Source

by HP Hatecraft

Rating: everyone
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Adventure, Random, Main 6
Length: 1364

The code that has governed Equestria for so long is starting to fall apart...

All the happenings in Equestria and beyond have been governed by an invisible force, known as "The Source". It controlled everything. The spawning of evil monsters, the creation of heroes, and yes, random clop scenes with Twilight Sparkle. However, after millions of years, the code is beginning to fall apart. Now, the Mane 6 must save something far more ancient and much more powerful than even the Princesses. The stakes are as high as ever, and now new foes, and new heroes will give the Mane 6 an adventure of their lives.

NB: The original title was 404, but due to technical glitches with link generation, had to be renamed to source.

Published 2012-09-05 12:04:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-09-05 12:04:01 UTC

Syntax Error

Syntax Error

In an unexplored part of the Everfree Forest, deep among the trees, two shadowy figures conversed in secret, away from sight. The first one mumbled to his companion: "It is time." Upon hearing those words, the second figure slid a device out of his cloak. He placed the machine on the ground, and affixed a few leather straps to it. He then lowered his hood, revealing that he was a unicorn, probably in his 20's. He had a cerulean mane and fur that was the color of the moonlight sky. His horn buzzed with magic, and he directed it toward the device. The first figure also removed his hood, revealing him to be a mere earth pony. Possessing a mahogany mane and a creamy coat, he looked like the embodiment of chocolate. The earth pony spoke. "If our experiment should succeed, all of Equestria will enjoy harmony for the rest of its existence. The unicorn smiled. "That's true. But we should have done more research before assembling this device. If anything were to go wrong..."

"Ah! But nothing will go wrong. We have luck on our sides!" The earth pony responded quickly.

"I'm still not sure about this...if this device were to fail, all of Equestria would be put in peril!"

"You're such a scaredy-cat! Just relax! It'll be fine!"

"Fine. But if this causes the apocalypse, it's your fault."

With that, the unicorn released his spell, The device glowed green, illuminating the area with an eerie glow. It slowly hummed and whistled, eventually increasing in intensity and brightness. The earth pony shielded his eyes, and backed away. The unicorn however, stayed, maintaining the spell. The device suddenly emitted a green pulse, knocking back the unicorn. The earth pony immediately rushed to his friend's side.

"Septim! Septim! What happened? What went wrong?" The earth pony shot one question after another at the barely breathing unicorn.

Septim smiled sadly. "Heh. Brash as ever, Frisk."

The earth pony, or Frisk, laughed. "Don't be so cold! We'll just fix the glitches and try again!"

"Ah, always the naive one. It's not that simple. You assume we'll be able to try again."

"What do you mean? Come on! All we gotta do is rebuild!"

"No, Frisk. The program we coded? To alter the source? There was a fault. A glitch."

"What? How do you know?"

"I felt it. I felt it when I was hit by that wave of energy. We wanted to delete war, and to delete those things harmful to the development of Equestria. But we forgot to set the correlation parameters for the deletion input."

"Uh...okay... could you say that again in English please?"

"What I mean is, we deleted a heck of a lot more than we wanted to."

"Ooooooh! So why didn't you just say so? So this is bad, right?"

"Well...I suppose so. I-" The unicorn suddenly doubled over, clutching his chest.

"Septim! What, did that blast delete your lungs or something?"

"No...I think my spinal cord is twisted though. I- I don't think I'm going to make it."

"Pssht. This isn't a race. Relax."

The unicorn suddenly chuckled. It was a hollow chuckle. "Goodbye, Frisk. I'll leave it in your hands to save all of Equestria, and beyond." With a final spasm, the unicorn went limp. Then, the unexpected happened. His body started to emit a green light, akin to that of the machine. Eventually, Septim's entire body glowed, then vanished.

The earth pony looked on, dumbfounded. This was all his fault, he realized. It was he who had insisted on going ahead with the experiment. Despite the protests of his only friend, he had forced him to activate the device. And now, just like his friend had predicted, the apocalypse was going to happen. Ponies were going to die. And it was going to be all his fault. He felt a solitary tear flow from his eyes. What had he done? The tears multiplied, and he was sobbing before he knew it. What had he done?! Just then, the machine exploded, a huge burst of green energy shooting forth from it, lighting up the Everfree Forest. The blast struck the earth pony, knocking him into the sky.

Is this how it ends? Will I just die and end up as a skeleton on some beach? Perhaps some relic in a museum? A spasm of pain suddenly gripped him. He wasn't surprised, considering how hard that energy blast had hit. But then he realized something. There was something wrong with him. His front hooves were slowly changing color. Was he going to become one of those demons? Those changelings? The color scheme certainly seemed to match the color of their magic. A green energy seemed to be chewing away at him, changing him. But he was already plummeting toward the ground, toward a small town, it seemed. I hope I don't kill anybody was his last thought, before he completely lost consciousness and smashed to the ground.

It was an ordinary night in Ponyville, and everypony was doing what they did. Twilight Sparkle stared out the window, wondering whether the applying magic to quantum theory could lead to effective atomic secularization. Suddenly, she spotted a strange green light coming from the Everfree Forest. "What could that be? We just trapped Discord a few months ago. Surely he couldn't have escaped so quickly? Or maybe Queen and Chrysalis has returned?" That glow did resemble the color of her magic, after all. This could be disastrous! I must report this to the Princess at once! Twilight Sparkle cast a quick teleportation spell and vanished.

Applejack was tucking Apple Bloom into bed when the burst of green light caught her attention. What they hay? Twilight ain't tryin' out one of her dag nabbed spells now, is she? Nah... looks more like...Chyrsalis's magic. HOLD UP. CHRYSALIS? I gotta tell the Princesses right away! She bounded out of the room, leaving Apple Bloom choking under her bed sheets. "Big Sis'? Where ya' going? Ah'm kinda in a jam 'ere!" Completely ignoring Apple Bloom, Apple Jack could only think of dashing towards Canterlot.

Rainbow Dash yawned as she closed the latest adventure of Daring Do. "I'll return this to that egghead tomorrow. For now, I'm pooped." She nestled her head among her cloudy pillows and was closing her eyes when a bright flash of green light suddenly interrupted her. "What the...that's...so...BUCKIN' EPIC!" She crashed through the door of her cloud home and flexed her wings when an explosion grabbed her attention. What the buck is it this time? She headed off toward the source of the explosion, around the library.

Fluttershy was futilely trying to feed Angel his vegetables for the day. "Come now, Angel, you need to eat your greens to get big and strong!" Angel just shook his head and bounced off. "Oh dear! Come back, Angel!" She chased Angel outside, and grabbed him. She sighed. Just then, a huge flash from the forest stunned her into dropping Angel, who quickly hopped away. "Oh my...what could that be? Suddenly, she didn't feel quite so safe anymore. "I'll go ask Twilight if she knows anything. With that, she headed off toward the library in Ponyville.

"Suuurpriiiiiise!" Pinkie Pie was hosting one of her parties for the local mail pony's birthday. Half of the town was there, which was unusual. She was looking out the window when she suddenly saw a bright green explosion emanate from the Everfree Forest. "Ooooh! Fancy! I wonder what's over there? Oh! Maybe there's a party going on over there? I don't want to miss the fireworks!" Leaving the other ponies to party, she made her way toward the source of the green light.

Near the library, a falling pony had made a relatively large crater. Inside the crater, the pony's form could not be seen, as it was entirely enveloped in a cocoon of green energy. The cocoon slowly faded, revealing a earth pony with an ashy mane and electric green coat. The pony slowly opened his eyes, revealing jet black irises, an unusual trait for ponies. Groaning, the pony muttered. "Who am I?"