Horsetangled: Act 0

Chapters

==> Coalesce knowledge.
==> Computerificate.
==> Connect.
==> Coincide.

==> Coalesce knowledge.

There are only so many ways a story can end, and only so many of these endings lend themselves to a new beginning. Such things are beyond the ken of mortal ponies, of course; their story always ends with the same abrupt stop, and only ever begins with the sudden cry of an infant.

But that is only true for mortal ponies. Some ponies have a destiny beyond even the edges of this universe.

Consider this oddly-purple winged horny horse, for instance. Her name is Twilight Sparkle, and she is 24 years old as of today. Today, as it turns out, is the fourth of June, or 6/4, which is particularly interesting because six times four happens to be 24 as well. Twilight greatly enjoys mathematics, as well as any scholarly pursuit; and she often has massive piles of books everywhere, which her friends tell her is very weird indeed. She speaks Like a perfectly normal equine, with proper capitalization and spelling, thank you very much.

Today, Twilight received a package that will completely shatter her understanding of the universe. It was actually due a week ago, but a young pegasus mare accidentally dropped it into the trash chute instead of the mail chute, and it took quite some time to clean the gunk off.

"Perfect!"

"What's perfect?" Spike said, hauling yet another stack of books across the room. Despite being a ruler now, Twilight still had a nearly infinite appetite for organizing her book collection.

"The enchanted crystal disc that Cadance found in the Crystal Wastes just got here. And I have my schedule clear for the whole month!" Twi clapped her hooves eagerly. "I'm going to have a whole month all to myself to study it!"

"Wow. Fantastic. Maybe I'll get to have a day off," Spike muttered.

"Of course not! I'll need you to send my notes to Celestia and Luna. I'm sure they'll love to read about it while they're sipping Appletinis on the beach."

Let us now consider the other horse. The one who is large, white, and glowing all the time.

Her name is Celestia, and she is thousands of years old. Plus or minus twenty-four years. Coincidentally, today is also her birthday, though only she and her twin sister remember it. All anypony else remembers is 6/21, the Summer Solstice, during which the ponies of their kingdom would celebrate their glory entirely willingly during the Summer Sun Celebration. Celestia has even taken to having piles of Summer Sun knicknacks lying around her bedroom, to show how goofy and relatable she is. As an extension of her efforts to be relatable, she speaks with a certain amount of irreverence, and quite a few of those new-fangled :D emoticons :D.

At this moment, Celestia was settling into her morning routine: a Tequila Sunrise and some water on the side. Sometimes she swapped the water out for fire-water, because that's the same thing, right? On those days she often had especially fun adventures.

However, in the middle of mixing her Sunrise, a letter appeared by dragon-smoke in front of her, ruining her concentration and making her drop the cherry syrup. The bottle promptly shattered, spreading cherry syrup and bits of glass everywhere. What a mess.

She groaned, and sat down to read the letter...

Dear Princess Celestia,

I have just recovered a brand new artifact from the Crystal Wastes! And by "I", I mean Cadance. She did a wonderful job, and the disc came back in top form. I'm simply not sure how to decipher it, though. I have found that light bounces off of it in interesting patterns, but the patterns have no inherent meaning to me. Spike says he's getting tired of holding the disc while I shine lights at his face, so I'm sending this letter now before he gets too upset to use his fire. Maybe you can shed some light on things, since you're the princess of the Sun?

Thanks again,
Twilight Sparkle

Damn that purple menace. Not only is she interrupting Celestia's vacation, she's also gone and pulled up a piece of history that was once thought banished to time immemorial. Celly hasn't seen those discs since before she banished Luna. Those were interesting times.

She sits down to write a letter...

We should consider the purple one again. Just in time to see her receive the letter, in fact!

twilight,

you don't have any IDEA what you just found. this shit is, as they say, off the hook. it flew off the hook like rainbow dash doing a heccin rainboom, then flipped turnways and landed right on my doorstep DX

these discs are from this ~~game~~ ~~'entertainment'~~ just think of it as a ritual for now

and i will tell you right now, in no uncertain terms, that the ritual destroys the universe, but also creates a new one

this is not something to be trifled with

that said, i can't stop you :o

in fact, even if i did stop you, the damage is already done, and you'll only have a day or two before meteors start falling on equestria

so, uh, sorry i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i'll be sending over a device with which you can use the disc--just stick it in the front and follow the instructions, you'll figure it out, you're a smart pony

toodles

-- cellybean

"...well, buck."

"What happened?" Spike asked, balancing a massive stack of tomes.

"Wait. How is she going to send the device?"

"What--" Spike suddenly started coughing, hacking up brilliant emerald smoke. He at least had the presence of mind to drop the books before they started to burn, but in the process he sent them flying everywhere. He coughed up a flat board covered in buttons, then burped up a massive square chunk of plastic and glass, and finally--in a belch of deep green embers--he vomited up an odd little oblong of plastic with a long cable attached.

Last, but not least, he spat out a small booklet labeled "USER MANUAL".

Twilight stared at the equipment as Spike tried to catch his breath.

She grinned. This was a puzzle. Twilight liked puzzles.

"Spike? Take a letter."

"twilight i'm dying"

"No you aren't, don't be silly."

==> Computerificate.

It took at least an hour for Twilight to work out exactly how to make the 'computer' do what she wanted it to. Most of this was consumed by learning how to use a mouse and keyboard. Plugging the thing in was the easy part.

"Spike! Have you finished documenting my adventures in computerizing?"

"...I threw up and the letter got burned. I think it went to the Chaos realm."

"Very well! Take another letter!"

"uuuugh"

We will observe the sun horse as she observes the letter:

Dear Princess Celestia,

I have finally worked out how to use the 'computer'! It is a fantastic contraption. Have you played 'minesweeper'? I find it enthralling. It is as if some arbitrary Conundrum Counter is incrementing every time I find new puzzles to enjoy! Truly this is the best thing you have ever revealed to me.

On that note: I tried to start the 'game' which was contained on the disc. It currently wants to know who my 'server player' is. As I understand it, this means that I must find another player! How many copies of this disc are in existence? Surely there must be a way to contact these other players.

-- Twilight

Oh, right. Celly's copies of the game are still...in a vault...in Canterlot...

FUCK. She'll have to teleport back there. It's sure to cause a panic, which is pointless, because the meteors will cause a panic anyway. She just has to tell Luna where she's going so the poor thing doesn't panic.

In the next room, we will consider the blue horse with the sparkles in her mane. Her name is Luna, and she is not a morning pony. Indeed, she was just winding down from a long night of surfing through the Ponynet, which is the only thing that she really does now. Her sleep schedule leaves no time for gallivanting about in the daylight, and beside that, she gets migraines anyway. She doesn't technically need to remain nocturnal, but it's comfortable and familar, and it makes it easier to browse hay621, wherein she can peruse images of ill repute for her own amusement. This process tends to produce large piles of tissues which she insists are not her own doing, because that would imply untoward things. She tends to be VERY LOUD WHEN SHE DOTH SPEAK, AS HER EARS ARE NOT ACCUSTOMED TO THE SOUND OF OTHER'S VOICES, AND HER THROAT BE NOT ACCLIMATED TO ITS PURPOSE.

A message blips up on her laptop.

hey luna

i gotta go to canterlot real quick

twi found the sburb, it's a long story, cadance can suck my fat sunny ass

don't panic or anything, we don't want a repeat of what happened last time i left without telling you

Luna heaves a great sigh as she considers her options. Not replying would be rude, would it not? But replying and accusing her sister of being irresponsible would risk putting dear Celestia off, and getting Celly off was the last thing on Luna's mind. Wait, go back. Forget that sentence. Let's just reply.

WE EAGERLY AWAIT YOUR RETURN, DEAR SISTER.

PLEASE DO NOT TARRY. WE WISH TO SAY GOOD MORNING TO THEE BEFORE WE SLEEP.

VERILY, NOT IN A CREEPY WAY OR ANYTHING.

There's still one horse we have not considered, and she's the most oddly-colored of the bunch. Bright pink like cotton candy.

Her name is Cadance, and she is the Princess of Love. It is her job to love everything equally and very gently guide ponies to what they want, even if those ponies don't really want to admit what they want. Due to settling down with her dear husband, Shining Armor, she's not been as productive in this endeavor, even if her husband is smoking hot. Her baby, Flurry Heart, is currently sitting on the ceiling, because she just does that sometimes. There are piles of baby toys everywhere because they're trying to teach Flurry to clean up after herself, and sometimes you just gotta let them learn on their own, though it doesn't seem very practical to Cadance. She speaks with a dreamy quality~ as if her voice is the embodiment of romance itself~

And just now, she has pulled her ancient 486 out of storage. This thing has so many memories on it. Like that time Shiny convinced her to try DUNE II. It was a lot for her to manage, but once she got the hang of it...it was just like running a kingdom, and she was already doing that, so she stopped playing. But Shiny was really excited for a little while!

Today, she's gonna play a different game. She only sent Twilight one of the disks, after all; she still has the other three. Twily will need the server disk later, but for now Cadance needs to boot up her own client instance, so that when Luna inevitably loses her nerve, Luna can become her server player instead of Celly's. Then she can become server for Celestia, while Twilight hooks up to Luna, and the whole thing can be achieved without any pesky mobius reacharounds. She tried a mobius reacharound with Shiny once, it didn't work very well at all.

"shiny~"

"Yes, dear?" Her hubby stands at her side in moments. It's honestly the most adorable thing she's ever seen. She'd call him every minute of every day just to see him rush to her aid, but she knows he has needs too, and she doesn't want to interrupt unless she needs it.

"honey~ things are going to get a little confusing soon~" she whispers, pulling him close. "there are things i didn't explain when we got married~ things that relate to the universe we live in~"

"O...kay?" Shiny tilts his head. "Why do you always use all those tildes? You don't have to make your voice pretty for me."

Cadance giggles, and boops his nose; he scrunches his face up in that cute way he always does when she gets affectionate. "what you need to know is this: the world is endng soon~ and i promise to protect you~ okay~?"

He shakes his head. "Aw, honey, you know I don't need protecting--"

She shuts him up with another boop. "then we'll just have to keep each other safe~ how's that~?"

He sighs, and nods. "Whatever you say, honey. I hope the world doesn't end."

"i know~ but i'm afraid all we can do is prepare~"

She smiles softly, and turns to the computer. It has already booted into SBURB, running at a graphical fidelity far beyond what the original hardware was ever capable of. This is merely part of the magic. Shiny watches in awe as Cadance starts setting up, and shoots a message to Luna...

Luna blinks as another notification appears! Why, this is the most attention she's received in millennia! Surely today is a blessed day, even if Twilight has truly kicked off the next round of that accursed game.

She opens the message:

hey woony~ what you've heard is true, twilight has a copy of the game~

it's going to start very soon~ i bet celestia's already gone off to pick up the disks that you two left in the canterlot vault~

i also know that you're going to get very nervous about being celly's server player~ so if you feel like you can't do it~ you should be *my* server player~

Luna was not considering serving Celestia. Certainly not. It would be Improper. There are no such thoughts on her mind, and if there were such a silly thing as an Arousal Approximator, it would not be inflating at the moment. Indeed, it would be deflating! She closes several hay621 tabs, to punish them for the insolence of implying that Luna's base desires might ever get the better of her.

That having been taken care of...she wonders what she'll do now. Will she get the same role she did in the previous session? Perhaps she will keep all of her progress. That would make the session far more acceptable. It would not be unpleasant to go back to decapitating imps with her Waxing Crescendoblade.

She hums to herself as she composes a message to Celestia...

==> Connect.

DEAREST SISTER. WE UNDERSTAND THAT TWILIGHT HAS INITIATED THE GAME OF 'SBURB'. UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE SOMEWHAT CONCERNED OVER THIS, AND ALSO THAT WE ARE NOT ANGRY AT EITHER OF YOU.

WE ARE MERELY CONCERNED. DEEPLY CONCERNED. THIS DEVELOPMENT IS, AS THE SPRITELY YOUNG RARITY WOULD PUT IT, 'THE WORST POSSIBLE THING'.

NATURALLY, WE MUST INQUIRE AS TO WHAT THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE CLIENT/SERVER RING IS.

Celestia groaned as a trio of mares flopped to the ground in terror in front of her. She stepped over them, trotting up the steps of Canterlot Keep as she prepped a reply on her Solarishades, a pair of computerized sunglasses that she hadn't used since long before her rise to power in Equestria.

first things first

as bad as this shit is, it was inevitable

secondly, rara's 40 years old now, never use the word 'spritely' on her again

thirdly, right now i'm thinkin i'll do twi, you'll do me, then candyass will do you, and twi will wrap things up by running candyass's end of things

do me a favor and go find some shit to prototype

Back at the resort, Luna grew flustered. What in the nine hells was Celestia proposing!? None of them would be 'doing' each other, and certainly not in the manner dear Celly was suggesting. She hastily typed a simple rebuttal:

WE BEG YOUR PARDON? WE DO NOT SEE WHY WE SHOULD 'DO' YOU. IT SEEMS MOST IMPROPER.

Celestia, holding the disks within a simple telekinetic field, blinked a couple times. She didn't quite get why Luna was objecting. Maybe Luna needed some space? She shrugged, and sent one more message before teleporting:

if you say so

i'll take care of twi, and i guess cadance will take care of me

Luna paced back and forth as the game booted up. There was perhaps nothing more embarrassing than realizing, moments after the fact, that she had totally misunderstood Celestia's meaning. Perhaps she had been looking at too many pictures of ill repute. She slumped into her chair and prepared to execute a dozen more of the salacious tabs, but a notification caught her eye--a message from Cadance.

so how did it go~? did you and celly work things out~?

Luna groaned.

WE DID NOT. THERE WAS A DISHEARTENING MISUNDERSTANDING. WE HAVE GRAVELY EMBARRASSED OURSELVES AND OUR LINEAGE. IT IS, AS THE NYMPHISH YOUTH RARITY WOULD SAY, 'THE WORST POSSIBLE THING'.

Within moments, a reply arrived.

you do realize that rarity's in her 40s~? she hasn't been 'nymphish' for years~

Luna's brow furrowed.

WE DO NOT SEE HOW RARITY IS CONSIDERED 'OLD'. WE HAVE WALKED THIS GROUND FOR MILLENNIA. RARITY HAS NOT EVEN ACHIEVED HER FIRST CENTURY. BY OUR STANDARDS, SHE IS BARELY OUT OF HER DIAPERS.

And again, the gentle ding of a reply.

oh well~ words can be like that sometimes~

you'll never be able to understand anyone if you only think in your own terms~

you really ought to spend some time trying to fit your head into another pony's shoes~

anyway~ i'll set up the connection with celly~ let me know when your client's up~

WE DO NOT SEE HOW OUR HEAD WOULD EVER FIT INTO A SET OF HORSESHOES--

Luna cursed as she saw Cadance go offline. Damn every last one of these confounding ponies to Taurtaros. They have driven Luna to madness and ruin.

We return to the purple one. (She has a name, you know.)

Currently, she is watching the loading bar on SBURB's client screen, as Celestia watches an identical loading bar on her own machine. Twilight has many, many questions, but Celestia told her to "shut up for a second" because some things needed to be arranged. Twi shrugs, and starts to ask Spike to take a letter, before remembering that this 'computer' also has communication abilities. Good! Spike can focus on cleaning up all these piles of books now. What kind of pony just has piles of things lying around? A foolish fool who acts foolishly, of course.

Dear Princess Cadance,

I was just wondering--how many discs did you find? Celestia said that I should have two, and she also said that she and Luna had two discs each. If you are to join us, wouldn't we need two more for you?

-- Twilight

It took a solid minute for Cadance to reply.

twilight~ you shouldn't worry about that~

while it is normal for you to want to manage things properly~ you can trust us to have our own tasks under control~

also you don't need to sign your messages on here~ the computer signs it for you~

my disks are already installed~ i will be your client player when you are ready~

Discs.

hmm~?

It's spelled 'discs'. Technically, both spellings are correct, but we should settle on one spelling variant, to reduce confusion.

silly twilight~ you still have so much to learn about leadership~

micromanaging might feel productive but it is a waste of time~ focus on the broader picture~ we're smart enough to make moment-to-moment decisions~

Wait, since when am I the leader? You're all older and wiser than I am. Wouldn't it be better to have Celestia or Luna lead? They've played the game before.

oh twilight~ it's simply your role to play~

Cadance signed off, and Twilight groaned, rubbing her forehead. She was starting to understand why Luna hated migraines so much--if regular headaches could get this bad, a supernatural one must be utterly indescribable. As much as she respected Cadance's leadership skills--both as the ruler of a country and as her babysitter--Twilight had always hated the way Cadance acted about it. It was as if Cadance firmly and thoroughly believed she knew exactly what every other pony wanted, before anypony even realized it. As if being the princess of love meant she was also the princess of reading your bucking mind and seeing the future. It was more than a little infuriating.

With a bleep, her computer received a message from her favorite teacher:

hey twi
the thing's done

stand back

Before Twilight could fully comprehend the message, a massive THUD echoed through her room. She turned to see that her bed was utterly crushed by a massive hunk of factory equipment.

Dear Princess Celestia,

What the buck.

-- Twilight

==> Coincide.

Twilight had many questions. She had so many questions, in fact, that most of them tried to escape her mouth at the same time, which led only to nonsense and despair. The rest of her questions tried her horn, which had long since learned not to let random words try to escape through it.

"What the buck."

That was the last question on her mind, and therefore the only one that actually succeeded in leaving her mouth. With an audible WHUMP another piece of factory machinery dropped into place, inside the grand hall from the sound of it. A smaller thud suggested that a third had landed in her bathroom, which she did not appreciate. Moments later, another message appeared from Celestia:

no seriously get out of the room i'm gonna drop your bathtub on this thing

Twilight typed about five letters of her reply before she saw the shadow of her bathtub looming over the room. She promptly dove out of the way, grabbing Spike as an afterthought.

KLONG-G-G

The bathtub--a cast-iron affair that Twilight was rather fond of--bounced off of the massive chunk of machinery, knocking the cap of the thing clean off. Both tub and cap landed among the books, relatively unscathed, as a purple hunk of crystalline plastic and a flashing purple orb flew out of the machine.

"GHOST!" Twilight yelled, very rationally. "SPIKE! DO SOMETHING!"

She hurled Spike at the orb, and there was a brief flash.

Celestia could not believe her sun-blessed eyes. The mare who had shown the most promise in the Canterlot Academy of Magic's history...The one little filly who had the magical potential to actually become an Alicorn post-factum...The wielder of the most powerful magical artifacts known to Equinekind...had just panicked and tossed her pet dragon at the Kernelsprite.

One of these days Twi was gonna give her a heart attack, and she was starting to think it would be within the next year. She opened up a message, as she watched Twilght have a minor nervous breakdown.

twily

starbutt

you fuckin dingus

could you wait two seconds before doing things please

I'm sorry! I panicked! What happened to Spike!? Is he a ghost now!? DID I JUST KILL MY DRAGON!?

Spike, meanwhile, was adjusting to having no legs. And also adjusting to the massive pile of knowledge that was just dumped into his head.

amazingly, no

you did not kill your dragon

unfortunately, you were supposed to use something that's already dead

so i have no idea what's gonna happen now

And now Twilight's looking even more confused. This is supposed to be our fearless leader? Celestia groans and gets ready to teleport back to the resort, before realizing that she can't do that without endangering Luna's status as a player. Fuck. She settles for the nearest bar instead. At least she'll still get her tequila sunrise before the end of the fucking world.

WE HAVE ARRANGED THE CONNECTIONS AS YOU SUGGESTED. DO WE REQUIRE ANY OTHER MEASURES?

nope~ you just need to wait for twilight to be ready~ i'll send her server disk over just before she enters~

Luna turned away from her computer, which already had Cadance's castle prominently displayed on it; she had already begun placing the necessary game objects, with a practiced hoof. Flurry's crib had been enough to pop the Cruxtruder open, and Luna was sure Cadance knew exactly what to do next--

Her attention was drawn by the sudden squeak of a small filly. Luna turned to the screen to see that Cadance was about to toss Flurry Heart directly into the Kernelsprite.

Moments later, the bright pink sprite now had the adorable bouncing baby face of the world's first natural-born alicorn. Shining Armor looked confused, but perfectly accepting of this new development. Luna urgently needed to rectify this.

CADANCE. WHEREFORE THE FUCKETH ARE YOU USING YOUR ONLY FOAL AS YOUR PROTOTYPE.

THIS IS MOST IMPROPER. YOUR DECISIONS HERE IMPACT THE ENTIRE SESSION. YOU DO REALIZE THIS MEANS YOU WILL BE FIGHTING IMPISH CLONES OF FLURRY FOR THE REST OF THE SESSION? THAT YOU WILL FOREVER BE HAUNTED BY THE FACE OF YOUR ONLY CHILD AS YOU BATTLE YOUR WAY THROUGH THE INCIPISPHERE?

it'll be okay~ at least i'll always have flurrysprite with me now~

sprites can't die after all~

Luna rolled her eyes and groaned. Beknighted, thrice-damned noobs.

THOU DOST REALIZE THAT THE SPRITE WILL LEAVE THEE SHORTLY AFTER THY FIRST GATE IS SURMOUNTED.

fuck~

In the meantime, with Celestia's guidance, Twilight had already begun the alchemization process, and her entry point was within reach: an apple, growing from a brilliant purple miniature rendition of her old library.

"Well, that was easy--" She glanced upward.

There was a bucking meteor not even five hundred feet above the castle.

"OH."

She leapt for the apple, wide-eyed--the sun was blotted out--a disc appeared, falling neatly through the branch that held the apple--it fell into her hooves--she took a bite--and the entire castle was replaced with a crater, moments before the meteor hit.

Celestia nodded confidently, ignoring the angry bartender, and began her own preparations--blinking back into the castle armory to snatch up her Lance of Long Knights, and returning by teleport to the bar moments before the bartender noticed that she was gone. She casually grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, took her sunrise from his hoof, and yeeted him out the door (a little millenial humor for him).

Then, she turned to the things which the bartender was complaining about--namely, the cruxtruder, totem lathe, punch designix, and the all-important alchemiter. Oh, and a sentient bottle of Applejack Daniels, created when her kernelsprite collided with a non-sentient bottle immediately after being released.

Oh, and then there was the bright yellow egg she had just found. She tried to break it, finding it nearly impervious. With the meteor looming overhead, she screamed in frustration, setting her mane and tail ablaze--and in this heat, the egg began to crack...

Cadance had everything under control. Twilight had her server ~~disk~~ disc, and Celly had just kicked off her entry. Now all she had to do was hope the Crystal Empire didn't explode the moment she teleported the Crystal Heart away from it.

It would have been nice to move the heart--or move her family--before things got to this point. But what she truly wanted was to be here, in her home, when the whole thing went off. And even if her plan to keep her baby safe had fallen through, she'd make things work. Slowly, she raised the bottle in one hoof, and smashed it against the table, frowning slightly as she stole her kingdom's heart.

Luna nodded. Cadance's entry had gone off without a hitch. She turned to her bedroom, blushing softly at the mess she had made as she was lounging about. Hopefully Twilight would not discover her shamefully decorated body-length pillow.

...come to think of it...where was Twilight? She should have activated the server disc by now...

Twilight paced back and forth on the balcony, breathing heavily. The entire landscape was made of college-ruled notebook paper--she could see the divots where the holes met each other. Stacks of cards could be seen on the horizon, and everything seemed to be crawling with tiny marbled imp-like things. The more pressing concern on her mind, though, was that meteor. She tapped out a quick message to Celestia.

Celestia,

What in the Sun's good graces was with that meteor!? Why are there meteors!? Was that the only one? Please tell me the meteors are only going to hit us.

-- Twilight.

The reply came back almost immediately, as if Celestia was anticipating this question.

no twilight

there are hundreds of meteors

they are going to destroy all life on equus

nothing will survive except us four

i'm pretty sure candyass decided to take your brother and niece along, but they're fuckin dead too, they just don't know it yet

everyone you know and love is dead, and--i hate to be a dick about it, but it's our fault

were doing this

were making this happen

Twilight started to hyperventilate. The world began spinning around her. Every ounce of her body seemed to quiver like clover jello. She could feel her mind breaking down as it tried to wrap itself around the words Celestia had typed. Nothing could have prepared her for this--no spell or incantation, no mild-mannered misadventure or well-fought battle could train her for it.

She reached out to the keyboard and typed her reply--a mere seven characters:

*We're.