out of the window and down to the street. He hit the ground legs-first trying to absorb the blow the ground would exert on him with his feet. Sadly there was nothing but pavement beneath him, so it was a very rough landing. Two stories up wasn’t too bad of a landing, but still painful. He didn’t hear any cracks after he hit the ground but pain coursed through his feet and legs up to his thighs. He tried to stand, despite the pain he was in. He bit through it and got to his feet. He reached into one of the many pockets on his pants and pulled out a small bottle of pills marked “pain killers.” He couldn’t run in this condition and he knew it, so he limped over to an alleyway and took two of the pills. Immediately the pain lessened, but as it did he heard a voice.
“HEY MR. BLACK MASKED PONY…WHERE ARE YOU!?” Jake hadn’t shaken Pinkie yet, and to the best of his knowledge it would be physically impossible to do, but no one ever said he couldn’t try, in fact before him as far as he knew no one had ever tried. He activated the emitter and began to run down the alleyway, but he was still in pain and neglected to watch where he was stepping. He kicked cans and debris on the alley floor. He generated enough noise to give Pinkie an idea on where he was. She took the lantern that was in her mouth and directed its light down the alleyway revealing Jake’s shadow. “There you are,” she said as she began to trot down the alleyway after him. Jake didn’t look back. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized one of the Mane 6 was actively chasing him, and he knew he couldn’t stop, but his fan boy instincts wanted him to stop and see what she wanted. Thankfully he did not give in, and randomly the light from Pinkie’s lantern disappeared. He was relieved to be rid of the pursuer, but realized it was too easy, and immediately turned to make sure she was really gone. A few seconds later a door to his left swung open and Pinkie was standing directly in front of Jake. How did she know? …Who knows? She’s Pinkie Pie folks. Jake immediately turned and ran the other way. Pinkie Pie saw his shadow begin to run, and a few doors down she popped out again, stopping his advance. He repeated this process several times until he almost got past her, and she pounced on him to get him to stay still. She couldn’t see him though, and unknowingly only pinned half his body so the moment she lifted the hoof holding him down, he rolled out of her hold, stood back up, and ran. He could hear her chasing after him again, but it was different this time, he could hear her…hopping after him. This is something I like to call the “hop of death,” because she may hop everywhere, but when she is pursuing someone and she is hopping you can run as fast as you want and no matter what she will always catch you. Rainbow Dash had to figure this out the hard way, and Jake was about to as well.
He may have gotten a head start, but could hear her not too far behind. He pushed whatever power he could get out of his legs, as they were already running at full strength, and even with the painkillers he was still in large amounts of pain. He desperately wanted to escape; he had already pushed his body beyond what it was capable of and she was still gaining on him very quickly. Within a second, he found the buildings and alleyways passing by him, and the lights of the streets were nothing but streamers that rushed by him, so he stopped himself. He was a in a completely different place from where he was a second ago. He turned around he had indeed gone in a straight line, but the distance he was looking at was at least three football fields long. Jacob had to guess where he was originally, but he crossed all that distance in a little under a second. What had just happened to him, a stroke of luck he thought to himself, was, in reality, that he was discovering his abilities. We both received them when coming to Equestria and found we could only use them in Equestria. He had discovered the first of them, but right now he didn’t know how to use it or if it was permanent or not and for all he knew he just had an amazing stroke of good luck. He saw a small lantern in the distance and assumed it was Pinkie, and that he had left her in the dust. He let out a sigh of relief and turned to walk away, but as he took his first step, he stopped immediately. There standing in front of him was Pinkie Pie and her enormous smile. At this point, Jake gave up on logic and simply let Pinkie speak.
“You know you are really are a tough colt to catch, but I found you and you’re back so YIIIIIPEEEEEE!”
“Hold on Pinkie, back…back from what?”
“You just randomly left us one day…”
Jake didn’t recall ever traveling to Equestria before, and honestly he didn’t care right now. He needed to focus on getting his answers, getting back to Michael and Jiggs, and then looking for a way home. “Look Pinkie I don’t have time for this…I’m looking for…”
“Twilight’s library?”
“…how did you…”
“It’s over there silly.” She pointed her hoof down the street. Jake took a look in that direction and sure enough, there was Twilight’s library. His random running through the streets served him well after all.
“PINKIE! WHERE ARE YOU?! I WANT MY LATERN BACK!”
“Oh…I gotta run! Mr. Cake still needs help with the foals seeing as Mrs. Cake is out this evening, anyway BYE!” With that she took off down the street in the direction of Mr. Cake’s voice.
Jake was grateful but at the same time puzzled. How did she know he was heading to the library? “There were others? I randomly leave and she speaks as if she knows me and other humans. I need answers.” He dismissed the thoughts for now and headed towards the library hoping for some answers, activating his stealth emitter. His mission to simply confirm that this place was indeed the Equestria he had known, had suddenly morphed into a quest to understand what Pinkie was talking about. Since she knew where he was heading, Jake figured that the library may hold an answer or two. He walked up to the tree-like structure and looked inside one of the windows. The lights were all off except for the ones upstairs; Twilight may have been doing some midnight studying, so Jake would have to go in quietly. He tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked for the night probably. He thought about it, and maybe he could try that speed thing he did back in the alleyway, but he wasn’t sure how to do it or if he could still do it. But if he could, all he would need is the door just to crack open. Or he could just ram it down with the speed. He thought for a long while, seeing as he couldn’t break down the door; that would be both vandalism as well as a huge noise generator. Right now he was trying to be subtle.
He then remembered one of the oldest pranks in the universe, the classic “ding dong ditch.” Since he had the emitter he could actually pull something like that off, but he would need the speed to get inside. If he was too close, Twilight might notice the small shadow the moon gave him. He had three minutes before the ten minutes of stealth would be up so he had to work fast. He slammed his fist against the door. He backed up a bit, waiting for it to open. If Spike answered the door he could simply jump over him, but if Twilight answered it he would have to get her to come outside, which he preferred not to do. Unfortunately, the door opened revealing Twilight’s face behind it. This was where it would get complicated. Somehow he needed to get her outside, and this is where his luck also fell into play. She actually walked outside and looked around the tree, giving Jake the opening he needed to sneak by. He began to sprint for the door, and his world became sharper this time as his speed increased. He made it inside before Twilight even turned around to go back inside. Jake had actually activated his speed a second time, and was proud of it. This time though he could actually see where he was going, as if his eyes were adapting to the new levels of speed. He waited patiently for Twilight to come back inside and walk back upstairs.
After a few minutes she did go back in, and walked back upstairs, slightly irritated, but quickly dismissed the incident as she went back to her studies. Jake de-cloaked and took the opportunity to take a look around. He turned on his torch and began his search. Most of the place was filled with what he expected: loads upon loads of books, scrolls, quills, anything a young scholar would need in the way of supplies. He explored the room further, checked a back storage room, opened all the cupboards and carefully searched them, and put everything he touched back exactly the way he found it, leaving no trace of him even being there. He paced about the main reading room for a moment, trying to figure out if he missed anything. The only place he hadn’t examined was the floor. Jacob pointed the flashlight at the floor and began examining it. Most of it was just normal floorboards, nice solid wood, until he came across a strange symbol engraved into the floor. It was a picture of hawk flying across a metal shield. Jake squatted, getting a closer look at the symbol. He compared the hawk to the one on his shirt and they were exactly identical in shape. Of course, the one he was looking at was smaller, but what was with the shield? He brushed some of the dust away, and a small metal panel slipped open revealing a hand scanner, retina scanner, and keypad. This was most defiantly not pony tech. The hand scanner was in the shape of a human hand, and the retina scanner as well as the keypad was much too small for a ponies use. However the display for the keypad read “Manual override engaged.” He looked down at the bottom of the panel and noticed a keyhole with a key inside, it as well as a red button beneath it. Naturally, it’s a big red button, and who can resist pressing one of those? Jake didn’t think twice. He pressed the button and heard a few clicks and snaps. They stopped within a few seconds and he saw a handle appear to his left. It looked like a handle to a suitcase that jutted out haphazardly in the floor. He pulled on it with little strength, but found he couldn’t lift it, so he applied a little more, until he found himself pulling with all the strength his muscles had to offer. It turned out the handle was attached to a massive slab of metal, which opened up like a trap door, and had to be opened manually. He finally lifted it up to the halfway point, and then slowly, using the remaining strength, he gently lowered it to the ground to keep the noise making to minimum. When he was sure it would not move, Jacob looked down what looked to be a shaft leading somewhere. It was surrounded by a concrete like substance; the weird part was that the ladder looked much too narrow for a pony to easily use, yet one could use it if one had to. This looked very promising, something out of place and really secretive looking, and he couldn’t resist the urge to climb down it and explore what lay below.
He climbed down the ladder, and found himself it what looked like an entryway. The doors were shut and had a heavy layer of dust, creating an ugly grey color on what at one point could have been pure white. They looked as if they hadn’t been opened in years. He was glad he brought the ski mask because he knew he would be coughing up a storm right now if he hadn’t. He pushed open the doors, which were unlocked, but the place was still pitch black. He slowly moved his flashlight across the room. It looked like the central hub for getting around the complex, and he noted 6 rooms branching out as well as a wide open middle as if it was designed for something big. He looked at the lab coats hanging near one of the rooms, and figured the area was for construction or experimentation. Nothing was in the center of interest so he went forward with exploring the rooms, most of them were empty, but he discovered there was a room that looked something like a firing range, as well as room labeled on the door “security.” The rest were bare, but the evidence of someone being there was overwhelming. Nail holes, used staples, lighter patches of dust on the wall indicating something at one point may have been hanging there: someone had most defiantly been there but they had left long ago. The only items he found were an old drum set, rock guitar, and soundboard. He examined them and they were completely normal, figuring whoever was here must have really liked to rock out cause these were quality instruments. The firing range had nothing really going for it that would suggest giving off any clues related to the creators of this place, so he decided to go for the security room first. He sat down at one of the terminals and brushed off the heavy coats of dust from the monitors. He took off the mask which was now soaked with sweat. After he gave it a hard squeeze and watched the moisture drip onto the floor, he placed it on the terminal desk. He powered up the system, wishing he could get a little more light in this entire place. When the operating system booted it read “Welcome to EDI security software version 22.1.”
“Odd, we are still on 15.6…what is this?” Jake thought as he observed the colorful welcome screen. The system finished booting, and he instantly had access to cameras all around the library. Despite how cool this was to him, he dismissed them and went straight into the root files looking for anything that would reveal more information about this place. He reached the command interface and began typing commands.
“command_reveal_name/” he pressed the enter button on the keyboard the screen immediately began spewing out text.
“computer name: “BOSS”
Location: “equestrian laboratory, Twilight’s library”
Primary function: “Lab security and defense management”’
“Lab security eh, now we’re getting somewhere.” Jake began to type out more commands hoping to get more answers. “command_reveal_archives/”
“Access Denied.” He had just tried to pull up the video records off those cameras both within the lab, and around Twilight’s library, to no avail. He concluded that whoever was here must have blocked it so no one could pry sensitive information from the terminal.
He figured a lab must have an inventory, and therefore must have records. With the next command he could at least get an idea of how old the lab was.
“command_reveal_transfer_records/”
“Access Denied.” He was thwarted yet again; frustrated, he tried something he believed to be low priority, hoping for answer.
“command_reveal_instalation_date/”
“Data unavailable; files may be corrupted or deleted” He couldn’t believe it why would someone delete the date of the installation of a computer, after that he went straight to something he knew they could block no matter how hard they tried.
He decided to find who built the place; maybe he would recognize the names or the corporation that built it. “command_reveal_lab_designers/”
“Lab Designers= 4
Designer 1_
Name: Jacob S. Fischer
Current Occupation: Captain of S.S. Armageddon
Age: 32”
He fell back in black rolling seat he was sitting in not sure what to think. “This is…isn’t possible…I’m only twenty-five! How…how is this place already built? Why did I build it…WHAT WAS I DOING HERE?!” He thought about what he was looking at, and couldn’t figure out how without coming to the impossible conclusion: somehow his future self comes here and assists three others in the construction of this place for whatever reason, and they just abandon it for whatever reason. “If only I could access the archives…” Those videos would have indeed offered him valuable insight, but he wasn’t going to figure it out that easily. He scrolled down the screen to look at the other names, was surprised but not in utter shock, and suddenly the shield he saw upstairs made sense because the name he saw next was my own. I am not going to reveal myself just yet, but for the sake of those who are wondering the significance of the shield, I will tell you that too, so not to upset some of your minds cause I know some of you won’t give a rip, but others…stuff like this just bothers you so much, and you must know otherwise your brain will EXPLODE. I used the shield as basically my insignia; all the weapons I built, all the ships I designed, even the bots I sent Jake with, somewhere on them was engraved into their metal; a picture of a shield if I remember correctly it was on the hand. I put it there to serve as a reminder that they are for our protection, not tools of slaughter, and should be used as such. He knew for a fact that I had been demoted and wasn’t going into a major leader position like that anytime soon. He looked at the other two designers, the names were Michael and Jiggs. Turns out the bots I sent with him had a role in this as well.
Jake decided to try one more command. His mind was exploding with questions but he had one in particular.
“command_reveal_structure_purpose/”
His finger hovered above the enter button he was about to press it when he heard the lab door open again.
“ALRIGHT, WHO’S DOWN HERE?!”
Jake quickly turned off his light and shut off the screens. He peeked out the open door of the security room, and saw a small light illuminating from what he could guess was Twilight. He hadn’t come this far to simply get caught now. He put his mask back on and activated the emitter. He walked back into the lab as slowly, and as quietly as he could, but each step he took seemed to echo off the walls, giving away his position. Twilight began to lose her patience and became more paranoid with each noise she heard.
“SHOW YOURSELF! I KNOW YOU’RE HERE!”
Jake still refused to reveal himself and continued o sneak towards the entrance, but Twilight could hear his footsteps growing near. She didn’t like the idea of an intruder she couldn’t see.
“I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU ONE MORE CHANCE! SHOW YOURSELF OR I WILL FIND YOU!”
Jake remained silent, doing his best to get to the entrance, but no matter how quiet he tried to be Twilight still knew he was there.
“Fine have it your way.”
Twilight’s horn began to spark and spew energy as she put more magic into it. Suddenly what looked to Jake like magic dust colored pink began to move from her horn and about the room. Illuminating the entire room, Jake had lost the cover of darkness and was about to lose the power of the emitter as well. The dust began to spread to even the darkest of corners of lab, lighting them up. The dust began to settle on Jake, forming a pink glowing outline of his body for all to see, and the emitter was now useless.
Twilight let out a gasp. “You!”
Jake made a dash for the exit, using his newly gained speed ability to charge out the door, and began to quickly climb the ladder.
“WAIT STOP!” Twilight yelled up after him, “I’M NOT HERE TO HURT YOU!” The door began to close above the shaft, Jake had mere seconds left to escape, otherwise he would be trapped in the shaft and forced to reveal himself to Twilight. (Which if you ask me wasn’t such a bad idea, but he wanted to avoid that if at all possible.) He climbed out and back into the library, and just as the door clicked shut, he yanked the key out of the keyhole and slid the wooden lid back over the panel, hoping to slow Twilight down. He didn’t know how long that would keep her inside. If he designed the place most likely he knew better than to make it only open from the outside. He ran for the exit knowing it was probably still locked, and simply planned to break it down. He ran at it full speed and was outside within a second, yet there was no painful blow, no sound of splitting wood, and no debris all over his arms which he used to shield his face; it was if he just ran straight through it. He would have stayed to investigate what had just happened a little longer, had he not been still glowing a wonderful shade of bright pink. He ran all the way till he had gotten clear of the town. He knew he would have to get the dust off him before going back to Mike and Jiggs, and he smelled horrible. So he went for a bit of a swim in a nearby pond. Sure he was soaking wet, but it washed the magic dust right off and he could hide again. On his way back he stopped and sat on a long for a moment, pondering everything that had happened to him that night. “Mike and Jiggs…my commanding officer and friend…and myself built that place…IN TWILIGHT’S LIBRARY!? But what was the purpose…? What was the point…? Maybe I should ask Richy when this is all over, maybe he has some answers? No…no he was older in the lab records, and those are made during the first days of a lab’s design.” Jake decided to think about something else, seeing as he was getting himself nowhere in this debate with himself.
For the moment his thoughts drifted away from that puzzle, and down to his legs. He couldn’t figure out where the ability to run that fast came from, and whatever he just did at the library was something else. He picked up a small rock and held it in his hand and sat there just staring at it. Slowly, he felt its hard surface moving about his palm, then it just fell through his hand as if it wasn’t even there. He stood up from the log and carefully examined his hand, he felt it, and touched it against the log. It was as solid as solid could be, yet that rock just fell through his hand as if it wasn’t even in existence. “What…am I?” He walked over to a nearby tree and put his hand against it, he was able to feel the wood but then intentionally tried to make his hand go through it. For a few minutes he had no success, but after what seemed like the 947th try for Jake he was finally successful and moved his arm freely through the solid wood, even walked through it, proving that he did indeed walk straight through the door. After this revelation he continued on his quest to find Michael and Jiggs. On top of leaving his coat with Michael, he also left his com set and the weapons pack. As he continued to walk the pain killers he took earlier began to wear off and the pain from the wounds he had received earlier were returning. After aimlessly wondering around the town perimeter he finally found the two near the edge of the forest they had worked so hard to get out of, they spotted him and helped him into the camp.