The Game Masterby Qub3dChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Flashback 1- A Reference of Alex.Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 1Chapter 1 A self-professed master was about to conduct the greatest display of skills ever heard of in his circle of professionals. Sure, many can theorize and study game outcomes, scenarios in which this or that happened. No one could test the theories of this particular game. That is, until now, he thought. Image the glory of an entire planet as a game-board! It was dark. He preferred the dark, a self-inflicted curse to help his thinking. After another drink, he sat by the cold fireplace; turning over his strategy one last time. The first move had to be made. The game, as it was, was ready to begin. ~~ Ms. Cake trotted along the path through Ponyville, allowing time to stop and enjoy the wonderful weather. Really, the ponies in Cloudsdale have outdone themselves, she thought. Ms. Cake loved Ponyville, for the fact that it was so peaceful. Not counting the exploits of Pinkie, the chances for, say, Sugarcube Corner exploding was basically zero. That's why she and her wonderful Stallion had chosen this location. “Afternoon, Ms. Cake!” Said a voice behind her. “Oh! Hello, Twilight!” Ms. Cake knew nearly everyone in town by voice, a skill picked up by attending numerous crowded parties. “I wanted to let you know that Princess Celestia complemented you and Mr. Cake by name in her most recent letter. That party was really fun!” Twilight was, of course, referring to the time not so long ago when Princess Celestia had come to Ponyville to see personally the results of Twilight's research into the magic of friendship. Ms. Cake nodded in affirmation, adding that she was always delighted to have guests. As Twilight left in the direction of Everfree forest to go about her errands, Ms. Cake smiled brightly. Ah, well. Enough dawdling, time to see how Pinkie's latest efforts are coming along... Sugarcube Corner exploded. ~~ Rainbow Dash was running through her daily exercise routine when she heard the noise. Odd, that sounded remarkably like a building full of pasty exploding. Well, she had to investigate, it could also be a competitor trying for a sonic rainboom! Zooming to town, the sight that met Rainbow's eyes nearly caused her to drop out of the sky. There was Ms. Cake, sobbing, and a crowd gathering around a building, that was most definitely not Sugarcube corner. In its place stood a perfectly square, very tall, iron-and-glass building. Time to find Twi. Rainbow didn't have to look for long; Twilight galloped into view within seconds, obviously worried about the explosion. No, wait. She looks terrified, and she's running hard... and not stopping? It was not Sugarcube corner that had frightened Twilight into running, it was the thing coming out of the Everfree forest. ~~ Applejack was very confused. A, well, thing, wearing a crimson cloak about its... neck (guessed Applejack) had come roaring (or is it screaming?) out of the Everfree forest, in hot pursuit of a certain purple unicorn Applejack knew very well. She wasn't quite sure what she was seeing, and was fixed to the spot, until her attention was drawn to a cyan Pegasus yelling at her. ~~ “Hey, Applejack! Move. It. NOW!” Rainbow had been yelling at Applejack for what seemed like an hour before she looked up, dazed from the mental shock the “thing” had given her. “I need to get to Canterlot, Twilight can’t exactly send the Princess a letter. You get everypony away from those... things!” ~~ Applejack quickly came to her senses, that thing was after her friends! She broke off on a breakneck pace into town, sharply yelling at anypony within earshot to clear out. Whatever was happening, it appeared to be a danger. ~~ He coldly took in the facts, these “ponies” had reacted in an unexpected way. After all, one would normally assume a sentient horse living in an era of magic with no electronics would pass out at the sight of the Sears Tower instantly occupying the spot a small restaurant used to stand. Yes, ignoring the equestrian history books published by Wheller Inc. had been a mistake, as the stories regarding the demeanor of your average pony were correct. For pastel-colored miniature horses, these creatures showed plenty of courage. Though he wished to spare life, the next move in this game would require a show of mortality. With no trace of emotion, he ordered his minion to terminate one life. Your move! ~~ Rainbow, slightly winded from a near-supersonic flight, staggered over to a guard outside the Canterlot palace. The guard, seeing a tipsy pony sucking wind, though that maybe somepony had downed too many beverages for breakfast. It was only 0930, for Celestia’s sake! “Please… Ponyville... Strange building, flying stuff…” Rainbow Dash only managed a few mixed words before the guard offered to take her to a “nice place, where they will make you feel better”. Rainbow was a bit confused, but finally managed to get her breath. “No! I mean that Ponywille is under attack, moron!” ~~ Princess Celestia was busy discussing a planned geological survey with a unicorn contractor interested in expanding into the mountains surrounding Canterlot, and the talk had quickly turned sour. “With all due respect, your majesty, I think we can confidently state that these mountains could support another three cities the size of Canterlot, we just have to burrow farther into the mountain! Think of the economical benefits!” Princess Celestia sighed, and again reminded the grey stallion of the last time someone had ventured to expand the city. “The property damage was through the roof, and those poor ponies were lucky to escape with their lives! I understand your points, Mr. Crane, but the simple fact is all that rubble will eventually have to go somewhere, and I must be sure it does not end up on top of this city.” Crane was about to reply when the meeting was adjourned by the sound of a distant noise, not unlike thunder, but much more explosive. “Excuse me, but obviously something is in need of my attention. We will have to continue this topic some other day.” As the dejected stallion left, a very annoyed Rainbow Dash burst in, followed by a half-score of guards. “Your Majesty! Ponyville is being att-” was all the Pegasus could manage before four guards swarmed her, one of whom began profusely apologizing to the large Alicorn. “Let the mare speak, gentlecolts. This is a close friend of my most favored student!” ~~ PRIME DIRECTIVE: TERMINATE. The large, obnoxious text flashed in on the screen of the XM-17’s Helmet. The human in control understood the reasoning, the forces of his master must be shown as a truly horrifying and fearful enemy, not just one that anyone could lock their door and hide from. With the slight movement of a finger, the XM-17 targeted the small purple unicorn that was directly ahead, and activated a rocket. ~~ “Roger, Wilco.” The reply was heard across the room by the fireplace observer, and he (though it was not a beneficial emotion) felt gleeful. Oh, yes, how fun this was! He mused that this was like “playing Super Mario on the easiest setting, but with cheats”. Alex2315, the master of games, was off to another great start. Chapter 2Chapter 2 Twilight was in a state that could not be justified by only one emotion. Did I really only just talk to Ms. Cake ten minutes ago? Well, whatever the case, it appeared she was dead. Waking up in her current location, she found an empty room with stark white walls and no apparent light source contained her body. Twilight had never seriously contemplated the afterlife, but so far it appeared to be one thing: extremely boring. Seriously, if I ever find the people who run this place, i'm going to ask if they couldn't have bothered to leave some magazines, or something... Well, at least she had time to try and unravel the events that brought her here. As she recalled, she had been on her way to Fluttershy's cottage to record the nature of the animals in Everfree Forest. 'Oh, Twilight, they aren't mean creatures at all!' said Fluttershy in her standard soft voice. 'Are you sure? What about the Manticore we had to deal with?' 'Um... that one had a ... thorn, in its paw, remember Twilight?' 'Oh, yeah...' They had then proceeded to venture into the edge of Everfree, where they were still in sight of the cottage. Twilight had only just begun to start her questions when a very unnatural noise, accompanied by a bright-red light flashed down from the sky, revealing a strange contraption in its place. The thing was metal, and walked on two legs, a very strange trait for anything in Equestria, if you didn't count the monkies in the royal gardens. 'Perhaps w-we should leave, Twilight!" a very frightened Fluttershy sqeaked. Nopony had a chance to say anything else at this point, for the large, metallic, two-legged beast said in a strange electronic voice: 'ALL HAIL. THE GAME MASTER HAS COME. HE IS DESTINED TO WIN, AND YOU ARE DESTINED TO DROP IN THE RANKINGS.' Twilight had no idea what the thing meant by "rankings", or "game master". She furiously racked her brain for any book on the subject, but couldn't think of any. With that, she decided to go check the library for one, and in a moment that easily qualified for most stupid decision ever made by a lavender unicorn, turned her back on the thing. 'GAME PAWN. HALT, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED FOR MOVEMENT IN THIS TURN. HALT!' The sudden addition of a deeper voice, with a tone several decibels louder than the previous voice of the beast, had the affect of pushing Twilight into a bolt, galloping out of the forest. The beast launched into the air, powered by some strange devices on the ends of the beast's legs. Fluttershy, who had not moved from the moment of the initial encounter, immediately passed out of consciousness as the thing left her to go after Twilight Sparkle. Twilight didn't really remember the rest, just fear, a voice calling "TERMINATION AUTHORIZED. PREPARE FOR STORAGE", a very loud noise, and then... this. Just a little frustrated, she began to trot around her confines, and activated her magic to see if there were any hidden ways out, which was a disheartening "negative". At this, she sat, waiting for something, anything to happen. Lo and behold, a screen materialized on the wall directly opposite her position. "Hello? Pawn, are you there? can you hear me?" The source of the voice came from the silhouette of a creature that appeared similar to the beast. It had two legs, and two... other legs, just dangling from the top of the creature. As this was just a black outline, nothing more could be said of it. Figuring that this thing was the entity in charge of her quarters, the first thought to enter her mind was a ridiculous one, but one she had seriously considered asking earlier: "Um, could I get a magazine?" ~~ Princess Celestia was in a hurry, no royal chariot this time, just a quick decent into Ponyville by wing. Rainbow dash had manged to explain the situation well enough for the Princess to understand the foe in this situation was a dangerous and skilled one, who appeared to do what most super powerful evil entities did: attempt to take over the world, then do whatever they did. Funny enough, no one really knew what came after "Take over the world", as it had yet to be accomplished. "Thank the sun! It's Celestia!" called out a pony, slightly in redundance. Alas, this situation was a total mess. the first thing to do would be to restore order. "PONIES! PLEASE, CALM YOURSELVES!" Called out the magically amplified voice of Celestia. Most got the hint, but a few of the more skittish ponies took that final shock as their adieu, and ran off. "Thank you. Now, where is Twilight Sparkle?" ~~ Fluttershy slowly opened her eyes; she was still where she had fallen. "T-Twilight? are you there?" What happened? Twilight had come into the forest with her, and they had heard a noise, and... then... "Omigoodness! Twiliiiight! Dont't worry, i'm coming!" When she needed to, Fluttershy could be very courageous. ~~ "What? has nopony seen Twilight?" The Princess asked, in dismay. "Ah, beggin' yur pardon miss Princess, but I saw Twilight being chased in this direction. She never made it, I wonder where... SWEET GOLDEN DELICIOUS! Thar it is!" Applejack had been explaining the predicament of Twilight when the beast suddenly came into view over the nearest house, and landed in the midst of the ponies with a very loud, metal-on-stone THUD. "ATTENTION, GAME PIECES. THIS IS A TWO-PLAYER GAME. WHERE IS THE OTHER PLAYER?" The beast look around, and saw the regal Alicorn, slightly miffed at the much louder beast. I really need to work on the Royal Canterlot voice some more, both Luna and this thing have put me to shame... Thought Celestia. "REPEAT PROMPT: WHERE IS THE SECOND PLAYER?" The beast added, with a slight edge to its mechanic voice. "I'm sorry, but we have no idea what you are, what the game is, or who the first so-called "player" is!" Celestia was in the dark, and was annoyed by this thing and its very clipped manner of speech. "ARE YOU THE SECOND PLAYER? THE RULES ARE ONLY TOLD TO THE PLAYERS, THAT IS THE FIRST AND ONLY PUBLIC RULE." "Fine, yes. i am the second player." "ACCEPTED. PREPARE FOR TRANSPORT TO GAME ROOM." "Wha-" Celestia's confusion was cut by a red light that had descended, enveloped beast and Alicorn, and then vanished, leaving nothing behind. The ponies lost it. Chapter 3Chapter 3 "Um, Can I have a magazine?" Asked Twilight Sparkle. "What? Seriously? OK, you're telling me you have no other questions?" The silhouette asked in skepticism. "I mean, you have no idea where you are, or why you are here..." "Well, I'm dead, right?" Twilight Sparkle was seriously confused. "Argh! That stupid supersoldier... no, you are not dead, you are in storage. As proclaimed by my minions, I am the game master, and like any game piece, you've been captured, for storage until the next game." Twilight Sparkle was getting an idea. "Hold on, we didn't even know we were game pieces! You can't start the game until everyone knows the rules!" Alex ground his teeth. He could only bluff so far, part of the problem using this board, was that the rules were automated. If this creature called him on rule-breaking, the game was over; he'd be forced to forfeit. Again, very... impressive for a marshmallow-like fantasy creature to go all "Rule Nazi" on him. Twilight Sparkle took note of the uneasy pause. "You know what, how about we reset the game... I'll pretend this never happened." Alex considered the deal. Only two moves in, that's not a bad loss. I need to use a different strategy, anyways. "Fine! You'll get a reset, and the rules!" ~~ Celestia had just gotten adjusted to her very strange surroundings. A dark room, with metallic plate walls, and a glowing rectangular object in the center of the room, labeled as a "holo projector", was the current location of the Equestrian Princess. Suddenly, something flashed in the air above the holo projector, a green, glowing message that read out 'Game reset requested. Yes or No?' "What? Does that entail 'resetting' the world, as in..." Princess Celestia gasped. "No, it just resets the players. After all, this planet is but the game board, all that is reset are the pieces." The owner of this voice was standing in a rectangular opening that had appeared in the wall. "Pleasure to meet you, player 2. I am Alex2315, or player 1." The creature stood on two legs, with two upper appendages in place for manipulation and control. It had a oval-shaped head, with two central-placed eyes (big sign of a predator), a short, stubby excuse for a snout (the "nose"), and two flaps on the side of the head, which seemed to be it's ears. It was awkwardly tall, definitely in a growth spurt, placing it's age at just above that of a filly, in the teenage years. The face in general was stark white, and the two cobalt eyes exhibited a slightly maniacal glee. As the whole creature came closer, and more details came into focus, Celestia recognized the creature. What??? It's... one of the Legendary! Impossible! Princess Celestia knew now what was the source of everypony's current predicament: Humans. "Alrighty, it's been fun, but you aren't supposed to exist anymore. The Humans here were dead long ago." Celestia knew what she was talking about. Near the beginning of her reign, a strange quirk of the universe had caused a Human space capsule to fall through a wormhole, which spat out the ship in the upper atmosphere of the Equestrian planet. The survivors, all Male (according to the humans), remained on Equestrian soil the remainder of their lives, which was only about another 72 years until the last of the survivors died, or more aptly, disappeared. You see, the humans were changed by their new planet, and all of them were never seen dead. They were just... gone one day. When the last one disappeared, he had not aged a day. Some still claimed to have sighted the beings, in times of need, repaying their debt to equestria for giving them long and happy lives. Unfortunately, this one seemed to be younger, and a lot less interested in friendship. "Heh, well, perhaps your versions. I come from the federation of human extra-reality gamers, and we play with worlds." In all honesty, Alex had only just created the federation out of thin air for some extra prestige. After all, the tech he had for this game was one-of-a-kind. "Well, you want to start a new game, with better knowledge. Your game pieces are well educated in some of the rules... so I am here to tell you them, as rule number 2 is to educate all players in the rules. But first, we must reset. Just say yes..." "Fine, go ahead." Celestia sighed ~~ Twilight watched in awe as the walls of her prison dissolved, leaving her standing in front of sugarcube corner, midst a crowd of very confused ponies. "Its... gone!" "Where did it go? What was it?" "MY BEAUTIFUL SHOP IS SAFE!!!" The last comment came from a sobbing Ms. Cake, who was now crying tears of joy. Everything was in its old location, as if nothing had ever even occurred that day. "ATTENTION! Everypony, listen up!" The voice permeating the air was that of Celestia herself. "I am unharmed, but I cannot say any more about my location, or you would all suffer. I'm sorry. But, I must tell you to be careful of your actions, and listen carefully when you are told to do something, even if you are scared of your circumstances. I'm afraid we've been trapped into a game, a game that will decide all our fates. Now is not the time to panic, my little ponies, for together we will win!" ~~ Princess Celestia stepped away from Alex's "microphone". She had refused to don a headset, so she couldn't hear the reactions of her subjects. Alex, after making sure Celestia's com-link was off, then turned on the microphone on the side of his head. Celestia had heard him call it "Blue Tooth", though it was neither blue, nor remotely tooth-shaped. "Alrighty, n00bs, now that your little overlord has said her piece, I'm telling you the rules. Rule number 1 and two are irrelevant to the game, and many of you already have heard them from my XMSoldier unit. Here is what you need to know: The game is over instantly once a player coincides defeat, and the other player is awarded a higher ranking in the standings, plus said player will receive ultimate power over this game set, also known as your planet. The rules forbid cheating or tampering with code, but that rule will only be applied if the rule-breaker is caught. Reminder, if no one saw it, it isn't illegal!" Alex had added that to allow him room for his "special" strategies. "The final rule you must know is that the game only ends once a player admits defeat. It doesn't matter what circumstances cause this, but the player must give up. Now, lets all play fair, play relatively safe, and have a bit of fun!" With that, Alex signed off, turning once again to Celestia. Celestia couldn't take it anymore: "Why are you doing this!?" She demanded. "My dear Celestia, isn't it ovbious? I have all the power and wealth I could dream of. I am doing this because I'm getting BORED. We are going to be anything but bored, because, really the only two pieces are you, and me. We don't even have to use this game board. All that matters, is that one of us must push the other into admitting defeat. Now, good luck. I shall move first." With that, he pressed a pad on his left arm, and Celestia felt her consciousness slip away. She awoke in her royal chambers, just in time to raise the sun. As she stood, she noticed a message written on her wall, in large letters: "YOUR MOVE." Celestia suddenly felt very tired, as if she had just written a bad, long-winded explanation for a hastily written book, which had decided to use the first two chapters as an action sequence. Her next move would be to take a nap. Author Note: I am contemplating changing the story rating to "teen", to allow greater use of "descriptive interjections". (A.K.A: Swearing). Just warning you all. Chapter 4Chapter 4 Author's Warning: This chapter contains cursing so strong, it may cause you to re-think your religious principles, and possibly switch political parties. Read on at your own risk. ~~ Alex was excited. Now he would really get to play a good game. Dropping into his surround-sound gaming chair, he pulled up the theme song that he used to get into the mood, and clearly enunciated to the screen in front of him, "play". A sound, not unlike something DJ-P0N3 would mix, shot from the speakers. Aww, looks like our poor princess needs some rest. Why don't we give her some? Quietly, he reached over to a stainless steel panel with a brainwave readout, and flicked a dial labeled "TEST LEVEL 16: DO NOT USE". Sweet dreams, princess. Or should I say, not so sweet. He he he... ~~ Finally, the Princess had risen the sun. It had taken quite a bit of effort, considering how tired and distracted she was. She left a memo on her door directing all inquiries to Luna, and with that, promptly collapsed into the royal bed. Within a few minutes, she had slipped into a light doze, and was in REM after 30. "NO! Princess, please! Just tell them to kill me, unhook the machines!" Begged Twilight Sparkle. She was a horrific sight, looking as if someone had burned and subsequently ran the lower half of the purple unicorn through a meat grinder. "Oh, Twilight, they turned off the machines an hour ago. We are trying to ease your pain! Please, understand!" Celestia said softly, silent tears streaming down her face. "Oh Celestia, please. If I can't die, I need help. Please..." The moaning Twilight Sparkle feebly pointed a hoof toward a scalpel sitting on a nearby tray. "You can do it. A few cuts, in the right spots." "Please, Twilight! The doctors are doing all they can!" "Oh Princess, quit kidding yourself. Everyone else is dead already." Twilight's last moan made Celestia look around. For the first time, she noticed the piles of carcasses that lay around the room, flies buzzing around, gorging on her once-living subjects. "Princess, its just you and me. Please, PLEASE! I c-can't bear it, stop this pain!" What is this? Wait... How did this happen? Oh... fuck. Celestia knew what was happening; a unicorn with her power, knowledge, and centuries of experiences would quickly recognize when they were being messed with. With this epiphany, she snapped her eyes open, and found herself back her bedchamber, the mattress soaked with sweat. I guess sleep will be a problem to deal with. As she lay where she had awoken, the princess mused about the day's incredible events. A creature shows up, intent on completely destroying her, only because he was bored. The more she thought, the angrier she grew. No one should have the power to ruin lives for entertainment! Slowly, Celestia's shivers of fear became shivers of anger. You know what, enough of this shit! It's my turn! Celestia was getting sick of this pubescent filly, time to go offensive. ~~ Twilight Sparkle was galloping toward Canterlot as fast as her hooves could carry her. After a 6-hour checkover of Ponyville to make sure it was really the same (4 of those 6 hours involved checking the location of every book in town), Twi needed to check on her beloved mentor. Surely she could get some answers from Celestia. Reaching the guard at the palace gate, she managed to wheeze between gasps, "Student... Game reset... Ask Molestia, I mean, Celestia..." Oddly enough, the guard was the same one rainbow dash had ran into. Seriously, why am I the weirdo magnet? Wondered Wally Guardian. With a sigh, the grey pony in golden armor stood aside to let the unicorn through. He almost preferred an angry Celestia over an altercation with this creep. Twilight entered Celestia's chambers to find a very unexpected surprise. Luna had opened the door, before returning to some documents awaiting her. Celestia was pacing around her bed, muttering something along the lines of "That asshole, he's really pushed it too far, I'm going to castrate him, if Humans have genitals similar to a pony's..." "P-perhaps we should Talk a-another time, Your Majesty." Twilight was stunned by the foul language that had came from Celestia's own mouth. "Oh my! Twilight Sparkle! I'm sorry...mostly..." Really, though. I meant those things... I might as well be facing off against Discord, because this... human... makes me just as angry. "Um... well, then. Could you tell me about this game?" "HOLD IT, CELESTIA! THAT BREAKS RULE 1." Alex's voice seemed to be coming from an invisible object in the center of the room. "ONLY THE PLAYERS MAY KNOW THE RULES." Celestia shouted (In the Royal Canterlot Voice, no less) a stream of sounds that would be forever imprinted on the minds of those who heard them. ~~ Alex loved it. He was making the other player emotional, and only after 7 hours. This game might as well be over by midnight tomorrow. "Ah, how fun! X, bring me my dinner, if you would." X, Alex's nickname for the human who ran his XM-17 Battle Tech Supersoldier, or BTS, came forward holding a tray. "You know, you have a damn butler." Robert Baler, who was an Air Force Academy Graduate, and the first triple-ace of World War III, had taken the job due to the 7-digit promised salary. Right now, he was regretting signing that contract. Terrorizing marshmallow-horses, really? At that moment, Alex flipped. Literally, the 13-year-old sort of, well, somersaulted out of his chair, landing prostrate in front of Rob. "SHE CUT MY FUCKING COMMUNICATION!!! HOWWWWW???" "Weeeelll... she's a magical horse, with wings, and enough magic to adjust the position of her planet to make night and day. I think she took some of that magic, and, in her current state of, quote, 'rip off the kid's balls', decided to play your game." Robert didn't care if he'd loose money. Money as hell wasn't everything, and that quote was easily worth 6 million. ~~ "Princess! If he can give you nightmares, what keeps him from reading your thoughts?" Twilight Sparkle was seriously confused. "Simple, my faithful student. Extreme emotion. Emotion is a primitive and irrational thing, causing very random thoughts and readouts. This means lots of it will "scramble" brainwave signals. All the better so that little prick will keep out of my head while I devise a real strategy. For example, placing his vessel and all signals within a containment shield, similar to the one placed around this city during your brother's wedding." "And where is his "vessel"?" Celestia concentrated on the source of all her recent misery, and was mildly surprised by its location. "Why, its actually not anywhere around here, its on a different world!" Indeed, Alex was in a unit in the back of a Semi Truck (Articulated Lorrie) on a planet known by equestrian astronomers as "Sol 3". Alex never left earth. Flashback 1- A Reference of Alex.Flashback 1 Author Note: A Quick History of Alex2315, and how he came to achieve what he did. If you'd like some ambiance/mood setting, I listened to this while writing. Sol 3. A smaller blue planet, with untold resources and, possibly, life. That final fact hadn't been proven for equestrian science until Celestia's most recent discovery. ~~ Yes, the sun of Equestria was actually what humans like to call "Alpha Centauri". The Alpha Centauri system is actually a binary star system, one fixed star, and one, smaller star that behaved in "unpredictable" patterns. The smaller sun, called "Tau Ceti" by the beings of Equestria, was a star under direct influence of Princess Celestia's magic. A very covert operation taken by a "non-existent" collaboration between NASA, the RSFA, and the ESA, all under direction of a global intelligence union, referred to as GAIA (the exact words that make the acronym are classified), who had launched a series of seemingly random satellites, some posing as GPS, others as communications or scientific space labs. All of these satellites actually forced a grid, that, at the right rotation of the Earth, would align into a lens focusing agent, for approximately 20 minutes. This light-refraction grid would collect a ring of light nearly three times the diameter of earth, making the point on the Earth's surface where this ring converged the most powerful telescope system known to man. The point slowly moved over time, and a large mobile unit designed to focus and process the incoming light was moved with it. However, one fateful day, a decimal-rounding error placed the point in 8-year old Alex Philston's backyard. Alex happened to own a telescope. You can guess what happened. The light-ring was focused on a solitary planet orbiting the AS B, the smaller sun in the Alpha Centauri system. Alex was amazed by the fact that, when he positioned his reflector-class Orion TeleScan in the right location that night, he could see a planet's surface as clear as if it were the moon. On this planet were structures. Alex had become the first human being to see another civilization on a different planet. These events occurred during year 997 of Luna's exile. Now, 5 years later, Alex had finally achieved his goal, but the costs were great. There was no way he could ever achieve enough power, magic or otherwise, to reach Alpha Centauri on his own, even if he had every resource on earth at his disposal. So, he had made a deal. Figuring that, "Heck, if there is one other civilized planet out there, there must be others", he looked around. Amazingly, he bumped into a "visitor", and he literally bumped into one. One day, he had observed a scheduled meteor shower, and noticed via his telescope that one of the meteors was burning a different color, and was a lot closer than the others. It feel quite close to his location. A five-mile walk later, he smacked into an invisible shielded hull of a ship. The ship opened; its crew long dead, the autopilot had been looking for the nearest planet with intelligent beings. Alex came aboard, and was met by a robotic voice, speaking in gibberish. After a few minutes, he timidly asked, "Um, can you speak English?" He heard his voice repeated back to him. Then, the recording was played over again, but in a different wording. "ENGLISH. SPEAK. YOU. UM. CAN?" It sounds like baby-talk, hahah. Wait... Alex was a smart kid. He quickly understood that the machine was learning to speak with Alex like a baby would, but in a very sped up manner. Alex launched into a discourse of dialog, reciting every poem, every quote, every equation, and every funny word he knew, trying to make coherent conversation. After fifteen minutes, Alex took a break from speaking. A bit of static, and then, "HELLO. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I AM A COMPUTER." Alex had taught a computer a new language. "Yeah, I'm Alex. What's your name?" "MY UNIT CLASSIFICATION IS DELVARTIE-HEM SEVEN." "Uh... can I call you Del?" "UNDERSTOOD. NAME UNIT CLASSIFICATION OVERRIDE. MY NAME IS... DEL." "OK, Del. How can I get to there?" Alex said, pointing to the Alpha Centauri starlight he knew so well. "THERE ARE CHOICES. PHYSICAL, OR MENTAL BROADCAST." "Which is quicker?" Alex would spend the next 3 years building up a silent empire of wealth and technology, releasing a small tidbit of the alien tech whenever he needed funding. Because of his busy time spent constantly learning and growing, he never made any friends, and became an introverted genius. He hated loosing a game, and developed a competitive streak that earned him top spots on leader boards in nearly every game genre. By the time the devices Del needed were complete, Alex had left behind everything he had, including family, friends, and most emotions. He was a chronically bored genius. He began experimenting. He found that with enough power, he could reach into people's minds, and subtly change how they thought. He began working on a device that could control worlds, but he needed one last element. GAIA had finally finished a broadcasting power-beacon that could translate nearly any type of electromagnetic radiation into a series of light-pulses, that were then fed through a super-colliding electron tube, which bent the light into a vortex. The resulting energy, when released could travel hundreds of times faster than light. Alex needed this for real-time communication with that planet. So, he used his advanced tech to warp the minds of the directors of GAIA, and "procured" One of the production units. And now comes the present day. By this point, Alex had moved from a passionate young child hoping to see a new world, to a teenager with the goal of fully controlling the planet; the ever-elusive goal that had consumed his life. Alex had become a genius in a self-made culture and life, a force to be reckoned with. Really, Alex had progressed beyond the standards of humanity in general. But he still was a human, and had human thoughts and desires. All of his extra anguish and rage he poured into competitive gaming. He truly was an addict, so to speak. And now, with this world in his grasp, all he wanted to do was play a game. Chapter 5Chapter 5 Alex stood up, quickly pulling on the ends of his shorts to straighten them. One of his many quirks was the OCD he had towards wrinkled clothing. "Com'on! Lets see if we can get the holosystems up. You need to send some messages to our princess, Robert." Shit, he called me Robert. Something's gonna go down... Rob still could care less about his comment to Alex, the zit-faced computer prodigy had never explicitly put "always respect me" on the wanted ad. (Knowing him as Robert did now, that actually wasn't out of the question for this kid.) Robert was slightly worried about the little horse-things half a galaxy away. If Mr. 'Game Master' got what he wanted, those marshmallow creatures would probably wind up roasted over a campfire, then made into pastel-colored s'mores. Reaching a what appeared to be a railway maintenance shack, Alex flung open the door to reveal an elevator shaft. At the bottom was a small underground room with a rack of computer servers, some screens, and what looked like the cockpit of an F-18 B. Under the glass dome was an outline shaped into the contours of Robert's bulky torso. Alex didn't really need Robert's strength to operate what was ultimately a glorified smoke-and-mirror machine, but the years of highly structured procedure and training which "renders obedience instinctive under all conditions" that had been crammed into the military man's head. "It appears the Princess can only block what I am directly in control of. This means that I can only give you verbal instructions, or she will jam this station as well. Now, listen closely, for you must tell her exactly this..." Alex quietly spoke a series of rapid sentences off in a hushed voice, acting as if the room was tapped. "Got it?" "Affirmative." Robert didn't necessarily agree, but an order was an order. ~~ "Hmmm. It appears he's stopped broadcasting. I think we shall be safe for the time being." Celestia's horn was glowing brightly as she concentrated on feeling the energy waves sent across space. "He appears to be the same race as the legendary, but his technology is much more primitive than what we were warned of..." "Who warned what?" Twilight was sitting at the side of her mentor in the Canterlot archives, where they had retired to be out of the way of Luna and her duties. "Oh, my student. You never stop being curious, do you? To be short, creatures similar to the one attacking us came nearly half a millenium ago to this land. They left a series of cryptic warnings about our future, as they claimed to be from a time many years from even now. A contact with these creatures on Sol 3 was predicted, but not in this way. The real threat has not shown itself yet." Celestia wished she could explain in more detail, but every time she stopped to communicate some piece of her knowledge, the power she placed into tracking the young human slipped, and required all the more concentration to keep a lock on him. It was during this period of concentration that Celestia felt a piece of paper flutter down past her head. Only twilight's dragon had been given the connection to send messages like this. However, as she opened her eyes, Celestia found that Twilight was carefully studying a peice of parchment that looked much whiter and cleaner than the usual equestrian stock. On the front of the paper was shown a picture of a blue sphere with green blotches on it, in turn surrounded by three rings: One gold, one red, and one blue. Underneath this was one word. "What does GAIA mean?" Twilight asked softly to no one in particular. The Princess, having forgotten the boy for the moment, enveloped the parchment in her magic and slowly unfolded it. "What does it say, Princess?" "I'm not sure... the symbols are complete gibberi-" Celestia's words were stopped, as the paper glowed and the letters shifted. She noticed an odd watermark at the bottom which read 'CERTIFIED GRADE SEVEN PSYCHIC PAPER'. "Ah, its a letter. Ahem!" Celestia began to read out loud, glad to have a second set of hooves to process the information with her. "To the creatures inhabiting exoplanet 57 Pegasi D, please take note of the following information..." ~~ Director Q sat behind his desk, quietly listening to a muffled conversation through an earpiece in his left ear. The letter of warning, with enough necessary information, had been sent through a very new device; the lab-coats were only giving about 60% chance of success. Of course, GAIA never used early tech such as this unless and extreme emergency occurred. Alex had been a constant state of emergency for five years, and the director was done with it. Alex had merely been a young boy who got lucky, and GAIA wrote him off as an outlier. Interestingly, the boy had also been lucky enough to recover a foreign artifact before the containment squads were alerted. And finally, he had hit the motherload, finding a Type II civilization Virtual Intelligence, promptly moving the elementary-school child to the number 1 most advanced human, in the entirety of known history. Fate was fickle sometimes, and when fate had dealt its hand in this saga, the previous director was "fired". Director Q's first, and so far only, directive was to find, stop, and harvest the technology of Alex2315. Director Q was picked because he had ignored what fate wanted to do on many occasions, and went ahead and did what GAIA wanted to do. In the words of Q himself: "Don't tell me about chance, luck, or fate. Those are defunct concepts in this line of work; people who still subscribe to that train of thought are wrong, and I really would like to convince them otherwise. If they don't want my help, they can go FUCK themselves, because chance, luck, or fate will fuck them eventually anyway." Director Q, who was called DQ by most, had finally made contact with the other side of the equation. Now, fate was useless. He had just won the game. Chapter 6Chapter 6 "Well that was... surprisingly straightforward." Twilight looked up at Princess Celestia, who was giving the paper a close inspection. "So, this Alex is really just a human how got lucky?" "Well, the paper here say 'statistical anomaly' whenever something like luck comes into play. Its as if they refuse to acknowledge the existence of chance or fate. What I'm more interested in is 'Physic Paper', the material this letter was written on. It seems to convey itself in a way that anyone who reads it can understand." "Well, now that we know all this, what should we do?" Princess Celestia had been giving thought to that. "Obviously, this 'GAIA', whoever it is, wants our assailant taken down as much as we do. It's odd, though. Not a single mention of who the writer is. This all feels so... clandestine. I think that we should get in touch." ~~ Robert had entered into the holochamber, and was now silently observing the conversation between Player 2, and the smaller purple unicorn. Damn. GAIA still got through. Robert was, for the first time in his military life, considering deserting. Alex had committed crimes that no government on earth could try. Therefor, more likely than not, GAIA would have their way in however they chose to punish Alex and his cronies. Robert was the closest thing to a personal sidekick that Alex had. Good and bad were relative concepts to Robert, so he wasn't bothered by that. What bothered him was if he was on the winning side or not. What the hell have I become? Shit, this is so confusing. It's not like Robert could just follow his patriotic blood; nations would no longer be a concern once the general public found out that an entire different planet existed. And if GAIA won, that's what would happen. Alex's sources knew that GAIA was a global organization devoted to world peace. However, world peace didn't translate into universal piece, and if a common outside enemy was found, differences could be set aside better. Alex was almost a better outcome for the Pony planet, even if an unsavory choice. "Robert, what is going on?" Alex's muffled voice snapped Roberts roving mind back to his mission instantly. "Commander, enem- er, second player has contact with third party." "GAIA?" Alex answered his own question. Who else could send messages across deep space? "Hell. I can't believe this, but that means my game is done. GAIA won." Robert nearly smacked his head on the screen. "The only way to keep going now, is to start a different game." Alex wasn't an idiot, even if he was socially... inept. GAIA knew they would win as much as he did. Equestria had no power to defeat him, but GAIA... they could easily march into the room and drag him out by the neck. Alex flipped the main breaker switch. He'd have to keep moving, as GAIA and Celestia would have an instant lock on his location if he stayed in one location for even more than a few minutes. Time to wake up Del. ~~ Del had been sitting in a server in a closet for the past 8 months, in "sleep mode". A surge of energy and Del was ready for input. The one constant thought, if you could call it that, was "Prompt?" Dell wasn't a true artificial intelligence. The ancient race that created him had the power to do such a thing, but they wisely refused coherent thought to their machines. Human predictions of a singularity takeover by machines were similar fears of Del's creators. "Good Day, Alex. It has been a while." The mechanic voice of Del chimed as Alex turned on the terminal screen. "Del, we need to get moving. Activate the hover panels. Alex's request was met by the sound of 400,000 volts running through magnetized panels, repelling the lab away from any other atoms not immersed in the electric charge. With a strangely silent rumble, the little shed above the lab rose up in the air, along with all the parts below it. A strange site, seeing a shed on top of a large metal box. However, a secondary infrared charge in the outside paneling bent all light around the box, making it invisible to the naked eye. Alex was not going to stop until he got what he wanted. Literally. ~~ Robert was still listening to the conversation when he felt the entire room rise into the air. Huh, that's new. While reflecting on the new piece of technology his employer hadn't told him about, he heard muffled alarms coming from the console outside, and a faint robotic voice calling "Alert! Alert! Power surge has hyper-powered the broadcast beam!" Wait... that's how i'm listening in to this conversation. What happens when the stuff we broadcast gets extra juic-"OH GOD OH GOD OH GAWWWD!!!" A light had burst from the screen and was enveloping Robert. What did it feel like? It felt like every atom in his body was being ripped out, sent through a particle accelerator, and shot across deep space towards Equestria. Oddly enough, that's exactly what was happening. ~~ "ALERT! ALERT! POWER SURGE HAS HYPER-POWED BROADCAST BEAM!" Del's robotic voice had slightly raised in pitch, and was at max volume. "Shut UP, Del! I understand!" Alex nonchalantly tossed a bag of Cheetos at the mute button. The voice stopped, but the text messages rolling across the console screen kept coming. From behind Alex came a muffled scream. Alex knew what was happening. The messages were laying the situation out before him. Basically, Robert, his only communication source with equestria, was being teleported across space. The first thought to cross Alex's mind was a rather tongue-in-cheek one. Top that, Scotty. I can beam someone across planets. The second thought was surprising to Alex. Jeez, that sounds like it hurts. I hop hes... okay... Alex was... what was the emotion? Worried? Yeah... Alex was... worried... about Robert. ~~ A flashing holographic orb zoomed up from DQ's desk. He touched his index finger to the orb, which scanned his fingerprint, flashed green, and then morphed into a readout of text. After a few seconds, he swatted the orb away from him, turning off the holoscreen. So, now they knew where Alex was. A power surge coming from nothing, just like that? DQ wondered what the cabbage could make such a strong readout of energy. It's as if... no. Tron doesn't happen in real-life. You can't just digitize people, it didn't work that way. And yet... DQ leaned forward in his chair, and called up the orb again. "Message, to be broadcast on global channel. Double-Standard Encryption. Message Text is as follows: Activate local units in the Arizona area. Look for an unusually high source of concentrated energy. Approach with caution, source may have heavy defenses." DQ couldn't believe it, yet for all intents and purposes, it appeared that Alex was trying to send a physical object to Equestria! Damn it, Alex. Stop using luck. It will run out on you, eventually.
Chapter 1Chapter 1 A self-professed master was about to conduct the greatest display of skills ever heard of in his circle of professionals. Sure, many can theorize and study game outcomes, scenarios in which this or that happened. No one could test the theories of this particular game. That is, until now, he thought. Image the glory of an entire planet as a game-board! It was dark. He preferred the dark, a self-inflicted curse to help his thinking. After another drink, he sat by the cold fireplace; turning over his strategy one last time. The first move had to be made. The game, as it was, was ready to begin. ~~ Ms. Cake trotted along the path through Ponyville, allowing time to stop and enjoy the wonderful weather. Really, the ponies in Cloudsdale have outdone themselves, she thought. Ms. Cake loved Ponyville, for the fact that it was so peaceful. Not counting the exploits of Pinkie, the chances for, say, Sugarcube Corner exploding was basically zero. That's why she and her wonderful Stallion had chosen this location. “Afternoon, Ms. Cake!” Said a voice behind her. “Oh! Hello, Twilight!” Ms. Cake knew nearly everyone in town by voice, a skill picked up by attending numerous crowded parties. “I wanted to let you know that Princess Celestia complemented you and Mr. Cake by name in her most recent letter. That party was really fun!” Twilight was, of course, referring to the time not so long ago when Princess Celestia had come to Ponyville to see personally the results of Twilight's research into the magic of friendship. Ms. Cake nodded in affirmation, adding that she was always delighted to have guests. As Twilight left in the direction of Everfree forest to go about her errands, Ms. Cake smiled brightly. Ah, well. Enough dawdling, time to see how Pinkie's latest efforts are coming along... Sugarcube Corner exploded. ~~ Rainbow Dash was running through her daily exercise routine when she heard the noise. Odd, that sounded remarkably like a building full of pasty exploding. Well, she had to investigate, it could also be a competitor trying for a sonic rainboom! Zooming to town, the sight that met Rainbow's eyes nearly caused her to drop out of the sky. There was Ms. Cake, sobbing, and a crowd gathering around a building, that was most definitely not Sugarcube corner. In its place stood a perfectly square, very tall, iron-and-glass building. Time to find Twi. Rainbow didn't have to look for long; Twilight galloped into view within seconds, obviously worried about the explosion. No, wait. She looks terrified, and she's running hard... and not stopping? It was not Sugarcube corner that had frightened Twilight into running, it was the thing coming out of the Everfree forest. ~~ Applejack was very confused. A, well, thing, wearing a crimson cloak about its... neck (guessed Applejack) had come roaring (or is it screaming?) out of the Everfree forest, in hot pursuit of a certain purple unicorn Applejack knew very well. She wasn't quite sure what she was seeing, and was fixed to the spot, until her attention was drawn to a cyan Pegasus yelling at her. ~~ “Hey, Applejack! Move. It. NOW!” Rainbow had been yelling at Applejack for what seemed like an hour before she looked up, dazed from the mental shock the “thing” had given her. “I need to get to Canterlot, Twilight can’t exactly send the Princess a letter. You get everypony away from those... things!” ~~ Applejack quickly came to her senses, that thing was after her friends! She broke off on a breakneck pace into town, sharply yelling at anypony within earshot to clear out. Whatever was happening, it appeared to be a danger. ~~ He coldly took in the facts, these “ponies” had reacted in an unexpected way. After all, one would normally assume a sentient horse living in an era of magic with no electronics would pass out at the sight of the Sears Tower instantly occupying the spot a small restaurant used to stand. Yes, ignoring the equestrian history books published by Wheller Inc. had been a mistake, as the stories regarding the demeanor of your average pony were correct. For pastel-colored miniature horses, these creatures showed plenty of courage. Though he wished to spare life, the next move in this game would require a show of mortality. With no trace of emotion, he ordered his minion to terminate one life. Your move! ~~ Rainbow, slightly winded from a near-supersonic flight, staggered over to a guard outside the Canterlot palace. The guard, seeing a tipsy pony sucking wind, though that maybe somepony had downed too many beverages for breakfast. It was only 0930, for Celestia’s sake! “Please… Ponyville... Strange building, flying stuff…” Rainbow Dash only managed a few mixed words before the guard offered to take her to a “nice place, where they will make you feel better”. Rainbow was a bit confused, but finally managed to get her breath. “No! I mean that Ponywille is under attack, moron!” ~~ Princess Celestia was busy discussing a planned geological survey with a unicorn contractor interested in expanding into the mountains surrounding Canterlot, and the talk had quickly turned sour. “With all due respect, your majesty, I think we can confidently state that these mountains could support another three cities the size of Canterlot, we just have to burrow farther into the mountain! Think of the economical benefits!” Princess Celestia sighed, and again reminded the grey stallion of the last time someone had ventured to expand the city. “The property damage was through the roof, and those poor ponies were lucky to escape with their lives! I understand your points, Mr. Crane, but the simple fact is all that rubble will eventually have to go somewhere, and I must be sure it does not end up on top of this city.” Crane was about to reply when the meeting was adjourned by the sound of a distant noise, not unlike thunder, but much more explosive. “Excuse me, but obviously something is in need of my attention. We will have to continue this topic some other day.” As the dejected stallion left, a very annoyed Rainbow Dash burst in, followed by a half-score of guards. “Your Majesty! Ponyville is being att-” was all the Pegasus could manage before four guards swarmed her, one of whom began profusely apologizing to the large Alicorn. “Let the mare speak, gentlecolts. This is a close friend of my most favored student!” ~~ PRIME DIRECTIVE: TERMINATE. The large, obnoxious text flashed in on the screen of the XM-17’s Helmet. The human in control understood the reasoning, the forces of his master must be shown as a truly horrifying and fearful enemy, not just one that anyone could lock their door and hide from. With the slight movement of a finger, the XM-17 targeted the small purple unicorn that was directly ahead, and activated a rocket. ~~ “Roger, Wilco.” The reply was heard across the room by the fireplace observer, and he (though it was not a beneficial emotion) felt gleeful. Oh, yes, how fun this was! He mused that this was like “playing Super Mario on the easiest setting, but with cheats”. Alex2315, the master of games, was off to another great start.
Chapter 2Chapter 2 Twilight was in a state that could not be justified by only one emotion. Did I really only just talk to Ms. Cake ten minutes ago? Well, whatever the case, it appeared she was dead. Waking up in her current location, she found an empty room with stark white walls and no apparent light source contained her body. Twilight had never seriously contemplated the afterlife, but so far it appeared to be one thing: extremely boring. Seriously, if I ever find the people who run this place, i'm going to ask if they couldn't have bothered to leave some magazines, or something... Well, at least she had time to try and unravel the events that brought her here. As she recalled, she had been on her way to Fluttershy's cottage to record the nature of the animals in Everfree Forest. 'Oh, Twilight, they aren't mean creatures at all!' said Fluttershy in her standard soft voice. 'Are you sure? What about the Manticore we had to deal with?' 'Um... that one had a ... thorn, in its paw, remember Twilight?' 'Oh, yeah...' They had then proceeded to venture into the edge of Everfree, where they were still in sight of the cottage. Twilight had only just begun to start her questions when a very unnatural noise, accompanied by a bright-red light flashed down from the sky, revealing a strange contraption in its place. The thing was metal, and walked on two legs, a very strange trait for anything in Equestria, if you didn't count the monkies in the royal gardens. 'Perhaps w-we should leave, Twilight!" a very frightened Fluttershy sqeaked. Nopony had a chance to say anything else at this point, for the large, metallic, two-legged beast said in a strange electronic voice: 'ALL HAIL. THE GAME MASTER HAS COME. HE IS DESTINED TO WIN, AND YOU ARE DESTINED TO DROP IN THE RANKINGS.' Twilight had no idea what the thing meant by "rankings", or "game master". She furiously racked her brain for any book on the subject, but couldn't think of any. With that, she decided to go check the library for one, and in a moment that easily qualified for most stupid decision ever made by a lavender unicorn, turned her back on the thing. 'GAME PAWN. HALT, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED FOR MOVEMENT IN THIS TURN. HALT!' The sudden addition of a deeper voice, with a tone several decibels louder than the previous voice of the beast, had the affect of pushing Twilight into a bolt, galloping out of the forest. The beast launched into the air, powered by some strange devices on the ends of the beast's legs. Fluttershy, who had not moved from the moment of the initial encounter, immediately passed out of consciousness as the thing left her to go after Twilight Sparkle. Twilight didn't really remember the rest, just fear, a voice calling "TERMINATION AUTHORIZED. PREPARE FOR STORAGE", a very loud noise, and then... this. Just a little frustrated, she began to trot around her confines, and activated her magic to see if there were any hidden ways out, which was a disheartening "negative". At this, she sat, waiting for something, anything to happen. Lo and behold, a screen materialized on the wall directly opposite her position. "Hello? Pawn, are you there? can you hear me?" The source of the voice came from the silhouette of a creature that appeared similar to the beast. It had two legs, and two... other legs, just dangling from the top of the creature. As this was just a black outline, nothing more could be said of it. Figuring that this thing was the entity in charge of her quarters, the first thought to enter her mind was a ridiculous one, but one she had seriously considered asking earlier: "Um, could I get a magazine?" ~~ Princess Celestia was in a hurry, no royal chariot this time, just a quick decent into Ponyville by wing. Rainbow dash had manged to explain the situation well enough for the Princess to understand the foe in this situation was a dangerous and skilled one, who appeared to do what most super powerful evil entities did: attempt to take over the world, then do whatever they did. Funny enough, no one really knew what came after "Take over the world", as it had yet to be accomplished. "Thank the sun! It's Celestia!" called out a pony, slightly in redundance. Alas, this situation was a total mess. the first thing to do would be to restore order. "PONIES! PLEASE, CALM YOURSELVES!" Called out the magically amplified voice of Celestia. Most got the hint, but a few of the more skittish ponies took that final shock as their adieu, and ran off. "Thank you. Now, where is Twilight Sparkle?" ~~ Fluttershy slowly opened her eyes; she was still where she had fallen. "T-Twilight? are you there?" What happened? Twilight had come into the forest with her, and they had heard a noise, and... then... "Omigoodness! Twiliiiight! Dont't worry, i'm coming!" When she needed to, Fluttershy could be very courageous. ~~ "What? has nopony seen Twilight?" The Princess asked, in dismay. "Ah, beggin' yur pardon miss Princess, but I saw Twilight being chased in this direction. She never made it, I wonder where... SWEET GOLDEN DELICIOUS! Thar it is!" Applejack had been explaining the predicament of Twilight when the beast suddenly came into view over the nearest house, and landed in the midst of the ponies with a very loud, metal-on-stone THUD. "ATTENTION, GAME PIECES. THIS IS A TWO-PLAYER GAME. WHERE IS THE OTHER PLAYER?" The beast look around, and saw the regal Alicorn, slightly miffed at the much louder beast. I really need to work on the Royal Canterlot voice some more, both Luna and this thing have put me to shame... Thought Celestia. "REPEAT PROMPT: WHERE IS THE SECOND PLAYER?" The beast added, with a slight edge to its mechanic voice. "I'm sorry, but we have no idea what you are, what the game is, or who the first so-called "player" is!" Celestia was in the dark, and was annoyed by this thing and its very clipped manner of speech. "ARE YOU THE SECOND PLAYER? THE RULES ARE ONLY TOLD TO THE PLAYERS, THAT IS THE FIRST AND ONLY PUBLIC RULE." "Fine, yes. i am the second player." "ACCEPTED. PREPARE FOR TRANSPORT TO GAME ROOM." "Wha-" Celestia's confusion was cut by a red light that had descended, enveloped beast and Alicorn, and then vanished, leaving nothing behind. The ponies lost it.
Chapter 3Chapter 3 "Um, Can I have a magazine?" Asked Twilight Sparkle. "What? Seriously? OK, you're telling me you have no other questions?" The silhouette asked in skepticism. "I mean, you have no idea where you are, or why you are here..." "Well, I'm dead, right?" Twilight Sparkle was seriously confused. "Argh! That stupid supersoldier... no, you are not dead, you are in storage. As proclaimed by my minions, I am the game master, and like any game piece, you've been captured, for storage until the next game." Twilight Sparkle was getting an idea. "Hold on, we didn't even know we were game pieces! You can't start the game until everyone knows the rules!" Alex ground his teeth. He could only bluff so far, part of the problem using this board, was that the rules were automated. If this creature called him on rule-breaking, the game was over; he'd be forced to forfeit. Again, very... impressive for a marshmallow-like fantasy creature to go all "Rule Nazi" on him. Twilight Sparkle took note of the uneasy pause. "You know what, how about we reset the game... I'll pretend this never happened." Alex considered the deal. Only two moves in, that's not a bad loss. I need to use a different strategy, anyways. "Fine! You'll get a reset, and the rules!" ~~ Celestia had just gotten adjusted to her very strange surroundings. A dark room, with metallic plate walls, and a glowing rectangular object in the center of the room, labeled as a "holo projector", was the current location of the Equestrian Princess. Suddenly, something flashed in the air above the holo projector, a green, glowing message that read out 'Game reset requested. Yes or No?' "What? Does that entail 'resetting' the world, as in..." Princess Celestia gasped. "No, it just resets the players. After all, this planet is but the game board, all that is reset are the pieces." The owner of this voice was standing in a rectangular opening that had appeared in the wall. "Pleasure to meet you, player 2. I am Alex2315, or player 1." The creature stood on two legs, with two upper appendages in place for manipulation and control. It had a oval-shaped head, with two central-placed eyes (big sign of a predator), a short, stubby excuse for a snout (the "nose"), and two flaps on the side of the head, which seemed to be it's ears. It was awkwardly tall, definitely in a growth spurt, placing it's age at just above that of a filly, in the teenage years. The face in general was stark white, and the two cobalt eyes exhibited a slightly maniacal glee. As the whole creature came closer, and more details came into focus, Celestia recognized the creature. What??? It's... one of the Legendary! Impossible! Princess Celestia knew now what was the source of everypony's current predicament: Humans. "Alrighty, it's been fun, but you aren't supposed to exist anymore. The Humans here were dead long ago." Celestia knew what she was talking about. Near the beginning of her reign, a strange quirk of the universe had caused a Human space capsule to fall through a wormhole, which spat out the ship in the upper atmosphere of the Equestrian planet. The survivors, all Male (according to the humans), remained on Equestrian soil the remainder of their lives, which was only about another 72 years until the last of the survivors died, or more aptly, disappeared. You see, the humans were changed by their new planet, and all of them were never seen dead. They were just... gone one day. When the last one disappeared, he had not aged a day. Some still claimed to have sighted the beings, in times of need, repaying their debt to equestria for giving them long and happy lives. Unfortunately, this one seemed to be younger, and a lot less interested in friendship. "Heh, well, perhaps your versions. I come from the federation of human extra-reality gamers, and we play with worlds." In all honesty, Alex had only just created the federation out of thin air for some extra prestige. After all, the tech he had for this game was one-of-a-kind. "Well, you want to start a new game, with better knowledge. Your game pieces are well educated in some of the rules... so I am here to tell you them, as rule number 2 is to educate all players in the rules. But first, we must reset. Just say yes..." "Fine, go ahead." Celestia sighed ~~ Twilight watched in awe as the walls of her prison dissolved, leaving her standing in front of sugarcube corner, midst a crowd of very confused ponies. "Its... gone!" "Where did it go? What was it?" "MY BEAUTIFUL SHOP IS SAFE!!!" The last comment came from a sobbing Ms. Cake, who was now crying tears of joy. Everything was in its old location, as if nothing had ever even occurred that day. "ATTENTION! Everypony, listen up!" The voice permeating the air was that of Celestia herself. "I am unharmed, but I cannot say any more about my location, or you would all suffer. I'm sorry. But, I must tell you to be careful of your actions, and listen carefully when you are told to do something, even if you are scared of your circumstances. I'm afraid we've been trapped into a game, a game that will decide all our fates. Now is not the time to panic, my little ponies, for together we will win!" ~~ Princess Celestia stepped away from Alex's "microphone". She had refused to don a headset, so she couldn't hear the reactions of her subjects. Alex, after making sure Celestia's com-link was off, then turned on the microphone on the side of his head. Celestia had heard him call it "Blue Tooth", though it was neither blue, nor remotely tooth-shaped. "Alrighty, n00bs, now that your little overlord has said her piece, I'm telling you the rules. Rule number 1 and two are irrelevant to the game, and many of you already have heard them from my XMSoldier unit. Here is what you need to know: The game is over instantly once a player coincides defeat, and the other player is awarded a higher ranking in the standings, plus said player will receive ultimate power over this game set, also known as your planet. The rules forbid cheating or tampering with code, but that rule will only be applied if the rule-breaker is caught. Reminder, if no one saw it, it isn't illegal!" Alex had added that to allow him room for his "special" strategies. "The final rule you must know is that the game only ends once a player admits defeat. It doesn't matter what circumstances cause this, but the player must give up. Now, lets all play fair, play relatively safe, and have a bit of fun!" With that, Alex signed off, turning once again to Celestia. Celestia couldn't take it anymore: "Why are you doing this!?" She demanded. "My dear Celestia, isn't it ovbious? I have all the power and wealth I could dream of. I am doing this because I'm getting BORED. We are going to be anything but bored, because, really the only two pieces are you, and me. We don't even have to use this game board. All that matters, is that one of us must push the other into admitting defeat. Now, good luck. I shall move first." With that, he pressed a pad on his left arm, and Celestia felt her consciousness slip away. She awoke in her royal chambers, just in time to raise the sun. As she stood, she noticed a message written on her wall, in large letters: "YOUR MOVE." Celestia suddenly felt very tired, as if she had just written a bad, long-winded explanation for a hastily written book, which had decided to use the first two chapters as an action sequence. Her next move would be to take a nap. Author Note: I am contemplating changing the story rating to "teen", to allow greater use of "descriptive interjections". (A.K.A: Swearing). Just warning you all.
Chapter 4Chapter 4 Author's Warning: This chapter contains cursing so strong, it may cause you to re-think your religious principles, and possibly switch political parties. Read on at your own risk. ~~ Alex was excited. Now he would really get to play a good game. Dropping into his surround-sound gaming chair, he pulled up the theme song that he used to get into the mood, and clearly enunciated to the screen in front of him, "play". A sound, not unlike something DJ-P0N3 would mix, shot from the speakers. Aww, looks like our poor princess needs some rest. Why don't we give her some? Quietly, he reached over to a stainless steel panel with a brainwave readout, and flicked a dial labeled "TEST LEVEL 16: DO NOT USE". Sweet dreams, princess. Or should I say, not so sweet. He he he... ~~ Finally, the Princess had risen the sun. It had taken quite a bit of effort, considering how tired and distracted she was. She left a memo on her door directing all inquiries to Luna, and with that, promptly collapsed into the royal bed. Within a few minutes, she had slipped into a light doze, and was in REM after 30. "NO! Princess, please! Just tell them to kill me, unhook the machines!" Begged Twilight Sparkle. She was a horrific sight, looking as if someone had burned and subsequently ran the lower half of the purple unicorn through a meat grinder. "Oh, Twilight, they turned off the machines an hour ago. We are trying to ease your pain! Please, understand!" Celestia said softly, silent tears streaming down her face. "Oh Celestia, please. If I can't die, I need help. Please..." The moaning Twilight Sparkle feebly pointed a hoof toward a scalpel sitting on a nearby tray. "You can do it. A few cuts, in the right spots." "Please, Twilight! The doctors are doing all they can!" "Oh Princess, quit kidding yourself. Everyone else is dead already." Twilight's last moan made Celestia look around. For the first time, she noticed the piles of carcasses that lay around the room, flies buzzing around, gorging on her once-living subjects. "Princess, its just you and me. Please, PLEASE! I c-can't bear it, stop this pain!" What is this? Wait... How did this happen? Oh... fuck. Celestia knew what was happening; a unicorn with her power, knowledge, and centuries of experiences would quickly recognize when they were being messed with. With this epiphany, she snapped her eyes open, and found herself back her bedchamber, the mattress soaked with sweat. I guess sleep will be a problem to deal with. As she lay where she had awoken, the princess mused about the day's incredible events. A creature shows up, intent on completely destroying her, only because he was bored. The more she thought, the angrier she grew. No one should have the power to ruin lives for entertainment! Slowly, Celestia's shivers of fear became shivers of anger. You know what, enough of this shit! It's my turn! Celestia was getting sick of this pubescent filly, time to go offensive. ~~ Twilight Sparkle was galloping toward Canterlot as fast as her hooves could carry her. After a 6-hour checkover of Ponyville to make sure it was really the same (4 of those 6 hours involved checking the location of every book in town), Twi needed to check on her beloved mentor. Surely she could get some answers from Celestia. Reaching the guard at the palace gate, she managed to wheeze between gasps, "Student... Game reset... Ask Molestia, I mean, Celestia..." Oddly enough, the guard was the same one rainbow dash had ran into. Seriously, why am I the weirdo magnet? Wondered Wally Guardian. With a sigh, the grey pony in golden armor stood aside to let the unicorn through. He almost preferred an angry Celestia over an altercation with this creep. Twilight entered Celestia's chambers to find a very unexpected surprise. Luna had opened the door, before returning to some documents awaiting her. Celestia was pacing around her bed, muttering something along the lines of "That asshole, he's really pushed it too far, I'm going to castrate him, if Humans have genitals similar to a pony's..." "P-perhaps we should Talk a-another time, Your Majesty." Twilight was stunned by the foul language that had came from Celestia's own mouth. "Oh my! Twilight Sparkle! I'm sorry...mostly..." Really, though. I meant those things... I might as well be facing off against Discord, because this... human... makes me just as angry. "Um... well, then. Could you tell me about this game?" "HOLD IT, CELESTIA! THAT BREAKS RULE 1." Alex's voice seemed to be coming from an invisible object in the center of the room. "ONLY THE PLAYERS MAY KNOW THE RULES." Celestia shouted (In the Royal Canterlot Voice, no less) a stream of sounds that would be forever imprinted on the minds of those who heard them. ~~ Alex loved it. He was making the other player emotional, and only after 7 hours. This game might as well be over by midnight tomorrow. "Ah, how fun! X, bring me my dinner, if you would." X, Alex's nickname for the human who ran his XM-17 Battle Tech Supersoldier, or BTS, came forward holding a tray. "You know, you have a damn butler." Robert Baler, who was an Air Force Academy Graduate, and the first triple-ace of World War III, had taken the job due to the 7-digit promised salary. Right now, he was regretting signing that contract. Terrorizing marshmallow-horses, really? At that moment, Alex flipped. Literally, the 13-year-old sort of, well, somersaulted out of his chair, landing prostrate in front of Rob. "SHE CUT MY FUCKING COMMUNICATION!!! HOWWWWW???" "Weeeelll... she's a magical horse, with wings, and enough magic to adjust the position of her planet to make night and day. I think she took some of that magic, and, in her current state of, quote, 'rip off the kid's balls', decided to play your game." Robert didn't care if he'd loose money. Money as hell wasn't everything, and that quote was easily worth 6 million. ~~ "Princess! If he can give you nightmares, what keeps him from reading your thoughts?" Twilight Sparkle was seriously confused. "Simple, my faithful student. Extreme emotion. Emotion is a primitive and irrational thing, causing very random thoughts and readouts. This means lots of it will "scramble" brainwave signals. All the better so that little prick will keep out of my head while I devise a real strategy. For example, placing his vessel and all signals within a containment shield, similar to the one placed around this city during your brother's wedding." "And where is his "vessel"?" Celestia concentrated on the source of all her recent misery, and was mildly surprised by its location. "Why, its actually not anywhere around here, its on a different world!" Indeed, Alex was in a unit in the back of a Semi Truck (Articulated Lorrie) on a planet known by equestrian astronomers as "Sol 3". Alex never left earth.
Flashback 1- A Reference of Alex.Flashback 1 Author Note: A Quick History of Alex2315, and how he came to achieve what he did. If you'd like some ambiance/mood setting, I listened to this while writing. Sol 3. A smaller blue planet, with untold resources and, possibly, life. That final fact hadn't been proven for equestrian science until Celestia's most recent discovery. ~~ Yes, the sun of Equestria was actually what humans like to call "Alpha Centauri". The Alpha Centauri system is actually a binary star system, one fixed star, and one, smaller star that behaved in "unpredictable" patterns. The smaller sun, called "Tau Ceti" by the beings of Equestria, was a star under direct influence of Princess Celestia's magic. A very covert operation taken by a "non-existent" collaboration between NASA, the RSFA, and the ESA, all under direction of a global intelligence union, referred to as GAIA (the exact words that make the acronym are classified), who had launched a series of seemingly random satellites, some posing as GPS, others as communications or scientific space labs. All of these satellites actually forced a grid, that, at the right rotation of the Earth, would align into a lens focusing agent, for approximately 20 minutes. This light-refraction grid would collect a ring of light nearly three times the diameter of earth, making the point on the Earth's surface where this ring converged the most powerful telescope system known to man. The point slowly moved over time, and a large mobile unit designed to focus and process the incoming light was moved with it. However, one fateful day, a decimal-rounding error placed the point in 8-year old Alex Philston's backyard. Alex happened to own a telescope. You can guess what happened. The light-ring was focused on a solitary planet orbiting the AS B, the smaller sun in the Alpha Centauri system. Alex was amazed by the fact that, when he positioned his reflector-class Orion TeleScan in the right location that night, he could see a planet's surface as clear as if it were the moon. On this planet were structures. Alex had become the first human being to see another civilization on a different planet. These events occurred during year 997 of Luna's exile. Now, 5 years later, Alex had finally achieved his goal, but the costs were great. There was no way he could ever achieve enough power, magic or otherwise, to reach Alpha Centauri on his own, even if he had every resource on earth at his disposal. So, he had made a deal. Figuring that, "Heck, if there is one other civilized planet out there, there must be others", he looked around. Amazingly, he bumped into a "visitor", and he literally bumped into one. One day, he had observed a scheduled meteor shower, and noticed via his telescope that one of the meteors was burning a different color, and was a lot closer than the others. It feel quite close to his location. A five-mile walk later, he smacked into an invisible shielded hull of a ship. The ship opened; its crew long dead, the autopilot had been looking for the nearest planet with intelligent beings. Alex came aboard, and was met by a robotic voice, speaking in gibberish. After a few minutes, he timidly asked, "Um, can you speak English?" He heard his voice repeated back to him. Then, the recording was played over again, but in a different wording. "ENGLISH. SPEAK. YOU. UM. CAN?" It sounds like baby-talk, hahah. Wait... Alex was a smart kid. He quickly understood that the machine was learning to speak with Alex like a baby would, but in a very sped up manner. Alex launched into a discourse of dialog, reciting every poem, every quote, every equation, and every funny word he knew, trying to make coherent conversation. After fifteen minutes, Alex took a break from speaking. A bit of static, and then, "HELLO. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I AM A COMPUTER." Alex had taught a computer a new language. "Yeah, I'm Alex. What's your name?" "MY UNIT CLASSIFICATION IS DELVARTIE-HEM SEVEN." "Uh... can I call you Del?" "UNDERSTOOD. NAME UNIT CLASSIFICATION OVERRIDE. MY NAME IS... DEL." "OK, Del. How can I get to there?" Alex said, pointing to the Alpha Centauri starlight he knew so well. "THERE ARE CHOICES. PHYSICAL, OR MENTAL BROADCAST." "Which is quicker?" Alex would spend the next 3 years building up a silent empire of wealth and technology, releasing a small tidbit of the alien tech whenever he needed funding. Because of his busy time spent constantly learning and growing, he never made any friends, and became an introverted genius. He hated loosing a game, and developed a competitive streak that earned him top spots on leader boards in nearly every game genre. By the time the devices Del needed were complete, Alex had left behind everything he had, including family, friends, and most emotions. He was a chronically bored genius. He began experimenting. He found that with enough power, he could reach into people's minds, and subtly change how they thought. He began working on a device that could control worlds, but he needed one last element. GAIA had finally finished a broadcasting power-beacon that could translate nearly any type of electromagnetic radiation into a series of light-pulses, that were then fed through a super-colliding electron tube, which bent the light into a vortex. The resulting energy, when released could travel hundreds of times faster than light. Alex needed this for real-time communication with that planet. So, he used his advanced tech to warp the minds of the directors of GAIA, and "procured" One of the production units. And now comes the present day. By this point, Alex had moved from a passionate young child hoping to see a new world, to a teenager with the goal of fully controlling the planet; the ever-elusive goal that had consumed his life. Alex had become a genius in a self-made culture and life, a force to be reckoned with. Really, Alex had progressed beyond the standards of humanity in general. But he still was a human, and had human thoughts and desires. All of his extra anguish and rage he poured into competitive gaming. He truly was an addict, so to speak. And now, with this world in his grasp, all he wanted to do was play a game.
Chapter 5Chapter 5 Alex stood up, quickly pulling on the ends of his shorts to straighten them. One of his many quirks was the OCD he had towards wrinkled clothing. "Com'on! Lets see if we can get the holosystems up. You need to send some messages to our princess, Robert." Shit, he called me Robert. Something's gonna go down... Rob still could care less about his comment to Alex, the zit-faced computer prodigy had never explicitly put "always respect me" on the wanted ad. (Knowing him as Robert did now, that actually wasn't out of the question for this kid.) Robert was slightly worried about the little horse-things half a galaxy away. If Mr. 'Game Master' got what he wanted, those marshmallow creatures would probably wind up roasted over a campfire, then made into pastel-colored s'mores. Reaching a what appeared to be a railway maintenance shack, Alex flung open the door to reveal an elevator shaft. At the bottom was a small underground room with a rack of computer servers, some screens, and what looked like the cockpit of an F-18 B. Under the glass dome was an outline shaped into the contours of Robert's bulky torso. Alex didn't really need Robert's strength to operate what was ultimately a glorified smoke-and-mirror machine, but the years of highly structured procedure and training which "renders obedience instinctive under all conditions" that had been crammed into the military man's head. "It appears the Princess can only block what I am directly in control of. This means that I can only give you verbal instructions, or she will jam this station as well. Now, listen closely, for you must tell her exactly this..." Alex quietly spoke a series of rapid sentences off in a hushed voice, acting as if the room was tapped. "Got it?" "Affirmative." Robert didn't necessarily agree, but an order was an order. ~~ "Hmmm. It appears he's stopped broadcasting. I think we shall be safe for the time being." Celestia's horn was glowing brightly as she concentrated on feeling the energy waves sent across space. "He appears to be the same race as the legendary, but his technology is much more primitive than what we were warned of..." "Who warned what?" Twilight was sitting at the side of her mentor in the Canterlot archives, where they had retired to be out of the way of Luna and her duties. "Oh, my student. You never stop being curious, do you? To be short, creatures similar to the one attacking us came nearly half a millenium ago to this land. They left a series of cryptic warnings about our future, as they claimed to be from a time many years from even now. A contact with these creatures on Sol 3 was predicted, but not in this way. The real threat has not shown itself yet." Celestia wished she could explain in more detail, but every time she stopped to communicate some piece of her knowledge, the power she placed into tracking the young human slipped, and required all the more concentration to keep a lock on him. It was during this period of concentration that Celestia felt a piece of paper flutter down past her head. Only twilight's dragon had been given the connection to send messages like this. However, as she opened her eyes, Celestia found that Twilight was carefully studying a peice of parchment that looked much whiter and cleaner than the usual equestrian stock. On the front of the paper was shown a picture of a blue sphere with green blotches on it, in turn surrounded by three rings: One gold, one red, and one blue. Underneath this was one word. "What does GAIA mean?" Twilight asked softly to no one in particular. The Princess, having forgotten the boy for the moment, enveloped the parchment in her magic and slowly unfolded it. "What does it say, Princess?" "I'm not sure... the symbols are complete gibberi-" Celestia's words were stopped, as the paper glowed and the letters shifted. She noticed an odd watermark at the bottom which read 'CERTIFIED GRADE SEVEN PSYCHIC PAPER'. "Ah, its a letter. Ahem!" Celestia began to read out loud, glad to have a second set of hooves to process the information with her. "To the creatures inhabiting exoplanet 57 Pegasi D, please take note of the following information..." ~~ Director Q sat behind his desk, quietly listening to a muffled conversation through an earpiece in his left ear. The letter of warning, with enough necessary information, had been sent through a very new device; the lab-coats were only giving about 60% chance of success. Of course, GAIA never used early tech such as this unless and extreme emergency occurred. Alex had been a constant state of emergency for five years, and the director was done with it. Alex had merely been a young boy who got lucky, and GAIA wrote him off as an outlier. Interestingly, the boy had also been lucky enough to recover a foreign artifact before the containment squads were alerted. And finally, he had hit the motherload, finding a Type II civilization Virtual Intelligence, promptly moving the elementary-school child to the number 1 most advanced human, in the entirety of known history. Fate was fickle sometimes, and when fate had dealt its hand in this saga, the previous director was "fired". Director Q's first, and so far only, directive was to find, stop, and harvest the technology of Alex2315. Director Q was picked because he had ignored what fate wanted to do on many occasions, and went ahead and did what GAIA wanted to do. In the words of Q himself: "Don't tell me about chance, luck, or fate. Those are defunct concepts in this line of work; people who still subscribe to that train of thought are wrong, and I really would like to convince them otherwise. If they don't want my help, they can go FUCK themselves, because chance, luck, or fate will fuck them eventually anyway." Director Q, who was called DQ by most, had finally made contact with the other side of the equation. Now, fate was useless. He had just won the game.
Chapter 6Chapter 6 "Well that was... surprisingly straightforward." Twilight looked up at Princess Celestia, who was giving the paper a close inspection. "So, this Alex is really just a human how got lucky?" "Well, the paper here say 'statistical anomaly' whenever something like luck comes into play. Its as if they refuse to acknowledge the existence of chance or fate. What I'm more interested in is 'Physic Paper', the material this letter was written on. It seems to convey itself in a way that anyone who reads it can understand." "Well, now that we know all this, what should we do?" Princess Celestia had been giving thought to that. "Obviously, this 'GAIA', whoever it is, wants our assailant taken down as much as we do. It's odd, though. Not a single mention of who the writer is. This all feels so... clandestine. I think that we should get in touch." ~~ Robert had entered into the holochamber, and was now silently observing the conversation between Player 2, and the smaller purple unicorn. Damn. GAIA still got through. Robert was, for the first time in his military life, considering deserting. Alex had committed crimes that no government on earth could try. Therefor, more likely than not, GAIA would have their way in however they chose to punish Alex and his cronies. Robert was the closest thing to a personal sidekick that Alex had. Good and bad were relative concepts to Robert, so he wasn't bothered by that. What bothered him was if he was on the winning side or not. What the hell have I become? Shit, this is so confusing. It's not like Robert could just follow his patriotic blood; nations would no longer be a concern once the general public found out that an entire different planet existed. And if GAIA won, that's what would happen. Alex's sources knew that GAIA was a global organization devoted to world peace. However, world peace didn't translate into universal piece, and if a common outside enemy was found, differences could be set aside better. Alex was almost a better outcome for the Pony planet, even if an unsavory choice. "Robert, what is going on?" Alex's muffled voice snapped Roberts roving mind back to his mission instantly. "Commander, enem- er, second player has contact with third party." "GAIA?" Alex answered his own question. Who else could send messages across deep space? "Hell. I can't believe this, but that means my game is done. GAIA won." Robert nearly smacked his head on the screen. "The only way to keep going now, is to start a different game." Alex wasn't an idiot, even if he was socially... inept. GAIA knew they would win as much as he did. Equestria had no power to defeat him, but GAIA... they could easily march into the room and drag him out by the neck. Alex flipped the main breaker switch. He'd have to keep moving, as GAIA and Celestia would have an instant lock on his location if he stayed in one location for even more than a few minutes. Time to wake up Del. ~~ Del had been sitting in a server in a closet for the past 8 months, in "sleep mode". A surge of energy and Del was ready for input. The one constant thought, if you could call it that, was "Prompt?" Dell wasn't a true artificial intelligence. The ancient race that created him had the power to do such a thing, but they wisely refused coherent thought to their machines. Human predictions of a singularity takeover by machines were similar fears of Del's creators. "Good Day, Alex. It has been a while." The mechanic voice of Del chimed as Alex turned on the terminal screen. "Del, we need to get moving. Activate the hover panels. Alex's request was met by the sound of 400,000 volts running through magnetized panels, repelling the lab away from any other atoms not immersed in the electric charge. With a strangely silent rumble, the little shed above the lab rose up in the air, along with all the parts below it. A strange site, seeing a shed on top of a large metal box. However, a secondary infrared charge in the outside paneling bent all light around the box, making it invisible to the naked eye. Alex was not going to stop until he got what he wanted. Literally. ~~ Robert was still listening to the conversation when he felt the entire room rise into the air. Huh, that's new. While reflecting on the new piece of technology his employer hadn't told him about, he heard muffled alarms coming from the console outside, and a faint robotic voice calling "Alert! Alert! Power surge has hyper-powered the broadcast beam!" Wait... that's how i'm listening in to this conversation. What happens when the stuff we broadcast gets extra juic-"OH GOD OH GOD OH GAWWWD!!!" A light had burst from the screen and was enveloping Robert. What did it feel like? It felt like every atom in his body was being ripped out, sent through a particle accelerator, and shot across deep space towards Equestria. Oddly enough, that's exactly what was happening. ~~ "ALERT! ALERT! POWER SURGE HAS HYPER-POWED BROADCAST BEAM!" Del's robotic voice had slightly raised in pitch, and was at max volume. "Shut UP, Del! I understand!" Alex nonchalantly tossed a bag of Cheetos at the mute button. The voice stopped, but the text messages rolling across the console screen kept coming. From behind Alex came a muffled scream. Alex knew what was happening. The messages were laying the situation out before him. Basically, Robert, his only communication source with equestria, was being teleported across space. The first thought to cross Alex's mind was a rather tongue-in-cheek one. Top that, Scotty. I can beam someone across planets. The second thought was surprising to Alex. Jeez, that sounds like it hurts. I hop hes... okay... Alex was... what was the emotion? Worried? Yeah... Alex was... worried... about Robert. ~~ A flashing holographic orb zoomed up from DQ's desk. He touched his index finger to the orb, which scanned his fingerprint, flashed green, and then morphed into a readout of text. After a few seconds, he swatted the orb away from him, turning off the holoscreen. So, now they knew where Alex was. A power surge coming from nothing, just like that? DQ wondered what the cabbage could make such a strong readout of energy. It's as if... no. Tron doesn't happen in real-life. You can't just digitize people, it didn't work that way. And yet... DQ leaned forward in his chair, and called up the orb again. "Message, to be broadcast on global channel. Double-Standard Encryption. Message Text is as follows: Activate local units in the Arizona area. Look for an unusually high source of concentrated energy. Approach with caution, source may have heavy defenses." DQ couldn't believe it, yet for all intents and purposes, it appeared that Alex was trying to send a physical object to Equestria! Damn it, Alex. Stop using luck. It will run out on you, eventually.
