"OUT OF THE WAY!"
I exploded through the castle doors, running in strides long enough to put a kangaroo to shame. Lyra and Tetesac in tow, I dashed down the castle's central staircase before any of the guards had time to react. Upon seeing the door to my lab after a moment of dashing through the hallway, I quickly ceased running, sliding a few feet before stopping myself by grabbing the door's handle. I took a moment to look behind me and saw Lyra catching up, with Tetesac a good distance behind her.
"Go on!" said Tetesac, panting. "I'll be there in a moment!"
I twisted the knob and shoved the door open. I felt around for the light switch and turned the lights on, not bothering to wait for them to fully switch on before running into the room.
"Alright, we just gotta figure out how to stop the thing! There's gotta be something about it in here." I started looking through the various documents and devices scattered on the tables.
"How are we gonna find it through all this stuff, though?" inquired Lyra picking up something that looked like a small motor. "I can't even count how many weird gadget things you have in here!"
"All the more reason to start looking now, rather than later!" I opened a drawer and started filing through the papers inside.
Just then, Tetesac finally made it to the doorway. "Ah... here we are... I must apologize, my agility is not what it used to be..."
"Yeah, yeah, no biggie, just help us look for something about the RYAN."
"George?"
"Yeah, what is it?" Not paying attention to him, I pulled all the files out of the drawer in frustration.
"You may wish to take a moment to look at the KEVIN."
"Huh? What's with the KEV-" I stood up, only to cut myself off as I saw something on the screen. I jogged over to take a closer look.
R.Y.A.N SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL
ETA: Two days
Available options:
route <coords> - Adjust route to specific coordinates.
cancel - Cancel route and return to station.
"Alright, cool! Simple! Lemme just do this..." I typed "cancel" and hit enter.
ACCESS DENIED - PASSWORD REQUIRED
"...Ah, shit."
As Tetesac was about to say something, a voice began to emanate from the machine, loud enough to echo through the lab. I quickly recognized it as my own.
"Greetings, potential plan-ruiners," said the voice. "This is Humphrey Walt, telling you in this pre-recorded message that there's no way for you to stop my invinci-tank! You've probably already tried at this point, perhaps thrown yourself at the tank in an idiotic attempt to climb inside. I suppose the result of that was quite shocking, if you get the words I'm saying. Heh. Yes, my RYAN tank may have a top speed of four miles per hour, but it makes up for that in being practically invincible to all physical attacks due to its electric shield. So, anyway, whatever your motivations, you aren't stopping this thing. Of course, if you're me, disregard this message and do whatever the hell you want.
But chances are, you're not me. You're probably, like, King Tetesac or something, since he just loves those ponies so much. Or maybe you're Princess Celestia, intent on stopping my plans. Hell if I know, there are only so many scenarios I can think up. But, anyway, the fact of the matter is that you aren't stopping this. The RYAN can be remotely shut off with a password, but I've destroyed all documentation on the machine. That and the fact that I haven't told anyone the password. Hell, I haven't even told anyone about my plans. Except for Old Man Musket. I may or may not have given him some subtle hints. You know, for the hell of it. I mean, who the hell's gonna listen to him about anything anyway? So, good luck with figuring that out, as the only thing that holds the password at this point is my own brain, and good luck getting it outta there. So, yeah. To recap, you can't stop it, only I know the password, and I'm probably in hiding or something at this point. So, kindly fuck off. Thanks."
The three of us stood in silence for about 20 seconds before I finally decided to say something.
"Uh. Yeah. Right. Okay. Sure. Why the fuck not." I turned back to Lyra and Tetesac. "Yeah, okay! Look at that shit! We're beyond screwed, man! Please, would someone be so kind as to tell me, what in fuck's name do we do now?!"
"Alright, George, please, just calm down," said Tetesac, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps you should try guessing-"
"No!" I slapped his hand off my shoulder and looked away from him. "I think I kinda get this now! If you hadn't wiped my memories, I'd still know the password! You fuckin' dope! Because of you, we can't stop the RYAN! You know, I've been acting all nice about that whole thing, but this kinda tips the scales!"
Lyra quickly walked over to me. "George, come on! Don't be stupid, you're the one who built it in the first place!"
"Yeah?! Well, for your information..."
I paused for a moment. No, I need to re-compose myself, this isn't a time for arguing.
"No, no. You're right, I'm being stupid. Let's just figure this out, if we can even do that."
"Well, do you have any ideas?"
My mind quickly drifted back to Tetesac's suggestion of guessing the passwords. "Well, not any particularly good ones. Uhm, anyone know where Old Man Musket is?"
"Funny that you ask that," said Tetesac, "He hasn't been seen since that encounter at your house."
"Okay, well, we've only got two days to do this shit. I'll start guessing passwords, you two can look around for documents that might still exist about the machine."
~ One Hour Later ~
"Nope, the password's not 'donglover92'... Thanks for the suggestion, though, Lyra." I crossed it off the notepad, which I'd written about 200 failed passwords in so far. I was getting to the point where I felt like simply banging on the keyboard and hoping the password comes up. "You two find anything?"
"Not one single thing," said Lyra. "Can't even find anything about the KEVIN, let alone the RYAN. I found some stuff about a 'MARVIN' which looks like some kind of carriage without anypony pulling it, but the name is where the similarities end."
"Stupid me, I should've anticipated losing my memories. Maybe there's a secret compartment with a book of passwords or something. You check for anything like that?"
"Yeah, actually. I scanned most of the flat surfaces in the room, the only secret compartment I found was one that had a bag of happy flower in it."
"Speaking of, George," said Tetesac, "Why were you keeping that from me? It's not illegal, you know."
"I don't know, alright?" I looked back to the screen for a moment. "Lyra, would you mind handing me that bag?"
"No happy until you fix things."
"Ugh, fine. Aaaaaand that's 301," I said as I wrote and crossed out "*(UJ@Ei$2" in the notebook. "This isn't working. This is not working. We need another plan."
"Tell me about it," said Lyra. "We've searched every inch of this room. There's nothing here."
Tetesac, who had apparently been lying on the floor, sat up into my vision. "George, if I may make a suggestion, we haven't searched your house yet."
"Oh! Right! Yes, of course! Let's do that!"
~ Three More Hours Later ~
"Let's stop doing this," I said, lying on the floor of my bedroom. "There's no hope, we're doomed."
I spared you the extremely uneventful process of searching the house. You're welcome.
"You're just saying that because you don't want us to find more happy flower," said Lyra. "We already found your stash of alcohol. You must really like whiskey."
"No, I hate whiskey. And screw the goddamn happy flower, there's nothing we can do at this point. We'd might as well prepare for a barrage of unicorn magic two days from now."
"Maybe it'll malfunction or something! We've gotta hope for anything at this point, George! We can't just give up!"
"As much as I hate to admit it," said Tetesac, "I'm entirely out of ideas as well. If Ponyville is destroyed by your tank, then there will certainly be a great many casualties. It will undoubtedly mean war."
"Yeah, I know. I just... I can't believe I'd cause this."
Lyra kicked me in the leg. "Well, you have to believe it! You caused this, so you've gotta fix it, memories or not! One way or another! Ponyville's in danger of being destroyed by a tank and they don't even know it! That's not something you can just-"
"Wait," I said.
"What? Do you have an idea?"
A grin slowly formed on my face as I sprung to my feet. "Yes! YES! Holy shit-a-moly, I have an IDEA!"
"That's great, George!" said Tetesac, "So, what is it?"
"You're right, the Equestrians don't know about the tank. But what if we go and tell them? It's so simple! We just gotta warn them about the tank, and then they can stop it with their magic and stuff!"
"Hmm," said Tetesac, who was stroking his beard. "That may work, if magic can affect your tank. I'm not sure how well-built it is."
"Well, we gotta try!" said Lyra, "It's our only choice at this point!"
"That brings up another issue, however," said Tetesac, "How will we get there in time?"
"Well, the thing is pretty slow, only four miles an hour according to myself," I said. "We could easily outpace it."
"Yes, but remember that it took you eight days to walk here from Ponyville. Of course, a large portion of this was likely taken up by you sleeping, something a tank does not have to do. Thus, it will get there several days before any of us can."
"Damn, you're right. Okay, so we need some kind of transportation method. Celestia's probably the best one to warn about the tank, so Canterlot should be our goal."
"Won't she just arrest you on the spot?" asked Lyra.
"Probably, but I don't care about that. I just need to tell her about the RYAN."
"What if she doesn't believe you?"
"I will come along," said Tetesac, "Both I and Lyra can vouch for you."
"Alright, that's cool and all, but we still have no idea how the three of us are gonna get there."
"Well," said Tetesac, "I would suggest the KEVIN, to teleport us, but it has that issue of causing amnesia..."
"Right, and I don't have the time right now to re-learn the science skills required to fix that."
"Wait!" said Lyra, "What about the MARVIN?"
"The what?"
"That thing I told you about, remember? In your lab, there were some documents about this invention called "My Awesome Ride Version two, now Including Nitrous".
"Well, would you look at that. An acronym which I actually know the words to. What the hell does that mean, though? Awesome ride? Does that mean we can ride it?" I was confused by this rather otherworldly-sounding invention.
"Ah, of course! You did develop a prototype of this, George. You took the concept of the pony-driven carriages in Equestria, and developed a version without the need for an external party to drag it. I believe you said it was powered by ethanol. You're currently keeping it in your garage, from what I remember."
"Ethanol? As in the stuff in drinks?"
"Yes, your tests generally involved you powering it with whiskey. Thus, you distilled a lot of your own whiskey along with buying large amounts of it."
"Why would I use whiskey of all things? Why not pure ethanol?"
"You... really hated whiskey."
"Well, let's get to that thing, then! I'll grab the whiskey!"
"Wait, George! It's in prototype stages, we don't know if it'll work!"
"Bah! You only live once, Titty Sack!" With that, I dashed down the stairs before he could respond.
~ Fifteen Minutes Later ~
"Alright, how far did you say Equestria is from here?"
"Roughly two hundred miles."
"T-Two hundred? That's it? How the hell do you keep your location secret if you're that close?"
"Keep it secret? Who says we do that?"
I staggered under the weight of the amount of whiskey I was holding. "I've been told that by several ponies. I had to be extremely lucky to find a map that had Anthropia on it in the first place." I dropped the box, holding about fifteen bottles of whiskey, into the trunk which had already been about halfway filled by Lyra and Tetesac's loads.
"Well, I do not know of any efforts to keep our location secret. Sounds like that may be a self-fulfilling prophecy the ponies have there."
"Well, either way," I said, "I think that's all of it."
"It's a shame to see all this good whiskey go to waste," said Tetesac.
"There's no such thing as good whiskey," I said. "Besides, it's going to a good cause."
"Well, I believe that's the last of it," said Tetesac, wiping his forehead.
The three of us took a moment to look at the MARVIN. It was a long, black carriage-shaped machine, with four seats and a wheel protruding out in front of one of them. It rode on four wheels, all of them seemingly made out of some kind of rubber. Two pedals rested under the same seat that had the wheel. The front of the vehicle also featured a winch, for whatever reason.
"Great," said Lyra, "Let's go!"
I pulled the garage door open revealing us to the street in front of my house. Acknowledging a passing nod from a person walking by, I turned back to Lyra. "Alright, so, does this thing have an instruction manual or something? I've got no idea how to drive it."
"There's no time for that, we've gotta go!" I'm not sure if Lyra was anxious to save her hometown or just really wanted to ride in the MARVIN, but either way I climbed into the seat with the wheel thing in front. Tetesac got into the seat next to me, while Lyra got in the back.
"Alright, let's see..." As I looked at the wheel, the sticks poking out from behind it, the anchor-shaped thing under the wheel, and the red button in between my seat and Tetesac's, I suddenly grabbed the wheel with both hands. As if by instinct, I grabbed the anchor-shaped thing and pulled it, and the car instantly started churning. I pressed my foot into the right pedal and the MARVIN lurched out of the garage as I steered it into the street and stopped momentarily.
"I see old habits die hard, George," said Tetesac, grinning.
"I'm not sure that's how that saying is used, but I think I get what you mean. And stop smiling like that, it's creepy." I jammed my foot into the pedal, and we sped off towards the hole in the city wall.