Code Nexus

by AaronPony1

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Equestria Girls, Science Fiction, Comedy, Adventure, Crossover, Sunset Shimmer, Main 6
Length: 55838

When Twilight discovers magic coming from a popular tourist destination, the Rainbooms are forced to spend their summer investigating the strange island. But they're not the only ones. Others also venture to the island, each with their own reasons.

The Rainbooms had pooled their money together all year, saving up for the perfect vacation. Now that school is coming to an end their dream summer is finally upon them. But their plans are suddenly disrupted when a strong magic interference coming from Sunrise Island, a popular tourist destination, is detected. Knowing how dangerous magic can be, they have little choice but to spend their summer investigating the strange island.

But they're not the only ones to notice. Others also venture to Sunrise Island, each with their own intentions...

In this crossover the following stories will meet: My Little Pony Equestria Girls, Steven Universe, Dexter's lab, Kenny the shark, and last but not least Code Lyoko!

Proof readers: Krickis & Slam-Manian

Cover by night.fire

Published 2016-01-12 23:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-06-22 21:06:21 UTC

First Day of Summer

Location: Earth, North American continent, United States, Canterbury.

As the last bell of the day rang all the students of Canterlot high scrambled out of their classes and bolted for the doors.

"We want to remind you that the graduation ceremony will take place this afternoon at three pm, and that the remedial courses will start next month. Have a good summer," Luna's voice boomed out of the speakers.

Sunset Shimmer walked through the halls smiling, she was happy that school was finally over and she was looking forward to all the fun she and her friends were going to have.

They even saved their money over the year to allow themselves to make a collective vacation, and that very evening they were going to choose what was going to be the destination.

After a year of magic mishaps, culminating in the attack of the sirens, the only thing Sunset wanted was some peace. She was in fact going to propose to spend two weeks at a nice spa she looked up online. It was located in California nearby the sea, and had a review rate of five stars.

Sunset smiled and hoped that the others would like her idea, even if even if Rainbow and Twilight probably would have prefered something else. Rainbow would have wanted to do something exciting, and Twilight probably wanted to visit some highly cultural cities… however, whatever they'd have chosen, she knew that she'd still enjoy it.

She reached the bus station then waited for the bus to come. Twilight and the others joined her shortly.

"Hello Sunset," Twilight greeted her.

"Oh hi Twilight, how was the last day of school?" Sunset asked.

"Good but… kinda short." she answered.

"Twilight my friend, I can safely tell you that school days can't be too short," Rainbow joked, causing everyone to laugh.

Twilight just smiled and rolled her eyes a little.

"Mine was good too, I even set off a party cannon in the classroom when the bell rang!" Pinkie said.

"Woah, did ya get in trouble?" Applejack asked.

"Nope, professor Cranky didn't even budge. It was probably because everybody stampeded out the class, but that's only a guess," Pinkie said smiling, causing the others to chuckle a bit.

"Anyways, where is the party tonight?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"At my place of course!!! I made sure to prepare everything needed to throw the early summer party of the century!!!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"You mean like the one you threw the last year?" Applejack joked.

"Exactly!!! a century is one year in party years!" Pinkie grinned.

"When is it?" Twilight asked.

"Seven pm sharp," Pinkie announced smiling.

"Oh great, I'll be sure to come," Twilight exclaimed to them. "I might be a little late however..."

In that moment a bus arrived and the seven girls got in it.

"Why do you think you'd be late?" Sunset asked while looking for a good seat.

"Oh, I didn't tell you! I have been developing a new magic scanner, with a worldwide examination radius!" Twilight explained

"A… magic scanner? You mean like your spectrometer?" Sunset asked, remembering Twilight's old device.

"Not quite, unlike the old model I made, this one doesn't isolate magic for studying, it just reveals the peaks in magic energy around the world and reports the locations of the major ones on a map," she explained.

"Oh… you made sure it's safe, right?" Sunset asked, remembering what happened last time.

"Yeah I did, it's completely safe. I perfected it thanks to the lessons about magic you gave me during the year," Twilight answered.

"Why did you build it?" Pinkie Pie asked from the seat behind them.

"Because I want to have a better idea of how much magic affects our world, and I want to know if there is anything we should have to worry about on the horizon. Like for example if other magic beings tried to attack our world," Twilight explained,

"Hmm good point," Sunset said.

"Yeah, I wouldn't want another magic monster popping out of nowhere trying to hypnotize me or steal my emotions, whatever," Rainbow Dash said.

"The main program is going to go online this evening if I if I manage to compile it in time. But don't worry, I won't miss the party," Twilight said blinking "Promise."

"You better not miss it!" Rainbow Dash said, patting her.

The bus's door closed shortly after, and the bus moved down the street. One by one the Rainbooms got off and each of them prepared for the great evening.

Location: Earth, Oceania, Sunrise island.

Sunrise island was a very popular tourist destination, thanks to it's beautiful forests, clean white beaches, crystal waters, and above all the waves, which were so epic that they were only rivaled by the ones of Sunset island.

With these conditions the mass and luxurious tourism thrived. Numerous hotels, from the most decaying inn to the most opulent five stars hotel, were built all around the coastal area and the pinewood to house the thousands of tourists that came every summer.

However recently the island aroused the interest of the US military and of a private company: the Hubberton corporation, which built a research facility on the farthest side of the island away from prying eyes. It was protected also by the military, which installed multiple walls separating it from the town.

This new interest was given by strange satellite readings, and by some interesting information which came from an unknown source, referring to an abandoned foreign military project. It involved both parties and, above all, the CEO of the Hubberton corporation.

The facility was a complex of geodetic domes and various buildings connected with covered pathways and rails for heavy materials transfer. It even had it's own military harbor. No expenses were spared to build it, everything inside and around domes was state of the art technology imported from around the world. There were touch screen panels at each door and corner, and multi-spectrum cameras in every room and on the outside keeping the place tightly controlled.

The domes ten and nine served for power generation and water purification, eight to six served as storages for food, materials and equipment, the ones from five to two contained the laboratories and various research structures, and in the end the dome number one contained the main computer of the base, the communication center and had a vast underground structure. The rest of the buildings contained the living quarters, the cafeteria, the toilets and an antenna park for long range communications.

After years of construction the final pieces to make it operational were on course, transported by a heavy ship escorted by a convoy of military ships.

The main ship was in the middle of the convoy, it was very large, modern and had a very extensive cargo hold. Soldiers and sailors were dotting the decks of the ship, waiting to reach the destination.

"Here is Captain Lanchaster to Sunrise facility, do you copy?" the man on the bridge of the ship held a transmitter to his mouth.

"Here is harbor sunrise 001, what's the status?" a man at the other side of the radio asked.

"We are approaching the island, we should arrive at the harbor in fifteen minutes. The cargo is in mint conditions and ready for the pickup. There haven't been any transport accidents," the captain said.

"Very well, proceed on this route and prepare to engage the autopilot," the man answered.

"Copy that, over and out," the captain finished, closing the connection and performing the instructions just as ordered.

Minutes later the ship was driven inside the harbor and its men quickly disembarked, while the cargo hold was opened up revealing some machines that looked like very advanced drills, as well as others that looked like oversized hummingbirds.

The procedure was overwatched by the base's executives from a domed control room at the highest point of dome number one.

The room was circular, quite large and had a darkened crystal dome that allowed a three hundred sixty degrees view of the base while seeming dark from the outside. There was a self opening spiral staircase in its middle which provided the access, and from it quite large touch screen desks, glass cornerless screens and various computer terminals filled the room radially.

Only an handful of people were needed in that room to run the base as most of it was automized, ten tops in the most critical situations.

As the executives carefully overwatched the unloading of the machines through their screens a section of the dome started to shine and pixels appeared around it forming the frame of a screen, in which the face of a middle age man of british origin was shown. He wore a white jacket and a formal suit of the same colour.

"Status report," the man demanded.

"Right away, sir," one of the executives said, standing up and walking in front of the screen. "The drills have arrived, we'll be ready to begin in 4 hours tops."

"Very good, inform me as soon as the drills are operational, then commence the drilling. Hubberton out," his interlocutor answered, closing the connection thus causing the screen to disappear, reverting the glass back to transparent.

The man returned to his seat in front of a table. After inputting some commands through a touch screen desk the feed from the cameras around the port appeared, showing the crew members of the ship and the base's staff unloading the drills and transferring them to the first dome through the railway.

Twilight passed nearly all the afternoon and part of the evening compiling her magic-finding program, and finally she was a few lines away from finishing.

While being home made, her computer had some of the best pieces of hardware around, as well as a bootcamp with an operating system optimized by Twilight herself. It had a three screens, keyboards of different kinds and languages, a printer, a scanner, and a powerful internet connection via optic fibers and direct to satellite.

"Alright, let's adjust the last variables, verify the connection protocols, and done!" She pressed enter.

The computer started to compile, showing writings and symbols all over the screens. After some moments a model of the globe appeared in the middle of the left one, presenting some luminous points moving all over it, which represented the satellites that Twilight’s computer could access legally. The right one showed lists of satellites, prefixes, servers and locations, as well as graphs and fraunhofer lines.

On the outside her satellite dish started to move and beep, transmitting to one satellite in range at a time and receiving an answer.

"Good, the system is online, the satellites seem to be responding. Now, let's begin the first scan." She typed some commands causing a window to open, showing what looked like an input interface.

"Range of scan: globe, period of scan: twelve hours, sensibility: two fifths." She dialed the last factors into the window, which then collapsed into an icon at the corner of the screen.

"This should do for a test run," she said, clicking on a button labeled ‘commence scan.’

As she did that the points around the globe started to shine and generate radial waves, and under the radar screen an image of the American continent showed up. It presented a bright red colored point in correspondence of her city, meaning that it picked up the magical energy of Canterlot High.

Let's hope there are no bugs anywhere… now if only I had a little more time... she thought, before being interrupted by Pinkie's knocking on the front door.

"HEY TWILIGHT!!! You didn't forget our party right, right?!! Come on, come out, we’re all waiting for you," her cheerful voice reached the second floor.

"HERE I AM!!!" Twilight answered.

"Guess it’s time to activate the mobile interface." She quickly got the phone and held it to the computer’s screen and after pressing a button on it’s side it showed a loading bar. After it was completely filled up, the phone showed exactly the same images as the screen.

"it works!" Twilight triumphantly raised her hands, and then reached her closet, putting on the summer outfit she had prepared for the great evening.

The outfit consisted in a nice pair of jeans, a warm orange tank top and high sole sandals.

After placing Spike in her purse as well as a swimsuit, she exited the front door and reached her friends waiting on the opposite site of the street, nearby a grey minivan.

"Nice dress choice Twilight, those jeans are perfect with that top," Rarity complimented.

"Happy you approve! I remembered your tips about how to combine clothing of different colors, they really helped," Twilight remarked.

"Oh darling it was a pleasure," she answered.

"Alright now girls, less talking and more DRIVING!" Rainbow announced, while Pinkie pushed the horn a couple times.

"Yeah girls, to the party!" Applejack said, swinging her hat.

"Which is at my house!" Pinkie exclaimed, opening the door for Twilight.

As she got in and sat down the car darted through the city to Pinkie's house in the outskirts.

"Ah! What a glorious summer evening! Perfect for the last day of school!" Applejack exclaimed, looking at the beautiful sunset in front of them.

"Or for a party!" Pinkie smiled.

"Yay..." Fluttershy squeaked.

"I have to say I'm very excited about spending the night with all of you. We already had slumber parties, meals together, excursions, and last month I got to celebrate my birthday with friends for the first time. And now I'm going to have my first early summer party!" Twilight exclaimed eagerly.

"Yeah, and trust us, it's gonna be awesome!!!" Rainbow Dash said.

"To lighten up the wait let's play a game! I spy with my little eye anyone?" Pinkie suggested, earning an approving nod from everyone.

"Ah spy with mah little eye..." Applejack looked around the street, until she noticed the city’s park "...the apple tree we planted in the park this spring!"

"Oh right, for the park restoration program, that was one busy day," Fluttershy said.

"Ah, it wasn't that hard." Rainbow Dash put her hands behind her head with a confident and proud smile.

"It was so rewarding, Ah never felt so happy about giving a tree of mine a new home." Applejack smiled looking at the beautiful blooming tree.

"Let's go ahead, I spy with my little eye, the skatepark!" Sunset Shimmer said.

"One of my favorite places in town, and most importantly the very place where I performed my ponified version of the super rotated launch for the first time! Now that was awesome!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Yeah, you really blew their minds with that trick back then," Sunset Shimmer remarked.

"While I'm still unsure about how a person can pony up, I am sure your 360 degrees aerial turn multi-rotated with mid air transformation will allow you to stay on that hall of fame for a long time," Twilight explained.

Rainbow Dash just smiled and relaxed herself on the seat.

"Look! Here is our school! CHS!" Pinkie Pie pointed at the large building with the horse statue in the middle of it’s courtyard.

"All the adventures we had around the city will never top the ones we had there," Applejack exclaimed.

"That's right!!!" Pinkie Pie said.

"The day we competed in the battle of the bands, when we reformed you," Rarity listed all the exciting adventures they’d had.

"I can remember it like if it was yesterday..." Sunset remembered with a smile, "...when you showed me the true magic of friendship."

"The dazzlings!" Pinkie said

"Yeah, and how we kicked their sorry siren butts!" Rainbow Dash remarked.

"No, I mean, I spy with my little eye, the Dazzlings, they are over there around that campfire!" Pinkie pointed at the three sirens seemingly camping in the park nearby the school.

They were wearing the same outfits, but by now they were tattered and dirty. They had one tent between the three of them, which didn't look much better than their clothing. A pot sat next to the remnants of a fire pit.

"From riches to rags as they say." Applejack turned her head away.

"Serves them right for trying to brainwash all of the school and trying to kill us with death voicewaves," Rainbow Dash pointed out simply.

"it's soundwaves," Twilight pointed out.

"Potato tomato," Rainbow Dash answered.

"I hope they aren't having it too bad… they don't look very good to me." Fluttershy looked down as she noticed their torn up clothes and messy hair.

"Oh my, their clothes, the horror… I know they were bad, but I can't stand an uncared for ensemble..." Rarity said, trying not to look at them.

"Let's steer clear of here before she passes out," Rainbow Dash suggested.

"Aaagreed," Pinkie Pie approved, steering rapidly and driving off the siren's campsite, hoping that they didn't notice them…

“I don’t think they saw us… WOAH!!!” Pinkie Pie accelerated quickly upon seeing Aria preparing to throw the pot at them.

The launch wasn’t very good however, and it didn’t hit the van, leaving only an angry siren and other two hungry ones about to join her shortly.

“Oh! now look at what you did!” Adagio yelled at her

“Our dinner...” Sonata frowned looking at the weirdly green soup spread on the street.

Eventually they arrived at Pinkie's house, which was completely equipped for the great party, both on the outside and the inside.

There was summer themed decor all over the place, including surfboards, sunflowers, white sand, a swimming pool with beach toys and torches, while inside there was a nice dancing floor with karaoke in the living room, a buffet loaded with tasty treats in the kitchen and lots of summer-based movies in Pinkie Pie’s room nearby her TV.

"Wow," Twilight said amazed. "This decor is beautiful."

Spike jumped out of her purse and was amazed too. “Cool!”

“I’ll say!” Rarity exclaimed with sparkly eyes. “Where did you find the money to get all this stuff?”.

"I have my secret party contacts…” she whispered in Rarity’s ears with an elusive expression before returning to her normal cheerfulness. ”I wanted to do my best for your first summer party, and what screams summer more than artificial white sand, Karaoke, surf and summer drama movies and a tiger shark?" She bounced around.

At the last item she named everybody except Twilight and Spike was taken aback.

"Pinkie… you didn't really..." Applejack mumbled worriedly.

"Oh of course not silly, I meant that inflatable shark floating in the pool, " she said pointing at one of the beachtoys.

"Oh whew. " Applejack wiped her brow, relieved that even Pinkie wouldn't do something so crazy.

"I tried getting a real one but the aquarium staff was very clear, the pool was too small… Anyway, let's get this PARTY STARTED!!!" Pinkie Pie said, getting a stereo and turning it on at full volume.

The rest of the group joined her shortly, unleashing their party spirit into the night.

After being extracted the machines were placed on some wagons and transferred inside the base via a maglev system. Their first destination was a shed in which they underwent various system checks and inspections to confirm the absence of any abnormality.

They were then moved inside the central dome and through a very large lift they were slid into an underground room. There the drones were connected to recharging stations, and the drills held by some mechanical supports in front of big holes in the floor.

From a separated room a group of technicians were monitoring the status of each one of them using advanced computers. Their screens showed very detailed schemes of the drill’s innerworkings.

"Drills activating, all values in the green zone, fueling at seventy percent. We'll be able to start the excavation procedure in less than an hour," one of them exclaimed in a microphone, while observing the data on the screens.

"Very well, complete the fueling. Start checking the probe drones and keep us informed. Don't take any initiative until Mr. Hubberton is online as well, we'll rally the scouting team," the director ordered, closing the chat-box.

In another dome a group of soldiers was playing a card game.

They were in the area containing the barracks for the security forces and orderlies, as well as the apartment buildings belonging to the executives of the base.

Unlike the apartaments, the dorms had only the most basic things needed for a person to live: bunks, a bathroom, and tables to eat, read and for miscellaneous activities.

Since most of the security force was on duty, all the dorms were mostly empty and one of them was temporarily used as a leisure lounge by the members of the scouting team. They were two men and three women, all dressed up in military uniforms, specifically helicopter flight suits, and were sitting on the ground between two bunks around some cards.

"I call your bluff George," a woman said annoyedly.

"Tough luck for you, Sarah," he answered.

"Go fish," another man, named Rupert, said as his turn arrived.

Before Sarah could draw her card the speakers crackled and the voice of the base directed cut through the conversation. "Scouting team, report to dome one, room A-thirty-one in ten minutes,"

"Well that's our cue," the other woman -named Karla- said, getting up.

"Let's go." George headed to the door.

The four exited the dorm and after getting out of the barracks reached a transport station. It was small and the only things that stood out were a touch screen to call the transports, some benches, some kind of interface, probably used to call the transports, and on the rails there was some kind of modern metro car.

"Looks like they have it ready," Sarah said, taking a seat on it, soon followed by the others.

Once they were all inside, the car closed the doors and started to move towards the central dome following the rails, while reporting the progress on a chart appearing on a screen inside of it.

The seven friends were really having a blast. After a nice karaoke session singing the songs they composed as the Rainbooms at full volume and after watching a summer drama movie, they got quickly to the pool for a game of water polo.

The teams were two: one led by Rainbow Dash, with Fluttershy and Sunset Shimmer, and another one led by Applejack, with Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Twilight and Spike served as a referees.

"Okay girls! Three, two, one… MATCH!" Twilight called.

Pinkie hurled the ball in the air and then served as strongly as she could.

"It’s coming straight for you Sunset!" Rainbow Dash yelled to her friend.

"I got this!" Sunset answered, managing to hit it right before it touched the water passing it to Fluttershy.

"Eeek!" she squeaked, returning it to Rainbow Dash and covering herself.

"Take this!" she screamed, squashing the ball right in Rarity's direction.

"Mmmh very well, not on my nails, not on my nails, not on my..." she whispered, shielding herself and deflecting the ball right in time, sending it in Applejack’s direction.

"Here it comes, Applejack!" Pinkie Pie warned her.

"Thank ya partner, now back to the sender!" Applejack exclaimed, slamming the ball back to the other part of the pool with it heading right for Fluttershy.

"Eeep!" she squeaked again, covering her face with with her hands.

Rainbow Dash tried to intercept the ball but she couldn't stop it from ending up in the water.

"Score!" Applejack yelled. She looked over at Fluttershy who still had her hands over her face. "You okay, Fluttershy?"

"Did it… hit me?" she asked trembling.

"No, it didn't, " Rainbow Dash answered.

"Oh whew… but wait, I caused it to land in the water, didn’t I?" She looked sad and ashamed of having caused the opposite team to score a point.

"No sweat, we aren't going down so easily," Rainbow Dash answered winking. "If you want you can trade places with Sunset so you can stay a little safer."

"Okay," Fluttershy said. Sunset nodded, so they switched.

"Hey Twilight, yah keeping the score?" Applejack asked, but Twilight didn't respond. "Twilight?" Applejack turned towards her, noticing she wasn't paying attention, and instead was looking at her phone.

Applejack coughed a few times to get Twilight's attention. "Twilight..."

"Oh what? Sorry, I wanted to check the progresses of the magic scanner, seems that there is no magic in the African continent so far," she said awkwardly.

"Twilight… you promised you wouldn’t let it distract you from the party," Pinkie Pie pointed out.

"Oh… sorry again, anyways Applejack scored right? I'll use my phone to keep the score," she said, pulling up a score keeping app.

"Okay! Time for some payback!" Rainbow Dash said, taking the ball. "My turn to serve!"

Once the podcar entered in the dome, it reached the base's main transport hub and there the team exited.

It was a very large room, in which some some rails intersected from different areas, and numerous screens showed maps and routes to take to reach the numerous rooms of the dome.

"Here we are," George said.

"We need to head to the room A-thirty-one. It’s in the underground part of the facility this way," Sarah said, pointing to a corridor whose screen indicated an arrow pointing down.

The other four followed suit and walked trough, reaching an elevator at its end. They entered it and selected the underground floor they needed to reach. Once they arrived they got out and headed to the room A-thirty-one.

Upon arriving at the door a ray came down from it's top and scanned each of them. The program inside the door's control panel used the scan's data to confirm their identities. Once it was done the door finally opened up.

"Welcome," a man wearing a lab coat said.

"Hello, we are scout team one, ready for the job," Sarah said, while the others stood at attention.

"Excellent, I'm Berry Parker,” he introduced himself. “I'm your supervisor here under the recommendation of colonel Heathrow. Please follow me, I'll show you the devices.”

He lead them to another section of the room in which four unconventional machines awaited. They looked like gimbals, only that at their center, usually occupied by a gyroscope, there was a chair. Their armrests were equipped with controls and screens. They were similar to the ones used by the astronauts during training, except they had some electronics inside the chassis and cables coming out them running into the floor.

"What are these supposed to be?" Sarah asked.

"Well, do any you have any knowledge of the Hummingbird 2000?" he asked.

"Of course, it's a project of the USAF to build helicopters capable omni-directional flight, It's in the prototype phase at the moment," George answered.

"Very good. As a matter of fact, four of those have passed the prototype state and are in this very site. They have also been modified to enable long distance control through these devices," he explained, indicating the gimbals.

"You mean we are going to pilot the new generation of airborne transport?" Rupert asked, bewildered.

"Exactly, and your first mission will be to map this island's interiors, " the man explained.

"To map this island's interiors? Could you be more clear?" Sarah placed her hand under the chin.

"Please direct your attention at this table." He stepped on a sensor that caused the floor to open and a touchscreen table to elevate.

The team gathered around it, and observed a map of the island shown on it.

"Thanks to satellite reconnaissance we have been able to locate a network of underground geological formations, that we believe to be tunnels of unknown origin. We don't know what they are for or even if they are artificial, but we managed to acquire a drilling system capable of reaching them and release some drones for direct exploration," the man explained. As he did so imagines of the drills and of the drones showed up on the table.

“The drones communicate with these machines via crypted large band frequencies.” -Images of the gimbals appeared on the table- “The delay is minimal, they can be controlled through the joysticks in front of the chairs, while on the armrests there are the controls for the camera, sensors and probes. By moving this cursor on the touchscreen you can switch between normal camera, infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, sonar and x-rays. However, they can be activated only for a short period of time as they risk overheating the drone.”

He started to illustrate the controls on the right armrests. “Those gloves on the right armrests allow you to control the probes, the sample extractors and the claw arm. The red button on the right armrest activates a high frequency laser cutter. The visors are capable of projecting the feed of the cameras right to your eyes. All the data you will acquire will be transferred to a separate server for scientific purposes, and will be streamed directly to the general and to the CEO of the Hubberton Corporation, so please be professional.”

“Understood,” the team said in unison.

"The drills will be operational in a short time. You can use this time to familiarize yourselves with the controls. But don't worry, they have been engineered so that it would be little to no different from piloting a helicopter," the man finished.

The four pilots saluted, then they picked a machine each and started to study them while trying the seats.

After a couple matches the game ended with Rainbow Dash’s team winning with a very slim vantage, only eleven points to ten.

“That was a nice game,” Applejack complimented while drying herself.

“Yeah, you put up a good fight. Can’t wait for a rematch later.” Rainbow Dash winked to her.

"Sure thing. But next time Ah don't plan on goin' down so easy," Applejack exclaimed confidently.

“Okay girls, now how about we get changed and then hit the buffet?” Pinkie Pie suggested. “I made sure to order all the best summer treats, I even had the Cakes give me some of the fresh ingredients they use for their baking.”

The group approved. After they were done drying up, they put their clothes back on and made their way into the kitchen to the kitchen led by Pinkie Pie.

Once they got inside they all stood in front of a table in the middle of the room with a veil on it.

“Here all the treats to help you start this summer with the right foot.” Pinkie removed the veil revealing what was underneath it.

“We have summer fruit salad here, summer tabasco pineapple over here, sliced watermelon over here, cubed watermelon here, summer fruit punch” -She took a deep breath- “make your own fruit skewer, you can use melon, watermelon, and pineapple, aaaand...” She paused for dramatic effect, “the ice cream!” She finished by indicating three cream cups, which contained vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream.

“And for our little Spike...” she put a bowl in front of him. “A whole sack of K-Nine Crunchies summer edition!”

"Pinkie, that's way too much!" Twilight exclaimed. Spike's ears drooped.

"Relax, Twilight. They're diet treats." Pinkie shook her head, as if this should have been obvious.

"What? They don't even make- oh, they are diet." Twilight examined the bag. "And all natural too. I guess that's okay then."

Spike wagged his tail and dug in, while the others started to do so with their own food.

“I’m gonna have some tabasco pineapple with double sauce!” Rainbow Dash said, taking a slice out of it and spreading more hot sauce all over it.

“Same for me too.” Applejack grabbed a couple of slices as well.

“I’ll eat some salad, thank you,” Fluttershy said taking a plate and putting some on it gently .

Sunset approached the buffet, made herself two fruit skewers, and took some vanilla ice cream to go with them. She took a spoon and started to eat her dish.

“Hey Rarity, some ice cream?” Sunset asked upon noticing the few foods on Rarity’s plate.

“Oh heavens no, it might be a party but i need to watch my figure. This fruit is more than enough for me.” She politely refused.

“Okay,” Sunset said, putting a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth.

Twilight on the other hand was looking at the skewers and at the fruit in front of her, a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Twilight? What are you waiting for?” Sunset asked.

“I just can’t decide, there are so many possibilities, I could make a pineapple, melon, watermelon skewer but probably the flavors would overlap badly. I could make multiple skewers and taste them individually but I’m impatient to try the combinations, and I have to consider making some with multiple of the same fruit.” Twilight looked at the objects thinking about what to do.

Sunset smiled and started eating her dish.

“Well, having fun anyways?” she asked, swallowing a spoonful of vanilla ice cream.

“Oh I certainly am, the water polo match you had was exciting, and Rainbow’s serving techniques were a good match for Applejack’s defence strategy.” She started to skewer a first piece of pineapple. “Off to a good start, pineapples are full of digestive enzymes.”

“I agree they were pretty great. Did you see how Applejack deflected Rainbow’s sonic rain-ball?” She remembered how well Applejack managed to respond to Rainbow’s most powerful serve.

“How could I not?” Twilight skewered another piece of fruit. “The way she stopped the ball was so professional, her strength is literally above the high-average curve.”

“Thank yah, Twi.” Applejack joined them. “It’s all thanks to some farmwork and fresh air.”

“Well, I can’t deny their good effects. Speaking of which how are things going at the farm?” Twilight asked.

“Pretty good, the trees are growing strong and the apple products are selling fairly well,” Applejack answered. “There was that time when the Flim Flam brothers tried to compete with us using their cider squeezy thing but you all remember how that turned out...”

All the girls and Spike assumed a disgusted look remembering that terrible event…

“How could we forget, that ‘cider’ was so bad not even a dog would drink it...” Pinkie Pie said.

“I confirm and subscribe...” Spike added.

“I remember how many trees that stupid thing ruined...” Fluttershy looked down sadly “...the animal shelter has never been busier.”

“Yeah, their machine was definitely built too cheap,” Twilight remarked. “While the idea was good it was realized terribly, I mean… They didn’t even have a closed cycle sensor system, nor a juice filter or a fail-safe security system! No wonder it couldn’t tell the difference between a good apple and a rotten apple at higher work speed.”

“Ah seriously hope you don’t suddenly get in on the apple business,” Applejack remarked. “You’d make me and my family go broke.”

“If I ever decided to do something like that, I’d rather try to help you modernize your farm.” Twilight winked causing Applejack to smile.

“Speaking of which” -Twilight took her phone- “I took the liberty of writing a plantation-harvest plan for your farm, as you see in the parameters there are the apple tree’s growth rate, the time needed for an apple to become ripe, the average time for a complete harvest and even the possible effects of weather.” She illustrated everything with a mini-presentation.

“Ahem...thank you a lot Twilight, but Ah think that we are fine as of now. Still it was thoughtful of you,” Applejack answered.

“Don’t worry I have a copy of it, it’s on my computer,” she explained.

“Speaking of computers!” Pinkie Pie appeared in a blur with her face all covered in ice cream of different flavors. “How is your magic-finding-thingy doing?”

“Oh that, thank you for touching the topic Pinkie,” she said, switching back to the radar screen. “So far no major magic readings, only some haggard traces of magic somewhere in Europe, but according to the scale it’s no menace, seems we won’t be facing anything anytime soon.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Fluttershy smiled.

“Good… I kinda feel a tingle in my Pinkie sense however… weird,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Your… what?” Twilight asked.

“Oh! We didn’t tell you? it’s a sense that warns me when something is going to happen!” she explained.

“You mean like a sixth sense?” Twilight asked.

“It’s actually like… twelve senses wrapped up into one,” she explained, almost causing Twilight to tilt her head in confusion.

“Ahem… nevermind,” Twilight said in the end, while Pinkie swallowed the entire content of her plate.

“Ooh, quick get some milk!” Pinkie Pie’s hair started to vibrate.

“Why do you need…?” Twilight was interrupted upon hearing what Rainbow Dash and Applejack had in mind.

“Challenge to who eats more tabasco pineapple! The winner gets to serve the ball first in the next water polo match!” Rainbow Dash teased.

“You sure you want to lose? Ah managed to drink Granny Smith’s super spiced cider.” Applejack assumed a very confident look.

They filled their plates, almost emptying the container of Tabasco Pineapple.

“Oh dear… I’ll go grab the milk.” Fluttershy ran to the fridge.

“I’ll get some bread.” Pinkie Pie ran to the pantry instead.

The two challengers just looked in each other's eyes and after a nod they started to chow down on their plates. As they did their faces started to swell and redden.

“Let’s hope they don’t end up with burns in their mouths,” Sunset said.

“I surely hope not...” Maud Pie said, coming out of nowhere.

“And where did you come from!?” Sunset shrieked upon her arrival.

“Boulder was thirsty, he was in the mood for fruit punch, so I brought him here to grab him something to drink.” She went to the buffet, took a bowl of punch and dropped Boulder in. “Dig in…” Her expression remained unemotional and unchanged.

“Fueling of number one completed.” A man observed a screen in front of him, seeing that the level of fuel was at the top.

“Fueling of number two and three completed too,” another man added.

“Number three ready.” A woman checked the values.

“Four ready to rip,” another technician said.

“The drills are ready,” the lead technician exclaimed into a video-phone, informing the executives up in the control room.

In the control room it was a little more crowded than before as ten more executives and experts joined them.

“Roger,” the man answered, “stand by. Are the drones ready for dispatch?” he then asked another man online, the one responsible for the drones.

“Affirmative, the drones have been recharged and are ready to go. I have been informed that the piloting team is ready as well.” The man stood composed in front of the phone’s camera.

“Excellent, move the drones out of the recharge room and proceed to lodge them into the drills,” the executive instructed.

“Roger sir,” the man said.

“The geologists confirm that the ground is safe, and that the drilling paths have been tracked and set,” a woman said.

“The scientific division at the headquarters is online, they’ll be able to stream the data as soon as the exploration begins.” Another woman monitored the communication system. Meanwhile, in the room that contained the driving mechanisms, the pilots were trying them out.

“That guy was for real, it is like piloting a helicopter, except it’s even easier,” George said from his seat, moving inside the gimbal as he tried a simulated flight program.

“Simulation completed, returning to standby mode,” A computerized voice spoke through the headset as the machine returned the seat to a stable position.

“I think I’m getting the hang of it too,” Rupert exclaimed.

“Activating claw arm, extending claw arm, reaching objective, objective reached.” Sarah’s visor was showing as she was exercising with the claw arm.

“Good. While it’s still a simulator, it appears that they made quite a good job with the actuators,” she remarked as the simulation ended.

“Scouting team one, prepare for mission commencement,” the speaker announced.

“You heard the man, everybody stop fooling around,” Karla said.

The rest of the group got in the seats and fastened their safety belts. Once they were done they waited for orders. After a few minutes the call arrived at the control room.

As before luminous pixels started to appear on the domed roof forming a screen showing Hubberton’s face. Beside him another screen formed showing a general.

“Everything is completed, sir. We are ready to start exploring the underground structure.” The director stood up along with the other nine people inside the room.

“You may proceed.” Hubberton’s fingers formed a pyramid.

“Powering up the drills.” A woman tapped commands on her desk.

Inside the drill’s room, the four machines started to activate. Fuel flowed inside their engines and the drill heads started to turn as fast as they could.

“Power up completed. Awaiting drop off authorization,” one of the technicians said trough the videophone.

“Authorization granted.” The man quickly pressed a large red button after removing its cover, lowering the drills on the ground. Immediately the four machines penetrated the soil and disappeared inside Earth’s crust.

In the room everything was being monitored.

“Drills descending. Courses diversified, no variations in the paths registered.” one of the executives exclaimed.

“Contact with the structure scheduled in two minutes.” Different voices started to overlap inside the room while Hubberton observed the observed the progress in silence.

After the two minutes, the drills started to come in contact with the tunnels one by one. Some managed to pierce the tunnels by the side, while others instead pierced them through the top falling down. They managed with minimal damage. Once they got in a stable position they deployed some stabilizing legs and arms.

“We’re in,” one of the people in the control room said.

“The drills are stable, open them up,” another executive ordered.

At the command the drills were opened through a remote signal revealing the hummingbird drones inside. As they powered up red lights turned on around their cameras and retractable wings protruded from their mechanical bodies.

Inside the control room lights started to turn on around the gimbals, and beepings sounds could be heard. The visors of the scouting team showed a progressive bar that once completed was replaced by the writing ‘drone ready’ and the images from their cameras appeared. Each member of the team then grabbed their joysticks. As they did the drones started to soar inside the tunnels, while the gimbals mimicked their inclination and direction.

The tunnels were quite large, at least two hundred meters in height and wider too. They seemed to be made of a very shiny kind of metal, and there didn’t seem to be any natural light.

“Interesting.” Sarah guided her drone into the middle of the tunnel. “Magnify.” she ordered, managing to see to the end of the tunnel.

“It seems there’s some kind of crossing at the end of my tunnel,” she said.

“I saw something similar too, I’ll proceed in it’s direction,” George said.

“I appear to be in a tunnel made of some kind of metal, but there appears to be debris and a large amount of water. Probably filtrating in from the ocean, I’ll take a sample.” Karla said, starting to use the sample taker.

“It appears that I’m in some kind of large storage room, turning on infrareds for better reconnaissance.” Rupert turned on the infrared scanners, revealing that the drone was indeed in some kind of storage room, filled with strange cylindrical containers.

The four drones hovered inside the tunnels for a while. They tried different kinds of scans, took samples of the materials and simply mapped out the area.

Their progress was monitored by the control room, which also had a still forming map, which extended each time a drone reached a new section. The resulting imagine was that of a spiderweb of intersecting tunnels spreading from a structure in the center.

“Dear lord...” a man from the control center said as the map kept taking shape.

“It’s artificial, there is no other explanation.” A woman placed a hand on her mouth in disbelief.

“What could it possibly be? a mine maybe? A system of wells? A facility?” A man watched the the screen thoughtfully.

“Good, it appears that the hummingbirds are a success, and that they found the motherlode you were talking about. The military did well to fund your exploration Mr. Hubberton,” the general said.

“Is it possible to communicate with the pilots of the drones?” Hubberton asked impassively.

“Well, of course sir,” the director said.

“Then order them to move towards the center of the formation, without delay.” The CEO’s expression grew more serious as he spoke.

The director obeyed and transmitted the order to the room A-thirty-one.

“Pilots we just got a direct order from the CEO. You need to head towards the center of the formation immediately,” Berry said to them.

“Affirmative.” The pilots turned their drones around making them go in the desired direction following the map appearing on their visors.

“I’m the closest.” Sarah gently increased her speed.

“I should be able to have a visual contact in three, two, one… Oh!” Her eyes grew wide as she desperately decelerated.

“Is that all you got?” Applejack asked Rainbow Dash, whose face seemed about to burst in flames. Truthfully she didn’t look any better herself.

“It’s not even half of what I can do!” she exclaimed, trying to fight off the need to stop putting spicy pineapple in her mouth.

Their challenge of testing their capacity for withstanding the intense heat continued for a while.

The two girls glared at each other, each trying to make the opposite flinch. Their faces were extremely sweaty, red and swollen.

In the end Rainbow Dash let out a very strong scream and leaped into Fluttershy’s direction with teary almost inflamed eyes.

Fluttershy handed to her the milk which her friend gulped down in a huff.

“Seems that you lose this one Dash.” -Applejack hiccupped- “...I could use some bread please.”

“Here it is.” Pinkie Pie offered her the soft bread she needed.

“I must assume that this challenge is over, congratulations Applejack. You have proven that you have got the strongest palate of any of us.” Rarity complimented her friend. “Again.”

“It was a piece of cake...” Applejack swallowed the bread, chewing it up quickly and spreading it all around her mouth.

“Eww… Applejack at least keep your mouth closed,” Rarity recoiled at the sight. Applejack simply glared at her, making sure to chew extra loudly.

After removing the most spicy feeling, Applejack and Rainbow Dash started to sooth their sore mouths using some of the leftover ice cream, consuming it whole.

“Let’s not do that again for, say, a couple weeks,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, relieved.

“Ah told ya, Granny’s superspiced cider makes you build up a resistance.” Applejack winked.

The seven friends exchanged some chuckles and smiles, until Pinkie Pie decided that it was time for the highlight of the evening.

“Aaattention please!” Pinkie Pie gently hit a glass of fruit punch with a spoon causing everyone to turn to her.

“As you all remember, last year we decided that this summer should be memorable, and to achieve that we decided to start a collective funding. So that with the money we managed to save we can go to wherever we want, the way we prefer: all together!” She said cheerfully.

“Pinkie Pie, we already know that, there’s no need for this.” Rainbow folded her arms.

“I wanted to add a dramatic effect, silly. Anyway, time to check on the bundle!” She pulled out pair of UV vision goggles from her hair. Using them she was able to localize a loose tile,. which she removed and pulled out a large safe. She opened the combination lock and pulled out of it another smaller safe, and another, and another until she arrived at a small metallic box.

“Stone-cutters,” she whispered to the box causing it to open, revealing a key. She quickly moved to a family painting, removed it and opened up a safe behind it, taking out a sack with a label on: ‘Money for summer vacation.’

“There!” She presented the sack to her friends.

“Pinkie… wasn’t all this a little excessive?” Twilight asked her friend, looking weirded out.

“It’s Pinkie security!” she answered, untying the sack and revealing the money inside.

“With all this money we can go wherever we want to, especially now that there's seven of us to help contribute." Pinkie winked at Twilight, who smiled back.

“Oh yeah! I got the perfect way to spend it!” Rainbow Dash announced.

“Not so fast, Dashie,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“That’s right Rainbow, we need to discuss this first. I suggest we sit down at the table outside and let everybody voice their ideas,” Twilight suggested.

“Fine fine, but trust me, you’ll all love my suggestion!” She smiled proudly.

The girls walked outside and reached a table nearby the pool, took their seats and Pinkie placed the sack in the center of the table.

“Okay girls! Name your suggestions!” Pinkie Pie cheerfully exclaimed.

“Here’s mine!” Rainbow Dash slammed on the table a brochure.

The piece of folded paper advertised something called ‘Camp Extreme: retreat for extreme sports lovers.’ On each page there were photos of people practicing different extreme activities, such as skydiving, deltaplane, ziplining, skateboarding, bungee jumping and even cage diving.

“Four weeks of extreme sports, twenty-four seven, from the least extreme to the extremely extreme, without a break! Who wouldn’t want to go there?” Rainbow Dash asked sarcastically.

“Uhm… it sounds dangerous, and potentially painful…” -Fluttershy flinched- “...if I may, I have something safer in mind. Yesterday while browsing the internet I came across an announcement from a group of ecologists, offering the possibility of following them in the observation of rare birds during their migration. There are seven places available.“

Rainbow Dash looked uninterested, while Applejack cleared her throat.

“Ah got another suggestion, Rodeo road trip!” -she took a map of the US out of her hat and put it on the table- “I signed here the locations of all the rodeos of this summer,” -she moved her hand on the map, which was covered in red and golden dots- “The red ones are normal rodeos, while the golden ones represent the unmissables.”

“Hmm, so far we got quite a nice number of ideas, Rarity, any suggestion?” Pinkie asked.

“Two words my friends: NEW YORK!!! I bet that with this much money we could book rooms in a decent hotel in the heart of the big apple, we could visit stores, landmarks, enjoy a musical in Broadway and maybe even participate to a fashion show!” The budding fashionista eagerly suggested.

“Twilight, your turn to suggest,” Pinkie Pie nodded towards Twilight.

“Well… I know you might not want to, but I’d suggest that we spend the money visiting the CERN in Switzerland,“ Twilight explained.

“The what?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“The CERN, it’s the most important science facility in the world,” Twilight patiently explained.

Sunset looked thoughtfully, as she thought Rainbow Dash suggested something indeed exciting, while Twilight wanted to visit the capital of science itself.

“Ahem, girls,” Sunset spoke up. “I have a suggestion too.”

“Go ahead Sunset, tell us what you have in mind for a dream vacation,” Pinkie Pie cheerfully said.

“Well, while some days ago I was checking for potential vacation sites and found this.” She took out her phone. “It’s a spa in California, nearby Malibu. I thought we could go there and enjoy some relaxation for a couple weeks. As you see there are lots of different packages each of us can take, for example the tropical package or the energetic retirement package.”

Rainbow Dash looked a bit interested at the last mention.

“My, it surely looks promising,” Rarity said.

“And peaceful…“ Fluttershy remarked.

“I thought you might like going there, considering everything that happened lately,” Sunset continued. ”Honestly I have to say that I’ve been feeling really stressed in the past few months, after what happened with the sirens, the Friendship Games and the everfree, so I thought that a nice two weeks at this spa would benefit us all.”

“Oh darling, we didn’t know you were feeling so bad lately.” Rarity put an hand on her mouth.

“You could have told us sooner,” Rainbow Dash said.

“It’s not that bad, it's just a bit… irksome.”

“Uhm If you feel this way, I’d like to withdraw my previous suggestion,” Fluttershy whispered shyly.

“Don’t, your idea is just as good as mine for a vacation. If you want to go somewhere else it’s okay to me,” Sunset answered.

The girls exchanged looks, thinking about what to decide.

Sarah’s drone stopped just in time to not get crushed.

“It appears that the passage is blocked,” she reported, which was also confirmed by the camera feed.

A metallic, smooth wall was obstructing the passage.

“My passage is blocked too, X rays uneffective,” George said.

“Mine too.” Karla stopped her drone

“Same here.” Rupert did just as the others.

“What are the orders?” Sarah asked.

In the control room people were confused as well.

“Mr. Hubberton, it appears we have encountered some kind of complication. There seems to be blockades on the base’s center, the X rays were uneffective.” the director explained.

However Mr. Hubberton seemed a little… distracted.

“What do you mean you didn’t know? You told me th…” Mr. Hubberton seemed to be talking to somebody else in his room, but once he noticed that the director questioned him he quickly gave him attention. “Ahem… I saw the footage from the drones, thank you. Is there any way to open it?”

“Unlikely, there doesn’t seem to be any mechanism or bolt we can open, it’s as if this… wall was made of pure coarse black metal,” Berry explained through an open videochat.

“Maybe we should try and cut through it?” a technician suggested.

“I second that, It would be a great occasion to test the drone’s laser drills,” the general approved.

“What’s your opinion, Mr Hubberton?” the director asked.

After looking thoughtful for a couple seconds, the old man spoke up. “Exploring this base wholly takes priority, order the pilots to use the laser drills,”

“It will be done. Tell them to use the laser drills,” the director ordered.

“Prepare to engage the drills.” Another man opened up a communication channel.

The order arrived immediately and the pilots obeyed. One by one they positioned the drones in the center of the walls and pressed the button that activated the laser.

Each drone deployed an arm, that at it’s end had what looked like a torch. Once the torch was lit a beam hit the wall, starting to heat the impact point.

“Lasers activated,” a man observed the infra-ray feed.

“Temperature of the target: three hundred degrees celsius after a 20 seconds irradiation, rising exponentially.”

“We should be able to open a gap shortly,” the director addressed Mr. Hubberton.

“You better…” Hubberton answered sternly.

The laser was held in place for some minutes, slowly heating up the wall making it incandescent. The infrared reading showed that the point of irradiation was reaching one thousand five hundred celsius degrees.

“The resistance of that metal is remarkable, I wonder what kind of alloy is.” A man observed the screen showing the footage.

“It’s probably based on tungsten or molybdenum,” another one said.

“It’s plausible, but it shouldn’t have this heat resistance.” The former one looked thoughtfully at the screen.

“How thick do you think it is?” another person asked.

“We don’t know until we poke through,” the engineer answered

“It appears to be ineffective, I’m raising the power,” Sarah said, seeing the absence of results.

The laser shone brighter, and it seemed that it finally reached the wall’s melting point.

“Infrared reading: target approaching three thousands degrees heat,” an engineer said.

“Accumulation cells stable, but approaching capacity,” an engineer reported.

Just when it was reaching maximum power, Sarah's drone managed to poke through.

“I think my laser got through,” she announced. After a moment she added, “I confirm my statement.”

“Very well, proceed to create a hole big enough for the drone to get in,” Berry told her.

“I’ll… One moment.” Suddenly lights inside the tunnels turned on. “What’s going on!?”

The light was coming from streams running on the sides of the tunnel. They looked like delicate stripes that until then weren't even visible to the eye, but now they were emitting a crimson red light.

“Mr. Hubberton, it appears that we triggered some sort of alarm,” the director informed him.

“What?” The CEO asked surprised.

“I’ll be honest, the idea of going to a spa doesn’t really feel like me. But I guess even athletes need to relax sometimes too, right?” Rainbow Dash joked.

“And Ah think that after a year of apple picking for hours every day some rest won’t hurt.” Applejack winked.

“Looks like your proposal is gathering a lot of approval Sunset,” Pinkie Pie smiled.

“Oh girls, you don’t have to withdraw your suggestions just because of me,” Sunset said.

“Ah, don’t worry partner. A vacation is for relaxin’, and you really need some. There will be other rodeos to visit next year.” The farmgirl smiled.

“Exactly, and it’s not like Camp Extreme is going to close anytime soon.” Rainbow Dash folded her arms behind her head.

“What do you say think?” Sunset asked Rarity, Fluttershy and Twilight.

“Oh darling, I’d love to visit such a luxurious spa,” Rarity answered eagerly.

“I like the idea too,” Fluttershy whispered timidly.

“Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Well, it might be less exciting than going to the CERN and visiting the LHC. However, I guess it can be my occasion to verify a theory I formulated when I was about ten years old.” -She took out her phone again- “Stimulation of the spinal nerves, way to achieve more fluid movements or potential cause of paralysis?”

Everybody looked quite weirded out by that.

“Alright… ahem, you didn’t tell us your idea Pinkie, what was it?” Sunset asked.

“Oh! Well I was going to suggest to go to Washington DC, Georgetown to be precise, home to the makers of the world’s biggest cupcake!!!” She said hysterically. “But, unlike this summer, it won’t go away.”

“Oh thank you so much for this girls, I can’t wait to go to Malibu with you!” Sunset smiled widely, thinking about how lucky she was to have such caring friends.

“Then it’s decided!” Pinkie announced. “We are going to Malibu California!!!”

“The sensors are picking up an energy signature!” A technician read some worrisome data on his screen.

“We must have triggered something! Do we have permission to abort?” the director asked.

“Affirmative, retreat immediately,” the general answered.

“No wait, we need to record what happens,” Mr. Hubberton interjected.

“What? But sir, we don’t know what could happen!” the director said, before being cut off by the general.

“Mr. Hubberton, there are soldiers there! Not to mention the fact that these machines are owned by the army! I have a jurisdiction on this!” The general barked.

“Don’t you give orders to me, these machines have been manufactured by my company, and so is that base. If any you dare disobey you can consider yourselves fired,” The CEO angrily responded.

The result was that nobody contradicted him, much to the general’s anger.

“We lost contact with one of the drones!” Berry said trough the videochat.

“I think something shot my drone!” Sarah took her visor off as it went black showing ‘connection error’ and her gimbal stopped moving.

“Wait what is this? An eye is poking out the wall?” Karla questioned just before her drone faced the same destiny of Sarah’s.

“I lost contact with mine too!” Rupert said.

“I’ll have to diseng- what the!?” George exclaimed in bewilderment as he saw something that looked like a black sphere poking through a circular aperture in the metallic wall. It was dotted with what looked like cameras. From one of them a ray of red light was generated which proceeded to scan the drone, passing over it three times. Afterwards the sphere shone with a rainbow aura, then particles of red colored energy started to rotate in front of it, which condensed into a sphere.

The pilot didn’t manage to get away in time and the sphere was launched towards the drone, disintegrating it on impact.

“The last drone has been destroyed,” Berry informed the control room.

A few moments later a tremor could be felt, then it grew in intensity steadily.

“What in the world is going on!?” An executive asked.

“I don’t know!” another one answered as he freaked out.

The dome was built using stabilizing systems so it resisted well, however the people inside of it were still taken by surprise.

“Mr. Hubberton we are experiencing…” The director’s was cut off by a sudden blackout which affected the base, the entire island and parts of the neighboring countries.

The energy that radiated from the island was immediately picked up by Twilight’s system and notified her, just as a powerful magic wave started to propagate from the island.

“Twilight? is somebody calling you?” Rainbow Dash asked, hearing Twilight’s phone ringing loudly.

“It’s not a call, it’s my magic scanner, it must have picked up something!” Twilight said.

The Rainbooms quickly gathered around her, forgetting for a minute what they had been debating.

“Is it something big?” Applejack asked

“Where is it?” Sunset asked.

“I’m looking, give me a moment!” Twilight tapped quickly, focusing on the coordinates given by the scanner. “Oh my…” her eyes grew wide as she read the data.

“How bad is it Twilight? what are in front of?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“How intense does the magic seem to be? Do you know yet?” Sunset worriedly awaited.

“It’s... it’s off the charts! It goes beyond the scale I devised!” Twilight yelled.

“Heads up!” Pinkie Pie informed them as her Pinkie Sense kicked in once again.

All the girls braced themselves including Twilight.

In that moment the wave reached them, and being very tuned with magic, they felt it phase through them, causing them to shiver.

“What… was… that?!” Rainbow Dash began to recover.

“It felt like drinking zap-apple cider… a whole gallon of it,” Applejack added.

“Oh my, I thought I was going to feint.” Rarity adjusted her hair.

“That was scary…” Fluttershy whispered, still shaking.

“A magic wave… that was a magic wave!” Sunset Shimmer realized after recoiling.

“A what?” Rainbow asked

“A magic dispersion wave… It’s caused when a very powerful spell is cast and then withdrawn,” Sunset explained.

“I… I need to go to my place! I can track its origin with my computer!” Twilight said.

“We’re coming with you Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said while the others while the others nodded in agreement.

Twilight looked around at her friends. Of all the things she’d gained after transferring to CHS, not having to face difficult situations by herself was the best. “Thanks girls. But we better hurry!”

Location: Earth, Central America, Costa Rica, Hubberton Island.

Hubberton Island was a small atoll that served as residence of the corporation’s founder. In the middle of it’s plain surface, a residence stood above the forest. It was a very squared and technological home, it had a swimming pool, a golf field, a helicopter pad and a communication tower. The walls were mostly white and kept spotless, as were the the crystal windows. On the inside there was almost no decor, except for holographic plants and paintings appearing on cornerless screens embedded in the walls.

Gregory Hubberton was in his studio, a very large room in the middle of the villa. Inside of it there was only a large touch screen desk in the center, and around it multiple screens were floating, projected from the holographic devices installed inside the corners of the roof. From that very room, he was capable of controlling his entire company.

“This was inexcusable Hubberton! You can do whatever you want with your company’s assets but you can’t endanger my men!” The General was talking through a chat window at the left of Hubberton’s desk.

“Mr. Montoyez, I implore you to keep your composure. I’m receiving automatic reports coming from the base’s computer, everything is perfectly fine and so are your men. You shouldn’t have these outbursts, we are both grownups after all,” the man answered calmly.

“Outbursts?! Mr. Hubberton, I wonder how you’d react if somebody put the lives of your employee at risk!” The general’s anger kept rising.

“This isn’t the time nor the situation to speak about this,” Hubberton answered annoyedly.

“You are lucky we are bound by contract… Still be sure that this isn’t over,” the general answered, closing the connection.

Hubberton’s face assumed a disgusted look. An imbecile, he thought.

He then turned his attention to the screen in front of him.

“So, what do you have to say about this? Have we found what we were looking for?” he asked

“Yes, if it wasn’t for this little… complication our plan could have already gone into action,” a metallic voice echoed in the room.

“Do you have any idea of how to open it?” Hubberton asked.

“Unfortunately I lack the calculational power to do so, but the alarm these humans set off inside should have alerted them by now,” the voice continued to say.

Hubberton leaned forward in his chair. “Very well XANA, how should we proceed now?”

By the time the girls arrived at Twilight's it was already eleven pm. Being careful not to wake her parents, they slowly crept up to Twilight's room.

She sat immediately at her workstation and accessed the program.

“Okay. Isolate the source of the anomaly. Extrapolate coordinates. Send representation!” She dialed the commands.

On the side screens digits appeared, as well as windows, graphs and maps. On the central screen there was the control interface and the model of the globe, and slowly it closed in on somewhere specific on the map.

“I got it,” Twilight announced.

“Where is it?” Sunset asked.

“Is it somewhere far far away? Like a Mayan temple or the Pyramids or… or Stonehenge!?” Pinkie Pie asked nervously, her eyes almost showing one landmark at a time.

“Not even close… If these coordinates are correct, the epicenter was in Sunrise island, Australia,” Twilight said.

“Sunrise Island? I’ve heard of it, it’s a tourist destination for surfers,” Rarity said.

“Did it have anything to do with magic in the past?” Fluttershy timidly asked.

“Doesn’t seem so… but still, the fact remains that it generated more magical energy than anything I have ever recorded.” Twilight stood up. “It even topped the one I obtained from the Friendship Games.”

The girls looked shocked upon hearing so.

“How can it be more powerful than that?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I wish I knew… is it possible that there are other passages to Equestria on our world?” Twilight asked.

“Not that I know of, the mirror should be the only access, and if there were other accesses the princesses would have known,” Sunset explained.

“This is going to be a problem… we need to go there and investigate.” Twilight stood up.

“Go there? But how?” Rainbow Dash asked.

The girls exchanged confused looks. Sunset Shimmer bit her lip. She was tired of the constant trials, having to stand up to magical enemies far more powerful than her. Part of her wanted to sit this one out, figuring Earth had lasted millions of years without her help.

But she knew first hand how dangerous magic could be, and such a concentration of it in their world could have become a real menace. Whether it was fair to her or not, she was probably the world’s leading expert on magic. When it came down to it she didn’t have much of a choice at all.

“We could use the vacation money,” Sunset said.

“Use the vacation money?” Pinkie Pie asked shocked, just as the others looked too.

“But Sunset, what about your spa vacation idea?” Applejack asked.

“Girls, this takes priority. Such a concentrate of magic can’t be ignored, we need to get there and discover what’s going on. It might be nothing, but it could also be something serious,” Sunset explained.

“You… do have a point,” Applejack said.

The others nodded in agreement.

“I’ll start looking up the hotels on the island…” Twilight sat back in front of the computer and pulled up her internet browser, searching for the sites of the island’s hotels.

Sunset sighed, thinking that their vacation was already starting badly.

First Meetings

Location: Earth, North American continent, United States, Canterbury, Twilight’s house.

Three weeks passed since the magical event and after various preparations the Rainbooms were ready to investigate.

Twilight, with the help of Pinkie Pie, made a list of the hotels. They decided which one they were going to reside in, judging each one by its value for money mostly and suitability.

The hotel they chose was the Surfer Paradise Deluxe. A quite luxurious resort, considered one of the best of the island, thanks to it’s very efficient service, high quality entertainment, various sporting facilities and above all the pristine private beaches it owed. However it was the very fast direct-to-satellite internet connection offered by the hotel that convinced Twilight, as she needed it to run the magic scanners.

By only booking three of the most basic rooms, Twilight estimated that with the money they saved up they’d be able to stay there for three weeks at most. Judging by her calculations, that would give them just enough time.

On the day they were finally going to depart, and after packing her things, Twilight prepared to say goodbye to her family.

Twilight hugged her parents, as well as her brother Shining Armor, as she was about to depart.

“Bye Mom, bye Dad,” she said as the hug ended.

“Goodbye Twily, have a good vacation.” Twilight’s mother, Twilight Velvet, tried to sound cheerful, but a touch of sadness crept into her voice all the same.

“Remember to not get in trouble, and to call us every night,” Twilight’s dad, Night Light told her.

“You don’t have to worry, I have calculated the exact windows of times when the time zone won’t be a problem, and I set my PDA to remind me,” Twilight reassured them, holding her tablet so that they could see her daily program.

“That’s my girl,” Night Light congratulated her for the organization skills she showed.

“Enjoy the sun Twily, and have fun. Can’t wait to hear you on skype, I’ll miss you not being around here,” Shining Armor said.

“Don’t worry, it’s just three weeks, it’s not like i’m not coming back.” Twilight winked to him.

As an answer her Sister in Law just hugged her, with a warm smile on his face, which she returned.

“Hey Twilight!” Pinkie yelled from the driveway, where she was waiting in the minivan “Come on, we need to go now or we won’t catch the flight!”

“Oh she’s right, I gotta go” Twilight said running towards the Pie's minivan.

She climbed in, waving at her family one last time as she took her seat.

“Alright girls! next stop: The Pegasus Airport!” Rainbow Dash raised her arms in the air.

“Agreed!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed cheerfully. She started up the engine, engaged reverse gear and drove on to the road.

After a little time Twilight’s house was out of sight and the girls started to head for the city’s highway.

“Remember Pinkie, we need to exit at the second ramp and then ride all the way straight to the airport,” Twilight Sparkle instructed.

“All noted.” Pinkie Pie pressed on the gas pedal.

“We’re right on schedule,” Sunset Shimmer said, looking at her watch.

“I can confirm, even if there is a little delay of a couple minutes, but it's in the margin I predicted.” Twilight checked her PDA.

“Alright, then we can take it easy.” Applejack folded her arms behind her head.

“I hope that Angel will be alright, I never had to leave him for such a long time at the shelter.” Fluttershy thought about her little bunny.

“I know how you feel Fluttershy, I couldn’t take Spike with me either. But I’m sure he will be fine, after all you left him with professionals like you right?” Twilight tried to reassure her.

“Well, I made sure to leave precise instructions about him, though I’m not sure if the others back at the shelter will be able to handle him,” Fluttershy said.

“Oh don’t you worry darling, I’m sure everything is fine,” Rarity told her while checking her nails.

“Hey girls, care for some music?” Pinkie Pie suggested.

“Oh yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“Yah got my approval partner,” Applejack added, as the others expressed their agreement too.

Pinkie Pie reached her hand to the radio’s tuner and pressed it to turn it on, then browsed the stations.

“Yesterday in Lenin’s bay a new kind of submersible was...”

“Scientists express their relief as the seismic activity has been diminishing around the area of California…”

“The war for petroleum in middle east...”

“Mr. Fryman, please tell us about your theory,” the voice of an old man said, while Pinkie paused on the all-conspiracy channel.

“Thank you, as I explained numerous times in my blog, I have consistent proof that our planet has been exploited and partially terraformed by...”

“Boooring.” Pinkie Pie quickly skipped ahead.

“You are now listening to, gone but not forgotten. Today we have a real gem for you lovers of the retired, feast your ears on: Let Me Drive My Van into Your Heart, by Mr. Universe.”

“Woah, and we’re in a minivan!” She said stopping on that station and turning up the volume.

Location: Earth, North American continent, United States, Beach City, Crystal temple’s beach.

Peridot stood outside of the beachouse, holding her tablet and speaking into it.

“Log Date one zero one three five, Peridot recording. The preparations for our expedition are close to completion. All the luggage has been loaded in the vehicle except for Amethyst's, and all the items needed have been accounted for. Now before the departure...” Peridot was interrupted by the arrival of Amethyst.

“Come on Peri and Peeta, or we’ll have to leave you here.” The quartz ran by her, holding what looked like a garbage sack.

“...I’ll proceed to execute a status check of the house and a triple check to ensure that no item has been left behind, interrupting log.” She tapped the pause button, and proceeded to do what she just described.

The two exited the beach house and, while Peridot started to check the surroundings, Amethyst walked down to the shore, where Greg’s van was parked. Pearl, Garnet and Steven were nearby.

Pearl was proceeding to double check the luggage in order to make sure that nothing was missing, while Garnet was making sure that everything was stably positioned inside the van.

Greg was helping Steven prepare his burger backpack.

“Alright, flashlight: check, clean star shirts: check, telephone: check. This is good to go!” Greg closed it up and held it to Steven.

“Thanks Dad,” he said, putting it on his back and hugging his dad.

Greg hugged him back and smiled, while Amethyst arrived galloping, followed by Peridot.

“Here comes my stuff!” She exclaimed throwing the sack inside the van.

“Alright then, with Amethyst's luggage we should be good to go.” Pearl saw her friend arriving “What did you put in that sack by the way?”.

“Ah some random stuff I had in my room, so anywhere we go will feel like home,” Amethist said.

“I’m happy you made sure not to put stuff that could have become a problem once at the airport,” Garnet said, foreseeing the scenario at the airport with her future vision.

“Ah Peridot kinda lectured me about airport security yesterday,” Amethyst said “Did you really have to give her a whole book on it?.”

The latest addition to their group arrived shortly. “The house is safe, rooms and doors, including the door to your rooms, have been locked and the warp pad is secured. It appears also that no item has been left behind. I believe that we are ready to go,” She said, getting inside the van.

“Could you please remind me why you can’t just warp there?” Greg asked.

“As I previously explained, a mysterious energy pulse has destabilized the entire warp space, so in order to find out what happened we need to get there using alternative ways.”
Pearl frowned. She'd already explained it to him several times.

“Also it knocked out Lion’s teleporting capacity as well. Poor thing, he was so upset when it happened.” Steven looked at his friend Lion napping on the beach.

“Oh right...” Greg remembered.

“Don’t worry, it’s probably just some more homeworld junk going off, right Garnet?” Amethyst said.

“It’s probable,” the fusion answered.

“There will be time for conjectures on the archaic flight machine. If we want to arrive at Empire City in time we need to depart now,” Peridot interrupted them.

“She's right. Greg?” Garnet invited him on board.

“Oh, of course.” Greg got in the van and sat in the driver’s seat.

He then turned the keys inside the ignition lock, causing the engine to start up generating an eruption of black smoke from the van’s rear exhaust.

They drove to the road shortly and headed for city’s exit. On their way out they could see some of their friends and acquaintances, either going about their normal business or preparing for their own vacations. The cool kids were probably preparing for a beach trip, as Lars was tying surfboards to their car, Mayor Dewey was preparing his speech for the opening of the tourist season, while the Fryman family, with the exception of Ronaldo, was preparing to go to a fastfood convention in Charm City.

Later on Steven noticed Connie and her parents departing too, and waved at her, who upon noticing him waved back.

I hope your vacation will be great Steven thought as she got out of sight.

After passing the highway the girls arrived at the airport.

The Pegasus Airport was a small national air transport hub. It had three terminals overall and a few hangars, the airplanes moving around it were mostly turboprop national jets, only one lone radar tower spinning in one of this corners. In front of the main building there was a large parking lot and a small garden between it and the building itself, the sculpture of a pegasus was in the center of the garden itself with a writing engraved in it’s base saying: ‘Welcome to Canterbury’.

“Okay girls! Eyes peered for a parking spot!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“No need, we can use that one,” Rainbow Dash pointed at a spot with a yellow rectangle around it, with a plate stating it was reserved for a pilot.

“But we can’t use that one, it’s reserved,” Twilight objected.

“Don’t worry girls, my dad told me we can use it,” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Oh, he works here?” Twilight asked.

“Yup, that’s his post! He pilots some of the national airplanes, didn’t I tell ya?” Rainbow Dash nodded.

“No but it’s very interesting, and quite convenient I’d say, it’s so close to the entrance,” Twilight answered as Pinkie parked.

“Alright girls here we are! everybody move out!” Pinkie Pie announced, opening her door.

“Everyone prepare your tickets and take some luggage, our check-in is at the terminal number three,” Twilight said, looking at her PDA.

The girls got out and one by one took their luggage, even if Twilight needed some help from Rainbow Dash and Applejack to unload all her stuff.

“Oh heave!” Applejack groaned as the two of them pulled a big suitcase from the van’s posterior.

“Woah… that was heavy.” Rainbow Dash panted.

“Yah can say that again. Hey Twilight remind me what yah put in this?” Applejack asked to her friend.

“Oh that’s my investigation equipment, along with my portable computer and a couple portable hard drives,” she explained adjusting her glasses.

“You sure you need it all?” Rainbow Dash asked

“Unfortunately, yes… but don’t worry I’ll pay all the extra fees for it,” she said to them.

“Okay Maude, we’re here, you can come pick up the van whenever you want,” Pinkie Pie said into her phone. “It’s in the parking lot reserved to the pilots, nearby the entrance. Bye Maude I’ll miss you a lot, see you on Skype.”

She turned to her friends. “That was Maude, I told her where the van is so she can take it back home. We are good to go!”

The girls then walked inside the airport’s main building carrying their luggage along.

Being only a small airport, it didn’t have much stuff in it, just a bar, an information center and a little area for baggage pick up. Around the hall there were a few decorative plants, a couple benches and some trash-cans.

“Hey look, it’s Lyra and Bon Bon.” Sunset noticed them.

The two friends for life in fact were walking in the hall heading for the terminals, they looked pretty happy and carefree, however something jumped to Rarity’s eye.

“You are right, oh my… what is Lyra wearing?” Rarity noticed her tinfoil hat.

Their shirts explained everything.

“You see their shirts?” Sunset indicated them. “I think they are going to the UFO convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Knowing Lyra she wanted to dress in style”

“I understand but still… she could have some decency.” Rarity tried to look away. “If I only had some polish I could make that thing look like a steel cup, it would have shone above the other tinfoil hats at that convention.”

“Indeed it would have,” Sunset Shimmer commented.

In that moment the girls noticed two of their classmates walking loudly down the hall, towards the terminal number one.

“Scissors and Snails! Snails and Scissors! S&S!!!” The two of them were chanting and were wearing green and grey shirts with logos representing a Snail and Scissor.

“Hey these two are Snips and Snails, where are they going wearing those?” Sunset asked looking at them.

“Probably at the ‘scissors and snails festival’ in the Colorado” Twilight informed them.

“Since when there are festivals like that?” Applejack asked in disbelief.

“Well, I guess since there are people like these two,” Twilight answered.

As the girls walked towards the third terminal they met others too, including Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, the diamond boys, probably going to a mining camp, Trixie preparing to go to Atlantic city for the great magician convention.

“Hey there is our check in.” Sunset Shimmer indicated the desk in front of a converting belt with the name and symbol of the company appearing on it.

Behind the desk a middle aged man was sitting and looking at a newspaper he was holding in front of his face.

“HELLO!!” Pinkie Pie distracted him

“Oh hello there." The man quickly jumped to attention. "Thanks for the cheerful call to attention, what can I do for you?”

“Me and my friends would like to get our boarding cards please,” Pinkie Pie explained.

“Here are our passports and tickets,” Sunset handed the materials to him.

The man took them and examined them one by one, checking them using the computer.

“Mmmh are you girls on vacation?” The man asked.

“Sorta.” Sunset Shimmer assumed a coy look.

“It’s more like an investigation vacation!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Hmm whatever you youngsters are into nowadays. Now please put your luggage on the balance for weighing and take your boarding cards.” He pressed a button nearby the keyboard on his desk, starting a converting belt behind the desk.

Sunset Shimmer put her luggage first and got the boarding car, followed by Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack.

One by one the luggages were marked with a bar code and put on the converting belt, and disappeared in the wall.

“Holy horses...” The man said as the weight of Twilight’s baggage appeared on the computer’s screen.

“Sorry miss but you can’t take this thing with you unless you want to pay extra,” the man said to her.

“Oh, no problem, I imagined it would have gone beyond the limits.” Twilight handed him the money.

“No problem then, have a good trip.” He took the money and handed her the boarding card.

Afterwards they went for the security check, right before they could enter the terminal.

“Alright girls! Here we are,” Rainbow Dash said as the group arrived in it, walking down the hallway to reach their boarding gate

“Very good, right on schedule,” Twilight said looking at her PDA. “We have time to relax before the flight.”

“Our boarding gate is the last one of the left, let’s chill on that bench over there,” Sunset Shimmer suggested, to which most of her friends agreed.

Some minutes passed by and the speakers of the airport turned on and emitted a series of beeps to catch the traveler’s attention. “The flight AA two-one-three-one directed to Empire City is now boarding, please prepare your boarding cards and hand baggage,” a male voice spoke through the speakers.

“Let’s go girls.” Sunset Shimmer stood up from the bench.

“Can't you hear? It’s the flight to Empire City, not Sunrise Island,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Rainbow Dash darling, don’t you remember what Twilight said about the flights?” Rarity asked to her.

Rainbow grinned. “Ahem, you mean during yesterday’s pre-travel reunion? I kinda fell asleep after she began lecturing us about the on-flight security,” she confessed, causing Rarity to facepalm.

“If you paid attention to that reunion,” Twilight said, standing up and taking her backpack. “You’d have known that to cut the edges on the flight cost we are going to take a non-direct flight.”

“We are going to Empire City first,” Sunset Shimmer explained, “then from there we’ll take a flight to Sydney and then another one straight to Sunrise Island.”

“Oh right,” Rainbow Dash understood.

“We should try to get there first, so we don’t have to wait,” Rarity said

After the boarding started, the girls got on the small plane along with the other passengers.

It was one of the many that were stationed around the the airport, it had turboprop engines and two small rows of seats. Along with not distinguishing between business and economy class, there was next to none on-board entertainment, except for a few magazines tied inside the backs of the seats.

“Oh my… I really hope the next airplane will be more comfortable, I don’t know if I’ll make it to Empire City in this thing.” Rarity felt the uncomfortableness of the seat, which was annoyingly small.

Soon all the passengers boarded, secured their luggage and tied their belts the airplane was detached from the gate.

Its propellers started to turn very fast as it positioned on the landing strip and once ready it took off.

Location: Earth, North American continent, United States, Empire City, main highway.

After a quite smooth five hours long trip the Crystal Gems finally reached Empire City, then it was just a matter of passing through the thick city traffic.

“Log continued ten thirteen five, we reached the city known as Empire City, now we are heading for its airport. While I can praise the humans for their promising construction skills,” – Peridot observed the skyscrapers from the van passing on the elevated highway – “I can’t say the same for their traffic control skills.”

“I agree with you Peridot, the traffic in this city is actually as terrible as they say.” Greg gently pressed the gas pedal as the cars slowly started to move.

“Thank goodness we don’t live here, I doubt I could withstand these terrible noises,” Pearl said covering the sides of her head.

“Ah I don’t mind this place too much.” Amethyst opened a windscreen and stuck her head out inhaling the air deeply. “It smells just like my room, and these outskirt neighborhoods look like it.” She pointed to the slummy areas surrounding the city.

“Meh, I’m not very fond of this place anyways,” Greg said.

Steven on the other hand was just playing with the radio, listening to the different stations fighting the boredom.

“Hey Garnet,” Steven asked.

“Yes Steven?” Garnet looked at him.

“What do you think caused that strange energy pulse?” he asked her.

“It was unlike anything I have ever seen before, I don’t know enough to determine it’s origin,” she answered.

“What about your future vision? Did you manage to see anything about Sunrise Island?” Steven asked her.

“Unfortunately not, for some reason my visions about that place are very cloudy,” Garnet answered. “As my eyes space to that island everything I see is a thick fog, but it will probably get better once I get there.”

“Oh, I hope it will too,” Steven said reassuringly smiling at Garnet.

“Speaking of which, Peridot do you know if homeworld had any important facility around that area?” Pearl asked

“Not that I know of. In the diamond base’s database there were no allusions to that place nor to any relevant homeworld structures being installed in it,” Peridot spoke up.

“Maybe it’s a non-registered one?” Pearl asked

“Impossible, the praxis imposes that all structures are catalogued before building, especially during a colonization program. Even at the highest levels of secrecy a trace of the information is kept,” Peridot explained.

“We probably found something the diamonds wanted to kept hidden from the other gems. I bet it’s Blue diamond’s secret food court” Amethyst joked, causing most of the ones in the van to crack a laugh.

“Why would blue diamond have something so useless for a gem? And at any rate how could have it caused such an event?” Peridot asked having taken the suggestion seriously.

“ah, probably she got gassy from eating beans, and only now her fart reached the surface” Amethyst joked again laughing loudly along with a lot of the other gems.

“but gems don’t… “ Peridot suddenly realized “wait was this a joke?”

Amethyst nodded.

“Oh, AHAHAHAHAH. I got it now” Peridot laughed. “But let’s be serious, I exclude the possibility that it is an unregistered structure.”

“What if one of the diamonds erased it from the databanks after the construction?” Pearl put a hand on her mouth thoughtfully.

“That’s a possibility, though I wonder why they’d do that. It wouldn’t make much sense since they didn’t do that for the cluster.” Peridot put an hand over her mouth thoughtfully.

While the two gems were arguing, Greg looked at the landscape out the windshield along with Steven.

It was so different than Beach City. It was like the city was split into three parts, on the left side of the road there was the business district, a bustling place filled with with concrete and glass skyscrapers, without any hint of green. Then on the other side there was the industrial area, along with the residential zones. Even further outside were the slums.

Greg sighed loudly.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” Steven noticed his discomfort.

“Oh it’s nothing Steven, it’s just this place… thinking that I could have wound up here if it wasn’t for your mother,” Greg said, remembering when Marty tried to force him into going there.

“I understand, it looks cool to visit but I don’t think I’d ever want to live here.” Steven looked around and at him.

“It’s moments like that this that remind me of how much she changed my life,” Greg looked at his son’s stone, which was slightly visible through the bottom of his shirt. “And how much she still does.”

“Yeah.” Steven looked down to his stone, and smiled thinking about her.

“I think we should get comfortable, it’s going to take us two more hours to reach the airport with this traffic,” Garnet said thanks to her future vision.

As predicted it was a couple hours before they reached the airport. The time was made to feel even longer once Peridot and Amethyst began fighting over control of the radio. Eventually Garnet had to step in and tell them if they couldn’t agree on something she was going to let Pearl decide, which no one was happy about, including Pearl. In the end they wound up giving control of the radio back to Steven, who did his best to select something they could all agree on. They all politely pretended to like the station he chose.

The airport was huge to say the least, and besides the regional airplanes there were also the very large intercontinental ones docking at the terminals and being refueled. Lots of transport cars moved around the landstrips to distribute the luggage. Numerous radar towers surrounded it, and two high control towers were directing the air traffic around the area. The terminals were seven in total, some for the local flights and others made specifically for the international flights, all interconnected by railways, and covered pathways. The iconic main building was shaped like a white dome was connected directly the the large tower parking lot, in which the Greg’s van was entering.

The search for a free parking spot came to fruition as they found one on the third floor of the tower, and thankfully it was indicated by a green light.

“Okay people, here we are.” Greg parked the van.

“Yes!” Steven opened his door and jumped out of the van.

Garnet got out and opened the back of the van. “I’m going to help unload the luggage.” She started to take out the various suitcases and Amethyst’s sack.

Greg took out his wallet and got some money out of it. “I’ll go get a trolley to take all this stuff to the check-in.” He prepared to go at the floor’s distributor to get one only to be stopped by Amethyst who morphed into one.

“Did someone say trolley?” She asked upon assuming the form of a large purple trolley with striped handles.

“Well that works too,” Greg said.

“Good idea Amethyst,” Steven complimented her

“Ah you are welcome,” she answered.

Garnet them gently posed the baggage on the ametrolley until the van was empty.

“I’ll start going to the check in” Garnet walked into the building, followed by Peridot and Pearl, leaving Steven along with his dad.

“Well I guess it’s goodbye now,” Greg tried to hide the sadness he was feeling.

“Yeah, but don’t worry Dad, it’s just three weeks,” his son tried to reassure him.

“I know, still it feels like a lot of time. It will be tough to think about things to do without you or the gems around,” Greg said.

“I promise Dad I’ll stay in contact with you. Peridot even rewired my phone so that it would work in every part of the world unlimitedly,” Steven explained to him.

“Thank you son.” Greg hugged him. “But also promise me that you won’t get in trouble or get yourself in danger with whatever caused that energy surge.”

“Don’t worry dad, I’ll have the gems with me, and also I’ve been practicing my shield powers since we fought the Cluster,” Steven explained.

“Still don’t risk your neck for nothing, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.” Greg looked at his son in the eyes.

“Dad, I promise you that we won’t get hurt,” Steven said solemnly, but also reassuringly.

Greg smiled and hugged him, relieved by his son’s answer, knowing that he could trust him.

“I better go now, the gems might be already at the check-in,” Steven said.

“Right, and I better get back to Beach City before the cars start to line up at the car wash,” Greg said.

“Bye then Dad, talk to you tonight” He ran with his burger-pack on his shoulder waving at him.

“Bye, Steven.” Greg waved back. He remained where he was for a few moments after Steven disappeared. Eventually he sighed and shuffled back to the van. “I’ll miss you, buddy.”

Location: Earth, African continent Airspace, Delta Airlines airbus.

There were many people on the two level plane, some of whom were going to visit Sydney for pleasure or business, others were going there to catch a connection flight.

Between these people there was a group of French teens, three boys and two girls, who departed from Paris heading for Sunrise Island, but unlike many they weren’t there only for pleasure.

They were Aelita Schaeffer, Jeremy Belpois, Ulrich Stern, Yumi Ishiyama, Odd Della Robbia and William Dunbar. They were also known to each other as the Lyoko warriors, the heroic team that fought the evil artificial intelligence XANA around the world, finally managing to vanquish it thanks to the sacrifice of Waldo Schaeffer, Aelita’s father.

Three years passed since that event, which they thought would be the ending of all their adventures, and each of them went their separate ways. However during a reunion, a strange message arrived through an encrypted internet address. It contained an encrypted message saying that their mission wasn’t over yet, urging them to go to Sunrise Island in order to complete it, and finally get answers to the many questions left unanswered about the supercomputer and project cartage. But what ultimately convinced the group was the signature ending the document: a codified DNA strand of Waldo Schaeffer himself.

After a careful and pondered analysis Jeremy authenticated it, and the group started to make preparations to reach the island in the summer.

“Are we there yet?” Odd asked for the hundredth time.

“Odd, for the last time, asking it continuously won’t make it happen sooner,” Yumi answered him, annoyed.

“We are close Odd, by the map we should already be in the US airspace. It will be a matter of three more hours, or less,” Jeremy said looking at the closest screen in front of him.

“This plane has two floors, and it’s supposed to be one of the best in the world, but still it doesn’t have wifi, or personal entertainment screens.” Odd groaned, thinking about the fact that they had these in the business class.

“Don’t worry Odd, the next airplane will probably be better. I heard that it has wifi too,” Ulrich told him.

“It will be better, I can’t stay off the grid for so long. What will my YouTube followers think?” Odd joked.

“You worry about that channel too much Odd,” Ulrich said.

“You would too if you had one. If my videos get noticed It could finally be the beginning of my film making career” Odd smiled, imagining if that happened.

Ulrich and some of the others just rolled their eyes.

“Still don’t worry too much yourself,” Yumi reassured him. “Your videos are great, and I’m sure that if you stay away from it a couple hours you won’t lose any followers.”

“Thanks for the positivity Yumi,” Odd answered.

William on the other hand was just sitting quietly resting his eyes.

Jeremy reclined his seat and looked thoughtfully at the airplane’s ceiling. So much time passed since their last mission and now they are coming back into one head on, just as he was starting to get accustomed to his now tranquil life.

He sighed and looked at Aelita who was staring in the plane’s window.

The message was groundbreaking for most of them, but above all for Aelita. She thought that her dad was gone forever, but now there seemed to be an actual possibility of him being alive. That thought, mixed with the enigma of what happened to her mother Anthea, was really grinding her up inside... and Jeremy knew it.

“You alright?” Jeremy put an hand on her shoulder.

“Oh, yeah I am,” Aelita answered. “Just reflecting on the mission”

“What about it?” Jeremy asked

“Just wondering if the message was authentic or not, and what we might find on the island.” Aelita answered.

“I’m pretty sure that the message was indeed authentic, and I think it’s too early to make any conjectures about the island,” Jeremy said. Though it is indeed possible that your father might be there, or at least something related to him.”

“I don’t know what to hope.” Aelita turned around looking at him. “I really would want to meet him again, but at same time I don’t want to delude myself with the hope that he’s still alive.”

“It might be a far possibility but we can’t rule it out, not yet. We haven’t even investigated the slightest yet,” he answered.

“You are right… Also, I have a strange feeling about all of this,” Aelita said.

“A strange feeling?” Jeremy asked.

“Yeah, like as if I was about to have one of the visions generated by the supercomputer.” Aelita held her head.

That answer kinda worried Jeremy but he managed to keep it cool for the time being.

“It’s probably just an effect of the pressure, however if it gets worse please let me know,” Jeremy told her.

“I will Jeremy, I promise.” Aelita turned around again and returned to look at the stratas of the troposphere and at the sun shining above them, noticing a little spark coming from the sun.

“Attention dear passengers, we have landed at Empire City’s RFK international airport, please stay at your seats and keep your belts tied until the light will come off.”

“Ah finally,” Rainbow Dash groaned. “This was one of the most boring flights of my life.”

“Well what did you expect from a propeller airplane? They are made for short trips, not for long intercontinental flights,” Twilight said.

“I know darling, but they could at least install more comfortable seats, and of course give us more up to date magazines.” Rarity held a quite outdated copy of a magazine.

“Anyways it’s not a problem anymore, we’re here. And the next airplane will probably be better right?” Applejack asked.

“It’s most probable,” Twilight confirmed.

Some minutes later the plane was docked and it’s frontal door opened up. The passengers started to leave in mass, including the Rainbooms who tried not to get separated in the confusion.

After passing through the metal pipe connected with the plane, the girls found themselves inside the terminal of the airport which, compared with the one of Pegasus Airport, was huge.

The girls wowed seeing how many people were filling up the place, arriving, departing visiting some of the duty free shops inside.

“Sweet Apples, this makes our airport look like a plow compared with a professional tractor,” Applejack said

“You said that darling,” Rarity remarked.

“Alright girls let’s not get lost, we need to go to the international terminals. Twilight, indications?” Sunset Shimmer asked to her friend, who was already checking the map of the airport on her tablet.

“I believe that our best option is to get out of this terminal, reach the internal railway transport and get on a tram to the international area, this way.” Twilight indicated where to go. Following her the girls moved through the herd of people.

Meanwhile the crystal gems were finishing their check in.

“With this it would be everything,” Garnet said, putting on the balance the last of the luggage they had.

“Isn’t that a garbage sack?” The guy sitting by the desk asked

“Hey what’s garbage for somebody is a treasure for others, pal,” Amethyst said sassily.

“If you say so. Everything is in check, including your passports.” He looked down to the projections generated by their gemstones, perfectly mimicking regular passports. “You may carry on. Here are your boarding cards, the boarding will commence in four hours.”

“Thank you.” Garnet took the cards.

“Let’s go to the terminal and use this free time we have constructively,” Pearl suggested

“I concur,” Peridot said.

“You can be as constructive as you like,” Amethyst said. “I’m going straight to the arcade as soon as we step foot in the terminal.”

The two scientific gems just rolled their eyes and carried on.

“How do we get to the terminal?” Steven asked.

“This archaic transport hub has an inner railway system for passenger and cargo transport, we can use that,” Peridot suggested.

“It’s a good idea Peridot, we need to get on the third tram wagon, it will be the one with the least number of passengers.” Garnet said, using her power.

“The nearest railway station should be in that direction.” Pearl pointed to a corridor after observing the airport’s map.

“Then let’s go!” Steven said cheerfully as they headed for the railway station.

The transport station the Rainbooms were in back in the regional terminal was quite small, but equally as crowded as the terminal itself. It was quite hard to get through the people, and even harder to find seats.

“Brace yourselves girls, the next tram should arrive in two minutes or less,” Twilight said.

Rarity looked down at her sore feet. “I do hope that we’ll manage to find some seats on it.” These high heel shoes are perfect for a city like Empire City, but not much for long waits.”

“Then I guess it’s a priority, we gotta get ourselves some seats, and I know exactly how,” Rainbow Dash said.

“How partner?” Applejack asked Rainbow Dash.

“Simple, once the doors open one of us sprints for the nearest seats and keeps six seats for the rest of us,” Rainbow Dash explained. “Don’t worry, I’ll take them”

In that moment the tram arrived. Once it was by the quay the doors opened up, and a voice invited the passengers to enter.

“Here we go!” Rainbow Dash ran in as the mass of people did the same, and arrived just in time to save a row of seven places in the third cabin.

“Here girls!” She called to her friends, who joined her shortly.

“Oh thank goodness, good job, darling,” Rarity complimented Rainbow Dash, feeling a sense of relief coming from her feet.

“Stand clear by the closing doors,” the speakers spoke, some moments before the doors closed up as the wagon was full.

“What’s the next stop gonna be?” Fluttershy asked.

“It’s gonna be the central building of the airport.” Sunset observed the map over the door they entered. “Probably to embark incoming passengers, then two stops after that we’ll be in the terminal five.”

“Alright! How long do we have to wait before our boarding starts?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight took out her PDA and checked the digital itinerary she prepared. “Here it says four hours before–”

“Four hours!?” Rainbow interrupted, while everyone else just looked at Twilight in shock. “Are you kidding?”

“Why the hay would this take so long?“ Applejack asked

“Well, in order to make an intercontinental flight an airplane needs to be properly prepared. It needs to be fueled, cleaned, inspected and the luggage...” Twilight restarted, before Applejack took her question back.

“Alright Twilight, Ah got it,” she said.

“What are we supposed to do? Sit on a chair near the boarding gate?” Rainbow Dash looked unamused by the idea.

“Actually, we don’t have to do that,” Sunset explained. “Being a terminal for international flights, it’s suited to entertain the passengers for long times.”

“Exactly,” Twilight said, checking the terminal’s map with her tablet. “The map shows that it has a lot of duty free shops, and some of them are boutiques–”

“Boutiques!?” Rarity exclaimed. “Oh how convenient, ’ll be able to check out some dresses from the competition”

“And an arcade, you might like that Rainbow.” Twilight turned to her friend.

“Hmm, what games to they have there?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“From the look of it, it seems to have a considerable number. It says also it has some quite immersive action games, one of them is Hero’s Duty.” Twilight said.

“Mmh I heard of that one, it’s supposed a very good game. But I think I’ll be the one judging it today,” Rainbow said, knowing exactly how she’d pass the time.

“And that’s not all, there’s lots to do here. I bet that there will be good way for you to pass the time also.” Twilight told Sunset Shimmer, Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. “Meanwhile, I should probably go to the internet point to check the satellite readings, and to see if any other networks picked up the wave.”

“I’ll come with you, I can help you check the data,” Sunet said.

“Here comes the tram!” Steven pointed to the arriving transport.

“Right on schedule, let’s stay here so we can enter the third wagon” Garnet said stepping up to the quay.

Exactly as she predicted the tram stopped right in front of her and the gems, and after the door opened they found immediately the seats they were looking for.

“Right as always, Garnet,” Pearl sat down gracefully.

“Thank you, Pearl” Garnet answered.

After a few minutes the tram filled up, the doors closed again, and down the rails they all went.

The first stop was terminal number seven, then number six, and finally number five.

“This stop is: terminal number five.” The doors opened up.

“We’re here, let’s go girls. Our gate is the number thirty,” Twilight said.

At the same time at the other end of the wagon the gems were also preparing to go.

“Our gate is the number thirty, let’s go gems.” Garnet stood up.

The two groups exited without noticing each other, as the crowd hid them.

Terminal number five was one of the biggest in the airport. Its duty free shopping area was the size of a small mall, had a very large food court with international gastronomy, and as shown on the map also had an arcade.

Due to its large size, there were some moving walkwayS here and there to help the passengers move, and some carts could be seen moving around its halls.

The Rainbooms were using the belts to move, while Amethyst morphed discreetly into an electric cart for the gems.

The gate’s area was distinct with a sign showing a number, nearby the door there was an empty desk with a screen behind it, on which the name of the company as well as the departure and destination names were shown. A countdown was visible in a corner of the screen.

Around the desk there were numerous seats, some of them already occupied by people who were minding their own businesses, some were just resting others answering and making calls and using the laptop.

The Rainbooms took the nearest seats to the door, as well as the gems.

“Well girls, I’ll be off to the arcade then, see ya!” Rainbow Dash said.

“I’ll come with you… if that’s okay,” Fluttershy shyly said.

“Of course it is! Come on!” Rainbow Dash grabbed her gently, and they walked off together.

“Let’s go Sunset, we’ve gotta reach the internet point.” Twilight pointed to the sign of an internet cafe placed conveniently by the gate.

“I promise I’ll be quick, I just want to take a look and see how good the duty free boutiques are.” Rarity said, walked off in another direction.

“And I’ll stay here and make sure that nobody touches our stuff!” Pinkie wore a big smile on her face as she sat back down next to Applejack.

Meanwhile, five people settled on the row of seats behind the girls.

“Good, we are here.” Garnet sat down.

“Alright gems, we have four hours and thirty five minutes before the departure,” Pearl said. “I suggest we don’t venture too far from this location so–”

“I’m off to the arcade!” Amethyst interrupted and waved goodbye.

Pearl remained silent for a minute. “Alright alright, have fun Amethyst!” Pearl yelled at Amethyst as she disappeared in the crowd. “I’ll go to that internet point over there, to see if there has been any news of any strange activity around Sunrise Island”

“I’d like to come with you.” Peridot stood up. “Besides wanting to help you with the surveillance I’m kind of curious about how your global data sharing network works.”

The two left as well, leaving Steven and Garnet alone on one side, and Pinkie Pie and Applejack on the other.

To pass the time Steven took out his Ukulele and started to play it, humming a song.

Hearing him play, Pinkie Pie turned around to see who was playing that nice song.

“Hey, did you write that song?” she asked to him.

“Oh yeah it was me, I’ll stop if it bothers you.” Steven stopped playing.

“Oh no no no no! Your song is nice, please go on,” she answered him.

“Alright then.” Steven continued playing his instrument and humming the song, while Pinkie started to dance a little.

It was a quite catchy song, and she immediately started to think about a nice musical number she could perform to the rhythm of it.

Meanwhile at the arcade, Rainbow Dash quickly started to achieve some very high scores on the games it offered.

There were racing games, first person shooting games, and some classics like pinball and tetris.

‘High score: Rainbow Dash’ Appeared on the screen of a pinball videogame Rainbow Dash was playing, beating it easily.

“Piece of cake.” She put her hands behind her head.

“Congratulations Rainbow Dash, you did very well,” Fluttershy complimented her.

“Thanks Flutters, how good did you do?” Rainbow asked her.

“Well, I kinda didn’t earn any points, but at least I didn’t hurt these cute little moles.” She pointed at an arcade machine showing a digital version of Whack-A-Mole.

“Meh, I’m sure that if they made a game about saving animals, you’d even beat me,” Rainbow Dash told her. “Well time for me to move on to another game now.”

She then walked around the lounge until she spotted the infamous Hero’s Duty. It was composed of a large flat screen, in front of which were multiple fake laser rifles connected to a computer underneath it.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t wait to try it, but she wanted to save it for last after trying the other games.

She then came around a game called ‘The Fast and the Furious’ and it got her interest. It was basically a race with Fast and Furious based cars, each with a unique built-in weapon.

“Hmm this will be a nice warm up.” Rainbow Dash looked at it confidently and sat in front of the right screen. Before she could put her money inside it, however, somebody else sat on the left seat.

“Alright, it’s time to crash some cars!” Amethyst said, stretching on the seat. “Oh hi.” she noticed Rainbow Dash.

“Hello there,” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Here for some high speed fun hmm?” She asked.

“Well yeah, after beating some high scores on the last few games, I wanted to have some fun before trying Hero’s Duty,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Cool, I was getting warmed for it too. How many games did you beat?” Amethyst asked, getting her coins ready.

“Hmm four or five, but I lost the count,” she answered

“Wow, I managed to beat almost as many.”

“You did? Hmm, you must be quite good.” Rainbow grinned at the thought of a worthy opponent. “How about we see who is best then? I’m kind of sick of playing only with AIs.”

“Challenge accepted,” Amethyst answered with a confident smile on her face, deciding also that if they wanted to have a grand showdown they should have gone with what was supposed to be the best game of the arcade. “Hero’s Duty then?”

“Hero’s Duty it is,” Rainbow grinned.

The two left the race game and then rushed to Hero’s duty’s screen.

“Hey you with the pink hair, wanna play?” Amethyst asked Fluttershy.

“Uhm... I’d rather not.” She cowered, guessing by the look of the game that it was a violent one.

“Come on, it’s all fake you know?” Amethyst encouraged her.

“Don’t try to convince her, this is just not her kind of game,” Rainbow Dash told Amethyst.

“Hmm alright then, sorry.” Amethyst told Fluttershy.

“Oh, it’s okay...” Fluttershy said shyly.

“Anyways, let’s start the robo-bugs carnage,” Rainbow Dash said, putting some coins inside the machine and picking up a rifle.

“Way ahead of you.” Amethyst grabbed a rifle too.

As Rainbow Dash hit the start game button, the introduction video started.

“On an anonymous planet a scientific experiment” – The screen showed images of the cy-bugs being created – “failed with terrible consequences. You are humanity’s last hope your mission is: destroying all the cy-bugs.”

“Whoever kills more cy-bugs is best player!” Rainbow Dash got ready to start.

“That’s an everyday job for me.” Amethyst was already ready to fire.

Meanwhile, Pearl and Peridot arrived at the Internet point.

It was a rather large and badly illuminated open space, with a bar table stretching from a corner. Scattered around it there were circular tables with computers mounted on them, mostly old models with analog screens, with some contained in private booths.

A massive middle aged man stood behind a cash register near a computer terminal.

“We would like two access points please, in those booths if possible,” Pearl said to the clerk.

“Fine, for how much time?” the clerk asked rudely.

“Three hours or more I think,” Pearl answered.

“Okay it’s nineteen dollars” he answered.

Pearl took out a wallet and gave the clerk the exact amount he wanted.

“Enjoy the internet, if you want anything to drink or eat don’t be shy.” The clerk pointed at the bar.

The two gems walked to the computer booths and sat down.

“Alright, we should check the principal news networks first, and then probably go over the minor ones,” Pearl suggested.

“Good idea. While this world has primitive reconnaissance machinery, I doubt that nobody picked up that energy signature.” She looked at the black screen in front of her. “Mmmmh remind me Pearl, how do you turn on this archaic data elaborator?”

“Press the red button on the case Peridot, with the symbol on it,” Pearl answered.

Peridot found the button and pressed it starting up the computer, as did Pearl.

I wonder how anybody could work with such low level machines. Hmm, I can probably upgrade it a little, I’m a natural technician after all, Peridot thought, while accessing the computer’s settings.

Pearl, on the other hand, was already on the research. Steven showed her how the internet worked some days after the strange energy pulse, knowing they probably would have needed it to book the rooms and the flight.

She first visited the sites of SNN, NBS, OBC and WBS.

Mmmh it seems that the effects of the wave were seen around the planet, but thankfully nobody has any idea of its true nature. She observed the articles, explaining the wave as a consequence of an explosion underneath the mantle.

Pearl couldn’t help but giggle while reading Ronaldo’s blog breaking news entry, depicting the wave as an accident related to an HAARP emitter.

However she couldn’t imagine that just at a few meters from her two other girls were checking the same thing.

“Alright, safe connection established.” Twilight observed the windows appearing on the screen of her computer.

“You completely sure?” Sunset asked.

“Yes, the encryption uses a symmetrical key and an algorithm that I programmed myself,” Twilight explained accessing the program.

On the screen four windows opened, the first three related to the scanning system, and the last one was a register of previous scans along with graphic representations of the waves.

“So what’s the story?” Sunset asked.

“No major energy emissions since two weeks ago, but the energy keeps fluctuating nearby that area, as you can see.” She magnified the window showing the globe and closed in on Sunrise Island. It was glowing of very hot colors, indicating a that the magic around that place was still very high.

“I see, can we compare it with an older imagine?” Sunset suggested.

Twilight nodded. “This one is from three weeks ago.” She proceeded to click on an element of the list opening up a fifth window, showing another map of the area around Sunrise island which presented the same colors.

“It appears that none of the magical energy dissipated… which probably means that the source is still active,” Sunset observed.

“Do you have any idea of what kind of source it could be?” Twilight asked.

“I’m not sure. Magical artifacts can generate an extremely high amount of energy, but it dissipates quickly if there is nobody using it. Magic beings like unicorns can generate a fair amount of energy and make it last for some time but not nearly as much… ” Sunset brought her hand to her chin.

Could it have been the doing of an alicorn? Sunset thought.

“While I don't really understand the biology of the Equestrian beings, I’d exclude it was caused by something biological,” Twilight answered. “Nothing living could withstand such an amount of power.”

Sunset rested her chin on her hands. “Well… In Equestria there are beings capable of doing much more, but they can be counted on the fingers of an hand, and I doubt any of them came here.”

“I’m accessing more data regarding the first event.” Twilight typed more commands. “I should have the wave’s potential model up on the screen now.”

As she said that a tridimensional model of a wave propagating from a center appeared in a section of the screen, as well as some other tables, fraunhofer lines and graphs.

However before they could check out more, the terminal suddenly went dark. And so did the other computers in the cafe, the moans and sighs of angry people around the cafe could be heard.

“Hey! what’s the big idea?!” some guy asked angrily.

“I want my money back!” another guy barked.

Twilight panicked a little. But quickly she remembered that the program was running on her home’s computer which was working as a server, so there was nothing to fear.

Sunset frowned, that was inconvenient to say the least.

“Peridot? What have you done?” Pearl asked Peridot, who was holding pieces of an analog screen.

“Oh this?” She wore a quite frustrated expression as she pointed to the device she just disassembled. “I was just trying to improve this archaic calculator by upgrading its power supply, though it seems that I accidentally bypassed the anti-peak causing an electric overload.”

Before she could try to fix it, the clerk approached them angrily. “So this is your fault! I hope you are loaded with money because you are paying me back everything!” he angrily barked at them them.

Pearl glared at Peridot. The money they had was counted, and paying for damage could compromise them. But fortunately for them Peridot had an idea.

“Actually sir, I think I could return this archaic machine to it’s original state, and fix your electric system.” She stood in front of him.

“And why would I let you do that?” the clerk asked angrily.

“Because if I managed to fix it, you wouldn’t need to buy a new calculator,” Peridot said, “thus not compromising the efficiency of your shop during the period needed for the replacement to arrive.”

“Hmm you have ten minutes, and if you break something else you can consider what you owe me doubled,” he threatened.

Peridot quickly got to work on fixing the computer, cleaning up the damaged power supply, managing to restore it completely. She then closed up the screen’s case and got down the chair. She asked where the fusebox was and the clerk indicated it to her. With Pearl’s help she reached it and proceeded to open it up, and returned the lifesaver breaker in the ‘On’ position. Once she did so, the lights turned back on, and so did the screens of the computers.

Everybody emitted sighs of either relief or groans of annoyance as the computers restarted.

“We are very sorry about what happened, my friend Peridot just wanted to improve this computer. We’ll be on our way now,” Pearl said.

She grabbed Peridot and started to head out the cafe, noticing out of the corner of her eyes the computer Twilight and Sunset where using.

“You can’t pass two seconds without experimenting with Earth technology, can you?” Pearl scolded.

“What?” Peridot asked incredulously. “I was doing that guy a favor, if my power supply modification had gone well that archaic calculator would have been able to consume two hundred percent less.”

“First of all, he didn’t ask you to do it. Second of all, you should have checked the specs of that computer before trying to modify it and...” Pearl stopped suddenly when she noticed two girls finishing to re-access their computer’s internet browser.

She noticed a series of graphs regarding electromagnetic waves and energy levels, as well as numerous maps of the globe, Sunrise Island in particular. She took note of the two girls, and looked at them suspiciously.

“Pearl? Why did you stop? I was just in the middle of processing a good answer,” Peridot told her.

“I think I saw something. We have to talk to the others once we are on the plane,” she explained and left the hotel.

“So, Twilight, is everything okay?” Sunset asked.

“It is. Although we lost some data, so we’ll need to wait for it to redownload, nothing serious happened though,” Twilight explained.

“Whew.” Sunset sighed. She looked at the two women going out the cafe. “They kinda look weird.”

“hmm, I agree.” Twilight looked at them too. ”I wonder why that smaller one thought she could modify the computer. I mean, has she never visited an internet cafe before?”

Sunset then noticed something else about them. “Forget that look closely at their foreheads,” Sunset whispered to Twilight, causing her to notice their gemstones encased in their foreheads.

“Oh… well I don’t think it’s anything important, they’re probably just into some extreme forms of fashion. There are lots of people lately who have gemstones implanted in their skin.” Twilight turned her attention back to the computer, however Sunset didn’t lose her suspicious look.

Meanwhile, Pearl and Peridot were coming back to the gate as Fluttershy was coming back from the gaming lounge, since Amethyst and Rainbow Dash monopolized it. She knew that Rainbow had everything under control and was probably winning, so she decided to take a break. However, as she arrived she was greeted by a crowd of people clapping their hands at two figures in its center.

“Is there anything that’s worth more than peace and love on the planet Earth!” Pinkie Pie sang at the top of her lungs as the song ended, striking a rock star pose while Steven held his ukulele triumphally.

Everybody cheered, while Garnet clapped her hands slowly. Steven and Pinkie Pie bowed and the crowd started to disperse.

“That… was… so much fun! It has been so long since my last duo performance! Your Ukulele skills are awesome,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed making acrobatic bounces around.

“Oh thanks, my dad taught me. You were pretty great too, where did you learn how to sing like that?” Steven asked

“Let’s say I have been a natural since I started to develope my party making talent,” Pinkie Pie answered.

“You’re a party organizer?” Steven’s pupils became stars upon hearing that.

“Yes! One of the best in my town, here’s my card.” Pinkie Pie handed to Steven a card covered in sparkly glittery balloon stickers.

“Pinkie Pie?” He read it. “What a nice name, mine is Steven, Steven Universe.”

“Universe? Ooooh you mean your dad is the universe?” Pinkie Pie asked with wide eyes.

“Uh, no… it’s just my last name,” he explained.

“Oh! Silly me!” She started to laugh, making Steven smile a bit too. “Anywho… Where do you come from and where are you headed?”

“Me and my… uh… friends are headed for Sunrise Island!” Steven answered.

“WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!! Me and MY friends too are headed there too,” Pinkie Pie said.

Steven smiled as Garnet approached them.

“Oooh who are you?” Pinkie asked her.

“She’s a friend of mine, her name is Garnet,” Steven introduced her.

“A pleasure.” Garnet extended her hand.

“Ooooh! Pleased to meet you too,” Pinkie said, shaking Garnet’s hand vigorously. “I’m always happy to meet new people, even more when they’re friends of people I already met!”

“You are quite an… active person, I see,” Garnet remarked as the handshake finished.

“Thank you!” Pinkie Pie said. “Tell me, do those goggles cover something embarrassing or secret? Like a third eye maybe?”

Garnet and Steven were immediately taken aback by that sentence.

“HAHAHAHA I’m just kidding, there must be something wrong with my Pinkie sense today.” She laughed, ignoring the sensation she got from her sixth sense.

Garnet looked impassive, while Steven forced a smile on his face.

“Hey Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy arrived.

“How are you, Fluttershy? Had fun with Rainbow Dash?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Well… kind of. She’s having a challenge at the arcade now.” She then noticed Steven and Garnet. “Who are your new friends?”

“Oh! This little nice guy over here is Steven, and this towering one over here is Garnet.” Pinkie Pie explained. “I was singing a song with Steven before.”

“I saw the crowd, you must have been good,” Fluttershy complimented them.

“We were!” Pinkie declared. She jumped as she launched back into the chorus.

“Oooh,
Life and death and love and birth,
And peace and war on the planet Earth.
Is there anything that's worth more
Than peace and love on the planet Earth?

These lyrics are brilliant!”

“I wish I was there to hear too.” Fluttershy smiled.

Garnet turned away as she noticed Peridot and Pearl arrive. “Welcome back you two, how did it go?”

“Good, until Peridot caused an electric overload trying to ‘upgrade’ a computer.” Pearl glared at Peridot.

“It wasn’t my fault if that power supply was that outdated!” Peridot said.

Pearl just rolled her eyes and looked at Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. “Oh hi, were you the one who was singing and dancing with Steven before?”

“Oh yeah, I was. And lemme guess, you’re Pearl right? And you are… uhm Pear-Colored Emerald?” Pinkie Pie asked, laughing.

“My name is Peridot… ” Peridot grew immediately annoyed by the young girl with the cloudy hair.

“As a matter of fact, Pearl is my name. How did you know?” Pearl asked.

“Oh it was easy. Your friend over there is called Garnet.” Pinkie took her hands and showed her gemstones. “Because she has garnets encased in her hands… ouch. So, if she was called that because of this, I figured out that your name was Pearl because of that big pearl on your forehead!” She pointed at Pearl’s pearl. “And your name was Pear-Colored Emerald because you have a triangular pear-colored-emerald in your forehead! Simple”

Everyone was pretty amazed by Pinkie Pie’s perception, except for Fluttershy and Peridot.

“It’s not an emerald, it’s a peridot. And my name is Peridot!” Peridot groaned. Her voice growing in annoyance.

“Anywho, my name is Pinkie Pie and this one is Fluttershy, one of my best friends.” She indicated Fluttershy.

“Very pleased,” Fluttershy whispered shyly.

“Is your friend always so… active?” Peridot asked.

“Uhm, yes. Even more usually, but she means well,” Fluttershy told the gem.

“Yeah, that’s right. Anyway Flutters, these ones are coming to Sunrise Island too!” Pinkie Pie gestured at them. “With us! Can you believe it? What a coincidence!”

“Oh oh, speaking of our trip, I need to talk with my friends over here. Could you please give us a moment, it’s something private.” Pearl smiled widely.

“Very private,” Peridot added.

“Doubly noted, see ya soon, hopefully!” Pinkie Pie left, along with Fluttershy.

Pearl, Peridot and Garnet moved away from the gate and found a private enough spot. Pearl then explained what she saw on Twilight and Sunset’s computer, leaving Garnet suspicious and Peridot unphased.

“So they were checking the electromagnetic activity around Sunrise Island? This could be relevant,” Garnet concluded.

“I disagree, we are talking about something that interferes with dimensional gem technology.” Peridot objected. “It’s improbable that some humans would even be able to detect the disturbance, let alone study it.”

“But isn’t it a little too convenient that they were in the process of researching about Sunrise Island’s magnetic field, when they’re probably going there too?” Pearl remembered that the pink one and the shy one were in group with these two back on the tram.

“Hmmm, you do have a point.” Peridot tapped her chin thoughtfully. “But even if they did detect it, I don’t think that they’ll be a menace. They probably haven’t even figured out the phenomena completely yet.”

“Still, I suggest we keep them under surveillance, even more so if they don’t have a clear idea of what they are tampering with,” Pearl finished.

“I agree, we need to keep a close eye on that group. We should also tell Amethyst when she comes back.” Garnet crossed her arms.

“Speaking of our quartz, where is she?” Peridot asked, just as Amethyst could be seen coming back with Rainbow Dash. Both the girls were looking pretty exhausted.

The competition had been long and tight, and it ended with a tie as both the girls managed to kill the same number of cy-bugs.

“Wow girl, that was awesome!” Rainbow Dash complimented Amethyst.

“Eh thanks, you were pretty great too.” Amethyst smiled at her.

“Where did you get those reflexes?”Rainbow Dash asked her. “You even anticipated a cy-bug that was about to sneak up on your back”

“Simple: practice. Lots and lots of practice,” Amethyst answered.

“Practice? You exercise with some sort of fighting style?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“You could say that,” Amethyst answered a little elusively. “Anyway, there are my friends.” She pointed at the other Crystal Gems, noticing that they seemed to be mid discussion. “Hmm better if I go to them, they might need me. Anyway happy to have played with you, tell me what was your name again?”

“Rainbow Dash,” she answered.

“Amethyst. Hope to meet ya again,” she waved at Rainbow before going to her friends.

“See ya,” Rainbow Dash said, returning to her own friends.

Rainbow Dash reached her friends and, after Pinkie Pie told her about what she had been doing, they all relaxed on the chairs around the gate, waiting for the rest of the group to come back.

Rarity came back an hour later, carrying some bags of summer clothings, from swimsuits to sundresses and sunhats. She stated that the products were passable. Fluttershy seemed to appreciate some of them, as well as Pinkie Pie, while Rainbow Dash didn’t really care.

Later on Sunset Shimmer and Twilight arrived too, reporting their findings, and that the energy didn’t seem to be dissipating.

Pinkie Pie took the occasion to tell the others about the other group she met too, telling them that they were headed to Sunrise Island as well. She also indicated them, allowing Twilight and Sunset to recognize the two who were with them at the Internet point.

The gems took some time to relax too, while Steven kept playing his ukulele and Peridot started recording her pre-flight log.

While they waited for the boarding to commence, both groups tried their best to relax, but neither one could shake the feeling that the other was watching them.

Welcome to Sunrise Island

Location: Earth, Oceanian Continent, Sunrise Island’s airspace.

Crystal waves lapped the shores of Sunrise Island, the white sand of its pristine beaches sparkling in the tropical sunlight as the sun started to rise above it.

The night on the plane from Sydney to Sunrise Island was quite eventful, as after she gorged herself on all the sweets and sugar present on the plane, Pinkie turned into a noisy bouncing ball that kept everybody awake for most of the night. Not to mention Peridot creeping out a guy by telling him about how easily the plane could have crashed because of it’s archaic engineering.

“Hmm good morning gems…” Steven yawned as he woke up. “How did you sleep?”

“I’ve had better nights, but it was alright,” Amethyst said.

“I can’t imagine how somebody could find these ridiculous seats even tolerable,” Pearl complained “The reclining is only ten centimeters, there was no space for my legs, the lumbar support is completely off. And I’m not even supposed to be annoyed by an uncomfortable seat! Once I get out of here I’m going to complain directly to the company! Thank goodness we normally use warp pads.”

“While being an obsolete flight machine, I must say that the flight wasn’t too terrible,” Peridot said.

“Mmmh alright… How are you feeling Garnet?” Steven asked her, noticing that she didn’t say anything. “Garnet? You awake?” He gave her a couple pats.

“Oh… I’m awake, thank you Steven,” she greeted him as she woke up, though seeming a little dizzy.

“You alright Garnet? You don’t seem very well,” Steven asked her.

“I am fine,” was her only answer.

“You sure you are?” Steven asked further.

“Yes, I am. I guess I’m just adjusting to this place.” She touched her glasses.

“Oh, could it be because we are so close to the island?” Steven asked her.

Garnet crossed her arms. “Probably, but before we make any conclusions I suggest we wait until the ending of the day.”

Garnet wasn’t sure of it yet, but it seemed that her future vision was actually getting worse since she arrived in the proximity of the island. It was like the only thing she could see in front of her was a thick fog, which also kept getting thicker and thicker, allowing her to see only the most immediate things. However her Sapphire side preferred to keep calm about it, and wait until further developments.

“By the position of our plane on the map projected on the archaic image device, we are five hundred and twenty-four miles away from the island. We should arrive there in an hour and thirty-five minutes,” Peridot deduced.

In another area of the plane the girls were waking up too.

“Oh man… what a night.” Rainbow Dash yawned.

“You’re telling me, if I get that pink blur I’m going to teach it a thing or two.” Pinkie Pie slammed her fists together.

“That blur-” Sunset woke up groaning “-was you.”

“Oh right, silly me.” Pinkie Pie looked sheepish.

Twilight woke up a little after them, removing her ear plugs.

“Good morning girls,” she greeted them.

“Morning, Twilight, was your night good?” Sunset asked her.

“It was as a matter of fact. What about yours?” Twilight then took a closer look to their faces. “Oh… I’m sorry, girls. I wish I brought more hear plugs with me.”

“I am too.” Rarity woke up too removing her eye covers. “Oh, first these awful seats with fake reclining, and then Pinkie Pie with high sugar, this night was utterly terrible.”

“Anyways, it’s almost over, look at the map.” Sunset pointed at the screen hanging on the corridor.

“Looks like we’re almost there,” Applejack said.

“Yes we are,” Sunset said.

“Good, so I can finally stretch out. What do we do once we get to the island?” Rainbow Dash tried to stretch a little, but the small seat restrained her uncomfortably.

“Well, first we’ll need to get to the hotel. But don’t worry they offer a good shuttle service,” Sunset explained.

“As a matter of fact, there should be one their whale shuttles waiting for us by the parking lot, they guaranteed for it,” Twilight added.

“Whale... what now?” Applejack asked.

“They’re buses the hotel uses to shuttle guests from the airport,” Twilight explained, “and they're shaped like killer whales."

Pinkie on the other hand pushed her face as much as she could on the porthole, wanting to get a good enough view of the island as they were approaching.

When the airplane curved, in preparation for the descent, she could see the beautiful palm tree groves and the jungle covering the island. Along with the beautiful white beaches, emerald hills and the silhouettes of the buildings composing the town. She could also notice a blur in the far side of the island which looked like a conglomerate of white buildings and domes, which kind of made her Pinkie sense tingle a little.

“Oh look, another two planes!” Pinkie Pie saw other two planes approaching the island, except they didn't seem anything like the plane they were in. “Hey Twilight, are planes usually supposed to land in the airport right?”

“Yes, Pinkie Pie, of course, why?” Twilight asked.

“Because these two planes aren’t heading for the airport, but for the beach.” She pointed at them through the porthole.

Fluttershy lowered the curtain on her own and looked out. “Oh dear, if they’re heading for the beach, they’ll crash!” She closed her eyes tightly.

The members of the group who could quickly looked through their windows and saw exactly what Pinkie Pie described: two single pilot jets – one was white and blue with a light and sleek design, while the other was black and red with an almost gothic and spiky design – and both of them were approaching the beach at high speed.

However before they could crash the wings retracted, and four sets of wheels extended from the cockpits, turning them into what looked like very advanced cars.

“Woah…” It was the only thing the girls could say witnessing what just happened.

“A jet that can convert into a car? Could this mean that… no it can’t be.” Twilight Sparkle’s eyes grew wide.

“What’s up, Twilight?” Sunset asked.

“I already saw things like that, prototypes to be exact, one of them belongs to an inspirer of mine. But I don’t wanna illude myself, unless I see him in person there’s no reason to get too excited.” Twilight remained composed. “And in any case he isn’t one of our priorities.”

“Who is this guy?” Rainbow Dash asked, curious to hear about for whom Twilight was having a fangirl moment. It reminded her of when she met the Bolts.

Dexter McPherson, one of the most brilliant minds of the planet wrapped up in the body of an eighteen year old. He built his own lab in his house’s basement at the age of five, and managed to keep it hidden for more than ten years.

Once he graduated he revealed its existence to the world and used his inventions to fund his own research company: the Dexlabs. This of course allowed him to move out of the basement and to take his research to a whole new level, while still having to cope with his annoying sister and his rivals.

“Computress, give me the conversion data,” he ordered to his computerized assistant. He wore his customary lab coat with purple gloves and tall black boots. On his nose sat the large lens of his HUD-glasses.

An holographic image of a robotic woman’s face appeared in front of him. “Immediately, Dexter.” Holographic screens appeared around him, showing data gathered during the conversion from jet to car.

“Mmmmh it seems that everything went well. How was the tension of the chassis this time?” He examined the data carefully.

“Optimal, Dexter, there were no signs of any creep or deformation,” she answered.

“Excellent, some more adjustments and these road-air vehicles will be good to hit the market,” Dexter exclaimed pleased with himself.

“Some root beer to celebrate the success?” The assistant suggested.

“Not yet, Computress, remember that we are in mission, the pleasure of a cold iced root beer can wait,” he said resting on the seat, letting the automated driving system lead him towards his destination.

In that moment he was heading for the Island’s most prestigious hotel, the Surfer Paradise Deluxe to settle in. Officially it was a vacation of pleasure, but it was actually an undercover research mission to acquire data about the strange phenomena related to the island. As soon as his satellites reported the mysterious energy pulse, he could already foresee the potential uses of its source, and such an occasion deserved to be exploited.

Unfortunately for him he wasn’t the only one heading for the island. His greatest rival, Susan Astronomanov -also known as Mandark- was there too, in the car behind his own.

Mandark had been a prodigy like Dexter, and for the two of them it was rivalry at first sight. Their feud continued for most of their lives, even after they entered in the corporate world. It could be also said that the superfast development of their respective companies was caused by their very powerful competition, even if his company, the Mandark Industries, were often sued for unfair play and patent infringement.

He wore his usual white shirt with jean shorts held by braces, as well as long black socks with small cream colored shoes. He had drop shaped glasses and a black and yellow tie.

“Master, we have arrived,” The computer of his vehicle informed him, though nobody answered it. “Ahem, Master?”

Mandark was too busy smooching a life-size inflatable doll of his beloved one: Dexter’s sister Deedee.

“Oh Deedee, your love is like a… balm for my tormented life. Why do you have to be related to that awful skunk of Dexter, how could your beautiful genes have come from the same pool of him…?” he was blathering while kissing the doll repeatedly.

If the computer could have facepalmed it would have. “Master, I’m sorry to interrupt but–”

“How dare you interrupt my smooching!? I ordered you to remain silent until we have arrived at Sunrise Island,” Mandark interrupted it.

“But Master, we are at Sunrise Island.” The computer proceeded to turn the glass that surrounded the cabin from opaque to transparent allowing him to see where he was.

“Oh, you are correct. Sorry, my beloved Deedee, but unfortunately more pressing matters require me.” Mandark pressed a button that deflated the doll and made it collapse inside a compartment of the cabin. “Computer, prepare the mandroids to proceed to the unpacking as soon as we arrive at the hotel. Also, program them to be as reserved as possible regarding the espionage equipment”

“Of course, Master.” The computer started to program the bots inside the recharge compartments in the back of the vehicle.

“Soon I’ll know all the secrets of this island, and once they’re mine I’ll be able to crush Dexter and his company once and for all!” He started to laugh loudly but as soon as he raised from his seat he hit the roof of the cabin with his oversized head. “Youch!!!”

By eight in the morning the airplane landed by the island’s small airport, located behind the mountains. And afterwards the passengers flooded the gate.

The Rainbooms quickly got their luggage and headed out, as well as the crystal gems.

Sunrise Island’s airport was almost as big as Canterbury’s, the design was almost the same, with the only difference being that around it there weren’t pines, but palm trees. Right next to the airport there were some docks, connected to it by a pathway for rapid transit, and by them there were some buses, belonging to the different hotels on the island ready to pick up the paying customers.

The bus belonging to the Surfer Paradise was one that stood out. It was designed after an orca whale, only that it had purple coloring and was wearing beachwear. It even had a blowhole that erupted water for the client’s fun.

“Wow, that was orcatastic!” Pinkie Pie laughed as the water jet covered her.

“Here for the Surfer Paradise Deluxe, the best hotel of the island.” The man driving greeted them as he opened the door.

The group of passengers got on the bus quickly, including the Rainbooms. Once all the seats were taken and all the dock was empty, the bus’s doors closed and it drove off. After leaving the airport’s parking area, it got on the main road that led to the town, passing through the lush jungle that covered most of the island.

“I do hope that the hotel’s service will be better than their taste in design. This mix of purple and yellow hurts my eyes,” Rarity whined. She already saw the hotel’s color scheme from the photo on their site, but seeing it in person was even worse – even if it was only their whale bus.

“Don’t worry about that, Rarity. We are here to explore, after all, it’s not like we’ll pass all our time at the hotel,” Pinkie Pie said, trying to distract her.

“I know, Pinkie, but still we deserve to stay in a place that appeals the eye too,” Rarity answered, thinking about the dresses in her suitcase.

“Ah don’t worry about that, Rarity. You should enjoy the little pleasures, like this.” Pinkie Pie suddenly stuck her head out the window and let the warm tropical breeze pass on her face. She found the air very clean and refreshing.

“You are probably right, it’s a very well quoted hotel, after all.” Rarity relaxed. “I mean it’s impossible that so many good reviews were all wrong.”

Twilight, on the other hand, was sitting next to Sunset Shimmer, and was typing stuff on her PDA.

“Hey what are you doing, Twilight?” Sunset asked her.

“Writing down today’s program, a list of the stuff we need to do once we get to the hotel. For today it will be mostly unpacking, setting up our data center, preparing the research equipment and then letting our families know that the trip went well. I placed it for last because of the time zone,” Twilight explained.

“Oh, good thinking, Twilight.” Sunset smiled.

“Thank you, Sunset,” Twilight said.

“Will we be able to do something fun like exploring the town or something like that?” Pinkie asked eagerly. Her hair was even more a mess than usual, having been blown around by the wind.

“Today that will be quite unlikely, we have got a lot of work to do to get settled in, Twilight explained. “We can think about that tomorrow, and even in such case we’ll need to restrict the free time at a minimum.”

"Oh, okay..." Pinkie Pie said, frowning.

As everybody tended to their own affairs the bus exited the main road and started to move across the little tourist town.

At the hotel a deal was being struck inside the manager’s office.

“So with this everything is settled.” Mr. Ridgemount, a fairly old but robust man, was sitting behind his desk in the middle of his office, facing a young adult American-Asian woman with moderately long black hair and green eyes.

“It seems so,” The young woman answered, reading the contract she held in her hands. “These conditions seem fine as well as my payment and benefits.”

“Very well then, Miss Cassidy, you may sign when you feel sure.” The man handed her a black pen with a purple case and the hotel’s logo.

The woman quickly wrote her name – Katarina Cassidy – making her an official employee of the hotel.

“Welcome to the Surfer Paradise staff. Your room is by the water park’s arena, by the training tank,” he explained.

“Thank you, I’ll be on my way now.” Kat raised from the seat and prepared to leave.

“Ahem, Ms. Cassidy.” The man stopped her.

“Yeah?” Kat turned around.

He looked at her sternly. “Before you go, I want to make one thing clear: I rarely give second chances, and never give three. The investment I’m making on you is extremely relevant to my company’s balance, and I expect it to pay off immediately, so failures will not be tolerated.”

Kat frowned a little, but kept herself in line. “Understood, sir. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”

“One more thing.” The man sounded just as stern as before.

“Yes?”

“Take your tiger shark out of my wall aquarium before he devours everything in it.” He pointed at the blue and grey tiger shark swimming around the aquarium embedded in the wall chasing around the exotic fishes inside.

Kat looked at the aquarium, then turned around with an embarrassed expression. “Of course sir, just give me a minute!”

The girl walked to the aquarium’s glass and started to beat on it, getting the tiger shark’s attention.

“Kenny come out of there! That's not for you, do not make us look bad in front of the new boss!” She spoke to him through the glass.

Obediently, the tiger shark swam up to the aquarium's edge and got out in the maintenance area. Kat went into the hallway to look for him.

This is either going to be one of my greatest failures or my greatest successes, Mr. Ridgemount thought as the door closed, staring at the computer screen on his left showing his current balance.

Mr. Ridgemount was the owner of an already successful hotel at Sunset Island in British Columbia, however as the businesses kept getting better and better he decided that it was time to expand. His choice for first new hotel site was Sunrise Island as, besides having very low real estate costs, it offered an environment that was even better than Sunset’s. In five years his project became a reality as the Surfer Paradise Deluxe was completed, becoming a great success among the vacationers almost immediately. Since then he kept his eyes peeled for other occasions to increase the resort’s popularity and income, and Kat was one of them.

She came from the town of Tiburon. A little suburb of San Francisco, located on a peninsula in the eponymous bay. She had been a sea lover since her childhood, and the fact that the town was surrounded by the sea allowed her to enjoy it even better. Her dream was to become a sealife researcher someday, but because of her economic situation, in order to get into good university she needed a job with a good income and save up. It was exactly that necessity that brought her to the Surfer Paradise Deluxe.

The team Lyoko arrived the prior day, and having arrived quite late in the evening they had little to no time to unpack their stuff.

The rooms that they could afford were basic ones, so nothing very fancy were in them. Just a flat screen TV of medium size, a medium purple sofa, two queen size beds each with purple and yellow sheets, a nightstand with a cordless phone stood between the two, and a fairly large desk was in front of the main window, equipped with plugs.

By nine o’clock most of them were still asleep, except for Jeremy and Aelita who had their alarm clock set.

“Good morning, Aelita.” Jeremy yawned, waking up and turning the alarm off by pressing a glowing button on the room’s phone.

“Hi, Jeremy, was your night good?” she asked, raising from her bed.

“Best night in the last few months, these king size beds are great for the back.” Jeremy got down and put on a pair of slippers.

“I agree, way better than the ones at Kadic.” She got up as well and put on her slippers as well.

“Alright, ladies first, Aelita. I’ll check on the others.” Jeremy started to raise the purple curtain allowing the sun’s rays to fill up the room, revealing the presence of their suitcases semi open still on the room’s floor.

“Thanks, Jeremy.” The pink haired girl smiled and started to wash herself and get ready for the day.

Jeremy sat in front of his laptop and turned it on. For now he only had that one, as he had been too tired to assemble the rest of his equipment, which was still inside the larger boxes in the closet.

Once the laptop was on, he clicked on an icon which activated a program called Lyokolink. The program was a personal invention of Jeremy’s, it was a micro scale social network that connected their smartphones. Along with internet chat, it allowed their watches to work as walkie-talkies on short and medium distances, not to mention to allow the user to inform the others of their state, like: ‘fine’, ‘calm’, ‘eating’, ‘asleep’, etcetera.

On the computer screen a window opened up displaying six cards, one for each Lyoko Warrior. They looked exactly like the ones that used to be displayed by the virtualization program running on the supercomputer, the only difference was the absence of the life points counter, which was substituted with the ‘state’ display.

“They are all sleeping it seems.” He closed the program and stretched. “Something tells me that they aren’t going to get up for a long time.”

He then got up and went to the closet and started to take out boxes. “Better if I start assembling the computer now, so we can start the surveillance from today.”

One after another, the five boxes filled with electronic components were removed from the closet, and Jeremy started to assemble the contents, while Aelita was finishing her shower.

She finished just as he was in the process of connecting an external disk to the computer case he just unpacked. “Alright this decypher goes over here…”

“I’m done, you can go now, Jeremy.” Aelita interrupted him. “You can leave the rest to me.”

“Alright, thank you, Aelita.” Jeremy took her place in the bathroom as she continued what he was doing before, connecting the components left to the main computer case and placing the auxiliary one on the other side of the main screen. In the end the machinery that was laying on the desk was exactly like the one that Jeremy used to have when he studied at Kadic.

“Done, let’s turn it on.” Aelita pressed the a red button on the bigger case.

After a few seconds the screens turned on, showing loading bars first, then thick lines of DOS code indicating that the operative system was being booted. Some minutes later the usual desktop appeared, and the computer was ready for use.

Jeremy came out of the restroom shortly after finishing to brush his teeth, just in time to see to see Aelita had finished setting the computer up.

“Excellent job, Aelita, now we are ready to start.” Jeremy sat in front of it and started to input commands.

“What program are we going to use first?” Aelita asked sitting on the sofa holding her laptop.

“Probably the superscanner, it can sense the activity of quantum supercomputers even if they are not Lyoko’s,” he explained accessing it.

“Good idea, I’d suggest to keep it active around the clock, at least for today,” Aelita recommended.

“Alright, let’s set the parameters.” Jeremy started to type commands. “Range of interest for GPS survey: Sunrise Island. Discard other locations: yes. Scanning period: twenty-four hours.”

“Everything should be set now.” Aelita checked on her laptop that the connection was safe enough.

“Ready to go.” Jeremy pressed the enter button. And as he did so, an imagine of the island appeared inside the program’s window, encased inside a cartesian plane.

“Okay, now this is done.” Jeremy reduced the program’s interface to an icon.

“So what’s our program for today, Jeremy?” Aelita asked.

“Well, we still need to decide it, but Odd will probably have some suggestions once he wakes up.” Jeremy looked at the Lyokolink program.

“Speaking of whom, it seems that he is already waking up.” Aelita pointed at his card, showing that his state changed from asleep to waking up.

“Let’s give the others some time to get ready for the day, then we can decide what to–” Jeremy was interrupted by the ringing of his phone.

He took it out and placed it upon his ear “Hello, Odd is it–”

“HEY EINSTEIN! Are you ready to start the vacation of a lifetime!?” Odd’s voice boomed out of the speaker, loud enough that even Aelita could hear clearly.

“It’s Odd…” Jeremy told Aelita. “Yeah, Odd, did you sleep well?”

“You asking me if I did? That was one of the best, these beds are great!” Odd exclaimed excitedly from his room.

William’s voice could be heard through the phone.

“Calm down, Odd, I’m still trying to wake up here.” He could be heard throwing a pillow to Odd.

“Ah! Missed!” Odd said, just before he was hit by the second pillow. “Anyway… I hope you had a good night too, how about we meet to discuss plans for today at breakfast? I’m famished”

“Sounds good to me, Odd.” Jeremy answered. “See you at the Submarine restaurant.”

“Well, it’s only a matter of time before Yumi and Ulrich wake up, let’s use this time to get some of our stuff unpacked since they’ll take some time to get ready,” Aelita suggested, having heard the dialogue because of Odd’s loud voice.

Jeremy nodded, took his suitcase and started to put his things inside the desk’s drawers and closet as did Aelita.

“Mmmmh yes, this room seems adequate,” Dexter commented, stepping inside his suite and contemplating the luxurious contents: a very thin flat screen HDTV with 3D, a walk in closet, a king size bed and last but not least a very large desk on which was laid a charger that held a touch screen device capable of controlling the lights, the air conditioner, and also worked as a phone. Not to mention the bathroom that also had a jacuzzi inside. Besides these luxuries it was considerably bigger than the cabins, and had a massive balcony with a great view of the ocean. The perfect place for Dexter to start his research.

“Oh on behalf of the Surfer Paradise Deluxe, I’m very pleased that you think so, Mr. McPherson. It is truly an honor to have you here in our humble hotel. If you have any request you can use the touch screen device,” Andrew Bahumer – the manager and Ridgemount’s second in command – said, indicating the device. “We’ll make sure that a member of our staff will be ready to satisfy any of your requests at all times. In the case you find the service unsatisfying, don’t have any scrupules of signaling the problem to us using the personnel evaluation schedules.”

“I surely will, I too want my staff to work at the top of their efficiency. Thank you for accompanying me to my room, you can go now.” Dexter dismissed him.

“You don’t wish to have anybody help you unpack?” Andrew asked.

“It won’t be necessary. Dexbots!” he exclaimed in his phone, causing a group of five robots arrive in the corridor. They were very short, and had a blocky aspect, much like the rovers that were sent on Mars, and tracks as a means of motion.

One of them stopped in front of him and saluted. “Yes, Dexter?”

“Proceed with unpacking my things and setting up my equipment, after this you can recharge until I give you the next directive,” Dexter ordered.

“It will be done Dexter. Come on, units, to work!” It said, heading inside the room with the others, carrying their master's luggage with them.

“Ah such efficiency, if only my personnel was as good as these prodigies of technology,” Andrew said.

“Haven’t I dismissed you?” Dexter asked.

“Oh right, of course, I’ll be on my way now.” The manager left.

Dexter entered his suite, witnessing with great satisfaction the efficiency of his robots. He then turned on the HUD mode of his glasses and started to oversee the activities of his laboratories back in the US.

Meanwhile Mandark reached the hotel he was going to reside in: The Queen Oyster Deluxe, owned by Captain Ron. The resort had a very different look than the Surfer Paradise and owned a less impressive beach, but offered nearly the same kind of entertainment and attractions.

“This room is barely tolerable!” Mandark yelled to the hotel’s owner as he was escorted to his room. It was exactly like Dexter’s, only that it had different tints and different logos were on the furniture and other products.

In front of him stood a quite fat and old man, wearing a navy captain suit which included a captain hat.

“Oh I’m very dismayed, sir. If you wish we can give you a discount on our products to make up for this?” The owner implored.

“This will at least give me a reason to stay here. However I’ll have my robots redecorating this room tomorrow, yellow and gold aren’t colors that I enjoy, red and black will be perfect,” Mandark said.

Captain Ron gulped, he didn’t want to allow that, but he couldn’t lose such an important customer. “Certainly, sir, if you need help from our staff please don’t be afraid to ask, our personnel will be ready to assist you at any moment.”

“That will be unnecessary, my bots are state of the art machines and they’ll do it by themselves. But where are they?!” he yelled, noticing that they weren’t there yet.

“Unit one three four, nine one five, six nine seven and eight nine seven, reporting sir…” A bot similar to Dexter’s ones but with a more gothic look and completely different colors arrived by the door, startling Captain Ron.

“What does this mean? I told you to bring my luggage here before my arrival!” Mandark barked.

“We are sorry, sir, but the weight was too high so our speed was gravely diminished,” the bot answered.

These bots, named mandroids were copies of the Dexlab’s dexbots, only were significantly less efficient than them.

“You are lucky I still need you for some aspects of my work here! What are you waiting for!? Start to undo my luggage and place it in the room!” He pointed inside the room.

The robots quickly began to execute the order just as they were told.

“Now leave me to my work!” he ordered the owner.

“Of course, Mr. Mandark.” The man left the room grinding his teeth.

“Now while the robots complete our room...” He took a device out of his pocket. “Let us continue where we interrupted.”

He pressed a button on the device releasing another inflatable balloon of Deedee, which he immediately started to smooch in a deranged fashion.

Meanwhile, the Rainbooms were arriving at the hotel.

“End of the line, enjoy your vacation in the paradise of surfing,” the man cheerfully said.

The Rainbooms were the first to leave the bus, and after collecting their respective luggage they headed inside.

The hotel’s hall was very tall, ten stories overall. In its center there was a very tall circular aquarium, featuring lots of colorful fishes swimming around an artificial barrier reef with real corals. Beside it there was a restaurant-bar built to look like it was inside a submarine, and all around the hall there were numerous shops for surfing, swimming, trekking and other similar things.

“Woah, I get why it’s considered such a great place for vacation, it has everything,” Rainbow Dash commented.

“Oh my… does that surfboard have diamonds encased in it?” Rarity’s eyes sparkled at the sight of a surfboard with sparkly jewels in a large glass case in front of the surfing shop.

“Keep it together Rarity, remember that we aren’t here just to look at the nice stuff they have,” Sunset Shimmer said.

“Oh don’t worry, Sunset, witnessing some of the local products won’t distract me too much,” Rarity answered her.

“There’s the reception.” Rainbow Dash indicated a purple desk with a young black man sitting behind it.

“Hello, welcome to the Surfer Paradise Deluxe, I’m Johnny the concierge, how may I help you?” He stood up as soon as he saw them arrive.

“Good morning, my name is Twilight Sparkle, my friends and I would have a reservation for three rooms.”

The young man quickly typed the name into the hotel’s computer, and the booking came up immediately. “The reservation is confirmed. Here are your keys. If you want this evening there is going to be a party for the new arrivals by the main pool.”

“This seems nice, we could meet new people!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed cheerfully.

“We’ll take it in consideration. Where can we find our rooms?” Twilight asked.

“Go by the elevator, and they'll be on on the third floor.” Jhonny indicated an elevator room.

“Thank you, sir, here is a tip for your good work.” Rarity gave him a five dollars bill.

“Oh thanks, very appreciated,” Johnny said.

“Ten strips of bacon please, with extra fried eggs, two waffles and these royal croissants please,” Odd Della Robbia told the waitress.

“Alright then. Man you surely have a large appetite,” The waitress commented, writing everything down. She seemed to be one of the teenage summer staff, and her name badge read 'Emma’.

“You know, this physique isn’t going to sustain itself, I need proteins.” He indicated his own body, which differently from what he fantasized about it was quite scrawny due to his metabolism.

“Uhm…” Emma couldn’t help but crack a smile.

“Don’t worry, just play along,” Ulrich jokingly commented.

“Hey Ulrich, don’t be envious!” Odd joked back.

“What can I bring to the rest of you?” Emma asked.

“I’d want a maxy fruit salad for me and Aelita, with a side of this fruit juice thank you.” Jeremy decided with Aelita.

“I’ll take the rice pudding.” Yumi indicated the dish she wanted.

“I’ll take a simple croissant, with coffee and orange juice please,” Ulrich ordered.

“For me a simple croissant too, with black coffee,” William ordered as well.

“Okay, they’ll be done shortly.” Emma left going into the kitchen.

“So, how did you all sleep tonight?” Odd asked.

“Not bad, the bed was really comfortable, and room had just the right temperature,” Ulrich said.

“I can say the same for myself, definitely a comfy night,” Yumi agreed with her boyfriend.

“It was good for me too… except that I had to share my room with Odd… ” William looked at him sternly.

“Come on, it’s not like I was that annoying,” Odd told him.

“You had been chatting with your dog all dang night, not to mention the fact that the stench of your shoes managed to overwhelm the vanilla scent emitters… ” William finished.

“Hey, don’t blame Kiwi because he feels lonely without me, he needs constant caring you know?” Odd objected.

“But aren’t your sisters taking care of him?” Aelita asked.

“They are, but I doubt that they are giving him the correct care he needs, so I am supplying whatever they’re forgetting,” Odd said putting his hands behind his head.

“Okay… anyways, have any of you unpacked yet?” Jeremy asked.

“Well, I kinda started already but… ” Odd was interrupted by William.

“He stopped and went to sleep right after opening his suitcase up and littering his clothes all over the room.” William remarked.

“Come on, Willy, we are roommates! We should back up each other,” Odd told him.

William could only facepalm.

“We didn’t unpack either, we are probably going to do that today, as well as probably explore the hotel a little in the afternoon,” Ulrich said.

“What about the two of you?” Yumi asked.

“Aelita and I finished packing this morning,” Jeremy answered. “Besides, we have activated the superscanner on my computer. This way we can start to look for whatever Aelita’s dad left for us here.”

“Shouldn’t we do things like… search the island? Or explore the jungle for anything strange?” Odd asked.

“We’ll get to that, but for now we need to at least know where to start,” Aelita explained. “The program will scan for any quantum computer activity on the island and if it finds any we’ll try to look into them.”

“Trying to explore the island completely and accurately would take too much time, we have only got three weeks, Odd…” Jeremy noticed that Odd turned around. “Odd? You listening to us?”

“Oh… Sorry, Einstein, it's that I just noticed some celebrities.” Odd was looking at the Rainbooms heading for the elevators.

“Who are they?” Jeremy asked.

“I figured you wouldn't know them, they are the Rainbooms, one of the better known rock bands of the internet,” Odd answered.

“Rainbooms? Oh yeah, I heard about them, they made quite a name for themselves after the Canterlot battle of the bands,” Aelita said. Having really been involved with music and such, she often had enough time to hear about the latest news in that matter.

“What’s so special about that?” Jeremy asked.

“It’s hard to describe, but lemme tell you something, their songs are awesome and so are their special effects!” Odd said.

“Odd is right, if you want later I could show you their video,” Aelita offered.

“Hmm we’ll see…” Jeremy’s thought trailed off as he noticed something else, precisely what looked like a robot moving around the hall carrying an hardcase with a logo on it.

“Wait a minute...” Jeremy started to squint trying to get a good look. “Wow, I can’t believe it.”

He finally recognized the logo.

“What’s up Jeremy? Noticed another celebrity?” Odd asked.

“Potentially, though I’m not sure about that.” He put an hand on his chin, wondering if he was right.

“Your breakfasts are here, bon appetit!” Emma returned some minutes later along with another waiter carrying the group’s dishes.

Meanwhile somebody arrived at the hotel on one of the whale buses.

“End of the line, you can get off,” the driver said to a young adult, visibly in his very early twenties, with dark brown hair, sitting in the back of the vehicle.

The young man got up, revealing that he wore a half sleeve white shirt with an A printed on it, underneath it there was a pair of dark blue shorts and sandals. He had a quite modern looking briefcase with an electronic fingerprints locker.

“You here to join the summer staff?” The driver asked.

“As a matter of fact I am, good man.” He walked towards the exit.

“Good luck coping with the bosses, the can be pretty demanding,” the man commented, knowing Bahumer’s and Ridgemount’s character.

“I’m sure I can cope with this, thank you.” The young man left the bus and headed for the hotel.

He looked around the hall almost in a scouting fashion, and soon he noticed the manager Andrew.

He then walked up and greeted him. “Hello, egregious Mr. Bahumer, my name is Abram, I’m here to...”

“Are you the new doorman?” he asked.

Abram noticed that he looked pretty stressed out. “Uhm, yes of course sir, I was wondering where I could check in…”

“No time for checking in, you gotta start working now,” the manager quickly interrupted him.

“But shouldn’t I–”

“The uniform is in the locker room hanging from one of the clothes hangers. The rules are simple: three strikes and you are out, any infraction, including being late, counts as a strike. You are dismissed.” The manager walked away.

Abram shrugged and headed for the locker room, keeping a cool attitude.

“Log date one zero one four five, Peridot recording,” Peridot spoke into her tablet. “After successfully landing at the location known as Sunrise Island we are now scouting its jungle in search for a viable place to install our base of operations.”

Garnet was leading the group’s way inside the jungle, occasionally moving away heavy logs with her gauntlets.

“Alright, if we proceed in this direction we should arrive by the mountain ridge’s path,” Pearl said, projecting from her gem a holographic map of the island a compass too.

“Perfect, from there we’ll be able to good look of the town and the surrounding area,” Garnet commented.

Peridot interrupted the log and coughed two times to get the gem’s attention. “If possible I suggest to install our base on the mountains, so that we might have a good lookout on the island.”

“That could give us more reconnaissance capacity, but we might be a little exposed due to the inferior vegetation cover, not to mention that this might also make problematic going back and forth for our exploration trip.” Pearl objected.

“We’ll decide once we get on the ridge,” Garnet exclaimed sternly, removing a big log from their trail.

Amethyst on the other hand was walking in the back with Steven, who was trying his best to keep the flies away.

“What on Earth?” Pearl looked at the fence with barbed wire around its top. “This fence wasn’t on the maps I memorized.”

“There appears to be a sign.” Peridot indicated it.

Garnet moved forward to read it. “It appears that this is private property.” She summarized what was written on it.

‘Private property. KEEP OUT. No trespassing, any transgressors will be prosecuted accordingly to law.’ And besides the writing there was a large danger signal with a skull inside, along with a round one that was the standard keep out sign, as well as a smaller danger signal that indicated generic danger.

“Man it looks like they are doing some dangerous stuff out here,” Amethyst commented.

Steven looked pretty tense. “Maybe we should turn around, I have a bad feeling about this.”

Garnet looked left to right several times and noticed small cameras installed around the pillars that held the fence, as well as pressure sensitive wires running on the ground, partially hidden by very large leaves.

“Approved, there is nothing worth our time here, at least for now,” Garnet decided. “We’ll need to find another lookout point. Pearl?”

“Oh of course, Garnet, another good lookout point but with reduced visibility would be the emerald hills.” She pointed at the projection.

“Let’s go.” Garnet walked off followed by the other gems.

The Rainbooms finished to settle by lunch time and took the afternoon to rest, except for Twilight and Sunset, as they needed to turn their room into a full blown research base.

The members of the Lyoko team spent their day unpacking too, some more than the others as their roommate, wasn’t being very cooperative. As of the evening, no quantum signature was picked up by Jeremy’s superscanner, but he still kept it running, hoping that something would be revealed soon.

Dexter and Mandark, while ignoring each other's presence, prepared their equipments and decided how to proceed with the research.

Kat and her tiger shark friend finished settling in at the hotel’s exhibition aquarium. It was a refreshing environment for Kenny as now, instead of a small swimming pool in a suburb of San Francisco, he had a nice large exhibition pool where he could swim as much as he wanted to, not to mention the food paid for by the hotel.

Katarina, on the other hand, didn’t like the new accommodation. It was a small room with an even smaller bathroom, but at least she still had a wifi connection to talk to her friends back home, and the company of her finny friend.

The two were heading for the shore, as Kat imagined that the others would have wanted to use the evening break to catch some nice waves, making going there a good occasion to make new friends.

Kenny was kind of anxious, as the last time the two of them had anything to do with surfers it took some time before they were accepted, and he really didn’t want to screw up this time too.

In the distance, the howls of excitement from the surfers could be heard.

To maximize the incomes of the new hotel, Mr. Ridgemount transferred most of the experienced personnel from Sunset Island’s hotel to the new resort behind a little promotion benefit. Some of them were enjoying the waves of the hotel’s beach.

They were all in the sea enjoying the awesome waves forming around the island, some of them even had the luck to score a passage in the tubes.

“Woohoo!!!” one of them howled, coming out of on his red surfboard with black decorations, then swimming to the beach.

“Man, this place rocks, not even at Sunset Island there were tunnels like this!” he said then speaking to another friend of his waiting on his surf.

“You can say that again, Reef. My turn!” The young man had afro hair and an orange surfboard with a yellow stripe decorated with some motifs painted on its side.

He swam up to another wave and masterfully rode it, even managing to make an acrobatic move when at it’s top.

“Woah! Nice job, Broseph!” Reef complimented his friend.

Nearby two girls were surfing as well. One was Emma, along with the other waitress of the submarine restaurant. And along with them there were three other guys, one of whom was Jhonny.

“Man these waves are the perfect way to relax after working for twelve full hours” one of the two girls said.

“Come on, Lo, you didn’t get used to it yet?” one of the other three guys teased. He had light black hair kind of tending to a dark blue color.

“Well I did get used to the length of the old shift, Ripper, but these new ones are even more devastating. But anyways these waves and the fact that I’m with friends make up for everything,” Lo answered resting her arms on the board.

“Hey check it out, there behind the bushes.” Emma indicated exactly as Kat was about to come out on the shore.

“Isn’t that one of the two new newbies?” Ripper asked, noticing them too.

“What’s up?” Broseph asked returning ashore.

“There is a member of the new staff arriving.” Reef indicated her.

“Oh?” Borseph looked at Kat. “Cool!”

“How about we go and meet her?” Reef suggested.

“You got my approval, bro. Let’s go.” Ripper started to head towards the shore.

The others joined him too, and noticed something strange.

“Dude, what is she doing?” Reef asked noticing that Kat was talking to a bush for some reason.

“Come on, Kenny, come out of there, what are you doing?” Kat asked.

“I kinda want to make an effect entrance, I wanna look as good as possible!” Kenny answered.

“Alright, Ken, just don’t take too long,” Kat told him before turning and seeing the surfers staring at her. “Oh uhm, hello there.”

She smiled nervously.

“Hello there, babe, who are you?” Ripper asked.

“I’m Kat, Kat Cassidy, just started working here today,” Kat answered.

At the mentioning of the name Broseph’s eyes widened. She kinda looked familiar but he didn’t imagine it was actually her. “Kat Cassidy? As Kat Cassidy from Tiburon, San Francisco?”

“Well yeah, that would be me…” Kat answered. Here we go again…

“Oh man, it’s a true pleasure to meet you, you’re the shark whisperer!!!” Broseph shook her hand.

“Ahem, what’s up Broseph?” Reef asked, noticing that his friend acted more weirdly than normal.

“Come on, don’t tell me you didn’t read about her, she’s the girl that started that big protest against the shark cull in the US back in two thousand twelve,” Broseph explained.

“Wait, you mean that girl that claimed to be capable of talking to sharks, and to have a shark pet?” Ripper asked as well.

Kat looked up and nodded. “Yeah that was me, can’t believe that somebody still remembers that these days.”

“Woah cool, was that all true? I mean the fact that you can talk to sharks and that you have one of them as a pet?” Reef asked further.

“Or are you just some kind of freakshow invented by some environmentalists?” Ripper asked, having always been skeptical about it.

Kat looked at them with a serious expression. “Yeah to the first two, but no to the last one. I’m able to talk to sharks, and one of them is my best friend.”

“Woah, this is cool dude. Though how exactly can you talk to them? I mean they are fish right?” Reef asked.

“Well I can’t really explain it, I always had this power since the day I was born. And trust me tons of scientists tried to understand how it worked,” she answered.

“I heard of this, scientists called it ‘the truth talking phenomena’. I read that a whole research facility in Polynesia was built to study this,” Johnny explained.

“It was a science facility? Strange I thought it was just a very exclusive holiday village.” Reef wasn’t really the article reader kind.

Jhonny just rolled his eyes at him.

Ripper on the other hand looked pretty skeptical, as well as his friend standing by him. Kat could tell they didn’t believe her.

“If you want some kind of proof however, Kenny, happens to be right behind this bush,” Kat said indicating the bush in which Kenny was sitting.

“Yeah right, and I'm –” he thought a little about what to answer her “– a seal in disguise!”

“Oh no…” Kat’s clenched her teeth for a second.

Ripper started to laugh, but he was suddenly silenced when a towering tiger shark jumped out of the bush and landed in front of him.

He was Kenny, a full grown tiger shark in his prime. Capable of walking on land thanks to his tailfins and breathing like a human.

“Hey, did you say seal? I love seals? where is it?” He was too excited to remember that only Kat could understand him.

Everybody flinched in fear while Ripper cowered on the shore and felt like he was about to have an heart attack.

“Well guys, this is Kenny, my pet shark.” Kat introduced him, trying to dissipate the panic.

“A full grown… walking… tiger shark.” Johnny's legs assumed an X like position.

“With a dozen of lines of razor sharp flesh tearing teeth!” Reef felt a strong impulse to release his bladder and flee upon noticing Kenny’s smile.

“No, please, everyone calm down, he is very docile actually!” Kat answered trying to calm down everyone.

“Please tell him to not eat me!” Ripper was still in a cowered position.

“Don't worry, he knows that surfers aren't food, he wants just to know where ‘the seal’ is,” Kat explained.

“Okay… sharky if you hear me, I lied, there is no seal, I was just kidding,” Ripper said slowly.

Kenny’s triangular toothed smile turned into a disappointed frown. “Oh bummer.” Everything the others heard was just a blubbering sound. He then stopped looming over the terrified surfer.

“Ah… ahem, well this first presentation didn’t go very well… Let’s try to start over.” He rubbed one of his fins on his head. He waved his fin. “Hi there, name’s Kenny.”

Just like before, nobody understood him, and Kat put an hand on her forehead.

“Okay then, now that I almost got eaten, I’d suggest to go check out the other surfing spots… and get new pants.” Ripper got up.

Most of the other surfers exchanged agreeing looks.

“No wait! He didn’t mean any harm!” Kat implored.

“For how much I can dislike Ripper, I agree with him… we have to go somewhere anyways,” Reef added heading back to the path leading back to the hotel.

“But...” Kat’s plea served to nothing, as the surfers already left, the only one who didn’t run was Broseph.

“Sorry girl, they aren’t really shark lovers. But don’t worry, it’s fine with me, see ya soon.” He walked away.

Kat looked down and sighed, a gloomy expression dominated her face.

“Hem… I guess that was my fault right?” Kenny asked with a very sorry tone.

“Don't worry Ken… it's okay,” she answered heading back to the exhibition pool.

Meanwhile, the gems found a decent enough campsite. It was located on top of one of the hills, in the middle of a field of tall grass, giving them an equal amount of cover and reconnaissance.

The campsite consisted of a rather large tent made of a tissue capable of camouflaging with the surrounding environment, a little invention Peridot and Pearl came up with some time before their departure. Inside of it there were a few things, such as a nice sleeping bag for Steven, a computer complete with a solar charger and the pile of garbage Amethyst would use as a bed. In the middle of the tent there was a small heat radiating electric lantern, with some pillows placed around it.

Steven was sitting on one of the pillows, checking out a brochure of the island, while Amethyst just lazed about on the garbage pile. Nearby, Pearl was typing on the computer, coordinating their research equipment outside.

“Log continued, Peridot recording. After a quick analysis of the situation, we have set a base of operation on this side of a moderately tall geological formation. The mimetic tent seems to be working correctly, it seems that Pearl’s correction to the light reflection system worked well. Our settlement is completed and we are preparing for the night. End log.” Peridot put her tablet away.

“I hope we’ll be able to visit the town tomorrow, there are some places that look fun to visit.” Steven said.

“Steven, remember that we are here on a mission, having fun in the town is purely secondary,” Pearl said without taking her eyes off the screen.

“I know, but… having some fun can’t hurt, right?” Steven asked.

“I second that!” Amethyst slid by Steven’s side. “We got lots of time to solve this right?”

Pearl observed a map of the island. “Well, we can stay here indefinitely, however we should be quick about this matter in any case. If there is a threat for the planet, it needs to be neutralized as quickly as possible.”

“That’s correct, acting with celerity is the best policy, at least until we have gathered and analyzed more data,” Peridot added.

In that moment Garnet entered the tent, carrying some large containers.

“I finished the reconnaissance, nothing visibly abnormal to note. I also returned to the fenced area, it goes from the cliffside of the bay all the way to the other side of the island, for a total length of three kilometers. The only visible structures are some domes in the distance. We’ll rest for the night and start the investigations tomorrow,” Garnet explained.

“Alright, Garnet. I myself have pinpointed some locations that we can check out tomorrow,” Pearl said, showing Garnet the computer’s screen.

“Good job, Pearl. Steven, I got something for you.” She handed the boxes to him, allowing him to open them.

“Pizza!” Steven’s eyes sparkled seeing that it contained a large pizza with a fishy topping in the same fashion of Fish Stew Pizza. “Thank you so much, Garnet!”

“You’re welcome.” The fusion smiled at him. “Now, I need to check something out”.

Garnet, for the first time since their arrival, prepared to use again her future vision power, but once again her vision was so obscured that the fog she had in front caused her a little headache.

“Garnet? You okay?” Steven asked before he took the first slice, noticing that she was rubbing her temple.

“It’s the problem I had back in the plane…” She removed the fingers from her temple. “My ability to see in the future hasn’t returned to normal yet.”

“Oh… the fog is still there?” Steven asked worriedly.

“Yeah, I thought right, something on this island is interfering with my power, and it isn’t wearing off…” Garnet said.

That answer startled Steven and the others as well.

Garnet smiled at Steven, hiding her own concern. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Mmmmh, I studied how Sapphires can see the future, they use their gemeurons to run stochastic analysis algorithms. Maybe the traces of the wave’s energy are interfering with your gem,” Peridot observed.

“If that’s true, it’s best if you try not to use that power Garnet,” Amethyst said.

“Oh dear, but this means that our gems could be affected too! Is everybody still fine?” Pearl asked frowning.

Amethyst looked at herself and at her gem. “I feel totally fine.”

Steven touched his forehead and then looked at his gem too. “Me too.”

“My other powers work correctly.” Garnet evoked her gauntlets.

Peridot came to the same conclusion of the others. “Visibly, I seem fine too. Probably Garnet’s power was affected because of how many gemeurons it employes, these algorithms can be extremely demanding.”

“It’s the most plausible explanation as of now.” Garnet sat on one of the pillows.

“Later I’ll add about this phenomena to the mission’s daily report, which I’ll write during the night. Hopefully once we find out the source of the energy and stop it, your gem should come back to normal,” Peridot explained.

Garnet looked pointedly at Steven, “I’m sure it will. For now I suggest we rest and keep the usage of the gems at a minimum.”

“Okay. Hey Steven, you gonna leave me the box of that right?” Amethyst asked Steven who was getting ready to eat his meal.

“Alright, Amethyst.” Steven smiled.

“Come on, Dash, wake up!” Applejack was shaking Rainbow Dash in her bed.

“Not now AJ –” she yawned “– five more minutes.”

“You said the same thing twelve times already.” Applejack had a very unamused expression.

“Ah, then wake me up when you are ready to go, I can get ready in a moment.” Rainbow Dash rolled her face on the pillow.

“We’re already ready! We have been for the last half hour, you’re the only one we’re still waiting on,” Applejack told her.

“Fine.” Rainbow Dash rose from the bed, and stumbled around in a daze as she started to put on her usual clothes.

In that moment Pinkie’s phone chimed, signaling the arrival of a message from Twilight.

“Applejack, Twilight says that since the party has already started we’ll all meet there directly. Sunset, Fluttershy and Rarity are there as well.”

“Let’s hope we don’t miss all the fun thanks to Loafer Dash,” Applejack remarked.

“I can hear you, you know?” Rainbow Dash grumbled while putting on her shoes.

“I know.” Applejack smirked a little.

The party was being hosted at the large pool of the hotel, in its yard. It was very large, and it was surrounded by smaller pools connected by shallow ‘rivers’. And as the day was nearing its end, they were illuminated by small LED lights, creating a very appealing visual effect.

While it was usually closed off by the evening, that particular night it was very crowded, and lots of buffets and bar tables were positioned around it. There were even in pool bars.

It was an idea of Mr Ridgemount, a way to welcome the newcomers at the beginning of the summer season.

Most of the guests were present, including four girls waiting by a bar.

“While I have to lament their poor choice of colors, I can say that by first glance that their parties may be good,” Rarity said looking around.

“The pools look so relaxing, I could look at them all night,” Fluttershy added.

“They really have a nice way to welcome the new guests.” Twilight’s stomach grumbled a little, as both her and Sunset passed the entirety of the afternoon working on their research equipment, skipping lunch. “I think I’ll go grab something to eat. Wanna join me, Sunset?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Sunset said as her stomach was pretty grumbly too.

“Want us to bring you something too?” Twilight asked as she prepared to leave.

“No need, Twilight, but thank you,” Rarity said politely.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll check it out later, thank you though,” Fluttershy said without turning away from the pool lighting.

“Be right back then.” Twilight made her way through the crowd along with Sunset, heading for the large buffet in front of them.

“Man the reviews were correct, this place is pretty popular,” Sunset remarked as the many people made moving quite hard.

“Yeah, the sites we checked out were pretty accura–” Twilight suddenly stumbled. “Woah!!!” she yelped as she lost her balance and landed onto somebody close.

“Ouch, hey watch it!” A rather young man, wearing a light lab coat said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was –” Twilight’s eyes grew wide in surprise and she realized who she had in front of her. “D… Dexter, Dexter Mcpherson?”

“Uhm, that would be me yes. Dexter Mcpherson, CEO of Dexlabs and freelance scientist. And you are?” the young businessman and scientist asked, noticing something familiar in his interlocutor as well.

“Oh, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I’m a huge admirer of yours! You are one of my main inspirations in the science field.” Twilight barely managed to contain her enthusiasm.

"Twilight Sparkle?" Dexter tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Mmmmh I heard of you, you used to ran a blog about strange magnetic phenomenon around the city of Canterbury right?”

“Oh yeah, that was me. You mean you checked them out?” Twilight asked excitedly.

“As a matter of fact I did, and I was really impressed by how professional the reports were. I could have sworn they were done by myself,” he said with a smirk.

“Oh thank you.” Twilight blushed a little.

“Hey you alright, Twilight?” Sunset asked as she reached them.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Even more than alright I’d say!” Twilight answered.

“Greetings, who are you?” Dexter politely asked.

“Ahem, Sunset, Sunset Shimmer. And you are?” Sunset asked.

“Oh, this is Dexter Mcpherson, Sunset. He’s the one I told you about on the plane.” Twilight interjected.

“Oh right, I see. Very nice to meet you,” Sunset said.

“I could say the same, even though your friend kind of bumped on me.” Dexter caused Twilight to assume an awkward expression.

“OH! That… I’m sorry, it’s that I fell and –”

“As I had no injuries there is no need for excessive apologies,” Dexter interrupted. “As a matter of fact, I’m happy to meet budding scientists such as yourself. I’d enjoy discussing about your findings as a matter of fact, may I offer you an appetizer?”

“Uhm, that would be very kind of you,” Twilight answered, she never imagined her first conversation with a celebrity would have gone so well.

“May I come as well?” Sunset asked.

“Mmmmh is she a friend of yours?” Dexter asked.

“Yeah, a great one too,” Twilight answered.

“Well then as they say, the more the merrier. Dexbots make a way.” Dexter ordered his robot-valets, who immediately managed to clear a way through the crowd.

“Oh my, these robots are so advanced,” Twilight remarked looking at one closely.

“Thank you, I projected and built them myself. They compose most of my workforce,” Dexter explained as they walked up to the buffet.

“What kind of CPU do they use?” Twilight asked.

“Laser maze based CPUs, another one of my labs many products,” Dexter explained. “They are twenty five times faster than electron based CPUs, and need next to none cooling system.”

“I didn’t know your company already developed these CPUs.” Twilight was really interested by the topic, while Sunset seemed suspicious.

Could this guy be here for the anomaly too? she thought.

“We did, though we are waiting to put them on the markets because of, err… mostly some stupid market laws. They are quite annoying if you ask me,” Dexter explained as they arrived at the large buffet table.

“May I serve you?” one of the surfer paradise employees wearing a purple waiter suit asked the three politely.

“No thanks, my good man, we are fine,” Dexter answered taking a platter along with Twilight and Sunset.

“Alright, enjoy your evening,” the waiter said as he left.

“So, Ms. Sparkle, returning to our previous conversation; how is your research developing? I noticed that the blog was interrupted for a while.” Dexter took some food from his platter.

“Oh uhm, pretty well I suppose, though I had to slow down my studies because of an accident involving that energy,” Twilight explained.

“I see, collateral effects caused by accidental over exposure?” Dexter asked.

“You...could say that.” Twilight took some food too.

“A pity, I hope that setback hasn’t crippled your research,” Dexter said.

“Well as a matter of fact it didn’t. Instead, it made me take a new direction to it actually.” Twilight ate some of the food on her platter, while Sunset listened.

“I see.” Dexter pondered a moment about what his next question could have been. He found Twilight’s research quite interesting and he would have wanted to talk more about it, but then it came to him that the subject she was studying could have been related to the phenomena that happened on the island. She could have been there for the exact same reason as himself, and he wanted to be sure about it.

“So anyway, Ms. Sparkle, what brought you here at Sunrise Island? A vacation of pleasure, or was it work?”

“Uhm...” Twilight was caught a little by surprise by that question, but before she could formulate a good answer Sunset interjected.

“We could ask you just the same thing.” She scowled at him.

Dexter looked at her, narrowing his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I’m here for pleasure mostly, guiding a science company is an extremely tiring task, and this island was the perfect destination for me.”

“Oh alright, good for you then,” Sunset said.

“Sunset...” Twilight glared at her.

“Please don’t worry, I recognize that I was being a bit invadent. Not having a very active social life, it’s a bit hard for me to say.” Dexter suspected that they were hiding something, but apologizing was the most logical decision since it made keeping them under surveillance easier. His train of thought however was interrupted by two melodious voices coming from the stage along with a very good music.

“What’s this?” Dexter asked turning his sight to the stage as well as Sunset and Twilight.

The two girls recognized Fluttershy singing for the crowd, along with a girl with pinkish hair almost like her own.

“It seems that Fluttershy’s has completely conquered her fear of large crowds while singing.” Sunset smiled.

“Yeah.”

“I imagine she is another friend of yours?” Dexter asked.

“Yes, she is,” Twilight answered. “Her name is Fluttershy, as you see she has a very good singing voice. She is also very gentle and kind.”

“I see,” Dexter said. “Well, I guess you should probably go cheer on your friend.”

“Oh, alright, care to join us?” Twilight said hopefully.

“No, while I enjoy a melodious music, I’m not very comfortable in crowds,” Dexter said.

“Okay then,” Twilight said, although she didn’t leave immediately. She smiled and stood up straighter. “Well, we’re both staying on the island, maybe we’ll run into each other again!”

In the end, Sunset had to practically drag her away.

Dexter looked at them before his HUD glasses activated. “Computress, compile a list of suspects, names: Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer.”

However he was unaware that Sunset had her own suspicions of him as well, and although she joined the crowd in cheering for her friend, her thoughts remained focused on figuring out what he could be up to.

The Mysteries of the Island

[Location: Earth, Oceanian Continent, Sunrise Island, Crystal Gem’s camp]

“Steven...Steven...” Pearl gently shook Steven in his sleeping bag.

“Mmph...Pearl?” Steven yawned.

“Sorry about waking you up, but there’s a call for you.” Pearl held the computer for Steven.

“Dad?” He read the name of the caller, before accepting the call.

The window on the screen changed form, until it covered a good half of the screen and Greg’s face appeared in it.

“Hey, Shtoo-ball, had a good flight?” Greg asked. Behind him it was evidently evening.

“Hello, Dad.” Steven yawned, his eyes were tired.

“Oh...sorry, Steven, did I wake you up?” Greg asked.

“It’s okay, Dad, I didn’t fall asleep too long ago. The flight wasn’t too bad, even though the last part of it was the worst. How is it going there?” Steven asked back.

“Everything is fine here. I had a pretty good day today, even got some clients. I spent time composing some songs in the evening,” Greg answered.

“Cool! How many did you finish?”

“Two, one about summer and travelling and one about.... uhm... loneliness.” Greg looked away for a second.

“Oh, Dad, don’t feel too bad, we’ll be back as soon as we manage to figure out what’s wrong with this place. And we can still talk to each other through Spyke.” Steven tried to reassure him; he really didn’t want him to feel bad about the fact that he was away.

“I know but it’s not the same thing. And… I have this feeling something bad could happen to you.” Greg was visibly worried.

“Dad, don’t worry, nothing bad has happened yet,” Steven said. “Actually, it seems very peaceful and serene here. And remember in the worst case scenario, the gems will be here to protect me.”

“You’re right Steven, maybe I’m just being a little paranoid. How much of the island have you explored yet?” Greg asked.

“Only the grassy hills and part of the jungle, we even found a cliff that looked like the one in which the temple is carved.” Steven accounted the places they explored first.

“Cool, have you been to the beach yet?” Greg asked.

“We should be heading there tomorrow for an exploration. Peridot wants to take some water samples and run some tests on the sand. In case the –” Steven yawned “– crystals in the sand –” he yawned again.

“You still sleepy, Shtoo-ball?” Greg asked.

“Yeah.” Steven yawned again.

“I guess it’s time for you to go back to sleep.” Pearl interrupted.

“I agree. Goodnight, Steven.” Greg waved at him.

Steven yawned one last time before falling asleep. “Goodnight, Dad... ”

As soon as Steven closed his eyes Greg closed the connection and Pearl put away the computer, fixing Steven in the sleeping bag.

Meanwhile at the surfer paradise resort, the employees were struggling to get some sleep.

“Would you stop pushing your feet in my part of bed Broseph?” Reef groaned as his bedmate couldn’t stay still.

“Sorry, Reef, I'm just trying to find a comfortable position,” Broseph answered.

“Then try in a less annoying way! If we wake up late tomorrow we’ll get a strike!” Reef said.

In that moment Abram raised from his sleeping bag and approached the door.

“Uhm? Hey dude, where are you going?” Reef asked.

“Oh, me? I’m just going to the bathroom, why?” he asked , turning in their direction.

“Ah, number one or two?” Reef asked again.

Abram raised an eyebrow. “One or two?”

“Yeah you know like, which one of the Ps?” Brospeh only seemed to be confusing Abram even more.

“Wha? Oh! You mean if I need to expel solid or liquid organic waste?” Abram asked.

“Uhm, yeah dude,” Reef answered.

“Oh, well then it’s number two. I might take a while, see ya this morning.” Abram walked out closing the door behind him.

“Man, that guy seems like he has come from another planet,” Broseph said.

“No kidding, dude.” Reef rolled back under the covers.

The hours passed and the sun finally started to dawn on the island.

Since their shift started a little later, the senior employees of the hotel took some time in the early morning to surf in some less known spots around the island. A morning exercise they usually performed to get ready for the incoming load of stress.

“Man, the waves on this island are just great!” Ripper said riding a very big wave.

“No kidding, dude. This spot here is even better than any we had back at Sunset Island,” a fellow surfer said.

“Sunrise island for the win!” Johnny raised the fist, before noticing the hour on the watch. “Oh guys, we should head back now our shift begins in twenty minutes!”

“Ah, way to ruin the fun, Mr. Prissy!” Ripper headed for the shore, followed by the others.

“I vouch to name this shore the New Office!” one of them said as they walked through the palm tree grove to the hotel’s personnel entrance.

“I second that, Lance,” Ripper said.

“Hey, guys.” A girl was standing by the door.

“Kelly, what’s up?” Ripper asked her.

“Uh nothing much, except reminding you about that today we have a grom to torment,” she said.

“Uhm, Kelly, I checked his resume, he is twenty-one, he isn’t a grom anymore, you could say he is a newbie though,” Johnny pointed out.

“Potato tomato, same thing for me. He needs to know who is in charge anyways,” Kelly said.

“I agree, after all it’s not like we have got much choice, the only other new one is a girl with a man-eating tiger shark.” Ripper scowled at the memory of the terrible encounter they had the passed day.

“No kidding dude.” Lance gulped a little.

“So what are we waiting for? Let’s wake up the newbie.” Kelly opened the door.

The other members of the summer staff were all gone already, the room was seemingly empty.

“Hey look, he is still in the bed.” Ripper pointed at Abram’s sleeping bag, which presented a large swell.

“One, two, three!” Ripper and Lance quickly pounced at the sleeping bag hitting the swell at full strength.

However they suddenly raised their eyebrows as a loud ‘pop’ emitted from the bed.

“What the?” Ripper said taking away the sheets and seeing a deflating balloon laying on the bed.

“A balloon?” Lance asked.

“What is that thing doing in his bed?” Kelly asked

“I don’t know, probably to make it keep its form?" Johnny suggested.

“Darn! Where could he be?” Kelly groaned.

“We should look back in the forest, he probably knows about the initiations and he’s hiding,” Ripper said.

“I agree, it’s indeed probable,” Johnny said. “Though we should be careful with the time, and –”

“Let’s go get that Newbie!” Ripper went out the room followed by the others, while Johnny rolled his eyes.

By breakfast time, the Rainbooms were enjoying a nice first meal at the hotel’s restaurant.

“Who ordered the dietetic pancakes?” The waiter asked.

“That would be me, thank you,” Rarity politely raised her hand.

The waiter proceeded to serve her the meal, “And who ordered the triple strawberry-cherry cream pancakes with sprinkles?”

“ME!!!!” Pinkie Pie said enthusiastically.

“Alright, that was all. Would you like to pay now, or would you prefer to have it added to your bill?” the waiter asked.

“Well, I don’t think we are going to order anything else, we’ll pay now.” Twilight presented her credit card.

“Thank you. Here.” The waiter put a touch screen on the table and invited Twilight to sign.

“All done,” Twilight said completing the payment.

“Thank you for choosing the surfer paradise deluxe.” The waiter left.

The seven girls then started to eat their breakfast, enjoying the sweet and soft paste of the pancakes.

After some time the pancakes were all gone, as well as the tropical fruit juices they ordered.

“Ah what a breakfast,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Ah agree partner, it’s amazing how they got the apples grinded inside the paste without making it sloppy,” Applejack remarked.

“So girls, now what do we do?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I’m glad you asked Pinkie Pie, Sunset and I examined the island’s maps during the night, and cross referencing with the data obtained from the scanner, we managed to pinpoint some locations that seem to have the highest amount of magical energy,” Twilight explained.

“We have also assembled some magic spectrometers that should allow us to examine each point. They are in our room now and we can pick them up later,” Sunset explained.

“Good, how long will this take?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Well,” Twilight explained, “if we stay on the spots for the entirety of the day we should obtain enough data –”

“The entirety of the day?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“The longer the spectrometers stay in the zones we highlighted, the more accurate the data will be,” Sunset explained.

“But, I mean, all day? When are we supposed to have fun?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Rainbow Dash, I know we are in one of the most prized vacation sites of the planet. But remember that we are here on a mission, we only have two weeks to figure out what’s happening here.”

“I know, but hey two weeks is plenty of time. Back at school we managed to take care of magic disasters in a snap, a couple days at most.” Rainbow put her feet on the table.

“True, but this time we are facing something unknown, it might end up being something unlike anything we faced before,” Twilight said.

“Twilight has a point, we have to be very careful here and figure out the problem in the shortest time possible.” Sunset supported Twilight.

“Uhm...” Rainbow Dash groaned.

“What are we supposed to do exactly with these machines?” Applejack asked.

“The spectrometers are almost fully automated, you just have to take it with you in the areas we marked, and then activate them,” Twilight explained. “Keep in mind that while they are automated, they need to be monitored in case of system failure and in that case they’d need a reboot.”

“Do we have to move them around? Or should they be kept still?” Applejack asked.

“What matters is that they are kept in the area with the highest magical activity, the rest is secondary.” Twilight explained.

Rarity tapped on her chin thinking. “Where are the points of interest?”

Twilight proceeded to take out a tablet. “Good question, we identified three of them, the center of the town, the grassy hills and the mountains.”

“And it doesn’t matter if they are moved or not?” Applejack asked again.

“As long as you remain inside the measurement zone, everything should be fine,” Twilight answered.

“Then couldn’t we just keep them with us, and still enjoy ourselves without leaving these areas?” Rarity interrupted.

Sunset tapped on her chin. “I suppose we –”

“That could be risky, as I said you need to keep the interface under control in case of a system failure,” Twilight interrupted. “If you don’t operate the reboot in time the data could become corrupted.”

“We could just keep them in sight, I mean it’s not like we’d just leave them laying around,” Applejack said.

“But in case the data got corrupted, we’ll have to restart the measurements, that would cause us to lose useful time,” Twilight objected.

“Twilight, we’ll be careful,” Fluttershy said to her.

“Girls this is serious, every second we waste now might become a serious problem later on!” Twilight gesticulated emphasizing how much she was invested in the mission.

“Twilight… ” Sunset said.

“Yes, Sunset? Can you please explain further how important the mission is?” Twilight asked.

“Actually, Twilight... I meant to say that we can probably afford an amount of daily freetime,” Sunset said.

The answer shocked Twilight a little.

“But Sunset, you know better than me how dangerous magic can be,” Twilight answered.

“Yes I do know that, but I also know my friends,” Sunset explained. “Too much stress won’t help them, and it won’t make the mission any quicker. If anything, I’d say that it would actually have a negative effect.”

“Hmmm, you do have a point on this one.” Twilight tapped on her chin reflecting. “Okay maybe you won’t have to focus all of your attention the devices, but still be very careful.”

“Don’t worry Twilight! Careful it’s our second name! We won’t jeopardize the mission!” Pinkie Pie attempted to make a salute and accidentally hit a bottle of maple syrup making it fly around the restaurant and making it land right on the floor. Just in time for an unfortunate employee to slip on it.

“Uhm…whoopsy.” Pinkie pie wore a sheepish expression.

“Alright, let’s see if the superscanner has picked up anything.” Jeremy was inputting commands in his computer, observing also the diagrams forming on the screen.

The rest of the Lyoko team was waiting in the room as well, awaiting for Jeremy’s reports. Except for Odd, who was listening to the song he recorded yesterday of Aelita and Fluttershy singing together.

“Alright, it seems that there is some high energy activity in the north east area of the island, along with other lesser traces around the grassy hills and the beach.” Jeremy indicated a map of the island on the screen.

“Good, we should go and investigate,” Ulrich suggested.

“Indeed Ulrich, though we might have a problem.” Jeremy superimposed another map to the one already on his screen.

“Part of the north east area of the island is private property and fenced off. While we can attempt at direct observation of the activity around the grassy hills and the beach, we’ll have to do with remote observation. Luckily –” Jeremy proceeded to show a device that looked like a small parabolic dish.“– I assembled directional scanners in cases like this.”

“Why does it look like a directional microphone?” Yumi asked.

Jeremy turned to Yumi. “It’s because they work on a similar principle, these devices can pick up the slightest RF radiation coming from any electronic or electric object. Once they pick up a source they’ll stream the data to my databank here –” Jeremy pointed at a component of the large computer on the desk “– where it will be stored and confronted with the RF radiation from the supercomputer that hosted Lyoko and the ones that XANA used to host the replicas. By this evening we’ll see if any quantum computers are on the island.”

“So we just need to point them at the source of the signals?” Ulrich asked.

“Precisely, the computer is preparing some maps that will work with our phone’s GPS apps.” Aelita proceeded to explain. “They will guide you directly to the hotspots, there you’ll need just to orientate the scanner following the RF trail.”

“One more...one more...one more...YES!!!!” Odd raised from the bed and started to dance.

“Odd!” Ulrich said to him, while Yumi took away his headphones.

“Care to inform the group the reason of this?” Jeremy asked.

“Uhm, sorry, Einstein. I was kinda checking the stats of my latest video. Yesterday during the welcome party, I filmed Aelita along with that other girl, Fluttershy I guess.” He remembered that her friend with the rainbow colored hair called her that. “Their singing voices combined were so good that overnight the video got one thousand likes on Tube Tube!”

Jeremy face palmed, just like Ulrich, while the others just rolled their eyes and sighed.

“Odd...in case you didn’t get it, we are on a mission. We have got no time for Tube Tube!” Jeremy scolded him.

“Don’t worry, Einstein, I was just checking. All that celebration was because if this keeps up, It might land on the viral videos list of the year by next week!” Odd said excitedly. “You know what kind of honor would that be for a Tube Tuber? I might even win a prize!”

Everybody gave Odd a serious stare, and he quieted down. “But...I guess that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right?”

“Exactly, Odd. Now returning to my explanation,” Jeremy continued. “We will split into three groups of two people each. One group will focus on the north east part of the island, while the other two will search the grassy hills.”

“I’ll be with Yumi,” Ulrich said.

“It’s good to me.” Yumi smiled.

“William and I will be on the same group,” Odd said.

“Whatever,” William said dully.

“Alright, then the last group will be composed of me and Aelita,” Jeremy said.

“Now to pick the destinations, since it’s most sensible area, Jeremy and I will go to the north east site, while you can choose a sector of the grassy hills.” Aelita explained.

“Sounds good to me, walking in the grass is perfect to put on muscles.” Odd said.

“Alright then, everything is settled, we see each other tonight at evening. Remember to keep your phones nearby,” Jeremy instructed. “Especially you...Odd.”

He caught him again checking his Tube Tube stats on the phone.

“Mr Mcpherson? Your breakfast is here.” A waitress knocked at Dexter’s door, holding a large platter with a complete American breakfast.

Some minutes passed after the first knocks, and so the waitress knocked again a couple times more.

The door finally opened, and to the waitress’s surprise a small white and blue robot answered to it.

“Very nice weather we are having,” the robot said taking the platter with its extendable arms. “Here is a tip.” The robot then gave her some one dollar coins. “Have a nice day.” The robot closed the door behind himself.

As the door closed the waitress raised an eyebrow, then she just turned around and continued serving breakfasts to the other guests in their suites.

“Dexter, your breakfast has arrived.” The robot put the breakfast on his desk.

“Thank you, bot. Go back to recharge now.” Dexter indicated the magnetic chargers, before returning to work.

The desk was now dominated by a very large touch screen device, showing a dashboard, maps and diagrams, all arranged in a tridimensional fashion thanks to the very advanced graphical interface.

“Alright, it appears that everything is set.” Dexter inputted the last commands, “Once the Dexsat seventeen will be over the island I’ll be able to obtain a detailed screening of all its particularities. I’ll probably have enough data to deconstruct the circumstances that led to the event by tomorrow.”

He then opened some digital folders and started to examine the contents.

“Though it’s better if I gather some intelligence from the residents. The activities of the Hubberton conglomerate around the islands are suspicious.” Dexter opened another folder. “This questionnaire should be enough to extrapolate any relevant data. Bots.”

The hubberton conglomerate was the second of Dexter’s most arch rivals, the first one being Mandark. In facts it was practically the only company that stopped both the Dexlabs and the Mandark Industries from reaching the top.

“Yes, Dexter?” The bots said in unison.

“I’m uploading an automated questionnaire for the residents of the town onto your hard drives. Each of you will interrogate all the inhabitants of a sector of the town, report also any sign of unusual activities or anything analogous.” Dexter explained.

“Yes, Dexter,” The bots answered.

“Also, in case anything related to the Hubberton conglomerate is revealed, I want it to be streamed immediately to my computer."

“Yes, Dexter,” The bots answered again.

“Now go, do not disappoint,” Dexter finished.

The bots exited their recharge stations and headed for the door.

Meanwhile at the queen oyster hotel.

“Mr. Mandark, your breakfast is here.” A waiter knocked repeatedly on the door.

Some time passed and the waiter decided to knock again. He then heard a grunt, and some muffled words.

“Uhm, sir?” He asked through the door.

The waiter jumped a little as he saw a small robot with a black and red color scheme when the door opened.

“Hail Mandark,” the bot said. “I’ll take that breakfast to my master now.” The bot elongated its arms and took the platter.

The waiter raised an eyebrow but also coughed a little and approached a hand to the bot.

The bot then looked at the hand and then at the waiter.

“YOUCH!!” The waiter could be heard yelling around the hotel.

“Ah! What’s with all this racket?” Mandark asked from his chair in front of the desk.

Mandark’s room was different than it was before. All the golden and orange colors were covered in black and red tint, while some gothic decorations were added to the ceiling and the walls.

“Apologies, Master. The waiter came to serve you your breakfast but wished for a tip. This unit slammed the door on his hand,” the bot answered.

“Good work,” Mandark said continuing his work.

“Once Mandarksat One will be aligned with the island, I’ll be able to gather every single bit of data about it. And then when I crack this mystery open, I’ll have weapons that will be worth their weight in gold!” He smiled evilly. “And above all, I’ll drive Dexter into the dirt once and for all!”

“Uhm, Master?” a bot asked him.

“What do you want?” Mandark replied annoyedly.

“Could we shut down for a while? Our batteries are nearing depletion and–”

“You’ll recharge when I’ll tell you to!” Mandark interrupted. “And now you can’t because I need you to go into town and administer this questionnaire to every citizen you manage to find.”

“But sir–”

“This is crucial to my success. Thanks to these subtle questions, I’ll gather the information I need from the residents of the island.” Mandark looked with a smirk to the screen in front of him. “I mean even though this island is mostly populated by brain dead vacationers it’s impossible that they didn’t notice anything about strange about the island.”

“There would also be the need of consider the fact that the Hubberton conglomerate–”

“Oh right, these darn leeches. They are preventing my company from ascending to the top. Mmmh, I almost loathe them as much as I loathe Dexter!” Mandark punched on the desk.

He then looked at the bots.

“What are you still doing here?” The young CEO asked. “Go out and start asking the questions, leave me alone now I’m very busy.”

The bots quickly saluted and left the room.

“Anybody found him?” Ripper asked emerging from a bush.

“No sign of him over here!” Lance said, checking inside a trashcan.

“He isn’t here either,” Kelly said checking a tree.

“Guys, he isn’t inside the other dorm rooms either, he’s probably somewhere inside the hotel,” Johnny referred.

Suddenly however Johnny’s watch started to ring, his eyes started to widen as he read the hour. “We have to go back, we’re a half hour late!”

“A half hour!? Oh no, Bummer is gonna kill us!” Kelly suddenly panicked.

“Oh man! Why didn’t you warn us before!?” Ripper asked angrily.

“We were busy looking for the newbie, I got carried away,” Johnny said.

The senior employees quickly entered the locker room and furiously changed their clothes.

As they got their uniforms on, they ran for the exit of the room, only to find Andrew Baumer at the door. He was wearing a fake smile, hiding the rage building up inside of him, shown by the pulsating vein of his neck.

“Uh oh...uhm, hello, Mr Baumer.” Johnny bit his lips.

“Hello, Johnny and loafers. Tell me what hour is this?” His expression didn’t change at all.

“Uhm, eight thirty...” Johnny was on the verge of cowering.

“And when does your shift start?” Baumer asked further.

“At eight o’clock.” Johnny admitted.

“Then, why ARE YOU HERE INSTEAD OF WORKING!?!” Bummer yelled.

“I’m sorry, sir! It won’t happen again!” Johnny pleaded.

“It better not, you’ll all receive a strike for this! And remember that after three strikes you are all out,” He angrily said.

All of the employee frowned.

“Now go to your working places! You should take example from the other employees, they all arrived here in time. The new guy, Abram, even arrived here early,” Baumer said.

The eyes of the senior employee’s eyes seemed on the point of exploding.

“Wait a minute Abram was here!?” Ripper was bewildered.

“When did he arrive?” Kelly asked.

“Seven o’clock. Now get to work immediately, before I give you another strike!” Bummer furiously dismissed them.

Twilight and Sunset’s room was mostly occupied by various pieces of research equipment, all relentlessly picking up data and streaming them to some computers for processing and storage.

“Here are the spectrometers.” Twilight indicated the desk in her room, on which were placed seven devices, similar to Twilight’s old magic catcher, though they were smaller and smoother.

“Hmm not a bad design.” Rarity commented, thinking already how to blend them nicely with her dress.

“How do we operate them partner?” Applejack asked.

“The interface appears on the circular touch screen by simply tapping on it.” Twilight proceeded to demonstrate.

As her finger touched onto the smooth glass a white circle appeared around it. As the chip inside the device lectured Twilight’s fingerprint, the word “On” appeared on the screen and then it returned black again, with only a small light onto the side signaling it was still working.

“Every device has been encrypted using your fingerprints as keys, nobody else besides you can activate or access these.” She explained.

“And of course each of us can use any of these,” Sunset added.

“How do we reboot them in case something goes wrong?” Fluttershy asked looking at one of the devices.

“In case of system error, the device will emit a sound and vibrate. In that case there is a reboot button on the bottom of the device.” Twilight proceeded to point at it. “It needs to be pressed with a needle, which is incorporated in the spectrometer itself.”

She then extracted the needle from a compartment on the side of the device.

“Everybody got that?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem hard to remember. When it starts to go beep beep it needs change,” Pinkie Pie commented, taking one of the devices.

“Yeah, you could say that. But be very punctual about it, remember if you are too late to operate the reboot the device will stop working and we’ll lose data,” Twilight warned them again.

“We’ll be as punctual as the crowing of the rooster,” Applejack added, taking one herself.

“Yeah, no problem Twilight.” Rainbow Dash took her own too.

After the others took their devices too, Sunset proceeded to indicate a map of the island on the computer’s screen.

“Alright now to split the groups,” she said.

“Wake up, Steven, it’s time to wake up.” Pearl gently shook Steven in his sleeping bag.

Steven opened his eyes slowly as the light of the day was filtering through the fabric of the tent, helping him to wake up.

“Hmm, hello, Pearl.” He yawned and stretched out of it.

“How did you sleep, Steven?” Amethyst asked, who was lazing on her pile of garbage.

“I had a good night, what about you?” Steven asked.

“Eh, I prefer lazing in my own room back in the temple, but it’s not too bad,” Amethyst answered.

“Oh man, I can’t believe that Percy actually did that!” Peridot said loudly.

The group turned to her, and noticed that she was on the portable computer wearing a headset.

“Peridot? Who are you talking to?” Pearl asked.

“She is gonna say she is talking to Lapis.” Garnet entered the tent.

“Why that’s correct, Garnet.” Peridot rotated the computer so that they could see Lapis in the screen, waving at them.

“Hi Lapis!” Steven waved at her.

“Lapis says ‘hello’. I’m on a super quick Spyke chat room with Lapis, man it’s almost as good as the diamond communicator, even though it works at a much shorter range. You won’t believe what happened during Camp Pining Hearts, Percy has–”

“Uhm, can you hold that thought? We are gonna need the computer soon also,” Pearl said.

“No problem. I gotta leave the chatroom now, see ya Lapis. Keep me updated about the new season of Camp Pining Hearts, please.” Peridot proceeded to close the connection.

“Oh, Garnet, how are you today? Is your vision getting better?” Steven asked.

“It’s stationary,” she answered.

Steven was a bit relieved to know that it didn’t get worse, but still he was worried for Garnet. He hoped that whatever was causing her problem would be stopped soon.

“So today we need to check out some areas of the island. It’s just a preliminary observation so there won’t be any need of staying on site for a long time.”

“Alright, we should split into groups,” Garnet decided.

“An excellent decision, so we’ll manage to cover the most ground,” Peridot agreed.

“There is only one complication, however. We should probably buy some professional trekking equipment, Steven is going to need it.” Pearl started to check out the closest stores for that.

“I have located a store not far from here, it’s inside an hotel. The surfer paradise Deluxe.” Pearl pointed at the screen, indicating the location, which was the closest to where they installed their camp.

“Good. Pearl you go with Steven, once you buy the equipment check out the grassy hills.“ Garnet then turned to Amethyst and Peridot. “Amethyst you go with Peridot, you’ll inspect the mountains and the cliffside.”

“Where will you go Garnet?” Steven asked.

“I’m coming back to the fenced area, then I’ll explore the town,” she answered.

“Alright then, I’d say that as soon as Steven finishes the breakfast we’ll be good to go. Speaking of which…” Pearl proceeded to give Steven a platter full of sweet pancakes, with chocolate, strawberries, popcorn and whipped cream as toppings.

“Oh thank you, Pearl!” Steven smiled, starting to dig in.

Abram was at his post at the front door, opening the door whenever somebody reached for it. Whenever a customer was kind enough to give him a tip, he’d tip his hat politely.

“Enjoy your stay,” Abram greeted a woman wearing an elaborate dress with a fur, who returned him a snobbish stare.

You are welcome, he thought.

“Hey, dude,” one of the employees called him from behind.

“Yes?” Abram turned around and recognized Ripper. “Oh, Ripper, what brings you here, shouldn’t you be at the beach?”

“The beach will take care of itself for a while. Now how did you do that?” Ripper asked further, showing his anger.

“Uhm, did what?” Abram asked.

“You know exactly what I mean!” Ripper barked.

“Seriously, I got no idea what you are talking about, and I’d like to point out that the absence of a life guard can raise the possibility of accident of –”

“How did you manage to get out of the dorms with no one noticing it? And where did you get the balloon that you put inside your sleeping bag?” Ripper inquired.

“I simply woke up soon. I have an alarm clock connected with my headphones. Also my balloon? How do you know about it, did you look through my stuff?” Abram asked a little worried.

“Oh, uhm, well only the sleeping bag. Anyways, let’s say that we’ll forget everything if you come to the initiations later.” Ripper calmed down.

“Uhm, sorry but no.” Abram returned to the door as somebody else arrived. “Welcome to the Surfer Paradise Deluxe.”

“Eh no, it’s not up to you dude, these initiations are a tradition,” Ripper informed him.

“Don’t care,” Abram answered.

Ripper clenched his fists. “For your information, all groms before you went through them.”

“Well, since I’m twenty-one I’m hardly a grom, and I’m against any form of hazing. In my country we have different ways,” Abram answered bluntly.

“You don’t know who you are messing with, we aren’t kind to ‘wise guys’,” Ripper said.

“I’d love to chat some more, but now I need to concentrate. The rush hour is arriving soon and –”

“Uhm, sir?” Steven asked him, opening the door.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t open the door mister. Can I help you?” Abram asked.

Pearl joined them. “As a matter of fact, you can. Would be so kind to point us to the hotel’s trekking shop?”

As Abram noticed Pearl, he seemed like he was starting to turn white. Sweat could be seen streaming from his forehead.

“Uhm, are you okay?” Steven asked concerned.

“I...uhm...yeah, mister. Wh...what did you ask?” Abram asked.

“The coloration of your skin is changing, is something bothering you?” Pearl asked.

“What? No. Please repeat your question.” Abram put on a large forced smile.

“Uhm, yes. Where is the trekking store?” Pearl asked.

“Down that way.” Abram pointed at it.

“Thanks,” Pearl said, getting on her way.

“Dude, what’s your problem?” Ripper asked Abram.

“Uhm, err… that woman’s pearl jewel, it kinda bothered me. I mean it was huge, and under, her skin.” Abram’s eyes were rolling around in his orbits, trying to avoid contact with Ripper’s gaze.

“Oh...good to know.” Ripper smiled in a menacing way.

Alright, he doesn’t want to follow the traditions? Well it’s time for a lesson then, Ripper thought as he went away.

“Hello!!” Pinkie Pie yelled in the air to hear the returning echo.

“Man this is so much fun!” Pinkie Pie smiled.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, was looking at the landscape of the island from a cliff. Her waist was secured with a plastic fiber cord, and she had a climbing equipment protecting her.

She inhaled deeply. “Ah! Not as much as climbing up here.”

“You can see our hotel from up here!” Pinkie Pie indicated a large purple building with the statue of an orca on top.

“Come on, Pinkie Pie, remember that the landscape and the thrill aren’t the only reasons we are here!” Rainbow Dash proceeded to turn on her magic detector.

“ALRIGHT!” Pinkie Pie’s voice echoed as she proceeded to active her own too.

“Now, let’s see if we can get higher on the mountain. Whoever gets to the next plateau first, wins!” Rainbow Dash said.

They went through that challenge already to get to their current location. Basically, Rainbow Dash would use her climbing gear to reach the closest plateau, while Pinkie Pie would use her pinkie sense to find the best path to reach it before Dash.

The first time they tried it, it ended in a tie, as both Pinkie and Dash managed to get up at the same time.

This time though, Rainbow Dash seemed in advantage.

“I’m gonna make it this time!” She kept climbing the wall, hoping that she’d get there before Pinkie.

Some minutes later she finally reached the top.

“Here...I...am!!” Rainbow Dash rose her hands over the ledge and took a grip.

“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie appeared some seconds later to Rainbow Dash’s horror.

“How...how did you?” Rainbow Dash panted.

“I took the shortcut!” Pinkie Pie smiled as she helped Rainbow Dash up.

“Where? Which shortcut?” Rainbow asked.

“Stonecutters secret...” Pinkie blinked. “Alright, I just passed through these caves!”

At her shoulders there were the exits of numerous caves.

“Arg...anyways, here we are. M,an the view is even better from this plateau!” Rainbow Dash admitted, even though she lost to Pinkie Pie again.

“Yeah! I can see more of the island, and I think that I can even see the other islands from here!” She pointed at a number of islands dotting the horizon.

“Pretty cool yeah.” Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes. “Hey, what’s that?”

“What?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“That.” Rainbow Dash indicated an agglomerate of domes in the distance.

“Oh. It looks like a science lab!” Pinkie Pie remarked.

“Why do you think somebody would put a science lab here?” Rainbow Dash asked. She was starting to have suspects.

“I don’t know. You think they might looking for the same thing we are?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I’m not sure, though better if we tell Twilight about it. Hey is that a fence?” She asked pointing at black line going around part of the mountain and inside the forest.

“Seems like it. Man, they really don’t want anyone poking around there,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Hmmm. We should probably go there and take a look,” Rainbow Dash concluded.

“Oh! We can reach that side using the cave system! I bet I can use my Pinkie sense to get us there,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Oh really? What does your Pinkie sense say?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Pinkie Pie ran towards some of the cave entrances, and examined each one of them, until one of them made her hair bristle.

“Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow Dash noticed.

“Oh! My Pinkie sense it’s tingling!!!” Pinkie Pie’s hairs couldn’t stop moving. “Something is happening in this cave!”

“Then it’s in there where we are headed!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Man, this place looks even better than the website’s gallery!” Odd remarked as he and William arrived at the hotel’s beach.

It wasn’t a case that it was one of the most prized beaches of the island. It had a very fine and clean sand, as well as an almost sparkling blue water.

What really bought Odd was the amount of ladies in bikini roaming the beach. Actually, that was also one of the reason Odd insisted to go to the beach in the first place, having used to be a ladies' man back when he was at the Kadic.

“Man just like good old times!” Odd said.

“Odd, remember why we are here,” William answered promptly.

“I know mr killjoy. But who says we can’t enjoy the beach for a while?” Odd asked.

“Jeremy told us to concentrate on the mission, and it’s what i’m going to do, and it’s better if you do as well,” William answered.

“Yeah yeah, let’s do this quickly then, so at least we’ll have the evening free.” Odd pointed at opposite directions, taking out his scanner.

William just groaned and carried on.

The two wandered around the beach, seeing if their devices picked up anything. Two hours passed and nothing was found yet.

“Nothing yet, how is it on your end Odd?” William was looking at the device’s screen, showing a straight line in a cartesian graph.

William turned around “Odd?”

Turning around, William could see his teammate trying to hook up with a girl.

“Yeah, I’m a future famous Tube Tuber. Did I tell you I also met Markstache and Jackalieneye in person?” Odd indicated himself.

“Oh wow, that’s cool, what’s your channel’s name?” the girl asked, lying on a recliner asked.

“Oh, it’s ThoughnutOdd99. I make mostly music videos, I think that you’d like my break-break-breakdance-”

“Odd...what are you doing?” William interrupted.

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

“Oh, this is William. He’s a friend of mine, kinda,” Odd answered.

“Odd come on we have got no time for this!” William started to drag him away.

“Hey no wait! Ahem, check out my channel! Send me a message!” Odd said as William dragged him away.

“Ah William, why?” Odd complained.

“Maybe you forgot, but we have stuff to do. You know like looking for a supercomputer?” William asked sarcastically.

“Come on! I think she started to like me. Man, I really hope that she’ll contact me.” Odd said.

“Do you even know which country was she from? It might even turn out that she lived in a whole different continent than yours. Anyways let’s–” William suddenly got covered in muddy sand.

“Hey, what gives!” Odd asked when the sand hit him too.

The two looked at the source of the sand: it was a girl furiously digging a hole, while another one was nearby, overseeing the digging.

“Alright, it should be just a couple feet below.” Peridot was passing her hands on the terrain trying to feel the presence of big pieces of metal.

Amethyst heard and kept digging.

“Hey, what do you think they’re doing?” William asked.

“I dunno, let’s ask her. Excuse me! My friend and I were wondering what you’re up to?" Odd asked them.

William facepalmed. ...why would he think that was okay to ask her...?

Peridot turned around and Amethyst stopped digging.

“Eh?” Amethyst asked. Her head was sticking out of the hole.

“Ahem, Who are you supposed to be? And why are you asking?” Peridot asked.

“Oh, I’m Odd Dellarobbia, the one and only, and I’m asking you because –”

“Because you hit us with the sand you were digging out!” William interrupted Odd just before her could blow the reason they were there.

“Uhm, sorry about that,” Peridot said.

“Yeah, we were just digging a hole over here, like good old times!” Amethyst answered.

“I see.” William looked at them.

“Are you looking for treasures or something?” Odd asked.

“Treasures? Why would we waste our time looking for human artifacts here? I mean, there haven’t been any findings of them around this area, you clods,” Peridot said.

“Clods?” Odd didn’t understand the insult.

“Then you are digging because?” William asked further.

“Because! Because...” Peridot was having a hard time finding a good excuse.

“It’s not your business, who are you the beach police?” Amethyst answered.

“Stop right there you two!” The manager Andrew Baumer came out of it, looking at Peridot and Amethyst.

“Oh great, another clod,” Peridot muttered rolling her eyes.

“Hey what’s the problem, purple guy?” Amethyst asked.

“That is the problem.” He pointed at the hole they were digging. “That hole is way beyond the limit allowed on this beach.”

“Woah. We didn’t know about it.” Amethyst answered.

“It’s just a beach, people dig here all the time,” Peridot pointed out.

“But not something that large. Hmmm, are you guests of the hotel?” the manager asked.

“Well… that’s a… that’s a funny story… ” Amethyst put on an awkward smile.

“I guess you are not. Then do you at least have entry tickets?” The manager fought to keep on a forced smile.

“Uhm, were they necessary?” Peridot asked.

Baumer frowned a bit. “Yes, you have to leave the beach immediately, or I’ll be calling the security!”

“Argh.” Amethyst grunted.

“Hey we are trying to do something important here you clod,” Peridot insulted him.

“I see… security!” Andrew shouted inside a radio in his cart.

“Run, Peri!” Amethyst shouted, running away.

Peridot ran as well on all fours.

“Ah I’m gonna need to have somebody filling this up.” The manager took the radio again. “Jhonny, call some spare personnel to the beach, there is a huge hole that needs to be filled.”

The manager then looked over to William and Odd and noticed that they had the bracelet of the hotel.

“Oh, I’m deeply sorry about this, sirs. May I offer you a warm shower token to get that sand off? And maybe also a complimentary cappuccino?” Baumer asked sporting a very wide smile.

“I’d like the cappuccino,” Odd answered.

“We could use the shower tokens, yes. The cappuccino can wait, Odd,” William said sternly, he then looked at the hole and noticed something strange. “Where did they leave the shovels?”

“Yeah, they didn’t have them when they ran away,” Odd observed. “Maybe they dug it by hand?”

“Isn’t it a little too large? They’d have needed at least a day to dig such a big hole by hand and...and why are there shovel marks around it?” William looked inside the hole.

“Uhm sir, I’d suggest you to stay clear of the hole. The hotel does not wish you to be harmed.” The manager got out of the cart and tried to keep the two away from the hole. “I’ll have somebody from the staff fill this up immediately.”

William still looked at the hole, thoughtfully holding his chin.

Peridot and Amethyst ran through the palm tree forest directed towards the grassy hills.

“Oh great, now how do we investigate that bulk of metal you sensed underneath the beach?” Amethyst asked.

“I don’t know, we might have to organize a plan –” Peridot accidentally stumbled upon an overgrown root.

“Woah, you okay, Peri?” Amethyst asked while helping her up.

“Ugh, I am.” Peridot suddenly paused as she felt something, something very very strange. “What...is this?”

“What’s up?” Amethyst asked.

“There is something underneath this place, deep underground.” She started to push her head on the soil.

“What is it?” Amethyst asked.

“It seems to be some kind of very durable metal, but I don’t understand what kind of alloy it is.” Peridot stood up some moments after and projected a map with her gemstone, signing the location. “We have got to tell the others about this, this has to be investigated!”

“Okay we are online,” Jeremy said upon activating his scanner, which was mounted on a tripod hidden between the bushes.

“Good, I have got imagines,” Aelita said, checking the data coming from it on a smartphone.

Jeremy then proceeded to point the scanner at the fence, moving it from a side to the other.

“How is it going, Aelita?” Jeremy asked.

“There seems to be a peak in RF radiation in that direction.” Aelita indicated it.

Jeremy adjusted the tripod immediately, aligning it precisely.

“What does it look like Aelita?” Jeremy asked her.

“The RF radiation is the strongest in that point, exactly five hundred meters from here.” Aelita observed the diagrams appearing on her phone’s screen.

“Let’s see now.” Jeremy took out a couple of binoculars, pointing them at the fence.

“These trees... It’s like they have been planted there to obstruct the view.” Aelita noticed the difference density of vegetation between the two areas.

“It’s indeed a possibility.” Jeremy started to move around the binoculars trying to find some kind of clue to whatever happened there. However, he suddenly stopped when he noticed somebody else.

“Get down, Aelita!” Jeremy said quickly getting in the bush with Aelita.

“What happened, Jeremy? What did you see?” she asked.

“There is a somebody over there.” Jeremy looked out of the bush carefully pointing at a tall woman with squared hair and thick glasses standing in front of the fence.

“What do you think she is doing?” Aelita asked.

“I’m not sure. It seems she is looking at the fence,” Jeremy observed.

Garnet kept all of her three eyes focused at the fence, trying to get a vision, but still her vision became all fogged beyond two minutes.

“Hmm.” Garnet tapped on her chin, looking around.

Aelita thought that she could have been an environmental activist or something, or some random hiker.

Jeremy kept observing her with the binoculars, while his scanner kept running in automatic.

However, suddenly Jeremy stepped on a loose stick breaking it.

Garnet turned around and aligned her eyesight with the bush the two were hiding into before approaching it.

“We have been spotted!” Jeremy jumped.

“Let’s get out of here!” Aelita suggested.

“Right, let’s move.” Jeremy started to frenetically dismount the tripod, accidentally dropping the scanning device onto the ground.

“Oh no!” Jeremy picked it up quickly, hoping that it wasn’t broken in any way.

“Hello.” Garnet appeared over the bush.

Jeremy cringed upon seeing the very tall woman, and Aelita bit her lip.

“What are you two doing?” Garnet asked.

“Ahem, taking...photos?” Jeremy answered with an awkward expression.

“With what camera?” Garnet observed that the only device they had was some kind of parabolic dish, similar to a directional microphone.

“Uhm, actually this is our camera.” Jeremy indicated the dish.

“That?” Garnet inquired.

“Yes! It’s a new form of photography. We utilize ecomapping to scan landscapes and then we print out the representations!” Jeremy explained.

“Exactly! It’s a new form of art, we got into it as soon as we heard of it.” Aelita added.

“Huh...” Garnet had a thoughtful look.

“If you are done asking, then we’d be on our way. There are a lot of sites to photograph on this island, see yah!” Jeremy quickly took the tripod and the device and took off with Aelita.
Garnet assumed once again a thoughtful expression.

Jeremy and Aelita ran fast through the forest and reached the town.

“That was close...” Jeremy was panting as both he and Aelita finally stopped to catch their breath.

“You think –” Aelita took a deep breath “– she saw something?”

“I’m not sure, but hopefully no, and it doesn’t appear that she followed us.” Jeremy looked behind. “Wow, I have never run so fast...we reached the town.”

“We should probably head back to the hotel, the sooner we review the data the better,” Jeremy said.

“I agree, let’s see where the nearest bus station is.” Aelita took out her phone looking for the GPS.

After locating one, the two went down the street and got a good look of the town.

While it was a very small town, it was quite busy, and the many shops and restaurants showed how much the town thrived on tourism rather than anything.

“One of these days we should go dining out. I wonder how the dishes they make here taste.” Aelita looked at some of the restaurants they were passing by.

Jeremy looked thoughtful; normally he’d not want to indulge in something like that during a mission, but probably some exceptions could have been made. Especially for Aelita.

“We can definitely do something like that, but it will have to wait until we figure out why your father had us coming here,” Jeremy concluded.

“Alright,” Aelita answered.

“Very nice weather we are having...” A metallic voice echoed nearby.

“Uhm?” Jeremy turned around, upon hearing the strange voice. Aelita did so too.

The two could see a blue and white robot talking to a store owner.

“Good day ma’am, I’m a representative of the Dexlabs, I’m here to ask you some questions if possible,” the Dexbot said politely.

“Uh...sure?” The store owner was disoriented.

“Very good, would you want me to refer to you by name?” The Dexbot asked. “In such case, please speak your name and surname clearly.”

“Uhm–” The woman was about to speak, but another robot rudely interrupted her.

“Good day human,” a Mandroid rudely interrupted her before she had the chance to answer. “I come on the behalf of the Mandark Industries: the most advanced research facility in the world, under the control of the brilliant Madark. We have a series of questions for you, and we are confident you’ll be smart enough to answer.”

“I beg your pardon?” The woman asked visibly offended.

“Warning. Bot belonging to Mandark detected!” The Dexbot said.

“Dexbot detected! Competition elimination protocol engaged!” The Mandroid got in an offensive stand and then moved towards the Dexbot with its arms extended.

“Commencing self defense protocol!” The Dexbot raised its arms shielding itself.

The store owner raised an eyebrow and then retreated back to his shop as a slap fight ensued.

Aelita and Jeremy had a similar reaction too.

“What are these?” Aelita wondered.

“Hmm, robots it appears, and quite advanced ones too.” Jeremy looked at them, and finally noticed the symbols on their chassis.

“Dexlabs and Mandark Industries...why do these names sound familiar?” Jeremy brought a hand to his chin thoughtfully.

Some hours later the sun started to set. The working day was finally over the employees of the surfers paradise.

“Have a good evening,” Abram saluted the last customer to leave the hotel before the ending of his shift arrived.

“Woah, this was one productive day. I can’t wait to get some restoring rest.” Abram opened the door to the bunk beds.

As he entered he noticed that Ripper and Lance were looking out the window, and along with them there was also Kelly, who was turned around, looking at somewhere else.

“Uhm, hi, Ripper. How was your day? No hard feelings for the initiation question, right?” Abram asked.

“Oh don’t worry, dude. However could you please come closer?” Ripper asked signaling to come closer.

“Sure, I guess.” Abram came closer.

“A little closer,” Ripper signaled again.

“O...k.” Abram could notice a grin in Ripper’s reflection on the window. “What’s up?”

“I need your opinion Abram...how is my new...LOOOOOOK!!” Ripper turned around and showed that the skin of his face had stones around it, bordered by a red liquid.

“Don’t they look chiiiiic? But they are so paaaainful!” Lance turned around as well, his face was in the same state.

“Implanted stones are great, but I think I did something wrong!!!” Kelly arrived behind Abram, wearing the exact same “jewelry”.

The three seniors thought that Abram would have screamed his lungs out, ran out of the room, or tried to vacate through the window. They even placed some cameras to record everything. But Abram displayed only a bemused face.

“Uhm, hey. Stones in our skin, right here, just like that lady that creeped you out this morning?” Ripper pointed at his biggest stone.

“Ripper. These stones are clearly glued to your body, and even a daltonic could tell that this is fake blood.” Abram touched a droplet of the fake blood. “The consistency is completely off as well as the coloration.”

“Not true! This stuff is real!” Lance said.

“Yeah right, lemme guess.” Abram tasted the material covering his finger. “You used, ketchup, corn syrup and colorants?”

Ripper’s eye wrinkled a little.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Abram said. “Where did you find the materials to do this anyways, the kitchen?”

“Uh...” Lance was surprised that he figured it out so fast.

“Argh! Fine you win.” Ripper ripped off some of the stones he had on his face. Yelping in pain afterwards.

“I really hope you put the supplies you utilized back in the kitchen...” Abram looked quite concerned.

“Why do you care?” Ripper asked.

“Uhm, because if I remember correctly, stealing materials of any kind is ground to get a strike so when the direction will find out–”

Abram was cut off by door slamming revealing a very angered Andrew Baumer.

“Uhm, good evening, sir,” Abram greeted their employer.

“Don’t try to mellow me with some fussy behavior.” The manager pointed at Abram. “I know that you stole some supplies from the kitchen!”

“H...how can you tell?” Ripper asked, trying to hide the stones he took from his face under his back.

“You have got homemade fake blood on your skin, and I have found a whole bowl used to mix the ingredients for it in one of the bathrooms!” The manager snarled clearly furious.

“I can assure you, sir, that I don’t have anything to do with this,” Abram said quickly.

“I’ll be the judge of that, your hands please.” The manager ordered.

“My hands?” Abram raised an eyebrow.

“Yes your hands! Now put them where I can see them.” The manager ordered again.

Abram obeyed and put them forward. The manager then proceeded the smell them both inhaling very deeply.

“Hmmm, you are clean. Even too clean, you kinda smell like disinfectant,” The manager remarked.

“Well...I had to get very clean when I used the clean room back in college –” Abram was quickly cut off again.

“Enough I don’t need the story of your life.” Andrew turned over facing the others. “Now it’s your turn.”

The others gulped and let the manager smell their hands. And much to the senior’s dismay, he managed to recognize the smells.

“Hmmm, corn syrup, tomato ketchup and a hint of chemical colorant,” Baumer said.

“Remarkable how did you–?” Abram was interrupted by the manager again.

“Many years of practice. You will all get a strike for what you did, except for you, Abram, you may go free,” Andrew declared.

The seniors emitted a groan of annoyance upon hearing that.

“Uhm sir, I don’t have to go anywhere. I live here for the moment,” Abram said.

“I was as being metaphorical. And one more thing, the cost of the supplies you stole will be detracted from your monthly pay. Goodnight.” Andrew proceeded to leave the room.

“Well, sorry for you gu–” Abram was cut off by Ripper’s mad expression right in his face.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but be sure of one thing, we’ll make the rest of your summer worse than a school year unless you start respecting the code of this place.” Ripper was almost steaming anger.

“Listen up Ripper, I’m here because I have work to do. I need to get money to finance a project of mine and that’s the only reason I’m here, I have no reason for submitting to your rules, especially if they include hazing in any form. With this, I must leave now. The air is getting heavy in here.” With that Abram left the room as well with his briefcase, leaving two furious seniors and a raging one behind.

“Alright dude, this is war!” Ripper proclaimed.

On the other hand in Dexter’s room, he was consuming his rich dinner. Pondering what to do.

He didn’t expect Mandark would be able to pick up the energy trail of the phenomena, not that fast anyways. His company’s satellite network system was very outdated compared to his own.

“Uhm sir, are you in need of assistance?” One of the Dexbots read his level of stress increasing.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Dexter answered as he quickly figured out what kind of help he needed.

“How may I assist you?” The dexbot asked.

“Use your direct mainframe link to contact the headquarters. Inform Computress that I want her here by tomorrow morning.” Dexter said, his synthetic assistant would have been a fundamental help with the current situation.

“Will do, sir.” The bot answered.

Dexter then returned to his dinner, thinking more about the events to come. If the mandroids were there, Mandark wasn’t far either. And if he was, then keeping an eye on him was imperative, and by now he probably had learned of Dexter’s presence too.

Meanwhile at the queen oyster, Mandark learned about the presence of his rival.

“WHAT!?” He asked upon hearing the news from his bot.

“We have come in contact with some dexbots while surveying the town. They appeared to be questioning the islanders and the tourists,” the bot explained.

“Hmmm so that skunk of Dexter is here too. He probably hacked into my systems to get the coordinates of this place. My server farm staff is getting fired as soon as I come back.” Mandark stomped back and forth across the room. “But first I need to find a way to disrupt his investigations, this place’s power will be mine and mine only!”

Mandark then sat down and started to reflect, squishing an anti-stress puppet shaped like Dexter.

“Maybe slowing him down will be enough. Yes, slowing Dexter down with some well elaborated tactics, just enough for me to unlock the secrets of this island, then I’ll be able to beat him out of market,” Mandark concluded.

At the camp of the crystal gems on the other hand, Peridot was proceeding to present her and Amethyst’s findings.

Pearl and Steven were unsuccessful, as they found nothing while exploring the surrounding area of the grassy hills, even though Steven had the occasion of meeting some people who were exploring as well.

Garnet referred of the two people she met and described them in the detail, suggesting to keep an eye of them in case they met them again. With what was left of her future vision she knew that Peridot and Amethyst made the most significant discovery.

“As Amethyst previously explained, our metal detection operation was cut off by the interference of three humans, but while escaping from them, I accidentally tripped over the root of a tree,” Peridot explained calmly and scientifically. “Because of this fortuitous accident, I was able to sense a large quantity of an exotic alloy deep in the underground of the island. Approximately at five hundred meters below the surface.”

“Hmmm. What could it be?” Pearl wondered. “I doubt the humans have achieved a knowledge of engineering high enough to built structures at such a depth. Maybe we should reevaluate the possibility of it being a gem structure?”

“Plausible, but I can’t tell for sure," Peridot explained. “The alloy was indeed very advanced, but personally it felt unlike anything I have knowledge of. It seemed to be made of some kind of very strong form of enriched steel, tungsten and carbon fiber, but it felt...off. There were some compounds I couldn't identify precisely which bore a staggering resemblance with organic cell structures, along with trace amounts of elements that I suspect to be mercury, cobalt, gold, silicon and silver.”

Pearl raised an hand to her chin, theorizing about the possible nature of the structure and of the alloy.

“This is a relevant discovery, we have to investigate this.” Garnet reasoned.

“Exactly what I was going to say,” Peridot said. “I suggest we first extrapolate an approximate map of the underground structure utilizing my power, then we can work on a way to excavate all the way to it.”

“If it is five hundred meters below the surface, then we are going to need an automated drill. If there is a mechanic on this island we could gather the parts to build it from there,” Pearl said.

“Maybe we could simply find a hatch, like if this structure was made by somebody they’d need to come in and out through somewhere, right?” Amethyst suggested.

“That’s actually plausible too, and could save us a lot of mechanical work,” Pearl reasoned.

“If there is an access point, I’m confident it’s made of a similar material, I’ll be able to localize it using my power,” Peridot said.

“Then it’s decided, we’ll start the investigation tomorrow from the site of Peridot’s discovery,” Garnet declared.

Meanwhile the Rainbooms sans Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were in Sunset’s and Twilight for the debriefing.

“So...has anybody uncovered anything useful?” Sunset questioned her friends.

“Unfortunately not, we found nothing around the grassy hills,” Fluttershy said.

“Yup, we found nothin’.” Applejack was laying on the sofa with her hands under her head.

“We found nothing worthy of mentioning. The most unconventional thing we saw was a woman in a strange outfit with a jewel on her head…” Rarity remembered seeing Pearl and Steven hiking in the distance.

“How is it going with the magic-finding-thingies, Twilight?” Applejack asked.

Twilight was sitting at the desk. The magic spectrometers were connected to her computer, and trough an analysis program she was evaluating their findings.

“Hmmm, well so far we have got nothing. This island seems to have a considerable amount of magical energy, but it’s too amorphous and scattered to give any hint regarding the position of the source.” Twilight pointed at the flat graphs on the screen.

In that moment the door opened up with a ‘slam’, getting the attention of everyone in the room.

Pinkie Pie entered and ran to Twilight. “Twilight! You won’t believe what happened to us!!”

“Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, it’s about time you arrived. Where were you?” Sunset asked.

Twilight raised from her seat. “Yeah, our daily debriefing was scheduled one hour ago, we started now because we couldn’t delay any longer.”

“And what in the heavens happened to your hair!?” Rarity asked, seeing that their hair was puffy and spiky as if they were electrified.

“Oh, we got in a magic cave!” Pinkie said.

Sunset's mouth fell open in disbelief for a moment, before curving back up into an excited grin. “Magic cave? What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain.” Rainbow Dash stepped forward. “Alright then, while we were exploring the mountain we discovered a cave system and Pinkie Pie’s Pinkie sense went haywire when she entered it.”

Twilight and Sunset glanced at each other. If something triggered the Pinkie sense it was surely something important. “Go on,” they said in unison.

“So we followed the Pinkie sense, and halfway inside the cave system, our powers reappeared!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “The spectrometers! Give me the spectrometers!”

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash proceeded to give them to Twilight and she plugged them inside the computer.

“What else happened?” Sunset asked.

“It was sick! I ran with my rainbow speed and crashed into a wall, and it broke!” Rainbow Dash explained.

“It broke!? How fast were you moving?” Twilight asked while trying not to take her eyes off the screen.

“I don’t know, for some reason I moved faster than I have ever did before. But that’s not all, behind the wall we found some kind of awesome cave!”

“Yeah! It was filled with floating crystals!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

Rarity snapped to attention. “Crystals!? What colour were they? What were they made of!?”

“Not a good time for that, partner. What was so cool about a bunch of rocks?” Applejack asked.

“Some of them were floating!!!” Pinkie Pie yelled. “And they were electrified, we got these pretty hairstyles when we touched them!”

“Please, Pinkie Pie, stop ruffling them before somebody else sees you.” Rarity could barely tolerate the sight of an afro hairstyle in that context.

“Also, the deeper we moved in, the more our powers got stronger,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “It got to a point that I couldn’t even move without speeding.”

“Oh my gosh!” Twilight exclaimed as the data from the spectrometers finished downloading.

“What is it, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Look at these values! They are almost over the scale!” Twilight exclaimed pointing at the graphs on the screen.

“You are right...they are almost as high as the values of Canterlot high!” Sunset Shimmer couldn’t believe her eyes.

The others jumped hearing that.

“WHAT!?” Pinkie Pie yelled. “Oh wait, it was actually pretty predictable.”

“Higher than Canterlot high’s? This has to be investigated!” Sunset started pacing around. “There could definitely be another passage to Equestria in there, or other magic infused crystals like the ones at camp everfree.”

“I have got to prepare my spelunking outfit!” Rarity ran to the closet.

“So I guess that tomorrow will be caving day,” Applejack said, putting her hands behind her head.

Rainbow Dash looked at Applejack confidently. “Yup, and in a magic stained cave...you know what that means right?”

“Superpowers clash?” Applejack looked back at her smirking.

Rainbow Dash nodded.

“We are going to need a more precise instrument.” Twilight started disassembling the devices one by one. “Before we go to sleep I’ll utilize the components of the singular spectrometers to build a more powerful one.”

“I’ll give you a hand with that Twilight,” Sunset Shimmer started disassembling the devices too.

“Anything yet, Jeremy?” Yumi asked her friend as he sat in front of the computer.

“It appears nothing so far.” He looked at the graphs on the screen, in particular to a window in the center showing a wireframe of the imagines that the camera recorded.

“No signs of relevant quantum computer activity,” Aelita pointed out. “That place has either a good shielding or they aren’t researching quantum computers there.”

“You might be right on the latter, Aelita. If the facility was shielded then the scanner wouldn’t have picked up anything, which isn’t the case.” Jeremy pointed at the some of dots on the wireframe of the facility. “Also, I doubt that anyone would spend the money needed to completely isolate a facility of these proportions.”

“Maybe what we are looking for is somewhere else?” Ulrich asked.

“Yeah, maybe there could be another facility on the island,” William suggested.

“Could be, but that would make the research even harder. I haven’t found any other information regarding advanced science facilities on this island, if there is another one then it might be hidden or something,” Jeremy reasoned.

“Hey what’s wrong with the camera now?” Odd asked pointing at the screen.

The imagine changed angle very rapidly and pointed at the ground.

“Oh, this is when we met that woman we told you about, we accidentally dropped the cam–” Jeremy noticed something curious about the imagine when the camera framed the ground. The graphs nearby showed a small peak, a flicker coming from underneath the ground.

“What did you find Jeremy?” Odd asked curiously.

“I’m not sure...” Jeremy was giving all of his attention to the screen, trying to discern whether the flicker was an error or if it was a lead.

After a couple minutes, Jeremy managed to extrapolate the anomaly.

“Alright I can safely say that it wasn’t an error.” Jeremy tapped on his chin looking at the screen.

“That’s an RF signature of some device, but it’s very faint.” Aelita said.

Jeremy looked at the estimated position values. “That’s probably because it’s underground...very deep underground.”

The depth was around five hundred meters below ground.

“Yeah, if whatever is down there can emit a signal that can be traced from the surface, then it must be pretty powerful.” Aelita looked at the screen closely.

Jeremy adjusted his glasses. “Indeed, for even such a small signal to pass through all these layers of rock and soil, the emitting device would need a considerable power source.”

“I think we might have found the hidden facility. Now the question is, how do we get to it?” Ulrich asked.

“Uhm...Jeremy could build an army of Kiwi twos?” Odd tried to crack a joke.

Everyone in the room rolled their eyes and groaned.

“Hardly Odd. Could you please be a little serious?” Jeremy looked at him.

“Come on I was just trying to make a joke, you know brighten up the day.” Odd put his hands behind the head laying on the sofa.
“Anyway...since we can’t reach the computer physically, I guess we could try to find out if there are any connection channels to it.” Jeremy massages his temples as he thought about potential solutions.

“Perhaps we could repurpose the super scanner?” Aelita suggested.

“That’s a good idea Aelita, if we start working now and dine later, we could have it done by tomorrow.” Jeremy started to open some of folders containing the super scanner’s source code.

Meanwhile at the domes.

“Status report,” Hubberton ordered as an image of himself appeared on the wall of a very advanced laboratory.

An old man wearing a lab coat raised from his seat and got in front of the olographic wall. “Mr Hubberton, the results of the research have been satisfying. After many tests in vitro, on plants and animals we are starting to understand how the substance works.”

The lab behind him was quite large and very modern, like most of the domes. The counters all had touch screens on them, and were mostly covered in testing tubes and chemistry equipment. Some cages containing lab rats could be seen, along with other animals. At the center of the lab there was a clean room, containing numerous robotic arms mounted on rails passing on the floor and the ceiling, and in the center there was a large cylinder, containing some kind of liquified metal. Around the cylinder there were some writings and two symbols: one depicting a sphere with circuits running around it and another one depicting what looked like a round cell with a gear around it.

“Show me,” Hubberton ordered. As he said so an interface appeared on the wall presenting a large handprint on it.

“Of course, sir.” The scientist proceeded to put his hand on the interface, and as he did so it expanded to show a screen with a list on it, along with it there was the wireframe of something spherical. Afterwards the scientist proceeded to tap on some other buttons and a progressing bar that read “sending” appeared.

Hubberton reviewed the list and then looked at the scientist.

“I’m pleased to see that you are making progresses,” Hubberton said.

“The substance appears to be an amalgamation of cells augmented with inorganic components, and it can be controlled utilizing a set of signals.” The scientist proceeded to tap on some icons appearing on the wall, displaying sets of images. The images showed different stages of experiments conducted on the substance. “Utilizing radio frequencies, it's possible to encode operations on the cells, causing them to react.”

“I see.” Hubberton watched with interest.

“With the right conditions, the cells can form tissues that can serve different functions or even make reparations at pre existing tissues with extreme precision. The potential applications in the field of robotics are numerous, but also in other fields such as construction and medicine,” the scientist said.

“Excellent, regarding the latter what of the experiments regarding the interaction of the substance with biological tissue?” Hubberton asked.

The scientist tapped on some more icons appearing on the wall. “These are the results of the tests conducted in vitro and vivo. As you can see, the cells contained within the substance remain in some sort of standby mode until they are solicited by a signal.”

Images of petri capsules were shown, but also guinea pigs and various other animals.

“I see,” Hubberton examined each imagine.

“The substance remains inert and remains in the body indefinitely, occasionally recycling dead cells to make reparations to its own.” The scientist explained.

Hubberton looked interested. “What of the possible applications of the substance to medicine?”

“Well we still need to conduct the experiments, but the applications range from fighting tumors to gene therapy.”

“Excellent, you’ll concentrate your efforts on this field then,” Hubberton said. “I expect you to begin experimenting with the activated substance by the next days.

“Of course, sir.” the scientist answered.

“Give special attention to the gene-therapy feature. I’ll even authorize experiments on human subjects if it will be necessary.” Hubberton seemed pretty impatient while talking about that specific topic.

“Experimenting on humans?” The scientist looked quite shocked upon hearing so.

“Think of the potential gain here. What is a little risk in the face of what we could accomplish.”

“But sir… The procedure is still very dangerous. I don’t think we could get enough volunteers.”

Hubberton just smiled and shook his head. Small minds, always worrying about the wrong things. "I'll see to that, there are a lot of ways to persuade somebody."

The scientist clearly still had concerns, but seemed unable to voice them. “Yes… Of course, it will be done, sir.”

“Excellent.” Hubberton closed the call and leaned back in his chair. It wouldn’t be long now. With the resources already at his disposal and what they would acquire on Sunrise Island, he and XANA would be able to bend the world to their will.

Scratching the Surface

[Location: Earth, Oceanian Continent, Sunrise Island, Shanty Inn]

Stanley opened his eyes lazily as the light of the day started to filter through the curtain covering the window of his room.

He rose from the bed and set the sheets aside, sighing he opened the curtains allowing the light of the sun to illuminate the small studio apartment in which he lived. Inside of it there was a bed, a small cooking corner, with a microwave oven, an electric cooker, a small fridge and a sink, and a table with two seats, positioned so that it would be aligned with an old looking TV.

He had been living there since the day he got to that island. He used to work in Townsville, for a fledgling real estate company and was stationed at a subsidiary at the island. However his carrier got to a crashing halt during the economic crisis of the early tens. After losing his job and all of his money when the company went bankrupt he had to take different jobs, until he managed to afford living in the small room he was in on regular basis. Most of the jobs were related to janitorial activities and didn’t allow him to gross a lot of money.

That day hopefully he’d have been able to give his life a turn for the better. Recently a large multinational company called Hubberton Corporation put on the island’s newspaper ads regarding testing new medicines promising a substantial sum of money in return and cake.

With this money he would have managed to come back to Townsville and probably start over with another company.

He quickly consumed a breakfast consisting of a bowl of cereals, and a glass of water. Afterwards he headed into the bathroom and got clean, before putting on some relatively clean clothes and heading out.

Once at the lobby of the building he was rudely greeted as usual by the manager of the inn.

“Remember not to lose your keys while outside.” He groaned before coming back to reading a newspaper.

Stanley nodded and left the building, heading towards the nearest bus station.

Some hours later the Rainbooms were hiking towards the mountain, taking some nice fresh air and admiring the beauty of the scenery before they’d start their investigation.

“Here we are!” Pinkie Pie announced, as they reached the entrance of the cave system.

Fluttershy trembled a little at the sight of the long and dark cave. “It looks do dark and scary...”

“Thank goodness I had the time to design us some stylish mining hats,” She said taking some very elaborated mining hats out of her bag, each of them customized for each member of the group.

“You sure this is the one Pinkie?” Applejack asked.

“Hmmm.” She gave a look at the entrance. “Yep, my Pinkie Sense is very loud and clear!”

“I’m inclined to think this is correct, by cross referencing the data obtained by the spectrometers with the measurements this instrument is picking up right now I can tell that there is a strong flux of magical energy coming from the island.” Twilight was checking carefully the data appearing on the screen of her device.

“I think I can feel it too, there must be something very powerful in this mountain if it radiates all the way to the outside.” Sunset stepped closer to the cave entrance.

“Well, let’s get in then!” Applejack said.

“Race you to the crystal cave?” Rainbow Dash suggested.

“Did you even need to ask?” Applejack winked.

“Alright, ready, set g-” Rainbow Dash was cut off by Twilight.

“Wait! That’s a terrible idea!” She stopped them. “Don’t you remember Dash, you said the closer you get to the cave the more your magic comes back.”

“Twilight is right, if you gained back your powers suddenly inside a dead end cave you could get hurt!” Sunset pointed.

“Ugh...you are right,” Applejack said.

“Yeah...though there wouldn’t be any harm if we raced to the outside?” Rainbow Dash reasoned.

Sunset though about it. “Hmmm I guess not,”

“Then the challenge is still on, but postponed.” Rainbow Dash concluded.

Applejack nodded in return.

“Alright, how about we get in the cave now?” Twilight asked, she wouldn’t have tolerated losing another second.

The other girls hurried up to get their respective hats, turning on the lights. Fluttershy did it first.

“Alright girls, now let’s stay close, and nobody wanders off,” Sunset said.

Meanwhile the crystal gems were moving out for a reconnaissance as well, but in another direction.

“Here we are.” Peridot pointed at the ground in front of her, specifically to the mark on the ground she left when she faltered the other day.

“So this is where you felt the mass of metal beneath the island?” Pearl asked.

“Precisely here, please take note, it was approximately five hundred meters below the ground. Hmmm, actually five hundred fifty.” She was laying her head on the ground, concentrating.

Pearl took out a pen and started writing on papers she kept on a clipboard. Taking note of the position and the depth of the segments of the structure.

Steven helped her with his GPS.

“So...how long is this going to take?” Amethyst asked.

“I’m not sure, it depends on how big the structure is in it’s totality. It could take a few hours or maybe even the whole day,” Peridot explained.

“Meh, let’s hope it’s the former...” Amethyst said.

Steven thought about other relevant things they could have considered and spoke up, “Can you tell what’s the shape of the metal too, Peridot?”

“Let’s see...it seems to be circular, probably so that it’s geometry will withstand the pressure better.” Peridot concentrated more and started moving in the direction of it. “It seems to be pretty long- Wait, I think I can feel something larger, it’s some kind of subterranean chamber. It’s large and circular, very smoothed too around the edges. It connects with eight more conduits radially. The radius of the chamber is thirty meters, and the depth is the same as the conduit.”

Pearl quickly took note, trying to imagine the map of the underground structure compared with the island’s map.

As time went on, the group started to have an idea of how extensive the facility beneath the island was.

“Ah, welcome, Computress.” Dexter said opening the door for his partner allowing her to enter.

Once Dexter revealed the existence of his lab to the world and extending it to another larger facility, he started to upgrade his synthetic assistant so that she’d manage to operate both structures remotely. The final upgrade was an independent body, self powered and capable of connecting with the facilities extremely fast. It was where Dexter placed her central synthetic brain. The body had an anthropomorphic shape, feminine, even though instead of legs it had a small anti-grav levitation system.

Along with her was Broseph the bellhop. “Oh...you weren’t kidding, sorry hum...lady?”

“Lady will suffice,” Computress said.

“Has this man bothered you, Computress?” Dexter asked after hearing the brief conversation.

“This man thought I was wearing a disguise to sneak inside the hotel for free.” Computress explained.

“I’m my defense the only place I have seen androids before were movies, and you won’t believe it but it actually happened before,” Broseph explained.

“I guess I can’t blame you then, but I require that you and the rest of the staff will treat Computress with the utmost respect as long as she’ll be residing here with me,” Dexter answered him.

“It will be done, Sir.” Broseph answered.

“Very well then. That will be all.” Dexter dismissed him.

Computress had a metallic suitcase with her, code locked.

“Well, how was the flight?” Dexter asked.

“Optimal. My one-seat plane performed perfectly. The flight went on uninterrupted.” She answered.

“Excellent. Then you may get settled in, place your recharger wherever you please. Once you are done join me immediately. We have much work to do.” Dexter told her.

“I have read the reason for my summons, so I brought with me a level ten encoder to make sure Mandark won’t attempt to spy on us.” Computress opened the suitcase and handed Dexter a white box with blue circuits running around it.

“Ah, my dear Computress, will you ever cease to pleasantly surprise me?” Dexter asked.

“State your generalities.” A soldier asked Stanley as he arrived at the labs’s checkpoint.

“I’m Stanley Bubbole, I’m here for the test subject initiative.” He proceeded to show him his passport.

“Lemme see that.” The soldier extended his hand.

Stanley handed him his passport, afterwards he passed it underneath a scanner.

“Everything checks out, go ahead.” Pressed a button that raised a barrier.

“Thanks man.” Stanley walked off towards the labs.

While he walked around Stanley took a good look at the scenery. The domes were huge, and he couldn’t help but wondering what sciency stuff could require all that. Not to mention that the buildings looked very modern and that there were many cameras surveilling every corner. But he shrugged off the thought, he had other stuff to worry about.

He made his way to the main dome and entered what was the main door. He found himself in a huge atrium, all made out of a pearly white material with many lights embedded into it, diffusing a uniform white light.

Stanley was in awe at that sight, even though the feeling of being watched grew as he entered.

In the center of the atrium there was a large curved desk. Some people wearing formal dresses sat behind it, working on some remarkable touch screen computers or occasionally talking with a passing scientist.

“Very well, welcome, Mr. Stanley,” One of the receptionists greeted the man as he presented his documents once again. “There is a module to compile. Please answer sincerely and don’t forget to check in all the disclaimers. You may compile them over there.”

He was pointing at some comfy looking white sofas, each of them in front of a nice short table with some magazines or candies on.

Stanley got to work immediately, sometimes indulging himself with the candies, as he barely had any breakfast.

“Oh good heavens, this cave is so dark and humid,” Rarity complained as they went deeper inside the mountain.

“Well, it’s a cave after all, partner,” Applejack remarked.

“Don’t worry though. We’re almost there!” Pinkie Pie announced moving with ease, remembering the path to the crystal cavern easily.

“Oh, that’s good to know. I don’t know how much more I can take,” Rarity said.

The cave had a lot of moss around it, which made the travel quite unpleasant, especially for Rarity, though on the other hand, Twilight was amazed by how easily the moss grew on the walls. She took numerous samples with her so that she could study them later with better equipment.

Sunset was extremely focused on the path ahead, she could feel the magical energy growing stronger at each step. If she weren’t sure of the contrary, it felt like they were about to step back into Equestria.

“WOAH!” Rainbow suddenly dashed forward, stopping just in time before hitting something. “Check it out girls, my speed is coming back!”

“Oh, lemme see...” Applejack quickly grabbed a nearby boulder and lifted it with minimal strength. “So is my strength!”

“AHHH!!!” Rarity emitted a high pitch scream.

“Rarity, what’s the problem!?” Sunset asked upon hearing that.

“CRYSTALS!!” She pointed at the ending of the cave, which was filled with crystalline formations.

“Oh look! We’re here!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully. “Oh! Just to be sure...”

She quickly took out a container of sprinkles, extracted a small portion of them and threw them on the ground. The sprinkles immediately exploded upon impact.

“Yup! That’s the cave.” Pinkie Pie announced.

Twilight touched one of the crystals. “Wow...it’s strange how much magic seems to be related to crystal formations. Rarity, you brought the gem examination kit?”

“Oh darling, of course i did.” She proceeded to open a large bag she had with her, extracting a bundle containing numerous tools.

“Alright then, everybody be careful,” Sunset said.

Some time later at the domes, Stanley was reached by an old scientist, who would then escort him to the testing area.

“So, what do you do here again?” Stanley asked, looking around the laboratories and white rooms they passed while walking down the hallway.

“Private multi-field research, Mr. Stanley. Basically, a bit of everything, from medicine to robotics to physics even,” The scientist explained him.

“Ah, serious stuff then, I see.” Stanley put his hands behind his neck. “So...what am I going to test exactly? Some kind of new medicine?”

“Yeah, more or less. It’s a new kind of cellular rejuvenation treatment involving the use of nanotechnology.” The scientist explained.

“Nanotechnology? You mean like super small robots?”

“Precisely, you’ll be injected with a quantity of nanites and then you’ll be closely monitored to see how they’ll interact with your body.”

“I see. It is safe, right?”

“Yes it is. Allow me to assure you that the experiment won’t put your life at risk,” The scientist said.

“So...the bots won’t try to, like, invade my cells or eat them and kill me from the inside? Right?”

“As I said before, the experiment won’t put your life at risk, and it’s highly improbable if not impossible that anything the sort will happen.”

“Alright then, that’s good to know. So are we there yet?” He asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes, we are.” He opened the door to a room labeled test chamber two hundred twelve.

The walls of the test chamber were bare, very smooth and sterilized from ceiling to the floor.

At the center of the room there stood a surgical chair with a mechanical arm nearby holding a syringe.

The scientist then lead him towards the chair, “Now please, take a seat and a nurse will be with you in a minute.”

“Got it. One moment though, what about the cake?” Stanley asked.

“Cake?”

“Yeah the ad on the newspaper mentioned cake.”

“Oh....uhm i’m afraid that was a lie.”

“Awww come on, Man.” Stanley whined in disappointment.

“Don’t worry though, your compensation will be delivered immediately after the experiment.”

“Fine, fine...this better not be another lie.”

“Hmmm, there is a crossroad here. The conduits go in that direction,” Peridot proceeded to point towards it and then pointed at her side, “and these.”

“Wow...it's something really big.” Steven remarked.

“Indeed, Steven...way too big for human standards and at such a depth nonetheless,” Pearl agreed, having already burned through five pages of notes.

Amethyst was lazing on a nearby rock, “I don’t know about you two, but I smell homeworld business.”

“Even though I’m still skeptical about it, as it stands now, it would be unwise to rule out this possibility.” Peridot reasoned.

“What do you think, Garnet?” Steven asked.

As no answer came, Steven turned towards her. She looked deep in thought and concentrated.

“Uhm...Garnet?” Steven asked.

“Shh…please.” Garnet shushed Steven.

Steven understood immediately that she was thinking about something important, so he simply looked back at Pearl and Peridot.

Garnet was focused on the midst that was blocking her future vision. If she concentrated strongly enough she could discern some figures in between the midst, and the sooner something occurred the easier it was to lock onto the imagine. In that moment, she could discern a human silhouette changing shape.

“Ouch…” Stanley whined as the syringe punctured his skin.

“Do you feel anything out of the ordinary, Mr. Bubbole?” The scientist asked from a control room embedded into one of the walls.

“Nothing, even though this freaking hurts.”

“I’m sorry, Sir. The injection of the nanites requires a slightly larger needle.”

“Yeah…”slightly”...so, what do I do now?”

“Please remain immobile while the nanites diffuse inside your body.” Another scientist told him.

“No problems here.”

From the room a group of scientists could see the mass of nanites moving inside Stanley’s body on large monitors, which also showed Stanley’s vitals and such.

“Fifty point five milligrams of nanite solution released into the subject. Contact with the heart in approximate five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Contact!”

“No signs of damage or anomalies. No changes detected in the vitals.”

“The nanites are now reaching the lungs. The experiment is proceeding within acceptable parameters. Solution passing through the left side of the heart into the aorta, entering big circulation.”

“Monitor the subject’s brain activity closely.”

Meanwhile, Hubberton was in his office, monitoring the experiment via holographic monitor.

“The cybers are spreading through his body and have already reached his nervous system,” Hubberton said.

“Excellent, prepare to activate them.” Xana’s voice came out of the speakers around the office, while it’s symbol appeared on the large touch screen desk.

“As you wish.” Hubberton activated an interface, reading “stand by”, on the desk and proceeded to place his hand on it.

As soon as he did so, the interface changed color and it read: “activation commencing”. On the holographic monitor the cybers in Stanley’s body appeared as black dots before flashing red. A progressive bar promptly displayed the percentage of activated nanites.

Stanley started to feel dazed as his vision began to blur. “I...I don’t feel so good...”

As he slipped out of consciousness he could discern his venises starting to glow.

“Interesting allotrope. It’s like a sponge for magic.” Twilight examined a crystal with a magnifying glass and the magical scanner.

“They look kind of familiar...” Sunset tapped on her chin as she tried to remember where she saw them before.

Rarity on the other hand eagerly took to the duty of sample taking, which consisted of removing the most loose crystals. She hoped that if there were some that weren’t full with magic, Twilight would allow her to use them for jewelry.

“Woah! I feel even stronger than back at Camp Everfree!” Applejack said as she lifted a rock larger than her with the palm of the hand.

“I’m starting to like this research a lot more!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she tried to make a loop the loop around the cave’s ceiling.

Fluttershy on the other hand was outside talking with some of the animals living in the forest.

“Hehe, that’s quite the joke.” She giggled to a koala. “Oh, it’s so nice to be able to speak with you.”

The koala then emitted some verses.

“Oh i’m flattered, but I’m afraid I can’t come with you to the big eucalyptus festival. I can’t eat these leaves,” Fluttershy said.

The koala frowned and went away.

“Still thanks for the invite!” Fluttershy waved at him. “Awww and who are you?”

She asked as a group of kangaroo mice approached her.

“Oh yes, I can understand you...you look soo cute,” She said.

However before the conversation could continue a loud boom could be heard.

“Oh dear…what is happening?” Fluttershy asked afraid.

“Ooooh! What is this?” Pinkie Pie’s voice echoed out of the cave.

“I have gotta go now, sorry.” Fluttershy got up from the ground and left.

As she walked inside she noticed immediately that the cave was filled with Pink glittery smoke. The other girls were coughing a lot and cleaning their eyes.

“What happened?” Fluttershy asked.

Twilight was caught in a coughing fit, but managed to speak up. “ Pinkie Pie-” She coughed, “...exploded a whole can of sprinkles...”

“I’m sorry, Twilight. I was throwing sprinkles around but then it slipped...” Pinkie Pie apologized.

“Next time, warn us...” Rainbow Dash groaned between the coughs.

“Hey girls! Look!” Sunset Shimmer indicated the crater left by the explosion. Something shiny could be noticed underneath the rocks.

“Oh...what have we here?” Twilight examined the material and then started to shed off the damaged rocks.

“What do you mean he turned into a monster?” Hubberton asked. “What happened?”

“I’m telling you! Everything seemed normal, but then for some reason the nanites started to bond with his cellular structure and DNA, causing it rearrange and replicate at an uncontrollable rate!” The scientist’s voice was full of anxiety. “This was the final result.”

He proceeded to transfer an image to Hubberton showing Stanley transformed state. The photo depicted a hulking creature covered into a metallic substance with glowing eyes.

“Where is he now?” Hubberton asked.

“He melted through the blast doors and the wall and escaped. The security force tried to restrain him but were unsuccessful. We’re afraid that he left has the site.”

“This is unacceptable! In what state is the security force?” Hubberton asked.

“Most of the guards are severely injured, but we can ask help from the army.”

“It would be better to leave the army out of this, at least for now. Get to the mainframe, immediately, and encrypt all the data regarding the experiment, then transfer it to my villa’s computer.” Hubberton ordered.

“Yes, Sir.” The scientist quickly left the room.

“Here should be another circular room...” Peridot said.

“That’s one hundred twelve.” Pearl took notice, but she just finished the papers at her disposal. “Oh dear...it appears that we’ll have to call off the search, i’m out paper.”

“Sounds good to me...we have been doing this all day,” Amethyst said.

“One moment! I feel something...different now!” Peridot got closer to the ground.

“What’s up, Peri?” Amethyst asked

“It’s...it’s some kind of...vertical conduit.” She said.

“A vertical conduit? How large is it?” Pearl asked.

“Hmmm, I think it’s more or less...twenty meters of diameter. It raises all the way up inside that hill!” Peridot pointed to it.

“Then let’s check it out!” Steven ran towards the hill.

However before they could reach the hill, a roar echoed in the distance.

“What was that!?” Pearl asked.

“Sounded like an animal,” Steven said. “A big one!”

Garnet turned her head towards the town, a cloud of smoke billowing up from the forest.

“The town is under attack, let’s go.” Garnet headed in that direction.

“But what of our discovery?” Peridot asked.

Pearl turned around, “I have taken notice of the position of the shaft. We can come back to it later. Protecting the humans takes priority!”

Peridot nodded and started to run, “Oh, alright then. Here I come.”

“All aboard the amethyst train! Or should I say: Jeep!” Amethyst turned into a purple jeep, and as soon as everyone got on board she drove off.

“Girls, look at this, here,” Twilight said as they removed more rocks.

Underneath the layer of rock, sat a strange kind of metal. On which wiring pathways could be seen running, leading to a hatch.

“A hatch?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Applejack leaned in. “What in tarnation is this doing here? And what with this weird metal?”

Twilight examined the metal carefully, and the hatch. “I’m not sure...it appears to have some kind of integrated circuitry passing through it. The hatch is sealed shut. Maybe there’s a way to open it if we look around the sides.”

“Right on, partner.” Applejack and Rainbow Dash proceeded to remove more rocks from the sides.

“There.” Twilight indicated some kind of touch screen terminal. All eyes were on her as she proceeded to try and access it, but it merely flickered red a bit before shutting down.

“I...don’t think that works anymore.” Pinkie Pie pointed out.

Twilight turned to sunset, “Can you feel any kind of magic behind this?”

Sunset got closer to the wall and placed her hands on the hatch.

She felt chills moving through her spine. “Woah!”

“What is it?” The girls asked surprised.

Before Sunset could open her mouth, a chorus of desperate squeals could be heard coming from the entrance to the cave.

“Ahhh!” Fluttershy covered her ears.

“You okay, Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked her.

“The animals of the forest! They are screaming!” Fluttershy said.

“Screaming? All together?” Sunset asked.

“They are terrified of something that it’s attacking the forest. They say it’s some kind of monster!” Fluttershy held her head.

“Monster!?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Can you ask them what they mean?” Twilight kept her head cool.

“I can but...they seem too panicked. I’ll still try and ask them calmly.” Fluttershy reasoned.

The group went out of the cave and saw the forest was in chaos. Animals were running around and hiding in their dens.

“Hm...excuse me...Mr. Koala?” Fluttershy asked the koala she met before but he ignored her. “Oh, Mr. kangaroo mouse?”

The small creature turned towards Fluttershy and stopped, trembling in fright.

“What is going on Mr. Mouse? What’s this about a monster?” Fluttershy asked.

The mouse emitted a series of squills.

“A creature...of liquid metal?” Fluttershy asked trembling.

“Woah! For realsy?” Pinkie Pie gasped.

The mouse squeaked terrified once again before hopping away.

“Yes, he is sure. He said it’s moving towards the town destroying everything in its path!” Fluttershy informed the others.

Twilight tried to keep calm and reflect upon the information they had been given trying to put reason to the possibilities.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Sunset turned around, “What do you mean, Dash?”

“What are we waiting for? We need to kick that monster’s ass back to wherever it came from?” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

“Woah, aren’t you rushing it, sugahcube?” Applejack said.

“Applejack, is right. We have no idea what this thing could be, or what it can do,” Rarity added.

“Come on girls, people could be in danger. We just got back our powers, and they’re even stronger than before! That monster won’t stand a chance against us!” Rainbow Dash raised her fist.

“Uhm, she does have a point.” Applejack reasoned.

“You might be right, Rainbow Dash, but a healthy degree of caution is in order. I suggest we start with finding this monster and then organize a plan,” Twilight suggested.

“Fine, but let’s get to it already!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Here we are, gems! Woah.” Amethyst announced as they reached the town gawking at the destroyed terrain.

The forest at the sides of the road they arrived on was partially burning and some of the trees were torn up clear at the root. The asphalt of the road was partially liquified to raw tar in patches and some of the buildings were either burning or completely demolished.

“What could have caused this?” Peridot surveyed the landscape.

“I’m not sure but It might be a corrupted gem.” Pearl tapped on her chin thoughtfully.

“Monster in sight!” Amethyst announced as they got closer to the center of the town.

The hulking beast was a big humanoid blob of liquid metal, with a series of glowing features around its chest and the facial areas.

“It appears to be some kind of metalloid creature!” Peridot said.

“Probably a metal based gem,” Pearl said.

“Gems, move!” Garnet evoked her gauntlets and smacked them together.

“Time to kick some metallic butt!” Amethyst shapeshifted back and evoked her whiplash.

Steven summoned his shield as well, ready to defend his friends and the other citizens if and when needed.

“Steven, Amethyst, you are on defense. Repel the monster’s attacks and try to keep it from moving. Pearl, you are with me. Peridot, get to higher ground and see if you can find any weak points. Try and use the nearby metal as artillery, if you can.” Garnet gave the directions.

Steven and Amethyst nodded at each other, while Pearl conjured her spear and charged at the monster with Garnet.

As the monster noticed their presence, it swiped at them with its metallic fists, but due to their agility, it missed its targets.

“Hey ugly! Sit down!” Amethyst shouted as she cracked her whip, coiling it around the monster’s legs causing it to collapse.

On the sidelines, Peridot managed to reach the rooftop of a nearby building and observed the creature.

It appears to be some kind of metalloid being. Probably the result of a fusion experiment conducted on a metallic gem. But I can’t quite locate the gem. Could it be inside? Peridot pondered, examining every detail as the battle continued.

The monster quickly broke free of Amethyst’s whip and rose to its feet. Garnet and Pearl charged the beast, but were too late as it spotted their advance. With surprising speed, it gave a swipe of its claws, causing the two gems to back off and dodge the attack.

“He is bulky, but very quick!” Pearl remarked.

“Pearl, we need a clear shot to the head!” Garnet said. “Peridot, artillery! Now!”

“Death from above!” Peridot used her magnetism, raising her arms high in the air pulling up the metallic debris around her. With a wave of her hands, she swung the metal wreckage and hurling it all towards the monster. The creature roared as it was bombarded on all sides. It tried using its arms for cover from the onslaught, but it proved fruitless. Peridot’s attack worked well, serving both as a means of offense and disorientation of the monster’s faculties, leaving itself exposed and defenseless. Garnet and Pearl glanced at each other, sharing a quick confirming nod before making their move.

Garnet jumped high directly over the monster’s head as she summoned her gauntlets. As Peridot’s attack ended, the fusion gem began to fall into a dive. Her descent quickened and her fists pulled back, prepared to strike. Just as she closed in however, something happened. Something even Garnet could not have foreseen.

“Pinkie, wait!” Sunset’s voice echoed.

“Take THIS crazy metal monster thingy!!!” Suddenly, a canister appeared between them. The tin can bashed into the beast’s head, causing it to explode upon impact, releasing multicolored sprinkles everywhere. The monster wasn’t very phased by the attack and thanks to the distraction, it managed to regain it senses. It noticed Garnet’s presence, as well as her impending attack.

The mass of confectionary treats quickly expanded, covering Garnet’s glasses and blinding her. The fusion still proceeded and threw a punch, however, with her vision impaired she missed her marked by a hare’s breath. Her momentum carried her to the beast’s side as her fist crashed into the ground, creating a small crater beneath her. The monster didn’t hesitate to pull its’ arm back and slam the gem’s side, sending Garnet hurtling away.

“I gottcha!” Steven cried out, catching Garnet in a bubble shield. “Are you alright, Garnet?”

“I am.” Garnet rubbed away some of the sprinkles from the glasses. “Thank you.”

Steven sighed in relief and looked at the girl that threw the explosive. He remembered her. The pink-haired girl that sang with him back at the airport!

“What on earth is go-” Pearl was interrupted by a rainbow streak passing her by holding a rope.

“Get ready, Aj!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “This is gonna be the lasso of a lifetime!”

“Ready, partner!” Applejack said holding the lasso’s end.

“Please leave, this area is too dangerous for hum-”

“Don’t worry, we have got this.” Rainbow Dash called out, ignoring Pearl’s warning as she finished to coil the rope around the monster’s legs.

“Yippe kay!” Applejack exclaimed pulling the lasso, causing the monster to fall. Right on top of Pearl.

“Ahhhh!!!” Pearl tried to escape but got trapped by the falling creature. “Somebody, please! A little assistance?”

“Here I come, Pearl!” Steven ran to her and tried to lift the monster up.

He managed to lift the creature up, just enough for Pearl to slide out.

“Thank you, Steven, are you alright?” Pearl asked, worried that the strain needed to lift the monster fatigued him.

“I’m alright, is your gem-WOAH!!!” Steven was cut off as the monster quickly freed itself, burning the ropes tied around its legs. The two backed up as it roared and lashed out, trying to crush them with it’s fist.

Steven promptly raised his shield and barely managed to stop the attack, groaning as the force almost dispersed it on impact. Pearl quickly noticed his struggling. She scooped him into her arms and jumped back, putting some much needed distance between them and the creature.

“Ah, think we’re gonna need a stronger rope,” Applejack commented dejectedly.

“Rarity, try to stun it! Fluttershy tell the birds to offer a distraction!” Twilight said as she arrived with Sunset.

“Consider it done,” Rarity nodded firmly. With some quick focusing, Rarity conjured a multitude of disk shaped diamonds around her. “Over here, you overgrown rust bucket!” exclaimed launching her diamond shields to the creature. “I’ve seen cans of hair dryers with more fortitude than you.”

The shields hit their mark, the monstrous brute stumbling back against the attack. It crossed its arms in an attempt to protect itself, however its efforts were for not as a flock of birds started to fly around the monster’s head obstructing its view, making it even more difficult to defend.

Garnet analyzed the situation, Hmm, not a bad tactic. Rather basic. It won’t work for much longer.

“Hey!” Peridot yelled from her post. “Get these birds away! I can’t get a clear shot!”

Peridot knew the metal bits she had were limited and didn’t want any to go to waste. She knew she could get some more shots in, but couldn’t calculate her trajectories with the birds in the way.

“Call off your attack immediately!” Garnet ordered the group of girls.

“Yes, please. This situation is too dangerous.” Pearl pleaded. “You need to evacuate the area immediately.”

“Not a chance, we can handle this!” Rainbow Dash said charging at the monster, along with Applejack. “Right, Aj?”

“Right!” The cowgirl smirked in agreement. The two girls yelled at the monster, charging steadfast toward the creature, hoping to topple it in one go.

“No!” Garnet yelled.

Just as she surmised, even with their combined efforts it wasn’t enough to take down the beast. Both girls crashed into the monster, before being knocked back upon impact. Rainbow Dash slammed into the ground, hurting her arm while Applejack bounced and rolled until she slid to a stop.

“Ouch! What the heck!?” Rainbow Dash complained stroking her sore arm.

Applejack was recovering as well, getting her legs underneath her, “Man, talk about heavy metal!”

The monster roared as it gave a powerful swing of its arm, sending Rarity’s disks flying back at her as well as sending the swarm of birds spiraling away. Fluttershy screamed in horror, watching the poor avian creatures fall to the ground hurt, while the fashionista shrieked as she jumped and ducked down, barely evading the counter strike. With the distractions taken care of, it soon turned its sights on the dare devil and farm girl. It raised its arms, attempting to crush both of them with it’s metallic fists. However before it could, Steven’s shield appeared over them just as it swung at them. The gem hybrid’s protection worked, blocking the attack. Amethyst's whip lashed out and coiled around Rainbow Dash and Applejack allowing her to hurl them to toward Steven safely.

“Please, you guys need to leave. That monster is dangerous!” Steven said.

“Hey, lil man, we’re trying to help.” Applejack said getting up as the whip released her.

However before the discussion could continue a series of loud stomps could be heard.

“Hey! The monster is running away!” Peridot pointed. All eyes fell on the monster as it sprinted away from the town, heading for the tourism area.

Amethyst groaned and looked at the rainbooms. “Yeah, thanks a lot for the help!”

“We must pursue it! If it gets to the vacation district it could cause multiple casualties!” Pearl said.

Garnet was already ahead of them, racing after the creature. The rest of the gems quickly fell in behind her and in a few seconds they were gone, leaving the rainbooms in their wake. The girls all regrouped around Rainbow Dash and Applejack, helping them to their feet.

“Well...that could have gone worse,” Rainbow Dash said sarcastically.

“This isn’t time, Dash,” Twilight rebuked. “I told you we should have formulated a plan thoroughly before attacking!”

“Yeah yeah...” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

“I’m sorry, girls...” Pinkie Pie said sadly. “I really screwed up, this time.”

Sunset gave her a pat on her shoulder. She could see that she was really sorry about that. “Don’t worry, Pinkie, just don’t pull a stunt like that again. Kay?”

“Yeah, you could have gotten hurt very badly.” Twilight added. “You didn’t even know what powers it had!”

“Well, now we know, right?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Sunset turned to Twilight.

“Well, for starters, it appears to be made of metal. However, it seemed organic as well, somehow.” Twilight summarized.

“Yeah, its face was glowing too,” Pinkie pie added.

Twilight then tapped on her chin thinking. “If everybody is alright we should go after it. That creature probably has something to do with the magic surge we detected. Speaking of which, Sunset, did it look familiar to you? Does Equestria have similar creatures?”

“There are golems, but they are made of stone usually. Not metal.” Sunset answered. “But you might be right, we need to take a closer look.”

“I think that those women mentioned that it was headed towards the vacation district.” Fluttershy remembered.

“Then that’s where we’re headed.” Twilight concluded. “C’mon, girls.”

Meanwhile at the surfer paradise everybody was minding their own businesses. Except for a group of angry employees.

Ripper, along with Lance and Kelly were looking furiously at Abram, who was at his place by the door. “Look at him I bet he is laughing in his sleeve.”

“I bet he is, man. I still can’t believe he dodged that chum bucket this morning.” Lance remembered a failed attempt at pranking him that morning. It consisted of the old bucket over the door trick, but it didn’t work.

“Ripper, Lance, no offense but you should go back to the beach. I’m getting reports of people getting hurt in the water. You won’t believe how many people dive in right after they eat.” Johnny leaned to them with the phone’s receiver pressed on his hear.

Ripper turned to him. “Okay, okay, I’ll go back in a while. I’m looking for his weak points.”

“Weak Points?” Johnny raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, like stuff that we can use against him.” Ripper returned to observe Abram. “Exploiting his piercing phobia didn’t work but mark my words. I’ll get back at him for refusing the initiations.”

“Could you please watch him after work?” Johnny didn’t care about his reasons. “Baumer will get mad.”

“Come on, ten more minutes...”

Hearing the commotion, Abram turned around slightly, just enough to see them arguing but not enough enough for them to notice.

He rolled his eyes, how childish.

Meanwhile a group of young adults were waiting for their lunch.

“Come on, where’s our food? I’m starving!” Odd complained.

“I’ve got to agree with you, this is getting annoying.” Jeremy for once agreed.

The Lyoko team had been waiting there for a while already, but for some reason their lunch wasn’t arriving yet.

“If we have to wait one more minute i’m leaving a terrible evaluation.” William had his phone already.

“Here! Here!” A waitress arrived quickly to them holding some dishes.

“Finally!” Odd said.

“What’s with the delay?” Jeremy asked.

“Unfortunately the director of the restaurant was busy, so the replacement had to take over. Please accept these complimentary coupons.” The waitress proceeded to give one to each of them.

“Wow, a free dinner, thanks! This will come in handy.” Odd felt his anger quickly subside.

“Uh, no restriction on the price...I won’t leave a too bad evaluation,” William said.

“This is very appreciated, have a good lunch.” The waitress left them.

The group started consuming their lunch with gusto, the food was well prepared and tasted really good.

“All done.” Odd finished before everybody else.

“Do you even taste the food?” William asked.

Odd put his hands behind his head leaning on the chair. “Of course I do, my tastebuds are fast!”

“Huh?” William then turned to Jeremy. “So, how did repurposing the scanner go?”

“Well,” Jeremy lowered his voice, “it’s going fine. By tomorrow we should be done with the software modification. For the hardware though, we are gonna need some components but we can get them from a local computer store.”

“We checked out the online catalogue and there is a good chance that they’ll have exactly what we need.” Aelita added.

“Have you found out anything else?” Ulrich asked.

“Nothing much,” Jeremy shrugged. “Until we’re done with the modification, I doubt the trace will reveal anything else noteworthy.”

Some seconds later, rhythmic quakes could be heard.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Ulrich noticed.

“It feels like a light earthquake.” Yumi pointed out.

“But the quakes aren’t seismic. They seem too steady.” Jeremy commented.

“Like...footsteps,” Aelita deduced.

Yells started to echo from around the hotel, while the spotted people panicking and running outside.

“What’s going on?” Odd stood up and looked.

Abram went out and tried to interrogate one of the people who were running away.

“Uh sir, what appears to be the-“ The door man was cut off as he saw the metallic monster they were running from. “-what in the world?!”

Abram ran back inside as the monster charged at the hotel, smashing through the revolving door and stumbling inside.

All occupants inside began to scream and scamper in terror just as the civilians outside. All trying to get away from the monstrous metallic creature.

“Hey, Einstein, what the heck is that?!” Odd asked pointing at the monster.

Jeremy looked terrified, “I...I have no idea, Odd!”

Aelita looked terrified too, but stil, she had some recollection. “Jeremy, could this have to do with-?”

“I don’t know, but it’s possible. We need to get to my room!” Jeremy said as he ran. The rest of the group soon followed behind.

Some moments later the monster entered inside the hotel shattering the window.

“Run for your lives!” Ripper screamed as he ran away.

“Let’s get to the basement!” Jhonny suggested.

Soon after other members of the summer personnel joined them including Abram, as the monster chased after them.

“What the hell is that thing?!” Ripper asked panicking.

“It appears to be some metal-based being.” Abram said as they ran.

“Why is it chasing us!?” Another employee yelled as he noticed that the monster was chasing specifically them.

“I don’t know! Just run!” Ripper said as they reached the stairs and ran down.

Abram was the last to go through and closed the door behind him, taking a good look at the monster.

“Let’s get the basement!” Ripper yelled as they kept running for the lowest part of the hotel.

“Hey, where is Abram?” A waiter asked as they ran.

“Who cares!?” Ripper yelled as they ran faster.

“I’d be here,” Abram said.

“Where did you come from?” Ripper asked.

“I had to run into my room, I needed to grab something,” Abram said.

“Oh yeah? What?” Ripper asked again.

“Well, it was my phone. I’ve been using it to keep tabs with what is happening outside,” Abram said.

“Your phone?! A monster is chasing us and you go looking for your phone?” Another employee asked.

“Actually it’s a pretty solid idea. There will be reports about that monster from the news for sure,” Johnny said. “Speaking of which is it still chasing-”

A powerful roar echoed from behind them.

“That’s a pretty good answer!” Johnny yelled.

“Obstacles! We need to form some obstacles!” Abram said.

“Like what?!” Another employee asked.

“Grab stuff and throw it down!” Abram grabbed quickly a pile of boxes and caused it to collapse.

“Hey, its working!” An employee said as the monster effectively stumbled and slowed down a little.

“Good thinking, Abram.” Johnny took initiative and started throwing down more obstacles.

Some of the other employees joined in, attempting to slow the beast, while others preferred to just run as fast as they could.

After a few minutes they put sufficient distance between them and the monster, enough to reach a room and hide.

Knowing that whatever was on the island was connected to Aelita’s father, Jeremy predicted it could have had something to do with his field of expertise: quantum supercomputers and everything these were capable of. So naturally, he came prepared.

During the months prior to their voyage, he perfected some defences and weapons to face Xana-like menaces in real life.

Said defences consisted of designs to protect the articulations as well as some dark visors to shield their eyes. The weapons, a set of small batons capable of emitting an electrical discharge destabilizing whatever tried to attack them.

Each one of the team had their own set of these, even though Jeremy prefered to carry the detection equipment he’d use to examine the monster.

“Okay, remember how we handled XANA’s monsters in the real world? Try locating the eye and hit it. If you can’t find it try to incapacitate the monster so I can scan it for weak points,” Jeremy said.

“Copy that, this is going to be a good return to the old times!” Odd said enthusiastically.

“Concentrate, Odd, this is serious,” Ulrich told him sternly.

“Don’t worry, this isn’t even a monster of Xana’s. It will be a snap.” Odd was as optimistic as ever. Despite all that was transpiring, he was really looking forward to revive some of the old excitement.

“Keep in mind that we don’t know much about the monster,” Jeremy said. “It might be worse than we thought.”

“Jeremy’s right, the fact this isn’t from Xana makes it even more unpredictable,” Yumi agreed.

“Alright, alright,” Odd agreed.

“Let’s go!” Jeremy said.

“Why did we all get in the same room?” Ripper asked straining against the others in the cramped space.

“We were in a rush,” Lance said.

“Ah, shut up!” Ripper retorted.

“Guys! We need to stay calm. Arguing will just make it harder to breathe and it might lead that creature to us!” Abram explained.

“He has a point,” Johnny agreed.

“Thank you,” Abram politely said.

“Exactly what I’d have said! But honestly, i’m too scared.” The voice of the manager Andrew Baumer could be heard.

“Fine, I’ll calm down as soon as Broseph moves.” Ripper complained.

“Move where!?” Broseph asked starting to get annoyed.

“Wait! Listen!” Aaron shushed them. A few moments pass as the sounds of heavy thumps could be heard.

“Is it coming our way...” A member of the staff asked trembling in fear.

Nobody answered, the steps seemed to have ceased too.

“Somebody has got to get out and see what it’s doing...” Another employee suggested.

“I call Ripper.” One of them said.

“And I call Abram!” Ripper said.

Even in the darkness of the room Abram’s eyes could be seen giving a deadpan stare. He then closed his eyes and rolled them before approaching the door passing in between the mass of people.

He first put his ear on the door, listening closely to the outside.

“I think it’s still here,” Abram said after a couple minutes.

“But why can’t we hear it moving?” An employee asked.

“Go out there and check if it’s clear,” Baumer said.

“I’d rather not. I’m sure it’s nearby,” Abram said.

Baumer’s eyes assumed a raging expression, “Abram, that’s an order!”

Abram reflected on the possibility for a while and then he carefully opened the door just enough to peek first.

He then slowly walked out, keeping a fist clenched behind his back.

After taking a few steps outside he looked around the corridor.

He emitted a sigh. “Well it appears that-”

Abram was interrupted by a powerful roar echoing his way. The young man quickly ran in the opposite direction, panic all over his face.

“Looks like he was right!” Ripper admitted closing the door behind him in a panicked hurry.

On the other hand Abram kept running, until he became cornered.

Trembling, Abram looked at the monster. He could see how it’s glowing eye was locked onto him, giving him the look a predator would give its prey.

Clenching his teeth and his fists Abram looked over the possibilities he had.

However his train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of six figures that started to fight the monster.

“Hey, pick on somebody your own size!” Odd charged at the monster. He managed landing a hit with his electric baton. His protective gear had the same color scheme of his lyoko avatar, different shades of purple with a touch of yellow, it even had his kiwi emblem.

As the baton hit the monster the energy diffused through the metallic skin, making the monster roar in pain.

Ulrich and Yumi attacked together, utilizing their expertise in fighting to distract it and manage to land some hits. Just like Odd’s their gear had the same color schemes as their respective lyoko avatars. Ulrich’s maintaining his chrysanthemum emblem.

“Are you okay?” Aelita asked Abram as she noticed him lying on the ground.

“I...I am good.” Abram stood up shaking a little, looking at the tree adolescents fighting the monster. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Well...you can call us Lyoko Warriors.” Aelita said. “You should leave now, we’ll handle this thing.”

Abram nodded with a panicked look and quickly ran away.

“William, we need some help over here!” Ulrich screamed as he tried to attack the monster.

“Right on!” William yelled as he charged at the monster and hit it with his baton in coordination with Ulrich.

They luckily managed to cause a disruption in the monster’s metal, which started to ripple and disgregate making the large creature falter.

However only after a couple minutes of relative immobility the monster managed to get back up and swiped at the group.

The lyoko warriors fell back before the monster could hit them, then it got onto it’s feet and escaped quickly.

“Okay, Jeremy, I didn’t seen any eye on it,” Odd referred. “Did you?”

“I can confirm that. What do you think I’m doing?” Ulrich asked.

“Let him work, guys.” Yumi said.

Jeremy was passing his scanner over some of the metallic liquid left by the monster. It formed quickly, shapeshifting drops that reminded him of a material similar to mercury.

“Could it be, Xana’s?” Aelita asked.

“It doesn’t seem so. Xana experimented on nanotechnology sometime ago but nothing so advanced.” Jeremy tapped on his chin as he reviewed the data. “This seems like some sort of living metal.”

“So, how do we take it down?” William asked.

“Well, according to these readings. It’s possible that a powerful energy surge could disrupt the nanites,” Jeremy said.

“Okay, but how do we get that?” Odd asked.

“We could try to lure it close to a powered cable?” William asked.

“That could be an idea, but it would be hard to get it to make contact with it.” Jeremy considered the possibility.

Aelita was thinking as well. Looking around the room she noticed a pipe on which it was written: water flow. “What if we used the water?”

Jeremy raised his head in realization. “Of course! If we managed to get enough water to cover a large surface, we could electrify it from a distance and before it could escape.”

“Let’s follow the pipe it will lead us to the hotel’s autoclave!” Ulrich said.

“Good idea, buddy!” Odd said.

“Ulrich, William, try to lure the monster into the room. We’ll set the trap.” Jeremy instructed them, already getting to his feet and started following the pipe.

William and Ulrich nodded at each other and went after the monster, while the rest of the group directed towards the autoclave.

Following the pipe, Jeremy and his part of the group reached the autoclave room.

It was filled with large tanks, pumps and pipes of many sizes and shapes forming almost a labyrinth.

“Reminds me of the factory’s boiler room.” Odd looked over the room, especially the autoclave itself.

“Okay, Yumi, Odd, you open these valves over there. Aelita, help me uncovering these cables.” As he spoke, Jeremy indicated the valves and some cables coming out of a fuse box.

“This place is about to get wet.” Odd opened up one of the two valves. Yumi did the same on her end, and the room’s floor was slowly covered by a layer of water.

After disconnecting the room’s main switch, Jeremy and Aelita got to work as well, both removing the cover from the cables labeled to have the right voltage.

“Is this enough, Jeremy?” Odd asked as the water kept flowing.

Jeremy paused a minute to see how everything was going, “That’s enough, close the valves!”

“We’re done too.” Aelita said as she extracted a cable and placed it onto the water layer.

“Now, we just need to contact Ulrich and Yumi.” Jeremy activated his watch in walkie-talkie mode. “Ulrich, do you copy? Ulrich, William where are you?”

Some seconds later Ulrich’s voice started to diffuse from the watch. “It wasn’t easy but we got the monster’s attention, it’s after us now, we are in the employee quarters.”

“Take it to the autoclave room. Okay, we’re all set here. Once you get here, try to lure it into the water. Your shoes are insulated, but try to stay clear of it as best you can,” Jeremy said.

“Copy that!” Ulrich answered.

Jeremy, Aelita, Odd and Yumi took their respective places. Jeremy and Aelita were at the switches while Odd and Yumi stayed hidden.

“Incoming!” Ulrich’s voice came from Jeremy’s watch, the heavy footsteps of the monster echoed through the air.

A few seconds later Ulrich and William entered the room, closely followed by the monster.

While the two adolescents managed to reach some safe spots, the monster slipped on the water and fell on its back roaring loudly.

“Its down!” Odd yelled.

“Here we go!” As Jeremy activated the switches the water was immediately electrified. Blue sparks could be seen running around the watery floor and reaching the monster, passing from the water to the monster’s conductive skin.

The creature roared in what seemed to be pain as the electricity sparked around it. Once again ripples propagated around its body and some drops of metal started to shed off.

The team lyoko observed the scene from their dry spots. Jeremy was especially worried since the electric discharge in the water didn’t seem to be enough to completely disaggregate the metal alloy that formed the monster.

A few seconds later the monster unleashed a powerful flash of blue light. Electricity sparked all about before it all suddenly died.

All of the team backed away, uncertain as to what was happening. However, they were all caught by surprise when, after the flash disappeared, the monster vanished. Everything that was left of it was a man laying in the middle of the puddle of water and liquid metal.

“What was that?” Odd asked.

“It seemed like some kind of strong energy pulse. Of a peculiar blue color.” Jeremy tapped his chin trying to understand how it happened.

“And who is that guy?” William pointed to the unconscious man lying in the middle of the liquid metal.

“I don’t know but we should help him. Jeremy, help me get him out of the pool.” Aelita took one of the man’s arms and started dragging.

Jeremy nodded and joined her, and together they pulled the man to safety.

“Is he still alive?” William asked.

“Yes, he’s breathing.” Aelita noticed his chest steadily rising and falling.

Jeremy moved nearby his face. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

The man answered with unintelligible mumbles, uttering the word “money” every now and then.

“We better call the hospital and scram before someone comes looking,” Odd said.

“I agree.” Jeremy quickly took his phone and proceeded to make the call, then the group escaped.

Instead of the ambulance, what arrived at the hotel was a medical vehicle of the army which picked up Stanley and brought him back to the labs.

While that was done a representative of the Hubberton corporation talked with the hotel’s owner, convincing him not to make the case go public, while other representatives interrogated the members of the staff.

As the evening arrived, everything was done and the autoclave room cleaned up. Aside from the samples taken by Jeremy, all the liquid metal was collected and taken away.

The members of the staff spent most of the evening talking about the event, some of which even considering applying for a transfer.

“What do you think that was?” Lance asked.

“I don’t know, probably some kind of alien?” Ripper suggested.

“What do you think, Johnny?” Broseph asked.

“My guess would be as good as yours so, I simply have no idea,” Johnny turning to Abram, who was standing by the window. “What do you say, A?”

Abram didn’t answer.

“Yoohoo, Abram, anybody home?” Ripper said.

“Uh? Oh sorry.” Aaron turned around. “Personally, I don’t know. Too many possibilities, some more probable than others, but still too many.”

“Take a wild guess?” Lance asked.

“Probably...was a consequence some kind of nanotechnological application gone wrong,” Abram answered.

“A what now?” Lance asked.

“Nanotechnology. You know, the possibility of developing machines to the microscopic or even nanoscopic level.” Abram explained.

“That doesn’t sound too far fetched actually. I heard about some companies working on stuff like that. Like the Dexlabs,” Johnny remarked. “Though, I never would have thought they had such advanced stuff.”

“Me neither, man, me neither.” Abram answered looking out the window, gazing at the starry sky.