Aftersound

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Written by: Oneimare & Geka

Preread and edited by: Jay Tarrant, IAmApe, mikemeiers

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Twilight Sparkle

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The Tunnels readily greeted me with near darkness and overwhelming foetor even before I reached the final steps of the rusty staircase opening into a narrow passageway connected to a spacious duct.

Canterlot’s underground seemed to be absolved of any law and order or, at least, of that imposed by the police force. I still hastened my trot just in case my pursuers decided to exercise atypical persistence. Nor did I hesitate as the main tunnel opened before me—picking a direction at random, I headed left.

The subterranean decadence dwindled in its intensity closer to the centre of the city, but barely. No more sickly ponies lay on the grated floor with those who had lost the battle to illness or met their terrible demise some other way. Devices of decent condition prevailed amongst the traded goods and even the chemical substances appeared to be of a higher quality.

The ponies and equinoids barely paid me any attention—short curious glances at most, since now I mingled into the masses as an average equinoid with a frame in slightly too good condition.

Whilst the Edge presented itself as a foolproof destination, me having no idea in which direction it even was compromised that goal. And my experiences relying on help from locals had proven themselves as an endeavour of abysmal success.

However, a possible solution to my plight presented itself at some point in my semi-aimless wandering.

A translucent section of a circle appeared in the corner of my vision, followed by the words, ‘A new network has been found. Connect to it now?’

My first thought suggested it being just one of the local dwellers’ projections invading my vision, but the tiny pictogram dutifully remained as my head and eyes moved.

Finding cover at the nearest shadow-blighted recession, I diverted my full attention to it. My inquiries about the servers at the Royal Archives hinted at this ‘network’ possibly having some sort of connection to the distant vaults of data.

Yet, any attempts to focus on the little image proved to be futile as it almost mockingly clung to the corner of my vision. How was I supposed to interact with such a thing?

As a part of my body, I should be able to control it, no different from my limbs.

And since my being was but a confluence of metal and magic… Did I need to cast some sort of spell?

Networksitis Connectia?

No. My mind was magic itself.

For the first time in ever, I wondered—who had created equinoids and why? The Coven had used crystal revenants during the war—the closest to the concept of artificial life from my knowledge; though, those abominations had little in common with living beings.

It had to be a mage of unprecedented ingenuity and arcane skill.

Curious as to who that might be, I had my own theory to test.

I focused my consciousness on that image of a quarter circle with words, and to my immense joy, it flashed expanding into a series of lines.

> connecting to ‘free equinet’...

> connected...

> signal strength: good

> security: none

Nothing else happened and I was left staring in space as my mind tried to come up with what to make of that connection.

I cleared my thoughts until only a single word remained, “Search.”

A box titled ‘Equi-net: BackRub search engine’ obscured the view of the tunnel.

“Map.”

A list of entries filled the box, expanding to fill my entire vision.

Each offered to ‘download’ a chart of the city, accompanied with short descriptions of its merits—being up to date, having more levels of the Tunnels than any other, or just being fully interactive. The one with ‘includes the Edge sectors’ caught my attention.

Concentrating on the entry ‘opened’ another box which instantly exploded into animated adverts of a pornographic nature, claiming every space available.

My hooves backpedalled on reflex, but then I noticed a large button with ‘Download’ amidst the chaos of indecency.

It brought up a message, ‘Do you want to save ‘autoinstaller_v3.14.exe’?’

Yes! Anything, just make it all go away!

To my immense relief, the squalid reality of the underground returned.

“Autoinstaller_v3.14.exe.”

Instead of the map, a notice inquired of me if I wanted to run the file.

I readily agreed, yet nothing seemed to happen.

My vision swam, colours twisting and distorting.

The walls and equines around me became defragmented, merging into each other, fading to grey and white or flaring with outlines or acidic red, blue and green.

Buzzing sounds permeated my hearing—words whispered and screamed too fast to discern; jagged synthetic noises; dissonant notes.

My knees buckled under me.

I turned my head at the sudden movement in the corner of my eye.

Spike.

> she says the universe is a hallucination she says it is a field enfolded she says she has been captured by a city of ruined children she says these spaces are eating her savage joys she says dreams drip away revealing the indistinct

“What’s that for?” I asked him as the dragon waddled up the stairs.

For some reason, he’d impaled a red and gold box onto his tail.

“Well, it was a gift for Moon Dancer.”

A stuffed toy fell from it, ruined too.

“But…” he finished lamely.

“Oh, Spike, you know we don’t have time for that sort of thing.”

“No. No. No!” I muttered in irritation each time my magic failed to whisk ‘Predictions and Prophecies’ from the shelves.

The Elements of Harmony—the only thing that could thwart the disaster.

They were supposed to defeat any foe.

> the need for optimum integration to use the organic entity that I am caught in a pulse of wet media I like to be what I am an architecture to serve agencies living flesh with an inside and an outside bare speeding through virtual fever an error has been detected in our consciousness all her bio-ports scream long dark strings of unnamed code

“No! No. No...” I muttered as black tears streamed down Cadence’s face.

Something was amiss, I lacked the knowledge. If only She was alive…

Utterly terrified we huddled together on the crystal floor behind my sister-in-law and before the sea of vile living shadows.

Only Cadence’s shield spell prevented the obsidian tide from crashing upon us. Yet her knees shook, her sweat mixed with blood, and cracks crept across the shimmer of the magic barrier.

Then she began to scream.

A howl of anguish, my friends echoing it with whimpers, until I realized that she was trying to yell, “Run”.

I would rather take Cadence’s place than leave her there.

But, the backlash from the Elements had left us weakened, and I doubted I could do anything even if that hadn’t happened.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t my call to make.

> equinoid of the nightmare that impossible to the output gene that body gets an angry virus we of the grief who were perceived and went to war with the brain of the picture that was disillusioned and controls the body of an artificial to direct; it respires with a foolish plug sun of artificial depressing that has jointed our existence to be analyzed

Shining Armor could as well have hit me instead of giving me that look—the pain, the fury… the betrayal. Everypony and Spike stared at him with teary eyes, waiting either for a miracle or a horrible decision. Yet, his burning gaze bored into me until the soldier in him finally took control.

He leapt to Cadence, stopping a mere hoof-length short to not disrupt the magic; she met his outstretched hoof with her shaking wing.

“We will return, I promise,” he whispered loud enough to be heard over the roar of the magic duel. He then bellowed into the darkness, to the purple and green eyes in the heart of it, “I will return!”

Then we ran.

> resembling the body called flesh search for beauty without features stay on the path till you arrive be speechless no write no reason all sewn up and no place to go the city of ruined children

My blind gallop carried me through the dark-blighted corridors, it bumped me into the shadows inhabiting them.

Crystal halls mingled with corroded tunnels. Corpses of those who had fallen to the dark magic joined the carcasses of those who had fallen to the plights of the underground. Cursed black blood seeped onto rust.

The dark silhouettes oscillated with shadowy magic, unstable forms knit themselves from obsidian vapour; skeletal wraiths with burning eyes, striped giants muttering in a broken language—all pushed me away, kicked me, soundlessly yelled.

Down!

Down the stairs—away from the Crystal Palace, away from the underground!

> The monochrome of the artificial blood vessel masses of the flesh of the angel mechanism that transcends clone colts and fillies who suck the nude of the cyber be like the body fluid that electrolyzed it

Tittering, I climbed to my hooves from the ever-shifting floor.

In the blur of my vision, shadows danced—equine forms. They glowered at me, their blameful whispers snaking into my ears. Yet their numbers dwindled.

Had the mad dragon spooked them away?

“Spike!” I called.

I needed that book, I needed to warn them all… to fix my mistakes…

> How can you pretend to resemble the body called flesh in this shattered universe? Don’t you see that the segments adrift in the network are injuring your sensible skin? Don’t you see you have NO FUTURE NON HAI FUTURO; THE PAST slowly kills us the shadow of a hirsute code—the first mare goddess is coming from the nights of time, she is following us through a line of blood there is no escape function the modem is burning how can you pretend to resemble the body called flesh in this shattered universe?

An attempt to take a step brought me to the floor, reddish dust billowing up around me. Every dark mote glistened, becoming a speck of blood. Crimson rained—deathly tears of all those who I had failed...

Supporting myself with a hoof against the nearest wall, I tried to rise again.

A huge and discoloured number ‘3’ loomed over me, painting on the stained concrete. It flickered and I stared at the blood smeared across the gleaming crystal surface.

Sombra—he was coming for us—I had to escape!

Bodies strewn everywhere on the crystal floor… Sombra killed them all… so much blood—everything running red.

Rust claimed Equestria, our land ashed.

My limbs, just as crimson, dripped with the blood of the countless ponies I had let down.

> I escape the sensitive body of vision you in the world that has done junk from the blue machine of that sky is stored and see that dives into the tragic reproduction nature of the clone colts and fillies that of our vital chromium

My hoof caught on something.

I looked and shrieked in horror—my internal organs!

In a panic, I began to grab them from the crystal floor, but my limbs went through them… my hooves dissolved into flakes of rust. The light flickered… it wasn’t my intestines, but cables sparking and tubes leaking oil onto the dirty rusty floor.

Yet my stomach stood intact, the metal plates evenly aligned to each other.

I kept rushing through the arched passages of the Crystal Palace, taking turns into the rusted tunnels until the concrete dirty floor hadn’t changed for some time.

Was it over? Could it ever be over?

Two lamps struggled to illuminate an empty narrow tunnel, one of them blinking spasmodically. Underneath its convulsing light somepony stood; yet the next time the radiance disappeared, the figure vanished along with it. It flashed again and the blurry silhouette returned.

I took a step back—the pony followed, their hooves shuffling heavily with a screech of metal.

My other attempt to retreat brought them into the spotlight of the other lamp.

A full-body bulky metal armour, twisted and burned, the eerie glow filtering through the tears and cracks. Charred flesh and the exposed yellow ribs in a gash on the side; a torn gap on the back, showing blackened vertebrae, gleaming with the same pulsing baleful purple light.

Agonisingly slowly the pony removed the conical battered helmet to reveal a discoloured face marred by scars and a dark webwork of black veins, patches of necrosis. The fire rendered it furless and had almost eaten away the polychromatic mane.

Two empty eye sockets stared at me.

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash rasped, “why did you kill me?”

> I became a horse, if you look straight in my eyes you can see that I have got the eyes of a horse, gaze at me. You do not look like a horse. Yes, look at me, can you see my eyes? Yes, it’s real, your eyes are transforming, they are big purple deep. You are pale, much paler than I remember. I understand that you look like a horse, but I cannot see what the problem is. Do you understand what the problem is? No, I don’t understand

“Wow!” Rainbow Dash said from somewhere in front of me. As always, she was the first to escape the confines of the cart. “What’s with all the guards?”

“I’m sure they are just taking the necessary precautions,” Rarity spoke from her side instead of letting me out. “Royal weddings do bring out the strangest ponies.”

And then Pinkie decided to stop at the entrance and sneeze confetti…

Finally, I could get out of the train.

“Well, let’s get going, we’ve got work to do,” Rarity chirped, trotting ahead;

Rainbow, Pinkie and Fluttershy followed her. As most familiar with Canterlot, the fashionista took the mantle of a guide. Only Applejack patiently waited for me.

“And you’ve got a big brother to go congratulate,” she said enthusiastically.

“Yeah, congratulate.” I gritted my teeth as I passed betwixt two guards. “And then give him a piece of my mind.”

The solitude of Canterlot streets soothed my chagrin—I loved my friends dearly but right now their support and sympathy felt like salt on a wound.

> she says that she no longer knows herself she speaks of butterfly wings crushed by a creature with no smell she says that a devastating glance has rendered her invisible she says that they have stolen her silence leaving her only with useless words she says that now there is nothing left except emptiness

However, only the statues of guards constituted the populace of the usually lively alleys. No music of alfresco cafes, no din and chatter of the city breathing. Even the colours seemed to be toned down. Not a single decoration betrayed the grand event.

Had they decided to have a military wedding?

The palace halls, always crowded with a vast variety of personnel and nobles, met me with emptiness and silence.

Nearing the great doors of the throne room, I finally noticed somepony in an adjacent passage—a shadow and the clop of metal-clad hooves on the marble floor.

Even when I reached a gallop, the shadow’s owner remained out of my sight.

> coma life trawls drearily towards the inevitable while new forms arise from the ash of future’s memory building their skins, sewing and patching, tweaking and stretching pushing beyond what many from the comfort zones have drowned in

The cold stone corridor opened up to a wide expanse of open sky and green garden. A small congregation of ponies in its heart seemed to be busy with wedding preparations.

Yet, the impression faded as I got closer to them.

They stood still, frozen even, their expressions sombre—palace stuff, guards and nobles, even my friends in the front row.

Before I managed to make it to them through the gathering, I witnessed it.

A casket.

An ornate, beautiful coffin set at a respectful distance from the rows of ponies—all their eyes, wet with tears, glued to it.

Princess Celestia lay there, so peaceful and serene, as if merely asleep.

> if ((light eq dark) && (dark eq light) && ($blaze_of_day{sun} == holy_light) && ($alabaster_wing{bright} == $tin{bright})){ my $LOVE = $YOU = $cos{dawn} + 1; };

Her mane didn’t flow anymore, the still strands braided with flowers. The vibrant, and yet soft at the same time, colours of the dawn had faded. Even Her pristine coat dimmed—the sunlight shining through the immaculate white, had set.

I galloped to my friends, pushing ponies from my path. Not a single complaint, nopony paid me any attention. Despite the tears streaking every face, not a single sob could be heard.

Rarity gingerly held Spike’s shoulder as he just stared ahead; Applejack clasped her hat in her hooves; Pinkie Pie glared at the ground, her mane straight; Fluttershy and Rainbow supported each other; I muttered under my breath, my eyes bloodshot and hollow.

What?

I slumped amongst my friends, my face matted from endless rivulets of salt and sorrow, mane messed from many long sleepless nights.

But if I stood there, who was I?

> WHO AM I WHAT AM I WHERE AM I WHEN AM I

I glanced at myself—limbs of metal, damaged and rusted. Black oil dripped on the lush green grass below.

My eyes returned to the coffin, but it was empty.

She stood right behind me, a few lengths away, a grand form against the crimson red sunset.

White fur stained with soot and speckled with fresh blood. A horn, blackened and cracked. Mane and wings hanging limply. And those eyes, those beautiful eyes. There was no disappointment, no blame in them, just sadness, endless like Her beauty.

“Twilight,” Princess Celestia whispered sorrowfully, “why did you let her kill me?”

> she says the stars are slowly disappearing light becoming dark she says it is only here that she can exist she says she is running blindfolded towards the ever brightful she says there is no beginning but a circle containing a gap for the unexpected to enter she says here there are intensities which she cannot begin to understand she says to her all things are less than zero

When did it happen?

Yesterday. It would always be yesterday.

Aeons might pass, but every time I woke up, every time I closed my eyes, it would have happened yesterday. A poison green ray of magic striking Her down.

The last sunset with which the world ended—no night, no dreams, no nightmares. And no day after.

Just nothing.

The world without Her had no point, even existence became a burden too heavy to bear. They told me not to do it. “Do it for Spike,” Rarity said, I remembered.

Spike... I needed something from him. A book?

> a scream, yes, a scream she says that it was a night of intensities and she did not plan for it she says she believes in nothing less than everything she says that theirs is not a mathematical

I wanted to ask him, but Applejack drew my attention.

“Thank you kindly, Twilight, for helping me out.” She nodded, her voice laden with gratitude.

We trotted to Sweet Apple Acres, baskets filled with apples on our backs.

She finished with a guffaw, “I bet Big Macintosh I could get all these Golden Delicious in the barn by lunchtime. If I win, he’s gonna walk down Stirrup Street in one of Granny’s girdles.”

“No problem at all, Applejack, but I’m glad the goal is lunchtime.” Saliva gathered in my mouth from the thick aroma of freshly picked apples. “All this hard work is making me hungry.”

“I know, right?” Spike chimed in from my back; an apple, carelessly thrown by him, hit my head.

Momentarily I swirled my head around to deeply frown at his antics.

> shadows of tender fury the passing of the dead shelters those who have nothing those who bear the historic burden of disdain and abandonment those who don’t exist

When I turned to AJ, a scowl of pure scorn met me.

“How could you, of all ponies, agree with her!” she yelled at me, desperately, on the verge of crying.

Rarity glanced at me with hurt and regret, yet she shook her head resolutely, if somberly.

“Listen, Applejack,” I carefully began.

We were at war, and she would have to understand that the hardest decisions required the strongest wills.

“I get what you’re saying, but…” my voice trailed; she blinked away a tear. “You are doing a great job. The Ponyville Farm Unity is invaluable to the war effort. But, the frontlines need more provisions, and not just them—the workers have to be fed, too. You must understand.”

“But Flim and Flam, Twilight!” AJ yelled at me, openly weeping. “Why them!?”

Because nopony else wanted to? Because nopony else could? Flim and Flam alone knew how to wrench more production than the soil could yield, how to make sacrifices.

It took me too long to come up with this answer.

Blistering rage faded from Applejack’s expression, ceding to utter defeat.

“Twilight, you…” Applejack sobbed. “You’ve doomed us all!”

> In the absence of voice I compile the words of his body, corner to corner: fold these papers into themselves. Each fold is a severing, a suture line of metonymy. Each fold is revealing, organs open and, convulsive, shut again. The final fold reveals broken mouth-skin, ragged vertical lines of hardened flesh and the relentless beating of exposed capillaries. It should be a triangle. The images blur, the paper breaks. Impress their ink on my skin. The chaos of unexpressed meanings held apart in relations of power. A processed language I cannot read.

Five.

A number on the wall, layers of paint peeling away, ceaselessly rejected in favour of rust.

What did it mean? My friends?

All gone now, even though we laughed together just a moment ago. I guess each of us had different goals set to achieve at the Grand Galloping Gala. I had mine too, but now, with Her being dead… Perhaps it held a friendship lesson to learn…

A tunnel, dimly lit, red smears marking the walls.

Had to be the palace dungeons. Why was I there?

Oh, I helped Fluttershy steal Philomena. And I killed Rainbow Dash—whoopsie.

A great friendship lesson—‘don’t kill your friends, it’s bad’! I needed to send a letter to Her, she would love it. Where was Spike, again? Probably reading his comics or eating one-eyed, moth-winged prostitutes.

I rose to my hooves and dusted myself. Well, it all was very lovely, but the library had to be organised or Thirteen would be so mad.

Trotting down the halls, I hummed, “Windigo wrap-up, windigo wrap-up...”

A door to a brightly lit room opened ahead.

Giddy on my hooves I quickly covered the distance, hopping over the strewn bodies.

They slept, though one of them had better visit a doctor—necks weren’t supposed to bend that way. And another had no head at all. How silly! You need it to eat and put your hat on, like Applejack.

> let them dress in the garb of war so their voice may be heard in the empire of silence that dances in the mountains in that climbing and falling of red stars breaking the mirrors of power moving into the elsewhere afterwards let their words fall silent and let them return to the night and the earth adrift in the network resembling the body called flesh are packets of soft recognition

Heads turned to me when I entered the vast chamber—my friends and a few of the elderly ponies. Others paid me no attention, my brother and Princess Luna amongst them, their eyes glued to the contents of a massive table.

“We all are glad you decided to come,” Rarity chirped with laboured joy.

The corners of her lips refused to rise. Even Pinkie would have trouble smiling in the Hall of War.

Shining Armor loomed over the ancient slab of basalt, glaring at the papers strewn upon its polished by countless hooves surface. Pieces of parchment surrounded huge maps of Equestria and the Crystal Empire, the latter recently sketched.

The heavy silence created by my arrival hadn’t lasted for long—a din of arguments returned at once, military officers proposing and objecting, agreeing and disagreeing.

Trying to tune in proved to be an exercise in futility; my friends, save for Rainbow Dash, had little success as well, judging by their forlorn expressions.

My brother culled the clamour, banging his hoof on the table.

“As I said, it is possible to infiltrate the Crystal Palace with a small strike force and save Princess Cadence—only if we act fast. The resistance from the civilians should give us an opening. But only if the strike force is supported by another to draw attention. Princess Luna will lead it.”

The Princess of the Night stood silent all that time, towering over the map ignoring it; her vacant expression pointed through the arrow-slit to someplace outside, beyond the visible reality.

“No,” she cut. “I’m taking a platoon of the Royal Guard and scouring the Badlands until the changeling threat is completely eliminated.”

One of the generals, either exceedingly foolish or incredibly brave, asked in a shaking voice, “But what about the Crystal Empire? What about…” his words trailed off as he glanced at Shining Armor.

“Do whatever you want,” she all but spat at the table, then stormed out of the room.

The chamber instantly became brighter, even though no clouds marred the sky on that day.

An uneasy silence hung in the air.

“What are we going to do now, my Prince?” another general asked.

My brother didn’t answer immediately.

“The operation can proceed without Her Majesty’s help,” he finally replied. “We’ll just use more soldiers.”

“But won’t that be a declaration of war?” inquired a young officer.

“We,”—Shining Armor looked at me for the first time since I had entered—“are already at war.”

> ...We gather our texts, our images, our code, and cover them with our laughter and bodies. The mass, consensual hallucination that we call society must be navigated. The labour of mare as the infrastructure of the networks becomes Manifest. We re-flesh the networks with our useless condition. We build counter hallucinations through the help of Operational Somatic Systems. Their flesh streams the net via broadcast media and web pages. Part of their unfolding drama belongs to connections drawn together betwixt each other to illustrate a bloated, informatic world drowning in electricity and telecommunication technologies...

Drip-drop.

Drip-drop.

Drip-drop.

The leak on the ceiling showered a corpse.

Rats and maggots did a great job of stripping it of any identity. Smelling red, it was of average size, and in the heap of bones, half-rotten and half-eaten flesh, I could see neither the remains of wings nor a horn protruding from the brown skull. They could still be there, in that delicious pile of treasure. A perfect specimen, nopony and everypony at once. It might even be a zebra. Even a young alicorn.

It could.

Even.

Be.

ME.

> resembling the body called flesh sticky segments set randomly adrift in the network gathering ghosts from the machine to illuminate an event horizon that breathes alone amongst other

I mean, I was dead, right?

I didn’t have a heart, I didn’t breathe. I didn’t even have flesh. What was I if not a dead pony? Ponies were either dead or alive—no betwixt. It was so simple, so beautiful, that I began to laugh.

> ...it is a question of deformation or association on a molecular level—we found that simple binary coding systems were enough to contain the entire image however they required a large amount of storage space until it was found that the binary information could be written at the molecular level—however, it was found that these information molecules were not dead matter but exhibited a capacity for life which is found elsewhere in the form of virus...

And if we both were dead, both without identity, we could just swap, nothing would change, on the physical level. And if I did it, then I would become that corpse, and if that corpse could be anypony...

I rose to my dead hooves, moved my dead body to that perfect carcass, grinning wildly.

What a day!

I could finally get salvation. I always knew it could be found only in death. Like redemption. Like absolution. I would become that nice fleshy worm chow and then I would really die and go to the Grand Galloping Gala!

“We will talk about death, and what I’ve learned and killed~

It is going to be so special~

Just Her and me~”

> You will not know who you are lying to, do you understand? Yes, I understand but for me this is not a problem. You do not want to embrace me. We will never embrace, it will never happen No, I do not understand and I am steeped in stagnant sunflowers.

I loomed over the rotting carcass, the maggots in their lascivious feast, unlike rats, remained unperturbed by my cackling shadow.

What was I supposed to do, again? How did one swap corpses?

A spell? Did I have to tear the glittering things out of me and sprinkle them over that sweet meat?

Should I ask the worms wriggling in pus to help me? But they looked so beautiful, so busy in their splendid craft of nothing.

> Observe YOURSELF. You are directly descended from the bilaterally symmetrical worm. Half embryo, half witch.

“Going to steal another body, aren’t you?” a voice called from my side.

It was… me! I stared at nothing but my old body, the one I had left slumped, lifeless, at the Archives... or had I?

Oh no.

She found me.

Rusted, damaged from my misadventures, wrapped in bloodied rags, it… she… bathed me in the crimson glow of her single malignant eye.

> Now they are one in front of the other, any more distance would break the contact, less distance would make them implode. Two forms point one on the other, they are staring at each other crossing the selves

The original, true Twilight Sparkle took a step towards me. I remembered—I was an imposter, a thief. I was dead because I never lived.

“Didn’t like it, did you?” She smirked. “Comes with a lot of burdens, I know. So much blood can’t be washed away with anything and machine oil can’t hide it either.”

“I… I d-didn’t... s-steal...”

Twilight dashed to me like lightning but stopped a mere breath away from my face. Oil dripped from the broken eye, the other shone like a star, cold and lifeless.

“I know you think you didn’t, except, well, you did.” Then she chuckled. “However, I have a better question…”

The machine circled me in a single fluid motion too fast to comprehend, materialising at my ear.

> this is a cry for new memory systems to address and build despite the lack of attention given to such building this tender pain that will always be hope such are the voices of the body called flesh

“You go around, stealing bodies, taking identities… So, what makes you better than… Queen Chrysalis?”

I fell, struck by that name.

> resembling the body called flesh segments that have been set into motion as trace, trace which stains, stains roaming new memory systems in search of a place to rest the storm is here the wind from below is coming time for a new reality

“You kill, you betray, you start wars. And now you steal identities.”

I thrashed on the floor in agony, charcoal black limbs poked with holes appearing in emerald flames before my eyes—my limbs.

Princess Luna should have killed her! Must have! If she was dead, I couldn’t be her.

...The corpse could be anypony...

NO! Cheated, deceived!

“I don’t want to be dead!” I wailed. “I’m not her!” I screamed. “I’M NOT DEAD!”

But Twilight only laughed.

“Then who are you?” she hissed in my ear.

> throughout weary transportation of transmissions with time so small it stitches itself through the imaginary framework as a voice revealing the thematics of our current ruin

I scrambled to my hooves and ran, but froze in my tracks. Right in front of me, Rainbow Dash sat, clad in the charred and broken armour, gazing at me lifelessly with empty eye sockets.

“Who are you?” she rasped with burned lips; the sound of leather against ashes.

Cadence blocked my way in another direction, crouched, bleeding. A film of ink obscured her eyes, black tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Who are you?” she whispered, whimpering from pain, shivering.

My brother at her side refused to lay his eyes on me, AJ on her other side had hers clouded by tears.

Again, I turned and a grand white form, covered in soot and blood, arose from the rust.

“Who are you?” She asked with all the beauty and sadness in the world.

> In a moment you become transparent and I embrace your framework, a red skeleton as radiography, I pass across yourselves and then the place comes tumbling down, I lose you betwixt the ruins, I do not see anything, not anything else

Murderer. Traitor. Failure.

Machine. Imposter. Dead.

> /me had thoughts uncoded by the sanctity of the network. The sanctity was profound but the rhythm was broken.

In the final direction, I waited for myself.

> system control regained...

> memory anchor connection re-established...

> memory anchor malfunction detected...

> initialising stabilising sequence...

> WARNING! Security threat detected...

> initialising purge sequence...

Who were we?

> “I was your resonance,” I remember one of us saying

We stood at the flying strip, a faint breeze playing with our mane. Through the clouds H… the Sun shone shyly. Ponies milled around us; Moon Dancer grumbled by our side; Rainbow stole impatient glances toward us.

“Stop running from yourself,” I whispered to myself.

> proceeding...

We glanced at the crystal clear azure sky, the noon Sun shining forth, bathing the orchards in gold. The aroma of freshly picked apples hung so thickly, it almost suffocated us.

“It’s not the mistakes that define you.”

> proceeding...

We sat in the palace gardens, ancient beautiful statues basking in the Sun and the branches of an oak tree swaying above our head. Cadence’s hoof removed a fallen leaf from the pages of a book we held open—‘Predictions and prophecies’—then gently closed it and tugged, inviting us to play.

“Accept yourself the way you are.”

> proceeding...

We lay huddled in the curve of Princess Celestia’s side, where we had spent all the night listening to her enchanting stories. Through the balcony door, the rising Sun bathed us in its incandescence.

“The tomorrow has come.”

The alicorn brushed a tear away from our cheek and we smiled.

> memory anchor stabilised...

> security threat eliminated...

> initialising reboot sequence...

Author's Note

Special thanks to Jay Tarrant.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this story so far.

If you notice any mistakes sneaked in through the editing, let me know.

Stay awesome.