Error's Vanguard

by Stalin the Stallion

J’en Ai Rien à Foutre

“And you’re saying some sort of answer is in here?” Celestia asked dubiously, looking down at a manilla folder. The bookshelves all around her seemed just as untouched as ever, yet this room’s wooden floor seemed almost new. “Because if it is, it’s in some sort of code.”

Metus shrugged in a j’en ai rien à foutre sort of way. “Have I to thee lied thus far?”

“No,” Celestia said. “And don’t call me ‘thou’; we are not on informal enough terms to warrant that tone.”

“What the lady wants she gets,” Metus muttered, jostling his head. “But there is a reason why you can’t read that book.” He looked at her in a way that, despite his technical lack of a face, felt pleading. “The Library of Babel and I are intrinsically interconnected, as are its books. Yet, you are not. It rejects you in a way; you’ve been here too long. If you want to read that book, someone who could read it must write you a translation, because Babel has taken a disliking to you.”

“And that someone is you, no doubt,” Celestia scoffed.

“Well, books can’t read books. So long as I am bound to this book into which I was trapped and from which you give the magical power to manifest me, I cannot read or work properly. Analogy: good children will remember bad strangers who offer them candy, and will only calm down for their parents, but so long as the parent is locked in the stranger’s basement, the child will never calm down. I am the parent, Babel and its books are the child, and you are the stranger.

“So long as I am bound to this book—locked in your basement—I cannot offer you a translation.” He paused. “Alternatively, you could take the book out with you, which would sort of mess with a loophole. Remove the book by taking it with you back to your home dimension, which would essentially cut with my connection to the book and instead bind me to the library. This would let Babel settle down, and allow me to work with the document while you are way.”

Celestia stared at Metus, just thinking.

Metus cocked his head to the side. “Tag und Nacht schrei ich mich heiser, weil ich der Krähenkönig bin. Glauben Sie mir, glauben Sie an mich.”

“Would the book you’re bound to be missed?” she finally asked. Metus shook his head. “And in this book is there way to translate the documents in this folder?” Metus hesitantly nodded. “Then I have all that I need.” Celestia grabbed the folder and Metus’ book, putting them in her saddle bags.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Don’t you want me to translate the documents?”

“Frankly, I don’t quite trust you,” she said earnestly.

“Guess I don’t blame you, but...”

“I’d rather work this on my own, meaning I’ll need both your book and the folder.”

Metus held his metaphorical tongue as he watched Celestia turn and leave. The mare followed the long string wrapped around her waist, making her way back to the entrance she’d made into the Library of Babel. In no time at all, the mare was gone, and Metus was all alone. But he felt pangs in his breast, the chains that bound him flailing for reattachment

He felt as if he were smiling as he stretched out a long, spider-like, two-elbowed arm, a huge raven landing upon his outstretched limb. “Well, Nevermore,” he said to the bird, “it appears that everything is on schedule. Wir sind auf Kurs, so let us make for another way to get out of this place. Discord needs to die sooner rather than later!”

***

“What are you even doing here, Discord?” Luna demanded, sounding not unlike a broken record. It was, after all, only the seventh time she’d asked in the last minute alone.

Discord sighed, tiring of giving nonsensical answers. “Well, if you must know, I was saving everypony’s butts from a soul-eating abomination the likes of which your feeble pony mind is powerless to truly comprehend. Basically, what I usually do on Tuesdays.” He threw a venomous set of eyes towards Remora. Remora, hovering outside the window, didn’t flinch as the eyeballs rolled off his nose and fell many stories to the ground. “Was doing fine till you got the stupid fish to snoop me out.”

“I. Am. Not. Stu—”

“Oh, shove a sock in it.” Discord, with a snap of his fingers, opened the bottom drawer of Luna’s dresser and levitated out a pair of blue-with-black-stripes socks.

“Uh—hey!” Luna protested, blushing a furious red as Discord threw her socks at Remora. “I-I-I have no idea how those, uh, got there, I swear!”

Discord cocked a brow at the Princess. “I could care less about the modern pony’s strange fascination with socks, thank you very much.”

Twilight almost fell out of her chair as she attempted to get up. Standing on shaky legs, she stumbled towards the Princess. “I... Princess... we got attacked. Twice. Once in Ponyville, once outside it—both times by different entities.” She held a hoof up to her forehead. Unfortunately, that was exactly one too few hooves, and her shaky legs decided to go on strike. Twilight Sparkle, notorious for her lack of union negotiating skills, promptly fell onto the floor.

“Wait, what?” Luna gasped, hoping her hardest that everypony would forget the socks that totally weren’t hers at all.

Lucian just sat at the table. He thought he should tell them that instead of being attacked, he’d been searching for “101 Poochyenas, directed by Michael Vick”, but he didn’t. They probably wouldn’t know what that was, he reasoned; and even if they did, they’d probably judge him for it. He gave Fluttershy a thoughtful look as the little mare just sort of sat there, clearly unsure of what to do.

“So there are more of those entities than had been thought,” Princess Luna said, “not entirely unexpected, but we’ve hoped otherwise. And I...” She blinked thrice. “Where is Discord?”

“He. Left,” Remora offered.

“I thought you were blocking out his magic!” Luna snapped, stamping a hoof. On all four hooves, Princess Luna wore beautiful, masterly crafted glass slippers. The pair she possessed had been crafted by the last (and only) great glassmith-cobbler in Equestria. He had poured his heart and soul into making the finest pair of slippers for Princess Luna. When he had finished, he had four masterpieces, and then he promptly died of old age. Of course, none of this mattered to Luna at the moment of stamping her hoof, since she stamped so hard her slipper cracked, ruining the final masterpiece of Equestria’s last (and only) great glassmith-cobbler. She just didn’t care anymore.

“Am,” Remora said dryly. Well, as dry as an utter montone-speaking flying serpent-dragon thing can. “He. Walked.”

“And you didn’t bother to, I don’t know, stop him or anything? Maybe tell me, hmm?!”

“Ven-geance. For. Last. Only. Great. Glass-smith. Cobb-le-er,” Remora said, and Luna growled in frustration.

The Princess rubbed her forehead. “Oh, stars above me,” she muttered. “I hate everything. Again.”

Rather than offer anything actually helpful, Lucian thought about magic. If Lucian were a powerful wizard from the future, he would prove that he was such a wizard by bringing back exactly what you’d expect.

Luna sat down and sighed. “So. What do we do now? I... I am hesitant to admit that I do not know.” She rubbed her eyes. “This whole nation has gone to the dogs since my sister went on that little trip of hers. I do not envy my sister’s responsibility. Stars above, how hasn’t she gone insane? I’ve been here for a few hours and already I’m pulling my mane out!” Luna was glad she had a wig in her closet. It was a gift she thought once was strange, but now she knew it was from some crazy pony who had clearly foretold of this day.

“If I may,” Azure said, and everypony looked at her. “I have a theory.” Everypony redoubled their attention. Lucian, not being a pony, tried hard not to pay any attention to anything, which was surprisingly easy. Azure produced a letter from the ether. She opened it, glanced through it, then looked up and spoke. “There were four attacks in total, and nothing zolidly linkz any of them. But for three of them, the unifying factor iz the alien, iz Luzian. Being that he izn’t native of thiz world, doez not it make zenze they are interrelated?”

The whole room suddenly switched their gaze from Azure to the human, as if sizing him up and speculating as to which parts to attack. Lucian shook his head at each of them. He didn’t know how this was going to end, but he knew that it wasn’t going to end with him sipping pony martinis on a tropical beach.

Luna thought for a moment. “You would suggest that, uh, Lucian is not only related but perhaps an integral cause of all this?”

Azure adjusted her glasses. “I am indeed zuggezting. Ztrongly.”

The air turned decidedly against Lucian, not in an openly hostile, “get on the floor and spread your legs” kind of way, more in a “Hey, did anypony notice there was a lion here the whole time? No sudden movements; your fear makes it amorous” sort of way. Lucian couldn’t help but notice it too, and his mind conjured up images of Princess Luna breaking into his mind like the entity had. With what little he’d seen of her power so far, even his cockiest of cocky attitudes right now didn’t think he’d win that fight. Maybe he could quickly run away and join some sort of circus, if not for the fact that clowns gave him nightmares, and the idea of pony clowns didn’t sit too well with him.

“Lucian,” Luna said in her most diplomatic, reasonable tone, “would you mind staying put for a short while? We can guarantee you safety.”

Lucian swallowed, his heart beating irregularly. That probably meant he was going to have some serious issues in thirty years, but right now, he had mind rape to worry about. “What’s the safe word?” he asked in the calmest voice a boy whose life was probably measured in minutes could.

“Safe word?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

“Like a password?” Twilight asked.

He put his hands on the table, crossing his legs. “Well, since we’re about to bust out the gimp suits, we need a safe word.”

Luna thought for a second. Nope, still didn’t make any sense. Then she noticed the sweat on his brow. For some reason, a strange phrase found itself muttered from her lips: “Well, whip my withers. You’re afraid, aren’t you?” She tried to ignore the weird looks she got.

“Apprehensive is a better word.”

“Dare I ask why?”

“Dare I say it’s obvious,” he said, crossing his arms. “Your offer seems about as legit as German tanks on the Polish border trying to convince the border guard they’re just here for a vacation and nothing else.”

“What?” she asked.

“You know, Nazis. Fun bunch. Really whacky. Save for their unrepentant genocide of millions. It’s one of the few things you can’t make jokes about. I mean, you can try, but it fails. ‘Hey, what’s the difference between a black Jew and a white one? The black ones go to the back of the oven.’ See? Now I’m literally Herr Emo Git-ler, and pretty much a villain because of just how unfunny that joke was.” Everypony just stared at him. “Well, just so we’re clear, the war made for great video games and stuff, because Nazis are always evil by default. Point is, I’m not staying with you, I’m... I’m going to do my own thing.”

“No,” Luna replied simply.

“And Grandpa always told me that no means yes.” Lucian didn’t think of the possible rape implications associated with that phrase. Nor that he actually learned it from watching a television show about a children’s card game. “Weee,” he said in the most mellowed, unenthusiastic voice humanly possible as he jumped out of his chair and landed on the hard, unforgiving ground. He had figured he could skitter away, angst for a day, then get back to doing what he was doing, but that idea scoffed at him, beat him with a rubber garden hose, tied him up, and shoved a fork in his eye. He groaned in frustration, not really finding it in him to care enough to stand up.

“Umm, what just happened?” Azure asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Years of skipping gym class have finally come back to haunt me,” Lucian groaned. “But I just really need to do this, to fight the evil, then go back home and play Doom.”

Luna sighed, looking at her hooves and dimly noticing her cracked glass slippers. She just figured she’d buy some new ones. And never once did it dawn on her that this was impossible: she just didn’t care! “I... I’m sorry, I can’t let you do that.”

“Dave,” Lucian added.

“What?”

“You’re supposed to say, ‘I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t let you do that’, otherwise you’re just being dumb.” Lucian sneered in Luna’s general direction, hoping she could somehow feel the expression through the table which separated them. In fact, now that he thought about it, he realized that he wasn’t thinking about it at all, and that instead his eyes were going a bit blurry. Wait, no, not blurry, just that his eyelids were getting heavy, and his eyes simply defocusing.

Eh, what was the harm in just sort of dozing off? The room was oddly quiet. Probably a trap. Really, Lucian realized it was a terrible idea, but couldn’t find it within himself to care. To him, it was one big j’en ai rien à foutre.

***

Lucian’s eyes opened to the familiar sight of a grey concrete ceiling. Princess Luna always took him to the nicest places. Then he looked down. “Oh, great,” he groaned, “I’m naked. I better still have both my kidneys!”

He looked over to the side, where he knew the bars would be. Instead, there was just an empty hallway. “Oh. Well. This isn’t spooky at all.”

“Ah. You’re awake,” the voice from the ether said.

“Ah. This isn’t cliché,” he groaned. “Listen, Saw Guy, just tell me whom to kill and I’ll pretend to angst about it really hard before finding a way out, okay? Okay. Cool.”

“Um, no, that’s—”

“’Cause I’ve had it up to here with all your crap! This world sucks and I hate it and now I’m naked because all of my clothes are probably dirty and filthy and on fire in someone’s barbeque! I really stopped caring a while ago when I realized I was probably going to die here, eaten by a grue or something, but now this cliché? You just crossed the line! Either show yourself, or I’ll just sit here and do nothing until your evil traps kill me!”

“That works for me,” it chuckled, “for—”

“And how did I even get here?” he snapped. “All I recall was being too lazy to do anything and just falling asleep on the floor. And it must imply that you undressed me to take naked pictures of me so you could have a me-themed pin-up boy calendar, isn’t that right?!”

“You know what? Forget it,” the voice said, sounding more and more like a tired old man. “You’ve transcended a dimension, breaking an eternal law of the multiverse, and for that must you die.”

Lucian sighed, crossing his arms. “You should like my ex. Also, this is clearly a diabolus ex machina.” He shook his head and stared down the empty hallway. “I think I would have preferred waking up in an icy bathtub, missing a kidney.”

Comments

[MindWeb]

I-I don't even remember what this story is, or why it's in my favourites box.

[Mr Clumpy]

2929681 me neither

[LOLman13245]

EKJ AWEHL GAEBLJDSBLDHGAJVLH EALIRHEVILDVHAERH

[Florida]

‘Hey, what’s the difference between a black Jew and a white one? The black ones go to the back of the oven.’

Guess who has two thumbs and is going to hell for laughing at this

[Stalin the Stallion]

2549722
Ayep. He loooves him some fanfics. But even he cannot read all books in existence.

2658511
He have 2 full sets of badges from Johto and Sinnoh. And two badges from Kanto.

2930203
Me

2930340
Ty, i dunno how we misssed that

[Florida]

2932562
I'll join you in that boat ride to hell

[FanOfMostEverything]

I'd forgotten about this for a while. Glad I remembered what it was, and to see it isn't dead.

2929681 2929888
Missingno and Deadpool the Pokémon Trainer glitch their way into Equestria. Hilarity ensues.

[SpeedOfLight]

“You’re supposed to say, ‘I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t let you do that’, otherwise you’re just being dumb.”

blog.ajperez.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/i_see.jpg

I know who gets a cookie

[UseFistNotMouth]

Sloppy but entertaining.

Other than the sloppy editing my only problem with this story is that if you insert a wacky character into a setting, you should not reconform that setting to accomodate the character. That just generates undirected escalation and makes the once out of place wacky one a merely more annoying element of a nonsensical setting.

[DestinyQuill]

You became Douglas Adams. I think we should all be afraid.

[Powerdrainer]

When is this going to update?