THE MAGIX: CHAPTER 5: Truth

The next day was the day Rain had been waiting for. The question had been on her mind since she had been brought to the abandoned apartments in outer Ponyville. Today was the day that her question would be answered. What is the Magix?
Amber led Rain down the long hallway of the first floor and into a large circular room, one that the crew called the holodeck. Rain stopped in the doorway and stared. It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen, like stepping into the future. In this room was some of the most advanced technology Rain had ever seen. There were all types of machines Rain didn't even have a name for, all blinking and glowing with life. In the center of the room was a circle of what looked like massage chairs, each with a plug behind the headrest and several wires and machinery housed underneath. Everything was connected to a huge control panel set into the wall, taking up almost a third of the room. It was covered in hundreds of controls, buttons, and switches, and one huge touch-screen monitor stretching across the entire panel. Streams of glowing green and black flowed down the screen in a smooth, rhythmic computer waterfall. Ash and Spiro were at the controls, activating two of the chairs. Along with them were the rest of the crew. They all turned to face the doorway as soon as Amber and Rain stepped into the room.
"The entire crew is here," Rain whispered to Amber as they entered the room. "What are they all doing here?"
"Everypony is here because you'll need all the help you can get to deal with the truth. It's horrifying. I'm telling you now, nopony ever takes it well. Ever."
Ash heard voices and was momentarily distracted from his work. He looked up from the control panel to see that Rain was in the room. His heart leapt in obsessive delight. He jumped up from his place and raced over to meet her. "Good morning!" he said enthusiastically. "Hi, how are you doing? Miss me?"
Rain kept walking. "I'm fine, thanks."
Spiro got up from his place at the panel and walked over to the chairs. "This one's yours," he said to Rain. "Take a seat."
Rain stepped up and relaxed herself into the chair. "So, how does this work? What am I supposed to do?"
Horus appeared at her side. "Just relax," he instructed her. "Keep your mind clear. Spiro and Ash will take care of everything else. This is going to hurt, it always does the first time. It'll wear off afterwards. I'll be waiting for you when you come through."
Rain took a deep breath and tried to relax. "Are we going back to the Magix?"
Horus stepped up to the other activated chair, where Saph was standing behind the headrest. "No. You're not ready for that yet." He attached several monitor wires to himself and reclined into the chair. "See you on the other side," he said. Saph took hold of one of the cables behind his head and one of the wires shifted forward. Horus gave a small jolt and went limp.
Rain gasped. "Is he okay?"
Spiro was busy attaching wires to her. "He's fine," he answered. "Horus should be waiting for you in the construct now."
"The construct?"
"It's a program we created. It's designed for downloading anything that the crew needs or creating programs for the mainframe. We use it to introduce newcomers to the truth about the Magix. Never seen it for myself, though."
Rain watched Spiro as he turned his back to her to adjust the monitors. She noticed something very peculiar about him. Spiro turned back and noticed Rain studying him intently. "What?"
"You don't have a plug," she answered.
"Oh. Knew you'd notice eventually," he said, smiling. "I'm a wild pony. I was born naturally, outside of the Magix. No plugs, no wires."
He let Rain examine his smooth forelegs, no plugs at his wrists. He then returned to the control panel and nudged Ash, who was once again gazing blankly at Rain. Spiro threw a few switches. "Here goes," he said, flicking one final switch into action. The unicorn turned away from the control panel and walked over to her chair, standing behind the headrest, out of Rain's field of vision. She heard his voice. "Hold still, okay? You're being plugged in. It'll hurt, but just hold still. It'll be over before you know it."
A stinging, hot metallic pain blossomed at the back of Rain's head. It was her plug. She squealed, but just a little, and only for a second. With a sudden jolt of energy, her body convulsed once and she went comatose in her chair.

Rain opened her eyes to see nothing but white. Her eyes adjusted. She was in a blank white room. A perfect cube, no furniture, no color, white to the point where the sides and corners appeared to blend together. Rain squinted at the brightness.
"Amazing, isn't it?"
Rain whirled around at the sound of the voice. Horus had materialized out of nowhere. He once again wore the black trench coat and sunglasses from their first meeting. Rain blinked again, trying to clear her vision. "There's nothing here," she said. "What is this place?"
"We are in the construct. It is where we begin."
Horus took a remote control out of one of his trench coat's many hidden pockets and pressed a button. A hidden trapdoor opened in the spotless floor. A plain grey laptop sitting on a round white pedestal rose out of the hole. "Come and look at this," he said, leading Rain over to the laptop. Rain followed and stood next to him. Horus ran a hoof across the trackpad, and the screen blinked to life. A video menu appeared. Horus chose the first file in the lineup and opened it. Several video clips of Equestria's many cities played on the screen. Images of Ponyville, Canterlot, the friendly suburbs of Fillydelphia and the elegant skyscrapers of Manehattan, and numerous other places from Rain's memory flashed across the screen. All were beautiful and filled with life. Blooming flowers, bustling crowds, lush green fields, wild animals... it was a perfect world.
Horus began the story. "This is Equestria as we once knew it. A peaceful place, full of nature, magic, and beauty. Everypony has a good life, everything, they'd ever need, and as much freedom as they could ask for. This is the life you used to know."
He sighed as the short video ended after only a few short seconds. The screen returned to the menu.
"Sadly, all of this is an illusion."
The walls of the blank room fell down with an earsplitting crash. Rain's breath caught in her throat as she stared in shock at the horror they revealed.
They were in a city, or at least what used to be one. The scene seemed post-apocalyptic. What must have once been tall, magnificent buildings were now nothing more than towers of rusting metal, crumbling cement, and charred, rotting wood barely supported by decaying steel frames. The sky was black and smoky, no sign of a moon, sun, stars, or any other celestial body. The two lone ponies were surrounded by shrapnel, torn pieces of debris fallen from the broken buildings that surrounded them. The only thing that seemed to have had any upkeep were the pipes. The entire city was spiderwebbed with steel pipes, tubes and cables. They snaked in and out of the eroded city, possibly the only things holding the nightmarish place together. Some buildings emitted an eerie, pinkish glow from within them. Then there were the machines. Dark, spidery silhouettes moved over the city, crawling through the streets, in and out of the broken buildings. They moved with a dangerous purpose, seemingly oblivious to the Earth pony and pegasus watching their every move.
Rain's eyes darted back and forth. The entire place seemed about to collapse over their heads. She looked at her captain and opened her mouth, trying to speak. No words would come out. She didn't know where to begin. She began to shake with fear, confusion, pressure, and millions of other nameless emotions coursing through her brain. Finally, she managed to squeak out one tiny sentence. "Where- where are we?"
Horus gazed sadly at the wreckage. "This is Equestria as it is today." He chose another video from the laptop's menu. Images played across the screen again, the same ones as in the previous video. Canterlot, Ponyville, Cloudsdale, all as they were in Rain's memory.
Suddenly, the images got bigger. The screen appeared to grow.
"Um, Horus? What's going on?" Rain squeaked. Horus said nothing. The screen kept growing and enveloped her. She wasn't watching the video anymore. It was part of her. The images were beaming directly into her mind, searing themselves into her memory. Horus's voice spoke up from the images.
"The year was 2010. Equestria was as you once believed it was: tranquil, natural, all things born free and running wild."
Rain watched the same clips as in the first video, average, day-to-day pony life. She somewhat enjoyed seeing this again after the nightmare of a city she had just been exposed to, but she dreaded what would come next. Something inside her knew that the peace wouldn't last long.
"Then everything changed."
The images were replaced by a picture of the royal family. Princesses Celestia and Luna stood side by side, looking as regal as ever.
"The story of the Summer Sun Celebration is a lie. The legend you have been raised on is only half of the truth. You see, Princess Luna did become jealous of her sister, Celestia, because of how ponies took her beautiful night for granted. There was a huge scandal in the royal court. Some said that Luna was creating a conspiracy, building an army, threatening to shroud all of Equestria in eternal night. Their claims were proven true. Luna attacked Celestia, temporarily transformed by her jealousy into the monster you know as Nightmare Moon. She sank the sun, shrouding the world in darkness. But the night only lasted so long. Eventually, Luna was captured. Celestia broke the spell over her sister and daylight returned. Luna repented for her crimes and continued her reign as goddess of the night. But their troubles were far from over."
The image changed again. Now there was a news broadcast, the footage seeming new, as if it had been shot only yesterday. Headlines appeared, all heralding news of the activity of two groups Rain had never heard of: the Daylight and Midnight
"The attack had created a massive rivalry in the ponies of Equestria. Some believed that Luna was true to her promise, that she had gone back from her days of jealousy and evil, and that she would never again threaten the day. Others believed this was all a lie. They saw Luna as a liar, a traitor, and a threat. If she attacked once, there was nothing to stop her from attacking again. They thought she was unfit to rule and was a danger to the safety of Equestria. Eventually, these two opposing viewpoints split the planet's population. Ponies were divided into two societies: The Midnight, who had faith in Luna, and the Daylight, who hated her. With every passing year, the conflict grew. The situation worsened. Celestia realized that it was becoming increasingly dangerous for Luna to stay in Equestria. She sent her to the moon for safety. It was her haven, not her prison. Celestia had promised her sister that she could return someday, when the fighting was finally over. That time never came. The conflict only continued to grow.
Eventually, it became too much. Something changed. Something snapped. And war took ponykind in its iron grasp."
The images in Rain's mind went black. New images replaced the news footage. Bloody, violent, graphic images. Battlefields appeared, strewn with scorched grass, blood, bullet shells and dead bodies. There were clips of unicorns locked in combat, a magical fight to the death. More and more images came. Bombs being dropped by pegasi and exploding into clouds of fire and smoke, entire cities being burned, innocent ponies running and screaming in fear.
Rain was on the verge of tears. Emotion choked her as the bloody images flashed painfully through her mind. "That's horrible," she gasped. "Why are you showing me this?"
Horus's voice spoke again. "Because you must know."
Finally it was over. The battles and gore faded. In their place came a gray, devastated world.
"The war lasted 50 years, the longest Equestria had ever seen. It left intense devastation in its path. The physical toll was almost unbearable, the emotional even worse. It will be forever known to us as the war that destroyed Equestria."
The world before Rain's eyes was no longer green and beautiful. It was dark, scorched, wilted, and dead. Once-lively cities had been reduced to ashes. Forests were left blackened, burned, and empty. Entire ecosystems, all of nature itself, were destroyed. The worst part was the ponies. So many had been lost to the war. Only half of the world had survived. Their sad faces and mournful tears tore at Rain's heart. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. All of Equestria, gone? It was too much. She wanted to faint.
"I can see you're not taking this so well," Horus's voice said. "Neither did they."
Rain's consciousness finally returned. The screen was back in its place, on the laptop instead of in her mind. She was back in the city, standing next to Horus on shaky, unstable legs. Rain squeezed her eyes shut, now seeing only the dark shield of her eyelids.
Horus offered a shoulder to keep rain on her feet before continuing the story. "The damage done by the war was nearly irreversible. It would take decades, maybe centuries to fix, and even then, the world would never be the same. They couldn't take the horror that their world had become. That was the beginning of the Magix."
Rain opened her eyes, trying to wake herself up. She blinked repeatedly, trying to erase the images seared into her mind, get out of the construct, wake up in the real world again. Nothing happened. Rain's knees went weak. She collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.
Horus put a hoof on her shoulder. "Come on, Rain. It's over. No more images, I promise," he said soothingly, trying to calm his shell-shocked apprentice. He helped her to her hooves. "Come. There is still more to see."
A mist clouded over the city. It grew, gathered, and thickened, shrouding the ponies in a soft, pale gray barrier. All that was visible was the fog. When the mist finally cleared, they were no longer in the streets of a post apocalyptic city. The mist had transported them inside one of the glowing buildings. It was nothing more than four plain gray concrete walls, no ceiling, and crumbled asphalt for a floor. Encased inside were several long walls, stretching across the warehouse floor from one wall to the other, and hundreds of feet high. Each had an oddly familiar pink glow emitting from the sides. Rain regained her footing and stepped uneasily closer. As her vision cleared, she realized that the glow was coming from a grid of egg-shaped pods. There were thousands of them lining the walls in front of her, maybe millions in the entire building. She dared to go one step closer before shrieking and recoiling in shock. Inside each pod was a dark shadow. Rain dared to look closer. They were ponies, floating unconsciously in sleep. They were all hooked up to several wires which jutted from their limbs and bodies. All of them had a huge, thick wire sticking out from the back of their head. As Rain stared,the memory of her awakening came rushing back. Everything was so familiar. She remembered this place.
"I- I've been here before," she said in wonder.
"Yes, you have," Horus responded. "This is where you were born."
The pegasus kept staring at the dark sky above, the towering walls and countless pods. It looked like no place that anyone should be brought into the world. "Born here? Why?"
"Not born, necessarily. Made," her captain said, standing beside her and observing the pods. "These are the fields. This is where ponies are grown and live while the electrical energy they generate is harvested to power the Magix. You used to be here until we freed you. Everypony else you know is probably here still."
Rain turned back to Horus. "When did all this start?"
He nodded. "That is the final piece of the puzzle."
"The weakest ponies were first. They were the ones who inspired the Magix. They didn't want to live in a dead world. They wanted to return to their old lives, in that place of peace, love, and happiness. A group of brilliant scientists, engineers, and psychologists designed the Magix. It was created to be a perfect world, as Equestria was before the war. The ponies connected to it would be permanently asleep, forever living in a dream. Their bodies would be kept perfectly safe in an embryonic state as signals were sent to their brains, feeding them lies about their world. As word of the new scientific breakthrough spread, others joined, choosing to live a false life and letting their world crumble around them. Only a few resilient million remained, watching helplessly as their weaker-minded friends became a part of something so wrong. The Magix grew and spread. Improvements were made over the years, making the system more advanced, stronger, smarter, more powerful. And then... Well, no one's exactly sure what happened next."
Horus looked pityingly at the pod beside him, as if he wanted to set free the helpless pony inside. "Somehow, the system... It developed a mind of its own. They had made it too advanced. The Magix no longer needed ponies to run and control it. At first, it was thought of as a great accomplishment. An intelligent machine that could run entirely on its own, with no help from pony hooves. They thought it was a miracle. Then everything went wrong."
He tore his gaze away from the pod and back to Rain. "The Magix was no longer just a system of signals. It had become an intelligent, self-aware machine, a mastermind being with only itself to control it. Its behavior became increasingly violent and dangerous. It no longer took just the ponies that willingly accepted its proposal. It captured them. Soon, the Magix had assimilated the entire world. Only a handful escaped, forced to live in hiding. That was when the predators were built. They are the machines that you'd seen in the streets. They were created to defend the Magix and hunt down all who evade it. Any hope of escape was deemed futile."
Horus gestured to the vast building. "All of the ponies you see here are slaves. They are unsuspecting prisoners, working endlessly for the Magix. It leeches energy from their body heat and the electricity generated by their brains. Ponies are no longer born. They are made. They spend their whole lives in a pod, trapped in a virtual dream world, completely unaware of the world around them. When they die, their bodies are liquefied, converted into energy, and fed intravenously to the oblivious living. They are no longer ponies. They are just batteries, and eventually, food."
Rain's entire body had gone numb. She stood open-mouthed in shock, staring unblinkingly at the endless walls of pods, the blackened sky, the crumbling, abandoned world around her. She began to tremble. She backed away from the pods, shaking her head.
"No. No, it's not true. It's impossible!"
Horus gently approached her and put a hoof on her shoulders, trying to steady her. "Control yourself, Rain," he said. "If you don't open your eyes and realize the truth then you are no more free than any of them."
"It can't be real. It just can't!" she cried out. "Being a podpony, living in a virtual world, being tube-fed- No! I can't take it! I don't believe it!"
"And neither did I until I saw it with my own eyes. I won't let you lose your mind, Rain. Not now, not ever!"
Rain shook his hoof away. "Don't touch me!" she screamed at him. "Get away from me! Let me out! Get me the hay out of here!"
She broke into a sprint and sped towards the wall, Horus at her heels. Rain crashed into the wall, blinded by tears. She clawed at the concrete, screaming and crying until it was over and everything began to fade away...
Rain jolted awake and sat bolt upright, gasping for air. She was back on the holodeck. Everypony was crowded around her. Misty looked concernedly at the suffocating pegasus. "Rain? Are you feeling alright?"
"Back off!" Rain squeaked. "Go away!"
Amber stepped nervously forward. "Are you okay? Rain?" She put a foreleg around her, trying to comfort her shocked friend.
"Stop! Get your hooves off me!"
Rain twisted away from Amber and punched a hoof toward her. The unicorn threw herself to the side and dodged the blow. "Rain!"
Rain threw herself off the chair and started backing toward the wall.
"It's not real. No. No! It's not real! I don't believe it! I don't... don't..." Rain was getting dizzy. She felt as if she couldn't breathe, like there wasn't enough air, like she was getting bugged all over again. "It's not..."
She heard Misty's voice. "The shock's already set in. Someone catch her before she hurts herself."
"It's too late." Spiro's voice. "She's losing it. She's gonna toss her cookies any second now."
Rain couldn't see straight. Everything was blurring together. Her legs collapsed under her. She fell to her knees and vomited, the small amount she'd eaten that day purged out onto the floor. Rain fell the rest of the way to the floor and landed on her side. She rolled onto her back and stared blankly at the ceiling. "No..."
Amber, Neon, and Saph rushed to her side and leaned over her. She couldn't see them. Only three hazy blobs of blue, orange, and black. She didn't try to push them away. Everything had gone completely numb. She couldn't move.
"Rain!" she dimly heard Neon say. "Say something!"
Finally, her vision went gray, her eyes fluttered closed.
"Pinkie..." she whispered just before she passed out.