//------------------------------// // 56 - Lyra's Date // Story: The Memoirs Of A Reality Jumper // by Techogre //------------------------------// “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! Bons will be so mad at me.” “Hello!” Roseluck waved cheerfully. “No time to say hello.” Lyra politely stopped and waved back, “Goodbye!” The aquamarine unicorn fretted as she ran, “I’ll never make it. Oh, what to do, what to do? I know! Twilight does it all the time. How hard can it be? I can teleport back to Ponyville! Let’s see… I can’t brute force it like Sparkle. I need to finesse it. Alright, Lyra, focus.” There was a greenish flash and Lyra winked out of existence. “Yes! Right spot, but where’s Bonbon?” She looked at the clock tower. “Darn it! One second late. She must have left. Serves me right. No, no mopping, got to find Bons.” Lyra was soon winded and tired from running, looking for her marefriend. Her heart soared, and her stomach sank as she spotted her marefriend. "BB! There you are. Where were you hidden?" Bonbon didn’t look up from her magazine, "At our usual date spot. In the plaza. I was two minutes late. You’re five." The aquamarine unicorn stood for a moment, mouth agape. "What!? I was here… right there…” Lyra gestured wildly with her hooves. ”And I was on time. Well, okay, maybe I was actually a second or two late, but you weren't here, so I assumed you went back home because you knew I was stalk— track— obser— examin— looking for Alex Roberts. He was being banished from Ponyville—" Bonbon interrupted her, "Hold it. Do you mean to tell me Alex Roberts was banished from Ponyville? Alex Roberts. Tall stallion, good with foals, does heroic stuff?" Lyra nodded with limited enthusiasm. "And you were stalking him again?” Bon Bon slowly closed her magazine to give Lyra her full attention. Lyra’s ears folded back, and she nodded meekly. Bonbon sighed, “I thought you learned— Hold on. What makes you say he was banished?" Lyra collected her thoughts, “Well, why else would those guard ponies march him away.” Roseluck, who was passing by, gasped in her normal screaming voice of despair. “Oh, No! Alex Roberts was banished from Equestria!” Her companion put her hoof to her forehead, “The horror! The horror!” Silver Thought sat in her bookstore, Forget Me Not Books. It was Ponyville’s best, cleanest, and only bookstore. The storefront was finally cleaned and organized after her cousin Scrap Paper had been running the store for the last two weeks. “Why did I ever agree to go on a vacation and let her run the shop?” She looked out her front window as a mob of ponies hurried by. She could pick up bits of conversation, something about Alex Roberts being banished. She pulled her frying pan from her saddlebag and wondered if she should contact the other members of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlefolk? She shook her head and muttered, “No, this isn’t for us, this is a Paladin matter.” Mr Cake, making sure no one saw him, wiped the sweat from his brow and muttered “Oh, good.” Mrs Cake’s eyes narrowed in the universal language of wives everywhere. Mr Cake wisely changed his opinion, “Oh, that’s awful. Couldn’t have happened to a better guy.” In a richly appointed mansion, Golden Coins called his mareservant. “Miss Butterscotch, I think a celebratory tea is in order. Make mine blueberry and don’t spare the salt.” Meanwhile, across town, Pinkie Pie took out a megaphone that was clearly several times larger than her own cranium. Her coltfriend, the enigmatic Doctor, a.k.a. Time Turner, pointed a device at the bullhorn, a sonic, screwdriver-like device. Pinkie’s voice is amplified far beyond the manufacturer's specifications. “Alex Roberts has been banished! Everypony we need to save him!” “We need to make a petition to the princesses!” Mayor Mare pounded her podium. “Let them know that this is an injustice.” Far away, in her golden throne room, Celestia felt a twinge in the Weave. “Something important is about to happen in Ponyville,” she muttered to herself. Her majordomo sighed, “Again?” He glanced from his desk to his monarch with worry. “Perhaps, my Princess, we should alert the Guards?” She frowned, “No, it will not be that kind of event. As disturbing as it seems, I cannot interfere.” She smiled bitterly at her old friend, “Of course, the lines are snarled because of Him. I can’t see what will happen to the foal with any precision.” Shining Armor reviewed the reports from Ponyville and gave a defeated sigh. “What a mess he’s made.” His current aide de camp, Corporeal Daisy Blossom, carefully suggested, “What if we just, I don’t know, just leave him alone? Ask Princess Luna to not use him. ” An angry Shining Armor slammed the thick report labelled ‘Alex Roberts: Magical Potential’ on the table. “Don’t you see, Daisy Blossom? You can't just 'leave him alone'. It’s that thrice-cursed chaos magic of his. He causes an uproar just by his presence.” Dash looked outside with her daughter at the large mob forming into a frenzy on the edge of town. “Yeah, squirt, I think we should stay inside. It looks like one of Those Days in Ponyville.” The next day was perfect, with only a few clouds. Dash was just finishing breakfast when there was a knock on the door. “Okay, squirt, you put the dishes in the sink and get ready for school.” She hurried to answer the door. “Hey, Miss Sweetheart. What are you doing here?”