The Tunnels readily greeted me with near darkness and overwhelming fetor even before I reached the last steps of the rusty staircase. Though, I was almost ready for that. Almost.

From all I had seen so far, the underground world of Canterlot appeared to be absolved of any law and order, at least of that imposed by police forces. However, I didn’t know that for sure, so I continued to move hastily, in case I was still pursued. The stairs led me directly to a narrow passage, which in its turn opened into a wider tunnel – the outline I was already familiar with.

The wide and tall vaulted tunnel was moderately crowded, basically the same as I had seen before, while travelling with the zebras. I glanced over my shoulder, but saw no pursuit. Still, deciding not to risk it, I picked a direction at random, turned left and began to trot ahead. How ironic: not long ago I despised the Tunnels as a sanctuary for outlaws and outcasts, but now I had become one of them.

The ponies and equinoids I was passing by barely paid me any attention. Some gave me short curious glances, but I guess for most of the Tunnel dwellers I was just an average equinoid in slightly too good condition and with a bit of an unusual design. In my turn, I was more attentive towards my surroundings. Now that I didn’t have to keep pace with the long-legged zebras, I was able to take a closer look at the underground life, though to a limited extent. I didn’t want to be nosey after all, or I might have ended up in trouble.

The first thing I noticed, while still being decadent, the public, and the Tunnels themselves, didn’t look as bad as they did closer to the Edge. No more very sickly looking ponies lay on the grated floor amongst those who lost the battle to illness or met their terrible demise any other way. The traders, who were a less common sight here, didn’t have artificial internal organs put on their makeshift trading displays. Overall, the assortment of merchandise looked less like just some junk and more like actual modern and complex devices. Even the drugs, if that was actually what they were, appeared to be of a higher quality – assorted in clean glass vials and plastic containers, each labeled with a colorful sticker.

One thing, however, didn’t change much – most of the ponies, those who weren’t on their way somewhere, were residing in the shadows between the islands of light provided by unbroken lamps, busy with all conventional sorts of pastimes.

Devices projecting translucent forms in the air were abundant amongst the throng resting near the walls. Those magic images of neon blue, pink and acid green were like small bonfires, lighting up the faces of ponies gathered around them in small circles. A few of those apparitions resembled plans and maps of some enormous multi-level structures – maybe even the Tunnels themselves. Though, I feared to approach the owners of those schemes – they all were ponies, and in here not a single pony could be seen sitting beside their artificial counterparts. In other cases, the arcane projections seemed to be figures of ponies, sometimes moving on their own will, and sometimes appearing to be controlled by the ponies who were near the projectors, or at least, that was what I thought.

Those projecting devices weren't the only things casting light on their muzzles, tearing off the veil of darkness obscuring the ponies. Square displays flashing with content unknown to me were spilling forth their eerie everchanging shining. I would say that those were more dominant, and not just in their abundance; staring at a screen was the most widespread activity the Tunnel dwellers were immersed in.

I also noted that even the cigarettes were replaced. Instead of the cylinders of tobacco wrapped in paper, ponies held in hooves and magic much bulkier things, devices of metal and plastic, which seemed served a similar role. Round or square, shining with little spark-like lamps or just with reflections on polished metal, they all worked the same. Ponies were bringing them to their lips and inhaling, making the devices faintly hiss for an instant. Then, huge and dense clouds of smoke would leave their lungs and slowly dissipate in the surrounding air, often creating a small area of fog around the most zealous groups of smokers. To my surprise, when I happened to pass through one such eddy, I discovered that it wasn’t actually smoke – it didn’t smell of anything burned, instead it had a soft aroma of candy and herbs. That new tendency was sure peculiar, but I had trouble finding it unpleasant.

For me, as a traveler from the distant past, modern life was very intriguing. Especially since every, even the smallest, aspect of it seemed to have changed to some degree. Now, when I was almost mingling with that new strange world by merit of my appearance, I had the freedom to study it as I wished. But I had no time. Clandestine Delight and Tin Flower were somewhere at the Edge, at the Junkyard to be exact, waiting for me. If they made it, of course. Like with Flower and Wire not long ago, I couldn’t know that for sure. The police weren’t interested in them, which was also up for debate, but even if that was true, they both had to travel across half of the city and straight to the Edge. And the final part of that journey lay underground in the most vile part of the Tunnels I had seen so far. It all certainly wasn’t the same as two fillies running from an insane murderous pegasus to unfamiliar territory, but it was still risky. Speaking of which, Pepper Mercury was most probably still out there, fighting to seize control of all the Junkyard furnaces. There were dozens of reasons why I should have been stressing out right now, but experience taught me that I couldn't afford to in this Equestria. I was constantly running out of time, and despite how much I wanted to find a corner to just sit down and scream my head off in the frustration of adversity after adversity being thrown at my face, I had to act.

My goal at the moment was rather simple: get to the Edge, find my friends. But, of course, it only sounded simple. I didn’t know where I was exactly, and thus I didn’t know how to get where I wanted. My last experience with asking directions showed me that it was an endeavour with a very low success rate, not to mention another problem. While equinoids too were making their way through the subterrestrial paths and even sometimes, though very rarely, hiding in the shadows, there was a clearly visible segregation between them and ponies who had their bodies (well, most of their bodies) made of organic matter. The equinoids were tolerated, but even that often seemed to be strained; any glance exchanged between the artificial life and not was usually full of malice.

So, since I couldn’t ask ponies without risk of inciting a conflict, I had to approach their steel and plastic counterparts. I surely could do that, however, it wouldn’t really solve my problem. Considering how deep in the city I was and how labyrinthine the Tunnels were, I had the feeling that I would have to do that more than once before I even got to the part where the Edge started. I had to stop being dependent on guides, I needed a map. And I thought I might have found a solution for that, even though accidentally.

At some point during my semi-aimless wandering through the underground an image, a translucent section of a circle appeared in the corner of my vision, followed by the words: “A new network has been found. Connect to it now?” At first I thought it was one of those projections which were entertaining my present company, but as the little pictogram moved along with the movements of my head and eyes, I realized my mistake. Curious to find what it could possibly mean, I began to look for a place where I could sit undisturbed. A “network”? There was something promising in that. Might it be how everypony navigated these places? Anyway, very soon I found a desolate alcove formed by two large heaps of trash, submerged in the shadow of a broken lamp.

Despite the numerous rats digging in the two piles, the stench was bearable, almost nonexistent. Either that garbage was put here not so long ago or everything that could stink had been eaten away by rats, or rotted away.

I sat in the darkness and looked around – nopony paid any attention to me. Good. I saw movement at my hooves. A young rat, its little black beady eyes glimmering with the neon reflections above the ever shifting pink nose studied me intently. Somehow, the sight warmed my heart. It was something familiar, after all the vermin scarcely change. It was something natural, though back in my times rats wouldn’t come to my mind as the first example of nature, I would rather be disgusted. Not interested by my non-living, non-edible body, the creature scurried away. Alright, no more distractions.

I sat unmoving and stared ahead. Erm… what I was supposed to do, again? The image and the message still were in the corner of my vision, but I couldn’t focus on them, no matter how I swirled my head or eyes. I began to feel dumb. Was I even supposed to interact with such things? After all I was a pony and my mind could be different to that of the true equinoids who were created to fit their mechanical bodies in the perfect conjugation of metal and thought.

Okay. I calmed down my rising frustration and began to think. If it appeared, it was part of the machine I occupied as my body, right? It wasn’t a part of my mind, that’s for sure. I controlled my body, so if it was part of it, I should have been able to control it too, like my limbs. How did I do that? Magic. To be honest, when it was put that way, that sounded a bit silly. Did I need to cast some sort of spell to connect to that network? Networksitis Connectia? Was it even meant for equinoids in the first place? Ugh, it was so confusing.

I let out a deep sigh, reveling in my ability to do that. Those little things, how relaxing they were. You would start to appreciate them only when they were gone. But I was digressing.

So, I obviously needed to use magic to make things work, but it didn’t necessary have to be a spell, I thought. My mind was magic itself, and in the case of equinoids it was true as well. What were we if not living magic contained inside the gems encased into pony-like contraptions? That was something we shared despite our origin. Like the ancient magic golems, but much more complex. Suddenly, it dawned on me: my thoughts were probably repeating the same path they did five centuries ago, when “Twilight Sparkle was a scientist who made great contributions to the development of AI.” I gasped. Did… did I create the equinoids?

At this moment, it was a thought too huge to comprehend, too great to embrace at once. I began to hyperventilate, and though it could have no actual effect on me, my head began to spin. The responsibility, the consequences, the implications…

I gulped and tried to calm myself. I didn’t know. No. I couldn’t know. The Archives were incomplete, they were full of disinformation. I might have been the one who set the path without the intent of creating a conceptually new form of life, and it was only those who followed it who created the first cybernetic organisms. Or I might not have even had my hoof in that at all. That thought placated me at last, allowing me return to my current predicament. But deep inside, I could feel that I somehow was involved in it.

My mind controlled my body. My mind was the magic. So the magic controlled the body. Like a spell cast, but not by my horn to affect the world outside. A spell cast by my “mind’s horn” to affect my little world – my body.

I concentrated, focusing my consciousness on that image of quarter circle with words, and to my immense joy it flashed and streams of sentences appeared before my eyes.
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>Connecting to ”cog_scrape_ur_faget”
>Connected
>Signal strength: good
>Frequency: 2.4 GHz
>Security: none

Below that I could see “Advanced” as an option to focus on, which upon concentrating revealed more lines with some things like IP and MAC addresses, gateway and DNS with numbers following them. However, if it even was a map, I couldn’t read it. Maybe it was the coordinates? Even if that was true, they were useless to me at this moment.

It was a success on one hoof, but that didn’t solve my problems. What if…? I concentrated my “inner magic” and thought, “Map”. To my amazement, a line containing that word appeared in the box at the bottom of my vision, it flashed and a few moments later my vision was filled with lists of entries under the title “Equi-neT. BackRub search engine”.

I carefully studied the list. All those entries were offering to “download” different maps with short descriptions of their merits, like being up to date, having more levels of the Tunnels than any other or just being fully interactive. The one that caught my eye had a feature that attracted me the most. “Includes even the Edge’s regions” the advertisement claimed.

Before I concentrated on it, I let my mind wander for a few moments. So, the so called network was like public archives of some sort. If I didn’t have so little time at my disposal, I surely would have browsed them for the information I had failed to find in the actual archives. It also seemed that the access was granted via some specific points in the city, maybe something like the servers in the Royal Archives. But all the science was unknown to me. After I got to Flower and Delight, I would surely ask them both about it and try to access the network again. Right now, I had a map to acquire and follow.

I concentrated on the entry and was brought to another screen, which to my horror was filled with animated images of outright pornography taking up every space available. I almost began to backpedal on reflex from that assault of indecency, but then I noticed a large box with the word “download” amidst the chaos of lewd images. As fast as I could, I focused on it, and another box appeared: “Do you want to save autoinstaller_v3.14.exe?” Yes! Yes, I did, just make it all go away! However, that didn’t clear the screen, still making me witness the vast variety of hard erotica.

“Close the entry,” I commanded with the magic, but nothing happened. “Close!” I thought again in panic, and finally, to my immense relief, nothing but the reality of the surrounding tunnel was left in my sight.

Phew. I better be careful next time with the network. Apparently, by being public, it contained… all sorts of things. But where was I? Right – the map. “Autoinstaller_v3.14.exe”, I thought, hoping that it would bring up the map, but instead a box, asking if I wanted to run the file appeared. Well, yes, of course, I did. I waited patiently, but to my dismay nothing happened.

I waited a bit more and suddenly my vision swam for a moment, colors twisting so fast that I was barely capable of noticing it. The walls and equines around me began to defragment, like a picture cut with scissors, thoses piece jerking around, transforming into each other, fading to grey and white or flaring with tints they didn’t have originally. Strange sounds permeated my hearing, words whispered and screamed so fast I couldn’t discern them. Synthetic noises, followed by the screech of metal against metal and returning to unnatural dissonant notes. I began to feel very strange – dizzy would be the closest to describe that. My knees buckled under me. What was happening? Something went horribly wrong, I began to realize, but my mind was becoming more and more sluggish with every passing moment. I turned my head at the sudden movement in the corner of my eye and saw Spike walking towards me.

>Lick yourself a ball of organobiotic glue, drenched with equine genome sequences and mechanised DNA tendrils. Inject sponsorship pixels through a binary needle. Mold a son, designed 2 expel annoying prototypologees and shifting character/floating nuances. Will you be happy then?

“What’s that for?” I asked Spike as he waddled up the stairs. On the end of his tail crumpled red and gold remains of something were impaled.

“Well, it was a gift for Moondancer,” he replied, taking in his claws what I could see now was a completely ruined box. I almost rolled my eyes at that. A stuffed toy fell from it, ruined too. “But…” he finished lamely.

“Oh, Spike, you know we don’t have time for that sort of thing.” The very fate of Equestria was at stake! I had to find that copy of “Predictions and Prophecies”, Nightmare Moon was about to return. And nopony seemed to care!

“No. No. No!” I muttered to myself in irritation each time my magic whisked a wrong book from the shelves.

The Elements of Harmony, the most powerful magic known to ponydom and they were the only thing that could thwart the disaster, apparently. An ancient instrument, its origins and principles of work might be a mystery, but the artifact’s potency was no secret. It was supposed to defeat any foe.

“No! No. No...” I muttered to myself in horror as I watched black tears stream down Cadence’s face.

Why didn’t they work? It was supposed to be so simple a mission: get to the Crystal Empire, use the Elements on the evil king, go back to trying to keep Equestria from falling apart. We even had Cadence and my brother with us… Then why did it go so wrong? I knew something was amiss. If only She was alive…

Everypony was utterly terrified, huddled together on the crystal floor, right behind my sister-in-law, before the sea of vile living shadows. The only thing preventing it from swallowing us was the magical shield cast by Cadence, a shimmering wall. But it wouldn’t last forever, the exertion caused by the spell was just as clearly written across her features as the pain – sweat mixing with the crimson blood of wounds and the black of the curse; shaking knees, about to buckle at any moment; the cracks in the gleaming sheet, appearing and then knitting themselves together more and more often, each time slower and weaker.

Then Cadence began to scream. It sounded like a howl of anguish, which echoed with whimpers of horror against my friends, until I realized that she was trying to yell, “Run”. My blood froze in my veins. How could we? I would rather take Cadence’s place than leave her there. But… what else could we do? The backlash from the Elements left us weakened, and I doubted I could do anything even if that hadn’t happened. We vastly underestimated how powerful Sombra’s magic was. And I was a scholar, not a battle mage. Nevertheless, it wasn’t my call to make.
.
>The need for optimum integration... To use the organic entity that I am... Caught in a pulse of wet media I like to be what I am... An architecture to serve agency... Living flesh with an inside and an outside... Bare speeding through virtual fever... An error has been detected in your consciousness... All her bioports scream long dark strings of unnamed code...

I gave Shining Armor a quick glance and flinched like I was hit. His face was contorted in the agony of a heart being torn apart – a fierce battle raged inside of him. A soldier was calling for the only reasonable thing in this situation – for retreat; a husband was threshing against any logic, because that meant leaving behind his beloved to the mercy of the most vile foe we ever knew.

He caught my eyes and in them I saw everything: the pain, the fury… the betrayal. The soldier won. It took all my will to not avert my gaze. In the corners of my vision I could see everypony and Spike looking at him with tears in their eyes. They waited for him to make the choice, though the tears betrayed that they already knew what it would be.

Shining dashed to Cadence, but stopped a mere length away from her, not wanting to risk disrupting her magic. He outstretched his hoof and it was met by the shaking pink wing.

“We will return, I promise,” he whispered loud enough for her to hear him over the roar of magic duel. “I will return!” he then bellowed to the darkness beyond the magic glow, to the glowing red, purple and green eyes in the heart of it.

And then I ran.
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>incoherent vectors let the journey begin the way is misty hard to trace take soft slow steps accompanied by the unfettered laughing of mares
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>resembling the body called flesh search for beauty without features stay on the path till you arrive be speechless no write no reason all sewn up and no place to go... city of ruined children

I blindly galloped through the dark corridors, bumping into the shadows inhabiting them. I ran from the darkness following my steps, from the nightmare which became reality. From the reality which became a nightmare. What was happening to me? Crystal halls mingled with rusty tunnels. Where was I? Corpses of those who had fallen to the dark magic and corpses of those who had fallen to the plights of the underground, almost indistinguishable save for the rare golden gleam of the equestrian armor, blackened by burns or cursed blood smeared across, or the rust covering everything in this cursed Empire of Death. The dark silhouettes, oscillating with shadow magic, unstable forms looking like ponies, knitted from an obsidian vapor. Some were like wraiths with eyes aglow, some were striped giants muttering in a broken language, some were like reanimated skeletons, they were all pushing me away, kicking me, soundlessly screaming at me. Down! Down the stairs, away from the Crystal Palace! Away from the underground! It was Sombra’s army around – greed and wickedness materialized into umbral equines to sow suffering. They were the ponies, zebras and equnoids of the Tunnels.
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>The monochrome of the artificial blood vessel masses of flesh of the angel mechanism that transcends... the clone colts and fillies who suck the nude of the cyber be like the body fluid that electrolyzed it.
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>I escape... the sensitive body of vision... you in the world that was done a junk from the blue machine of that sky is stored and see that does dive to the tragic reproduction nature of the clone colts and fillies that of our vital chromium...

I couldn’t grasp reality. Only the tiniest fraction of my consciousness was aware of something going terribly wrong with me. And even that part was like a candle in the storm, its flame flickering and madly dancing from the onslaught of madness, engulfing me from the inside and outside of the fevered nightmare I was having.
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>Untitled ... phone system/ network as possible ... eclecticism and code-mixing ... our data sug ... Is Computer Hacking a ... Culture, Language, and Society. Menlo ... 0000. VIRUS Protection not found...

Where was Princess Luna when I needed her the most? She was supposed to deal with that, right? She had to know something about dark magic. We would have a chance with her, but she remained in Canterlot, scouring every corner of the Palace for changeling spies. And now she was dead, everypony was dead... Somepony screaming… Cadence… no… we left her, betrayed her, and now she was dead. The Princesses, all gone…

Something struck me, so hard that I was knocked down. That savage blow brought me a singular moment of clarity. A momentary respite from the phantasmagory which my world suddenly became.

“Will you shut the fuck up already?” an angry metal voice grated above me. “Fucking tinheads…”

It was me screaming all that time...

I was lying on the dirty floor, still somewhere in the Tunnels. I rose to my hooves, my limbs barely obeying my reeling mind. Everything swam before my eyes, from the blur I saw equine silhouettes around, they were all looking at me, blaming me. There were less of them than before. Was it Spike who spooked them away?

“Spike! Spiiike!” I called. Damn, I needed that book, I needed to warn them all… to save them…
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>How can you pretend to resemble the body called flesh in this shattered universe? Don’t u see that the segments adrift in the network are injuring your sensible skin? Don’t you see you have NO FUTURE NON HAI FUTURO... THE PAST slowly kills us... The shadow of a hirsute code – first mare goddess is coming from the nights of time, she is following us through a line of blood cause she is hungry and she has to eat... There is No Escape Function... The modem is Burning... I’m looking for a white rabbit to eat but it is hiding... How can you pretend to resemble the body called flesh in this shattered universe?

I gasped as the rusted reality rushed back at me. I had to do something… I tried to take a step, but fell on the floor in the explosion of reddish dust. Everything seemed to slow down, every dark mote glistening, turning into a speck of blood. The red rained around me, deathly tears of all those who I had failed... Again, I propelled myself up, this time supporting myself with my hoof against the nearest wall. I glanced at it, a huge, worn out and discolored number “3” was painted on it. In my stupor I looked at it and the metal surface flickered, a wall of crystal taking its place. I had to run! Away from Sombra!

I ran from the murderous mare, who killed her father without a moment of hesitation. I turned back and saw a silhouette, the feral eyes, looking at me with murderous intent. Gore and blood dripping from the metal wings, gathering in a pool on the charred floor. Corpses strewn everywhere on the crystal floor… Sombra killed them all… so much blood, the walls, the floor, the ceiling – all red. Corroded, decaying… Rust was claiming Equestria, it was turning into ashes... I looked at my limbs, just as red, from the blood of the countless ponies I let down. Who would have known I could have failed...
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>The massacre and reproduction of an artificial ant it inherited... the vision that was put to reflein of... instantaneous target ruin the terrible [__] condition/ of the love noise fly of the pituitary where hardened to together! God of et cetera... it beats... it beats comfortably... null of a gene. 012,345,678 Internal organ of a dog.

I stumbled, fell again. My hoof caught something. I turned to look and I shrieked in horror – they were my own internal organs! In a panic I began to try and grab them from the crystal floor with my hooves, but my limbs went through them… my hooves were dissolving into rust before my very eyes. I began to scream again, a shrill sound of metal twisted. The light flickered… it wasn’t my intestines, it was cables sparking and tubes leaking oil on the dirty rusty floor. My gaze dashed to my belly, but it was intact, the metal plates evenly aligned to each other.

Not bothering to stand up, I curled up where I fell, sobs without tears began to wreck my body. What was wrong with me? Nothing was making sense anymore. I was sure I was in the Crystal Palace, cursed by Sombra one moment, driven mad by dark magic, the next I was realizing I was hallucinating somewhere in the Tunnels for a reason unknown. And then all was gone, the line between reality and nightmares disappearing into nothing, leaving me drowning in insanity.

I noticed some black liquid pooling in the darkness before me at the same time as I heard a gurgle somewhere behind me. Alerted, I turned back and saw her again – Pepper Mercury, all covered in blood standing over a mangled agonizing body… a pink alicorn… Cadence… The steel-winged pegasus was gazing at me from the darkness with eyes full of hatred, glowing with red, green and purple flames. I scrambled to my hooves and began to run away.

I was dashing through the arched passages of the Crystal Palace, taking turns into the rusted tunnels, away from the death. After what felt like hours, I finally dared to glance back.

She was there, like I hadn’t moved at all. The gore-covered face grinned, flashing sharpened fangs and from under a bloodied wing the shining cylinder of a gun barrel appeared. I jumped away, but was too late – a shadowy wave of Sombra’s magic hit me like a train, sending me tumbling forward.

Not bothering about my fate anymore I lay on the floor in a tangle of limbs, sobbing, praying for that all to just end, no matter how. In the rare moments of lucidity I was trying to get up, but each time, before I could achieve something, my surroundings changed from blackened crystals to rusty metal, sending my senses into disarray.

Finally, the floor became concrete covered in red dust and it didn’t change for some time. Did it pass? Was it over? Unsteadily, I got up. I was in an empty narrow tunnel, illuminated by only two lamps, one flickering madly. Underneath it somepony stood. Or so I thought – a figure was there sometimes, appearing in the light far too briefly to discern any details. Then the light would blink and the pony would disappear, leaving the empty patch of the floor. The next flash of the broken lamp – a figure was there again.

I took a step back. The pony followed, I could see the movement in the dark, hear the heavy metal sound of hooves on the floor. Again I stepped back, and the dark form came into the light. I stood paralyzed, shaking so hard I could hear my body rattle.

A full-body bulky metal armor, twisted and burned, shining with a purple eerie glow from the tears and cracks. The wraith took another step, turning its side to me. A broken metal wing hung from it limply. Through a huge gash on the chest I could see charred flesh on the exposed yellow ribs. A huge torn gap on the back, showing semi-broken blackened vertebrae, gleaming with the same pulsing baleful purple light.

The pony just stood there for a few moments, the head concealed by a conical battered helmet turned to the wall, like the apparition forgot about my presence, if it was noticed in the first place. Then, unnaturally slowly the pony removed the helmet.

A pale, discolored face, furless, covered in burns and scars, with a dark webwork of black veins, and patches of necrosis. The nape absent at all, like it was torn away. Almost entirely burned away were the remains of the once polychromatic mane. Two empty eye sockets leaking pus met my eyes.

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash rasped, “why did you kill me?”

>Untitled ... bulgara de virus ou como ... I’m hacking TECO.” Num ... text-only network channels, and ... nuances of language and very ... As in society at ... error code from ... new Data General ... etext.equ/Zines/ASCII/BeataElectrica/be00.txt - 61k - Cached - Similar pages >>>> Results 11 - 20 of about 3,830. Search took 0.39 seconds.

“Wow!” I heard Rainbow Dash say from somewhere in front of me. As always she was the first to escape the confines of the train cart. “What’s with all the guards?”

“I’m sure they are just taking the necessary precautions,” spoke Rarity who was near Rainbow – she had already exited the train along with Applejack, but I still waited my turn behind Pinkie and Fluttershy. “Royal weddings do bring out the strangest ponies.” And then Pinkie decided to stop at the entrance and sneeze confetti, ugh…

Finally, I could get out of the train. The others, however, didn’t wait and left me to catch up with them.

“Well, let’s get going, we’ve got work to do,” Rarity chirped and began to trot ahead, Rainbow, Pinkie and Fluttershy following her. She was quite familiar with Canterlot, so by unspoken agreement the fashionista took the mantle of guide, even though their destinations were a bit different. Only Applejack patiently waited for me.

“And you’ve got a big brother to go congratulate,” she said enthusiastically. Honestly, I would have prefered if she had followed the others.

“Yeah, congratulate.” My voice dripped with sarcasm I didn’t bother to contain. Now, when I was in Canterlot, my mood began to sour even further with each step. “And then give him a piece of my mind,” I said through my teeth as I passed betwixt two guards.

Actually, I relaxed a bit as I walked the streets of Canterlot alone. I loved my friends dearly, and I did appreciate their concern, but right now their support and sympathy felt like salt on a wound.
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>Serial number # 30000768008, qty. order: 1, date of order: 00.00.00. Description: Subliminal Ltd.; distributions dept; blood media; adoredbody. Payment: half-life; Tartarus Bank Visa # 5291.1517.7719.6526 33102

As I was covering the distance between the train station and the palace, seething and imagining indignant things I was about to say to my brother, I began to note something strange about my surroundings. There were guards everywhere, that was something expected, surely. But where were the ponies? I saw a few silhouettes in the distance, but other than that, the usually lively alleys of Canterlot were absolutely deserted. Not even a sound – no music of alfresco cafes, no din and chatter of city breathing, living. Even the colors seemed to pale. No decorations. Had they decided to have a military wedding or something?

By the moment I reached the palace, I was more concerned than perplexed. Its halls, always crowded with a vast variety of personnel and nobles were empty and silent. I expected to find Shining Armor at the barracks, but they were desolate as well. Even the guard was absent, which I found very strange, ridiculous even.

I began to wander the palace passages aimlessly in hope of finding anypony who could point me the way to my brother, but to no avail. Alright, to Princess Celestia, then. She was always there and I wanted to see her anyway, though I didn’t want to bother my tutor with such simple things.

I was nearing the great doors of the throne room when I finally saw somepony in one of the adjacent passages – just a shadow and sound of metalclad hooves clopping against the marble floor. I tried to follow it, but no matter how fast I moved, the shadow’s owner was always out of sight. At some point I even galloped, but to no avail. A couple of times I caught a glimpse of a multicolored tail or of white coat. Was it Princess Celestia herself?
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>When the thinking of 876,543,210 dogs is disillusioned at the sun our cadaver city the season when artificial ant iterates the grief of our cell that crowds to the coordinates of a cadaver city so erodes BODY of that is the script of clone colts and fillies to the chloroform and mystery, compact disk ROM and digital that paralyzed the dimension of sleep the vital... miracle junkie who was turned different...

Suddenly, the cold stone corridor opened up to a wide expanse of open sky and green garden. Absorbed in following that pony, I didn’t notice how I made it to the palace gardens. However, my mysterious guide was nowhere to be seen.

Ah, the gardens… Usually reserved for the princesses themselves they were always so peaceful and quiet, like an eye of a storm. How many times I had studied there, under the shadows of its beautiful trees, enjoying my solitude? But now I could see a small congregation of ponies in the distance, making some preparations for the wedding perhaps.

But as I neared the small crowd that guess seemed less and less probable. Ponies, some I even recognized as from the palace staff, stood still like statues, their expressions somber. What was happening? I couldn't see the reason of the gathering, but at the front rows I caught glimpses of my friends – Rainbow’s polychromatic mane had that effect.

Slowly and carefully, I made my way through the silent meeting. Before I even made it to my friends I saw the reason for the assemblage.

A casket.

An ornate, beautiful casket set at the respectful distance from rows and rows of ponies. All their eyes, which I only now noticed were wet with tears, were glued to a pony lying in it.

Princess Celestia.

She lay there, so peaceful and serene, as if she was merely asleep, which was only punctuated by the lack of the golden regalia. That reminded me of one time when I was just a filly, and I snuck into her chambers after the sunset, only to find her slumbering in the rays of the rising Moon. My mere presence woke her up and instead of chastising me she placated my worries and told me stories of her past, lulling me to sleep. Despite everything, I smiled.
.
>if ((light eq dark) && (dark eq light) && ($blaze_of_day{sun} == holy_light) && ($alabaster_wing{bright} == $tin{bright})){ my $love = $you = $cos{dawn} + 1; };

But then the realisation struck me. Princess Celestia. In the casket. That was impossible, she was a goddess, she was immortal! But the more I watched her immobile form the more real it was becoming.

Her mane didn’t flow anymore, the still strands were braided with flowers. The vibrant, and yet soft at the same time, colors of the dawn looked faded away, as if fog was obscuring the brilliance of a freshly born day. Even her pristine alabaster coat seemed dimmed, like the sun which always shone from inside her, through the immaculate white, had set. She looked so frail now, the Goddess of the Sun.

It couldn’t be real, yet it was.

Not caring anymore about the crowd, I galloped to my friends at the front row, pushing ponies from my path. Not a single complaint, nopony paid me any attention. Despite the tears streaking every face, not a single sob could be heard. Not a single sound, even the wind died, making the world mourn the setting of the Sun in absolute silence.

I looked at their faces, expressions of bottomless sorrow dominated all their features: Spike and Rarity gingerly holding his shoulder, Applejack with her hat in her hooves, Pinkie Pie with her mane straight, Fluttershy and Rainbow supporting each other… me with eyes bloodshot and hollow.

Wait… what? I was looking at myself standing amongst my friends, at the face with fur matted from the countless tears, at the messy mane of somepony who hadn’t slept in many nights. But if I was standing there, who was I? What was happening?

I looked over myself – limbs of metal, covered in scratches and rust. Black oil dripping on the lush green grass below. No…

I turned to the casket again, but it was empty. Bewildered, I swirled around, and right behind me She stood a few lengths away, a grand form against the crimson red sunset.

White fur covered with soot and speckled with fresh blood. A horn, black and cracked, though not broken. Mane and wings hanging limply. And those eyes, beautiful eyes. There was no disappointment, no blame in them, just the sadness, endless like Her beauty.

“Twilight,” Princess Celestia whispered, quietly and sorrowfully, “why did you let her kill me?”

I ran through the marble halls of the Royal Palace and the grimy concrete passages of the Tunnels, screaming, but from the pain this time, that one kind from which no matter what their body was made, a pony could never escape.

“By the Machine Goddess, what the fuck is wrong with you? Do you want to lure the Souleater here or something?” a voice grumbled.

A hard blow. Sweet oblivion.
.
>"I was your resonance," I remembered one of us saying.
>Disconnection ... protocol authentication ... end transmission

I awoke somewhere in the Tunnels, in a heap of garbage, my eyes fluttered open, their shutters jerking paroxysmally up and down. In the back of my mind, dozens of questions battled for dominance: where was I, how did I end up here, how much time had passed? But all I could think, all I could see was the ivory and gold casket bearing the dead Goddess.
.
>she says the stars are slowly disappearing light becoming dark she says it is only here that she can exist she says she is running blindfolded towards the ever brightful she says there is no beginning but a circle containing a gap for the unexpected to enter she says here there are intensities which she cannot begin to understand she says to her all things are less than zero

When did it happen? Yesterday? Yes, it always would be the yesterday. For me it was an event indifferent to calendars. Eons might pass, but everytime I would wake up, everytime I would close my eyes, it would be happening yesterday. A poison green ray of magic striking the Sun down. The last sunset. After it there was no night, no dreams, no nightmares. No day after. Just nothing. Nothing.

Shaking and swaying I rose to my hooves. “She is gone”, was the only thing I could think of. I was heading somewhere, running from something, wasn’t I? But what was the point? In a world without Her everything was pointless, even existence was a burden too heavy to bear. So why I was still alive? Ah, right, they told me not to do it. Every one of my friends came to me shortly after the funeral, pleading, asking to stay with them, no matter how hard it was. “Do it for Spike,” Rarity said, I remembered.

Spike, I just saw him, I needed something from him, a book, I think. Or did I? I wanted to ask him, but my attention was drawn to Applejack, who turned to me and began to speak.

“Thank you kindly, Twilight, for helping me out,” she said, her voice laden with gratitude, as we walked towards Sweet Apple Acres, baskets filled with apples on our backs. “I bet Big Macintosh I could get all these Golden Delicious in the barn by lunch time. If I win, he’s gonna walk down Stirrup Street in one of Granny’s girdles,” she finished with a guffaw.

“No problem at all, Applejack, but I’m glad the goal is lunchtime,” I replied and glanced at my basket, feeling the saliva gather in my mouth from the thick aroma of freshly picked apples. “All this hard work is making me hungry.”

“I know, right?” said Spike, who was sitting on my back, at the same time as the apple, carelessly thrown by him, hit my head. Momentarily I swirled my head back to deeply frown at his antics. I turned back to Applejack, searching my mind for the words of reprimand for my Number One Assistant, but all the thoughts had halted as Applejack scowled at me in fury.

“How could you, of all ponies, agree with her!” she yelled at me, desperately, on the verge of crying.

I glanced back at Rarity, regret and hurt clearly written on her face, but in her eyes, I could see hard resolve. I let out a deep sigh.
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>My last life vision, before life absolution, was the silicon serpent smiling at my demise. This won’t hurt a bit. You can pinch each nerve and your fleshy, flimsy lip-gums willingly cry before my eyes.

I thought we had all agreed that it would be more helpful if Rarity alone was working on running the temporary government, while I was helping the war effort by running the research centre. And yet, I was recalled from my occupation, an important trial, no less, by that “urgent” meeting, as she put it. Despite everything, I somehow ended up making the final call.

“Listen, Applejack,” I carefully began. I could clearly understand her displeasure, at any other time I would have supported her point. But we were at war, and she would have to understand that the hardest decisions require the strongest wills. Sacrifices were to be made. “I get what you’re saying, but…” my voice trailed. I saw her blink away a tear. How could I put it? “You are doing a great job. The Ponyville Farm Unity is invaluable to the war effort.” But they were what they were, farms. The war needed not a tradition, the war demanded an industry to sate its growing appetite. “However, the frontlines need more provisions, and not just them – the workers have to be fed, too.” I paused. “You must understand.”

Applejack’s face was contorted by a tempest of emotions, tears, no longer being held, rolled down her cheeks. At the last, her expression settled on an angry scowl, her eyes filled with betrayal.

“But Flim and Flam, Twilight!” she yelled at me, now openly weeping. “Why them!?”

I flinched from the sheer power of her scream. It was a hard decision for me, surely. A fair question with a sad answer. Because nopony else wanted to? Because nopony else could? They might be mercantile to the bone, even vile at times, but at the end of day they were the only ponies who had any grasp on industrialization. Flim and Flam alone knew how to wrench more production than the soil could yield. How to make sacrifices in the name of profit.

So, an agreement was struck. Applejack would relinquish control over the confederacy she made of Ponyville’s farms to Flim and Flam. They would get freedom to control, though not fully, of course, any business they considered necessary and merge it into one single company to support the growing demand of the war. No doubt, they had their personal interests in all of that, and who knew how many bits would end up in their bottomless pockets. But they had a plan, actually a good looking one when it wasn’t too convoluted.

It took me too long to come up with this answer.

Applejack’s face melted from the blistering rage to an expression of utter defeat. She turned her head sharply to look at Rarity, but the alabaster unicorn was as stone-faced as before.

“Twilight, you…” Applejack sobbed. “You’ve doomed us all!”

>system :: In mathematical terminology, the events at the onset of self-organization are called "bifurcations." Bifurcations are mutations that occur at critical points in the "dynamic equilibrium" between physical forces – temperature, pressure, speed, morphology – when new configurations become energetically possible, and matter spontaneously adopts them.

Five. A number on the wall, layer after layer of paint peeling away, as if the rusty wall rejected it ceaselessly, no matter how hard the painters wanted to mark the surface. What did it mean? My five friends? Where were they, by the way? One moment we were all together, and now they were all gone. But I guess each of us had different goals set to achieve at the Grand Galloping Gala. I had mine too, but now, with Her being dead, it made no sense. Well, I guess there was some kind of a friendship lesson in that, but what was it worth if all my friends were dead too?

I glanced around. A tunnel, dimly lit, red smears marking the walls. Had to be the palace dungeons. Why was I there? Did I do something wrong? Oh, I remember now, I helped Fluttershy steal Philomena. And I killed Rainbow Dash, whoops. Was there a friendship lesson in that, too? “Don’t kill your friends, it’s bad.” I giggled at that. A great lesson indeed, I needed to send a letter to Her, she would love it. Where was Spike, again? Probably reading his comics somewhere or eating one-eyed, moth-winged prostitutes. What a mischievous little dragon he was!

I rose to my hooves and dusted myself. Well, it all was very lovely, but I needed to organize the books in my library or Archivarius would be so mad. I think I knocked down something when I was there the last time. A vase, or two. Or hundreds.

I trotted down the dungeon’s halls, humming a melody to myself, “Windigo wrap-up, windigo wrap-up~.” How curious, the other tenants of the dungeons weren’t in the cells, but I guess She was simply too kind to do that to them. I wish She wasn’t dead, we could eat a bowl of mildew together; a filly, couldn’t remember her name, told me it was the tastiest thing she ever ate.
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>Subject: lure/id
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Finally, I saw a brightly lit room ahead of me. Giddy on my hooves I quickly covered the distance, hopping over the strewn bodies. They were all sleeping, and one of them had better visit a doctor – I was pretty sure necks weren’t supposed to bend that way. And another one didn’t have a head. How silly! You need one to eat and put your hat on, like Applejack.

As I entered the vast chamber many heads turned to me – all my friends, my brother along with a few elderly ponies I didn’t quite recognize. Others paid me no attention, Princess Luna amongst them, their eyes glued to the contents of a huge table which was taking up most of the room.

“We are all very glad you decided to come, Twilight,” Rarity chirped in a voice thick with laboured joy. She tried to smile, but failed. The weight of the reason why all these ponies gathered here was too much for any pleasance to exist in that room. Even Pinkie would have trouble genuinely smiling in the Hall of War.

Despite not being opened in centuries, the chamber fared pretty well and the palace staff did a great job bringing it to proper order so quickly, mere hours after we returned from the Crystal Empire.

I met the eyes of Shining Armor. With a neutral expression he nodded to me and returned to studying the table, or, rather, a huge map laid upon it, as I could now see. As if by a signal all the others turned to it as well. Slowly, I approached the table.

Upon a huge slab of ancient basalt, so old that it predated even Canterlot itself, paper was strewn everywhere. In the middle, a huge map of Equestria was neighbored by time-yellowed pieces of parchment depicting the lands adjacent to it. One piece stood out from them – a freshly sketched map of the Crystal Empire. On the edges of the tables countless other fresh pieces lay – reports, missives, orders not yet sent.

The moment Shining Armor turned back the table, the entire entourage of it was like a record player unpaused. The air above became filled with the din of argument, the ponies, the military officers, I realized, were proposing and objecting, agreeing and disagreeing. No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible for me to tune in. I glanced at my friends and saw that they, with the exception of Rainbow Dash, were having the same trouble, judging by their forlorn faces.

The clamor was ended by my brother, who banged his hoof on the table.

“As I said, it is possible to infiltrate the Crystal Palace with a small strike force and save Princess Cadence,” said Shining Armor, a wooden pointer in his hoof poking at the black image in the center of a circular outline of the northern Empire. His horn wasn’t healed completely yet, wrapped in a bandage. “But only if we act fast. We can expect resistance from the natives against Sombra for some time, before he gains full control of the Empire. That will allow us to reach the palace without much trouble.” His pointer moved to another side of the palace. “But only if the strike force can be supported by another which will draw all the attention to it. Princess Luna will lead it.”

The Princess of the Night, I realized, stood silent all that time, looming over the map, but not looking at it, her vacant expression pointed through the window to some place outside, maybe even beyond the visible reality.

“No,” Princess Luna said in a hard emotionless voice. The air itself felt like it was cut by the sharpness of that reply. The room fell absolutely silent, not a single sound, not even a ragged breath of elderly ponies could be heard.

Shining Armor opened his mouth and but thought better of it. There was a look written all over Princess Luna’s features, which was bearing a simple statement “One dares not question a god.”

“I’m taking two entire platoons of the Royal Guard and scouring the Badlands until the changeling threat is completely eliminated,” she spoke again as if simply stating the obvious. However, it was said in a such horrible, cold way, that I heard only, “I’m going to hunt down all the changeling filth and slay each of them, and everything that tries to stand in my way will follow suit.”

One of the generals, either exceedingly foolish or incredibly brave asked in a shaking voice, “But what about the Crystal Empire? What about…” his words trailed off as he glanced at Shining Armor.

“Do whatever you want,” she all but spat at the table, not even caring to look at the pony who just spoke. She didn’t look at anypony, as if not acknowledging our existence at all, she just turned and stormed out of the room.

However, I managed to catch her eyes, cold, dark and dreadfully familiar… with the irises slightly sharpened.

When Princess Luna left the room, I for the first time realized that it was sunny outside; before, the entire chamber was almost submerged in gloom.

An uneasy silence hung in the air.

“What are we going to do now, my Prince?” another general asked. There were so many questions and answers in that simple phrase. My brother didn’t answer immediately.

“The operation can proceed without Her Majesty’s help,” he finally replied, still deep in thought. “We will just use more soldiers.”

“But won’t that be a declaration of war?” inquired a young officer.

“We,” Shining Armor looked at me with eyes full of blame, “are already at war.”

>Extract from walk1/start.pl my $walk1_beat=0; my $foo; sub on_clock { return if($foo++ % 4); $beat = $walk1_beat + 1; if (($beat-1)%4 eq 0) { playnote(7,47+$pitches[$bassctr]-(int($beat/4)*12)) # on-beat } if (($beat-1)%3 eq 0) { playnote(7,35+$pitches[$bassctr]-(int($beat/6)*12)) # syncopate! } for (0..$#pitches) { if (abs($beats[$_]) eq $beat) { playnote($_+1,59+$pitches[$_]); } }

Drip-drop.

Drip-drop.

Drip-drop.

Water from the ceiling was falling, measuring the time. The problem was, I couldn’t tell how much time it took a droplet to gather and plummet down towards its inevitable demise. Now, thinking of that, I forgot how many drops I had already counted. Um... three? Three dozen? Three thousand?

The leak on the ceiling, or maybe it was just condensation, was showering a corpse lying below. I couldn’t remember if it had always been in front of where I lay, but it had been rotting there for a long time. Rats and maggots did a great job of stripping it of any identity. Smelling red, it was of average size, and in the heap of bones, half-rotten and half-eaten flesh, I couldn’t see the remains of wings or a horn protruding from the bleached skull, but they could still be there, in that delicious pile of treasure. A perfect specimen, nopony and everypony at once. It might even be a zebra. Even a young alicorn.

It could.

Even.

Be.

ME.
.
>system :: A centuries-old devotion to "conservative systems" (physical systems that are isolated from their surroundings) is giving way to the realization that most organic and non-organic systems are subject to flows of matter and energy that continuously move through them.

I mean, I was dead, right? Right? He-heh. I didn’t have a heart, I didn’t breathe. I didn’t even have flesh. What was I if not a dead pony? I certainly wasn’t a living one. Ponies are either dead or alive, there is no between. It was so simple, so beautiful, that I began to laugh.
.
>To subscribe, send to: [email protected] with the message: subscribe spiritd-l. SPIRITD-L is a _fully-moderated_ email list for the dead. In order to post, you must send to the comoderator, [email protected], proof that you are dead – either an obituary in a legitimate newspaper, or a copy, hopefully notarized, of the death certificate itself.

And if we both were dead, both without identity, we could just swap, nothing would change, on the physical level. And if I did it, then I would become that corpse, and if that corpse could be anypony, I would be, let’s say, hehehe… Rainbow Dash! That would mean that I would no longer be a murderer, because Rainbow didn’t kill anypony… oh, waaaait. She probably killed lots of ponies, but I’m sure they were the bad ones. Right? Right, killing bad ponies didn’t count. Because they were bad, that is. But most importantly, she didn’t kill her friends, didn’t let Her die and didn’t betray Cadence.

A great deal, I would say.

I rose on my dead hooves, moved my dead body to that perfect carcass, grinning wildly. What a day! What a wonderful day! I could finally get salvation. I always knew it could be found only in death. Like redemption. Like absolution. I would become that nice fleshy worm chow and then I would really die. I began to sing.

“We will talk about the death, and what I’ve learned and killed~ It is going to be so special~ Just Her and me~”

Wa-wa-wa-wait! Shucks, I forgot I was going to Tartarus. I murdered my friend, started a war, let everypony down. Such ponies didn’t go to nice places, no-no, they went to where all naughty ponies went – to the future! I didn’t like the future, it tasted too loud.
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<HTML> <HEAD><TITLE>mess-htm</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY TEXT="#830C23" BGCOLOR="#000080" LINK="#0000EE" VLINK="#551A8B" ALINK="#FF0000"><--! deliberately alphabeticalized / ruined code recuperated: read in text-based browser --> <A HREF="messed-body-htm">mess-</A>j

But! If I were to become Rainbow Dash, I wouldn’t be that nasty, nasty Twilight Sparkle, right? I would go to…to... um, where did nice ponies go? The Grand Galloping Gala? Fine by me. But wait! I would be Rainbow Dash, so did it mean I would have to fly with Wonderbolts and stuff? That wouldn’t do, nope, I wanted to finally be with Her! Oof, what a conundrum: whose corpse would I have to become to be with Her?

Idea~
.
>1 xenyn-eid-E0-1.nyc.access.net (198.7.0.126) 2ms 2ms 3ms 2 tp1-S4-T1.nyc.access.net (166.84.64.42) 4ms 4ms 4ms 3 tp1-E0E1.nyc.pixnet.net (166.84.64.254) 4ms 4ms 6ms 4 netaxs-gw-H0-T3.pixnet.net (166.84.64.46) 7ms 8ms 8ms 2

I would take Princess Luna’s identity! Huzzuh! Hehehe. She was dead too, after all. Everypony was dead, so many options to choose. But wouldn’t it be weird? I mean, Luna was her sister, that would be pretty awk~ ward~

Anyway!

I loomed over the rotting carcass, the maggots, unlike rats, were unperturbed in their lascivious feast by my cackling shadow. What was I supposed to do, again? How did one swap corpses? A spell? Did I have to tear the glittering things out of me and sprinkle them over that sweet meat? You know, the magic. Hehehe.

I loomed over the corpse just enjoying the wriggling dance of the worms in the pus. Should I ask them to help me? Aww... But they were so beautiful, so busy in their splendid craft of nothing.

“Going to steal another body, aren’t you?” a voice called from my side.

I slowly turned my head to its source, and jerked with a shriek from what I saw. It was… me! I felt my madness abating to a semi-lucid state there I was realising that crouching over the random corpses laughing wasn’t fine. But I still had to be hallucinating, because I was looking at nothing but my old body, the one I left slumped, lifeless, at the Archives... or did I?

Oh… Oooooh. Oh no. She found me. So bad.

Rusted, damaged from my misadventures, wrapped in bloodied rags, it… she… was gazing at me with her single eye. The original, true Twilight Sparkle took a step towards me. I remembered – I was an imposter, a thief. I was dead because I never lived.
.
>system protocols :: Connection type: Standard phone line. Typical speed (thousands of bits transmitted per second): 28.8-52.0 ISDN 128 Cable modem 1,500 DSL (as proposed) 1,500.

“Didn’t like it, did you?” she, asked, smirking. “Comes with a lot of burdens, I know. So much blood can’t be washed away with anything and machine oil can’t hide it either.”

“I… I didn’t... s-steal...” my voice stummered. Twilight dashed to me like lightning, there was barely any movement, but stopped a mere breath away from my face. I could see the oil drip from the broken eye, the other shining like a star, cold and lifeless.

“I know you think you didn’t, except, well, you did. A random filly told you that it was alright, so that theft wasn’t wrong. Sounds fair, right?” she said, with the venom of sharp sarcasm in her voice. “But I have a better question…” she chuckled.

Twilight circled around me in a single fluid motion, like a serpent, and in a moment she was at my ear, as if she wasn’t moving through the air, but rather materializing where she wished.

“You go around, stealing bodies, taking identities…” I stood petrified, listening to her mouth pressed to my ear. “So, what makes you better than…” she whispered, with another chuckle, “Queen Chrysalis?”

I fell to the floor, struck by that name. But it was nonsense!

“You kill, you betray, you start wars. And now you steal identities,” she said somewhere above me, and then I felt her coming closer. “Are you sure you are not her, hm?”

I began to thrash on the floor in agony, charcoal black limbs poked with holes appearing in emerald flames before my eyes. They were my limbs.

It couldn’t be true. Princess Luna killed her. She was no more. If she was dead, I couldn’t be her. I couldn’t be a dea… The understanding struck me. I was deceived. I was cheated. I didn’t want to be dead anymore!

“I don’t want to be dead!” I wailed. “I’m not her!” I screamed. “I’M NOT DEAD!” But Twilight only laughed.

“Then who are you?” she whispered in my ear.
.
>RESEMBLING THE BODY CALLED FLESH SEGMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN SET INTO MOTION AS TRACE, TRACE WHICH STAINS STAINS ROAMING NEW MEMORY SYSTEMS IN SEARCH OF A PLACE TO REST THE STORM IS HERE THE WIND FROM BELOW IS COMING TIME FOR A NEW R/REALITY

I scrambled to my hooves and tried to run, but was stopped frozen in my tracks. Right in front of me Rainbow Dash sat, clad in the charred and broken armor, gazing at me lifelessly with the empty eye sockets.

“Who are you?” she rasped with burned lips, the sound of dry leather against ashes.

A murderer.

I turned to run in another direction, but in front of me Cadence sat, crouched, bleeding. A film of pitch black covered her eyes, black tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Who are you?” she whispered, sobbing, whimpering from pain, shivering.

A traitor.

Again, I turned and a grand white form, covered in soot and blood, arose in front of me.

“Who are you?” She asked, looking at me with all the beauty and sadness in the world.

A failure.
.
>system parameters :: Three distinct entities inhabiting phase space. [1] specific trajectories (corresponding to systems in the actual world); [2] attractors (corresponding to the long-term tendencies of these systems); [3] bifurcation events (corresponding to the emergence in these systems of new structural tendencies).

Surrounded from all sides but one, I turned in the only direction left, but Twilight already awaited me there.

The real Twilight, made from flesh and bone. She wasn’t looking at me maliciously. She gazed at me calmly, with empathy.

“Canterlot can engulf the entire globe, but it will never be big enough for you to run away from yourself,” she said quietly and sorrowfully. “You can vanish for another half of a millennium or even many times more and then wake up again, but the past won’t go away; it will never be far enough to disappear.”
.
>...adrift in the network resembling the body called flesh are packets of soft recognition…
.
>System message
>Safety threat is detected
>Incurable
>Starting purge
>WARNING!
>Code is unstable
>Magical anomaly detected
>Anomaly is too large to be fixed, deletion will cause entity failure
>Starting integration
>Starting code rewrite

The world began to swim before my eyes, the soft soothing shadows engulfing me.

>In a moment you become transparent and I embrace your framework, a red skeleton as a radiography, I pass across yourselves and then the place comes tumbling down, I lose you between the ruins, I do not see anything, not anything else.

I stood at the flying strip, a faint breeze playing with my mane. Through the clouds H… the sun shone shyly. All around I was surrounded by ponies in lab coats, Moondancer by my side, Rainbow Dash in front of me, already in the arcanium armor.

“Stop running from yourself,” she said with a serene smile, encouragement twinkling in her magenta eyes.

I stood at the Archives, looking at the machine made to look like Twilight Sparkle, but nothing more. I didn’t breathe, I had no heart inside my body, no flesh. And yet, I was alive.
.
>Purging threat...
>Proceeding magical anomaly integration in program code … 23,3% done...

I glanced at the crystal clear azure sky, the noon sun shining forth, bathing the orchards in gold. The aroma of the freshly picked apples was so thick I jokingly thought I would suffocate. I mopped my brow – working at Sweet Apple Acres was sure taxing.

“It ain’t the mistakes that define us, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a wink, nudging my shoulder.

I was hugging a lonely filly, who did unimaginable, some would say even unspeakable things. She brought a pony lost to the river of time back to reality, yanked a mare from oblivion to walk amongst the living once again. I was hugging a prodigy, a genius.
.
>Purging threat...
>Proceeding magical anomaly integration in program code … 42,7% done...

I sat in the palace gardens, ancient beautiful statues basking in the sun around me and the branches of an oak tree swaying above my head. Cadence crouched and with her hoof removed a fallen leaf from the pages of book I held open in my hooves. “Predictions and prophecies”, but I wouldn’t read it today, I decided, better to play a tag-game with Cadence.

“Accept yourself the way you are,” she told me in a soft, kind tone, smiling gently.

I stood over a mare, a one-eyed pegasus, who peered at me from behind a curtain of periwinkle hair, shivered from the horror on the cold floor, smeared with freshly spilled blood just like I was. She feared me. But she was safe.
.
>Purging threat...
>Proceeding magical anomaly integration in program code… 67,1% done...

I lay huddled in the curve of Princess Celestia’s side, where I spent all the night listening to her enchanting stories. Through the open window of the Royal Chamber’s balcony I watched the sun being risen by her magic, the majestic ivory horn aglow with the sunlight itself as it seemed. By a foolish whim, I glanced at the sun momentarily. It was so brilliant. Blinding and yet showing the truth. Princess Celestia looked into my eyes through time, from the yesterday. Smiling, she brushed a tear away from my cheek and spoke in a motherly voice.

“And wake up. ”

After five long centuries, a new day had finally arrived.
.
>System message
>The safety threat was eliminated.
>Magical anomaly integration in program code complete.
>Commencing system restart in 3… 2… 1...

Author's Notes:

This chapter was brought to you by mixing my depresion and inspiration, spirinkling it with the best from Pinkamena Party albums. I hope you enjoyed that journey into the insanity as much as I did.
On the serious note, from all the chapters I've written I'm content the most with this one, even proud of it.

The proofreaders are almost finished working on chapter 9, so you may expect it in three weeks or so. I'm finishing chapter 10 – it is basically done, but I would like to rewrite the last eight pages a bit. The rest is completely readable and ready to be edited. I also started working on chapter 11, but so far it's only a few pages.
I didn't forget about the side story I have promised – I'm a few thousands words in it, but so far I'm not really happy with it, so it may take a while. The same goes to the second clopfic I'm working on.
I'm going to adress it all more deeply in my next blog which I'll post in a week.

Aftersound Project Discord server – join today! Help Aftersound grow and prevail! This story needs YOU!

As usual, I appreciate any feedback, and if you notice any mistakes sneaked in through the editing, let me know.
I hope you enjoyed reading this story so far.
Stay awesome.