"Hey!" Some pony called out walking over. A weird-blue colored pony trotted over to us, and looked a little angry. "What are you two doing here!?!" He shouted at us. "I mean, why on earth would you end up here?!? It's just too cliche!"
"Do we... know you?" Lyra asked.
"Yeah! I only..." He stopped, and made a "derp face." "... am not supposed to be here. I'll be going now!" He squeaked, rushing off.
"You know who that was?" Jay asked.
"Some kook inventor who lives on the outskirts of town." Bonbon explained. "He's comepleatly-"
"Am not!" His voice called from a long way away. I looked at Lyra.
"He... sounded familiar..." I pondered, tapping my chin. Lyra nodded.
"I know I've heard that voice before."
I'm I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't get it out of my head, where had I heard his voice before!?! I know it wasn't the show, so that means... I don't know what that means!! There's no way I could have heard that voice before, unless he interacted with the mane-six at one point, but I know "crazy-unicorn-in-a-cloak" never stopped by at a party... so I've got nothin. Any ways, like all insomniacs do, I was thanking g-... Celestia that the sun finally came up, and immediately went to work, doing anything to cure my boredom. I cooked breakfast. I can make a mean plate of scrambled eggs... sometimes... OK look, I'm still learning the process. But anyway, Eggs were the only option. It was the only dish I could make enough of to feed(/food-poison) everypony.
As I was cracking the eggs in the skillet, Lyra walked in, just as sleepy as I was.
"Were you thinking about that guy too?" I asked.
"Yeah." She yawned. "I was thinking, we should talk to him, figure out what he meant."
"He knew us, more importantly me, I've never been here before. I can understand Pinkie knowing because, come on, she's Pinkie. But this guy ain't no Pinkie Pie, and he knows something. I wanna know how." I said, filling myself with resolve and determination.
I knocked on the door. Nothing happened.
"You think he's home?" I asked.
"The better question is, do you think he's awake?" Lyra asked back. A few hoof steps sounded, and the door opened. On the other side was the alleged town kook, in a robe. He rubbed his eyes a bit, then squinted at us.
"You know, I've been really wanting, and waiting for ponies to stop being weirded out by me, but I never thought they'd wake me up early in the morning." He groaned. "My fault for not being specific with my wishes... Come in, make yourselves comfortable." he said, gesturing to the empty room. "If there are two things to learn about the world, they're: 'nothing's impossible,' and 'be specific with wishes'. You want any coffee?" He asked. I nodded, and he went into the kitchen, and came back a surprisingly short amount of time with a tray of 3 coffee cups, and some creamer. "I like my coffee white." He said, levitating the creamy brown drink to his lips.
"Don't you mean, 'blonde'?" Lyra asked. He shook his head.
"No, I mean so blonde it's white!" He laughed a bit at his own joke.
... When it was clear we weren't going to laugh, he continued. "Enough about me, why are you two here? Just board, or are you looking for you're next adventure?"
"You know about me, and we wanted to see by how much." I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
"What do you mean? I don't know you, not at all..." He said. My eyes narrowed.
"Then what did you mean by that little 'episode' yesterday?" Lyra asked.
"I don't know what your talking about." He said. My eyes narrowed further.
"OK, I don't buy it." Lyra said. "You're a pretty good liar, I mean you're body language is all correct, but your word choice is oh so poor. You must have been caught unprepared." He sighed, and looked down.
"Fine, you got me." He groaned. "I'm actually...." Me and Lyra leaned in. "So not doing that." The pony grinned. "PEACE!" He exclaimed, teleporting away. Lyra groaned.
"Well, you got any four leaf clovers?" She asked. "Because we're either gonna need a lot of luck, or an amazing plan to get this guy."
"So... he teleported away from you?" Twilight asked. Lyra nodded. "He must be some wizard! Did you get a look at his cutie mark?" I shook my head.
"No, he was wearing a cloak the first time, and when we confronted him he had a bathrobe on." I sighed.
"I must admit that I've never actually seen this town kook." Twilight said. Lyra cocked her head to the side.
"Really? I can understand why I've never seen him, but... really? You?" Lyra asked.
"Yeah, I know! It's like he goes out of his way to make sure I never see him. I'll show up to a restaurant, and Pinkie or someone will say that I just missed him. Weird right?" We nodded in response. A familiar voice called from the other room.
"So, this book was OK but I really didn't like the ending." Twilight looked shocked.
"Really? I thought you would have loved it." She called back.
"Who's that?" I asked.
"Oh, him? That's Arc, he stops by for a book to read from time to time." Twilight explained. Then, in stepped the town wacko.
"It was just a little too obvious for me, I could see that twist coming a... mile..." He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw us. I waved at him with a smug grin on my face. He sighed.
"It was nice knowing ya' Twi." He said, walking past us to the door.
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked him, not picking up on who he was.
"I'm moving. Where? I don't know, but this is the last time I'll be here. So good-"
"OH no you don't!" Lyra tackled him. "I want answers, NOW."
"A little extreme, don't you think?" I giggled at Lyra.
"I got no sleep last night, NOTHING'S TOO EXTREME!!!" She shouted, the pony under her flailing about.
"Huh, she makes a good point." I said, as though I had thought it over. I then fell on top of the dog pile, causing him to make a sharp breath out, and flail even more. Then Bonbon came in.
"Princess? I'm looking for Lyra and somepony said they saw-" She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the scene before her. "Lyra." She said flatly from behind her face hoof. "I'm not even going to count, you're going to get up, and let that pony go."
"To be fair, I was a very minor annoyance." "Arc" said from below us. "But your friends removal from my everything would be much appreciated."
"Were the poles really necessary?" He asked, looked at each of the four poles his legs were individually tied to, just tight enough to leave him splayed out like a bear skin rug. "This is starting to feel like a se-TORTURE dungeon." He corrected himself. Was he gonna say... but they don't have those in Equestria... right? RIGHT???
"Then I guess we'll have to come up with a safe word." I evil-grinned at him. His tail immediately curled up protectively behind him.
"What's a safe word?" Lyra whispered in my ear.
"You don't wanna know." I replied.
"I need an adult." He said, in the most innocent sounding voice he could. I couldn't pass up the opportunity. It was just TOO GOOD!
I walked up to him and whispered seductively: "I am an adult." He noticeably shivered.
"OK! That's enough of that!" He said, his voice cracking a bit. "I think we're done here." He said, tugging at the restraints.
"Not until you tell us what we want to hear."
"So, I tell you what you want to hear, and you let me go, and leave me alone?" He asked. I nod.
"Yes."
"We have a deal then."
"Yes."
He grinned. "You're a pretty mare, and everything's gonna be alright." he said to me. Then he turned to Lyra. "You're not a clutz, or stupid. You're smart and cunning as a fox. There, now untie me." He said, smugly.
"Yeah but that's-"
"What you want to hear." He said. "Something's troubling you, and you worried it'll go horribly wrong. You're also insecure about a number of things... and she's the same. Before you ask, I'm good at reading people, call it a gift, and you two are open books. Now, if you could untie me..." He nodded his head to one of the poles. "Unless you're going to go back on your word, which would cause me to be... less than agreeable, or cooperative." Lyra looked speechless back and forth between me and Bonbon.
"He's got a point." Bonbon said, as she moved to untie him.
"BUT WE DIDN'T GET ANSWERS!!!" Lyra shouted. Bonbon untied Arc, and he stood up.
"Thank you," He said. "Now if you excuse me-"
"I lost a whole night's sleep on thinking about this guy!" Lyra exclaimed.
"Oh my..." He said, in a voice that implied a dirt joke.
"Dang it George Stikay!" I said. He started laughing.
"Man I love DBZ abridged..." He sighed. My eyes bulged.
"I KNEW IT!!!" I cried. Pointing a hoof at him, I continued, "You're from my world!" He looked at me.
"I am not!" He retorted.
"Then how did you get that joke? Or the other one?" I asked, pressing closer to him.
"That... is an excellent question." He said. "I'll tell you what, I'll give you EVERY answer you're looking for, written down in a book..."
"THANK YOU!" I smiled, relieved.
"BUT, it'll be encrypted in ciphers." He said.
"How the hay are we supposed to figure that out???" I asked.
"Yeah!" Lyra exclaimed. "I'm not gonna spend time, guessing at your made up language."
"No, you're thinking of a code. Codes are where words are replaced with a code word. I'm putting it in ciphers. Ciphers have each letter replaced with another letter, or symbol, or number, but they always follow a pattern." He explained. His horn lit up, and a red tattered old book appeared, he gave it to Lyra. On it's cover, was the golden shape of a horse shoe, only instead of forming a "U" shape, it formed a "w" shape. She opened it, on the inside cover, it said "Property of" in a pretty hoof-written font, and it had no name below it, and on the page next to it, it said "Vol. 3" in the same font.
"This is a copy of my journal." He said. "I didn't quite perfect the process... but it's still mostly intact. But be gentle, that clone will fall apart very easily." He then turned to leave. "Have fun with that." He said, trotting out the door.
We (Twilight Bonbon, Jake, Lacey, Lyra, and I) sat around at the table, sitting around the tattered old journal, a book of ciphers and cryptograms next to it. I cracked my neck, and opened the book. I flipped open to the ribbon marked page and began to read,
My search for The Author has been less than fruitful. Everywhere I go, he's always gone just before I'm there. I see all the things he does, all the creatures he saves, and I feel like I know him better than myself (and in some aspects I do,) but I've never even met him. It's frustrating, being so close, but having it just out of reach. The transvectional-trimensional locator, and my attempts at improving my sonic-probe are failures, rendering my efforts at tracking him impossible. The pxowlyhuvh is massive, even infinite! I've been able to find the a cluster I dub "Equus" (for obvious reasons) but I don't know which one he's in... but I do know one thing: 12-25-18-1 is the key. I have encoded her name in the event of a potential enimy finding this book. But if I find her, I can find him.
DAY 374
Still nothing. I find myself growing frustrated with my search, I'm thinking of taking a break...
DAY 375
I have decided to take a vacation. With my luck this will be the day I find him, the day I'm not looking. I'm not sure where to go... I can't go home (see journal 1), so I think I'll go to a new dlorw in the Equus cluster. It's surprising how much of the Equus cluster overlaps with the Humanus cluster (see journal 1)... does this mean that Equus was spawned from earth??? It will take some research to confirm, but I'll have time for that after I find him. But that will come after I relax. I'm thinking of observing a world where Equus and Earth overlap. It should be fun! I mean, it's only { (tear in page) }... what could go wrong?
Day 378
Everything. Everything can go wrong. Today, I ran into some teen turned pony... and 12-25-18-1!!! But, unfortunately, she wasn't the right 12-25-18-1. Just another obsessive alternate version. It turns out that I'd read the events of this place before, meaning that an old theory of mine was correct, but of course I already knew that. Any ways, it was fun to observe the events unfolding before me. Unfortunately I left before It was complete, so I wasn't able to anticipate a kidnapping! I tried to stop it and save them, and was close to successful, but unfortunately my thirst for justice overtook me when I should have let them leave, causing us to be captured. Luckily, I had a trick up my sleeve, which they had forgotten to check! I was able to return via vortex manipulator with only the impression of the but of a gun on my face. I've been watching them, and they were able to escape their captors before I could even come up with a plan to save them! If there's one thing all 12-25-18-1's have in common, it's that they're all clever, and have some propensity at transformation spells.
Day 379
I can't believe it but they followed me! I don't even know how! Somehow, they've made it to Ponyville, I believe with the help of a certain sun princess... despite the misconception, alicorns most certainly are NOT GODS , and I would very much appreciate it if they'd stop acting like it. Oh, hold on, someone's at the door.
"That's it." I said.
"WHAT?!?" Lyra practically shrieked. "That can't be it. Who was at the door? Who's The Author, AND WHO THE BUCK IS 12-25-50-WHATEVER!?!" Jake made an exasperated "come on!" gesture.
"Are you KIDDING ME?!?" Jake asked. "I knew ponies were dumb, but COME ON! It's so obvi-OOF!" he was silenced by a punch to the gut from Bon bon.
"Why don't you tell us." She said, I'm pretty sure you can imagine the passive aggressive nature of her voice.
"Lyra!" Jake cowered. "He said he met a human turned pony and 12-12... whatever, ruling out Emma, and Emma is the only person with someone else that came with them over, so then it must be..." He said, motioning for us to finish the thought.
"So that leaves only Lyra." I said.
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Lyra exclaimed. "I don't know who this 'Author' is, and what does he mean 'not the right one'? And why does he call me 12-2-3-4?"
"I know that one!" Twilight chirped. "It's the A1Z26 cipher, where every letter is replaced with it's numerical place in the alphabet, so 'a' is 1, and 'z' is 26. So if you count it out, 12 is... 'L'... 12 is 'y,' 18 is r, and like I said earlier 1 is 'a'." Twilight explained.
"Great, we've only read one page and we have more questions than when we started!" I groaned, hitting my head on the table. Lyra followed suit.
"So..." Lyra said. Lacey walked into the room.
"I'm board!" She announced.
"Ohthankgod." Jake exhaled.
"I don't think I can take much more of just sitting here doing nothing." He said, trotting over to Lacey. "Come on, let's go do something!"
"I'm game." Lyra said, following him.
"Wha...?" I asked, exasperated. "Don't you wanna help me figure this out?" I asked. She shrugged.
"Now that we have the answers right there, it doesn't seem that important to me. We'll figure it out." She patted me on the shoulder. "Now come on, let's go have some fun, for once." I groaned,