My little Systems: Friendship is LAN

Chapters

Unplanned trip
Hideout of horrors
Hidden realm

Unplanned trip

Twilight Sparkle was a good pony. She had a decent processor, high-capacity memory matrix, and was equipped with a parallel port for horn connection, a Skill card slot, and a built-in wireless modem. She was living in a two-storey wooden cottage with lots of books with electricity supply line connected to Ponyville's local generator that was fueled by wood and maintained by Applejack, her friend. But today, she wasn't reading them, because she gave her horn to Rarity for one day, so she could sew a new protective case for Rainbow Dash. She was looking out from a window on the first floor, at the nature outside, maintained by something unknown and distant, and waiting for the next recharge time that was going to be this day. It was autumn time, and the forest in front of her was too quiet and just lacked any significant information to process, only the pattern of white clouds on blue sky behind pine canopy, pixelated by her digital vision. She didn't really want to be this alone, or immerse her mind in any unprocessed massives of data in her memory, either. Everyone else in Ponyville was busy, not that it was a big town, but she was sure she shouldn't go and disrupt other ponies' processing sequences. Or, for some ponies, remote processing sequences.

The problem was that only six ponies in here even had local minds. Most of them were constantly connected to the server located somewhere in a far capitol, and that caused them to be available for communication only in server's scheduled time, and also they couldn't go far away from the town, because they couldn't leave the area of local data retransmitting engine. Making sure there wouldn't be any accidents with the link, as well as engine maintenance, was Rainbow Dash's work. Equipped with digital pegasus wings, she was able to find the problematic pony, should its link be lost or an emergency signal come from them, and, if necessary, bring them to Fluttershy for repairs. Rainbow Dash lived in a hard plastic shed near the retransmitter.

Hardware integrity was Fluttershy's speciality. She was living in the middle of town, where its only street made two 90-degree turns, in a two-part building. A side part of it was wooden, and there was her bedroom and the lookout computer station behind a big automated plastic shutter, the computer was connected to many stationary and mobile cameras and sensors. The other part was a big plastic warehouse, which was carrying out a role of a hospital. She was also a skilled repairer of common devices and constructs. As one of the Maintainers, she was able to go far into the forest, and often walked there, leaving her associate to care for the patients.

Rarity was the colony's tailor and smith. She had all necessary equipment for her job, except the horn, that she couldn't afford to order from the capitol, not only because these devices were very expensive, but they were dangerous. Only a few trusted Maintainers could get a full-functional horn. Rarity had permissions to buy one of weaker limited models, and wanted to, but she thought it wouldn't be of use to spend most of her resources for that. Ordered things usually came to Ponyville by airship.

Another Maintainer, Applejack was living in a convenient, solid building with very low, faceted roof and pyramid-like vent covers. She worked most of her non-defrag time in her wood-growing complex. As wood, they used constantly growing vines that were grown in two hothouses of architecture similar to her house. She cared so much for resource conservation that she once asked Fluttershy to lower her processor frequency for that. Her position as energy supplier made her a big authority in the town.

Pinkie Pie was a town's agent for Equestrian Analytics and Improvement Department. She was taught a lot of complicated protocols in the central complex of Department, but on the contrary, it almost made her unable to do her jobs, and she invented her own methods. She didn't even ask the Department for news, gathering all information herself.

Night passed, Twilight awoke from defrag, and began assembling some electronics in the workshop room, while Pinkie was building constructs with empty equipment boxes in her room on the second floor, trying to obtain something that works as a better decoration, and other ponies were busy with their duties or goals, when events happened.

When the engine lost the signal and twelve local ponies, including Fluttershy's assistant and a pony in a hospital stopped moving and fell, Fluttershy noticed it immediately, and went to Dash to ask what's happening. Dash told her that the engine was working, she had a probe and it lost signal, too. She told Fluttershy to wait there while she was gathering other ponies. When she came to Pinkie, Pinkie already knew, and Dash wasn't too surprised. On the way back, she saw that Applejack came by herself, so she just told her to go pack some full batteries for the trip, and others to pack some things too. Protection cases, rain shields, clusters, first repair kits. The usual. Twilight took some checklist paper and a plastic suit, Rarity took an umbrella, an extended material bag, a beacon medallion, a black faceted coat with pockets. Applejack brought a heavy saddle with two batteries and a charger. Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy gathered some tools, some warm fabric sheets, some belts, and another things, but not before going through town to check for damaged pegasi, Twilight and Dash needed that time for planning, anyway.

Then they departed to the east, in a direction the airships were coming from.

For some hours, they walked through a sparse autumn forest. Yes, with birches. No mango trees, well, maybe occasionally some eucalypti. They were talking about the situation a bit, aloud to avoid data resonance and more fear, but mostly through wireless connections and about weather and its laws, sending lots of imagery from the past, that of local forests and their wonders. Of course, this brought on a thunderstorm.

That made them turn off their modems and feel some serious fear. They weren't waterproof! Considering the situation, there were big chances of bad consequences if something broke. Fluttershy made a seat from some fallen branches and used a wide cone-shaped hat, Rainbow brought Applejack up to a tree branch, after covering her with a sheet, Pinkie searched her saddlebags for a piece of waterproof cloth and a diver's mask, and Rarity gave her umbrella to Twilight, given that she had a coat with hood. After the rain, they had to empty one battery to get warm.

Then Rainbow had to carry everypony over a river, and use some energy from the second battery afterwards. Beyond the river, the forest was thicker, but the weather changed and there was more sunlight. In this forest, there were unusual, tall pines, ferns and other new plants. Fluttershy wanted to explore that new forest. With so few energy left though, they had to hurry, even if it threatened their joint motors.

Then, suddenly a wild mobile Server appeared on the clearing on their way. Twilight gestured to the others to fight how they were taught by Twilight earlier. They formed a circle, configured a wireless network between them, and Twilight used her horn to send heaps of packets into Server, stunning its movements for some time ahead. Dash then said that this Server is not important to their mission, so they left it behind, for it to recover later.

Soon they approached Canterberra. Fortunately, there was a lot of pony activity, suggesting that the city wasn't suffering any issues. Twilight was already in need of recharge, so she recharged the batteries they carried, at a local shop. That cost some clusters, though.

Then they came to the palace. Some negotiations with royal firewall service later, Domain Queen Celestia let them in. Twilight and Celestia then talked about something through encrypted line, and Celestia said that she'll have the transmission fixed once she dealt with a conspiracy, it was a transmission energy theft for some rebellion or something. She said that Twilight and her friends will be given free access to a cottage near the palace originally meant for Analytics agents, and given pass tickets to a scientific complex and a library.

And that is something that may be the ending of this story.

Author's Note

Localverse manifest:
1. Mane 6 are, or look like, ponies, and live in a town that's very small (at most 20 houses) and quiet. The town is surrounded by the forest of any type, but each house must border with a forest. Town doesn't have transport routes to the rest of the country.
2. Their magic is much weaker than standards of canon Equestria. Therefore, they may be more serious and more dependent on the environment.

OK, written that and my nerves ache. I've been reading stories hard for the entire week... No more writing for now. Mediocre chapter... may be called conceptual...
...Does that count as my sixth story?
EDIT: more detail

Hideout of horrors

Warning: this chapter will contain [Dark]. The battle will happen. The story gains Dark tag.

In the morning, Twilight told the Maintainers that she wanted to go to the complex, or at least outside to get any information to acquire. Their apartments had comfortable furniture, which was good, but no other things. They decided that Twilight will go to the building, Dash will go with her to protect her, and the others will go to the market or elsewhere to buy accessories.

The complex was a big circular building with a dome and a cone-shaped antenna tower in its center. When they came to the main door, they were stopped by several six-legged robots, and they were asked if the ponies really want to go inside. They waited for approval for rather long time after they showed their pass, and then the robots accompanied them through the corridor. That interior was looking strange, too dark and even cold for Twilight's concept of libraries or public labs. The walls were not decorated if not counting the ugly isolation tiles, there were too much tubes and wires hanging under the ceiling, and so were a few lightbulbs. Dash was not used to this kind of places, to the point that her control of her motors was slightly wavering. They were led into a side room with white walls, where a tall silver unicorn wearing a brown cloak was sitting on the throne-shaped soft chair. Robots were still standing in the doorway.

"I want to welcome you in this facility,"- the pony said coldly, "I hope we can provide what you're seeking here. Let me introduce myself, I am Count Antifreeze."

"I am Twilight Sparkle, this is Rainbow Dash, we came from Ponyville and Queen Celestia recommended us to go here. Can we go to Celestia's library? She said she's keeping it here."

"Yes, follow me. Pegasus, you stay here."

"Can I go to the library? We were seeking for..."

"No, that information is restricted to unicorns." - Count said, unnerved, - "Twilight Sparkle, let's go."

"Why?" - Rainbow whispered to herself.

"Because we wouldn't want random useless ponies snooping here. This is a rather restricted place, after all."

"What could that even mean? We're working on the same chipset with her! I have qualification to work for the Queen, type 'A'."

"Yet you were outside of it, and even haven't bought a horn. I need not to take lectures from common ponies. But seeing how much you want to be here, I'm arresting you for disrespect, so you can be here all you want."

"What did... there is no such law."

"As a case of action threatening order in the kingdom."

"I'm not threatening anything!"

"Don't make me mad. Just give up for good!"

"Let Twilight go! What do you need her for!"

"I know that this pony was assembled by Princess Condenser, and she was recently arrested for treason," - Antifreeze said, - "that is why you both will come with me for interrogations."

The corridor made some turns, and after the visitors went through a gateway, they came to a room with blue reinforced metal walls, and that was obviously a torture room. Whole rows of damaged ponies and service robots were hanging on three big constructs stretching across the hall. Some of them were laying in corners, partially disassembled. Among them was Princess Condenser herself, offline, her both wings and lids on one side removed. In the other side of the room, there was a robot assembly stand, a laser spider bot occupying the assembly cell. "He's going to assemble military bots from us", Twilight thought, worried, "and Condenser could never betray the kingdom... What is this destroyer planning? ...I see. He's a rogue it seems. He's the threat. Probably a rebel, too."

"So do you have anything to say that I don't know? Because I need any information I want. I tried so hard to be a good librarian you know why? Because information is power. And I want it all!" He was grinning, seeing the ponies began to process their chances. "Tie them up!" - he commanded to the robots. "Even if you won't talk, I'll use the..."

A flash suddenly happened in the room, blinding everypony, and a portal opened. A purple pony appeared behind it, and was terrified thinking that the war is going on there, because she made a portal to escape with her friends from another war... Still, not waiting till the opportunity passes, she made a war cry and jumped to the portal, preparing her trusted cannon spell to attack the spider monsters. The other Twilight also attacked one. With two spider bots knocked out, another two were already preparing their cannons.

"You'll pay for this!" - roared Antifreeze, preparing a mind control script in his horn. "Rebel ruffians, the order can never be shattered!" He overpowered robot Twilight and summoned her against the other one. His veil fell on its own, and revealed two huge pink wings. The alicorn took off and began flying in circles through the room, which was not too convenient for flight. The ponies who came through the portal, though, now knew who is their enemy. A white pony, the other universe Rarity, who dragged a rusty machine gun, began firing, but the gun was too slow. The other universe Rainbow Dash, who was an earth pony, though, with Wonderbolt suit, a cotton cap and bulky flight goggles, was trying to break another spider's cannon while riding it. Their Fluttershy was a battlefield medic, and tried to drag tied Dash through the portal to protect her from the gunfire, while Applejack tried to attack the bots from behind. Antifreeze, though, was attacking them from the air by cursing violently. At some point, the last bot made a mistake and fired an ion charge at robot Twilight. Her battery instantly failed, and she fell to the floor. Having deactivated the bots, military Dash threw a lying piece of cable into Count's face. He was provoked and flew into her, but Applejack caught his leg and tried to tie the cable around it. She failed, releasing the cable when the leg moved. Dash then hit him with something heavy, then he turned to kick her. Rarity leapt at him with the gun, and broke the lid and the cooling tube inside, making blue liquid spill on the floor. "No! My cooling system!" - he shouted, trying to escape to the corner and throw equipment into them, "stay away from me, ignorant peasants!" -as they tried to close in, while Pinkie in the other corner was busy setting a flag with wheat ears and reeds. "I... full of victory..." - Antifreeze whispered. Then, his power went off.

Robot Dash was already trying to help Twilight. As far as she knew, the ion charges could do massive damage to central circuits and internal programs inside the parts, she could only pray thanks that the charge wasn't to the head. But she wouldn't pray, because she blamed Celestia now. First thing she could do was to remove the lid and disconnect the discharged battery. In this disaster area though, she was afraid that she will lose it. Twilight needed to be repaired by a serious specialist. She wasn't even listening to Rarity trying to silence Pinkie shouting about this room was conquered by proletariat. She tried to open the door, or find a way to break it. It was reinforced, though. She was addressed to by Twilight.

"Hello, I'm sorry, can I help?"

"She needs help, seriously so. But the door is armored." - Pause, "It seems some other ponies were tortured in this room. They still can be saved. ...Celestia must not have any idea what's happening in he Domain if she let this happen."

Pinkie tried to grab Dash, Twilight gesturing for her to stop, as well as to alert the others. "On whose side you are, huh?" - Pinkie shouted.

Dash thought and pointed to robot Twilight: "I'm on her side."

Twilight explained: "In our universe, Celestia is a tyrant, though most ponies don't realize it. I was leading the party of neighsayers, which was protecting the rights and interests of workers and villagers."

"It seems your agenda caused you to take part in a middle of a war.. But, then why are you here, if you wanted to protect them?" - Dash tried to understand.

"We seem to have failed. Some of us still have hope. I'd say it's over, we lost. All because our ponies were humble, and they used everything they could against us." - Twilight seemed to go lost in her thoughts, others knew when that was happening and needed to distract her.

"Think of cake, Twilight, think of the cake!" - Pinkie shouted.

"So I'll need to forget that happened," - Twilight said, "and I may need your world to do that and start a new life". "Are you still with me in this?" - she said to her soldiers. They nodded, Pinkie thought for a bit and nodded, too.

Author's Note

This chapter contained a mix of ideas, which may need explanation.
1) Torture room - inspired by visiting a meat market right after watching ponies. Which is the main trigger of writing this particular chapter. I wanted to write something about ponies escaping from industrial buildings. Then I thought it can work as an action part in here. Then I was even more excited when Antifreeze and Condenser names came.
2) Robots - inspired by Tiger and Tarantula tanks from "Earth 2150"
3) Alternate ponies. It would be too cheap to expect that this villain will just be defeated by Rainbow. So they were in need of something military to come. Which is either Celestia tracking them down with something, which doesn't make enough sense because it wouldn't help. Or this... which had some cultural inspiration in it, namely, a not-very-serious Soviet movie, "Keys to the sky", about WW1-era planes. Why using a source like this? Maybe cultural reaction. Also, an old plane with Dash inside would look interesting.

Hidden realm

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, there was a small factory building. On city maps, it was listed as abandoned, but it was hidden in a small curvy alley, and nopony seemed to care if it wasn't. Inside, there were five rooms, a hall with three side chambers on the first floor and computer room on the second floor, the stairway to it hidden inside a locked shelf. It also had a basement, filled with various equipment, also locked away. Moreover, all windows were obscured by thick black blankets. Rooms on the first floor were decorated like common pony apartments. The computer room was lit by magic light balls hanging from wooden framework on the ceiling. It had a long table in the center with terminals on it, and a big machine standing near the stairway.

One pony was busy working here at night, looking at the data. She was dark purple. And currently, she was nervous. She walked away from the screen and approached the intercom device.

"Eleven, please come. I seem to have triggered something."

A white stallion with short white mane and big black marks on sides saying "11" went up the stairs.

"Good morning again. What is it, Candle?"

"I've found southern transmitter's address. But I seem to have caused a security alarm. It looks like after our previous intrusions, they seem to have isolated their real passwords away from this network. I wonder what Luna would do with this."

"Candle, it's the fifth time this week. Please, stop already! You'll reveal our base at this rate."

"I don't know what else I could do for Luna. We couldn't just infiltrate those transmitters to discover the code."

"We'll free Luna eventually. But now, we should lay low. We have already two out of six Full Solar code components."

"Luna wouldn't approve. We should have reached the simulation before Full Solar was implemented. Can't give up."

"What you say if we have to keep you away from the terminals?"

"If you buy a case and erase my memory... or better send me to recyclers. If Celestia's maneframe will get full control, then Luna won't be able to ever return. And she m-"

Intercom beeped.

Agent Eleven answered. "Agent Skylight?"

"I'm here! Mission failed. A security bot caught Fiber."

Eleven was angry. "Then why you come here? You think we praise you after... brought doom to project? One chance. Go away, we'll forgive you. We're leaving anyway."

"Yeah", - Skylight slowly answered, "find me later. I just don't know what you'll do without me, a single bot here who ever thinks of anything other than work. Farewell ...friends."

Candle went to turn off the computer, now very uneasy.

"It had to happen someday," - Eleven said.

"Just to escape now... And we might start again. Conquer something smaller, a town maybe." - Candle said, packing batteries, - "or a house."

"To Ponyville, then".

Intercom beeped.

"What?" - Eleven, shocked, pressed a button.

"Gotcha," - the sound came.

"No!!" - Eleven fell to the floor. Candle was rolling eyes, seeking for things that could make for escape. Windows were shut too securely, ...no. Royal guards were already here. Behind them, Celestia followed.

"Hello, you... Queen" - Candle said.

Celestia waited until guards captured them both, then spoke. "Good morning, agent Candle. I came here just to ask, would you surrender?"

"I, will, Not!" - Eleven said.

"I will not either." - Candle responded decisively. "Thank you for offer." - she added, returning Celestia's tone.

"Don't worry, my little pony. I know you're loyal to Luna, and I respect that. I shall make visits to you sometimes too, to check you're safe. On the Moon." - Celestia made a gesture to guards and turned to examine the walls, with unreadable expression. Guards brought ponies outside.

Then, Candle was in the dark box, in the vehicle that was going towards the palace. The Moon was nothing but a special maneframe in the palace, one of the series, including also Dungeons and Tartarus, that contained information about dangerous ponies, and allowed their minds to function in artificial environments while their periods of banishments last. Suppressing her sense of failure, she was hopeful to meet Luna. Eventually, palace interrogators removed the seal on her box, and turned her hardware off.

Then, she woke up feeling a cold surface. She stood up, and saw a dark blue pegasus with light blue mane, Skylight, who seemed not very nervous, and Eleven still on... the snow. Their environment was ice, covered with snow, and some areas of water. In the distance, there were high and steep mountains made of ice. Under them, there were some trees made of ice. Closer to them, there was a frozen windmill, a merry-go-round with multicolored ponies standing on it, attached to it. There was a medium ice log house without a roof, with some lit windows. There was also a big statue of a soccer ball nearby. To the left, there seemed to be a village with half of houses made of ice logs, others made of ice bricks. In front of them, a tall wooden shelf was standing on ice, and, protected by it from the cold wind, stood a brown-red armchair, a big pony was sitting in it, wearing a fur coat and a tin helmet possibly made of bucket, and the pony was Luna. She was staring at the wooden table standing in front of the armchair, with a tin can, and a big red cup on it with a frozen liquid in it.

"Luna," - Candle whispered, worried.

Luna looked at her and said nothing.

She went towards the table.

Luna looked at her again and said: "Take clothes from that shelf. You'll freeze. Get the others warm, too."

"Thanks?" - Candle whispered.

"If you're here, that means that... doesn't matter. That we're here."

Candle looked to the night sky, that had magenta stars on dark blue.

Luna stood up to help Candle with the shelf. "Polar night. Eternal. Doesn't matter. Ever since I made Celestia angry with the Poison Hoax, she denied me place in that world. And here isn't too bad either. Just see for yourself. A tribe of villagers calling themselves NPC, who worship this thing called Coffee despite they can't use it, and savage snowponies running about. Welcome to my kingdom of the night. You could come here long ago. Thank you for not giving up."

"I'm sorry I failed," - tried Candle.

She paused, looking to the sky again after giving ponies scarves and warm things like that. "Don't think about that anymore. You didn't fail. You'll know when you'll meet the snowponies. Let's go inside. Inside isn't warm either. I modified there a coffee machine to provide electricity and heat to warm up."

Inside, they met a pony.

"Meet my friend Fence. She's an NPC. She saved me when I first came here." - Luna said.

"...Hello," - she said.

"Hello," - Candle said, surprised by her different look. "You're not... what we are?"

"They aren't what your ponies are. They don't need energy in any form. They don't feel cold. The only things they're afraid of here are getting lost and getting shot by snowponies' snowballs. Fence was one of village guardians who patrolled the area against them."

Fence spoke. "Actually, they aren't all bad. The village had snowpony allies in history. But most of them like to beat or kidnap our ponies."

Then, something happened. A big ice ball with snow inside flew and shattered inside the room.

"...And use their catapults. Everypony, prepare for defense."

Author's Note

Chapter has elements based on various Christmas tales and Nescafe joke parodies, for example, Ural Pelmeni - Polar explorer. I don't know if it's worth a Crossover tag, probably not.