The group had set their sights on the city of canterlot. The capital of equestria happened to house the location that pixel desired to go to. To pass time while they were all on the train wordplay had decided to continue writing in his notebook, pixel and nova were discussing their circumstances for the hundredth time, Buffy and azura were having a debate about what they should do while they were in canterlot, viola was reading a book she had brought with her, and viridian was asleep.
After some time had passed the conductor of the train came through the cars and announced "attention everypony, we will be arriving in canterlot shortly so please be ready to exit the train upon arrival. Thank you." he announced before heading back to the front of the train. His voice had woken up viridian and got the attention of every other pony. The group spent the next few minutes getting their belongs together so they would be ready like the conductor asked.
Pixel lead the ponies out onto the streets of canterlot "so how exactly is this going to go?" Viridian asked. Pixel had given a brief description of how they would go about this but said she would explain it better once they got to canterlot.
Pixel looked around them for a moment "I would rather discuss this in a place where others are not going to hear us. I would like to keep this incident as isolated as possible." Pixel said, still looking around them.
Viola got an idea "pixel, may I make a suggestion?" Viola asked.
"Of course you can." Pixel answered.
There's a park near here. I don't often see many ponies there so it could make for an isolated location." Viola said.
Pixel didn't think twice about the suggestion "that would be great viola. Please, lead the way." Pixel told her. With that viola took the lead of the group and lead the group through the streets of cantorlot.
A few minutes later viola lead the group through the entrance of the park that she had mentioned, and as she predicted there weren't many ponies around. Pixel soon motioned them all over to a few picnic tables that nopony was using. Pixel assumed her usual spot in front of them all "alright everypony, I'm going to run you all through our plan is at the moment. Is everypony listening?" Pixel asked them all. Pixel received several nods in return "good, now listen closely." Pixel told them all.
Pixel collected her thoughts from the train ride "ok, so the place that we are heading to is a facility that assists with things such as information processing, security scans, and messaging. I want to investigate this place because the signal that carried the virus did not seem to pass through here by normal means. When we enter I want to head to their main server room, it is there I believe that we may find something of value." Pixel explained "does anypony have any questions?" Pixel asked. Wordplay and viridian raised their hooves into the air.
Pixel decided to answer wordplay first "what do you want to know wordplay?" Pixel asked wordplay.
"Well I was wondering... how exactly we're going to get inside?" Wordplay asked.
Pixel thought to her conversation with nova on the train "I plan on persuading our way in. I'm sure that if we must we can explain our situation to whoever we may need. You all can add input if you think it may help." Pixel said.
"So we're pretty much just going to ask nicely to come in... not a great plan." Wordplay thought to himself.
Pixel turned to look at viridian next "now what was it you wanted to know viridian?" Pixel asked viridian.
"I was wondering... what'll we gonna do if we don't find anything here?" Viridian asked.
Pixel hadn't considered this before, she was so certain that something would be here that the possibility had not crossed her mind "... we... we will regroup and consider new options." Pixel said. Now that she had said that she was much less sure of herself.
Pixel tried to dismiss the thought and returned to her original thoughts "well if everypony is ready then I would like to go ahead and get on our way." Pixel announced. The group quickly rose back to their hooves while pixel lead the group through canterlot again, pixel periodically stopping to look at a map she had brought with her. Eventually pixel stopped, looking down at her map before looking up to a building that stood on the corner of the street.
"That's it. That's the facility." Pixel said.
Wordplay stepped to the side of the group to get a better view of the building. The whole structure was surrounded by a metal fence that contained a large grey building that had two small tower-like structures that were mostly blue and had black lines that ran across the edges in color and extruded from the top of the main building.
Pixel motioned them all forward "allow me to get us inside. I'm sure that the stallion at the entrance will be understanding of us." Pixel said.
"I'll be surprised if he let's us in." Wordplay muttered.
Pixel lead the group toward the entrance of the facility, a small gate that had a booth next to it. There was an older stallion that was working from inside the booth. He looked up from what he was doing to see pixel and her friends approach him "hm? Who are you all?" He said. His voice sounded deep and gravelly.
Pixel decided to introduce herself "I'm pixel wavelength, I'm here with my friends on some important matters. I ask that me and my friends can enter your facility." Pixel said.
The stallion eyed her curiously "did ya talk to my boss or something about this?" The stallion asked pixel.
"Uh... no I'm afraid not." Pixel said. Before pixel could say anything else the stallion suddenly perked up.
"Oh, pixel, pixel wavelength. I thought I recognized you from somewhere, how could I forget. What brings you here to this place?" The stallion asked, suddenly much more enthusiastic toward pixel.
Pixel enjoyed the stallions newfound kindness "well as I said before, me and my friends would like entry to your facility, your server room to be specific." Pixel told him.
"I can do that. What do ya wanna go down there for?" The stallion asked, disappearing below his desk to look for his radio.
"Well we had traced a signal that passed through here and it seemed odd the way it came through so I wanted to investigate." Pixel explained.
The stallion popped back up to everypony's view "good enough for me." he said, raising his radio up to his mouth "hey poper, I need you to take a group of ponies down to the server room." He said over his radio.
After a few seconds another voice came over the radio "i'm supposed to go on break soon." 'poper' replied.
"Oh come on poper it'll only take like two minutes." The stallion said in response.
"uhg, fine. You're at the gate right?" poper asked.
"Yep." He replied
"alright, I'm on my way." poper said before the radio went silent again.
"While he's on his way let me let you all inside." The stallion said while pulling a lever that opened the gates to the facility.
Three minutes later poper came out from the side of the building and walked over to the gate "so you just want me to take them all down to the server room?" Poper asked.
"Yep, that's all." The stallion said.
"Alright then. All of you follow me." Poper said. Poper lead the group through the main door of the building and through many of the winding hallways the building contained. Wordplay noticed a lack of other ponies in the halls as they passed through, he assumed many of them were going on break like poper said he was going to.
Eventually poper lead the group down a small set of stairs that lead to a small door at the bottom "now I don't know why you all need to be down here but don't damage anything." Poper said while opening the door.
"Thank you very much sir." Pixel told him.
"You're welcome ma'am." Poper said.
Pixel brought everypony inside the server room before poper closed the door behind them all from outside. Wordplay walked back to see if he had locked the door, he hadn't to his relief.
Pixel assumed her spot in front of everypony "alright everypony, now that we're here I want you all to spread out and look for anything out of place that could help us. Can everypony do this?" Pixel asked them all.
Pixel was once again greeted with several words of agreement "that's great to hear. Now let's not waste any time and get started." Pixel said. With that announcement everypony separated down into the different rows of the server room. The room itself had several rows of lights and switches that regulates the facility's functions. The group split up and down the rows with pixel and viola together, nova and viridian together, and wordplay with azura and buffy.
"So what do you two think about all this?" Azura asked. Azura was always curious to see what her friends thought about something compared to her.
Buffy answered before wordplay could "I think this is cool. We're like detectives down here." Buffy said.
"Cool way to think about it. Hey wordplay, do you think we'll find anything down down here?" Azura asked wordplay, who was eyeing the walls, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
"Huh? Oh I think we'll find something." Wordplay said.
"Are you sure?" Azura asked. She didn't think wordplay sounded serious.
"I trust pixel's judgement." Wordplay said.
Azura rolled her eyes "well so do I, but think about it. Pixel and nova are probably the only ponies here that could notice a difference in all these little buttons and lights and stuff." Azura said.
"Well... I might be able to." Wordplay said after a moment passed.
Wordplay peaked azura's curiosity with that statement "and why's that?" Azura asked.
"Well when pixel first messaged me about helping the internet, which isn't this, I got super excited and ended up doing some research on pixel and some of her inventions, so I know some about these kind of things." Wordplay explained. That made sense in azura's mind.
"Plus even if we don't know a lot that shouldn't stop us from looking." Buffy added.
"Good point. Let's do it." Azura said. The group continued searching through the different rows of machinery. Every so often one of the group would call everypony over because they thought they had found something, but pixel would dismiss it as nothing every time. Eventually the group came together once more around viridian.
"Ok so I was just thinking... I'm starting to think that there might not be anything here." Viridian said in a concerning manner.
"Oh please viridian, don't think like that. There must be something here for us to discover. We just need to keep looking." Pixel said, trying to sound encouraging.
"If you say so. Still though, it is kind of discouraging after going so long without finding anything after so long." Viridian said. Pixel did not reply, she only stared at viridian "um... pixel are you-" viridian was quieted by pixel, who had moved her hoof to viridian's mouth.
Pixel walked past viridian to the wall of technology behind her, pixel's eyes fixed on a box that wasn't completely attached to the rest of the technology.
"Did you find something pixel?" Nova asked.
Pixel pointed into the small crevice between the small box and the technology above it. Nova noticed there was a faint trace of red light behind it. It was so faint that only somepony with as keen of an eye as pixel would notice.
"Nova could you please help me remove this box?" Pixel asked.
"Of course pixel." Nova replied. The box was soon surrounded by both of their magic auras as they worked delicately to remove the box out of it's containment. Everypony else watched in anticipation and silence as pixel and nova worked. After several minutes the box finally slid free and pixel flipped it around to see a strange device on the back of it.
"What do you think it is?" Nova asked, despite the answer being obvious.
"I believe it's the device that allowed that anonymous pony used to send that message to me." Pixel said, detaching the device from the box with ease. The device itself was circular in shape in shape and had several small wire-like parts that extended from it. The main part of the device also had a large red light in the middle of it, along with others along it's side.
Suddenly the main light on the device started flashing, accompanied by a rather annoying beeping "what is it doing?" Azura asked.
Pixel smiled "I believe it's sending another signal to our pony." Pixel said.
Nova then realized what pixel was thinking "back to the lab then?" Nova asked.
"Back to the lab. Everypony get around me." Pixel told everypony. Everypony got as close to pixel as they could before pixel's horn flashed brightly before they all disappeared in a flash of light.
...
Everypony reappeared back into pixel's lab "nova, azura, come with me." Pixel said. Nova and azura acted quickly and followed pixel over to the device they had used before to trace the signal before.
Only a few minutes later pixel turned back to the group "well thanks to the fact that this device held almost no resistance to us, we now know the exact location that the device is sending a signal to, a location not far from las pegasus. Let's all act in the moment and head over there soon." Pixel announced.