My mind came racing back to me as I awoke on the cold, marble in a giant room. I looked around quickly until I felt something push against the back of my head.

"Do anything stupid and I blow your fucking head off," I heard a pony say behind me. The voice was gruff and hard, like they chain smoked a pack a day.

"Shining, calm down, please," I looked up to see the voice come from a purple pony, with a horn and wings. The bags under her eyes showed she hadn't slept in a while. "Are you okay?"

"I guess, I'm just a little rattled and confused, as I just woke up a little while ago in this place," I told her after the object was removed from the back of my head. I watched a second pony walk around in front of me. His coat was an ashy grey, and his unicorn horn was split down the center. On his side was a holster with a small pistol, on the side of it was an engraving of a shield with a star on it with three smaller ones above it. "Where am I?"

"You're in Equestria, and we know about you leaving VR," she told me. "We know about your entire advemture on Earth, from your birth to know."

"Wait, how do you know?"

"We had monitors recording your progress, and when we gave the simulation new technology to work with we checked on all of the subjects."

"What do you mean you gave the simulation technology something to work with?"

"Whats a major technological adcancement you can think of?"

"I don't know," I sat on my haunches and thought back through history. I knew I should hace paid atrention in history class. "Gunpowder!"

"When we discovered how to make gunpowder, we programmed it into the simulation to see how the simulation would use it. In most cases, tests like farming and electricity were succesful and yielded good results and innovation, but thibgs like gunpowder lead to war and suffering, which is what we wanted to avoid."

"So you're saying that you gave us all our technology like cars and phones?"

"With cars and phones, the simulation managed to devolpe on it's own, which was the perfect answer and what we wanted."

"Cool, so everything I ever learned was a lie, good to know."

"Alright, I have to bring to the princess so she can talk to you," she told me as she lead me off down the hall. The grey pony giving me looks of anger. The purple pony opened the door and lead me into a giant room with marble pillars and flooring. A red carpet on the floor lead up to two thrones, on yellow and the other a midnight blue. "Celestia, I brought you Black Meadow."

"Thank you Twilight," the purple pony went over and stood in a group with other ponies. Celestia stared down at me, her smile unnerving and calming at the same time. "Black Meadow, I do hppe Twilight filled you in on your situation."

"She did, I just have one question, why did I leave the simulation," I asked her. Her smile slightly faultered only to go back to be being warm again.

"You were let out by the machine after we lost connection to the simulation, so you were let out by a safety measure that you developed," I was shocked. "Infact the entire project was your idea, I remember you asking me for help on the U.V.R.D.P or the Unicorn Virtual Reality Development Program."

"That's what U.V.R.D.P stands for, wait, why did you lose connection to the simualtion?"

"We lost connection to the simulation because we had to redirect power to the hospital to take care of the wounded." Her smile vanished as she finished the sentence. Her eyes began to water as she remembered something. "We've been at an ugly war between the pegasi, the unicorns, and the Earth ponies. The pegasi started the war as they believed that they weren't important anymore, and the Earth ponies joined the war as the believe they don't have any magic powers like the unicorns or the pegasi. The unicorns were in the middle so they joined to defend themselves. A virus erupted in the warzones and began creating zombies."

The princess excused herself from the room, and then all eyes were on me. I sat down and was stunned. I looked up and watched a cyan pegasus fly over to me.

"What's the big idea, huh, why did you make the princess cry!"

"Calm down Dash, he didn't mean to, he just asked a question, how could he know anything," a pink pony told her she kept bouncing in place waiting for Dash to respond

"You're right Pinkie," Dash told her, she looked back at me and nodded before flying off. On her side was a holster for a pistol. It was engraved just like the grey pony's. It was engraved with a raincloud and lightning bolt.

"Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie, that was Rainbow Dash, you already met Twilight and Shining Armor," she gestured for me to follow her with a nod and bounced over to the group. "This is Applejack."

"Hey," she tipped the stetson she wore on her head, and she a slight country accent.

"This is Fluttershy," she pointed to a yellow pegasus and she sqeauked and moved backwards away from me, her face, which she was hiding very well, had a scar over the left eye and her left eye was clouded over. "This is Rarity."

"Hello, darling," she said. She went back to talking to Twilight.

"Finally, you have Starlight Glimmer," she pointed to a blank space. She looked at where she should be and looked around for her. I looked around and found a pony sitting by her self against a wall. She had a pink coat and her eyes had a look of betreyal. I wandered over to her slowly. She spotted me and quickly wiped her eyes with her hoof and faced away from me.

"I assume you are Black Meadow?"

"I guess I am, are you Starlight Glimmer," I asked her. She nodded slowly. "Why are you over here, and not with them?"

"I just wanted to be alone," she told me. She looked at me and her eyes were bloodshot from crying. "I feel like I should do something, but I can't leave the castle, as I can't leave my friends and the princess."

"From what I know you probably don't want to go out there."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, but I hate feeling useless," she told me as she stood up and joined her friends. I walked over to one of the windows and outside the horizon was on fire and the neighboring cities and towns were either razed to the ground or abandoned looking. I looked yo the front of the castle and saw a mob of ponies with pitchforks and torches. Some held guns and swords, but they weren't firing upon the castle, just making threating gestures with them. I saw unicorns, Earth ponies and pegasi in the crowd, all pissed and ready to blow. The door burst open and 10 or 15 ponies in armor, some with guns, others with swords and spears. The group of ponies were followed by a pony that had both a horn and wings, the same as Celestia, but he coat was a dark blue color.

"Princess Luna, do you know where Celestia ran off to?"

"I was going to ask you that Twilight Sparkle," Luna responded. "We need to leave the castle immediately, the mob is growing restless."

"What does the mob want?"

"I don't know, all I know is that they are mad and are willing to kill."

"Well we can't leave without Celestia," Twilight said.

"Twilight, I'll find her," Starlight told her.

"No you won't, I'll find her." Twilight answered. Starlight and her had a massive devate over who was goong to get Celestiaa or not.

"Twilight, me and Starlight will find Celestia, fair," I told her, her look showed me that she was unclear.

"Fine, Starlight go eith Meadow and find Celestia."

"Alright, now give me a gun si I acn protect me and Starlight."

"Here, now go before I change my mind."

"That was a lot easier than I thought it would be," I tolf myself while I looked at the gun in my hooves. It wasn't engraved on either side so assumed it belonged to no one. I was given a harness that felt extremely bulky, but fit nicely around my torso. I slipped the gun into the holster and followrd Starlight out the door that Celestia ran out of. As we walked down the hall, the entire castle shook as an explosion lit up the entire western side.

"That must of been the mob, they're inside the castle, we have to go," Starlight told me as we broke into a jog. We rounded a corner and found a battle between two guards ponies and three pegasi. The guards had shotguns, whilst the ponies had pistols. One guard fired at one of the pegasi and ripped it's wing off. The pegasi fell to the floor and screamed in pain. He grabbed the pistol and shot back at the guards until one put a slug in his head. One of the guards caught a bullet to the knee, he cried out but kept pushing. I pulled Starlight back behind the corner and we ran down a different hallway. We turned a different corner and I watched seven ponies enter a room, and we heard a few bangs and a scream. Four ponies left the room and ran down the hall. We ran down and entered the room and saw three pobies lying dead on the ground in front of them were two guards and Celestia, her eyes had clouded over as he cheat was ripped open. I pushed Starlight out of the room before she saw Celestia.

"What is she in there," she asked me.

"No, she isn't," I told her. "We should get back to the group."

"Alright."

We ran back through the halls hoping over dead bodies and guns. We burst back into the room and found the group and Luna all in one piece. Starlight ran over to the group.

"Twilight, can I talk to you for a second, grab Luna, too," I told her. She looked like she didn't trust me but grabbed Luna and they walked over to me.

"What do you want," Twilight demanded. "Did you find Celestia?"

"I found her, but," I hesitated before telling them the news. "Celestia is dead."