Metagaming

by Snowday_Pegasus

Rating: everyone
Tags: Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dr. Caballeron, Comedy, Adventure, Discord, Daring Do
Length: 14273

My entry in the Ponyville Ciderfest 2023 anthology book, "Scattered Pages: Tales from the Book of All Stories."

My entry in the Ponyville Ciderfest 2023 anthology book, Scattered Pages: Tales from the Book of All Stories.

When an all-powerful book of destiny, The Book of All Stories, was opened, the worlds of Ponies and Humans converged at the Ponyville Ciderfest convention center. The book's pages scattered themselves across time, space, and infinite dimensions. Whoever attains a page of the book can rewrite history and reality at will. (For more detail, read the prologue story here: https://ponyvilleciderfest.com/opening-from-scattered-pages/ ) A nightmare entity gained access to a page and used it to escape from the dream world. An unlikely team consisting of A.K. Yearling, Doctor Caballeron, Discord, and Ciderfest Mascot Fizzy Glitch, must pursue the monster into cyberspace. What they find there, as well as the catastrophe they must prevent, is far beyond anything they could have imagined.

Published 2023-11-25 17:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-11-25 17:50:01 UTC

00_Initializing

Author's Note

While I provided a quick summary of the overarching official PVCF23 story that set off these events, if you wish to read it in a bit more detail, the prologue for "Scattered Pages" can be found here. It spells out the nature of the Book of All Stories more clearly, and also provides some more insight into Fizzy Glitch's present psychological state. https://ponyvilleciderfest.com/opening-from-scattered-pages/

00_Initializing

…while their boat, Wavedancer, sped away from shore, Daring Do and Caballeron watched the Island of Ypol slowly disappear back into the spectral fog that had kept it hidden for thousands of moons.

The volcano, after sleeping for countless years, would wait no longer to vent its anger towards the two interlopers, but fog reduced its orange fire to nothing more than a pale glow. Ypol’s rumbling was drowned out by the boat’s twin motors.

The spectral fog eventually released its embrace of Wavedancer, just in time to witness Celestia’s golden orb cast its final evening rays across the horizon.

Daring let out a sigh. “Well, you can’t win them all, I suppose.”

“Are you so certain of that, my witty amiga?” Caballeron reached into his saddlebag and produced the mechanical gold cube. “Looks like even though we’re collaborating, I still found a way to outsmart you.” He pridefully laughed, twirling it around on his hoof.

“You got it! How did–”

“I craftilyswitched the real one for a fake while the Sentinel was chasing you all over the altar room.”

“I must admit, sometimes those thieving skills of yours come in very handy.”

“I do not thieve. I merely… reappropriate.”

Daring Do smiled, a rare sight for her arch nemesis to see. The Anthytoykara was safe, and on its way to the museum.

The End.

A.K. Yearling sighed, pushed her glasses to the top of her head, and rubbed her eyes. “It’s a start, at least.”

From the couch, sipping a Cider-rita, Dr. Caballeron said, “But not a bad first draft for our first joint expedition?”

Yearling slid the laptop away, stood up, and stretched. “Any expedition you can trot away from with a piece of history is a good one.” She added with a smirk, “Even with a bothersome sidekick.”

“Sidekick? Is that what you’re going to call me?”

“I love how it’s ‘sidekick’ that you protested, and not ‘bothersome.’ Do you have a better suggestion?”

“You could…inject a touch of romance between the two protagonists?” Caballeron waggled his eyebrows.

Yearling said monotonously, “We’re not dating.”

“Creative license. Like the trap door you opened and then scared away the scorpions with a torch. You omitted that you fell in and, in your panic, knocked over a wall sconce that scattered the little beasties.” He laughed at the dagger eyes she shot his way. “I’m just saying, it would probably sell more copies. Everycreature lovesa good ship story.”

“The only good ship in this story is the one that got us off the island.”

“Oh…kay.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of creative license, the Anthytoykara still isn’t at the museum, is it?” He walked over to the metal cube, resting quietly on an end table. Caballeron admired the configuration of silver and brass gears and ornate nested circles on its otherwise smooth surface. He tapped on it gently and listened to the tinny ringing sound. “Are you still going to give it to them?”

“The more I think about it, the less comfortable I am. I haven’t even told them we recovered it yet. The tales of it give me a chill, and I don’t want it disappearing into Starswirl’s forbidden section, never to be seen again.”

Mocking Canterlot’s elite, Caballeron explained, “We have top stallions working on the Anthytoykara, Daring Do. Top… stallions.”

“Besides, Starswirl would accidentally open a gateway to limbo or something.”

Caballeron chuckled. “Why rush the story to print, though? Once it’s out, everycreature is going to want to see the new treasure.”

“I was supposed to have until summer. Now they want it in time for Hearth’s Warming.”

“Why so early?”

“My guess is they’re worried about the A.I. craze.”

“Oh. That.”

“Of course, it was postmarked today, so it might be that with this strange interdimensional cross-rift going on, they want to take advantage of these odd creaturesto boost sales.”

“I admire your publisher’s opportunistic ambition.”

“You would.”

“I can’t say I mind the odd creat– what do they call themselves again?”

“Bronies.”

It was a topic that was impossible to ignore even for a short time. Sure, they figured infinite worlds could exist and so nearly every possible reality was up for grabs, but not something thisprecise. Caballeron and Yearling remarked on everything that had happened since their sudden arrival in this strange place called ‘Hilton’ after being sucked through some odd portal.

The interactions with the hotel guests so far had been paradoxical. They didn’t know any of the Bronies at all, and yet the Bronies knew them. Caballeron likened it to having amnesia, going home for Hearth’s Warming, and being welcomed as family by total strangers. Yearling tried to rationalize it with some kind temporal asynchronicity. Perhaps years later, they would go back in time and meet them in the past? They both wished it were something that made even that much logical sense, but they knew real the culprit: The Book of All Stories. It made them even more uneasy than the Anthytoykara. There was some implication behind the book that they couldn’t pinpoint. Instead of continuing to dwell on it, Caballeron tried to focus on the positives.

“The hotel– to be honest, when I first saw the mane hall, I thought this place was a royal palace. Everything here is so luxurious, and the Bronies so cordial. I haven’t been treated this well since the time I convinced the Hippoi Island Ponies that I was their coconut god.”

“You told me they made you their god,” Yearling argued.

“I lied.”

Yearling sighed. “Of courseyou did. I can’t argue with the treatment either though– it just feels…too good to be true. Both them, and this world. Something is fundamentally off; the colors, the textures, the strange shadows, the way the air feels, even the physics. It’s alien in a way that I can’t explain. And there’s the fact that their ‘weekend party’ seemed tailor-made specifically for us, even though our arrival here was supposedlyan accident. This Book of All Stories chaos has really–”

A flash of white light briefly illuminated the room, heralding the arrival of a familiar draconequus. Dangling upside down from the ceiling, Discord asked, “Did somepony in here say…chaos?”

Caballeron groaned. “Why aren’t you out hunting for pages?”

Discord replied, “I would be, if I didn’t have so many simping minions willing to do it for me. But mostly I’m watching out for Fluttershy; it’s veryhard work at a convention like this. You wouldn’t believe how many attendees have made advances. I’ve had to send a wholegaggle of them into a parallel dimension!” He melodramatically placed the back of his hand to his forehead, looking like he might faint. “My work is neverdone.”

Yearling reacted with concern. “Another… dimension?”

“Oh, they’re fine. They’re playing musical statues with Bluey.”

Caballeron asked, “And your visit has what to do with Fluttershy?”

Discord merely answered by giving him a scrutinizing glare.

Caballeron was perplexed. “Me? What did I do?”

Discord said, “You have been changed for the better by dear Fluttershy, and I neverknow if perhaps your heart has begun to… well… flutter.”

“Fluttershy? With two T’s? Well, I mean, she’s nice. But, no, not really.”

“Not really?” Discord’s eyes burned. “Not good enough for Conquistador Caballeron, is she?”

“Sweet Celestia,” Caballeron groaned.

“I thought you said everycreature liked a good shipping story?” Yearling smirked.

Caballeron sighed, “Can we just drop it?”

Discord asked, “So, what’s all of this about A.I.?”

A.K. Yearling rolled her eyes. “It stands for Artificial Intelligence.”

Discord said, “Artificial… intelligence. Fake smart? Sounds like cheating on an exam.”

Yearling said, “It sort of is. A.I. takes information from artists and uses it to create its own works.”

Discord asked, “This is bad… how?”

Yearling sneered. “Because it will make the work of countless creators obsolete!”

Discord retreated slightly. “But isn’t this the way of the world?” He prodded the Anthytoykara gears, causing them to spin momentarily. “The wheels of progress must continue to tur–”

Caballeron interrupted, “Would you want a robot to steal your chocolate rain, use it to make a cake the size of Mt. Everhoof, and take all of the credit?”

Discord’s body shrunk to one-tenth his regular size. “Oh, that doesn’t sound fun at all. Yes, Ms. Yearling, I can see why that would be a problem.”

“And that’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Yearling said. “It’s nothing shy of an existential crisis! A.I. could destroy everything.”

Discord inflated back to his normal height. “Now, this time I’m sure you’re exaggerat–” A shattering sound startled them, drawing their attention to a broken desk lamp on the floor.

Yearling began, “How did–” Then they saw it. Hovering near the ceiling was a strange azure vapor. The three creatures gawked as points of light randomly twinkled across its translucent surface.

“What is that, and how did it get in here?” Yearling asked.

“Something of yours?” Caballeron asked Discord.

“I wish I could take credit, but I don’t even know what it is.”

Yearling said, “Well, let’s get rid of it before it breaks something else.”

“I’ll get it.” Discord snapped his fingers and a cage materialized around the alien form. It passed straight through the bars before the cage even had a chance to fall. Discord pouted, “Fillies and Gentlecolts, the famous escape artist, Cloudini!”

The cobalt-tinted wisp darted over to the laptop and examined the screen. Yearling slowly reached for her whip. Caballeron clapped his forehooves together, staring down the abnormality. Now wielding a catcher’s net, Discord was clad in an animal control officer’s uniform.

Yearling said, “All right, here’s the plan…”

For the next few minutes, hotel guests one floor down looked at the ceiling with confusion, listening to the muffled sounds of what was presumably an impromptu not-so-professional wrestling match between a number of angry elephants.

Back inside the ‘ring,’ multiple chairs had been knocked over, a lamp flickered, Discord’s net had only ensnared Doctor Caballeron, and A.K. Yearling was lost in a pile of clothing beneath a now-broken closet rod. During the brief reprieve, the intruder dove into the Anthytoykara device. Their humiliating performance complete, the three stooges collected themselves and approached the ancient cube.

With a flurry of sparks, the gears started spinning. Caballeron said, “The bad news is, it got inside of our priceless artifact. The good news is, I think we’re about to find out what our priceless artifact does.”

“Are you sure that’s good news?” Yearling asked. With a plume of crimson smoke, the Anthytoykara projected a slender red beam into Yearling’s laptop. A tiny light then traveled along the beam into the screen.

“What in Celestia’s name is happening?” Caballeron asked. An abrupt knock at the door caused them all to jump. “Now, what?”

Caballeron cautiously opened the door. Amazingly, it wasn’t hotel security responding to a concerned call. It was a worried Princess Luna, trying to catch her breath. The moment she saw “Dog Catcher” Discord, a look of anger came over her. “Oh, of course you’re mixed up in this.”

Discord pointed to the “official” badge on his uniform. “My visit is purely professional, I assure you.”

Luna sighed. “Did you see a glittering blue cloud?”

“Glittering blue cloud?” Discord giggled. “I haven’t seen a glittering blue cloud.” He looked at Yearling and Caballeron. “Either of you?”

Yearling raised her eyebrow and then quickly answered, “It infested an ancient relic, and now there’s an enchanted beam shooting into my laptop.”

“Oh, that blue cloud? It was more of a glittering indigo cloud.” Discord shrugged.

Yearling looked at the beam again and then followed its path to the monitor. “Wait a minute.” She looked more closely at the text on the screen.

...and their boat, Wavedancer, went away from the shore really fast.

Daring Do and Caballeron looked at Ypol Island which entered the fog. The fog had hidden it from lots of moons.

The volcano, which was very tired, got mad at Daring Do and Caballeron. The fog made the fire orange and not bright. The boat's engines were louder than Ypol's noises.

The fog let the boat get away, and Celestia's golden thing went down in the sky.

Daring was like, "Oh well, we can't always win."

Caballeron was like, "Not so. I'm smart. Look!" He showed a gold cube. He was tricky.

Daring was surprised, "How?"

"I made it fake when the Sentinel got busy."

"Your stealing skills help sometimes."

"I don't steal, I just borrow."

Daring smiled at Caballeron. They were sort of friends now. The Anthytoykara was safe and going to a museum.

“Did I get hacked?” Yearling wondered.

Caballeron asked, “What is it?”

“It’s like someone completely rewrote the manuscript.”

Discord looked closer. “It almost looks like an A.I. modified it.”

Yearling noted, “You said you didn’t know what an A.I. was.”

“I knew the whole time. I asked anyway, in case the reader didn’t know.”

“What are you talking about?” Yearling asked.

“Well it might not be a great exposition, but it’s something.” Discord shrugged.

Luna interjected, “What you saw in here was a Tantabus.”

“Another Tantabus?” Yearling remarked. “I thought there was only the one you created?”

“Far from it,” Luna said. “Any creature can create a Tantabus. They manifest from self-loathing while haunting the dreams of their host. Only mine ever gained enough strength to become a threat…until this weekend. Tantabi are also looking for pages. This one succeeded, which is how it escaped into the waking world.”

“Can you get it out of my computer?”

“Unfortunately, no. But I might know somepony who can help. I’ll be right back.”

01_Error_Bad-Environment

01_Error_Bad-Environment

Luna, Discord and Caballeron watched intently. Fizzy Glitch examined the laptop and the Anthytoykara as A.K. Yearling explained everything that had happened. Fizzy considered the beam that linked the two devices and tried to interrupt it by putting random objects in its path. No luck.

Caballeron suggested, “Maybe something more dense, like lead. Or Discord.”

“Hey!” Discord objected.

“Did you try turning it off and turning it back on again?” Fizzy asked.

Yearling said, “Luna went to get you as soon as this started. We didn’t dare touch anything.”

Fizzy tried to shut down the laptop and received a screen notification:

This app is preventing Pintos from shutting down: TantaByteGPT v1.0

Fizzy smirked. “TantaByte? Cute name.”

“Please don’t bond with it,” Yearling grumbled.

Fizzy clicked the button marked “shut down anyway.” Nothing happened. She then checked the list of active processes to forcefully close TantaByteGPT. It wasn’t on the list. The virus scanner also found nothing. She looked for any new files on the hard drive that had been created since the Tantabus showed up. None. She also found nothing strange in the system registry. You name it, she tried it. TantaByte was a ghost. If it weren’t for the data she was trying to recover, she’d be at a point where she’d normally just reinstall the operating system. But since they were dealing with a sentient being, Fizzy decided to try looking at it from a different angle. “Why out of all the places it could have gone, did it choose your laptop?”

Luna said, “An astute question.”

“At least I can do something right,” Fizzy huffed.

Luna asked Yearling, “What were you thinking about before the Tantabus showed up?”

“Artificial Intelligence.”

“That explains why it changed the manuscript,” Fizzy said. “Even calling itself GPT.”

Luna said, “Miss Yearling, the Tantabus is feeding on your fears.”

Discord asked, “Well, if we can’t block the beam, what if we move the laptop?” Discord snapped his fingers and the laptop was now on a bookshelf, with the laser still locked onto it. Discord tried again, and again.

“Discord,” Luna said. Both Discord and the laptop then disappeared in a flash. The beam was now going into the ceiling.

“Umm,” Fizzy said.

Moments later, they returned, covered in slime. “Ugh, Discord, what did you do?” Yearling asked.

“Oh, you mean the ooze? It will evaporate in a moment.”

“Where did you go?” Caballeron asked.

“A planet in galaxy GN-z11, some 32-billion light-years from here… give or take a few miles. Forgot it was the middle of pollen season.” Discord sneezed. “Oh, but the beam was still there.”

“Faster-than-light travel,” Fizzy gasped. “Like the cube and the laptop are quantum-entangled!”

“Watch this.” Discord manifested a dozen clones of himself that all began snapping their fingers. The laptop shot around the room to different locations faster than any creature could see, causing the beam to flicker in a thousand directions all at once. “Laser-light show!” All the Discords made buzzing and humming noises trying to approximate electronica music.

“Discord!” Luna yelled.

Discord responded immediately by singing his favorite Eurobeat Brony song.

“Enough!” Luna screamed in her Royal Canterlot voice, magic surging into her horn.

The ‘main’ Discord stopped singing and lowered his head. “Oh, fine.” He snapped his fingers and the clones disappeared.

Luna took a deep breath. “I think we’ve established that moving the laptop doesn’t work.”

Fizzy said, “I’m going to remove the battery.”

“Can’t that erase the data?” Yearling asked.

“There’s a slight risk, but at least it’ll actually shut off.” Fizzy turned the laptop around to look for the battery cover. “Then I can remove the harddrive and copy–” The laptop immediately began making alarm sounds. “What in–” Fizzy turned it around again. The screen was flashing red.

CPU MELTDOWN IMMINENT! LEAVE THE DEVICE WHERE IT IS AND EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!

Luna yelled, “Everycreature out of here no–”

“No, wait! Don’t panic,” Fizzy said. “There’s no such thing; it’s just trying to mess with our heads. It knows what I’m doing and it doesn’t like it.” The klaxon sounds and light pulses stopped.

Transfer of TantaByteGPT v2.56 complete

Fizzy sighed. “Of course the 5G connection was enabled.”

"I can’t count how many connections to G5 I’ve seen this weekend,” Discord replied.

“5G, not G5! It uploaded itself!”

“To the internet?” Discord asked.

“That’s…not something I was afraid of,” Yearling said.

Luna asked, “Is there anything else you said before the Tantabus showed up?”

Yearling then looked very concerned. “Existential nightmare– oh. I said A.I. could destroy everything.”

There was a unified gasp.

Discord asked, “Alright, as much as I’d like to see just how good it is at impersonating ‘Wreck-it-Ralph,’ how do we stop it?”

Fizzy asked, “What exactly does the Anthytoykara do, anyway?”

Yearling explained, “We don’t know for sure. It’s rumored to be the first ever analog computer, accurately reflecting the state of the universe in the past, as well as calculating the future. Most think it was about tracking the heavens, but I worry it’s much more complicated than that.”

Caballeron added, “She means the legends. Ancient tribes tell of it reordering the flow of time, breaking through dimensions, all sorts of things. That it was able to interface with a modern computer has tremendous implications. It could mean that the Ypoli tribe had computers all the way back before the Age of Grogar!”

“No matter what it means, it somehow connected to the laptop,” Yearling said.

“But how did it put a Tantabus in there? That’s something no device has ever done before.” Fizzy went over to the Anthytoykara and noticed a silver disc protruding from the top of the cube. Traced on it was a glowing red magic circle. “What does this do?” Fizzy asked.

Yearling inched closer. “That wasn’t there before.”

Fizzy pondered for a moment. She grabbed an orange from a nearby fruit bowl and carefully placed it on the disc. The fruit was immediately ensnared by a three-dimensional grid of red light, then it vanished from sight. As with the Tantabus, a tiny speck of light traveled along the beam and into the laptop. “Complete digital conversion!” Fizzy said excitedly.

“A.K., this may be the greatest discovery ever,” Caballeron said.

“I wish we had time to revel in it, but how do we stop the Tantabus?”

Fizzy pointed at the AnthyToykara. “We can go in after it.”

“You’re kidding,” Yearling said.

“Hunting a nightmare monster wasn’t high on my list of things to do today, but it sounds like a worthwhile adventure to me,” Caballeron said.

Discord said, “So we toss a couple of PokéBalls and bring it home? Princess Luna, ever fight a nightmare in virtual reality?”

“I would go, but alas, I only have power over Tantabi in dreams. The internet is beyond my borders.”

Discord shot Luna a look of confusion. He was about to question her but quickly thought better of it. “Aw, that’s too bad.”

Luna said, “Fizzy Glitch would be far more suited for this mission than I.”

Fizzy looked surprisedly at Luna. “You want me to go?”

“Absolutely. You are as well-versed with electronics as I am with dreams.” Luna addressed the room. “And I implore the rest of you: accompany her.”

“But how will we get back out?” Yearling asked.

Caballeron said, “I think I know how.” He pointed at the Anthytoykara. “Inscribed here in Saddleskrit.”

A realm where logic and emotion twine,
journey into a world, divine.
When you seek to find reprieve,
speak "escape," and be set free.

Discord said, “I just love how when translated, it still miraculously rhymes! Well, shall we go? We don’t want to keep the Tantabus waiting, do we?” Excitedly, Discord placed his claw on the disc. Just like with the orange, the red grid surrounded his body, and then he was gone. Discord stuck his head out of the Anthytoykara long enough to say, “Come on in, the water’s fine!”

“Well, let’s go into the laptop! Gee, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d get to say.” Fizzy put her hoof on the disc and disappeared, followed shortly thereafter by Yearling and Caballeron.

Luna observed the beam as three tiny lights traveled into the laptop. Where was the fourth? Discord then popped half-way out, the red web of energy still struggling to wrangle him down. “Princess Luna, I have to ask: that gobbledygook about the internet being ‘beyond your borders.’ I’m aware of no such universal law, and I would know, since I’ve broken them all! Why are you fibbing?”

“A half-fib. Even if I could banish it,I would be hesitant to in this case. I’ve seen Fizzy’s dreams, and”–Luna paused, resisting the urge to shed a tear–“she needs this. Fizzy Glitch is feeling like a lesser light; lost in the shadows of those perceived to shine far brighter than she.” Luna’s chin wobbled. “I’ve been there. And I know all too well what kind of damage it can do.” She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t lying about anything else. That realm is her kingdom, not mine. There is no creature here who would be better at hunting a Tantabus across the internet. So don’t mess this up for her, please.”

Discord smiled. “Shenanigans and deception for the greater good? I’m proud of you. You’re starting to think like me. Alright. This one time, chaos yields to order. But, a little quid-pro-quo: you have to let me turn the moon into green cheese.” Luna’s whole body recoiled, but Discord assured her, “Just for one day. And you can’t tell Twilight that you know what’s going on, otherwise there’s no fun in it.” Discord winked.

Luna tried to stifle a laugh. “Consider our pact sealed. And thank you,” she said.

“If we’re not back in a few seconds– oh, hmm– let’s just pretend I didn’t say that, and we’ll hope that doesn’t happen.”

“Good luck.” Luna said.

Discord tipped his animal control ballcap to her, and then he was gone. The fourth passenger glided along the light ray to his destination.

02_Upload-Complete

02_Upload-Complete

First there was a faint smell of ozone. Then a steady hum. Darkness gave way to a matte gray floor and ceiling that stretched in all directions towards the horizon. The atmosphere tasted metallic; it was warm and dry, and yet a mysterious mist was in the air which revealed countless red rays sweeping back and forth. Suspended in mid-air was a seemingly infinite tunnel of racing data, marking the conduit that had delivered the travelers into this unbelievable place.

The attire of the Anthytoykara passengers had changed. They were wrapped in undergarments made of white spandex. Over this was silvery armor like something from a vintage comic book. Engraved into the armor were thin strokes of blue light that randomly turned and split at right-angles, except on the chest armor at their shoulders, where the etching duplicated Caballeron and Yearling’s cutie marks respectively. For Fizzy, the vectors formed a circuit diagram. Miniscule white lights raced along the grooves like an aerial view of city traffic.

“Is this some kind of protective equipment?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy looked around and then gazed back into the transport tunnel. “Where’s Discord?”

At the tunnel’s vanishing point, a multicolored speck grew slowly into the shape of a draconequus balanced on a hybrid surfboard and clad in striped swimming trunks. “I’ve heard of surfing the web, but this is ridicu–” As Discord reached the end of the tunnel, his surfboard and swimwear instantly burned up into fluorescent dust, causing Discord to somersault in the air before bouncing along the ground like a loose tire from a car wreck. Finally his momentum ran out, leaving him laying flat on his back. “Ow.” Discord was now dressed in an armor suit like the others, but on his chest was a ”chaos star” made up of arrows pointing outward in eight directions.

Yearling asked, “Are you OK? What happened?”

Discord rolled over and rubbed his head. “Well, that was rude. Why did it take away my stylish look?” Discord snapped his fingers. Nothing. He snapped again, focusing harder. Still nothing.

Caballeron asked, “Chaos magic doesn’t work here?”

Fizzy said, “That would make sense. Computers are built on logic.”

Discord scoffed. “Oh, this is going to be the dullest place ever, then. I should have opted out; I could be drinking cider with Charlie right now.”

“Just deal with it,” Fizzy said.

“I’m not really complaining. I’m just amazed that my magic has been dampened again. I mean, if I had an Equestrian bit for every time I went on a quest and couldn’t use magic, I’d have two bits– which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.” Discord shrugged.

“What is that gadget on your arm, Fizzy?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy raised her forearm and saw a glowing turquoise bracer. “I don’t know?” She brushed her other forehoof across it and a holographic projection of lavender vector graphics floated above it, depicting a keyboard and display. “Oh, wow, is this ever cool,” she said.

Discord searched for a gadget of his own and found a gray sphere. “Well, I did mention PokéBalls before we left, but I didn’t expect it to actually give me one.” On the sphere was a button and a quartz display. Discord pressed the button. The sphere rapidly cycled through colors and the display scrolled through numbered items like a slot machine. After a few moments, it settled on one:

- Twilight Repellent -

Pressing the button again caused the sphere to glow, and in a sudden flash of dazzling colors, a quesadilla covered in ladybugs materialized in his hand. “Hang on.” He repeated the process. This time, a winged toaster flapped its way around Discord. “Ohh, I get it.” On the third try, it spawned a bunch of rubber chickens. “My chaos magic is still here! But it got sorted into… a list? Organizing my chaos? Alright, Auntie-toy-car, that’s just offensive!”

Fizzy said, “That definitely sounds like how a computer would interpret chaos; putting it in a database with a randomizer function.”

Discord moaned, “But this means I can’t control what comes out. This might as well be an Infinite Improbability Drive.”

Caballeron replied, “I don’t know what that is, but it certainly sounds like an accurate description of you.”

Yearling was turning over a light green glowing disc. “What’s this?”

“May I see it?” Fizzy asked.

“Certainly.”

Yearling gently tossed the disc to Fizzy but it shot towards her like a missile. Fizzy barely ducked in time as it whizzed by. It stopped a few dozen meters away, where it simply hovered, spinning rapidly like a top. “Fizzy, are you OK?” Yearling asked.

“Fine. Is that a… weapon?”

Yearling then noticed a faint stream of luminous vapor linking her hoof to the disc as if it were the string of a yo-yo. She flicked her wrist, and the disc sailed back to her hoof. “It somewhat reminds me of your whip, A.K.,” Caballeron noted. He felt around and found an item dangling from his hip like a sword. It looked like little more than a solid black rod. He unhooked it from his belt. “It’s a… bar.” Rotating it, he found a single button. Wanting to avoid an accident like what had almost happened with the disc, he pointed the bar away from the others before pressing the button. Instantly, the bar became golden, and a small screen lit up.

TantaByteGPT v3.1 - Range: Off-port

The bar began beeping at regular intervals. Aiming in different directions caused the bar to beep faster or slower. “Oh, It’s a search bar!” Caballeron laughed. “I think it’s leading us to TantaByte.”

“Don’t you start personifying it too!” Yearling snapped. “Well, let’s go. This place is making me nervous.”

Fizzy said, “I like it. All these flashy lasers! Needs some music though.”

Caballeron marched on ahead, using the Search Bar as a guide, and the others followed. Eventually they came to a glowing doorway. It read:

PORT 20-21

Fizzy said, “File-transfer protocol ports. Yep, it went to the internet alright. Ohh, boy.”

“What’s the problem?” Discord asked.

“Remember when I said that computers are based on logic?”

“Did you have to dig up that recent trauma?”

“Well, it wasn’t entirely accurate. Once you add humans, those concepts kind of go bye-bye.”

Discord clasped his hand and claw together with glee. “Let’s not wait another minute, then!” He dashed through the doorway and vanished.

Fizzy rolled her eyes. “And, he’s gone. Let’s go.” She disappeared.

Yearling pondered, “How does Fizzy know about the ‘human beings’ that are here?”

Caballeron just shrugged as he and Yearling went in.

Colors and shapes zipped by like neon debris caught in a tornado. At the center were four disoriented adventurers, haplessly hurtling down the funnel.

Discord’s face turned green and he covered his mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. Am I being punished for the time I threw that mailpony into a wormhole?

They all hoped the ride would be over soon.

03_Redrawing-Canvas

03_Redrawing-Canvas

The tunnel opened into an empty space obscured in a haze. Nothing was visible in any direction and the only sound was the turbulent wind that was buffeting them.

“Where are we?” Yearling yelled.

Fading into view in front of them and slowly growing larger was a vast array of brightly colored pixels depicting numerous images. Faint white clouds became visible and whizzed by as they approached the odd video screen. Slowly, a feeling of gravity came over the four creatures and they realized they weren’t flying towards it; they were falling towards it.

“Couldn’t we at least get a battle bus?” Discord asked.

Fizzy replied, “We need a parachute– umbrella– something!”

Discord frantically tried casting different spells. Laser beam shark. It took a snap at Discord’s nose. Definitely not! He flung it away. Jar of mayonnaise? Bing bong! He tossed it. Solar-powered flashlight? Oh, come on, when would I ever need that? Discarded. Giant ball pit? That will do. Discord aimed downward, pressed the button, and a bolt of energy streaked from his sphere to the ground. A vector outline of a ball pit formed and then it transitioned into a solid object. The four creatures landed into the pool with a plasticky splash, sending colorful balls flying everywhere.

“Let’s not do that again,” Yearling said. The solar flashlight landed in the pit beside her. Splash!

“Good job, Discord,” Fizzy said.

“It was blind luck more than anything,” Discord groaned. The jar of mayonnaise plummeted into the ballpit. Splash!

“Don’t complain. We made it.” Caballeron said.

Splash!

Discord chuckled nervously. “Umm– the shark made it too.”

“¡Madre!” Caballeron yelled. The four creatures screamed and frantically scrambled out of the pit.

“Pup of a Diamond Dog,” Yearling cursed.

The shark peeked its head out and asked, “Don’t you want a free hour in the ball pit?”

Discord huffed. “Go away.” With a shake of his globe, the pit and everything in it was deconstructed. The field of pixels they were standing on no longer looked flat as it had from high above. They were actually massive cubes of varying heights, like densely-packed buildings in a city. Some seemed stable, but others kept changing color and elevation at regular intervals, giving the appearance of a landscape in the midst of some kind of cataclysm. Discord said, “Hmm, we’re being attacked by a Tetris puzzle.”

Caballeron asked, “What’s a Tetris?”

“Fizzy, what are we looking at?” Yearling asked.

“I’m…pretty sure this is r/place.”

“Your place?” Caballeron asked.

“No, not our. R!” Fizzy said.

“Arrrrrrrrr, shiver me timbers,” Discord joked.

Fizzy growled. “No! R…slash…place!”

“Not following,” Yearling said.

Fizzy shook her head. She attempted to describe a metaphor about how homes need addresses, “Reddit” was the street name, and “Place” was the house number, but the two ponies just stared blankly at her. She decided to just explain the nature of the canvas: an abstract game, where players could set the color of a single pixel every couple of minutes, and by working together, they could create pictures. But she also mentioned that some players were just out to destroy the works of others.

“Well where has our little feral Digimon gone off to, then?” Discord asked.

Caballeron scanned with the Search Bar. “That way.”

Fizzy warned, “Be careful. These ‘blocks’ keep changing. One wrong step and we could fall through the canvas, or be crushed.”

“But we can pull ourselves out with the codeword, remember?” Caballeron said.

“Let’s just make sure we don’t have to use it before we’re ready,” Discord warned. “Lead on, Doctor Caballeron, Keeper of the Mighty Search Bar.”

As the four of them crossed the canvas, Fizzy felt that something was off about it. She knew the last r/place event had ended months ago, so this pixelscape shouldn’t have been here to begin with. But there was more. Fizzy had just gotten a splendid bird’s-eye view during her unpleasant skydiving experience. But while nearly anyone who had seen r/place could have recognized this for what it was, specific details seemed out of place.

Caballeron’s Search Bar did its job and led them to TantaByte. It looked to be about four times larger than before, and it was no longer an amorphous blob. It now resembled an octopus with a polygonal body, and it had traded its sparkly shimmer for an intricate orthogonal pattern. Its tentacles stretched and whipped around, smashing blocks. As the others looked on, Fizzy was typing away at her gauntlet and managed to access a top-down view of the canvas. The blocks that TantaByte was destroying were from a piece of art that depicted a sleeping Rainbow Dash, with her mane forming a heart that dangled behind her. At once, Fizzy realized what was off. She knew the art image well: it was the centerpiece of Brony activity during the 2017 version of r/place!

“The ‘Sleeping Heart Rainbow Dash?’ This shouldn’t be here. It’s from years ago.”

“Is this some kind of old recording?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy said, “I’m not aware of any recording of r/place that captured every pixel change so accurately. But if it’s a recording, how is the Tantabus changing it?”

“What are you saying?” Discord asked. “We went back in time?”

“I hope not!” Fizzy said. “If we did, the Tantabus is altering history.”

Caballeron said, “Well, what are we waiting for? Worst case scenario, it’s changing the past. If it isn’t, we still can’t let it run wild on the internet.”

“Good point. To arms!” Fizzy ordered.

Discord giggled. “Do you mean our arms? Or the octopus’s arms?”

Cyan-colored low-resolution flames emanated from Fizzy.

“Sorry, sorry. Continue.”

Fizzy smiled at the chance to use a nostalgic battlecry. “Protect Dashie!”

“Leeeeeeeeroyyyyyyyyy Jeeeeeeeenkiiiiiiiins!” Discord bellowed in response.

Yearling threw her disc ahead as they all rushed in. The sudden attack knocked TantaByte off balance. Yearling yanked the disc back and threw it again. A third time, and it embedded itself in the ghostly cephalopod, knocking it over. Yearling felt the weight of the creature pull her forward, as if the threads of energy that linked her to the disc were made of solid rope. She braced herself and tugged hard; nearly yanking herself forward in the process. The disc obediently returned to her.

Fizzy accessed the console on her gauntlet again. Punching a few commands, she managed to bring up info on TantaByte’s integrity; it was going down. “We’re dealing damage!”

Caballeron leaped through the air and swung with the Search Bar. TantaByte winced and flailed at Caballeron, only managing to shatter a block. It swung again, and Caballeron knew he couldn’t dodge in time. An attack from Yearling’s disc sliced the incoming tentacle right off. TantaByte shrieked in pain. Caballeron was about to hit it again, but had to dive away to prevent a block from crushing him. TantaByte tried to capitalize and attack Caballeron again, but a spray of Nirik fire from Fizzy forced it to flinch.

Discord tried casting spells with the sphere, but as before, it was a roll of the dice. No, I don’t need rocky road ice cream…or a hairdryer…or a– oh, come-on! The fourth try created ten duplicates of Discord, dressed in tuxedos, complete with top-hats and canes. That’s more like it. “Other me’s, Charge!”

All of the Discords raised their canes up like swords and rushed into the fray. “Tally ho!”

TantaByte was focused on Fizzy, who had just rammed into it with her horns, when it was suddenly blitzed by the platoon of dapper Discords. “Draconequus pile!” They all repeatedly beat on it with their canes…courteously. “Jolly good shot, Discord!” “You as well, Discord.” The army of sophisticated chaps proved to be too much for TantaByte to handle. It bulldozed past its elegant assailants, clambered up a cliff, and rushed across the pixelscape.

The Discord clone-army, having done all it could, tap-danced its way into oblivion.

“How are we going to get up there?” Fizzy asked.

Recalling what had happened when she attacked the Tantabus, Yearling threw her disc at the top of the cliff, and it embedded itself in the ledge. Giving a gentle pull, she could feel the resistance. “Grab hold of me,” she yelled. The other three held on, and with a flick of her hoof, the tendrils propelled them all to the top of the cliff. Yearling grabbed hold of her disc, and with a little effort, dislodged it from the block.

TantaByte was quickly gaining distance from its pursuers. Caballeron was smug, knowing he could track it wherever it went. TantaByte abruptly came to a stop, looked to its right, and then frantically fled left.

“What’s it running away from?” Yearling asked.

“Does it know something we don’t?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy looked at her gauntlet and then stopped in her tracks. “Oh, no.” A sea of black pixels was expanding in every direction. “It’s the Void!”

“The what?” Yearling asked.

“Just run!” Fizzy yelled. She took off, but the others looked in the direction of the approaching threat; it was like a tsunami of darkness, obliterating every block in its path. Immediately they all ran after Fizzy.

“Where are we going?” Yearling asked.

“I don’t know, but what’s good enough for the Tantabus is good enough for us right now,” Caballeron replied. “What is that thing?”

Fizzy answered, “A rival faction with one objective: consume everything!”

“Faction?” Yearling asked. They fled from the swarming dark until they reached a wide chasm. Yearling threw her disc but it came back before it connected with the other side. “It’s too far away!”

“Now what?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy stopped and poked at her gauntlet.

“What are you doing?” Discord asked.

“Getting us across this fissure!” Fizzy just stood there typing while the void creeped ever closer.

– Transposition – X: 0.0 Y: +30.0 Z: 0.0

The group was snatched away from the Void’s frigid grasp and placed safely on the other side of the gorge. A short distance away, the Tantabus could be seen going through a door. Discord attempted to dive in after it, but the door momentarily ignited into flames, throwing him back. A ‘lock’ icon appeared on the door, and Discord sneered in pain as the others helped put out the fire on his arm.

“It put up a firewall!” Fizzy said, and then raised her gauntlet up to the door. As she tapped away at the keyboard, thin tendrils of energy reached out and connected with the lock. While Fizzy was working, the others looked back at the incoming black storm.

Discord gazed at the Void with all the wonder and awe of a child. “It’s beautiful.”

“And it's about ten seconds from eating us,” Yearling warned Fizzy.

“I know!” Fizzy snapped back. “I think I– yes! I got it.” The lock icon vanished. “Go, go!”

The four of them vanished just before the entropic shockwave consumed the door and everything around it.

04_Legacy-Icon

04_Legacy-Icon

The party of digital adventurers paused to catch their breaths as they arrived in a dimly-lit space. This area was filled with antique televisions seated on a tiled floor. On each screen, a different video was playing.

“Is this still Rabbit?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy said, “Reddit. And, I don’t think so.”

Caballeron’s staff led the way to one of the televisions. Displayed on the screen was TantaByte, now shaped like a wolf. It circled slowly around a familiar gray mare with a golden mane.

“It’s Derpy,” Yearling said, surprised.

“What’s it doing?” Caballeron asked.

On the screen, Derpy said to TantaByte, “No, I don’t want to leave. They– they wouldn’t do this to me.”

TantaByte spoke in a cold and raspy voice, “Of course they would. They never cared about you. You’ll be deleted if you don’t go. Just return to the shadows while you can.”

Derpy covered her face with her forearm and wept.

Discord averted his eyes from the dismal scene and said somberly, “The Derpy War.”

“The what?” Caballeron asked.

“It’s complicated,” Discord said.

Fizzy fought against tears of her own. “TantaByte is trying to get rid of her!”

The Derpy controversy; the public reaction to her name, her voice, her mannerisms; a dark time of high emotions on all sides, with one confused innocent little pony caught in the middle of it all.

“2012, right?” Discord asked.

“Yep,” Fizzy replied.

Yearling was getting frustrated. “What are you two talking about?”

Caballeron put his hoof to the screen; it stretched like cellophane as his hoof passed through it. Surprised, he immediately pulled it back out, watching as the screen again became taut.

TantaByte snapped at Derpy, “They don’t need you. They don’t want you. It would be better for everyone if you never existed.”

Derpy’s face nearly reached the floor as she sobbed. Caballeron winced. “I’ve seen enough. This is a war? Then I’m going to end it. Now!” He pushed his way through the screen and swaggered with determination towards the Tantabus, brandishing the Search Bar like a rapier.

Fizzy stared off into space. They don’t need you. They don’t want you. It would be better for everyone if you never existed. “Snap out of it,” Yearling yelled, shaking Fizzy, before immediately recoiling from searing pain.

Fizzy looked at Yearling and then down at herself, realizing she had shifted into Nirik form. She quickly focused and changed back. “Are you OK?”

“I’ll be fine, I’ve had worse,” Yearling said, annoyed.

“Sorry,” Fizzy said. Her ears drooped as she lowered her head.

“Not the right time,” Discord said. “Sad smol horse? Needs our help? Up ahead? Also, Doctor Caballeron just decided that he’s Zorro.”

“Right, of course. Attack. Attack!”

Caballeron was already fighting valiantly on his own against the Tantabus, in spite of how much more dangerous it had become. It was fast and agile with sharp claws and gnashing teeth, but it failed repeatedly to even scratch the archaeologist-turned-matador. Discord managed to manifest a party cannon, which he set off in TantaByte’s face. Yearling smacked it in the leg with the edge of her disc. TantaByte nearly bit into Fizzy, who turned the moment to her advantage by bucking it square in the jaw. The Tantabus howled and ran away, presumably to lick its wounds. But unlike last time, the party didn’t give chase immediately. Poor Derpy was shaking.

“We can’t just leave her here like this,” Caballeron said.

Derpy stared at the ground and cried, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt anyone! I just don’t know what went wrong! I’m sorry!” She kept repeating, “I’m sorry!”

Discord said to the two archaeologists, far more seriously than he normally spoke, “If you would give the three of us a moment alone?” The two looked to Fizzy for confirmation. Fizzy nodded. Caballeron and Yearling hesitantly walked away and observed from a distance as Discord and Fizzy spoke to Derpy for a while.

Caballeron asked, “That little mare caused a war? Where was I when this happened?”

Yearling replied, “Nothing I’ve heard of either.”

After a lengthy conversation, Derpy managed a smile.

Fizzy said, “The wolf wasn’t your fault, and neither is anything it said or did.” Discord, Fizzy, and Derpy shared a hug.

Discord added as he walked away, “The dark times will end. I promise.”

“Don’t worry about the wolf. We’ll take care of it. I swear to Celestia I will!” Fizzy was about to leave, when Derpy grabbed her by the tail.

“Here,” Derpy said. “You might need this.” Derpy gave her an envelope. Fizzy took hold of it and turned it over. It was sealed with a pink heart sticker.

“What’s this?” Fizzy asked.

“Just hold onto it. Maybe it’ll help.”

Fizzy thanked Derpy, and made her way over to her three companions.

“What was that all about?” Yearling asked.

“That… was something you shouldn’t have seen,” Discord said. His eyes were burning. “I’m going to make that Tantabus regret ever coming into being!”

“Let’s just get out of here,” Fizzy said, furiously. She looked at Caballeron. “Where is it?!”

Caballeron nervously pointed and then led the group to another doorway.

Yearling said, “Fizzy–”

Fizzy stopped. “What?!”

“I think both you and Discord have some explaining to do. It’s apparent you’re keeping something from us.”

“Let’s just get in there!” Fizzy snapped, becoming briefly engulfed in flames, and causing the others to step back. “There isn’t time!” Fizzy stomped her hoof and marched through the door.

Discord shrugged at the other two and went through.

“What are you thinking?” Caballeron asked.

“I don’t know, but nothing about this place makes any sense. Discord has been everywhere so it doesn’t surprise me he knows so much about it. But how does Fizzy know?” Yearling asked.

It was a fair question, but he had nothing to offer as an answer. Caballeron walked through followed by Yearling.

05_Global-Delete

05_Global-Delete

As before, it was very dark. But now, there was an angry storm in the sky. The gray clouds rolled by so rapidly, they seemed to boil. Dust swept along the ground, and feathery bolts of purple lightning stretched across the sky.

Fizzy, Discord, Caballeron, and Yearling had found themselves in a forest of light. On the floor were messages, each one contained in a window. Luminous rays ran upward from these to other messages. More rays spread from those messages to even more, and continued outward like the branches of a fractal tree.

“Where are we this time?” Discord asked.

Fizzy queried her gauntlet. It displayed only three characters.

/b/

“A 4chan board,” Fizzy said uneasily.

“Is that bad?” Yearling asked.

“Not bad, just– not for everycreature. Many would call it the Mos Eisley Cantina of the internet, so watch your step. This place can be a little rough.”

“Mos Eisley?” Yearling asked.

“Let’s go,” Fizzy sighed.

Caballeron said, “If there’s a cantina, fine by me, I could use a shot of ‘Hoofprint Hombre’ right about now.”

Fizzy pressed onward with Discord close behind, while Yearling and Caballeron deduced that the Mos Eisley Cantina was probably a hole-in-the-wall establishment somewhere in Klugetown. They walked slowly through the glowing forest with a sinking feeling that something horrendous could come out of the shadows in the blink of an eye. There was an odd sense of hatred in the breezy air, and it seemed to be directed at them. Fizzy spotted a message mentioning Applejack. As she approached to read it in detail, they heard the sound of jet engines quickly growing louder. Before anycreature could look to see what it was, a spread of napalm came from seemingly nowhere and incinerated the entire tree directly in front of Fizzy.

The team leaped back, looking towards the source of the incendiary stream. A few meters above the ground was a peculiar flying machine, like an attack helicopter but with no visible rotor. Simple black geometric shapes fused together to give it a menacing aura, and its edges were outlined by white stripes of light. As it remained affixed to the sky, the bizarre ship kicked up particles of residual data from the ground. Its unseen turbines whined as it swept the ground with a searchlight, examining different trees.

“What is that thing?” Yearling asked.

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t look friendly,” Caballeron replied.

The vehicle made a turn and paused, shining its light directly on the group. Along with the downwash from the hovering craft, a feeling of terror swept over the four creatures, who remained perfectly still.

“Umm, what’s our best move?” Yearling asked, staring wide-eyed at the U.F.O. as it pitched forward and accelerated towards them.

“Run!” Fizzy yelled.

They hastily sprinted away from the vehicle just as it spat flame towards them like a dragon protecting a treasure. Yearling tossed her disc at the thing, but it simply ricocheted off with a flash of diffracted incandescence. “Take cover,” Fizzy yelled as more gunships descended from the sky.

“Is that the Tantabus?” Yearling asked.

Fizzy replied, “Worse. Moderators!”

The whole area was turning into a warzone now, with dozens of vehicles setting sections of the forest ablaze. Seeing a cluster of trees up ahead, Fizzy ordered, “Get in there and hide!”

The others did as they were told. The Moderator stopped and hovered for a moment, training its light on the thicket. It then turned and moved away in search of other targets. Caballeron asked, “Why are matadors burning the trees?”

Fizzy corrected, “Moderators. And they’re not burning. They’re deleting.”

“You call that deleting?” Yearling asked.

“Down here, to us, it looks like that. But on the outside, to them, they’re just typing on a keyboard.”

“Well, if Virtual 4chan shows up as a vacation destination, I’m definitely giving this place a one-star for personal safety concerns.” Discord shrugged.

Yearling uttered, “Listen. The attacks have stopped.”

“Interesting,” Fizzy said. She cautiously stepped out from the relative safety of the group of trees and began reading messages. New trees were growing, replacing the ones that had been destroyed, and nothing was coming to immolate them. The rest of the group slowly followed Fizzy out into the open. Images of familiar faces were visible on some of the messages in the trees. Fizzy eventually spotted one that said, ‘Mods are asleep. Post Ponies.’ She noted the time-stamp. “February, 2011.”

Discord said, “Oh, Fizzy, you didn’t even need to run from them. They have no idea what a Kirin is. Same for me. Because I wasn’t introduced until seas– I mean, I hadn’t met Twilight and her friends yet.”

“That does it,” Yearling growled. “You two have been talking strange since we got here. What…is…going…on?”

Fizzy said, “Please don’t ask that.”

Yearling replied, “I understand you’re the Starswirl of the internet, but I never go digging until I’ve done meticulous research first.”

“Miss Yearling, I came to your room to fix your laptop. I didn’t plan on any of this!”

“Why are you two being so secretive?” she yelled.

Discord’s temper was rising now. “You really don’t want to know.”

“What is the Tantabus trying to accomplish?” Yearling yelled.

Discord sighed, “Imagine, a foolish captain causes an anomaly to grow in strength the further back in time it goes. The anomaly becomes so large, it reaches his home planet, and prevents the very building blocks of life from forming. His world remains dead, and his entire race never existed.”

“What?” Yearling asked, dumbfounded.

“Oh, nevermind, just think about what Starlight Glimmer used Starswirl’s time spell for.”

“But on the internet? It’s just a bunch of creatures arguing.”

“Come now, A.K. Yearling. We’re standing in the largest library ever created. You of all ponies should understand how important recorded history is.”

“Of course I–”

“With just one glyph sponged away from a stone, you might never find the switch that lets you out of a booby-trapped room. And then where would we be? No A.K. Yearling; Rainbow Dash never starts reading; the Tenochtitlan Basin in a perpetual inferno; no Daring Do; no Daring Do fandom; no foals inspired by her hijinks to follow in her hoofsteps; archeological finds remain undiscovered; dogs and cats living together; mass hysteria!”

“I know you’re getting at something, but you’re still being cryptic.”

“Please believe me when I tell you, it’s for your own”–Discord paused, almost gagging–“sanity.”

The three listened to him intently. “Do you want to wind up as mad as a hatter– a draconequus? Oh, it’s all easy for you, because you don’t know about it– don’t have to think about it– don’t have to worry about it! The worlds are more intertwined than you can possibly imagine. The beings here,” he pointed at a tree, “the ones creating these messages? They need us. Just as much as we need them.” Discord scratched his ear. “I hate being serious, it’s so uncomfortable. Let’s all have pumpkin spice pizza when we get back.”

Yearling stifled a laugh. “Are you saying I can’t handle the truth?”

Discord answered, “Even I am not entirely sure what the truth is down here. I thought I did, until Derpy showed up. We’re not just browsing through websites. We’re far deeper, and one wrong move really could destroy everything. That Auntie-toy-car of yours, the one that sent us here; it might be a computer, but it’s so much more. And might I suggest for future reference, that when there’s a Tantabus in the room, never say ‘existential crisis.’ We’re literally in the middle of one now.”

“It’s on the move again,” Caballeron said. He was beginning to grasp the nuances of what the Search Bar was telling him. “Pretty certain it’s a different message board on this ‘4chan.’”

Yearling took a deep breath. “That had better be the last room. All of this running is exhausting.”

Caballeron grinned, “Are you saying you’re getting too old for this?”

“I’ll be too old when I’m buried.”

Discord said, “Let’s get going, before another ‘flame war’ starts.”

06_Base-Address

06_Base-Address

The storm clouds continued to rage but were now producing rain. The lightning bolts, which previously limited themselves to the clouds, occasionally struck the ground.

Fizzy examined a message timestamp. “October 2010.”

“I don’t see any airships,” Yearling said.

“Because they don’t know enough to look for us yet,” Fizzy replied. “I also don’t see anything about Ponies.”

“The very beginning?” Discord asked.

Fizzy nodded.

“Of what?” Yearling asked.

Fizzy and Discord remained silent.

TantaByte was standing off in the distance. No longer a wolf, it much more closely resembled a strange unicorn, and it was poking at some kind of kiosk.

“What’s it doing?” Caballeron asked.

“Nothing good, I’m sure,” Yearling said.

Above the kiosk, a glowing icon appeared, floating and rotating. TantaByte grabbed hold of it, and it expanded into a massive purple mallet of energy. The kiosk then melted away into the floor.

“Did it just give itself a weapon?” Yearling asked.

“I think…it’s a ban-hammer,” Fizzy said.

“How is it even smart enough to do that?” Yearling asked.

Discord glanced at Fizzy, who looked very distressed. Then she held up her gauntlet and began typing. “If it can get one, maybe I can too.”

Caballeron kept a watch on TantaByte while Fizzy was working. “It’s just sitting there.”

“Come on, come on, let me in!” Fizzy yelled. The gauntlet screen blinked, and out popped a similar icon. Fizzy grabbed hold of it and it formed into a hammer identical to TantaByte’s, only this one was blue. Fizzy turned to face the Tantabus, but it was still ignoring them. It paced like a guard on patrol.

“Why is it just wandering around?” Caballeron asked.

“It seems to be waiting for something,” Yearling said.

In a chromatic glimmer, a new message appeared. TantaByte immediately locked eyes on it and adjusted its hold on the hammer.

At once, Discord had a terrible feeling in his gut. He asked, “Is that message about Ponies?”

Fizzy swallowed hard. “I think so.” She began typing on her gauntlet and managed to bring up a list of threads on the board. She instructed it to search for any messages containing four specific words:

little pony friendship magic

While the gauntlet was processing Fizzy’s request, glowing threads shot out of the first message, and more messages appeared. Those expanded further. A new tree had been born, and TantaByte was now moving towards it.

Fizzy’s gauntlet finished its task, and it confirmed her fears. The query had returned only one thread matching her search parameters, and that thread was directly in front of them. “The first Pony message thread. That’s it, that’s the one!” Fizzy rushed forward. “Go, go, go!” TantaByte accelerated into a full gallop, taking a swing at the tree with its hammer; Fizzy deflected it with her own.

Discord cast a spell that created a boombox, which filled the air with heavy orchestral hits and an ominous choir. “Music to slay by? Sure, I’ll take it,” Discord grinned.

As the two hammers continued to clash, Yearling and Caballeron attacked as well. Combined hits from the Search Bar and the Disc forced TantaByte to leap back. Discord’s next spell produced a tomato. Fine, whatever. He threw the tomato and it splattered in the face of TantaByte. TantaByte paused and stared at Discord. It opened its mouth, revealing the most terrifying maw of teeth imaginable.

“Oh, my,” Discord said.

The TantaByte leaped over the other three, wildly swinging the hammer and heading straight for Discord. “Hey, I’m not Donkey Kong!” Discord grabbed hold of his own tail and jumped away from the hammer, which struck the ground so fiercely that it left a glowing crater. Discord kept running with TantaByte in pursuit. “Can we please talk about this? Sorry about the tomato, I was hoping for a bowling ball!”

Caballeron knocked TantaByte over with a buck from the side and then thwacked it with the Search Bar. Fizzy came in with the hammer to finish it off, but TantaByte blocked the attack with its own hammer. Fizzy put all of her weight into her hammer, trying to hold TantaByte down while the other three piled on. TantaByte exploded back onto its feet, sending all four of its opponents hurtling through the air. Fizzy hit the floor hard, dropping her hammer.

Discord tried the sphere again. “Come on, ‘Magic 8-Ball,’ something good. I’m tired of rolling ‘Nat Ones’ like an inept warlock.” Out popped a moderately-oversized silver cannon. “Oh, my BFG9000! I thought I loaned that to Isabelle. Oh well!” He took aim and unleashed a glob of green plasma at TantaByte. He kept firing until the weapon’s power cell was spent. There was no sign that it had any effect. Fizzy flailed her hammer so wildly at TantaByte that Caballeron and Yearling had to keep back in order to avoid being hit. It was then that they realized it was getting bigger.

“Why is it growing?” Caballeron asked.

“I think it’s feeding. On her,” Discord said, pointing at Fizzy.

Caballeron glanced at the readout on his search bar.

TantaByteGPT v9.7 - Range: 0.273nm.

The TantaByte bucked Fizzy away, spun around and struck with its hammer at the base of the tree. The tree began flickering and sounds of electrical discharges filled the air. Immediately the four adventurers and TantaByte fell to the floor in excruciating pain, their bodies distorting like video static.

“What’s…happening?” Yearling asked.

Discord looked at his claw. It was becoming translucent. “It’s…erasing us! We’re–” he winced. “Ugh, ‘Back-to-the-Futuring!’”

Fizzy was laying prone, clearly in pain. Must… stop it. She raised her gauntlet and used her admin access again.

Message Thread: Undeleted.

The flickering of the tree ceased, and Fizzy jumped up and began swinging again.

Caballeron asked, “Why did hitting the tree hurt the Tantabus?”

Yearling didn’t know. She looked to Discord for an answer, but he wasn't paying attention.

He paced with worry. Fluttershy, are you alright? That didn’t hurt, did it? No, no, you’re fine. It only lasted a nanosecond, you probably didn’t even fee–

“Discord!” Yearling yelled.

He turned, shook the fears from his mind and answered, “Oh, oh, umm, of course! The Tantabus is bound to the tree too. If the tree goes, it goes.”

Yearling wondered why damage to the tree was affecting them at all, but there was no time for that. She asked Discord, “Why would the Tantabus try to delete itself?”

Discord looked at TantaByte and then at Fizzy. Fizzy’s rage blazed past the tears in her eyes as she continued to fight. Luna, I hope you knew what you were doing.

Fizzy took another swing. TantaByte leapt away, smashing a branch of the tree in mid-air. Again, Fizzy undeleted the messages. The TantaByte struck the tree again, but Fizzy kept on it. “Fizzy!” Yearling yelled.

Fizzy said frantically, “I have to keep typing! Fight it!”

Caballeron and Yearling charged in again, fighting ferociously. Yearling took a fierce kick and doubled over. For once in his very unserious life, Discord was terrified. This isn’t working. I need to– He tried another spell. Please be something. Aha!

- Call for a Timeout -

Fizzy, you’re with me. Everycreature else… A white light shot out from Discord’s sphere in all directions. Caballeron became a statue in a menacing pose. Yearling paused in mid-air. The Tantabus was frozen. Discord lowered his sphere and breathed a sigh of relief.

In her rage, Fizzy hadn’t fully grasped what was happening. She only knew that TantaByte had stopped attacking the tree. She picked up her hammer and struck. The hammer bounced off with an iridescent flare. She tried again. And again. A mosaic of Nirik fire enveloped her as she continued.

“That won’t work!” Discord said.

“Why not?!” She turned to Discord, her tears immediately turning to steam.

“Time is suspended. Nothing can be changed.”

“What good is the spell, then?!”

“The time freeze wasn’t for the Tantabus. It was for you.” Discord walked over to Fizzy. Her breathing was quick and heavy.

“We don’t have much time, Fizzy. You need to listen to me.”

“What! What else can you say?”

“Princess Luna–”

“What did she say to you?”

Discord stopped, not wanting to break his word. He looked at the leviathan towering over them. It had clearly taken the shape of a Kirin. Looking back at Fizzy, he asked, “That’s your Tantabus, isn’t it.”

Fizzy clenched her eyes shut and nodded silently as her Nirik flames died down. Discord’s ears lowered and he let out a sigh. “I am so sorry,” he said calmly as he sat down comfortably on the ground. “Sit down. Please.” Fizzy extinguished what was left of her Nirik fire and she did as he asked.

“I know what you’re going through,” Discord said.

“Sure, the god who can do anything knows what this feels like.”

“Even if I was that powerful, do you really think– Sure, I managed to laugh and have fun, but that’s not all it was. From the moment I came into being and bent the universe to my will, I was empty.”

“Why? You could have anything you wanted.”

“No, I couldn’t. No creature liked what I did.”

“What did you expect? You were destroying everything.”

“Not destroying, I like to think of chaos as guerilla art. But I was the only one to see it that way. And what is it to be an artist whose art doesn’t speak to a single creature?”

“You… felt like you didn’t have a purpose?”

“My home was the entire multiverse, but it also wasn’t anywhere.” He looked up at the frozen storm clouds. “Wandering through infinity, I was an orphan seeking approval, but I mostly got treated like an unwanted pest by all who met me for more than a few minutes.” He looked back at Fizzy. “No creature thought anything I did or said was funny. I wanted them to laugh with me, and I couldn’t even get them to laugh at me, as if I had actualized with the cutie mark of a comedian in a world where everycreature hated jokes. So I just did whatever I wanted.” He shook his fist in the air. “Hooray for nihilism!”

“And your point is, you found your place? It’s not very reassuring when the best advice an immortal has to give is to wait a million years.”

Discord put his hands to his chest and reeled backwards like he’d been shot. “Owch, that hurt. Do I look that old?” He tugged on his goatee and examined it. “It’s the white hair, isn’t it.” Fizzy didn’t laugh, but she cracked a slight grin and shook her head. Given the circumstances, it was better than nothing. Discord continued, “You’re going to say, while you’re here of all places, that you don’t have a purpose? I can drain a lake and teach the fish to perform zero-gravity Liberati. But this place? Creatures like yourself forged it, and I barely understand any of it. I’m not the god here. You are.”

“Then we leave and I disappear again.”

“What about Trixie? Starlight? Stygian? Sunset? Princess Luna? Fizzy, you’re more than you think. When a virus appeared a couple of years ago, you harnessed the power of this world to keep Bronies together! I find it no mere coincidence that your journey has led you here, with”–he pointed to TantaByte–“another virus, this time in a computer, threatening to tear it all apart.”

Fizzy suddenly remembered the letter from Derpy. She pulled it from under her armor and opened it. Inside was one of the mystical pages. She pulled it out, hypnotized by its shimmer. Discord’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. Part of him wanted to ask for it, but not even he would consider taking a Derpy letter from its rightful owner. “You shouldn’t need to use that here. Anycreature can best their own Tantabus, and you’re already the most powerful being here. You hold all of the cards.” Fizzy silently stared at the page. Discord stood up and said firmly, “Moderator Fizzy Glitch, ban that thing.”

Fizzy sighed, and then stared at the Tantabus for a minute or so. Finally, she tucked the page back under her armor, got up, and walked over to it. Discord noted the ban hammer still laying on the ground. “You don’t want that?”

“I won’t need it,” Fizzy said with a hint of confidence in her voice.

Discord’s ears perked up slightly and his eyes grew wider as Fizzy began typing on her gauntlet. “What are you doing?” Discord asked.

“What I should have done before it went for the tree.” She yelled, “What a noob I am, giving myself top tier access just so I could stoop to its level and play Super Smash Brothers.” Fizzy let out an annoyed scream as she continued working. Import OS and vShield, include dependencies. Establish environment parameters– all right– Set varX tantaByte.virus.definition, varZ, TantaByte.object. “How long will your spell last, Discord?”

“A couple more minutes at most,” he replied. He glanced down at the sphere in his hand. It was beginning to feel heavy.

Fizzy kept working. For varX, disable read permissions, write permissions, modify, execute, folder changes, permissions for varX. If OS path isfile…OS make directory…shutil.move. Find file.path for varX, quarantine tantaByteGPT.object. Fizzy noted the close proximity of Yearling and Caballeron to the Tantabus. Get ID’s, initialize varY, and varC, set ID’s to vars, disable tantaByte’s object access. vShield, If tantaByteGPT found, quarantine.

The sphere was beginning to heat up. Discord was holding on with both hands now as its weight continued to increase. Sweat was running down his forehead. “Fizzy?”

“I know!” She typed faster until she was satisfied she had everything covered. The tree! If root contains string, “Friendship is Magic,” disable TantaByteGPT object read/write access. She gave her code a quick check for errors. file.path, not file.pat!

Steam was pouring off the sphere now and it seemed to weigh a ton. “Fizzy!” Discord yelled, his hands shaking from the searing pain.

“Compiling… 87 percent… 95… done. Close the spell!”

Fatigued, Discord dropped the sphere on the ground and tried to shake the burning sensation from his hands. He knelt down to catch his breath as time slowly began to resume.

A small translucent rotating cube floated above Fizzy’s gauntlet which was now blinking brightly:

*** Run Program: killTheBuckingThing ? | Y/N ***

Yes! Fizzy confirmed the command, and a glittering array of binary data streamed forth from the gauntlet as time reached normal speed. Yearling and Caballeron continued their attacks, unaware that anything had changed. Four luminous diamonds appeared on the floor around them and TantaByte, with four identical ones higher up. The diamonds linked to each other with dotted lines. Fizzy’s program detected Caballeron and Yearling within its perimeter and forced them out with an invisible gust of wind. TantaByte struck the tree with its hammer, but nothing happened. It quickly became aware of its surroundings and leaped for safety. The array of diamonds immediately became a cube with walls resembling cracked glass. Boom! TantaByte’s body bounced off the wall. It tried to attack a different one. Boom! The cube shook but held firm. Fizzy’s gauntlet bleeped.

*** Quarantine of TantaByteGPT 12.6 complete. *** *** Confirm delete? | Y/N ***

Fizzy pressed ‘yes.’ The cube surged with orange electricity. All eight corners concentrated beams into the center, fractionating TantaByte’s body one piece at a time. The nightmare creature howled in pain and flailed desperately, but it was futile. Fizzy’s code was rock solid. More of the Tantabus vaporized as the four adventurers approached the cube and watched as it was deconstructed.

“Did we do it?” Yearling asked.

No creature responded. They simply stared.

“Come on. Just derez,” Discord thought as he watched the caged creature’s agonized thrashing. He turned to Fizzy and focused on her eyes.

Fizzy considered looking for a positive thought, but decided against it. She wanted to keep her mind blank. She turned her gaze away from the Tantabus and looked to the horizon. Don’t think. Don’t give it anything. Starve it. She was as stone-faced as one of Celestia’s royal guards, but the words the Tantabus spoke to Derpy resonated in her mind: They don’t need you. They don’t want you. It would be better for everyone if you never existed. Depression washed over Fizzy.

“No,” Discord thought.

The cube shook and shifted to a skewed angle, and TantaByte began reassembling. One corner of the cube broke, followed by another.

“Why is it coming back?” Caballeron asked.

All four adventurers stepped back.

Fizzy was panicking and now clinging to her ban hammer. TantaByte grew until it exceeded the size of its container. Fizzy’s quarantine program shattered like a mirror as TantaByte continued growing. Its hammer morphed into a scythe, and spikes protruded from its back. The beast roared so loudly that it shook the ground.

“What happened?” Yearling asked. There was no time to answer. The scythe arced down at Yearling. Years of experience was all that saved her from being sliced in half. She threw her disc. Clang! It bounced off like metal against armor. Caballeron’s Search Bar had the same result. Discord cast a spell that dropped a giant anvil on TantaByte. Nothing. Fizzy Glitch leaped across the body of the great beast, striking it repeatedly. TantaByte tried to smack her away, but Fizzy was moving too fast. She shifted into Nirik, leaving trails of fire all over TantaByte, burning it with every ounce of anger. Finally TantaByte caught her and swatted her away like a fly. Fizzy fell back down to the ground, collapsed in a heap; her hammer lost to one side of her. TantaByte stomped on Fizzy’s hammer, and Fizzy reached out in futility as it dispersed into unrecoverable data.

The Tantabus took a wild swing with its scythe and sliced Discord and Yearling in one hit. Caballeron barely sidestepped, but was immediately caught by the followup swing. Their voices became garbled as they screamed, their bodies beginning to dissipate in a spray of digitized atoms. “No!” Fizzy screamed, the shock yanking her back to her Kirin form long enough to look for a restore function on her gauntlet. But this wasn’t a ban from a moderator. This was deresolution. This was death. Fizzy looked through tear-soaked eyes at her fading allies and then back to the Tantabus. Her sobs slowly changed to heavy breathing, her sadness slowly changed to anger, and her eyes ignited. Fine then. I’ll be the god of this place.

Fizzy pulled the fated sheet of paper from her armor and tossed it on the ground. She raised her hoof. “Page from The Book of All Stories, grant me superiority over this abomination!” Fizzy slammed her hoof on top of the page and it scattered into a thousand geometric shapes and mathematical equations. The numbers and symbols surrounded Fizzy and then shot into her body. Rays of light spread everywhere and her body became a luminous wireframe. Fizzy screamed like a banshee as her Nirik body grew in size and the pixelated embers rising from her became wilder.

Increasing random active memory allocation to 128GB - Complete.

Her wireframe body and her Nirik pixel fire changed from blue to red. Her mane and tail grew in length and a dazzling display of silver hexagons danced across them.

Processing Kirin and Nirik geometry - Complete.

Her horn split repeatedly in a symmetrical pattern until it had sixteen points. Luminous ones and zeroes poured from her body like a waterfall.

Patching Cephalic_Multi-Spell_Emitter - Complete.

Massive wings grew from her sides and unfolded with awe-inspiring magnificence.

Patching Ornithoptic_Airfoils - Complete.

She opened her wrathful eyes and stared at TantaByte like a machine locking onto a target.

Adding TantaByteGPT variants to Virus_Definitions - Complete.

Fizzy’s wireframe body faded, giving way to a new solid form, neither Kirin nor Nirik.

Upgrading Fizzy-Glitch_1.0 - Complete. Final compilation complete. *** Launching Nightmare FatalError 1.0 ***

TantaByte almost grinned, beckoning the new arrival to attack. Whatever remained of FatalError’s former self ignored the taunt and made its way over to Caballeron, Yearling, and Discord. The Tantabus approached and FatalError crouched low on all fours, hissing at the approaching predator to warn it back. FatalError raised her forehoof over the fading forms and channeled her power into them.

File Restore: Yearling29574.exe - Complete File Restore: Caballeron934757.exe - Complete File Restore: ???Null_unknownERROR - Complete

Caballeron, Yearling, and Discord slowly came to their senses, and were now entirely confused at the sight of two beast-like critters staring each other down.

Nightmare FatalError stretched an arm out to one side, and a massive poleaxe materialized in her hoof.

The others quickly backed away as FatalError shrieked like a falcon and lunged. The two weapons spun around frantically, sending prismatic sparks everywhere. The movement of the two creatures appeared as little more than a blur to the outside observers.

TantaByte tried multiple times to attack the tree again, but FatalError successfully repelled it every time. TantaByte caught FatalError with its teeth, and FatalError responded by turning her pixel flames into a massive fireball. TantaByte immediately released its prey and reeled from the pain. FatalError twirled and fanned out her wings, slicing at her nemesis like the blades of a blender. TantaByte bucked from below, sending FatalError high into the air. FatalError used the height to dive back down and execute a blazing strike.

FatalError could barely be seen now within her armor of scarlet flames. There was simply a burning meteorite zipping around and colliding with TantaByte again and again. TantaByte took a wild swing with its hammer and sent FatalError crashing to the ground, dimming her flames considerably. FatalError opened her mouth and unleashed a jet of plasma that forced TantaByte to leap away.

TantaByte changed tactics and tried to attack the tree once more. FatalError leaped in and was there to block in the blink of an eye. The clash of the two massive weapons began once again. After a few dozen attempts at striking the tree, TantaByte’s hammer was smacked away by FatalError. The Tantabus was an easy target now. FatalError struck it with her poleaxe for the first time. TantaByte groaned and recoiled. Before it could finish falling, FatalError struck again; the sheer force slamming it into the ground so fiercely that luminous cracks appeared in the floor. FatalError did not relent. Each attack had more anger behind it than the last.

“I hate you!” FatalError’s voice echoed through the digital space. She screamed it over and over as she deleted one piece of the Tantabus at a time.

Fizzy’s allies could only look on with both awe and terror as the corrupted Kirin continued to whale on the helpless monster. It couldn’t defend itself; it was too fragmented. Checksum invalid. But still, FatalError continued; her attacks becoming ever stronger. Under the strain, her poleaxe broke in half.

Nightmare FatalError screamed again. She took to the air and unfolded her magnificent geometric wings. Electricity crackled around her entire body and then focused into her horns. FatalError’s eyes burned like supernovas. Thin beams projected from each of her antler tips, converging at a single point, and from that point, a burst of energy worthy of any Alicorn rushed towards the doomed foe.

A ferocious wind pushed back Discord, Caballeron, and Yearling, and punched a massive hole in the storm clouds above, as the TantaByte was swallowed by an explosion of white and red data fragments. Where the Tantabus was a moment ago, only a gaping hole in the floor remained, beyond which was nothing but infinite darkness.

TantaByte was gone, and the massive Nightmare FatalError looked around for another target. Her eyes were full of pain. Lashing out with no focus, she raised her forehooves up and slammed them down, cracking the ground. Her voice was no longer coherent, nor were her movements. There was no sign of a Kirin, and no hint of a Nirik. The abomination before them was just unrelenting emotion: hatred and sadness.

“How do we stop this?” Caballeron asked.

Nightmare FatalError’s digital fire continued to get brighter. Energy from every direction was pouring into her.

“I’m going to try something,” Yearling said, and immediately ran towards FatalError.

“A.K.!” Caballeron yelled, but it was too late.

Yearling ducked beneath a wild flap of FatalError’s deadly wings, and grabbed hold of the behemoth’s leg. I hope this works. “Escape!” Yearling screamed.

Light cascaded from above and spirited the two of them away.

Discord and Caballeron looked at each other and then both called out, “Escape!”

Silence. Evidence of the digital time travelers was gone. The tree that gave rise to a fandom continued to grow. Posts spread and expanded into more posts, becoming a proliferative fractal of lives touching other lives, leading the users to something new; something different. A world was forever changed by a world coming to life, in turn, breathing life into infinitely more worlds, like a book of all stories.

07_Home-Directory

07_Home-Directory

Fizzy did not speak, and only gently poked away at the keyboard of Yearling’s laptop.

Luna looked at Discord, who remained in a silent melancholy. She had never known him to be so downcast. Even enough negativity to fall under the label of bittersweet was rare for Discord. What in Celestia’s name happened down there?

Yearling’s hooves were wrapped in bandages as she and Caballeron watched on from the couch, both of them drinking Cider-Ritas. Shock was evident in their eyes. Numerous times, each had the urge to speak, but neither dared.

After what felt like an eternity, Fizzy stepped away from the laptop and looked towards the two ponies on the couch. Both Yearling and Caballeron tensed up. Fizzy quietly said, “Old files were still in the recycle bin. Your story should be fine now.” She paused. “I need to be alone.” She kept her eyes to the floor and trudged out of the room.

Luna’s sad eyes beckoned Discord for an explanation.

Discord said to her, “She got rid of the Tantabus. But it was a half-victory. She wasn’t ready. I’m sorry.” Discord stared at the ground and vanished.

Luna said to the remaining two in the room, “I shall take my leave now.” She exited the room and slowly shut the door.

Alone now, Yearling and Caballeron needed to break the silence. The same idea was turning over in both of their minds: their connection to the past of this world. If a Tantabus destroying random messages on the internet could impact their very existence, what did that mean?

It was something that Fizzy Glitch had been forced to deal with, though for not nearly as long as Discord. Perhaps some creatures (convention mascots in particular) had somehow been able to transcend dimensions to achieve a heightened sense of awareness. Or perhaps for each, the strength and scope of this intuition, and by extension, their ability to cope with or ignore it, was different.

Until the Book of All Stories was opened on November 17, 2023, the world that Bronies came from and the world that Ponies came from were mostly connected in very limited, subliminal ways. But Fizzy, for example, was directly working with the fandom during the darkest days of 2020, when large social events were forbidden. She was busy developing methods through which Brony conventions could persist online. She was truly a Kirin, and yet somehow, she knew. She knew it all. It was both a blessing and a burden; a burden that both Yearling and Caballeron now shared on some level.

“Do you want another Cider-Tini?” Caballeron asked.

“Make it a double,” Yearling said.

As if Discord knew they were troubled, or because he was cheating by reading the narrative (yeah, Discord, I’m talking about you), Discord reappeared in the room, mildly frightening Yearling and Caballeron. “You know, I did try to warn you. But if either of you decide you want to forget about all of this, just let me know.”

Luna sat in the lounge area near the elevators, trying to process her thoughts. Dreadful memories raced through her mind. Her years of feeling ignored, her nearly-lethal battle with Celestia, her wallowing in self-pity and anger during her endless exile on the moon. Finally she clenched her eyes shut, trying to keep in her tears. With a single stomp of her hoof, she said, “Please, not another one. Find your way back, Fizzy…”

Discord then approached from down the hallway. “Princess Luna, I’m sorry for going away so soon before, but there’s something you need to realize. Fizzy’s in a very bad place; however not all is lost. She used the page in a very villainous fashion, but…she did it to save the three of us.”

Fizzy sat in a dim service corridor of the hotel where she could be alone with her thoughts. Therefore, it was very surprising when she heard the voice of a gray mare coming from around the corner. “Fizzy?”

Fizzy looked up. “Derpy? What are you doing here?”

“I…can’t fully explain it. We’ve never met before, but all of a sudden, I just got this feeling that I needed to bring you a message.”

“What is the message?”

Derpy hugged her, for a long time, and then said, “Thank you.”

END OF LINE