With the death of director Andy Zhen, the filming for the movie, “Gangstas in Space”, was postponed, already finished and just needed editing, or the project cancelled. Pinkamena couldn’t care less because the movie would have sucked anyway because the director compensated for how bad the movie was through explosions, over the top action, and improvising unnecessary situations. No amount of editing would have saved that movie from the trash pile.

About the only amusing thing that happened during that diversion was watching the actress, Jenny Jaros, snap and impale the director on the spaceship she was driving. Her killing those extras was fun to watch too.

Since then, Jenny decided to hang out with the Saints for a while, or at least until she was finished unleashing her frustrations on people.

While she had a little fun with that distraction, Pinkamena needed to resume her efforts against the Deckers. There was no telling when STAG was going to make their next move and she wanted the Syndicate to be reduced to only the Luchadores by then.

To that end, she needed to finish the Deckers and take out Matt Miller quickly. That would start with taking over the remainder of Stanfield.

As usual, Pinkamena assigned Gilda to mark the collectibles in Burns Hill and Brickston. From what Gilda mentioned earlier when she scouted the district, those two neighborhoods had some significant gang activity. For this, she had Vinyl work with Octavia and Treehugger in removing the remaining gang operations from Stanfield. Meanwhile, Pinkamena would bring Moondancer along while she bought the remaining stores and properties in Stanfield. She would see if Vinyl managed to bring something out of her that the madmare could work with.

On the way to the first place for purchase, Pinkamena studied her companion’s expression and posture. They appeared to be blank and stiff respectively. She had to wonder if the nerdy pony was still intent on being formal with her or if she was just nervous. There was only one way to find out.

“Hey,” Pinkamena began. Moondancer yelped as she was startled by that one word. She was definitely nervous. “Why don’t we chat? You seem pretty nervous. Is it about me being the leader or about the things I’ve done? I’m not some hardass like that Temple person, you can speak freely.”

“Well…” Moondancer began, “I wanted to ask how you have fun when you’re pretty much against the world. It seems like everyone is out to kill you. How can you enjoy yourself knowing that you practically live with thousands of guns pointed at you?”

“That’s easy, the fact that everyone acknowledges you as a threat is why it’s so fun. They fear me and that makes me powerful in their eyes, that I can end their sad little lives on a whim. If you can find someone to dominate then you can begin to understand how I feel when the world comes after me.”

“Doesn’t it kinda seem like bullying?”

“I wouldn’t get too attached to these humans if I were you. Now that I plan to return to Equus at some point, that will also mean leaving the Saints behind. I’ve already left behind a reputation of infamy for these people to remember me and I don’t plan on reversing that.

“The one thing to remember as a villain is to have fun being the villain. Most villains will either fall, convert to good or in the case of a very rare few, become something that the forces of law cannot live without, else they have to deal with problems that will distract them while other issues slip past their metaphorical gaze, cripple them or outright cause the nation to descend into anarchy.”

“Is that the kind of villain you want to be?”

“If I play my cards right, sure.”

Moondancer couldn’t help but be in awe at Pinkamena’s willingness to put everything on the line for her own ambitions. The madmare could have easily just left her alone to do whatever she felt like doing but instead chose to go out of her way to include her in her activities. The psychopath next to her, as well as Vinyl, gave her the motivation she needed to seek her own desires; something her schoolmates were unable to do. For that, she would follow Pinkamena and see where her ambitions will take her.

“So we’re going around buying these stores and properties because the Syndicate owns them, right?” Moondancer asked.

“That’s one reason, the other is to boost our income. The task is really boring. If it weren’t for the income, I would have just burned down the places to deny the Syndicate their income instead.”

“That’s one way I suppose. Wasteful, but still works.”

After buying up Stanfield and slaughtering a large number of Decker gatherings, the Equestrians gathered at Kinzie’s warehouse. It was time to take effective measures against Matt Miller and the ex FBI was going to help whether she was willing or not.

Pinkamena knocked on the door to the warehouse and waited a minute before Kinzie let her and her group in. “Just so you know, I’m letting you in because I know what you can do to armored doors. I know what you did in the Stilwater bank when you kidnapped Maero’s girlfriend.”

Pinkamena had a feeling there was more to it than that but didn’t really care. She quickly got down to business. “We need to deal with Miller before STAG gets their act together. Know anything that can help?”

“While you were out securing more of the district, Killbane had been slandering the Saints over the airwaves. The boss didn’t want to distract you while you were handing your business so he took Johnny and Shaundi to triangulate Killbane’s position using the broadcast towers throughout the city. Unfortunately, that whiny little bastard Matt interfered by using the Decker Use-Net to hack into the flight computer of their helicopter and fried it with an EMP.”

“So we can’t deal with Eddie until we deal with Matt, huh? Doesn’t change my plans but I guess that’s good to know.”

“Do you have a plan for how we can be rid of him?” Octavia asked.

Kinzie typed on her laptop and brought up a round structure that looked like a series of boxes configured into a ‘C’ formation. “If I could worm my way into their mainframe, I’d do all sorts of naughty things. But to do that, I need this computer. It’s one of the most powerful learning computers in North America...And STAG’s got one.”

A change suddenly occurred on Kinzie’s screen and a face of some young man wearing the cyber-punk look of the Deckers. The on screen identification pinged him as Matt Miller. “Thanks for the tip, Agent Kensington.”

“Damn it!” Kinzie exclaimed.

“Hello Matty,” Pinkamena greeted with her wicked smile. “Glad to see the face of my next victim.”

Seeing the face of the psychotic mare sent chills up Matt’s spine. It was then that he had to question who he feared more, Killbane or the pony on his screen. “Like I’d give you the chance, you have no idea where to find me.”

“You don’t know me very well, do you?”

Matt Miller quickly cut the feed before Kinzie started frantically typing on her laptop trying to locate the learning computer. With little time to spare, Pinkamena and her friends left for the STAG PR Center as that would be a likely place to find the computer.

On the way to the PR Center, Pinkamena received more info from Kinzie. She had contacted Playa and the others and were on their way to the same place. Since the others were headed there too, Pinkamena decided to use Playa’s tendency to draw attention to create a distraction.

Playa, Johnny and Pierce raided the STAG PR Center again. Last time they were there, Playa and Viola snuck in to kidnap Josh Birk while disguised as figures from the actor’s vampire series. Playa never bothered to let STAG have Birk back and let him hang out at the hideout, for however long it will take for Viola’s patience to run out and the actor winds up dead in a ditch somewhere.

The Center was already in chaos as STAG forces engaged the Deckers in combat. Taking advantage of the chaos, the Saints gunned down everyone in the lobby while Matt taunted them through the intercom with Kinzie delivering the comebacks.

However, somehow both Kinzie and Matt had lost track of the computer. Kinzie told Playa to check the garage. All the Saints found was a STAG tank.

“I called in reinforcements to help you guys find the computer,” Kinzie said

“Fuck reinforcements, we got a tank,” Pierce countered.

“Don’t you dare drive that through the city,” Kinzie warned. “I don’t want that thing anywhere near my computer.”

Playa, Pierce and Johnny hijacked the tank.

While the Saints were driving around looking for the computer, Kinzie hacked into the street cameras and found the Saints in the tank. “What the hell are you guys doing?!”

“We’re looking for the computer,” Playa responded, trying to act innocent.

“I said DON’T use the tank!”

“Uhh...Sorry Kinzie, I didn’t hear that last part, going through a tunnel.”

“No you’re not, I can see…” The sound of a truck stopping next to Kinzie was heard over Playa’s phone. “You know what? You can keep the tank. At least ponies can get the job done better than you clowns.”

The Saints stopped the tank in the middle of the road for a few minutes while they slowly realized what happened.

“You don’t think…” Johnny began.

“I’m not, Johnny. I’m not gonna think about it. I’m just gonna head back to the HQ, put this tank in the garage, and forget this ever happened,” Playa said.

Back at Kinzie’s warehouse, the ex FBI was admiring her new supercomputer before a nagging question popped into her head, “How did you girls get this thing here without me or Matt noticing?”

Pinkamena giggled, “It took a bit of teamwork to get it here secretly. Pinkie, the other pony who inhabits this body, drove the truck while Moondancer placed an invisibility spell on the truck. Vinyl found a way to jam any nearby electronics so neither of you could track us in the off chance that the spell wouldn’t work. Gilda provided a second distraction by causing some mayhem from the air to draw the Deckers’ attention. Octavia and Treehugger took out any Deckers who got too close. And all while Playa’s group provided the distraction at the PR Center.”

“This is why I love po--I mean, wow, that’s impressive,” Kinzie hastily said.

Pinkamena raised an eyebrow at Kinzie’s comment but quickly dropped the matter.

Pinkamena spent the next hour watching Kinzie, Oleg, Moondancer and Vinyl set up the computer. Thanks to the DJ’s assistance, they managed to set up the device a lot sooner than expected.

During this time, Kinzie asked how Moondancer managed to transfer her subconscious to her game and if she would be able to maintain that transfer long enough to infiltrate the Decker Use-Net and corrupt the data and shut down their operations. Moondancer reasoned that maintaining the transfer slowly drained her magic. Something of a larger scale might put more of a burden on her.

With the simpler idea thrown out, Kinzie returned to her original plan of stealing the Neurological Electromagnetic Oneiroscope. Oleg mentioned that the KGB originally had one but it was destroyed. Kinzie pointed out that the Deckers had one and concealed it under a nuclear power plant where the emanations of the chair would blend in with the plant’s usual emissions.

With their next objective acquired, the Equestrians left for the power plant. While Kinzie said they would need her to help shut down the external power uplinks, Vinyl gave a wide smirk and assured her that she and Moondancer could handle the computer stuff.

Once the Equestrians reached the plant, Pinkamena, Octavia, Treehugger, Vinyl and Gilda protected Moondancer while she hacked into the uplinks and disabled them. Moondancer had learned enough about computers from Kinzie that she could handle the terminals herself.

While fighting the Deckers, Vinyl had acquired another shock hammer from the Decker specialists. Thinking about how to improve it, she reconfigured the cybernetic hammer’s battery to use mana so she could recharge it whenever she wanted.

Once Moondancer finished with the last terminal, Kinzie called Pinkamena to tell them that they needed to jump into the main cooling tower to reach the chair before the Deckers destroyed it to keep it from them.

Pinkamena had Gilda carry her into the cooling tower so the two of them could reach the chair quickly. Gilda could only carry one pony at a time so she would have to make trips to get every pony into the chair room. Pinkamena only had the griffon go back for Octavia so the three of them could take out all of the Deckers effectively.

With the three of them together after a few minutes, Pinkamena, Gilda and Octavia cleared the place of the Deckers. Octavia predicted the movements of the fast moving Decker specialists and ended them with one shot each.

Kinzie called Pinkamena to inform her that they needed to disable the router connections to cut the chair from their system. The first router was simple to deactivate and Pinkamena showed her comrades how to disable the remaining routers.

Once the chair was severed from the system, Kinzie called Playa to have a crew move into the power plant and move the NEMO chair to her place.

With the power plant taken from the Deckers, the group had no influence left in Steelport outside of cyberspace.

“Are you sure about this?” Pinkamena asked.

Once the NEMO chair was delivered to Kinzie, she, Oleg and Vinyl worked quickly to get the chair hooked up to the supercomputer. Kinzie warned that the one who dove into the Decker Use-Net would be facing an army of Decker avatars and who knew what other obstacles Matt Miller might send their way. Also, there was a chance of death from shock if they weren’t careful.

And for some reason, Moondancer volunteered for the task.

“Yeah, I feel like I need to do this. I don’t understand why myself, just that feeling that it has to be me who does this,” Moondancer replied.

“You do realize that you will be going in all alone and without any of us to support you in any way but morally while you will be up against Miller and an army of Decker avatars in a realm that he has full control of, right?”

“Don’t remind me…”

Since the unicorn seemed determined to take on the task, Pinkamena decided to let Moondancer handle it. Once Moondancer was set up in the chair, Kinzie activated the machine and Moondancer lost consciousness.

Moondancer awoke in a strange place that could not be compared to any of her past experiences. The only thing she knew was that she was in cyberspace and she was now alone with enemies all around her.

Taking a look at herself, she quickly realized that she was a toilet for some reason. Moondancer could still feel her magic but felt like it interacted with her differently in the digital realm. After a small period of experimentation, she found that she could use her magic to manipulate the data around her.

Forcing her will upon her own form, she managed to transform herself into a form that was at least shaped like a unicorn while she had a strange shape floating around her. Focusing her will upon the shape, it discharged a blast that hit a nearby wall.

Deciding to learn as she went, Moondancer moved forward into the cybernetic realm. She quickly came across Decker avatars as they fired their weapons at her. Using her magic, she hurled the first group off the platform and into the digital abyss.

As Moondancer advanced while blasting more Decker avatars, Miller took notice of the unicorn’s presence and started causing the area around her to slow. The unicorn countered this by casting an acceleration spell on herself to counter Miller’s attacks.

Once she made it to the Decker Use-Net’s firewall, she encountered something strange as a black screen with some text appeared in her vision. Unsure what to do with this, she tried to navigate the text adventure and realized it was like one of those ‘choose your own adventure’ stories,

It was what happened at the end that truly enraged Moondancer and made her more determined than ever to crush Matt Miller. In order to finish the adventure, she had to kill a unicorn. To be made to kill one of her own kind who did nothing to her, this made Moondancer furious.

With the firewall deleted, Moondancer was transported to another area and turned back into a toilet.

“I think that’s a more appropriate look for you, little pony,” Miller said mockingly.

Moondancer forced herself back into her unicorn form. If she could stare at Miller right now, she would have incinerated the geek with her stare alone.

The pony avatar reached the anti-virus that was guarded by a few deckers and a couple of specialists. Meanwhile, Miller was bombarding her with data. Lighting her horn, she managed to divert the data bombardment to the Deckers around her, causing them to lag instead and making them easy targets as she blasted them one by one with her magic.

Moondancer was soon placed into another game where she was a tank trying to destroy another tank. She wasn’t one for video games so she used her magic to teleport the enemy tank to a place in the data where it couldn’t exist. This triggered an error and caused the whole game to crash, destroying the anti-virus in the process.

When Moondancer was transported to the next area, Miller turned her avatar into a stallion sex doll. Moondancer once again adjusted her form but had reached the limit of her patience with the hacker. Miller’s attempts to stop or slow the unicorn proved futile as he didn’t have an answer for her magic.

Moondancer found Miller’s avatar in a square-shaped arena. The avatar was shaped like a dragon with armor. Moondancer only glared at the giant imposing form with unbridled fury.

“I am God here, little pony, and you will learn your place,” Miller declared.

While Miller thought that Moondancer would be intimidated by his stature, the unicorn only smirked. “You’re right, I did need to learn my place here. But you have yet to learn yours.”

“What does that mean?”

When Moondancer figured out how to alter herself in the digital realm, she considered the possibilities of what she could do. Using her magic, she drew in a large volume of data around her avatar. What Miller saw next made his eyes widen in horror as the relatively tiny unicorn mare grew to become larger than him. She also adopted a pair of wings for her new form as well as a majestic appearance.

Moondancer glared down at Miller as he took a step back. Miller tried to summon his Deckers to aid him but Moondancer blocked any attempts at teleporting in. The hacker pulled out his sword to slash at the giant winged unicorn only for his blade to be grabbed in Moondancer’s magical field and Miller with it. She wrested the blade from the dragon avatar before she gripped Miller in her magic and started slamming him around the arena. After one last slam onto the floor, she let go of the avatar before raising a massive forehoof and brought it down hard, shattering the avatar’s head.

Matt Miller’s actual form emerged from the avatar. Moondancer knew he was finished so she shrank herself to her original size while retaining the wings. She still had the sword the dragon avatar originally had and aimed the point at Miller.

“Wait! Please, spare me,” Miller begged. “I swear to never mess with the Saints again. I’ll even clear Kensington’s name with the FBI. I’ll even get the Saints discounts on weapon upgrades.”

“What I want is an apology for making me kill a unicorn.”

Miller blinked, “That’s what you’re fixated on? That story? How was I supposed to know that an actual bloody unicorn was going to end up playing that scenario?”

Moondancer raised her sword, prepared to deliver the final blow.

“Alright, I’m sorry for making you kill the bloody unicorn. Now please let me go.”

After Miller upheld his end of the bargain and came through on the weapons discounts, the hacker left the virtual realm before Moondancer returned to the real world.

Pinkamena awaited Moondancer as the unicorn returned to consciousness. “That was amazing!” Pinkamena said. “You had that guy practically wetting himself. I loved how you turned into that giant alicorn and treated him like a ragdoll and we even got something out of it for our troubles. You were so awesome in there.”

Moondancer blushed and turned her head away,.enjoying the praise. “Thanks.”

“Now we can finish off Matt Miller.”

“No we’re not,” Pinkie stated.

“Why not?”

“Because we need Matt for the next arc of this adventure.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Yuppers.“

“First Eddie ruins my kill of the DeWynter sisters and now we have to let Matt Miller get away because he’s needed for a later arc?”

“Mmm-Hmm.”

Pinkamena sighed. “I wanna go back to Stilwater. At least there were plenty of people I could creatively kill there. Here, I only get to kill two at best.”

“At least you get to kill Cyrus Temple later.”

“Yeah, there’s that…”

“And you still get to kill Killbane.”

“I guess I should take what I can get.”

With the Deckers defeated, only the thuggish Luchadores remained a problem for Steelport. STAG would likely make a move soon.

I had fun writing some of these parts, especially the part where Moondancer got pissed off about the unicorn.