//:Coded

Several Years Ago

The sky above Manhattan suddenly began to lighten - from a lively natural blue to an eerie piercing white, the entire skyline shifted in the blink of an eye. The sun’s warm golden rays became obstructed by massive grey clouds, each of which strewn with hellish black tendrils seemingly comprised of viscous oil. The wind began to pick up as vicious cyclones to touch down at random around the city, the monstrous cones of cloud, wind, and debris tore entire city blocks from the map and shredded the fleeing citizens in its path with no regard for age, race, or sex. The screams of those damned souls could be heard, mingled with the thunderous roar of the preternatural twister, creating a guttural roar that could shake the foundations of the underworld.

The Eberstarks were enjoying a play day at a local park when the unholy phenomenon began. Jillian, a child of five and the Eberstarks only child, was the first to notice growing severity of the situation.

“Daddy, Mommy...Look the sky has fingers!” She called out enthusiastically. She ran up to her father, wind whipping through her golden hair and pulling at her baby blue dress. She beamed at her parents, her aquamarine eyes full of wonder at the peculiar spectacle in front of her.

The look on her parents faces told her that they didn’t believe her, she promptly puffed up her rosy cheeks and glare needles at the two of them.

Marco and Drea glanced at each other for a moment, then back at the scowling child before bursting out in laughter at their incredibly animated daughter.

Marco crouched down and meet his daughter face to face, his mint green eyes met her eyes, his golden locks, carried by the wind whipped out and tickled her face. Her quickly took the child up in strong, protective arms and raised her up above his head causing Jillian to giggle uncontrollably. “While the sky can have all the fingers it wants, but only I’m allowed to tickle this belly!” He began to press his lips on his daughter’s stomach and blow, creating a rippling motorboat effect.

His gentle stomach tickling was interrupted by an impossibly loud shattering sound, it was as if a thousand windows burst at once. That was precisely what happened, one of the “fingers” had run haphazardly into an adjacent skyscraper, bursting the mighty structure like an egg slammed onto concrete.  Concrete rained from the sky with murderous intent. The children scattered, as panicked mothers and fathers ran desperately across the park after them. The children cried, freaked out from the deafening sound, then the “rain” began to land. Wet meaty thuds, the sickening crunches of snapping bones, and shrills of disgust penetrated the air as stone after stone began to smash into the unlucky park goers.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!!” Marco yelled as he grabbed Drea and Jillian’s hands and began to run frantically away from the scene.

Drea was in utter shock, mumbling to herself as they ran through the park, and Jillian buried her head in the father’s chest, silently sobbing into his green and white polo shirt. All around them was gore, stones the size of a man’s torso had hammered many into the ground leaving only severed limbs and streaks of entrails. The smell of fire and blood were heavy in the air and the panicked screams that filled the air threatened to disorientate Marco as he tried to maneuver to safety through this hell. Lightning streaked across the sky as large pearl colored dome began to break through the tendril laden clouds, the clouds cracked open and eased the dome down with massive transparent lavender crystals.  The Eberstarks couldn’t help but slow down and observe.

The crystal gripped each side of of the dome, like giant hands. Several dozen more descended from the clouds all going through the same motions as the first. In unison ever dome in the Manhattan sky split open, an explosion of air sounded causing everyone to clash their ears in pain, air rushed up from the city to in a mighty surge and the sky was illuminated in a blinding white flash. Everything was quiet, nothing but the uncomfortable shuffles of people getting back to their feet could be heard.

Suddenly the sound a deafeningly loud pop was heard, too close for comfort in Marco’s opinion. Drea let out a yell that would put a banshee to shame, Marco snapped back around only to find his wife doubled over in pain on the ground clutching her bloody stump of an arm. Well, it should have been blood, but instead what poured out from the unoccupied space on her shoulder was red pixels, all of which simply vanished into the aether after a second or two. The air behind Drea began to distort wildly, and crackle with electricity. Marco, for a brief moment, could smell ozone. The very fabric of reality itself was rent on top of Drea, instantly causing the young woman to burst into a shower of pixels and vanish.

“Mommy...”

“DREA NO!!!” Their college years, their first kiss, their wedding, their honeymoon, their child being born...It all flashed before him in that instant as the digital remains of his wife lightly rapped at his face.

The rend began to expand rapidly swallowing everything that it came into contact with. Buses, buildings, trolleys, poles, signs, nothing was safe. Marco ran with all his might, he pushed his body harder than he ever had. He lost his wife, but he’d be damned if he lost his daughter here. He slung Jillian over his shoulder to allow himself a greater range of motion, he sprinted down the street vaulting and quickly climbing over the destruction that littered the roads. Never thought my time in the marines would help in a situation like this, he thought. People cried out to him for help as he ran past, people missing limbs, and people with loved ones crushed under the rubble, they all seemed to demand his help, but he couldn’t stop he had no time for them. Jillian, only Jillian mattered now.

He rounded the corner to the block where they lived, their house was in sight now. A loud grumble caught Marco’s attention causing him to slowly swivel his head around to take a look, all the training in the world couldn’t prepare him for what he saw. Several blocks behind him stood a three story tall dinosaur. Its hide was plated with crimson scales, and covered with black scars. Green spikes adorned the top of its head and back all the way to the tip of its tail. Three titanic claws jutted out from each of the creatures hands and feet. Marco was paralyzed before the awesome creature, his mint green eyes stared in awe, incapable of breaking the gaze.

“What the shit?” Marco mumbled a bit too loud.

The dinosaur’s attention had now turned to the father, daughter duo. It stared into the man's eyes for a brief moment before its pupils shrank and it let out a demonic, bellowing roar. The sound wave shattered every window on the street, and made the air feel heavier than an eighteen wheeler. Marco instinctively covered his daughter’s ears and neglected his own safety. Though the creature's mouth was still agape in a roar words could be heard coming from its maw, as if the language traveled through the air by magic.

“Blaze Blast!” Is what it sounded like the monster uttered, but what did that mean, Marco mused.

He regretted asking. The moment the question left his mind a red glow began forming in the red dinosaur’s throat. The air around Marco and Jillian began to heat up, and distort. In a violent display of power the inner flame was released, the deadly blast of red super-heated plasma soar over Marco and Jillian, barely missing them and impacting not even a block away.

The sound was like thunder amplified a thousand fold, and the heat was unbearable. His ears rang and one side of his vision was dark, but he didn’t care about that. He cared about his empty arms. He frantically scanned his area in search of his daughter, the monster had moved on.  A tiny pale hand with a golden bracelet poked up through some destroyed stone not too far away, Marco cringed, he knew it was Jillian. He ran up to the arm that jutted out of the destruction, as if clutching the light of the sun. He squeezed her hand...She squeezed back. There was hope.

No hope. After digging like a madman for 10 minutes, he had finally uncovered his daughter. She was just barely clinging to life, a steel rebar pierced her chest too close to her heart, all her limbs smashed to gory pulp, and the side of her head burst open and exposing pulsing brain matter. She didn’t have long. Jillian used the last of her strength to try and tell her father something, her mouth moved, but no words came out. Marco understood what she said, and could only clutch her hand tighter as her grip faded until it became nonexistent. Jillian convulsed once then went limp. She was gone.

Marco’s face twisted with the sadness and anger of loss, he slowly unlatched the bracelet from Jillian's arm and held it tight in his fist. There, on hands and knees, in the smoldering crater of where he had made his life, the man began to weep the truest, most painful tears of his life.

“God please, just-just let death take me away from this hell...” He beat his fist against the ground in a rage until the appendage was bloody and broken, what did he care? Space began to rend under his fist, and his body began to sink into the weird digital null space. His feet began to disperse into pixels and he started to feel light headed.

“Eventually, I fail everyone...”  He pressed the bracelet against his shirt, today was Jillian’s birthday and the bracelet, her present. He remembered how she had pouted when they gave it to her earlier, but she soon grew attached to it. Her moving lips played out in his mind, this time accompanied by the sounds they had tried to convey...

“...Best...Birthday...Present...”

He lifted the shining gold bracelet to his face and lightly kissed it. It burst into golden pixels. He looked around the darkness that surrounded him, and noticed that he could see several other cities from wherever he was. Whatever this event was, it was worldwide.

“So the world ends today.” Marco said glumly.

“It doesn’t have to.” Said a ghostly voice that was booming with pure power, some specter has saw fit to torture him this day. Through the darkness, two large yellow eyes cut through and glared at Marco.

“What was that? Who’s there?”

“You can save it.” The voice said calmly.

“How? What the hell can I do, I’m just one man..One failure of a man.”

“Take the device, it will lead you to a world full of possibilities...you may yet save your world.” On command a twinkle of light fell in front of Marco, a device of great power held within.

With let to lose, and a chance to redeem himself from his ultimate failure, took hold of the twinkling light before him. His vision faded, and he burst into multi colored pixels.

Present

The sky above Ponyville suddenly began to lighten - from a lively natural blue to an eerie piercing white, the entire skyline shifted in the blink of an eye. The sun’s warm golden rays became obstructed by massive grey clouds, each of which strewn with hellish black tendrils seemingly comprised of viscous oil. The wind began to pick up as vicious cyclones to touch down at random around the town, the monstrous cones of cloud, wind, and debris tore buildings and trees from the map and shredded the fleeing citizens in its path with no regard for age, or sex. The screams of those damned souls could be heard, mingled with the thunderous roar of the preternatural twister, creating a guttural roar that could shake the foundations of the underworld.

Twilight Sparkle, her assistant Spike, and her five friends: Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy were all huddled up in her home. Twilight had protected the tree from the storm with a large magic force field, but the spreading cracks in her spell told them that it the shield wouldn’t hold. Every time debris collided with the lavender barrier, it flashed and the cracks grew. A terrible howl was heard from outside the window, Applejack daring a peak, looked up to see the entirety of town hall careening towards them.

The structure collided with Twilight’s shield, shattering it instantly. Town hall and its debris kept on going and plowed directly into the library. The six mares and lone dragon all shut their eyes tightly and held on to each other for solace in death, this was the end. They all felt light headed, and slightly dizzy but nothing else.

“Are we dead?” Spike asked.

“No, not as long as I draw breath.” Celestia said in her calm regal tone. She strutted up to the seven friends, every feature of her screamed elegance. The way her polychromatic mane waved in the nonexistent breeze, the sway of her hips as she walked, and the piercing gaze of her magenta eyes all made her a beacon that radiated hope in this dark time.

Celestia had teleported them to the hall of the elements just in time. Another second and they would have been paste smeared along a gravel road.

“Princess!!” Twilight cried, “Wha-what is this storm?”

“This is no storm Twilight; it’s not a natural phenomenon.”

Surprisingly, Fluttershy was the first to speak up with a relevant question. “Then, um...what is it? If it’s okay for me to ask.”

“This has happened before, the ones who cause it call the event ‘coding’, neither I nor Luna know why they do this but we know that if it isn’t stopped, Equestria will be destroyed.” Celestia channeled her magic into her horn and trotted over to the vault. She undid the sealing spell and opened the massive doors revealing the chest containing the elements of harmony.

“Last time the elements, Luna, Discord, and I alone weren’t enough to stop the coding. One from our enemy’s world came to our aid.” She issued the mares their respective elements. “Using strange magic he created six devices one for each element of harmony amplify their power.” She lifted up a secret compartment at the bottom of the box, revealing the mysterious creations. She issued them out accordingly. “We were told these would save us from the coding.”

The devices resonated with the elements of harmony before. Suddenly the screens on all the devices turned glowed bright red and a high pitched beep wailed out from each device. A heavy drawn out bass sound permeated the hall, several pillars and curtains were instantly turned into pixels, and the smell of ozone filled the room. Before the Princess, the elements of harmony, and Spike stood two strange creatures. Everypony in the room gasped and their jaws went slack. What in Tartarus was going on?

“Nuh, uh, uh...We shall have none of that my little ponies.” The taller creature said. It stood about six feet tall, and wore a black, red and silver jumper that covered most of its body. Its hands and feet were covered by gloves and boots of a similar color pattern, both with a single metal plate on them. It wore red cloak that was tattered and burned, yet still served its purpose. His eyes were hidden by red tinted goggles and his hair was long wild and black.

“Boros, they have the devices, what should we do?” This time the stranger creature spoke up. He appeared to be some sort of dragon. It stood a little shorter than the the other creature. It was covered in red scales with a white underbelly, a peculiar symbol decorated his abdomen. The same symbol, as well as black bands were adorned his extremities. The creatures bat wing like ears twitched at the sound of his own voice. His yellow eyes stared vehemently at the enemies in front of him as he spoke.

“Who the hay are you and what are you doing to Equestria?” Rainbow Dash yelled as she charged the cloaked man, only to be tackled to the ground by his draconic partner. Drool dripped from the red creature’s muzzle as he towered over Rainbow Dash. Where his spittle dripped, stone sizzled, leaving nothing but vapor behind.

The man snapped his fingers and the space beneath the six elements bearers tore open, exposing them to the vast nothingness of the digital null space. “I am not obligated to answer your questions. My only obligation,” a smirk formed across his face, “is to vanguard your world’s coding.” He said as he watched the mares sink into nothingness and burst into pixels.

Spike could only watch in horror.

“And now for you princess.” Boros said with a sadistic smirk. He held up a device similar to the ones Celestia had given to Twilight and company. In one smooth motion he flipped a thin blue card out of a small satchel slung across his chest, he twirled it around in his hands for a moment before sliding it through a small slit in his device. The device glowed with a furious light and electricity danced along the card as it was pulled through.

“Digimodify, digivolution ACTIVATE!”