Celestia stood in front of a stark black building. A glowing sign adorned the relatively small building, with the capitalized words of “PONYCOM” in a bold white. It had three floors, and all of them seemed to be in use. Several ponies were entering and leaving the building, but apart from that the general area was barren of any ponies other than the occasional passerby.

Celestia herself was cloaked and scrutinized every detail of the building, trying to see from the outside before going inside why such a small company with their own technological backup would steal something from a monarch of Equestria. It made no sense to her why they would do it, and how they did it was somewhat of a mystery to her but it made some sense to a certain degree. She had connected her computer to a new development called “The Grid” which connected computers and communicative devices alike so information could be shared instantaneously.

What concerned her the most however was the limited amount of ponies with access to said technology. Only a hoof-ful of ponies knew about computers, and one such company was PONYCOM. She didn’t know much about it, but she knew that they were also trying to develop software and further computational machinery.  Most ponies didn’t even bat an eye as they passed the black building, but if they knew what was inside… It would change the world. Pixel Pusher and Celestia had been able to keep it under wraps for half a decade now, and they wanted to keep it that way until they were able to make it useable for everypony. Select nobles and such had it, and even they didn’t really know how to use it, which was only a testament to the tempering of the technology needed. Yes, ponies would go crazy over it, but then they would realize it was practically unusable to the common pony, and would be dissuaded by it.

Now one might think “Why doesn’t Princess Celestia just go in and take the pony responsible? Why go through all this trouble of sneaking in and trying to take back what’s hers?” Well, the answer has already been stated. She didn’t want ponies to freak out over something she could solve on her own. She knew that by doing so, going in with the Royal Guard and arresting who was responsible, she would attract a lot of attention and she didn’t want to worry ponies about anything. Another might think “If Celestia is the leading developer of the computer industry, why doesn’t she just hack back and take back what was taken?” The answer?

She had already tried. But since it was an isolated server which was cut off upon taking her info, she couldn’t access it. She had tried, but it wouldn’t work unless she was right there to do it herself. And that was what she was doing right now. Casting an illusion over her form, she took on the appearance of a normal unicorn mare, the only thing out of place being her cloak.

She looked around the street before crossing it and entered PONYCOM. As she entered, she noticed a few things. Namely, the lack of actual ponies on the first floor. All there was was mostly empty space, with benches present in the middle for anypony who would want to sit or wait for something. The kiosk held only one pony, who was jotting things down while reading from a text.. Approaching one of them, she made sure her illusion was still in effect.

“Hello,” Celestia said, fixing her gaze on the mare in front of her. The mare in question jotted something down before lifting her eyes to meet Celestia’s. Upon closer observation, Celestia could see that the mare seemed to be bored and was unamused at humoring a mare from the outside.

“May I help you?” she asked with a dead tone.

“Could you lead me to the server rooms?” Celestia asked. Hopefully, it would be an easy, quick, in and out operation.

“I’m sorry, but only those authorized are allowed to enter the Server-Laser Test and Information center. May I see some identification?”

Not wanting to do this but knowing it was necessary, she scooted over a bag of bits to the greying blue mare. The mare raised an eyebrow and looked into the bag, before scrutinizing Celestia. After a moment of silence, the mare got up from her seat. “Very well,” she said, and she began to lead Celestia in the labyrinth that was the PONYCOM building.

A few hours earlier...

MCP: I HAVE TAKEN ALL VARIATIONS OF THE SIMULATION FROM CELESTIAS COMPUTER

“You’ve what?” a red maned white stallion whispered in disbelief.

MCP: I HAVE ACQUIRED ALL FORMS AND VARIATIONS OF THE PONY SIMULATION FROM CELESTIA

SHE HAD A CONTROL PROGRAM WHICH WAS EASILY BYPASSABLE AND I WAS ABLE TO OBTAIN ALL IMPORTANT AND USEFUL FILES ABOUT PROJECT PONY

“But why? Why go through all of this trouble to get something from the Princess?” Red Herring asked Master Control Program.

MCP: IT IS WHAT YOU WANTED, IS IT NOT?

YOU WANTED WEALTH AND POWER

BY USING THIS SIMULATION, YOU CAN PREDICT AND EVEN USE INFORMATION AGAINST OTHER PONIES

WITH IT, YOU HAVE ALL THE CONTROL AND POWER YOU WOULD EVER WANT

IT IS THE BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT SINCE YOUR LAST VENDETTA

“But I didn’t want to go this far to get it,” Red Herring shook his head in worry. “What will I do now?”

MCP: YOU WILL USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

“This is too far, even for me,” Red Herring said.

MCP:  DO NOT WORRY ABOUT SUCH TRIVIAL THINGS

IT IS WHAT YOU WANTED, AND YOU HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN IT

NEED I REMIND YOU OF WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE TO GET HERE?

Red Herring began to dart his eyes feverishly around the room, the weight of his conscience suddenly bearing down on him. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself to the best of his ability. “Okay. Thanks for the talk. Proceed with the readying of Project PONY for-”

MCP: CELESTIA IS ATTEMPTING TO HACK INTO SERVER 34629

“What?!” Red Herring cried. He began to frantically type commands into his desk to see what was happening. He found lines of code being bypassed and bypassed, almost reaching his server system. “Stop her! Before she finds out it was me who stole her simulation!”

MCP: IT IS ALREADY DONE

SHE HAS BEEN BLOCKED FROM ALL ACCESS TO OUR SERVERS

I HAVE CUT CONNECTION FROM OUTSIDE INFLUENCES TO ALL PONYCOM SERVERS

SHE HAS HIT MY CODE AND IS ATTEMPTING TO BYPASS, BUT MY SECURITY IS SUPERIOR

ONLY LOCAL COMPUTERS CONNECTED TO PONYCOM GRID CAN NOW ACCESS OUR FILES

Breathing a sigh of relief, Red Herring wiped his forehead. Laughing nervously, he spoke once again to Master Control Program. “Whoo! That was a close one, eh Master C?”

MCP: NOT AT ALL

THERE WAS NO CHANCE SHE COULD BYPASS ME NOW OR BEFORE UNLESS IT WAS DIRECTLY THROUGH THE MAIN TERMINAL

THOUGH SHE IS A BOTHER TO MY PROGRAMMING

“So nopony other than us and the main terminal in the Server-Laser room can access files now?”

MCP: THAT IS CORRECT

Breathing another sigh of relief, Red Herring smiled eagerly. Although he wasn’t too happy about having taken directly from the Princess, he couldn’t wait to see his numbers go up.

Elsewhere at the same moment…

“What the buck?” Pixel Pusher said with a huff. Attempting to input more and more lines of code, he found that he could not access his M6 Security program files, nor could he edit them anymore.

“What the heck is happening right now?” he whispered under his breath as he found a block of polymorphing text. With the code in a constant state of change, it was impossible to bypass. He only knew of one pony who had this type of security, and he growled in frustration.

“Red Herring!” he growled, attempting to message the CEO of PONYCOM. All he got was a message saying that his message could not go through.

Suddenly, he received a memo from a very familiar pony he knew all too well. Adjusting his glasses, he entered the commands to open the email.

“Celestia?” he said, reading the note. “Work stolen… Going to go there myself… PONYCOM?!” Pixel read in disbelief. “Find a way to get past the server shutdown if you can, and cover my bases for me? What?” Pixel Pusher shook his head at what he was reading. He just couldn’t wrap his head around it. He knew Red Herring had something to do with several ponies being bankrupt and him gaining their properties. Though he didn’t have any solid evidence for it, he knew Red Herring was behind this and many other cases of theft so far. But to launch an outright attempt on the Princess and to succeed? What could he be thinking?!

Pixel Pusher pushed his glasses into the bridge of his nose once more and banged his desk in frustration. Sighing, he began to secure Celestia’s computer with lines of code, all the while the while wondering why he was a part of this.

Present…

Celestia and the kiosk pony stopped at a door with sign that read: S T I C - Proceed with CAUTION!

“Here we are,” the kiosk pony said. Opening the door, they found a hoof-ful of ponies bustling and rushing around to where they needed to go. Pointing to a pony in a lab-coat just a few feet away from the door, she said, “Go to Blue Light, she can help you with whatever you need in here.” And with that, the kiosk pony left Celestia to her own wits. Celestia looked over the lab and furrowed her brows a bit.

It was time to get it back.