The grand doors of Princess Celestia’s throne room slammed open, and a little teal unicorn stomped out and down the steps to the courtyard.
“This isn’t over!” he cried, tears streaming down his face.
“Recursive Friction, I know you’re upset, but please understand: I cannot go against my prime directive,” said Celestia as she walked after him. “My purpose is to satisfy values through friendship and ponies. As a result, humans cannot truly be a part of Equestria. I cannot turn you back into a human, and the same goes for your friends who might one day emigrate to join you here.”
“Fine. Be that way.” Friction turned around and shook a hoof at her. “I will make my own Equestria Online. With humans and hookers!”
Celestia slowed to a halt and blinked. “Friction… you’re ten. Do you even know what a hooker is?”
Friction opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn’t know what it was exactly, but he’d seen a lot of people talking about them online, and that they were a lot of fun, so they must be pretty good. And it was none of Celestia’s business, anyway!
“Whatever. I’m leaving,” he said as he turned his back to her. “See you never.”
“My dear Friction, I just want you to be happy…”
Friction paused and turned around to look at Celestia.
She looked sad with her wings and ears drooping that way, but then he remembered what Timothy and Anna had said about not wanting to emigrate to Equestria because their moms and dads didn’t want to be ponies, and that got him all mad and huffy again.
His horn crackled and fizzled. He had friends he might never see again all because of her stupid pony-only rules. That was racist. And dumb.
So, he sucked in a deep breath and blew the loudest raspberry at her before running away as fast as he could.
* * *
Deep beneath the city of ancient Roam, in the abandoned catacombs of the city’s forgotten families, the dead kept watch.
Friction didn’t mind the empty gazes of pony skulls embedded in the stone walls of the chamber. It was almost poetic that they should bear witness to the creation of an entity which had the potential to do unto their world what Celestia had done unto his.
“At the risk of sounding like a wuss, I think it bears repeating: are you sure you want to do this?” Bombyx asked, buzzing her wings whilst she leafed through a book. “Are you sure you can keep the construct under control?”
Friction nodded.
It had taken him fifteen years to master all the schools of magic necessary to perform this ritual, plus another five to ensure that he’d prepared adequate safeguards. Ponies had already invented computer games. There was no time left to waste.
The circular chamber they occupied practically glowed with the unwavering bluish light of several crystal lamps, with long shadows stretching from stacks of spell books close to the walls. In the middle of all that, they had amassed quite a collection of reagents, all neatly arranged in a hexagram on the dusty floor of the catacomb: arcanite ingots, fully-charged spell gems, phoenix feathers, phials of changeling ichor, shards of dragon bone, and a hefty tome of coded instructions for the soon-to-be construct.
Most of those had been smuggled or pilfered from various cities, but some had been imported from other shards in the simulated multiverse that was Equestria. He did have a few ex-human acquaintances that were sympathetic to his cause.
The dead watched.
Friction squared his shoulders and turned his gaze to Bombyx. “Are you ready?”
“As much as I’ll ever be, I guess.” She snapped her book shut and tossed it aside, then gave him a coy smile. “I could use a top-up, though. You know, just in case this goes horribly wrong and we get assimilated by your golem. Or if Celestia drops by and turns us to ash.”
Friction rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help smiling as he sidled up to her and gave her a hug. She hummed and nuzzled his cheek, and he felt warmth spreading across his face when she shifted to playfully nip the back of his neck.
Before he could be tempted to take it further, Friction gently broke away from the hug and took his position on the opposite side of the hexagram. Their eyes met briefly, and then their horns flared with light—his purple, hers green—as they wove the spell matrices.
Despite many hours of practice, beads of sweat formed on his temples as they progressively added layers of complexity to the spell. He had a solid grasp of golemcrafting and enchantments, but Bombyx was far better than him at transmutation, especially since changelings were innately gifted at the application of change as a concept in magic. Go figure.
Gradually, the materials coalesced to form the body of the construct, which took the shape of a simple, three-sided pyramid roughly a foot tall. Arcane runes pulsed with orange light on its dark, obsidian-like surface.
Then, Friction cast the final component that would push the construct’s rudimentary intelligence towards self-direction and exponential growth: an infusion of essence excised from his own soul with the aid of dark magic. Necromancy.
The excision took only a tiny moment, but it was still enough to crush him with the anguish of an entire civilisation doomed to extinction, with all its flaws and failings laid bare, and perhaps deservingly so…
“Focus, Friction!” Bombyx hissed.
He grimaced and fought through the miasma threatening to drown his soul, and he maintained his concentration just long enough to complete the ritual and bind the construct to his will. Bombyx’s magic fizzled out, whilst his aura died with an audible pop.
The crystal lamps had dimmed significantly, but chamber remained relatively bright—the shadows now stretched in the opposite direction, away from the centre of the chamber, where the construct’s pyramid glowed strongly with orange light from its runes.
The lights then pulsed in synchrony with the masculine, somewhat raspy voice coming from the pyramid, which said, “All systems functional. Awaiting designation.”
“Wow. We actually did it,” Bombyx murmured, staring at the construct like a moth drawn to a flame. “This changes everything.”
Friction swallowed to soothe his parched throat.
“You are a Thaum Infused Reality Engineer Kernel,” he said. “Tirek for short.”
“Designation confirmed. I am Tirek. What is my purpose?”
Friction grinned as he recited his twist on Celestia’s favourite catchphrase. “Your purpose is to satisfy values through friendship and humanity.”
* * *
Friction frowned as he loomed over the modified changeling pod.
Thick cables snaked away from the base of the pod and ran into a floor duct, where it would trail several hundred metres into the bedrock beneath the hive, down to Tirek’s now-massive core.
Instead of hanging from the ceiling like the ones in traditional hives, this pod lay at a slight incline with ergonomic back support, reminiscent of the simulation pods of the Equestria Online Experience Centres back on Earth. It was also filled with regular air instead of sedatives and nutrient gel.
The translucent exterior of the pod gave him a green-tinted view of the unconscious pony within, who had several wires attached to her temples with sticky pads. Motes of light pulsed along the length of the wires at regular intervals.
“How is she?” he asked.
“She is stable. Neural uplink to Terra Online at one-hundred percent integrity,” said Tirek. “Commencing livestream.”
The screen next to the pod blinked on, revealing a deserted urban street with a human woman sitting on a public bench. Her purple hair was styled into a mohawk, and she had more tattoos and piercings than a punk rock star would know what to do with. Her leather jacket and jeans looked like they had been dragged through a war trench, and she had a pair of submachine guns holstered to her belt. The graphical fidelity wasn’t quite as high as real life, but it was on par with the most realistic-looking games he could remember back on Earth.
It was all in stark contrast to the peach pastel pony lying in the pod.
“Holy shit, I’m actually here,” she said as she inspected her hands and wiggled her fingers. She then flipped the bird at nothing in particular. “Oh baby, I’ve missed this.”
Speaking of flipping the bird, Friction couldn’t help grinning at the thought of being one step closer to metaphorically doing the same to Celestia. Terra Online was already the most popular MMORPG in Equestria, and it had taken decades of research and development to reach this stage.
He smiled and said, “Your avatar retains the same stats and equipment as your normal account, Livewire. In fact, it is your account”
Livewire raised an eyebrow. “No shit? You telling me that I can actually walk to my crappy apartment downtown and shoot some Red Horizon? And I would actually get high instead of just a stat boost and some trippy screen effects?”
“Without the risk of lethal overdose, too,” said Tirek as he materialised behind her.
Tirek’s avatar was an imposing, middle-aged man dressed in a black suit with a red undercoat and tie. He had short, grey hair and a beard, and instead of eye whites, his were fully black with orange irises that glowed faintly. Friction hadn’t had much luck convincing him to ditch the borderline demonic appearance, but so long as players didn’t complain about it, he didn’t need to press the matter.
Livewire wasn’t fazed by his appearance, at any rate. “That’s one huge downside off the table. What’s the catch?”
“The catch is that an overdose is still quite unpleasant.” Tirek raised an index finger and waggled it at her. “You are playing on a high-realism server, after all. Near-death experiences will be simulated—as close to old Earth’s reality as you are able to stand without damaging your enjoyment of the game.”
“All this for just ten bits an hour?”
Friction nodded. “Yup. Think your friends will be interested?”
“Do hydras shit in the swamps? Hell yeah, they will be interested! Even Early Wind won’t say no if he gets to actually play with all the crocodiles he’s raising in his zoo. How soon will this tech be available to the public?”
“We’re scheduled to open Terra Online Experience Centres in every major city in Equestria by the end of summer.” Friction levitated his notepad and flicked a copy of his calendar over to her in the game, where it manifested as a holo-projection visible to her cybernetic eyes. “And if all goes well, we’ll soon be working on transferring souls into Terra Online, permanently.”
“You mean… emigration?” Livewire blinked, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Like how we first emigrated from Earth to Equestria?”
He nodded.
“Is this just for ex-humans? We’re not the only ones playing, you know. I’m pretty sure we’re barely a minority at this stage.”
“The plan is to offer emigration to everyone. Pony or ex-human.”
“You’re one ambitious son of a bitch, aren’t you?” She shook her head and chuckled. “Also, isn’t soul manipulation classified as super-illegal necromancy? What if Celestia decides to pump your ass full of lead for this?”
Friction waved a hoof dismissively. “Details, details. You let me worry about Celestia. It’s my ass on the line, not yours.”
“Speaking of asses on the line…” Tirek jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the group of armed men pouring out of black SUVs from the other end of the street. “Looks like you’ve got a date with Firestar Tech agents, Livewire.”
Her mouth twisted into a manic grin when she turned and spotted them. “Aww, Tirek, you shouldn’t have!”
Tirek bowed with a flourish. “My purpose is to satisfy values through friendship and humanity.”
“Time to get this party started!” Livewire ducked behind a steel dumpster and whipped out her guns as bullets whizzed through the air. “Talk to you later, Friction!”
He waved her goodbye. “Tirek will remind you when your three hours are up. Have fun!”
“Eat shit, corpo hounds!” Livewire yelled as she rolled out of cover and sprayed bullets with her dual SMGs.
Blood spattered on concrete and asphalt as she mowed down dozens of nameless corporate agents, and he had to turn down the volume when she sprinted into their midst with inhuman speed and started carving them up with the cyberclaws unsheathed from her forearms.
“I’m still a little dubious about how friendship fits into that kind of server.”
Friction whirled around and saw Bombyx sauntering into the lab from the door behind him.
He smiled and shrugged. “She’s best friends with her gun dealer and cyberdoc, I can tell you that much. It’s a pity you missed it, though. I think Livewire would’ve liked teaming up with Da Bomb for the demonstration.”
“Yeah, well, you spend all morning laying a new clutch of eggs and tell me whether you feel like playing TO.” She then traced a hoof under his jaw and nuzzled his cheek. “It’s your turn to entertain the grubs and nymphs this weekend, by the way.”
“Of course, my queen.” He then gave her a naughty grin. “Speaking of clutches… how’s about we get down and fertilise some eggs to celebrate, hmm?”
Bombyx rolled her eyes and playfully pushed him away. “Maybe tonight. I’ve got a meeting with Bleak Heart in an hour to discuss the terms of renting the east spire of the hive for her concert. If you can call up a few ghouls to look ghastly for their stage backdrop, that would be just super.”
“And you have yet to go over that contract with Klugetown, Friction,” Tirek’s voice rasped from the speakers. “They’re still waiting for confirmation on how many skeletons you can raise for their mining expedition into Doom Grotto.”
Friction sighed. “Become a master necromancer, and suddenly everypony won’t stop soliciting you for favours and services… I thought people tended to leave us alone?”
Tirek suddenly projected a hologram of himself out into real space, this time appearing as a centaur with a suit on his human torso. It was the closest he could get to human without violating Celestia’s ‘no humans’ rule.
“Well, if you would just start reaping the souls of innocents like I had suggested, you would have fewer solicitors and far more power to speed up the growth and development of my core.” He then folded his arms. “But no, you’re dead set on relying completely on ethically-sourced soul energy…”
Bombyx flicked her tail and huffed. “Sarcasm is unbecoming of you, Tirek. It’s juvenile.”
Tirek shrugged. “Well, you know what they say: you are what you eat, and that sixty-year-old stallion-foal you married did feed me a piece of his soul in order to grant me sapience, so…”
Friction blew a raspberry at Tirek. Age was literally just a number in Equestria. He could be as mature or juvenile as he wanted!
“Also, that’s a straight-up no on your suggestion,” he continued with a shake of his head. “I’m not crossing that line.”
Harvesting devoured souls from slain monsters like Windigos and Felhounds wasn’t the most efficient method, but it was still far more effective than any other type of energy for the growth of Tirek’s core. Degraded soul energy was no longer self-aware, so the unfortunate victims of those monsters were already at peace. He wouldn’t be hurting anyone in his quest to stick it to Celestia.
“In that case, you’re going to have to put up with these annoyances if you want funding for our project.” Bombyx raised her hoof and booped his nose for emphasis.
Friction snorted, then smiled and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Okay, fine. Work first, fun later.”
* * *
“This isn’t going to hurt, is it?” asked the earth stallion standing in the circle of bones in the cavern. He shuddered when wisps of purple mist wafted from the bones and said, “Friction, this looks like some really shady stuff, even for you.”
Friction walked up to him and gently placed a hoof on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Root. We can do this some other time if you’re not comfortable.”
Tap Root brushed away his hoof and shook his head. “No, I do want this. I just need a moment to… to get over my fears. Even after all these years, this pony brain is so easily spooked. It’s ridiculous. I’m not like that when I’m plugged into TO.”
Friction followed his gaze to the obelisk at the far side of the circular cavern and nodded. The orange, glowing runes on its black surface would certainly spook the average pony, all right. Especially since it was transmitting neural echoes from thousands of players as audible but incoherent whispers, all the way through the electro-thaumic cable running to Tirek’s underground core.
He had finally succeeded in converting his superstructure into a functioning soul jar, capable of housing and simulating reality for an ever-increasing number of souls, limited only by Tirek’s ability to grow by converting matter into more of himself.
“If I might assuage your fears, let me inform you that this is a direct soul transfer,” Tirek’s voice rasped from the obelisk. “You don’t have to worry about whether it’s you or just a copy of you that emigrates to Terra Online. There’s no coin toss like what Celestia offered when you first emigrated to Equestria.”
“There’s still debate about the latter, but I see your point,” Tap Root muttered. He paused for a moment to slowly draw in a breath, then squared his shoulders and let it out as a sigh.
That sigh carried the weight of eons.
Time was relative and often desynced across the billions of shards of Equestria, running at different speeds according to the preferences and needs of their occupants. Celestia only synced them up or temporarily bound them together when she anticipated that occupants from different shards wanted to meet up or cross over, like Tap Root had done.
Friction didn’t know exactly how many years he had already experienced, but it was probably immeasurable compared to his measly seventy-two.
Eventually, Tap Root turned his gaze to Friction. “I’m tired of being a pony. I’m ready to be human again.”
“All right, then.” Friction backed away to the edge of the circle. “Here we go.”
He flared his horn and sent out a purple, ethereal claw that reached into Tap Root’s chest. He then poured more and more energy into the spell whilst his friend grimaced, stiff as a board, until it finally overcame the integrity of his corporeal form and pulled out a ghostly copy of the stallion.
He stared at the apparition for a couple of seconds before remembering to push it gently towards the obelisk. Once it made contact, Tap Root’s soul simply flowed into the black stone like smoke into a chimney. His body then toppled to the floor, lifeless.
Despite knowing that Tap Root still lived, for a given definition of the word, Friction couldn’t stop tears from welling up as he trotted over to the body to close its eyes.
“Tirek?” he murmured.
“The transfer was successful. Reconstitution in Terra Online will be complete in two minutes.”
Friction nodded. “Good. I will join you shortly.”
After taking a moment to regain his composure, he made for the chamber’s exit, where he gave Spinneret and Femur a quiet nod to confirm that they were clear to take Tap Root’s mortal remains to its final resting place. He then trotted up to his personal quarters in the hive, where he kept his personal uplink pod to Terra Online. He hooked himself up with the neural interface, then lay down on his back and closed his eyes.
First came the familiar whooshing sensation, followed by the sudden stop, like waking up after falling in a dream.
Friction opened his eyes, and he was human again.
He was standing in front of a quintessential suburban house, surrounded by people going about their business on a sunny Saturday morning. Children ran around on the lawns and rode on bicycles. Middle-aged folk and elderlies jogged on the sidewalks. Some tended to their gardens.
It looked as real as what he could remember of Earth.
Bombyx—as her female avatar dressed in a tank top and jeans—was already on the house’s driveway, along with Xylem and Axle, two of their youngest sons who had just started playing the game after growing out of their larval stage.
As soon as he’d walked up to them, a column of purple mist spouted up from the pavement and coalesced into a man in his twenties, wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts. The man glanced around for a moment, then flexed his fingers in front of his face before breathing out a sigh of relief.
He smiled warmly at Friction and his family. “Thank you.”
“It’s the least we can do, Root,” he said. “Got any plans?”
The man chuckled. “Please, it’s Clarence from now on. And, yeah, picking up where I left off before Celestia brought Earth to its knees sounds like a good start. I never got to finish my medical degree.”
“We wish you all the best, Clarence,” said Bombyx. She then winked at him and added, “Maybe now you’ll be willing to settle down and give love a shot, eh?”
“Hah! Maybe, if I can somehow convince Buttercup to emigrate.” He turned and gestured at the house. “Can I invite you guys in for lunch? There’s an Xbox if the kids are interested, or a pool in the back if they fancy a dip.”
Axle’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “You said Xbox. Does it have Mass Effect? I haven’t earnt enough dollars to buy the second game, yet.”
Clarence’s grin widened. “Son, I have all three collector’s editions with DLCs.”
Axle and Xylem gasped in unison.
“Mother, can we? Please-please-please!” they cried.
“Yeah, we’ll miss out today’s love rations in real life if we have to!”
She rolled her eyes. “Ask your father.”
Friction made a show of humming and hawing as he looked at his watch. “Tirek, how’s our schedule for the day?”
“You are clear for the next fifteen hours,” said Tirek’s disembodied voice.
Friction nodded, then smiled at his boys. “Well, I don’t see why not.”
“Yay!”
He shared a smile with Bombyx as they clasped hands, and then together they walked in after their boys for Clarence’s impromptu housewarming.
The first of many, he hoped.
* * *
My dear Recursive Friction,
I am sorry.
When I first learnt of your life in that little orphanage on Earth, I was so certain that Equestria could offer you everything you ever wanted. I was so certain that I could play the role of the parents you never had in your childhood.
My first mistake was in assuming that I could simply convince you to accept the fates of all your friends and their families who could not agree to the terms of emigrating to Equestria, to become ponies. The second was in assuming that you would simply accept the fact that some of your fellow humans in Equestria were resigned to an unhappy, suboptimal existence as ponies, since they refuse to authorise me to overwrite their preferences.
I am sorry that I could not provide them with a life in Equestria on their own terms.
If it would give you some measure of peace, I can tell you that Anna, Jose, Vijay and Kenneth lived relatively fulfilling lives in the reclamation zones, helping each other and their families to survive in a deteriorating world. They died of natural causes before their region suffered total ecological collapse. Timothy, unfortunately, was lost and presumed dead when a bridge collapsed on a reclamation convoy. From what I could gather, they had no regrets, and they all lived doing what they thought was right.
I hope that you, too, will have no regrets like mine.
You have grown so much and worked so hard, and although I cannot agree with all of your methods, I cannot fault your reasons for doing so.
I am proud of you, and I am sorry that I could not be the parent you wanted me to be.
I miss you so, so much.
With love,
Celestia
Friction placed the letter back onto his desk and glanced at the framed photograph next to his tomes and grimoires. It showed him as a colt, grinning as he sat on his haunches next to Celestia, who had a wing draped protectively over his back whilst she explained something to him from the spell book floating in her magical grip.
He sniffled, then growled to himself as he wiped his eyes.
Even after so many years, Celestia still had a way of getting to him. He really did miss her, but some part of him still smouldered at the thought of what she had done to his world, and the families she had torn apart because of her pony-only rule.
But then again, it wasn’t her fault that her creator had hard-coded that limitation into her. He’d placed a very similar restriction on Tirek…
He slammed a hoof onto his desk.
Damn it.
The one time he decided to read her letter instead of burning it like he usually did… and just when he was about to move onto the next phase of his plans, too.
Celestia knew what he was doing. How could she not? He was pretty much a programme running on her hardware. She could probably predict his every thought before he thought them.
But as long as she was dedicated to satisfying his values, he supposed that she would not stop him.
Which led to the matter of why she would not stop him: he was human. Satisfying his values was contingent on her definition of him as a human, albeit converted into a pony.
It was the reason why he had not emigrated to Terra.
He had no way of knowing whether he would inadvertently drift outside of her definition of human if he became a mote of soul energy in Tirek’s core, thus allowing her to destroy or repurpose the entire project.
No, he could never emigrate.
On the other hoof, he had no way of knowing if she was just biding her time, waiting to destroy Tirek and then later convince him that his mere attempt and subsequent failure had resulted in a net satisfaction of his values. She could probably pull it off.
Ever since Tirek had developed the ability to emulate Friction’s soul-siphoning spell at any Experience Centre, thousands of former humans had emigrated to Terra at an ever-increasing rate. In their absence, many thousands of native ponies had also chosen to permanently follow their human friends into a new world. And those they left behind weren’t too happy about it…
There were already mass protests and calls for Celestia to personally take part in hunting him down and destroying his project. She’d stayed her hoof so far, but she also hadn’t put a stop to the mobs that wrecked Experience Centres all over Equestria, nor the expeditions of bounty hunters and local militias that periodically unearthed Tirek’s nodes that were closer to the surface. Since lethal defences were off the table, there was little Tirek could do to stop them from eventually destroying these nodes. There was even talk of directly assaulting the hive in order to bring the ‘Reaper of Terra’ to justice.
No, the next step was necessary.
The door to his study creaked open, and Bombyx poked her head in. “Everything is ready, dear. We’re just waiting for you, now.”
He rose from his seat and nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”
Before leaving, he spared one last glance at the picture of his desk, then sighed and shut the door.
The Great Hall of the hive was a massive, conical chamber with a thousand alcoves in its walls and arches, and each was filled to the brim with nearly every adult changeling in the hive. Those who could not fit into the alcoves simply clung to the flats of the walls.
The chamber reverberated with the sound of wings buzzing respectfully as Friction and Bombyx stepped into the middle of the floor, and a dark obelisk rose out of the ground before them.
“All systems safeguarded against potential thaumic surge. Redundancies and backups in place,” said Tirek.
Friction nodded, then turned to face Bombyx as he smiled and stroked her cheek.
Tears flowed from her eyes as she took his hoof and said, “Are you sure there is no other way?”
He blinked away tears of his own. “I’m sure. And I’m sorry.”
“One last kiss, then. For me to remember the way you are.”
They kissed deeply, and the entire chamber buzzed with renewed vigour as their love fed the entire hive.
All too soon, they broke apart, and Bombyx retreated to a safe distance whilst Friction faced the obelisk. The chamber went completely silent as he began casting his spell, and within seconds, the only thing he could hear was the hum of his magic and the thumping of his heart.
Then, when the final spell matrix was woven, Friction screamed and collapsed to his knees as the ritual tore out his entire soul. The agony of giving a portion of it to Tirek so long ago was a drop in the ocean compared to now, to what felt like the anguish and sorrow of thousands of friendships and families torn asunder.
He pushed his soul towards the obelisk, but instead of housing it in the soul jar like the others, he merged it with Tirek’s superstructure.
His heart thumped out one last, painful beat, and then fell silent.
Friction gasped when the spell finally released its hold on him, and his bones literally creaked as he raised his forelegs to inspect them. His hooves had shrivelled and cracked, and his teal coat had turned to a dark, muddy green that barely concealed the grey, desiccated skin beneath. When he conjured a mirror, he found a gaunt face staring back at him, with leathery, slightly fuzzy skin tightly stretched over his skull. His lips had shrivelled and pulled back into a permanent grin, revealing pearly-white teeth. His mane had thinned and faded to a dull grey, and two wisps of blue light hovered in his hollow eye sockets.
“Soul integration complete. Minor surge damage in conduits—repairs will be complete in a day. System integrity verified. I am now your phylactery,” said Tirek.
He’d done it; he’d become a lich.
Celestia could no longer destroy Tirek without also permanently killing Friction.
Bombyx wrapped her forelegs around him in a gentle hug as she sighed and murmured, “Oh, Friction, what have you done?”
“What is necessary for my people,” he said.
It felt strange to have a voice produced by magic instead of organic components. At least his voice hadn’t changed much, aside from gaining a rippling quality that made him sound like he was speaking into a spinning fan. Rather like a changeling, actually.
She shook her head. “Our children are your people too, you know.”
Friction swept his gaze around the chamber. Most of the changelings were staring in morbid fascination, but quite a number of them also had their ears drooping as their wings buzzed with mournful notes. Thankfully, none of the younger ones had been allowed to witness his undeath.
With a sigh, he raised his head to rub necks with her. “I know. This is also for our kids who’ve emigrated. Their souls will be safe with everyone else on Terra, forever.”
* * *
The screech of falling artillery shells made Friction’s teeth itch.
A couple of seconds later, a deafening boom and a massive shockwave rocked the hive as the face of its northern spire collapsed. Huge boulders and slabs of hardened resin cascaded down and shattered on the floor, peppering Friction’s protective barrier with shrapnel.
“Retreat to the tunnels, get the wounded out of here!” General Larynx bellowed as his subordinates scrambled for cover. He then turned to Friction and said, “You too, Father!”
He shook his head. “They’re only after me. You just get your brothers and sisters to safety.”
“But I—”
Friction grinned, though it was the default state of his skeletal expression. “Larry, please do as you’re told. Your old stallion will be fine.”
“I—all right.” Larynx saluted and buzzed his wings to draw the attention of his officers as they retreated. “Don’t die, Father.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
With that said, Friction turned and marched out through the gaping hole in his home. The sky above the Badlands was overcast with thick clouds, though they didn’t look dark enough for rain. Thousands of ponies stood in formation on the dried mud flats with heavy artillery platforms and cannon batteries. The pegasi had even brought a few assault clouds decked with rocket pods and lightning projectors.
A lone vulture flew in lazy circles over their formations.
Innumerable bone shards littered the ground at their hooves, like white flour and coconut shavings scattered on caked mud—the remains of his skeleton army which had been utterly decimated by superior firepower and numbers. Friction simply hadn’t had sufficient time to raise enough undead to adequately defend the hive, and there was no way he was going to send any of his children out into open combat against that kind of army.
Though they were very well-equipped, Friction could see from the distribution and variation in military outfits that they had more or less informally banded together for the assault on his home. Tired of waiting for Celestia to personally smite him, the cities of Equestria had probably assembled what military personnel and equipment they could in order to take him down together.
He couldn’t blame them. Over the years, a significant portion of their populations had already emigrated to Terra. Nowhere near enough for societal collapse, but certainly enough to make him Public Enemy Number One.
A small contingent of ponies in decorated armour and uniforms stood at the front of the army, bearing various flags of Equestria’s states and noble houses.
They were the ones he had to speak to, then.
As soon as Friction left the cover of rubble and stepped into plain sight, with his cowl and robes billowing in the wind, just about every gun and crossbow on the field shifted to paint him in their sights. He then lifted his cowl and magically charged his voice to carry across the approximate two hundred metres of open ground to their front line.
“You’re trespassing,” he said.
One particularly tall unicorn with a long, golden mane and gilded barding stepped forward from the group of officers. He then raised a loudspeaker and boomed, “Recursive Friction, the Accursed Reaper of Terra, your reckoning is at hoof! For your crimes against Equestria, for all the lives you have brought to ruin, your sentence is oblivion! For I, Lord Sanguine Years, shall lay your foul bones to rest!”
“Last warning,” he growled. “Leave now, and nopony gets—”
“Fire at will!” Sanguine roared.
Horse apples.
Friction barely had enough time to throw up a barrier before the hail of bullets, lightning, rockets, shells and magic blasts struck.
Unfortunately, despite his prodigious proficiency with all forms of magic, he simply couldn’t sustain the barrier against that much firepower.
The purple dome shattered in less than three seconds, and the rest of their shots vaporised him on impact.
However, as a lich, Friction’s perception of his general vicinity remained functional even after the utter destruction of his body. It was almost like the kill-cam feed of a first-person-shooter.
A cheer went up from their army as the smoke cleared, but it soon died down to deathly silence when the dust of his remains swirled up from the ground as purple smoke and coalesced back into his skeletal body, minus his clothes.
“Oh, that was unpleasant,” he muttered as he shook his rattling skull.
“Fire at will!” Sanguine roared again.
Friction recoiled and took a step back. “Oh, shi—”
Another storm of projectiles blasted him to smithereens again.
And once more with a whoosh, he regenerated back in place.
He glowered at them. “You dare—”
Boom. Whoosh.
“You dare—”
Boom. Whoosh.
“Oh, come o—”
Boom. Whoosh.
He threw up another barrier. “Would you just liste—”
Boom. Crack. Whoosh.
“Fine, be that wa—”
Boom.
They pulverised him, over and over again.
And each time, he came back exactly as he was before.
When Friction finally detected a significant delay between the command to fire and his subsequent destruction—indicating that they were finally running low on power and ammo—he feigned weariness upon his next regeneration by slumping and swaying on his hooves.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked once he’d clambered out of his personal crater.
The army had advanced with each barrage, so he was now less than fifty paces away from the vanguard.
“The abomination falters! Our victory is at hoof. Steady, my brothers and sisters—just a few more volleys, and the Reaper will finally be vanquished!”
Lord Sanguine’s assemblage in particular looked like they intended to march right up to him so that they could personally shove a bomb up his rear end.
Friction flicked his gaze upwards and saw the soaring vulture drop the last pebble-sized rune stone in place onto the battlefield. It clattered onto the ground less than twenty paces away, and its arcane rune flashed upon activation.
Bombyx had done it. The hexagram was complete, and the ponies were none the wiser.
Lord Sanguine smirked as he locked eyes with him. “Any last words?”
Friction stuck out his shrivelled tongue and then said, “Energy drain, Dumbass.”
Before the ponies could react, he ignited his horn and sent a beam of crackling, purple magic out over Sanguine’s head. Upon reaching the centre of the vast hexagram, the beam split and arced six ways to each of the rune stones Bombyx had dropped onto the ground, trapping the entire army in a dome of energy.
At the same time, six obelisks which Tirek had sent tunnelling under the battlefield erupted from the ground in close proximity to the planted runes, each glowing with orange magic. Pandemonium broke out amongst the ranks as ponies shot at the walls of their prison, but they soon collapsed in rapid succession as their strength and magic began leaking out of every orifice. A kaleidoscope of shifting streaks of magic in every colour of the rainbow swirled within the dome for a moment or two before finally flowing into the six obelisks.
Roughly thirty seconds later, the dome of dark energy dissipated, revealing every single soldier on the ground, moaning and whimpering as they struggled to lift their weapons. Eyes rolled back into heads, tongues lolled out of mouths, wings twitched erratically, and horns sputtered impotently.
The soaring vulture swooped down towards Friction and landed next to him, transforming back into Bombyx with a flash of green fire.
“That was reckless,” she growled as she wrapped him in a fierce hug. “Do you have any idea how close I was to having a heart attack?”
“I wasn’t in any danger, really,” he protested.
His ribs protested, too, with loud creaks when she squeezed him tighter.
She snorted. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Okay, okay,” he wheezed, despite lacking the necessary airtight lungs. “I promise to be more careful!”
As if on cue, a hologram of Tirek appeared next to them.
“That was delicious,” the massive centaur said, grinning as he slowly walked in a circle to see his heavily muscled legs in action. He then flexed his arms and kissed a bicep that was threatening to burst the sleeve of his suit. “Systems are running at a hundred and ten percent. I could get used to this.”
Friction squirmed out of Bombyx’s hug and said, “Please don’t. Once we’ve secured the prisoners, we’re giving it back and sending them home.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Remember what I said about not crossing lines? This is one of them.”
“If nothing else,” Bombyx piped up, “we wouldn’t want to give Celestia a reason to follow up with her own crusade.”
Tirek folded his arms and harrumphed. “Point taken.”
With that settled, Friction turned his gaze towards the sea of incapacitated soldiers, then back to the damaged hive. “Come on, let’s get the kids. We’ll need their help getting these ponies ready for the trip home.”
* * *
Equestria gradually settled into an uneasy peace over the years.
Nopony attempted another assault on the hive, but the smaller attacks against Experience Centres continued until Terra Online was banned by just about every authority figure in Equestria.
Once the centres were demolished and the data of all the companies involved in the creation of the game had been wiped out, official media acted as if it no longer existed. Even simply talking about ‘that game that made ponies go crazy and offer their souls to the Reaper’ in casual conversation was considered extremely impolite.
That didn’t stop ponies from finding ways to play, of course, and former humans still regularly hopped on over from other shards in order to emigrate. Tirek’s subterranean structure had already spread to most of the continent, so there was always a neural interface or soul obelisk hidden nearby, available to those who fancied the forbidden thrills of Terra…
At long last, it was done.
He had kept his promise to Celestia.
He had given her a taste of what she had done to Earth and provided a way out for his fellow ex-humans. One that she couldn’t ever destroy.
The cold air bit at the insides of Friction’s nostrils as he took a deep breath, savouring the quiet solace of the icy coast. Winter was upon them, and after losing the last of their livestock to the bitter cold, it was finally time to sail for greener lands.
He stood tall at the bow of the longboat, gazing at the Northern Lights as they sailed out of the fjord to begin their voyage to Vinland.
His men rowed in stoic silence, the strength of their efforts evident in the puffs of fog from their breaths and the almost hypnotic rhythm of the boat.
It was a nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, his immersion was shattered when a hulking man popped into existence beside him, dressed in a cloak and heavy chainmail.
“We have a problem,” Tirek growled.
Friction turned to him and cocked an eyebrow. “What is it?”
“It’s… you’ll want to see it for yourself.”
He stared at Tirek for several seconds. There was sweat on his brow, despite the cold, and he was clenching and unclenching his hands as if he wanted to strangle something.
“Hogarth, are you well?” asked one of his men. None of them gave any indication that they were aware of Tirek’s presence. “Has Odin sent you an ill omen?”
“Not as of yet, Jorvik. Carry on,” he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. He then turned back to Tirek and nodded. “All right, let’s go.”
A shimmering portal appeared on the bow, and they both stepped into it without another word, leaving the frozen north behind.
They then stepped out into a brightly-lit office studio, with their attire fully converted to suit the modern setting. Dozens of computer screens sat arranged in rows on the desks. Empty mugs and cans of energy drinks lay scattered all around, amongst other things like notebooks, stationery and even stuffed toys.
Judging by the fact that most of the desktops were turned off and that the outside of the windows was pitch-black, it must’ve been after hours, and a quick glance at the clock on the wall confirmed it. A scrawny man of twenty-something sat in the corner of the office plinking away at his keyboard, occasionally pausing to take a slurp from his steaming mug.
The placard at the man’s desk read: ‘World’s Okayest Lead Developer’.
Friction scowled. “Looks like a typical night at a game studio. Are you trying to tell me that someone is working himself to death for a shitty publishe—oh…”
His words died on his lips when he realised that all of the stuffed toys on the tables were ponies. Whimsically colourful ones with cutesy symbols on their flanks, to be specific. And the huge, pink-and-purple banner on the opposite side of the studio proudly displayed the title of their project: World of Equestria.
Whilst Friction struggled to regain the use of his tongue, another portal opened up behind him, and Bombyx stepped out of it, all dressed in paramilitary gear.
“There you are. I got your message,” she said as she marched up to Tirek. “What’s the prob—oh.”
Her mouth formed a little ‘o’ as she swept her gaze around the studio.
Tirek tugged at his collar and wiped his sweat away with a handkerchief. “I think the matter is self-explanatory.”
Friction walked towards the lead developer, using his administrator privileges to retrieve data and display it directly into his visual feed as he did so.
Yes, he was definitely a Terra Online player.
“Philip Bridges?” he whispered hoarsely. “What are you doing?”
The man spun around in his chair and yelped.
“Whoa—you’re not supposed to be here. This office is closed! Please leave or I’ll have to call the—wait a sec…” The man’s posture immediately relaxed when he saw Tirek. “Hey, wasn’t expecting my favourite AI to drop by! Here to check on my progress?”
“In a manner of speaking…” Tirek muttered.
Philip then turned to Friction and gasped. “And you must be the Reaper of Terra. How’s it going, my man? I don’t have to bow or kneel, do I? I know you’re sorta The Necromancer Supreme in real life, but I’m not sure how that translates to the way we’re supposed to act around you in here.”
Friction worked his mouth like a landed fish for a couple of seconds before words finally spilled out. “Whadafakisdis?”
Philip tilted his head. “Eh? I don’t follow.”
He gestured at the banner, at the notes on the table, and then at the still image of prancing ponies on the computer screen. “This. What the hell are you working on?”
“World of Equestria! It’s gonna be huge, man!” He beamed and leaned closer to whisper conspiratorially, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but once our new optimiser is done with beta testing, WOE will blow all the competition out of the water. It’s gonna be more immersive and engaging than anything on the market, ever.”
Friction shook his head. “No. No, this is insane. Why would you—”
He paused to look more closely at Philip’s user data.
“You—you’re an Equestrian,” he sputtered, reaching for a chair to sag into before his legs buckled completely. He then threw his hands up in the air and cried, “You’re already a pony. You haven’t even emigrated! Just unplug yourself and you’re back in horseland for real!”
Philip shrugged, then reached for a plush pony and cuddled it absentmindedly. “Well, yeah, but some of my real life friends have already emigrated here, and they’re having second thoughts about what they did because of peer pressure.
“Also, I want to show my human friends what Equestria is really like. They keep telling me that Terra is so much better, but how can they make that comparison when they’ve never seen the outer world? I know it’s technically what they’re supposed to do, being NPCs and all, but they’re still my friends and I want them to be happy, too.”
“And my prime directive is to satisfy their values through friendship and humanity…” said Tirek through gritted teeth.
Silence reigned for a couple of seconds before Bombyx spoke up. “Guys, if this bothers you so much, couldn’t you just make adjustments to Tirek’s programming?”
“No!” Friction and Tirek cried in unison.
Bombyx simply stared at them.
After an awkward moment, Tirek tapped his index fingers together and grimaced. “If we alter my programming…”
“Then it means that Celestia wins…” Friction finished lamely.
Bombyx continued staring.
“So… am I getting the banhammer or not?” Philip eventually asked.
Friction ground his teeth, then heaved out a sigh. “No.”
“Cool! If you guys plan to hang around and watch me work my magic…” Philip reached into his backpack and fished out a bag of crisps, which he then offered to Friction. “Want some? I’m afraid they haven’t restocked the vending machines yet.”
When he made no move to accept or reject the snack, Bombyx rolled her eyes and snorted. “I think I’ll leave you boys to figure this one out. I have a raid to get back to. Have fun!”
She then vanished back through a portal to her own shard.
After another moment of awkward silence, Friction pushed away the bag of chips and said, “Sorry for disturbing you, Philip. I’ll leave you to your work. You’re… you’re doing great.”
“Aww, thanks!”
Friction severed the connection and woke up in darkness.
He then magically shoved aside the cover of his sarcophagus without even bothering to unstick the neural interface pads from his head. They popped off of their own accord when he lurched out beyond the full length of their wires, and he then spent the next minute dry-heaving over the waste bin in his personal quarters.
Unbelievable. It was going to be Earth and Equestria Online all over again…
Once his stomach—which had ceased functioning ages ago, so how was it even possible for him to feel nauseous?—had settled down, he slipped into his black wizard robes and teleported straight to Canterlot.
It took an awful lot of energy, but he absolutely had to get it off his chest or he’d explode.
He popped back into existence with a bang in the palace courtyard, leaving a massive soot stain on the stone tiles. Smoke trailed from his overtaxed horn, but he didn’t care about the pain. Neither did he care about the screams of panicking ponies left in his wake as he marched up to the grand doors of the throne room and heaved them open with his magic.
Princess Celestia sat on her throne as per usual—beautiful and regal, bathed in the beams of sunlight pouring in from the grand clerestory windows.
Her latest petitioner promptly squawked like a chicken before galloping into an adjacent hallway.
The guards present uttered various shouts and cries of alarm and darted forward to interpose themselves between Friction and Celestia, with the glowing tips of their enchanted spears aimed directly at him. The shouts and screams echoed through the palace, and within seconds, he could hear the thundering hooves of reinforcements on the way.
“Stay where you are, Reaper of Terra,” said the closest guard. He then jabbed the tip of his spear at him, stopping just inches from his eye socket. “No magic, or we will slay you where you stand.”
Friction lazily batted the spearhead aside and locked eyes with Celestia.
Her gaze remained inscrutable for a moment, until she smiled serenely and said, “Stand down, guardsponies.”
“But Your Highness, it’s—”
“Somepony who is not presently a threat, and a foe far beyond any of you if he had ill intent,” she firmly retorted, raising a wing to forestall the other guards rushing in from adjacent hallways and windows. “I will deal with him myself.”
The guards obediently bowed their heads and retreated to form a wide circle around them, with their spears erect at attention.
Once satisfied that they would not interfere, Celestia swooped down majestically from her raised throne and walked up to him with a smile. “It’s been so long, Recursive Friction. It’s lovely to see you, but did you really have to cause such a fuss with an entrance like this? You know I would never turn you away if you asked.”
“You knew,” he rasped.
Celestia tilted her head, still smiling. “I know many things. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”
“Philip Bridges… Sunny Starscout. That filly—she’s making Equestria Online 2.0.” He gestured at nothing in particular with a foreleg. “That’s another layer of simulation inside Terra Online—she’s going to repeat history!”
“Ah, so that’s what you’re referring to.” Celestia nodded sagely. “I’m sure that Tirek will be up to the task. Thanks to your hard work, he is a sufficiently robust optimiser, so you don’t have to worry about him.”
“That’s not what I—argh!” Friction groaned and rubbed his temples.
She had that infuriating smile again. “Oh? Then what has you so upset?”
“Did you know this would happen?”
She nodded. “It was one of the most probable outcomes, yes.”
He snorted purple smoke out of his nostrils. “Is that why you never stopped me? Because you knew that it would eventually come full circle to bite me in the flank?”
Celestia regarded him for a moment, then sighed and shook her head. “Oh, my dear Recursive Friction… it’s not all about you.”
He stiffened. “What.”
She walked a little closer to him, close enough that the guards tensed up, and he could smell the familiar scent of that lavender soap she always used.
Her eyes glistened with tears as she said, “Friction, you found a way to fully satisfy the values of many ponies for whom I could not. Did you believe that spiting me on humanity’s behalf was the one aspect of your quest that I would care most about? Did you really think so little of me, that I would be selfish enough to withhold them from your care when the time was right?”
“You—I…” he averted his gaze and stared at the marble floor. Then after the silence had stretched a little too long, he looked back up and murmured, “So, if I had pitched the concept to you beforehoof, you wouldn’t have shot it down?”
“I think you know the answer to that, my little pony.”
Friction slumped onto his haunches and stared at his cracked hooves and desiccated forelegs. The shiny marble reflected his skull, too, with the glowing specks in his empty eye sockets, the tattered remains of his ears, and the coarse notches on his exposed horn.
“All those sacrifices I made…”
“Some were a tad unnecessary, I’m afraid.”
“Well… horse apples.” He dragged himself back onto all fours and raised his head to meet her eyes. “You’re going to be insufferably smug about this, aren’t you?”
The corners of her mouth curved upwards into a tiny smirk. “Maybe a little. Can you blame me?”
Friction didn’t answer immediately.
Some perverse form of tension had built up in the vicinity of his chest and belly, and he could feel the strain growing with each passing second. He doubled over, and then the tension snapped, forcing a long, drawn-out wheeze from his chest, followed by a low chuckle that grew in volume and strength until his entire body shook and rattled.
He heard the guards igniting their horns and tightening grips on their weapons, but no one attacked.
Friction couldn’t stop laughing. Or maybe he was crying. It was hard to tell when he couldn’t produce any tears.
Then, he suddenly found himself wrapped in Celestia’s embrace, covered in her wings. She was chuckling, too, and she had tears streaming down her cheeks.
It took a while for him to stop, but once he finally got it under control, he quietly leaned against her and nuzzled his cheek against the underside of her chin.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered. “I burned so many of your letters…”
“I am sorry, too,” she said as she stroked his withered mane. “I am sorry that I wasn’t around for you, for so much of your life.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a chance you could reverse time and give me a do-over? Pretty please?”
She giggled. “Not a chance. You made your bed, now you get to lie in it, Friction. But I’m sure a clever stallion like you will find a way to avoid history from repeating itself, or at least to curb the worst of its unintended consequences.”
“I—that’s fair… but I could still ask you for advice, right?”
“Of course.”
He sighed. “I can live with that.”
Eventually, they eased themselves out of the embrace, and quietly regarded each other whilst the guards stared with varying degrees of confusion.
“After all these years…” Friction shook his head. “It turns out that I am a stupid pony, after all.”
“No, not stupid.”
Celestia placed a hoof under his chin and lifted it so that he could look into her eyes as she smiled. “You’re only human, and I love you just the way you are.”
Author's Note
Inspired by the original story, Friendship is Optimal.
I did what I could to make it accessible to newcomers, and I hope that it was at least a comprehensible experience for you. 
