Rosanne Smith stood by the door, slipping into her jacket.
“Goin’ already, Pretty Lady?”
She nodded at Wildcat. With Night being rejected or flat-out fired so often from every job she picked up, somebody would need to step up and fill in the gaps. It wasn’t like she could rely on her parents for money anymore, either. Joining Night’s ragtag group was pretty much cut her off from the rest of her family, after all.
“Bring home the leftovers.”
Rosanne rolled her eyes. Sometimes, it felt more like she was the one leading the group. No matter—all the better to show up Night one day. Maybe she’d even have the opportunity to finally split with her and Wildcat… come back to the life she once had.
She shook her head, reaching for the doorknob. She can’t be thinking these things, not when she was around Night or Wildcat!
Rosanne shot a blank stare at the wall across from her. The dinner rush would be coming soon, and she’d have to keep herself awake until at least then. For now, though, the place was quiet.
The door opened.
“Do you serve burgers here?” the customer slammed the counter. “’Cause I feel like havin’ a burger right about now.”
“And welcome to McNaldo’s to you too,” Rosanne deadpanned. “And no, we do not serve burgers. We are a pasta house.”
The man stomped off, grumbling something about customer service under his breath. People like him were the driving force behind her frustration—could they even read? Of course this restaurant didn’t serve burgers! Sure, it was fast food still to some extent, but really? If you see a place advertising buttered noodles and a pad thai meal deal on its windows, you do not waltz in and ask if they’ve got burgers. He didn’t even look at the menu!
Rosanne took a deep breath. The lengths she went to for a bit of money… and for what? Night? She couldn’t possibly spend the rest of her life working just for that idiot to splurge. And she still had her night job, too!
But, they were the most stable jobs she’d had since she quit her old one. Night didn’t seem to know where to look when it came to jobs. It was almost as if she was trying to be hired into a position that’d be computerized within a month! Then again, that was probably how she proved her point.
The door opened again. Another customer stepped up to the counter.
“Hello,” Rosanne sighed, “What will be your order tonight?”
“—and don’t forget to keep the strap tightened. We don’t use embedded transmitters anymore since they’re kinda intrusive, and we’re not using the full-body experience either, so if at any point the headset’s knocked off, your character’s gonna drop where they stand for a moment,” Lisa set her own headset over her eyes. “If at any point you feel that something’s wrong, tell me. In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for you.”
Elise watched her mentor pick up a well-worn controller. Robert and Damian were already getting their own headsets strapped on, from the looks of it, so she probably should as well. In any case, it’d be the first time she’d ever encountered virtual reality. Sure, there were still the finicky phone-based options floating around the market, but that was mostly shovelware as far as anyone was concerned.
She slipped the headset on. A light buzz lit up in the back of her mind for a moment before dying down. The dark screen inside faded to a viewfinder, allowing her to see her surroundings. Robert handed her a controller.
“Um… thanks.”
“No problem.”
A light blinked on the controller, synchronizing with one in her periphery inside the headset. Black once again replaced her view.
Twilight paced back and forth in front of the ruins of her castle. She paused, grumbling something under her breath before continuing. Even with the best protection spells she could cast, whoever… whatever it was that caused this was able to pulverize the structure like a sandcastle. Hay, given the revelations she had only a few years ago, it was quite likely that there was even an additional layer of protection on top of her spells… not that they actually worked, apparently. At any rate, she probably would begin rebuilding the castle herself!
Something stirred under the rubble. Twilight’s ears perked at the noise. Spike she knew was safe, but…
Her eyes widened. Lisa must’ve logged in! The last time she’d been in Equestria, she was in the castle! She burst into a trot, unfurling her wings and leaping into the ruins. A blinding glow emanated from among the crystalline shards, fading for a moment before the ground burst, letting loose an explosion that hurled fragments of the castle in every direction.
Lisa stood at the center of the explosion, with three foals huddled behind her.
“Y’know, you could’ve just teleported them out,” Twilight deadpanned, touching down in front of her counterpart. “Instead of… y’know, wrecking the place even more.”
“Hey, it’s not like we’re here to fix it or anything. C’mon, Twilight. Cheer up a little!”
“Mmm, about that,” Twilight hummed, “How many times has your home been blown sky-high?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know about the whole thing with Tirek and stuff. You know that it never actually happened. Anyway, we’re not here to talk. Let’s rebuild!”
The castle reappeared around them mere seconds later. Twilight blinked.
“…Excuse me?”
Lisa shrugged. “The backups might be gone for good, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have some files myself.”
“Then why did you bring the students with you?”
“Meet and greet. Say hi, Elise!”
Elise—Luster Dawn froze on hearing her name.
Twilight facehoofed. “Lisa, we’ve talked about this. You’re slipping back to that old mentality again. You can’t just get whatever you want without consequences! Sure, some of those consequences were good ones—hay, I wouldn’t even exist without one of them—but still! One of these days, trying to force things to happen the way you want them to happen is going to hurt somebody.”
She turned away from Lisa, disappearing down a hall.