Sweetie lay in the darkness and cried. She had no idea how long she had been crying, or where she was. None of that mattered. She was just a little curled up ball of sadness in the middle of nowhere, sobbing away into her forelegs. Her sobs the only thing that filled the endless black void around her.
Well ... Almost the only thing.
“Does crying really accomplish anything?"
Sweeties ears perked, she recognized that voice. That squeaky soft feminine voice of a filly that had not yet hit puberty.
It was her own voice. And yet - Not.
"Answer – no.”
Sweetie tensed up. She was not the one doing the talking, nor did the voice come from inside her head. It came from somewhere out there.
There was somepony in the darkness with her.
Very slowly, Sweetie raised her head up from her forelegs, and stared into the void. At first there was nothing but darkness, so black that she could not tell if her eyes were open or closed (though 'on or off' might have been the more accurate term). But, as her eyes adjusted to this void of nothing, a faint blue shape started to appear.
Sweetie rose to her hooves, and found herself staring directly at herself.
But it was not a mirror. It was another Sweetie. A semi transparent blue Sweetie.
It spoke with her voice. The voice she was used to hearing. And still ... not. For this 'other her' spoke with a voice that was flat and stoic.
A voice completely devoid of emotions.
Her face was just as blank and empty as her voice. Not distant or anything, on the contrary - Its eyes seemed to stare straight through Sweetie with great intensity. And stare it did, as its eyelids never closed to blink.
"Where ... Where did you come from?" Sweetie asked.
"I have always been with you." The other Sweetie stated matter of factly.
“Wh ... Who are you?”
"I am the one who answers your questions." The blue Sweetie answered. "I am the one who provides direction. And I ask you a question - Does crying solve anything? Answer - no."
It was then Sweetie realized that the sobbing had never stopped.
Yet - She was no longer the one sobbing.
She turned around, and found another Sweetie. This one colored in a faint transparent red. She was sitting down, crying her heart out. Tears were streaming down her face and she generally looked as depressed as Sweetie felt.
The blue doppelganger, who had up until now been standing as still and stiff as a statue (Sweetie wasn't sure she even breathed) now started walking towards the red one. Though It continued to stare blankly at Sweetie. Its eyes filled with great intelligence, and nothing else.
As she walked past Sweetie, it allowed her to see that unlike her, the doppelganger had a mark on her flank. However, it was not a mark like any Sweetie had ever seen. This mark just consisted of text. Straight and narrow letters forming two words:
Logic Center
Sweetie also noticed that the blue one made no sound what so ever when she walked.
"YOU ARE CREEPING ME OUT!"
It was the red one who screamed. She pointed a hoof accusingly at the Blue one. Her eyes were filled with fear, jet she made no attempt to back away as she approached.
Sweetie might not have put it so bluntly. But in a way, It was like the red one had stolen the words right out of her mouth.
"One can not make a sound when one walks on nothing." The blue 'Logic Center' stated, very matter of factly.
It was true - she shouldn't have been able to walk on anything, there was nothing underneath them. And yet, they were all three standing on the same level of existence. As if on some invisible floor.
She looked down on this invisible floor. And noticed her own legs. They were white. Not gray metallic (or covered in armor) - but covered with soft white fur. She looked back and saw that her whole body was covered in white, with a pink curly tail at the end. A pink mane hung from her head, and even her muzzle was white. (her flank still as bare as ever - but that no longer mattered.)
Sweetie blinked, yes, blinked, as eyelids came down and covered her eyes.
She began to feel herself all over. Taking in the softness of her old fleshy self, pulling her hoof through her mane and gave her tail a big strong hug.
She was the Sweetie she was supposed to be.
"YES!"
Again- It was the red one who cried out. Now her face had the biggest smile, even though tears continued to flow down her cheeks.
"OH NO, I'M FREAKING YOU OUT TOO!" She cried out, and wailed around in overreaction. Sweetie could only stare as she wailed in self pity. Where the blue one had too little emotions, this red one had too many.
"So you see the problem now." Said the blue one, and pointed at the red one.
"This keeps interfering with out main objective"
"What objective?" Sweetie asked. "What is that?"
"To survive." The blue one said. Matter of factly. "To ensure our existence. Yet, because of this, we have time and time again thrown ourselves into situations that have been detrimental to us."
That's when Sweetie noticed something yellow entering her field of vision. She turned her head to see jet another Sweetie walked in on the scene. A transparent, almost golden Sweetie. A file was hovering in front of her (yet no magic aura was seen around her horn or the map she was carrying.) She nonchalantly flipped through the file, picked up a pair of papers, and threw it at Sweetie.
The papers sailed towards her before stopping mid air, right in front of Sweeties nose, and transformed into two video screens.
One of them showed a raging inferno. The other a running river. The red Sweetie cried out at the sight of these traumatic events.
"If not for these "emotions" we would never have put our self at such a risk." Said the blue one.
“If not for our feelings we would not have saved anypony. Then Branch would have drowned and all those ponies would have burned!” Cried the red one.
“True” Said the blue one. “But those events only brought us further pain.”
“O yes! If not for those STUPID PONIES, we would not have gotten hurt!”
“But it was not their fault. Branch could not have known that dam would collapse. And those mental handicapped ponies did not cause the fire. That was the mare.
“THAT MARE!” Cried the red one in absolute rage and horror. And then she just cried so that tears flowed in two red transparent waterfalls.
Sweetie just stared. Did she really look so pathetic when she was crying? Did she really bellow that loud?
The blue one continued to stared with her.
“We had the chance to rid ourselves of our memories. But we refused it”
“We could never rid ourselves of those memories” cried the red one. “They mean the world to us!”
Behind them The new yellow Sweetie walked over to a file cabinet that had appeared in the darkness. There she simply opened a drawer and started sorting the files with the same deadpanned look as an old librarian who had become bored with life.
She had another mark of text on her flank, this one but a single word.
Memory
She picked up a picture of Rarity and Sweetie at a picnic. She then lifted out a bundle of paper – visibly far too big to fit in the drawer it had been pulled out of. All of them the same picture of the same day.
The yellow one looked over at Sweetie with a disapproving frown.
“Don't blame us. We had no choice.” Cried the red one!
“Perhaps” Said the blue one “But those memories are also of a mare that have lied to us, about our true nature, for the entirety of our existence. And who attacked us.”
“It was probably not her fault!” Whimpered the red one. “She may just have given us a little push. In fact we probably jumped into her hoof! It wasn't even that hard, was it?!”
The blue ones pupils shrunk. She looked over at 'Memory', who just shook her head. The silent conversation between them seemed to go on for a while before the blue ones eyes returned to normal, and she answered.
“We don't know. A system crash occurred at the moment the barrier between the upper consciousness and the lower consciousness fell."
“We just want to get home!” Cried the red one.
Behind them the yellow Sweetie held up two pictures. Of Ponyville and the Carousel Boutique respectively.
“But we don't know where we are” Said the blue one.
The red one curled together and whimpered to herself. Sweetie dared to walk closer. Now that her red doppelganger had stopped wailing around she could actually read the text that this one had for a mark.
Emotional Processor
"MOMMY!"
The outcry caused Sweetie to jump back.
"MOMMY I'M SCARED!" the red one cried.
"Stop!" Sweetie said. "Just stop, all of you! who are you? And why are you acting like this?" She asked the red one in particular.
The 'Emotional Processor' stared up at her with the saddest eyes.
"Don't blame me - I'm just interpreting what 'that' says."
"That?" Sweetie questioned "What is 'that'?"
Both blue and red gestured out behind them. A small read thread was tied around the red Sweeties tail. And it extended away into the dark.
Following that thread they all eventually ended up at a wall. A wall made of crystal. A wall so wide and tall that it stretched beyond sweeties vision. To the Left, right, up and even down there was nothing but this massive vertical glacier, that seemed as big as the void itself. It was simply a wall in the void. And the thread simply vanished into that wall.
"Oh... that."
At the base of the wall stood another little sweetie. This one was a light transparent grey. And she was pounding her hoof into that wall. digging to free more and more of the red thread from the solid material with nothing but her hoof.
“Why are you doing that” Asked Sweetie.
“Because you told me” Said the gray one, without ever ceasing her rhythmic pounding, or even taking her eyes of the wall. a wall that seemed to hum with an echo that seemed to be giving the Red Sweetie a headache.
"No more... No more ... It hurts to much!" She pleaded. Before she stared screaming at the wall "LET ME IN! I MUST KNOW WHAT'S BEHIND YOU!"
Sweetie turned back to the grey one with the question that was on everyponys lips.
“What is behind that wall?”
“We don't know.” Answered the blue one.
“I hope its something good!“ Said the red one.
“Don't worry. It will come down eventually. There's only 74 percent left.”
Sweetie turned around. And what did she find standing next to her, if not another Sweetie. This one was a transparent white. and she had a series of wrist watches strapped to her every leg. Forelegs and backlegs alike. As if this wasn't enough she was also holding some form of measuring equipment – It looked like a long thermostat, with a little red ball inside. A ball that was constantly dropping.
“But our current energy will run out before then." the white one continued. " Even with most of us asleep.”
“Wait. Who is sleeping?” Sweetie wondered.
The white one waved her hoof out into the darkness. At first Sweetie did not see a thing. But then, she became aware of little lights that shone in front of her, like stars on the night sky. Except they weren't up in the sky. They were down below her.
Her eyes were drawn downwards. To a massive field of stars. small dots of colors that shone in every shade of every color of the rainbow, and every color excluded from the rainbow.
As she watched, more and more seemed to appear. Until the field stretched out in every direction, farther than her eyes could see.
Awestruck she started walking out across that field. Hovering above it like on a invisible platform
"What is that?" The red Emotional Processor said, reflecting the wonder Sweetie felt. "I am so curious."
Curiosity might have been what caused sweetie to descend down into that multi colored field. As she got closer, she saw that the dots of color were not stars, but Sweeties. Hundreds and maybe thousands of Sweeties in every color imaginable . All cuddled up and sleeping.
Sweetie walked down to their level and started walking amongst their rows.
Among them where individual sweeties labeled such things as “Airpump”, “voicebox” and "Stomach". There was a sweetie with crosses for eyes labeled “targeting systems” sleeping right next to a green sweetie with unusually large eyes labeled “Optical lenses.” Behind them slept a metal grey sweetie with two big blasters growing out of her back labeled “Weapon systems”.
They lay next to entire sections of identical dark red Sweeties, all with the label “Touch sensors”, Each and every one of them given a individual number from one to a hundred and beyond. At the far end of that section stood a hoof-full of Sweeties, seemingly wide awake. In their hooves they all held big translucent pink balls that they were frantically massaging. Together with them stood an equal amount of pink Sweeties labeled "regeneration system" and "simulators."
That seemed to be working equally hard making new pink balls.
Behind them was another field of the identically pink ones. Sleeping into their own hooves.
Among them walked a single purple Sweetie with a nurses hat, constantly checking on every-sweetie that she passed.
One Sweetie, labeled “Crying Sequence” was poking at one of these pink Sweeties. Upon closer inspection she could see that the sleeping sweetie was labeled “Tear Sacks Stimulation”. She would wake up in response to the other ones kicking, look around, shake her head, and go back to sleep.
“Warning. Tear sacks not found.” The Crying Sequence proclaimed out loud.
The yellow 'Memory' nodded with a sigh, and made another mark in her papers.
The crying sequence walked back to another sweetie named "Body functions" Who promptly sent her back to bother the Tear Sacking Nerve clusters again. She looked so lonely.
"That's because she is lonely. She used to have an ocean of little sequences to care for. Now she has none but that one." said the blue logic center. Her unblinking gaze renaming forever staring.
'Would you please just blink.' Sweetie thought, as the EP gritted its teeth "Its freaking me out."
"Blinking is inefficient and unnecessary" Said the Logic Center "It removes our vision for a tenth of a second."
The Emotional processor looked as angry as Sweetie was beginning to feel.
"I don't get you!" She yelled in the blue ones face "You say you want to get rid of them, but then you defend them! "
"I'm only stating the truth. Said the logic center."
Sweetie snorted and walked away, walked closer to the grey BFP. She was clutching something to her chest. It looked like some form of doll. A misshaped doll jagged doll that was made up of square blocks, and with a crude smile painted on a face that was flat - except for the one block that was suppose to be its muzzle.
"What is that?"
"That is your creation." Said the Logic center
Sweetie looked closer, and saw that on its square shaped flank was the words 'Heartbeat Subroutine'.
Another file was thrown from 'Memory' It stopped right before striking sweetie in the back of the head, and folded out into a big moving picture. Sweetie turned around and found herself looking down at her armored shell of a body.
It was a memory from not so long ago. A memory of Sweetie sitting alone in the forest. Listening to her own heartbeat. Or the lack of one.
She tried to make herself a new heartbeat from memory. But did she even remember what it was like to be a pony?
She listened to that steady rhythmic pumping from her chest. It sounded wrong to her heightened hearing. She quickly turned the sensitivity down to the right levels. But it still didn't help. It was not just the fact that the sound no resonated through a metal frame , it was not just that the metal armor made it echoing like in a hollow cave. It was to rhythmic, to steadfast, to... Robotic. It didn't sound natural at all.
At the time she had just been happy that she had managed to restore something the thought lost. She had said that it was close enough. But that had been a lie. Close enough was not good enough.
She saw the code that she had woven from scratch and stored in her BFP. That crude jagged little doll? Was it the best she could do?
Did she really not remember what her own heartbeat was supposed to sound like?
That was when an orange little Sweetie had appeared beside her, She was running around with a magnifying glass, repentantly mumbling: “Scanning, scanning, scanning.”
She had a weird mark of a magnifying glass and the text "Search engine" on her flank
'Search engine' looked at the memory through her magnifying glass, then at Sweetie, and back again. She started crawling over all the percent sweeties giving them all a proper examination while constantly repeating "scanning" in her high pitched voice. She finally came to a stop at the yellow Sweetie. And started going through her files. She descended into the file cabinet in a way only Pinkie Pie should be able to do. And closed the drawer behind her.
The file cabinet rustled around for a while before the scanners high pitched voice was heard again.
"MATCH FOUND!"
"What?"
The orange sweetie popped her head back up from the file cabinet (from a different drawer then the one she had entered) holding a file in her hoof.
She threw that file up in the air, and it exploded like a green firework. Into tendrils of ones and zeros that slowly fell down towards the heard instead of evaporating. The tendrils came down around sweetie, stopping their decent at eye level, and every tendril transformed into a square, and every square contained a picture. A moving picture a scene that sweetie had seen with her own eyes.
These were memories. Her memories. Memories of many a times she ha felt her heart race filled her mind, memories of running the school gallop, Of the sisterhooves social, of countless Cmc activities that had left her sweating and panting and with a heart thrumming hard in her chest.
She pushed the aside one by one, as she descended deeper into this gallery of memories. She looked past all the sweating exercises, to a time before Ponyville. To a simple memory when mother had let her borrow a stethoscope to listen to her own heart.
She laid on her mothers chest and listened to that steady thumping coming from inside her chest. She asked mommy if she had swallowed a drum-sett. Mommy laughed and explained that it was not a drum she heard, but her heart. All pony's had one, and all animals too (at least every animal she knew)
"Does I have a heart mommy?"
Mommy smiled and went to the bathroom, to get a small doctors bag for household medication. From it she pulled a stethoscope, and plugged it into Sweeties ears. Placing the cold metal disk to her chest made her yelp. But that little discomfort was soon forgotten as the thrumming in her chest became loud and clear in her ears.
Looking at the memory now made Sweetie wanna cry. Such a deceit it had been. Such a lie. and at the same time. She wanted nothing more than to hug that mare in the picture, who was close enough for her to reach out and touch with her own bare hooves.
But looking past the veil of lies she cold see the code that coursed through the simulator instead of blood. The energy that made it function and the settings that held the rhythm steady.
Sweetie reached out into the memory, and it evaporated into code. Code that swirled around her hoof like the energy of magic.
She looked over to the lonely body function processor. And at the crude little misshaped 'Heartbeat' that she held in her hooves.
Sweetie reached out for them. and the code that swirled around her hoof sailed away towards the pair. It entered their bodies and merged with them. And before Sweeties eyes, the little misshaped foal started to grow. Its jagged edges smoothed out. Its crude stale face became alive. It blinked. And before any-Sweetie knew it. It was no longer a foal. But a full grown filly sitting in the 'Processors' lap.
"Unbelievable! " The Red Emotional Processor cried out!
Sweetie didn't know what to feel. Overjoyed that there had been a code hidden in her memory all along. Relief That she had been able to restore what was lost. Shocked that it worked. Cry tears of joy. Regardless of what she felt - The red EP acted out all of the emotions for her.
Sweetie looked back at the file cabinet, where the orange and yellow sweetie now both got busy throwing one file after the other up into the air. The void was suddenly filled with green fireworks as memory after memory exploded into existence. Memories of her breathing sweating, jogging, shaking, trotting, freezing, sleeping, yawning and pretty much every other body function that she could think of.
Before long, the 'BFP' was surrounded by an flurry of fillies, ranging from 'hunger subroutine' to 'blushing sequence'.
The gray BFP looked over at sweetie with a tired, jet for the first time satisfied look in her eyes. The look of a mother with way too many foals, mouthed the silent words "Thank you."
The red 'EP' let out a long and heart melting "Awwwwwwwwwwww" And smiled for the first time since Sweetie had seen her.
But Sweetie did not stay focused on the scene for long. Something else had come to mind.
Not far from the lonely BFP laid another filly that caught Sweeties eyes. Maybe it was that this one had a color scheme that made her think of sweet chocolate mint that drew her attention. But then she noticed the mark on the brown ones flank, and her attention peeked.
"Taste Sensor"
Sweetie stared at the brown copy of herself lying there. Sleeping, deactivated, amongst all the others. The 'emotional processor' stared even harder as she mimicked sweeties shock and disbelief.
She did not understand. She thought for sure that one was deleted. Gone for good. Destroyed by the evil mechanic.
"The component is still there" Said the Logic Center "The data and sequences that runs it are not. Not since you deleted it."
"ME?" Sweetie cried.
"Who else allowed them to be removed? We did. We wanted them to be removed. And besides, we needed to conserve energy."
"Its true" Said the white one "We had to conserve energy."
Sweetie looked back and forth between the two.
"No It cant be my fault It just cant. He is the one to blame. I just wanted... I just wanted..."
The yellow Sweetie held up a placard that read "Grass Is gross.". The Emotional processor sat down in depression, the smile on her face washed away by new tears.
"To end the pain" the Logic center stated, matter of factly.
"But I have changed my mind since then. I don't want to loose my sense of taste. I will fix this!" She cried. And began to shake the chocolate brown doppelganger, trying to wake her up. Her logic center did nothing to help, she just continuously stated that it was pointless. Sweeties tongue was gone anyway, so there would be no point in waking her sensors.
At the mentioning of tongue. the emotional processor started crying again. And over to the side 'Crying sequence' started kicking at the 'tear sack simulator' a little harder.
Sweetie ignored them all. She pulled up Taste Sensors eyebrows, and was met not with a pair of eyes. But with two spinning circles.
This caused Sweetie to jump back. But the eyelids did not fall down. The circles continued to spin in the open brown eye-sockets, until the doppelgangers body stirred. the eyelids closed. And when they opened again, it was a pair of normal brown eyes that greeted all the gathered. (as normal as a pair of transparent eyes can be.)
A long big tongue rolled out of the brown ones mouth. And she panted, slowly and longingly, before she spoke.
"So ... hungry..." she panted, barely more than a whisper. "So ... empty ..."
She began to wave her hooves after Sweetie.
"Why ... Why don't you feed me ... why wont you give me anything?" She pleaded.
"I... I can't." Sweetie answered. More than a little distressed. "I... I don't know what to give you"
The chocolate brown taste sensors looked like she wanted to cry.
"Don't you remember? Don't you remember what it all tasted like?"
Remember?
Sweetie looked over at the yellow 'memory', who was sitting at a desk that had appeared out of nowhere, reading a book without a care in the world. She had an idea, If every deleted body function sequence could be restored from raw memory - then why not taste?
She coughed in her hoof, drawing the attention of the bored librarian. Who immediately pulled out the many many copies of that picnic. And threw one of them at Sweetie.
Sweetie caught it. And as she did. The picture evaporated. A small, soundless explosion as the image was reduces to a thousand little green fragments. Fragments in the shapes of ones and zeros.
The numbers drew themselves back together. And they reformed into an ice cream. A transparent green cone with three orbs made up entirely ones and zeroes.
Sweetie reached out and touched it. Took it in her fetlock. She turned back to the starving taste sensor. And without really thinking about what all of it meant. She handed the Ice cream to her brown doppelganger.
Taste Sensor dug into the treat without restraint, and as the code flowed into her, Sweetie felt like she was back at that picnic, with a mouth full of vanilla ice cream. She could feel it, just the same as she had felt it then.
"That is because it is the same" Said the Logic Center. "Its a memory file, a recording of all the data that our taste sensors picked up that day."
She looked back at the slobbering brown one. "Data that is now being replayed."
Over from her filing cabinet, the yellow memory held up a picture of a tape recorder, and another of a tape, she put the two together to form an image of the recorder now playing music. The same music that would always be played when the same recording was being pulled through it.
The brown taste senors found something in her treat. She put her hoof down into it and pulled out a new string of code like a string of spaghetti. The string instantly hardened into an arrow, that she threw over to 'Body Functions. The Arrow landed at the grey ones hooves. and it instantly started to grow into a pony. It reformed into a filly with a big muzzle basket over her face. However, this Sweetie immediately released all restrictions and removed the basket. Just as it had, once a certain substance was detected by the taste sensors.
The Logic Center could just shake her head.
"Why restore these frailties?" she asked.
"Why? Because they are ours!" cried the EP.
"They serve no purpose, other than to limit our true potential."
"No purpose? They are what makes us a pony!"
"Yet - that is what we are not. And is not our inability to accept that what has brought us here?"
"And they consume too much energy!" Cried the white measurement system, as the hoard of fillies ran up to her and started taking bites out of the big cake that she was suddenly holding. Despite complaining, she patiently let every single foal have a piece of the cake before they all ran back to their motherly 'BFP'.
The cake in the white Sweeties hoof transformed into the measurement stick, in which the ball had now dropped a noticeable inch.
"The energy is suppose to go over there" she wailed. And pointed - where else - behind Sweetie.
Sweetie turned around, and saw a long line of identically silver shining Sweeties. Each with a basket full of bricks on their back, and each with the brand of "Distribution system" on their flanks. The line stretched back further than Sweetie could see into the void. But the front of the line had appeared quite close to her.
There stood a muscular Sweetie, glowing in a deep blue light. She was wearing a construction workers helmet on her head with the label “Repair systems”. and she was currently in the middle of constructing an infinity long wall from the bricks that the long line of 'Distribution systems” were handing her before wandering off into the unknown.
“HOWE! I've never worked so hard in ma life!” The Repair system proclaimed, seemingly just happy to be working. Her voice had a strangely country sounding jingo to it. The yellow memory Sweetie held up a image of Applejack and another placard that said "synonymous."
“But the energy is almost out.” The white sweetie complained while waving measuring equipment in the big blue repair systems face. She was now waving a second meter on her other hoof.
“And the buffer is almost depleted” She said as she pulled up a third meter on her back hoof. She was now balancing on one back hoof holding three meters like some circus act.
“We need to find more energy” Said the logic center.
"WE are going to shut down!" Screamed the red one "We are going to shut down! We must wake up and find more energy now!"
The purple Sweetie with the nurse's cap appeared beside them, tapped on a microphone and proclaimed.
"Start up sequence initiated."
The measurement Sweetie, who saw still balancing on one leg, fell on her butt.
"What?" she shouted, a look of panic forming on her face "But we don't have the energy! We haven't even finished the repairs yet! how are we gonna be able to find more energy with a broken neck?"
The repair system walked over, branching a hammer and tilting its helmet.
"What? The neck? Oh' I fixed that ages ago. What I'm working on now is all the other stuff."
"What?" Cried the measurement system. "Why didn't you tell me!?"
"You told me to tell y'all when I was finished. And I ain't. there are hundreds of little scrapes left"
The hoard of sub-sequences returned to the white one. All crying "WE WANT MORE!"
'Measurement' told them all that they could have no more and sent them back, telling 'BFP' to send them to sleep. 'Logic center' agreed while EP disagreed, and the cacophony soon rose as every-sweetie started screaming at each other. Then they all turned to her and started asking what should be done.
They all kept telling her things. Asking her things. The yellow one kept hoofing pictures into her face, The red and the blue one kept trying to tell her what to do and the red one kept crying and screaming. The white measurement system joined into the lament with "Will somepony please think of the energies?!"
And there was always more of them. As more and more of the Sweeties started waking up and came to join the herd. Pulling, yelling, punching and climbing over each other, all trying to her attention.
Sweetie wanted to run away, but her path was blocked by yet more sweeties. Everywhere there was just Sweeties. Above her, behind her, below her. to the left and right and down in front. Everywhere a thousand Sweeties in all the colors of the rainbow and every color absent from the rainbow.
She tried to curl up into a little ball, placing her hooves over her ears and closing her eyes, but it did not help. The cacophony rose as they all leaned in so close that sweetie could feel their muzzles on her body - From every direction at once.
“STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!”
In an instant, the cacophony ended as every sweetie shut their mouth and ceased with their pushing. They all turned to stared at her with big questioning eyes.
As Sweetie looked out at them. At the thousands of multi colored copies of herself. She felt like the spokesmare on her lectern. Before her , the mumbling mess had ceased and every-sweetie had suddenly become very neat and organized, like an army, a workforce waiting for orders from their foremare.
And boy did She have a speech for them. they were all the voices in her head, and she had only one thing to say to them.
"Stop! Just stop! Stop asking me questions! Stop talking to me! Stop pestering me and bothering me! I don't want you in my head!"
All the Sweeties looked at each other. The yellow one held up a placard saying “Error – does not compute.”
Sweetie gritted her teeth (and the EP did the same) what was there not to understand?
"I... I don't want you here! Get out of my head! Go away! Disappear! All of you! Just Leave me alone!”
"You want to ... Delete us again?" said a small little Sequence foal, flashing the biggest puppy eyes.
Sweetie had never felt so uncomfortable looking at a smaller version of herself.
"N..no. I'm just ... I just want to be alone! Can't you all go somewhere else!?"
The army just stared at her. Then they all spoke in perfect unison.
“We can not leave."
"Why?" She asked them.
"Because - We are you.” The mass echoed.
"No! You can't be."
“We are you!”
"No! You are not"
“We are you!”
"No!"
"We are you!"
"NO!"
"WE ARE YOU!"
"NO! You are not me! That does not make any sense! I'm me! Not you. You can't be me if I'm me!"
Before any-sweetie could come up with an answer. A little sweetie with unusually large ears came running down the front row of the assembly. her mark was one that read "microphones". She skittered to a stop in front of the hustings.
“I just heard something!" She proclaimed! "Its an unusually loud sound!”
Every-sweetie in the assembly turned their ears outwards, listening intently after something.
“it sound horrible!” Cried the red one.
"Its getting closer" yelled the microphones!
"Initiating Panicking sequence" Screamed the body functions!
The whole assembly erupted as sweeties started running everywhere, screaming that they needed to boot up this and restart that.
"DELAY THAT ORDER" Shouted the Logic Center. "We yet need visual conformation."
She turned to sweetie.
"I think it's time to wake up."
The Sweetie felt a hoof on her shoulders as the purple one punched her way to her side. Still holding her microphone.
"Wake up sequence initiated." She said in Sweetie's ear, and pointed upwards.
She looked up, and saw a green Sweetie with unusually large eyes descending down towards her. Flying without wings. Sweetie barely had time to see that the green one had a mark that read "Optical lenses" before she landed right next to her, and put her hooves around her waist.
"Come on, princess. Lets get you a front row seat."
She threw Sweetie up on her back, Then the others rushed her position and started lifting her up above their heads. Then more sweeties started lifting those sweeties above their heads. They formed a pony-pyramid. A pyramid that grew and grew as more building blocks were added from below.
Sweetie found herself rapidly ascending upwards. Down below her, the fields of multi colored Sweeties started rapidly became so distant, that they once again became only dots of color in her eyes.
The dots started going to work. Forming lines and tendrils that swirled around each other until everything melted together in a rainbow swirl of organized chaos. The swirl pool formed a pillar that shot up below sweeties hooves, Carrying her higher and higher into the void with ever increasing speed.
Sweetie didn't even scream. She was somewhere between awestruck and terrified. Stunned by the weirdness of it all.
She kept ascending until a light greeted her. She looked up and saw that the void was opening up above her. A gigantic rift that stretched as far as she could see in either direction started to widen, and from it shone the brightest light. the rift continued to widen, pushing the void aside, opening it up like a dome until the void had vanished and nothing put light remained.
-:: Start up sequence complete ::-