"I think Pinkie Pie might be weird enough to warrant her own classification," Lyra said. She was sitting on a generic-looking wooden picnic bench and leaning against the table-top. Her suit was ruffled, and her glasses were up on her forehead, just below her horn. "In fact, I think I've argued that in at least two meetings since last month."
"Her classification is a particular issue," Bonbon said. She was flipping through an index book of some kind, pausing every few pages to check the header and then flipping further, searching for something buried inside. "Every time we submit one, it gets rewritten in resolution and published with errors."
"And whenever we retract her classification, somepony submits one in the same place," Lyra said, sighing. "With more errors."
"It seems like the localized displacement aura she emits applies even to instances of interaction that are purely textual or theoretical," Bonbon said. "It's possible just by mentioning her in this conversation, we're opening the way to an anomalous disruption."
"Chance taken," Lyra said. "At least if Pinkie Pie were here she could wiggle her ears or smell her tail or something and tell us where this Celestia-forsaken book is."
"Anomalous object," Bonbon corrected. "Or SCP-XX69 if you want to be even more technical."
"Would you please tell me how you and everypony else are pronouncing that? Am I just supposed to say 'ecks ecks' before the number? I feel like I should just say it as a word. Scpxxsixnine. Jeez. That's a mouthful. Almost as bad as—"
"Lyra, focus. Lives are at stake. Several of them possibly important."
"Now that's the funniest thing you've said all day."
"Did Granny Smith give you anything? Derpy just kept getting distracted and talking about muffins."
Lyra sat up more properly on the bench and pulled her notes out of one of her suit pockets4. "Let's see... 'a cider churn with a mind of its own'... 'the milk delivery 'been late the last two days'... 'you young ponies never seem interested in stories, that's the strangest thing i 'ever seen'... and 'wha, who'sat, where's my chewing teeth?'." Lyra frowned at the list before she folded it up and tucked it back into her pocket. "So... maybe?"
"There's gotta be something we missed. Usually Ponyvillians can't shut up when something weird is going on."
"Did you just say 'Ponyvillains'?" Lyra asked. "Because if so, that's a really convenient way to refer to Equestrian troublemakers. Though, it doesn't really make sense in the context of what I just said."
"I said Pony-vill-i-ans. Like ponies from the town of Ponyville."
"Isn't the correct term 'Ponyville-ites'?"
"Lyra, I swear to Luna's left ni—"
"Ahem," said a third voice, melodious and devilish. "Did I hear somepony call for a deus ex moi?"
"Not you again," Lyra said.
Sure enough, it was DSCRD-XXX1. And his handler a few steps behind.
"Oh. Hello," Fluttershy said sweetly with a bat of her eyelashes. "We didn't mean to intrude. Is this a bad time?"
"Yes," Lyra said.
"No," Bonbon said, walking over to the pair with her pages of notes out. "We could use all the help we can get. If you two have any leads..."
"As a matter of fact," Discord said, smiling smugly, "it just so happens that before stumbling into the two of you, we came across a rather grisly scene that most certainly could be the work of nothing other than our missing anomalous object..."
"What are you talking about?" Lyra asked. She got up from her bench to join the miniature congregation, by now late enough at night that the market square was fairly deserted, save a few wanderers ambling home from the bar or just out for a late night constitutional. Derpy's confusion was beginning to make a little more sense.
"Patience, patience, little miss mint chocolate," Discord said. He gave Lyra a pat on the head and dislodged her sunglasses, dropping them onto her nose and skewing them sideways so only one eye was covered.
Lyra glared at him, at least one eye given the benefit of actually being visible in his direction.
Discord simply smirked.
"Are you gonna tell us or not?" Lyra asked.
"Oh, fine, spoil-sport." Discord stuck out his tongue and swirled around into a spiral shape a few times before vanishing in a puff of smoke. He reappeared with the same odorous poof, this time holding a whiteboard and an ostensibly erasable marker. With a few quick flashes of his talons and the marker, the board was painted into four panels, an alley scene taking place in pieces on each of them.
"Here's what we suspect happened first," Discord said, pointing with a single extended claw to the first panel. "Some innocent pony, out to pick a night-time snack, maybe the victim of evening munchies—"
"Ahem," Lyra said.
"—yes, moving on. And then in the second scene, our victim comes across the perpetrator, as you'll see in panel three..." Discord gestured to the bottom left corner of the board, where a shadowy figure had emerged from the side of the drawing. "And our conclusion, whereupon only the perpetrator remains, and our poor, normal pony... well, speaking of remains..."
"There was nothing left of him?" Bonbon asked, raising her sunglasses and looking at the board and Discord incredulously.
Discord nodded, and Fluttershy did the same.
"Not a trace," Discord said wistfully. "Except, that is, of the... shall we say, 'bodily fluids'?"
"'Bodily fluids'?" Lyra said. "Do I even want to know?"
"Oh, let's not get too intense, everypony," Fluttershy said meekly. She wiped a hoof across her forehead, which, while sweatless, had begun to increase in temperature. "Keep it to the necessary details. Um. If you don't mind, that is."
Lyra and Bonbon shared an eye-roll, but Discord seemed perpetually delighted as long as he was in their proximity and capable of annoying them.
Still. This was a clue. An anomalous object that could do that kind of damage, just based on a few pent-up leather fantasies or mental pictures of [REDACTED] bent over, showing off her [REDACTED] to everypony... Lyra shook her head and shivered. She hated to think what it might be capable of in the wrong hooves.
Could there be 'right hooves', when it really came down to it?
"Come on," Bonbon said. She tucked her notes away and double-checked her sunglasses in place. "We've got a lead."
"I bet it's not even that good a read," Lyra said. "It probably spends like ten pages just talking about dresses or something."
"Lyra. Come on."
"Sorry."