After an awkwardly silent walk, the pair of siblings and their new companion found themselves in front of the Sunny Sky’s Pizzeria. “I’m not sure my stomach’s ready for this…” groaned Zain.

“Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“The last time she said she had a surprise for us, she got an entire basket of special hot peppers from the market and made ‘rainbow lava pizza’.”

“I’ll admit that one was a bit rough…”

Feeling a weight off her back, Zeph looked to her side to see the lavender bunny hopping to the ground as he sniffed excitedly into the air. A moment later, he hopped off into the pizzeria. Not wanting to be left behind, Zeph followed after the bunny and found him staring at a partially eaten, practically glowing orange pizza sitting at an empty table.

“No pets on the tables!” Yelled a female voice from across the pizzeria. Turning to face the voice Zeph waved awkwardly at Flare.

“Sorry about that, he got away from me…” Looking back to the bunny, she saw him now sitting on the bench next to the table. “You really can understand ponies, can’t you?” Whispered Zeph. The bunny nodded affirmatively and pointed to the pizza, then rubbed his belly. Looking back towards Flare, Zeph yelled, “Is this pizza the surprise you wanted to show us?”

“Nah, that was just an experiment Cozy wanted to try. You’re welcome to eat as much as you want. Though we concluded that the experiment was a complete failure.”

Zeph grabbed a slice of pizza and put it on what appeared to be an unused plate, and placed it next to the bunny. Who ate it as if it was the best-tasting food in the world.

“That’s good?” The bunny nodded enthusiastically, then lifted the plate indicating he wanted more. After giving him two more slices, Zeph decided to try a nibble herself. “It kind of tastes like… nothing?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty weird. It’s made from crystal glow berries, which are pretty tasteless, but Cozy wanted to make a sauce with them to see if it would make a cool-looking pizza, which it did, but it also sucked the flavor completely out of all the other ingredients too.”

Zeph watched as Zain took a nibble and smiled as he whispered under his breath. “Best pizza I’ve ever had here. She finally made something that doesn’t taste like driftwood.”

Rolling her eyes, Zeph looked back towards Flare, who was now walking towards them with a saddlebag on. Reaching the table, she reached into her bag and pulled out a thin rectangular metal and glass box, then placed it on the table while brimming with excitement.

“This is the surprise I wanted to show you.”

Zain sneered and rolled his eyes. “We’ve seen those weird things before. They’re weird, but not exciting.”

“Yes, but have you seen one that does this before?” Zeph watched in awe as Flare tapped the object, causing it to spring to life. Suddenly, the once pitch-black glass showed a vibrant glowing picture of a flower-filled meadow unlike anything Zeph had ever seen before with numbers floating in the sky.

Zeph broke her gaze away from the glass and looked up at Zain, who was looking at the glass slack jawed in shock until the glass went black once more.

“What do you think?”

Zain grabbed the object and tapped it the same way Flare had. “I think this might be the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen. What do you think the numbers mean?”

“It kind of looks like it could be the time. It changes every minute or so,” Declared Flare.

“It changes?” asked Zeph as she inched closer to the object to watch. A moment later, sure enough, the number on the end went up by one. “You think these things are some kind of ancient clock?”

Hearing a flop, Zeph looked over to see the bunny hop on the table and make his way over to the device. Flare tried to stop him as she shouted, “hey, I said no pets on the table!” After grabbing the object, the bunny hopped back down on the bench and began touching it.

Zeph watched in awe as the glass changed from a clock to a bunch of tiny pictures. Most of which looked completely foreign to Zeph, but a few looked familiar, like the notepad, flower, and calendar.

“What’s up with this bunny?” asked Flare, who seemed to be having a hard time deciding if she wanted to stare at the bunny or the glass, which kept changing. Zeph told Flare the entire story as they watched the bunny rapidly change between images on the glass until he sighed heavily and huffed. Sitting back, he seemed to tap on the flower image, which caused the glass to change to the most shocking scene of all.

Zeph found herself staring at tiny images of…

“A-are those earth ponies!? I thought they were just made up legends. They look so real,” Mutter Zain in a state of disbelief.

The images of earth ponies in a surreal cityscape that Zeph could barely comprehend flew across the glass as the bunny swiped his paw down the glass until he suddenly stopped at a picture of a poster of rather intense magenta colored earth pony mare wearing a strangely textured blue dress, and glowing necklace stood with her mane blowing in the wind and the text “Today’s dreams are the foundation tomorrow is built upon.” Looking away from the glass, she saw a heartbroken expression on the bunny’s face as tears formed in his eyes.

Putting a hoof on his shoulder, she nudged him. “You doing okay? Do you know that pony?” The bunny rubbed his eyes as he nodded. “Is she your owner?” He thought for a moment, then nodded in a tippy manner, then followed with a shrug as if to say close enough. “So, not your owner, but some pony who’s important to you?” The bunny nodded again.

“Does this bunny actually understand you?” asked Flare in a bemused tone.

“It seems so.”

“What’s his name, anyway?”

“That’s a good question…” The bunny swiped away the image and then tapped on the Notepad image, which brought up a blank screen. A few swipes later, the formally blank section of the glass read, “Name = Argon.”

“I’m guessing that means your name is Argon?” asked Flare. The bunny nodded.

“That’s one mystery down only a gazillion left to go,” quipped Zain.

Zephs attention was caught by the glass flashing red for a moment before going black. “That didn’t look good.” Argon picked up the object and pointed to a circle on the back of it. “I have no idea what that means,” Argon sighed heavily, then proceeded to act out as if he had died. “So you’re saying it’s died?” Argon indicated that she was half right. “So, it’s kind of dead. Can we bring it back to life?” Argon nodded and pointed to the circle on the back. “Still no clue what that means.” Argon glared at her for a moment before pointing at the pizza. “Sure, you can have some more.” Argon shook his head.

Flare clapped her hooves together. “He’s trying to tell us it needs fuel! I have some lamp oil in the back. Will that work?” Argon indicated that she was right, but the oil wouldn’t work. “Does it run on glow berries then?” Argon slammed his paw against his forehead. “So, no… Well, I’m stomped.”

“Do you have a pencil he could use to write?” asked Zeph. Which prompt Flare to trot to the back and returned with a relatively small pencil, which was still so large that Argon could barely hold it let alone attempt to write with it, but after a moment of struggling he broke off the tip of the pencil and began to write on a piece of paper provided by Flare. Once he was done, all three ponies looked at the paper and unanimously agreed it was mostly gibberish. “Most of these words mean nothing to us, and the ones that we do know don’t make sense in the context… Sorry.”

Zain cleared his throat. “So, just to recap things. We know that earth ponies really do exist. Argon is from wherever the earth ponies are, and that crystal glow berry pizza should be added to the regular menu.”

Flare stared at Zain, perplexed. “But it’s completely flavorless. Why would you want that added to the regular menu?”

Author's Note

I always thought it would make more sense for Earth ponies to be the technologically advanced ones because they seem like they should be the most intune with metallurgy.