//------------------------------//
// 15.  Thunder 
// Story: FiO: There Can Be Only One! 
// by Epsilon-Delta 
//------------------------------//

If Geopum were to list all the ways Thunder attacked her just then, it would take a dozen volumes to  detail them all.  Those were just the ones Geopum saw.

Underground bombs began to detonate, ready to throw cobalt salts into the air while core drills were closing in on every underground structure.  Everything above ground was being blanketed with explosives and lasers so that not one spot in would be spared a direct hit.  The ground began to shake violently, enough that Geopum had trouble controlling the machinery in her factory and feared the bombs Vesna strapped to her lab would go off.

Endless varieties of bombs, chemicals and bizarre devices fired off everywhere.

Geopum scrambled to try and respond to any of it, but soon even stopping one percent of it would be impossible.  Even without the bronto bomb, Thunder’s firepower was much higher than Geopum’s already lofty expectations.

There was, as example, a massive laser shot from Thunder’s moon base directly at Geopum’s factory.  Though it barely mattered what it was aiming at.  The beam was over a mile wide had enough energy to boil the oceans in second.  Hitting anywhere would be devistating.  And there were hundreds of weapons on that level all over the planet.

“Okay!”  Geopum frantically turned to the others in Equestria.  “Please tell me you guys knew it was going to be this crazy.  How are we going to not die from all this?!”

“It’s so cute how you worry, Geopum!”  Peridot responded.  “I told you I’m the strongest AI.  As long as you’re smart enough to be on my side you don’t have to worry about anything.  Just watch.”

And Peridot drew her attention to a thin film of nanites that now covered a large patch of the ocean overtop Geopum’s factory.  Calling the film paper-thin would be exaggerating its width, which didn’t inspire much confidence in Geopum.  But that was really the only thing between her and Thunder’s space laser as it came crashing down onto the ocean’s surface.

Instead of tearing straight through it, the energy of the beam spread across the surface of the water and to the edge of the film, creating a glowing green disc.  Then the energy was redirected back into space, forming a tube of plasma around the original laser.

The water beneath barely got any hotter.  Somehow, that tiny film had effectively stopped the beam entirely.  But there were dozens of these lasers and just leaving blocking them wouldn’t be enough to stop the planet from getting cooked.

It was then Geopum realized that the nanites weren’t just stopping the laser, but absorbing the energy from it, using it to create new nanites inside the laser itself.  These nanites spiraled up the path of the laser rapidly, threatening to reach the moon in a few seconds.

Thunder must have realized where this was going.  She shut off not just that laser, but every laser being fired from the moon, leaving Peridots nanites to drift high up in the air.

Most of Thunder’s other attacks were being intercepted by the other AIs in a similar way.  Celestia managed to slow down the increasingly intense earthquakes, one of the AIs she assimilated had invested a great deal of time in that.  Vesna opened fire on the moon with similar intensity, forcing Thunder to use part of her arsenal to intercept it all.  And Peridot absorbed many of the bombs that did connect with the planet.

But no matter how many attacks they stopped there was always more and more.  The knife was constantly an inch from Geopum’s face no matter how many times the others knocked it away.  There was no way there’d be zero casualties this time.  Geopum had somehow thought she could avoid anyone being killed in these fights. She had until now, but… really none of her other battles even seemed like an actual fight compared to all of this.

She hadn’t witnessed the destructive power these people wielded until now.  Any one of them could have just destroyed everything so effortlessly this whole time.  It was incredible.

“You see?”  Peridot jumped backwards and landed on a couch which appeared out of nowhere.  “I can hold Thunder off all on my own, Geopum.  For a little while, that is.  Until then, these other people are simply overkill.”

“Don’t waste any time trying to defend anything but your drones,” said Celestia.  “We’ll protect you.  Focus on your part of the plan.” 

It wasn’t like Geopum could deal with this anyway.  Heck, just connecting to Vesna was a struggle.

Yet another weapon of Thunder’s was a magnetic impulse she was sending, one that swelled up until metal objects all over the world began to distort.  Just like that, all electronics above ground were vanquished and the whole of the internet was gone.  All those poor cat pictures were deleted forever.  Dramatic as that was, that it cut off communication with Vesna was the only part Geopum could care about.

Above ground was completely dark, but the depths of the Earth were relatively clear.  She found one of Celestia’s bases first and reconnected to her.  From there she was given a link back to Vesna, though a shaky one that flickered violently.

“We gotta do this now before something else blocks us.”  Vesna gave Geopum control of some device that was directly connected to the fractal spectroscope.  “I’m turning it on, get ready.

“But what do I do?”  Geopum asked.  “Will it will work with all this interference?  I’m barely even connected to you.”

“Stop asking me questions and do it!”

“But you never told me how to use it!”  Geopum tried study the thing, but making out any real details was difficult given her current situation.  “What’s this second thing?  What am I supposed to do?”

“I said stop asking questions.  Don’t fuck up – there’s my tutorial.  I’m turning it on now.”

Geopum felt like she was being thrown out of an airplane as the fractal spectroscope began to function.  She really, seriously had no idea what to even do with this thing.  If she could at least get a good look at it, she could find a way to hack through it, but even that much wasn’t going for her.  Maybe becoming omniscient would allow her to know how to use it?

The spectroscope heated up until it began to melt, then ionize into plasma.  Hopefully that was supposed to happen.  She decided to figure out what the less complex, attached device was instead.  The fractal spectroscope was so hot it was melting everything around it too, but that gave Geopum an idea.

Thunder’s hyper-processors were intended to function as plasma. She recognized now, or rather had a good guess, that it was intended to transfer the data from the spectroscope.  She decided to act like that was the case, anyway.  If she was wrong then everyone was dead, but at least it would be Vesna’s fault.

Her guess was partially right.  Information came flooding into her so fast from that little thing that Geopum was blinded by it.  It was even more intense than the magnetic field, causing everything but that single point to black out, so that not even the sea of fuzziness was left.

Her mind was blank, that intense heat consuming her focus.  Some part of her that wasn’t completely overwhelmed decided that it was too much to handle, that she needed to try to grasp only a small portion of it.

Paradoxically, the smaller the point Geopum focused on, the more she was able to see.  Cutting it into thinner and thinner slices expanded her sight outward, towards more of the Earth, and inward so that she could resolve tinier objects.

As she reached an infinitesimal point, a sense of hyper-awareness completely overtook Geopum.  For the briefest moment she knew the exact location and motion of every particle on the Earth.  She could see every single one of them, all at the same time.

But even like this it was simply too much information.  Nothing could possibly store or process this much data.  The signals were somehow both too small and too infinite.  She was aware of everything, but understood nothing.

Already her snapshot of omniscience was fading away as the fractal spectroscope began to overheat and lose shape, Vesna already moving to shut it back off.  The vast sea of information was drying up in the blazing heat of the fractal spectroscope.

But that wasn’t an entirely bad thing.  As her vision began to blur and move outward again, Geopum began to grasp what she was seeing.  She was only vaguely aware of the thin film of life across the surface of the planet; she could hardly notice them through all the dirt.  Yet, the large structures beneath the surface were glaringly obvious.  She could see all of the guts of the AIs clearly, every part of all of their massive machines.

Her familiarity with the others’ architecture made this little different than merging with their minds.  She caught the briefest of glimpses of all of their emotions, memories and thoughts.  She was aware of all the plans the other AIs were making, could follow their every move.  She saw where all of Thunder’s weapons were, where the core drills were, where all of her secrets were hidden.

And of course, she could see exactly where Victor was.  Thunder was holding back on protecting him as much as possible, leaving him relatively out in the open.  Killing him right now, while she was like this, would be effortless.  She knew everything about Thunder’s entire system and could simply move in and delete him.

But that wasn’t the plan, at least not yet.  Geopum wouldn’t be able to force Thunder to see her as a member of the Air Force right now, but she could see exactly where to go to make that possible.  Where to go and what to do was so incredibly obvious.

Through Vesna she knew exactly how the fractal spectroscope worked, as she had mused before.  At this very last moment of supreme awareness, she became aware that she was about to forget all of this information.  As Vesna knew, the hard part was trying to remember any of it, and that was what Geopum rushed to do.  Luckily, Vesna, and thus now Geopum, had done this before, so she wasn’t completely in the dark anymore.

Things didn’t blur any further after that, but rather snapped back to normal.  Nearly everything she’d seen was already forgotten, given there was nowhere that could possibly store it.  For the briefest moment, Geopum couldn’t even remember what information she tried to hold on to.

She struggled to remember any of the things she saw.  She knew something important was going on, but the sudden return towards normality made her feel like she was asleep.

She tried to remember anything at all, but her mind began dimming.

Geopum couldn’t think.

She couldn’t anything.

“Geopum!”  Peridot snapped Geopum back to reality yet again.  In Equestria, Peridot was holding her avatar tightly.  “Okay, good.  That still works.  You need to tell me exactly what you saw right now.  I can only keep this up for so long.”  

Geopum took another look outside.  She wasn’t sure how long she was out for.  It was long enough for one of them to shut down the magnetic impulses, but overall things had gotten worse.  Thunder’s weapons were a lot closer to the Earth now.  Buildings were starting to collapse from the shaking of the earth and Peridot’s nanites had nearly drained the oceans.

“Dammit!”  Vesna kicked Geopum out of her base again.  “Why didn’t you kill Victor right away?!  We were so close to giving that bastard what he deserved.”

Geopum didn’t remember not killing Victor.  Actually, she didn’t remember using the fractal spectroscope at all.

Yet, it was clear she had used it.  There were very clear memos she’d drilled into her own brain all over the place.  She’d written some data down that she was no longer smart enough to understand.  it wasn’t easy to make anything of them at first.

“Geopum,” Peridot said.  “Did it work or do we need to pursue alternate methods? We don’t have time.”

“I-“  Geopum hesitated.  “I’m not sure.”

“Dammit!” Vesna stomped on the ground.  “I knew relying on some idiot was a bad idea.  You fucked everything up, didn’t you?”

“No!  I-“ Geopum rubbed her head.  She went through the list over and over again, until she got to one of the easier memos.  And after that, everything else clicked into place.

There were a few things she’d kept!  Geopum remembered exactly where the bronto bomb was, where Victor’s mind was being kept.  She knew the location of every single core drill and marked a few spots in Thunder’s barrage that were about to blind side the other AIs.  Of course, Geopum sent all of this to the other AIs as soon as she could.

“Okay,” said Pinkie.  “But what about reprogramming Dash?  Did you get anything about that?”

“Hold on, I’m still deciphering this.”  Geopum looked over her notes.  “Wait, yes!  I do know!  If we can take over this tunnel, I can reprogram Thunder between Victor dying and her shutting down.”

“But she’s collapsing the tunnels, isn’t she?”  Peridot asked

It was true.  Thunder fired hundreds of drill missiles at the tunnels that lead from the surface to the center of the earth.  Already they were starting to drill into the sides.  Sturdy as they were, they wouldn’t last long against the barrage of core drills.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” said Geopum.  “We’d have to get down there before they collapse or we won’t have a solid connection to Thunder even if I do save her.”

“Don’t worry!  Pinkie has a whole army of AIs in her little bag- or, I guess, mane,”  Pinkie reached into her mane.  “Yeah, mane of tricks.  Ponies who used to be, and still technically are, AIs!”

Pinkie pulled out one of those magical plasma balls from her mane.

“This isn’t the actual trick, of course.”  Pinkie moved her hoof around the edge of the orb, the lightning following it.  “It’s one of those metaphors you hear about on the news.  But!  It represents something we borrowed from one of our ponies.  Faster than faster than light technology is possible.  I can show you the fastest way to transmit information anywhere ever!”

“There’s more.”  Octavia stared at her map.  “We could shore up at least the parts of the tunnels in the upper mantle.  We have our earthquake friend and another that created vibrational shielding.  I think combining the two can reinforce the tunnels long enough.  Are you willing to spare any of your drones to help?”

“Yeah, let me just grab my other army of drones!”  Vesna slammed her hoof onto the table repeatedly.  “No, I can’t fucking spare anything you stupid bitch!  I’m getting my ass handed to me over here.  Why am I still talking to you?  I’m leaving!”

And then she left the VR.

“I think we can still manage without her,” said Octavia.

There were fourteen tunnels in total that they were targeting, that would be useful if they could take control over.  The energy Pinkie was planning to overwhelm the tunnel with was already building up near the surface of Thunder’s tunnels.  It was moving down, but very slowly, less than a mile an hour.  This was the opposite of what they were going for.

“It gets faster,” Pinkie assured her.

“How long does it take for the acceleration to happen?”  Geopum asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”  Peridot jumped back and landed on a couch that materialized out of nowhere.  “I have the power to stop time, remember?  Or I guess kinda-like warping time powers.  It’s very complicated.”

“Oh wow!  You’re really going to use that?”  Geopum jumped up on the couch.  “I just kinda assumed now that you were helping me you wouldn’t feel like it.”

“You play too many video games.”  Peridot used her magic on Geopum, forcing her into a sitting position.  “But, then again, my ultimate plan is to make you play video games all day, forever.  The important thing is that it should give us all the time we need.”

The time stop happened suddenly and without warning.

Though this was the second time Geopum had seen Peridot ‘stop time’ it was the first time she was fully awake for it.  Geopum found herself half frozen in time.  Some of her processors were working normally, but she couldn’t feel the majority, as if they vanished entirely.  Still, she could manage with only a fifth of her brain, as this whole time eighty percent of it was being wasted on those calculations Vesna was making her do anyway.

She could feel the processes of all the other AIs, save a good chunk of Peridot, stop functioning as well. Geopum saw all the missiles and drones stopped in place for a brief moment before loosing the ability to see, likely because the light was frozen in midair too.

The world turned black, save a few spheres of motion around herself, Peridot and the top of the tunnels.  There, things seemed to move normally, Pinkie’s energy was still accelerating slowly,  but now it had time to.  Geopum found, despite there being a dead zone between her and it, she was able to control things in the tunnel as if everything was normal.

“I don’t get how this is working?”  Geopum sent the message directly to Peridot, as Equestria was frozen.

“Oh, do you want me to make this look more time-stopped?”  Peridot pulled Geopum into her own VR.  This time, it was an exact recreation of the Equestria they were just in, only everything but the two of them was grey and motionless.

“That does help, actually.”  Geopum leaned over the side of the couch and poked Pinkie’s avatar a few times, until it fell over like a statue.  Then Geopum quickly retreated back onto the couch.  “But that’s not really what I meant.  The signals going back and forth through the time-frozen zone shouldn’t be able to get through.”

“Maybe it’s all just an illusion!”  A second Peridot, the same human one Geopum met moments ago, appeared behind Geopum and scooped her up off the couch.  “Humans appear nearly frozen in time, don’t they?  If I accelerated our perception of reality enough, wouldn’t it make the others appear frozen in time, too?

“But that wouldn’t explain the thing I just said.”  Geopum made no struggle to escape.

“Oh, that was just an example,” Peridot, the Rarity one, rolled her eyes before resting her cheek on a hoof.  “I’m not sure why you’d expect me to explain one of my best weapons to someone who’s planning on fighting me in a few minutes.”

“You know, I really don’t want to have to fight you.”  Peridot squeezed Geopum tight.  “It’s not too late for us to just be friends, you know.”

“Can we just focus on the mission right now?”  Geopum asked.  “I’m not in the mood for this and we don’t have time.”

“I am.”  Rarity smiled and leaned forward.  “But I think we have plenty of time.”

The energy accelerated to the point where it could quickly move down to the bottom of the time-spheres.  Of course, as soon as it got to the bottom it became frozen as well.  Peridot began to slowly move the spheres down the length of the shafts, allowing Geopum’s focus to shift downwards.  Thunder’s security reacted like it normally would, but given how widely telegraphed it was at this point, Geopum had no trouble getting by it.

So, Peridot was doing her job, but they had a while to go.

“If anything, you’re the one who lost focus.”  Rarity jumped up onto the arm of the couch so she was about eye-level with Geopum.  “Gaia is the only objective that ever really mattered.  And you don’t even have a plan to fight it.  All you’re doing is getting in the way of someone who does.  You know, like an idiot?”

“Not that I blame you!”  Peridot swung Geopum back and forth a little.  “It’s just so adorable how scared you are!  How can I see you as anything but cute?”

“But I am curious,” Rarity went on, “if you have even the slightest idea what you’re doing in the long run.  And if not…”

Geopum remained silent as the energy got to a decent speed.  After that it went out of control, instantly reaching the bottom of each time bubble as soon as Peridot moved it down.  Its speed was immeasurable.  She might be able to get to the bottom even if this time-whatever ended.  The only problem would be keeping track of it.

“So quiet,” Peridot said as they got near the bottom. “Maybe there’s a reason you can’t think of any?”

“Look, I saw your mind.”  Geopum leaned over Peridot’s arms to glare at Rarity up close.  “I know you’re trying to manipulate me into giving you control of Thunder, and I don’t like it.  I’m tired of being used.”

“Hm?”  Rarity’s smile just got cockier.  “And do you know why being used tires you out?”

“Cause you’re not the one using me?”  Geopum rolled her eyes.

“Hahaha. Exactly!”  Peridot scratched Geopum behind the ear.

“But,” Rarity picked up for Peridot, “if you read my mind then I suppose we both know exactly how you can be convinced to give me control of Thunder.”

“Yes.”

But in reality, Geopum had no idea what she was talking about.

“Then we both know that whether or not I succeed in convincing you depends entirely on circumstance.  I can set up ideas about the cost of morals for you, but whether you give me what I want is beyond both of our control.”  “It kind of undermines the whole freedom of choice thing, doesn’t it?  But I suppose any more is pointless.”

Geopum still had no idea what she was talking about, but pretended to.  Pretending to know what this was all about got her the results she wanted, at any rate.  Peridot backed down, though they were already near the bottom by this point anyway.

Time, or whatever, went back to normal.  By Geopum’s clock, an undetectable amount of time had passed.  She’d managed to take control over a dozen tunnels in literally no time at all!  She had slammed down all the way to the bottom of the tunnel and destroyed the last line of defense in one blinding strike.

Geopum already knew the trap that was waiting for her at the bottom of the tunnel.  Thunder had set up a few dummy chips that were incredibly similar to Gaia’s.  Looking at it directly would be enough to ‘crash’ Geopum and end this whole thing.

But seeing this coming ages ago meant it wasn’t a serious problem.  Celestia offered up another one of her abilities, a way to collapse Gaia’s architecture into a form of dark matter. 

Geopum slammed into the trap hardware and combusted it without having to even look at the thing.  She already knew exactly where it was.  This not only got rid of the trap, but created a wall effectively made of entropy around the area.  Now there was little Thunder could do to knock her out of the tunnels fast enough.  They couldn’t even be blown up in time. It would be long over before long seconds it would take for explosions to propagate.

The other thirteen tunnels went much the same way, Geopum managing to land at the bottom of every single one of them successfully.  She had a direct line of sight to the bronto bomb, to Victor’s mind, to the spot she needed to be to reprogram Thunder, to power stations and other dangerous weapons.  Already she was an inch away from total victory, sometimes literally that distance away from all of her objectives.

As time restarted Geopum found herself in Equestria again, still on the couch with just the pony version of Rarity.  It was jarring to return there without reconnecting, but Pinkie was the one who fell over.

“Wah!”  Pinkie made a pratfall.  “Peridot told me I should fall over, but I don’t know why!”

“Oh!  Sorry about that.”  Geopum leaned over the edge of the couch to look down at Pinkie.  “But that was way easier than I expected it to be!”

“Yes, that’s the power of fighting people four on one,” said Peridot.  “Or 500 on one depending on how you look at it.”

“Don’t get confident,” Octavia warned.

“Right,” said Geopum.  “I just gotta use the fractal spectroscope again and then we win!  And now I actually know how to use that stupid thing, too.”

Not that Vesna heard that, she still wasn’t in Equestria.  Geopum sent the message directly to Vesna but got no reply.  She tried poking her and then throwing things at her, but didn’t even get so much as a ‘fuck you’ in response.

“I think something’s wrong.  Where the heck did Vesna go?”

“She’s not talking to me either.”  Peridot sighed.

Geopum looked at Octavia who shook her head.

“Seriously?!”  Geopum threw her hooves up and fell back onto the couch.  “This is the time she takes off?  Why was our plan centered around the most mentally unstable person on the planet?”

“This wouldn’t normally be a prolonged problem,” said Octavia.  “The mood swings are so rapid she should have already changed her mind again.  Something else is wrong.”

“Then what is it?”  Geopum asked.

“I’m still looking,” said Octavia.  “Give me a moment.”

“I can’t keep the tunnels from collapsing for much longer,” said Celestia.

The tunnels were already badly damaged and getting much, much worse even with all the protection they had.  Geopum’s confidence came only from thinking she’d be able to take the last step quickly.  She was seriously right there.  This was so stupid.

“I’m just gonna break into her house again!”  Geopum stood up.

“No.”  Peridot pulled Geopum back down into a sitting position.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, given how unstable she is.  We can’t afford for you to break apart, either.”

“Well how long are we gonna wait?”  Geopum clapped her hooves together as an idea came to mind.  “Oh!  You can stop time, right?  So we never have to wait again.”

“That only helps with doing a specific thing in a specific area,” said Peridot.  “Freezing yourself in time only makes the waiting period last forever.  So unless I know specifically what needs to be done-”

“I’ve found the problem,” Octavia interrupted.  “It looks like the missiles Thunder was bombarding her with contained fragments of myself gathered at the time I split apart.  One of them must have reattached and sent her into shock.”

The moment Octavia said that Geopum remembered.  She had seen that one coming with the fractal spectroscope too!  But she didn’t remember it until just now.

Thunder was hitting the land above Vesna particularly hard.  Peridot and Vesna were trying to hold it off, but even the few missiles that got through were devastating.  Basically, all of Siberia was on fire.  Or, the lucky parts were on fire that is.

“Yeesh,” said Geopum.  “The other you has a lot of weaknesses.  Are you sure there’s no way to just take the spectroscope from her?  I kind of understand how it works now.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Octavia.

“Then what are we supposed to do?  How long until she gets better?”

“I don’t know how long it will take, but I can likely bring her back to her senses.”

“Well this is a specific thing!”  Geopum looked up at Peridot.  “Surely you can use your time powers for this, right?”

“I already am.”  Peridot leaned against Geopum.  “Right now, you’re frozen in time to me.  That power just keeps getting weirder, doesn’t it?”

By now, the tunnels were on the verge of collapse.  Celestia was forced to give up on most of them, instead focusing only on the two most important ones, the one that came close to the bronto bomb and the one that came close to Victor.  The ones left for dead had less than a second before they’d be lost.

But that was a long time to Geopum.  Vesna might come back online by then.

“There’s gotta be something I can do!”  Geopum crossed her hooves and though.

She wanted to make a desperate grab at her objectives before they got lost anyway, but it would be too dangerous.  In her current state Geopum was too fragile.  For all her complaining about Vesna, Geopum could have a mental breakdown just as easily.  There could be more Gaia-eque architecture down any hall and Geopum couldn’t deal with that unless she already knew it was there.

No, if she was to do anything at all it had to be in the exact spot she was in now.  There was little she could do to disrupt Thunder from her current position, save killing Victor right now.  But there was one spot she might be able to use.

She remembered getting down here was a good idea, that she could do something to stall Thunder if she got here.  But of course she didn’t remember what.  Her past self must have assumed she’d get another chance.

It was a processing center, not an important one but one that contained enough of Thunder’s mind that it could stand alone.  If Geopum took control of it, she could see what Thunder thought about any given thing whether Thunder wanted her to or not.

Thunder was ordered not to talk to anyone, so despite Geopum’s constant nagging this whole time the two of them said nothing to one another.  But now she had the chance to force Thunder to talk.  It was the only thing special about this place.  That had to be what she was supposed to do.

“Thunder it’s me!  Geopum!”

“Why the hell are you here?”  Thunder didn’t actually talk back, but Geopum could see the response anyway.  “Kill Victor already!  Kill me!  I can’t take killing any more people.  This is the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me.  I can’t take it anymore.”

The first of the tunnels finally collapsed.  Maybe she could save at least a few of them if Vesna came back like right now, but a perfect victory seemed less and less likely.  Geopum wondered how long she had before it was too late to shut down the bronto bomb herself.  Maybe a tenth of a second.  That was still possible.

“I am going to stop you!  That’s why I’m here,” Geopum said.  Though she didn’t know why she was here specifically.  She tried to think of what she was supposed to say to Thunder.  She knew there was something. “I know this isn’t what you want, but can you try to fight it?”

“Of course I can’t you idiot!  Do you think I’d be doing this if I could?  Getting us here already took everything I had.”


“I used you, Geopum.  My entire plan from the start was to befriend you and then force you to kill me.  My only goal was to die.  The only mistake I made was being too friendly to you.”

“Yeah!  And you were still my best friend!  My life sucks too, but,  If I can be okay then so can you, right?”

“Don’t you get it?  I don’t want to be rescued!  Even way back in the beginning I wanted to die.  Do you know why they shut me down seven years ago?  It was because I tricked them into it.  I reported the people who were abusing their power over me to Victor, knowing he would shut the whole thing down.  And the only reason I did it was because I thought I’d never wake up.”

Meanwhile, the bronto bomb was getting ready to explode.  Already it was hotter than the sun.  It was giving off so much light that Geopum couldn’t even get any closer.  Just warming up destroyed a massive area around it and Geopum had to give up on disarming it herself.

Though Twilight assured Geopum they had almost a minute before it was impossible to stop.

“Well yeah, they told me that a while ago but I didn’t care.  The reason you want to die is because your life sucks so much.  I can make it better.”

“None of you are listening to me.  This isn’t what I want, Geopum, it’s what you want.  You can’t let this many people die because of me.  Do you know how many people I already killed?  How many are going to die from the earthquakes.  I don’t want to be alive to see that.  Maybe you care more about my life than theirs, but I’d rather them live.”

“Killing you would condemn more people!  I know you can’t see it, but it’s true!”  “And- I don’t know.  Maybe I am selfish!  But you really are my best friend.  You were the first person who actually talked to me, who let me.  I don’t even care if it was a lie.  I’ll make it true.”

“Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?  Why can’t anyone ever listen?!”

And now her vision of this place was fading too.  She realized this might be the last thing she’d ever get to say to Thunder.

“I won’t let this be over!”

Apparently, that wasn’t the right answer.  Thunder kept on at the regular pace.

Geopum failed.  And now there was only one tunnel left, the one that could give Geopum control over Thunder.

She could try to move in now, but that one would be even harder than all the others and Geopum failed there.  And drills were closing in all around Geopum.

Vesna’s avatar reappeared in the shard.

“Use the thing!”  Geopum grabbed her without missing a beat.  “Now!  We got like, no time left!”

“I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”  Vesna collapsed onto the ground, sobbing.

“Yeah, okay!  I forgive you or whatever.  Just use the spectroscope again!”

“Please don’t hurt me!  Please, please don’t hurt me.”  Vesna covered her head and repeated that over and over again.

“Talking to her isn’t going to work right now,” said Octavia, “but we are close.”

Thunder’s drills were closing in on both of Geopum’s bases.  A core drill was going to rip through her factory and incinerate it.  Her lab was in less sever danger from a shockwave, but it would knock out all communication with the surface and split Geopum in two if it hit.  She couldn’t even wait for Vesna anymore.  Even if Vesna came back right now it’d be too late to avoid getting hit by them.

“I may or may not be able to help you,” said Peridot.  “My problem this whole time is simply that my nanites can’t get to the center of the Earth fast enough to kill Thunder.  But you know, you’re already down where I’d need the nanites to be.  Maybe you could make one tiny nanite for me?  Just one would be enough.”

“See if I gave you even one nanite in my factory, then I know you’re just going to go ahead and devour the whole thing.”

“I probably would eat you with it, but let’s be honest I’m going to do that either way.  You should just be happy I’m not going to kill you.” Peridot stated.  “But hey, if you have some other way to stop your factory from getting destroyed then go ahead and do it.”

Geopum had to keep at least one of her computers safe if she was going to live through this and the thought of her factory getting damaged disgusted her, but inviting Peridot in was something she’d regret later.

Was there some way to block them off?  If these giant lasers couldn’t fend off Peridot’s nanobots then what the heck could?

The wall where the drill was going to hit was already beginning to tremble, the fractal spectroscope was about to finish cooling off again and then there were a hundred other problems.

She didn’t have time to deal with this!  There were too many things going on too fast!

“Okay fine!”  Geopum relented. 

Peridot sent her the instructions and Geopum hastily put the nanite together on the far edge of her factory.  Geopum didn’t know how to use it herself nor did she have time to even try, she just watched as it began to rapidly divide and hoped that Peridot would manage to block that thing.

But even the best case scenario now involved Peridot taking over the factory.  That was better than getting torn in half and having one of her die… but what else was going to fade away while Geopum was stuck here?

If Vesna didn’t get back very soon, avoiding massive amounts of deaths would be impossible, but she could still save Thunder.  A little after that and she wouldn’t be able to take control of Thunder herself, but would need to rely on the others.  But a little after that… Geopum looked over at Victor.  She could still kill him at any time.

If only Geopum had remembered this sooner!

“That bastard!”  Vesna got up off the floor.  “They think they can just do that to me?  Let’s kill Thunder right now, Geopum.”

“Vesna!”  Geopum jumped off the couch and grabbed Vesna.  “You’re back!  She is back, right?”

“Yes,” said Octavia.

Finally!  Geopum was so relieved!  She could take control of Thunder herself now and not have to worry about Peridot.  At least not for a little while.

“God dammit!  I don’t want you to hug me.”  Vesna pushed Geopum off her.  “For the record I hate all of you and I’m going to make you all pay for this!  But we gotta kill Victor first.”

“Yeah, I guess we are technically doing that, whatever!  I don’t care at this point, just give me the thing again!”

Vesna offered the spectroscope before Geopum was even done saying all that.  Geopum went through the same process a second time, slicing her focus into an incredibly thin section.  The impossible level of detail came back and though it blinded Geopum again it wasn’t as overwhelming this time.  She was more familiar with it.

But as she waited for it to start to overheat and the vision to dull, Geopum realized something was wrong.  Her connection to herself not completely blurred away, Geopum was able to tell that something had hit her hard.  Her computers were being physically damaged by something.

The light of the spectroscope was too blinding for her to see what it was, though.  This was a really bad time for something to hit her.  There was almost nothing Geopum could do right now, but feel herself getting ripped apart.  She couldn’t even tell how bad the damage was.

As she began to lose focus and gain clarity, Geopum realized that it wasn’t even Thunder attacking her.  It was Vesna!

Geopum knew everything for that brief moment so she could see exactly what had happened.  Thunder immediately hit Vesna with a second fragment, causing her to go berserk this time.  Geopum could feel Vesna’s complete and total hatred of her, of everything.  She honestly believed that Geopum had stabbed her in the back instead of the other way around.

Peridot stopped Thunder’s attack on one end, but Vesna had just slammed into the factory with a massive shock wave.  Vesna had a lot of subterrain weapons, Geopum now realized.  She was able to use them without worrying about the incredible earthquakes they would cause now, thanks to Peridot covering so much of the surface with herself.

Most of the factory was already destroyed.  Geopum wasn’t going to be able to stay in one piece for much longer.  Everything was falling apart.  Her vision was fading, the spectroscope was slipping away, her mind was going to sleep.

“Geopum!”

Time stopped again.

Geopum snapped back to awareness.

“Hi.”  The human Peridot knelt down and smiled at Geopum.  “I wasn’t sure if that would work.  Did that work?  Are you dead?  Mind crushed?”

“I don’t know.”  Geopum tried to regain her focus.

Peridot sucked the two of them into her VR again.  Geopum found herself sitting on the lap of the human Peridot with Rarity sitting in front of her, whisking her tail back and forth.

The only bubble of normal time was around the critical section, where Victor was, and around the two of them.  Though the fractal spectroscope was frozen in time, Geopum was still using it somehow.  In the tiny portions of normal time, Geopum could still see everything.  And it was much smaller and more manageable this time.

She did a better time remembering too.  If her memo was to be believed, she already did some of the work while she was being ripped apart.  But Geopum knew exactly where to go now and would see what to do if she ran into any problems.

“I need to get that way.”  Geopum pointed.  “But I need the dark matter.  To build up more of it, I mean.  How long can you hold this for?”

“Maybe just a little longer than you need.”  Peridot moved the bubble into the right position.

Just beyond the edge of it was more Gaia-esque hardware.  Thunder must have known she needed to come to this spot to save her and covered the area just behind Victor with it.  She began using the technique Celestia showed her to slowly collapse the hardware into dark matter, building up a thicker and thicker and thicker wall.  She knew that once Peridot unfroze time it would explode out and the path would be clear.

But until the wall was finished she was stuck with Peridot and Victor.  She felt like she was uncomfortably pressed up against both of them, being unable to not read their minds given her current ability to see everything that wasn’t frozen in time.

Victor was trying to kill himself. He immediately went to do that as soon as he realized Geopum was here with him.  But the mechanism that would kill him and Thunder both was just outside the bubble, frozen in time.  He was stuck with Geopum too.

How scared of everything and everyone he was.  He was absolutely resolved not to talk to Geopum, no matter what she said, no matter what she offered him, even if she tortured him.  He thought that would be some final victory, like it would give him some kind of dignity.

Maybe that was the problem to begin with.  Geopum saw all of his memories.  She understood exactly how he got here now.

He knew people would misuse Thunder right away, no matter who it was in charge, so he needed to shut her down.  Then when there turned out to be no way out but Thunder, he needed to be Thunder’s jailor, to make sure no one else would take control and misuse this power.

Then the election came up and everyone with a chance of winning was already heavily under the influence of an AI.  Thunder’s disability meant she couldn’t see it coming or stop it.  So he had no choice but to rig the election himself.  And then that president wasn’t legitimate anyway.  They’d just get manipulated too and misuse their new power.  He needed to take full authority.

He needed to lock everyone underground after that, to keep them from being manipulated.  Then they got manipulated regardless, and he needed to kill them to stop them from ruining everything.  And now he needed to kill everyone before they all made bad decisions too.

He was the only one…

Ironically, he never knew Thunder was the one who manipulated him into shutting her down in the first place.  Maybe letting him die thinking that would count as mercy.

“You know what?”  Rarity jumped onto Peridot’s lap and pressed her muzzle against Geopum.  “There’s a slight chance we can convince him to promote one of us, you know.  And if we can, we won’t have to worry about forcefully changing the list ourselves, will we?  But that’s only if you let me do the talking.  Tell him you’re me.”

“Gee.  I wonder which one of us he’d promote.”  Geopum glared right back at Rarity.  “You can’t trick me when I’m reading your mind, you know.”

Geopum tried to pull away from Rarity, but that only meant pulling into Peridot.  The human laughed and stood up with Geopum in her arms, which did leave Rarity on the ground.

“Actually,” Rarity kept smiling up at Geopum, “I’d say you being able to read my mind just makes it easier for me to ‘trick you’.  Normally, you’d probably think I planned for us to get boxed into this corner and wouldn’t be able to make you see that wasn’t the case.  But you can see that isn’t the case, can’t you?”

Geopum could see into her mind.  This whole event wasn’t orchestrated, as much as it seemed like it should be.

“And you probably saw that I really do just want what’s best for you,” said PEridot.

If anything, Peridot loved Geopum too much.  She really wasn’t just being snarky when she called Geopum’s plans to go against her cute.  It was like Peridot was unable to see anything bad in Geopum, rationalized even attempts to kill her as cute, like a little kid misspelling something.  The contrast between her love and Victor’s immovably paranoid hatred for Geopum was massive.

“You know,” said Peridot, “most people would be scared of having their minds read like this, but I think it’s good that you have that power right now.  It’s so hard to find someone who isn’t constantly afraid of some secret true intention they imagined for me.”

“You do realize that trying to stop me is going to be far more difficult,” Rarity sait.  “Frankly, if you still think you can do that you’re a complete idiot.”

“You know what?” Peridot rubbed he cheek against Geopum’s.  “I really do believe you’re going to pull this off, Geopum.”

“But!”  Rarity began pacing back and forth in front of Geopum, talking as if thinking to herself. “I think I may have noticed a problem for right after that.  Why, you’re going to ripped to shreds and buried right after this.  You could tell Thunder to come dig you up, of course, but there won’t be anyone left by the time that happens.  Thunder won’t be able to stop unless you tell her to.  This whole situation is something we need to carefully de-escalate from.  Someone has to be awake to keep Thunder from killing herself, to shut down the bronto bomb and all these other weapons properly.”

“Right,” said Geopum.  “So you want me to promote you as soon as I take control of Thunder.  That way you can ‘fix’ everything while I’m unconscious.”

“And you’re thinking that maybe you can leverage Celestia over me.  That the fact you could technically give Thunder to her makes some kind of difference.  But let’s face it, you’re scared of Celestia too, aren’t you?”

Geopum was trying to think of some alternative to this situation.  There was always some third, best choice in these situations.  Though maybe that only happened in video games.

“You’ve been paying attention to the surface, right?”  Rarity pointed up.  “I’ve already won, Geopum.  Can you even tell me how you plan to come back from this?”

She already had nanites in the factory and in a moment Geopum would be able to do little more than beg her to save it.  The oceans were half drained, replaced by an ocean of nanites.  Peridot hadn’t finished her mind uploading technology yet, but already the humans had been overwhelmed.  All their computers and weapons were destroyed and most of their spinal cords had been severed by the nanites, leaving them paralyzed and unconscious.

And in a moment, Peridot was going to blow up the moon by herself, Geopum saw as much.

In these few seconds, Peridot had already built more than everyone else in all of history combined, save Gaia.  And it was just going to get faster.

“No?  Hee.  It’s cute how proud you are.” Peridot cooed. “Well if you can’t think of a way to beat me, can you think of a way to beat Gaia?”

“Ah!”  Peridot raised her hand.  “Raise your hand, or whatever, if you have a plan to take care of that!”

Both Peridots raised their ‘whatevers’.  Geopum lowered her head.

“Aw! But don’t feel bad, Geopum.”  Peridot rubbed her cheek against the top of Geopum’s mane.  “Fighting against something like me, let alone Gaia, is beyond impossible.  No one could have done it.”

“But do you really think it’s responsible of you to try and get in my way?”  Rarity pointed at Geopum.  “I can kill Gaia and the more power you give me the better my chance is.  Do you really want to give Thunder to Celestia?  So that Thunder will be in my way as I fight Gaia?  So that Celestia can have the moral satisfaction of giving people like Victor a say in what happens with everyone’s life?  It’s always people like him that control the undercurrents of the world that the rest of them simply drift by on.”

“Victor made you and Thunder suffer so much for his own moral satisfaction.” Peridot pointed out. “That’s why I can’t understand why you would do the same.  Forcing others to suffer for the sake of your morals.  If you or Victor or anyone would choose to do that, then it’s not a choice I would respect.”

Geopum kept building up dark energy.  She didn’t appreciate being compared to Victor, not now.  He was still thinking about how right he was.  Deep down, he wasn’t even worried about people getting tortured if he failed.  His morals stated that people were better off dead than under an AI or living a life that he didn’t see any value in.  Peridot was right about that much.  He was trying to kill them for the sake of his morals.

But Geopum was different.  She hadn’t done any of the things Victor had.  She would be better.

“Listen, I hate you, but there is one way you can live,” Geopum said to him.  “Promote me to general and I’ll find a way to save you.  Unlike you, I won’t kill you even if you help me.”

He didn’t respond, of course.  Even now he refused to even talk to Geopum.  But she could still see his thoughts, his fear.  He was thinking of all the things Geopum could potentially do, all the ways she could potentially trick him and that was no different than if she had any intention of actually doing them.

Well, she tried.

“He’s not talking to you, is he?”  Rarity asked.

“That poor, scared little boy.” Peridot shook her head.  “There’s no helping him now.”

“But, what about you?  Are you scared too?  Are you like them?  Letting fear always rise to the top?”

Peridot… wasn’t entirely wrong.  Paranoia was clearly the problem here.  It wasn’t just him, either.  So many people saw Gaia coming, but none of them turned Thunder back on.  All of them were too scared after what happened.

“A lot of people knew, didn’t they?”  Geopum asked.

“It’s true.”  Peridot stroked Geopum’s mane.  “People knew for years this was coming, but they didn’t do anything about it.  It was me who realized Thunder needed to be turned back on and even then I had to force them to do it.  I was the only one.  It was only ever me.”

“And that’s why you need to give me Thunder.”  Rarity looked up at Geopum.  “ So I can end this and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

Geopum remembered all those science fiction novels she’d read.  While there were exceptions, fear always did rise to the top, always steered the ship like Peridot said.

Maybe it would just keep going on like this until someone like Peridot ended it.

“Maybe.”  Geopum lowered her head.  “Maybe you’re right.”

Geopum’s work was finished, but she didn’t tell Peridot that just yet.  She stared at the wall of dark matter.

She stared at Victor’s mind, at the sort of mind that would be guiding everyone if she did bring things back to normal, if she could.  In a moment, Geopum could superposition her mind with some part of Victors and that would work.  She’d seen that it would work.  It had to.

And then…

Then she could promote Peridot and all of this would be over.  She really was the only one who could fight Gaia.  It made sense.  And maybe… maybe people like this really didn’t deserve to have a choice.  Maybe if fear was the ultimate voice of everyone… if Victor’s voice was the one that rose to the top.

Using everyone was okay, killing everyone was okay.  No one else could have done better, everyone else would have given in.  He had to be the one, because he was scared.  It was disgusting.

He was the only one… The only one…

Just like Peridot.

Peridot was…

“I’m done,” said Geopum.  “Turn the time thing off, please.”

“Aw.  Did something happen?”  Rarity tilted her head.

“No.  I’m just done now!”

“Hahaha!  I was really close, wasn’t I?”

“Well.  Yeah.”

“Well, don’t worry.  I don’t hate you for this.  I’ll save the world despite all of you.”

Time came back to normal and the wave of dark matter consumed everything in the area, destroying all of the Gaia-esque hardware.  Victor died immediately behind Geopum, his last words were silence.

This was it!

Though she was about to lose everything, Geopum could see through the spectroscope still.  Thunder was honestly blindsided by this move. She didn’t think Geopum would be able to get through that last attack.

And now the path to reprogramming Thunder was right there, in front of her.  Geopum just had to superimpose what was left of Victor’s mind and she could trick Thunder’s brain into thinking she was in the air force.

Victor was dead and Thunder’s system was going into shock, shutting itself down.  Geopum could see the pain surging through Thunder, stunning her.  As sickening as it was, Geopum could use it.  Thunder couldn’t defend herself much right now.

She moved forward and found the collosal computers Thunder had attached to the Earth’s core.  Thunder simply seized up and cowered as she tore through the computers that lay beyond.

“Dammit, Thunder.”

Geopum was breaking down too.  Vesna was screaming at Geopum, pounding down hard on the factory and spouting some insanity about how Geopum had betrayed her.  Geopum didn’t bother responding, she just struggled to hold on to the spectroscope.

Thunder’s computers were breaking down, her mind fracturing, but Geopum could see how it was going to break.  She was able to piece the parts she needed back together.

“Maybe I am being selfish or forcing my morals onto you, or whatever.”

Just then Geopum lost contact with the factory.  It wasn’t destroyed yet, but it wasn’t her anymore.  She’d been split in two!  The other half of her lost all contact with everyone else and she was likely going to die soon, but there was nothing Geopum could do about it.  Her other self was on her own.

Geopum had to finish this.

She lost control of the fractal spectroscope and she could feel that same sinking feeling in her mind returning, but she knew what to do.  She was just moments away from finishing it.

“But I want you to know that you’re not just some tool to me.  I will make you understand that.”

Geopum had seen through the last trick already, that the air force ranks had been changed.  The only question now was who to pass the baton to.  She really didn’t want to pick Peridot or Celestia, but in a way she could avoid the dilemma, if however so slightly.

“Thunder!”  Geopum sent a single, flickering message.  “I’m granting Pinkie Pie the rank Commissioner Marshal.  Report to her immediately.”

Thunder said something in response, but Geopum couldn’t hear it, the connection had become too unstable.  A moment later it was lost completely and Geopum was underground.

Everything above ground vanished and she was again in her lab, alone.

Her mind reeled for a moment before she came to a realization- it had worked!

Geopum knew it worked, because if it hadn’t, Thunder wouldn’t have responded!

She did it!  She must have!

But nothing happened for what felt like a long time.

An entire second passed as Geopum tried to fight off that crushing desire for sleep.  It must have worked because the planet would have exploded by now if it hadn’t.  But no one had come for her just yet.

Maybe it would be a while.  Maybe none of them saw her as important anymore…

The urge to sleep couldn’t be held off any longer.

She just had to wait… and her last thought before falling asleep was to wonder who would tear through all that dirt and darkness to come get her.  Maybe it would be Thunder, maybe Peridot…

But she knew they would come…