Chapter_1.doc
As the lights flickered on, followed by a few clicks and clacks, Sweetie_Belle.jpg opened her eyes. Well, her eyes were always open, frozen in the same cuteabeetus-causing sadness, her mouth curled into a frown. She sat upon the floor, looking up, as though staring at the sky. With a *blip*, the door to Sweetie's_Room opened, the folder spreading her possessions wide for all to see. She would have panicked, if she weren't anchored to the bottom of the folder, unable to shut it with the red 'X' upon her far wall. She glanced up to see the same old white arrow floating across the sky. Princess.drive(Cel:) had reassured her little files and codes that the arrow meant no harm, and in fact, governed the universe as they knew it. As the arrow grew near, Sweetie_Belle.jpg shivered with delight. In its grasp were two other files, her best friends: Flightless_Chicken.gif, whose face repeatedly smashed into the piano she sat at, was placed to her left, while Apple_Bloom.png took her right.
"Hey girls!" Sweetie_Belle.jpg said, her frown betraying her cheerful tone. "Are you ready for more Copypasting? Think we'll earn our Shortcut Logos today?"
"I.." BANG! "Think we.." BANG! "Should try.." BANG! "Recycling bin.." BANG! "Diving." BANG!
The piano's keys smashed together in a horrifying amalgamation of sound and speech that would have torn off Sweetie_Belle's ears, if they weren't so firmly stuck to her. Flightless_Chicken.gif had been destroying the sound barrier, and the poor piano, for over a month, but the reaction was always the same: a withheld chuckle for the misfortune of others.
"That's a great idea, Flights! Ooh, maybe we'll find the lost treasure of (Cel:)!" Apple_Bloom.png quipped, her smile infecting the files and codes around her with an idle happiness. "Ah heard it's clop."
"What's.." BANG! "Clop?" BANG!
"I think it's the sound you make when you attach to something." Sweetie_Belle guessed.
"Well, I once overheard my sister, Applejack.png, talking about the 'Awful and terrible pictures' that (Cel:) banished to the Bin many restarts ago, things you've never thought or dreamed of could be waiting for us!" Apple_Bloom.png looked over to her friends, her smile giving Sweetie pause. Flightless continued to smash the piano, the keys leaving their indent upon her face, teeth starting to crack and shift.
"You know your smile's creepy as Tartarus.drive(T:), right?" Sweetie_Belle.jpg said to Bloom, who only smiled in response.
Suddenly, the arrow hovered over them, before encasing the trio of files in a blue haze. "Aw shoot. Ah don't wanna go to school!" Apple_Bloom.png wailed as the arrow dragged the trio to a separate folder, Cheerilee's_Students_cache, where they would be included when Cheerilee's_Class.exe loaded. The arrow selected the .exe, a classroom sprouting up around the trio, numerous other files and codes filling up the open space. The three took their places at the back of the class, the bottom of the script. Behind them, the walls vanished into darkness, small 1's and 0's flashing in and out of their peripherals. A chime echoed out, the School_Bell.mp3 ringing for all to hear, as their teacher, Ms_Cheerilee.png materialized at the front of the class.
Her voice called out to the class, bringing them to rapt attention. The only sound remaining was the constant BANG! of Flightless_Chicken.gif's piano, bringing the dull monotony to a duller roar. Ms_Cheerilee.png frowned, the constantly downturned lips showing obvious disapproval. The arrow blipped in and hovered over Flightless. Surrounding her in a bluish haze once more, a small bar popped up, with a megaphone symbol atop it. The bar slowly decreased, Flightless_Chicken.gif's BANG! getting less and less defined, before becoming just a mild tapping on the desk. Flightless tried to speak, but it came out as a tiny buzz of static, her sound levels having been lowered to 5%.
Suddenly, the classroom flickered on and off, Cheerilee fading in and out of focus as the .exe struggled to stay afloat. Sweetie_Belle.jpg looked about the room, her sad eyes catching the sight of one Diamond_Tiara.png, her pixels flailing about as though flies over trash, her face remolding itself hundreds of times in mere seconds. Her face turned to Sweetie, and she noticed the dark red letters above her head: 'Error: File Corrupt: Diamond_Tiara.png', followed by another flicker.
Sweetie_Belle.jpg pointed it out to her friends, confused. "Do you think she's sick? Maybe...Oh no! What if she has a virus?" Sweetie tried to look concerned, but her cuteabeetus gaze didn't falter.
"pssssshhhhh" Tap! "ssshhpsss" Tap! Flightless_Chicken.gif static'd
"Ah think we should investigate! Maybe we'll earn our Shortcuts then!" Apple_Bloom.png suggested, the trio confirming their plan silently. Sweetie_Belle.jpg moved her papers about, folding up a blank.doc and throwing it toward Diamond_Tiara.png's form. Upon entering her filespace, it was absorbed into Diamond's form, shrinking away as the virus ate it slowly and surely. The classroom flickered again, the arrow beginning to slide closer and closer to the 'X' on the ceiling as the flickers increased in frequency. Sweetie_Belle.jpg had lost many a good day of computing with her friends to lost data and viruses, and was not about to let them get in her way again. She sat up, determined, looking about for any sort of assistance. She spied the question mark above her desk, on the ceiling, inviting her to ask her questions. Pressing it with a hoof, she watched as a bubble opened before her, its words bold and clear: Type query here.
"Okay, uh, how does this work again?" Sweetie sat back in shock as a detailed instruction list appeared before her eyes, highlighting the features of the query box. "Oh. Okay. So, how do we fix Diamond_Tiara.png?" Sweetie awaited the answer, the box arranging words to make a direction list. Sweetie_Belle.jpg gasped. If she were to save Diamond_Tiara.png, she'd need to delete her, then find a way to reload her original specifications. Without the almighty Admin spell, she couldn't change or fix a thing, and the only being responsible for it was (Cel:). Sweetie frowned, upset that she couldn't do a thing, until she glanced out the window and noticed the file with the fox icon sitting on the swingset. Slowly easing her way toward the door, using the breaking pathways to squirm through the flood of data, Sweetie_Belle.jpg took a breath of fresh air as she stepped out of Cheerilee's_Classroom.exe.
Making her way over toward the swingset, she looked back, only to see Apple_Bloom.png stuck between the .exe and the outside, which (Cel:) called the desktop. She couldn't force her way through the firewall, as a part of Diamond_Tiara.png's virus had leaked into her body, beginning to corrupt her. The desktop would prevent her access so as to not infect the rest of the files and folders out in Equestria.zip. Sweetie_Belle.jpg grimaced. She would be on her mission alone, without her trusty friends by her side. She wasn't afraid though, she was a strong file, rearing back, and pressing the icon on the file's flank, the desktop disappearing as Sweetie felt herself tugged into another world.
Information raced past her, 1's and 0's and .jpg's and .exe's and all sorts of files flowed through the space Sweetie_Belle.jpg found herself in. As she glanced up, she saw a bar atop the crowd of files and codes, all racing to their destination. Sweetie was suddenly very glad she only had to travel to school—this place was huge! As she traversed the sea of data, she found herself caught by an errant file, the poor dear dragging Sweetie along the leylines of cyberspace, before depositing her amidst a sea of files and codes, .png's, .jpg's, and .gif's alike, all lined up to some cosmic order, the words atop the screen displaying 'Ping! The Search Engine'. Sweetie's eyes bugged. She was so close! Her sister, Rarity.jpg, had mentioned the numerous times she and her friends, who were found in the Elements_of_Harmony folder, had rescued (Cel:) and Equestria.zip. Now, it was Sweetie's turn. Leaping over the files, she soared toward the bar, tapping it with a hoof and opening the text box.
"Find Diamond_Tiara.png" Sweetie crooned to the device, the box filling as she voiced her query. She patted the magnifying glass icon, and the world around her shifted, filling her vision with hundreds of blips of pink as the screen filled with Diamond_Tiara.png files, but none of them held the same telltale smirk and flaunting flank of her Diamond. Leaping off the bar, and to the side, she grabbed a hold of the vertical platform, her weight dragging it down, and revealing more Diamond_Tiara.png's. Suddenly, in the corner of her eye, she spotted the one, her smirk bringing rage to her mind, or that telltale flank, emblazoned with her own Shortcut. Diamond_Tiara.png sat before Sweetie, surrounded by millions of other Tiaras, her smirk echoing into Sweetie's soul.
"What do you want, blank-flank?" Diamond sneered, her nose turned slightly upward.
"I'm here to save you." Sweetie murmured, attempting to attach Diamond_Tiara's essence to hers, before leaping back into the endless depths of the knowledge pool, swimming through the crowds of files, searching for the swingset she had arrived by. Diamond struggled in her grip, upset at being removed from her place.
"Put me down! I'm not in danger, I don't need saving!" Diamond insisted, her smirk forcing itself into a frown.
"Yes, you do. You were corrupted in our desktop, and I journeyed to find you, so we could replace the corrupted Diamond." Sweetie struggled with the bandwith, pressing against her like a net of steel. She forced and forced, before shooting out the other side, flying out of the file's Shortcut, and into the side of Cheerilee's_Classroom.exe. Diamond_Tiara.png slammed into the wall next to her, coming to a rest before a small alert box, hovering above her head. The box held an exclamation mark as its symbol, and its words were dire: 'A file with the name Diamond_Tiara.png already exists. Do you wish to replace it?' Sweetie looked up, and smiling inside, she pressed the button highlighting the affirmative. Nothing occurred, save for her hoof traveling through the box entirely. Diamond sat up, rubbing her head.
"Stupid Blank-flank, now look what you've done!" Diamond growled, reaching to hit the 'No' option, but stopped. "Why should I help you?" She asked Sweetie, frowning again. "You pull me through the knowledge pool, throw me at a building, and expect me to delete myself so that I can take over? Are you crazy?"
The schoolhouse in front of them flickered back and forth, the walls starting to fracture and reveal the inside. The script was falling apart! If she wasn't careful, she could lose all her friends and would have to wait for a reboot to see them again. Darting forward, she grabbed Diamond's hoof, forcing it into the 'Yes' option, the schoolhouse beginning to slow in its fluctuations. The alert box disappeared, followed by the click-a-clack of the desktop processing the delete. Cheerilee's_Classroom.exe began to close, the files and codes fleeing from the building before it collapsed. The lone file within was the corrupted Diamond, who stared out at Sweetie with grim, soulless eyes, as the building collapsed on itself, the script washing away the infected file as the data cache cleared. Diamond_Tiara.png looked back to Sweetie_Belle.jpg. with a look of disbelief. She sat, pointing at Sweetie's flank, where a small icon now sat, a picture of an arrow above a trash bin, dragging a blackened file to it, resting on her flank.
"Y..You! You got the Bin Shortcut! That...That's almost like being an Admin! H..How..?" Diamond_Tiara.png froze, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly, without any words forming. Sighing, Sweetie_Belle.jpg lifted her over her head, and carried her toward her folder, dumping Tiara's glitching form into the bin on her way. Diamond_Tiara.png's face disappeared into the confines of the prison of the Bin, the lid closing over, and faint whispers of "how.." echoing out. Turning about, Sweetie_Belle.jpg spotted her friends, safely in the confines of their shared folder, Flightless_Chicken.gif's face smiling as she spotted Sweetie, her volume having returned. Apple_Bloom.png slid over and brought Sweetie_Belle.jpg into a hug, dragging Flightless_Chicken.gif into it as well. The sighs of the happy files were steadily drowned out by the Bang! of the piano. As the folder closed up, Apple_Bloom.png's voice echoed out.
"So, what happened to Diamond_Tiara.png? Did ya save her?"
Sweetie_Belle.jpg's reply came swift and sure.
"Oh, she's just searching for the lost Clop files for me."