Twilight Sparkle walked slowly out of town with her friends. They happily talked about their days, passing information on the small details of the past week. On the top of the hill they were climbing was their destination, their favorite picnic location. Though it was a steep hill, requiring a tough climb, they always thought it was worth it. As they reached the top Pinkie Pie pulled out a giant picnic blanket from her saddlebag, spreading it out. The other girls also took out their things, from the food to the drinks. Soon they had a wonderful little picnic set up.
Just as they were sitting down to enjoy, Rainbow Dash looked up at the sky and wondered aloud “Hey, what’s that bright dot in the sky?” The other ponies looked up and saw what Rainbow meant. Up in the sky was a small dot, as white as the clouds, yet incredibly bright. “Is it just me or is it getting bigger?” the multicolored mare asked, tilting her head to one side.
Twilight sighed “Hang on. I’ll see what it is.” She closed her eyes and began a spell. Her horn glowed as she reached out, trying to see the object up close. Before she could however, the object, a very small meteorite, though very dense, crashed right through her head.
“Ohh, damn it all.”
The other ponies jumped up screaming in terror.
“I hate it when this happens.” I sighed to myself as I pulled my keyboard to me.
-Run Devolper_Console.exe
-- Console active.
I turned my gaze back to the simulation, curious as to how the ponies were taking it.
Applejack had scooped up Twilight and placed the mare on her back. “To the Hospital everypony!” she cried, taking off back towards Ponyville.
I typed out a single command, intent on fixing the problem.
-Time-flowrate () = 0
The ponies all froze, midstride. As did everything else. The dirt kicked up from the pounding hooves stopped falling; the sun and clouds stopped their journey across the sky. Time itself had frozen solid.
“There we go. Let’s see…. Need to kill the other AIs, wipe them, and then reset. Hate it when a pony dies when they shouldn’t.” I sat back, my fingers flying across the keys.
-Kill_AIs (Apple, Rainbow, Rarity, Flutter, Pinkie, Twilight)
-- AI program(s) ended.
-Query( Time-Marker (hour. min) )
-- Time-Marker is at 1322
“hmmm…” I pondered for a moment. “1312 should be far enough back”
Time-Marker (hour. min) = 1312
Suddenly the ponies vanished, and then reappeared, still frozen. They were on the side of the hill, back when they were climbing up for their picnic. Twilight was perfectly fine. They all stood, looks of joy and pleasant conversation frozen on their faces.
“There we go.” All that was left before I restarted was to wipe the records. The whole system had nearly crashed the last time I forgot. I didn’t want a repeat of that, ever again.
-Wipe-AI-records (Apple, Rainbow, Rarity, Flutter, Pinkie, Twilight, 415822, 415832)
-- Records wiped
“Glad I only need to wipe the records of the affected AIs. So much less work. Now I need to make some modifications, keep Twilight from dying. Need something that can slow them down by three or so minutes. Or divert them” I thought for a bit. “Has to be subtle though…. Can’t have them figuring it out.” Coming up with nothing I asked for help “Hey, Discord. What do you think?”
{Well, you know me.} Discord’s face appeared on one of my monitors, his response typed out below. {I want it funny, chaotic. But knowing you, I guess you wouldn't go for that. I guess you could cause some disturbance, or some form of diversion.} The image rolled its eyes, obviously bored.
“Well, something entertaining is in order. What would you suggest?” I asked.
His face twitched into a grin. {Well, you could do something as simple as have one of them trip. That would delay them. You could also start deforming the world, send it into chaos. Or you could…} He stopped as he saw the look on my face. {Ohh, alright. I’ll shut up now.}
“Good. I can get away with creating a small divot to trip one of them up. There’s no logical excuse they could come up with if I change too much Discord. Keep that in mind.”
-Location (Twilight)
--Twilight is at [2015.18,1233.02]
-Direction (Twilight)
--Twilight is angled at 87 degrees
A small hole should be enough to trip her. I thought to myself.
-Edit Mesh. Groundwork, Hole
--Location?
-2012.18,1233.12
--Size?
-0.1, 1.15
“Hate to do this to Twilight.” I mumbled to myself. “Should be wide enough to stick her hoof, and deep enough to keep her there. I think it’s going to twist her ankle at the very least. Ohh, well, it’ll keep her alive.”
{Don’t take pity on them. It’s not like they’ll ever know what happened.}
“Quiet Discord.” I snapped. “You’re taking over for me after this. I need some sleep.” His image nodded.
-Time-flowrate () = 1
The ponies continued their trek for a moment longer before Twilight stumbled. Her hoof had sunk into a hole in the ground, and she was stuck. Her horn glowed as she tried to pull herself free, but to no avail. “Um, girls?” She called out to her friends “I’m stuck.”
The others turned around and saw their friend. Rainbow rolled onto her side in midair, laughing. “Ohh, hush up Rainbow.” Applejack shot at the pegasus. “Hang on a sec Twi. Ah’ll have you free in a jiffy.” The farmer pony trotted calmly to her friend, wrapping one hoof around Twilight’s shoulders as the other grasped her friends knee. “Now this might hurt a bit.” She calmly said.
“Wait, what?” Twilight’s head snapped to stare at her friend, just as Applejack pulled. With a sickening crack, Twilight’s hoof came free. Twilight screamed out in pain. “My hoof! What happened to my hoof?” The lavender mare’s hoof lay at the end of her leg, gently bleeding.
“Um, Ah think you may have been stuck harder than Ah thought.” Applejack responded sheepishly.
“Well of course I was stuck hard AJ! You think I would have called to you girls if I could’ve freed myself? If I couldn’t magic myself out, how hard do you think I was stuck!?” Twilight’s pain induced rage was obvious, her voice cracking as she roared at her friend. She let out another scream of pain as Applejack stared at her.
“Twilight! Calm down. AJ didn’t mean to hurt you. You need to relax so we can get you to the hospital, and now!” Rarity shouted back at her friend. Twilight’s rage instantly calmed, her face contorted with pain. “Now AJ, get Twilight to the hospital. She needs imediat medical attention.”
I stopped paying attention at that point. Twilight would be fine; she had nothing more than a broken ankle, possibly a bit of separated keratin causing the bleeding. Nothing a good doctor couldn't fix.
I rolled away from the monitors, intent on getting some sleep {Sir! If I may make a request?} a beep came from the speakers to call my attention to Discord.
“What is it Discord? I’m tired.”
{Yes I know sir. I was wondering if you would program me a voice. I would like to have an actual voice with which to communicate with you.}
I sighed. “All right Discord. I’ll program you one tomorrow. For now, I need sleep. Watch over the simulation.” With that I left, my sights set on a quick meal before bed. Discord would make sure nothing stayed wrong for long overnight. I trusted him to keep everything running. After all, that’s what I programmed him for all those years ago
I walked back into the room with the monitors. There wasn’t much in there, just my chair, keyboard, and six monitors, arranged in two rows of three. The central lower monitor held the visual render of Equestria, which stayed focused on Twilight Sparkle. I’m still not sure why it stays with her, it just does. The top left contained the continuous scroll of the logs stored by each of the AI’s. The bottom left was blank currently, though the console would appear over there. The bottom right would show Discord when he showed up, though it was almost always blank. The top center and top right stayed blank. Still don’t know what they’re there for. Nothing ever happens with them.
{Ah! Sir, good morning. Nothing much happened.} His face flickered on his usual screen, smiling at me. That smile of his always creeped me out, made me think he was hiding something.
I set my cup of coffee down on the desk, relaxing into my chair. “Thank you Discord. How is Twilight healing?”
{The keratin in her hoof was slightly separated, though the doctor was able to fix it. Her ankle was dislocated, not broken, and was quickly reset. She’s predicted to make a full recovery within two days.}
“Well, could be worse.” I leaned back in my chair, sighing. Twilight will survive, good. Who should I check in on today? I thought to myself, bored.
{Sir? You did say you would program me a voice today.} A beep came with Discord’s message, snapping me back to reality.
“Ah, yes, I did say I would, didn’t I?” Pulling myself close, I grabbed the keyboard and set to work. I quickly typed up a simple program, giving him a basic voice. Nothing to get excited over, just a base to build off. “Alright, what more are you looking for?”
“Well, I was hoping for something more, well, evil.” I stared at him, his basic voice flat and devoid of emotion.
“Evil?” I asked, confused. “In what way do you mean evil?”
“Well, perhaps not exactly evil, more, controlling, or perhaps egotistical.” I simply stared at him blankly. I had no idea how to respond. Slowly raising an eyebrow at him, I continued to stare. “Um sir?” I continued to stare, starting to get slightly annoyed. “Alright, alright. I’m not sure exactly what, just, I want to sound more like a villain I guess.”
Sighing, I rolled my eyes, pulling my keyboard back. “Well, alright.” Over the next few hours I worked with Discord, creating a voice for him. He was a picky program, always asking me to change something. Eventually he was happy, having picked through everything I tried.
“There, you have a voice. Now let me get to work.” I snapped, slightly annoyed with him. With a nod his face vanished, leaving me alone. “That’s better” I sigh to myself. I type out a few strokes, refocusing the camera on Twilight. She was still in the hospital, recovering.
Twilight was starting to get annoyed. And she was starting to understand why Rainbow Dash had hated staying in the hospital. She had all the books she could want, and two days to read them. And yet, she was bored. She didn’t like sitting still as she read. Normally, she would be working on something, or curled up in her blankets. Here though, she could do neither of those things. Her hoof was in too much pain to even think about moving around, lest she increase the pain. And she didn’t have any work to do. So she lay there, on her back, a book levitated and open in front of her.
“It’s going to be a long day isn’t it?” She asked herself, not bothering to check if she was alone.
“Well, I hope it is!” Pinkie exclaimed, jumping onto the bed next to Twilight. “I mean, on a normal day there’s only so much time to do stuff! And if it’s a long day then...” Twilight tuned the earth pony out, closing her book with a sigh. While she never tried to maintain a conversation with Pinkie, pretending to do so allowed her to think.
And think Twilight did. Her mind started flashing around, working on different things. From idle wonderings on how Pinkie could keep talking to wondering if she should tell Princess Celestia about what had happened. She had been so focused on trying to not scream over the past few hours that she hadn’t thought of Celestia.
I wondered if she would send a letter. Sometimes I hated it when she did. I had programmed an AI for both Celestia and Luna, but they became aware of the program. I had to shut them off, revert them back to basic AIs. And whenever Twilight sent Celestia a letter, I was the one who answered it. I couldn’t reactivate Celestia or Luna. Not without destroying the simulation. Resting my head in my hands I sighed again.
And then Pinkie stopped talking. Just stopped, as if someone had clamped a hand over her mouth. But much more effective than that. I looked up, wondering what was happening, my eyes widening. The program had sped up, to almost three times it’s usual rate. I grabbed my keyboard and set to work, knowing something was wrong.
-Time-flowrate () = 1
The program returned to it’s normal speed, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Discord!” I called. “What just happened here?”
“I’m sorry sir. I greatly dislike hearing that pink mare talk. She never stops. I always fast forward through her.” I could tell Discord was ashamed at what he did. Which was odd. Discord never felt ashamed, only ever cocky and self assured. I knew I’d have to look into this.
“Don’t. Ever.” I commanded. “I have no idea what will happen to them now.” Discord stared at me, one eyebrow raised. “Everytime I change the flowrate I have to mess with the AI logs. The logs are hardcoded to record at a certain speed. I have no idea how that reacts to a change of the simulation speed.” I sighed. “And now I can’t edit them. I’d have to pull them back and wipe them, but I can’t reverse the flow. And I can only go so far back with hard jumps.”
“Sorry sir.” Discord mumbled. I shook my head. I still wasn’t sure he meant it.
-Display Twilight.AI.log(450)
-Display World.log(450)
On my left, the bottom screen flicked to life, printing out a huge log of what had just happened to Twilight. The screen above it flicked, clearing before loading up the worlds log. I knew the world log would record correctly, no matter how the time.flowrate was changed. Twilight would be the first I would have to check. Pinkie always seemed to know a bit too much, so I decided to do her last. And after all, with Twilight’s level of intelligence, she would be the first to notice anything wrong. And after her, the rest of the logs. I needed to make sure nothing had happened to them. There were hundreds of lines though, thousands even. This was going to take time. I sat, pouring over the logs, looking for any errors, in either the log itself, or the time coding.
Twilight slowly sat up, shaking herself. She had just had the strangest feeling. It was as if the whole world had sped around her. Shaking her head, she closed her eyes. That can’t be right. She thought. Time doesn’t just speed up and slow down. It flows at a constant rate. The most anypony can do is jump around. Twilight pondered. But it had. I don’t think it was just my imagination. One moment Pinkie is talking to me, the next, it’s night and she’s gone. Twilight rolled her eyes. I must be getting a little bit crazy from staying in here so long. Twilight laid back down in her bed, gently shifting so as to not aggravate her hoof. With a content smile she pulled her blankets over her, settling in for a night of sleep. I can ask my friends about it tomorrow.
