Locksmith

by QuartzScale

41. Searching

Spike was frantically looking all over town. There were very few clues after Twilight had sent him on his assignment. Everypony he asked had little to no answers and Twilight had already invited everypony to to the library who met the stallion in question. He was a bit miffed because only the element bearers had any idea about him and only Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight had spoken to him at any length of time.

When Pinkie had tried to meet with him she couldn’t even throw him a party because he somehow evaded her. It took Rainbow Dash several hours just to calm her down before she went fully off the rails. They had successfully calmed her down but she always had this weird look in her eyes. It was as if something was wrong and just out of reach but she couldn’t get her hooves on it. Even her prodigious abilities of appearing anywhere at anytime hadn’t helped her capture that elusive stallion for his ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party.

“Are you sure you haven’t heard much about him Roseluck?” Spike pleaded with one of the flower ponies in town. Roseluck had been one of the few who could actually not faint when something surprising happened… so long as Daisy and Lily weren’t around.

“Sorry Spike. Right now there have been only a few rumors of him roaming around town. From what I can tell the only ponies who really know anything about him are the ponies at the hospital but patient confidentiality is ingrained in them. I do know that a few ponies talked about this bloody thestral that flew to the hospital that one day but nopony knows anything else.” Roseluck whispered conspiratorially.

“I heard that already… Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were the first to spot that. Anything else?” Spike waved his claw around in a gesturing manner hoping that she would feed him more info.

“Sorry… Wait. I think Mayor Mare might know a bit more. She was one of the few who spoke with him at length.” Roseluck gasped in realization.

“Thanks Rose. I’ll see what she knows.” Spike waved while walking towards Town Hall.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that Mayor Mare was the first one he asked before anything else happened. She only told him his name which he already knew from the library book he checked out. Rubbing his claws between his eyes Spike trudged back to the Golden Oaks Library with the little information that he had managed to gather.

There were too many different theories surrounding Nebula Gray and who he spent time with as well as who knew him. From the multiple eyewitnesses he knew now that Octavia Melody, Vinyl Scratch, and Sunshower Raindrops were the only three who knew him implicitly. There had been a few more rumors that Redheart also knew him but she wasn’t at the hospital or on shift for the following week. Overall. Spike had exhausted his leads.

There had also been a few weirder rumors of the same stallion being seen in Canterlot and Baltimare all in the same day. Another that put him in Cloudsdale and the Wonderbolts Academy which made them seem impossible. Twilight had thrown those theories out the window figuratively because they made no sense at all to her. Spike had scrambled to find out a reason for the multiple sightings but Princess Celestia hadn’t sent anypony to check in on the sightings.

“Horseapples… I have nothing at all…” Spike grunted slightly as he reached the front door of the library and swung it open.

Off to the side were the friends they had made the moment that Twilight and him entered town. Though from Twilight’s initial meeting she wanted nothing to really do with them. Spike felt as though the only reason she made friends was because of the end of the world. Although that was his more cynical side coming out. It had taken him a few days to get Moondancer a replacement gift… thanks to a certain princess teleporting him back to the castle. Twilight still hadn’t realized anything but he wasn’t going to tell her anything about it. She needed to learn for herself.

It had taken him a few moments before he noticed the same lavender pony looking expectantly at him. A look he sighed at and shook his head. Twilight grimaced slightly at the lack of new information but she would make due.

“Thanks Spike. I know you tried your best.” Twilight offered a hoof which Spike reluctantly hugged.

“Sorry Twi. There are so many conflicting stories and so far the only ones that seem likely are that Octavia, Vinyl and Sunshower know him better than any other pony in town.” Spike informed the six ponies who turned to the dragon slightly confused.

“Uh… Twi. Whatcha talkin’ bout?” Applejack immediately asked. She had been asked to meet up but had no idea why in the first place. Luckily, the storm that was going to come in for the night would be another couple of days away.

“Oh right… I forgot to mention about it. A few days ago I met a thestral pony who came into the library. From recent investigations I found out he has a home here in Ponyville. There have been a lot of rumors about this stallion for the past week or so. Nopony really knows where he came from and nopony really knows him.” Twilight explained.

“Is that all this is about? I thought it was more dangerous than that.” Rainbow Dash rasped out feigning slight interest due to the sudden interest in a stallion that her friend was showing. Though it did sound familiar in her mind.

“Oh… I think I’ve seen him before. Though… I never thought I would see a pony like that in that condition.” Fluttershy whispered out.

“Condition?” Several ponies called out causing Fluttershy to eep into a corner.

“Don’t worry about that everypony. We just saw some pony covered entirely in blood come fly out of the Everfree. It was a thestral. No big deal.” Rainbow Dash waved it off which made Twilight grab her in a telekinetic field.

“Rainbow Dash why haven’t you told us that yet!” Twilight cried out nearly throttling her in the process.

“Darling you should probably let her down.” Rarity politely tsk’ed her leaving a sheepish grin on her muzzle as she politely put Dash back on the floor.

“You okay Dashie?” Pinkie got close to the pegasus as she fell to the floor dazed. Dash merely nodded before falling flat on her face from the sudden shift.

“Can you tell us anything about it Fluttershy?” Rarity calmly got Fluttershy to rejoin the circle. They were all still getting used to being friends still and there were still some hang ups.

“Um… okay. Well a week or so ago when Applebucking season was close to starting I saw a stallion washing himself in the river near my house-” Fluttershy started.

“My! How scandalous! How closely were you watching?” Rarity immediately got in Fluttershy’s face before being pulled away by Applejack. Fluttershy turned completely red and started to stammer putting a record skip to shame.

“It’s not like that!” Fluttershy cried out though even at that tone it merely sounded as loud as any other pony would be.

“Sorry bout her sugarcube. Now you go on an’ tell us what cha say.” Applejack drawled on forcing Rarity to keep her muzzle shut.

“Ok… Well he was covered in blood and Harry, he’s a bear in case you were wondering, smelled a lot of blood on him. The scary part was that none of his legs were working and he was slowly trying to wash it off of him even though he was in no condition. When he noticed Angel bunny looking at him he took off into the air and flew off in a nervous huff. Rainbow Dash joined me at that point noticing I had nearly screamed when she had come to pick me up. When I mentioned the blood covered stallion she took off to look for him and I followed after making sure Harry didn’t eat anymore berries because they give him tummy problems.” Fluttershy trailed off.

“Fluttershy focus on the stallion. Did you see his cutie mark?” Twilight brought up causing Fluttershy to cringe slightly.

“Um… uh… I think so… I wasn’t really looking at his flank… I think they were stars… in the shape of a key… maybe… “ Fluttershy squeaked out mostly because she wanted to crawl into the deepest hole she could find.

“Yeah… That sounds exactly like Nebula Gray. I made a note of his cutie mark when he came to the library. It was weird though. He took out a dating book for some reason. Spike which copy did you give him?” Twilight surmised as she looked towards Spike.

“The one with all the tabs in it. It looked as though it pleased him enough to get some pointers on it.” Spike nonchalantly answered only to realize that Twilight was now rounding upon him.

“You WHAT!?” Twilight screamed out both clearly frustrated and blushing immensely.

“You said you were done with it!” Spike cried out as he ran up the stairs barricading himself in the bedroom.

“Uh… Twilight. What’s the big deal? It’s just a book.” Rainbow Dash waved it off as unimportant.

“Right… Not important at all. Not important at all.” Twilight grinned maniacally.

Nopony was convinced but after seeing Twilight bench press an Ursa Minor nopony wanted to say anything to the contrary. It took several minutes before she calmed down enough to speak again.

“So… what was so important about this stallion that we’re here talking about him darling?” Rarity cleared the air trying to figure out why it was important in the first place.

“Well it isn’t common knowledge but something happened up in Baltimare a few weeks back. Somehow four guards have been lost since then, a captain and three privates. From certain ponies we learned that only one new pony appeared around that time period and it was a thestral. Nopony knows where they came from because he never spoke at length about himself. From there he took a train over here to Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration. While the princess doesn’t think he had anything to do with it they would want to know if he does know something.” Twilight explained.

“So you reckon that if in he was covered up in blood he might be some kind of bad pony.” Applejack harshly stated getting a bit antsy at the sudden deluge of info.

“No. I checked with the hospital and while they did keep most of his records quiet they did tell me it was his own blood… more than should be possible within a stallion’s body in fact. The fact that he survived was something that shocked them beyond all belief.” Twilight defused the situation making Applejack soften her glare and being a bit apprehensive about things.

“So you think Gray knows something or other about things in Baltimare and you want to sass it out of him. He’s a sus with the perfect al.” Pinkie rubbed under her chin while wearing a deerstalker cap and blowing bubbles out of a comically large pipe.

“Tch. It’s just one stallion. I doubt that he would be part of anything and he only got himself hurt because he did something stupid.” Rainbow Dash perked up managing to rub her head from the massive headache she was feeling.

“That’s the thing though. He’s been so quiet that the only things I’ve found out about him is that he is very quiet about everything.” Twilight hollered in frustration.

“I think I did hear a few things from the pony’s mouth darling.” Rarity called out causing Twilight to stumbled slightly.

“You have!” Twilight grimaced as she held back her voice giggling slightly at her sudden outburst.

“Only a bit darling. It seems he already has a special somepony somewhere in this town. Now I normally am not one for gossiping but I did hear he had a date with Redheart that night he came into the boutique. I was surprised that such a hard working mare that was so focused on her career would immediately go out with some stranger.” Rarity tittered as she released whatever she had found out.

Like clockwork, the girls all reacted as one would expect. Fluttershy blushed into her hooves. Rainbow Dash scoffed and pretended to vomit out all the mushiness. Pinkie was beside herself literally jumping with an exact clone of herself. Applejack merely pursed her lip in thought. Twilight, in the long run, looked over her scroll and made a list of possible ponies to interrogate in some capacity. So far she was looking at speaking with Vinyl Scratch and Octavia at the very least the next time she saw them. Now she could add Redheart and Sunshower to the list.

“Thanks girls this will make it easier to figure out what is going on. The princesses have voiced plenty of concern because those guards haven’t come back and there was no trace of them. It’s as if the darkness swallowed them up making them disappear from Equestria. Though that’s just silly. It would be impossible to do that even with the Princess’s magic. All they would like me to do is talk to this stallion and see if he knows anything.” Twilight confidently stated.

“Ya sure sugarcube?” Applejack bluntly asked completely uncertain of her capabilities of finding out the truth.

“What do you mean?” Twilight nearly scoffed but bit back her retort. She was still getting used to being nice to other ponies… she was working at it at the very least.

“No offense Twi but are ya sure you can make this here varmint tell the truth?” Applejack calmly questioned her new friend.

“Yes Applejack. I’m certain he would answer. Nopony who would check out a book to make themselves better for a mare would possibly be a bad guy.” Twilight confidently praised the power of books holding her head high while her eyes were shut in wise sage mode as she secretly told herself whenever she needed to make a point… with books.

“Alright then Twi. If you need any help with this pony don’t hesitate to ask.” Applejack warned her friend uncertain now of what could possibly happen. She wasn’t certain but she felt something off with the stallion when she first met him. There was something off about him but she couldn’t put her hoof on the reason for it.

“Don’t worry Applejack. I’m sure Twilight has everything under control.” Rarity flicked her mane as she went towards the door. “If you’ll excuse me there are some projects I must be finishing soon.”

“I gotta get ready for Weather Patrol tonight. Some weird clouds were seen in the area.” Rainbow Dash glibly replied as she flew out the door with Rarity leaving four ponies in the room.

“I have to go take care of my animals… if that’s ok? Sorry…” Fluttershy squeaked out but made no move to step out of the room.

“That’s okay Fluttershy. We understand.” Twilight immediately answered which made Fluttershy smile before she trotted off.

“Some more applebucking I gotta do before the day ends. Don’t forget to ask if you need any help with that critter wrangling.” Applejack gave Twilight the look as she tipped her hat and galloped off for the farm.

“Hey Twilight… Are you sure you could handle this pony?” Pinkie Pie asked slightly seriously which caught the unicorn off guard.

It was the first time she had ever seen Pinkie Pie even the slightest bit serious since the battle with Nightmare Moon. Throughout that entire incident she kept feeling something fall by her so called Pinkie Sense, trademark pending apparently, but nothing around them ever fell. It was something she wanted to find out more about but with the constant assault of the gala ticket and the Baked Bads Bonanza she couldn’t find the time for it. It had become a distant thought for much later but something was really off at this point keeping her from focusing on the past.

“What do you mean Pinkie?” Twilight grimaced.

“He’s good. Really good. I don’t know how he does it but he’s managed to dodge all my attempts to throw him a surprise party without even meaning or trying to. What’s more is that everytime I try to find him I can’t actually get anywhere near him. It vexes me so. I know he knows I’m trying to get him a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party but he’s being more stubborn than Applejack was for the Applebucking Season. So you got to be better than he is and try not to use any magic… I think he can tell when you’re casting.” Pinkie whispered the last part conspiratorially to her.

“I’m sure I can do this Pinkie. I have to have faith that I can do this. Princess Celestia is counting on me.” Twilight remarked, puffing her chest out in pride.

Pinkie merely nodded and pronked off towards Sugarcube Corner. Even as she did pronk away Twilight noticed that the contemplative look on her face had not disappeared. Twilight mused to herself trotting around the library picking up several books which she felt might help her. Amongst the titles were Interrogation and You: Guide to Good Cop, Bad Cop, 101 Ways to get a Confession, and Seducing your Stallion: Mare it all. The last book was… a joke book but it did provide some help.

‘Maybe if I play my cards right these methods would produce the best results… Still this might be seen as only shallow misgivings which he could pick on almost immediately. If I do this then I got to walk the walk and talk the talk.’ Twilight mentally paced back and forth looking for an answer within the books she had picked off the shelf.

‘What if he gets the wrong idea and thinks I’m crushing on him? He already has a herd if the rumors are true. Though Mother always did say I would work better in a herd… oh what does she know! I’m fine as I am right now.’ Twilight rolled her eyes putting away the seduction manual confident that she didn’t need it.

‘Sweet Celestia what was I thinking. I’m a mare of magic and science. Of course with a little logic I can get some information and please Princess Celestia… but what if she isn’t happy with my methods. What if I don’t get any pertinent information out of Gray. What if she sends me back to Magic Kindergarten…!’ Twilight hyperventilated as she tried to calm her panic attack down from major to minor but it kept coming up short. Then she remembered that he wasn’t even in town.

‘You’re getting ahead of yourself Twilight. First we have to wait for him to return back to Ponyville then we make our move. Or… maybe I could go about this smarter… And ask those he decided to get close to. Yes! This will be perfect.’ Twilight rubbed her hooves together in gleeful recognition that she had a significantly better plan than confronting the pony she wanted to know about in the first place for Celestia’s sake.

‘I hope he doesn’t ask me about the book… I didn’t even get to look over the herd section and make my own notes about it. Aw jeez… he’s gonna make fun of me I know it. No. No! He was nice enough and I doubt he would make fun of me… though some stallions that tried to talk to me did confuse me with their teasing… but I showed them and sent them packing. I better make sure I don’t use my packing spell on him. I’ll be fine. I probably won’t cast on him. I’m not that kind of mare after all.’ Twilight affirmed to herself smiling as she started her checklist on the plans she was going to try.

---

We floated over the horizon of Equestria. Even though we had been gone close to a week the date on the console for Equestria had barely changed by an hour. The ladies all looked at it and felt their own internal clocks say that it was the right time as well.

“How is this possible?” Octavia gasped lightly while the other ponies couldn’t fully articulate their thoughts.

“Remember that this particular warp function was created by Merlin. Merlin is one of the few wizards to ever break the very foundation of space and time making it his ability to transcend those bounds and be everywhere and anywhere all at once without losing himself. The gummi piece centralizes it to the ship so that whenever we use it it syncs our time to our original planet. So since we are Equestrians we get our own internal clocks that say we’re on Equestrian times. Even if we need sleep the time difference changes based on the planet and where we are in relation to the entirety of Equestria.”

“Can you simplify that?” Vinyl rubbed the back of her head as did everypony else.

“We move on Equestrian time. No matter where we go. So we can go somewhere and potentially come back the next minute with nothing happening on Equestria because of it.”

“So when we get back it would be like we lived a week in one day?” Fresh Coat queried as she looked over the world.

“Kind of. It’s a difficult disconnect between time on a different planet and time on Equestria and the warp functionality powered by magic and technology makes things… uncertain. I don’t think there is any real way to explain well enough without giving you all a headache and me an aneurysm. So we’re just gonna say a wizard did it and look at that a wizard certainly did do it.”

“That sounds like the lazy way out though.” Spitfire mentioned though I could tell that she was more appreciative of that than she let on if her holding her head in her hooves was any indication.

“Maybe. At least it’s the best I can explain now. Otherwise, we would have to go find Merlin to explain. How much more time do you all have off?”

“From what I wrote down when we found out about keyblades, we had all taken a week off. If it’s been only hours from the moment we left that night then it’s most likely that we still have five more days before we have to continue with our jobs and livelihoods.” Octavia informed me as she looked over a small planner.

“I take it you were practicing before hoof to be the Alpha mare of the herd then?”

“Y-yes. I mean no! I just wanted to get things organized for us.” Octavia blurted out all at once to the chuckles of the others.

“I do have one more shift tomorrow before I get time off unfortunately.” Redheart grumbled as she stretched out.

“You couldn’t get Tenderheart to do it?” Vinyl asked aloud.

“No she was still reeling when she met Gray so she’s been out of it lately.” Redheart sighed.

“I suppose our stallion had that effect on single mares.” Fresh Coat crooned as she hopped onto my back and curled her forehooves around my neck.

“Hey! It’s another pony’s turn Fresh.” Spitfire brought up.

“So far you, Spitfire, and Sunshower have rest on my back during this adventure.”

I quirked an eye back over towards the pouty mare on my back who merely grumbled as she slid off. I shook my wings off a bit since I’d kept them retracted while we were flying through space. The chairs were very uncomfortable whenever I had my wings flared out.

“My turn!” Octavia sang as she hopped on my back.

I grunted from the sudden shift. While she wasn’t heavy she was still an earth pony and I could feel a lot of muscle from her on my back. I thought about my options as she snuggled into me. I decided to let her have her fun while I thought back on my own agenda for Equestria.

Eventually I was going to be discovered by the princesses. The ladies were going to sleep and Luna was going to investigate their dreams. Even if I found them dream eaters in some capacity that would only gather suspicions rather than dissuade them from forming. I also had no reservations of the idea of somepony asking about me… especially with somepony like Pinkie Pie around. I tilted my head back and forth while Octavia lightly tapped at my ear with her hoof. At this point I could tell she was very cat like from time to time. It certainly would explain some of their more flexible moments.

No I didn’t get Octavia to show me how flexible she was… yet. All good things would come later. At this moment I was more worried that somepony might be asking questions about me in any capacity. Twilight certainly seemed interested in turning me into a science experiment of some sort. Though most likely given her hooves off approach she sent Spike out to do the recon before she committed to the project. So far only up to the incident with the Griffon happened while I have gone through the archives that God set up for me to see in my dreams.

That meant that the dragon incident was going to happen sooner or later. In three days we would be leaving for the second planet before I wait for a while until everypony could get more days off. I looked over each of the mares and finally decided that we waited long enough on the ship.

“So… let’s head down and relax for a while. We’ve worked pretty hard for the last week and deserve some free time right?”

There were plenty of ‘woo’s’ and cheers from everypony as we made our way towards the save point. Though as everypony left towards it I felt Octavia nip at my ear pretty hard to get my attention. When I turned my head to look at her she sheepishly averted her eyes from mine blushing intensely.

“What’s wrong?”

“What do you want us to do when we get back on Equestria when it comes to talking about you?” Octavia questioned.

“Be vague about it. I’d rather not have everypony looking for a piece of me for something trivial as getting a better understanding of the rest of the world. Nopony needs to know what we all did since I’m not looking to be revered or worshipped or even propped on a pedestal. I’d rather remain an anonymous nopony living with all of you peacefully with only the smallest moments of chaos in between to keep things interesting.”

“Okay Gray. If anypony asks we’ll just make something up?” Octavia shrugged uncertainly.

“No. If you don’t want to talk about it. Just say you don’t want to talk about it. That it’s between you and me.”

“That sounds better. So… like a Pinkie promise then?” Octavia muttered

“No. More flexible. This is so if you are forced to say anything I wouldn’t be mad.”

Octavia nodded and indulged some more on snuggling on my coat. I didn’t think much of it until she started to sniff at my neck and shuddered in bliss. I looked at her again and she merely blushed and did it more brazenly under my full attention. I certainly didn’t enjoy it and feel things rise up out of my control. I merely walked towards the others and activated the save point in my home allowing all of us to once again step on Equestrian soil.

Comments

[Fluffy-Boi]

Awesome chapter. Love that they are back.. Also Twilight is sending me some creepy stalker vibes. Not saying she is stalker just the vibes I am getting.

[Mourningmist]

8433661
Agreed.