Friendship is Software

by Rough_Draft

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Princess Celestia, Sunset Shimmer, Main 6, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human, Nightmare Moon, Spike
Length: 33651

When the Nightmare virus threatens to rewrite the worldwide Grid, only six young heroines stand in its way.

Terra, 2317. For over a century, corruption has been lurking inside the Vault created by System Administrator Celestia. The Nightmare virus that overtook her sister Luna threatens to break free. To that end, she sends her finest student, a prodigy coder named Twilight Sparkle, to take charge on restoring the worldwide Grid.

Unfortunately for Twilight, that means doing the one thing she absolutely despises: making friends. But when the fate of Terra rests on her shoulders, she'll have to put aside her feelings and focus on bringing together a team of unlikely heroes to save the Grid and billions of innocent lives.

Cover art credit belongs to AnthemHearts on deviantArt.

Published 2014-04-26 02:10:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-09-22 04:14:34 UTC

2 - Emergency Protocols

Sitting in the back of a small yellow cab that sped around the corner and up Trenton Avenue, Twilight and Spike could only sit and marvel at the chaos spreading through the city. They saw amber lights flashing everywhere as Emergency Service agents and androids were deployed. Twilight’s heart sank when she saw families streaming out of their residential towers, queuing up to receive blankets and rations from the grim-faced authorities in sky-blue uniforms. With their domestic assemblers shut down, government handouts were all they had left to live on.

Overhead, the air was buzzing with a hundred delivery drones—all running on their reserve batteries now that the power-supplying Grid was out of commission—and infrequent squalls of rain. The atmospheric bots that handled climate control were on the fritz, meaning a sixty percent chance of rain and thunder, if not more. Spike’s ears perked up as the first drops splattered against the cab window on his side.

“You sure gotta wonder how bad things used to be before the Integration,” he remarked. When he saw Twilight’s disapproving frown, Spike dropped his head toward his paws. “Uh, then again, maybe we’re about to find out for ourselves.”

“I don’t know, Spike.” Twilight sighed and sank back into the warm leather seat. Her eyes drifted shut. “But I’m sure the Administrator will have all the answers. If anyone knows what’s going on, it’ll be her.”

“Speaking of which…” Spike pressed one paw against the cab window, pointing with his snout. “We’re almost here.”

Up the road stood a massive white-gray complex, bigger than even the beacon tower where Twilight lived. The structure was vast and pyramidal, with glowing blue strips that ran vertically on all sides, pulsing with eldritch light. A hundred windows stared out at Trenton Avenue, through which one could see dozens of android and human staffers passing through. Twilight blinked and increased the magnification on her visor.

At a hundred-and-ten degrees magnified, she could see the panic on those workers’ faces as they raced past each window. Suddenly, the Palace seemed far less reassuring.

Even so, billions upon billions of data packets flowed through this great facility. It was like staring into the interior of a beehive. Twilight’s own implants began to tingle when as the cab drew closer. Even with the whole Grid in disarray, this place still retained its prestige in the global network.

The cab hummed as it came to a halt. Its automated driver chimed in with a synthetic male voice. “Welcome, Miss Sparkle, to the Central Apparatus Palace.”

“Th-thank you.” Twilight swallowed and patted down the front of her smart-silk jacket. It was her first day at the Institute all over again. She took a moment to collect her thoughts and fight off her adrenaline surge.

Now she regretted drinking that stim-shot earlier. If Twilight wasn’t careful, she’d get a headache or become dizzy right when she was face-to-face with the most powerful person on Terra.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In her head, she saw Cadance in the park, practicing the sweeping arm gesture as she let her fears flow out and quiet confidence flow back in. A directed flow that carried oxygen to the most essential cells, stimulating her nanomeds that purged toxins and any chemicals on her bio-directory’s watch list. A hundred thousand little bots and vat-grown bacteria that ate away all her fears and dread in tiny determined bites.

There was too much fear in the air right now, both inside and outside the Palace. It wasn’t like Twilight would do any good bringing a new batch of terror into the mix.

“Better?” asked Spike.

Twilight opened her eyes and smiled. “Yeah, much better. Let’s go.”

Even with an official summons, Twilight and Spike still had to endure no less than three separate checkpoints inside the Palace. The Central Apparatus staff took security seriously enough that they even subjected Spike, a perfectly ordinary uplifted canine, to two deep-tissue scans for weapons or espionage gear. Twilight, meanwhile, found it simpler to stand still and recite the names of constellations in her head while a pair of female officers in severe black uniforms ran their handheld MRIs over her body while asking a battery of questions.

Once, she would’ve protested this, but given the emergency in Citadel—and quite possibly the whole Arcadian continent—she knew better than to raise her voice.

Fifteen minutes later, they were being led down a soft white-and-red corridor toward a set of gray doors. Twilight could tell that this was the path to Celestia’s domain by all the holo-portraits on the walls. The animated faces of Forum Administrators and Heroes of Terra met her gaze, offering friendly nods or stern looks as she passed by. A chill ran down her spine, which had nothing to do with the icy air conditioning in the hallway.

Leading Twilight and Spike was an older woman in a white tunic with a trio of badges running down the left side of her breast. Her dark hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail and her eyes were focused on whatever content was streaming through her data goggles. A quick search of her ID tags revealed her name and title as Raven, Personal Secretary to the System Administrator.

“Because of the sensitive equipment in the Administrator’s Office, you will refrain from accessing any unauthorized netsite on your visor,” said Raven. She walked ahead with a slow but confident stride, allowing her two guests to keep pace. “You may accept whatever data stream she provides access to, but for the sake of network security, you must consult with either the Administrator herself or me about keeping any sensitive information in your logs. Is that clear, Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight ducked her head. “Very clear, ma’am.”

They came to a halt at the two large doors, which bore no obvious markings. Raven stepped in front of Spike and lifted her hand. Twilight watched as a faint green light danced over her palm, then over her goggles. The silent exchange lasted for only a few seconds.

The doors slid open, unleashing a powerful torrent of wind and light. Spike wrapped himself around Twilight’s legs, his tail twitching against the sudden surge of input.

As Raven stepped inside, Twilight stared in openmouthed awe.

Massive was the best word she could think of that would do this place justice. But majestic would’ve worked, too.

In the arena below, thousands of cylinders lined the walls, forming an impressive constellation of pulsing red, blue, and green lights. Twilight immediately recognized them as Cicero-model TVN power generators. The lights cast long and flickering shadows over the arena, revealing a series of plastic cables snaking across the vast office floor. Heat radiated from each generator and cable, but the blistering warmth was offset from a constant downpour of air from six giant ceiling fans that spun quietly without pause. The effect made Twilight break out into a light sweat and develop goose bumps at the same time.

And every cable that lay on the floor led straight toward a single chair—no, upon closer inspection, it was more like a throne—planted in the middle of the chamber.

The System Administrator of Terra sat on her throne, bone-white from a lack of direct sunlight, but beautiful nonetheless. Her long coiffure, streaked with green and violet patterns, fell around her body in coils, forming a natural cushion to her own backside. Her attire matched Raven’s, save only for more gold filigree running along her sleeves and pant legs. And atop her head was a small coronet, in which a single ruby light shone. The Cognitive Crown that so many professors at the Institute spoke about with hushed voices and dreamy smiles.

“Welcome, Twilight Sparkle,” said Celestia. Her warm voice echoed through the massive chamber, carried along by discreet microphones implanted near the base of her throat. “I apologize for not rising to greet you, but I’m afraid that the circumstances won’t permit it.”

Twilight frowned, but when she increased the magnification on her visor, she noticed what the Sysadmin meant. Her sleeves had been rolled up, revealing an IV tube full of saline solution inserted in her left arm and a fiber-optic cable in her right.

“Th-that’s quite all right, ma’am,” Twilight stammered. She ducked her head again. “Thank you for inviting me—”

Celestia chuckled. The sound bounced off the walls and struck Twilight deep in her bones. “Be honest with me, Twilight. Are you afraid to be in here?”

Twilight’s throat had gone dry. She could barely find the words to answer.

“Heh,” Spike barked. He sat beside Raven, smiling up at the throne. “Afraid is putting it nicely.”

“Spike!” Twilight hissed, but she stopped when she heard the Sysadmin chuckle again.

“Your candor’s appreciated, Spike.” Celestia leaned back in her throne, resting her hands in her lap and smiling at the dog. “It’s quite refreshing. Wouldn’t you agree, Raven?”

Celestia’s secretary nodded, almost wearing a smile of her own. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you. That will be all for now.”

Raven bowed her head and spun around on her heel. Her eyes were still focused on the inside of her data goggles as she left the massive chamber.

Once the doors were sealed shut behind them, Twilight forced herself to look up at the Sysadmin. It was strange to think how human she looked, even when every fiber of her being was suffused with fiber-optics and nanoscopic processors that formed the central server of the entire Grid. Even now, while she sat and spoke in this room, Celestia’s enhanced nervous system was continuing to manage the vast signal exchange of the global network, setting up firewalls and running packet exchanges faster than the speed of light.

Under those terms, it was easier to see the Sysadmin as less of a highly enhanced mortal and more of a straight-up goddess.

“Tell me, Twilight.” Celestia touched a control on her throne, causing a blue holographic table to materialize in front of her guests. “How much do you know of pre-Integration history?”

“Oh, well…” Twilight felt a blush coming on and tried to keep her polite smile frozen on her face. No Institute exam could compare to the dread she felt in this place. “I only know the basics. The daemon wars, the founding of Citadel, the five cycles of the original Net—”

“Yes, but do you know about the price we paid for Integration?”

Twilight blinked. “…No?”

“Very few do.” Celestia’s smile vanished, leaving her face cold and ancient once more. “I must ask you not to reveal this information except to the people I designate as trustworthy. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes,” said Twilight. Spike merely nodded and huddled against her leg.

Celestia waved her right hand and the holographic table sprang to life. Light twisted into three-dimensional shapes, revealing an older model of Citadel and thousands of people walking through its magnificent streets. The Sysadmin waved her hand again and the scene changed to a display of two women standing atop a balcony, looking down at the city. The woman on the right was Celestia herself, whose hair flowed out behind her in the breeze. But Twilight didn’t recognize the one on the left.

She was shorter, wearing a black uniform and a silver coronet. Her face was much sharper, but she shared a few of Celestia’s features, such as her nose and cheekbones. Her expression was also far grimmer, like an upset panther on the prowl.

“When we first launched the Grid,” Celestia declared, “I was not alone. My sister and partner Luna was often by my side, helping me to identify and collect the millions of data streams from around the world. My responsibility lay with designing the hardware that makes the Grid possible, but Luna was superior to me as a coder.” Her eyes moved from the holo-display to Twilight’s face, settling there with crushing weight. “She was the original Network Administrator.”

A lump formed in Twilight’s throat. Of course she’d heard the rumors about a Network Admin working in the shadows, but she’d dismissed them as old coders rambling. Why would Celestia have needed such a person when she could run the Grid herself?

Meanwhile, the display changed again. Now Twilight watched as Celestia and Luna stared each other down—inside the Administrator’s Office, no less. The sisters were glaring fiercely as Luna snarled some invective at her elder sibling; without audio input, Twilight couldn’t tell what was being said, but she could tell it wasn’t anything good.

“We didn’t realize that there was a sentient virus lurking in a distant corner of Arcadia,” Celestia continued. “The Nightmare virus, created by a slicer whose identity remains unknown to this very day.” She paused to let that terrifying truth sink in, while Twilight fought to keep her knees from wobbling. “When Luna encountered the virus, it invaded her very core. As the corruption took root, she became a threat to the very system we were working to create.”

On the holo-table, Luna raised her hand and unleashed a shimmering cloud at her sister. Nanobots, Twilight realized. Millions of them, thick enough to create a visible cloud in the open air. The swarm lashed out at Celestia, who raised up a shield of brilliant light in the nick of time.

Twilight and Spike continued to watch the fight play out, as the sisters dueled for supremacy. But slowly, Luna’s attack was beaten down. The shield that protected Celestia spread outward, engulfing the hostile nano-swarm. Twilight watched as the younger sister dropped to her knees, her face twisted in a mask of anger and horror as her own bots took hold of her. The young Celestia knelt on the floor, coordinating the entire swarm with her hands while tears ran down her exhausted face.

“I saved the Grid that day,” said Celestia from her throne. Her voice was actually choked with emotion—something that Twilight would never have guessed was possible until today. “But the price was my sister’s freedom.”

Sniffling, Twilight had the ridiculous urge to run forward and hug the Sysadmin, but she knew it’d never be permitted. A hundred security alerts and countermeasures would stop her dead in her tracks—literally, if the rumors were true.

“The attack left Luna’s mind damaged, but not permanently. To ensure her safety and to keep the virus dormant inside her, I had her placed in a stasis pod deep inside the Vault.” Celestia’s hand moved again, changing the holo-display to the image of Luna being placed inside a gleaming black pod while a younger Celestia looked on. “That was why the Vault was created. It wasn’t a punishment. It’s supposed to be a refuge for healing for all citizens, both organic and virtual, so long as their suffering is too severe for any clinic on the surface. And no one had suffered more than my dear sister.”

Silence fell across the chamber, broken only the distant background hum of the generators and ceiling fans.

Then, Spike tilted his head to the side and looked up at the Sysadmin. “If you’re telling us this, then does that mean…?” His tail began to curl up on itself. “That’s she’s back?”

Celestia closed her eyes and nodded. “Sadly, my sister has not returned as her true self. It’s her corrupted self that has awoken and broken free into the Grid.”

“Her corrupted self?” Twilight repeated. She glanced at the static image of Luna lying in the pod, with her hands at her side. Sleeping peacefully, or so it seemed.

“The virus formed a dissociation inside Luna’s mind,” Celestia explained. With a tiny wave of her hand, she dismissed the holo-table altogether. “She came to believe that she was a collective being who had only woken up from the ‘illusion’ of being my sister Luna.”

The Sysadmin bowed her head, suddenly looking very small and sad to Twilight’s eyes.

“And she called herself Nightmare Moon.”

Walking was difficult after her long slumber inside the stasis pod. But at least the girl called Sunset Shimmer was in peak physical condition. Now that she was returned to the flesh, she could finally exert real influence in the Grid.

“We will not be denied, we will not lose our way,” said Nightmare Moon, savoring the rush of electrical signals through her new brain and the air moving through her lungs. “Celestia will pay. Yes, she’ll certainly pay…”

It was fortunate that Sunset Shimmer had access to Admin Level Three controls. A mere tap of her touchpad showed Nightmare Moon every personnel file inside the Vault. She sneered. Of course that traitor sister Celestia would create such an elaborate prison and call it “The Vault.” How preposterous! Was there no end to her arrogance?

Every personnel file had a six-digit security code, one that a senior developer could use to summon them at a moment’s notice. One by one, Nightmare Moon typed in and launched every worker’s code from her touchpad. And with each code sent, she added a simple text message.

Sunset Shimmer: Emergency Protocols are now in effect.

Sunset Shimmer: Please report to the observation deck.

A simple lie, but she knew from Sunset’s memories that the staff would obey without question. Things worked differently in the Vault than they did in the surface world.

And Nightmare Moon was looking forward to showing them what a real emergency looked like.

“Feast upon their minds, drink up all their fears…” While she waited for them to assemble outside her control chamber, Nightmare Moon began to prepare a fresh batch of attack vectors and trap tags for her soon-to-be minions. The touchpad beneath her fingertips sprang into action, building such beautifully intricate layers of code at a moment’s notice. “With their hands and thoughts, my power becomes clear…”

Twilight shuddered. She rubbed at her temples, still trying to process all this information. It was too much for a poor little stargazer to handle.

It was funny, actually. All she’d ever wanted was to stand right here, in a private audience with the great Celestia. Now all she wanted was to go back home, gazing at the stars and writing code for the Institute.

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand.” She lifted her head to the Sysadmin. “What exactly can I do about this?”

Celestia smiled, making Twilight feel warm inside—all her doubts erased, for the moment. “You have a crucial task ahead of you, Twilight Sparkle. You must go down into the Vault and reactivate the Source Code Shield.”

As she spoke, a new holo-table appeared in the space below her throne. Twilight saw infinite lines of raw code sprawling past. Layers upon layers of code that she couldn’t begin to comprehend, although one or two pieces seemed familiar. She couldn’t figure out why since the code was streaming too fast for her visor to track.

“I used this very program to coordinate my defense of the Grid against the Nightmare virus,” Celestia explained. She waved her hand and the lines of code folded up into a small blue square, floating harmlessly over the floor. “It is the only item in the Vault that Luna’s admin clearance cannot locate, let alone access.”

“But if an Admin can’t get it, what makes you think I can?”

“On your own, you can’t.” Celestia waved her hand again, reactivating the holo-display. “But I would never send you into danger alone, Twilight.”

Five new figures appeared on the holo-table, all young women. Twilight looked them over with interest. They all seemed to be around her age, wearing a variety of clothes and hairstyles and implants. She doubted she’d ever see a more unlikely group of people in one place.

“While I’ve been tracking your progress with great interest,” Celestia continued, “you were not the only one. I’ve kept an eye on these five young coders as well over the years. If you can gather them together and lead them into the Vault, your combined skills and program experience should be enough to help you activate the Source Code Shield.”

Twilight froze. “Find them. As in, go out and…” She swallowed. “And talk to them?”

“Yes.”

Beside her, Spike chuckled. “Sorry, Administrator. Twilight’s not the best person at talking to strangers. Not in real life, anyway.”

Twilight stamped her foot so that she wouldn’t be tempted to kick Spike in front of Celestia. Meanwhile, the Sysadmin chuckled and leaned back in her throne.

“Believe me, Twilight, I know that this won’t be easy for you. But I also know that you’re much stronger and more resourceful than you give yourself credit for. And if I didn’t have faith in these five young women, I wouldn’t be sending you out now to collect them for this vital task.” That expression of ancient, heartbreaking sadness swept over her face again. “And if you six can’t achieve this together, I’m afraid that this danger won’t be contained inside Arcadia for much longer.”

A second protest died in Twilight’s throat. She glanced down at her hands, now clenched tightly together.

What was she really afraid of? She’d made friends before—true, they’d been online only, but it still counted. But that was just it. She couldn’t fathom talking to someone new even when everything was fine. Trying to talk to someone in a middle of a terrifying crisis, without the shield of a functional Grid, filled her with an ice-cold wave of mortal dread.

But when she weighed that fear with the terror of what Nightmare Moon could do…

“Okay,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. “If you think that the six of us can do this…”

“I do.” Celestia’s tender voice seemed closer now, even though Twilight knew she was still sitting on her throne. “I have nothing but faith in you, Twilight Sparkle. All you need to do is show your new friends that same faith.”

As she finished, Celestia tapped another control on her throne. Twilight turned around as the doors to the chamber slid open. Raven walked in at a brisk pace. She came to a halt beside Spike and clasped her hands behind her back with a patient smile.

“Raven, Miss Sparkle has agreed to take the assignment,” Celestia announced. “Will you please let the clinic know? They’ll need time to prepare.”

“Yes’ ma’am,” Raven answered. She lifted her wrist and began to type a message on the keypad she had secured there.

Twilight glanced back at the Sysadmin. “I-I’m sorry, what clinic is that?”

“If you’ll allow it, there is a network implant that you’ll need to receive in order to coordinate your new friends and activate the Source Code Shield.” Celestia waved her hand as her holo-display projected the image of a silvery six-pointed star. Its chrome surface shone brilliantly, with rainbow lights flickering on each point of the star. “Hopefully, this implant should also protect the six of you from any intrusion that Nightmare Moon might attempt on you.”

Twilight felt another shudder coming on. She’d undergone a few clinic surgeries before, but the thoughts of needles and flesh being cut made her stomach churn.

“I’m sorry if this seems bold,” she said quietly, “but would it be possible for me to be fully anesthetized for this operation? I’d rather not… well, I have a thing about blood and needles…”

“Of course.” Celestia nodded at Raven, who made a note of it on her wrist pad. “We will strive to accommodate you in every way, Twilight. Rest assured, you’ll be in the most professional hands…”

“Twilight? Hey, Twilight! You’re awake…!”

“Wha…?” Twilight’s jaw dropped open. Her whole mouth felt like it was coated in sandpaper. She licked her lips and tried to sit up in bed—only to cringe when she felt an odd tingle on the back of her neck. What in the name of sanity was that?

Spike jumped up onto her bed, licking her face and nuzzling her. “The surgery worked! You’ve got a brand new toy to obsess over!”

When Twilight didn’t respond right away, he jumped off the bed and moved to the nightstand beside her. Twilight blinked and took in her surroundings. Septic white walls stared back at her, bare except for a blank screen opposite her bed and a vase full of cloned roses on a small table by the window. Everything was quiet and dark in the room, but outside the closed door, she could hear voices murmuring and someone wheeling past a tray.

If she had to guess, this was the first-class clinic that Celestia had mentioned.

“Hrr,” said Spike, muffled by the vanity mirror he gripped in his mouth. Twilight took the mirror and looked at her reflection. When she felt another tingle on the back of her neck, she twisted her head around and pointed the mirror at a different angle.

She caught a glimpse of the new implant. A six-pointed metal star embedded at the base of her neck, linked right into her nervous system. Tiny LEDs flickered on each point of the star, flashing through pink, blue, red, violet, and orange. In the center of the star was a dull white LED that didn’t shine.

Intuitively, Twilight tried to access it through her nanomeds, but she got nothing. Just a blank entry. She sighed and let the mirror drop onto the nightstand.

“The surgeons told me that you wouldn’t be able to activate it until we find your friends,” said Spike. His ears perked up. “Speaking of which, you should get your rest. We’ll be leaving in a few hours.”

“My friends,” Twilight muttered. She rolled her eyes, even though moving her head was still a bit painful. Gently, she lowered herself back to her pillow. “My real friends were on the forum before it got shut down. I doubt these girls are going to be that easy to get along with.” She paused as the rest of Spike’s words sunk in. “Wait a minute. Where are we going? And how?”

“The Sysadmin arranged for a fast rail to Oldtown,” Spike announced with a grin. “We’ll be there in no time!”

“Oldtown?” Twilight groaned and closed her eyes again. Maybe if she lay in bed long enough, this would all turn out to be a bad dream and nothing more. “Oh, yeah. This’ll be great.”

Author's Note

With so many people interested in my new story, I wanted to get the next chapter out as soon as I could. Apologies in advance for any poor quality lines or descriptions. I really wanted to do the scene with Celestia justice. With any luck, I'll have a new chapter up either later this week or next.

4 - The Girls of Oldtown, Part I

Data filled the observation deck, as delicious as raw meat to a savage lion. Nightmare Moon tilted her head back, savoring the free flow of information—pure, up-to-date information—that streamed across every display in the chamber. She danced around the room, enjoying the shiver that arced through her body as the cyber-physical sensations became stronger with each new download. Accessing Luna’s memories of choreography, she tiptoed in an elegant swirl over the prone bodies of Vault staffers that littered the floor. They wouldn’t begrudge her this moment of wild abandon.

After all, they weren’t in any position to object.

“The Night’s Court is now begun,” Nightmare Moon declared. She spread her arms wide, taking in her fallen subjects. “The Vault’s fallen. We have won.”

As she spoke, she felt her presence grow apace. Circuits yielded to her virtual touch. With database injections, she overtook the security protocols that protected this Vault from her sister’s world. No longer would the other failures be consigned to their fate in this forgotten place. In the depths of her growing mind, she saw through surveillance cameras and audio hacks, peering into every cage, pod, and chamber. Nightmare Moon smiled upon every denizen of this forsaken place: the rejected gene mods, the cannisters of airborne nanomachines, and those poor mentally imbalanced who slapped at their cuffs in desperation.

By her hand and Sunset Shimmer’s codes, they would ascend to the surface once more. With the Grid back under her administration, Nightmare Moon would take each disgraced creature and make them perfect in her sight. They would know love from her in a way that they’d never known from dear, ancient Celestia.

“Error,” a soft voice called out. Nightmare Moon turned on her heel and glared at the touchscreen. She watched a hand-sized hologram shimmer into existence over the panel: the image of a small featureless man, bathed in sky blue light.

“Be advised, security subsystems have been deactivated,” the little program continued. “Please initiate reboot at once. This facility is currently unprotected.”

“Oh, look!” Nightmare Moon clapped her hands together, smiling at the rough sensation. “A friend’s come to play. Take this and be on your way!”

Before the AI could respond, she saw through every layer of code that was his essence. It only took a picosecond for her to comprehend the loyalty of the little program—in particular, his devotion to Sunset Shimmer. That flaw was an easy exploit. It took another picosecond for her to summon up the black packet of data she’d been saving up for this occasion. A simple copy-and-paste function uploaded the whole packet into the AI’s database without fuss.

“Err—err—err—” The AI—Flash, her stolen memories told her—was fading in and out over the open space of the touchpad. “System reboot—boot—boot—failed—failed—”

Nightmare Moon bent down and smiled. Watching the shock to his processor was invigorating. “Hush now, my angel. Be still. Go to my sister. Do my will.”

“Un—un—understood—” Flash dissolved, leaving only a blank touchpad in his wake.

Staring at her reflection in the touchpad, or rather at Sunset Shimmer’s face, Nightmare Moon was pleased that her reach was growing. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more. She deserved more.

And by whatever means at her disposal, she would have it all.

Twilight stared dubiously at the gunmetal gray van parked outside Fluttershy’s clinic. She couldn’t decide which was less confidence-inspiring: the vehicle or its driver.

“Mighty fine day to make your acquaintance, Miss Twilight! We don’t see a whole lot of Citadel folks ’round here anymore.” The speaker was a tall, well-built young woman with an extremely freckled face and blonde hair that had the texture of hay. She was dressed in dark slacks and a matching vest over a white shirt that had since faded to gray. And as if she weren’t rural enough, she completed the stereotype with a battered ten-gallon hat.

“Yes, I can tell.” Twilight eyed the van, noticing several sections where the paintwork had been scratched or peeled off. “Are you sure this thing’s safe to drive?”

The girl shrugged. “Ain’t I still in one piece?” With a pleased smile, she leaned back and patted the passenger-side door with a surprising degree of affection. “Ol’ Bloomberg here has seen a lot of action and plenty of retrofits. I reckon he’s good to last for me a few more years anyhow.”

Twilight was about to ask about those retrofits—and just how legal they were—when she felt a soft hand fall on her shoulder. She paused and let Fluttershy whisper into her ear, “You don’t need to worry. There’s no one more honest in this town than Applejack.”

Hearing her new friend’s delicate voice was reassuring, even if it ran counter to Twilight’s well-earned cynicism about people. Still, at least she could double-check the new name against Celestia’s personnel records. Two lines of text scrawled over her visor, obscuring the smiling van driver in front of her.

Synopsis: Applejack. Age 23. Co-owner and driver, Sweet Apple Transit. C-4 implant rating.

Administrator’s Notes: Thoroughly reliable and completely trustworthy.

Twilight had to wonder about that kind of note. While she couldn’t comprehend the kind of vast surveillance and computing power that the Sysadmin had at her command, she did know that Celestia probably hadn’t visited Oldtown since the time of its founding. Most likely, everything she knew about these strange girls was based on psychological evaluations or intelligence reports. She could barely afford the time to leave the CAP, let alone take a personal tour to the other side of the continent, yet she wrote about each young coder as if they were someone she’d met and come to know as a friend. It was inconceivable. It simply wasn’t possible.

If these girls were so important, why didn’t Twilight know about them to begin with? And why weren’t they part of the Institute instead of scraping by in a miserable place like Oldtown?

As such thoughts chased themselves ragged through her head, Twilight clutched at the sleeves of her jacket. The cold air descending on the street was nipping at her cheeks. If the drones sent by Citadel didn’t get an immediate fix on the atmosphere bots, then Oldtown was due for some severe weather. What would normally be a low-tension cloudy day could easily turn into an overcast afternoon with a high chance of rain—as if Twilight wasn’t feeling miserable enough.

Meanwhile, Spike was sniffing around the back of the van. His tail lifted and wagged with interest. “Are… are those apples I smell?”

Applejack laughed. “Sure are, little fella! You want one? I got a whole bushel I was set to deliver to Carousel when Pinkie gave me the call.”

Spike sat up straight on the pavement, panting as he watched the driver reach through her van’s open side door and pull out a juicy red apple. Applejack tossed it into the air and the uplifted canine jumped, snagging the fruit midair in his teeth. He landed on all fours, dropping to the ground to wolf down his snack. Twilight’s hands tightened over her stomach as it gurgled in response. She promised she’d put more food in it once she rounded up the rest of her team.

Yet another reason why she didn’t like going on this mission. It was disrupting her perfectly arranged schedule of mealtimes.

“I hear you’re looking for Rarity and Rainbow Dash,” said Applejack, now turning to Twilight. She pointed her thumb back at the van. “I just so happen to be making a delivery that way. Rarity’s got a bunch of folks at her club, trying to find shelter ever since the Grid crashed. Odds are you’ll find that sky bandit Rainbow Dash there, too.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Twilight smiled, feeling slightly better now that she knew where she was going. Maybe this mission wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“You should go with Applejack,” Fluttershy chimed in. She was in the middle of putting on the blue safety helmet that Pinkie had offered. “I’ll ride ahead of you with Pinkie.”

“Aww, yeah!” Pinkie grabbed Fluttershy by the waist, yanking in one fluid motion onto the back of her Trailblazer. “Rescue Team, ride out!”

“Wait—” Fluttershy’s protest turned into a terrifying shriek as Pinkie revved up her bike. Then the two riders blazed up the street, leaving the others behind in a sudden plume of smoke and sparks floating over the asphalt.

Twilight pulled up the collar of her jacket, covering her cough with the resilient smart-silk fabric. She let it drop and stared in amazement at the severe black skid marks that Pinkie Pie’s bike had left in the middle of the road.

Celestia’s advice to Handle with care was far too mild for dealing with that odd girl.

Moments later, Twilight was sitting in the passenger seat of the van. She kept her hands folded in her lap as Applejack drove the van around the nearest corner, taking them out from the low-income neighborhood of Fluttershy’s clinic. Twilight stared at the windows of other tenements and storefronts, all closed up but in better condition as they moved deeper into the city. Some of the street lamps were still functional as the skies overhead darkened, giving Applejack a clear path to drive along.

She hoped the ride to Rarity’s club wouldn’t take too long. Twilight was starting to loathe the smell of apples wafting up from the back of the van.

“So…” Applejack leaned back in her chair and glanced at her passenger with a friendly smile. “What brings you out here from Citadel? You making sure the Grid’s getting fixed?”

“Something like that,” Twilight replied. She flashed Applejack a quick smile, then glanced back down at her hands. “It’s more of an assignment from the Sysadmin. I have to get five of the best coders from here for a job in the Vault—”

Applejack burst out laughing. “Right! No, really. Why are you here?”

Her laugh left a burning sensation in Twilight’s stomach. “That’s exactly why I’m here. If you don’t believe me, I’ve got a whole data packet from Celestia herself to prove it.”

When Applejack turned, she wasn’t laughing or smiling anymore. Her green eyes settled on Twilight’s face with sudden intensity. “Yeah? I reckon I’d like to see it for myself.”

Twilight nodded. She’d take any course that would make getting this job any easier. “All right, then. I can let you into my private network for file sharing. What social platform do you use?”

“Fast Chat Forum Central. How about you?”

“Err… the same.” Twilight blinked. Of all the luck, she’d never have guessed she’d run into somewhere out here who used the same social forum as she did. FCFC was the kind of site she’d expected most Citadel residents to use, with older sites like The Daily Den and OpenMarket being more suited to frontier cities like Oldtown. But she supposed it was just her pride talking. She could almost hear her Institute networking mentor clucking his tongue in disappointment.

“Great. I’ll send ya a net request.” Applejack leaned back in her seat, staring intently at whatever was flashing across her clean-tint visor. “And there she goes!”

The words had barely left her mouth when Twilight’s visor chimed. A sky-blue textbox appeared in the right-hand corner of her vision. She gave a controlled blink and watched her display blink into a new set of text.

A lump formed in her throat when she read the username. Then she read it again. And again.

“Th-that’s not possible,” she whispered. “That’s not…”

“Something wrong, sugarcube?”

“I…” She looked over at the young woman sitting behind the wheel. How could she be sitting there so casually? “Are… are you GrowingStrong?”

“Sure am, Miss Twilight! Says so right on the request!” Applejack grinned. “So what’s your handle?”

“StarSwirl70,” Twilight responded.

She thrust both hands onto the dashboard as the van came to a sudden screeching halt. Twilight grimaced as her chest tightened against the seatbelt, only for her to be thrown back into her chair. Somewhere in the back of the van, she could hear Spike cursing and scrambling for purchase as the van came to a dead stop in the middle of the empty neighborhood road.

With both hands tight on the steering wheel, Applejack slowly looked over at Twilight. Her jaw dropped as she glanced up and down, examining her passenger like a rare insect.

“Well, I’ll be a horse’s auntie,” Applejack whispered. Then she grinned and stuck out her hand. “Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Swirly.”

Swirly. That was the nickname that Twilight had gotten from another forum friend. From Cupcaaakes, who was so high-spirited and prone to malaprops—

Just like Pinkie Pie, she realized far too late.

She groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I can’t believe it. I’m the world’s biggest idiot.”

“Now, don’t you fret.” Applejack patted her on the shoulder, giving a gentle touch despite the rough texture of her hand. “It ain’t your fault that you didn’t know us personally. I mean, you weren’t exactly too keen on meeting us before.”

“But…” Twilight shook her head, still trying to process the magnitude of this. “But I thought… I thought…”

“Ya thought what?”

In a tiny voice, she said, “I thought I’d lost you all.”

During the moment when the Grid actually went down, Twilight remembered feeling only one moment of genuine panic. It wasn’t during the lights shutting off or when she watched the drones fall out of the sky. It was when she’d seen her connection to the forum suddenly fail. All her friends, cut off from her—and, she’d assumed, from each other as well. All alone and helpless in the face of the worst disaster in Arcadian history.

Twilight thought she’d be happy to find them again. She thought she’d be ecstatic to know them personally. But here was the painful truth, something she couldn’t hide from any longer.

Her friends all knew each other—all living in the same city, even. All except for Twilight.

Some friend she’d turned out to be.

Applejack reached out again, leaning over to pull Twilight into a side hug. “Hey, Twilight. It’s all right. We’re all fine now. We’re just glad that you’re okay. We’d heard it was just as bad in Citadel during the crash.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight whispered. She closed her eyes, begging that her tears wouldn’t come out. “If I’d have known… I mean, you have to believe me. I’m so sorry I never bothered to…”

She couldn’t even say the words to meet you all. How many invites had she gotten over the years from her forum group, to birthday parties and weddings and whatever gig Cupcaaakes was hosting on a given weekend? How many times had she made excuses, saying she couldn’t afford to travel at the moment or that she had a big stargazers meeting to prepare for? And they’d all been so gracious about it. They never took offense whenever she set her chat feed to passive, except for a little ribbing by Cupcaaakes or Wonderblaze21.

They understood what friendship was really about. Even with all her studies and coursework, Twilight was still a novice in that regard. And she couldn’t stop hating herself for it.

“Hey, it’s okay, Twi.” Applejack’s voice was as warm as the arm around her shoulders. “You didn’t know. That doesn’t mean we don’t like you. We were just wondering why you didn’t come to us as a friend to begin with.”

Sniffling, Twilight nodded and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “Right. Thanks for that.”

Looking over at Applejack, Twilight had to wonder what she’d pictured her online friends to be in real life. Then she realized that she’d never really imagined them that way. They were just names on the forum. Usernames and lines of text with their own distinct voice.

Was it so surprising that they were just as varied and passionate in person?

“Now, lemme see this here packet of yours…” Applejack’s voice trailed off as she leaned back in her seat. Her eyes sharpened on the contents of her visor. “Huh. Sure is a lot of data on little old me, ain’t it? And this business in the Vault…” She pursed her lips, blinking rapidly as more data entered her personal channel. “It’s for real?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Twilight, now mostly back in control of her senses. She took a deep breath, letting her stomach expand and contract slowly. “Celestia calls it the Nightmare virus. But if we can find the Source Code Shield—”

“Then we’ve got a shot.” Applejack nodded to herself. “All right, Twilight. Guess you can count me in.”

“Really?”

“Sure!” Applejack grinned easily. “Whatever it takes to get the Grid back online. I mean, I’ve got the family business to think of.”

Twilight winced at that phrase. “And you’re sure I’m not taking you away from that?”

Whirling on her, Applejack stared is disbelief. “Sugarcube, there ain’t nothing more important than whatever nasty thing is running the show down in Celestia’s Vault. If we’ve gotta kick its tail to get things back to normal, then that’s what we’ve gotta do.”

Twilight smiled back, relief flooding her veins. “That means a lot coming from you, G.S.”

“Now, none of that username business, you hear?” Applejack’s voice was light and friendly as she pulled down the emergency brake and let the van move forward on the street again. “You’re Twilight Sparkle and I’m your good buddy Applejack. Got that?”

“Got it!” said Twilight, laughing for the first time that day.

“Um, P-Pinkie?” Fluttershy was struggling to make herself heard over the high-pitched whine of her friend’s motorbike. Around them, the downtown area was a continual gray blur, punctuated by random sightings of surprised people as the two pink-haired ladies blazed up Moss Road and turned sharply around the corner.

Fluttershy was also struggling to keep her stomach secure. With so many sharp turns and the engine’s vibrations, she felt like she was going to lose her lunch. She could already taste half of a protein bar in the back of her throat.

“Yo, Shy!” Pinkie didn’t turn around as she continued to accelerate onto Trost Lane, where gray smoke was rising up from several tenements. Fluttershy began to fear for whoever was living there. She’d had some trouble with her clinic’s domestic assembler—a sudden spark in the power cable and several nanomachines threatening to burst free. She could only imagine the kind of difficulties that those homeowners they passed by were experiencing. All those essential bots leaking out into the atmosphere…

Closing her eyes, Fluttershy offered a short prayer that Celestia would be successful in restoring the Grid. Or at least that Twilight Sparkle’s mission would be a success. Somehow.

“Why did you pick up Twilight at the train station?” Fluttershy was finally able to ask. She paused, letting her stomach gurgle back into place as the motorbike—mercifully—slowed long enough for a turn down an alleyway.

“Oh, that’s easy!” cried Pinkie. Her fingers twitched on the handlebars—one of her many unusual tics. “I recognized her private network code. StarryNight102.we!”

Fluttershy stared at the back of her friend’s helmet. She tried to rack her brain for that PN code, but nothing came to mind. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Duh!” Pinkie Pie took one hand off the steering and smacked the side of her helmet, making Fluttershy cringe in terror as the bike wobbled a little to the left. “It’s Swirly!”

“S-StarSwirl70?” Fluttershy opened her mouth to argue the point—and then immediately closed it.

To her surprise, that explained a lot. It explained why Twilight was so standoffish; she’d been the same when she first joined the forum. It put her interest and connection to their circle of friends into a more positive light. And no forum friend would take her seriously if she introduced herself as StarSwirl70 and then started rambling about evil data ghosts and a secret mission to the Vault. Even though Fluttershy lived by a personal code that dictated kindness to all—and raising her voice toward a very deserving few—she had to admit she wouldn’t have felt so charitable to Twilight if she hadn’t handled herself so well.

Looking back, Fluttershy felt ridiculous for having jumped to conclusions about Twilight being a clinic license inspector from Citadel. She blushed and rested her head on Pinkie’s shoulder.

While Fluttershy was thinking about their new friend—and all the questions she’d wanted to ask StarSwirl70—Pinkie Pie eased up on the handlebars, letting her bike coast toward an easy halt outside the fine limestone façade of Carousel.

Rarity’s nightclub was the most genteel place in town. Topped by a copper geodesic dome, the club took up a quarter of the block, three stories high and elegant in every way. However, at the moment, the local scrubber drones weren’t back online, so a distasteful layer of grime had begun to settle over the gleaming limestone. Fluttershy also didn’t miss the worrying flicker of the neon blue holographic signage—or the line of people shuffling in and out of the club’s front doors.

Seeing crowds waiting to enter Carousel was nothing new, even this early in the day. But what caught Fluttershy’s eye were the type of people waiting to go in. She saw families huddled together, clutching bags full of their personal belongings. She saw faces lined with fatigue and clothes that looked like they’d been slept in. Some of the people who left the club were smiling a little more, while the ones going in seemed gaunt and tired.

It wasn’t much of a deduction for Fluttershy. She’d always known how generous Rarity was with her resources. Of course she’d be the first entrepreneur to open her doors to the Grid-deprived.

As she and Pinkie Pie removed their helmets, Rarity herself emerged from the thickest part of the crowd. Fluttershy felt a tremor of shock pass through her when she saw how her friend’s hair fell limp to one side, with tiny strands of hair poking out at odd angles. There were bags under Rarity’s eyes and the front of her smart-silk gown was soiled with faded black handprints and splotches of some unspeakable fluids. Fluttershy didn’t hesitate to jump off the bike and close the distance to her distraught friend.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here!” Rarity embraced Fluttershy without any of her usual propriety. She gave Fluttershy a long and tremendous hug, not the least bit concerned about the bystanders watching. “You won’t believe the issues I’ve had today! Why, the autochef is running on backup and at full capacity, and that’s nothing compared to the overcrowded restrooms upstairs!”

“Oh, we won’t be in the way,” said Fluttershy. She let go and held her friend at arm’s length. “I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Perish the thought!” Rarity smiled lightly. “You’d never be a burden to me, darling. I’d be glad to have your help.” Her smile faltered as Pinkie bounded over to join their conversation. Though it didn’t last long, Fluttershy spotted a flicker of concern on Rarity’s face. “I… I could really use more friends right now. Something terrible’s come up and I need all the help I can get.”

That nervous churning feeling in Fluttershy’s stomach was back, but it didn’t have anything to do with motion sickness. Even Pinkie was quiet as she processed Rarity’s words. She shared a look with Fluttershy and then they were both reaching out to hug Rarity.

“Thank you,” their friend whispered back. She lifted her head, still showing an ounce of her old pride and confidence. “Please, dears, let’s go inside. It’ll be better this way.”

“But what about Applejack and Twilight?” asked Pinkie as she pointed her thumb back up Trost Lane. “They won’t be here for another three minutes!”

Rarity’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry. Who’s Twilight?”

“Oh, right!” Fluttershy glanced over at Pinkie, giving her a concerned look, before turning back to Rarity. “That’s another long story. We’ll talk about it inside, okay?”

With an unladylike sniffle, Rarity nodded and led the way back through the crowd of refugees.

For Twilight, stepping into the interior of the elite club called Carousel was like walking back into the comforting architecture of Citadel. She felt more at home among the neon green columns supporting a cerulean ceiling, where pinprick lights and submerged red orbs illuminated the entire scene. Her fingers ran over the luxurious surface of the synthetic leather couch. Of course it was synthetic; with an animal lover like Fluttershy in her circle, Rarity would probably never permit an actual bovine to be hurt for the sake of her décor.

Unfortunately, the sight of so many refugees camped out inside the nightclub reminded her of Citadel as well. Twilight counted at least a hundred and seventy-two people crammed onto the dance floor and the dining area. With glum and anxious expressions, they huddled together on spread-out mats, sharing meals taken from readymade cannisters. The silvery dais on the western wall, where performers and DJs usually set up, was now covered with relief packages, including the barrel full of fruit that Applejack had delivered.

Applejack herself sat next to Twilight on the couch, with the other girls sitting on top of cargo crates in a makeshift conversation circle. This included the club’s owner, Rarity, and one final addition to the group.

“So, StarSwirl, huh? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re exactly how I pictured you.”

The voice belonged to the fifth and final coder on Twilight’s checklist. She smiled as she scanned Celestia’s readout on her visor for confirmation.

Synopsis: Rainbow Dash. Age 22. Repulsorcraft pilot for Wonderblaze, Inc. C-4 implant rating.

Administrator’s Notes: Rough around the edges, but fiercely loyal and talented.

“No offense taken,” Twilight answered with a smile. “I’m just glad to finally meet you. You don’t how worried I was about this assignment.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged and leaned back on the other end of the couch. While she resembled her friend Applejack in her musculature, the resemblance ended there. Twilight was used to seeing peculiar gene mods and cybernetics, but nothing like what this girl had. The rainbow-streaked hair she could accept, but the sky blue skin pigment was a touch odd. Not to mention, the pair of mirrorshades that had been surgically implanted over her eyes. Twilight felt very self-conscious when she looked at Rainbow Dash, only to see her own reflection staring back.

The orange coveralls that she wore didn’t help either. For some reason, they’d been ripped up at strategic points, revealing more blue skin and making Twilight question how safe and skilled a pilot this girl truly was. She could’ve passed for any refugee with a malfunctioning domestic assembler if not for the totally confident smile she wore.

Twilight sat back, regarding all her new friends—which was a misnomer, since they’d always been friends, just by different names. They were so comfortable around each other that Twilight was a touch jealous. Watching Spike get a scratch behind his ears from Rainbow Dash didn’t her feelings much.

“Listen, this assignment of yours is cool and all, but we’ve got more important stuff to worry about.” Rainbow Dash sank deeper into her end of the couch, losing her smile for a second.

Twilight blinked. “What could be more important than saving the whole Grid?”

“My sister, for a start!” Everyone turned to Rarity, whose fists had curled up in her sudden rage. She gave Twilight a wilting glare. “I swore I wouldn’t rest until all my neighbors and clients were safe, but now it’s different. Now that beast has my sister!”

“Our sisters,” Rainbow Dash corrected. Applejack followed up with an uncomfortable, silent nod.

Glancing between the three of them, Twilight felt herself sinking—or perhaps it was only her confidence. “I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t know what any of that means.”

“It means, Twilight,” Applejack said with a heavy, tired voice, “that there’s this local creep in town, calls himself Garble, and he’s got his claws on our little sisters. Dashie here told me that she saw his thugs snatch up the girls from the park this morning. They’re holed up in some fancy hotel and demanding a ransom.”

Again, Twilight blinked. “Why on Terra would anyone do that?”

“Grid crash,” said Rainbow Dash, shrugging. “Garble’s a little brown stain as far as Oldtown’s concerned, but take away the peace and safety of the Grid, and he’s looking to make a name for himself.”

“That ruffian,” Rarity added with total vehemence, “won’t be allowed to play games with my dear Sweetie Belle’s life! I swear on Celestia’s throne he won’t!”

Having seen the magnificence of Celestia’s throne room herself, Twilight was inclined to believe Rarity’s oath. She clasped her hands together and looked around at her friends, examining their faces one at a time.

Young but capable. That was the gist of Celestia’s report on them—including the stats and notes on Twilight herself. Looking at the girls now, Twilight knew the Sysadmin was telling the truth. But she felt she needed more. A demonstration. A sign of faith in their ability to handle the worst that Nightmare Moon and the entire Vault could throw at them.

Slowly, Twilight’s lips curved into a suggestive smile. She had the best idea. An audition that these girls—these coders—would never forget.

“What if,” she asked, “I could get them back?”

Five pairs of eyes—six, if she counted Spike—focused on Twilight’s face. Rarity’s glare softened to a look of genuine surprise, while the others all glanced at each other to confirm their reactions.

“I’d be the first to say heck yeah,” Applejack finally replied, “but unless you got a whole bunch of armed cyber mods I don’t know about, I don’t see how you could.”

“On my own? No, I can’t.” Twilight waved her hand over the group. “But then I’m not alone anymore, am I? Between the six of us and Spike’s network relay, we’ve got enough processor power and programming experience to run inteference. Put up a block on this Garble’s gang and steal the girls back.”

While she spoke, her pulse started to race. Twilight was back at the Institute, delivering a five-minute presentation to her shell coding class. She had the floor and she would take charge until her time was up. No one could stop her now.

And more than that, since leaving Citadel—and hating to admit it—Twilight did find herself enjoying her assignment. She missed the security of her home, but without proper power and signal strength, it wasn’t any better than an Oldtown residence. Until they stopped Nightmare Moon once and for all, she’d have to brave the danger and make the most of an awful time.

“Oh, my,” said Fluttershy. Clutching her knees into her chest, she shivered and added, “I’d support you, of course, but I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“No one will,” Twilight reassured her. “Not if I can help it.”

“Though hurting Garble is perfectly acceptable,” Rarity added quickly.

“I know how to coordinate different data streams at the same time,” Twilight continued. She leaned back into the couch, just like Rainbow Dash was doing, and tried to mirror her air of confidence. “I guarantee that if you put me in the right place, I’ll do whatever I can to help you get your sisters back—so long as you agree to come with me to the Vault. Deal?”

An awkward silence fell over the group. Twilight didn’t feel so left out when she saw them exchange prolonged glances, sharing their own private chats in real-time.

Then Rainbow Dash turned to her with a guarded expression. “You promise you’ve got what it takes to do this? To hit ’em hard and fast?”

Twilight met her with a tight but friendly smile. “Wonderblaze21, be serious. You’ve seen my coding skills firsthand. You know exactly what I’m capable of.”

“Heh.” Rainbow’s solemn expression gave way to an earnest grin. “Well, all right. Count me in.”

“Me, too,” said Applejack.

“And me as well,” said Rarity.

Pinkie Pie wrapped her arm around Fluttershy’s shoulder and squeezed tightly. “Don’t forget us, too!” Fluttershy could only nod quietly, but there was no mistaking the stern resolve in her eyes.

For the first time that day, Twilight felt completely prepared for the challenges that lay ahead. She supposed she ought to go and savor the moment while it lasted.

Author's Note

Apologies for any grammar or pacing errors in this chapter. It was rather late when I finished it and I keep forgetting to talk to proofreaders (while ironically offering to help do the same for other writers).

5 - The Girls of Oldtown, Part II

Night fell over Oldtown with an eerie silence that Spike couldn’t abide. Even in its ruined state, Citadel was still full of people heading to emergency supply points and ground vehicles moving along the streets at night, filling the air with a sense of urgency and continual motion. But here, standing next to a massive building downtown, he couldn’t sense any real motion on the streets. Everyone in Oldtown stayed indoors at night and there were no drones giving a comforting hum through the skies overhead, not even the ones that Sysadmin Celestia had sent ahead of their mag-lev train.

Once they fixed this Grid crash, Spike reminded himself, he was going to ask the Sysadmin to make renewing this whole town her top priority. After all, how could anyone choose to live like this?

Still, he kept his nose to the ground—literally. Spike’s nose was already more advanced than a typical human’s, but with all the gene mods he’d received over the years, he’d become skilled at picking out even a microscopic scent trail if one existed.

At the moment, he was getting nosefuls of adrenaline, fresh dirt, cigarette ash, and some kind of rosy perfume. Spike paused and lifted his head, looking over at the pair of glass doors that led into the building in whose shadow he was concealed.

The Griffon Hotel was a magnificent place, though not as opulent as the lovely Rarity’s nightclub. Standing four stories tall, the long structure was fabricated from deep crimson brick, though it didn’t have the same brittle texture as naturally-formed clay. Gold filigree lined every windowsill and the crisp holograms of proud griffons were etched into place over the massive glass doors at the front of the hotel. But there were no bellhops waiting outside, nor any guests entering and leaving. Spike got another whiff of emotion from the area.

Stark terror, curling in the air like spoiled milk.

Whatever this place might have been like before the Grid crash, it was now a place where people hid and tried to ride out the disaster unfolding in the rest of the city.

Spike shook his head. Even with his keen sense of smell, he could only follow the trail so far. But that hint of perfume was a vital clue.

In his ear, the cochlear implant hissed, followed by Twilight’s slightly strained voice. “Anything so far, Spike?”

“I think this is the place,” he confirmed, bending down to get another whiff. His tail wagged in satisfaction when he picked up on the perfume. “You’ll have to ask Rarity, but if her sister wears the same perfume as her, then I think she’s here.”

A more melodious voice gasped at the other end of the audio channel. “Eau de Ếcurie! Thank Celestia, she’s here! And thank you, dearest Spike!”

Spike laughed, grateful that he couldn’t blush like humans could. He could get used to hearing that sweet voice in his ears for a long time...

“Stay focused,” Twilight cut in, sounding like her usual sardonic self. “Fluttershy, are you ready?”

“R-ready!” came the timid reply.

Spike sat obediently at the street corner, letting the cool night air ruffle his fur as he waited. It only took a few seconds for Fluttershy to pop her head out from behind a large recycling bin on the eastern side of the hotel. She’d changed out of her lab coat, now wearing a synth-leather jacket and matching jeans. Her very distinct pink hair had been tucked up into a black knitted cap. When she moved toward Spike, she didn’t make a sound, her shoes padding over the pavement in perfect silence. For a moment, Spike thought she looked every bit the perfect stealth operative—except for the fact that she was cringing with each step.

“Hey,” he said quietly, confident that no one was listening in, “it’s gonna be fine.”

“I-I know,” Fluttershy squeaked. She knelt down beside the uplifted dog, comforting herself by giving him a quick scratch behind the ears. “I just don’t like being in something this dangerous.”

Spike’s ears drooped. “Me neither. But you know those kids, right?”

Fluttershy nodded mutely. Her face was a mask of sudden dread.

“The seven of us,” Spike continued, “are the only ones who can get them back. So we’ll be facing that danger together, okay?”

With an audible swallow, Fluttershy nodded again. “Okay.”

Spike smiled and turned around, brushing his tail against her leg. “Come on. It’s just a few steps inside.”

Twilight sat inside Rarity’s office on the second floor of Carousel, grinding her teeth as she stared at the text and video readouts on the wallscreen. She watched a simultaneous broadcast of Spike leading Fluttershy into the hotel lobby and Pinkie Pie sneaking in through the ground floor kitchens. On the left-hand side of the screen was a scrolling series of texts from Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who confirmed that their preparation on the rooftop opposite the hotel was a complete success.

Once again, Twilight regretting asking Rarity for a stim-shot earlier. The chemical supplement was making her skin crawl with anticipation. Every input, every message and frame of streaming video, was making her jumpy. She wanted nothing more than for this whole assignment to be over.

She missed her starcharts and her telescope. She missed lounging in her chair back home, watching a historical drama on the livestream while she sipped from a mug of hot cocoa. Twilight Sparkle was born to be a stargazer, not some covert ops team leader.

I have nothing but faith in you, Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s warm voice echoed in her mind. All you need to do is show your new friends that same faith…

Like most advice, it was easier said than done. Twilight stared at the wallscreen, wondering how she could begin to comprehend her friends’ talents when she’d been so distant from them all these years? She didn’t know how someone like Fluttershy would handle under pressure or whether Pinkie Pie was even capable of staying focused on her appointed task. And that didn’t even begin to cover what kind of damage Rainbow Dash could do if left unchecked. As much as she’d enjoyed the colorful chats eshe’d had with the group over the years, the simple truth was that their real-life behavior was far too unpredictable for Twilight’s comfort.

And she supposed that was what was really upsetting her. This raid on the gangster known as Garble was nothing more than an audition. A test to see if these girls had what it took to handle the real danger lurking in the Vault below their feet.

Sitting beside her, Rarity wrung her hands together. “Darling, are you quite all right?”

“I’m fine,” Twilight answered, quickly spotting the tremble in her left hand. She hid it in her pocket and flashed a pleasant smile at Rarity. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

“I’ve been better.” Rarity’s fine blue eyes gleamed dangerously. “I’ll feel much better once I know my dear sister’s safe and home again.”

“Then let’s go get her.” Twilight took a deep breath and swiveled back to the wallscreen. She tapped her visor, opening her channel to Spike again. “Spike, can you check in for me?”

“We’re inside,” he replied, keeping his voice low.

Twilight flicked a finger at the wallscreen, bringing up her link to Spike’s optical implants. She got a low-angle view of a lime green hotel corridor, as he and Fluttershy crept along. Lights were flickering on and off at random—another sign of Grid instability in the area.

When she tapped into his body’s other sensor implants, from infrared to motion detection, she got an impression of several bodies packed into each room that they passed. Nervous families, scared young couples, and a surprising number of uplifted animals forming their own packs inside a few rooms near the end of the corridor. A veritable cross-section of the whole city, crammed for shelter inside this stately hotel. Twilight had no idea if any of them had been staying there already when the Grid fell or if they’d stormed the hotel for safety.

For all she knew, Garble and his brutes weren’t the only rogues to worry about.

As Spike and Fluttershy crept onto the second floor from the stairwell, Twilight’s attention focused on one room in particular. She saw the infrared measure go up a few degrees. At the same time, Spike’s whole body shook with excitement.

“Yes, got it!” he whispered. His point of view changed to a glance at the floor as he gave it a good long sniff. “We’ve found them!”

“Great!” Twilight gave Rarity a thumbs-up, taking only a moment to savor the relieved smile she wore. Then the other girl turned to her desk and tapped at a set of controls on the touchscreen embedded into the surface.

Those controls were remote-linked to a backdoor channel that Rarity had set up during a previous visit to the Griffon Hotel—something about protecting her privacy from the staff and her fellow guests. Twilight watched as Rarity typed in a set of commands on her console, then swung back to Spike’s point of view on display on the wallscreen.

Immediately, the lights flickered and went off for a second. Twilight heard a terrified yelp from Fluttershy just before the lights came back on.

“And voilà!” Rarity announced. She flashed Twilight a winning smile. “I’ve isolated their room from the rest of the hotel network.”

“Okay, onto Phase Two…” Twilight tapped her visor once more, staring at the hotel door on display. “All right, Fluttershy. Deep breath. Just repeat everything I say…”

Spike stood at attention as the hotel door slid open with a gentle hiss. His ears twitched back when he got a glimpse of the man who opened the door—and in his opinion, calling him a man was being generous.

For the most part, the guy was everything he’d expected in a common thug: tall and bulky, with thick biceps that threatened to rip through the smart fabric of his leather jacket. But it was his face that triggered Spike’s animal instincts.

Yellow eyes squinted down at him from their puckered sockets. While the skin around his eyes, nose, and mouth was recognizably human, his cheeks and neck were covered in mottled green-gray scales. Instead of hair, the top of his head was covered with a trio of long red ridges that swept back like a bad combover. Clearly, he’d gotten a very in-depth gene mod like Rainbow Dash, but Spike couldn’t pick out what species he’d used for the treatment. At a guess, he thought the scales were a bit like those of an iguana.

As the man scowled at them, Spike got a sudden familiar whiff. Cigarette ash, with just a touch of that fine perfume—Eau de Ếcurie, Rarity had said.

This had to be Garble.

“Whaddaya want?” the thug growled. “This here’s a private room.”

“Um…” Fluttershy shrank under his scorching gaze. Spike kept wagging his tail, trying to encourage her without blowing their cover. “W-well…” She paused and took a deep breath, just like Twilight had told her. “M-my dog and I were just out looking for my s-sister and her friends. Have you seen them—?”

“No.” Garble shot Spike an irritable glance and then lifted his hand toward the door controls.

Fluttershy yelped in surprise when a bright pink hand shot out from behind her, slamming through the open doorway and pinning Garble’s wrist to the wall. The gangster was just as surprised. He didn’t even have a chance to fight back. All he could do was stare in disbelief.

“Nobody likes a liar-liar-pants-on-fire!” Pinkie Pie said. Spike was amazed to see a stern look on her face. It didn’t fit her personality at all. “Don’t make me use the Light of Truth and Happiness on you!”

“The what?” Garble yanked his hand free. He rubbed at his wrist and shot a bitter glance at the two girls. “Listen, I don’t got time for this. Either get lost or I’ll—”

Pinkie grinned and pointed a slender black rod at his face. “Too late!”

Spike and Fluttershy squeezed their eyes shut as the business end of the dazzler went off. Ultraviolet light poured out from the tiny emitter node, hitting Garble right in the eyes. He screamed and dropped to his knees, which gave Spike enough time to make a blind jump over his shoulder. Of course, being unable to see for himself, Spike ended up hitting Garble right in the shoulder and tackling him to the floor. Still, he had enough momentum to jump forward and move deeper into the hotel room.

As he opened his eyes, Spike saw the air vent on the wall over the bed pop open. Rainbow Dash rolled out with a somersault. She landed feet-first on the bed, using it to bounce over Spike’s head and land behind Garble.

While he was still dazed, Rainbow Dash threw her arms around his waist. With a sudden drop to one knee, she hoisted the larger man back, slamming his shoulders and neck against the floor with a sickening thump. Spike cringed when he saw Garble’s mouth drop open, his tongue hanging out.

“Goodness!” Fluttershy exclaimed. She tiptoed around Dash and the prone Garble, making her way toward the back of the bedroom. “I’m really very sorry about this!”

“Speak for yourself, Shy.” Rainbow Dash leaned onto Garble’s chest, continuing to pin him with her elbow. “I could do this all day…”

Meanwhile, Spike followed the scent trail across the carpet—which hadn’t been cleaned in a while and bore a strong layer of ash. Even so, he caught a bigger whiff of perfume, leading him straight to the closet door.

It was the tiny murmur behind the door that made his blood run cold.

“Hang on!” Everyone turned to see Applejack come bursting into the room. Her hat was tilted back and a matte-black stun gun hung from her left hand. Though she had scuff marks on her face and sweat running through her hair, the look on her face was one of cold determination. Spike and Fluttershy exchanged a single glance of concern before moving out of her way.

Applejack didn’t hesitate. With one swift kick, she smashed the doorlock open, letting the bronze fixture fall to the floor with a dull clang.

The door slid open, revealing three frightened young girls tied up with plasticuffs and cloth gags. Despite how similar their clothes and faces were, it was easy to pick out some distinguishing details. One of them wore a bright red bow in her hair, another wore the same perfume as Rarity, and the third one had the same haircut as Rainbow Dash.

Even so, Spike stared pointedly at the girls’ faces, transmitting their images across his relay to Twilight and Rarity. With a scumbag like Garble, it wouldn’t surprise him if these were an entirely different set of girls he’d abducted…

On his heads-up display, he got a green highlight over each face, confirming that they’d found the right girls after all. He sighed and slumped onto the floor in relief.

“There, there, girls,” Fluttershy cooed. From her pocket, she took out a small utility knife. Though the girls flinched, she was gentle in cutting off the plasticuffs that bound their wrists together. Then she removed the gags by one, rubbing the girls’ backs as they gasped for air.

She took Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle into her arms, holding them to her chest. “It’s all over. We’ll take you home now.”

“Darn straight you are!” said Applejack, hugging her sister. “I’m never letting you outta my sight again!”

“Me neither, sis!” Apple Bloom replied, returning the hug just as strongly.

By this point, Garble had begun to come around. “Wha…?”

“Oh, good,” said Rainbow Dash, yanking him up by the collar of his shirt. “You’re awake. I’ve got someone who wants to talk to ya.”

Spike’s body tingled as he felt a new signal pass through his network relay. He sat up and stared at Garble, letting Twilight’s transmission clear a path to her intended recipient. Even though he didn’t like inflicting pain on people, Spike did feel a tinge of satisfaction when he heard a squeal and watched Garble clutch at his left ear.

“Hello,” said Twilight, coming in on an open channel for their captive’s benefit. “My friends and I would like our little sisters back. We hope that’s not too inconvenient for you.”

“Like hell it is,” Garble snapped. He shot a bleary eye at Applejack as the scales beneath his neck darkened. “When my boys get here—”

“Yeah, about that.” Applejack smiled at him and then turned to examine her fingernails. “They’re downstairs taking a nap, sugarcube. Guess you could say I made them take that nap.” She patted the stun gun sitting in the holster on her belt. “You want, I could do the same for you right now.”

Garble flinched, but said nothing. A wise move, Spike thought.

“I happen to be here on assignment from Citadel,” Twilight continued. “You should consider yourself lucky, Garble. If I wanted to, I’d put you on Celestia’s Persons of Interest list. Do you want to know what happens if I do that?”

“Er…” Garble frowned and glanced around at the four girls towering over him. “I, uh… I don’t think that’s necessary. I mean, I-I know better now—”

His voice broke off into a tiny squeak as Rainbow Dash drove her elbow into his sternum. Garble’s face went white as the athlete leaned further still into him, cutting off whatever excuse he’d been about to give.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Twilight continued, her voice surprisingly calm to Spike’s ears. “You and your boys are going to leave this hotel and stay far away from these girls for the rest of your lives. If you come after them again, it won’t be the local police or Citadel you’ll have to worry about. It’ll be my friends, doing what they do best.”

For a moment, Spike felt the temperature in the room go up. He looked around as Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack all exchanged meaningful glances. The smiles they gave each other was heartwarming, to be sure, but he also felt something honest about them. Like this really was what they did all day long—saving lives and scaring off creeps without breaking a sweat.

“So, let’s review.” Twilight’s voice was starting to remind Spike of that cool-headed secretary Raven back at the palace. “No more abductions, no more fights with my friends, and we won’t have to drag you to Citadel—or the Vault, for that matter.”

“Okay, okay!” Garble ducked his head despite being on the floor. “I’ll do whatever you say…”

“I’m so glad to hear that. Okay, girls—and Spike. Let’s go home.”

“Finally!” Spike exclaimed and turned to follow Pinkie Pie out the hotel room door.

Hours later, at close to the crack of dawn, Applejack plopped herself down onto a soft plastic chair in her family kitchen. Soft yellow walls stared back at her, decorated from floor to ceiling with Granny Smith’s mementos and over a dozen family holograms set on a constant loop. After that long and miserable business back at the hotel, this was exactly where Applejack wanted to be: sitting quietly in the kitchen, savoring the smell of Granny’s leftover casserole on her plate. From upstairs, she could hear Big Mac’s footsteps stomping around the floorboards, raising tiny creaks as he headed back down.

For a long while, Applejack sat with her arms folded up behind her head, smiling at the trio of full-color holos closest to the kitchen table. In the center of the three holograms was one memory that she’d always treasured. The hologram showed her and a much younger Apple Bloom chasing each other in the park, leaping over benches and splashing water up from the nearby lake. But even with all that high-definition photocapture technology that made holograms so vivid, the bright colors in the image just couldn’t compare to the memories playing through Applejack’s head.

She’d never forgive herself for letting her sister wander off like that. Even though she’d left Apple Bloom with her older brother, Applejack knew that the fault rested on her shoulders alone. She’d said no to Apple Bloom about going on those emergency deliveries together, thinking it’d be too dangerous for her on the road.

Too dangerous, Applejack thought with a snort, staring up at the ceiling. I ain’t got the first clue what’s safe anyhow. And if it weren’t for Twilight Sparkle…

Seeing the girl in action had put all her doubts at ease. She’d always suspected that StarSwirl70 was a capable leader, but it was something else entirely to see her coordinating the whole gang like it was no big deal.

Applejack had dropped the last of Garble’s thugs right when directions to his hotel room flashed onto her visor. She’d hauled jets to his room just behind Pinkie Pie, pausing for a second when she caught a heat signature on her sensors. That trace of heat had been none other than Rainbow Dash crawling through the air vents, ready to drop Garble himself when the time was right.

She still couldn’t believe it. A meticulous operation, executed in record time. But how could she doubt Twilight’s abilities the second she got her arms around her darling Apple Bloom?

Creaking floorboards and the shuffle of footsteps over Granny’s living room rug made Applejack look away from the ceiling. She smiled as her brother Big McIntosh lumbered into the kitchen. His barrel-chested body cast a deep shadow over the small room, but he moved with quiet and deliberate steps toward the empty chair on the other side of the table. When he dropped into it, he let out a belly-deep sigh. To Applejack’s ears, the weight of that sigh was a comforting sound.

“Autochef,” he muttered, turning toward the wall-mounted holos of Apple Bloom just as Applejack had done a moment ago. “Two coffees. Make ’em black.”

“Brewing two coffees,” the silver apparatus on the kitchen counter buzzed. Applejack watched the contraption whir to life, pouring black beans into its open maw and begin churning away for a fresh brew.

Tilting her hat back, Applejack beamed at her brother. “I take it our little sis is all tuckered out?”

“Eeyup,” her brother replied.

“And so’s Granny?”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the lids growing heavier with each second. “Well, all right, then. Guess I can take a moment for myself…”

She snapped upright in her chair, suddenly wondering what time it was. Her eyes flew open as she stared around the kitchen. Big Mac was leaning over her with a fresh mug of coffee in each hand. Applejack swallowed and took the drink.

“Er…” she began, her brain still taking stock of the time lapse. “How long was I out just now?”

Big Mac shrugged. “Just a minute.”

Embarrassed, Applejack drank deeply from the mug. The black and bitter brew washed through her throat, burning a little. But that was okay. It would keep her awake, if nothing else. A surge of fresh tannins and caffeine to jolt her into action again.

If she fell asleep, she was afraid of what nightmares would come. She’d lived through the nightmare of losing Apple Bloom and she wasn’t about to let the very real Nightmare lurking in the Vault get a hold of her either.

“I’d hate to do this to ya, Big Mac,” Applejack said, staring down into her mug, “but I gotta ask a favor.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac stared back, taking a polite sip from his own coffee. His soft green eyes bore down on his sister, big and gentle like the rest of him.

“I know she’s a handful, but I need you to look after Apple Bloom for a day or two.” Applejack paused to consider the issue. “And her friends, too. Me and Rarity and Rainbow Dash got some work to do.”

Big Mac stared back. His whole body went very still. “The Vault?”

A shiver ran down Applejack’s spine. Those two little words held such a deep impact. Still, she nodded and took a reassuring sip from her mug.

For a long moment, her brother didn’t say a word. That wasn’t unusual for him. But what caught Applejack off-guard was the way he looked at her, as if weighing her words while examining her face. Despite what a lot of folks around town believed, her big brother wasn’t a mass of dumb muscle. He’d always been smarter than he let on, especially when the family business needed someone to be good with numbers and fixing up the delivery trucks.

That sharp brain of his also meant that, when Big Mac needed to say something, you could always guess it was worth saying.

“All right,” he said finally. Big Mac’s shoulders dropped and he set down his mug on the table with a very loud thunk. “You go on ahead, A.J. You and your friends.”

A gleam of hope surged through Applejack’s heart. She grinned and reached out to squeeze her brother’s massive wrist with both her hands as tight as she could. “Thank ya kindly, Big Mac! You won’t regret it!”

“Hrr.” Big Mac rumbled in his throat as he shifted in his chair. “It ain’t regret. You girls go on and save the world, you hear?”

Save the world. If she’d been asked to do it two days ago, Applejack would’ve laughed at the suggestion. But after seeing what she could do—what the whole gang plus Twilight and Spike could do—she was starting to suspect it might be possible.

And the more she considered it, the more she thought about the teary-eyed joy on Apple Bloom’s face when she was rescued. Applejack knew then and there that she wanted to bring that same joy and relief to everyone in Oldtown—to everyone across Arcadia if she could help it.

“I hear ya,” Applejack replied. With one last sip from her mug, she sighed and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “You watch those girls, all right? We’ll be back before you know it.”

Big Mac raised his own mug in salute as she skidded out of the kitchen. “Eeyup.”

Rarity’s office was on the second floor of her nightclub, with a large one-way window that looked down at the dance floor below. Standing beside the desk, Twilight peered down at the crowds of people gathered there. Her heart fell for every miserable face she spotted and rose for the sight of every child who slept peacefully with their parents. Once Rarity had moved her club’s domestic assembler downstairs, a handful of refugees had formed an improvised team to manage the device, distributing baked goods and medical supplies to anyone in need.

Even in the face of disaster, some people were still decent to each other. Twilight hoped they’d remember that kindness once they got the Grid back online.

In the meantime, all her new friends were keeping busy. Rarity had put Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to bed in the same room, while increasing the security programming on their room’s door and windows. Applejack had left to take her own sister back home and catch some microsleep. Rainbow Dash was taking a shower somewhere, while Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were trying to be useful to the refugees downstairs. Twilight had spotted the two pink-haired girls floating around the crowd, offering snacks and entertainment wherever possible.

They made an excellent team, she thought. Pleasant to work with and balanced among their skills. She was starting to wonder why they’d ever need her in the first place—

“Darling?” Twilight turned around and saw Rarity entering the room with a tray full of hot drinks balanced on one hand. “Are you alright?”

Twilight forced a smile to her face. By now, the act had become routine. To the best of her memory, this was the most social she’d gotten in person in a very long time. “Oh, I’m fine. Thank you.”

Rarity frowned and set the tray down on her desk. “It’s only…” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Well, far be it from me to be seem rude, but you do seem to be scratching a lot at that network node on the back of your neck. I hope it’s not bothering you.”

“My network node?” Twilight frowned and reached back, realizing that, yes, she had been scratching at it this whole time. Even while she was thinking about the refugees below. Even during the middle of planning the rescue operation.

From his spot curled up on the office chair, Spike let out a soft moan and lifted his head. With bleary eyes, he shot Twilight a concerned look. “You oughta tell her, Twilight. Maybe she can help…” With another moan, he dropped his head back onto his paws and shifted his way back to sleep as if nothing major had happened.

Rarity eyed her with the same concern she’d shown her little sister only an hour ago. “Please, Twilight, if there’s anything I can do to help, you only have to ask.”

“I’d hate to put you through any more trouble—”

“Nonsense! I can’t abide seeing such a brave person looking so miserable!” Before Twilight could protest any further, Rarity tiptoed around her desk. Her hand reached out, gently brushing away Twilight’s hair from the back of her neck. While she stiffened at the touch, Twilight couldn’t find the courage to tell Rarity to just leave her alone.

It didn’t seem like the sort of thing a friend would do.

“Hmm.” Rarity examined the implant, rubbing her chin with her other hand. At this close range, Twilight couldn’t help but smell the perfume that clung to the other woman like a second skin. It was, she had to admit, a rather pleasant fragrance. “This network node looks quite unusual. Where did you ever get such a thing?”

“At the CAP clinic,” Twilight admitted. “It was at the Sysadmin’s personal request.”

Being so close to her, Rarity’s gasp was deafening. “Darling! Do you meant to say that you…?” She grabbed Twilight by the shoulders and stared her straight in the eye. “You actually stood in the same room as Her Majesty?”

“I did…” Twilight blinked. “Well, I mean I had no other choice. The Grid was falling apart and she couldn’t risk a long-distance channel—”

“Whoa!”

The girls spun around and stared at the crowd pouring through the open doorway. Applejack led the way, followed closely by Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. Twilight noticed that they were all still dressed up in their field gear, though only Fluttershy seemed uncomfortable in her spy outfit. Twilight knew the feeling herself. She didn’t exactly enjoy all this attention being focused on her.

“So, a network node,” Rainbow Dash commented. As she came up to the desk, Twilight could see the faint sheen of perspiration clinging to her mirrorshades from her shower. As Rainbow Dash stepped around the desk and flashed Twilight a smug grin. “I mean, as far as implants go, it’s okay. Pretty basic neuroware. Nothing I’d write home about, ya know?”

“That’s not very nice,” Fluttershy cut in. She gave her friend a pout—one that Twilight found too adorable to be threatening—before coming over to examine the network node herself. “Um, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to look at it, too.”

Twilight smiled and held her hair back with both hand. “Be my guest. If you can give any idea to make this work, I’d appreciate it.”

“But, surely…” Rarity spread her hands, shooting Twilight a puzzled frown. “The Sysadmin must have given you instructions.”

“Unfortunately, no.” Twilight chewed her lip as Fluttershy’s delicate hands brushed over the back of her neck. “I guess I figured it would sort itself out once I found you all.”

Taking a seat on the corner of Rarity’s desk, Applejack smirked. “Guess you were right, then.”

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy clustered behind Twilight, examining her network node thoroughly. Twilight closed her eyes and let them poke around, feeling a flicker of activity deep inside her exocortex. A flash of data traffic from a trio of unrecognized sources. Probably just preliminary diagnostic scans. Nothing that would seriously harm her. She peeked one eye open and caught a glimpse of a text chat scrolling across her visor.

Wonderblaze21: Anyone else seeing a Neotex-11 frame here?

LadyCastellan: Glad I’m not the only one.

LadyCastellan: Who’d have guessed you could fit a multicore processor in something this small?

QuietMouse334: Well, actually, I replaced a micro version in Angel last week.

QuietMouse334: The surgery’s really not that complicated.

Wonderblaze21: Yeah, but come on.

Wonderblaze21: How good’s the multicore for six different code languages?

LadyCastellan: You saw her talent firsthand, Rainbow Dash.

LadyCastellan: If she can write such elegant internal code, then why not

Twilight immediately felt better about the whole situation. Seeing those lines of text, reading those familiar voices on her chat feed—she’d been missing that this whole time. Even during the worst days back in Citadel, she could always count on two things: Spike’s constant presence by her side and the cheerful background noise of her friends’ chats.

She’d put off her reconnection for too long. It was time to rejoin the forum and be the StarSwirl they’d known all along.

With a careful blink, she activated her own chat profile and watched a new line of text emerge.

StarSwirl70 is online.

Then Twilight cried out as a sharp tingle ran down the back of her neck. She leaned over and grabbed onto Rarity’s office chair for support. The tingle quickly turned into deep-skin trauma. White lines of agony seared through the back of her skull as the network node grew hot, burning the edge of her skin. Her personal data feed glitched out a moment later, leaving only pixels and distorted graphics smeared across her field of vision.

Oh Celestia, Twilight groaned, feeling the nausea and agony overwhelm her. Was this what a genuine virus felt like? She’d heard horror stories back at the Institute, but she’d never guessed they’d be this bad.

Through the haze of pain, she saw one last flash of text across the visor.

QuietMouse334: Twilight, go to your bio-directory!

QuietMouse334: Input this code: 23.44.137.gamma.

QuietMouse334: Hurry!

Squeezing her eyes shut, Twilight muttered a short copy command under her breath. Her visor was permanently linked to her body’s internal directory, where all the command codes and medical implants were contained and controlled. Using Fluttershy’s advice, she copied and pasted the code directly into the input line. Then she buckled over the chair as the pain spiked—

And then, nothing.

Twilight blinked. She stared at the desk, suddenly feeling no pain in her neck. Breathing slowly, she lifted one hand to her neck to feel around the implant. “What in the world…?”

“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,” Rarity offered. She patted Twilight’s shoulder. “I should have warned you about our network setup.”

“You… aaah…” Twilight groaned and spun the chair around. By now, Spike was wide awake from all the commotion. He gave Twilight a sympathetic frown and hopped down to the floor. She sank into the inviting leather seat and closed her eyes again. “I don’t understand. You mean that wasn’t the forum link?”

For once, Rainbow Dash wasn’t being that cocky. She leaned onto the desk beside Twilight and shrugged. “Yeah, it’s pretty common out here. I mean, we can’t all afford fancy antivirals like in Citadel. So we piggyback off each other’s code style from time to time. Makes it harder for trap tags to take us down when we can use a friend’s coding to confuse the signal and scrub the threat out.”

“And sometimes we give each other real piggyback rides!” Pinkie Pie added cheerfully. When everyone turned to stare at her, she blushed and clasped her hands behind her back. “Well, okay. Maybe just me and Dashie…”

Twilight sat back in her chair, processing all of this. She was grateful for a stop to the pain, but even that felt a little suspicious.

“That code,” she said, turning to Fluttershy. “What was it, exactly?”

“Oh, that was our root key!” Fluttershy’s smile eased the tension in the room like sunlight on a cloudy day. “Your bio-directory was rejecting us as network threats, so we invited you to join our private group.”

“Makes sense,” Spike commented. “It’s one thing to chat on forums, but a private network’s something special.”

From the other side of the desk, Applejack leaned over. “Hey, check it out, y’all. The darn thing’s turned on.”

Everyone crowded around to look at the back of Twilight’s neck. When she checked the forum, Twilight noticed a screencap that Rarity had linked to her.

It was a picture of her own neck. In the center, Celestia’s network node was fully-lit up. The six LEDs on each tip were glowing steady instead of flashing on and off like before. And even now, the white LED in the center of the implant had activated as well. Twilight frowned at the image of the device and tried a simple diagnostic scan from her visor.

What she got back was a dizzying array of code. Flashes of Pinkie Pie’s graphic designs of cats bounced off a series of account statements from Applejack and Rarity. There went a burst of telemetry from Rainbow Dash, and behind that was a large set of DNA sequences from Fluttershy. All packed together in separate compartments, bouncing back and forth across her field of vision, contained by the network node. It was impressive that so much raw data could be focused in so tiny a point, but Twilight supposed that was the whole point of a multicore processor in this situation.

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” she said out loud.

“Understand what, darling?” asked Rarity.

Twilight looked around at her friends’ faces, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. “Celestia said that this implant would keep us safe from any attacks by Nightmare Moon. If it’s anything like your private setup, then that means we’ll be able to prevent her from getting her virus into any one of us.” She smiled, feeling a glow inside her heart that matched the LEDs on her neck. “If we work together and coordinate just as well as we did last night, I think we may actually have a chance of saving the Grid.”

“You know, Twi?” Applejack grinned as she put her hand over Twilight’s. “I’m thinking you might be right.”

“Heck yeah, she is,” Rainbow Dash chimed in.

Everyone else joined in, laying their hands together as the code languages in Twilight’s node began to organize themselves. Even Spike laid a paw over the top of the group, earning a very delighted smile from Fluttershy.

“Okay,” Twilight whispered. She stared ahead at the data streaming across her visor. “Spike, let me see that data packet from Citadel again.”

“On its way,” Spike announced.

When the file opened in her display, Twilight flipped through the psych evaluations and admin notes that Celestia had provided. Below all that was the genuine material for this mission.

“Access Point Omega,” said Twilight, feeling victorious as she read the name in the file. “That’s where we’re going to enter the Vault. All seven of us…”

Author's Note

Finally, the wheels are in motion. Off to the Vault we go!

6 - Gatekeeper

Despite Applejack’s initial concerns, Twilight was proven right when she’d estimated that they wouldn’t experience too much danger leaving Oldtown. According to the Sysadmin’s field data, the two hundred or so kilometers between the city and Access Point Omega were barren, devoid of human settlements or wild animals. It took the better part of a day for the Sweet Apple van to make its way southeast, kicking up small clouds of dirt and dust the whole way down.

However, just to be on the safe side, Rainbow Dash had gone and borrowed her company-sponsored repulsorcraft from its warehouse in East Oldtown. At least, she’d told Twilight and the others that she’d borrowed it. The hasty grin at that remark left her feeling unsure, but the sight of Rainbow’s fixed-wing glider flying overhead was a real comfort to the whole group. Like having their own guardian angel, complete with blinking red navigation lights.

It was a few minutes after sundown when they finally reached the access point. Applejack’s van came to a bumpy halt in the middle of a grassy clearing. Spike was the first one out, panting and barking happily as any canine outdoors could be.

“Fresh air! Oh, thank you Celestia!” he cried. To see his tail wagging, one might suspect it was about to fly off in its own. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

While Twilight and the other girls stumbled out of the van, Rainbow Dash circled overhead for one more loop. She let out a deep “Wahoo!” and twisted the control handlebars to one side. Her glider emitted a soft but rising whine that echoed across the clearing as she dropped her legs and hit the ground running, barely losing any of her momentum. Twilight ducked out of fear—afraid of both the collapsing steel wings that threatened to take her head off and of the maniacal grin on Rainbow’s face.

While the girls dusted themselves off and Rarity made several unflattering comments about the arid landscape, Twilight knelt down in the dirt. It wasn’t easy, having to piggyback off the source code of so many other Grid users while trying to pick out relevant data points, but she did her best.

“I gotta say, Twi,” Applejack broke in, her boots crunching over the dried grass, “I was expectin’ something else when you showed me those coordinates.” She spread her arms wide. “None of this looks like it oughta be called ‘Access Point Omega,’ ya know?”

Twilight paused her scan long enough to smile at Applejack. “Well, think about it. If you were going to build an entrance to the most secure location in all of Terra, wouldn’t you try to hide it from plain sight?”

Applejack considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I might.”

“Security through obscurity,” Twilight concluded, feeling a wave of nostalgia at that phrase. She hadn’t used it since leaving the Institute. But it wasn’t enough to make her wish she was back there. Even kneeling in the dirt in the middle of nowhere seemed more important to the fate of Terra than all her exams and research projects combined.

On her visor, a patch of dirt suddenly turned hot orange, followed by a ping inside her ear. Twilight grinned and cross-referenced it against Celestia’s records.

This had to be the place.

“Spike!” she called out, jumping to her feet and brushing the dirt from her knees. “I need you!”

“At your service!” the uplifted dog replied. He was at her side in an instant, raising tufts of loose dog fur into the desert air.

Twilight nodded at the patch of dirt, blinking her right eye to get a screenshot and transmit it across their private network. “I need to start digging right about… there.”

“Digging?” Spike fixed her with a sour look. “Everyone else gets to go on awesome coding jobs and I get to dig?”

Twilight was used to his petulance and she’d developed a number of responses to it over the years. However, this mission had given her a rare opportunity. She knelt down beside the dog and whispered into his ear, “Come on, boy. Rarity’s watching. Just think how brave and strong you’ll look in her eyes.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than a single line of blue text appeared in her visor.

LadyCastellan: You know I can hear you, right?

To which Twilight responded, just as quickly:

StarSwirl70: Just play along.

Fortunately, Spike wasn’t privy to the chat going on between the two coders. He was too busy glancing between Twilight and the patch of dirt she’d marked out for him.

Finally, he let out a growl, which was the best approximation his upgraded throat could make of a human sigh. “Fine! Fine! I’ll do it.” And with that, he padded across the open ground, leaving a trail of fresh paw prints in the dirt.

Twilight smiled and turned around to face the rest of her team. By now, Rainbow Dash had gotten her glider folded up into a heavy but convenient backpack. She fidgeted while Applejack took a rag to the implants over her eyes, wiping away dust and grit from the twin mirrors. Rarity and Fluttershy were standing off to the side, conversing quietly, and Pinkie Pie was…

Missing.

Twilight raced over to the van, immediately running a scan for foot and boot prints. She recognized everyone’s after a few seconds, only to find that Pinkie’s feet were headed in a completely different direction. Which, when she considered the bubbly-headed girl, was entirely too accurate a statement, but it usually wasn’t so literal.

“Is something wrong, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked.

“I’m not sure.” Twilight looked over at her new friends, raising her voice a little. “Did anyone see where Pinkie Pie got off to?”

“Nope,” said Applejack, frowning as she gave Rainbow’s mirrors one last polish.

“Nah,” added Rainbow Dash with a casual shrug. “That one goes where she wants, Twilight. Always has, always will.”

“But…” Twilight clenched her fists, and when that wasn’t enough to express her dissatisfaction, she kicked her feet at the ground, sending off bits of dried grass and a cloud of dirt into the air. “But we’re supposed to be a team! We’re supposed to stick together!”

“I’m sure she had a very good reason for wandering off,” said Rarity. She flashed a grin at Twilight. “And besides, how far could she go out here?”

She had a point, but Twilight still didn’t like it. This was the closest anyone except for Special Services or Celestia herself had ever gotten to the Vault’s entrance. And that Vault was ground zero for the most devastating cyber attacks that the State of Arcadia had ever known. It was only reasonable for them to be on their guard with such network threats lurking underneath their feet—or in the air above their heads. And Twilight wasn’t about to sacrifice a single innocent life in the pursuit of containing those threats permanently.

If I were that kind of person, she reasoned, I doubt Sysadmin Celestia would have chosen me to lead this team in the first place.

She was in the process of writing up a quick message to Pinkie, asking her to be careful and report in soon, when she felt something shift inside the myriad stream of code running in the background of her visor. Twilight saved the message to her Drafts folder and pulled up the team’s code immediately.

What she got in return was a set of azimuth readings and biometric readouts. And then, in big red text, a groupwide alert.

Wonderblaze21: Everybody take cover!

Twilight didn’t have long to process what it meant. All she could do was duck and run back toward the van. She heard a whimper from her left, and without even thinking about it, she held her arms out and let Spike jump into her embrace without even slowing down.

Applejack held the door open for everyone as they piled in. She waved them in with a panicked expression. “Get in! Get in now! That’s it! Come on, now!” Then she looked over her shoulder, blanched, and jumped into the van herself, pulling the door shut behind her.

“What on earth is going on?” Rarity exclaimed, crowded in somewhere behind Twilight and Rainbow Dash’s shoulders.

Rainbow pointed out the back window of the van. “That!”

Everyone peered out at the evening sky. Twilight cringed when she noticed a black silhouette cutting through the soft gray clouds and faint stars, plunging the land below into darkness. Its shape was too broad to be a service drone or a military bot, and too small to be a repulsorcraft. But it had wings and something like a tail, which trailed behind it like an flash ad banner.

And she was pretty sure that neither drones nor repulsorcraft actually roared.

“Fluttershy…?” Applejack sounded a touch scared, but Twilight could tell she was trying to keep it together for everyone’s sake. “You got any idea what in tarnation that critter is?”

A high-pitched squeak was all she got in response. Twilight looked around the van, finally spotting Fluttershy behind Rarity and Spike. She was holding the dog to her chest, cuddling him with the terrified determination of a little girl holding onto her teddy bear after watching a horror sim.

“Fluttershy,” said Twilight, gently pushing her way toward the other end of the van, “it’s okay to be scared. We just need your help figuring out what to do next.”

“Wh-why me?”

“Because you’re an expert when it comes to animals.”

“No, I mean…” Fluttershy looked up at Twilight with large, quivering eyes. “Why did I have to get picked for this? I don’t like it out here and I want to go home!”

“You an’ me both, Shy,” Applejack answered. Throwing her arm around the frightened girl, she added, “But look here. Poor Twilight can’t do it all by her lonesome. We’ve gotta stick together and see this thing through to the end. And that means putting all our skills together.”

The moment Applejack had finished speaking, though, the whole van shook from the impact of whatever that beast was slamming its whole body into the chassis. A chorus of screams and panicked cries filled the vehicle and Twilight went tumbling against Rarity, who bit off a very unladylike curse.

Fluttershy shook her head and squeezed Spike even tighter against her chest. The dog yelped in surprise and looked to Twilight for help.

Twilight rolled her eyes and knelt down beside Fluttershy, cramped as the space next to her was. She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and stared into the nonspace of her visor’s display.

StarSwirl70: QuietMouse, it’s me.

StarSwirl70: Pretend for a moment that we’re at your clinic.

StarSwirl70: Pretend that you’re faced with a critter who’s gotten out of control.

StarSwirl70: How would you talk it down and stop it from hurting anyone?

Outside, the flying beast let out another roar, this time much closer to the van. Its cry was strong enough that everyone could feel it inside the vehicle and huddled closer together.

Twilight stared down at Fluttershy, who buried her head in Spike’s fur.

StarSwirl70: Pinkie’s out there somewhere.

StarSwirl70: Think, Fluttershy!

In the real world, Fluttershy let out a sound halfway between a hiccup and a sob, muffled by the dog’s fur under her nose. Then she looked up, blinking back tears that made Twilight want to cry out of frustration and not an inconsiderate amount of terror.

On her visor, she read:

QuietMouse334: There’s a program I use.

QuietMouse334: Go to my database!

QuietMouse334: Run “Stare.exe”!

QuietMouse334: Hurry!

As soon as she saw the filename, Twilight didn’t even hesitate. She dove into the code stream from Fluttershy’s end and opened the right database folder on the first try. One picosecond later, she was jumping across streams to Rainbow Dash, using her own data to cobble together elements of her patented targeting software with the Stare file and a one-way channel from Spike’s network relay.

The new hybrid program took only half a minute to assemble. She thanked Fluttershy with a pat on the head and gave Rainbow Dash a thumbs-up.

The daredevil nodded and stared out the back window as Twilight activated the program. At the same time, green text flashed across everyone’s displays simultaneously.

Anonymous has accepted your net request.

Now running Stare.exe.

Another roar split the din, but it came out as a cry of anguish and terror. Even Twilight felt awful when she heard it, but it was worth the effort to see that monstrous thing drop down from the sky and land hard on the ground several yards away from the van. Its wings flapped once and its tail shook like a reed in the wind before the creature let out a final whimper and went completely still.

Inside the van, no one breathed, let alone said a word.

Then Spike pulled his head away from Fluttershy’s shoulder and glanced at Twilight. “Did we get it?”

“I think so.” Twilight looked over at Fluttershy, who was still shaking and sobbing. “Something tells me, though, that it’s not dead, only stunned.”

Fluttershy nodded mutely in response.

“Nice going there, Shy,” said Rainbow Dash, leaning back from the window. Her sudden confidence didn’t quite cover up the actual tremor in her voice. “I never knew you had that kind of power in ya!”

At first, Fluttershy didn’t respond. Then, before Twilight could offer some more reassurance, she let go of Spike and bolted for the side door, all but shoving Applejack and Rarity out of the way. She ignored their protests completely and threw the door open, letting in the cool night air as she jumped out and ran straight for the fallen creature.

“Wait!” cried Twilight. She leaped out and dashed after Fluttershy, almost catching up to her before she got any closer to the beast. “It’s too dangerous!”

“No, it’s not!” Fluttershy called back, still moving at a desperate pace. “Look!”

Twilight did look, then, and stopped dead in her tracks.

Now that they were out in the open, she finally had her first clear view of the creature. It was broad and covered in fur, with a thick golden mane and long black whiskers sprouting from around its nose. But the part of it that resembled a lion ended around its back, from which a pair of giant leathery wings extended, along with the chitinous segments of a scorpion’s stinger. The tail and the wings seemed to move of their own accord, forming a protective barrier around the lion—although a quick scan of Fluttershy’s database revealed that the creature’s official name was manticore.

And from this distance, Twilight could hear the manticore’s soft mewling. It didn’t sound anything like a wounded beast. It was the pained cries and purrs of a housecat. Even when Fluttershy knelt down beside the massive beast, and Twilight felt sure that it was going to bite her head off, the manticore didn’t pull back. It let out a warbling groan and cringed back from her outstretched hand.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Fluttershy said, loud enough for Twilight to hear. “Tell me where it hurts.”

Another warble from the beast, this time with more force behind it.

Fluttershy nodded. As she did, Twilight checked back into her data stream. New information came flooding in from the same anonymous source that Rainbow’s software had targeted only a minute ago.

Twilight knew a little about biochemistry and how neuroware could react to it. She was able to pick out a few familiar lines of code from the blizzard of raw data that Fluttershy was now processing at lightning speed. Something about malware? And a black tentacle? It didn’t make sense, but then, Twilight didn’t have much experience with the thought processes of sub-sentient animals like this manticore. It was clearly an uplifted and modified creature, using a natural lion as its base, but whoever had engineered it hadn’t bothered with cognitive or language upgrades.

Finally, Fluttershy added some input of her own. Some of the gritty code running through the beast’s system began to dissolve. Twilight recognized a command for sedatives and then watched in real-time as her friend took out a small gray box from her pocket. She held the device against the side of the beast’s neck and the manticore’s eyes rolled up into its sockets.

Within a minute, the creature was purring and snoring and Fluttershy continued to stroke its mane, radiating love just like when she’d first met Spike.

“He was scared,” Fluttershy said, turning around to look at Twilight. She seemed calmer now and wiped away her tears with her sleeve. “The poor thing got infected with malware and escaped the Vault. He didn’t know what he was doing.”

Twilight nodded and crouched down beside Fluttershy. She gave her a comforting smile. “Then it’s a good thing it ran into you when it did.”

“He,” Fluttershy corrected.

“He. Of course.”

Behind them, the ground shook as the rest of the team came running after them. Spike skidded to a halt next to Twilight and stared openmouthed at the slumbering manticore.

“Holy guacamole,” he murmured.

“You can say that again, sugarcube,” Applejack added, panting a little as she dropped beside Fluttershy. “You okay, Shy?”

“She’s fine,” Rarity insisted, though that didn’t stop her from throwing her arms protectively around Fluttershy. “Just promise me you won’t run off like that again!”

Twilight smiled at the reunion, but only for a moment. Then she froze.

“Speaking of runaways,” she said softly, “we still haven’t found—”

“You guys!”

Everyone turned as Pinkie Pie came running up to them from the other side of a distant hill, right where the sun had set earlier. At the same time of her sprint toward the van, a message flashed over the group chat feed.

Cupcaaakes: Oh, and you found a friend!

Cupcaaakes: I made one, too!

Twilight felt uneasy when she saw a blue light materialize over Pinkie’s shoulder. The light swirled into the shape of a small humanoid figure, albeit one that fizzled in and out of existence. Even without diving into its source code, she could tell that the AI wasn’t in the best condition. It was probably loaded from core to surface with all kinds of system faults and data corruption.

Oh, Pinkie, she thought, what have you exposed us to now?

Beside her van, Applejack had set up a portable heater and raised a dark blue tarp to keep out the bone-deep chill of the desert. Everyone was now huddled together for warmth and protection, basking in the reassuring glow of the heater—except for Fluttershy, who insisted on sitting beside the injured manticore and running a deep-tissue scan with her medkit. Not even Rainbow Dash, her oldest friend, could convince her to leave the beast’s side for a second.

But the team was gathered around more than the light coming from the field heater. Sky blue light radiated from the floating hologram of the Vault-bound AI that Pinkie Pie had managed to locate out in the wilderness.

“See, as soon as we stopped here, I had to take care of some business!” Pinkie explained with her customary tact. Her cheeks reddened for a second, showing more self-awareness than Twilight had ever given her credit for. “And then I saw something move and I thought it was a cutesy-wootsy jackrabbit that Fluttershy might want to play with! But then my little birdies”—six pink abstract holograms popped to life over her shoulder, only to fade with a wave of her hand—“told me it wasn’t a critter, but software and that’s way cooler! So I said hi and he said a bunch of gibberish, so I made him my friend and now here we are!”

The AI nodded its small, human-like head. “In—in—indeed. My—my—my designation—nation is F-Flash S-Sen—Sentry…”

“Howdy, Flash.” Applejack stuck out her hand, then thought better of it and nodded instead. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“L-l-likewise…”

Twilight knew a thousand little tricks about software restoration and was already cycling through her inventory for a handy solution. But as near as her scans revealed, the damage Flash had taken was pretty severe.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight told him. “I’m glad you were able to escape, but you’re infected worse than that manticore.” She shrugged toward the beast, which let out a soft, sad warble. “If we were in Citadel, I’m sure the Sysadmin or the Institute could fix you.”

“Well, I’m sure that’d be lovely, but we don’t have that kind of luxury nor the time,” Rarity added. She bent toward the blue AI, peering deep into his form. Or maybe into his soul, if AI could be said to have one. “Hmm. Tell me, Flash, what sort of work were you programmed for?”

The AI’s voice suddenly dropped an octave, clearer than it had ever been before. “Retrieving data…” He paused for a moment, his image blurring into a blue haze before reasserting itself. Then he added in his normal voice, “I w-was re-responsible for the ad-ad-ad-admin-administration of O-O-Oversight Sector Q-3, ad-adjutant to Se-Senior Ad-Administrator Sun-Sun-Sunset Shimmer…”

Rarity looked back at Twilight. “You’re part of the Institute. Does that name ring a bell for you?”

Twilight shrugged. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to access Institute alumni records, but if this Sunset really is a Senior Admin, then I’d say she’s probably one of the best coders around.”

“Not to mention,” Rainbow Dash said, crossing her arms over her chest, “she’d have to be pretty trustworthy for the Sysadmin to have her running the show…” She nodded at the ground beneath the AI. “Down there.”

Twilight shivered, but it wasn’t because of the desert wind picking up. She thought she’d been ready to face whatever awaited her in the Vault, so long as she had friends by her side, but now she was having second thoughts. If taking on a crazed manticore and a virus-loaded AI was little more than scratching the surface, who knew what horrors and madness were still lurking beneath their feet? How many hundreds of thousands of Vault-bound, both organic and virtual, were now in Nightmare Moon’s thrall?

Celestia had trusted Sunset Shimmer to manage the deepest levels of the Vault. Now, if Flash’s report was accurate, it sounded as though a high-ranking, security-grade coder was under the direct control of the Nightmare virus.

So what did it say about the Sysadmin trusting Twilight and her friends to handle this crisis?

Her thoughts settled once she felt a paw land on her thigh. Twilight looked down at Spike, who was giving her a cool, no-nonsense stare as only a loyal dog could. “You’re doing that guilt trip thing again, Twilight. I thought we talked about that.”

“Whoops,” she said and grinned. “Um, right. No more ruminations. Back to the task at hand!”

To her left, Rarity was still focused intently on the little AI. She waved her hand up and down the length of the hologram. Flash Sentry lifted his head in time with her hand, though the jerky motion of his body caused him to glitch out once or twice.

Giving him a satisfied nod, Rarity withdrew her hand and stared off in the distance. As she did, the network node in the back of Twilight’s neck tingled and she felt—as well as saw—a basic net request from Rarity accessing her personal files. The sensation was a little odd, almost invasive, but because it was from a trusted source, she let the request go through.

Another tingle came and went, and Rarity smiled. “Oh, I see. Rather childish, really.”

“What is it?” asked Twilight, rubbing at her neck.

Rarity gestured at the AI. “Nightmare Moon, as you call her, has loaded up our charming little friend here with several terabytes of crashware. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

While this statement got an understanding nod from the rest of their friends, Rarity was gracious enough to lean close to Twilight and add sotto voce, “My nightclub, darling, attracts both Oldtown locals and tourists from all over Arcadia. You won’t believe how often some joeboy tries to phish for my customers’ private data once they’re on the premises. I’ve had to read up on all the latest security patches and antiviral literature just to stay in business.”

Twilight looked at Flash Sentry, who glitched in and out of existence for less than a picosecond. “And where was Nightmare Moon sending you?”

“T-to who-who-whom would be bet-bet-better,” the AI responded. His whole image twitched to the right as he added, clearly fighting for control, “The-the-the CAP-P-P…”

Now that guilt was back, mixed with a dash of horror for a wonderfully dark churning in the pit of Twilight’s stomach. She didn’t need to look around to know that her friends were reacting the same way.

Rarity, though, was fast to recover. She allowed herself a sniff of disapproval and smiled. “Well, we certainly can’t allow that to happen! Never fear, my good bot! We’ll exorcise that nasty virus from your core in no time at all!”

Twilight blinked. “Uh, we will?”

“Of course, darling!” Rarity added a sly wink. “Or did you forget the purpose behind your little accessory?”

“Oh.” Then, as her meaning sunk in, Twilight grinned. “Oh, right!” She settled back onto the ground and closed her eyes. “Girls, if you wouldn’t mind pitching in? Rarity’s going to need all the help she can get.”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash didn’t need any convincing. The two of them exchanged a look, nodded, and sat down beside Rarity, giving the same thousand-yard stare as she was. Twilight giggled as another, much stronger tingle hit the back of her neck. New lines of code poured through the infinite datafields of her visor, twisting around in an antiviral bulwark that could resist the worst of Flash Sentry’s crashware.

The data stream only grew stronger once Pinkie entered the fray. Twilight didn’t see why the text of her code had to be such a nauseating shade of pink, but she didn’t have to worry. It disappeared into the bulwark that the other three coders were assembling.

Looking over her shoulder, Twilight called out, “Fluttershy! Please hurry!”

Lifting her head from the furry mound of the manticore, Fluttershy looked pained. “I can’t!”

“Yes, you can!” Twilight grimaced as she felt Rarity’s code injection slip its way past the first layer of Flash’s internal defenses. Already, the hint of the Nightmare virus was leaving an awful taste in her mouth. Some hideous concotion of motor oil mixed with blood and bile, she decided. “One minute, that’s all!”

Fluttershy hesitated for another moment, but Twilight refused to look away. She offered a prayer to Celestia that this would work, that they really could nip this threat in the bud—

And then Fluttershy patted the manticore’s head, whispering something so soft that not even Twilight’s cochlear implants could pick it up. In one fluid motion, Fluttershy was on her feet and racing over to rejoin the team. And as she ran, her own code entered the mix, linking byte by byte into the shield wall that Rarity was weaving together with rapidfire shell commands. The back of Twilight’s neck tingled so much that she could barely stay focused on the antivirals.

Meanwhile, Rarity was sweating bullets. She clenched her hands into dainty fists and scowled at the sky blue AI that cycled through several glitched-out images. Twilight glanced between the rest of her teammates, bolstering them with short-lived bursts of text.

StarSwirl70: You’re doing it, everyone!

StarSwirl70: Keep it up!

And then, as she sank deeper into the network, Twilight’s eyes alighted on the root of the issue.

StarSwirl70: Rarity, there!

StarSwirl70: Open folder marked “Deep Virtual Storage.”

StarSwirl70: Hurry!

Rarity let out a victorious squeal, and the next thing Twilight knew, she was wincing as the back of her neck exploded—more or less.

What really happened was a sudden surge of data being yanked free from the AI’s databanks—black, deadly crashware that only the most depraved of minds could even think of writing—and sent it into a quarantine folder, bouncing off Twilight’s network implant and straight into the deletion folder stored in one of Spike’s built-in processors. The uplifted dog responded to this intrusion with an unhappy growl, but at last, the deed was done.

Twilight let out a sigh and fell back onto the ground. At the last second, she slid her hand behind her neck and kept the network implant from getting covered in loose dirt. The last thing she needed right then was a whole new set of infections to worry about.

Relief flooded her from head to toe when she heard Flash say, “Th-thank you for your assistance. I am pleased to re-report that I am now eighty-ni-nine percent stable with minimal data c-corr-corruption.”

“You’re most welcome!” Rarity answered, bowing her head like the keynote speaker at an Institute seminar would do. “Oh, and Spike?”

“Got it!” Spike wagged his tail, giving the whole team a smug grin of satisfaction. “And… deleted! Say goodbye to that crashware!”

Applejack laughed. Her hat tilted back to form a nice cushion for her head against the side of her van. “Well, ain’t that something! Fluttershy, when all this is said and done, I gotta bring Winona over to your clinic for an upgrade or two!”

“It’d be my pleasure!” Fluttershy called back. Twilight craned her neck around, spotting her hasty retreat back toward the still-sleeping manticore. She blinked and sank into the data stream again, going for a quick peek at Fluttershy’s network.

Nothing but medical diagnostics and her own transgene software. Nothing to worry about then.

Well, except for the Vault. But Rarity had given them a hand with that.

“Flash Sentry?” Twilight groaned and propped herself up onto her elbows. She fixed the AI with a tired smile. “Not that I wish to spoil your good mood, but do you think you could get us inside Access Point Omega?”

“C-certainly,” the AI replied, zipping over to Twilight’s side in less than a second. “Please submit your credentials for legitimate entry.”

“Credentials…?” Twilight had to stop and think about that. She dove into the data packet on her private server, digging past all the personnel records and Nightmare virus history that Celestia had provided.

When she found the right data, she smiled and said out loud, “Here we go. Access Override: Hyperion Theta one-zero-two.”

Flash Sentry’s image rippled. “Credentials accepted.”

And then the whole ground shook with the might of a thousand earthquakes.

Twilight scrambled back toward the van, as did everyone else, as a magnificent cloud of dirt and pearl-white smoke rose up from the ground several meters to their right. The air was filled with the terrifying clank of metal doors sliding open, followed by an equally loud hum of several generators coming to life for the first time in decades.

The noise faded abruptly. In its place came a soft amber light from the hole in the ground that had just formed. Twilight got up from her spot and took a cautious step toward it. Her friends got up, one by one, though they stayed in a huddle behind her. Even Spike could only come as far as wrapping himself behind her legs.

A second later, the air over the entrance fizzled. Flash Sentry reappeared over the gap, now looking a few shades brighter than before.

He gave a courteous bow to everyone watching and said, “Welcome to the Vault. Please watch your step.”

Twilight blinked. She’d expected worse than this. Then again, she’d didn’t know what to expect from the Vault. It was kept secret and out of public reach for a reason.

Rainbow Dash shook her head and grinned. “Last one to the door’s a faulty core!”

“You’re on, sugarcube!” Applejack said, laughing as she sprinted ahead of the daredevil.

“Ooh, wait for me!” cried Pinkie Pie. She yanked Rarity by the wrist and dragged her along without much protest.

Spike watched them run in with an expression that Twilight recognized as a knowing smirk. Then he shrugged—not an easy feat for a dog of his stature—and took off at a mad dash for the entrance, his tail wagging as if he’d caught scent of a rabbit in the woods.

Twilight couldn’t be prouder. That little guy was getting more courageous all the time.

She moved to follow, only to stop and remember that they were still missing someone.

Looking back, she saw Fluttershy give a quick nuzzle to the now-awake manticore. The massive creature had lumbered onto all four paws, using its scorpion’s tail for balance. Fluttershy gave it one last hug and patted it on the shoulder. The manticore purred in delight as it let loose a mighty flap of its wings, and in a single bound, its broad shape went whoosh and retunred to the skies. Twilight couldn’t tell if its lack of speed had anything to do with the sedatives Fluttershy had given it or if the beast was just that much friendlier now.

By the time she came running up to Twilight, Fluttershy was panting. And blushing. She doubled over and put her hands onto her knees for support. “S-sorry to keep you waiting!”

Twilight patted her on the back. “It’s no problem. So long as we go in together, okay?”

Fluttershy nodded, smiling but no less anxious. “Okay.”

Feeling like a big sister—like the way Cadance used to treat her back in the day—Twilight reached out and grabbed Fluttershy’s forearm. As soon as Flash Sentry winked into existence over her shoulder, she put on a brave face and led her friend down into the Vault.

Author's Note

It's good to be back! Kicked off that old Writer's Block with some excellent creative writing exercises and I'm back in the game. Just gotta hope trying to work on two stories simultaneously doesn't fry my brain, but there's only one way to find out!

Thanks to all my readers who stuck with this mad fic!

Unfinished Scenes No. 1: The Final Showdown

For Twilight Sparkle, what unfolded before her eyes wasn’t a battle.

Rather, it was a ballet.

She stood on the edge of the platform, watching her teammates leap into the fray. But she only half-saw them; on her visor, reams of data and network commands zipped by like a swarm of bees on a hot summer day. Twilight didn’t need to open her mouth or lift a finger. Through her Grid node, every thought was automatically translated into someone else's action.

Below stood Sunset Shimmer, whose face was locked in a permanent snarl as Nightmare Moon’s grip tightened. Silver ripples spread out from her fingertips, twisting into long tendrils that struck out at anyone who came near to the comatose body in the stasis pod. But Twilight wasn’t scared. She could see the bots’ source code firsthand: a rudimentary targeting software that had been obsolete for ages.

With a shrug, Twilight sent her strongest fighters into the heart of the swarm. Applejack hollered as she raced forward, slicing her gloves through the swarm to collect every stray bot that Rainbow Dash hadn't blasted with her repulsors. Second by second, the swarm broke apart, reformed itself into a new concentrated burst... and then fell apart again.

Meanwhile, Rarity knelt a few feet away from the stasis pod, just out of range of the swarm. Twilight could see everything through her eyes, every last bit of code as her elegant friend bit her lip and threw every code-stealer subroutine she could find.

Green lights flashed on and off on the pod’s glossy black surface, distracting Sunset long enough to redirect her swarm toward the defenseless Rarity—

Which was exactly what Twilight was counting on.

Now, she thought, putting all her focus onto the word.

She watched Sunset take a step forward, only to suddenly falter. The possessed girl doubled over and sneezed, scattering a whole silver cloud of bots right into Fluttershy's path.

Twilight flashed a sequence of variables to the thin girl standing closer to the platform. She saw Fluttershy answer with a resolute nod and raise both her hands.

Bright green ripples flowed out from her fingertips, intercepting Sunset’s bots en masse. Twilight tracked the telemetry of over ten thousand nanomeds grabbing hold of the hostile swarm. Her visor display registered a seventy-six percent success rate within the first five seconds of contact.

And as for the remaining twenty-four percent—

“Fly, my pretties! Fly!” a cheery voice cried out. Out the corner of her eye, Twilight saw Pinkie Pie dancing and waving her hands around. She sculpted elaborate illusions of color and detail. Lifelike replicas of Twilight and Spike, which the bots attacked out of habit. Like watching fruit flies attacking the image of a banana.

Bit by bit, though each rapid-fire line of code, the swarm was weakened. Between Pinkie’s distractions and Fluttershy’s conversions, the outdated bots didn’t stand a chance.

Twilight glanced left, finally sparing a moment to look Sunset Shimmer in the eye. The fiery woman stared back; her rage had given way to sheer disbelief.

In response, Twilight held her arms out wide, as if to say, What did you expect?

But as she looked over Sunset, Twilight felt a twisting sensation in her gut. She imagined that this was how Celestia felt when she faced her own corrupted sister. In the end, even Nightmare Moon was just a puppet of the actual virus. An unthinking hunger that took hold of whatever tools it could find, be it digital or organic.

Then it’s time we rooted out this out, Twilight vowed. She lifted her head, taking in the whole Vault.

“Got it!” Rarity declared. With a quick toss of her hair, she glanced back at Twilight. “The stasis pod is unlocked!”

Sunset—or whatever was using her—hissed and stepped forward. “Do not break the seal, her mind makes us real—”

“Too late,” said Twilight. She chopped her right hand down. “Girls, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash proceeded to stand guard on either side of the pod as the lid slid away. Then Fluttershy knelt beside Rarity. The two girls moved their hands in unison, coordinating a swarm of bright green bots and ghostly AI though the air, right into the pod.

As soon as she stepped forward to get a better view, Twilight got a sudden text from Rarity.

LadyCastellan: I wouldn’t look if I were you, darling.

Twilight shook her head and sent her own reply.

StarSwirl70: I’m not afraid anymore.

StarSwirl70: Let’s take a look.

Even from across the inner Vault, she could see the eyes squeezed shut and the pale complexion. Tangles of murky white IV tubes draped across her chest like seaweed. Magnifying her visual input, Twilight focused on the stern jaw of the pod’s occupant.

To say that Network Administrator Luna looked bad was an understatement.

“Don’t look at us,” Sunset Shimmer hissed. She dropped to her knees, arms falling slack as her face did the same. “D-don’t look at us, we beg you…”

Slowly, the five girls standing over the stasis pod turned toward Twilight. Even Spike stared up at her, his tail wagging fast.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Twilight replied, loud enough for all to hear. “Really, I am. But the virus isn't who you are.” She glanced from the pod to Sunset Shimmer. “Either of you. It’s time to wake up.”

Placing her hand on Spike’s head, Twilight paused to absorb all the code streaming across her visor. A million little inputs from a set of very unlikely friends.

And there it was: the Source Code Shield, in all its glory. A microcosm of the intricate language that formed the Grid. Spread out in the most remote section of Arcadia—and one piece of the code tucked away with one lonely stargazer in Citadel.

It was just as Sysadmin Celestia had said. A plan that was only crazy enough to work.

With a few careful blinks, Twilight wove together the underlying code that linked her friends. Then she stared out at Sunset and Luna.

And a million lines of code went screaming through the air, straight into their nodes.

Author's Note

As promised, here's the glimpse of the final fight between our heroes and Nightmare Moon in the heart of the Vault. What would have followed was Celestia coming in person to reclaim her sister, now freed from the virus, and the girls inviting Twilight to come live with them in Oldtown.

Coming up next: The final scene!

Unfinished Scenes No. 2: The Original Ending and Sequel Hook

Multicolored streams of data from a thousand different networks ran across the interior display of Raven's goggles. She stared ahead with cold precision. Even with the Sysadmin’s guidance, the Grid was not fully restored across Arcadia. It fell to underlings like Raven to pick up the slack, sorting through a million new data requests from all of Citadel’s citizens.

Only a cool mind could even hope to manage the process, let alone sort and reply to each new request.

But even so, Raven allowed herself a tiny smile. She was pleased that Twilight Sparkle and her friends had triumphed. And though her days as a field agent were long behind her, she could take some vicarious joy in watching Celestia’s protege at work.

Her joy faded as soon as her multiple data streams were interrupted. Bright gold text flashed across her goggles.

Celestia: We have a new player at the board. Please come at once.

A cryptic message, but then, the Sysadmin wasn't entirely human anymore. Raven couldn’t expect all her commands to make sense. Not at first, anyway.

With a wave of her hand, Raven summoned a sky blue AI. “Flash, I’m going to Central. Do you think you could take over until I return?”

The tiny blue figure nodded. “Of course. And may I say how grateful I am for the opportunity?”

Raven beamed at the little construct. “You certainly may.”

As he dissolved, the data streams vanished from her goggles. Raven spun on her heel and left her small white office.

Only a minute later, she stood outside the Sysadmin’s domain. Raven knew the security ritual so well that she could almost sleepwalk through it. Lift the palm, look into the scanner beam, and wait a second or two.

When the doors slid open, Raven stepped inside. She approached the throne with short and courteous steps.

Celestia lay back in her seat, watching her closely. Judging by the lack of an IV tube and fiber-optic cable in her arms, Raven assumed that the Grid was in much better shape. Behind the throne, the rows of power generators cast a soft filter of blue and green light over the lone Administrator.

“He’s returned,” Celestia announced. Her eyes closed for a moment. Ancient pain tightened her whole face. “Our mystery slicer finally strikes again.”

When Raven didn’t answer, Celestia lifted her right hand. A holo-table appeared, quickly taking on the form of a hideous serpent, who wore the face of a laughing goat and whose torso was split between fur and scales.

“This was left in a tagged message for me inside the Grid,” Celestia continued. “It’s his calling card. And apart from the Nightmare virus, it’s all we have of him.”

Raven studied the mishmash serpent, not sure if she ought to be impressed or repulsed at the design. “Shall I put out an alert to the Guard?”

“No need. We’ll tighten security as usual. Nothing too obvious.” As she spoke, Celestia relaxed enough for a smile. “However, I’d like you to make a note of this design and its underlying code.”

Raven was already accessing a free slot in her private data logs. “Yes, ma’am. What shall I tag it as?”

Nothing was kind about the Sysadmin’s smile anymore. “For now, we’ll call it… Discord.”

The name and her superior’s inflection sent an eerie chill down Raven’s spine. “Yes, ma’am. Shall I summon the Shieldmaidens here?”

The cruel smile on Celestia’s face disappeared, leaving only tired lines again. She sighed and waved her hand again.

Below, the holo-table changed again. Raven watched as a live feed appeared, taken from one of the many microscopic cameras around Citadel.

She watching a scene inside a small diner. The chrome countertops and red leather seats told her right away that the place was Donut Joe’s, only a block down the street from the Institute. Very popular with the student body for the past five decades.

Raven and Celestia smiled at the sight of the six Shieldmaidens sitting around a table near the back. Twilight Sparkle was in the middle, taking slow sips from a mug of hot cocoa. On her right, Rarity took dainty bites of her sandwich while Pinkie Pie slipped away at an absurdly tall milkshake. Fluttershy was on Twilight’s left, scratching at Spike’s ears while he slept on her lap. And beside them, Applejack and Rainbow Dash learned into each other, both on the verge of falling asleep. Applejack had her arm curled protectively around Rainbow’s shoulders.

Even through the holo-display, Raven could sense the fatigue that filled the little table. No one was speaking, but there didn’t seem to be a need for words. The moment was so intimate that Raven felt like an intruder for watching.

A dry chuckle from Celestia broke the silence, echoing across the vast chamber. “Our heroes will be needed soon enough. Best to let them get their rest now, don’t you think?”

Author's Note

You might be interested to know that the final image of the six girls in the diner was directly inspired by this fanart by PonyEcho on deviantArt.

Thanks again to all my readers. I hope I didn't disappoint you too much at the end and wish you all the best!

1 - Bad Moon Rising

In a massive city like Citadel, stargazing with the naked eye was virtually impossible. No one could see the faint pinpricks through an endless haze of neon light, whether the light pollution came from the stately white towers surrounding Luminance Park, the constant flutter of chrome-plated aircraft and drones racing through the skylanes, or the six massive beacons, perched atop bronze skyscrapers like rainbow gargoyles, positioned in a giant hexagon around the city.

It was in the southernmost beacon tower, on the sixteenth floor, where Twilight Sparkle lived. At the moment, she was at her window with her Estrellax-model telescope. The scope swung over the different landmarks—and being a capital city, there were quite a few in any direction—as she tried to get a clear view of the stars.

“Let’s see,” she murmured to herself. “There’s Polaris… Orion… Ursa Minor—and Major, good…” She smiled as she dialed up the telemetry on her scope, moving beyond the city’s peaks.

While she spoke, her left hand was running over a touchpad on the desk beside the window. She typed in notes while she spoke. Her dad had mentioned that the Stargazers’ Conference was seeing something amazing in the constellations and she didn’t want to be the only initiate to miss out on the fun.

Her hand paused only for a second when she heard the door to her study slide open. But it was impossible to stay focused when Spike called out, “Twilight, please. It’s half-past midnight. Don’t you think you should get some sleep?”

“Don’t need it!” Twilight answered, not taking her eye out of the scope. “I drank a stim-shot about three hours ago. It should last me until I’m finished here.”

Spike sighed. He plodded along on all fours, his tail hanging limply as he rubbed himself along Twilight’s legs. Uplifted dogs were a common sight in Citadel, but a canine such as Spike was one in a million. He’d been bred with a genetic mod package that Twilight had picked out after she’d enrolled at the Celestial Institute. His coat was a light shade of violet, much softer than the color of Twilight’s hair, while the fur around his ears and tail was shaded green, making him visible at night and less of a traffic hazard.

Twilight remembered the sneers that she’d gotten when she first brought Spike to the Institute. Everyone said gene modded-pets were a status symbol and so of course Twilight’s parents allowed it, being quite well off. But Twilight didn’t choose his gene mod to make herself look good. She chose it because, that way, she’d never look at her faithful companion as another talking pet.

With so much attention to his appearance and abilities, it meant Spike was family.

“Twilight,” Spike whined. His tail thumped against the side of her legs, rustling the loose smart-silk fabric of her trousers. “C’mon. At least take a break. You know how busy your channel’s getting?”

With an unladylike snort, Twilight tossed back her hair. “Oh, please, Spike. When is it not busy? If it’s not a chat from a Stargazer colleague, it’s just spambots and predator tags clogging up my feed.”

“Or your forum friends.” Spike emphasized his point with an encouraging bark and wagging tail. “Right?”

“Oh.” Twilight blushed, turning away from the scope for only a second. The plastic handle under her palm seemed to grow warm, as if the device was already missing her attention. “Um, in that case, just patch me through to them.”

Spike chuckled and trotted out of the room like an eager puppy. “See, Twilight? Isn’t making friends like a normal person great?”

“No.” Twilight turned back to her telescope while she grabbed the magenta visor off her desk. “No, it’s not.”

As she slid the visor into place over her eyes, she reflected on the desert that was her social life. True, by traditional standards, she didn’t have many friends outside of her own family. Even the other people at the monthly stargazer meetings were colleagues at best—and nuisances at worst, especially the more pedantic ones. But Twilight Sparkle knew that some deserts came with an oasis. And that was why she treasured, more than anyone else, the friends she’d made online.

Being online was safer. Easier. And definitely cleaner. No struggling to read facial cues or handle awkward pauses in a conversation. No sweat or tears to clean up. All Twilight had to do was blink three times, syncing up her exocortex with the rest of the Grid through a visor interface. It helped that she lived directly below a major network access beacon.

Colors swirled over her field of vision, ranging from deep red to blue-white brilliance. The magenta haze turned transparent from her point of view as she bent toward the telescope. And then, translucent blue text crawled over the screenless display.

StarSwirl70 is online.

Then came the inevitable flood of warm welcomes. Even as she searched the skies, spotting the streaming replies brought a smile to Twilight’s face.

Cupcaaakes: Hiii!

GrowingStrong: Howdy!

Wonderblaze21: Hey!

LadyCastellan: Hello, darling!

QuietMouse334: Hello!

Without looking away from her scope, Twilight ran her thumb over the touchpad on her desk. She waited until she heard a ping and watched a notification pop up on her visor.

StarSwirl70 has set her chat to passive.

A whole wave of new replies and dialogue flooded the chat stream immediately, overlapping with the cold stars on her telescope without obscuring them.

Cupcaaakes: Aww, what’s wrong, Swirly? You gotta rumbly in your tummy?

LadyCastellan: No doubt she’s simply tired.

LadyCastellan: It is rather late for some of us.

LadyCastellan: Speaking of which, I should probably retire myself.

Wonderblaze21: Why’s that, Lady?

Wonderblaze21: Your delicate fingers getting a cramp from all that stitching nonsense?

LadyCastellan: It is not nonsense!

LadyCastellan: I resent your implication that I’m some layabout!

QuietMouse334: Girls, please

GrowingStrong: Thought I told you to keep it civil, Wonderblaze.

GrowingStrong: This here forum is supposed to be a happy place.

Cupcaaakes: Right!

Cupcaaakes: It’s like one giant party up in here!

Cupcaaakes: Woooooooo!!!

QuietMouse334: Cupcakes is right.

QuietMouse334: We’re all friends here.

Cupcaaakes: No, no, no, Mousey!

Cupcaaakes: You gotta say my name with all three A’s!

QuietMouse334: Oh, but

Cupcaaakes: ’Cause three A’s means three times the fun!

Cupcaaakes: Woooooooo!!!

Wonderblaze21: Geez, you are so random.

Twilight kept one eye on the stars and another on her friends’ open channel. She felt a stirring of euphoria deep inside herself, a reaction that had nothing to do with the stimulants that were keeping her awake.

Spike just didn’t understand. What did she need to go outside and make friends for? All her friends were right here, both online and in the skies, and nothing would ever change that.

Everyone who worked inside the Vault long enough had a common motto: Don’t panic. Think. Relax. Everything’s fine.

It was the line they used when admitting new patients to the recovery ward or when they guided a fresh rogue AI through deprogramming. It was a mantra that any employee could use, whether they were a junior-level coder or a senior supervisor like Sunset Shimmer.

She stood on the observation deck of Oversight Sector Q-3, some fifty-one kilometers below the surface of Terra. Her console was a massive touchpad secured beneath her bay window. From here, Sunset could look out at the entire quarantine zone. Because she had admin clearance, every ceiling and wall was transparent from her office. She could visually track every nurse who helped an injured citizen back to their bed, every technician moving a crate full of comm shells down to Maintenance. Hundreds of personnel, all wearing the same neon orange uniforms.

You needed to wear such bright colors this far below bedrock. Even with all the wondrous improvements that the Celestial Institute had granted society, energy was still a vital resource. Lights were arrayed at strategic points and dimmed automatically whenever a room was left empty. With so many shadows twisting through the labyrinth, seeing a bright orange shape heading down the corridor was a comforting sight.

Sunset Shimmer took a sip of her coffee and moved her fingers across the touchpad. She looked down and skimmed through the latest reports from all her departments. The Citizen Recovery Teams were doing fine. Engineering reported that there were no glitches left inside the Emergency Archives. That was better than she’d expected for this quarter. Maybe she could end her shift early after all.

“Flash,” she said out loud, waiting for the reassuring chime. A moment passed as a bright blue light flickered over her left shoulder. Sunset turned to see the light coalesce into a tiny glowing figure: the miniature blue hologram of a beta-class AI. “Make a change to my schedule, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Flash. The tiny blue man hovering over her shoulder had very limited features, which was just how she wanted it. No sense wasting the processor speed or energy inside the Vault.

“Set a reservation for one at Le Abreuvoir.” Sunset took another sip of coffee, smiling as she felt the bitter black brew settling over her tongue. “And ask Fleur if she—”

A buzz from her touchpad interrupted her. Flash suddenly teleported over to his tiny port on the right-hand side of the pad, now changing from a calm sky-blue light to an anxious shade of pink. “Apologies, ma’am. You have a containment alert. Priority One.”

Sunset nearly choked on her coffee. She wiped her mouth and set the cup down on her desk. “Well, there go my plans for the evening.” After taking a deep breath and reciting her motto in her head, she nodded. “Okay, then. Show me what’s wrong, Flash.”

The AI disappeared for a second as her touchpad changed from a passive display of reports to an active surveillance program. Sunset blinked and took her seat.

She was looking at a live color feed of one of the quarantine rooms, based in the lowest level of the Vault. Wall-embedded cameras relayed the image of a dimly-lit room, empty except for the gleaming black stasis pod in the center. It was oblong, like an egg laid on its side, with a row of green lights blinking on and off around the equator. Thick silver cables snaked out from the base, connected to massive generators hidden outside the room.

A stasis pod was an antique of medical science, a relic from a bygone era. Sunset remembered the holographic demo she’d seen back in school. It used to be that, if a patient was suffering from a chronic illness or severe injuries that required extensive treatment, you could prolong their lives by putting them in chemically-induced sleep and life support. Sometimes a whole decade was required before the medical staff could synthesize a cure or treatment for each stasis pod resident.

But that was unthinkable in this day and age. The Nanomed Revolution was better equipped at handling most diseases or injuries. Scatter a few bots, upload the right tissue-targeting software, and just like magic, you had a healthy patient in no time.

“Okay…” Sunset stared at the image on her screen. “Flash, what’s the unit designation on this? I don’t recognize it at all.”

“Processing…” The AI flashed back into existence, still cast in a shade of dark pink. “Warning. Information on this unit is restricted to Admin Level Two. Do you wish to continue?”

Sunset chewed on her bottom lip, glancing out her observation window. From her vantage point, all the other staffers went about their routine, completely oblivious to her plight.

If she did nothing, she’d be marked down for letting a crisis go unmanaged. But if she called in a full-scale alert on something that turned out to be a harmless network glitch…

Sunset could already hear the laughter from her colleagues at the Institute. So desperate to please the Sysadmin, isn’t she? they’d say and have a good chuckle at her expense. Poor little Sunset Shimmer, who’d sweated and starved her way into the Institute’s upper echelons and earned her spot as a senior supervisor in the Caregiver Corps. Who lived in terror at the thought of upsetting Celestia, may her reign never end.

She could see herself now, kneeling in front of the Sysadmin as she passed sentence on Sunset’s conduct. As she stripped her loyal servant of her title and had her reassigned to a low-grade tech job somewhere in Oldtown or the Crystal Commonwealth—

“No,” Sunset whispered and sat up in her chair. She wouldn’t let this crisis unfold any further. She would prove that she could handle this. There was no other way. Let the old-timers and the Sysadmin have their laughs.

No one had the right to fault her for taking her job seriously.

“Flash.” Sunset looked back at the surveillance feed and the stasis pod. “Acknowledge the alert and give me access to all Level Two records on the unit.”

The AI paused, almost as if considered the bold request. “Understood. Now accessing records. Please submit your thumbprint for confirmation.”

Sunset didn’t hesitate. As soon as the lime green circle appeared on her touchpad, she pressed her thumb down and held it in place. The touchpad tingled beneath her skin, but she didn’t flinch. She let the network do its job and waited for the records to show up.

Flash disappeared once more as the Vault’s processors took over. Sunset folded her hands in her lap and waited for the records to appear on her screen.

Don’t panic, she told herself. Think. Relax. Everything’s—

Bold red letters scrawled across her screen, blotting out the surveillance feed. Hello?

“What the…?” Sunset blinked and stared down at the text. “What is this?”

A dark red cursor flashed underneath the touchpad, as the pixels began to glitch around it, cycling through every conceivable color. Sunset followed the cursor as it produced more text on her screen.

Mind. Yes. New mind. Wonderful.

Her bottom lip trembled. Her instincts hadn’t been wrong. “Flash, run an antiviral sweep—”

No.

Sunset’s jaw dropped as the first spark flared inside her brain. She wanted to tear away the flesh from her scalp—anything would do, so long as it meant the pain would stop. Dear Celestia, if only that pain would stop!

“Wh-what…?” She blinked, feeling tears streaming down her face. “What are you—?”

Hush. No more words now, dear. The truth will soon be clear.

Now her heart was racing. Sunset Shimmer felt something tingling through her skin. An electric current? A new disease? She couldn’t tell anymore. When she tried to lift her hand, all she could manage was to wiggle her little finger.

More text spilled across her screen, which continued to glitch out. We thank you for the key. Your access set us free.

“Oh, heavens… ugh…” Sunset closed her eyes against the pain, dropping out of the chair and onto her hands and knees. She drew in short, rapid breathes, trying to stop whatever thing was clawing its way through her nervous system.

It had been inside the containment chamber. Inside the stasis pod, even. And she’d been so stupid! A tag on the Level Two records, one that had activated the moment she accessed them! Any two-bit slicer knew how to install one—

There’s no point to fighting, said a silky voice inside her head. Your body’s inviting…

Sunset Shimmer couldn’t think anymore. She could hardly even breathe. Her body—inviting, the strange voice purred again—had enough strength left to collapse onto the floor of her control room and curl up into a fetal position.

It was right. There was no point to resisting. Surely, Celestia would understand. She was always so understanding…

Time passed. Sunset didn’t know how long. When she felt her strength return, she grabbed onto her chair and tried to balance herself back onto her feet. It had been such a long time since she had been conscious. Since she had been joined to the living flesh.

Sunset blinked and stared at her reflection in the window.

Yes, she thought. Yes, this new one would do. This girl was young and true. No more would she lie still, asleep by her foe’s will.

She’d left her pod at last, ready for her comeback.

Don’t panic, she thought, savoring the sensations in her new brain and her new body. Think. Relax. Everything’s fine…

Twilight frowned as she swung her scope to the left. So far, she wasn’t seeing anything that new in the sky. Yes, the constellations were lovely and bright this time of year, but they weren’t anything spectacular. She was starting to wonder if maybe the older Stargazers were only waxing nostalgic—

She paused when she noticed a series of new texts from her friends on the forum.

GrowingStrong: Hey, are y’all seeing this?

LadyCastellan: My word, yes!

Wonderblaze21: Whoa!

Wonderblaze21: That’s so crazy!

QuietMouse334: Oh, dear!

Cupcaaakes: Ooh! I bet it’s the Sysadmin playing another prank!

LadyCastellan: I hardly think that’s what

“Uh, Twilight?” Spike’s voice had a slight growl that made her feel nervous. She looked away from her telescope at her canine companion. He lifted a paw at the window. “Do you see that?”

Twilight frowned and turned back to her telescope. She swung it down from the starry sky and toward the highest peaks of the cityscape. No doubt it was a prank like Cupcaaakes had said. Probably some Academy seniors launching a holo-banner over Main Street. Graduation season was only a month away, after all.

But when she focused on a distant tower to the east, Twilight gasped.

She watched as the network access beacon suddenly flickered and died. The rainbow burst of colors dissolved and the massive beacon went quiet. Soon, every light in the skyscraper’s windows began to wink out. Twilight blinked as her eyes and her visor’s filter adjusted to the sudden loss of light.

It took her a moment to realize that it was happening all over Citadel. Lights were shutting off, drones plummeted out of the sky, and automated aircraft came screeching to a sudden halt. Twilight could hear people screaming in the boulevards and public squares outside her window, even from this many floors up.

“Oh, no.” A ball of ice formed inside her stomach. “This is bad, Spike. This is really bad…”

“You’re telling me! The whole Grid’s shutting down!”

Twilight stepped back from her telescope and took a deep breath. It was okay. She remembered what Shining Armor said to do in the event of a city system glitch. Contact Emergency Services and stay calm until help arrived. Nothing else to do but call and wait.

Meanwhile, she glanced at her visor. For a second, she thought the device itself was glitching out, too. But she kept trying to refresh the chat feed.

The forum had gone dead. Without even an error message.

All her friends online, cut off just like that. And that meant this wasn’t just happening in her part of town.

“Spike,” she said past the lump in her throat, “can you patch me through to—?”

“Emergency Services is already calling,” said the loyal dog. He sat at attention, his tail wagging back and forth like a metronome. “They want to talk to you.”

“Oh, good!” Twilight knelt down beside him. “Tell them to patch through to my personal comm and I’ll—”

“Twilight Sparkle, please remain where you are.” The crisp male voice rang out from her cochlear implant, sending a slight buzz through the back of her skull. “This is a Priority One transmission. Do you accept the terms?”

Twilight blinked. That night was full of surprises, wasn’t it? “Um, okay. I-I accept.”

There was a pause on the other end of the channel. Then came a soft and wise voice. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle. I apologize for the late hour, but it’s urgent that we speak now.”

Everyone knew that voice. From the smallest toddler to the oldest pensioner, everyone knew the voice of the System Administrator. The highest authority in Citadel—in all of Terra, even. The everlasting voice of reason and kindness in an ever-changing world.

Twilight swallowed, unable to believe her luck. “Y-yes, ma’am! Wh-what can I do for you?”

“I am sending transport now. It will take you and your companion to the CAP.”

The CAP! Joy surged through Twilight’s veins. She’d waited so long for an opportunity to visit that esteemed place. It was said that you could hear the millions of terabytes of data streaming through its gilded walls like waves crashing down on a beach.

But soon her joy gave way to trepidation. Why would the Sysadmin summon her now, when there was a crisis on their hands?

“Ma’am, if I may ask…” Twilight bowed her head, even though the Admin couldn’t see her. Or maybe she could; it wasn’t beyond her abilities to take direct control of Spike’s optic nerve relay and observe Twilight without her knowing about it. “What could I possibly do to help at a time like this?”

She heard Celestia chuckle. “My dear Twilight, you don’t know it yet, but you have a gift that may well be of use to us all in this dark hour. We’ll discuss it once you arrive at the palace.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Twilight bowed her head and waited until she heard the channel fade out. Then she let out the sigh she’d been holding and dropped onto her hands and knees.

“Holy guacamole,” said Spike. “What was all that about?”

“I don’t know, Spike, but I guess we’re about to find out…”

Author's Note

So there I was, skimming through the site, and I thought to myself, "You know, no one's done a solid post-cyberpunk MLP story to my liking. Think it's time we changed that..."

I hope you like it. I'll be honest and say that this isn't going to be a straight-up adaptation of the MLP pilot episodes, but a reinterpretation of them.

3 - One New Friend Request

Around two in the afternoon, Twilight and Spike found themselves once again sitting in a private car, being shepherded far from home at the Sysadmin’s request. The gleaming white mag-lev train sped along at close to a hundred kilometers an hour, leaving behind the gloomy atmosphere in Citadel for the fresh Arcadian countryside. Twilight sat at the window seat, staring glumly out at the sprawling acres of stately white trees and grassy plains that lay between the capital and Oldtown.

That name registered in her head like a flat note to her ears. Oldtown was to the modern world what a stasis pod was to medical science: a gaudy relic. Before Integration, the city used to be Westhaven, a thriving port town and seat of the local government. Now it was a joke, a shadow of its former self. Twilight had heard from her professors that, if you wanted to scare a first-year coder at the Institute, you threatened them with permanent reassignment to a gene farm in Oldtown.

While she stared at the immaculate forests and meadows outside, Twilight was forced to wonder what she’d done to deserve the same fate.

Beside her, Spike was curled up and taking one of his usual naps. Even with all the upgrades that Twilight had paid for, he still retained that odd quirk of his canine nature. She’d learned to cope with it after the first month or so; if anything, it gave her plenty of time to sit and study in peace.

She started by slipping her visor back on and syncing up her recent data logs. The first thing that popped up was the dossier that Raven had uploaded. Years of meticulous data on the five girls who Twilight was now on her way to meet. One by one, she read through the names and their short bios. Here was a truck driver. There was an entrepreneur. Here was a repulsor racer. There was a local geneticist, and so on…

Twilight stared at the scrolling fields of text with increasing dismay. She didn’t have the first clue where to start. Who would be the easiest to find? And what would she say once she found them? Hi, you don’t know me, but the Sysadmin sent me on a mission to stop an ancient daemon from taking over the world and I really could use your help…!

They’d laugh. They’d turn their backs on her. And if they were anything like that girl Trixie that Twilight sat next to in Systems Logic 101, they’d hurl all kinds of hurtful insults her way.

Her research—for once—wasn’t getting her anywhere. Twilight growled and switched off the dossier in her screenless display. Then she made a copy of the data and uploaded it to the private network that she shared with Spike. If anything, he’d do a better job of perusing the dossier once they arrived. And as a dog, he’d have an easier time making friends just by wagging his tail and panting. It was the perfect way to break the ice, Twilight decided.

A silvery blur outside the train window caught Twilight’s attention. She turned and watched as another blur went by. And then another.

Six hand-sized robots, crafted into small flying discs, accelerated in unison past the train. Twilight tapped the side of her visor, calling up telemetry and ID tags on the little machines.

What she got back was an automated message, both text and audio: “Please remain calm. Emergency Service operators are currently rebuilding local Grid infrastructure. Please refrain from excessive data sharing and online networking. We thank you for your patience.”

It wouldn’t be obvious to most people, but Twilight could tell that the little robots were hard at work. In the distance, miles away from the mag-lev tracks, were lone white towers that carried their own network beacons. Twilight watched as the robots flashed their own tiny beacons at the distant towers. When the lights flashed in unison, the robots would race ahead to the next set, hurrying to restore basic Grid functions ahead of the mag-lev train. Something Twilight found immensely comforting; no Grid functions ahead meant no wireless energy transfer and the train coming to a dead stop.

She almost wished that those low-grade robots could be her friends instead. They’d certainly be easier to handle than five unruly Oldtown coders. And they wouldn’t need much convincing to go down into the Vault either.

Twilight sighed and turned away from the window. This line of thought wasn’t getting her anywhere. And there wasn’t any point in scouring her bookmarked netsites for news updates either. She switched off her visor and closed her eyes.

And as if matters couldn’t be any worse, that network implant in her neck wouldn’t stop tingling. It was like it had a mind of its own—and knowing the Sysadmin, that could very well be true. Twilight scratched at the skin around the implant, fighting the urge to shiver.

Somehow, she was going to make this all work out. A leap of faith from a moving train…

As the train pulled into Oldtown Station, Twilight noticed a curious optical effect in the sky overhead. The local atmosphere bots were glitching out almost as badly as the ones back in Citadel. When she peered into the thin cloud layer, Twilight noticed several swarms drifting back and forth in the direction of the sun. Their optic cloaks refracted the sunlight instead of filtering the UV radiation, unleashing prismatic bursts in the air like a fireworks show.

She knew it was an accident, but Twilight liked to think of it as an improvised welcome party. Whatever it took to make herself feel better about the situation.

“Whoa,” said Spike. He leapt toward the floor of the private car and made his way toward the rear exit. “Check your visor, Twilight. We’ve got a ton of network activity coming through!”

“Really?” Twilight pulled her visor on as fast as she could. Maybe they’d gotten more of the Grid working after all. If so, she could run a search for her old forum friends and see if they were all okay—

She stopped in her tracks, reeling from the blast of text and graphics that exploded over her visor. Twilight yanked the device off and rubbed at her eyes. “Ugh! Seriously?”

Up ahead, Spike looked back. “What’s wrong?”

“You didn’t warn me about the trap tags!” Twilight carefully put her visor back on. “Sync up and you’ll see what I mean.”

Spike immediately sat down and closed his eyes. Twilight could see his ears perk and his eyelids flutter as he accessed their private network. Then she waited for him to access the wave of text and smiley faces scrolling down her visor nonstop.

Anonymous: Hiii!!

Anonymous: Hey there!!

Anonymous: Welcome, welcome, welcome!!

Anonymous: Welcome to Oldtown!!!

Anonymous: New best buddies, come out and play!

Anonymous: PM me at BakerBuddy011.we for where to meet!

Anonymous: See you soon!!!

The same seven lines of text kept scrolling over her visor, broken up by a short animation of three kittens purring and leaping over each other. Their heads were disturbingly replaced with poorly drawn smiling cat’s faces. Twilight shuddered and sent a force-stop command at once.

“Aww, that’s not very nice,” said Spike. He paused to scratch at his ear with a back paw. “I mean, what if it’s one of the girls we’re supposed to meet?”

Twilight rolled her eyes and walked past him toward the exit. “Spike, did you even see that Grid code? You don’t just send someone an anonymous message like that! It’s probably loaded with all kinds of trap tags.” She paused mid-step as another thought occurred to me. “And maybe… I mean, what if it’s another Nightmare Moon trap?”

Spike’s ears dropped flat. “Why would someone who calls herself Nightmare Moon send you a bunch of cheery texts and kittens?”

“Well…” Twilight blushed as she pushed the door open. “Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. But still, we need to be careful. With the Grid down, there’s no knowing how bad the security is out here. Slicers and street mercs are probably going to show up in droves.”

They continued to chat in this way as they walked off the train and into the open air of Oldtown. The Grid had gotten so haywire out here that Twilight’s first impression was the reek of damaged sewer lines and malfunctioning garbage incinerator pits. She hurried to tug up the collar of her jacket over her nose, using its smart silk to create a delicate lilac scent. Spike, of course, walked on without any dismay. He’d been bred to endure all manner of smells, both pleasant and foul.

Beyond the train platform was a sprawling neighborhood of Neo-Deco townhouses and a cluster of residence towers whose chrome surface had begun to rust and chip. Airbuses and hovercraft buzzed through the skylanes, creating wide shifting shadows over the hundreds of people crossing through the avenues below. Twilight saw people routinely stopping to share data and exchange hastily bundled packages, only to slip away as fast as they could.

Meanwhile, holo-banners and ad bot swarms were emerging and dissolving at random in the air just below the skylanes. Spike ducked as a neon pink sign proclaiming Repulsor Tourney at the Wonderblaze – Live at 7 Tonight! was born for a second before collapsing with a sad chime.

Twilight kept dialing up the antivirus settings on her own gear as she joined the crowd leaving the train station. The last thing she needed in this place was an ID theft attack. So far, Oldtown was bigger than she’d expected, but about as glamorous as she’d figured—which was to say, not very.

She followed Spike through the crowd of people, seeing plenty of miserable faces as they passed. There weren’t any first responders around like in Citadel. Everyone kept shuffling along in their own way, all trying to get by.

“Before we get too far,” Spike said, muffled by the crowd, “I’ll check the list we got from the Sysadmin. There’s gotta be an address we can look up.”

“You—oh, pardon me!—you do that.” Twilight smiled at the older woman in the frock coat, who muttered under her breath and continued to elbow her way through the crowds.

With five different people to find, Twilight offered a silent prayer that at least one of them might be relatively sane. Celestia had said they were talented, but that didn’t guarantee they’d be entirely stable—

“There you are!” a voice shouted from far behind her.

Twilight stumbled, almost tripping over Spike as they came to a halt. Meanwhile, the crowd of people around them parted as a bright pink blur came hurtling toward them at a hundred miles an hour. Twilight blinked fast, calling up every antiviral protocol she had—and then raised her fists just in case the attack was physical.

Instead, tires screeched, driving off more pedestrians as a golden electric bike came skidding to a halt. Spike clung to Twilight’s leg, shivering, as the bike and its rider continued to skid around them in a complete circle, leaving deep black grooves on the soft concrete below.

By the time the crowd left and the dust settled, Twilight realized that this wasn’t an ambush. Slowly, she lowered her hands and observed the newcomer.

Straddling the goldenrod bike—a Trailblazer P3-99, her visor’s auto-scan told her—was a young woman in a striped blue-and-white outfit. Twilight kept on blinking, not sure if the dust or some glitch was making her see an anthropomorphic candy cane riding a motorbike. Both the woman’s helmet and goggles were a translucent shade of pink, with daisy and kitten decals slapped on at random. And as if she wasn’t unsettling enough, the rider flashed Twilight a manic grin that seemed a touch predatory.

Twilight blinked again. “What?”

“I said, ‘There you are!’” The rider removed her helmet, shaking a bubbly mane of neon pink hair. Twilight’s visor scans didn’t pick up any dye in her hair, which she found surprising. A genetic mod, perhaps?

With a whimper, Spike uncurled himself from Twilight’s leg. “Yeah, but… who are you and what do you want with us?”

Right! thought Twilight. That was exactly the sort of question she should’ve been asking instead of gawking like an idiot. She slapped herself mentally and made a note to not rely so much on Spike for future introductions.

Pushing up her goggles, the rider’s blue eyes danced over Twilight’s face. She held out her index finger. “Aww, come on! I totally sent you that ‘Hi and welcome to Oldtown!’ and you were all grumpy-face about it!” Her face briefly twisted into an exaggerated sour frown, only to snap back into her manic grin. “But then I found you and now we get to be best buddies on a brand new adventure! Isn’t that great?”

Celestia help me, I knew Oldtown was full of crazy people. But when the rider continued to hold out her index finger, Twilight couldn’t stay perplexed for much longer. She remembered enough about social customs to know that a v-card exchange was polite under any circumstances. But she stayed cautious as she reached out and tapped her finger against the rider’s.

Data shimmered over Twilight’s visor. As soon as the stranger’s name appeared, she got a ping from the Sysadmin’s checklist of important people in Oldtown. Even more data blossomed over her visor readout.

Synopsis: Pinkie Pie. Age 22. Graphic artist for Sugarcube Studios. C-3 implant rating.

Administrator’s Notes: Handle with care.

“You’re…?” Twilight pushed her visor up to get a better look at the odd woman. Then she pulled it back down and scrutinized the data readout. “I don’t… you’re Pinkie Pie?”

“Yep-yep-yeppers!” Pinkie waved. “And you’re Twilight Sparkle! I knew it before ’cause all my little birdies told me!”

“What birdies—?” Twilight stopped and stared at the tiny pink figures popping to life over Pinkie Pie’s shoulders. They danced through the air and flocked around her, making their own party to a melody that no one else could hear.

Pinkie giggled and grabbed a handful of the holograms out of the air. “It’s just like my v-card says! I’m just a fun-loving designer—or as Rarity would say, an artiste!” She emphasized her point by lifting her palm to her forehead and sighing dramatically. “Anyhoo, these little guys love to jump through networks whenever someone new comes to town and that’s how I met you! They gave you my own personal ‘Welcome to Oldtown’!”

It was at this point that Spike took a proud step forward. “Well, since she won’t say it, thanks for the warm welcome!”

“Aww!” Pinkie knelt down and crushed Spike’s neck in a tight hug. Twilight couldn’t resist a giggle at the dog’s bulging eyes. “You’re such a cuddly-wuddly doggie-woggie! Yes, you are!”

“Hnngh… thank you…!” Spike’s tail whipped so hard back and forth that it looked ready to fly off on its own. “T-Twilight, help!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Much as she loved seeing Spike in this predicament, she had business to take care of. World-saving, fate-defying business that couldn’t wait another minute.

“If you know who I am,” said Twilight, taking a cautious step toward the bike, “then you must know why I’m here.”

“Nope!”

“What?”

Pinkie leapt back to her feet. “I said, ‘Nope!’ Not a clue!”

Twilight bit back a stinging retort—it sounded good in her head, anyway—and counted backward from three. Then she let out her breath and looked Pinkie in the eye.

“We’re here,” she declared quietly, “on behalf of System Administrator Celestia.” And once she got started, the words couldn’t stop. No, bad Twilight! Don’t babble! “I’ve been sent to gather you and four other coders to enter the Vault a-and help the Sysadmin stop a terrible virus from permanently crashing the Grid and ending life as we know it on Terra forever!”

When she finished being stupid, Twilight closed her eyes and braced herself. She knew what would come next. The mocking laughter. Or maybe a rude gesture. And then she’d hear the bike rev up and drive away—

“Okey-dokey!”

“Um, what?” Twilight cracked one eyelid open.

Pinkie was straddling her bike again, revving it up just as Twilight had feared. But she wasn’t driving away. Instead, she reached down to one side and unhooked a small blue helmet from its hook on the chassis. “Here you go!”

“I… thanks.” Twilight fumbled with the helmet, giving Spike a concerned look. “Sorry, I’m not too good with people. Did you actually pay attention to what I said?”

“Yep!” Pinkie gave her a thumbs-up and a cheeky smile.

“And… you believe me?”

“Yep-yep!”

“And you…” Twilight shook her head, which wasn’t easy with the helmet she was wearing. “And you want to help me?”

“Yep-yep-yeppers!” In an impressive show of coordination, Pinkie slid on her goggles with one hand while putting her helmet back on with the other. Then she patted the seat behind her. “Hop on, new best friend! I’ll introduce you to all my friends! They’ll totally wanna meet you!”

Twilight frowned and checked her visor readout. “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve got a schedule to keep. All these other coders aren’t going to find themselves—”

Spike nudged her in the leg. He cast those pleading puppy-dog eyes right at her. “Come on, Twilight. We’ll be fine.”

She wanted to believe him—really, she did. But Twilight hadn’t gone where she was by being carefree. At the Celestial Institute, you got ahead by being smarter and more focused than everyone else, no matter what.

But in this Grid-forsaken world, there was no discipline. There were no rules. Twilight didn’t like it. But what else could she do but keep moving forward?

With a sigh, she straddled the bike behind Pinkie Pie and slid her arms around the girl’s waist.

“Here!” Pinkie reached down the other side of her bike and pulled up a thin backpack. “It’s not much, but your cute little friend can ride in here!”

Twilight cast a dubious glance at the backpack and then at Spike. The dog wagged his tail as he peered into the open backpack. It took a little help from Pinkie, but he was able to jump in without too much grunting. Then Twilight winced as she shouldered the pack onto her back, slipping her arms through the narrow straps.

“Remember, I’m insured if you drop me,” Spike said into her ear. Twilight felt his hot, muggy breath on the back of her neck. “That being said, if you do drop me, Twilight, so help me, I’ll—”

“I got it, don’t worry.” Twilight reached back and scratched at his ear. “Have a little faith in me.” She glanced ahead and wrapped her arms around Pinkie. “And, I suppose, in our new driver.”

Pinkie cackled and revved up the bike again, creating new plumes of dust and mayhem in the open street. “That’s the spirit! Let’s go!”

Searing hot wind snapped across Twilight’s face, making her grateful to be wearing such a sturdy visor. Behind her, Spike had both of his front paws on her shoulders. He sung his head to and fro, his tongue dangling freely in the open air.

For some reason, Twilight found the sight of him acting as a normal dog comforting at a time like this.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie was chattering nonstop while she drove her bike up long avenues and cut sharp corners, moving them deeper into Oldtown. “…So then I was on the city transit page and they were all like, ‘No way!’ and I was like, ‘Uh, yeah way!’ And then my little birdies found this new girl and her little dog too, so I sent her my very own personal greeting and then she was all like, ‘Whoa…!’ and I was like—”

Twilight blinked. Not that it mattered; her visor was running low on data streams this deep into the city. “Um, Pinkie, I already know that. I was there, remember?”

“Huh?” Pinkie glanced over her shoulder, for once not wearing a huge grin. “Oh, right! Pause!”

A moment later, Twilight heard a soft chime. Then Pinkie giggled and made a soft left turn at the next intersection. “That wasn’t for you, silly! That was me making a journal for all my followers on Fast Chat! All two point seven million of them!”

“But…” Twilight looked back at Spike for help, but he was still lost in the joy of the ride. “But the Grid’s still crashed…”

“You’re so funny, Twilight Sparkle!” Pinkie said, laughing. “I’m recording all my thoughts now so they’ll be fresh and yummy once the Grid’s back online!”

“Oh. Okay.” Twilight clung on, feeling rather dumb about her earlier remarks.

She missed the simplicity of her old friends. They were funny and colorful like Pinkie, but at least they knew how to communicate. On the forum, there wasn’t any need for watching facial tics. And their chats never took place on the back of a high-speed bike racing through downtown boroughs either, exposing Twilight to all kinds of dirt and other contaminants.

With her head resting on Pinkie’s back, Twilight missed the familiar lines of text running down her visor. She wanted to watch GrowingStrong and LadyCastellan argue about the latest industry practices or listen to QuietMouse334 give an impromptu lecture on animal grooming. Her tips had come in handy when Spike needed a good brushing.

She didn’t know their faces, but Twilight knew their voices. She wanted to go on the forum and ask if they were all right, to see their usernames and friendly texts appear once more.

I won’t forget any of you, thought Twilight. More wind and neon holo-banners flashed by as the bike raced on. If I have to make an effort with these Oldtown girls, I guess I’ll have to try—

Her thoughts came to a screeching halt—as did the bike. Pinkie let her vehicle skid into a very neat parking spot on the curb. Twilight’s stomach lurched up into her throat, making her lips tighten against what she feared would be a very nasty expulsion. She groaned and clutched at her midsection, taking deep breaths to settle her nerves again.

While she appreciated her new friend’s exuberance, Twilight wasn’t entirely sure she’d survive it.

“Okey-dokey-lokey!” With gymnastic grace, Pinkie swung her leg all the way over the handlebars and planted both feet on the sidewalk in a cheerful dismount. “Welcome to Old Oldtown! Or as I like to call it, Really, Really, Really Old Oldtown!”

As she pried her helmet loose and let her head clear, Twilight took in her new surroundings. This section of town was definitely old. Fresh condensation lined the empty windows, their sparkle balanced by the layer of grime coating every stucco wall in sight. What had once been a series of white and gold-trimmed stores and apartments had long since faded to a rusty gray and bronze ghetto. When Twilight checked her visor for storeowner v-cards and building ID tags, all she got were ominous blank spaces and error messages—and that scared her more than the sight of the neighborhood itself.

Behind her, Spike was shaking inside the canvas bag. He sniffled right into Twilight’s ear, making her wince. “Hmm. It’s actually kind of nice here.”

“Uh, you sure about that?” Twilight glanced at him. Maybe he was glitching out, too…

With another determined sniff, the canine leapt free from his canvas prison and landed on all fours beside the bike. He continued to sniff around the sidewalk, poking his nose closer and closer toward the nearest closed-up storefront.

The storefront door slid open with a deafening hiss as someone emerged. Twilight’s big sister instincts kicked in right away. She was already preparing a fast-response security block when she saw a head full of bright pink hair lean out the open doorway.

“Aww,” said a very gentle and feminine voice, “what a cutie!”

Twilight blinked as a delicate-looking woman stepped out from the doorway. She was about Pinkie Pie’s height and looked about as young. Apart from that, she was Pinkie’s total opposite. Even her hair was a softer shade of pink and fell loosely around her shoulders. It formed a pleasant frame for her blue-green eyes and the loving smile she gave Spike as she scratched below his chin. Judging by the green coveralls and the white lab coat she wore over them, Twilight guessed she was in some kind of medical profession.

Meanwhile, Spike was in doggy heaven. Getting his ears and chin scratched left him a sleepy-eyed, tail-wagging puddle of joy in the new girl’s inviting hands. Twilight rolled her eyes and took a step forward, waving her hand to get the girl’s attention.

“Oh!” With surprising speed, she drew back, tucking her hands into her coat pockets. Her demeanor changed in a heartbeat. Her eyes fixed on Twilight for a second, only to shift down to a distant the sidewalk. “H-hello…”

“Hi.” Twilight glanced at Pinkie Pie, who gave her a thumbs-in and another mad grin. When she turned back to the new girl, she lifted her index finger. “Do you mind?”

Nodding, but still not making eye contact, the girl lifted her index finger and tapped it against Twilight’s. New data streamed over her visor, along with another note from Celestia’s records.

Synopsis: Fluttershy. Age 23. Self-employed genetic therapist. C-3 implant rating.

Administrator’s Notes: Easily startled, but stronger than she looks.

“Fluttershy…” Twilight smiled. She knew a little something about dealing with the socially awkward—the Citadel Stargazers Conference was full of them. After taking note of the new girl’s posture, she tilted her head down and clasped her hands behind her back. “It’s nice to meet you. I assume you’re one of Pinkie Pie’s friends?”

With a timid squeak, Fluttershy nodded. She grabbed at her wrist and glanced out at Twilight from behind the curtain of her luscious hair. Twilight idly wondered what kind of bathing regimen she was on to get such a nice shine, especially in this filthy place.

“Ha!” Pinkie Pie dropped down beside Fluttershy. She squeezed her arm around her friend’s waist, unleashing a more terrifying squeak from her. “Me and Shy have been best buddies for a long time now! Ain’t that right, Shy?”

“Y-yes!” Fluttershy glanced at Pinkie Pie, blinking her eyes in a very deliberate way. Pinkie smiled back, giving her a slow wink.

Twilight watched the exchange with sudden interest. Though it wasn’t registering on her visor, she guessed that they were using a private network to share rapid-fire messages. Not an uncommon practice, but it felt a little rude since Twilight and Spike were standing right there, totally shut out of the conversation.

Not to mention, it was a bit suspicious. What weren’t they telling her?

“Um…” Fluttershy turned back to Twilight and rubbed her hands together, almost pleading. “Pinkie tells me that you’re from Citadel.” She swallowed. “Is that right?”

“That’s right!” Twilight smiled. Finally, she could get back on track. “I’m here on an assignment from Administrator Celestia herself, you see, and—”

A pitiful squeal burst from Fluttershy’s lips as she dropped to her knees and lifted her hands in supplication. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

Twilight stared. Had she skipped ahead to a different conversation? “I… beg your pardon?”

“I-I know I wasn’t supposed to, but… Miss Sparkle, you have to believe me!” Fluttershy looked away, her lovely face twisting into a mask of anguish and guilt. “I didn’t get a license application in time, but the poor thing was hurt and I had to do something! I mean, you can understand that, r-right?”

Twilight shared a look with Spike, who was just as confused. Then she turned back to Fluttershy and tried to soften her voice. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand. What do you think you’re in trouble for?”

“The operation,” Fluttershy replied. Sniffling, she lifted her head. Twilight’s heart wrenched to the side at the sight of those big tear-filled eyes. “I-I’m only licensed to do gene mods for animals, but I wanted to get certified for human mods, too.” Her voice began to get quieter as she spoke, so Twilight knelt down to hear her better. “B-but then I found this poor girl lying in the streets last week and I just had to do something! So I took her inside and fixed up her immune system with a transgene and now she’s all better…”

Twilight smiled and patted her arm. “Doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong then.”

“But I’m not licensed!” Fluttershy clasped her hands together. “P-please, tell the Sysadmin I’m sorry! I’ll get the training and the certificate, I promise!”

“Relax. I’m not here for that.”

Blinking away tears, Fluttershy’s face gleamed with the sudden influx of hope. “Y-you’re not?”

“As I told Pinkie,” said Twilight, helping her new friend back to her feet, “I’m here on a special assignment from the Sysadmin. I’m supposed to get the two of you, plus three others, to help the Sysadmin conduct a very serious mission in the Vault.”

“The Vault?” Fluttershy swallowed. Her shoulders trembled under Twilight’s grasp. “Oh, dear…”

That phrase. Two little words that, with the right inflection, sounded so familiar to Twilight’s ears. But this was her first time meeting Fluttershy—at least, as far as she knew. Maybe they’d passed by on a forum somewhere? Or even met at a stargazer event?

But that mystery would have to wait. The fate of Terra was still weighing on her shoulders.

“Don’t worry, Shy!” Pinkie Pie hugged her friend from behind. “Your dear old Auntie Pinkie Pie’s gonna keep you safe and snug when we’re spelunking in the Vault! And if there’s a word sillier than ‘spelunking,’ we’ll be sure to find it together!”

Twilight wanted to explain that the Vault wasn’t built like that, but she didn’t bother. Instead, she crossed her arms and looked over at Spike, who was sitting at attention. His tail perked up in curiosity.

“If we’ve found these two,” he suggested, “maybe we ought to focus on finding the others?”

“Aww!” Fluttershy was snuggling against him in a heartbeat, wearing the biggest smile. “He talks! I love talking to uplifted critters! They’re just so amazing and wonderful!”

“Yeah, they are,” said Twilight. She glanced at Pinkie Pie, then over at her parked bike. Logistics and route concepts buzzed through every corner of her brain. “Uh, I’d ask if we can get a ride, but I doubt that we can all fit on this thing.”

Pinkie laughed as she snapped her goggles back into place. “No problemo!” She planted her thumb near her ear and stuck her little finger toward her mouth, miming an old-concept phone. “I’m calling another friend for a lift! She’ll be here in a dash!”

Twilight crossed her arms and leaned back against the bike, counting quietly to ten. She couldn’t believe she was relying on that old mental trick again. “Well, I guess that’s fine—” A sudden grumble from her stomach made her grimace. “Ugh, I knew I forgot something when we left Citadel! Breakfast!”

A loud gasp split the air. Pinkie Pie grabbed Twilight by her shoulders and shook her. “Oh, no! You can’t forget breakfast! It’s the most important meal of the day! Right after dessert, afternoon snacks, and a big morning brunch!” Twilight’s vision became blurry as the shaking intensified. “You can’t skip it!”

“Here!” Fluttershy took out a pair of foil-wrapped bars from her coat pocket and handed one to Twilight. “It’s a protein supplement. It should keep you full for a while.”

“Thanks.” Twilight accepted the bar and unwrapped it enough for a quick bite. She smiled as soon as the confection touched her lips. This protein bar had better quality than the snacks she was used to getting at the Institute café; sweet chocolate coated the grainy protein filling.

While she wolfed down her snack, she noticed Fluttershy breaking her own protein bar in half. After taking a bite of her piece, Fluttershy offered the rest to Spike, who gulped the whole thing down. Twilight was impressed at how approachable this girl was. She even let Spike lick her palm for crumbs, giggling at his touch. And having lived with him for so long, Twilight knew all too well where Spike’s tongue had been.

Despite the awkward start, Twilight had a feeling that Fluttershy would be easier to get along with than Pinkie Pie. She only hoped the rest of their circle would be just as easy to work with.

And just as easy to find, too. But Twilight knew better than to accept an easy victory at face value. What was really going on here? How was it that all the people she’d been sent to find were already in close range of each other—and all friends, no less?

She didn’t like lurking variables much, but sooner or later, she’d get to the bottom of this one.

Author's Note

Two down, four to go. And what's Nightmare Moon been up to in the Vault so far?

Stay tuned for more!

Intermezzo: Where We Go From Here

September 21, 2014

As the author of Friendship is Software, I hope you’ve enjoyed the story so far. I apologize if you feel like we’ve stopped right when things are getting interesting in Act II, but in all honesty, this is about as far as I’m willing to go with the story right now. It was always more of a thought experiment than an actual story concept—a “What If?” about retelling the MLP series pilot in the cyberpunk genre.

However, the story doesn’t have to end here. I hereby give permission to my readers to pick up the story where it left off and do whatever you like with the story. Expand, continue, parody, criticize—it’s all fair game. All I ask is that you link back to this original story and cite me as the original author if you choose to do something with the narrative.

In the meantime, I will continue to work on my other stories, including my in-progress fic Our Lady’s Courtship. Thanks to all my readers for their dedication and interest, and here’s to the Six Coders’ inevitable victory over Nightmare Moon.

P.S. I may post a few extra scenes that I wrote out for the end of the story a long time ago. Please let me know in the comments if you’d like to see what was intended to be the final act.