Approaching the unknown stallion, Nyx looked him over. She was pretty sure that he wasn't a new arrival in Ponyville, or Pinkie Pie would have thrown a welcoming party. But if not, then where had he come from? She reached out and gently nudged him with a hoof. This caused the stranger to stir where he lay, groaning and rubbing his head as he hesitantly stood up.
"Hey, are you alright?" Nyx asked as the stallion tried to get his bearings. "Who are you? Do you need any help?"
The grey stallion, becoming aware of the alicorn's presence, glanced up at her. "Y-yeah..." He then looked down at his hooves, then back at her a few times for some reason before letting out a breath. "Oh, thank God I made it... you're Nyx, aren't you? Come on, we have to hurry! I could only buy us a little time!" With that, he made his way toward the door, stumbling over his own hooves a little before he got his balance back.
Nyx, greatly confused, particularly by what he said about buying time. She followed him out to the hall, asking, "What are you talking about? Who ARE you?"
The stranger found a box of tools Apple Bloom had borrowed from various sources to help with the reconstruction of the castle. In it was a nail gun, a recently invented tool enchanted so that even ponies without magic could simply shoot nails into the wood at a quicker pace that it would take to hammer each one. "Perfect," he muttered, picking it up with his mouth and putting it into one of the pockets of his flannel shirt before replying, "Yeah, I didn't look like this the last time you saw me. I'm Alan Wake, the writer."
He was about to hurry out of the castle, but he glanced back and the utter lack of recognition expressed on Nyx's face made him turn back toward her. "You DO remember me, right? You should still be able to remember the Dark Place. How you, me and Zane brought Twilight Sparkle back to life?"
Nyx was even more confused. She had no idea who this pony was or how he claimed to know her. Unless the 'Dark Place' was supposed to be a metaphor or something, she'd never been there. And 'Alan Wake' and 'Zane' were such unusual names for ponies that she felt she would have remembered them if she had ever met them before, yet at the same time, this stallion acted as if they should know each other. When he brought up Twilight, however, her confusion turned into fuel for anger as she narrowed her eyes and suddenly reached out with her magic to lift him up off the floor.
"Back to life? What's that supposed to mean?! Did you do something to my mom?!" She snapped at him, shaking him up and down in the air, causing the contents of his pockets to slip out. Along with the nailgun, a flashlight fell out, followed by several sheets of typewritten paper that he tried to snatch out of the air before they fluttered to the ground, only to ineffectually bat them with his hooves.
"No! No, we were able to save her, remember? You gave up the last thousand years of your life to bring her back and pull everyone out of the Dark Place! Think back! I'm the one who gave you to her by putting you on that lakeshore! I wrote you a happy ending! Now you're the only ones who can help me against Mr. ****."
Nyx blinked and rubbed her ear. "Mr. what?"
"Mr. ****." She thought that he had said 'scratch' just then, and was pretty sure that's what her ears heard, but it was like something in her brain refused to process it. Like there was something so inherently wrong with the word that she instead heard it as the scratching of a vinyl record at one of DJ Pon-3's raves.
Nyx's turquoise eyes flashed with deepening suspicion and anger at the stallion's insane claims and bizarre linguistic trick. She shook him around harder with her magic until he stopped shouting, then pulled him closer so she could glare him right in the eye. "Listen here, 'Alan', I don't know who you think you are, or what kind of crazy nonsense you're talking about, but my mom and I are NOT characters in whatever story you're writing. Start telling me something that makes sense, or I'm throwing you in the dungeon until the Ponyville authorities come to figure out what to do with you."
Alan, dazed from being shaken around, replied, "Dungeon...? This is the princesses' vacation home, isn't it? That's nowhere near Ponyville..." He looked around, though, real dread beginning to creep into his expression. "No... no, this isn't, is it? Oh no... he tricked me. I'm in the wrong story!"
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