"Oh no, oh no, how am I going to fix this?!" Lyra raced into her house, the door slamming behind her. She locked it and peeked out the window. Outside she saw a group of ponies, all looking angry. "Guys, this is really bad." she turned around to face her five friends, all of which had also fled into her house as the angry mob had appeared.
Derpy, who was hiding under the table and hugging one of Lyra's clocks, kept her good eye on the door. "Can they get in?" she asked fearfully. "I-I think Minuette is gonna strangle me. I t-told her I d-din't know why her c-clock exploded!"
Lyra sighed and trotted over to Derpy. Moving the table helping the pegasus to her hooves, she said, "It's alright Derpy, nopony's going to strangle you." Derpy nodded and silently curled up in the corner with the clock. Lyra's frown deepened as she saw how upset her friend was. She looked around the rest of her living room; Bon-Bon was awkwardly holding the cello whilst trying not to fall backwards as she wasn't used to standing on her hind hooves, Vinyl was tangled in her saddlebags and covered in stamps, Octavia was holding a fish and looking very confused, and the Doctor was looking bewildered at a piece of candy that had somehow caught on fire.
The green unicorn glanced at the angry mob outside, then back at her friends. Nopony was happy. She didn't know how this had happened, but it had to be fixed! With a determined look on her face, she trotted back to the door. "Stay in here, I'll be back." she told her friends. They were all too upset or involved in what they were doing to even notice Lyra or each other. This just made the mare want to move quicker.
She flung open the door and dived outside. She magically shut and locked the door behind her before the mob could get inside. without access to the cause of their problems, the angry ponies turned to the next best thing: Lyra.
"Derpy set my clock on fire!"
"I don't know what the Doctor put in those candies, but my tongue is transparent!"
"Bon-Bon scared everyone out of my concert hall!"
"I STEPPED INTO OPPA DJ PON-3 STYLE NIGHT CLUB FOR TEN SECONDS AND NOW I'M DEAF."
"I was supposed to get my Sugarcube of the Month today and instead I got somepony else's water bill!"
"Everypony, calm down!" Lyra commanded. They continued to close in a tighter circle around her, like a bunch of predators. She took in a deep breath before shouting as loud as she could, "SHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUTT UUUUUUPPPP!"
Suddenly, there was silence. Like somepony had hit the pause button, everypony was frozen. All staring, all waiting to see what Lyra had to say. The unicorn had to wait a few seconds for her breath to come back, but when she did she spoke seriously and loudly. "I know you're all upset but this isn't anypony's fault. No one here is to blame and until I find the one who caused all this you may as well go home."
"What do you mean?" an orange mare stepped forward. "It seems to me that those friends of yours are to blame. I know Derpy's the one who threw a clock through my window." There were shouts of agreement from the crowd.
"They're not themselves!" Lyra shouted again as the crowd began to gain volume. "Don't you see? They're not doing what they're meant to do! Their cutie marks are wrong!"
A blue unicorn with an hourglass cutie mark trotted up to stand beside the orange pony. She levitated the charred remains of a grandfather clock beside her. "What are you talking about Lyra?" Minuette asked. "I've known Derpy and Bon-Bon since foalhood and they've always had the same cutie mark. Derpy's always repaired my clocks and Bon-Bon's been carrying her cello around since she was ten years old."
Lyra was silent. She was so stunned by this statement that a few ponies stepped closer in case she fainted. They... always had these marks? she thought. But... this isn't who they are... this isn't who they are... "I..." she finally spoke. "I... am going to the library." with that, she turned and ran in the direction of the public library.
"I STILL CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING AND I'M REALLY CONFUSED."
Lyra didn't waste a second. The instant she crossed the threshold into the library, she started levitating books of shelves. She didn't need permission to do so: there wasn't a librarian. She didn't know why Mayor Mare didn't just hire one, there had to be somepony willing to do it, but that was a mystery to be solved another time. For now, she had to find any clues as to what was going on.
"History books first." she though aloud. "I need to know if anything like this has happened before." she did a quick scan of a few shelves, every once in awhile surrounding a book with golden magic and levitating it over to table. When she felt she had enough, she sat down comfortably on a pillow and got reading.
"Ow!" Lyra rubbed her forehead. It hurt badly and she thought she felt a bit of blood running down her face. Foreheads tend to bleed when you smack them with a heavy book. The unicorn decided to take a quick break to find a band-aid and think. "I've read so much and I haven't found anything!"
She trotted from room-to-room in her search for bandaids, and all the whole she thought out loud. "Something like this doesn't just happen! It doesn't make sense: if this is the first time in history that is has happened, why would it happen to them? They're special to me and each other, but they aren't daughters of princesses or saviors of the world. They're just ponies..."
In her thoughts she stopped paying attention to where she was going and walked right into a shelf. She fell backwards, barely dodging the books that fell. "Ow!" she yelled again, rubbing her forehead. "My head just can't catch a break, can it?" With some magic she lifted the books back onto the shelf. She glanced at the covers as she slid them back into place, not really concerned with them. However, on the last book, she did more than glance.
Lyra levitated the last book over to her, examining the cover. This book seemed... right? It was like the answer to a problem she didn't know of. It was brown, imitation leather with gold leaf images pressed into it. The picture was of a unicorn, or maybe alicorn for it only showed the shoulders up, with six gems floating around it. The title read 'The Elements of Harmony, a Reference Guide".
She flipped it open and started reading, forgetting her pain."Loyalty, Kindness, Laughter, Honesty, and Generosity. The sixth is a mystery." She balanced it on her back and continued on her search for bandaids. "I'll read it later, it doesn't look like it'll help me right now."