//:Coded

*Coded*

Two golden yellow eyes shone in the background, each piercing the unnatural darkness with malicious light. The gaze of the orbs was focused on the figures before them, two of them were of his warriors, and the other was that of his spoils. A massive purple arm waved through the air, and on command, light flooded the chamber. There, in the middle of the chamber, sat what could only be described as a giant rabbit clown. The creature’s body was mostly covered in sleek, dark purple fur except for a thick, green band that ran straight up its torso, face, and across its shoulders. A large white clown collar with a smaller purple pattern adorned the strange creature’s neck, each prong of which ended in a small white bulb. His head was small in relation to the rest of his humongous frame, but it was large enough to hold all of the monster’s devilish features. Two large, corroded wing-like ears were flared up from both sides of its head, and between its golden eye’s sat 3 horns. Its mouth formed a wicked grin, displaying the creature’s razor sharp teeth.

“Speak.” Cherubimon said. His voice boomed across the room, forcing Uroboros and BlackGrowlmon to cringe.

“Master,” Uroboros said as he kneeled down. “we have captured the white princess.” BlackGrowlmon tossed the beaten, burned body of Celestia on the floor of the chamber and kicked the unconscious alicorn over to Cherubimon. “However, the blue one remains out of our grasp. The white one refuses to confer any information as to her sister’s whereabouts.” Uroboros kept his eyes on the floor in front of him, he dare not look into the eyes of his master. He had failed half of his task, and he knew that Cherubimon didn’t take failure lightly.

“I’m sorry master,” he eked out.

A low rumble began to echo throughout the plain blue space. Was Cherubimon laughing? The dark master laughing was either a good sign, or the heralding of the apocalypse. If Cherubimon was infuriated to the point of insanity because of Uroboros’ failure then the human would suffer. No, all of humanity would suffer.

The chuckling died down. “I expected this, but no matter, as long as we have at least one of them neutralized the Elements of Harmony pose no threat to us.”

Cherubimon waved his arm through the air in a wiping motion. In the wake of his motion the air shimmered and rippled until the image of several humans rebuilding a devastated city hung in the air like a disembodied television screen. It panned over several faces until finally stopping on a young woman.

“Keep impressing me Uroboros. At this rate the continued existence of your world is assured and the reconstitution of your loved one, a promise.” He waved his arm through the air again, dispelling the image.

BlackGrowlmon’s energy finally ran out. The massive draconic creature started to shrink rapidly as grey and white pixels floated away from his form. Now in his rookie state, Guilmon, he knelt to Cherubimon alongside his tamer.

“My liege,” Guilmon said, carefully choosing his next words. “I believe that Uroboros and I have made a dire error in judgment if the Elements were what we seek.”

The rabbit’s expression suddenly darkened as a deep scowl found itself quickly replacing his satisfied smirk. “Explain.” He said simply, but forcefully.

Guilmon cringed at Cherubimon’s voice. The mega level digimon had been calm up to that point, but now his voice seemed to burn into mind and dig deep, implanting fear and dread in the most primal areas of the subconscious.

“Six mares were also present when we arrived, each wore golden regalia with a gem embedding at its core, and each mare also had a digivice.” He choked on his next words. “W-we coded them. The building we were in contained murals of those mares and their regalia defeating foes with a wave of prismatic energy.” Guilmon looked up to scan Cherubimon’s expression. There was none and that was more telling than anything the master could have done.

Cherubimon broke out of his stone faced daze with a start, immediately slamming his fists on the floor of the chamber. “YOU WHAT!?” He fumed. He turned his head up and released a powerful roar, one whose sounds defied all logic, and whose force caused reality to waver around him. He glared knives the two failures before him, the gritting of his teeth echoed throughout the chamber.

“Do you want us to pursue them Master?”

“Ye- No, you shall have nothing more to do with them. You will return to their world and assist in the fighting.” He tapped his claws on the floor in thought. As long as the Elements of Harmony are active Equestria is anchored to this plain and will be immune to coding. He raise an claw up to his face and scratched at his chin. “Actually, you two may have made this a lot easier.” Indeed, they now had the Elements of Harmony on their turf, and being coded into the digital world could drop them anywhere, but wherever they were it is almost certain that those mares were lost, scared, and confused. All I have to do is alert the Lord’s other generals, problem solved, on two fronts.

The low rumble of Cherubimon’s laughter fill the room again. “Uroboros, your digivice.” He held out a hand towards the human.

“Yes, master,” Uroboros replied as he stepped forward and held out his digivice.

The small walkie talkie like device floated through the air towards Cherubimon. The device had red grips with a black center, a small screen with up and down arrow keys and a small, pink button was on the front of the device. Below the screen sat a small touch sensitive pad. The right side of the device led up into a short stubby antenna.

It reached Cherubimon’s claws after a moment of floating. The massive digimon closed his hands on the device, the sound of glass and machinery being crushed filled the room. Soon red light poured out from between his claws as he slowly opened his hand.

“A gift, more power to help you subdue the denizens of Equestria.” His lips parted in a mischievous smile as Uroboros took hold of his new digivice. “Do what it says on the screen, try it out.”

The digivice was going off repeatedly and pulsing with power in Uroboros’ hand. The human looked down at the flashing screen and did as his master commanded.

“BIOMERGE ACTIVATE!” He cried out.

*Coded*

Luna’s entire descent into the secret tunnels beneath the castle was unpleasant. The caves were dark, murky, and stunk with the odor of suspended fungi particles. Water dripped from the ceiling in constant streams, all of which pooled into a tiny groove in the middle of the ground and bled off in random directions. The cave was sunken in a supernatural silence; the soft clip-clop of her hooves seemingly being devoured by the shadows of the cave was more than enough to keep Luna tense.

The Nightguards that she was previously escorted by were dismissed. What Luna kept in these caves would stay between her and Celestia. In these caves lay the countermeasure, born from the minds of the goddess sisters, conceived by the eldest and implemented by the youngest.

Three thousand years ago after the first attempt on Equestria by the strange beasts, the Sun and the Moon believed that the best way to fight these creatures was with one of their own. Together they replicated the design of the devices that were made to amplify the power of the Elements of Harmony. Soon afterward they had created life; however, it didn’t accept the power of the harmony, and the project was quickly abandoned by Celestia, who deemed a creature who couldn’t accept harmony as a hindrance to Equestria.

But they didn’t need a creature that yielded to the call of harmony. They needed a merciless beast of righteous fury.

Luna understood that harmony was not the end worth fighting for, using dark magics she began saturating the creature and the device with the most primal parts of her soul and the rawest emotions her heart had ever carried. She created a bond with the creature, a link of understanding through which she shared the will to fight for freedom and one’s desires.

That magic changed her.

And now, here she was at the door to the room where the worst chapter of her life began, once again preparing to throw herself away for the greater good of Equestria. Luna braced herself, both mentally and physically, for what she was about to do. She threw out her magic and latched on to the massive titanite double doors and slowly pulled them open. The stone slabs crept apart, creaking loudly the entire time. Stale air burst forth from the decrepit laboratory sweeping her mane to the side. Spitting dust out of her mouth, Luna cautiously steps inside. Magical candles automatically light the room as their master returns to her once bustling sanctuary. A path of furiously burning blue torches guides the night princess towards her goal.

Ahead of Luna lay her “child”, contained in magical stasis the creature had not changed since the day it was created from the residual energies of its kin. She now loomed over the unmoving form. A teal baby dragon, perhaps a foot taller than spike rested peacefully under her muzzle, its fire colored horns and wings giving it an air of passion despite its stoic expression. Luna glided over to a pedestal a few feet from the dragon, a stark white device with a single button on its left side a screen in the center and two buttons on the right sat on top of it. The device was rectangular in shape, but the corners were beveled inward.

Luna reached out to the device with her magic encasing it in a dark aura. The hatchling dragon creature’s claw twitched as its mother’s essence touched the digivice. Luna poured more magic into her digivice cause the device to turn dark blue with black trim around the screen. Tendrils of dark power encompassed both device and wielder, slithering their way across Luna’s coat, they began to solidify into dark ornate armor plates. Her canines began to extend and sharpen as her form grew taller and lither. Mute until this point, the first words she spoke since her descent into these dreadful caves would be to nopony, just herself.

Remember what you fight for, channel the Nightmare, give her targets and a purpose. “This time,” She paused and silently prayed for her sister to give her strength. “The night shall be Equestria’s salvation.” She declared as her eyes turned serpentine and her voice became more sinister.

*Coded*

The six mares plunged into the infinite darkness of the digital nullspace, kicking, screaming, and laughing. Six forms that were once flesh and blood, became digital code; emotions and feelings, became algorithms.

“What the buck!?”

“Ah hay!!”

“*Eep*”

“AHH!!”

“Whee!!”

“WHOA!”

The panicked party of ponies plummeted through a shifting sea of random pixelated colors. Occasionally the mares would flicker in and out as if they could cease to exist at any moment. The only thing holding them together was the power pouring from the elements of harmony and the strange devices that Celestia had given them. The colors began to fade away, slowly at first, but then entire bands of red and green started to become absent until finally, nothing was left but static darkness.

“Oww,” Twilight mumbled as she rubbed the back of her head. She was relieved that they finally landed on something solid, regardless of how hard she had landed.

Whatever the mare had landed on, it was moist and crisp, kind of like ...

Twilight’s eyes fluttered open and were immediately assaulted by the bright stinging rays of a midday sun. The ever present smell of wetness fought with the odor of decaying plant matter for dominance in her nostrils. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she scanned the area around her, noting the tall trees, humidity, fungus, and layers of dead leaves.

“A rainforest?” she asked nopony in particular.

Twilight rolled over from her back, but as she did she felt something slide off of her belly and fall to the forest floor. She stood up, albeit quite shakily, and turned to where she felt the objects fall. On the ground in front of her lay a black leather choker with a pouch containing what Twilight figured was a deck of cards. Clipped onto the belt was a small device that looked like some sort of small watch to Twilight. Its body was entirely dark purple with hot pink buttons, a hot pink ring surrounding the screen, and a lavender clamp. On either side of the strange watch was a slit, as if something were meant to be run through it. Twilight took a mental note of the feature. Wanting to study it more later, she picked up the belt with her magic and strapped it around her neck. She was about to trot off in search of her friends, but she noticed that her head was significantly lighter. Feeling around her horn with a hoof she confirmed her fears, the Element of Magic’s crown was missing. With a heavy sigh, she decided that she would have to search for it later. Her friends came first, and they could be hurt.

*Bebebeep, bebebeep.* As if responding to her concerns, the device started to come to life. Its loud beeping echoed throughout the entire forest causing nearby birds to panic and scatter from their treetop homes. Twilight hastily summoned her magic and fumbled with the device hanging from her neck. She brought the screen to her face, the symbol of the element of magic and her cutie mark appeared on the tiny LCD screen and flashed a few times before disappearing. A purple translucent ring popped out of the screen, the holographic ring had roughly the radius of a tea saucer (At least that was Twilight’s assessment). A pink diamond began travelling erratically around the ring, which Twilight had deduced was a compass, because of the N, S, E, and W on the four sides of the ring. Suddenly the diamond stopped and pointed adamantly to the South, directly to Twilight’s left. The mare, curious as to what the device was tracking, trotted over to where it was point until the single diamond turned into four triangle at all for sides of the ring indicating that she was right on top of whatever it was that she was searching for.

It was a bush, and a rather large bush at that, but still just a bush.

“Urgh...” Bushes don’t grunt, Twilight thought to herself.

She prodded the bush with a hoof, and felt around randomly until she hit something soft, jiggly, and furry.

“Teeheehee *snort*. Somepony owes Pinkie a date!” An oddly familiar voice said through laughter.

“Pinkie?”

“Yep, Yep!” The pink party pony said as she thrust her head out from the bush.

Twilight gasped loudly and tried to calm herself. It wouldn’t do to have a heart attack before they even knew where they were. Much to her surprise, Applejack trotted out behind Pinkie. The farmer shook her head groggily and fluttered her eyes in an attempt to get her bearings.

“Anypony get the name of the cart that hit me?” She asked,  holding her head. “W-where are we Twi?”

“I’m not sure Applejack, but from what I gather we’re in so-”

Pinkie’s tail began to twitch furiously, the pink party mare’s eyes shot wide open in surprise and her pupils shrink to pinpricks. She jumped at Twilight and Applejack with all the strength she could gather in her hind legs. She threw her forelegs out and hit her friends with a full body tackle, knocking the wind from all 3 mares, and sending sprawling across the clearing. Before AJ and Twilight could recover Pinkie covered them both with her body just a large purple insect slammed into the ground right where they were standing not even a second ago. The impact rattled the ground beneath the friend’s hooves and made the trio shake as if they were at the epicenter of an earthquake. The sound was deafening, Twilight could’ve sworn that a hundred of the royal guard’s cannons had gone off next to their ears. Dirt, stones, leaves and splinters flew out in every direction from the huge dust cloud let by the creatures crash, none of the ponies knew what had landed, but they didn’t care to find out either.

Something begins to stir in the brown cloud, causing the ponies to huddle together and stand on guard. The dust suddenly disperses from a powerful gust and wind, Twilight raises a hoof to shield her eyes, Applejack covers her face with her Stetson, and Pinkie just stares expectantly as mud and plant matter fly past her face. Loud buzzing accompanied the strange burst of wind. Reluctantly, Twilight’s curiosity got the better of her and she looks up, wanting to know what caused the disturbance. The purple mare’s jaws drop as the mystery creature begins to regain its composure. It was some sort of insect, as Twilight had suspected, but what she didn't expect was for it to be two stories tall, have four arms that each ended in five flesh rending claws, and a maw the size of a pony, and mandibles lines with razor sharp teeth.

The devices with the ponies all started to beep wildly and flash red, Twilight lifted her up to her face and pointed it at the giant insect, immediately a pop out image of the creature. Words began to scroll under the hologram- “K-Kabutarimon: champion level, insect digimon.” She choked out confused.

All of this was too much, Twilight couldn't think, she could hardly breathe, luckily, a certain pink pony already had a plan - well plan probably wasn't the best word for it.

“Hi!” Pinkie chirped at the two story tall blue beetle. “I’m Pinkie Pie and-it's-super-mega-fantasitic-to-meet-you-AHHH!!Meet-you?-that-means-I-don't-know-you-so-I-have-to-throw-you-a-welcome-party-but-we're-not-in-Ponyville-so-I-don't-have-my-welc-” Pinkie’s rambling was interrupted as the creature turned its head to face the bouncing pony.

“Electro Shocker!” The creature bellowed, his mouth not moving.

Twilight, sensing the change in energy flow, erected a barrier spell to defend her friends from whatever was coming. Purple and white electricity gathered in a single point at the monster’s chest. The energy formed a ball that grew and pulsed until it was nearly the size of its head. It took less than half a second for the beast to gather the energy and fire the destructive blast at the ponies. Twilight, Pinkie, and Applejack’s coats all stood on end as the ball of lightning careened towards the lavender forcefield, small amounts of residual electricity arced and jumped across their bodies in a beautiful, but deadly display.

The ball of energy met Twilight’s shield in a brilliant flash, the mares inside the bubble all either turned away from where the two energies met or snapped their eyes shut. Twilight winced in pain from the magical feedback as the shield and attack battled against each other, something would give soon. Between keeping herself and her friends magically grounded against the electricity and holding off the deadly ball lightning, her magic pools were draining fast; something had to give. To get fried by a high voltage surge of electricity or to be splattered by and explosive static discharge, that was the question.

No. The unicorn thought. On a whim she pushed energy into her shield and forced Kabutarimon’s blast into the ground in front of them. The resulting explosion, sent force rippling through the bones of young mares, Twilight’s felt her insides quake as she was lifted into the air and thrown backward as the shield shattered and blast threw them across the ground. In the brief window of time after the explosion, while all of them were still touching the ground, Twilight dispersed the electricity arcing across their bodies.

“Humph,” Applejack grumbled as she got back to her hooves. “This is lookin’ pretty bad, Twi...Twi?!” The farm mare whipped around quickly to try and find the librarian. She spotted Twilight laying limp in Pinkie’s hooves as the pink mare sobbed into the pony’s purple coat, Twilight had a large gash above her right eye where a stone had struck her and split the skin in the same manner one would split a nut with a hammer. Applejack bit her bottom lip and took her Stetson off and placed the accessory over her heart, for a moment she wondered if her friend was alive, but not long after the question had risen she saw the steady rise and fall of the unicorn’s chest.

“Dang it, Twi,” She said looking over her shoulder. “I’m sorta out of mah league here.” Applejack banished any thoughts of self-doubt and swallowed hard, her friends needed her, and right now she was the only one who could protect Pinkie and Twilight.

Kabutarimon watched Applejack’s charge, mouth dripping with the prospects of feasting on the small pony’s flesh. It’s instinct was to destroy all invaders to the digital world, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t indulge in pleasures of the flesh as well.

“Hmmm, quick to be grilled aren’t you? I won’t delay you then. Electro Shocker!”

A small figure about the size of a pony intercepted the blast of electricity point blank. “Kabutogaeshi(Helmet Reversal)!”

Applejack’s device displayed a compass similar to the one that Twilight used to locate her and Pinkie, except her ring was granny smith green and pointed directly at the strange new creature.

“You shall not harm her!” yelled the creature as he landed in front of Applejack. The furry, armored creature looked over his shoulder and locked eyes with the mare behind him. “Are you ok, Master?”

“M-master?” Applejack stuttered stupidly.