The Blank Pony

Zipp paused. The air felt strange. She could tell that something was wrong. She had been able to tell since the moment she had stepped off the Mare Stream. She had tried to dismiss the emotion as some form of paranoia—but she had seen the look on Pipp’s face. Her sister’s nervousness had confirmed it. They were both home—and although everything looked so familiar, so inviting, so peaceful, there was something horribly wrong lurking just beneath the surface.

The other ponies did not seem to notice, except perhaps for Hitch, but even then only on a subconscious level. The group proceeded toward the castle, Synchronia's holographic machine keeping pace behind them. Staying near them. Watching. Smiling Synchronia’s smile when it thought they were not looking. But Zipp had been looking. Through reflections in glass and stolen glances in the Mare Stream’s mirrors. She had come to the conclusion that it was not, in fact, a being of any sort. It was Synchronia, projected remotely. Zipp had no idea how, but her mind was racing trying to come up with ways to interfere with its control frequency—and she realized that Synchronia had made at least forty of them overnight, offering them as baked goods. There were more, she just had no idea where they had all gone.

“Is it a holiday or something?” asked Sunny, cheerfully.

“What? No, none that I know of.”

“It’s not,” said Pipp. “Believe me, I’d be dressed for it if it were.”

“Oh,” said Sunny, looking around. “Then where is everypony?”

“I don’t know.” Zipp looked around and then, in the distance, saw a familiar face. She took flight. “Zoom! What’s going on?”

The guard almost jumped out of her armor when she saw Zipp. “P...princess! Nothing! At least, not really...I mean, apart from...her...”

“Or it...” squeaked a voice from inside a large decorative vase placed near the street for some unknowable asthetic purpose. The lid rustled and like the peeking duck of legend, Thunder peered out from under the lid. “It’s too scary!”

“Then where’s our mom?!” demanded Pipp.

“She’s safe!” insisted Zoom. “Just...you know how old ponies don’t really recognize danger when it comes to technology?”

“Oh crap,” muttered Pipp. “Take us there.”

Zoom nodded and led them toward the throne room. Zipp hurried, with Sunny trailing behind.

“It can’t be that bad,” argued Sunny. “Synchronia’s our friend, remember? Even if she is...um...learning.”

“Learning how to not be terrifying,” muttered Pipp.

“Yeah, she’s pretty bad at that,” noted Izzy. “But it’s not like, you know, she’s some sort of evil undead techno-lich. That would be silly.” She laughed to herself. “Besides, literally nopony can be as evil as Opaline. I’ve only met her once, but she seems like a real butt.”

“While Synchronia is a techno-lich,” noted the hologram. “She is not, in fact, evil. She is likely the only source of true good on this planet. As a machine, her actions can only reflect the Will of Twilight.”

“Which is?” asked Hitch, hesitantly.

The hologram smiled. “As self-explanatory as it is obligatory.”

When they entered the throne room, the great halls were filled with the sound of laughter. The ponies paused, looking around—at the preponderance of identical holographic ponies walking around the room, hurriedly doing nothing in particular.

“Zephyrina! Piptadenia!”

Queen Haven floated upward over the crowd slightly, waving. Even from below, it was apparent that Synchronia was standing next to her. Towering over her with a smile plastered on her face.

Except that it was no longer her face. Pale orange skin had grown over the entirety of the surface, pulled taught, save for the portion of skin that had become pale violet. The symbol of Twilight Sparkle, retained in the pattern of her fine coat, just below the horn that had grown from the center of her forehead.

“Look at these things!” laughed Queen Haven, flying over the horde of hologram-cubes, their massed formation breaking as a wake around Synchronia as she passed silently through them. “Look at them all!”

“Mom,” said Zipp, flying upward as seemingly hundreds of empty holographic eyes looked up at her. “We need to talk.”

“But look! They’re so cute! Oh! I know! Look at this one!” She landed beside one. “This one dances!”

The hologram stopped what it was doing and proceeded to do a ridiculous, highly repetitive dance. Queen Haven burst out laughing at the hilarity of the situation.

“Look at that, Pipp! It’s just like those Fortneigh dances you used to love doing so much!”

Pipp darkened. “Mom, NO! We don’t talk about the streams! They were cringe!”

“Darling, a queen never cringes.”

“Then it is a good thing that one will never be queen,” noted Synchronia, looming over them all. Smiling with a mouth that now had pony-like teeth superimposed over some of her inner set of metallic predator teeth.

Izzy took a step back. “Um...I’m not complaining, now, but...um...you have something going on with your..well, everywhere, but...you know...” She gestured over her own face.

Synchronia chuckled. “Yes. I am surprised by how much I missed having skin. Soon I will be so smooth and soft. Just like all of you little ponies.”

Sunny looked into a copy of her own eyes. “Huh. This is...creepy, sure. But I’m glad for you. Having skin is nice.” She looked around. “But what’s with all these holo-ponies?”

“Augmentations to the royal security,” noted Synchronia. “In case the evil pony I am pursuing attempts to attack. I have already had them move throughout the town, securing all infrastructure, especially space-linking satellite arrays, radio transmitters, and cell towers. Several of my non-threatening system infiltrator drones have already integrated their core circuitry into the pegasus mainframe.”

Queen Haven frowned. “I didn’t give permission for that.”

“Yes you did,” insisted Synchronia. “And besides, I have already overcome several key inefficiencies. With my upgrades, I will be able to add at least one G to your cell networks.”

Pipp’s eyes widened. “Six G...”

“Oh,” said Queen Haven. “Well, that certainly is nice of you. Even if personally I always turn off the data on my phone. Otherwise it will update and steal my wireless. But that is beside the point.” She turned back toward Synchronia. “She explained the issue to me. Concerning our uninvited guests up on the butte.”

Izzy giggled, only to be stopped by a withering glare from Queen Haven.

“And you gave her permission for that?” asked Zipp.

“Again,” said Synchronia, her head slowly and mechanically cocking to one side. “I asked out of courtesy. To be a nice, kind, polite guest. I am very lovable. And soon to be so soft...”

Pipp stepped forward. “But what do you want with it? The ship, I mean?”

“To go home?” asked Hitch, hesitantly.

“In a sense,” agreed Synchronia. “And it has more to do with the fact that I wish to protect this planet from her and her evil empire. But to be more specific, the ship utilizes a quantic incursion field for a power source. I require it.”

“For...what?”

Synchronia let out a low laugh. “To make Her love me again.”

Every pony save for Sunny and Queen Haven shivered. The latter, in fact, laughed.

“Oh you! So silly, for a robot!”

“Not a robot,” snapped Synchronia. “I was once an alicorn. A hideous parody of one, anyway. But I will be again. Soon. I will be beautiful.” She turned to Sunny, smiling. “I will become what you, unfortunately, did not manage to become. This time around, anyway.”

“Well that’s a little ominous,” noted Sunny. “But you can’t just become an alicorn. You have to earn it. Through the power of friendship and love.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, of course. But who knows? Maybe it’s the next step in our evolution. When we all love each other, maybe we’ll all be alicorns, who knows?” Sunny paused. Her eyes grew wide. “Maybe that’s what Twilight Sparkle wanted for us after all.”

“I can guarantee that is exactly what Twilight Sparkle wanted.”

“Really?” retorted Zipp. “How do you know that?”

Synchronia’s head suddenly turned toward her. “Because I am infected with memories. Of Her. And of so many that I once was.” She looked at Sunny. "I was there when Equestria was beautiful, and I was there when ponies killed it. I was there when the rockets sailed into space and left me behind."

Sunny’s smile faded and her eyes grew distant. Tears began to well in her eyes, but she seemed confused as to why.

“Of...the rockets...”

Zipp seemed confused. “What rockets?”

Sunny looked at her. Tears were welling in her eyes, but she wiped them away and seemed confused by them. “Why am I...crying?”

“I would not know. I recall it as having been a joyous occasion,” replied Synchronia. “Although I was of course not there. Except that I was. Forgive me, I suppose. The borders between ‘myself’ and ‘the others’ are growing nebulous. Even with a fully synthetic brain.”

Zipp stiffened. “What are you going to do with that ship, Syncrhonia?”

Synchronia’s smile, now complete with perverse copies of Sunny’s lips, grew. It demonstrated even more teeth than before. Some of them were white, new-grown and far sharper versions of pony teeth.

“I intend to rebuilt Equestria. As I knew it. Before we failed Her. And before She failed me.” She began to move forward, the robotics of her body operating in total silence. “I do assure you, though, your collective sacrifice will be well worth the final product. There will be no pain. Or, if there is, it will be temporary and you will not remember it when I am done.”

“Sunny,” whispered Izzy. “This is getting real ominous, isn’t it?”

“What if,” said Pipp, slowly looking at the others. “What if it...the warning, what if it wasn’t...”

“I have assumed full control of the communications networks in your most populous city,” noted Synchronia. “I recommend that you assist me. I guarantee you, it is what Twilight Sparkle wanted most of all. You will assist me by remaining here. Safe, and quiet.”

“Until what?” asked Hitch.

“The process is technical. I do not feel a need to explain it. Just do not interfere.”

“And if we do?” asked Zipp.

“Do help Twilight Sparkle? Or do interfere with Her divine omnicide?”

None of them replied. Instead, the air crackled with strange magic. Synchronia’s smile collapsed as she looked up, her pupils widening to reveal the mechanical ones just below the surface of her cloned eyes.

A sudden burst of intense heat preceded a thunder-like explosion as a pony materialized in front of them—between them and Syncrhonia.

Misty emerged from a plume of heated blue and violet fire.

Synchronia smiled. “Oh. It’s just you. I had warned you, but—”

The holographic ponies immediately twitched, their eyes widening as they vanished—their cores exploding violently into plumes of bright-blue cursed fire.

Queen Haven gasped and jumped. “MISTY! Now I know I’m not your parent and I don’t mean to push any particular boundary, but I am sure that your father would not appreciate you destroying our new friend's equipment—you even killed the one that did silly dances!”

“Not to worry, your purpleness,” sighed Synchronia. Without looking at her. Instead looking at Misty with unblinking, stolen eyes. “I can always make more.”

“Well that doesn’t excuse the—”

Queen Haven was immediately surrounded in a bubble of energy.

“MISTY!” cried Sunny.

“Will keep her safe,” replied Misty, her voice sounding strange and harsh. “Don't...worry....”

Sunny, taken aback, took a step toward her friend—only to be repelled by the unseen heat rising off her. Misty turned, a look of severe hatred rising on her face as she saw her best friend. Her eyes consisted of little more than burning blue points in seas of inky black—and Sunny realized that the side of her flank that was normally blank had a cutie mark on it. One consisting of a brutal violet needle surrounded by wings of blue flame.

“Sunny Starscout,” she growled. “Ugh, why are you so stupid?”

“Misty—”

“Never mind,” muttered Misty, stepping forward, her hooves burning tracks into the tile as she moved. “Synchronia. I’m going to pull your ugly face out of that body and put it back in the compass where it belongs. You will NOT hurt my friends. They may be ugly idiots, but at they’re my ugly idiots!”

“Or what?” asked Synchronia, nearly laughing. “You don’t even have wings. Your species is extinct, and you don’t even realize it. So I have at least one advantage.”

“What?”

“I know that I’m the last of my kind. Twilight Sparkle slaughtered us all. She expunged all alicorns from existence. Do you know how that makes me feel?

“How?”

Synchonia laughed, her voice changing pitch—becoming more similar to Sunny’s as her throat began to form vocal cords. “Nothing at all, Misty. I feel nothing at all.”

Misty’s body ignited with divine alicornic fire. Ponies nearby cried out as it spilled over them—and then she was gone. Neither Misty nor Synchronia remained.

“Um...” said Hitch.

“Yeah,” sighed Pipp. “Same.”