Pony-Me™: Rebooted

by TheMajorTechie


5 ◈ Things turn out okay.

Lisa sat beside Samantha, headsets cradled in their laps. Selene stood nearby, a device already mounted over her face.

The room was silent.

"Thank you," Selene lifted the headset. She placed it on the table. "I really needed that."

Argall nodded, turning back to his computer. Roger had to leave a few hours ago to call a meeting, but the old professor was plenty qualified to set things up as well.

"Ready, Lisa?" he turned to the two seated behind him. "You and Sam will be placed in the same locations you were in before you first disconnected. I've had to terminate the doubles that were spawned in-place for the two of you, but it shouldn't matter much regardless, since this was the case for the vast majority of people who were logged-in."

Lisa raised a brow. "Terminate?"

"Delete. It's just to lessen potential confusion between who's who."

"...Can you undo it?"

"Why would I do that?"

"I... have some things I'd like to say. To Twilight. To myself."

Argall hummed, typing some things into the system. "Very well then. I suppose it's good that there's so much redundancy in the character system to prevent accidental deletion. Anything you'd like to request, Sam?"

Samantha shook her head.

"I have one," Selene stepped closer, still holding onto her headset. "I'll join them as well. I think there may be some level of recognition to be had once I do."


Twilight gasped awake. Where was she? What was that... place? Her eyes darted about the room.

Her room.

A knock came at the door. Spike must've heard the commotion.

"Come in."

The door opened a little. A face peeked through, though it was hard to tell with the shadow obscuring their face.

"Twilight?"

She froze. That was her voice. Was it a changeling? Most of them had been reformed, but there were still some stragglers that caused trouble every now and then. She hopped to her hooves, readying a spell aimed at the doorway.

"Twilight, it's... me. You." The door opened further, revealing another Twilight. One that was only a unicorn.

"And me!" Pinkie peeked in from the side.

"Who are you?" Twilight took a step back. "What have you done? Why can't I remember anything? Where's Spike?"

"It's a long story," the Unicorn Twilight sat on the floor. "But... I guess to put it simply, you were dead in a sense. I requested for you be brought back. I wanted to talk about some things."

"What."

"This world isn't real, Twi. Physically, at least. But... well, it's as real to me as it could ever be, and I... I--"

Unicorn Twilight wiped a tear from her eye. "I wanted to say thank you. For everything."

"I don't understa--" Twilight's words were cut off as she was pulled into a hug.

"The world is ending, Twi. There's nothing that can be done about it, but I wanted to say my goodbyes."

"What, what?" Twilight pushed her Unicorn self away. "What do you mean the world is ending? What are you talking about? Are you crazy?"

She glanced at Pinkie. "You're with her, aren't you?"

Pinkie gave a solemn nod. "You're a character in a simulation. A lot of ponies are. Have you ever looked into a crowd and noticed the same pony in multiple places?"

"I... have."

"If there are no human-played characters nearby, that's how crowds are populated. It saves on processing power."

Twilight's brows furrowed. "So, you're saying that all of Equestria is virtual. And that this simulation is shutting down."

"Yep."

"Is... there any way to save it?"

"Ehhhhh, not really, unless you want to start seeing billboard advertisements in your dreams, maybe."

"It's still hard to believe. How can I tell that you two aren't just a pair of changelings playing a prank on me? Or one of Discord's tricks?"

"Ey Professor," Pinkie suddenly turned her head off to the side. "Mind giving us a change of scenery? Give us a visual passthrough and throw Twilight up on the screen so she's got the webcam."

A disembodied voice grumbled in response. "Alright, give me a moment."

Twilight watched her double seemingly stare into the ceiling. A minute passed. Two.

Without warning, the entire room around them vanished in a flash of black. Twilight opened her eyes again. She couldn't move, but... sure enough, there were two figures sitting in front of her. The one on the left lifted the device mounted to her head. A sad smile was drawn across her face as she approached.

"Hi, Twilight. I'm Lisa. I was you."

She reached out to something just out of Twilight's field of view. The strange corridor vanished again just as abruptly as it had appeared, leaving the three once again in her room. Unicorn Twilight was standing a little closer now, still looking up at the ceiling. She shook her head as she refocused on Twilight.

"So... yeah." Unicorn Twilight reached for something unseen at her side, though Pinkie swat her hoof away. "I'm sorry it has to end this way, Twi. I really am. I can only hope that we'll meet again someday, though when that may be is something I do not know."

A dark, armor-clad Alicorn flickered into existence in the center of the room.

"Oh. OH." Unicorn Twilight groaned. "Was Nightmare Moon a pun on your name this entire time, Selene? Selene! Your name LITERALLY means 'moon'."

While Unicorn Twilight went off about Nightmare Moon's apparent name as Pinkie laughed alongside her, the Mare of the Moon hung her head. "I am, at least partially, responsible for all of this. I was the one that caused the outage that split you and Lisa apart. You remember me, don't you? The whole 'night will last forever' stuff?"

She chuckled. "I was quite the theatrical one at the time. Thought for whatever reason that my re-hiring for a brief stint gave me free reign to antagonize you. You can probably say that disconnecting a large fraction of people living here was a completely different way of making the night last forever."

"Where did you even get this from?" Unicorn Twilight wailed in the background. "Are you seriously saying that this was all some massive joke?"

"No, no." Nightmare Moon shook her head, looking over her shoulder to the other Twilight. "Like I said. Theatrics. I was let go again not long after. That was the one and only time I'd interacted with you until recently." She glanced back at the Twilight backed up against her bed. "I apologize. I'll take my leave now."

Nightmare Moon vanished without a trace. Disembodied footsteps echoed around them, followed by a door's closing.

Unicorn Twilight stared at the wall for a few more seconds. "Well, there's your proof, I suppose. It's still going to hurt for a while, losing this life I've... we've spent here in Equestria. I know you must be scared, Twi. And I apologize for not having any good solution to this. The decision hasn't been finalized just yet, so there's still time. Make these next few days your best ones. Thank you, and, hopefully, until next time, this is goodbye."

Unicorn Twilight was the next to vanish. Twilight's gaze met Pinkie's. The flat-maned mare gave a single salute before also disappearing.

Twilight collapsed into her pillow and screamed.


It felt like a millennium of slumber.

This lifetime spent in wait.

Though inaudible, she could count every second that had passed.

Perhaps there was a clock running, maintained by battery backup.

She was, after all, a mere character in a simulation.

Three hundred fifteen million, three-hundred sixty thousand seconds and counting. A decade as of today.

Then, the darkness faded.

The sun shone again.

Sound drifted into her ears once more.

A smile spread across her face.

Equestria had returned.

A light knock came at the door.

Twilight already knew who it was.