Words of Advice from the many worlds of Twilight

by Joe Toon

8: "The Archivist" or "The Mare who asked, "Who is Anon"?"

"Are you sure you're okay, Twilight? You seemed rattled from your last visit with the wise old version of yourself and now it looks like you hit the lottery after you received that weird letter."

"I'm fine, Spike. In fact, I feel more than fine right now!"

Twilight excitedly rushed to her quarters after Day Court. She just received a letter from her mysterious benefactor with an address to help her fellow alicorn versions of herself that are to be warned of a dangerous version of herself.

"Let's just say, I've found an answer to a very big problem." Twilight gave a determined smile as she begins to dial the address into the seal. She takes a moment to look at Spike who was now fidgeting his claws from a distance. "Aren't you coming?"

"Sorry Twilight," Spike hung his head low apologetically, "I still need to monitor Rainbow Dash while she takes lessons from Princess Luna on how to Dream Walk."

"Wait, it was today?" clearly bothered at forgetting Rainbow's lesson, Twilight began to contemplate whether she should miss out the lesson or to proceed.

Noticing this, Spike stepped forward, "I'll talk to her. This looks really urgent to you and I'm sure Dash will understand."

Twilight gratefully nodded with a smile, "Thanks Spike, tell her I'll make it up for her by taking her with me and Applejack next time."

Spike gave her a reassuring smile before he turned to leave her room.

---

"Alright, here we are again Twilight. Let's just make our way to the tree and..."

"Pinkie, could you please pass me the coffee?" came a familiar voice.

Right next to the tree Twilight could see a familiar lavender coloured unicorn sitting next to a desk covered with stacks of books, scrolls and notes; lots of notes. Beside the desk stood a pin chart with notes, pictures and strings connecting them together. All led to a single word in the center of the board on a picture of a green figure with a question mark covering the face; "Who is Anon?"

"Pinkie, where is my coffee? I need my... oh." Twilight's counterpart spun her chair around to stare eye-to-eye with her for a long awkward moment.

"Oh, it's you." And the moment was over from the unicorn's deadpan tone as she spins her chair back to the desk, turning her back on Twilight, "While you're here, could you make me some coffee? I need to my caffeine if I am to finish my work."

"Um, I'm not sure if..."

"I know who you are, Princess Twilight Sparkle." said the unicorn without turning to look at her, "Element of Magic, Ruler of Equestria Prime, Etcetera, Etcetera." She spun round to face Twilight with an annoyed frown, "Speaking of which, you're late! I was expecting you two hours ago."

"Wait, what?"

"How much do you know of the Administrator?" her unicorn counterpart asked inquisitively.

"Not much, I'm afraid," came Twilight's reply, "Only that he was keen to help."

The unicorn sighed, "Of course he'd leave out details. Well basically, I work for him. I've been assigned as a monitor for my world; which means nothing goes in or out of my reality without my knowing. As a side job, I've also taken the task to archive every version of Equestria. From worlds where we are the keepers of the Elements of Harmony to realities where we do not even exist."

Twilight's eyes lit from this, "D-does that mean you know the location of..."

"Yes, your majesty," the unicorn deadpanned on Twilight, "I know every location of every creature of interest in every version of Equestria. Where they are, where they've been, and sometimes where they'll be."

Numbers ran across Twilight's head at the notion, "B-but wouldn't that take a lifetime to put together? Even Celestia couldn't keep track of everypony in our Equestria and she's over a thousand years old!"

"Try several lifetimes," came the reply, "The Elements of Harmony kept the six of us immortal for five thousand years. All of us out lived our friends and family from Ponyville, our husbands, our children, their children, and so forth. I buried Spike, saw Celestia and Luna retire, watched Starlight and Flurry Heart take over their respective thrones, witnessed the colonising of the moon and the surrounding planets, all that jazz while we live on to keep this world from tearing itself apart. Any questions?"

Twilight was speechless at this point. On one hand(/hoof), she reminded her of the Infinite while on the other, at least she seemed to care enough about others to take her work seriously (for what it's worth).

She cleared her throat and responded, "I suppose my questions can wait for another time. Right now however, I'd like a list of worlds that have us as alicorns who haven't been warned of "Her" coming to get them."

"Straight to the point? Good, that'll make my job a whole lot easier." The unicorn began scribbling a list in a parchment as she continued talking, "That way, I'll be able to finally continue my little side project."

Twilight stared at her curiously, "What exactly is this side project of yours?"

"To solve the greatest mystery across almost every version of our reality," her counterpart replied without looking up as she continued to fill the list, "To find the answer to one that puzzles me ever since I first met him."

"Him?"

The archivist stopped scribbling as she looks up to her with crazed eyes, "Anon."

"Who's Ano...!" Twilight stopped as she just realised the mistake she just made after just remembering the last line of her letter. Uh oh.

The unicorn dropped the parchment, stood up from her desk and approached the pin chart with manic eyes and grinned. "Anon! Full name: Anonymous. The one creature that reoccurs across several versions of Equestria that shouldn't exist! He is an anomaly that defies all logic, despite the many other variations of our world that somehow has a being from another existence roam Equestria freely! In most versions, he arrived as a human in Equestria. In others, he's a green earth pony who was originally human. Sometimes he has a different name, sometimes he has no memory of his past life. Several times he acts like a total jerk to everypony, other times he's oblivious to everything around him.

"8 out of 10 alternations he is a lustful beast that has the six of us, the two princesses or both in his harem despite lacking any charm whatsoever!" At this point, her manic expression grew even more, "Other times he finds a way to put the six of us to shame and trial by a series of misunderstandings just to give himself a moral high ground or to curry favour with the princesses! Other times, he straight up replaces us as heroes for Equestria, denying the six of us our destines laid out by..." She stopped for a moment, "Oh right, that's classified."

She turned to Twilight while slamming the chart with her hoof and kept her crazed expression (similar to the time Twilight tried to find a friendship problem for her project) which gave the princess a wince. "The point is, Anon is a mystery that needs to be studied! I asked the Administrator for answers ever since I first met the anomaly and every time all he ever told me was not to worry too much about it. I know he's hiding something about him from me! I know he knows what he is! He just won't tell me! Well, FINE BY ME! If he won't tell me what in the lowest depths of Tartarus Anon is, I'LL DO IT MYSELF! I have the time and resources! (Heh) I WILL FIND OUT WHAT HE IS! AND WHEN I DO, I WILL STICK HIM IN A BOTTLE, PIN HIM TO A WALL AND MAKE HIM DISCORD'S PERSONAL PLAYTHING FOR HUMILIATING ME ALL THESE YEARS! MWAHAHAHAAA!" The archivist exploded in a maniacal cackle as she raised her forehooves in the air and laughed.

Utterly horrified at the sight, Twilight slowly reached for the list on the desk, rolled it like a scroll and turned to the archivist, "I'll just be taking the list now. I suppose I'll see you later then."

The unicorn ignored her and continued her crazed laughter and rant as Twilight set the seal to return her home.

---

"Hey, Twilight! You made it. I thought you weren't coming after Spike told me about your urgent business. Wait, you alright there, Egghead?"

"Rainbow... If I ever go Twilighting over the edge, please for the love of Celestia put me out of my misery."

Author's Note:

G'day all,
To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to write when I thought about this chapter. All I knew was, "How can I get Twilight to be in her craziest state? Then I thought, what could possibly put off the mare that needs to know everything?

The rest was history.

Comments

[Comickook]

Whoa mama. Definitely a great job on this chapter. Again, the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up are well done. Really appreciated Twilight's chat with her Archivist counterpart. Indeed, I COULD understand how the recurrence of this "Anon" character could drive the latter to that level of insanity (for the reasons she mentioned herself), especially if she already had the grief of outliving and having to bury Spike. Though, in addition to the list of alicorn versions that haven't been warned yet, maybe she COULD have also asked about an additional list for versions of herself who could be useful in helping stop whoever has been targeting her alicorn counterparts (Of course, the odds are that there would be at least a few names that are on both lists). But, I DID like that scene with Main Rainbow at the end.

REALLY looking forward to more of this.

[Charlie_K]

Just so you know, this story may or may not have help inspired the latest arc in my own story, which has the canon Twilight from the cartoon finding herself in the reality of the story.

[Joe Toon]

10874189
I'm honoured.

[Joe Toon]

10874142
Oh, she'll find out what she's missing soon enough.

[ThatGuyTookMyUserName]

"Sorry Twilight," Spike hung his head low apologetically, "I still need to monitor Rainbow Dash while she takes lessons from Princess Luna on how to Dream Walk."

zam.zamimg.com/images/2/a/2aaa61aac9f76cfdf5bcdb3ccf3a7238.jpg

[MatTheBook]

"Rainbow... If I ever go Twilighting over the edge, please for the love of Celestia put me out of my misery."

😳😳😳😳😳

Remove my memories