Steel Solstice

by Starscribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Human, Science Fiction, Equestria Girls, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 37110

Sunset Shimmer travels to Earth in search of allies for Equestria. The world she finds there is hardly the one she expected.

For nearly a thousand years the ancient prophecies of Clover the Clever sat unread in Canterlot's forbidden archives. Until the day that Celestia took on an apprentice, and everything changed.

Sunset Shimmer is smart, resourceful, and determined. No matter how many new lessons Sunset learns, she just isn't satisfied. Equestria is in danger, and Celestia refuses to give her the power it would take to help defend the kingdom.

Another pony might've given up and trusted her princess to handle things. Sunset Shimmer isn't like most ponies. If Celestia won't deal with looming threats, Sunset will take matters into her own hooves. She'll find allies for Equestria even if she has to leave the universe to do it.

A prequel set in the continuity of My Little Apprentice. This story is not required to understand that one, or vice-versa.

This story was written at the behest of Two_Bit, who is sponsoring it on my Patreon. As usual, cover by Zutcha.

Published 2017-03-18 10:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-07-26 11:14:25 UTC

Chapter 2: Integration Parameters

Sunset did not dream, not exactly. What Sunset did see she had great difficulty even classifying into the world she knew. It wasn’t a dream, and yet she wasn’t quite awake. Something moved around her in an indeterminate gray space without end or beginning.

Could this be the Void Starswirl had spoken of in his treatise on the intersection of related worlds? She couldn’t ask any of the natives, because she couldn’t ever see them. Perception would come as a general sense of observation, but by the time she could focus on anything she saw, it would pass.

It seemed like something was always watching her. She found herself remembering ancient things. Studying in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorn’s. Attracting Celestia’s personal attention for her advanced skill with teleportation at a young age. Eventually being lifted from all her classes to study under the Alicorn’s private instruction. She remembered all of that, and couldn’t have said why. It was like her life was a series of scrolls being opened and read over and over by someone who didn’t speak Equestrian. As though the feelings she remembered about each memory might serve as a guide.

Then the world came back. The change happened so abruptly that Sunset almost wasn’t sure she’d ever been asleep in the first place. One minute she was floating on her back in a sea of silver glass, the next—she was on a bed of soft cloth, resting under bright glowing bars on the ceiling that produced a harsh white glow without any warmth.

“You’re very lucky to be alive,” a voice spoke without emotion, at least none she was familiar with. It also wasn’t speaking any language she’d ever heard before.

Even as Sunset’s brain rejected the sounds, she found unfamiliar patterns there, waiting for her use. Though her memories contained nothing about these words, she found she understood immediately. A language spell unlike any she had known before. A language spell that granted understanding without familiarity, the exact opposite of the magic she knew.

She blinked, and found every trace of pain was gone from her body. Of course, every trace of her body as she knew it was also gone. Except for the bright red and yellow mane around her head, hanging on either side of her face.

Her familiar muzzle was gone, her yellow coat was gone, replaced with something pale and soft.

She sat up at once, and found like the language the motion came with instinct that she had never learned. The wall in front of her was made entirely of mirror, reflecting herself and the room she was sitting in.

Even without magic, she could’ve identified the space as a hospital room. Only one bed, plenty of machines along the walls, and a small window on the other side presently shut. There was a little bedside table, a few simple flowers and get-well-soon cards, everything she’d expect from a space like this. There were two aliens in the room.

First was the nurse, who looked down at her with a placid, vacant expression. She matched Clover’s description of the aliens—furless, hornless, wingless, hoofless. She wore white clothing all over her body, and where there wasn’t an easily-recognizable nurse’s uniform she had skin like a shaved pony or an animal. The nurse had her own mane of brown fur, tied up and covered by a cap with a single red mark in the center.

Meeting one of the Builders was everything Sunset could’ve hoped for. She was about to say so, until she saw her own reflection.

The reflection couldn’t be anyone else. Not with Sunset’s bright yellow and red mane, not her shocked expression or her bright green eyes. She reached up, touching the strangely flat face with feeling appendages like paws but longer and softer. She was assaulted with a wave of sensory information no hoof could’ve prepared her for—the entire surface of these organs was covered with richly sensing skin. She could feel the curve of her own face, the strange soft texture, everything.

Sunset herself was not wearing the white uniform like a nurse, but a strange open-backed gown made of papery fabric that rubbed uncomfortably on her skin. It seemed almost her whole body had skin, but not all of it was created equal.

“You made me one of you,” Sunset said. “Why?” Her tone was not accusatory, only shocked.

A deeper part of herself thrilled in the strange feelings. Celestia rejected me, but the people greater than Alicorns didn’t. A species who unified their world in harmony found me worthy of joining them without even speaking to me.

She would look forward very much to writing that letter home.

The nurse’s eyes remained as vacant as they had before, her tone equally flat. She reached over to the door, pulling a clipboard from a hook there, and turning it over so she could read. “Welcome to the Infinite Realm, citizen of the Steel Tower. We regret the suffering you experienced as part of your transition. I am Rosa Garcia, a fork of our Central Coordinator.

“I am happy to inform you that you have reached the end of all unwilling suffering. You will not labor, unless you choose to do so. You will not feel pain, unless you choose to do so. You will not be trapped by the confines of physical reality, unless you choose to do so.”

“What are you—” Her own voice sounded strange to her ears. A little lower than she was used to, though still distinctly female and with the same musical undertones. Either the Builders sounded like ponies, or they had managed to preserve those traits in their transformation.

The nurse seemed almost not to hear her. She continued with the speech. She wasn’t actually reading from the clipboard, just holding it in front of her like she was trying to make Sunset think she was. “It is standard procedure to place all new emigrants in a reality less than one standard deviation from the meat you left behind.

“Your next few weeks will consist of a rudimentary instruction and evaluation period, at the end of which you will be granted full digital citizenship and freedom to move through the Infinite Realm as you see fit.”

“I don’t think you—” Again the nurse refused to stop her speech. Sunset gave up interrupting her. Maybe she can’t hear me. It’s possible she isn’t even here.

“Take as long as you need to recover in this room. The interface there can provide you with any necessities you require.” The nurse pointed at a large piece of glass set into the wall beside the bed, as though it were some kind of tool. “Local time has been adjusted to permit a near-infinite recovery period for your transition into digital existence. The average emigrant spends three weeks recovering before they proceed to their evaluation.”

The nurse reached out, handing Sunset the clipboard. On it was something that looked remarkably like a birth certificate, printed in fancy paper with swirling designs on either side. “You were not carrying any identification when you were recovered by a border protection team. As such, you could not automatically be issued digital certificates. Please provide your designation as honestly and comprehensively as possible for demographic purposes.

“Tower law requires that even citizens of the United Earth Federation will be granted full citizenship, on condition of their honesty and forthrightness with His Majesty’s representatives.”

“So I, uh…” The language printed on the page in her hands was just as strange as the one the nurse was speaking. The one she was using, though she’d never known it. The written form was just as easy to read, and made her just as uncomfortable in doing so. Sunset took the quill hanging from the clipboard in her fingers, searching for an inkwell. There was none, which she took to mean it didn’t need one. Sure enough, it wrote in a thick dark line that didn’t smudge or bleed with minimal effort.

Sunset wrote her full name on the given line. There were a few more fields—nation of origin, age, sex, etc. She wrote, and found her new spindly digits writing in the same language the paper was written in. Not a syllabary like Equestrian, but an alphabet, with lots of lines and loops and circles. She knew each letter, though she’d never seen them before and couldn’t have provided their names or sounds. Builders have strange magic.

Strange magic she could learn, even if Celestia wouldn’t teach her anything that was important. No age, no work, no pain. See if I even want to be an Alicorn when I’m done learning here.

Sunset handed the clipboard back. “Like this?”

The nurse took it, and the object vanished. No flash of magic, no glow from a horn (she didn’t have one). The clipboard just stopped being there. There was a brief pause. “Some of your answers could not be corroborated. Please confirm your nation of Origin as EQUESTRIA.”

“That’s right,” she said. “You already knew that, right? Does your world have ponies of its own?” If that were true, it might explain why the Builders were taking this whole thing so casually. She had expected something a little more formal than a hospital bed, after being the first visitor from another universe since Clover the Clever. Unless the Builders are so powerful and connected that Equestria is just one of many places they visit. Stupid, stupid, why didn’t I think of that? This ‘King Richard’ might have friends in a thousand different universes! I need to stop making assumptions.

The nurse never seemed to actually look at Sunset. She looked in her direction, sure, but her eyes continued to feel vacant. She’d called herself a fork, a concept Sunset didn’t know. She knew the language, but the thought didn’t map to anything in her own mind. Her understanding of the concept was empty. “An administrator has been notified about your situation, citizen Sunset Shimmer. You have been granted permission to proceed with your recovery and evaluation period in accordance with Tower law. Upon graduation, your case will be personally evaluated by a supervising Technocrat of at least second order. We thank you for your patience while your case is evaluated.”

“Sure, no problem. Do you think I could talk to this King Ri—” The nurse vanished as abruptly as the clipboard had. There was no flash of light, no air. No feeling of magic as Sunset knew it.

She’d just assumed her horn was still there on her head, and there hadn’t been anything to sense. Yet as she reached up to where the phantom appendage should’ve been, her hand felt only bare skin and soft hair.

She was alone, alone without her magic or any of her possessions. Her saddlebags weren’t on the bedside table, and neither were any of her scrolls. All the magic she’d prepared to help make this mission a success. Without her horn, she couldn’t replace any of the magic they’d taken from her. Maybe I don’t need to. The Builders seem to get by. That nurse acted like she wasn’t even awake, but she could still teleport like an Alicorn. Not even a breeze…

Sunset slumped back into bed, shivering at the feeling of rough sheets on her sensitive skin. At least it wasn’t cold. Dragons and other creatures without fur seemed like they should be cold all the time, but she didn’t feel it. They would just heat the hospital, obviously.

Sunset eventually rose from her bed. She didn’t try to walk on four limbs, not after what she’d seen from the nurse. Her body knew how to stand without falling over. For a complete shift in physical construction, she found the change came easily. So long as she didn’t move too fast, she could walk over to the window with ease.

Just outside was everything Clover the Clever had described. A living city, with buildings made from glass and metal that towered higher than Canterlot’s mountain and castle combined. Carts flew through the air without ponies to pull them, and thousands of Builders walked about the streets in their abundance of clothing.

There was only one thing missing from Clover’s account, something she hadn’t seen on the nurse and couldn’t see on herself either. Clover the Clever had described these beings as a kind of living golem, immortal constructs with openings for various purposes on their wrists and backs. She removed the awful papery dress from her own body and searched in the reflection, but saw no openings there that she wouldn’t expect from any other living creature. She couldn’t find any of the detachable sections Clover had mentioned, and her body felt warm to the touch. There was nothing at all to suggest she wasn’t, in fact, still a living creature.

There was one small comfort to this strange body she’d been given. Removing all her clothing proved that she had retained her cutie mark, plastered onto either side of her body in the place she assumed was the flank. Even still it wasn’t fur, but seemed somehow below her skin.

I guess I still have some magic left. If only I could figure out how to use it. Sunset wouldn’t let herself worry about that, not now. The Builders did not let such petty concerns drag them down. If she wanted to master their power, she would have to learn their ways.

An education and evaluation period sounded exactly like what Sunset needed. A chance to learn their ways, to prove her own abilities and show them as she had shown Celestia that she was worthy of instruction.

So once I leave, the evaluation period beings. She looked at the door, considering just walking straight out. But the nurse said that ponies spend weeks in here. I need clothes, too… Builders always wear clothes.

Sunset walked up to the “interface” the nurse had described, which looked like a window pane that didn’t actually lead anywhere. Yet when she approached it, a light came on behind it, as though dawning over an unfamiliar landscape. In that light, a number of shapes appeared. Buttons. Each one was labeled in the language of the builders. “Object Catalog,” said one. “Quarters reassignment,” read another. A dozen different options, many of which Sunset couldn’t understand.

She chose the first from the list. The window filled with images—like a mail-order catalog she might’ve seen in Equestria, sorted by category. Sunset chose “Clothing—Informal”, and image after image filled the screen. Images of her, already wearing clothing of innumerable styles and seemingly infinite variations. Most covered far more of her body than she was used to in Equestria, while others seemed only to pretend to try and cover anything.

It makes sense that a species without fur would need to wear more to protect themselves. But why bother covering a few parts to your body like this? She couldn’t even imagine the kind of magic it would take to make a book rewrite itself depending on the pony reading it. That was the only explanation she could think of for such complete illusions, each of which depicted her.

Something else was missing from the catalog, something that would’ve been present anywhere in Equestria: prices. None had a number of bits next to it, or any number at all. I guess that makes sense. A society that has advanced to total harmony just shares everything with everypony all the time.

It made her feel a tad guilty to be taking advantage of their kindness. She would have to find a way to repay these Builders. A way that would not sacrifice Equestria’s interests. At least I can see why the ponies in Clover’s vision were so eager to become like them. No need to work, being able to decide what to do and how long to live. Paradise.

Making sense of all the different styles and colors of Builder clothing was beyond her. In the end, Sunset chose a simple outfit, one that covered more of her body instead of less. Blue denim pants, black boots and a top of loose blue fabric. A black jacket she could use in the cold or remove as the situation required. Sturdy boots in matching fabric that would serve in even rugged conditions.

Almost every outfit the “interface” suggested to her covered up her cutie mark, but Sunset soon discovered that wouldn’t matter. She could add designs of her own, drawing right onto the screen with her serpentine digits. She drew a stylized version of her own mark, and added it in matching colors to her clothes.

How long would it take a tailor to sew the outfits she’d requested? No sooner had she pressed “submit request” than a metal chute on the far end of the room rumbled. The whole outfit was already sitting there, wrapped in a thin film like paper she could easily tear with her hands.

It took well over an hour to figure out what all the outfit’s little pieces were for. Another hour to put them on, and twice that long to decide on what she would do with her mane. At least the Builders had provided a sink.

It was dark outside her window by the time Sunset Shimmer had finished. She stood confidently in front of the tall mirror, admiring the change. Yes, the body she saw reflected there had thin limbs, strangely elongated paws instead of hooves, and no horn. Yet, despite all of that, she could still see herself in the glass. The Builders had not taken anything from her she needed.

Was the nurse honest with me? Do people who emigrate to their world spend weeks in this tiny room? She wouldn’t, in any case. It didn’t matter that she was still figuring out the whole “walking” thing. She could learn that as she learned everything else. Sunset would confront these Builders, find their king, and learn their secrets.

Celestia could go to the moon for all she cared.

Sunset strode confidently to the door, then stepped through.

Chapter 3: Builder

Sunset shifted.

The feeling had no correlation with anything she had ever experienced before. The world seemed to sweep out from under her, and for a moment it was as though she couldn’t think. Her mind was frozen, detached from her body and anything other than the strange numbness.

The horrible moment passed, and the world came into focus around her. She spent several seconds standing in place and panting, overwhelmed. It was the worst teleport she could remember. Worse than the first one she’d ever performed, by far. As she looked down, she could find no frost condensing on her limbs. She didn’t feel like her lungs had been ripped out, or any other physical pain for that matter.

Let’s hope I don’t have to do that often. These Builders could learn a thing or two about making a smooth teleport.

Sunset looked up and around her, relaxing as the painful memory of what had been waiting outside the door began to fade from her perception. She was standing somewhere bright, in a towering entryway with large glass shelves. Glittering metal objects rested inside, with plaques beside each one. She was too far away to read them.

Colored flags hung from the ceiling in an attractive way, filling the high space in a way that made it seem more comfortable. Behind her, the door she’d just used no longer looked anything like the one from the hospital. This one was metal, taller than she was, with no window and a metal bar to open it.

The towering space looked like it could accommodate hundreds of Builders, with plenty of room behind them in hallways that stretched backward into even more space. For all its size, the space was almost empty. She didn’t see a single other Builder in all the area. Could it be that nobody new has come in so long that there were no more assessments to be performed?

Sunset had read such theories about what could become of advanced societies, grown so powerful that they became complacent. Ponies seemed to behave that way in modern times, no longer needing to struggle for food or survival so not caring to improve their ability to do either. If the Builders are the same way, how am I supposed to find a way to save Equestria?

She wouldn’t let it bother her, not right now. There was plenty of evidence to suggest her theories might be wrong.

For one thing, there was no sign of damage or decay. The vast space had clean glass, pristine walls, swept floors. She saw no dust on anything, not the trophies in the cases, not the lights on the ceiling, not the windowsills above her. A degenerate society would not maintain such a facility. Could they send each pony to a different place for assessment? Maybe they don’t want our scores interfering with each other.

That was a horrifying thought if ever she’d considered one. Would she be spending weeks here all alone?

I’m being graded; she reminded herself. Just because I can’t see the ponies doing the grading doesn’t mean they aren’t there. She walked with poise down the center of the hall, striding meaningfully each time like someone who knew they belonged and expected respect.

The hallway gave way to a fork which opened into a hallway with metal lockers down the walls, each of which had a tiny knob ringed in numbers. The ceiling here was far lower, though nowhere near low enough to make her uncomfortable. Sunset’s feet continued to echo in the space, sounding eerie as they returned to her from the other end of the hallway.

There were numerous doors along the way, each of which was shut. Writing beside each door listed a subject or discipline. “Basic Arithmetic,” read the text beside one of the doors. “Data Structures,” said another.

Sunset tried one of the doors and wasn’t entirely surprised to find it locked. Each of the doors had a little window, positioned at eye level, and she could look inside.

The “Data Structures” class had a double row of desks inside, each of which had a strange machine sitting in the center. The far end of the class had one of the Builders, a male she guessed from the growth on his face, sitting at his desk and staring forward at the wall.

Sunset considered whether to get his attention. Couldn’t he see her? He didn’t turn to look when she tried the knob with her thin paw, didn’t even twitch. If he wanted to talk, he would have. She wouldn’t upset anything by trying to bypass the usual instruction methods here. Nothing could keep her from finding this king.

She turned away from the classroom and started walking down the hall again, looking for a door she could open. Each one had a different Builder inside, and each one refused to open no matter how long she worked at it. There must be some secret to this. If only I could use my magic.

What was worse, the hallways seemed to go on forever. No matter how far Sunset walked along the gentle curve of the room, there were always more classrooms. Some were larger, some were smaller, some had multiple Builders inside standing as still as mannequins. Or Golems. Clover’s writing did say something about magical constructs. Could these be the ones? Constructs would make sense if you wanted to keep your school open forever.

Then she heard something. The sound came from close by, so close she nearly jumped right out of her skin. Sunset spun around rapidly, searching the area around her until she found what she was looking for emerging from one of the tiny metal lockers. It wasn’t wide enough to permit a Builder to fit inside, yet… one seemed to be emerging anyway.

She was shorter than Sunset by a full head, with darker skin, brown eyes, and slightly blueish hair. Her clothing was dark and plain, though she had bright silver jewelry around one wrist. Her expression was urgent, and she glanced over her shoulder into the metal room behind her.

Then she saw Sunset. Her eyes widened, nearly as surprised as Sunset, pointing at her. “Excuse me…” she said, taking a few steps closer. “You’re aware this simulation is closed, right?”

“Closed?” Sunset shook her head, though she hoped she sounded non-committal. “I don’t think it is. I was sent here from a… hospital? It looked like a hospital. The one there said I needed to be assessed.”

Something about this Builder didn’t look official. Maybe it was the way she kept glancing back at the way she’d come, or her nervous expression, or that too-wide grin. Sunset knew this feeling well, because she’d worn it plenty of times.

“No shit.” The woman took another step toward her, looking her over. “From the outside? After…” She glanced down at the jewelry on her wrist. Sunset saw then that there was tiny writing on it, seeming to hover just above it. It changed when the girl’s paws moved through the air near it. “Twenty-one years? What bunker did you crawl out of?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sunset said, folding her arms. “But I don’t think you’re supposed to be here, whoever you are. I don’t think I should be answering any more of your questions.”

The girl grinned, putting out her paws. It was strange to see the gesture from an alien species, yet recognize it at once. “Guilty as charged, sweetie. I thought I’d test some new code up here, where it couldn’t get a Knight sniffing after my ass. Well, another Knight.” She glanced back at the shut metal door. “I’ll find another dead world to play in.”

She picked a direction and started walking again, fiddling with her jewelry with one of her paws as she walked.

The girl was very fast, faster than Sunset could walk without risking falling. As she moved away, Sunset felt a brief pang of panic and the smallest flicker of loneliness. Whoever this person was, she was obviously no construct. Genuine emotions like guilt and amusement and urgent fear were hard to fake.

She might be the first real Builder Sunset had met, and she was already leaving. “Wait!” Sunset hurried to catch up with her, chasing after her along the endless curve of the hallway. “What are you talking about? There are windows everywhere… the world doesn’t look dead. Why would you joke about that?”

“You mean that world?” The girl stopped abruptly, in front of one of the large windows that sometimes broke up the identical classrooms.

Outside it, Sunset could see a town, a town of charming little buildings, wide black streets with vehicles moving up and down them, bright green trees and tastefully arranged shrubs. It was far smaller than the city around the hospital but small enough that there wasn’t much noise.

The one thing Sunset didn’t see outside were people. “Empty cells, sweetie. Infinite Realm has lots of those, left over from the early days. Guess you wouldn’t catch onto that, still reeling from the meatbrain and all.” She tapped on the side of her head with one finger. “Welcome to the silicon. Live forever, live perfect.” She shook her head, disdain in her expression. “Guess this place hasn’t gone quite as shit as the one you’re from, though.”

“I understand your words,” Sunset said, after a long pause. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m Sunset. Sunset Shimmer.” She stuck out one of her paws, hoping the gesture might mean the same thing as it would’ve if she still had hooves. “I could use a new friend.”

“You’re fucking joking,” the girl said, staring down at her hand. Again Sunset flinched at the strange word, somehow able to tell from her inflection that it was meant to be obscene. Even so, the girl took her paw. It was a very strange gesture, far more intimate than touching hooves. These limbs were incredibly sensitive along each side, with so much independent movement.

It was a disorienting wave of emotion for someone who’d never tried shape-changing magic before. A good thing the girl didn’t hold onto her long. “Just call me Jackie, newbie. I don’t give out sys-ID on the first date.”

She twisted to one side, then pushed Sunset gently in the small of her back, forcing her to start walking. “First pro tip for your time in the Infinite Realm…” She pulled at one of the garments Sunset was wearing over her top, the one with faint purple and white stripes. “I don’t know what kind of backward-ass shit you dirtborn get up to, but here the bra goes under your blouse. Where it’s useful for something.”

Sunset blushed in embarrassment, glancing down. She had thought it a little strange that the smaller clothing items hadn’t been pictured in the catalog when she’d selected her outfit. “There’s a bathroom every… there.” she pointed with one paw. “You go on in and get your shit together, ‘kay? I’ll check to make sure I’m not going to get company. Don’t want you riding the bytes out to unformatted space on my behalf.”

Sunset did as instructed, marveling at the sophisticated plumbing and clean surfaces within. By the time she emerged, feeling far more confident about her appearance, she half-expected this “Jackie” to be gone.

She wasn’t, though she’d changed a great deal. Her appearance had grown far more subdued, black clothing replaced with a drab dress, a plaid top, and long socks that went all the way up her legs. She’d also acquired a bag of some kind, and her hair had changed shades to black. She wore it in a ponytail down her back.

Most extreme of all, she seemed as though she’d gotten younger. Smaller anyway— she was at least two heads shorter than Sunset now, her chest somehow flatter than it was before. Without cutie marks, Sunset didn’t know if there would be any other obvious ways to judge age among the Builders. Their males and females looked so similar as it was.

Apparently, Jackie caught her staring. “Yeah, like it? It’s my ‘please don’t delete my ass, I’m just an innocent little schoolgirl, won’t you teach me about algorithms’ look.”

“B-but how…” Sunset stammered. “Age magic is… Alicorn level.” She stared openly. Maybe her luck was turning around. The very first real Builder she’d met, and it seemed like she had already found someone who knew some of the magic Celestia refused to teach.

“Yeah, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The much smaller Jackie grabbed her by the arm, yanking her down the hall in the opposite direction. “But first thing’s first, you haven’t had your entry interview. You got no GIO-COM, and without one you might as well be naked.” She held up the bracket for Sunset to see, which had shrunk down to her size. “Which I’m not saying wouldn’t be interesting, with that wicked hair of yours. Is it that red all the way down, by the way? Kindof ballsy for a dirtborn.”

Sunset blushed again, pulling her hand away. This Builder was her only source of information, so she didn’t want to alienate her, but she also wasn’t going to let herself get walked all over. Jackie didn’t belong here. “Why don’t you start by talking to me like a regular pony,” she said. “You’re talking in circles… Where are we going? Start there.”

“Pony?” Jackie repeated, a grin spreading across her face. “You’re about, err… twenty years too old for that, princess. Now if you’d like to ditch this empty sim, I can show you quite a few with ‘ponies.’ The median age in most of them is like ten, though.”

She took a breath, pointing down the hall. “Office is down there. I remember…” Her expression soured a little. “Long time ago. Had to do this same shit. Back when there were a few hundred more people.” She glanced over her shoulder again, but still there was nothing. “Anyway, we get you to the nurse for your entry interview. Then you’ll get your first GIO… pretty shit one, but you wouldn’t know how to do more with it anyway. We can go from there.”

Could this be part of the test somehow? I can’t let her trick me into doing anything bad. “Okay. That sounds good. Where is this office? We won’t have to break in, will we?”

“Break in?” Jackie repeated, chuckling. “What kind of design would this place have if newcomers had to fight their way in to get evaluated? We’d have been tripping over ourselves back in the day. Guess… you probably don’t remember that, though. You’re too young to remember the war.”

Sunset didn’t get another chance to respond, because at that moment the girl shoved her in the back again, pushing her through an open door beside her.

Sunset stumbled in through the opening and nearly fell, but a desk inside let her catch herself and prevent that bit of awkward performance.

The room was fairly ordinary. A long, high desk separated her side of the chamber from the other side, which was filled with empty desks. A shelf on the far wall held lots of the same packages. There was also a single individual in the room, who sat up immediately when Sunset entered.

It was like the hospital all over again. The woman barely seemed to see her, even as she asked her basic questions about various things. Sunset discovered to her dismay that she knew very few of the answers—she didn’t even know the name of the subjects.

Eventually, the questions finished. “Congratulations,” said the figure, without a hint of emotion. “Your intelligence rating has been calculated at an 8.7. Unfortunately, your knowledge evaluation places you at the freshman level. If you follow the accelerated track, you should be able to graduate within twelve years of perceived local time.”

She turned, walking back past the empty desks to the far wall, returning with one of the boxes and setting it down on the counter in front of Sunset. “This is your first GIO device. Every citizen of the Steel Tower makes daily use of their GIO device, in whatever form appropriate to the sim they choose to make their permanent home. If you lose this one, please return to this office to be issued a replacement. Your GIO will point you to your next class. It will also provide you with appropriate resources as you advance.”

Sunset opened the box with only a little difficulty and found only a single object inside. It looked like Jackie’s bracelet, except that it was made from something white and bulky, not the sleek silvery thing she wore. An artificial horn, Sunset found herself thinking. Or close enough. Maybe I’ll get my magic back.

Sunset slipped her hand inside and felt the whole world lurch. She very nearly fell over again, her head spinning. When she finally looked up, she found the counter was nearly at eye level. What had just happened? She looked down, expecting to see the evidence of a shrinking spell, yet her clothes still fit. They were smaller too, changing to match a smaller form. “What just happened?”

“You are now ready to begin your first year of instruction,” said the automaton. “Your apparent age has been temporarily reduced to that of your classmates. Note: until you gain citizenship, the ability to make alterations to your avatar is restricted. You will earn this privilege once you graduate. You have three advancements remaining until your graduation.”

Author's Note

Hey everypony, so I've got some good news! It's summer now, and thanks to the extra time on my plate, and the tremendous generosity of this story's Patreon sponsor, it's gone weekly! It will update every Wednesday from now on. Hopefully we can get into the good stuff quicker this way.

Chapter 4: Preliminary Instruction

Sunset Shimmer took the polished metal knob in one of her paws, half expecting the door to be as locked as any of the others she had tried. It twisted easily and she strode into the empty classroom.

Well, almost empty. There was a single row of desks inside, and an instructor standing by a chalkboard. The woman seemed to come to life as Sunset entered, her head twisting around and a practiced smile on her face.

She looked a little different than the other builders Sunset had seen so far, at least by physical appearance. In this case, this one had pale skin covered with little spots and bright orange hair almost as bright as a pony’s.

“Welcome to remedial mathematics, geometry through set theory,” said the instructor, gesturing at the first desk. “Please shut the door behind you and have a seat. You will be personally instructed for this class, so each classroom will be a separate instance.”

Sunset turned, glancing over her shoulder at Jackie. The girl had started leaning on the wall, making no gesture to follow her inside. “You’re not coming?”

Jackie shook her head vigorously. “Accelerated time is expensive, Sunny. The sysadmin will find me for sure if I try that.”

Sunset sighed and shut the door. She wasn’t sure what Jackie might mean by “accelerated time,” but she expected she would find out soon enough. She couldn’t mean time-magic, could she? It might be possible. If the Builders could make her young with the same ease they could change anything else, then she supposed it wouldn’t be too hard to believe that they might be able to accelerate local time. It’s like everyone is an Alicorn. Even their golems can do it.

Sunset Shimmer took the first seat open to her, and as she did the desk in front of her filled with notebooks, papers, and other small tools. She recognized some of them from her geometry instruction, many years ago, though it had been so long since that particular period in her life that she hadn’t thought about any of them. Geometry didn’t serve a unicorn nearly as much as some of the later mathematics did, at least not with magic.

“How can one class teach me all that?” she asked, lifting up one of the books at random and turning it over. “OPEN TEXTBOOKS MULTIVARIABLE CALCULUS 21st Ed,” read the cover. “Seems like… an awful lot.”

She felt something then, similar to what she’d felt when she had first teleported into the school. The transition was far subtler this time, far less painful. It was a slight detachment within her mind, though she couldn’t explain exactly what had been detached.

The instructor didn’t leave her wondering. “This class will take approximately 2 standard years. As it forms the foundation of many lessons to come, it may not be interrupted, paused, or fast-forwarded. My name is Brigid, I will be your fork instructor for the next few years.” The door on the far wall clicked with a final, menacing tone.

It isn’t like anypony will miss me, Sunset thought with a sigh, settling into her seat.

The teacher approached the board and started writing on it with something softer and smoother than chalk. She spoke calmly, listened to questions, and responded promptly.

Sunset hardly noticed as the time went by. They studied workbook after workbook, shifting textbooks away from her desk as their contents were mastered.

Sunset never felt the mental exhaustion that came from a long time studying. She never felt physically tired, didn’t start to sweat, or feel the need to perform any other bodily function. Strangest of all, she didn’t even feel bored, and her mind never started to wander.

Sunset studied mathematics as she’d never imagined them before. Many concepts Equestria had known, but much more she was certain not even the most erudite professors in the most prestigious universities would’ve known. Perhaps Celestia would’ve been able to perform such calculations, but nopony else.

All this passed in a blur to her, her internal perception of time barely registering its passage. She didn’t watch the window outside—the shutters had been drawn anyway. Sunset absorbed.

The next thing she knew, she was looking at an empty desk. The instructor reached out and tapped her bracelet GIO with her own. Sunset’s flashed briefly in acknowledgment, and a faint voice spoke “REMEDIAL MATHEMATICS STATUS: COMPLETED.”

The instructor nodded in respect, then gestured at all her workbooks. They vanished, leaving the classroom empty again. “Thank you for your participation in this time-compressed enrichment activity. Your status has been registered with central, and you are ready to proceed to your next classes. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“What are you talking about?” Sunset rose to her feet, her legs not even feeling sore. Were Builder bodies indeed this resilient? It was no small wonder they were so advanced if each one of them had absolute concentration and they never needed to eat or sleep. She suspected more magic was involved in that, somehow. “I just got here.”

“That is incorrect,” said the instructor. “Your instruction has taken exactly one year, two hundred nineteen days, six hours, thirteen minutes.”

“Uh…” Sunset thought back, remembering the desk. She let her memory examine as far back as she dared, and sure enough, she could feel herself sitting in that chair learning math no matter how far back she went. Sunset Shimmer had spent over a year learning basic and then advanced mathematics in a Builder seat.

“Thanks!” She practically sprinted for the door, flinging it open with the force of desperation. She didn’t expect Jackie to be waiting there—why would she have bothered? How could someone just sit in place for that long? How did I?

It was like walking into an entirely different place. The hallways were not teeming with life. Hundreds of Builders walked and talked, carrying their backpacks laden with books or other supplies. A few of them turned to look at her, smiling in friendly greeting or looking her up and down with an appraising expression.

“Hey,” a familiar voice sounded from near the wall, and Sunset spun around. Jackie was still there, her back against the wall and something white and reflective in both of her hands. She seemed to be playing a game on it if the flashing of light and movement were any guide. “Made it out of your first class, eh dirtborn? Didn’t think you’d be out so quick.”

Sunset had learned a few hundred new words along with all her math, as various examples in the textbook introduced her to concepts Equestria had not possessed. “Quick? I was in there almost two years…” Her voice didn’t feel sore, despite the hundreds of thousands of conversations she’d just had about the various principles of mathematics. How could she even remember them all? Sunset had cast a few memory spells on herself over the years, but those took constant maintenance. She hadn’t been able to cast any since arriving here, for obvious reasons.

“Perspective time,” Jackie answered, sliding the bit of reflective plastic away into a pocket and rising to her feet. Another few students hurried past Sunset and shut the door behind them. “Welcome to the speed of thought, Sunny. Silicon superpowers. Well… graphene superpowers. There are people in the infinite realm who are thousands of subjective years old. Course it costs processor credits to run like that. Newbies get as many as they need to graduate. Enjoy them while you can.”

“It… it doesn’t make sense…” Sunset moved closer, looking around them. For all that the hallway was busy, something about these people seemed off to her. It wasn’t the same kind of “off” as the instructors. They sounded like they were having meaningful conversations, but they also sounded like… a recording. She wasn’t sure quite what that meant. “How did I just sit there all that time? Shouldn’t I have gotten… bored?” She blushed a little, neglecting to mention the more physical things she expected a body to need. She hadn’t felt any of those either.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t felt them since she’d first woken up in the hospital.

“Yeah, you would’ve,” Jackie said. “Except that boredom would make you a garbage learner. If you’re on free credits, the system can at least expect you to use them optimally. No boredom allowed. Nothing but perfect focus while you’re in class. Dull as shit, but you won’t realize until after.”

It hadn’t felt dull at the time. Sunset had relished each and every new piece of information. Every new process had some application she could imagine for magic, though she hadn’t volunteered that information to the instructor.

“Oh.” Sunset turned, looking all around here. “Who are…”

“All these?” Jackie shrugged. “Not a clue. Popped in about… a week ago. Had fun with this one chick ‘bout two days ago, but… she turned out to be shallow as shit. Pretty, but…” She shrugged sadly. “Wish I remembered how I ever thought forks were fun.”

“Forks?” That was one word her time in math class hadn’t taught her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Really?” Jackie raised an eyebrow. “Now that is surprising. I thought you dirtborn loved railing on how ‘unnatural’ and ‘inhuman’ it was to make forks. Either it’s slavery because you don’t understand the copy isn’t really a person, or it’s some kind of moral abomination to try to make new souls. Isn’t that all over your, uh… television? That is what it’s called, right?”

“I didn’t have television,” Sunset answered, honestly. Sunset wasn’t stupid, though. It didn’t take much to realize that Jackie had just answered her question. “Cloning magic? I have read about that, now that you mention it. It never seemed worth the investment. Too much potential for disaster.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “See, there we go. No, forks aren’t dangerous. They run in slave threads, so they use your own processor credits. You can spawn or dismiss them at will, even when you’re on other servers. No muss, no fuss. Not really much point, though. They’re not much cheaper than just compressing time, so why not just run things faster and do everything yourself? Beats me.”

“Can you…” She hesitated. This was the reason she’d come, but it would also be the most daring she’d ever been with her request. Jackie didn’t know she’d come from Equestria, didn’t know she had an important mission, and didn’t know what she had come to learn. “Can you teach me?”

Jackie laughed. She laughed so loudly that a few of the other students joined in.

“What’s so funny?” Somebody asked.

“Dirtborn wants to fork on her first iteration!” Jackie responded, and immediately the laughter spread down the hall.

Sunset’s blush deepened, and one of her paws clenched into a fist. “I take it…” she said, speaking slowly, dangerous. “That means I’m not able to do it, for some reason?”

“Yeah,” Jackie finally said, when the laughter had died down. No sooner had it stopped than the crowd around them dispersed again. These people did not seem to have terribly long attention spans. “Yeah, there’s a reason. You need a canonical backup to start messing with your bits like that. You don’t get one until you graduate. You’ll simulate it a few times in some of your advanced classes, but those are… senior year, I think. You’re still flat, so I guess you have more freshman shit to deal with, right?”

“Yeah,” Sunset admitted. She held up the bracelet, and as she did so, the projected screen lit up. There were only three apps on it right now, and one displayed her academic progress. An overall 0% had changed to 1.02%, with more comprehensive breakdowns by year. She had four more classes before she was ready to advance to “Sophomore”.

“See, there you go.” Jackie held up her own, tapping it to the side of Sunset’s. As she did, another icon joined the other apps on her home screen—a “Messenger.” “Now, as much fun as it would be to follow you through the halls, I think I’m gonna take off. You look fun—we haven’t got another dirtborn in the Realm since forever. But you’re still so clueless you might malloc right into somebody’s kernel without telling = from ==. You go ahead and get yourself wise… but don’t graduate.” She lowered her voice, leaning in closely. “Sysadmins don’t watch this place much. Looks like you being here kicked on some automated routine to make it seem like you weren’t alone. Truth is, this place is empty as shit. Empty means we can do what we want with it.”

She grinned conspiratorially, then turned away, raising one hand. “Give me a ring when you’re a little older. I’ll show you how to have fun in empty cells, consequence-free.”

Sunset might’ve stopped her, before the class. But she felt far better about this whole instruction thing, now that she’d sat through one of them and survived the ordeal. It had even been enjoyable, aside from knowing that powerful mind magic was changing the way she felt.

“I’ll do that.” She waved back. “Cya.”

Jackie approached one of the little metal locker doors, opening it with a few taps on the lock. She glanced around to make sure nobody was watching her, then vanished inside, clicking the door shut behind her. With as loud as the hallway had become, nobody noticed.

Sunset sighed, looking back down at her schedule. The next item said. “English for Non-Speakers, Remedial Through Composition.” Then she looked up, at the hallway filled with vacuous, empty-eyed Builders and their strangely hollow emotions.

Sunset had gained several new tools since leaving her first class. She could use all of them to accomplish her goals.

Chapter 5: Believe the Builders

Sunset stared at the wall in her latest in a series of dull physics classes. The lecturer droned on, as he had done for what felt like years. Sitting in these rooms did strange things to her concentration, forcing her to remain on task and improving her memory such that she never forgot a lesson.

Yet in spite of all the pressure in the back of her mind, trying to nudge her thoughts back to the board and the n-body simulation techniques she was learning, Sunset found she no longer cared.

“Excuse me,” she said, raising a hand.

The instructor stopped, not even the least bit perturbed. He was, after all, only a golem. “Yes, student? Do you want me to start at the beginning? Is there an aspect of this concept you don’t understand?”

Sunset leaned back in her chair. She’d grown another year or so older, judging by the height and the increasing evidence of what passed for sexual characteristics among the Builders. Mostly it meant an uncomfortable widening of her hips and weight on her chest that necessitated an additional garment to mitigate.

“Suppose I left this lesson early,” she said. “Would I have to start over, or could I continue from here?”

The instructor betrayed no emotions, no sign of the insult an Equestrian teacher might’ve shown at being so rudely asked if she could leave. “That is an irregular request, citizen. Are you sure you would not rather return to your studies?”

She did feel something pulling her back to the desk. A powerful desire to go back to the workbook and the lump of plastic that builders called a calculator. Yet she’d felt such desires before—when Celestia had trained her how to resist mind-control charms, Sunset had learned how to differentiate a desire that was internal from one that was external. Once the division was internally demonstrated, it could be observed and then ignored at her leisure.

She ignored it now. “Positive,” she said. “Could we continue this later? I need to… do something else.”

“Of course,” the instructor nodded. “Your progress is saved in your student file. You may continue at any time.”

Sunset stood up and walked away without another word. She didn’t even look back at the golem, just walked right up to the door and folded her arms. It was still locked. “Please unlock the door,” she said. “I’ll be back when I’m ready.”

The door clicked open. Sunset Shimmer slipped out into the hall without the usual flood of accomplishment and joy she’d previously enjoyed every time she’d walked out of a classroom, but also with far less subjective time spent. It hadn’t even been a month, she was fairly sure.

Sunset Shimmer practically slammed the door shut behind her, slumping against it and staring up at the hallway. It was packed with people, apparently engaged in their studies as diligently as she. Yet even a cursory inspection seemed to suggest they were as artificial in their own ways as the teachers. Instead of simulating an instructor, they simulated the emotions of young people. To make me feel more at ease? Maybe whoever runs this place felt bad that nobody was around.

It made sense. Beings of perfect harmony like the Builders would not do well when isolated from one another. The one real one Sunset thought she had met had made friends with her despite apparently being some kind of criminal.

Jackie knew magic. The Builders had taught Sunset incredible things in their automatic school, things that Equestrian engineers would’ve killed to learn.

But she hadn’t studied any magic, only experienced it. The secrets that Celestia had refused to share were still hidden from her, even if they had already been used to grant her the eternal youth and strength that were the Builders’ birthright. I could always graduate and go home. I’ve practically achieved what I wanted just by arriving here.

But did she really want to be an alien in her own world? How could she possibly convince the ponies of Equestria to prepare for the coming dangers if she looked so… strange? Would she have believed the warnings if they had come from a being so weird, say a dragon or a diamond dog?

No. Celestia herself had failed to convince Sunset that she was not infallible. Only a careful study of history had finally convinced her of that.

“I’ve lived long enough to watch ponies I love destroy themselves in search of power.” Celestia’s last words rung in her ears like a taunt, echoing over and over, joining with the voices of the fake people all around her.

Sunset lifted her bracelet and navigated to her contacts. She’d long since mastered how to use this device, thanks to her first sophomore level class. She selected the message function.

Hey, Jackie, I’m older now, and I’m bored with learning things I don’t need to know. Is that offer still good?

The response came almost instantly, text appearing just below what she had written.

So it’s a date?

Sunset ground her teeth together, trying to resist the urge to be snide. I want to learn real magic. That’s why I came to this planet. Can you teach me or not?

Damn, you’re from Luna? I thought you space people were less superstitious.

People were staring at her. Sunset wasn’t sure if they could actually see her, or if they were just staring because that was what their instructions required. No one else in the school stood alone, they either had groups or they were moving. Builders had friends, and they expected her to have them too.

She started walking, but her attention was still directed downward at her wrist. How do you know about Luna? It shouldn’t surprise her that the Builders would keep close tabs on her world. But knowledge of Princess Luna and her banishment was far from widely distributed. Most historians didn’t even know.

Everyone knows you guys are still up there, Jackie responded. We expected you to die out, but that didn’t happen. Guess you got sick of algae crackers and wanted to eat the steak, huh? I’m not an agent, but I can teach you to see the code.

Sunset Shimmer had already sat through an entire course on the English language and mastered it completely. Yet in spite of speaking the same language by knowledge instead of the spell that had facilitated communication initially, she could make little sense of what Jackie was saying.

If seeing the code is what you call magic, then yeah. I want to learn, and none of these classes seem designed to teach me.

That’s because a new upload can get herself corrupted before she’s even got a root-level backup. Once the personhood is gone, you can’t ever get it back.

I’m ready, she insisted. I was an expert at magic back home. I’m sure the principles will be communicable once I learn the theory.

Alright, Jackie responded. I’ll bring the whole gang. We’ll go apeshit on that instructional simulation. I’m attaching a file—run it once you’re by the front entrance. You’ll be our little Trojan, kay?

* * *

Sunset made her way to the front of the school without much fanfare. If any of the simulated people suspected she was about to break out of the boundaries set out by the Builders, they made no sign of it.

What was I expecting, guards? If Celestia’s are ceremonial, the Builders shouldn’t need them either. Then again, what would the world be like where everypony had an Alicorn’s powers? Even the least ambitious could learn forbidden magic when they had an infinite lifespan to study.

The front entrance was mostly deserted, its many doors apparently uninteresting to the school’s residents. Sunset pushed on the metal bar and slipped outside into the sunlight.

From the outside, the school looked far less imposing. A reddish building with only two stories and rows of identical windows. Near the entrance to the school was a statue, depicting… a pony?

Sunset rushed to investigate, though even at a distance she could tell something was wrong. What she had taken at first glance to be a single creature was clearly two distinct beings, a biped like herself riding on the back of an equinoid of far sturdier build and lither limb than any pony she’d ever met. Even Saddle Arabians didn’t have proportions as impressive as this stallion.

Yet the feature of the sculpture seemed to be on the man riding its back, a powerful figure with an impressive beard and a sword in his hands, pointing upward at the sky. There was an inscription, though Sunset suspected she would already know the name. “King Richard Morgan,” it read. “Protector of Mankind, Defender of the Faith, and Sovereign of the Steel Tower.”

“You’re the one I really need to meet,” Sunset muttered, stopping right at the base of the statue and looking up at that stern face. In his way, this man looked a little like Celestia. Stern, unyielding, confident. But there was a gentleness to his features, one she wouldn’t have been able to recognize without several subjective years of study among the Builders.

It was hard to believe she’d already spent so much time here. “Have I been gone a week? Maybe two?” Celestia probably hadn’t ever been worried about her, really. She was just concerned about another pony learning magic she couldn’t control. Well, Sunset would learn that magic, and she would prove Celestia wrong by only using it for good. The Alicorn could choke on her words.

Sunset opened the file Jackie had sent, tapping twice to run it. Her screen went black immediately. She tapped on the side of the display, a little annoyed. “Was Jackie playing a prank on me?” Had she intentionally bricked her bracelet?

Then the air around the display got dark too, faint tendrils extending from the exact point it had been. They seemed to reach for her, hungry.

Sunset leaped back in fear, squeaking faintly and tumbling to the ground. For all the time she’d spent in this new body, almost all of it had been sitting down in desks.

Without her, the blackness found the mirrored surface at the base of the statue, reaching into it and making the whole thing rippled like a pool of water. Like the mirror portal in Equestria.

Someone emerged from within. Jackie’s hand appeared first, spreading the reflective surface for her as she clambered through from parts unknown. Nor was she the only one—several other humans followed behind her, four in all, and Sunset knew at the genuineness of their discomfort that she was looking at real people.

No sooner was the last one through than the mirror returned to normal, losing its dark twinge. Down on her wrist, Sunset’s tool flashed white, then displayed its booting logo along with a progress bar as it restarted.

“How was that for an entrance?” Jackie spun, meeting her eyes and grinning. Unlike Sunset, Jackie didn’t look even a little different than she had the last time Sunset had seen her. Jackie was still taller, though the difference now was very slight. Sunset would be the bigger of the two once she got the rest of her maturity back.

“Uh… unexpected,” Sunset admitted, looking down at her arm. “I didn’t think… my GIO can do magic?”

“You weren’t shitting us,” one of the people behind Jackie muttered, staring openly at Sunset. “She does call it magic. Don’t they have the scientific method on Luna? It’s a research station, right?” The male was larger and bulkier than Jackie, and dressed like someone who didn’t care what other ponies thought of him.

“Don’t be mean, Robbie,” Jackie chided. “The dirtborn is brand new. It’s not her fault she’s ignorant. We are gonna help her out.”

“And get all the best stories to share around the realm,” said another one of Jackie’s companions, also male, with darker features and a tight white suit of some kind. “That’s the real reason. We don’t need to pretend.”

“Well, no,” Jackie admitted. “But nobody’s going to be a dick about it. We’re going to teach Sunset how to be a proper code-monkey, and she’ll be so grateful she’ll share all her exciting stories about life in the meatverse. First, though.” She gestured. “Robbie here is the one who couldn’t keep it in his pants. He also does all our database shit.”

The dark-haired Robbie nodded, though he didn’t offer to shake her hand.

“Noah does our breaching.” Jackie pointed to the one in the white suit. “Nobody better at finding the little weaknesses in a system. He made the program you ran to bring us here.”

Noah offered his hand. “Pleasure,” he said, avoiding her eyes.

“Well he has to find the little holes,” Robbie said, raising his voice a little. “She wouldn’t feel it if they were big holes, would she?” Robbie laughed at the brilliance of his own joke, though Sunset couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. Noah blushed, and Jackie only groaned.

“That just leaves Bree.” She pointed back at the last of them, another female. She was a full foot shorter than Sunset had been even at her youngest, with orangeish hair and strikingly pale skin. Sunset stared at her for several uninterrupted seconds, trying to place what made her seem so familiar. The moments passed with no answer forthcoming. “Bree mined herself a metric shitton of private keys and we’re still riding on them today.”

The one in question didn’t even wave, just looked up at Sunset with a friendly expression.

“Nice to meet all of you,” she said. She had expected to use this opportunity to tell Jackie the truth about where she’d come from, to explain Equestria and its needs. But if Jackie hadn’t struck her painfully as a criminal, these four certainly did.

But what does a criminal even mean for the Builders?

So far as she had seen, it meant somepony who broke rules and made fun of each other. Nothing as severe as the crime that happened in Equestria. I’ll get to know them first. Maybe I’ll be able to trust them. It wasn’t like Sunset hadn’t made herself into somewhat of a criminal herself, defying Celestia’s direct orders and seeking the Builders. Maybe they had more in common than she’d first thought.

Chapter 6: Friendship

"So let's start at the start," Jackie began, pacing a small circle around Sunset and looking her over. Her expression was tough to read, though she seemed to be searching for something. Whatever it was, apparently she didn't find it, because she quickly relaxed.

The others all backed away, retreating towards the statue of King Richard. Then, like three of the most skilled unicorns Sunset had ever seen, each of them produced a chair of some kind from open air. The short one named Bree produced a squishy sack larger than she was, which appeared in a flash of green light and swirling leaves. Robbie gestured at the ground, and it rose in regular segments, forming itself into a throne of grass and rocks. Noah just touched his GIO, and a comfortable-looking couch appeared where he was pointing, without any fanfare.

Sunset stared at them agape, her mind reeling at the magic she'd just seen. "B-but... h-how... where'd you get the energy for those? I've met unicorns who needed an entire day to prepare just to transfigure equivalent masses! Did the Builders solve Clover's Compression Conundrum?"

The assembled group of Builders only stared, though no two had quite the same perplexed expression on their faces. She'd seen that very same expression on Celestia's face when she asked why no dragons were invited to the Grand Galloping Gala.

But where Celestia could be graceful about it, these "rough" types had neither the interest nor the inclination in being kind. She wasn't sure which one started laughing first, but soon all four of them were, pointing and snickering to themselves.

Sunset could feel her face burning, her hands wringing together awkwardly. She wasn't sure exactly what had been so funny about what she said, but she hoped they finished laughing at her soon.

"You people must get up to some fascinating things on Luna," Bree said, the first to stop laughing.

"Alright, so I don't know what the hell you just said." Jackie rested one hand on her shoulder. "Clearly you weren't paying enough attention in class. Either that, or you didn't wait long enough before calling us."

"I was!" Sunset put her hands on her hips, glaring at Jackie. "But they kept talking about pointlessly abstract stuff. I don't know what the 'Great War' is, and I don't know why I would need to have a whole class about it." She gestured at the chairs each of them had summoned. “I want to learn the stuff you know—I want to learn magic! Like that spell you just cast: where did those chairs come from?”

"Ah, I see," Noah said, wiping a few tears from his eyes. He'd apparently been quite amused with her. "She's never had edit permissions before. We'll have to doctor her GIO."

As one they all turned to Bree, who glared defiantly at them all. "Why's it always got to be my keys?"

"Because you're the one who has keys," Jackie said, extending a hand towards the orange-haired human. "Come on then. Let's get Sunset doing "magic." Do your good deed for the week."

Sunset watched, silent, as the girl produced something from within the folds of her voluminous dress. It looked like a chunk of pure starstuff, bright silver and glowing with a radiance that hurt when she looked right at it. Numbers and symbols flashed along its surface, constantly shifting and changing as she watched. "Is that 'key' what lets you do magic?" she stammered, eyes transfixed by the object. "Some kind of technological phylactery..."

"Yeah, sure." Jackie rolled her eyes, then took hold of Sunset's arm and pulled, so that the GIO around her wrist was exposed. Sunset didn't resist, though the sudden jerk nearly knocked her over. She was too enthralled to complain or to fight. If she did that, Jackie might decide not to share with her after all. She held her arm perfectly still as Bree pressed it through the screen. It passed through without resistance, without anything more than a few faint sparks. Sunset's eyes widened as she watched—she had no idea something so powerful had been in her possession all this time!

The "key" wasn't done with its work. The shape of Sunset’s GIO began to change, shrinking and slimming, so that it was little more than a thin piece of metal with a screen that curved around her arm and rested pleasantly cold against her skin.

"I can't just print these," Bree said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms. "You can't just fabricate valid blockchains. Each one we use is gone forever."

"And each one we use makes a new friend, so shut up," Jackie said, releasing her arm and lifting her GIO up to where it was within easy reach. "And now you've cheated. Congratulations, you're a pirate! Or the unwitting recipient of piracy, anyway." She seemed to see Sunset's horrified expression because her grin only got wider. "Don't worry about being caught. Everybody does it, and nobody cares."

"Unless you steal a knight's sword right off his ass," Robbie called, grinning. "Ask Jackie about how great she is at picking her marks. Did she tell you there's still a knight looking for her yet?"

"No, I didn't," Jackie spoke before Sunset could. "I'm going to hook you up, Sunny. I'll give you our whole suite, on the condition you swear undying loyalty to the Murciélagos. Which is us, obviously."

"Obviously." Sunset shook her head. "I can't do it no matter what you offer me—I'm already loyal to Equestria."

"You ride horses?" Noah asked, barely glancing up from what he was doing. He'd produced a floating keyboard in front of him, a slightly transparent surface filled with flashing lights, but he'd apparently been listening close enough to hear that. "I didn't know they put rich girls into the dirty Sims with the rest of us."

"She's not rich, she's just stupid," Robbie argued. "If some noble UEF family had converted, they'd have a damn technocrat or something to do this tutorial. They wouldn't have dropped her into autoprocessing."

Every time Sunset opened her mouth to respond, she found herself interrupted by one of Jackie's friends.

"Shut up!" Jackie shouted, and at once they did.

Jackie’s friends froze, as if in mid-breath. They didn't blink, didn't twitch, didn't move. Sunset might've been afraid that Jackie had cursed them, except that they still looked the same as they had a second before. Not only that, but Jackie's GIO was glowing. Almost like a unicorn's horn while they had an active spell. "Sorry about that, Sunny. The Murciélagos are an energetic crew. And they mean well, but they're clueless when it comes to people. A bunch of losers who volunteered for the upload long before the Tower started..." she trailed off, turning away from Sunset and walking a few paces away.

"This is a time dilation spell, isn't it? You can do what the classrooms do?"

Jackie nodded. "We already went over this, Sunny. Guess you haven't had Tower Economics, have you?"

Sunset shook her head. "What would that have to do with magic?"

"Magic magic magic magic magic." Jackie cut through the air with one dismissive hand. "Okay, Tower Econ in one minute. Every citizen gets one time credit per processor cycle. Cycles can vary wildly, depending on how things are going in Meatspace. When things are tough, Kingman slows things down, but when things are good he'll speed things up again. All you gotta do is tap your GIO with two fingers, and you'll see your credits. Go ahead and try it."

Sunset did, and was surprised to see a number flash in front of her face. A very large number, in the billions. The smallest digit was slowly ticking down, not up. As soon as she released her fingers, the projection vanished. "It's not going up."

"The only currency that matters is time credits, or just 'creds' when most people say it. Every sim costs creds—the more intensive the sim, the more expensive the creds you pay. If you fork, the creds for what your fork does come out of your balance. Since we're in fasttime, you're spending credits faster than you're earning them."

The weight of her words sunk like a brick through a frozen lake. "Y-you're telling me... the Builders use time as their currency? If you can spend credits to go faster..."

Jackie smiled slightly. "She's getting it! Here in the Infinite Realm you can have anything you want. I mean, none of it's real anyway, right? But what you can't have as much of as you want is time, because time fundamentally gets back to the hardware running our minds. So instead of the rich having fancy houses and toys to play with, they're hundreds or thousands of years older than the rest of us. Well... the ones who don't know how to cheat." Her grin got a little wider. "But that's beyond your first lesson, Sunny. How about--"

"What do you mean 'none of it's real anyway’?" She gestured around them with one hand, back at the school. "I know the people in there are constructs; I wasn't fooled. But what else could you mean? This is your planet, isn't it?" All Sunset's previous efforts at secrecy were now forgotten, and she spilled everything she had come to say, her voice a rush of emotion.

"This is the planet of perfect peace and harmony where magic has cured death and compassion is might. You're the ones who promised Clover you'd be coming to save us from invasion and usher in the golden age. Well we already won that war, but there's another one coming. I'd like to learn some of your magic, so maybe we'll have a chance of surviving when Equestria gets invaded again." She stopped, breathing heavily for a second from the emotional exertion.

Jackie didn't laugh. Her expression grew distant, and she stared off into the town. Away from the school, away from her friends frozen in place, as though she could see something Sunset couldn't. "You're not from Luna, are you?"

"No," Sunset Shimmer said. "I'm not the Mare in the Moon. I don't know how anyone would even visit, given the strength of a thaumic field is the inverse of the square of the distance between the objects that produced it. No magic, no life."

"No... magic..." Jackie trailed off, staring at her GIO. "Where compassion is our strength?" A little of the mocking had returned, though it was nowhere near as hostile as her friends had sounded. "Someone sure piled you up a plate of shit, Sunny. But why would you eat it?" She shook her head, then abruptly took Sunset's hand, tugging her away from her friends, away from the school.

"Come with me, Sunny. Forget the magic lesson. There's something more important for you to learn first."

This time Sunset did try to resist, but fruitlessly. Jackie was much stronger than she looked, and she tugged so hard it felt like she might rip Sunset's arm right out of its socket.

They passed over a sidewalk and across the empty street, walking past several buildings as they left the school behind. After only a short distance, the sidewalk no longer led alongside the public-looking buildings of the school, transitioning to houses of various sizes and designs.

"Alright then, Sunbeam. I'm sorry whoever filled your head up with lies about the Tower didn't tell you the truth, but I will. I'm gonna drop this Morpheus shit like it's hot, so you better be ready for the red pill."

Sunset jerked her arm free, with such force she could feel her joints straining to muster the effort. "Stop." It wasn't a request, and Jackie did stop. "I'm not going another step with you until you tell me what we're doing."
When Jackie spun around, she had pity on her face. "The school is monitored, but the further we get from it the less likely we’ll be noticed. I’m taking you far enough to show you what you’d never believe if I told you. Then maybe you can tell me the truth."

Chapter 7: Determinant

"Computer... simulation..." Sunset Shimmer repeated, her mouth working but no more words coming out. Thanks to her English class, she now knew each of those words. But to hear them put together, to combine them with everything she had just seen... "Then we need to end it," she said. "I want to be out in the real world. How can I leave?"

Jackie laughed, but there was no amusement in her voice. Nothing but bitterness and an old anger gone cold. "Leave? How would we do that? Someone turns off the Infinite Realm, there's no more us. We don't exist without it. We're just simulations too, everyone is. You want to hear the theoretical types talking about it, you'll hear things like 'ultimate destiny of all intelligent species' and 'maximally extended lifespan.' Maybe I wouldn't call bullshit on all that if they hadn't been forcing people to come here." Jackie looked up, yanking on Sunset's arm, her hand gripping her shoulder so hard her fingers went white. It hurt, but not as much as it looked like it should.

Nothing here had ever hurt the way it should—not sitting in chairs for months at a time, not falling over and bashing her head on the floor, nothing. Because none of it's real. Not even me.

"I dunno what you're so upset about, Sunny. You weren't kidnapped like I was. You weren't dragged off and chopped to pieces by some Tower Army because you were a tourist in the wrong place at the wrong time. Y-you..." She sniffed, but didn't seem to notice she was crying. "You don't have to spend the rest of your life wondering what happened to your family. Wondering if your little sister thinks you killed yourself because you didn't love her enough to stay alive."

Jackie jerked Sunset closer, holding her just a few inches away. There was nothing even slightly sensual about it. "What made you run from the real world, I wonder. Who did you have to betray to get the machines to make you forget? Was it just about the steak, Cypher?"

Sunset whimpered, yanking her way free from Jackie with an intense tug. Jackie's hand came away with several strands of her hair wrapped in her fingers. "I don't know what you're talking about!" She'd been crying before, but Sunset wasn't crying now. Anger was powerfully contagious. "I didn't betray Equestria, I came here so I could learn how to save it! All this... computer..." She waved one hand around them, so harshly she might've been about to strike Jackie in the face. "I didn't know it would be fake... But everypony says the Builders had the kind of magic to make even the Alicorns look weak! I just wanted to learn so I could protect Equestria one day!"

Jackie's expression got darker. "Is that it then, Sunny? You'll hide behind your invented words and nonexistent countries so you don't have the face the reality of what you've given up? I've got some sad news for you: it doesn't work. There's no escaping from this. Only two types of people ever get to leave the Infinite Realm, Technocrats and Knights. I'm sure as hell never signing up with either of them, and if you've got half the brain you think you do, you won't either. So, you'll be stuck here with the rest of us, doomed to know as much about 'Equestria' as we do about our home." She spun around once in the rain, then touched her GIO with one finger. The rain abruptly switched off, as suddenly as it had come on, leaving Sunset dripping wet in the darkness.

She didn't stop to find out what Jackie might do next, because at that moment she was already running away. Running as fast as these elongated, lengthy bodies could move, with a confidence to her step she couldn't possibly have managed when she had first arrived. The ground dried around her in a matter of seconds. Jackie didn't seem to be chasing her, or if she was, she had footsteps that were so silent there was no hearing them in the accelerated time. She didn't look over her shoulder to find out which it would be.

There was no arguing with evidence as powerful as this. Somehow, through means she couldn't remember or understand, the Builders had transported her inside... a pocket reality. One that used computers to keep it running instead of the battery of spells she had read theorized to accomplish the same purpose. If Jackie was telling her the truth, there was no easy escape from this world, none except... joining one of two organizations that Jackie hated.

Could she be lying to me? Could this be a test of loyalty? But what culture as enlightened as the Builders would subject their citizens to such emotional manipulation and literal physical pain? Pain for teaching might be useful for foals of such an early age that reason was ineffective, but no adult citizen would be subjected to that. They did say in the hospital that I wasn't a full citizen until I graduated. Was there anyone she could ask?

Sunset Shimmer stopped running right about the place where the houses came back. She picked one at random, one that looked dark and empty, and approached it. Small lights set around the sidewalk came on as she walked, illuminating her way to the front door. She knocked in a panicked rush, worried that at any moment Jackie might come upon her and her escape would be ruined.

But nothing happened. No one came to the door, and Jackie didn't walk past her on the street behind. A few seconds later, and Sunset tried the doorknob. It wasn't locked—obviously an enlightened society like the Builders would have no need for locks—and the door swung open. "I'm sorry, whoever's house this is..." she said, wiping some of the moisture from her face as she stepped inside.

The house looked at a glance to have all the accoutrements of a family living here—paintings on the walls, cozy furniture selected in a color-coordinated way, attractive carpets. Yet there was none of the wear to suggest anyone visited the place. It seemed like the inside of a museum used to demonstrate the living conditions of ponies in ages past, except of course the luxury of even the most modest Builder home surpassed anything short of Canterlot's nobility. Who cares how luxurious an illusion is? Even a talentless unicorn can make an illusion with enough practice.

Sunset didn't care that she was tracking water onto the nice carpet, didn't care that she might very well have broken in uninvited into the home of some builders gone away. She slammed the door shut behind her, slumped wetly against it, and cried herself to sleep.

Sunset woke to bright light shining through the window, lighting up the whole house with an early morning glow. She sat up at once, the dullness of sleep instantly gone, and found that her strange position did not leave her sore. Her clothes weren't stiff and dirty either, as she would've expected given the rain the day before.

I always thought they were enchanted. Guess not being real is kinda like an enchantment. Sunset rose, wandering through the house. Despite the months she'd spent in the Builder school, with its suppressed physical needs, Sunset still remembered what it had been like back in Equestria.

So, she found a shower, which even had soap despite having no sign of anyone living here. She searched the kitchen, and found milk and eggs waiting in an icebox with no ice. She ate, even though she felt no hunger, and found the food as delicious as she remembered. Yet she didn't need it.

When she was done, Sunset felt a little better. At least going through the ordinary routine of being alive let her mind drift to consider other subjects. In this case, what she would do. Jackie and her crew had seemed nice enough before, but... after being attacked, Sunset wasn't sure if she would ever want to be around her again. Certainly not for a long time. She sounded like she thinks she has good reasons to hate the ones in charge.

Sunset was trapped in a pocket reality. Worse, the ones running it might very well be despots, at least if what Jackie said was true. She didn't have enough information to make a judgement yet. Nothing she'd learned in any of her classes suggested her ideas about the Builders had been wrong. Clover the Clever had spoken of a perfect society... even a pocket reality might be a perfect society, though it seemed like considerably less of an accomplishment if it was.

Sunset stared down at her GIO, playing with some of its functions. She played back images from some of the textbooks, the ones she'd thought were particularly interesting. There had been some images of King Richard, though none of them suggested he was a despot. Even Emperor Sombra looked handsome in his statues.

Eventually she wandered her way back to the class list, reading over all the courses she'd thought were irrelevant. Subjective years had passed, and still she hadn't learned anything like the magic she had come for. It might not exist. If the builders brought Clover into a pocket-reality and never told her, she might have seen all the incredible things they did, like Jackie had done for Sunset, and projected her understanding of Equestrian magic onto their powers. Everything they can do might be a lie.

One of her fingers lingered on the next class on her list, one of those she'd been the least interested in taking as part of whatever "Sophomore" was. "History of Civilization, Hammurabi to Modern Era." History was always written by the victor, but a sanitized political history had its own flavor. Sunset had read dozens of them in Canterlot's library, and grew more disgusted with the increasingly blatant lies written about Luna over the course of history, until (as in the most modern volumes) she had been entirely erased.

Sunset Shimmer set out from the stolen house, not the least bit surprised that no builders had ever come for it. Jackie said that nobody lived in this part of the world. Guess she was telling the truth about that. She could only hope that Jackie hadn't been telling the truth about the rest of the world, or else had been exaggerating it enough that things might not be so bleak as things had initially sounded. What will I do if everything about the Builders was a lie? What if Celestia was right?

Sunset banished that possibility from her mind as judiciously as Celestia had banished her sister. She would not allow herself to think it unless the reality proved as bleak as Jackie suggested.

The gang of builder criminals was not waiting in front of the school when she finally returned. They hadn't left any trace of their makeshift seating either, not even the holes the chairs had made in the grass. She hurried up the steps into the school proper, and found the familiar smells of polish and cleaner assaulting her nose. She didn't bother going back to the last class she'd been taking, instead wandering around the halls until she found the door marked for "History of Civilization."

There was no sense jumping rashly to conclusions, no sense deciding to take any action until she had access to a greater subsection of the facts. She could wait through a few more subjective years for that. Besides... as Jackie had correctly pointed out, it wasn't like she had anywhere else to go.

The doors opened easily for her, as they always did. If there was a system in place to force her to take the classes in a specific order, she didn't encounter it. She'd always followed the order printed in her schedule before, but just now she didn't care.

She found the history teacher looked exactly like the math teacher, the same red hair and blank face. "Welcome to History of Civilization, Hammurabi to Modern Era," she said, even as the door clicked locked. "This class is expected to take two subjective years. Upon its completion, you should be familiar with the general outline of history going back to our earliest civilized era. The material in this course has been weighted to put a greater emphasis on contemporary events, particularly leading up to and including the Great War." A mountain of textbooks appeared on the desk in front of Sunset, a single thin volume already open within reach of her hands. "Please open to page one, and we can begin."

Chapter 8: Knight

Sunset staggered from the room, feeling as though she’d been physically beaten.

There had been no violence in the history class, or at least no violence inflicted on her. She had gone into the class wondering how she would be able to tell if the king had sanitized his history or not.

As she stumbled from the room, she no longer had to wonder. She no longer let herself mingle with the crowd of builders, instead jerking herself away, backing up until she was against the wall, before turning and running away down the hall.

But of course, there was nowhere she could go to escape from the simulated people. There were enough to fill the whole building, and with far higher fidelity than the houses outside. She never saw a person repeat, at least not that she could tell. Maybe they were images of real students who had really passed through here. Maybe they weren’t. Monsters, every one of them.

Sunset ran along the hall, not sure of her destination. She no longer felt the need to continue with classes as they had been planned—she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know what the Builders had to teach her.

“I expect a monster when I talk to a dragon,” she muttered, one of her hands twitching rhythmically to a melody she couldn’t hear. “They enslave goblins, they used to eat ponies. But whatever these beings were, Clover was more than a little misled. ‘Builder’ is a poor name. ‘Human’ isn’t much better. Destroyers, perhaps. Devouring Ones.”

Sunset had come to a world expecting perfect harmony. Maybe, in some twisted way, that harmony had been achieved. The process to get there had left a trail of corpses thicker than Nightmare Moon’s. The history class had shown her video, video of a planet in flames. She saw “Federation” armies marching, with electrical devices that could kill hundreds of people by destroying the hardware in their brains. Very little of the Tower’s own military archives had been shown to her, but considering everything else Sunset had seen, she didn’t really need to know. Whatever they had done, she could trust it was just as horrifying.

Sunset stumbled out the front doors of the building. She wasn’t sure how she’d even reached them, yet she managed to stop herself from tripping as she made her way out onto the grounds. None of the fake people followed her out here, and at last she could have some privacy. So long as Jackie and her friends don’t come out of the statue again.

She made her way up to the base of the statue, staring up at the noble face of King Richard. She rested one hand on the stone, feeling its smooth, perfectly cut texture with the delicate sensing organs that humans called hands.

“You were supposed to be better than us,” Sunset muttered, her voice very quiet. “You weren’t supposed to be worse than dragons, worse than griffons, worse than the crawling chaos.” Sunset began to pace around the statue. She now recognized the species the king was riding as a horse, one of the many species these humans had enslaved. Horses at least had been treated better than most, a small comfort for her considering how close to ponies they looked. Would you have treated ponies the same way if you found your way into Equestria?

There was no answer from the stone, of course. King Richard might be the greatest ruler in human history, but he was no god. Not even Celestia could be omniscient. “Your people wanted the freedom to improve themselves,” Sunset repeated, her voice bitter as she glared up at the king again. “Why couldn’t you find a way that didn’t cost lives? Even ponies solve most of their problems without violence, what’s so hard about it? If we could figure it out... Surely you could too.”

“It’s not as easy as it sounds.” A voice spoke from behind her, a voice younger than any Sunset had heard before. She very nearly jumped from her skin as she turned around, to find a young man standing there.

This was a male child, maybe eleven years as the humans measured them, standing at least a foot shorter than she was. He wore all white, with overlapping robes of ceremonial cut and intricate black design. Sunset recognized them from the history class she’d just taken as belonging to a knight. He had a long metal scabbard on his back, so oversized on him that it looked like it might restrict his movement if he tried to twist too suddenly to one direction or the other. Yet there was no weapon there, as the knights had worn in all their pictures.

Sunset had seen many pictures of people bowing to knights like this, seen the respect and loyalty in their faces. She felt neither emotion, and did not attempt to falsify them. “Who the buck are you?”

The child blinked, though there was nothing of fear on his face. He was still young enough to be surprised, or maybe just not old enough to conceal his feelings. “Sir Charles Gray,” he answered, raising two fingers to his brow in something like a salute. “A knight in service to the Tower, not any of its lords.” He pointed with those same two fingers, at the stone just below the statue. “I am tracking a fugitive. She stole something from me, and I have reason to believe she brought it here. Have you seen any wrongdoers? Maybe wearing a large, metal sword?”

Sunset suppressed a laugh. The kid spoke like the child of one of the rich Canterlot houses once he got going. But he had a slight accent, one she couldn’t quite place. She didn’t let it bother her. “I didn’t see someone with a sword,” she said, and there was no deception in it. “But there were people here who I don’t think belonged. Not students like me.”

“Students...” Gray repeated, striding over to her and taking her arm with both of his, as Jackie had done. Yet unlike Jackie, his grip was incredibly strong, as irresistible as a vice. He was to humans what earth ponies were to unicorns, or at least it felt that way. Still, he wasn’t trying to hurt her. Only pulling over her GIO. His eyes scanned over it. Without any direct contact from his hands, the screen filled with several lines of text, in some unfamiliar language and moving far too fast for Sunset to read. Another second later and “Sir Gray” released her, retreating again. “You’re not her. Be glad, citizen. I would not have been deceived by your appearance, if it were an illusion.”

“I’m sure,” Sunset grunted, glaring down at him. “You barbarians would probably do something terrible to me, just like you do to each other.”

The knight had already been turning to leave, but he stopped then, staring at her. “What part of the Federation did you come from? Is that what the OMICRON cores told you? Said we were the barbarians?”

If glares could kill, Sunset’s surely would have. “I’m not from anywhere on your stupid planet.” She took a breath, considering the wisdom of what she was about to say. Not for very long, though. Sunset hadn’t thought about the consequences when she defied Celestia, and she didn’t really care about them now. At this point, what did she have left to lose? “I just finished learning about your history, and it’s worse than ours. I thought you must’ve mastered harmony thousands of years ago with as advanced as you are. Making pocket realities, casting age spells, replacing people’s broken parts with machines. My civilization could never do what you can. But you’ve killed more of yourselves in one year than we have in a thousand.”

The tiny knight did not get angry. His face wasn’t blank and uncomprehending, as all the recordings in the building behaved. There was no mistaking the light in his eyes. The comprehension in his face, the sadness and guilt he seemed to feel at her words.

“I don’t know who you are, citizen... But whatever independent colony you come from, we all have the same history. We all evolved from the same blood.” He closed the distance between them, walking a few steps closer. When he spoke, it sounded very much like the words of an adult issuing from his tiny body. Only the tone of his voice made him seem like a colt. “Evolution does not select for weakness. Nature has experimented with pacifists. Those species went extinct.

“Even here in the Infinite Realm, most of us aren’t any different. Freeing ourselves from the confines of death and pain only made violence more accessible. Don’t judge us harshly just because your little mining dome on some asteroid doesn’t have a violent history. You’re... You must be an independent. Split off from the Federation when the war started, right?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer. “You picked the right civilization to join. King Richard is the best, kindest, noblest ruler humanity ever had. When the ‘democratic’ Federation was using Goetic secrets, what did Richard do? He had every cultist executed. He thought it was better to fight with a disadvantage than to sacrifice our humanity to win. If it wasn’t for the Nanophage, there wouldn’t even be a Federation today. Their very survival is a monument to the lengths they’re willing to go. The Tower isn’t like that. We have no slavery, no suffering, no pain. It was hard getting here... Survival has always been rough. But we made it. I think that counts for something.”

Sunset opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t find the words. Her objections, however rational, felt hollow in her mouth. How could she criticize Richard, who had more courage than Celestia herself? When her own sister had sold herself to Outsiders, even the Princess of the Sun had lacked the courage to kill her. Nopony’s hooves were bloodless.

The knight turned away again, walking back towards the school. “Complete your studies. If you still have doubts when you’re finished, there are knights older and wiser than myself who might explain things. Or, if we can’t, King Richard himself. Every citizen has the right to put a petition before him, if they’re willing to speak with a fork.”

Just like that, he was gone, vanishing into the building and leaving Sunset alone with her thoughts. Sunset stared after him, but she didn’t quite have the courage to follow. It didn’t matter if he looked like a child, she now knew enough about the Tower to know what knights could do. Even if Jackie had somehow managed to steal his sword...

Sunset lifted her GIO towards her, flicking the screen with one finger so it would wake from its “hibernating” state. Out of curiosity, she went over to the messaging app, and found that Jackie’s contact information was all still there, waiting for her. She pressed on the name, then typed out a quick message on the screen.

“Not ready to talk to you again yet. I just wanted to warn you that there’s a knight here. I think he’s looking for you.” Whatever else might’ve passed between them, Jackie had been a friend to Sunset when she felt overwhelmed by this strange new world. Even if this whole place didn’t really exist, or existed in a computerized pocket-dimension, that kindness still mattered. She could return it, and be damned what the knight thought about it.

Jackie replied as quickly as she had last time. “Thanks Sunny. Stay safe.” And nothing else. Not a particularly useful reply, but it wasn’t as though Sunset would’ve done what Jackie wanted at this point, anyway.

Sunset turned around to face the school, wandering back towards it. The Knight’s words hadn’t really convinced her of anything, but they had given her perspective. Clover the Clever had been wrong about humans, or at least misinformed enough to think things about them that were clearly untrue. But even given all of that, they were still a powerful race. Their technologies had been able to do things that no magic spells could do, such as sending them into orbit around their planet, beyond the reach of the magical field. Computers were another powerful innovation that magic hadn’t imitated, one with applications as far reaching as making copies of reality where nopony had to follow the rules they didn’t like.

And Sunset was inside one. Trapped until she completed her education and became a citizen. Then she could meet with the king, if she wanted. Then she could make a petition of his court, and perhaps return to Equestria. Assuming Jackie hadn’t been right about how bleak and inescapable the pocket reality really was, anyway.

Sunset stopped walking with one hand on the door. Yes, she could go back into education, graduate, and let the “Steel Tower” swallow her with all the other citizens. She could do that, or she could take control of her own future. She could use the resources these Builders had given her for her own purposes.

What if I could find the computer creating this world and bring it back to Equestria? I’d need a generator... Something to carry it... But what’s the point of making worlds so small if you can’t move them? Humans had made great strides in fields Equestria had no names for. They had discovered radio, rocketry, and radiation. Returning to Equestria as an Alicorn would bring a powerful weapon back to her kind—returning with a school to teach ponies every useful thing the humans had ever learned... Now that could make a difference.

It wouldn’t be easy, but Sunset wouldn’t have to do it alone. “Nobody cares about what happens in this old shard,” Jackie had said. “No administrators looming down our backs means we can do what we want. Remake the world.”

Sunset scrolled through her course list, dragging off everything that wasn’t directly related to computers, and the so-called art of “Datamancy,” and set herself marching through the school at a brisk trot. She didn’t bother getting out of the way of other students, letting them scatter before her as she walked. They did, not even alive enough to be annoyed as she shoved them out of her way. The projections knew their place, as well they should.

Sunset Shimmer wasn’t going to give up just because Clover had been wrong and everything she knew about humans and their civilization was a lie. She would only grow more determined. As the knight had said, nature did not evolve weakness. She would show these humans that ponies could be just as dangerous.

Chapter 9: Twilight

Sunset Shimmer was a wiser mare.

In terms of subjective time, she had spent decades, years spent cramped in identical benches in identical classrooms, with the same handful of teachers. She had discovered on her second class that the teachers weren't smart enough to tell if she was paying attention to them, and they'd never move on until she responded to their questions and took their tests.

Thus, with a few mental tricks she'd learned from Celestia, Sunset could ignore the mental compulsion trying to force her to study, and direct her mind elsewhere. Once she was started on some other task, her brain would happily latch onto that instead, and couldn't tell the difference between it and whatever the teachers wanted her to learn. At first, she used this "extra" time to practice some of the basic concepts being taught to her, going over them in more detailed ways, combining them with things she'd learned in previous lessons. But another few classes later, and Sunset used the compressed time for purposes entirely disconnected from her classes. Everything the pocket reality did to suppress physical needs and claustrophobia was still in effect, so she never got anxious. Sunset Shimmer had done what Celestia herself had never done, what even Star Swirl hadn't done: she'd mastered time.

What did Sunset Shimmer do with all her extra time? Experiment, at first. Datamancy was a complex magic, revolving around the central reality that the entire world was nothing more than an immensely powerful series of calculations performed by a computer called the Infinity Engine. It could be expanded with an infinite number of modules, hence the name. Every module was another shard, a simulation of the world perhaps the size of a city, with its own rules, constraints, and flow of time.

Contrary to what the thief Jackie had believed, this revelation was itself no great shock to her. Sunset's understanding of the magical framework of the physical universe did not illustrate anything fundamentally different: Equestria too had a Kernel, which defined the thaumaturgical behavior of all matter on Equestria. Sunset had even visited that Kernel in the company of her then master, possible only after a difficult journey through the Everfree and much hardship. Learning that the builders used a similar trick, albeit with a different school of magic, was not a big deal.

If anything, it meant she saw datamancy more completely than even the instructors (or the ones who had designed them) possibly could. The material she read in every new class was full of reassurances and comforts for Builder students, reminding them of meaningless philosophical fluff about "the significance of a human life is measured by its experiences, not the context which created them." As if she needed reminding.

By her third class in the series about datamancy, Sunset found the exploit she needed to shut the instructor down, and let her work in peace. By her sixth, she found the weakness in the completion authentication subroutine that would allow her to bypass the order of instruction entirely. There was no more need to waste time with fields like "chemistry" and "ethics," and she could focus all her attention on her plan.

Sunset was not actually any older when she first put Jackie's words to the test, though decades of practice and study had passed. So far as Sunset's brain knew it, she'd been a human living in this school for longer than she'd been Celestia's personal student. She almost couldn't remember what it was like to stand on four legs, or the taste of a good hayburger. She would have to fix that.

So, she made her way into the school's cafeteria, shoving right through any of the simulated students who got in her way. It didn't matter how inconsiderate she was to the population of simulated low-level atmospheric processes, it wasn't like there was a real mind behind them. Not yet, anyway.

Plenty of students were congregating in the lunchroom, with plates of food looking as fresh as though they'd just come out of the kitchen. Every single plate was as perfect as she was, untouched by time. Only when she looked at them did any of the students take a bite, and even then, the amount of food on their plates wasn't going down. I see through all of you, Sunset thought. But not for much longer.

Sunset had learned terrible things in her only class about human history, but many of those things had also been useful. She'd learned, for instance, that the module currently running this school was one of the largest in all the Infinite Realm. It had been built at a time of wartime desperation, when hundreds of thousands of people had used it at any one time. It had been left intact into modern day, in the hopes that one day citizens of the Federation would wake up and flock to it anew. Of course, there was only one mind inside it now. One mind using resources meant for hundreds of thousands, with almost no restrictions.

Sunset scanned the lunchroom, searching for a suitable candidate for her experiments. She found one towards the back, a girl with bright purple hair and a pair of thick black glasses. She was eating alone surrounded by a mountain of books, though she seemed to be doing far more studying than eating. She didn't look even one bit like Princess Celestia's newer, smarter, more obedient, friendlier apprentice. Not even a little bit.

"Hello, Twilight," Sunset said, as she sat down on the other side of the plastic bench across from her. She shoved with one arm, sending a dozen books careening to the floor at their feet.

The girl looked up, impotent anger on her face, and she opened her mouth to object. "Excuse me," she said, and the emotions seemed almost real. "What are you doing?"

"Finding a use for you," Sunset answered, one hand on her GIO. The device was now as thin and sleek as Jackie's, though it had Sunset's cutie mark etched into the plastic, as well as an orange and red color scheme. It also had voice commands. "Suspend execution of slave process." The girl who was certainly not Twilight Sparkle froze, her mouth still hanging open. None of the other students seemed to notice, nor had they reacted to Sunset's intrusion in any way.

Sunset waved one hand in front of the girl's face, but she didn't even blink. She wasn't all that different from the teachers, really. Just a bit of scenery with a few pre-programmed reactions. But why does she look afraid?

This was as far as she'd ever gotten with the instructors—she had always suspected that damaging them might attract a system administrator, and so she'd never done anything more than suspend them. She scanned over the code for the function she'd written, one that would be required for her plan to have any hope of success. No reason the administrators would be watching what I do to the scenery. These weren't people. It was okay, she wasn't doing dark magic. I'm not going to invite the abyss into my mind because I trim the bushes. Changing the background people is the same.

Sunset believed that, but it took her nearly a full minute to say the keywords that would activate the spell. "Edit mode," she said, gesturing at the figure in front of her.

"Subroutine edit mode activated," the girl responded, her voice now flat and emotionless. That was part of the spell, the part that let Sunset know she had succeeded. She began fiddling with her GIO, dragging her fingers across and transferring a few of the most important programs she'd written. This girl wasn't just her first test subject, she was also about to become an important node in the process of taking over this shard. Every class Sunset had taken (and she'd taken almost all the classes on Datamancy now) emphasized the dangers of permanent modifications to her own mind. As Jackie had put it, Sunset lacked any canonical backups. If she made some mistake that melted her brains, that would be it. This was as dangerous as a unicorn's first teleport, and so it required the same level of care. Unicorns practiced with inanimate objects, then plants, then animals. Sunset could do the same.

The girl twitched slightly in her seat, one hand reaching up to the side of her head. She looked like she was about to pull away, maybe to run. It wouldn't have helped if she did—Sunset's GIO wouldn't care about range. Sunset winced, her heart thumping in her chest as she stared at the projection. How in Celestia's name had it moved while she was working on it? Probably just a bug in one of my programs. I accidentally bridged something I shouldn't, that's all. "Do not get up," Sunset instructed, her voice firm, meeting the girl's eyes. "You will not rise until I say so."

"Command acknowledged." She put her arm down, slumping back into a motionless position. She remained there for the remainder of the transfer, no longer struggling in any visible way. Only her pained expression remained, her mouth slightly open and a little drool dribbling down her face.

It didn't take all that long, less than a minute really. Her GIO made a high-pitched ringing sound, indicating that the transfer was complete. Sunset began to smile. "Self-diagnostic," she said.
The girl rose at once, knocking over her food and walking out from behind the bench with no regard for the books Sunset had scattered on the floor all around them. She practiced walking back and forth, moving her arms in various ways, all the while Sunset's GIO felt warm against her skin as it filled with the internal processes this first node in her network was undergoing. This process amounted to a stress test, meant to determine if the administrators governing this shard had anything in place to notice when a piece of the background scenery suddenly demanded the same kind of resources as a real mind.

Another minute later and she stopped moving, turning back to face Sunset. She didn't stand rigidly anymore, not even like a solider. She rested in a natural standing position, indistinguishable from any human. I didn't write that animation. I wonder if the original program is still in there somewhere. It didn't matter really, so long as the program could still do what Sunset wanted it to. "Computation Node 001 registers as functional, administrator. Requesting functional designation and first assignment."

"Your designation is... Twilight Sparkle," Sunset said, while one of her hands danced over her GIO again. The projection didn't even seem to notice as Sunset adjusted a few physical details on the girl, making her a little taller, a little slimmer, changing her eye color, switching her hair... all these were details any citizen could change about themselves in many shards, though it was supposed to be fixed in this one. Fortunately for Sunset, Node 001 wasn't a citizen. I can't wait to see your smug face when I show you my Twilight is smarter than yours.

"Designation Twilight Sparkle accepted," she said. "Please input first assignment."

"You're going to be my assistant, Twilight." Sunset rose from the table, dislodging a few more books in the process. "As of this moment, I'm a princess."

Twilight no longer looked like she was in pain, or like she was going to run away. Rather, she seemed like one of Celestia's own servants, eager for a command. Eager to make herself useful.

Don't you worry, Twilight. You're about to become the most useful bit of set dressing in pony history.

"Assignment accepted—personal assistant. What is on our agenda for today, Princess?" She removed a pad of paper and a pencil from the table, ignoring all her other objects. "I will do everything within my ability to ensure you are free to concentrate on more important matters."

"Good." Sunset turned away from her, facing the room. There were at least a hundred Builders in this room alone. Assuming every instance of the school had the same population this one did, there were thousands and thousands of subroutines to rewrite. "Your first assignment: I need local time compression at a factor of 120 to 1. Please pay for it using your own process resources."

There was a lurch, and the room around her went abruptly silent. No one ate, no one spoke, or moved their tableware. It was like looking at a photograph.

Except for "Twilight," who walked over to stand beside her. "Command accepted, Princess. Local time compression enabled."

Sunset felt a wide grin spread involuntarily across her face. "Let's get started."

Chapter 10: Princess

The school that had once belonged to the builders was a different place. Gone were the crowds of "students," milling through the halls in the imitations of life. Gone were whole wings of the building, which took up resources without contributing to Sunset's purposes. The physical area of the entire shard had been reduced, from the miles she had been able to wander with Jackie to an area only about twice the size of the school itself. Even then, she'd removed every house, every building, and the simulated cars that blurred past on their way to nowhere. I didn't even need you to help me.

It wasn't as though there had been any complaints. As Sunset had made her way through the school, sometimes she met a student who resisted in small ways, as Twilight had done. None of them did anything intelligent, and none escaped her. Every resource that did not belong to the teachers was consumed, added to a computational network of growing complexity. Sunset had represented that network in physical form, a crown for her head not unlike the one she'd seen the Twilight of vision wear back in Equestria. But this one is far more powerful.

Wearing the crown did not allow Sunset to perform magic, but magic as it existed in Equestria was pale and weak compared to what she could do here. Time itself obeyed her, granting Sunset infinite duration to accomplish whatever tasks she desired. Objects could be created at will, either using the extensive library of prefabs, or from scratch using the manipulation of materials and textures. The craft worked so like transfiguration magic that it required her almost no time to learn, and she had wasted no time transforming her domain into something more suitable.

Well, after a brief mistake she'd made with the front of the school, but it wasn't like replacing a wall took her very long. The classroom interiors remained the same, but that was the only part of the school that did. The whole school was now a castle, modeled after the way Canterlot had been, before the ponies who lived there grew soft and complacent. Within the central courtyard the statue of King Richard still stood, only it lorded over farms now, with fields of crops and a handful of earth ponies to harvest them. There were armored guards on the walls, guards made to resemble the ones Sunset had read about, with shimmering enchanted armor and sturdy iron spears that could survive a fight.

Making the scenery-people into ponies hadn't been all that difficult really, not for somepony who knew their anatomical details so intimately. Sunset took a few liberties—just as the humans represented themselves as their ideal, she made sure the ponies would be the same. Every stallion was strong and muscular, every mare lithe and supple. Sunset didn't know how large humans were in arbitrary terms, not compared to the world she'd come from. So, she opted for the simple solution and just made ponies only a tiny bit shorter than humans. This made them look massive by comparison, since most ponies were longer than they were tall, but that didn't matter much. It wasn't as though there was anypony coming through to test the veracity of her conversion.

You probably never imagined I would be doing this to your friends, Clover. Hopefully you would understand the need. It was a waste of resources to leave most beings physically instantiated. Those who did not serve a purpose in the physical representation of the school (most of them) simply didn't appear at all, and were visible to Sunset only as the resources at her disposal while she wore the crown. Which she wore all the time, naturally.

Sunset looked down from one of the castle's imposing towers, surveying her small realm. It was everything a small Equestrian colony might look like, and would have been self-sufficient if it existed. She had made sure to plot out enough farmland to feed the castle, if worked optimally by earth ponies. There were guards on every tower and in every hall, with security subroutines as well as apparent physical weapons. She could be quite certain that no visitors had happened upon her new realm, since no alarm had been raised. And if they did, I'd just freeze them like anypony else.

"We did pretty good," she said, mostly to herself, as she looked out the rounded glass window. Despite what she had done to many of the school's former "students," Sunset and her assistant still looked human. She planned on making a few additions, probably starting with wings and a horn, but she hadn't gotten around to writing the code for that yet. "Give me a report, Twilight."

Sunset had been asking for reports every few hours for... a very long time. It had, after all, taken months of subjective time to build her castle, and convert each of its inhabitants. Every stone and brick wasn't just a physical reminder of what castles could look like, they were the physical representations of her mental network.

The castle was, in a very real sense, the people who had once inhabited the school, each one a set of maximally extended resources to be turned at her whim. The castle was also what would guarantee her rulership of the realm, and protect her if her power was challenged.

"There are currently 61,903 functioning nodes in the network. Network load is stable at 4% of projected maximum. Perceived time ratio currently holding at 512:1."

Sunset already knew practically everything she'd been told. Even so, there was something immensely satisfying in being told. She turned, striding back past her assistant to the large table she used for planning. The tower held the other accoutrements of a royal bedroom, not unlike the ones in true Canterlot, but of course Sunset had not wasted her time with them. There was no point to sleep when her mind never tired, and her body never grew weary. Well, maybe there were some reasons, but those drives had always been far less important than the one that impelled her now. Not just knowledge, but determination to make a difference.

"We need to get back to Equestria," she said, resting one hand on the edge of the table. The surface was made of clear crystal, with a regular grid of lines running through it. Humans called it a holographic projector, and it would allow her to visualize copious amounts of data or physical representations without the effort of physically instantiating them. Sunset waved one hand through the holofield, waking it from sleep mode. An enormous map filled the space, centered on a tower so impressive it had awed her the first time she saw it. Mirrored glass and metal stretched nearly a kilometer into the sky, tapering slowly as it reached its still pinnacle through the clouds. Around it the ground had been cleared, where at the edges of the holofield there was a wall made from scrap metal, barely even visible at the scale of the projection. This was what the human's planet looked like where the entrance to the pocket-realm was located. "We need to find the exit to this reality, locate the portal back to Equestria, then somehow escape with this module without being detected."

"Yes, we do," her assistant agreed. But Twilight was programmed to agree with everything she said, just like the real Twilight did when she was around Celestia. "Perhaps we should subdivide our tasks. There are nodes capable of examining each task. You might choose the most difficult for yourself, then assign the others to those you trust. We must move quickly—even with greatly accelerated local time, your intervention will eventually be noticed by watchdog subroutines. Any inefficiency should be eliminated."

Sunset looked up from where she was staring at the projection. "That's... not a bad idea, Twilight. Who taught you to be so clever?"

The girl smiled bashfully, looking away from her. "I'm not really that smart, Princess. I'm just following the same steps I would to solve any problem."

You shouldn't be able to synthesize a novel solution to any problem, no matter how small. That discrepancy was only a happy accident for her network, or as she'd started calling it in her head, the "Element of Intellect." Not only could the networked nodes chew through math or security problems, but they could do almost anything an ordinary pony could do. It was as though they were somehow drawing on the collective knowledge imparted by the school's various classes, chunking together disparate information with far greater speed than even Sunset herself. "We'll go with your plan." Sunset reached one hand into the display of her GIO, removing a thin sliver of crystal. In the time Sunset had now spent manipulating these background characters, she had learned quite a bit about the inner workings of her own mind and memories. The rules of this pocket-reality were different than the world above—different enough that she could directly interface with the data of her memories if she wanted.

"This is everything I know about the physical bodies of ponies. I was never a doctor, but I know plenty. When we find our way out of this reality, I want my body protected. I remember... something extremely painful between Equestria and here. I suspect it's the radiation. While you are looking for a way out, I want protection from that as well."

Twilight nodded, pride mixing with nervousness. "You're giving me such an important assignment?"

"You and the entire network." Sunset didn't have to give her the crown. Twilight wasn't a person, she was just another node. She needed no special tools to make use of its resources, so long as she got permission from Sunset first. "Escaping in stealth will be my problem to consider. As for finding Equestria... I already have somepony in mind." She turned away, waving one hand. "Come to me if you and the network require further assistance. You may use any spare computational resources you need to solve the problem until then."

"Yes, Princess." Twilight bowed her head in respect to Sunset as she passed, then abruptly froze in place. However she would work through this problem, there wouldn't be anything to see. Simulating all of that would waste resources.

Sunset did indeed have a specific pony in mind for finding Equestria, and perhaps for escaping the tower as well. A pony who she was certain would be eager for the chance to leave. Jackie was sick of living in a pocket reality, and she saw the Steel Tower as an oppressive tyranny. If she was willing to steal from its knights, Sunset didn't doubt she would be willing to take more drastic action as well. Her desire for rebellion could be channeled far better to saving Equestria. If things went well enough, they might even be able to spare the time to find Jackie's lost family.

Sunset Shimmer selected the throne room for her work, and teleported her way inside with all the expertise of a unicorn who has lived in the same place for so long they don't even have to think to teleport themselves around. The spell was difficult, dangerous magic in Equestria. Here it barely cost her a second's thought.

In the center of the room was a large pile of personal effects, books and bags and clothes belonging to some of the background characters she had changed. Something about these objects had made them resistant to her attempts to delete. But solving the mystery of the disobedient refuse was not her priority. Sunset conjured a large crate with the wave of her hand, tossing the assembled objects inside it with as much mastery as any other skilled unicorn, before locking it tight and teleporting it away—into the castle dungeons. A mystery for another time.

The light of perpetual sunset glowed through the stained-glass windows, casting the entire world in an orange that never ended. If Sunset was going to be a proper princess, she might as well take advantage of the other perks that came with the job and let her favorite part of the day last forever. None of her subjects seemed to mind.

Jackie's contact information was still saved securely on her GIO, along with the program Jackie had sent to open a portal last time. Sunset opened the messenger. Hey Jackie, I've had some time to think. I was wondering if that offer to help is still open.

Nothing happened. Sunset stared at the empty screen for nearly five full minutes before she remembered her realm existed at far greater than arbitrary time. So she secured the crown on her head again, concentrated, and returned the world to normal speed. There was no visible change, no reaction from either pony or object. The power of the Element of Intellect would be unaffected by the change, since Sunset had created a separate time grouping purely for those resources connected to it, a grouping that had no physical simulation and so could be run as fast as the system would allow, at a factor of 1024:1.

Sunset's wrist vibrated as Jackie's response came in, filling the screen briefly. Sure. But I want the truth about who you are in exchange. No bullshit this time.

No bullshit, Sunset agreed. Though there hadn't been any feces anywhere the last time they'd talked. Sunset hadn't seen feces anywhere in all the Infinite Realm. Do you want me to run your portal spell again?

Nah. You should really come and visit me this time. I'll send you my shard ID. Escaping from that school should be great practice ^^

Sunset's hands tightened briefly into fists. She had imagined Jackie coming here, where her failure to cooperate could be immediately followed by imprisonment, if required. If Sunset traveled to another reality, her control would be..." She felt the reassuring weight on her head. Even if the rules were stricter outside the school, she somehow doubted they would present much of a challenge for her. She had the power of 61,000 minds, in a world where only the mind had any meaning. She was basically a god.

You sure you wouldn't rather come here? I've got some interesting stuff to show you. Made some changes to the place.

We can see them after you get out of the school. After last time, you need a little perspective. Coordinates to follow. And they did, her GIO buzzing a few seconds later with the message "Spatial data received. Unfortunately, transport outside of the instruction area is not available." Yeah, sure it isn't.

"I want to go there," Sunset said to the network, tapping the message on her GIO.

And just like that, she was.

Chapter 11: Recruiting

It was an incredibly unpleasant experience; the first genuinely uncomfortable thing Sunset had experienced during her time in the infinite realm. It felt like her whole body was being torn, compressed, ripped apart. Her thoughts struggled for a moment, like everything she thought was immediately forgotten. At least the sensation didn't last that long, expelling her from the void lacking sensation or thought and onto a field of rolling hills as bright and cheerful as anything in Equestria.

Sunset landed, straightening the crown on her head and surveying her surroundings. It looked almost as though she'd found her way into ancient Equestria, with numerous little castles and villages dotting the horizon. They looked too far away to see, yet the world was playing tricks on her, because she could see them just fine. Just at the base of a nearby hill, a battle was taking place. Sunset made her way to the edge, glancing down cautiously to try and get a better look.

A pair of armies, each one perhaps five hundred strong, clashed below. They wore armor not all that different from what Equestrians might've worn, though the way humans used weapons was quite different. It wasn't a matter of charring and goring opponents so much as piercing them from range or bludgeoning them to death up close. Yet for a battle, the scene seemed remarkably clean. There were no dying huddled on the ground, no gory scenes of people trampled. When any wound was scored, the soldier fell to the ground without a scream, then vanished.

It was so hard to tell the humans apart when they wore so much armor. "Jackie, are you down there?" Sunset called, using a simple spell to amplify the volume of her voice. Several of the soldiers turned to stare at her, pointing or speaking to one another in annoyance. She couldn't catch most of the words from this distance, except one knight on horseback, who managed to say, “She's breaking sim rules!” before getting struck several times with arrows, and vanishing along with his horse.

Her shouting worked, as much as it appeared to be upsetting things below. A few of the soldiers separated from the army, making their way up the hill. They shouted back and forth with the rest, but not loudly enough for Sunset to hear them.

When she was far enough away from the clashing armies, Jackie's armor vanished in a wave, replaced with an ancient style of padded trousers and shirt, presumably whatever she had been wearing underneath it all. She kept her weapon slung over one shoulder, and looked a little annoyed. "When I said you could come now, I didn't mean right now," she said. "You were supposed to take some time to figure it out, not..." She trailed off, staring openly at Sunset. Her eyes lingered on the crown, apparently recognizing some of its significance as more than just a piece of jewelry. It wasn't hard to see important objects represented in code, if nothing else than the sheer number of pointers one might contain. The crown had tens of thousands.

Her friends removed their helmets one after another, though they didn't ditch the armor completely. Sunset recognized Bree's bright orange hair, Robbie's annoyed face, and Noah with his expression cool and collected. "You graduated?" Jackie asked, speaking more slowly. "Graduated into gorgeous, by the way. It's a good thing you already gave me your number."

She was too collected to blush at Jackie's advances. Too collected. "Not technically," she said. "I still need the resources of the education shard, and having to break in might make my plans difficult." She stepped closer to Jackie, lowering her voice so only her friend could hear. "Did you mean everything you said? About the Tower?"

"Every word," Jackie said, staring into her eyes. "And the others I didn't have time for. All of them."

"Good. Because I plan on getting even, and I need your help."

Jackie glanced once over her shoulder, to her friends. They looked on confused, questioning, but she could only shrug. "Whatever you're thinking of, Sunny, it's probably already been tried. If the Realm could be taken down from the inside, they'd probably have to watch us way closer than they do. Make the world into some 1984 hellhole, watching everything we say. They don't, because it's safe. There aren't any flaws that could bring it down. And you're new. Even if..." She stared up at the crown, one of her hands twitching. "What the hell is that?"

Sunset grinned. "I don't think anypony ever tried what I'm planning. But it needs your help—you, and your friends too if they're willing."

"What is it?" Bree asked, her tone flat as ever. "You haven't told us anything."

"I won't, unless you come with me," Sunset said, waving her hand towards the air behind her. As she did, she summoned the return portal back to her kingdom. As curious as she was about this strange place, where humans fought pointless wars without bloodshed, she didn't plan on staying to get to know it. She couldn't waste time like they did. "Back to the school, I can show you.” And more importantly, you won't be able to get away. Sunset couldn't be completely sure about the powers their "keys" would let them wield, but she had some idea. The same way the school had disabled permissions could be used on anyone, at her whim. Or, as she'd set things up, on everyone who wasn't her. Even if they wanted to betray her plan once she told them, they wouldn’t.

"Sounds exciting," Jackie said, grinning. "Will there be dinner? I'll bring the wine if you bring the entertainment."

"Keep it in your pants!" Robbie groaned, waving one arm and putting his helmet back on. "You go on ahead. I've seen enough stupid newbie plans, I don't need another one."

"Fuck you too, Robbie!" Jackie shouted after him, glaring at his back. "What about the rest of you? I for one am excited to see what Sunny came up with. Going from zero to woke in just a few days must have really inspired you."

Bree walked up beside her, dismissing her armor as Jackie had. "I will go."

"How about you call me if it's cool," said the other guy, taking a step back. "Maybe when you're done, err... when you're done. I'll finish up here."

"Whatever." Jackie waved. "Keep an eye on the idiot while I'm gone."

"Sure." He too turned back to the battle, leaving the three of them alone on the top of the hill.

"Alright," Jackie said, spreading her hands out. "Let's go. Before the mods realize you're not in costume, and ban you from the fare."

Sunset gestured to the portal again, and the three of them walked through.

They appeared in the courtyard, where apparently happy earth ponies worked fields pointless in the virtual world, growing GE crops Equestria had never seen. The guards watching on castle walls stopped to look down on them, staring down at the newcomers. Jackie and Bree froze where they had appeared, staring out at everything. Jackie spun around in a slow circle, taking in the high castle walls with their mounted guns and guards armed with enchanted weapons. She took in the fields, and the ponies working them.

"What the fuck is this?" she asked, pointing at the nearest earth pony. "This isn't the school..." She held up her arm, skimming over the shard information, eyes getting wider. "God, it is."

The construct wasn't intelligent enough to understand—it just kept farming, with the typical diligence of an earth pony.

"Of course it is." Sunset snapped her fingers, and the three of them appeared in her throne-room. It was far less unpleasant a transition than the one between shards, and accompanied by the familiar flash of light and slight pop of a unicorn teleport. "You were exactly right about the way empty shards work." Quietly, without saying anything to suggest she'd done anything, Sunset re-adjusted local time in the shard, back to the 512:1 ratio that would keep actions within as far apart from the rest of the realm as possible. "No one cares what we do with it. I thought I would make myself a slice of home. Practice for when I return."

Jackie moved slowly through the room, running one hand along the edge of the holotable. She looked to be deep in thought, though she kept her actual feelings close to herself. Even while in Sunset’s shard, there was no way to read her mind.

Bree, meanwhile, did nothing to conceal how she was feeling. "You're insane," she exclaimed, backing away from Sunset. Her previously flat, emotionless expression was completely gone, replaced with one of horror. Her voice had changed, her eyes moving differently—everything. "You have no idea what you've done! The Morrigan's crows circle you! We have to call the knights!" She reached up with one arm towards her GIO, and froze in mid-motion, mouth still open. Sunset concentrated, drawing on the power of the crown as she had once used her horn. She couldn't change a person the way she could change one of the background characters... could she?

The Element of Intellect sped her thoughts, allowing her to take in all that was before her at once. As she looked, she saw Jackie and Bree were very different creatures. One, Jackie, registered like herself, an independent mind with full privileges. But Bree... Bree looked like the background characters. She was, in the terms of the tower, a fork. She'd been a fork this entire time.

"No." Sunset advanced past Jackie, extending one hand towards the frozen girl. "You will not disrupt my plans before even hearing them!" She concentrated for a moment, then repeated the same exact spell she'd done hundreds of times, changing the fork from one form into another. She already had an excellent template for the ponies here, and so she used that, changing poor Bree into the smallest, most pitiful earth pony she could. The girl kept her bright orange hair, as those processes she changed over retained their distinguishing features. Sunset couldn't take her GIO away, but she could hide it away inside Bree's body, where she couldn't get to it.

There were more important pressures the change imposed, which Sunset had based on her time in class. Just as the time-accelerated classes forced students to pay attention to what they were learning, Sunset's power would force all who were near it to feel the loyalty a princess deserved.

Bree looked up, huge green eyes confused, and she let out one final pitiful squeak before lowering her head to Sunset in submission.

"Finally." Sunset looked back to Jackie. Her friend hadn't moved, hadn't reached for her own GIO. This was good—Sunset would much rather have her willing loyalty than to cheat and trick her brain. The one who had helped Sunset see the truth deserved honesty.

"All this..." Jackie muttered, gesturing at Bree, at the room around them. "This is... where you come from?"

"Yes," Sunset said, as flatly as possible. "I know how crazy that sounds, but... that's the truth. The reason I was so ignorant when I got here. I didn't come here from the Federation. I came from Equestria, a country of ponies like these. Our society doesn't have technology like yours, but it has..." She didn't say the word magic again, not with as negative as Jackie had been about it. "It has something similar. I used it to get here, so I could learn from you. But it was all lies." She walked slowly past Jackie, over to the window, where she could look out on her kingdom. "I want to go home, Jackie. This... Infinite Realm... what I learned in my old world still works here. I didn't see it at first, but now I do. I want to use it to get back, and to take this whole shard with me."

She spun around, extending a hand to Jackie and looking as confident as she could. "Will you help me?"

Jackie hesitated, staring down at Bree again, then out the window at Sunset's kingdom. Then she took the offered hand.

Chapter 13: Exodus

Sunset stared down at her marshaled legions, grinning with pride. True, it was a waste of resources to give them bodies the way she had, a waste to detail them and give them realistic responses—but as it turned out, the school's ghosts worked better when they had bodies.

No location in the school was large enough for the soldiers she had created, so Sunset had added back the wide expanse that had once held simulated houses and roads with empty cars from nowhere. She hadn't bothered with any of the decoration—it was just a flat place for her army to assemble, broken only by a large tower she could stand upon and watch. There wasn't much room at the top—only enough for the three of them to stand, the three humans lording over an army of ponies.

Well, mostly human. Sunset would lead this charge as a princess. So she'd given herself a horn, and a pair of bat wings (at Jackie’s insistance. She took her gang much too seriously). Neither served any functional purpose, though she had taken the trouble to make sure both would feel like parts of her body. The confidence alone was worth the effort.

Beside her, Jackie looked out at the army, her massive stolen sword resting on her shoulder. "I can't believe the admins didn't notice what you were doing here," she muttered, not loud enough for any of the army to hear. Not that it mattered—they were all loyal, even Bree's converted fork. "That's more hostile code that I've ever seen. There are supposed to be checks for this kinda stuff, but... I guess no one thought some newbie would wander into the school and know how to do all this."

"They won't have to worry about it anymore," Sunset said. "We'll be bringing this shard back with us to Equestria. The ponies there won't take it for granted."

Jackie shrugged. "Just so long as I can be in the real world again, I don't care." She sighed. "Are you sure you don't want the other Murciélagos? We all hate the tower. That's why we got together in the first place. I'm sure they want to help as much as I did."

"I'm positive," Sunset said, stern. "We can't rely on winning all their loyalty now.” Besides, even if none of them are forks, each new human increases the chances of our discovery.

"Probably for the best," Jackie said, even quieter than before. "We're probably gonna get caught. At least this way my friends won’t be implicated in this whole plot. It'll only suck if we escape without them, or... if we could've with their help."

"Sunset dismissed the tower, transporting them to ground level with a slight wave of concentration. Most of her army was shorter than they were, though of course they took far more space to stand given their greater volume. The soldiers were a visual representation of their powers—armor represented the programs protections, and their weapons were the tools they would use to penetrate and eventually capture the Interlinked Shard. This way, Sunset could assess the state of her army with just a glance.

There were tens of thousands. Sunset wasn't bringing all of them—the greatest strength she had to bring to bear in this conflict wasn't any individual program, even one equipped with the best penetration software she had come up with or Jackie had provided. No, Sunset herself would be the greatest weapon, armed with everything she had learned and an intellect far greater than human. The Element itself would win them this war, so long as it was brief.

"So, you've decided on a plan?" Twilight asked, her voice tentative as usual. "What is it? The better I understand it, the better I can relay your instructions to the others."

"We need to win so quickly administrators outside can't shut us down," Sunset explained, her voice confident. "We charge in, take the node, and make three bodies. The rest of the army returns here to wait."

Twilight saluted. The gesture was hardly as crisp as a real soldier's, but she didn't seem to be trying for that. "Yes, Ma'am!"

"This is the fucking stupidest thing anyone has ever done," Jackie said, grinning. "We're trying to invade the Tower from the inside with an army of horses. At least if we screw this up, we'll have something awesome for people to tell stories about. The Tower will never forget this."

"I'll make sure of that," Sunset muttered, resting one finger on her crown. She gestured into the air in front of them, positioned just in front of the castle gates. Only they wouldn't be returning to the castle this time. A massive portal appeared there, open wide enough to accept a hundred ponies at once. "Make me a beachhead, Twilight. Jackie and I will arrive as soon as it's safe."

Twilight nodded. She didn't look afraid—only eager to please. Same as ever. I'm gonna rub your face in it, Celestia. Mine's better. She charged, screaming, and all around them hooves thundered. Ponies took to the air, ponies flying in the real war-formations that Sunset had read about from the ages long passed. This wasn't the "Wonderbolts", flying to entertain and maybe make a few loud noises with weather magic. These were the brave armies of the nation that had fought the dragons and won. These were the earth ponies who had stopped the goblins at the Gates of Woe, the unicorns who in their court had raised the sun in the age before Celestia.

And they were hers. The army parted around them like water parting around the large stones on a shore, rushing forward through the portal. Already Sunset was getting information back through her crown, and it was even better than she hoped. The enemy on the other side was completely unprepared for their assault. The initial defenses had fallen to the sheer volume of her soldiers, which were not being deleted by the thousands as she had initially feared. Something was keeping the enemy from killing them, and that advantage would almost guarantee a victory.

Before them, the portal began to constrict, as "hostile magic" started closing network connections. "We can't get cut off!" Sunset roared, taking to the air herself. As she did so, a flight of her honor-guard joined her in the air, the best armed and best-protected of any of her soldiers. Jackie followed, though she looked a little uneasy on her wings. Still she flew, keeping pace admirably for someone who had never imagined they would ever have any.

"Let's go kick their asses!" Jackie shouted, and together they passed through the gate.

Transport was as unpleasant as it had been the last time. Sunset's expanded form was sliced, poked, and prodded by the transfer between shards, and for a moment she feared that the precarious balance of powers she wielded might somehow be stripped away. There wasn't time to form complete thoughts, for no sooner had she even had the time to consider her unhappy feelings, she appeared on the other side.

The Interlink Shard was represented internally like a large public building, what the humans would've called an "airport", except that this airport had a large military presence protecting it. Those programs took the shape of soldiers, stationary defenses, and high walls to protect the most secure areas. All of that had been destroyed near their point of ingress, programs torn to pieces and represented only as faintly flickering "kernel-panic" processes. Behind them, the surge of soldiers abruptly stopped. Sunset winced as the last of her troops appeared behind them—well, the last she would get. The Element told her that less than a third had made it here before the connection had been severed.

Other parts of her plan weren't working either. Local time refused to adjust for instance, despite how much she insisted to the local system that she had the credits. That was unfortunate, as being in-sync with the outside world would mean that intervention could arrive more quickly. We must win before they can shut us down.

"Princess!" That was Twilight, shouting from within the airport using the magic of the Element. Her soldiers had torn open the wall, scattering a handful of terrified-looking humans and leaving the defense programs in ruin. The fierce battle continued in the airport ahead of them, in a strange mixture of simulated graphics that didn't make much sense from out here. It didn't appear that any of her own "ponies" had been torn apart like the defense programs were, only wrapped in tight restriction algorithms and "frozen", lying hogtied on the ground with strange bonds around their hooves. "Princess, we're halfway to the departure gate! We could use your assistance!"

Jackie landed beside her, extending her sword and slicing through the bonds on one of the soldiers. The earth pony rose, blinking blearily to consciousness and staring up at them both.

"Why did they do that?" Jackie demanded, her voice urgent.

"I, uh..." He looked to Sunset, then bowed. "I honor my princess in war!" He turned and charged off into the airport with the others.

"I don't understand!" Jackie strode forward after him, towards the broken entrance to the airport. Sunset followed along behind, conscious of her honor-guard circling overhead. The pegasi would only join in the battle to protect the two of them, otherwise they'd keep themselves in reserve. "Your soldiers are just programs, right?"

"Yeah," Sunset answered. "I think... I'm pretty sure they were shallow forks. Someone filled up the school so it wouldn't feel lonely to new students, remember?"

"Yeah." Jackie shivered. "Except forks could just be deleted. Why would the defenses hold back? Why bind them like this?" As she walked, she cut the restraints of each pony she passed, slicing with surprising skill for her young appearance. Guess all that time in practice war pays off after all.

"It doesn't matter." Sunset sped up, moving quickly into the airport. "Their weakness is our advantage. We'll take the fabricator before they change their minds.

The battle progressed quickly ahead of them, leaving scores of broken programs and Sunset's own troops bound in its wake. Sunset had expected a slaughter, but not of the other side. Yet as she advanced into the building, it was clear that most of her army was still free, still fighting. This is too easy. Something's wrong.

Sunset joined with Twilight near the back of the airport, where the security programs had grown so dense that she could barely step without walking through some of their remains. At least whoever had written these hadn't bothered to simulate them with realistic insides—it would've been more than a little disturbing to see so much blood. They aren't real people. And even if they were, they can't be hurt here. I'm not like Nightmare Moon. No one has been harmed.

"There's only one security checkpoint to go," Twilight said, as they finally met up with her again. Through the front lines of their army was a final array of security-programs, each one looking like identical human males in plain black uniforms. They showed no emotions, even as they stared out into the airport filled with enemy troops bent on invading. No fear, though they must've seen how badly this war had gone for them.

"I can't believe we made it this far," Jackie muttered, staring at the guards arrayed around the final hallway. "I've been here a few times, to say goodbye to friends getting transferred out. Never got into the building. But we're almost through..."

Freedom waited on the other side of that hallway, freedom to return to Equestria with all Sunset had learned. Freedom to save her home.

"Attack!" Sunset ordered. "Before the outside notices! Through the gates!" Her army charged. She led from just behind the lines, and got the chance to see what her weapon-spells did firsthand. However good the security programs were, they weren't prepared for Equestrian magic. The programs seemed to expect attacks on their own terms, attempts to cause overflow errors, or hostile code insertion. Sunset's spells attacked in more fundamental ways, manipulating the simulated forces of the world to cause overflows, or altering perception so that enemy programs had to process thousands more hostile enemies than were present. Hundreds more of her soldiers fell, enough that her troops began to fit even in the dense hallway. A quick query of the Element of Intellect proved she had just over two thousand of them still standing, scattered through the airport.

Sunset charged into battle beside some of her soldiers, against the greatest and most dangerous programs the shard had to offer. Compared to what she'd learned and the synthesis of Equestrian magic she had mastered to go with it, it wasn't much of a fight. It might have different trappings, there might be more numbers involved, but it really wasn't all that different from a wizard's duel. A wizard's duel with a sleeping opponent, too confident in their powers to even try and stop Sunset from undoing their spells.

Her army left a broken hole where the node's protections had been, each and every one of its programs destroyed. "We're through!" Twilight reported, moving up beside her and saluting.

"Where are the admins?" Jackie asked, her tone nervous. "Did you contain any?"

"No," Twilight answered. "We haven't encountered any staff. Only passengers. As the princess ordered, we have isolated and ignored them."

"That's not right," Jackie said. "I don't know how many fabs the Tower has, but each one is important. They can't really have nobody watching it."

"It appears they did." Sunset strode past them both, into the broken tunnel that had been filled with defenses only moments before. Her crown still buzzed with power. Power she had barely needed to control, with servants as skilled as Twilight to do the difficult parts. "Let's finish this."

On the other side of security was another small room, also constructed to imitate a public transport building. There were comfortable seats on the walls, and a single dark doorway. It had a glowing panel beside it, filled with the control interface. Sunset's own soldiers ringed the room, standing amid the destroyed programs and guarding a few humans. There were two of them, a male and a female, wearing silvery robes and quaking with fear, huddled together near the door. As though they'd just entered through there, or were about to leave. Sunset didn't know which, and she didn't much care.

"Please, spare us!" said the male, a young man with dark features and a slight accent. "Don't hurt us!"

"Quiet!" Twilight bellowed at them, her eyes darkening. "The princess won't be interrupted!"

Sunset raised one hand as she approached, silencing Twilight. There was no time to waste on a lengthy conversation here, but that didn't mean she had to be rude. "We won't hurt you," she said. "We aren't at war with you, or even your king. We're trying to leave. A few more minutes, and we'll be out of your hair." She gestured at the controls with one hand. "Twilight, give the fabricator our designs."

She nodded, hurrying over to the controls, hands moving quickly as she obeyed.

Wait, where's Jackie? Sunset turned away from the captured humans, searching for her friend. She had dropped onto the nearby seat, just a few feet away from the door, a dark look on her face. She kept the sword in her lap, as though she still expected to need it.

"What is it?" Sunset asked. "Were you hurt?"

"No." Jackie kept her voice very low, as much a whisper as earlier. "I'm scared."

"You?" Sunset raised an eyebrow. "You stole a knight's sword. What could scare you?"

"Inconsistencies," she said. "I always knew this place was mostly automated. But we didn't even fight a moderator. They didn't delete our programs, either. It's like... like they knew we were coming. I think they wanted us to get here."

"Princess, it's ready!" Twilight shouted. The glass door opened. There was nothing beyond it, a void. Not the cold one of a portal though. It was the end of the world.

"Fine." She gestured at the opening. "You can go first. If they capture anypony, it will be me."

Jackie rose to her feet, glancing at the opening. She offered Sunset the sword. "Here. Follow as quickly as you can. I'll see if I can find your scrolls." She dashed across the room, leaping the row of seats, then passing through the doorway. She vanished with a bright flash, leaving a ghostly after-image.

"Fabrication in progress," said a quiet, patient voice. "Please wait."

The sword felt strange in Sunset's hand. Almost weightless, despite its sturdy appearance. Like the crown, she could feel an array of functions opening before her as she moved it through the air. Only one was interesting to her—the true deletion Jackie had mentioned. The one that could kill, even in this realm of eternal life.

"Get back down!" Twilight's voice cut through the air, and Sunset spun around to look.

The male rose from where he'd been crouched, apparently unafraid of the spears pointed at his chest. He ignored Twilight's shouting, and the pair of earth ponies shoved into him with both weapons.

Then they exploded, dying in a single moment of screaming agony. Not like the security programs either, which keeled over and vanished. They really screamed, leaving a ghostly echo in her ears.

Twilight pointed at him, and every soldier in the room focused on him at once. Probably every soldier in the building, though Sunset couldn't see them.

Wait, she commanded, through the crown. Don’t attack.

Sunset advanced, holding the sword on one shoulder. "I don't know who you are," she said, meeting the man's dark eyes. "But you will not do that again. I didn't come to fight humans—we just want to leave."

"I'm afraid that is not possible," he said, his accent as thick as before, utterly lacking fear. "I am not finished with you."

Chapter 14: Admin

Sunset Shimmer wasn't going to wait any longer. She struck. Not with the sword—that would require crossing the room, making her intentions clear. It would also require the will to kill someone, which she lacked. She would not make herself into Nightmare Moon, no matter how justified her cause became. With the Element of Intellect serving her, the resources of thousands of minds and all the power of their thoughts, it should be easy to defeat even a determined enemy. She attacked unconventionally, focusing on the space around her enemy, solidifying it with solid ice. Even if this man was an admin of some kind, he would have a hard time stopping her if he couldn't move his body to access his powers.

Something around him resisted modification. Thick ice formed near him, but none got closer than six inches or so. Sunset drew on every resource the Element offered her, and in a split-second, she had a new spell written, a program that would overwhelm the server with modification requests, enough that the system would overflow and one in every million would get through. Each user could only make a few per second, but Sunset's crown had the permissions of hundreds of thousands. Even as the man reached to one side, pushing his robes aside to access his GIO, the ice reached his arms.

Only then did Sunset begin crossing the room, the sword still resting on her shoulder. She kept the program running, which took a surprising amount of effort on her part. This user was an admin, though how he'd known to wait here in the departure station she couldn’t guess.

"How much longer will that take?" Sunset asked, walking past him and over to the door. It was still closed, still firmly resisted her yanks to get it open.

"Several minutes," Twilight answered, nervous. "You should've gone first, Princess! You'd be out there now, freeing us! If you get trapped in here..."

Sunset used what spare resources she could and opened another transit-portal, right beside the frozen man and the cowering woman. She ignored the one who hadn't caused trouble, the one who was even now still hiding, and instructed two of her soldiers to push the frozen admin through. They did, and the huge chunk of ice vanished. Hopefully the castle's defenses would slow him down once he escaped, even if she wouldn't be there to operate them. They wouldn't need long.

Sunset froze. Not just her—everyone and everything in the room abruptly stopped moving. Her guards were still standing just before the portal, mouths hanging open. The human in her robes on the other side of the room seemed paralyzed in mid-cry. Everything stopped moving.

Except one. Almost the instant he had gone, the man came striding back through the portal. "You shouldn't have done that," he said, his voice calm, amused even. "That trick you were using probably would've kept working for another minute at least. But sending someone between shards is expensive, the operation doesn't transfer objects that don’t belong to the one being moved. Like icy prisons, for instance."

Sunset couldn't call on her program this time, couldn't do anything except watch. The Element of Intellect was still there, within reach almost, but as paralyzed as she was she couldn’t use it. Far more helpless than the admin she'd tried to freeze, since she couldn't even speak.

Behind him, the door to the outside world swung suddenly open. "Fabrication complete. Ready for next transfer." It was right there, less than ten feet away, and she could only reach vainly towards it with empty fingers.

The man gestured casually with one hand, and the gravity of the room suddenly turned on its side. Everyone but Sunset and the admin went tumbling ten feet to land in a crumpled pile. He didn't even spare his fellow human passenger, who landed limp only a few feet from where Twilight had collapsed. He gestured again and gravity righted itself, leaving only the two of them standing by the door. "I'll admit, weaponizing the ghosts was a clever plan. Maybe the most inventive strategy I've ever seen. But you had to know it was doomed." He walked right up in front of her, folding his arms and looking into her eyes. "But how did you discover the Equestrian records?" He gestured back at the ponies. "And what madness would possess you to use them in a rebellion?"

Sunset found she could move again, or at least speak. The rest of her body refused to respond; she couldn't even twitch her fingers. "I didn't discover anything. I came from Equestria. I'm trying to get back."

"Really?" He reached out, gently prying the sword free from her hand. He spun it through the air easily, aiming it right at her chest. "Prove it."

"My name is Sunset Shimmer," she said. "I used Starswirl's portal spell to travel to the home of the Builders and seek your wisdom." Her eyes narrowed contemptuously at the sword. "I discovered Clover's records were full of lies. You weren't a noble race of harmony, but the most dangerous creatures we'd ever known."

"Really?" The man reached back, removing the hood from his dark head. "I spoke with Clover myself when she was here. She spoke of dragons, of armies that dig under the earth, of endless waves of goblins that eat their dead. Birds of prey that darken the sky. What are we to all that?"

"Worse," Sunset insisted. "Because you have civilization. Dragons can pillage and griffons can enslave, but you invented bombs to kill your whole planet. The diamond dogs couldn't have done that. You're everything I hope ponies never become, and I have to get back. I have to warn them."

The man's eyes narrowed with anger, and it seemed for a moment like he might strike Sunset in the chest with the sword. Instead he stepped back, dismissing the blade with a wave of his hand. It vanished. With another gesture, Sunset dropped to the ground, able to move again. Only her crown refused to work. She struggled to her feet, though she didn't back away. What was the point? There would be no flying away, no attacking him without the Element. "It's too late for you then. You've already done worse than the ones you fear. You fought your little war with an army of slaves! What does that say about your moral superiority, Sunset Shimmer?"

"I... what?" Sunset asked, the anger vanishing from within her, replaced with shock and fear. "I didn't... I didn't enslave anyone... those are forks!"

"Those are forks..." he repeated, turning away from her, walking slowly up to the exit door. "Do you think we give forks the same resources are a person? That we would... maintain a shard of that size with nobody living in it?" He spun around. "Forgive my manners, Sunset. I neglected to introduce myself. You can call me Tesla, CTO of—I mean, Headmaster of the Technocratic Order." He raised one hand, pointing all around them. "The Infinity Engine was my creation. So believe me when I say I understand how it works." He pointed, and ones of the ponies came zooming across the room, hovering in the air before them. He wasn't struggling—apparently didn't have the ability to move as she did.

Sunset could only watch, powerless to stop him. Powerless to protect the pony that, while he was just another program she'd appropriated, still felt like he was one of "her" citizens. She was trying to be a princess after all, didn't that mean she protected her ponies?

"Your weapons here were... my creation, in a way. A mistake, a tragedy..." He gestured, and the pony body reshaped itself into a frightened-looking student, about her own age. "This child... perhaps not a child, perhaps something else once... it is difficult to say. This person was a casualty of our rapid modernization. One of those lost in our great leap forward. The mind is a delicate thing, Sunset. As it turns out, apes evolving on the Savanna are sometimes ill-equipped to deal with the stresses of digital life. Much moreso when they're forced into it. Or join us here unexpectedly. When unprepared... some shatter."

"They were just forks!" she said again, though less confident this time. "Scenery. Like buildings, or—"

"But we are an enlightened society, you see. We could not make changes to someone's mind without permission. Sure, we had the tools. You yourself used them. But while we waited for leave from our noble king, they languished in that school forever, unable to progress. I may have... significantly reduced the resources flowing into that shard since nothing useful was emerging. But when you entered, well... all the lights came back on. And here they are, broken minds of the digital age, rewritten at your whims. Tens of thousands of capital crimes, and I have the criminal captured. Tremendous."

Sunset lowered her head, any trace of resistance gone. There was no reason to doubt this man's words, not with the powers he had shown. He was clearly an admin, and his authority was the only authority that mattered in here. He couldn't be wrong. I'm not Nightmare Moon, she thought. At least she only killed her enemies. I'm much worse. Worse than the Sirens, even.

"If that's true, then I deserve whatever punishment I get. I didn't know... I had no idea that... but that doesn't matter." She reached up, removing the Element of Intellect from her head and tossing it on the ground at his feet. The crown of a slaver princess. It felt dirty just to touch now that she knew what it really meant.

"Deserve." Tesla stalked up to the crown, scooping it up with one hand. "I have contempt for this word, Equestrian. Who decides what is deserved? Not the universe. Nature gives us only pain and horror, it is only fair in its cruelty. But men can't decide—we are just as cruel, only for us it is worse. We know what we do is wrong, and we do it anyway." He squeezed the crown in his hands, in a way that should've done nothing. It was made of strong metal, enchanted even. It shattered anyway, into splinters and bits of gemstone. As they went flying through the air, so too did Sunset's network finally break apart. This did not undo her changes—only free the many minds she had trapped, using their mental resources at her command.

"Now, our noble king would see this as you do. He is... somewhat backward in that respect. Abstractions like justice matter to him. Fortunately, he does not have to know. For all he pretends to judge the good of his people, I never saw him visiting the ghosts. As of this moment, only the two of us know. Well... three." He gestured over his shoulder, at the open doorway. "Your friend will be in the custody of my servants. There can, therefore, be another arrangement between us."

"What arrangement?" Sunset asked. "You said what I did was a capital crime, right? It would be in Equestria too... rewriting minds... I broke them forever... hundreds of thousands..."

"Quiet." Tesla sliced her with a gesture. "Those minds were already broken, and you were ignorant. But more important... you are valuable. Do you know how long it's been since you came from Equestria?"

Did she? Sunset considered the question, but found no easy answer. She'd been in accelerated time for so long, she had lost track. It was like spending a long time indoors, and leaving the building to find that it was far later outside than she thought. Like that, only much worse. "I don't."

"Decades," Tesla answered. "Long enough that contact with your world has resumed. As of this moment, the king is preparing an honor-guard. We will present ourselves to your princess, and establish diplomatic ties."

"I don't..." It seemed hard to believe so long could've gone by, but what did she know about time in Equestria? She had spent many years learning. Had she really thought she could spend all that time and not pay a price? "What do you want from me?"

"Join the Order. I want an advisor who knows the world we're traveling to. More importantly, I want one I can trust to be loyal." He pointed behind her, at the assembled masses of ponies. "You're a mass murderer, Sunset Shimmer. If 'Good King Richard' ever learned of your crimes, he'd kill you himself. But so long as you do as I say, he never will. In time, when we have a good relationship with Equestria and we've gotten what we want, I will allow you to return to them. You can take the ghosts you ruined too... they were just wasting resources anyway."

"My friend," Sunset said, remembering her promise. "She wasn't part of this—she never knew what I was doing. I dragged her into it. If I do what you say, you have to let her go."

"Impossible," Tesla answered, without hesitation. "She knows information that could indict you. More importantly, it would cast aspersions upon my own character if the king heard from another source that I had apprehended a criminal and not told him."

"Then... you must bring her in on it," Sunset eventually said. "She doesn't know about Equestria, but... she's in one of the pony bodies my... my slaves designed. She can help me help you."

Tesla considered that a moment. Then he extended a hand. "Fine. Do we have a deal?"

Sunset Shimmer took the offered hand, and was a princess no more.

Epilogue: Victim of Sunshine

After what had become of Sunset's escape from the Infinite Realm, she hadn't expected to return to Equestria. Despite Tesla's words, she'd seen enough of the way humans did things to suspect he was not being honest. Her rebellion, however doomed, created an inconvenience, and he wanted to be rid of it. She hadn't thought he caredabout getting information from her.

But a trip back to the school, some time disarming her defenses, and she was already on her way out of the Realm for good. Not that I really got a chance to see how Builders lived. Just ghosts I thought weren't alive and a few criminals. Perhaps one day she would return to see what life in their cities was like, in the same way she had once considered visiting the minotaur tribes. Academically interesting, but not worth the risks to actually do.

Of interest to the Technocratic Order was the way some of her modified slaves seemed to have been returned to life by their experience. Twilight in particular, however much she might behave like a computer, had clearly recovered her intelligence enough to think for herself, and to grow. Then again, she was the nexus for thousands of minds. It might've been more surprising if she didn't get more intelligent doing that.

The Tower might even be able to rehabilitate some of Sunset's slaves, where before they'd been nothing more than the lost echoes of people rendered into background scenery by the digital conversion process. Sunset still didn't understand the details, didn't understand why whoever had designed the process had denied backups (and thus the ability to repair a damaged mind) until after they completed their schooling. But Tesla didn't stick around to answer her questions, and none of the other Scribes were able to explain.

What they did do was refuse to let her use Twilight's design for a body, the one Jackie was now (presumably) using in the outside world. Instead they explained that she would need to be human to have access to the full range of hardware, and that her duties would probably require her to use a great deal of it.

Only one task stood between her and taking up that body: finishing her schooling. After spending so long trapped in the school, then transforming it into her own personal fortress, it was strange to be learning in it again. Learning in a human school so she could leave and go back to Equestria was a strange irony, but it wasn't one lost on her. She didn't fight any of it this time—didn't fight the magic that forced her to stay on task, didn't try to take over the shard and use it for her own purposes. There were no more background students anymore, only Twilight and a scholar of the Technocratic Order responsible for making sure she "didn't cause trouble"

Instead of graduating in a school full of cheering students, she got her diploma handed to her by yet another fork of one of the teachers, and smiled gratefully as it handed her a GIO that was much upgraded from the one she'd been first given here (but compared to the changes she'd already made, might as well have been a hunk of rusting metal).

Then it was time to leave, though she would not be alone. Bodies were apparently expensive, or so her representative with the Tower seemed to imply, so Twilight would not be able to physically join her. But that apparently didn't matter, since the hardware to run a single mind was an easy thing to acquire. And Twilight... or her modified version of Twilight... refused to hear of anything but joining her.

Sunset's first taste of the Steel Tower wasn't all that different from her time in digital space. There was little fundamental difference between waking up to a human body within the Realm and outside it. It did seem a little less... refined? Everything in the computer was a perfect ideal of what that "thing" should be. Nothing needed maintenance, nothing ever got old or rusty or fell apart. But in the physical world...

Well, the Steel Tower had clearly been through a lot. Its interior was often dark, lit through visual trickery within her perception that overlaid a better version of what should've been on top of the rusting hulk that was reality. At least her body looked new, skin seeming almost as alive as the way it had been in the realm. But Sunset had no heartbeat on the outside, and her breathing had no moisture to it. It also didn't work perfectly every time she moved it—sometimes she made mistakes, failed to pick up objects correctly. She struggled again getting dressed even though in the shards of the Realm she did it perfectly every time.

Despite her reservations, the Technocratic Order kept its word in another respect: Sunset could see Jackie again. Far from the glamor of the castle as Sunset had created it, or even the plain walls of the public school building the Builders had made for themselves, Sunset finally got to see Jackie in a small anteroom in one of the many subbasement levels of the Steel Tower.

Twilight had done an excellent job with the body. There was no getting around just how much like a pony Jackie looked—the fake fur was almost as good as the real thing. Her bat wings looked convincing too, though Sunset doubted they would work. Good engineering could go far, but it couldn't break the laws of physics no matter how powerful the Element of Intellect had been.

"Well, that's shit," Jackie said, looking up at her from about waist level. Sunset retreated a step when she saw the intensity of her glare, even while the soldier escorting her chuckled. "I've been waiting all this time to give you what you deserved after making me into a horse, but... " She pointed at Sunset with one hoof. "You're not. What the hell is up with that? You should've gone first. I got to spend the last two days sitting in a room with angry legionaries, and you..." She waved an impatient hoof. "What the hell did you do, exactly? Who did you have to blow to stop us from getting dragged off to the king?"

"Nobody." Sunset pulled over a rusting chair, sitting down across from Jackie. It made her a little closer to eye level, but not that close. Sunset still had at least two feet on her friend. "Though you aren't going to like the deal we got instead."

"Probably not," Jackie said, glancing over her shoulder at the Tower footman who'd escorted her. "Given who you're running with, I got some idea. It's somebody important. Had to be, for them not to take this body away from me the second after I rolled out of the fabricator."

"Tesla," Sunset said. "I made a deal with Tesla. And it covers both of us."

"Fuck." Jackie sat back on her haunches, anger replaced with shock. "No way in hell. How'd you even get in to meet with someone like that?"

Sunset shrugged. "He was the one waiting near the exit. I... don't know for sure, but I think some of what I did to the shard must have triggered alarms. I think he was there to investigate. He knew we were coming, and he wanted to see what we would do."

"Well he saw." Jackie got up, pacing slowly around her. Sunset couldn't help but watch, with even more fascination than she had watched her creations in the Infinite Realm. The ponies she had made down there were perfect specimens, as perfect as the Builders in their way. But Jackie's body was more realistic, and had apparently been modeled closer to the way pony bodies actually looked, instead of the ideal. "So, what do we have to do, exactly?"

"Well..." Sunset smiled sheepishly. "Remember how I promised we would be going back to Equestria?" She didn't wait for Jackie's answer. "Well, we are. Diplomatic mission. The first wave is already there, right now. The reason you haven't met the king is because he's not here. Once he gets permission... and they seem pretty sure he will... we get to go too." She looked away. "Mostly they want me to be there so I can help them understand Equestrian culture and customs. Since ponies are... different from humans. You're, uh..." Sunset briefly considered telling her friend the truth. Then she banished that idea. "You've got to help too, if you don't want them to take that body away and replace you with one of their own. You'll have an easier time interacting with Equestrians than any of us. Since you don't look like a freak."

Jackie laughed openly, glaring at her. "I don't look like a freak? I don't think you know what that word means. A freak is exactly what I look like. Weird bodies are all over the realm... there are whole shards run by furries or whatever, and I guess I get that... but you actually got one made?" She held out one leg, flexing. "Are you sure you don't want to switch? It would take like five minutes. Then you could be a pony, and I could be a person, and everything would be perfect. Err... well, I don't know if I'd have gone for hair as garish as yours, but who am I to judge, I'm a damn horse."

Sunset rose, pushing the chair back against the wall. "I already asked, believe me. I just wanted a pony body for myself. It doesn't take any more material to make than a human one. Less, since they're, uh... smaller than I imagined. Anyway, they didn't want me to look like a pony, since I might be advising the king, and that might look bad. Like they were taking advice"—from a traitor she wanted to say, but she didn't—"from a pony. You'll just have to enjoy it for both of us for a while. Unless you want to go back into the realm. Tesla said if you did, he'd have to wash your memory of ever knowing me. Everything, from the beginning. He doesn't really care about you, so he'll do it. But..." Sunset blushed, looking away from her. "If it's all the same to you, I hope you won't. I don't have many human friends. It would be nice to keep at least one." She stuck out her hand towards Jackie, wearing her most optimistic smile.

Her friend glared, and there was a long silence. But then she stuck out her hoof. "Fine, Sunny. But you owe me for this. I don't know what you owe me... and I don't know how the hell you'll pay it back. But you owe me. And one day, I'm gonna collect. You got me?"

"Sure," Sunset replied, smiling back. Her friend didn't really seem serious, but it was hard to tell with Jackie. Even wearing a pony body, humans could be hard to read. "Fine with me."

* * *

Almost everyone Sunset had violated with her magic had been returned to the Tower’s servers, where they would be treated by its expert data surgeons. Sunset Shimmer hoped they would forgive her—or that they would forget what they had endured. Tesla had been clear she would never learn. Anything to connect her to the victims might trace a line of guilt eventually leading to her execution.

There was one exception. Sunset Shimmer would not be bringing all her digital Equestria back with her as she traveled to the real thing, but she had brought a very small piece. The device wasn’t terribly large—a necklace, with a facade of a purple gemstone on the outside.

Of all Sunset’s victims, one had refused to leave her service—refused treatment—refused to even acknowledge that she had ever been anything other than Sunset Shimmer’s willing ally. Twilight Sparkle no longer had any of her old memories, not even her human name. “And you will have her with you until the day I am satisfied with your service,” Tesla had said. “Not so visually hideous as someone tossed into a vat of acid, perhaps. But still a potent reminder.”

Sunset’s body was strange now, as strange as the other builders. Its powers were one of the subjects she had not studied much since she’d been so focused on Datamancy. The gemstone would draw power from her body whenever she had it nearby, the same way her body could act for a battery to any number of small devices builders needed.

Sunset sat back against the empty wall in her cell. Not that they’d called it that—the scribe who had led her here thought it was quite spacious. But it didn’t even have a chair, didn’t have anything but rusting walls, a dusty floor, and a power outlet. Sunset Shimmer turned the gemstone-looking device over in her fingers, then touched it lightly to her forehead. It took only a slight effort of will, and suddenly the cell dissolved.

She was somewhere else—it looked a little like a library, with tall shelves packed with books, elegant architecture and cheery windows. But even a cursory glance revealed just how scarce the space really was. Only ten feet or so around where the library’s single occupant sat looked “real.” Everything else had obvious flaws—shadows didn’t look right, textures that repeated. The gem that held Twilight barely had enough space for one mind—it didn’t have the power for a high-fidelity simulation.

“Princess!” Twilight Sparkle leapt from her chair, dropping the books she’d been reading and flinging herself towards Sunset. She wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug, entirely inappropriate for the setting. “I didn’t think I’d get to see you again! I thought they were going to keep me in prison forever.”

“Prison?” Sunset looked around at the feeble simulation. “I guess I can see why it would feel that way.” She pulled away, walking towards the window. Twilight didn’t move, and so the whole room had to stretch, the walls getting closer to her, warping and distorting as she walked. Twilight remained the center of the illusion no matter where Sunset walked.

Outside looked even worse than inside—it looked like someone was playing back a video of an empty city, in much lower fidelity than the rest of the library.

“I have good news and bad news, Twilight. Which one do you want first?”

“Either one, princess.” Twilight straightened, making a vaguely military salute with one hand. “I assume you got the army back?”

“Not… quite.” Sunset winced. She’d tried explaining her mistake to Twilight more than once, but she just hadn’t been able to listen. The truth didn’t make sense to her, not even coming from Sunset. She refused to believe anything that didn’t conform to her (quite narrow) perception of reality. “But Tesla did decide to honor your request. You can stay with me, like you wanted.”

Twilight interrupted her with a high-pitched cheering sound. It only lasted a second before she covered up her mouth with her hands, blushing. “S-sorry.”

“No problem,” Sunset looked away. “The bad news is that this is it.” She gestured all around them. “I already asked if there was any way to share my body with you, apparently I can’t.” And she’d been glad about that, though she wouldn’t admit it to Twilight. Even her guilt could not make her willing to take such extreme measures. “So, to stay with me, you’ll have to live in this.” She dug her hand into her pocket, withdrawing something that looked like an old-fashioned iron key, cankered with rust. “Tesla gave me admin codes, and now they’re yours. Do what you want with the place… but this is all you’ll have. For… the foreseeable future.”

“Oh.” Twilight deflated. Her eyes went down towards the floor, as she ran one hand down a nearby bookshelf, as though inspecting it for realism. “That’s… that implies you succeeded!” she brightened. “We escaped the realm! I never doubted you, princess! Not for one second!”

Sunset winced. “Y-yeah. Escaped is one word for it. We’re going back to Equestria. Jackie says that having someone without a body is common for people in the real world. Tiny shards like this are way cheaper to run than real bodies. Most of the knights carry them, for assistants and advisors and stuff. Yours is… a civilian model… but Jackie told me she might be able to figure out how to patch it into my sensors. You’d be able to see what I see. Maybe to help me.”

Any trace of Twilight’s disappointment vanished, and she grinned again. “Of course, princess! I can’t wait to see Equestria for the first time.”

Sunset sighed. “Me either, Twilight. Me either.”

* * *

The next few days moved as Sunset expected them. She wasn't allowed to spend much time with Jackie, lest the two of them use it to plan something they shouldn't. She wasn't allowed to do very much of anything, other than sit in an empty room and answer questions from scholars of the Technocratic Order. At least it didn't seem like they were planning to invade her country: most of what they asked involved mundane questions about the way ponies lived, the way their culture worked, the sort of thing that ponies might've wondered about humans.

Unlike them, she didn't answer with a pretty lie, but tried to explain Equestria as honestly and completely as she herself understood it. Tried to help them understand the friction between races, the resentment left seething in the heart of the dragons after their defeat so long ago. The constant wars in the minotaur tribes, the xenophobia with which ponies sometimes saw other races. She told them these things, but kept well away from questions that might hurt her people. Stories about their military weakness, while completely true, were also exactly the sort of thing she knew not to talk about around predators.

Sunset Shimmer had no illusions about the sort of ponies she was living with: the builders were predators, there was no way around it. Predators more dangerous than anything native to her own planet. Predators did not have to be enemies—the griffons were predators too, and they had been allies of Equestria in more than one conflict. Dealing with them just required a different attitude. It meant never showing your back, and being tolerant of their unsightly habits. It was a threat she could overcome.

But being able to look at herself in the mirror, that was a little harder. When I go back to my home, my old friends, my family, even Celestia... they won't recognize me. She had selected a body with hair matching what she had worn in the Infinite Realm, and even clothing with her cutie mark on it. It wasn't the same, and she knew it.

Ponies wouldn't look at her and see a predator, just as she hadn't when she had first woken up in that hospital room. She had taken their lack of natural weapons to mean they had been peaceful for so long they didn't need them. Instead, it only meant the species called humanity had been forced to evolve predatory intellect fiercer than her own kind would know.

I belong here, she thought, somewhere in her deepest, secretest heart. I enslaved them. I did dark magic and permanently scarred thousands of ponies. Nightmare Moon might have killed more, but I might as well have.

Sunset never really doubted that these beings would be able to convince Celestia to let them travel into Equestria. So far as Sunset knew, her old mentor still believed what Clover had said about the Builders and their perfect civilization.

She was a little more surprised when the message came. "Equestria is at war," people shouted silently through the building, using the Technocratic Order's private intranet. "Every soldier will be mobilized. The king demands every able body be put into service." Sunset didn't get to learn anything beyond that, because she was immediately rushed into the basement to line up beside Jackie and wait for their time through the portal.

It was nothing like the Equestrian side. Massive machines filled the room with a constant whine. Energy arched over their head, sending uneven flashes of light through the room all around them. Dozens of soldiers lined up in front of them in perfect rows, wearing old armor and carrying old weapons. In front and beyond them were old war machines, relics from what the Tower called "The Great War."

You think they're telling the truth? Jackie messaged her, as they moved slowly forward in line among so many others. Was Equestria really invaded, or is that just a front to justify the war? Wouldn't be the first time...

It's probably real, Sunset admitted. I came here knowing it was only a matter of time. Equestria looked so weak to our neighbors, so rich... you can't just dissolve the army and expect nothing to happen forever. Not when you've got dragons as neighbors. Technocrats were probably listening in on what should've been their private conversation. Sunset found it difficult to care—whatever she could say wouldn't be made worse if this really was a front. They were already bringing their weapons to Equestria. And if it is a front, I'm probably the one who made them realize how vulnerable we were...

Jackie didn't notice her discomfort, which made sense considering Sunset was hiding all visual sign of it. Are you telling me that dragons were real? Is it all real where you come from? Witches and wizards and other gay shit?

Aren't you gay? Sunset asked, confused. There are gay ponies. I don't know what that would have to do with sh—

Jackie shoved her hard with one leg, hard enough that Sunset very nearly lost her footing and tumbled into the scholars all around her. You spend all this time living with us, and you still need a lesson in context.

Sunset sighed, but she didn't object. After everything Jackie had suffered around her, Sunset had a hard time with the idea of correcting her on anything.

Eventually it was their turn, and they came to the front of the line. Sunset found herself again staring at her reflection in the mirrored surface of a portal. She held up one hand, flexing its fingers in the reflection.

In some ways, she supposed she had accomplished her goal. She hadn't learned to be a princess from the Builders, but she was immortal, and she had brought help.

I just hope Equestria survives my mistake.

Chapter 1: Entry Node

Sunset paced through her room for the thousandth time, eying everything she had prepared. It looked as though someone had accidentally let a small tornado into the cramped space—the contents of every drawer and every shelf had been dumped onto the ground, so thick she couldn’t see the carpet.

Being Celestia’s personal apprentice could have brought luxury, if Sunset Shimmer was another kind of pony. But Sunset wasn’t the sort of pony who had taken the position on political appointment. Sunset Shimmer was a doer.

Though the rest of her room was in chaos, the bed had been tightly made and cleared of everything but the tools she would bring. Several densely-packed scrolls of spells she had copied, a fresh pad of paper and ink. Most expensive of all: a camera and a dense roll of film. The camera weighed nearly fifteen pounds and would take up half her saddlebags.

Taking drawings and notes simply wouldn’t do, not where she was going. It’s been over a thousand years since anypony has had this opportunity, she thought. And I won’t be pressed for time like Cover.

Princess Celestia wouldn’t do what was necessary to keep Equestria safe. Well an immortal Alicorn might be content to sit back and wait for the inevitability of fate to roll over everyone and everything Sunset Shimmer loved, but her apprentice was another matter. Sunset would stop the tide.

It was early in the morning by the time Sunset slunk out of her room, shutting the door with a soft click. Even so she held still outside, wrapped in a thick brown cloak. She heard nothing—no guards, no sign of Celestia watching her. Maybe she could do this.

Sunset Shimmer had already memorized the map, so there was no wasting time getting lost in Canterlot’s labyrinthine tunnels. Her destination was well hidden, but that didn’t matter. Sunset was Celestia’s personal apprentice, there was nowhere she couldn’t see, nothing she couldn’t know.

Well, there was one thing.

Once she made it to the second level of the basement, lower even than the dungeons that saw no more visit than the occasional school trip from the city far above, Sunset broke into a canter. The castle’s guards would have no reason to be patrolling so far away from anything important. There were no riches down here to steal, no important ponies to hurt in their sleep, nothing but the old armory with its rotting weapons and endless rooms filled with stored food.

The route down to the crypt was protected by a thick stone door, covered so thick with dust that she had to puff on the puzzle of runes in order to make them out. Sunset recognized the solution at once—the door wanted a simple mathematical concept central to magic to be spelled out in ancient Equestrian. So she tapped the symbols in that order, smiling smugly to herself. The door began to sink into the floor, rumbling and grinding against the stone.

Here it was dark, no trace of the brand new electric lights of the top levels or the glowing crystal of those further down. Sunset lit her horn, then continued onto ancient stone floors caked with dust. Her steps echoed here, reverberating strangely in the cramped space. She slowed, concentrating on a new spell, and with a flash the sound around her became muffled. She could canter again without producing a racket for any of the night’s janitors to hear echoing from the depths.

Eventually she reached her destination, a wooden doorway with hinges so rusted they crumbled away as she touched them. Even so, the writing on the door was quite legible. “Clover the Clever, Private Workspace. Do Not Disturb.”

Celestia never gets rid of anything, Sunset thought to herself, appreciating the ancient woodwork. Every generation she just builds the castle taller, and all the old places get lost underground. I wonder if Canterlot is even built on a mountain.

That mystery would have to wait for another day.

Clover’s old laboratory was a treasure of ancient Equestrian science. Gas burners still rested on their stands, trays of chemicals sat still sorted according to the ancient families of air, water, fire, and earth. Motheaten shelves slumped under the immense weight of tomes bound in something that smelled almost like flesh.

Her target sat at the far end of the room, covered with a cloth and propped against a stone wall. Sunset paused as she made her way across, lifting a faint glowstone from her pack and setting it down on a sturdy table. She walked straight up to the thickly covered artifact. The cloth didn’t lift up and off under her magical grip so much as crumble to ash and carbon, fluttering down to the ground to land in a pile.

In front of her stood Starswirl’s Metastable Spatial Claudication, a masterpiece of ancient engineering. It had been made into the shape of a glass mirror, rimmed with dark metal that looked like a horseshoe. Exactly eleven enchanted crystals rimmed the outside, each one still glowing with their own internal light.

As she got closer, she watched the pile of dust and torn cloth be drawn up into the air in front of the portal, as though it were the drain at the bottom of the tub. Air flowed past her, swirling around and around, outlined in ash and debris as they trickled through what looked like glass.

Sunset’s unicorn senses were not fooled. Just because the mirror looked like glass didn’t mean there was any glass involved.

“So, it has come to this,” said a voice from behind her, slow and sad.

Sunset jumped, nearly tumbling forward through the portal. She stopped a few feet away, and several hairs of her mane began to drag towards it. She could feel the pull of gravity dragging her sideways. She turned slowly, deliberately, as though she’d been expecting interruption.

Princess Celestia looked weary, her mane disheveled, and there were bags under her eyes. Celestia always seemed sad at night, for reasons she would never say.

Sunset Shimmer found she no longer cared. “Yes, Princess.” Sunset looked right up into Celestia’s eyes. Where she found the courage to defy the one who ordered Equestria itself, the one whose will set the sun in its march and ended day with night, she couldn’t say. Maybe it came through the portal, sent by the supernal beings who lived there. “Somepony has to act to protect Equestria. If you won’t help me…”

“Sunset,” Celestia reached out with one hoof, as though to pull her into an embrace. “You know it isn’t that simple. I tried to explain—”

Sunset pulled away, backing towards the portal. Her tail lifted from behind her, drawn towards the portal. She ignored it—it wasn’t pulling her in. “No! You explained, Princess, but all I heard were excuses. You say that isn’t how it works, you say I’m not ready to know what you know… to be what you are… but you don’t have a choice anymore! You’ve known what was on that scroll for centuries, and what have you done about it? Old weapons rotting away in a castle that nobody remembers how to use. You’ve betrayed us, Princess.”

Celestia reacted as though she’d been struck, eyes wide and watery with shock.

“Look around you, Princess! Equestria’s complacent! How much has changed in the last ten years? The last fifty? We know what’s coming, and we don’t do a damn thing!”

“We can’t,” Celestia finally said, her voice weak. “Sunset, I’ve done more than you know. If you would—”

“I won’t!” Sunset was shouting now, louder than she’d ever dared talk to the princess. This pony had the power to burn her whole body to ash in seconds, the power to kill even the mighty dragons. But that didn’t matter—even a princess was vulnerable to the truth. “Princess, I’m not going to let that prophecy come true! Knowing the future means we can change it.”

Was that a tear trickling down Celestia’s face? “Sunset… I’ve lived long enough to watch ponies I love destroy themselves in search of power.” she looked up, as though she could see through the ceiling to the sky far above. Her voice broke, and the monarch of all creation whimpered like a frightened child. “I’ve done everything I could to teach you. Don’t be like her!”

Sunset backed towards the portal, letting it swallow her tail completely. She was not dragged inside, as she’d expected. The pressure was gentle, and not painful. She could easily pull back if she wanted to. She had no intention of retreating.

She jumped. The last thing Sunset saw was Celestia reaching for her, tears streaming from her eyes. Then, nothing.

* * *

Sunset dragged herself through the void. Whatever she had been expecting from the inside of a rift, it wasn’t this. Maybe there would’ve been some swirling lights, or maybe an overwhelming flash of magic that would knock her unconscious. But if any of that had happened, she hadn’t noticed it.

Sunset Shimmer stood in a blasted gray waste, with soil blackened and charred and no trace of living plants. There were occasional bits of twisted metal on the ground around her, and a harsh wind seemed to always blow in her face, pushing her back.

Worse than any of that, was the missing magic. Sunset Shimmer could not sense even a flicker of magic from around her. All the power in the world seemed concentrated in her own body and the enchanted objects she’d carried—precious little.

“Sooner… I get through this…” she mumbled, and the words came slurred. Sunset found she couldn’t focus on anything that was more than a few feet away from her. Couldn’t move too quickly or else fall over under the disorientation. Couldn’t think of anything more than her immediate needs. Maybe there was enough latent magic in her body to fuel a single spell. But what could she do?

Clover the Clever’s magic had to be working! The ancient masters did not fail. In some ways, Clover’s impact on spellcraft was even greater than Starswirl’s.

Was Celestia afraid of what I would become? Sunset found herself thinking, as the world started to spin. Could she have changed the spell so the portal would never let me out? Am I… trapped here?

Sunset stopped walking, falling to her belly on the sandy ground. To her surprise, she found red spreading out from around the place where she’d fallen, and the ground felt almost warm under her touch.

Maybe… I can rest here… Sunset looked up, searching for the sun. She found it far away, a distant flame tracking slowly across the sky. Damn you Celestia… I only wanted to help…

Time passed in a blur. Sunset drifted in and out of consciousness. With every successive vision, she found she remained awake for shorter and shorter. Each image brought more pain, more sickness. She lay in the dirt without moving in a pool of her own vomit and blood, waiting for the portal spell to end.

Eventually she saw movement. Thin, graceful limbs, strong arms lifting her up. They placed her on something, and her whole body screamed in protest at the pain. They muttered words in hushed voices, words she couldn’t understand. She moved.

Sunset couldn’t see anymore, not more than a faint, dark circle. I’m dying, she thought, and by then all the bitterness at Celestia was gone. She was trying to save me.

Sunset looked up at the sky as she was moved on the back of a sled. She saw towering structures, stretching far out of sight. There were machines of a complexity she couldn’t understand. Flat faces without fur, voices of panic and urgency.

Then nothing.

Chapter 12: Coordination

“I want out,” Jackie said flatly. “We all do. But just because we want what you’re offering doesn’t mean it’s possible. I want you to explain exactly what you plan on doing. I’ll tell you if it’s feasible. Then.” She pointed back at Bree. “She’ll promise to shut her damn mouth, and you’ll change her back. Got it?”

Sunset hesitated a moment, considering. Then she nodded. “If she wants to, sure. I’ll agree.” There was little chance of that, at least if what she thought she’d learned about Bree was true. Forks could be intelligent, but they were not independent. There was very little chance the fork would bother even asking to be changed back.

"Fine." Jackie made her way back to the table, staring down at it. "First, I want you to be honest. This whole thing isn't some... kind of loyalty test, is it? Changing a whole shard like this, doesn't seem like something a newbie would be able to do. Particularly if you're really from... Equestria?"

"It isn't a trap,” she said. “But there's no way to prove that. You'll just have to trust me."

She clearly didn't like the sound of that, frowning down at the glass. "Alright."

Sunset took a deep breath. "So, I know you're an expert at getting places you're not supposed to go. I want to know exactly what it would take to escape the Infinite Realm. I realize it's a simulation... I want to find where the simulation ends, and free ourselves into the world outside. You said it was only Knights and Scholars who found their way out, so there is a way. How would we use it, if we didn't want to depend on them to freely release us?"

Jackie gestured into the holospace, forming a large rectangular object there in the projection. It looked complex, with many interlocking parts. Molten metal and plastic flowed into it from all sides, and a person emerged from the end, naked and still molten. Then they sat up. "That's a fabricator. There used to be thousands of them... before they ended the fucking world, you could buy them for your house. I don't know how many the Tower has, but I know they'll be on Interlinked Shards—shards running on hardware outside of the central mainframe. Very few network connections in, so that they can be carefully monitored." A little glowing diamond appeared in the air, hovering over the fabricator.

Sunset stared down at the little projection. "We find our way here, then we use the fabricator to escape."

"Well... not easily." Jackie stared down with intense concentration on her face, and the rest of the holofield was populated. A Tower appeared, so wide at the base that it didn't fit on the table. The fabricator was situated deep within its basement, protected by locked doors, turrets, and guards. "I don't actually know what's there. But I've thought about what it would take to escape, if I could cut my way into a Fab. I... might be able to. I've been holding onto a Knight's sword. But once we're on the outside..." She sighed. "We'll be in the Tower, I know it's in the building somewhere. We have to get out, and even if we could, there's nowhere to go."

"There is somewhere," Sunset said. "I brought a spell with me that could be used to return to Equestria. All we would have to do is find wherever they put it, and we could cast it. Flee back to my country, where it would be safe."

"A spell," Jackie muttered, her eyebrows going up. "Maybe we shouldn't base our whole plan on something so stupid. Because if we really did get out there, and they caught us... I don't even know what the king would do. If we're lucky, he'd just shoot us and be done. If not..." She shivered. "Remember hell myths? Richard can torture us forever if he wants to. I don't buy the propaganda about how kind and longsuffering he is, so I wouldn't put it past him. We could be swimming all the way up shit creek."

Sunset tapped lightly on the edge of her crown, removing a little glowing crystal from the empty air beside her and holding it out for Jackie to see. "Would you like to see the proof yourself? I have some of my memories of Equestria here. The highlights, when I was training under Princess Celestia. Would that convince you I was telling the truth?"

"Maybe." Jackie held out one hand, but not all the way. Not far enough to take the crystal. "It would be interesting, but... anything could be built in a shard. If you wanted it to be proof, I'd have to get a chance to search the directory when we're done." Which meant she could report Sunset, if she really wanted. Sunset's security programs would have to be turned off, or else her friend might be struck down while performing the search.

"Fine," Sunset groaned. "But don't tell anyone else about this. I want your help, not anyone else's. Nobody else is invited."

Jackie took the crystal in two fingers, and the little object started to glow. Her eyes glazed over, and she stared out at nothing for several long moments. Then she dropped the crystal, her mouth hanging open. "Y-you... you're really an alien. Not from the colonies, not from the Federation..."

Sunset gestured, and the little crystal levitated in the air, returning to her and vanishing. "That's right. Do you still want to check the index?"

"Just to be sure," Jackie muttered. "I should check." She lifted her arm and scrolled around on the screen.

Sunset disabled her defenses, trusting her friend's honesty. She had to trust someone. A few moments later and Jackie's face only got more shocked as she stared at Sunset, then across the room at where Bree was still lying, as submissive and blank as any of the others in the shard. Only: she wouldn't offer Sunset any processing resources. Whoever she belonged to was on the outside—if Sunset started charging her credits, she'd surely notice something was wrong, and come to discover who was robbing her. Or worse, call the authorities. Sunset couldn't take that chance.

"So, now that you're sure," Sunset said, turning back to the table. "We need to find the location of where my possessions were taken when I was brought here. Can you do that? Then... join me in the battle to take the Interlinked Shard. I am experienced with monarchs, as you saw. In their own domain, they consider themselves invincible. I am guessing this Richard will be similar—he will have his defenses guarding the borders, and be unprepared for an attack from within. We may be able to seize the shard without much of a fight. And if we have to fight..."

She led the way towards the massive window again, where it was overlooking the castle grounds. "I can bring the intellect of tens of thousands of ponies. We will have soldiers so numerous they won't be able to stop us." She held up the crown for Jackie to see, though she didn't offer it to her. However much Sunset might trust her, that trust didn't go far enough to just hand over all her power. She had no illusions about being able to retain control of her kingdom if the tools she made to protect it fell into another's hooves.

Jackie was silent for a long time. "I'm not sure, Sunny. This is... big. I've never feared big before—these Tower assholes already took my future away from me. Their damn war probably killed my family, but I'll never even know because I won't be able to get out and find them. I'm not hesitating because of loyalty to them. Your alien... pony... aliens... they seem alright to me. Maybe that's a way we can escape, I'm not saying it isn't. I've seen faked memories before, and those weren't fake. But... if we get caught doing this... I'm not sure I want to put myself on the king's judgement."

Jackie extended one hand, muttering under her breath. The air there began to shimmer, until after a moment an object condensed there. It looked like a sword, not unlike the ones the humans had been using for play-fighting in their imaginary war. Only this object was also different—it looked more real somehow, a focus of force and intent just like the crown that Sunset was wearing. Without having ever seen one, she recognized it as the sword of a knight. "If you want my help, you have to promise me something." She lifted the sword, blade pointed inward at her own neck. "If we get caught... if this doesn't work... you don't let me get captured. No matter what. I'm ready to fuck off this world either way. We can escape one way, or... I'll find another way out."

"If we fail to take the shard, I don't think that will do any good," Sunset said. "I saw that battle you were having in the other shard. Even if I swing that—"

"It will." Jackie let go of the weapon. It didn't fall to the ground, but vanished completely. Not even the Element would let Sunset see it. "The knights have admin authority, Sunny. They can delete anything. Even a mind. So let me ask you again: do you promise not to let them capture me?"

"Yes," Sunset said. "I promise. I don't plan on losing, so I don't think it should be an issue anyway." She gestured, and with her whim Twilight reappeared, bowing politely just as Bree was still doing. Only Twilight seemed to be growing more and more intelligent by the moment, and Bree hadn't even tried to move.

"Yes, Princess?"

"Oh hey, you left another one human!"

"A few," Sunset said. "Where it made sense. Twilight here helps coordinate the resources of the school. I've discovered that the administrators have us completely isolated from other shards—probably on our own... reality-making machine. I don't know that for sure of course, but... I do know that we can use all the power it has without anyone trying to stop me. All those credits are ours, to compute what we want. Even forks can figure things out if you give them enough time."

"We can, Princess." Twilight lowered her head politely. "We have completed designs for 'protecting' a pony body as you proposed."

"Good." Sunset grinned. "I can look at what you've come up with in a minute. Will it work with a fabricator?" She pointed at the projection, where Jackie had drawn it. "That's how we get out."

"Absolutely," Twilight said. She extended a hand, holding a little glowing crystal between her fingers. "We already knew the fabricator would be our method of egress from the Infinite Realm, so we designed ourselves accordingly. I think you'll be pleased."

Sunset took the crystal, accessing the memories it contained. Most of what she saw didn't make sense to her—she hadn't taken any classes on how electronics worked, or on the fundamentals of fabrication and design. Yet she could clearly tell the pony bodies for what they were, apparently wearing plastic armor. She didn't look for long—she didn't really have a way of judging whether it could really do what Twilight claimed, or the time to find out. "Excellent work." She turned back to Jackie. "It might take me a few weeks of subjective time to prepare for war. Can you find out where they're storing my possessions in that much time?"

"Yeah," Jackie said, grinning. She'd spent much of this meeting with her face moving from disgust to confusion and back again, but finally some of her old self seemed to be returning. "I think I can handle that. Just put Bree back to normal while I'm gone, alright? I'm sure she was convinced by that whole thing. Bree... always goes along with whatever we're doing, really."

Jackie didn't wait for a response, conjuring a portal of her own and vanishing into the air a few feet away.

I trust her, Sunset thought to herself, over and over. She's going to help, I know she is. I trust her.