After a deal was made with the mysterious disembodied voice who wouldn’t bother with giving a name for themselves (There was no way to tell the voice’s gender either since the voice sounded unisex), Playa and Pinkamena returned to the West Stanfield gateway to return to the ship.

Since Kinzie was monitoring everything that happened in the simulation, there was no need to waste time reporting what had transpired so the Saints had a little more time to plan their next moves against Zinyak and his simulation.

Once the duo’s consciousness returned to their real bodies, Playa and Pinkamena inquired with Kinzie about what tasks she needed done. Keith walked in looking exhausted. Before the hacker could get her words in, Keith spoke first. “Johnny’s getting antsy, having nothing to do is making him more irritable.”

“If I can get a stable environment in the simulation to work from, I can find a way to modify the avatars of others within the simulation and give them powers,” Kinzie said. “With Zinyak being more liberal with giving his minions superpowers in the simulation, we can’t have our friends running around without them at this point.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“There’s several things that can be done around Brickston so I can set up that environment. I should have a way to increase the power of the Blast ability as well. I’ll leave the task to Pinkamena since she seems to know her way around hacking a store.”

“What about me?” Playa asked.

“I have my own list of things for you to do, though one of them I’d rather you wait until Pinkamena finishes her list and let her handle that one,” Keith offered.

Playa saw the list and knew which one Keith was talking about. He glowered at everyone around him. “Is everyone going to keep criticizing my driving?”

“As long as you refuse to try avoiding traffic, then yes,” Kinzie remarked.

Playa groaned as he and Pinkamena returned to the simulation. Once back in Virtual Steelport, the two went their separate ways to complete their individual tasks.

The first thing Kinzie wanted Pinkamena to do was guard an area in Brickston while she uploaded a virus into the area to clear out some Zin security programming. The hacker assured the madmare that she didn’t have to protect anything specific, just kill a bunch of Zin troops or whatever might show up and don’t die, while staying in the area.

Since she was about to demolish a lot of Zin, Pinkamena decided to try out Vinyl’s Dubstep Gun and see how much damage it could cause.

Once in the area, the madmare was beset upon by an army of bikers. Something told her that there were a lot stranger things in the simulation that she will find in the near future. She pulled out her Dubstep Gun and started unleashing musical mayhem upon the bikers until the batteries drained after thirty seconds of continuous use, making the madmare grumble about how weak the batteries were.

After she had her fun with the musical weapon, she pulled out her Knightmare and started smashing bikers and their bikes until Kinzie was finished with the virus injection.

The next two tasks were simple store hacks which were no problem for Pinkie as the difficulty was still trivial at this point in the simulation takeover, even if the second one started introducing points on the grid that she couldn’t put circuits on.”

The next task was another rogue program that needed to be deleted. The issue with this one was its appearance. When Kinzie told the madmare what the program’s name was, she felt disappointment in the one who designed the program. Her target was a toilet named Flush Subroutine.

Not wanting the joke to go on, she pulled out her knightmare and repeatedly smashed the toilet into tiny shards of digital porcelain. She and Kinzie agreed to never talk about this matter again.

The next task was all Pinkamena needed to clear her mind of that sad bit of toilet humor from her mind as she went on one of her rampages through Brickston. She had no trouble getting a gold rating from the activity.

Pinkamena neared the end of her list of tasks. The next bullet point was a Zin patrol in Brickston. The group near the Flashpoint device were dismembered within twenty seconds by Pinkamena’s Vorpal Blade.

However, the moment the node was brought under Saints control, the familiar sight of fiery rain greeted her vision and a warning from her Pinkie Sense saved her from her position being slammed as she leaped back in time as a Warden landed where she was a moment before.

Unlike the last Warden that Playa fought, this one had a red glow instead of a purple one. Pinkamena also noticed another difference, the creature’s body was wrapped in a strange light.

Pinkamena tested out her weapons against the creature but they merely bounced off for some reason. However, when she threw a Freeze Blast against it, the strange light faded. The madmare tested a theory she had just thought up by attacking with her weapons again and to her pleasure they were now meeting the creature’s flesh.

The Warden leaped away from Pinkamena to get some distance from her. By the time she caught up, the strange light reappeared around the Warden again. This told Pinkamena everything she needed to know about how to deal with the creature. She figured that superpowered attacks break the shielding around the Warden but the shield renews itself after a short time.

Thanks to her Pinkie Sense, Pinkamena was able to avoid all of the Warden’s attacks until she unleashed an offensive of her own. After disabling the shield with another Freeze Blast, she raced along the large creature’s body while leaving grievous wounds all over its body.

The assault was too much for the Warden to take and it began to falter, allowing the madmare to repeat what Playa did and she dove into its body, Matrix style. The creature’s will stood no chance as Pinkamena tore the beast apart from the inside out before it exploded, leaving a pink pony and a sudden rush of power that let her understand what Playa felt when he was powering up.

Unfortunately, she didn’t get any new powers from her attack. Once the rush faded, she shrugged and moved on to the last objective on her list.

This task was a repeat of the previous virus injection except with Zin this time so the madmare simply tore through more Zin bodies and equipment while Kinzie finished uploading the virus that would complete her takeover of Brickston.

With Kinzie’s list complete, Pinkamena, with Pinkie’s help, cleaned the neighborhood of data clusters that she could collect before she raced to Downtown Steelport to check on Playa. On the way, Kinzie informed her of the tasks he had completed so far. First, he killed the rogue program, Zinsasser, then he cleared a Zin patrol in Henry Steel Mills before he strained the system again by playing in traffic in Rosen Oaks.

Another task on Keith’s list was to shut down one of the two Hotspots in Loren Square. While Playa was bad with puzzles and driving, he made up for that with being able to fight against groups of enemies and overcome the odds against him. In the end, he shut down the Hotspot just like the first one.

The surprising bit of news was that Playa was barely able to tear through Henry Steel Mills with a UFO without getting his vehicle demolished. Even more surprising was that he managed to get a gold rating for it. Pinkamena decided to chalk that up to luck since that was what Playa had going for him.

Pinkamena finished Playa’s list by heading to Sunset Park before tracking the designated vehicle to Loren Square and letting Pinkie fly the Chrome Void ship that was programmed with useful data to the designated location on Magarac Island while avoiding some very angry Zin.

Once that task was complete, Playa and Pinkamena raced back to the gateway which was a long distance from where they were. Pinkamena hoped that Kinzie had some ideas on how to get around Steelport faster.

For their efforts, the two were given modifications to their Blast and Super Sprint abilities.

Once the duo had rested after their latest foray into the simulation, Playa held a meeting to discuss their next plans.

Since they still had no way of rescuing their friends with the mysterious bodiless being still offering the only chance they had at the moment, the Saints knew that it was in a position to demand anything in exchange for its services. None of the Saints liked the position they were in but knew that without any other options, they had no choice but to trust that the being was legitimate.

In resignation, Playa moved onward with the plan that they had no choice but to go with. “So this AI needs a body in order to help us. Got any ideas, Kinzie?”

The hacker considered the information she gathered for a moment before she had an idea. “The Zin have almost everything in the simulation locked tight but there is something we can use. A Control and Interface Device.”

“So where can I get one?’

Kinzie looked into the simulation to locate an appropriate vessel before she discovered what she was looking for. “We’re in luck. The Zin have a bunch in transit right now. The Zin are using C.I.D.s to bring a downed Hotspot back online. Once you have a C.I.D. get it to a safe spot and wipe its old programming so the AI can upload its personality into the new shell.”

“No problem.” With that, Playa and Pinkamena returned to the simulation to locate a C.I.D. Kinzie directed the duo to the first downed hotspot in Stanfield. On the way, Playa suggested that Kinzie locate a suitable shell for the AI on the ship because he doubted that the mysterious being wanted to be stuck in the simulation.

Playa and Pinkamena arrived at the Hotspot and were met with minimal resistance from the Zin. Kinzie directed the duo to a weapons crate. Playa opened the crate. “Yoink,” Pinkamena said as she grabbed the weapon before Playa had a chance to look at it.

Without waiting for Kinzie to explain how the weapon worked, she fired it at the Zin and discovered that the shots, while they did harm the Zin troops and vehicles, bounced off of them and in a different direction.

With the knowledge of how the gun worked, she positioned herself for optimal damage before she fired a round that bounced off many of the Zin before they either succumbed to their wounds or blew up in the case of vehicles. This reminded Pinkamena of an old Atari video game with a touch of pinball.

Taking advantage of the destruction, Playa ran over to where the C.I.D.s were lined up. After he touched two of them which suddenly short circuited, Pinkamena had to say something. “I never pegged you for the inappropriate touching type.”

“It’s not my fault! I just touch them and they do that.”

“And how is this proving me wrong?”

“You wanna try this or do you wanna keep making jokes?”

Pinkamena rolled her eyes before she walked over to a third C.I.D. and tapped it with her hoof. The device sparked for a second before it started following her. “Let’s get out of here and find a place where Kinzie can work on this thing.”

Playa stared at the mare sprinting away with his mouth wide open. He soon closed his mouth and sprinted after her. “Fuck my life.”

Pinkamena brought the device to a rooftop a short distance from the Hotspot and Kinzie began erasing its programming. While this was going on, Zin were flying in on bikes and firing on them. The madmare jumped onto one of the bikes and shoved an exploding cupcake into his mouth before tossing him at another Zin on a bike, blowing up both Zin and the bike in the process.

With her new hoverbike, Pinkamena began firing at the Zin in the area with the bike’s weapon. She also used her Knightmare to knock other Zin off their bikes.

During a brief period in between waves, Pinkamena quickly landed her bike and jumped off to address the weapon on the vehicle. She ripped off the weapon with her hooves before installing her party cannon. The modification was ready just in time for another wave which was met with confetti-based death.

After a few minutes of defending the device, Kinzie was finished wiping its programming as well as the tracking device the Zin were using for it. She then imputed the AI’s code into the device before it began downloading the AI.

“This won’t take long, right?” Playa asked.

“Fifty-five minutes,” Kinzie replied.

“What the fuck? There’s no way I can hold off the Zin for that long.”

“I could,” Pinkamena chimed.

“Okay, those of us who aren’t sugar-fueled ponies with a seemingly insatiable bloodlust can’t hold off the Zin for that long.”

Pinkamena harrumphed as she tossed a cupcake into her mouth, taking care to make sure it wasn’t one of the exploding ones.

“Anyway...The connection in this area is slow,” Kinzie explained. “Get closer to a major connection point like a power plant and this might go faster.”

“And why didn’t we go there first?” Playa asked.

“Because a major connection point for the simulation is going to be heavily guarded.”

“Kinzie, we can handle whatever they throw at us,” Pinkamena stated. “Let’s head to the power plant and clear out the tenants.”

On the way to the plant, Kinzie asked an important question, “So assuming the AI wasn’t lying about helping us, who should we grab first? Pierce? Shaundi?”

“I think we should go for Matt first,” Playa suggested.

“Miller?! Oh my god why?!”

“Aside from the fact that Moondancer pretty much scared him straight, He did help us kill Cyrus Temple and it would be reassuring to have two geniuses at the computer.”

“We can get along just fine with just me,” Kinzie argued.

“As much as I want to see Moondancer again, I think we need to go for Vinyl first,” Pinkamena suggested. “Her engineering skills are what we need right now.”

“Yeah, let’s rescue Vinyl first. We can get Matt later.”

Playa decided to take this time to play the leader card. “This ain’t up for discussion you two. We’re getting Matt first. We can get Vinyl next.”

“Fine…” Pinkamena and Kinzie said in unison with a simultaneous sigh.

Once Playa and Pinkamena, with the C.I.D. in tow, arrived at the power plant, they began clearing out the Zin around a terminal that was controlling the connection in the area. It didn’t take them long to eliminate the group before Playa activated the device to speed up the download.

“How long now?” Playa asked.

The device started repeating “FUK” rapidly.

“That’s...part of the process,” Kinzie quickly explained.

“Awkward…” Pinkamena commented.

“The full download should only take about sixteen minutes,” Kinzie said, trying to get the subject back on topic.

“Find something to make this go faster,” Playa ordered.

“I’ll see what I can find. There might be other access points nearby to increase the bandwidth.”

“At least we can do this without the FCC getting on our asses,” Pinkamena commented.

While Kinzie was looking for more ways to speed up the download, more Zin showed up to get slaughtered by the duo.

“Personality transfer at thirty-one percent,” the device said.

Kinzie located a pair of access points nearby. The duo split up and headed toward one each. After they cleared out the Zin guards, they activated the terminals. This greatly increased the download speed...too fast. The C.I.D.’s systems were not designed to handle a rapid download and had begun to overheat. Kinzie throttled the connection to slow the download speed while Playa and Pinkamena each hit the device with a Freeze Blast to cool it down.

Once that crisis was averted, Kinzie alerted them that the download would only take three minutes which was satisfactory to Playa.

The two of them spent those three minutes having the time of their lives killing Zin with every weapon in their respective arsenals.

“Download complete. Time to kill some aliens,” the device said.

“I’m going to regret giving him a body, aren’t I?” Kinzie asked rhetorically.

“It was this or a murderbot,” Pinkamena replied.

“Good point.”

It was then that the familiar fire rain occurred and a Warden with a green glow landed into the area.

“This one looks like it might have some useful power for you two,” Kinzie said.

The battle against this Warden was short lived. While it demonstrated its ability to levitate objects around, it didn’t help as the duo thrashed the beast before both dove into its digital form and overwhelmed it.

“Kinzie, my head feels like it’s on fire,” Playa whined after his avatar was infused with telekinetic power..

“Ugh, my head feels a little heavy,” Pinkamena groaned.

Playa turned around to look at Pinkamena before his eyes widened. “Uhh, Mena, you got something on your forehead.”

Pinkamena moved a hoof to her forehead only for her to feel a long hard bump protruding from there. Feeling along the bump, she noticed a spiraling indentation along it. Realizing what it was, her eyes shrank to pinpricks.

“What the fuck?!”

Author's Note

Explanation into Pinkamena's new appendage next chapter.