The back alley had putrid stench that made her lip curl. For a nanosec she wished her body didn’t have olfactory senses at all.
Trash and refuse littered the press-crete, collected against the brickface in knee-deep drifts. If the city’s cleaning routines were still operating, it had not been to this side of town in a while. as the neon lights of the larger, populated, alleys and byways faded into an uneasy sort of half darkness. Rats - at least she assumed they were rats or something genetically similar - moved in the deeper shadows cast by ancient rusted dumpsters and discarded bits of crumpled plasti-steel pieces of junked out vehicles. Dirty runoff water from the ever present rains ran in a sluggish stream down the middle of the alley and she was careful to not step in it as she ventured deeper into the underbelly of the city.
Twilight despised what Canterlot had become. The mountain it once perched on like some white and gold bird of paradise was gone. Reduced to a mound of it’s former self all in the name of progress and convenience. It barely even registered as a rise in elevation, the city was so layered on top of it. Here, at least, she could see the sky now and then between the buildings and sky-bridges that directed and ferried the city’s hundred million or so citizens around on their daily, pointless lives.
Twilight frowned, readjusting her thinking. She mustn’t look down on the ponies here. They were not intrinsically lesser than her. She was not some higher being, god-like in her power and ability in comparison. No matter what others might like to say. She was much more a dinosaur than these ponies that chose to live here as ponies just like them had chosen to do so for thousands and thousands of years. It was their choice to either join the Enlightened or not. If they did not, then that was their choice.
Choice is a powerful thing. It was choice that led her now, in the dark, though a fetid alleyway to a place she had not seen with her own eyes in more than seven centuries.
Twilight rounded the corner at the end of the little alley and stopped just outside the beam of light from a partially functional sign hanging low over a set of recessed doors. Between the doors a small kiosk made of plasti-steel with a thick plate of shatterproof, translucent crystal. Behind the glass, a dingy looking pony snored peacefully.
She scanned the building, her bio-enhancements pinging the local network for a full diagnosis of the structure. Twilight used old, cleared credentials for the access request. In part because she suspected the building wouldn’t recognise her current set and possibly, doing so might trigger older defenses buried under the faux-brick exterior to not attempt to atomize her body. She really didn’t fancy a walk back out here if she could avoid it.
The data stream told her everything was functioning within allowed parameters, if the energy consumption was a little high. It was the same standard info it would give any other system that came snooping around. Twilight ignored it and tapped deeper, her enhancements slipping past the security measures with ease. She was careful when she reached the real security armament, disabling the disrupters and force nets until she could reach the deepest, most hidden systems and routines. There she stopped and passively absorbed the data, examining it for signs of corruption or degradation. Anything more would be impolite.
Satisfied that everything seemed to be in order, Twilight walked up to the kiosk. She gave the pony inside a quick scan, confirming that he was a standard Earth Pony with only the minimal mandatory augmentations. She waited for his system to wake him up, taking a step back so that she would appear less threatening. She checked her social interaction protocol checklist on her HUD, stretching her lips into what she hoped was an appropriate smile as the stallion’s eyes fluttered open.
“I’m here to see the Oracle.” Twilight coughed, her voice low.
The pony blinked at her in incomprension, wiping a bit of drool from his chin. Her shook his head to clear it and tapped the button on his side of the plast-steel wall, a communication speaker buzzing to life. “What?”
“I’m here to see the Oracle.” Twilight repeated herself, a bit firmer this time, and stepped forward again so his organic eyes could see her clearly. “I have credits.”
“We don’t take credits here.” The kiosk pony set his jaw, his tone becoming aggressive. “It’s bits and bits only. We don’t take kindly to technocrat Enlightends or their cursed credits.”
Twilight stood her ground. Her enhancements caught him sending out a call through the local communications node of the local net. It was tagged emergency and being routed for the authorities. They would make this more complicated, so she intercepted the call and sent the stallion’s bio-enhancements a false ‘received’ notification. She could see his shoulders relax microscopically as soon as she did.
“I have no bits. I’m sorry. But I really must see the Oracle, it is vitally important.”
“I don’t care, filly! It’s bits or beat off!” He stood, trying to loom over her from inside his tiny castle.
“I’m sorry.” Twilight sighed, reminding herself again that it was choice that separated them. Choice that was driving her on to fix a mistake made long ago. Choice that chased her away centuries ago. So, she made the choice that the pony was going to walk home tonight, wherever that might be.
She reached forward, the end of her hoof breaking apart into several mechanized grippers, and grabbed the kiosk wall. The plasti-steel screeched, crunching under her hoof before the bolts and seals holding it collapsed under the greater pressure and a large jagged piece tore away. The stallion shouted, falling back from the small stool he had been sitting on, his own bio-enhancements firing out call after automated call for help. Twilight blocked them all.
“P-postphysical?! Here?” He scrambled back, pushing himself into the back wall that was covered with old printouts and piled high with the used containers of a few years worth of fast food. “What do you want?”
“I already told you.” Twilight’s voice was calm, unstrained as she tossed aside the wall and stepped into the kiosk. “Please get out of my way. I do not wish to harm you.” She applied a smile to her face and checked her interaction protocol again to make sure it was more reassuring than psychotic. Whichever the effect, it got the stallion moving and he dived out of the kiosk and into the night, leaving her behind.
Twilight didn’t waste any time and ripped the printouts off the wall with a sweep of her hoof. Under that was a layer of plaster and faux-brick which she brushed aside along with the used fast food containers. Behind that, her true prize lay, a molecularly reinforced malmetal bulkhead with a tiny slot for coded entry.
Twilight moved closer, a similar slot in her chest opening and a her neural interface node extended. She jacked into the slot on the wall and felt a slight sort of tug as her consciousness left her body and reformed in a subspace reality that was modeled after the ancient Canterlot of her birth. In front of her rose the mountain, taller here than it ever really was, and on it’s side sat Canterlot Castle, bright and shining in the immortal noonday sun.
Twilight smiled for the first time in a very long time. Her hooves, flesh and blood so far as her mind could determine, clopping happily as she headed for the castle and the pony she knew would be there. Maybe now she could say she was sorry and could come back into the fold, back into the embrace of those she loved.