M.A.G.I.C.

They had decided the way to go was to let Lyra, and Stoic leak information to each other over time, and come back in a few weeks with their conclusions.  After all, Lyra possessed several rare books that had been written by ponies who died long ago, on the subject of humans.  Books thought to be nothing more than an over-zealous elaboration on an old filly’s tale.  Books recovered from ruins, and books never seen in any Equestrian library before.  And if Stoic was going to learn the rules of Equestrian Society, Lyra was the most qualified bridge between the two cultures.

The hold up on Celestia’s duties had gone on far too long.  Her political discussions had been put off to the max, and she still had to fit the summer sun celebration in there.  Celestia had no choice but to hand the work to somepony else.  Lyra was just the only one who could most comprehend what she was dealing with.  Besides, how much could the survivor learn about their customs locked away within a castle?

On the issue of The Doctor, which the group did not fail to mention, and his prophecies alike, they had decided that he was too elusive to try and catch.  They were to let him find them, and give the survivor instructions to prepare for the looming slaughter in years to come.  Though, word of the end-beings was not to be let leaked into the public until proper defenses were set up.

Who was once Stoic, was still trying to master his new body.  He, Lyra, and the six of harmony remained in the quarters, where we left off, trying to teach, and learn.

“You see, the cerebellum...  The balance-dictating center of a human’s brain is very developed, compared to most four-legged animals.  That’s why I was able to stand on two legs all the time.  But I’ve lost all that.  I think this is the closest I’ve ever felt to drunkenness.”  Stoic said.

“Drunkenness?”  Twilight asked.

“It’s a state of stupor caused by the imbibing of...” The Survivor was cut off.

“Alcohol; a substance made by the rotting of certain plant materials under specific conditions.”  Lyra finished, beaming with pride.

“You and I really need to have a talk about where you get this knowledge, sometime.” The survivor said.

“Oh, lots of places.  You’ll see soon enough.  Though, let me tell you;  Bonbon made it very hard for me to get ahold of that information...”  She replied.

“Who’s Bonbon?” He asked.

“My roommate.  We share our house in Canterlot.”

“And she didn’t find me... How?”

“She was in Ponyville.  She left to do business at the Summer Sun Celebration, and I was going to meet her there later, playing music as usual.  However, things can change.”

“Do you think we should be cautious about my identity?  Especially to your house-friend.”  He said, inspecting his hooves.

“Don’t worry, you have a pony body now.  You won’t seem nearly as strange.  I would love to see the look on her face anyhow.”

“Sounds good to me.”  He said, boxing into thin air with his new forelimbs.

“Haha, what’re you doing?”  Asked Pinkie.

“....  Oh, nothing...”  He replied, a little embarrassed.

“It’s how humans used to fight when they didn’t have weapons.  They used their fists to bludgeon things.”  Lyra cut in.

The unnamed one shot her a glare.

He shook off the minor distraction, and went back to testing his new body.  This time, he tried to stand up straight like he used to.  He had only minor success for major effort, for he stood extremely awkwardly, and the limit at his hip was almost too great.

Lyra decided to join him, and got onto her back hooves with little effort.  Though she was definitely awkward in her posture, she had obviously spent many hours practicing the feat, and far surpassed the former human in skill.

“There goes my dignity.”  He said.

Lyra couldn’t help but grin, for obvious reasons.

He gave up, and returned to the ground.

“Ya’ know, there’s something I’ve been noticing about these hooves...”

“What is it?”

“They have their own magic.  For example, they’re soft, and fuzzy, but still make the distinctive ‘clop’ noise upon striking a hard surface.  Furthermore, I’ve seen ponies holding things with them.  I have little idea how it works.  I never knew organic integration of horn-fractals were practical, or even plausible.”

“It’s called ‘Hoof Magic’.  Everypony has it.  But it’s tricky, and ponies spend a’ many hour figurin’ it out.”  Said Applejack, who had been silently watching the scene play out.

“Aptly named...  Hoof magic.” he replied

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the next few hours, the nameless, grey pony and his companions would teach each other things.  The grey would tell tales of his past, and explain magic, and the seven others would try to teach him to use his new body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The six of harmony had left for Ponyville.  They had their own duties to fulfill.  Ponyville was lacking an apple farmer, a caretaker of wildlife, a librarian, a seamstress, a baker/party organizer, and a critical weather-pony for almost three days, after all.

Night was falling, and they decided to leave the castle, giving their farewells to the princess before they left.

For the third time, our nameless pony was in the streets of Canterlot.  This time, he afforded the willpower to examine his surroundings, and had his auxiliary processor map the area as he saw it.

Lyra caught onto his violently flitting eyes.

“You look like you’re having a nervous breakdown.  What’re you looking at?”  She asked.

“Everything.  I’m memorizing the layout of this city.  You never know when that knowledge might come in handy.”

“Oh...  How?  Do all humans have photographic memory?”  Lyra asked.

“Nonononono.  Not at all, well, not naturally.  When I was a baby, like all of the others, was given a personal computing device.  It’s called an auxiliary processor, and has been fused with the bone of my skull, and has billions upon billions of thin little branches that read my neurons, and tell it what I’m thinking.  Really, it’s a little more than half of me, and without it, I’d die.”

“How does it work... And for that matter, how’d it get inside your skull?”

“Ooohh...  You just asked for a looooong story.  One that I’m bored of telling.  I think I can shorten it for you though...  As for how my auxxie got in there, well... it was simply teleported in, and fused to my cranium with a bunch of barbed metal pins...” He replied.

“...But if I’m to get down to the details, I’ve really got to get familiar with what level of technology you ponies have.  It’s kind of hard to make technological relations to anypony other than a dedicated scientist.  So far, your advancement is an absolute mystery to me.  I see you have what appears to be electricity, but you still use candles.  Light bulbs were like... One of the first things we really did with electricity.  I see arcades...  yet nobody...  err...  nopony seems to know what a computer is.  So where do you stand technologically?” He finished

“Umm, good question.  Not something I ever imagined talking about.  For starters, umm...  We have... Wheels?  I don’t know what’s relevant information, or what’s not...  It’s kind of hard to tell you what we don’t know, if you see what I mean.”

“Ok, we could try a white-space reality-tunnel junction.  Use thoughts, pictures, and feelings, rather than words.”

“Wh...  What are you talking about?”

Stoic looked a little disappointed.

“I was sure you’d have heard of it if there were actually any other humans around.  It’s a technology as old as our utopian times...  It’s a technology that allows for one, or more people’s consciousnesses to enter a computed realm called ‘White-space’, or ‘Think-space’.  This is a virtual medium in which thoughts can be held like physical objects, passed around, mutated, improved upon, saved, or loaded freely.  The realm its self is mostly generated by your own mind, but the machine does a bunch of interfacing between its participants to make sure you’re all seeing the same thing.  This was the very spearhead of technology that brought along the most peaceful ages humanity ever had.  It was the final step in our unity, because never before could man have understood his fellow so well.  It also allowed huge brainstorms, with hundreds, or even thousands of participants, immediately bringing the end of the ancient social structure of bureaucracy.”

“Umm...  Wow.  There’s more to humans than I thought.  Are there any side effects to using it?”

“Well, other than going unconscious for about half the perceived time we spend there, no.”

“I’m a pretty open-minded pony, but that kind of scares me.”

“Why would you find this frightening?”

“It’s kind of a privacy thing.  I have secrets, and I don’t want you, or anypony else knowing them.” She replied.

“What happens in the medium is absolutely consciously controlled.  Besides, the benefits of knowing yourself, via reading your own mind like a book is completely life-changing...  Or so I would assume... would far outweigh petty lost secrets.  Knowing yourself can be one of the greatest advantages you can , only expending an hour or so, while doing it..”

“Kind of hard to argue against that...” She responded. “...So... when do we do this...  Mind-meld?” Lyra asked.

Stoic chuckled.  “Haha...  Mind-meld.  I never heard it put that way.”  “As soon as we can find a place where we can be undisturbed, and you’re ready, I guess.  Your own abode would be the ideal place.” Nameless replied

“When is ‘Ready’?” Lyra asked.

“Well, because you don’t have an auxiliary, your mind is unmapped, so ready is when my processor understands your mind.  If we tried to connect any sooner, things could become pretty nightmare-ish.”

“Ok.  But I still have questions, why is there a difference in time speeds in the medium?”

“Wow, you can really bullethole with questions...”

“What’s a bullethole?” She asked.

Nameless facepalmed...  facehoof’d.  He probably should have seen that one coming.

Lyra grinned obnoxiously.

“Ok, the time difference exists because your outside senses are completely cut off, and because of that, a huge portion of the work your mind must do that normally lags it down is let off.  A bullethole, by the way is...”

“I know what a bullet is.  I’m just pulling your leg.”

“You’re just acting up because you’re ecstatic, aren’t you?”

Lyra put off her obnoxiousness for a second, and admitted so.

“So...  How much farther is your house from here?  I didn’t have the willpower left to mark the path from it to the castle the first time we ran it.”

“Oh, about a quarter mile.  Maybe you could practice your running on the way there.”

“Might as well...” He said, taking off into a lopsided gallop.

Lyra tried to turn the thing into a race, but didn’t bother when she saw how inept Nameless was with his body.  She also realized that even if Nameless caught lead, he wouldn’t know which turns to take to get to her house.

It wasn’t long before they reached her home.  It was a fairly simple construct, just a one story, white, square house.  It wasn’t much different from the surrounding houses either.

They entered, and Nameless witnessed the abandoned table which Stoic was once strapped to.  It was not much more than an improvised, plain dinner table.  Its previous load had been carried off elsewhere, and the table had hastily been fitted with thick, cloth straps, nailed to the upperside, and underside of the planken table.

The place was in a pretty big mess.  Scraps of parchment lay everywhere, and the furniture was in general disarray.

“Sorry, I just got a little worked up while I had you in my hooves.”

“Errm...  Ok...”

Lyra began to re-arrange everything, using telekinesis to move things to their proper place, and hash the paper she had lying every which way.  Pretty soon the place looked absolutely normal.  The table showed no more evidence of Stoic’s presence than subtle nail-holes, which had been partially closed, and flattened with magic..

“Haha, this is a pretty nice place.” Nameless remarked.

“Thanks, so how do we start this mind-meld?”

“I already have.  It’ll only be 4, or 5 minutes until we’ll be ready to undergo our white-space reality-tunnel junction.  SO, let’s relax.  It’s been far too exciting for the tastes of anyone I can imagine, lately.  So I propose we make tea, and discuss how to navigate white-space over it.”

“Sounds like a plan to me...”  She responded, fetching a few tea-bags from a high shelf in her larder, a pair of teacups, and a kettle.

She was about to light her stove under the kettle, before Nameless stopped her.

“Haven’t you mastered the fire magiks at an early age?”

“No, ponies can only learn a few spells, and a bunch of theory in magic school.  I wasn’t one of the fillies who had the ability to control fire.”

“You’re telling me there’s some sort of limitation on how much magic you can learn?”

“You’re telling me there isn’t supposed to be one?”

“I need to think about this, and HARD.” Nameless said, after a few seconds in confusion.

“Should we solve this mystery in whitespace?”  Lyra proposed.

“Wonderful idea.” Nameless said, focusing the magic of his newly acquired horn on his cup.

The water quickly rose to a boil, and was fed a teabag.  The steeping took only a second, because it was expedited by magic.  The cloud of green/yellow quickly diffused, and tinted the water.

“Should I do the same for your cup?”

“Oh.. sure.” She said.  The aura surrounding her cup shifted from green to dark-gray, as Nameless took control.  The water rose to a boil instantly, and again, steeped in short order.

They sat down across from each other, and prepared to chat.

Nameless took a sip, and said “The first entrance to white-space is almost always jarring, especially to those of extroverted nature, mostly because it instantly makes an introvert out of them.  You’ll see everything that has ever made you ugly.  You will hate yourself for it, and you will spend gratuitous amounts of time perfecting your character.  Self-observation in white-space is THE FASTEST way to grow up, and that’s why we made it a mandatory experience for our children to have upon physical maturity.”

“And the way this is supposed to go, eventually everypony will be doing the exact same?” Lyra asked.

“Ah, yes.  In coming times this society will be shaken to its very foundations, ripped apart, and sewn back together by the careful ha...  hoof of Celestia.  No, things will never be the same again, but in this case, that’s probably not going to be a bad thing.”  He answered, sipping again.

“I don’t know whether to fear the future, or look forward to it.”  She said.

“Well, seeing as the first thing to disappear will be physical labour, we will have to be careful about the introduction of this tech.  We can’t just displace all of the farmers, and cloud-clearers with machines, not in this sort of social structure.  They would instantly be forced from their talents, and empoverished.  The future will come gradually, so there won’t be THAT much shock.  However, the world of information will be unlocked within the year, and....”  He trailed off.

“What...?  What comes next?” Lyra asked.

“We’re ready.”

“Oh...”

“Let’s find somewhere to lie down.  Being woken from white-space rudely isn’t pleasant, if we should fall.”

“Oh, we have two beds, you can use Bonbon’s.”

“Sounds good to me.” He replied.

They trotted into what was clearly a bedroom, housing minimal furniture, but the aforementioned beds, a cabinet, a dresser, a shared nightstand, and a chest.

Stoic wondered what its contents were for a second, but dropped the curiosity when he lay down on a bed with blankets themed after candy.

“What now?” Asked the turquoise unicorn laying down on her own bed.

“You consent to the link.  My computer won’t let me if you don’t.  SO.  Do you, Lyra...  Do you have a last name?”

“Heartstrings.  Lyra Heartstrings.”

“Ok.  Do you, Lyra Heartstrings of Canterlot, agree to participate in a multi-sensory, fully-synchronized, unpryed, two-mind, direct, computer assisted white-space cognitive interaction?”

“Err...  That’s weird that you would have to ask that, but yes, I do.” She said, staring to the roof.

She immediately lost control of her muscles, and everything seemed to slow down to a crawl.  Her own breathing a low bubbling noise among a rising rushing sound.  A sound not unlike that of a river, it was.

Her vision blurred as her eye’s muscles relaxed, and blacked as her eyelids shut over them.  Quickly the blackness began to fade into a gray, and then a white.  The feeling of her back against her bed vanished, and was replaced with the feeling of her hooves against a hard, cold, flat surface.  The ‘floor’ beneath her, and the edge of space in every direction was white.  Nothing she could see but white.

“Stoic...  Err...  Whatever your name is...  Are you here?”  She asked into the void.

No reply.

“H...  Hello?”

No reply.

She began to feel boxed in, and claustrophobic.

“Don’t tell me I’m alone...” Her voice echoed.... ECHOED?

She immediately thought herself confirmed to be boxed into a room.

“I think I’m trapped, what do i do...  Stoic!”  She whimpered.

“But you aren’t!”  A reply came, in her own voice.

She was stunned.

A duplicate of herself materialized in front of her.

Her eyes widened in shock, and she backed away.

“What, it’s just me.  You know, Stoic...  Err...  Whatever my name is now.”  Her doppelganger replied.

“But you look like me...”  She replied.

“You forget this is nothing more than a perception, right?  I didn’t assign myself a form in whitespace, so you probably did for me, subconsciously.  Hold on.”

The turquoise unicorn she saw flashed into a taller, thinner, darker unicorn stallion, his edges conforming to a glitched outline momentarily, before becoming clear again.

“Better?”  He said, in a now deeper voice.

“Yeah, I guess.” She answered.

“Now, this is where things get amazing, and intricate.  This is where you must learn to speak without words.” Nameless said.

“You mean...  Should I just try to project my thoughts to you?” She asked.

“Yeah, that works, but there are more ways than that.” He replied.

“How?” She quizzed

“I don’t know, just try.  The most I can tell you is to search for a link to my mind in your own, and simply try to interact with it.”

Lyra sat her pseudo-physical body down, and searched the boundaries of her consciousness.

Nameless again flickered between physical bodies, from the tall, lanky unicorn, to the tall, lanky human, though in a loose, black robe, rather than than his black armour.

Lyra found something.  A sparking, living spot of leaking patterns that felt completely alien to her.  It was never there before, and was completely out of her control.  This spot was apparently both connected to, yet not part of her mind.  It was like an eye she had no control of, yet could still see through.

She directed her attention at it, and thought an image to it.

Almost instantly it reacted, and sent another image back.  An image of a relic Lyra had something similar too.  A relic she had dug up in some old ruins, and wondered about for ages.

*Link established.  ^_^*  Was the first message to come through, strangely attached to a facial expression.

She tried words.

*This...  This is novel.* She replied telepathically.

*Don’t think in direct words, give me meaning, and my own mind will do the work automatically.* She got back.

*Oh* She replied

*I mean...  ‘corrected’ ‘acknowledge past failure ‘*   Which roughly translated into “Oh, I see”

*You see, there can be little misunderstanding when we communicate like this.  The flaws of spoken language are bypassed.  One side of the communication where error can arise is eliminated completely, and the other only receives something that his/her own mind can only interpret correctly.

*’question logic of the purpose of presence of spoken language at all’*  Which roughly translates to “Why must my mind interpret this into language at all” Lyra thought

*It doesn’t need to, you will stop imagining words altogether in due time, and simply understand my thought without having to travel through that step.  However, the transcription occurs as an automatic effect of your own mind trying to understand what reaches it.*

*’Agreement’, ‘determining next proper response’* Lyra thought to the link.  (Keep in mind that the phrases enclosed in single quotes are unworded thought, and have been partially re-worded because they are on text.  For example, ‘Agreement’ is really a state of mind that Lyra is expressing, and when put into words from her real mouth, in this context, would sound something like “Ok, I get it... umm...”.)

“So, there’s two things we must do while we’re here.  One; we can get this technology thing ironed out, or two; I can give you a tour of your own mind.”  He spoke, with his pseudo-physical body.

“I’m pretty curious about what happens if I get to view my own mind because you hyped it so much.  So...  I think that’s what I want to do first.”

“Alright with me.” he said.

His pseudo-physical vessel sat against the currently physically anomalous, and ambiguous white floor, in a pose with folded legs, and hands up, with the elbows supported by the knees, as if supporting a weighted orb.  A moment later, exactly that materialized.  Within his clutches a blank, reflective orb faded into existence.  Lyra could see her own face in it.

Lyra decided to imagine the floor was cold, solid, and not unlike smooth granite.  It became so.  Using her imaginary hooves, she stepped across the now less symbolic flooring, to approach her new companion.

As she approached, the orb Nameless held began to become transparent.

A jagged three-dimensional model of her own body was unveiled within, occasionally spinning on all three axis to allow view from another perspective.

*That’s strange.  Usually the image is quite detailed and smooth*  Was the message that was fed to her mind.

*Is it dangerous that I’m an exception?* She thought in reply.

*Haha, no, we can still use this, but it probably means you have been having some self-identification problems.  That’s exactly what this whole thing will solve anyhow.*

Nameless let the sphere float up, and out of his hands, as if it were a helium balloon.  It came to a rest a couple feet in front of him, at about his shoulder-level.

Lyra decided to conduct an experiment.  She concentrated on her own figure, and began to redefine, adding clothing, and beginning to make more dramatic changes, before Nameless stopped her.

*That’s not how you do it.  You must be more abstract, let your subconscious fill in the details.  Not to mention, there are some pretty ugly transitional stages if you don’t store the thought, and act carefully.*

*How do I store a thought?*

*Create an object, and bind a concept to it.  What you’re allowed to do is extremely free.  There are many things you can do to a thought once it is on the server, and not in your own mind.*

*Server?  Is that the processor thing you were talking about?*

*Yes.*

Lyra wondered what reach of her mind to command into producing a sphere, just like Nameless’s.  She decided what to do, and acted upon it.  She only ended up activating a few muscles on the back of her neck, causing her head to crane backwards.

*Try, instead of straining to make something simply appear, imagine it is already there.  If you think it will help, blink, or close your eyes.*

She did just that.  She relaxed, closed her eyes, and decided that there was a sphere right in front of her face, black, and starry.  She opened her eyes, and was startled by exactly that right in front of her nose.

*Great, now bind some thought to it.*

*How?*

Suddenly, Lyra felt a great portion of Nameless’s mind introduced to her own.  She began to feel the sensation of simultaneously focusing her mind on the object, and sending thoughts through another link she hadn’t noticed yet.

The invasive presence of Nameless quickly dissipated.

*That...  That was very uncomfortable...  But it was AWESOME.*  She replied, before attempting to replicate the action she was just shown.  Focus on the object, send information through a second link.

She felt the thought push through, and the link was sending her very same thought back to her.

*Whoa, all this brain-stuff is starting to drive me up the wall, exactly how many links are there to my mind now?*

*Normally just one for any object you focus on, and one per other person in session.  Right now we each have two links.  I will now read what is in the sphere, and supervise it as you change it.*  He replied.

She didn’t reply, but focused on the image of a human, before sending it through.  Almost instantly, the sphere she created became translucent, and an image of a human appeared in it.  At first, it was a very rough picture, lacking facial features, or a proportionally correct body.  But it quickly became a clothed human with mint-green hair, large golden eyes, a somewhat fair skin-tone, with a pretty slender build, much shorter than Stoic, and lacking the ridiculously ductilated features.

She tried to apply this thought to her own image like she did before, but Nameless stopped her.

*It isn’t complete.  You don’t know what it’s like to be human, what nerves attach where, or what muscles move what.  No information can be created out of nothing, so I will donate those sensations to this avatar.*

In almost no-time, the reply-signals coming from the second link began changing.  Nothing Lyra did to that bound thought was anything but visual, but what Nameless was doing was adding depth.  The weight of the arms, the superior sense of balance, the springy, bouncy power in the legs, all sorts of small details, from things as large as calf-muscles, to the feeling of air running through a pointed nose.

*Now you can try.*  He replied a few seconds later.

She tried on her new skin, to discover how intensely surreal it was to try out another body.  Never in her life could she ever imagine anything like it.  Every sensation that Nameless essentially took for granted flooded her mind as entirely new.

Though her elation was cut short by Nameless interrupting.

*Look, I know.  Fun.  There are a million ways to have fun here, but we gotta move on.  I have basically copied your mind into my processor, and bound it to this sphere, just connect to it via the second link, and my processor will simulate you, and give you responses identical to how you would.*

Lyra wondered what it would be like, until she realized that this wasn’t speculation, and that she should actually begin conversing with herself.

She concentrated on the orb, and as soon as she fed the link a thought, she got a reply.

^Stoi...  Nameless, is that you?  I can’t see!  Please help me!^

*Calm down, you’re not the real Lyra.  I am.*

^Wha..?  I don’t see how I’m ANY less real than you!^

*Very simple, you’re a creation of Stoi...  Nameless.  You only exist in his computer thing, while I have a brain.*

^I think, therefore I am!  I never thought I would get such guff from MYSELF!^

“Oh, she’s right....” She thought to herself.  This momentary break in concentration let her catch onto the fact that Nameless was about to burst out laughing.

“You’re really arguing with yourself?  Not even the most....  Look, and understand how unbelievably pointless it is to disagree with yourself about certain things.  You’re both the real you, you will soon gain the memories of the virtual copy of you, who will essentially become you when that happens.  This action is called virtual personality splitting, and can be exploited to no end.  Like Trio the Observer, a self-alterer who had hundreds, upon thousands of virtual minds put into mechanical bodies, exploring the world, and conducting experiments, just to merge memories with him in the end.  He was by far the most learned man...  Err....  Whatever he wanted to be... In existence.” Nameless said out loud.

“Just how well do you get along with yourself, and exactly how many minds can that thing hold?” She replied.

“I get along perfectly with my self, that’s what this whole thing is about.  Getting you to get along perfectly with yourself.  When you gain her memories, you will feel all of the pain and offense you caused, and this WILL change you.  SO, let’s try again.  I will merge you two, and we will start again with a slightly more educated version of you. And by the way, I can simulate up to five minds, each mind connected to the server takes away about 0.8 from that number, but I can store up to six-hundred in data, though roughly one third of that is already taken up.”

“How come you can only have a few people on, or being simulated, but can store SIX HUNDRED?!”

“Umm... That’s a technology thing, and will require a lot more than words to explain in short time.  By word, it would take both years, and your continual curiosity.  Please finish the introspection first.”

“Alright, but you gotta tell me why we’re using speech, though.”

“Just because it feels right sometimes.  Why should I be redundant?”

“Oh...  Ok.”

“Now, I have prepared another copy, this time she will know what’s going on, but I will merge the older one’s memories before I let you speak with her.”

Nameless visibly concentrated on the sphere in front of him.  After a few seconds went by, he gave Lyra the OK sign.

Lyra opened her second link to the object, and suddenly felt a load of information dumped on her mind.  At first she acquired a memory of becoming disembodied; the exact moment she was copied.  After came a cry for help, to discover her first link was gone, and she could no longer contact Nameless.  She waited a couple seconds in silence, before receiving contact from who turned out to be... her.  She remembered the insult she felt from being called out as fake, and the hopelessness after her alter ego left, letting her stew in the cold for a minute, before......  Becoming re-embodied.

Her first thought afterwards was “I’m ALIVE!!”.  She then realized that she was also her own antagonist, and had a small cache of new memories hidden to her before re-embodiment.

It was a completely new feeling to her, like an explosion of previously hidden Deja Vu’s.  Immediately she saw what she did wrong, and sought to make sure it never happened again.

*Now, I think I might want to update this new copy with your newfound knowledge.*  Nameless said.

*Alright.* Lyra reciprocated in the format of thought.

She didn’t feel anything, like last time.  She didn’t feel anything but the former human whispering *It’s ready* into her mind.

*It’s still in the sphere, right?*

*Yes.*

She joined it in thought, to collide with an equal response from her emulated self.

^Hi me!^  Was the message they were both in the process of saying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nearly an entire hour of conversation  with none other than Lyra’s own self followed.  She could hardly believe some of the things she said, or some of the self-images she often inadvertently shattered by entering certain scenes of conversation.  All the while Nameless sat in his leg-folded stance, patiently meditating, presumably thinking about his next lesson.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nameless animated from his stone-stillness, and said aloud “That’s enough.”

“But it was just getting fun!” She responded.

“There’s matters of perspective here that we need to resolve.  We need to move to technology, besides, you two need to be rejoined soon.”

“Oh, I... we’ve been wondering, is it possible to give her a body in this dimension?  I’m sure she... I...  Felt extremely claustrophobic without a body, but full conscience.”

“I was waiting for you to ask that question, and the answer is yes.  All you must do is change that sphere.”

Lyra decided to do exactly that.  She simply fed the image of her old body into the sphere with the intention of changing its form, rather than its bound mind.  The sphere neither hesitated to follow her command, or made an error while doing so.  Soon her copy stood in front of her as a pony, in contrast to the fantasy body Lyra made for herself.

“So the answer was yes!”  The turquoise pony said out loud.

“Now let’s see if you two can merge memories, again become one and the same.”

The twin consciousnesses of Lyra curiously prodded each other, looking for a way into the other.

The emulatee (Eh-mew-late-ee) decided to try dumping all of her memories into the original, until Nameless stopped them both.

*Nonono.  This results in the emulatee becoming obsolete, and awaiting erasure.  I will give you a hint, only the original has the power to do this, and you must keep in mind that the emulatee is part of the computed environment which is subject to the WSRTJ Participant’s imaginations.* Nameless projected to them both.

Both Lyras thought for a minute, before the copy came up with a solution.

*Try consciously willing that we are the exact same, and that I (Non-verbally emphasizing that “I” applies to both consciousnesses) again share the same mind.*

Lyra decided exactly that was true.  And so it became.  A sudden influx of memory was expected, and that expectation was fulfilled.  But this was different.  Again she experienced the continuity of her copy, where she was slightly afraid of simply vanishing forever.  Her hour-long session with herself doubled, basically.  She realized that she was given the power to think at twice the speed of anypony else.  Then it came, an amazing sensation of self-fulfillment, when she looked back and found herself able to review both sets of memories at once, like she was both at the same time, looking back, yet oblivious to her other half during the span.

She sat, and reviewed her feelings again for the next minute, before finally drawing the conclusions about herself.  She was now a hundred times more sure of her limits, and strengths than ever before.

“Great, now you’ve become an adult by human standards, and the rest of your life will be filled with moments of self-alteration.  This is the part where I teach you everything I know about technology, and you tell me where your societies limits are on technology.  After we do this, our conversations can be infinitely more clear when we’re out of white-space.”

“Why should we ever leave white-space?”  Lyra replied.

“Because we have duties in real life, and I will never know your people without some experience out there.  Besides, retreatance into white-space for extended times has an unhealthy effect on your psyche. ”

“Oh....  Well I want to be here more than once, at least.”

“That will undoubtedly happen, don’t stress about it.”

“Ok.”

“So...  I have been packing a string of lessons into a single vessel.  At the age when I received these, I only took them one at a time, but they aren’t dangerous to take en masse, it shouldn’t be too hard to comprehend them all at once.”

“When did you receive them?  And will this be boring, like school?”

“I began receiving white-space lessons at the age of six, both under supervision, and limited control of the virtual environment.  They are anything but boring, trust me.”

Preparing yet another sphere, he beckoned Lyra to contact it.

And so she did, immediately to receive heaps, and heaps of images, and narratives of meaning.  It took her a second, but she began to realize that comprehension was included.  Not only did she instantly know what an electrical current was, but she understood it perfectly, and felt it ingrained deeply into her mind.  Soon after electricity, came chemistry, transistors, computers, data storage, the internet, the great web of thoughts, the technological revolution, devices of all sorts, and pullum ferrus.  When the last subject was reached, a relative explosion of knowledge hit her like a ton of bricks...  if what she was just learning didn’t do that already.  Thousand-state transistors, absolutely solid matter, dimensional breaching, perpetual motion farms, folding dark-iron, even space colonies sent out to the other planets of the solar system, and even out into the far reaches of the galaxy.  Then came the story of the computer trinity, leading the world to its apex, and eventually its doom.  All these huge stories of accomplishment left Lyra gawking at the ingenuity of her preceding race.

“You are now as taught as a human first year learner.  Usually we’re a ton more casual about education than this, and it would have involved a lot more mental flexion, but I don’t have the time, or the willpower to stretch this out.”

Lyra sent her meagre pool of technology back.  The farthest they ever got technologically, without magic, was blasting powder.

“Now that I think about it, Celestia should have put a lot more focus onto technological research.”

“That would never happen without a disturbance in the norm like me.  Why ever would you look at the world so scrutinously as we did without the motivation of survival we had.  You started out with magic, and the whole world has damaged space to the point of cartoonishness.  All these odd distortions, and abstractions of the world around us can easily lead one into the trap of naive realism, and break one from the path of discovery...”  Said the Survivor.

“Can I play around here in this white-space?”

“Of course, I’m not bored by meditation, do as you will, I can wait.”

Lyra did exactly that, from designing a sort of game she played against her clone, (involving the iterational mutation of a memetic piece of information, and another copy, acting as a judge to decide what credit went where for the change in the information) to drawing with her mind, to emulating the favourite moments of her life.  An hour flew by in no time, and another, and another.  Allthewhile The Survivor sat patiently, watching Lyra in her frolic, and communicating with several emulations of himself simultaneously.

Abruptly, he got up, and said “It’s time to return to real life.”

“Why?  I’m having a ball!”

“For starters, you begin to lose touch with reality if you stay here too long, I’m unfed, and I need actual sleep on the side.  You begin to lose physical prowess if you neglect your body, too.  Now that I let my consciousness touch it, all I’ve had in the last few days was some cornbread, and a couple cookies... I think...  Hehe, you could say I’m as hungry as a horse...  If that pun even makes sense here.”

“I guess...  I guess that’s reason enough.” She replied, annoyed at the ridiculous joke.

She inherited all of her clones, and braced for a shock back to reality.

“Now let’s wake.”

Lyra’s emulated senses faded to nothingness, and she felt her real body slowly rejoin her mind.  One by one, her limbs became revealed to her.  It was a rather pleasant feel, like she was growing.

Eventually, the tips of her hooves rejoined the rest of her body, and she lay in bed, staring blankly at her ceiling, going over this massive pumping of information.  Oh...  So many new concepts, so much math, and science, and technology.  There were bits of culture laced in there also

Eventually, she got the motivation to drop her thought, and sit up.  She found the survivor doing the same.  Though, instead of marveling at her hooves, like he was, she opened the chest she kept in her room.

“These are things Bonbon always told me to throw away.” She said, as she lifted several items out of it with magic.

“Things she could only recognize as pieces of old scrap metal.”

She brought these artifacts between them, towards The Survivor.

One of them he immediately snatched out of the air with his teeth.

Dropping it on the bed, he asked “Where on earth did you get this?”

“I raided some ruins, found this thing on a pedestal”

“This is a pistol, one of the olden weapons of fire!”

“A what-now?”

“A pistol, it utilizes a mix of chemicals to create a lot of gas behind a piece of metal, propelling it to speeds capable of tearing holes in flesh, or punching through thick metal...”  He said, before using magic to drop out the clip.

“It hasn’t got any bullets...” He said.

“I’ve broken the thing down into pieces hundreds of times.  and I’ve inspected it very closely, but how does it hurt things?  I mean... How do these bullets work?  I’ve just never seen the thing working, up close.  It’s hard to imagine this thing a real, dangerous weapon that can punch holes in steel.”

“Once those Canterlot ponies give me back my manipulator, I can show you all about it...  But this isn’t the only weapon we’ve designed.  Before Utopian times came around, we had weapons capable of wiping entire cities off the face of the planet, and hand-held weapons capable of slicing things to bits from miles away, or blasting things as large as a house to smithereens.  Seeing what The Doctor was talking about, we may have to build some of those.”

Lyra completely lost it the moment she heard of the city-wiping weapon, shuddering at the mere idea.

“The city-destroying weapon...  Why would anyone ever build such a thing?”

“Power, Lyra, power.  Psychopathic people got into high power, and got a serious high off of seeing other people bow to them.  It’s called an atomic bomb, a weapon that erased a small amount of matter in trade for massive quantities of energy.  It would create an explosion so vast that before the shockwave, sand would melt into glass, and people would vaporize instantly.  They would even leave shadows in the scorch-marks left behind.  But the shockwave would come along, and smash everything to pieces.  Blasting trees right out of the ground, and throwing multi-tonned pieces of stone as far as a mile.  It would leave the land scarred, and irradiated for centuries, and leave the survivors with radiation-disease.”

Lyra was shocked, absolutely flabbergasted.  What sort of creature would even CONSIDER such a thing an option.

“Was...  Was it ever used?”

“Yes, thrice, the first two, in the same week.  The catastrophes were named Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, after the massive cities they burnt to ashes.  The third time was to destroy a quarantined area called ‘The City of the Dead’, which was home to a disease which was both going to kill everyone there anyways, and risk getting out of quarantine if it hadn’t been destroyed.  Though, hundreds, if not thousands of atomic bombs were dropped on barren wastelands, to test their function.  If I recall my history lessons uncorrupted, there’s got still be some  massive, glazen craters in those deserts.  It’s quite a sight.”

“That’s...  Completely horrifying.”

“It is, but I need to know more about how you got ahold of this pistol, and these other random objects, like an archaic laptop computer, and...  What is this thing?”  He said, pointing a hoof to a dilapidated, and partially melted piece of steel.

“This thing? I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, I was hoping you’d tell me.  But I got these all while raiding the ruins of broken glass.”

“Ruins of broken glass?  What on ea...  You’re talking about a human city, aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

“Do you have a map?” The Survivor asked.

“Of course I do, right here in this chest, along with all my other favourite things.” Lyra said.

“Are the ruins of broken glass on it?”

“Yes.”

“Show it to me, I am getting a horrible suspicion that this is my home-town.”

A folded map of equestria was taken from the box, and given to The Survivor, the field surrounding it shifting from a green, to a dark-grey.

He looked at it for a minute, before saying “Wow, the ruins are already marked here, and comparing the positions of these ruins to each other...  Oh my gosh, it is.  I guess those buildings never got buried by sediment.”

“They kind of were.  The whole place is full of rooftops sticking up over soil...”

“I want to show you my house, hahaha!  I always sort of wanted to know what a place looks like if it isn’t demolished after it’s abandoned.”  The Survivor said.

“Your house is still around?”

“Well, yes.  It’s not like it’s made of materials that rot, or break easily.  You could yank the thing out of the ground with a chain, and drag it a hundred miles across the ground at about 200 MpH, and it’d be fine.”

“What...  Are you exaggerating, or not...  I can’t tell.”

“No, not at all.  The thing is absolutely solid.  There is no way to bend it without telling its computer to do so.”

“But everything would be thrown everywhere, if you were to tug it around like that.” Lyra said.

“You’re probably right about that.” He replied.

“Wait, weren’t we going to try to figure out why unicorns are only limited to a few spells?”

“I did, you unicorns aren’t.  But because of this race’s lack of understanding of the M.A.G.I.C. field, it is very, very hard to comprehend exactly what a spell is.  On the subconscious level, this has a huge effect, and your subconscious is quite important when it comes to spellcasting.”

“... Oh...  I think I’ve heard a theory like that floating around...”

“Good, you ponies have thinkers among you, then.”

“So wait, do you think we should go to the ruins sometime?”

“Certainly, but we’ve got time.  My home town isn’t exactly going anywhere.”

“You’re making sense...  Is this a detail we should tell the scientists in canterlot?”

‘Sure, I’m making a list of them.  Well, not a physical one...”

“Ok...”  Lyra replied.

A minute passed in silence.

“I think I figured out what that melted hunk of metal is.  It’s got to be one of our energy weapons.  Their internal generators can overheat in no time if they’re damaged.  Who knows what damaged it in the first place.”

“An energy weapon?  What is that?”

“An energy weapon is a weapon that projects some form of heat, or light towards a target.  The earliest I can recall was the Greek Fire flame thrower.  A weapon that was mounted on boats, and would spray burning naphtha on to other boats to ignite them.  Low-tier energy weapons are by far the most horrible way to die we’ve ever conceived.  However, our laser pistols had the power to burn a hole straight through someone near instantly, and sear the nerve-endings, ensuring a painless death.”

“That is really, REALLY messed up...  Tell me more.”

“Ok...  Umm...  The Laser Pistol was designed to eliminate the quarantined of the City of the Dead should they try to escape, or incinerate infected remains.  It used a light, 620,000 times brighter than the sun, fired in a perfectly straight line to completely evaporate organic matter, turn steel into red-hot butter, or draw graffiti into the ground with scorched earth, hahaha!!  If the databases in my town have survived, I can build one, and show you the sort of power they packed.  It will plain blow your mind, the sort of destruction those can cause with the lightest tap of the finger.” The survivor said, with a voice full of pride.

“Do you have some sort of affinity for death?  You’re getting way too excited about that laser-pistol thing...  You’re kinda scaring me.” Lyra said.

“No, it’s just that we ran these war-simulators for fun.  All the adrenaline, and challenge of warfare, minus the pain, grief, and suffering left behind.  Such fun memories.  It was nothing more than friendly competition, I swear.” Nameless replied.

“This is getting weirder by the minute, I love it!!  Tell me more about these war simulations please.” Lyra requested.

“Oh, gee.  We would set up two teams of players every month or so, all the workers in the tower would get together into a big room, and hook up to...  connect to a really powerful computer, that, unlike whitespace, imposed rules, and generated most of the details of cyber-space, instead of the minds of the users having complete control.  We would all be assigned roles, be given goals, and weapons based on what we requested.  We would then proceed to strategically fight, and kill each other to achieve our goals.  The consequences of dying varied each game, sometimes they resulted in permanent removal from the game, or sometimes you simply ‘respawned’ somewhere, or sometimes you were brought back with all of the others who died in a ‘reinforcements call’.  We would play this game to relieve stress, and just have some fun.”

“Does it hurt when you die?”

“Well, you feel the bullets hitting, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as it should.  What would normally knock the breath out of you, and make you cry for mother feels more like a hard jab with a stick.  When you die, you’re left to harmlessly spectate the game for a while.”

“So what do you have at your house?”

“Shush, no more questions, let’s get something to eat, and a good night’s rest first.”

Lyra paused for a minute, and made a decision.

“There’s a restaurant downtown that’s got some pretty awesome food.  Normally, Bonbon would cover this issue, I’m not exactly the best cook.”

“Alright then, let’s take off.”

End of part 5.