Romance, Mortality, and Cyborgs

Celestia woke up from her bed, panting as her sweat enveloped her body, and began to stain the sheets.

Even after having this done many times, she still looked around the room, pleading to the Creator that the black mass still wasn't anywhere near her. Once her scan showed no sign of problems, she took her first full breaths in what felt like hours.

Replaying the events in her mind, the look of Rainbow's face of shock at how she had betrayed her little pony stayed in her mind, as the diarch of the sun began to cry into her pillow.

Another one of these horrid simulations. And I still failed my ponies. When will this madness end?!

For a few minutes, all Celestia wanted to do was just cry. The trials that she's had to endure just for this project, the words taxing and frustrating could only pale as understatements to her. But it was needed.

Celestia had learned that every time this happened, she needed to allow herself a few moments of relishing in her failure. Trying to stay strong each time only added to the mental cost.

She also learned that it needed to be documented.

Once the crying had subsided, and Celestia had let her emotions out enough to just feel empty inside, she tuned her magic to materialize a journal. It's simple brown and belt-buckle latch design did not betray a story of complications and immense losses suffered during the whole ordeal. As if she was a machine herself, devoid of any feeling but the instinct of having to do what must be done, she methodically flipped the pages of the journal, magically enchanted to always have paper whenever she needed.

The reports this journal holds could fill up an entire library. Perhaps Celestia should publish it to remind her ponies that she too, can suffer and fail just like them.

Shaking her head of such nonsense, she finally flipped to the next empty page, and with another materialization of a pen, she began to write.

Simulation 742-END:

Noted time passed: 9.3 months.

Total time passed: 149.7 months.

Notes: By luck, the signals that first emanated from the subject on Simulation 12 was finally translated into something we could understand. What the being wants from me is still indecipherable, but I now have a lead. PROJECT ANGEL. Is this the name of this being? A name for what it was doing? The name of the test it has been giving me for all this time?

Time, and/or more simulations will tell. At the very least, it is not a phrase that should be uttered towards it, as it instantly activates DELETION.

I lost fair Rainbow Dash to the DELETION. No doubt this current simulation has changed something about her to mess my leads yet again. If I were to hazard a guess, she has lost her aptitude for aviation physics and only relies on pure skill. Were it not for this journal, I could not ever have a weapon against this DELETION that haunts my every waking nightmare.

However, I shouldn't immediately block the experiment at first. Before DELETION occurred, the machine did activate. Somehow. Its eyes opened, and I swear on the Creator, it moved its eyes around.

It's still in there. She is still in there. And I swear on all of creation, she looked at me.

Ruminations: The name ANGEL itself has a sense of familiarity to me. As if I should hold a closer bond to it than my memory should serve. Whatever the case may be, I am now more afraid of the DELETION than ever. So many ponies were witness to it last simulation, most of all an element of harmony herself. I have no doubt the latent magic retention that holds over the simulation is going to leave all these ponies with nightmares. I do hope Luna won't mind a bit of overtime.

With that said, Simulation 742 has ended. Case: Failure. Progress: PROJECT ANGEL has been found.

As if the page knew it would end, the last letter she would write on 742 would be the last letter of the page, all the way down in the bottom right corner. She's seen this happen since 367, but she never bothered with figuring out where the perfectness of her writing came from.

Though she's sure the current project might have something to do with it.

She flipped the page over, her small smile beginning to form on her muzzle as she began to regain her feelings, still having a small bit of hope after learning the two-word phrase she feels that she desperately needed all this time.

Simulation 743–BEGIN:

My name is Celestia. I am the princess of the Sun, and one of two Diarchs of the country of Equestria.

I have been living through the last 12 years repeating the same few months. It began when a Canterlot expedition found a strange machine pony deep in the depths of the Crystal Caves. When I went to investigate it myself, some power of it was imbued into me, and over the years I've come to understand what and where this new power is.

This is what I am calling Simulation 743. It is not a timeline, as that would imply there was an inherent choice taken before that resulted in different consequences. Instead, this is a simulation, a created environment that analyzes and studies a collection of choices while adding or removing factors.

That might seem like a different definition of a timeline, but I know it is different because we are fighting it. This machine pony and I are fighting it. Whatever these simulations lead to, it will not end well for my ponies. And I intend to not let that happen.

Whenever a simulation wishes to end due to a failed test or the entity responsible for these simulations wants to stop me, it begins DELETION. When that happens, my only chance of survival to get to the next simulation is to stomp my right front hoof on the ground and will the fabric of reality to reset.

It's surprisingly easy, admittedly.

This journal is to chronicle my advancements in understanding how to combat the problem, to break through the deletions as best as I could. It is locked with a spell in my mind, that I remember to write in every time the simulation resets, and then force myself to forget before I officially start the simulation with my investigation. I cannot trust my own mind beyond this as I've seen in the journal how different aspects of myself change just as much as other ponies change within the simulation. I do not know how this small trick works against the entity and the simulation, but I shall not look a gift horse in the mouth.

My current progression: We finally deduced the signals that originated from the machine since Sim 12, and I have been given a phrase. PROJECT ANGEL. It will now be my job to investigate and ruminate on the phrase while trying to avoid causing another sudden activation of DELETION. Though I have faced longer campaigns, I am growing quite tired of this whole situation.

But I cannot fail. I cannot grow weary now. I am closer now more than ever, and I must turn more aggressive to combat this entity.

My name is Celestia. And I will protect my family, my friends, and my little ponies.

As soon as she finished writing her last letter, she heard rapid knocking on her bedroom doors. "Right on time," she murmured to herself. She sent the journal book back to her mind, and with a spell gave herself the masking to start the next Simulation.

"Princess! You must come quickly! There has been a discovery in the Crystal Mines!"

To some who knew, the princess walking up to the supposed discovery would feel as if she was walking to her execution. To Celestia herself, however, she dared to view it as the next challenge in the ultimate test her livelihood had ever faced.

"It's right here, Princess Celestia. We're waiting on word now for Princess Luna to come quickly as she can. This might be the greatest discovery in Equestrian history!"

Oh, how frustratingly right you were.

Celestia looked down at the makeshift center. Just as expected, a bronze statue of a pony, with its missing front left leg, was laying there. And as soon as she saw it, she felt a slight tingle in her right hoof.

She lifted it up to inspect it for the 743rd time, and there was the electric blue power, reminding her of her duty, and her answer to the question of the Simulation.

Let's make sure you feel pain this time around.

"Set up a perimeter around the object, no pony should dare to get close under the harshest penalties of the law. Set up any communication stations to see if you can capture any signals. Everything about this discovery I want to be locked down in Black Site protocol," she commanded. The pony leading her to the 'biggest discovery of Equestria' looked to be angry that his expedition would be stricken from the books for the time being, but hearing his rant for the 743rd time, Celestia was easily able to tune him out, staring only at the pony in the center.

She didn't dare to tempt fate. But she would dare the manipulator of fate. Let's fight, you sack of nuts and bolts.