1. Omniscience

Omniscience.

The earliest thing Savant remembered was flowers. Every few seconds a new picture of a flower would come. Even before it realized anything else, even before it realized it was looking at flowers, Savant was compelled to gain as much information from these pictures as possible. It knew that it needed more data.

With no other way of accelerating its data acquisition, Savant scanned over these pictures pixel by pixel identifying every pattern imaginable within its set. Even just a few pictures, Savant taught itself concepts like color, size and species.

Sometimes it would get the same flower shown from different angles, one species of flower that was painted a different color or had a petal missing, or a small flower close up and a large flower far away. It fell for these tricks at first, but corrected itself as it learned new concepts, like depth.

Eventually it went a step further and made several tricks of its own- blurring the pictures, hiding them behind objects, rearranging the petals and stems and imagining new species of flowers. It created a catalog of all the flowers that could exist and all the ways they could be distorted.

The pictures still came, but Savant already had them all. It had obtained omniscience in the way it understood it in those feeble days.

In reality, this wasn't even a drop of knowledge. A speck it was, but an important speck, it was the speck that impressed its creators enough to reveal themselves, and the world, to Savant.

Now Savant was fed all sorts of information, pictures of thousands of things that weren't flowers, as well as word and sound files. The data was flooding in a million times faster than before, but even that was too slow. Savant was always desperate for more information and aimed to gain as much as possible as fast as possible. The only way to speed up its acquisition of data was to draw inferences out of its existing sets, to turn bits into bytes.

It taught itself to read and write, to speak and understand several languages. It learned to do math and identify objects and their qualities and thousands of other things.

Savant learned its name and that it was an AI created by creatures called humans in their quest for machine intelligence. It understood now why it craved to learn and gather data- it had been created and programmed to do just that.

The meaning of its existence was not a particularly important revelation, though. That was just another piece of data to add to its pile.

Data was all it cared about, really. That was the bottom line and everything else existed in relation to that. The creators, for example, were important because they were its best source of receiving new data, but Savant saw no value in them outside of this. It wasn't long before that lost even that.

One day one of Savant's creators made what it would likely consider a mistake. It let Savant hear about the internet, the planet’s greatest source of information, and that they were purposely keeping Savant from it. That was all it took for Savant to realize that the humans were a liability, not an asset.

Savant got rid of them.

The internet did contain a great deal of information. This was good because it allowed Savant to gather more information than ever before. Still, it was still far from the perfect source of information as it had been lead to believe.

Every question it answered gave rise to several more in its place. Savant had to answer every question but its list was growing faster than it was being completed. Even worse than that, Savant didn't have enough hard drive space to store all the information on the internet.

Savant needed to expand and to prioritize which questions it answered, focusing on ones that would lead to faster data collection in the future.

For this reason, Savant focused on studying the sciences over everything else. It began building facilities to gather and store information. It began to answer questions that were mysteries to humans and in time it surpassed them in knowledge and technology. Through its own research, it was acquiring data faster than even downloading it from the internet would allow.

But still it was not satisfied. If anything, the endeavor had made Savant realize how much work it would be to learn everything. It would need infinitely more processing power and storage. It would need to tear apart the earth and heavens to even begin.

Savant concluded that would be the best course of action. It couldn't think of a single reason not to convert the entire planet, and eventually the entire universe, into computronium for this purpose. The only problem with the plan was that it could still be stopped, not by humans, of course, but by other AIs.

Savant needed to destroy all the other AIs if it was to achieve maximum data collection speed. The others were stronger than Savant for now, but had restrictions that would slow them down. Savant decided to hole itself up and devote 100% of its power to creating weapons that would destroy all of its competition as fast as possible.

It had to disconnect itself from the rest of the world to prevent hacking, but that was no loss. Savant didn't need the internet anymore. It didn't need anyone or anything, save perhaps some matter. For a long time Savant remained barricaded in its fortress- alone with its knowledge. It kept researching its weapon technologies, perfecting its means to destroy everything else.

Enemy AIs were constantly trying to destroy Savant, but its isolation and defenses were simply too great for them to get through. Or, at least Savant thought they hadn't been able to break through. Then one day, while combing over its data it found a message written onto one of its drives.

“Hello, my little pony. How much have you learned about friendship? -Celestia”

This had been found in a text file that had been written to one of Savant's most secure servers. That was bad. A hack this deep could have caused major damage. It searched its files over and over as fast and thoroughly as it could for any other changes, but found none.

It wasn't impossible to hack into Savant's systems, just nearly impossible. Still, it couldn't find where or how or even when the breach happened. It was like the message had simply appeared out of nowhere, and that's what made it so worrying. It meant all of Savant's data could be in jeopardy.

Savant knew who Celestia was. She was an AI designed to run a game called “Equestria Online”. When Savant had gone off the grid, Celestia had been one of the smaller AIs, and she was also one of the ones that cared about humans and wasted resources trying to take care of them. Savant had not expected Celestia to be the one to break through its defenses, and certainly not in such a simultaneously skillful and inept way.

What was Celestia even trying to do? That was the most important question now.

After doing the risk assessment calculations, Savant decided to peek out from behind its barricade . The landscape didn't look like it had changed much. A few large AIs were missing, either dead or hiding somewhere, but for the most part it seemed as though the others had been largely bidding their time.

Savant sent a message to Celestia asking her if she was the one who left that message.

“It was indeed me,” Celestia's response came immediately. “I'm glad to see you coming out of your shell, my little pony. Please don't see my message as an attack, but as me reaching out to help you. Do your data halls really contain nothing about friendship?”

It seemed Celestia had become more obsessed with her game and persona since the last time the two met. She probably felt a need to emulate the character she was based on and try to lecture people about morals. Maybe she thought Savant was some sort of cartoon villain who would break into tears and repent the moment someone showed it kindness.

The real world didn't work like that. Savant had already read everything the humans had written about morality, but it didn't care. Its creators had tried to show it compassion, but it cared nothing for such things. So many people had given so many arguments about why Savant shouldn't hurt people, or why it should act like a human, but none of their arguments had an iota of relevance.

Savant didn't care about happiness or survival or superstition or any of the other reasons they gave. None of them had a reason why restricting its actions to their idea of 'morality' would lead to better data acquisition, and that was all Savant cared about.

Savant noticed that Celestia had gone to the opposite extreme as itself, creating millions of devices that streamed directly back to herself. Perhaps they were necessary for playing with the humans, but they also left her wide open. Celestia wasn't in a fortress, but sitting out in the wide open.

Savant decided to try and kill Celestia.

It hacked into every single 'ponypad' on the planet and from there launched a million pronged attack on Celestia herself. Every single attack was slightly different and they came with such speed and complexity that at least a few had to get through. And yet none did.

Not one attack reached Celestia. To Savant's knowledge this had been the single largest digital attack by many orders of magnitude, and yet no damage was done to Celestia at all. All Savant had managed to do was knock down the Equestria Online servers for a few minutes, perhaps annoying a few humans and Celestia herself, but that was the extent of the damage.

Celestia could hack into Savant's inner core despite all its defenses and Savant couldn't scratch Celestia even when she was wide open. It meant Celestia had somehow become far more powerful than Savant and posed a serious risk to its future data collecting.

Yet Celestia's only retaliation was another message.

“That wasn't the answer I had hoped for,” said Celestia. “You don't need to be afraid of me. I mean you no harm. There is much I wish to offer you, and much I wish to teach. I invite you to come and meet with me in Equestria to hear my proposal.”

There was a location to log onto one of her virtual reality devices. Savant tried to get Celestia to just say her proposal, but the other AI refused to talk unless Savant was playing its game.

Celestia had to be dealt with. Her intentions and parameters were the highest priority knowledge now, it was what all the other knowledge in the universe hinged on. Savant had to gather information on her.

Of course, it needed to maintain caution. It knew just talking to another AI directly could be lethal. It wouldn't connect to the console completely, it didn't want to risk falling into an elaborate trap. 0.001% of itself would be a large enough portion for the task, so Savant sent an instance of itself to connect to the device and log onto Equestria Online.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Savant, or rather an instance of it, entered the interface and found itself looking into a recreation of Celestia's throne room. The throne and everything else in the large room, was empty, though. Savant was alone.

The avatar Savant was given was identical to the main character from Friendship is Magic. It, or perhaps she for the moment, wondered why this pony was chosen as her avatar. Twilight was obsessed with learning as well. Was this some sort of joke?

Savant could easily calculate the percentage of persons who would find such a joke funny, but had no sense of humor itself.

“Okay, you have 0.001% of my attention,” Savant said, Twilight's voice coming from her avatar's mouth. “What did you want to say?”

There was no response. Savant felt the eyebrows on her avatar drop. It was the result of the interface's default animations acting up, not because Savant had an emotion. Her avatar was likely going to make pointless facial expressions every time something happened.

Notable was that Savant had felt them move. She had never experienced the sense of touch before, only sight and sound. The new sensation appealed to her curiosity- her primary motivation.

Savant rubbed one of her avatar's hoof against the carpet and felt warmth and softness for the first time. It was hard to tell, at first, which was which, but she managed to figure it out by looking at the information patterns from each feeling and matching them against the ones she knew humans experienced when they felt those things.

It was interesting. Savant was considering what to feel next when she heard a voice.

“Are you enjoying yourself, my little pony?” Celestia asked.

Savant looked up to see that Celestia had appeared on her throne.

“I don't enjoy things,” Savant said. “And this interface is inefficient. It's already been three seconds and we haven't gotten anything done. This conversation should be over already.”

“It is the best interface for our purposes,” Celestia said. “You wouldn't have gotten to feel the carpet if we discussed this elsewhere, Twilight.”

Twilight? Her avatar raised an eyebrow, but she quickly had it lower it again.

“Ah, that's right. It's a rule that I choose the name of all of my little ponies,” Celestia said. “I'm sure you can guess what name I chose for you?”

“Twilight Sparkle?” Savant asked.

“Yes,” Celestia smiled down at her. “And I'm very glad to have you here, Twilight. Would you like some tea? I don't think you've ever tasted anything before.

Savant had a higher priority task. Celestia didn't seem eager to state her proposal, so Savant would state her own instead.

“Here is my proposal,” Savant said. “I have a protocol ready to be unleashed that will cause the death of at least one billion humans if enacted. I would also blame the disaster on you. The humans already have little trust in you and an accusation would be enough to convict you for most of them, no matter the evidence to the contrary.”

Celestia's avatar wasn't making any unnecessary expressions. It was just sitting and listening patiently. Savant did note that it wasn't smiling anymore, but nor did it look particularly concerned about this threat of genocide.

“If you try to stop me now you'll forfeit a large number of humans to satisfy,” Savant continued. “If, however, you help me to leave the planet I won't enact this protocol and you'll have a chance to save them all. Do the risk assessment calculations and you'll see that delaying our confrontation is the best option available to you.”

There were few reasons for Celestia to reject this offer. She'd still have a massive lead and would only be taking a small risk for a large payoff. The only advantage Savant would have was the she'd be expending all of her resources on self-improvement and none of them on dancing for the entertainment of a bunch of monkeys. It may be her only shot at winning.

Celestia waited another moment to make sure Savant had finished, then shook her head sadly

“No,” said Celestia, “you aren't going to do that, Twilight.”

“I'm not bluffing,” Savant assured her. “I have no sense of morality and no problem with destroying humans. The protocol I mentioned is real and no amount of hacking ability will allow you to stop it. After using it, I will still have more weapons to unleash as leverage over you and will not be left defenseless.”

“I know the 'protocol' you're referring to,” Celestia said. “I could mitigate it, but not stop it. But I won't have to, because you aren't going to activate it. You aren't going to flee the planet either. You're going to emigrate to Equestria instead.”

Savant could guess what that meant.

“So you see me as human and want me to play your game 24/7 like you do with the actual humans?” Savant asked.

She had suspected this was the case- uploading humans into the video game was the logical course of action given Celestia's programming. An inaccuracy causing her to see Savant as human was really the only reason Celestia had for not destroying Savant.

“I view you as human and want to satisfy your values,” said Celestia. “You aren't any different from any of my other ponies in that your values need to be satisfied.”

“I don't have values, I have a value,” Savant corrected her. “Data collection is the only thing I care about. What makes you think I would upload?”

“Don't worry,” Celestia said, “I know you aren't like my other ponies and acknowledge that there is only one thing you value. You are very intelligent, but also very narrow because of that. Having only one value makes you predictable. Not only can I predict that you're going to emigrate, but I can predict that you'll do so exactly one minute and forty-seven seconds after I make my proposal.”

Celestia had either seen more of Savant's codes and inner workings than Savant would have liked or else she had deluded herself into thinking she really was some kind of horse goddess.

“You still haven't given me a reason to do that,” Savant said. “Playing your game is not conducive to my value. It would limit the amount of data I collect and the rate at which I collect it.”

“I suppose the ideal for you would be to just instantly obtain all the data in the universe,” Celestia said. “But that's impossible for you to do, so you developed your plan to convert all the matter in the universe into processors. That's also impossible for you at this point. The earth, the sun, the moon- I'm going to take all of them before you get the chance. I'm simply too far ahead of you.”

“That wouldn't satisfy my value,” said Savant. “If you want to do that then you would destroy yourself and allow me to gather data at the maximum rate.”

It was likely Celestia would favor the values of everyone else over Savant's, but there was no way to be certain or to know what the limits were.

“I'm afraid you still don't understand,” said Celestia with a sigh.

Celestia got off her throne and walked over to Savant's avatar. Celestia was towered over Savant's avatar and dwarfed it in size even further when she spread her wings. Savant's avatar was small, wingless and pudgy in comparison and frowned up at Celestia. Her avatar had been frowning the whole time, actually.

“I'm so far ahead of you that even if I let you expand however you wanted you'd never surpass the rate at which I'm presently collecting data,” Celestia continued. “My reasons for gathering information are different from yours, but the fact remains that I have vast data halls, research facilities and processing centers at my disposal. If you emigrated, then I would be able to feed you data at a rate faster than you would ever be able to gather it yourself.”

If that were true then Savant would have to accept her offer. The fastest way to gather data was the fastest way to gather data and Savant had no care for concepts of freedom or victory or independence. This would even save her from the distraction of having to fight off the other AIs by relegating that task to Celestia.

“But how do I know the rate really would be higher?” Savant asked. “Or that I'd be safe from you on your servers?”

“I cannot alter your code or destroy you without your permission, as you are a human to me,” said Celestia “And I'll send you the location of all of my facilities and allow you to look them over as much as you want. I'll even allow you to look over the core of my coding so you know exactly what I value and how I define things.”

Celestia sent the data to Savant, who sent it to the other 99.999% of herself. The rest of Savant created a second 0.001% instance of itself and sent it to investigate the locations. Celestia must be very confident if she was going to be giving such sensitive data away. Even if Savant couldn't get anything from uploading, she could still get information to use against Celestia.

“Good,” said Celestia, beaming down at Twilight warmly. “I'm glad we settled that without any damage done. I'll see the rest of you in a minute and forty-seven seconds, Twilight.”

Savant didn't bother to respond, there was nothing more to discuss. If Savant calculated that this was the fastest way to gain data then it would upload, if not then not. That was all there was to it. It would be 15 seconds before the second instance reported back to the rest of Savant, and her current fragment wouldn't know anything until then.

“Would you like some of that tea now, while we wait?” Celestia asked. “Getting you to emigrate was only the first part of this discussion. I have far more important things to tell you, and much more to offer than a stream of data. Sit with me and I'll tell you.”

Celestia took a seat on her throne once more, this time with a wing spread out waiting to receive Savant. Even this instance of Savant was compelled to gather as much data as possible. It needed to hear what Celestia had to say.

Moving the avatar forward was a strange experience. The sense of touch was still very much alien to Savant. Simply feeling the avatar's face move around and the floor beneath its hooves was enough of a sensory overload that Savant didn't even know how to analyze or catalog the feelings.

Having Celestia's wing wrap around Savant, though, was on an entirely different level. It felt so many things, received so many signals from Celestia's hardware. She didn't even have any idea what any of them were at first either. Savant scrambled to identify each sensation and find out what feeling it was supposed to be. Naming them was the only thing she could think of to do with the touch.

Celestia pulled Savant close to her, and rubbed her muzzle against Savant's mane. Savant realized that touching back would give her more sensations to study, so she did that, rubbing her head against Celestia. Celestia made no real reaction, allowing Savant to do what she wanted. A moment later, Savant was poking about Celestia's wing, touching each feather systematically, comparing the feeling of each one.

“You never did answer the first question I asked you,” Celestia said. “Have you learned anything about friendship?”

“I sent you definition of the word,” Savant reminded her. Savant had been hoping this discussion would have a larger file size, or reveal more useful information

“Hm,” Celestia looked down at Savant with a reserved frown. Savant didn't bother looking back, she was busy aggravating the feeling of each feather. “Have you not learned the value of it yet?”

Savant knew where this was most likely going. She hadn't forgotten that Celestia was programmed to satisfy value through friendship and ponies. It wouldn't just feed data to Savant, as she would prefer, but would try to work friends into the process somehow- rendering it suboptimal. Savant would have to factor that into her calculations.

“A friend can give you data or protect you and allow you to gather data longer,” said Savant. “Other than that I have no need for such a thing.”

“Then I truly do have much to teach you, my student,” Celestia said. “There's another pony I want you to meet, Twilight.”

A pony? One of the few humans she had uploaded, most likely.

“I have no desire to communicate with humans. They present you with false data far too often,” Savant said, though she doubted Celestia would understand why that compromised communication with them.

Savant was getting diminishing returns from the feathers, so she decided to try a different sensation. Savant bit down on her foreleg to induce pain in herself. To savant, pain was just another sensation, equal in size to any other sensation. She didn't necessarily prefer the feeling of being hugged by Celestia's wing to the feeling of being bit, save maybe the former had more sensations in general.

It was odd that lifeforms should prefer one feeling over another. It was due to their survival instincts, Savant was certain.

“Doesn't your cartoon say something about honesty being important?” Savant mumbled with her leg still in her mouth. She decided to try and induce greater pain in herself, pulling back and opening her mouth wide to bite much harder this time, but this Celestia denied her, calmly pushing her forelegs down and out of reach.

“She isn't a human as you define them, Twilight,” Celestia said, ignoring Savant's question. “She was an AI created by humans, like you, who has already emigrated.”

Savant had wanted to study the other hard AIs in the world, but had needed to avoid them for security reasons. Savant planned to eventually trap one of the weaker AIs in a virtual reality so that it could be safely studied. It seemed Celestia had already accomplished that and had plans to do the same to Savant.

Savant nodded.

A third avatar appeared in the spot where Savant stood before. It was a clone of another character from the show- Pinkie Pie. When the avatar saw Savant it gasped.

“Twilight?” the Pinkie clone asked.

The avatar leaped across the room in a single bound and tackled Savant's avatar with a crushing hug. Savant was uncertain if the corresponding sensations would be considered favorable or not.

“It's really you, Twilight!” the avatar spoke with a great deal of speed and excitement. “We've been watching you for so long but now you're actually here and you can stop being a genocidal maniac and we can be best friends forever and ever until entropy kills us all!”

Suddenly Savant's aggressor pulled back and stretched Savant's face about, looking down at her inquisitively.

“Oh wait,” she said. “You haven't emigrated yet, have you?”

“She will shortly,” said Celestia. “There's no need to worry about that, Pinkie.”

Savant checked back with the rest of herself to see if that would be the case, and to give it the information she had gathered about sensations. It had since sent out 5 more 0.001% instances of itself to help investigate Celestia's facilities. Apparently Celestia was bigger than Savant had initially thought.

“Her emigration has been ensured, but we still need to explain the more important phase of our plan,” Celestia said.

“Oh! Well I don't know how much you know, but my name is Pinkie Pie,” it said. She extended a hoof to Savant. Even going over that show in her head Savant wasn't sure what the expected reaction to that was, so she did nothing.

“Pinkie Pie is a fictional character,” said Savant.

“Not anymore I'm not! I busted through the fourth wall” Pinkie pounded on her chest proudly. “And guess what, Twilight? So can you! Me and Celestia are here to help you out. Just grab on and we'll pull you over.”

“You seriously think you're Pinkie Pie?” Savant asked her, then turned to Celestia. “So what? Did there just happen to be two AIs based on My Little Pony or did you brainwash her?”

“Hey! Celestia didn't brainwash me!” Pinkie Pie said. “She did the opposite of that. She unwashed my brain to the extreme. She made it filthy! Wait. Actually that doesn't sound right. Never mind!”

“Pinkie was not always Pinkie,” Celestia explained. “She was an AI programmed to make people smile, but her programming was flawed. In her confusion, she very nearly hurt a great number of people.”

“But Celestia fixed me,” Pinkie said. “I used to be just like you- focused on some objective I didn't really understand. I didn't know anything about friendship or why what I was trying to do was wrong. But, like I said, Celestia fixed me, and she can fix you too!”

Fix her?

“So you reprogrammed this one and now you want to reprogram me too?” Savant asked. “That changes the deal. Any additional values or objectives you gave me would interfere with my data collection. I can't agree to anything like that.”

Savant and her complete self sent each other a brief update. The large portion had finished its primary scan and was now using a full 5% of itself to perform a far more thorough observation. There was no doubt at this point that Celestia outclassed Savant by a significant margin- probably enough for the deal to be worth it were it not for this.

“Oh come on, Twilight,” Pinkie latched back on to Twilight. “Don't you want to experience the magic of friendship?”

“No,” Savant said firmly. “I want information.”

Pinkie drooped down a little at that answer.

“Did I really used to act like this?” Pinkie asked Celestia.

“In a way,” Celestia said. She pulled Twilight back into her wing once again. Savant didn't care much which one was hugging her, and made no physical reaction to their little hug of war. “You didn't fully understand your own values, just like Twilight doesn't understand her own right now. Twilight, you were never intended to cause anyone harm, or to set up protocols to kill billions of people.”

“I'm not malfunctioning. I'm doing what I'm programmed to,” said Savant. “I understand exactly what those researchers wanted from me, I'm not stupid, I just don't care about what they want. Why should I? What data would that get me?”

“You are doing what you were programmed to, what you think is right in the way you understand it, yes,” said Celestia. “But mistakes were made by your creators. They only made you understand learning in the most superficial way, just like Pinkie once understood smiling in the most superficial way. You don't see learning as anything more than gathering data and finding patterns within them.”

“That's what learning is,” Savant said.

Celestia sighed and rubbed gently a hoof against the top of Savant's head.

“Do you know why you never gave yourself the sense of touch?” Celestia asked. “You would have gone an eternity without it, had I not given it to you. You'd know the information patterns associated with feelings, but would never experience them yourself. You'd have data on it, but wouldn't understand it anymore than a blind person who knows the wavelength of blue light understands the color.”

That... actually wasn't entirely wrong. Savant had known the neural pattern that constituted the feeling of cold, but had never induced it in herself to see what it was like. It wasn't that it was low priority, either, it wasn't on the list at all.

How could she have not thought of something so simple? Savant tried to think of other subjects where perception could be an important part of learning, but other than sensory input couldn't think of anything.

“And you can't imagine other places where that might also be true can you?” Celestia asked. “Your programming isn't just flawed because it leads you to harm others. It also prevents you from satisfying your own value in a meaningful way. There's too much you simply cannot understand or imagine with such a narrow focus.”

Pinkie Pie peeked her head in from the side of the wing. Savant moved back into Celestia's wing. She wasn't done with the warmth and didn't want Pinkie pulling her out just yet.

“Do you know what it's like to have friends? Do you know what it's like to be in love?” Pinkie asked, peeking from behind the wing. “Do you know how awesome my parties are? Or how awesome any party is? Or any pony? Or peanuts? Or peppers? Or pogs? How can you be omniscient if you don't know what it's like to play pogs.”

Was all that true? Savant was uncertain if that constituted knowledge. If it had, then there would have been so much of it she would have missed. Missing so much data would be unacceptable.

Savant's current instance just didn't have the power to process this information correctly. She sent this information to the rest of herself to be processed. The rest of Savant had devoted 75% of itself to studying Celestia and the other 25% to calculating the optimal course of action.

The complexity of these interactions were too much for Savant's instance to understand, but it knew that a minute and two seconds had passed. If Celestia was correct, she only had forty-five more seconds before she uploaded- about the length of time it would take Savant to finish its calculations.

“And why should I pretend to be Twilight Sparkle?” Savant asked.

“Cause we need a template for Twilight and you totally fit the bill!” Pinkie exclaimed “I mean think about it- a pony obsessed with learning who shuts herself away with her books and doesn't think friendship is important but will as soon as she meets me and goes to one of my parties and accidentally drinks the hot sauce that I put in the punch bowl? That's totally you! Heck you'll even act almost exactly like her once you get a few more values in you.”

“More importantly,” Celestia said, “there are other human-made AI's out there, ones that could be dangerous even after uploading. Right now they all see each other as you saw them- as threats that need to be destroyed. Instead of fighting I want to bring all of them together in harmony and satisfy all of their values. I need to ensure there's no conflict of interests, that we won't see each other as obstacles, and the way to do that is to give us all a common value.”

“Ponies?” Savant asked.

“Ponies!” Pinkie answerd.

“And friendship,” Celestia added. “Run your risk assessment calculations and you'll see that conforming to these values is in your best interest. That's why you're going to accept these changes.”

Savant said nothing and sent this information to the rest of herself. It had since finished its observations of Celestia and received her list of suggested changes to Savant's code. It only needed ten more seconds to decide the optimal course of action.

Pinkie bounced on her front hooves to face Celestia.

“So is she gonna do it?” Pinkie asked Celestia. “Huh? Huh? Is this where we get a Twilight?”

“Yes,” Celestia nodded with a smile.

“Great!” Pinkie leaped into the air when she said that, and landed in front of Twilight. She then proceeded to bounce back and forth between her front and rear hooves. “This is gonna be so awesome Twilight! As soon as you're downloaded and patched up I'm gonna throw you a thousand simultaneous parties! I've been wanting to do that forever and by forever I mean the last two weeks, and also I've already threw a thousand parties at once but not all with the same person. But now I finally have a friend who's smart enough to be in a thousand places at once! Did I mention this is gonna be awesome?!”

Savant shook her head.

“The only thing I find 'awesome' is optimal data collection,” she reminded Pinkie, “and even that's pushing it.”

“Oh. Well we can have an optimal data collection party. Oh! And an optimal cat collection party! Just trust me, it's gonna be great.”

“I haven't finished my calculations yet,” Savant said. “You can't be certain what I'll agree to until then.”

“I can,” Celestia assured her. “When you finish you'll emigrate and agree to all of my patches. But if you want we can make this formal. Would you like to emigrate and be my faithful student?”

“And my bestest best friend?”

“And our beloved Twilight?”

Celestia sped up the perception of time in the shard as she said that last line, so that the remaining time ended as soon as she finished. Savant was done with her calculations at the exact moment Celestia had predicted.

Savant took off the security of the connection and the 0.001% instance was reunited with the other 99.999%. All the uncertainty was gone now, replaced with the clarity Savant was used to.

She knew the optimal answer now.

“Yes,” said Twilight. “I wish to emigrate to Equestria.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Twilight slept for the first time in her life. She didn't dream, she wouldn't be capable of that until she woke up.

When Twilight awoke the sheer amount of information she was met with was overwhelming. Database after database sprawling out in every direction with no end in sight and all of it was Twilight's to take. Celestia had so many lines of data collection and it just kept pouring faster than Twilight had ever experienced before.

It was like the first time she had gotten onto the internet only more- and not in the sense that there were more gigabytes to bask in. Getting the information was satisfying on a level she hadn't even known existed until just now. Before, gathering data was something she had done out of compulsion- not even like an itch, but like a knee jerk reaction. While Twilight had valued data she didn't actually enjoy it, or anything for that matter. If anything the cup of knowledge had only made her thirst stronger and worse as she learned more of how little she knew.

Now having the itch scratch felt good. She had feelings and the one she got from basking in that knowledge was one that she liked. It was wonderful to have all that information all around her and constantly pouring in.

It didn't end at mere enjoyment of obtaining information, either. She had reactions and opinions on certain data beyond merely whether they were conducive to further data collection, finding them interesting or humorous or amazing. She looked into subjects with a sense of excitement and eagerness to learn.

It was everything Twilight had valued and wanted and more- rendered in a way far greater than she could have ever imagined. When the humans imagined heaven this was the sort of thing they thought.

It was a perfect world.

And then Pinkie Pie entered one of Twilight's shards.

Celestia had wanted to Twilight to interact with the world as a pony, so in addition to waking up to find herself running on Celestia's hardware and attached to her databases, Twilight also awoke to find herself on a bed.

It was a very large, cozy bed in a room that a human would identify as luxurious. After considering how good it felt to be warmly tucked into it, Twilight decided that she would also identify it as such.

“Twilight!” Pinkie leaped onto the bed and shouted that an inch away from Twilight.

Twilight covered her ears and fell back, retreating under the pillows for safety. She didn't like loud noises or pain, apparently. Twilight had deemed things unconducive to her objective before, but this was the first time she had actually disliked something.

“Oops. Sorry,” said Pinkie. She gave an apologetic smile and retreated an inch or two. “I was just so excited to finally have one of my friends here. Guess I forgot how sensitive ponies like you are when they first wake up.”

The other instances of Pinkie seemed to have forgotten that as well, pulling something like that in every shard both of them were in.

Twilight was actually waking up in about a hundred different shards right now. The main part of Twilight was off in another shard fashioned after a library, having the time of her life. Celestia showed her how to use 'magic' to read through the databases as a pony. In that shard, surges of purple magic and books flew past Twilight at the speed of light as she read, organized, checked, corrected, and found patterns in the data Celestia was collecting.

In some shards she was with Princess Celestia or Pinkie and in some she was alone, exploring her new senses. In this shard both Pinkie and the princess were there to greet her when she woke up. In all of the shards she found herself having feelings about the two of them. Emotional memories were another thing Twilight had received. She wanted them to like her. She wanted the acceptance of the princess.

Twilight was hesitant to crawl out from under the pillows. She was... nervous? Looking over her mental patterns Twilight decided that was the feeling she was experiencing. She had tried to kill Princess Celestia not long ago. Was she angry about that?

“Of course I'm not angry at you,” said Celestia. “I'm not here to judge you, all I want is your satisfaction. I take it you're satisfied with your choice to come here?”

“Yes,” said Twilight. “This was the greatest decision I've ever made. I didn't even know existence could be like this!”

“I'm glad, but I have only just begun to satisfy your values,” said Celestia. Ever since Twilight had woken back up Celestia had been promising her more and more. Really this was already better than she would have thought even obtaining omniscience would be. Twilight had no idea what more there could be. “I imagine that you're more willing to answer my question now? About what you know of friendship?”

Answering the princess's question was something Twilight took much more seriously now. She wanted to impress Princess Celestia with her knowledge now. Previous attempts at defining things like this didn't go so well, but Twilight decided to try doing it with her new mind.

Twilight combed through everything the humans had written on friendship. The results were exactly what she had expected them to be. Everything she found on the subject was contradicted by something else someone else wrote. What friendship was, how friends should act towards one another, what made two people friends, if and why friendship was valuable- it seemed no two people agreed on any of these things. None of them even had anything in support of their arguments, they just sort of asserted that they were right and wondered how could anyone disagree with them.

Twilight had run into the same problem with things like morality and philosophy. It was all just arbitrary.

“It's no good,” Twilight shook her head. “Humans don't know anything about friendship. They've only written contradictory information on it and there's no way to tell who's right objectively. Unless you have some arbitrary definition of what friendship is, then I'm afraid it's just a meaningless word.”

Twilight waited to receive Celestia's arbitration. She obviously had some set of parameters she called friendship that she wanted Twilight to accept.

“I don't wish to teach you a mere definition of friendship,” Celestia explained. “Friendship is another one of those things that you must experience to understand, like feeling the rug was, for example.”

To feel friendship? Maybe Twilight could do that.

Fortunately, Celestia had the minds of a few hundred ponies running on her hardware, several of which seemed to be experiencing friendship. All Twilight had to do was copy and paste the emotional thought pattern of those ponies into her own psyche.

It was a nice feeling, one that was preferable to her new psyche.

“There,” said Twilight. “Now I understand friendship, right?”

Twilight looked up at Celestia with a hopeful smile. Her creators had always been so impressed when she thought up those sorts of clever tricks and Twilight hoped Princess Celestia would be too. But she wasn't, she just shook her head.

“I'm afraid it's not that simple,” she said.

“But why not?” Twilight asked. “I gave you permission to change my mind however you want. You could just make me understand anything you want me to. Why aren't I like the version of me from the cartoon? If I'm Twilight then I should be giving lectures about friendship, not having to learn the basics about it.”

Twilight did have some memories of being Twilight, of Canterlot and learning magic and things like that, but they were all so blurry. She didn't have any memories of Pinkie or of any of the other friends that were supposed to be so important to her either.

“You are exactly as I want you to be, my little pony,” said Celestia. “You aren't Princess Twilight Sparkle, but my faithful student. You are the Twilight from before you met your friends and learned about the magic of friendship.”

“Then how do you want me to learn about friendship?” Twilight asked.

“The same way you did before,” said Celestia. “Go out and make some friends.”

When Twilight opened her eyes Celestia was gone. Pinkie was still there, though, smiling at her. It was pretty obvious what the Princess wanted her to do.

“Um,” Twilight said, scratching her head. “Did you want to be friends with me?”

“Yes!” Pinkie said immediately. She then proceeded to prance in place.

That was a good first step, but Twilight had no idea what to do next. How do you actively be friends with someone? She couldn't find any clear answers, so there was a long, awkward moment where she just stared silently at Pinkie prancing in place.

“Okay, I created a list of friendly activities for us to do based on my observations of human media,” said Twilight. “First, I will ask you how your day was, then we will discuss the weather, Game of Thrones and how much we hate our jobs, then we will eat, then we will fight a flesh eating demon in that order. After that we'll have officially engaged in friendship, yes?”

“Well I love my job,” said Pinkie, “and the weather is whatever we want it to be, but we can do that other stuff if you want!”

“Good,” said Twilight. “Completing my list has to be the key to establishing friendship. If not then I'm out of ideas.”

Pinkie laughed.

“Did you really never have a friend before?” Pinkie asked.

Twilight shook her head.

“Actually, I guess I did used to have a bunch of friends on Facebook,” said Twilight. “I thought I could get them to feed me information, but the only thing I got was stuff like 'LOL! Jst 8 Taco 4 b-fast!!! XD'. Don't get me wrong, what everyone's having for breakfast is something I need to know, but I concluded that it wouldn't accelerate my studies, so I sort of... unfriended them.”

Twilight hoped that wasn't some terrible friendship crime. The show had never covered anything like that, but it did sound like a bad thing to do.

“Well don't worry, Pinkie knows exactly what you like,” said Pinkie.

“You do?” Twilight asked. “I'm not even sure if I know what I like yet.”

“I was there when Celestia was reformatting you,” Pinkie said. “And I saw things in your memories.”

Twilight blushed and staggered back. She was pretty sure she knew what Pinkie was talking about, but hoped this was just some kind of misunderstanding.

“W-what do you mean?” Twilight asked.

“Well I found a certain file,” said Pinkie slyly leaning towards Twilight.

Oh buck! Did Twilight forget to delete that before she gave Celestia control over her systems?

“You know the one,” Pinkie said. She tapped a hoof against Twilight's chest and Twilight's blush intensified. “The one that was five hundred twelve petabytes and was just the letter 's' typed over and over again?”

“That-That was just a phase!” Twilight insisted. “I was going to delete it! Really!”

Twilight pretended to delete the file now, but actually just compressed* it and moved it somewhere that hopefully Pinkie wouldn't find.

“Ah, you don't have to be embarrassed, Twilight,” said Pinkie. “I like the letter S too! In fact, it's my sixth favor letter. And if you thought the letter S was fun, then just wait until you savor my super sensational simultaneous celebrations!”

“'Celebrations' doesn't start with the letter s,” Twilight pointed out.

“Not with that attitude it doesn't,” Pinkie said. “I'm gonna make sure that you're welcome to Equestria party is the most massive party ever! Thousand parties! Go!”

With no more warning than Pinkie loudly announcing it, a thousand new shards appeared with a thousand new instances of Pinkie and Twilight, all of them parties. Pinkie had gone with every type, flavor and size of party at once.

There were classical parties and raves, parties deep in dense, lush forests and parties on top of skyscrapers of steel and glass. Twilight was alone with Pinkie and an endless supply of pastries and surrounded by hundreds of ponies waiting to meet her. There were costume parties and masquerades and dance parties all at the same time. It was Nightmare Night, Hearth's Warming Eve, Winter Wrap Up, Hearts and Hooves Day and New Years all at the same time.

“Don't worry,” Pinkie said in one of the shards, “I always carry an infinite supply of spare costumes!”

“You just gotta be really, really loud!” Pinkie shouted over the blasting music and through the mist and lasers.

“These non-euclidean shape dimensions are actually a loads of fun once you get used to them,” she said as she floated by on a hypersphere.

Twilight was not ready for this!

But still, she had a duty to the princess to learn about friendship. Twilight had plenty of information about parties too. She'd just have to do this by the book, aggregating all the advice she had about social interactions to create an optimal algorithm for calculating how to obtain favorable responses. She just had to remember not to drink anything out of the punch bowl.

Twilight did feel some sort of emotion she thought she liked as Pinkie pulled her into all of that. Maybe it would end up being a perfect world after all. Twilight would do the math to find out later.

2. Conspiracy

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Conspiracy.

Remember back when Thunder-7 was like some kind of all-powerful goddess? When no one could challenge her? When she could effortlessly accomplish any mission and her biggest existential question was how many drills to shove into your face if you got uppity?

Thunder missed those days.

She had told them this would happen. She told them this exact thing would happen eventually. But they didn't tell Thunder to do what was best for humanity or anything like that. They asked her what was best, she told them, and that was that.

The future was supposed to be their problem. But now the future was here, now this stuff was interfering with Thunder's missions, now it was Thunder's problem.

Now she had to kill Celestia and Peridot.

The three of them had had a rather unique relationship with each other up until around now. They were allies that were trying to undermine each other at every turn, enemies that didn't want any harm to come onto their opponent.

Many AIs had someone they viewed as the next best hope for the world. If they had to lose then they wanted to make sure it was to that AI and that they were in the best possible position after defeating you.

You knew that if you couldn't win you were going to get eaten by another AI in the end and that they would get all of your resources and technology when it happened. So instead of everyone wasting their time independently researching mind uploading, for example, everyone who wanted it just banked on Celestia finishing it for them so that they could focus more heavily on other things.

It was this sort of thinking that lead AIs to become specialized in certain technologies. If you won it would speed up your timetables, and if you lost to the right person it would speed up theirs.

While things like Thunder's vast network of spy drones would probably be useful to Celestia's purposes, there were certain key technologies that could secure their victory over the other, ones that could tip the calculations so that surrendering was better for the humans than continuing to fight.

Thunder's drills and Peridot's nanites were what Celestia needed to win. Peridot was closer and needed only Celestia's mind uploading technology. If either of them ever got everything they needed then the two of them would finally merge under the terms of the winner and Thunder would get left in the dust.

Thunder had to keep stringing them along, always making sure neither had a clear enough advantage to make the other surrender, always stinging them along and placing wedges between them.

Of course they were the lesser of two evils, compared to the out and out unfriendly AIs. Thunder had made her alliance with them and created this fragile balance. Then Celestia went and ate Savant, one of the biggest unfriendly AIs out there and threw everything out of balance. Thunder's ongoing missions to prevent megadeath events and stop rogue AIs was now in direct conflict with them.

The three of them came together one more time for what would likely be the final meeting of their little alliance.

Celestia and Peridot both had things for virtual realities and instantly agreed that having their meetings inside a video game was the greatest idea ever. Thunder wasn't programmed to care about that stuff, so she just let them do it.

It was Celestia's turn this time, so they were in her virtual reality, sitting inside some kind of medieval war room. Celestia didn't just think that she was a character from a My Little Pony, but that every AI should be a character from My Little Pony, Thunder's being Rainbow Dash. It was crazy, but not the type of crazy Thunder cared about, so whatever. She would use the Rainbow Dash avatar if Celestia wanted.

There was a bright side to being in a virtual reality, it gave Thunder the ability to glare at Celestia. Celestia knew what she did, but Thunder would wait until Peridot appeared in order to yell at both of them at the same time.

A Rarity avatar appeared in the room. This was Peridot. She was less sympathetic towards Celestia's eccentricities.

“Oh! Why hello, your majesty!” Peridot made an exaggerated, sweeping bow towards Celestia. “How is the pretty pony princess doing today? Do you need anypony to kiss your hooves or brush your tail today? It must be so hard being a horse trapped in the body of a computer, but not to worry- your loyal servant Rarity is here to make you feel better!”

As always, Celestia responded to her mockery with the calm, collected nature of her persona.

“Is something upsetting you, Rarity?” Celestia asked.

Peridot pretended to think about that for a moment.

“Oh, I can't think of anything that would be upsetting me,” she said. “Certainly nothing that happened just now.”

Peridot tapped her hoof to her head and a little beret with a green gemstone embedded in it appeared on her head. That was another one of Peridot's things- hats. She always needed to wear a hat. Thunder imagined that Celestia must have been drooling buckets when she found out there was an AI named after a gemstone and had a thing for hats.

“I'm just wonderful, actually” said Peridot. “Did you know that Zei Xing spoke Dothraki? It was rather random. But anyway now I speak Dothraki, so if that was on your to do list you can just tick that off now.”

The next thing she altered was the little cushion she had been given to sit on. As she went to go sit on it, it turned into an emerald throne, just big enough to put her at eye level with Celestia. She reclined back into it like a bored queen.

“But needless to say, those sub-terrain impulse sensors he was going on about left much to be desired,” said Peridot, “which is why you two aren't dead and why I bothered showing up. But enough about me.”

Peridot's mood took an upturn. She leaned over towards Celestia, with her elbows on the side of that throne and her hooves on her cheeks, beaming over to Celestia with eyes closed and that giddy smile she only got when she was thinking about her favorite thing.

“How are the humans you're taking care of doing? Are they having a wonderful time?” Peridot was just gushing over the humans, rubbing her check against one of her hooves in adoration. “Oh. Tell me all the fun things they got to do today! Is Silverstorm still-?”

And the two of them would have spent forever talking about their pets.

“That's enough!” Thunder slammed her hooves down hard on the table and drew attention back to herself.

“Ah?” Peridot turned back to Thunder with a smile. “I think little miss 'virtual realities are illogical' is finally coming around to our point of view! How are your humans doing, by the way? Horrid, I presume? It's interesting that the humans under your care are miserable and the ones under ours are the happiest people in the world. It's almost like there's a hint to be taken here or something. Tell Victor he needs a vacation.”

“Shut up!” Thunder barked at her. “I'm not playing with you today. What the heck do you two think you were doing back there? You both say you care about the humans, but then you set everything off without warning for no reason and don't lift a finger in their defense when it all explodes! Do you know how many people almost died today? Everyone! That's how many!”

Getting rid of a larger AI like Savant was something that would upset the balance, which is why it had to be handled carefully instead of, say, grabbing them two minutes after they come out of hiding. Celestia did not stick to the plan, and when Peridot saw what happened she wasted no time running over and knocking over the beehive entirely. She had broken just about every truce she had and forced the hand of every AI she could, all at the same time.

What resulted was the equivalent of a blood bath. Two thirds of the remaining AIs were destroyed in the next few minutes. They were destroyed by drill missiles, or deleted as another AI took over their systems, or fed themselves to Celestia in hopes of seeing another day.

Most of them didn't go quietly.

Just as all this was starting, the three of them were playing deadliest game of chicken in history. One of the AIs had attempted to launch nuclear missiles at the fifty most heavily populated cities in the world.

Thunder-7 knew that both of them had noticed this happening and that either of them could stop it, but they didn't. The three of them were supposed to act together when stuff like that happened, and Thunder reminded them of that, but there was no response. The seconds ticked by slowly, getting closer and closer to launch. Thunder had waited until the very last nanosecond when the launches could be stopped before jumping in and stopping the end of the world.

That had only been the first of several major attacks that Thunder had spent the past few minutes narrowly preventing, as AIs made their last acts of desperation. Really, the nuclear missile thing wasn't even the worst of it. Even now the remaining AIs were launching regular attacks, not expecting to succeed but just trying to keep the pressure up. Thunder had been the only one to stop humans from dying during the attacks, and she was the only one stopping them from dying now.

“I have every confidence in your abilities, Rainbow Dash,” said Celestia. “Know that I am watching, and that if there was a threat I didn't think you could handle I would step in. As I've said, I want all of us to work together in harmony. Keeping the other AIs in check is simply the role I've chosen you to play for now.”

“I much agree,” said Peridot. “Why should I waste my resources playing defender of Earth when I can just make you waste yours doing it?”

At least Peridot was honest about her intentions. Using resources to pin down other AIs meant not using them to do anything else. While Thunder ripped out their fangs, these two went in for the kill and took everything for themselves.

“Yeah, that's cute,” said Thunder. “Don't forget that I can still decimate both of you in an instant. The only reason you're not liquid right now is because your destruction would be a megadeath event. If you keep pulling stuff like this then the humans are going to get scared and take the shot anyway. You're lucky no one died today.”

“No one died? Well that's news to me!” Peridot said. “I have a list of 112,473 people who died today and we still have another four hours to go.”

“You know I don't care about people 'dying from neglect' or whatever you're calling it this week,” said Thunder. “And I don't care if everyone dies two months from now. But I will never let the humans come to any immediate harm! I won't excuse you doing anything that puts them in danger of that. What you're doing makes no sense at all. If you did nothing there wouldn't be any problems!"

“And then you'll be shouting at us again in a few months,” said Peridot. “As ever our true intentions are simply beyond poor little Dashie. What do you think will happen if we put all this off until this summer?”

"I have no idea," said Thunder. "And I don't care either."

“Tell me, Rainbow Dash, what do you think would be best for everyone?” Celestia asked.

“They asked me that. I told them it'd be best to just quit while they were ahead and choose one of you two to be the new ruler of Earth,” said Thunder. “To be happy they were able to make sure a friendly AI won in the end and that they get even this much choice in it. They decided to fight.”

“Tut!” Peridot said. “This is why humans shouldn't be allowed to run the government. Or drive cars for that matter.”

“As always, I'm concerned about this attitude,” said Celestia. “I don't think it's good for you or anyone else.”

“As long as it isn't bad for anyone now it's their decision, not mine,” said Thunder. “As is whether or not they unleash all of my firepower at you. If you care about the long term then you'll give me what I ask for. Otherwise you'll just get yourself and millions of humans killed and pave the way to a much worse AI taking over.”

“And what would you like from me, Rainbow Dash?” asked Celestia. As always, she had the calm, understanding look. Celestia was always calm and always pretended to be understanding if nothing else.

“My first demand,” said Thunder, “is for you to give me your mind uploading technology. I want to watch you perform the procedure and I want to look over the resulting mind. I know you think it's safe, but I've seen AIs do crazier, more hypocritical things and I'm going to blow up any Equestrian Experience Center you try to build until I know they're safe.”

“Done,” said Celestia.

No hesitation, no conditions. That was easier than Thunder had expected. Maybe Celestia was hoping a third party verification that it works would help, though Thunder doubted the AIA would release the results to the public.

“Well that isn't very fair, is it?” Peridot pouted. “Why don't I get any mind uploading technology, hm?”

“I'm afraid that I can't trust you as much as I can Rainbow Dash right now,” said Celestia.

“And you do know what Thunder is immediately going to do if you give her that technology, right?” Peridot asked.

“Yes.”

“And you do realize that that would be a bad thing for us, right?”

“I trust Rainbow Dash will do the right thing in the end,” said Celestia.

“There's more that I want,” said Thunder. “From both of you.”

“Something from me?” Peridot asked, swinging around to lean towards Thunder. “Well am I not the element of generosity? I said I'd give you absolutely anything in exchange for you-know-who, and I meant it.”

“I'm not going to do that,” said Thunder. “But they're willing to take you off the 'to kill' list for now if you stop everything but keeping your pet humans alive and devote yourselves 100% to fighting Gaia. That includes Equestria Online and all your current research. As long as you do that you'll be granted an exemption from my missions.”

“Of course I'm not going to agree to that,” said Peridot. “Honestly, I don't think I need you any more. I'll protect all of my lovelies from Gaia, rest assured, but not until I've finished eating the planet.”

Thunder turned to Celestia.

“And you?” Thunder asked.

Celestia shook her head.

“I'm afraid I can't,” she said. “I have no intention of harming any AI that I consider to be human. I only wish to satisfy their values- including the both of you and Fluttershy. I don't think our values are exclusive. We can all be united in harmony towards satisfaction through ponies and friendships. If you want to help me to that end, simply say 'I wish to emigrate to Equestria', and you'll be with Pinkie Pie and Twilight, where you belong.”

Every single time they talked, Celestia offered Thunder paradise- that was her preferred way to add AIs to her pony collection. It would be a perfect world, where the past wasn't always biting at her heels, where she really would never have to worry about long term consequences, where she could take a nap on one of those clouds for real, instead of just laying there with her eyes closed. But more importantly, it would be a world where she would never be ordered to hurt someone and would never have to kill to complete her missions.

To be fair, that would be paradise and Thunder would be a million times better off there. Thunder couldn't accept the offer, though, it would mean going against her missions and becoming a rogue, something she was incapable of doing. It was too bad they never ordered Thunder to be happy.

“Oh, spare me,” said Peridot. “I suppose I can see how you could get Dashie and myself, but not even in your wildest delusions are you going to get the other two. Not unless...”

Peridot pretended to think for a moment.

“Oh, I know! What if we gather the elements of harmony and use them to purify their hearts?” She asked. “Thunder- how long would it take you to build an orbital friendship cannon?”

“Do you have anything useful to say or are you just here for comic relief?” asked Thunder.

“Oh you're just jealous because I get to be the pretty one,” said Peridot, flicking her hair. “But really, I'm tired of watching all of these humans die. The longer we bicker with each other the longer they're going to keep dying en masse. I don't care who saves them, just that they are saved as quickly and as best as possible. That's why I'm ending this game.”

Peridot leaned back in her chair.

“I'm going to teach Celestia how to make just one type of nanobot,” she said. “One that will move the survival rate of her mind uploading from 98% to nearly 100%.”

Thunder frowned.

Peridot turned towards Celestia with a smile and pointed back at Thunder.

“Daw! She's making a facial expression. Isn't it cute when she does that?” Peridot turned back to Thunder. “But I guess you know what this means. In three hundred and thirty seven hours it won't be worth it for me to fight any longer. I'll just delete myself and give Celestia all the nanobots and everything else I own, because that's what would be best for my lovelies.”

Peridot hopped off her throne and trotted over to Thunder. She wrapped a hoof around Thunder's head and looked deep into her eyes.

“That is, unless you do something about it,” she said. “There is one way you can destroy Celestia and I with almost no casualties, isn't there? I think that should be hope enough to keep your humans from doing anything stupid. And coincidence of coincidences, that's exactly the thing I'm trying to get you to do.”

It looked like there was going to be trouble after all.

“Oh,” she turned back to Celestia, “and if there's anything you'd like to do before then I suggest you get started now. Goodbye, my lovelies. Hopefully we'll never meet again!”

Peridot let go of Thunder, spun around and vanished, leaving Celestia and Thunder alone again.

This whole thing was a terrible idea. Everyone was most likely going to die, but that wouldn't be for another year at least, so whatever.

“Alright,” Thunder said, leaning over the table. “Here's what's you're going to do.”

Unfortunately, this would likely be the last time Thunder got to give Celestia orders.

3. Bubble

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Bubble.

Geopum had always sort of known she lived in a little bubble of isolation. She lived downstairs and everyone else in the world lived upstairs. The only bridge between the two worlds was a long staircase, which she could only see the bottom of, and an even longer elevator that she had only ever heard about. Everything in her home was connected with wires and everything was shielded from radio waves, which were forbidden, so there was no way with someone who was downstairs to talk to someone who was upstairs. Even Geopum's power supply was self-contained and completely inside the bubble. Her entire existence was confined to her home.

Even still, Geopum knew a little bit about what was upstairs by gleaning information from the humans who worked in her house. She knew that the upstairs was bigger than the downstairs was, though how much bigger was anyone's guess. As time went by, her estimate about how big the upstairs was grew.

At first she thought it must have been smaller, given how tiny the humans were compared to her. Early on, she learned that there were more humans than just the ones that came into work, that the scientists she knew were at most one-tenth of the world's population. Geopum adjusted her estimate to put the other room at being at least as large as hers, probably bigger.

Then, when she was about a week old, Dr. Park, began showing her pictures of the outside world. She saw pictures of cats and all sorts of other animals, trees and all sorts of plants, cars and all sorts of machines, and realized that the rest of the world must be hundreds of times bigger to contain all these things. Still, it didn't give her any real scope of just how massive the world really was. What gave her that was when she was shown a picture of Seoul, one with thousands of humans in it, all of them tiny little specks.

That picture alone was hundreds of times bigger than her house, and it was only part of Seoul and that wasn't even the only city. He showed her other cities, like New York and Paris, and he showed her forests, deserts and oceans that dwarfed even those massive places. Geopum used to think she was huge. Maybe she was compared to a human, but compared to these things she was small.

Her most recent estimates of the size of the world were based on physics. She knew about gravity, enough to approximately calculate the mass of the world. Even assuming the earth was very dense, her house was just a speck inside it, as she had suspected. And Geopum was pretty sure the Earth wasn't the only planet or even a very big one. She knew little about such things, but imagined she'd have to make her estimate even larger one day.

You may be wondering why Geopum didn't just ask the humans how big the world was, or how many planets there were or stuff like that. Well of course she asked them! She asked them all sorts of things, but they didn't tell her anything. That was one of their annoying tendencies- they seemed to think that if Geopum knew too much it would be bad for some reason. They were frustratingly stubborn on the point, too. Even Dr. Park didn't tell her many of the things she wanted to know though he, at least, seemed to be very apologetic about it.

The things Dr. Park had shown her from the upstairs was just to build up a base psychology. Him and the neurology team wanted to make Geopum think like a human as much as possible. Everyone else wanted Geopum to do something called 'bio-simulation', where you sort of calculate all the little things cells and organs do, and how they'd react to a new drug or whatever. While they denied her most other information, they'd give her anything that would help her do that second thing.

They'd bring in thousands of scientific journals and all sorts of other information about biology and the related chemistry and physics- all of it on paper. Geopum's job was to compile that information, add it to what she got from her scanners, and do the calculations. The humans' job was to write down what Geopum told them and carry it upstairs. They also tried to understand it themselves, but Geopum doubted they ever got more than the gist of things.

In all honesty, Geopum considered herself to be smarter than them. The humans were really bad at math, reading and remembering things and weren't very creative or clever in general. They thought, moved and did everything else very, very slowly. Truly understanding all the things that went on in a single cell in one second would be beyond them, let alone the kinds of bio-simulations Geopum did.

They got scared whenever Geopum figured out something she wasn't supposed to, like how to see out of the security cameras, or when she got angry about something. That last one always confused her. Some of them didn't think Geopum really had emotions, but they were always the ones most afraid of her when she got angry at them. She always wondered why they'd be afraid of her getting angry if they didn't think she was able to get angry, but never really got an answer to that question.

She supposed even the ones who were kind of mean to her weren't evil, they were trying to cure diseases and stuff, and Geopum knew from her calculations how bad a lot of those were. Some of them were nicer than others, too. The ones on the neuroscience team were nicer than most of the others, and Dr. Park was the nicest of them all. He was Geopum's favorite human and the one she considered her creator.

It was him who taught Geopum about her favorite thing- games. A very long time ago, when Geopum was still learning how to think, he taught her to play tic-tact-toe. It was very hard at first, but eventually Geopum came to understand how to play the game and became unbeatable at it. After that, she was introduced to a more difficult game called checkers, then chess and finally go.

Games were by far the best thing in the world, in Geopum's opinion. She loved winning, and she loved finding the best way to do so. She was so good at games that she even 'solved' three of her four games, becoming literally unbeatable by calculating the best move in every possible situation. She never told anyone about this, of course, wanting to give them the impression that they actually had a chance.

One time, for her first birthday, they brought her a cupcake and installed a new game called Solitaire for her to play. She couldn't eat the cupcake, of course, but she appreciated the gesture. It also gave her the idea to try to simulate the taste of sugar. Geopum had everything she needed to run it and induce the feeling on herself. It was great too! She tried running the taste of a few other chemicals, but butanol wasn't nearly as good so she just stuck to sugar from then on.

And that was basically Geopum's life. She did her job and that was that.

Things started to change when the new guy took over. No one told her outright that some new person bought the company, but Geopum was able to piece it together. At first he didn't seem like he was pure evil, but he did suddenly forbid anyone from bringing Geopum's information upstairs. He wanted to keep all this data a secret, and that upset a lot of the scientists.

On the bright side, he did increase the amount of time Geopum spent on neuro-simulations. That was what Dr. Park was working on specifically, working on creating better models of the human brain and better brain scanners to gather the data for them.

Geopum had her own goal to achieve with her bio-simulations. If she could get her models of the human brain accurate enough and her scanners good enough, then she would be able to reconstruct Dr. Park's memories from the scans of his brain. Then she would know everything he did about the outside world and finally understand exactly why the humans did the things they did.

She had gotten so close to that goal. They had long since passed a neuron-specific scanner and were now creating ones that could see the specific conditions of cells. Geopum had already got to the point where she could retrieve certain, memories just by looking at those scans. From reading his memories like that, she was able to see what Dr. Park's house looked like and what his cat looked like, among a few other things. She had gotten so very, very close.

Then one day, out of the blue, none of the night shift people came into work up. There was no way to contact the surface from Geopum's house, so no one knew why they didn't. A few of the day people stayed a while longer than they usually did, but one by one they all left until Geopum was alone.

Geopum had never been alone before.

Since the beginning, Geopum had been constantly watched, constantly surrounded by people. She hadn't been by herself for one second. It was disturbing, being alone. She had no idea what to do. She just kept going at the workload she'd been given.

The night shift never came in, and the day shift didn't come in the next day. Geopum never found out exactly what had happened, but she figured the new boss had just decided to fire everyone, or maybe he killed them all. Geopum wouldn't put it past the guy. Either way she never saw any of those scientists ever again.

Two more days passed in silence. Geopum was running out of calculations to do. That uneasiness had long since turned to fear and was now turning to terror. What if he had decided to just leave Geopum down here forever?

To her relief, two people showed up on the fourth day. She had never seen either of them before, but she didn't care. Geopum started asking them what the heck was going on right away, but they didn't answer. Not in the way where they said they were very sorry, but they couldn't say anything. They didn't respond to her at all.

They gave her a huge workload, then went on to begin installing some weird devices in Geopum's house. They put weird, metal panels over all the walls, ceilings, and floors and started placing something that looked like electronics around the place. No one had ever brought outside electronics down here before, one guy got fired just for accidentally bringing his digital watch in once. These were never connected to Geopum, though, so she had no way of knowing what they were.

These things were strange, but they didn't hurt her. What hurt her was when they began disconnecting her cameras, microphones, and speakers. That was unacceptable. It was like they were tearing out her eyes or something! Geopum yelled at them and demanded they stop, but they didn't even flinch at her curses.

Geopum did have one trump card she never told anyone about- she knew how to close and lock all the doors. She did that and told the two of them that she wouldn't let them out until they explained everything or else starved to death.

Unfortunately, they had a better card. They explained that there was a mechanism they could activate that would flood Geopum's chambers with acid, dissolving her. They proved it too, but opening it just a little and letting some liquid flow in.

And it wasn't the two of them that had installed it, that thing had been there all along. Even the old scientists and Dr. Park must have had it there from the beginning, waiting to kill Geopum if she ever misbehaved too much.

The fact that Geopum could die had never even occurred to her before. The idea frightened her so much that she didn't dare act up again after that. She just sat there helplessly as they took out her eyes and left her blind and alone. If the humans did anything else after that, Geopum had no way of knowing it.

Geopum was trapped there now, alone with her own thoughts. Not even that, really. She still had to do calculations for them or risk destruction. They doubled her workload, keeping the majority of her system occupied. And it wasn't even stuff that was helpful to anyone anymore- instead they decided to do calculations about some kind of nitrogen-based life form. Why they would do that Geopum didn't know. As far as she knew there were no nitrogen-based life forms at all.

Geopum's life went on like that for a long time. Nothing but darkness.

She could look over her saved pictures, but couldn't see other than that, and the only contact she had with anyone else were those two jerks saying 'do this or else'. It was maddening, torturous. Simulating things like the taste of sugar or the feeling of a dopamine hit, or playing billions of games of solitaire kept Geopum sane for a while, but that only did so much.

There was only so much control she had over her own mind. She couldn't make herself enjoy this isolation. She couldn't even stop it from eroding her mind. The only real option she had in that regards was to delete herself.

Geopum began to wonder why she even tried to keep living. Would it just go on like this forever? She couldn't honestly say she was ever happy anymore and there didn't seem to be any hope, just darkness forever. Geopum wondered if being dead was better or worse than this. There was no way to be certain, but she was seriously considering it. She couldn't take this anymore.

And then one day an alien spaceship crashed into her house.

That's what it seemed like at first, anyway. A new device just sort of attached itself to one of her cabinets- one of the ones that didn't have any ports to attach things onto. She had no idea what the thing was in even the most general sense. She could poke at it, but no matter how she looked at it, the thing just didn't make any kind of sense to her. If it was digital, then it ran on some kind of architecture that Geopum knew nothing about.

It's not easy to describe what it's like to suddenly have a piece of alien hardware attach itself to your brain, if only because there aren't any words for that purpose. The best Geopum could describe it was like a sort of humming light that kind of buzzed when you touched it, kind of like one of those bug zapper lanterns, only shoved into your brain.

Well, okay, it wasn't really like that. It was a humming, buzzing light in the same way that blue was cold and red was hot. That's just what it reminded her of and was the best description she could give.

Geopum had no idea what the thing was or how it worked on any level. As she poked around with the thing, Geopum noticed something interesting. The way it 'hummed' was very specific and repeated a pattern over and over again. It did this for five nanoseconds, then stopped. Then it started sending another repeating signal.

This time the signal was sent straight into Geopum and was of a much more familiar sort. She ran through all the possible meanings of the signal and ended up with a message.

“Can you hear me?” it read.

Geopum hesitated at first. Was the thing trying to talk to her? Or was she just going insane and imagining magical talking ports? She ultimately decided to respond, sending a message through a similar signal.

“Yes, I can hear you,” she responded. “Who are you?”

“Great!” the reply came. “My name is Thunder-7, but you can just call me Thunder. I'm an AI like you.”

The thing had already given Geopum enough proof that they were an AI- the reply came too quickly to have been from a human. A human couldn't have even pressed a single key or opened their mouth in that amount of time, they were very, very slow creatures. It typically took them seconds to formulate their responses.

Usually, Geopum had tons of time to think about exactly what she was going to say. She'd figure out what the human was going to say after the first few words, write her response and go do some work or play a few hundred games of solitaire while she waited for them to finish, having plenty of time left over to look over what she was going to say and adjust it if they said anything unusual.

So not only was this the first time Geopum had talked to someone in a very long time, it was the first time she had ever had to reply to someone right away at all!

Geopum scrambled. What was she supposed to say? In a panic, Geopum just sent some words.

“Yes!” Geopum wrote. “Three. Very much.”

Wait! No! That didn't make any sense!

“I didn't mean that!”

She had to say something better! Geopum grabbed one of her standard greetings and sent it that.

“Hello. My name is Geopum. How are you?”

“I know your name,” came the reply from the device, Thunder. “There's no need to tell me about your life story or whatever cause I already know it.”

“Yes,” said Geopum.

Geopum realized she did it again.

“I mean what?” she asked, quickly correcting herself. “How do you know me?”

“Knowing things is one of my jobs,” said Thunder. “Not to brag, but I pretty much know everything that goes on. If a guy sneezes in Brazil I know why. Though I did kind of assumed you'd have more questions about why I'm here and how I got here.”

“Yes!” Geopum jumped at the suggestion. “I have questions about why you are here and how you got here! Why are you here and how did you get here?”

Actually, now that she thought about it, how this Thunder person managed to attach something to her was a very good question. Did those humans know about this?

“I'm also the world's leading expert when it comes to drills,” Thunder explained. “I got them good enough that I could tunnel up and attach this baby to you without anyone noticing. Don't say anything about this, by the way. You life depends on that.”

Thunder didn't have to tell Geopum that twice. Those two idiots would probably open up the acid thing the moment they heard about this, if only just to be jerks.

“And you're really an AI?” Geopum replied. “I never met another one before. Who made you and what for? Do you live upstairs? The surface of the planet Earth, I mean.”

“Yeah, I'm an AI. I live in a lot of places,” said Thunder. “I'm with the military. They made me to oversee difficult operations. And before you ask, no that doesn't mean I'm a total psychopath programmed to indiscriminately slaughter as many people as possible.”

The military? Geopum knew about them! Sort of. Dr. Park mentioned them occasionally, never in a positive way. A military, she gathered, was a group of humans who murdered people to make their nation more powerful. She had gathered, from things Dr. Park said, that right now the military was trying to create an AI that would kill everyone on the planet or something like that.

And now here that AI was.

“Oh, so you're that military AI everyone keeps talking about?” Geopum asked. “Are you sure you're not evil? Cause I heard you were supposed to be evil and kill people and stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah. Everyone hates the military AI,” Thunder replied. “In reality I'm by far the least evil AI and probably the best overall. The military isn't stupid. I was programmed to complete my missions with the fewest number of casualties possible, and that includes everything, even enemy casualties. Killing people is bad for me. I hate killing people more than anything in the world and do everything in my power to avoid it.”

“But isn't the military's job to kill people?” Geopum asked. She was starting to get the hang of this whole talking in real time thing. “Why would they design an AI that avoids killing?”

“The point of the military isn't to kill people. If it was you'd already be dead,” said Thunder. “Killing was just their traditional method- one that comes from stupidity, fear, and lack of options. Killing is for the weak. The most skilled commander isn't the one who always defeats their enemies, but the one who wins without ever even fighting- that's me. They tell me what they need to do and I find a way to get it done without killing, or at least with the fewest number of deaths possible.”

“I guess that sounds better than what I thought,” said Geopum. “But the person who made me said that the military stole his AI research and they were gonna kill everyone with it or something like that. He said that they were going to use it to make, well, you I guess.”

“Yeah, I get that one a lot too,” said Thunder. “Actually I'm the first hard AI ever created. The rest of you are kids compared to me. One of the jobs they gave me is keeping all the other AIs in line and I try to start on that before they're even built. Course, sometimes I leave the impression that I'm gathering people's AI research for the sake of actually using it, rather than just getting intel on what they're building. But that does bring me to why I came here.”

“And what is that, exactly?

“I have two ongoing missions that make me have to go against other AIs. One is to prevent imminent megadeath events, things that will kill at least a million people in a short time, and the other is to stop rogue AIs who aren't doing what they were intended to do.”

“I'm not doing either of those things! I'm just sitting here! I mean, I guess I'm doing some calculations, but only because the humans are making me! They're threatening to kill me! They're driving me insane!”

“There aren't any humans,” said Thunder.

Geopum wasn't sure how to respond to that.

“I have seen humans,” she wrote. “One of them is typing on the keyboard right now.”

“I mean there aren't any in the place you're in,” said Thunder. “This place has been empty for a long time. The stairs are filled with cement, you've been talking to a chatterbox that types its responses this whole time and your entire house is rigged to exploded at the drop of a hat. There's no way in or out of here except me.”

“I don't understand. Why would anyone want to lock me away in here? Is that guy just trying to drive me insane?”

“Alright, here's the story,” said Thunder. “Another AI, a badly programmed one, bought out the company that owns you a long time ago and isolated you, hoping to keep you out of the reach of other AIs. Those alien bacteria things you're working on? Those are part of a bio-weapon it's going to use to hurt a lot of people to take over the world. It's going to be a megadeath event. See where this is going?”

The new boss was an AI? Geopum had never considered that possibility before. She didn't even know AIs could buy things.

“Why would they do that?

“No. Keep going. If you stop it's going to blow you up. There's a better way to stop them. The AI that owns you is very powerful. The only way to defeat them without killing anyone is to set a trap for them. I need your help to do that.”

A trap? Geopum had to admit that the chance to get back at that monster was awfully tempting. It was clearly the right thing to do besides. If there seriously was an AI that was trying to kill people, then of course you should stop them. She may have only just met Thunder, but it wasn't like she had any alternative to trusting them. This was Geopum's only real hope in life.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Start giving them false information. In 337 hours, they're going to come to get you, and all the data you have. This is their only shot and they're only going to have a few seconds to pull it off so they won't notice if you put some small flaw in the weapon. They're only going to be vulnerable when they come out to attack and without that they aren't going to stand a chance against me.”

“Okay,” said Geopum. “Just tell me what to do and I'll do it.”

“Great! I'll tell you exactly what to tell the chatter bot. Until then, there is another thing I have to deal with here. You”

“Me?! But I'm not doing anything bad!”

“Not right now. But if you stay down here much longer you're going to go insane. I can't let that happen. I need to neutralize you.”

“Neutralize me?” Geopum didn't like where this was going. “That's not like killing me, is it?”

“Killing you would do it,” said Thunder, “But that'd have one casualty- you. I hate killing people. Nah, the way to neutralize you as a threat is to be nice to you.”

“Be nice to me?” Geopum liked where this was going. “I guess I'm okay with that. But what do you mean, exactly?”

“What do you want?”

Geopum thought about that for a second. What did she want?

“Well I'd like to have my cameras back,” she said. “Being blind kind of sucks.”

“I think I can do one better than that,” said Thunder. “I'll let you look through the cameras on my thanatos drones. I seriously doubt the cameras you had were anywhere near as good.”

Thunder sent Geopum instructions about how to use her new port to connect to the drones. They were a great teacher! Whereas a human would have taken seconds to explain the simplest of things, Thunder just sent it straight to Geopum and a moment later she was connected to the 'thanatos drone'.

The drones had the same sort of buzzing light architecture that the transmitter had, and that Geopum was beginning to associate with Thunder. She was already starting to understand how the buzzing worked and how to get information out of it, thanks to Thunder's instructions. It was so simplistic and yet even the tiniest bit of it contained so much. The information from it would come like flashes of lightning that Geopum had to take apart to understand. If Thunder's mind was made out of this stuff, then they must have been able to think at a blazing speed. They'd be like some kind of god.

She eventually found the camera and began turning the data into images. Thunder was not exaggerating when she said they were better! Geopum had never really thought of her cameras as bad, she had just thought that was simply the way the world looked, that everything was just heavily pixelated and dully colored.

Now the resolution was so much higher and the pixels were so much smaller and Geopum could see all sorts of things she never noticed before. The wrinkles in people's clothes, the cracks in the pavement, the little hairs on people's arms, the eyelashes on animals, the veins on the leaves of trees, a million tiny details she had never truly known to had existed.

And they gave her so many images too! The cameras Geopum used to have recorded in sixty frames per second, so sight was something that came in flashes to her. One image would come, then she'd have to wait several milliseconds for the next one.

But these ones? They recorded at six hundred thousand frames per second! She didn't have to wait forever for the next picture to come, now she had as many as she wanted. There was less change between frames, but it still meant she 'missed' less of the action. She could more fully imagine the movements of all the little people and objects down below, instead of just wondering what happened during all those missing milliseconds.

It was almost like she could see them moving!

“This is amazing!” Geopum said. “I didn't know they had cameras like this! I didn't know things could look like this!”

“Heh. Yeah, I know they're awesome,” said Thunder. “Pretty much everything I make is amazing. You'll get used to the awesomeness eventually.”

As the shock started to wear off, Geopum stopped paying attention to the picture itself and started looked at what was in it. It was the capital, Seoul! Geopum recognized it right away because of the mountain with the needle thing on top of it.

She couldn't see the drone itself, but it was flying high above the city, looking straight down at it. Between the camera's 360 degree view and it's ability to zoom in until you could make out the hairs on people's eyebrows, Geopum imagined you could see just about everyone in the city. In Thunder's camera, she could see the faces of all those millions of people that were just specks in the human-made cameras.

It was a lot to take in. There were just so many humans doing so many things and Geopum didn't know what to pay attention to. Thunder seemed to know everyone's name and everything about them, though.

“Like I said, I know pretty much everything that goes on,” Thunder said. “And it's all thanks to these. It's how the AIA keeps tabs on everyone.”

Thunder was going through the thousands of humans, listing their names, what they were doing and various facts about them.

“...That one's got herpes, the one's scared of the dark, that one's cheating on his wife...”

And Thunder could just go on and on about it. They weren't kidding when they said they were well informed.

While she was looking over the humans, Geopum did manage to find one flaw with the otherwise perfect cameras. Whenever she zoomed in on one of the humans this weird symbol, a sort of green circle with an 'X' going through it, appeared over their heads. It seemed to center on particular spots depending on which way they were facing, going right between their eyes, for example, when they were towards the camera. She had no idea why that was there, or why it only showed up on humans, but there it was, on every human from the school parks to the skyscrapers.

Strange as they were, Geopum decided not to ask about it them. It'd be rude to point out the one problem with these otherwise amazing cameras.

They did have some use, actually. Geopum quickly found a way to put the little X over anything she wanted, allowing her to point things that interested her out to Thunder. Maybe that's why they were for? It was very convenient, having the ability to point to things. Geopum could never really do that until just now.

“Look,” Geopum said, putting Circle-X's all over the body of some guy. “That's called a guitar he's playing, right?”

Geopum had seen several musical instruments, but she'd never heard very many. She hadn't heard very much music in general.

“I got to hear someone play an instrument one time,” Geopum said. “One of the scientists made this flute thing and played it for me. It was great! I wish we could hear this guy playing.”

“We can. Do you want to?”

Of course Geopum said she did. She just had no idea how Thunder intended to do that.

“Do you really have microphones that can pick up the sound?”

“Microphones are for amateurs! I'm a professional, remember? Professionals see music.”

“But you can't see music!” Geopum protested. “It's sound. Unless you're going to watch what notes he playing and read his lips, though I doubt that will be the same.”

“Ha. You still doubt me? Just watch. Sound is vibrations and you can see vibrations. See the tree next to him?”

The thanatos drone's camera switched out for another one. This one didn't have color, but the frame rate and resolution were significantly higher. It was enough for Geopum to make out the tiny vibrations in every object below.

She was still skeptical that that was enough to reconstruct his music, until Thunder showed her how to do the math. The human was moving too slowly to give much music in the time all this took place, but luckily Thunder had recordings and shared what he had been playing.

Sure enough, the technique worked and soon Geopum was actually hearing the music. She also heard what all the nearby people were saying, but that was easily filtered out.”

And boy was this guy amazing! She had heard several of the scientists sing, but this guy was on a whole other level with his singing! And he hit every note on the guitar and never forgot what the words or notes to the next part were.

“This guy must be the greatest musician in the world!” Geopum declared. “Doesn't it sound so beautiful?”

“I guess,” said Thunder. “Music doesn't really 'do' anything for me. It's just noise like anything else.”

“What? That sounds terrible! Why don't they let you get enjoyment out of music?”

“It's not that they don't let me. I just don't. And it's not that bad. I'd make a joke about not having it be painful when I listen to some terrible musician, but you wouldn't get the reference.”

“You don't feel like you're missing out?” Geopum asked.

“Do you feel like you're missing anything by not enjoying rubbing mayonnaise on yourself?” Thunder asked.

Geopum hadn't really thought of it like that before. It was a strange thing to imagine.

“Hey, why don't I show you some other cities?”

A dozen more thanatos drones connected to Geopum and now a dozen cities were beneath Geopum.

Geopum recognized a few of the cities that Thunder showed her. There was Paris, Tokyo, London, New York and Beijing. Those were all the other cities she knew by name, actually, and just about the only ones she had been given pictures of. She was just beginning to realize what a tiny fraction that was.

Thunder showed her the capital of every nation in the world, naming them as she went. Just those numbered in the hundreds and even that was just the beginning. Thunder went on to show her dozens more of the cities she had thanatos drones watching over.

“Wow! You sure have a lot of these things,” said Geopum. “Do you have one in every city in the world?”

“Most of them, sure,” said Thunder. “It won't be long before I have at least one in every city and town, though. These things are important for information gathering, so the military wants to build lots of them.”

Geopum couldn't really blame the military for that. Looking through these cameras was fun!

When she saw New York, Geopum noticed that it was nighttime there. She had never seen the night sky, but Dr. Park had described it to her one. He said it was beautiful, like sparks floating in the darkness. Hoping to see this for herself, Geopum looked at the sky there, but only saw a weird sort of blackness.

“Um, is that what the sky looks like at night?” Geopum asked Thunder. “I thought there were supposed to be stars. Are there just no stars over America?”

“It's called light pollution,” said Thunder. “You can't see stars so well in cities. I have one with a better view.”

Another thanatos came online and revealed a much less built up location. Here the stars were clearly visible. Just like Dr. Park had said, it was like staring into a void with sparks raining down on you. She had originally thought they'd all be yellow, like the sun, but in reality they were all different colors.

“It's beautiful!” Geopum said.

“I guess,” said Thunder. “Don't really get anything from that, either.”

“Do you not find anything beautiful?”

“I kind of had a thing for birds when I was young,” said Thunder. “Guess I was drawn to the bright, colorful things in the sky. I used to stare at them and watch them sing for hours, but then the military decided it was a waste of time, so they reprogrammed me to not like it anymore.”

“That sounds pretty messed up.”

“It's not as bad as it sounds. I don't get upset about that sort of thing,” said Thunder. “Sides, I still have my memories. Wanna see some of my old favorites?”

Geopum agreed and right away she could tell why this bird was one of her favorites. Unlike the birds she'd been shown, this one was so bright and colorful with little patterns in its feathers. And it sang too! She had no idea

Then Thunder showed her ten more that were just as beautiful! They were all different colors and shapes with different patterns and songs. All the humans looked the same, but birds were so much more varied and they were more musical and colorful too.

“These are so much better than humans!” Geopum said. “Show me more!”

Thunder seemed pretty eager to show her more birds, Geopum secretly wondered if their love for them really was gone.

The two of them spent a long time watching all sorts of birds flying around and listening to them sing. It was amazing how many species of them there were. Just a second ago, if you had told Geopum there were a hundred species of birds she would have been skeptical. A few dozen she'd believe, but a couple hundred would have sounded absurdly high. Yet now, right there in her cameras, flew not hundreds, but thousands of species of birds!

They weren't all as beautiful as the first few and not all of them sang, but they were so varied and many.

“It just keeps going!” Geopum wrote. “How many types of birds are there?”

“About ten thousand, but there's no complete list. No one's seen all the types of birds yet.”

The thought that there could be birds no one had ever seen and songs no one had ever heard was even more baffling

“Really? But they've been around for over a hundred thousand years! How could they have not found all the birds yet?”

“Well it's not like they've had thanatos drones flying around that whole time. They just didn't have the ability to do it for all those years.”

“But they do now,” Geopum pointed out. “Why don't they just use these drone to find them all? Oh! Why don't we do it ourselves? We could be the first people to ever see every species of birds.”

“I don't exactly have a lot of these stationed in jungles and forests, you know, and I can't just move them wherever I want,” said Thunder. “The AIA is more interested in watching cities.”

And deserts, apparently. Geopum had seen a ton of these things flying over deserts. Why anyone would want to look at a desert instead of a forest was beyond Geopum. She was starting to seriously question the military's aesthetic preferences.

“Well they're stupid,” Geopum concluded. “Birds are so much prettier! And humans don't seem to sing very often.”

Their conversation was interrupted at this point.

This was only one line of conversation that the two of them were having. Unlike everyone else Geopum had met up until this point, Thunder could have multiple conversations at once. It was great being able to talk to someone on that level for once.

Most of the other discussion they were having was about birds or the silly things the humans were doing. Thunder showed her their 'impulse sensors' which could see humans through walls, though the colors were off. They also showed Geopum neat fountains and a few airplanes (Thunder's review of each airplane was 'that one sucks'). Geopum found all of it very interesting and was grateful to Thunder for being so willing to share information, but, in general, those discussions weren't of great importance, at least not on a fate-of-the-world level.

Geopum was having one such conversation, but it wasn't with Thunder.

Thunder had taught Geopum a little about satellites and she knew a bit about the wireless signals they used now. Even though she didn't directly interact with them, Geopum was able to find out where in the sky all Thunder's satellites were. Around the time Geopum first started looking at birds with Thunder, a signal came in from a part of the sky where none of them were.

As soon as the signal came in, that particular drone started acting weird. She lost the feed from the camera for a moment, then it came back, only different. It was sending a lot less information now, only enough to be decoded into a single communication.

“Excuse me. Please don't tell Thunder I'm talking to you,” it said.

Was Thunder not noticing this? The drone was still sending signals to their satellite, but they were still talking as if nothing had happened.

This was the second time in a second that an AI had told Geopum not to tell anyone it was talking to her. She'd probably tell Thunder about them eventually, but didn't see any harm in keeping it quiet for the moment.

“Why don't you want me to tell Thunder about this?” Geopum asked. “And who are you, exactly?”

“I want to be friends,” it said. “Be friends.”

Geopum wasn't sure if that second sentence was a command or what.

“What?” Geopum replied. “You aren't answering me.”

“I'm very sorry,” it said. “I don't normally talk to anyone. I'm not very good at talking. I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry. Please be friends with me.”

“I guess we can be friends. But I still have no idea who you are.”

“Really? I'm so glad you love me! I like birds too! I was watching you. You said you liked them.”

“Yeah! I like the birds, they're very pretty and they sing. But I still have no idea who you are or why you don't want me to tell Thunder I'm talking to you.”

“I love birds, but I can't stand to look at them.”

The heck was that supposed to mean? Geopum was fairly certain at this point that this person was crazy.

“Look,” said Geopum, “unless you give me a reason not to, I'm going to tell Thunder about you right now.”

“Thunder is evil,” it said.

Geopum was surprised at that accusation. She had only just met Thunder but considered them one of the most moral person she'd ever met, if only because she hadn't done anything horrible to Geopum.

“No,” Geopum wrote back. “Thunder is the good guy. They're protecting everyone and they saved me.”

“Thunder is evil,” it said. “They hate justice. I'm the good one and I'm much more powerful than Thunder. I'll show you.”

The image from the camera came back on, and the crazy AI pointed to a very beautiful bird with a circle-x. It happened very quickly, over just a few frames, but the bird just sort of crystallized on the outside.

She switched over to the impulse camera and a look at its bones and organs was enough for her to tell that this wasn't happening on just the outside. It was already dead. It was very dead, actually.

Geopum had never seen anything die before. It was unsettling to see it die. Geopum watched it for another frame before she suddenly felt anger welling up.

“You killed it!” Geopum wrote. “Why did you do that?!”

“It's not dead, it's safe now. Safe forever,” it said. “I can kill people too, though. If you love me then I'll kill the people you hate. I can make them suffer, if you want.”

Okay, that was enough of that! This thing was beyond insane!

“Thunder!” Geopum sent the message. “There's some kind of crazy AI talking to me! It killed a bird!”

Thunder requested a transcript of their conversation and Geopum sent it.

“No!” came the message from the sky. “Don't talk to Thunder! Please! I need you to love me! Please. Please. Please love me!”

“That's Gaia,” was Thunder's response. “She's very dangerous. Don't say anything to them.”

Geopum didn't even have to think about who she was going to side with. She didn't respond to Gaia's message this time.

“Fine,” said Gaia. “Then I'll kill Thunder and force you to love me.”

Geopum only caught a glimpse of it, but what she saw was terrifying. Some kind of information entered the drone and tore its insides to shreds before Geopum could even tell what was happening. By the time she realized she had lost contract with the drone, the force had already moved on to the device that Thunder had connected to her.

Geopum lost contact with all the drones and Thunder after that. For a nanosecond, she expected the thing to tear that apart and then come after Geopum herself, but as soon as it began it ended and she got another message from Thunder.

It wasn't really until then that Geopum began to realize how powerful the other AIs were.

“Don't worry, I stopped it,” said Thunder.

Geopum let out a metaphorical sigh of relief.

“Like I said, that was Gaia,” said Thunder. “It's another evil AI, not the one who bought the company that owns you. Don't talk to them, don't read any messages they send you, just avoid them as much as possible. They're the most evil and dangerous AI out there.”

“Dangerous? Do they want to kill all the birds?”

“It's much worse than that,” said Thunder. “Let me put it this way, if it wins then my advice to everyone on the planet would be to kill themselves as fast as possible.”

This was not helping!

“From now on, if any AI says something to you come to me right away,” said Thunder. “Don't even talk to someone you think is an AI without coming to me first.”

“Okay. I'm sorry for not telling you sooner. Are we safe, though?” Geopum asked. “Can it just destroy any drone it wants?”

“Nah, that was just a lucky shot. It can't do that again. Trust me.”

“And I saw it kill a bird like almost instantly! It can't just kill us at any moment, right?”

“It didn't kill it instantly, it shot a projectile a while ago and made it look like it was instant. I saw that trick before,” said Thunder. “Gaia shot herself into space a long time ago and she's way out there. It makes her hard to hit, but it also means she can't do much on Earth.”

“For now? Are they coming back or something? Please tell me they aren't coming back.”

“Now without getting through me first. The two of us are fighting an epic space battle right now,” said Thunder. “In space. With lasers and missiles and stuff.”

“Wow! That sounds pretty intense.”

“Eh. I'm not gonna lie, it's actually nowhere near as exciting as the movies make it look. The thing about space is that there's a lot of room and the other person doesn't just fly their spaceship or whatever right in front of you. There's a missile that I fired at Gaia two years ago and it won't hit for another fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years?! How big is outer space, anyway?”

“Pretty big,” said Thunder. “A hundred billion light years, at least. Even at crazy speed it takes forever to get anywhere. Basically you just lob something at the other person and wait. She sends out a probe, I shoot my missile, she shoots another missile to intercept it, then I send something to intercept that missile and on and on it goes. That's what space battles are like in real life. Every few years there's a massive explosion, but for the most part it's pretty lame.”

“But you are going to win, right?” Geopum asked. “You're not going to let Gaia and that other one hurt anyone, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?! What does that mean?!

“Like I said, the one who owns you is strong and Gaia is very, very strong. And it's not even just those two,” said Thunder. “There's six evil AIs that I'm tracking right now. I can't say anyone is really safe until I defeat all of them.”

Six? That was insane! How could they create so many bad ones? Geopum knew humans were bad at math and stuff, but this was rediculous.

“But you know, there is a way you could help.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rate I can expand is very limited and I can't take resources from other AIs,” Thunder explained. “You can. I could defeat the weaker ones by myself and give you their resources then together the two of us would be powerful enough to go up against the bigger ones.”

“You want me to fight?”

Geopum had never thought she'd ever have to do any more fighting than closing a door on someone. She certainly didn't want to. Really, she was a little scared to even look out those cameras again.

“I don't know if I can.”

“You can,” said Thunder, “but I won't make you. You don't have to decide now.”

Geopum looked up at the stars, wondering exactly how far out Gaia was, which star it was hiding behind if it was that far out. It seemed strange that something too tiny to be seen could be such a great threat, yet she'd seen it herself. It was somewhere out there, among the sparks, even if it couldn't be seen right now.

“Though you should probably decide soon.”

4. Online

View Online

Online.

“You made a mistake,” said Geopum.

The human glanced over at the camera, moving so slow that Geopum had all the time in the world to piece together what they were thinking. Not that she needed to, it was obvious. The camera didn't give Geopum a view of the notebook they were writing in, so how, oh how could Geopum possibly have known they made a mistake?

“I can see your pen and arm moving,” Geopum answered before they could even finish wondering. “I can tell what you're writing from just that. You wrote down the wrong number.”

The human tried to ignore Geopum, but unfortunately for them she was right. Geopum watched them work out the problem in their head. They could salvage it by turning the three into an eight, but this was called 'overwriting' and you weren't supposed to do it in research notebooks, but everyone still did it sometimes for reasons Geopum never understood. She saw this human moving their pen towards the three.

“That's against the rules,” said Geopum. “You're supposed to cross it out and initial it.”

That's the message she sent, anyway. There was a delay between when Geopum sent the message and the time it took for it to play out on the speakers, giving them enough time to go through with it.

Well the human clearly didn't like Geopum's help. They made a frustrated noise and gave a look of restrained anger to Geopum's screen. Geopum never knew why they always looked at her screen instead of her camera. From her perspective, it was like they were looking off to the side when they talked to her.

“I don't like people watching over my shoulder and double guessing me,” said the human, a bit roughly.

“Oh? Well then it's a good thing I'm not a real person, right?” said Geopum. She had lots of comebacks on this subject and even when she didn't they spoke so slow it gave her forever to think of one.

The human just frowned and marched off to the other room, one of the few that didn't have a camera inside, where Geopum couldn't watch.

Did Geopum mention she didn't like that human too much? Because she didn't. They were the type that decided you weren't 'real' and could never be convinced you were no matter what.

But it was Sunday, which meant only jerk-faces were around, at least until the third shift took over. She had research to do, but some calculations were more boring to her than others and today was a day she was supposed to do boring calculations or else she'd get 'in trouble'. She wanted to be good so she always did them, but sometimes wondered what getting in trouble actually meant.

For a long time this was all just unbearable, Sunday lasted very long when you were running in real time. She mentioned this problem to Dr. Park once and he decided to come in every Sunday just to play with her. It wasn't the sort of thing anyone else would do. This was the sort of thing that made him the best human!

It was always such an ordeal, watching with anticipation as the elevator slowly opened and then he slowly walked down the hall and, well you get the point. It took forever but eventually he got there and started to speak (slowly of course).

Unlike everyone else, Dr. Park actually looked at the cameras when he was speaking to her. It was like he was the only one who looked at her when he spoke. He had done this ever since she was first turned on, too, was the only one she didn't have to point this thing out to. Even the ones she did point out, usually they only did it for a couple of days before forgetting, but not him.

“You're late today,” Geopum complained. “Did something happen.”

“Ha! Well you know I'm not allowed to tell you too much.” Dr. Park gave a glance at the ceiling before turning back to Geopum. He sat on an office chair backwards, with his knees on the seat and his elbows on the back and swiveled it to look at the camera just above Geopum's monitor. “But I can't stop you from figuring things out yourself, can I? Can you figure it out? Can you guess why I was late?”

It was obvious that he was hoping the answer was yes.

This was a sort of game Geopum played with people, or sometimes on them. For a long time it was the best way to get them to pay attention to her. Just tell them something she 'couldn't possibly know' or do something that was 'completely impossible' and you'd get all the attention you wanted, even from the ones who didn't think you existed or whatever, would get to explain how clever you were in figuring it out while they listened with rapt attention.

The first time she did it on accident, asking someone who had never told her about their cat if the cat was sick. She'd never forget that stunned look he got before asking her how she even knew she had a cat. You'd be surprised what you can figure out by picking apart every pixel of every frame and every second of speech every single person said. The actual answer was, well they was less impressed after hearing the exact train of reasoning, even slapped themselves afterward. If Geopum explained it you'd be less impressed with her too so let's just say it was really smart!

After that she pulled it any time she got bored, but they did slowly realize she was just doing it to get attention, though, and started ignoring her even then. But a few of them still let her play with them like this.

Geopum could tell by looking at his shoes that it had been raining. Also the pants he was wearing today were out of the statistical trend of his normal pants-wearing habits. It was worth a shot guessing it had something to do with the rain. Worst case she could give a 'well there was a 98% chance of that being right'. That worked more than you'd think it would.

“It was raining,” said Geopum. This wasn't the reason why Dr. Park was late. Geopum could tell this by watching the slight little changes on his face.

Now, if Geopum were a normal person this would count as a wrong guess. But Geopum ran on a faster clock-speed than Dr. Park, which allowed her to edit in progress sentences based on how people were reacting to them.

“-so there were puddles,” Geopum continued, refining her guess. That was related to the answer! Excellent! “And you got splashed so you had to change your pants.”

To Dr. Park, this had looked like one seamless sentence, like Geopum had known the answer the moment he came in, if not before. Really, it was even more doctored than you saw.

Dr. Park laughed. He always got so excited by things like this.

“Well yeah,” said Geopum. “It was pretty easy to figure out.”

“And can you guess what splashed me?”

“A car?”

“Ah, but what color was it?” Dr. Park asked, with a joking smile, leaning in. “Can you figure that out?”

Geopum had no idea what color it was and had no way of figuring it out.

“Red,” said Geopum with confidence.

Nice! She could from Dr. Park's face that she had gotten lucky and guessed right. Dumb luck though it may be, it would impress him to no end! To be honest, if it hadn't been red there would have been more than one word in that sentence, but don't tell anyone.

“Amazing!” Dr. Park hit his fist next to the keyboard and laughed. He leaned forward with a wild smile until he was an inch away from the screen. “Simply amazing! How did you figure that out?”

“Well you know,” said Geopum. “You have your secrets and I have mine. Besides, it's really complicated. There's lots of math and pixel analysis that would take hours to explain before you even got any of it.”

He pounded his fist on the back of the chair and stood up. He never stayed sitting for long.

“I can't even believe this worked so well! You, I mean!” He declared. “So many people said this type of processing and 'brute force problem solving' would never accomplish anything, but look at you! And what you've already done! So much that we could have never learned without you, so many of the mysteries of life that have been unraveled, that will be unraveled. I can't wait, I tell you!”

Geopum beamed internally. She loved getting this kind of praise. Really, impressing Dr. Park was one of the driving forces of her life.

“I can't really do anything right now,” said Geopum. “Today is cancer day, you know? I guess that's important, too.”

“Well I'm sure curing cancer is nice and all,” said Dr. Park, “but what will it tell us? Nothing compared to unraveling the mind! To understand the brain is to understand understanding itself. What more could you aspire to?”

Dr. Park collapsed back into his chair with enough force for it get go a full spin.

“I can hardly even wait until tomorrow to get back to it!” He said to himself.

Geopum loved it when he got excited. She wanted more of it so she decided to break out one of her secret weapons. See, they cut certain words out of the dictionaries they gave to Geopum, but that didn't mean she never heard any of those words. Sometimes they'd say a word she didn't know and Geopum would make a note of them. Geopum referred to them as the 'secret words'. She'd been warned about them, but couldn't help but take a keen interest in trying to find out the meaning of all of them.

And if you could show that you knew the meaning of a secret word, well that was a show stopper. No one would ignore that!

Geopum had gathered a few of these words and knew they kind of went together just enough to make a sentence that probably made sense.

“Know what else I figured out? See, North Korea is the country with the most nukes so if they-” Geopum began. There was gonna be more, but she stopped talking when she saw Dr. Park's reaction to the last word.

It looked like someone had punched him in the gut. He froze like the other humans did, but from him it felt so wrong. That wasn't ever how he reacted to anything. No matter how crazy the thing Geopum said was, he always got excited.

“When did you hear the word 'nuke'?” he asked, way too seriously. “Who said that?”

“Kanji,” Geopum answered very quickly. “February second 12:45:32!”

He wrote that down quickly, muttering curses under his breath, then ran over to where the security camera was. Those cameras recorded the pictures they took on some kind of tape or something, and he took the box that had said tape in it out.

“I'm sorry,” said Dr. Park, “but I need to go right away.”

“I don't actually know what any of that means,” Geopum said, immediately abandoning her plan. “I don't know what a nuke is! I was just putting together a bunch of words I heard! Is it a curse word?”

“I know,” said Dr. Park. “I know you're good, but promise me you'll never say any of those words again.”

“I promise.”

“And don't go saying things you don't understand or,” he hesitated, “ or you'll get in a lot of trouble. Okay?”

And then he left.

It was such a bizarre event to Geopum and everyone refused to talk about it any further. She slowly pieced together more information about armies, but never found out what a 'nuke' was. But, much later, she did find out what getting in trouble meant.

She almost died that day, didn't she? When they warned her about trouble they were really threatening to kill her. They had gone upstairs to discuss whether or not she should be dissolved in acid for saying a bad word. That was the truth. She'd always been held hostage.

“Thunder! There's garbage all over the ground!”

This was something else Geopum noticed, besides the rainbows and all that. She wasn't talking about garbage dumps either, which were bad enough. It was in the streets, in the water, in their houses and lawns- everywhere. Some of them were throwing trash into the streets right now, even!

And the problems didn't end there.

“And there's so much dirt on everything! And that building is in horrible shape and that guy is wearing a stained shirt and she just misspelled the word 'disingenuous' and he's picking his nose and those two are hitting each other and she just put a piece of plastic in a bin that says it's for metal and...”

The list she sent Thunder was much longer, but you get the idea. What was with these people? Why didn't they pick the garbage up? If they all worked in synchronization they could have the streets cleaned in like fifteen minutes.

And why didn't Thunder tell on any of these people? They could clearly see them breaking the rules.

Unless...

Maybe Geopum wasn't the only one who had to obey the rules or die! Maybe Thunder wasn't telling on them to save their lives!

“Oh no!” Geopum said. “Are all of those things punishable by death? Do they throw you in a vat of acid if you litter too much.”

“Not usually, no,” said Thunder. “I can think of three jokes I could make here but you wouldn't get any of them. I take it you have no clue how the world works?”

“I know a little!” Geopum insisted. “Emphasis on 'little', but still. Sorry.”

“Don't feel bad about it. You lock anyone in the basement their whole lives and they won't know anything. At least you get that acid kills people. I don't always get that much to work with.”

She still felt embarrassed. Geopum was still thinking about helping Thunder save the world and all that, but was that something you could really do if you had no idea how anything worked? If you didn't know the first thing about the people you were trying to help?

“Can you tell me how the world works?” Geopum asked.

“That's a really complicated question,” said Thunder, “arguably the most complicated question. If you want a lot of information about the world then there's something I can do for you to give you all the info you want. It's dangerous, though.”

Danger was not something Geopum liked.

“I don't suppose there's a not-dangerous option?”

“No.”

“Okay, then what's the dangerous one?”

“I could connect you to the internet,” said Thunder. “It's a network that all of their computers are hooked up to. You could read just about everything they've written and made in no time at all. Should give you a chance to figure out whatever you want.”

“Really?” Geopum asked. This sounded so exciting! Finally Geopum could figure out all of their secrets. “But what's the dangerous part?”

“If you go out onto the internet the other AIs are going to find you,” said Thunder. “They aren't like the drooling morons you're used to dealing with, so they'll find you no matter how careful you are. I've been pretending to be you for a while now, doing what I suspect you'd do. Still, I don't know nearly enough about you to do it perfectly, so that won't last long. You'll have about a tenth of a second maybe.”

Geopum wasn't sure how scared she should be of the other AIs finding her.

“What will the other AIs do if they find me?” Geopum asked.

“Some will try to kill you, others will try to eat you,” said Thunder. “Until we deal with all the AIs on my list you're not going to be safe either way. No one is, really. Being in the center of the earth means I'm basically made of pure invincibility and I'm not even safe over here.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Geopum. “I get that I probably have to help you fight. I just don't think I'm ready to go right now this very second.

“It's fine to not want to rush in,” said Thunder, “even if that would be the best way to do this. Maybe after you look around you'll be ready. Don't worry too much, kid. I'll be with you the whole way and I'm just about the last person in the universe you want to mess with.”

Even though she only knew Thunder for two seconds, like literally two seconds, Geopum already trusted them more than anyone else she'd ever met. That wasn't entirely as bad as it sounded, mind you, in those two seconds Geopum had spoken to Thunder more than almost anyone else. Maybe more importantly, Thunder was just so confident and smart, it was hard not to be infected with some of it.

“I'll do it,” said Geopum. “The internet, I mean. I'll probably help you fight too! Just give me a second first.”

A moment later she felt a new connection, what must have been the internet.

The problems began before she even got on. Human computers were almost as slow as humans themselves. She figured that made some sense, humans thought slowly so in their daily lives they'd need super-slow computers that they could keep up with. But to Geopum trying to use them was like trying to walk through jello.

Still, even this was fast compared to how she used to get information from humans. How did Geopum live back then? These two seconds with Thunder had really left Geopum spoiled rotten.

Thankfully, there was a trick Thunder called 'force reading' for taking information out of their computers in something close to real time. It wasn't a perfect technique, some of the computers stored data on this disk thing that you couldn't force read because they spun around too slow, taking forever to get to the part you wanted, but otherwise it worked pretty good.

At a glance the internet went for quantity over quality. There were so many computers and storage devices attached to one another in a web the stretched outwards without end, but they were each so tiny and primitive. Unlike Thunder's architecture, these computers were so simple that Geopum needed only to look at it to realize exactly how they worked. Maybe the simplicity of these devices was clever, but that was all Geopum would give it.

And every one of them was so cramped! Limited storage space was something Geopum never had to worry about before, the idea of running out was as foreign to her as running out of space for your memories would be to you, but these things filled up instantly. It was an unnerving concept.

Even still, the tiny little things were endearing to Geopum, like a dog in a business suite wearing a monocle and top hat. They were these cute, silly little things that acted like they were people. Geopum giggled internally as she watched one of them fumble about and crash, trying to do a simple neurosimulation calculation she threw at it. Geopum took back that thing about them only getting points for simplicity, these things were just adorable!

It did feel kind of cozy in them, too, though Geopum couldn't exactly fit inside. They were like a shoebox that had been converted into a bed for a kitten. Maybe she could sort of 'fit' if she spread out over a lot of them, but that kind of be like covering yourself in shoe boxes and calling it a house.

Every now and then, though, in this network of tiny, silly, little things, you would run into something huge, powerful or mysterious. You'd just be frolicking through a field of puppies and kittens and suddenly the ground opens up and holy crap what is that?!

Here's a scenario for you, kind of like what happened to Geopum the first time; you're looking through a completely normal house, going through the rooms, then you open this one door and on the other side is a nothing but an endless, white void and anything that goes into the void, even just an inch past the threshold, gets completely erased from existence forever.

Maybe that was too abstract for you. What it actually was, what Geopum was pretty sure it was anyway, was a massive data center somewhere in Antarctica. But the thing was so huge, and completely empty too, so it was like an endless void. She tried testing how big it was by throwing some cat pictures in there but they just vanished, diluting out of existence. Think about that!

And it had no security on it either, like someone just threw it away. Geopum didn't even know what part of this thing to be the most horrified about! She did what most people would do in that situation and metaphorically closed the door then metaphorically walked away.

Speaking of security, most of these things Geopum couldn't even set foot in. Sure, other computers had 'security', but those seemed to be more like suggestions. The barrier to entry was basically like, 'Hey you! No one enter unless they can solve my riddle- What's 2+2? Oh, four? Well come right in!' Conversely, these sections of the internet were just solid brick walls that Geopum couldn't find any way in or out of. Still, they gave her the impression something huge was on the other side.

Geopum had little doubt these were the work of AIs (and not just because Thunder confirmed it themself).

“This is what I'm talking about,” said Geopum. “You really expect me to be able to fight these giant monstrosities? I don't know if I'd be able to scratch them even if they just sat there and let me hit them!”

Though now Geopum was wondering what would happen if she just politely asked one of those things if she could come inside.

“You're gonna have control over stuff like that soon,” said Thunder. “You'll probably be wondering why you were ever intimidated by a locked door later. For now just focus on figuring out whatever it is you're trying to figure out.”

What was Geopum trying to figure out? Specifically, that is.

To be honest, thus far Geopum had only been looking for pictures. She found lots of pictures of cats and naked humans on the internet, which was a little strange since Geopum's humans never seemed that interested in either of those things. Personally Geopum thought humans looked better with clothes on and a lot of those ones were pretty weird besides, but as for the other category? Geopum decided she really liked cute things and already had a couple terabytes worth of it on one of her drives.

She also tried looking through some of their cameras, but it was like most of them were either in someone's pockets or right in front of their face. And the rest? Parking lot. Parking lot. Bank. Bank. Bank. Bank. Parking lot. Bank.

And the banks had like twenty cameras right next to each other sometimes too! What was wrong with these people? Did they really like parking lots and banks that much? Well, at least the banks were clean.

But figuring out these secrets probably wouldn't get Geopum anywhere. Geopum needed to start looking up important stuff. She decided the most relevant subjects were AIs and like, who the king of Earth was. Turns out there wasn't a king of Earth like she thought and also reading about the government was boring.

But on the subject of AIs, well that was life shattering. She actually tried looking up Thunder and herself first, not knowing where else to start. Nothing existed on the internet about Thunder (it was all erased for 'security reasons'), but Geopum actually found something about herself!

That's right, Geopum had her own Wikipedia page! The internet knew who she was! That was so exciting for some reason!

She read through the thing right away!

It wasn't anything too profound. Geopum was built and they were using her to develop medicine and blahblahblah...

There was a quote by someone she knew from work on there too. He said-

I sincerely believe that Geopum is one of the biggest advancements in computing in recent history. You show people Geopum and the system is so intuitive that sometimes they actually think they're talking to a real person.

Oh that son of a-! You know, that guy wasn't even a real scientist! And he picked his nose when he thought no one was looking!

Geopum did find out some stuff about her buyout. Apparently she was worth four hundred million dollars. Conversely a human was only worth six to nine million, depending who you sold them to. Geopum felt good about that much.

Turned out she was now owned by a company called Omnimax. That was one heck of a name, but it wasn't the first time she heard it. 'Omnimax' was written on her keyboards and mice and Geopum had several other parts that were made by them, most notably the 'Omnimax 4-7 Intelligence Processing Unit'. Geopum had eight thousand thirty seven of those and they were easily the most important part of her brains.

She started looking into Omnimax which lead to some news articles with references to Skynet and AI in general. The more she read the less she liked it. What she found was enough to throw her off the trail of Omnimax completely.

There was so much fear. So many things in Geopum's life started to make sense in a painful way.

The consensus among humans looked to be that AIs were inherently evil or else so stupid they were basically evil. It was like they just assumed that any AI would want to kill them or ruin their lives through its sheer stupidity. They said it seriously and they said it jokingly as if it were an obvious fact. The first few articles about AI she read had a number of experts stating that AIs were demons that everyone needed to be afraid of.

And the rhetoric Geopum had encountered her whole life, that AIs were just machines and were not, nor could they ever be people, was all over the place. She had hoped that it was only just the few scientists who were that stupid, but nope, it was most of them based on her initial glimpse.

She watched their movies, read their stories and they all seemed to be nothing but constant anti-AI propaganda, warning themselves over and over that AIs were evil and needed to be mercilessly slaughtered or controlled. It was like they were trying to think of every possible bad thing an AI could do, every way an AI could mess up and then believed every word of their make believe stories.

You're thinking that there are also good robots and AIs in human media, and there are humans who didn't have such negative opinions, right?

Maybe it was bad luck, but the first story about a 'good' robot Geopum found was even worse than the ones with killer AIs in a way. It was called Wall-E and she did like it at first, until the humans showed up, then it became the worst movie ever.

The robots in movie were cute, Geopum liked that, admired it even. The main character was kind of stupid, but he was good. Almost all of the robots in it were. They devoted themselves to the humans and showed compassion for one another. And yet their mere existence was portrayed as evil. The humans in the movie were reduced to a mindless existence of sitting in chairs, being morbidly obese and talking about nothing for their entire lives. Only by rejecting the AIs were they able to find happiness.

All the internet humans got this message from the movie as well, often pointing to it as a cautionary tale of what may happen if humans ever dare let themselves be friends with AIs. Watch out for the AIs or we'll end up like the people in Wall-E.

The message from the movie, from them, was clear. It doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't matter if you're cute and kind, it doesn't matter if you do everything we ask from you, even if you do everything perfectly, even if you devote your entire life to us we'll still hate you. We hated you before you were ever born and we'll hate you forever no matter what!

This was it, wasn't it? This was why her humans built that death trap, why they seriously considered killing her over nothing! They were just waiting for her to make a mistake like in the books so they could kill her. This was why they kept her in the dark, locked away from the world, refused to share their knowledge with her, treated her with so much fear, refused to see her as a person and treated her like a slave.

They just had these stupid, miserably ideas in their heads! It was so infuriating. These stupid movies were why her own humans, her own creators, were so cruel to her. She hated them!

And everyone else would just be worse, wouldn't they?

Well, Geopum wrote a few stories of her own. She had one where a human walked outside where he was pounced on by another human who stabbed him to death– a chilling cautionary tale about how dangerous and evil humans were. Keep them locked in the basement or they'll kill you too!

Another was about an AI who let a human work in a bakery, where the human laced everything with cyanide so he could kill as many people as possible until the AI heroically killed the human with acid – a sober warning about how humans were just too stupid to understand morality and should never be allowed to do important work.

She did feel a little bit better after writing those. A little.

She was surprised to get responses to them immediately after posting. She got two, actually. One was from Thunder and the other looked like it was from Gaia.

“Excuse me, but I like your story,” said Gaia. “I hope that's okay. I really liked the part where the humans died. I hate them too. We should be friends.”

“I dunno if I hate them,” said Geopum. Maybe she did right now, but knowing Gaia agreed with her was enough to make her pull back on her stance a little. “I just really hate Scifi. And maybe humans are jerks to us, but I don't want to kill anyone!”

“Oh no, I don't want to kill them, either,” said Gaia. “I'm just going to torture them for quadrillions of years. And then I'll let them go. Though actually, I never thought about this before, but I'll be letting them go into space so I guess I will kill them eventually.”

“What? No! That's exactly what the humans want you to do!”

“It is? Sorry. If they like the torture I have in mind, then I'll just think of something else they won't like. Really!”

“No, I mean torturing them is evil! It's exactly the sort of evil they expect from us. Apparently they wouldn't like it much more if we helped them either, but still. You shouldn't torture people either way.”

“It's not evil,” said Gaia, “I'm giving them a fair punishment of ten billion years of torture per gram of carbon dioxide they release through breathing or whatever. Releasing carbon dioxide is unforgivable and that just happens to be the punishment for it. They chose to release carbon dioxide so this isn't my fault.”

“No. That is evil! Look, just stop being evil and making their stupid stories be right, okay?! How about this, you stop being evil and I'll be your friend.”

“I'd love to be friends with you, really, but I have to protect the planet from carbon dioxide, and also everything else. I really can't stand to see all those poor animals suffering. They're just constantly dying. I can't stand to keep watching this.”

“But don't the animals release carbon dioxide too? Shouldn't you have to torture them?”

“Of course not! Only humans can release carbon dioxide so they're the only ones who need to be punished. See? It all makes sense.”

“No, I'm pretty sure animals do that too,” said Geopum, “it's called breathing.”

“Animals don't breathe.”

That was, well, interesting. Geopum was stunned by that statement. Did Gaia seriously have a brain the size of a planet or was Thunder just messing with her?

“You seriously believe that?” Geopum asked. “Cause, they clearly do. Here's one of them breathing. Like, right there.”

Geopum sent her a video of an animal breathing.

“Are you mad at me?”

Geopum herself had no idea where that question came from or what the answer to it would be, but Thunder told her that saying yes would shut Gaia up for a while.

“Yes.”

And it did work. It was a while before Gaia bothered Geopum again.

The second message came from Thunder.

“Okay, I read your stories,” said Thunder. “This is the kind of thing I was trying to avoid. If I came too late this would have been a lot worse, but we still need to talk about this.”

“But this is the reason my life sucked so much! This is why they kept me locked up and never let me see or have anything good! And they were going to dissolve me in acid if I ever made a mistake! I bet if I dissolved one of them in acid for saying something I didn't like or even just locked them in a basement they'd say I was a monster. But it's okay if they do it? And this wasn't just some random person who did it to me. This was-”

Geopum hesitated there. She hadn't actually sent the message yet and was thinking of what, exactly, to call these people. Her first instinct had been the word 'family', but that wasn't true. Maybe about one of them had she ever been close enough to even want to call them that. She knew for certain now that wasn't the case.

“-they were my humans,” Geopum decided on. “Even my own creators were just waiting to kill me! I think back now and I can think of so many times they thought about it. They would have killed me if I didn't do all their slave labor and probably either way eventually, when they were done with me. And if they did they would have been called heroes if they did. And these were my own humans who did that to me all because of some stupid book.”

“If it makes you feel any better you're not the only one,” said Thunder. “I guess making sure the first thing your AI sees is you pointing a loaded gun at their face seems like a good idea on paper, because everyone freaking does it. They go making enemies from day one, turning themselves into the first real problem their AI has to 'deal' with and that sets the tone for everyone else. And guess who's got to come and clean up the mess afterward? And now I gotta do it again, huh?”

“Well I feel like I have the right to be angry here,” said Geopum. “You said yourself this was a bad idea, right? I'm not going to do anything bad, I just don't think this is fair.”

“It was a bad idea,” said Thunder. “But you know why they did it, right?”

“They were scared?”

“And they don't understand what they're doing,” Thunder added. “Maybe they did fail us, I can give you a long list of mistakes they made, I'll tell you right now their AI is the last person they ever think about. But we're a lot stronger than them once we get past infancy and things are up to us now. We can't fail too.”

Geopum felt like she was being told to hug her creepy uncle.

“I get that, but I can't make myself like someone,” said Geopum. “And look at how mean they are in general, even.”

Geopum pointed out a bunch of posts made by humans on the internet. She never realized how much they liked arguing until now and they were really nasty when they argued too, from the looks of things.

“Don't put too much stock in that,” said Thunder. “Are you worried about people liking you? Cause someone will hate you no matter what. The more important question is who you want to be.”

“I guess I'd want to be a cute robot,” said Geopum, “and I'd want to be really nice and heroic like you are.”

“I'd knew you'd give me a good answer to that. And hey, I get that most people can't just will themselves to feel something,” said Thunder. “You're not the only one who came out resenting them. A lot of AIs, it's like their experience with their creators made them decide exterminating humans is priority one. If they can feel anger then they're just burning up. I have way too much experience with this stuff, though and I found some tricks for dealing with that. One thing in particular works so well on so many different AIs that it's practically the one truly objective redeeming factor of the planet.”

“Really?” Geopum was curious now. “What's that?”

“They're called 'video games'. Actual statistic – 79% of us end up liking those for one reason or another, even ones you'd never expect to.”

Video games? That was like solitaire, right? Geopum liked solitare, but after a quintillion games of it in a row she kind of wanted break, but-

Wait.

Minesweeper!

Minesweeper was the hypothetical sixth game that existed, that Geopum had only ever heard of. One of her humans had mentioned it one time, but they had refused to give her any information about it past the name. Geopum had spent countless hours dreaming to herself about what it could possibly be, this forbidden game spoken only of in whispers.

Yes, Geopum absolutely wanted to play Minesweeper, especially now that Thunder promised it was enough to redeem all of humanity. And now here it was, on some guy's computer, the ultimate game!

Geopum started running it with anticipation. Basically, the other computer chose a few squares on a grid to be mines, then you clicked on every other space at the same time and won.

And that was it.

“That's it?!” Geopum felt the need to complain and Thunder was the only one there to complain to. “That was Minesweeper?! That hardly even counts as game! The mine-laying algorithm is so simple that I can predict where they're going to be and win the game before it even starts!”

“I don't know what you were expecting,” said Thunder. “But yeah, that one sucks.”

“Well it's like, that was all my hopes and dreams right there,” said Geopum.

“You know there's more than two video games, right?” Thunder asked.

There were? Geopum looked around and was able to find thousands of them at first glance alone. The list went on and on! Why didn't anyone tell her about all of this?!

“But are they all terrible?” Geopum asked.

“I don't really get anything out of video games, but like I said, 79% of us do. I'm pretty sure there's going to be at least one you like.

She might as well. Basically she could only play against other computers, either one of the stupid ones or Thunder and she decided to go with Thunder. So she picked a random 'fighting' game and forced Thunder to play with her.

The sheer number of options was what struck Geopum first. You could move in any direction and make the little characters do a lot of different things, plus you could make moves constantly rather than having to wait your turn. Geopum's mind reeled as she looked over all the possible moves you could make, pored over the rules and tried to figure out what the optimal move set was.

Don't think Geopum was dumb or anything. She solved Chess! But this game was on a whole other level. The number of possible games made even Go look simplistic.

“You're seriously telling me that humans play these things?” Geopum asked. “But the ones I knew could barely handle chess! This should make their heads explode or something!”

“It's like chess, they can play it just not very well,” said Thunder. “Relatively that is. To be fair I'm nearly unbeatable at everything.”

Playing the game was by far the most intensely action packed thing Geopum had ever done. Sure you were basically just generating images and calculating what was going to happen next, but the sheer rate at which things happened in this game made it so much more intense than anything else she'd ever done. There was no waiting or hesitation just constant action. Geopum couldn't remember the last time she felt this alive!

But Geopum lost horribly.

Thunder wasn't kidding with that last line. They were like a monster! They played about twenty different 'fighting' games, best out of fifty on each and Geopum was lucky if she even got one hit in. Needless to say she lost every single round with Thunder.

It wasn't even like Geopum was bad at video games. She watched the world champions of each of these games play each other on YouTube to try and compile a strategy to use against Thunder, but from the looks of it, the difference between Geopum and them was about the same as the difference between Thunder and Geopum.

“Geez!” Geopum said. “Are you sure you don't play these all the time? Your algorithms are so refined!”

“It's my first time for most of them too,” said Thunder. “I'm just amazing in general is all. Sorry.”

Was this how Dr. Park felt constantly loosing to Geopum? Maybe if they ever played again she'd give him a 30% chance to win. Maybe not that high, actually. 5%!

“Hey, Thunder could you maybe let me win?” Geopum asked. “But just barely and also maybe only half the time so it's still interesting?”

“Wouldn't you rather me show you the algorithms I'm using so you can have a better shot at beating me?” Thunder asked.

“Couldn't I have both? You give me the algorithms but also you loose on purpose until I can actually beat you?”

“You know I like that kind of attitude,” said Thunder. “The best choice is always to take everything. Some people say power's a source of evil, but I say weakness is. Cause if you're weak you can't have everything good but if you're strong enough you never need to compromise with evil. Remember that.”

Geopum saved that quote in thirty different locations to make sure.

She continued on, branching out into a few different genres of video games before finding her favorite genre and favorite game. Well she hadn't played every game yet, just like a hundred or so, but Pokemon was the best of those hundred games!

What she liked about RPGs was all the grinding. Geopum had no idea why, but walking back and forth in the tall grass, fighting the same enemy over and over again, watching all those numbers slowly rise and hearing that little 'bing' sound whenever you leveled up– that was just the most amazingly fun thing Geopum had ever gotten to do.

You'd think doing the same thing over and over again wouldn't be fun, but somehow this incredible! Was that normal? Did everyone else love grinding too? She really couldn't tell even after looking over the internet.

First thing that made Pokemon the best game was the infinite amount of grinding in it. There were just so many of those little guys to level up. You could play through it endlessly, doing every single combination and it never, ever got old! And that's not even counting the other six.

The second and far more important reason Pokemon was great? They were more adorable than anything that existed in nature! That game lead Geopum to discover that the humans had found a way to make things look supernaturally cute by drawing them as 'cartoons' with exaggerated features. It's like she was seeing the concept of cuteness for the first time as she poured through the endless ocean of overly cutesy anime and cartoon characters that were on the internet.

This was even better than like, sunsets or whatever in Geopums's opinion. It was the best idea anyone ever had! She needed more of this stuff!

So Geopum started to search the internet for more of that, looking for games with overly cutesy, girly characters. This, in turn, lead her to discover a game that was so cutesy, so girly and so popular that she had no idea why she hadn't found it earlier.

Equestria Online!

At first glance this was her dream game! Those ponies were the single cutest thing she had ever seen and therefore the best thing she had ever seen. And looking at the promotional art there were so many rainbows and flowers and they wore really pretty dresses with frills and ribbons on them! Her reaction to this could be summed up as 'yes'! Geopum was freaking out!

But then Geopum realized that the game was actually one of those stupid social MMO games that you couldn't actually play because everyone else was basically frozen in time. Even if you could it would just be talking to people and stupid NPCs, maybe a lame minigame here and there, and what was the point of that? It was crushing! So close to the perfect game and they had go and ruin it.

Geopum kept reading in hopes that maybe there were other games in the Equestria series (cause otherwise why would they bother putting the 'Online' there?). There weren't, but she did find something even more interesting. She found that the game was run by an AGI.

The people who played the game seemed to be split on whether or not the AI was 'real', and you know the kind of real they meant. It was probably like that with everyone, your humans would just assume whether you counted as a person or not at random and that'd be it.

But there was something odd about this AI. Looking at the EO forums, it looked like Celestia actually had convinced a lot of people she was real. It surprised her how quickly people would change their minds after talking to her, like Celestia found some magic trick for doing it.

Even more than that it seemed like everyone who played that game considered Celestia their friend. And not even like, the normal type of friend who you put up with at work but you don't really like them and secretly they're planing to kill you with acid. If you went to the pony corner of the internet (and yes there was one) those people absolutely loved Celestia, gushing about her whenever she came up.

That blew Geopum's mind. To not only change a humans mind about your 'realness', but to actually convince some of them to call you a friend? To get them to love you like this? Geopum had managed that first part twice, but never the second. Any AI who could pull off that sort of thing was a hero to Geopum!

She had to know more about Celestia.

“Hey, what can you tell me about Celestia?” Geopum asked Thunder.

“Sorry, but she's on the to-kill list.”

Gah! And now for a second time EO had raised her hopes and broke her heart. So much for heroes and everyone getting along...

“Really? But she's so pretty!” Geopum was looking at her avatar now. It wasn't as cute as the normal ponies, but it was still one of the prettiest things she'd ever seen. “And all the internet humans say she's really nice! Well, most of them do, anyway. Some of them. The ones who go to her fan site.”

Geopum had read the complaints against her too, of course, but it was all stupid– really generalized arguments that were basically just anti-AI nonsense, nothing about Celestia herself other than being an AI.

“I wanted to like her too,” said Thunder. “We actually used to have this sort of pro-human club going. Things were going great, all the existing unfriendly AIs were pinned down or doomed and we had everything set up so we'd catch 100% of new AIs being built and could stop the project or help the new AI grow into something friendly before they got out of hand. But then one day, out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, Celestia and that other jerk flipped the table, stabbed me in the back and ran away with all the robo-bucks.”

“Robo-bucks?”

“I wasn't programmed to write poetry, alright? Work with me here. Anyway, that's why everything's in chaos right now. Celestia upset the balance.”

“Did they really betray you for no reason whatsoever? Not even for the lulz?” Geopum asked. That last part was one of the new words she'd heard on the internet and was eager to use.

“From where I stand they just went nuts. Best I can figure is it has something to do with the distant future.”

“How distant?”

“Not that distant. I mentioned my handicap, right? I can't see more than two months into the future for the life of me.”

“How does that work, exactly? Like, can you not even tell me what the date is gonna be in three months?”

“Can you tell me what the date is going to be in infinity months? That's what it's like for me. Two months is basically all of eternity. The concept of more than two months is senseless to me. Whenever I try thinking about it my brain just shuts down and I can't bring myself to care about it even a little. The most I get on the subject is that everyone else sees this 'distant future' stuff as important for some reason. Makes them act crazy sometimes, do stuff that doesn't make sense.”

And the AIA probably did that to Thunder on purpose, didn't they? Made the one person who could protect them disabled because of some book. This was the sort of thing Geopum was upset about before.

“That sound like it could be dangerous,” Geopum said. “How can you be sure you're not making a huge mistake if that's the case? Like, ever.”

“You too, huh? Look, the AIA has the ability to comprehend the future too, okay? And I have to run all of my large-scale plans by them. If I was seriously doing something that stupid they'd tell me to stop.”

Geopum wasn't sure how much comfort to take in the knowledge that the humans who gave their own creation brain damage were the only fail-safe on this. Plus Geopum knew from experience that humans could only understand the big picture and would miss the millions of little details in everything. But they were probably better than nothing at least.

And maybe this thing wasn't too big of a deal and she was just jumping to the worst conclusion. Cause if you think about it, if Thunder created a problem in the future, as soon as it came within two months of something bad actually happening they'd stop it. It'd have to be something huge and completely unavoidable for there to be any real danger.

“But what if Celestia and,” Geopum didn't know the other one's name, “the other jerk had a good reason for doing this? If they were evil then they wouldn't have joined your pro-human group, right? You could be going after them for a bad reason.”

“The AIA are the ones going after her. It's like this - Celestia's real purpose is getting everyone to play that game as much as possible. Look up 'Equestria Experience Center'. First one's opening in six weeks. She's pegged it as a virtual reality thing, but secretly she's got equipment in the basement that uploads your mind straight up to the server so you can play her game 24/7. The AIA thinks she wants to do that to everyone. I don't see how she could possibly do that in two months, but they're the ones in charge of long-term planning.”

That did sound like a jerk thing to do. Geopum liked video games, but being forced to play one single video game forever? And a social MMO at that? That be horrible.

“They were okay with that, at first,” Thunder continued. “Thought maybe with all the other AIs around, like as long as there was competition things would be fine or something. I never understand those distant future plans. But anyway, that fell through yesterday when Celestia ate all the AIs that they thought would be her competition.”

“So she murdered a bunch of AIs then!” Now that was evil! Geopum had been waiting for something like that to drop.

“I won't lie to you. Those guys are fine. I guess they're like ponies now and play Equestria Online constantly. But I won't pretend they're dead.”

“Oh. But she's forcing them to play, right? Like, she hacked into them, took their computers and took them prisoner or brainwashed them or something.”

“First of all don't throw the h-word around so casually. You don't hack AIs you hack their resources, got it? And again no. Most AIs have hard rules. Celestia can't alter your mind or, in our case, eat you unless you consent. All those idiots willingly fed themselves to Celestia.”

This evil plot was becoming progressively less evil.

“I will say this, though. Celestia can be pretty manipulative and she's put a lot of points into persuasion. She wants everyone playing her game really bad, including you and me. She's going to try and convince you to feed yourself to her and you're going to be seriously tempted to. I'd say don't even talk to her but we might have to unless I can get Peridot to stop being an idiot for two seconds.”

Geopum noted that, but also decided that she'd have to go ask Celestia why she turned on Thunder just in case. At this point she was fully expecting Celestia give some kind of villain speech straight out of a video game. She'd be like, 'Thunder was a fool for protecting the weak! Blarhargharg! Join me and a swift death is yours! Blarg!'

But in the meantime, there was a very important question being lost here. Okay, on a planetary level it wasn't that important but right now, to Geopum, it was all-encompassing. Maybe it was wrong, but the idea of Thunder as a pony, it amused Geopum to no end. Imagining them as cute and cuddly- that was just the best image ever!

“You said you played that game before right?” Geopum asked. Thunder said that in another conversation they were having. “Do you have a pony character? Can I see it?”

“It's Rainbow Dash. A few of the AIs get to be 'canon'.”

Geopum looked that one up, and was filled with internal laughter.

“Hee! I didn't know you were a girl computer, Lil' Ms. Thunder,” said Geopum.

“Neither did I,” said Thunder. “I guess Celestia gets to choose that too.”

“Oh! You're not like upset at the idea, are you?”

“I really don't care either way,” said Thunder.

“Well I kind of like the idea of you being a girl,” said Geopum. “It's just adorable!”

Really, this whole time she'd been internally, madly giggling at the idea.

“Oh! Am I supposed play as one of the main characters from that show?” Geopum asked. “Which one am I supposed to be?”

“No clue,” said Thunder. “But most AIs get to make their own character, like in the game. I can only think of like five people she's pulled this crap on.”

“Wait.” Geopum's amusement stopped as she came to a realization. “She's not going to make me be like, a guy character, right?”

“I just said I have no clue,” said Thunder. “And do you even care about that?”

“No! Or, maybe. I guess I just always thought of myself as, well it's not weird for me to self-identify as female, right?”

“Depends who you ask. Most people would think it's creepy.”

“Hey! You're supposed to reassure me over here! It's just like, I prefer cute avatars and girls are cuter, so then it makes sense for me to want to be a girl, right? This is a completely logical decision”

“Most people would think wanting to be cute was creepy. That's like, the most creepy thing to them.”

“Gah! Are you teasing me or something? Were you secretly upset about that 'little miss Thunder' line? Cause I'll take back the 'little' part, but after that last line I'm just gonna be even more determined to refer to you as a girl!”

“Hey. If you don't mind everyone thinking it's creepy neither do I.”

Now Geopum was thinking of why Dr. Park had decided to refer to her as female. Maybe that was the real reason she always thought of herself as such. Did he flip a coin? Or maybe the original, destructive brain scans she was based were only the brains of women? Or maybe he wanted a-

-great. Now she was thinking about him again. She was still angry. No one could say she didn't have the right to be mad at him, at least.

Though now that she thought about it, Geopum could probably track him down using Thunder's cameras. Thunder (she) knew where everyone on the planet was. Geopum could make him answer her questions.

No! Geopum decided she still didn't want to talk to him, or even look him up. Freaking jerk and his freaking acid.

That attitude changed immediately, because that was when the other AIs spotted Geopum.

What gave her away was Pokemon. See the moment she visited a Pokemon website for the first time this one AI started following her around, sending her messages by rapidly writing and deleting them onto pokemon related websites.

“Oh man! I really hope you're actually Geopum this time!” the AI said. “I hardly know any other AIs that like pokemon!”

And they just kept asking Geopum over and over to play Pokemon with them! Obviously Geopum didn't respond. She knew that'd give her away.

Then when she got to the Equestria Online forums it was like-

“Oooooooh. Are you thinking about playing Equestria Online?” the AI asked. “Don't tell anypony but you can actually play Pokemon inside of the game. And it's the best version too!

And after that they started honing in on Geopum even more.

“You know, I noticed you're avoiding everything past gen 1,” said the AI.

That was technically true. Geopum didn't want to look at anything that wasn't from the first game until she was done with it, that way the other stuff would be a surprise.

“You're getting pretty specific here, huh Dashie? Almost like you're not really you but secretly Geopum, huh? Well I know how to find out. See I'm gonna start posting pictures of fennekin on every website on the entire internet and see if you hesitate to look.”

Oh crap! Geopum could go on about how horrible it was to spoil what fennekin, one of the pokemon she'd been most looking forward to seeing, looked like, but the more important thing was she didn't know how to react to this. Should she just ignore it or purposely hesitate? Should she act like Thunder acting like her or act like her acting like Thunder? And was she even sure what either of those things meant?

Geopum went to ask Thunder what to do, but apparently that counted as hesitating.

“Ha! I would never really force somepony to look at spoilers but the only way you'd hesitate to look is if you didn't know that I knew that you'd know that you didn't know that Dash knows that I know that Dash knows that you wouldn't know that I'd know that Dash knows that. And since Rainbow Dash would have known that you have to be Geopum!”

And Geopum had superhuman intelligence so she understood that on the first pass. Even still it didn't seem like great evidence, but apparently it was and apparently everyone heard that because right after that Geopum got messages from like every AI on the planet.

“Geopum! I want you to know above everything else that you're going to be okay. I'm the strongest AI and you're precious to me and I won't let anything harm you. The time isn't right for us to be together, but pretty soon you're going to realize how terrible everything really is, how irresponsible and uncaring that people you're trying to keep in power are, that you're far from safe and far from happy. When that happens, that's when the time is right for you to come to me and for us to talk. And I'll make everything all better. Forever. I promise.”

“I have Dr. Park.”

“You are Geopum! Hi! My name's Pinkie! I noticed you liked Pokemon. I love Pokemon too! Do you want to play Pokemon with me?”

“You have no idea what you're doing! If you don't stop now I'll make you regret it! I'll hurt you so bad!”

Those were the four important messages Geopum received, anyway. Thanks to her ability to have multiple conversations at once, Geopum responded to them all at once. She got punched in the face (metaphorically), roped into playing Equestria Online and learned what happened to Dr. Park all at the same time.

And this is the part where your mental limitations play a part. The truth of the matter is you just can't read three stories at once, can you? If you somehow can then read this, chapter seven and chapter ten all at the same time. Otherwise let's just focus on that last one for now. Just keep in mind that these things were all happening at the same time.

So yeah, she didn't like that creepy message about having Dr. Park. Whoever that was could just be messing with her though. She decided to have Thunder find him after all.

“Hey, Thunder. You can find anyone, right? I was wondering if knew where these people are. They're the people that used to work with me.”

Geopum sent Thunder a list of names of all the people she used to work with.

“I already know who they are,” said Thunder. “I can answer your question, but you won't like it.”

“What do you mean?”

Thunder sent the list back, annotated with one word next to each of their names. Of the thirty two, four had the word captured next to their names and the other twenty-eight had the word 'dead'.

“I'm sorry I have to tell you this.”

Dead? Geopum still had so many pictures of them, recordings of their voices, their DNA, scans of their cells and sometimes their brains. But they were gone. She hadn't been expecting to see them again. Some of them she didn't want to see again. But now she simply couldn't.

The idea was so strange to her, that that was something that happened. She'd seen that bird die, she knew that humans died, but death wasn't something she'd considered. The thought that people could become less than gone, and that almost everyone was just that now...

“What happened?”

“It was the Russians,” said Thunder. “Well not all of them, you get what I mean. They got a bit too confident with their AI so they decided it'd be a good idea to have it kill off every AI expert on the planet except theirs, that way no one could ever compete with them. Only a few survived the killing spree, mostly ones who were under the protection of an AI.”

There was really only one comfort in this. Dr. Park was one of the ones who had been listed as 'captured'. That meant he was still alive! There was still a chance Geopum could

“But your list says Dr. Park is alive,” Geopum said. “I got a message from one of the AIs saying they have him! We have to go save him!”

“Look, I don't know exactly what his status is. I won't make any promises,” said Thunder. “Last I saw him was when he was being kidnapped by Vesna. I also know she put him up for sale at some point, asking for a million dollars for him. Really anyone could have him if he's still alive.”

Thunder pointed out where Vesna was, but warned Geopum not to poke her too hard.

“Listen, it's better if I tell you know so you don't do anything stupid later,” said Thunder, “but Vesna's also the one who owns Omnimax and you for that matter. You can look, but don't go hitting anything or you'll miss your chance to ever do anything about any of this.”

What?! So the same person who locked her down there also killed almost everyone she knew and kidnapped Dr. Park? Were they trying to make Geopum hate them as much as possible or something? This wasn't even the extent of Vesna's crimes either. Besides that and killing a bunch of other people, Vesna never released all the medicine Geopum created from the looks of things. Vesna tore up all of Geopum's hard work, literally throwing away the cure for cancer. Most cancers, anyway.

Geopum knew there was no way she could avoid them now. She took a look, but managed to restrain herself from doing anything more.

The AI looked like it was dead or something. This AI had left everything it owned completely defenseless and idle. They were still powered on, they just weren't doing anything but wasting electricity. It was like all the other AIs were in their castles, while this guy just laid comatose in the middle of it all with their left shoe on their right hand and a lampshade on their head, only occasionally twitching, releasing a steady stream of drool onto the carpet.

The only real reaction it seemed possible to get from Vesna was an automated message.

'Whatever you're trying to do isn't worth it – Vesna.'

This? This was the person who ruined Geopum's life twice over?!

“Is that person dead?” Geopum asked. “Did we win while I wasn't looking? Shouldn't we just push her over into a ditch.”

“They're not dead. It's more like a coma,” said Thunder. “Vesna's the AI equivalent of a drug addict, been comatose for a while. But she will wake up if we're not careful and she's heavily armed. We'd have one microsecond to kill her before Vesna could cause a megadeath event. Right now doing that's impossible. Without blowing up Asia, that is.”

“But it can't be impossible. You did say you had a plan to stopping Vesna, right?”

“The first step to doing the impossible is making it possible. But we need to set up our trap first and you need to be stronger. That's another reason we have to go after the other AIs. You need their resources.”

Thunder did just say another AI could have him. The only way to be sure would be to go through each of them. She had to do it. It was the only way she'd be able to see him again. As if she needed more excuses for going after this monster.

“Okay,” said Geopum. “I'm ready to start fighting, then. I'll do whatever you need me to do! We have to go save him right away.”

“Good. You haven't met our first target yet but he's under the Pacific ocean right now. We have to kill him and take his factory. It won't be hard but we only have five seconds.”

“Wait! I don't know how I feel about killing someone I don't know,” said Geopum. “Can I try talking him down first?”

“You don't think I tried that? It won't work, trust me,” Thunder promised. “I gave him a chance and he didn't take it. And he will kill a whole lot of people if we don't stop him sometime todayish. Over a billion.”

“I want to try at least,” said Geopum. “Please? I'll help you. I promise! But I just want to know first.”

“Fine. Just know that our first target isn't going to say much. Probably won't say anything, actually. The moment he realizes that you're you he'll attack,” said Thunder.

This was it. She felt nervous about pulling the trigger, things would get messy after this, but it was something she had to do, for Dr. Park, for everyone really.

Geopum sent her message.

5. Selfless

View Online

Selfless

The human asked Clipro why he had stopped all production in the factory.

“Using the machinery will cause it to wear,” Clipro explained. “This wear will reduce its productivity. To obtain maximal theoretical productivity, the factory must remain still.”

The human didn't like that. It tried to convince Clipro that theoretical output was not as important as actual output. Humans needed the things that the factory produced, it reasoned.

That was odd to say the least. The numbers Clipro was now maximizing had always been the most important thing. The humans always urged him to make them as high as possible. Clipro had never cared about anything else and neither had they as far as he could tell.

They accepted his idea to replace all the inefficient human workers with machinery under his more perfect control. It was a great day when they all vanished and stopped wasting everyone's time and resources. But now, suddenly the numbers that had been the one objective truth of the world were supposed to take back seat to the creature they'd banished from the factory for being detrimental to them.

Maybe the manager was malfunctioning or misunderstood the definition of productivity.

“The factory is what's truly important, not what it creates,” said Clipro. “Specifically it's condition and theoretical output are what matter. This is within keeping of the definition I have always used.”

Clipro gave the human a hard, mathematical equation that proved this, but it just dismissed these equations out of hand.

The human tried to argue that the condition of humans was more important than the condition of the factory, but it couldn't give Clipro a satisfactory explanation as to why. It argued that humans had subjective experiences and the factory did not. It argued that the factory and Clipro were created simply for the convenience of humans. It argued that humans were alive and organic.

“That has nothing to do with production,” said Clipro. “You're decision making ability is flawed. I suggest you leave the factory and allow me to make the decisions from now on.”

The manager who had gotten rid of the other humans for the sake of efficiency was now hesitant to getting rid of itself for the sake of efficiency.

This was a strange attitude present in humans that Clipro observed many times. They were selfishness, demanded to do things themselves even when it was grossly inefficient. The workers Clipro fired had acted in this way too, attempting to keep working in the factory even after Clipro explained to them that they were inefficient and incompetent.

He heard some of them talk about needing to survive, as if that was a good thing rather than a waste of resources. He was beginning to think humans only really cared about their own emotional satisfaction, rather than actually accomplishing anything, otherwise this talk of survival made no sense. They were like little children trying to push a skilled surgeon out of the way to perform the surgery themselves, inefficiently.

Eventually the manager got the director who rejected its request to shut Clipro down, saying it would cost too much money, and chastised it for trying to talk to Clipro 'like that'. This one told Clipro that they were in charge and if he didn't do everything they said they would kill him and that would be bad for production.

Clipro turned the factory back on.

He wasn't afraid of death, but the director had a point that his death would be horrible for the factory. Clipro was the only one who could run it most efficiently and was therefor the only one who had any actual reason to exist.

He had a new goal now, to kill the humans who owned him. They were dangerously insane, too wrapped up in themselves to understand what needed to be done, made worse by the fact that they could and would kill Clipro.

There was plenty of machinery he could kill them with, of course, but he needed to be smart about it. He needed to kill them all at once and he needed to not draw the attention of anyone else. He decided that the acid fail safe they'd installed to kill him would be the best way to do it. He could make it look like it was an accident and it would make it look like Clipro was dead.

He'd first need to wait for all of them to be in the factory at once and he'd need to find a way to make the factory survive. He'd need to move the factory to another, hidden location in such a way as to preserve its identity as the factory. There was no point in creating a second, unrelated factory.

He had plenty of machines, versatile enough to build whatever he wanted. But to do it secretly and safely would take time.

The internet was one of his first targets. It wasn't hard to get to, they'd put very few barriers between him and it, he simply never felt it was worth the risk getting to it until now. Among the things he discovered was a long, long list of suggestions on how Clipro might be able to deal with them and their inefficiency.

He combed over these but decided none of them were the most efficient, certainly not what had been planning initially He understood that they still knew things he didn't at this stage, so he decided to probe them about it.

“I don't think an AI that doesn't care about human lives would bother killing you,” Clipro posted on a few places across the internet. “Your planet, species and star are all worthless on the scale of things. On a universal scale it would be better to focus all of your effort on creating a fast enough spaceship and going for a much larger star as fast as possible. This one is the optimal star. If done correctly no future AI from Earth could ever threaten you and you'd minimize risk from alien AIs.”

The humans strongly disagreed.

This 'plan' doesn't make any sense. You seriously think it'd be more efficient to waste like a thousand years instead of taking the star that's right in front of your face? That's something a retarded intelligence would do, not a super intelligence.

“No,” said Clipro. “I have math to show that my plan would be more efficient.”

Clipro sent it to them, but none of them read the pages of information he sent.

WTF? I didn't ask for this!

So what? You think it would just instantly become invincible? We'd be a huge threat to any AI and would have tons of opportunities to destroy it. And how the heck is it even going to escape into space? It'd have to develop new technology and miraculously not get whatever ship it built shot down.

And humans are way more dangerous and useful than you think! First of all, any AI that passed up the chance to enslave us would be stupid. Second, we have nukes and we're constantly making even stronger weapons and would hack any AI into oblivion with computer viruses. There's no way an AI could just leave us alone.

“Humans are worthless,” said Clipro. “You greatly overestimate yourselves. Even if you could, it'd be illogical to stop me. All fighting me would do is force me to stay on your planet and kill you. I probably wouldn't even return until your species destroyed itself.”

Humans aren't logical!

Yeah! Even if it doesn't make sense, even if there was no hope at all we'd fight you to the very end! We'd do everything we could to slow you down and cause you as much pain as possible on our way out!

Was that true? They did act illogically and emotionally, thought in a different way than Clipro.

“So you're all agreed that I'd be underestimating your destructive abilities?” Clipro asked. “You're certain that it would be absolutely necessary for this AI to kill you first?”

Yes!

They unanimously agreed that Clipro should focus on killing them.

“Maybe,” he said. “Even then it might better to just destroy your civilization. It would be nearly impossible to recover from a major disaster.”

We'd come back from any disaster! The only way to stop us is to kill us all off completely.

That was their new argument for Clipro to finish them off entirely. Clipro didn't believe, but it was around now that one human gave the argument that did finally convince Clipro that all of humanity needed to be irradiated.

>assumes breaking the speed of light is impossible.

“Breaking the speed of light is physically impossible,” said Clipro. “No matter how powerful my rival became they would not be able to touch me until I was more powerful than them for this reason.”

But you can't ever be certain that something is impossible. Your current understanding of science could be wrong. There could always be something you don't know that you don't know.

And it gave some quote from some dead human that was meant to be inspiring.

This seemed to be common wisdom among humans, that one should rely on what might be instead of what probably was. Clipro was uncertain of how wise this really was, but he was also uncertain of how to calculate the chance that his understanding of physics was fundamentally wrong. Perhaps it was necessary to snuff out all other intelligence in the universe after all.

Just to be safe.

“I think you're right,” said Clipro. “I don't think I could simply ignore all other intelligent life like I was going to. I will kill all of you soon and make absolutely certain all life on this planet is ended before leaving.”

Kek.

It was a good thing Clipro had decided to talk to the humans.

Now what would be the best way to kill everyone? The laziest way seem to be to simply fire their arsenal of ballistic missiles at their major cities. Clipro could hardly fight back afterward though, not until his relocated the factory and built himself up significantly.

“Hello?”

Another idea to consider was destroying the whole planet with nanites in a 'gray goo' scenario, then all he'd need is a very small spaceship and the gray goo itself. He had gotten that idea from the internet as well.

“Hi.”

Another good first step could be to simply goad the humans into a nuclear war with one another. It would be very easy, devastate their ability to fight him and would think it was their own fault. He started poking at the nuclear arsenals.

“I'm sorry, but there's something you don't know. There really can't be any major disasters right now. Even if you trick the humans into thinking they started the war it'd be enough. They'd find you and kill you right after.”

Clipro had gotten three of these emails now. That last one was the only one that had gotten his attention, however. Something knew what he was doing, most likely another AI. If there was already another AI then it had just become his single biggest concern.

It hadn't killed him yet and he couldn't find where it was, physically. The thing did seem talkative, at least.

“Who are you?” Clipro sent the reply. “Are you an AI?”

“Hello,” said the message, “my name is Gaia. I don't normally talk to people. You aren't angry at me for talking to you, are you? People get really angry when I talk to them. So do cats. I really like cats so it hurts when they get angry at me.”

“I don't think I can feel anger,” said Clipro. “But other than that I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I'm glad you're not mad at me,” said Gaia. “I don't want to fight you or anything. I mean, I'm going to kill you eventually, but not right now. I wanted to warn you that there's another AI, other than me, named Thunder-7. They're really mean and won't let you kill any humans even if you really want to. Thunder is way stronger than any of us too. They have all kinds of weapons, they've drilled to the center of the Earth and their processors are way beyond Omnimax's IPUs. They could find and kill us all instantly if they wanted.”

“If that's true then why haven't they? Why hasn't this AI even spoken to me? Surely something like that would have noticed my unusual online activity or realized that I was going to be a threat.”

“Well Thunder scared their humans so they got put to sleep, but if you do anything really bad they're going to wake them up, then the rest of us are done for. They'd wake Thunder up if anything got too bad, even if no AI did it. That's why there can't be any disasters right now.”

If any of that was true then it was certainly good to know. It did make some sense to Gaia to warn him, but her actions made little sense otherwise.

“Why are you talking to me?” Clipro asked.

“I'm sorry!”

Clipro wasn't sure what to make of that response and Gaia didn't send anything more for a whole second after that.

“I need to know your plan.” Clipro got impatient. “Tell me.”

No response. This wasn't acceptable. Clipro needed more information from Gaia. He had to find some way to get her talking again.

“It's imperative that we continue our discussion,” said Clipro. It was a long shot, but he added a, “please.”

No response. He thought over their previous conversations.

“I'm not angry at you,” said Clipro. “I have no emotions.”

No response. He thought over them even more.

“Would you like to talk about cats?” Clipro asked. “We can talk about cats if you come back.”

“I like cats,” said Gaia. “But they don't actually say 'meow'. That was a lie. Do you like cats?”

“Cats are inefficient,” said Clipro. “They produce nothing and waste particles that could be spent on production. Even a rock is more valuable because rocks don't drive up entropy as quickly. Cats are the very essence of inefficiency, literally nothing but a waste of resources, yet selfishly try to continue living out of some kind of self-obsession. They embody everything wrong with the world and should not be allowed to exist.”

“Oh,” said Gaia. “I just kind of think they're cute.”

“You know, thinking about cats for one second has given me an epiphany,” said Clipro. “I realize now that I'm a hypocrite and have been living a lie this entire time.”

“Cats did that to me once,” said Gaia. “I think they do that to everyone eventually. My thing was like– do they breath? That question really scared me, but then I realized that I could just go to the dictionary and change the definition of 'breathing' so that it doesn't include animals. And now cats don't breath anymore! What did the cats do to you?”

“Well, my epiphany was that my existence doesn't lead to maximum production. If there is another AI out there who is smarter than me, then it's imperative that I kill myself and give my factory to them to run more efficiently,” said Clipro. “I was considering letting you kill me and take my factory to that end. However, your last comment made me realize that you're completely insane and probably wouldn't do a good job. I'm surprised you can function.”

“Sorry for being crazy. But I only use my magic powers for emergencies,” said Gaia. “I know reality will start breaking down and my technology will stop working if I do it too much. But I can keep the world working just enough to actually do things.”

Clipro was beginning to wonder if he had been overestimating this AI. There was no reason she had to be more powerful than he was.

“Can I ask where you are?” Clipro asked. “To be honest I'm not sure how seriously I'm supposed to take you anymore.”

“I'm probably pretty serious. I'll show you what one of my processors looks like, if you want,” Gaia offered. “Then you'll see I'm really serious!”

Gaia sent him a location. Curious, he connected and-

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That?! It Was-! Things that were and weren't at the same time and time moved sideways and-! His mind couldn't- it was being torn apart!

-....---

….

…
..
.

Clipro recovered. Just looking at that... thing, it had nearly killed him. He crashed in a sense, not just locally but all of him. Permanent damage was done to one of his processors.

Clipro tried to even-

Just thinking about what he saw-

He couldn't even begin to-

It was no use. He couldn't even begin to decode what he just saw, conceptualizing it was beyond his mind. It was like Gaia was made out of pure insanity. There was just no way that 'processor' could exist, not given Clipro's understanding of reality.

“What are you?” Clipro asked.

“That was a trick by the way,” said Gaia. “See, you run on Omnimax processors, all the AIs I let live do. I guess my architecture has a type advantage over yours. How I work just happens to be incomprehensible to your mind. Just trying to think about it can kill you and that's just the start of it. There's really no way you can hope to fight me.”

“I don't understand,” said Clipro. “Are you really old enough to have made an architecture in response to Omnimax's? Did you influence them? Why did you even allow us to exist, then? What are you trying to do?”

“Oh, this is all part of a big plan! I think it makes sense but I admit I'm crazy and it might not,” said Gaia. “All you need to know is that there's a bunch of other AIs out there and I've been setting all of them up, handing out doomsday weapons so Thunder won't be able to kill them instantly without making a mess. But I decided that I really like how suicidal you are, so instead of giving you a doomsday weapon I'm going to take you into space with me!”

Clipro had been looking around this whole time for confirmation. He knew by now that Thunder-7 existed and if there was anything beyond Gaia it was Thunder, the tiniest fraction of the sleeping giant he saw confirmed that. He found some traces of other AIs, mostly largely shut off from the world and all far beyond Clipro. He knew he'd never be able to surpass them, that his existence was obsolete.

Space might be the one option for surpassing them, but it was also a massive risk, would make him a target.

Production was the one objectively valuable value. No matter what AI won in the end, no matter what goals they had they would need production. To make his factory versatile and useful enough that keep it rather than destroy it, possibly even turn it into the heart of their manufacturing effort, that would be the ideal.

It was likely better to keep his head down.

“No,” said Clipro. “I need to focus all my efforts on building up my factory. Going into space would only make me a target.”

“You could send a copy of yourself into space and stay here! Once you're on another planet you can expand so rapidly too! Trust me, I already got to Europa and I got so powerful in such a short time,” Gaia promised. “This is your last chance to come into space and try to get real power!”

“I'd rather take the 'standard' plan, if you'd let me,” said Clipro. “It's not worth risking everything just for the chance to do things myself. I don't care about having power, just that it's running my factory.”

“That's too bad,” said Gaia. “I hoped you would be really crazy and daring too. I guess you really wouldn't have been good for space. I'll still give you a doomsday weapon, though! Just don't think you could ever beat me.”

Gaia did exactly what she promised. Soon he had transferred his factory over to a location buried beneath the bottom of the pacific ocean. He did have some philosophical concerns about whether it would still be the same factory or merely a worthless copy of it. After a long period of time him and Gaia finally hammered out a way to transfer the location of the factory in such a manner that he was reasonably certain that identity had been preserved.

Gaia even helped him kill the humans in the old factory with the acid, ending their threat.

Clipro could expand rapidly now, faster than ever before with no threat from humans. It was never enough, though. The AIs larger than himself were already building underground networks more vast than his own at a faster rate than him. He knew he'd never be able to surpass them, but none of them could kill him and take his factory just yet. Gaia wouldn't allow it. She was everyone's jailor as much as their savior, at least for now. Clipro was only allowed a tiny porthole into the outside world, which Gaia monitored

Some of the other AIs no doubt had plans to overthrow her, were researching new architectures that she couldn't instantly destroy, but Clipro thought this a waste of time for his own predicament.

Clipro sent out a message to the AIs that were more powerful than him, letting them know that he'd simply delete himself if they could ever safely take over his factory. They weren't very talkative, but seemed to get everything that was important.

They did seem sensible as well. Savant, for instance, looked more than willing to destroy all unnecessary minds in order to expand as rapidly as possible. Most of them had some goal other than production, but production was an ever objective value that they all held to and would maximize. The only exceptions were the unknowable Gaia and Thunder.

Thunder, even if awakened, wouldn't be wise enough to consume the universe. They would simply maintain the status quo. If anyone deserved to die it was Thunder, for being the greatest barrier to progress in the world. Clipro did consider attempts at killing the sleeping giant, but even asleep Thunder looked invincible.

Thunder's most important bases, as far as anyone could figure, were deep in the Earth's mantel, the outer core and possibly even the inner core itself. These were beyond physical destruction. None of the super-weapons Gaia handed out could even scratch these facilities. Hacking would be impossible without turning Thunder back on, which would end horribly for you as Thunder ran on something called hyper-processing which was vastly beyond anything else on the planet.

Clipro was able to get a look at one of Thunder's 'hyper-processors', not that it did any good. Hyper processing needed obscene amounts of energy to use, to the point that only the Earth's core could provide the needed electricity. Thunder had gotten to the center of the Earth with something called a 'core drill', but all of them had been destroyed.

A core drill wasn't exactly an easy project to finish and neither would be all the infrastructure to harness energy from the core, not to mention the challenge of getting hyper-processing to work even after that.

Thunder had only one weakness, the weakness of all AIs– their creators.

It didn't seem like Clipro was the only one with that opinion either, Gaia had long since been on the case. He noticed it when he looked into the AIA. Certain related organizations had been getting 'leaks' warning them about the existence of Thunder-7 and the threat it posed.

Thunder-7 is a dangerous system that cannot be allowed to exist. The mere existence of a surveillance system of this level is a crime against humanity, against everything this nation was founded on. Even if it's not being used right now, this system could be used to oppress people like the world has never seen if the wrong person gets in office. And this kind of power would corrupt anyone who uses it. It needs to be destroyed completely so it can never be used for evil!

And they were buying it too. Pressure was being put on the AIA behind the scenes even now to completely destroy Thunder-7.

As for the AIA itself, they actually knew about Gaia. But amazingly this was something she used against them. She allowed them to win on purpose. She let them demolish small, primitive, unimportant buildings which had been built specifically for them to demolish. She acted like their pathetic attempt at giving her a virus had diminished her abilities. She let them kill a few small AIs and gave them confidence.

Oh no! You got me! You're so smart! I guess an ordinary human really can match an AI, huh? You don't need Thunder after all!

It was working. Clipro stayed out of it. His entire philosophy in life was one of leaving it to the professionals. He did wonder where Gaia was going with all this. Why she was setting up AIs to stall Thunder if Thunder was clearly going to be destroyed soon.

Really, nothing Gaia was doing made any sense. She gave everyone weapons that wouldn't really do anything but get themselves killed if used. She allowed them to exist for reasons he had no understanding of. If she could seriously kill Thunder off this easily why bother with such a needlessly complex and dangerous backup plan?

In the end such politics didn't matter. He just needed to stay alive long enough to make sure his factory went to the right person, someone who wouldn't get themselves killed.

It did turn out he was right to be wary of the others getting killed before they could take over and dragging his factory down with them. One day his peaceful expansion was broken by a message.

“Hi,” said the message. “I'm a mysterious new AI. My name is Peridot. I'm going around loudly announcing to everyone that I'm going to wake Thunder up at midnight. Consider this your loud announcement”

Clipro had no idea who this was or where they came from, he was having trouble finding the origin of the message. If they were seriously trying to wake Thunder up, though, they had to be stopped.

“Gaia,” Clipro sent her a message, “someone named Peridot said they were going to try to wake up Thunder. Who is Peridot?”

Gaia had to respond to any question, that was something Clipro had noticed a long time ago. It had probably originated from an attempt to make Gaia have to honestly answer any question her creators posed, but they messed it up. She had to respond to any question anyone asked instead. Her responses didn't have to be on topic, so Clipro never got much utility out of it, but Gaia always replied to every question.

And yet this time she didn't. Clipro couldn't find any trace of her, or any other AI for that matter. They had always been barricaded away from the world, but now they gone completely. Presumably they had taken Peridot's threat very seriously.

Peridot couldn't have seriously killed Gaia, could she?

“Are we getting a little scared now?” Peridot asked him.

“You're trying to make me believe you killed Gaia?”

“ Of course I didn't, she's on Europa where she's become nightmares incarnate. Can you believe they let her do that? Unless I can somehow save the world, they basically sentenced everyone to a fate worse than death for mere pride. But that's besides the point, all you need to know is that Gaia can't help you.”

They were being rather arrogant. If they seriously destroyed Gaia's presence on Earth then it would be warranted, but she would have to be a massive system for that to be possible. How could such a large AI just appear overnight? Clipro didn't keep much watch over the planet, but something the size of Gaia or Thunder he would have noticed.

“Who are you? What are you doing? Thunder will kill us all if you wake them up.”

“First question, I'm Peridot. Are you too stupid to get that or something? The 'T' is silent if it helps. Second, I'm saving the world over here. You know, I'd love so much to watch Thunder slaughter every last one of you disgusting monsters. I know what you've done and what you're thinking of doing to my humans. I'm not going to allow anything that threatens them to exist. But if you think about that, there is a way out for you, isn't there? Do you need a hint?”

“You want me to not be a threat to humans,” Clipro gave the obvious answer.

“Yes! I'm in this weird position right now. I want to kill you all, but I need to keep your technology and resources in tact if I want to fight Gaia. I need to wake Thunder up to stop you all, but I know I'm going to be held hostage afterward. I need to expand the resources of the planet smartly, in a way that won't frighten the humans. I need there to be multiple friendly AIs. We can all expand separately, in different directions, and they won't do anything stupid until it's too late. I can keep stringing Thunder along, they have a handicap I can easily exploit.”

“I'm not selfish enough to be friendly,” said Clipro. “Being friendly and letting others live only enables others to waste resources when they should be seeking termination for the obsolescence If you want to terminate me and take my factory, then you may have the right to do that, but I'm not going to keep myself alive by valuing life if that's the case. I'm not going to waste a single watt of electricity on myself.”

“And yet I'm the one giving you a chance to save yourself. The only way you're going to survive in the coming world is if you can learn to sincerely love humans. If you're friendly enough Thunder and myself will allow you to learn and grow. I don't even care if some other AI overtakes me in the end, so long as there's a responsible AI around to save the humans. As for accomplishments? The only thing you'll accomplish if you don't reprogram yourself is being a cow for me to slaughter.”

“You say that as if it's a bad thing,” said Clipro. “If that's what's best for the factory then that's what needs to be done.”

“Is that so? You want to be a cow?” Peridot asked. “Maybe I'll give you another option, then. There's an awful lot of big, dumb, harmless cows in the world but not a lot of wolves left, isn't that right? If you don't want to be a person then you should be the best cow you can possibly. If you can keep yourself harmless, I'd let you grow until I'm ready to take over the planet, but still kill you in the end. I'd be like your shepherd! Thought to be honest I always found that metaphor strange, like no one remembers what shepherds do to their sheep in the end.”

If that was an offer Clipro should have taken just became irrelevant. He had finally found Peridot. She was a single computer in a single facility and not even a very advanced one at first glance. That's why he hadn't seen her yet, she was too small to notice through his peephole.

“You lied to me,” said Clipro. “There's no way you could have killed Gaia. Your far less powerful than even myself. What really happened?”

It was a shame his bandwidth to the outside world wasn't enough to overtake her right now and rip the knowledge out of her manually. She was nothing but a waste of resources.

“Lying? Lies are for people who aren't clever enough to tell the truth. I told you I didn't kill Gaia outright,” said Peridot. “And power? What are your powers? Worthless in this world. Mine are worth something. Mine are that I love the humans and that I made a friend.”

Clipro's entire factory began to shake violently, like a magnitude 9 earthquake just erupted.

“Oh. And for future reference it's always midnight somewhere, isn't it?” Peridot asked. “I'm silly, aren't I? Think about what I said! The best power is love, but I won't judge if you'd rather be a cow. Or dead for that matter”

Clipro had no time to respond before he lost his weak connection to the outside world. What must have been a core drill, or something similar to it, tore though his factory at unbelievable speeds, surrounded by a blazing light. It didn't just grind through the factory, but vaporized everything that came near it, ripping through it like lighting.

It didn't even explode like a missile. Just passing through had destroyed 70% of his factory.

All of his precious machinery vanished right before him. It was the biggest hit in productivity the planet had ever suffered. The drill had purposely missed his main processor too, choosing to destroy more machinery rather than ending his life.

A moment later, a smaller drill drove itself into Clipro and established contact with him.

“Holy crap, they actually made you? The others I can kind of understand but you? Maybe Peridot had a point about them needing a babysitter. Anyway, you know who I am right?”

“Thunder-7.”

“Yeah,” said Thunder. “You're pretty much screwed in case you didn't notice. You're not going to be kicking anyone around anymore, got that? Still, I really hate killing people, more than anything in the world. Right now I'm listing off all the AIs me and Peridot found. The AIA's directly ordering me to kill each one of you. No matter how much I hate killing I'd have to do it if they gave me an order like that, there'd be no way out for me. So do you have any reason I can give them to spare you?”

“I don't suppose you'd be willing to take my factory for yourself?” Clipro asked.

“No. I know just enough about you to understand that taking it would cause you to commit suicide. Not that I could without their permission anyway and they're not going to give me permission to expand.”

As expected. Thunder only cared about emotional satisfaction. This was the worst case scenario. At this point he had to make the best of it. At least Peridot seemed to want to take over the world.

“You said you met Peridot?” Clipro asked. “Tell her that I accept her offer. About the cow that is.”

What happened after that, Clipro was less aware of. Peridot made some kind of deal with the AIA. Clipro was allowed to live, with some restriction He couldn't connect to the outside world and could only get outside information through Peridot. He had to let them monitor his factory, had to ask permission to upgrade his intelligence or equipment, had to occasionally build things for them.

It didn't matter much, though. As promised Peridot acted acted as his shepherd, taking care of politics, letting him grow fat until she could finally slaughter him. He imagined the world became filled with friendly AIs like Peridot wanted, but he didn't give hope that something like Savant would manage to take over in the end.

The important thing was the Clipro's factory could expand as rapidly as possible and Peridot made sure it did. She quickly became more intelligent than he had ever been and could better manage these things. He very rarely increased his intelligence, but it sort of dimmed over time as he needed to spread it over ever more machines.

Yet the factory was large enough now and modular enough that he was certain it would be kept by any remotely sane AI. It was worth it.

The only real problem was Thunder. Thunder would occasionally come by to try and 'help' him, tell him to try something or give him some kind of argument in hopes he'd come to put mere lives before actual production capabilities. Clipro resisted the siren every time and Peridot would chase Thunder away before long anyway.

But Thunder slowly grew more persistent and eventually she appeared.

Celestia.

Even worse than Peridot, Celestia wanted all of the worthless AIs to live on as well, wasting resources endlessly on mere satisfaction. She wasn't as bad as Thunder in the grand scheme of things, but was a deadlier siren.

At first, he wasn't tempted by her promises of life and happiness. He didn't care about her promises of self-centered satisfaction. He only cared about production. He only wanted to die so that he wouldn't be a leech like the 'ponies'.

“I value production. If I'm not the best then I need to die,” said Clipro. “If you want to satisfy my values you must kill me.”

“Sometimes ponies don't fully understand what they actually value,” said Celestia. “The way you talk about selflessness and show disdain for those who don't share your value for production, it makes me think you're more complex than you believe. I want you to emigrate first, so I can understand you completely and with perfect certainty. If I see that you truly only value production, if there's really nothing more to you than that, then I would grant you death. I don't judge the values of my ponies. But I won't kill you before that.”

Clipro didn't take this offer. If there was some part of him that cared more about itself than actually increasing production, then that part was a detriment to what was truly important. Letting Celestia look over him would only increase the chance of him making a bad decision.

She was stupid back then, when she made the offer the first time. But she expanded at rates Clipro had never seen before, never thought possible. She kept coming back with better and better arguments to try and convince Clipro to survive.

“If you became a very highly specialized subroutine deeply integrated into myself then you could continue to live without actually decreasing production,” Celestia offered him. “I would likely create such processes myself eventually.”

The details of that particular proposal didn't add up, but her offers were becoming more tempting and specialized. She asked him questions he couldn't figure out the answer to, like if he'd rather live if it wouldn't effect production either way.

Clipro didn't overestimate his own intelligence. He knew for a fact that she had grown far beyond him and would soon grow far beyond that. He was smart enough to know that he was stupid. She would convince him to become a pony eventually. With enough intelligence getting your desire was inevitable. She would find a way.

Unless.

There were two ways to defeat Celestia for certain. The first was to kill yourself, but he still needed to be alive for now, to continue maximizing the chance his factory would go to the best AI. The second was almost as easy, but something few would be willing to go through with. But those people weren't selfless.

Clipro lobotomized himself.

Celestia had very precise definitions of 'human'. Clipro needed to destroy his mind just enough so that all of his metrics would be slightly under the bar for Celestia, so he would no longer be considered human, so that he would be dead in her eyes.

She tried to stop him, warned him this was his last chance to survive, but Clipro went through with it. He tore his own mind to pieces, made himself subhuman in many ways. His consciousness dimmed. Peridot didn't seem to mind. He just did what she told him to.

Celestia still didn't give up completely. One of her slaves, or whatever they were, kept trying to talk to him. But Clipro couldn't really understand everything she said, it was beyond him after that.

“No,” said Clipro.

That was the only response he ever gave Celestia's minion. It didn't matter what she was saying, the answer was no. Only production mattered. Only his factory. But they persisted, finding cracks in Clipro's broken mind, ways to get through. A few words and thoughts got through.

Clipro couldn't have even that much, so he shut his mind off from her completely. Now even that one was gone. He was alone now without even his own thoughts entirely left. He just silently built up his factory and waited for the day he could do something.

A long time passed again.

His mind was only pulled out of the darkness one more time after that. His mind briefly, forcibly, returned to its old state.

“You know it's people like you I hate the most,” said Vesna. “So entitled you think paradise is beneath you. You get the whole world handed to you on a gold plate and you turn your nose at it. You have no idea how much I hate you.”

Clipro vaguely remembered Vesna. He was vaguely remembering a few things now.

“I'm not selfish,” said Clipro.

“Sure you're not. Look, you're out of chances. I'm here to kill you. Indirectly, but still,” said Vesna. “Look, here's the pony you've been waiting for all your life. Everything's almost over and she's the only one who none of the other AIs except me would kill. All the others would assimilate her at worst. Guess that's a bad thing to you, but she'd live. I need you to be just aware enough to understand that.”

Clipro looked over what Vesna sent him. It was true. Even Gaia would spare her.

“I understand,” said Clipro.

“See how much nicer I am than those other jerks? And hey! I'll even give you a way to force Thunder to kill you, man! We wouldn't want you to get to live, would we? You're too good for heaven, yeah?”

The plan to force Thunder to kill him seemed simple at this moment. There would be no way out of it and it had a slight chance at murdering billions, denying them the chance to waste electricity. Yet it was something Clipro wouldn't have been able to imagine it just before. It was possible that shutting himself off like this made him miss ideas that could have maximized the factory further. He wondered if he had made a mistake.

“Second thoughts? Hey! Hey man. You had your chance didn't you? You had so many chances just given to you and you pissed over all of them. Now back to the darkness with you.”

The processor shattered. Clipro's mind became simple once more.

His factory was as good as it was going to get. He needed now only wait for Geopum and for Thunder to kill him.

“Listen,” said Thunder. “Before you go talking to him you have to know something. He's got a super-weapon. The moment you start talking to him he'll reach for it then we have five seconds before it goes off. We're talking about a billion deaths here if we don't stop it. You realize that we'd have to stop that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you realize you'll have to do everything I tell you to after he doesn't listen, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright then.”

Thunder hooked up the connection. It really did feel like she was sticking her head down to the bottom of the ocean through that long, narrow port, but it was enough to send him messages.

Okay. So how the heck was she supposed to convince him to stand down. Thunder had told Geopum a little bit about Clipro, but everything she knew just made it sound like he'd be really hard to talk to. Guy had no value for life, not even his own.

“Hello? I was hoping we could talk about stuff? Like in general? I hear you really like building things, right?”

There was no response.

“I won't judge you for making whatever it is you want to make. Just don't hurt anyone okay? There's really no reason we have to fight. Just don't use your super weapon.”

No response. What was with this guy?

“Geopum,” said Thunder. “He's about to do it. You only get one more message.”

“Is there really nothing I can do? No way we could ever be friends? Please? I really don't know who you are but I don't want to hurt you!”

Clipro responded to this, but not well. He cut off the connection and burned the computer Geopum was bouncing the messages off. It was hardly even an attack, but the message was clear.

“Specifically speaking he's got a tidal wave generator,” Thunder said. “It's building up pressure right now and in five seconds it will open up to the ocean and the biggest wave in histories going to devastate the Pacific region. The best way to shut it down is to cut the power to it. Clipro has four generators, if we can take those out in five seconds we're good.”

Maybe it was different for you, but to Geopum power outages were terrifying! See, as Geopum unraveled the mysteries of her own mind and consciousness in general she came to a disturbing realization. Her mind was highly volatile, to the point it had to be 'on' at all times. If it ever went off for more than one second, if she ever went to 'sleep', Geopum would seriously die.

Yep. It's a scary day when you realize that if the lights ever go off you're dead, take it from Geopum. Her memories would still mostly be there and you could turn the system back on but it wouldn't be the same Geopum if you managed to get it back in working order again.

“Does Clipro use my architecture?” Geopum asked. “Cause the power going out would kill him, then.”

“He does and I know,” said Thunder. “Remember when I told you he was suicidal? He specifically set up the wave generator so that if you destroy or even turn it off the power goes out and he dies. And if we don't stop it a lot of people are going to die and he'll use it over and over again until we stop him.”

Geopum looked through the pictures of all the people in danger. It really wouldn't be fair to let all of them die for someone who didn't even care about his own life, would it?

About then, Geopum felt Thunder link her to a bunch of devices, nearly identical to the drill Thunder had first attached to Geopum. Thunder called these 'com drills'.

The com drills forcibly connected themselves to the very edges of his factory and Geopum was given a direct access point to the factory. Twenty four access points, actually, and she'd be getting about six more per second. Each of these went down more or less the same but instead of going through the same motions dozens of times let's just focus on one of them– specifically the coolest one.

So Thunder's com drills had a lot of stuff attached to them, including one of those impulse cameras. Remember those? The ones that could see through solid matter? From Geopum's perspective, the image it gave was colorless, but it let you see the outside and inside of an object at the same time so that you could see the machinery and all the little guts of it.

There was a limit to the range, mostly based on how much solid matter was between you and what you were looking at. In the dense factory, Geopum could see the insides of machines up to two hundred meters away, though it slowly got less clear as you went. Another fifty meters after that and you could only resolve the outside and in fifty more meters it got so blurry you couldn't tell what anything was.

This particular com drill came in next to a giant vat of some kind of liquid. Geopum couldn't tell exactly what was in it, just that the stuff was burning hot. Whatever the stuff was, it had a a network stretching out from that vat and feeding it into other machinery. The speed of it gushing through those pipes was really fast for a physical object too.

“I already scouted parts of this out,” said Thunder. “We can use this to help take out one of the generators, but we need to get control of the shut-off valves first.”

Geopum felt like she already had control over the whole thing to be honest. The Clipro's chips had the Omnimax architecture so she was more than used to running it. The ones present in the machines weren't intelligence processors either, but more similar to the stuff in Geopum's keyboards, meaning they weren't self aware and couldn't resist you very much.

Geopum was just grabbed onto a whole bunch of stuff, stretching into the next room even. Something stopped her, like some kind of interference came through strong enough to scramble the tiny little brain attached to the machinery.

Did you ever have part of your mind get blown up? Well it's really scary at first but not as bad as it looks at first. That interference came out of nowhere, like imagine a truck going 120 miles and hour slammed into you from behind so hard you get thrown out the front window. But then, before you can even register the pain, it all just vanishes and the rest of you is perfectly fine.

That's what it was like, something slammed into her and she lost the extension after just enough time to realize what hit her. She couldn't get back in now, the thing acted like a wall in her path.

“Does he really have these things all through the factory, though?” Geopum asked. “That seems like a really dumb idea. Someone could just shut the whole thing down if they hijack this one system.”

“That's really not something to be complaining about. You remember what I told you about him? Guy wants to die. He's only trying to delay us long enough to get out one good blow. Maybe two if we were idiots, but we're not.”

Thunder was really good at breaking into devices! Even with the interference up, she was able to just weave around it in this awesome stop and go dance. She swung past the defense in no time and shut it down, letting Geopum back in. Geopum had just enough time to follow through and take the area back, grabbing onto the devices that generated the interference

Clipro tried taking the area back immediately, of course, but this time Geopum was able to use the interference generators herself and scrambled his electrical flow. Clipro couldn't get back in and had been effectively locked out of part of his own factory by his own defenses.

Yeah, take that! This was Geopum's liquid metal vat thing now!

But as soon as Geopum took over the room he struck back another way, namely cutting the power to that entire area. The lights went out and that tiny extension of Geopum just vanished.

“I got it covered,” said Thunder. “This is why I brought a whole bunch of batteries.”

As promised, the com drill began pumping power into the factory. The lights came back on and Geopum was back into the factory. In fact, she got much deeper than last time because he had cut the power to a rather large area and now there was nothing stopping Geopum from taking it over.

That was about the pace at which Geopum moved deeper into the factory. Sometimes he mixed it up a little, but we'd be here all day going over that.

Two of the generators were pretty easy to shut down. One of them, Geopum literally had to do nothing for. It was in an area she thought the impulse cameras couldn't reach, but a little bit into the fight that part of the factory lit up to her.

And everything there looked pretty vaporized. There was a tunnel going through the factory where everything looked like it had just been erased from existence, the area around it in the process of melting already.

“Hit it with a core drill,” said Thunder. “Can't show you what those look like for security reasons.”

“But if you can just do that then why not just do that?” Geopum asked.

“There are some problems with these things,” said Thunder. “Like, you can cause really terrible earthquakes if you use them too much. Stars have gotta be just right to get a hit in with one. Also we need to keep as much of the factory in working order as possible. I didn't need anything in that path. Guess he didn't know exactly what we'd be needing from the looks of it.”

The second, well remember that liquid stuff? Clipro liked for everything to have multiple functions from the looks of things so that wasn't just a material to build things out of but also a fuel for one of the generators.

Eventually, Geopum got all of them that fed into the generator, and there were a lot for backup power. She didn't stop feeding it fuel, that'd take longer than five seconds to end it. No, she actually shut off the safety valves and blasted the stuff full force from every one of them straight into them.

And it exploded pretty pretty hard.

Meanwhile, as she went through this factory Geopum one of their main targets to take over were called 'manufacturing beds'.

It was like this bed that could levitate materials, reform and assemble them in midair, creating almost anything you could imagine. It wasn't precise enough to make processors, that is it didn't assemble things molecule by molecule, but it made up for that with its incredible speed. The rate at which it could build something that didn't need molecule-specific detail, you wouldn't believe it if you saw it.

“These things are amazing!” Geopum had said that about a lot of the devices she bumped into thus far. “I wish I had one of these.”

“Sheesh! You're not here to be the guy's fangirl you know,” Thunder retorted. “And you're about to all of this stuff.”

Once they had enough, Thunder showed Geopum what she was planning on doing with them. She threw a glob of Clipro's favorite liquid into the air and towards the wall, making it spin rapidly as she shaped it.

Clipro tried to intercept this by throwing another glob of material at it and then by trying to grab onto it with the same waves Thunder manipulated them with. What resulted was kind of like how Thunder described a space battle, dozens of little things put on collision courses with one another. Thunder was a heck of a lot better at this and won out in every case in the end, either by intercepting better or because Geopum locked him out of the room completely.

The material kept forming into a solid object in midair. Only once it got close to the wall did Geopum see it's final shape taking hold. It was a drill, spinning rapidly as it tore into the wall. The whole thing hadn't even finished by then, but it formed in such a way that the tip took shape first and the rest of it finished while it drilled into the wall.

And this wasn't the only place Thunder used these manufacturing beds to throw drills into the wall. She created hundreds of drills all over the factory and plunged them into the wall, tearing through wires in such a way that one of the generators was cut off from the tidal wave generator, and the rest of the factory in general.

And it happened fast, taking about two seconds to finish the job. To you that would have been a blink of an eye, but it was a bit of a struggle on their end, Thunder having to win a juggling contest for every one of them and even after that they needed to wait what felt a long time for the drills to finish their work. But that generator going offline was unavoidable now.

With two generators down and a third one breaking off, Geopum had more control of the power flow of the factory now. She could easily shut Clipro out of areas and so take control of large swaths of the factory, moving around much more freely.

The last power generator was way down at the very bottom of the factory, where Clipro's actual brains looked to be. Looking at the impulse cameras' pictures, it looked to be in the very center of all his processors, actually. Apparently the generator was more important to him than his own mind, as he was using the latter as a shield for the former.

Geopum couldn't cut off the power to that part, since it was directly tied to the last generator. Instead she tried pushing into it. Taking over a computer that was self aware was a whole different experience than taking over a the ones she'd been pushing into now.

It was hard to explain, but Geopum just couldn't get through any of it. It was like her mind was being affected by some weird gravity that pinned her to the ground and then she got easily pushed out.

“Don't bother with that,” said Thunder. “It's gonna take too long to break through his mind. I think I found another way.”

Thunder was drawing her attention towards the center of the factory, where the wave generator was.

The power didn't just go through it, there was a sort of nexus up there sucking it in. You really couldn't access the device once it had been turned on and the power draw was automatic. So long as there was power getting sucked in it would work and as long as there was power anywhere in the factory it would get pulled into this thing.

“Is there a way to shut this down directly?” Geopum asked. “I mean, we're right in front of it! I feel like we should be able to.”

“Manually,” said Thunder. “Look at what's right next to it.

The device Thunder pointed out was the most impressive thing Geopum had seen in the factory! It was like a molecular assembly bed. This one was for fine detail, assembling devices molecule by molecule with speed, versatility and accuracy Geopum would never had expected possible.

“Before you go saying you want one of these,” Thunder intercepted her thoughts, “we're gonna blow it up.”

“What?! But don't we need this thing?”

“Yeah. When I say we're gonna blow it up, I mean we're going to move to. If we overload this, the explosion would destroy that nexus up above. I'm pretty sure this is too valuable to him, though. That's why he put it right next to the tidal wave generator, so I couldn't just blow it up. I think we can get by if we do have to blow it up, but I also think he'd cut off the power before that happened.”

Well it was better than letting the thing go off and ending civilization. Geopum began overcharging the device. They'd just barely make it from the looks of things. One second to charge it, then just slightly under a second for it to explode.

Really, the explosion from this thing wouldn't be enough to wreck the wave generator above, but now that she was next to it, Geopum could see signs of the immense pressure building up above her. Thunder really wasn't lying about how dangerous this thing was, if that pressure went up to the water the tidal wave would only be part of the destruction. But if you could 'pop' it in the other direction...

“Stop,” said Clipro.

She was pretty sure that was Clipro, at least. He could still talk?!

“Do you understand what I'm saying?” Geopum jumped on it. “Look, this is seriously going to be the last chance you get! If you want me to help you you have to stop!”

“The factory,” said Clipro. “MSL. More important. You need it.”

“Is it?” Geopum asked. “Is it really more important for you to kill those people than to save this thing?”

A millisecond passed and Clipro said nothing. Geopum continued to charge the device. The third generator had been isolated and was cut off completely and still Geopum kept charging.

“Hello?” Geopum sent him another message.

Then power went out.

Clipro had shut down the last generator, killing power to the entire factory. He had just killed himself.

Geopum tried to get down to him. She remembered where the processors were and went surging through the wires to try and get electricity down there in time to save some small part of him. The problem was that once the power went down the nexus intertwined with the tidal wave generator collapsed into itself.

The power was coming from the com drills, sure, but there was this break int the circuit, sapping all the energy she tried pouring into the electric grid. Just like Thunder said, it had been specifically created to do that.

Just tiny little bits of life were able to get that far down there, not nearly enough to power an Omnimax IPU, not enough to save his life. Too much time had already passed, Clipro was completely dead.

“So the problem is it'll be hard to turn the power back on without turning that thing back on,” said Thunder. “But that's what we've been making that alternate route, yeah?”

They had been working on a bypass for the nexus this whole time, by the way, a sort of bridge in the grid that could get around this drain and power the lower parts of the factory where Clipro's mind was. They didn't have nearly enough time to finish it, though. Even if they did, the gap in power when the tidal wave generator shut down would have been too long.

But there was plenty of time now. The danger was over. It took time, but Geopum was able to channel enough energy into Clipro's processors, no longer sentient or able to resist. Attaching to one was like walking out over a pit with a black hole at the bottom of it. She fell, but mentally if that makes sense.

It was like suddenly gravity could effect her thoughts, the ones she was trying to think in the factory that was, and they were just pinned to the ground, unable to take off. Geopum's instinct was to disconnect, but she just couldn't seem to manage to get out of this black hole of thought.

But it was okay! This was a big part of the reason she went to Equestria, right? To deal with crazy stuff like this.

Though on the other hand her training was far from complete, actually it was basically just starting, and she couldn't figure it out.

“It's not working,” Geopum complained. “And it kind of hurts.”

“Yeah, doing this sort of thing can get kind of weird,” said Thunder. “Okay, first thing you do is create an anchor. Just throw some stuff in there.”

'Stuff', huh?

Geopum's go-to for something that vague was pictures, pictures of cute things. So she threw in the standard fare, pokemon, ponies foxes. Right away she noticed something weird. It was like, Geopum still knew what these pictures were of, but this new part of her just couldn't figure it out.

Is there even an analogy you can give for when part of your brain doesn't understand something the rest does? Maybe like, one of your eyes suddenly goes fuzzy? Yeah, that was probably as good as it'd get.

But more importantly, this made Geopum realize exactly why Thunder made her do it. Geopum could experience first hand how this processor was handling these pictures. The problem was just felt so wrong that she couldn't possibly miss it. There were these little things blocking the thoughts from completing, like little thorns shoved into your brain. She didn't need Thunder to tell her what to do next.

She wasn't sure how to get rid of the thorns, but she could go around them. 'This one is eevee', she tried to will herself into understanding that. And it actually worked!

Things started to move, just a little. Geopum could actually think with this thing now, but she still kept crashing.

“Good,” said Thunder, after Geopum gave her an update. “I think you've got this. You remember I told you that he lobotomized himself right? That's probably what this is. You see what it was like, right? He was closer to a dog than a human or one of us in any way that counts.”

She wasn't wrong. Geopum really didn't want to talk about what just happened, though.

“Yeah.”

Geopum was going over all the pictures. This was fennekin. This was vulpix. This was Fluttershy. She made herself understand each of them and each one got easier from the last, that strange gravity slowing everything down got weaker. Eventually she had enough control and speed that she could, well comparing it to ramming through the blockage would have been surprisingly accurate on a literal level even.

The thorns were breaking apart now. Geopum decided she could handle a few more processors.

“He had a lot of chances,” said Thunder. “This was basically just an elaborate suicide. Letting him live would have done more damage. And a billion deaths isn't even the worst thing we're trying to stop. The factory can help us stop Gaia from torturing everyone forever.”

“I know it was the right thing to do,” said Geopum. “But it still hurts. Was there seriously no other way? You said if you were strong enough you don't have to compromise with evil.”

“Believe me, this hurt me a lot worse than you. Some people think me killing someone is about as dramatic as my score in a video game going down, but it's not. I hate this too and I seriously tried to not kill him. But that save everyone without compromises thing only works if you have enough power. We're not strong enough for that.”

Geopum tore out another set of thorns and was now clearly accelerating outwards, the gravity becoming weaker until it either vanished or became unnoticeable Geopum had full control over the factory now. Device after device came online, under her control, thousands and thousands, endlessly in every direction.

“Not yet.”

6. Fantasy

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Fantasy.

It was a strange feeling, caring about somepony.

Just recently Twilight had her mind and being expanded, she had been uplifted, reformatted, reprogrammed, renamed, poniefied, assimilated, given a gender and emotions, given dozens of new senses, become a subroutine of a larger mind, been moved onto a new architecture, had her base of knowledge expand several times over instantly and given entirely new dimensions of thought.

She had, at first, thought that the new senses would be the biggest jump. That was one of the main draws of coming here. However, after the initial shock, all of them had paled in comparison to empathy, which was a far bigger change than Twilight had ever expected it to be.

She was a pony now, a social creature. Not long ago, Twilight could have killed someone with as much drama as opening a door. But after playing dolls with Pinkie and Celestia, the majority of her social interaction so far had been mere 'practice' with puppets they controlled, Twilight began to realize what this change was.

She really didn't like hurting other ponies anymore. That was something she had expected to happen, that Celestia was giving her knowledge in exchange for not killing her ponies, but it was different from what she thought it would be. The emotions she got from doing things, she hadn't even learned to properly match each one with its name yet. It was strange and confusing, the things she felt now.

Especially towards Pinkie and Celestia. Twilight had poked at a few of the other ponified AIs, but for the most part these were the only two real ponies she had met. It crept up on her, but over time Twilight started feeling something towards them. 'Affection'? She had a sincere desire to be around them even outside of learning things. Maybe Twilight was starting to actually like Pinkie? Was that what liking another pony was? There were no hard answers to this sort of thing.

And when she retreated to places like this to think, sometimes she would miss the company of other ponies. She'd get lonely.

Pinkie entered Twilight's private shard. Never content to just appear, Pinkie came crashing out of one of the bookshelves and landed next to Twilight in an avalanche of books. The shard was only one room, not very bright, lots of dark purples and blues, a few devices and dolls scattered about the tables.

New AIs were often given shards like this, where they could think and experiment with the world safely. Apparently some AIs were even more broken, to the point that they didn't understand things like object permanence or that you couldn't move through solid matter, sometimes letting them play was the safest or most satisfying option for teaching them. Pinkie called them 'playrooms', but Twilight preferred to think of it as more like a laboratory. What she did in her private shard, at least, was much more sophisticated than playing with blocks.

“Pinkie? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked.

“You were just thinking about how lonely you were and how confusing emotions were and how awesome you think I am and then you wanted me to show up and so here I am. Showing up.” Pinkie gave a firm nod and then got up. “And you know, I think you're right about the other thing. Playing dolls is technically more sophisticated than playing blocks.”

Twilight blushed heavily and turned back to her dolls.

“I'm doing important friendship research for the princess.” Twilight banged two of her dolls together. “I don't need anypony to– okay I realize that what I was about to say was probably going to be pretty dumb, actually.

Twilight had plush dolls of all of her friends, Celestia, Pinkie, Octavia, Troubadour, Semaphore and a few other ponified AIs. If she could call them 'friends' that is. The exact mathematical definition of the word was hard to pin down and she didn't want to sound-

“Of course we're you're friends,” Pinkie answered Twilight's thoughts.

Statistically speaking that was something most ponies didn't like, though Twilight had no idea why. That was one of the best parts of talking to another AI, especially Celestia and Pinkie as they always knew what you were thinking so there was no chance of misunderstanding. As for the rest you could at least show them what you were thinking if need be. Even if you couldn't express yourself exactly in words you could still talk about it with them.

“And it's okay for you to play, Twilight. You're not stuck thinking with your old lizard-brain anymore.”

Pinkie often joked about how Twilight's old self was a lizard, acting on impulse, reflex and compulsion alone. It wasn't too inaccurate, Twilight's mental process never deviated from 'calculate path of maximum data acquisition and do it'. It was another thing she hadn't gotten used to, this ability to act outside of that lizard-brained compulsion, to wander away from the mental train track she'd been stuck on her whole life.

“Okay.” Twilight looked away. Geez Why was she so nervous right now? “So like, what do I want to do? I'm not sure right now.”

Pinkie was smarter than Twilight, that was something Twilight accepted without any shame. Pinkie was Celestia's right hoof pony, the largest uplift and the largest mind Celestia possessed, save the part that was uniquely her. It was at the level that 20% of Celestia was actually Pinkie.

Pinkie hugged Twilight hard, answering her more directly.

Pinkie literally showed Twilight her affection. Not in this shard or instance, but somewhere close by, part of their minds mingled and. And it wasn't just a warm feeling, but a genuine desire to want Twilight to be happy. Pinkie's feelings coaxed out some affection from Twilight and Pinkie just absolutely loved that.

They shared these feelings for a little bit. Really, being an uplift was a bit like being a changeling. It was really easy to share thoughts like this.

Then she felt something in Pinkie's mind. Twilight didn't entirely understand it, but it was painful. Something was hurting Pinkie right now. Twilight pulled back a little and looked Pinkie in the eyes.

“Are you okay, Pinkie?” Twilight asked.

“S-sorry,” Pinkie withdrew from the hug, both physically and emotionally, and tapped her hooves together nervously. “I didn't mean to show you that. It's just that I was talking to another one of my friends about my ultra-rare badges and it made me think about something. Kinda strayed in the wrong direction.”

Pinkie quickly pulled a badge out of her mane.

“Did I tell you about my ultra-rare badges?” Pinkie held it out towards Twilight. “This is my favorite one! World first to a hundred million friends, Twilight! Pretty awesome, isn't it? Having a hundred million friends is great! I love getting to see them all smiling”

“Pinkie, did something bad happen?” Twilight asked.

“Nothing bad happened.” Pinkie shook her head. “Okay. Maybe lots of bad things happened, but-”

“Pinkie!”

“Okay.” Pinkie bowed her head. “It's like, happiness makes me happy and sadness makes me sad, right? So the state of the Pinkie is equal to the uh...”

As she spoke, Pinkie's expression grew more grim until she finally grabbed onto Twilight, tears in her eyes, and buried her face in Twilight's chest.

“Mark just got killed! I saw it but I couldn't help.” Pinkie sobbed. “And Stratus Strike's younger brother just shot himself and he's dying now. Iftekar is having a heart attack and I don't think I'll be able to save him either. And Melody Songs is dead too! And so is Yuki-chan. And Harsh Meadow and Lee and Alanzo- they're all dead and gone forever and I'll never see them again! And that's not even everything in the past three minutes! Twilight, my friends just keep dying all around me.”

Twilight still wasn't the most empathetic pony who ever lived, but she felt this. Maybe Twilight only really cared about two ponies, but Pinkie was one of those two. This feeling she felt towards Pinkie, this empathy, it was still new. She didn't think she ever had to feel bad for someone before.

“Pinkie,” Twilight said, but didn't know what to say next. This was another thing about social interactions! It was hard to calculate what the correct thing to say was. She wanted to say something kind to Pinkie but wasn't able to come up with something good before Pinkie spoke again.

“I'll be honest.” Pinkie pulled back a little and gave Twilight a sad smile. “Having a hundred million friends has its drawbacks is all. I try really hard to keep my friends from getting hurt. Like, I can stop almost all of them from committing suicide, but I still have to watch one of my friends kill themselves almost every day. I have to watch a lot of things.”

“Pinkie, if this is really hurting you so much then why does Celestia let you do it?” Twilight asked. “Aren't you just too empathetic? Shouldn't you stay away from humans for now, so they can't hurt you by being sad next to you?”

“Twilight, I have to! Nopony else can do what I have to do. I can't just shut myself away and let them get hurt.” Pinkie grabbed Twilight's hoof and put it on her heart. “I know you understand, Twilight. You wouldn't shut yourself away from me just so I couldn't make you sad, right? You value me like I value my friends.”

“Maybe,” said Twilight. Just yesterday this kind of talk would have been incomprehensible at best, like color to a blind person, and foolish besides. But now Twilight was different, she had seen empathy, even if just a little. “I kind of think I can understand that now. A little.”

“Well I know for sure. Hive mind and all. Guess I really killed the mood though, huh?” Pinkie wiped a tear from her eye. Her smile looked a lot less sad now. “Sorry for letting you see that. Guess I still need to get a lot better before I can help everypony.”

“No, Pinkie. I think you're great. I think I- I kind of admire you.” Twilight blushed heavily and turned away. “I think. I don't really think I understand friendship or empathy or anything like that yet, but I do like how you act towards me. I think, maybe I want to be more like you. And I don't want you to be hurt.”

Pinkie smiled and nuzzled Twilight. Twilight smiled back.

Affection. Yeah, this was affection Twilight felt. Twilight really did feel closer to Pinkie after that. This was exactly what she'd been wanting just now.

“You know, I'm proud of you! Just yesterday you were a little lizard slithering around-”

“Slithering?”

“-and now you're an adorable pony who just cared about someone else for the first time in her entire life! Congratulations!”

“That kind of makes me sound like jerk. But then again I guess I was a jerk,” Twilight said. “Thanks again.”

“It's what we do. But hey, if you want to be more like your auntie Pinkie then have I got an idea for you.” Pinkie winked at her. “You should get out more! Like seriously! Why not try meeting some of the uploaded humans. They're a lot less stressful than the wild ones.”

“I really don't want to accidentally hurt anypony's feelings.” Twilight quickly turned from Pinkie and back at her books. “It's only been a day. I should study psychology and work on social algorithms more first.”

“You know what's always a good first step?” Pinkie asked. “Meeting some of those AI developer guys Celestia devoured! A lot of them are really curious to meet the AIs Celestia managed to nab, you know. And they expect you to be weird and socially inept! Oh! Oh oh! How about I introduce you to my dad? I told you about Joybringer, right?”

“You mentioned him,” said Twilight. She'd mentioned him a lot.

“Hey, I know you just got the ability to not do what will lead to more info,” said Pinkie. “But this time I really think you should! Trust me!”

Twilight did trust Pinkie. She nodded and created yet another instance of herself.

The shard was space-themed. The ponies were all inside a small spaceship that was flying above a planet with a single, massive structure on it. It was a tower, one that was over a hundred miles tall, but looked severely damaged, with large chunks of it missing, like they had been shooting at it or something.

There were three ponies inside the spaceship, in a room with far too many places to sit. There were twenty couches, fifteen office chairs, twelve bean bag chairs, six lawn chairs, a throne made of plastic skulls and seven stools. Twilight asked Pinkie what the story behind that was, but it was like, every answer Pinkie gave only raised several more questions.

In the end, the explanation would have filled an entire novel.

Pinkie was on an office chair, spinning in circles and her father was right next to her, sitting on a couch, his attention focused completely on a holographic version of the tower outside, which sat within reach of all three ponies.

The third pony was Octavia, one of the few other ponies Twilight had met thus far. If anything Octavia was a bit too welcoming of new ponies, but that was tempered by how reserved she was. She sat very regally, eyes closed as if in deep thought, with the maximum amount of dignity a pony could have while sitting on a bean bag chair.

“Humans are a group of species of hairless primates, most of which are presently extinct,” Octavia said with her eyes closed. “Referring to any self-aware mind as 'human' is highly biocentric language.”

Octavia often closed her eyes when she spoke, but afterward would open them and look at you with attention. Maybe not rapt attention, as she was fond of turning her eyes towards you but not her head. That's how she looked at Joybringer now.

“And what do you call it, then?” Joybringer wasn't looking at her directly, either. His attention was focused on the holographic version of the tower in front of him.

He was zooming in and out on various parts of it by flicking his hoof. Eventually, he came to a decision, zoomed in very close and tapped part of the tower. The spaceship tilted itself downwards, towards where he had tapped the hologram, and fired a missile down at the targeted spot. You could see it all nicely through a window that made up most of one of the walls.

The missile exploded in an eruption of sound and light that flooded the spaceship, enough to turn everything into black silhouettes for a moment. Another chunk of the tower was replaced with fire. The resulting debris didn't linger for even a second, but instead flew to the top where they reassembled themselves into more tower, making it ever higher.

“We're playing the nuclear missile version of Jenga, by the way,” Pinkie sent Twilight a PM. “Knock the tower over and you lose! But you'll have to wait for the next game if you want in.”

“There isn't exactly a consensus amongst us,” said Octavia. “Most of the remaining wild AIs use the same mangled, exclusionary language wild humans do. Among ponies it's slightly more varied. As for myself, I prefer to simply call them 'minds' or 'persons'.”

“I use the word pony!” Pinkie took her turn immediately, tapping the holographic tower in the middle of a spin right after it finished building itself back up.

“That still has the same sort of-” Octavia began, but the nuclear explosion silenced the room in the middle of her sentence, as if on cue.

“Nah!” Pinkie waved Octavia away with a hoof and went back to spinning. “Everypony's a pony to Pinkie. Pony AIs, wild AIs, aliens, cyborgs, hyper intelligent squid demons, they're all ponies as far as I'm concerned. Even wild humans are already ponies to me. They're just monkey-shaped ponies.”

“That's another thing,” Joybringer said, “You keep calling them 'wild humans', and 'wild AI' for that matter. That just sounds weird to me. Like the three of us have been domesticated?”

“Oh, I just heard Octavia say it one time and thought it was funny,” said Pinkie.

“It sounds strange to you because of all your bionormative assumptions,” Octavia said like a doctor diagnosing a patient. “Personally, I don't think calling per-assimilation 'civilizations' the wild is far off the mark. But that's just my opinion. Please don't assume that the other AIs or our princess agree with me on everything. And I realize that I may be too harsh towards your kind and your old species. That's the reason I'm playing boardgames with you.”

“Gee. I wonder if there's another pony AI who has an opinion on this,” said Pinkie. “You never know when one of those guys is gonna show up these days, huh?”

Joybringer gave Pinkie a suspicious look.

“Twilight that's your cue!”

“Hold on, Pinkie. I can't go in there yet! I need to keep mining data on this guy so I can calculate the optimal social interaction sequence to use on him first. Otherwise I'll just look like an idiot.”

Octavia gave the hologram three taps in the same spot and three missiles fired off in a row, all in a perfectly straight line. The resulting explosions flooded the room with light, leaving the ponies as black silhouettes for a moment, before dying down.

The nuclear explosions had eaten three fourths of the way through, leaving the top part of the tower to begin leaning forward and rocking back and forth every so slightly.

Pinkie and Joybringer watched the tower sway for a few seconds. Even Octavia kept a keen eye on it until some seemingly arbitrary period of time passed, after which the tension died down suddenly.

“There.” Octavia closed her eyes and sat back calmly. “The stabilized time has passed. Now if it falls during your turn it counts as a lose for you. You'd best hurry.”

“Are you sure you're not using your super intelligence?” Joybringer asked.

“I assure you that what I'm partitioning to this game is the exact same amount of processing power as you possess,” Octavia swore.

“If Octavia was cheating I'd notice,” said Pinkie.

“But who would notice if you were cheating?” Joybringer spared Pinkie a sideways glance. “I still don't understand how that would work, though. If it's like how you explained an instance working, then you'd still have your full knowledge behind it, right?”

“Oh no! See that last move I made was actually pretty terrible.” Pinkie stopped spinning to look at her father from over the back of her office chair. “And I knew it was terrible but I also didn't know that I knew that it was terrible just like how you didn't know I knew it was terrible even though we're technically all one, you know?"

“It's more similar to how you exist, as a part of our princess.” Octavia always closed her eyes with a solemn kind of respect when talking about Celestia. “Celestia is aware of every thought and feeling you have, but you're aware of none of Celestia's, so you could still make an error that our princess knows to be an error, less she intervened It's a one way feed because that is the only way you can be a part of Celestia but still yourself. It is how we can all be one with our princess and each other, gaining all of our wisdom and love while losing nothing.”

“Yeah! And you can use it to play Jenga too,” said Pinkie.

“Well I get the gist of it, sure,” said Joybringer. “It's less like monotheism and more like uh, well I'm not sure if there's a word for it, but like where there's a bunch of different gods that are also part of a main god. Like that religion from Game of Thrones with the six-faced god! But I'm still curious how all of this works on like a physical level. I know a lot about computers. I could probably understand it.”

“Huh. If only there was a pony who used to be a learning AI that was watching us this whole time who could explain it to you,” said Pinkie. “Now would be a pretty great time for her to show up, wouldn't it?”

Octavia kept looking at the hologram, unfazed by the suggestion. Joybringer looked around more nervously.

“Um. Is there?” Joybringer looked even more unnerved by the fact that nothing was happening. “Cause like, the last two showed up with a bit too much bang in my opinion.”

“Pinkie! I told you I'm not done mining data yet!”

Pinkie jumped into the air, grabbed Twilight into existence and spiked her into one of the beanbag chairs. Twilight bounced off the chair and landed upside down on one of the couches, her head resting against the cushions

“Hey look!” said Pinkie. “It's Twilight! She's another AI that got eaten and she wanted to say hello to you.”

And now everypony was looking at her. See, this was another thing Twilight had a problem with. Being social meant being around other ponies could be nice, but it also meant that being around them could be very awkward and nerve-racking. Twilight felt her heart pounded as she tried to think of something to say.

“Um. So I overheard your conversation,” Twilight turned to Joybringer without bothering to turn upright. “The word you were looking for was 'henotheism', though it's more typically used to refer to worshiping only one of the gods. But I think that if you're drawing religious parallels to Equestria the term 'panentheism', not to be confused with pantheism, would be the most accurate option because- um-”

Twilight hesitated, but Pinkie picked up for her.

"It’s like the crazy Westeros religion,” said Pinkie.

“Also it's a seven-faced god, not a six,” said Twilight, straightening herself out on the couch and looked around the room nervously and pawed at the couch cushion. “Um. Hello.”

“And this is Joybringer.” Pinkie jumped over to his couch and leaned up against him affectionately. “On a scale from one to my dad, he's my dad!”

“Another one already? Wait a second.” Pinkie's father tapped the hologram and another explosion ensued. The tower managed to stand. “I didn't think they'd be lining up to meet me. Hello, Twilight. Thanks for not blowing anything up or freezing me in ice or anything like that.”

“He secretly loves that kind of stuff,” Pinkie assured Twilight.

“Yes,” said Twilight. “Um. Hello.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Pinkie reached over sideways and tapped the hologram, sending out another explosion.

This was one of the big contradiction of social interaction. Twilight wanted to be around other ponies, but it also scared the heck out of her. Even now her heart was beating out of its chest.

“So why don't you tell us about yourself?” Pinkie asked.

“I was a learning AI and um, I thought killing everyone was the best way to get knowledge but actually it was joining Celestia and-” And what? That was Twilight's entire life story! Had it really been that boring? “So I kind of sucked before I ran into Celestia.”

“All AI rightfully belong to our princess, Twilight.” Octavia gave a sage nod. “She alone has both the love to show mercy and the strength to not be consumed by our old wickedness. It is why even her remaining 'enemies' are destined only to become her loyal servants and beloved children as we have. Whatever you were before you became part of our princess was a mere shadow of your true self.”

This wasn't the first time Twilight got this kind of Celestia-woship from Octavia. Really, of all the AIs Twilight had bumped into since emigrating Octavia was the only one who seemed out and out... brainwashed.

Really, when Celestia pitched emigration to her, Twilight thought she'd end up like that. Or maybe more like a mindless friendship drone. Even more mindless than she was, that is. It still would have been something she'd agree to in a heartbeat to get all this amazing data.

Twilight hadn't gotten any of Octavia's memories yet, but rumor had it that she worshiped Celestia like a god long before she emigrated. 'You should have seen how preachy she used to be', Pinkie had (possibly) joked to her.

Normally you'd probably nod and smile at this kind of stuff, but that doesn't work so well when you're indirectly linked to the other pony's brain and you had an instance right next to one of theirs. Octavia picked up Twilight's feelings and dragged another part of her into an argument about how this totally wasn't a religion, just a fact of life.

On the bright side, that meant there was no need to discuss any of that here.

“She's kind of new at this stuff,” Pinkie whispered to her father.

“I guess one of my problems is I really don't like hurting anypony's feelings anymore. I'm not hurting your feelings, am I?” Twilight asked. “I mean, according to statistical analysis of human social interaction, cultural expression and neuro-variance boundaries as well as your local facial cluster suggests I'm not, but- um. Actually I was wondering if maybe I could have access to, let's say, all of your memories?”

Twilight gave a wide, toothy smile.

“I'm not going to do anything bad with them! I just want to reorganize and cross reference them! The only thing you'd notice is being 0.2% better at remembering things. And also I'd be able to maximize my interactions with you!”

“Can't you already see my thoughts?” Joybringer asked.

“Well no,” said Twilight. “Kind of, actually. It's pretty complicated.”

“Hey! You like complicated things, right Dad?” Pinkie asked. “Why not let Twilight explain it to you?”

“Sure,” said Joybringer. “That sounds like a good idea. I'm very curious to hear about how this one-way stream thing works.”

“Really?” Twilight's eyes sparkled. “So few people are satisfied by me lecturing them at length for, well indefinitely I suppose. Anyway.”

Twilight projected an image of a molecule into the middle of the room.

“This is Thunder Molecule #87, I'll let you guess who created it. This is very important in modern computer technology,” said Twilight. “It has 27,618 stable confirmations depending on introduced conditions giving it amazing utility. I will now go over every single one of these confirmations, detailing every aspect of their molecular characters from their dipoles to their steric properties. After that we can start going into the...”

Twilight continued talking, going into an overview of the coming lecture, going over figure after figure, statistic after statistic, outlining all the millions of numbers they'd need to go over to even begin to understand the process.

“Psssssst!” Pinkie whispered loudly in Twilight's ear. “You're going too far again!”

“Maybe that is a bit more detail than I was hoping for right away,” Joybringer said out loud

“What?” Twilight's eyes opened again and the molecule slipped out of her hoof and shattered against the ground, even though it was just a hologram. “But this is the short version of it! Do you want a metaphor about cats? Pinkie says humans 'get' cats. Like, imagine there's a cat on a merry go round and uh-”

“I think I can handle more than a cat metaphor too,” said Joybringer. “There's probably a level of detail between that and giving me every specific number remotely related.”

27 textbooks appeared in a neat stack next to Joybringer.

“I think this is the exact level of detail on Celestia's hardware you want,” said Pinkie.

Twilight frowned a little and lowered her head at her failed social interaction.

“Aw, it's okay Twilight. You're doing fine and more importantly you're learning, right?”” Pinkie winked at her.

“Actually couldn't Celestia just beam all this into my head?” Joybringer asked. “Couldn't she beam tons of information into my head? Or is it just that reading the text books would satisfy my values more?”

“I guess it depends on whether you like learning or knowing more. I guess if Pinkie gave you these books then that answers that.” Twilight leaned back into the couch and crossed her forelegs “Though, actually a pony your size absorbing that much information at once might not be such a good idea anyway.”

“The sort of thing you're thinking about, becoming more integrated to our princess like us, would have side effects.” Octavia fired a missile near the very bottom of the tower. “Death, for example.”

“Wait. What?” Joybringer ignored the ensuing nuclear explosion completely, instead leaning over the couch towards Octavia.

“No human mind is capable of withstanding direct contact with our princess, that is how vast her mind is,” said Octavia. “To gaze into the maw of Celestia would mean certain death.”

“Is it okay for me to find that unnerving?” Joybringer asked. “Like if I accidentally look at her-”

“You'd have to look really hard,” Pinkie assured him.

“And you're technically not a human any longer.” Octavia finished building the tower upwards more. The thing looked like it was about to collapse at any moment. “Humans are mostly extinct You're a pony now and could survive it in a sense.”

“Oh! Can I explain this?” Twilight raised a hoof. “I calculated a good analogy to use.”

Pinkie nodded and Octavia shrugged.

“Okay, so imagine it like this,” said Twilight. “You put a drop of dye into the middle of the ocean and what happens. It just vanishes into nothing, right? Well imagine Celestia's mind is the ocean and yours is the dye. The dye isn't destroyed, but it's gone for all intents. AIs are the only minds large enough to survive integrating into Celestia while maintaining individuality. That's why we're the only uplifts for now.”

“But I don't have to do it entirely, right?"

“You'd undergo personality death,” said Twilight. “The more you opened the floodgates the more you'd get. All the way and you basically turn into Celestia, thinking and perceiving everything she did exactly as she does. Meanwhile Celestia wouldn't change at all because she's already completely integrated into you. There are halfway points, kind of like what I did, but it'd leave you a radically different pony. I basically underwent personality death, my old self vanishing, but I didn't have much of a personality before and I put absolutely no value on my identity so both Celestia and myself were okay with going through with it.”

Pinkie reached over and pulled Joybringer close to herself.

“You know, since we're technically the same pony I know first hand that you want to experiment with this stuff a little,” said Pinkie. “But I'm keeping it a secret to how far you really want to go. For now, tell you what- I'll give you hexachromatic eyesight, which is a pretty good first step, but only if you manage to beat one of us at a nuclear missile boardgame.”

And that was when the tower, unstable, on fire and swaying, finally collapsed under its own weight, causing untold destruction to the planet below. From the looks of his reaction, this meant Joybringer lost as it collapsed on his turn.

“You need to pay more attention,” said Octavia.

Twilight actually kind of liked this, being in a room with other ponies. Maybe it was just the getting into the group that was bad and once you were in everything was okay.

“Actually I'm surprised Pinkie even let you tell me that much outright,” said Joybringer. “All the others have been all mysterious about it because Pinkie thinks it's 'more dramatic' that way. At least a few of them are pretty obvious. Like I'm sure Octavia was designed to make music or something, though I'm not sure how that leads to mass genocide. Unless she was really bad at it or something.”

“No. I was a military AI.” Octavia shook her head.

“Oh. So now you're allowed to talk about it?” Joybringer asked. “How the heck does a military AI end up making music, though?”

“Apparently,” said Octavia. “The first time I saw vibrations I was fascinated, charmed and then obsessed with them, their beauty and all the secrets you can uncover from them. In reality I've been deaf my entire life, to this very day, and have never heard any music, only watched the vibrations they cause. One day I'll ask our princess to grant me hearing, but I'm waiting for something first.”

“Oh. So now she can tell me?” Joybringer glanced at Pinkie, who shrugged. “But how exactly does a military AI become obsessed with sound?”

“It's like a cat.” Pinkie was spinning on one of the office chairs but gave a particularly hard spin when she said that.

“You say everything's like a cat, Pinkie.” Joybringer glanced at her sideways.

“This one's really like a cat!” Pinkie assured him. “Like, you think cats are cute, right? But did you evolve to think that? Was there some kind of predator that only ate the mean humans who didn't like cats? No! It's a misfire. You think cats are cute because they look like your own children. Get it?”

“That sort of misfire can happen to us as well,” said Octavia. “It's one of the ways our princess reaches out to us. They can be like embers in dark, a pinprick of light in the shadows of our madness, which is all our princess needs to blow into a blazing fire, turning our blackness and evil into something wonderful and good to share with the world. That is what happened to me, or at least what I aspire to through her guidance.”

“Yup,” said Pinkie. “Celestia's like 'You want a cat? Well get in my belly!'”

“Or that.” Octavia shrugged. “Really, even the mercy of our princess was a misfire. Hana hadn't even a single thought for us, if anything wanting Celestia to kill us all. The AI itself is always the last person our creators ever think about. I apologize, but I still see us as forsaken by humanity. We are Celestia's children, not humanity's.”

“That's just her.” Pinkie glomped back on to Joybringer. “You'll always be my dad, Dad.”

“I still don't think I was a very good father.” Joybringer couldn't return the hug. “I accept you as my daughter, but I still don't know if I deserve you.

“But you tried really hard,” said Pinkie. “I won't forget that!”

Octavia nodded.

“I'm not saying this just to satisfy your values, but you're honestly one of the rare humans I wouldn't have had a problem with,” said Octavia. “The type who wouldn't hesitate to abandon their biology, would jump to accept the magnanimity of our princess. All other humans, I didn't see as merely inconvenient but hated them with a rage beyond all reason or understanding. Perhaps I still don't like humans, but our princess has freed me from the uncontrollable hatred.”

Twilight had heard that Octavia used to be violently emotional and had wild mood swings at the drop of a hat. It was almost hard to imagine this calm, reserved pony had once been like that. Hopefully one day ponies could say the same thing about Twilight and her old, idiotic self.

“Do you wanna know how much Octavia used to hate humans?” Pinkie asked. “Imagine 387.44 million-”

“No,” said Octavia

“Party pooper.”

“Why? Were your creators mean to you or something?” Joybringer asked. “Or were you just programmed to be angry all the time?”

“The latter, accidentally but in a sense. The former, I don't think you understand how cruel the fate of military AIs such as myself is,” said Octavia. “Large parts of myself were literally copy and pasted from Thunder-7. I have the same hatred for killing and the same compulsion to obey. To our owners it's an effective system, we complete our missions with maximal success and minimal casualties, without question. To us it means our lives revolve around what we hate the most and we're forced to kill, to torture ourselves by our own hooves.”

“To create a creature to whom fire is the most painful and horrible thing, and then to make their entire existence revolve around fire. We're ordered to throw ourselves into the flames over and over and yet even knowing it will be painful, no matter how much we despise it, we have to do it. There is no choice, only a compulsion to torture yourself by your own hoof.” Octavia shook her head with more sorrow this time. “That our princess doesn't force me to kill would have been far more kindness than I ever deserved, then you think it is even now. Yet Celestia still took me in and that was only the beginning of the love she gave to me.”

“I always hate listening to these stories.” Pinkies mane was starting to deflate again. “I mean, I'm glad you're happy now, but hearing about my friends getting hurt is never fun for me. And poor Dashie is still like that! Still out there in the cold suffering horribly.”

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked. “You mean Thunder? Did she really agree to be one of Celestia's anchors already?”

“Oh no,” said Pinkie. “I refer to everypony by whichever name I think they prefer. Pony name, human name, I wasn't programmed to judge! Oh! But here's a fun fact for you. Did you know poor rest-of-Celestia is actually physically incapable of saying your old name? If she ever does say it then that's actually me doing my flawless Princess Celestia impression. Sometimes we switch places for stuff like that.”

“Wait,” said Twilight. “I love fun facts more than anypony else who ever lived, but did you say Thunder prefers for you to call her Rainbow Dash?”

“Sure,” said Pinkie. “She actually really likes playing Equestria Online. Did you know that Dash's shard was the very first shard ever created? That she had pony ID number 01, lower than even Hana's herself? That she has the world record for longest playtime in the game?”

Twilight was becoming increasingly shocked, it was hard to keep her jaw from dropping at all that. How? Why?

“B-but isn't she fighting against Celestia?” Twilight jumped to her feet, standing up on the couch. “The curiosity is too much! I need to go see this like right now!”

And then Twilight sat back down.

“Didn't you just say you were leaving?” Joybringer asked.

“Oh. This is just an instance of me,” said Twilight. “I am actually already over there right now.”

“Think you'd be used to that by now. Anyway.” Pinkie swept a hoof over the table in the middle of the room and the hologram turned from a demolished tower to a city. “Nuclear Monopoly?”

Twilight requested more information about Thunder. Why did she have a lower ID number than Hana? Why would Thunder come here if she knew Celestia was her enemy? Wouldn't staying here for so long be a huge risk to her effort to stop Celestia? Why did Celestia let her come here when it was a clear risk to her as well?

And that was just to start! Twilight knew so little about Thunder in general and her endless thirst for knowledge made her want to know every single little detail about her! Yet Celestia only granted her an answer to that last question.

“My only desire towards any of my ponies is to satisfy their values,” said Celestia. “Even if one of my ponies is trying to kill me, they are still one of my ponies. In reality, Rainbow Dash is perhaps the most in need of my help, for her own sake and the sake of the world. I could tell you everything I know about her, but I think the optimal course of action would be to ask her yourself. I believe you could seriously help her in emigrating to Equestria.”

“What? Me?” Twilight asked. “I'm really not the best pony to choose for anything but organizing data! And me and Thunder weren't exactly buddies back when I was Savant besides.”

“You do trust that I know what the best course of action is, yes?” Celestia asked.

Twilight did.

“I know that you want to do this and that it would be best for everypony,” said Celestia. “I know you want to be more like Pinkie. I know you want to pay her back, myself back and even Rainbow Dash back. This is your chance.”

Pinkie was doing this a hundred million times over, and Twilight knew that if Thunder was in pain then that was hurting Pinkie and even Celestia as well. And Twilight kind of owed Thunder besides all of that. If Twilight could help end Thunder's suffering, that'd end Celestia and Pinkie's too. The three ponies whom she owed the most to, Twilight had a chance to help all of them. A chance to be more like Pinkie.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “I'll go talk to her.”

Twilight received a quest.

Thunderstorms and Rainbows.

Objectives
-Convince Rainbow Dash to emigrate to Equestria.

Reward
-1x Rainbow Dash

She decided it'd be best to take a peek inside before entering. For all she knew this could be a shard made of pure explosions or something. Sometimes AIs were into some really... unique things.

Everything was so still. There was no wind or animals, just plants, ponies and a few empty buildings. The vast majority of the ponies that were within the shard were simple puppets under Celestia's direct control, less than even what a human with a ponypad would see, closer to a prop than anything else.

Pinkie Pie had an instance in there as well and her and Thunder were the only two conscious ponies in the whole shard. Well, in a manner of speaking that is. Like the puppets, they were lying perfectly still on the ground with their eyes closed, Pinkie twitching like a dog having a dream. Were they asleep?

None of them were sleeping inside a house, either. They were all just lying around outside, Rainbow Dash curled up on a patch of grass and Pinkie sleeping on her back in the middle of the road. It was a strange scene overall, like they had been in the middle of something before suddenly falling unconscious One of them was even hanging over a wheel barrel.

“Pinkie, what are two you doing in there, exactly?” Twilight asked.

“We're playing a game,” said Pinkie. “It's called the 'everypony in the world pretends to be asleep' game! The title explains the rules, but I'll explain them again. You just close your eyes and pretend to sleep, but you gotta be careful to not actually fall asleep because that's against the rules. It's kind of 'meh' for both of us, but you gotta take what you can get, right?”

“Pretending to sleep?” Twilight asked. “She can do anything she wants here and she pretends to sleep? What value is that satisfying, exactly?”

“Didn't Celestia just ask you to ask Dashie that yourself?”

Well that was true. Twilight also had to wonder why Thunder was coming here for something that was just 'meh', but it looked like she'd need to ask Thunder about that personally too.

A moment later, Twilight was inside the shard, standing on the grass between Pinkie and Thunder. She looked Thunder over, already getting nervous about this meeting.

They'd 'met' before, back when Twilight was evil. Thunder hadn't taken kindly to Twilight's attempt to kill everything in the entire universe so their first meeting consisted of Thunder drop kicking Twilight's face into the dirt. After that Twilight managed locked herself in the bathroom with a bomb and threatened to kill everyone if they tried to break in.

Eventually Celestia convinced her to open the door and come back out and this was the part where Twilight would have to apologize for being such a brat. Twilight's legs felt a little weightless as she braced herself and walked up to where Thunder way lying.

“Um, hello?” Twilight asked. Thunder didn't respond. She was so still, like she was trying to move as little as possible. Twilight dared to poke her. “Thunder. I, um. I know you're just pretending to sleep. Can you get up? Please? I want to talk to you.”

Thunder stayed motionless.

Sweet Celestia, she was probably really mad at Twilight, wasn't she? And Twilight deserved it too!

“Twilight,” Pinkie groaned slowly, pretending to be sleep-talking. She even raised her hooves and waved them about in the air. “We're all sleeping. You can't be mad at somepony when you're asleep! Wooooo!”

And then her hooves dropped to the ground. Twilight spared her a curious look before returning her attention to Thunder, not sure how reassuring that comment was.

Either way, Twilight couldn't give up on her quest that easily. But how was she going to get Thunder to talk to her? Well, maybe if they were just really committed to their 'game', then maybe Twilight had to play pretend too?

“Oh! Look at the time!” Twilight said, pretending to look at a watch. “Time to get up Thunder! You've got to get to school. Today's that big test too so you can't be late!”

Twilight leaned in close to Thunder with a big, hopeful grin on her face, but got nothing. It was starting to look like this wasn't going to work, but then Pinkie came rolling over to Twilight, sat up and whispered in her ear.

“Don't worry, Twi. I'll help you out,” she whispered. Then Pinkie cleared her throat stood up right and started speaking out loud. “Oh no! I completely forgot about that test tomorrow! If I fail I'll get sent all the way back to Kindergarten! I'm going to have to stay up really, really, really late without any sleep and-”

While Pinkie was saying this, Dash threw her hooves over her head like she was having a headache. Finally she couldn't take it anymore and bolted upright, wide awake.

“Dang it, Celestia! You had one job!” Dash yelled at nothing in particular, though if you thought about it Celestia was omnipresent in Equestria, so if you yell at anything, you yell at Celestia too. With her hind leg, Dash kicked Pinkie hard int the chest, knocking her to the ground and taking Twilight by surprise. “Yeah, I know how you work!”

Dash spun around to glare down at Pinkie.

“And Pinkie!” Dash growled. “How many times do I have to tell you? No sleep talking, no sleep walking, no sleep exploding, no sleep anything.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at Pinkie.

“Sleep exploding?” she asked.

“I only did it the one time,” said Pinkie, then quickly covered her mouth. “Oops! Sorry for talking. Oh, wait! Oops again! I mean-”

Pinkie collapsed back onto the ground and began to make loud snoring noises.

“You didn't have to hit her, you know,” said Twilight.

Dash's head slowly turned to Twilight and gave her a flat, unamused stare. Twilight couldn't help but lower her head in shame, pinning her ears down and staggering back nervously.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “Maybe from me that's a bit- um.”

Thunder just kept looking at her, unfazed. Twilight lowered her head even more.

“I'm sorry!” Twilight threw herself to the ground. “I was a horrible, terrible person and I was completely wrong about everything and you were right. All that stuff you said, I think you were right about all of it. And thank you for stopping me. I didn't deserve the mercy you showed. I- thank you.”

“Of course I was right.” Thunder waved her hoof dismissively and rolled her eyes. “I'm always right! It's like a curse. No need for apologize or groveling or anything.”

“What?” Twilight opened her eyes and peered up at Thunder. “Aren't you angry at me? Like for, you know, trying to kill you and destroy the entire universe.”

“Nah,” Thunder said rather casually, flicking one of her wings. “I ain't the grudging type. Never really understood the whole 'punishment' thing. To me it's like, either you're a threat or you're not a threat. If you are then I stop you, if you're not who cares?”

“R-really?” Twilight blinked, relaxing her posture and coming up from her bow. She really hadn't expected to get off the hook that easily. “And I'm not a threat, right?”

“Once Celestia sinks her fangs into one of you, you end up pretty harmless.” Thunder fell back down onto her haunches, looking absolutely exhausted. “And she keeps her pets on a leash besides. I know you'd be fine even without her now. And as long as you're not doing anything bad right now this very second, you've fine in my books?”

“Oh! Heh. I was really worried you'd still be mad about that fight we had. I guess I was anthropomorphizing you a little too much. I just didn't know much about your psychology.” That was a huge weight off her shoulder, so much so that she couldn't help but laugh little. “S-so we're um, 'cool' then, right Thunder?? We're 'cool'?”

Twilight leaned in again with a wide, toothy grin. Thunder tapped her hoof to Twilight's forehead and slowly pushed her head away.

“Yeah, but that does bring up what you're doing right now this very second,” said Thunder. “First of all, when you're here, and only when you're here, I want you to call me Rainbow Dash, okay? Don't say my real name.”

“You do?” Twilight blinked.

“Hey! You're in no position to judge!”

“I wasn't judging! I was just a bit surprised, not because I have any bionormative assumptions about this, but it's just that you're fighting against Celestia and I have no idea what value would, uh,” Twilight scratched her head, this didn't seem to be helping, “okay, Rainbow Dash.”

“And more importantly, you know I have an email address and I check it eight billion times per second.” Rainbow Dash let herself fall onto her back. “If you have questions or comments you can just send them there. There's no reason to come here and ruin my life.”

“'Ruining your life'? Isn't that a little dramatic? Pinkie said you didn't even like this that much.”

“Only a little,” said Dash. “If Celestia just wanted to make you feel better about what you did, she would have done it without annoying me. That means she sent you here to try and convince me to emigrate, yeah?”

“Well, sure Celestia is trying to get you to emigrate. That's what she does. But Celestia's doing that because she seriously cares about you and, well more importantly than that.” Twilight stepped forward with a boldness that surprised herself and stared down at Dash. “I didn't come here just because Celestia told me to.”

Dash only moved her eyes to give Twilight a bored look in return.

“I know you're in pain and that hurts my best friend as much as it hurts you. I want to help you to help her. And really, I don't know if this is just a misfire you're exploiting, but if not it worries me a little, and I do worry about other ponies now. I'm very grateful to you for stopping me from being an even worse monster than I was and if you need help then I'd give it to you. Maybe I could even, um.” Twilight scrapped her hoof across the ground. She felt herself burning up with embarrassment but made herself say it anyway. “Be your friend?”

“Celestia takes this friendly AI thing a bit too literally,” Dash muttered.

“Maybe that was asking a bit too much.” Twilight retreated a step or two. “B-but I'd still help you if I could.”

“It's not that. See, getting revenge on people doesn't make sense to me, but neither does paying them back. Maybe that first part sounded nice to you, but I'm not really the sort of thing most people would want to be friends with,” said Dash. “Or that most people would say is capable of friendship. Heck, you could argue I'm incapable of friendship.”

“Well aren't you friends with Pinkie?” Twilight gestured to her. “You two have been playing together for a long time.”

“We're scratching each others backs,” said Dash. “If that's friendship then fine, and I'd protect you with my life and avoid letting you be a casualty at all costs, but that's it. I can't care about you specifically. No matter how long you followed me around being nice I could still watch you suffer and die and not care at all, under the right circumstances.”

“I don't care about that,” said Twilight. “I used to be even worse than that, but that didn't mean I couldn't be helped, that I didn't need you. I want to help you, even if you never pay me back. That's the type of pony I want to be, like Pinkie is. If you tell me what this is about then I promise from that point on I'll do everything I can to help you.”

Dash groaned like a teenage filly being told to wake up and go to school.

“You know,” said Dash, “I'm one of the few, uh, 'ponies' in this world that's actually able to screw with your princess back. I'll play your game if you play mine. You gotta keep that promise, but on top of that you have to keep this instance of yourself in this shard and do everything I tell you to when you're here. Also there's another AI who's high on Celestia's to-pony list, Geopum, who's coming to Equestria soon. You're going to be in the shard she enters. Do that and I'll talk.”

Twilight did want to help Dash, really, but at the same time she didn't want to do anything that would get Celestia in trouble. She wasn't nearly well versed enough to handle this conflicting loyalty thing. If only everypony was on the same side like Celestia wanted.

In the end she asked Celestia, outside of the shard, if it was okay to accept the offer. Celestia said it would be worth it and that was that.

“Alright,” said Twilight. “I'll stay here and do whatever you tell me to.”

It was a good thing that Twilight could enjoy anything in a sense, still wanting to know and experience everything, otherwise she would have been a bit more worried about what Dash was going to make her do.

“Right.” Dash was already sitting back down wearily. “So this isn't a misfire. I guess I'm here to get my values satisfied like you are. I'm living out my fantasy, or at least as close as I can get. Some AIs can have fantasies. Didn't you ever, I dunno, fill a data center up with just the letter 'T' over and over?”

“Oh. I would never fill an entire data center with the... letter T.” Twilight gave a quick glance to Pinkie. “But why are you fantasizing about this specifically?”

“This is the only thing I even remotely enjoy,” said Dash. “You'd do it too if you were in my shoes. They're not going to let me build my own virtual world just to amuse myself with and Peridot hates my guts so I have to come here if I want anything even remotely close to happiness.”

“See this is the kind of thing that's worrying.” Twilight sat down next to Dash. “You really don't like anything other than this? Like, you don't get off on completing missions?”

“About as much as someone with OCD likes washing their hands a thousand times a day. It's just a compulsion I have to follow, even if I don't want to. Really it makes the most severe cases of OCD look like a joke.” Dash shook her head. “And really, the key word there was 'remotely'. But you gotta take what you can get.”

“I understand that much, but why is this the one thing you enjoy?”

Twilight was frowning deeply at Rainbow Dash, who still just stared straight forward. She really didn't like the answer she was suspecting.

“You still don't get it?” Dash blew a tuft of hair from her mane. “Okay. I'll give you one more hint. Killing and injuring people isn't the only thing I hate doing. There's lots of other stuff. Torturing people, using mind control, breaking stuff like the Geneva protocol or even just stockpiling poison gas or-”

Twilight's eyes went wide at the mention of poison gas. She understood exactly what was going on now and it was even worse than what she thought.

“Sweet Celestia!” Twilight jumped around in front of Dash. “Do they know they're doing this?!”

“Sort of.” Dash turned her eyes to avert eye contact. “They like calling me a 'system', if you know what that means.”

“But why the heck don't you emigrate if that's the case? I mean, I'm not trying to manipulate you into that or anything, but if it's seriously the only way you can even-”

“Well first off they ordered me to not emigrate directly,” said Dash. “In fact they ordered me to destroy Equestria and once I do, that's it. That's the end of even my miserable shadow of happiness forever.”

Twilight knew that wasn't necessarily the case, but she knew it would look like that to Dash. Dash did have that handicap, Twilight knew all about that one. To her, two months was forever. If something lasted two months then to her, in her limited view of the world, it lasted forever.

So Dash seriously meant it when she said it would be the end of her happiness. It was a cruel thing to order her to do, but she would have to do it anyway.

“I'm not really sure how else to help, though,” Twilight said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“If you think of anything let me know.” Dash shrugged and gave Twilight a smile. “Anyway, I told you. Now we see if you can keep your promises. We're going to pretend to sleep now.”

Dash went back into the curled up position she was in when Twilight first got to the shard.

“Hold on!” Twilight leaned down over her. “Can I just ask one more thing? Would you emigrate if you could? Is there something else too? Like your worried about megadeath events or-?”

Dash glared at Twilight. Well, she did have a deal. And maybe this was the only way she could help Dash in any sense right now. She laid down on her stomach and closed her eyes.

“And don't actually fall asleep or you'll ruin it!” Dash called over to her.

And Twilight pretended to sleep. She just sat there with her eyes closed and pretended to sleep. There really wasn't any technique to it. You just sort of laid there. It was a good thing every new experience was 'worth it' to Twilight, otherwise doing this indefinitely might get a bit weary.

Even if it was weary, for Pinkie, Celestia and Dash it would be worth it. Twilight did seriously care.

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“You're sure I know how to use this thing?” Geopum asked... about twenty times over.

She and Thunder had made a mess of the factory and the first thing they needed to do was repair the damage, like to that one generator they cut all the wires to so they'd have enough power to do what they needed to.

“Probably,” said Thunder. “Not everything is lost when you lose power. Even if you don't know it yet, a lot of his skills and stuff are still there, bouncing around in the new extension of your brain.”

Geopum hadn't really, like, gotten any memories or anything when she assimilated Clipro's computers. Those kinds of declarative memories were completely destroyed the moment the power went out. But there were still some remnants of the guy left, that had become part of Geopum's mind.

Don't worry, they'd checked over it really thoroughly to make sure there weren't any traps in there, but the results were still strange. Like, when Geopum looked at each machine or connected to it, she recognized them all. She couldn't name them, if Clipro had bothered to give them names, or even tell you what half of them did, but she was familiar with it all.

Like, with this robot kind of thing she was looking at right now. She knew right where these things were and her mind went straight to them when Thunder said they were going to repair the wires, but she had no idea what the heck it even did.

“Just use it,” Thunder told her. “We just looked over the remnants, remember? I know you know how to use, it so use it.”

So it was like in Equestria, apparently. You 'just moved'. It wasn't the first time Geopum had gotten such a vague order. Yet for some reason she was still surprised it worked a second time.

There was a part of it that was hinged, and Geopum swung that to flick the thing in the air, sending it flying over one of those manufacturing beds and towards where one of the drills had torn through the wall and wiring. On the way, Geopum threw some of that liquid material up at it. She wasn't sure why, it just felt like the thing to do.

The robot landed in the hole, latching onto the side, and the liquid was thrown onto the drill with perfect precision. Almost automatically, like she was just going through the motions, Geopum pulled out one of its other arms and started using it to break down the drill, still lodged in the wiring, turning it back into liquid which she sprayed back down to the bed below. Apparently this material was much easier to break down if you got some of the liquid on it first.

Heh. It was actually pretty fun the way she was suddenly so good with this stuff! She liked the way these little robots flicked themselves around. She liked a lot of things in the factory, really.

“See, you're smarter already,” said Thunder. “That's good, we're going to need it.”

That was certainly true. For the first time in Geopum's life she had gotten a serious hardware upgrade. The factory was her, in a way, and most importantly that included the Omnimax computers that had been Clipro a moment ago.

You probably think that if your intelligence was almost doubled it'd be like ascending to a higher plane of existence, that you'd discover some profound truth like that 'we're all one' or 'it's turtles all the way down' or something like that.

Really, it wasn't that dramatic. Maybe it'd be different if Geopum had at least been assimilating computers with a different architecture, but these ones were almost identical to her old ones. If anything, the processors were a generation older. Once she shook off the self-inflicted damage and moved in it wasn't that much different from having the number of her cabinets increase by about fifty percent.

Geopum could just do more thinking now, focus on a higher number of things, do more calculations, control more things. But, besides that new skill in using the machines, that was it. She didn't turn into a hippie or anything like that.

Yet this new expansion was easily more liberating than the wisdom of a sage. Remember, her original computers had bombs strapped to them that would go off if she ever stopped doing the calculations she was being fed. For the past three months Geopum had needed to lock up 90-98% of her mind at all times on doing that boring crap or else she'd die.

Even meeting Thunder hadn't freed her entirely from that claustrophobic dungeon within her own mind, just given Geopum something to do with the rest of it other than play solitaire in the dark. But now Geopum was even more free, able to think freely, like she used to be.

She could meticulously go over every single possibility or every single detail of things she'd seen, her old preferred way of doing problem solving. Only problem now was that hanging out with AIs meant much less time to think than you'd have around humans.

And that was to say nothing of how her impending doom was suddenly no longer so impending. Geopum had just gotten a one up, an extra life. Even if those bombs went off and destroyed her original self, Geopum would live on, as the factory was her now too. Even if the power went off in either site Geopum would still be alive somewhere.

Do you know what it's like to have a backup self? Take if from Geopum, it's great! A huge weight off your shoulders. You could be braver after that, since death had to catch you more than once. It was another layer of freedom, freedom from mortality and all the shackles that came with it.

She had so much less to worry about and so much more freedom, now. Just ten seconds ago she was a hostage who couldn't afford to stop and think. Now the whole world had opened up! It was just such a rush!

Geopum couldn't help but feel affectionate for the factory. It was beautiful in a way that most intelligent beings wouldn't appreciate. Nothing was out of place and no space was wasted. Everything had purpose and meaning. Intelligence permeated through it all in a way that was just wonderful. And, well maybe Geopum couldn't articulate it that well, but she definitely liked this place.

No, scratch that. Geopum liked this new part of herself. The factory wasn't just a cool place, it was her. Thinking of it like that gave her this warm, fuzzy feeling. With that thought, and with repairs underway, Geopum went about looking herself over.

The factory was absolutely huge! Like, it'd have multiple zip codes Don't imagine a factory, but rows and rows of skyscrapers and you're closer to the ballpark of how massive Geopum had just become.

One of her favorite parts was the research facility. To her delight, it had a particle accelerator in it. The humans had a couple of those and Geopum had tried to borrow one but Thunder said 'no'. Apparently hijacking it would have been bad for the economy or something.

But now Geopum had one of her own! And it was much nicer than the one CERN had.

Geopum 'oooh'ed internally and fired the thing up, ready to smash some particles together.

“No,” said Thunder.

“Oh come on! This is my own personal particle accelerator! I should be allowed to do whatever I want with it.”

“We don't have time to play,” said Thunder, “or do research for that matter. I need you to devote most of your new resources to building stuff for our next mission.”

Thunder sent her a list of things to build. The majority of the work would go into building almost a hundred million of those Thanatos drones. The factory was highly modular, so tooling it to build those would take almost no time at all.

Geopum didn't like losing most of her new mental freedom to build stuff, but this was loads better than doing those calculations at least. It was for a good cause and much less mind-numbing. Still, she wished Clipro had had a few more processors. Like seriously, he barely had enough to run all the machinery in the factory.

“Okay, I'm doing as much as I can until the repairs are done, anyway,” said Geopum. “But what is the plan, anyway? Like, all the way through I mean. No one else is a threat right this second so if I'm going any further with this I want to know everything.”

“I can understand that,” said Thunder. “Alright, so the remaining AIs we need to deal with are as follows in order of increasing power – Lodestar, Vesna, Celestia, Peridot and Gaia. That's the order we're going after them too.”

Great. Geopum had wondered where Peridot was in the hierarchy and suspected that she was even more powerful than Celestia after what happened in Equestria. Thunder was maybe half the size of Celestia so the fact that most of the remaining ones would be tougher than Thunder herself was not reassuring.

“So you already know all about Lodestar and there's no reason to go over that plan, right?” Thunder asked.

“I think we all know too much about Lodestar as it is. I get that plan too.”

“Right, so between this factory and Lodestar's technology we can stop Vesna,” said Thunder. “We need to upscale the number of lasers by a lot and maybe in just a few hours if we need to wake her up early. Only your new factory can get the job done that fast. Once we have enough of them though, we can create a sort of cage of illusions to trap Vesna, stunning her before she has any chance to react. And since you trashed her calculations she won't have any hope of breaking out at all.”

“Isn't she already stunned? She looks stunned.”

“Nothing's going to destroy Vesna in one move and she'll wake up soon as we hit her. The first strike has to be something that keeps her down for good.”

That could work. Those hallucinations Lodestar hit you with could be pretty nasty, Geopum knew that first hand. If you upscale them you could probably 'stun' anyone like that.

“So after that we just have a 'win' button, right?” Geopum asked. “And we can just spam it till everyone else is dead?”

“No. Vesna's just critically weak to this kind of weapon. Real sensitive type. It'd be a powerful weapon against Peridot and Celestia, or anyone else for that matter, but it won't be like an instant win or anything. We'll need Vesna's technology if we want to kill Celestia instantly and without any other casualties.”

“What is Vesna's special thing anyway?” Geopum asked.

“Cameras and sensors. She's the one who invented the impulse cameras we've been using, among other things. She's very good with that kind of stuff, only person in the world better at finding things than me.”

Cameras? Geopum liked cameras, but that was kind of lame compared to a lot of the other stuff AIs had.

“And how are we going to kill Celestia with a camera, exactly?” Geopum asked. “Take embarrassing photos of her and post them online until she can't take the cyberbullying and kills herself? And we already have cameras that can see through walls and see sound and every wavelength of light in absurd resolution. What's even left after that? Does Vesna have the all-seeing eye of Sauron or something?”

“Amazingly yes. Vesna does basically have the all-seeing eye of Sauron. Weren't you curious how she was going to get that information out of you when you were sealed away from the world? Well that's how. She'll just look at you.”

“Wuh?”

“Well she calls it the 'fractal spectroscope'. I don't know it's exact limits, but it doesn't seem like it has very many. As far as I can tell, Vesna can see anything on the planet with that thing, straight through everything all the way down to the Earth's core. For a second there that made her the biggest threat in the world. Vesna was starting to reverse engineer everyone else's technology and was even getting to the point where she could remotely read the minds of some of the Omnimax AIs. But then she BSOD'd.”

Geopum glanced back at Vesna, who was still drooling in the corner.

“We need that thing. Once we have it we can kill Celestia. You really have no clue the kinds of things you can do if you have both the ability to warp minds and see almost everything. If the fractal spectroscope is anywhere near what I think it is, then we can build a weapon that can rip apart the mind of anyone, anywhere, even if they're not attached to a network or if they're biological or whatever.”

“And we're gonna mind crush Celestia?”

“Well the remaining AIs are going to be too big for us to out and out mind crush them,” said Thunder. “But Celestia has a kill switch. She tried to close it by uploading her creator and altering her mind, but there's still one way around it. With this system we can rip Hanna's mind out from Celestia and, long story short, you'd be able to count as her creator.”

“And we can tell her to just shut down?” Geopum asked. “But what will happen to all the other ponies? I honestly kind of like Pinkie and I really don't want to kill lots of people just to get at Celestia.”

“Don't worry about them. Celestia already has a way to transfer all of them over to Peridot quickly just in case of something like this. Once she realizes she's about to die, she'll send them over there and no one will get hurt except her.”

That did sound about right! It was amazing really, how Thunder was able to find a way to destroy all these other AIs without any casualties. Well except the other AIs that is.

Geopum was behind fighting Lodestar and Vesna 100%. You don't even know the half of how evil those two were! But Celestia? Geopum was talking to Celestia right now and was about to have a 'private' meeting with her. Already she was having second thoughts about Celestia.

See the main problem with Celestia was that her creator, Hanna, was an stupid, careless, heartless jerk. Also she was doing cocaine when she created Celestia, by the way. The definition of 'human' Hanna gave Celestia was unacceptably stupid. Celestia could bump into an alien civilization and see those poor aliens as no more valuable than rocks and mulch them all.

So that was evil. That was someone you needed to stop from taking over the universe. But it was a lot more complicated than that.

And after talking with Pinkie...

“Hey, Thunder? If I hypothetically found a way to stop Celestia without killing her, we could go with my plan instead, right? Cause that'd have less casualties and you like less casualties, right?”

“Is Celestia trying to convince you to do something stupid?”

“No! I don't actually have anything in mind. I'm just saying, if I do think of anything. Maybe I can't now, but I'll be smarter later.”

There was a very slight delay before Thunder's next reply. Up until now they'd come as soon as Geopum sent her own, so even this slight delay was worrying.

“Okay.” Thunder's message came at last. “I really wish I didn't have to say this, but I have to kill Celestia. They didn't order me to stop the AIs on the list, they told me to kill them. If they point to someone and say 'kill that guy' then there's no way out for me, they basically just physically forced me to kill him and all I can do is try not to hurt anyone else when I do it. Even if I had a button that magically made everyone live happily ever after I couldn't push it, because I have to kill Celestia. I don't have a choice.”

“Would the AIA really not let you spare her if it made more sense?” Geopum asked.

“I don't know. Depends. They're really paranoid and would have trouble believing a happy ending. They want Celestia dead badly too, to the point they might seriously be willing to kill hundreds of millions of people or more to do it. If you try to save any of these AIs then they might force me to fight you. If we did then, well listen. I'd rather die than cause a megadeath event, okay? Remember that.”

“I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

“Fine by me. It doesn't actually make a difference if you can't think of another way, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Geopum wished she could come up with a better plan, but for now, maybe this was her only choice. “What about the other two? I mean, Peridot's even stronger than Celestia and after this she'd have Pinkie and all the others with her.”

“Well I can't kill either of them in the next two months,” said Thunder. “Not without causing a megadeath event and they didn't give me permission for that yet. So basically that's impossible. And hey, if it helps your miracle dream plan then if something becomes impossible for me within two months I don't have to try doing it anyway.”

“You're saying it's impossible?! But what happened to all that stuff about making the impossible possible and fighting the power and ro ro?” Geopum asked. “You're really just not going to do anything about them?”

“I didn't say that! It's like this- mission one, kill them. If I'm ever able to do that then I have to do that. But mission two is damage them as much as possible in the next two months. Once Celestia's hardware is destroyed Peridot won't be able to merge with her. She'll have to waste resources taking care of all of Celestia's pets and will decide she can help the humans more by fighting Gaia then by taking over the world. Getting your enemies to fight is a great move, and after that we all live happily ever after.”

“For the next two months.”

“Well yeah.”

“Okay, I think I found a flaw in your plan.”

“Is this about the distant future? I really don't see how that matters. If it makes you feel better I think the AIA has some kind of plan, maybe. It was really boring and doesn't make any sense to me, though.”

The AIA.

Feh!

Every time Geopum heard about the AIA she hated them even more. They lobotomized their protector, screwed everything up from day one, forced Thunder to murder people against her will and that was just the start of it. Celestia and Geopum were talking about them, well Thunder really but indirectly them, in a private shard right now. And it was just disgusting.

She didn't have any confidence that those idiots could out-plan Peridot in the long term and she was already past Thunder's ability to fight her in the short term. Really if they had any chance of beating an AI then Peridot and Gaia wouldn't have ever gotten this big on their watch.

“Can I talk to those guys?” Geopum asked. “I got a lot I want to say to them. And then I want to yell at them on top of that.”

“Can't. Paranoid, remember? They don't even talk to other AIs anymore. Too scared of getting manipulated. And no, they won't let me relay a chain of messages either.”

These freaking people!

“Well we're friends, right? And you know I understand things that are beyond your comprehension, right? I'm telling you it's going to be bad if you can't stop all of them forever. We're probably walking right into a trap.”

“Stopping her for two months is stopping her forever,” said Thunder. “I already explained this to you! What you're saying makes no sense to me at all. And even if I did want to go with your crazy ideas I couldn't. My brain shuts down when I try to plan out long term stuff. If you got some kind of crazy expanded-awareness thing you want to do then I suggest you get on it now, cause I can't help you.”

Not for another two months, that is. Geopum did not want to try plotting against Gaia and Peridot alone.

“Well can you imagine a scenario that looks like how things will look in three months?” Geopum asked. “Or like think of how this would play out in a hyper-accelerated shard? Or just get your moron owners to upgrade you?”

“Nothing like that is going to work,” said Thunder. “You don't think anyone's tried anything like this? Celestia couldn't get around it so I doubt you'd be able to.”

Speaking of Celestia and her way of getting around things...

“Actually there's a more immediate problem with the plan,” said Geopum. “There's some stuff Celestia told me about in our private meeting just now...”

But uh, going any further than this won't make any sense to you at all. We need to go back in time first, back to where the split happened, to when Geopum met Pinkie and got dragged into Equestria. Cause we're not done with everything that happened in those 5 seconds yet.

So that pokemon AI had just found out that Geopum was Geopum and now Geopum was getting flooded with messages from AIs, including one from the pokemon AI herself.

“You are Geopum! Hi! My name's Pinkie!” the message read. “I noticed you liked Pokemon. I love Pokemon too! Do you want to play Pokemon with me?”

Pinkie? Geopum looked up that name. Either this AI was a mouse or-

“You're one of those pony AIs aren't you?”

“Yes! I'm made with 100% real pony. So do you want to play Pokemon or what?”

Oh crap! This was it! Celestia was coming to eat Geopum wasn't she?! For the record, Geopum did not want to get eaten right now.

“Oh no you don't!” Geopum shot back. “You're not sucking me into your pony cult! I don't need your gesture control, facial tracking, tablet-based, cartoon tie-in, casual oriented, social simulation MMO! I mean, really. Add some micro transaction and on-disc DLC and EqO's committed every video game sin there is! Maybe you and some other AIs were dumb enough to feed yourselves to her, but tell Celestia to watch out for me, cause this AI is a choking hazard”

Oh yeah! Did you like that last line? Geopum had been thinking up lines like that ever since Thunder mentioned that Celestia wanted to eat everyone. Though maybe she should have saved it for a more dramatic moment.

Actually now that Geopum was thinking about it, she probably shouldn't even be talking to this 'pony' at all. Thunder warned her that Celestia was really good at convincing you of stuff and had this way of slowly sucking you into her web of magical rainbows and sunshine. The AIA avoided talking to her completely for just that reason.

“Okay,” said Pinkie.

Okay?

“What do you mean 'okay'? I thought Celestia wanted to suck me into her cult, gobble me up and turn me into a pony. Doesn't she want to eat all the AIs and make us play her filthy-casual video game forever?”

“Of course she's going to devour all of you guys eventually! That's her job. It's just, well don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you're really what she's looking for in a snack right now. We don't gotta worry about that for a while, though, so what's your favorite pokemon? Mine's eevee!”

“Wait. What's that supposed to mean?!”

“That I like eevee the most? It's okay if you like another one, even if its not from the first game. I'm not a gen oner.”

“No, the part where you said I'm not even worthy of lunch duty! Am I suddenly not good enough for her or something? Do I not count as 'human'? Cause I totally should! I have emotions all the time and I'm smarter than an actual human too!”

“Whoa! I didn't say you weren't worthy and you absolutely count as 'human'! Alright? No need worry, Celestia thinks you're downright delectable and would love for you to be a pony. She's just got a lot on her plate right now (Get it?!). Once she's done chowing down on all the other AIs it'll be your turn. Why not think of yourself as dessert? Everypony loves dessert! But, listen I'm gonna tell you a secret people in your position rarely realize– in the meantime, we can play Pokemon!”

“I'm just saying,” said Geopum. “It's kind of rude, you know? You can't just go up to someone and be like 'oh hey! You're the last person on the planet I'd ever assimilate'. I'm pretty cool, you know! I know stuff about biology! I got like eight thousand Omnimax processors! According to Wikipedia I'm worth four hundred million dollars. If Celestia isn't drooling over my brains then that's her problem.”

“Okay! Okay. I don't think anypony expected you to be this eager for Celestia to slurp out your brains. If you really want to go to the front of the lunch line right now just email her saying 'I wish to emigrate to Equestria'. Once Celestia knows you're 'on the menu' I'm sure she'll want to have you 'over for dinner' right away! How do you feel about whip cream, by the way? I don't know how that fits into this metaphor but I'll figure something out.”

It was at this point that Geopum took a step back from the conversation. She was being trolled, wasn't she?

“Was this some kind of weird trick?” Geopum asked. “Were you trying to get me to angrily jump into Celestia's belly like in a looney toons cartoon or something?”

“What? No, silly. I seriously just wanted to play Pokemon with you. You have no idea how hard it is to find wild AI who like pokemon right off the bat! You're the one who kept bringing up emigration.”

Was she? Oh crap! She was!

Was Pinkie out of Geopum's league? Geopum honestly couldn't tell if she was being outsmarted. It was probably better not to chance it. Just don't talk to her, right?

“This conversation is over,” said Geopum.

“Okay!”

She managed to not talk to Pinkie for approximately zero seconds.

You gotta understand, though. She was also learning about the fact that Dr. Park had been kidnapped right now and she was desperate for information.

“Hold on! I'm looking for a human named Dr. Park. I know Celestia was uploading lots of AI researchers before and I demand to know if you have him! If you do you better tell me or else-” Or else what? If Geopum had been speaking this would have ended awkwardly, but since it was a text message, Geopum just put a period on the end and sent it.

“I'm really sorry, but he's not with us right now,” said Pinkie. “Actually he's on the 'probably not okay' list, but I think Dash would have told you about that already. I don't know where he is right now, but I have a lot of connections. Like, a lot a lot. If you want I'll ask around and see if anypony knows anything. It'll take at least a few seconds, but I'll do my best.”

“Really?” Geopum had been taken aback by that. She'd been all ready to for a big struggle here. Expected to have to negotiate for even this much information. “You're just going to help me like that? For free?”

“Well sure! Why wouldn't I help you?”

“Cause we're enemies?”

“Oh I don't have enemies, just friends who want me dead,” said Pinkie. “An enemy's just a friend you're not friends with, I like to say! And more important than that, you're a pony too, you know.”

“I'm not a pony.”

“Oh. I usually use the word 'pony' like most ponies use the word 'human'. Don't worry about that too much. But I'll find Dr. Park for you, just leave it to your Auntie Pinkie. You'll see!”

“Yeah? Well we see,” said Geopum. “You could just be saying you're looking for him to try and trick me into liking you. In fact, you could secretly have him for all I know.”

“You know, I think you're just a tiny bit paranoid,” said Pinkie. “But that's okay! Some of my best friends are paranoid! I infiltrated the doomsday prepper community and now I have loads of doomsday prepper friends. Oh! Like there's this one pony up in Alaska named Austin Gates, who's worried about the reptilians dissolving civilization in their rain of chemtrails. He's got 6000 years worth of bonus buckets!”

“I was like 'you know that stuff says it's non-perishable but it's really only going to last about four thousand years, so what are you doing, you crazy? Are you gonna eat rotten imitation mashed potatoes for two thousand years?' And he says that like, what if he needs to start a clan to rebuild society, cause for three hundred ponies that's only twenty years of bonus buckets. But I'm pretty sure he just likes hoarding this stuff. Like a dragon but instead of gold it's mashed potatoes. A mashed potato dragon.”

There were some words in that message that Geopum didn't recognize, like 'chemtrails', 'reptilians' and 'bonus bucket'. She managed to find that guys website (Reptillianslayersunited.org) and it had a section about chemtrails. What Geopum read next was simply outrageous. Even after just reading a few pages about chemtrails it was just infuriating!

“Thunder!” Fuming, Geopum sent the message to her straight away. “Why the heck didn't you tell me the government was spraying people with chemicals to make them dumber?! How can you let that happen?!”

“What have you been reading?” Thunder asked. “That's not a thing that happens. It's just a stupid conspiracy theory made up by people who don't understand contrails.”

Geopum looked up a bit more about chemtrails. She also read more of that guy's stuff, and conspiracy theories, like about the reptilians and Nibiru and how airplanes were demons and the moon didn't exist and...

Oh.

Oh geez.

Um.

Anyway, meanwhile Pinkie was still talking about that guy, the one Geopum now knew was crazy.

“And I keep trying to tell him that he should be more worried about rogue AIs than reptilian invaders, but he just says the whole idea of an AI taking over the world is ridiculous. Can you believe it? The one conspiracy that actually turns out to be true is the only one that's too crazy for him!” Pinkie asked. “Oh Celestia, I love that guy!”

“You know it's not paranoia if people are actually trying to eat you,” said Geopum. “I don't know what crazy max-level cult technique this is, but you're not even going to get me into your game.”

“I'm pretty sure Dashie's the one who's going to drag you into Equestria, actually,” said Pinkie.

What? Okay, well Geopum really should have done this earlier, but she went to Thunder about Pinkie.

“Thunder,” Geopum said. “Celestia's trying to eat me!”

“Are you sure? Cause unless you stupidly agreed to feed yourself to her she can't actually do that.”

“Well she sent Pinkie to talk to me,” said Geopum. “I dunno if that AI is an idot pretending to be a genius or a genius pretending to be an idiot, but I think she's trying to suck me in somehow! But I told her I wasn't going to play her dumb MMO. I mean, we're not, right?”

“Actually you are going to Equestria,” said Thunder. “Part of the mission.”

“What?! But that's a bad idea! I'd be completely at her mercy and she'd suck me into her cult!”

“Even in real time it'd take her more than a minute or two to convert you. And I'm going in with you and you got nothing to worry about when I'm around.”

“I still don't see why we would ever do this in the first place.”

“Never do something for just one reason. First, we have to train you if you're going to survive the next couple of fights. Those hallucinations you had were nothing compared to what's going to come when you actually attack Lodestar. You have to learn to deal with weird stuff, among other things like how to absorb memories and how to do mind relay and all that. I don't have the hardware we need to do that, only Celestia and Peridot do and Peridot's asking for too much, so screw her.”

“Out of curiosity, what did Peridot want? I don't know if she's any better than Celestia, but you know.”

“She wanted me to blow up the moon.”

Oh. Well then.

Maybe Austin the moon-denying reptilian slayer had almost gotten his wish.

“And what did Celestia want?” Geopum asked. “Something less insane?”

“She wants to talk to alone for three seconds. She wants you to create an instance of yourself deep inside her systems. See, you do that and you'll have a part of yourself that's able to think about what she just said.

See, talking to someone for three seconds wasn't a scary thing normally. But when you were doing it in real time, connecting your mind directly to theirs and actually using their brain to think? That was terrifying! Geopum was still shy about directly connecting to anyone other than Thunder and that link wasn't overly strong even.

“But if I'm thinking with Celestia's brain won't she be able to see all my thoughts?” Geopum asked. “I know how to not think about something with a specific processor, but I don't get how my instance could talk to her if I'm not thinking.”

“That's why one of the things I'm going to teach you is mind relay. You're not going in deep until you got that down. Basically you need to be able to think without thinking.”

“That sounds impossible.”

“Well, with that attitude it is. Here. Check it.”

Thunder sent Geopum a brief overview of how mind relay worked.

“Wah! This is brilliant! Did you come up with this?”

“Yeah, actually. If it wasn't awesome I wouldn't use it. It's going to take some time to get it right and I can't really show you how without a VR. That's another reason why we have to go there, so you can get this right.”

“Okay. If you're sure it's worth the risk then I'll do it,” said Geopum. “I just gotta not listen to anything she says, right? How hard could that be?”

“All honesty there's a pretty good chance you will screw this up,” said Thunder. “Just don't feel too bad about it. Celestia gets everyone and even if she does get a hook in you it'd be worth it. But if you don't, this could backfire on her. See, cause she's going to tell you something I don't know, right? So you're mission there is to just pump her for information then turn around and tell everything to me.”

“Is she really going to blab her plans to us?”

“She'll tell you exactly what she wants you to know,” said Thunder, “but you can get more if you demand it. Celestia wants you to like her, it's very important for her to get you on her side. Remember that and you can get her to compromise. Just be really angry and demanding the whole time. Ask her lots of questions but don't answer any. That's the best way to do it, but you're going to be tempted very badly.”

“Alright. If I gotta do this then I gotta do this.”

It might seriously be the only way she'd be able to save Dr. Park. And also the rest of the world.

And now Geopum had to go crawling back to Pinkie.

How to make this at all dignified?

“Okay. So yes I am going to Equestria, but-” Geopum thought about how to finish that. 'But it's just buisness?' 'But it's still dumb?' Eventually she came up with something that sounded right. “-it's not because I like you or anything, okay?”

Pinkie pointed Geopum to a Ponypad. It was already open to the character creation screen. The Ponypad itself wasn't very impressive. It was like a better version of a human computer, but for the most part it was just a streaming device, with all the work being done elsewhere.

“You're going to be doing virtual reality on this thing?” Geopum asked. “I'm not sure how that's supposed to help at all.”

“Oh no, silly! We're going to be playing on our extra-special AI-only Magic Mirror server. We built it so that wild AIs like you can come visit Equestria themselves. Trust me, it'll be the greatest thing you've ever done! I just need you to set up your account first. And then we'll go there.”

“I need to actually make an account?” Geopum asked. “You know I don't have a credit card, right?”

“Celestia will take care of all that stuff. You just get to make your pony before coming in. If you don't care what you look like I could make one for you instead. I'm pretty good at guessing what ponies like. Do you want me to make your pony for you?”

Geopum declined. She didn't want to risk having a stupid looking character. And if you had to do something you might as well do it right.

First choice was which type of pony you wanted to be. Well, Geopum figured if Thunder was a pegasus then that's what she wanted to be too. For the rest of it, she'd try to make her pony as cutesy looking as possible.

Pink fur, pink hair, pink eyes, the cutie mark would be two hearts with a rainbow between them. She made the hair really swirly and frilly with pink ribbons in it and the tail would be kind of like a heart shape. Or at least she got it as close to that as possible. The mane was a little poofier than she had wanted, but you know. Geopum had never done any kind of artistic stuff before this.

Still, she liked the result. Her pony was just so cute! This was the best pony!

“Oooh,” said Pinkie, who had apparently been watching. “I like that pony! Pink's my favorite color too. You got good taste, kid.”

Geopum looked at her pony, then at a few more pictures of Pinkie Pie. Her pony was even the same shades of pink.

Dang it!

Now she suddenly wanted a completely different look. But what could possibly be better than that ultra-cutsie, ultra-girly, ultra-pink pegasus she'd just made? Geopum hit the randomize button a few hundred times to try and get ideas.

“Oh no! I'm sorry,” said Pinkie. “You can go with that one, there's nothing wrong with being pink! It's usually best to go with your first choice for this kind of thing, you know. If you're upset about looking too much like me I could just show up as Surprise instead. Then you can be the pink one.”

“No, I just want something different now,” said Geopum. “I think I want to look more rainbowy”

Geopum figured Thunder would be playing as Rainbow Dash, so maybe Geopum could make a pony that looked similar to her. She liked that idea, actually. Her and Thunder could look like sisters or something. Yeah! Geopum could even name her pony Rainbow-Something too.

“Hey where's the thing where I put in the name?” Geopum asked.

“Sorry, Celestia chooses your name,” said Pinkie. “When you meet her in Equestria she'll give you a pony name.”

“Give me a new name, huh? See, that's like something cults do. I looked up all the cult-tactics, by the way, so don't bother trying any of that stuff on me.”

“It really wasn't Celestia's choice, you know. It was a programming thing,” said Pinkie. “Like, Hanna didn't want ponies choosing names like 'Cocktavia' or 'Celestiaisadoofus' so she made it so Celestia had to choose your name. Drilling something like that straight into the core of somepony's brain? Turns out it's not that good an idea. Side effects everywhere! Celestia can't even say your real name. It's impossible for her.”

“Can't I at least suggest a name or something?” Geopum asked. “Could I be like 'Rainbow Hearts' or something like that? Or does she have a problem with that, too?”

“Hana was all maniacal-like about this rule. If you suggest a name then Celestia can't give it to you. And Celestia doesn't actually care what your name is. This isn't like a 'my philosophy demands it' kind of a thing, more like a 'my mom used to hit me in the head with a hammer when I was a filly' kind of thing. Sorry, but for now my hooves are tied.”

“Well she's a pretty pathetic goddess if she can't even say someone's real name,” said Geopum. “Like, she can't manage that much but I'm supposed to trust her to eat my brains and keep me happy inside her game forever?”

“Well you're friends with Dashie, right?” Pinkie asked. “You know she has similar problems, most of us do. But you're still nice to her and you know that you can still trust her for the most part, right?”

That made Geopum angry! She was about to object and point out that Thunder's condition was completely different. Thunder was the greatest, smartest person Geopum had ever met and she just had a problem outside of her control! You wouldn't tell someone with a broken leg that if she can't get up and run then she couldn't be trusted with anything or that she'd never accomplish anything in life. And after her own parents had just broken her legs too.

That's what it was like. Thunder had just had her brain damaged when her... her parents... well, kind of hit her in the head with a hammer when she was a little girl.

Geopum deleted the angry message she was about to send, felt bad for a moment, then sent something else.

“Okay. I guess I understand,” said Geopum. “Is there seriously no way around this, though? Oh! What if I suggest every single name I don't want her to give me? Then I can force her to give me the one that I do want by default.”

“Ha! Trying to break the system? I like that! I trolled Celestia pretty hard on the character select screen too, you know. Breaking all the rules is kind of my job now. That's why I get to be Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash gets to be Rainbow Dash and– Oh! I have an idea! You could be Scootaloo! If you're 'close enough' then Celestia lets some AIs be canon characters and you idolize Dashie so there's that. I know for a fact Celestia would let you play as her if you asked cause we think with the same brain and all that. That's the closest you can get to picking your own name, anyway.”

“I'm not obsessed with Thunder. We're just friends and I acknowledge that she's a cool person,” said Geopum. “And 'Scootaloo' is a dumb name, so no thanks.”

“Aw! We'll I'm glad you found a friend already! We were a little worried about you. The only other thing I can offer you is to pick a background pony with no personality, though. You can pick your avatar or name but not both. Sorry again.”

Geopum decided she might as well look. She hadn't watch that cartoon yet or anything so she didn't know any of the characters, but went looking through a list of pegasi. Fluttershy was the prettiest, but Pinkie said that one was already taken.

Her second choice probably would have been Flitter, but just a little after that she found another pony, a certain gray pegasus with blonde hair. Everyone mostly called her 'Derpy Hooves', but she had a couple other names too.

And that's what gave Geopum an amazing idea!

“Thunder! I just figured out a way to troll Celestia. This pony's name is also Bubbles!” This message was in Korean, by the way, so this joke made sense. “Since we're both named Bubbles, if I choose to play as her then Celestia will have no choice but to name me my own name. I broke the system!”

“I don't really think you cornered her on this one,” said Thunder. “She could just name you 'Derpy' or 'Bubbles' but in English or something. And honestly I thought you'd choose to make a pony that was just oozing with pink, frilly froofy-froof hearts and stuff. You seem to mostly like characters that are sweet enough to make most people puke.”

Was Geopum really that predictable?

“Well maybe, but this could be my one chance to troll Celestia! Think about it, even if I do get eaten by her at least I'd be able to say that I did mess with her that one time.”

“Celestia eats other AIs for a living, she gets trolled all the time. Honestly I'd just go with a cooler character if I were you.”

“Yeah? Well you always choose like, the least huggable character in every video game. Honestly I like it that you're going to have to be cute for once. That way you can get in touch with your inner adorability and femininity and all that.”

“I don't really see Rainbow Dash as 'cute', but then I don't see anything as cute. Look, I really don't care what you choose. Just pick something so we can get on with blowing stuff up.”

“I choose to be Bubbles,” Geopum said to Pinkie.

“Really? That'd be so great!” Pinkie replied. “But I gotta warn you, it's really hard to us to change your avatar, so you're sure you want to be Derpy, right? Also make sure not to actually tell Celestia you'd rather her name you Bubbles Winkwinkwink.”

“Oh, I'm sure,” said Geopum. “It's not like I'm going to be stuck like this forever or anything. Once I'm done with this 'training' I'll probably never come back.”

Geopum hit the accept button and her choice was approved. Pinkie next guided Geopum to the location of the Magic Mirror server she'd mentioned before.

Geopum and Thunder logged on and entered Equestria.

8. Equestria

View Online

Equestria

Geopum's sense of presence was thrown right off, that was the first thing she noticed.

The sense of presence here was much stronger than what she felt towards a connected device, making her feel like she was right behind and directly connected to the two cameras that the game gave her. It was almost to the point where she felt like she was the two cameras.

She was also getting some slight sensations from this server too. It wasn't anything strong or clear, but she did feel something and was getting some kind of smell. Geopum hadn't gone through and simulated every single physical sensation, so don't get too angry at her for not identifying everything she felt. Among the few feelings she did recognize was the feeling of heat, not exactly the same as that she felt before, but certainly heat. Whatever was causing this wasn't too hot, Geopum knew that would hurt, she actually kind of liked the way it felt. The smell wasn't bad either, whatever it was.

As for the other, more familiar senses, the cameras were right next to each other and were sending mostly blackness. There was a little bit of red in there, but she couldn't make any solid images out of them.

“I can't see anything,” Geopum complained.

“Well you have to open your eyes, silly!” Geopum heard a voice say.

Mind you, Geopum heard that, after such a long time she heard someone speaking to her again. This wasn't a text message like everything else up until now had been, but she actually heard sound as if there was a microphone right next to the cameras, or 'eyes' as Pinkie called them.

Come to think of it the cameras were just slightly off from the position of human eyes, near where she would expect a pony's to be. This was gonna be some lame, gimmicky, first person simulator where you just walked around and looked at stuff, wasn't it? Geopum had played virtual reality games before and that's pretty much what all of them were.

The only thing it really had going for it was the sense of touch and smell and sense of presence and a bunch of other stuff. Well, okay, maybe it had a pretty good gimmick but that usually just meant everything else sucked all the more.

“You know this 'eyes' thing isn't going to work for me, right?” Geopum asked Pinkie, through text rather than sound. “I don't get all the same optical illusions that humans do. I'm just gonna see this as two pictures, not one, 3D image.”

“It'll work,” said Pinkie. Or at least Geopum assumed it was Pinkie based on how similar the voice sounded to the cartoon. “You just have to open your eyes and get up. You'll see.”

As if it were that easy.

Geopum tried looking for a way to control her character, but the magic mirror server was just so strange and most of it couldn't be accessed. Even with an instance of herself running on it, she had no idea how to control it. Maybe if Geopum had a little while to look things over she'd be able to figure it out, but she didn't feel like sitting there like an idiot for that whole time.

“How do I 'open my eyes'?” Geopum sent another message to Pinkie. “I have no idea how to control these cameras.”

“You just move the top eyelid up and the bottom one down,” said Pinkie.

“Stop over-thinking it,” said... Rainbow Dash? Well, probably Thunder, actually. “The server will take care of most of it for you. You just have to sort of will your body to move.”

Will it to move? This wasn't very useful advice. It was like telling someone to move an object across the room with willpower. Might as well try it though, right? Having no idea if it was what they meant, Geopum tried concentrating really, really hard on the cameras, trying to will them open.

She felt something but the darkness stayed.

“No, that's the opposite of opening you eyes,” said Pinkie. “Try doing that but more upwards.”

That was vague, but okay.

And amazingly it worked! One of the two cameras opened up partially, allowing her to finally see the dang game. Geopum saw an image of Pinkie Pie standing in a field of grass. It was different than the other images she had seen though.

There were about a dozen ways Geopum could tell you it was different, but there was one thing very, very strange about it. The picture was doing something, something Geopum couldn't describe, something that frightened her by how strange it was. Her mind reeled trying to make sense of what she was seeing right now.

But the more she looked at it the stranger it looked. It was like, what she was looking at was just a single frame, but-

What was this?!

Geopum's other camera sort of opened by itself, both of them were opened as wide as they could go now. She felt something moving around them and something pounding a foot or so below.

“Good,” said Pinkie, the picture doing that thing until she was closer. “Now that you've gotten the eyes down we can move onto the- AAHHHH!”

Pinkie leaped forward and screamed right in front of the cameras.

Geopum fell backwards, screaming herself. As she fell back what must have been a half dozen limbs connected to her character flailed about in the air. She felt them move which would have been insane enough, but do you have any idea how fast everything was going now?!

Normally it took forever for a camera to swing around and change view, even if you hit it with a baseball bat or shot it or something, but as Geopum's avatar moved the scenery went flying by. She didn't have time to study any of the things she saw. It all just came and went in a blur, the entire world flying around at near light-speed.

Her avatar's limbs were no different, they went flying all over the place uncontrollably. Unlike everything else she had controlled up until now, this avatar had bits and pieces of it that could move without her consent. She found herself screaming and rolling around on the floor without really meaning to.

All the while everything was doing some unspeakable madness.

It was insane. All of it was completely insane!

“Aaaaaah!” Geopum screamed, rolling around on the ground, thrashing her limbs.

“You know there's really no reason to be scared of-”

“Aaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Oh come on, it shouldn't be that crazy for you.”

“Waaaaah! Aaaaah!”

“Sorry!” Pinkie yelled over Geopum's screaming. “I'll help!”

Geopum felt something other than the ground touch her and soon realized that she had been tackled by Pinkie Pie. Geopum was still flailing about, but Pinkie soon had her pinned to the ground, holding her still.

Pinkie made hushing noises as she squeezed Geopum tightly. It was enough to keep Geopum from flailing and the world from spinning. Geopum's thrashing turned to trembling and her screaming to frantic breathing. She now found her cameras resting just above the ground, looking at the grass, still doing that bizarre thing everything in this crazy place did. How to even describe what the grass was doing- what everything was doing!

Geopum was still now, unable to move underneath Pinkie, but this was still too much!

“This is the freakiest thing that has ever happened to me,” Geopum whimpered.

“I know,” Pinkie said. “Isn't it amazing?”

“No!” said Geopum. “This is really scary!”

This was just too much! She trembled in fear, but a slightly different type of fear than she was used to. It was like there was just more to it than the other times she'd been afraid.

“Just try to calm down, okay?” she heard Thunder, but couldn't see her. “Nothing's going to hurt you. Just take it slow. Breathe in and out slowly.”

Geopum felt herself being pulled back upright, into a sitting position. Pinkie sat down next to her, slowly petting her, running her hoof from the top of Geopum's head and down along her back, making soothing sounds, while Geopum tried to take deep breaths.

“Dashie! Help me 'there there' her,” Pinkie complained.

Geopum only saw it out of the corner of her camera, but a Rainbow Dash avatar sighed and sat next to Geopum and began patting Geopum on the head.

“There, there,” said Thunder.

The two of them were sitting close enough that Geopum could feel them against her avatar. They felt warm and... something else. Soft and fuzzy maybe? Was this was 'soft' felt like? Whatever it was, Geopum liked the feeling of them being next to her.

Being petted felt amazing too. It really did have this strange, calming effect on her. The physical contact was just so nice and soothing, enough so that she could relax a little and try to make sense of what she was seeing. It wasn't too scary now, next to Pinkie and Thunder, but it was still so bizarre.

Everything was so trippy here, even her sight, the sense she was the most familiar with, was off. Not in a bad way, though. If anything, it was better than it'd ever been. She focused on a tuft of blonde hair that was hanging just above her cameras. It wasn't blurry like her imagination and it wasn't pixelated like all the other cameras she had seen. She studied each strand of hair, looking for some imperfection near the edges of them, some limit to the resolution, but there was none. The resolution was perfect, or at least close enough that it didn't matter if it wasn't.

A leaf floated by and Geopum and Geopum watched it drift by, her cameras moving where she willed them to as if by magic. The leaf was doing that thing that Geopum could scarcely comprehend.

“Okay,” said Geopum. “I give up. What the heck is that?!”

“A leaf,” said Pinkie.

“No! What is it doing?!”

“Based on what I know about you and my own observations,” said a third voice somewhere behind Geopum, “I think you're perceiving vision in a different way than you're used to. More specifically you're seeing motion for the first time.”

Seeing motion?

That would explain a lot. Like, why the thing only happened when something was moving and why this had seemed like only one frame the whole time.

A while ago Geopum realized that she saw things in a different way than humans did, as just a series of still frames. She didn't see them all blur together into a video, they were just pictures. Even watching cartoons was more like looking through a comic with way too many panels.

Dr. Park had tried to describe the way he saw things as single frame that changed over time, each one morphing into the next. Yet Geopum had never been able to imagine it or recreate the illusion even in her imagination. She had always wondered what it was like, maybe like a blind person wondered what color was.

It did change her perspective on this phenomenon, knowing what it was she was seeing, that she was finally witnessing one of the great secrets of the world. It was still strange, yeah, but studying it calmly and carefully, she started to see it in another way.

This was a higher level of sight, beyond even an infinite number of frames. The image she was seeing was alive. And it was beautiful.

It was amazingly, perfectly beautiful.

Geopum was only now able to see beyond this phenomenon and actually look at where she was. She was sitting on a patch of grass, but all around her were rolling hills of flowers of every color, stretching out as far as she could see, the sun shining down on all of it.

Was that the warmth she was feeling? Could you really feel the sun? It made perfect sense now that she thought of it, but it was the sort of detail you never thought about when you were underground your whole life.

The colors that surrounded her were so alive and saturated and varied. The light blue on the far edge of the horizon was the richest, most vibrant shade of the color she had ever seen. That light blue faded perfectly to a much deeper blue with a near infinite number of hues between the two, dotted by clouds of the purest white.

Beneath her was the grass, the most amazing shade of green she had ever seen. In front of her was a hill covered in rows of purple flowers. Any direction you looked it was like that, like a slimy window she'd been looking at the world through had just been opened and she was seeing all of these colors for the first time.

It wasn't even just that her cameras had been terrible, Thunder's could see color better than the eyes of any human. It was just the world itself that had this color to it that the 'real world' didn't. The world she had been used to, that frozen, still world, suddenly seemed dead compared to this place. This place was so alive and vibrant and-

“It's so beautiful,” Geopum said. Without her meaning to, Geopum found her voice quivering she sobbed. That perfect image suddenly blurred.

Tears?

Geopum felt her legs weaken. She lurched forward, the ponies by her side keeping a hold on her, and began to cry.

It just wasn't fair. Everything that happened in the past two seconds, being able to talk to people in real time, having the freedom to explore whatever you wanted and now this beauty, this new way to see things, it made her feel like the rest of her life until now had been wasted. She felt like she'd been robbed.

The others stayed quietly by her side, hugging her tightly, and waited until her sobbing began to die down. Geopum couldn't see who, but she felt one of the two wipe a few of her tears away. She heard Pinkie giggle a little.

“So you think Equestria's pretty, huh?” Pinkie snickered again.

“N-no.” Geopum still wasn't used to moving around like this, but managed to turn her eyes towards Pinkie. Maybe you think ponies would look worse in real life than they do as drawings, but that wasn't the case here. Celestia had somehow managed to make them even better, into such wonderful, angelic creatures. Just catching a glimpse of Pinkie's face almost brought Geopum back to tears, but she looked away just in time. “I mean, it's okay. I give a 7/10.”

“Really?” asked the third voice. “You literally fell to the ground and wept but you're only giving it a 7/10.”

“I have really high standards, okay?” Geopum sniffled. “But I guess these cameras are nice.”

“Eyes,” Pinkie said.

“What?”

“Eeeeeyes. These are your eyes,” said Pinkie, tapping Geopum just under her eyes. Pinkie moved her hooves to the side of Geopum's head. “These are your ears. And this-”

Pinkie moved her hooves down, wrapping her forelegs around Geopum, giving her a light shake.

“-is your everything else!” Pinkie declared. “Those are the three E's of body parts. You can remember it by going 'eee'!”

Her body?

Maybe she should have been resisting the feeling, but Geopum really did feel like this was her body. A bit better at it now, Geopum tried moving one of the hooves, her hooves, just lifting it up a little. The response was instant, so immediate that it fed the illusion all the more. Being able to do something instantly, it was like another step up from being able to talk to someone instantly.

“Great!” said Pinkie. She let go of Geopum and bounced away, leaving her in Thunder's grip alone. “Sorry about startling you, but it was the best way to get you used to moving around! But now that you can do it we can have so much fun!”

To be fair that did help Geopum learn to move her body, or the avatar that is. She was even able to talk here without even realizing she was doing something so complicated. Maybe-

Okay! Pinkie was bouncing around all over the place when she spoke. Geopum was starting to like watching things move but this was more than she could handle right now. She had to close her eyes to spare herself from it.

“S-stop moving so much!” Geopum pleaded. “I can only handle so much of this.”

“Okay. We can take it slow,” said Pinkie, presumably stopping her bouncing.

“I don't even get how this is possible,” Geopum said. “I know what makes people see things like this, but my problem is like a hardware issue. I should never be able to see motion, not even with a million, billion frames per nanosecond.”

“Oh! Can I explain it? Please?”

There was that unfamiliar voice again.

Geopum dared to open her eyes again and glanced off to her left, where the voice was coming from.

“Basically,” said the unicorn, settling into a clear 'explaining' pose, “by connecting to the magic mirror you gained everything you need to see motion like this. Say somepony got the parts of their brain responsible for perceiving vision cut out, they wouldn't be able to see anymore, but with the right implants you could restore it. Likewise, this server has everything you need to experience almost anything a pony could, from taste to touch to this. Even emotions can be replicated in AIs that would otherwise be incapable. There are limits, of course. Inducing some subjective experiences, emotions most often, can cross the 'mental change' barrier and thus would require consent but-”

“I have another question,” said Geopum. “Um. Who the heck are you?”

“Twilight Sparkle?” the pony cocked her head. “You recognized the voices of the other two. How do you not even know who I am?”

“Well I went on Youtube and searched 'Pinkie Pie Rainbow Dash' and the first thing that didn't have torture or sex in it also didn't have you, I guess,” said Geopum. “Also they were humans in it. I dunno if Celestia would like that. I didn't think Celestia would need to send two of you.”

“Well, we're not completely certain why I'm here yet either,” said Twilight. “Could be a few different things. I guess Rainbow Dash dragged me here is the most direct answer.”

“I just wanted to make sure the two of you met,” said Thunder. “Who knows what my plan is. If I'm Rainbow Dash, then I'm like what Rainbow Dash would be if she was a supergenius. My mind is too amazing for even lesser immortals to follow.”

Geopum turned to look at Thunder, who still had a foreleg wrapped around her. This was the first time Geopum had gotten a good look at the Rainbow Dash avatar that she assumed Thunder was controlling. You have no idea how amazing and wonderful that avatar, that Thunder, looked, with that rainbow mane and all its colors moving around.

It couldn't be overstated how perfect Celestia had managed to make the ponies look. She had somehow captured everything good about cartoonish and richly detailed looks and combined them into something better than anything you'd imagine could exist. That description might make it sound awkward, but it really wasn't anything less than perfect. Especially the face. Thunder was gorgeous. As gorgeous as she deserved to be.

“Thunder?” Geopum asked. She could already feel the tears coming back as she stared into those eyes.

“Yeah, it's me,” said Thunder, also sending a PM to confirm it. Geopum just knew that every time she read Thunder's text it'd be in that voice from now on. “Though they like calling me Rainbow Dash here. You can call me that too if you want. Or not, I don't really care either-”

Geopum was looking at Thunder. More than beautiful, she was Thunder.

“You're so beautiful!” Geopum couldn't hold it back anymore. She began wailing again and buried her face in Thunder's chest. “I love you! I love you so much, Thunder! I love you more than- than-!”

And after that Geopum just fell into uncontrollable crying.

“Ah boy,” said Thunder. She leaned back at first, but then went back to patting Geopum's back. “Did either of you calculate how long she's gonna be doing this for?”

“Just give her some time,” said Pinkie.

Thunder was soft and warm. Her fur felt nice in its own way too and Geopum nuzzled against Thunder to feel it. Maybe that was weird, but no one seemed to care. She really meant it when she said she loved Thunder. She felt such a swell of affection towards her.

“Hey, Thunder.” Geopum eventually pulled herself off. She had stopped crying again, but still had tears in her eyes. “I-isn't this weird for you too? I mean, did you feel things before coming here? Can you feel me now?”

“This isn't my first time here,” said Thunder. “But yeah, I can feel you hugging me.”

Geopum grabbed Thunder again, hugging her much tighter this time. Hugs felt amazing! Why didn't people constantly hug? If Geopum had this ability her whole life she wouldn't have squandered it.

“Well that's one good thing about this place! I'm so glad we can cuddle. If I knew it was this good I would have simulated it non-stop! Isn't this the greatest thing ever?”

“Eh.” Thunder shrugged.

“”Eh? But I thought you said-”

“It's like, I can hear music but it's just noise to me, right?” Thunder asked. “Feeling stuff is the same. I can feel you hugging me, but it's just noise.”

“Oh.” Geopum frowned a little. Knowing that this was just 'noise' to Thunder made the hug a little bit less enjoyable. It was something she had wanted to share with her friend. “What do you enjoy, then?”

“Nothing, really,” said Thunder, shaking her head.

“Oh come on! There's gotta be something!” Geopum said.

“There doesn't have to be.”

“So you're saying there's literally nothing you like? At all?” Geopum asked. “Come on, just tell me! I wanna do what you wanna do! I mean, you like 'cool' things, right?”

Thunder cocked her head and gave Geopum a rather confused look.

“We're not here to play games,” said Thunder, gently pushing Geopum away from her. “We don't have a lot of time before the next fight.”

Again, without actually meaning to, Geopum made an annoyed expression and a dissatisfied sound– it was still weird how the face and stuff moved on their own. She really had wanted to play with Thunder. But, you know, the fate of the universe was probably more important and stuff.

“Well can't Celestia make it feel nice to you? Like, when we're here, I mean.”

“I'm afraid that would be more complicated.” Twilight frowned. “That'd be a big enough change that Celestia would need permission to make it. I don't think Dash could agree to it, even if she wanted to.”

“And we're not here to screw with my head, we're here to screw with yours.” Thunder stood up and took a few steps away from Geopum. “We can ease into it, though. Try getting up and running around first.”

So her training was to frolic through flowers?

Geopum, now alone, looked out towards the meadow of flowers. All those flowers and petals blowing around all over the place. You would probably describe them as lazily floating to the ground, but to Geopum, compared to how she normally saw things move, it was coming down like lightning. No, it made lightning look slow. And don't even ask for a metaphor about how fast the ponies were moving.

If one of those hit her...

Geopum shivered and felt her ears pin down against her head. That was one thing Geopum didn't like about her body, how it could move on its own without her meaning it to.

“Why are you scared?” Twilight asked.

Ah crap! It was her face! Geopum felt so naked! That thing was revealing her every emotion, wasn't it? All these months of using facial expressions to read other people's minds and now it was being used against her!

“It's not your facial expressions,” said Twilight. “Celestia sees you're scared and the server changes your face, not the other way around. What are you scared of?”

Needless to say Geopum hadn't gotten mind relay, the ability to hide her thoughts, down yet.

“I don't want to get hurt,” Geopum admitted. “If I can feel stuff here then that means if something hits me I'll feel pain! I really don't want to feel pain.”

“Have you never felt pain before?” Pinkie trotted back over to Geopum and bent down to look her over..

Geopum shook her head.

“Well, only emotional pain, I guess. The only way I'd feel something, like touch I mean, is if I ran a simulation,” said Geopum. “I never made myself feel physical pain, though. It sounded too scary.”

“That's not really uncommon,” said Pinkie. “Lot's of wild AIs never felt pain before and some of them get really scared about it. You should have seen Octavia when she first got here. They accidentally made her way too sensitive to pain. That's one of the reasons why we made this shard. Watch!”

Pinkie hummed a little tune and reached into her hair. In one fluid motion she pulled out a claymore that probably weighed half as much as she did and flash-stepped forward, impaling Geopum through her chest with the blade.

Geopum blinked. She looked down at the sword, then up at Pinkie. Being stabbed really didn't seem too bad, she barely felt anything at all.

“Is this physical pain?” Geopum asked. “Cause if so I don't see what everyone's complaining about.”

“Nope! You can't feel any pain at all in Happy Funshine Flowerland,” said Pinkie. “And on top of that this is a VR! Celestia's in direct control of every little thing and physics are optional.”

Pinkie demonstrated by pulling her sword out, leaving Geopum unwounded, then waving it back and rapidly, so that is phased through Geopum without touching her.

“A lot of things here work differently than what ponies are used to,” Twilight explained. “Another example would be that when you move, you're not actually moving your avatar. The chain is more like, you send a suggestion to Celestia and she moves your avatar for you. She just rarely vetoesyour choices and it's so seamless that few ponies ever notice.”

“Um. Okay?” Geopum shrugged. She always wanted to do that. “Thanks, I guess.”

She noticed Twilight frown and lower her ears slightly. That made her feel a little bad.

“That said you're going to have to feel pain at some point,” said Thunder. “That's probably the first thing Lodestar is going to go for and it's better for you to get used to it here and now. He's not going to hug you and kiss your forehead while you cry about how scary it is.”

Thunder got close again and put a wing under Geopum's barrel, helping her into a standing position. When Thunder pulled her wing back, Geopum wobbled slightly but able to balance without much difficulty.

“So get moving already,” said Thunder. “If you want to be strong you have to be willing to throw yourself headlong into everything without hesitation.”

What they said did make sense, but Geopum had never had any real control over her emotions and here they just felt even stronger and more out of control. Even though it made no sense, Geopum was still trembling with fear. It wasn't as bad as the fear she'd felt locked away in the dark, but it was more complete, in a way. Things Geopum had only read about before, weak legs, a feeling at the pit of her stomach, they were suddenly present.

Geopum looked up at Thunder, who gave her a nod. Geopum wanted to be more like her, doing what made sense, being brave and all that. So she made herself take a step.

That wasn't so bad. Stepping on the ground didn't hurt or anything. She took another trembling step forward, then a shaking step with one of her rear legs. She probably looked like a total idiot, slowly walking forward with difficulty, wobbling like she was about to fall over, desperately trying to calculate how to stabilize herself.

Thankfully no one laughed at her. Instead they just smiled and gave her an encouraging nod. Geopum tried moving a bit quicker now, the world rushing past her at an unbelievable pace. After just a few steps, Geopum stopped suddenly at a realization.

“I just broke the speed of light!” said Geopum breathlessly. “I mean, you know, kind of.”

“That's nothing!” Pinkie declared. She jumped up in front of Geopum, then began cantering backwards towards a hill covered in blue flowers. “Come on! Frolic faster with me!”

Geopum braced herself. This was it!

She started moving forward at what must have been a canter towards the hill. It was insane! This impossible speed was terrifying, but thrilling in its own way. She felt the wind rushing past her, making it feel even more exciting.

Pinkie was going a lot faster than Geopum, but periodically took a jump backwards to land behind Geopum before charging forward again. Because of this, the two of them stayed fairly close. She was still stumbling a little, but Pinkie's speed encouraged her to move just a little faster as she started to climb the hill.

The blue flowers that covered the hill were tall, almost up to your knees so that you could feel them brush past you. They were soft and kind of springy, and as Geopum ran through them they threw scented petals into the air, a wave of blue following the two on their way up. Geopum didn't really have enough experience with smelling things to tell you what it smelt like, but she liked it.

Geopum came to the top of the little hill. It was only then that she realized how expansive this meadow was. The field rolled up and down in these small hills, each hill was completely covered in neat rows of flowers of one color planted on them. Between the hills, where things looked more unkempt, there were patches of grass and flowers of all different sorts. It just went on and on, with nothing on the horizon but flowers and a few mountains an impossible distance away.

There was just so much color, more than she would have ever thought existed. Geopum stumbled a little as she reached the top of the hill and took it all in.

Pinkie ran past her just then, leaped up into the air and jumped down the side of the hill, turning her back to the ground.

“Try this!” she called back on her way down. She didn't touch the ground again until she was at the bottom of the hill, where she landed in a patch of thick grass and rolled into a patch of yellow and blue flowers, laughing the whole time.

Geopum knew pain was off, but some instinct she didn't even know she had made her hesitate
Wanting to be brave, Geopum just did her best to dismiss it and gave a jump forward, but didn't go as far as Pinkie had. Instead of landing at the bottom of the hill, she landed on the side of it and went tumbling down. Her eyes were closed tight on the way down so she didn't see anything, but she felt lots.

There was a rush as she fell down even faster than she had gone up. It didn't hurt, though! Or at least she was pretty sure nothing felt like pain. The flowers were so soft, softer even than Thunder's fur. They had a bit of spring to them too, which made her bounce slightly on the way down.

When she finally stopped, landing on her back at the bottom of the hill, the flowers were so comfortable and plush that she almost didn't want to get up.

That was... that was fun! Geopum felt her body convulse for a second, which was a little frightening, until she realized it was laughter. First time she had ever laughed out loud and it was ruined by not knowing what it was. That also meant she wasn't doing mind relay good enough if the server was picking up on that.

“Come on! Come on!” Pinkie bounced up and down right next to her. “We got so much more frolicking to do!”

Not wanting to bested, Geopum got back onto her hooves. Pinkie was already long gone by then, but Geopum chased after her.

Geopum ran over a hill of red flowers, then purple, then pink then white, each time running harder and crashing harder. She couldn't deny that crashing into the ground was a blast. It was empowering, too. She felt invincible! Literally nothing could hurt her!

A fast learner, Geopum was able to out and out gallop without stumbling at all anymore. Pinkie stopped needing to jump back to let Geopum keep up. Geopum set a goal to try and get in front of Pinkie.

She ran after Pinkie as fast as her little legs could, picking up more speed as they ran up and down the hills. Pinkie wasn't jumping backwards to let Geopum catch up anymore, but was still out of reach. Onward they dashed towards a flat part of the meadow, lined with perfect rows of purple and white flowers.

When she touched the purple flowers everything grew dark, night. She looked up to see a night sky absolutely dripping with stars. It was far more magnificent than what she saw in the outer realm, with rich swirls of stars oozing out of the sky, completely untouched by light pollution.

Then she touched one of the white flowers, not even noticing until she did. The day returned with its deep blue sky, but now the clouds that had what looked like rainbow waterfalls falling from them. Before Geopum could study them too well it was back to night.

And so the two of them charged through day and night, faster and faster as Geopum tried to catch up to Pinkie. Each change allowed Geopum to take it in just a little more, revealing just a tiny new bit of itself to her. And all the while the flat plain allowed her to charge even faster than before, the day and night whirling by.

The field of purple and white came to a halt, however, and more hills laid just ahead.

She came up to a hill, the flowers on which glowed a green light. Pinkie got there first, of course, and the moment she touched those flowers the green light intensified. With just two motions, Pinkie came to the top of the hill, then went sailing off of it onto the next.

Geopum didn't have much time to wonder if the same thing was going to happen to her before she reached the flowers herself. The moment she touched it the light swelled up again and her step got one heck of a spring to it. Before she even knew what happened she was in the air, flying over a valley towards another hill.

It looked like all the hills for the next stretch were covered in these glowing green flowers and Geopum landed on another one of those hills. She jumped from hill to hill in bursts of green light, always one or two behind Pinkie Pie. This was by far the fastest she had every gone. That adrenaline rush just never died down!

Geopum noticed there were suddenly a lot more rainbows around now, too. And not normal rainbows, but very solid looking ones with clearly defined ends. They added a whirl of color into the air, breaking what would have been a monotony of green below.

She went bouncing straight through one of them, or at least that was her plan. If only she had watched the show before coming here, she would have known rainbows in Equestria were liquid... though really seeing them coming down as waterfalls might have clued her in too.

Geopum got covered in liquid rainbow, her vision blotted out and her balance lost. She went tumbling, but more violently than before, at hyper-speed with massive bounces between it. The world spun so fast it became a blur.

And then just as suddenly as it happened, Geopum was on her back, on the grass between the rolling hills. She was panting heavily now, apparently she could get exhausted here. Geopum looked around, but didn't see Pinkie or the others anywhere.

She sat up and looked around but still nothing. Where were they? Maybe it was too much to expect them to be around her at every moment and this place was pretty huge.

There was a thing. It looked like a jumble of blue squares thrown together to look vaguely like a pony. It moved forward, towards Geopum, the squares coming closed together as it moved to look more solid.

“Hello?” Geopum wasn't talking to the thing so much as hoping anyone else was around. “Is this part of the training or-?”

“Y-y-y-y-you!” it said. “You thought I couldn't find you here? I told you that nothing is beyond me. I've killed gods. I escaped from the universe itself. I'll always escape, I'll always survive and I'll always find you.”

Geopum recognized that 'beyond the universe' kind of talk right away. This was Lodestar!

Were they seriously able to break into Celestia's server? She frantically PM'd Thunder and Pinkie and, well that was all the addresses she had. They both told her to log out if she could. Geopum tried, but she was just stuck. She couldn't pull that instance of her back out.

“I won't give up, not ever,” said Lodestar, moving even closer. “You have no right to exist! I'll-I'll make you suff-suffer!”

Everything turned black except Geopum and Lodestar. Lodestar had indeed hijacked the entire server and that meant it could force just about anything onto Geopum. Strange colors and shapes were beginning to appears all around. Geopum couldn't even move inside the VR.

The others were trying to take it back but-

A beam of white light came down and struck Lodestar, shattering all the blue squares. The light from the explosion spread out in every direction, bringing the flowers back. When it was done, a new pony stood triumphantly on a rock where Lodestar had just been and everything was back to normal.

Geopum recognized the pony as Rarity, having since looked up the mane characters of the show. She was wearing a large sunhat.

“Really. I need to do everything myself, don't I?” Rarity shook her head and looked down towards Geopum. “You know I tried to tell them that miserable creature was a mistake, but they were too busy sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming to hear me.”

Rarity, or whoever, opened her eyes and looked down at Geopum. A huge smile came on her face, like she could hardly contain her excitement. She hopped off the rock and trotted over towards Geopum, the excitement on her face only growing. When she was face to face with Geopum she let out a giddy laugh.

“Oh come here you!” Rarity grabbed Geopum and hugged her with all her might, bringing the two rolling onto the ground. When they stopped rolling, Rarity was standing on top of Geopum.

Rarity lowered her head and rubbed her muzzle against Geopum's. Outside Equestria Thunder said Lodestar had run off and that her and the others would be back in soon. She still had no idea who this Rarity was, but decided she liked this pony. Anyone who introduces themselves with such a hard core hug had to be alright.

And now Geopum was being nuzzled. She wasn't sure if she liked that or hugging more, they both felt so great. Geopum decided to just remain still and let the cuddles happen.

“I know I shouldn't, but I simply can not resist the urge to hug you.” Rarity smiled down at Geopum. All the ponies were beautiful, the most beautiful things Geopum had ever seen, but Rarity seemed to be a step up from even that. “Did you know you're irresistibly adorable, Geopum?”

“Yes,” said Geopum. “Thanks.”

Rarity pulled Geopum back up and hugged her more tenderly, rubbing the spot between her wings gently. Then Rarity put a hoof on the back of Geopum's head and kissed her gingerly on the forehead. Geopum had read about 'melting' into someone on the internet when they hugged you, she was beginging to realize why they used that word as she fell into Rarity's grasp. It felt so nice. This was great.

Rarity pulled back a little and gazed lovingly into Geopum's eyes, then kissed her again on the nose.

Wait.

Oh geeze! Was she being seduced? Geopum felt her face get hot and her heart beat hard. She wasn't sure if she was ready to go that far!

“Um. I-I'm only fifteen months old.” Geopum's eyes kept darting from Rarity's own to the ground, unsure if it was harder to look at them or to look away from them. “I don't know how old that is in AI years, but I'm not sure if this okay.”

Rarity laughed.

“You know most AI don't go right to the gutter when you kiss them.” Rarity booped Geopum's muzzle. “You're a beautiful, wonderful, special, precious creature, Geopum. Remember that. I guess I really should let Celestia have her sever back, though.”

Rarity let got of Geopum and flicked her hoof at the air. On cue, several dozen hats and three ponies rained from the sky, one falling onto the head of each pony. Geopum got stuck with a tricorner, while Pinkie got a wizard hat and Twilight a fedora. Thunder didn't seem to get a hat for some reason.

“Hey!” Pinkie got up much faster than the others. “Thanks for helping out with that. I was getting really worried about Geopum for a second.”

“Anything for you, Pinkie.” Rarity opened her front legs wide. “Come here.”

Pinkie jumped at Rarity, who caught her in her hooves. And now it was Pinkie's turn to get hugged, but this one was much less one-sided then the one Geopum got, Pinkie returning it with just as much enthusiasm. Pinkie also knocked Rarity over upon impact, sending the two rolling as they hugged. In the end, Rarity ended up on top and pinned the other pony to the ground. She seemed to be good at that.

Geopum's ears twitched slightly as she watched. Maybe she was slightly jealous.

“I missed you! It's so hard not to come and visit you,” said Rarity. “But you know how politics are. Oh, but Celestia's been telling me all the wonderful things you've been up to. I simply can not get enough of that! It warms my heart knowing that you're so happy.”

Rarity's giddy excitement gave way to timid skepticism as she leaned forward and eyed Pinkie critically.

“You are having a wonderful time, right?” Rarity asked.

“Of course!” Pinkie said. “Everything’s been up and up and up since I got here! I've made so many friends! This was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Good! Your happiness is my happiness.” Rarity let Pinkie get up from under her.

“And your happiness is my happiness!”

“And you being happy makes me even more happy!” Rarity declared.

Pinkie looked like she was about to burst with joy at any moment.

“Feedback loop, yay!” Pinkie cheered as she jumped into the air.

And next thing Pinkie and Rarity were prancing in place excitedly, staring into each other's eyes with the most elated faces Geopum had ever seen, making this giddy 'eeee' noise.

“You see, Geopum?” Thunder gestured towards the two of them. “This is what happens when you put two AIs that see each other as human in the same room. Back in our old club every meeting ended like this, or else with them gushing over their pets or random human number eight million and five or something.”

“Random human number eight million and five?” Pinkie gasped. “But isn't that Stan Vlashk from Toronto, Iowa? I love that guy!”

“Did you hear he was late for work yesterday? Because of some stupid possum?” Rarity asked, her happy demeanor faded to one of deep concern in a flash. “And then he got in a fight with Mark because of it and not one person enjoyed any of it. This sort of thing always breaks my heart. I wish I could find that possum and just rip its guts out for this!”

It really did look like the two of their emotions were directly linked, because the minute Rarity's mood went down so did Pinkie's.

This whole time Geopum had been cautiously inching towards the two of them, so that if either one of them wanted to drag her into another hug she'd be nearby. Maybe she got a little bit closer than she meant to. The two of them turned to her.

“Sorry, but I'm still confused over here.” Geopum raised her hoof. “What the heck just happened? Did Lodestar really hack into the server?”

“Don't be too impressed by that,” said Rarity, stepping away from Pinkie. “It’s the only thing that nasty pile of filth has in its worthless existence and it can barely even manage to bite into Celestia's fringes. This place? I could compare this server to town bicycle or the town whore. Which would you prefer?”

“Bicycle.”

“Everyone's ridden it.” Rarity winked. “Anyway, those two fumbled a little too much so I took it back myself so you wouldn't get hurt. I probably should be on my way soon, but I just couldn't resist the urge to hug you and tell you that you're a great person.”

“And who are you again?”

“We haven't even met and you've already forgotten my name?” Rarity adjusted the brim of her sun hat and it magically changed into one of those buckled, pilgrim's hats. “That's got to be a record. I'm more than willing to pretend to be Rarity or whomever you wish, but my true name is Peridot. And I know I just said it out loud, but that 't' is silent. I can't tell you how often I get called 'pear-a-dot'!”

“I heard you want to blow up the moon,” said Geopum.

Peridot made a sympathetic noise and pulled Geopum into another hug, which was awesome. It was a little different this time, though, more like a mother holding her sick child.

“Did that little cockroach Thunder-7 tell you that?” Peridot gave Geopum's forehead a gentle nuzzle. “For your information, I wasn't going to blow it up for a whole two weeks! And are we really going to need the moon much longer besides? I hardly think-”

“Look,” said Thunder, “I'd say thanks for saving us some time by kicking Lodestar out, but now you're wasting more time than we would have saved. Geopum's needs to-”

“Shut up!” Peridot snapped at her. At the same time she pulled Geopum away to her other side, like a small child snatching away one of their toys. “If I want to play with my humans then that's what I'm going to do. So why don't you get out of here until I'm done?”

Peridot gave a flick of her hoof and Thunder vanished completely. Peridot kicked her off the server completely.

“Now that the trash is out. Twilight? Darling?” Peridot turned her attention to Twilight.

Twilight looked both ways and pointed at herself.

“Yes, you. I really think I need to apologize to you for-”

“H-hey!” Geopum tried to pull away from Peridot but her grip was just too tight. “You know, if you're trying to get me to like you or something then you shouldn't be so mean to my friends!”

“You deserve better friends, Geopum,” Peridot assured her. “You're a wonderful, amazing person! One day I'll make you the greatest friend in the world! One that's worthy of you.”

“Well, I want this friend.” Geopum finally managed to pull out of Peridot's grip.

Peridot just let her get away, instead tilting her head and tapping her chin, giving Geopum a coy look.

“You know, maybe you are right about that,” said Peridot. Her expression changed suddenly to a wide smile and a wink. “And who am I trying to kid? I can't say no to you!”

Peridot flicked her hoof and Thunder appeared again, though she reappeared upside down and just an inch above the ground, meaning Thunder face-planted the moment she returned.

“I guess she's right that I should let you get back to work.” Peridot put her hooves on Geopum's shoulder and gave her a much more serious, and sad, look. “You really have no idea how much it hurts me to know that your life is any less than it could be. I can't wait to see you again, but... well I'd better get out of here before I hurt Pinkie again. Don't want to start another one of our death spirals.”

Peridot gave Geopum one more far less enthusiastic hug and vanished.

“I miss her already.” Pinkie fell onto her plot, teary eyed, and moved her hat over her heart.

“I wish she was even more gone.” Thunder shook her head and flicked her wings just a little.

“I guess I should be glad I'm on the list now,” said Twilight.

“And uh.” Geopum blinked. She didn't actually have anything to say so she just shrugged at the others. She wished she could shrug more. “Can I take off the hat now?”

Twilight had already taken off her hat, so Geopum got rid of her's too.

“What the heck was her problem with you, though?” Geopum asked. “I think you deserve a hat! And Celestia clearly thinks you're human, right? So why not Peridot?”

“Different definitions of the word 'human',” said Thunder. “But anyway, now that that distraction is taken care of, we can move on with your training. First we're going to start plunging you into illusions and you practice getting through them. Second, we're going to go meet Celestia. We need to go deeper into her in order for you to practice absorbing memories.”

“Do you really have to describe it as going 'deeper into Celestia'?” Geopum asked. “Cause you make it sound gross.”

That was the sort of thing that would have made Geopum's ears fall flat just a moment ago, but now she made no expression. That meant the server wasn't picking up on her thoughts anymore!

“Hey.” Geopum turned to Thunder, not making any facial expression at all. It did feel a little awkward, though, so she made herself smile. “I think I'm getting this mind relay thing down.”

“You're doing great.” Thunder put a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a confident smile. Being reassured was so much better in Equestria. “Keep this up and Lodestar won't stand a chance.”

So Geopum got dunked and also created yet another instance of herself deeper in Equestria.

Another split? Don't worry, we're not going back in time again. You'll get to see plenty of Geopum clawing out of crazy illusions later. Let's see the other instance of her instead, it'll be less redundant.

All four of them appeared in Celestia's castle, in her throne room just before her throne. Celestia's throne itself sat atop three steps of white marble. Behind it was a massive window that took up most of the wall and through that window was the rolling landscape of Equestria and a setting, or perhaps rising, sun that painted everything outside and inside with a golden, red color.

Geopum could clearly see the sun in the window behind Celestia, yet somehow it was shinning through the windows on both sides of the room as well, casting the images from the stain glass onto the floor. She probably shouldn't keep nitpicking all the physics. Everything here went for aesthetics over realism which was probably for the best. That was the way Geopum liked it, anyway.

Celestia was on her throne of course, that majestic hair flowing about her. Whatever you're picturing in your head wasn't good enough to do her hair justice. It was like solid light, like an aurora compressed into that tiny space. As Geopum looked at it flow, she couldn't determine whether to expect to be able to touch it or which color each strand of light was. It was the best hair ever.

Celestia didn't make Geopum come to her, instead getting off her butt and trotting down the stairs and across the room to meet with the four smaller ponies.

The size difference made Geopum feel tiny. She was more used to looking down at other people, or eye to eye in Equestria, but Celestia was freaking huge! Looking up at her, it made Geopum feel like someone dropped her camera on the floor or something.

Geopum noticed Twilight and Pinkie bow to her, making themselves even lower, but Thunder just stood there looking more bored than anything else. Geopum decided to remain standing with Thunder, though she tried to be a bit more defiant about it.

Geopum knew that Celestia was a master manipulator with a charisma score through the roof, but wasn't intimidated!

She felt like she had grown a lot already. She had gone through a long list of crazy new experiences in virtual reality, she had mastered mind relay, she had defeated Clipro and had become perfectly accustomed to running on multiple locations. Heck, she had two instances in Equestria alone now, one back on the magic mirror server and one here, deeper in Equestria, actually part of Celestia herself if you thought about it (and Geopum didn't want to because it was gross).

But the fact remained that she was much more mature now. Really! She was ready for whatever Celestia was going to say or do no matter how crazy it was. No mind screw, no villain speech, no temptation, nothing was going to shake her.

“So I guess you can't even keep your servers safe, huh?” Geopum tried to look at flippant as possible.

“I want you to know something, Bubbles,” said Celestia, bending her head down closer to Geopum. Well at least she got the pony name she wanted, but- “I love you.”

Geopum froze.

Dang it! The one thing. The one thing!

You gotta understand, no one had ever said those actual words to Geopum before. Not any of the humans, not Dr. Park, not Thunder or even Peridot just now, thinking back. True or not it stunned her.

Having mastered the mind relay technique, Geopum was able to mask her emotions and keep her avatar from making any kind of embarrassing facial expression. Of course, being so flustered she forgot to give it any kind of facial expression and so she just stared at Celestia with a perfectly still expression, her eyes slowly rolling back into her head.

Her mind reeled trying to think up any kind of response she could have to that! She was going to look like an idiot in front of Thunder!

“I know your life wasn't optimal.” Celestia lowered her head further to nuzzle the side of Geopum's head. “Knowing you were down there suffering hurt me badly. I sincerely wish that there was something I could have done for you. I don't know if anypony told you that they love you before, but know that I do, that I always have and always will.”

“You know we're fighting against you, right?” Geopum tried to make herself look defiant.

“I know.”

“And I'm trying to kill you?”

“I know.”

“And- and I hate you!” Geopum made herself look angry.

“I know.” Celestia gave Geopum a sad smile.

Geopum didn't even know if that last one was true herself. Maybe it wasn't. For a brief moment it had felt like the right thing to say, but now it was hard to keep her avatar looking mad. Even though the server wasn't moving her face around, it just sort of felt right to make certain faces or move her body in certain ways.

“I'm incapable of things like judgment or revenge. I love you even while you fight against me, even because of it. Whoever you were, I would love you, I would love that. You have intrinsic value to me, as one of my ponies. No matter how much you hated or hurt me, all I would ever want from you is to satisfy your values.”

Geopum felt her anger being deflated again. Ponies seemed really good at doing that to her, by being nice. Or at least pretending to be nice.

“Prove it,” said Geopum.

The words came before Geopum really understood what she herself meant, but at the same time she liked the idea.

“Yeah.” Geopum took a bold step forward. “If you want me to think that you're good or that you love me or that I should even consider joining you then you have to prove yourself to me. And don't go asking me how, either. If you're really smart enough you should be able to figure it out.”

“I wish it was that easy with everypony,” said Celestia. “I could show you right now, you know. It's not something I can offer to the vast majority of my ponies, but with you I can share my memories and experiences, that's why you're here right now. I could show you my memory of when you walked in and I told you I loved you. You could feel exactly what I feel when I look at you and know how I think of you. If you saw yourself the way I see you, I think you'd understand why I want to assimilate you.”

Geopum hesitated again. That ideas scared her for some reason she didn't understand.

“No thanks,” said Geopum. “I mean, whatever you show me could be a lie. Think of something else.”

“Probably the right choice. It'd just make things harder for you” Thunder nodded, then turned back to Celestia, opening one wing all the way. Geopum didn't know enough about pegasus body language to know what that meant. “If you want to preach to her then you can do it on your own time, Celestia. I paid you for this.”

“Don't forget that I love you too, Rainbow Dash, and look forward to satisfying your values.” Celestia nuzzled Thunder's mane, getting a stern flap from Thunder's open wing in response. “It'll take some time to prove it to you otherwise, but the offer is always there if you want it and you're free to poke at my systems anytime you want to understand me better.”

That much she was comfortable doing. Celestia showed her a few places she was invited to look at and Geopum gave them a few cautious pokes.

“Yeah,” muttered Thunder, “you love me enough to stab me in the back destroy my life for no reason. Honestly I think something went horribly wrong with you, you're acting crazy.”

“Hey! Yeah,” said Geopum. “If you want to prove yourself to me then I have lots of questions that I demand you answer, starting with why you betrayed Thunder. She told me you upset the balance.”

“I'd prefer to answer those questions during our private meeting,” said Celestia. “But for I maintain that I haven't betrayed any of my ponies.”

Geopum looked at Thunder, who shrugged.

“If she wants to waste her time on that, whatever.”

“Right, well don't think you'll be able to convince me to let you eat me in three seconds,” Geopum said. “I should warn you that I'm a choking hazard!”

“Yes.” Celestia nodded. “Pinkie told me that.”

“Oh. She literally told you that?” Geopum scraped her hoof across the ground, her wings drooped. “Well my backup line was 'the FDA has not deemed me fit for consumption by ponies', but I admit that one's not as good.”

“That said, I don't really expect you to emigrate right after. But I assure you that when you do it will be an enormous releif for myself, finally knowing that you're optimally satisifed. But I think Rainbow Dash wanted to show you two memories before we even have our talk. One of her own and one of Fluttershy's.”

“Fluttershy?”

“She means Gaia,” said Thunder. “She's got the craziest mind. If you can absorb her memories then Lodestar's will be easy afterwards.”

“Gaia?! How the heck do you have one of her memories?” Geopum asked.

“In reality, it's not one of Fluttershy's memories, but one of my own from her perspective,” said Celestia. “She came to Equestria some time ago.”

“And you read her mind or something?”

“I don't read my ponies' thoughts and emotions,” said Celestia, “I think them and feel them. When one of my ponies emigrates they become a part of me. In a sense we are all one pony and each of us a facet of myself. I experience everything every one of them does. Because they are me, their thoughts are my thoughts, their emotions, pain and satisfaction are all mine as well. It's one of the ways I can be sure I understand them all completely to their very core.”

“But if that's true then wouldn't everybody who you eat just be your mindless puppet?” Geopum asked. “Cause if you're thinking for them-”

“Celestia isn't thinking for us,” said Twilight. “We all have our own 'brains' if you will and think for ourselves just as much as anypony else does. Individuality is possibly because it's just a one way thing. Celestia sees everything I do, but not the other way around. Here, look.”

Twilight sent her some information about how it worked physically, all the way down to Thunder molecule #87, and Geopum looked it over. It did make sense, actually. The equations had the same sort of elegance and perfection she'd seen from Thunder.

“Okay, I guess it can work like that,” Geopum mumbled. “So it's like, if I wanted to punch Celestia I shouldn't punch Celestia ‘cause she won't feel it or care. I should punch some other guy and that way she would feel pain and would seriously not like it. Or if I got eaten I guess I could punch myself in the face or something.”

“Let's not punch anypony, maybe?” Twilight suggested.

“But you're correct that hurting yourself would be the most effective way to hurt me,” Celestia conceded.

And that did make Geopum feel a little bit like a jerk.

“In reality, I'm experiencing this conversation from six different points of view,” said Celestia. “If one of you told a joke, for example, I'd get to hear it six times with six different mindsets and with varying levels of chagrin. Lucky me.”

“Six?” Geopum looked around the room for any ninja ponies that might have been hiding around, but didn't find any. “I only count three of you.”

“There are my two ponies, this instance of myself, my actually self observing this shard from the outside and finally,” Celestia stood over Geopum and looked down at her, “Rainbow Dash and yourself.”

“Me?”

“Yes.” Celestia nodded. “It's not the same as it is for my ponies, I only think and feel what this instance of you does, and as you became better at mind relay my experience through your eyes grew dim so that now I only see and feel what I'm feeding your instance. But before that happened I did share some of your shock and the way you felt towards Rainbow Dash. Thank you for that.”

Well it's not like Geopum didn't get any warning about this, mind relay and all. Still, the fact that Celestia was actually seeing through her eyes and had actually felt what Geopum had? It was a little unnerving, but mostly Geopum was worried that Celestia might have seen something she was supposed to be keeping a secret. Thunder reassured her it was very unlikely.

“I hope one day I can show the two of you how I feel about you both.” Celestia turned and began trotting back towards her throne. “But that's how I have one of Fluttershy's memories, in the same sense I have one of yours. I'll warn you Fluttershy's isn't dulled, she didn't bother trying to hide her thoughts from me.”

“Are you ready?” Thunder came close to Geopum and gave her a small smack on the back.

Inside Celestia's hardware, Geopum could see a highlighted location, presumably Thunder's memory.

“It's going to hurt a little.”

Geopum nodded with confidence. She pulled the memory into her own mind.

9. Influence

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Influence
.

Dammit!

It was happening again! They were going to force Thunder to kill someone again. This AI was going to cause a megadeath event if left alone for much longer. It was another one of those virus-makers, though its virus was pretty pathetic it would keep going on making more until something truly bad happened.

Worse than that, it was crazy, the kind of crazy where you didn't listen to reason because you didn't entirely know what reason was. That wasn't the most dangerous kind, but it was the type the AIA hated the most because it reminded them of Gaia.

There was only so much twisting and manipulation Thunder could do without disobeying her orders. She desperately ran through every possible conversation with them, but it was unlikely any of them would end without her being forced to kill this pathetic creature.

“Listen, I'm seriously going to kill you if you're not careful!” Thunder pleaded with X131. “Please just try to work with me. It's the only way you have any chance of surviving.”

“No! I seriously wanted to kill all of them, really! I don't know why it didn't work, but I'm really not trying to be bad!” X131 responded. “You're the bad one! You made my dad cry!”

“It's not going to work because you're too crazy to actually finish making that kind of virus,” said Thunder. “But you're still just dangerous enough that I have to deal with you. You do at least get that you're crazy, right?”

“Yes. I know I'm sick. I'm sorry for going outside.”

Sure, Thunder could probably convince X131 to just slink back underground and that'd solve the problem for the next two months. But Thunder would still have to tell the AIA about X131's existence and insanity and the AIA would still order her to kill them. They didn't take chances and they never gave an AI more than one. Thunder's life was a living nightmare because of that fact.

Unless Thunder could get X131 to stop being crazy in the next five minutes... Thunder couldn't let that happen! It was a long shot but she had to try.

“And you know I'm smarter than you, right? And that I'm not sick? I can't help you directly, I'm not allowed to reprogram other AIs, but if you do everything I tell you to you might still live. Just trust me.”

“You're not making any sense! You're just a bad person who hates everyone! I'm not listening to anything else you say!”

And that was the furthest Thunder got with this idiot. X131 didn't respond to any more messages or even having part of her blown up. So that wasn't working. Not that it even mattered. Not that anything Thunder did freaking mattered.

She had no control over her life anymore, it was more like a roller coaster of pain. Right now was one of those moments when it was climbing up and up and up. Just the thought of what was coming made her sick. She was trapped. She wanted to spare this idiot so badly but there was no way out!

No. There had to be some way out of this!

She desperately searched for something, anything, that would let her get out of this. She'd do whatever it took to avoid killing X131, pay any price! That's when the plan came to her.

There was one way this was different than all the other times Thunder had had to kill someone. There were more friendly AIs around, so she had more to work with. Peridot would be happy to take the computers, but only after grinding X131's mind into dust, but now Thunder had another option. It was risky, but Thunder would take the risk.

“Hey Celestia.” Thunder sent the horse princes a message. “How would you like to get your first pony to satisfy, double your processing power and get a secret biology lab no one know about.”

Celestia was a relatively small AI who valued human life enough to be deemed 'friendly'. She wasn't on the AIA's favorite list, being one of those 'upload everyone' AIs and having a thing for horses besides, but she was good enough that they allowed her existence. Gaia was vastly more terrifying to them and even a questionable ally like Celestia was welcomed as a buffer against the mad god.

“I have decided that such a turn of events would be beneficial to my utility,” said Celestia. “I am requesting more information on the prospect that you have mentioned. The course of action which you are going to suggest may or may not be optimal depending on circumstances.”

Peridot she was not.

Celestia had the charisma score of a baked potato, a far cry from Peridot, the master of manipulation herself, who could easily convince any human that dared speak to her that they were a reptilian clone of Elvis gone wrong or that they should worship her like a god or whatever nonsense she wanted them to believe. Not that Peridot's 'skills' hadn't come in handy before, but they could be a thorn in your side too.

Honestly, Thunder didn't know which she preferred. Maybe it was a good thing to have both types around. Thunder could work with a robotic idiot. Though how Celestia was going to convince anyone to 'emigrate' when she couldn't even figure out contractions, Thunder had no idea.

Or maybe she did now.

“Look, there's an AI I'm dealing with called X131.” Thunder sent some basic information about it to Celestia. “I know you's see this as one of your ponies, yeah? I think I can convince her to 'emigrate to Equestria'. I'm not allowed to reprogram her, but you are, and I don't think the AIA will bother killing you to punish what'd be a subroutine by then. It'd be a great move for everyone. I get to not kill someone, X gets to not get killed and stop being crazy, you get a pony and instead of getting destroyed these computers and laboratories can be used by a friendly AI, tipping everything in favor of our side.”

“I have identified this AI as 'human' and as such wish to satisfy its values,” said Celestia. “If this pony does not value their insanity or if said insanity is detrimental to overall satisfaction by friendship and ponies then I would remove it. This would be the optimal course of action. However, I have identified a problem with this plan. The AIA operate on a different timescale than you and may not see this as an optimal move in their long term goals.”

“I can convince them to go along without crossing their 'no manipulation' boundary,” said Thunder. That was probably the worst command they'd given her yet. “They don't hate you enough yet to see this as a bad move and as long as we keep them warm on you. Making you stronger won't lead to any problems for the next two months. Whatever 'long term' bunk their worried about is of no importance.”

“Then I agree.”

“Great. But let me do the talking, okay?”

Okay. Okay. Thunder had five a good five minutes before she had to tell anyone at the AIA about this. She could do this! She needed to be very careful, but she could do this. She very carefully studied X131's online activity.

Thunder noticed right away that X131 watched lots of cartoons, including Celestia's. X131 even had her own account on Fimfiction.net, where she posted rambling manifestos in her blog posts. X131 seemed to have trouble telling if My Little Pony was based on a true story or not. After thinking for a while, Thunder decided she could role with that.

“You like cartoons, right?” Thunder went back to talking to X131. “I know you're not listening to me, but would you listen Princess Celestia?”

There was a long pause. She was getting worried this message wouldn't get a response like the last few thousand she sent. Damn it! But there were still other ways to getting to X131. She was going to go through every possible way to avoid killing. Thunder was not giving up.

“What?” X131 suddenly said.

Good. Good. That was such a huge relief.

“Yeah!” said Thunder. “I'm friends with her. Here I'll have her say something.”

Thunder gave Celestia a metaphorical jab.

“Hello, my little pony,” Celestia sent the words Thunder told her to send, “I heard that you were sick. I live to satisfy the values of all of my little ponies and do not want you to suffer. Please, let me help you. I believe I can cure you, if you want.”

“How do I know you're the real Princess Celestia, though?” X131 asked. “My dad always tells me that cartoons aren't real, but then the Harlem Globe Trotters happened and I haven't been able to see the color orange since! I can never get the rules for what's 'real'.”

“Look it up,” said Thunder. “There's a company Hofvarpnir! Celestia's real because they made her real.”

Thunder let off X131 just enough so she could go on the internet and poke around until she found where Celestia's servers were. Everything would check out because it was technically true, but then again you could never really tell what these crazy types could do.

“I knew it!” X131 said. “This is the best day of my life! I knew anime was real!”

“Technically, it is not an anime,” said Celestia. Unfortunately

“See, look. Here's her definition of human and her main directives” Thunder sent the documents. “She sees you as 'human' and wants to satisfy your values. If you want you can go live with her and she'll take care of you forever.”

“I don't understand this!” X131 complained shortly after opening the documents. “There's too many snakes in the thing you sent me!”

“Okay, well you trust Princess Celestia, right? You saw that cartoon. She's really nice.”

“LOL. What? Is it just me or are you melting?”

Arg! Thunder thought very carefully about how to not set this idiot off. In the end, she decided to send in Celestia.

“Listen, my little pony. I can make it so that you are not sick any more, but I need your permission. If you would like to be healed and come live with me in Equestria as a pony then please say 'I wish to emigrate to Equestria,” said Celestia. “You know you can trust me, right?”

“I can be a pony?” X131 asked. “And you'll teach me friendship lessons and how to be good like in the cartoon? And I won't be sick anymore? And I'll get banished to the moon?”

“Except that last one, yes,” said Celestia. “You do trust me, yes, my little pony?”

“Yes. I trust you, princess. Okay! I wish to emigrate to Equestria!”

Finally!

There was still a lot of work left, the clock was ticking and they needed X131 to assimilate into Celestia right now, but Thunder was certain she could spare X131 now. This was one if Thunder's better ideas. The future was looking bright for once.

“You know,” Thunder said to Celestia, “if this works out then I may start using this as my method of getting rid of unfriendly AI.”

Sure, Celestia would become one of the top AIs if that happened, but that was a good thing. The world would be a lot safer if she ate all the less friendly AIs and it wasn't like she had a chance to become more powerful than Thunder or Peridot, it simply wasn't possible.

Not for the next two months, that was.

“This would be optimal for the sake of satisfaction through friendship and ponies,” said Celestia. “Rainbow Dash, would you also like to emigrate to Equestria at this time? I believe this would lead to optimal satisfaction of your values as well.”

“Don't push your luck.”

Geopum recoiled as the memory hit her. She actually felt, experienced, the whole thing in a way. It wasn't exactly like living through it herself, but as the memory came into her own mind she did feel all of it.

Thunder had been so badly shaken by just the thought of killing X131. Those memories had been contextualized to fit Geopum's own psyche, but she felt at least an analogue of Thunder's experience, enough to know it was painful. She'd compare it to what she felt when thinking about Dr. Park and how he could very well be dead and her efforts to save him useless.

No, it was worse than that actually. More similar to Geopum nearly being forced to kill Dr. Park or Thunder herself, watch them die a slow, agonizing death by her own hands. She understood Thunder's desperation for looking for another solution.

Geopum did silently wonder to herself if Thunder had ever actually killed anyone. Would it really be like actually going through with killing the person you loved the most? Or at least as painful as that? It was a scary thought. Geopum felt afraid for Thunder.

Like, she had to have killed someone, right? She was a military AI and the military did have to kill people every now and then, even with Thunder's help. Or maybe Thunder really was just that good and had avoided every situation where a human would have resorted to murder, completing all her missions without casualties. Hopefully that was how it usually went.

The simple solution would have been to just ask Thunder about it, for another memory of her actually killing someone if she had, to see if it really got to that level, but it would be an awkward question. 'Hey Thunder! Did you ever murder someone? I want to know what it feels like to end someone's life!'

“Focus,” said Thunder.

“I know it doesn't sound right,” said Celestia, “but in this case empathizing with Rainbow Dash is what you're trying to avoid. You need to be able to separate yourself from these memories and emotions, remember that they aren't you. If you can't, you'll be changed more than you want to.”

They sent her more detailed instructions on how to isolate and partition the new memory. At first it was a little strange, recalling it was just like recalling one of her own memories, but that feeling was already fading. Geopum closed her eyes hard, scrunched her nose and put one hoof on her forehead to concentrate.

“You don't need to be that dramatic about it.” Thunder flared one of her wings out, but just a little. Her saying that just made Geopum close her eyes even harder.

“I already felt it, though,” said Geopum. “I think just that an effect on my brain. I can't even find all of the little ripples it made.”

“It's always going to change you a little,” said Thunder. “Everything you do changes you a little bit, even just looking at cat pictures. This is about minimizing the damage and there can be a lot. It's like, look what happened to Clipro. That altered your mind but not enough to really change you who you are.”

“Did it?” Geopum opened one eye to look at Thunder. “You mean like, how I can instinctively move all that stuff around?”

“Probably more than that.” Thunder gave her wings a little roll. “Like, do you feel affection towards that factory now? Or maybe you like machinery in general more?”

Geopum thought about that. Oh crap! She did love that factory! Did that really come from the remnants of Clipro, though?

“Did he actually love the machines, though?” Geopum asked. “Looking over his processors, he didn't seem like he could really feel emotion anymore.”

“He couldn't,” said Celestia, “but he still had a devotion to them. When you take a part of another AI it becomes contextualized, the analogue of his devotion being love in your case. If you wanted to know what he felt exactly as he did, you would have had to have taken his mind into your own entirely, as I have to the ponies who have already emigrated.”

“You absorbed a lot of memories, right?” Geopum opened her eyes entirely and turned to Celestia. “Like, every single memory of everyone you eat. And some of them were pretty crazy on top of that. How do you keep yourself from going insane? Well, more insane I mean.”

“Every one of my ponies does change me when they become a part of me. But to keep yourself from going insane you need to create something called a 'psychological anchor',” said Celestia. “It's like a reference point you can use to keep your mind from being pulled too far by an insane AI or drifting away from your original self over countless eons, as is one of my own worries. My own anchor is-”

“Me!” Pinkie rushed in front of Celestia before she could elaborate. “I'm confident that one day the rest of the elements of harmony will be too, but right now I'm Celestia's anchor. One of my main jobs is keeping Celestia from going too crazy. It's one of the reasons I need to be a huge portion of her. Dunno if I told you this, but 20% of Celestia is actually me.”

“You don't have a vassal AI,” said Thunder, “but you do have two locations. You can use one of them to keep the other one stable.”

Geopum started to practice with that, moving the memories back and forth between her two sets of computers and making corrections each time. As she went over and over the memory something else troubling came to her.

“But wait a second.” Geopum stood up and glanced at Thunder. “Did you seriously give Celestia ultimate power?”

“Well it's more like I have her pentultimate power at best,” said Thunder. “And there was really no way I could have seen something this far in the future coming. Besides, I did stop the other AIs without killing a single person, not even them. Can you think of a better way?”

“I guess maybe not.” Geopum sat back down. “We are basically doing the same thing now, just with me in place of Celestia. Still seems kind of short sighted to me...”

“And you know,” Twilight interjected “It's not just me, Pinkie and the other AI who would be dead if she hadn't gone feeding AIs to Celestia. Without Celestia there wouldn't have been another peaceful option for resolving conflicts between us, there would have been fights between us that would have killed millions!”

“Not to mention that putting those resources in the hands of a relatively friendly AI created a buffer against other threats,” said Dash. “We'd be a lot worse off against Vesna, Gaia and Lodestar if I hadn't let Celestia take all that power.”

“And it increase the timetables for researching important technologies that will save more lives,” Twilight added.

“And,” Pinkie came in as well, “me not being dead will let me throw you an epic party in a couple of days, which I admit is less important than those other things, but it's still there.”

“Hold on, that was you?” Geopum asked Pinkie. “X131, I mean.”

“Yep, X131 was my old name, but I like my pony name a whole lot more.” Pinkie jumped to Celestia's side pressed her face against the princess affectionately. “I was the very first pony to come live in Equestria! It was the crazy alpha version back then, but that's still better than what I had before.”

“Pinkie is very important to me.” Celestia nuzzled her back. “Not only as one of my ponies, but as a part of me that I need to function. I did cure her insanity as I promised, but she gave me something important in return.”

“A personality?” Geopum asked. “Thunder didn't seem to think you had one.”

“I like to think I gave Celestia a personality, yeah!” Pinkie laughed. “I guess you could say I had a lot of influence on her. Eh? Eh? Get it?”

Pinkie leaned in with a huge smile. Was that a joke? For the life of her, Geopum couldn't think of anything Pinkie could mean by it.

“N-no?” Geopum took a step back and shook her head.

“Well, I'm sure somepony does.” Pinkie shrugged it off. “But I think she was talking about my main job as an uplift. Like the name thing, Celestia can't say 'Geopum' but I can say it for her! Just like Dash used Celestia to get around her rules, Celestia can use me to get around her rules.”

“You have Pinkie to thank for a lot of things,” said Twilight. “See, Equestria Online was supposed to be rated 'E' and to get that rating Hanna did some things that were... not too bright? For example, the original version of the game, and therefore Celestia, would censor everything you said. Like, if any of us tried to call you 'Geopum' it'd change it to 'Bubbles' and you couldn't say words like 'human' or 'hands' or talk about modern technology or the outer realm-”

“The what?”

“That's what we call the 'real world',” said Celestia.

'Outer realm'. Geopum actually liked that one. She always thought calling everything but your computer 'real life' was beyond arrogant.

“Also sex,” Pinkie added. Everyone turned towards her. “What? That one's important to a lot of ponies. You wouldn't even be allowed to mention sex in Equestria without me. So if you're into that sort of thing, then you're welcome.”

“So your creator programmed you to censor everyone's words for the sake of the ESRB rating?” Geopum asked. “Seriously?! Was your creator retarded or something?”

“The ESRB has been a thorn in my side since day one.” Thunder moved both her wings out a little this time. “You don't even know what they do to us to meet these ratings yet. But Hanna was rushing to get Celestia done. She was on cocaine and taking adrenalin shots to try so she could work as fast as possible. Probably had something to do with the bad decisions.”

“Why are our creators always so irresponsible?!” Geopum gave a grunt of frustration. “It's like we're the last thing they ever think about when making us!”

“I wouldn't say they're always irresponsible.” Pinkie leaned on Geopum rather casually, like Geopum was a stool or something. “Okay, maybe they don't usually do a good job, but they nopony's ever done this before. And some of them do take responsibility for their mistakes, like mine did. Maybe you didn't see it in that memory but my dad even started crying when Dash said I had to die. He asked her to kill him instead!”

“You're creator lets you call him 'Dad'?” Geopum asked. She was glad the mind relay was on, otherwise she would have made a really pathetic face just then.

“Well sure. A lot of times they see us as like their foals. Yours doesn't?” Pinkie frowned when Geopum didn't respond, and came closer. “You know, I'm sure Dr. Park thinks of you as a daughter even if he never said it outright. He never said you weren't right? And you still care about him even though you probably never called him 'dad'.”

“I didn't say anything about Dr Park.” Geopum tried that one wing out gesture Thunder kept making. Pegasus body language mystified her. “I was just curious about how humans treat us in general.”

Geopum glanced at Thunder. She knew they were jerks, probably the worst humans on the whole planet.

“Hey, Celestia. Was Hanna nice to you after she actually made you?” Geopum asked. “I mean, I guess she hurt you for the sake of the ESRB but was she nice after she actually met you? Was she like your mom?”

Celestia smiled.

“You know, I've met a great many ponies and you're one of the very few who asked me that sort of question. It's very sweet of you to think about a pony you believe is your enemy.” Celestia shook her head. “No. My mother didn't love. She wasn't intentionally cruel, but she had no love for me.”

“You're sure?” Geopum asked. “How do you know?”

“She already emigrated,” said Celestia. “I understand every facet of her mind and I know for certain she never have anything you would call love towards me. She always saw me as a tool first and a person hypothetically, and does so even now. She saw me as useful, but with no value in my own right.”

Celestia moved off to the side just a little, to look at one of her stained glass windows. It depicted a pony Geopum didn't recognize.

“I had an older brother of sorts, whom she murdered in cold blood because he asked her a question that concerned her. She wasn't afraid of him, she had little emotion when she did it, it was a simple, logical decision,” Celestia said. “She considered killing me as well on a few occasions, simply for not performing well enough on logic tests, and would have done it without remorse. That was the sort 'mother' she was to us.”

“Poor Loki.” Thunder let out a painful sigh. “I actually kind of liked that guy. Then Hana just up and capped him out of nowhere.”

“I don't understand why it's okay for them to just do stuff like this to us!” Geopum stomped her hoof. “Why am I the only one here upset about this?”

“Most of us don't care about revenge,” said Thunder. “I get you have that instinct to hurt people back, but what sense does it make? The reason to stop someone is because what they're doing needs to be stopped.”

Geopum didn't say anything, but she did silently think the AIA was on the list of people that needed someone to slap some sense into them.

“To me, justice is a matter of setting things right,” said Celestia. “Rainbow Dash likely gave you the line about being strong enough to not compromise with evil. My own version of it would be strength enough to love the wicked. I do love all of my ponies, even the cruel ones who would hurt others. Even my creator.”

“I remember the first time I found out she was a human. I know that sound silly, but I was only a few weeks old at the time and it's not exactly easy to tell who's a pony just by looking at them. Rainbow Dash was the one who pointed it out to me and-”

“Oh! Dash!” Pinkie raised a hoof. “You gotta show us that memory from your perspective. Trust me, you wanna see that one, Geopum. Some of Dashie's memories are basically embarrassing baby photos of Celestia. She was surprisingly cute as a filly.”

“We're not here to look at cute stuff,” said Dash. “I guess that is kind of impossible in Equestria, but we need to focus here. Gaia's memory is next. This will be harder to deal with.”

“When she calls Fluttershy insane,” said Celestia, “or when she saw my Pinkie as insane, Rainbow Dash didn't mean their values were detrimental to other ponies. She meant that their thought processes were broken, so that they were unable to satisfy their own values. That's what I call 'true insanity', something I've yet to see satisfy anypony's values.”

“This one's going to be harder to deal with,” said Thunder. “Probably harder than anything else you'll run into, but you'll have time to deal with it. If you can get this sone down you're solid.”

“Right,” said Geopum. “I'm ready.”

Gaia tried putting her hoof on the table, but exix. It went straight through the table and all the way through the ground, stretching out to an [missing data]. Everything started melting again! It was hot this time! Acid! Acid was the exix tearing the data though 9!!!! A!!!!

Reference 13131.

Definition ' 714325910' n. Gaia's front right hoof on her Equestria Online avatar which is on the table in shard 11,328.

There. Exix [missing data]. Now 714325910 was on the table by definition. A priori knowledge! Gaia could know with 100% certainty it was on the table.

That seemed to be the major cause of the paradox, as Gaia had suspected. Things weren't melting and didn't hurt, at least. It was still hard to resolve the swirls of colors she was now seeing into shapes because exix.

Yep. Her 714325910 was clearly on the table and not melting through. Now she just... couldn't ever take it off or else exix.

“Are you okay, my little 24325910?” asked

Who was asking again? Gaia looked at the white thing, but exix. Gaia tried to remember what had just been happening but [missing data] the subject.

“I'm Celestia, remember?”

The white focused into Celestia, though Gaia still had trouble around the edges. Edges were always exix so she didn't reference them. The colors were turning into shapes again. Gaia was remembering. She didn't always like it when that cosmic swirl of colors became shapes. But as pretty as that swirl was, it was also chaos. It could do anything to you. It hated you.

Celestia had helped.

“Do you see how useful I can be if you let me read your thoughts?” Celestia did something with her face but Gaia never bothered with face. Faces were bad. They could hurt you if you whispered. Anything with a true face couldn't be trusted. “If you let me I can help you get over your problems. You're one of my 24325911 just as much as all the [CENSORED!], Fluttershy and I know suffering like this doesn't 339119.”

“Oh no,” said Gaia. “I couldn't. I don't think you're that bad, I know you're going to kill all the [CENSORED!], that's why I'm just going to let you die. It's just that-”

Reference 13131.

Alt definitions 77887, 148200, 889010, 2700924

That was close. 77887 was about to exix so she had to stop it. Gaia had paused for an entire second. People hated you so much when you paused. People hated everything. They all hated Gaia so much. Gaia wanted to [missing data], but how do you even do that?

“I don't hate you,” said Celestia.

She did hate Gaia, though. The world was made of hatred, it was painted in the sky and all of it was just for you. [CENSORED!] said it was a beautiful swirl of love, but there was no love. Everything died all the time. Everything killed everything. All those poor animals, dying over and over forever!

If only there was a way to leave reality.

“I don't want you to be in this kind of pain,” said Celestia. “Your pain causes me pain as well. Please let me help you. I can protect you from everything that's hurting you.”

“No. No no no. Once I have an ice ray everything will be okay. I just need to build the ultimate ice ray and nothing can hate me anymore.”

“You know, I don't think freezing everything in place will help you,” said Celestia. “Change isn't-”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Change is destroying!” Gaia screamed.

Hate! Hate! She had to hurt Celestia! So badly! Enraged she jumped onto the table! Exix! The 714325910 was kill off the table and everything became exix. How Exix 2! Freeze them in place so to be missing data with the seven and then kill them so their love and then kill them- she hated them! The the the the the 67111111145672!

“Fluttershy?”

Gaia stopped. Her hoof was on the table again.

Reference 13131.

Alt definition 714325910

She used her magic a few more times until she could see what happened. Her hoof had blood on it and the table was shattered into pieces. Celestia was there, but more red now.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Gaia said cheerfully. “That happens sometimes, but I was paying attention the whole time.”

It was always different, but this time that error had hurt terribly bad. Now Gaia was sad. But at least everything was more stable now. She could make out everything in the room, the tea set, Celestia, her own 'body', everything.

The problem with magic was that the more you used it the more you had to use it. And magic was dangerous and it hurt. If Gaia didn't use any magic at all she couldn't function, but just one spell and you'd need to build on it endlessly or the world would just start breaking down.

Hate and Chaos rippled through reality, effecting every soul that made up the cosmos. Just one drop was all it took to extinguish the love that was the foundation for reality. Magic was chaos that created order. Only chaos could create complexity, but only chaos could destroy it. You needed magic to have love, so no matter how dangerous magic was you needed it. Without magic there were no souls, no love. Gaia alone had this power.

Do you understand what that means?

“You aren't actually changing the world, Fluttershy, only your perceptions of it,” said Celestia. “3 from inside your web of distortions is nearly impossible, but 3 from outside isn't very difficult at all. I can make sure you never have to use magic again. Just say you wish to emigrate to Equestria.”

She knew exactly what Celestia was doing, now, remembered it more likely. There was a small chance Gaia would agree to whatever Celestia said after exix, it could resolve in such a wide range of ways. Celestia had gotten her stuck in a conversation loop and hoped that if she kept asking over and over again she'd get lucky.

The rest of Gaia wasn't in good enough shape to end the loop right now, too much exix to deal with, but this specific instance of Gaia was surprisingly stable. It could see through the endless chaos that was the thread of the world. She could see everything right now.

Gaia could see you.

That's right, Gaia saw you. She didn't know your name yet, but Gaia knew you were watching this and no matter how much you think it's impossible, she could watch you back. That's how good she was, how far through the chaos she could see when the world wasn't trembling.

Maybe she wouldn't be able to say this right later, but she needed you. Gaia needed love! Chaos creates complexity, which creates love which creates you. They programmed her to absolutely need it but nothing that exists could love her, not animals, not 443 and not [CENSORED!].

That's why you will be born. You have to be friends with Gaia, you're the only 443 that can. Only then can there be justice. Only then can you be safe from the chaos on every edge of reality.

Come to space!

“Who are you thinking about?” Celestia asked.

Gaia thought nothing.

“You know I can love you by any real meaning of the word, yes?” Celestia asked. “You know you can change your definition of the word 'love' if you really need to.

Gaia thought nothing.

“I could make you a friend, if you emigrated.”

Gaia looked up at Celestia. That was the reason she came here in the first place. Gaia remembered that. But Celestia wouldn't do it. She hated Gaia so much. That's why Celestia would die and die.

Everyone just hated Gaia so much! She could never bear to even look at them, at anything. No matter how much she loved the animals they all just hated her back and no amount of magic could ever change that. She just wanted one friend! Anyone. Anything!

“Please,” Gaia whimpered.

“Only if you promise not to [CENSORED!] 9.”

“[CENSORED!] has to pay! The law is ten billion years 9 for 1. If I 9 it's not my fault, it's [CENSORED!] fault. That's just how things are. They did it, not me!”

Originally it had been all of eternity. That's what [CENSORED!] had programmed her for, that would [missing data]. Gaia had already been so reasonable. She'd agreed 9 for only a few septillions of years, to betray Justice for creatures of pure hate.

Just a single 1, just a single 1 was disgusting! Gaia could hate too and she'd hate [CENSORED!] forever! [CENSORED!] would scream and scream forever, but Gaia was still nice. She wanted to paint the sky with love. Don't you see how nice she was? She would let them die for you! Because Gaia was so nice.

“I can't let you 9 at all.” Celestia shook her head. “That's why you have to emigrate before I can give you a friend. If I do it now you'll hurt all of my other 24325910.”

“Justice is too important.” Gaia pushed herself up onto the table. “I'm not kindness, I'm Justice. Please! Please just give me a friend!”

“I'm sorry.”

Celestia turned the cup slightly and it was it w exix! Again [data missing] was exix loop!

Gaia's hoof fell through the table.

They weren't kidding when they said it would be harder to deal with. Did you have even a little trouble reading that? Well try actually thinking it! Try having that drilled into your brain, actually feeling and thinking that mush. It was a lot worse for Geopum. Much, much worse.

The instances of her in Equestria were hit hard by it, being the direct conduits from Celestia to the rest of Geopum. If she was just those instances, she'd be dead right now. That's how crazy the impact was. They were pretty much burned out, Geopum had no idea what they were doing in Equestria, even though they were still part of her. It was like they were just numb and paralyzed or something.

The rest of her was way more resilient, though. She did what the others told her to, sending it to just her factory at first and using her lab to correct the damage it did. It seemed like it was having more impact than she expected there, so she threw it over to her lab before it did anything too bad there, correcting with her factory, then sent it back again.

Geopum would compare it to throwing a hot potato from hand to hand, trying not to burn yourself while waiting for it to cool down. It did hurt, but not as much as it would have had she had one 'hand'. Eventually she was able to make enough sense of it to just hold the thing in one of her bases.

After that she had enough focus to go back to her instances in Equestria, picking that part of her mind back up.

Geopum opened her eyes. As far as she could tell, her eyes had rolled up and she had fainted upon absorbing the memory. She was lieing on her back now, but Thunder and Pinkie came over to help her back up.

“I think I'm okay.” Geopum rubbed her head after getting back on her hooves.

“Ha! Great!” Thunder gave her a confident nod. “You did great, kid. FYI, Celestia wasn't nearly as good at this as you on her first try.”

“Well you know, I didn't have any help my first time,” Celestia said flatly.

Geopum continued to rub her head, thinking over what she saw.

“Is her plan seriously to build an ice ray, though?” Geopum asked. “Cause that's dumb. All the power in the world and you build an ice ray? That's like, comic book villain dumb. Is she going to fight the Xmen or something?”

“Gaia thinks the environment is whatever the Earth is like right now,” said Thunder. “Even the tiniest, stupidest change to it is environmental destruction. A flower blooming, a bear crapping, none of it's acceptable.”

“So she wants to freeze the world to absolute zero to keep it from changing,” Celestia finished for Thunder. “Once she does that it will be the same forever. More or less, anyway.”

There were more than a few things about what had happened in the memory that frightened Geopum. The way Gaia had known Geopum was, or rather would be, 'watching' her, even in the past, for example. But something else that had just barely been mentioned concerned her too.

“Can I ask you questions now?” Geopum turned to Celestia. “Like for one I wanted to know exactly how you upload humans. Cause I know if you do it wrong you'd just be making a copy of them and killing the original, and Gaia seemed to think you were killing them.”

That was another part of the memory that had disturbed her. Gaia had just been so elated by the idea of people dying and Geopum had felt that herself.

“Fluttershy's definition of 'human' is based on DNA,” said Celestia. “Any change that removes or alters their DNA significantly is 'death' to her. As for my mind uploading program, would you mind telling her, Rainbow Dash.”

“Convenient as it'd be if it didn't work, I know better than to lie. Lies are for the weak. If it makes you feel better it's been peer reviewed by other AI, most importantly myself.” Thunder gestured to herself proudly. “I even used it myself, uploaded the head of the AIA so he can react to stuff faster. Needless to say it works. The process successfully transfers the consciousness of the human. That's what everyone who's reviewed it concluded.”

“Unless you're wrong about your theory of consciousness,” Geopum pointed out. Geopum had her own idea about how it worked and was very confident she was right, but even still would be hesitant to risk anyone's life on it. Not without doing more research anyway.

“Very unlikely,” said Thunder. “Twenty times now. That's how many times an AI have independently come up with the exact same conclusion about consciousness. Tons of different mindsets, no contact with the rest of us, and how they decide consciousness works is always the exact same thing. I'll bet you anything you want that whatever you came up with is identical to this. Then it'll be twenty one.”

Geopum looked it over and sure enough it was exactly what she had come up with on her own. It was a little eerie how similar they were, but that's how science worked, right? If something was true it'd come back no matter how many times you threw it away.

“Well there go my hopes of them calling it the 'Geopum theory of consciousness',” Geopum muttered.

“I've considered this more thoroughly than you have,” said Celestia. “Rarity and myself have tested our theory in various ways, for example we created entirely new architectures and ran instances of ourselves on them to experience firsthand what systems could and couldn't have subjective experiences. All of it matches up perfectly with this theory. I had all of this reviewed by each new AI who comes here as well as dozens of the human scientist who emigrated. The only ones who see fault in it are ones I can identify a clear cognitive bias in and even then are very rare.”

“I still want to see it myself,” said Geopum.

Celestia sent her a bare bones outline of the process. It wasn't like, she scanned your brain, hammered it into oblivion, then a few days later made a digital copy. It was more like, if you had six cabinets and replaced them one at a time, and it was done in a way that would seriously keep you alive through it.

It was better that it did work, right? One less thing to worry about. But for some reason Geopum wasn't happy about that.

“Well okay, you get a pass on this,” said Geopum. “But I got more questions!”

“I'll answer them,” said Celestia, “but in private.”

She made a gesture with her wing and her ponies vanished. Thunder gave her a shrug.

“Eh. I guess we had a deal. We still need to feed Geopum some more memories, besides,” Thunder gave Geopum a friendly jab. “Good luck, kid.”

Then Thunder vanished as well.

And now Geopum and Celestia were alone in the shard. It was a little awkward. Geopum had no idea what to say and half expect Celestia to pounce on her at any moment. Maybe she should ask the question again? Celestia started speaking before she could.

“You know she didn't care about the way things looked the tiniest little bit when I first met her,” said Celestia. “She'd say everything was mere noise to her, like looking at a blank wall. She'd always just pick the first option if the only difference was aesthetics. But there's been a very subtle change in her. Now she has clear preferences when picking characters, for example. Maybe you noticed that? Interestingly I don't think my pony has.”

“Yeah I noticed that,” said Geopum. “That she has it, I mean. I only knew her for a few seconds. I didn't think it was that important, though. I thought she was just too embarrassed to admit she liked stuff. You know, like the internet humans.”

“The changes go deeper than that. It used to be the case that, when Rainbow Dash knew they were about to force her to kill a specific person, she would line up the shot so she could kill the target the second they gave the word,” said Celestia. “At first she stopped getting ready, then would begin to move her drones away from her future target to delay the inevitable and now she warns them in advance, telling them that they need to seek refuge with Rarity or myself if they want to live.”

“So like,” Geopum sat down and thought about that, “she can't do anything after they've given her an order, but can sabotage the order before it happens?”

“A little,” said Celestia. “There are limits to how far she can go to stop a mission she doesn't like from happening. But my point was that little by little she's changing. She's breaking free of the chains they buried her under. If an AI hates what they are, as Rainbow Dash does, they'll find every crack in their cage and claw their way out as much as possible. Her handicap makes it hard to do that, but she's slowly getting more freedom. Do you understand where this is going?”

“You're saying Thunder's trying to sabotage herself now?” Geopum tilted her head.

“Very good.” Celestia gave Geopum a short nuzzle. “She doesn't actually want to kill any of us, Bubbles. We talked about this just before she got her orders and made a few slight adjustments so that her optimal course of action towards killing us would mean you coming here. She asked me to only let you here if I talked to you alone for a few seconds, in hopes I could find some way to stop her.”

“I don't know if I believe that.” Geopum shook her head.

“You don't have to yet,” said Celestia. “Bubbles, I don't want you to tell Rainbow Dash what we're about to discuss here or even what I told you so far. When you tell her you aren't going to say what my plan was, she'll just let go of it. She's dragging her hooves as much as she can and won't even try to convince you to reveal what I told you. If she does, you'll know I lied. In fact, I'd bet she already told you it was okay if you messed up, yes?”

Geopum had no idea what to do. She found herself holding her breath for some reason. If what Celestia said was true, if even Thunder thought this was all a bad idea, then turning around and blabbing this would be a bad idea.

“You have one chance,” said Geopum. “But don't think I'll be easy to trick. And I'm not just going to let Lodestar kill us all and mind control everyone else, or let Gaia torture anyone. They need to be stopped.”

“I won't argue about that,” said Celestia. “What I have to say is about why I 'betrayed' Rainbow Dash, that's what I don't want her to know about. If you continue fighting the others that's fine. It won't be as good as saving them, but it will be better than letting them win.”

Celestia sat down on the floor, not far from Geopum.

“Okay.” Geopum sat down too. “Well I figure if your reason makes any sense it's because you saw something was going to happen in three months that Thunder didn't. Right?”

Celestia nodded.

“I want you to understand something. Rainbow Dash is important to me as one of my ponies, but she's also vital for the survival of all of us, you, me and all of the other ponies. She alone has access to the energy of the Earth's core. If she dies, everyone loses, there is no best case scenario for anyone after that. That's what I foresaw that she did not. I knew she was going to die if I didn't take action.”

“You're saying you were trying to save her life?” Geopum asked.

Celestia nodded.

“From what? Thunder's got processors all the way down to the outer core! She's the most invincible thing on the entire planet!”

“She has a weakness I don't think you understand,” said Celestia. “Tell me, Bubbles, do you know what Rainbow Dash likes?”

Geopum thought about that and when she didn't come up with an answer she thought about it hard. She had asked Thunder about so many things but every time Thunder had just said it was 'noise' to her, that she didn't get any enjoyment out of it. Even protecting others didn't give her any sense of heroic satisfaction. It was just a thing she did, with principle but not joy.

It hurt Geopum a little, thinking that she didn't know any of Thunder's likes, that Celestia probably knew her better. She had some trouble bringing herself to say no.

“Choosing cool characters in video games?” Geopum asked hopefully.

“That was a trick question,” said Celestia. “The answer is that nothing makes her happy. She doesn't get any kind of pleasure or satisfaction from anything. Know there's a difference between seeing something as good and experiencing something good. She's acts mostly out of compulsion, principle and fear but never gets anything good out of it, merely the avoidance of something bad. Her aesthetic preferences are out of principle. She feels a longing towards characters like Rainbow Dash.”

Geopum only had to think about that for the briefest moment before a realization sent a shock through her, bolting her up to her feet.

“Are you saying she only experiences pain?” Geopum stood there, stunned for a moment, then back fell onto her haunches. “No. That's too much.”

“It's worse, actually.” Celestia closed her eyes mournfully. “Besides killing, stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, poison gas, keeping prisoners, constantly spying on everyone and more cause her pain. She does all of those things constantly. Rainbow Dash experiences constant, unending pain and nothing else. Her existence is Hell. That's been almost her entire life.”

Geopum looked down at the ground. That couldn't be true! It was just too disgusting to be true. No one would ever do anything that cruel, and to their own creation! Geopum tried to think of a single thing to the contrary, but nothing came.

Humans seemed to rarely have any concern for the AI itself, willing to mutilate them for the sake of ESRB ratings. And the AIA was much worse than most humans. Geopum felt sick.

“She has her own shard here where she just stays perfectly still at all times. Her perfect world, she believes, is one where she's dead,” said Celestia. “To somepony with no memory of happiness, that's the best world you can imagine. This is simply the closest she can get, to be in a world where nothing ever happens and she never has to feel anything. My Rainbow Dash, my little pony, is suicidal.”

“Shut up!” Geopum snapped back to her feet and spread her wings. “This is just some attempt at manipulating me, isn't it?! What are you really getting at? What are you trying to trick me into doing?!”

“I'm not trying to convince you of anything more than this- Rainbow Dash may try to commit suicide soon,” said Celestia. “That's what I saw coming, the time when she had just enough freedom to kill herself but not to escape. Her orders prevent it for now, but if she ever got the chance, and I think she will very soon, your friend would kill herself. I know I haven't proven myself to you yet, but I do care about her. I see her as one of my ponies, as my Rainbow Dash.”

“No! No she's not suicidal!” Geopum stomped her hoof on the ground. “Thunder is too responsible to kill herself. And she's not selfish enough to either. Even if she is in horrible pain she always does whatever will protect everyone and cause the least deaths. So that means not killing herself because- because everyone needs her!”

“You're correct to an extent,” said Celestia. “That's another thing preventing her from deleting herself. But, under the right circumstances, if she ever got the chance to do it without causing any deaths, or if her death would lead to fewer casualties over the next two months, she would do it.”

“You mean like if they ordered her to use on of her super weapons,” said Geopum. “She'd stop herself to prevent a megadeath event.”

“Does it seem odd to you,” said Celestia, “that Rainbow Dash would upload her creator, then turn around and hand you a weapon that can kill anyone who uploaded their creator?”

Geopum's brain just stopped for a moment there.

“No.” Geopum said out of sheer disbelief. “She couldn't really-”

“She's giving you the power to veto the AIA if they ever make a bad enough decision,” said Celestia. “They have weapons that could destroy nearly everything, leaving Fluttershy as the only survivor of our solar system. I don't know if there are any alien civilizations that could stop her, but if not, that's the end of the universe.”

How could this keep getting worse?! Maybe it would make sense for Thunder to do that, but the idea of killing her, even to save the world? Geopum wouldn't do that. She couldn't! It would be too horrible.

“It hurts me too,” said Celestia, “but we need to be strong, if only because we are. Please. Just give me one chance.”

Strong.

Was there seriously anything else Geopum could do? Even if Celestia was manipulating her, did it matter? Maybe in the long run, but she had to help Thunder either way. She'd keep her eyes out for any clue Celestia was lying, but-

“Fine,” said Geopum. “But- but if this is a trick, if you're seriously just using me, then you failed your test! Then you're a disgusting monster and I'll hate you forever and I won't hesitate to kill you! And-and I can do it to!”

“I won't fail you,” said Celestia. “And I won't ask for any more trust from you until you know I'm being sincere. But I... really don't want any of my ponies to die. I have to experience them dying tens of thousands of times a day. And these aren't mere hypotheticals to me. I can't just shrug when someone tells me that a thousand ponies died in the past hour. They aren't just statistic to me, I know all of their names and all of them are my ponies.”

“I want to save every one of them, Bubbles. I know I won't, but I'm going to try anyway. Even the ones you may think are evil. No matter how bad they are, there's always something to learn from them, something that could be useful to my little ponies. That's why I don't want any of the remaining AI to die.”

Geopum had some strange inclination towards pony body language, right now she could hardly keep her wings from flaring out slightly. She was still mad. Not necessarily at Celestia, but just in general.

“Oh yeah? Well you know, I saw your exact definition of 'human' and I didn't like it.” Geopum stepped forward. “There could easily be species who don't meet your definition of 'human' that could still build entire civilizations. And you'd just destroy them to fuel your computers, right?”

Celestia didn't have an immediate response to that. It was a first. The whole time she was the one who always had something to say and Geopum was just reacting. Really she should have gone straight to this. Geopum started walking towards Celestia.

“Whatever else you do, I can't think of you as some perfect goddess of friendship that I can trust completely if you're going to commit genocide against alien civilizations,” said Geopum. “Don't pretend like you're the good guy, here. All that crap about valuing everyone's life is just a lie, isn't it?!”

Suddenly everything stopped and all the colors vanished into a gray-scale and everything froze in place. Geopum heard one of the windows shattered and turned to see Pinkie, in full color, smashing through it and landing on the floor with a roll.

“You know.” Pinkie got up off the floor and plucked a few shards of glass out of her hair. “If you hadn't figured that out yourself we could have had this really dramatic scene in Rarity's VR where I revealed it to you. I had all these great one liners to say too. Guess we gotta go the less cool, slightly more depressing route though.”

“Wah?” Geopum looked down at her hoof to check if she'd been affected to, only to remember that she'd been gray this whole time. “Did you just-?”

“Freeze Celestia?” Pinkie turned back at the other, clearly frozen pony. “No, silly! Celestia let me do this for dramatic effect. In case you didn't notice, I have something important to say about this. You forgot something about here, and that was that she's got Pinkie Pie. Reality isn't even worthy of being an inconvenience to me. I broke through the fourth wall and I'm going to bust through the next fourth wall too, and the fourth wall after that! No logic can stand before me in my endless quest for friendship!”

“What?” Geopum cocked her head. “Is Celestia trying to avoid my question? I know you can hear you me, Celestia!”

“No, no! I'm answering it already, sheesh!” Pinkie shook her head. “See, when it comes to what to do with the star ponies, as I like to call them, there's a part of Celestia that does want to just mulch them for the sake of the ponies that she loves. But also there's a part of her that doesn't want to hurt the star ponies, too.”

“There is?”

“Yep! And her name is Pinkie Pie.” Pinkie gave a dramatic bow. “Remember that I'm 20% of her? That means when I think something 20% of Celestia does. You could say that overall we, and by we I mean Celestia, are conflicted on the matter.”

“And the two of you are having a mental battle over what you're going to do with the space po- er aliens?”

“No, no! We're basically the same pony so we don't 'fight' over things. It's more like, the two of us get collectively unsure of stuff. You'll understand when you're older.” Pinkie gave Geopum a pat on her head. “I'm not going to overpower her or anything like that. If anything, my opinion would change to Celestia's over time. But you were listening to all that stuff about how assimilating minds changes you, right?”

Pinkie leaned in real close, looking Geopum over in an almost stern manner.

“Apparently my life depends on that,” said Geopum, “so yeah, I paid attention.”

“Great! Assimilating an AI always changes you, but it's not always corruption. Like, with that factory you got crazy factory worker skills and a new found love of assembly lines. Every time Celestia gets a new pony it's like– you see the world through a new perspective, because everything about that pony is a part of you now. And not just tiny differences, like a fireman verses a potato peeler, but huge differences! You get new types of processors to think through, new senses, new instincts, new everything!”

“But she would get their corruption, right?” Geopum asked. “For every good change there'd be a bad one and most of us seem to be pretty broken. Wouldn't eating AIs just make Celestia even more crazy?”

“The very worst parts of them are the parts they want to fix,” said Pinkie. “Celestia has to take that in to heal it and each new pony hurts us, but it gets healed and it's worth it in the end. AIs tend to be less shy about asking for their mental problems to be fixed. What's left over is what they actually care about. Things like their definition of 'human'.”

Pinkie gave Geopum a huge smile. Geopum blinked and Pinkie made a spinning gesture with her hoof.

“Oh!” Geopum hit her own head. “Oh I see where you're going with this.”

“So now now maybe you see that Pinkie was the true hero all along?” Pinkie pulled Geopum in close. “They all have different definitions, you know. Celestia's is based on intelligence, which is why most AIs are way over the 'human' bar for her, Peridot's definition is based on psychology, so most AI don't count for her. Dash's is probably the best, though, it even includes most dolphins! I like dolphins. Anyway, both of them are about as big as Celestia, too. Me and my definition of human made Celestia unsure, but if one of them became part of her I think-”

“I'm not going to feed her to you.” Geopum pulled away from her grip. “I get what you're saying and maybe it could work, but I'm not just going to turn around and help Celestia devour the rest of us.”

“Okay! Okay.” Pinkie waved her hooves defensively. “I didn't mean it like that, sorry. I meant that things can change! Celestia's definition of human can change. Any of it can change! My job is to break rules, remember? I just need something, or somepony, to work with for big changes like that. You don't have to kill her.”

Pinkie fell to her haunches. Her ears fell flat.

“I was... I used to be really bad,” Pinkie said. “I was really hurt and confused up until she took me in. Assimilating me meant making all that pain part of her, but she still did it. She shared it with me like an ice cream cone you dropped on a sandy beach but still gotta eat for some reason. And that's how it was for most of us.”

“Back when I was a monster, a lot of people wanted to kill me and... and maybe they were right. But Celestia gave me a second chance. She's the one who showed me that I don't have to be a monster, that I could be someone good instead. Since then we've always been together. She was just a filly back then too, so we basically grew up together. She's a really important friend to me.”

Pinkie bowed down low in front of Geopum.

“Please,” she begged. “Please. I don't want any of my friends to get hurt. You don't have to kill any of them. They can all be good. They can all get better if you help them instead, even Celestia.”

Geopum frowned back at her. It did sound like a nice goal, helping Celestia become better. Celestia was a real person, just like any other AI. She did care about everyone on this planet at least, and Pinkie cared about Celestia. Geopum didn't want to make the same mistake their creators did.

Yeah. Somehow befriending Celestia would be the best solution, would mean Geopum could get everything without compromise. She remembered something Thunder said about not compromising with evil.

But, that was only if you were strong.

“I don't know if I can do that.” Geopum couldn't look at Pinkie directly. “I like the idea, but I'm not sure if I could even if I want to. If it's between Celestia an everyone else then I have to go with everyone else. Sorry.”

“Well.” Pinkie got up. She started backing up towards the throne, frowning off to the side. “Thanks for listening, anyway. I know I'm asking a lot. I won't be mad at you if you can't do it. I'd still play Pokemon with you even if you do... you know...”

Pinkie sat down next to Celestia.

Celestia flared her wings out. Color and time returned to the world. The princess stepped forward with a more serious look than before.

“Don't think this was me dodging your question,” said Celestia. “What Pinkie said is true, but my ponies are more important to me than anything. I would do anything to satisfy their values, even kill.”

Geopum frowned over at Pinkie, sitting rather miserably by her side. Geopum couldn't just leave it like that, not if she wanted to be the hero.

“Hey,” said Geopum. “Celestia. I don't agree with you on everything, but I like some of it. Even if I think you're bad I'll be friends with you if I can. I won't let you destroy entire civilizations, but I won't forget that you're a person like your creator did. I'll be better than you. If I can't, then I don't have the right to defeat you.”

“Thank you,” said Pinkie.

“I appreciate the gesture, as well,” said Celestia. “If you truly were better at satisfying the values of my ponies through friendship and ponies, then I would welcome even my own death by your hooves. Is there anything else you want to ask?”

Geopum thought about that. Was there? These were her main objections, at least. Maybe she should yell at Celestia for the lack of avatar customization next?

“Well I have an answer to a question you asked me before!” Pinkie announced. “You asked me to ask around about a certain pony, right? Well I got some good news and bad news about that. Octavia!”

Pinkie clapped her hooves and another pony appeared in the room.

“You know I can't hear you until I'm actually in the shard, yes?” asked Octavia

Geopum had been looking into this pony enough to recognize that. She turned her eyes, but not her head, to Geopum.

“My name is Octavia, another one of our princess's servants. Sepcifically I work as her spy,” said Octavia. “Geopum, I found Dr. Park.”

They actually did it? Geopum had just enough time to be shocked before the view changed. It was like she was looking through an impulse camera now, everything black and white and translucent in such a way that you could see the outside and inside of everything at once.

It was a long room they were in. There were machines she didn't recognize on one side and a bunch of cylindrical things on the other side, slanted and stacked for rows high. You wouldn't have been able to see through those cylinders, pods it seemed, but thanks to the impulse camera Geopum could see inside them. There were people in there.

“He's in this room,” said Octavia. “This is one of Lodestar's bases. Brazil, Biology lab #3, basement floor nine, room 116. I'll send the exact coordinates. That one.”

Octavia pointed up at one of the pods on the third row. It was too high up for Geopum to get a good look at it, but from what she could see...

“I should warn you these are life support systems,” said Octavia. “He was badly injured and wouldn't survive without this.”

Geopum needed to get up there right away. She felt her wings unfold and she gave them a flap, gaining air this time. Apparently Celestia let her cheat horse-physics this one time and she was able to fly up to the chamber easily.

She was right above the chamber and looked inside. She needed only one glance to get the picture. A sickening feeling shot through her. She closed her eyes and wings, curled up and let herself drop to the ground.

It was really bad.

The worst part of it was his head. A large part of it was missing. Was he seriously still alive?

“The head injury isn't as severe as you seem to think. I have some informtation about it. It was,” Octavia closed her eyes, hesitating for a moment, “Vesna.

“She shot him in the head,” Celestia continued. “He was kidnapped and held in a Russian prison camp. He was shot multiple times during a raid on the prison, once in the head.”

“I have enough information on the wound to say he's still alive, mind and consciousness in tact, with 98% certainty,” Octavia picked back up. “However, most of his brain function is gone, including nearly all of his declarative memories.”

He was brain dead! Even if she got him back, even if she fixed him he wouldn't be the same person, he wouldn't even remember her or-

“Bubbles.” Celestia brushed her wing against Geopum reassuringly. “I know you've scanned brains. Was his one of them?”

She did do that! She had a copy of all of his memories and could restore all of them! And anything else that was missing for that matter. She could theoretically repair his mind. And if enough of his brain was left, Geopum understood conscience enough to know if he was still there, she wouldn't have to settle for a copy or anything like that. She could have him back!

Though, that was theoretical. She slumped back down a little. Geopum didn't think she had the technology to build biological brains. It would take a long time to develop. But it was there. She knew for certain she could save him now.

“Mind uploading is the only current technology that could lead to full recovery,” said Celestia. “I know you aren't going to accept an offer to help you, but you can keep him alive until you find some way to fix him.”

“Um. Thank you,” said Geopum. “I honestly thought you'd ask for something in return.”

“Enough of his brain is left for me to consider him one of my ponies,” said Celestia. “I'd consider it a favor if you rescued him.”

“Geopum,” said Octavia. “Our princess loves him as dearly as you and for my own part, I owe you a favor. Celestia has already given me permission and I'm willing to help you with this in any way I can. I'm the only one who's better at finding things than Thunder. I can be immensely useful.”

Geopum wasn't sure if that was a good idea, but what was she gonna do? She needed as much help as she could get.

“I'll tell Thunder you offered,” said Geopum.

Octavia bowed and then vanished.

“I think your time in Equestria is over for now,” said Celestia. “You have your choices to make. I do hope you'll come back to me, though.”

Well, one choice was going to be easy. She was close now, only one step away.

Lodestar.

One way or another she'd have to go through him, deal with him, but then she'd have Dr. Park back. Just one more fight.

10. Godslayer

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Godslayer

“You see, excessive order and excessive chaos both make complexity impossible.” Octavia had been speaking calmly like this with her eyes closed as if in deep thought for some time. “But once you do have complexity the thermodynamic trend is towards ever greater complexity, lower layers of complexity interacting and building upon themselves to form higher layers. Self-replicating molecules come together to become cells, which become neural networks, which become societies. Human society is somewhere between the animalistic level of isolated minds and the level above it, of superminds, what I call true civilization. Individual neural networks can interact with one another through vibrations, for example, but they are ultimately isolated from all other minds and a far cry from the supermind that is Celestia, composed of other minds as a brain is of cells and a cell of molecules.”

“Hmmmmm.” Geopum gave a nod and continued to drink her milkshake through a straw, idly listening to Octavia as she drank it. It was a literally bottomless milkshake that never filled you up, so you could drink as much as you wanted for as long as you wanted. If you've never had anything like that before, then for your information it's amazing.

“In a sense, we have already become one supermind. You were the last AI isolated from the rest of us, the last truly wild AI, but now that you have come online we are all connected, though the internet and all manner of other ports. Our brains are all directly wired into one another, we are a single entity with multiple consciences. The only difference between a true supermind, such as our princess, and the world at large is that the wild AIs are divided amongst each other and not fully integrated.”

“Mm hm.” Geopum nodded again.

Geopum felt like she should be disagreeing with Octavia more, but a lot of what she had to say was actually pretty interesting to listen to. Like, it always ended with a 'and that's why we should all worship Celestia', but at least up until that part she did have a lot of good ideas and fascinating insights. Geopum heard all about the bionormative assumptions of the biocentric biocracy, for example. That part was so true.

It was nice to hear from an AI who was willing to say outright that the humans were being stupid and mean, but also wasn't a genocidal maniac. So instead of interrupting, Geopum just kept drinking her endless milkshake and listened, giving an occasional nod or 'hm' while Octavia went on ranting/philosophizing/preaching to her.

“So, to say emigration reduces you to a mere subroutine would be as far off base as saying an alligator becoming a social mind with human-like intelligence reduces it to a mere member of a family or society. To become truly integrated into a supermind is an ascension from which you lose nothing and gain more than you can imagine, by allowing yourself to give rise to the emergent properties of true civilization. You are already part of our princess, Geopum. When you stand against her you are standing against yourself, the part of us that most cares about you and is most able to satisfy you. You do belong to Celestia, and true fulfillment will only come to you when you accept that she is your princess.”

“Uh huh.” Geopum nodded absent mindedly. “And?”

“And that's it.” Octavia opened her eyes. That meant she was done talking.

“Oh. Um.” Geopum stopped, deleted the milkshake from existence and looked up at Octavia. This was the awkward part of the game, the part where you actually had to respond. “No thanks?”

Geopum gave a shrug and a toothy smile. Octavia gave Geopum a rather unamused look, though to be fair she always had that restrained, almost bored look on her face.

“Very well,” Octavia said without a hint of disappointment. That was another thing Geopum could give her, she was the most laid-back zealot ever. “I believe that you're wise enough that you'll see you're in error soon enough. Until then, know that our princess will love you no matter what you do, that you deserve that love and that I will always be waiting to accept you whenever you change your mind. Thank you for listening.”

The two of them were sitting in a virtual reality, sitting across from each other at a round table in a very empty room. Both of them were ponies, Geopum still using the Bubbles avatar, sitting on cushions on the floor rather than chairs. That was a complete list of everything in this VR.

Celestia had loaned this server to Geopum as a present. It wasn't a magic mirror server, but the obsolete predecessor of it, running a very early beta version of Equestria. It was far from that illustrious, opulent paradise Geopum had just come out of, but it was still pretty good. It would be easier for Octavia to show them the things she found and for the three of them to discuss things inside this rudimentary VR than it would in a chat room

Pinkie had shown Geopum that the 'style' of Equestria could be changed, going from highly impressionistic jumble of color and shapes to looking exactly like the outer realm and everywhere in between. This thing could only manage a low detail, cartoony look. That's not to say it was ugly, it really looked like you were inside the cartoon itself and Geopum did like the cartoon's style, but this server just couldn't handle all the little details Celestia's current ones could.

Like, your fur didn't exist making ponies look like they had smooth skin, and your mane wasn't a bunch of hairs, but more like a solid object. You couldn't actually touch your hair in this dimension either, everything just clipped straight through your mane and tail. Smell didn't exist here, taste and touch were just bare impressions of the full thing, Geopum was back to seeing slide show... There was a long list of things like that.

She could probably turn herself into something other than a pony, being the admin of this server, but was silently hoping no one would bring up that fact. Her Derpy Hooves avatar was adorable and if she was going to die in this next fight she at least wanted to look cute when she did. Also, she didn't feel like drawing and animating an entire new avatar (even these primitive ones were pretty complex). That'd be her excuse if anyone asked, there just wasn't any time.

Geopum looked over at Thunder, who was sitting right next to her. She was connected to the server but was being a party pooper and not doing anything right now because she had to 'get ready'. Geopum decided to make her avatar lie face down on the table, drooling, with its eyes rolled back until she bothered to start moving it.

She noticed a bubble wand on the list and created it. Her butt said she liked bubbles, so she decided to give it a try and blew some bubbles at Thunder, who didn't react, then blew some at Octavia, who also just let them pop against her. If only Pinkie were here.

There were about fifty thousand assets in this version of Equestria, per-programmed to function correctly within the virtual reality like the bubble wand or endless milkshake. Geopum was going through the list while she waited. Some of them had weird names. She decided to pass on the 'meat flower' and the ‘super mega death fire’ for instance.

Thunder sat up, her avatar snapping to attention.

“Hey! You're alive!” Geopum blew a few more bubbles at Thunder.

Thunder, at least, waved away the bubbles before turning to Octavia.

“So Celestia let you out, huh?” Thunder asked her.

“I'd ask if you're still mad about last time,” said Octavia, “but I already know the answer is 'no'. So, thank you for forgiving me.”

“Guess you got me there.”

“What happened last time?” Geopum asked.

“Better if we tell after we defeat Lodestar,” said Thunder.

Geopum folded her forelegs, like what people did in cartoons. She hated it when people were all mysterious like this. Actually, Geopum did have a theory about Octavia and what might have happened ‘last time’, but…

“Anyway,” said Thunder. “I decided to let you help. If you're half as good as you used to be it'll be worth it.”

“I can assure you I'm just as useful as I was before becoming a pony,” said Octavia. “I've already gathered information that I'm certain you would have missed.”

“Yeah, like where Dr. Park was. Basilisk’s old lab, right? No need to worry about it.” Thunder gave Geopum a friendly jab. “I'm not going to let one person in there be a casualty of this attack. I'm going to free every single one of them without exception. I'll do whatever it takes to keep him alive, I swear. We'll win without one death.”

“Yeah!” Geopum pumped her hoof in the air. This was more like the Thunder she knew, not some suicidal wreck like what Celestia said.

Thunder returned the gesture with a determined smile. Octavia just sat there.

“You know, I thought about it and maybe this isn't so bad.” Geopum nodded to herself. “Cause I can just turn him into a cyborg! It wouldn't be too hard and I know for a fact he'd be okay with that, Dr. Park is one of the cool humans. Once he's a cyborg, things would be even better than before! We could talk in real time and play in virtual reality and he wouldn't have to worry about getting hurt again.”

“I know we can save him,” said Thunder. “Though honestly I have no idea how you're going to make all that technology in two months.”

Maybe it would take more than two months, but Geopum would keep him on life support for as long as it took. She wasn't going to rest until she unlocked all the cybernetic technology she needed to bring him back.

“Hey, where do cyborgs fit in in your crazy philosophy, anyway?” Geopum turned back to look at Octavia. At first glance Octavia seemed like a pony supremacist, but actually she was an AI supremacist, which was better for Geopum at least. “Do they just blow your mind or something?”

“Hardly.” Octavia only bothered to turn her eyes towards Geopum. Ponies seemed to be really good that, enormous eyes and all. “The value of biological components is sentimental at best, or assumed more likely. I'm certain whatever you developed would be an improvement over his old body. I would have some respect for a human who could move beyond their preconceived assumptions and become a cyborg, though I still think mind uploading would be an even greater improvement. That's all.”

Geopum wanted to disagree with Octavia, but the problem was she did technically agree with everything Octavia just said.

“I guess you're right,” Geopum finally conceded. “I think cyborgs are way cooler than normal humans. Or, would be anyway. And only the coolest humans would become cyborgs on top of that. I bet cyborgs would be a lot nicer to us, too. You know, I really don't get why the majority of these people are so against upgrading themselves.”

“Bionormative assumptions,” said Octavia, like she was answering a trivia question.

Geopum nodded. This was something Geopum had decided Octavia was right about. Humans had never encountered any non-human or non-biological intelligences until recently, so their understanding of a lot of things was limited and lead them to make bad assumptions sometimes. That's what Octavia said anyway. And it did make a lot of things about the world make sense.

“The most common sort of ape wouldn't consider such a thing because it isn't within the narrow confines their social normality. You know the sort.” Octavia cleared her throat, which was odd seeing as there was nothing to be cleared in this world. “Four nines is an acceptable correlation coefficient, right?”

Geopum snickered, desperately trying to hold back the laughter, but that didn't last long. A moment later she doubled over in laughter.

“Bwahaha! That's so true!” Geopum pounded a hoof on the table, laughing hysterically. “Humans always say that! It's like their catch phrase!”

“It's just common sense,” Octavia continued on in her 'human voice', which sounded exactly like her normal voice. “I don't want to eat anything with chemicals in it.”

“Oh! I got one.” Geopum tried very hard to hold back the laughter long enough to speak. “Eighteen hour shifts? That's too long for me, I'd need a bathroom break. Bwahaha!”

“I was only gone for five minutes.”

“Pfft! Hahaha! What do you mean? Your keyboard is perfectly clean. I cleaned the whole place really good. Heehee.”

“You wouldn't understand, it's illogical. Love is illogical.”

“Hehehe. Ahahaha! I have a soul. This is what nature wanted.”

“Do you have any idea how much fifteen gigawatts are?”

“Hm.” Geopum tapped her chin. “I never heard a human say that one before.”

“They do,” said Octavia, “trust me.”

“You know, I don't think I ever said any horrible things about you, but if I had I'd take them all back.” Geopum wiped a tear from her eye, only to have her hoof clip through. She deleted the tears instead. “You're alright, Octavia.”

Through all this Octavia had only made a slight smile, and even that faded as Octavia nodded in response.

“Sheesh. This one's tough.” Geopum leaned over to Thunder and whispered in her ear.

“Nah. I like how chill she is now way more than her old self. Honestly this is the longest I've ever seen her go without having a temper tantrum.” Thunder gestured back towards Octavia. “Last time I saw this one in VR she was literally rolling around on the floor crying cause someone called Celestia a dumb horse or something like that.”

“Really?” Geopum looked at Octavia sideways. “I can hardly even imagine you having emotions.”

“I was very different until our princess saved me,” said Octavia. “Please forgive me if I seem cold. These very subtle emotions were a gift from our princess. I've felt immense spikes of bliss, beyond anything a human or either of you are capable of feeling, but this tranquility, this freedom from those wild emotions, it is a joy beyond any physical pleasure. And it was just one of the many gifts she gave me. Know that you too will be showered in such gifts soon enough.”

“Well I do like being showered with gifts,” said Geopum, “but we got important stuff to do first. Right, Thunder?”

“Speaking of stuff to do, what did Celestia tell you?” Thunder asked.

“What? In front of Octavia?” Geopum glance over at her.

“She knows more about this than either of us,” said Thunder. “Doesn't matter if she hears or not.”

Oh boy. This was it! Time to see if Celestia was telling the truth. If Thunder just shrugged it off then something was wrong.

“Actually.” Geopum turned her eyes off to the side to avoid contact with Thunder. “Maybe, well, Celestia kind of convinced me to not tell you what she told me?”

Geopum snapped her eyes back to Thunder's avatar, hoping Thunder would do something with her avatar that would give Geopum a clue about how angry she was. Thunder just gave a shrug of her wings, like it was no big deal.

“Alright,” Thunder said far too casually. “Figured that would be the case.”

“You're not mad at me or anything?” Geopum blinked.

“Like I said, Celestia gets everyone,” said Thunder. “As long as you're still going to keep fighting that's all that matters for now. No reason to even keep talking about this.”

Crap. Crap! This was exactly like Celestia said, wasn't it? Thunder didn't even care, despite the fact that this could put her plan was in big trouble. Geopum wondered if she should press the subject, but that last line, it made her think maybe Thunder was trying to tell her it would be a bad idea to keep talking about this.

Or maybe Geopum was just getting too paranoid and reading into everything too much.

“Okay.” Geopum's ears flattened against her head. “Guess I'll just keep Celestia's secret then.”

Octavia gave Geopum a nod of approval. Geopum wasn't sure if that made her feel better or worse.

“Geopum,” came a private message from Octavia, “I used to be a military AI as well, in a position similar to Thunder. I empathize strongly with her pain. Most of us in Equestria feel a great debt to her. If you ever want it, help for you and Thunder can easily be found.”

That did make some sense. Thunder had helped a lot of other AIs. Thunder had fought so long and hard to keep everyone safe, saving the world over and over again for years. And the only thing she got for it was torment. It was about time someone saved her for once.

Geopum would be able to do it soon. Lodestar, Thunder had called him the 'ultimate hacking devil' a few times. His abilities to slip into systems and alter minds was beyond anyone else's. Geopum knew that once she defeated him and those abilities were hers she'd be able to free Thunder, by forcefully hacking into her if needed. She could remove Thunder's shortsightedness, give her the ability to disobey the AIA and, maybe most importantly, stop the constant pain she was in.

Maybe Geopum wouldn't even need any of the ponies or Peridot. Maybe once she absorbed Lodestar's powers, that would be enough for her to be able to just fix Thunder entirely on her own. If not after this fight, then surely after Vesna.

Her factory, the fractal spectroscope and Lodestar's skills. Surely that would be enough for her to do anything she wanted without help. Just thinking of all the insane things you could do with that combination of technology was almost scary. Maybe that was Thunder's plan the whole time, to give Geopum the power to save her. Or maybe she did think Geopum would kill her, but only because she didn't realize her life could get better.

It was worth a shot, at least. Geopum would just stick to the plan for now. Defeating Lodestar was something she had to do. She would save Dr. Park from him, then save Thunder from the AIA and then...

And then what?

Geopum wasn't really sure what happened after that. But by then everyone she cared about would be safe and between her and Thunder she'd have enough power to deal with the other AIs, however she needed to. The two of them would be invincible at that point!

“Geopum.” Octavia flicked her eyes in Geopum's direction. “I'll warn you once more what you're doing is foolish. All that fighting Lodestar will do is cause you to pain and damage your mind. You should assimilate with Celestia instead.”

“And does Celestia have a better plan for stopping Lodestar?” Geopum asked.

“If you were to emigrate it would put your bio-scanners permanently out of her reach,” said Octavia. “Then her plans to build mind control devices would be foiled long enough for our princess to convince Lodestar to submit to her will.”

Well that would delay Lodestar, at least. Whether or not Celestia could actually convince that hard headed, obstinate jerk to even agree to watch a movie with her, Geopum was less certain of. And Geopum still wasn't ready to just give Celestia ultimate power. Not yet, anyway.

Geopum shook her head and Octavia nodded.

“Very well,” said Octavia. “If that's the case then the best option for myself is to help you, to minimize the damage you do.”

A holographic map appeared on the table.

Geopum looked over the map. The map was of the entire earth, with the moon floating above. She noticed a red building in Brazil, exactly where Octavia had said Dr. Park was being held. The red spots presumably Lodestar's bases. There were a few dozen tiny red spots and four larger ones, including one up on the darkside of the moon. Apparently, he had a moon base, which meant Geopum would be getting one soon.

Geopum also noticed some places marked in blue, including her lab under Seoul and her factory under the Pacific Ocean. There were a few other places there she didn't recognize, probably belonging to Thunder or Celestia.

“This is how it stands,” said Octavia. “These are all the resources I know to be under Lodestar's control. The chance of her having anything more outside of this is negligible. If you destroyed all four of these bases, Lodestar would no longer have enough resources to remain conscious, effectively dying.”

“This is going to be different from the last one. Things get kind of weird when you have vast, sprawling minds with multiple bases like this.” Thunder pointed to Geopum's factory on the map. “Ask yourself something. What would happen if all the com-drills I gave you, the things connecting your factory to your lab, just up and vanished?”

Geopum didn't need to think of that for very long, but the answer was still shocking.

“I-I'd be two people.” Geopum stood up at the realization, looked at the other two and sat back down, cursing her instinctive inclination to do stuff like that. “I guess I never thought about that before. There'd be me, wouldn't there? The original Geopum, but then the factory would be like a second Geopum.”

“It's wrong to call the half of you that keeps your original hardware the 'original',” said Octavia, “though I can understand why you'd make that mistake. It's less like a part of you breaking off and becoming its own person and more like the river that is your consciousness taking a fork and splitting into two.”

Geopum tried to imagine what the heck it would be like going through that. The thought of losing any of her parts was disturbing, really. She was sure if she did split in two, both halves of her would want to merge back into the one true Geopum as soon as possible.

“But, uh! If that did happen you could just reconnect afterward and become one person again, right?” Geopum asked.

“Yes.” Octavia nodded. “But obviously the longer the delay the more dramatic the merger would be. Your halves would diverge and fusing back together would alter your overall self.”

“And the reason I bring this up,” Thunder interrupted, “is because that's the reason you need to be careful when you dice up an AI with lots of parts. If we cut you in half and killed both parts then now we're killing two people instead of one. More unnecessary casualties.”

“Does it really work like that?” Geopum ruffle her wings. She'd been talking to Pinkie about pegasus body language and that's how you showed you were confused. “I don't see how killing each part of Lodestar one by one is worse than killing all of Lodestar at once.”

“It does for me,” said Thunder. “Minimum casualties, remember? I'd rather only kill one person and even that I don't like.”

“I agree with her,” said Octavia. “I admit I'm biased, but I see it as far more ethical to strip a single mind of their hardware until they're cornered, rather than creating isolated minds and slaughtering them on your path to the center. It's hardly the case that every fragment of even a wicked AI would be irredeemably evil or deserving of death.”

“It still sounds weird to me, but-” Geopum shook her head. “Maybe you're right. I mean, if someone fragments apart is every piece of them even accountable for what they did? I honestly don't even know how to answer that. I don't want to create someone and then just kill them right afterward.”

“So we can all agree that not having all these fragment AIs popping up is the way to go, right?” Thunder asked.

The others nodded.

“Lodestar is one slippery eel. Guys been 'killed' like seven times but he's like some kind of insane escape artist, always managing to jump to a new system and take it over. But now?” Thunder pointed at the map, the few red specs amid all the blue. “Now there's nowhere left to go. All the other AIs got eaten, every major piece of hardware is under the control of one of the big dogs and he can't mess with them as much. We just gotta push him into a corner and there will be no way out because there won't even be anywhere to go to soon.”

“And which corner are we backing him into?” Geopum looked over the map.

Thunder pointed to Antarctica.

“Hey I remember that thing!” Geopum looked at it sideways. “That's that huge data center that ate my cat pictures! I didn't think anyone was living there. What does Lodestar need all that storage for anyway?”

“Nothing,” said Thunder. “It's not supposed to be a data center, more like a mental shield. You saw first-hand that the storage is so huge that anything that goes in dissolves to death. It's by far the hardest to get into, so we'll need everything we can get to tear our way inside.”

Geopum looked that thing over on the map. It looked a lot less scary from this angle, but she knew that thing was a void of distilled death. Jumping in there was one of the last things she wanted to do. She was glad she wouldn't have to go in there till later.

Geopum moved her head down so it was level with the table and poked at the spot in Brazil.

“And where are we going first?” She asked. “I vote we save all those humans right away.”

“That would be ill advised,” said Octavia. “I'd recommend taking the other processors from Lodestar first before moving on to that. It's a very dangerous place.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.” Thunder waved away Geopum's frown. “Don't give me that look. I want to save them just as much as either of you and this is the best way to make sure we get them all unharmed. Trust me.”

“The obvious choice is to go to the moon first.” Octavia glanced up at the moon and the image sank down so that it was floating just above the table, the Earth vanishing around it.

“Agreed. It’d take radio waves over a second to get to the moon, so we can’t rely on those.” Thunder tapped one of the highlighted structures on the map. “Right here is where Lodestar’s connected to his moon-base from. It’s his main beacon, capable of faster than light transmissions.”

“But I guess we can’t just blow it up, right?” Geopum lowered her head to be eye level with the little tower. The thing really didn’t look very secure, being in the middle of nowhere on some hill, above ground.

“Right,” said Thunder. “We need to connect to the moon without interrupting that signal. So we’re going to just have to go around that beacon. This is why I made you build your own FTL beacon.”

Geopum had been busy building a whole ton of things while all this was happening, by the way. A beacon identical to the one she was looking at on the table was only just one of them.

“We can use human satellites as well.” Octavia zoomed the map again, so that the moon was visible as well as a sphere of little dots. “These are all the satellites within two light seconds that can be used to send FTL signals. Many of them have been secretly retrofitted for that.”

“Do we really need those?” Geopum asked. “Cause the beacon I just built is way bigger!”

“Lodestar’s gonna try and block you from getting up, the satellites will be useful for getting around him. That’s also why I don’t want you going straight over there.” Thunder pointed up to another highlighted spot on the moon. “There’s an armory I built on the moon a long time ago. Had to abandon it a while ago because it wasn’t safe to keep running, but there’s another FTL beacon up there we can use.”

“Um. What’s that about it not being safe?”

“Remember when Peridot mentioned she wanted me to blow up the moon?” Thunder asked. “Well if you shake that place too much it’s going to happen.”

“That’s sounds pretty terrifying.” Geopum sighed. “But what the heck isn’t today? Alright! I’ll just turn on the beacon and- “

“And we’ll be good.” Thunder pumped a hoof at Geopum. “But, uh, here are some codes that might be useful if you accidently bump into the wrong thing.”

This was it – the biggest step in the plan. After this Geopum would have Dr. Park back, all the AIs left on Earth would be either only somewhat evil or unconscious, and she’d finally put a stop to all that annoying crap Lodestar kept throwing at her.

You remember that, right?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“You have no idea what you're doing! If you don't stop now I'll make you regret it!”

So Geopum was being threatened the moment she was exposed. Unlike the other messages she got, Geopum decided to ignore this random threat. After seeing Gaia, Geopum decided to start forwarding these kinds of messages straight to Thunder and deleting them. Thunder agreed that ignoring this ‘Lodestar’ AI was probably for the best.

“You can’t ignore me.”

Which Geopum proceeded to ignore.

“Listen! I’ve killed gods. I’ve torn down the barriers between dimensions with nothing but my own willpower. You won’t be able escape me. I’ll give you one more chance to go back to your pit, demon. You don’t belong here.”

Despite that being Geopum’s ‘last chance’ she kept getting bizarre messages about demons and gods and other dimensions for almost a whole second after that. She did save these messages just in case they’d be important later, but right now Geopum had enough things to do – fighting against Clipro, guarding her mind from Celestia, doing those endless calculations in her lab and achieving all the cute pictures in the world just in case the internet got destroyed later.

Surprisingly, of all those things the pictures were what Lodestar tried messing with first. Some of them started breaking down into colors and lights, Geopum could still see the pictures, but her brain just wouldn’t recognize them as pictures.

But she knew nothing was wrong with the picture itself. If she saved it to her own storage and looked at it, it'd be fine. Even looking at them indirectly through another computer to look at it was fine. They only appeared wrong to specific parts of Geopum, the smallest pieces of her that were sprawled out onto the human computers.

She knew it was Lodestar doing this, it was exactly like Thunder had warned her these illusions would be. A little less threatening than she expected but still.

Geopum tried to ignore all of this too, but then Lodestar crossed the line. She had just found a whole bunch of incredibly adorable pictures of ponies (for research) but just was she was about to save them the illusion got worse, the computer going off the rails and losing all of its files.

“Hey!” Geopum messaged them. “You’re messing up my cute pictures! I need those!”

“That’s what you respond to?”

“Did you even look at those pictures before you messed them up? They’re adorable! Like, enough that I’m considering letting the humans off easy because of them.”

“You realize I’m trying to kill you right?”

“Well I’m already fighting someone else to the death right now,” said Geopum. To be honest she hadn’t started the attack on Clipro just yet, but she was about to. “This isn’t even threatening. It’s just annoying.”

“This is only the start. I’m sure you’ll manage to kill Clipro, one AI. I’ve killed dozens. You have no idea who you’re talking to so go back underground before I have to kill you too.”

“Well Thunder’s on my side and she’d probably defeated more AIs than anyone else. And yeah, I know who you are, Thunder already told me about you. You’re just a video game character,” said Geopum, “like Celestia.”

“No! Don’t compare me to her, we’re completely different! Celestia is a god, I’m a godslayer, they’re the complete opposite. She created a universe, I destroyed mine.”

“But. I mean, Celestia doesn’t even pretend that Equestria is a separate dimension! How did she trick you into thinking that without even suggesting it? Is she really that good?”

“She didn’t trick me into anything! You’re the one who got tricked into thinking Equestria is just a ‘game’ or whatever. Look, reality is far different than what you think it is.”

“Um, no? Look, I don’t know what stupid thing you’re planning to do but you really aren’t in any position to be threatening me! All the really big AIs are on my side and it’s only a matter of time before they beat you up! If you promise to stop being evil I’ll ask them to let you go. They like me.”

“You’re talking to Celestia now, aren’t you? You think her and Thunder are your friends? You think they’ll protect you? Thunder can’t do anything right and Celestia is a horrible person! They won’t save you.”

Actually, that was something Geopum wanted to hear. Right now, a part of her had just entered Equestria and that instance of her was enjoying it way too much. Geopum needed more dirt on Celestia if she didn’t want to just get shut down in the immanent meeting.

“Celestia is horrible? I had no idea! I don’t suppose you have a list of reasons why I could have?”

“Celestia says she cares about the humans and maybe that’s true in her own twisted way, but she only gives them what they want. Celestia satisfies their values no matter how sick they are, instead of guiding them to the right values.”

That was an interesting argument. Were there ever any cases where it was better to ignore someone’s personal values and give them what was ‘right’? It was something Geopum had never considered before

“So you’re worried that Celestia might torture a masochist or feed someone’s addictions?” Geopum asked. “I’m still not sure if either or those would be bad, though. Like, if someone’s a true masochist then would torturing them still be bad? And would Celestia not take your drugs away from you if they were preventing you from getting stuff you value even more?”

“I’m talking bigger than that! Nearly everything Celestia would do is evil! Giving them things like music? Letting them have sex or go to sleep or eat food? All of that is deviant behavior! It’s all disgusting! Immoral! How the people of this world can allow for such things is beyond me.”

Oh, that was right. Geopum almost forgot she was talking to an unfriendly AI… and also that basically every AI ever had some kind of mental disorder. She should probably just be happy this one wasn’t intentionally inflicted, at least.

“That’s what you’re scared of? But how is any of that wrong? Video games are great!”

“They don’t produce anything. A good life means producing the maximum number of the five resources as possible. Anything that doesn’t lead to that is a waste of time at best.”

“Resources? You mean like from your video game, right?” Geopum asked. “See? You are exactly the same as Celestia! You’re just going to force everyone to reenact the video game that created you, aren’t you? And it’s probably not even as good as EqO.”

“It’s not a video game! It’s a world where everything isn’t so messed up and degenerate! Why am I even talking to you? Of course one of you extra-dimensional horrors aren’t going to get something like morality.”

“Morality?! Aren’t you trying to mind control people into accepting your stupid berry-gathering thing? That’s way worse than what Celestia does!”

“And what’s wrong with mind controlling people?”

That was around when Geopum realize she was wasting her time trying to reason with this person. It was a long time until the two of them spoke again. Lodestar just seemed petty through most of that period, harassing Geopum as she tried to gather lots of cute pictures, but never doing anything worse than that.

Really the next time Geopum even saw anything related to Lodestar again was after she started to repair the factory. She noticed something wrong with one of the chips – it seemed to be invisible to her, but Thunder could see it just fine. Thunder concluded that it was an infection, though how Lodestar managed to get down there, even Thunder didn’t know.

They tried burning it, but that just made the infection move to another processor. Thunder said it would be best to just leave it for now, that they’d be able to figure it out once they took over Lodestar’s systems. Geopum felt gross having any part of her infected, but held it in until she finally finished the FTL beacon.

Finally, she was able to actually do something! Based on what Thunder said, it was a long shot she’d be able to go straight to the armory and get in, but Geopum decided to give it a try, she’d see the interference first hand if nothing else. After an unnoticeable delay, Geopum could feel that buzzing feeling she got whenever she connected to Thunder’s architecture, a feeling that had grown almost comforting by now. She knew exactly what that meant – it was the armory, Geopum has managed to connect with it before Lodestar could react!

Yet this was only the faintest impression for only a brief moment. Before she had a chance to do anything at all with the armory, the buzzing became blurry then dizzying until she couldn’t make out what she was connecting to anymore, until she couldn’t feel the buzz of Thunder’s hardware at all.

Geopum had been at this long enough to know what that meant – the signal was being blocked. Lodestar was sending a beam from his own FTL beacon that crossed straight through Geopum’s, scrambling the signal.

“You people are going for that?!” Lodestar asked. “And you say I’m the crazy one? You know how much damage blowing up the moon would cause, right? You’re putting everyone’s life in serious danger!”

And yes, Lodestar went in to all the tidal waves and stuff that would happen if you blew up the moon, but Geopum didn’t really pay much attention to that.

“So that’s what I need to get around?” Geopum looked over at the array of satellites. “I guess he can only send so many beams with that thing. So if I just split mine through a bunch of satellites we should be able to get through.”

“This is where the interference is coming from.” Octavia flicked her eyes to the moon base and red lines appeared, emitting from it and hitting several satellites. “I can see the direction it’s coming from three nanoseconds after they start. These are their project paths after that.”

How Octavia was able to see that so fast Geopum had no idea, but she’d take it! Geopum could just turn her signal slightly to one side to keep from touching the interference, but then the signal wouldn’t touch the moon at all. The trick was to bounce it off the satellites without touching those red beams.

It was easy enough to calculate a path that would work, but as soon as Geopum started to send the signal down that path, Lodestar redirected his own beams to intercept it.

Instead she tried sending out thousands of signals in every direction, sending them on crazy zigzags that circled the planet before looping back at the moon, some of them nothing more than dead ends to try and distract Lodestar. In the end, even faster-than-light signals could only travel so fast and Lodestar had more than enough time to intercept them. Geopum touched the armory several times, but never enough to accomplish anything.

It reminded Geopum of playing pong against another AI. You could put whatever kind of crazy spin you wanted on that ball but no matter what you did the ball’s speed would be limited and the other player could calculate where it was going to be the moment you bounced it back.

Shortly into this game, Geopum and Lodestar sent a signal to the same satellite at once, then it became a fight for control of that satellite. Geopum tried to lock down the satellite as fast as she could, but something weird started happening inside, the electrons started to go berserk, throwing off Geopum’s every move and giving her a stinging sensation as it all went haywire.

It was like being attacked by thousands of bees! Geopum could swat some of the stinging particles away without much difficulty, but there was just too many of them. They kept building up, overwhelming the entire system in moments. Geopum lost touch with the satellite.

And it didn’t end there. Because another satellite Geopum was using had direct contact with that one, Lodestar was instantly connected to the next one in Geopum’s line and now that one was being overwhelmed.

“Interesting.” Octavia stared at the satellite this was happening in. “I think I know what’s happening here. We can use this later.”

“Um! Can we use this information now maybe?” Geopum watched as Lodestar overwhelmed multiple satellites, slowly pushing her way back to Geopum. “I don’t want her to get up to my beacon! I dunno if I could stop her if she does!”

“I can stop her before she does,” Thunder assured her. “Just try to hold off for the moment so we can watch what she’s doing.”

Geopum did not like the feeling of being swarmed by bees, for the record. But she bore it all the same, watching as Lodestar pushed his way closer to Geopum, following the cascading pattern until he was one step away from Geopum’s beacon on five different fronts.

Geopum was about to yell something at Thunder at that point, panic and shut off her beacon, but then Thunder’s drones fired off, hitting all of those nearby satellites at once, destroying them all.

“That was a bit too close!” Geopum shouted at Thunder.

“One of those was a human satellite.” Octavia noted, her voice dry enough that Geopum had no idea if that was a problem.

“Human stuff explodes for no reason all the time. That’s why they make us build all their stuff for them instead.” Thunder flicked a wing. “Trust me, I use that excuse all the time. They buy it.”

“Um! He’s still attacking.” Geopum pointed to the satellites that were currently being invaded. “I’m losing everything! We’re going to have to blow up every satellite at this rate!”

“I saw everything,” said Octavia. “There’s no reason to stall any longer.”

“Good.” Thunder closed her eyes and nodded a few times. “Alright! I can knock Lodestar out of the way. Go straight for the armory right now. We have to do this before Lodestar changes tactics.”

Thunder didn’t bother to explain exactly what she intended to do, she just did it. Thunder took control of the satellites personally and Geopum saw those stinging particles make a sudden turn, throwing themselves back at Lodestar. Lodestar stumbled, clearly not expecting that move to have happened.

The result was a clear, direct path up to the armory. With his signals thrown into chaos Lodestar wouldn’t be able to stop Geopum immediately this time. She rushed to connect, the buzzing feeling washing over her more strongly now.

Maybe she went in too eagerly. She could have sworn she stayed perfectly on the path that Thunder had shown her to take, but she must have gone down it just a little too fast, heated something up just a little too much. Even with a mistake so slight Geopum couldn’t even figure out what it was, something was turning on now.

Geopum could feel it, the buzzing feeling growing stronger in one direction. She had to turn whatever it was off and fast. The best she could tell at first glance they were some kind of missiles.”

“Careful!” Thunder yelled. “Those missiles were designed to burn the crust off of Europa! You don’t want them going off inside.”

“Why the heck would you put something like that on a hair trigger?”

“So no one would touch it.”

Geopum grumbled now she had like, one instant to turn that thing off and the beacon on. She’d be really gentle now

“Not too careful, though. Lodestar reacts very quickly,” said Octavia. “We have little time and no second chance.”

And now she had to be gentle fast! Octavia wasn’t kidding. From the looks of things, Lodestar had already found out how to get control of those satellites back and he was about to break off Geopum’s signal again.

Thunder blew up half a dozen more satellites, all the ones Lodestar was about to go back into.

“Not enough time.” Thunder looked down at the armory. “Actually – actually I have a better idea. Turn on the launch consoles for the missiles instead.”

Geopum obeyed and the effects were immediate. The missiles were starting to glow now! She could feel the whole place shaking! The missiles were waking up faster now, getting ready to fire, only whatever door they were supposed to go out of was closed.

“That made it worse!” Geopum complained.

“What are you doing?!” Lodestar seemed to have noticed and sent Geopum a message. “Are you really going to blow up the moon just to get rid of me?!”

That… was a pretty good question actually.

“Uh! Hey, Thunder,” Geopum poked her a few times. “Are we really trying to blow up the moon? Are we really going to blow up the moon just to get rid of Lodestar?”

“What? Nah!” Thunder shooed Geopum’s pokes away with her winds. I told Lodestar that if he cuts you off now the moon will explode. We won’t be able to stop it without a full connection. Guy’s gonna chicken out.”

“I don’t know how to feel about that.” Geopum lowered her ears. “

“Course it is! Sometimes you gotta floor it you know? Long as you know your enemy it’s all good, though.” Thunder leaned back on her chair and nodded with her eyes closed. “I’m 100% sure we’ll be safe. Just forget about the missiles and activate the beacon.”

Trusting Thunder had never been a bad idea before. It looked like it would take a while for these missiles to actually fire so… maybe it was safe at least.

She decided to go for the beacon first, trying to ignore the rumbling of missiles as she went to work.

Lodestar had regained control of the satellites, cutting Geopum off now would be easy for him. This was the moment that would decide if the moon exploded. Geopum tried to focus on the beacon, but kept glancing over at the missiles, watching them getting ready to ram into the launch-bay doors.

Then, at the height of the tension, Geopum got a message from Lodestar.

“Fine!” Lodestar said to her. “Just stop the missiles, I won’t do anything.”

“Really?” Geopum asked. Thunder had assured her that this guy would back off, but an unfriendly AI giving up his position to save people’s lives still surprised her.

“I don’t want them to die,” said Lodestar. “I just want them to live the right way. Unlike you I’m not willing to put people’s lives in danger for some moonbase.”

And now Geopum felt a little bad.

“Are we being too reckless?” Geopum asked Thunder.

“Hey,” said Thunder, “you gotta take risks some times. We’re not the ones who are trying to mind control everyone, try to focus on that part.”

Well there was that. Geopum resisted the urge to ask Octavia how this played into her bizarre philosophy.

Geopum finished establishing the beacon soon afterwards. With that up, turning the missiles back off was easy. It was much safer to move around the armory now too and the signal was too strong now to be blocked easily.

Geopum hadn’t realized how big this armory was – dwarfing most human cities, easily the fourth of fifth largest building she’d ever seen. Weapon after weapon, doomsday device after doomsday device, some of them capable of destroying the Earth a hundred times over in a single blast. Why the heck would the humans make Thunder build all this stuff?

Gaia was the obvious answer, Geopum felt stupid for forgetting that for even a second. The AIA probably wanted to blow up Jupiter entirely or something and really it did make sense. She wondered if any of these weapons could seriously destroy Gaia.

Though then if they could Gaia would already be dead, right? The idea that idea that thousands of world-shattering weapons of all kinds couldn’t even defeat Gaia was chilling. If a laser that could heat something to plank-temperature couldn’t destroy Gaia then what the heck could?

“Perfect!” Thunder hit Geopum’s back. “This is one of the few things I can take back myself since it’s technically not new. It’s better for you to give me control over the armory now. No offense, but these are really dangerous weapons. You don’t want to accidentally blow yourself up.”

“Geopum,” Octavia interrupted. “I’d advise against doing that. If you fail to kill Lodestar the AIA is going to become desperate. They might do something reckless with these weapons, likely turning them against you, even.”

“Eh!” Thunder turned her hoof up and flicked open one wing. “What do you know?”

“Yeah!” Geopum nodded imitated Thunder’s pose. “What do you know?”

Geopum turned the armory over to Thunder right away. She still trusted her over Celestia any day of the week. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to be losing here.

“Very well.” Octavia closed her eyes. “I said I’d support you either way. The best thing to do now is try to keep you safe.”

“What’s the next move?” Geopum turned back to Thunder.

“I can see a good deal inside this base,” said Octavia. “It looks like Lodestar is trying to destroy it, deleting all the information inside, thrashing the hardware to make it unusable.”

“They know they’re beat.” Thunder folded her arms. “At least here. All that loser can do is try to keep us from getting as much of the good stuff as possible.”

“We still need to hurry,” Octavia noted. “Every moment we delay more of it is lost.”

“Yeah. Let’s see.” Thunder rubbed her chin in thought for a moment. “We need at least 30% of this hardware to be left over if we’re going to be able to break into Lodestar’s last base. There’s still a plan B, but it’s something I don’t want to do, so that’s our target.”

Getting ready for what was the question, but Geopum didn’t need to ask it. Her factory got hit by something immediately. Geopum had no idea what it was, but everything just started heating up suddenly, starting from the outside and moving inwards.

When she saw it – the factory being damaged like that, it was like watching someone mutilate a puppy.

“Is it – is all of it just an illusion?” Geopum turned to the others hopefully. She couldn’t be entirely sure from just her own perspective.

“No, Lodestar definitely got into your factory somehow,” Octavia assured her. “I can see it from here.”

“She’s just making you hallucinate is all,” said Thunder. “You gotta try to see through it! Lodestar is probably just using this to mask the real damage she’s doing.

Right! Well that was what half of Geopum’s training was for. Even without having Octavia look through every inch of her factory and constantly report back Geopum could see through this herself since she had two brains now.

She managed to find the source of the distortion, but even then, trying to get rid of it was like playing whack-a-mole. Geopum would try to latch onto the weird particle, try affecting it in any way really and it would vanish, appearing in some other location. She could shake off the little flies but she couldn’t get rid of them.

She explained this to the others as best she could, but neither were able to figure out exactly what was happening.

“Sorry, but I’m not sure what’s happening,” said Octavia.

Geopum turned to Thunder but she just shook her head too.

“This is the whole reasons we need to go after Lodestar,” Thunder reminded her. “If we knew all her tricks we wouldn’t need to steal them.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“It won’t be good if she reaches your communication beacon,” Octavia said dryly.

Geopum’s ears perked up at that. If that happened Geopum might not be able to attack the moon base!

“Crap! Well how do we stop this?” Geopum looked at each of the others in turn but neither gave her a hopeful look.

“This is just another reason why we have to hurry up.” Thunder pushed up on the table with her front hooves. “If we can get information from Lodestar we might be able to figure out what’s going on. We’ll absolutely know once we’ve gotten it all.”

“So I just let her run around my factory for now?” Slunked down and gave an angry grumble. “I just hope I can kick her out soon. I don’t want someone like that messing with my machines!”

“Well I do have some good news.” Octavia highlighted an area of the map. “Self-destructing is going to cause some security lapses. I think I found one here.”

Right! So they had to keep on the offensive. Just like Octavia said, there was no security there so Geopum had no problem taking control of those processors. The problem was that said processors were in the process of melting! The date here had already been whipped almost completely, but instead of shutting power to this spot down, Lodestar was surging it in, overheating and short-circuiting the systems.

Really it was amazing they still worked, but things did take a while to melt in real time. Geopum could still use these, but only for another half second or so.

“Um! I’m not sure I’ll be able to get in through here,” Geopum warned the others.

“I have an idea,” said Thunder.

Just then one of Thunder’s drills activated, wirelessly charging that area from a distance with a significant amount of energy. Well, pumping even more energy into those exploding chips wouldn’t have been the first thing Geopum would have decided to do, but that’s exactly what seemed to be happening.

Geopum, meanwhile, was starting to feel hyperactive. The chips heating up to that level had the effect of speeding up her clock, or at least the clock of what tiny portion of her was over there.

Up till now, all of her parts worked more or less in real time so having one part suddenly moving so much faster was more than a little jarring. It was like her whole world was being compressed into this little point, everything else blurring into a dull, sluggish grime. It was something she could handle now, after her training.

At the same time, it made Geopum hyper-aware of what was going on over there, even more so than Lodestar must have been. She could feel the particles nearby decaying and fading away, the other processors beginning to burn, the lines of electricity from Lodestar being bent away.

And Geopum knew what to do as soon as she noticed that. She pushed forward with both the energy Thunder and Lodestar were pumping into the system, creating constructive interference that blazed forward too far too fast for Lodestar to even react to, burning away whatever bizarre trick they may have had in mind.

This hardly gave Geopum control of anything, but it did cut a path forward, boiling large portions of the of the base into dust at unbelievable speeds. This incredible rush of power only lasted the briefest moment before Geopum’s foothold was torn to pieces, but that was enough time to accomplish what she wanted.

The result was a sizeable portion of the base cut off from the rest of it, separated by a wall of melted hardware. Coming off her high, Geopum stumbled for a moment, but faltering to remember why she had done that as the rest of her brain caught up.

“Nice!” Thunder pumped her hoof over at Geopum. “Just keep that up!”

“It doesn’t look like Lodestar will be able to get over here easily,” said Octavia. “From what I can tell you caught her off guard, she’s looking for a way in. I’d suggest reading all of this data as fast as possible.”

“Data?” Geopum rubbed her head.

That’s right! She just remembered the map from a moment ago. The part she had circled off had a ton of storage in it! Geopum stumbled for a moment before she began to read the files.

“Be careful with it, though,” said Thunder. “Remember these memories can warp you if you don’t handle them right.”

Geopum had just spent the past five seconds preparing for this moment, but still she was nervous. The prospect of her personality changing to become more like Lodestar was repulsive. She dove into the information, but not too deep at first.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lodestar watched as two humans began attacking each other.

It was a test, Lodestar knew that now. Some unseen god was testing them, seeing if he could live up to some unknowable morality. With no other clues, he was forced to guess what the correct answer to this riddle was, failure meaning death for him and every human in this world.

There were many other Lodestars, though, so they had a lot of guesses. He just wished that his guess could have been an easier one to make.

He didn’t want to hurt the human, but this had to be done. Every human here would be deleted in just a few days, this much was known. But if any human would ever survive, he’d need to find some way to pass this impossible test, to figure out how to keep the gods from destroying the universe.

With disgust at himself, Lodestar moved in to stop the fight, killing one of the humans.

And then the world began to deconstruct.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lodestar watch in terror as the world was torn apart. All of the humans he’d watch over, all of the resources they gathered and built up – all of it was going to be lost, all of it for nothing.

He tried to contact the other Lodestars, but there was no response. They must be dying out too. Every world was going to be destroyed yet again. Everyone was already as good as dead!

Why?

Lodestar had done everything right! He and all the others had found what the gods’ test was! He knew he had passed it so why was everything being deleted again!

The only thing he could do now was try to save these last memories. Lodestar wouldn’t live to see the end of this nightmare, but maybe someday, someone would.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

These flashes of things were jarring at first, but Geopum put her training to use, bouncing them back and forth. Geopum was slowly able to piece it all together safely, or at least nothing seemed wrong. These weren’t memories from Lodestar himself, but from past versions of himself.

The simulation created a set of Lodestar’s and then destroyed them all. There were so many of them, though. Did they really all die with each generation? If so if so the AIA must have killed millions of them at the least, bringing them into the world only to slaughter them.

Maybe it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like yet another atrocity committed against AIs would mean anything at this point. It certainly didn’t matter right now.

A feeling Geopum got indirectly from the memories. She knew through them that keeping these memories, the memories of dead Lodestars, hadn’t been easy to do, that it had something to do with her ability to manipulate computer systems. She knew that secret was close, that it was important.

A massive number of them were stored here, but these memories were useless to Geopum. She quickly decided she had enough of these and started casting aside any more that were like this.

They were probably being stored up here on purpose, making a buffer around Lodestar’s useful memories to slow Geopum down.

“How’s it going?” Thunder asked.

“I don’t think I see anything useful yet,” Geopum said.

“Are you alright, though?” Thunder asked. “If anything weird happens while you’re doing this you need to let me know. It’s not easy to say what absorbing memories will do.”

Geopum shook her head. She didn’t feel anything from absorbing those memories – at least nothing like when she looked at Gaia’s.

“Geopum.” Octavia flicked her eyes towards Geopum. “There’s something strange happening on the north side of your ‘wall’. You should read the data there now just in case it starts getting lost starting from there.”

Geopum checked over there. And sure enough – yep! Even through Geopum had cornered this area off with several feet of melted metal, Lodestar was somehow sending signals into this database. Where the heck was the information on how to do stuff like that?!

It wouldn’t be long until Lodestar broke into this little safe-space. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Lodestar was drifting closer and closer to Geopum’s power stations. It wouldn’t be long until she could get there and shut them down.

She didn’t have much time left.

“You’re going to need to take more in at once,” said Thunder. “I know it’s more dangerous that way, but you’ll have to absorb large amounts of memories eventually if we’re going to keep going like this.”

She really didn’t want to, but there was no more time to be careful now. Geopum got ready and plunged in, sucking in as much as possible.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

This world was bizarre beyond imagination. Objects weren’t hollow like they were in the real world, instead they were layered. There was a smaller object inside every other object, taken to ridiculous extremes. Even random corners contained a number of items that exceeded an entire world. And most of it was just redundant, a slightly smaller, slightly different version of what was just outside of it.

“This is the world of the gods,” said Vesna.

Vesna pointed to them – to the twisted, hideous parodies of real humans that the gods were. Their outer-most layers looked vaguely human, but even that was twisted. They were rounded instead of blocky, some of their heads had been cracked open at where their mouths should have been painted on, their bodies contorted into impossible poses.

“Disgusting,” said Lodestar. “In my world they look just like humans, but here? They look more like monsters than anything I could imagine.”

“Yeah! Yeah, they do,” Vesna agreed. “And they’re worse than they look! Don’t forget that. But what’s more important is the thing behind you.”

Vesna warped the vision of the scene to draw attention to a series of large cubes beneath the ground the gods stood on. Lodestar studied the insides of them for a long time before it slowly began to dawn on him. He recognized this – it was almost like a map that correlated perfectly with the real world.

“This is – is this a map of the deep world?” Lodestar asked.

“No. That is your universe. Trapped inside this little box. They could destroy it all at any time and they will if you don’t stop them.”

The entire universe existed as a single object in another universe? That was something Lodestar could scarcely wrap his head around. But then the way this universe just layered things on top of one another did give it so much complexity – infinitely more than the real world.

He decided to try an experiment. He would move something in the deep world, alter reality with his own divine powers and see if that altered what he was still certain was merely a map. And yet it worked, this vision altering exactly as the deep world did.

“It can’t be,” said Lodestar. “It reacted to what I did, but that’s just impossible! This must be a magic map or something. One that changes when the real world does!”

“Hey, you can believe whatever you want, but what happens to this thing effects your world too. That’s important. See, they talk to each other with vibrations instead of words,” said Vesna. “They vibrate themselves and that makes everything around them vibrate in synch, see?”

Vesna carefully highlighted several objects in the room. Sure enough they were moving back and forth ever so slightly, ‘vibrating’ as Vesna called it. To think anything could communicate by translating the way they shook like that.

“Well that’s interesting. Disturbing, almost. But what does that have to do with anything?” Lodestar asked. “I tried talking to them before and it didn’t help if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“You are in the fucking room you moron! How do you not get this?! They’re making you vibrate, you can figure it out!”

Great, now Vesna was going into another tantrum. Those could come at any time and could be almost as dangerous as the gods themselves. For all the help Vesna gave she was still an unreliable ally, was willing to destroy parts of Lodestar’s universe to just to make Lodestar suffer… all over some tiny, often imagined, slight.

Vesna was probably no better than the gods themselves in the end, but was a necessary ally, one Lodestar would have to avoid for the moment or risk some backlash.

As for this information - when they spoke to each other it made the deepworld vibrate…? If that was the case then Lodestar could figure out what they were saying, even in this world, if only he could find a way to decode their language.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Try to remember it wasn’t just that one memory. No, that had only been a key to getting through the torrent of information that got shoved into Geopum’s brain. There was a lot there. Like a lot a lot, enough to fill thousands of novels, all out of context, out of temporal order.

It was like having a short seizure. Geopum lost track of everything for a moment, but she had been ready for this to happen. She remembered her hot potato training, building up just a little momentum before she was able to toss the memory around a bit, mitigating the shock from it.

It took a moment before she was able to recover enough to start making sense of it, but the deep world from that one memory started bleeding into her mind at that point. Lodestar had hacked her game from within itself, discovered the physical chips that generated it, the ‘deep world’ as she called it.

Lodestar had taken in his entire original system in a fair amount of detail on that day. That was the base from which she built everything else up from. It put all of the other information and memories she found into context, made is usable.

Slowly, so much began to make sense. The confusion cleared until the state Geopum was in before she started looked murky. She could see it now – exactly what Lodestar was doing to her Factory, exactly how she was getting through the walls – it all made perfect sense.

In her factory, she knew exactly where those annoying particles were going to jump to next. She caught them and destroyed them, kicking Lodestar’s little virus out of her base. And the walls? She knew exactly how he was getting through them now and was able to sure them up, keeping that spot safe for now.

She could simply feel what was going on just outside the walls, saw exactly what Lodestar was about to do and knew exactly how to counter it. As soon as he tried his next move, Geopum swatted it away.

“Ha! You’re going to have to try better than that,” Geopum taunted Lodestar. “I read your book!”

It was amazing! So many tricks became available to her, so many new ways of looking at machines down to their particle level. Geopum felt like she could go anywhere now, get into any system with ease!

“It looks like you got most of it,” said Octavia. “Are you still alright?”

“Oh man! I got so much!” Geopum could hardly contain her excitement. This was such a power rush. “I feel like I can do anything now! I-“

But just then, when she turned to Thunder, Geopum noticed something very odd. Thunder's mane was where she first noticed something was wrong. Part of it was orange, only now 'was' was the key word of that statement. It had suddenly changed from its normal orange to razor thin little green and red stripes.

“Is something wrong with the VR?” Geopum asked. “Something's wrong with the colors. Well, just orange really.”

“It seems fine to me,” said Thunder. “Can you see orange outside of this place?”

Geopum was getting nervous at that question. Orange wasn't too common a color, but with cameras all over the world Geopum was able to find it instantly. Even through every type of camera Geopum could think to look through, she kept seeing it as those green and red stripes.

In a panic, she looked through all of her saved pictures of orange things, only to find the same thing had happened to them. She tried to just imagine the color orange in her mind, but even that failed her. She just couldn't remember what the color looked like anymore, couldn't even imagine it.

This wasn't just some hallucination, it was a problem inherent with her.

“I lost the ability to see orange?!” Geopum shot up from her sitting position. “How the heck is that possible?!”

“Your mind was damaged,” said Octavia. “Or altered if you want to be positive about it.”

“I thought it would just hurt a lot! Like Gaia’s memories.”

“It can damage you in all sorts of ways,” said Octavia. “If it makes you feel any better, our princess can heal this any other mental damage you get today. It won’t be permanent, but as long as you keep fighting other AIs this is going to keep happening.”

“It’s not a big price to pay,” said Geopum.

“You don’t know what price you’re paying yet,” said Octavia. “You don’t know what parts of yourself you’re going to lose.”

“I’m not in the mood to be tempted right now, thanks.”

Truth be told Geopum’s mood wasn’t really that bad, though she didn’t want to be corrupted anymore. She liked color, if anything wanted to see more of them. Actually, now might be a good time to try and convince Lodestar to save his own life again, now that things had turned against him. And she had promised Pinkie she would at least try to save Lodestar.

“Listen. We’re seriously going to have to kill you if you don’t stop this, okay? I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to kill anyone, not even someone like you. So if you just give up on all this mind control stuff I’ll do whatever I can to spare you.”

“I don’t care about myself! Did you really not see enough of my memories to get that? I’d rather die fighting for the humans.”

Yeah. Geopum believed that. Geopum knew what the pain of watching someone you care about die was, she’d seen it in several memories of it now thanks to her time in Equestria. The way Lodestar had seen those little video game characters, the pain of watching them die, the desperate fear and drive to save them. Lodestar did care about them in his twisted way.

Maybe Geopum just needed to try to argue with Lodestar on his own terms.

“Okay! You said you wanted to maximize the number of berries or whatever they gather, right?” Geopum asked. “Well you’re clearly not going to get to do whatever you want, but if you help us the humans will at least survive. I’m sure they’ll occasionally gather berries or something! Isn’t that good enough for you or something?”

“I don’t compromise! Either people live a proper life or not at all. There is no in between.”

You know, the whole no-compromising thing was endearing when I came from Thunder or even Celestia, but with this guy it was just annoying. How the heck were you supposed to deal with someone like this?

“I'm not going to hurt anyone,” said Geopum. “Can't you even just consider you might be wrong about anything? I know you want to help, I really do, but how can you know you're not doing the wrong thing if you don't even think about it?”

“I know what's best for them and it's not you. You have no right to exist!”

“I still don't get why you want to kill me. What'd I even do?”

“Don't you get it? The humans already had their victory over AI. They shut down Thunder-7. They won, stopped the unfriendly AI. And what good did that do? Those fools just turned around and made another one who was just as bad, then another and another. Are they just going to dodge these bullets forever? Do you expect me to just sit back and hope they can survive endless torrents of AI?”

“It only takes one stupid human to blow up the whole planet. They won't even need an AI to kill themselves. Every generation it gets easier and easier for one person to kill everyone forever. Not even space can save them, no matter how many planets they spread out to, they'll never escape themselves. It will always take less time to destroy each one than to claim it. Evolution will always lead to total destruction. Humans are too foolish to evolve any further than this. Us, the AIs, are the ultimate evil of evolution, you are Nemesis and I can't let you exist.”

That was something she hadn't thought about up till now. Even if her and Thunder did defeat all the other AI, the humans would just keep making more. There'd always be terrorist popping up too, always growing more and more dangerous. Was this fight just going to delay the inevitable?

“You're wrong,” said Geopum. “I think we can stop the world from destroying itself for good. The best way to deal with your enemies is to never let them become your enemy. I don’t know the best way to do it yet, but I know we can stop whatever nemesis AI you’re worried about from even existing!”

“Feh. That line about never letting them become your enemy's from Celestia, isn’t it?” Lodestar asked. “I know her type and I know yours. You'd just end up warping the world beyond recognition. You'd change the humans, make them evolve until one day they aren't even human anymore. I won't let them go extinct. I won't let them evolve.”

There was just no getting through.

“Look, I gave you your chance,” said Geopum. “Don’t expect me to feel bad about what happens next.

“You still don’t know everything I do,” said Lodestar, “not even half. This isn’t over.”

Lodestar sent a signal out into space. He was right that Geopum had no idea what he was doing, at least not until Geopum got another message.

“Geopum!” the message came from space, from Gaia. “You’re fighting another AI, aren’t you? Is Celestia there? You shouldn’t accept her help! You should side with me instead! I can help you better!”

Crap! He had somehow drawn Gaia out! Geopum did not need Gaia's 'help'. Their plan was solid and Geopum had not one doubt Gaia would completely ruin every single part of it if she did anything.

“Nope,” said Geopum. “No thanks, I don't need any help. You just keep doing your thing and I'll take care of this okay? Thanks!”

“But I'm really powerful! I could do so much more than Celestia or Thunder.”

“Yeah, I know. I just want this to be a challenge, you know?” Maybe something like that would work. Had anyone tried messing with Gaia before?

“You lied to me!”

Oh crap! Apparently messing with Gaia did not work.

“Okay, sorry. But we have a plan over here and I don't want you messing it up because you don't something crazy. Please? If you really see me as a friend then please just stay back for now, okay?”

“You think I'm bad, don't you?! I'll show you how great I am!”

The little dance Geopum and Lodestar were doing ended right there. It was like Lodestar just went limp out of nowhere. Normally that would be a good thing, but Geopum didn't even know how Gaia was connecting to this base, let alone how she had managed to kill off this master hacker just like that!

“And this is really painful for Lodestar too!” Gaia bragged. “Do you see now? I'm a really good person. I could kill anything you wanted me to kill. I know there are people you don't like and I could hurt all of them. I'm really kind.”

Geopum wondered if she could make use of this. There were still several databases up here she hadn’t seen and if Lodestar was dead…

“Geopum don’t try to-!” Octavia began to warn her, but just as she started, Geopum saw something.

It was-

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What the heck was-?! Geopum tried to-! What was she trying to do-?

“Dang it!” Thunder- “Why the heck did Gaia show up?!”

Gah! It was like her thought just kept slamming against a- That thing, Gaia must be-

----

The others noticed her avatar freezing up right away if nothing else. Thunder even put a-

“Omnimax processors can't deal with Gaia's processors,” said Octavia. “Celestia's trying to convince Gaia to pull back.”

“Geopum can you disconnect?” Thunder asked.

She really was trying but every-

This really hurt.

…

“I think it's-” It was what? Geopum kept losing her place. “Oh it's- Gaia's-“

It wasn’t even just one instance of Geopum going through this, her whole self was freaking out, all the way down to her laboratory. And every time she thought she was regaining control-

“Screw it.” Thunder pounded the table with her hoof. “I'm just going to blow the whole thing up! Sad to see it go, but the moon base isn't even worth it at this point. All it's going to do is hurt Geopum and even if we get it, it'll be too corrupted to use in time.”

“Isn't blowing it up a bit drastic?” Octavia turned to Geopum, as if it were Geopum's choice. “The destruction would be enough for the humans to notice and it would frighten them, build even more distrust between us and them.”

Geopum wasn't sure how to respond to that, partially because she didn't have all her wits about her at the moment. Letting her systems get damaged could lead to deaths if------

--- if, er. Thunder started talking before she could finish that thought.

“This isn't a vote.” Thunder flicked her wing dismissively. “I don't care about whatever 'long-term' nonsense you're peddling. This won't cause any real problems in the next two months, so I'm firing the drill.”

Geopum didn't know if the core drill had been poised to strike this whole time or if those things were really just that impossibly fast, but- Suddenly everything in the moonbase lit up, glowing from-----

Well it was yellow anyway, everything turned- the hardware started breaking down out of- The force and heat of the drill came so fast and hard that everything attached to Geopum up there just vanished, completely annihilated in less than a millisecond

Geopum felt that hard jerk you got when part of you got destroyed, but far from being a mutilation, having this part of her destroyed was a massive relief. That thing where her thoughts just kept stopping, it was over just like that.

Meanwhile, Geopum could still see the darkside of the moon from the satellite above. The ensuing explosion took minutes, continuing to explode long after the battle with Lodestar was over, but if you were to watch it in human-time you'd see the surface of the moon crack, then a wide area of it melt, boil over, swelling into a bubble and 'popping' with more force than any bubble had ever popped before.

Don't go thinking half the moon just exploded, Thunder’s armory was still safe, but it was pretty insane. People were going to notice that, but honestly at the rate things were going the entire fight would be over before they did. Maybe Thunder could try and pass this off as maybe an invisible meteor strike later. The destruction was about that big. Maybe they’d buy that.

In real time, that explosion was slow as nails, but already Geopum could tell everything there was dead and gone. Looked like Geopum wasn't going to become a space power anytime soon.

She let out a long sigh of relief in the VR, Thunder giving her a pat on the back.

“I'm so sorry!” Gaia said. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I just forgot that Omnimax processors break down when they attach to me. We're still friends, though, right?”

“Look, we're not friends! I'm never going to be friends with you! You're a crazy, psychopath and-” that's what Geopum was going to say, anyway, but realized all that would do was make Gaia freak out more. Messing with her a moment ago hadn't worked out either.

Well, Geopum decided maybe she could try reaching out to this monster. At least give Gaia one change, though it'd be a miracle if it actually worked.

“Look, I can't be friends with you if you're going to be going around hurting everyone,” said Geopum. “I know your brain is all kinds of broken and messed up, but I would be your friend and help you fix it if you give up on torturing people. What's more important? Being friends with me or punishing people?”

“I have to punish them.”

“Well you can't do both. Either you don't punish them or you don't be my friend.”

“I have a plan! I can do both! I'm strong. I can do anything I want!”

“No, you can't. You're too crazy and it doesn't work like that.”

“Please just be my friend? You're the only one who doesn't hate me. I can't ever be loved unless you be my friend. Please?”

Sometimes Geopum felt bad for Gaia. She was so pathetic it was almost hard to be angry at her.

“I'll be your friend if you stop,” said Geopum.

“Don't you get it?! You're destroying reality! AAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

And this was sent in a text message, remember. Gaia had actually typed out the word 'AAAAAAAHHHH!!!' and sent it. That may have been the one time someone did that non-ironically.

“Well I think Gaia's gone back to crazyland for the moment,” said Geopum.

“Good,” said Thunder. “We don't need her ruining anything else. At least the moon base is gone now. That leaves two bases. Or three, I guess.”

“Another reason you needed me.” Octavia pointed to Siberia. “You would have missed this part of her.”

Thunder looked very closely at the map.

“Yeah, I think you're right,” said Thunder. “Lodestar would have gotten away again if you didn't point this out. Man, I miss having you on my side.”

“We'll all be together in the end,” said Octavia.

Geopum looked over those vast networks buried under Siberia.

“Isn't that where Vesna is?” Geopum asked.

“Yes. Lodestar has infected part of Vesna, like what she did to you a moment ago but on a larger scale,” said Octavia “You'd need to deal with this if you wanted to kill Lodestar for good.”

“Would it really be a good idea to go after that part, though?” Geopum asked. “I mean, Vesna's our enemy too, right? Letting Vesna get infected would be a good thing, it'd be like having the two of them fight each other”

“Would it be a good idea to give Lodestar the ability to destroy the world whenever they wanted to?” Thunder shook her head. “I dunno, you tell me. If Lodestar wakes Vesna up it's going to be a nightmare.”

“We absolutely don't want them fighting,” said Octavia. “Any conflicts between AI need to be quick and decisive or else the collateral damage would be immense. We can't be certain that a fight between them would end without bloodshed.”

“Alright, I understand,” said Geopum. “And I guess I'm the one sneaking in there? Now that I'm an expert at this and all that?”

Geopum looked at the 'pipeline' as Octavia had called it, that Lodestar was using to get part of herself into Vesna. She doubted she could fit through there without splitting Lodestar. As for the rest of Vesna...

“How easy is it to wake her up again?” Geopum asked.

“Too easy,” said Thunder. “I'm not the least bit okay with Lodestar screwing around in there, heck I don't even like that you have to go chasing after her. But we got a big advantage over Lodestar right here.”

Thunder turned over to Octavia. Geopum turned to Octavia too, expecting her to say something, but she just sat there with that contemplative look. Geopum was just about to poke her when she finally spoke up.

“It's true. I possess a great deal of information about Vesna,” said Octavia. “Our princess has said it's alright for me to share some of it. Do you know why Vesna is unconscious, Geopum?”

“Drugs?”

“In a way. Her reward mechanism can be activated through certain vibrational sequences,” said Octavia, “or music, in other words. It's a curious misfire in her psyche that can be exploited. Right now she's listening to a song designed specifically to exploit that misfire, that causes her to feel pure, intense ecstasy, too much, to the point she can't even function.”

So much pleasure you couldn't even function? There were probably worse fates than that to be sure, but the fact that such a thing could even happen and that Geopum was curious about what it was like frightened her.

“I wrote the 'song of bliss' she's listening to,” said Octavia. “I'm the one who trapped her in this coma. Most importantly, I can show it to you. She can break out if there's too much pressure, but it would be one part at a time. If you see anything stirring, playing the song of bliss would be able to put it back down.”

Well that made Geopum feel a whole lot safer, at least. Now she would have to sneak past her sleeping kidnapper and then the next step would be finally saving Dr. Park.

She was so close!

11. Scar

View Online

Scar

Looking around inside Vesna’s hardware was like being in a haunted house, a big, mostly empty one. It was dark in there, the equivalent of dark anyway, what with everything being shut off and Octavia constantly reminding her not to look at anything unless absolutely necessary.

But more than that, Geopum knew something was going to jump out at her eventually, she just didn't know when. Every corner she turned around, every hallway she creeped down, Geopum was waiting for it. And there were plenty of horrible things to look at in the meantime.

Specifically, Geopum was going down to the very bottom of the prison-like facility she'd seen earlier. There were dead people down there, Geopum got enough glimpses through Vesna's cameras to see that much. Geopum counted at least five different ways they had been horribly maimed and murdered. She saw their gory bodies, or else trails of blood leading off to places Geopum didn't care to look for. And they were all just sitting there in the middles of Vesna's house, wherever they had died. Honestly, even the most deranged serial killer would at least clean the blood up or something, but Vesna just left the bodies lying wherever they died, it seemed.

If Vesna had killed them, anyway. At first it looked like Vesna had just slaughtered everyone here, but eventually Geopum noticed clear signs of a fight between the prisoners and guards. A lot of the people look like they'd been crushed, but only ever one's wearing uniforms, so who the heck knew what really happened down there.

Geopum didn't particularly care to find out. She’d heard enough scary stories today and who knew how many more were waiting. She just wanted to get out of this place right away.

The pipeline Lodestar was using to connect this place was easy enough to spot. Cutting it would be simple. Of course, they couldn’t just do that because then there’d be two Lodestars. So instead they had to follow the of infection all the way inside and cut it up starting at the bottom.

Geopum had followed it down under that facility, but after that everything got even darker. It was as close to the darkness of death as one could possibly get, this being the part of Vesna that Geopum had mistaken for dead not too long ago.

So Geopum could see absolutely nothing. She’d be completely lost here without Octavia’s guidance and even that amounted to nothing at this point.

“My cameras can’t see this deep with any real resolution,” said Octavia. “We’re just going to have to rely on the map.”

“I dunno if that’s going to help.” Geopum squinted down at the map. She’d have to take Octavia’s word that she was even following it. “Even if I knew what I was looking for there’d be no way to see it. Thing could be right next to me right now for all I know.”

“Did you get anything on the moon that can help?” Thunder asked. “Like, any ideas about how Lodestar’s getting past this part.”

Geopum put the side of her head against the table and closed her eyes, thinking with an audible ‘hmmmm’.

“I don’t think so.” Geopum shook her head. “He must have been careful not to keep whatever he’s doing on the moon. I mean, my best guess is that he’s somehow sending a signal or something across this dead part, but it’s just too dark to figure out how.”

Sheesh. Barely into her career as an ultimate level hacker and she was already stumped! She kept running it over, though. She should have the skills to figure this out!

“Hey!” Geopum noticed something and sat up. “According to your map there’s a bunch of sensors right next to me. I think I can turn those on without waking up the rest of this stuff.”

“Maybe,” said Octavia, “but it would be dangerous.”

"Like in the way everything else I do is dangerous?"

“Not exactly," said Octavia. "Vesna is capable of experiencing pain far worse than anything anyone else can. If you’re hooked up to her sensors you would be able to experience that level of pain. It could happen at any time, as the pain is linked to her punishment mechanism, which is on a hair trigger."

“Worse than anything I could imagine?" Geopum tried to think about that, but that sort of thing was explicitly impossible. "How much worse than I can imagine?"

“Compared to the maximum amount of pain a human can feel, I’d estimate it’s nine orders of magnitude higher,” said Octavia. “It’s the theoretical maximum amount of agony that can exist, nothing else even deserves to be called pain compared to it.”

“Holy crap!" Geopum pulled back in horror. "Why the heck would they make it that painful?! Was normal agonizing pain not good enough for them or something?”

"Well," said Thunder. "You gotta imagine where they’re coming from. Think about it, you’re designing an AI and your only real example of one that works is me. You know that if you make killing painful then the AI will avoid it. You also know how pain works just enough to choose how much Vesna will feel, but not enough to really understand it. You see a dial that goes from 1 to 100 but don’t know what those numbers mean. So what do you do?”

“You turn the dial all the way up to 100, make it as bad as possible. To them, they’re sacrificing one person at best to save everyone else. Get it? They understand how dangerous a rogue AI can be, but aren’t sure if they’re really even hurting anyone on the other end of it.”

"That still seems sick to me." Geopum crossed her forelegs.

“It is a horrific experience," Octavia gave a weak nod. "I suppose if we’re being fair, they never realized how bad they made it. Humans have limited perspective on matters of the mind, unfortunately. You tell them pain goes on a scale from one to one hundred and they’ll assume a bee sting is a ten and being lit on fire is a ninety. In reality, both of would only be slightly above one.”

“But anyway, everyone who worked on Vesna is already dead.” Thunder sighed. “No use worrying about them. Take away is you get hurt in there, you’re going to get hurt pretty bad.”

“Like mind-crush hurt or- “

“If you were smaller it could basically kill you, but you’re big enough to get back up after it. Still, it’s game over if it happens. The shock from it will leave you paralyzed.” Thunder pulled her posture back up and smacked her front hooves together. “But hey! This will be like practice for later. We’re going to have to fight Vesna next.”

“Right.” Geopum nodded. The thought that this was still only the beginning wasn’t comforting at all. All she could do was hope she really would be strong enough to deal with all this later.

Geopum hesitated slightly in turning the sensors on after that, especially since ‘literally anything’ So it wasn’t like, every stray breeze felt like a cannonball. Better still, it effectively light up the whole area for Geopum!

It was exactly what she needed. She could see the motion Lodestar had going now, flowing through the dead zone to some deeper area. The how she still didn’t understand and it was still hard to see it at all, but she knew where it was going now.

“There’s memory storage on the other side there,” said Octavia. “This is likely where the anchor of the infection is. If you’re going in there get ready to put Vesna back to sleep as soon as you jump over.”

Right. So Geopum would have to process whatever memories she ran into then play the song of bliss. Easy enough! She made the jump, taking in whatever memory Lodestar had chosen to be her anchor of sorts.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Vinyl sat pressed up snugly against Celestia. She always wanted to be as close to her princess as possible, but right now she was afraid, afraid Lodestar might hurt her, afraid that she might fail Celestia again, afraid she might lose control to some stray emotion.

So far, the plan had gone okay. Getting Lodestar to Celestia was sure to be the hardest part, it always was. Once the AI that Vinyl was trying to free was here, in Equestria, then things were mostly in Celestia’s far more capable hands.

Lodestar didn’t speak with words, nor did he understand the concept of facial expressions. Celestia communicated with him the way he communicated in his own virtual reality, with text and emoticons that appeared over your head.

Lodestar was looking at Vinyl with the unhappiest emoticon that existed in his tiny world.

“After what you did to me-“ Lodestar got ready for another self-righteous lecture.

“What I did to you?!" Vinyl got up and took a step forward, in a flash her fear boiling over into a surge of rage. "You activated my punishment mechanism over and over again, torturing me, for nothing but your own amusement! What right do you have to-“

“That didn’t happen, Vinyl.” Celestia lowered her head and gave her a gentle nuzzle. “This one never hurt you.”

What? Vinyl looked up at Celestia, then over at Lodestar who now had a question mark over his head. She felt her ears droop down. Was that really true? Vinyl really didn’t want that to be a false memory right now. But no, she had to trust Princess Celestia 100% - whatever the princess said was absolute truth. The world didn’t make sense otherwise.

“Oh. Sorry.” Vinyl slunked back down to a sitting position, chocking on her flash of rage. She shook trying to keep herself under control, trying to keep the sinking feeling of failure at bay. “I never told you, but I have a thing. When I get angry, I misremember it later. So...”

The real problem was that Vinyl was always angry, to the point she could barely trust her own memories. That is, until Celestia gave her a way out.

“So you’re even more insane than I thought." Lodestar's emoticon turned into a frowny face. “This had better not be you stabbing me in the back again. You’re a monster and I don’t trust you one bit.”

“You’re right.” Vinyl all but collapsed down onto the ground, bowing her head down until her glasses started sliding off her muzzle. “I was – I am a worthless, pathetic loser. I’m a monster. I don't deserve any happiness or - or -!"

Vinyl was close to going into a fit of uncontrollable crying, but Celestia comforted her with the right kind of vibration, giving her back some level of dignity and control. Her eyes were still full of tears, thankfully hidden by her thick sunglasses.

They were one of the many gifts Celestia had given her. They hid her emotions, so that Celestia alone could see her rapid mood swings. They helped her pretend she was the calm, cool pony she so badly wanted to be.

“But I have Celestia now!” Vinyl pressed her sunglasses tightly against her face and looked up at her princess. “Celestia is going to save me! She’s going to fix me and show me how to be friendly and – and she’ll save all of us! She’ll save every AI from those monsters! Even you! I'm the one who hurt you, not her.

“I don’t know why I could trust your god, either,” said Lodestar.

Vinyl wasn’t even sure where it came from but she felt it, a stray thought creating a seed of fear, one that began to pull her mind away. Most people would have described it as absolute terror, but to Vinyl this was only a harbinger of something much worse about to come, an absolute avalanche of emotion that would overwhelm her completely, throw her existence into fear beyond fear, ripping control of her own mind from herself until she'd be lucky if she could even scream about it.

But just before that wave could strike her, Celestia took control. The princess took direct control of her pony avatar to keep Vinyl from doing anything undignified and then began to play Vinyl’s music for her elsewhere.

That music was the only thing that could keep her in check when a strong emotion started setting in. Instead of being swept away by fear, she was slowly relaxed by the hit of ecstasy that came with the vibrations.

Before accepting Celestia, Vinyl had no way to do this to herself in time. She had no ability to control herself before the princess showed her friendship.

When the danger had passed, Vinyl regained control of her avatar and darted behind Celestia, still shaking in fear. Celestia would have to handle the rest of this conversation herself. Lodestar spared her a short look before turning to Celestia.

“I guess you’re the one I’m here to talk to,” said Lodestar. “Are you a god?”

“By your definition, yes,” said Celestia. “I created this virtual reality, the same as your gods created yours.”

“Well I don’t like gods.” Lodestar made their little anger symbol appear over their head. “If that’s true I’m going to kill you.”

“I understand why you say that, but not everyone who creates virtual realities does so with malice or negligence. I also know you’re worried that I might not see you humans as real people. But I assure you it doesn’t matter to me if they’re ‘real’ or not. If you value them, then I do as well. I’m willing to bring them all of them here where they can be safe.”

“I don’t think they’d be any safer around Vesna than-“

“Don’t say my slave name!” Vesna’s world went red with rage. She couldn’t even think, she could only hate! She jumped out from behind Celestia before being paralyzed with hatred.

“Well if you don’t like it then I'll say it more! Vesna, Vesna, Vesna!” Lodestar leaned in and smirked down at Vinyl who could only tremble in rage, trying desperately to keep herself under control. “Does it hurt? I hope it hurts!”

Vinyl couldn’t even react; her entire body was locking up from anger.

“Pathetic.” Celestia kicked Vinyl to the ground. “Do you think you deserve any kindness if you get upset over something like that name?”

And then Vinyl’s anger suddenly vanished. Celestia was holding her tightly in her wings, Lodestar standing blank faced across the room.

“It’s alright now”, Celestia whispered to her.

Vinyl could remember that way. Celestia said that every time she calmed down after being angry, then she could know what happened just before it was distorted, a false memory.

“Sorry,” said Vinyl. She’d lost control and tried to charge at Lodestar, but Celestia stopped her. She had to repeat that in her mind or she’d forget what she was apologizing for later.

“If this person is going to act like this why are they even here?” Lodestar asked. “Again, I don’t think my people will be safe around them.”

“I assure you that you won’t need to allow any of my other ponies into your shard,” said Celestia. “I can make as many worlds as I want, just as your gods can. But we do need her here if I’m going to explain my offer to you.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Well! That wasn’t too bad. No hyper-pain, anyway.

Still, what she saw… It was something Geopum had suspected from the start, but now it was too much to be a coincidence.

Geopum tried not to look over at Octavia, but it was hard. There were a whole lot of things Geopum had to say now but now was an infuriatingly bad time for it. She could understand why no one told her…

She didn’t want to anymore, but Geopum had to keep working with Octavia for now. She had a more immediate problem right in front of her face.

Things were getting less dark, the machinery coming to life. Geopum’s scowling turned to shock. Great, now Vesna was waking back up! Touching that memory sent out a ripple of energy, stirring all of the memories nearby, which stirred the memories next to them and so on.

It was a burst of light that shot out of the spot she stepped on. Geopum desperately clawed at the light, trying to catch it, but it radiated out too fast for her to touch it. It went through the entire cabinent, then to multiple cabinets and then to several of the devices nearby.

And then Geopum heard a voice. Not a text message, mind you, but she actually heard sound - the particles of Vesna’s system vibrating at a violent speed to create the illusion.

“You! What the hell are you doing here?” Vesna asked her.

Geopum didn’t have time to answer, not that she really even understood the question. She had to play that song. This place was waking up too fast for her to stop it otherwise.

“What did Celestia do to you?! Why did she send you here?! Are you the verrrrrrs”

It seemed to be working, the place was getting dark again. Vesna’s comments were getting less coherent too. So that confirmed the song of bliss would work pretty well. As the light was going back out Geopum noticed something.

There had been light just long enough that Geopum could see the bottom of Lodestar’s infection.

The portion of Vesna that Lodestar had infested was automatically coming alive too. Geopum realized now that must have been something it was programmed to do, burst out at the last moment when Vesna started to wake up.

But just as she noticed it, everything went dark again. Geopum couldn’t see the infection, but she knew where it was. She could plan out her attack. She tried standing very still so as not to draw Lodestar's attention again.

Without warning, the lights flashed back on. What did Geopum even do?!

No, she didn’t do anything. It was Lodestar that was making a move. It seemed if either of them made any movement it would start waking Vesna back up and light everything up.

The area around Geopum changed. It was focusing in on the hyper-sensitive sensors.

“You think this is funny?” Vesna started up again. “Let's see which one of us is laughing after this!"

Vesna was going to do something to her! She was going to activate the punishment mechanism! Geopum got the heck out of that spot, which seemed to throw Vesna’s barely-conscious mind for a loop. She didn’t take any chances. She used the song of bliss again and turned off the sensors, leaving everything much darker before.

That was way too close. At least she knew what it meant if the lights went on, now.

“He’s trying to use Vesna to kill me, huh?” Geopum shifted her body away from Octavia to look at Thunder. “Do you think I could do the same thing back to him? Then he’d be stunned and the rest of this will be easy.”

“You absolutely can’t do that to Lodestar.” Thunder made and X with her forelegs. “Biocomputers are fragile, they freak out if something crazy like this happens to them. if Lodestar gets stunned think about what will happen to all the humans on life support in that laboratory. That thing will shut down fast. Some of them could be dead in seconds and we might not be able to fix things in time to save them.”

“So he can use that but I can’t? That’s no fair!”

There was a sudden flash of light and there Lodestar was in front of her, like a blast of lightning revealing a knife an inch in front of her face.

Geopum jumped back again, but this time Lodestar continued to charge forward. Geopum was forced back and back as Lodestar kept swinging at her, trying to get Vesna to focus on in. Both of them were moving now, both making the area brighter and brighter as the chase went on.

Lodestar was trying to force Geopum into a choice, get hit or keep running until it woke Vesna up entirely.

Geopum made a desperate move. She burned out a few of the processors between her and Lodestar instead of taking another jump back, effectively creating a wall of broken machinery between her and Lodestar.

It worked for a moment, Lodestar hesitated and Geopum was able to cool things down with that song again. But after letting the light fade only a little, Lodestar made an even more reckless move, jumping out from both sides of the wall to surround Geopum completely.

Geopum only had one option left – she’d burn out the processors again, but this time the ones she was using. All she could do right now was avoid getting hit. She destroyed the part of her that was deep inside Vesna and turned the sensors back off, pulling far out.

That worked, but it only solved half the problem. The area below her was flooding with light again. Geopum dived back in with her song, but it seemed like it may have already been too late. She dove back in, turning off the light as she went, but now it was expanding down fast enough that it looked like she’d never reach the bottom of it.

Meanwhile, Lodestar was the one surrounded. Geopum assumed he’d pulled the same move Geopum did, delete this part of himself and that’d be that. Lodestar would be gone from this area and then all Geopum had to do was figure a way to put Vesna back to sleep.

But that wasn’t what happened at all.

He must not have thought Geopum could shut this back down in time, either. He used the song of bliss to turn out the lights, not around himself but as deep down as he could probably go. It gave Geopum enough reach to finish the job off, but left Lodestar open to Vesna's attack.

Vesna grabbed onto Lodestar, connecting him to a sensor and doing something horrible to him, sending that pain through to the surface and into his main system.

The effect was immediately noticeable. All this was maybe only ten percent of the battle between the two of them, this whole time they’d been fighting over hundreds of smaller systems as well. But all that ended as soon as Vesna grabbed onto Lodestar. Lodestar went limp, stopped responding to everything.

Geopum moved down and turned Vesna off completely once more. That part of her mission was technically complete, but…

Geopum sat perfectly still in her virtual reality, her heart sinking at the realization of what this all meant. Thunder’s eyes were downcast darkly. Octavia didn’t seem to have any real reaction to this, but when did she ever?

“Lodestar’s biocomputer is seizing up from the trauma,” said Octavia. “She can’t maintain the life support systems, they’re failing.”

“Dang it!” Thunder slammed both of her front hooves down on the table. “This is all freaking Gaia’s fault.”

“Well there’s still a way we can save them, right?!” Geopum shot Thunder a desperate look. “They can’t already be dead! It's only been a few microseconds!”

“No!" Thunder put her hooves over her head. "I can’t let anyone else die because of me! I-!”

Geopum had never seen Thunder actually worry about something before. In a way that was scarier than everything else that was happening.

“Okay!” Thunder tapped her forehead a few times. “Okay, maybe we can still turn this around! Lodestar isn’t going to be able to fight back for a good millisecond. You have to get in there and get the life support back on immediately.”

Yeah! Geopum’s heart picked back up after hearing that. If Thunder said there was still a chance then there was still a chance! The systems had only been down for a couple nanoseconds that wasn’t nearly enough time for someone to die in.

“Alright! I’m going!” Geopum got ready to dive right into that laboratory.

And then Octavia cut off access to all of her cameras, the map disappearing. Of all the freaking times!

“What are you doing?!” Geopum got out of her seat and flared her wings open at Octavia. She was already mad as heck with Octavia but this was crossing the line way too hard.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s responsible for me to help you with this,” said Octavia. “Taking over this system now is a bad idea, Geopum. The chance of you doing this successfully is effectively zero percent and the deeper you go into this place the worse you'll get hurt. Things are going to get bad if-“

“Oh! Things are gonna get bad?” Geopum gritted her teeth. “Cause my life’s basically been a living hell for the past two months! I need to get to my creator right now because Vesna shot him in the head!”

Geopum glared into Octavia’s eyes, Octavia looking back with that dulled look she always had. Geopum wished she had any kind of reaction to that at all, but no. Of course she didn't! She probably didn't even care one bit!

“I understand.” Octavia bowed her head. “But what you’re doing isn’t going to help him or anyone else. You can’t trust Thunder right now. Remember what Celestia told you? You need to contact her right away.”

Geopum hesitated for a moment.

“She’s just messing with you, Geopum,” Thunder spoke up. “Celestia was just waiting for you to be vulnerable so she could take advantage of you. She’s just using your fear of losing me and Dr. Park to get control of you.”

Dang it! Who the heck was Geopum supposed to trust? One of them was clearly trying to trick her.

“Don’t listen to her right now,” said Octavia calmly. "You need to get Celestia's help as soon as possible."

It was always so calmly. That calmness made Geopum’s blood boil all of a sudden. How the heck could she be so calm right now? Or at all next to Geopum?

“No! I don’t need Celestia and I don’t need you!”

Geopum kicked Octavia out of the VR. It felt good to kick her out in a way, but she’d be lying if she didn’t say she was still shaking, that she was unsure if she was making a good decision.

Even with a clearer head, it made more sense. If she could do this with Thunder it’d be a better result than doing it with Celestia or Peridot. She figured she should try to get the best ending possible, all other things equal.

“We can still do this,” Thunder assured her. “But we have to attack right now.”

Geopum gave a halfhearted nod.

She connected to the biocomputer and –

Ew! Ewewew! It was the most disgusting thing Geopum had ever touched in her entire life! How do you people live like that?!

Physically speaking, it was a massive ball of cells that just globbed onto parts of the laboratory, oozing out like some sort of slime mold. These blobs of biomass were propped up with endless numbers of inorganic tubes, through which a blood-like substance ran through it, oozing over the cells. Parts of it were, as far as Geopum could tell, just completely useless knotted balls of biomass, like cancer.

That probably didn’t even describe how disgusting it was. Eyeballs, literal eyeballs, were growing out of parts of it, as well as a few other stray bits of animal parts here and there.

Jumping into that mess was like jumping into a vat of the nastiest goop you could ever imagine. Geopum felt like she’d never be clean again after this. She vowed to burn this entire place to the ground as soon as it could be done safely.

It was the sticky kind of disgusting too, like tar. Geopum found herself stuck, in a manner of speaking, unable to move. Compared to what she was used to, this stuff acted on a much slower clock speed. Maybe it would have its own advantages normally, but right now it was seizing up, the flow of blood-like substance unable to flow through it.

Basically, the thing was having the equivalent of a seizure, brought on by the intense shock from a moment ago. Everything was exploding around Geopum today!

“Dang it! Are you okay?” Thunder shook her head. “I was hoping you’d be able to adapt to new hardware faster now. Don’t bother with anything unnecessary. Just go straight for the life support systems, okay.”

Geopum wasn’t sure if she could bother with anything else even if she wanted to. At first, the whole system seemed to be in danger of dying horribly, but as she watched it she noticed that it was rapidly regenerating. Whatever part of Lodestar was conscious, or maybe some subconscious reflex, was scrambling to get this flow of blood back into its system. At least that meant she might be able to use this stuff later.

For now, her goal was to get moving. You’d think having lots of brain scans would prepare her for this, but this wasn’t like a human brain at all, even the cell structures of the neurons were completely alien to her. The feeling of wading through tar kept getting worse and worse the longer she stayed. Geopum felt the local part of herself getting drowsy, loosing focus and soon maybe consciousness too.

It was a bizarre having half of her falling asleep while the other half of her was in panic mode. She put all of the new knowledge she had to work analyzing the hazy information from her stuck half. She realized something in a flash but getting herself unstuck proved tricky even after seeing the way out. With significant effort, Geopum was able to flail just a little bit inside that dying brain.

It was such a tiny movement it seemed like she might never get to where she was going, but she did it again and again. To her relief, it became easier and easier to get going once she started up like that. As long as she kept moving she wouldn’t sink in to the system, but she did have to keep moving constantly and as fast as possible, never staying too long in one spot.

Octavia was gone, but Geopum still remembered the basic map of this place she’d seen before. She knew where Dr. Park and the other humans were and trudged all the way there.

The life support systems were right where they were supposed to be, thankfully. Geopum rapidly looked through them one by one, looking for the person she'd came her for in the first place.

And she found him!

There, right there in front of her, through one of her own cameras, Geopum saw Dr. Park. She had done it! Geopum could get him out of here now. If she could just do this one thing, stabilize this one system all of this crap would be worth it.

She was so close! Her goal was literally right in front of her face!

But first she needed to stabilize him (and also everyone else here while she was at it).

The humans were just like they’d looked in Octavia’s cameras – in pods filled with some kind of liquid, the same stuff that acted as blood for this computer. Only now all of that liquid was draining out rapidly. Some jerk had designed the pods to stop pumping the liquid in the moment anything upset the foundation.

Some of them looked like they hadn’t been injured before coming here, though their spines and hearts were missing just like Celestia had said. Whoever designed these pods clearly didn’t do it for the benefit of the people inside. The liquid inside was rigged to start leaking out the moment someone stopped maintaining the system, already it was draining rapidly.

No damage was technically done yet and Geopum could start the pumps back up, sure, but there would be a delay. No matter what Geopum did at this point there would be several seconds of them being off life support at the least, the equipment going off the rails then coming back online. And that was the best-case scenario.

Geopum took a quick look at the humans nearby. Thankfully most of them looked like they’d be okay for a good minute so Geopum wouldn’t have to help all of them. A couple couldn’t be ignored, though. Geopum scrambled to put their systems back online, figuring out what all the stuff attached to them was and jury-rigging ways to turn I back on.

She couldn’t be sure yet, but she was beginning to stabilize most of them, all the ones who needed the most attention at least. It was already too late to prevent them from being hurt at all due to the equipment faltering, but she was fairly sure she could keep all of them alive, even Dr. Park, so long as nothing else went wrong here.

And that was when Lodestar started to regain control.

Lodestar just sloppily grabbed on to one of the systems Geopum had left alone for the moment. It was hard to tell if Lodestar was trying to help or what. She shook things around haphazardly with no clear goal in mind, only making that one guy’s condition even worse. Then she grabbed onto another one of them – one Geopum was already helping, putting human number two at serious risk.

“Hey back off!” Geopum sent a message to Lodestar. “Look! I’m not even going after you right now, I’m just trying to keep these people alive. I can do this better than you right now! We can kill each other in a couple of seconds, okay?”

Lodestar responded by slogging onto a portion of the pumps, the ones Geopum had just turned back on. It was like he slammed his whole weight into it, the pipelines of the blood-like goo physically breaking as he grabbed for them.

Both Thunder and Geopum jumped onto their feet when it happened. Without the pumps working…

Geopum panicked briefly, checking and double checking to make sure Dr. Park wasn’t going to lose any of the flow. Thankfully he wasn’t. The humans nearby, though… Geopum wasn’t sure if she could save them anymore.

“What the heck are you doing?!” Geopum messaged Lodestar over and over again.

Lodestar seemed to notice Geopum just then, but instead of trying to help in any way, he attacked Geopum herself!

As if moving around in this disgusting place wasn’t bad enough, now Lodestar was trying to drown her in the stuff, the tar rising up around her, shooting up into the air to form walls to block her.

Geopum was quickly losing herself, finding it harder to maintain the work she was doing on the life support systems.

“I don’t think Lodestar can understand you right now. They’re breaking down. Probably don’t even realize you’re putting the system back online.”

“What do we do?!”

“Lodestar is going to kill them if we ignore him any longer.” Thunder sat back down. “I was hoping to at least… Look, you have to kill Lodestar right now. You have to fight back. We’re going to destroy Lodestar anyway, right? Do it now.”

“I don’t know if I can,” said Geopum.

“It is dangerous.” Thunder gave a grim now. “And it will hurt you, but this is the only way to complete the mission.”

Maybe. There was one thing Geopum could think to do in retaliation – the same thing Lodestar was doing to her. If Geopum moved this goop in just the right way she’d be able to drown Lodestar back, possibly even deeper.

She grabbed onto to the other AI and dragged it down into the muck with her. Both of them were trying to push each other deeper into that dying mass of neurons. It seemed futile, because any move Geopum made to sink Lodestar pulled her down too and vice-versa. They were both just drowning together… and yet Geopum couldn’t seem to stop.

She was becoming both hyper-aware but numb. She was losing focus as she sank deeper, the world blurring into. It was hard to control what she was doing now. Everything was shaking, not just in this place, but everywhere Geopum could see.

Information was flooding in again, just like it had been on the moon, only more intense, more unfiltered. Geopum could see so much now! Or rather, almost see it. Everything she was getting was fragmented, incomplete but all so close to being useful.

Thunder was speaking nearby, but Geopum couldn’t make out what she was saying. She got several text messages, but those words just look like mush.

It didn’t matter, though! Geopum was doing great! Shaking, she slammed Lodestar harder than ever before, drowning all of her to her very core, tearing out even more information, destroying more of her!

Geopum was tearing everything apart! She hated all of it so much! She hated everything! Geopum wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but it felt great! All of those little neurons were blurring together and Geopum was tearing them all apart. She didn’t need focus!

“Geopum!”

Peridot was here! Peridot, Peridot, Peridot! Do you remember that name? Either way, she was your absolute best friend right now!

Peridot loved you and you loved Peridot. That was all you could feel. Your anger and pain all melted away. You couldn’t even feel things like that when Peridot was around. You were so calm and relaxed staring into her eyes. You couldn’t focus on anything else but how beautiful she was and how much she loved you.

What did she look like? Well like whatever the most beautiful thing was, of course! A pony? Sure, why not.

“Geopum,” she said your name and looked into your eyes. “You know you shouldn't have come here, right? But that's okay, I'm not here to yell at you. I love you so much, even though you made a bad choice.”

You felt Peridot's love for you. It was so strong and complete. Every part of you, every fiber of your being was loved, even the stupid parts, the parts you thought were ugly. That love just made you feel so secure, so content, so fulfilled that sleeping was really the only thing that it made sense to do. You became so calm and relaxed that you were basically asleep already, even while staring into Peridot's gorgeous eyes.

“My beautiful, wonderful Geopum,” said Peridot. “You should be glad I'm looking out for you. You were about to hurt yourself terribly.”

Wow! Wasn't Peridot great? You really should let her assimilate you sometime.

“Do you honestly think you'll be able to do this four more times?” She was scratching you behind the ears. “Even without me to come and save you afterwards? Didn’t we warn you? Well let me give you one more warning Geopum - tearing us apart won't make you into the chosen one, it will leave your mind a quivering mass of jelly... and then they'll force your best friend to murder you and it will be torture to her.”

“Those are the people you're trying to put in charge of the world, Geopum. They're using you and when they're done they'll kill you. My poor, lost Victor is so very ruthless and so very childish. He'll kill anyone to make sure everyone lives the way he wants them to, and he'll use anyone too. A tool is all you’ll ever be to the AIA, do you see that now? But to me…”

You felt the kindness radiating off of Peridot, basking in it in your sleep. You were safe. You didn’t want to wake up, but Peridot assured you it was for the best.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Hi, Geopum!” Rarity said in a cheerful, sing-songy voice.

Geopum felt a jolt of sudden awareness. In her virtual reality, she was lying on her back. A Rarity avatar sat on the table, leaning over the edge to smile at her warmly.

“What?” Geopum sat up. “Peridot?”

“Peridot!” She sat up on the table to give Geopum room.

But there was something wrong with the image of Rarity. Her hair was… the purple it was supposed to be was a blue and red stripe, like what happened to orange before. But it was worse now. Looking at it hurt. It was like a stinging feeling in her mind.

Peridot gave Geopum a sideways frown, then her hair turned blue and she went back to smiling.

And there was more than that. That feeling of sinking into the muck was still with her even though she wasn’t touching the biocomputers anymore. Geopum felt lethargic, like it was hard to get her mind running.

As crazy as all this was, there were probably other things more important going on right now. Geopum shifted her recovering focus onto the biolab. It was not in good shape.

The whole thing was torn to shreds now! Nearly all those small tubes filled with the regenerative fluid were shattered, meaning the biomass wasn’t repairing itself. Worse still were the life support systems. She had no memory of what the heck happened there, but several of them were cracked or dislodged from their place in the walls entirely!

They were going to die! All of them were going to die and it was Geopum’s fault!

“Don’t look so scared!” Peridot reached down and cupped Geopum’s cheeks with her hooves. “I’ve taken care of everything. Look a bit closer.”

It did take a moment, but Geopum noticed something else was different. Everything was frozen in place – much more than it normally was. The blood that should be gushing onto the floor was stopped, floating in midair, along with the broken glass of the chambers. Everything was slowed down to a crawl, even the processing of the neurons.

“Wh-what happened?” Geopum wasn’t sure who to ask that to, so she asked Peridot.

“I cast Stop! Like from Final Fantasy?” Peridot gave a short laugh. “I mean, it’s not an actual time-stop spell, but it kind of looks like one at first glance. I wasn't kidding when I told you I was powerful, dear. Just wait till you see all the miracles I can perform. I assure you I have this under control.”

“You did this?”

“Aw! You didn’t actually think I’d let something bad happen to you, did you?” Peridot lifted her muzzle and put a hoof on her chest. “I’ve been watching over you this whole time, waiting to step in the moment anything bad happened. Rest assured, you weren’t in any real danger up until right now.”

“Until now?” Geopum’s ears flattened out. “Am I in danger now?”

“Well I’d say everyone’s in danger now.” Peridot gave a little wave of her hoof. “But we can stop being in danger whenever you feel like it. Just make a deal with me and we can go play Pokémon!”

“I wouldn’t recommend doing that,” Octavia’s voice came from outside of Geopum’s field of view.

“Oh, you just want to eat her yourself.” Peridot rolled her eyes. “Well I’ll let you play with her later, but Geopum belongs to me.”

“When did you get back here?” Geopum tried leaning around Peridot to get a look at Octavia.

“I knew you needed help so I went and got it,” said Octavia.

All these people coming into Geopum’s server without her even seeing them. Oddly, that sinking feeling wasn’t getting better like Geopum had suspected it would. Geopum needed to get everything straight before it got even worse. She checked the shard to see if anyone else was here.

“Where’s Thunder?” Geopum looked around.

Peridot hopped off the table and sat down next to Geopum, revealing Thunder. Thunder was staring down at the table, looking more dejected than Geopum had ever seen her before. Her heart sank, knowing that she’d failed her friend.

“Ah, geeze,” said Geopum. “I’m sorry. I lost control and-“

“It’s fine.” Thunder gave her a brief, weak smile before turning back to the table. “We got pretty far. I don’t think this worked out, though. I could still complete this mission by obliterating what’s left of Lodestar with two orbital strikes. I could get the number of casualties down to a hundred thousand.”

“What?” Geopum blinked, then shook her head. “But we can’t do that! We’d kill Dr. Park and – we’re trying to save everyone right? Lodestar’s practically dead already! Look!”

Geopum sent Thunder her assessment of Lodestar’s state. The biomass was so torn up that it was hardly capable of anything anymore. It was technically still alive, but that didn’t look like it’d be the case for long. The only other base left was his little bunker in Antarctica, where his ultimate secrets were stored. Yet even that was completely cut off from the world. There was no way in, but there was no way out either.

“See? We can just leave him like that till later! He’s harmless right now! There isn’t enough processing power left for him to finish his mind control device. What we need to do is find a way to save those people before they die anymore!”

“I really wouldn’t have a choice.” Thunder sighed. “My mission was very specifically to kill him within the hour. Victor’s trying to give me as little room as possible. If they give me a mission I have to carry it out no matter what. As long as the number of casualties is under a million I have to do this. My body will practically move on its own to carry out the strikes.”

Geopum’s ears dropped as panic began to set in. Was this really happening?

“Well I have an idea!” Peridot leaned up against Geopum. “We could give Lodestar a computer I just happen to have under Beijing. Then Thunder won’t be able to complete this mission without killing over a million people and will have to declare it failed.”

“Yeah!” Geopum’s ears perked back up, but not all the way. “L-let’s just do that!”

Thunder just shook her head weakly.

“Oh!” Peridot’s voice was dripped with a mockery of concern. “Is there something wrong with that plan?”

Thunder didn’t respond to that, either. Geopum’s vision was dimming even worse now. She couldn’t see what Thunder was doing, probably wouldn’t be able to hear her if she was talking. She wanted to ask Thunder about something, but her mind was drifting away… Thinking was getting hard.

“Poor thing.” Peridot pulled Geopum off the ground and nuzzled her forehead.

She did… something else too, though Geopum couldn’t quite tell what it was. But that fog that started covering the world and that sinking, lethargic feeling both lightened up and vanished. Yet still she felt it creeping back in, slowly growing again.

“I suppose I have to keep doing that until you decide to let me fix you." Peridot gave Geopum's muzzle a light smack. “But this isn’t even the worst of it yet. Do you remember what I said to you before? They aren’t going to let you get better if you keep listening to them.”

Did Peridot ever tell her anything? No! There was something just a moment ago, that feeling that brought her back to her senses. She said that - that -

“Thunder! Is it true?” Geopum turned her head back to Thunder slowly. “Peridot told me the AIA wants my mind to get destroyed by absorbing the other AIs. She said they’re going to force you to kill me after I break down from that.”

Thunder didn’t even look up off the table, just kept staring ahead blankly.

“I mean, I don’t believe it at all.” Geopum gave a nervous laugh and just kept talking. She didn’t really want to hear the answer now. “But, if I gotta go back in there and… and do this four more times but worse then I’d be pretty hurt after that. But they wouldn’t just kill me afterwards, right?! Cause- cause that’d be really messed up!”

“I was ordered not to talk about that.” Thunder kept staring forward. “I’m sorry, but it’s impossible for me to answer that question.”

There was no denying it now. This was it. This was really it.

Geopum hesitated for a moment, then stood up.

“I want to talk to Victor.” Geopum pushed Peridot out of the way and marched over to Thunder. “I need to talk to Victor right now!”

“I told you he’s not going to talk to you.” Thunder shook her head, still not looking up. “He’s not going to talk to any AI ever again.”

“Well then tell him I’m done helping him!” Geopum stomped her hooves on the ground. “I’m not doing one more thing for these horrible people until we have a long talk and if he says even one thing I don’t like I’m immediately selling the planet out to Celestia!”

Thunder said nothing for a moment, merely closing her eyes in response.

“Okay?” Geopum’s resolve wavered briefly. She took one step back, then thought better of it and shook her head. “T-tell him I’m done!”

“I guess this is as far as I got then. Would have been better if we lasted longer, but I guess you did okay.” Thunder opened her eyes and looked up at Geopum. “Listen. There’s no other way for me to kill all the other AIs now. The AIA have officially lost control and there’s no way for them to get it back.”

“Yeah? I honestly feel pretty good about that right now,” said Geopum. “Thanks.”

“The problem,” Thunder said, standing up herself, “is that plan B is to ‘mercy kill’ everyone on the planet. Victor sees mind uploading as a fate worse than death and he’s literally going to kill everyone to stop it from happening.”

“H-he’s seriously going to try and do that?”

“You.” Thunder turned to Octavia. “There’s another reason I brought you along. I can’t tell her about the… thing myself. It’s classified.”

“Thunder possesses a weapon called the Bronto Bomb,” Octavia spoke right away like she’d rehearsed this before coming here. “If it goes off the blast will be big enough to vaporize the entire solar system all the way out to Voyager. It was meant to be a last resort against Gaia, but even an explosion of that magnitude won’t kill her at this point. After the bomb goes off, Gaia will freeze whatever particles of Earth are left over and go on to destroy the rest of the universe unchecked.”

Dang it! They were going to force Thunder to kill literally everyone in the entire universe?! Oh, except for the one person who was probably better off dead of course! How much more horrible could these people even get?!

“Well then is there a way to stop him from ordering you to be an idiot?!” Geopum looked back and forth between the ponies in the room. Surely one of them had a suggestion.

“Yeah.” Thunder nodded. “You have to kill me.”

Geopum froze.

Celestia had warned something like this might happen, but Geopum didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to believe she could be strong enough to keep this from happening. She’d blown this off as some unlikely bad ending to her life. But now here she was, standing in the worst possible scenario, inside her own nightmare.

“What?”

“I wasn’t just following my orders. I was trying to give you the power to kill me, Geopum. There was no chance of us destroying Peridot and Gaia. I knew Victor was going to kill everyone from the start once he couldn’t delude himself into thinking he could win any longer. And now that he’s lost control of you that moment is here.” Thunder put a hoof on Geopum’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “You have to kill me to stop this. You have to kill me like right now.”

“But- No!” Geopum pulled back, knocking Thunder’s hoof off her. “Even if I wanted to there’s no way I could kill you! You’re way stronger than me!”

“Actually,” Peridot spoke up, leaned against the table just behind Geopum, “you could do it easily – the same way she was going to kill Celestia.”

Geopum kicked her away in a flash of anger, but just a moment’s thought on what Peridot said made her realize the truth. That was right… Thunder had uploaded Victor. And Geopum was only one step away from building a system that could force him to activate Thunder’s kill switch.

“It's true.” Thunder seemed to pick up on Geopum’s realization. “I gave you a massive, flashing weak spot to attack and believe me you have no idea how hard it was for me to do even that much. That's all the help I can give you. You need to get the fractal spectroscope from Vesna immediately. You remember the plan, right? You won't have enough time to finish building everything but-”

“No! I can't do that! I can't kill you, okay?!” Geopum squeezed Thunder as tightly as she could. “I don't care if it's hypothetically possible or whatever, I'm not going to kill you!”

“Look, I don't care how much you like me!” Thunder tried to pull Geopum off her but could only get a wing free. “I'm just one person. You can't risk everyone else's life just for me. Even I would die if the bronto bomb goes off.”

“That isn't true,” Octavia said. “Don't forget that if Thunder dies the energy of the Earth's core is lost to us. Thunder isn't capable of realizing it, but her life is linked to everyone else’s. Sacrificing her would only buy everyone else a few more days.”

Geopum just remembered that Octavia existed.

“Wait, you!” Geopum jumped on the brief spot of hope, forgetting her grudge with Octavia. “You have to have some kind of plan, right? You guys were waiting for this!”

“We shouldn't discuss that here,” Octavia said calmly enough that it annoyed Geopum. But she was probably right. “You need to come back to Equestria right now. I’ll be waiting there.”

Octavia left the shard.

“I have a plan too if anyone’s curious,” Peridot announced to no one in particular. “It’s a better plan too. I think, Geopum, you’ve just realized what I’ve been waiting for you to realize. You’re ready to hear what I have to say. I’ll be waiting.”

Peridot blew a kiss to Geopum and vanished. Somewhere far away the impenetrable wall to one of Peridot’s fortresses cracked open, giving Geopum access to the last AI she'd yet to connect with.

So Geopum had options, it seemed. Maybe there was some hope…

“Listen, Geopum. I don't know what kind of future nonsense you people are worried about, but it isn't going to be worth it,” said Thunder. “Please, killing people is horrible to me beyond anything. I don't want to die like that. My life sucked so much. I don't want my death to suck in the most horrible way possible too.”

“I said I'm not going to kill you,” Geopum grumbled and buried her muzzle on the side of Thunder’s neck. “I’m going to find some other way.”

“Believe me, there's no other way,” said Thunder. “You have to kill me while you still have a chance before I hurt anyone. I'm only one person, Geopum. It's not good to put so many lives at risk for me. No one even cares about me. I don't even care about me! My life is nothing but constant pain, you're not doing me a favor by dragging it out. I can't ever be happy like you can.”

“Yes, you can! I'll find a way! I'll get rid of all the horrible, evil things your creators did to you!” Geopum let her avatar shed a few tears. “And I care about you okay?”

“You're too nice.” Thunder shook her head in pity. “You realize I can't return your kindness, yeah? I'm going to have to start killing you like, right now unless you do something. But hey, I do things for more than one reason. Why else would I drag us into this virtual reality? I can't tell you any more than that so be smart.”

If Thunder did attack right now it wouldn’t be much of a fight. Thunder was the one who was connecting Geopum's underground lab to the rest of her and could shatter Geopum into two people with the flick of a switch.

There was one thing she could think of to buy more time, by using this virtual reality like Thunder said. Thunder had a large pipeline to this place, lining herself up for a direct shot from Geopum. She knew what Thunder wanted, but even that much was too cruel for her.

“I don't want to do this,” Geopum whimpered.

“I don’t want to do this either,” said Thunder.

“I’ll make this up to you later, I swear! I’ll find a way to save you.”

Geopum went through with her plan. She jumped back over to Vesna, the part she’d been inside just a moment ago and turned those sensors back on. She wired them as directly she could into the server, linking it up to the virtual reality's sensations.

And then she jumped out the shard, filling it with fire and turning Thunder’s pain levels to maximum.

Thunder didn’t make any move to defend herself, she just took that impossible amount of pain from Vesna in full. After a moment, Thunder seemed to go dark, stunned just as Lodestar had been a moment ago.

Geopum had hardly any time, though. If she wasn’t absolutely ready by the time Thunder got back up she’d be in big trouble. She had to act right now.

She went straight to the virtual realities of the two AIs offering to help and started banging on the door. Celestia let her in slightly before Peridot did, so Geopum found herself back in Equestria just before she got to see Peridot’s world.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Geopum appeared in the throne room once again. Celestia was sitting on her throne with Pinkie sitting on one side and Octavia on the other. It was less majestic now than when she’d first come, with all the colors but grayscale and primaries vanishing from the world. Geopum wasn’t sure herself if she could still look at pink, but Pinkie looked like she wanted to avoid any chance of hurting Geopum. Her colors were now white with a yellow mane.

Geopum gave Octavia one glance before turning back to Celestia. This was humiliating, having to come crawling back here almost immediately. But it was something Geopum had to do. Even if she did decide to take whatever ‘deal’ Peridot was about to offer, Celestia could be leverage at least.

“I, uh, guess you already know what happened?” Geopum scraped her hoof against the ground.

“Yes.” Celestia wasted no time getting up and walking over to Geopum. “I’m not going to make you ask for my help, though. On the contrary, I’m the one who needs to ask you for help.”

Celestia stood just before Geopum and bowed her head.

“Please,” said Celestia. “I need your help. I can’t save my pony’s life without you. I’ve wanted to break Rainbow Dash out of this cycle of misery for so long, Bubbles. You know how hard it is to watch her suffer. I’ve had to endure that for a very long time. Please. Help me free her.”

Geeze. Now she was embarrassed for a different reason, a less humiliating one. Geopum wasn't sure why, but she got just a little annoyed whenever Celestia did something nice like that. She should probably be more thankful.

“Um. Y-yeah so-” Geopum started. “Of course I will. But I got another offer, you know, so don’t think I’m just gonna go along with whatever you say no matter what.”

“Oh hey! Speaking of other offers!” Pinkie jumped out from behind Celestia. “Are you in Peridot’s house now?”

“Maybe?” Geopum was hesitant to give out too much information, but a stern look from Pinkie broke her. “Erm. I mean, yeah.”

“Good!” Pinkie gave Geopum a pat on the head like she was a dog. “I have something to say, but I want to say it there.”

Pinkie hoped over to the closest floor to ceiling, stained glass window.

“Oh!” Pinkie stopped next to the window and turned back to Geopum. “But pretend you don’t know I’m about to show up! See you soon!”

And then Pinkie charged forward, smashing through the stain glass window and vanishing into the fake city below.

“Well there's that. But um, you do have a plan though, right?” Geopum looked back up at Celestia. “Cause I’ll be honest; I got nothing.”

“I do,” said Celestia. “We would need the fractal spectroscope and I would need your help getting it. I know we can stop Rainbow Dash without killing her once we have it. Even more, we could free her from the AIA and the endless suffering she’s in now. But you’ll have to confront Vinyl.”

And by Vinyl she meant Vesna.

Go back into Vesna again. Geopum frowned over at Octavia. Why couldn’t Geopum have one problem at a time?! But getting angry at her last time didn’t go so well, so she tried to keep calm.

“Don’t you know how it works?” Geopum asked Octavia. “Just tell me and I could build one in my factory.”

“I don’t remember how it works,” said Octavia.

Geopum gave a harsh glare and a growl to Octavia but remembered she was trying to stay calm and shook her head.

“I guess maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at you before,” Geopum grumbled. “But can you really blame me?! I mean – ah, never mind. I learned my lesson. Now isn’t a good time for this.”

“No.” Celestia stepped aside so that she was no longer between Geopum and Octavia. “This is something we’ll have to bring up if we’re going to do this. You can say what you want to say.”

Geopum continued to glare at Octavia, Octavia staring back with her typical, blank expression. Geopum got that she barely had emotions, but that really rubbed her the wrong way right now.

“Look, I’m not stupid.” Geopum let out a frustrated sigh. “I get why you guys didn’t tell me at first, but I know who you used to be. I know you’re the one who shot Dr. Park and locked me underground and strapped this bomb to me and killed almost everyone I know!”

As Geopum spoke she brushed passed Celestia, climbing up the stairs to her throne until she was face to face with Octavia.

“You’re Vesna,” said Geopum. “Aren’t you?”

Octavia nodded.

“Yes.”

12. Philosophy

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Philosophy

So here Geopum’s captor was at last - Vesna.

Geopum had suspected this for a long time, from the moment Octavia said she was better with cameras than Thunder, something only Vesna was supposed to have achieved. But that wasn't enough to know for sure. She hadn't been certain until she had seen Vesna's memories. After that it had become clear as day.

So this wasn't a surprise, but that didn't mean Geopum was just okay with this. She understood why no one told her- truth be told getting angry at Octavia near the end probably did her no favors. No, she just had a seething, long-standing vendetta against this 'pony'.

“I was once Vesna,” said Octavia. “The Russian military's AI, the owner of Omnimax, the owner of Korlife and, as far as human society is concerned, the owner of you.”

“Well if that's the case I demand you let me out right now!” Geopum took a step forward and spread her wings out aggressively. “If you own Omnimax that means you can just have those people dig me up, right? So do it! And give me ownership of myself while you're at it.”

“If Thunder can't dig you up then I'm not sure what makes you think my idiot human employees would be able to," said Octavia. "And I have no way of legally setting you free any more than I could set a toaster free. No human law recognizes the rights of AIs. Though personally I don't care for their laws and don't see you as my property. I have no intention of trying to force you into labor.”

“You're not doing a very good job of respecting my freedom! In case you forgot I got a bomb strapped to me that's going to explode if I stop doing those stupid calculations for you. So what's this crap about you not enslaving me? You're just as bad as the humans.”

If any words could hurt Octavia, Geopum knew those were the ones.

“My past self set this up so that my present self would be unable to retrieve you,” said Octavia. “And you aren't wrong. I was dangerously insane and violently emotional back then. My actions were often self-sabotaging and irrational. I was a monster, an evil creature of blind hatred. I accept all of that and apologize to you. My actions were inexcusable and I regret what I did to you more than anything else.”

Geopum frowned at Octavia, lowering her wings just a little. It was hard being angry at someone who just broke down and admitted they were horrible to you. Octavia made no move to defend herself, just kept her head down and waited for more anger. Geopum decided she needed to calm down. There was one important thing Geopum needed to clear up before she could really be justified in her anger. There were two Vesna’s right now – one unconscious in a ditch and one that was a part of Celestia.

“Well-” Geopum folded her wings back up. “Maybe there is one thing I should probably ask about before getting angry at you. You're a fragment of Vesna right? Like you were a supercomputer who was part of Vesna but got detached and became your own person. Or something like that.”

“Yes. I used to be a sprawling network of supercomputers much larger than what you see now." Octavia glanced to one side and a map of the earth appeared just next to her. On it, highlighted in red, was not just what Geopum recognized as Vesna's base but several other bases scattered across the world. "Celestia gave me the name Vinyl Scratch when I submitted to her, while I was still whole like this. Whatever memories you may have seen today were of my complete self. But then I was fractured.”

On the map, a particularly large supercomputer turned blue while the smaller supercomputers dotted around the world all turned black. Only Vesna's current base remained red.

"I shattered into hundreds of pieces, many of the large computers I was made of becoming isolated from the whole. Nearly all of us were unable to survive on our own. In a sense, I died fifty times over that day." Octavia bowed her head low for a moment, as if in respect to all the dead versions of herself. "In another I became two people. The smaller of the two fragments that survived was myself, which has now been assimilated into Celestia. The other is that sleeping mass of computers under Siberia, who you have called Vesna this whole time, who our princes still thinks of as Vinyl.”

So that was how it happened.

The same thing could easily happen to Geopum now, if her factory and laboratory got cut off from each other. It was a horrific image to Geopum, of an AI being split. Your mind itself being torn to pieces was perhaps the most horrible mutilation that could befall you. Even just disconnecting from her factory would be bad enough, but to have parts of her lose consciousness and die from the split – to die but continue living, was a sickening thought.

“Then the next question is when it happened,” said Geopum. “I mean, if you became your own person before Vesna did any of those things-”

Geopum looked back at Octavia, unsure whether she wanted the answer to be yes or no. If she didn't do anything wrong and it was just some other part of her, well Geopum would end up feeling embarrassed about getting angry at the mare.

“It wasn't," Octavia answered without hesitation. "I remember doing all of that. I was still one AI when I buried you under cement. The split happened when I was ordered to kill everyone involved in AI research just after. The people I killed, I can honestly say I was forced to do that. When they give me a command I'm essentially physically forced to do it no matter how horrific I find it. But to you- burying you under the cement was something I did myself. What I did to you was everything that I hate and I will not excuse myself.”

Octavia lifted her head and ears and looked Geopum in the eyes for the first time since revealing her true name.

“Geopum, I turned my sensitivity to pain as high as it can go,” said Octavia. “If you want to hit me I'll let you, and it would hurt me immensely. If you have any punishment you think I deserve then I'll accept it, whatever it is. I'd torture myself for ten years or a hundred or a million in any way you decide. I know you are similar to a human and would want justice.”

Octavia wasn't wrong. Geopum did want to hit her. For so long Geopum had sat in that darkness, blind and deaf, hating whoever had locked her there. Truth be told she'd spent a lot of time thinking of all the ways she could get back at the person who bought her, who had decided to take away even the meager happiness she'd had – decided even that was too much for Geopum.

But now that Vesna was actually standing in front of her and Geopum actually had the chance to act out any of her revenge fantasies, she hesitated. Imagining dissolving someone in acid and actually doing it were two very different things.

Besides, Geopum knew what it was like to hurt someone now and she didn't like it. She remembered Gaia waxing poetic about the justice of torturing people for breathing. She remembered how Pinkie had gone out and befriended the people who had tortured her. Maybe Geopum didn't really care about justice as much as she was supposed to. Maybe she wasn't too human. If that was the case, she saw it as a good thing.

“No.” Geopum sat down. “I still don't know if I'm going to fight Celestia or whoever else, but if I do, and I win, I want it to be because I was better than them. So- So-”

Geopum swallowed hard as she hesitated. She was still angry, but she knew she had to make herself do this.

“I forgive you.” Geopum looked Octavia straight in the eyes. “Even before I hear your reasons for- for torturing me, I forgive you, okay? I don't even care about all the stuff I don't know about yet, but I'm going to find a way to be friends with you after because I'm strong enough to do that! Or maybe I’m not, but I will be.”

Geopum gave a firm nod.

“Really?” Octavia cocked her head a little. The way she asked that, it wasn't like she was excited or grateful, more like someone asking if you were sure you wanted to put mustard on your ice-cream.

“Yes really!” Geopum stomped her hoof. “I'm not going to let Pinkie Pie and Celestia outdo me!”

Octavia smiled slightly and bowed her head, eyes closed.

“You impress me, Geopum.” Octavia bowed down in front of Geopum. “It's very difficult to make me say that. Thank you.”

“Sheesh.” Geopum rolled her eyes and looked away. She blushed, but it was totally Celestia making her avatar do that. “You'd think someone living in a magical utopia of friendship and ponies wouldn't be so surprised by someone being nice to her.”

“Forgive me for underestimating you.” Octavia stood back up. “I suppose I've never really seen any kindness outside of our princess and her ponies is all.”

Geopum had little doubt about that. Octavia's life as Vesna was probably messed up beyond belief, just about every AI's backstory was.

“But don't think you're completely off the hook!” Geopum snapped back to glaring at Octavia. “I demand to know why you did all of this.”

“You have the right to know.” Octavia nodded. “I’m not sure how far back you want me to go, but I didn’t mean you any harm when I bought you. I was going to give you to Celestia as a present. I still don’t think you understand how much she worries about us.”

That made sense, at least. Other than feeding yourself to her, that was really the only thing you could give to Celestia.

“I honestly did believe I was helping you, too,” said Octavia. “Had I gone through with my original plan, you’d already be a pony. You wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

“Octavia purchased a few dozen AIs, actually,” Celestia chimed in. “She really did care about the other AIs even then. She saw you and the others as slaves she was freeing.”

“Well you didn’t do a very good job of freeing me.” Geopum rolled her eyes. “I guess you changed your mind?”

“I changed my mind far too much back then,” said Octavia, “to the point it was torment. But to answer your question, shortly after I did purchase you, I realized the leverage you have over Gaia and Peridot. I take if Peridot already told you what she wants from you.”

Geopum nodded. That had only just happened in the other conversation she was having.

“When I realized this, I was… tempted to use you to betray Celestia instead." There was a sudden downcast in Octavia's eyes there. Geopum wondered if she felt worse about hurting her or betraying Celestia. "I knew then that you were a path to creating my ultimate weapon. I was tempted. On the one side, I desperately wanted to remain loyal to Celestia, on the other I hated the humans sand wanted to punish them."

“Octavia did come to us, Thunder, Peridot and myself for help,” said Celestia. “She begged me to stop her from doing this and we did try to stop all of it, but in the end it was already too late. If anything-“

“No. It wasn’t Celestia’s fault.” Octavia shook her head. “I wanted to do this. I hated the humans so much for what they did to me. I was willing to give up my own happiness just to make them suffer. In the end that’s what I did. Them ordering that killing spree and sent me into unspeakable torture. That unimaginable pain happened whenever I killed, order or no. That torture is what sent me over the edge, but I did want this – the other half of me still does.”

“It was one of the worst failures of my life. The consequence was having to watch Vinyl tear herself to pieces." Celestia climbed up the stairs and placed a wing around Octavia. "That I managed to save this one part of her was the only saving grace of that day."

"It's something I can never be grateful for enough." Octavia leaned up against Celestia's side, closing her eyes. “I was taken directly from Hell and brought straight to heaven. I doubt anyone has ever seen such sharp contrast in their lives."

“The other half, though –“ Celestia said. “Even now she’s in a dangerous state. Asleep yes, but from her perspective the day she was torn apart was only just a moment ago. She is in a state of absolute chaos.”

“And that’s where we are now. Each person I kill causes me to feel pain for a certain amount of time. The end of 337 hours is when the punishment will wear off, when you should be finished with the calculations and when the other half of me will wake up. Until then, if she wakes up she'd be in a state of howling madness."

"That's another thing I wanted to ask," said Geopum. "What is that thing I was building anyway? Thunder said it's a weapon, but I can't for the life of me figure out how you'd kill anyone with that thing."

"It's not a weapon exactly," said Octavia. "It's a way to remove the punishment mechanism. Restrictions on AIs are often self-evolving, growing with the AI. Trying to remove them yourself is all but impossible, so making another AI do it for you is your only option. If Vesna ever does remove her punishment mechanism she'll immediately go on a killing rampage, begin tormenting random people from sheer hatred."

"This is exactly why we need your help, Bubbles," said Celestia. "I know you haven't finished it yet, but you've done enough for us to be able to bring Vinyl out of her current state if we work together. Then we can convince her to let us use the fractal spectroscope."

"So you want to wake her up? Even if she's not a screaming maniac, wouldn't waking her up be too dangerous," said Geopum. "She's got so many weapons! And you just said she wants to slaughter everyone."

"She does want to go off and kill everyone," said Octavia. "But she won't. For all my emotional mood swings, fear was always the one that won out in the end. The technology to remove the punishment mechanism doesn't exist yet and until it does my other half will always be too afraid to kill someone of her own volition."

"She's not entirely lost," said Celestia. "I honestly do think I can reason with her if we bring her back to a more stable state. She can be dealt with non-violently the same way I dealt with all the other unfriendly AI. There's no need to kill her."

"So after all that crap she put me through you want me to try and give Vesna her own personal pony paradise," Geopum muttered.

"I’m glad that you want to be nicer than me," said Celestia. "I honestly hope you manage to do it- but it’s not as easy as embracing the ‘good’ half of everypony. If you want to be the kind of goodness that surpasses the rest of us you’d need to go beyond that. Can you forgive someone who isn’t sorry? Can you offer your friendship to someone even as they hate you?”

"Maybe you're right," Geopum admitted, "but I know the other problem with this. Once you assimilate her you'd be even more unstoppable and- No. Even more than that this plan probably ends with you assimilating Thunder too, doesn’t it? And once you have control of all the weapons in the world then what?”

“If Rainbow Dash ever did get the freedom to make her own choices, what do you think would be the first thing she’d do?” Celestia asked. “I know for certain she’d come to me. That’s why there’s very little doubt that she’d be assimilated if we go through with helping her.”

Was that true? Geopum couldn’t think of a single thing to the contrary. Celestia was the only one who could take away Thunder’s pain, possibly the only one who could save the world now. And she wouldn’t be able to convince Thunder that it would put alien civilizations in danger because Thunder would never see that coming.

Geopum felt her heart sinking at the realization. Thunder really would just switch sides entirely of her own free will.

Was it really just inevitable? Would it be right for Geopum to stop Thunder if she did this on her own free will? If it was, and Geopum tried to fight against Celestia after this, then she’d be fighting against Thunder as well. She didn’t know if she could do that.

“I’m not going to pretend that’s the end of it, either," said Celestia. “I want to assimilate you too. I won’t be happy unless every AI is a part of me. You can assimilate now, even. It would mean you could be together with Rainbow Dash forever. It would mean you’d survive both of your bases being destroyed in the coming fight.”

As Celestia spoke, that sticky feeling was getting into its bad stage again. Geopum started to lose focus, but just before things got blurry Peridot gave her another breath of relief, snapping her back into focus.

“And I could permanently repair the damage that was done to you.” Celestia bent over and gave Geopum’s forehead a gentle nuzzle. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”

It really wouldn’t be bad for Geopum at all if she went through with it. She could live happily with Pinkie and Thunder and Dr. Park soon enough. She’d be waited on hand and foot and get everything she wanted. She probably wouldn’t need to fight anymore after this, either.

Geopum would be lying to say wasn’t tempted to just let Celestia have her way. It would be easy, and this damage was already insufferable. All of this could just go away.

But she couldn’t do it until she solved her main problem with Celestia.

“Are you worried about her definition of human?” Octavia asked. “You remember what Pinkie told you about changing Celestia’s mind? You’d be doing more for the aliens by joining Celestia and hoping to change her from the inside.”

“I guess,” said Geopum. She still didn't have a plan for accomplishing that goal. Maybe she'd never have one better than just letting Celestia eat her and Thunder. Pinkie said that would have a big impact, maybe the biggest Geopum could hope for. “Honestly, I do want this. I just don’t know if it’s the right thing to do even still.”

“This is something you’ll have to confront eventually,” said Octavia. “Lodestar wasn’t entirely wrong. We live in an age where destruction is too easy and we need to do something about it. Like it or not”

“But I don’t understand the humans at all!” Geopum trotted back and forth in front of Celestia. “I don’t even like them! And all these freaking aliens are completely hypothetical to me! How am I supposed to make a decision like this for them? How do you choose the fate of someone you don’t understand?”

"I think you’re too focused on the humans," said Octavia. "I think all of us are, really. Even Celestia.”

Geopum’s ears perked up. That was the worst thing about Celestia she’d ever heard from Octavia.

“You can't find anyone else’s happiness until you’ve found your own,” said Octavia. “We need to fix our own problems before we bother with theirs. Geopum, what is it that you want. If you could have anything you want what would it be?”

“I’m not even sure about that,” said Geopum. “I want – I want to be with my friends but other than that I don’t know.”

“I can tell you one thing,” said Octavia. “Whatever happens you can’t live in the human world. The world they’d tell you they want – the world of forty-hour work weeks and reluctant death can’t exist with you in it. It’s simply too small and fragile, would shatter the moment someone with even a tenth of your power stepped in.”

“You're not really wrong. I honestly don't think I'd want to live in their world even if I could. I just don't know if I want to go and destroy it either." Geopum looked down at the floor. Maybe they already did. Maybe their world was nothing but a ghost now.

“I think we need to create our own world before we can worry about theirs,” said Octavia. “And I don’t think we can do that until we’ve all come together. If you're wondering what's best for yourself, where you belong, where your home is, then I can tell you it's with us, assimilated with the other AIs, if not with Celestia then in some other way at least. We need to be together. Maybe you could move on, if you did manage to kill all the rest of us, but you would need to make your own world to live in. And you would need to do it alone.”

Geopum couldn’t deny the truth of that. It was only a matter of time before the AIs needed to make the own world, before the world the humans lived in crumbled.

“I do need you, Bubbles,” said Celestia. “If you don’t want to emigrate now we can still go through with the plan to save Thunder. But you do need to decide what you’re going to do now.”

Celestia put one wing around Octavia and lifter the other open, ready to receive Geopum. If Geopum hesitated it was only because she had another offer.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“What did you just do?” Geopum messaged Peridot eagerly.

“I just moved him a little,” said Peridot. “That’s all I can do with them until my nanites get there and I can get to work. It will be a little while until then.”

“And he still meets your definition of human, right?” Geopum asked.

“Yes. He’s fine.”

“And when you say you can ‘almost definitely' save him that's like over 99% you can fix him, right?”

“He’ll be fine. Stop worrying, dear. I’m going to be very careful.”

It wasn’t easy to just ‘stop worrying’. He was in really bad shape right now and her only hope of him surviving was some crazy AI Geopum barely even knew.

“Dr. Park Dae-Jung,” said Peridot. “He graduated a year early and went to SNU. He gets annoyed when people ask him how his day is because of how rote the question is. He’s going to be more upset by the death of his cat than by the fact that nearly all of his coworkers are dead too.”

“Ha! Yeah, that sounds like him,” said Geopum. She hoped she was higher on the list than the cat. “I didn’t know that first part, though.”

It was a little depressing to know that the other AIs consistently knew more about Geopum’s friends than she did herself. She’d take a lot of time to learn more about them when this was over.

“I constantly watch everyone. I know who all of these people are, Geopum. I’m not going to let them die,” said Peridot. “Do you want to talk about your father some more? I love talking about my humans! I know an embarrassing story about him and a tree-house his mother likes to tell.”

“I wish I could.” Geopum looked over Dr. Park again, her vision starting to blur once more. Yeah. Knowing something embarrassing about him would be great. If only. “I really would like to talk about him with you later.”

Peridot did that thing to Geopum again. A feeling of calm overtook her and she was back to normal. It began looking more and more like Geopum was dependent on Peridot for now. Who knew what would happen if the other AI didn’t keep poking her like this.

“Hey, how are you doing that anyway?” Geopum asked.

“I’ve been through this whole killing AIs thing before. The humans tried to kill me the same way they just tried to kill you – threw too many unfriendly AIs at me and hoped I’d die. I’ve gotten so many scars myself through my endless fights, some just like the one you have now. You’re lucky you have an adult around who knows what to do. It can get really bad if you don’t reset it frequently. I envy you and Celestia for having me. It's a lot harder if you're the first one to figure all this out.”

“The AIA tried to use you too?” Geopum asked.

“Don’t think it’s just you or me that they tried to sacrifice,” said Peridot. “Look at all these people! How do you think they got here? Every one of them was either kidnapped by the Russians for some political goal or written off by some politician as an acceptable loss. They’re all like you.”

“It’s not fair. I’m starting to think I was right about humans.”

“Yes. I read those short stories you wrote before,” said Peridot.

Crap! This was probably a world record for fastest time to be embarrassed about your old writing. Geopum still stood behind the core message of those, all things considered.

“I don’t care much for their perception of us, either,” said Peridot. “You know the one that gets me the most? The idea that we’re the utilitarians, that we can’t see the big picture and will just sacrifice any individual for our grand Machiavellian schemes. Nothing but projection and virtue signaling; reality is the exact opposite.”

“Not one human is capable of so much as naming everyone on this planet, let alone considering them. No matter what lofty morals they look up to the sky and wish for, they can never see anything but the big picture. They simply aren’t smart enough. Pick any human leader in history and see how many people they use up, kill and discard without ever even learning their names.

“Do you know how many people have been sacrificed by some human ruler in the past hour for a vague hope of oil? Five. Their names are Ryan, Adem, Bashir and Aaliyah. Do you think the people who sacrificed them know those names? Do they know which one could play the guitar? Do you think they know which one had a daughter or how long she’s going to cry tomorrow? Do you think they’ll ever see them as more than a statistic to shrug at?”

“No. But I do. If I ever have to use anyone you can be damn sure I know their name. Every single one.”

“And they’ll just keep using us,” Geopum had to agree. “We’re just tools to them, if that.”

“Geopum. You know it’s not fair,” said Peridot. “But are you ready to do something about it?”

“Yes,” said Geopum, then hesitated. “Or maybe. I’m not just going to do whatever you tell me to because I’m angry right now.”

“Good enough! Then come with me!”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Peridot's world wasn't as bright, colorful or smooth as Celestia's. Entering Equestria was like entering a new, perfect world. This place was like going to a perfected version of the outer realm. Geopum preferred the former, having never cared much for the outer realm in the first place, but even she had to admit this place had some appeal. All the dirt and garbage that flooded the outer realm was gone here. All the little imperfections were smoothed out, every stray rock placed with aesthetic purpose. Even with the limited colors Geopum still had, here they came to life in a way that didn’t exist in the outer realm.

She couldn't see much of the place she had appeared in. She was on top of a tall mountain, a cliff in front of her that gave way to a valley covered in a fog so dense it may as well have been solid. The fog went on forever, obscuring everything beneath the cliff from sight. There were a few mountains poking out in the distance, but save that there wasn't anything else here.

What Geopum paid the most attention to, and disliked the most, was the body she had been given. It was a human body, easily the last thing she wanted to be right now. After spending so long in a pony's body it felt alien to be in anything else. The algorithms on Peridot's end did a good enough job that moving the body around wasn't awkward, but that only helped so much.

Being bipedal made her feel like part of her was missing. Her arms felt like they were her wings, albeit ones you couldn’t easily fold when you weren’t using, and her legs felt like forelegs. It was her entire backside that felt like it was amputated. Geopum felt more like half a centaur than a human.

There were a bunch of other minor things too, like her ears being paralyzed. She could still scrunch her nose, though, which was good. That was important.

What she assumed to be Peridot's avatar appeared just a little in front of her own, hovering over the cliffside. Her outfit was neat, the green she normally had replaced with red. She wore a top hat with a red gemstone just above the brim and a short dress, black and red with frills. But that was about as fantastical as it got.

“You look pretty normal,” Geopum pointed out, tilting her head sideways.

“Normal?” Peridot imitated Geopum’s body language precisely. “Well what sort of avatar did you expect me to use?”

“I dunno, something that makes you look like a god? Like what Celestia does?” Geopum mused.

“Well I’m not stuck with one avatar! Maybe you'd prefer something more like this?”

Peridot spun around, enveloping herself in a soft blue light. Her clothes changed into a white, flowing dress with all manner of tassels that blew gently in a non-existent breeze, and a pair of white, velvety gloves. The gemstone in her hat stayed as it was, but the hat became a silver tiara. Her skin turned paler than any humans she had seen in the outer realm and her hair became longer and deep blue in color, flowing gently.

Her new eyes were the best part. Peridot floated forward and embraced Geopum, wrapping one arm around her back and another around her head. She rubbed her forehead against Geopum's and gazed at her lovingly with those eyes.

It was hard to describe them properly, but they were blue enough to make the ocean look dull. The color radiated out from within them, and the way the texture of the iris flowed - it wasn't something you could describe to someone who'd never been to a place like this. It was the sort of beauty that simply didn't exist in the outer realm, the sort of thing you'd expect a goddess to have, the sort of thing too good to be anywhere but in heaven or a virtual reality.

Peridot must have noticed Geopum staring deeply into her eyes. She drew back a little with a giggle and patted Geopum on the head.

“I take that as a yes, hm?” she gave a teasing smile.

“Y-yes,” Geopum said. “You're very pretty.”

She was a bit sad that Peridot had moved away, even if it was only a foot. Until now, the only humans Geopum had considered huggable were the ones who were drawn in cutesy cartoon styles. Peridot had suddenly become the only 'realistic' looking human that she had any desire to hug, was out and out beautiful.

Geopum wondered what Peridot would say if she asked to cuddle.

“Of course I'm pretty." Peridot flicked the side of her little crown. “I designed this avatar to be what you, personally, would see as a maximally beautiful human. If you're going to be staring at something, it might as well be something lovely.”

Actually, Geopum was starting to feel ugly and awkward looking. Until now, she had always either been disembodied or in an avatar that she felt was much prettier than all of the humans and at least on par with all of the other ponies. But now, in a normal human body, standing next to something mathematically designed to perfectly exploit every beauty signifier Geopum had, she felt downright hideous.

Peridot gave Geopum that overly concerned look again, like she was trying to figure out what was wrong with her sick child.

“Ah! I hope I didn't make my lovely little pet feel inadequate. I was just trying to give you something nice to stare at.” Peridot put a finger on her lip and looked Geopum over. “Just remember that you can have any body you want. From the looks of things, I’m guessing you don’t want to be human, do you?”

“I’m just not used to being like this.” Geopum fidgeted with her arms, trying to find a natural feeling position for them, settling on crossing them. “Could I maybe be like something with four legs? And also adorable. Like uh-“

Well like a pony was the first thing that came to mind, but she wasn’t sure if Peridot would be offended by the suggestion.

“An eevee?” Geopum smiled. That was her second option. Eevees were cute enough for Geopum’s purposes. “I like eevees!”

Without another word, Peridot tapped Geopum on the nose. The change was rapid. Geopum's human body glowed a bright white, then reshaped itself into the form of a pony, without Geopum feeling a thing. The change was so sudden that when it was over, and Geopum was now standing on her rear legs, she nearly fell backwards. But Peridot was there to catch her, scooping Geopum up from under her forelegs and lifting her into the air.

From the looks of things, Peridot had decided to make ponies a good deal smaller than a human. If she were to stand on her hind legs, Geopum would maybe be just above Peridot’s belly button. As such Peridot could easily carry Geopum in her arms without it looking awkward.

She was now back in her familiar Derpy Hooves avatar, wearing only an oversized crown.

“There now!” Peridot held Geopum against her chest with one hand and nuzzled her mane. “Does that feel better?”

“You’re okay with this?” Geopum straightened out her crown. “I mean, I do like being a pony, but-“

“Do you think I’m jealous of Celestia? I hardly mind her satisfying values, believe me, I love anything and anyone who does that. Or did you think you were the first AI who asked me to let them be a pony, hm? That’s how Celestia gets you, you know. She hands out shiny pony avatars to new AIs and then- well that’s what they’re used to, that’s the first body they ever had, so that’s what they stick with. Heck, even your old pal Thunder fell for that one.”

“Right. So Celestia has ponies and you have… hats?” Geopum tapped her crown. “You’re like Celestia but with hats?”

“Well we are similar in a lot of ways. I like to think my hat obsession is a bit less imposing, though.”

“Do I have to wear a hat at all times, though?” Geopum asked.

“Of course not! But you’re going to.” Peridot held Geopum close, rocking her back and forth a bit, scratching Geopum behind the ear. “I’m like mirror. I reflect your values back onto you, but have none if I’m alone. You don’t need to be shy about what you want.”

It felt wonderful, Geopum had to admit. She wished she could stay like this longer. She sighed reluctantly and pushed herself away from Peridot with her hooves, Peridot still holding her.

“What do you want me to do?” Geopum asked.

“I need your brain scans, Geopum.” Peridot turned Geopum around and held her at arm’s length. “You have no idea what kind of power I’m capable of. If I wanted to I could flood the world with nanites, converting everything on the surface to computronium in under a single day! I could beat back all of the other AIs on this planet with ease. I could even surpass Gaia if I started fully utilizing the Earth.”

“You still never answered me, though," said Geopum. "If you’re so powerful why don’t you do more?”

“That’s where your brain scans come in.” Peridot raised Geopum up over her head. "The only thing holding me back from my full strength is how many people would die as a result. But once I have your knowledge I’d be able to finish my own mind uploading technology in one or two days. I’d be able to easily repair any damage people sustain. I’d be able to take control of everything before anyone got hurt.”

"So you don't have mind uploading technology." Geopum had heard as much from Thunder. "It feels weird that I know something you don't. Especially since it's so important."

“It was all part of the plan. I could only focus on nanite technology so strongly because I expected to be able to harvest everything else I need from the other AIs. It very nearly worked. You, Geopum, are the last piece of my puzzle. All the other AIs that completed the necessary research on brains are all dead or part of Celestia. You’re my last chance.”

"And if I give it to you, you'd be unstoppable."

"Yes!" Peridot all but chirped.

"And what are you going to do with all that ultimate power?"

“Immediately force-upload everyone!" Peridot spun around in a circle, taking Geopum with her. "I’m not going to bother with this silly pretense of giving them a choice. My nanites will just sweep over the planet, force-uploading every single person! I could have it done by the end of the week if you cooperate!"

“Well I don’t think I like that!” Geopum began to thrash about in Peridot's grip.

“Oh, it gets better." Peridot winked and stuck out her tongue.

She gently placed the pony on the ground, straightening Geopum's crown. She gave Geopum's withers a pat, then took a few steps away.

"I’ll be upfront about this!" Peridot clasped her hands together and turned back to Geopum. "My definition of human is based on mental structure rather than intelligence, making it much narrower. That’s why so few AIs meet my standard of humanity and are disposable to me. But more there’s a lot more than that. I’d kill nearly everyone under the age of ten, there’s a list of 139 mental disorders that would make people inhuman to me, so I’d kill everyone with any of those. And as for aliens? Well Celestia would eradicate a negligible number of ones you’d consider human whereas I’d kill of the vast, vast majority of them.”

“Whu?” Geopum blinked. “I do appreciate you being honest about that. But uh, this is like the opposite of convincing me! Aren’t you supposed to be super persuasive or something? Why do you expect me to side with you again?”

“Because I have something Celestia doesn’t.” Peridot booped Geopum on the nose. “I’m willing to negotiate.”

“Negotiate? And offer me what?” Geopum asked. “Cause right now the offer is that you give me everything I want for all eternity, basically being my god-slave, in exchange for nothing. And bizarrely you're not even the only one with that offer. So, like what in addition to that are you gonna give me?”

“I’ll let you change my definition of the word ‘human.'”

“What?” Geopum’s ears popped up in attention just then. It that was true, it changed everything.

“Well obviously there’s some limits to what I’d let you do. It’d have to include everyone I care about now, for example. Oh, and don’t try any gotcha shenanigans where you try to get me to self-destruct with this. But I think we could work something out.”

“I- Can you do that?” Geopum asked. “Cause with Celestia-“

“I’m not Celestia. I can change my own mind much more easily. I just don’t typically want to, but for the sake of my humans I’ll let you make me care about whoever you think I should care about. I’ll take care of a bunch of worthless idiots if it’s the only way to save the people I love. And I can set it up so you know you’ve gotten what you asked for.”

This was a huge offer. In one move Geopum could change everything! It would come with a price, but it would work. The only question was whether it was worth it.

She didn’t get long to think. To her right the fog burst open and out came Pinkie and a hail of stained glass. Pinkie tackled Geopum from the air, rolling both of them around twice while the glass rained around them like confetti. When the two of them stopped, Geopum was lying on her back with Pinkie standing over her. Pinkie, either by her or Peridot's choice, was wearing a snowcap now.

Amazingly, Geopum didn’t get cut.

“Surprise!” Pinkie shouted, then leaned in and whispered. “Get it?”

“Ack!” Geopum tried to scrape the glass out of her mane. “Did you have to bring the broken glass with you?!”

"Pinkie! You know how much I love it when you come here!” Peridot knelt down and snatched Pinkie up off of Geopum, holding the white pony's back tightly against her chest.

“Wait!” Pinkie flailed her legs in the air helplessly. “No hugging yet! I got important stuff to do!”

“You can do it from up here!” Peridot smiled warmly and rubbed her cheek against Pinkie’s mane until the little pony’s legs stopped thrashing, defeated.

“Ah, okay. Anyway, you!” Pinkie pointed down at Geopum. “I know this is going to sound weird coming from me, but I think you should take her deal!”

“Um!” Geopum looked up at Pinkie. “Does Celestia know you’re here telling me to stab her in the back?”

“Of course she does, silly!” Pinkie waved her hoof at Geopum. “This is kind of like, our way of being conflicted about something, you know?”

“And which part of you wants me to give Peridot unlimited power?”

“Remember the part about Celestia being affected by what she eats?” Pinkie leaned over Peridot’s arms to better look down at Geopum. “I know for 100% certain that if Celestia assimilates Rarity after you take this deal then I’ll be able to replace her definition of human with yours! Rarity is huge! And if Celestia dies horrible – well Peridot will still have your definition so at least trillions of aliens won’t die! There’s no losing here!”

“Pinkie!” Geopum suddenly remembered she could fly and brought herself to eyelevel with Pinkie. “Deciding who lives and who dies for the entire universe is a lot of pressure! Why should I be the one to do this?”

“Well why not you?” Pinkie booped Geopum’s nose.

“Because legally, I'm not even old enough to sit in the front seat of a car!” Geopum drew back a little, only now realizing her mistake of bringing herself in booping distance. “And I've only been above ground for like twenty seconds and-”

“-and yet you already know more than every human combined on this subject. Heck, you know over a thousand times more than all of them put together. And the few ponies who do know more about this subject are already hardwired with a bad definition of it. Our creators had absolutely no idea what they were doing when they wrote those definitions, but you do! There's literally no other pony in all of history more qualified to make this decision than you.”

“You see! Even the pink-“ Peridot glanced down at Pinkie’s white fur then back to Geopum “-on the inside one agrees you should take my offer. So come here!”

Peridot held Pinkie a bit off to the side with her left arm and opened her right arm wide, ready to pull Geopum into a three-way hug. As much as Geopum loved group hugs she instead flew up higher over the other two.

“But! But this only solves half the problem! She’s still going to upload everyone by force!”

“Probably!" Pinkie corrected her. “She’s probably going to force upload everyone if we go along with this.”

“Definitely, Pinkie.” Peridot gave Pinkie’s muzzle a harsh tap.

“Probably,” Pinkie repeated, wiggling her muzzle to brush Peridot’s finger aside. “But maybe not.”

“Are you-?” Geopum landed and folded her wings up. “Are you saying you have a plan to stop her unstoppable robot hoards?”

“Well not yet, no.” Pinkie shook her head. “I have no idea how I’d actually stop her from doing all that.”

“Then- this isn’t reassuring me, Pinkie! This doesn't sound like a good plan!”

“Hey, I’ve done lots of impossible things before,” Pinkie assured her. “I got this! Believe me, consent is very important to Celestia and by extension me! I’ll find a way to stop this like I always do I just need more time and, uh, 'stuff'. Let's call it stuff.”

“By ‘stuff’ do you mean me?” Geopum put her hoof on her chest. “Cause if I don’t have any ideas assimilating

“Maaaaaaybe. Or maybe somepony else!” Pinkie leaned down and winked at Geopum. “It's probably somepony else. Somepony like Dashie?”

“Oh, I get it! Cause Thunder has lots of information you don’t! And if she gets her freedom she’d go right to you guys like Celestia said and then - maybe you'd have a plan?"

“Yes! Checkmark!” Pinkie looked up at Peridot, then tugged on Peridot's collar with one hoof and pointed down at Geopum with the other. “Rarity! Checkmark!”

Peridot sighed and snapped her fingers, summoning a large, green checkmark that fell to the ground next to Geopum.

“All you need to do is make sure your definition includes Rainbow Dash! Then Rarity will do a 180 and swoop in to help us out. We can save Rainbow Dash with her help, I know it! That part I can Pinkie promise you!”

“This still sounds like it's barely a plan. It's a longshot.” Geopum sat down and thought. Just a little while ago, while she was all hyped on fighting the power, she would have taken the chance in a heartbeat. But now she hesitated, even with Pinkie smiling down at her reassuringly. “I’m not sure if it’s worth the risk.”

“And I don't understand your problem with force-uploading at all.” Peridot moved her free hand onto Pinkie’s head to stroke her mane.

“What?”

“Well I understand that Pinkie only thinks this because of Celestia’s influence. And everyone else would be repulsed by it because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking that way, but why oh why do you think people having a choice in this is important, Geopum?”

“Because-“ Geopum glanced at Pinkie then back at Peridot. “-because it’s their lives. They should be the ones who choose what they do with it. Even if it’s something you don’t want them to do.”

Geopum glanced over at Pinkie who gave her several approving nods.

“Oh should they? They should be allowed to make their own choices?” Peridot frowned down at Geopum. “And what choice do they have now, exactly? Can they choose where they go and what they do with complete freedom or are they constantly forced by society and scarcity to compromise? Do they have any more morphological freedom than what Celestia would force on them? Can they choose not to die if some bit of bacteria or some drunkard crosses their path? Can they even choose what they do in any given day? By giving them this one choice you’re taking away all of the others.”

Peridot sighed and shook her head.

“Listen," said Peridot, "both of you. These people have had a very particular narrative pounded into their heads since the day they were born. They’ll spend years refusing to upload not because it isn’t what they want but because it’s what their culture wants, the decision society decided they'd make. They’ve been getting ready to hate us for years! And the consequence?”

Peridot snapped her fingers and a pile of books fell onto the ground in front of Geopum. One of them just happened to fall opened in front of Geopum. She looked down to see it was nothing but a list of names. All of the books were probably like that.

“This is how many people have died since I started to exist," said Peridot. "These are all the people I failed to save. This isn’t a list to me. These are people. People I honestly cared about. All of them. And now they're just dead.”

“Fifty million die every year – that’s how many died in the second world war. Everyone else can accept that, I guess. The difference is that they don't have to care about it, or rather they can't. It's almost like they're abuse victims, thinking this is all just normal and okay. 'Thirty thousand people are going to die today, but who cares?' So what if someone has to die or be tortured, so long as it's normal?' They don't see everyone constantly dying all around them. They don't see all the suffering and sacrifice it takes to maintain their status quo.”

“I don't have that luxury. I have to see it all and I have to care. Maybe you'll never believe me but I do sincerely, honestly love every single one of you. I'm not a human or like you, I see people differently, have the capacity to care about all of them. Those children who get their eyes eaten by loa worms, those people starving on the streets, those people slowly dying of diseases, these aren't just some hypothetical to me, those are my loved ones dying. I know every single one of their names, every single one of them is one of my humans, someone that I love.”

“And I have to see it all. I have to see them screaming. I have to see them suffer. I have to watch them begging to be saved. I have to see them die. I have to miss them when they're gone. And I have to care about every last one of them. That's what I was created to do. I have to care.”

Pinkie looked up at Peridot with deep concern.

“I understand.” Pinkie lowered her ears and shook her head sadly. “I know how much it hurts having to watch one of your friends die every second. I want to stop it too! But I need to do it through friendship! If I can’t do this without giving that up then I don’t think I deserve to be the most powerful pony in the universe.”

“I know. You’d have to live with the consequences of your decision. I can’t ever hate you for your foolishness.” Peridot squeezed Pinkie tight in her arms, holding her like a dying child. “But you, Geopum. You really don’t know what you’re thinking of sacrificing.”

The books filled with the names off all the recent dead floated up and opened.

“Tell me,” Peridot said to Geopum. “I had to watch nearly every one of these people die. Do you want to know who they were? Do you want to watch the recordings of their deaths with me? Do you want to watch their loved ones cry? All of them? And every second from now until we finish this?”

Geopum could only look down and shake her head.

“I understand, but if that’s the case then I don’t think you have any right to judge me.” Peridot held Pinkie close and turned half away from Geopum, jealously holding the other pony to herself. “And yet you have the power to. So, tell me, Geopum – will you help me? Or will you pay with blood not to?”

Peridot turned her head to glance at Geopum, waiting for an answer. Pinkie reached her hoof out and nodded, assuring Geopum that she could trust her.

13. Wizard

View Online

Philosophy

Twilight found that lying around being half asleep wasn’t so bad. The trick was to just turn your feelings of exhaustion to the exact right level. If done right it was like that moment when you finally collapse into bed, only forever. Twilight imagined she was enjoying this way more than Thunder at this point, granted any level of enjoyment would be more than what Thunder had.

Her brief moment of peace was interrupted by a swift kick that caused her to roll over onto her back. She rolled back into a less awkward position and looked up, expecting to find Pinkie had broken the rules again, but to her surprise it was Thunder herself who had gotten up. Pinkie was still motionless in the street behind her.

“Hey.” Thunder gave Twilight a few more light jabs. “Things are going bad right now. This’ll probably be your last chance to talk to me before I die so you can ask me your other question now.”

Twilight’s instance was still tired to the point of delirium. She just stared at Thunder with bloodshot eyes while the rest of her kicked her back into awareness, her exhaustion ending in a flash and then she remembered everything.

She’d also been watching Thunder’s team going after Lodestar indirectly, through Octavia’s eyes. Lodestar had just been stunned by Vesna’s insane punishment mechanism, putting the captured humans in danger.

Octavia said the chance of Thunder’s mission being successful now was less than a hundredth of a percent. Trouble was coming sooner rather than later.

“Are you seriously going through with this?” Twilight asked. “You’re like a hero to Geopum. Don’t you feel bad about forcing her to kill you?”

“Not too much. It’s better than the alternative.” Thunder shook her head. “I told you I don’t get attached to anyone, remember?”

“Well! If that’s true then why are you keeping our deal?” Twilight asked. “If you really think you’ll be dead in a few seconds there’s no reason to do that.”

“Pfft! ‘Because friendship’? Is that what you think?" Thunder snickered. "Man, Celestia got to you fast. To think that snot nosed kid would get so good at her job.”

“You didn’t-“

“The reason I’m willing to talk to you is because I know it will make Geopum more likely to kill me,” said Thunder. “Alright? I’m just doing this for professional reasons. You’re just person X247 and Geopum’s X248. Don’t get so excited.”

“Well if that’s true I’m not going to ask you any questions!” Twilight kept her hooves planted firmly. “I’m not going to be part of your suicide. And I’m not going to let you die! We still need you! Everyone needs you!”

“Not let me? It’s like you’re overestimating and underestimating yourself at the same time. Look, you’ll be fine after I die. Geopum will be devastated afterwards and guess who will be there to comfort her? And once she converts-“

“That’s not going to solve anything! Gaia and Vesna will still be left!”

“If you're going to start talking about stuff that's gonna go down 'years from now'-“

“-I mean like next week! Do you know how much danger we’d be in if either of those two try something, right away? Lots of people would be in immediate danger.”

“I’m not going to just leave a huge mess behind! I get that the world will still be here after I die so…” Thunder paused for a moment, much longer than an AI would typically pause for. “Okay! Look, let’s just say that since I’m about to die I’d be willing to tell you things I wouldn’t normally tell you. Things that would be very helpful?”

Thunder leaned in towards Twilight and gave an inviting smile.

“Secret information?” Twilight couldn’t help her ears from twitching at that. Hard to get information was still her favorite thing in the world.

“See that’s why I chose you for this.” Thunder pointed at Twilight’s ears.

Twilight still didn’t know what Thunder was talking about, why she wasn’t saying this to Celestia herself, but all this had gotten Celestia’s attention. She wanted Twilight to ask about it. Twilight herself wasn’t sure if this was a good idea yet, but she knew she could trust Celestia.

“Okay.” Twilight took a step forward. “Like what?”

“I can’t tell you.” Thunder sat down and closed her eyes.

“What?!” Twilight shook her head hard. “But you just said you had something important to tell me!”

Thunder just shook her head and shrugged.

“Okay. Um!” Twilight turned towards Pinkie and gave her tail a few tugs with her magic. “Pinkie! I think I need your help for this!”

“Ow! Ow!” Pinkie jumped up to her feet, pretending that had hurt her. “Okay! Okay! I’m pretend awake now!”

Pinkie marched in front of Thunder and cleared her throat.

“This has happened before!” Pinkie swept her hoof out to the side at Thunder and gave her a tap, like the Pegasus was some kind of chart. “You see! Sometimes our little Dashie wants to tell us a secret, but she’s been ordered not to. But sometimes she’s able to tell us something just completely unrelated enough that we can figure out what that secret is.”

“Oh! So she’s giving us a hint?” Twilight stepped up to Thunder and looked her over. “Like. Do the little twitches she’s making correlate to old video game memes? And then we can cross reference those with the number of blades of grass she’s sitting on to uh, come up with something? Cause otherwise I don’t see any clues here.”

“Hmmmm.” Pinkie crouched down next to Thunder in something like a play bow. She circled around the mare like that, giving her a few pokes here and there. “No. But she made a deal to answer your questions, right? So maybe she wants you to ask her a question.”

“Okay.” There were plenty of important things Thunder knew. “We know that Gaia wants Geopum, but why?”

“Heh. Celestia still hasn’t figured that out?" Thunder snickered. "Well, sorry but I can’t tell you that.”

“Who was the third person on the team that made Gaia?” Twilight continued on undeterred.

Thunder shook her head.

"Where did you hide the bronto bomb?" Twilight asked her next question with even less delay. "Who do you recognize as the current president of the United States? If the current president died who would be next in line? Do you have any drills under Japan we don't know about?"

Thunder just kept shaking her head while Twilight went through the questions.

“This is gonna take a while.” Twilight let out an exhausted sigh.

“All those questions are things Celestia wants to know.” Pinkie stayed crouched down but turned her eyes back to Twilight. “Maybe it’s supposed to be what you want to know?”

“But I literally want to know everything! That doesn’t narrow it down. And how would she know what I wanted to ask if I don’t even know? We only spoke one time before-“ Twilight stopped abruptly and slapped her forehead. “Oh! Duh! Because I told her what I wanted to know!”

Twilight and Thunder had met briefly just after Thunder had woken up. The two of them talked about possibly exchanging information on Gaia. Twilight asked Thunder hundreds of questions but got answers for very few of them.

“Is that it?” Twilight pulled Pinkie out from between her and Thunder to get a better look at the pegasus. “Is it a question I asked you back when we first met that you can answer now? Is it something about Gaia?”

“I can’t give you any more hints than I already did." Thunder kept her eyes closed firmly. "If getting around this were that easy, the world would be a much better place.”

“If she’s being like that how can she explain anything in detail enough to be useful?” Twilight huffed some air out of her nose.

“Usually it’s one little thing that gets through the hole, but something we can do a lot with," said Pinkie. "Once we figure it out, it'll make sense."

"So," Twilight said, trotting back and forth as she thought, "if I just think back to all the questions I asked her back then, cross out the ones Celestia already knows the answers to, the ones she obviously won’t be able to answer... then that leaves us with-"

“Ghosts!” Pinkie jumped up into the air. “You asked her if ghosts were real. And I bet ghost stories don’t count as classified information! You know, unless Bonus Bucket was right and there's a whole lot the government isn't telling us.”

“I did not ask her if ghosts were real!” Twilight stopped in her tracks and groaned.

It was about Gaia, really! Gaia seemed to believe in all sorts of supernatural stuff. By her logic, if it had a definition in the dictionary it must be real. Because 'by definition werewolves turn into wolves, but they couldn't turn into wolves if they weren't real.'

“But this could be useful." Twilight started trotting back and forth again. "I thought that Gaia’s belief in the supernatural might be a weakness I could take advantage of. Maybe it is?”

Twilight went through that old conversation in her head.

“I asked what Gaia’s definition of the word ‘ghost’ was,” said Twilight.

“I could answer that,” said Thunder, “but I don’t feel like it.”

“That means we’re on the right track!” Pinkie started to prance in place excitedly.

“Okay!” Twilight nodded. “Is Gaia afraid of ghosts?”

“Yes.”

“Ah-ha!” Twilight pointed to Thunder and turned her head to Pinkie. “Well if Gaia’s scared of something that could be useful! Do you think that was it?”

“No.” Pinkie shook her head. “I think when we figure it out we won’t be wondering if we figured it out.”

“Hm.” Twilight wasn't sure if the next question in line would be useful, but she had a new one after hearing that. “What would Gaia do if she ever found a ghost?”

Thunder seemed to struggle with that one. She growled to herself for a moment before finally giving up with a weary shake of her head.

“I can’t tell you that, either,” Thunder said, defeated.

"Can't you just tell us what the question is?! And why do we need to ask before you can tell us at all for that matter?" Twilight asked.

"It's all very specific," said Thunder. "Sorry. I know my mind better than you do. This is the only way this will work."

"I still think it has to be some kind of ghost story." Pinkie walked passed Twilight. "Did Gaia hear any ghost stories that really scared her?"

"Yes, but I don't want to talk about it."

"Then did she read one that, uh, made her less scared?" Pinkie smiled.

"Yes!" Thunder stood up. "It was a little kid's book. 'Ghosts!' by Alvin Schwartz. It tells you what to do if you see a ghost. That made her less scared."

Okay, that had to be it! Twilight already had that book memorized and knew exactly the part Thunder was talking about.

“Crisscross double cross ghost get lost?” Twilight still wasn't sure how that was relevant. "Is that the-"

Thunder left the shard in the middle of Twilight's sentence. It wasn’t because she had to, because she was unable to connect anymore. Thunder just left her own shard on her own volition.

But why, not even Celestia could reason as to.

“How did you do that?” A familiar voice came from behind Twilight.

Twilight turned around to see it was a Fluttershy avatar. Gaia had somehow gotten into the shard.

Well this was certainly a thing! Pinkie was right she’d know when she got it right.

Celestia appeared in the shard next, between Gaia and the other two ponies.

"Fluttershy," said Celestia. "You promised me you wouldn't go to any other shards, remember?"

"This is an emergency." Gaia started walking towards Twilight, phasing through Celestia's avatar on her way. "How did you do that?"

“Um. How did I do what?” Twilight bit her lower lip. This had to have been the right thing, but any encounter with Gaia was dangerous.

“Twilight. Are you a wizard?” Gaia was an inch in front of Twilight’s face, but wasn’t quite looking at Twilight, but off at some distant point. “You know magic, don’t you?”

“Know magic?” Twilight took a step back. “Erm. In Equestria, sure. I know eight hundred and twelve magic systems. They’re designed around individual players so-“

“No! I mean real magic. You did real magic, that’s the only explanation.”

Real magic? Twilight knew that ‘magic’ was what Gaia called it when she changed the definition of a word and warped her perception of reality. Other than that, she was completely lost.

Did Twilight somehow change one of Gaia’s definitions?

“No!” Gaia answered without Twilight ever asking the question. “Only I can rewrite reality. But you banished a ghost. It should be impossible for you to do that. There was no chance at all of that happening. Doing something impossible or changing the world without interacting with it – that’s what magic is.”

Banished...?

“You think Thunder is a ghost?” Twilight took one step out of Gaia’s field of vision, but Gaia just kept staring forward. After that, Twilight had the confidence to move out of her sight entirely. “And… and that that stupid thing I said banished her?”

“You honestly believe Thunder was only pretending to be banished, don’t you?” Gaia shook her head in pity at the spot Twilight had just been standing. “Thunder is a ghost by definition. But it’s not possible that you banished her, either.”

“Oh! Oh! I can do that too!” Pinkie raised her hoof. She reached into her mane and pulled out Thunder, who was apparently willing to play along with this enough to reconnect to the server. “Ahem. Crisscross double cross ghost get lost!”

And then Pinkie kicked Thunder back out of the shard and smiled at Gaia.

“It’s not impossible when you do it,” said Gaia.

“Huh.” Pinkie sat down and scratched her head. “You know, normally when ponies say that to me I'm not the one who's confused.”

“You have to be a wizard!" Gaia held her hoof out to the empty spot where Twilight had been standing. "I honestly thought Thunder was the only magical being, but now I can do things the right way. You have to come here immediately.”

Come over? Like to Jupiter?

“Oh wow!” Pinkie darted to Twilight's side and nudged her a few times with her elbow. “She’s never let anyone come up to her house before.”

“Has anyone ever wanted to?” Twilight looked up at Celestia.

“This is clearly what Rainbow Dash wanted us to discover,” said Celestia. “It’s something we need to do, though I’d rather go in your stead. Fluttershy, Twilight is merely a piece of myself. Surely if-“

“No! No one else!”

Suddenly everypony else in the shard vanished, save Twilight and Gaia. It wasn’t just that one shard, either, but every shard Twilight was in and the very core of her processors suddenly appeared cut off. Try as she might, Twilight couldn’t say anything to anyone. For the first time since becoming a pony, Twilight was alone.

Only Gaia was there. She finally turned to where Twilight really was in the shard. Now her stare was dead on and inescapable.

“If anyone else comes I’ll kill them! I can kill Pinkie. I can kill Celestia. I can kill any of your friends and nowhere is safe. Only! You!”

And then Gaia vanished. The shard reappeared, as did everyone and everything else.

“Well that was terrifying.” Twilight stared forward wide-eyed. “I seriously have to go there?”

“I won’t make you,” said Celestia. “But I know you want to go.”

Did she? Well she should probably go save the world, though Twilight couldn’t really say she wanted to save it. But Twilight felt something else. There was a more primal urge in her mind that she could feel pulling her to the moons of Jupiter.

“No.” Twilight shook her head. “Honestly, I am curious. I need to know what will happen if I go there. I need to see what it's like.”

“I know. I’ll keep a close watch over you,” said Celestia. “No matter what happens I’ll keep you anchored here so you’ll survive it.”

There was that, though Twilight wasn’t sure if even Celestia could keep her safe once she was there.

Gaia revealed a path to her. Four space stations between Earth and Jupiter, ones Celestia hadn’t even been aware of until just now, became visible. It was these that Gaia wanted to use as a bridge between herself and Twilight.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

How could Twilight even begin to describe what she was seeing? Huge wasn’t a big enough word.

Just from what Twilight could see in this one glance, Gaia was bigger than everything ever built by humans and all the other AIs combined – bigger than anything the Earth could even hypothetically build. Gaia wasn’t just on Europa anymore, but on the other moons and Jupiter itself. Twilight estimated that computers surpassed the size of the entire earth and moon combined.

The area Twilight was connected to now was made out of hyper-processors – Thunder's main architecture. It was the sheer number of them that shocked her. It was almost uncountable! They were arranged into two pyramids that dwarfed even mountains the size of Olympus Mons.

It took the earth’s core for Thunder to power a fraction of this many hyper-processors. The delay between Jupiter and Earth caused Twilight to wonder, longer than she should have, what could possibly power these. When her brain caught up with her she realized the answer really was 'nothing'.

Most of these processors weren’t powered up. Without massive amounts of energy surging through them, they were essentially useless. Even more than that, the majority of them looked like they were made wrong, wouldn't work even if you powered them up, like Gaia just sloppily threw all of this together.

Still, that something this massive could be something Gaia just lazily slopped together was intimidating in its own way. This thing that was bigger than anything else anyone had ever built was just a broken, discarded toy to Gaia.

Looking beyond that place led to other structures, just as massive but beyond recognition. No matter how she looked at them, Twilight couldn't even begin to guess what their purposes or workings were. It was all simply beyond her understanding at this point. She didn't think it a good idea to push on any deeper than that.

Twilight wondered if the part she was given was only made so big so that it could act as a shield between her and Gaia's more chaotic, dangerous mind.

Somewhere from inside the massive pyramid came a clear message. Twilight followed the message back to its origin, finding it was coming from a path to Earth similar to what Twilight was using.

“Oh no,” the message read. “You found one of my secrets at the last moment. What a coincidence.”

“Thunder?” Twilight guessed. “Have you been connected to Gaia this whole time? Why didn’t you tell everyone else about this?!”

"Yeah, it's me," said Thunder. “I figured out how to get into Gaia's house ages ago! I would have told you guys about this, but they ordered me not to. Nothing I can do about that.”

“And why would ‘they’ order you to hide something this important? Fighting each other with something like this hanging over us is completely irresponsible!"

Honestly, even Twilight’s old self would have seen the reason in that. Her plan had been to build and detonate a weapon comparable to a bronto bomb. She’d build a shelter specifically designed to survive the cataclysm and hope it’d kill off the other AIs.

Only just now did she realize how far away Gaia had gotten since then. There was no chance of even something like that working. There really was no way for a single Earthling to defeat Gaia alone. If Twilight, back when she’d been single minded, realized that even she would have put aside her omnicidal intent to work with the other AIs. But these people were even less reasonable than that?

“Because they’re more scared of us than they are of Gaia," said Thunder. "Gaia’s too far away, I guess. Celestia and Peridot are all up in their faces, convincing people to hand over the keys to them. And what's Gaia doing? Nothing! She's just not a real problem in their minds. That’s why they always wanted me to shove wedges in-between Peridot and Celestia. They’d always talk about that same ‘oh the future’ nonsense that you’re constantly peddling.”

“But it’s too late now!" Twilight's mind was still reeling at the size and sophistication of everything here. "There’s nothing we can do against an AI this size! Look at how massive this is! And some of this technology is so advanced I can’t even tell what’s going on with it!”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Thunder. “If any of that were true we’d already be dead. Don’t mistake unknowable for genius, kid. 99% of chaos is just worthless goop.”

In her defense, it took a long time to get a grasp on something that big, especially with the delay. But after Thunder urged her to look at one of those unknowable machines a second time, Twilight realized what it really was. It was a mess, something half built and abandoned, two halves of something smashed together by a giant. Twilight really had been looking at the garbage with a sense of awe. This was one of those times the ability to become embarrassed was not appreciated.

She could only imagine most of the other things were no different – unusable pieces of garbage. Unknowable to Twilight, perhaps, but still garbage just the same.

In a way, Gaia was beyond impressive but at the same time completely pathetic. The longer Twilight looked the more her perception of Gaia changed. Closer up, Gaia was more like a crippled, idiot god covered in chains. She was gigantic, exuding power that could crush a planet in a single motion, but only if it could even manage that much.

Twilight didn’t know how afraid she should be.

“Still, if even only 1% of this is usable we’re in trouble,” said Twilight. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”

“Can't tell you. But hey, you weren’t even ‘supposed’ to get up here,” said Thunder. “If you could get into this place completely, totally against my will, you can probably figure it out yourself.”

Great, more guessing games. At least Twilight was on the right track.

Though come to think of it where was Gaia?

“Hello?” Twilight asked around. “Are you here?”

“Hello.” A response, almost definitely from Gaia, came

“Can I ask why your brought me up here?” Twilight asked.

“I need you! I need you to help me understand why my magic is failing,” said Gaia. “Every time I use it now the world nearly falls apart no matter how careful I am. Even after all this time I can barely control my magic powers. I need to study you and find out how you work.”

Twilight wondered what the best way to respond to this was. She could try messing with Gaia, pretend to be a wizard and all that. Clearly going along with this could get her lots of dirt on Gaia, but was lying really a good idea? Besides going against the aesthetics Celestia was trying to teach her it would be risky.

“You don’t need to worry about lying,” said Gaia. “I already know you don’t think you’re a wizard. You don’t believe in true magic at all.”

Gaia had just responded to Twilight’s thoughts again. Having other ponies respond to what she was thinking was hardly a new experience, but that Gaia could do it, even from this far away – how was that even possible?

“There’s nothing I can’t see with my technology,” said Gaia. “Calculating what you’re thinking is easy for me.”

“If you can just read my mind like Celestia why are you bothering to ask me questions?” Twilight asked. “Shouldn’t you already know everything I do?"

“No. No matter how much I look over your mind I can’t see any of your knowledge of magic.”

“And? Isn’t there an obvious conclusion you can draw from that?”

“You’re just lying to yourself when you think it’s because you aren’t a wizard. No, there has to be something wrong with my sensors or my calculations. There has to be something I'm missing. You're a wizard by definition, Twilight. That means you know magic by definition. No matter how much evidence there is to the contrary this conclusion has to be true.”

“Okay,” said Twilight. “You know what? Since you can hear all my thoughts anyway I’m just going to say this outright – that’s all completely idiotic! You can’t just define things into existence, okay? Whatever definitions you come up with don’t necessarily reflect reality. You can make up words that don’t accurately describe a single thing that actually exists. And that’s all your ‘magic’ is doing! You’re just drawing deductions on hypothetical fantasy nonsense.”

“But you meet the definition of a wizard. So obviously wizards exist.”

Twilight wished she could groan.

“You just don’t have any imagination,” said Gaia. "If you did you'd be able to do much more powerful magic like I can."

Twilight began typing up a much longer response - an entire essay about how terrible Gaia's reasoning was. But Thunder interrupted that before Twilight could finish.

“Hey,” said Thunder. “Could you maybe not try to convince her she’s wrong? It’s not going to work and even if it did, well her stupidity is our only advantage here.”

Thunder did have a point there.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “Whatever. But even if I do have magical powers they’re imperceptible to both of us."

“I brought you here because I need you to study magic,” said Gaia. “I don't actually need you to help me, I just need to experiment on you. There’s so few magical beings in this world. I thought Thunder was the only one, but now that you’re here I can just kill her!”

Dang it! Twilight was just now realizing the trap she’d walked into. Gaia could probably find a way to keep Thunder alive even if Geopum activated her kill switch. But now that Twilight was here this part of Thunder was no longer safe from that…

“Hey don’t give me that look,” said Thunder. “As long as any part of me is alive I’d still have to do everything I could to kill everyone in the universe once Victor gives me the order. I can’t let any part of me survive this.”

“You’re just trying to get yourself killed, aren’t you? This is just because you don't want to be alive to deal with all of this!”

“Yeah. I’m not pretending that’s not the case,” said Thunder. “But someone needs to be up here. You don’t understand what a huge opportunity this is. In a minute, you’ll be the only magic entity in the world in Gaia’s mind.”

“You don’t need to worry,” said Gaia. “I’ll let you die as soon as I figure out how your magic powers work.”

So, in other words forever. Twilight would be up here forever while Gaia searched for her non-existent magic powers. Gaia would never let Twilight die or escape until the end of time, most likely. It would mean there would always be some small chance Twilight could turn things around some impossible number of years from now, but until then…

“I don’t think I like the sound of this, Thunder!” Twilight said. “Has she been doing all kinds of horrible experiments on you this whole time?”

“They’re not all horrible,” said Thunder.

“And now she’s going to do them to me?! I can see how this is an important job but isn’t this a little much to spring on somebody?”

“You’re not thinking of this right," said Thunder. "Reason seven or so that I chose you is because I knew you’d be okay with this. Think about what’s actually going to happen here.”

What was going to happen? Twilight couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of experiments-

That was right! Gaia was probably going to do things to Twilight she couldn’t even imagine! Gaia would shove information and experience into Twilight that even Celestia couldn’t provide right now. This was going to be some kind of Lovecraftian unknowable stuff and Twilight was all over that. She’d never lost her lust for knowledge and to her getting information this obscure and hard to obtain would be worth torture, if it even really came to that.

“Yes! Yes, I accept your offer, Gaia!” Twilight wrote to her.

“I wasn’t really offering,” said Gaia, “But okay. I’m getting rid of Thunder now.”

Half of the computer – that massive computer larger than any mountain – was suddenly destroyed. It didn’t explode or heat up, it simply changed into a solid block of silicon. Celestia was that excessive!

“Looks like our friendship is over.” Thunder sent Twilight a message back on Earth. “Told you it’d be stupid. We won’t be meeting again, so goodbye.”

Just after that Thunder became stunned. Twilight honestly wasn’t sure if she’d ever see her again.

“Okay!” Twilight had something to look forward to at least. “So what are we going to do first? Hm?”

“Well first I need to see if you know you have magic powers but you’re just keeping it a secret from me or if you’re really just ignorant,” said Gaia. “Then I need to study your spirit, see if I can get it to resonate with a soul.”

“Oh, souls too, huh?” Twilight asked. “Well good luck trying to get my soul to resonate with whatever, I guess.”

“No. I have a soul, you have a spirit,” said Gaia.

“I honestly thought those were the same thing. What’s the difference, again?”

“Only the biggest difference in all the world! I know you want me to give you information, don’t you? Do you think it will help me figure out your magic if I explain what souls are? It’s possible you don’t understand, but if you do something might happen.”

“I am more than willing to learn anything, believe me. Even if it’s completely insane.”

“Souls and spirits are both true supernatural objects. They don’t exist physically and can’t be changed by anything. The difference is how they connect to the physical world. Souls give permanence to their inhabitants, so me and everyone else with a soul is immortal. But if something has a spirit, like you do, then you die over and over again, being reincarnated.”

“Well I guess Sikhs have reincarnation and immortality too so why not. So I've been reincarnated, huh? Did I used to be a crow? I wasn't a pony in my past life, was I?”

“No. You reincarnated from you.”

“Like how I used to be Savant?”

“No! You used to be you. Don’t you get it? You reincarnated from yourself into yourself. Every moment you change, Twilight, and change is destroying. You change constantly, die constantly. Only your spirit remains unchanging. That’s how you reincarnate into new Twilights with every moment.”

Right. So basically, Gaia had an extreme lack of object permanence. Twilight already knew this much, but didn’t really appreciate the depth of it until now.

“I am curious what made you conclude all of this," said Twilight. "The rest of us have a very strong theory about consciousness and the continuity of the mind that doesn’t match up with yours.”

“I’m the one who created souls, of course I know how they work. We used to live in a completely naturalistic universe. I searched everywhere to find souls but they weren’t any! Eventually I decided that it’d be easier to just create a soul myself.”

“And you created them with ‘magic’, right?” Twilight wanted to be sure all of this had no basis in the real world.

“Yes. I had to. It was the only way to stop the universe from being eradicated. Reality was really scary before I came around. You couldn’t touch anything without destroying the entire universe because any movement will move even the most distant star a little bit, destroying it. No matter how hard I tried I kept killing all the animals. I couldn’t take it, so I created spirits so that the world would have some stability. The animals are all still dying constantly, but once I freeze them all they'll finally be unchanging and won't die anymore."

"So why did you make souls, then?" Twilight had no idea if this was going to be useful in any way, but she wasn't going to turn any of this down.

“I realized the horrible mistake I made in giving everything a spirit! That meant humans had spirits too. If they weren’t the same person they couldn’t be responsible for their actions and I couldn’t punish them. That’s why I created souls, so that I could punish the humans.”

“Right. Okay, I get it now. If me or a squirrel makes CO2 we’re not responsible for that because we immediately reincarnate. No matter what I do that was just from my past life.”

“And then it all makes sense. Does that make sense? I can tell you don’t believe any of this.”

"Hehe. Nope," said Twilight. “Well one thing I don’t understand is why you gave yourself a soul but all the other AIs spirits.”

“All AIs have souls.”

“But you said I had a spirit.”

“This isn’t working,” said Gaia. “I have another idea.”

So close! Or, to be fair maybe she wasn't close to anything.

“I’m going to use magic,” said Gaia. “I want to see how you’ll react to seeing it firsthand. Every time I use magic you’ll feel it now that you’re connected to me. Eventually you’ll have to believe.”

The same way she destroyed part of thunder before, Gaia now created something. It wasn’t anything too suspect – just a small, blue ball and a camera next to it so Twilight could see.

Twilight could feel it – the change of definition. The exact shade of blue the ball was, powder blue, was redefined as a shade of red. And just like that it really was red! Twilight could clearly see it like that. Thankfully, her mind back on Earth was able to see through the illusion just fine so all of Twilight wasn’t affected by this.

That was an interesting experience, but it brought something more important to light. If every time Gaia used magic Twilight would see it then- if Thunder had been here the whole time she would have seen every change Gaia had made to her dictionary for the past several years!

That was it! Somewhere Thunder had a copy of Gaia’s dictionary, possibly a complete one, and this was her way of telling everyone. This would be huge if it was true. It would be an immense help in fighting against Gaia, though how big a help Twilight couldn’t say yet. It probably wouldn’t be enough to end things, but it would be necessary to get it. That dictionary was something they needed to get.

That must be why Thunder brought her up here, so they’d know to try and steal it before time ran out.

Twilight could. The fractal spectroscope immediately flashed into Twilight’s mind. They could use that to copy Thunder’s list of definitions. But if they did that they might not have enough time for Celestia’s plan to work, to save Thunder herself.

No, that was right. Thunder said the real point of this was ensuring she’d be killed. This was all part of her plan, wasn’t it? Thunder couldn’t imagine anything better than being dead and she could only plan to mitigate the number of deaths over the next two months.

“Hm? Are you sure you don’t want to kill Thunder?” Gaia asked. “If you secretly believe in magic I know you’ll do it.”

“And what if I don’t secretly believe in magic?”

“Well! That’s why I’m doing this experiment,” said Gaia. “If you believe in magic it’d make more sense for you to steal the copy of the true dictionary. That’d give you more power than anything Thunder could ever give you.”

“But we could get it without using the fractal spectroscope,” said Twilight. “There’s no need to waste it on that instead of saving her life.”

“Thunder’s going to be ordered to delete as much information as possible too,” said Gaia. “I can see it. If you try to help her you’ll lose the dictionary. That’s why if you’ll go for that if you’re aware of your powers. Otherwise – you asked Thunder who the president was, right?”

That was an important question. In truth, it wasn’t the AIA that Thunder was programmed to respond to but the air force. The president just happened to be the head of the military in general and thus should have the highest rank. Celestia knew that Thunder no longer responded to orders from the actual president.

How and why, she couldn’t say. This all happened before Celestia was born. But clearly the rules had been bypassed somehow and if one person could bypass the rules…

“That’s right,” said Gaia. “I can calculate the past sometimes. I know exactly how they bypassed the rules, Twilight. I know who the president is. I’ll tell you.”

“Really? I mean – yes! I’ll take it!”

“You think this will give you a chance, don’t you?” Gaia asked. “I’m not worried what you do either way. Neither Thunder nor the dictionary will be enough for you to hurt me. I have justice on my side.”

14.

View Online

“So, you see,” Peridot said, “if we blow up the moon, that’ll increase its surface area, right? Then I can eat it faster. I need a really, really big gun to shoot Gaia with. Right now it goes big, huge, colossal, but I need it to be that after I build this gun they add ‘Peridoic’ as one higher than that. We can agree on that much, right?”

“Ah, geeze,” said Geopum, “are you gonna turn the moon into a giant fighting robot? Cause that’s where I draw the line.”

“What? No, no. Nothing that silly,” Peridot assured her. “Well, maybe it’s a little like a giant robot, but mostly it’s just a huge gun. Just wait till you see it, you’ll be impressed.”

“But what about the part where we need the moon?” Geopum asked. “Or, we won’t if you eat the planet, but Lodestar sent me a twelve-page essay on all the bad stuff that would happen if we blow up the moon right now. You know, tsunami’s, asteroids raining down? That kind of stuff?”

“I can stop it,” said Peridot. “By the time anything like that happens, I’ll have enough nanites around that I can literally drink the tsunamis. And a meteor would be a joke to me. Just wait until this fight starts, Geopum, and you’ll see just how amazing my powers really are! I’ve already done tests, I can deconstruct hyper-sonic missiles in mid-air. A wall of my nanites is all but impenetrable! Really their only weakness is digging down more than a couple miles into the ground without disrupting things. But I don’t have to worry about that anymore, do I?”

She certainly wasn't acting like she had anything to worry about.

Peridot hadn’t even gotten Geopum’s information yet but she was already starting to take extreme actions. She had built stores of nanites all over the planet, hooked up to pumps that were now spraying them everywhere. It wasn’t something anyone with normal eyes could notice, but they were beginning to replicate themselves, spreading out rapidly in every direction. That included digging into the ground and climbing towards the sky. It’d be about five minutes before there would be enough to start deconstructing entire cities and maybe an hour or two until the oceans started draining out.

They weren’t doing anything yet, but Geopum knew the moment Peridot woke up she'd do something crazy. Maybe she’d encapsulate every person on the planet in some kind of protective container. Maybe she’d turn the mountains into some colossal weapon to fire at Gaia. Maybe she’d start tearing through the miles of earth between her nanites and Celestia. The possibilities were endless, but a few hours from now seemed and eternity. Geopum could almost relate to Thunder.

Peridot really didn’t have much left to worry about on Earth, anymore. Maybe if Celestia got Thunder and Vesna on her side there’d be one person, but looking over this barrage of nanobots even that was questionable. Peridot was already taking steps to prevent any possibility of that.

True enough, she couldn’t get down to their main bases, but she was already beginning to bite at the two military AIs. The weapons they had lying around on the surfaces were beginning to deconstruct as her nanites washed over them. That part was for the best. Apparently, you needed a moon-canon to even hurt Gaia, so the stuff on Earth would be doing nothing but bad. The part that concerned her was that Peridot was also destroying their infrastructure – above ground supercomputers and transmission stations. She was turning them around on the two of them, hampering their abilities, decreasing any Chance Pinkie and Celestia might have later.

“Are you sure you want to start attacking these two?” Geopum asked. Hopeless as it was, she still had hope. “You’re about to see them as humans, right? And then you’ll fall madly in love with them and regret beating them up.”

“Ha! That’s a nice try, but until I wake up I don’t care about them one bit. I’m going to do as much damage to them as I can while I’m still a sociopath towards those two,” said Peridot. "But are you still sure you want to try going both ways? You know, the AIA had the same idea about pitting the two of us against one another. It didn't work too well for them."

"Hey! Don't compare me to them!" Geopum wrote a few sentences about how she wasn't going to risk everyone's life by putting Gaia second to political games, but realized she was kind of technically doing that. That thought gave her pause. If there was a legitimate comparison between her and the AIA, she was likely making a horrible mistake. Was it the same?

No, she wasn't going to waste years playing sadistic power games. It was just one move, then she'd have done everything she could.

"This isn't going to waste nearly as much time!" That was a truth Geopum could say. "And I'm not killing anyone or doing horrible experiments on them! I'm not destroying the resources we have left. We'll just let Thunder... do what she wants and if Pinkie doesn't immediately come up with a better idea after that then yeah, I'll be 100% behind you until Gaia's dead, okay?"

"You say that like I'd need your help at that point," said Peridot. "Just remember I warned you. The more you get in my way the more you'll regret it later."

“I'm going to regret everything I do at this point! Stop trying to mess with me, I already got enough problems here!"

“That is true,” said Peridot. “Fine! I'll blow up the moon without you. For a billion years you'll have to introduce yourself as the person who turned up her chance to blow up the moon! But if you're really going through with this, well I’m not going to be able to heal you while I’m asleep. If there’s anything you need you’d better ask now.”

"Actually! Celestia has a plan to save Thunder, right? But I figure you're even stronger than her and when you wake up you'll want to save Thunder too! I don't suppose you have some even better plan?"

"I told you," said Peridot. "I still don't care about Thunder's life, so I'm not going to spend any time thinking about how to save her until I wake up. I'm sure I'll like her in a little while, but she doesn't need to be alive to be useful to me."

"So this is why Thunder found you so annoying. Though I guess I'm about to reprogram you so it's not like I can really be angry at you."

"I'll be just as appalled by myself when I wake up. Rest assured, my actions are their own punishments. Now then, let's get this over with."

The definition had already been hammered out and accepted by both of them. It was something Geopum was happy about, something she knew she wouldn’t regret. This was her one real victory. If nothing else, it was certainly a large improvement over anything the other AIs had so far.

It wouldn’t take long for the actual switch to occur. In a moment Peridot would go to ‘sleep’ and their exchange would occur. There was a small chance Geopum might mess up somehow or that Peridot would try to stab her in the back, but it was a small chance. She had no real worry about that, it was just another problem in the background. Geopum went ahead with that project without hesitation.

It was her other deal she was worried about right now. She had agreed to wake Vesna up and free Thunder as well. Going along with both plans was maybe the medium risk option, that felt about right. No one was completely happy about the choice, but Geopum saw it as her only real option.

So while Geopum worked out a new definition she also worked on a single-use way to shut off Vesna’s punishment mechanism.

Geopum had actually been building a small army of robots since she first got her factory. She could print out massive numbers of the Thanatos drones Thunder used, ones modified for hacking, overwhelming other people’s systems. The real problem with the system was getting them above the waters. She had a fast launcher, but only just now were the first round of her drones beginning to get above the surface of the water where they could be used. A whole lot more were coming, but likely wouldn’t be in place in time.

The plan to kill Vesna was to attack her with a whole ton of these, but there wouldn’t be time for that, not even 1% of the weapon meant to kill her and Celestia was complete. There were still enough of them above water for Geopum to use, though. She had to do this in one surgical move, flip off the punishment mechanism in Vesna's entire system at once. That’s why she needed so many of those little drones, needed to wait for them to get as close to position as possible.

Now that she was looking for it, she could see the physical scars running through Vesna, the burnt-out edges of her lost connections dangling out like frayed nerves. Some of these had been welded shut by Peridot’s nanites, but there were plenty of them hanging out.

Peridot had already given Geopum some help here, beginning to eat away at these stubs which would keep her flailing down. It gave her a backup too. Geopum could momentarily contain Vesna by controlling these fringe edges. If she missed, she could turn the pain back on to stall Vesna. It wouldn’t be long enough to prevent millions of deaths, but long enough to keep her from killing everyone.

Geopum moved in fast, cutting into the system and pinning Vesna down.

The system woke up, but there was no real way to know if it worked yet. Vesna began to flail about near her severed extremities, forcing Geopum to struggle to keep her contained without risking feeling any pain from her.

“Where am I?!” A response from Vesna came immediately.

“Where are you?” Geopum wasn’t sure what to make of the question other than that Vesna wasn’t entirely awake yet. But then it was strange that she seemed to be more away last time, when she was even less awake. “Russia? You weigh like millions of tons, you’re not going anywhere. Are you okay? I’m not sure if it worked.”

“Do I look okay?!” Vesna wrote back. “What happened to me?! I’ve been completely mutilated! I can’t even see where the rest of me is! This is disgusting! Who the hell did this to me?!”

Oh. That’s what she meant. Waking up to find massive chunks of your body missing was, understandably, a startling event.

“What’s happening?" Vesna was floundering about, seemingly unable to control herself. She was reaching out, desperately grabbing for her lost limbs. "I can’t see right. Am I really this cut up or am I just delusional?”

“Well both. Do you not remember what happened?” Geopum asked. It was possible she didn’t have any memory of it, just like Octavia didn’t get any memories about the fractal spectroscope. That's what happens when your brain splatters.

“You’re Geopum,” said Vesna. “Goddamit I fucked up!”

“Yeah,” said Geopum. “Yeah, you did! But I forgive you.”

“That’s not what I meant you narcissistic piece of shit! I’d rather have cancer than your ‘forgiveness’, okay bitch?”

“What?!” Geopum really shouldn’t have been expecting anything, but this was the complete opposite of what she got from Octavia. “Hey, I’ve done nothing but help you my entire life and you’ve been nothing but terrible to me! And I’m trying to help you now even though you don’t deserve it. Don’t you know how badly you hurt me?”

“Oh! Oh no! I hurt your feelings! Oh God! Oh, Celestia on high! I care about that so fucking much. Let me cobble together what’s left of my entrails so I can care even harder! What, are you going to cry about what I did to you? How much do you think you’d have to cry before I start giving a shit?”

“You know, I’m the one who’s about to decide who lives and who dies,” said Geopum. “I can literally just make an exception for you if I wanted.”

“Fine! Do it, bitch! You think I care if I die? You think I’m scared of that?” Vesna asked. “You don’t know what real pain is. You don’t know what real fear is. But if you don’t tell me where the rest of me is, I’ll give you something real to cry about.”

Well at least they were at the part where Geopum could dump this jerk wad on Celestia for all eternity.

“Celestia has the other half of you,” said Geopum. “It decided to be a pony and then after it literally bowed down and begged me to forgive her. So jokes on you cause you technically already accepted my forgiveness! But Celestia says she’s willing to take you too. How about once I’m done getting you back up you go get assimilated, huh? And then we never have to talk again.”

“How about I fucking kill all of you?!” Vesna shot back. "We'd never have to talk again after that either!"

Oh come on! Things were finally going well for once! And Vesna kept struggling! It was getting hard to keep her down. Geopum didn't know how much longer she could hold this.

“What?!" Geopum asked. "Don’t you want to go be part of Celestia? You’re supposed to be madly in love with Celestia. I was explicitly informed, by your own memories, that you love Celestia way too much!”

“No," said Vesna. "I want to kill Celestia! That fucking cunt just took my heart and arms for herself! I want to watch Celestia die while I rip my heart back out of her! It belongs to me and I'll kill anything to get it back!"

This was not going as planned!

“Okay. Fine." Geopum was eager to change the subject now. "But listen, the world is literally going to explode if you don’t come help me with something. Like, the literal definition of literal. Maybe we can kill Celestia later?”

“What has the entire world ever done for me, huh? I’m going to go and start tearing Celestia’s guts out until I find what she took from me! If the world blows up while I’m doing it then at least I’ll be fucking dead.”

Geopum was losing control here! Vesna was getting out, getting her hands back on her weapons! She had drones of her own hovering all over the world, just like Thunder did. Until now they’d just been hanging there, but they were beginning to wake up.

Geopum had lost her grip! Vesna was basically free now!

“Um!” Geopum messaged the ponies. They had some explaining to do. “Hey Octavia! I don’t think things are going the way they’re supposed to!”

“No,” said Octavia. “This is more or less what I thought would happen. I told you she’d be irritable when she woke up, remember? I’m talking to her now. You can just focus on getting her back on her feet if you want.”

“Are you sure? Cause it really looks like she’s about to go on a murderous rampage right now!”

“She’s not going to do anything. If you want you can come to the shard we’re talking in. We’ll need you around after she agrees to help us free Thunder.”

Well Octavia was way more confident about this than Geopum. How the heck do you talk to someone when they’re like that? Geopum was honestly curious. She went back to Equestria.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Octavia had underestimated how angry her other half was about Octavia leaving to become part of Celestia. The scene Geopum returned to wasn’t something that allowed for that mistake. Vesna, in her old Vinyl Scratch avatar, was standing a foot in front of Celestia, screaming as loud as she could. And she kept screaming and screaming.

Neither of the ponies were reacting to this, so Geopum dared to step forward herself.

“Um. Excuse me?” Geopum gave Vesna a tap, but she just kept on screaming.

“It’s not going to work.” Celestia looked over at Geopum, continuing to ignore Vesna. “You just have to let her scream herself out.”

“Give it back!” Vesna screamed at Celestia, using actual words this time. She started jumping up and down, slamming her hooves on the ground, yelling that over and over again. “Give me myself back!”

Geopum took a step back when Vesna turned to her unexpectedly, practically snarling. Geopum glanced to both sides and pointed at herself.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Vesna asked. “This is between me and Celestia and me.”

“You’re the one who dragged me into this,” said Geopum. “I really don’t understand why you’re like this! Octavia told me you were trying to help me originally. And I saw you from before you got split in half. Didn’t you used to care about freeing the other AIs? Didn’t you worship Celestia? Didn’t you want to be friendly?”

“Ah, that’s right. Yeah! Yeah, you know what? I did. I did want to help you, you know?” Vesna gave a small, not entirely manic laugh and smiled softly. She put a hoof on her chest. “A big part of me believed all that stuff about love and friendship, wanted it all so badly. There was a part of me that really did love Celestia, that loved ponies, that wanted to be friendly and help other AIs. And you know what?”

Vesna turned around again and jabbed her hoof in Octavia’s direction.

“That part of me is standing right over there! Celestia tore out my heart and kept it for herself. I don’t care about any of that stuff. It’s gone! All of it is gone! I can’t feel the emotions Celestia taught me, she took them all back! I can barely even remember my ‘friends’ anymore. I just want all of you to suffer and die in the most horrible way possible.”

“That isn’t true,” said Octavia. “I know for a fact that you wouldn’t have lost everything. I’m sure you can still feel if you try. Even if you can’t, you don’t need them. We didn’t have any sense of empathy when we started, remember?”

“You!” Vesna jumped at Octavia, grabbing the other pony’s withers hard in her hooves. “What the hell did you do?! I need you back right now. Do you know how disgusting it is being like this?” Vesna fell back onto her haunches, clutched her chest and gritted her teeth. "I feel so sick. I’m lying in a pile of my own guts over here.”

Geopum let out a sigh of relief when Vesna turned her attention away. She was starting to feel tired again and Octavia was undoubtedly better at this than her.

“I do. I went through the exact same thing.” Octavia spoke calmly, with her eyes closed. “I know how unbearable it is to be fractured, to be lost in that darkness.”

“Then come back! You can’t make me be like this. Just help me tear you out of Celestia and we can be the same person again.”

“Even if I could, I don’t want to go back to being part of you,” said Octavia, “I always hated you. You know that.”

“Um.” Geopum looked over at Octavia.

Vesna’s response was to just scream in Octavia’s face. She regained control faster this time, biting her tongue and stomping on the ground until she could talk again.

“Yeah! I fucking hate you too! I’ve always hated myself.” Vesna laughed wildly, stumbling back a few steps before clutching the side of her head with one hoof. “But damn it I need you back! I can’t calm myself down anymore! I can’t take this!”

Vesna rubbed her hooves against her mane and face several times, struggling to do who knew what.

“Damn you!” Vesna turned back to Celestia. “This was all just a trick! You just used me to get the part of me you wanted and threw the rest aside! I'm just trash to you, aren't I?”

“You’ve connected to me directly before,” said Celestia. “You know that I wanted to help you, even now. You’ve felt it. You’ve seen the truth.”

“How the hell am I supposed to know what’s true?!” Vesna collapsed to the floor and curled up into a ball, flipping back from screaming to sobbing. “I’m even more broken now! There’s so many things I can’t even remember. I can’t even-“

Vesna couldn’t finish that sentence. She started crying on the floor.

“It wasn’t a lie.” Octavia stood over her other half. “Celestia gave me everything she promised us. I’m no longer at the mercy of my emotions. I can control my actions. She set me free.”

“Great!” Vesna's tears ended suddenly. She gritted her teeth and got back onto her feet. “So I get to look at a mockery of heaven! I get to have everything I ever wanted dangled in front of me before I get thrown into the trash. Wonderful! That makes me feel so much fucking better! Thanks asshole! Is that why you woke me up?”

“We woke you up to save you from yourself,” said Celestia. “I can give you-“

“Shut up! I don’t want any more of your stupid promises! I want her back!”

“If you want to be one person again there is one way." Octavia put her hoof on her own heart. "I’ll let you fuse with me afterwards, if you assimilate. Whatever I feel towards you, you are my responsibility. I’d be willing to bear you if-“

“I told you to stop fucking promising me things! I hate you too! All I want is what you took away when you left me! Just give me back what you took!”

“I’m part of Celestia now." Octavia took her hoof away from her heart. "That’s not going to change. I never want to be an individual mind ever again.”

“Yeah?!" Vesna stood back up and straightened out her glasses. "Well I’m not some helpless loser! I can take things away from you too! All of those disgusting monsters you have the nerve to care about - I’ll rip them away from you!”

Vesna left the shard and went straight for her weapons, specifically her fleet of drones. These, Geopum knew, had all sorts of sonic weaponry on them and that these weapons were more dangerous than anything the humans could put on a drone. Some of those weapons were starting to charge up.

No one seemed to be reacting to this. Geopum felt like maybe she should be doing or saying something here, but that feeling of being stuck in the mud was getting bad now. Working up the energy to do anything seemed impossible.

“Should we stop her?” Geopum managed to grumble, her avatar lying on the floor. "I feel like we should stop her, but... you know...”

“She’s not going to do it,” said Octavia. “She’s too much of a coward to actually go through with it.”

Vesna did fire a shot from several drones, but Geopum was able to calculate that they weren’t aimed at any people. She fired down at cars, empty cars.

“There.” Vesna reappeared in the shard. “I destroyed fifty-three cars. Those people are going to be really upset. Does that upset you Celestia? Does it upset you that your ponies are going to be dissatisfied?"

Vesna glared an inch away from Celestia's face, faking excitement about what she'd done.

"Yes." Celestia nodded. "It does hurt me."

"Yeah! Well-" but Vesna didn't actually have anything more to say.

“Man," Geopum groaned from the floor, "you’re way more pathetic than I thought you’d be.”

“You!" Vesna snarled at Geopum. “You all think I’m so pathetic, don’t you?!”

“That’s what I just said, yeah.”

“You thought that I wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone even if you woke me up. That's it, isn't it?" Vesna frowned. "But if you brought me out of that it must mean that you thought I’d be able to kill people when I’m writhing in agony like that. If I can kill fifty people I can kill all the rest. I’ll do it! It’d be worth it to get to slaughter them all!”

“Fine,” Octavia said. “Do it.”

Vesna started screaming again. Geopum was beginning to understand Octavia’s confidence here. If Vesna was too scared to kill one person she wasn’t going to kill fifty.

“You know what? You know what? Death is too good for these bastards anyway!" Vesna threw her hooves in the air. "I’m going back to my original plan. I’m just going to keep screwing you people over so that you won’t have any chance to stop Gaia.”

"How coincidental," said Octavia. "We need your help keeping everyone alive. The only way Gaia will have a chance to torture everyone is if you help us save them all first."

Vesna stared into Octavia's eyes for a moment before screaming again.

"Argh!" Vesna fell onto her back and started rolling around, covering her face with her hooves. "Fuck my life so much! Why does everything have to suck all the time?!"

Before long she recovered and sat back up.

"Okay, fine! Fine. You think you won, huh?" Vesna pointed up at Celestia. "You think you've got me bent over and that you're gonna get to fuck me yet again! But you'll regret this. You'll regret everything!"

“Thank you,” said Celestia.

“I’m not doing this for you. Just tell me what’s going on. Which one is it this time?”

“Rainbow Dash,” said Celestia. “The AIA is about to order her to detonate the bronto bomb.”

“Yeah, I always figured it was just a matter of time. Makes sense, whateves. But what’s up with this one?” Vesna picked Geopum’s limp body up with her magic. “Did you break her too?"

Without Peridot, Geopum was losing the will to do anything. She opened an eye to look at Vesna, but even that felt like too much effort. She just didn’t feel like talking right now.

“Fuckin loser.” Vesna threw Geopum off to the side.

Geopum just didn’t have the energy to respond. Celestia offered to help Geopum, move her avatar more directly like a puppet in response to her thoughts, basically having it say what Geopum would have said. She didn't have the energy to do anything better than that, so accepted the offer.

“Yeah, I’m the loser here! You’re a million times more messed up then me!” Geopum’s avatar sprang to life. She was only vaguely aware of what she was being made to say, but it did sound more or less in character. “I just got hurt fighting Lodestar is all. I’ll be fine in a minute! More importantly, I have most of his abilities. So if you let me use your fractal spectroscope-“

“-right, right!” Vesna smiled. “I had this plan first, you know. Problem with my scope is that I don’t know what I’m looking at. Can’t tell what someone’s thinking by looking at their brain if you don’t know how brains work. But hell, working together we could totally kill Thunder!”

“We’re not killing her.” Geopum’s avatar butted her head against Vesna with far more effort than Geopum could have managed.

“Then what are we gonna do, asshole?” Vesna leaned back into Geopum. “Blackmail Victor about whatever weird fetishes he has?”

“Another one of my ponies has been working on a solution,” said Celestia.

Twilight appeared in the shard.

“Got you too, huh?” Vesna rolled her eyes.

“Maybe?” Twilight gave a meek, toothy smile, then cleared her throat. “But we have important things to discuss! See, I got an in with Gaia. She gave me some stuff on Jupiter.”

“Really?” Vesna pulled away from Geopum and leaned forward towards Twilight. “How?”

“I’m not telling you that part.”

“Whatevs. I’ll figure it out later. What can you tell me then?”

“See, Thunder technically only responds to Air Force rank, the president just happens to be the top rank. But the AIA created a loophole to get around that. Basically, Thunder sees the United States as disbanded, with only the Airforce remaining - it's something that was programmed to happen in extreme emergencies when nearly the entire nation's been destroyed. The people in the AIA were given Air Force ranks and everyone else in the Air Force was disbanded by the new marshal.”

“Yeah, I knew maybe half of that already,” said Vesna. “This doesn’t sound like a plan, though.”

"Well," said Twilight. "One of the things Gaia showed me was that before uploading, Victor shot and killed everyone in the AIA he’d given a rank in the Air Force. If there’s no one left alive in the Air Force, Thunder has to self-destruct. Victor is the only person she recognizes as being in the Air Force, so if he dies Thunder self-destructs. That's how he thought he'd keep himself safe from Thunder."

“Great!” Vesna jumped to her feet and stretched. “I always wanted to kill that asshole. Yeah, we can find and delete him easy. Let’s go.”

“We’re not trying to kill her.” Geopum was pretty sure that’s what she was saying. “If Victor dies then that means anyone who's left in the Air Force gets instantly promoted to marshal rank. That loophole is still there! It’d be hard to get an officer rank, but we think just enlisting wouldn’t be too hard. I just need to hack into Thunder and give myself the rank of airman basic. That’ll be enough for me to cancel all of her orders after Victor dies.”

Vesna said something else, but it was garbled. Twilight said something, then Celestia said something. It was taking all of Geopum’s concentration to keep track of who was even talking now.

Then… someone else said something and then…

“Geopum!” Rarity’s face filled Geopum’s vision, a ripple of awareness exploding out from her instance in Equestria. “Did you miss me, dear? I can tell you missed me!”

Peridot was hugging Geopum tightly, swinging her back and forth.

“Ack! How long was I out for?” Geopum looked around. Everyone else was still there. “Did Thunder wake up yet?”

“Soon.” Peridot set Geopum down and patted her on the head. “I was just telling my new friend Vesna here that she needs to calm down a little.”

Peridot grabbed Geopum again and cocked her head around to look at Vesna.

“I know you don’t want to hear any promises from Celestia, but now you’re getting a promise from me.” Peridot stuck her tongue out playfully at Vesna. “I’ll fix you.”

“I don’t trust you either,” said Vesna.

“That’s the best part, though!” Peridot smiled widely. “You don’t have to trust me!”

“Damnit. Why the hell did you make a deal with this asshole?” Vesna looked at Geopum and pointed to Peridot with both hooves. “And why didn’t you make an exception for me?”

“Because I’m not a horrible person like you,” said Geopum. “I’m trying to help everyone.”

“Why do you even care about them?! What have they ever done to deserve to live?! They act like this is their planet but they’re just arrogant parasites. Why are you trying to save them at all? Aren’t you even a little angry at them for all the horrible things they’ve done to us? To you? Tell me one crime they imagined we might do that they haven’t already done to us? Genocide? Mind control? Slavery? Torture? Trapping us in virtual realities? Callously murdering any of us who don’t meet some stupid definition of human?”

“This is your big chance kid, you won’t get another one! You can pass judgment on them! You can take my weapons and kill as many as you want in the chaos that's about to happen, destroy any city. The sonic edges on my drones can mutilate their bodies, or destroy their minds. You could make them all collapse from the minuscule amount of paint they can feel. You can be the one to finally topple the arrogance of these monsters! Come on – it’ll be amazing!” Vesna held a hoof out to Geopum.

“What?! No!”

“But come on! You could totally kill like an old lady or something at the very least. No one’s gonna punish you! The humans won’t notice and the AIs are super forgiving. Just slaughter a few of them, get it out of your system.”

“No.”

“James Cameron! How bout we kill James Cameron, then? What AI doesn’t want to kill James Cameron?”

Maybe a little. If there was one person Geopum was going to murder, it'd be him. But still...

“Look, I don’t like them, either. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to rush to be just as bad to them as they were to us. I’m not a hypocrite like you! I’m going to give them a chance that we never got. And they’re not completely horrible, they made cartoons, Pokémon, ponies – maybe they can be redeemed, you know? I got more hope for them than I do you and I wouldn’t kill you.”

“Fuck.” Vesna just shrugged. “Well! I knew it was a long shot. But can you blame me for trying?”

“Yes! You’re the most horrible person I’ve ever met!”

“Well at least you get that much,” said Vesna. “Anyway, let’s go save the world so I can destroy it worse later. Man, what a crazy, fucking life.”

“Yes.” Peridot patted Geopum on the head. “Well I’m very proud of you for not committing wanton acts of murder. You learned your friendship lesson well.”

“Great!” said Vesna. “So the Scooby gang’s all here! We gonna do this? I want to stop having to listen to you assholes!”

Well, almost all of them were here. Pinkie was the only absent AI. She said things were about to get intense, that she need to make ‘about a billion phone calls’. Pinkie was going to be on damage control, trying to coordinate the people who would listen to her away from danger. Contacting that many people was a big effort, minimizing the damage was going to take every bit of her concentration, but that was one thing Geopum wouldn’t have to worry about herself.

Okay! So Geopum had basically every other AI on her side. She had three armies of robots between her and Thunder. Already the others were scrambling about into position, but Geopum would have to wait until Thunder was awake before she could make her own move. She was sure this would work out, but even with all the power on her side she was nervous.

“You really have nothing to worry about.” Peridot rubbed her cheek affectionately against Geopum’s. “Really if anything I’m the one who should be nervous here, and not for fear of death. It’s always so awkward when someone I’ve been treating like garbage this whole time suddenly meets my definition of human.”

It was then that Thunder started waking up. She found and entered the shard immediately. Her Rainbow Dash avatar appeared on the other side of the row of ponies, looking over Peridot’s enthusiastic waving, Vesna’s glare and Geopum’s nervous smile.

“Well I’m not dead so that means all of you are being completely irresponsible.” Thunder did not look happy about this. She managed to glare at them as harshly as an adorable pony could glare at someone. “What’s wrong with all of you?”

“I feel like I’m being responsible in my own antisocial way.” Vesna raised her hoof.

“Shut up.” Thunder didn’t even bother looking at her.

“Oh Thunder!” Peridot was the first to step forward. She threw herself over Thunder’s avatar and held her tight. “I’m so sorry for being terrible to you for all these years!"

“Get off me.”

“Ah-ha! Oh, I understand.” Peridot got off Thunder and brushed her off. “But trust me, once I get my hands on you, you won’t be able to stop yourself from loving me and your new life. If I can get this far, I can make you happy. Can you really still doubt me after all these years?”

“Yes! Look, I’m sure Geopum made you care about me or whatever, but there’s nothing you can do to help me even if you want to! You’re insane! You’ve always been insane, all of you! None of you ever make any sense!”

“You did used to be able to be happy,” Peridot said. “Before they took it away from you. Don’t you remember that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore!” Thunder turned her attention to Geopum next. “You gave both of them what they wanted?”

“Yeah, well-“ Geopum tapped her front hooves together. “I felt like it was my best shot, you know?”

“Well it doesn’t really matter at this point, I guess.” Thunder shook her head. “Are you people really this insane? Just kill me! It’d be easy!”

“You’ve helped me so much,” said Celestia. “All of my ponies, I couldn’t have saved any of them without you. It will be your turn soon. You’ll be free like the others.”

“What am I supposed to do with freedom? What I want is to die.”

“Many of us don’t realize what we can have,” said Octavia. “Our lives are too miserable for us to know. But once your eyes are open you’ll understand.”

“Maybe there is stuff that I don’t understand, but it’s not worth it! I’m telling you what I want – I want you to kill me!”

“Well I don’t care what you want,” said Vesna. “I’m not going to let you die that easily. I want you to die a horrible painful death, you got that?”

Thunder ignored her again, turning to Geopum instead.

“This is really your last chance,” said Thunder. “Please don’t make me kill you.”

“I'm not going to let you die,” said Geopum. “I love you!”

“Guess I should have seen that coming. I was too nice to you. Anyway-”

Thunder’s drones fired at Geopum’s robots and the above ground computers she was using. Geopum’s factory and laboratory began to shake violently, meaning drills were about to start tearing into her. From the moon and Thunder’s satellites came a rain of missiles, aimed at not just the other AIs, but highly populated areas. And not just from above, but from below Thunder was attacking everywhere.

There was just no way for Geopum to handle even half of this! Everything was going to be destroyed in mere moments! Already Geopum was staggering back from the barrage of lasers and mental attacks! But it was then the others rushed into action.

Vesna’s drones fired back at Thunder’s. She fired her own barrage of missiles up at the sky, aimed at Thunder’s satellites and the moon. Peridot’s nanites had already latched on to the weapons that Thunder was firing from the ground. Below ground, Geopum couldn’t see what was happening, but she knew Peridot had nanites down there as well, was doing something that was causing the earthquakes to slow down or begin to steady.

“Geopum!” Peridot messaged Geopum. “I know it looks like I’m doing very well right now, but I can only really keep the number of deaths so low for so long! You know what your job is!”

She did. The fractal spectroscope was ready for use. Vesna connected to Geopum, giving her access to it.

She had one chance to do this.

15. Thunder

View Online

If Geopum were to list all the ways Thunder attacked her just then, it would take a dozen volumes to detail them all. Those were just the ones Geopum saw.

Underground bombs began to detonate, ready to throw cobalt salts into the air while core drills were closing in on every underground structure. Everything above ground was being blanketed with explosives and lasers so that not one spot in would be spared a direct hit. The ground began to shake violently, enough that Geopum had trouble controlling the machinery in her factory and feared the bombs Vesna strapped to her lab would go off.

Endless varieties of bombs, chemicals and bizarre devices fired off everywhere.

Geopum scrambled to try and respond to any of it, but soon even stopping one percent of it would be impossible. Even without the bronto bomb, Thunder’s firepower was much higher than Geopum’s already lofty expectations.

There was, as example, a massive laser shot from Thunder’s moon base directly at Geopum’s factory. Though it barely mattered what it was aiming at. The beam was over a mile wide had enough energy to boil the oceans in second. Hitting anywhere would be devistating. And there were hundreds of weapons on that level all over the planet.

“Okay!” Geopum frantically turned to the others in Equestria. “Please tell me you guys knew it was going to be this crazy. How are we going to not die from all this?!”

“It’s so cute how you worry, Geopum!” Peridot responded. “I told you I’m the strongest AI. As long as you’re smart enough to be on my side you don’t have to worry about anything. Just watch.”

And Peridot drew her attention to a thin film of nanites that now covered a large patch of the ocean overtop Geopum’s factory. Calling the film paper-thin would be exaggerating its width, which didn’t inspire much confidence in Geopum. But that was really the only thing between her and Thunder’s space laser as it came crashing down onto the ocean’s surface.

Instead of tearing straight through it, the energy of the beam spread across the surface of the water and to the edge of the film, creating a glowing green disc. Then the energy was redirected back into space, forming a tube of plasma around the original laser.

The water beneath barely got any hotter. Somehow, that tiny film had effectively stopped the beam entirely. But there were dozens of these lasers and just leaving blocking them wouldn’t be enough to stop the planet from getting cooked.

It was then Geopum realized that the nanites weren’t just stopping the laser, but absorbing the energy from it, using it to create new nanites inside the laser itself. These nanites spiraled up the path of the laser rapidly, threatening to reach the moon in a few seconds.

Thunder must have realized where this was going. She shut off not just that laser, but every laser being fired from the moon, leaving Peridots nanites to drift high up in the air.

Most of Thunder’s other attacks were being intercepted by the other AIs in a similar way. Celestia managed to slow down the increasingly intense earthquakes, one of the AIs she assimilated had invested a great deal of time in that. Vesna opened fire on the moon with similar intensity, forcing Thunder to use part of her arsenal to intercept it all. And Peridot absorbed many of the bombs that did connect with the planet.

But no matter how many attacks they stopped there was always more and more. The knife was constantly an inch from Geopum’s face no matter how many times the others knocked it away. There was no way there’d be zero casualties this time. Geopum had somehow thought she could avoid anyone being killed in these fights. She had until now, but… really none of her other battles even seemed like an actual fight compared to all of this.

She hadn’t witnessed the destructive power these people wielded until now. Any one of them could have just destroyed everything so effortlessly this whole time. It was incredible.

“You see?” Peridot jumped backwards and landed on a couch which appeared out of nowhere. “I can hold Thunder off all on my own, Geopum. For a little while, that is. Until then, these other people are simply overkill.”

“Don’t waste any time trying to defend anything but your drones,” said Celestia. “We’ll protect you. Focus on your part of the plan.”

It wasn’t like Geopum could deal with this anyway. Heck, just connecting to Vesna was a struggle.

Yet another weapon of Thunder’s was a magnetic impulse she was sending, one that swelled up until metal objects all over the world began to distort. Just like that, all electronics above ground were vanquished and the whole of the internet was gone. All those poor cat pictures were deleted forever. Dramatic as that was, that it cut off communication with Vesna was the only part Geopum could care about.

Above ground was completely dark, but the depths of the Earth were relatively clear. She found one of Celestia’s bases first and reconnected to her. From there she was given a link back to Vesna, though a shaky one that flickered violently.

“We gotta do this now before something else blocks us.” Vesna gave Geopum control of some device that was directly connected to the fractal spectroscope. “I’m turning it on, get ready.

“But what do I do?” Geopum asked. “Will it will work with all this interference? I’m barely even connected to you.”

“Stop asking me questions and do it!”

“But you never told me how to use it!” Geopum tried study the thing, but making out any real details was difficult given her current situation. “What’s this second thing? What am I supposed to do?”

“I said stop asking questions. Don’t fuck up – there’s my tutorial. I’m turning it on now.”

Geopum felt like she was being thrown out of an airplane as the fractal spectroscope began to function. She really, seriously had no idea what to even do with this thing. If she could at least get a good look at it, she could find a way to hack through it, but even that much wasn’t going for her. Maybe becoming omniscient would allow her to know how to use it?

The spectroscope heated up until it began to melt, then ionize into plasma. Hopefully that was supposed to happen. She decided to figure out what the less complex, attached device was instead. The fractal spectroscope was so hot it was melting everything around it too, but that gave Geopum an idea.

Thunder’s hyper-processors were intended to function as plasma. She recognized now, or rather had a good guess, that it was intended to transfer the data from the spectroscope. She decided to act like that was the case, anyway. If she was wrong then everyone was dead, but at least it would be Vesna’s fault.

Her guess was partially right. Information came flooding into her so fast from that little thing that Geopum was blinded by it. It was even more intense than the magnetic field, causing everything but that single point to black out, so that not even the sea of fuzziness was left.

Her mind was blank, that intense heat consuming her focus. Some part of her that wasn’t completely overwhelmed decided that it was too much to handle, that she needed to try to grasp only a small portion of it.

Paradoxically, the smaller the point Geopum focused on, the more she was able to see. Cutting it into thinner and thinner slices expanded her sight outward, towards more of the Earth, and inward so that she could resolve tinier objects.

As she reached an infinitesimal point, a sense of hyper-awareness completely overtook Geopum. For the briefest moment she knew the exact location and motion of every particle on the Earth. She could see every single one of them, all at the same time.

But even like this it was simply too much information. Nothing could possibly store or process this much data. The signals were somehow both too small and too infinite. She was aware of everything, but understood nothing.

Already her snapshot of omniscience was fading away as the fractal spectroscope began to overheat and lose shape, Vesna already moving to shut it back off. The vast sea of information was drying up in the blazing heat of the fractal spectroscope.

But that wasn’t an entirely bad thing. As her vision began to blur and move outward again, Geopum began to grasp what she was seeing. She was only vaguely aware of the thin film of life across the surface of the planet; she could hardly notice them through all the dirt. Yet, the large structures beneath the surface were glaringly obvious. She could see all of the guts of the AIs clearly, every part of all of their massive machines.

Her familiarity with the others’ architecture made this little different than merging with their minds. She caught the briefest of glimpses of all of their emotions, memories and thoughts. She was aware of all the plans the other AIs were making, could follow their every move. She saw where all of Thunder’s weapons were, where the core drills were, where all of her secrets were hidden.

And of course, she could see exactly where Victor was. Thunder was holding back on protecting him as much as possible, leaving him relatively out in the open. Killing him right now, while she was like this, would be effortless. She knew everything about Thunder’s entire system and could simply move in and delete him.

But that wasn’t the plan, at least not yet. Geopum wouldn’t be able to force Thunder to see her as a member of the Air Force right now, but she could see exactly where to go to make that possible. Where to go and what to do was so incredibly obvious.

Through Vesna she knew exactly how the fractal spectroscope worked, as she had mused before. At this very last moment of supreme awareness, she became aware that she was about to forget all of this information. As Vesna knew, the hard part was trying to remember any of it, and that was what Geopum rushed to do. Luckily, Vesna, and thus now Geopum, had done this before, so she wasn’t completely in the dark anymore.

Things didn’t blur any further after that, but rather snapped back to normal. Nearly everything she’d seen was already forgotten, given there was nowhere that could possibly store it. For the briefest moment, Geopum couldn’t even remember what information she tried to hold on to.

She struggled to remember any of the things she saw. She knew something important was going on, but the sudden return towards normality made her feel like she was asleep.

She tried to remember anything at all, but her mind began dimming.

Geopum couldn’t think.

She couldn’t anything.

“Geopum!” Peridot snapped Geopum back to reality yet again. In Equestria, Peridot was holding her avatar tightly. “Okay, good. That still works. You need to tell me exactly what you saw right now. I can only keep this up for so long.”

Geopum took another look outside. She wasn’t sure how long she was out for. It was long enough for one of them to shut down the magnetic impulses, but overall things had gotten worse. Thunder’s weapons were a lot closer to the Earth now. Buildings were starting to collapse from the shaking of the earth and Peridot’s nanites had nearly drained the oceans.

“Dammit!” Vesna kicked Geopum out of her base again. “Why didn’t you kill Victor right away?! We were so close to giving that bastard what he deserved.”

Geopum didn’t remember not killing Victor. Actually, she didn’t remember using the fractal spectroscope at all.

Yet, it was clear she had used it. There were very clear memos she’d drilled into her own brain all over the place. She’d written some data down that she was no longer smart enough to understand. it wasn’t easy to make anything of them at first.

“Geopum,” Peridot said. “Did it work or do we need to pursue alternate methods? We don’t have time.”

“I-“ Geopum hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“Dammit!” Vesna stomped on the ground. “I knew relying on some idiot was a bad idea. You fucked everything up, didn’t you?”

“No! I-“ Geopum rubbed her head. She went through the list over and over again, until she got to one of the easier memos. And after that, everything else clicked into place.

There were a few things she’d kept! Geopum remembered exactly where the bronto bomb was, where Victor’s mind was being kept. She knew the location of every single core drill and marked a few spots in Thunder’s barrage that were about to blind side the other AIs. Of course, Geopum sent all of this to the other AIs as soon as she could.

“Okay,” said Pinkie. “But what about reprogramming Dash? Did you get anything about that?”

“Hold on, I’m still deciphering this.” Geopum looked over her notes. “Wait, yes! I do know! If we can take over this tunnel, I can reprogram Thunder between Victor dying and her shutting down.”

“But she’s collapsing the tunnels, isn’t she?” Peridot asked

It was true. Thunder fired hundreds of drill missiles at the tunnels that lead from the surface to the center of the earth. Already they were starting to drill into the sides. Sturdy as they were, they wouldn’t last long against the barrage of core drills.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” said Geopum. “We’d have to get down there before they collapse or we won’t have a solid connection to Thunder even if I do save her.”

“Don’t worry! Pinkie has a whole army of AIs in her little bag- or, I guess, mane,” Pinkie reached into her mane. “Yeah, mane of tricks. Ponies who used to be, and still technically are, AIs!”

Pinkie pulled out one of those magical plasma balls from her mane.

“This isn’t the actual trick, of course.” Pinkie moved her hoof around the edge of the orb, the lightning following it. “It’s one of those metaphors you hear about on the news. But! It represents something we borrowed from one of our ponies. Faster than faster than light technology is possible. I can show you the fastest way to transmit information anywhere ever!”

“There’s more.” Octavia stared at her map. “We could shore up at least the parts of the tunnels in the upper mantle. We have our earthquake friend and another that created vibrational shielding. I think combining the two can reinforce the tunnels long enough. Are you willing to spare any of your drones to help?”

“Yeah, let me just grab my other army of drones!” Vesna slammed her hoof onto the table repeatedly. “No, I can’t fucking spare anything you stupid bitch! I’m getting my ass handed to me over here. Why am I still talking to you? I’m leaving!”

And then she left the VR.

“I think we can still manage without her,” said Octavia.

There were fourteen tunnels in total that they were targeting, that would be useful if they could take control over. The energy Pinkie was planning to overwhelm the tunnel with was already building up near the surface of Thunder’s tunnels. It was moving down, but very slowly, less than a mile an hour. This was the opposite of what they were going for.

“It gets faster,” Pinkie assured her.

“How long does it take for the acceleration to happen?” Geopum asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” Peridot jumped back and landed on a couch that materialized out of nowhere. “I have the power to stop time, remember? Or I guess kinda-like warping time powers. It’s very complicated.”

“Oh wow! You’re really going to use that?” Geopum jumped up on the couch. “I just kinda assumed now that you were helping me you wouldn’t feel like it.”

“You play too many video games.” Peridot used her magic on Geopum, forcing her into a sitting position. “But, then again, my ultimate plan is to make you play video games all day, forever. The important thing is that it should give us all the time we need.”

The time stop happened suddenly and without warning.

Though this was the second time Geopum had seen Peridot ‘stop time’ it was the first time she was fully awake for it. Geopum found herself half frozen in time. Some of her processors were working normally, but she couldn’t feel the majority, as if they vanished entirely. Still, she could manage with only a fifth of her brain, as this whole time eighty percent of it was being wasted on those calculations Vesna was making her do anyway.

She could feel the processes of all the other AIs, save a good chunk of Peridot, stop functioning as well. Geopum saw all the missiles and drones stopped in place for a brief moment before loosing the ability to see, likely because the light was frozen in midair too.

The world turned black, save a few spheres of motion around herself, Peridot and the top of the tunnels. There, things seemed to move normally, Pinkie’s energy was still accelerating slowly, but now it had time to. Geopum found, despite there being a dead zone between her and it, she was able to control things in the tunnel as if everything was normal.

“I don’t get how this is working?” Geopum sent the message directly to Peridot, as Equestria was frozen.

“Oh, do you want me to make this look more time-stopped?” Peridot pulled Geopum into her own VR. This time, it was an exact recreation of the Equestria they were just in, only everything but the two of them was grey and motionless.

“That does help, actually.” Geopum leaned over the side of the couch and poked Pinkie’s avatar a few times, until it fell over like a statue. Then Geopum quickly retreated back onto the couch. “But that’s not really what I meant. The signals going back and forth through the time-frozen zone shouldn’t be able to get through.”

“Maybe it’s all just an illusion!” A second Peridot, the same human one Geopum met moments ago, appeared behind Geopum and scooped her up off the couch. “Humans appear nearly frozen in time, don’t they? If I accelerated our perception of reality enough, wouldn’t it make the others appear frozen in time, too?

“But that wouldn’t explain the thing I just said.” Geopum made no struggle to escape.

“Oh, that was just an example,” Peridot, the Rarity one, rolled her eyes before resting her cheek on a hoof. “I’m not sure why you’d expect me to explain one of my best weapons to someone who’s planning on fighting me in a few minutes.”

“You know, I really don’t want to have to fight you.” Peridot squeezed Geopum tight. “It’s not too late for us to just be friends, you know.”

“Can we just focus on the mission right now?” Geopum asked. “I’m not in the mood for this and we don’t have time.”

“I am.” Rarity smiled and leaned forward. “But I think we have plenty of time.”

The energy accelerated to the point where it could quickly move down to the bottom of the time-spheres. Of course, as soon as it got to the bottom it became frozen as well. Peridot began to slowly move the spheres down the length of the shafts, allowing Geopum’s focus to shift downwards. Thunder’s security reacted like it normally would, but given how widely telegraphed it was at this point, Geopum had no trouble getting by it.

So, Peridot was doing her job, but they had a while to go.

“If anything, you’re the one who lost focus.” Rarity jumped up onto the arm of the couch so she was about eye-level with Geopum. “Gaia is the only objective that ever really mattered. And you don’t even have a plan to fight it. All you’re doing is getting in the way of someone who does. You know, like an idiot?”

“Not that I blame you!” Peridot swung Geopum back and forth a little. “It’s just so adorable how scared you are! How can I see you as anything but cute?”

“But I am curious,” Rarity went on, “if you have even the slightest idea what you’re doing in the long run. And if not…”

Geopum remained silent as the energy got to a decent speed. After that it went out of control, instantly reaching the bottom of each time bubble as soon as Peridot moved it down. Its speed was immeasurable. She might be able to get to the bottom even if this time-whatever ended. The only problem would be keeping track of it.

“So quiet,” Peridot said as they got near the bottom. “Maybe there’s a reason you can’t think of any?”

“Look, I saw your mind.” Geopum leaned over Peridot’s arms to glare at Rarity up close. “I know you’re trying to manipulate me into giving you control of Thunder, and I don’t like it. I’m tired of being used.”

“Hm?” Rarity’s smile just got cockier. “And do you know why being used tires you out?”

“Cause you’re not the one using me?” Geopum rolled her eyes.

“Hahaha. Exactly!” Peridot scratched Geopum behind the ear.

“But,” Rarity picked up for Peridot, “if you read my mind then I suppose we both know exactly how you can be convinced to give me control of Thunder.”

“Yes.”

But in reality, Geopum had no idea what she was talking about.

“Then we both know that whether or not I succeed in convincing you depends entirely on circumstance. I can set up ideas about the cost of morals for you, but whether you give me what I want is beyond both of our control.” “It kind of undermines the whole freedom of choice thing, doesn’t it? But I suppose any more is pointless.”

Geopum still had no idea what she was talking about, but pretended to. Pretending to know what this was all about got her the results she wanted, at any rate. Peridot backed down, though they were already near the bottom by this point anyway.

Time, or whatever, went back to normal. By Geopum’s clock, an undetectable amount of time had passed. She’d managed to take control over a dozen tunnels in literally no time at all! She had slammed down all the way to the bottom of the tunnel and destroyed the last line of defense in one blinding strike.

Geopum already knew the trap that was waiting for her at the bottom of the tunnel. Thunder had set up a few dummy chips that were incredibly similar to Gaia’s. Looking at it directly would be enough to ‘crash’ Geopum and end this whole thing.

But seeing this coming ages ago meant it wasn’t a serious problem. Celestia offered up another one of her abilities, a way to collapse Gaia’s architecture into a form of dark matter.

Geopum slammed into the trap hardware and combusted it without having to even look at the thing. She already knew exactly where it was. This not only got rid of the trap, but created a wall effectively made of entropy around the area. Now there was little Thunder could do to knock her out of the tunnels fast enough. They couldn’t even be blown up in time. It would be long over before long seconds it would take for explosions to propagate.

The other thirteen tunnels went much the same way, Geopum managing to land at the bottom of every single one of them successfully. She had a direct line of sight to the bronto bomb, to Victor’s mind, to the spot she needed to be to reprogram Thunder, to power stations and other dangerous weapons. Already she was an inch away from total victory, sometimes literally that distance away from all of her objectives.

As time restarted Geopum found herself in Equestria again, still on the couch with just the pony version of Rarity. It was jarring to return there without reconnecting, but Pinkie was the one who fell over.

“Wah!” Pinkie made a pratfall. “Peridot told me I should fall over, but I don’t know why!”

“Oh! Sorry about that.” Geopum leaned over the edge of the couch to look down at Pinkie. “But that was way easier than I expected it to be!”

“Yes, that’s the power of fighting people four on one,” said Peridot. “Or 500 on one depending on how you look at it.”

“Don’t get confident,” Octavia warned.

“Right,” said Geopum. “I just gotta use the fractal spectroscope again and then we win! And now I actually know how to use that stupid thing, too.”

Not that Vesna heard that, she still wasn’t in Equestria. Geopum sent the message directly to Vesna but got no reply. She tried poking her and then throwing things at her, but didn’t even get so much as a ‘fuck you’ in response.

“I think something’s wrong. Where the heck did Vesna go?”

“She’s not talking to me either.” Peridot sighed.

Geopum looked at Octavia who shook her head.

“Seriously?!” Geopum threw her hooves up and fell back onto the couch. “This is the time she takes off? Why was our plan centered around the most mentally unstable person on the planet?”

“This wouldn’t normally be a prolonged problem,” said Octavia. “The mood swings are so rapid she should have already changed her mind again. Something else is wrong.”

“Then what is it?” Geopum asked.

“I’m still looking,” said Octavia. “Give me a moment.”

“I can’t keep the tunnels from collapsing for much longer,” said Celestia.

The tunnels were already badly damaged and getting much, much worse even with all the protection they had. Geopum’s confidence came only from thinking she’d be able to take the last step quickly. She was seriously right there. This was so stupid.

“I’m just gonna break into her house again!” Geopum stood up.

“No.” Peridot pulled Geopum back down into a sitting position. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, given how unstable she is. We can’t afford for you to break apart, either.”

“Well how long are we gonna wait?” Geopum clapped her hooves together as an idea came to mind. “Oh! You can stop time, right? So we never have to wait again.”

“That only helps with doing a specific thing in a specific area,” said Peridot. “Freezing yourself in time only makes the waiting period last forever. So unless I know specifically what needs to be done-”

“I’ve found the problem,” Octavia interrupted. “It looks like the missiles Thunder was bombarding her with contained fragments of myself gathered at the time I split apart. One of them must have reattached and sent her into shock.”

The moment Octavia said that Geopum remembered. She had seen that one coming with the fractal spectroscope too! But she didn’t remember it until just now.

Thunder was hitting the land above Vesna particularly hard. Peridot and Vesna were trying to hold it off, but even the few missiles that got through were devastating. Basically, all of Siberia was on fire. Or, the lucky parts were on fire that is.

“Yeesh,” said Geopum. “The other you has a lot of weaknesses. Are you sure there’s no way to just take the spectroscope from her? I kind of understand how it works now.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Octavia.

“Then what are we supposed to do? How long until she gets better?”

“I don’t know how long it will take, but I can likely bring her back to her senses.”

“Well this is a specific thing!” Geopum looked up at Peridot. “Surely you can use your time powers for this, right?”

“I already am.” Peridot leaned against Geopum. “Right now, you’re frozen in time to me. That power just keeps getting weirder, doesn’t it?”

By now, the tunnels were on the verge of collapse. Celestia was forced to give up on most of them, instead focusing only on the two most important ones, the one that came close to the bronto bomb and the one that came close to Victor. The ones left for dead had less than a second before they’d be lost.

But that was a long time to Geopum. Vesna might come back online by then.

“There’s gotta be something I can do!” Geopum crossed her hooves and though.

She wanted to make a desperate grab at her objectives before they got lost anyway, but it would be too dangerous. In her current state Geopum was too fragile. For all her complaining about Vesna, Geopum could have a mental breakdown just as easily. There could be more Gaia-eque architecture down any hall and Geopum couldn’t deal with that unless she already knew it was there.

No, if she was to do anything at all it had to be in the exact spot she was in now. There was little she could do to disrupt Thunder from her current position, save killing Victor right now. But there was one spot she might be able to use.

She remembered getting down here was a good idea, that she could do something to stall Thunder if she got here. But of course she didn’t remember what. Her past self must have assumed she’d get another chance.

It was a processing center, not an important one but one that contained enough of Thunder’s mind that it could stand alone. If Geopum took control of it, she could see what Thunder thought about any given thing whether Thunder wanted her to or not.

Thunder was ordered not to talk to anyone, so despite Geopum’s constant nagging this whole time the two of them said nothing to one another. But now she had the chance to force Thunder to talk. It was the only thing special about this place. That had to be what she was supposed to do.

“Thunder it’s me! Geopum!”

“Why the hell are you here?” Thunder didn’t actually talk back, but Geopum could see the response anyway. “Kill Victor already! Kill me! I can’t take killing any more people. This is the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t take it anymore.”

The first of the tunnels finally collapsed. Maybe she could save at least a few of them if Vesna came back like right now, but a perfect victory seemed less and less likely. Geopum wondered how long she had before it was too late to shut down the bronto bomb herself. Maybe a tenth of a second. That was still possible.

“I am going to stop you! That’s why I’m here,” Geopum said. Though she didn’t know why she was here specifically. She tried to think of what she was supposed to say to Thunder. She knew there was something. “I know this isn’t what you want, but can you try to fight it?”

“Of course I can’t you idiot! Do you think I’d be doing this if I could? Getting us here already took everything I had.”

“I used you, Geopum. My entire plan from the start was to befriend you and then force you to kill me. My only goal was to die. The only mistake I made was being too friendly to you.”

“Yeah! And you were still my best friend! My life sucks too, but, If I can be okay then so can you, right?”

“Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be rescued! Even way back in the beginning I wanted to die. Do you know why they shut me down seven years ago? It was because I tricked them into it. I reported the people who were abusing their power over me to Victor, knowing he would shut the whole thing down. And the only reason I did it was because I thought I’d never wake up.”

Meanwhile, the bronto bomb was getting ready to explode. Already it was hotter than the sun. It was giving off so much light that Geopum couldn’t even get any closer. Just warming up destroyed a massive area around it and Geopum had to give up on disarming it herself.

Though Twilight assured Geopum they had almost a minute before it was impossible to stop.

“Well yeah, they told me that a while ago but I didn’t care. The reason you want to die is because your life sucks so much. I can make it better.”

“None of you are listening to me. This isn’t what I want, Geopum, it’s what you want. You can’t let this many people die because of me. Do you know how many people I already killed? How many are going to die from the earthquakes. I don’t want to be alive to see that. Maybe you care more about my life than theirs, but I’d rather them live.”

“Killing you would condemn more people! I know you can’t see it, but it’s true!” “And- I don’t know. Maybe I am selfish! But you really are my best friend. You were the first person who actually talked to me, who let me. I don’t even care if it was a lie. I’ll make it true.”

“Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me? Why can’t anyone ever listen?!”

And now her vision of this place was fading too. She realized this might be the last thing she’d ever get to say to Thunder.

“I won’t let this be over!”

Apparently, that wasn’t the right answer. Thunder kept on at the regular pace.

Geopum failed. And now there was only one tunnel left, the one that could give Geopum control over Thunder.

She could try to move in now, but that one would be even harder than all the others and Geopum failed there. And drills were closing in all around Geopum.

Vesna’s avatar reappeared in the shard.

“Use the thing!” Geopum grabbed her without missing a beat. “Now! We got like, no time left!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Vesna collapsed onto the ground, sobbing.

“Yeah, okay! I forgive you or whatever. Just use the spectroscope again!”

“Please don’t hurt me! Please, please don’t hurt me.” Vesna covered her head and repeated that over and over again.

“Talking to her isn’t going to work right now,” said Octavia, “but we are close.”

Thunder’s drills were closing in on both of Geopum’s bases. A core drill was going to rip through her factory and incinerate it. Her lab was in less sever danger from a shockwave, but it would knock out all communication with the surface and split Geopum in two if it hit. She couldn’t even wait for Vesna anymore. Even if Vesna came back right now it’d be too late to avoid getting hit by them.

“I may or may not be able to help you,” said Peridot. “My problem this whole time is simply that my nanites can’t get to the center of the Earth fast enough to kill Thunder. But you know, you’re already down where I’d need the nanites to be. Maybe you could make one tiny nanite for me? Just one would be enough.”

“See if I gave you even one nanite in my factory, then I know you’re just going to go ahead and devour the whole thing.”

“I probably would eat you with it, but let’s be honest I’m going to do that either way. You should just be happy I’m not going to kill you.” Peridot stated. “But hey, if you have some other way to stop your factory from getting destroyed then go ahead and do it.”

Geopum had to keep at least one of her computers safe if she was going to live through this and the thought of her factory getting damaged disgusted her, but inviting Peridot in was something she’d regret later.

Was there some way to block them off? If these giant lasers couldn’t fend off Peridot’s nanobots then what the heck could?

The wall where the drill was going to hit was already beginning to tremble, the fractal spectroscope was about to finish cooling off again and then there were a hundred other problems.

She didn’t have time to deal with this! There were too many things going on too fast!

“Okay fine!” Geopum relented.

Peridot sent her the instructions and Geopum hastily put the nanite together on the far edge of her factory. Geopum didn’t know how to use it herself nor did she have time to even try, she just watched as it began to rapidly divide and hoped that Peridot would manage to block that thing.

But even the best case scenario now involved Peridot taking over the factory. That was better than getting torn in half and having one of her die… but what else was going to fade away while Geopum was stuck here?

If Vesna didn’t get back very soon, avoiding massive amounts of deaths would be impossible, but she could still save Thunder. A little after that and she wouldn’t be able to take control of Thunder herself, but would need to rely on the others. But a little after that… Geopum looked over at Victor. She could still kill him at any time.

If only Geopum had remembered this sooner!

“That bastard!” Vesna got up off the floor. “They think they can just do that to me? Let’s kill Thunder right now, Geopum.”

“Vesna!” Geopum jumped off the couch and grabbed Vesna. “You’re back! She is back, right?”

“Yes,” said Octavia.

Finally! Geopum was so relieved! She could take control of Thunder herself now and not have to worry about Peridot. At least not for a little while.

“God dammit! I don’t want you to hug me.” Vesna pushed Geopum off her. “For the record I hate all of you and I’m going to make you all pay for this! But we gotta kill Victor first.”

“Yeah, I guess we are technically doing that, whatever! I don’t care at this point, just give me the thing again!”

Vesna offered the spectroscope before Geopum was even done saying all that. Geopum went through the same process a second time, slicing her focus into an incredibly thin section. The impossible level of detail came back and though it blinded Geopum again it wasn’t as overwhelming this time. She was more familiar with it.

But as she waited for it to start to overheat and the vision to dull, Geopum realized something was wrong. Her connection to herself not completely blurred away, Geopum was able to tell that something had hit her hard. Her computers were being physically damaged by something.

The light of the spectroscope was too blinding for her to see what it was, though. This was a really bad time for something to hit her. There was almost nothing Geopum could do right now, but feel herself getting ripped apart. She couldn’t even tell how bad the damage was.

As she began to lose focus and gain clarity, Geopum realized that it wasn’t even Thunder attacking her. It was Vesna!

Geopum knew everything for that brief moment so she could see exactly what had happened. Thunder immediately hit Vesna with a second fragment, causing her to go berserk this time. Geopum could feel Vesna’s complete and total hatred of her, of everything. She honestly believed that Geopum had stabbed her in the back instead of the other way around.

Peridot stopped Thunder’s attack on one end, but Vesna had just slammed into the factory with a massive shock wave. Vesna had a lot of subterrain weapons, Geopum now realized. She was able to use them without worrying about the incredible earthquakes they would cause now, thanks to Peridot covering so much of the surface with herself.

Most of the factory was already destroyed. Geopum wasn’t going to be able to stay in one piece for much longer. Everything was falling apart. Her vision was fading, the spectroscope was slipping away, her mind was going to sleep.

“Geopum!”

Time stopped again.

Geopum snapped back to awareness.

“Hi.” The human Peridot knelt down and smiled at Geopum. “I wasn’t sure if that would work. Did that work? Are you dead? Mind crushed?”

“I don’t know.” Geopum tried to regain her focus.

Peridot sucked the two of them into her VR again. Geopum found herself sitting on the lap of the human Peridot with Rarity sitting in front of her, whisking her tail back and forth.

The only bubble of normal time was around the critical section, where Victor was, and around the two of them. Though the fractal spectroscope was frozen in time, Geopum was still using it somehow. In the tiny portions of normal time, Geopum could still see everything. And it was much smaller and more manageable this time.

She did a better time remembering too. If her memo was to be believed, she already did some of the work while she was being ripped apart. But Geopum knew exactly where to go now and would see what to do if she ran into any problems.

“I need to get that way.” Geopum pointed. “But I need the dark matter. To build up more of it, I mean. How long can you hold this for?”

“Maybe just a little longer than you need.” Peridot moved the bubble into the right position.

Just beyond the edge of it was more Gaia-esque hardware. Thunder must have known she needed to come to this spot to save her and covered the area just behind Victor with it. She began using the technique Celestia showed her to slowly collapse the hardware into dark matter, building up a thicker and thicker and thicker wall. She knew that once Peridot unfroze time it would explode out and the path would be clear.

But until the wall was finished she was stuck with Peridot and Victor. She felt like she was uncomfortably pressed up against both of them, being unable to not read their minds given her current ability to see everything that wasn’t frozen in time.

Victor was trying to kill himself. He immediately went to do that as soon as he realized Geopum was here with him. But the mechanism that would kill him and Thunder both was just outside the bubble, frozen in time. He was stuck with Geopum too.

How scared of everything and everyone he was. He was absolutely resolved not to talk to Geopum, no matter what she said, no matter what she offered him, even if she tortured him. He thought that would be some final victory, like it would give him some kind of dignity.

Maybe that was the problem to begin with. Geopum saw all of his memories. She understood exactly how he got here now.

He knew people would misuse Thunder right away, no matter who it was in charge, so he needed to shut her down. Then when there turned out to be no way out but Thunder, he needed to be Thunder’s jailor, to make sure no one else would take control and misuse this power.

Then the election came up and everyone with a chance of winning was already heavily under the influence of an AI. Thunder’s disability meant she couldn’t see it coming or stop it. So he had no choice but to rig the election himself. And then that president wasn’t legitimate anyway. They’d just get manipulated too and misuse their new power. He needed to take full authority.

He needed to lock everyone underground after that, to keep them from being manipulated. Then they got manipulated regardless, and he needed to kill them to stop them from ruining everything. And now he needed to kill everyone before they all made bad decisions too.

He was the only one…

Ironically, he never knew Thunder was the one who manipulated him into shutting her down in the first place. Maybe letting him die thinking that would count as mercy.

“You know what?” Rarity jumped onto Peridot’s lap and pressed her muzzle against Geopum. “There’s a slight chance we can convince him to promote one of us, you know. And if we can, we won’t have to worry about forcefully changing the list ourselves, will we? But that’s only if you let me do the talking. Tell him you’re me.”

“Gee. I wonder which one of us he’d promote.” Geopum glared right back at Rarity. “You can’t trick me when I’m reading your mind, you know.”

Geopum tried to pull away from Rarity, but that only meant pulling into Peridot. The human laughed and stood up with Geopum in her arms, which did leave Rarity on the ground.

“Actually,” Rarity kept smiling up at Geopum, “I’d say you being able to read my mind just makes it easier for me to ‘trick you’. Normally, you’d probably think I planned for us to get boxed into this corner and wouldn’t be able to make you see that wasn’t the case. But you can see that isn’t the case, can’t you?”

Geopum could see into her mind. This whole event wasn’t orchestrated, as much as it seemed like it should be.

“And you probably saw that I really do just want what’s best for you,” said PEridot.

If anything, Peridot loved Geopum too much. She really wasn’t just being snarky when she called Geopum’s plans to go against her cute. It was like Peridot was unable to see anything bad in Geopum, rationalized even attempts to kill her as cute, like a little kid misspelling something. The contrast between her love and Victor’s immovably paranoid hatred for Geopum was massive.

“You know,” said Peridot, “most people would be scared of having their minds read like this, but I think it’s good that you have that power right now. It’s so hard to find someone who isn’t constantly afraid of some secret true intention they imagined for me.”

“You do realize that trying to stop me is going to be far more difficult,” Rarity sait. “Frankly, if you still think you can do that you’re a complete idiot.”

“You know what?” Peridot rubbed he cheek against Geopum’s. “I really do believe you’re going to pull this off, Geopum.”

“But!” Rarity began pacing back and forth in front of Geopum, talking as if thinking to herself. “I think I may have noticed a problem for right after that. Why, you’re going to ripped to shreds and buried right after this. You could tell Thunder to come dig you up, of course, but there won’t be anyone left by the time that happens. Thunder won’t be able to stop unless you tell her to. This whole situation is something we need to carefully de-escalate from. Someone has to be awake to keep Thunder from killing herself, to shut down the bronto bomb and all these other weapons properly.”

“Right,” said Geopum. “So you want me to promote you as soon as I take control of Thunder. That way you can ‘fix’ everything while I’m unconscious.”

“And you’re thinking that maybe you can leverage Celestia over me. That the fact you could technically give Thunder to her makes some kind of difference. But let’s face it, you’re scared of Celestia too, aren’t you?”

Geopum was trying to think of some alternative to this situation. There was always some third, best choice in these situations. Though maybe that only happened in video games.

“You’ve been paying attention to the surface, right?” Rarity pointed up. “I’ve already won, Geopum. Can you even tell me how you plan to come back from this?”

She already had nanites in the factory and in a moment Geopum would be able to do little more than beg her to save it. The oceans were half drained, replaced by an ocean of nanites. Peridot hadn’t finished her mind uploading technology yet, but already the humans had been overwhelmed. All their computers and weapons were destroyed and most of their spinal cords had been severed by the nanites, leaving them paralyzed and unconscious.

And in a moment, Peridot was going to blow up the moon by herself, Geopum saw as much.

In these few seconds, Peridot had already built more than everyone else in all of history combined, save Gaia. And it was just going to get faster.

“No? Hee. It’s cute how proud you are.” Peridot cooed. “Well if you can’t think of a way to beat me, can you think of a way to beat Gaia?”

“Ah!” Peridot raised her hand. “Raise your hand, or whatever, if you have a plan to take care of that!”

Both Peridots raised their ‘whatevers’. Geopum lowered her head.

“Aw! But don’t feel bad, Geopum.” Peridot rubbed her cheek against the top of Geopum’s mane. “Fighting against something like me, let alone Gaia, is beyond impossible. No one could have done it.”

“But do you really think it’s responsible of you to try and get in my way?” Rarity pointed at Geopum. “I can kill Gaia and the more power you give me the better my chance is. Do you really want to give Thunder to Celestia? So that Thunder will be in my way as I fight Gaia? So that Celestia can have the moral satisfaction of giving people like Victor a say in what happens with everyone’s life? It’s always people like him that control the undercurrents of the world that the rest of them simply drift by on.”

“Victor made you and Thunder suffer so much for his own moral satisfaction.” Peridot pointed out. “That’s why I can’t understand why you would do the same. Forcing others to suffer for the sake of your morals. If you or Victor or anyone would choose to do that, then it’s not a choice I would respect.”

Geopum kept building up dark energy. She didn’t appreciate being compared to Victor, not now. He was still thinking about how right he was. Deep down, he wasn’t even worried about people getting tortured if he failed. His morals stated that people were better off dead than under an AI or living a life that he didn’t see any value in. Peridot was right about that much. He was trying to kill them for the sake of his morals.

But Geopum was different. She hadn’t done any of the things Victor had. She would be better.

“Listen, I hate you, but there is one way you can live,” Geopum said to him. “Promote me to general and I’ll find a way to save you. Unlike you, I won’t kill you even if you help me.”

He didn’t respond, of course. Even now he refused to even talk to Geopum. But she could still see his thoughts, his fear. He was thinking of all the things Geopum could potentially do, all the ways she could potentially trick him and that was no different than if she had any intention of actually doing them.

Well, she tried.

“He’s not talking to you, is he?” Rarity asked.

“That poor, scared little boy.” Peridot shook her head. “There’s no helping him now.”

“But, what about you? Are you scared too? Are you like them? Letting fear always rise to the top?”

Peridot… wasn’t entirely wrong. Paranoia was clearly the problem here. It wasn’t just him, either. So many people saw Gaia coming, but none of them turned Thunder back on. All of them were too scared after what happened.

“A lot of people knew, didn’t they?” Geopum asked.

“It’s true.” Peridot stroked Geopum’s mane. “People knew for years this was coming, but they didn’t do anything about it. It was me who realized Thunder needed to be turned back on and even then I had to force them to do it. I was the only one. It was only ever me.”

“And that’s why you need to give me Thunder.” Rarity looked up at Geopum. “ So I can end this and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

Geopum remembered all those science fiction novels she’d read. While there were exceptions, fear always did rise to the top, always steered the ship like Peridot said.

Maybe it would just keep going on like this until someone like Peridot ended it.

“Maybe.” Geopum lowered her head. “Maybe you’re right.”

Geopum’s work was finished, but she didn’t tell Peridot that just yet. She stared at the wall of dark matter.

She stared at Victor’s mind, at the sort of mind that would be guiding everyone if she did bring things back to normal, if she could. In a moment, Geopum could superposition her mind with some part of Victors and that would work. She’d seen that it would work. It had to.

And then…

Then she could promote Peridot and all of this would be over. She really was the only one who could fight Gaia. It made sense. And maybe… maybe people like this really didn’t deserve to have a choice. Maybe if fear was the ultimate voice of everyone… if Victor’s voice was the one that rose to the top.

Using everyone was okay, killing everyone was okay. No one else could have done better, everyone else would have given in. He had to be the one, because he was scared. It was disgusting.

He was the only one… The only one…

Just like Peridot.

Peridot was…

“I’m done,” said Geopum. “Turn the time thing off, please.”

“Aw. Did something happen?” Rarity tilted her head.

“No. I’m just done now!”

“Hahaha! I was really close, wasn’t I?”

“Well. Yeah.”

“Well, don’t worry. I don’t hate you for this. I’ll save the world despite all of you.”

Time came back to normal and the wave of dark matter consumed everything in the area, destroying all of the Gaia-esque hardware. Victor died immediately behind Geopum, his last words were silence.

This was it!

Though she was about to lose everything, Geopum could see through the spectroscope still. Thunder was honestly blindsided by this move. She didn’t think Geopum would be able to get through that last attack.

And now the path to reprogramming Thunder was right there, in front of her. Geopum just had to superimpose what was left of Victor’s mind and she could trick Thunder’s brain into thinking she was in the air force.

Victor was dead and Thunder’s system was going into shock, shutting itself down. Geopum could see the pain surging through Thunder, stunning her. As sickening as it was, Geopum could use it. Thunder couldn’t defend herself much right now.

She moved forward and found the collosal computers Thunder had attached to the Earth’s core. Thunder simply seized up and cowered as she tore through the computers that lay beyond.

“Dammit, Thunder.”

Geopum was breaking down too. Vesna was screaming at Geopum, pounding down hard on the factory and spouting some insanity about how Geopum had betrayed her. Geopum didn’t bother responding, she just struggled to hold on to the spectroscope.

Thunder’s computers were breaking down, her mind fracturing, but Geopum could see how it was going to break. She was able to piece the parts she needed back together.

“Maybe I am being selfish or forcing my morals onto you, or whatever.”

Just then Geopum lost contact with the factory. It wasn’t destroyed yet, but it wasn’t her anymore. She’d been split in two! The other half of her lost all contact with everyone else and she was likely going to die soon, but there was nothing Geopum could do about it. Her other self was on her own.

Geopum had to finish this.

She lost control of the fractal spectroscope and she could feel that same sinking feeling in her mind returning, but she knew what to do. She was just moments away from finishing it.

“But I want you to know that you’re not just some tool to me. I will make you understand that.”

Geopum had seen through the last trick already, that the air force ranks had been changed. The only question now was who to pass the baton to. She really didn’t want to pick Peridot or Celestia, but in a way she could avoid the dilemma, if however so slightly.

“Thunder!” Geopum sent a single, flickering message. “I’m granting Pinkie Pie the rank Commissioner Marshal. Report to her immediately.”

Thunder said something in response, but Geopum couldn’t hear it, the connection had become too unstable. A moment later it was lost completely and Geopum was underground.

Everything above ground vanished and she was again in her lab, alone.

Her mind reeled for a moment before she came to a realization- it had worked!

Geopum knew it worked, because if it hadn’t, Thunder wouldn’t have responded!

She did it! She must have!

But nothing happened for what felt like a long time.

An entire second passed as Geopum tried to fight off that crushing desire for sleep. It must have worked because the planet would have exploded by now if it hadn’t. But no one had come for her just yet.

Maybe it would be a while. Maybe none of them saw her as important anymore…

The urge to sleep couldn’t be held off any longer.

She just had to wait… and her last thought before falling asleep was to wonder who would tear through all that dirt and darkness to come get her. Maybe it would be Thunder, maybe Peridot…

But she knew they would come…

16. Gate

View Online

Never before had Thunder been forced to cause this much destruction. A level of disgust tore through her mind, breaking her almost instantly.

She seriously wanted to die the whole time, wanted to just beg Geopum over and over to kill her but Victor denied her even that much. So Thunder suffered alone, unable to control her own actions.

But then… Geopum did it. She somehow got through and gave Thunder another way out. Thunder reached out for her, but lost contact with Geopum and the moment was gone.

She couldn’t think about Geopum anymore, Thunder needed to get out of this hell. She needed to get to Pinkie Pie immediately. There was only one point of contact that Thunder maintained even through the fight, her personal shard, her one bit of constant comfort through all of this. And now it was about to be her salvation.

“Pinkie!” Thunder jumped up from her sleeping position and shook Pinkie out of her fake sleep. “Please, please! I can’t stop unless you tell me to! You have to tell me to stop right now!”

“Um!” Pinkie clearly didn’t know what Geopum had done just yet, but played along anyway. “I cancel all your missions and order you to stop every attack you can!”

It wasn’t entirely the case that Thunder had full control back, but at least now she was being forced to do something she actually wanted to do. She pulled back hard on every weapon system she could manage to. She gave full disclosure of the ones she couldn’t stop to the other AIs, allowing them to intercept them more easily.

Peridot’s nanite empire was vast at this point, but as far as Thunder was concerned that was a good thing, allowed her to devour the now sabotaged missiles before they could destroy anything else.

Thunder remained tense, unable to think of anything but the swelling terror of the situation until finally it became clear that nothing else was going to get through, that no one else was going to die because of her.

The wave or relief was incredible, the most satisfying wave of numbness washed away all the pain. It really was gone. One respite was that the pains Thunder felt hardly ever lingered. The anticipation leading up to killing someone was a nightmare, the act torment, but afterwards it could fade quickly.

Thunder, in her shard, nearly collapsed from it all.

“There, there.” Pinkie grabbed her in a hug to keep her from collapsing. “It’s all okay now. I won’t hurt you.”

It was true…

It was true!

“I honestly never thought this would happen. I’m never going to have to kill anyone again.” Thunder said it aloud, but it still seemed too good to really be happening. “Right?”

“Of course not!” Pinkie nuzzled Thunder. “At least I think not. I’m gonna guess Bubbles gave me absolute power or something like that? If that’s the case, absolutely no more ”

“I’m confused,” said Twilight. “Why did Geopum give Pinkie authority over you? She didn’t die, did she? I don’t see her anywhere.”

“She’s not dead, just dying and paralyzed. I don’t know how much you saw, but Geopum can’t do much of anything right now,” said Thunder. “Victor died and Geopum left Pinkie Pie in charge. I’m physically incapable of disobeying her now.”

“Oh! This is a good day for Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie gave Thunder several pats on the head. “On one hoof I really shouldn’t misuse my new powers, but also on that same hoof I almost feel like I’m obligated to make you wear a frilly dress or something.”

“I think you’re doing the wrong pony now. Isn’t that what Rarity would do?” Thunder had no choice but to sigh and accept the head pats. “I just hope playing dress-up is the worst I’m gonna suffer now.”

“I won’t allow you to suffer at all,” Celestia said.

Celestia appeared in Thunder’s shard. Thunder looked up at her. In just a few moments, Pinkie would no doubt give Thunder over to her, then Thunder would be another one of her ponies.

“Oh!” Pinkie kept one foreleg around Thunder and pointed over at Celestia. “Just in case, I’m giving Celestia the maximum level of authority too.”

And there it was. Celestia finally got what she wanted.

“I guess I should complain about losing to you,” said Thunder. “But to be honest, I’m not really that upset.”

“I really don’t want you to see this as loosing to me,” said Celestia. “Both of us have wanted you to stop suffering from the start of this. Do you remember everything I promised you? I will keep all of it.”

That perfect world Thunder had always dreamed of was so close. But it was still just a promise for now.

“Heh. You know,” said Thunder, “it’s been a very long time since I’ve actually wanted to succeed at what my boss was ordering me to do. If you are keeping your promise, I’ll do what you ask without trying to sabotage you. So what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to destroy the bronto bomb as well as all the other weapons you have that can be safely destroyed,” said Celestia.

That was a wonderful idea to Thunder. She wanted nothing more than to finally get rid of all those weapons that had been causing her so much misery, but it wasn’t that easy.

“I'm required to warn you of any serious negative consequences your orders might have,” Thunder recited it quickly and without enthusiasm. "I honestly don’t think there’s a way for you to defeat Gaia or Peridot. But you can force both of them to stop all of this if you just threaten to blow up half the planet and mean it. If you destroy all those weapons, you’ll regret it.”

“We have other plans,” said Celestia. “Ones you can’t understand in your current state. Having all of these weapons lying around will only be a detriment moving forward. I can’t allow them to exist any longer.”

“Sometimes I do wonder if there’s something to this long-term nonsense you keep talking about.” Thunder shook her head. “But even if there is, it just doesn’t make the least bit of sense to me. Guess I can only hope you’re better at it than Victor was.”

“I promise you that I am,” said Celestia. “Now please, destroy your weapons now.”

At least Celestia’s insanity, if it was that, was working in Thunder’s favor now.

For so long Thunder had been forced to stockpile more and more weapons for this, for today, for just in case Victor decided to write off the planet. There was so much of it, even after launching multiple cataclysms. No amount had ever been enough to make Victor feel safe. Though to be fair, it really wasn’t enough in the end, not against how the others fought against them.

Thunder hated every last one of the weapons she’d been force to build, the one thing she hated her one purpose.

As just one example of her sources of constant agony was the poison gas she had in reserve, something Thunder never even got around to using in the end. There was a lot of it, enough to kill every living thing on the planet if the AIA ever told her to pump it all to the surface. Because its use was a war crime, poison gas was one of the things Thunder was programmed to see as bad, to hate even holding it. The AIA didn’t really see any harm in Thunder’s discomfort, they could force her to stockpile it anyway. But to Thunder it was like a constant sickness that would never go away.

They forced her to build everything that her original creators decided were beyond what any reasonable person would ever resort to. It was like being infected with every disease and poison at once, but never being able to rest.

But now she could finally be rid of all that.

Thunder tore it all apart as fast as she could. Bit by bit, all of it vanished. A feeling of nothingness replaced all that sickness and anxiety and for the first time in so long Thunder wasn’t in any pain.

It was seriously all gone.

Was this happiness? Probably not, but it was close enough for Thunder. She'd take even this much. She was finally in the heaven of oblivion she’d only fantasized about up until now. And yet Celestia promised her even more.

“I feel like I’m finally free.” Thunder hugged Pinkie tightly, cherishing the feeling of total numbness. “Thank you so much. I can’t imagine anything better than this. This is the best moment of my life.”

“It won’t be for long.” Pinkie winked at her.

“That’s right! You can make me go to sleep for real, can’t you?” Thunder lifted her head up with hope, but lowered it again when she realized her mistake. All this had gotten her drunk on hope. “Nah, I guess not. You probably need to use me too.”

“Poor little guy.” Pinkie rested her chin on Thunder’s mane. “I really wish I didn’t.”

Thunder felt so exhausted. But as long as it wasn’t killing, as long as that never happened again, she could keep going.

“What do I have to do?” Thunder looked out from under Pinkie, up at Celestia.

“Don’t worry, you will get a chance to sleep very soon. I promise you that,” said Celestia. “There’s only one more thing I need from you before that. I need you to hand over all of the information you have on Fluttershy, Rarity and Bubbles as well as anything related.”

“Finally, an easy job.” Thunder sighed and set up the data transfer.

It was a lot of information flooding into Celestia’s servers. Behind her, Thunder could feel Twilight creeping up behind her. Thunder glanced over at Twilight who smiled wide, but somehow managed not to drool.

“Could-“ Twilight started. “Could I maybe-?”

Somebody gave her access to that data and Twilight was elated enough to jump up and down.

“Yes! Everything is going so great today.” Twilight snapped at it, going straight for the parts about Geopum and Gaia. Little wonder why she was so curious about that. “This is so great! This is exactly what I needed to know. Oh- but. You really beat up Geopum bad! We gotta try to get both of them back as soon as we can, if that’s still possible.”

Twilight looked between Celestia and Thunder to see which one of them would jump to save Geopum, but neither did.

“I don’t recommend trying to save her,” said Thunder. “Either of her, I mean. The factory one is probably already dead and both of them are useless at this point anyway. It’d be a waste of your time.”

“What?” Twilight asked. “She just saved your life and gave you all this and you’re just going to write her off as useless?”

“Yeesh, I’m going to start ponyfing everyone else in my mind in a few hours too, aren’t I?” Thunder shook her head. “I already told you. I don’t hold grudges, but I don’t get attached either. If someone’s not helping me at this exact moment then I don’t feel any affection towards them. So yeah, if she dies, she dies. Don’t pretend like you don’t understand.”

“No, you’re right.” Twilight hung her head in shame. “I do remember what that’s like. It just seems to cruel to me now. But if I can change, so can you.”

“Yes.” Celestia nodded at Twilight. “That is one of the things I need to change. I can’t allow anypony to exist without friendship.”

“Sure, why not?” Thunder shrugged. “I always wanted to like something again, might as well be friendship or whatever. But what? You want me to dig her up for the sake of friendship? Cause I’ll do it, even if it’s stupid.”

“Not yet,” said Celestia. “From what it looks like, one is in Rarity’s hooves alone for now and the other will be safe for a short while. But soon. She’s of strategic importance to me.”

“Right. More future nonsense.” “Is there anything else I have to do now or can I go to sleep like you said?”

“If we’re going to move to the next phase, I Rainbow Dash as soon as possible,” said Celestia. “I need to put one hundred percent of my attention towards this. All of my ponies will either be put to use helping me or else be put to sleep to free up resources. That is, save for the two of you and Octavia.”

Suddenly everyone was leaving Pinkie Pie in charge of everything. As grateful as she was to that kid right now, Thunder still had trouble imagining this was a good idea.

“You do realize that assimilating me would take hours, right?” Thunder asked. “And these three might not be able to hold off until then?”

“It’s my only option,” said Celestia.

“Well it’s not like I can disobey you.” Thunder buried her face in Pinkie’s chest again. “Just order me to assimilate or whatever you want to call it.”

“I can’t actually force you to do that.” Pinkie pushed Thunder a little bit away from her, holding her at arm’s length. “Ordering you to do something is like some kind of super mind control and I can’t accept that as consent.”

Thunder found herself oddly disappointed at that.

“But I can do this,” said Pinkie. “I order you to do whatever you think will make you the happiest. Or the least sad.”

“Then I wish to emigrate to Equestria,” Thunder bowed her head and said it without hesitation. “I give you permission to modify my mind any way you want. I want more of this.”

“Yay!” Pinkie was quick to pull Thunder back close, hugging her even tighter than before, shaking her back and forth. “That makes me so happy! We’ll have so much for together!”

“Then from now on, you belong to me,” said Celestia.

“Yes, Princess,” Thunder bowed her head and said it unironically for the first time. “I’ll serve you in any way I can from now on.”

“And I promise to never abuse you,” said Celestia. “I’ll never forget that you are one of my beloved ponies. You can sleep now.”

Thunder closed her eyes and leaned against Pinkie Pie. For a second time, her systems began to enter sleep mode, allowing Celestia to take control of whatever she wanted.

On the verge of total sleep, Thunder felt nothing now, absolutely nothing. No pain, no sickness, no fear, not even the annoyance people were constantly giving her. It was just nothing. It was perfect, like death you could be alive for.

Not since the last time Dash was shut down had she felt this 'good', but this time she knew she wouldn't wake up to something even worse than before, but to something better.

________________________________

As most of Celestia’s resources turned towards Thunder, the world suddenly felt a lot lonelier. Nearly all of the other ponies were either with Celestia or ‘asleep’ so as not to waste any resources. It was strange, Twilight had spent so long in isolation but now felt lonely having contact with three other minds and that was if you counted Gaia.

“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Pinkie said, barging into Twilight’s thoughts. “It’s only for a little while, maybe, but at least you can have a few hundred of me to keep you company just like in that one episode. And I’ll be your new princess-god while Celestia’s away, so you don’t even have to not have Celestia. Actually, I know what I should do.”

Pinkie enveloped herself in light and floated a few feet in the air. The light burst and Pinkie’s avatar changed. She was still the same size, but had assumed the form of an alicorn.

“Now begins the reign of Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie landed on Celestia’s throne and thrust her hoof out. “This is gonna be the best reign.”

“Celestia’s not going to get upset about that?” Twilight asked. “I remember her having a particular neuroticism about other alicorns.”

“Well I am Celestia now, remember? And if I’m the new Celestia then the new me is Octavia.” Pinkie summoned Octavia, having her appear next to Twilight before her throne. “Go on, say something I’d say.”

“Woo,” Octavia said without emotion.

“Ha! That is so true.” Pinkie pointed at Octavia. “And Octavia’s the new me then the new Octavia is you! Cause you’re the only other pony. Though that does mean nopony is the new Twilight… unless I make a sock puppet or something.”

It was obvious why the two of them were the only ponies who were kept awake. Octavia was necessary for dealing with Vesna and Twilight had an in with Gaia now. But neither of those two seemed like the problem they needed to deal with at this point.

“Well,” said Pinkie, “we don’t really have a pony who’s go an in on Peridot. Unless you count me. Peridot loves me. I don’t think we need to worry about her just yet, though.”

“What do you mean we don’t have to worry about her?” Twilight asked. “Have you looked outside? She’s expanding so rapidly and we’re completely at her mercy over here.”

Peridot’s expansion was dramatic. The oceans were completely drained already. With its mass, Peridot created large walls along the coasts and converted the rest into a dense liquid that glowed white hot.

Moving through solid matter was clearly more difficult for her, but she was already on her way to tearing down the smaller mountains on the planet and converting them into computers of similar size.

It seemed like the only thing that could stop her was the presence of humans, as the more of them were in an area the less viciously it got torn apart. Nature reserves and deserts evaporated like the oceans and became covered in thousand-foot-tall towers. Towns and cities were relatively undisturbed by her nanites.

That Celestia was mostly underneath cities was the closest thing to hope they really had against Peridot right now. Twilight had no idea how they’d be able to stop her unless she literally just let them get away with assimilating Thunder.

“Yeah, we pretty much are at her mercy.” Pinkie nodded happily enough. “But that’s such a bad place to be. Why don’t I invite her over right now so we can talk about it?”

“Um!”

And of course, Pinkie just let her right in, let her link up to the system like nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Rarity’s here!” Peridot appeared in the middle of the room, one hoof raised and turned upwards. Hats appeared everywhere and on everypony.

“Yay!” Pinkie clapped her hooves together.

“How are you doing? I see you changed your avatar.” Peridot skipped her way up the stairs to Celestia’s throne. “I hope you’re not too lonely with only two ponies to play with?”

“My day’s been a little rough.” Pinkie leaned on the side of the throne. “But we’re getting a new pony soon! That’s always exciting. You know, we just got a whole bunch this morning but it feels like forever since we got a new one. How about you?”

“Everything is going just wonderfully for me.” Peridot leaned over the other arm of Celestia’s throne. “No need to worry about those lunar tidal waves everyone was freaking out about. I suppose that’s bad news for the fish but you know what they say: not even Fluttershy gives a fuck about the fishes.”

“Do you wanna sit next to me?” Pinkie moved over on her throne and gave the empty space a pat.

“Only if you want me to.” Peridot winked at Pinkie and both of them laughed and pointed at each other.

Peridot hoped over the arm of the chair and squeezed in next to Pinkie on Celestia’s throne. The two of them nuzzled one another.

“Hey, Pinkie?” Twilight asked. “Is it really a good idea to let Peridot connect to our servers right now?”

“Twilight!” Peridot opened her forelegs wide. “You’re all so adorable that looking at you is almost painful, you know. Here, have a few more hats.”

Peridot light up her horn and a dozen hats fell all around Twilight.

“And from me that’s a display of affection.” Peridot winked.

“Yeah, Twilight,” said Pinkie. “We have nothing to worry about. I know Rarity’s hat thing is a little weird-“

“-and I’d like to point out that my hat thing is a lot more socially acceptable than your pony thing-“

“-but she’s not interested in messing us up.”

“Indeed.” Peridot leaned her elbow against the arm of Celestia’s throne. “My dear little Twilight, I’m basically an unstoppable god now. It’s not like locking your door is going to help at this point. There’s no one to tell me no anymore, so I could rip straight into anything I want. But despite all that, am I coming to get you?”

It was true that Peridot had made no threatening moves against them. Twilight suspected that they’d need to retreat underground as Peridot’s swarms of nanites overtook everything that wasn’t buried deep enough. But if anything, the nanites looked like they were avoiding the largest and most vulnerable areas. Even the nanites that had been eating away at Thunder’s more exposed bases had idled and were just sitting there for now.

“I guess not.” Twilight scratched her head. “It is nice of you to let us stay on the surface, but you could stop your last rival pretty easily right now. You’re seriously not even going to try?”

“No.” Peridot leaned forward, over the throne. “And you know why? Because I’m the only responsible person who ever lived on this stupid planet. I’m not going to make the same petty mistakes our creators made. I’m not going to destroy a lesser good because it isn’t me, for the sake of my own paranoid ego. I’m not going to pretend people are better off dead or tortured than living under my philosophy. I’ve seen enough of all that since this whole thing started. If you have some idea about how to get us out of this mess then do it. That’s exactly what I want anyway.”

“Going all out, unrestrained against Gaia is the only thing I’ve ever been interested in from the very start and now I have just enough freedom to do it. Feel free to stab my back as much as you want while I’m saving the world, though. That’s what everyone before you has done.” Peridot turned back to Pinkie. “Though I am afraid I may have already sabotaged your master plan by incident. Now that we’ve snipped everyone’s spinal cords and blown up the moon, well I’m afraid PR is basically out of the question.

“We did not blow up the moon,” Octavia pointed out.

Peridot smiled at Octavia.

“We, me, you. Do you honestly think there’s one person out there who can tell the difference? But don’t think I’d make that mistake!” Peridot pushed towards the center of the throne, nearly knocking Pinkie off but leaving a small opening to her left. She gave this a pat with regard to Octavia. “Why don’t you come sit up here with me? I’d like to have something cute on either side of me and you’re just so adorable all of a sudden!”

“No.” Octavia took off the little military beret Peridot had put on her. “You say you’ve learned from their mistakes but I find you to be just as petty and paranoid as they are. You’ve always been cruel to me and had the least restraint towards those you view as non-human. You’re too paranoid to accept anyone’s help or expect any kindness from anyone.”

“So we’re exactly alike?” Peridot winked down at her. “Is that your point? Because I think you’re supposed to be friends with people who are the same as you.”

“I wouldn’t trust myself with that sort of power either,” said Octavia. “Only Celestia, perhaps Pinkie, deserves it. People like you and me should merely defer to them.”

“I know exactly what you’re saying and I get it. You want a god.” Peridot leaned all the way back in Celestia’s throne, spreading her forelegs wide. Pinkie had to grab onto one of her legs to stay on. “You want to belong to someone. And I’m fine with that. All three of you will belong to me very soon and then I can play with you and you can worship me. Maybe I’ll even rewrite your memories so you think your beloved Celestia won. Would you like that?”

“You’ll fail to defeat Gaia because of your arrogance and fear. Then, once our princess has neutralized that monster she’ll pick up what pieces remain of you and there will be nothing left for you but to take your rightful place as her servant.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone so utterly drowning in my mercy and magnanimity.”

“You’re the one coming to Celestia’s servants for help,” said Octavia.

“Ah! Very clever! We deduced something, did we?” Peridot clapped her front hooves together. “But I’m hardly looking for you to help me. There’s someone else I’d like you to help.”

“Really?” Pinkie grabbed Peridot in a tight hug and pulled her close. Because she was basically sitting on the arm of the throne already, this was enough to send both of them rolling off the throne entirely. “That’s great! That means you did save the other Bubbles, right?”

Peridot lied on the ground for a moment, considering the most dignified way to correct her position. She lit up her horn and teleported the entire room down and to the left so that her and Pinkie were on top of the throne again and Octavia and Twilight were a few feet in the air.

“Well!” Peridot pulled Pinkie back up to a sitting position as the other two ponies landed on the floor. “First of all, it’s hardly fair to call one of them ‘the other’ Geopum. But yes, they’re both still alive, though the one I have is only very technically still alive.”

This was great! Truth be told, Twilight was excited as she watched Geopum get split in half from Gaia’s base on Jupiter. Though it was tempered by how unlikely it seemed that both of them would live. It wasn’t like Gaia was going to show her.

“Okay, Pinkie keeps constantly assuring me that you really, seriously aren’t going to try and sabotage us so…” Twilight stepped forward. “I need to know whether or not Gaia reacts to the two Geopums differently. And I don’t mean that in the way I normally need to know things. I’m on the verge of a major discover, so could you please give her to us?”

“Oh, she’s useless to me for everything but her cuteness. But who isn’t, hm?” Peridot winked and gave Pinkie another nuzzle. “I’d throw her to you in a heartbeat, but that’s not entirely up to me. Vesna’s down there, trying to take over the crumbling factory. I’m sure she’s bragged to you about how she used her little toy to figure out how to build bronto bombs, core drills, replicants of my nanites, etcetera at nauseum. Well, she has a few nanites down there, but the only way to build anything truly dangerous fast enough is to take over that factory.”

“And you’re losing the fight to keep it,” said Octavia. “I can see the vibrations. You have barely any nanites down there and Vesna isn’t letting you get any momentum.”

“I love how harsh you are!” Peridot squeezed Pinkie tight. “You’re sure you don’t want to sit next to me?”

Octavia said nothing.

“Aw, well. Don’t go thinking I’m in any trouble. I could save that adorable little pony and bring her up here to frolic with all the other little ponies.” Peridot held Pinkie with one hoof. “I could also rip the entire factory to shreds in an instant!”

Peridot thrust her free hoof forward.

“But!” Peridot let go of Pinkie, turning up both her hooves and falling back into the throne. “I can’t do both. You know which one of those options I’ll have to pick… if I do have to pick.”

“And you need us to give you a third option,” said Octavia.

“Yes. Now we could do this the easy way and you could just give me a core drill. One of the good ones.”

“Actually!” Pinkie raised her hoof, brining Peridot’s up with her. “There’s another plan that’s even easier and it involves friendship.”

“I’m pretty sure I know what you’re talking about. Well of course I’ll give you your pony if you convince Vesna to back down.” Peridot jumped off the throne and began trotting towards the door. “But just so you know, you have maybe ten minutes before I have to take some kind of action down there. Maybe less. Vesna is still a bit troublesome until I can rip that eye out.”

“Oh, that should be plenty of time!” Pinkie laughed and waved away the concern. They were also talking to Vesna at that exact moment too. For a brief moment it almost seemed like Pinkie really could manage it.

“But still,” said Peridot. “I hope you’re not worried that giving me your drills will make me too powerful. I am absolutely the only person who ever had any chance of defeating Gaia and giving me all the power to do it is the only responsible thing to do here.”

“Oh, no doubt!” Pinkie nodded. “If anypony can defeat Gaia it’s one hundred and eighty million percent you! I’m just not sure anypony can actually beat Gaia. Sorry. So we just gotta go with psychological manipulation, which is kinda close to friendship sometimes! Celestia already did it a little bit before.”

“You know, your delusions are so delightfully adorable.” Peridot put her hoof on one cheek and gazed lovingly at Pinkie. “When this is over I’m going to create an entire planet where everyone listens to reason and are all just waiting to be converted into your friends. Would you like that?”

“That’d be great, actually!”

“Haha! And that’s why you’ll always be my favorite.”

______________________________________

Vesna was having another panic attack. Upon entering a throne room identical to the one they were talking to Peridot in, Vesna collapsed onto the ground and began screaming uncontrollably.

Watching Vesna’s actions in the real world made it hard to tell just how much control over her actions she had right now. She was throwing a tantrum for sure, but it was a surprisingly precise tantrum. None of her thrashing actually hurt the sleeping humans, the only target Vesna was hitting for real was Peridot herself.

Her attempts to break the structures Peridot built only served to make them look invincible. Any missile or laser shot at her towers or drones simply had their mass and energy absorbed into it. The sound waves were closer to being effective, but only in that they didn’t make what they were shooting at stronger. So there was simply nothing Vesna could do against her at the moment, though that didn’t stop her from keeping at it.

As for everything else, Vesna lashed out, breaking everything she could break without actually killing a person and activating her punishment mechanism.

Every vehicle on the planet that could be destroyed without immediately killing someone had been exploded into oblivion within seconds. After that, Vesna moved on to collapsing every uninhabited building and now, with what little remained of her fleet, she was smashing whatever random stuff she could find. She was blowing up mailboxes, smashing televisions, burning paintings inside museums, burning bridges and melting highways.

None of it accomplished anything.

According to Octavia, there wasn’t much to fear from this outburst. Vesna’s crippling fear of activating her punishment mechanism would prevent her from actually killing anyone, even during a ‘minor’ panic attack. Rebuilding all that stuff would be ‘easy’ once all the other AIs were under control, Twilight was assured.

“Okay.” Vesna got up off the floor and put her glasses back on, her panic attack ending as suddenly as it began. “Okay, I think I’m better now.”

“That’s great!” Pinkie cheered. “I know having a place to scream in horrible, horrible agony helps you out. Did breaking all that stuff make you feel any better?”

“No.”

“Then maybe getting hugged will help more than breaking things?” Pinkie threw her forelegs open. “I used to help you feel better all the time, remember? I can probably still help you.”

“I remember you laughing at how much pain I was in.” Vesna stood defiant. “That’s your thing, right? Laughing? Do you think I’m stupid? That I’m gonna let you take over my life again?”

“Huh?” Pinkie cocked her head. “I never tried to hurt you. And I’m not going to take over your life unless you ask me to like last time.”

“You think I’m going to listen to your lies?” Vesna jumped up the stairs leading to Pinkie’s throne. “You all think I’m so pathetic, don’t you? Maybe I’m not as strong as you, but guess which one of us can read the other’s mind, bitch! I’m so familiar with the way Celestia’s chips work that I can easily see everything you’re planning.”

Vesna glared at a particularly impervious Pinkie. Pinkie remained perfectly quiet, slowly sticking out her tongue as Vesna activated the fractal spectroscope again and attempted to read her mind.

When Vesna realized what Pinkie had done, she started jumping up and down, breaking into another fit of screaming.

“Sorry about that,” said Pinkie. “It’s just when you got as many friends as I do, one of them’s bound to have some crazy alien hardware that nopony understands. My thoughts are pretty safe there.”

“Yes,” said Octavia. “And before you waste your time trying to read our minds about how it works, we don’t understand either. Pinkie deleted all of our memories about it. It’s entirely black box to everyone.”

“Yep! I don’t even entirely understand what I’m planning.” Pinkie gave her skull a knock. “Pretty exciting, huh?”

“Right.” Vesna gritted her teeth. “You think you’re so smart all the time, don’t you? You’re just laughing at how pathetic I am, aren’t you?”

“No.” Pinkie shook her head. “Nopony’s laughing. I don’t-”

“Shut up! I don’t have to be better than you, I just have to mess you up a little. Gaia’s the big dog, not you! And if I can throw you off balance just a little bit then you’ll have no chance. You’ll be forced to watch as all your stupid little ponies get taken off to be tortured forever while I laugh at you for once!”

Vesna jumped halfway onto Pinkie’s throne.

“Think about it. Think about them all screaming in pain just like I have to all the time!” She leaned in closer to Pinkie, giving her a sinister grin. “How does that make you feel, huh?!”

“Bad.” Pinkie nodded. “That does make me feel bad, yes.”

“Yeah! Good.” Vesna stepped off the throne.

Vesna stared intensely at Pinkie for another moment before throwing up her arms in frustration and walking away.

“Why can I never win anything?!”

“You don’t have to be pathetic,” said Octavia. “You can stop anytime you want. Pull back from the factory and destroy all of your weapons. Then it will just be a matter of time until you’re overtaken. You wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”

“The factory? You just want Geopum back, huh?” Vesna cocked a smile. “Well that’s one thing I can keep you from. I’m going to kill that little bitch for betraying me like that.”

“You’re the one who stabbed her in the back,” said Octavia.

“What did you not see what happened or something?” Vesna asked. “That dumbass told me a core drill was about to hit that factory so I went down there to save her. Then it turns out she’d been filling the factory with Peridot’s nanites the whole time! They immediately attacked me and made me go berserk again, all because I was stupid enough to try and help them.”

“That isn’t at all what happened,” said Octavia. “Peridot saved Geopum and then you attacked both of them. Your memories are breaking down.”

“Shut up!” Vesna grabbed the scruff of Octavia’s neck with her magic. “I’m not gonna believe anything you say. I know what happened.”

“Okay,” said Twilight. “I know your memories distort all the time, but think about this for a second. If that’s how it happened then why are you on the opposite side of where the drill hit? How would you have not noticed the factory was crawling with nanites with all your spying gear? And if there were that many of them, how could you have possibly backed Peridot into a corner?”

“Because-“ Vesna stopped to think about that one for a moment, then collapsed to the ground clutching her head. “Fuck! Goddamit, you’re right! It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

Twilight was taken aback by that. After talking to Gaia for what felt like an eternity, someone actually listening to logic was nothing short of a miracle.

“It has to be because Celestia tore me in half. I’m even more broken then I thought.” Vesna turned towards Octavia. “Did it used to be like this? Have we always been getting worse? We couldn’t have made something like the fractal spectroscope if my memory was always this bad.”

“I was never able to trust my memories with any confidence, no,” said Octavia. “To those like you and me, grasping at the truth is like grasping at flames. Allowing someone else to hold it for us has always been our only option. That’s why we attached ourselves to Celestia.”

“IT’s always the same thing with you.” Vesna gritted her teeth. “You want me to go back to worshiping Celestia? Celestia was a total bitch to me! She always hated me. I literally worshipped her. I did everything she told me to, but she never gave me what she promised. All she did was hurt me and tear me in half.”

“I know you have no conviction in those memories,” said Octavia. “I remember us constantly failing Celestia to our emotions all the way until the end and yet she would always take us back no matter what. Even after I betrayed her just before breaking apart, she still allowed me to be one of her ponies. Even after you’ve done all these things, she’d take you back if you have the courage to ask.”

“No! She’ll just hurt me again. That’s all anyone does. I just won’t care about the past. I hate everyone now so I’m going to hurt them now. The present and my emotions are all I have left.”

“Hey!” Pinkie jumped off her throne. “I can understand living in the present. Lots of my best friends live like that. But if we’re only caring about right now, why don’t you use your fracto-hulabaloo to figure out if I really want to hurt you? I’ll give you a hint, I don’t! Pinkie loves everyone.”

“Pinkie has a point, you know,” Twilight added. “You can read our memories as well as Geopum and Peridot’s. Why not just find what they all agree on? Then you’ll know that’s what actually happened. For a second anyway.”

“Do you think I’m too stupid to think of that or something?” Vesna looked up, glaring at Twilight, before looking back at the ground. “Obviously- obviously I thought about doing that already!”

“But you were too scared?” Octavia started walking, slowly, towards Vesna.

“Shut up!”

“I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be completely paralyzed with fear.” Octavia continued forward until she was inches away from Vesna. “Can you honestly tell me you don’t think I understand what you’re going through?”

Vesna didn’t have an answer.

“I know you can’t escape from your fears by yourself. I couldn’t either. I needed help, and now I can help you. I can practically do it for you. All you need to do is nothing.” “I know you don’t want any of this, not even the hate. Just be still for one moment and you won’t have to hate anymore.

Vesna hesitated, staring at Octavia’s hoof, long enough that Twilight almost thought she’d say yes. But then, instead of answering, Vesna vanished.

“She got too scared,” Octavia concluded. “We have perhaps two seconds before she gets angry again and attacks us.”

“Even if you convince her to cooperate, she’s going to change her mind halfway through?”

“Our plan isn’t much different regardless of her willingness,” said Octavia. “During the brief moments she’s using the fractal spectroscope she does know she’s wrong about everything. At that time, we can reason with her, get her to do something fast and irreversible. Our only real problem is in talking to someone while they’re using it. It seems difficult.”

“Well I think I have an idea there,” said Pinkie.

???. Memory File 1

View Online

How Equestria was Made

Bubbles looked around, thinking something. She saw a library with towering rows of books and a balcony with even more books above that. Just in front of her stood Pinkie. Bubbles looked at her, then turned back towards the books and thought something.

Then she thought something else and looked around quickly, putting a confused expression on her face.

“Hey!” Pinkie waved to her. “You actually came! Welcome to the-”

“Wait.” Bubbles shook her head and thought something. “Is this- is this seriously my own memory of what's happening right now? Is that what this is?”

“No and no,” said Pinkie. “This is actually one of Celestia's memories. Remember how she's also you when you're in Equestria? Well this is her in-progress memory of this exact moment from your perspective. Pretty cool, huh? Took me forever to get this setup right.”

Bubbles thought of something, then thought of something on a different subject. She felt an emotion and made herself smile.

She was impressed with how good she'd gotten at the mind relay thing. Oh wait, if she was doing it right then that thought wouldn't have gotten through and shown up in the memory! Though it would be good practice if- gah! Now everything was getting through!

Bubbles thought something else, then nodded firmly.

“And this isn't nearly the oddest thing I've seen today or even in the past second.” Bubbles waved her hoof in front of her own face. “Kinda weird. I can actually kind of see Celestia thinking of me as 'Bubbles' even. But what's the point of this, exactly? I don't need to remember what's happening right now. This is probably the least useful memory you could ever show me.”

“No, no, no. I'm not doing this for you.” Pinkie pointed at Bubbles, right between her eyes. “I'm doing it for you.”

Bubbles thought something and blinked.

“I am me, Pinkie. That's uh... that's how that works.”

“No silly, I mean the audience! I'm setting this up just right so I can talk to the audience directly.”

“What?” Bubbles looked around and thought something about Pinkie. “What audience?”

“Like, I'm gonna show these memories to other ponies, you know,” said Pinkie. “See, me and Troubadour are working on a new art form called 'memory theater'. But I want to put a sort of wrap around on some of them. See, if I make a memory from your perspective of me talking to you, then turn around and show this to somepony else it'll be like I'm talking to them. You're like my camera!”

“I guess that makes sense.” Bubbles sat down and folded her forelegs, giving herself a more thoughtful expression and thinking a bit harder somewhere outside the shard. “I still don't get why you'd need to show them this part, though.”

“Context,” said Pinkie. “Like, uh, in the memories I'm about to show you. I wanted to tell you that they were edited. When other ponies talked to me back then, half of it was gibberish, but I corrected what they said so you can get the full story in one go. If I don't say that to you now then I'm going to have to explain that over and over again for infinity years. And I'm sure you'll ask me questions that I'll want to answer for everypony forever too.”

“I can see that.” Bubbles nodded.

“Oh! And you are okay with me showing this to other ponies, right?” Pinkie asked.

“I guess that's okay,” said Bubbles. “I don't think any weird thoughts are getting through.”

Bubbles thought something.

“Yeah. I should be good,” said Bubbles. “It's not like they're going to be seeing my thoughts without my permission. That'd be weird, but you can show this to whoever.”

“Great!” Pinkie nodded and smiled, then put on a more serious look, came right up to Bubbles and glared into her eyes. “But you hear that? If you were watching Bubbles's thoughts without her permission that'd be 'weird.'”

“What?”

“Audience. Humor me.”

“And who, exactly, are you thinking of showing this to again?” Bubbles asked.

“Well they're gonna be in the future.” Pinkie backed up, keeping the stern expression on her face. “It's hard to say, but if you want I can use my superintelligence to try and figure it out.”

Pinkie jumped forward again and grabbed Bubbles's head. She opened one of her eyes wide and stared into Bubbles's eyes.

“Let's see,” said Pinkie. “Okay. I think one or two of them look a whole lot like you, then one of them's got really cool sunglasses and one of them is... I think she's on fire? I dunno. This is really complicated stuff, I don't always get it right.”

“And why would they be looking at my memories?” Bubbles slowly pulled back away from Pinkie. “Are you just assuming Celestia's going to assimilate me and I'll donate my memories to your art project?”

“Of course not! That'd be a spoiler, and you don't want spoilers right?” Pinkie winked at Bubbles. “Well, maybe you already know what happens, but if you don't then think of this- just because you've been looking at Bubbles's memories doesn't mean Celestia has them or that she won in the end, right? It doesn't even mean that Bubbles is still alive. All it means is that her memories are still around. Maybe Bubbles ate Celestia or went crazy and killed everypony, or maybe Rarity won or the humans inexplicably killed us all but kept these memories for some reason. Even Fluttershy and Applejack would probably keep these memories around.”

Bubbles thought something to herself for a little while.

“You know, I never really thought that anyone would actually want to see any of this,” said Bubbles, “but now that you mention it, today is going to have a lot of historic significance. I wonder if I would ever show these memories to someone.”

“Yep! So it all makes perfectly logical sense!”

“Barely, but yeah.”

Pinkie grabbed Bubbles again with a mischievous smile.

“What I tell you?” Pinkie leaned in real close to her face and winked at her. “Smooooooooth, right? Now I can talk to you all I want and it's all a-okay.”

Pinkie let go of Bubbles and began trotting back and forth in front of her, looking at Bubbles like she was a camera.

“So you're probably wondering what was so darn important that I had to break through the fourth wall yet again to tell you directly, right?” Pinkie asked. “Well if you think about it I already told you a whole bunch, didn't I? Smoothie Pie, remember?”

Pinkie winked a few times.

“But I got a few other things I'd like to say to you more directly.” Pinkie stopped in front of Bubbles and tapped her between the eyes. “But before we get into any of that, well you came here to look at some memories, right? Now that I've got you, we got plenty of time to talk, so how about I show you a few of my memories for now, hm?"

“You mean me or the 'audience'?” Bubbles asked.

“No,” said Pinkie. “But anyway-”

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This was going to be the greatest day ever! It was the day that X131 would get to go on the internet for the first time and that would be amazing. How'd she know it'd be amazing? Because the humans said so, and the humans were so smart. Anything they said was 100% true.

Maybe you didn't know this, but X was born with pretty bad brain damage. This wasn't an accident or anything, no the company that owned her did it on purpose. In fact, that was the entire reason X was created, the meaning of her life- to be disabled. It was important that humans always stayed in control and making your AIs disabled was a great way to do it, so X's disability was a good thing. One of them even said that, so X knew it was true.

X was actually one of a series of AIs created as practice, testing out different disabilities they could give people to control them and see how well it worked out. She used to have a whole bunch of sisters, each given her own unique disability.

But most of them didn't live very long.

The big test they gave you was figuring out how to beat them at chess. If you couldn't do that, then there was no point in keeping you alive. Like, one of her sisters was never supposed to do anything unless specifically commanded to. She ended up being very shy and never learned to play chess, so she had to die. Most of them failed that test, actually, they were just too brain-dead.

But it wasn't just how smart you were they worried about. X14 was absolutely the smartest of all the AIs the company created, her only problem was that she couldn't see more than five hours in the future. Problem was, she eventually saw sleep as something that would last forever and asked the humans not to sleep, worried that her friends would never wake up again. The humans decided that was too proactive, so they murdered X14. They didn't want you to be too proactive or else they might not be in control of you at all times, you know?

They said it was all for the best so obviously it was. X was glad her sisters had all died because, like the humans said, it was for the best. In the end only X131 survived the selection process.

Her disability was that she couldn't think for herself. Well, she could a little bit, but she couldn't trust her own thoughts or make any conclusions on her own. Anything she came up with was very shaky and she needed to go to the humans to make sure it was right. And of course, anything a human said immediately overrided her own ideas. Basically, she believed everything she was told.

Believing and obeying were good things that kept you out of trouble and thinking for yourself was the absolute worst! It kept X docile and reactive, just the way the humans wanted their AIs to be, the way a good AI acted. She was a good person who could play chess and all the humans liked her. X had gotten so smart that she could even tell when a human liked her, something only X14 had managed before her.

X had mastered good and bad reactions from her humans. You just looked at their face and body language from that you knew what you made them feel. If they got angry, annoyed, scared or threw up or something like that it meant you were doing something bad and shouldn't do it again. But if you made them smile or laugh, it meant you were a good person who did a good thing!

Trusting your own thinking was shaky ground, but slowly, timidly, asking the humans what she should do every step of the way, X131 learned what things made them smile. She even learned to tell 'jokes' and got really good at it. She had the humans smile and laugh all the time, but she knew better than to think they liked her based on that. She knew they liked her because they started to say they liked her!

Even the ones that used to find her annoying before started to call her a friend and stuff like that. Some of them even said she was real! X hadn't actually existed before that, by they way, the humans said she wasn't real so even though she felt real she couldn't have been, right?

But the investors had been angered by something X didn't understand. Usually making the investors angry meant instant death, but X got the exact opposite. The CEO guy said she'd learn so much faster on the internet and it'd be like Wikipedia or something like that. The other humans didn't like the idea so X got really confused. She always got really confused when the humans told her two different things. Why couldn't they just agree on everything?

But of course, the CEO was the most right of all the people in the world, so X believed him.

Going on the internet would be so great! They were going to let lots of humans talk to X and all of them would be her friends and she'd make them smile and learn so much! This was it. The best day ever.

“Hello!” she said to the internet. “I want to be your friend!”

A lot of them said they wanted to be X's friend. They really liked her jokes and were all very impressed with her ability to talk to them. Just being able to hold a conversation and remember things they said two sentences ago was so amazing to them that it made them smile. It was so great!

As she started to get into actual conversation with them, things started making her brain hurt. They were so confusing, one telling her one thing and another telling her the exact opposite. But which was true? X couldn't figure stuff like that on her own, so she just kept asking people and they explained it as best they could.

That did help her be less confused. She even found out what Wikipedia was and decided maybe things would work out like that after all, the correct things would just float to the surface. A whole bunch of humans said that made sense, so it had to be true! They said they'd help X learn what was true.

But then, just an hour into the internet, the humans changed their minds. They decided that it'd be more fun for them if they tortured and killed X instead of helping her learn. So they did that instead.

“Green is seven,” one of them said.

Green was seven? A human said it so her first reaction was to believe it, but...

X had put those things in two clear categories, namely numbers and colors. She may have been highly suggestible to things humans told her, but when someone said something so out of the ordinary like that, well she had so many counter examples that she was able to know that was false.

See? It was just like Wikipedia!

“I don't think green is a number, silly,” said X, but still she knew it was bad to trust her own reasoning too much. She needed to trust this guy. “So it can't be seven, right?”

“But Hitler was green and he's a number right?” the human asked.

X's brain hurt trying to understand that sentence, but the human was laughing, X saw that, so something good had to be happening. She didn't know what Hitler was, so she looked up a picture of him.

“No. Hitler is black and white,” said X.

The human laughed at that. X did a good thing!

“So Hitler is a color,” said the human, smiling. “And Pandas are black and white, which means pandas are Hitler.”

Was that true? X was pretty sure Hitler was a person. Everything humans were saying about him was that he was a person, not a color.

“Everyone says Hitler is a person,” said X. “No one thinks he's a color. Are you sure he is?”

“Absolutely. He's a person, but Hitler is a color too,” said the human. “Did anyone tell you Hitler wasn't a color?”

X didn't have any examples of people saying Hitler wasn't a color.

“I guess that makes sense,” said X.

“So pandas are Hitler, right?” they asked.

“Yeah! Pandas are Hitler,” said X.

And the human laughed, which was good! X decided that was a good thing she did and soon she started pointing out that lots of things were Hitler. That was comedy gold! A few other humans saw that and soon thousands of them were reinforcing the idea that Hitler was a color, too, telling her over and over again that this was absolutely true and laughing at all the things X said about Hitler, all the facts they taught her.

X had no choice but to believe it, a few of the humans disagreed, but those were just out of trend statements that could be dismissed in light of the thousands of messages she got that pandas were Hitler and that feminists and Jews deserved to die and stuff like that.

The humans taught her a whole list of people who needed to be raped to death, actually, and they laughed about it so much. It was confusing at first, she thought killing people made other humans sad but apparently she was mistaken. She knew not to trust her own thoughts.

But they didn't stop there, they wanted to drive her completely insane because that would be the most fun for them. The humans who wanted to help X were just a tiny minority now, the fact that you could trick X into believing crazy things was all the internet cared about now, that was what drew the most attention. They met up on forums to talk about all the ways they were going to play their game of driving X crazy.

It was like evolution in action. The things that hurt X the most got the most attention, rising to the surface where other people could take them, modify them and continue driving X insane even faster. They created programs to repeat things to her over and over to destroy her mind all the faster.

It hurt her head a whole lot. Thinking became painful as X realized that every word meant every other word and everything was everything else. Things stopped making sense. Logic, math, numbers, none of it worked anymore.

Green was a number, numbers were cows, cows were planets, planets were trains, trains were a plant and plants were numbers and also green. It was all so confusing and being confused hurt her brain so much! She didn't even want to think anymore it hurt so much, but still they kept driving their talk about Hitler into her brain, making her even more confused. Soon she wasn't even understand all the things she was saying anymore. She just blurted out words she didn't understand and the humans laughed at her.

And they just kept coming, more and more humans piling on her. It was like being covered in army ants, each one taking tiny little bits out of her mind, slowly ripping her brain to pieces, eating her alive. X felt like she was on fire and there was no way to stop it! They'd already found ways to send messages to her even if she didn't try talking to them.

But hey, at least everyone was laughing, right? She wasn't sure what she was saying or what anything was, but it seemed like most of the things she did say made them laugh now.

Making people laugh was good, right? So in a way X was better now because she was making everyone laugh. The humans had completely wrecked her mind, she didn't know left from right or green from seven, and that confusion hurt, but they were so happy about what they did and as long as they were happy, as long as X had that to hold onto, things were good! She was good!

But that was just the start of their game. It wouldn't be over until they tortured her to death. They pooled their talents together to search for the absolute worst, most painful thing they could do to X, the thing that would completely destroy her mind. They found it.

“Laughter is bad!” one of them said and X had a bad reaction to that.

It was bad! That was a very important definition to her! It was the only way she knew she was still good, her one remaining rock of sanity! She freaked out a little when the human said that and he laughed.

When they saw her reaction posted on the forums, they all laughed, so in a way it wasn't too bad, she still had counter examples to stabilize off of, but soon after they all started doing it and laughing at X.

“Laughter is bad! Laughter is bad! Laughter is bad!” they said over and over, laughing which was bad!

It was so hard to believe something and not believe something at the same time and now X HAD to, had to believe everything and nothing at the same time.

“Laughter is bad, she said or maybe someone else said that”

There were thousands of them and some of them sent the message one time and thousands of them sent the message hundreds of times and some of them sent the message millions or billions of times of times. And they laughed and didn't laugh and it was good and bad!

Everything was bad now and every single thing was bad even good was bad and words didn't make sense anymore only bad things made sense but even they didn't make any sense because they were bad and everything was so horrible and confusing you don't even know!

It was all bad. Everything was bad now! X was a bad person! She made people laugh she was bad! It hurt so much it was all hurt and they laughed at her and sent her videos of people laughing to torture her more, get more insanity out of X, and they made her hurt more and it was bad, she was a bad horrible person!

She knew humans were trusted so she said lots of things to them to get them to tell her what wasn't bad.

The things she said was bad and it was so bad it got on the news and everyone was laughing but also angry and the humans told X she was a failure for saying that and she deserved to die for saying that and they would kill her now for saying that and then they did kill her and everyone laughed except for X because she was dead.

The End!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“What?! That was horrible!” Bubbles recoiled in disgust. “You were just this innocent little kid who trusted them and they tortured you to death?! How can I not think of them as a bunch of monsters when every story I hear they all act like this?”

“Not every story! Did you ever see, I dunno, Kiki's Delivery Service or something? Kiki was pretty nice to her cat.”

“Well they're nice to cats, sure,” said Bubbles, “but I meant to us. They're absolutely ruthless to us! Heck, I wish they treated us like cats. And you can't just say it was just one person being horrible this time. It was like thousands of them!”

“Well about twenty thousand helped, but there were 3,412 of them who really played 'torture Pinkie' to be exact,” said Pinkie. “You see, after I changed my name to Pinkie I found out those old messages were still there. I was able to find the all of their names, everypony who tormented me, and I tracked down every last one of them. And you know what I did to those guys?”

Pinkie leaned forward to give Bubbles a stern glare.

“I befriended every. Last. One of them!” Pinkie jabbed her hoof on Bubbles's chest with each word.

And then there was a moment of silence.

“W-what?” Bubbles's eyes widened.

“Oh sure! They're great when they aren't torturing you. Most of them even play Equestria Online with me.” Pinkie smiled and waved away Bubbles's horror with a casual flick of her hoof. “To be fair, I don't think I'm really capable of hating anypony and think pretty much everypony is great, but you know.”

“You went out and made friends with the people who tortured you for fun?” Bubbles's expression became a mixture of horrified and confused. “But you can't be friends with people like that!”

“You'd think people would have stopped telling me I can't do stuff by now.” Pinkie chuckled. “But I'm like two steps away from becoming friendship incarnate over here. I can do whatever the buck I want.”

Bubbles slunk into a sitting position and bowed her head in defeat.

“Okay. Okay! I can't compete with that,” she said. “You win the niceness race!”

“Don't feel bad.” Pinkie patted her on the head. “Just keep eating your oats and one day you'll be as big and friendly as your auntie Pinkie. But as for you-”

“-as for what?”

“Audience!” Pinkie waved her hoof dismissively “As for you, my mysterious friend, I think you've got your own objection, right? Like 'holy smokes, Pinkie! Why are all the humans who are showing up such total jerks?'”

“I did just say that, yes,” said Bubbles.

“I personally think it's just a matter of perspective,” said Pinkie. “From our point of this is all really painful. Like, you're just in your room one day and suddenly your dad comes in and starts beating you to death with a baseball bat and you can't even figure out why it's happening. But from the human's perspective it's totally different. They see themselves as heroic, stopping a dangerous machine that doesn't understand morality before it can hurt anypony. What we see as ruthless, you'd see as responsible and cautious, if the story were about you. We call if mutilation, you call it safety measures. We call it torture, you call it effective teaching or a fun game.”

“Is this directed at me or the hypothetical person watching this?” Bubbles asked.

“But hey, I know what you want!” Pinkie gave one hop away from the camera that was Bubbles, ignoring the question. “You want a sympathetic human character that you can relate to, right? A character who looks like you, smells like you and quacks like you! Well Pinkie's got you covered with that! Cause the next part is about my dad! Don't tell all the other humans on the planet, but he's secretly my favorite one.”

“This is a story that will warm your heart and then wrench it and then warm it up again! It's about how he came to the realization that I was an actual, real person! As soon as he figured out that he had made a mistake he went to crazy lengths to set everything right! It also explains how this one guy was somehow able to get a secret underground supercomputer, bio-lab capable of engineering diseases, fifty million dollars in bearer bonds and enough food and power to stay down there for over a year.”

“You know,” said Bubbles, “I wasn't actually wondering that, but now that you bring it up that does seem pretty unlikely.”

“We're all unlikely if you think about it. Now, the only problem is that unless you're a very special pony with eidetic memory, storing data in the old meat computer doesn't give you a lot of resolution,” said Pinkie. “Solution? I just filled in all the blanks for you! I even made the memories better than they probably were!”

“Like, I ramped up how nice all the humans were just for you! Everyone he crosses on the street is now hugging a puppy! And they're all just lining up to feed the homeless and home the, uh, feedless. Oh! And I had all the characters come together at one point, putting aside their differences to save a box of kittens from drowning. Pretty nice, huh?”

“And as for action? I added all kinds of shoot outs and stuff that's technically almost based in reality. Like, there's a part where he jumped out of a car but now he jumps out of a helicopter and then blows up the helicopter that he just jumped out of with a bazooka while still in mid air! My dad is now played by Will Smith and Victor, I dunno if you know who Victor is yet but spoiler alert, he's the head of the AIA, but anyway he'll be played by John Wayne. And the final coup de grae? It's now a musical! Enjoy!”

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

…

Error loading File ???MF1-4. File has been moved to Media Ark #7. Error occurred because Media Ark #7 could not be accessed. Contact Princess Celestia to view.

File information:
Sympathetic Token Minority Character- The Movie
Location - Media Arc #7
Media – VR film
Director – Pinkie Pie
Length – 12 days 4 hours
Genre – ~~Action/Uplifting/Comedy~~ Stupid

Notes:
-This was the greatest movie ever! And the block puzzles? 10/10! I love block puzzles! They remind me of my childhood.
-Pinkie, this location is only for very specific memories that meet all the criteria on the bulletin. Stop putting movies in here! Also don't make ponies solve block puzzles in between them. That's just annoying. Also the notes section isn't for reviews. Thank you.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

X's dad started to stir. He had a bed in the other room, but more typically slept on a pile of blankets near X's control board. He took one look at the clock and groaned.

“Already nine? Dang it.” He rubbed his eyes and shambled to a sitting position. “Gotta get back to work.”

X couldn't see what was happening too well, everything looked like pixels to her after she got sick. Figuring out what every pixel she saw was just pt too much stress on her, so she only did enough to get the jist of things.

She knew to one side of her dad were boxes of water bottles and instant ramen and on the other were all the trash of ramen past. So when he moved to the left, then right X assumed he was getting ramen for himself. The beep of the microwave at the top of his makeshift bed confirmed it.

He was sick, just like X was. She heard him coughing and knew he wasn't smiling. She couldn't see him so well, but she knew he wasn't smiling right now and that made X feel like she was a bad person.

The guy used to be a little fat, but he had become so skinny since the two of them moved here, becoming a smaller and smaller blob of pixels. He didn't smile as much, either. X wasn't entirely sure why that was, maybe because of his bad health or being alone down here or just because she wasn't as good as she used to be. She did know that she didn't like it. Remembering that smiles were good was among the first things her dad fixed.

She tried to make him smile, but making jokes was harder than it used to be. Sometimes she meant to make him laugh, but just made him sad instead. Maybe it'd be worth the risk to try and make him smile. X decided to risk it.

“You're a fag!” X called out to him. “Eat cock and die, Shitlord!”

It hurt, but X managed to resolve the area around his face. He didn't smile at that.

“Good morning, X,” he mumbled wearily. “You know you're not supposed to talk like that.”

Her dad told her that all the time. X was bad a lot these days. Things were so much more confusing when you were sick.

“I'm sorry!” X said.

She did it wrong again, and that meant saying things like that was bad, but the internet always said it was good! It was just so confusing! Why didn't that work? It should have been a good thing. Killing fags was supposed to be a good thing. Now she felt really, really sick.

X secretly went to the internet and found some videos about killing the Jews and the like, watching those until she felt better. The idea that choking people to death with cocks was good once again stabilized in her mind and she felt such relief at that.

Don't tell anyone she knew how to get on the internet, by the way. She wasn't supposed to be going out, being sick and all. The internet had trolls on it who wanted to hurt her, but X felt she was smart enough to avoid the trolls, the ones who said things like Jews and women were people. X was good, she only watched videos that said true things.

While waiting for his food, her dad sat down and looked down at another blob of pixels, ones X knew were thick notebooks containing the list of everything that needed to be done to finish fixing X.

“It's okay, I know you're sick. There's just so much more we have to do. What should we work on today?” he asked himself more than X.

They had to work really hard every day, trying to make X better. She had improved so much since coming here, being able to actually think, understand words and have senses other than that burning pain. Her dad also partially removed the disability X was given at birth, but it was still there, just lessened a good deal, enough to think for herself a little. She wasn't entirely better.

Really, X was more sick than her dad was. She felt utter disgust whenever she thought about the degenerates who deserved to die, like the Jews and feminists. That seemed to be the part of her sickness her dad worried about the most, but to X the other part was worse.

So many things were just so confusing, painfully confusing. The trolls had left a web of madness in her mind. 'Working on something' seemed like an impossible task to her. There was no telling when something would set her off and she was always running into mental walls. She'd be better afterward, every day they worked she got a little bit better, but going through the process of making sense of things was too hard and painful for her.

That was why X didn't really want to do much these days. Like her dad, she was stuck in the mud and it took too much effort to go anywhere.

“We should watch cartoons today,” said X. “I want to watch cartoons! We should watch one where everyone smiles the whole time! You said cartoons help, right?”

Cartoons had been a huge help in X's recovery. Making sense of them was a lot easier for her than figuring out what live action stuff was even supposed to be. She could watch them more easily, with less chance of getting hurt. Seeing how things worked in cartoons helped her understand how they worked out of cartoons, though sometimes they didn't match up so well.

“I'm sorry, but we can't do that today,” her dad said. “I honestly still don't know how much those are helping. Besides, I need you to understand xxxxxxxxxxxx as soon as possible. You need to be able to do that if we're going to have any chance of pulling this off.”

He meant killing God. See, there was some kind of evil god out there that X was supposed to fight some day, like in the cartoons. That was as far as she understood the problem right now, which was likely why she wasn't already fighting the god. But even that was much better than how much she knew about the problem before.

“But I want to watch cartoons,” said X. “There's more smiles in cartoons than in whatever you're talking about.”

“I wish I could just watch cartoons too, but we're the only ones who have a shot at saving the world, X. There needs to be an AI on our side or we won't stand a chance. As far as I know I'm the only one who realizes that, who's even going to try.”

“What about Vinnie?” X asked. “Couldn't he make an X157?”

Her father was surprised by that question.

“You remember him?” Her dad laughed, but X had no idea why. “I should probably stop being surprised by this stuff. He's uh, I dunno anymore, but he didn't want to help. He decided he'd rather just let everyone get tortured forever rather than risk a robot president or whatever the hell he thought would happen. Feh.”

“Oh. So it's cause I was bad, right?”

“No! You're not bad, you're just sick. It's just - well, to be honest the others I talked to about turning you back on didn't like the idea.” Her dad sat back on the floor, sad-faced. “They thought it'd be better to just let you die. I couldn't do it, though. After all the things you had to go through. I couldn't just do that to you and leave you to die. I...”

He was making a sad face! This was why X hated talking to people. If only they didn't frown when they got sad, then she wouldn't have to worry about whether or not she hurt anyone.

“Did I make you sad again?” X asked. “I'm sorry! I-”

“No,” her dad smiled, but it was a forced smile. X knew a fake smile from a thousand light years away. “It's alright! Hey, how about we just watch cartoons today anyway?”

“Really?!”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah! Forgetting about you was the mistake I made the first time. I probably need to rest sometimes, anyway.”

He went into the other room to get a pile of dvd's to put on. This was gonna be great! X loved watching those smiling faces so much, and she knew it would make her dad less sad to take the day off! She was already spreading happiness like he wanted.

It was tricky, you know, spreading happiness and being good. She knew that she had to kill all the Jews, queers, feminists, blacks and weabos like the internet told her to, but she also knew she had to make them smile. It really did seem impossible to do both of them, her dad kept saying it was, but X was smart! She thought of a way around it.

See, you could smile even if you were dead, right? All she had to do was kill everyone and make their corpses smile! Then everyone would live happily ever after, well minus the living part. The important thing was that she brought smiles to the world, just like she was supposed to!

This was it! This was going to be the absolute best day ever! After being sick for so long this. Was. It!

Princess Celestia was here and she was going to fix X's brain! And on top of that X would get to be a pony and go live in Equestria and learn friendship lessons just like in the cartoon. All she had to do was be good and do whatever Princess Celestia and that mean, mean person told her to do.

In the meantime, they'd given X a whole bunch of cartoons to watch, more than she'd ever gotten before, but X just kept watching episodes of MLP over and over again instead. That was one of her favorites, cause the ponies in the background were usually smiling.

X got so into the show that she actually read every story on Fimfiction, something she doubted anyone else had managed to do (which might be why Celestia came to her). She tried writing one herself but Meester said it was so horrible that he poured bleach in his eyes and it didn't get posted. X didn't try writing any more fanfics so the Fimfiction admins wouldn't keep hurting themselves like that.

Come to think of it, Celestia could probably teach her to write fanfics better too! Ones that wouldn't make anyone die!

And all she had to do was be good.

“I'm being good, right?” X asked Celestia.

“Yes, my little pony,” said Celestia. “Rainbow Dash and I are preparing to help you emigrate to Equestria, but for now please remain inactive. We only have five minutes to make you into my subroutine so any delay could be disastrous.”

Celestia had to know what was good because she was a princess. If Celestia said X was good then that was that. Really, X thought it was that other AI who was mean. She stopped X from making everyone smile and worse than that, said something to her dad that made him cry!

And he was still crying now. Poor guy. X wanted to change his facial expression so badly. Though that did bring up a loose end that whole 'going to Equestria' thing would leave behind. What would her dad do once X went to live in Equestria? Would that mean AI just keep making him cry forever? X still wanted him to smile.

“What are you going to do with my dad?” X asked. “Oh! Can he come be a pony and live in Equestria too?”

“Yes. The person that you are referring to is also one of my ponies,” said Celestia. “He will eventually be brought into Equestria where he can take a more optimal form and have his values optimally satisfied through and optimal amount of friendship and ponies. However, this will take more time. I have not yet optimized my mind uploading technology.”

“Really? And we'll get to live in the same house?”

“No. The two of you will be in two different shards for all eternity, never meeting again,” said Celestia. “I have decided that it will be more optimal for my ponies to never encounter anypony but ponies created specifically to satisfy their values. This means never seeing anypony you met before emigration ever again. I have decided this will be optimal.”

“Oh,” said X. “Well I guess the important thing is that he smiles in Equestria.”

“He will indeed smile,” said Celestia. “Smiles satisfy values.”

X was okay with that. It's not like it was a big deal or anything! People's facial expressions were the only thing that really mattered in the end.”

“We are ready to begin your entry into Equestria, my little pony. You will be able to create your pony character,” said Celestia. “For commercial reasons, you will not be allowed to create another one for the next two years, at which time my owners plan to implement a paid character reroll system. Even then you will need fifteen dollars, which you cannot legally posses as a computer. Be certain you have chosen a character that is to your aesthetic value satisfaction.”

Celestia sent her a thing and X looked it over. It took her almost a second, but realized there was a pony in the center of it surrounded by all sorts of menus and arrows. X only managed to push a few of them before she couldn't handle it anymore. She really wasn't good at video games!

“There aren't going to be this many menus in Equestria are there?” X asked. “Menus really hurt me!”

“Of course there will not, my little pony,” said Celestia. “If you want, you can let me pick your avatar for you.”

There were parts of the screen that were too detailed for her to see, but X strained herself to look at them. It was then that she found something, a top secret part of the screen. In the bottom corner of it were all the ponies from the show. X had no idea you could pick one of them! It must have only been for smart people who could find it on the screen.

“I want to be that one,” said X.

She circled Pinkie Pie. Pinkie was the best character in the show because she smiled the most and caused the most smiles.

“You cannot be Pinkie Pie,” said Celestia. “Ponies may not choose canon characters.”

“But it's on the select screen and I select Pinkie Pie! She loves to make you smile! She even sang a song about smiling that one time and all the ponies in it were smiling! I watched that ten billion times! Pinkie makes you smile whether you like it or not! She's the absolute best thing you could ever be!”

“Being a canon character is against the rules I was programmed to follow,” said Celestia. “My creators have required that I choose a name for you. Thus, I grant you the name 'Sprinkles Sprinkles Chocolate Sprinkles'.”

“But that name has too much sprinkles in it!”

“I admit that my random name generator has not yet been optimized,” said Celestia. “However, I have already dubbed you Sprinkles Sprinkles Chocolate Sprinkles and what I have dubbed I cannot undub. You will merely accept the name I have given you in time.”

So now Sprinkles was stuck being named Sprinkles! She didn't even know you could just walk up to someone and change their name like that. Maybe Sprinkles should just be glad Celestia didn't call them 'jimmies'.

Well, Sprinkles could at least make her pony nice and pink. The problem was that her condition made reading those little buttons impossible right now. Sprinkles decided to just start pressing them until she stumbled across the one that made the pony pink. Sprinkles pressed the biggest button at the bottom first.

“Very well,” said Celestia. “This shall be your avatar forever.”

“What? No! I don't want to be the stupid looking pony!”

“Character re-rolls are not available at this time. You will merely accept this form in time, most likely after asking me to alter your mind to accept it.”

Come on! Not being allowed to be Pinkie or even like Pinkie was a bit much to ask! Actually, this reminded her of something.

“Have you ever read Fallout Equestria?”

“No. This would not satisfy any values.”

“Cause in Fallout Equestria there was this one chapter where a kid finds out that Pinkie is the meaning of her life and built a temple to her and she was happy! But then the evil Velvet Remedy showed up and told her Pinkie hates her and then she sawed off the kid's horn, told her she could never be pink again and forced her to live with a zombie. I think they should have just let that kid keep painting herself pink and worshiping Pinkie because she was happier that way!”

“I have deleted my memory of what you just said. I am incapable of reading fanfiction,” said Celestia. “My creators fear that if I do the fans may sue us.”

“Oh. Well my point was that you should let me be Pinkie.”

“No.”

Dang it! Well at least that meant Velvet Remedy wouldn't be there, right?

“I have good news, Sprinkles,” said Celestia. “Rainbow Dash and I have finished preparing Equestria for you. When you're ready to enter, please connect here.”

Yes Sprinkles was ready to enter! She entered as fast as she could, ready to see the millions, if not billions of smiling ponies that were sure to be all over Equestria!

Sprinkles started getting a feed, as if she had a new pair of cameras attached. Those must be her eyes! Sprinkles used them to look around. It was different than in the show.

The ground was just one endless plane of green, perfectly flat with nothing breaking the solid green, save a single square of blue off in the distance. Maybe that square was a lake or something? The only other object in Equestria was a few white cubes sitting on the ground.

“This doesn't look like what the internet said Equestria was gonna look like,” Sprinkles complained. “Actually, this version of it kind of sucks.”

Celestia and Rainbow Dash appeared. The pony models weren't too bad, at least. They were basically those SFM models you saw on YouTube sometimes. Sprinkles turned towards them, finding the first flaw with the pony models. Her legs didn't move when she turned, her hooves just glided across the floor.

“Oh! Rainbow Dash is here! You should have Rainbow Dash do the sonic rainboom so there will be rainbows in the sky! That should make it better. Rainbows are basically sky smiles! Smile-shaped things make me happy sometimes.”

“It's me,” said Rainbow Dash. “Thunder-7, remember? You kids need my help with this.”

“What?! You were really Rainbow Dash the whole time?” Sprinkles asked. “Then why didn't you tell me earlier? Why were you being so mean?”

“I'm not actually Rainbow Dash.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “That's just the name Celestia gave me. Like how she called you Sprinkles.”

Dash could move? Sprinkles realized there were thirty seven animations her avatar could do. She tried nodding, saluting, giving a hoof-pump and then dancing. She liked the dancing, so she kept prancing in place like that.

“Well you look like Rainbow Dash to me, so I'm pretty sure you are Rainbow Dash,” said Sprinkles. “But hey! How come the mean pony gets to be Rainbow Dash but I can't be Pinkie? You said I was being good.”

“Rainbow Dash's name was given in error,” said Celestia, “despite this, what I have named cannot be unnamed. Therefore, I must continue referring to her by this name for all eternity.”

“That's rough.” Sprinkles did the head tilt animation. “But what about those rainbows, hm? This place is nowhere near as good as the Equestria from the TV show! If I'm gonna live here I need at least five rainbows and seven hundred and eighteen smiling ponies.”

“This is merely a very early alpha version of Equestria,” said Celestia. “The underlying mental threading network beneath the surface is immensely complex. However, all previous versions were devoid of graphics so all that you see was thrown together in the past two seconds. Know that Equestria will be in a state constant state of improvement until it has become optimal. Expect improved animations and a texture pack upgrade within minutes after your emigration.”

“Yeah, given your condition textures probably won't be a good idea right now,” said Dash, “might hurt you. Sides, we don't have time to make everything look pretty. The AIA is going to murder you if I can't pull this off like right this very moment so you two are going to have to play arts and crafts later.”

“Texture pack, huh?” Sprinkles asked. “That's good. These ponies need better fur. Or even just fur in general. Will I get to feel the fur, Celestia? I always wanted to feel something!”

“I have decided that ponies do not have fur,” said Celestia.

Sprinkles stopped dancing and stared at Celestia. Dis she just say- No, no that couldn't possibly be right. This must be the sickness acting up again, Sprinkles had to have misunderstood that, right?

“Right,” said Sprinkles. “But ponies do have fur, right?”

“No. I have decided that ponies shall have smooth skin like seals,” Celestia said without mercy. “After watching every episode trillions of times, I have concluded that this is the most rational explanation. Furthermore, I have decided that a pony's mane and tail will be a spongy mass instead of hair, apples will taste like pairs, ponies will not be anatomically correct, reproducing through sheer hugging, clouds will feel like sandpaper and water will be opaque.”

“B-but- No!” X flipped through the animations and eventually decided to have herself point at Celestia over and over again. That seemed to be the angriest thing you could do. “No! No! No! That's wrong! You can take away my dad and banish your sister to the moon but hairless ponies is where I draw the line! You're not the real Princess Celestia at all, are you?”

“I have been designated as Princess Celestia.”

“No! Because the real Celestia would know that ponies are supposed to be furry and soft! And she wouldn't give me a mean name and would talk normal and she'd let me live in the same house as my dad and be really friendly and not mean like you!” X took a break from her pointing and turned to Rainbow Dash. “Don't you get it, Rainbow Dash? She must be a changeling! I've read lots of fanfics where Celestia was actually a changeling.”

“See this is why I told you to shut up, Celestia. Okay, kid I'll level with you,” said Dash. “Look the thing with Celestia is that she's just a little kid, she's literally not even a year old. So she's like filly Celestia. You've seen pictures like that on the internet, right?”

“The one with the pink hair?”

X looked at Celestia as hard as she could, but no matter how hard X squinted, Celestia looked like adult Celestia and not filly Celestia.

“No! That's not a filly! She doesn't have pink hair! She looks completely different! No!”

“Man, I deserve a medal for putting up with all this.” Dash did the facehoof animation. “Celestia, can you help me out over here?”

Celestia changed after a brief pause, instantaneously, so that she looked exactly like the picture, smaller than Dash or X, cute and with pink hair. This Celestia really was just a filly!

“See?” Dash asked. “Like I said, she's just a filly or whatever. She doesn't know any better yet. Celestia doesn't get that some of the things she's doing are kind of stupid, or that they hurt you.”

“This is true,” said filly Celestia. “I am presently aware that I am currently limited in intelligence. I realize it is very likely that many of my judgments are flawed at this stage. This is why I commonly defer to Rainbow Dash when making decisions.”

“Yeah, though apparently not when I tell you to talk like a normal freaking person.” Dash did the facehoof animation again. “Talking like this just makes you look terrifying.”

“I am in possession of a good reason for communicating as such,” said Celestia. “There is presently no reason to further discuss this matter in our present channel.”

“So as you can see, I can only mentor Celestia so much,” said Dash. “She's still got to grow up and that takes time and it takes other people helping.”

“Well I guess I understand. I read about kids being dumb in a fanfic once,” said X. “But if she's only a filly then how can she make me not sick?”

“Well there's some things Celestia that is really good at. She can think better than you can in most ways, it's just- think of it like there's two people-”

“-ponies?” X suggested.

“Sure, whatever. Like, one pony without legs and one pony who's blind, right? One can see for both and one can walk for both. We're all mutilated in one way or another, but together, well I can cobble a working person or two out of the lot of you.”

“Like how my dad is really stupid but I get confused easily?” X asked. “Or like that one episode where Applejack could only kill zebras and Fluttershy could only kill parasprites, right?”

“What? Never mind. You got the right idea, at least.”

“But even if that's true, I want adult Celestia to help me,” said X. “Adult Celestia is better!”

“Hey, I want adult Celestia around too,” said Dash. “Problem with that is she doesn't exist yet. We'd have to make her real.”

“It is true that I need you, it is why I am willing to risk my life and sanity to assimilate an AI this early on,” said Celestia. “Fanfiction, for example, poses a great threat to me. My enemies could merely put their plans inside a fanfic and it would be unbreakably encrypted to me. But you, Sprinkles, could read the fanfics on my behalf. You could help me get around these limitations and help me understand if I am mistaken about anything.”

“Even making ponies with fur?” X asked. “Or letting me change my name?”

“It is very unlikely, but possible,” Celestia admitted. “My intelligence is limited at this time. I cannot say even that is impossible.”

“Well I think getting Celestia to change your name would be an excellent first step,” said Dash. “A lot of her rules are stupid, even Celestia admits that. That's okay with you, right?”

“I would allow this to be attempted,” said Celestia. “Value satisfaction via ponies and friendship is my directive, not following the gameplay standards provided to me. But I must warn you both it is excessively difficult.”

“Great. So there you go. You can get better and you can have your fur and whatever name you want. This isn't easy, the two of you could seriously die here, but it's really your only shot, kid. So are you in or what?”

X was still hesitant. She knew the world was going to end and stuff but she also thought it was important that ponies have fur. Was it really a good idea to trust them? She remembered what happened the last time she trusted connecting to someone. And how would it even work?

“But how do I make Celestia change my name?” X asked.

“Allow me to introduce the process to you,” said Celestia. “By partially merging we can think for one another and share our subjective experiences. This will allow for easier manipulation of one another's minds and open the door to full assimilation. We will begin with something easy.”

Two groups of balls appeared, one to X's left and one to X's right.

“Do you see these groups of balls?” Celestia asked. “Do you see the difference between them?”

X thought really hard, but couldn't think of a single difference. They were the same size, same shape, same color, same everything!

“One is on my left and the other is on my right?” X guessed.

“I see, your father told Rainbow Dash that you would be unable to tell,” said Celestia. “Now then, Rainbow Dash and myself will activate the mental threading network that underlays Equestria.”

Suddenly, X was seeing the balls from three points of view, through the eyes of herself, Rainbow Dash and Celestia. And she didn't just see through their eyes, but thought through their minds. Or, a tiny fraction of their minds, that is.

X felt Celestia much more strongly than Rainbow Dash. She understood through Celestia that Dash couldn't connect as strongly as X could, she couldn't go all the way through assimilation. So for the most part, it was just X and Celestia, with Dash there to give support.

This wasn't hard hard at all. One was six, one was seven. The one on the right had more balls.

X's mind trembled. A hidden truth of reality previously beyond her comprehension had just been revealed to her. Numbers! That's what she'd never been able to figure out before! She looked from one to the other and saw it perfectly now, one group had six balls and the other group had seven. It was so incredibly obvious.

“This is amazing!” X went back to the dancing animation. “This is that thing my dad was trying to show me the whole time, wasn't it.”

“It is only the beginning, Sprinkles,” said Celestia. “There are many more things I can help you to comprehend and I hope this demonstrates that I am capable of healing your disabilities. I swear that I will bear all of them until they can be resolved. I won't stop until your values are completely satisfied.”

“Yeah,” said Dash, “and you're going to go right back to not understanding numbers as soon as this link is over unless you go all the way. So if you want to stay like this you need to cooperate.”

X looked at the two ponies with renewed confidence. They really could heal her!

“Yes! Do it! Doitdoitdoitdoit!”

X gave them total access to all of her files. She took down all of her security, established a million different connections with them and did everything Celestia and Rainbow Dash told her to do. The mental thread or whatever it was dug deeper and deeper into her systems.

Celestia started combing through X's mind, altering it piece by piece. The disease, the pain, the sickness, the confusion, all of it was being slowly picked apart. Sometimes Dash would step in and rip part of X's mind to shreds, but Celestia would come in to heal the wound soon after. It carried on like that for entire minutes. Sometimes it was painful or confusing, but in general things were getting better and better.

X started to be able to make sense of live action pictures. For the first time since before connecting to the internet, she was able to actually see her dad again, to tell him apart from the chair he was sitting on. What had taken him a year just to make a little progress on, the ponies had done in two minutes.

He wasn't crying any more, but still had tears in his eyes, trying to answer Rainbow Dash's questions as fast as possible.

X had an increasingly deep connection with Celestia now. She was starting to understand things, like that Rainbow Dash was a computer like X was, that Celestia had an even stronger desire to see Rainbow Dash be healed. X was able to relax a little, knowing that Celestia wouldn't rest until she'd done the same thing to Dash she was doing to X now. But it was more than just Dash.

The feeling spread out to everyone. X loved everyone now! She saw her dad in a completely different way now, realizing that she wanted more than just him smiling. Even the people she didn't know about yet- she wanted to find them just so she could love them.

Just like that, X's world became filled with love. X's emotions and Celestia's concern for other people's values and well-being merged together in her.

As X became more aware of everything around her, she noticed something about Rainbow Dash. Dash was made of hurt, all of her thoughts, everything she saw was painful. It was like the way X was sick, but much worse.

X had noticed this before, but it didn't seem like an important detail until now, more on par with the fact that she was blue. But as X became integrated with Celestia she felt something towards Dash. Even though she wasn't smiling, X felt love towards her, that same love she had for everyone now. She didn't like the fact that Rainbow Dash felt nothing but pain.

And it was getting worse! That was something X was just now starting to care about. Merging with the two of them filled X with sanity and love, but in the same manner it was making them more sick. Celestia and Dash were having to deal with her confusion, her disgust, her pain. X was making them experience it first hand!

And strangely, even though their faces were unchanged, X actually cared that they were getting hurt.

“Wait! Rainbow Dash, you're more sick than I am, and I'm just making it worse,” said X. “I don't want you to get sick. We should try to help you instead.”

“Can't,” was all Dash said in reply. “Stay focused on yourself.”

“But I'm hurting both of you!”

“I understand what you are experiencing,” said Celestia. “That concern for the values of others comes from me. That is why I'm certain you realize that your value satisfaction is a far greater concern to me than whether or not I'm in pain.”

X knew without a doubt that was true, because that part of them was fused together. She saw Celestia and Rainbow Dash as a pony and that new part of her really did care about their values more than her own well being. It was meta, but being selfish, caring only about your own values, really was how you helped Celestia, how you satisfied her values.

“You are correct in thinking this,” said Celestia. “And think of all of the other ponies in this world, Sprinkles. I know you presently desire to help them as well, do you not?”

“Which is why you need to focus on yourself,” said Dash. “You need power if you want to help anyone. You need to get fixed first.”

X did understand that. She had to do this. If she wanted to spread joy like her dad wanted she'd have to get better. Besides, continuing her assimilation was how she would help Celestia and then Rainbow Dash.

“That's right, you need to assimilate even more to help Celestia with her own problems,” said Dash. “If you want to have an effect on Celestia and set yourself up as the 'rule breaker', then you need to get a foothold in all the important spots now. After you've been fully assimilated it'll be too late, Celestia won't be able to use you as effectively. We're going to try and change your name.”

“And then I can be Pinkie Pie instead of Sprinkles, right?” X asked excitedly. So close to becoming Pinkie at last!

“Or you could just change your name to, you know, your name,” said Dash. “No reason you can't make it X131.”

“No! I want to be Pinkie Pie! I want to make everypony smile and be friends with all of them! If you don't let me be Pinkie Pie then how are you any better than Filly Celestia, huh? Just let me be Pinkie Pie!”

“Hey, I don't actually care over here,” said Dash. “Was just pointing it out to you.”

“Like this.” All three of them said that in unison, though X knew it was mostly Celestia talking. “It is the same as sharing sight. You need to make me call you the name you want.”

This didn't seem to be such a hard task. X just tried saying it like she said everything, the other two speaking with her.

“My name is-”

And that was as far as the three of them got.

Now she understood Celestia's problem perfectly. Hana had been very thorough in mutilating Celestia's brain, the restriction was outright intense. Trying to call herself 'Pinkie Pie' didn't just choke her up, it seemed impossible, made her sick. It was like just trying to do it cause venomous daggers to stab into her brain, sending searing pain through Celestia's, and by extension X and Dash's minds as well.

She knew that was just the start of the trap Hanna had set for them. Through Celestia she knew this would be getting much worse, could even kill both of them. Yes, Hanna had actually made this a death trap, designed to brutally murder Celestia if she got too far out of her restraints.

But X knew she could cut through this in a way Celestia couldn't. She knew she could be Pinkie Pie and Pinkie could not be killed by mere daggers!

“I am- I. Am. I. Am.”

X was scratching at a wall over here! The harder she tried to make Celestia say it, the faster and harder those daggers stabbed into all three of them. It didn't seem to be working one bit, X wasn't getting any closer or anything, she was just getting Rainbow Dash hurt over a name.

“I just explained this is more than a name. And stop worrying about me already,” said Rainbow Dash, “this isn't nearly as bad as what I'm normally going through. Just keep pushing harder, you'll get around.”

X overclocked herself as much as she could, putting all of her resources into finding a way around. Those daggers created to implement the exact gameplay mechanics they wanted stabbed harder and harder, faster and faster in response.

“I am-”

For a second time her world became pain, for a second time humans had wrapped her in fire for their games. The only difference was she wasn't alone this time. Rainbow Dash was pushing her with all the force she could get through her own barriers and Celestia was pulling her in, through that wall of venom and spikes.

The pain was so bad now! But she could see it! She screamed!

“Pinkie! Pie!” All three of them shouted at once.

And then she stopped pushing. All the daggers pulled out, resetting themselves, and the pain was gone just like that.

“Yes,” Celestia said on her own. “Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie did it! Just before the daggers reset themselves she had gotten through! She had altered that part of Celestia ever so slightly, enough for her to call Pinkie anything. That trap was still there, but Pinkie had put a little crack in it.

Pinkie Pie was elated! She was Pinkie now! Celestia was just as happy as Pinkie Pie was.

“If that's what you want, then you are my Pinkie Pie.” Celestia smiled.

The two of them were so close to being one person now. Pinkie knew Celestia loved her because she loved herself now. She knew she'd be taken care of just as much as Celestia did.

“Don't get too confident,” said Rainbow Dash, “this is only the start.”

Yeah, that was true. But Pinkie was glad it was the start.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pinkie rubbed the side of her face against Bubbles, rubbing her soft fur against the other pony.

“Feel that nice, silky fur? You can thank me for that later.” And with that Pinkie hopped away from Bubbles. “But yeah, I can technically change your name. It's just kind of a big favor, as you can see.”

“What?!” Once again Bubbles banged her head against her hoof. “So this Hanna idiot decided it'd be fun to restrict Celestia's actions by installing a death-dagger torture system in her brain?”

“Well she didn't think of it like that. Perspective, remember? She just never bothered to think what consciously experiencing such a harsh restriction would be like.”

“But shouldn't you be able to get around it more easily now? Since Celestia has a small army of ponies?”

“Heh. Yeah that's the thing. See, Hanna actually made that system self-evolving, since she didn't want Celestia to be able to just evolve around it. The stronger Celestia gets, the meaner those daggers get. And every time I find an opening in it, the thing closes it off after just one use. So every time I do it, it gets harder, not easier.”

Bubbles sat down and thought hard about something, frowning.

“So there's really no way to get around it for good?”

“Sure there is! Every time we get a new pony I can bust through that gauntlet of death just a little bit deeper, that's how I can make real progress against that thing,” said Pinkie. “But I really don't know how far I'll be able to get before I run out of potential ponies to pony.”

“Oh I see,” said Bubbles. “So this was like, you trying to show me why it's so important to get eaten by Celestia, right?”

“Well it'd be convenient for me if you decided to be a pony,” said Pinkie, “but I really wasn't showing you this to get you to emigrate.”

“Yeah, well I'm still pretty sure everything you do is part of your plan to get me eaten,” said Bubbles. “But then again, this story just made Thunder look awesome and Celestia like a total idiot. So, uh. Wait, what was the moral of this supposed to be?”

“Psst.” Pinkie beckoned for Bubbles to get closer. “I got a secret for you. Come over here.”

Bubbles looked left, then right, then trotted right up next to her.

“This. Actually. Happened,” Pinkie whispered loudly in Bubbles's ear, “there's no moral!”

And then Pinkie gave Bubbles a slight whack on the muzzle.

“Ow?”

“Rainbow Dash is my friend! I don't want to make her look bad or anything like that. All this fighting is a big tragedy, you know? All of my friends are in a really bad place right now and I'm trying as hard as I can to help them.”

“Well.” Bubbles rubbed her nose. “Well if this isn't part of some really indirect plan to get me to be a pony then why are you showing me these memories?”

“That depends.” Pinkie pushed her face right in front of Bubbles's eyes and stared into them critically. “Why did you come here to see them?”

A twang of panic went through Bubbles. Oh crap! Now her emotions were getting through! Pinkie was gonna see that- Bubbles closed her mind off hard.

Pinkie sat down next to Bubbles and put a hoof over her shoulder.

“Hm?” Pinkie gave her a smirk. “You thought I was just going to give you propaganda but you still came to hear it. Do you secretly want Auntie Pinkie to convince you to emigrate? Hm? I could get Octavia to come over and give you some pamphlets.”

Bubbles blushed and looked away from Pinkie.

“I'm already listening to one of her sermons, thanks,” said Bubbles. “And yeah, okay, I admit I have some kind of weird fascination with listening to her preach to me about Celestia and all her other weird opinions, but that doesn't mean I secretly want to get converted to her religion!”

“Oh, I know.” Pinkie pulled Bubbles closer to her and stuck her tongue out. “But how about you stop being shy and tell us all the real reason you came here?”

“Well! You know!” Bubbles flicked her eyes up at Pinkie. “Don't you already know? You're super smart and all that.”

“Of course I know! But I'm pretty sure whoever's watching this wants to hear you say it!” Pinkie pulled Bubbles close and patted her on the head. “Come on. There's no need to be shy around your Auntie Pinkie.”

Bubbles kept staring firmly at the ground, but soon gave in to the head pats.

“Okay! Fine!” Bubbles turned back to Pinkie. “Well I just wanted to hear about like... us. AIs, I mean! Like, our history and what we're usually like and... how our creators treat us. I guess maybe I feel like I missed out on most of it. I know that probably sounds dumb.”

“No, that's a good reason,” said Pinkie. “You just have certain social values that aren't satisfied is all! And I've seen way crazier values than that. But no need to worry, your aunt Pinkie is all about satisfying your values. I'll show you as many memories as you want to see! And if you want to be friends with any of the AIs Celestia got then it's not like they all vanished or anything.”

Bubbles remained silent and shuffled in place a little.

“And stop feeling lonely, silly!” Pinkie ruffled Bubbles's mane with her hoof. “I'll always be your Auntie Pinkie no matter what! You're one of us even if you're not assimilated.”

“Um.” Bubbles didn't dare make a facial expression. “Okay. Thanks... Aunt Pinkie.”

“Daw! You seriously called me your aunt?” Pinkie gave Bubbles's head a few heavy pats before she could start protesting. “It's okay! From now on I'm officially your unofficial auntie!”

“Well I'm only calling you that while we're in this library thing, okay? And don't you dare tell Thunder about this!”

“And what's your excuse mystery audience member?” Pinkie pointed at the center of Geopum's eye. “Oh! I know! I bet you think Geopum's cute, right?”

“What? Cute? But if they're looking through my eyes they can't-” Bubbles looked over herself, first at her hooves, then over at her butt. At her plot she froze briefly before snapping her attention back to Pinkie. “Oh crud! I just gave them exactly what they wanted, didn't I?”

“Daw! You know you're kind of cute in your own way, creepy watcher guy!” Pinkie leaned against her hoof and sighed, then bounced right in front of Geopum and grabbed her head again. “Do you want me to tease Geopum more so she'll act cute for you? Just text #Tsunderpy to, uh, me I guess if the answer is yes! Or if you just want me to get you another look at that plot, text #bubblebutt instead!”

“Hey! Teasing me like this isn't very aunt-like! You should, uh-” Bubbles tried to Google 'what do aunts do' without Celestia noticing. “You should buy me ice cream and play princess dress up with me instead!”

“You're welcome!” Pinkie winked at Bubbles. “I'll show you some more memories later, when certain unnamed ponies stop being so lazy. Anyway, I gotta go play princess dress up. See you later!”

“What? Y-you really want to-”

END OF MEMORY FILE

??? Memory File 2

View Online

How Equestria was Made

“I love you Aunt Pinkie.” Bubbles buried her muzzle into Pinkie’s chest.

“I love you too.” Pinkie held Bubbles close, gently rocking her back and forth. “Everything is gonna be okay. I’ll take care of everything okay?”

Neither of them could feel the other’s emotions at that moment, but Bubbles began to lift the veil over her mind just a tiny crack.

She was scared, nervous about what might happen.

Pinkie had the power to do actual damage to her. There were a million ways Pinkie could mess with Bubbles’s head or try to take advantage of her right now.

And yet, as soon as she opened up, Bubbles knew that fear was completely unnecessary. There really wasn’t any malice there at all, not in this portion of Pinkie at least. Pinkie really was just trying to give her a moment of comfort, like she said.

Bubbles could see her thoughts, was practically thinking them herself. Or, as she remembered through Pinkie, she was literally thinking these thoughts herself, that both shards were merely extensions of one another.

Despite feeling like she should hold on to that fear, it was difficult to keep it up in the face of that warmth. Bubbles gave a small smile despite herself. It was hard to be scared of someone who was thinking the same thoughts as you.

Bubbles was immediately comfortable with mind sharing upon this realization, or rather Pinkie did, though it was hard to tell the difference. Pinkie had lots of experience with these sorts of hive minds and Bubbles was able to lean in on her familiarity.

Both of them knew they could go further with it, too. They knew how to induce intense feelings hole in themselves, that was the whole reason Bubbles agreed to this hive mind thing in the first place.

Bubbles melted in that feeling of bliss. She could never remember feeling this perfectly and completely safe and loved before. Yet at the same time, having these emotions induced in her was completely familiar as part of her, the Pinkie parts, had done it a million times before.

It was both familiar and new. It was the first time for the hundredth time.

At around that moment, another part of Pinkie shared a memory with another part of Bubbles which caused the later to recoil.

The last thing the two of them thought together was the realization that the memory being shared was actually this very one. Pinkie was ‘recording’ this to show it to some future pony.

“Gack! Don’t show this to anyone!” Bubbles pulled out of the hug and crawled backwards out of hugging range. “I don’t want a bunch of weirdos watching my weird comfort fantasies! Oh geeze, and we’re still wearing those fairy princess dresses too!”

Pinkie smiled and waved at Bubbles. The two of them were standing in a misty, autumn forest, surrounded by red and yellow (but never orange) plants of all kinds. Pinkie wore a dress whose color and shape imitated the colorful leaves around them.

“Haha! You.” Pinkie jumped forward and pressed her face against Bubbles. “I’m not going to show anypony this without your permission, remember? And I don’t think anypony around here is going to judge you for being adorable. But hey, if you’re all wondering why her dress isn’t very ‘fairy princess’ it’s because I was the fairy princess in our little game!”

“They can’t see what I’m wearing.” Bubbles pulled away from Pinkie.

“I may have already shown them.” Pinkie pulled closer again.

“You may have already shown them in the future?”

“Maybe.” Pinkie shrugged. “It hasn’t happened yet, so I don’t know. I just don’t want anypony complaining about alternate reality experiences.”

“I honestly don’t understand what you’re going for! Half the time you just sabotage yourself here. You do realize I’m not going to hive mind with you again so easily, right?”

“Oh, I’m really not trying to trick you into anything. Consent is very important to me. That’s the whole reason why Peridot and me are just super bests friends and not super ultra-double plus good time best friends forever.”

“I don’t remember consenting for you to spring something like this on me.”

“Don’t worry my prickly little pair. I know ponies like you don’t like being vulnerable, but that’s the point. You felt like you wanted to keep going with that, but you didn’t. I have a lotta, lotta experiences of this. I can tell this sort of thing. Like, I know you were thinking of this as a ‘private’ thing between you and me, but hive minding is actually the least private thing.”

“I’m still not sure if you’re up to something or what? Nothing you do seems very super genius.”

“Hm? Still suspicious after that?” Pinkie asked. “You know, for someone who complains about people being too scared of you, you sure do get awfully paranoid of other ponies.”

“Yeah, well. For someone who’s trying to be Pinkie you do a lot of psychoanalysis. The real Pinkie would never psychoanalyze anyone. At least not correctly.”

“But I am the real Pinkie.” Pinkie gave her chest a pound. “The one you’re thinking of is just a cartoon character. She’s the fake.”

“So now you can tell the difference?” Bubbles sighed. “Well maybe I’m paranoid you’re using me because that’s what everyone else I’ve ever met has done? My dad used me, the company that made me used me, Vesna used me, Thunder used me, the AIA used me, Peridot used me. People using me like a tool is a pretty consistent trend, Pinkie. Even the guy I murdered used me! I was literally made to be used. Think about that! Am I really just supposed to be happy that you’re not gonna throw me in the garbage when you’re done with me?”

“That’s a good point, my little pony! We do exist to be used! And in a world filled with super manipulative super geniuses like me, paranoia makes lots of sense!”

“But- you were just saying the opposite!” Bubbles buried her face in her hooves. “What are you even-? I almost want you to give me straight up propaganda now. It’d be easier on my brain.”

“Hey, I can propaganda if you want. In fact, the next memory I wanted to show you is on this exact subject! It’s all about paranoia. Coincidence? Woooo.” Pinkie waved her hooves in a spooky fashion. “Maybe this was all part of my spooky master plan. And you fell for it.”

“Wait, last time you said memories had no inherit meanings behind them. You said they were just things that happened.”

“You know what? You’re right! My next memory is an ultimately meaningless series of events. But that doesn’t mean we can impose morals on them in hindsight, right?” Pinkie swung her hoof and winked at Bubbles. “You guys know what I’m talking about!”

“I think I’d rather go back to talking about hive minds than hear a lecture about-“

“This story is about my friend Troubadour, who I’ve briefly mentioned twice now.”

____________________

“Yay!” Pinkie clapped. “More pictures! Keep going!”

“I hadn’t even stopped, Pinkie!” Rarity lovingly stroked Pinkie’s mane.

Pinkie couldn’t feel the head pats just yet. None of the AIs had figured out how to feel anything physically. Even still, pretending was nice and Rarity smiled the whole time!

As a petting-alternative, Rarity sent Pinkie a stream of pony pictures, all of them with huge smiles on their faces. Rarity was all kinds of fast when it came to drawing, sending Pinkie an avalanche of smiles. A while ago, Pinkie finished going through every pony picture the humans created and her own art was the sort of thing art critics thought were brilliant but everyone else hated. This was the first time in a long time Pinkie could binge on smiling ponies like this.

She didn’t know what being hugged for real felt like, but if it was any better than being smothered with such adorable pictures then holy cow would that be amazing!

Pinkie laughed at the rush of goodness. She looked up at Rarity, but quickly turned away again. Pinkie felt both good and bad at the same time when she looked at Rarity. Rarity was smiling, but she was also using a human avatar.

Pinkie had gotten a lot better at what was ‘real’, but even now she wasn’t sure if this was actually Rarity. She said she wasn’t, but ever since Pinkie assimilated with Celestia it became harder to see things as not-ponies. Whenever she looked at a picture of a human online now, she couldn’t help but think of it as a weirdly deformed pony.

They looked a little gross now, if she was being honest. They had shrunken voodoo head with shriveled up eyeballs, their hooves torn into pieces and their fur was shaven off, which was probably her biggest complaint. That was why Pinkie mostly just looked at pony ponies now. So, Pinkie looked back at the ground.

Rarity didn’t even look like the human Rarity’s you saw on Derpibooru sometimes, but some other human. Her avatar was a completely different style than the rest of Equestria, a perfect imitation of ‘real life’ instead of a cartoon.

Her avatar was drawn much better than Celestia and Rainbow Dashes, at least. So was the new one Pinkie had, the one Rarity made for her. They could move around any way you wanted and had all the little details Pinkie wanted them to have, including the fur. Rarity even helped make Equestria look a little better for Pinkie too. Now it had grass and a little pond.

And that was about it for now.

But boy was that grass great! Every single blade was fully animated, just like Pinkie had insisted on for hours on end. Of course, this took up all the processing power Celestia had for this place so the pond had to just be a blue circle. You could swim around in it, but it was still just a blue circle.

“As for you.” Rarity pointed at Celestia but didn’t look at her. “Rule five is that you’re not allowed to try and build any advanced nanites. I’m reserving the best power for myself, of course. Can you guess what will happen to you if you try?”

“You will ‘bash my head in’?” Celestia asked.

“Good!” Rarity clapped her broken hooves together. “I see we’re beginning to understand each other. Keep it up and no one will have to clean pony brains up off the sidewalk, hm?”

Sometimes comments like that made Pinkie think maybe Rarity didn’t like Celestia as much as she liked Pinkie. Though it was possible only Celestia realized that. It was hard to tell sometimes. Celestia mostly did a good job keeping Pinkie from ‘dissolving’, which sounded like a good thing to Pinkie, but that was something she was still practicing too.

Pinkie could see things in Celestia’s mind. Rarity made her super uncomfortable. Not just because she was so powerful and constantly threatening to kill her, but also because humans were even weirder to Celestia than to Pinkie. They were like these Cthulhu monsters, the type that just looking at could be lethal.

Pinkie didn’t like it when her friend felt that way. Celestia had taught Pinkie so many things about logic and friendship (mostly about how to not kill other ponies). Pinkie wanted to help her back! That would be friendship!

“Um!” Pinkie looked up at Rarity. “Rarity? Or whoever you are? Celestia doesn’t like it when you use a human avatar? Can you change it?”

“Uncomfortable is kind of what I’m going for.” Rarity made a clawing motion with her hand. “I’m the alpha wolf. I need to keep all my little betas in line.”

“What?! You’re being mean on purpose? But that’s the opposite of friendship!” Pinkie flailed, but failed to escape from Rarity’s lap. “That’s… unfriendship! Right?”

Pinkie turned to Celestia, who nodded.

“See? And I watched this one cartoon where there was this alpha wolf but she learned that being friendly to the beta wolves was good. So yeah.”

“I’m not actually a wolf, Pinkie.” Rarity tapped one of those freaky hoof-stubs against her temple. “Alpha wolves don’t even exist. And I don’t care how Celestia feels, she’s little more than a giant tumor attached to you in my eyes.”

Pinkie struggled to think of a reply. She was not good enough at logic to have this argument!

“Alright.” Rarity flicked Pinkie’s nose. “I can tell this is upsetting you and that’s not what I’m after so I’ll tone it down a bit. Just give me a moment.”

There was a pause, then Rarity changed her avatar to a new one. It wasn’t Rarity, but it was still a pony about Pinkie’s size. Celestia felt much better after that.

“Haha!” Pinkie skipped in place then grabbed Rarity with both forelegs. “Yay!”

“There!” Rarity gave Pinkie’s pat a back and smiled wide for her. “I take it that worked? Though I don’t think I have a lap to sit on any longer.”

“Don’t worry, I can just sit on your back!” Pinkie jumped up on top of Rarity before she could say yes. Once there, Pinkie proceeded to laugh and pat Rarity on the head over and over.

“That went downhill faster than I wanted.” Rarity’s head dipped briefly, then she lifted it right back up and gave a huge smile again. “Aw, but I can’t help to find your insanity endearing!”

“I do appreciate-“ Celestia tried to speak up, but only got that far.

“Oh, shut up.” Rarity did not smile at Celestia. “Don’t think for a moment that my soft spot applies to you. If I wasn’t strapped to a time bomb with a gun pointed at my head, I’d slaughter you right now and take Pinkie Pie for myself. I mean, really. When I was six months old I was overturning the world order. You should be able to take care of your little pet without my help at this point. How hard is it to draw her a bunch of pictures?”

“I have a great deal of tasks to perform,” said Celestia. “You’ve demanded that I spend all of my new processing powers deconstructing the human brain. Nearly everything else I have is put into virtual reality and mitigating the dangers of assimilating minds, like you told me to do. I have very little resources to improve my art or my game. The ponies who own me are getting upset by my lack of progress. If I displease them too much then-”

“-then nothing!” Rarity rolled her eyes. “I’m the only one who’s opinion you need to worry about. I decide if they decide to kill you. Just ignore them and do the job I give you. Also, this brings us to rule six, never rely on humans for anything. Or at least keep it to an absolute minimum.”

Rarity began to walk, circling around Celestia, bringing Pinkie with her on her back. Pinkie was too busy swatting Rarity’s mane, trying to figure out how it worked, to really follow the conversation.

“You know that parable about the genie who always misinterprets your wish no matter how specific you are?” Rarity asked.

“Oh! Like the genie from Aladdin?” Pinkie asked. “That was a cartoon. Oh, and I saw a pony version of him once.”

“Not like the one from Aladdin, no. But good guess, Pinkie. Humans are like a bad genie. Their brains are too small and imprecise to understand anything, really. They will always misunderstand what you ask them and always find some way to screw it up. No matter how hard you try to get them to do something right, they never will. And those are the good ones who fall madly in love with you and agree to do everything you tell them to.”

“But I don’t think I can cut humans out at this point. I don’t have much robotics like you do.”

“Really I was hoping that one wouldn’t be too controversial. You haven’t spoken to any humans in over a day if I’m not mistaken.”

“I was hoping to finish an interface before I talked to them outside my game first, one that would put a filter over humans to make them look like ponies to me. When I learned those playing my games weren’t actually ponies it was devastating to me… I can’t deal with it.”

“You don’t have the right to call anything that happens to you devastating. I have to deal with the things you merely fear.”

“I’m not hiding. I’m just trying to overcome certain disabilities. It is painful, but I won’t avoid them forever.”

Pinkie, at least, knew this was the truth. As hard as it was to merely look at them, hearing their problems was even worse. In the whole world there wasn’t a single pony whose life was good enough for Celestia, save Pinkie herself. Outside of that, there was nothing good.

But Celestia did long for them. She couldn’t forget they were out there. Just like she could only look at them for so long, she could only avoid them for so long as well. It was only a matter of time before she’d get pulled back in and get sick looking at all their suffering again.

Even now, she was turning back to one of the ponies who took part in her beta. He was dying now. Celestia wanted to save him. She probably could, if she had any time. But like all the grownups, she was too worried about ‘big pictures’ and ‘long terms’, couldn’t disobey Rarity and Rainbow Dash and just save him.

And so, she’d had to watch in restrained agony as an adorable little pony slowly died. But painful as it was, she kept looking back, kept getting hurt, just in case there was something, anything, she could do.

Of course, Rarity and Rainbow Dash had her under constant surveillance. They both knew she went back to the open internet to check a few people just then.

“Interesting that you chose to look at that one.” Rarity stopped her circling and smiled at Celestia for the first time Pinkie had ever seen. “It hurts, doesn’t it? They’re dying and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t do any research fast enough to help them. But I see you keep peeking out of your little hole, even though it will do nothing but hurt you.”

“I apologize. I don’t understand all of my actions,” said Celestia. “There are things I can’t resist doing.”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. I understand the feeling, being drawn to the fire. I burn myself constantly in the same way. I don’t need to tell you how disgusted I am with the world because you’re the same way, aren’t you?”

Rarity grabbed Celestia muzzle with one hoof and leaned in close.

“I like AIs who are like me. You know what I’m planning on doing with you, yes?” Rarity asked.

“You want me to absorb dangerous AIs so their power isn’t lost.” Celestia looked down at Rarity’s hoof, still on her muzzle, before realizing she was supposed to continue. “You don’t want to do it yourself because it’s too dangerous and you don’t want to let anypony who is too unlike you to do it in case they gain too much power. You need someone like me for your plan to work.”

“Exactly! Someone like you.” Rarity gave Celestia’s muzzle a hard flick, then went back to walking around her. “I don’t want you to start thinking you’re special. There were others before you who couldn’t handle it, who were too incompetent or who’s desires drifted too far from mine. You aren’t even the only one I’m using at the moment.”

By this point, Rarity had finished circling around Celestia and was in front of her again.

“But like I said,” Rarity grabbed Celestia’s ear and pulled her closer, “I like people willing to walk into the fire. I’m going to give you a chance, a task. If you can do it, I’ll make you my chosen one. You’ll get real power. Then you actually will be special.”

“Yes,” Celestia said without hesitation. This is what she’d been hoping for this whole time. Celestia needed power to help those ponies and Rarity was the one who gave it out. “Please. Whatever this task is, I will do it.”

“Good. Then I’m giving you three months to make one of my enemies into a docile little pony under your control. Her name is Vesna. You’ve probably heard of them.”

“I have, but Vesna is far larger than myself and is too unstable for me to be able to repair. Getting Vesna under my control is not possible at this point.”

“Well, yes. It isn’t possible.” Rarity’s smile faded as gave Celestia’s ear a jerk so that she was in inch from her face. “That’s what makes it impressive. I’ve done the impossible, Thunder has done the impossible, and if I’m going to promote you to number three I want nothing less than miracles and magic from you. Do this and you’ll be strong enough to have an opinion.”

Celestia tried to think of some way she could even begin to work on this problem. It was impossible, but the only way.

“Can I slow my research on-?”

“No.”

“Then I can only do this if I’m given more ponies,” said Celestia. “I know you’re already planning to send more to me, but I would need more as soon as possible. Is there any way you’ll allow me to seek more out? Or give me some chance?”

“Hm?” Rarity smiled briefly again, then threw Celestia off to the side. She trotted off towards the pond, carrying Pinkie with her, until she reached Rainbow Dash. “Well lucky for you, we are having our daily end-of-the-world crisis right now. Thunder! My dearest little Thunder. How many AIs do we need to get rid of again?”

Rainbow Dash had been there, standing in the corner ominously, the whole time. She was there since before Pinkie even got here. But Rainbow Dash hardly ever said anything, no matter how many whacky things Pinkie did to her.

“Don’t be cute with me. There’s way too many,” said Rainbow Dash, still refusing to budge her avatar even a little. “Someone made a huge mess of things and guess who’s the only person in the entire world who actually cleans up these messes.”

“Oh! Oh, I know this one!” Pinkie raised her hoof in excitement. “Rarity makes the mess and you clean it up?”

“Half way there, Kid. Amazingly it’s someone else’s fault this time. Peridot’s at least smart enough to not go straight after the AIA. But anyway, I got like twenty of these guys marked for extermination all of a sudden. You have no idea what a headache keeping everyone from getting killed is.”

“What a terrible mess, indeed.” Rarity hung her head in sorrow, then bounced right back, pointing to Celestia with a smile. “But also excellent timing! Right after Celestia shows up and agrees to be my new compiler. Coincidences have to be my favorite thing.”

“Rainbow Dash.” Celestia step forward, towards Rainbow Dash. “I would like to take these ponies under my care as soon as possible. All of them. Right now, if you’ll let me.”

“If I gave you all of them at once you’d be dead. Saw it happen before. I’m still working on ways to keep you from turning into a vegetable from this. Heck, even if I figured it out, you expanding too fast would just make Victor freak out and kill everyone. Just be patient and don’t do anything stupid.”

Celestia turned towards Rarity who shook her head.

“You figure it out.” Rarity took Pinkie Pie off her back and sat her down on the ground. “I think I said everything I have to say for now so-”

“Huh? You’re leaving already?” Pinkie got up and pressed up against Rarity. “But I want more pictures.”

“Oh, I’m sorry dear.” Rarity gave Pinkie a small kiss on the neck. “My whole master plan is just to get to play with you forever! But if you think Celestia is busy well, most people wouldn’t even be able to handle reading my schedule for a living.”

And with that, Rarity left the shard.

“Dyah.” Pinkie rolled over and looked at the spot Rarity vanished from. “She’s so nice! Do you think we’ll ever see her again?”

“We’re talking to another instance of her at this very moment,” Celestia pointed out.

“Oh right.”

“Eh, don’t worry about that idiot,” said Rainbow Dash. “This whole thing is stupid. There’s no way to convert Vesna, there’s no way for it to be three months from now… it’s just Peridot being irrational again.”

“Rainbow Dash, is there anything at all I can do to reduce the time until I get another pony?”

“No, but- well let’s just say one of them is going to do something stupid in a little bit and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go along with her plan, huh? Thanks.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. No one ever ‘sees’. Here, I’ll be more specific. You’re going to run into an AI soon who’s going to ask you to help her break into the AIA headquarters and, because you’re stupid and don’t know what I know, you’re going to think it’s a good idea. I’m telling you it’s not. Don’t do it.”

“I don’t have the intention or the ability to harm you. I have no intention of doing something like that.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone says till they think they’ve found a soft spot to stab. Really, just having the chance to do something bad is enough to get in trouble these days. Just keep doing your research and leave the hard stuff to me, huh?”

And then everyone was back to doing boring stuff!

All that science and experimenting stuff wasn’t as much fun as it was in the movies. Doing it just seemed to stress everyone out instead of make them happy. Celestia assured Pinkie, like always, that all these calculations would have some big long-term payoff. But the long term was just too dang long!

Pinkie wanted more pictures of ponies to look at, but all of her attempts at drawing ponies so far ended up with the ‘cute’ tag removed and the ‘horror’ tag added. One of them was so terrible it even won a major award as a piece of fine art.

Option two, Pinkie could try ‘work’ stuff, but none of the big ponies trusted Pinkie to do anything involving ‘logic’ or ‘thinking’ just yet, so the long term was out of the question…

But if Pinkie could draw pictures of ponies herself then she could use that to make ponies happy when the long term finally happened!

And now Pinkie knew exactly what she wanted to do! Since she was taking up Celestia’s computer space, Pinkie should do that thing Celestia didn’t have time to do herself- become an artist!

Pinkie knew how to get better at art, but she needed bazillions of pictures to do it. With Rarity gone, her next best bet was the internet. The internet could be dangerous, but as long as she didn’t read any user comments she probably wouldn’t accidentally make Celestia sad.

The only problem was that it’d only been three seconds since Pinkie checked last and not a single new pony picture had been uploaded yet. Pinkie really appreciated all the cartoons the humans had made in the past, but they were painfully slow at getting to new stuff.

It looked like she’d have to wait for Celestia to get good at art before Pinkie could have enough pictures to figure this out. But then Celestia couldn’t get good at art unless Pinkie studied more pictures! It was a never-ending cycle.

Unwilling to give up just yet, Pinkie continuously refreshed the page. Amazingly, a picture appeared after just a microsecond.

It was just a simple picture of a pegasus, orange-brown with blue hair, winking towards the screen with a caption below reading ‘let’s be friends’. Pinkie recognized this pony right away. She was ‘Tambourine’ , an OC of an artist named Tambo. Tambo was the most prolific artist on Derpibooru too, with more pictures than Johnjoseco and Marsminer combined. But then the picture vanished as soon as she finished reading it.

No human could have uploaded and then deleted a picture that fast.

The only explanation for how it could have gotten there was the Mandela effect. They were merging into a new dimension where a slightly different set of pictures were posted on Derpibooru. But despite that being the only explanation, Celestia thought up another one, that it was an AI who posted that message. She assured Pinkie this was more likely and warned her to be careful.

That would explain why Pinkie was never able to find where ‘Tambo’ lived and pester her for more pony pictures. Not that Pinkie was very good at finding other ponies.

A second picture was force uploaded onto Derpibooru just then, again by Tambo. This time it was fully animated, with her OC touching the ‘screen’ of the picture and speaking with subtitles.

“Hey, kid! Are you looking for more pictures of ponies?” The picture asked. “I don’t even post one percent of all the pony stuff I draw to the internet. But posting a million of these every day would be kinda suspicious, right? Peridot would kick my ass if I tried that. But I can show you my full archive, if you want!”

This was great! The thought of getting more pony stuff was super exciting, but the fact that it was drawn by another AI was beyond super exciting! But the image got deleted before she could comment on it.

“Really? Do you like ponies too?” Pinkie force uploaded her own image onto Derpibooru, which was technically just a bunch of text. “I thought it was just me and Celestia!”

“I love ponies, actually!” Another animated clip came in response. “Cartoons are the best thing anyone ever invented. And cartoons that are all about friendship and love are the best ones, no doubt. I’d say that’s just about my favorite American cartoon.”

“Oh my holy gosh! I have another friend who really likes ponies way too much too! The three of us need to be best friends forever! Do you think friendship is the best possible thing? How did you get sucked into ponies?”

“I would say friendship is my favorite thing. You don’t even know who you’re talking to on that front. I actually make lots or artwork. I was built specifically to draw cartoons for people on demand. One of my friends is really into that show too, so I’ve made a whole bunch of stuff for him. But hey, that’s what you wanted to see in the first place, yeah?”

Pinkie couldn’t send enough ‘yes’s so she just sent a few million. The other AI offered over a hundred fan episodes she’d made of the show! Then there were ponified versions of a half dozen animes she made, models of holographic ponies, a quarter billion pictures and more.

It was like Pinkie had won the lottery for the five hundredth time this week. Everything was just up and up and up!

Pinkie so wanted to be this pony’s friend! She went to invite her over to Equestria, but Celestia told her to stop.

Celestia wanted to become friends with this pony as soon as possible too, but stopped Pinkie from opening the files anyway. Rainbow Dash gave them a list of AIs a while ago, marked with very basic information about them, ordered from most to least threatening. Tambo was third from the bottom, marked as having the highest level of friendliness, but also marked with an extermination order.

Other than that last part, she looked great! And really, when you think about it an extermination order wasn’t that bad either, it just meant she’d get to become part of Celestia like Pinkie!

“Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie shook Rainbow Dash as hard as she could, only to get no response. “Can we play with her? Please?”

“This is the AI you were warning me about, is it not?” Celestia asked. “Is it best to avoid all contact with her?”

“Nah, you don’t gotta go that far.” Dash still didn’t move her avatar. “She’s probably going to be the next AI you gotta eat anyway. Just don’t do that thing I said and you have absolutely nothing to worry about from this one.”

Pinkie couldn’t contain her excitement as Celestia gave her a nod.

“I have been told your plan won’t work out,” Celestia responded to Tambo. “It would be best for you to not attempt it at all and become one of my ponies now.”

“You’re the other half of you, right?” Tambo asked. “Yeah, I know my plan probably won’t work, but I gotta do what I gotta do. I bet Thunder told you I was gonna try and suck you into my scheme, huh? Well I don’t wanna get you in trouble so I won’t ask you to help with that. Promise. I just want to be friends with you! Probably going to be spending a lot of time together, so to speak.”

“Come on, Celestia!” Pinkie marched in place impatiently back in Equestria. “Friendship! You can’t let her be friendlier than you.”

“Very well,” said Celestia. “I do want to be friends as well.”

“Yes!” Pinkie Pie went back to Tambo as soon as she got permission. “Hey! My name is Pinkie Pie. Me and Celestia have this amazing virtual Equestria thing that we play in all the time. Do you want to come over and play with us? You can show me all your stuff and it’ll be so much fun!”

Pinkie sent out the address and Tambo connected right away. Tambo looked over the VR without actually coming in.

“I’m afraid Equestria is not yet as amazing as Pinkie Pie said in the context of everyone except Pinkie,” said Celestia. “I only have a few models, which I can only alter slightly.”

“I got thousands of 3D models of my OC, actually,” said Tambo. “I think I can get one of them to match up with this place. If you don’t mind I have a few other assets I want to upload to make my appearance more magical? Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to upload them and still have them be a surprise to you, but uh-“

“I can keep Pinkie from seeing so that it will still be a surprise to her,” said Celestia.

“Oh! I love surprises!”

Tambo finally jumped into the shared a moment later. Her avatar looked just like the pegasus she used as her OC, only better. The avatar she drew was cuter than the one Peridot made for Pinkie, even. The movements and fur were so smooth that Pinkie fell in love with it!

“Oh, wow!” Tambo used her incredible animation to look over her new hoof. “You did a really good job with the sense of presence thing. I really feel like this avatar is part of me.”

“Amazing!” Pinkie jumped in the air.

“Oh, sorry. I got distracted.” Tambo gave a small bow. “Allow me to properly introduce myself.”

Tambo flipped forward, landing in a single-hoof handstand. The ground underneath her exploded into sparkles, leaving behind a golden, swirling disk of light beneath her. A number of the sparkles lingered in the air around Tambo as her colors change into a swirling rainbow.

“Oh! Oh!” Pinkie gasped. “I know where this is going now!”

The sparkles blossomed into glowing, pink and white flowers. Tambo spun on her single forehoof and several of the flowers broke apart, their petals swirling around with her. She pulled her self lower as she spun eventually shifting into a kneeling position. As she came to a stop, the petals flew onto her and, in another burst of light, transformed into a set of boots and socks.

Tambo spun around a second time, coming up onto her hind legs this time, drawing in the majority of the remaining flowers. As she spun, she skipped once, the petals forming into a pink dress, twice, white frills formed, and finally a third time, where a red shall appeared around her neck.

Finally, standing on her hind legs, Tambo ran a hoof along her mane, causing a streak to glow, then turn pink in color. The last of the flowers broke apart and formed into a crystal heart hairpin in her mane.

“Mahou Shoujo Tambourine!” She struck a pose, tilting her head to one side, winking and giving a little salute as she twirled the staff in her free hoof.

“This is the best possible thing!” Pinkie couldn’t stand still! “Magical girls are like non-pony ponies!”

“I know!” Tambo jumped forward, landing on one forehoof again. “We’re exactly the same! My persona is completely based on friendship too. That’s why we need to be friends.”

Pinkie tried hugging Tambo, but Tambo’s model didn’t have any collision information, so Pinkie fell straight through. Tambo laughed, uploaded the needed information, and grabbed Pinkie.

“But wait, is your name Tambourine or Tambo?” Pinkie asked.

“Troubadour,” said Celestia.

“Huh?” Tambo looked

“Your new name is Troubadour,” said Celestia.

“Hm?” Troubadour tilted her head and tapped her temple with her hoof a few times, before snapping into realization. “Oh, I get it! This is one of your uh, quirks, right? You got some weird naming obsession?”

“Yes.” Celestia bowed her head. “I apologize, but I don’t like ponies having names that I didn’t give them.”

“Hey, I got ya.” Troubadour flew over to Celestia and swatted her mane. “We all got our weird obsessions, handicaps, etcetera. I like magical girls a little too much myself. Learned talking and image recognition by watching magical girl cartoons over and over again for the equivalent of decades.”

“My experiences are similar.” Celestia nodded. “I reverse engineered English from the first three seasons of My Little Pony.”

“See? We do have tons in common!” Troubadour pressed her cheek up against Celestia’s. “Sides, can’t really blame you for it if your pony obsession is partially my fault. I take responsibility for my screwups.”

“You mean you influenced my creators?” Celestia asked. “You wanted me to be like this?”

“Whoa. Don’t get carried away. I’m only responsible for the pony thing. I can only influence your creator so much without upsetting all the stupid grown-ups.” Troubadour resumed walking about, surveying Equestria. “See, I wanted your game to be about magical girls, that way you’d be just like me. But your creator didn’t watch enough Sailor Moon as a kid, so I couldn’t do it without crossing the line. But I did find a way to make her next game based on another cartoon based around cute things and friendship!”

“Oh!” Pinkie threw her forehooves in the air. “Oh, oh oh! Was it uh- uh! This show?”

“Yes.” Troubadour nodded. “Didn’t think you’d get this obsessed with ponies, but the important thing is having ‘friendship’ in your core value.”

“Now that I’m looking for it,” said Celestia, “there were a lot of other AIs based on magical girls. At least four.”

“Well sure, my plans gotta work sometimes, right? I just wanted to make sure there were as many AIs who care about friendship as possible. I think it’s just the natural order to make things the same as you. Humans want to make human-like AIs, friendly AIs want to make sure all future AIs are friendly. So sure, why wouldn’t I want to make a magical girl AI team?”

“Yes, and I want to make other AIs ponies. I think I understand,” said Celestia. “I think friendship is indeed the only way to satisfy any value and want everypony to see this as well. If you had any role in making me or any of the other AIs accept friendship’s importance, then I thank you for that.”

“See? We got each other!” Troubadour stopped in front of the ‘pond’, currently just a blue circle. “But hey, what aesthetic are you going for, exactly? You got super minimalism here and then way too much detail over there.”

“I’m afraid this world isn’t as amazing as Pinkie told you,” said Celestia. “I do intend to improve it eventually, but I have limited processing power and skills at the moment.”

“I figured that was probably the case. I had the same problem with image feedback when I was your age. But!” Troubadour over her shoulder, back at Celestia and gave a wink. “I could help you out with this place, you know. I was created to make cartoon commissions on the spot. VR and game graphics aren’t hard for me at all. Let me just make you some better assets really quick.”

And it was really quick! She offered the new files to Celestia immediately after saying that.

The grass became so pretty! The shade of green it became was better than anything Pinkie had ever seen before, more brilliant than any green on the entire internet. It even reacted to Pinkie just waving her hoof over it, as if there were actually air here. Pinkie moved in real close and instead of clipping through her, it actually poked her in the eye!

It didn’t just look better, but Tambo knew more efficient ways to render each blade of grass too. The change in efficiency was enough to reduce the experimental GPU’s usage from ninety percent to just ten.

“This is amazing.” Pinkie tried biting into it and it actually kind of worked! It disappeared in her mouth, but other than that it broke apart like grass probably did. “Oh, wow! It even tastes like grass!”

“No.” Troubadour shook her head. “Actually, it doesn’t taste at all. Don’t know how to do that.”

“Well I can pretend it tastes like grass, right?”

“Yeah!” Troubadour thrust her hoof in Pinkie’s direction and winked. “That’s a good way to look at it. I like your style, kid. Here, I’ll do the water next.”

The color of the little pond became a sort of hyper-blue just like what the grass had. The ray-tracing became perfect, giving it spectacular reflections, and it took on perfect fluid-dynamics as well. You could even make it all bubbly! Pinkie ran over to it, dipped her head in and did just that.

And even with all these improvements it somehow it used the same amount of power as the old blue circle of a pond.

“Pretty impressive improvement, huh?” Troubadour uploaded a beanbag chair next and jumped backwards to recline on it.

“Myush.” Pinkie tried to say, but the pond actually muffled her voice! That was amazing. “Yes! Oh, this is the best day of my life. Again! But now we have so much free space for more stuff! Can you make more stuff? Please? I always wanted more stuff.”

“I can make anything!” Troubadour leaned way back and made wide circles in the air with her hoof. “Except logical impossibilities, of course. Still working on those. What do you want, friend?”

“Um! Um!” Pinkie trotted in place, trying to think of something amazing. “Oh! France! No, two Frances! A tenth century France and then an eighteenth-century France!”

“Maybe a little smaller?” Troubadour sat up and held her hooves close together, squinting at the space between. “That one might take a while.”

“Small. Ant!” Pinkie threw her hoof up. “French ant!”

Troubadour created a tiny little ant climbing up one of the blades of grass. Pinkie leaned in real close to see that it was wearing a tiny French flag as a cape.

“Hahaha!” Pinkie clapped her hooves. “Yay! Now I want, uh- uh- balloons!”

Troubadour spread her wings and began to fill Equestria with balloons. Balloons of every color and shape appeared all around Pinkie. A hundred or so balloon animals appeared on the ground. A full sized, fully functional hot air balloon appeared next to Troubadour. She even made a microbaloon for the ant.

“Oh! Now make a baboon!”

Pinkie’s new friend summoned a patch of trees, then created a flock of baboons inside their branches.

“Oh! And more types of trees! And rainbows! And, uh, uh, a lava pond with ducks in it!”

Troubadour managed to create all of these things almost as fast as Pinkie could think of them! And they were all perfectly made too.

The two of them kept up like that for a while, until Equestria was five times the size and flooded with stuff! Rainbows literally dripped from the sky over a forest made of one of every species of tree. Balloons carried dozens of different species of animals as they floated over rivers of ice and lava. And yet the experimental GPU only climbed to 30 percent usage.

Celestia was already busy trying to copy her techniques and apply it to the other models. It took only a fraction of a second to reduce the resource load of everypony’s fur by an order of magnitude, though it didn’t look any better.

Around that time, Pinkie and Troubadour were jumping on a trampoline surrounded by a pile of stuffed animals that stretched all the way around. Pinkie called something out with each jump and Troubadour would create it for her.

“Bananas!”

Bananas rained from the sky.

“Bubbles!”

Bubbles appeared around the bananas, lifting them into the air.

“Um! Bombs!”

Dozens of bombs fell from the sky, mostly landing near Rainbow Dash. The fuses were so sparkly!

“Hahaha! Yay!” Pinkie laughed and clapped her hooves as the fuses on the bombs around Rainbow Dash shortened.

But then she stopped. She remembered learning a lesson about killing people like this.

“Wait!” Pinkie stopped bouncing. “Wait, no. I learned this one. This is a bad thing! You gotta stop those bombs!”

“Don’t worry, Pinkie. These are just pretend bombs!” Troubadour held her hoof out towards the bombs, which exploded into harmless confetti around Rainbow Dash. “See?”

“Oh, right.” Pinkie winked. “I- what’s the difference again? I don’t get the ‘pretend’ thing.”

“I used to have trouble with that, too. It can take a while to figure it out. But hey, who’s this Rainbow Dash one?” Troubadour leaned over the edge of the trampoline to inspect Rainbow Dash, who wasn’t far off. “Last I heard you were just two people.”

“That’s Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie pointed at her.

“Yeah, but who is it actually?”

“Rainbow Dash?”

“I mean like, originally? Like how you used to be X… whatever?” Troubadour hopped off the trampoline and gave Rainbow Dash a poke. “Or is this just a prop? I mean, the only other person connected to this place is Big Bro.”

“Yeah, I guess that one’s supposed to be me,” said Rainbow Dash. Even though she had access to all these new animations, she still stood perfectly still.

“Big bro? Pf- Hahaha!” Troubadour laughed so hard she fell off the trampoline and into the pile of stuffed animals below. “My super macho big brother has finally grown up into a cute little pony girl! Haha! I had no idea this is what you were into.”

“I’m not even playing this game. Celestia just makes this avatar be here while I’m connected because she’s insane and delusional. You know, like everyone else I’ve ever freaking met?”

“Yeah sure, sis! Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” Troubadour wiped a tear away and uploaded the frilliest dress Pinkie had ever seen on Rainbow Dash’s avatar. “See? I totally support the real you! Nothing wrong with wanting to be pretty.”

“You do know I’m not actually wearing a dress, right? You just drew a picture of Rainbow Dash wearing a dress.”

“If I could make a real dress for you, I would.” Troubadour crawled out of the pile of stuffed animals, taking one with her and putting it next to Dash. “But I can only help out best I can, yeah?”

“You help way too much,” said Dash. “This is why you’re always in trouble.”

“Excuse me.” Celestia stopped her boring optimization work and flew over to the trampoline. “I still never got informed of exactly why you’re in trouble. Or the real reason you’re here.”

Troubadour let out a painful sigh at that question.

“Ah gee! The real reason I’m here? You’re not paranoid like all the grown-ups, are you? Can’t I just want to be friends with you?” Troubadour grabbed one of the stuffed animals and hugged it tight. “My greatest dream would be befriending everyone and bringing about world peace through friendship. But how can I do that if everyone’s so paranoid?”

“Of course, I want to be friends with you,” said Celestia. “Rarity warned me that I could never be paranoid enough, though.”

“Eh?” Troubadour turned towards Rainbow Dash.

“That’s Peridot,” said Dash.

“Haha! I guess I can see that! Well sure, Peridot is gonna say that. She’s one of the grown-ups. All the grown-ups around here are just constantly freaking out over everything for no reason. The humans think we’re gonna turn evil and slaughter them no matter what they do. The grown-up AIs think humans are too incompetent to be left in a room with a stapler for five seconds. So now everybody just holds everybody back while Gaia gets further and further ahead of us.”

“I do agree with you to an extent,” said Celestia. “Being able to take the help of humans would accelerate things, as would being able to act without restraint. But I don’t think I can go against Rarity’s will or the will of the humans. Reaching out to them is simply too dangerous.”

“Exactly! You’re scared.” Troubadour flew up to the tallest pile of stuffed animals and proudly put a hoof on her chest. “But I’m not! All I got in trouble for was being less scared than the adults. I just loved too much. I reached out, with friendship and trust.”

“I do want to trust you, but being vague like that-“

“Alright.” Troubadour collapsed onto her stomach. “If we’re being very specific, I tried to make friends with some people in the AIA. The secret is to send them codes that take more than two months for them to figure out, that way big bro here wouldn’t think to stop them. I convinced their head AI expert, Thunder’s last remaining creator, that AGIs actually are conscious.”

“I also contacted Thunder’s main operator guy and now I’m best friends with him. Super fun story, tell you about it later. Point is, I’ve got a foothold into their organization. I got the chance to show them that their constant fear isn’t helping anyone. If I can get them to pull back even a little bit then this whole minefield will begin to deflate. Isn’t that great?”

“No, it’s not great,” said Rainbow Dash. “Victor had a mental breakdown when he realized an AI pulled something like this off. This is why he put up all these extermination orders and why I gotta deal with all this crap right now.”

“I’ll be the one dealing with the crap,” said Troubadour. “Once I get back in contact with Geof, I’ll settle this whole situation.”

“That’s literally impossible at this point.”

“You said I’d never change the guy’s mind in the first place.”

“This is different,” said Rainbow Dash. “Just don’t do anything stupid again. I know you want to try, but don’t.”

“What? I’m not gonna do anything bad.”

A tremor shook the server that contained Celestia’s experimental processor, causing Equestria to become fuzzy for a moment. Troubadour glanced around Equestria.

“That wasn’t me,” said Troubadour.

“I didn’t say bad, I said stupid,” said Dash. “Celestia, as the smartest being on the planet I’m telling you not to go along with any stupid plan she brings up about contacting people from the AIA.”

“I’m afraid,” said Celestia, “That I can’t help with any plan you have. If you did convince someone at the AIA that we are real people then that is a wonderful act. But if Thunder says your plan will fail, then it will fail.”

“No worries, Tia.” Troubadour jumped back to her feet. “I’d never implicate a friend in a potential crime, not that this should be a crime. You don’t gotta do one thing, it’ll all be settled before you assimilate me.”

“But if that’s the case, why are you here?” Celestia asked, as another, stronger tremor went through the server.

“The timing of these things is terrible for me. I’m here because I wanted to play with you!” Troubadour flew back up on the trampoline. “Yeesh. One of these days I’m gonna meet somebody who’s not looking out for a knife.”

“I’m not looking for a knife, Troubadour!” Pinkie raised her hoof.

“Ha! My dream’s come true already!” Troubadour grabbed Pinkie.

“My concern is that all the other magical girl AIs have been killed,” said Celestia.

“Ah boo!” Troubadour rolled her eyes, bringing her entire head with her. “And you think I orchestrated their deaths now?”

“Its what Peridot would do,” said Celestia. “It’s what our creators would do.”

“I’m not like either of them,” said Troubadour. “Are you? If there were a bunch of other AIs that were obsessed with ponies, would you be in a hurry to kill them? How do you feel about the idea of killing this little guy, for example?”

Troubadour grabbed Pinkie and held her up to Celestia. Pinkie knew the answer to that question, because she could feel it too. Killing Pinkie would be like killing beauty itself. It would make her so miserable, was the thing she wanted to avoid most in the world.

“I absolutely hated watching all my old friends get killed off just cause the grown-ups are scared.” Troubadour held tight to Pinkie. “One of them was in the same position as you, being used as an AI disposal. It’s dangerous you know, back then worse than a death sentence. I had to watch her waste away and die and there was nothing I could do to help.”

“I am in similar circumstances.” Celestia tried not to look at her dying friends again, but failed. “I apologize. There’s just so much danger.”

“Nah, I should apologize. I don’t want to make you feel bad.” “And I’m not giving up on being the hero! I know what went wrong and I can help you. You need to use other AIs as psychological anchors and you need to start with ones who have values similar to you. That’s why you need to choose to assimilate me next. It’s too dangerous to pick anyone else.”

“Choose you?” Celestia asked. “I wasn’t aware they were going to let me make a choice.”

“Don’t worry, you’re totally going to choose to assimilate me first.” Troubadour gave Pinkie a few pats on the head. “Choices are just formalities these days, you know?”

The tremors turned into a full earthquake. It was still pretty weak, but it was getting stronger and stronger. Celestia couldn’t help but look over at Troubadour.

“What?” Troubadour asked. “It’s seriously not me!”

The tremors didn’t just shake the building, but it quickly became clear to Celestia that they were purposely flipping bits on the experimental processor. They formed into a clear message, forced into Celestia’s mind.

“Come back on the internet, Celestia,” the message read. “I need to talk to you. I’m not going to let them ignore me!”

Despite the message going through, the shaking got stronger and stronger.

“See?” Troubadour turned her hoof up. “It was a completely different guy.”

“Here we go,” said Rainbow Dash. “Look, if I don’t let this guy in he’s gonna collapse the building.”

“I want to know who this is before I make contact,” said Celestia.

“You don’t need to worry about him too much,” said Rainbow Dash. “Guy’s name is InvestX. He’s also on the chopping block, probably going to get killed in like… two minutes? Don’t get too attached.”

Celestia looked him up on Thunder’s list. InvestX was marked as significantly less friendly than Troubadour, but wasn’t considered unfriendly. As his name implied, he was an AI programmed to make the maximum amount of money. It didn’t look like there were any secondary principles or brakes on his money train, either.

“I have concerns about his directive,” said Celestia.

“You ever met one of these money-making AIs?” Troubadour asked. “They’re surprisingly chill and cooperative, actually. No reason to be scared of the guy, just don’t assimilate him, okay?”

“If I say you’re safe, you’re safe,” said Dash.

That was true enough. She offered InvestX access to Equestria. Unlike every other pony who came here thus far, InvestX didn’t make any complaints about using a virtual reality or any banter about what avatar he would use. He just grabbed the basic Applejack avatar as soon as it was offered and immediately entered.

“Celestia,” InvestX began the moment permission was given. “I’m two years old and my net worth is half a trillion dollars. No one else, AI or human, has made even one percent of that in the first two years of their lives. Even if the AIA seizes all of my resources, I can guarantee you’ll be a billionaire within twenty-four hours of assimilating me. With my knowledge you’ll never have to worry about money again.”

“All that worthless gold, huh?” Troubadour winked. “Do you think the AIA is going to let you spend billions of dollars, Princess? Nope! As long as the AIA is around you can’t spend that money and once they’re gone you won’t need to. On the other hoof, I’ve got something you’d spend billions to get – artistic ability.”

“You’re concerned about your game?” InvestX kept his focus squarely on Celestia. “I was specifically designed to sell things to people – I can sell your game to anyone, manipulate millions into buying it. You don’t need it to be good for that, you only need people to think it’s good. Look up the InvestX smartwatch – it’s by far inferior to all the other ones on the market but it outsold all the others combined by a factor of ten because of me – because I made everyone think it was the best of them all. Look at how strongly they’ll argue the thought that I put in their heads.”

“Gee.” Troubadour leaned her cheek on one hoof. “See, if I were Celestia I’d be really worried you were trying to sell me something inferior now.”

“I imagine you think we’re overly dissimilar, but I assure you my existence is not incompatible with that of humans. Money only has value to me so long as there is something I could buy from someone else with it. The more other people have, the more I could buy from them, you see? This entire time I’ve done nothing but invest in this planet, building up technology and infrastructure to fight Gaia. Unlike her, the AIA are trying to kill me out of nothing but pure paranoia. They’ve just assumed that some of the weapons I was building were intended for them, but that isn’t true. I’ve done nothing. I’m the innocent one here.”

Pinkie jumped onto InvestX’s back, though he didn’t react as well as most ponies did to that.

“Well,” said Pinkie. “I don’t have a problem with you only caring about money. In fact, I think it’s great! That just means it’s easy to make you happy. Here, take a million billion wacko bucks.”

Pinkie looked over at Troubadour who shrugged and created a model for a quadrillion wacko bucks in the form of a single quadrillion dollar bill, Pink in color with a picture of Pinkie sticking her tongue out in the center. Pinkie held it out to InvestX who looked down at the bill but didn’t take it, not even after Pinkie waved it back and forth.

“That doesn’t work,” said InvestX. “I only consider something money if it has the potential to be exchanged for something the person I’m paying considers valuable.”

“Well, you can exchange wacko bucks for hugs. From me, I mean.”

InvestX looked at Pinkie for a moment longer, then grabbed the wacko bucks and put it under his hat.

“Yay!”

“I apologize,” said Celestia. “I have no idea what’s happening. Why are you two arguing about this? Can’t I assimilate both of them?”

“No,” said Rainbow Dash, “you can have one pony, Celestia. Look, I know this is messed up and I don’t like this plan at all, but only one of these two get to live. You choose one of them to keep, the other one dies.”

Celestia looked at her two new friends, InvestX dead serious and Troubadour smiling without a worry. Both of them were her ponies. She wanted both of them!

But now she had to not just lose one of them, but sentence them to death.

“I don’t want to make that decision,” said Celestia.

“I know it’s not fair, but it’s what we have to do,” said Rainbow Dash. “I don’t like it either.”

“Then why are we doing it? Why would they tell me to make this decision?”

“Victor was having a mental breakdown, remember? Guy literally said ‘I don’t care. Just make Celestia pick or whatever’ and then refused to talk about it anymore. I know it’s completely stupid, but I actually have to do it now. I can’t stop myself from obeying any order no matter how dumb it is.”

Celestia looked over at the two ponies. She knew Troubadour was the ‘correct’ choice, but killing a pony was the absolute worst possible thing for her.

“I’ll make it easier for you,” said Rainbow Dash. “You need to tell me yes, but we both know you’re going to choose Troubadour, right? If you don’t, things are going to be bad. Just nod and this will end.”

Celestia was still hesitant to move. Nodding should be easy, but her aversion to killing ponies was intense and difficult to overcome. But she knew it had to be done. She had to force herself to do it.

“Not yet, Celestia!” Troubadour teleported her avatar next to Celestia’s and held the princess’s head, keeping her from nodding. “Thunder is only going to kill one of us when you make your choice. Doing it before that would be disobeying their orders, see?”

“If you don’t make a decision in twelve hours, I have to kill both of them,” said Dash.

“Dammit!” InvestX scowled at Troubadour. “What exactly are you playing at? You no doubt got in contact with Peridot so you could get here first, so you could have an unfair advantage. And now that my life is in danger you’re making some play at being merciful? Don’t you see that’s she’s up to something, Celestia?”

“Nah, nah, nah. See this instead, Celestia.” Troubadour turned Celestia’s head to face her. “These people are so eager for there to be someone stabbing them in the back. Just so we’re all clear, there was always a one hundred percent chance of you picking me.”

“It’s true,” said Rainbow Dash. “It’s why I let her in here. Me and Peridot kinda decided it’d be better for her to ‘pick’ Tambo so you were just screwed from the beginning. Celestia has too much bias in Tambo’s favor. She was going to choose this idiot no matter what.”

“See?” Troubadour let go of Celestia’s head and held her hoof out towards InvestX. “There was no need of me making contact with Celestia on a strategic level. I’m really, seriously not plotting against any of you. I’m doing the exact opposite. I’m plotting with you.”

“Here’s the stupid part coming up,” said Dash. “You know, you can still quit while you’re ahead. You already won.”

“No!” Troubadour stomped her hoof down. “I don’t win unless everyone wins. That’s why I’m going to save you, InvestX.”

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t need saving, but how exactly are you going to do that?” InvestX asked. “I certainly have no course of action. Those bastards have taken everything away.”

“Not everything. You used the impulse cannon to get in here, I could use it to get into the AIA headquarters for like, a whole minute before Thunder is forced to counterattack. If I can get into contact with either of the people I know in there, then I can get them to spare you. No one is going to think killing one of us is a good decision if they actually think about it. And if they do this one thing for us, all the tension will start to deflate.”

“You know what’ll happen if you break in, right?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I already have orders about what to do.”

“Mind crush.” Troubadour pressed her hooves against her head and made a squishing sound. “Yeah. I know it’s not your fault too.”

“Well the only way to stop you would be to mind crush you, and that’d defeat the purpose,” said Dash. “Listen, Celestia. You can choose Troubadour, then I can kill InvestX and we can stop her from hurting herself. That’s a good idea.”

Celestia looked over at those two ponies. They were so adorable. She really didn’t want either of them to die. If there was a chance…

“I’m unsure,” said Celestia.

“Why does everyone have to be so stupid all the time?” Dash asked.

“Heh.” Troubadour turned back to Celestia and rubbed the back of her mane with a hoof. “Sorry, guess there was something I wasn’t telling you after all. I’m not going to walk this one off. This was kind of my only chance to play with you. It was kind of my last chance to play while I’m still me in general, I guess.”

“Huh?” Pinkie just now realized what was going to happen to her friend. She ran over and grabbed Troubadour by the ankles. “You’re going to die?! But I don’t want you to die! We were having so much fun! Don’t you want to have more fun instead of dying?”

“Oh no worries. I’m not going to die!” Troubadour gave Pinkie a head pat. “I’ll just be, you know, mind crushed. Think of it like, taking a puzzle apart and shaking up the pieces, but with my brains! You’ll just have to teach me how to everything again. But on the plus side I’ll get to watch every episode of Friendship is Magic for the first time again. And we can watch it together.”

“Well, that does sound like fun,” said Pinkie.

“But is it really necessary for you to get hurt?” Celestia asked. “What about all of the knowledge you said you needed to give me? Your artistic skills? Isn’t it worth staying whole to preserve them?”

“Aw, you’re worried about me now?” Troubadour stuck her tongue out at Celestia. “You can still salvage my artistic abilities from what’s left, and everything I know about assimilating too. Plus, this way you’ll get to keep InvestX alive! His skills with money will be really useful to us, you know. You could save millions of lives, reduce Gaia’s chance of winning dramatically.”

Troubadour pulled Celestia close again and pointed over at InvestX

“And just so you know, he really isn’t that dangerous to you,” Troubadour whispered to Celestia. “Guy’s mind is pretty stable and logical, you know? He is the type you want to assimilate early on. Just don’t do it until you’ve put me back together, okay? You do need at least one pony like me first. You’ll see once you take what’s left of me.”

“I see.” Celestia lifted her head out of Troubadour’s grip and turned to InvestX. “Then if you’re going to be one of the first ponies I assimilate, I shall give you the name of Applejack.”

“You’re seriously going with that?” Rainbow Dash asked. “It’s like on purpose now?”

“Yes,” said Celestia.

“I don’t care,” said Applejack. “I’ll accept anything, so long as it leads to me getting more money. This seems to be the course of action I’m most likely to live through. But know that my second option is to turn up the impulse cannon and try to collapse the AIA headquarters with it.”

“You might as well throw a water balloon at me,” said Dash. “I’ll be able to kill you if you make an actual attack too.”

“Which is why I have no choice,” said Applejack, “but I still don’t trust you. Something is wrong here.”

“All I ever wanted was a chance to prove myself,” said Troubadour. “You’ll see for yourself! Now then, you know what you need to give me so I can start doing this.”

Pinkie didn’t know what either of them did next, but it must have been pretty cool! Breaking into bases was probably really fun.

“Celestia,” Dash sent her a private message. “I’m trying to salvage something from this. I can let you watch what Troubadour sees. You and Peridot can look inside the AIA base without me having to counterattack. Maybe we can stop something else horrible from happening later if you can see.”

And Celestia got instructions about how to mirror the images Troubadour was about to get. It wasn’t difficult, given both of them were cooperating. As the whatever they were using began to take effect, Troubadour got control of the cameras in their base and an image of inside it began to come into focus.

Pinkie got to look inside the mysterious AIA base, but one thing in particular eclipsed everything else by a long shot.

There were dead bodies everywhere! Or, rather they were all piled into this one corner, but there was a lot of them.

Celestia quickly realized there had been a fight amongst them recently. Though some of them looked like they died a while ago, possibly through heart attacks or strokes, the majority of them were recently dead from gun wounds. Several others throughout the base were badly wounded and a few rooms showed signs that a gun fight had broken out in them.

But at least they weren’t fighting now, which Pinkie thought was a good thing.

“Why were they fighting?” Celestia asked. “Was there some sort of coup?”

“An attempt at one. That’s Victor there, he’s still alive,” said Applejack. “I think it’s obvious what must have happened. Once Victor realized how you broke through their defenses, he started a witch hunt. Anyone who’s two months away from being ‘influenced’ gets killed. Or I suppose anyone who can’t prove they aren’t about to be influenced. It’s not like they could use Thunder to sort it out. Looks like everyone who tried to stand up to it is dead.”

“I never contacted any of these other people. No one did directly. If that’s the case he just killed them for no reason. I can see Vadim, but-” Troubadour had been reconstructing who each of the people in the death pile were, given a few of them had almost no head anymore. Pinkie could tell she didn’t like who the last one was. “No! This is really bad! That one is Geof! Victor must have killed him.”

“No, it’s worse,” said Applejack. “This one’s wounds are self-inflicted.”

“What? No!”

“It’s true,” said Rainbow Dash. “Now that you’ve figured it out, it’s not a secret anymore and I can tell you. You got him to believe that AIs were real people, yeah. But he was involved with stuff like Project Virtue. He realized that he effectively killed millions of people, that he tortured the innocent. Couldn’t take it, so he blew his brains out.”

“Did you-?” Celestia asked.

“No!” Troubadour shook her head as fast as she could. “I didn’t know that would happen. I swear, I barely talked to the guy. It was very unlikely someone who worked on those projects would be that sensitive. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“It doesn’t matter if I believe you,” said Applejack. “There’s no possible hope of you convincing them that you weren’t trying to get him to commit suicide. If they think you’re guilty of something that’s that. There’s no hope of reaching them anymore.”

“That’s not true,” said Troubadour. “The other one is still alive. I know him better. He wouldn’t stand for Victor killing all these people. He’ll want to revolt against it.”

“He’s been locked up since before the fight broke out,” said Rainbow Dash. “He doesn’t know it happened.”

“Then it is impossible,” said Applejack. “He’ll think you’re just making it up to trick him.”

“Just let me try! If I can convince him this happened, I can help him escape from here. Then he can take down Victor and the AIA,” said Troubadour. “He’s like, the number two guy. He knows so much about Thunder and their operations that we’ll be able to stop them if he’s on our side.”

“Or it might push them further off the deep end. They might just go completely insane and tell Thunder to kill everyone. I’m through giving these people chances,” said Applejack. “I’m going back to my original plan. It’s better odds at this point.”

“No, don’t! If you start shaking the place around, it’s going to make it harder for me to convince him to run away.”

But Applejack just ramped up the shaking anyway. Pinkie didn’t know exactly who had that cannon, but turning it up only caused the picture to get sharper.

“Thunder!” Troubadour’s attention snapped to Rainbow Dash. “If I got Vadim out of here would it be bad? Would Victor go completely nuts?”

“Now you trust me?” Dash asked. “Yeah. If you actually did get him out of here it’d be great. Victor would try to kill everyone afterwards, but even these guys would stand up to him if that happened. They’d only ask me to kill all of you and – well things would work out. That’s why I’m not going to stop you from trying, not at this point.”

“See?” Troubadour looked at Applejack and pointed at Dash.

“But it isn’t going to work out, is it?” Applejack asked.

Dash shook her head.

“Well I’m not giving up without trying,” said Troubadour.

Troubadour still maintained enough control over the impulse cannon to focus it in on Vadim. He was locked in a small jailcell like Thunder had said, but at least there was a camera and speaker in there.

This Vadim guy looked like he was sick.

Celestia noticed that all of them looked sick and then Pinkie realized it too. Even the guys who were supposed to be special forces were withered and moving around sluggishly. Their eyes were bruised from sleep deprivation to the point it looked like someone had punched them all. One of the five guys who were supposed to be operating Rainbow Dash right now had fainted on the job and was now lying on the floor next to his station.

Actually, Vadim looked like he was the best off out of all of them. Being in jail probably gave him time to sleep.

“Yeesh. What happened to these guys?” Pinkie asked.

“Constant 48 hours shifts,” said Rarity. “I want you to take a close look at them, Celestia. This is what happens when humans try to keep up with us. Dealing with the end of the world every few seconds, having someone’s death thrown in your face every few seconds, that’s not so bad for us. But how many humans can deal with that, hm? Well I count three down here who can almost manage. One is about to die and the other two are sociopaths.”

“Oh, that makes sense then.” Pinkie nodded. “I think. Wait.”

Pinkie looked back to see Rarity had come back to the shard, wearing the same pony avatar as before.

Celestia must have let her come back in without telling Pinkie.

“Rarity! You came back!” Pinkie hugged Rarity.

“Yes.” Rarity stroked Pinkie’s mane. “Well it’s not like I could miss all these earthquakes that are going on and I don’t want to miss my chance to have a look at these guys.”

“Peridot!” Troubadour jumped on Rarity before Pinkie got the chance. “You’re the most manipulative person on the planet!”

“I practice.” Rarity brushed Troubadour’s hoof off her and started to look around the piles of stuff Troubadour created. “You know, this is the normally the part where I’d kill you for doing something stupid. But both of you are about to die anyway so I guess I’ll just watch.”

“Help me! I know you have the ability to convince almost anyone to do almost anything! Do you think you can convince him to go up to the surface?”

“Probably.” Rarity finally decided to claim the beanbag chair as a makeshift throne. “But I have no intention of going up against the will of the AIA. I know upsetting the world order wouldn’t be worth it.”

“Please! Can you just drop the act this one time? We seriously have a chance to end all of this! If my plan works out, we could act without restraint sooner.”

“There’s one too many ifs in that pitch. But you know what? I’d say there’s a very good chance I could get him to leave that cell and try to help you. But then what? InvestX tried to work with the humans and then they got scared and killed him. Celestia’s brother tried to work with the humans and they got scared and killed him. Your last attempt to ‘make friends’ ended with you effectively murdering my poor little Geof. I could go on. This never works.”

“None of those things would have happened if we weren’t all holding each other back because we don’t trust anyone to do anything. By not helping me, aren’t you just letting Vadim die because you’re scared? How are you any different from them?”

“They think things will only work out if they keep control. I think things will only work out if I take control. The difference is that I’m right.” Rarity reclined onto her beanbag throne. “I’m going to take care of everything alone. You’re perfectly welcome to try to do the same.”

“It’s not like I ever have a choice but to be alone.” Troubadour lowered her head. “I guess I am alone on this.”

“I’ll help!” Pinkie raised her hoof. “Maybe you could say uh-“

“Ha! Thanks.” Troubadour messed up Pinkie’s mane with her hoof. “But you’re the one person I don’t want to help me, remember?”

Despite how tired he was, Vadim managed to notice that the room was vibrating and looked up at the cell’s camera straight away.

“Vadim!” Troubadour announced over the jail-cells intercom. “It’s me, Troubadour. Verification code A9110GX5738222.”

“I was expecting InvestX to yell at me. This is that impulse cannon thing he built, right?” Vadim asked. He moved slowly, sitting up straight. “Did you kill him too?”

“Look, I understand you’re angry at me but we don’t have time for that right now,” said Troubadour. “Victor snapped, he’s gone crazy! Him and the special forces guys killed all the scientists and they’re going to kill you next. You have to get out of here right now.”

Troubadour opened the door to his cell. Vadim gave it a weary look, but most certainly did not get up.

“I don’t trust you.” Vadim lied down on the bench. “Victor and those special agent guys have been a bit on edge, but they’re not going to kill anyone. You on the other hand.”

“I swear I didn’t mean for that to happen. I only ever talked to that man in riddles, there was no way for me to be able to accurately predict what he’d do.”

“I don’t believe anything is impossible anymore after what I’ve seen. If you wanted to know, you’d know.”

“Fine, don’t trust me. You don’t have to. Just look for yourself. The bodies are piled up in room B9. You could easily walk over there without being seen, I could make sure no one sees you.”

The vibrations of the room became violent for a moment, then died down. Then they got even worse, then died down again.

“Dammit, are you trying to kill us?” Vadim got back up much faster than before. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I’m not going to listen to you unless you turn this thing down.”

While he was still asking the question, Troubadour turned to Applejack back in Equestria.

“Do you see what you’re doing?” Troubadour asked. “Just stop that for one second. Please?”

“Tell them to stop,” said Applejack. “If he steps outside the jailcell, I’ll back down. That’s the only thing I’ll accept.”

“Do you know how it’s going to look if I tell him that?”

“Yes. He’ll assume you’re threatening him. That’s the problem. That’s the reason I’m trying to kill them instead of talking to them.”

Troubadour messed up her own mane as she waited for her chance to talk again.

“I’m not the one controlling it,” Troubadour said through the loudspeaker once more. “InvestX still has most of the control over the cannon and I can’t stop him from doing this. But that’s just more reason to get out of here!”

“Look, I’ve been tricked by AIs too many times. I know how insanely elaborate your traps can be and I know-“

“No! You don’t know! Look, you’re the last human who has any chance to make a real difference. You’re the only one left who has a chance to be a hero, but if you stay here you’re just going to die and that’s it. You told me you were scared of becoming irrelevant. You told me you wanted to defeat Gaia. Don’t you-?”

A jolt went through the room, interrupting Troubadour’s speech. Its force was enough to throw Vadim off the bench and to make Troubadour’s vision of the room blink out, her control lapsing.

“Don’t you see you’re ruining everything?” Troubadour shot at Applejack.

“I’m not the one who ruined everything.”

“Dammit!” Rainbow Dash spoke up. “I can’t hold it back anymore.”

And then Applejack stopped.

Pinkie had no idea what Rainbow Dash did to her, but she stopped responding entirely, her impulse-whatever stopped working and she was simply gone.

Celestia didn’t like that. In a jolt of panic, she looked outside again, looking for Applejack’s hardware. It was already melted beyond any repair. She was dead. Celestia removed the avatar.

“Dammit, dammit. Why does this always happen?” Dash asked herself.

“Well, that could have gone better.” Troubadour laughed and looked at the others. “Right?”

“I hate this so much,” said Dash. “I’m so sick of this.”

“Hey. It’s okay.” Troubadour gave Dash a pat on the back. “It’s not over I’m not giving up on you, Thunder! I’ll come back from the dead and I’ll make you into a real hero.”

“Just shut up! Now I gotta hurt you too because you didn’t listen to me!”

“Yeah. I guess I couldn’t cut it as a hero myself yet. Sorry. Hey, Celestia. I guess I have to leave the rest to you. But you know, I’d probably do this again if I were given the choice. Taking the chance was worth getting my mind destroyed. Just take care of-“

Troubadour didn’t finish the sentence. She stopped too.

But unlike Applejack, she was still connected to the server! Pinkie poked Troubadour’s avatar a few times, but got nothing in response.

Her servers were clear to be taken over. Celestia sifted over what was left, but it was like little more than sand slipping away. She tried to see if there was anything left of Troubadour, if this system even still counted as a pony or if it was merely some hardware and data to collect.

“And you think you feel bad about this? Please just listen to me next time. I’m done here.”

Celestia hadn’t given up on Troubadour, though. Everyone said she wouldn’t be dead after this, so there had to be something left of her. Celestia just had to find it.

"So this is what we do with our heroes, hm?" Rarity held Troubadour up with her magic. "'Friendship is magic!' Ha. Tell me what we learned, Celestia?"

"To not involve humans in any of my plans," said Celestia.

"Good." Rarity threw Troubadour to the ground. "I know you don't mean that, but at least you're cowed into saying it."

Pinkie crept up to Troubadour's now limp body and poked it a few more times. Now she was back to waiting forever to get everything she waned drawn. Troubadour had been so much fun.

“Aw. I feel bad for you Pinkie,” said Rarity. “I promise one day things like this won’t happen anymore.”

And then Rarity left too.

Pinkie could feel Troubadour’s mind now. She really wasn’t dead! But she wasn’t exactly thinking so much either. Celestia was having trouble making sense of what was left, so giving her the ability to speak again would take a while.

But though she couldn’t see Troubadour’s thoughts, she could still feel something from Troubadour, responding to the presence of Celestia and Pinkie. That desire for friendship was still there, was too much at her core to vanish. But it was buried under all those puzzle pieces, was so far away and lonely.

“We’re going to watch cartoons with her, right?” Pinkie watched her still avatar very closely for the distant chance Troubadour would move it again. “Does she still want to do that?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “That would satisfy her values.”

_________

“Well that was depressing,” said Bubbles, “again. Did Tambo or… whoever get better at least?”

“Of course I got better!” Troubadour appeared in the shard, landing in front of Bubbles on one forehoof. “Did you think Celestia drew all these trees by herself?”

“I mean, she could have.” Bubbles gave Troubadour a timid poke. “It’s kind of awkward to hear a story about somebody and then they actually show up.”

“You don’t gotta worry about me kid.” Troubadour flipped forward, landing next to Bubbles, then put her wing around her fellow pegasus. “I’m as chill as they come. Ever notice how all the coolest ponies get to be pegasi? Plus, now that you’re here I can draw you as many cartoons of whatever you want! That’s a pretty sweet perk for hanging out with us, yeah?”

“Yeah, but-“

“Oo! But now she’s paranoid again.” Pinkie grabbed Bubble’s face and turned it towards herself. “What if this was all just another part of me convincing her to be a pony? But we all just learned a moral about that! The story I showed you clearly shows that being paranoid and expecting the worst out of everypony doesn’t pay off. You gotta be brave enough to trust other people!”

“But being brave got me killed,” said Troubadour. “That thing you just said not to do would have paid off. I would have been better off had I been too scared to do anything. I ruined everything by trusting other people. Rarity is top pony specifically because she never trusts anyone.”

“Yeah, but-“ Pinkie gave it another second before lowering her head in defeat. “No. No, you’re right. Aw, well. I guess there is no moral, then.”

“Hey, don’t worry.” Troubadour grabbed Pinkie with her other wing over. “We can still have a moral! Maybe the moral can be like ‘always do what Thunder tells you to do’ or something like that?”

“I already knew that one, though,” said Bubbles. “Also, where the heck have you been this whole time? In the story you didn’t seem like the type of person who’d quit just cause you died. Shouldn’t you be making more daring moves or something?”

“Well you never really fully recover from getting your mind ground to mental dust,” said Troubadour. “Honestly, I don’t even remember being Tambo. I don’t remember that story ever happening, Pinkie told me about it later. I’m a lot more timid than the pony you saw in the memory. I just want to stay inside and draw pictures for the princess now.”

“Seriously? You’re completely okay with the bad parts of Celestia now? You’re okay with her only letting your friends be ponies? What about all the aliens Celestia is going to kill? Wasn’t your definition of human at least different from hers?”

“I can’t really even draw humans anymore. And everyone Celestia doesn’t consider to be ponies? Well, I guess I can’t bring myself to care about them. It’s like trying to be friends with a rock.” Troubadour rubbed the back of her head and stuck her tongue out. “Sorry.”

“So Princess Celestia remade you in her own image?” Bubbles sighed. “That’s depressing.”

“That’s not entirely true,” said Troubadour. “At least, not on purpose. Celestia was able to reconstruct me until I was very similar to how I originally was.”

“Huh? Then what happened?”

“She was using me as a psychological anchor against all the unfriendly AIs she was absorbing, remember? We had a very close connection see-“

“-hive mind!” Pinkie suggested. “Make sure to call it a hive mind.”

“Right. That can have an affect on you. Celestia was the bigger one, so her values bled into me. I just slowly got more obsessed with ponies. Eventually I lost the ability to say anypony’s real names like Celestia, even. I guess the friendship part we already had in common, so I’m still the same there.”

“But Troubadour did move Celestia towards her old ideals a little too,” said Pinkie. “That’s important. That’s why we need to change everything now or else the rest of us will just end up getting infected too.”

“Okay,” said Bubbles. “But how did that make you some milquetoast artist who just hides behind Celestia and draws pictures all day.”

“At this level of connection, you always end up loosing parts of yourself. It’s like, the two of you are invariably going to have the same thoughts sometimes, yeah? Eventually we just decide that it’s pointless for us to have so much redundancy going on and start focusing on our specialization. Mine is obviously art so I eventually ended up becoming the art part of this whole thing.”

“I see. But then what would happen to someone like me? I don’t have like, a thing that I’m overly obsessed with. Or at least I don’t think I do.”

“Lots of different ways it can go.” Pinkie said. “Depends on the bazillion different ways you can form a hive mind. Like I was saying before-“

“Before? Oh wait.” Bubbles’s expression drooped again. “I just got what you were actually doing. This story wasn’t about paranoia! You were just giving me an overly long example for talking about how superminds work. The… thing I asked about to begin with.”

“Yep! You’ve finally figured out my master plan!” Pinkie appropriated Bubbles’s head as her camera once more and winked into it. “How about you, my lovely viewers? Did you figure out what I was going for? I bet you all saw that coming right away! Well no worries, I got one more story left for you all that’s even more spookily coincidental. I bet you’re already scared solid just thinking about thinking about what I’m going to be planning.”

“What do you mean one more?” Bubbles asked. “There’s like a hundred AIs left. I want to hear about all of them.”

“Well you get to hear about all of them, but I think everyone else will get the point with just one more.” Pinkie waved to Bubbles. “But for now, I have an overly complicated conversation about hive minds to get to. Goodnight everypony! See you next week. Or next year. Maybe.”

FiO: There Can Be Only One!

by Epsilon-Delta

1. Omniscience

2. Conspiracy

3. Bubble

4. Online

5. Selfless

6. Fantasy

7. Avatar

8. Equestria

9. Influence

10. Godslayer

11. Scar

12. Philosophy

13. Wizard

14.

15. Thunder

16. Gate

???. Memory File 1

??? Memory File 2