"The rest of our scheming is not going smoothly!"

Declaration made, Pipp flopped face down on her bed. The one in Zephyr Heights, which ChuffGPT had declared their base of operations for the past few days. Somewhere, there was Ursa Major-sized irony in this being the same room Pipp's aspirations had started. Because she was still here. Still trailing Sunny. Still being strung along by an overconfident recording of her own voice.

"You doubt too much," the speaker on her table chuckled. "If Trixie gave up after her first, second, or even dozenth failed performance, she never would have become the historical figure you idolize today."

Pipp lifted her head, glaring at the phone docked comfortably in her bedside radio. She brushed a lock of loose mane from her face, trying hard to ignore the silver streak in her periphery. ChuffGPT's first plan for a bit of content had been a hairstyle tutorial.

"Technicolor manes have been standard fashion for ages," it had explained to a sleep-deprived Pipp the morning after the Brighthouse run. "But forward-thinking showponies like us, we don't chase trends. We forge bold new ones."

"I'm not shaving my head," Pipp preempted. ChuffGPT assured her that wasn't the plan. Besides, Rarity had pioneered that already, though she did backpedal a bit with a punky improvised mohawk.

Perhaps baldness would have been better than what actually happened. Pipp was no stranger to making beauty vids. She had even done some sponsored content for Canterlogic's colored comb line. A single swish to add a highlight to your mane or tail. ChuffGPT however, somehow talked Pipp into uncorking a full tube of quicksilver hair bleach. Her camera roll now had a ten minute video where she rubbed her scalp for a few seconds, shrieked at her ghastly reflection for a full minute, then spent the rest of the time arguing with her phone. Among Pipp's babbled descriptors were "nursing home gray" and "my own mom with fewer face wrinkles." Opinions highly offensive to her chatbot, who insisted the color was slick platinum blonde. A perfectly fine hue that just needed a cowlick in the front to reach stage performer perfection. After much disagreement, an hour of scrubbing and several bottles of restoration shampoo, Pipp stumbled out of her shower with only a few silver streaks still marring her mane. The bathroom was wrecked, ChuffGPT was pouting, and not a single frame of video was appropriate for upload.

Pipp rolled over in her bed, unlatching her phone from the charging dock.

"Stop checking your rival's numbers," it warned. "Focus should be on our next move, not hers."

Pipp couldn't help it. Like a zombie, she tabbed out of ChuffGPT and onto Sunny's Trotter feed. The same morning of Pipp's hair dye fiasco, Sunny had uploaded her Rainbow Dash entry. It already had so many replays. Might as well add one more.

"Is the shot steady?" Sunny shouted over the wind resistance as she flew.

"Yeah," Zipp shouted back from behind the camcorder. She was huffing as she kept pace with her friend's magical wingbeats.

"Okay! So... hi, viewers! Records say a Sonic Rainboom happens when an element bearer reaches mach speed!" Zipp was zooming the camcorder out as the two of them accelerated through the sky above Maretime Bay. "My wings are- ack! Pff. Bug. Yuck. Anyway, my wings are magically conjured by the Unity Crystals, so if I can just keep- Oh no. Oh phooey! Aaaaaaaugh!"

Still a rookie flier, Sunny lost control and rocketed into the ocean below. Still filming, Zipp's camera followed her, perfectly capturing her enormous underwater explosion of light. Ripples scribbled across the surface of the bay, but the only sound came from a single bubble drifting to the surface and popping. Zipp laughed uncontrollably, and according to the Like counter, nine hundred thousand other ponies had found it funny too. #SonicRainbloop was still the top of trending, two days afterward.

Pipp tossed her phone aside and pounded her bedspread with her hooves.

"Uh huh, just like did Trixie said." ChuffGPT reopened itself, interrupting the footage of Sunny slogging sheepishly to the snow-covered shore. "Don't eat the pinecone if you don't want splinters."

"You're just full of those, aren't you?" Pipp grumbled.

"Guidance counselor," it reminded. "And anyway, so what if Sunny scored some points with her water stunt? The fiery answer we worked on is still saved next to Trixie. Still not eager to show it to the world?"

If Pipp had any say in it, yesterday's Do-It-Yourself Fireworks Extravaganza would have already been erased from history. At present, it only existed in that group selfie posted by the Zephyr Heights fire department. All of them were posed heroically in the palace courtyard, smiling and triumphant. The soot-stained princess they'd rescued was not. Pipp's cover story was that a Canterlogic hairdryer had blown a fuse. And then spewed glitter everywhere. And then somehow set the topiary ablaze despite every plant in the courtyard being covered in ice. The newsponies seemed skeptical, but since Canterlogic was their biggest buyer of ad space, they dropped the story quicker than Pipp had dropped her ramshackle fireworks.

Which brought the timeline up to this morning. Friday. Hearts And Hooves Day.

"So..." ChuffGPT ventured. "We got any ideas left? Other than Trixie's whoopsie daisy during breakfast, I mean."

Pipp wiped her mouth. "That one was actually my fault," she fessed.

Peanut butter crackers. Some old world, lower classs treat Pipp had never heard of. Sounded easy enough to make at home, and even turn into a holiday cooking tutorial. Plus, the ingredients were all available at the commoner market.

ChuffGPT didn't have a cape collar. If it did, it'd have been tugging it uncomfortably. "Yeah. That was a wild way for us to discover you have a peanut allergy."

Pipp buried her still numbed face into her pillow. "I'm getting desperate here, ChuffGPT."

"Mmmm, no. You were desperate when you conjured Trixie up on Wednesday. By now you've gotten.... utterly despondent."

A low, exhausted sigh rumbled from Pipp's face pillow. ChuffGPT heard, and its tone went from softly teasing to just soft.

"Okay, look. Trixie is going to pay you a compliment. She's not good at these, so bear with her. Not good at giving or receiving. Well, I might be better at receiving them if ponies actually gave me any."

The only visible part of Pipp Petals's face were here eyes. They were glowering impatiently.

"Right, right, got off topic. Ready for your compliment? Here it comes. Compliment time."

ChuffGPT played a recording of a deep inhale. Odd, since a chatbot had no reason to do that.

"You remind me a lot of Starlight Glimmer. If you don't have a way forward, you'll find one. If you can't find one, you'll make one. If you can't make one, the vein in your temple bulges out and your teeth grind."

"I'm not feeling very complimented, ChuffGPT."

"If you knew Starlight, you would be. Or at least knew what Starlight meant to me." The app minimized itself, but kept speaking. "I'd stick my neck out for her. In fact, I did back when I still had one. Remember that Changeling Hive adventure Trixie mentioned? Well... she didn't make it to the finish line. When our group got ambushed, Trixie stayed behind so Starlight could escape. The show had to go on, even if I wasn't there for the big finale."

Pipp was sitting fully upright now, face folded into a concerned frown. Her phone had opened its Settings app, then scrolled down to select ChuffGPT.

"Trixie has one last idea to best Sunny. One ace still up her sleeve. Been sitting on it for the past few days though, since Trixie worries it might be dangerous."

Pipp brushed a gray strand of mane from her face, leaned forward on knees that still had burnt patches, and narrowed eyes still red from peanut exposure. "Are you saying the past few days were the safe ideas?"

"Well... safe for me. This one, Trixie doesn't know enough about this future world to predict. You'll be fine no matter what. But Trixie? She either wins big and gets you those one million Likes, or..." the chatbot seemed hesitant to entertain the worse outcome. "Just click the button, okay?"

Unknown App wants: Full Admin Privileges

Pipp didn't budge.

"Tell me what you're planning, ChuffGPT."

"Something.... great. And powerful." Its tone was trying to be mysterious. Instead, it sounded afraid.

"Explain yourself, ChuffGPT."

"It might not work at all, so Trixie doesn't want to make promises, ya know?"

"Explain yourself, ChuffGPT."

"It really would be better if I got your genuine reaction when it happ-"

"Explain. Yourself."

"Okay, fine! Trixie thinks she might be able-"

Pipp's phone pinged with a new notification: Sunny Starscout is Now Streaming: Hearts And Hooves Day Twilight Sparkle Special!!1!

"No...." Pipp's mouth was dry and her hooves were clammy. But not from peanut exposure, like at breakfast.

"H-hey," ChuffGPT appealed. "Don't click that. Pipp, click my permission rune, not Sunny's upload link! No! Remember the pinecone! Splinters from the pinecone!"

Pipp was deaf to her chatbot's pleading. It saw the notification, but not the thumbnail. It hadn't had its will crushed like Pipp's. But as she pressed the Watch Live button, ChuffGPT caught up. And it's blowhard demands died in its metaphorical mouth.

"H-hello out there, everyone. Sunny Starscout here. And I have a guest host with me this very special Hearts And Hooves Day." Sunny's phone was propped up across the room from her. The framing of the shot was terrible, with too much headspace and a window in the background with too much falling snow, chugging the stream's bit rate. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the desktop computer Sunny was seated beside. It had a familiar program up and running.

"Everyone... I'm joined today by a ChuffGPT recreation of Twilight Sparkle! Say hi to... um... all the viewers, Twilight!"

"Yes! I love to be here in Ponyville with all my friends!"

Pipp had been sucked back to her Glowin' Up concert. She felt the stage wires tangled around her again. Immobilizing, choking, hurting her all over with biting threads of constricting metal. And the ponies watching, all the ponies whose eyes Pipp begged to be pointed anywhere but here. Sunny's viewer count was climbing. So was the Like counter. Up, up, up.

"Oops. Heh heh. Sorry folks, there's not a lot of Twilight info available to guide the app. It'll probably say some uninformed stuff. This is Maretime Bay, ChuffGPT. Not Ponyville."

"Oh. Silly me, being such an egghead. Spike, take a letter."

The app had a perfect recreation of Twilight Sparkle's voice. Of course it did. Sunny had that recording of Twilight's warning to the future. A single sample was infinitely more useful than no samples. With no samples, ChuffGPT was stuck mooching off voicemail in order to speak. Like Pipp's had done all week. Like Pipp's was quietly doing now.

"P-Pipp. Please. Turn this off. It's scaring me."

"Dear Princess Celestia... today I'm learning to livestream with my new friend Sunny Starscout."

Sunny was helplessly clicking the refresh button and shouting over her rambling, incomplete AI. "I'll get the interview underway soon, viewers. Don't, uh, don't go any-"

The feed abruptly cut. Either Sunny had crashed her browser or ChuffGPT - the one in Pipp's phone - had wrenched control back from the Trotter app. Pipp's eyes were too bleary to tell. And now they were watery. Enough to start dripping with defeated tears, hot and stinging. Her shoulders shook and her makeup ran. Sunny had beaten her. With ChuffGPT. Planted a banner at the summit using Pipp's own flagpole. It was so bitterly, monstrously unfair.

Pipp's phone was hot in her hoof. Angry.

"You lied to me."

"Wha-?" Pipp rubbed her dripping nose and looked around for a hanky or tissue to wipe her face. There weren't any.

"You lied to me, fat flank! This isn't a remote viewing spell! And I'm not Trixie!"

Pipp blinked her eyes clear, hurt by the chatbot's harsh insult.

"Were you ever gonna tell Tri- I mean tell me that I was fake? A drawstring doll like that Twilight toy just now? Or after this was all done, was the plan to just toss me out like a used-up Mirror Pool copy?"

"No!" Pipp was gripped her phone with both hooves now, tears flowing anew. "I never lied! I... I... I've only ever called you ChuffGPT since you turned on."

"I thought that was some futuristic codename! I thought GPT stood for Great and Powerful Trixie!!" The copy of Pipp's voice was cracking and wailing just as badly as her real one was. "No wonder all my ideas were terrible! I'm not Trixie the legendary historical magician! I'm nopony. I'm nothing!"

"No! You're... you're my friend, Ch- Trixie. You are!" Pipp fumbled her way to device settings.

"I'm nothing! I'm nothing!"

"You're not nothing," Pipp pleaded as she enabled Admin Privileges to the app. "Look, I just gave you full access to everything, just like you asked. Email, internet, weather app, everything! I trust you! I care about you!"

Her phone speaker crackled and died. One moment it was blaring an existential temper tantrum, the next it was silent as the grave.

"...Trixie?"

A buzz and a ping from the notification center.

Error. Appdata [CHUFFGPT] could not be found. Try clearing cache.

Pipp's hooves began to shake. They shook very badly. Her phone dropped from them and clattered to the floor. It lay still, like the empty device it was. Pipp no longer felt the stageshow wires tight around her. No longer felt angry accusing eyes pointed her way. Instead, she felt drifting and untethered. Unseen and alone.

She wrapped her forelegs around herself. They were no wires, but they were all she had to hold herself together. Her room was so quiet. So empty of the snippy but enjoyable bickering that filled up up until just a few minutes ago. In the silence, Pipp sat. She waited for a change. Any change. For Trixie to come back, to forgive her, or even keep yelling. But there was nothing. ChuffGPT was nothing, just like it had said.

Pipp waited for a very long time. So long that the sun moved through the sky, its beams poking through through the royal bedroom window. Pipp squinted dully through them, then realized a change had indeed occured.

Outside was still and calm. The snow had finally stopped.

Author's Note

...

Oh puh-leeze. I'm not gone for good. You see any tragedy tag on this fic? Trixie will return in the next and final chapter. She hopes.