PLEASE NOTE THAT CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE TO CLOSER FOLLOW THE STORIES OF THE SUSPECTS

Lyra Heartstrings woke abruptly from her sleep when a loud knock was heard against her door, it sounded urgent judging by the loudness and speed of the knocking. The turquoise pony jerked herself upright in her bed, her eyes still half shut. She looked around the room, disoriented after waking up in the middle of a deep sleep, she had calculated her sleep pattern to the minute and hated it when others woke her up during the deep cycles. Lyra slowly turned herself to face her room, the blue light from the moon filled her room as a gentle cool breeze flowed in from her bedside window. She heard the knock again, this time it was more rapid. Lyra quietly mumbled in a tired slurr, "Okay I'm on my way, what is it?"

The pony on the other side sounded disturbed, his voice was shrill and worried as he responded, "There's an emergency at the facility, Lyra, I need your help."

"Why me?" Lyra said, still half asleep, "Can't you get somepony else to help you?"

"Only you are an expert on this subject, its urgent." The other pony had begun to pant, it seemed as though he was in such a rush that he forgot to breathe before bleating out his emergency.

Lyra yawned, it took a few seconds before she processed what the other pony had said, her brain was taking its time waking up. Lyra made her way to her door, looking at all the star patterns and drawings of ape anatomy on her walls as she walked up to the door. When she opened the door, standing in front of her was the white unicorn everypony knew as Prince Blueblood. Lyra quickly shook her head and bowed down before him as she said, "My apologies, your highness," she began, "I didn't know it was you."

Blueblood moved his hoof behind Lyra and swept her out the door as he said urgently, "There's no time to be bowing down, you need to be at the facility ASAP." Blueblood quickly galloped off in front of Lyra once they were out the door, the midnight sky was bright and lit up the silent Canterlot with a calming blue light that was polka-dotted with the yellow glow of the streetlights. Lyra quickly followed after him, she had woken up by now yet her hooves still felt stiff, her mane was a mess but judging by the looks of her boss there were more important things than brushing each others hair right now. Lyra galloped through the city and made her way to the Royal Archives where the facility had been set up beneath it, a few years after Twilight was crowned Princess, Blueblood turned to studying scientific anomalies, despite having no prior degrees in any field of study. Lots of ponies assumed it was for his political image, but the things they have figured out in the past years could testify otherwise. Lyra was quickly hired for her expertise in anthropomorphic creatures such as Spike, Discord, and primates. It wasn't often that creatures would need to walk on their hind legs and it was her dream to find out why only certain animals did so. Other ponies were accepted into the facility, each with a certain expertise in a specific field. The group remained exclusive and extremely secretive. Nopony was worried about what would happen if any secret was told outside the facility, because nopony dared disobey Blueblood's orders. Lyra felt like she preferred this job over her past job, which was playing the harp at parties, which she admitted sucked quite a bit. This job focused on finding out about something she always wondered herself, the existence of intelligent anthropomorphic primates.

It wasn't too long ago that ponies began to uncover remnants of older civilizations, such as rubber rings which were hollow on the inside and what appeared to be inflatable. Pieces of fabric were also dug up and looked as though they were designed to warm the legs of certain creatures, but they had a curve in them which signified that ponies weren't able to wear them. Lyra had taken an interest in these pieces of fossils, she believed that they would help uncover pieces of lost history and bring them closer to finding the origins of their existence.

As Lyra arrived at the Archives, she watched as Blueblood spun a shelf of books to reveal a staircase and rushed inside. A muffled noise could be heard inside as the white unicorn opened the door and said with his eyes darting from side to side, "Get in quick, ever since I found it, its been making noises and theres no way to turn it off." He looked from side to side to make sure nopony had noticed their activities before he pulled Lyra inside. Once inside, the royal stallion looked towards the basement floor and back at Lyra as he said with a look of wonder on her, "I think this is what you've been looking for for all those years."

Lyra's eyes widened with excitement, her heart began to race, her mouth went dry, and her mind began to race with millions of thoughts as to what it may look like. She wondered whether it had scales or not, the features it had that were similar and those that were different to a primate, all sorts of questions as she asked with her mouth curving into a smile, "Can I go see it?"

Blueblood nodded, "Remember," he began, "never tell anypony what you're about to witness." Blueblood's horn slowly lit up as the basement room lit up and the noises loudened. He motioned his head to quickly move into the basement before the whole town was woken up by the noises.

Lyra dashed through the door, her excitement caused her to wonder of all sorts of things as she trotted down the stairs with a smile across her face. What she saw next made her heart sink, she could almost feel it hit the floor when she made eye contact with the creature. Inside the large glass tube there was a pale pink skinned creature much like a primate but with no fur at all. It lay on the floor with one front paw under the opposite armpit and the other against the glass as it hollered once more as loud as it could, its voice cracked and he had trouble making noise. Lyra approached it, she could see the cheeks were stained with tears and the only fur it had was on its head was matted with sweat. She quickly looked over the creatures complexion, its mouth and jaw were more sunken in than an ape's and it had a much larger head and therefore a much larger brain. She looked over the body to see no breasts and had what appeared to be male reproductive organs between its legs. She watched as it shook rapidly and noticed the jaw quivered and chattered which told her that the creature was in terrible condition. Lyra noticed that the hind paws that were supporting the creature were extremely red and curled up, the little hair this creature had was not keeping it warm. Lyra raised a hoof to the glass to watch as the ape moved its hand to match hers.

Lyra called up to Blueblood as she said, "What's wrong with this thing?"

"I don't know," he said back, "it won't shut up that's for sure." Blueblood's voice was unnervingly calm considering he had a living creature that was near death in his studying facility, chances are if the creature dies the smell will attract authorities and Blueblood would ruin his political image. Nopony wants to be remembered as, "That stallion that harvested dead corpses in its basement for 'science'." But why was he not worrying about the creature's health, more importantly, why wasn't Lyra doing something about it yet?

Lyra looked around the creature, she watched as it breathed against the glass and began to make markings in it. It wasn't ponyglyph that it was writing in, it was strange makings that Lyra didn't recognize. She looked towards the panel that controlled the heating system of the tube and noticed it was at 20 fahrenheit. Lyra shouted back upstairs, "No offence, Prince, but you had the tube set to kill this creature." Lyra very quickly turned the temperature up to 80 degrees and watched as the shivering slowly stopped. The creature began to calm down and the noises it made were much quieter now, it appeared as though its body wasn't designed to withstand temperatures like a pony was capable of. Maybe that had relations to the fabrics that had been uncovered in the past years, who knows? Once the creature sat on its hind-quarts and began to show signs of calmness, Lyra called out to Blueblood, "So far this thing needs a controlled environment to keep itself heated much like a reptile yet showed signs of shivering which probably means that it can warm itself up."

Blueblood made his way down the stairs as he said, "Wow, you're quick to figure these things out, does it need to be pampered too? Oh look it's falling asleep." He pointed at the nodding creature, its eyes had begun to close as its head rocked back and forth in drowsiness.

"I think we should be going to bed as well," Lyra began, "I'll be back tomorrow to study it more and see how it behaves. Remember to keep the chamber at approximately 80 degrees fahrenheit. If there are any more problems please let me know."

Blueblood nodded his head before giving out a yawn, Lyra recognized that as a sign that she should go back to her house for some much needed sleep. Despite the time, Lyra wished she could stay, her mind was all over the place with questions. She would have to wait until this thing is awake once more before her studies continued. She just hoped that it shared a sleeping pattern of two hour intervals with her that way she wouldn't have one of these incidents again, cause now she knew she would only get five hours and twenty three minutes of sleep in total. Yeah she calculated that.

Author's Note

Please excuse the revision and changes in area and character. After SO MANY people pointed out that Twilight was... well kinda f*cked up, I figured we should start with a pony we already generally hate. So without further a due, I present ANTHRO, set beneath the Canterlot archives.