Rewrite the script.
Once again, the room grew silent as the two girls stared at each other. Sighing, Lisa grabbed an office chair and sat beside her friend with a resounding whump.
"So, what are we gonna do now?"
Lisa shrugged.
"We could simply delete her if we wanted to, but... y'know, ethics and all..."
"Psh. Yeah, nearly forgot about that ruling," Samantha groaned, folding her arms, "so no deleting the Simulation Twilight then?"
"Yup."
The girl let out another groan.
"So what, are we gonna have two Twilights running around in the simulation then?"
Lisa shook her head.
"We could try merging the two," she began, "but given the extent of the corruption as far as which files it's reached, I'd say that it would probably be a dangerous move."
"So what?" Samantha replied, "We could just copy over the uncorrupted files from the Simulation Twilight, and load 'em up on the corrupted Twilight." She turned back to the computer's monitor, navigating to a network-attached folder. "See? Even the source code is still here! It'll just be a simple patch job!"
"Yeah, I guess so," Lisa agreed with a nod, "But... that still leaves us with multiple sentient Twilight Sparkle...s. And based on the way you explained the regenerating AI, there's probably a duplicate Pinkie and... whatshisnameagain..."
"Spike," Samantha answered. "Don't worry if you can't remember the character all that well. Argall and I decided to put Tim in the simulations to be with you, but you didn't exactly... well, know about that until we told you not so long ago."
"Anyways, we've still got the problem of my version of Twilight on our hands. Once we figure out how to deal with her, we could probably handle the others pretty easily. Though... that does still leave us with the Twilight that the simulation regenerated..."
Samantha sighed, slapping her hand onto the table.
"Aaaaand we're back at square one."
"Yup."
Lisa watched as her friend groaned, burying her face in her arms as she slouched onto the table. The lights flickered for a moment as the air conditioning kicked in, sending a cool breeze billowing into the room. For a brief moment, Lisa simply stared at the monitor, a blank expression on her face as the pony on-screen continued to peacefully read her book, only stopping occasionally to take a sip from a steaming cup of tea nearby.
She turned her attention back to Samantha, who remained motionless on the table.
"Hey," she began in a whisper, "Sam, I've got an idea."
Samantha gave a muffled acknowledgment but otherwise remained still.
"C'mon, Samantha. I'm sure you've dealt with bigger problems while I was in the simulation. What's wrong?"
Another groan. Samantha shifted, sliding an arm away from her face.
"I... I just don't want to work on this anymore," She began, propping herself up on the table. "I mean, sure, I enjoyed it for the most part, but haven't you ever wanted to move on?"
Lisa frowned, shaking her head.
"Of course you didn't," Samantha grumbled, turning away. "That's the other reason why I retired from my position, especially after you joined the simulation yourself. You're obsessed with this project."
"I--"
Samantha turned back, a smirk on her face.
"But," she continued, cutting off Lisa. "Maybe I'll do it anyway, just for the sheer craziness of it... and because I'll be working with you again."
Lisa huffed.
"Geez, stop it with the teasing!" She remarked, eliciting a laugh from her friend. "C'mon, we got work to do!"
"And you had an idea," Samantha grinned. "How about we hear it now?"
"Alrighty then. So, even with the corruption in place, we can both agree that it's the same base AI that's running Twilight, right?"
"Yeah?"
Lisa smirked.
"Well, we can use that to our advantage. Instead of trying to patch the system files, we could instead load the memories of the corrupted Twilight into the regenerated Twilight!"
Nodding, Samantha glanced to the monitor, then back to her friend.
"Ah," she gasped, "I see what you're talking about! After all that, we could simply delete the corrupted remnants of the old AI!"
"Er... yeah, I guess."
Samantha paused.
"Wait, didn't you say that it'd be dangerous to do something like that though?"
Lisa shook her head.
"I was referring specifically to merging the base AI. Memories shouldn't really be a problem if I remember correctly, but we'd have to modify some of the existing pre-generated scripts to keep things smooth."
"Eh, no biggie," Samantha shrugged, turning back to the monitor. "Given how those things work, tweaking the scripts should be pretty easy." She gestured to Lisa, keeping her attention on the screen. "Pull up your chair, we can get this done just like the good ol' days."
Lisa rolled her eyes, cringing at her friend's demeanor.
"Aw, c'mon, can't you take a joke? I made a promise with Pinkie to be nicer, y'know."
"Really now?"
Samantha nodded.
"You know how I... er, we are with promises?"
"Fair enough," Lisa agreed, "keeping promises was one of the things about you that we put into Pinkie's AI, anyways. On the other hand, you're definitely putting your theater skills to the test if this is how you're gonna act."
Samantha blew a raspberry at her friend, folding her arms over her chest as she leaned back in the chair. Lisa returned the favor, taking control of the computer from her friend.
"Anyways," she continued, tapping away at the keyboard, "jokes aside, we've got a bit of rewriting to do."
"Yup."
"Careful not to mess with the AI itself," Samantha cautioned, watching as Lisa combed through the seemingly endless list of files. "We don't want another Celestia fiasco on our hands like that other girl."
"Yeah, yeah. I remember. Didn't we just decide to remove her AI entirely in the end?"
Samantha didn't respond. Lisa returned her attention to the code filling the screen, the sound of the keyboard's keys once again filling the room.
"... You missed a semicolon there."
"Okay."
Samantha scooted her office chair closer to the table, an audible clunk echoing throughout the room as the plastic armrests collided with the table's siding.
"So," she began, "I was kinda expecting to do a bit more myself as well, instead of just watching you."
Lisa turned from the screen, blinking.
"Um... how about you work on Pinkie?" She suggested. "I- wait, her chip's still in you, isn't it?"
"No," Samantha shook her head, she turned her back to Lisa, pulling up her ponytail to reveal a small band-aid. "I kinda... operated on myself a bit right after I got home. Her chip's in my handbag."
Cringing, Lisa watched as Samantha fixed her hair.
"Wouldn't it hurt though?" She asked.
"'Dunno, did it for you?" Samantha replied, rummaging through her bag.
"Not really."
Samantha turned back to her friend with another white box in her hands.
"Then that answers your question."
She wheeled her chair to the opposite side of Lisa, sitting down with a huff as the chair squeaked underneath her.
"So I guess we'll both be working on this then," Samantha smirked, pressing her thumb against the power button of the computer, "Just like the years we spent back in school."
"Okay, stop it with the whole nostalgia trip thing," Lisa teased, "You're starting to sound like Professor Dad at this point."
Samantha only grinned in return.
"Anyways, let's get on with this."
"Right," Samantha nodded, turning her attention to the glowing monitor before her. "You work on Twilight, and I'll work on Pinkie."
"HE...P!" Twilight cried out as she plunged into a sea of white, "SO-EPON...YYY HEL--"
An odd tingling sensation flowed over Twilight as she froze, a blinding white landscape stretching across her vision as her cries for help were suddenly cut off. Slowly, she rose to her hooves, wincing as the sensation moved to her head. She shook her head. What was she even thinking moments ago?
"Hello?" the mare called, swaying as she took a wobbly step. "Anypony there?"
A brilliant flash of light caught her eyes. Twilight whipped around, charging her horn in preparation to encounter... herself?
The second Twilight blinked, staring off into the white void.
"Um... hello there," Twilight began, cantering towards her doppelgänger, "do you know where we are?"
Another blink. The second Twilight shook herself from her daze, focusing on the mare in front of her.
"I... what? Sorry, I didn't quite hear that."
"I said, do you-- ACK!"
Twilight screamed as her body convulsed, a visible stream of her memories flowing from her head. They gathered for a moment, swirling about in a cloud of light, before absorbing into the second Twilight, of whom watched in horror as her perceived copy wilted, a husk of her former self.
"There we go," Lisa mumbled to herself, "Memories transferred."
"That's good," Samantha remarked, turning from her own work. "Did you run into anything of issue?"
Lisa shook her head. "Surprisingly, none. I was expecting my version of Twilight to be a bit more... erratic, I guess."
"Were you connecting her to the simulation, or did you sandbox the thing?"
Lisa shrugged. "I figured that I could just create a blank simulation based on the existing simulation framework. That way I just had to plunk the two Twilights together and merge 'em. Is there a better way to do it nowadays?"
"Urk," Samantha winced in response, "not really, but that explains why you didn't have any problems."
"Why?"
"Your new simulation probably was registered as a new connection and updated both Twilights. I'm guessing that they have the same AI now."
Lisa frowned, turning back to her monitor. "That's not good," she grumbled, "I can't just delete the faulty one then, can I?"
"Nope," Samantha nodded in return. "Once again, you'd be running into those ethics rules. Though, now that they're running the same software, you can merge their programs."
"Eh, I'll just do that then."
The limp body of the first Twilight burst into a brilliant glow of colors, startling the other mare.
"I... what- what?!" the second Twilight sputtered, her eyes widening as the first began to seemingly gravitate towards her.
"Stay away!" the second yelled, lighting her horn.
The first Twilight's hooves dragged along the spotless white floor, her stoic demeanor unchanging as she drew closer.
"I said stay away!" the second yelled again, taking a step back.
The first Twilight froze in place, her limbs dangling underneath her. Strangely, her eyes remained open; though in all aspects she appeared lifeless, her gaze continued to focus on her clone, as if there was a longing of some sort within her.
Her memories, the second Twilight gasped, staring at the first. I took them, didn't I?
She didn't have time to react as the first Twilight flung herself directly at her.
"...Aaaand we're merged!" Lisa cheered, stretching in her office chair. "Just had to stop the process for a bit to make sure things were all set, and now it's done!"
"Mm-hm," Samantha agreed, her focus still glued to her own work. "Here, come over and I'll show you how to merge entities without the simulation's framework to run things. Not quite sure how well it'll work without the forced update to screw around with the situation, but it should theoretically turn the whole process into a single merge-delete operation. All I have to do is pluck the new Pinkie out of the simulations just like you did with the new Twilight."
"Huh?" Pinkie squeaked, pulling her party hat away from her eyes, "Where am I?"
"Are you ready for this?" a second Pinkie asked in return, cantering up to the first.
"Ooh, are you a leftover clone from the mirror pool?"
The second Pinkie shook her head solemnly. "No, I am you from before you were you."
"Bleh," The first Pinkie scoffed, "If I acted like that in a past life, I probably wouldn't be too happy either."
The second Pinkie's eyes met the first as a content smile appeared on her face. "Don't worry, this'll all be over soon, and we'll be back in Equestria, enjoying our lives."
"Wait, our? That sounds like twice the Pinkie power!"
The second Pinkie shrugged, walking close enough to touch her copy. "Who knows?" she whispered, passing seamlessly into the first Pinkie's place.
"Wha--"
A flash of pink emanated from the two Pinkies as they merged into one.
"And that's that," Samantha nodded, folding her arms over her chest as Pinkie reconnected to the simulation. "Offline merging using nothing but a modified viewer and a bit of permissions tweaking."
"Huh," Lisa acknowledged with a nod of her own. "Well, I guess that's done. I'm guessing we should put Twilight and Pinkie back into the simulations now?"
"Yup."
Lisa turned back to her screen, selecting the newly-merged Twilight Sparkle's files. Pausing, she glanced at her friend, then back to her own hands on the keyboard.
"So, I guess I'll be staying here then, won't I?"
"Hm?"
"You know why I wanted to join the simulation in the first place."
Samantha's smile disappeared. "Well... yeah, I do," She replied, "Why are you bringing that up just now?"
Lisa sighed, turning away from the keyboard. "It's just... I'm still not sure if I'm ready to face the world... the real world, again. Sure, it's been fun to be out here again just like before, but--"
"Just let go of it, Liz," Samantha countered, "The past is the past. You've had plenty of time to sulk about it at this point.”
“I know. It’s just hard to move on from that.”
Just as before, silence overtook the room, interrupted only by the dull buzzing of the overhead lights and the whirr of the computers’ fans. Samantha expectantly stared at her friend, nodding her head to the keyboard in front of her.
“C’mon, Lisa. It’s just a few more clicks and some commands to get them reconnected. What are you waiting for?”
Lisa didn’t respond, her eyes glued to the glowing monitor.
“Well?”
With a defeated huff, Lisa set her hands back on the keyboard and began typing.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Yeah, I thought that was referring to FiO.
9238170
Yeah. Previous readers pointed out that the story has a similar premise to FiO, so I decided to just toss in a little shoutout to the story that did it first. (Or at least, the most well-known story to do it first)
9234495
Technically, the chapter where Timothy/Spike discovers Applejack is non-canon to the rest of the story, because the chapter was a guest submission sent in by a reader.
Wait. I'm confused. Didn't Twilight swap herself out with Lisa and put her in the simulation?
9238679
I rewrote the previous few chapters and reposted the ones where she does that in Pony-Me: Rogue.
9238709
Ok
I have no idea what friendship is optimal is
9922438
It's a pretty widely-known fanfic that's spawned quite a few spinoffs, much like other fics such as Fallout: Equestria did.