Once the Saints ship was parked in a place that was either not being tracked by the Zin or that Zinyak didn’t care about them and was willing to leave them alone for the time being, Kinzie spent a little time mourning Oleg while Johnny, Keith and Playa plotted their revenge against Zinyak for blowing up Earth. Pinkamena was already plotting how she was going to kill the alien overlord.

For now, the Saints had to prioritize their objectives. One was to map out the Zin mothership by disrupting the simulation enough for Kinzie to accomplish the task. Another task was the rescue of their friends who were being held captive in their own nightmare simulations. However, since they had no idea on how to go about the second task yet, the Saints would have to focus on the first objective and hope that something turned up later.

The guys had finished their plans for some immediate objectives. Keith had compiled a list of tasks that he wanted Playa and Pinkamena to complete as the beginning of their resistance against the Zin Empire. Johnny, to his dismay, was unable to go with them because Kinzie was only able to give superpowers to one other due to the limited access she currently had in the simulation.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about those days on the campaign trail. I bet we can use a lot of those techniques against the Zin,” Keith considered.

“Sounds like a strange comparison but okay,” Playa responded.

Pinkamena thought back to Playa’s campaign for presidency. Unlike other politicians, Playa’s methods were unorthodox and often violent. While that might scare some voters, the citizens of the United States were already used to violence, bloodshed and lust and Playa’s display appealed to the majority which helped his campaign. Boise, Idaho was especially chaotic.

With that, the duo rested against a device that was supposed to project their consciousness into the simulation. Pinkamena had to stand on her hind hooves in order to properly enter the machine.

After a few seconds, Pinkamena’s vision was greeted by a trail of red and yellow light before a white flash. Once that faded, the next thing she saw was a Steelport at night.

Unlike earlier, when the night sky was a soothing blue, it had turned orange.

Checking her HUD, Pinkamena realized that the two of them were in Western Stanfield. The first objective that Keith wanted complete was to cause another disruption by racing through the system. The next was to cause some destruction in Loren Square followed by clearing a Zin patrol in Eastern Bridgeport then climbing the tower in The Grove and ending with killing a rogue program.

The two of them divided the first four tasks where Playa would do another race through the system and clear out a Flashpoint while Pinkamena would blow things up in Loren Square and climb the next tower. The two would compete to see who would complete their tasks first and the one who killed the rogue program would win. Pinkamena remembered that she needed to collect the data clusters that Playa missed on the first tower.

While Playa was doing his race, Pinkamena raced to downtown Steelport while trying out her Super Sprint powers. “So this is what it’s like to be a Decker Specialist,” she thought.

When she arrived at the location, Kinzie had given her a black hole gun to use. After one shot, she realized that it wasn’t destructive enough to suit her needs so she pulled out her Knightmare and made use of her new powers to unleash destruction upon Loren Square. Her freeze blast froze pedestrians and cars in place so she could smash them with her hobby horse. While she still used the black hole gun to kill clusters of people, her Knightmare caused more damage overall before she left the area satisfied that she left a major mess for the simulation to clean up.

Pinkamena raced to the tower in The Grove and began her ascent. Using her Pinkie Sense to play hot and cold whenever she was getting close to a cluster, she was able to clean the tower of clusters before she made it to the top and slammed a hoof on the summit, turning the red glow of the structure to blue.

Using her super jump and super sprint powers, Pinkamena was able to make a huge leap from the tower and glide most of the way to New Baranec on Carver Island. Once there, she looked around to see if Playa was around.

What she didn’t expect was to see a younger version of Playa charging at her while firing a heavy SMG at her. The madmare did not take getting shot at very well, even if it was from an ally. Using her super speed and her Vorpal Blade, she quickly cut off Playa’s hand that was holding the SMG. When he tried to punch her, she met his fist with her hoof, causing bits of data to fly from his arm. Punching him in the groin caused him to cough up binary before she proceeded to cut him into tiny chunks of data before the figure completely broke apart into data.

While she was grumbling about what happened, the real Playa showed up and saw the madmare who saw him and held up her knife with a mad look in her eyes.

“Whoa whoa, what are you doing Pinks?” Playa asked.

“Care to explain why you tried to attack me?”

Kinzie intervened before things got out of control, “That wasn’t the real President, Pinkamena. That was a rogue program that was based from a past image of him, likely generated from the memories of one of our missing friends.”

Pinkamena blinked, “Oh,” was all she said at the moment before she found more words. “This whole adventure is going to get really weird, isn’t it?”

“Probably.”

Pinkamena’s attention returned to Playa, “So, have you finished your tasks?”

“Well, I caused enough of a disruption with my racing and I did clear that Zin patrol,”

“You didn’t get the gold rating, did you?” Pinkamena deadpanned.

“You try dodging firewalls at high speed,” Playa defended.

Pinkamena walked away in the direction of Yearwood for a moment before she sprinted away.

“She’s going to shame me again, isn’t she?”

“Yep,” Kinzie responded.

After Pinkamena got the gold medal in the Blazin activity that Playa failed to get and clean up the first tower, the two returned to the ship, the latter with his head hung in shame. After informing the Vice President that the tasks were complete, Keith decided to remember the wild time at Camp David while Kinzie programmed Vinyl’s dubstep gun for the duo to use next time they entered the simulation.

When Pinkamena and Playa saw Kinzie again, they noticed her face was scrunched. “What’s up?” Playa asked.

“As if blowing up Earth wasn’t enough, after your little escape, Zinyak decided to lock down the stores in the simulation. We can’t buy weapons or anything while the stores are locked. Plus, the stores are protected by some hard-to-crack security protocols so the only way to undo the lock on the stores is to manually hack the stores from within the simulation.”

“Anything I need to know on how to do that?” Pinkamena asked. “I know how to use a computer, but hacking seems a little too advanced for me.”

“The hacking program should be simple, I’ve made it into a simple game of Pipe Dream. The game will likely become more difficult with each store we unlock as Zinyak tightens the security protocols around the stores.”

After the explanation, Pinkamena and Playa returned to the simulation. On their way to the Planet Zin in Yearwood, Pinkie started getting her sister’s attention.

“Let me do these Mena. I can handle minigames.”

“Alright, you can handle them, partly because I suspect Playa isn’t very good with puzzles.”

Once they arrived, Pinkamena had Playa watch her back while she let Pinkie take over before she hacked the store. It was a simple four by four puzzle that only needed four vertical lines heading from the left arrow to the right. Pinkie solved it in under five seconds.

Alarms went off in the simulation and the area was quickly swarmed by virtual human police officers. Playa had no problems dealing with the police before the officers turned into Zin soldiers and started firing their laser rifles at them. Pinkamena took over again before she pulled out her Vorpal Blade and littered the area in bits of data from the bodies of the Zin.

While they wanted to escape the area, Kinzie wanted to test the security protocols to make sure that future store hacks were not so hectic. The duo held their ground as the attacks intensified.

Glowing red orbs soon appeared in the air which was followed by a continuous stream of Zin troops emerging from them. Kinzie suggested shooting the portals to shut them down which they did with Playa’s pistol and Pinkamena leaping toward them and smashing them with her Knightmare.

A golden robotic sphere appeared in the area. Kinzie quickly analyzed the orb and made a discovery. “You two, look at that gold floating robot thing. I think it’s controlling the security program here.”

“And?” Playa asked.

“So, if you catch the golden orb and shut it down then the Zin should no longer see you as an immediate threat.”

“Could you have made that sound any less like a Harry Potter reference?” Pinkamena asked.

“Says the mare who has killed plenty of people using movie references,” Kinzie countered.

“Fair.”

The golden C.I.D. stood no chance against Pinkamena’s speed as she quickly caught up to it and smashed it with her Knightmare. Once she did that, the Zin left the simulation to return to their business.

“Really? I smash an orb and the Zin pretend we’re not there anymore?” Pinkamena shook her head.

“I’m still figuring out how the simulation runs myself,” Kinzie said, confused as Pinkamena. “Anyway, I’ve compiled my own list of objectives for you to complete. Come see me on the ship and I’ll explain.”

Pinkamena and Playa were headed back to the access point when a mysterious disembodied voice that didn’t belong to Kinzie or Zinyak spoke to them. “Greetings. If you want to find and rescue your friends, you will meet me at my rift. Goodbye.”

“That didn’t sound suspicious,” Pinkamena said with sarcasm.

“No kidding. Does this guy really think we would just trust some random ghost in the machine?”

“We should check it out anyway. Besides, what’s the wOOOOOGH!” Playa’s sentence was cut off by a punch to the right kidney by Pinkamena. “What the fuck?!”

“I had to stop you from finishing that sentence for obvious reasons.”

“Come on Pinks, that only happens in movies and...I’m sounding like Pierce, aren’t I?”

“Yes you are, now shut up and let’s get to that rift.”

The rift, as they saw when they arrived, looked like a sort of distortion in the fabric of the data used to form the virtual world on the ground.

Neither had any idea what to expect in the rift but the ghost was the first lead they had on rescuing their friends so they threw caution to the wind and dove in.

The duo landed on a metallic platform that hovered in a stationary position over an endless void. Looking around, they noticed a number of similar platforms and each glowed red. There were some platforms with different appearances than others. Given the configuration of the platforms, Pinkamena at least figured that they needed to use the platforms to get somewhere.

The voice spoke again, “You will need to leap from platform to platform. By changing the red platforms to blue, the power connection to this simulation will remain open. The closer you land to the center, the stronger the connection.”

“I see, so we not only have to jump from platform to platform but we also have to be accurate with our jumps.”

“That is correct. Of course, only one of you needs to attempt this course while the other can watch.”

Playa had a feeling that the voice was referring to him.

Pinkamena let Pinkie handle the activity since she was good at doing things that didn’t involve killing.

Playa took the time to get some answers from the ghost. “So tell me how you can help us save our friends.”

“I know how to navigate the Zin systems and travel between them. If you can find the right simulation, I can open a gateway between that one and yours.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“I have no love for the Zin as I was once their prisoner too. I have been stuck inside the Zin simulators creating rifts which cause chaos for Zinyak, though the Zin inevitably shut them down.”

“And where do we come in?”

“Your help ensures I am able to keep them open permanently. A benefit to us both.”

“So why do you need us? Couldn’t you do it yourself?”

“My body has long since died. I implanted my consciousness into the main simulator computer many years ago.”

“Sounds like a similar situation to what happened to a certain somepony when it was revealed at the end of ‘Fallout: Equestria’,” Pinkie commented while bouncing with accurate jumps to each platform.

“Are you even going to be able to help us?” Playa asked while ignoring Pinkie’s comment.

“I cannot. That is, not unless you find me a physical, mobile form I can download my memory matrix into first,” the voice explained.

“So if I find you a body, you’ll help us?”

“Unlike humans, I keep my word and pay my debts. Besides, you know you need me.”

Pinkie reached the end of the course and earned herself a gold rating. The voice noticed the stabilization of the rift and returned his attention to Playa. “My access code is 1331. Use it when you find me a suitable form.” Pinkie rolled her eyes at the code that was once again a combination of two ones and two threes.

With that, the duo was ejected from the rift. However, they didn’t end up back in Virtual Steelport but one of Kinzie’s training programs.

The voice added, “Before you go hunting for me a new body, I want to pay you both for your aid in keeping my rift open, and to ensure you see that I am willing to help your cause.”

“Paid how?” Playa asked.

“I have found new code which allows you to change the element of one of your powers.”

“So what do you have for us?”

“You can now alter your Blast abilities to release a wave of fire or your previous wave of ice at will.”

Pinkamena took over so she and Playa could test their new fire element to their blast ability, roasting training targets. Once they were satisfied, the voice returned them to Steelport.

With their errand complete and their new task given, Playa and Pinkamena returned to the ship to rest and prepare for their next move against Zinyak.

Author's Note

This arc is going to feature a number of original missions as they will involve the rescue missions for the Equestrians as well as their Loyalty missions.

Expect possible delays in chapter releases.