Mega Mare

by DrakeyC

Tickled Pink

To Twilight's relief the forest Spike had directed her too was not the legendary Everfree Forest she'd read about, but a normal forest on the outskirts of Ponyville. Twilight called up her map, conveniently marking out the path through the trees already. The words "White Tail Woods" blinked at the bottom. She looked back up. The trees grew thick together, sunlight blinking down between the branches to illuminate the stone path between them. According to the data Spike was feeding her, the governments made the White Tail Woods a preservation site during Equestria's technological revolution centuries ago. Some of the trees in the woods were centuries old and towered hundreds of hooves into the air, their branches thicker than a pony's body at some points.

"You're sure the next aide is the forest?" Twilight dismissed the map and data feeds. "Is she far in?"

"A ways, yeah. But we'll be fine, these woods aren't that dangerous and anything we meet will likely be friendly," Spike said.

"Yeah, assuming that we don't encounter any hostile ponies." Twilight kept this thought to herself and headed into the shadows of the woods.

"You know I can hear your thoughts, right? I'm wired direct into your neural-cyber interface, how do you think I can do this?" Spike thought back. Twilight made a face.

"Well I've never had an AI assistant before, how was I supposed to know?"

"Maybe trying reading my manual?"

Twilight did a double take and looked back at the hologram. "You have a manual?" In response her display flipped up again and a stream of text began to scroll up the screen too fast to read. She rolled her eyes and dismissed it. "Later. For now, do you have any other potentially life-saving functions I should know about?"

"Anywhere from thirteen to three hundred and eighty-one, depending on what you would define as "potentially life-saving"," Twilight out a groan of annoyance and dropped the subject, heading into the woods.

The White Tail Woods was not eerily quiet like Ponyville had been. Twilight could hear animals scampering out behind the trees and birds tweeting in the mid-morning sun. The smells of wood and grass and morning dew filled the air. It was like whatever malice had gotten to Ponyville either moved on from here or hadn't arrived yet. The path underhoof had grown over with grass and dirt in some places, but was visible enough to follow. In some areas low-hanging branches hung down to the trail and Twilight had to move around them to get by.

"On the bright side it seems nopony's around," Twilight said, calling up her map. "At least nopony who wants to fight us."

"Yeah, I'm not reading any notable life forms around, just natural wildlife. It looks like there's something a bit further ahead but nothing to worry about yet," Spike said from her back. Twilight nodded and picked up the pace. If there was no opposition, hopefully she could track down this aide faster without having to worry about being ambushed by crazed ponies.

However she only got a few more steps when two trees beside her crumbled to the path. Twilight looked at the stumps to see a pair of glowing yellow eyes glaring at her from behind a long metal snout. A large silver and brown robot was coming from the trees, showing rows of sharp metal teeth. It was quadrupedal with gleaming claws and an elongated head. Rust had eaten away parts of its body to show its interior components, hydraulics and gears on its joints spinning and stretching with its steps. It growled, a hollow, synthesized sound. Twilight slowly backed away, not taking her eyes off of it.

"I thought you said there aren't any life forms nearby!"

"That's not a life form, Twilight, that's 100% mechanical. It's a Silver Wolf!" Spike said. As if on cue the Silver Wolf leapt, the distorted metallic growl growing into a roar. Twilight jumped away and turned back to it to fire three magic blasts at the wolf's front paws. The bolts hit their mark but didn't the affect the robot much. It turned back to her and dove again, Twilight rolling aside to avoid it.

"Could use a bit more than that!"

"They're robots."

"No kidding!"

Spike ignored her and continued. "The Equestrian Preservation Society had them built to chew up the dead foliage in the woods and turn it into compost to help with the growth of the trees. When the forest began growing too large the EPS decommissioned them and put them into storage at an outpost nearby." Twilight got to her hooves from another roll and looked back at the Silver Wolf as it landed from its jump.

"Well it looks like we need to re-decommission them!" Twilight lowered her horn and shot a barrage of magic. The Silver Wolf took the blasts in its shoulder joint on the right front paw and paused, shaking its head. A rusted section of its body caved in from the attack, circuitry and mechanics showing in the hole. Twilight fired her blasts directly at them. The circuits popped and fizzled, a small explosion bursting out of the rusted hole. The Silver Wolf let out a low groan, the lights on its body flickering, and it collapsed on its side with a loud clang, the metal ringing against the stone set in the forest floor.

Twilight slowly approached. Black smoke poured from the hole where she had shot to bring it down, sparks flying from the damaged wires and machinery inside. She raised a hoof to wave the smoke away and jumped back at a particularly large burst of sparks. She had gotten a good enough look at the internals to know the robot would not be coming after her anytime soon.

"I guess it's a good thing they haven't been properly maintained." She lowered her head to peer at the robot's dimmed yellow eyes. "Wonder what reactivated them."

"Not sure. I'm scanning it but not picking up much. They might have just been turned back on and their behavior set to aggressive," Spike said. "I'll copy their signature into your map, if there's more in the forest we can track them. Gimme a sec." Twilight called up her map and waited as her internals spun to life. Several red dots blinked into existence on the display. Only one of them was an immediate danger, but there were still more than Twilight would have liked to see.

"Well at least we'll have some warning next time." Twilight closed the map and continued down the path, hoping any more new and unexpected surprises would be few in number. She soon came upon a second Silver Wolf, this one with its back to her munching on a fallen tree. Twilight aimed for a rusted spot on its body and fired her magic bolts. The rust collapsed and caved in but the Silver Wolf remained active, turning its head and crunching apart a piece of tree in its jaws as it saw her. Twilight fired again before it could come at her, the wolf stumbling and falling over the tree it had been eating, its body grinding to a halt. Twilight climbed over the tree through the hole in the bark the robot had bitten in it and continued on.

There were no more Silver Wolves in her immediate location, but Twilight didn't get much further before she had to come to a stop for another reason. Before her the ground had suddenly fallen away into a deep and wide pit. She leaned her head over the edge and looked down. Several trees littered the bottom, trunks cracked apart and the shards stabbing up into the air dangerously. Twilight gulped and took a slow step back from the edge. "I'm not exactly looking forward to trying to make the jump."

"Yeah, I'm not sure you could anyway. What about that whip we got from Applejack?" Spike suggested. Twilight looked down at her Multitool and sent the mental command. Her hoof shifted and came alive, the bottom popping out the four-pronged claw while the rest of the length extended into the circular rings. Twilight looked back up at the trees on the edges of the pit. She found a particularly thick, low-hanging branch on the other side, and took a breath.

"Got any functions to help with this?"

"Uh... geometry?" Twilight's interface appeared and traced out glowing blue lines with lengths and angles across the landscape. The math of how far the other side of the pit was didn't help. Spike read her thoughts and pulled down the display before she could ask him herself.

"Alright then... here goes." Twilight drew her hoof back and carefully judged the shot. "If I don't make it, tell Celestia it's your fault."

"Wait huh?"

Twilight snapped her hoof forward and fired the Apple Whip up at the branch. The bottom of her hoof fired, chain extending out in a coil from the inside of her hoof. The claw caught grip on the wood and bit in, the wood snapping under the force. The chain slowly retracted until it went taut and she closed her eyes.

Twilight ran forward and jumped, bringing her hind hooves up to her body. The branch and the claw held firmly as Twilight sailed over the pit. Her tail brushed against the ground and she opened her eyes to find herself hanging over the other side. With a mental command the claw loosened and the chain whip retracted into her hoof, leaving her to fall to the ground on her back. Twilight rolled over and looked back at the path on the other side of the pit. She let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"I did it..." she smiled.

"Why would it have been my fault?" Spike demanded.

"It was a joke. Ease the tension," Twilight replied. She couldn't hear Spike's exact words, but the mental equivalent of hushed grumbling filled her head. "Calm down, it's over now. Let's hope we don't have to do that again." She turned to continue down the path. They only got a few more hooves before another pit of dangerously damaged tree parts loomed ahead of them.

"You really need to stop jinxing us like that," Spike said.

"Yeah..." Twilight looked up and found another solid branch. The Apple Whip's chain whizzed through the air, making a loud thunk as the claw hit the wood. Twilight didn't waste time trying to psyche herself up this time and ran forward and jumped, swinging over the gap and landing on the other side. The Apple Whip had begun to retract when Twilight saw the Silver Wolf looking at her from below. It ran at her, jaws gnashing with a metallic screech. Twilight looked up and fired the Apple Whip over her head, pulling herself up to another branch. The Silver Wolf was going too fast to stop and rushed into the pit behind her. From her vantage Twilight saw its hind paws snap apart at rust-weakened spots, the main body shuddering and going dim with a large spike of wood emerging through it. She dropped down and looked around for anything else coming at her. Fortunately the forest was peaceful again, and she continued on.

The path ahead didn't include any more pits demanding a swing over perilous spiked wood debris. To Twilight's surprise, it didn't even include more Silver Wolves. She brought her map up to make sure, but the red dots of the wolves were moving through the trees about whatever business they had, unaware of her presence. On the other hoof the sounds of wildlife had grown quiet now. Twilight wondered if it was due to the sounds of the fights she'd been in, or something else. The trees were even thicker here, when Twilight looked up they towered over her like Canterlot's spires and towers. Looking ahead Twilight slowed her pace. Further on several trees had fallen on the trail. They were smaller ones, though one on its side still rose over Twilight's head. She put a hoof on them. Judging from the teeth marks along their length, Silver Wolves had gnawed them apart. She looked down the length of the trees, but they were too long to see the ends and the trees too thick to see through.

"Now what?" she asked Spike. The AI brought up her map.

"According to these scans, Celestia's aide is in a clearing further on in the woods. We could try going around, but I'm picking up a lot of Silver Wolves in the woods and we'd probably run into a few if we went off the path." Twilight looked at the sea of red dots and dismissed the map. Fighting more of those robots was not something she wanted to do, especially if they were in numbers. Thinking, she looked up and took notice of a sturdy-looking branch stretching from another tree. She looked between the trees, mentally plotting a course as her eyes landed on choice branches. Spike sensed her thoughts through their link. "Oh no. You can't be serious."

"If you have a better idea, I'd already know about it," Twilight replied, holding out the Apple Whip. The claw fired upwards and latched on a tree branch. Twilight retracted the chain to pull herself up, the rings of her hoof collapsing back down until she was fully retracted, the claw still digging into the wood. Turning her body until she was facing the right way, she started swinging in place, the branch shaking as she moved. As she came back the third time Twilight let the chain go slack and dropped suddenly as the rest of its length extended from her hoof. The momentum carried her up into the air as she swung forward. Not high enough yet. She came back and swung her body forward for that little extra height. The second branch came into view and the Apple Whip's claw loosened and retracted.

Panic surged into Twilight's mind as realized she was several hooves off the ground with nothing supporting her. She pushed it away and brought her hoof forward even as the chain finished coming back to her. She fired again and the claw caught a higher branch, pulling her up. Turning around to the third branch, Twilight began swinging in place and repeated the steps, hanging more than ten hooves in the air for a second as the Apple Whip fired and caught her third support. She pulled herself up, swung back and forth again, and this time flipped through the air as the whip came loose. Instead of launching at a fourth branch, Twilight landed on one directly, the claw of the whip digging into the wood to make sure she stayed on.

Twilight smiled and looked down at the path. "Well, wasn't so bad as those pits." Spike didn't respond save for a general sense of disbelief. Twilight ignored it in favor of examining her new surroundings. Up here the branches were thick enough to walk along comfortably and crossed each other often. The smell of leaves and dew was stronger up here, sunlight from above gleaming off drops of dew. She began walking along the trees, hopping between branches comfortably. The branches made only the slightest of rustlings and a few leaves fell when Twilight trotted past, but nopony below would think to look up to spot a lavender mare walking over their heads.

Soon the main path began below again and she looked to see two Silver Wolves pass by. A third followed them soon after, all three completely unaware of Twilight's presence. As she continued on she spotted a few other Silver Wolves, but Twilight gave them no reason to find her, moving slower and keeping her hooves from shaking the trees when they passed. The last of the wolves was busy gnawing on a particularly large tree branch, and Twilight trotted past it overhead. She called up her map. The red dots of the Silver Wolves were behind her now and the red icon marking Celestia's next aide was coming closer.

The trees began to clear and Twilight looked around for a series of branches to use to get the ground. She found three that would do and carefully hopped back down to the path. The trail ended with a large clearing in the forest. Large trees circled it, the clearing full of stumps where somepony had cut away the trees that marred the clearing. A bright beam of sunlight lit up the grass and Twilight squinted up to see the open sky overhead, the branches around the clearing's trees cleared away. She stepped forward and called up her map. The blinking red dot was gone. "Spike, you said she was here."

"She was, this is where the signal was coming from!" Spike protested. "But now I can't see anything."

"Hello?" Twilight said, coming closer into the clearing. "Anypony here?" There was a rustling of leaves, and she turned to see a bush between the trees move.

"Hang on a second!" A voice called out. Twilight saw a blinking dot pop into existence on her map and dismissed the hologram to watch the moving bush. The bush began to shake more violently and suddenly a pony popped out, rolling across the grass to sit in front of her. It was an earth pony, her coat and mane bright pink. Her flank had the tail sheared off, in its place a metal plate supporting a prosthetic steel tail. Her left hoof was a Multitool like Twilight's own, but painted in varying shades of pink. The pony shook a few leaves out of her mane and grinned brightly. "Hi there!"

"Um, hello," Twilight said back.

"Pinkie Pie," Spike whispered in her head. Twilight quickly scanned the archived data flowing into her brain.

"Pinkie Pie, right?"

The pony nodded. "Yup, that's me!" She began circling around Twilight looking at her curiously, rubbing her chin with her hoof. "Who are you? Wait, no, lemme guess, you're that imaginary friend I had when I was a filly here to surprise me with a party?"

"Not quite," Twilight replied, turning her head to keep Pinkie in view as she came around the other side.

Pinkie sat down and made a face. "Darn! And I could use one, I've been out here alone for hours!" Pinkie slammed her biological front hoof into her metal one and gave a sharp cry of pain. She popped her now-sore biological hoof into her mouth and then shook it out in the air. "I always forget I can't do that anymore. Just got this a few months ago." She waved her steel hoof at Twilight.

"… right." Twilight was unsure of what to make of this, Pinkie was acting even stranger than the ones in Ponyville. Did she have a different corruption, or a more intense version of the same one? "Spike, you sense any program anomalies let me know immediately."

"Roger that, Twilight."

Twilight turned her attention back to Pinkie Pie. "So what are you doing waiting out here alone?" she asked. Pinkie scrunched up her face and looked up in thought.

"Not sure really. Kinda hard to remember... I just know that I wasn't alone before, but now I am! I think I chose to stay behind, dunno why though... or maybe somepony told me to..." She trailed off. Twilight waited several seconds, looking around awkwardly. Then Pinkie Pie grinned brightly. "Oh yeah, I have to wait out here for somepony!"

"Who?"

"Dunno." Pinkie Pie shrugged. Twilight groaned loudly, slapping a hoof over her face. "So, uh," Pinkie began, "if you're not my imaginary filly-friend, then who are you?"

"My name is Twilight Sparkle. And I came out here to find you," Twilight said. Pinkie's face lit up.

"Oooooooooh! That makes a lot of sense actually!"

"It does?" Twilight replied.

"Yup! I remember everything now! I came out here with my friends before, and they told me to stay behind here and wait to see if anypony comes by. And just a little while ago, one of them told me to be on alert, because a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle would come out here looking for me, and when she gets here, I should blast her with this!" Pinkie swung her steel hoof forward. The metal plates slid apart, widened, became shorter. Twilight's eyes widened as Pinkie's eyes lit up red, and the massive pink cannon that had appeared from her hoof began to hum loudly.

"Uh-oh."

The Apple Whip fired from her own arm, pulling Twilight across the clearing towards a tree as Pinkie fired her cannon. A bright pink orb of energy shot out, arcing towards the ground and exploding. Twilight looked away from the blast, a shockwave blowing her mane out behind her. She looked back to see glowing streamers and confetti raining down from the point where the blast had hit, shimmering and vanishing as they hit the ground.

"Thanks Spike," Twilight said, retracting the whip. Pinkie Pie spun around and the cannon glowed again. Twilight started running as another energy orb fired at her. It missed and instead hit a tree stump, sending shards of wood flying through the air with a mighty explosion that sounded oddly like a chorus of noisemakers being blown all at once. Twilight fired her magic bolts. Pinkie raised her cannon to defend herself and the pink metal flashed violet as the blasts made contact, sparks of magical energy flying from the impacts. Pinkie stumbled back a step, crying out more in annoyance than pain. Pinkie's metal tail suddenly began to spin, and she leapt up in the air and landed on her tail. Before Twilight could blink she had drilled herself into the ground and vanished.

"Where'd she go?"

"I dunno, she's not showing up on scans at all!" Spike replied. Twilight felt the ground rumble and jumped away as Pinkie surfaced beneath her hooves and shot up into the air, leveling her cannon down and firing. Twilight dodged and the explosion blew her mane and tail out in front of her face, the shockwave made her stumble but she remained standing. She turned back to Pinkie Pie and fired a few energy bolts, but Pinkie dropped from the air back into the ground. She drilled into the ground again and the red dot on her map vanished.

Twilight looked at the hole Pinkie had left. "That's why we didn't detect her before. We can't tell where she is when she's underground."

"That's cheating!" Spike protested. Twilight waited. Soon she felt the tremor, small stones and bits of dirt vibrating, and leapt away. Pinkie Pie shot up out of the ground where Twilight stood, an energy orb launching through the air and missing as Twilight dodged. The blast of energy obliterated a large chunk of ground behind her, but Twilight's focus was on her opponent. She fired several bolts, but they either went too high or too low to land a mark as Pinkie descended back into the ground and her drilling tail took her out of sight again. "You'll never be able to take the time to aim if you have to keep dodging her tunneling," Spike advised. Twilight jumped as Pinkie surfaced again, an energy orb blowing apart a tree stump and part of the ground around it. She looked at the ground as Pinkie tunneled back down, then up at the trees around the clearing.

"Exactly!" Twilight swung her hoof up, firing the Apple Whip at a tree and hauling herself up to a branch. She looked back and waited. There was a rumbling and she swung her hoof out. Pinkie emerged into the air where she had last been standing, the claw of the Apple Whip latching onto her cannon as she began to aim and pulling. With a squeak of pain Pinkie fell back to the forest floor, dazed. Twilight jumped down, firing a barrage of energy blasts. Pinkie glared as the shots hit her hoof, and she raised her cannon down to fire. Twilight dodged, but Pinkie wasn't aiming at her. The tree Twilight had used to evade her exploded at the base and fell backwards, hitting heavily against two others trees. The forest floor shook violently as all three slammed into the ground, while Pinkie's tail spun again and the pink pony vanished back into the earth.

Used to the pattern now, Twilight swung the Apple Whip at another tree and pulled herself to safety. She turned and fired the whip as Pinkie emerged again into the air, the hit stunning her and dropping her back to the ground. Twilight jumped down as the whip retracted and opened fire, her energy bolts hitting directly on Pinkie's hoof.

Pinkie recovered from the fall and stood up, panting and glaring. "Alright buster, that does it!" With one swift motion of her hoof, Pinkie Pie licked it and ran it over her hair, slicking the puffy pink mane straight. "Time to say hi to Pinkamena! And she doesn't play nice!" She aimed her cannon in the air and fired straight up. Twilight watched in horror as four energy orbs launched up into the air and arced back down. She cried out and dove for cover, her hooves over her head. The forest floor shook violently and the force of the four blasts detonating on the ground knocked Twilight to her side, dirt and small stones and bits of pulverized tree matter flying past her. She stood up to see Pinkie Pie vanish back into the earth, the clearing full of smoking craters from her cannon's blasts.

"I think we made her angry." Twilight's ears were ringing from the explosions, and bits of debris littered the forest floor as she tried to move around the clearing.

Spike snorted in her head. "Yeah, and all we've done is shoot her up with unicorn energy blasts. Go figure." Twilight shot the Apple Whip at another tree, pulling herself up and looking for Pinkie Pie to re-emerge below. She waited several seconds, but the rumbling of Pinkie's emergence wasn't coming. Then the tree shook and Twilight heard a large cracking sound. The tree suddenly shifted and she almost fell off her perch. "Jump, Twilight!" Spike called. Twilight heeded the warning and jumped to the ground. She looked back at the tree and realized what that cracking was. Pinkie must have drilled up right under the tree because the trunk had split apart and fallen away, the wood frayed and splintered. Pinkie was emerging into the air between the two halves as they fell around Twilight, her cannon pointed down. Twilight quickly fired the Apple Whip before Pinkie could finish aiming. The claw grabbed Pinkie's tail and her eyes went wide as it pulled her to the dirt. Landing with a squeak, she bounced over Twilight's head, who turned and fired a full bombardment of shots at her tail.

Pinkie bounced off the ground and swung her hoof up, firing another quartet of energy blasts into the air and drilling into the ground as she came back down. Twilight narrowly jumped in time to avoid an orb falling next to her. Heat seared her saddle and coat at the close-range blast and her head spun from the noise. She looked up to see Pinkie Pie emerge from the ground. This time Pinkie didn't aim for her, instead jumping over her and firing her cannon across the clearing. Three more trees exploded as the pink energy orb detonated against their bases, two falling backwards while the second fell into the clearing. Twilight moved aside to avoid it as it slammed into the ground, when she looked back Pinkie was gone again.

Twilight heard movement behind her and turned to see Pinkie rising into the air, firing another quartet of cannon blasts over their heads. Twilight flung out the Apple Whip but the claw moved too slowly to meet the mark and Pinkie was gone again, vanished into the ground the blasts rained down around Twilight and blew apart the tree that had fallen into the clearing earlier. The forest floor was becoming torn apart by the blasts, craters all over the grass with dirt, stone and tree parts littering what parts of the ground hadn't been blown apart yet. Twilight looked around for Pinkie frantically. "Gotta end this before she blows up the forest." The trees surrounding the clearing were beginning to crack and splinter from the close-range explosions continually going off around them, not to mention Pinkie was targeting them directly now. If Twilight couldn't end this soon, she wouldn't have any safe haven to avoid Pinkie on. "She's just firing wildly now, not aiming. I can use that."

"You can?" Spike cried. Twilight ignored him, readied the Apple Whip, and waited. Her eyes scanned the clearing and her hooves waited for the familiar tremors. The earth shook and Twilight turned to see Pinkie leap into the air. The Apple Whip shot up and grabbed her arm cannon, pulling her down into the ground. Pinkie let out a yelp of surprise as she hit the ground and rolled past Twilight, the unicorn turning her head and firing her magic as fast as she could at Pinkie's tail. Pinkie pushed herself to her hooves, but the storm of energy bolts was too much and she collapsed again, her tail going limp. Twilight stayed poised, her horn pointed forward.

"Systems are powering-down. We did it," Spike said. Twilight almost collapsed in the ground, slumping down and panting. She looked over herself. She was positively filthy, and she could feel bruises and small cuts all over her body from the battle. She sent the command to her saddle and two small claws came out, brushing the dirt and wood from her mane.

"Okay, bucks from steel hooves and magic shots are one thing. Being blown to bits is another." She had expected Pinkie would be corrupted since everypony else she had met so far was. But the firepower she had wielded had been a complete surprise. Twilight didn't care to think what might have happened to her if she had taken a direct hit.

"Yeah, she was something else. And these scans are definitely showing the same corruption as Applejack and the other ponies," Spike said. Twilight nodded and looked over herself. Aside from a slight limp from where she had tangled her hooves avoiding an attack she couldn't detect any serious injuries. Spike's report didn't tell her much she didn't already suspect. It was obvious that Pinkie was corrupted too, now she was thinking about what she had said to her when they had first spoken to her.

"She came out here with her friends, but they left while she stayed behind..." Twilight stood and walked over to Pinkie's limp body, pushing her on her back. Pinkie's eyes had closed, her chest rising and falling softly. "Pinkie said something told her to wait here for me. She knew we were coming. Something warned her." Twilight thought about what might have done such a thing, and remembered the first two ponies she had met in Ponyville. 'The Master' they had said.

"Well I'm done the scan. Aside from confirming she has the same type of corruption as Applejack, not much here to tell us why she went crazy, or what told her to come all the way out here."

"Ponyfeathers," Twilight cursed.

"But on the bright side, got something good here." Twilight felt her mechanical hoof begin to whir and hum and looked down as Spike reconfigured it. She lifted her hoof and watched as it shifted form. The lower half of the hoof extended down from the top on an inner shaft, and the steel plates retracted and layered themselves. The lower part widened and shortened, becoming thicker, and the bottom retracted to form a cannon barrel. "Go ahead, try it out," Spike said. Twilight aimed for a distant tree, turned away slightly, and fired. A bright pink energy orb shot out of the cannon and arced into the base of the tree, exploding in a flurry of noisemaker sounds and sending more streamers into the air. The tree cracked and fell backwards, part of its trunk blown apart.

Twilight looked down at her hoof and frowned slightly. "Oh good. I get to blow things up now."

"If we're going to come up against more ponies like her that's going to come in handy," Spike said. "Your concussion blasts aren't exactly heavy artillery." Twilight remembered there were three aides to go now and sat down, reworking her hoof to its default mode. She couldn't argue that logic and decided not to. There were other matters to deal with anyway.

"How's our reception out here, can we contact the Princess?"

"We had a lot of interference before but we're clear now. I'll dial her up," Spike said. Twilight waited, after a few seconds her horn projected a glowing blue hologram of Celestia's head in front of her.

"Twilight, what news?"

"We found another one of your aides, Pinkie Pie. She had the same corruption as Applejack. I had to fight her," Twilight reported. "And something out here was reactivating the old Silver Wolf robots and driving them insane too."

"Understood. We'll lock on Pinkie's signal and teleport her back here for diagnostics. I'll mobilize a force of guard ponies to handle the Silver Wolves," Celestia replied. Twilight saw Pinkie Pie's body light up in sparkles and light and recalled when they had arrived in the clearing. "At the very least, you're safe I hope," Celestia continued.

Twilight nodded. "I am, but we can't be relieved yet. Pinkie was saying some very strange things."

"That's normal for her, dear."

"No, I mean she said that something told her to come out this way. Then something told her to wait for me and attack me. She knew me by name," Twilight explained. Celestia thought.

"I see. That is quite concerning. These crazed ponies must have some way of communicating in spite of the interference. The Ponyville ponies likely warned them."

"Makes sense I suppose. We'll be on our guard in the future now, if they know I'm coming they might try to lay out a trap." Twilight hoped that the crazed ponies didn't have the state of mind to try that. Celestia's two aides seemed to have more of their senses and personalities about them. She wasn't sure what made them seemingly resistant to this epidemic, but she hoped they were rare exceptions.

"Is there anything else? If this is becoming too much for you, don't hesitate to return home," Celestia said. Twilight looked down at her hoof. She didn't like the idea that Spike was right, that in the future she'd be facing ponies with even more dangerous weapons than Pinkie had and would have to respond in kind. But if she went back to Canterlot now, wouldn't Celestia just have to send someone else to track down her aides? There were surely plenty of ponies in Canterlot more suited than her, with combat training and actual weapons aside from unicorn magic blasts. Yet Twilight couldn't bring herself to just tell the Princess that she wanted to quit. The knowledge that there were more innocent ponies out there corrupted into fighting each other overrode her fears.

"Thank you, but I think I'm alright to continue going," Twilight replied. "Although I do have to ask, what type of cybernetics did Pinkie get that let her shoot glowing energy orbs that explode into confetti and noisemaker sounds?"

"As I said, dear, that's normal for her. If you knew Pinkie you'd understand." Celestia gave Twilight a knowing smile. "Let me right away know if you need any aid. I'm counting on you, but I don't want you to get hurt trying to save my aides."

"Thank you. I'll be alright," Twilight repeated. Celestia's hologram vanished and Twilight turned to the path out of the forest. "Spike, where to now?"

"I'm detecting another aide in the mountains outside the forest."

Nodding, mare and program set off to their next destination, the mountains looming in the distance.

LEVEL COMPLETE

WEAPON ACQUIRED – PINKIE CANNON