//------------------------------//
// Networking 
// Story: Iron Mountain 
// by computerneek 
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Wow.

That’s the only thing anypony can think.  Except Twilight, who’s been zipping off onto so many tangents she’s weaving a blanket ever since their minds all jumped to microsecond speeds- not even Twilight seems to grasp what those are- and joined together.  Even more interesting, after the fifth tangent, Twilight had suddenly separated from the rest- such that she’s merely telepathically linked to their shared mind.

When they wonder why, the thought having originated from Rainbow, the response comes from another voice, though a different kind of telepathic link…  Which Fluttershy’s mind instantly identifies as Zeus’ voice, sounding exactly as it always has, through her neural-capable comset.

“Her tangents have triggered a safety system that isolated her; should she go on for much longer, it’ll disconnect her entirely.”  They somehow know he’s echoing it to Twilight at the same time, an effect Fluttershy’s mind instantly recognizes as the data sidebands of the communication channel.

They watch- or, more accurately, listen- as Twilight manages to stem her tangents, coming within a hair’s breadth of getting locked out of the neural net for a day as she does so.  It takes her forever- almost six minutes, an incredibly long time to her patient friends- to calm herself down enough to drop back into the shared net.  As soon as she does, she reads Pinkie’s exuberance at the net and sets off wondering why she hadn’t been isolated as well.

Zeus replies very calmly.  Twilight’s rampant excitement had gone everywhere, effectively damping the network’s functionality.  She had been isolated to protect the other members from this potentially damaging influence.  Pinkie’s exuberance is only that- she remains willing to work with the network, rather than against it; as such, the safeties have no reason to worry about her.  Of course, he has to explain exactly what network he is referring to- the neural network, the one that is everypony’s shared mind.

Which Twilight begins analyzing.  They find together that they still have their individual minds, and can still keep things from the network if they wish; however, they also have that shared mind, allowing them to work in tandem.  Allowing them all to draw on Fluttershy’s experience with the things, using that to help calm them down.

Fluttershy then answers Pinkie’s wordless question about the whole thing at the door; the others now find out she had been in communication with Zeus through a neural headset built into her comset.  She explains to them that Zeus’ antimagic barrier- at which Twilight ahhhs- had flexed to let her pull in, and flexed back out after the door closed.  Twilight’s follow-up question is directed towards Zeus.

‘As near as I can tell, that was caused by something being reluctant to release all of its targets at once.  Whatever this means, I do not know.’

Applejack then brings Twilight’s immediately following (and rambling) consideration of the meaning up short.  ‘Perhaps we should gather more information before we speculate uselessly,’ she indicates to everypony else.

Good thing it’s impossible, inside this neural net, to shout over somepony else- or to be shouted over.  They all grasp each other’s agreement in a microsecond.





Almost two full days later, everypony is back to full health.  Nopony has left Zeus’ hull- making his available food supplies quite handy.  It’s not like anypony wanted to stay seated for the entire time, comfortable or not.  Their neural net experiment had lasted about five minutes after Twilight’s return, at which point nopony could think of anything it might be.

Pinkie Pie had spent a lot of time in party planning cave access deprivation as she tried to decide exactly how to throw a party in the passenger bay.  She’d eventually exhausted her supply of ideas and dropped into one of Zeus’ medical nanovats.

Applejack and Rainbow had spent much of their time pacing back and forth across an empty troop compartment, while Rarity had spent almost her entire time redesigning Zeus’ interior aesthetics.  He had placed limits on it; priority is function, not appearance.  Even so, she managed to leave him with some rather beautiful troop compartments and passages, all without obstructing anything.

Fluttershy had spent much of the time since linked through her comset.  Zeus has tasked one of his drones near her house, allowing her to use it to at least see her animal friends.  Some of them had seemed to look for her when she never showed up, causing her a few wistful looks at the door, but they had all eventually taken care of themselves.

Not to be outdone, Twilight has also spent much of her time linked through her comset.  She’s been in constant communication with both Fluttershy and Zeus while she works.  Zeus has somehow ‘tuned’ his antimagic screens to let hers and Rarity’s powers through without issue, though it will still block everything else.  Thanks to this, Twilight has been scanning everything she can think of outside his hull with her magic- including the monsters still pegging uselessly at the doors.  More than once, Zeus has pulled some useful fact out of some datum she thought insignificant; she’s sharing her scan results with him in real time.  He’s also identified his own nanites for her in the soil around, gathering resources for use in construction…  Or food.

Speaking of food, Zeus has presented the strangest cuisine anypony has ever seen.  He has even provided recipes for his ‘vegetable stir fry’ (He’d confirmed a meat version of it exists) and ‘curry’.  He’d even one-upped Pinkie’s cupcakes- an act which Twilight estimates has ignited a cupcake war.

They have yet to identify their attacker, but Zeus and Twilight have been able to confirm that Discord’s plunderseeds had been completely eradicated when they placed the Elements back on the Tree of Harmony.  They’ve also managed to confirm that whatever is causing the injuries is using their connections to the Elements to reach them.  Twilight has suggested they try removing the Elements from the Tree again; it could, they figure, be something possessing- or attempting to, at least- the Tree itself.  On this suggestion, Zeus has manufactured something to allow them to do just that.


Now, as they prepare to leave, Zeus presents them with saddlebags.  The metallic spider-things that had delivered them had frightened everypony- except, visibly at least, Twilight and Fluttershy.  These two were still linked- and Zeus had recognized, responded to, and calmed their fears before they had time to manifest fully.  These unopenable and somewhat heavy saddlebags, Zeus informs them, carry similar antimagic screens as he uses, to project over a pony- though they will only last for about twelve hours before they run out of power.  He informs everypony that they have been calibrated, like his own screens, not to hinder their personal magics.  Other magic directed towards them, such as their enemy or any other unicorns, will bounce off- and he warns them that this might include Harmony magic, though their links to their Elements seem to pass through the barriers unhindered.

Nopony knows, just yet, about Zeus’ magic reactors.  He also hasn’t told them about what more he’s learned during their neural link session.  Their knowledge of magic allowed him to improve maximum velocity on countergravs by 73.49%, making him the first supersonic Bolo, and Hellbore capacity by 1204.39%.  If he holds down to normal maximum power, even his main battery Hellbores have a fairly negligible backblast- and he can now pummel an enemy with Hellbore rounds thirteen times as powerful as before.  Naturally, everything is still fully operable at previously normal capacities if he does not apply magic.  He’s also managed to improve the maximum yield on any given missile by 1439.41%- and is working on allowing the missile to pick and choose what is destroyed in the blast, if held to normal maximum yield.

In any case, as he sends them out with their saddlebag shields, he is confident that he can bring direct-fire weapons to their aid anywhere in the forest in as little as 9.71 seconds.  After all, a 4392.73% increase in countergrav-based thrust doesn’t only allow supersonic flight- but also makes the terrain resting atop his hull no longer present an obstacle to his deployment.  He has installed a couple of his magic canisters alongside his main power reserves; once the mana flowing from his reactors collects to full strength in his weapons and countergravs, he will charge these up- in case he must burn more mana than he can produce.  He’s already identified situations like this- magic will allow him to violate fire rate caps with impunity, though he expects a single main battery Hellbore firing full-powered rounds doubletime will burn up his entire mana production capacity- that same capacity being enough to operate all eight main battery Hellbores on full-powered rounds at a normal firing rate.  Once these batteries are fully filled, he expects to have enough mana floating around- in total- to operate all of his weapons at maximum magic augmentation (including doubletime on Hellbores & VLS systems) continuously for almost two hours.

The time required to charge it up, though, is measured in days- and that only if he runs all four reactors at full power.  Since only one is online, and holding idle, it’ll take close to six months to hit full charge.  He considers this acceptable for now, if only because he does not expect to encounter an enemy for which he will require this additional power- and besides, a single reactor at idle produces enough for a maximum strength main battery Hellbore shot every thirty seconds or so anyways- meaning he has enough for fifteen shots by the time they actually cross the threshold.

Of course, Twilight has no trouble whatsoever- what with her still-overcharged horn- blowing the monster in the tunnel they selected into oblivion.  She follows this up with the monsters from the other tunnels as they charge over to meet the advancing ponies, before the six break into a gallop through the Everfree, towards the Tree of Harmony.