Discord floats the DVD over to Celestia, who takes it within her golden aura. The Overseer then takes a deep breath and sighs sadly before saying:
"I have a lot to explain when it comes to your Specimen Implants, but, to start... they're your cutie marks."
"Wait… what? You mean those marks on their flanks are their implants?" Helena questions. "How did you manage that?"
"Specimen Implants? Discord, why do you make it sound like we're… test subjects?" Twilight questions.
"It's simple, Twilight. As Helena explained before, all of the Arks are injected with life thanks to us Overseers. However, every injected creature has what we call a Specimen Implant. These serve as your identification, but it also allows one to access the inventory of another. You can even store items and such within it; think of it as being similar to a unicorn who can store things within a pocket dimension. That 'dimension' is your implants. All creatures on Equus can access this implant, but they remain hidden from even their owners because of me."
Discord then looks over to Spike, all while everyone else listens intently.
"Come here, Spike. A non-pony is the perfect way to show how I hide your implants," Spike heeds to the Overseer's request and approaches them. "While the cutie marks of ponies hide theirs, non-ponies like you…." Discord then touches Spike's left arm with a single digit of his eagle's talon, touching a specific scale. Upon contact, the present scale starts to morph and change into a diamond-shaped metal that was now etched onto the young dragon's arm.
"This is the implant. It contains all that one needs to know about you and Is no doubt how Helena found out about you when she accessed my terminal," Discord says as he shows Spike's arm to everyone else present.
The young draconian starts to scratch it, "It's itchy; it reminds me of when I molted."
Twilight gets up, and the alicorn makes their way towards her number one assistant. She leans into the now revealed implant to get a closer observation.
"Y-you're saying that we all have this thing attached to us?"
"Yes, Twilight. However, as I said before, a pony's implant is their cutie mark," Discord then points his lion's paw to the lavender alicorn's flank, her cutie mark, "May I?"
Twilight nods in response as she turns her flank to bring her mark closer to the Overseer, albeit with a slight blush forming on her face.
Much like what he had done with Spike, Discord taps Twilight's cutie mark. But unlike what happened with the draconian's scale, the lavender mare's cutie mark didn't morph into a diamond-shaped metal object. Her mark still attained its form, but it now became metal that was etched to her flank and started to give off the same light as the young dragon's implant.
"D-Discord… I can't believe what I'm seeing. Our marks truly are our implants," Twilight comments in utter disbelief. Helena flies over to get a closer look and starts to scan the newly revealed Specimen Implant.
"Oh my god, it truly is an implant. It might not be diamond-shaped like mine was back when I was still human, or Spike's, but it's exactly the same. Her inventory and information are all accessible. Wait… oh my..."
"What's wrong?" Twilight questions.
"Nothing's wrong, perse'. You defeated Discord! This Ark's Overseer! That's fantastic!"
“I’m right here, you know…” Discord says annoyingly.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, Twilight, who else managed to defeat Discord?" Helena questions.
"Well… my friends also count since we defeated Discord together. Celestia and Luna also beat him once before. Why?"
"Ooh! Ooh! don't forget that time when Tirek-"
"Tirek didn't actually defeat me, Pinkie Pie. It was all an act on my part," Discord interjects.
"This is perfect!" Helena shouts gleefully. "That means you all can ascend off this Ark and come to The Island installation! I'll have to readjust your Ark's ascension protocol."
Twilight and her friends look at each other momentarily before turning back to the AI; saying in unison:
"Huh?"
"Oh, right… I forgot to talk about that during my story," Helena responds as she flies high above everyone else present, "The Ascension Protocol allows a survivor to travel from one Ark to another after they meet certain conditions. Now, normally one would need to defeat the Guardians to gain access to the Overseer. However, since you already defeated said Overseer… congratulations! Your implants are now eligible for a transfer. You actually would've been sent off to another Ark were it not for someone disabling it," The AI glances towards Discord for a brief moment, then returns her gaze to the Element Bearers, "Then again, it's a good thing he did. Equus isn't connected to the appropriate Arks one must become attuned to in order to return to Earth."
"Appropriate Arks?" Celestia questions.
"Yes. You see, The Island, Scorched Earth, and Aberration installations are the appropriate Arks that act as a sort of pathway to take the survivor back to Earth. There, we can work together to purify the infection and save the planet! Once that's accomplished, we can use the Alpha Terminal to bring all the Arks back home."
Suddenly, Applejack raises a forehoof, to which Helena questions:
"What's up?"
"Well, let's go back ah' bit to what Discord said earlier," Applejack then points her forehoof towards the Overseer, "Yall said that yas 'played the part' when Tirek betrayed ya.' Not to mention when he, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow took yer' magic away. What exactly do ya' mean by that?"
Discord froze upon hearing Applejack's inquiry as he started to get very nervous. Of course, everyone picks up on this, which causes Helena to say:
"Now that you mention it… this Ark follows that show accurately, precisely even. Every moment from every season is played out the same. I took a moment to bring it up and watched it in mere nanoseconds while you were explaining things to them. They imitate their lives in the show to absolute perfection. That can't be right though, once a creature is injected into an Ark, they live their lives as they intend to. Sure, the Ark itself is a lie, but they have free reign to do whatever they want until they grow old and die or what have you. Discord, what in the world did you do to them?"
"I… I made sure that they followed the show by leaving suggestions in their implants, their cutie marks. This is why ponies feel cutie marks represent their destinies. In a way… it is. I forced them to live their lives in tandem with the show."
As this is going on, everyone else listens attentively and releases a gasp upon hearing those words.
"Oh my god… you didn't. You're crazy! The Arks are already a lie, but you practically doubled it for these poor souls," Helena comments.
"Yes… I reset their lives when they metaphorically reach the show's end and set everything back to the beginning. For instance: Twilight starts in Canterlot; she meets her friends, defeats Nightmare Moon—all the way up until she becomes a full-grown alicorn princess and has a student of her own. All of you sing a song called The Magic of Friendship Grows. After this is done, I force the Ark to reset itself, and she, along with everyone else here, are reinjected into the Ark. The cycle then repeats itself. Their memories are wiped clean from their previous lives, and their souls remain preserved inside the Overseer's Laboratory. I upload their souls into each and every one of their implants. All life on Equus, for that matter. The Advanced Humans possessed such powerful technology that they can create souls."
"WHAT?!" Everyone shouts in unison.
"Wait a second!" Luna exclaims. "What about us and our dear sister?! Art we not long-living alicorns who hath ruled over Equestria for over a thousand years?! Is that not what Celly and I hath always done?!"
"B-but, I watched Canterlot be built from the ground up after I banished my sister to the moon. Her face was present there every night and-"
"That's not real, Celestia. You and your sister did not live for over a thousand years in this life or any of your previous lives. The only time it ever happened, which it still technically hasn't, was in the show. None of you alicorns live for that long; not even dragons do. You all don't truly get to live your full lives because of the reset. The only ones who get that luxury are those depicted in the show to do so. As I said earlier, all of you are acting to the command of your implants. Everything you all do is in accordance with the show."
Tears were starting to go down the cheeks of the ponies, and dragon, as Rainbow Dash in particular grits her teeth and exclaims:
"All the pain we felt! The hardships we went through! The achievements we've made! It's all meaningless?! Not true?! You just reset our lives and send us back to the beginning?!"
"Yer' saying that ah' lost my parents many times before?! Every time you reset this Ark, me and ma' siblings have ta' lose them over and over again?!" Applejack exclaims with tears pouring down.
"So when I became Celestia's student… a Princess… all the friends we've made… it was by design and not natural?" Twilight questions with tears pouring down like a river.
Many of them wanted to speak their minds, but there was one who got off of her flank and started to slowly walk towards Discord with tears pouring down: Celestia.
"How many times, Discord?"
"W-what?"
"How many times did you reset us? Because when you say 'reset,' I think... kill us!"
Everyone else gasps in unison as Celestia continues:
"You've said it yourself; none of us gets to live our lives to its fullest because of your reset. But, we are still living beings, so how exactly do you reset us? Let me tell you what I'm starting to think: If our implants truly hold our information and souls, you'd need to retrieve them. Here's the thing, how much are you willing to bet that we'd die the moment you removed our implants forcefully?!"
"C-Celly… please…"
"Don't! Celly! Me! Answer me right now, Discord! Overseer! Whatever it is I should call you now!" Celestia was practically on the verge of using her Canterlot Voice as she continued to shout at the Overseer. "How many times did you reset us?!"
Helena suddenly lets loose a dinging sound, and an exclamation mark pops up onto the AI's visor. She flies over to Celestia's side and says:
"Discord, the Arks have existed for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I don't even have enough information for it on the Alpha Terminal. How many times do you even recall doing this reset?"
Discord takes on a saddened expression as he slumps down in defeat and looks over everyone in the room. His eyes widened when he saw her, Fluttershy. He brings both his lion's paw and eagle's talon up to his face in shame and finally answers:
"I… I don't keep track of it anymore, but when I last counted… one point two million."