As before, it was very dark. But now, there was an angry storm in the sky. The gray clouds rolled by so rapidly, they seemed to boil. Dust swept along the ground, and feathery bolts of purple lightning stretched across the sky.
Fizzy, Discord, Caballeron, and Yearling had found themselves in a forest of light. On the floor were messages, each one contained in a window. Luminous rays ran upward from these to other messages. More rays spread from those messages to even more, and continued outward like the branches of a fractal tree.
“Where are we this time?” Discord asked.
Fizzy queried her gauntlet. It displayed only three characters.
“A 4chan board,” Fizzy said uneasily.
“Is that bad?” Yearling asked.
“Not bad, just– not for everycreature. Many would call it the Mos Eisley Cantina of the internet, so watch your step. This place can be a little rough.”
“Mos Eisley?” Yearling asked.
“Let’s go,” Fizzy sighed.
Caballeron said, “If there’s a cantina, fine by me, I could use a shot of ‘Hoofprint Hombre’ right about now.”
Fizzy pressed onward with Discord close behind, while Yearling and Caballeron deduced that the Mos Eisley Cantina was probably a hole-in-the-wall establishment somewhere in Klugetown. They walked slowly through the glowing forest with a sinking feeling that something horrendous could come out of the shadows in the blink of an eye. There was an odd sense of hatred in the breezy air, and it seemed to be directed at them. Fizzy spotted a message mentioning Applejack. As she approached to read it in detail, they heard the sound of jet engines quickly growing louder. Before anycreature could look to see what it was, a spread of napalm came from seemingly nowhere and incinerated the entire tree directly in front of Fizzy.
The team leaped back, looking towards the source of the incendiary stream. A few meters above the ground was a peculiar flying machine, like an attack helicopter but with no visible rotor. Simple black geometric shapes fused together to give it a menacing aura, and its edges were outlined by white stripes of light. As it remained affixed to the sky, the bizarre ship kicked up particles of residual data from the ground. Its unseen turbines whined as it swept the ground with a searchlight, examining different trees.
“What is that thing?” Yearling asked.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t look friendly,” Caballeron replied.
The vehicle made a turn and paused, shining its light directly on the group. Along with the downwash from the hovering craft, a feeling of terror swept over the four creatures, who remained perfectly still.
“Umm, what’s our best move?” Yearling asked, staring wide-eyed at the U.F.O. as it pitched forward and accelerated towards them.
“Run!” Fizzy yelled.
They hastily sprinted away from the vehicle just as it spat flame towards them like a dragon protecting a treasure. Yearling tossed her disc at the thing, but it simply ricocheted off with a flash of diffracted incandescence. “Take cover,” Fizzy yelled as more gunships descended from the sky.
“Is that the Tantabus?” Yearling asked.
Fizzy replied, “Worse. Moderators!”
The whole area was turning into a warzone now, with dozens of vehicles setting sections of the forest ablaze. Seeing a cluster of trees up ahead, Fizzy ordered, “Get in there and hide!”
The others did as they were told. The Moderator stopped and hovered for a moment, training its light on the thicket. It then turned and moved away in search of other targets. Caballeron asked, “Why are matadors burning the trees?”
Fizzy corrected, “Moderators. And they’re not burning. They’re deleting.”
“You call that deleting?” Yearling asked.
“Down here, to us, it looks like that. But on the outside, to them, they’re just typing on a keyboard.”
“Well, if Virtual 4chan shows up as a vacation destination, I’m definitely giving this place a one-star for personal safety concerns.” Discord shrugged.
Yearling uttered, “Listen. The attacks have stopped.”
“Interesting,” Fizzy said. She cautiously stepped out from the relative safety of the group of trees and began reading messages. New trees were growing, replacing the ones that had been destroyed, and nothing was coming to immolate them. The rest of the group slowly followed Fizzy out into the open. Images of familiar faces were visible on some of the messages in the trees. Fizzy eventually spotted one that said, ‘Mods are asleep. Post Ponies.’ She noted the time-stamp. “February, 2011.”
Discord said, “Oh, Fizzy, you didn’t even need to run from them. They have no idea what a Kirin is. Same for me. Because I wasn’t introduced until seas– I mean, I hadn’t met Twilight and her friends yet.”
“That does it,” Yearling growled. “You two have been talking strange since we got here. What…is…going…on?”
Fizzy said, “Please don’t ask that.”
Yearling replied, “I understand you’re the Starswirl of the internet, but I never go digging until I’ve done meticulous research first.”
“Miss Yearling, I came to your room to fix your laptop. I didn’t plan on any of this!”
“Why are you two being so secretive?” she yelled.
Discord’s temper was rising now. “You really don’t want to know.”
“What is the Tantabus trying to accomplish?” Yearling yelled.
Discord sighed, “Imagine, a foolish captain causes an anomaly to grow in strength the further back in time it goes. The anomaly becomes so large, it reaches his home planet, and prevents the very building blocks of life from forming. His world remains dead, and his entire race never existed.”
“What?” Yearling asked, dumbfounded.
“Oh, nevermind, just think about what Starlight Glimmer used Starswirl’s time spell for.”
“But on the internet? It’s just a bunch of creatures arguing.”
“Come now, A.K. Yearling. We’re standing in the largest library ever created. You of all ponies should understand how important recorded history is.”
“Of course I–”
“With just one glyph sponged away from a stone, you might never find the switch that lets you out of a booby-trapped room. And then where would we be? No A.K. Yearling; Rainbow Dash never starts reading; the Tenochtitlan Basin in a perpetual inferno; no Daring Do; no Daring Do fandom; no foals inspired by her hijinks to follow in her hoofsteps; archeological finds remain undiscovered; dogs and cats living together; mass hysteria!”
“I know you’re getting at something, but you’re still being cryptic.”
“Please believe me when I tell you, it’s for your own”–Discord paused, almost gagging–“sanity.”
The three listened to him intently. “Do you want to wind up as mad as a hatter– a draconequus? Oh, it’s all easy for you, because you don’t know about it– don’t have to think about it– don’t have to worry about it! The worlds are more intertwined than you can possibly imagine. The beings here,” he pointed at a tree, “the ones creating these messages? They need us. Just as much as we need them.” Discord scratched his ear. “I hate being serious, it’s so uncomfortable. Let’s all have pumpkin spice pizza when we get back.”
Yearling stifled a laugh. “Are you saying I can’t handle the truth?”
Discord answered, “Even I am not entirely sure what the truth is down here. I thought I did, until Derpy showed up. We’re not just browsing through websites. We’re far deeper, and one wrong move really could destroy everything. That Auntie-toy-car of yours, the one that sent us here; it might be a computer, but it’s so much more. And might I suggest for future reference, that when there’s a Tantabus in the room, never say ‘existential crisis.’ We’re literally in the middle of one now.”
“It’s on the move again,” Caballeron said. He was beginning to grasp the nuances of what the Search Bar was telling him. “Pretty certain it’s a different message board on this ‘4chan.’”
Yearling took a deep breath. “That had better be the last room. All of this running is exhausting.”
Caballeron grinned, “Are you saying you’re getting too old for this?”
“I’ll be too old when I’m buried.”
Discord said, “Let’s get going, before another ‘flame war’ starts.”