With a shout, Barley leapt through the portal, flapping his wings to break his fall… only for Caramel to crash on top of him. Spinning end over end the two found themselves tangled in… wires?
Twilight sailed in after them, the portal closing behind her. She touched down and looked around.
“What… is this place?” she said.
“It, uh…” Barley looked around, trying to get a snarl of fiber-optic wires out of his vest. “It’s, a, uh…”
“A server room?” Caramel said, in confused awe.
Towering over the three ponies were line after line of humming black monoliths, pulsating with purple, pink, and teal lights beneath their metal casings.
“Is this… normal in your world?” Twilight asked, concerned.
“Uh, kind of, yeah.” Barley said, looking around, “...I think, anyway.”
“You don’t know?!” Twilight gaped.
“I’m a bartender!” Barley replied, waving his hoof, embarrassed. “Technical stuff like this was really more the speed of–”
“Fizzy!” Caramel shouted.
Twilight and Barley looked. She was pointing with one hoof towards a room hanging over the endless servers, a flickering blue light shining from within.
“You think that’s her?” Twilight asked, frowning.
“It looks like her nirik fire,” Barley said, hopeful.
“And it is her speed,” Caramel added, with a tired smile.
“Best lead we got,” Barley said, with a shrug.
“Then let’s check it out,” Twilight nodded, giving a nervous glare to the silent spires around her.
Without another word, the three set out towards the beacon.
“Look at that!” Fizzy shouted, laughing. “That’s great!”
On one of the many floating screens around her, Pinkie Pie had just fired another con-goer from her party cannon.
Fizzy spun in her chair, grinning like a madkirin, looking at all the sights. On one screen Princess Cadance skated across a roller derby rink while guests watched. On another, Trixie and Starlight were putting the final touches on a rocket while guests helped, and on a third, Iron Will hyped the crowd up as an airship hovering over the roof of the hotel had been converted into a wrestling arena.
It was all, unbelievably, amazingly cool.
And then a pounding on the door to her office interrupted her reverie.
“Fizzy!” Caramel’s muffled shout came through the door. “You in there, Fizz? We gotta talk.”
FIzzy groaned and rolled her eyes. With a sigh she pulled off her headset,and then stopped, frowning. After a moment, she put it down, and then patted her cheeks, before spinning the chair to face the door. With a burst of magic, the door flung itself open and Barley, rearing up to knock, fell into the room.
“Wondering when you’d get here.” Fizzy grinned.
“What is this place?” Caramel said, leaning down to offer Barley a hoof.
“My battle station!” Fizzy said, throwing her hooves into the air and giving a toothy smirk.
“Battle… you’re fighting someone?” Twilight said, concerned.
“No it’s– ugh.” Fizzy rolled her eyes. “It’s a gamer thing.”
“Like… Buckball?”
“No that’s– nevermind.” Fizzy shook her head, blue pixels of fire showering off of her. “This is where I can watch the whole con. Check it out!” She spun her chair around and pointed at one of the screens. On it some guests were standing, looking lost, on a rock. “Now watch this.”
There was a flare of blue fire next to Fizzy as a pen and pages levitated up next to her. With a click, the pen sped away. The guests on the screen stumbled all at once, the stone heaving beneath them. Within seconds the ridge they were standing on revealed itself to be a massive dragon, which took off into the air, the guests giving out silent cries as they clung on.
“See!” Fizzy spun her chair back around. “Isn’t that cool?”
“Fizz, they could get hurt!” Caramel said, alarm clear on her face.
“Uggggh!” Fizzy rolled her eyes and took the page and pen back in her grip. “‘Thankfully, despite the thrill of danger, none of the guests fell off or got hurt.’” She paused, looking at the page, and started scribbling again. “‘In fact, none of the guests at the con would get hurt and in fact never got hurt, miraculously healing any prior injury because the Great Sage Fizzyban cast a spell that protected them from all possible trouble. Even the Con Crud.’ There!” She looked up, glaring, unaware that on the monitor behind her a version of herself sporting a robe and a fine beard had appeared, waving at the guests as the dragon carried them away.
“FIzzy, that’s not–” Barley began.
“Oh shut up!” Fizzy said, her mane flaring. “I have it handled! I have a giant stack of pages right here, and I can do whatever I want!”
“Fizz, listen–”
“No!” Fizzy leapt from her chair, mane a pillar of sparkling blue fire. “You listen, or better yet.” She whirled around and waved a hoof at the screens, “Watch. Look at those guests! Look how excited they are! I made Equestria real, guys! Don’t you get it?”
“That might be part of the problem–” Twilight began, only for a muzzle to snap around her snout after a quick pen scratch.
“Don’t you guys trust me?” Fizzy asked, suddenly, looking vulnerable.
“We trust you, Fizz, but–”
“Oh, ‘but,’ right.” Fizzy rolled her eyes and began stalking around. “I’m sure you trust me with the AV equipment, right? You trust me to make sure the GoHs have coffee. But you don’t trust me with anything serious, right? ‘Oh, here’s Fizzy, she bailed us out during lockdown but now that we have the con we really wanted back we can just have her do errands!’ Just a goofy little kirin doing her stupid little streams and at the end of the day nothing–” she stomped a hoof, wheeling to face them.
“–she–” the hoof came down again, cracking the floor.
“–does–” her mane flared as a third stomp sent chunks flying.
“–matters.” The crack flared across the floor and her mane blazed almost to the ceiling.
When she looked up at Caramel and Barley, she couldn’t hide the tears turning to steam as they rolled down her face.
“Fizz… it’s not like that.” Barley said, quietly.
“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it.” Fizzy spat, before turning back to her chair. A few pen strokes later, and a swarm of small droids appeared, fixing the floor as they went.
Their chirps and clicks did not fill the silence.
Neither did Twilight’s grunts as she desperately fought with her muzzle.
Caramel looked at Barley, pain clear in her eyes. Barley met hers with shame.
“I did all this, you know.” Fizzy said, not turning the chair to face them as she spoke. “I did it all to make Ciderfest the best it could be.”
Caramel looked at Barley a second longer, and took a step forward.
“You know what, Fizz? You’re right!” Caramel said, giving her best, brave smile.
Twilight, still struggling with the muzzle, grunted in confusion.
Fizzy didn’t respond, only shifting in her chair.
“This con is actually amazing!”
Twilight redoubled her efforts to get free, mumbling something into her locked lips that sounded an awful lot like “But what about Grogar?”
“I have to admit,” Barley said, stepping forward and nodding to the monitor. The guests had stopped screaming in terror atop the dragon, instead screaming with excitement, “this con has been a wild ride.”
Fizzy snorted and grumbled.
“Puns, really?” Caramel grinned. “At a time like this?”
Barley shrugged and smiled. He took another step forward.
“Fizzy, listen… you were right. We didn’t pay enough attention to you.”
“Yeah,” Caramel said, her face getting more somber.
“Not only did we not really help you or pay attention to your ideas… but this isn’t just about the con is it?” Barley went on.
Fizzy was silent as stone behind her chair.
Caramel frowned, and took another step forward. “Past few years have been hard on you, haven't they?”
No reply came.
“I get it, that times are tough, and we were bad friends. You… you put everything into trying to make Ciderfest the best con it could be, to making everyone you could happy, and, well, look what happened! We ignored you and… then you turned around and threw together the best Ciderfest either of us have ever seen!” Caramel’s eyes glistened as she spoke, grinning wide.
Barley stepped in. “Truth is, Fizzy… we need you.We clearly need you more than you need us. Remember what happened the first time I tried to use Zoom?” He turned to Caramel, giving an awkward grin.
“Oh, that was a disaster. Those poor kids.”
“Poor kids? I’m the one who crashed a Zoom class in a bathrobe!”
Caramel just laughed.
“See? We’d be lost without you!” Barley laughed along with Caramel
“I know that times are rough, girl,” Caramel started, “and that we haven’t been the best of friends.”
“But, if you’ll have us,” Barley continued.
“Just for one weekend, Fizzy, in one spot,” Caramel’s smile wavered with hope and fear, “we can make the world a better place.”
“And the day after that, and the day after that.” Barley went on.
“All in this, together,” Caramel finished.
There was a long silence.
“Please, Fizzy,” Barley whispered, “we need you.”
The silence was finally broken.
By sniffling.
The chair wheeled around, revealing a very white, blue, pink and very kirin, Fizzy.
“Guys,” she said, sobbing into a page.
“Oh, girl, come here!” Caramel rushed up and pulled her into a hug.
“Probably best not to use a cosmic artifact as a handkerchief,” Barley said, stepping in to pull the page from Fizzy’s hoof, causing her to laugh.
“It’s okay, Fizz, let it out. Mama Caramel has got you.”
“Guys,” Fizzy said, as the tears subsided. “I… you mean it?”
“Sure as sugar.” Caramel grinned.
“Indeed.” Barley matched the grin.
“I just felt so useless, with the con, and with everything going on-”
“We know honey, we know.” Caramel tightened the hug.
“We’ll get through it,” Barley said with a nod “Together.”
“Together.” Caramel echoed.
“Together.” Fizzy smiled. She then looked up at the screens overhead. “This is pretty neat, though, huh?”
“Aside from the whole ‘evil necromancer trying to take over all of time,’ thing, maybe,” Caramel interjected.
“What?” Fizzy snapped to look at Caramel.
“Yeah, Twilight can–” Barley looked over to where Twilight was.
Or rather was. Only a muzzle was left.
And in the beat of silence that followed, a burst of green fire exploded sending the three of them sprawling. Chrysalis snatched up Fizzy’s entire stock of pages, cackling.
“Sentimental fools!” she shouted as another blast of green fire shattered the window overlooking the server room, sailing through it as another portal opened up.
Fizzy, Barley, and Caramel rushed to the shattered window, watching as Chrysalis banked towards the portal.
…only for one of the server racks to open its glowing red and yellow eyes and cackle as a grasping wires rose up to block her path–
–and get cut short as a blast of dark magic slammed into it from behind.
Discord, knocked out of the shape he had taken, rolled across the floor, black crystals sprouting from his hands.
Chrysalis landed next to Sombra, who stood, a look of contempt stretched across his face.
Tirek stepped up beside them. He hefted a small mass through the portal.
Twilight Sparkle hit the floor next to Discord, barely conscious, dark magic crystals covering her horn.
“So,” Chrysalis said, a sheaf of pages in her telekinetic grip, “who wants to do the honors?”
“So generous.” Tirek chuckled, grinning.
“Of course.” Chrysalis grinned back. “I’m saving all my fun for that cow, Starlight Glimmer.”
“Let me have a go!” Cozy Glow said, alighting onto Tirek’s shoulder.
“Oh, of course,” Chrysalis said, passing the pastel pink psychopath a page and a pen.
“As long as they don’t escape,” Sombra growled.
“Of course!” Cozy said, sweetly, snatching up the pages, and began furiously writing, speaking along as she went. “‘Sombra’s dark magic seeped into the room.’”
A purple miasma began coiling across the ground as Twilight and Discord slowly stood.
“‘Mixing with the technology around it, it fed on that energy, and infested it.’”
The servers began to groan and shift.
“‘Thrumming with well-deserved hate, the magic and technology came alive, forming a vicious beast!’”
The groaning shifted into a dull roar. Discord snatched up Twilight and began furiously waddling towards where Fizzy, Barley, and Caramel watched on.
“‘It knew no thoughts, only hunger! And it would pursue them to the ends of the earth until it had ground them both to paste in. it’s. many. sharp. Teeth!’” Cozy punctuated each word with a pen stroke. She then looked up and down at the fleeing Discord and Twilight. “Have fuuuun you two~!”
And with that, the four villains burst into laughter, the portal closing as something terrible and hungry took shape.
“Lift me!” Discord shouted as he threw Twilight into the air, before grabbing onto her hooves. She beat her wings quite literally as if her life depended on it.
The two of them cleared the window and collapsed into a heap.
“Way out!” Twilight yelled.
“Uh. Uh!” Fizzy looked around frantically, and then her face lit up.
A lone page sat in the corner. Fizzy leapt for it, her pen flying to her as she began to write.
A portal opened up and she pointed to it.
“There!”
All five of them scrambled through the portal, which snapped shut behind them. Seconds later, a talon of steel and malice smashed into the room, obliterating it utterly. Something terrible howled, alone and hungry in the empty darkness they left in their wake.
“Aaaand… there.” Fizzy said, prying the last black crystal from Twilight’s horn with her pen.
“Thanks.” She said, with a sign of relief. She looked up. “Where’s Discord?”
“I… don’t know.” Caramel said, looking around.
“Probably off to find more pages.” Barley said, forlorn.
“Yeah.” Fizzy gave an exhausted sigh. “We’re probably gonna need them. But we can do it with friendship! Right, guys? Right… Twilight?”
Twilight wasn’t paying attention to any of them. She was staring off into the horizon, eyebrows furrowed and mouth open.
The other three turned to look.
The horizon was filled with light. Not just light. Shapes, sounds, color. All fantastical and contradictory, and it was growing.
“What is that?” Caramel asked, quietly.
“I think… I think people are starting to use all their pages all at once!” Barley said.