They entered the Golden Oaks Library. The doorknob was cold to the touch, as if it were encasing ice. A familiar face was waiting for them.
"You AGAIN!"
"I know what you're planning," the Director said. Her glowing bluish eyes were clearly angry. "Do the four of you comprehend your own hypocrisy or should I spell it out for ya? Cuz I could go either way."
"You can get the squee out of our house, is where you can go," Dan said, shouldering past her. He pushed her down, causing her to fade through the ground and out of one of the walls. She descended to the floor again, but descended a bit too much and sank halfway into the floor.
Phoenix raised a finger. "You might want to turn off clipping."
"I KNOW WHAT I NEED TO TURN OFF!"
"Woah. Indoor voices, Directorino. This IS a library," Dan cautioned.
"Really? REALLY? YOU are telling ME to-"
Dan pressed a finger to his lips. "Shhhh."
"AAARRRUUUGH!" The Director snarled angrily at him, skin like something between liquid and fabric rippling across her face. "How the f- how can you all STAND to live with this man?! Don't you understand he's the BIGGEST HYPOCRITE on two different planets?!?!"
They all nodded.
"Yeah."
"Pretty much."
"That is basically the premise of this show."
"I'm me and I have to agree with that," Dan remarked. "But I'm a hypocrite for a good cause."
She leaped up on him. "That's exactly what I'VE been trying to do! Equestria's destruction is inevitable! The only way to stop it, to save all that we love is to destroy it first and save the few who are worth-"
*Shrrrrrsssshh-shpp!* Dan sucked her up with a vacuum cleaner. "So... that happened."
"Are... are you planning on just leaving her in there?" Twilight asked, poking the vacuum.
"No, I'm not 'planning' it, I'm just letting it happen. Roll with it."
"Alright."
"Okay, Nicky, Chrys, Spike and Fluffle go get the food out of the fridge and load it in a cooler. This IS an evacuation, people," Dan reminded them. "Once you're done, meet with me and Twilight in the command center."
"Right!" They hurried off to their assigned duties. Although the Golden Oaks Library had been reinforced, it was not built to survive Plan X. While Dan went to the command center at the core of the library, Twilight and Spike gathered the books. Comic books, graphic novels, fiction and non-fiction, fan fiction which literally everyone loved and clopfics which everyone REALLY loved. With her enhanced powers, Twilight was able to teleport the books safely to the cargo hold of the All of My Rage and also organize them in their new temporary location. A princess was ALWAYS organized. Mostly always, anyway.
As Dan set off, Marksaline appeared from behind the sofa. "The prodigal sun returns."
"What? Oh, yeah, Vice is back again. Or whatever his name is. Big whoop."
"Vice Grip is not the prodigal sun." She levitated a plaque off the wall, the one they had found during the renovation. It floated over and into Dan's hands. It was an old picture of Vice Grip and his father in front of the library back when it was founded.
Dan looked away. "I get it. He was a great guy. But what happened to him and his son happened a long time ago. No one today was involved, Marksy. None of us knew about them killing his dad."
"They did not kill the father. They tried to." The plaque forced its way up in Dan's grip, the picture edging its way back into view whether he wanted it or not. "They knew what they did."
Rice Puddinghead the Fourth and his son were in the center of the old, faded photo. Rice himself was a gold-colored stallion while his son was a darker more sandy color, mother nowhere to be seen. Dan had seen the picture before, but he never really looked at it. As he stared into the eyes of the broken family, he brushed away a dusty smudge cover the photo. It was then Dan realized Vice Grip, the colt in the picture, was not a normal colt. One of his legs was off-color; it was a prosthetic.
Vice Grip, the real Vice Grip, had a prosthetic leg. He had been born with a deformed front leg.
And just like that, it all made sense. Lightning Claw's broken horn, Vice Grip the scientist's gauntlets and boots, the machines and the technology, the lies and hatred of magic, it was all an attempt to change a past too horrible to face. That was why Rice Puddinghead had taken his son's name- to give him a future he couldn't have. Dan realized now that Rice Puddinghead was alive, but already dead. What future does a father have without their son?
A children without parents was an orphan, but a parent without a child was too horrible to have a word. It didn't even really have a face- just a mask of what was lost. A teardrop hit the wooden plaque and rolled off to the floor. Dan was shocked to find it was his.
"That... we ACTUALLY killed his SON?!!" Dan exclaimed, exasperated. Twilight and Spike walked back in from the side hall, Phoenix, Chrys and Fluffle from the kitchen. Fluffle was nomming a ham wrapped in bacon and covered in hot fudge. But when she saw what Dan had, she dropped the ham. And she stopped eating.
"Look! Look at this crap!" Dan went to each of them with the plaque.
"Kinda forgot that was there, to be honest," Phoenix remarked. "Yeah... I remember now. It's Vice and his dad."
"Rice and his SON," Dan corrected angrily. "Look at the kid. He's got some kind of proto-prosthetic leg."
Twilight levitated the photo up to herself. "That's... this does look like it's Chancellor Rice and his son, Vice. But that leg looks too futuristic for it to be from Ponyville a thousand years ago."
Fluffle Puff let out a long, adorable sigh. She took the photo and looked at it. "It's from Fallout: Equestria."
"What?!"
"Oh crap, she's talking again."
"Wait wait wait wait," Dan stopped them, "That book just came out like three years ago(in this universe). How could he have gotten something that hasn't even been invented yet? Or thought of, for that matter?"
They all pondered the question for a moment. Then, Phoenix felt the answer like a weight in his pocket. "He used a summoning spell."
"Again, the book was written THREE YEARS AGO," Dan pointed out.
But Phoenix rubbed his chin. "Maybe it wasn't. Remember what Springer said? The Enclave, it's been around for-"
"A thousand years," Twilight said, completing the thought. "Everything that's happened- the Sword Spells, Vice and Rice, the Magic Gears, it's all because of what happened a thousand years ago. Rice doesn't want to destroy Equestria... he wants to destroy the past."
"How would Vice- I mean, how would Rice KNOW to how to summon anything?" Dan demanded. "The guy is an Earth pony. They don't magic."
"They can't use spells with a horn, Dan, but there are spells earth ponies can use," Twilight said. "With different magical artifacts, like a-"
"It's because I told him," Fluffle Puff said. She took the plaque in her mouth and hung it back on the wall where it belonged. She then picked up her ham from the floor. "Thppppth thppp." Let's go.
"Hold on, no," Dan stamped over to her, "Go back to talking normally. What do you mean you TOLD Vice?"
Fluffle sighed again and took the ham out of her mouth. "I told him about summoning spells. A thousand years ago. Rice used to visit the Everfree Forest a lot back when he was chancellor. We talked from time to time. He got a lot of his ideas from me. One time, he told me he needed something to help his son walk, so... I helped him find it."
"So wait, you talked to Vice Grip-"
"Rice Grip."
"Rice Puddinghead."
"Whatever, you talked to him a thousand years ago?" Chrys asked. "When were you going to tell us?"
Fluffle looked straight back, her eyes serious. "I thought he was dead. The Rice I knew was a very kind pony who loved his people and his son. Even his ex-wife. I had no idea he was using summoning magic..." she looked down. "But that must've been how... how he..."
"How what?"
"How he found out about Earth," Fluffle admitted. She looked back up to the plaque on the wall, a little misty-eyed. "A week before... the attempt on his life, he told me about the train. He said it was going to take them into the future." She sighed again. "Now, I wonder if he wasn't speaking figuratively."
"What does this mean?" Dan and Chrys both asked that question simultaneously.
She turned back to them. "It means I'm part of the reason Vice Grip is dead. And Rice was right- Celestia and Luna knew about it, too."
Twilight, Spike, they all gasped. Except Dan. They were in awe, they were in shock, the disbelief writ large in their expressions. Except Dan. Celestia and Luna knew about the assassination attempt. Their leaders had known about it the entire time, the ones they were fighting for, the kingdom they were trying to protect, was guilty of murder and trying to cover up a murder. They were stunned. Except Dan.
Twilight found her heart beating fast in her chest. Her wings had involuntarily tensed. "I... we..." She looked to Dan, but he had already gone.
"Dan?" Chrys followed after him, then by Phoenix. Fluffle was next and Marksaline disappeared. Twilight was left alone in her living room, without her books and without her friends. Just her and Spike. There was only silence between them.
Dan stomped into the control room. His fists were balled, but he said nothing. Now, he had a very good reason to want to destroy Equestria.