//------------------------------//
// Forest 
// Story: Code Lyoko: Equestria 
// by Pilot Solaris 
//------------------------------//

	[EARTH]

Professor Tyron looked at his subjects disappointedly. "You were supposed to defend the Cortex from any threat in it and also take over Lyoko and yet you're bested by schoolchildren?" he asked them, his calm voice hiding the fury and rage he felt inside. "I am very disappointed in you. You will each spend another five hours in the combat simulator and the pit before you can be cleared for reinsertion."

Shortly after finishing his speech and dismissing the subjects in question, Aelita's mother, Antea, then spoke up. "There's activity in Lyoko," she said, looking at the display for the Supercalculator that powered the Cortex, "one of the schoolchildren has been spotted in the Desert Basin alongside six unknown entities, presumably other schoolchildren."

"Hmm..." Tyron responded. "Curious. Do we have any files of them on Kadic's records?"

"No," Antea then responded, "They could be exchange students."

The professor then looked over her shoulders. "Curious," he said, "they look very... pastiche, if you know what I mean, with their hair. Much like your daughter. Perhaps they're AI--"

His speech was cut short by the spectre that then emerged from the console and took on a human form.

"WHAT ON EARTH?!" he shouted, startled by its emergence.

"Don't be so frightened, Hughes Tyron," the spectre said, its voice like two people speaking in a sort of desynchronized synchronicity, "after all, I'm not here to kill you. Oh no."

"That's Professor!" Professor Tyron snapped back, before calming down. "So. You don't want to kill me. What about Antea? Do you want her dead?" he asked.

"No," the spectre answered matter-of-factly, "I'm here as a courier for my master. Perhaps you've heard of him?"

"Depends," he said, "on who you're talking about."

"You considered him a myth, a falsehood, a story made up by those... garage kids... to distract you from your real job," the spectre continued, "but he is all so real. And his name... is XANA."

The Professor's face went white from the abject shock of the children's tale being true.

"And you and him both have a common enemy: the Lyoko Warriors. So, here's the proposal my master has: you help us fight them and we give you knowledge of a world you've never even dreamed of... starting with those entities that are working with Yumi," it said, pointing to the screen it had just emerged from earlier.

Tyron looked at the spectre, debating on whether or not to have his subjects, whose Lyoko Avatars were known as the Ninja, should help XANA or join the Lyoko Warriors, and then said, "What do you know about them?"

[EQUESTRIA]

Queen Chrysalis looked idly over the monitor of her computer. Though the Changelings were known for the organic horrors that were their military equipment, their organic technology also allowed for more mundane utilities such as computers, communication hardware, and the incubators that kept their eggs' temperature constant. The monitor showed her the status of her troops and her allies in the other hives like hers scattered across the planet, which she expected.

What she didn't expect was the spectre that emerged from her screen and then took on the form of a black Unicorn with stark silver hair and golden eyes, a red, unblinking, and four-pronged bulls-eye serving as its Cutie Mark.

"Hello!" the spectre shouted in a voice similar to the one Prof. Tyron encountered, startling her.

Immediately she recoiled in shock before regaining her composition, pulling out her pulse rifle, aiming it at the spectre, and hissing and screeching angrily at it.

"Oh, don't be so coy," the spectre then said, ignoring her warning, "after all, I have a proposition from my master that will be mutually beneficial for the both of you!"

As soon as she heard that, Chrysalis then lowered her rifle, her complexion going from angry and frightened to seductive and curious. "I'll only accept it if I can learn his name," she said, her voice similar to the spectre's except that two voices that created hers spoke in a closer synchronicity, "after all, I don't give myself away to just anyone..."

The spectre then grinned evilly. "His name is XANA," he said, "and he's quite happy to make any sort of arrangements necessary to gain an ally in you."

"Hmm..." Chrysalis then said, before responding, "Let's hear this proposition then."

"Most excellent!" the spectre responded, clapping its forehooves together. "He wishes for you to donate the Changeling Swarm to his cause in exchange for knowledge of a world you've never even dreamed of. After all, you both share a common enemy: the legends of Equestria, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony!"

She considered the proposition before then grinning evilly and saying, "You have yourself a deal."

"Very good!" the spectre said, and then, it reentered the computer and infected it, its Cutie Mark now occupying the screen.

A new voice then came from the screen, a voice made of four voices that spoke in an eerie desynchronized synchronicity that Chrysalis assumed was XANA's.

"I promise you that you will not be disappointed," XANA said to her, "and that what you learn will be of the greatest value. But first, will you head out to the main concourse of this structure? I need you to see something."

"Of course," Chrysalis responded, and with that, she left her room and looked out at the hive below.

As she expected, it buzzed with activity, Changelings working on their individual tasks.

Then she noticed that some of them now glowed red and were headed towards the center of the concourse, causing everyone to stop what they were doing and look over at them. Never had this happened since Chrysalis had kidnapped Derpy Hooves and the irritating little fillies known as the "Cutie Mark Crusaders", so it was quite unexpected for her and the rest of the hive.

Then, a group of technicians, maintaining the hive's vehicles, were possessed by a cloud of black smoke like the spectre that had emerged from her computer console and started glowing red as well, turning their attention from their tools to the equipment used to create the Changelings' military vehicles before approaching the drones that had now gathered in the center of the concourse, some having burrowed underneath it.

What happened next horrified her.

The technicians started to work on the possessed drones, causing new appendages and organs to grow onto them and causing them to change their form. They screeched in pain and agony, but did not offer resistance as hearts, veins, brains, muscles, and other such organs and appendages grew from their bodies and slowly started to take on the shapes of a rotunda and three elongated cylinders.

Some of the more squeamish drones threw up and others looked in horror at the puddle of grey Changeling blood that was slowly starting to pool around the group of drones as skin and nerves started forming and veins began connecting to each other.

Finally, Chrysalis could take no more. "XANA! Stop this at once!" she shouted.

"Perfect timing, Chrysalis," XANA then said, "after all, I'm just about done!"

And with that, the Technicians finished their grisly job and reverted to their natural bluish-green glow, some others coming up from where the other drones had burrowed covered in blood and looking horrified and confused.

Then, the rotunda flickered to life, a holographic display of a strange, almost organic looking world spinning in it.

"I give you... the Replika of Hyve!" XANA then said.


Yumi, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie all looked down into the abyss beneath the main platform of the Desert's Waytower. The journey there had been mostly uneventful aside from an encounter with another one of the giant crabs that had ambushed AJ, RD, and Twilight which Yumi quickly dispatched with her Tessen Fans (but not before getting her vehicle, called the Overwing ("More like an Overshark to me," Rainbow Dash had said to her when she had told the group what it was, pointing out the fin-like projection on its underside) destroyed) and they had learned a great deal about Yumi, her friends, Lyoko, and XANA; like how Waldo Schaeffer, Lyoko's creator, had sacrificed himself to destroy XANA and how XANA had made a resurgence in a world called the Cortex, how Lyoko had lost two of its Sectors (the Forests and the Ice Barrier) thanks to XANA's reinvigoration and how it had been destroyed earlier thanks to his efforts and the efforts of his (unwilling) servant, William, how the Cortex was created and who its creator--a madman named Professor Tyron--was, and how their originally six-person team had become a seven-person team with the arrival of a girl named Laura Gauthier.

"Sounds like you and yer friends've been on one heck of a ride," Applejack had noted when all was said and done.

"You could say that," was Yumi's reply.

Now, they peered over the edge of the Waytower's platform.

"So, all we do is fall off the edge of this platform and into the abyss below and we'll go to the Forest Glade?" Twilight asked.

"Yep!" Yumi answered.

"...How does that work?" Rarity then asked.

"Honestly, I have no idea," Yumi responded.

And with that, she then spread her arms and jumped off the edge of the platform into the abyss below, eventually disappearing into the darkness below.

Fluttershy went next, but only because as she stepped closer to the platform's edge to try and find Yumi she tripped over Rarity and dove headfirst into the blackness, letting out a terrified scream as she did so and Pinkie Pie then diving in after her.

Rarity went in after Pinkie and Flutters did, closing her eyes and following what Yumi did to the letter, diving in with a sort of feminine grace, followed by Applejack who looked over at Rainbow and Twilight, shrugged, and leapt off, forming a cannonball as she did so.

Rainbow Dash then went down, spreading her wings, taking off, and then flying into the abyss, and finally, after what seemed like hours, Twilight then stepped off the platform, falling into the abyss below.

As she did so, she felt like she was in a tube, zeroes and ones flying alongside her as she continued falling... until she realized she was falling towards something that looked almost like it was the bottom of another Tower's platform.

As she approached the other platform she saw the others idly standing around, jumping up when they saw her.

"About time!" Rainbow Dash then said. "We've been waiting here for six minutes!"

"Well, I wouldn't have taken so long if I hadn't needed to jump off of a platform!" Twilight replied.

Rainbow would've continued their argument when Yumi stepped in between them.

"We can't just sit around arguing," she said, "every second we spend here is a second wasted."

And with that, the group left the Tower for the outside world.

When they looked around, they were once again astonished.

Looking out, they saw a massive glade of trees, suspended above the same body of water they saw in the Desert Basin, as well as a long, winding, green platform that seemed to go on forever.

"The Waytower is this way," Yumi said, walking out past the others and then proceeding to break out into a run. "Better keep up!"

And with that, the others proceeded to either spread their wings and take off or simply breaking into a run like Yumi.

Before long, they all had to slow down because they were short on breath, and soon the path diverged in two. Yumi went down the path to the left, and everypony followed shortly behind.

Then, they saw two crabs, called "Krabes" by Yumi and her friends, blocking the path. Instinctively Yumi pulled out her Tessen Fans and fanned them out, ready to engage the enemy. Then, she looked over at the others, who were frozen in fear.

"Don't you have any weapons that you can use?" she asked them.

And at that moment, the others realized that they could defend themselves as well and didn't need to be the standard damsels in distress.

Fluttershy was the first to find her weapon, a small coilgun pistol (or coilpistol). Rarity came next, pulling out a small falchion, and following her was Pinkie, who pulled out her characteristic party cannon. Then Rainbow Dash pulled out a small brick that then expanded into a railgun rifle (or railrifle, as she called it), and Applejack found two weapons, a lasso and a saber. Twilight, however, couldn't find any weapons on her anywhere, to the point where Yumi just upped and gave a frustrating sigh.

"How'd we even not notice these weapons?" Applejack asked.

"I don't really know," Yumi responded, "but it doesn't matter now. We've got some seafood to make!"

And with that, she threw her fans... which both missed the Krabes.

Applejack tried to rope up a Krabe and bring it close with her lasso, but failed as well. Rainbow Dash tried hitting a Krabe with her railrifle and Rarity tried to charge the other, but both failed miserably. Pinkie Pie had better luck, hitting a Krabe with her Party Cannon and destroying it, and Fluttershy hit the other with her coilpistol, only damaging it but setting it back, and then Yumi finished it off with her Tessen Fans.

Beyond that encounter, however, the journey from the Tower they had arrived at in the Forests to the Glade's Waytower was mostly uneventful.

Mostly.

As they continued down the path, Yumi heard something, something the others couldn't hear.

"What was that, Jeremy?" she asked. As the sound repeated, her face went cold.

"We need to hurry," she said, "Jeremy says that he's detected a MASSIVE power surge in the Digital Sea, almost as if another Replika was made, and that we need to link up with Odd and Aelita and then meet up with Ulrich, William, and Laura in Carthage."

And with that, she immediately broke into a sprint, the others close behind.


Cadance continued looking at the screen. Even though things had gotten quieter since the group still in the real world had dwindled to her and Spike, it felt like there were legions of Ponies in the room with her.

And she was so absorbed by checking up on the statuses of the others that she failed to notice her husband walk in from the elevator.

"Cadance?" he asked. "What are you DOING?"

The question startled her, and she looked at her husband in shock before saying, "I'm checking up on the others in Lyoko!"

Almost immediately after hearing that, his face went from confusion and shock to rage and consternation.

"Shut it down," he said. "NOW."