Dear Princess Celestia, The Internet Scares Me
Author's Note
Just so you know, the web browser/program/server being used is Google. I didn't want to put it in the story just in case of legal rights.
Disclaimer: I do not own Google, FIMFiction, or any part of the My Little Pony franchise. Google belongs to Alphabet Inc., FIMFiction belongs to knighty and its people, and the My Little Pony franchise belongs to Hasbro. Also other legal stuff.
Open this link in a new tab to listen to optional atmospheric music as you read.
I hope you enjoy!
Dear Princess Celestia, The Internet Scares Me
It was a sunny and calm day in quaint little Ponyville, and a certain Princess of Friendship was enjoying her uninterrupted studying in her castle. Spike was off on duty in the Crystal Empire, as he was called there periodically to wave to fans and sign autographs, being the celebrity that he was. Twilight Sparkle missed her faithful assistant, but certainly did not mind the peace and quiet for a change. There was always some awful and horrendous problem that needed solving, something only she and her five best friends seemed to be able to fix, so it was nice to take a break once in a while.
Twilight got up from her research to grab a snack. Often all the studying made Twilight hungry, and therefore she had recently installed a mini-fridge in the back of her library. She went to reach for the handle, but a glimpse of a brightly-colored photograph caught her eye. It was a picture of Twilight and her friends from Canterlot High, a photo she had printed out and taken back with her after leaving for the third time. Some days it seemed unbearable not hearing from them, and so Twilight had hung the photo up on her fridge to make it seem like they were with her every day. If only she could check up on them whenever she wished.
This sparked an idea in Twilight. She was able to create a working portal between Canterlot High and Equestria. If she could use technology to email, call, or text in the human world, why couldn't she in Equestria? The purple pony clopped her hooves together in excitement. Finally, a chance to see her human friends again!
And the internet services she had come upon would definitely help her research. Advanced technology like the one in Canterlot High would surely help Twilight out here in Equestria.
Twilight beamed and bounded toward her favorite messenger. Why hadn't she thought of this before?
Six ponies all busted into Twilight's castle at the exact same time. Each of the ponies looked out of breath and exasperated, but continued to gallop down the hall towards their friend, as if their lives depended on it.
"Did you girls get the message from Owlowlicious, too?!" Starlight shrieked over the sounds of running hooves. The others nodded frantically as they continued running down the hall - or in Rainbow's case, flying.
Fleetingly, Applejack bucked the door open to Twilight's library, just as everyone screamed, "WHAT'S THE EMERGEN--"
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Starlight Glimmer, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie all stopped in their tracks at the sight before them. In the dim room sat Twilight, wearing what looked like a scientist's coat, staring at a scroll. Without warning, her magical horn lit up with its majestic purple aura, and suddenly the whole room was filled with a blinding flash of light. The others jumped back in surprise.
Starlight squinted into the room, wondering what Twilight possibly could have done to cause the flash. Although weary from the flare, she could just barely make out the outline of her friend leaning over something, but she couldn't tell what it was. It was shaped almost like a cardboard box, but it was missing four of its sides. As Starlight's vision began to adjust, she could see that the object was gray, and had a small sheet of glass over the side facing Twilight. On the side Twilight was resting her hooves upon, there were printed numbers and letters, and some symbols Starlight couldn't quite identify. They all seemed to be printed on their own individual button. Behind the sheet of glass glowed multiple lights all making up a background of sorts - nothing Starlight could particularly see or read.
In other words, Starlight had no idea what the hay it was.
After the mares' vision had returned, Twilight finally turned to her friends and smiled. "You're here! There's something I need to show you. Come in, come in!"
The six girls exchanged a look, but walked in reluctantly. They all knew that anything Twilight got this excited over couldn't possibly be a good thing. Twilight gestured for them to sit down, and so they set their rumps down on cushions all placed around the mysterious object.
"Twilight, I don't understand," Starlight said after a long pause. "I thought you called us here because it was an emergency."
Twilight grinned sheepishly. "Well, to be perfectly honest, I really did just call you here to see this," she gestured proudly at the object, "but I couldn't think of any other way to get you all to come right away."
The obviously excited indigo-and-violet pony stared around at her friends expectantly, as if she was waiting for one of them to tell her how amazing her breakthrough was.
Instead, she was met with many a confused comment.
"What the hay is that?" Rainbow scrunched her nose up, puzzled.
"Where, darling, did you even get that?" Rarity pointed an accusatory hoof at the machine.
"What does it do?" Starlight looked pointedly at Twilight.
"Um, maybe we should let Twilight explain," Fluttershy suggested, but no one seemed to hear.
"Ooh! Or maybe it controls minds! Does it control minds, Twilight? Does it? Does it?!" Pinkie bounced up and down from her excitement.
"Pinkie, it probably doesn't control minds. Now iffin' y'all would just sit down--" Applejack began.
"Aww! But sitting is so BOOOORRRIIIINNNGGG! I hate sitting!" Pinkie interrupted, huffing.
"Pinkie, we should really let Twilight explain--" Starlight tried.
"But explaining is boring too! Why can't it just control minds?!" Pinkie whined.
Twilight held a hoof up to silence her friends, and they quieted. "Actually, Pinkie, in a way, it does control minds," Twilight replied, and Pinkie shot a smug look at Applejack.
"But not in the way you might think," Twilight continued, and Pinkie furrowed her brow. "This is called a computer. I first found it in the library at Canterlot High, and now I've brought it here," Twilight beamed. "It took a lot of spell-tweaking to summon it here, so I hope this pays off," she added. Twilight stopped and looked around the room to make sure her friends were following.
They all had slightly less confused looks on their faces, but still confused nonetheless. Starlight studied the machine before repeating her earlier phrase. "What does it do?"
"Well, it does all sorts of things," Twilight responded and set the computer in her lap. The other girls inched their cushions closer so that they could view the machine. "You can send emails," Twilight pulled up a tab labeled Inbox, "and receive them here."
"What are emails?" Pinkie interrupted, pointing at the screen.
"Emails are a way to contact someone out of reach. If you can't get to them right away, you can send them an email and hope they'll respond."
The other ponies nodded. It made enough sense.
"This feature is called Drive. You can create and type all sorts of documents here," Twilight smiled. This one was particularly her favorite. All those documents, all those papers, finally organized safely away on the internet. She knew she would be using that often.
Twilight "x"d out the tab and went back to the home page. The others stared around at each other before Rainbow Dash noticed something.
"What's that?" Rainbow asked, pointing to a small bar in the middle of the screen.
Twilight squinted at the screen, before breaking into a smile and nodding. "That's called a search bar," she told Dash. "You can type anything you want in it and the server will try to come up with as many things related to the topic as it can."
Pinkie grinned at this and bent over the keyboard, carefully placing the tips of her hooves onto each button as she typed, "pInkIE piE". The pink pony quickly hit the button marked "Enter", oblivious to what was about to happen.
The ponies' eyes widened in horror as they gazed at the screen. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures of their brightly colored friend were plastered across the computer's screen. There were tens of hundreds of links listed that all matched the search "Pinkie Pie". There was even a description that matched the party pony perfectly.
"Wow, Pinkie, I know you're an Element of Harmony and all, but I really didn't think you'd be that popular," Starlight admitted. Twilight continued to scroll down, and her jaw dropped. There were videos of her friend too, of all of them, on occasions that had really happened to them. It was as if someone had taken multiple videos of their life and posted them on the internet without anypony knowing.
Twilight looked around at her friends, who all looked completely confused and slightly shocked, especially Pinkie. Twilight would have laughed at this - Pinkie was never shocked by anything - if she hadn't been so baffled herself. Who had taken these videos? Did Twilight know them? Why would they take the videos - and how would they get such close-up shots without everypony noticing? Did they use hidden cameras? Suddenly Twilight felt self-conscious. Were there hidden cameras in her room now? Was whoever took the videos watching all seven of them at this exact moment?
"Maybe you should search for all of our names, just in case," Starlight reasoned. "Maybe the whole Pinkie thing was a prank."
Twilight looked doubtful but hesitantly typed in Starlight's name. Once again, images, links, and videos of their friend popped up (although there weren't nearly as many links as Pinkie had gotten).
Twilight continued to type in the rest of her friends' names. One by one, they all revealed pictures, links, and videos, and one by one, all of Twilight's friends were equally terrified.
After Twilight had searched Rainbow Dash's name, Twilight decided to scroll down a little bit. Near the bottom of the first page, a link titled "Rainbow Dash - FIMFiction.net" appeared. Intrigued, Twilight clicked on the link.
Twilight was horrified at what she saw.
Twilight had heard of fanfiction before. Heck, she had even written some herself at one point. But never, in the very history of Equestria, did Twilight ever think she would see fanfiction about herself and her friends.
Well, she sat corrected.
Twilight clicked on a category in the group marked "Stories", and looked at the folder links. Sixteen appeared on the screen, all leading to different categories.
"What... IS... this?!" Rainbow cried, glaring at the screen. "Who would write these stories about us? And why? What's the point of it? Do they get something out of it? I mean..." Rainbow trailed off, looking hurt. She spoke more quietly as she continued. "Am I the only one someone's writing stories about?"
Twilight gave Rainbow a sad smile and shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Rainbow. It looks like there are groups for all seven of us." Twilight typed in the others' names into the site's search bar, and they all came up with different groups. Twilight gasped as she saw her group. Although it wasn't like she hadn't been expecting it, it was almost like somepony telling you you're about to get hit over the head with a baseball bat, and then getting hit over the head with a baseball bat - it's a surprise even after you know what's coming.
"Well, what do those folders do?" Rarity breathed after a moment's silence, giving Twilight a we-might-as-well-find-out-because-we-know-everything-else kind of look. Twilight clicked on one of her folders, not really looking at the name.
Four sub-folders popped up, each resembling something called "clop". Confused, Twilight looked at her friends. Clop, like, clopping your hooves together? The others shrugged, and Twilight clicked on the folder labeled "Standard Clop".
Twilight scrolled down and scanned the stories. They were all marked 'mature' for some reason, but Twilight couldn't quite figure out why. She clicked on one and started reading.
Twilight instantly closed the tab. She really had no interest in reading that sort of thing, especially since it was about her. Twilight seemed to shut down, closing her eyes and folding her ears back as if desperately trying to get rid of the memory she had just printed into her mind.
Starlight stared down at her friend, concerned, but as Twilight refused to move, she eventually pried the computer out of Twilight's grip and looked at the site herself.
"Do me next, do me next!" Pinkie grinned, seeming to have bounced back to her old self. Starlight rolled her eyes but found the group corresponding to Pinkie. Pinkie ripped the computer from Starlight's hooves and began clicking randomly on different stories.
"Hmm, what's this "Horror" tag mean?" Pinkie thought out loud and clicked on the story. Slowly her smile began to droop and her eyes widened, her head moving as she read more and more of the story. After a moment of silence, Pinkie yelped and closed the laptop, running out of the library and not looking back.
"Huh, I wonder what got under her fur," Rainbow shrugged and picked up the laptop to look at the story. Rainbow's features began to wither too as she read more and more of the story, and suddenly Rainbow screamed and ran in the opposite direction of Pinkie Pie, obviously scarred.
Rarity took the laptop next and began looking over her page. She smiled at all the glamorous pictures and art that were displayed in front of her - although it was somewhat creepy to be watched, she had to admit, it was nice to be admired. She decided to peek into the romance tab, since Rarity was always up for a relationship.
As Rarity read more and more into the scandalous story, she started to feel an uncomfortable itch at the back of her neck. She realized finally that this story was about someone in the room with her. Furtively, she shut the computer and set it on the chair beside her.
"Fluttershy, you can go next," Rarity patted her friend's shoulder before trotting awkwardly out of the room. Fluttershy and Applejack exchanged a glance, as Applejack reached for the laptop.
"What's she tryin' to hide from the rest of us?" Applejack mumbled to no one in particular. Opening the lid, Applejack studied the story before feeling a deep blush begin to take form on her cheeks, and she hastily shut the laptop and ran out of the room, bearing no explanation.
Starlight giggled a little but quickly stopped herself. That story could just as easily been about her and Rarity as it was about Applejack and Rarity. Whoever was doing this obviously took pride in writing an eclectic range of sources - and obviously knew about her and her friends. Maybe it was a good idea to stop before they got ahead.
Fluttershy peeked at the closed computer. Did she really want to see what others had written about her? Of course, if they were very nice things and had been written by somepony Fluttershy knew very well, she might be flattered to see them. But that was not her situation. It was not a very difficult choice, considering the circumstances. So eventually, Fluttershy decided that she was too timid for such things, and scurried after the exit.
Starlight and Twilight were soon the only ponies left in the room, and Twilight was still frozen in her previous position. It was now up to Starlight to decide whether or not she should read anything about herself, or about anypony else. Really, it was a tough decision. Starlight had always been a curious pony, and a smart one too. If any (fully functioning) pony could solve this mystery right now, it would be her.
However, Starlight's contemplation was interrupted by yet another brilliant flash of light.
"Princess Celestia!" Twilight exclaimed, at long last having abandoned her position and jumped up from her cushion. Princess Celestia bowed her head to Twilight, and then to Starlight, who followed suit. But Twilight soon furrowed her brow.
"Is everything okay, Princess? I usually hear about your visits before you show up."
"Oh, yes, I am truly sorry to have to barge in like this. However, this is quite important," Celestia supplied. "I - where are your friends?" Celestia asked suddenly, surveying the room for the other ponies.
"They, well, they left," Starlight confessed. "They were a little disturbed by - actually, that's a long story."
"I'm certain it's not as long as you think," Celestia reassured her. "Twilight summoned a human computer into this world. I know. My sources were notified immediately."
Twilight stared in shock at the Princess. "How did you know that?"
"Well, you see, my dear, there's something I forgot to mention as we were going over rules the day after you became Princess. There's actually a law against bringing human technology into the pony world," Celestia told Twilight.
"But why would there need to be a law against-" Starlight began.
"Let's just say that there was an awful incident with one back in Starswirl's time," Celestia cut Starlight off. "Something - oh, how do I put this innocently - something, er, leaked, unfortunately, into my office once. And we'll just say that was the end of technology in Equestria. Why do you think we still make the foals working at the Foal Free Press use old newspaper machines?"
Twilight shared a worried glance with Starlight before turning back to the Princess. "Princess Celestia, I am so sorry. I really didn't mean to cause any inconvenience."
Celestia smiled. "There's no need to apologize. You didn't know about the rule - it was my fault for not telling you."
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief and smiled back. "So how can we fix it?"
"We can start by sending this wretched thing away," Celestia announced, shooting the computer a dirty look. The computer only hummed in response.
Celestia lowered her head to the ground and shot a beam of magic at the object. It swiftly blinked away.
Starlight and Twilight stared in utter confusion at the now empty spot at where the computer had once sat. Both mares' heads were filled with questions, and only one did they say out loud:
"Where did it go?" the ponies asked in unison.
"Let's just say that it's gone somewhere nopony will ever see or hear from it again," Celestia replied with a wink. "Because no one can hear you scream in space."
Twilight and Starlight gasped in horror. Had she sent the computer to the moon? Twilight had really been convinced that Princess Celestia had grown out of that after sending her sister to that awful place.
The princess laughed. "I'm only jesting," she said, and bowed her head to indicate that she was leaving and her work was done.
The other two caught onto the joke, and chuckled lightly, before bowing in return. Celestia smiled and walked to the end of the library, where she began to surround herself with her own magical aura.
Except just as Princess Celestia disappeared, Twilight swore she could have heard a word uttered by the Princess:
"Maybe."
